Fee steppedinto the corridor just as the strangest sound vibrated through the base.
She froze, then ran toward the stairwell and down to the storage level.
She opened the door cautiously, to find chaos.
It took her a few moments to work out what she was looking at.
One of the cables the runners had brought down to fix to the frame had been dropped from on high and fallen through the open lift, crushing supplies. Two Balcoans lay tangled up in the massive pile, clearly dead.
From the view she had of the area above, she could just make out part of another cable draped over the side of the amphitheater and disappearing at the top.
It looked as if the Garmman had cut the massive cables loose from their battleship and let them fall to the desert floor. All the way from nearspace.
A noise behind her had her turning, and suddenly a hand grabbed her throat and hauled her back against a hard chest.
The hum of a shockgun pressed against her temple.
“Now how did you get out of your cell?” The man yanked her back into the stairwell and shoved her up the stairs.
Fee glanced over her shoulder, but she hadn’t seen him before.
“Fiona Russell. I don’t know why I thought you’d be taller, but you’re just the same height as us.” The Balcoan indicated she keep climbing.
“My planet is a similar size and therefore has a similar gravitational pull as yours.” She noticed the Balcoans always reacted with discomfort to that fact. It made it hard for them to see her as other.
“Bart, bring Pallo and come grab your prisoner. She escaped.”
Fee glanced around as he spoke, and saw he was talking into a small comms unit attached to his lapel.
“We didn’t have time for your nonsense before, but now we definitely don’t have time for it.” He stopped a step down from her when they reached the top. “Open the door.”
Before she could, it was opened for her, and Bart and Pallo stood, breathing hard, on the other side.
“How did you get out?” Bart asked, pulling her into the passage.
“I stuck something in the lock mechanism while you two were unconscious. Just in case I had a chance to escape later.” She shrugged. “You’d do the same in my place.”
Bart’s eyes widened at that.
“Put her in a room with lens feed. Not—” The man stood in the stairwell entrance, but didn’t step into the passage. He glanced at Fee and his mouth formed a thin line. “Not with the other one. Under no circumstances. Do it fast and then come back to help. Now, fuck off, I’ve got shit to do.”
He slammed the door and she heard the ring of his footsteps down the stairs.
“There isn’t another room with lens feed if we can’t . . .” Pallo shot Fee a quick look. “If that’s out, there’s nowhere else, since the holding room lens was ripped out of the wall.” Pallo glared at the closed door, and Fee thought she could see actual dislike on his face.
“What about the conference room?” Bart said. “That has one.”
“Hard to secure,” Pallo said.
Bart shrugged. “Kilmar is the boss, and we were just given a direct order.”
They were obviously very over whatever was going on here, Fee was happy to see. Bring on the malicious compliance.
She also wondered what was in the other room they were carefully not talking about. And wondered who was ‘the other one’.
She wondered if it was the medbay Vira was so concerned about earlier, and who could be in there.
“What’s going on?” The voice coming from Bart’s comms unit, which he wore like a watch, was Vira’s, and it was beyond irritated.
