Chapter 31
Hal had no time for Jaden Tris’ games.
He stood firmly in the doorway, blocking Fiona’s administrator from leaving, with every intention of extracting Fee’s whereabouts from the little asshole by any means necessary, when there was a buzz from his earpiece.
“Looking for Fiona?” Eazi whispered.
Hal couldn’t help his flinch. “You know I am.”
“I know where she is, but don’t leave Jaden to his own devices. He’s in this plot up to his eyeballs.” Eazi didn’t sound at all friendly.
Hal stepped back. “Rial. Take Tris to Tean Lee. We’ve got confirmation he’s guilty of assisting the insurgents who took down the comms.”
Rial’s eyes widened. “We do?”
“Comms are back up. I’ve just had word.” Hal moved out of the way. “Got to go. Don’t let him get away.”
He jogged out of the office and then began to run when he hit the stairs. He’d started off politely with Jaden Tris, asking him where Fee was, and had known immediately there was something very wrong.
Now he was in panic mode.
“Eazi.” He didn’t make it a question.
“She’s in a runner, already off the way station. They threatened that a Garmman battleship would take a shot at Larga Ways and do some damage if she didn’t cooperate.” Eazi’s voice was soft.
“A Garmann battleship?” He almost missed a step in surprise.
“It’s apparently hiding behind a moon.”
He would be ordered to deal with that first. He could already feel the twist in his gut at the way his priorities were pulling him in two directions.
“Where are they taking Fee?” he asked.
“Not sure, yet. But not behind the moons, unless they’re taking a really long way around,” Eazi said. “My guess is down to Balco.”
“Do you have eyes on her?” Hal asked.
Eazi gave a low chuckle, and Hal wondered if he’d ever heard Eazi make a laugh like that before.
“I do.”
“You know Hoke is going to make me deal with the Garmman first.”
“That’s logical. If they’re out of the picture, no one can threaten Larga Ways anymore, and they lose a way to pressure Fiona.” Eazi didn’t sound as if he blamed Hal. That was something, at least.
If Eazi opposed Hoke on this, Eazi would probably win.
“How did they get hold of her with all her protective gadgets?”
“They physically grabbed her, they didn’t shoot at her or try to hit her.” Eazi sounded thoughtful. “That needs to be addressed for the future.”
“Is she safe, though. Right now, is she safe?” Because if the answer was no, he would resign and go find her.
“She’s unharmed, and I’m pretty sure she’s being taken to where they’re building the new Class 5. It would help to know where that is, so she’s not too unhappy about it.”
Of course she wasn’t. Hal knew her all too well.
“They think they have me contained, by the way,” Eazi said.
“Fee told them I couldn’t connect to the system even with the comms up if they put what they think is me in a silver cylinder.
To keep them thinking she was telling the truth, I’m sneaking around my own system, pretending I’m not here for the moment.
They’ve threatened to shoot at Larga Ways if they find out she’s lying. ”
“What about Paxe?” Hal suddenly remembered they had someone around who was a lot less reasonable than Eazi.
“Paxe is fine. He’s used to not having comms after his time on the Tecran moon station.
He doesn’t need it to communicate with his drones, and through one of them, he noticed Fiona being led to the Balcoan’s runner.
Fortunately the drone was able to attach itself to the runner unseen.
So Fiona has some help traveling with her. ”
Hal let out a breath of relief. Scary, strange and otherworldly were all good descriptions of Paxe’s little drones, but another word for them was dangerous. And loyal.
Fiona would have a fighter on her side.
“Can you patch me through to the admiral?” Hal asked.
“I’d prefer you did that yourself. I have a feeling my interceding in the Grihan communication system will reveal my presence,” Eazi answered.
“All right.” Hal burst out the back door of Fee’s office building and tried to get through to Grihan High Command.
There was no answer.
He was running toward the docks, but made a last minute decision to head toward Grih Battle Center headquarters instead, which was less than a minute away.
He kept trying High Command as he ran, but it was clear there was something very wrong.
