Yeah, that’s why I didn’t tell you. For all Sara was such a strong-minded person, which he appreciated and admired, he felt the less she knew about certain military facts, like the self-destruct, the better off she’d be. No need to cause her useless anxiety. “After you,” he said, motioning for her to cross the escape hatch threshold.
Sara stepped into the narrow corridor and waited while he sealed the door behind him. “The bolt hole isn’t going to blow up now, is it?”
“No, I promise.” He slid by her to take the lead.
“You don’t fool me, Johnny Danver.” She grabbed his sleeve. “I know you aren’t telling me everything and I even understand why, given your protective nature. Promise me you won’t withhold any material fact affecting our survival, okay? I can handle reality. I’m tougher than I look.”
Hugging her in the narrow space, he said, “I’ve never doubted your strength for a moment and I sure don’t mean any disrespect. One of us worrying about stuff we can’t change is enough, ok? I swear I’ll share any important detail or intel the moment I learn it myself, okay?”
Leaning back but remaining in his embrace, she studied his face for a moment. “Deal.”
“Can we go now?”
“Just remember we’re a team.” She kissed him on the lips before giving her attention to the endless passageway.
The corridor was lit, although about a third of the lights remained off, and the passage twisted and turned through the mountain, descending fairly steeply.
“We’re going to have a hell of a climb on the return trip, aren’t we?” she asked.
“Yes, but it can be done. Handholds.” He indicated the protrusions in the wall. “We’ll take our time.”
“You can bet I will. I’m tired from all the running and the climbing and the other activities.” She blushed.
A moment later a faint vibration passed through the ground under his boots. Pausing in mid stride, he held up one hand. “Did you feel something?”
Sara retreated a step. “What?”
“I thought there was a tremor.” Johnny resumed his hike. “This area should be seismically stable but I guess anywhere can have a quake at any given moment.”
“I don’t like coincidences,” she said.
Heralded by a rumbling sound, the earth shook and the lights winked off and on. Dust drifted onto them from overhead. Sara stifled a scream. “I felt that. What’s going on?”
He squinted toward the bolt hole, far away at the other end of the tunnel. “I think maybe the Mawreg followed us. We’d better hustle— hopefully there’s a vid at this end so I can see what happened. We should run.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice. Go!” She gave him a little shove.
He sprinted at a dangerous pace through the tunnel, sliding in spots. They’d been fairly close to the end so in a couple of minutes he emerged into the small space where the groundcar waited. Locating a small control panel set into the wall, he powered up the circuits, taking a rapid scan of the surroundings outside the garage “Coast is clear here,” he said with relief as Sara arrived, leaning on the rear of the ground car and breathing heavily. “Now let me check the other side of the mountain, where the bolt hole entrance is.”
“We came all the way through the mountain?”
Adjusting the settings, he said, “This exit is located a huge distance from the bolt hole’s door, as an extra precaution, should the place be breached. As it apparently was today.” Frustrated, he banged his fist on the console. “I’m not getting anything. No way to be sure but whatever happened wasn’t friendly.” He flipped switches and gave her a glance. “I’m going to blow the bolt hole, in case anything is left. Might take a few of the bastards out.”
Frowning, she looked dubious about his plan. “We’re not sure the Mawreg actually attacked. How would they have found us?”
“A tracking device maybe. Neither one of us knows what the enemy did to us before we woke up in the cages. But we’re on the other side of the mountain now and this is our best chance to get clear. Can you start the ground car?”
Swallowing hard, she said, “Sure.” Awkwardly she climbed into the driver’s seat of the heavily armored vehicle, located the initiator and pressed it.
Nothing.
“I don’t drive much. Maybe I’m doing this wrong.” Her tone was desperate and apologetic.
“Try again,” Johnny said. “I’ll be right there.”
