Captivate (Alien Cadets Book 2) Page 30

  Sage looked at her and grimaced. “How can I not, Claire?”

  “It’s easy. Just don’t!”

  “It’s not easy, you’ve changed me. I care about you too much to do nothing.”

  Claire shook her head desperately. “That’s not what caring is about. If you care about me, do what I’m asking you to do. I can’t bear it if another person is sacrificed for me.” She tried to look deeply into his eyes. He knew about Jenelle, he knew how she felt about it.

  “See Claire, I don’t think that’s exactly what it means. I think caring means I’ll do what’s best for you no matter what. Even if you hate me.”

  She opened her mouth, but he’d turned away from her. “I have one more question. What happens if we lose the game?”

  The skin around Faal’s eye tightened with pleasure. “If you are caught at the embassy, I take Claire with me. If you are not caught, but do not obtain the computer, your lives are still yours and I take Claire. You have very little to lose.”

  “He’s manipulating you,” Claire said. “He’ll do whatever he wants and screw his promises.”

  “Be silent!” Faal snapped, thumping his cane on the floor. “I won’t listen to you.”

  The Merith behind her whipped out a small cloth and shoved it in her mouth. He wrapped his hand over the bottom half of her face to keep her from spitting it out.

  “Umm – rrr.” Claire could get nothing out. She tipped her head up to get her nose free of his hand. The panic was not just in her blood now, it was in her mouth.

  “I accept your terms on the condition that Claire is unharmed when you return her to me,” Sage said. “If that condition is met, I will deliver the computer to you in return for six months of freedom for Claire and ourselves.”

  “That is satisfactory,” Faal said.

  Claire shook her head, and the guard pulled her backward so that she was pressed up against him and his hand was tight on her face.

  “The details are as follows,” Faal said calmly, as though Claire was not on the verge of suffocation. “Tomorrow I will be at the embassy on Council business. I will be in the negotiation room with Senator Fontley and the other humans for approximately two hours of the morning, though it may be slightly less or slightly more. I believe this would be the best time for your infiltration, though I leave it to your ingenuity to plan the details. The computer is housed in the personal guest room of Natsuki Fujimara. My guards will leave you a map with the location marked.

  “You will bring the computer to my ship no more than one hour after midday. At that time my ship departs for Merith II with either Claire or the computer aboard.” He gave Sage a bay address in the port section of Upper Selta.

  “I believe that is all.”

  Claire felt a rush of air as the door was opened behind her. The guard released her mouth and turned her around, forcing her to walk out the door ahead of him.

  “Wait!” Sage said.

  Her guard paused and Sage rushed out to her. “I – I need the tablet,” he said. “For the embassy doors.”

  Claire felt tears fill her eyes as Sage gently took the bag from her and removed the tablet she’d used to hack Basher’s token. He gave her a brief, firm hug and she felt something small slip into her pocket.

  Then she was marched away.

  ***

  Several hours later, Claire rested in the corner of a cage with her head against the bars.

  “Put her in the small cage,” Faal had said coldly when they got to his ship.

  She hadn’t been surprised. This space was more appropriate for an animal the size of a large dog, but he wanted to punish her. She wasn’t sure if he had the least intention of keeping his bargain with Sage, but she was sure that he would want to make her as miserable as possible for however long he could.

  They’d jerked her bag away, of course, before shoving her inside, but to her intense relief, they’d not checked her pockets.

  She’d hoped against hope that Sage had slipped her glasses to her in that final hug. She could alert Akemi that Sage was coming, and ask whether Basher would be willing to confront Faal...

  But Sage hadn’t given her the glasses. When she was finally alone and could safely put her hand in her pocket, it proved to be a small lock picking set of pins, magnets, and twiddly bits of metal. Sage’s friend had delivered several of these sets along with the guns and the tablet for their embassy plan.

  Claire mused darkly on Sage’s intent. Did he expect her to use these right now and try to escape? Or was this just a back up in case he failed to deliver Akemi?

