“You mean, more than I already have? No.”
The leader reacted before he could control himself, exposing his massive incisors and hissing at her.
She didn't budge, staring him down. Then she lifted her arm, brushed the sleeve as if checking the time on a smart fabric watch. Most of the Garmman crew uniforms came standard with them built in, except for hers, but the gesture was meaningful enough. She had time to burn. He, on the other hand . . .
He let out a bark of reluctant laughter. “I am truly sorry now there is no room for you. You are interesting. But my team has fought with me for a long time, and I won't leave any of them behind. I am sorry if you will pay for helping us. But this favor, it won't change whether you are in trouble or not. It may delay your trouble.”
“Really?” His gall was so staggering, she actually wanted to see where he was going with this.
Gerwa gave a casual shrug. “Close the doors behind us. So the Grih don't know where we've gone. At least, not straight away. It'll give us time to get away.”
She thought about it. Actually, that might help delay any retaliation from Tak. But damned if she'd do if for nothing. “If you give me that keypad encryptor.”
He hissed at her again. “That's a one-of-a-kind device. I won't part with it.”
Her turn to shrug. “Your choice.”
She stepped back from the door and tilted her head, looking right as if she could hear something coming through the gel wall.
She couldn't hear a thing but she was prepared to play it up. She had absolutely nothing to lose.
The keypad encryptor landed with a clatter at her feet, and she turned back to look at Gerwa. He was staring at her, hard-eyed now. The sly, amused attitude was gone.
“Don't double-cross me.”
Fee bent and scooped it up, then swallowed a bout of nausea as she straightened too quickly, the bump on her head shooting white-hot pain through her skull. She breathed in carefully through clenched teeth, met his gaze again.
“I live up to my bargains.” She walked to the keypad. “I'll even re-lock this.” And make sure they hadn't slipped her a dud substitute while she was about it.
He must have guessed her train of thought, because he gave a nod of grudging respect and stepped inside the pod.
Fee pushed the button, and closed the door. Then pressed the encryptor against the keypad. A tiny symbol popped up on its minute screen, and she studied it for a moment, memorizing it, and then tapped it with her finger.
She heard the double-click of the doors locking. Smiled. The engines of the emergency pod rumbled, making the wall she was leaning against vibrate, and then it was gone.
She decided to wait near the boxes she'd been loading for the Grih, if they were coming. In the silence, she could hear the Garmman crew shouting behind the door, but she knew Tak would only force it open if he had no choice, for fear of damaging it.
She took a step toward the crates, and then had to press herself up against the wall as a sleek, silver-gray spaceship came bursting into the launch bay.
2
Fee slid the encryptor into her bra, and stayed put against the wall.
If this was a Grihan vessel, the Grih had much better stuff than the Garmman or the Krik. The ship was shiny and slick and she had a feeling it probably went very, very fast.
The sound of its engines filled the space and she had to narrow her eyes and look down to shield from the dust it was blowing up.
She needed a strategy.
Try to sneak onboard as a stowaway? Try to appeal to the Grih for help?
The unreality of what her life had become suddenly overwhelmed her, as it sometimes did, combining with the pain from her head injury to make her close her eyes and tip back her head. She had to breathe, just breathe. In and out.
When she opened her eyes, she jerked and then gave a low, choked scream. Someone stood directly in front of her, peering at her. They had on a helmet of gray glass and wore some sort of body armor. And they were big.
She actually put a hand up to her heart, as if she could somehow stop it from jumping out of her chest.
“Keep working on unlocking the door,” the person in front of her said in Grihan, his words harsh and choppy. He didn't turn as he spoke, still facing her so she was reflected in the glass of his helmet, her face stretched out across it in weird, funhouse fashion. “Rial, come here. I've found the orange.”
The words snapped her out of her distress. She was not orange. The Krik, yeah, they were edging toward orange, although she'd have said peach if it were up to her. But no way could they mistake her for a Krik.
“Sorry, but I'm not orange. I'm lily white, actually, because I haven't seen the sun in I don't know how many months.”
She lifted her hand to show him and then realized it wasn't so much white as smeared black with soot and ingrained dirt.
Still. Not orange.
He cocked his head, and she looked back determinedly at her reflection on his helmet, trying to make out a face beyond it.
Option one was obviously no longer viable. There would be no sneaking onboard their ship unseen. She might as well get started on option two before they got the launch bay door open, and Tak whisked her out of their sight.
“Please help me. I'm a prisoner on board this spaceship. Captain Tak has imprisoned me here for over two and a half months. I need your help.” She suddenly found it hard to talk, and had to swallow what felt like a stone lodged in her throat. “Please.”
He stepped back from her in what felt like a rejection, and she pressed herself against the wall so she wouldn't fall down as the last thread of hope holding her up snapped.
The thump of pain in her head merged with the thump of her heart, and he went a little blurry in front of her.
She felt the ship tilt, and she cried out as she lost her balance.
Hands grabbed her. Helped her to sit, with her head between her legs.
She sat for a moment, wondering what was happening that everything was spinning, and slowly the world righted itself.
