“No, you wouldn’t, Protectorate,” Jahelia said with a sidelong glance at me. “You’d still be leaving the rest of his crew in danger. That would go against your sense of honour and duty.”
“What do you know about my sense of honour and duty?”
“Enough. I was in the Protectorate akademio for three years, remember,” she said. “You lasted long enough to make Admiral. You’re either completely corrupt and bought your way to the top, or you have a highly-developed sense of honour and duty. I’m betting it’s the second one.”
“I’m that transparent?”
“No,” she grinned. “But I know your sister.”
I’d have to remember to tell Luta that Jahelia Sord had given her a compliment. Even if it was sort of a backhanded one.
I wished I could figure out Mauronet’s end game—what was his plan? If he reached the shuttle, or even made it back to the Dorland, what then? He couldn’t get back to Nearspace on his own. Once the base went up, he’d have destroyed some of the best evidence we had concerning PrimeCorp’s involvement with the Chron, and the ship had posed no danger to anyone. He had Sedmamin—as a hostage? But he’d collaborated with the ex-Chairman, so where did that get him? I shook my head. Maybe he was just beyond the point of thinking straight. Ultimately, none of that was my problem. I was bound by duty to apprehend him if I could and take him back to Nearspace, for judgement and treatment.
“He’s slowing down,” Jahelia said.
She was right. He hadn’t reached the shuttle yet, but the dust kicking up behind Mauronet’s vehicle had lessened. We were now closing on him rather than just keeping pace.
Jahelia adjusted the plasma rifle on her lap.
“We’re not going to shoot him,” I told her again.
“You’re not going to shoot him,” she corrected me, “and I’m not going to shoot him unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“In self-defence,” I clarified.
“In self-defence or other extenuating circumstances.”
I shook my head. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Thank you.”
I slowed the groundcar, because the vehicle ahead had stopped. Mauronet climbed out and stood beyond it. The technician emerged from the rear seat and slowly backed away from the vehicle with his hands in the air. Mauronet paid no attention to him. Sedmamin opened his door but remained inside. Maybe Mauronet had told him to stay there, or maybe Sedmamin was refusing to get out. Mauronet must imagine this as his last stand. He had a weapon in his hand.
I slowed and stopped as well, turning the groundcar sideways to Mauronet. Jahelia and I scrambled out on the opposite side from him and peered over the top. “Admiral, we need to talk,” I called.
“I don’t talk to traitors!” Mauronet returned. “You would have left that ship there for your pals at PrimeCorp to keep mining for tech to sell to our enemies!”
“Tech that came from those same enemies,” I muttered. “Hundred-year-old tech. I don’t think they’re interested.”
“Just tell him he has to make it back to Nearspace and then he can testify all about it,” Jahelia said. “He’s itching to tell his story, you can see that. So, promise him someone to listen.”
Worth a try. “Admiral, just let Sedmamin go and come with me. We’ll get back to Nearspace, and you can make a full report.”
He laughed, and even at this distance the bitterness was clear. “Oh, yes. I’m sure Fleet Commander Holles will give me her full attention.”
Mauronet wasn’t looking his way, and I saw Sedmamin slide out of his door and crouch next to the vehicle. I tried to keep Mauronet from noticing.
“It doesn’t have to be Holles. I give you my word you can speak to anyone you choose in Fleet Command. Now, your crew is waiting for you on the ship. You’re not going to let them down, are you?”
He was quiet for a moment, and I thought I’d gotten somewhere. A shadow passed over us, and I looked up to see the Tane Ikai high above. Mauronet must have seen it, too, and he answered me with a burst of energy weapon fire that crackled against the side of the groundcar. Jahelia and I both ducked down behind the car and looked at each other. I put a hand on her arm.
“Not yet. Let me talk to him again.”
“Self-defence,” she said. “I was wrong. He’s not listening. He’s not going to listen.”
“I don’t want to have to explain why we had to kill him.”
She gave me a pitying look. “I’m not going to kill him. When did I ever say that?”
I looked pointedly down at the plasma rifle. “It’s not exactly a precision weapon.”
