Ronan: Ziva Payvan Book 3 (40 page)

-54-

HSP Headquarters

Noro, Haphez

Emeri and Ganten’s conversation continued on a bit longer, though it was just muffled noise in Ziva’s ears. She watched Skeet and Aroska until they disappeared into the elevator then shifted her attention to the two guards blocking her exit. Both had their hands resting on their holsters, and she decided against trying to take either of them out and making a run for it. Causing a scene was the
last
way to win Ganten’s confidence. Instead, she turned to Aura, who still stood just inside the door with her ever-present data pad. The woman held her gaze for a moment before averting her eyes and looking down at the floor. Ziva was glad, at first only because she’d finally won one of their glaring matches. Then she realized it was the first time she’d actually seen the probation officer show any shred of emotion.

“…will stay here until Tarbic and Duvo return with Officer Vax, then you’ll leave for Haphor immediately.” She realized Ganten had disconnected and that Emeri was addressing her. “I’m going to go release a statement to the agency. Agent Stannist, please collect Captain Payvan’s weapon and communicator and ensure that your transport is ready to depart.”

The request was so outrageous that it took Ziva several seconds to even muster up a protest. “I will not be treated like a
frouchten
prisoner.” She shied away from Aura’s outstretched hand.

“As soon as we leave this room, you’re going to contact your team and tell them to stay away. Or worse, order them to go join up with the fleet.” Emeri’s turquoise eyes sparkled with regret and that same fatherly concern he’d shown upon her return from Aubin. “I don’t know what else to do. We need you here. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

The thought of warning her team hadn’t even crossed her mind, but now that she considered it, it wasn’t a bad idea. It was clear that neither of them were going anywhere until she complied, so she sighed and threw her pistol and comm down into Aura’s palm. Both Aura and Emeri turned and strode from the room, leaving the two guards posted just outside, and the door slid shut behind them.

She spun on her heel and stormed over to the large picture window, gazing out at all the GA ships rising from the city. The sudden arrival of the Resistance fleet was certainly a game changer; at least she wouldn’t miss out on the infiltration of a base on Forus or some such thing. But now she worried about the size of that armada. With their naval fleet combined with all their ground troops, the Grand Army of Haphez represented the strongest military force in this part of the Fringe…or so they’d thought. This Resistance force had no doubt been amassed over the past twenty-plus years, slowly contributed to by a number of Res worlds so as not to arouse suspicion. It had been difficult to tell based on the hologram alone, but those cruisers bringing up the rear appeared to match even the GA’s largest dreadnoughts in size. And regardless of whether the Haphezian fleet had been ready since the attack on Na, the element of surprise was still giving the Resistance the upper hand.

Ziva thought of Tobias and the force he was contributing. She had no idea what kind of numbers he had or even where he’d gotten his ships; regardless, no one would be arriving from Niio until at least that afternoon. She’d written the Durutians off after her conversation with Mae. If she hadn’t heard back from them by now, she doubted she ever would, and she had to suppress the glimmer of wishful thinking she felt lurking in the back of her mind.

From her vantage point there at the window, she saw Skeet and Aroska emerge from the front doors directly below her and begin to descend the massive staircase in front of the building. She held her breath and pressed her face to the glass when she saw Aroska stop and look around. Even from such a great distance, it was clear he was staring toward one of the many temporary landing areas that had been set up in lieu of the demolished landing pads.

“What the hell are you doing?” she whispered, instinctively reaching for the communicator that was no longer attached to her belt.

It appeared that he and Skeet had one last brief exchange before the two of them parted ways, with Skeet continuing the trek toward the med center and Aroska angling for a gunship that was preparing to take off from the staging area. He climbed aboard without so much as a glance back and the ship lifted off.

“
Sheyss
,” Ziva muttered, pounding a fist against the glass. “No, damn it! What are you doing?”

She could only stand there and watch helplessly as the craft continued upward. With the blast doors open, she had a clear view of his face as it passed. He was looking straight at her. Surely there was no way he could actually see her; all the windows in the building had a reflective coating on the outside. But he knew where the office was, knew she was inside, knew she might even be watching.

This was her fault, she realized. He was doing this because she’d told him to. Granted, she hadn’t meant for him to actually take matters into his own hands, but she’d said the words, planted the seed in his head.
Do something
. Yes, this was all her fault.

As she watched the ship disappear into the sky, she thought of his demeanor in the med center the day before and of the way he’d acted when she’d first arrived at his apartment. Edgy. Distant. Pensive. It reminded her a great deal of the behavior she’d seen at the start of the Dakiti investigation, back when he still wanted her head on a platter for what she’d done to Soren. Back when he’d still been plotting his revenge. She was seeing the same man now, a man with a plan brewing inside that thick skull of his. What exactly did he expect to do? Take Ronan out himself? Ziva could see him maybe cutting down a few Nosti, but there was no way he’d be any match for the leader of the Resistance. She had doubts about her own abilities on that front. Aside from her brief tangle with Kat, it had been years since she’d used a kytara, and even then it had just been in training with Gamon. Aroska was going to go up there and get himself killed.

And it’s all your fault
.

The guilt and feeling of utter helplessness made the time drag. She stood there for what felt like hours watching for any sign of Skeet and Zinni’s return. Surely Skeet couldn’t have known what Aroska was planning – he never would have allowed him to go. Someone had called ahead to the med center to make sure Zinni was ready to go too, so there was no way it should be taking this long. When she saw two of the GA’s smaller landing craft break away and head back down to the hospital, she was sure something was amiss. Her hand once again went to her hip, reaching for a nonexistent communicator.

