Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (37 page)

Another voyeur peeked from the
far corner of the cargo container. Sara and Yul lay as flat as they could among
the parcel spheres. As soon as it wandered away, she tied one end of the sheet
to an opening in the lip of the container where the automated cranes grabbed
the monstrous spheres for removal.

Yul tugged at the knots where he
joined the sheets and helped her over the side. “Remember, I’ll be at
Rushow, at the end of the dragon’s tail.”

“You’re not coming with
me?”

He was already gone.
“Yul?”

Sara was on her own again. Her
bare feet stuck to the metal sides in the humidity of Carrey Bay. Hoping not to
draw any attention from the revelers on the other side, she half-walked,
half-rappelled down the cargo container. When she reached the end of the sheet,
she didn’t even look down. Dropping feet first onto the cobbled stone surface
jarred her body. Her lower back throbbed in response.

She looked up, hoping Yul had decided
to follow.

The side of the cargo container
was bare. No Yul, no sheet.

A hand wrapped around her mouth
and pulled her to the shadows behind the container. She pummeled and kicked at
her captor, but her weakened condition hindered her ability to defend herself.

The assailant pushed her to her
knees. The sudden contact with the cool cobbles forced pain up through her legs
and into her back and abdomen, where it pooled and reverberated within her
wound. At one time she would have welcomed pain like this to quell her panic.
Not anymore.

She looked up into the end of a
cender held by a tall woman. A couple of males as large as David flanked her.
Maybe Simon sent the military for her.

“We need the data you got
from Sean Cryer,” the woman said.

“I don’t know who or what
you’re talking about.”

The woman smashed the cender
against the side of Sara’s head. She crumpled sideways. Her shoulder bounced
off the rounded stones.

“Did that help your
memory?” the Armadan asked.

Pain blurred Sara’s vision, but
she still caught movement at the top of the cargo container. A barrage of
parcel spheres rolled off the side, the rumbling drawing the Armadans’
attention.

Sara rolled out of the way.

One of the male Armadans leaped
in the wrong direction and caught a sphere to the chin. The female noticed
Sara’s escape and fired a cender at her, but an incoming sphere bounced in the
way. The static blast blew a hole in the side of the sphere. It rained down
large pieces of hot metal shrapnel.

Sara pushed to her feet and
sprinted around the side of the cargo container, targeting the green lights of
the docks. She could hide among the hundreds of ships berthed there.

A hand on her left arm jolted her
reflexes into fighting mode. She thrust her index and middle fingers from her
free hand at her assailant’s eyes.

Icy blue eyes.

Rainer caught her by the wrist.

Her relief at seeing him gave way
to a tired embrace. His woody scent masked the smells of the dock. Out of the
corner of her eye, she saw Yul at the top of the cargo container. He waited for
a sign from Sara that she was safe, then disappeared over the other side. David
appeared from the other direction. “Are you okay?” he asked Sara.
Then, he drew his cenders and pointed them past her.

The Armadans, bloodied and
bruised, faced them, weapons drawn.

“What are you doing here,
Lyra?” David asked.

“She watched the feeds like
we did,” Rainer said.

Sara felt lost. Apparently every
one knew each other except for her.

“You got here faster than I
expected,” Lyra said.

“Did you think you’d be in
and out with her before anyone knew?” Rainer asked.

“Something like that,”
Lyra said.

“What do you want with
me?” Sara asked. If they were working against Rainer, then Simon had
stepped up his game, and she was losing fast.

“Answering a Writ of
Abduction for the Sovereign’s errant ambasadora.”

“A writ?” The warmth
drained from Sara’s cheeks.

A voyeur slid around the side of
the cargo container. Rainer blasted it with his cender, sending it plummeting
to the ground beside them. The action put the Armadans on high alert,
alternately scanning the skies for more voyeurs and keeping track of Rainer’s
itchy trigger finger.

David put his hands out in a
peaceable gesture. “Are we going to be able to walk out of here without
someone getting killed?”

“You should know I don’t
negotiate.” Rainer’s finger moved to the trigger.

“I don’t care about you,
Rainer. I want Cryer’s data.” Lyra stared at Sara.

