Rystani Warrior 02 - The Dare

by Susan Kearney

  “That we attempt to sneak in. A place so large must allow many deliveries a day to stock their supplies.”

  So they came up with a plan, but the discussion was interrupted. Their holovid suddenly filled with Avanti’s somber face, and at the sight of her, Zical’s worries multiplied. How had she found them? How had she overridden their sub’s computer? Was she about to order them to surrender peacefully when they reached the terminal? Or was there unseen pursuit right nearby, hidden in the boiling lava?

  As he considered signaling Dora to alter their course just minutes before their arrival to avoid recapture, Zical had to make a decision whether Avanti was trustworthy.

  Avanti spoke in her usual blunt style. “You cannot rescue the boy by yourselves.”

  “Turn off the transmission,” Zical ordered Dora, fearing it was being used to trace them.

  “She already knows our location and has guessed our intentions,” Dora told him, understanding his concerns. “We might as well listen to what she has to say since she must have gone to considerable trouble to find us.”

  “Fine.” Zical agreed, as if he had another good choice, but their options were sadly limited. Although Avanti had never lied to him, Zical didn’t trust her, especially since a Selgren held Kirek.

  “Deckar Rogar Delari Hikai, heir to the Fifth House of Seemar, and I have made a pact to help you recover Kirek and escape Kwadii.”

  It took a moment to take in her words; stunned, Zical figured it must be a trick. The obvious hatred between Avanti and Deckar, the loathing between Risorian and Selgren, went so deep that Zical could not imagine them talking amicably to one another, much less making a pact, but he attempted to mask his rearing suspicions.

  “When the sub arrives, remain inside, and we will bring you Selgren clothing, weapons, and false identification.”

  “Why would you help us?” Dora asked.

  Avanti’s eyes glimmered with a fierce gleam of determination. “We don’t have much time, but the rioting is tearing our world apart. Even the Risorian Deckar agrees that it is better for Kwadii if the Oracle departs. I told you I would help you and I keep my word.”

  “You and Deckar are going to help us rescue Kirek and to leave Kwadii?” Dora asked, clearly as skeptical as Zical was.

  “Didn’t I just say so?”

  The woman’s blunt arrogance gave Zical hope that she just might be speaking the truth. “We accept your help and will do as you say.”

  Avanti immediately cut the connection. Dora instructed the sub to return the hull to its original heading, and the lava flows outside disappeared. Then she stood and stretched, and Zical appreciated that she didn’t question his judgment. He only hoped, for all their sakes, that he’d made the right decision.

  As good as Dora and Ranth might be at fiddling with the Kwadii computer system, Zical preferred to have local allies. The right clothing, critical weapons, and, even more importantly, information might be crucial to their success. He couldn’t afford to refuse help from any quarter, even if he suspected that the Kwadii might deceive and betray them.

  KIREK HAD USED every trick he knew to delay the use of violence against his person. He’d had no sleep, little food, and barely enough water to quench his thirst, and the deprivation made clear thinking difficult. He’d employed circuitous arguments, told long stories that had a moral that barely applied to the point he was trying to make, and did everything he could think of to make his questioner, Selgren L’Matti, believe he was cooperating.

  But L’Matti was wearing him down both physically and emotionally. After the drugs and the questioning, Kirek was a full day past cranky, his yearning to sleep so strong that he was having difficulty holding up his head.

  L’Matti had resorted to playing loud, horrible sounds to keep him awake in the too-bright room. All the while, L’Matti drilled him with questions, repeating them until Kirek thought he would go mad.

  Kirek wanted to leave this horrible room, this awful world where different factions were attempting to use him to grab power. To stop L’Matti’s torture, he had to say he was a fraud, which would give the Selgrens power over the Risorians, but then he would also likely condemn the Federation people to another trial and execution. Kirek imagined he was back on Mystique, safe in his father’s arms. He wanted to eat his mother’s home-cooked food. He wanted his suit to cradle him as he slept. He was so tired of being hungry and dirty and among strangers.

