Ramsey grunted his agreement then surveyed their faces. “Rickard, you and Tok hold the entrance to the lab until we can clear. Then the five of us will rendezvous with the transport vehicle.” Ram’s gaze swung to Tok.
The behemoth shook his head and his low rumble filled the tense silence. “I report to GAPS, not the League of Federated Planets. I have my own ship and crew, Verdantian. They wait on my signal to pick me up.” Ramsey held Tok’s gaze steadily. “With the destruction the LFP plan to rain down on Narr, it will be easy for me to slip away in the confusion. I’ll not be joining you on the LFP ship.”
Ramsey shrugged. “As you wish. Rickard, how much time will you need to get us into the lab?”
Steffania rubbed her forehead. “Without opposition...probably thirty-five, forty minutes. But, as soon as their system goes down, Narr’s thugs will come running.” She raised her gaze to Ram. “Don’t forget about the lock-down doors around the ‘quiet room’. Narr can seal that lab off and flood it with dormirse gas. You and everyone inside will be unconscious in seconds.”
Ramsey nodded. “Yeah. I hadn’t forgotten. The trick will be getting out again. We will need to exit the same way we came in. It’s by far the fastest route to the pick up point. We can go out the security door at the other end of the hall but it will add several minutes to our exit time.” Ram shrugged and looked at Tok.
“I think everyone will be dead by then.” Tok grinned at Ram’s grim expression. “Merely target practice for Khlossians, Verdantian.”
Ramsey bent his head over the physical map of the grounds that Tok had furnished. Steffania joined him, staring down at the chart spread on the bed.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all,” he growled. His finger circled an expanse of solid green separating the southwestern lawn and the possible rendezvous point. “Too much of this area is exposed. We cross at least one hundred feet with not even a bush for cover.”
“There’s no help for it, DeKieran. The pilot of the transport needs that much clearance to land.” Steffania held Ram’s glance steadily. “You’ve gotten out of worse.”
Yes, he had, but back then, he didn’t care if he survived, much less those around him. Now, with the exception of himself, he cared about all of them – too much. “Yeah.” Ram just left it at that. How he felt about the situation didn’t matter a rodent’s whisker. It is what it is.
Tok’s voice interrupted his morbid thoughts. “So by my count, we have ninety minutes to extract DeAlbero and get her to the transport.” Tok caught Ramsey’s gaze and Ram nodded.
“Sounds right.” Ram looked at his watch. “It’s now fifteen hundred hours. We begin at eighteen-thirty hours.”
Pansy looked perplexed and Steffania whispered in her ear, “Six and one-half of-the-clock.”
Ramsey turned and surveyed all of them in silence. “We have three and a half hours to fill. I suggest we run over this a few more times.”
“Ah, sorry.” Tok’s grating voice filled in after Ramsey. “You and I have somewhere to be.”
“How’s that?”
“Tonight is the big reception and dinner given to honor me as champion of the XIV Dominion Games. I can’t miss it.” Tok grinned widely. “That means you cannot miss it, either. The women can stay here.”
Ramsey shook his head. “No. I’m not going.”
Tok playfully punched Ram’s arm, and he staggered back two steps. “It’s free food and drink, Verdantian. You’ll enjoy it. Besides…” Tok winked. “We won’t be staying long.”
* * *
The hustle in the huge banquet hall buzzed around Veacon Narr but he remained oblivious. His discussion with Strom Kella and Vittal Lontz tested his temper, though he revealed nothing and conversed in his normal, congenial baritone.
“So, you are certain there were upper-atmospheric communications originating from my residence this morning, but you don’t know who transmitted and you don’t know what was said?” Narr smiled and nodded at the diplomats who crossed the large hall a few feet from the trio.
Lontz addressed him in a low undertone. “My men said the origination point kept shifting. Every time security pinned it down and mobilized, it moved. And whoever was sending that signal used an audio warbler to garble the transmission. But it was the Verdantian, Dominus Narr. I am certain of it.”
“Sure enough to bet your life on it? Explain how the man could be two places at once. All three of us stood here and watched him truss that flame-haired slaaf six ways to Triton. One of the better shows I’ve seen lately, by the way. I thought he’d take her there on the floor. Besides, you said you removed his electronic devices.”
