Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (42 page)

“We’ll follow you,”
Lyra said. “But, if this goes wrong, I’ll kill you myself, Rainer, and
collect on your execution writ.”

Rainer’s look said she’d
try
to kill him, but that he wasn’t envisioning the same ending she was. Sara knew
Rainer would win. Because he always stacked the odds in his favor.

Sara unholstered the grappler
gun, then unbuckled the nylon belt and let it fall to the thick mud at her
feet. The receding water had also left a strong organic smell behind, not as
pleasant as when the torrent first rushed through the canyon.

The reinforced aluminum stock of
the grappler had little heft and fit neatly in the palm of her hand. She
flipped on the laser sight and painted a dot on the bottom of the balcony
railing suspended three hundred meters above her. She pulled the trigger. A
click preceded the whooshing of the aluminum grappling hook carrying the silk rope
up to the balcony. It pierced the concrete just under the railing and locked in
place. Sara secured her right hand to the grappler with the strap on its side
and held tight with the other hand. She pressed the retract button by her thumb
and shot into the air.

Sara and the rest of her group
zipped toward the balcony. The wet skin on her hands and face tingled with the
rush of wind. Her clothes clung to her, sucking away her warmth. She watched
the concrete supports of the balcony loom closer. Her ascent slowed
automatically as the grappler reeled in its last twenty meters. She reached
for the railing with her free hand, ignoring the throb in her arms.

Rainer and Lyra were the first
two to climb the railing and hop onto the balcony. Sara and David took their
turns with the remaining Armadans. Rainer stood in front of the double doors
leading inside.

“How long do we have until
the contractors inside react to your access code?” Lyra asked.

“Hopefully they’ll think
it’s a glitch and not check at all, or send one guard,” Rainer said.
“If they’re anticipating a move like this, then about six minutes. If so,
that fragger camera loop program will be worthless.”

“It’s better to have it just
in case,” Sara said. Yul had been busy loading them down with tech before
she and Rainer left him at Rushow. Though she had full faith in Yul, she still
held some trepidation that one of the cameras along the way wouldn’t pick up
the signal from her reporter in time, therefore not prompting it to show the
same loop of video of the few seconds before their arrival.

“Then, let’s get this over
with,” Lyra said.

Rainer tapped his reporter. A
small green circle lit on the door’s lock. He shouldered the door open and
followed the muzzles of his weapons inside. Lyra stayed close on his heels. One
by one the troopers filed through the door, each one covering a different
direction. Sara swept with David. No one spoke.

Inside the sounds reduced to the
buzzing of lights in the grey hallway. With sudden alarm, she remembered being
here. Her mind went back to that night after the fragger attack, after Rainer
had shot her. She had traveled this same route to her torture. Doors marked
with signs for the hippodrome confirmed her surroundings. The elevators would
be coming up in the hallway on their left.

Sara felt nauseous, whether from
reliving her last moments before imprisonment or from the increasing spasms in
her abdomen. When they reached the elevators, she clenched her cenders tighter
to keep her world from spinning.

Cameras rotated within their
white sphere casings, but didn’t zoom into any one spot. She hoped that meant
Yul’s trick was working. Rainer inclined his head toward the stairwell door by
the elevator bank. Lyra entered first as he covered her.

They all spiraled down a
staircase, cenders and rifles drawn, boots tapping the concrete stairs in a
soft cadence. They descended floor after floor. The overhead white lights
burned into Sara’s retinas with an unrelenting intensity. When they reached the
bottom landing, Rainer pushed open the door just enough to peek through.
Satisfied, he slipped onto the awaiting metal catwalk. Single file, their
rifles against their shoulders, the Armadans traversed the catwalk. Sara didn’t
remember this accessway, nor the cavernous room thirty meters below it. The low
level lighting allowed her to see large shipping crates stacked like buildings
underneath them. Aisles crisscrossed among the crates like a street grid. She
froze when she thought she saw a figure dash behind a stack. David bumped into
her and immediately trained his rifle where she pointed her cenders.

Then, she felt it. The hair on
her arms stood straight up, charged with static. Cender fire splashed off the
railing to her right, sizzling through the trooper standing there. She dove for
the catwalk floor.

