Ethan brought his hand up to his face to hide his grin. “Go get wet, but don’t waste any time once they get to shore. I want to be on the late afternoon shuttle.”
“Aye boss,” Angel said, standing up and shimmying back into her coverall.
The two of them turned and disappeared into the crowd toward the escalator to the beach and docks.
No sooner had they vanished, than Ammo cleared her throat and cocked her head toward the edge of the stage. “Two darkhats on the deck in front of the right-side sound cabinets.”
Ethan twisted in his seat like he was looking toward the performer suspended high overhead on a flaming silk cloth. He rolled his eyes hard to the side and picked the targets out of the spectators.
Instead of watching the show, one was staring intently in their direction while the other held a small object in his hand. They both wore dark gray coats of what looked like paint, or maybe a shiny thinskin.
“Nanofiber security sheathes,” Ammo whispered, identifying their outfits for him. They both wore belt pouches and at least one of them had what might have been a stunstick tucked against his forearm.
He swung back around and lowered his voice. “Let’s see if we can move without them—”
“They’re inbound.”
Ethan tapped into his collarcomm. “Angel. Problems here.”
“Copy. We’re on our way back,” she said.
“Negative. Make sure you get Kaycee and Nuko back to the ship first.”
He tapped out of the comm just as they stepped up beside the table.
“Excuse me, are you Captain Ethan Walker?” one of them asked. He sounded polite and professional.
Ethan put his hands flat out beside his thinpad. “I might be. Who wants to know?”
“Captain, you need to come with us,” he said. “You too, Miss Rayce.”
He turned his head and looked up at the man, scanning the other one as he did. He was definitely carrying a stunner and his belt pack was probably full of other unpleasant hardware. “I asked who you are?”
He pulled out a placard and flashed it at them. Ethan’s thin pad logged the proximity of his badge and turned green confirming it was legit.
“Coalition Special Security?”
“We need you to come with us immediately,” he said, taking a half step back.
“Why?” Ammo challenged. “I’ve never heard of Coalition Special Security.” She started to uncoil out of her seat and the one in back stepped to the side.
He flicked his wrist, and the stunstick dropped out of its arm clip and into his hand.
Ethan stood up and nudged the chair between them like he was pushing it under the table. In reality he hoped it would give them a shield if the one with the stick lunged.
“Captain Walker, this is for your own protection,” the first one said. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “We have reason to believe you and your crew are the targets of a terrorist faction. We need to take you into protective custody.”
Amateur mistake, he thought. Even he knew to never voluntarily get into that kind of disadvantaged position.
“Really?” he said. “What terrorist group?”
“I’d rather not say out here in public,” he said. “My superiors will be more than willing to brief you once we bring you in.”
“Fine,” he said. “Lead on.”
“Please turn around and put your hands behind your back.” He pulled out two sets of restraint bracelets and reached for Ethan.
“Are we being bound?” He jerked his arm back. “It seems to me if you were afraid of us being attacked, you’d want us to be free to move.”
The other man lunged forward so fast that Ethan didn’t see him move. He almost snapped the captain’s arms pulling them behind him and before he could respond, the end of the stunstick pressed into his right kidney.
“This is for your own protection Captain,” the first one said. “The less you resist the easier it will be for you.”
Ethan shot Ammo a side eye and shook his head. She’d tensed and was about to unload, but it was obvious the second one would be her match. He was likely enhanced but standing close he realized that he didn’t smell like a plusser. That only left one possibility. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head again, making sure she got the message.
“Alright, we’ll stand down,” he said, relaxing and watching as Ammo did the same.
As soon as the restraints snapped closed, Ethan could tell that they weren’t typical. His arms started tingling like the first time he’d touched the Urah Un. They were probably suppressing his ability to use his glove.
We’re in deep this time, he thought looking down as two more gray suited security officers stepped out of the crowd and turned them toward the Cirque Stage by their arms. The four men escorted them, with one holding each of their arms. They headed around the side of the riser and toward a small door used by performers.
A single guard stood outside, and he nodded as they walked up.
He looks familiar. Maybe he’s the one who’s been following us? he thought.
Ammo apparently recognized him as well and stared as she walked past. As she got beside the door guard Ethan caught him wink at her. That’s strange.
The man turned his attention to Walker and locking eyes, nodded as they approached. Ethan studied his face, struggling to place him. He was more than a face in the crowd. Ethan recognized him from somewhere. From somewhere important.
The guard waggled his fingers and rolled his eyes down to the deck. He was clearly saying, Look at my hand. His fingers folded up one at a time, like he was counting off seconds. He started over this time closing his fingers flat first.
Close something, then count down five seconds?
Ethan nodded, and he smiled. When they got close, their escorts stopped to let the one he recognized open the door. He walked past them and palmed the lock plate.
As soon as the group entered the dimly lit service hallway beyond the door, Ethan knew what was coming. He hoped that Ammo did too.
The door clicked shut with a hard thump. And Ethan set his feet hard on the deck and leaned back, his motion threw the two that held him off their stride. Not enough to cause them to stumble, but enough to be a momentary distraction.
