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Authors: Lisa Paitz Spindler

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BOOK: The Spiral Path
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Chapter Ten

Lara tossed a commlink at her mother and Sabine caught it. “Evacuate the hospital now, Mother.”

“Lara, whatever you’re thinking—”

Lara grabbed Kade’s arm. “Place the order!”

Sabine carried out the command and in seconds the klaxon blared. Doctors, nurses and other staff scurried down the corridor, patients in tow. Organized chaos. Lara’s gaze darted to Mitch. Fear flared in her stare for a split second before she clamped it down. He vowed to never let her face such crossroads alone again.

Lara pocketed the gun but kept a balanced grip on it. “Ready?”

Mitch finished lacing up his boots and grabbed his jacket. “Absolutely.” Just hours ago his legs hadn’t worked, but now his muscles were ready to face a marathon. Energy coursed through his veins. “You got one of those for me?”

Lara handed him a plasma gun handle-first. With eyes only for the commotion in the corridor, she snagged her mother’s arm and hustled her to the doorway. “Hide the gun in your pocket. We have about five minutes until my mother’s personal guard realizes she’s missing.”

Mitch nodded and pulled out his commlink. “Yoshida to Rossa. Status.”

Rossa’s contralto fizzed over the connection. “We’re collecting the Terrans now.”

“Affirmative. Continue as planned,” he replied. Lara flashed five fingers twice at him. “Pilot’s station ETA is ten minutes.”

“Rossa, out.”

Lara dragged her mother into the corridor’s current of people and Mitch followed behind Kade, stride strong. The wrist-sync snug on his arm reassured him, but how long would its effects last? The noise in the passageway grew, and people sped by his peripheral vision. He easily kept pace, but several times he jerked sideways, expecting to see someone right beside him. Kade sent him a sidelong look. Nerves and a lack of sleep must be getting to him.

Sabine twisted her arm to try to get free. “Why are we going to the pilot’s station?’

Lara’s grasp remained firm as she chanced a look at her mother. “When your security detail realizes what’s happened, they’ll lock down the whole pod. I can’t let that happen. I’ll detach the infirmary if I have to.”

Sabine snapped her mouth closed in a hard line and shook her head. They marched along the predetermined path, winding through corridors and fleeing staff. In the confusion a few people jostled them, but no one really paid much attention. After a few minutes the passageways thinned out and their footsteps echoed on the decking. Soon they came to the pilot’s station hatch.

Lara set her back to the wall next to the entryway. “Open it.”

The prime minister clasped her hands at the waist. “I’m not going to help you get yourself killed.”

Lara ground her teeth and looked her mother in the eye. “Despite you, I’m going to get Rafael back. I’m going to get Mitch and the Terrans to safety. Now open the damn door or I’ll blast it.”

Sabine sighed but complied and punched in the proper access code. The locking mechanism thumped and Mitch swung the hatch open. Lara hauled her mother and Kade inside, then pointed her gun at the helmsman.

“Leave. Now.”

The startled man put up his hands. “What’s going on? Prime Minister?”

“Evacuate, Captain.” Sabine motioned to the door. “I can take care of this situation.”

The officer hesitated for a few seconds but then nodded and left, leering at Lara and Mitch as he went. Lara marched over to the command center and toggled through the interface.

Equipment lined the oval room, and sunlight streamed from the large porthole directly ahead. Numerous monitors showed evacuating staff. One displayed the pod’s docking clamps still intact. Another showed Rossa and the Terrans approaching the end of a hallway. Mitch checked in with Rossa again.

Rossa sounded winded. “Two more hatchways and we’ll have a clear path to the tarmac.”

Sabine dropped into the helmsman’s chair, Kade at her side. “You can put the gun away, Commodore. I’m not going anywhere now.”

Mitch shook his head and looked over Lara’s shoulder. She powered through menus, trying to stay ahead of security locking down the corridors. The klaxon alert changed and the lighting blinked to red. A voice announced “Lockdown complete.”