He ordered the system to initiate the self-destruct of the bolt hole from this end and then scrambled to the ground car. Sara moved over hastily to make room for him. He reset the controls, punched the initiator and was rewarded with the loud hum of the engine spooling up. The outer door of the escape hatch began to slide into the mountain, revealing the pale gray light of predawn. Lights off, Johnny drove away from the garage, closing the camouflaged door behind him with a remote control.
“How can you see?”
“Enhanced night vision,” he said. “Better yet, this ground car has a distort screen, so we can travel during the day without being spotted, as long as we don’t run through mud and leave tracks.” He grinned. “Fresh out recruits have been known to do dumb things like that.”
“Speaking from experience?” She gave him a sideways glance. “The more invisible, the better. Do we have a plan?” Sara hugged her knees to her chest in the passenger seat. “I’m spooked. I can’t stop shaking. What if we hadn’t gone to the emergency exit when we did?”
“We might have been okay anyway,” he said, reaching over to give her uninjured hand a reassuring squeeze. “We’d have had a small margin for escape. The enemy didn’t just waltz in.”
“I’m glad we were already gone.” She sighed. “I’m getting tired of close calls.”
“I don’t blame you in the least.”
Sara rubbed her arm and shivered. “Do you think the Mawreg really implanted us with some kind of tracking device? What a disgusting thought.”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure how else they’d have found us in the bolt hole, but who knows the scope of the enemy’s capabilities? When we get to Medical on the Penny, the docs can scan and remove anything we’re not supposed to have.”
“I’m going to demand a scan first thing. I need reassurance.”
Glad he’d managed to set her mind at rest for now, he said, “Can you crawl into the rear compartment and see what if anything we have here?”
“What am I searching for?” Obligingly Sara maneuvered herself between the seats and stood swaying, hand clenched on an overhead bin.
“Weapons. Gear of any kind. Rations would be a bonus.”
“At least we ate well when we had the chance,” she said. A moment later she let out a cheer.
“What?” He took his eyes off the terrain ahead to check on her.
“Blasters.” She displayed two Mark 27’s, her face wreathed in a smile. “And a box of rations under the seat. Oh, goodie, my favorite energy bars. Past their expiration date but I don’t care. Those things never go bad, am I right?”
“Absolutely.” Going armed was always more desirable so the unexpected blasters made him happy. “Any more treasures?”
“Med kit, a knife, someone’s shirt, four blankets, long range viewers.”
Bringing the Mark 27’s and a handful of the energy bars, she rejoined him in front. “Can you contact the battleship from this car?”
“No, the com doesn’t have the range.” He took the blaster she handed him and checked the charge level. About half but better than nothing. “Maybe if the Penny was directly overhead in orbit and we had a two way lock going, we could talk but even then it’d be iffy.”
“How will we arrange the extraction then?”
“We’re on our way to the northern outpost. I’ll call from there, which was the original plan, remember? This car we lucked into shortens the time before we get there.”
“Can we take turns driving, drive all day and night? As long as the car is running, it’ll let me driv
e, right?” she asked. As he glanced at her she said, “We just had a narrow escape, another one. How long can we keep being lucky? I’m so scared— I want us off this planet and the only way is to get to the next base as fast as we can.”
“I’ve set the vids to monitor for anything overhead and give us an alert, in case the enemy has more of those surveillance robos. But we’re on the other side of a mountain range now,” he reminded her. “This part of Farduccir is pretty desolate, nothing to attract the enemy.”
Eyebrows raised, she said, “You told me yourself no one knows what the Mawreg are interested in.”
“You weren’t supposed to remember all the details I ever provided.” He laughed at her expression. “I’m trying to be reassuring.”
She reached over and took his hand, which he lifted from the controls to give her a squeeze and a quick kiss.
Johnny followed Sara’s plan and drove north without stopping for any significant length of time, the two of them alternating at the controls. There was no road but the terrain was smooth enough for the most part to allow him to head for the abandoned base without too many detours. The second night, both exhausted, he insisted on camping in a forest, sleeping in the car with the distort shield on. Johnny hunted for dinner, bagging a small goat-like animal to supplement their meager supply of energy bars, and Sara refilled the water reservoir in the ground car and the canteens.
