Chapter 2

A Chapter by words2327

INCONSTANT LOCATION; ARAE ORBIS

The old ’98 Kaplin Nemesis cruised just above the treetops as the sun started to set, lighting up the eastern plains with a fiery brilliance. The long, golden grass below seemed to catch fire in the reddish hue cast by the tiny sun, and the horizon was suddenly very defined as strips of bright orange cirrus drifted over it. Despite it all, the ancient EL craft kept going, the broad headlamps sweeping across the beautiful, empty landscape. Four men and two women sat in the cabin, ignoring the scene around them and looking at each other nervously, uncomfortably. One of the men was speaking.

“We’re gonna have to turn off the lights soon, or they’ll see us,” he said, glancing at one of the other passengers. She nodded quickly.

The other woman had a plasma rifle across her lap. She looked up, her short black hair almost invisible against the dark interior of the cabin. “How long?” Her voice was low for a woman’s, and slightly raspy.

“Just a few minutes,” answered the first speaker. He slipped a pistol of some sort into a pocket in his tunic. The other passengers were armed as well. The blond woman flipped off the switch for the headlights and the six of them sat still, waiting in silence as the EL began to descend.

KREINE ESTATE

Miara turned, almost angrily, toward Kallie, who took a step back. “Leave me,” said the Empress coldly, and Kallie knew that all the stress was making an impact on her charge’s behavior. She nodded, and Miara stepped into her bedroom, the door closing behind her.

Kallie knew that Miara had reason to be constantly anxious, but it was starting to go overboard. Miara had just met the newest security upgrade, a Captain Dusten Grant who’d arrived a few days after the attack, and Kallie had been in the room. She hadn’t really thought much of him; he seemed intimidating, but then again, most of the male officers she’d met did. He did have a higher ranking than her and he had to be at least a couple years older than she was, but the fact that he was now in charge of her didn’t bother her too much, as long as he stayed out of her way. Starting tomorrow, there will be two of us, thought Kallie, and then sighed. Soon she’s going to have a few dozen people following her around. The Empress was getting older…paranoia was probably a byproduct of aging. The previous attack…well, the people behind it would have almost certainly been netted already if Miara hadn’t persuaded everyone to let it slide. Grant had been told about the attack during his first meeting with the Empress, and as inscrutable as his face had been, Kallie had caught a slight twitch of confusion, and she didn’t blame him for it. Nothing made sense.

Just as Kallie took a step away from Miara’s door toward her own, she heard running footsteps in the hall. She turned to see four people in combat attire running toward her; three that didn’t appear to have weapons, and one with some kind of particle rifle slung across her back. Kallie’s eyes widened and she felt her heart rate pick up. This is…this can’t be right. She flicked on her waveband, turning it on general broadcast in an attempt to send the message out to everyone at the estate. “We have armed intruders in the building,” she whispered as the people got closer. One shouted something. “Sector 37,” she murmured and prayed that security had gotten the message. This can’t be a coincidence…

Kallie put one hand on the small surge pistol on her belt and the intruders slowed as they approached her. “Let go of that,” said one man, quietly reaching into his pocket. Kallie dropped her hand.

“What do you want?” she asked, trying to buy time.

“Not you,” he replied.

Kallie didn’t move, trying not to show any sign that the Empress was in the room behind her.

“If you want to live, step aside from that door,” said the woman with the rifle, taking a step forward. Kallie didn’t move, wondering how they knew where the Empress was, and cursing Caden Kreine for not letting authorities know about the previous attack. “I said move,” growled the woman, stepping closer.

Kallie stared at her. The Empress had probably received the broadcast message Kallie had sent, but there was no other way out of her bedroom than the door that Kallie was standing by. Just then her waveband chirped.

“Is it safe?” asked Miara’s voice, much too loud.

The intruders glared at Kallie, and the woman raised her rifle. “No,” whispered Kallie hoarsely into the waveband, not bothering to turn it off. What the hell happened to security? she wondered.

Just as she thought that she was dead, one of the men standing behind the woman with the gun lunged forward and grabbed it. “No,” he said.

The woman glared savagely at him, but seemed to give in. “I won’t kill her,” she said. The rifle remained pointed at Kallie’s face.