“Damn it!” Lara pushed away from the station and pulled out her commlink. “Rossa. Please tell me you’re clear.”

“Negative. One more hatchway between us and the tarmac. It’s locked down, Captain. We’re trapped.”

Mitch caught Lara’s gaze. “Can she use a wrist-sync to access the other side of the hatch?”

Lara shook her head and held up a braceleted wrist. “We only have these two. The rest are aboard the
Gryphon.
There might be a few on the
Calypso,
but I can’t divert Chandra from the shuttle. Not when he’ll have to take off in a few minutes.”

Mitch leaned over Lara’s console. “There has to be a manual override for the docking clamps.” Again he sensed motion in his peripheral vision, and a cold sweat blanketed him. He darted a glance at Sabine and Kade, but neither had moved. Mitch checked the wrist-sync’s settings.

Lara toggled through blueprints on another monitor. “Here.” She pointed and reset the access to her fingerprint. “I’ll go. It’s two levels down, but I can take the external stairs.”

She flicked his hand over, wrist-sync interface-up. “You okay?”

Her brow furrowed and Mitch resisted the urge to smooth it out with his thumb. “I’m fine. I can go—”

“No way. You look a lot better now than before, but I have no idea how long that will last. Keep an eye on these two for me?”

Mitch leaned in close and nuzzled her ear. “You have ten minutes to meet me at the shuttle. If you’re not back by then, I’m coming after you.”

Lara smiled. “I’ll count on that.” She pushed to her feet with a long look at her mother.

Sabine stared out the window but spoke up when Lara reached the door. “You’ll regret this.”

“Maybe I will, Mother, but it’s better than doing nothing.” Lara caught his eye once more and creaked open the hatch.

As the door snapped closed, Mitch noticed a man in the corridor, facing the pilot’s station.

Rafe.

His old friend glared at him through the hatch’s portal. Mitch’s skin crawled and his breath hitched. Over the sound of the klaxon blaring, thousands of voices whispered. He stumbled against the monitor behind him.

Rafe walked through the closed door. “What the Hellas are you doing?”

Lara sprinted down the corridor until she found the hull access port. The door yanked open on a creak, and salty wind buffeted her, stealing her breath.

“Stop!”

Twenty feet away three burly members of the prime minister’s personal guard lined up, all guns drawn. Lara purposely aimed wide and fired her own weapon. She might be willing to kidnap her own mother if need be, but killing someone was so not at the top of her to-do list if it could be avoided. They returned fire, obviously with no similar reservations. Lara tabbed on her wrist-sync just in time for the hot plasma to sail right through her.

She leaped onto the catwalk and held on tight as she pushed through the sea spray and tangy bluster. Up ahead, the
Calypso’
s rudder peeked over the smooth curve of the hospital pod. Another plasma shot sailed overhead and Lara ducked instinctively. One guard popped out onto the catwalk behind her and strode down the decking as fast as he could squeeze by the railing.

Smaller and faster, Lara ran toward another staircase and leapfrogged down it. Under cover from the platform above, the wind and sea spray lessened, but the rhythmic din of waves smacking the hull echoed in the small space. Six feet away she spotted her destination, the locking clamps and, right next to them, the manual wheel override.

“Halt!”

Another shot catapulted overhead and sparks flared where it hit the hatch. Lara jumped back. With an over-shoulder glance she saw Mr. Burly Guard fire again. This time he hit her wrist-sync. Her muscles spasmed with the abrupt phase change, and her wrist burned. She shucked off the useless white-hot bracelet and tossed it overboard.

“You’re not going anywhere, Captain Soto.”

Lara raised her hands in surrender and propped herself against the hull. Her body ached, her lungs burned and her mission all but failed.

“Rafe?” Mitch lowered the plasma gun he’d raised on instinct and forced his hand to steady despite the adrenaline pumping in his veins.

His old friend looked around the station and clenched his jaw when he found Sabine staring out the viewport. “You shouldn’t be here. Neither of you.”

Sabine looked over. “Are you all right, Commodore? Did you say my son’s name?”

