Broken Wings (13 page)

Debbie looked up at him, her eyes red,
but without tears. "I didn't realize it was so important. You
should have told her."

He knew that! Crystal fire. He knew.
They didn't have to keep telling him.

"There's nothing you can
do?"

He shook his head.

"I'm so
so
sorry, Debbie," Nare
said.

"Is there any
chance—
any
—that she
might be alive?"

"Yes," Nare said. "If the rebels in
Naviketan are alert. They may have interfered, but we don't have
any way to know."

"As long as there's hope."

Please, don't look at me
like that.
Debbie's eyes sent guilt
crashing through his emotions. Elis clenched his jaw and swallowed
the lump in his throat.

"I'll pray for her," Debbie said.
"It's all I can do."

"We'll go together.
Tonight?"

"I'll leave the boys home and drive
everyone." Her eyes shifted from Evelyn to Elis.

She expected him to agree, even though
he wouldn't be driving for Evelyn, the only real reason he ever
went to their church. Debbie was good at that—a simple command with
a look. She didn't have to say a word. He and Raea had laughed
about that.

He missed her laughter. He wanted Nare
to be right. More than anything, he wished the rebels found Raea
and helped her.

__________

Second
Chance

Valdas grimaced at the scarred face in
the mirror she held. Those damn rebels had cost her more than a few
hours in the infirmary. While they used only neutralizers—probably
to spare the Crystal Keeper—they also used knives.

The dark-winged one in particular. He
attacked like a trained soldier. Swift with a knife and deadly,
he'd taken out Tourval while his associates distracted the rest of
her team. But the strong man took the Crystal Keeper. When she went
after him, he attacked her, nearly hacking off her jaw before she
backed away.

A couple minutes later, their backup
had arrived in time to escort them to the infirmary, too late to
catch the rebels. Led by the man who flew with the Crystal Keeper,
the rebels disappeared beneath the city. Smart man. The materials
housing the gravity-repulse generators blocked all
scans.

But it also blocked all communications
signals. She doubted they used a panel, which could be easily
traced. They wouldn't be contacting anyone until they emerged from
the bowels of Naviketan.

Then she would have them.

Valdas traced the line from the corner
of her mouth to the hinge of her jaw. She'd come close to needing a
complicated reconstruction of her face. Her beautiful auburn hair
had been shaved a couple inches along the hairline above her ear,
but she could hide that. And the Crystal Keeper was gone. Damn them
all!

Seething to plunge her knife into the
heart of the man who did this, Valdas threw the mirror across the
tiny room. It shattered against the tan wall.

The door to her room hissed
open.

General Maenast Nadori stepped
through. Tall and imposing and her black wings speckled with gray,
she wore the crimson sash of her rank around the black frock coat
and jumpsuit of the Shirukan, defining her slender
waist.

What was she doing here?

Under the general's scrutiny, Valdas
straightened and pulled her wings close to her loose blue top and
pants, feeling awkward out of uniform. The door hissed
shut.

["You did well capturing the Crystal
Keeper."]

She did? Of course, she did. The
operation on Earth was a complete success.

["Unfortunate that the rebels were
ready."]

Valdas clenched her teeth. Indeed.
That's where she had failed.

["Lieutenant Sandral failed. You said
they would distract the rebels. You said they were capable. You
also said Montran was capable."] Accusation bit out the
words.

Yes, she, Alshouan Valdas had failed,
because her operatives, the men and women who served beneath her,
had failed. Failure of this magnitude was unacceptable. Valdas
steeled herself for the blow she expected, and deserved.

["One more chance."]

What? Had she heard right?

["Fail again, and you'll face Marin's
judgment."]

Marin's judgment, reserved for ranking
members of her elite forces. Valdas shivered. The empress only
passed on one judgment—death. ["Thank you, sir."]

General Maenast marched from the
room.

Valdas wouldn't fail again. In fact,
with her face healed and two pints of new blood running through her
veins, she was ready to leave. A few hours was all she needed for
those minor wounds.

Unlike Commander Montran
Pallin.

Sandral was another matter. The
lieutenant had infiltrated one band of rebels, but reports claimed
several bands were scattered throughout the city. Those who took
the Crystal Keeper may have been the wrong group.

No. It was the right group.
She was sure Sandral had sent her a coded message seconds before
the attack.
Someone
had tried to warn her on their private tri-comm
frequency.

Hopefully Sandral left a message about
their location.

Valdas dressed quickly into her black
flightsuit, jacket, and gloves. While she secured the thigh-length
jacket, a medic stepped into the room in a red uniform.

["I need your hand."]

Valdas pulled off one glove and set
her hand to the plate the medic held up. After a touch of warmth,
she pulled away and replaced her glove.

["Thank you. Be careful."]

Valdas flashed a quick
grin, impatient to finish her mission. The
tralik
spawn who caused this trouble
would find out what the Shirukan were capable of.

Determination burned fiercely in her
chest as she exited the infirmary room. Her fingers tightened in
the gloves along her march through the black corridors of Heffin's
Gate. The rebels couldn't stay in their hiding forever. They would
have to surface if they hoped to help the Crystal Keeper escape,
and most likely they would. They knew she was in danger there and a
threat to them. The radiation signature of the Starfire could
easily be tracked by internal sensors beyond the lower chambers of
the city, where the power generators scrambled all
signals.

Then they would be trapped. The girl
wouldn't escape.

Valdas entered a code on her tri-comm
and pressed it to her face. In seconds a woman in Shirukan uniform
stood before her in the halls.

