Nexus: Ziva Payvan Book 2 (42 page)
Read Nexus: Ziva Payvan Book 2 Online
Authors: EJ Fisch
“Look around you. These places are falling apart. They were probably connected to the same gas line. Check the surrounding buildings if you’re that worried, but get out there and get those fires put out before any more damage is done.”
The man reluctantly turned and retreated. Mag sank back into the shadows, watching as he stomped through the office and disappeared without so much as a glance behind him. Everything was quiet for a moment before Loric resumed his conversation with the hologram.
“Is there a problem?” the strange man asked.
“Not at all,” Loric replied, though he didn’t seem convinced. “Just a disturbance, nothing more – my men are dealing with it now.”
“I sincerely hope that’s the case, because I’ve got enough trouble of my own. I don’t need to deal with yours too.”
Mag watched through the window as Loric’s eyes widened. “What happened?”
“I’ve run into a bit of a…snag,” the hologram replied. “A person should always be prepared for unforeseen circumstances, but this is more than we could have expected.” He paused for several seconds as if the thought were painful. “Payvan is here, and she’s coming after us again. She knows everything.”
Now Loric fell silent. Mag wasn’t sure who this Payvan woman was, but the thought that someone out there knew about the predicament in Argall sent a tingle of relief through his body. It didn’t necessarily mean help was coming right away, but judging by the conversation, Payvan was working to counter the mercenaries’ actions, or at least those of their leader. Maybe she would slow them down enough for Mag to do something.
“What do we do?” Loric asked. It was the first time Mag had seen him so defeated.
The other man shrugged as if the answer was obvious. “I’ll be there sometime tomorrow, but in the meantime, shut everything down. We still have some time, but we have to use it to save ourselves. The operation is over.”
It was over? Once again, Mag felt sweet relief wash over him, but this time he hesitated before allowing himself to get too excited. He wasn’t sure what “shutting everything down” entailed, but he didn’t like the sound of it.
“You’re sure?” Loric asked. His voice remained calm but the shock was clear in his face.
“I am,” the large man replied. “Take what you can and destroy the rest. There’s no other choice.” With that, the hologram flickered and he was gone.
A hot tingle coursed through Mag’s body, forcing beads of perspiration out onto his forehead. It was amazing how quickly a situation could turn sour – not five minutes earlier, he’d been praising his good luck, having not expected to successfully make it into the station. Now it seemed as though he was in potentially worse trouble than before.
Shut everything down
. If it meant what he thought it meant, the scheduled massacre of Argall’s citizens had just been moved up and now included the destruction of the mines and any surviving crystals. He caught himself when he realized the chaos of such an act would allow him to escape the town undetected. Was he really considering running like a coward while the rest of his people were slaughtered? Of course the only alternative was to stay and be slaughtered along with them. At least he might be able to take a few of the mercs with him that way. The issue was that there was no way to predict the mercs’ method of attack. They could do anything from lining everyone up in front of a firing squad to dropping mining explosives on the city from the air.
Regardless of what they did, it would still require some measure of planning and organization, meaning help might still arrive in time if Mag managed to get a transmission out. He waited there in the dark office until Loric left the comm room. Then, not caring too much if someone caught him in the act, he approached the main control board and quickly tapped out a distinct SOS code. Setting the signal to repeat on a loop, he sent the message out to anyone – anyone at all – who would listen.
Night had long since fallen on Chaiavis, though with the overhead door open the city lights lit up the shop’s interior as if it were daytime. Ziva paused and examined the meager pile of items they’d gathered for the trip home: her rifle, the packs she and Aroska had brought, Kade’s computer and satchel, the few weapons Kat had stashed around, and last but not least, the data pad containing the mysterious map. There was no way to know what exactly they’d find in Argall, but this was the extent to which they were capable of preparing.
According to Kat, Bosco had a ship they could use to travel. It was old but fast, and being able to take a direct route without stops would get them to Haphez as early as the following afternoon, Haphezian time. It was almost guaranteed that Dasaro would beat them there, but Ziva doubted he’d have much time to organize anything before they arrived.
She turned her attention from the car and wandered up the stairs, where she found Kat sitting on the cot that served as her bed. She held the data pad with the death records in her hands, though she didn’t seem to be looking at it. Ziva tapped on the doorframe and she jumped.
“You ready?”
Kat set the data pad down and rubbed her eyes. That sad look had returned to her face once again, worse than Ziva had ever seen it. “Yeah I…” She hesitated, overcome with another thought. “I need to talk to you.”
Her tone made Ziva bristle; it spoke of complication, something that would give them one more thing to worry about when they already had so much on their plates. She found she couldn’t quite suppress the nasty edge in her voice when she responded, “What is it?”