A storm blew in with much lightning, thunder and sheets of rain pounding on the roof of the ground car. Sleep was hard to come by, although they spooned together cozily in the back of the ground car, under the blankets. He wakened several times during the night and checked the vids and readouts but there was no indication of danger. He relished the wonderful feeling of burrowing into the warm blankets each time, gathering Sara close and curling his much bigger frame protectively behind hers. How had he judged his life complete before meeting her?
They were on their way again at dawn, after the storm moved on. Johnny tried as best he could to avoid muddy areas where the car would leave tracks but he knew he was providing something of a trail, should there be enemies stalking them.
He glanced at Sara, in the passenger seat. “You should try to nap while I’m driving.”
She shook her head. “I’m too keyed up. Maybe later. You don’t let me do my fair share of time at the controls anyway. You drive three hours to my one.”
“It’s my job. I’m the rescuer here.” Smiling, he guided the car through a grove of trees and accelerated again. “We’re going to make excellent time, thanks to our good fortune finding the car. I figure maybe tomorrow afternoon we’ll be there.”
“Is this another hidden base? Top secret like the last one?”
“We didn’t exactly advertise the co-ordinates but not classified, no. Our allies weren’t allowed inside the perimeter. The Special Forces annex was partially built into the mountain, like the bolt hole. Why?”
“If Umarri is helping the Mawreg and the Chimmer, he could tell them where we’re going, couldn’t he?”
“Umarri wasn’t one of our primary allies during the Farduccir campaign,” Johnny said. “He might not know about all the bases and installations we left. He had so much to plunder in the lower latitudes; he’d have had no reason to go exploring here. And as we know, there aren’t many other people left on the planet, maybe no one alive who knows of this base, other than me.”
“I’m devastated about all the innocent people the Mawreg kidnapped, and incredibly angry at Umarri at the same time. I don’t understand how anyone could sell out their entire planet. I’m relieved to know he probably can’t sell us out too.” She sat curled up in the seat, disdaining the safety harness.
He glanced at her. “Since we have nothing but time, will you satisfy my curiosity?”
Sara laughed, giving him an arch glance. “It’s not safe to do those activities while you’re driving.” She winked.
Johnny felt his cheeks flush a bit. The longer they were together, the more Sara came out of her shell. He liked seeing more of the real, unguarded woman and her personality. “I meant would you tell me more about you? About why you became an archivist? What does an archivist even do anyway?”
“Nothing as exciting as your day job, that’s for sure.” She stretched and took a drink from the canteen. “There were Ancient Observer ruins on my home planet. Not a big site, but enough to attract visitors and tourists. When I was a kid, the idea of people—beings—living among the stars so long before we humans got here fascinated me. I hungered to know more. I used to go hunting for artifacts in the hills.” She laughed. “Never found any, of course.”
“The Sectors would have confiscated anything you did find,” Johnny said.
“I learned those laws when I got older, yeah. So I studied hard and got a job at the museum part-time which included access to the collection, the things the public isn’t allowed to see. I guess you could say I was obsessed with the AO. For my senior year project, I wrote a paper drawing a link between a fragment featuring a certain partial symbol on it, and a fragment found in Sector Thirty. My conclusions got flattering attention and a scholarship to the Sector University. Once I got there, I thought I was in heaven – the school has a huge collection of AO artifacts the faculty studies under contract for the Sectors.” She fell silent for a moment, toying with her hair. “I planned to stay there forever, you know? Catalog and preserve and study and make discoveries. Teach a few classes, but mostly do research.”
“Sounds like a dull life to me,” he said. “No offense. But the AO disappeared a million years ago, as best we can figure. Hardly a current event.”
