Resurrection (The Inherited War) (17 page)

“No,” Thalo shook his head, “that about sums it up.”

“So then what about this arrangement shouldn’t worry me?”

“I decided that the Nixa would help us out whether they wanted to or not.  Their political system is so mired in posturing and empty promises it is basically worthless.  They were given the chance to help pursue the Esii back to their home world and they squandered it.”  This was the part Thalo had been nervous about.  They had to make this Archon believe, without a doubt, that they were here legitimately.

“How did you manage to make them help, when they didn’t want to?  The Nixa government is legendary for stalling and filibustering until it’s too late to act.”  Vinco responded.

“Do you know the current Prime Administrator and his family?”  Thalo knew he knew but had to ask to make this more dramatic.

“Of course.  The wife is unimportant but his daughters are quite extraordinary.  One is a Doctor of no small reputation who brought the humans back into our galaxy and the other is…” he trailed off at that point.  A smile started to creep over his face as his sharp mind started putting things together.

Thalo reached up and grabbed the hood over Snow’s head.  “The other is one of the rarest of breeds.  So rare that a being with the right connections could make several fortunes.”  Thalo yanked the hood back over Snows head and pulled the robe off her shoulders and arms to pool at her feet.

Snow was the consummate actress.  As the robe hit the floor, she flinched in the attempt to cover her naked body, a natural reaction but one that would be frowned upon here.  She caught herself and stood with her head held low. She forced her hands to her sides and looked up.  She glared her best defiant glare at Vinco.  She opened her mouth to speak but Thalo hit a button on the remote he now held in his hand.  It was connected to the only thing Snow was wearing, a shock collar.   She reacted like it had hit her on the highest setting, when in reality it was just giving her a small harmless vibration.

“She still has much to learn, we didn’t have much time to train her on the way here.  And you know Quinn, they will trade in slaves but don’t allow you to abuse them during transport.”  Thalo grabbed Snow and spun her around.  He looked at Vinco.  He saw something probably no other person who had done business with him had seen.  Need.  Vinco wanted Snow, badly.  Thalo had succeeded, as far as he was concerned, in finding the one thing that Vinco would pay anything for.  Thalo put on the finishing touch.  He shoved Snow forward, her feet tangled in the robe and she landed on her hands and knees staring up at Vinco. 

Vinco swallowed and absently wiped a hand across his suddenly sweating brow.  Vinco stared down at the prostrate form in front of him.  He saw the scared look in Snow’s eyes and her trembling lips.  Tears began to well up in her eyes as she moved to regain her feet.  Thalo hit the button again and Snow let out a scream and fell back to her knees.

“As I said, she will need some training.  Now let’s get down to brass-tacks.  I assume a number sprang into your head as soon as you saw the merchandise.”

Vinco cleared his throat.  He did it two more times before he found his voice.  He stood and moved back around to his chair.  “One Million.  Hard credits in twenty minutes.”

“Ha-ha,” the deep throaty laugh rolled out of Thalo's mouth.  “One million.  That’s it?  I could get that by hauling her down to the street and hiring a barker to sell her.  Do better or we walk, right now.”

By putting his desk between himself and the Nixa, Vinco had regained his composure.  He steepled his hands in front of him and got down to business.  “Yes I can and will get much, much more for her than I will give you.  You have to know that the Nixa’s family and most likely the government will be scouring the galaxy for her.  Not to mention that whoever buys her will have to keep her hidden and be able to face the Nixa if she is discovered.  Very rare but also very hard to move.  The best I can do is ten.”

“Please, we both know that you can sell her right back to a wealthy Nixa family who doesn't yet have the recessive gene in their family tree.  Any of the dozen wealthiest families on Nixa would pay hundreds of millions of credits for her.  They would take what they needed from her and turn her back into her father for the reward.”  Thalo crossed his arms and got ready to do business.

“True but…”  The back and forth got going in earnest.  Thirty minutes later they were no closer to making a deal than when they had started.  Thalo figured he had been stringing Vinco on long enough. “Your offers are not getting better,” Thalo said, “I am going to give you one final offer.  I will take your ten million and a piece of information I know only you possess.”

