The fighter lifted and turned, shot through the gel wall, and she angled her head to look out at the Garmman trader falling away from them.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Now we're off that stinking hellhole, how about you tell me why Vilk considers me being on Tak's ship such a problem?”
* * *
The sleek Grih vessel was full of surprises.
From the outside it looked as if there were no windows, but the whole thing was some kind of one way glass, so everyone inside had a three sixty view of their surroundings.
The interior walls also acted as a screen, overlaying numbers and equations she didn't understand on the objects outside.
Fee dragged her gaze away from the spacescape around her for a moment, and focused back on Captain Vakeri, waiting for him to answer her question.
He was leaning back in his seat, a considering look on his face. “The simple answer is the Garmman are signatories to the Sentient Beings Agreement, and your abduction, imprisonment and forced labor are in direct contravention of that. So they're already up for fines and Tak for imprisonment.”
Again, the surge of delight at Tak's predicament washed over her, but she had the nagging sense there was more to the problem than just the breaking of some rules. Vilk's reaction when he'd seen her had been close to horrified.
Then she frowned. “Tak didn't abduct me, though. Will that soften his sentence?” She hoped not.
Vakeri shook his head. “Don't worry, he'll pay for what he did to you. What do you recall of your original abduction?”
She forced herself to get comfortable, deliberately relaxing muscles that wanted to tense up. “Not very much. One minute I remember sitting in a deck chair, reading, and the next, I was in some kind of strange glass box. There were sounds all around me, like I was in a jungle, and I fought to wake up properly, but if I did, I don't remember it. It happened a few times, half-waking, fighting to get conscious, not remembering again.” She shuddered. “And feathers.” She said the last in a whisper.
Vakeri leaned forward. “Feathers?”
Her hands clenched on her thighs. “The thought of them makes me want to cringe.”
He nodded, as if she'd said something helpful, and she forced her hands open again.
“What does that mean to you?”
“That you were abducted by the Tecran and kept in a holding cell under sedation.” He rubbed a hand through that spiky hair as if weighed down by the information.
“The Tecran?” It explained her strange dislike of the language on her handheld. She must have subconsciously heard her abductors speaking.
“They're theoretically our allies, but we're in a delicate position of near-war with them at the moment.” He held her gaze and then looked away, contemplative. As if she were a new problem to factor in to his already difficult workload.
She felt a grudging sense of outrage, because she hadn't wanted any of this, and was hardly here by choice, but then the sight through the rear wall erased that from her mind——she was too busy staring at the massive, sleek spaceship. “What is that?” she breathed.
“The Illium,” Vakeri said. “Welcome to my ship.”
5
There was a lot going on here she didn't understand, but Fee was prepared to be patient. She had enough on her plate coming to grips with her new change in circumstances. She could wait to get to the bottom of why people looked at her and more or less tore at their hair or broke into a sweat.
She walked side by side with Vakeri down the ramp, but slowed and let him go ahead when she saw how many Grihan soldiers were waiting for them, all gazes locked on her.
The captain stopped as soon as she fell back, looked at her over his shoulder. “No one will harm you here.”
His face was impassive, an expression he seemed to be good at, and he spoke in the rough, staccato way all the Grih seemed to have. She appreciated that there was no hint of impatience in his demeanor.
He was so striking, she had to force her gaze away from his face.
The intense eyes. The ears.
He'd kept his helmet off since the meeting on Tak's ship, but he was the only Grih on the Garmman trader who had. Now, as she made herself look at the other Grih in the launch bay, she saw pointy ears and short, spiky hair seemed to be the Grih norm.
And they were all big.
“Captain?” A woman made her way through the loose grouping of armed soldiers, and although she'd addressed Vakeri, like everyone else, her eyes were very much on Fee. She was as tall as any other of the crew, and her hair was almost silver white, her eyes a dazzling, tropical blue.
Vakeri made some kind of signal with his hand, and the soldiers moved back. He stepped off the ramp and gestured to the woman approaching them. “Fiona, this is Doctor Jasa. She'll take you to the med chamber and take a more thorough look at the injury Rial patched up, and see what else needs fixing.” He glanced at her hip, and out of habit, Fee rubbed it.
She took a cautious step off the ramp and onto the launch bay floor.
He gave a formal bow. “I have operational matters to see to, but you'll be in good hands with Jasa.”
A look passed between him and the doctor, and then he was striding away, most of the soldiers following behind him.
There were a few who stayed behind, though, shockguns in hand, and Fee decided they were guarding the launch bay against attack.
“Are you still worried about the Krik?” she asked the doctor, and Jasa blinked.
“No. We're living in rather tense times at the moment. This is just a general precaution.” She placed her hands together, and extended them to Fee.
Fee lifted her own hands, palms out. “I'm sorry, I'm not sure what I need to do in return. I only know the Grih language, not its culture, I'm afraid.”
Jasa cocked her head in a way so alien, Fee forced herself not to react. “That you speak our language so well, given the circumstances you must have learned it in, is in itself extraordinary. If I offer my hands to you, palms together, you cover them on each side with your own. If you present your hands together to me, I do the same.”