“That all depends on how you use it,” she said. “Like so many things.” And then Jahelia Sord frowned, leaned in, and very unexpectedly, very decidedly, kissed me.
IT WAS ONE of the most amazing, surprising, absolutely wonderful things that has ever happened to me. And I’ve had a pretty long life of surprising, amazing, and wonderful things. At first, I did nothing, could do nothing. Her lips were dusty and sweat-salty, demanding and sweet at the same time. As soon as I could think again, I kissed her back. On a dusty, empty planet, in an unknown system, hiding from a madman. We kissed, and I thought nothing would ever be the same.
And then she pulled away, stood up, and yelled, “Sedmamin, jump!” I saw him start and roll away from the groundcar. The technician, already a good distance away, dove for the ground. Mauronet saw motion and his head and weapon snapped toward Sedmamin. Without missing a beat, Jahelia aimed the plasma rifle and blasted the back end of Mauronet’s vehicle. It bucked, spun away from the impact, and knocked Mauronet off his feet. His weapon flared but then flew from his hand. Jahelia Sord was over the groundcar in a lithe leap and running toward Mauronet before he stopped bouncing. I was seconds behind her. By the time I’d scooped his weapon from the sand, she stood over the downed Admiral with a grin on her face and the plasma rifle pointed at his.
I stared down into the mad, angry eyes of Antar Mauronet. His right hand clenched and unclenched reflexively in the dirt. One of his legs twisted off at an unpleasant angle but he hadn’t seemed to notice yet. He was beaten. He knew it, and he didn’t like it.
“See?” Jahelia said reprovingly. “I told you I wasn’t going to kill him.”
And then the PrimeCorp base exploded.
Chapter 24 – Luta
No Plan Survives Contact with Reality
MORE THAN ANYTHING, I wanted to stand and watch Lanar and Jahelia Sord roar away after Sedmamin in the groundcar. I wanted to send protective thoughts to keep my brother safe in this crazy scenario. But I couldn’t. I turned and caught up the injured technician’s free arm, and Commander Yu and I scurried for the treeline. Yu called out to the others, ahead of us, to do the same. They straggled toward the scant cover the trees offered.
I tapped my implant. “Tane Ikai, can you hear me? We need immediate extraction. Baden? Yuskeya?”
“Captain!” Even over the faint and tinny reception of the implant the relief in Baden’s voice was evident. “You’re all right?”
“For the moment. The PrimeCorp base is set to explode or something. We’re moving away from it toward our original drop-off point. Come and get us!”
The only answer was silence for a moment, as Baden presumably digested this, or relayed it to the others. Finally, he said, “On our way. Explode or something? You don’t know?”
“Someone said ‘self-destruct’ and I didn’t stop to ask questions,” I said. “Sorry I can’t be more precise.”
“Forgiven. We were worried because we couldn’t contact you, so we’re not actually very far away. We’ve been skimming low, hunting for signal.”
I decided not to chastise anyone for not following my orders to stay well above the planet. This time it might turn out to have been a very lucky thing.
An ache between my shoulder blades signalled how tense I was, waiting for something to happen at the base behind us. The injured man’s weight wasn’t helping. I wondered how far from the
mountain Lanar and Jahelia were now, and what was happening with them. Maybe I should have stopped them from going off on their own. At that thought, I almost smiled. As if I could stop my headstrong brother, and Jahelia Sord, from doing anything.
Baden had been right; the ship hove into sight and settled between us and the ruins where we’d taken out the drones. Our group of stragglers rushed forward with renewed energy.
The door of cargo pod four opened for us, and there was Hirin, waiting to guide us in. He smiled in relief, and I felt a surge of guilt for making him worry about me. As we scrambled aboard, Hirin moved forward to take the weight of the injured man from me, and managed to give my shoulder a welcome back squeeze as he did so. I said urgently into my implant. “We’re in!” I hit the control next to the door to close it.
“Everyone aboard? We heading for orbit?” Rei’s voice was a little breathless, but steady.
