Dark Minds (Class 5 Series Book 3) (5 page)

A
ship
full of dead Tecran.

Cam exchanged a quick look with Pren.

When the Grih had come across the first Class 5 in their territory, over two months ago, it had been littered with dead Tecran.

No matter how it was framed——and Battle Center was definitely trying to downplay it——when the thinking system Sazo had thrown off Tecran control, he had left a swathe of Tecran bodies behind him.

As the saying went, once you climbed onto the yurve's back, it was hard to get off without being trampled. The Tecran thought they'd harnessed the power of Fayir's thinking systems without having to deal with the dangers that came with them. The Tecran onboard Sazo had paid for that assumption with their lives.

The Tecran on this Class 5 had most likely gone the same way.

And it seemed that while the Krik were under instructions to round up all the vessels they came across without hurting the crew, they'd been given a green light to kill any Tecran they found.

Cam wondered if the Krik had any idea how close to the edge of danger they were skirting.

Koi knew, he decided.

The Krik leader's expression when he'd spoken to Cam on the UC cruiser had been one of both excitement and dread.

The Krik were gambling a lot on the hope of pulling themselves up onto the same rung of the ladder as the other UC members. If they knew exactly what they were dealing with, they might be more afraid of being shoved off and sent into free fall the moment their usefulness was over.

Pren cleared her throat, and Cam realized everyone was staring at him.

“Do you know where the Tecran were taking you?” Everyone in his team, as well as Chep and Haru, drew closer for Imogen's answer. Even Vraen deigned to be interested.

“I asked them often enough but I don't know if even they knew. It seemed to me they were waiting to be contacted. I don't think they thought we'd be on that runner two days, let alone two weeks.”

The way Imogen spoke Grihan was dangerously like a song. Cam found he had to actively concentrate to get her meaning, rather than simply listen to the rise and fall of her voice.

“Were you held at the facility on your own?” Olan's question provoked an instant reaction from Chep. He went very still. Cam moved his gaze casually over to Haru, and saw she was as focused as her partner.

“No.” There was something infinitely weary in Imogen's voice. “Not by a long way.”

“Who else was there?” Vraen lost his grudging tone for the first time.

“I don't know what they were. Animals from all over. The only one left from Earth when they put me on the runner was a bird, but there were animals and birds from other planets.” She paused. “Enough to give the Tecran a lot of entertainment.”

“Entertainment?” Cam frowned.

“I think they were done with them by the time they got to Balco. They needed the room in this place for new specimens, I suppose.” Imogen's wave encompassed the Class 5 hold.

Cam cleared his throat. “You've been in this hold before?”

“Well, if not this one, a place just like it. There were glass walls separating us all into cells though. Not like this.” She shrugged. “Then they delivered us to Balco and put us all underground.”

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, it was like looking into blue flames. “I thought I'd end up having to fight something on Balco, but that never happened.”

“Fight something?” Pren shifted.

“Pit fighting.” Imogen grimaced. “That's how I worked out they were done with us all. They argued for ages over which animals would be the closest matches for each other. It couldn't be too one-sided. Less fun betting that way.”

“I'm trying to understand.” Olan's face wasn't built to frown, but his lips were turned down and he fluttered his hands. “They set animals to fight against each other for entertainment?”

Imogen nodded. “Pit fighting, as I said. It was all they talked about, beside the Grih.” She sent Cam a quick, almost amused look. “That's why I chose to learn Grihan.”

“And you thought you would get a turn?” Diot's hands were moving, too. Restless and agitated. “In this pit?”

Imogen twisted her lips into a wry smile. “I hoped not. They were uncomfortable with my talking to them in their own language. I hoped that would make them think twice about it, anyway. It's hard to put someone in a fight to the death when you've joked with her and told her about your family.”

“The fight was to the death?” Pren sounded shaken from her calm for the first time.

“Yes. As I said, they were done with us. Or, with the animals that went into the ring, anyway.” Imogen dropped her arms to her sides, and Cam saw her form tight fists. “I never really knew what I was doing there. And I was afraid . . .”