  His chin dropped to his chest, and he jerked awake. Surely he could hold out for another hour. But he’d told himself that three hours ago.

  Kirek heard footsteps outside his door. Shouts. He should be curious. He should be wondering about a rescue or thinking about an opportunity to escape. But his muscles wouldn’t carry him to the door. Escape seemed impossible. He was so weak. He should go to the door and place his ear against it to listen better. But he couldn’t summon the energy. His eyelids fluttered closed.

  Klaxons blared.

  With a shriek of pain, he clamped his hands over his ears and screwed his eyes tightly shut, his little body quivering. He prayed that he would not say the wrong thing. He prayed that if he died, his death would be quick and painless. He prayed that Dora and Zical would find a way to complete the mission without his help. He prayed that his parents would forgive him for not being there to help them in their old age.

  Kirek closed his eyes. And wept.

  Chapter Nineteen

  SWEAT POURED DOWN Dora’s back and between her bare breasts. She hoped the guards posted at L’Matti’s building’s entrance would attribute her perspiration to the heat and not her nerves. She hoped that the one guard they’d bribed would allow her and Zical to enter the building as part of a cleaning team.

  As they neared the entrance her stomach tightened. She held her breath and fought to keep her head down and her expression bored.

  Beside her, Zical’s broad back glistened in the early morning heat. She feared the musculature of his powerful frame might give him away as a warrior, but the guards at the entrance didn’t appear too concerned or alert. For once the heat was working in their favor. Clearly the pair of guards were eager to return to their station, a shaded post near the high stone wall, that had to be at least ten degrees cooler than in the direct heat of the Kwadii sun.

  Dora and Zical’s mission was simple reconnaissance. Before they could mount a full-scale mission to rescue Kirek, they needed to know exactly where L’Matti was holding him. Avanti’s information had been sketchy, but she’d suggested they head for the basement.

  Entering the compound was almost anticlimactic. The guards waved them through, and they tagged along with the cleaning crew, ambling along a walkway and past a second set of double doors. Here, Dora paused, bending to adjust her sandal while she used her psi to alter the computerized security mechanism. One by one, the other Selgrens strode past the machine that scanned their DNA, matched it against a computer index, and allowed them to pass. The brief delay allowed Dora to change the recognition code so that the computer identified their DNA as being on the list.

  She stood slowly and moved forward, and Zical followed, guarding their backs—just in case the bribed guard changed his mind when he realized that the computer had failed to stop their entry. But apparently, either the guard feared that stopping them now would be the equivalent of admitting his earlier dishonesty or he simply held no loyalty to L’Matti.

  Once through the double doors, their group, which consisted of men and women of assorted ages, moved into an airless, stifling passageway. According to Avanti’s intelligence, not only didn’t L’Matti bother to cool the air for his employees’ comfort, he also refused to allow his employees to use his sumptuous hallways unless they needed to be there for cleaning and maintenance. His preference to keep staff out of sight worked to Dora and Zical’s advantage. They’d be less likely to attract notice within the narrow employee corridors that threaded like a maze through the building.

  Dora grabbed a broom and a duster, and w
ith the heavy implement in her hand that could easily double as a weapon, she began to breathe again. The cleaning crew quickly broke into two-person teams, each pair heading in different directions.

  She and Zical followed the dimly-lit corridor until he pointed to a stairway. She nodded and they headed down. The air immediately cooled, and she suspected that they were now underground. She tried not to imagine the immense building falling on top of them or the walls closing in.

  Dora hadn’t experienced any claustrophobia since she’d adjusted to her human body, or any twitches since landing on Kwadii, but something about the sinister atmosphere and her worry over finding Kirek and being trapped underground worked on her fears. Sternly, she told herself claustrophobia wasn’t a rational concern, but when that did not the slightest bit of good to calm her anxiety, she focused on her need to find Kirek.

