"Your anger betrays your jealousy, Sabra," said Roche, fighting to keep her own temper in check. Then: "Is that what you really think of me?"
Sabra glared at her through the flickering light of the elevator. "I don't know what to think of you, Roche. But I'll tell you this much: I don't trust you or your friend here." She glanced pointedly at Cane. "And jealousy has nothing to do with it. I just don't like the idea of Haid's judgment being affected at this stage by some misplaced trust. It's too dangerous to our operations."
"Did he give you any reason to question his judgment at the meeting?"
The elevator shuddered to a halt. "We get out here," Sabra said, ignoring the question. "You coming or not?"
Roche squeezed her way past the guard and out of the elevator, her pulse racing with suppressed anger. What was wrong with the woman? If she wanted to make a scene, why do it now? Why didn't she do it back at the meeting?
"This way." Sabra headed off along the corridor without looking back. Roche gritted her teeth and followed.
"Listen," she said, her shoes slapping on the damp floor of the passage. "You can't be that worried about Cane and me, surely. Whatever your problem is, I'd rather you tell me now."
"I think we've already said enough, don't you?" Sabra's back remained rigid.
"No, I don't think we've even started — "
"Then let's not." Sabra stopped in mid-stride and turned to face her. Even in the poor light from the few working lamps, Roche could see hatred behind red-rimmed eyes. "Or I might be tempted to leave you down here."
Roche noted for the first time the grimy stains covering the walls and floor of the corridor, and realised with some alarm that they were in a part of the underground complex she had never seen before.
"Where the hell is this place?" she said uneasily. "What are you playing at?"
"Nothing." Sabra turned away and resumed her walk into the shadows. Over her shoulder she said, "I told Haid I'd take care of you, and that's exactly what I'll do."
Roche followed a half-step behind, matching the other woman's swift pace with stubborn determination. Whatever Sabra was up to — a test, perhaps, of the newcomer — she resolved to meet it without flinching.
Morgan absorbed this in silence for a moment. The name didn't ring a bell, and didn't seem particularly relevant.
While she was doing so, Roche wandered back along the corridor, peering through doors at random. None of the rooms was occupied, and they hadn't been for some time. The floors were covered with a thin slime created from years of dust mixed with the moisture seeping down from the ceiling, and the walls had cracked and peeled with age. The farther they moved into this area of the rebels' headquarters, the more decrepit it became.
Stepping out of one room back into the hallway, Roche froze, her attention focusing upon a distant noise.
She heard it again. A faint sound from the direction they had just come, right at the edge of hearing.
"When you're ready, Commander." Sabra's voice echoed down the corridor from behind her. Roche turned to face the woman —
And raised her hands.
"I'm not going to pretend I like you, Commander." Sabra kept the pistol aimed squarely at her stomach. "But I don't want to shoot you, either. So just walk along the wall, slowly, and keep doing so until I tell you to stop. Okay?"
Roche nodded, noting the tremor in Sabra's hands and the desperate look in her eyes. "Okay."
"Then let's move."
One step at a time, without breaking eye contact, Morgan began to move along the wall. Sabra swivelled to follow her, keeping well out of arm's reach. When Roche had passed her, she waved the pistol. "No, don't lower your hands."
Roche ignored the pain in her injured shoulder as best she could and walked along the passageway. Twenty metres ahead, the corridor branched into a T junction, with both arms of the T dark. It was clear to Roche that they had almost reached the edge of the inhabited areas and were about to enter the unrestored sections of the old university.
Whatever was about to happen to her, she supposed, would happen to her there. If she was going to do something, it had to be before then.
"I don't suppose you'd like to explain — "
"No." Sabra's voice was curt. "I know what I'm doing."
"Whatever it is, I guess it involves whoever's following us, right?"
"Please, Commander. Don't be so stupid. No one's been this way for years."
"Sabra, I'm serious. There is someone back there, and if they're not with you ... "
The sound of Sabra's footsteps slowed, then stopped altogether. "Wait," she said.
Roche glanced around quickly and, seeing Sabra's back turned, made a dash for the intersection. The pistol cracked loudly, and something snatched at her side. Without breaking stride, Roche took the corner at a sprint, catching herself roughly on the wall as she did. Metres behind, the wet slap of Sabra's shoes followed.
