Ronan: Ziva Payvan Book 3 (31 page)

-43-

Govino Distribution Center

Salex, Haphez

Ziva ran. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d run so hard. Maybe when she and Aroska had been fleeing the main building at Dakiti. At least this time she wasn’t carrying an unconscious man on her back.

The charges continued hitting the ground behind her, shaking the earth and making for rather unstable footing. She’d counted five so far – no, there went a sixth – and they were getting progressively closer. Just as she’d suspected, the
Vigilance
was no ordinary trade ship.

She hadn’t looked back once since she’d taken off from the warehouse. A quick survey of the parking area had revealed that all the emergency transports had taken off already, which meant Aroska, Skeet, Zinni, and the children had made it safely away. The HSP ships transporting the prisoners had still been in the vicinity, and Ziva sincerely hoped they’d managed to avoid the
Vigilance’s
plasma cannons. She could hear the massive bolts striking the ground in the lulls between bombs.

There were at least four other agents running along behind her. One of them had stumbled at some point and she wasn’t sure if he’d managed to catch back up. She couldn’t help but think about what Emeri had said, the reason he’d ordered her to stay in Salex to begin with. As much as she hated to admit it, she
was
important. She had the best idea of who they were dealing with here, so she thought it realistic to allocate a bit more focus toward saving herself. There wasn’t much she could do for the other agents anyway other than hold hands and run beside them, and that wouldn’t do anyone any good. For the moment, it was every man for himself.

One last explosion, this one stronger than any of the others, rocked the ground and Ziva finally risked a look behind her. The distribution building and the wreck of the
Titania
were engulfed in a fireball that billowed up into the early morning sky. The yellow-orange light it cast reflected off the hull of the
Vigilance
as the ship banked and altered its course. It was moving away from them. Moving toward Noro.

The other agents stopped and looked with her. She had no idea how many people had been claimed by the explosion, but based on what she could see of the blast radius, anyone who hadn’t started running when she had was gone. It was a good thing HSP had been right on the
Titania’s
tail; otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to respond as quickly as they had. She pictured everyone arriving just as the
Vigilance
showed up to clean house. The bombs would have claimed the lives of all the responders as well as the
Titania’s
crew and all its prisoners, which was no doubt what the Resistance was hoping for.

Against her better judgment, Ziva began moving back toward the warehouses, removing her communicator from her belt as she went. She opened up a transmission to Skeet, disconcerted by how long it took him to respond. His transport had a decent head start, but she dreaded to think of what would happen if the
Vigilance
managed
to catch up.

“Little busy here, Z. We’ve got a tail.”

“I’ll say,” Ziva said, glad they’d already caught on. She broke into a jog, keeping her eyes peeled for any aircars or small ships that hadn’t been consumed by the blast. “It just wiped out the entire warehouse.”

“
Sheyss
. Did everyone make it out?”

I doubt it.
“I hope so,” she answered. “Divert course. Order all the HSP vessels to get the hell out of the way. It’s a safe bet the Resistance wasn’t counting on us responding so quickly. If we hadn’t already been tracking the
Titania
, we’d probably just now be getting there. If they see you heading for the city, they won’t hesitate to blow you out of the sky.”

“Already done,” Skeet said. She could hear him on another comm confirming the course diversion and advising the other emergency and prison transports.

Several Salex agents who had taken off in a different direction were piling into a response shuttle that had landed further away to deter curious onlookers. There’d been more bystanders than Ziva would have expected at this hour; the govino farmers were clearly early risers. Luckily they’d been far enough away that they’d had no trouble escaping the blast radius, and the little ship remained unscathed. She waved an arm as she ran toward it and one of the agents waved back, gesturing for her to join them.

“I’ve got transport,” she said as she arrived at the shuttle and climbed aboard. “I’ll rendezvous with you in the city. Stay out of that ship’s way.”

She clicked off and took hold of one of the grab rings as the shuttle lifted from the ground. It was almost identical in design to the one she and Aura had taken to Haphor. When had that been? The previous night? The days were beginning to blur together. What she
did
know was that if it had taken Skeet half an hour to get to Salex, it would take about the same amount of time to return to Noro. If they pushed the vessel to its top speed, they might be able to get there sooner, but at the same time she thought it wise to maintain distance from the
Vigilance
and stay out of range of its
plasma cannons.

“See anything?” she called to the agent piloting the shuttle.

“It’s hard to miss, ma’am,” he replied.

He was right. Ziva moved forward to get a look through the front viewport. The ship, likely some sort of mid-sized patrol frigate, stood out against the increasingly light sky. Even if there had been other traffic around, it would have dwarfed the other vehicles using this traffic lane.

“Keep your distance, but don’t let it out of your sight,” she instructed.

“My thoughts exactly.”

Ziva stepped back into the passenger area and reestablished her grip on one of the grab rings. Keeping her gaze directed toward what she could see through the viewport, she opened a new transmission to Emeri’s office.

“I had you stay in Salex to keep you away from all of this,” he answered without so much as a hello. The time for formalities had passed.

“A lot of good that did,” Ziva said. “Where are you?”

“Agent Stannist and I are just leaving to meet the incoming transports at the med center. We’ve just received some data from the downed ship. It says you authorized it?”

So they had managed to send the data before the bombs hit. Ziva breathed a sigh of relief. “This incoming vessel is the
Vigilance
, a trade ship from Forus mentioned in those files. It’s got substantial firepower. We’re on our way back and are maintaining a visual on it.”

“We’re tracking it as well,” Emeri said. “Based on its speed and trajectory, we’re estimating that it will reach downtown Noro in fifteen minutes.”