  If it would save him, she would crawl through rubble to get to the boy. She couldn’t imagine what he must be feeling. Being kidnapped, possibly mistreated, was far worse than when he’d simply been alone. He had to be scared. Desperate.

  Zical’s quiet strength also helped to steady her. Their feet on the steps tapped softly in a soothing rhythmic pattern. Zical touched her hand that held the feather duster, slowing her. “Do you sense machines?”

  “Everywhere.” She leaned on the broom, cocked her head to the side and listened. Her psi hearing noted the buzz of humming circuits.

  “Can you tap in without being spotted?”

  Dora placed more weight on the broom handle. She always had difficulty maintaining a vertical body position and connecting to computer systems at the same time. She sent out a more direct and experimental psi ribbon, a strand so thin that it wouldn’t set off the most sensitive detector. Bypassing the sophisticated security system, she pushed the strand with her psi and sneaked into the system, her method more difficult but the same principle as inserting a key into a lock. She lucked out that someone had just logged off the system and the password streamed by. She made a virtual grab, then used the password to dig deeper into the system.

  The password wasn’t one from an especially distinguished user, and the clearance only got her so far. However, she learned that the high-security area was down two more levels, and guarded by both Pirinja and more computer systems. She wasn’t concerned about the computer. The armed warriors were another matter entirely.

  She withdrew quickly, the entrance back into her body abrupt. Jolting. Even with a firm grasp on the broom, without Zical’s support she might have fallen. She ended up in his arms, leaning against him, sagging. Her arms tingled as if he’d been massaging her flesh while she’d been gone.

  “You okay?” he asked, his concern coming through in an urgent whisper.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You were so out of it. I feared you might not come back.”

  “Returning is always difficult,” she admitted. “It’s a shock to my system. I’m not sure why.”

  “Because human beings aren’t made to share their minds with circuitry,” he muttered.

  She ignored his sarcasm. “We have to descend two more levels to find Kirek. There are armed guards.”

  “I’m ready for them,” he muttered and stalked off, his face intense, his pace quick as if he couldn’t wait to plant his fist in a guard’s face.

  She hurried after him, bent on convincing him that violence should be their last choice. “We may be able to bluff our way in,” she reminded him. While on the one hand she liked that he worried over her, on the other hand, at times like this, his emotional concern could be annoying.

  At the sound of a blaring klaxon, Dora’s breath hitched. Her stomach curled into a tight ball, and her mouth went dry as a sand worm’s burrow. They must have been spotted. She raised the broom, determined to use it as a weapon. Beside her, Zical pulled a knife from beneath his sarong.

  But no soldiers streamed into the dim passageway. She heard no hastily shouted orders. No marching feet. No curses. No panic. Abruptly, the klaxon ended, and it was followed by the sound of a young boy’s soulful cry.

  Kirek!

  Were they torturing him? His scream was part anger, part frustration, chilling her to the bone with how weak he sounded.

  Zical kept his knife out and proceeded toward the sound of the boy’s voice. “Easy. He’s still alive.”

  If Zical had made his comment to reassure her, he hadn’t. What had the poor child been going through?

  When Kirek’s wail ended as suddenly as it had begun, leaving them in harsh silence, Dora tried to shove past Zical. But he blocked her progress, his voice hard and fierce, his fingers tight on her shoulder. “If we get ourselves killed, we can’t rescue Kirek.”

  “You’re right,” she told him, even as she steeled herself against the renewed whine of the klaxon. At Kirek’s next scream. She shuddered. Were they torturing him with sound? Swallowing her horror, she sought to reassure Zical that she wasn’t about to panic. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  Again the awful wail ended, and Dora knew one thing for certain. Reconnaissance mission or not, Zical’s orders or not, no way was she leaving Kirek behind.

  Zical cracked open a door between the employee passageway and the main ones. His broad back blocked her view, but when she angled lower, she could see beyond him. Four guards sat in a hallway outside a room where she assumed they were holding Kirek. The Pirinja played a board game and were obviously gambling. One man had his back to them but the others would have a clear view of their entrance.