She went silent, and Cam suppressed a shiver, her struggle for calm making him uncomfortable and restless.

“Afraid of what?” Vraen's tone was too sharp.

“There was an animal there, a terrifying animal. It was only brought down a few days before I left, but I thought . . .” She swallowed hard. “I thought they were going to put me in the ring with it.” She straightened and seemed to shake the fear off her. “But they didn't.”

Chep and Haru had gone beyond pretending they didn't understand Grihan, Cam noticed. Their focus on Imogen was complete.

“What did the animal look like?” Olan asked, and Cam saw Chep squeeze the old scientist's upper arm, as if in thanks.

“A blue and white furred primate with six limbs, sharp claws, and teeth, and a spooky intelligence.” Imogen had noticed the Fitalians' interest, and spoke directly to them. “The Tecran called it a grahudi.”

Even some of the Grih standing between them and the Vanad jerked their heads around at that.

The members of Cam's team, even Vraen, looked over at the Fitali. Chep and Haru were absolutely still, but Olan fiddled with the recorder at his wrist, and held it closer to them.

They looked at him in surprise, as if he'd suddenly switched sides and left them exposed.

“How would they have gotten into Fitali territory to steal a grahudi?” Diot spoke directly to Chep.

“We are talking about a Class 5,” Cam said, when neither Chep nor Haru answered. “If they've found new galaxies with advanced sentient life, they could probably steal a grahudi.”

“Did they put the grahudi in the pit while you were there?” Pren asked Imogen, her voice too loud in the silence.

She shook her head. “There was nothing to match it. It would have been over too quickly. That's why I thought they might use me. But either they had never planned to put me in the ring, or they didn't think I'd last long enough.”

There was a bitter flavor to her words, a deeply ingrained cynicism that told him she had lived on the razor edge of fear for weeks, and had become almost deadened to it.

He tried to look at her with a more critical eye than he'd been able to until now.

She was a fascinating mix of anger, courage, and intelligence.

She wore good clothes, supplied by the Tecran, he would guess, made of black silk or some other natural fabric with a stretch to it, the pants and shirt hugging her body. She had thin, comfortable slippers on her feet and she had obviously been fed enough to keep her healthy.

Rose McKenzie had been experimented on, and if Captain Vakeri's information was correct, Fiona Russell had been held in bad conditions on the Garmman trader where he'd found her. Imogen Peters seemed to have been left mostly alone, and from what she'd said about her time on Balco, had actively worked on forming relationships with her guards to make it difficult for them to harm her.

“What did you do, on Earth?” he asked her, and bright blue eyes flicked up to meet his.

“I was a school teacher.” She paused at his look of interest. Frowned. “Have Rose McKenzie and Fiona Russell been accepted into Grihan society?”

It seemed like a change of topic, but he knew it wasn't. She wanted to know what future she had in the new place she found herself in.

If they were able to walk away from this hold.

He tried to work out how to answer, saw he was taking too long from the way her lips tightened.

“Rose has been welcomed as a Grihan.” That was true, although there were still some who saw her as the conduit by which two dangerous thinking systems had been reintroduced back into Grihan society. Thinking systems that had been banned and who almost every Grih had been taught from the cradle were vicious killers who had caused the worst war in United Council ruled-territory in known history.

“And Fiona Russell?”

“Fiona Russell has only just been found.” Cam shrugged. “I don't see why she wouldn't be similarly welcomed.” Especially as it seemed Fiona did not come with a thinking system attached. She would most likely get a warmer welcome than Rose.

“Besides,” Diot leaned in, inserting herself into the conversation, “you all seem able to sing in a way the Grih love. They were thrilled enough with Rose's voice, they won't know what to do with the bounty of two more.” She smiled and Cam saw Imogen's eyes flicker at the sight of those sharp teeth. “You saw how the Grihan traders and miners reacted when they heard you earlier. I don't think a single one hesitated.”

“I noticed.” Imogen looked between them. “Why?”

“We revere singers in our society, and we don't have nearly enough of them.” Cam remembered the way the strange words of Imogen's language had flowed, dipping and soaring, as she'd sung earlier. “Talent like yours is precious to us.”

