Nexus: Ziva Payvan Book 2 (21 page)
Read Nexus: Ziva Payvan Book 2 Online
Authors: EJ Fisch
For some reason that Aroska couldn’t explain, the fact that he was holding Ziva at gunpoint didn’t terrify him as he had thought it would. It was probably for the best, a way to make the charade all the more convincing, but it concerned him that he was…well,
unconcerned
. He stood there just as frozen as she was, kicking himself for noticing how striking she looked with her hair down.
He nudged her with the toe of his boot. “On your feet,” he growled.
Face devoid of all emotion whatsoever, Ziva got her legs under her and rose up, maintaining constant eye contact as she did so. Just as Aroska opened his mouth to tell her to drop her weapon, she had it up and aimed at him, a picture that had become all-too-familiar in the time they’d been acquainted. Keeping his own pistol steady, he extended a hand toward the RG agents, signaling for them to hold their fire.
“Now where have I seen this before?” he muttered. “You’re surrounded, Ziva. What exactly do you think you’re going to do?”
“What I should have done the first time.” Her finger curled around the trigger and pulled back on it, but rather than a powerful plasma bolt, all that discharged from the pistol was a half-hearted spark that jumped a few centimeters from the barrel and melted away into the ground.
Ziva’s eyes widened for only a split second before she set her jaw and reluctantly tossed the gun down into the riverbed. She held her hands up, though the look in her eyes said she was far from surrender, and stepped slowly backward until her heels were resting on the edge of the bank. She looked away just long enough to study the positions of the other agents before sending Aroska a glare that made him feel sorry for anyone who was playing his part for real.
“What happens now?” she asked.
Aroska had no idea. He’d been letting her pilot the ship, so to speak, and suddenly she’d stood up and walked out of the cockpit, leaving the controls to him. He studied her for a moment, looking for a clue, a hint, anything that would enable him to make it through the next few seconds. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the two yellow hovercams the RG had brought along, its eye recording his every movement. The second bot appeared around the tree, hovering a couple meters off the ground directly behind Ziva. He imagined those on the receiving end of the transmission were waiting intently for him to say something.
Making a mental note to ask Ziva for further improv lessons, he tightened the grip on his pistol. “Now you’re going to pay…for
everything.
”
Ziva smirked and shook her head. “Empty threats, Tarbic. If you want to show everyone what you’re made of, shoot me.” She tapped her abdomen and spread her arms wide, her fearlessness far from an act. “Go on, do it. You’d be doing me a favor.”
Aroska clenched the muscles in his face to prevent his eyes from widening. For a brief moment he wanted to ask if she was serious, but he realized he knew better. She stared directly into his face, and unless it was his imagination, he could almost hear her voice inside his head telling him everything would be okay.
“Can you do it?” Ziva spat. “Or are you a coward like your boss, who has someone else do all his dirty work? Show me, Aroska. Come on, sh—”
Damn it, Ziva!
He pulled the trigger.
Ziva had been shot at plenty of times in her life, and hit plenty of times for that matter. But none of those occasions had ever been a double-tap to the chest like she had just experienced. The discharge of the pistol had genuinely taken her by surprise; she’d expected Aroska to be a bit more timid. It was as if time had somehow been slowed by the pulling of the trigger. She’d been able to see and feel everything as it happened, right down to the muscles tightening in his hands and the change in the air as she started to fall. The first round had struck her mid-breastbone, a perfect shot to the heart if it would have penetrated Jada’s fiber mesh underlay. The impact had pushed her backward ever so slightly, and the soft earth began to crumble under her weight. The second shot came only a split second later, hitting about a centimeter above the other. Both rounds were successfully absorbed by the vest, though she could feel and smell a bit of burnt flesh where they had overlapped.
