Ki Book One (23 page)

Max nodded silently, then he reached out a
hand and shook the Major’s.

“
God... you can’t trust him. Listen to me,
this might sound crazy, but someone has accessed your
communications and—” Jackson swallowed wildly, eyes plastered open
as he choked through his words.

“
Shut up,” the Major growled. “Silence him
if he speaks again,” he flopped a hand at one of the
Guards.

“
Thank you for your prompt assistance,” Max
pulled the pack from his shoulders and let it fall with a heavy
thump onto the grass beside him.

“
We will secure the prisoners and arrange
transport into Valia City for you immediately,” the Major latched
his hands behind his back and nodded harshly at Ki.

One of the Guards stepped in beside her,
yanking up her hands as he pulled some cuffs over them.

“
No,” Max snapped. “She’s mine. She is
integral to an operation we are currently running. I am afraid I
need to claim a full jurisdiction here.”

“
She’s a Tarkan spy—” the Major
began.

“
True, but she is
my
Tarkan spy,” Max rubbed distractedly at his wrists
and fixed the Major with an untroubled look. “This is a matter of
national security. She is providing us with integral
intelligence.”

Grinding his teeth, the Major eventually
nodded, though he did not drop his gaze as he did
. “Very well.”

“
As for your traitor, you can do what you
like with him. Though be advised that he will attempt to come up
with outlandish and wild excuses to explain his actions. Don’t heed
them.” Max patted at his shirt, removing some of the dust and
rubble from his shoulders.

She didn’t dare interrupt. All she could
do was stand there in abject horror as she realized what he was
doing. Obviously the Zeneethians had found some way to interfere
with Ashkan military communications, and had manufactured Max an
alias. One that was working perfectly. He would get exactly what he
wanted with no questions asked.

“
Also, you will have to hand the gun over,”
Max nodded at the Zeneethian particle weapon that was still in the
arms of one of the Guards. “It’s experimental and we can’t run the
risk of those designs getting into the hands of our
enemies.”

“
We seized the weapon—” the Major
bristled.

“
And we designed it and own it,” Max
interrupted casually. He had an air of unchallenged authority about
him. It was at odds with the snide, nasty way he’d been treating
Jackson, and different yet again from the awed way he looked upon
her.

He was clearly more than a simple soldier.
Deft in manipulation and acting, it all made her fear him and the
Zeneethians even more.

“
This is not up for discussion, Major. If
you would like to clarify that fact, please call your superiors.
They will confirm that the experimental weapon and the Tarkan spy
must be released into my custody,” Max finished cleaning off his
shirt, and shifted around, appearing to get comfortable. “Go ahead,
I’m in no hurry.”

“
We will head back to the Guard station in
the nearest town. I will make some calls, and then you and your
property will be released into your care.” The Major nodded sharply
down the hill, indicating a car that was parked down the steep
incline. It was large and had the familiar red and blue crest of
the Ashkan Royal Family painted on the side.

The plane overhead had stopped making
passes, and with several more short interchanges between Max and
the Major, the group moved down towards the vehicle.

Ki tried to catch Jackson’s attention, but
he was wedged between two large men, both with their arms hooked
over his. Occasionally she caught flashes of him though. His
shoulders were dropped in defeat, his face directed at the ground,
an unfathomable devastation crumpling his features.

He should never have tried to help her.
She’d warned him about that all the way back at the farmhouse.
Despite all the pain and hardship he’d put her through, she felt
nothing but compassion for him in that moment.

He’d offered hope where no one else had.
Even if it had only been a glimmer.

By the time they made it to the vehicle,
the wind had picked up to a gale. It whipped at her exposed arms,
chilling the flesh and sending shivers through her back and legs.
Whilst the Zeneethian scanner had healed her of her injuries, the
euphoric feeling it had left her with had long ago worn off. Now
the cold and her persistent hunger and thirst were back to haunt
her.

When they reached the car, she was piled in
the back. One of the Guards pushed her roughly towards a seat, and
she fell against it with a bang.

“
Hey,” Max snapped, “you need to be careful
with my prisoner.”

“
Your prisoner or not, she’s going to need
to be handcuffed and blindfolded until we deliver her to a holding
cell. We can’t afford to have Tarkan spies observing everything we
do.” The Major grabbed at a simple brown hessian bag and threw it
at the Guard closest to Ki. Immediately the man snatched it up and
pulled it over her head.

She wanted to scream as the rough fabric
scratched against her cheeks. Cutting out the light almost
completely, it reminded her of the cave system with its tight, dark
walls that seemed to press in at you from every direction.

She held onto her emotions though, squeezing
her eyes shut and pulling her hands into fists.

“
If anything happens to her, you and your
men will be held directly responsible,” Max lost the casual edge to
his voice. Now it bridled with authoritative anger.

“
She will be fine,” the Major dismissed
him.

Someone grabbed her wrists and handcuffed
her, and soon after she felt the vehicle’s engine rumble, her seat
vibrating as it set off down the hill.

The ride was horrendously bumpy, and if two
Guards hadn’t been seated firmly on either side of her, she would
have probably fallen from her seat.

It would have been the least of her
problems though. Soon she would be back in Zeneethia, on one of
their floating cities, never to return to earth again.

Succumbing to defeat, she withdrew inward.
There was nowhere else to go.

Chapter
Thirteen

The unimaginable had occurred. He’d been
labelled a traitor. Without a chance to explain himself, the Guards
and Major Bradshaw had turned on him.

Jackson couldn’t believe it. After all those
years of dedication and loyalty to his people, his good service and
character had been completely forgotten.