Unfazed by her harshness, Kat stood up and removed an object from the storage container beside her bed. “Have you ever heard of Ronan?”
“A person?”
Kat shrugged. “A person, a company, I’m not exactly sure.” She beckoned for Ziva to come closer and shut the door behind her. “I had a friend from the embassy, Corey, who went missing late last year. He’d been in some trouble with the Niiosian Mob, so I thought maybe he was in the wind and just didn’t want to tell anyone he was leaving. It was by pure chance that I bumped into him while working another job about six months ago.” Her voice caught and she hesitated.
“Let me guess,” Ziva said. “He’d been found by the mob and needed your help getting away.”
Kat recovered quickly. “No, nothing like that. He told me he’d been captured by some entity called Ronan, that it had let him go and was tracking him as we spoke. He was practically feral, screaming at me to get away from him because he was sick and didn’t want to hurt me.” She managed a sad snort. “Of course I was too stubborn to listen. I finally got him to calm down, and he told me he’d been injected with something at the beginning of his captivity. Apparently he’d felt fine until about two weeks before I saw him, when he’d suffered a major seizure. That’s when they let him go. Ever since then, he’d been getting these awful headaches. He said he thought there was something wrong with him neurologically, but other than the headaches he was still functioning perfectly fine.”
Ziva mulled the information over, unsure exactly how it pertained to the current situation. “And he thought this had been caused by whatever he’d been injected with?”
“I guess so,” Kat replied. “I asked why he didn’t get some medical help, and he just kept repeating that it was too late, that nothing could be done now. And I guess he was right because…he died without warning a week later.”
Ziva’s eyebrows slid together in response to the sudden twist. “Define ‘without warning’.”
Kat shook her head. “I don’t know, he was acting normal, finally starting to calm down. Then there were about two days at the end where the headaches got excruciating. He started losing motor control – parts of his body would suddenly go numb. He cut himself pretty bad at one point and didn’t even feel it, and it was all I could do to get the bleeding to stop. Then he was just gone.”
Ziva was quiet for a moment, not wanting to sound insensitive but also not wanting to waste valuable time. “If you don’t mind me asking, where are you going with all this?”
“No, no, of course,” Kat said. “I mentioned I was stubborn, right? Well, I started looking for any information I could about Ronan, and I actually found the warehouse where Corey had been held. But he must have been right about those people watching him, because they found me as soon as I got there.” She rolled up her jacket sleeve to reveal a large welt on her upper arm. “The injection site is still swollen to this day,” she said, handing Ziva the object she’d taken from the drawer. It was a syringe.
“
Sheyss
,” Ziva muttered, mind racing as she tried to process what exactly Kat was saying. The syringe could almost be described as dainty – it was about the length of her index finger and only half as thick. Tiny printing adorned one side of the clear tube: RONAN 46-BETA.
Ziva watched Kat for a moment. She couldn’t recall ever seeing someone so impartial about the fact that they were dying, other than hardened capital criminals who had been given a death sentence, but that was a different matter entirely. The sadness Kat had shown made more sense now – it had always manifested itself when the topic of conversation was saving, helping, rescuing. This young woman had dedicated her life to saving and helping, and she continued to do so even when she knew her time was so limited.
“How long does it take?” she asked, certain Kat understood what she meant.
“Corey was held for close to five months before the seizure,” Kat replied, sitting back down. “After that, he lasted about three weeks.” She stared down at the floor, swallowing hard. “Ziva, it’s been almost
five
weeks since my seizure.”
One blow after another, it seemed. It was a long time before Ziva managed to say anything, and when she did it was the first thing that came to mind. “You mean you could die at any time.” It was more of a statement than a question. “That’s why you were so reluctant to help us.”
Kat forced a sad smile and shrugged. “Yeah – I didn’t want you to be relying on me for anything, only to have me turn around and keel over.”
“Why the hell didn’t you go get some help?” Ziva cried, louder than she’d meant to. “You saw firsthand what happens! You could have stopped it!”
“Please keep your voice down!” Kat begged as the first signs of tears became visible in her eyes. “I don’t want the others to know.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want anyone to treat me differently. I’ve come this far and I’m not about to let myself be sidelined now.”
Ziva sighed. “Then why are you telling me? Why not just keep your mouth shut?”
“Because I need you to do something about it,” Kat said. “You’ve got that syringe, and I’ll give you all the data I was able to gather on Corey before he died. That was going to be Bosco’s job, and now he’s gone too.”
Ziva looked down at the object in her hand. The idea that such a delicate thing could bring about so much suffering and death was inconceivable. “Are you in any pain?”
Kat shook her head. “The headaches sometimes get pretty bad, but I’ve learned to deal with them. There’s no sense in wasting the rest of my time dwelling on it and feeling sorry for myself. I’ve got to just live my life while I still have it.”
