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THE HEAVY TREAD of the person descending the staircase echoed hollowly around them. Daku’s heart thudded in his ears, and only his combat training kept him focused. Ready to act.
Kara surged forward, quickly opening the door out to the corridor. He tried to grab her. Soldiers were out there, too.
Yet she gestured for him to follow.
The person coming down the staircase came ever closer. So close, they’d see them in a few seconds.
He dashed through the door, praying to the Eternities that they weren’t running straight into a trap.
A lighting fast glance both ways down the corridor showed it to be clear. The guards must have turned the corner before she’d opened the door. He shot her a glance. He kept forgetting that she was a bio-cyber. Her hearing had to be inhuman and she must have known they’d passed by already.
Kara grabbed his hand and pulled him to the right. They moved at a fast clip, Kara leading them without hesitation away from the stairs.
For now, they had evaded detection.
His Fleet training at the fore, he moved quietly behind her. But she moved without a sound. It was eerie because he knew how beyond difficult that truly was. Without a doubt, Fleet Intelligence had trained her, even if she claimed they hadn’t. And to think when he’d met her a few short months ago, he’d thought she was just another half-useless bureaucrat out to make his life hell.
Since then, his world had been turned upside down.
A small reception area was ahead of them, with smaller corridors and offices branching off the main route. Several rigid, brown chairs were grouped around a side table that held a bedraggled plant, the broad green leaves drooping forlornly. The sign on the chest-high reception desk read ‘Logistics’ in large block letters. But the office was silent, the lights turned off for the night. The Fleet support staff must have already knocked off several hours ago and it would be safe for them to move through the area.
Daku followed behind Kara, but then suddenly paused. “Kara,” he hissed, staring up at the ceiling. A small security camera looked back down at them. His pulsed kicked up a notch.
She flicked a glance at it before shaking her head. “There won’t be anything on them that shouldn’t be,” she assured him and kept moving.
He lengthened his stride, catching up to her. “How can you be sure that we’re not going to be plastered all over the security net?”
She gave him an inscrutable look. “Because I have taken extra precautions. I will not be caught out again.”
He shrugged in resigned acknowledgement, wishing he knew what was going on. He cast the camera a last wary look, before leaving the reception area behind, heading through a maze of open-plan desks and past closed office doors. Kara didn’t slow down or hesitate once. Intently she led them on until they came to a small side room, clearly rarely used. A few unused desks were pushed together against one wall and a bunch of storage containers were stacked against the wall next to the door.
Daku looked nervously over his shoulder back into the office area they had just left. But all was quiet in the gloom of a few safety lights. He turned back to Kara, still uncertain what her escape plan was.
Kara headed to the opposite end of the room towards an empty section of blank, white wall. The pale smooth expanse was completely unremarkable and also very much solid. There wasn’t even a wall joining to mar its surface. She knelt and pressed against a small section of the wall about ten centimetres up from the floor that looked no different from any other. With a whisper of sound, a panel popped out on smooth hydraulic hinges, revealing a keypad behind it.
Daku blinked in surprise at the well-hidden compartment. Kara tapped in a code and another, larger, section of wall hissed open. The once smooth wall was now intersected by the access panel and a small hatch that led into a recess inside the wall. Kara didn’t waste any time. She pushed the small panel shut and then slipped inside the confined space.
“Come on. This is our way out,” she said, beckoning to Daku to use the hatch.
He squeezed inside and pressed close to her in the small confines of the alcove. Next to them, a ladder led from above this floor and down into the depths of the building. Kara pulled a small sphere from a pocket on her thigh, depressed the top, and lobbed it back into the storeroom they’d just left. At the apex of the throw, the sphere clicked open and, with a silent explosion, shot a fine mist over the room and through the doorway into the office area.
Daku raised an eyebrow at Kara in silent query.
“It’s a targeted DNA neutraliser. It’ll wipe out our tracks.” She bent to seal the hatch closed behind him. The room became pitch black. After a few seconds, a line of lights automatically turned on, running down behind the ladder, illuminating the alcove.
“What is this place?” Daku asked peering around.
“It’s an escape route that’s not on the official plans,” Kara replied. The low light cast eerie shadows across her face. She stood there, her eyes flicking across his face, lingering on his lips. Her hand raised, paused. She swayed towards him, and Daku took a half step forward.
She dropped her hand and sucked in a breath.
“We have to keep moving. I’ll explain soon,” she said and briefly closed her eyes while shaking her head.
He blinked bemusedly at her. Involuntarily his hands came up to hold her, but she squeezed past him and swung herself onto the rungs of the ladder. Once again, she climbed up. Towards the roof.
Daku followed behind her, thoughts churning through his mind. Until he looked up. Then the view became the highlight of his day, as he watched Kara’s very nice butt flex and shift a short distance above him, but his thoughts were still splintered. He hadn’t had time to process anything since Kara had appeared as if from thin air back in his cell. He’d had to focus on keeping up with her, not processing what was going on. But now he could admire her, and it sank in that she had come back for him.
