“Erik, it’s OK!” Lilah said soothingly, slipping up beside them and kneeling down next to the struggling boy.
“What are you doing?” Zane demanded. “You are supposed to be covering us from inside the transport!” Lilah didn’t answer; she was talking softly to Erik and taking his hand. Zane glanced back at the transport, mentally calculating how long it would take for Lilah to get back inside with Erik.
And then all hell broke loose.
31. Explosion
Lilah never saw what caused the explosion. One moment she was kneeling, trying to get Erik to calm down, and then the next it was as if the ground itself had heaved her forward. She landed in a heap, shaken and confused, her ears ringing, half on top of Erik. He was screaming, screaming so shrilly that she rolled off him quickly, sure he had broken a bone. Glancing back, she could see that their transport was now a flaming hulk. The kidnappers were running in their direction. A strong pair of hands heaved her to her feet.
“Go!” hissed Zane. “Take Erik and run! Run straight for the buildings at the edge. Our security should be coming for you.” Lilah didn’t hesitate. She hoisted the still-screaming little boy into her arms, locking her arms around him, and started to run. She risked a backward glance only once, just in time to catch a glimpse of Zane slamming a shoulder into one of the kidnappers. Why wasn’t he shooting at them?
Then she forced herself to focus on her race for the shelter of the nearest building. She just had to make it close enough to reach a security officer before any of their enemies realized where she had gone. Who had attacked them? That group that had shadowed them to this square? What did they want?
Erik was still screaming. How could the kid keep going like this? Every so often he paused to take a deep breath and then start again. Everyone in a block-wide radius must be able to hear him. How were they going to hide? Maybe it was a good thing. Erik’s voice was a beacon leading the Quintan Security guys straight to them.
She reached the first building. It had no doors or windows that she could see facing the square, but it was only one story high. Was someone on the roof? She didn’t wait to find out. Hoping to hide in the shadows, she hugged close to the pockmarked wall, moving as quickly as she could with the boy in her arms. At least he wasn’t struggling. He’d gone completely stiff, though, his body rigid with the screams that still split the air. She’d spotted what looked like the edge of the building, with maybe an alley or a small walkway before the next building. Just before she reached it, a man in a Quintan Security uniform stepped around the corner. Lilah skidded to a halt.
“Quiet!” he ordered loudly.
Erik’s screams abruptly stopped. He stared warily at the man before them, who was scanning the area as if he expected an enemy to drop in any second.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he said gruffly, his voice lower. “Move back into this alley, where you’ll be hidden from any attackers.”
Lilah gratefully followed him into the dim alley. The man moved around her, placing himself at the front of the alley. He was still looking for something, anyone that might be coming after them. Then he looked back at her, his eyes glinting.
“I need to call for an armored transport to get you out of here. Do you have a flipcom? My radio’s gone down,” he asked urgently. Lilah put Erik down on the ground and pulled her jumpbag off her back. Luckily, she’d been wearing it when she’d climbed out of the transport to help with Erik. Pulling her flipcom from a side pocket, she handed it to their protector. He glanced at it for a second and then slipped it into a vest pocket.
“What . . . ?” she asked falteringly.
“It’s too dangerous to comm right now. We need to get under cover and hide for a bit. Enemies might be monitoring comm signals from the area.” He waved them back with a free hand. “Over there. Behind that pile of junk.” Something wasn’t right, but Lilah took Erik’s hand and slowly backed toward the junk. Her instincts bristled with alarm. The man seemed to be wearing a genuine Quintan Security uniform, and he was holding a standard-issue Quintan Security sniper laser. Lilah didn’t recognize him, but she knew only a handful of the security officers personally, so it wasn’t unusual that he was a stranger. But something wasn’t right. Lilah knew there had been at least one traitor in Quintan Security. But if this man was a traitor, what was he waiting for? Why not kill them? Was someone else on their way?