“Why don't you have enough . . .” Her words trailed off, and Cam followed her gaze back to the hold's entrance. It was open.

Four drones moved into the huge room and the doors closed behind them, sealing them inside with the prisoners.

There had been no Krik in sight in the passageway beyond, although up 'til now, they'd been everywhere.

The drones were armed with shockguns, clamped in the pinchers at the end of their mechanical arms, and they fanned out in front of the doors. They each took aim at a different corner of the room.

One of them said something in a strange language and beside him, Imogen gasped.

She called back an answer.

And suddenly, the Krik stalking the spaceways, taking every crew they could find, made a terrible, terrible sense.

They had been looking for someone. The Krik didn't know who, the Class 5 hadn't trusted them enough, but from their behavior, Cam guessed they'd been told not to harm anyone except the Tecran.

And they had finally found her.

There could be only one reason a Class 5 would want Imogen so badly.

It needed her to set it free.

“
W
ould
the woman from Earth identify herself.”

It had taken Imogen a moment to realize the box with arms was speaking in English.

She lifted a hand, jerky with shock. “That would be me.”

All four drones turned toward her, their guns still covering everyone in the hold.

“Come here.”

She didn't know which one said the words, but they were in a robotic monotone.

“Where will you take me?”

“You need medical attention.”

She lifted a hand and touched her swollen cheek. “There are others here who need medical help, too.” She tripped a little over the sentence. She hadn't spoken English aloud for two weeks, not since she'd been taken away from Balco and her partner in conversation, Cleese. The idea that these strange, boxy robots were spouting her mother tongue was hard to process, and yet, if this was the ship that had abducted her, they would have heard English when they'd come to Earth.

“The others aren't important.”

Imogen was momentarily struck dumb.

She'd been tucked away and ignored for so long, and now she was
important
?

She turned slightly, looking down at Yari, the flight crew captain who'd been seriously injured. She lay with her eyes closed as she huddle against the hold wall. “I think they're important.”

“If you come, they'll be given medical supplies.”

She looked over at the drones again, looked down the barrel of the shockgun pointing her way. What choice did she really have? “Okay.”

“Good.” The drone moved back a little, and Imogen saw it was hovering off the floor.

She took a step forward, and Kalor's arm shot out, gripped her upper arm.

“What's going on?”

She forgot he wouldn't have understood a word of the conversation.

“They want me to come with them. They'll send in medical supplies for everyone if I do.”

She heard Diot suck in a surprised breath. “They're negotiating with you?”

She gave a tight nod.

“I'd prefer it if you didn't go.” Kalor looked straight into her eyes. “It isn't safe.”

She tore her gaze away and looked back to where the drones waited, guns still pointed right at her and everyone in her group.

“It isn't safe right now,” she said softly.

As she said it, the Vanad pushed himself off from the wall and Kalor dropped his hand as he turned to track him.

“
I
found her.” The Vanad thumped his chest as he spoke to the drones. “She isn't the same as the one I was supposed to get, but she's from the same place, there's no question. My crew and I should be let out of this hold and allowed on our way for finding her. We held up our side of the bargain.”

“You did not find her.” The tone was devoid of any emotion. “You were in here when she was found.”

“I tried to secure her and call you the moment she walked in, but the Grih got to her first.” He pulled at the neck of his shirt, agitated.

“Is that true?”

It took a moment for Imogen to realize the drone was talking to her.

She nodded. “He tried to grab me when I came in. The Grih protected me.”

“He was trying to hurt you?”

She lifted her shoulders. “It seemed like it.”

“I will reward you the way I rewarded the Krik leader Toloco for finding her.” The drone turned back to the Vanad, and just as a triumphant smile split his face, the drone shot him.

He fell forward, absolutely silent. Absolutely still.

“It is time to go.”

The doors to the hold opened again.

Imogen stared at the Vanad, and there was no doubt in her mind he was dead. Which meant Toloco . . .

