gaian consortium 05 - the titan trap (34 page)

Because she loved him.

He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve that love, but he couldn’t deny it, either. And that was what made this situation all the more horrible to him. She’d loved him, and trusted him, and that had gotten her…what?

Not knowing was always the worst.

His hands were tightly shackled behind him, and he could feel his fingers beginning to go numb from lack of circulation. Maybe that was a good thing. If all of him went similarly numb, then maybe some of the pain he was now feeling would go away.

The room where he was being held was completely silent except for the faint hum of the air circulators. So when a distant
boom!
reverberated throughout the building, he heard it clearly.

What the hell?

That explosion was followed by another, then another. Derek twisted in his chair, but couldn’t do much with his arms bound behind him and his ankles attached to the chair’s legs. All he could do was sit there, heart pounding, wondering what in the world was going on. An attack, clearly, but by whom?

A sizzling, crackling noise, and the door exploded inward. Through the swirling smoke stepped probably the last thing Derek had expected to see — an enormous Stacian, fully two meters tall, a pulse pistol in either hand. His copper-colored gaze fell on Derek at once, and he spoke into a wrist-mounted comm. “Found him. He’s shackled.”

A woman’s voice emerged from the comm. “The laser cutter should do it.”

“Copy that.”

The Stacian approached Derek, gave him a ferocious grin, and said, “Afternoon, Dr. Tagawa. You should probably hold still for the next minute.”

Another explosion jolted the building. Roughly a million questions crowded Derek’s brain, but he decided right now it was probably best to go with the flow. “I’ll do my best.”

The alien extracted a silvery device from the pouch at his belt and set to work. The sharp, tinny scent of super-heated metal arose from the shackles, and a few seconds after that, Derek heard a metallic clank as they fell to the floor. Flexing his fingers, he lifted his hands, shaking his arms to get the blood going. At the same time, the Stacian knelt and cut through the shackle on Derek’s right leg, and then his left. Afterward, he thrust his massive frame to a standing position once more, then said, “Time to go.”

“Are you with — ” He let the words break off, since saying “benefactor” or “sponsor” in these circumstances sounded a little foolish.

But the alien seemed to understand, saying, “Yes, I’m giving her a hand. She wants to talk to you. But we need to get out of here. Now.”

Her
. So their benefactor was a woman. Derek wondered if that had been her voice issuing from the Stacian’s wrist-mounted comm. He supposed he’d find out soon enough — if they made it out of here alive.

No time for stealth. The alien tossed Derek one of his pistols, then pulled a third gun out of the holster strapped to his leg. “If it moves, shoot it,” he said briefly before heading out the door.

Those instructions seemed simple enough. Derek followed the Stacian, who was moving at a not-quite run down the corridor. A burst from each of his pistols, and the two soldiers who had just rounded a corner slumped to the ground. The alien never even broke stride. Clearly, he’d had experience with this sort of thing before.

Their surroundings were unfamiliar. Definitely not the GARP facility. Maybe a section of the processing plant taken over by GDF personnel? An entirely separate base? Derek couldn’t tell, and right then he supposed it didn’t matter too much. The important thing was getting out of here…wherever “here” might be.

“Cassidy Evans?” he panted. He would’ve said he was in decent shape, but that Stacian had
long
legs.

“Safe,” the alien replied. “One of my associates already has her.”

That news seemed to lend him an additional burst of energy, and so, as they jogged to the right and went down another hallway, Derek hardly even blinked when they came upon another group of soldiers, four this time. They didn’t even have time to get off a shot before a barrage of pulse bolts from his and the Stacian’s guns mowed them down.

“Not a bad shot, Dr. Tagawa,” the Stacian said, with a ferocious baring of his teeth.

“Thanks,” Derek replied, feeling a grin of his own stretch at his mouth.

At the end of the hallway was a set of doors that now stood open. Part of the reason they hadn’t closed automatically to keep out the tainted air was that a number of bodies lay piled there, acting as effective door stops. In the center of the carnage stood a grim-faced man, a pulse rifle cradled in his hands.

“She’s aboard already,” the stranger said, calmly as if he were discussing what he’d had for breakfast that day. “Let’s go.”