The right-hand arm of the T was lit only by infrequent maintenance lights. Little could be seen through the gloom. The corridor angled to the left, and Roche made it around the bend just as Sabra fired a second time. The shot went well clear, ricocheting brightly in the near darkness. Roche's feet slipped in the slime as she took another corner. Quickly regaining her footing, she plunged ahead through the dimly lit corridors, dodging the occasional pile of rubble littering the floor. Row after row of inviting doorways passed her, but she ignored them. Her only hope was to lose Sabra, or somehow to double back to the T intersection.
&nb
sp; Roche's long stride and years of exercise gradually widened her lead, although the sound of Sabra's footfalls was still too close for comfort. She took another left-hand turn, stumbled over a pile of broken furniture, then a right. Her shoulder began to ache. If she could only find a weapon — something solid enough that wouldn't disintegrate at the slightest touch —
Another corner brought her to a door. Through the light. of a faded lamp above it, she saw the letters of a damaged sign: F re E t.
The door was locked.
Out of options, Roche spun to face the way she had come. She launched herself forward at the exact moment Sabra rounded the corner.
Taken by surprise, Sabra barely had time to raise the gun before Roche pushed it aside. Letting her weight carry her forward, she met Sabra's stomach with her shoulder, forcing them both to the ground. A third shot sparked crazily in the confined space, making Roche's ears ring.
Sabra punched wildly in the darkness and connected once above Roche's right ear. Roche kicked back and was gratified to feel her foot meet flesh. She grasped for purchase on her struggling adversary, wanting to use her Armada training but failing to obtain a grip; the data glove made her left hand stiff and unwieldy. The butt of the gun swung back to strike her injured shoulder, and she gasped involuntarily. Sabra rolled, brought her knee upward into her stomach. Roche fought the impulse to curl into a ball, then swung the Box's valise into exposed ribs and heard bone crack.
Sabra hissed and wrenched the pistol free. Roche tried to regain her footing and slipped in the moisture. Her flailing arm knocked the gun aside for a moment, but it returned a split-second later. Sabra's face behind it grimaced in triumph. She fired at exactly the moment Roche brought the valise up to protect her face.
The impact of the bullet knocked the valise from her hands. She kicked both legs into Sabra's chest with all her strength. The woman lifted into the air with relative ease, striking the wall on the far side of the cul-de-sac. Roche watched in total bewilderment. The kick hadn't been that hard ...
Then she glimpsed a shadowy figure rush past her through the gloom, its right arm still outstretched from the blow that had struck her assailant.
Sabra disappeared behind a flurry of limbs, screamed once, then reappeared a moment later, pinned by a hand at her throat against the wall under the broken sign.
Her face twisted into a rictus of pain and surprise. Roche sympathised. It had all happened so fast that not even she could quite believe it.
The arm that held the woman to the wall was attached by muscular shoulders to a profile Roche recognised instantly.
"She's dead," said Cane, his voice hushed and breathless, almost in awe. His eyes were fixed on the dying woman's face. "She just hasn't realised it yet."
Roche watched in horror as Sabra struggled once against the grip around her throat, then went still. Slowly, the pain went out of her eyes — although the fear remained.
"You can let her go, Cane." Roche clambered slowly upright, wincing. "Cane!"
"You die so easily," he mused, almost to himself, and let the woman's body slide to the floor. He followed it with his eyes, then turned to look over his shoulder at Roche. Seeing her shock, he said, "I don't enjoy it, you know."
"No — " She took a deep breath, and amazed herself by believing him. "I believe you."
"But I should," he said softly. "I feel it inside. I was made to kill, wasn't I?"
Roche gathered the courage to touch his arm. His skin was hot and dry and seemed to quiver under her fingertips. "I'm not going to damn you for that," she said. "You probably just saved my life — again."
He shook his head. She sensed that he was clearing his mind rather than disagreeing with her comment. She removed her hand.
When she gingerly touched behind her ear, where Sabra had punched her, her fingers came away slippery with blood: another injury to add to her collection. As she felt her side where Sabra's first shot had nicked her uniform, the tug of the chain on her wrist reminded her of the valise. There was a slight dent where the bullet had struck, but otherwise it was undamaged.
she said.
Glancing down to Sabra's body, Roche sighed and said, "We'd better head back. If you remember the way, that is."