And she had almost kissed him, hadn’t she?
By the time they reached the top of the shaft, his arms ached. He leant back against the wall, catching his breath. He looked at Kara in envy, as she hadn’t broken a sweat, let alone looked like the exertion had even fazed her. She briefly smiled at him, but her eyes were watchful, before unlocking the hatch onto the open rooftop. She swept her gaze across the roof before gesturing the all-clear as she moved forward. Daku sucked in a deep breath and pushed off the wall hoping he wouldn’t have to catch a zipline off the top of the building. He didn’t know if he’d be able to hold on tight enough not to fall.
Kara strode across the roof heading for a bulky exhaust fan. His heart sank, would he have to go down chute? Why had they climbed all the way up here if they were going to just go down an exhaust shoot? Why couldn’t they have just gone down the ladder, he thought. But he kept close to Kara, trusting her to get them out of the Fleet HQ building.
Kara reached the exhaust fan and raised her hand, holding a flexi. She pressed something on it and suddenly the unit shimmered and in its place was a sleek hovercar.
Daku froze, staring at the hovercar.
Camouflage tech was rare, and this is the second time she’d used it today. He flicked his eyes to her, once again thinking about all the things she hadn’t told him. All the secrets she still held. Was she here to help him? But what other choice did he have now? His escape would have been discovered by now. He glanced over his shoulder, going back wasn’t a choice anymore. He had to believe that Kara was here to help him, and not use him.
He looked back as the doors slid back remotely, showing the interior of the two-person hovercar. He knew this model was fast and manoeuvrable, he’d flown similar ones in the past. Kara frowned, scanning the area, then ushered him forward, before climbing behind the controls. The doors clicked shut, and the restraints slid out, crossing over his chest and securing Kara and him into their seats. She flicked the ignition on, and overriding the autopilot, took off, keeping low to the rooftop.
With deft skill, she zipped along the roof, coming perilously close to piloting straight into the barrier encircling the edge of the rooftop. But at the last second, she pulled up and then dropped them down over the edge of the building. His stomach lurched at the rapid descent and he gripped the armrest on the door.
The Jade Fleet HQ loomed large to their left. The tall, bulky metal and glass building stood separate from the other buildings in New Mornag on an artificially created island built in the large lake surrounding the city. A wide parkway surrounded the headquarters at ground level providing a buffer from any vehicles that might approach with aggression. Kara banked their hovercar to the right and increased their speed. As they zoomed away from it, blending into the steady flow of traffic, Daku swept the area, looking for pursuing vehicles. He was still waiting for the proverbial axe to fall, cutting off this mad prison break.
In front of them, the organic buildings of New Mornag beckoned as they rapidly approached. This was the architecture he grew up knowing. Many of the skyscrapers were built around and within the towering Marranan trees. The ancient behemoth trees had branches wider than a four-lane hoverway, rose several hundred metres tall, and the trunks could cover an entire city block. City construction was a never-ending job here, as buildings and homes were modified to adapt to the gradual growth of the Marranan trees. The entire city blended harmoniously together, reflecting the pinkish-grey colour of the trunks and limbs of the trees, and the dark green water of the far-reaching lake that lapped at the roots of the trees. A few brighter splashes of colour could be spotted between the trees, invariably on metal and plasti-glass structures.
The original settlers had realised that they could carve rooms and houses from inside the living trees, and they would still grow. The more that people lived inside the trees and interacted with them, the stronger the trees grew. Thus, a symbiotic relationship had developed between the people of New Mornag and the Marranan trees. His mother was a skilled architect, specialising in Marranan guidance construction, the art of gently coaxing the trees to grow in such a way to optimise the internal use of living space. He’d spent many evenings listening to her stories about work.
Kara sped under the massive branches, and brushed past the outer limbs, making the slender, red-tinged leaves flutter as they passed. Daku checked their location, recognising the local branch of the Catera Central bank to their left, a shopping centre on the right, and the main office of Gaklun Industries next to it.
“We’re heading for the spaceport, aren’t we?” Daku asked, but he was certain he was right.
Kara briefly glanced at him, before simply nodding in reply.
“Do I get some answers now? Because back in that cell you said my life was in danger.” Daku turned towards her as much as the safety restraints allowed him to. “Did you say that just to get me to cooperate?”
“I wish I could tell you that,” Kara said, faintly sighing. “But I can’t. There have been unforeseen consequences from our actions when we rescued the people from Geejo.”
He sucked in his breath and stared at her. “What’s happened?”
She shot him another look and opened her mouth about to reply, but then tilted her head slightly to the side. Her gaze went distant for a mere second, then she closed her mouth and shook her head. “She will tell you soon enough.”