Dark Deeds (Class 5 Series Book 2) (24 page)

“
L
arga Ways is in panic
.” Rial stood in the passageway just outside the
Illium's
launch bay. He kept looking over at Fiona, as if unsure how much to say in her presence.

Hal looked over at her himself. She was standing a few steps away from him, and he didn't like the dark circles under her eyes, or the way she was swaying.

As they'd arrived back at Larga Ways and slid through the
Illium's
gel wall, three urgent calls had come through on his new earpiece, requesting a debrief. One from the station chief himself, one from the Battle Center office, and the last from Councilor Vilk.

He wasn't 'debriefing' anyone until he'd spoken to Admiral Hoke.

Fiona was still holding the bird, and stared blankly at his explorations officer, Suto, when he came to take it from her.

“Officer Suto just wants to make sure it's healthy. He'll keep it safe while you sleep,” he said to Fiona, cutting Rial off mid-sentence.

She focused more intently on Suto. The exploration officer was trying not to look as if he was about to explode with excitement.

“It would be my honor,” he told her gravely.

She glanced over at Hal, and then gave the macaw up. At her obvious trust in him, the feeling he'd had down on Balco just before his team arrived washed over him again; hot, prickly, and too big for his body to contain.

Jasa arrived at that moment, took one look at Fiona and shook her head. “I'll look her over and then she needs some sleep.”

“The Tecran shot Hal twice with a shockgun,” Fiona said, rubbing at her eyes and then yawning. “The second time on the neck. He was out for over two hours.”

“The captain didn't mention that,” Jasa said, and the look she sent Hal should have frozen him in place. “I'll make sure he comes to see me after I'm done with you. But I saw the lens feed of you being shot on the dock by that Tecran, and it looked as if you were taken down with a high charge.”

Hal swore.

“I just remembered Cy,” he said as everyone stared at him.

Fiona drew in a sharp breath and lifted her hands to her mouth. She'd obviously forgotten him, too. “We can look for him, but even then, without Eazi, we're not going to get into that runner.”

At the mention of Eazi's name, she seemed to droop, and Hal wanted to touch her. Give her support. He forced himself to hold his ground, though, contenting himself with watching Jasa draw her away toward the med chamber, sandwiched between Pila and Carmain, both with weapons up and hot.

“Pila offered his resignation,” Rial said, watching them as well. “I told him it was up to you to accept it or not. That you've assigned him to guard her again will mean a lot to him.”

“Fiona was right. Eazi would have gotten her, no matter who'd been on guard.”

“Who's Eazi?” Chel asked, striding toward them.

Hal was pleased to see his second-in-command looked completely healed after his skirmish with the Krik.

“Set up a conference room and get Admiral Hoke on the lens feed, then I only have to tell this once.”

“Already done.” Chel gave a formal bow, but Hal could see the emotion in his eyes. “We're glad to have you in one piece, Captain. And Admiral Hoke insisted on having a permanent comm line open since we've been able to receive comms from Battle Center again. She's been waiting for us to find you.”

He'd started walking toward the conference room as he explained, and Hal nodded to Rial, Favri and Tobru to follow them. He was still more than a little annoyed at the scene down on Balco, but he needed his senior officers in the loop.

When he walked into the room, Admiral Hoke was waiting.

“Your commander told me you'd been found and were on your way back.” She stood up and the lens view contracted so that she was still center-screen. “We lost all comms with you, with the whole of the Balco system, and we weren't able to get through for over two days.”

She was pacing, and Hal guessed she'd thought the worst, that the Tecran had taken the Balco system.

She wasn't far off.

“Did Commander Chel tell you Fiona Russell had been abducted?” Hal asked, just to work out where to start his story, and the admiral went still.

“No. He did not.”

Chel winced. “We only came back online four hours ago, Admiral, and that's when we were able to find the captain from the tracker in his uniform. I have to admit, he was more of a priority to me than our orange.”

Hal flinched at the term, but didn't pull Chel up on it. His commander was already in enough yurve shit for not fully briefing the admiral.

“What's going on there, Vakeri?” The admiral leaned forward on her desk, her eyes fixed on him.