Kella’s arrogant tones interrupted. “It was the Verdantian. Someone helps him.”
Narr swung a frigid look to the Enforcer. “Who? The tiny slaaf you are so anxious to seize? You expect me to believe that a female would have the intelligence to elude us? One whose mind was wiped so thoroughly she barely remembers how to clean herself?”
Lontz interceded. “Dominus Narr, I have always questioned how much of her mental loss was real and how much was faked. She was seen in the halls surrounding the guest quarters. Our champion, the Khlossian, accompanied her.”
Narr rolled his eyes and sarcasm dripped from his voice. “Wonderful. You suggest a mind-wiped slaaf and a behemoth whose intelligence reaches to attain the level of a Kretonas pit-slug set up a sophisticated audio transmission and jamming device while eluding detection by my select security forces. These are the critical threats to my security?” He shook his head in disgust. “Fine. Take out the Verdantian when he leaves the banquet.” Narr caught and held Kella’s gaze. “He is to disappear. Understand me? No traces. None. Or you will disappear with him, Enforcer.”
Narr almost laughed at the frozen rigidity of Strom Kella. He supposed the slight jerk of the man’s head was an affirmative. Self-important prick. Still, the man was useful. Narr sighed. “I want that red-haired female. Kill DeKieran, but I want his slaaf. Are we understood?”
Narr turned on his heels and joined a group of dignitaries without waiting for a further response.
* * *
Ram brought his goblet to his lips and sipped, marking time. Dignitaries approached him but the hostility he radiated turned them around quickly and he continued to slouch against a wall in the banquet hall unmolested. A few feet away, Tok interacted jovially with the beings attending the banquet, his loud, grinding voice easily heard over the hum of conversation. He’s playing the dumb alien, and they’re buying the act. Ram rolled his eyes and straightened. He turned his wrist to check the hour and caught Tok’s glance with a significant nod of his head. Showtime.
Ram put his goblet on a low occasional table and began to make his way out of the hall. Tok would follow a few minutes later and join him at a preset meeting point. Once clear of the assembly, Ram moved rapidly through Narr’s residence, slipping in and out of corridors where Steffania had blinded the security vids and jammed open access doors. He was close to the rendezvous point when a slight crackle of sound sent a warning crawl up his spine and he slipped behind a wide, square column and flattened himself. His sense of hearing attuned to the slightest sound, he heard it again – the distinctive, snapping hum of a stim-whip. Strom Kella. The Enforcer’s raised voice carried well. “I know you are here, DeKieran.”
So as not to draw unwanted questions, both he and Tok had attended the banquet unarmed. They had cached their weapons in the next hallway, their meeting point. Ram eyed the door at the end of the corridor and weighed his chances if he ran for it. Not good, and Steffania and Pansy are beyond those doors. Tok couldn’t be too far behind him. Perhaps he could stall Kella until Tok made the odds more favorable. Whatever happened, Ram couldn’t afford to be incapacitated. He had to stay away from that whip. He cursed fluently under his breath, then stepped out from behind the pillar. “Looking for me?”
The blond Vxloncian smiled and opened his right arm, freeing the stim-whip to drape on the ground at his
feet. A small snap of his wrist and the whip’s lash could be air borne, and the asshole had activated the entire length of the lash. The pulsing hum echoed off the stone walls and floor – the promise of excruciating pain. “I am going to enjoy hurting you, Verdantian. And then I am going to enjoy killing you.”
The arrogant fool wanted to whip him first? When Kella had a perfectly good side arm in his thigh holster? Ramsey couldn’t believe the man’s stupidity. Ramsey shrugged and opened his arms. “Knock yourself out.”
As the Vxloncian raised his whip hand, Tok rounded the corner. Kella took his eyes off Ramsey for a split second. It was all Ram needed. He launched himself at Kella’s ankles and upended the man. Ram watched in grim satisfaction as the Enforcer’s whip grazed his own wrist. Kella screamed in agony and flung the whip through the air. It landed down the hallway, jumping and crackling with energy.