“Covering!” David aimed
the rifle through the exposed rails of the catwalk. He sent alternating bursts
flying into the aisles below. Sara aimed her cenders at the oncoming static
trails. Their flash dissipated just before reaching the ceiling lights above
the catwalk. She crawled toward the other end of the accessway where part of
their group laid down more cover. As she approached the end, Lyra yelled.
“Incoming grenades.”

A shrill series of beeps cut the
air. Rainer grabbed Sara and pulled her to her feet, then shoved her through
the door. A silvery light from the exploding catwalk blinded her. The force
threw a body into the stairwell on top of her legs. The world cut out from her
for just a moment. She fought off a wave of oncoming blackness.

Pain wrapped around into her
lower back, and her ribs ached, but she held her hands to her ears against an
unbearable ringing. She shouted for Rainer, for David, until a coughing fit
took her breath. She coughed and spit grit from her mouth, then stood and shook
off the dust. Her vision returned in a spotty mess. The dust swirling through
the concrete stairwell didn’t help her visibility. It was if time played in
slow motion. She looked for familiar faces, spotting David among the other
Armadans. His face was bloody, and shrapnel peppered his right cheek and neck.

She shouted for someone to close
the door to the stairwell, but realized it had been blown off its hinges. The
closest trooper nudged her up and shoved her forward. She looked around
frantically for Rainer. There were only twelve of their group left here in the
stairwell. She ducked around the trooper to look for Rainer.

David caught her arm as she went
for the doorway. She skidded to a stop. It was gone. The contractor force below
had taken down the entire accessway. Bodies littered the floor below. She could
hear muffled bursts of gunfire as her hearing tried to come back. David pulled
at her arm. She punched at it, not going anywhere until she knew for certain.
He grabbed her chin and pointed her face toward one of the stacks.

Rainer lay face down among the
shredded steel. A dark stain oozed beneath him. She stared at his lifeless body
in disbelief as David dragged her away.

Chen held his cender to Sean
Cryer’s head. It felt a little cowardly considering the fragger was so dosed
out of his mind that he couldn’t tell reality from hallucination any more, but
Chen wasn’t feeling overly brave after the Armadans took out forty contractors
during the skirmish in the warehouse. The troopers had taken heavy losses, as
well, but not in comparison to the defense they mounted on the contractors’
surprise attack.

“I say we get rid of Cryer
now and cut our losses,” Chen said. “The Sovereign is as good as dead
any way. You saw him. He’s lost his mind. His body will follow soon enough.
It’s better for us all if he dies, especially with Rainer dead. All we have to
do is bide our time to see how the new government shakes out and force our way
to the top of it.”

“I’m not leaving without the
cure.“Faya leveled her cender at Chen. “So step away from him.”

She was obsessed. Chen lowered
his weapon, not really caring if Cryer lived or died. “Weren’t you
listening to me? We don’t need the cure anymore.”

“I need it.”

For the first time Chen noticed
the little shake in Faya’s hands. He understood how Cryer had gotten the drop
on her, even in his condition. “Prollixer gave you his curse?”

“It wasn’t a curse when he
gave it to me. It was a gift.”

“Prollixer doesn’t give
gifts,” Chen said.

“I was special.”

The way she said it left no doubt
what she meant. And, here they all thought the Sovereign wasn’t interested in
pleasures of the flesh. Chen wasn’t sure what disgusted him more—the thought of
Faya docking Prollixer or the fact that she would alter her genes in such a
drastic way.

“Did Rainer know that his
days as Head Contractor were numbered because he wasn’t providing the same type
of services that you were?” he asked.

She ignored the taunt and picked
up the knife she had been using on Cryer for the past hour.

“I think you’re already
losing your mind.” Chen made for the door.

“Dahlia and the Sovereign
are halfway to the docking pad by now. You’d never reach the ship before they
take off,” Faya said. “Besides, I need someone to watch my back. I
almost have him broken.”

Cryer wasn’t giving her anything
more, but her desperation outweighed the obvious. “The few remaining
contractors we have left out there won’t be able to hold off those troopers
before our reinforcements arrive. I’m getting out while I can. You’re on your
own.”

