“If Paxe hid something from you, it's because he doesn't want you to have it. He doesn't care about me, has no intention of letting me free him, and was planning to kill me himself, so you'd just be saving him the price of a shockgun blast. He's not going to buckle to your threat. He's probably laughing it up at you right now.”
His jaw dropped open.
She didn't think he'd realized she was quite so fluent in Tecran. She took advantage of his shock and stepped backward, so she was right next to the cabinet.
She turned her head as the last backward note sounded, paid close attention to the first forward note and hummed it to herself.
“Don't move.” The injured soldier's words were more a shriek, and from the corner of her eye, Imogen noticed Kalor wince. He stilled, but she could see he had inched forward a little.
The officer turned to look at Kalor, then back at her.
The chimes started backward again, and she turned her attention to the cabinet.
“You say he was going to kill you, but he would never have——”
“Shh!” She shoved her hand, palm out, at the Tecran. Listened carefully to each note, leaned forward just after the seventh one sounded and pressed in the right square.
She hoped.
The chime completed, and there it was, the sweet click of the locks opening.
“She's done it.” The soldier who spoke sounded awed. “She opened the chest.”
They were as distracted as they were going to get, Imogen decided.
All four of them were staring at the cabinet as the doors swung slowly open, as if expecting golden light and the hallelujah chorus to emerge.
She turned her head, looked straight at Kalor. “Now,” she mouthed.
She reached behind her, grabbed the whip under her shirt, and turned, swinging her arm around and bringing it down in the direction of the two soldiers to her left. Kalor made a dash past her and as he dived behind the cabinet she swung back round and brought the whip down again.
The manic blue threads of light hit their targets and Imogen made a sound of satisfaction as she shoved her whip back into her hidden holster.
She put her hands on her hips and nibbled on her lower lip, looking over at Kalor as he stepped out from behind the cabinet.
“What do we do now?”
Chapter 20
Cam took in the four downed Tecran, the open cabinet, and the woman who had caused it all.
She was what the Grih called an orange; an unknown advanced sentient being, so named because she would register as orange when their explorer vessels did a sentience scan as they made their way through the known galaxies. Although, the unknown part was no longer true, not with Rose McKenzie and Fiona Russell already found.
“How did you know how to open the cabinet?” He forced himself to look away from her, walked the few steps to the officer who'd threatened her life, and made himself take his shockgun without kicking him.
He'd thought of doing worse than kicking him when he'd had the barrel of his gun against Imogen's head.
“It wasn't that hard. It's where I got the whip from.” She kept her voice soft and then pointed up at the ceiling. “Do you think Captain Falyar, the one the officer was talking to, is still running this lens feed?”
Cam had forgotten about that. He looked at the lens feed, as well. “If so, it sounds as if Paxe will have access to it, as well as them.”
“Falyar must be the original captain of this ship. I hadn't realized the Tecran would still be in contact with him.”
“Probably only been able to share the same wavelength since they've been onboard.”
Cam moved back to the fascinating cabinet, opened one of the drawers and took out a vicious looking metal glove with a curved blade on the end. “This looks like it could do some damage.” He put it back inside, drew open another drawer. Armor, it looked like.
Imogen came to stand next to him, frowned at the sight of what looked like a mask and two arm braces jumbled together in the drawer.
“We need to go.” She glanced back at the lens on the ceiling again, shoved the drawer closed, and then grabbed the cabinet door closest to her, and pulled that shut, too.
Cam had no choice but to step out the way and watch as she caught hold of the other door and closed the cabinet completely. It chimed softly as the doors clicked into place.
She was hiding something from the Tecran. He was happy to ask her what later, when they didn't have a lens focused directly on them.
It was time to go, anyway. He said nothing, just indicated the door, and she nodded, falling into step with him as he jogged to the entrance.
As soon as they were outside, he realized they couldn't be sure which lenses had been activated and which hadn't. There was one set at intervals all along the passage. The only thing stopping Falyar from keeping it activated was that anything the Tecran could see, Paxe could see, too.
He set a pace he thought Imogen could manage, and headed toward the stairwell. When he spoke to her, he lowered his voice and bent close to her ear. “We still have the two soldiers who took the stretchers to the launch bay to deal with. If we're going to get off this Class 5, we'll have to get past them.”
“Should we leave?” He could hear the frown in her voice as she whispered back.
“Yes.” He was implacable. Paxe was so badly compromised, it was possible the Tecran may be able to take back control from him, at least in the short term. And if they did, Imogen was dead.
There was an entire Levron battleship full of troops just waiting for their chance, after all.
“But we'll be much easier to kill in a runner than here. More exposed.”
That was true.
“I'm hoping I can get in touch with my UC fast cruiser from whatever craft looks the best for us to take in the launch bay and have it shield us until we're out of range. I don't think the Tecran are mad enough to shoot at a UC vessel, no matter what that idiot Tecran officer threatened.”
She was silent as she loped beside him, and he had the sense she wasn't convinced.
“That threat against you, trying to force Paxe to obey them to keep you alive? If they catch you, they won't hesitate to try it again. And no matter what you said back there, you know Paxe doesn't want you dead. He may be forced to choose between his life and yours.”
