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"She doesn't look too good," Duff said.
Saurubi hissed him to silence as Meeroush and Shoff caught at my shoulders and rolled me onto my back.
I opened my eyes to find the four of them staring down at me.
"Tell the EA to stop everything," I gasped. "We don't want membership!"
"And you think they'll listen to us?" Duff growled.
No, but they had to listen to me. "Liri—we have to help her—" No matter how many times I had rehearsed the explanation in the tunnel, my brain, left on automatic, put the conspiracy to destroy the EA and seize control of the Whooex Union second to the kid's safety.
I pushed up and looked about groggily. Duff, Saurubi, two Brktar, Meeroush, and Shoff. No kid.
Panic kicked my alertness up a few notches. "Where is she?"
"Who?"
"The kid," I gasped. "She was behind me! Where is she?" The open mouth of a tunnel yawned beyond my feet. I tried to squirm toward it.
Saura squatted beside me and put a hand on my arm to stop me. "Vivi. All good. Take breath and relax." She wrinkled her nose and lifted her hand away. "Stink like death."
A shudder ran over me. "Saura, you have no idea."
The assassin team had moved past us. They pulled a fluid sack from the vent and rolled it out on the floor.
Liri lay encased in it. She appeared to be sleeping peacefully.
"It's okay! She won't do anything to you," I told the Tabisee. Meeroush cast me an indifferent look. Shoff ignored me.
The Brktar split and flowed away, settling her gently to the surface as it reformed into a familiar blob. It hooted at the other two.
The three of them carried on a musical conversation while the rest of us stared at the kid.
She jerked to a sitting position, her eyes wild.
Ears dropped and bodies tensed as everyone froze warily.
Oh, yeah. Mind erase! "Lirilune!"
Her eyes found me. With white powder clinging to her flesh and caked in her hair and clothes she hardly looked sane. I didn't want to think about how strange I must appear.
"Is okay," I told her. "Friends."
After a moment, the expression in her eyes pulled back to reality. "Vivi Zant," she said placing her hand on my foot.
"Is okay," I told the others. "Liri no harm you. She speak Basic."
It took a moment for the others' translation software to kick over to Basic.
They did not look convinced.
"That's great, really great," Duff exclaimed. "Now can the assassins get these two on their feet so we can get the hell out of here?"
Saura moved to help Liri stand.
"How did you find us?" I asked the other two Tabisee, who were carefully minimizing contact with my tattered shipskins as they dragged me up to stand on wobbly legs.
"The Cheel you passed in the tunnel helped the Brktar locate you," Shoff said. "You nearly scared the little one to death with that ugly face of yours."
My knees tried to buckle when they released me. "A minute," I pleaded. "Do you have food and water?"
Shoff came up with two small, flat bags from a pocket in her vest.
With a nod of thanks, I took them and passed one to Liri. "Hold tight," I instructed her, holding mine up for her to see what I did. It took everything I had to rip the end off the shaped nozzle. The compressed fluid unpacked, pushing the bag to a quarter liter cylinder. I squirted the contents into my mouth.
The kid managed her own drink just fine.
"We did not plan for this situation," Meeroush said as he passed me two food packets. They were a popular cherry-flavored energy bar often found on the Outer Rim. I hesitated, wondering if it was safe to feed one to Liri, then remembered that she'd pilfered her way across T'lek T'la in the last ninety-something days, eating whatever she got her hands on.
She gobbled it down.
Food and water helped, but I needed something more in order to get out of here. "Saura, give me a stim."
"Shipskins confiscated." She was wearing Tabi armor again. Her ears tipped irritation at the Tabisee security team. "Give." She stretched out a hand and waggled her fingers at them imperiously.
"They are for Tabisee. It could be bad for her," Meeroush warned.
"Of course, bad," she spat irritably. "Not as bad as dying in cold tunnel! Vivi will handle pain."
I probably questioned my handling of the pain as much as Meeroush did, but I couldn't acknowledge it. "I won't last without it," I told him. That was the truth.
With a doubtful tip, he passed a thin packet to her.
Saura punctured it with a claw and unwrapped the tiny wafer.