Upon being hit by the second bolt, the chunk of ground under Ziva’s feet fell away entirely. She refrained from flailing for balance, keeping enough wits about her to realize that someone who had just been shot through the heart wouldn’t be capable of such a thing. The sensation of falling blindly backward was bizarre. She felt like she was floating right up until the moment her back hit the ground and the air was punched out of her lungs. Suddenly her legs were above her head and she was tumbling, blinded by dust and unable to gather her bearings. She skidded, sharp rocks and coarse dirt tearing at her skin and clothing. The bank dropped off abruptly and she rolled over the edge, falling the remaining meter and a half into the rock-infested river bottom. Her forehead collided with a large stone, sending a burst of pain back through her skull and down her neck. Her vision began to blur and the light around her began to dim as if night was already approaching. Then it was pitch black.
Zinni felt as though she was being shot herself when Aroska’s pistol discharged. Every person on the squad floor was on their feet, watching with bated breath as Ziva’s body bucked and fell out of view. The live footage shot by the two hovercams was being broadcast over the giant viewscreen on the far side of the floor, audio and all. The sound of the pistol was still echoing through her head, and it had taken her a moment to realize only two shots had actually been fired.
Both those at HSP and those in the forest outside Haphor fell completely silent, either genuinely speechless or else not wanting to say what they were thinking. Zinni placed a hand over her mouth, not to keep herself from crying out but to keep herself from throwing up all over her workstation. She cringed against the sour taste and forced it back down, unable to take her eyes away from the screen. The lights on the squad floor had been dimmed a bit to provide everyone with a better view so she was forced to squint into the semi-darkness to search for Skeet. He stood several meters ahead of her, having been on his way back across the floor when the bots began broadcasting, and his looming silhouette blocked a portion of the screen from her view.
The cam nearest the action floated forward, capturing the steely look on Aroska’s face. The sound of his heavy breathing carried over the sound system as he holstered his weapon and ventured a look down into the riverbed, as did the bot. The picture was so clear that Zinni felt as though she was there looking down right along with him. Ziva’s descent had stirred up a great cloud of dust, and as it settled several audible gasps rose up from around the floor. The first thing that struck Zinni was how steep and high the bank actually was, making the realization that her friend had just fallen over it all the more shocking. The second was the body itself, lying face-down in the shallow standing water on the edge of the creek. One of Ziva’s arms was bent grotesquely under her abdomen and her head was turned to one side, and even from the bot’s viewpoint Zinni could see that the water around her face was tinted red.
The murmuring of the agents with Aroska could be heard in the background as they discussed what they had just seen and asked him what he was going to do. He said something inaudible and suddenly came into view, glancing directly into the cam’s lens before lowering himself over the edge and sliding down into the riverbed. The bot descended slowly after him, watching as he straddled Ziva’s body and bent down to examine it. Using two fingers, he quickly checked for a pulse then took a handful of her hair and lifted her head from the ground. The bot hovered there for several seconds, taking it all in – her eyes were closed, her jaw was slack, and diluted blood oozed from her forehead.
“She’s dead,” Aroska muttered, releasing her hair and letting her head fall back into the muddy water. The bot followed him to a standing position and watched as he spoke into his communicator. “We’re awaiting your orders, sir.”
Zinni’s hot gaze shifted to Dasaro, who had spent the duration of the broadcast standing with crossed arms directly in front of the viewscreen. Everyone else now had eyes on him as well, waiting expectantly for some form of verdict that would somehow make the situation more final than it already was. Zinni’s heart was racing – something didn’t feel right about the events she had just witnessed. Either Aroska had played her and Skeet to a beat and had just killed Ziva per Dasaro’s orders, or the whole thing had merely been staged. She wanted desperately to believe the latter but had no idea how it could be possible.
“Dispose of the body, Lieutenant,” Dasaro replied. “She will meet the same end as she would have after a week in the Haphor prison. No need for any formalities at this point.”
Zinni fumed. If there was some way she could get to Haphor in the next five minutes…. After everything Ziva had done for these people, they were ready to just throw her away like a piece of trash. There had to be
someone
who would side with her and Skeet, but as she stopped and looked at the agents standing in stunned silence around her, all her hopes were dashed.
