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

R
ose McKenzie
.

Fee reached out and held onto the examination table.

So that's where she'd disappeared to.

Space.

All the searches, all the public appeals for information——for nothing.

Just like what was most likely happening for her.

Tears welled up in her eyes, and began to drip down her cheeks.

She'd buried thoughts of her family, how they'd be worrying, as deep as she could, but now, thinking about Rose, and the media storm around her disappearance, Fee suddenly acknowledged her parents were going through hell.

“Did you meet Rose in the Class 5?” Jasa had grabbed a handheld when Fee had said she knew Rose McKenzie, but started at the sight of her tears when she looked up from her furious tapping.

Fee shook her head. “I don't know what a Class 5 is.” She was proud of herself for keeping her voice steady. “I've never met Rose personally. She was on holiday near where I live and she disappeared. I'd have had to live under a rock not to have heard her name.”

“You were taken from the same place?” Jasa's fingers were just about drilling through the handheldʼs screen.

“The same general area.” She didn't remember anything about being taken. Except feathers. The feel of feathers against her skin.

She lifted a hand to her throat, trying to fight back the nausea.

“Get on the table, Fiona. You look like you're going to pass out.” Jasa kept hold of her handheld and pulled a slim silver wand, a larger version of the one Rial had used on her earlier, out of a drawer. “Do you want to tell me why you're so upset?”

Fee struggled to get onto the table, obviously created for people taller than herself, and Jasa hovered her instrument over Fee's hip.

“I'm upset because Rose's family were devastated by her disappearance, and I've been trying not to think about it, but I know my family is in the same kind of pain now, too. We both will never be found.”

Jasa caught her eye. “I don't know what to say to that, other than it should never have happened.”

She looked angry and got angrier by the minute as she waved what Fee guessed was a diagnostic tool over Fiona's legs and pelvis and then studied the handheld for the results. With her elf ears, she looked like a furious fairy godmother waving a wand. A fairy who could kick ass just as easily as cast a spell.

Fee hadn't had to take off her clothes for the examination, and as the wand came near her chest, she suddenly remembered the Krik's encryptor sitting snug inside her bra, under her left breast.

She couldn't help the sound of distress she made.

She didn't know what Jasa would do if she found it, but it was the one small secret Fee had, and she was keeping it.

The encryptor had been hard-won and it was hers.

Jasa stopped, gaze flying to Fee's face at her reaction, and Fee drew up her knees and looped her arms around them, shielding the top of her body.

“Sorry.”

That was the truth. Jasa had done nothing but help her, but she wasn't risking anyone taking away her one sure way out of most locked rooms.

“What is it?” Jasa stepped back.

“I just . . .” Fee actually shuddered in a breath.

This is what she'd been reduced to. A quivering wreck at the thought of something being taken from her, and yet, the feeling was genuine and so strong, she felt swept away by it.

She tightened her grip on her knees and bowed her head.

Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all she had to do.

Eventually she looked up, saw Jasa was working calmly at a large screen in the corner.

The doctor turned. “Better?”

Fee shook her head. No way was she continuing the examination until she'd had a chance to hide her encryptor.

Jasa sighed. “What would you like to do?”

There was only one answer to that question. “Have a shower.”

The doctor stared at her. “A shower?”

“I haven't been allowed one for over two months. It would be . . . good.”

Jasa grimaced. “Fiona, I was told that you had been ill-treated by your captors, and I've been looking at the evidence of that for the last five minutes, but I can't believe I didn't think to allow you to shower and dress in something clean and comfortable before your examination and I apologize.”

She moved to the door. “Follow me and I'll take you to your room, and make sure you have what you need. When you're ready to continue the examination, you can call me.”

Fee slid onto the floor, looked down at the thin silver wand lying on a tray near the table. “What does that thing do?”

Jasa sighed again. “I should have told you that, too. It's hard to remember that you aren't one of us. It's able to register damage at the cellular level, so it can develop a comprehensive picture of all injuries. Once I've examined your whole body, I can come up with a holistic approach to your recovery.”

Fee nodded. She looked straight into Jasa's azure eyes.

