She could be any one of the crew of his ship, which he had seen when they’d flown in. It was still docked where he’d left it.
His crew would be an easy call away, as long as short range comms were still operational. He would have a whole group of allies as soon as they got above deck.
“Ready.” Fiona opened up and he followed her out onto the small docking arm.
It was cold under the way station, out of the sun’s light, and the air they breathed puffed out in clouds of white.
A neat staircase had been fitted at the end of the dock, and he followed Fiona as she wound her way upward.
The door at the top opened into what looked like a storage area, and when the door behind them closed, Hal turned to find it looked like part of the wall.
When Fiona opened the door in front of her, he saw they were in a neat warehouse.
“Eazi’s workshop,” she explained. “This is where he tinkers.”
Hal hadn’t known Eazi liked tinkering, but he could see this was seriously well equipped. His chief engineer, Yiko, would be in her element in here.
Fiona stood for a moment, studying their surroundings, and then slowly began to walk along the many tables set parallel to each other, looking for something.
“Eazi, can you hear me? Paxe?” She stopped again, and then moved on. She occasionally bent down to look under the tables, which each had a long shelf below them for storage.
Something caught her eye under one of them because she crouched down, and when she straightened up she was holding atransparent crystal object that was slightly longer than her hand and about as wide as her palm.
It was cut into facets along the edges at interesting angles. She studied it with a look on her face he couldn’t interpret.
“What is it?”
“A replica of the award I received for an architectural design I did back in my university days.” She turned it over in her hands.
“You told Eazi about it?”
She nodded. “I don’t know why he recreated it, though.”
Hal knew.
He could see on Fiona’s face how lost she suddenly felt. He’d seen that look before when they’d touched on something to do with her old life. A mention of her family, or her friends. The life she used to have before the Tecran stole it away.
Eazi was trying to give her a tiny piece of that old life back, and an acknowledgement of her accomplishments was a very thoughtful way to do that.
He had been standing in the middle of the warehouse, watching her search, and he took a step toward her just as the main doors were flung open.
A tight group of four, armed and in dark clothing with masks over their faces, stepped inside, shockguns raised.
Hal raised his own, but it was almost instantly jerked out of his hand and he finally noticed one of the four was holding a type of whip. They had disarmed him so neatly, he was almost more impressed than angry.
“Vakeri.” One of the group stepped out of formation, shockgun pointed at Hal’s head. He continued to hold the weapon on Hal, but turned his gaze to Fiona. “Fiona Russell. Nice disguise.”
In the unlit gloom of the warehouse, in her Grihan disguise, Fiona did not look like Fiona Russell, manager of Larga Ways. So these people had some inside information.
“And well, well, well. She’s holding what we’re here for.” The man who spoke jerked his shockgun toward Fiona and one of the group approached her, hand out for the trophy in her hands.
She shook her head and hugged it to her body. “No.”
“I will shoot Vakeri in the head. He will die.” The man raised his shockgun a little higher. “Hand it over.”
Fiona slowly extended the trophy, and the woman who’d approached her snatched it out of her hand and then jogged back.
Fiona followed after her—both hands up to show she was unarmed—moving closer to Hal.