“Why didn’t you get any help?” Ziva asked again, more quietly this time.
“I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. Whatever Ronan is, it felt threatened enough by me to track me to that warehouse. I’m just one person. Who knows how it would retaliate if the embassy or military found out.”
That made sense, though Ziva was still disgusted by how she’d handled the situation, mostly because there was nothing anyone could do to fix it now. “Is there anything I can do?” It was not a question she asked often.
“You can stay out of my way,” Kat replied. Her words weren’t harsh; rather, they were the final wishes of a dying woman, and they carried a commanding tone that compelled Ziva to honor them. “To be honest, I’m not planning on coming back from Argall. I want to go out on my own terms, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to help those people…
whatever it takes
. I hope you can understand that.”
As tempting as it was to ask if she was sure, Ziva resorted to a simple dip of her head. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is. Sometimes I think I’ve only lasted this long because I’ve been so determined to see this through.” Kat handed Ziva her data pad. “All of Corey’s information is on there.”
Ziva pocketed the syringe and tucked the data pad up under her jacket. “Let’s go home,” she said, helping the girl to her feet. “And Kat, thanks for telling me about this.”
“This is too weird,” Zinni muttered, sliding back down behind the large boulder she, Skeet, and Zona were hidden behind. “Everything looks so normal.”
“After everything that’s happened, I think it’s safe to say that nothing is ever as it seems,” Zona said.
Skeet and Zinni each grunted in agreement. The three of them were silent for a moment as they contemplated the facts. They’d flown into the mountains under the cover of darkness, and, after leaving the ship a distance away, had hiked into the Argall area on foot. It was mid-morning now, and after a few hours of climbing around through the hills surrounding the town, they’d come across nothing of interest. The city was quiet, though at this distance it was hard to tell whether anything unusual was going on.
“We should get closer,” Zinni suggested.
The others agreed after a short pause. “We’ll move south toward the loading docks,” Skeet said. “If there’s anything happening, maybe we’ll be able to see it from there.”
They mobilized again, moving slowly with their eyes fixed on the city and the surrounding airspace. Despite the relatively early hour and the crisp mountain air, the warmth of the sun beating down on the rocks made for a hot hike. By the time they made it to an open area where two roads converged, all three were soaked with sweat.
A single pile of rocks and charred wood rose up out of the center of the clearing. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a funeral pyre, and judging by the amount of ash that had settled into the cracks and crevices, it had seen a fair amount of use. Zinni stooped down and looked through the pile – there were no trinkets or jewelry, not like there’d been in the furnace room at Dakiti. There were no bones either, telling her that someone had taken the time to bury them elsewhere. This wasn’t a disposal site; this was a legitimate cremation pyre.
“This feels wrong,” she said. “Why wouldn’t this be closer to the city?”
“Maybe this is some sort of sacred place,” Skeet suggested. “The fact that it’s secluded doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
“I want to check in all the same. This is the first interesting thing we’ve found all morning, and it at least tells us quite a few people have died recently.”
Skeet shrugged and pulled out the powerful HSP communicator they’d brought along. “If you insist,” he said, keying in the code that would hail the director.
They stood there for what seemed like a long time, listening to the breeze as it whistled through the rocks. Zinni lifted a spotting scope to her eye, taking a long look at the little town that rested in the valley below. The idea that it was the epicenter of all that had happened seemed absurd. She’d only been there once before, and it had struck her as the epitome of a small mountain town where the residents’ lives all revolved around mining and everybody knew everybody else. If she remembered correctly, the town itself was quite beautiful, something she imagined on an intragalactic holoprint with the words “Greetings from Haphez!” scrawled across it. But that had been close to five years ago. If things were really as bad as they seemed, there was no telling what kind of shape the town or its inhabitants were in.
Zinni became aware of a presence beside her and she turned to find Zona standing there with crossed arms, looking down over the city as well. “What do you think of all this?” she asked, returning her attention to the view through the scope.
“As small as Argall is, Dasaro would still need a fairly large force to control it the way he has,” Zona replied. “He’d need enough men to continue the mining operations, or at least to keep the workers in check. They must have found some way to block communications or we would have heard something by now.”
Zinni shook her head. “You really think this has all been going on for three years without anyone knowing?”
“Yet another unanswered question,” Zona sighed, “and one I intend to find an answer to.”
Zinni nodded her agreement and turned back to find Skeet, suddenly stricken by how long it was taking him to check in with Emeri. She found him hunched over the communicator, his forehead divided into two equal halves by that horizontal crease that appeared whenever he was troubled. “I’m not getting a signal,” he said, aware he was currently the center of attention.
“What do you mean?” said Zinni and Zona simultaneously.
“I mean I’ve tried five times and I can’t get anything to go through. The transmission just keeps bouncing right back.”
