Rystani Warrior 04 - The Quest

by Susan Kearney

  Angel pulled the woman and crying child with her toward a closet while instructing the husband, “Tell anyone who asks that we ran through the store and you want to know who is going to pay for the damage. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do as she says, and your wife and child will come to no harm,” Kirek’s tone was kind.

  Angel glared. “One wrong word and I’ll roast them both. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  Kirek didn’t approve of Angel’s tactics. The man shook so hard, Kirek doubted he could stammer a cohesive sentence. The woman kept screaming, and the kid cried, too.

  Angel dragged them into the closet. “Shut up, lady. Keep the kid quiet or I’ll stun you both.”

  Boots outside skidded to a halt. Rough voices shouted. “They blasted through this wall. Kicked open that door. Let’s go.”

  Heart pounding, Kirek hid behind a pallet of crates. He didn’t like putting an innocent family in danger, and yet he understood that during war, civilians often got hurt. Reminding himself that the Zin had killed billions of beings on Zenon didn’t make it right for them to terrorize this family … and yet, if they didn’t survive to confront the Zin, the fate of the galaxy could be at stake.

  However, the terror in the mother’s eyes stabbed him with guilt. While Angel wouldn’t hurt the mother or the baby, she’d played her part well, looking fierce and angry and desperate.

  She’d been right to use force. They hadn’t had the luxury of time to bribe them or better yet, to convince the family to help. However, if the ruse worked, Kirek suspected the trauma of having their home invaded might cause years of nightmares.

  The woman quieted, and the child’s screams softened to muffled cries. Was the mother holding her hand over the little boy’s mouth?

  Kirek shut out his concerns and focused on the father and husband. Angrily, the shopkeeper brushed a stray tear from his eye then faced the broken door with squared shoulders. Several botcops and Kraj kicked down the broken door and entered the back room. Kirek wondered how they’d come to be working together.

  “Bless the stars, you have arrived,” the man cried out, his voice wracked with terror. He pointed to the front of his establishment. “Go quick. Catch them. I want them to pay for the damage.”

  The botcops zoomed out the front. Several Kraj followed, but one stayed behind. “Once they left out the front, which way did they go?”

  The man wrung his hands. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I hid behind the counter so they wouldn’t shoot me.”

  “Are you very certain you didn’t see them leave?” the Kraj demanded.

  “I was hiding.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I want access to your vidrecorder.” A replay of the vidrecorder would show that Kirek and Angel had never fled out the front. It might even reveal where they now hid.

  Kirek had to give the man credit. He tried to come up with a convincing lie. “I’m a poor man. The vidrecorder is … broken.”

  The Kraj raised his gun to the store owner’s head. “You are lying.”

  Kirek couldn’t let the man die. He had no choice. He stunned the Kraj in the back.

  Angel burst out of the closet, pushing the woman who was still holding the child toward her husband. Angel frowned at the downed-but-still-breathing Kraj. “You didn’t kill the Kraj?”

  “Why?” Kirek didn’t like killing, but he hated admitting it since his morals contradicted his Rystani warrior culture. “The Kraj is probably just a soldier following orders. He may have a wife, kids, parents.”

  Angel eyed him as if he’d lost his mind. “Leaving him behind will cause problems.”

  “We won’t be here.”

  “What about them?” She glanced at the family, hugging in a tearful reunion. “We need to ruin their vidrecorder or when the Kraj recovers, he might punish them—even if they didn’t want to help us.”

  The man pointed to a lens cover. “It’s there.”

  Angel zapped it. “That should protect you. And I really am sorry for the trouble we’ve caused.”

  Kirek made a mental note of the man’s name on the store license. “You will soon find a large deposit has been added to your credit account at the local bank. Now, do you have a skimmer?”

  The man pointed to the roof.