Cursing under her breath, she turned and strode across the room with half a mind to use Emeri’s conference table to reach out to someone, but the door opened and Aura entered before she had the chance to try. Her eyes were wide and her brows furrowed, and she held a communicator – Ziva’s communicator – to her mouth. Skeet’s voice crackled on the other end of the transmission.

“It was Payne,” he said. “I recognized her scent from the captain’s cabin.”

Ziva snatched the device up, leaving the transmission open so Aura could still hear. “Skeet? What happened?”

“We ran into her in the elevator on our way out. Don’t know what the hell she was doing here – maybe looking for survivors. Zinni recognized her first. Said she remembered her from sometime during her captivity. We were getting ready to take her into custody but she pulled one of those swords out of nowhere. That was…interesting. Zinni shot her.”

“Shot her,” Ziva repeated.

“She didn’t last long,” he explained. “Said it was ‘too late,’ whatever that means. We found a communicator on her that could help us locate the other missing officers. And we’ve got her kytara – if we study the variations in the design, we might be able to find a weak point that applies to all of them.”

Ziva nodded to herself. “And how’s Zinni?” she asked, kicking herself for not inquiring about her friend from the outset.

“A little shaken up, but fine, all things considered. She’s still weak. But hey, listen. You’d better get going over to Haphor. I don’t know where Tarbic went, but we’re still trying to get this mess cleared up.”

She almost said “okay” but decided against it for fear of giving anyone the illusion that she was fine with the circumstances. “Copy that,” she said instead, a simple acknowledgement of his words.

Aura held her hand out to receive the communicator and Ziva reluctantly relinquished it. “Where did Tarbic go?” the probation officer demanded, an accusatory but intuitive glimmer in her yellow eyes. She knew exactly where Aroska had gone. “What did you tell him?”

Ziva didn’t have the energy to argue, didn’t feel like trying to convince the woman she’d had nothing to do with his departure, even though she feared she had. “What are you going to do, have GA forces waste time bringing him back down here when they should be fighting Ronan?”

Aura pursed her lips and didn’t respond. They were each silent for a moment, staring each other down in an all too familiar way. The silence was broken when she turned back to the door. “Let’s go,” she muttered.

Ziva reluctantly followed, with Emeri’s two guards falling into position behind her. Skeet and Zinni would remain relatively safe at the med center, but something had to be done about Aroska. Despite the brusqueness of her previous response, she’d been perfectly serious about sparing military manpower to bring him back planetside. She had half a mind to just let him go, to just let him tag along with the GA troops. The galaxy only knew they could use the extra gun. But considering what had happened in the past when he’d been left to his own devices, letting him go off on his own was truthfully the last thing she wanted to do. He’d been far too quiet the previous day; surely he would have told her about his plan the night before if it was actually anything good.

Trying to do something about it at this point however meant defying both Emeri and the Royal Officer, which would inevitably cost her her job. As she trudged along behind Aura, she found herself once again considering all the options and players, just as she had in the prison transport after Tachi’s assassination. Regardless of the choice she made, there would be consequences. She could go to Haphor and potentially accomplish nothing, leaving Aroska free to do something foolhardy, or she could go after him, which would require somehow ditching her escort and then facing Emeri and Ganten.

At least the latter option gave her the opportunity to participate in the battle and possibly take Ronan out in some sort of solo strike – she’d been serious about that, too. Besides, after everything she’d put Aroska through and everything he’d done for her, it was only fair that she keep looking out for him. Nearly ten years of spec ops experience told her to just leave him behind, that he was a casualty of the mission, but this was no ordinary mission. It was almost like
she
was the one being left behind, and she needed to catch up to him to ensure his mission – whatever it was – succeeded, with success being measured by whether or not he came back alive.

Escaping this situation would be messy. It wouldn’t be self-defense, not like it had been in the prison transport. Any move she made now would have to be an offensive one, and those typically didn’t go well for the party on the receiving end. She was in no immediate danger – that was the whole point of this captivity, after all – and thus the idea of hurting anyone was incredibly unappealing. Still, her self-preservation instincts were flaring up and she found herself glancing at the bulge at the small of Aura’s back that could only be her confiscated pistol.

Aura led their little procession down to the ops levels and toward the access corridor for the same landing pad the two of them had met on. The
Intrepid
was still docked there, unless Ziva was mistaken. It could provide an excellent means of escape and was outfitted with enough weaponry to make a decent contribution to the battle with the Resistance fleet. If she was going to take action, it would have to be soon. She studied the layout of the door and its controls as she approached. A quick step at the last second could put enough distance between her and the guards that she could shut the door and cut them off, leaving only the probation officer between her and her ship.

Coming within a few strides of the door triggered that familiar slow-motion effect. Ziva heard the individual rhythms of each guard’s footfalls behind her, heard the tones as Aura entered a code into the keypad in front of her. She drew a deep breath and prepared to sprint forward as the door hissed open, but the sight of the
Intrepid
idling alone on the landing pad made her hesitate. There was just enough time for her mind to process that something was amiss before Aura pivoted and spun around behind her. Ziva sidestepped and cleared the doorway, but instead of handcuffs on her wrists or the shock of a stun baton, all she felt was a gun being pressed into her palm followed by a powerful shove.

“Move!” Aura ordered.

Ziva took off for the ship, heard a hiss, an angry shout, the discharge of a pistol behind her. Then came the second set of footsteps pursuing her across the landing pad. She risked a look over her shoulder and found Aura crashing up the boarding ramp, looking back over her own shoulder at the arm protruding from the door and the smoldering exterior control panel she’d just blasted. She ducked past Ziva and angled for the cockpit, and the ship began to lift off before the boarding ramp was even retracted.