They reached the pile of junk and Lilah tugged Erik behind it. She caught her breath in shock. There, tucked against the wall, was an empty rocket launcher. The portable kind. The kind that could have shot a rocket capable of turning their fortified transport into nothing but scorched metal.
“Hide right back here, OK?” she whispered to Erik, pointing next to the wall, where he would best be sheltered by the debris. He nodded, his eyes wide, but didn’t move away from her. Didn’t three-year-olds know how to listen when lives were at stake? She pushed him behind her, putting her fingers to her lips. At least he was staying very quiet now. The she drew her gun from the holster under her jacket and peeked out from behind the pile of junk. The security officer was holding a low conversation on a flipcom that was not hers. So much for his excuse that he didn’t have a working comlink.
She didn’t have a good angle from here. She hesitated to shoot the man straight out when she didn’t have absolute proof that he was their enemy. But too many things didn’t add up here.
As she watched, he ended his conversation and set his sniper laser against the wall. Then he withdrew a much smaller gun and started back down the alley toward them. That was all the proof Lilah needed. She was just taking aim when another security officer appeared at the edge of the alley.
“Kozel!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing?”
The security officer named Kozel whirled and fired multiple times, the impact punching the new officer onto his back. Lilah didn’t hesitate. She fired at Kozel, hitting him in the shoulder. He staggered back but didn’t go all the way down. Behind her, Erik panicked. He tore away from her and darted down the alley away from them. Lilah swore, glancing back at Erik and then whipping forward to face Kozel again. He had ducked out of sight around the corner of the building. The officer he had shot lay completely still on the ground.
Taking a deep breath, Lilah whipped around and sprinted after Erik. At any moment she expected to feel a bullet slam into her back, but she made it safely to the next corner of the building. Darting around it, she nearly tripped right over Erik. He was on his hands and knees and sobbing. Lilah didn’t pause to find out if he was hurt; she scooped him up and kept going. Hopefully, Kozel was incapable of running after them, but obviously he wasn’t working alone. Were there other traitors among the Quintan Security? Who could she trust? The Quintan Edge was only a short drive away from here, but on foot it would be several hours of walking through a nighttime war zone with a cranky toddler.
What was she going to do?
32. Captured
“What in the name of Terra’s slag pits were you thinking?”
Zane’s eyes flew open, the shouting jolting him into consciousness. His stomach lurched, and he barely kept himself from gagging. Fuzzily, he tried to make sense of why he would be lying on a cold metal floor.
“They were right on top of us!” a different voice protested.
“So you should have left him!” There was a thump that vibrated the cool surface pressed against Zane’s cheek. He tried to bring the world into focus, but all he could see was a gray blur. “That is bloody Zane Quintan lying in the hallway, Aux! A Quintan!” The voice was reaching such a high screeching pitch that Zane winced. Reality reasserted itself viciously, and he remembered what had happened. He kept still, hoping his captors would fail to realize that he had awakened. His ribs ached—possibly someone had gotten in a few good kicks after they’d sedated him. One eye was swollen and throbbing. He was sore all over the place—probably dotted with bruises from his
attempt to prevent the kidnappers from catching Lilah and Erik. Hopefully it was worth it. The fight had distracted them for at least a minute, which should have been plenty long enough for Lilah to reach their own security. The kidnappers must have seen someone coming—one had shouted a warning, and the other had hit him with a trank injector. His last fuzzy memories were of being dragged back onto their ship.
“You didn’t mind demanding ransom from the Quintans. Now you’re panicking?”
“This was supposed to be an easy job. Drop the kids, take the chip. Sell the plans to the highest bidder. Find a planet far away and retire rich. Not poke Lev Quintan in the eye by stealing his son!”
“We couldn’t leave him, Rother. He still had the gate plans! That was the whole point!” a third voice reminded.
The gate plans. They’d given up Erik but had captured Zane—all because they wanted those gate plans. But where was Jimmy’s daughter? He blinked, trying to clear his vision. The hall was dim and cool and completely empty, at least in front of him. As best as he could tell, the voices were coming from an open doorway just ahead. Was there some chance he could surprise them?
