Chapter 24
Linao arrived shortly after Velda, something Ethan was sorry about. He didn’t like Linao and preferred not having her in the cell with them.
She looked like she was suppressing some big emotions when she came back in, lips tight, body stiff.
“Didn’t you get to speak to your father after all?” Velda asked.
She shot Velda such a venomous look, Ethan almost stepped between them.
Linao sat down on her bunk, started to lie down, and then, obviously unable to relax enough to do that, got to her feet again and began to pace.
“Speak to us,” Ethan said. “Better we know the score.”
She shook her head and kept pacing, and Ethan realized just how deeply he disliked her.
“Is your father Sylvester?” Velda asked.
She’d told Ethan that was her guess when she’d come back from Linao’s interrogation, and now Linao went still, slowly turning to face them, eyes narrowed.
She looked like she was seriously considering taking a swing at them.
The door behind her suddenly opened, and she spun around to face the guards.
“Food.” The guard dropped a bag onto the ground, then stepped back and the door closed again.
Ethan had started to wonder whether they would be fed. This was a positive sign.
He walked past Linao and crouched beside the bag.
“What have we got?” Velda joined him, getting down on her haunches to peer inside.
He took out some energy bars, some containers of water, and what looked like fruit, but it was like no fruit he’d ever seen before.
Linao made a sound in the back of her throat, and Ethan looked up at her.
She was glaring at them, lips curled up in contempt.
“What’s wrong now?” he asked.
“Her.” Linao pointed at Velda. “She’s inane. I don’t know what you see in her. Worrying about showers, wondering what we’ve been given to eat. She’s a fucking moron, and how she came to be Head of Defense is a question for the ages.”
“My, my,” Velda said, and Ethan could hear the amusement in her voice. “Someone’s grumpy. Probably because you haven’t had anything to eat.”
Linao let out a soft shriek, lifting her fists to her head as if she was about to pummel herself. “You do it on purpose, don’t you?”
“You suddenly seem very easily riled.” Velda sounded thoughtful.
This was an act?
Interesting.
Ethan’s dislike of Linao had blinded him to that, but he considered it as Linao leaned forward and snatched an energy bar out of his hand.
Velda might be right, the voices in his head said. The enemy is acting unhinged, but her eyes say she’s gauging your reaction.
He almost didn’t register the strangeness of the voices in his head this time. It was like he was getting used to them. And he didn’t disagree that Linao was their enemy.
“Help yourself,” he said to Linao, holding out another bar to her.
Their lack of protest at the way she’d just behaved seemed to enrage her even more, and Linao kicked the bag, spilling its contents, and then she jumped on one of the food packages, crunching whatever was inside to dust.
The cell door whisked open immediately.
Oh yes, she’d been playing for an audience, but they weren’t it. She wanted the door to open again. She wanted something.
And because it was Linao wanting it, he assumed she had some angle. Maybe her father had managed to pass on a coded message during their chat. Like maybe ‘we’re about to attack, be ready’.
“What are you doing?” the guard asked.
“I don’t want to be in the same room as her,” Linao shouted, pointing at Velda. “Put me somewhere else.”
The guard regarded her in silence for a beat. “No.” He stepped back, but before the door could close, Linao leapt forward and stuck her arm in the way.
The guard must have been caught by surprise, because he had already started to turn away, and as the door stopped closing, Linao dived through the gap and then ran.
“She’s something, all right,” Velda said, and there was a sliver of admiration in there.
Ethan grunted, because while he agreed, he just didn’t like her enough to say it.
The door had halted, then begun opening again, and they both stepped forward, but a second guard was suddenly in the way, laz raised.
They both lifted their hands and backed up, and he stood, pointing it at them as if he was weighing up whether he could get away with shooting them anyway.
The whole ship shuddered, and he turned to look down the passage.
Ethan didn’t second guess himself this time. He leaped straight at the guard, slamming his elbow into the side of his neck and twisting the laz out of his grasp in the same maneuver.
The guard fell, and Ethan turned and shot him before he hit the floor.
“Wow.”
He looked over at Velda, who was standing in the passage in front of the now closed cell, eyes wide.
“Would it be inane to admit that really did it for me?” She winked at him and waved her hand as if to cool herself down.
He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped from his throat. This woman just kept delighting him. “Where to? You’re the one who’s had the chance to look around.” He hefted the laz, which was way bigger than any issued by the Verdant String Coalition, and checked the passage for incoming guards.
So far, they were clear.
“I’ve only been taken to the one room, that way.” She pointed to the right. “I don’t think they’d expect us to be there, so it’s as good a choice as any to hide in and I don’t think it’s got any visual comms installed. They received messages through a knock on the door.”
That was interesting. It might mean it was more likely a private conference room than an interrogation room, and therefore more likely to be used, but any other place they chose to hide would be a risk, anyway.
“Lead the way.” He followed her, checking their back regularly. Velda had told him about the dim lighting, and like her, he wondered about the reason behind it.
“Was it like this before?” he murmured as she peered around a corner and then signaled him that the way was clear. “More or less deserted?”
“Yes.” She glanced back at him. “I wondered about that myself.”
She stopped in front of a door and waited for him to get in position with the laz, in case there was someone inside. Then she tried to open it.
It didn’t budge.
The ship made a strange groaning sound as she tried again, and she froze.
They exchanged looks.
“That didn’t sound good,” she said.
The floor seemed to buck under their feet, and they were both thrown against the wall.
He’d been expecting something to happen ever since Linao had staged her escape. Guess he was right about her receiving a message in her chat with her father.
It looked like the Cores were out to get daddy’s little girl back.