Chapter 19
Hal found the Grihan ears and wig Fiona wore to be quite disconcerting.
She was back to being Feenra Planer, and he realized he didn’t like it. She did look very Grihan, though.
“It’s a good disguise,” he admitted.
“But you don’t like it,” she said, sending him a sidelong look.
“It’s not that—” He suddenly grinned. “No, I don’t. But I’ll get over it.”
They had decided it was better for Grih / Balco relations that Trayla, Crin and Natta go to the market. It was a public place, and they weren’t doing anything wrong browsing the stalls.
If any of the Grihan soldiers were caught in the warehouse, though, that might result in consequences.
Fiona was more likely to get away with being found where she shouldn’t be, but that would mean she would have to remove her disguise and let the Balcoans know who she really was.
As Hal refused to be parted from her, he told her they would have to hope his excuse of being there to protect her would work if they were detained by Balcoan Security.
“Let’s try to avoid that,” Fiona said as they pulled to the side of the road on the street Eazi had directed them to a few days before.
Hal gave a grunt of agreement.
“We parked in the carpark of this company when we were here last time. They were closed.” Fiona studied the building. “Does it look closed again to you?”
Hal got out of the hover slowly, and saw movement in the window. “There’s someone there.”
“But no hovers in front of the building.” Fiona cast a suspicious eye over the place.
Hal came around the back of the hover to join her, and she pointed to the pathway that ran between two buildings.
“That goes all the way over to the parallel street,” she said. “Then we head to the left, and the warehouse is right there.”
They’d driven past the warehouse before they’d turned down the street and parked out of sight, and neither of them had seen anyone there, but Hal couldn’t believe the Security Department could have been done with the crime scene so quickly.
He followed Fiona down the narrow walkway, keeping his head on a swivel as they went.
They were in Distani, a prosperous and thriving capital city, and there was nothing that looked run down or poorly maintained.
Some of the plants lining the walls between the two buildings were a little overgrown, he noticed, but that just added to the charm and softened the industrial look of the district.
They emerged onto the street, but instead of heading to the front door of the warehouse, Fee led them down the side of the building. The wall that had blocked their path to the back of the warehouse was now good cover from curious eyes from the building next door.
There had been a window in the wall they were walking beside, but it was no more. Black soot smudged the area around where the window had been, and the whole shape of the rectangular opening was twisted into a drunken parallelogram.
“That was the laser,” Fee guessed. “Handy entry point, though.”
“There has been no activity at the warehouse since yesterday evening.” Eazi’s voice gave Hal a start. As usual.
Fee sent him a laughing glance, and he bared his teeth at her, which just made her smile a little wider.
“So we’re good to snoop?” she said, eyes cutting up to the sky.
Hal found it amusing that she always looked in Eazi’s direction when speaking to him, even if the thinking system couldn’t possibly see her and it couldn’t possibly matter.
“As far as I can see.” Eazi sounded a little jumpy. “But so many unpredictable things have happened so far, I’m nervous to commit one hundred percent.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Fiona told him. She walked to the window, testing the wall strength before she hoisted herself up, balanced on the ledge, and dropped down on the other side.
Hal followed and found her standing beside what could only be described as a baked-on mess on the warehouse floor. She was staring down at it in disgust, and he slid his hand across her shoulder to cup her upper arm. “You all right?”
“Yes. No.” She looked up at him. “Ew.”
He felt the corners of his mouth tug upward. “This is where the man who shot at you with a Class 5 laser cannon met the consequences of his actions?” he asked.
She nodded, eyes going back to the hard-baked blackened charcoal on the floor.
“What is the Earthling concept you keep telling me about?” he asked.
“Karma, baby.” She sighed, reached up and twined her fingers with his own. “But still. Ew.”
He squeezed her fingers in comfort, then stepped back, pushing down the fury that bubbled up. The man who’d shot at her had wanted this to be her fate. Her ending.
That it was his own was satisfying, but knowing he wasn’t acting alone meant it wasn’t enough.
Hal took a deep breath and then stood still, looking and listening to make sure they were alone.
“I’m sure there was more on these shelves when I was here last,” Fee said.
“Security didn’t log very much into evidence,” Eazi said. “I’ll need to check your lens feed to see what’s missing.”
The warehouse was bigger than Hal expected. He could see places on the floor where a standing bracket, likely to hold the cannon, had been bolted. Security had probably taken it away, or it had been vaporized.
“There was someone talking to you before you were shot at, I saw in the lens feed,” he said as he walked forward, glancing down the rows of shelves on either side of him.
The long stacks ran parallel almost all the way down the length of the warehouse and were blackened at the ends where the laser had scorched them.
A few closest to the laser had fallen over.
Fee was right that the number of boxes they held were few, although there were a few lonely items here and there that he could see.
“Yes, he kept looking behind him, and this area was poorly lit,” Fee said.
She wasn’t following behind him, she was going to each item she could see sitting on the shelves and lifting it up to show Eazi through the lens worked into her left shoulder.
“He threw himself down on the ground a moment before the shot was taken, so he was obviously waiting for it and trying to get the timing right.”