"It's fine," I said. No need to explain how we had confirmed we could use each other's stims during a long night of drinking back on Pele' Station. There was a lot of pain and elevated heart rates involved, but we had survived.
I dropped the tab on my tongue. Same bitter as hell taste.
I did a slow thirty-count with the others hovering watchfully. A tingle spread along the nerves of my extremities, then adrenalin slammed in, causing me to suck a deep breath. My eyes widened, my head cleared and the weakness fell away. The trembling in my limbs shifted from exhaustion to contained energy.
"Okay." I exhaled and pulled up straight. "What's the plan?" I already felt a twitch in my fingers and toes as those muscles constricted. Things were going to start hurting very quickly.
"We walk. Fast," Duff said. "The Brktar carried you a long way, but we're still underneath the Trade Zone. We can't port out until we're outside the Compound perimeter."
"We should hurry." I shivered.
Meeroush shucked out of his jacket and dropped it over my shoulders. He turned to Liri. "Carry?
"No. Thank you." She smiled up at him boldly, but she slid her hand into Saura's.
As I gratefully tugged the black security leather closer, a movement beside Duff caught my attention.
"Piika?" I exclaimed in shock. One kid in danger was one too many. "Duff, what the hell is she doing here?"
He shrugged. "We need her."
"This is no task for a kid! You have no right to put her in such danger!"
Piika peered at me from beneath her jacket hood and smiled serenely. "It is for whomever the task falls, Vivi Zant. The circumstances and person are not always ideal."
That pretty much summed up the whole situation for me, too. Not ideal. Yet here I was. I had not chosen to be a part of this. But she had. Guess that made her the better person.
Saura suddenly caught at my right arm. "What is?" She had the good sense not to touch the purple smudge on the back of my hand as she turned it for a closer look.
I saw uneasiness shift ears as the two other Tabisee exchanged glances. They knew.
So did Duff.
Shoff silently tugged Saurubi's hand away from my arm.
"You should know," I said, "Seok tortured me. I don't know who or what I gave up."
"You spilled your guts." Duff shrugged. "Now can we please get moving?" He shifted his attention to the stone wall to his left. "Thanks for your help, folks."
It took me a moment to see the three blobs huddled along the side of the viaduct, their transparency camouflaged them so well. "Is one of them Local 100866?"
"He couldn't make it. This is some of his top crew."
"Thank you much," I told them solemnly in Basic. I mentally reserved my thanks for the two electrocutions they'd issued to me.
"Is good," they chirped in unison. They slid over to the vent and dropped low to slither inside.
I wished our way out of this place was as simple as theirs.
"What is happening outside?" I asked as sudden heat ran through my limbs. The stim was taking effect.
"Civil unrest," Duff answered without looking back. "We're keeping them distracted, but it won't last. The Sat Quar has the Earth Alliance diplomatic envoy confined to the transport ship at the Das until everything settles down. We must get you two out of here and stashed somewhere."
To begin a new round of negotiations for our lives.
The muscles in my fingers snapped rigidly straight for a painful moment.
"Why is all this down here still open?" I asked to shift my attention away from my discomfort. It did seem like gross negligence on the part of Endar security to ignore these subterranean passages.
"These tunnels may be vastly old but they are still in use. The first one hundred meters depth beneath the Zones falls under Whooex jurisdiction," the Frairy explained. "Endar have full authority to isolate that area. But not to damage the infrastructure. We're well below that depth."
"The Brktar carried us down?"
"This is their terrain. They specialize in moving light freight between the Das and other points through their network of tunnels."
"Discretely?" I asked. For a spacer, the word was synonymous with smuggling contraband.
Duff chuffed.
This world was a hub of illegal activity! "So, the round tunnels..."
"The tubes. They belong exclusively to the Brktar. They burn them, and any monitoring devices the Endar try to plant in them, with their excretions."
My skin suddenly itched.
Talk of the Brktar shady activity reminded me of a more serious topic. I looked at the Tabisee security team. "The live cargo you thought they were smuggling? It's Liri's people. The Endar have hundreds of them inside the Grip. Apparently they can't do everything she can, but the Endar use them to telepathically mine other members' thoughts and actions for information the Primacy can use for blackmail and manipulation. Luckily, the Makima—her people—have a limited range that can't reach members outside the Trade Compound. They planted my DNA and destroyed the Obega to force the rest of you under their influence."
