Chapter 10
The man that emerged from behind the stacks was Balcoan. He pulled up short at the sight of them standing with weapons raised, and glanced behind him.
Fee had only heard one set of footsteps, but that didn’t mean there weren’t others.
“Who are you?” Trayla’s voice, Grihan rough, startled the man almost as much as finding them in a fighting stance.
“You’re the ones who don’t belong here. Who are you?” He took a step back.
“We’re concerned citizens who saw you and your friends abduct someone off the street. Authorities have been called.” Fiona wondered if they shouldn’t have actually done that.
“I can call them,” Eazi said. “Do you want me to?”
“Not yet,” she murmured in English. “But if this goes south, then definitely.”
Both Trayla and the Balcoan turned to look at her as she spoke, then Trayla seemed to collect herself.
“Our courier, who was waiting to speak to us outside of the market, was incapacitated and then grabbed in front of our eyes,” Trayla said. “We followed the runner that took him all the way here, and we’ve been met with violence from the moment we stepped inside. So you explain yourself to us.”
She did outrage well. Fee was impressed.
The Balcoan took another step back. “You saw . . .”
“We saw, all right.” Fiona took a step forward, and flicked her silver rod as she did it. “And we don’t turn a blind eye to abductions. So where is he? Why did you take him?”
“I . . .” He glanced behind him again, and Fee had to guess there really was someone there, it wasn’t a bluff. He looked too rattled.
She braced, bending her knees a little, but the attack, when it came, was from behind.
A man burst through from the office, and Trayla cried out.
Fiona leaped to the side, turning to see what had happened.
Trayla was down, struggling with the Balcoan who’d shoved her to the ground as he tried to grab the shockgun she was holding.
“Arms in,” Fee called out, and Trayla let go of the shockgun and tucked her arms close to her body, and Fiona slashed down with the silver rod.
There was the sound of a bone breaking, and the Balcoan howled as he dropped the shockgun and staggered back, arm hanging strangely.
Trayla scooped up the weapon and was on her feet in a moment. She shot the man as soon as she was upright.
Fiona turned back to the man standing between the stacks. “Where is the courier?” she asked. She began to walk forward, and she sensed Trayla right behind her, shockgun raised.
He took another step back and glanced behind him again, and Fiona decided she’d had enough.
If someone was lurking back there, it was time she found out who it was.
She ran at the Balcoan, silver rod gripped tight, and he threw himself down on the ground, putting his arms over his head.
Something came at her, a light so bright she lifted her hand to shield her eyes, and she felt, for the first time since she’d worn the bracelet, a faint shudder in the air around her.
She actually staggered back.
The sound of the explosion that came a moment later was earsplitting.
As she raised her hands to her ears, the stacks immediately in view teetered, and somewhere deeper in the warehouse something large and heavy—probably also a stack—fell.
There was a smell of scorched metal overlayed by other foul odors.
Fiona felt the nausea rise as she guessed what some of those could be.
Trayla stepped around her and stood over the Balcoan, shockgun pointed at his head.
As he turned on his side and looked up, he stilled at the sight of them both. “How are you alive? That was a laser cannon.”
“Who shot at us with a laser cannon?” Trayla asked, her voice a little numb.
“Petrie.” The man pushed himself up to a seated position but didn’t try to stand.
Petrie had to be dead. Either that, or he was incredibly lucky.
Fee angled herself to look down the line where the shot had come from, but it was a blackened mess and utterly dark toward the far end.
“Anyone else back there?” Trayla prodded him with the shockgun.
“No.” He lifted his arms as if expecting her to shoot.
“Where’s the courier?” Trayla bent lower and pressed the shockgun against the Balcoan’s temple.
“Up there.” The man jerked his head, and Fiona moved around a stack and looked right. There was a set of stairs that led up to a small room supported above the stacks by metal poles.
“I’ll check it out.” Fiona glanced at Trayla.
She nodded. “I’ll keep watch. Hurry, though.”
The noise of the explosion was sure to have attracted attention. She didn’t want to talk to the authorities so she didn’t creep up the stairs, she ran up them.
The door to the tiny office was locked but there was a keypad, and she simply shifted so her lens feed would show it.
“That was a battleship laser shot, if I’m any judge,” Eazi said as he went to work unlocking it.
“Maybe it’s a cannon for Paxe’s new Class 5.” Fiona wouldn’t be surprised.
“Maybe,” Paxe chimed in. “If you have time to go looking for what shot at you, please do.”