“Security has him in custody, don’t they,” he asked. “Do they have his name?”
“He’s refusing to give it,” Eazi said. “And Balcoan law means they can’t hold him for much longer given Security doesn’t know he abducted Natta, and they can’t prove he was responsible for the injuries to the other three in the warehouse.”
“So it’s just the laser cannon that’s keeping him there?” Fiona asked.
“Yes, there are so many levels of wrong in that, they don’t want him out of their sight.
Right now they’re operating on the hypothesis that he and his friends stole a cannon and were working on it when it went off.
” Eazi’s tone sounded satisfied, as if he’d personally had a hand in that conclusion.
“The amount of damage the laser shot caused is also being used to explain the other injuries. Fortunately there were things lying all around the bodies, and damage you did with your silver rod is being put down to flying debris.”
“The shockgun strikes won’t be, though,” Hal said.
“No, but as everyone is refusing to talk, Security is going on the assumption that a fight broke out among friends about whether to live test the cannon in the warehouse itself, and the falling out resulted in some low stun shots being fired.”
That wasn’t exactly a far fetched reading of the scene, Hal thought. And it was very handy for Fee and Trayla.
“By the way, everything you’ve found on the shelves so far is Paxe’s,” Eazi said. “I have a small carrier drone close by. It’ll come through the window and take everything off the shelves, then deliver them to the space port.”
“Where do you get all these couriers and drones?” Fiona was crouched down beside a low shelf, holding up another part. “You seem to have them on tap.”
“We own a courier company down here,” Eazi said. “I’m sure I’ve mentioned it. Don’t you remember?”
Fiona straightened up. “Vaguely. At the start, when Balco was being all passive aggressive about our taking Larga Ways and all our supplies were delayed or missing. Before Paxe was even with us and rebuilding his Class 5.” She was nodding.
“I don’t think I heard about that.” Hal wasn’t surprised, though. Balco had run Larga Ways and taken half the profits. Being usurped by a thinking system and an Earthling had probably stung their pride more than a bit.
“It eased up when we actually ended up giving them more in their 40 percent split than they were getting with their 50 percent split.” Eazi sounded amused.
“We also took the headache of running the way station off of them, but I think some of them liked the control and are still salty about it.” Fiona walked toward him and pointed to her left. “There’s an office up those stairs. That’s where they were holding Natta.”
“There were some boxes up there, too,” Eazi reminded her. “If Security hasn’t taken them, we need to know what’s inside.”
There was a sound from the window, and Hal gripped his shockgun as he turned to look, but it was a small drone, towing a long box. It just fit through the window.
“Yours, I presume?” he asked Eazi.
“Mine,” the thinking system agreed. “Don’t let it bother you, it’s going to gather up all the parts.”
Hal watched as a long, telescopic arm emerged, clamped around a part, and deposited in the box behind.
“You think there may be some useful information in the raised office?” Hal asked, turning back to look up the rough stairs.
Fiona shrugged. “I didn’t see any when I was getting Natta out, but I was in a hurry. There might be more in the front office, and we can look there when we’re finished in here, but I’m guessing Security took everything worth taking.”
Hal jogged up, wondering why they’d elevated the office, unless it was a hold-over from when the place had different owners. The door was open and inside was a desk, a chair and a shelf. Hal could see a dark stain on the floor which looked like blood, and he guessed that it belonged to Natta.
The desk no longer contained any boxes.
Fiona went around it and sat on the chair and began pulling the drawers open. “Nothing.” She made a face as she pushed the chair away and stood.
From below, Hal heard a door close quietly.
“That wasn’t the drone,” Eazi said, voice suddenly tense. “I didn’t see anyone arrive, though, so I’m not sure who they are or how many of them there are.”
Hal drew his shockgun and walked to the door, crouching down as he peered down the stairs.
He glanced behind him and saw Fiona was tugging at the necklace she was wearing.
He turned back, and saw three figures near the door to the front office.
One of them turned up the stairs, the other two disappeared among the stacks.
Hal rose to his feet, shockgun in both hands, waiting.
Whoever was moving toward them must have suddenly felt a sense of caution, because they slowed down on the last few stairs.
Their height made him sure they were Balcoan, but they were wearing a head covering and carrying a shockgun.
He had a clear shot, but it would be better for him to take the Balcoan down inside the office, out of sight of the others, rather than on the stairs.
He slid along the wall, and glanced back at Fiona. She nodded and ducked down behind the desk, out of the line of sight from the doorway.
The Balcoan hesitated at the sight of the open door, then pushed through into the office.
He took a few steps inside, and Hal shot him in the back.
He staggered forward with a shout, but he didn’t go down.
Damn. Shockgun protection.
That said something about who he was.
Before he could turn and shoot at Hal, Fiona rose up from behind the desk and he shot at her instead.
The shot ricocheted straight back at him, and he collapsed onto the desk, down but not out.
“Higher stun than you used,” Fiona said. “That’s not very nice.”
She leaned forward, plucked the restraints the Balcoan had clipped to his belt, and used them on him while he was still struggling for breath.
A call came from down below, and Hal caught Fiona’s gaze.
“Guess they know we’re here.”