Edward (13 page)

The
gunship killed its search lights and then quickly swooped to the edge of the
building with its landing ramp extended.  Alex and Edward broke out what
parts of the windows that hadn’t been destroyed by the concussion and quickly
moved Ethan onboard.  The ramp hadn’t even closed all the way as it pulled
away from the building.

“We
need a medic to check his leg!” called Edward.

A
pair of Taik medics descended upon Ethan with great haste and they quickly had
him sequestered on a gurney.  Thirty seconds later they had his leg
scanned and started a bandage, “Muscles hyperextended and a hairline fracture
on the tibia.”  They then started the procedure to request his medical
records for drug allergies before giving him anything for the pain and
swelling.

“The
second gunship will be here in less than five to clean out what is left,”
offered a Shukurae door gunner to the group.

“How
the heck does a motorcycle gang get that powerful and get access to that kind
of equipment?” asked Edward with no small amount of disbelief.

“Unclear. 
Takru and Trevor will be inquiring.”

“Did
we ever get clearance?” asked Alex with a bit of a laugh.

The
Shukurae gunner laughed, “Unclear and unconcerned.  The property is held
by the Nedej Mercantile Bank.  As such, we have a standing order to
protect their properties.  Thus, we will actually send them a bill for
tonight’s activities.  Their building was, after all, infested with armed
felons.”

“The
kid mentioned that the gangs get paid on the side as part of a protection
racket,” mentioned Alex.

“If
that is the case, then things may get very ugly as that could jeopardize their
standing contracts with the Shukurae.  This may get very interesting.”

 “Any
word on Kadu?” asked Edward anxiously.

“She
is doing well enough that they had to sedate her to make her remain at the
hospital.”

Edward
laughed, “That is Kadu.”  He turned his attention to his comlink as he
paged the hotel.

“Gillian
here,” her voice was calm.  A very practiced
calm.

“We
are on our way back.  Ethan hurt his leg as we jumped through a window,
but outside of that, we are all fine.”

“Zoë
will be delighted to hear that,” replied Gillian.  The relief in her voice
was obvious.

“I
can put Ethan on if she’d like.”

“Let
me get her.  I think she’d like that very much.”

Fifteen
minutes later they were all back at the hotel.  Alex retired to his room,
as Ethan retold the story of his rescue for the tenth time to Zoë, Tatiana and
Gillian.

Zoë
caught Edward by the side, “You went in without the rest of the team?”

“Alex
and I were pretty sure we could stall until they got there.  Kidnappings
are always dangerous things.  I’d rather a gunfight over hostage
negotiations any day of the week.”

Zoë
cocked her head, “You really broke through two layers of floor on your entrance?”

“Yes,
indeed.  That hurt a bit.  Okay, more than a bit.  But it seemed
the best way to get to him and get the initiative.”

Zoë
smiled, “You are crazy, you know that?  How can I
thank you?”

“You
aren’t mad at us because he was kidnapped in the first place?”

Zoë
shook her head, “I can’t blame you or Tatiana.  Those stupid street gangs
are the problem.  If I’m going to blame anyone it’s going to be Tatiana’s
father.  But I’m not going to take it out on her.  I hate people that
do that, and I don’t want to be one of those people.”  She broke eye
contact, “I have other people I can blame.”

“Hey! 
Back to happier things, eh?”

Zoë
smiled, “I’m sorry.  I am very grateful for what you did.  You, Alex, your whole team.  I heard Kadu is going to
be all right.”

“Yep,
she is a tough bird.  But she’ll be out for several days.”

“That
means you won’t have a chaperon.”

Edward
blew a raspberry, “There is still
mom.
”  He gestured to Gillian. “So how about dinner tonight?”

Zoë
smiled, “I’d like that.  On one condition: Tatiana comes too.”

Edward
laughed, “I think we can all live with that.”

Edward
woke the next morning to the sound of an argument in the living room. 
Ethan was still there; his aunt and the police had all had their talks with
him, but it was decided he could spend the night, and the Shukurae would be
taking him to and from school for the rest of the week.  But that didn’t
seem to be what the argument was about.  Edward made himself
presentable and carefully entered the living room.  Ethan and Zoë were
there with Gillian.

“If I
work the entire concert tour rather than just the first six months, I can
afford to have you moved to a better side of town,” growled Zoë at Ethan.

“The
guys at the university granted you a six month stay; they’ll cancel your
scholarship if you don’t start classes on time.  You’ve worked all your
life for that scholarship; you aren’t going to throw it away because you are
paranoid about me,” growled Ethan back.

“Paranoid? 
You were taken off the streets in a hail of bullets!  That is case
history.  I don’t want to see it repeated.”

“You
won’t.  It was a fluke.  The government can’t risk the embarrassment
of a repeat.  We both know how that works.”

“I
don’t want you to take that chance.”

