Chapter 16
Sixteen
Kira
Kira’s scalp tingled as a large section of the hillside detached and started to slide. It picked up speed, moving like water.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“You might want to run a little faster,” Kira called over her shoulder. Stress pitched her voice several octaves over its normal range.
Bez adjusted his grip and powered forward. “What do you think I’m trying to do?”
The sniper never had a chance. Too late, they threw aside their rifle so they could run faster. The landslide swallowed them before they made it far.
It was going to do the same to them if they didn’t make it to the other side of the enclave’s blast doors.
Pye reached the entrance first, only to find the doors that Kira had walked through earlier tightly closed. He punched the metal. “It’s locked!”
Az was only a few steps behind him. She waved him over and set her shoulder to the door. “Help me!”
Together, they tried to pry the doors open.
When that proved unsuccessful, Az stepped back and tried to hit it with a surge of ki. Her soul’s breath didn’t even leave a mark.
Then Bez was there. He bent, sliding Kira off his shoulder none too gently before moving to help the other two.
Kira rested with her back against the wall, her gaze fixed on the landslide bearing down on them. For one single moment, the world faded into the background.
The landslide began to pour through the skylight, blocking out the sun and sky.
Kira focused, concentrating on that place inside her where her soul’s breath resided. Never before had it been so difficult to reach. Pressure grew at the base of her skull. A familiar, thorny sensation sinking its spikes into her center.
They ripped open her barely healed psyche, leaving brand new scars.
Kira coughed, forcibly clearing her throat of the small mass blocking her esophagus. The fishy, metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth. A small amount oozed out the corner of her lips.
She pushed harder, not caring about the damage she was doing to herself.
The way she figured it, her choices were die now—or die later.
She preferred later.
Bez grabbed Kira’s shoulders. “What are you doing? Stop that!”
The hard shake he gave her destroyed the delicate hold she had on her soul’s breath. The small bubble that had been forming burst, sending shards of glass to shred her insides.
This time Kira bent forward to vomit blood.
“What is wrong with you? Are you crazy?” Bez asked.
Kira swiped at her mouth. “No—just determined not to die.”
Not that it mattered anymore. That had been her only chance.
“I’m sorry, Jin.”
She didn’t want it to be the end. She’d really hoped she could pull off a miracle, but it looked like her quota might have been used up this time.
Her comms crackled.
“This is why I can’t let you out of my sight,” Jin complained.
Pye and Az watched in amazement as the blast doors unsealed.
“Go! Go! Go!” Bez shouted as soon as he saw them start to open.
Az and Pye didn’t wait before slipping through.
Bez bent to retrieve Kira but Finn was already there, sliding past him to bend toward her.
“When it comes to the subject of your safety, I’m beginning to think your promises mean shit,” Finn murmured, carefully lifting her.
“You can’t actually blame me for a natural disaster.”
Kira’s tired smile took more effort than it should have.
Finn arched an eyebrow at her as he strode past Jin. “So that explosion we heard had nothing to do with you?”
Kira was saved by Jin’s strident voice. “Close it.”
She looked over to find Raider kneeling beside an access panel.
The blast doors reversed course.
A second later, the landslide slammed into them. The metal buckled but held. As did the walls of the compound.
“What happened?” Jin asked, taking in Kira’s blood-soaked form.
“Sniper,” Bez answered.
Jin stared at Kira. “And you thought blowing up something would help the situation how?”
“Why do you automatically assume this was my fault?”
It could just as easily have been Bez or one of the other two.
“Woman, I know you. You’ve never met a problem you didn’t think could be solved by making things go boom.”
“Are you sure you’re not talking about yourself?”
“I wasn’t here, was I? You were.”
Kira grudgingly admitted he had a point. “It wasn’t like I intended for this to happen. It was an accident.”
One she still hadn’t figured out. The ship shouldn’t have gone up like that. She was certain of it.
“If there are snipers, it’s going to make our exfil difficult,” Raider pointed out.
“Maybe not as much as you think.” Seeing the question on Raider’s face, Kira expanded. “I saw the landslide swallow them. There’s no way they survived that.”
The chances of there being two snipers in whatever group the pirates had left behind was low but not zero. Snipers required specialized training that wasn’t always so readily available to civilians. That rarity was what made them so highly coveted by the clans.