She could not regret keeping the encryptor secret, and she
had
been nervous about the silver wand and hadn't enjoyed being examined while she felt grimy.

She decided her conscience could cope.

She followed the doctor down two short passageways, one guard going ahead of them, the other watching the rear, and Fee wondered if they could possibly call any more attention to her.

She sighed in relief when Pila deemed her room safe and she and Jasa stepped in and closed the door behind them.

“It's placing a strain on you. The guards.” Jasa's lips twisted in sympathy. “It's better to be safe, though.”

Fee wanted to ask what the Grih officer had tried to do to Rose, but her words dried up on her tongue as she looked around the room.

It was about ten times bigger than her previous cell; bed, table, chairs and a bathroom all clean and neat.

“Here is the refreshment station.” Jasa said, and touched the wall.

It lit up in a circle, and two doors slid open in the middle to reveal a recessed cabinet.

“There is cold water and hot water,” Jasa pointed to the taps, “and you can make grinabo and tep-tep.” She strode to another wall, touched the side of it and another circular area lit up and opened to reveal shelves. “There are some clothes here for you, and some towels. Please make yourself comfortable, and when you're ready, we'll continue the examination.”

“Thank you.” Fee took a step toward the bathroom.

“Fiona.” Jasa was standing by the door. “You have a head injury, and initial results are that your hip has been severely bruised. Get clean and have something to drink, but then I have to look you over.”

There was a thread of steel in the doctor's voice.

Fiona turned. Looked Jasa straight in the eye and nodded.

An expression flashed across the doctor's face. It might have been respect, it might have been pity, and then Jasa hit the button beside the door and stepped out.

Fee waited until the doors closed again, her eyes on the guards with shockguns at the ready, standing watch.

Her encryptor wouldn't help get her past them, if she needed to, but one step at a time. She had her get-out-of-jail free card, and she was hanging on to it.

H
al stood
in the empty med chamber, his hand raised to tap his earpiece to contact Jasa, when she walked back in.

She stepped inside, flicked her gaze in his direction, and then walked over to pick up her handheld.

Barely suppressed fury radiated from her, and he could see the jump of a vein in her neck.

He waited.

“There are more bruises on her than I saw on Chel after the Krik attack.” Her voice was low. “And it's not just the bruises, it's where they are. She had to be on the floor for some of them. Kicked when she was down.” She lifted the handheld, tapped the screen, and a diagnostic appeared on the wall. “See here?” Jasa pointed. “Two fine stick fractures in her arm, four weeks old, to judge by the healing. She's lucky her hip isn't fractured as well, but as it is, it's seriously bruised.”

“And her head?”

Jasa turned on him. “I haven't got there yet. Which is the next point. She's traumatized. She had some kind of episode while I was examining her. I was going to intervene, but she has obviously developed her own strategy for dealing with it——by the looks of it from long practice. She went through some breathing exercises, got herself under control, and I decided any interference from me might have simply added to her distress.”

Jasa leaned back against the counter that ran along the wall, and Hal didn't think he'd ever seen her so openly affected. “She asked if she could shower and change before we continued the examination. Such a simple thing, but I didn't think to offer it. I'm not used to dealing with someone who's gone through what she's had to face. And when she started crying over Rose McKenzie——”

Hal held up a hand to stop her, his pulse suddenly racing. “She knows Rose McKenzie?”

He tried to think of the consequences of that, but Jasa was shaking her head.

“Rose was abducted from the same place on Earth as Fiona. They've never met, but Fiona said there were repeated comms about Rose's disappearance, and appeals for people with information to come forward. It reminded her of what her own family would be going through.”

Jasa's words stopped him cold. No matter how interesting he found her, until now, Fiona Russell had signified an interruption to his mission and a logistical problem.

But none of it was her fault.

He needed to adjust his attitude where she was concerned, find a little empathy.

“I broke the news to Admiral Hoke about finding Fiona, and I'm waiting to hear back as to how we'll proceed, but most likely we'll be continuing on, delivering Councilor Vilk to Larga Ways as planned. So she'll be with us for a while.”