“So Simon asked you to
recover what I couldn’t? No wonder he wants me dead,” Sara said. “Too
bad Sean’s gone.”

“You know where he is,”
Lyra said.

“Would I be running around
like this if I did?” Sara never blinked, and her tone was strong. “I
guess you can’t trust many people these days.”

“You’re lying.” Lyra’s
voice trembled slightly. “Where is he? People will die without that
information!”

“Simon’s the only one dying,
and I don’t see where that’s a bad thing,” Sara said.

“It’s not just him,”
Lyra bit out.

“Ah, Lyra. Please tell me
you didn’t let them inject you with those bots. Is that what happened to the
others before the mutiny?” David lowered his weapon. His tone hinted at an
intimacy they may have shared at one time.

“She has Simon’s
curse.” Sara looked at the male Armadans and realized they, too, had been
affected.

Lyra didn’t bother to make eye
contact.

“I told you not to do it,
Lyra.” David’s voice came as a sad whisper. “I practically begged
you.”

“You cursed yourself,”
Sara said without pity. “Just like Simon.”

Rainer’s face screwed up in
disgust. “You’ve polluted your line. A true Upper never resorts to gene
manipulation, not even for procreation.”

“Save your lecture. It was
my duty to the Embassy.” Lyra stood a bit straighter.

“Duty never usurps
family,” Rainer said. “And, there are horrors worse than death, like
having your family circle disgraced and marked in shame forever.”

Lyra stepped toward Rainer. “You
say things like that because, no matter hard you try and how many generations
go by, contractors will never be what they pretend to be—Armadans. There’s
nothing special about you, Rainer. You’re pretty and you’re devious, but in the
end, you’re still as much a Socialite as the woman standing beside you, only
with a weaker gene—”

“Stop it, Lyra.” David stepped
between them.

Rainer dialed up his cenders.
Sara put a pacifying hand against his chest and pleaded with him. “We need
her.”

“For what?” Rainer
asked.

Sara focused on Lyra. “I’ll
make sure you get the data if you secure amnesty for all of us, including the
other passengers on the
Bard
.”

“Agreed,” Lyra said.

“I’m not done,” Sara
said. “I want you to help me find Sean and bring him back.”

“She can’t keep that
promise,” Rainer said.

“She’s in a better position
than you are right now,” David said.

Sara walked over to Lyra and
looked up into her eyes. “If you help me get Sean back, I’ll turn myself
in with the data,” Sara said.

“Don’t be foolish,
Sara,” Rainer said.

“If I have the cure, I won’t
need you,” Lyra said. “You can go and live your life with your
fragger or your contractor or both, if you want.”

“Then gather whatever force
you can. I’ll be in touch soon.”

Sara took a risk trusting Lyra,
but then desperate people were sometimes the most reliable…until they got what
they wanted.

A final clang of metal on
concrete marked the end of Sean’s struggle with his steel bindings; he managed
only to work them deeper into the flesh on his wrists and ankles. The muscles
in his back bunched up in spasms. After leaving the cargo hold of the light
cruiser, the contractors shackled him again in this dank cell. He tried keeping
track of time by counting his heartbeats, but lost count too many times
already. For all he knew, he could have been here for an entire day.

Heaps of garbage ship parts and
outdated tech fragments littered every corner. In some places the junk spilled
out into the center of the room. He had the impression they used this space
more for storage than modification. With the eye that wasn’t swollen shut, Sean
scanned the scraps for something he could use as a weapon.

Chen Starrie hobbled back into
the room. Even in these circumstances, Sean sized up the man Sara would have
taken as an amour. She could have done better.

“You broke my knee.”
Chen stood in front of Sean. “And, I hate wearing bone menders.”

“You must have hollow bones.
All that inbreeding catching up with you?”

Chen punched Sean in the nose.
The bergamot smell of the contractor’s knuckles lingered before the irony tang
of Sean’s blood permeated his taste and smell.

“Sara never told me you
liked it rough,” Sean said.

Chen snickered. “You can’t
goad me with Sara. She was fun in the beginning, then a means to an end. And
she should have
ended
back here.”

“Here? Where are we?”

“Palomin.” Chen
adjusted a setting on the mender wrapped around his knee.