“You were able to check in when we first got here,” Zona confirmed.
“Yeah, but…” Skeet shook his head as the communicator failed again and looked around. “It’s almost like there’s some interference, something that didn’t affect us earlier.”
Zinni began to approach Skeet but the glint of sunlight off of something on the hill above them caught her attention. The realization that it was a rifle scope hit her just as a plasma bolt came sizzling past her head, burning through the space where she would have been standing had she not taken that small step. “Down!” she screamed, yanking Zona to the ground with her as she dove behind the funeral pyre. Skeet slid in beside them in a cloud of dust.
Multiple sets of footsteps could be heard advancing up the road from the direction they’d come. A voice that sounded like it belonged to someone in charge rang out above the others: “Hold your fire!”
It seemed like an odd thing to say, considering the three of them had yet to take a shot, but it occurred to Zinni that the man hadn’t been talking to them at all – he’d been addressing the sniper.
Skeet and Zona were on their feet in seconds, pistols drawn and trained on the newcomers. Zinni rose as well; a quick study of the group revealed eleven men and four women, fifteen people total. They didn’t appear to be in any form of uniform, but they all carried identical rifles bearing the same insignia. They were clearly organized on some level, but they certainly weren’t HSP.
“Sergeant Duvo, Officer Vax, HSP spec ops, and Special Agent Zona, Royal Guard,” Skeet shouted. “Lower your weapons immediately!”
“Do as he says!” the leader of the group ordered, dropping his rifle and lifting his hands. “My name is Remis. We’re part of Tekele Private Security, based out of Seran. Are you the recon team responding to the SOS?”
Zinni and Skeet glanced at one another before shaking their heads. “This is a recon mission,” Zinni replied, “but we don’t know anything about an SOS.”
They cautiously lowered their pistols as Remis approached, his hands held out in plain sight. “We intercepted it during the wee hours this morning,” he explained. “It appeared to have originated from the main comm grid in Argall, but our reply transmission yielded no response and we lost the signal not long after that. We forwarded it to HSP, and your director said he’d make sure you received it. He told us we might find you up here.”
“We must have left headquarters right around the time you found it,” Skeet said. “And we haven’t received any messages – our communications are down. We don’t know when exactly we lost them.”
Remis almost looked relieved. “Then we’re not the only ones. We lost contact with the other half of our team about two hours ago, about the time we moved further down into the valley. They’re somewhere on the other side.” He lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the sun and gazed out across the basin. “The interference is identical to what we saw after we tried to respond to the SOS signal.”
“You think there’s something jamming communications in the area?” Skeet asked.
“It’s possible. Trust me; I would have called my sniper off if possible. I’m terribly sorry about that – he must have thought you were with the mercenaries.”
“Mercenaries?” Zona repeated.
“Part of the SOS message mentioned that Argall had been overrun by mercs. We don’t know details, but it’s got to be a pretty sizable bunch in order to subdue the whole town. There aren’t too many organized groups with those kinds of numbers around here, not since Solaris disbanded, so that narrows down the list.”
That made sense. A large gang would be easy for Dasaro to control, most likely by bribing them with money. He’d be able to interact directly with their leader, minimizing the effort needed on his part and enabling him to conduct all this business with relative secrecy. “Do you have any idea who we’re dealing with?” Zinni asked.
“If I had to make an educated guess, I’d say we’re looking at a division of the Red Ring,” Remis replied. “They’re run by a man named Loric – used to be a sergeant in the 305
th
platoon before being dishonorably discharged. He…used to be a friend.”
Zinni followed suit when Skeet and Zona finally holstered their weapons. “What makes you think it’s him?”
“For starters, he’ll do anything for money,” Remis scoffed. “But he’s also been off the radar for the past couple of years, making me wonder what he’s been up to. He’s got the manpower to handle something like this. I don’t want to start jumping to conclusions though. Regardless of who’s running this circus, there are obviously people down there who are in trouble.”
“He’s right,” Zona said. “We should continue on.”
Skeet nodded toward Remis. “Sounds like you guys know more than we do about the situation. Mind if we join you?”
“We’d welcome it,” the man replied, stepping forward to shake Skeet’s hand. “According to your director, your team has some background information that could benefit us as well.”
A sudden explosion rocked the ground, echoing off the surrounding hills and sending loose rocks tumbling down the incline. The entire group turned as a unit and watched as a fiery cloud rose up from the edge of the compact little city. Even at this distance, the screams could be heard. Zinni scrambled to recover the spotting scope from where she’d dropped it and peered down at the scene below. The people were hardly more than bipedal shapes, but it was clear that they were running and the heat signatures from plasma weapons were unmistakable.
“The debrief will have to wait,” she said, already on her way down the hill. “We need to get down there!”