“The senior professor I work for got a grant to do a big dig out in the Sectors rim and he hired me as the project archivist, which is why I traveled in the first place. Then when my contract ended, I thought I’d see a little of the Sectors before going home to the University. Big mistake.”
Johnny tried to imagine her on Azrigone, which had no known AO sites. He didn’t know if there was any kind of museum. Certainly the cultural offerings of his home world weren’t a topic he’d ever considered before. What would a person with Sara’s background do on his world?
As if reading his mind, she said, “I have—had—enough material now to write a series of books. There are several intriguing theories I want to pursue. Do you think my belongings on the Star Swan got forwarded to my parents? I’d hate to lose my notes and materials.” She sighed. “When the pirates took me, I never thought I’d ever have the chance to write another scholarly word.” Sara leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I owe you so much—I can’t ever thank you properly.”
“Doing my job,” he said. “Although I’m happy to offer suggestions about ways to reward my efforts.” He gave her an exaggerated wink.
As he’d hoped, Sara laughed. “I bet you are. After all this adventuring, I don’t want to bury myself in the University’s archives and storerooms any more. I can write books anywhere.” Her voice got so quiet Johnny could barely hear her over the engine’s humming. “After almost dying on this wretched planet, I want to really live, you know? Not drift through life. Not settle for sloppy seconds.”
“I get it.” He drove a few more miles, having to detour around washed out areas where flash floods must have swept through as a result of last night’s storm. Keeping his eyes on the terrain, concerned how she’d gone silent, he gave into his curiosity and said, “I should probably warn you I’m a trained interrogator.”
Eyebrows raised, she gazed at him. “Meaning?”
Wishing he hadn’t probed into her life before their meeting, he adjusted in the driver’s seat to buy time. “You sound as if there was something else going on, more to your decision not to go back to the University, or at least not right away.” Hoping he hadn’t upset her, he glanced sideways. “Instincts based on all my years in the service. Sorry, it’s none of my business, forget I said anything.”
Sara averted her eyes for a moment. “Old story, doesn�
��t show me in a good light. Impressionable young grad student fancies herself in love with the famous professor. Working with him at the dig, finding new AO tech, was the thrill of a lifetime and we were doing all this research together, in our own small world. We—we eventually had an affair. But when the time came to pack up the site and return to the university, he told me to take a sabbatical, because he was getting married to a woman waiting at home.”
“What a jerk. Poor deluded girl waiting for him at home.”
“I hadn’t even known he was engaged. The worst part?”
Johnny could imagine. He hoped he never met this dirtbag, because it’d be hard not to kill him for treating Sara so shabbily. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“He said by the time I resumed my job at the University after my year away, we’d be able to pick up where we left off because his wife wouldn’t be suspicious after a year of newlywed bliss.”
Hands clenched on the steering mechanism, Johnny said,” I hope you told him where he could stick his offer.”
Sara’s voice held savage satisfaction. “I did, even if it costs me my job. I don’t want to see that place ever again now anyway. This experience on Farduccir, meeting you, has changed my outlook and what I want out of life.”
Before he could say anything, an alarm sounded. Flicking the tab to silence the buzzer, Johnny steered the ground car into the nearest grove of trees and parked, leaving the engine idling. He scanned the vids, Sara leaning close to do the same. After a few moments he said, “I don’t see anything. Maybe the scanners picked up one or two of the large carrion eating birds. They’ve got a fourteen foot wingspan at maturity and fly in big flocks.”
She eyed him. “Do you actually believe what you just said?”
He shook his head. “Not really, but there isn’t anything on the readouts or visible to the naked eye. We’ll wait another ten minutes and then get going again.”
Sinking into her seat, Sara drummed her fingers on the control panel and bit her lip. “I want us to get off this damn planet in one piece. Is that so much to ask? Can’t the Lords of Space cut us a break?”
Hostage To The Stars: A Sectors SF Romance Page 13
