Born of Sand (Tales of a Dying Star Book 5) (30 page)

They reached a plain door with no window. Geral nodded, his voice a whisper. "Through there. One guard, typically."

"How do we get in?" Farrow asked. "Is it locked?"

"It is, but..."

Mira jumped in. "...the guard steps outside to take a break." Every head swung toward her. "He comes out here to smoke a pinch. Sometimes the door closes on him and he has to come back through the front door."

Farrow said, "So we wait."

They arrayed themselves on either side of the door, Farrow closest to where the opening would be. Pain seared Kari's leg as she crouched, and she stifled a groan with two more of Leo's pills.

The wait wasn't long. Kari had barely gotten comfortable when the door clicked open and a skinny guard stepped outside. Though he wore a rifle across his chest, his hands were busy fumbling at his pocket. Before he knew what was happening Farrow covered his mouth with one hand, bringing a blade across the throat with the other. A line appeared on his white skin. Farrow helped him collapse to the floor of the alley, dark blood running against the dark ground.

Mira watched with wide eyes, yet said nothing as they all slipped inside.

It appeared as nothing more than a storage room for extra electroid parts, the same sorts of stacked crates they'd recovered from the captured freighter days before. Geral approached a pair of crates that appeared a slightly different color than the rest, more faded. Like they'd been there longer than all the others. He put away his rifle and felt around the outside with his hands until something made a
ka-chunk
sound. Two stacked crates swiveled outward on a hinge, the door to a dark staircase leading down into the ground.

They all looked at one another before silently continuing.

Farrow took the lead this time, walking down the seemingly endless tunnel. It felt like a bomb shelter, with concrete walls and little else, not even pipes or vents running along the ceiling. Lamps spaced every hundred feet created small spheres of light between the darkness. The air smelled wrong, too many particles floating around. Musty.

Yet to Kari it smelled like safety, a familiar tunnel in which she'd often traveled.
And for the last time, if His Luminance wills it.

After what seemed like fifty minutes, but was probably no more than ten, the tunnel ended at a closed steel barricade. Farrow tried the latch, the metal straining against the door. It didn't budge.

"I didn't know about this," Geral said. "It's usually open, with a guard around the next corner."

This isn't right
, Kari thought. The door was usually open, at least every time she'd entered the palace. Had the orbital station received her signal after all? Was the Governor locking down the palace in preparation for the attack? Either way, it seemed like a good sign to Kari.

"Do you know the code?" Farrow asked, gesturing to a keycode panel on the side.

Geral shook his head. "I told you, I expected just a guard to be here, the door wide open. Something's wrong."

"Do you think we should abort?"

"What other choice is there?"

Grateful for her knowledge, Kari limped forward and punched a sixteen digit code into the panel. The sound of three massive locks opening echoed through the tunnel, and then the door hissed open. Cooler air filled the tunnel. The corridor beyond stood empty.

Farrow gave her an appraising look. "Well fuck you for limping around like you're useless."

She smiled weakly. "Not useless, yet."

Geral hesitated. "I'm not sure I like this. I was told their routines are stringent."

"A locked door is better than having to kill another guard, right?" Mira said. Her tone made it clear she didn't like the idea of killing anyone else.

"I'm not so sure..."

Farrow looked like he was thinking it over.
No, don't change your minds yet. We're so close
. Before they could, Kari hobbled forward and stepped through the doorway. No guard waited around the next corner.

The corridor met a T-intersection. To the right was the gaoler's office, and the row of prisoner cells beyond. To the left was the lift that led to the surface. Using what stealth she could with a bad leg, Kari skulked along the wall to the right, toward the gaoler's office. She didn't want to kill any innocent Melisao, but didn't want one putting a hole in her chest either. Taking a deep breath, she spun around the corner and aimed her rifle in the office.

Empty.

Now
that
rankled the hair on the back of Kari's neck. Locking the escape tunnel was one thing, but leaving the prisoners unguarded...

The others appeared, so she forced herself to relax. "I'll watch from here while you guys vet the prisoners."

They crouched low as they passed the office, moving toward each individual cell. A window in the office showed the first cell, with a single male occupant huddled on the ground. Mira approached, whispering, "Hey, you. Come here," to the prisoner.

Kari went to the computer terminal set in the wall. She typed her access code--oh how it felt strange to use her
shade
credentials again!--and the terminal flashed to a prompt. Planetary Comms Relay, then the outbound encrypted message function. The terminal flickered as it prepared the program.
This is it. Confirmation, then it can all end.
Then she could go home.

The first cell was just around the corner, and Kari could hear the prisoner inside begging. "Please. I'm not a criminal. I did what I had to."

Mira made a shushing sound through the cell bars. "It's fine. Tell me your name."

The program in front of Kari blinked to indicate it was ready. She entered the address for the orbital command station and waited the thousandth of a second it would take for the ping signal to send, process, and come back.

Destination address unreachable.

What? She tried the code again, in case she'd typed it wrong. Same message.

That couldn't be right. Even when orbital stations went dark in emergencies, they left their backup channels open. At the very least she should have gotten a ping response.

"Tell me your name. What were you imprisoned for?" Mira's voice asked. The questions they'd practiced.

"I didn't mean to. He pulled the pistol first..."