“I’ll try.” It was better to know what their enemies had at their disposal than not, but not getting caught when she was here without permission was a priority.
The door opened with a faint click and she pushed inside, unconcerned about an attack.
If the bracelet could deflect a laser cannon, she was good to go.
Natta lay on the floor, and for a horrible moment she thought he was dead.
There was blood on the ground near his head and his hands were restrained. He was perfectly still.
A quick glance told her there was no one else in the room. A small desk with a couple of boxes on it sat in the middle of the space, with a shelf against the wall to the side.
She crouched beside Natta, and as her hand brushed his neck, he jerked, eyes opening wide.
“Shh. It’s me.” She closed her eyes for a moment, let the relief of him being alive run through her. Then she snapped them open. “Can you stand?”
She helped him sit up. His skin lost color as he got upright.
“Might throw up,” he said, turning to the side.
“Breathe through it. We need to go.” She left him for a moment, moving back to the door. “Got him. Coming down,” she called to Trayla.
“Good.” There was strain in Trayla’s voice, and Fee guessed she was getting as edgy as Fee was about how much time they had left before someone came to see what the hell was going on in here.
When she turned back, Natta had managed to get himself to his feet. He was leaning on the desk for support and swaying slightly.
“You know where the keys are for those?” she asked, nodding at his restraints.
“Some Balcoan has them.” Natta shuffled forward, and she went in front of him, unable to get under his arm to help support him with his hands bound together.
“Check your guy for the key to Natta’s restraints,” she called down to Trayla, and then ran down the stairs.
She turned the corner, found Trayla snatching them from her prisoner. She tossed them at Fee, who caught them and ran back up to Natta.
As soon as they were off, she slid under his arm, and they moved faster.
“What are we going to do with him?” Trayla asked, tilting her head at the Balcoan.
“Shoot him on low,” Fee said.
“Yay.” Trayla wasted no time, and then got on Natta’s other side. “Let’s hustle.”
Fee caught sight of a woman lying still, a shockgun near her, down a row of stacks to the left of the office door, and realized she must have been the one to shoot at Fee earlier.
She’d almost forgotten about that.
They moved around the Balcoan with the broken arm, still out from Trayla’s stun, and the man she’d hit with the silver rod as they’d stepped into the warehouse, who was still unconscious.
Fee studied him as they shuffled around him, and was relieved to see his chest was moving.
He was alive.
When they got through into the office, the receptionist was stirring a little.
“Damn, Paxe wanted me to see if that was his laser cannon that was used against us.” Fee glanced back.
They got Natta to the front door. Eazi had brought the runner around the front, she saw with relief.
“You get him in, I’ll run back in so Paxe can have a look.” Fee checked up and down the street. It was late afternoon, and there were people about. Some were looking around, as if they weren’t sure where the noise had come from.
“Hurry.” Trayla took all of Natta’s weight as Fee eased back, then she turned and ran back inside.
When she got past the front office and went into the warehouse, she saw the blackened stacks were still smoldering. The stink was awful and she jogged along the path of destruction to the far back.
No wonder the Balcoan had been looking back so nervously. He knew he needed to dive out of the way or be vaporized.
The cannon was smoldering, too, when she got to it. The strike had damaged it badly. She moved around it so that Paxe had a 360 view, and had to stop, hand over her mouth, as she found Petrie, curled on the ground.
She backed away, turned, and forced herself to move as fast as she could back out to the street.
“That was my cannon,” Paxe said quietly in her ear.
“Was being the operative word,” Eazi chimed in.
“Maybe we can come back, check to see what else is in here.” Fiona gulped the fresher air of the office greedily.
“That would be good. I’ve sent the authorities one street over to give you time to get away. I’ll redirect them when you’re gone.” Eazi’s voice was calm.
“Thanks.” She stepped out and Trayla opened the passenger door of the runner for her.
When they were on their way, she turned back to look at Natta, lying on the back seat.
“We have to take you to the hospital.” She didn’t know how they would explain it.
“Grih military hospital,” Trayla said. “That should keep things nice and quiet.”
“I’ll ask Eazi to contact the admiral about it,” Fee said, settling back in relief. That was one thing off the worry list.
“Nice to have the admiral of Battle Center on tap,” Trayla said, flicking her a grin.
“I’m sure she won’t be happy to hear about what happened today,” Fee said. But still, it was handy.
And they could clearly use all the help they could get.