All because of Max and the Zeneethians.
Jackson had underestimated them wildly. Not only could they
manufacture ships that could fly without wings, guns that could
shoot without bullets, and devices that could scan without eyes,
they could evidently interfere with governments from on
high.

Somehow they’d manufactured Max an alias so
believable that the usually wary and paranoid Guards had accepted
it easily. Without the use of weapons or war, they’d meddled in
internal politics at a frightening level with incalculable
speed.

As the group finally arrived at the Guard
station, those thoughts virtually crippled Jackson. While Ki had
assured him that the Zeneethians did not interfere with the Tarkans
and Ashkans, because there was nothing such an advanced race would
need from such dullards, that did not blunt this blow. He was
starting to realize there was something far more insidious and
threatening than all-out war with a race like them – it was being
manipulated silently from afar.

He very much doubted this was the only
time the Zeneethians had meddled in the affairs of his Government;
with the speed and efficiency they’d shown, it was reasonable to
assume they’d done it before. Which left Jackson with one
frightening question to ponder – how often did they do it? Did they
monitor election results and change them to serve their purposes?
Did they intercept military communications? Did they monitor
scientific discoveries and stifle any they didn’t like?

Their abilities seemed countless and
undetectable. They were like silent puppet masters, or worse than
that –
gods
.

Moving like a zombie, Jackson did not fight
as the Guards rushed him to his holding cell. Shoving him in and
not bothering to remove his handcuffs, they slammed the door
closed.

He was alone, cold, thirsty, hungry, tired,
and again completely in the dark. His room was internal to the
building, had no window in the door, and they had not bothered to
turn the light on.

Questions burned in his mind like embers
in the hand – searing and eating away at him with crippling pain.
One burned brighter than the others though. It was not what he
would have expected either. Despite what could be happening to his
Government and people, Jackson desperately needed to know where Ki
was and what Max would do with her next.

She was the key to this. She had to be. If
only Jackson could find out why the Zeneethians were so desperate
to get her back, and why they had taken her in the first place.
She’d admitted they’d done experiments on her, and he’d seen the
marks on her arms. What had they been though? Did it have something
to do with her ability to activate the levitation
devices?

Allowing his body to go limp, he flopped
onto the cold and hard floor. Shifting his hands up until they
rested on his chest, he pried at the cuffs with his fingers. They
were sturdy and tight. There would be no breaking into them without
a sledgehammer or a saw, neither of which were in this simple
cell.

He was trapped. There would be no escape.
Presumably Max would use his influence to lean on the Guards and
order an execution. By the morning Jackson would likely face a
firing squad.

Several days ago he’d been worried about
cropping all the hay before the first autumn rains, now it was a
distant speck in comparison to his current problems. Tonight he
would spend his last few hours lying on a freezing, chipped
concrete floor while his thoughts rioted in his mind.

Though he could easily succumb to the
obvious and give up, a single thought stopped him.

They were arrogant. The Zeneethians. They
were undisputed, unchallenged, and unhindered. They did what they
wanted and answered to no one.

Which gave Jackson an advantage. War had
taught him one simple fact more than any other: arrogance leads to
oversight, oversight to mistakes. It is inevitably when you feel at
your strongest that you let your guard down. As soon as you treat
your enemy as less than yourself – less intelligent, less capable,
less desperate – you become a prisoner to your own perspective.
Jackson had once been a keen student of military history, and he
could easily remember battles and whole wars that had been lost
because one General was fool enough to think he could not
lose.

The Zeneethians were the same. Now all
Jackson had to do was use that to his advantage.

As the day gave way to night, and Jackson
continued to lie there on that barren floor, he formulated a plan.
It came to him slowly in flashes of insight.

He was acutely aware, however, that unless
he received a miracle, there was no way he would be able to put
that plan into action.

At five minutes to midnight, he got that
miracle. There was a knock on the door, and before he could answer,
it was pushed open roughly, the metal hinges groaning from the
assault.

In walked the Major. Two guards were at his
side, but with one flick of his head, the men walked outside and
closed the door behind them.

Jackson slowly got to his feet, body
crunching underneath him from his days of straining and misusing
it. With a wary, careful edge to his stare, he straightened up and
locked his attention on the Major.

The man was standing tall, one hand held
at his side, the other locked on his hip. “You will be executed
tomorrow morning, 8 o'clock. You will not get any last wishes.
Traitors do not deserve them.”

Ignoring his suddenly dry and itchy mouth,
Jackson swallowed. This was his miracle, his opportunity. He would
not get another
. “I
admit it, I’m a spy.”

It was murder to say those words. They felt
like barbs sticking into his skin or spikes sliding deep into his
flesh. It was self-mutilation on an unfathomable level to pretend
he was a traitor of the country he loved so much.

Right now he did not have any other
choice. Strengthening his determination, he let a sharp breath out
of his clenched teeth. “But Max is a double agent.”

The Major's eyes flashed
. “I am not accustomed to listening to
traitors. Every word you say will be a lie.”

“
Shouldn't you try to interrogate me?”
Jackson stood as easily as he could. He wanted to get rid of the
ache in his back, the strain across his shoulders, the clicking,
tensed feeling to his jaw. He wanted to appear as casual and in
control as he could. Weakness would be interpreted as a sign of
lying. Jackson needed the Major to buy his story without
question.

“
You are no longer my concern. An official
decree has come in from the intelligence community, and your
sentence has been handed down by them. A firing squad, tomorrow, 8
o'clock in the morning.”

Before the Major could turn to go, Jackson
stepped forward. He watched as the Major's eyes darted to the side,
following the move. If Jackson tried anything the Major would call
for the
Guards, or, more
likely, barrel into him and deal his sentence out then and
there.