Aboard?
Derek wondered. He didn’t stop for questions, though, only followed the strange man and the Stacian toward, of all things, a Sirocco-class transport, the hatch open but no gangplank deployed. As he ran, he took a quick look around. They were definitely still at the processing facility, at a wing that jutted out from one side. Then he heard another explosion rock the base, and thought he saw a sleek arrowhead-shaped craft circle the plant before heading up into the murky sky.

“We’re out,” the strange man said into his own wrist-mounted comm. “Jerem, provide cover, but you can stop the bombardment.”

The Stacian lingered at the open hatch, obviously waiting for Derek to go in first. As he clambered aboard, he thought he heard the incongruous sound of a boy’s voice emerging from the stranger’s comm.

“Come on, Dad — just one more strafing run. This is fun!”

“I said stop, and I mean it.”

“Fine,” came the reply.

The stranger caught Derek staring at him and shrugged. “Kids.”

And then they were all aboard, the Stacian pulling himself inside and closing the hatch, even as Derek felt a pair of arms go around him and give him a fierce hug.

“You’re safe!” Cassidy exclaimed, pulling him against her so tightly that he had to work to force some air into his lungs. “They said you would be, but — ”

“I’m fine,” he said, kissing the top of her head, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair. She felt so very real in that moment, real and alive and unharmed, standing here in his arms as the ship lifted off and accelerated away, moving so fast that he staggered a bit to retain his balance.

Then, realizing they had a somewhat incongruous audience consisting of a Stacian and a man who had to be mercenary of some kind, Derek released her gently and glanced over at the other two occupants of the cabin. “So….” he began, and then stopped, not knowing exactly what to say.
Thank you…and who are you, precisely?

“So,” said a new voice, one that belonged to a woman who was now emerging from the cockpit and making her way into the luxurious little craft’s main passenger compartment, “I’m guessing you have a lot of questions, Dr. Tagawa, Ms. Evans.”

“A few,” the two of them replied in unison, and then stopped and looked at one another in some amusement.

“That’s understandable,” the woman said. “Please, take a seat.” She flicked a glance over at the swarthy stranger, the merc. “Jerem?”

“Fine,” the man replied. “A bit put out that he couldn’t keep dropping ordnance on the base, but….”

“Typical.” She smiled, then returned her attention to Derek and Cassidy. He guessed she was somewhere around his age, maybe a year or two younger. Attractive, with that long dark red hair and smoky green eyes. “My name is Miala Thorn, and that’s my husband Eryk.”

Somehow Derek managed to keep his eyes from widening. Even cloistered academics like himself had heard of the notorious Eryk Thorn. No wonder the man had come across as a mercenary — he was the mercenary’s mercenary. Nothing had been heard of from him for several years, and the Consortium had boasted that he’d been caught and imprisoned, but obviously that was just another of the lies they’d cooked up for public consumption.

Derek nodded, and Cassidy said, “It’s very nice to meet you, and….” Her gaze strayed to the Stacian, who had propped himself up next to the hatch.

“Rast sen Drenthan,” he replied. “My wife would come out to meet you, but as she’s busy piloting this ship, that’ll have to wait.”

Wife? This whole thing was getting stranger and stranger.

Miala Thorn seemed to note his confusion, and said, “I’ll get to the explanations in a minute, but first I want you to see something.” She tilted her chin up toward the vid-screen that was mounted in one wall of the passenger compartment, and Derek saw her lift her handheld and point it at the screen. It came to life, showing the video he’d taken inside the processing plant, now overlaid by narration in a crisp feminine voice that he realized belonged to Miala herself.

“…It is vital that the citizens of the Consortium understand the depths of the lies their government has told them about the disposition of the victims of the Cloud. Rather than being treated with the respect they deserve, those victims are being harvested, mined for any valuable items they might still have within their bodies, and then processed so the elements within their corpses can be used for fertilizer and any other uses the Consortium deems valuable.”

Derek glanced over at Miala. “That’s…amazing.”