  Zical, bless him, didn’t hesitate. Plucking the feather duster from her hand, he used it to hide his knife. Then he handed her the canister of cleaning spray, opened the door for her, and let her enter first.

  At the sight of them, the Pirinja immediately stopped their game and rose to their feet in lazy wariness. Clearly, these men were so certain of their superiority, they didn’t immediately reach for their weapons.

  Dora breezed inside, hoping they could bluff their way closer before the guards challenged them. The Pirinja might not be reaching for weapons, but nonetheless, they were suspicious. Obviously from the tension in their eyes, cleaning crews didn’t come this way often.

  “Good afternoon.” She muffled her greeting and began sweeping the floor, edging forward slowly while beside her Zical dusted a light switch.

  “What are you two idiots doing here?” the highest-ranked officer demanded, thumping his fist on the table. As he stood, golden braids that hung over his shoulders swayed.

  “Cleaning,” Dora spoke in a surly tone as if she was disgusted with her current task. “Selgren L’Matti’s ordered this building to be cleaned from top to bottom.” As the guard’s eyes dropped to her breasts, Dora giggled, and made her steps bouncy, hoping the men’s eyes would stay where they usually did—on her chest. “This is the bottom, right?”

  “You can stay, but no men are allowed down here except Pirinja.” Clearly the captain didn’t like the looks of Zical’s powerful body.

  “Oh, pay no attention to him. He’s”—she whirled her finger by her temple—“not quite right in the head. Does what he’s told like a beast. I need him to lift me to clear the cobwebs by the ceiling.”

  Behind her, Zical hummed and fluttered the feather duster uselessly here and there, looking silly and utterly harmless with his downcast eyes and stoic expression.

  As Dora swept the floor, she worked her way closer to the table, careful not to send up clouds of dust that the men would protest. While the Pirinja hadn’t settled back into their game, two of them had regained their seats.

  However, the captain remained standing, his narrowed eyes fascinated with Dora’s large breasts as he licked his lips. “Come here.”

  Dora couldn’t have been more pleased. She needed to be close enough to take him out and nullify the advantage of his weapons. She advanced within arm’s reach. She strode forward, making sure to exaggerate the sway of her hips, knowing the movement was provocative.

  When the klaxo
ns began to howl, Dora jumped and the captain laughed, clearly pleased that her nipples had tightened. He reached to cup her breast and she slipped away sideways as if she hadn’t noticed his movement. “What is that noise?”

  “Come sit on my lap and I’ll tell you.” He pulled out his chair with his foot, sat, and patted his knee.

  She pretended to think about it, waving the canister, letting him get accustomed to thinking it harmless. “Sir, I have work.”

  The captain lost his patience. He snagged his arm around her waist and tugged her to him. Dora went with the motion and sprayed the cleaning fluid into his eyes, then tried to wipe it away as if she’d unintentionally sprayed him.

  The man slapped away her hands, roaring with pain and fury. “Stupid, woman. I’ll have you strung up naked and whipped.”

  “Sorry. So sorry.” Dora backed away one step, pretending fear. At the same time, Kirek screamed again. Zical attacked, moving so fast his strikes were a blur. Without hesitation, she slammed the broom into the captain’s temple. He let out a woof of air and collapsed at her feet.

  While Dora had been doing her best to misdirect the guard’s attention, Zical had gone to work with his knife, his fists, and his feet. One guard dropped to the floor, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Zical slit the second one’s throat and simultaneously struck the third Pirinja with a kick to the temple.

  Dora picked up a chair and slammed it down on the captain’s head to make sure he wouldn’t get up. She didn’t take a moment to ascertain whether he was mortally wounded or dead, not with Kirek wailing.

  Knowing Zical could take care of the one remaining guard, she used her psi to unlock the door and rushed to where Kirek had once again gone silent. Praying she wasn’t too late, she stumbled at the quick transformation from machine circuitry to human brain, jolting back into her body as she entered the room.