  She’d been so angry that he took Faal’s offer. First of all, Faal was not to be trusted and she was angry that Sage had fallen for his scheme. Second, he’d agreed to kidnap and deliver an innocent girl into Faal’s clutches to ensure her survival.

  And he thought he was doing it because he loved her.

  It was wrong on so many levels.

  With a snap, the lights in the room went off. She was left in complete darkness, the kind only achievable on a spaceship or submarine. It was the darkness of an airtight space with positive pressure that leans on your eyes until you see so many dazzling spots you can’t remember where you are.

  Claire welcomed the dark. Faal was doing it to bother her, because he knew she disliked it, but in this case his petty meanness would work to her benefit.

  She wasn’t just a scared girl alone in the clutches of a psychotic alien anymore. She had friends – several sets of friends, actually – and the possibility of more. And they weren’t a galaxy away, but were practically right outside this ship. And Selta wasn’t an unknown planet full of dangers that would intimidate her into staying put.

  Nope. She had things to do and places to go and a freaking set of lock picks. Now the cover of darkness was obligingly hiding her activity from any outside observation.

  Claire pulled out the packet and scooted to the front of her cage. This part was easy. She knew exactly how these cages worked.

  When the door was loose, Claire pushed it open quietly and crawled out. It felt good to stand up straight. She arched her back and then felt her way towards the door that led to the rest of the ship.

  This one would be a lot more complicated. It might even be beyond her skill, but she was going to give it a darn good shot. She estimated that it had been at least two hours since Faal brought her back, which would make it about three in the morning. Although the Merith were naturally a nocturnal species, they usually shifted somewhat to fit the planetary ‘day.’ She could be pretty sure that Faal would be asleep for several more hours. Probably he’d left guards to watch the door, but she’d deal with that if she actually made it out.

  Claire briefly felt the pins and wondered if she would be capable of driving one into a Merith’s large eye if the chance came. She was pretty sure that she would be, but she didn’t want to be overly optimistic.

  She settled down to feel the door. She’d already noted, while the light was on, that the door did have an interior access plate. That meant this room wasn’t always used for incarceration, and thus there was a chance of breaking out from this side.

  Two magnets went just above the plate, and two magnets just below. Then she felt for a tiny wedge and got it under the left side of the plate. Another wedge went below that one, and she wiggled first one and then the other to loosen it.

  Claire paused to rub her eyes and blink away new spots. This was going to take a while.

  CHAPTER 39

  The next morning, Sage, Athlete, and Juliet approached the embassy the same way they’d left it. They walked casually onto the observation platform, the giant spinner looking as colossal as ever on their left, as they made their way past it.

  There were quite a few alien sight-seers on the platform today. At least several hundred, Sage estimated, which was all for the best. The tourists were leaning against the railing, strolling arm in arm, and frequenting the stalls along the safe side of the platform. They left the stalls with blown glas
s replicas of the spinners, tiny figurines carved from Seltan minerals, or any of a hundred other souvenirs of their trip.

  Sage felt less and less sanguine about this job as they approached the door to the embassy. Technically Faal’s involvement probably increased his chance of success, but it also drastically increased the cost of failure.

  Whatever Claire thought of him, he couldn’t bear to leave her to Faal’s mercy. And he wasn’t stupid – he knew that Faal was playing more than one game. There was a decent chance that Faal would try to double-cross him and Claire would be lost anyway. However, there was also a decent chance that he would keep the terms he had agreed upon. The Merith were an aggressive and somewhat solitary race, but most of them abided by a stringent honor code. Sage hoped Faal was high-class enough to be one of them.

  They made it to the door of the embassy without protest, or indeed, anyone seeming to notice. So far, so good.

  Sage’s bag hung from one shoulder and he casually swung it around to rest against his torso. This put the tablet inside the bag within hailing distance of the door. Now to find out whether Basher had realized his token was hacked and changed the settings on these doors.