“Not yet. Take us up five hundred metres!” I looked around the cargo pod, at the handful of Protectorate officers from the Dorland and the battered and stunned-looking technicians from the base. “We can’t leave. Lanar and Jahelia went after Mauronet. He set the base to destruct and took Sedmamin with him. Headed for their shuttle, I think.”
“Hold on,” Rei said over the ship’s comm, and I felt the engines rumble the floor of the cargo pod. Hirin and Yu lowered the injured tech to sit, leaning him back against the wall. He closed his eyes, pale and shaken, but I thought he’d be all right for a moment.
“We’re moving,” I shouted, so everyone could hear me. “I know there’s not much to hold on to, but try to brace yourselves in case it’s not a smooth lift off.” If the explosion came now, the shock wave could hit the ship hard.
There must not have been anyone in this segment of the Dorland’s crew with medical training; the man with the injured leg had received the barest of first aid. I spoke into my implant again as the Tane Ikai rumbled. “Yuskeya?”
“Here, Captain. I tried the Dorland, but no response.”
“All right. Please head down here with some emergency med supplies. I’m putting you in charge of anyone requiring medical attention.”
The ship lurched to the right and I knew Rei had engaged the thrusters. I stumbled but headed for the ladder leading to the catwalk that vaulted over the pod. From there I could climb up to the bridge level. I needed to see what was happening on the planet, and where Lanar and Jahelia might be.
Yu broke from the crowd and followed me. “Is there anything I can do to help, Captain?”
I shook my head. “You’re in charge of these officers, unless I’m mistaken,” I said, and I saw the realization hit him. He outranked the other members of the Dorland’s crew here. While Lanar was with us, Yu had naturally deferred to him, but now that situation had changed.
He straightened a bit. “That’s right, Captain. Thank you. I’ll stay here and see to my crew. All your help is greatly appreciated.”
“Commander Blue is on her way with med supplies,” I told them, one foot on the ladder. “I’m going up to the bridge to see if I can figure out what’s happening with Admiral Mauronet and Admiral Mahane.”
I began to climb. Hirin was right behind me. “What happened down there, Luta?”
“Mauronet’s lost it,” I said briefly over my shoulder. “Looks like he was the mole in the Protectorate, but now he feels like PrimeCorp’s betrayed him by dealing with the Chron.”
“He’s not wrong about that.”
“True enough. They had a Chron ship down there—an old one—and we think they’ve been cannibalizing it for tech for decades. Probably got them where they are today.”
“And he’s trying to blow it up?”
“Like I said, I don’t think he’s thinking straight anymore.”
When we gained the Engineering level, Viss called out to me. “Captain, we’re in good shape. The activator drive should function normally whenever you want to try that wormhole back to Nearspace.”
“Thanks for the update. I wonder if we could pull the Dorland through after us, the way the Chron ship did,” I said. I paused to hear Viss’s reply to that, but he apparently had no opinion on the question. Hirin said nothing, either. I resumed my climb.
Once we gained the top of the ladder, Hirin and I sprinted down the corridor to the bridge. “Report,” I said as I arrived, just a little out of breath from climbing and running.
I didn’t bother to sit in the command chair. I just wanted to know where Lanar was now, and I didn’t know how long I’d be staying.
“We’re steady at a height of five hundred metres,” Rei said. “Circling to come around and find our people.”
Baden said, “I’m tracking two vehicles on the planet surface, moving away from the base.”
“Show me.”
Baden pulled up images on the main viewscreen and a smaller one. The main screen showed the area around the mountain and the base. A short distance away—too short for my liking!—on the smaller screen, two green dots moved at speed in the same direction. The image resolved to show the two groundcars clearly.
“All right, what can we do to help bring this to a close?” I asked. “Ideas?”
“I assume shooting is out of the question,” Baden said with a straight face.
“Agreed.”
“I could bring us down somewhere in front of the lead vehicle,” Rei suggested, “but I couldn’t safely get very close, so he could just veer off and drive right around us.”
“We could set down between them and the base, take the brunt of the blast if it comes,” Maja said thoughtfully. “And we do have the activator drive, that shuts things down. Fire that in the direction of his vehicle and see what happens?”