The terminal had an outbound planetary connection, so Kari switched over to the wide-network database. A few screens and passcodes later and she had a blank query screen. She typed in her
shade
identification code and two rows of a table appeared:

AGENT S462JJ9 - ACTIVE

"No," she mumbled, "not active. I initiated the completion code!" It should have displayed her status as
finalizing
, indicating she was ready for extraction. Something had gone wrong with her transmitter.

But she was beginning to suspect it was worse than that.
No. Something is wrong with the orbital command station, not my transmitter
. She'd been on her own for years, but the thought of the orbital command monitoring her had always been present. A guardian in the sky, always just above and out of sight. If something was wrong there then she truly was alone.

Digging deep into her memory, Kari typed in the backup station address. She held her breath, and thankfully the ping came back responsive. She switched codes and entered the encryption key to initiate a comm. The wait was excruciating, listening to Farrow and the others readying the prisoners down the hall. She felt trapped, exposed. So close to the end, yet inexplicably held up.
All I need is confirmation, stars damn you!

A man's face appeared on the screen, along with a cacophony of noise. Somewhere in the background an alarm sounded, and men shouted to one another. The sound of hissing hung over it all, like a vent letting out too much steam.

Through the window, Mira raised her head at the noise from the office. Kari turned the volume down and leaned close to speak.

"This is agent S462JJ9. Requesting confirmation of completion signal received, sent at--" She unfolded the skin to reveal her wrist computer, and read off the time she'd marked from the desert, just before the stinger attack.

The man--an officer--gave her a blank look. "Primary orbital station was knocked out in the first wave, two days ago! There was no one there to receive the signal." Another alarm, more insistent in pitch, sounded somewhere distant.

"What attack?"

"We've been fighting them from across the planet," the man continued, "in opposite orbits. But we're out of interceptors and drones, and our turret defenses..." An explosion shook the screen, knocking the man down. He rose, and in a fatalistic tone said, "Won't be long now."

"Who?" Kari asked. "Who is attacking?"

"Reinforcements arrived from Melis, but I don't think they'll get here in--" A bright flash covered half the man's face and the screen went black. The words, "
Signal lost
," filled the screen before it returned to the primary comms program.

Kari stared at the terminal, struggling to comprehend what had just happened.
An attack. From whom?
The Freemen had no orbital ships, and the
Children of Saria
were focused on Melis. All reports showed they didn't care about Praetar at all. Pirates were always a threat, but they wouldn't attack a Melisao outpost directly. Would they?

That explained why the guards were gone, at least. Everyone upstairs protecting the palace. Or at least preparing to.

But now what?

The delirious prisoner continued pleading with Mira. "I didn't know. How could I have known?" Farther down the hall it sounded like Farrow and Geral were still working on theirs.

Kari fought a wave of nausea, gripping the computer so tightly that her knuckles turned white. It passed. Three years of work, skulking around this miserable planet, and it was all falling apart there at the end. So close to relief, to going home.

I can still go home
. She refused to accept it. She just need to reevaluate the plan. Try something different.

She could have simply killed them, but the need to keep Farrow alive pulsed irrationally in her head. He had information. With an attack occurring they could use him as a bargaining tool. Hob was in charge of the Freemen now, and Kari doubted his resolve was strong enough to continue forward while they held Farrow. If they threatened to execute Farrow, Hob would surrender.

Kari navigated through the directory until she found the code for the palace guard station upstairs. A uniformed man answered almost immediately. "Who the stars are you?" His face was flush and his eyes darted around nervously. "And what are you doing down in the cells?"

She quickly whispered her code and rank. "I have two enemy combatants down here, attempting to free prisoners. One of them is the leader of the Freemen. Capturing him alive is of primary importance. I am badly wounded. Send five men to assist."

Instead of bowing reverently to her, the guard shook his head. "A star-cursed
shade
pops up now, of all times, with dozens of them bearing down on us..." He pointed a finger at her. "It doesn't matter now. I don't have even one man to spare, let alone five. Manning the turrets. The ships'll be here any minute."

Kari took a deep breath. "I am a glorious
shade
of the Emperor. This is the completion of a years-long mission. The intelligence provided by my target, and the value on his life..."

"Don't care about your mission." Two uniformed men ran past him in the background, shouting orders. "None of it matters now. You've wasted your time, darling."

Darling?
She bristled. "My rank gives me purview of priority. The man down here has critical information about the attack."

"Shit on your rank. Bring him up yourself," he said, ending the comms.

She stared at the screen.
Shades
were among the most revered members of the Emperor's personified will. Had the entire Empire lost its mind? She hadn't been gone
that
long. Kari glanced through the window at Mira, still trying to calm the prisoner.
I'm going to have to do it all myself.

On the wall hung ten wrist-clamps, perfect for what she needed. Her eyes drifted back to the terminal. The urge to send a message to her family was strong, to let them know she was okay and nearly complete.
After
, she decided, grabbing two wrist-clamps and tucking them into her belt. Soon she would have all the time in the world.

She switched back over to the local gaoler functions and opened all the cells. The sound of metal groaning echoed down the hall. Kari punched in another code to lock the escape passage--which made a hollow
thunk
in the opposite direction--and left the gaoler's office.

Mira still stood in the open door by the first cell, arguing with the prisoner. "We had a
duty
," he was pleading. "I was following orders."