Confluence

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: DOMINIQUE RADKO

Radko was still paralyzed when the shuttle finally landed. She hoped it was the tranquilizer. It was a scarily long time to be helpless. The sounds and the smells reminded her of Confluence Station. They were on a space station. Or a very large ship.

“Take the prisoners down to the cells,” Martel ordered. “Get them out of my sight until they’re fit to be questioned.”

Radko lost track of the time. Here, in the lockup, it was quiet. Ean would have been handy right now. He could have used the lines to see where the others were, see what was going on.

She didn’t know how much later it was that her toes and the tips of her fingers started to tingle with pins and needles. Not long after that she found she could flutter her eyelids although it was another hour before she could open her eyes.

She had plenty of time after that to stare at the ceiling. It was made of the same tiles as those at Confluence Station. If she had her knife, she’d be able to prise the tiles off and make her way through the ceiling to escape. Once she could move, that was. Her eyes tracked to the camera set in the ceiling. Of course, they’d know as soon as she tried.

Still, she had inspected Confluence Station thoroughly prior to Ean’s taking up residence. A station was a station. If she could get herself and her people into the access corridors, she knew places they could hide.

About the time she could move her arms, Martel arrived back. He wore the navy and pale blue uniform of a Worlds of the Lesser Gods officer, and the pips of commander.

“Ready to talk yet?”

She wasn’t sure she could even if she wanted to.

“Amazing stuff, that tranquilizer. I didn’t realize how good until now. All three of you are still immobilized.”

Still only three. Thank the lines one of them was still free.

“It’s a pity because there’s nothing I can do to make you answer while you’re in this state although I could have fun trying.”

Radko damped down the surge of unease.

“Unfortunately, the first captain will be back soon, and he’ll want answers, so we don’t have the time.” He beckoned to someone outside the door. “Get Dr. Quinn here. He must have something to counter the effects of the tranquilizer. After all, they use it often enough.”

Five minutes later, Dr. Quinn arrived with two assistants.

“I need her talking in twenty minutes. Pump in a fast-acting truth serum as well.”

“I’m not your personal interrogation chemist.”

“If you want to keep testing drugs on your linesmen, you’ll do the occasional side job.”

Martel left.

“Occasional.” Dr. Quinn hooked Radko up to an intravenous feed. “This is the second one today.”

“The other man did break onto the station,” one of the assistants said. “We were lucky they caught him.”

Chaudry or Han, it if was a “he.” Did that mean they were all captured?

“We were unlucky he had enzymes in his stomach to counteract the truth serum,” Quinn said. “First Captain Jakob will bite our heads off for that. And Martel won’t take two failures in one day well.”

He snapped a solution into the end of the IV. “Monitor that,” he ordered one of the assistants. “Don’t let it get above 0.3. You,” to the other one. “Be ready to give her 700 mls of Dromalan as soon as it stabilizes. And whatever you do, don’t give her the truth serum before she stabilizes. If you do, you’re answering to the commander.”

Both assistants shuddered.

Dromalan truth serum took two to three hours to take effect. Once they administered it, Radko had a maximum of two hours before she’d start to talk. She had to escape by then or avoid taking the drug in the first place.

Worse, if a linesman had Dromalan truth serum in their system when they traveled through the void, it destroyed their line ability. Early experiments with the serum had been to improve line ability. It was only later they’d found it useful as a truth drug. If van Heel or Chaudry had been given the serum, the whole team would be stuck in this sector for a week.

Quinn hurried out.

One of the assistants checked the feed. “Get this wrong, and we’ll both be dead. Commander Martel is in a mood. So is First Captain Jakob, I hear.”

“Because he’s coming back empty-handed?”

They both sniggered.

“I heard he got arrested.”

The other assistant glanced at the camera, then nudged the one who’d spoken.

Neither of them stood as straight as regular soldiers. Pure medical staff, then. Radko’s reflexes would be slow. Could she overcome two untrained people? And if she did, how long would she have to get away? They were on a station, with cameras in every corridor.

Radko waited.

“Stabilized,” the first assistant said, finally. “Are you ready?” He looked over to the other assistant. The second assistant checked the syringe of green liquid and nodded. Radko couldn’t wait any longer. She rolled off the bed and knocked the first assistant off his feet.

“Hey. You shouldn’t be moving yet.” The second assistant came running around the bed. Radko rolled under it, came out the other side, and pushed the bed into him. It was a weak push, not enough to push him off his feet even. The assistant was back before Radko could stand. She scissored her legs—just enough to pull him off his stride.

“This is personal now.” He fell onto Radko to hold her into place and jabbed his syringe downward. Radko pushed his arm aside. It wasn’t much, but the syringe missed her and scraped the assistant’s arm, just enough to draw blood.

He cursed, flung the syringe away, and raced over to the basin, scrubbing at the scratch.

