Chapter 29 #2
“That makes one of us.” Kira crossed the room to squat in front of him. “You’re supposed to be on Titan. What happened?”
Roderick’s leg didn’t look right. Kira was betting it was broken.
Something had also stabbed him in the abdomen at some point.
Luckily, his synth armor had instituted first aid, sealing off the wound to ensure he didn’t die from blood loss.
Eventually, he would require medical attention but for now he was stable enough.
“Luatha business,” Roderick said, trying and failing to sound lighthearted. “You know how it is.”
“I do indeed,” Kira agreed.
The words “need to know” had been emblazoned on every aspect of her existence for longer than she could remember. They were the forty-three’s life blood and the ironclad motto of the major Houses.
They were also the words Kira hated most.
“Need to know”—she’d decided she did. And he was going to tell her.
One way or another.
“I’m afraid, Roddy, we’ve reached the phase in our relationship where that argument no longer carries weight. I want to know why Liara sent you. Why you disobeyed my orders. How you got here. And lastly, what—or who—did this to you?”
“Is that all?” Roderick asked with a wry slant to his lips.
His humor surprised her, but she didn’t let that show.
“For starters,” Kira said.
“What happens if I refuse?”
“I wouldn’t recommend that, Roddy. You’re injured and vulnerable in a place you’re not supposed to be. Right now, I’m trying to determine if you’re someone I need to kill. Please don’t force my hand. I’d prefer not to have to explain your death to my cousin.”
“You think you could kill me?”
“I know I could, Roddy.”
The cuff and her lack of ki would only slow her down a little.
Roderick must have believed her—or he decided that this whole “need to know” was as stupid as she did—because it only took him a moment to give in. “That enclave of wanderers. It’s not what you thought.”
“What do you mean?”
“After the attack on Ta Da’an, Liara decided we needed a better intelligence network. She reached out to several wanderer enclaves she thought she could trust and asked if any of them would like a sponsorship. In return, they would gather information and pass it along.”
“The Houses distrust the wanderers. Why would she work with them?”
Any information they passed along would be suspect.
“Because of you,” Roderick admitted.
“What does this have to do with me?”
“You showed her the effectiveness of working outside the box. She took that lesson and ran with it.”
“Let’s say I believe you. Is that why you disappeared on the wanderer’s planet?”
“We had an arrangement that if they ever came under attack the information they obtained would be sent to a secondary location. I was to recover it.”
“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing in the honeycomb or how you came to look like that.” Kira pointed at the wound in his abdomen.
Or how Liara got an enclave with strong ties to Caius—and thus Roake—to work with her.
“The information the enclave forwarded indicated that there was betrayal from within Caius’s ranks.”
“You didn’t think to share that with me?”
The fact that there was a traitor among them was the sort of thing she would have liked to know.
“Why? You already knew.” At her expression, Roderick snorted and rested his head against the wall behind him. “It was the way you watched them. How you kept them at arm’s length. Always making sure one of yours was watching them. First Maksym. Then me.”
“I didn’t realize you were one of mine,” Kira quipped.
“I’m not. But you trust me.”
“You seem certain of that.”
Roderick closed his eyes. “I’m still breathing, aren’t I?”
“I guess you’ve got me there. Still, you’re dumb to have kept this from me.”
They could have been working together this entire time.
“You’re not going to get an argument from me,” Roderick said with a tired smile.
“So? Who was it? Who betrayed Caius?”
“I don’t know.”
Kira gave him a doubtful look. “How do you not know?”
She swept a meaningful look down to the wound in his abdomen. He didn’t come to his current state by accident.
“They didn’t do this to me. It was someone else.”
“Who?”
Roderick shook his head. “I don’t know. It was a man and a woman. I didn’t recognize them. I’m not even sure they were Tuann.”
“A human then.”
“I don’t think so. They used ki but in a way I’ve never seen before.”
Kira fell silent.
Roderick didn’t notice, grimacing as he touched the wound in his abdomen. “The man did this. The fall took care of the rest.”
He nodded at a shaft above them that was identical to the one Kira fell down.
“I take it that was your single seater we saw on our way in,” Kira guessed.
Roderick nodded. “Az and Bez were acting suspiciously so I decided to follow them.”
“Then they’re in on it together,” Kira said.
“Not necessarily.” At her look, he expanded. “I didn’t get the sense while following them that they were partners. There was clearly tension.”
Interesting, but not necessarily what was important right now.
“Why are you here?” Roderick asked.
“Jin got kidnapped.”
Roderick opened his eyes wide. “The emperor’s son is missing?”
“I wouldn’t call it missing so much as placing himself in a less than strategic position.”
Roderick looked like he couldn’t decide between being horrified or impressed. “And Dylan let this happen?”
“He wasn’t given much choice.” Kira reached for his arm when it looked like he was going to try to stand. “Let me help you.”
Roderick allowed her to act as his crutch. “Every time we run into each other, I find myself more and more glad that you didn’t stay in Luatha.”
“I did warn you guys,” Kira said, eyeing their surroundings for a way out.
They thought she’d been joking when she told them she’d be more of a problem than they were prepared to deal with. Now look who was laughing.
“How does Roake deal with you?” Roderick asked, grunting as she started them toward the only possible exit. A small hole in the resin at the opposite end of the oblong chamber.
Kira stopped to adjust his arm so it was more securely over her shoulder. “I ask myself that every day.”
“Do you know where you’re going? This place is big. I can tell you from experience that navigating it is extremely confusing.”
Kira smirked. “Got lost, did you?”
“Yes,” Roderick gritted out as they reached the hole Kira had found.