Rafe stepped forward and grabbed Mitch’s wrist. “That’s one of Lara’s syncs on your wrist. Don’t you realize what you’ve done?”

Mitch’s vision spun and he leaned against a chair. “I didn’t want to die, Rafe. This was the only way.”

“You’ve opened yourself to my fate.” Rafe dropped Mitch’s wrist. “You could be trapped between dimensions like we are, but without the protection of the wormhole.”

“So you are alive in the wormhole. The experiment partially worked?”

Sabine circled around the pilot’s chair. She reached to grab Mitch’s arm, but her hand ghosted through him. “Commodore, who are you talking to?”

“Yes.” Rafe’s image weakened and then resurged. “And now you’ve dragged my mother into this.”

Mitch glanced back and forth between Sabine and Rafe. “She can’t hear or see you. She’s not affected by this.”

White fog rolled in from the corners of the room. A chill embraced Mitch and skittered down his spine. The smoky mist swirled around Rafe and coalesced into delicate tendrils. One of those tendrils materialized into a dainty hand. A slight woman stood beside his friend, her arms draped over Rafe like a fragile cage.

Mitch pushed Sabine behind him. “Who is she?”

“We must go, Rafael.”

The woman’s voice vibrated through his body, something he felt rather than heard. Mitch tamped down a shudder and raised his weapon.

His friend clasped the woman’s hand and pulled her closer. “Tell my sister the truth, Mitch. All of it.”

Both Rafe and the woman faded as the mist receded back to the room’s corners. Rafe’s voice filled the room. “If anyone can figure it out, it’s the two of you, but what you’ve done… I’m not sure there’s any going back.”

“Rafe!” Mitch jerked forward directly through the space Rafe and the woman had just occupied.

Not just his hands, but Mitch’s whole body shook as much from the physical shift as from fear. No amount of resolve could stop the tremor. Either Mitch had just stepped into another dimension or he was losing his mind.

With a shout, a pale Sabine stepped away and stared at one of the monitors. “Give me that commlink, Yoshida. Now.”

“There is no way—”

She pointed at the monitor. “Give it to me before that guard shoots Lara.”

Chapter Eleven

“Move away from the control panel, Captain.”

As the guard barreled toward her, Lara swung her legs around. The waves swept the ship to and fro, enough to sway her stomach. With feet planted forward, she caught the man in the chest and heaved him away. She timed her thrust to the ship’s hitch and knocked the officer into the hull. His head hit the metal behind and for a few seconds stared at her with eyes glazed over.

Lara pivoted back to the console and tore open the cap covering the controls. Her fingerprint opened the last lock. She plunged her hand into the now open cylinder, grabbed the handle and twisted. Metal creaked and snapped. The moorings scraped and the pod wrenched free. They all tilted sideways almost ninety degrees, now more at the mercy of the huge waves. Spray drenched her as she slid forward, but the railing held both of them on board.

The guard’s commlink chimed. He moaned and Lara took that as her exit cue. She slid past him on the narrow catwalk. Using the inertia of the pod’s sway, the man plunged himself toward her and tackled her around the waist. Lara managed a few more steps, her thigh muscles burning with his added weight.

Time ticked down. At any moment the
Calypso
would take off with the
Interlace
humans in tow, along with Mitch and her mother. They couldn’t wait for her. Had ten minutes passed? Mitch would risk missing the shuttle too if it meant not leaving her behind. As the distance between the two pods lengthened, Lara heard the shuttle powering up just a few hundred feet away.

She dropped to the decking and the guard latched on to one ankle. Getting to her knees, Lara kicked her free foot into his shoulder and his grasp lapsed. She broke free.

And ran until her lungs burned and the sound of the
Calypso’
s
 
engines powering up overtook the clamor of sea and wind.

She made it twenty feet to the shuttle before the militia caught up to her. Chandra already had the Trans-D potentials fired up. The engines revving, the kid must have overridden the plasma fail-safes in order to keep the gangway open for them. Up ahead, Cam shuffled the last of the Terrans into the cargo hold.