I pursed my lips, considering. “But we’re not sure how long that takes to recharge, and we might want to open that wormhole quickly. Not worth the risk.”
“If they reach the Dorland’s shuttle, it’s going to get more complicated,” Hirin said. “The officers there don’t know what happened at the base.”
“And with Mauronet armed, we can’t wait around for something to happen. We might not like what it is.”
“Jahelia’s still got her plasma rifle,” Baden said. “I’d be more worried about Mauronet.”
“Show me where they’re heading.”
Baden slid his fingers around on his screen and the image of the planet below showed what lay ahead of the two vehicles. The expanse of sandy flat would soon give way to another clutch of vegetation, and now that we were looking for it, the shuttle was visible. “Maybe we should just set down close to the shuttle and intervene there,” I said.
But we didn’t get a chance.
As we watched, the lead vehicle stopped and the pursuer caught up and stopped, as well. Mauronet got out.
“They’re not at the Dorland’s shuttle,” Hirin said, “but why else would he stop? Groundcar break down?”
“Maybe.” I frowned and chewed my lip. “But where’s Sedmamin? What’s Lanar going to do now? They’re still too close to the base for comfort.”
On the screen, Lanar and Jahelia exited their vehicle too, crouching behind it. Lanar and Mauronet were shouting at each other. Mauronet fired his weapon at the groundcar and even at this distance, the sudden flash made me jump.
And then Lanar and Jahelia had their heads together, discussing what to do next—but even as I thought that, I realized it wasn’t right. I squinted at the screen, not believing what my eyes were telling me. They had their heads together all right, but they weren’t talking . . . they were kissing.
Baden had time to let out a long, low whistle and then everything happened at once. Jahelia stood up, Sedmamin rolled out of the groundcar, and Jahelia blasted the groundcar right into Mauronet. When the dust cleared, she and Lanar both stood above the fallen admiral.
And the explosion hit.
THE MOUNTAIN STILL took up most of the main viewscreen, and the explosion wrenched my attention away from Lanar and Jahelia. The ground shuddered
violently, then crumpled in on itself as huge sections of rock slid and shattered into chunks. Thick black smoke and clotted dust roiled into the air, punctuated by hot bursts of orange flame.
I looked back at Lanar and saw with relief that although they’d ducked and covered their heads, the shockwave didn’t seem to have affected them. “Let’s go get them,” I told Rei.
She piloted us down and set the Tane Ikai a safe distance away. I asked Commander Yu to take the Tane Ikai’s groundcar—if Mauronet hadn’t damaged it when he shot at Lanar—and fetch his fellow crew mates from the shuttle; he was the best one to explain what had happened with Mauronet, and the base. We had room in one of the empty cargo pods to take the shuttle itself, too. No sense leaving a perfectly good Protectorate shuttle for PrimeCorp or the Chron.
Yuskeya and Viss and I went out with a stretcher to fetch Mauronet and the others. The fallen admiral was muttering invective when we reached him, so Yuskeya’s first task was to give him a sedative. At least I assume that’s how she shut him up. I was busy hugging Lanar. We weren’t always a demonstrative family, but there were times when nothing else would do.
“He shot at you!” I said against my brother’s neck. “We saw the whole thing.”
I felt him go still for a heartbeat or two. “The whole thing?” he said lightly.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered near his ear. “My crew is very understanding about secrets.”
He chuckled, but when I pulled back from the hug I thought his face had flushed beneath its layer of dust.
Jahelia had gone to collect Sedmamin, who was now limping as well as cradling his plasticast-covered arm. “I can’t believe you told me to go with that maniac,” he spluttered to Lanar as they walked slowly past me on the way to the ship. The technician Mauronet had coerced into starting the destruct sequence followed behind them, looking dazed.
“You’re welcome,” Lanar said. “We could have just let him keep you.”
“It was Miss Sord I saw rescuing me,” Sedmamin rejoined huffily. Lanar just rolled his eyes, but Jahelia shot me a wink as they passed.
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