The stone floor vibrated as Tok thundered ponderously toward the prone men. Ramsey scrambled toward the stim whip while Kella fumbled awkwardly to free his handgun. Snatching the whip from the floor, Ramsey turned and released its lash at the moment the Enforcer aimed his handgun at Tok’s chest. A blast of pulsar light sent the corner of a stone column crashing to the floor as Kella’s aim was disrupted by the pulsing stim-whip now wrapped in multiple coils around his bare neck. He fell backward onto the stone floor, jerking and twitching convulsively. Strangled grunts and squeals of agony spewed from his gaping mouth.
Ramsey walked over to the spasming, writhing body of Strom Kella and kicked his gun toward Tok. The behemoth leaned down to pick it up and joined Ramsey. Both men stood and watched as Kella’s body tattooed the stone with herky-jerky slams and contortions. Tok dangled the handgun between two enormous fingers.
“I cannot use this, Verdantian. My fingers don’t fit through the trigger guard.”
Ram took the gun from Tok and gazed down at the Vxloncian enforcer. He dialed a lower intensity, took careful aim and a dark hole appeared in Kella’s temple. His breathing stopped and his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling and still his body continued with the odd twitch and flop as though some unseen puppet master jerked the strings of a ruined marionette. Both of them watched as Kella’s convulsive writhing slowed to occasional, reflexive spasms when the stim-whip activated his nerves.
Ram kept his eyes forward as he and Tok turned and jogged down the hallway toward their rendezvous point. “I enjoyed that.”
Tok just grunted.
Chapter Eighteen
Steffania breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Ramsey and Tok round the corner. As they assembled their weapons and donned their armor, she kept careful watch on the corridors. “Any problems?”
Ramsey replied in an offhanded manner. “Kella tried to kill me.” He caught her sharp glance and shrugged. “He’s dead.”
It was all she could do not to fly to him and run her hands over his tight body to make sure he was whole, unharmed. She ground her teeth together instead and tried to quell the sick fear that flooded her.
Tok produced a sound that passed for a chuckle. “Died with his own whip wrapped around his neck.”
Pansy spat a fervent, “Good. I am glad you killed him, Dominus.”
Ramsey looked at Steffania with a questioning arch of his eyebrow. “Ready?”
She nodded.
For the next forty-five minutes, Steffania worked feverishly to override Narr’s security system, corridor by corridor, in clear view of whomever should glance down the hallway. With Pansy holding the UniLinc 4.5 open, Ramsey and Tok stood, guns in hand, covering each approach. It wasn’t until the final level that they ran into trouble with Narr’s security forces.
A blast zinged by her and scorched the panel that hung open. The hallway filled with smoke and the smell of singed metal. A second blast seared a blaze of white heat across her upper arm. She bit back a cry of pain. Ramsey swore and ran to the end of the hallway, sighted down his 88K and fired a continuous discharge of energy. A masculine gargle and a solid thump rewarded his efforts. A pair of boots slid into view, the toes pointing toward the ceiling.
“Now it begins, Verdantian.” Tok raised his over-sized weapon and gestured toward Steffania. “Your woman is bleeding.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine. It’s just a graze. Make sure they don’t hit Pansy and the UniLinc. Lose that and we’re screwed.” As Steffania spoke, the panel’s glow flipped abruptly from red to green and the beeping silenced. “Okay. We’re through. Next stop, ‘quiet room’. How are we doing for time?”
Tok turned his wrist and checked his time-piece. “We are behind a few minutes. Kella died too slowly.”
“My life’s in your hands, boys. Shoot straight.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
Steffania laughed grimly at Ram’s snarled response. They had reached the narrow hallway outside the ‘quiet room’ and the exchange of small arms’ fire now seemed continuous. Tok and Ramsey responded with deadly accuracy, steady and unruffled. That didn’t surprise Steffania but Pansy shocked the socks off her. The little slaaf held Steffania’s UniLinc with a cool competence she had shown no evidence of until this moment.
“Pansy, what was your specialty as a medicus?” Steffania threw the question at Pansy as she frantically worked the holographic screen on the panel controlling the door to the ‘quiet room’.
“I worked in brain trauma, neuro-critical care.”
“Steady nerves required?”
“Hmm, yes. But what you are seeing now is the result of a little self-hypnosis. Please do not misunderstand. I am terrified.”