Mitch and Sabine ran full out onto the other end of the tarmac. A plasma arc smoked at Lara’s feet. She fired at its origin and then chased after them up the ramp.

Once in the shuttle cockpit and her mother safely seated in the back with the Terrans, Lara connected to the
Gryphon
’s cloudbase. She tabbed through the launch logs as Chandra folded up the gangway and sealed the shuttle. Mitch sat beside her and she slapped on a new wrist-sync.

Lara opened her commlink. “XO, spin up the Trans-D engines and initiate horizon potentials.”

“Already done, Captain. Coordinates are set for Alpha Haven. Just waiting for you to come aboard.”

“Understood.”

In preparation for the jump, Lara adjusted the frequency on their wrist-syncs as Chandra took the shuttle into high orbit and beelined it for the
Gryphon’
s landing bay.

Cam hadn’t been kidding about having the
Gryphon
ready to jump. The phase anchors de-synced as the
Calypso
touched down.

Cam’s voice came over their commlinks. “Synchronize wrist-sync on my mark.”

With no time for them to reach the bridge before jump, the three of them remained in the shuttle. Mitch tabbed through the launch screens. “Thorne-Sagan shell is holding.”

Lara nodded. The ship pulled forward, its momentum pushing them all against their seats. The air buzzed when the negative matter shell armored around them.

She’d escaped again. This time Lara brought with her not only the Terrans who maltreated the Chimerans, but the man she never expected would see the Havens.

Once they landed on Alpha, Lara would have no secrets from Mitch anymore. And he could hurt her all over again.

Chandra exited the
Calypso,
but Lara had other plans.

Mitch watched the younger man leave and quirked an eyebrow at her. “You’re not going?”

Lara glanced at the clock counting down until they emerged in Terran space. “Any minute now I should hear from Rafael. I’d rather not be en route to the bridge when that happens. Go on up if you want. I’ll fill you in afterwards.”

Mitch shook his head. “No way. Every time Rafe has attempted communication, you’ve practically passed out. Thanks to that Chimeran from the
Bayne,
I have some idea what it’s like. I’m not leaving you alone.”

Lara shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

He narrowed his brown eyes at her. “You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t what?” Lara tried to keep her pulse steady and made a show of tabbing through the launch logs. He couldn’t possibly know anything.

“You’re going to take the
Calypso
into the wormhole and follow the Revenant’s negative matter trail.” Mitch re-strapped his restraints. “I know you better than to try to talk you out of it, but I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this.”

“That trail can lead me to the
Interlace
and Rafael. I can’t pass up this opportunity. I didn’t know how you would react.”

“You still don’t trust me. Fine. Rossa is in on this, right? If not, it’ll be suicide trying to get back on board before she takes the
Gryphon
back into normal space.”

Lara sighed. “Rossa knows.”

The woman in question pinged them over the commlink. “Captain, is the commodore there with you? He never reported to the bridge.”

“Yes, Commodore Yoshida is on the
Calypso
with me. He’s joining the mission.”

“Very good, ma’am. I’m picking up the trace of Revenant negative matter and am sending the data to you now.”

“Received. Ready to launch when you are.”

“As soon as the launch bay is open, you can depart at your discretion.”

“Acknowledged, XO. Thanks.”

“Be careful, Captain.”

“As always.”

Lara activated the yoke at her station and shifted the engines off standby.

Mitch tabbed up the data from external sensors. “We’ve got a dispersal pattern. Charting a course to follow.”

“Prepare for launch, Commodore.”

Lara eased the shuttle smoothly out of its gate, through the launch bay and out into wormhole space. They couldn’t go far, limited as they were to the
Gryphon’
s protective shell holding the wormhole throat open. Rafael told Lara to follow the trail, though, so she would do it. Hopefully soon she would understand the reason.