  Sage was not in suspense long. The door buzzed faintly and Athlete immediately pulled it open. The authentication code worked, then.

  Athlete held his new pulse gun in two hands and quickly swept the corridor. “Empty.”

  Sage and Juliet entered behind him. This corridor branched off to a stairway on the right and Sage remembered traversing them with a fevered and nearly unconscious Claire. Going down these stairs would lead to the bottom floor of the embassy, where the containment cells and the medical quarters were. If they went up the stairs, they would be on the top floor of the embassy, where the negotiation room and most of the Spo offices were located. Needless to say, they would avoid the top floor. If they went left and bypassed the stairs they would enter the domicile portion of the embassy, where the private suites and guest rooms were located.

  “Go Juliet,” he said. They’d memorized the map, of course, and decided to split up their targets. Juliet would have the (hopefully) safer job of getting to the medical quarters and obtaining the ink. Sage and Athlete would try to get the computer on this level.

  Juliet ghosted silently down the stairs.

  Sage took a deep breath and moved past the stairs. At almost any cost, they wanted to avoid setting off an alarm. That would make their exit nearly impossible.

  Behind the stairs, the corridor took a sharp right turn. Sage peeked around the corner for the blink of an eye and pulled back. “Empty,” he said.

  Nat’s door was the fifth one on the right and they got to it quietly but quickly. Sage again held his bag near the door. After three seconds it buzzed.

  A voice came from within. “Sam, leave me alone. I told you I don’t want to go to the negotiation. Senator Fontley doesn’t want us there anyway.”

  Sage froze. She was in there.

  He and Athlete jerked back, and Sage desperately held his bag to the door on the other side of the hallway. When it buzzed, he and Athlete piled into the empty room and Sage let the door slide shut behind him.

  He listened intently, but he didn’t hear the girl’s door open after all.

  So.

  Sage tried to think. Clearly this girl, Natsuki, hadn’t gone to the negotiation as planned. And apparently she had no plans to go. And yet they had to get in there.

  Athlete gestured with his gun to the hallway and Sage knew what he meant. Lure her out and then shoot her. Not complicated.

  Sage shook his head. Their pulse guns, while technically less lethal than standard pellet guns, were calibrated for the bulk of a two-hundred pound Spo. If a tiny Asian girl got that blast, she could very well die.

  Claire would hate him forever if they killed another human.

  Which left the other option Sage had pondered. In his bag, along with the tablet for hacking the doors, he had Claire’s glasses.

  He also had a set of conventional lock picks (identical to the set he’d slipped into Claire’s pocket), and a reinforced quilted bag for the computer they were to steal.

  He got out the glasses and put them on. He faced into the empty suite, away from Athlete, so as not to alarm the computer-girl at first.

  She responded right away.

  Claire! Where are you? That room looks like...

  “This is not Claire,” Sage said. “She was kidnapped by Faal last night.”

  What? But Faal is here, he’s in the negotiation room.

  “And does he seem cheerful?”

  Oh. Poor Claire! Thank you for telling me. I’ll alert Basher right away.

  “Stop.” Sage tried to inject command into his voice, but it was hard when he couldn’t see the object. “If you alert Basher, Nat will get hurt.”

  Sage spun slowly to show Athlete waiting by the door. He gestured with his hand, for Athlete to hold up his gun. “We are in the embassy, as you guessed. We are right across the hall from your sister’s room.”

  Sage briefly explained Claire’s predicament and Faal’s offer. “So you see, I have no choice but to take you with us, but you get to decide how it works. We can unlock the door to your sister’s room and shoot her before she manages to warn anyone. We can shoot our way out, injuring who knows how many more. Or… you can quietly get her to leave the room for a few minutes. The only variable in the equation is Nat’s health when we leave.”

