Yaaf
Number One parked the truck right at the foot of the gangway. There was no time for subtlety. It had to be done as quickly as possible.
It was the same transport that had carried the women across the island that morning and had been left in the harbor parking lot among many others like it. After all, the same trucks that were used to transport soldiers and weapons were used to transport goods and construction material.
The thrall had been lifted from her hours ago. She'd had plenty of time to come to terms with what was going on, and she seemed to be taking it in her stride.
The boxes of provisions were going to be left where they had been placed because there was no more need for them.
Petrov saw Number One and waved him over. "Where are we going?"
It was amusing that the scientist thought Number One was the only one who had the answer to that because he was the spokesman for the Eight. More than anyone else, Petrov should know that addressing any one of them was the same as addressing the collective.
They were all connected.
"I can't tell you in case any of you is captured. The bottom line is that the women have been reported missing and a manhunt is about to get underway once the head count in the enclosure confirms it. You are no longer safe here."
"I know that," Petrov said. "Number Three explained that part. What I want to know is where are you taking us, because I can't imagine any place on this godforsaken island that is safe."
"We know a place. You'll have to trust us on that."
It was difficult to ask frightened people to move without telling them toward what, but there was no helping it. If any of the humans were taken, they couldn't reveal what they didn't know.
The cove, the tunnel, the submarine, the second operation still unfolding in the basement under the mansion, it all had to stay confidential for now.
"We will shroud you to appear as dock workers this time," Yaaf said in the Brotherhood language while Number Four translated for the benefit of the foreign-born.
"You'll be loading cargo into the truck at the quay.
Keep your heads down, carry what you're given, and move at the unhurried pace of people performing their jobs.
As long as you do nothing that drastically contradicts this scenario, no one will pay any attention to you. "
It wouldn't be as easy to pull off as he was making it sound. The Eight hadn't slept, and they'd been thralling heavily since dawn. They were depleted, but at least they were together now, and that was when they were the strongest.
Once the lab equipment was all sorted out, the eight of them picked up boxes and joined the procession exiting the hold.
They worked the perimeter of attention, reaching out to every mind on the quay and turning its focus away.
The women came down the gangway carrying cases or bundles, Sullha carrying Tomek and Rohilah holding Bianca.
Number One diverted a tiny portion of the thrall to the children, smoothing over their fear so they relaxed in their mothers' arms.
They walked straight from the gangway into the back of the truck under the eyes of a dozen workers and a pair of harbor guards, and not one of those eyes settled on them.
They were loading the last of the laboratory cases into the truck bed when the channel came alive in Yaaf's ear, notifying all forces of a lockdown going into effect and instructing everyone to keep their eyes open for ten missing women.
They were out of the grace period.
A moment later, Number One's phone buzzed in his pocket.
He whipped it out before it could attract the attention of the harbor guards and ducked into the back of the truck.
"We heard," he said instead of greeting. "It was confirmed."
"Yes," Losham said. "I didn't hear back from you. Where are you?"
"The harbor. We thought we would snoop around here, see if anyone knows anything."
"And?" Losham's voice was dripping with impatience.
"Nothing here. We are moving to the resort area. We'll report as soon as we have anything."
"You do that. We are out of time."
"Well aware, sir."
The line went dead.
Number One activated the transmitter of the earpiece that connected him to Yamanu and the clan's command center. "Lockdown is in effect. Alert your compeller."
"Thanks for the heads up," Yamanu said. "Do you have them out of the hold?"
"Yes. They are boarding the truck. We will arrive at the basement in the next ten minutes."
"Good luck," Yamanu said.
"Thank you." Number One ended the transmission, then thought better of it and activated it again. "I'm leaving the channel open if that's okay with you."
"Good call."
Out across the dock, radios crackled to life, and the same guards who had been in a state of idle boredom became more alert, scanning the area with sharp eyes. In the space of a breath, the ordinary indifferent commerce of the dock turned into a charged danger zone.