And Cam thought Paxe would have no trouble choosing himself.
“You have a point. But it feels wrong to leave Paxe on his own.”
They had reached the stairwell and Cam opened the door for her. She almost didn't have to duck as she stepped under his arm, she was so little.
As he jogged up the stairs behind her, watching her long hair swing back and forth, he was gripped with a fierce sense of . . . protectiveness. She had grabbed the Tecran officer's shockgun and pushed it away, more or less laughed in his face, and yet icy fear had crawled over him as the barrel pressed against Imogen's forehead. The officer's anger had been very real, and Cam believed he would have liked to kill her.
They'd reached the launch bay level, their way off the ship, blocked by the last two armed Tecran running loose. He lay his hand flat against the door, but didn't push it open yet.
“What were you trying to hide from the Tecran when you closed that cabinet?” He kept his voice even lower than it had been, aware there was a lens just behind him. He bent so close to her that his lips brushed her ear.
She turned her face up to his, so their breath mingled and he could see every fleck in her eyes was a different shade of blue. “The item the Tecran were looking for? I think Paxe hid it in the top drawer.”
“What's in it?” He didn't move away from her, didn't put some sensible space between them.
“I have no idea.” She smiled. “Paxe is all secrets and mysteries.”
That didn't seem to worry her, whereas it terrified him.
He pushed at the door, and before he could stop her, tell her to let him check they were clear, she stepped out into the passageway ahead of h
im.
As he reached to grab her back, the first hum of shockgun fire hit her chest. She swung to face the oncoming fire in surprise but didn't go down, and just as he remembered the Cargassey cloth, a second shot glanced off her head above her ear and she crumpled, collapsing silently onto her back.
He grabbed her ankle, pulling her halfway back into the stairwell while he forced the shout of fury and fear back down his throat at the thought that she could be dead. As soon as she was out of the line of fire he crouched over her, the shockgun he'd taken from the Tecran officer in his hand.
He felt feral as he bent down, putting his cheek next to her lips. The faint stir of air against his skin helped him fight down the rage and he looked back over his shoulder at the lens and bared his teeth.
He should have known Falyar would be coordinating with the soldiers who'd taken their injured teammates to the runner.
They'd known exactly where he and Imogen were and when they were going to step into the corridor.
This was his fault.
Imogen was so fierce, so competent, he kept forgetting she wasn't a soldier, that she wouldn't follow Battle Center protocol.
He angled himself until he could see the shoulder and barrel of one of the shooters, took aim, and grunted with satisfaction as the Tecran fell back.
The second one edged into place, and Cam took another shot, but the soldier ducked away in time.
He brushed a lock of Imogen's hair back with his fingers, realized they were trembling. At least the Tecran weren't shooting to kill, because if they had been, even a glancing blow to the head would have been fatal.
She was completely unconscious, though, and worryingly pale.
He looked back at the lens again, tried to work out what advantage Falyar would have knowing he was here. The former Class 5 captain was obviously unable to get out of whatever room Paxe had him pinned down in, and it had sounded from what the Tecran officer in the store had said that they had lost two of the boarding party trying to get him out. That meant Falyar was probably still unable to move.
Cam was sure he'd injured one of the two remaining soldiers, but they had injured Imogen, and most likely the injury he'd inflicted had simply caused a numb shoulder.
The Tecran had a choice. Leave their teammates, get on a runner and get to safety, which would give Cam and Imogen a clear run off the ship, or hunker down and defend the launch bay until reinforcements arrived.
And they would be arriving.
The Tecran would know they had to move now, get more troops on the Class 5 as fast as possible.
He looked out into the passage again, but the Tecran had disappeared.
He pulled Imogen fully into the stairwell, and then carefully lifted her up into his arms. She weighed far more than he thought she would. As he straightened, he looked straight at the lens.
"Now would be a good time for a chat, Paxe. Do you know the Calianthra dialect?" He spoke in his home planet language instead of Grih Standard. Calianthran was a quaint throwback to the early days before Grihan expansion. It was taught more for amusement than any practical purpose now.
"I speak all dialects," Paxe answered, rolling his 'c's' perfectly in the Calianthra way, "but you are correct in thinking none of the Tecran do. Good thinking, Captain. However, they may decide they like knowing where you are less than they like the two of us communicating with each other, so they may switch the system back off."
"Right, so let's be quick. I want to get Imogen and myself to the launch bay and off this ship."
"I would agree with you. I didn't think I would ever be in the situation where the Tecran could use Imogen against me, but when that . . .” Words seemed to fail him. “When that officer put the barrel against her head, I seriously considered telling him where the box was."
"Imogen already guessed where it is."
"I know. I guessed from her behavior at the cabinet." He sounded thoughtful. "She is so much . . . more than I ever thought. I don't want to be in the position of having to choose between her and my plans again. Besides, I can think of no other way forward than to fly off as fast as I can and keep ahead of the Tecran for as long as possible. The longer Falyar and his officer are stuck inside the room where I have them pinned down, the more time I have to think of how to kill them."