There was shouting near the door, and then the sound of running. She heard Tak's voice raised loud enough to make her wince.
Sounded like the Grih had finally gotten the launch bay doors open and Tak had taken a good look at the damage the Krik's ship had done to his launch bay.
When he realized they'd made off with his precious emergency pod . . .
She had to fight the smile that tried to curve her lips upward at the thought.
“What is funny?” The words were spoken right next to her ear, deep and rough, and she turned her head slowly, looked straight into his face. The glass of his helmet had been completely retracted.
His eyes were a strange shade of blue, violet, almost, with an outer rim of navy, but the hardness in them made any comparison to pretty flowers useless.
The sight of him scorched every thought from her head; Tak's tantrum, whether the Grih would help her. She couldn't tear her gaze away.
He looked as human as her.
“You . . .” she whispered, and realized she'd spoken in English. She reached out a hand. “You are . . .” Tears burned behind her eyes, caustic and hot, and then spilled over onto her cheeks.
He grabbed her wrist before she could touch him, but his grip was gentle.
“Where is your hood? What have you done here?”
The sound of Hury's voice, hard and vicious, made her cringe. She was on the ground, defenseless. She curled up tighter, because he would kick her.
And then the Grih was in front of her, and when she risked looking around his legs, she saw Hury was white-faced, his hands raised in surrender.
And that's when she realized the Grihan soldier was holding a shockgun on him.
And this time, she didn't try to suppress the smile.
* * *
The yurve shit was flying, all right.
Hal watched the puffed up little Garmman he'd just faced down run back to his captain, then took another
look around the mess that had once been a launch bay.
It was crowded, what with his own fighter ship and the smoldering wreck that had once been the Krik's modified explorer taking up most of the space. The Krik had obviously come in hard, thanks to the great shot Tobru had gotten off just before the Krik dodged around a cluster of asteroids. Their vessel had ripped up the floor and scraped the walls. The air filters were struggling to cope with the fumes and smoke.
According to Favri, the Garmman trader's captain claimed the Krik had gained entrance through the gel wall by duplicating a Garmman government vessel signal, and then once they were inside, they'd shot two of his guards and locked the rest of the ship out of the launch bay and hadn't come through the doors. So where in Guimaymi's Star were they?
He kept his gun up, and not only to prevent being taken by surprise by the Krik. He knew he needed to guard the woman.
The most explosive of his problems.
Even five minutes ago he'd have laughed at the suggestion, because running the Krik to ground and locking up every single one had been his clear priority.
No longer.
She was from Earth. No doubt about it.
The musical voice. The way she looked.
Different hair color to Rose McKenzie; dark where Rose was pale gold. Maybe a little taller, although not enough to make much difference. Different color eyes, almost matching her hair color rather than Rose's green. But the same species.
He'd called her an orange, but actually she didn't show up orange on their scan. They had the data to identify her, thanks to Rose. He didn't know why he'd called her an orange earlier, other than habit.
Rose was the first orange they'd found in five hundred years. The first unidentified advanced sentient in a long, long time.
He'd have to remember not to call this one an orange again. She'd been more than a little adamant that she wasn't.
Another thing she'd made clear was that she was being held on this ship against her will. The way she'd cringed when the Garmman crewman had shouted at her bore that out, and even remembering the look on her face when the Garmann had come at her made the rage inside Hal leap a little higher.
She'd obviously been severely injured, blood caking the side of her head, sticking in her hair and trailing in a mess down her neck and onto her shoulder. Which reminded him. He tapped his comm. “Rial. I said come here.” He didn't hide the sharp annoyance in his voice.
Rial immediately appeared from behind their ship, walking backward, shockgun raised.
“Sorry, Captain, the Garmman are behaving in a very hostile manner. When Favri got the doors open, it looked like she needed armed support. They thought we were the Krik at first, and they don't seem to be calming down, even though they know now we're from Battle Center.”
Hal turned and looked down at the woman sitting at his feet. No, he bet the last thing they'd be was calm. They had a darc bomb on their hands, and at least some of them knew it.
Rial made a sound, and Hal lifted his head, saw his lieutenant understood what they had sitting quietly against the wall.
“You have the medikit?”
Rial nodded, then crouched beside the woman while Hal covered them both.
“My name is Lieutenant Rial Corvac, of Grih Battle Center. I'm a trained medic. This is Captain Hal Vakeri. Can you tell me what happened to you and your name?”
Hal glanced down quickly at the woman, to gauge her response, and saw she was watching Rial with suspicious eyes.
“Please. I only want to help.” Rial crouched lower, making himself as non-threatening as possible.
“My name is Fiona Russell.” She spoke hesitantly in Grih. “One of the Krik hit me with the stock of his shockgun.”
“Can I treat the wound?” Rial's voice sounded harsh in contrast to hers.
Hal waited until Fiona nodded before he forced himself to look away, keeping watch over the launch bay as his crew searched the area and kept the Garmman back from their ship.
He had set his comm to receive all chatter, so he caught snatches of conversation between his team and the Garmman crew as he did a slow and thorough sweep for any sign of the Krik.