“Well, whatever you’re doing to quiet your nerves, I’m impressed. Got it!” The door to the ‘quiet room’ opened with a subtle click. A few more flurries of her fingers and she disabled the intruder alarm. “DeKieran, you and Pansy have eight minutes. Go! Go! Go!”
Steffania took up a position beside Tok and began a pattern of return fire.
~ ~ ~
Ramsey moved to the petite slaaf. “Ready? We don’t have much time.”
Taking a deep breath, Pansy nodded. “I’m ready, Dominus.”
“Okay. Stay behind me.”
He cautiously pushed the door open. Nothing moved. Nothing challenged them. Shielding Pansy with his body, Ramsey entered the white-tiled room and scanned in a 360-degree sweep over the top of his 88K. Except for the soft chirp of monitors, silence blanketed the room. He turned to Pansy.
“Do you remember what Alessa DeAlbero looks like?”
The delicate woman nodded.
“All right. You start at that end and I’ll start at this end. Now what do I do?”
“Press and hold the square white button until you hear the clamshell unlock. Then you can raise the lid to identify her. Do nothing yourself. Call me. I will need to check and see where in the cerebral programming she is. That will determine how quickly we can remove her.”
“Will she be conscious? Will she be able to walk?”
“I doubt it. We will have to see.”
Ramsey spared a glance at his timepiece. “Pray we find her quickly.”
Ram had worked through one-half of the first row when Pansy cried out. He ran to where she stood looking down at the body occupying one of the CP beds. He took one glance and understood. Instead of a woman, this unit held a man.
Ram closed the top and patted her on the shoulder. “That may be Tok’s undercover agent, but we haven’t time to spare for two victims. Keep looking for Alessa. Four minutes.”
Her eyes flared wide with alarm and she hurried to the next clamshell. Ramsey returned to where he had left off. Two units later, he opened a lid and yelled for Pansy. “Get over here. I found her.” Damn this was going to be close. As Pansy’s hands flew to the monitors and began to disconnect the leads on Alessa’s body, Steffania stuck her head around the doorframe.
“DeKieran, the LFP transport is here. I hear the ship’s Sig-38’s returning fire. We have less than fifteen minutes. It will take all of that to make it to the southweste
rn lawn.”
She disappeared again and Ram heard more shouting and the zwing, zwing, zwing of 88K’s from the hallway. So much for having them all dead.
Finally, Pansy gave him the all clear to lift Alessa from the CP bed. “I’ve stopped the program, Dominus. I don’t think there has been any damage to her mind, but she will not regain consciousness for several hours.”
Ramsey hoisted the woman’s dead weight over his shoulder with a curse. It would have been nice if DeAlbero had been Pansy’s size instead of the tall, statuesque beauty more common on Verdantia. He could carry her, but he wouldn’t be able to fight. “You’ll have to cover me if we meet someone before we catch up with the others.” Ram stepped into the hallway and immediately jerked back into the ‘quiet room’ as a bolt of laser fire screamed past. Steffania and Tok fell through the entry seconds later.
“Damn those sons of bitches!” Steffania leaned around the door and fired several volleys toward the end of the hallway. “They have us pinned down unless I can open that far security door at the other end of the hall.” Her eyes held Ram’s.
“Three of those CP units would provide enough cover to buy a few minutes,” Ram said.
Tok grunted. “Little female, can you disconnect these machines? We don’t have time to take the women out.” He shrugged. “I hope they will be safe, but it can’t be helped.”
Pansy whirled around to disconnect the three closest units with rapid efficiency. Ram shouldered Alessa a little higher and addressed Tok as Steffania kept up a steady return fire. “I believe we found your operative. Check the CP bed second to last on the furthest row.”
Tok lumbered over and hit the lid release. “Yes. That’s him.” He slowly closed the top and rejoined them. “I want Narr, Verdantian.”
Ramsey nodded. “All yours. Make him suffer.”
Tok grinned and for once, he didn’t look friendly. “He will.”
“Steffania, as soon as I tell you ‘clear’, get your ass out here and go to work.” Ramsey waited for her to withdraw from the doorway and they wrestled the large units out into the hallway.
Hers To Cherish (Verdantia Book 3) Page 18