Shoff gave a spitting curse and the two assassins leaned their heads close to talk.
"Can't we port out?" I squeaked as the muscles in my calves tightened.
"Just because the Endar don't have jurisdiction down here doesn't mean they don't monitor it," Duff said. "If we port now, they can run a trace to our destination."
"There is movement in one of the lateral passages behind us," Shoff announced abruptly.
"Endar?" Duff asked.
"The Cheel sees them," Piika spoke up. "There are seven—" She broke off, with an outraged gasp.
"What?" Duff asked.
"They are destroying the Cheel colonies." The grim expression on her little face was intimidating. She squared her shoulders. "It does not matter. There is always more Cheel to see."
I was sure the loss of a few clumps of growth was tragic to her, but the idea of spying plants everywhere was kinda creepy. On the other hand, the green stuff had saved the kid and me.
I thought about pulling out the clump I had stashed under my cuff and dropping it here, but that seemed a betrayal of intent. It deserved a sunny spot.
If we got out of here.
"The Sat Quar does not have jurisdiction over city levels," Meeroush objected.
"When the riots ignited, they declared martial law, claiming a threat to the Consortium," Duff told him. "Their current authority covers the whole city and the Das. We should have thought that through a bit better. We'll know next time."
The assassins sniffed in amusement.
I didn't find it funny. "So, what do we do?" Being recaptured was not on my agenda.
"How close are they?" Duff asked Piika.
"At our original entry point."
He swore. "We'll have to find another passage out."
"Tabi are not herded." Two pairs of gray ears were set hard against that option. From the way the fur on their ruffs puffed, I guessed they were prepared to fight their way through any blockade.
"Pick different day to be heroes," Saura told them sharply.
The larger Tabisee looked at her, their ears twisting edgily, and I held my breath.
"Is strategic," Saura said.
"Acceptable," Shoff agreed.
Three sets of furry ears dropped to situational awareness. Three pairs of amber eyes locked on Duff.
"Now that you have your family differences sorted, let's pick up the pace," he said.
All three made a spitting sound of dismissal. I exhaled a silent sigh of relief.
Saura clutched Lirilune's hand and followed Shoff. Meeroush pushed Duff, Piika, and me after them as he brought up the rear.
I waited for red fire to light the walls behind our backs.
"They are expanding out into other passages to cut us off," Meeroush told Duff.
"We have to go to plan B." Duff panted.
"What's plan B?" I asked.
No one replied as we continued at a light jog, which was slower than the others wanted but the best I could manage. Little shots of pain dinged the muscles in my calves every time my feet struck the floor.
I was not going to last much longer at this, or any other, pace.
"What's plan B?" I asked Duff again.
"We have to use the Zone system to port up. But, first, we have to go farther in so we can come up on a street."
"Seven beings rising into Zone without gate clearance will set off security alerts," Shoff warned.
"Gee, thanks," Duff snapped. "Just be ready to grab Zant and the telepath and run for cover. We meet up at the Rhomian embassy."
"The kid," I said. "Liri can erase the minds of any observers."
"She has done it before," Meeroush agreed.
"I'm dealing with a bunch of geniuses," Duff growled. "Her trick doesn't work on Zant. So, who else is immune? No. There are too many uncontrolled variables."
Shoff froze. Her ears made several lateral twitches, then slowly laid back. She was not happy.
"The sensors we dropped along the way are going dark," Meeroush told us as we slowed and looked at her.
"They're extending a tech-eclipse," Duff exclaimed. "We won't be able to port out if their blackout zone reaches us."
"We must use the Zone system now," Shoff was moving forward again.
Duff swore. "Do you know where we are?"
"It is a public place. There will be witnesses. We can use them to argue our defense."
"No!" The Frairy exclaimed furiously.
"Where is it?" I asked between gasps.
"The Saalyu," Duff snapped. "There's no way I'm porting us there."
The assassins' expressions said differently.