“I’ll remember this when I’m
controlling the Embassy,” Faya shouted after him.

Chen wasn’t worried. If she did
make it out of here alive and managed to cure her curse, he knew her dirty
secrets. That kind of blackmail would be worth a power position. He had nothing
to lose, unless he couldn’t get to that ship before it left. He dialed Dahlia
on his reporter.

“That’s it,” Sara said.
Their small team stood outside her former modification cell. Of the remaining
Armadans, only two troopers, a male, Markus, and a female, Tamasine, stayed
with Sara, David, and Lyra. The others split off in the stairwell to assist
their comrades on the warehouse floor who managed to survive the fall and were
still battling contractors.

A distant sound of footfalls
echoed from around the corner. With quick hand gestures, Lyra and David signed
to one another, then to the troopers. Each of them took a position along the
concrete walls. David motioned Sara toward him, then cupped his hand over her
ear. “Could be an ambush. You and I will watch the rear.”

Sara aimed her cenders at a small
imperfection about two meters high on the wall down the hallway behind them. It
was unnerving to be facing away from the action, but if this were an ambush,
she and David would have plenty to deal with on their end. The footsteps were
louder, but also more hesitant as they approached the hallway. Sara wanted to
see what Lyra and the troopers were doing, but kept her discipline and never
deviated from her spot on the wall.

The footsteps stopped just before
turning the corner. Sara controlled her breathing, though the soft exhalations
still sounded deafening to her.

The smack of a weapon into bone
and flesh made Sara flinch. From behind her, she heard a thump, like a body
hitting the floor.

“Clear,” Tamasine said.

David held up a hand for Sara to
stay and cover. Sticking to the wall, his compact rifle butted against his
shoulder, David hurried to the end of the hallway. Sara maintained her
concentration, even with the scuffle erupting behind her. David peered around
the corner, keeping most of his body in cover. “Clear,” he said,
though his stare remained on the adjoining hallway.

Sara finally looked at the
contractor held to the floor by Lyra and Markus. Though Chen’s features were
distorted by the gag stuffed in his mouth, Sara recognized his eyes. Not quite
Rainer’s icy blue, but piercing enough. She had never seen Chen’s eyes so
rounded in fear. Maybe she should have felt a twinge of pity or nostalgia for
him, but it was as if that life, the one where they were together, wasn’t hers
anymore.

“Where’s Sean, Chen?”
she asked.

“You know this man?”
Lyra and Markus hoisted Chen to his feet and slammed him against the hard
concrete wall. His one knee couldn’t hold his weight and a bone mender beeped
in alarm. The trooper kicked it off, sending Chen into a fit of muffled
shrieks.

“He’s working with the group
who has Sean,” Sara said. When Rainer initially mentioned this to her, she
thought it was a bluff, but meeting Chen here at Palomin was no coincidence.

Lyra grabbed Chen’s head and
slammed it into the wall again. She flipped open her knife in front of his
face. “I’m going to remove this gag, and if you make any noise except to
answer her, I’ll jam this knife between your ribs and deflate your lung so
you’ll barely be able to whisper. Do you understand me?”

Chen’s gaze darted from the knife
to Lyra to Sara and back.

“Do you understand me?”

He nodded his affirmative. She
plucked the rolled up piece of shirt from Chen’s mouth.

“Will you let me go if I
tell you?” he asked.

Lyra stuffed the gag back in and
jabbed the knife under his ribcage. Chen jerked in pain, his screams muffled by
the gag. “You don’t listen very well,” Lyra said. “I didn’t nick
your lung this time, but if you don’t answer her question, next time I’ll
plunge the blade in up to its hilt.”

Chen quit squirming. Lyra
ungagged him, pressing the knife to his side.

“Cryer’s in the storage room
at the end of the next hallway.”

Sara’s mouth went dry. “Is
he alive?”

“For now,” Chen said.
“But Faya’s still working on him.”

Sara bolted around the corner and
ran down the hallway. The pain of twisted muscles gathered in her abdomen. Her
heart banged against her rib cage, terrified at what she might find inside that
room. She heard David shout, “Targets this side.” Weapons fire
sounded behind her, but Sara’s mind had one purpose, get Sean away from Faya.