“
Sheyss
.” The shuttle was at least five minutes behind; they’d have to push hard to catch up. “Can we hit it with a dampener? Even shoot it down?”

“The dampener we’d planned on using on that freighter isn’t big enough for a ship that size. Noro’s AA guns could do some damage, but scans are showing that this thing has considerable shielding. They could probably break through eventually, just not before it reaches the city. There are GA ships on the way but they’re concerned about engaging it over a populated area as well. We’d be looking at massive loss of life.”

“So you’d rather have it drop more bombs on the city?” Ziva said. “People are going to die either way!”

“I believe they’re going to try to force it out over the river in hopes of preventing civilian casualties,” Emeri replied, breathing hard as if he were in a hurry. “There’s just not enough time to take it down before it gets here. We’re doing what we can.”

Ziva sighed. The fact that Ronan had managed to catch them by surprise so many times was humiliating, and for the first time, she wondered if it was perhaps her fault. The Resistance clearly knew the best ways to exploit their weaknesses; what better way to learn those ways than to send one of their own agents to live on the planet and raise a runaway Haphezian girl? Through his interactions with her, Jak Gamon had gotten an inside look at their culture, and living on Haphez for twelve years had given him plenty of time to research their military and police forces. Having the stolen fighter – possibly
multiple
stolen fighters and their pilots – on Forus for the past several years had no doubt helped as well. Granted, Gamon wouldn’t have been able to gather much concrete information, but it would have been plenty for any decent strategist to act on.

Part of her also wondered if Ronan had been looking for her this whole time. At first, she’d assumed she’d been the target in all of this – she and her family had been at ground zero for all of the attacks, after all. But after a bit more consideration, she’d deemed it pure coincidence; if they’d been looking for her, chances were they wouldn’t have been trying to kill her. As far as she knew, she was the only Haphezian who had ever received a successful nostium infusion. If anything, she imagined Ronan would have liked to study her to see how the substance affected her brain, just like HSP and the GA were doing. She wondered for a moment why the Resistance hadn’t just tried to come after her specifically. Her existence was clearly common knowledge if the captured Res agent knew who she was, and after her bout with Dasaro, her face had circulated all over the Fringe. If Tobias had known her true identity, surely Ronan did too.

There wasn’t time to speculate though, and it didn’t really matter anyway. She was still caught in the middle of all this, whether she liked it or not. The shuttle crested the hills and they had an unobstructed view of the
Vigilance
as it swooped down over the flat farmland surrounding Noro. Light from the rising sun glinted off of its dark gray hull, and though they were too far away to see details, Ziva detected several protrusions that could only be massive plasma cannons.

“Civil Defense is locked on,” the pilot announced. “They’re picking us up too and we’ve been ordered to back off. All our emergency transports made it through the perimeter.”

Ziva moved back toward the front of the craft as it slowed, gripping one of the rings so tightly her knuckles turned white. As long as they could maintain a visual of the Resistance ship, she was satisfied. Once the Civil Defense guns began firing, it was safe to assume this Commander Payne character would order some sort of counterstrike. The last thing they needed was to make themselves easy prey for the
Vigilance
, or worse, take a hit from their own AA guns.

Even from a distance, Ziva could see the bright red heat signatures from the Civil Defense weapons. The Resistance ship slowed, forcing their shuttle to slow a bit as well in order to maintain distance, but just as Emeri had predicted, the
Vigilance’s
shields did a good job of absorbing the onslaught. They wouldn’t last forever, but the ship was getting close enough to the city that there wasn’t much chance of breaching Res defenses before they were forced to cease fire. She drew closer to the viewport and strained to see up into the sky; two of the GA’s own patrol frigates, along with several gunships and fighters, were descending directly over the city. If they were able to lock on soon enough, there was still a chance of stopping this thing.

“Swing out wider,” she suggested to the pilot.

He’d already begun guiding the little ship further out toward the river. “On it.” HSP may have known they were there, but it was still their responsibility to stay out of the way of any defensive procedures.

“
Sheyss
,” one of the other agents said, looking up at the approaching military ships as well. “They’re not going to make it down here in time.”

The towering structures of central Noro jutted out of the landscape ahead. It already looked like spaceport traffic was being diverted, and a swarm of white dots that were no doubt HSP fighters hovered over the port itself. Ziva had a hunch they were only there for appearance’s sake; the agency had to realize they’d be no match for the
Vigilance
in terms of firepower, but at the same time they couldn’t let Noro’s citizens think they were just sitting by doing nothing.

The missile came out of nowhere. More accurately, it had been fired by one of the nearest gunships, but it passed directly over the shuttle, causing them to swerve right and away from the river. It snaked its way through the air and struck the
Vigilance
broadside, sending a bluish ripple across the ship’s surface as the impact was absorbed by the shields.

“Stay on this trajectory,” Ziva ordered. “Bring us around to the north side of the port, and whatever you do, make sure Civil Defense knows where we’re headed!”

The Resistance ship pressed on despite being pelted by thick plasma bolts from the AA guns. They’d have to stop firing within another minute; the frigate had already reached some outlying residential areas and even falling debris would be likely to cause casualties. Another missile shot through the early-morning air and knocked out one of the
Vigilance’s
batteries, but still the ship advanced.

Then everything fell still. To Ziva’s chagrin, the AA guns stopped firing altogether. She understood why HSP and the GA were being so cautious, but at the same time, if they didn’t stop Ronan’s forces now, they could end up with much larger problems on their hands that would result in even greater loss of life. The military ships hung motionless in the sky, forming a barrier that would keep the
Vigilance
from leaving the atmosphere. If it moved out of the area, they’d be free to engage it, and they’d be sure to win. For all intents and purposes, it was trapped over the city. Why, then, was it still moving forward?