  STUNNER IN HAND, Angel sprinted up the stairs to the roof. With their psi at diminished capacity, she used muscle-power to race to the skimmer. At least everyone, including their pursuers, seemed to be equally affected. Kirek had taken the lead, and his longer legs took the stairs four or five at a time, but he stayed protectively close.

  He’d already surprised her twice today. Once when he’d stunned the Kraj instead of killing him. The second time when he hadn’t tried to admonish her about the tactics she’d used on the family. Although they’d had little choice, she’d seen disapproval in his eyes. She’d expected him to criticize her, but he hadn’t.

  So when he took the pilot’s seat and handed her his weapon to cover them if necessary, she didn’t suggest that they should switch places. However, once he lifted off at a cautious speed, she wondered if she’d made a mistake.

  “This skimmer can make it to the Raven’s docking bay in less than five minutes if you’d—”

  “I don’t want to draw attention to us. And I’m certainly not going to flee straight to the ship.”

  “So where are we heading?”

  “You’re in the navigator’s seat,” he teased.

  Below them, the Kraj and botcops had established a perimeter. They were busy doing a door-to-door search and rounding up the populace. Hopefully, by the time they thought to check the skimmers, they would be long gone.

  Kirek was right. Merging with the regular traffic patterns would lose their pursuers better than a frantic flight.

  She turned on the nav controls and pulled up a map of Dakmar. “I never use a skimmer while I’m here.”

  “You don’t like turning the flying over to a bot or taxi driver?”

  Sometimes he knew her better than she knew herself. She really didn’t like being a passenger. She hunched over the map. “I’m searching for a popular place to set down, one that won’t be too far from public transportation back to the Raven.”

  “We can’t return to the ship yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, it’s not ready. Second, I need to find a reader”—he reached into his suit—“for this disk.”

  She took the disk and glanced at the strange shape. Unlike most Federation disks, which were round, the disk was an oval. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I took it from Vee after he died. I’m hoping the disk contains the coordinates we need.”

  She handed the disk back to him. “If it doesn’t?”

  “We’ll have to backtrack to Vee’s contacts, friends, and family. Since I don’t know what planet he’s from, it’s not going to be easy.”

  “It could take months …” Angel kept her most negative thoughts to herself. The Zin could wipe out another Federation planet any time they fired up the next wormhole and ignited another planetary core. Shoving the pessimistic reflections to the back of her mind, she perused the map. “What about setting down by the public library? It’s not far from the Raven, public sidewalks could take us there in minutes, and maybe a research specialist can help us with the disk.”

  He turned the skimmer in a broad, even sweep. “Good idea. What are the exact coordinates?”

  She punched them into the nav system then peered behind them. “I don’t see any sign of pursuit.” She flicked on Dakmar’s only radio station, but when screeching techno music hurt her ears, she snapped it off.

  Kirek landed in a public parking area, erased their flight information, and then set the control to automatically return the skimmer to its owner. They exited the skimmer, and she led the way toward th
e library.

  “Some park,” she muttered. “There’s not one green plant to be seen.” Instead of the greenery she’d expected, she steered past kids playing bots and robbers amid a bunch of stacked shipping crates. They had no difficulty finding the library. The huge building had a sign over it stating visiting hours and warning patrons not to bring weapons inside or to cause a disturbance.

  Angel made certain her weapons weren’t in sight and noted Kirek doing the same. Just as they reached the double front doors with a skimmer-load of joking and shoving students, a formation of skimmers landed with precision in the park. She stepped into the building, her gaze focused over her shoulder at the official-looking skimmer. Botcops and Kraj emerged.

  Kirek kept his voice low. “It didn’t take them long to find us.”

  “Our skimmer may have had an anti-theft tracker on board.”

  Swept forward with the group of chattering students, Angel searched for the research desk. Or a computer vidscreen. But the enormous entryway was packed with children. Little ones holding their mothers’ hands. Older ones that chased one another and pulled each other’s hair and pushed. Teens wearing day-glow colors and too much eye makeup.