Skeet brushed by her as he stormed away, his face contorted with more anger than she had seen in a long time. She decided to let him seethe for a while, afraid any attempts to calm him at this point would only tear apart their partnership, the last thing holding them together. Besides, she figured he deserved a chance to vent after being forced to maintain composure over the past few days – she only hoped he wouldn’t hurt himself or anyone else.
Zinni stood there a while longer, eyes still glued to the screen and the image of her commanding officer lying there on the rocks. She hoped the shots had been fatal, sparing Ziva the pain of falling down the bank. The bot suddenly turned, catching sight of Aroska as he scrambled back up to the surface before it went offline. As the feed stopped and the lights came back on, the agents around Zinni began going back to their business, leaving her standing there in stunned silence. For the first time since Ziva’s arrest, she thought only of herself. And she was afraid.
Mag Reilly had not slept a wink since encountering the mercenaries at the memorial grounds the previous evening. As tired as he was, his racing mind prevented his eyes from closing. At the moment he was lying flat on his back on his mother’s living room floor, staring at the patterns in the ceiling and trying to think of
anything
other than niobi crystals.
He was at a total loss. He’d just finished moving everything out of his parents’ house – or, more accurately, everything that remained after the looters had come through. During their mad quest for power, Loric and his gang had managed to turn the citizens of Argall against each other, destroying the sense of community the town had always possessed. Now it was every man for himself, and in recent days it seemed that the mercenaries’ lack of any moral standards was beginning to rub off on those they were oppressing.
The house was empty now except for a collection of items by the front door that Mag had set aside for himself. Many things had been moved three years earlier after his father had been killed. He had kept an eye out for the data pad with the cave maps back then as well as since his mother’s death, but since the night before he’d searched for it like a madman. It was his hope that the looters hadn’t gotten to it first, though if they had it would get Loric off his back.
No,
now there
he
was looking out only for himself and becoming one of the very people he hated. Even
hate
was such a strong word – he liked to think there was still hope for the city and that he could eventually help build it back up, but at the moment he couldn’t help but be pessimistic.
If the data pad wasn’t on the property, he had no idea where else to look. If the data pad
was
on the property, he had no idea where else to look. He wasn’t even sure what to do with it if he found it. Conducting a treasure hunt would be nearly impossible to do in secret, and even if he managed to find the crystals he didn’t know what he would do with them. He knew the basics about harvesting but he was no farmer, not to mention there was no way he could care for that many crystals on his own. And with all the corruption around him, he wasn’t about to share his knowledge with anyone else.
Feeling useless, Mag sat up and closed his eyes until his head quit spinning. The thought crossed his mind that he had a whole week to find the map, and then he kicked himself for even thinking in such terms. There was no way he would surrender it to Loric, though he didn’t know what to do with it himself. And so continued the endless cycle of thoughts as he desperately tried to decide what to do.
He hauled himself to his feet and took a moment to gaze at the empty floor around him. He’d grown up in this house, been born in it for that matter. The current predicament broke his heart, though the thought that currently dominated his mind was that he should be familiar with any of his father’s hiding places after living there for so long. He’d checked his parents’ strongbox, their bank account, even the secret compartment behind the lavatory mirror, all to no avail. Even if the data pad was still intact, there was a good chance at least some of its data had been corrupted after sitting idle for three years.
Mag hated to acknowledge the fact that Loric was right. People were going to die whether he found the map or not. It all just felt like a whirlwind of a dream, something out of one of the adventure stories he’d read as a young man. In those tales the heroes always managed to make the right decision or find a back door, but now that the story had come to life he felt like anything but a hero. No, Mag Reilly of Argall had the great misfortune of being responsible for the death of an entire culture, all because he was related to someone who had once tried to do the right thing. Experiencing the outcome of that firsthand made him feel motivated to do anything
but
the right thing anymore.
With a sigh, Mag went to his little pile and gathered up the items to take to his car. Regardless of what he decided to do with it, he was going to find that data pad if it killed him.