Most of the Garmman were out of his line of sight, behind his fighter vessel, and he heard Favri barking out commands for them to get out of the launch bay until they were given permission from her.
Someone, Hal guessed the Garmman captain, was shouting at her, his voice getting more and more voluble.
He tapped his comm. “Tobru, bring out the halcon and stand next to Favri until that idiot shuts up.”
He wouldn't be behaving like such a hard ass if he hadn't seen the way Fiona Russell had flinched when the Garmman crewman had run over to her. And there was no mistaking the signs of long, sustained malnourishment and abuse.
It was hard for a captain to have the command of his ship taken from him, but Hal didn't really care in this case.
Rial glanced up at him and Hal caught the smirk that flashed briefly on his face.
The halcon was a nasty piece of work. A laser that could cut through anything, it wasn't officially a weapon, it was a tool for cutting crew free in the case of an accident. And that's just what he'd say Tobru was planning to do with it if the Garmman captain brought a complaint. She'd hauled it out to cut any Krik who might be caught in their crumpled ship free.
Silence descended. The sight of the halcon was doing its job.
He looked back at the woman, saw Rial had cleaned away most of the blood.
“Did you see where on the ship the Krik went?”
She shook her head. “They aren't on the ship anymore. They left.”
She suddenly had Hal's full attention.
“How did they get away?”
She closed her eyes, and he realized she was thinking about how to answer him.
“Look at me!”
Her eyes snapped open, and he saw pure fear in them. Which was not the plan.
He scaled back his frustration.
“How did they get away?” He tried to infuse some gentleness into his tone, but he'd lost her.
She curled up tight and hugged her legs close to her body.
He and Rial exchanged a look, and Hal didn't miss the hint of censure in his lieutenant's eyes.
“They can't hurt you now. Whatever threat they made to prevent you from talking, they can't follow through on it. And the quicker you tell us, the quicker they'll be locked away for their crimes.”
Hal blinked at his lieutenant's perceptiveness. Of course, they could well have threatened her with promises of reprisal if she said anything. They hadn't been shy to hurt her, after all.
“It's not that. It's . . .” She raised her head. “Are you going to help me get away from Captain Tak, or not?”
Hal realized he hadn't answered her plea before. He'd been distracted by the way she'd gone pale in the face and then collapsed.
Had she been unsure since then that he would help her?
“I am. We will not leave you here.”
“Oh.” She blew out a breath and then gave a sob, her body shuddering as she hunched over her knees. “They took Captain Tak's emergency pod.” Her voice came out a little garbled. “I showed them where it was.” She breathed in and raised a tear-streaked face. “Tak will kill me if he knows that pod is gone.”
Hal found himself wanting to meet Captain Tak.
“When I first stepped forward to talk to the Krik, they thought I might be Grih. I couldn't understand it, but now . . .” She was looking at his face again with the sense of wonder he'd seen in her eyes before.
It made him uncomfortable. Made him edgy.
“Why didn't you just hide from the Krik? Why did you approach them at all?”
She frowned up at him. “I didn't know you were right behind them at first. I asked them to take me with them. To help me escape.”
Rial's face must be a mirror of his own, Hal thought. They were both slack-jawed.
And if preferring to hand yourself
over to a bunch of murderous, vicious Krik rather than stay where you were didn't say it all about your living conditions, he didn't know what did.
He tried to take a calming breath. Tapped his comm. “Chel, get the Illium in as close as you can, and send over Councilor Vilk and Liaison Officer Kwo. Also, see if you can track an emergency pod. It would have launched . . .” He looked down at Fiona Russell and raised a brow.
“About half a minute before you arrived,” she said, and then winced at his expression.
He tamped down the fury he felt at having missed them by so little. The chase may have been delayed but he would get the bastards.
And right now——he glanced down again——he had another type of justice to mete out.
3
She was in trouble. Maybe.
Fiona looked around the conference room.
She'd never been in it before, but then all she'd ever seen of Tak's ship was her tiny cell and the launch bay.
The room was utilitarian and dull, a trifle run down. The oval table was the only interesting thing in it. It was smooth, reflective metal, like highly polished silver, and edged with a wide border of pale blue, lit from within.
She reached out a hand to touch it, and a stream of icons appeared and settled in a circle around her fingertip.
She peered down at them, trying to work out what they stood for, until Hal Vakeri cleared his throat behind her. Indicated she should take a seat.
She still couldn't get over how alike the Grih were to her. She glanced at them as she slowly lowered herself into her seat.
The captain stood, stance wide, beside the table. The medic, Rial, who'd done the miraculous work on her head, stood near the door, watching everyone, and Tak, Hury, and Tak's lieutenant, Lon Sang, shifted nervously under his stare.
There were four Grihan guards at the door, two inside, two out, and while they seemed to be vigilant in watching their surroundings, she got the impression she was as interesting to them as they were to her.
As soon as she sat, she saw two newcomers appear in the doorway.
One wore a uniform similar to the rest of the Grihan team, but he wasn't Grih. He wasn't Garmman or Krik either. He had almost insect-like features, large eyes, thin limbs.
Dark Deeds (Class 5 Series Book 2) Page 2