If Radko had been closer, she’d have snatched the syringe up. Instead, she rolled away, into the first assistant’s legs. He’d regained his feet and was reaching toward the intercom. This time, Radko controlled the roll and brought the assistant crashing down.

She got up and ran. Not that it was much of a run, more of a drunken roll. She focused on keeping on her feet.

She made for the nearest emergency alarm station, clearly marked on the wall, broke the glass, and pressed the hull-breach button. The station’s airtight partitions slammed into place over the whoop of the alarm.

Now it was just her and the people in her section.

She ran back to the room she’d exited. Both assistants were gone, as was the syringe. She looked around.

The door had a pop-lock mechanism. Sometimes the luck ran your way.

She reached inside and pulled wires. That one. And that one. In exercises, she could do this in fifteen seconds. She had that now, no more. She pushed the wires together, and counted as the feedback from the electronics built. Ten seconds. Twelve. Fourteen. There was a tiny fizz, and the overload on the wires blacked out the wiring for the doors in this section of the station. Doors around her slid open. Except the breach partitions, of course. They didn’t open when you lost power. They had to be opened manually. Once the crew determined where the breach was or wasn’t.

She grabbed oxygen and a mask from one of the emergency stations. They’d gas the area soon because they had to be watching what had happened.

Where was everyone?

She ducked into a nearby room. An oxygen cylinder hurtled toward her. She threw herself sideways.

“What the hell?” Van Heel had a second cylinder primed to use. She dropped it with a clatter. “What’s happening?”

“Escaping,” Radko said. “What’s happened with you?”

“Same. I only just got out of that prison they put me in, when the doors all flew open. I should have waited.”

“Have they given you any drugs?”

“Not yet.”

That was something.

“They were about to interrogate me when they caught someone else. I thought it was you. There was a lot of excitement about that.”

The man Quinn’s two assistants had spoken about? The one who’d broken onto the station? Chaudry or Han.

“Grab oxygen and a mask,” Radko said. “They’ll gas this section eventually.” The oxygen tanks also made a primitive weapon, which was better than nothing.

Radko glanced out the door. “Han and Chaudry will be around here somewhere. We need to find them. And we need to arm ourselves with something better than oxygen cylinders.” There wouldn’t be any weapons in the jail cells. If they hadn’t been in space, there wouldn’t have been any oxygen, either.

Chaudry was two doors down. Still groggy from the tranquilizer but moving, if slowly.

“Han?”

“Haven’t found him yet,” Radko said.

They found the two assistants Radko had bested earlier hiding in a cell close to the breach partition. One had his comms out. Radko kicked it out of his hands, and stomped on it. Anything they said would be feeding out to the rest of the station. Chaudry loomed over them, his face scrunched into a mean-looking scowl, threatening to brain them with his oxygen cylinder.

Van Heel finished checking the other rooms. “Han’s not here.”

Radko looked at the two assistants. It would have been smart to knock them out, but she didn’t. “Give me your comms,” she said to the other assistant.

He handed it over, keeping one eye on Chaudry.

She made sure it was off, then put it in her pocket. “Stay here. If you come after us, we’ll kill you.”

She led the way back to her own room. She’d had time to look at the ceiling on this one. “Chaudry, I’m going to stand on your shoulders.”

He stood rock solid and silent.

Behind them, she could hear the crew hauling the breach doors open. She pushed the ceiling tile up and swung herself into the roof space. She found the nearest support. “Over here. Van Heel first.” Because Chaudry would be too heavy for just one of them to lift.

Chaudry boosted her up.

“Now you, Chaudry. Push the bed over, stand on it, and we’ll haul you the rest of the way.”

“You can’t lift—”

“Lift your hands, Chaudry, or we’ll be caught.”

It might have been the shouts of the crew as they pushed the breach doors open that spurred him. It was certainly the shouts that gave Radko an adrenaline boost as she and van Heel hauled him up.

She thought her arms would drop off.

“Go, go,” Radko said to van Heel, as Chaudry scrabbled for a foothold along the beam. “That way. There’ll be a walkway at the end. Wait for us there. Chaudry?”

Chaudry was nimble, for all that he was bulky. He slipped, but recovered, and crawled along the beam as fast as he could go.

The burn of a blaster singed Radko’s boot as she followed him.

Ahead, she heard the unmistakable sound of someone’s opening an access hatch. Van Heel, in front, hesitated. Radko pushed past her. “Watch our backs,” she ordered, and ran for the hatch.

She was in time to kick the head of the first person entering. He fell backward, and she slammed the hatch shut. It was a pity she couldn’t have grabbed his blaster. A weapon would be handy right now.

She motioned van Heel and Chaudry forward. The hatch started to move under her feet. She stepped off quietly and waited. The hatch lifted enough to let the nozzle of a blaster through. A beam on stun, sprayed indiscriminately. Chaudry opened his mouth and Radko motioned him to silence. The user gained more courage and ventured farther into the access space. Radko jumped on the hatch cover, catching the blaster between the edges as she did so. There was a yelp, and the blaster dropped. Radko snatched it up.