The Krik had been right to be afraid. And it looked like his attempt to hide her in the hold hadn't worked out for him.

“Come.”

The light on the shockgun the drone was holding blinked purple, fully charged again. It was aimed right at Kalor and his team.

The first few steps Imogen took toward the drones were the hardest of her life.

“You'll remember the medical supplies?” she forced herself to ask.

“Yes.” The guns suddenly aimed a little higher and to her left.

Imogen stopped, turned to look back.

Captain Kalor was right behind her, and his hand came down on her shoulder again. “Be careful. I think the thinking system——”

He was hit high in the chest, on the left, and spun away from her, falling hard onto the hold floor.

She cried out as she turned fully toward him, but Diot was suddenly there, standing in her way.

She jerked to a halt, looked back at the drones, and saw their guns were aimed at the Grih who'd been sitting between her and the Vanad. They were stirring, getting to their feet.

This was not going to end well.

“Why did you shoot him?” She could see Kalor was still moving, that unlike the Vanad, he was alive.

One of the drones had reached out an extendable arm and had a grip on the Vanad's leg, and there was no question he was dead.

“Come with us now, and we will send the Grih the help he needs.”

She looked back at Diot, and the Bukarian scientist gave her a tiny nod.

Her heart was beating so hard in her chest she felt the rise of nausea, and she turned and stumbled on trembling legs toward them.

They formed a guard around her, one in front, two on either side and the one holding onto the Vanad at the back. They didn't try to physically touch her, keeping a little distance so she had some space.

The lack of constraints calmed her.

She looked over her shoulder one last time as they led her out into the passageway, trying see if Captain Kalor was all right. He was blocked from view by Pren, who was leaning over him, and then the doors closed and the sudden lack of voices left her with no sound other than the swish of the Vanad's clothing as his body was dragged across the floor.

She closed her eyes, tried to find the calm that she'd been using since she was taken.

Kalor was injured, not dead, and she had done all she could to safeguard the people in the hold. What had Kalor said before they shot him? Something about thinking?

She couldn't decide if he'd been shot to stop him talking, or because he had touched her shoulder. It didn't matter anyway, unless she was let back into the hold, she wouldn't ever find the answer.

She needed to look on the bright side.

Maybe whoever had arranged for her to be separated from the herd would tell her what was going on.

That would certainly be a nice change.

* * *

I
t was
the second time in two days he'd been hit with shockgun fire, but this time Cam felt much worse. It had nothing to do with the higher charge, and everything to do with the sight of Imogen Peters being escorted from the hold, with the dead Vanad dragging behind her.

He flexed his fingers, remembering how delicate she'd felt under his hand when he'd rested it on her shoulder, and wondered what she was going through now.

“You're lucky to be alive.” Pren crouched beside him, one of the med kits two drones had just delivered to the hold open beside her. “The one who shot you also shot the Vanad, and I didn't notice it change the settings.”

He heard the shock in her voice.

“I admit I was surprised to still be breathing when I hit the floor.” He tried to infuse some humor into his tone, calm her down a little. Her hands shook as she laid out what she needed.

“Why did it do that? You weren't threatening her. She'd told it you'd saved her from harm.” Pren carefully lifted his shirt over his head, and then waved a diagnostic wand over his chest.

“It wanted me to stop talking.” He hadn't thought of the drones as reasoning entities, because he was used to drones being programmed for low level tasks, but these had been responsive. They'd conversed with the Vanad and persuaded Imogen to go with them. They were extensions of the thinking system, he saw now, mini avatars for it.

And it had not liked him talking about it.

At least it had been good on its word to send in med kits.

There had been a moment of pure fear when the doors had opened again, but the drones had merely set the med kits down and reversed back out.

Yari had been the first to get help, and a Grihan trader with medic qualifications had taken the extra kits and was working his way around the hold.

“Do you think they'll hurt her?” Pren stuck a cell regeneration pack to the injured area, and he felt it warming against his skin, easing the pain.

He shook his head as he pushed up to a sitting position and draped his hands over his knees. “It seemed as if they killed the Vanad because Imogen said she thought he meant her harm. I hope that means they want to keep her safe.” And if he was wrong, there was nothing he could do about it.