“Open that door,” ordered the man who seemed to be in charge. When Kallie didn’t move, he grunted and nodded at one of his own men. He stepped forward and tried to open the door using the access panel next to it. Nothing happened.

“It’s locked,” he said, his eyes focusing on Kallie. “Give me the key,” he said again, in a threatening tone.

Kallie said nothing. The man standing in front of her made a fist and wound up clumsily. Kallie turned her head and closed her eyes, waiting for him to hit her. She couldn’t fight back or she’d get shot, and if she ducked, he’d only get angrier. She just had to buy time.

Kallie felt the man’s fist collide with her jaw. It wasn’t nearly as hard as she’d expected, but it still hurt. She stumbled back, then caught herself, looking up to make eye contact with her attacker. From the look on his face, she could tell that he hadn’t meant the punch to be soft. “Give me the key, you b***h,” he snarled.

She kept her mouth shut and stared at him, struggling to keep all emotion out of her face. He slapped her, hard. Kallie turned her head instinctively, feeling the sharp pain rush through her cheek. A second later, his fist hit her again, in the same place. Kallie lost her balance and almost fell, but managed to regain her footing.

The man hitting her drew back his hand, undoubtedly to punch Kallie again when he was stopped by the woman standing behind him. “Like this, you fool,” she said coldly, and before Kallie knew what was happening, she had been slammed against the cold fake wood door. The woman smiled icily and pressed the button on the access panel. The door slid open as the computer controlling it recognized the card clipped to Kallie’s belt. She fell into the room, half stunned, but still conscious enough to realize that the intruders had made it through to the Empress. Three sets of feet stepped over her and ran into the room. Kallie heard Miara scream in the background and tried to get up, only to realize that someone had one foot on her chest. She looked up to see the fourth attacker looking down at her. Feeling almost too weak to struggle, Kallie pulled her pistol out of its sheath and shot the man, hearing him scream loudly and fall. Kallie got to her feet, blinking until the room stopped spinning. She could hear the man behind her groaning, but the sound hardly registered.

The other three emerged from the back room. Kallie looked at them, knowing that she would be unable to hold her own against them, but still doing everything she could to delay their departure. She saw Miara thrown over one man’s shoulder and tensed slightly. The man who seemed to be their leader glanced at her once, flicked a switch on his pistol, raised it, and fired in one quick motion. Kallie felt her eyes widen as his gloved finger brushed the trigger, and then felt a searing pain begin at her neck and spread to the rest of her body. The room around her flashed blue and she was aware for a second that she was lying on the ground, though she didn’t remember falling. The painful shock sensation seemed to move on to her mind and her thoughts slowed way down just before her vision went black.

***

Captain Dusten Grant sat down on the bed in the center of his room and ran both his hands through his dark blond hair. His waveband beeped quietly from where it was sitting on the desk next to him. Dusten looked toward it and blinked as he heard the message. “We have armed intruders in the building. Sector 37,” said a woman’s voice over the connection. The voice was unfamiliar, and sounded urgent, even slightly panicked. Dusten sat up. What?

The connection hadn’t been cut, and he kept listening. “What do you want?” he heard the same voice say, faintly, as if she were speaking to someone else. Dusten heard more voices, inaudibly saying something.

Another voice cut through the connection. “Is it safe?” came Miara Kreine’s voice. Dusten recognized it instantly and froze, waiting to hear what the first voice had to say.

“No,” gasped the first voice. More yelling came over the line and the connection was cut, but Dusten was already headed for the door.

He ran down the corridor. Sector 37. The private living quarters of the Empress. Dusten growled softly through his teeth, wondering why his temporary quarters were so far away from the Empress’s personal living space. Only for two nights, the android had told him; after all, it wasn’t like anything was going to happen in just two nights…

This is ridiculous.

After a minute he rounded one last corner to see estate security surrounding the door of Miara’s bedroom. Three of them came out. “She’s not in there!” shouted one. A small group of the security guards surrounding the door turned and ran down the hallway at the news.

Dusten got closer. “Who is? Nobody?” called the man standing in the center of the commotion. Dusten assumed he was the leader.

“Her bodyguard,” answered the first guard. “She’s unconscious.”