Five.
“Keep moving Walker,” the one with the stun stick said.
Four.
“I can’t see anything,” he said.
Three.
“You don’t need to see,” he growled, shoving him forward.
Two.
“You bastard!” Ammo snarled jerking her shoulder back and stepping to the side enough to throw her two handlers off balance.
One.
The stun stick guard loosened his grip reaching forward to deliver a jolt to her back and Ethan wrenched himself free.
And then hell came unhinged around them.
Bright flashes exploded simultaneously from at least a half-dozen places around them, sending the room into a crackling, strobe-lit nightmare of writhing pain. The four men who were holding them crumpled to the floor in heaps of twitching flesh.
It took a second for Ethan to realize that only three of the four went down. The fourth one lunged forward catching Ammo in the center of her back with the glowing tip of his stunstick. She lurched forward, dropping to her knees and then face down onto the floor.
He twisted back in Ethan’s direction and lashed out again with his stick, but Ethan tripped over the guard to his left and tumbled sidewise. The flailing stick missed him by several centimeters.
Before he hit the ground, another volley of sizzling cracks erupted as more stunner rounds pounded the last of their captives into submission.
Ethan took the fall on his side trying to roll back to a vertical position, but he ended up against the wall and struggled to get up with his arms still restrained behind him.
Two strong hands reached down and pulled him to his feet. It was the guard who’d warned them.
“Thanks for
the save. But who the hell are you?”
“No time for questions, Walker,” the man growled.
Reaching down, he picked up the stunstick and pressing the activation stud, jammed it against Ethan’s ribs. A brief instant of lightning exploded in his brain then utter darkness swallowed him.
Chapter Fifteen
The hyperfoil rose out of the water ten klicks from the outer harbor and slid toward the Larcossa Cove docks. It had been a peaceful enough getaway, surrounded by amazing bioluminescent sea creatures and their natural crystalline cathedrals, but it had been a bit too much like being in a spaceship for Kaycee to let go and relax.
Although both Nuko and Charleigh seemed to be infinitely less tense, Kaycee felt coiled as tight she’d been before they left. Nothing in her heart had sorted itself out. The silence of the underwater paradise had only left room for the echoes of raging emptiness. She’d kept to herself, because she knew that if she didn’t, the others would see just how hollow she felt.
Everything she’d held to be true had disappeared from under her, and she realized it had taken most of what was within her with it.
She stood up, slinging her small bag over her shoulder, and walked to the front plasglass windscreen. She put her hand on it and felt the slight vibration of the air rushing by outside. For another few minutes she would be alone in the forward lounge promenade, so she breathed in the last moments of empty air.
“I figured you’d be the last one out,” Nuko said as she emerged onto the deck somewhere across the room behind her.
Bolting an appropriate expression into place, she turned and shook her head. “I think I’m just homesick.”
“Too much paradise?” Charleigh asked, grinning as she looped her arm through Nuko’s, and they almost floated across the deck toward her. “I can understand that. I think I need a vacation from my vacation.”
“If you two slept more at night…” Kaycee let the thought trail off with a wink.
“We didn’t keep you up all night, did we?” Nuko asked, looking mortified.
“Not at all. It was all those damned glowfish staring in at me.” Their stateroom had three separate and well soundproofed sleep chambers, so if she hadn’t noticed that they’d only used one of the other two for the whole trip, she’d never have known.
“You could have joined us,” Charleigh said.
“Now, that would have kept me up, and I’d be as tired as you look,” she said, trying to make sure her grin made her words believable.
Charleigh giggled but Nuko cocked her head and pulled her mouth to the side. “You sound like Ethan,” she said.
Silence thickened the air between them until the chime announced that they were about to tie off to the dock. The forward door folded open and the warm morning air rolled in like a gentle wave.
“Let’s see if we can find a lift back to base camp,” Kaycee said, cinching her strap up tighter with her hand and pivoting toward the gangway.
Quinn and Angel both stood at the end of the ramp. Neither one looked toward them and they both seemed agitated and on high alert.
“A problem?” Nuko asked. She’d noticed as well and pushed past on the way down. She arrived on the dock several steps ahead of Kaycee.
Angel nodded. “Yah we’re leaving. The boss sent us to make sure you three get to the shuttle and back to the ship unmolested.”
“What’s swinging?” Charleigh pushed up close behind them and leaned in.
“Cap’n wants to explain it,” Quinn said. “Hopefully, when we get to the ship, he’ll be there.”
“Yak later. Time to make feet,” Angel said. Spinning, she took off toward the escalator up to the Palazzo.
“I don’t think I’m liking how this sounds,” Nuko said.
“I’ll wager you’ll all like it less once he brings you up to speed,” Quinn said, nudging them to get them moving. He glanced at Nuko and Charleigh. “Especially you two.”
The implication was not lost on Kaycee, and when she raised an eyebrow he nodded, leaning forward and lowering his voice. “Ammo told us. Cap’n had to make the call, since the wind changed on us.”
“Frak.”