Fee reached out, placed her hands on either side of Jasa's, and the doctor smiled.
She sensed the eyes of everyone in the launch bay on them through the interaction, and couldn't help the way her hands started to shake.
“Let's go.” The doctor's words were overloud and harsh, and Fee flinched, then saw Jasa's ire was for the soldiers around them, not herself.
Two of the guards stepped forward, a man and a woman.
“We have to come with you, Doc. Captain's orders.” The man who spoke bowed respectfully.
Jasa gave a tight nod. “Apologies, Fiona. Those tense times again. The captain wants to make sure you're safe. Pila and Carmain will be coming along to watch your back.”
“Watch it against whom?” Fee wanted to know, but Jasa merely shook her head and led the way, and Fee had no choice but to fall into step, with the two guards following behind them.
When they reached the med chamber, Pila went in and checked it first, while Carmain stood guard in the doorway.
“It's safe.” Pila stepped back out into the passageway, and he and Carmain took up position outside the door.
Jasa indicated Fee should proceed her, and then slapped a large circle of light glowing on the wall to close the door behind them.
They stood in silence for a moment.
Fee was taking in the room, Jasa was watching her do it.
“So. Some of the Grih crew might attack me? Even against the captain's orders?” Fee asked at last. “Just what have they got against me?”
Jasa jerked. Opened her mouth, closed it. Blew out a breath. “It's complicated. The Grih are part of a ruling coalition of five races called the United Council. The members of the Council agree to certain codes of conduct, and although we don't always see eye to eye, we are never openly hostile to one another.
“A month ago that changed, when one of the member gro
ups, the Tecran, came into our airspace and fired on our fleet. During that incident, a high-level Grihan officer actively worked against us from within.
“When he was caught and questioned, he admitted he wasn't the only Grihan officer involved in what turned out to be a complicated plot. He tried to kill someone very much like you, and as the other officers he spoke about haven't yet been identified, Captain Vakeri very wisely is taking no chance one of them isn't onboard the Illium.”
Fee frowned. “When you say someone very much like me, what do you mean?”
“I actually mean someone exactly like you, I suppose.” Jasa said.
“Someone from Earth?” There was a rushing, rising roar in her ears.
“Yes. Someone from Earth. Do you know Rose McKenzie?”
Fee knew her mouth was open, her heart thundering loud enough she was sure Jasa must be able to hear it.
“Actually, I do.”
* * *
When Hal stepped onto the bridge, Chel rose slowly from the captain's chair and limped forward a few steps.
He looked like he should still be in medical, but Hal knew his second-in-command wouldn't have sat this one out for anything.
“We lost them.” The Krik had nearly killed Chel and two soldiers on his team, and running them to ground was as much personal as it was a matter of upholding the law.
“We'll get them.” Chel had a look on his face that had Hal raising his brows.
“You're tracking the emergency pod?”
Chel smiled. “We are. Favri got the signal code from the Garmman trader and we were able to lock on. Unfortunately for them, that particular model of pod can't be redirected to a specific destination. It lands where it lands.”
“And in this case?”
“It's headed for Balco, which is the closest livable planet, and by my calculations it's trajectory will put them down in the western deserts. They'll be a long hike from anywhere.” Chel's smile deepened. “It's a harsh environment to be stuck in.”
Hal looked at the visual comm Gerbardi brought up as Chel was speaking, saw the pulse of signal and then the trajectory calcs which curved away and down onto Balco. The Krik would land in the middle of what was an uninhabited wasteland.
They wouldn't be getting off Balco in a hurry. Which was good, because he didn't have time right now to send someone after them.
He turned to Gerbardi, and the comms officer came to attention. “I need to speak to Admiral Hoke. Private line, utmost urgency.”
Everyone in the room had an idea why, and Hal could sense the weight of their unasked questions.
Might as well tell them what he could while Gerbardi put the request in to Battle Center.
“As we came in range of the Garmman trader, the Fasbe, we got an unusual reading. Since Rose McKenzie was discovered a month ago, beings with her bio signature have been entered into our system with a red flag. And it was flashing as we chased the Krik into the Fasbe's launch bay.”
He took out his handheld and flicked a frozen image of the Earth woman from his helmet's lens feed to the main screen. She was half-crouched against the launch bay wall, eyes closed, face tense. The dark red of her blood was shocking against her pale skin.
“Her name is Fiona Russell, and she was injured by the Krik and by the Garmman who were holding her captive. Doctor Jasa is tending to her wounds.”
He looked around the room at the men and women staring at the screen. “I don't need to tell you the importance of this. And I don't need to remind you that according to Farso Lothric, there are a number of other Grihan officers whose loyalties might lie elsewhere. I've set a guard to watch Fiona Russell, and I expect everyone to be alert to an attempt on her life.”
There was a murmur of agreement, and Hal gave a curt nod. He hated that he had to set a guard on his own ship against a possible attack on someone under his protection. He should not have to be suspicious of his own team.