“Why can’t I get through to anyone at headquarters?” Hal asked, hoping Eazi was still listening.
“I think there’s trouble there,” Eazi said after a moment of silence. “I think that maybe Grih headquarters is where the comms jamming is coming from.”
Hal remembered Falna striding in through the doors, annoyed at the long wait to get inside. She’d been sure there was something off about the delay.
He’d agreed with her, but given everything that had happened, he hadn’t thought about it since.
He increased his pace, turned the corner, and headed for the entrance to Battle Center headquarters.
There were still a few Grih assembled outside, chatting easily to each other, a few of them talking on their newly reconnected comms units.
“Has anyone come out recently?” Hal called as he approached them.
One or two lifted their heads, saw who he was, and stood to attention.
“No, Captain. Not for a while.” The soldier who spoke turned to look at the building, as if suddenly aware that something wasn’t right.
Two others, a man and a woman, also obviously part of an active military team, nodded to him and then turned as well.
“What is it?” the first soldier asked as Hal stopped beside him.
Hal studied him. “I think headquarters has been infiltrated.”
“You’re going in?” The soldier looked at the building again. “I’ll watch your back, Captain. Lieutenant Vistna, at your command.”
The two others who’d paid attention when he’d arrived took a couple of steps closer.
“I’m active service, Captain.” The woman executed a salute. “Officer Juy.”
“Officer Crane. At your service, Captain.” The man beside her gave his own salute.
Hal eyed the three of them and then nodded. “Let’s go.”
They moved through the front doors two by two, slowing but not stopping as they stepped into the foyer.
There was no one around, and that was already cause for alarm.
“What do you suspect?” Vistna asked.
“That the people responsible for the comms going down have control of this building.” If that was truly the case, this had to be an inside job.
Hal could sense the shock coming from the three soldiers, and they all drew their weapons, and started paying much more attention.
Hal took the stairs, running lightly up to the offices on the floor above, and when he reached the first landing, he could hear the murmur of voices to the right.
“The conference room,” Juy murmured. “Sounds like a lot of people.”
“They may be hostages.” Hal really hoped not. This was already a mess, with Fee abducted, the Garmman with a battleship nearby, and now Grih Battle Center headquarters breached.
It looked like someone had arranged for them to be hit on all sides at once.
“The comms to your headquarters are definitely still down, whereas the main hub is back up,” Eazi said quietly. “It looks as if they’ve found a way to block Fiona’s office, Security, and Battle Center, but everything else needed to make the way station function is now running smoothly.”
So, they were shutting off the Grih’s and Fiona’s control.
“It sounds like there are a lot of people gathered in the conference room at headquarters,” Hal said, keeping his voice low. “We’re going to see what’s going on.”
“We?” Eazi asked.
“Three other Grihan officers and myself.” Hal stopped talking and moved silently down the passage. The door to the conference room was closed. Hal would have expected to find someone outside keeping watch if they were holding the staff hostage, but there was no sign of anyone.
He passed the door and kept going, trying to remember where the comms center was. He had a feeling it was on a higher floor.
A smear of blood on the wall just before a corner had him slowing, and he gave the signal for danger.
He edged around, shockgun up, and stared at a body lying up against the wall, throat slit.
The missing guard, perhaps?
The man was Balcoan, so that would make sense, but Hal didn’t know who could be responsible for this.
Falna?
He edged around the body and as he moved along the passage he glanced back and saw the grim expressions on the other three’s faces.
“Do you think it’s the conference room guard?” Juy asked.
“That’s the logical assumption.” Hal shrugged. “Keep focused, people.”
He reached the next set of stairs and stopped.
“I’m going up to check the comms center,” he whispered when the other three caught up. “Crane, stay here, and only come up if you hear someone headed this way. Come fetch us if it sounds like something is happening in the conference room.”
Crane nodded, gaze going back down to the dead Balcoan, and then tucked himself into the shadows under the stairwell.