“I’m
going
to take that chance because I’m not going to let you give up your
scholarship.  You’ve been combing your fur backwards these last two years,
and I really appreciate that.  I’m not going to be any more of a burden on
you.  We both know what this is
really
about, but you just won’t
let it go.  I’m not Rachel; I’m not in the crap situation she was
in.  You and Liam both took care of that.  You are the best big
sister a brother could have, but you need to give it a rest.  Don’t
destroy your future because of me!”

“I’m
not going to any more funerals!”

“You
won’t!  Please, just give this time to calm down.”

“Would
the internship at the aquarium help with his housing situation,” interjected
Edward.

Zoë
turned ready to snarl, but couldn’t.  Flustered she just nodded.

“You
managed to find a good private school, Zoë.  It seems the best thing might
be to find one for Ethan.”

Zoë
cocked her head, “That would be even more expensive than moving him.”

“Yes,
but with all the publicity of the kidnapping, it is not unlikely he could find
a sponsor.”

“Outside
of just a bleeding heart wanting to help, why would they help?  People
never do anything that nice for nothing.” Zoë’s tone was more than a little
bitter.

“It
actually does form a tax write-off,” interjected Gillian.  “So if you are
going to be cynical, there is your reason.”

Suddenly
Zoë teared up, “I’ve done it.  I’ve become one of them.”

Ethan
rushed to her side and hugged her, embarrassing his sister, “It’s
okay.  Just calm down and give it a few days.  Okay?  Everything
will be better I promise.”

Zoë
fought back the tears as she stroked her brother’s hair, “I just don’t want to
lose you.”

“You
won’t.  Trust your friends.  You have awesome friends!”

Zoë
chortled a little bit as she looked around at Edward, Gillian, and Tatiana
watching from the door of the room.  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Come
on, Ethan.  You’ll be late for school,” called Gillian as she offered a
hand.

Ethan
hugged Zoë again before being led to the front door to a waiting
Shukurae.  Zoë just sat there fighting back the tears as Tatiana came over
and sat down beside her.

“I
was wondering when the tears were going to come.  You didn’t cry at all
last night.  Docs always say you never start to get better until you allow
yourself to cry,” began Tatiana with moist eyes.  “It was almost a month
before I actually cried, I mean
really
cried, after my mother
died.  I just kept making excuses for keeping it bottled up inside.”

Zoë
smiled at Tatiana, “Under all the glamour and perfect hair, you
are
a
real person.  Thank you.  Thank you for reaching out to me before all
of this.  Thank you for sitting here with me as I blubber like an idiot.”

“You
are worried about your brother.  That’s not a bad thing.  The
question is, are you
too
worried?  It
sounds like you and your older brother have already done a lot to improve his
station.  You should be proud of your efforts.  He’s a strong young
man.  Don’t forget: he loves you every much as you love him.  That
means he wants to give to you too.  What outlet does he have to express
his appreciation for his big sister?”

Zoë
just laughed, “Well, not much of anything, really.”

“And
now you are going to go and lose a scholarship that you’ve already put on hold
for half a year because of him?  Just shave his fur and bob his tail, why
don’t you!  If the roles had been reversed last night, Edward would have
had to have used a tranquilizer gun on Ethan to keep him from following! 
Ethan is not a fool, and he loves his big sister, just try to remember that!”

“Yes,
ma’am,” laughed Zoë.

Tatiana
blew a raspberry and they both had a good laugh.

Gillian
beamed as she reentered the room, “If things are down to a dull roar, we need
to get ready for rehearsal.  We do have an extra fifteen minutes but let’s
not squander them.”  There was Gillian back to being practical.

“Yes,
Mom!” came the reply in unison.

“How
did we get an extra fifteen minutes?” asked Tatiana.

“We
are traveling by gunship this morning,” replied Edward.

Rehearsal went relatively smoothly and, save for the gawking at their choice of transportation, not
much was said of the previous day’s events until it came time to leave. 
Without missing a beat, it was decided the first order of business was to go
visit Kadu in the hospital.  With no small amount of political wrangling,
they landed the gunship on the roof of the hospital and quickly
disembarked.  When they finally made it to Kadu’s room, they found Ethan
and Trevor were already there.

Edward
did his best to hug Kadu, and she laughed at his antics.

“I’m
glad to see you too, little brother,” smirked Kadu.

“Little
brother?” giggled Tatiana.

“Ask
Mom. We are an awkward little family,” joked Edward.  He nodded and smiled
to Ethan, “Good to see you walking better today.”

“Docs
say I need to keep the heavy bandage on for about two weeks and, so long as I
don’t do any heavy running, I can just stay with a cloth wrap after that for a
month.”  Ethan seemed even more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than he had
at the aquarium.

“Lord
Ethan was recounting your exploits in the rescue last night,” began Kadu. “He
seems to have been more than a little impressed at how calm you and Alex were.”