Kira was actually surprised to find one here. It wasn’t the clans’ normal operating procedure.
Ambushes—yes.
A sniper that was likely contracted for this specific job—no.
Pirates were opportune hunters. They didn’t waste time and energy when the payoff was uncertain.
Unless they were working with an employer, Kira conceded. In that case, she could see them devoting resources they might not otherwise.
It was nothing but a theory—but a good one. It would explain a lot.
Like why the pirates had attacked the enclave in the first place. Normally, they went after softer targets. Shipping freighters or civilian vessels. Not heavily armed aliens with a reputation for being deadly in battle.
Caius was likely their primary target. The children would have been a bonus.
“It’d be interesting to know if other enclaves in this sector of space have been hit lately,” Kira mused out loud.
While the others looked at Kira in confusion, Jin easily followed her train of thought. “You think it’s starting again?”
Kira was calm as she met his gaze. “As we’ve seen in the past, every time we cut off one head, two more rise to take its place. Perhaps they found a new source of product that we were unaware of.”
It made Kira’s skin crawl to refer to the children as “product”, but that’s what they were in the eyes of their captors.
“House Maxiim,” Finn announced abruptly.
Kira started to frown at him before remembering that House Maxiim was the name of Joule and Ziva’s former House. The one that had fallen before Kira had saved them. To pirates, if she remembered correctly. Though those had been of the Tuann variety.
“Their stronghold was located in this sector of space,” Finn continued.
Kira stared at Jin, a sinking feeling in her stomach. “What are the chances?”
Jin’s small features were grim. “I really hope we’re wrong about this.”
Kira did too.
“What are you guys talking about?” Bez asked.
Kira glanced over to find Raider looking at her with a hard expression, having guessed what Kira and Jin suspected. Bez and the other two had frowns on their faces. Their upset at being left out easy to read.
“You don’t need to worry about it. Focus on Caius. That’s why you’re here,” Kira said.
After everything they’d just gone through, she may have found Bez slightly more palatable than before, but that didn’t mean she trusted him.
Until she did, she’d keep her suspicions to herself.
There wasn’t much discussion after that. All agreed that in light of the recent attack it would be best to return to the world gate and link up with the rest of their party.
In case of further ambush, they decided to take an alternative route back.
Before setting off, Kira pulled Raider aside. “Where is Roderick?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. He said there was something he wanted to check out. We split up shortly after Finn came to get us.”
“You didn’t try to stop him?”
Kira didn’t like the thought of Roderick on his own out here.
“Of course I did, but as he pointed out, I hold no authority over him or his actions.”
“I bet that went over well,” Kira said.
“Yes, I so love being told to mind my own business. Especially in dangerous situations such as this,” Raider responded with enough sarcasm that Kira suspected Roderick had been a little less tactful in his response than Raider was letting on.
Roderick’s behavior did answer one question though. Liara’s reasons for sending him had to do with this planet.
Why else would he want to go off alone?
It did beg the question of how her cousin knew this was their destination. Harlow hadn’t informed even the emperor of Caius’s last known whereabouts.
The only explanation was one Kira didn’t like. Liara had a spy in their House.
Cousin, what are you up to? Kira thought quietly to herself.
“Anything else you needed?” Raider asked.
Kira shook her head. “No, that’s all.”
Roderick wasn’t an idiot. As Senechal to House Luatha, he had experience in ops like this. He knew what he was doing.
She’d hail him when they reached the world gate. Hopefully, by that time, he’d respond.
They got underway. Their passage a lot quicker and quieter than it had been on their way in.
There was a tension that infused their movements. The knowledge that at any moment there could be another ambush.
The wounds on Kira’s thigh and shoulder were becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
She endured as best as she could, trying not to show the pain on her face.
Finn had given her basic first aid back at the compound.
Enough to stop the bleeding, but that was about it.
She’d refused the painkiller he’d offered, not wanting her reflexes dulled in the event of another attack.
She kind of regretted that now.
Jin’s heartfelt groan broke through the mental fog Kira was dealing with as Bez mercifully called a halt from up ahead.
She looked back to find Jin clinging to the trunk of a tree with both arms. His face was flushed and there were beads of sweat dripping down his forehead and cheeks.