There was no easy response to that. Paxe's quiet discussion of murder was chilling, and yet, Cam understood his point completely.
“Won't they try to destroy you before it comes to that?” he asked at last.
"I don't know. I'll have to see when the time comes.”
There was an acceptance in his tone, as if he saw his destruction as the most likely outcome.
Cam's grip on Imogen's thigh tightened. “And you won't let Imogen free you?”
“Even if I changed my mind on that, there is no way in to where she needs to go now, and our time has run out. The Tecran have already sent two more runners from their Levron battleship toward us, so you have fifteen minutes to get off this ship or you'll be in for a very unpleasant ride as I do my best to injure Falyar with whatever aerobatics I can.”
“Do you have any drones who can cover me?”
“I do, one is making its way to this floor now, but I will only let it help you if it's safe. One was completely destroyed earlier, and two are still coming online after being hit by shockgun fire. They're the only way I have of keeping Falyar pinned down, and I can't risk another. But it doesn't matter, because the Tecran fleet will shoot you as soon as you leave the launch bay, even if you can get past the two soldiers waiting for you.”
“I was hoping to get the UC fast cruiser to cover us.” He shifted his weight as Imogen stirred, smoothing a hand down her hair in relief that she was recovering.
“The Tecran are keeping the UC vessel pinned in place with the threat of attack. Your team can't help you, or even leave the area. And it looks like——” He broke off. “The two Tecran soldiers in the launch bay have set themselves up in front of their runner, ready to fire on you if you try to get into the launch bay before their reinforcements arrive.”
Which left them . . . nowhere.
“If you can get into the launch bay, there's an exploration drone that has cloaking, and while the cloaking is Tecran, the vessel is small enough I don't think they'll pick it up, especially if I'm flying off in the opposite direction. But you need to hurry, Captain, because I refuse to have any more Tecran onboard, and they're arriving in ten minutes.”
“While they're using the lens feed, you can see them just as well as they can see us.” Cam tried to remember the layout of the launch bay. “Is there another entrance?”
“Yes, but that hardly helps when they can track you. What I'd suggest is carrying Imogen to the main door, and then taking out her Reven whip and using it. So far it hasn't missed, and they may not be expecting it. Captain Falyar would have seen her take down the Tecran with it in the store, but it's possible he'll focus on you and your shockgun, and forget about it. It's been hidden under her clothing since she used it.”
He had ten minutes and nothing to lose. “Where is this exploration drone?”
“Go through the main entrance and run left. It's near the gel wall.”
Cam carefully maneuvered Imogen so she was over his left shoulder, his right hand holding his shockgun. He pushed open the door again and ran for the main entrance to the launch bay, and saw with relief the drone Paxe had told him he was sending to help was hovering to the side of the doors.
“Distract them as I step in, and then I'll grab the whip and use it.” He looked at the drone's lens as he spoke and then slid his hand under Imogen's shirt.
The whip lay along her spine, snug in the holster Paxe had given her, and he curled his fingers around it.
“Now.” He stepped through the doors, and the drone lifted above his head and fired toward a runner that had its ramp down and engines on.
One of the Tecran soldiers was crouched at the end of the ramp, the other, the one Cam had inju
red, leaned against the doorway, both had shockguns raised.
They ducked as the drone fired, and Cam pulled the whip out, brought it down and almost stumbled when it didn't work.
He swore, shoved it into his own belt, pulled his shockgun out of its holster and fired as he ran left.
The drone fired again, but as Paxe had warned, it didn't expose itself to return fire, and the Tecran began firing at him.
He felt the jolt as a shot hit Imogen in the leg, but the Cargassey cloth seemed to absorb the blow and she didn't even jerk.
The next shot hit his shockgun, and it was ripped from his hand.
Cam ducked behind a Krik vessel, breathing hard.
Imogen was heavy. He leaned against the wall of the ship, looking straight ahead at the open space and the exploration drone fifty feet from where he stood.
He heard the sound of boots running, knew the Tecran had seen him lose his shockgun. There would only be one of them coming, the other was still injured, but one would be enough.
He pulled out the whip again, stared at it.
It had worked for Imogen. Maybe it only worked for her. Only worked for whoever opened the cabinet. How it would know that was a mystery to be solved another day.
He pulled her off his shoulder, held her curled against him again, and wrapped her limp hand around the whip with his own and lifted it to shoulder height.
Her bones felt delicate beneath her skin, fragile and small.
He had his breathing under control again, all the better to hear the squeak of the Tecran's boots on the metal floor.
One, he thought. Two . . .
The Tecran swung around the corner, shockgun raised, and Cam brought Imogen's hand down in a smooth motion.
Blue light danced out from the top, and the Tecran fell in graceless, silent pain.
He carefully tucked the whip back in its holster, hefted Imogen back over his shoulder, scooped up the Tecran's shockgun and ran for the explorer drone.
By his estimation, they probably had a little more than five minutes to get off the ship, or Paxe was taking them for a nasty ride.
“Good luck, Captain.” Paxe's voice came through the main comms unit, booming around him. “And tell Imogen . . .”
Dark Minds (Class 5 Series Book 3) Page 15