He lay on his left side with one cheek pressed to a cold metal floor. His arms were bent awkwardly underneath him, and his wrists were locked together. Squirming a little, he worked his arms out from under his body and reached up to his neck, swallowing thickly as his shoulder radiated agony. The chip pouch was gone. Not a big surprise. The very first thing they had probably done was search him for the chip. Hopefully they didn’t figure out their schematics were missing some vital details until after he got away.
The silence in his ear was ominous. He should have been hearing his father’s voice—or at least someone from security. How long had he been unconscious? Long enough that they had given up trying to rouse him? Or had the jewel link failed? He carefully stretched a hand up to his ear and then flinched at the sting of the touch. His fingers came away wet with blood. His kidnappers must have noticed the jewel. Probably had gouged it out of his ear. So much for calling for help. At least there was the hope that they’d discarded the jewel somewhere in the ship. Then his father could track him right to wherever the ship went, as long as they didn’t leave the planet.
Continuing his mental inventory, he noted that they had taken all four of his weapons. They weren’t complete amateurs, then. Still, what had possessed them to think that they could ransom Jay Forrest’s grandchildren and not have the Quintans hunt them down in the first place? They had to be locals to Zenith, lower-rung thieves or thugs who knew the Quintans but didn’t understand that the real power figure was Jay Forrest.
So much for deterrence.
“We should just dump him somewhere. Him and the girl. We don’t need her anymore anyway.”
Did he mean Jimmy’s daughter? That was encouraging. Zane wholeheartedly approved of this plan. Come on, he urged mentally. That’s your best chance to get away. Leave us in an alley and run. I’ll even convince my father you deserve quick deaths instead of lingering, painful ones.
“No,” said a new voice. “I just got a comm from Kozel.” Zane’s breath caught. Kozel. Did he mean Gustav Kozel? “He says to kill them both. He says if they make it back to the QE, Shiz will hunt us down and make Quintan’s style of revenge seem merciful.” The conversation fell silent, probably as the kidnappers wondered what could be worse than Lev Quintan’s gruesome public executions. Zane started to ease himself up as quietly as he could. His legs groaned in protest, and he paused, using his bound hands to knead at the stabbing cramps in his thighs.
“No way am I going to kill a Quintan, Shiz or no Shiz,” the original shouter said sullenly. “I don’t have a death wish.”
“Does anyone else get the feeling that Kozel is playing us? After all, he’s the one who got us invited to the auction. He’s the one who told us this would be a simple ransom with a big payoff.”
This statement earned another bout of silence. Zane took that as a good sign. Anything that made them think twice about killing him straight out was a good thing. Obviously they still feared the Quintans. How could he use that to his advantage? He set aside the unfamiliar mystery boss named Shiz for later and considered the revelation that Gustav Kozel was in league with the kidnappers. Gustav was one of the original members of Quintan Security. His father had hired a very young Kozel more than twenty-five years before. He had never been anything but trustworthy. In fact, Zane was certain that his father had asked Kozel to investigate who the traitor was. Well, that explained their inability to find the traitor.
How long ago had Kozel turned on them? Was it possible that he had even been the inside man who orchestrated the attack on Quintan Tower all those years ago? His father had found a trail of evidence leading to a janitor who had committed suicide before Quintan Security could apprehend him. Had that been a very carefully laid false trail? A scapegoat so that the Quintans wouldn’t probe deeper?
Zane stiffened his creaking knees and stood straight, balancing himself against the wall. His head was still a little dizzy, but he thought it would clear soon enough. There was no time to wait until the drug wore off completely. Carefully, he eased down the hallway, farther from the open door where the kidnappers’ voices floated into the hall.
“We’re not going to kill them,” the latest voice said finally. “We can’t risk that. We’re going to get rid of them, and then we are going to head straight for the gate. I already paid the graft to get us front of the queue as soon as we need it.”