She ducked out from under his arm and guided him to lean against the wall before squatting to investigate what she had found.
The hole, too tiny for either of them to slip through right now, offered a glimpse of hexagonal cells on a much larger scale than the ones she’d traveled through earlier. They were massive, stretching out of her narrow field of view.
They had to be close to the beating heart of the honeycomb. The hive’s command center.
If she’d been Belladonna’s leader and stupid enough to take over one of these, that’s where she would have based her headquarters.
“You could say we have an inside source,” Kira said, grinning up at Roderick.
The scorpion shook its stinger at Roderick in greeting.
“Your choice of companions gets more baffling every time.”
“Don’t judge. This little guy is going to lead us straight to Jin.”
“What are you doing?” Roderick asked as Kira grabbed the resin on either side of the hole and tugged.
“We can’t fit through this as is.”
They needed to widen it. Only that was proving difficult. The resin refused to break, making her question how the Tsavitee class two war drone had managed to burst through it like it was tissue paper.
“Move,” Roderick said, nudging her aside.
A moment later, half the wall collapsed.
“Will that suffice?” he asked
Kira looked at the now massive opening and nodded. “I’d say so.”
“Where to now?”
After consulting with the scorpion, Kira pointed to their right. “Scorpy says that way.”
Graydon – The Honeycomb
The Tsavitee charged, preparing to pick Graydon up and body slam him as it had Kira. Lazily, Graydon waved his blade, removing the creature’s head with one clean strike.
“Find out where it came from,” he ordered his oshota. “There could be more.”
They spread out to search.
“Aw, shit,” Raider cursed, half his upper body disappearing into the hole in the wall that Kira had made.
“What is it?” Graydon asked, glancing over.
“There’s a shaft. Looks like she fell down it.”
Needing to see for himself, Graydon strode over to the hole. Raider moved aside, letting him take his place without protest.
“No one go getting any stupid thoughts about following her down,” Raider ordered, once again proving his skills of observation since that was exactly what Graydon had been considering. Finn too, if the irritated glance Raider shot him was anything to go by.
Talon stuck his head in next to Graydon’s. “There’s a slope. She likely survived.”
Graydon took a calming breath, straightening. “Raider’s right. She wouldn’t thank us for throwing ourselves after her.”
The words were intended just as much for himself as Finn.
Everything in Graydon ached to go after her. The need to see for himself that she was alright and in one piece a compulsion that was hard to ignore.
“That’s right,” Raider agreed with an approving nod. “This isn’t the first rabbit hole she’s found herself in. When things like this happen, we carry on with the mission. I guarantee you that’s what she’ll be doing too.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Graydon decided.
His coli was a pragmatic woman. Like Raider said—a survivor. She’d been through worse and come out the other side in one piece. She would do the same again.
“We found something,” Solal announced.
Graydon sent one last look in Finn’s direction, reading the stubborn oshota’s expression at a glance. No matter what they said, he was planning to throw himself after Kira. Consequences be damned.
From the frustration in Raider’s expression, he knew it too.
“It would break my coli’s heart if her oshota got himself killed,” Graydon advised.
Finn didn’t respond. His features cold and relentless.
Graydon shook his head, walking over to join his First. As difficult as it was to see someone make the wrong choice, it wasn’t his place to interfere any more than he already had. Finn wasn’t his oshota. He couldn’t order him to stay put.
A hushed argument took place behind him as Graydon tilted his chin at Solal. “What do you have?”
“This way. It’s easier to show you.”
Solal led Graydon through the wall the Tsavitee had crashed through and into another hexagonal cell. From the corner of the chamber, Amila looked up from the softened amber substance she was examining.
“Someone woke it up,” Solal explained.
Amila pointed to the half-melted outline of what could have been the Tsavitee. “We think it was hibernating.”
“An ambush then. Are there others?”
“Strangely, no,” Solal answered.
If someone had intended to take Graydon and the others off the board, they’d need more than a single Tsavitee.
Many more.
A Tuann would know that. Humans capable of taking down a wanderer’s enclave should too.
Talon squatted next to Amila, peering into the hibernation chamber. “So—rather than kill, its purpose was intended as a cry for attention.”
Amila eyed the oshota askance before looking over her shoulder at Graydon and Solal.
“I thought you would stick with Finn,” Graydon said.
“Finn is an adult. His decisions are his own.”
Talon stuck his hand into the resin used to suspend the Tsavitee. When he withdrew it a moment later, it came out covered in an amber goo the consistency of sap.
“Besides, I didn’t want to get in the way while the human attempted to talk sense into him.”
Talon shook the goo off his hand, looking up as Finn and Raider entered behind Graydon.
“I knew you were going to fit right in,” Talon told the human.
“You realize I predate you.” Raider looked at Finn. “Both of you. At least when it comes to dealing with Kira.”
“That’s why you’ll be her First,” Talon said.
Finn glanced at Raider, waiting for the human’s response.
Graydon was interested too.
After a moment, Raider sneered. “As if either of you are fit for the job.”
Talon slapped his knees and rose. “It’s settled then. Now that we’ve got the pecking order established, let’s see what our new friend was trying to call attention to.”
Solal scowled. “What are you talking about?”
Talon pointed at a rippled section of the wall adjacent to the hibernation pod. “That.”
Graydon and the others peered in the direction Talon indicated. It took a moment before Graydon saw what Talon meant. What at first appeared to be simply ripples were actually a clever design.
Talon sauntered over to it and pushed a spot in the middle. The wall dissolved to reveal a deep, dark hole.
“Will you look at that?” Talon declared, peering into it. “Stairs.”