“Sara liked it here.”
The female with the pink-streaked hair strolled up beside of Chen. “Did
she tell you about me?”

Sean’s right wrist suddenly ached
in its makeshift tourniquet; it dangled from the binder, a broken monument to
her earlier slicing and paring. “Who are you?”

“I’m Faya. Surely Sara told
you what kind of fun we had, or maybe she was sobbing too hard to be coherent.
She babbled a lot during our sessions. And screamed. It was sad and
pathetic.”

“Don’t ever remember her
mentioning you,” Sean lied. If he could get just one hand free, he’d snap
the bitch’s neck, even if Chen killed him for it.

“I think you’re lying.”
Faya handed Chen an arm’s length of a broken auxiliary engine rod. “But I
like your attitude. Let’s see if you last longer than she did. I’m sure you
will the first time. She begged right away.” Faya chuckled. “But, she
got good at taking the pain. I bet you don’t have that in you.”

Metal glinted under the harsh
white ceiling lights as Chen held the rod over his shoulder like a club. Sean
tensed. Chen brought the rod down on top of Sean’s knee cap. His left knee gave
way with the impact. Bones crunched and the engine rod resonated in a
high-pitched ring as it bounced onto the concrete floor.

Sean clenched his teeth to keep
from screaming or vomiting. He lost his breath and shook as waves of pain
radiated from his busted knee. His eyes watered, and bloody drool dribbled out
of the side of his mouth.

The stims were wearing off. Now,
he wished he would have kept the patches on, but his heart probably would have
exploded before they even got him here. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea,
considering his nervous system was so raw to the pain.

“That’s not how you handle a
fragger.” Faya glided over. “They like the pain. Hadn’t you
heard?”

“I always wondered where
that rumor started.” Sean’s words came out in a pant. Most likely fragger
operatives were so dosed upon capture that they didn’t really feel much. Sean
was feeling everything.

“You plan to kill him with
kindness?” Chen asked.

“We’re not going to kill him—yet.
There’s some very important information locked in here.” Faya leaned close
and rapped a fist on Sean’s head. She produced a long-needled syringe and
jammed it into the soft flesh of his inner thigh. The thick green liquid split
his muscle and pushed into his veins.

He was about to make a desperate
move when he saw the third contractor, the other female, leveling a cender at
him from the room’s doorway.

Not now. The time would be right.
He could handle what they threw at him to know Sara was safe.

“Help me, Sean.”

The voice echoed inside his skull
like Ephemerata’s through his subvocal link.

“Please. Help me.”

The whisper floated to him from
somewhere in the room, everywhere. It sounded like Sara. He twisted his head
around.

“They’re going to hurt me,
Sean.”

“Sara?”

“Yes, she’s right
here.” Faya’s voice modulated from normal to tinny, stuttering at times.
“We have her and we’ll cut her unless you cooperate.”

Sean searched for Sara, but
couldn’t find her through the blue mist filling the room. In the beginning
stages of a full-on panic, Sean fought for breath. He was sliding. And, it was
some heavy stuff. Nothing like he’d ever had before. If this was what Faya had
forced on Sara time and time again….

“Sean, we’ll be okay,
right?” Sara’s voice tickled his left ear. She clung to his neck and
buried her face in his chest. His heart pumped faster, but his mind slowed. “Yes,”
he said. “I promise.” He wanted so much to hold her, stroke her hair,
but—He took a deep draw of her scent, the scent he made for her, but choked on
a heavy perfume of sweet berries and musk.

She raised her head. The dark
locks were streaked magenta instead of purple, her eyes a frozen blue, not rich
and dark. He pulled back from her. Sara’s oval face bounced with a giggle. Her
lips pulled back into a shrill laugh, cracking her beautiful face. Higher
cheekbones and a pointed nose erupted from the split, desiccated flesh. Bright
pink roots pushed out the shiny black hair.

“Get away from me.”
Sean’s words dripped from his tongue with blood.

“Should I play with
her
instead?” The voice was Sara’s but the head belonged to Faya. She grabbed
his face and forced his focus to a pile of discarded view screens and voyeurs
in the corner.

An arm peeked from the bottom of
the junk heap, its olive skin dirty with bruises.