  Angel stopped to ask a question of an adult, but Kirek grabbed her hand and tugged her forward. “Don’t stop. Don’t look back.”

  Angel did as Kirek requested, but she braced against the stunner blast that would take her out. Luckily the crowds of children and teens hid her. Beside her Kirek had folded himself over, bending his knees and hunching his back to hide his height.

  Around them the children shouted, played ear-splitting music, told jokes, trampled on one another, and acted oblivious to their presence. Angel told herself she should be grateful, but she didn’t like crowds. Or children. The creatures were always whining, their noses running, demanding attention and crying.

  They blended into a group of teens that flowed down a hallway. Bells rang. The students emptied from the hallways through doorways. Kirek opened a storeroom door and pulled her inside. The room was filled with balls, bats, nets, and assorted sports toys.

  “What kind of library is this?” she asked, frowning at the equipment in the tiny room. “I haven’t seen one vidscreen.”

  “I suspect this isn’t a library anymore.”

  “But the map—”

  “Was outdated. This is a school.”

  “We need to get out of here.”

  Kirek shook his head. “I don’t like using the kids to hide us, either. But no matter how badly the Kraj want us, the botcops won’t let the Kraj endanger children.”

  She gaped at him. Of all the places to hide out, a school had to be at the bottom of her list. “We can’t blend in here.”

  “Why not?” Kirek’s gazed searched hers as if she was being unreasonable.

  “Because … the school is full of kids. We obviously aren’t children.” She tried to give him a logical reason, but in truth, she was too unnerved by the rowdy screaming and yelling coming through the walls. Her pounding brain wasn’t functioning properly, and her headache seemed worse.

  Kirek remained patient. “The school is also full of adult teachers and caretakers.” He plucked identification tags off two jackets hanging on hooks on the back of the door and handed her a badge. “There’s no reason we can’t impersonate substitute or guest teachers.”

  “You want to stay here?” She struggled to keep her voice calm.

  “The school is so large that I’m betting administration can’t keep up with substitute employees.”

  “But … I don’t know anything about kids,” she admitted.

  “Think of them as smaller versions of yourself. They like to talk and laugh and—”

  “This is a bad idea.” She’d rather face half a dozen Kraj than spend time with a bunch of kids.

  Before Kirek could say more, the door opened. Angel aimed her stunner.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE BOY COMING through the storage closet door could have been anywhere between eight and eleven Federation years old. With big brown eyes, curly hair the color of sand, and freckles across the bridge of his nose, he was in a gangly awkward stage. He took one look at Angel’s blaster pointed at him, turned white, and opened his mouth to scream.

  “Put away the stunner,” Kirek snapped. Then he turned to the kid with a friendly smile. “She’s just practicing the self-defense moves we’re going to teach your class.”

  “She is? You are?” The kid looked from Kirek to Angel, who holstered her stunner, and then back to Kirek, suspicion in his eyes. “But Ma’am Holly, our teacher, told me to come here for catch and bats.” He gestured to long sticks with netting attached.

  “She probably didn’t get the admin notice. But we’ve been on the schedule since the semester started,” Kirek improvised. “I’m Kirek and this is Angel. What’s your name?”

  “Hax.”

  She wondered if it was foolish to use their real names, but it was too late now. If Kirek wanted to go teach a bunch of kids self-defense to blend in until the Kraj left, he’d best not include her. Perhaps because she’d never had the opportunity to play with other children or perhaps because she simply wasn’t wired with a nurturing gene, children always made her uncomfortable. She really didn’t understand why people wanted to perpetuate the species. Parents spent the first months listening to the kids cry then had to answer a million questions as they grew up. As teens, they ate too much and rebelled and mostly ended up hating their parents. Really, she just didn’t see the point. The idea of spending the next few hours with an entire class of kids made her skin crawl.