Dusten pushed through the security guards and they parted, recognizing him almost immediately. He went through the door, looking inside to see that the room was almost neat, showing no sign of a struggle except for the young woman lying on the floor with two guards kneeling next to her. It took a second, but Dusten recognized her from when he met the Empress for the first time and from afterward, when he had accessed the records with his waveband and found a list of the more important people at the estate. Lt. Kalliska Hayward; age 23, he remembered. She looked battered but didn’t seem to sustain any major injuries.

“Where’s Kreine?” he asked the guards, even though he didn’t think they knew. They didn’t. “Is security looking for her?”

“Of course, sir,” said one of them. The hopelessness in his voice told Dusten everything he needed to know. The Empress was a good as gone.

***

The first thing that Kallie felt upon awakening was the cold floor beneath her. As her senses started to return, her mind scrambled to remember what had happened. There were voices floating through the clear air around her, but she couldn’t make out the words. The noises were slowly becoming intelligible, and she could almost recognize one of the people talking. She was sure that she’d heard him before, but in her semiconscious state, she couldn’t remember where.

Kallie got one eye open.

“…we have no idea where she is,” said someone, and Kallie could see the man who was talking. He was little more than a blur.

Then she remembered the people…and Miara, thrown over someone’s shoulder. Kallie panicked and tried to move, only to find that she couldn’t; her entire body seemed to be paralyzed. She thought for another second, eventually remembering, with mild surprise, that she’d gotten shot. It had been only a neuroblocker, a type of stun-gun, Kallie knew, since she wasn’t in any pain and was beginning to regain some sensation in her fingers, but she wasn’t the problem. The Empress had been taken.

Kallie opened her other eye, trying to focus on the dark shapes hovering over her. “I think she’s awake,” said one.

Another leaned over her. “What happened? Where’s the Empress?” it asked. Kallie blinked. She could see him now.

“I don’t…know,” she managed.

“Where did they come from?”

“They came from…the east end.” She looked up at the figure above her and her dazed brain struggled to remember who he was. Captain Grant, she thought. Where was he when all this happened?

He didn’t say anything else and ran out of the room, probably to tell security. Security, she remembered. So they finally showed up.

Kallie propped herself up on one elbow. The uncomfortable paralysis left behind from the blocker was fading fast. She was still in the Empress’s bedchambers, where the attackers had apparently left her. Someone’s hand gripped her arm. “Stay still. The med crew will be here in a minute,” said one of the guards. Kallie glanced up at him.

“I’m fine,” she said, even though she wasn’t entirely sure. “I’m the only one who knows what the…kidnappers…look like.” She sat up slowly, leaning against the cool wall behind her.

“Are…are you positive?” asked the guard again.

Kallie nodded, but before she could tell him anything else about the incident that was slowly trickling back into her mind, Grant returned with the head of security.

“We need information,” said Grant. “Do you remember who attacked you?”

Kallie blinked at him, her mind still hazy. Is he serious? “Sir, ah…” she paused for a brief moment, trying to get her thoughts together. Her tongue felt thick and immobile. “This isn’t fast enough; if we catch them, we have to start now.” Especially if there isn’t any evidence. She looked around in vain for the man she’d shot, and realized that he must not have been injured too badly. They were all gone; everything was gone. She needed to do something before it was too late.

The security commander offered her a hand, and she took it, pulling herself up and leaning against the wall a little for support. Grant looked at her for a second, as if trying to decide if she knew what she was talking about or not.

“East end?” he asked. Kallie nodded. “I’m going to get a team together and try to follow the trail,” he said, heading for the door.

“Wait, sir.” Dusten Grant turned, obviously impatient. “They must have a car. I know where they parked it last time.” Kallie saw, in her head, a glimpse of men running through a conveniently unlocked door, over a balcony and into the thin layer of trees beyond. Their ride had to have been nearby, she could even remember Caden telling her that it had been parked at the fringe of the lawn, probably in the lightly wooded area.

“They probably didn’t put it in the same place.” He seemed frustrated, eager to go and Kallie tried to speak faster, knowing that the Empress was in danger and that the attackers needed to be intercepted before they left the building.