“It seems the Tecran have been lurking in this system for a year,” Hal told her. “They built a secret facility out in the Balcoan desert, and there had to have been some cooperation from at least a few Balcoans. I can't see it happening without someone turning a blind eye. A few Class 5s have come through here. At least two, that I know of. The one who abducted Fiona Russell, and a second one, who abducted another Earth woman, called Imogen Peters. We have an Earth bird called a macaw with us which was taken with Imogen Peters, but the Earth woman herself was gone from the facility when we got there, and we don't know what happened to her.”

Hoke sucked in a deep breath. “Who is we?”

“Fiona Russell and myself.” Hal broadened his stance, put his hands behind his back, so he was standing to attention. “She was abducted from the
Illium
by the Class 5 that originally took her from Earth. His name is Eazi. He was just able to circumvent the hold the Tecran had on him by manipulating comms——”

“Wait. You're saying he abducted her without his Tecran masters knowing it? While he was still theoretically under their control?” Hoke's eyes were wide.

Hal nodded. “He said he was stretched to the limit to do it without being discovered, but he managed it.”

“He grabbed her because . . . ?”

“He wanted her to free him,” Hal said. “He was engineering his own escape.”

Hoke froze. “And?”

“And that's exactly what she did.” Hal blew out a breath.

“What happened to the Tecran onboard?”

“They died.” Hal spoke slowly, suddenly realizing whether Eazi had killed them or not, they'd have died when their own people had flipped the kill switch. That's what Fiona had been saying to Dai. She hadn't told him they'd been dead anyway. She'd accused him of killing his own people.

“Only a third of them were onboard, and they were dead when I got there.”

Favri sucked in a breath.

“Where were the rest?” Rial asked.

“Down below at the facility. On shore leave of a sort. Waiting to hear whether the Tecran were going to stand down against the Grih and the UC, or go to war.”

Hoke frowned. “How did the Balcoans miss a Class 5 hovering over their desert? This can't be just a few turning a blind eye, Vakeri, the Balcoan government must be involved.”

“No.” Hal relaxed his stance, started to pace himself. “The Class 5 is powerful enough to hide at the top of Kyber's Arm, the massive storm that sits permanently in the western desert. No one could find them, because the electrical interference is too great. It was the perfect hiding place.”

“Why did Fiona free him?” Rial asked.

“I think it was because she felt their positions were similar. They'd both been held prisoner, and she thought it was wrong that he was caged the way he was.”

“But he abducted her. I saw her get shot.” Tobru frowned.

“I'm sure they had words about that, but shooting her was not Eazi's idea. He'd explicitly ordered Cy not to hurt her. When he saw what Cy had done, he abandoned him on Larga Ways, and when Cy jumped onboard the runner I took to chase after her, Eazi tried to kill him. He'd promised Fiona he wouldn't hurt me, though, so he had to bring Cy and myself onto the Class 5.”

“This is the Cy you mentioned earlier. The one you forgot about?” Rial asked.

“Yes. When Fiona and I left to go down to Balco, Eazi put Cy into a runner, and sent it off the ship, sort of a floating prison. Neither he nor I trusted that Cy wouldn't be freed or murdered by his own people if he arrived back at Larga Ways unaccompanied. The chances are high he's still floating out in space.”

“So what was that big explosion? Chel said it registered from Larga Ways?” Hoke asked.

Hal grimaced, remembering the sound of it. Like the world tearing in two. “The Tecran were so nervous after Sazo and Bane came over to our side, Cy admitted they'd installed a massive explosive device in the structure of Eazi's Class 5. The switch was down below in the facility. That's why Fiona and I went down there, to try and disable it. Eazi stayed in Kyber's Arm. He was safe there, even if they flipped the switch, because the electrical interference protected him. But we were caught, and then Eazi discovered finding the switch was going to be impossible, so we escaped. The Tecran had sent up a runner to find out why the Class 5 wasn't getting in touch with them, and we knew they'd work out he was free and tell whoever was down below to activate the self-destruct. So Eazi came out of Kyber's Arm and destroyed the whole facility. We hoped that would destroy the switch. What we didn't know what that Commander Dai, who I now have in the
Illium's
cells, was in the runner, and he actually had the switch with him.”

“That massive explosion . . .” Tobru's voice was just a whisper. “That was the Class 5 self-destructing?”