The woman clapped her heels together
and gave a slight bow.

Valdas focused on the semi-transparent
image. ["Commander. The rebels have our Crystal Keeper. They're
hiding in the generator and recyc areas. We can't track them. I
want you to send several teams to find them, but I want them
alive—neutralizers only."] She'd show the man who scarred her what
it meant to cross the Shirukan. They'd been allowed too much
leniency while General Maenast focused their efforts on securing
the Starfire instead of dealing with the rebels. No more. The
rebels had gone too far this time.

["Drive them to the central waste
processing and water purification chamber. I'll meet your
there."]

["Yes, sir."]

["Prime Commander Alshouan out."] She
tapped off the connection and hurried to the nearest transport
tube.

Soon the Crystal Keeper would be back
in her hands, and one group of rebels would be erased.

__________

Revealed by Starfire

At the head of the group of rebels,
Leksel stopped before a cavern of enormous pipes big enough to fly
through. The din of machinery and slosh of water echoed from the
chamber.

["Where are we?"] Raea stared at a
towering cylinder that could have fit her aunt's and uncle's house
within it. The hum of moving parts emanated from it and thick pipes
connected in three places, one going out and up, one across the top
and another along the bottom. Men and women in blue jumpsuits
attended to terminals about the chamber, a trio of them clustered
at the far end beneath a walkway.

["Water recyc station,"] Corsa
said.

That explained the sloshing she heard
from the pipes.

Leksel wore a grave face. When those
hard eyes passed over her, Raea shuddered and pressed back against
the wall. A pat on her shoulder drew her eyes to a smile on Cris's
face.

["Don't let him bother you. He's like
that with everyone. If anyone can get you out of the city, it's
Leks."]

For someone who disagreed with Leksel
a lot, Cris sure trusted him. That explained why Cris stuck with
him, but that didn't explain why Leksel tolerated Cris.

["Once we reach the other side, we'll
find a terminal to contact Starfire Tower."] Leksel's voice came to
her from the tri-comm she wore on her cheek, which linked directly
to her optical and auditory nerves. They'd turned the visual off,
though, to spare her the confusion of seeing everyone on the link
they shared.

They'd been traveling for a couple
hours. Raea could use a rest.

["Time to move,"] Corsa
said.

So much for rest. Raea followed her,
ducking like the others as they passed a set of cylinders near the
doorway. They paused again before an open area.

At a motion from Leksel, they raced
across the noisy chamber, their steps muffled by the machinery. The
few technicians didn't seem to notice them.

They didn't hear anything either over
the echoing din. Not until sparks flew from a pipe did she notice
the line of gray and black men and women along the catwalk at the
far end.

Corsa yanked her down behind a set of
barrel-sized containers. Her lips moved, but Raea heard nothing.
Corsa shook her head and pointed as something flashed past. It came
from both directions. The rest of their group returned
fire.

Leksel was already across the chamber.
How'd he get there so fast?

Raea peaked out from behind
containers, her wings tucked tight to her back. They were trapped.
The gray and black uniformed soldiers surrounded them—a few around
the enormous vertical cylinder to their left and the others on the
catwalk to their right, above the level of a domed
cylinder.

The space was enormous with room to
fly up but to fly to escape over the melee meant certain death.
Leksel must have known it. He motioned to them to stay
down.

The soldiers' weapons made no dents in
the machinery. In fact it had no effect at all. They couldn't be
deadly if they didn't do any damage. Could they? Were they
neutralizers? Not those things again. Once was enough for her,
thank you very much.

Raea couldn't sit and wait to be taken
again. Elis had taught her to use the Starfire energy within her.
She could defend herself, which was probably why Leksel hadn't
given her a weapon.

She missed Elis so much. The small
feather she'd tucked into the wire holding the crystal shard kept
him close to her heart now. If she could be Dorothy and click her
heels together, repeating the phrase, "There's no place like home",
she'd do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, her life wasn't a
fantasy. The wings were real. Inar'Ahben was real. The soldiers and
their weapons were real. She wouldn't see home unless she could get
out of there.

Leksel had promised to contact Saffir,
who knew how to open a portal back to Earth. Raea swore that if she
ever returned home, she would work harder than ever to learn to
open a portal herself. No more of this. She wanted to go
home.

She missed Elis's calm strength. And
his smell—that musky outdoorsy scent soothed her, assuring her he
was near. She might have a perfect memory, but it wasn't the same
as the real experience. She wished he was there.

Cris slipped in beside her and tapped
the tri-comm on his cheek, slanted on a line from his mouth to his
ear like the one she wore. Hers didn't work either, or the signal
was blocked. Either way she heard nothing but the machines. Could
the Shirukan be jamming them?

It didn't matter. One way or another
she had to escape. The resonance was easy to find. The marks on her
hands glowed and the warmth flooded through her.

Cris's smile confirmed her idea was
right. He pointed behind them at the catwalk at the far end. The
question on his face asked if she could do it. A dozen soldiers
hunched down and fired on them.

Raea shrugged. Maybe. Maybe
not. It wouldn't hurt her to try. Hell, if she didn't do
something
she'd probably
be captured. Heffin's Gate could wait for her, like,
forever.

She didn't know if she'd
come close at that distance. Their attackers were supposed to be
soldiers and
their
shots didn't come close at that range, or at least couldn't
hit her and the small group when they hunched beneath the canisters
and massive cylinders and pipes.