“That’s more mannerly than what I said.” He shook his head. “Problem is, things might all be packed in the same box. Regardless, we’ve overstayed our welcome and need to get black under our butts again.”
“What about our stuff in the cabana?” she asked as they headed off to catch up with the others. They were already heading up the escalator. She’d left a lot of her medical gear.
“It’s all in a locker at the depot. We’ll grab and go on the way by.”
She and Quinn had fallen a dozen meters behind the others. As they reached the bottom of the escalator, a wave of bodies came tumbling backwards onto the landing in front of them. As she glanced up, she watched Angel fling somebody over the edge and down onto the sand below before she charged headlong down the moving stairs in their direction. Nuko and Charleigh followed a few steps behind.
“What the—”
“Darkhats!” Angel bellowed as she hit the landing at a dead run.
“Wait! We’re here to get you to safety!” Someone hollered from the descending stairway on the other side of the landing. There were at least a half dozen strong-arm types trying to shove their way past the stunned and panicking people riding the other escalator down to the docks and beach below.
Quinn grabbed Kaycee and pushed her behind him as he started backing toward a concession stand and away from the approaching chaos. Apparently recognizing the approaching danger, the proprietor slammed the shutters closed and the locks clicked, cutting off further retreat.
Angel and the others caught up and the two handlers stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a wall of flesh to protect their much smaller crewmates. Around them people scrambled to get as far from the situation as possible.
“Close enough,” Quinn said when they’d run out of room to back up.
He’d slipped a hand behind him and jammed his fingers into a heavy-hand that he’d kept concealed in his belt. Escabosan law prohibited lethal force and inertial impact weapons in Larcossa, so even carrying one was enough to land him in detention.
“What’s going on here?” Kaycee asked, shoving her head between the two giant handlers. Angel was huge even if she wasn’t as massive as Quinn, so it was like trying to push through between two horses.
The one who had been hollering stepped forward, and both handlers braced to launch. “Captain Walker and Miss Rayce were being kidnapped, and we recovered them. Sinthya Darvelle gave me orders to bring Dr. Caldwell and one of your security people to meet with your captain. We’re also supposed to guarantee transport for the rest of you back to your ship.” He held his hands out away from his body and stopped at a respectable distance.
“Who’s Sinthya Darvelle?” Kaycee asked.
“An acquaintance of the boss,” Quinn said.
“And we’re supposed to take your word that dropping her name puts you on our side?” Angel snarled. She was working her hand into her belt for something. Kaycee couldn’t see what it was, but she knew it would be trouble, too.
The darkhat who was talking, moved one hand out in front of him and reached delicately back into his belt to grab something with the other. He pulled it out and held it loosely by the butt end. It was a stunner.
He tossed it on the ground in front of Quinn. “If we meant you trouble, do you think I’d do that?”
“One stunner against six?” Squatting, he scooped it up with his free hand. “Not really a big gesture.”
“I get that,” he said. “But why am I talking to you about it if I wasn’t on your side? We could have jumped you the same way we did the ones that had your captain and broker.”
“Assuming that’s true, he’s got a point,” Nuko whispered behind Angel’s back.
“Alright, but how do we know you rescued our people?” Angel challenged.
“Miss Rayce told me this would prove that she’s with
us.” Once again, he gently reached behind his back and pulled something out of his belt. It was a pink cylinder about thirty centimeters long.
“Is that what I think it is?” Kaycee asked, blinking in surprise.
“Yah, it’s Ammo’s kink-pistol,” Angel said with a shrug. “I’ve got a purple one just like it. We got them because they’re actually stunsticks. They sell them here as sex toys for pain puppies. They’re also easy to hide.”
“I don’t want to know that,” Kaycee whispered, shaking her head.
“She was carrying it on the Palazzo,” Quinn confirmed.
“She gave it to me so I could show you.” He tossed it in their direction.
“Look, here’s the issue. We really don’t have time to debate this. Either you take the hand we’re offering, or you’re on your own. All I can tell you is that if you try to do it alone, you’ll never make it out of the shuttle depot. If you even get that far.”
“How are you going to get us out of here?” Angel said.
He reached up and touched the commlink behind his ear. “We’re ready for extraction.”
Seconds later, a medical response drone swooped over the top of the concession stand behind them and hovered overhead. “There’s only room for three of you in there. It will take you to the private pad at the Driftwood. There’s a shuttle waiting there.”
“We need to get our gear,” Kaycee said.
“We’ll arrange to get it taken care of,” he said.
Another round of chaos erupted at the top of the escalator. “But we need to grow legs now!”
Kaycee nodded. “I’ll go with them.”
The drone dropped to the ground beside them. The handlers grabbed Nuko and Charleigh and threw them bodily through the open hatch.
Quinn glanced inside the evac transport and shook his head. “Gotta be you. Not enough room for me.”
Angel nodded, jumping in, and slamming the hatch as the transport shot up into the sky and toward the distant cliff just as the trouble reached the lower landing.
“It looks like the rest of us get to fight our way out of here,” the man said offering a stunner pistol to Kaycee. “Just make sure you hit them twice. These are some tough bastards.”
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 92