  Hax gave Kirek a lopsided grin. He grabbed the equipment he’d come for and shoved open the door. “Guess I’ll take you to Ma’am Holly. Will you really show us how to fight?”

  Kirek slung a hand comfortably on the boy’s shoulder. “Every being should know how to defend themselves.”

  “Not Kel, she’s my twin and meaner than spit.”

  Kirek winked at Hax as if they were old friends. “We don’t have to teach Kel all the self-defense moves. We’ll keep some for just us men.”

  “Oh, really?” Angel trailed the corridor, keeping her eyes peeled for botcops and Kraj. “Seems to me in this universe females have just as much need for defensive skills.”

  Over Hax’s head, Kirek frowned. No doubt he didn’t want her interfering with the male bonding. She snapped her mouth shut, vowing not to say another word.

  “Kel’s mean. She bites and pinches and spies on me,” Hax complained. “But I’m not allowed to hit her—because she’s my sister.”

  “I can see where that would be a problem.” Kirek spoke to the kid so easily, replying as if Hax’s childish concerns were important. “Maybe we can find a way for you to defend yourself without causing her any injury.”

  Hax grinned, revealing a missing tooth. “That would be impressive.”

  They strolled down an empty corridor, passing classes filled with noisy children. Angel didn’t know how they could learn anything with all the commotion around them. Teachers looked up as they passed, but no one stepped into the hall to question their presence.

  They rounded a corner, and Hax picked up the pace. He appeared quite eager to introduce them to his teacher. Of all the contingencies she’d planned for during this op, ending up in a school with a bunch of kids hadn’t been one of them.

  She glanced at Kirek who appeared relaxed, at ease, and to be thoroughly enjoying himself. It figured. He’d grown up in a loving family. He’d probably been the teacher’s star pupil and had had a wonderful childhood.

  Angel’s own schooling had been hit-and-miss. Her mother had gotten sick when she’d entered primary school. Someone had to stay home and care for her, and often that job had fallen to Angel. Sometimes her aunt or her mother’s cousin would come over and then her mother would insist Angel attend school. But she’d always been the outsider, often skipping classes, and never spending enough time in one classroom to make real friends.<
br />
  Most of Angel’s education had been acquired at home on an old computer. She’d been an avid reader and had adored stories about space, aliens, and new worlds. Even back then, exploring the unknown and seeing new sights and cultures had called to her. To escape from the sickness and smelly medicines at home along with the dreary job of being her mother’s caretaker, she’d dreamed of adventure.

  She expected Hax to lead them into one of the classrooms, but he opened the door to a giant gymnasium filled with not just thirty students, but maybe a hundred. The noise level was deafening, and Angel’s temples pounded. Kids ran around yelling and shouting, totally out of control of Ma’am Holly, a tiny woman with a pinched face who was blowing a whistle, trying and failing to get the kids’ attention.

  Angel would have liked to use her suit to lower the noise level, but if the Kraj suddenly arrived, impaired hearing might hurt their chances of escaping. So she put up with the irritation, all the while wishing to be back on the Raven’s quiet bridge.

  Hax wriggled past some kids, jumped over a bot, and ducked past a group of boys playing tag and using their suits and the wall like a trampoline to boost their speed. Kirek and Angel did their best to follow Hax through the chaos.

  Kirek stepped forward and introduced them to the teacher. “Ma’am Holly, I’m Kirek and this is Angel. We’re scheduled to teach a self-defense class.”

  Angel shook her head at him when he again used their real names but then supposed it didn’t matter. If the Kraj came, they’d recognize and shoot them on sight.

  “The class is all yours.” Ma’am Holly handed him her whistle, took a seat under a hooped net, pulled out yarn and a device that twisted the yarn into tiny squares, and proceeded with her crafting.

  Angel’s jaw almost hit the floor. The woman hadn’t even questioned their authority. Amazing. Then again, she was probably so happy not to have to deal with the out-of-control kids that she didn’t think of questioning her good luck.