The rest of the women came up over the tailgate with two of the Eight reaching down to haul them up, the last cases shoved into the gaps, and then Number One dropped the canvas flaps and rapped the side of the bed. Number Seven put the truck in gear and pulled them off the dock.
Number One released a relieved breath. They'd made it. They were clearing the trap of the harbor before the net drew tight.
The collective pushed its thrall as the truck passed the harbor's gate, the guards not even stopping it for the regular inspection every truck leaving the harbor was subjected to.
"Checkpoint ahead," Number Seven said, and the rest of the collective saw the new barricade that had just been erected a short distance away from the mansion.
This was bad.
If they were at full power, they might have been able to pass without even being stopped, but they had expended so much of it since the early hours, and especially in their dash to make it out of the harbor, that they would be lucky if they managed to deflect enough for the inspection to be superficial.
The useless enclosure thrall had cost them too much. They had used hours of holding two thousand minds in a suggestion they had not been built to sustain, and it had frayed early and left them drained.
Now, with the island's alert flooding every guard's mind with the specific instruction to find their charges, the shroud was at its thinnest.
The collective pushed the thrall into the minds of the guards manning the checkpoint.
The suggestion went out, you have inspected this truck, it carries cargo, wave it through.
They felt it take on the five guards and slide off the rest, one of them the officer in charge.
He aimed his machine gun at Number Seven. "Full stop, soldier."
Number Seven obeyed because doing otherwise meant a shot to the head, and even an immortal wouldn't survive a direct hit like that.
"Out of the vehicle," the officer said. "Open the back."
"It's just construction materials for the mansion," Number Seven said, trying to push a thrall into the mind of the officer. "You can check with Lord Losham."
"We were commanded to inspect everything and make no exceptions. The command came directly from Lord Losham."
"Down," Number One whispered. "Get down and stay down."
The canvas flap was wrenched aside, and light poured in.
Two guards' faces appeared at the tailgate looking at people huddled among the cases.
The Eight pushed more power into the shroud, and it seemed like it would hold, but then the officer joined the guards, and an evil grin spread across his face.
"Look what we have here." The officer lifted his rifle and aimed at Petrov, while the two other guards aimed at the women. "If anyone moves, shoot to kill."
The collective registered Dimitri's decision to move and shield Mattie, possibly even before he was fully aware of making it.
The seven inside the truck couldn't bring their weapons up fast enough to eliminate all three guards before they sprayed the interior of the truck with bullets, killing all the humans.
Before Dimitri started moving, they were in motion.
Number One launched himself over Sullha and Tomek, covering them with his body, folding them down into the bed of the truck beneath him, his teammates doing the same and shielding the rest of the humans with their bodies.
Dimitri threw himself over Mattie and Anita, and together they formed a shield of immortal muscle and bone over the fragile humans.
Rapid fire followed.
It came from multiple angles at once, not just from the mouth of the truck where the three soldiers had been standing and aiming at the defenseless humans inside.
Rounds punched through the canvas and the wooden sides and the steel of the cab.
Yaaf felt the first one take him high in the back, a hammer blow, and then a second, and a third.
He bore down over Sullha and Tomek and made his body wider, made it a wall, and did not move.
Beneath him, Sullha had gone rigid with terror, and Tomek was screaming, a thin high sound that cut through the gunfire.
Yaaf pressed them both into the floor of the truck bed, and took the rounds meant for them into his flesh that expelled the bullets and started to heal the wounds as new ones opened.
He'd never been more thankful for the enhancement that made him and his teammates even more resilient than other immortals.
They all waited with bated breath for the soldiers to empty their magazines and use the short seconds it would take them to reload to return fire.
Now! Number One relayed, and those who had clear shots brought their weapons up over the bodies they shielded and fired back through the holes and gaps in the torn canvas with the unmatched precision of the enhanced.
But Yaaf was not precise.
