When he turned back to look at her, she had taken a few steps down as well, and they were nose to nose.
She took advantage and kissed his forehead. Smiled at him.
He pulled her close, and kissed her deeply, and she felt the tension in his shoulders.
“He grabbed you and ran,” he said when he finally pulled back.
“Like he knew where I was,” she agreed.
“He obviously had access to his friend’s lens feed, because when I managed to subdue the other one who came through with him, I saw one of the two I’d tied up had come to and had angledhimself so that he could see us. I think they have a similar lens feed system between them as you do with Eazi.”
That explained how he seemed to know exactly where she was.
She walked down the last few steps into the tunnel and eyed the light fittings.
“It’s not just that it’s a tunnel that reminds me of the Tecran facility. These are the same lights.” She crouched beside one, as they were all set at knee level. “Back me up here, Eazi. Aren’t they identical?”
“Let me retrieve that footage—” Eazi stopped. “They are identical.”
She twisted her head to look over at Hal, who was frowning at the lights. “Whoever built this tunnel, built the one near Kyber’s Arm.”
“Oh, things begin to make a lot more sense,” Eazi said quietly.
“This is . . .” Hal shook his head. “We thought the Tecran had carried all the building materials to Kyber’s Arm themselves and built the facility. But of course it would have been a lot easier for them to have bought everything they needed from the Balcoans.”
“Maybe they even had some Balcoans to help build the facility. After all, they couldn’t always use a Class 5 like Eazi to come and go without someone noticing.” In fact, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t considered that before.
Too much going on, she realized. The Tecrans had been ramping up the aggression when Eazi had destroyed the facility, and then Paxe had attacked Larga Ways and she and Eazi had saved it.
The questions about who had helped the Tecran build their secret Balcoan base had not even been a consideration.
“Whoever helped the Tecran conveniently didn’t tell Baruke or anyone else in authority,” Fiona said.
“No.” Hal began to walk down the tunnel. “Unless whoever helped them wasinauthority.”
Fee winced as she caught up with him. “That won’t go down well.”
He grunted in response, because that was an understatement, to say the least.
“So what do you bet the head of that manufacturing association, Halarian Bost, is behind all this?” Fee asked.
Hal glanced at her in the gloom and shook his head. “No bet.”
She flashed him a grin, but before she could say anything, he was suddenly focused down the tunnel, and his shockgun was raised.
There was a staircase ahead, leading upward, and Fee reckoned they’d maybe walked across the back of the block the warehouse was on, to the street beyond.
She would not be at all surprised if they came up inside the building where they’d parked the hover.
She knew something was weird about it.
They climbed the stairs together. The entrance above was closed, but there was a button on the side, just like there had been on the other end, and Hal pushed it.
Fiona took a step up and stood above him.
There wasn’t a sound from above and she ran up the stairs lightly and stood at the top, looking around.
The office she was standing in was dark.