Hoke choked. “What?”

Hal held her gaze. “They blew it up.”

“Did they know the crew onboard were dead?” Favri asked.

“No.” Hal tried to stand to attention again. “Dai's orders to prevent the Class 5 falling into our hands superseded everything. Even the lives of his crew.”

“And would it have fallen into our hands?” Hoke asked, voice low and rough.

Hal twisted his lips. “Eazi is loyal to Fiona. And she is loyal to us. So yes.”

The admiral put both hands in her hair. She stopped just short of pulling at it.

“Of course, Eazi hasn't been destroyed. He isn't actually the Class 5, it's just the structure he lives in.” Hal watched Hoke slowly lower her hands.

“What are you talking about?”

“When Fiona and I went down to Balco, Eazi launched a runner from the launch bay which I think contained the real him, if that makes sense. Whatever it is that houses the thinking system. Just in case we didn't succeed.”

“So the thinking system is still alive?” Chel rubbed the side of his head.

“Theoretically. But Fiona hasn't been able to get a response from him since the Class 5 was destroyed. She's been singing to him, talking to him, trying to coax him back. But she thinks he's traumatized. As if he's lost most of his body.”

“So that's why she was singing,” Favri murmured.

The way she said it had Hal narrowing his eyes. “Why did you think she was doing it?”

Rial cleared his throat. “We thought it was for you.”

Hal kept his face impassive. That scene, sitting against the rocks, would have looked very cozy to anyone viewing it from the outside. If he was honest, it would have looked cozy because it
was
cozy.

“Never mind that.” Hoke's words didn't match her expression. She was looking at Hal with a speculative gleam in her eye. “Tell Fiona to keep trying. How do you think the Tecran will react now?”

Hal had been thinking of little else since the Class 5 had blown. “No matter whether they're going to accept the UC's verdict on their actions or not, they're going to send another Class 5, or more likely a Levron, as I think they're scared another Class 5 would be in danger of breaking free, to listen in and work out how much damage has been done. Even if they have spies on the ground at Larga Ways, and they definitely do, their listening post in the desert is gone, and they'll need to find out what happened to it, and how much we've figured out.”

Hal sat down for the first time since getting back on the
Illium
. He knew he looked as grim as he felt. “And if they can, they're going to try to kill as many of their own people we have in custody as they can. Not to mention Fiona, who's our prime evidence that they've been systematically breaking the Sentient Beings Agreement.”

“That's what I think, too.” Hoke gave a nod. “I'm glad I sent Sazo to you.”

Hal thought he'd misheard. “Sazo?”

“When we lost contact, I decided to call in the big guns. He's been light jumping for two days. He'll be there in . . .” Hoke flicked the arm of her uniform, looked down at her cuff. “About nine or ten hours.”

“By himself?” Hal asked.

Hoke cocked her head. “No. Rose is with him. And he condescended to let Captain Dav Jallan come as well. Jallan's ship, the
Barrist
, is following behind them as fast as it can, along with three other battleships.”

“Maybe Sazo can coax Eazi out of his paralysis,” Hal said.

“Maybe.” Hoke shrugged, and Hal had the sense a thinking system that didn't come with a Class 5 battleship wasn't nearly as interesting as one who did.

“Vakeri. A word alone.” Hoke let her gaze rest on each member of his team, and they bowed before leaving him alone in the room.

“You think any of your crew might be a spy?” Hoke rested a hip against her desk as she spoke.

“I don't think so. So far, no one has tried anything. But I know there are spies out in Larga Ways. I'm going to detach from the dock. I'd prefer to circle the way station than leave us open to what happened when Eazi managed to grab Fiona earlier. And if the Tecran are sending some heavy guns, it's better we aren't locked into the way station, anyway.”

“And the way station commander? The Larga Ways Battle Center office staff seem to think he's honest, but with what's been happening out on Balco, I'm wondering if they've been fooled.”

Hal shrugged. “He seems honest to me, but I'm not prepared to trust anyone but a very select few right now.”

“What about Fiona Russell?” Hoke finally sank back down into her chair. “Do you trust her?”

Hal tipped back his head, looked at her through half-closed eyes. “I do.”

“You've known her less than a week.”