Armed, and it felt good.

There was silence from outside.

They wouldn’t get far without getting caught. For the moment, though, they were better off in the access passages than in the main corridors of the station. This way, anyone coming after them had to travel single file. She could pick them off one by one.

Unfortunately, the enemy could pick her team off the same way.

First, they had to get themselves somewhere safe.

The soldiers started shooting at the ceiling. This time the blasters were on burn. Chaudry grunted and jumped back. Van Heel grabbed him before he could fall through the weakened ceiling. They moved back.

Behind them, the first soldier came into sight. Radko stunned them.

“Stop.” His voice was familiar. Commander Martel. “You’re on a station. Do you want to breach the hull?”

The body Radko had downed blocked the way back. Radko leaned close to Chaudry and van Heel, so she could speak softly. “Use the pipes”—and she pointed above—“to help you get across the damaged part. Van Heel first, then Chaudry. Make for the nearest junction. Don’t wait for me. I’ll catch up.”

She fired again over the top of the fallen pursuer. Someone swore and ducked. She hadn’t hit him.

The ceiling under Chaudry’s feet creaked. Chaudry stopped.

“Get across there,” Radko hissed. “Use the pipes.”

He started moving again. The overhead pipes creaked.

Radko sweated with him.

He stopped at the other side, with van Heel.

A small piece of paneling dropped away. Someone fired.

“Fire again, and you won’t live to regret it.” Martel again. “We’ll get them at the next entry.”

Radko waved the others on. It would have been handy to have Ean right now. He could watch through the lines, know where everyone was and what they were doing.

They moved on reluctantly.

Below her, more people entered the room.

Radko waited until she was sure no one below would fire before she grabbed for the pipes and swung along carefully, keeping her legs raised from the treacherous floor.

She hesitated as she recognized a voice below.

Sergey Bach. Head of Palace Security on Lancia. Commodore Vega’s equivalent for Emperor Yu.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re doing.” Bach was practically spitting. “And it’s obvious you don’t know, either. I feel as if I’ve walked into a farce. You can’t run a station, let alone plan to win a war. Who are these people?”

“Lancastrians,” Commander Martel said. “Maybe you could tell us how they got here.”

“Lan—”

Another voice cut in. “Why don’t you tell us how that happened, Commodore Bach.”

“Lancastrians. Prove it to me.”

“We will as soon as we recapture them.”

Bach laughed. “How convenient. You balls-up a simple effort to steal a ship—even though we went out of our way to make it easy for you—and you try to draw attention away by blaming us for problems you’re having.”

“If you made it so easy for us”—this was the man whose voice Radko didn’t recognize—“how did the farce of my arrest come about?”

“I got you access to the alien ships. You got caught.”

Radko smiled grimly. They didn’t realize yet, but with Ean around, they’d never steal an alien ship.

The pipe above her gave way without warning. She crashed through the damaged ceiling, onto the floor in front of the speakers.

Three blasters swung toward her.

She recognized the speaker. First Captain Jakob. The Lesser Gods’ equivalent of a commodore. The head of the Factor’s personal security and Bach’s equivalent. She’d looked him up after learning about Michelle’s proposed marriage, still doing her job, finding out about potential threats to Michelle and Ean. Old habits.

“Blaster down, nice and quiet.”

She put her blaster down and used the hand she was lying on to ease out the comms she’d taken from the assistant. She’d never get out of this alive, not if Bach had this to hide. The most important thing was to let Lancia know he was a traitor.

She managed to push it behind her, and one-handedly thumbed the comms on, praying that it didn’t beep. She pressed in the emergency code she knew by heart.

“What’s that?”

She realized she’d been whispering to line five, much like Ean might sing. “Please, don’t make a noise.” But the lines didn’t hear her, of course.

Bach kicked her blaster away. “My Lady Dominique.” His voice was as sour as Vega’s could be.

“Lancastrian?” Jakob asked.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Jakob raised his weapon.

Bach knocked his hand away. “Don’t kill her. She is cousin to His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Yu. And important to our plans.”

He should have let Jakob kill her. Why keep her alive when she might escape and report what he had done?

It was too late, anyway. The comms behind her was capturing all this. Vega would piece it together, and she and Admiral Galenos would chase this traitor down and destroy him.

“Cousin?” Jakob asked.

“You are a traitor to Lancia, Commodore Bach.” Radko made her voice clear enough to carry to the comms behind her.

“Doesn’t the cousin work for Galenos?”

“She is part of the personal security complement for Her Royal Highness, the Crown Princess Michelle.”

Radko kept her voice clear. “You have conspired with Redmond and the Worlds of the Lesser Gods,” for they had to be working together. “To attempt to steal an alien line ship. You have betrayed Lancia, and the New Alliance.”

“Oh, for—” Jakob spun the control on his blaster. “If someone won’t do it, I will.”

“You, and Commander Jakob, and—”

Jakob fired.