He tipped his head back and looked over at the Vanad's crew.

They were leaning against the wall, where they'd been before, but they didn't exude the same menace.

“You want to talk?” Cam asked the one Grihan of the group. He'd heard the Vanad call him Barj.

The mercenary ran a hand through his hair, glanced sidelong at his two Krik crew mates. “What about?”

One of the Krik gave a low whoop, a warning of sorts, but the Grihan shrugged. “Xaro is gone. And we're stuck in this hold with no way out. We've got nothing to lose.”

He stared his teammate down for a second, and then slowly slid down the wall and sat, putting himself at Cam's level, hands draped over knees in the same way.

“You were a plant in the hold?” Cam guessed.

Barj shook his head. “Not that simple. Xaro offered to listen in on what the prisoners were saying while we were in here, when it was clear our client wasn't going to forgive us. It was Xaro's way of pretending it was his idea to be in the hold, rather than admit he wasn't in control anymore.” He looked at the two Krik again, and they capitulated, sitting down beside him.

“How did you get involved?” Cam was aware the hold had gone quiet, but there would be no privacy here, and everyone had a right to understand the stakes.

“We've been searching for an Earth woman for about two weeks. Not the one that was here, though. The one Xaro was hunting had dark hair and eyes.” Barj looked down at his feet.

Cam sensed Diot moving closer and Pren knelt on his other side, checking the regen pack on his chest. Olan and Vraen stood just behind him.

He bet Olan's wrist unit was recording.

“Why were you searching for an Earth woman?”

Barj shook his head. “Xaro dealt with the client. I don't think even he knew why. All we knew was that there were big rewards for getting her. That whoever'd taken this Class 5 from the Tecran wanted her and he insisted Tecran High Command had her, and they were hiding her somewhere around the Balco system.” He ran his hand through his hair again. “He was right.

“We got word two days ago from a contact that a Grihan battleship had found her on a Garmman trader and they'd taken her to Larga Ways.

“We got there as fast as we could. Had a real moment of panic when we saw there was a Grihan battleship and a Class 5 hovering over Larga Ways. But Xaro wouldn't back down. He said we were committed, insisted we had to follow through. But something was off. He was behaving strangely.” Barj looked over at his crew and they gave a reluctant nod. “He wouldn't let us come down with him, which is unusual. We always work in pairs. The three of us were supposed to hover just in range, waiting for the signal to come pick him and the woman up.”

“He planned to abduct her?” Diot asked.

“He did abduct her.” Barj lifted his head. “But something went wrong. Really wrong.”

Cam felt Diot go still beside him, and realized he had tensed up, himself.

“Define really wrong.” He knew they must be talking about Fiona Russell, the woman Hal Vakeri had found on the Garmman trader. There could be no doubt about the story now.

“She escaped. Xaro didn't know how, and Larga Ways security was closing in on him.” He shifted, and Cam had the sense he didn't want to continue.

He waited.

Barj looked over at the two Krik again. Sighed. “He called us to fetch him, and as he stepped onboard, he detonated an explosive.”

Everyone who was listening, which was everyone who could speak Grihan, gasped.

“He detonated an explosive on Larga Ways? How did he bring the explosives in?” Cam thought Barj was joking. Larga Ways was a way station, in orbit around the planet Balco. Thousands lived there. Any explosion could be catastrophic and so security was exceptionally tight. No one could easily bring a weapon onto the way station, let alone the components of a bomb.

Barj hunched his shoulders a little. “The explosives were already there. Tecran spies on Larga Ways had a bomb ready to use if the United Council ruled against them and war was declared. Those spies either still think this Class 5 is under Tecran control or they have aligned themselves with the new owners, because they helped Xaro with accommodation and other things.”

Cam reeled at that. The Balcoan government was supposed to be responsible for security on Larga Ways, but Battle Center was there to assist. It looked as if there was a massive breach in their security protocols. “What reason did Xaro have for using the bomb when war hadn't been declared?”