  This was about seventy percent bluff, but he’d found humans were usually bad tacticians when a family member was involved. There was also a very good chance that she’d pretend to play along while also alerting Basher. Either way, he and Athlete had to get out of here as fast as possible now that he’d alerted Akemi to their presence.

  She said a very bad word. Then:

  Why don’t I just tell Basher to hold onto Faal while someone goes to retrieve Claire?

  “Because that will get Claire a few hours of reprieve, a few weeks at most. If you think Faal won’t pursue her all the way to Earth, you’re wrong. This will get her six months.”

  She didn’t reply and Sage counted to twenty. “Okay, enough time. We’re coming over.”

  Shut up. Nat’s coming out.

  Sure enough, Sage heard the door open and soft footsteps down the hall. He didn’t ask Akemi what excuse she’d used. When he judged that Nat had had time to get out of the hallway, Sage opened their door.

  A quick peek assured him she was gone. They crossed the hall and Athlete stood just inside the suite door while Sage went to the computer. The spherical biocomputer looked completely out of place in a bedroom – its place was in the piloting room of Spo spacecraft.

  Did you know about this experiment? Were you one of the doctors who killed me?

  Sage barely paused. “No, I wasn’t. I did my fair share of terrible things, but you were not one of them.”

  Well, take comfort, she said sarcastically. I daresay you have many more terrible things yet to accomplish.

  Sage nodded as he examined the computer. “You’re right.”

  CHAPTER 40

  In the negotiation room, Sam sat at the foot of the table and prepared himself to read the formal charges against the Rik director. She was a handsome old woman with graying hair in a neat cap around her head. It was strange that a Rik had chosen such an old human body, Sam thought, but he ventured to hope that it showed humility and a willingness to recognize her limitations.

  Based on her attitude so far, however, that was wishful thinking.

  She sat on the left side of the table, across from Senator Fontley.

  Nat had elected to stay in her room for this negotiation, and Sam had hardly bothered to remonstrate with her. She’d fallen into some sort of fuzzy, half-asleep reality in which Akemi’s dreams were more real to her than anything else. She wasn’t sleeping or eating well, but she didn’t seem to care.

  Then Sam shook his head, looking around the room. He shouldn’t blame her missing this.
Even if Nat had been fine, he would have understood if she didn’t want to meet the Rik director. This was the woman who must have approved the actions taken against her and Akemi.

  Basher stood at attention by the door. Today he was here as embassy security, rather than as an investigator, so he would not sit at the table.

  The last guest was Faal, who sat at the head of the table. He was ostensibly present as an impartial observer for the Galactic Council, but he’d brought eight‘aides,’ who looked more like soldiers to Sam, and they hulked silently in two rows behind his chair. One had a yellowing bruise at the base of his throat.

  Seven Spo stood at attention around Sam’s end of the table. Basher’s partner had told him quietly, when Faal arrived with his unexpected entourage, that it was appropriate to match this show of authority with their own forces. Since there were not enough humans on Selta to fill out the number, he’d gotten seven Spo guards to take their place.

  Sam took a deep breath and stood to read the report. It was largely to do with the explosion of the space station and only the final portion concerned their brief investigation on Selta: the death of the Rik delegation, the residue found on their bodies, and the records of their previous associations. Then came the formal charges.

  Finally he reached the end.“Having heard this summation of our investigation and the charges against your fellow Rik, who we have confirmed were currently or recently employed at the highest levels of government, what defense would you make?”

  He tried to pitch his voice a bit higher, to inject it with a bit of invitation. He sincerely hoped she did have a defense to make. The Rik fate was all but sealed unless this woman could make a darned good case for their general or particular innocence.

  To Sam’s disappointment, she turned an arrogant glare at Senator Fontley.“I see you have decided to cast in your lot with the humans. What short-sighted selfishness! If you had but bided your time, perhaps the Rik could have yet been ascendant. Instead, you would throw us to what annihilation the galaxy shall mete out. For your own security.”She pursed her lips.“Badly played, Senator.”