Now it was Vinco’s turn to laugh. “What would that be my shrewd friend?  I can think of no information I hold that is that valuable.”

Thalo leaned forward and placed both hands on Vinco’s desk.  “A guide and the location of the Kin.”

“Ha-ha, the Kin, sure I can tell you.  In fact I will tell you for free.  Look in any children’s books that tell tales of Kin, ghosts and space herpes.  That’s where you will find the Kin.  Now can we get back to the serious negotiations?”  He sat back in his oversized chair and affected a calm repose.

“You’re about to throw away a chance to own one of the rarest treasures in the galaxy because you won’t admit to information I know you have?”

“Why are you so convinced I possess this information?”

“Come now, you show up ten years ago, no one has ever heard of you and you start taking over the local hard to get items from well-established crime families.  You have an almost unlimited cash supply and the Esii avoid your operations like the plague.  Rumors spread like wild fire after you got here but the one that never went away was the Kin.  You got your hands on one and sold it for billions.  All the other wild rumors changed and evolved with their telling but that one was always the same.  So you tell me, you sold them out once, why not again and for this?”  Thalo stood Snow up and shoved her forward so she fell across Vinco’s desk.

Vinco and Thalo stared daggers at each other.  Thalo knew he had him, he just needed time.  Vinco was hesitating and that meant he knew what Thalo wanted to know.  At the precise moment when Vinco was about to speak, a beeping sounded from Thalo’s wrist computer.  Thalo swore under his breath and glanced down at his computer.  “Shit,” he muttered louder.

“Please excuse me and my partner for a moment.”  He looked at Vinco who gave him a nod.  Thalo grabbed Snow by her hair and pulled her off the desk and dumped her onto the floor on top of her discarded robe.  He left her there under the watchful eyes of Vinco and guided Sky a few steps away from Vinco’s desk.

He leaned in close to Sky’s head and began to whisper furiously.  “Change of plans, we just ran out of time.”

A series of whines and clicks emanated from the speaker on Sky’s back.  She couldn’t control the volume very well but the chance that Vinco spoke the Quinn language was minimal.  Thalo on the other hand had studied it and learned to translate it if not speak it.  “Why what happened?  Did it have something to do with that message you just got?”

“Yes, it was from Split.”

Sky’s head rotated to look directly at Thalo and the squeaks and squawks were spilling out of her external speaker at such a fast rate.  So fast that Thalo couldn’t understand most of it.  “Slow down,” he hissed at her.  “You're not making any sense.” 

“What. Is.  Going.  On.”  That was slow enough that Thalo understood it quite well.

“I only get four or five words at a time from Split.  This time it was ‘Come in two days’.”  Thalo almost saw the look of shock on her featureless face cover.  “I need you to remote pilot the ship from the hanger to our location, we no longer have the convenience of wasting time in negotiations.  Damn it Sky, pay attention.”  He wasn’t sure how he knew but he knew he had lost her there for a moment. 

She clicked her affirmative.  “I will stall negotiations for a few minutes, let me know when the ship gets here.”  She nodded her head as her attention was focused on prepping the ship for takeoff.

Thalo took a breath and turned around, he walked with confidence back to Vinco’s desk.  He stopped and grabbed Snow under her armpit and hauled her to her feet.  “Put your robe back on.”  He ordered her as he turned to face Vinco.

“Bad news I assume, now how will this affect our negotiations?  And let me remind you, this is my building with my people protecting me so no funny business.  No one leaves here until I own this fine specimen.”  A smirk crept onto his face.

“Yes well,” Thalo seemed to stammer as he fought for a response to that smirk.  “Bad news for both of us I’m afraid.  It seems that our time to strike a deal has run out.  I will be leaving with my merchandise.”

Before Vinco could respond a series of clicks and squawks sounded from Sky.  Thalo turned to look at her.  “Are you sure?”  A single loud chirp echoed in the office.  Thalo turned back to Vinco.  “I am truly sorry that our negotiations have to end this way.”  Sky took a step closer to Thalo.  He reached his hand behind Sky’s back and pushed it into the pack that would contain the vital life support functions of a real Quinn.  The one on Sky’s back held two small plasma pistols and the excess material for her Second Skin.  She felt Thalo’s hand in the backpack and released a pent up groan and let the Second Skin reform into its original shape.  She also retracted her helmet.