“But what about Shiz’s crew?”
“We’ll dump them on their doorstep. They can kill them if they want. Let them take the heat.”
Zane reached another door, this one shut. He needed to find Berry and a weapon before these men decided to check on him. He pressed his thumb to the lock, praying that it would be a silent door keyed for general entry. It stayed stubbornly shut. He grimaced and continued down the hallway, still moving as quietly as he could.
“We don’t even know where Shiz is,” complained the man who had been shouting, his voice now sullen.
“I did a job for Shiz way back in the day, and I kept my ears open. It wasn’t too hard to piece it together,” said the man who was apparently the leader. “Just get this ship ready to launch, Rother. I’ll enter the coordinates myself.” His voice grew louder, and Zane’s eyes darted around frantically, looking for somewhere to hide. The hallway was short and completely empty. He reached the last door and pressed the thumblock. The door didn’t budge.
“And someone drag Quintan into the lockup. We don’t need him sliding all over the hallway,” the man said just as he walked out of the door.
Zane didn’t hesitate. He barreled forward, rushing into the man and driving his shoulder into his chest. They both crashed to the ground, and Zane scrambled with his bound hands, trying to find a gun on the man.
This time when they hit him with the trank injector, his muscles seized up completely, and he collapsed on top of the other man, contorting rigidly. Someone behind him yanked him up by his hair, and he had just enough time to register the fist burying itself in his stomach with an agonizing meaty thump before everything faded once again.
33. The Isithunzi
“What shall we do with them, Mer?” The voice of the man holding her at spear point was higher than Jenna expected. She wondered how young he was. His head was completely bald, but his face was unlined, though the enormous shadows under his eyes hinted at a man who did not have an easy life. At least he did not seem very well rested.
“We’ll take them back to the village where they will be tried and executed,” Mer stated calmly. “To cross the Sauro River without permission is worthy of death. Kip knows this.”
The man’s hooded eyes never left Jenna’s face while the woman spoke. She wished she could read their expression. Did he agree with casually condemning strangers to death?
“We have per
mission from Lenata. She is of the Roran people,” Kip protested.
“Lenata?” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Lenata Topaz?”
Kip shrugged. “Lenata I-don’t-know. But she’s one of you. She left years ago, but she’s back. She crossed the river before us. Didn’t you see her?”
The woman shrugged dismissively. “Those who leave are no longer one of us.” Jenna noted that she did not answer Kip’s question. No one mentioned Kendra. It was possible Lenata had gotten her safely away, then. But what good would it do if Lenata took Kendra to the village just to have her condemned to death? Why had Lenata wanted to bring them here so badly?
“I wouldn’t be so quick to execute anyone, Merrin,” Lenata’s voice stated calmly. Jenna jerked, nearly jabbing into the poison-tipped spear on her own. Lenata stood on the branch above them, her eyes still wide and sightless, her head cocked with one ear toward them. Jenna bit her lip nervously; Kendra was perched on an even higher branch, looking down on all of them with wide eyes.
“Lenata,” greeted Merrin coolly. “You’ve returned, I see. Yet you’ve clearly become an Outsider, and you have forgotten the laws of the village. I don’t think you will be welcomed. Except perhaps by Floyd.”
Lenata answered as if Merrin hadn’t even spoken. “The woman you have pinned to the floor has been marked by the isithunzi.”
“Impossible. She is an Outsider,” scoffed Merrin.
“No, it’s true,” Kip confirmed. “I’ve scanned her. She carries the same energy signature that all Rorans do.”
Merrin didn’t reply, but Jenna noticed that her bald captor’s eyes widened in shock. What in the name of all the stars was an isithunzi? And how could she carry an energy signature that only Rorans did? Was that what Kip had been scanning them for the first day that they had arrived at his house?
“There’s more,” Lenata continued. “The girl above me?” Everyone’s eyes darted to Kendra, who was cringing back against the tree trunk again. “She’s a Speaker.”
Rift Page 29