“It worked before, and they don’t know the estate too well. I don’t think they realized that I knew. It’s on the east side, and you’ll never catch up to them if you follow them, they’ll probably be gone by the time you track them down.”

“It’s just a guess.”

“It might work.”

Grant stared at her, as if debating whether or not to listen to her. “Fine. Send a team of guards out that way if you want.”

***

“Surveillance recordings show that the said humans have passed this way in the manner shown previously,” beeped the tiny monitor reading off the cameras as they ran. It was frustratingly slow going, what with having to check with security cameras every step of the way, but Dusten felt like they were making progress. Hopefully the intruders weren’t moving too quickly, and they would have them. The intruders had had a couple minutes’ head start, but the guards knew the building better than they did, and even with the painstaking process of reading surveillance recordings, the security team could catch up.

The man in charge of security led them, and Dusten was only a step behind. They ran through one last door and into the cold twilight air of Arae O. A swath of perfectly manicured real grass lay between them and a screen of trees, lit by a row of floodlights. The team didn’t stop running, and even without the monitor guiding them, they knew now where to look for the intruders. It occurred to Dusten for a second that he’d made it to the same location that Hayward had mentioned, but it didn’t matter; they were there, and it was the right place for sure.

The group ran through the wooded area beyond the lawn, no leaves underfoot due to the genetically modified trees, and getting closer to their destination.

On the other side of the trees Dusten could see a car waiting, ready to take off. They had made it.

***

Massive fluorescent floodlights illuminated the lawn stretching out in front of them as if it were broad daylight again. Kallie felt extremely exposed, out in the open with the lights behind her. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

“If the other team followed the trail to the east security entry and back up here, they’ll be a couple minutes behind us,” said the team leader through the mouthpiece of the combat helmet he was wearing. The metallic tone in his voice only reminded Kallie more of how defenseless she was.

They went into the thin woods beyond the first stretch of lawn. In a few seconds an EL craft came into view. The team slowed to a halt. “Careful,” breathed Kallie. “We don’t know if there’s anyone in there.”

“I don’t think our intruders are here yet,” said one of the guards.

Kallie shook her head. “No. Not yet. Get down. As soon as they come out, hit them with everything you have. Be careful about Kreine, but all of you can handle it.”

The leader of the team nodded briskly, not questioning her as he and the rest of the security guards got down on the hard-packed ground. Kallie didn’t like giving the command to shoot down the kidnappers, but the risk of the attackers outright killing Miara if they knew that the security team was waiting in ambush was far too great.

Kallie studied the EL. There were two forms inside, hardly recognizable through the tinted plexiglass, but she could see them. It wouldn’t be hard to take them out as well; the car was old and the glass was probably penetrable with the plasma weapons the security team carried. She didn’t want anyone getting away.

Four figures emerged out of the trees to their left, with a fifth thrown over one’s shoulder. Kallie knelt, behind the cover of the brush. The team trained their assault weapons on the people half-jogging to the car.

“Ready,” murmured Kallie softly. She had her pistol in her hand but doubted that she would use it. The team had it covered.

Suddenly the limp figure of Miara Kreine draped over one man’s back lifted its head and stared off into the bushes. Kallie watched, confused, and then horrified as the realization hit her.

The man carrying Miara spun, his pistol raised as he felt Miara’s body stiffen. “Hey!” he shouted in a husky, scared voice. The rest of the party turned and aimed their weapons into the trees. They weren’t looking at Kallie’s team.

“Now?” asked one of the armor plated guards in Kallie’s group.

Kallie opened her mouth to give them permission to fire when the man carrying Miara put his pistol to her head. Damn. Kallie shook her head instead, her mouth too dry to speak.

The attackers backed up the shallow ramp and into the EL slowly. Kallie still couldn’t see who the bushes concealed on the other side of the clearing, but she had a good guess. The ramp went up and the door slid shut, the already idling machine rising up and into the air. Any hope that Kallie might have had vanished with it.

She wasn’t surprised to see Grant’s team rush out of the trees across from them as the EL gained speed, disappearing into the darkness around the circle of lights.

The treetops rustled, dark shapes against an even darker backdrop, as a sudden breeze swept through the clearing.

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