Farso Lothric hadn't known how many or who the other Grihan officers were——the Garmman councilor Nii Fu-tama who'd recruited them had made sure of that——and now that Fu-tama was dead there was no way they could find out.
One thing they did know; whoever was involved had spent time at Grih Battle Center's headquarters on Garmma.
Hal had made sure the four guards he'd set in rotation to watch Fiona had never so much as set foot there.
Gerbardi stood. “Admiral Hoke will be with you in five, Captain.”
Hal gave a nod of thanks and left the bridge for the small, private office he used for his administrative duties.
He spent the time waiting for Hoke reviewing the visual comms recorded by his helmet, and then watching Favri and Rial's questioning of the Garmman trader crew.
It was clear the crew had known something wasn't right.
Tak's problem was his ego. He'd assumed his staff were either stupid or prepared to turn a blind eye, but when the Tecran had invaded Grih airspace, and the explosive information about their abduction of Rose McKenzie had come out and swept through every member nation of the UC, it hadn't taken a genius to work out there was something strange about Fiona Russell's hood and the way she was being treated.
No one had believed for a moment Tak would stand behind them if they'd killed her on his encouragement and then been charged. And that had saved her life.
Tak's crew had understood him all too well.
It was twenty minutes, he realized, not five, when the comm from Hoke finally interrupted him, pulling him from Favri's questions on where the trading vessel had been when they'd picked Fiona up.
The admiral was clearly sitting at her desk, and she looked harassed.
Hal had met her personally numerous times, before she'd been made head of Battle Center a month ago. It looked like the weight of authority was resting heavily on her shoulders.
She rubbed a finger under her left eye and leaned forward. “Apologies for the delay, Vakeri. Diplomats don't know when to shut up.”
Hal smiled. Weighed down or not, Hoke was still the straight-talking leader he'd always respected. And she wasn't going to like his news.
“Early this morning we got a distress signal from a Sector 9 mining vessel. They were under attack by Krik pirates. To cut a long story short, my second-in-command boarded the miner with a team of ten, and found every member of the crew dead. The Krik were still there, and they ambushed the team, severely injuring three of them.”
“The Krik are in a cell?” Hoke asked.
Hal shook his head. “Got away. They have something that can copy another ship's signal, so when they first left the miner's launch bay, we thought it was our own team, coming back. We gave chase as soon as we realized what was happening. I took a fighter so the Illium could stay behind and deal with the injured, and we managed to severely damage the Krik's vessel.”
“But?” Hoke was watching him with full attention now. She knew he wouldn't have flagged something like this as urgent unless it was leading somewhere interesting.
“There was a Garmman trader in the same airspace, and given they were crippled, the Krik crash-landed into the trader's launch bay. By the time we got there ourselves, they'd ditched their ship and had stolen the trader's emergency pod.”
Hal leaned back in his chair. “The thing is, when we approached the Garmman trader, our bio scanner started to ping.”
“Ping?” Hoke sat up straight. “Since when does it ping?”
“Since Rose McKenzie's bio signature was loaded into the system.”
Hoke stood in agitation, and for a moment Hal could only see her waist and the butt of her shockgun before she forced herself to sit again.
“Vakeri, you had better spell out what you found in that Garmman trader.”
“I found another woman from Earth,” Hal told her.
Hoke stared at him, hand curled into a fist on the table in front of her. “And I thought,” she said, “that one was enough.”
6
Rose McKenzie.
Fee reach
ed out and held onto the examination table.
So that's where she'd disappeared to.
Space.
All the searches, all the public appeals for information——for nothing.
Just like what was most likely happening for her.
Tears welled up in her eyes, and began to drip down her cheeks.
She'd buried thoughts of her family, how they'd be worrying, as deep as she could, but now, thinking about Rose, and the media storm around her disappearance, Fee suddenly acknowledged her parents were going through hell.
“Did you meet Rose in the Class 5?” Jasa had grabbed a handheld when Fee had said she knew Rose McKenzie, but started at the sight of her tears when she looked up from her furious tapping.
Fee shook her head. “I don't know what a Class 5 is.” She was proud of herself for keeping her voice steady. “I've never met Rose personally. She was on holiday near where I live and she disappeared. I'd have had to live under a rock not to have heard her name.”
“You were taken from the same place?” Jasa's fingers were just about drilling through the handheldʼs screen.
“The same general area.” She didn't remember anything about being taken. Except feathers. The feel of feathers against her skin.
She lifted a hand to her throat, trying to fight back the nausea.
“Get on the table, Fiona. You look like you're going to pass out.” Jasa kept hold of her handheld and pulled a slim silver wand, a larger version of the one Rial had used on her earlier, out of a drawer. “Do you want to tell me why you're so upset?”
Fee struggled to get onto the table, obviously created for people taller than herself, and Jasa hovered her instrument over Fee's hip.
“I'm upset because Rose's family were devastated by her disappearance, and I've been trying not to think about it, but I know my family is in the same kind of pain now, too. We both will never be found.”
Jasa caught her eye. “I don't know what to say to that, other than it should never have happened.”
Dark Deeds (Class 5 Series Book 2) Page 4