Cane nodded numbly in the near darkness. "Should we bring her with us?"
"No," she said, already dreading the reception they would receive. "I think she can wait here a little longer. We're going to have enough problems as it is."
* * *
14
* * *
Sciacca's World
Port Parvati
'954.10.33 EN
1500
Halfway along the corridor leading back to the elevator shaft, Roche's left arm began to tingle as data flowed through it.
replied the AI.
Roche groaned aloud. Turning to Cane, she said, "You didn't kill your guards as well, did you?"
"No. I knocked them out on the floor above where you got out." He shrugged. "I had no choice. If I was going to help you, I needed to act immediately."
Roche nodded, grateful for small mercies: at least they only had one body to explain, not three.
"But how did you know?" she said after a few more steps along the wet and litter-strewn floor. "About Sabra, I mean."
"She said she was taking you to the medical centre," Cane replied. "But she got out of the elevator on the twenty-third floor. The medical centre is on the fourteenth floor."
He made it seem simple. Almost too simple. She knew how it would sound to the rebels: easier to believe that Cane had deliberately set out to follow Roche and Sabra with the intention of killing the woman who had spoken out against him in the meeting. Even Roche found his story slightly incredible.
Yet Cane himself had urged caution at the meeting, agreeing with Sabra on almost every point. That alone was enough to convince Roche he was not lying — that and the fact that he had saved her life. But would it be enough for the rebels?
Cane walked solidly beside her, as untroubled and indefatigable as ever — and with an expression that was, as always, impossible to read. His pace matched hers perfectly — slow but steady, in sympathy with her conflicting need both to hurry and to nurse new injuries. The fleeting moment of vulnerability she thought she had detected in him earlier had long since passed. She wondered if anyone could truly reach the innermost depths of him; indeed, so perfect was his control that sometimes it seemed as though he had no depth at all. Just another soldier doing his duty, without remorse or doubt — a robot in Pristine Human form, programmed to kill.
Yet Sabra had touched him; she was sure of that. Somehow. On a level Roche could never hope to reach, although she was — for the moment at least — his putative ally.
The remainder of the walk to the elevator passed in silence. As they rounded the final bend and the doors came into view, Roche realised that she had hardly begun to decide how she would break the news to Haid. Every time she went over it in her head, it sounded clumsy and cliched:
Sabra started it —
Cane acted in self-defense —
I had no choice —
If there was any other way ...
The elevator approached all too quickly. Had Haid followed Roche's request, he would already be waiting for her
on one of the upper floors. She had only minutes left in which to decide how she was going to handle the explanation.
When they came to a halt by the doors, Roche eyed Cane uncertainly. "Maybe you should stay down here for a while," she said. "Until things quiet down."
"No," he said. "Better to get it over with."
He reached out for the elevator button. Before he could touch it, however, the doors pulled back with a hiss.
Facing them, in the elevator, were Haid and three rebel guards. Roche automatically backed away; Cane stood his ground without apparent concern for the projectile rifles raised and pointing at them.
Haid waved at the guards to lower their weapons and stepped out to greet the two of them. "Sorry to startle you," he said. "I thought it best to meet you halfway."
"How did you ... ?" Roche fumbled for the words.
"Find you?" Haid smiled. "Simple, really. We triangulated the data glove's short-wave transmission, tracing the signal back through the receiving stations throughout the building. What the Box told me only confirmed what we had already learned for ourselves."
Annoyance and discomfort suddenly tangled inside her. "You didn't trust us?"
"One of the most important rules in covert operations is never to design a safe house without a back door. This way leads to one of ours, and given what you've learned since you arrived, it seemed sensible to — "
He stopped suddenly, peering along the dim corridor.
"Where's Sabra?" he asked. Catching the dark expression on Roche's face, he added: "What's happened to her?"
Roche opened her mouth to reply, but Cane spoke before the half-planned words had even formed in her mind.
"She's dead," he said simply and without emotion.
Haid's face hardened, and he stepped back as though Cane had physically struck him. The rifles came up again, and this time the rebel leader did not order them down.
"You're not joking, are you?" His artificial eye narrowed, fixing itself upon Cane.
"No," said Cane, returning Haid's monocular challenge evenly. "I killed her."
Sean Williams & Shane Dix - Evergence 1 - The Prodigal Sun Page 24