Hal ran up the stairs with Juy and Vistna on his heels. There was no sound on the floor above, which more than anything told him how wrong things were in here.
The stairs he’d taken were side stairs, at the far end of the building, and he headed for the central hub, keeping close to the wall.
A movement up ahead, a slither of something low to the ground, had him stopping.
He edged along the passage and when it widened into a large room he saw a long, segmented creature.
It was waiting for him, half lifted up on its forelegs, little head turned his way.
Behind him, Vistna made a sound of shock.
Hal lifted an arm for silence.
He crouched, on an eye level with the Scary Caterpillar. One of Paxe’s drones.
He gave a nod of acknowledgement.
Paxe would be looking through his drone’s eyes, no question about it.
Hal thought of the dead guard on the floor below and tried to see if one of the sharp metallic legs had blood on it, but they all looked clean. He shook the thought off. No time to wonder now, anyway.
On one side of the open space were the doors to the tube that shuttled people up and down the building, and on the other was the open doors to the comms center.
“Are you ready?” he murmured to Vistna and Juy. He glanced behind him.
“What about . . .” Vistna pointed at the Scary Caterpillar.
“The drone is with us,” Hal said.
He saw Juy blink and then give a slow nod. Vistna looked less sure, but he didn’t object.
Hal moved swiftly to the open doors of the comm center.
There were two people inside, both Balcoans. A man was bent over a console, another was standing beside a hover cart with a large box on it.
It was lit up, and the light seemed to pulse.
The man beside the hover cart wasn’t paying any attention to it, he was frowning down at the comms unit in his hand. “Someone is going to come check on Battle Center any time now,” he said, not looking up. “I don’t want to be here when they do.”
“Vira says they’re almost free and clear. Just ten minutes more.” The man hunched over the console looked out of the window. Straight to a perfect view of the Illium.
“Fuck that,” the other man said. “Ten minutes is a lifetime. It’s not just ourselves we have to get out of here, it’s the jammer, too.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late already.” Hal stepped into the room, and Juy and Vistna fanned out behind him.
The man beside the hover cart tried to lunge for the jammer, but Hal shot him before he could do more than turn his body.
The moment he did, the Scary Caterpillar ran in, leapt up onto the hover, its mechanical legs moving as it opened the metal housing of the jammer.
“Mine,” Paxe said in his ear. “This is mine.”
Hal was pretty sure that was true.
The Balcoan at the console had frozen when they stepped in, but Hal could see as soon as he got over his shock, his gaze flickered to the controls in front of him.
“If you move your fingers, I will shoot,” Hal said as he stepped over to stand beside the console.
The man lifted his hands slowly, but suddenly lunged forward. Hal shoved the chair he was in over before he could warn whoever he wanted to warn, and stood over him.
As he lay on his back, legs in the air, Hal crouched beside him, resting his shockgun on his chest.
“Where’s Vira going?”
The man began to shake his head. “I don’t know.”
“It’s all right. I already do.” Eazi said in his ear.
Hal took out restraints, bound the Balcoan hand and foot, and then straightened up. “All right.” He managed to let some of the anger leach away. He tapped his ear. “Are one of you going to get all the comms back up?”
“Of course. And then I’m taking this jammer back to my dock.” Paxe sounded almost amused.
“Who’re you talking to?” Vistna asked.
“Way station security,” Hal said, deciding to keep things vague. “The drone is programmed to deal with it. Let’s go see what’s happening downstairs.”
He could ask the man in restraints how many guards were watching the hostages below, but Hal knew he couldn’t trust anything he said, anyway.
Juy bent beside him and helped him restrain the man he’d shot.
“Didn’t think I’d be seeing this much action when I took my dock leave.” She grinned.
“The day’s not over yet,” he told her, and heard her chuckle as they headed back toward the stairs.
He didn’t have any capacity for humor, though. The day really wasn’t over, and he was no closer to finding Fee.
He made a list in his head.
Free the hostages. Get rid of the Garmman battleship. Find and rescue the love of his life.
No problem.