“And
when you two stopped being calm, I knew things were really serious,” piped up
Ethan.  “What the heck were those things?”

“Those
were thermobaric breaching charges,” replied Edward flatly, “and we were more
than a little surprised that they had weapons like that.  That is some
pretty serious hardware.”

“Is
that why you went for a direct armor slam rather than a soft parachute landing
and then sneak in?” asked Kadu.

“Um,
actually we didn’t know they had those.  We went direct… well… because we
were pissed and we knew it would work.”

“I am
deeply sorry my condition clouded your judgment,” replied Kadu sincerely.

“Oh,
you shut up, girl!  You get hurt, I’m going to
get mad.  That’s just the way it’s going to be,” mock scolded Edward.

“You
are a strange little furry creature.”

“I
love you too, Kadu.  So when are you getting out of here?” replied Edward.

“That
is complicated.  I had a minor transfusion from Meeka yesterday, but we
will do no more of that so as not to limit his strength.  I’m on mostly
synthetic blood now while more proper supplies should be here in four days. 
Not counting tissue recovery, the radius and ulna are both badly broken and
were splinted with titanium plates and will need a long time to set and heal.”

“Which?”
asked Tatiana.

“Forearm
bones!” piped up Ethan.

“Additionally,”
continued Kadu, “I have several cracked ribs.  Due to the bone
solidification that happens in adult Shukurae, those will probably never heal
completely.”

“What
is with the bone solidification thing?” asked Edward; he’d never head of that.

Kadu
smiled like a school teacher happy when a student asks a good question. 
“Much of what makes the Shukurae skeleton so strong as
adults is that we form a layer of boron carbide that infuses the outer layer of
bones.  This greatly strengthens the bones as well as hardens them, but it
also makes most bones difficult to knit if they ever do break.  This bone
hardness also is the reason why it is imperative for female Shukurae to have
their first child before their bones hit this secondary solidification.”

“Whoa!”
gasped Tatiana as she made the obvious connection, “Does that mean you are a
mother?”

Kadu
smiled, “That is correct.  I have a six-year-old daughter who is being
raised by
my
aunt.  When I leave the service and start my new life,
I will have the opportunity to return to her and start a proper family.”

Edward
stared at Kadu, “I’ve known you for most of a year and I never knew anything
about that!”

“There
is something else you need to know, Edward,” said Trevor softly. 

Edward
blinked.  He had forgotten Trevor was there. “Okay, that tone of voice is creeping me out.”

Trevor
smiled, “With the damage to Kadu’s ribs, she is being given a medical discharge
as soon as she recovers.”

Edward
stood there dumbstruck.  On one hand, this meant she got to go be with her
daughter, a part of her family he’d never heard about.  But it was
Kadu!  His partner!  They had been through so much together. 
He’d finally started to treat her like family, like she deserved.  And now
she was going to be leaving.

Kadu
smiled like only a Shukurae could: needle sharp teeth, but still warm and
friendly, “I’ll miss you, too, Edward.  I’ll be happy to have you come by
and visit, and I’ll be happy to come by and visit you.  But after all that
has happened, I’d be a liability to the group, so it’s best I go.”

Ethan’s
fur stood on end, “It’s all my fault, isn’t it?”

Kadu
growled at Ethan and his fur laid flat immediately, “No!  It was not your
fault.  Never blame yourself for the actions of evil people. 
Remember, I volunteered for this job, this assignment, for everything I did,
and I did it because I elected to.  My choice. 
Understand me?”

“Yes,
ma’am,” came Ethan’s feeble response.

“I
didn’t get shot up so you could feel sorry for yourself.  I got shot up to
protect someone that had the dream of becoming a great marine biologist.”

Ethan
nodded.

Gillian
cocked her head, “Zoë, Ethan, this sounds a lot like the conversation this
morning doesn’t it?  Both of you could learn from it.”

Zoë
and Ethan both nodded and smiled weakly.

Edward
grinned, “Okay, for the record: how bad did you get shot up?”

“They
removed seventeen bullets in unarmored parts, mostly right arm,
twenty-one more went into the armor.  The armor very much lived up to its
billing, I might add.”

“Wow!”
murmured Tatiana, “and you still took out ten of the biker gang.”

Kadu
nodded, “They got the drop on me, shot up my arm and weapon before I could
respond at range, so I was forced to close.”

“She
threw a motorcycle!  With a guy still on it!  It was awesome! 
With one arm!” crowed Ethan.

“It
would have been ‘awesome,’ as you say, if I had gotten all of them,” retorted
Kadu.

“Don’t
listen to her, she’s being modest.  It was awesome!” countered Ethan.

Edward
smiled and sighed.  Ethan was doing well, but Kadu was going to go away. 
How was he ever going to break in a new partner?  Especially on an
assignment like this!