“Oh, it gets better,” she said, still smiling. The screen blanked for a fraction of a second, then went on to show another channel with the same footage…then another…then another. “I took over all the satellite feeds. You can’t see anything else. Not your favorite vid-drama, not a low-g football match…nothing. And anyone who watches those things on their handhelds…they’ll all be seeing the same thing as well.” Her smile widened, sending green lights dancing in her eyes. “I have a feeling the Consortium is going to be answering a lot of questions in the near future.”

“But…why?” Cassidy asked. “That is, I — we — really appreciate what you’ve done for us, but why us in particular? Why this case?”

“Because of me,” said another woman, now just stepping out of the cockpit, but stopping by the entrance, in case she needed to go back in and handle something quickly. She had dark hair pulled back away from the fine bones of her face, and very deep blue eyes. Oddly, something about her seemed almost familiar, as if Derek seen her somewhere before. But that had to be a mistake. When would he have ever met a woman like her, someone who piloted a Sirocco-class starship and was apparently married to a Stacian?

“Or rather, because of Liam,” she added. “Liam Jannholm. I’m Lira, his older sister. When I found out what had happened to Theo — ” Breaking off, she gave a grim shake of her head. “Of course I was shocked at first. But then when I looked into it further, something didn’t smell right to me. I tried talking to Liam about it, but he didn’t want to have anything to do with me, let alone listen to what I might have to say about his husband’s death.”

“But why wouldn’t he talk to you?” Cassidy inquired, then hesitated, as if worried that she was getting too personal in her questions.

But Lira only smiled, and that was when Derek recalled where he’d seen her. A holo-portrait on Liam’s desk, showing her in the dark gray uniform of a GDF officer, captain’s stars shining on her collar. Well, she didn’t appear to be in the GDF now, that was for sure.

The Stacian, Rast sen Drenthan, shifted slightly and said, a wry tone to his deep voice, “Lira’s family did not precisely approve of her…choices.”

Well, Derek could see why some families might have a slight issue with one of their children marrying a Stacian. Being at almost-war for nearly a hundred years tended to have that sort of an effect on people.

“Oh, yes, I’m definitely the black sheep,” Lira said cheerfully. “My sister will still talk to me on the sly, but Liam always did have his head up his ass.”

Miala Thorn’s mouth quirked. “So Lira came to me with her concerns, and I started doing some investigating on my own. I’m not too bad at poking into databases and getting the information I need.”

There was an understatement. “I see,” Derek commented, his tone neutral.

“And I saw what was really going on, and sent along some information to members of the underground. They took care of actually helping you get off Titan.” Her expression turned serious, and she pointed her handheld at the vid-screen, turning off the images of countless bodies on their grim journey to being “processed.” She went on, “I am sorry about the leak on Europa. I’m still trying to figure out what exactly happened there.”

“It’s all right,” Derek said, and Cassidy nodded. “We survived.”

“Barely, and only because of your own resourcefulness. At any rate, I’ve been keeping watch and assisting as I could. The truth needs to come out. The citizens of the Consortium need to know precisely what sort of government they’re supporting.”

Glancing from her to the others in the passenger compartment, Derek saw equally grim expressions on her compatriots…grim, but determined. “And your stake in all this?”

“Let’s just say we know what it’s like to run afoul of the Consortium,” Eryk Thorn said. “They’ve been trying to catch up with us for years, but luckily their people aren’t quite as good as they think they are.”

No, Derek kind of doubted that. This small group of people made quite the formidable army all on their own.

“You might not have gotten caught at all,” Lira said, her expression shifting to an irritation her next words explained. “Except Liam was being rotated back to the GARP facility, and saw Ms. Evans leaving the supply depot. Apparently the authorities had notified Liam of Dr. Tagawa’s return to Gaia, and told him to keep an eye out for his former compatriot and the woman who appeared to be traveling with him. So Liam made contact and said he had a possible sighting, and that put everyone on heightened alert. The only real break you caught was that the surveillance cameras near the pipeline where you entered the base were down. It took them a bit to catch up with you…and then it took us a bit to catch up with them, if you take my meaning.”

“It’s all right,” Cassidy said, although the smile she offered appeared a bit shaky. “You did catch up with us, which is the important thing.”