Very soon, if the explosion of voices around her were any indication. Banshee shrieks wailed and bounced off the walls of the cockpit as if in an echo chamber. The wormhole’s blue ionic waves wrapped around the ship, but inside, white clouds streaked across Lara’s vision. The pain seemed lesser this time. A sensation of heaviness in the joints instead of an all-out rending of sinew.

Lara glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, Rafael stood in the middle of the cockpit, his skin pale and clothing muted as if all color had been washed out of him.

“Mitch, take the controls.”

“He’s here.”

Lara nodded. She stood and stepped toward her brother. An alabaster hand wrapped around Rafael’s neck and caressed along his cheekbone. The form of a willowy woman rose up behind him, her long white hair whirling in curls and tails around them both. Her fine bones were visible beneath the diaphanous ivory shift she wore.

The banshee’s eyes were dark, though. Pits of ink, like the deepest, coldest part of space, hovering above gaunt cheeks.

The creature draped herself over Rafael’s shoulders. “A pleasure to finally meet you, Lara Soto, sister of Rafael.” The utterance came out a hiss, a chafing sound instead of a voice.

Mitch flew the ship but kept glancing at her. He couldn’t see either of them, but his tight shoulders betrayed his worry.

Lara glanced at her brother for some indication of his state of mind. “Who is she?”

Rafael smiled and clasped his hand through the creature’s thin, wispy one. “This is Calendra. She speaks for the Revenant.”

Lara clenched her jaw and tried to smooth her expression. Didn’t manage it. “What do you want?”

“I want what all of you have.” Calendra glided forward between them, but her hand trailed behind her, still connected to Rafael. “I want my freedom. From what I know of you, this is something you should particularly understand.”

Lara nodded. Rafael’s expression could only be called rapt. He gazed at Calendra, bewitched, enthralled. Enchanted.

“Send Rafael back with me. Together we can surely find a solution.”

Calendra frowned and returned to Rafael, caressed his cheek. “Oh no. Your brother and the rest of the Chimerans from the
Interlace
are staying with us until you find a way to free us all. Rafael claims you can do this.”

“Why hold them for such a ransom?”

“We are imprisoned here. Those like you and your brother we can talk to. It has been a very long time.” The creature gazed at Rafael and for second seemed mutually spellbound.

An alert beeped from behind Lara.

Mitch glanced at her over his shoulder. “We’re de-syncing with the
Gryphon
. We can’t stay out here any longer. Sit down and strap in.”

Lara turned back to her brother, who faded by degrees. “Wait!”

Calendra stood behind Rafael again. With arms wrapped around his shoulders, she pulled him toward the back of the shuttle, floating above the floor.

Rafael smiled. “You have the tools, Lara.”

Both of them dissipated into vapor.

Mitch’s arm snaked around Lara’s waist and pulled her back to the seat. He cradled her face in his hands. The world spun around and her insides twisted.

“Can you hear me?”

“Ca-Calendra. I’ve seen her. She’s holding them all prisoner until we find a way to free the Revenant too.”

Mitch snapped up her restraints. “I know.”

“We have to get him—what do you mean you know?”

He spun back to the controls, which were now switched to his station. Without another word, he guided the shuttle through the ionic rapids and landed safely in the
Gryphon’
s shuttle bay. Her stomach plummeted and nausea churned. His silence was a galaxy-wide gulf between them.

Mitch locked down the station and continued staring out the viewport. “I know because I saw them, Lara. That’s how I survived the night on Creed.” He unlatched the wrist-sync and held it out to her. “I’m in tune with their phase frequency.”

Lara ripped off the restraints and seized his hand. “You knew that frequency all along and didn’t tell me?”

He nodded and then met her gaze. “It isn’t safe, Lara. I had no choice but to try it.”

“You asked me to trust you, but how can I now?”

He clutched her hand in return. “Because I’m going to tell you everything. Every bit of information I know. And we’re going to get Rafe back.”

Lara let go of his hand and nodded. A moment ago that gulf between them seemed to crop up from nowhere, but it had been there all along. What a fool she’d been to think Mitch had changed.

BOOK: The Spiral Path
12.98Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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