He had Sullha and Tomek beneath him, their small, fragile bodies pressed against the floor under his chest, and the part of him that was Yaaf, the part that loved this woman and her son, couldn't hold the cold, clean detachment the others maintained.
His rounds went wide.
His attention split, half of it on the guards and half of it on the terror coming off Sullha in waves, on the wet warmth and coppery smell next to him that wasn't coming from his body. One of the women had been hit, and he didn't know who or whether she was still alive.
With his attention fractured, he became careless, and rounds that could have been avoided found him because he cared more about the two people he was shielding than about what happened to him.
The collective felt his degradation and compensated, the others shifting their fire to cover the angle Yaaf was failing to hold and absorbing his lapse, but it cost them, and Yaaf could not collect himself enough to do his part.
He took another round through the shoulder and bore down harder over Sullha and Tomek and bled into the floor of the truck.
"You're hit," Sullha whimpered beneath him. "You're bleeding!"
"I heal fast," he managed. "Stay down."
"Yaaf—"
"Just stay down."
The bullets were coming from all directions now, and the collective realized that they were outnumbered and they might not make it out of this alive. Worse, the people they cared about were not going to make it.
Then suddenly things changed. More shots sounded, but they weren't hitting the truck.
The Guardians are here, Number Seven projected into the hive mind what he was seeing.
When the shooting had started he'd ducked under the truck, and now they could see through his eyes the Guardians and the Kra-ell warriors who were coming from the direction of the mansion in a hard and fast approach, with Anandur at the apex of it.
They were shooting at the guards from the flank and the rear with devastating efficiency.
The fire that had been pouring into the truck turned to meet the new threat, but not fast enough.
The Kra-ell, who were faster than the Guardians, closed the distance with a speed the Eight had never witnessed, and the real carnage began. The Kra-ell went through the trained Brotherhood immortal soldiers as if they were immobile humans.
The clan's warriors were ruthlessly eliminating the checkpoint guards, of whom there were many more than the Eight had originally estimated.
"Move the truck," Anandur's voice roared over the channel. "We've got it. Get them to the mansion, go, go, go—"
Number Seven jumped behind the wheel, and the truck lurched forward off the chewed-up ground of the checkpoint, swerving around the wreckage and running over the bodies, and accelerated up the resort approach toward the mansion with the Guardians fighting a rearguard behind it.
Yaaf took stock of the situation.
They were all hit. Every one of the Eight had taken rounds, including Number Seven who had remained upfront and ducked under the truck when the shooting had started.
They were healing, the wounds closing, but the blood was everywhere, slick on the boards and soaking the women's clothes where the men had bled over them.
It was not only the enhanced who'd been hit either.
Yaaf smelled it clearly now. He turned his head and saw that two of the women and Petrov had been hit.
The scientist's face was gray, and Anita was pressing her hand hard over the wound while Dimitri held him upright.
"We have wounded civilians," Yaaf said into the clan's earpiece. "Two women and Doctor Petrov. The women's injuries are superficial. Petrov's looks serious."
"Julian is ready to receive them," Yamanu came back. "We're going straight into the tunnel and collapsing the entrance as soon as everyone is in."
That meant that they had gotten the two last chests out. It also meant that any future attempt to infiltrate the island or to get women out of the enclosure would have to be done some other way.
As soon as the truck stopped in front of the mansion, armed clan warriors ran out to cover them from potential enemy fire.
Yaaf lifted himself off Sullha and Tomek, and the loss of the contact was a physical pain, worse than the multiple bullets he had taken, but he did not have time to examine or indulge this now.
He looked down at them, his eyes roving over their bodies to make sure neither had been hit.
Sullha stared up at him.
Her face was white and streaked with tears and blood—his blood. Tomek was clinging to her, trembling and crying.
He sighed with relief. They were both alive and whole, and that was the only thing that mattered.
As he offered his hand to help her rise, she gripped it in both of hers and held on, keeping her gaze firmly on his face. The strength of her grip spoke louder than words ever could.