“How did Hoke take it?” Jasa asked.

Hal snorted. “Badly. Rose McKenzie didn't exactly land among us without a ripple. Her arrival caused a tidal wave of change. Hoke's worried about the impact Fiona will have. But the fact that she doesn't seem to come with a Class 5 battleship in tow like Rose did makes her a little less worrying.”

“The Tecran must have kept her sedated.” Jasa looked over at the image of Fiona on the screen again. “She has no memory of her abduction. The Garmman trader is all she knows.”

Hal had been thinking about that. “The Tecran who stole Rose McKenzie didn't sedate her, but then they had Doctor Fliap onboard, in charge of scientific research, and he seems to have been a sadist. If the Class 5 that took Fiona had someone with higher principles, then it makes sense they kept her in some kind of suspended state. What I don't understand is why they took her at all, and then why they handed her to the Garmman afterward. If the Tecran had gotten her off their hands by giving her to the Garmman a month ago, when it came out that Rose had usurped the Tecran's control of their Class 5, then I'd understand it. They wouldn't want someone on their ship who could free the thinking system running it. But they passed her off to the Garmman over a month before Rose freed Sazo.”

“Someone got nervous? They feared what they'd done would be discovered and they'd be charged with non-compliance of the Sentient Beings Agreement?” Jasa lifted her shoulders.

“They had no reason to fear that. Class 5s were kept from mainstream airspace, and the Tecran would light jump away rather than let anyone onto a Class 5. They should have felt safe enough.” Maybe they'd never know the reason. It was hardly likely they'd get the chance to ask.

There was a faint chime, and Jasa looked over at her handheld. “Time for me to check on Hadri and Mun. They're doing better. Almost as well as Chel. He should have stayed put though, instead of captaining the ship while you were chasing down the Krik.”

Hal acknowledged that with a shrug. “It was personal for him. He thought the Krik had killed Mun, and when he was shot down, he couldn't shield Hadri from attack. I told him to report to you now I'm back on board.”

Jasa's mouth thinned. “Well he hasn't. Call him to med chamber 3 and he can meet us there.”

“What about Fiona?” Hal realized he'd hoped to find the Earth woman here, study her a little more, and he was sorry to be leaving without seeing her.

“I think she'll be at least an hour. I gave her a warning not to take too long because of her head injury, but I bet she'll spend a while in the shower. I've instructed Pila to knock after thirty minutes, and go in if she doesn't answer, in case her concussion is worse than I thought.”

“You know, she got that injury because she approached the Krik, and asked them if they'd take her with them.” He was still trying to process that. Of everything that he'd seen and heard on the Garmman trader, that had made the biggest impression on him. That, and the hood Tak had made her wear.

The Garmman captain had tried to erase what she was, but in a way that spoke of contempt not just for her, but for the intelligence of his own crew.

Jasa regarded him with open-mouthed astonishment. “She actually thought they'd help her?”

“She didn't know anything about the Krik. And as you noted with her injuries, she wasn't exactly being well treated by the Garmman. She didn't think she had anything to lose.”

“It's no wonder she had a moment of panic on my table. How does she know we'll be any better?” Jasa's voice was quiet. “I don't know if I'm qualified to deal with her, Hal. She's outside of my experience.”

Hal lifted his shoulders. “She's outside everyone's experience. The only exception is the crew of the
Barrist
, the ship that found Rose McKenzie. And they're more than seven light jumps from our position, and we're going in the opposite direction.”

“You looked that up?” Jasa raised her eyebrows in surprise.

Hal nodded. “I was hoping we could pass Fiona off on them, but there's no way that's happening. Not until we get back to Battle Center headquarters.”

Jasa fiddled with her handheld. “I'll contact the
Barrist's
head of medical, perhaps he can help me work out a treatment for Fiona's injuries. Her bones and muscles are denser than ours, so I think her planet is larger than any of the four planets, has more gravity. Her injuries are less severe than they could have been because she could take more damage without breaking. And when she gets her strength back, I think she'll find our gravity allows her to jump higher than she's used to.”