“What is the meaning of this?  That’s no Quinn.”  Vinco was on his feet and shouting at them, he was also mashing a panic button on his desk.

Snow dropped her bulky robe and stood in her own Second Skin that had been attached to her robe as a liner.  “No she is my sister and I am not a slave.”  Snow reached her hand out and took the second pistol from Thalo. 

Thalo pointed his gun at Vinco and waved him away from his desk.  “Again frightfully sorry for this but we do really need to know where the Kin are so if you would be kind enough to move over here and away from the windows.”  Thalo grabbed him as he got close and drug him back towards the double doors.  “Any time now Sky.”  Thalo rotated Vinco around and placed him between himself and the door.

All four of the beings waited in silence.  “Sky?”  Thalo asked with a worried tone in his voice.

“Give me a moment, something isn’t right.”

Vinco chuckled.  “What? What is so funny?”

“You will find out soon enough.”  Thalo looked at Snow and beckoned her over.

“Watch him, I'm going to make it harder for anyone to get in.”  Thalo jogged to the door and set his plasma gun on its lowest setting.  He fired three shots at the place where the doors came together. The metal of the door melted and fused the two doors together.  “That should buy us some more time.”  He muttered under his breath.  Thalo turned to look at Sky.

Just then he heard a loud explosion come from above.  Then another and another.  They were getting closer.  Thalo finally realized what was happening, they weren’t up high they were down low.  Vinco's offices were in the underground part of the building.   He jumped forward and knocked both Snow and Vinco to the ground just as the ceiling of the room dropped down and smashed to the floor.  Vinco was wearing a standard issue Second Skin suit so wasn’t hurt too badly by the falling debris.

The ship was nose first in the ceiling of the room and the front access hatch was opening.  “Sky, knock him out.”  Thalo held the gangster down while Sky crawled over to him and injected him with the sedative she had secreted in her back pack.

“He’s out.  Can we go now?”

They struggled to lift the unconscious form of Vinco off the floor and into the waiting ship.  “Nice flying Sky, I hope I can back us out of here.”  Thalo grunted as he shoved Vinco through the hatch and into the cockpit of the ship.  They heard banging and yelling on the other side of the rubble covered door.  “Hurry, hurry.” Thalo sang under his breath.  “Time to go.”

The three of them finally succeeded in getting themselves and their new passenger boarded on the ship.  “Get him in the back and get him secured.”  Thalo jumped into the pilot’s seat and started to extract the ship from the ruined building.  The ship was wedged in pretty good but he should have enough power to get out.  He put the ship into reverse and slowly fed it power.  The engines started to whine as they revved up but the ship didn’t move.  He gave the engines all the power he could.  With a loud shriek of tearing metal, the ship screamed out of the building and slammed into the next building over before Thalo could switch power over to the forward thrusters.

“This is the Captain speaking, we may hit some localized turbulence as we make our escape.  Please be seated and strap yourselves in, unless you’re a criminal, in that case trying and hold on as best you can.”  The ship shot forward and wove in and out of the buildings.  He saw where Sky had bashed into a few of them as she had remotely piloted the ship to their location.  Thalo was impressed that she had done so well.

He pointed the ship at the nearest hangars to their location and aimed for the hole Sky had blown in their hanger.  He threaded the ship through the blasted open hole and into the hangar.  He had to blast the outer door because the hangar control was shouting at him to power down and land.  It took a few shots but he finally made it through the outer wall and was into local space.

No one challenged him as he shot away from Pitt at full speed.  Thalo finally relaxed a bit as they got further away from the moon.  He checked his sensors and saw no one in pursuit, he engaged the auto pilot and programmed it to take them to the warp point and put them into warp space.  He walked back out of the cockpit and headed to the passenger compartment.  He saw Snow sprawled across the couch.