Deviation (9 page)

"Well, remind him how serious we are."

"Yes, Captain." Jellison took aim out the window and fired three times.

From the corner of his eye Hedric saw Zimmerman jump at each shot but at least she didn't scream. There was a loud pop from behind them and the police vehicle dropped at the left, sparks flying as the front tire exploded and the rim met with pebbled road. It came to an abrupt stop, half sliding the few final feet. Hedric let go of a breath and turned in the seat. Zimmerman looked like she was about to hyperventilate, which could have been bad but they were nearing the ship.

The road made a quick progression from pebble to dirt, dust swirling in the wake of their speeding car, curling through the crowd of coastal trees that closed in on them. At first glance it might have been exactly like the Earth he was used to. Only when they'd got out onto the main road, when he'd seen the boxy towers of society, had he known his suspicions were correct. His mother really had sent them into the 21st century. This raised more questions than he had time to deal with, most of them dealing with the half-crazed, shaky woman in the driver's seat.

"Turn right," the GPS instructed.

This time Zimmerman was paying attention and made the turn. There was a considerable dip in the road so she had to slow down, following the switchback down to the private and heavily wooded cove where the Lothogy was hiding. He cringed when he saw the ship. Their misadventures through the ocean had done a good deal more damage than he'd expected. If he was being charitable, then Keats had done a fair job of patching it together. Still, the normal cobalt sheen seemed dull in the shaded lighting and there were splotches of brackish green in several places.

Zimmerman stopped the car.

"Load up," Hedric said, climbing out.

Jellison and Freeman followed him, Freeman taking care to pull Mesa from the car as well. His wife had passed out at some point in the chase because her eyes were closed, face pasty and pale as Freeman gingerly handled her body. He watched as she was carried to the ship, too focused on the unhealthy dangle of her limbs to really notice the astonished look on Keats' face as the engineer made his way to him.

"Who was that?" Keats frowned back at the ship.

"That was Mesa," Hedric pulled his attention back to the engineer. "Tell me about the Lothogy."

"But that's impossible," Keats continued to stare past him.

Hedric snapped once in front of the man's face, "The Lothogy."

For a moment Keats scowled at him, obviously debating taking up another fight. His better sense seemed to win out because he made a violent gesture at the ship and began his assessment. "I've patched her up. She should hold but I wouldn't go taking her out of the atmosphere until I've had a real chance to fix her."

"What about another dive?"

Keats paused, "Another dive?"

"Same way we came."

"Impossible. Suicidal, even."

"That's what you said the first go around," Hedric said dryly.

"We can't. We nearly died just getting here."

"We don't have a choice, Keats."

Distant sirens filtered through their conversation and Hedric turned. If they had any luck at all then the police would pass the little road that led to their hiding place. Even if they did, it wouldn't be long before they doubled back and found them again. Time was almost out, he could sense it.

"And who is this?" Keats asked.

Hedric glanced at Zimmerman as she shakily pulled herself from the car. The appearance of his wife and the resulting fight in the apartment had distracted him enough that Hedric hadn't noticed what the girl was wearing. But with the sun slanting down on her, shimmering bright blonde hair at him, she came into full focus. She was wearing very little, all things considered. Her khaki shorts stopped high up on the thigh, giving them an open view of her long, well-made legs. Her thin-strapped blue tank top left little to the imagination as well and he had to quell a spurt of disgusted agitation.

"Caresse Zimmerman," Hedric answered. "The woman we were sent to find."

"My god," Keats continued to stare. "Look at her."

"I see more of her than I'd care to, actually," he gestured toward the Lothogy. "Get her on board. And find her one of Mesa's robes."

"Where have you taken Kate?" She asked.

Hedric opted to let the name slide. "The same place we're taking you."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Zimmerman said, half clinging to the car door.

The sirens sounded again, closer this time. Glancing up at the top of the road, he caught the sight of the first police vehicle making the switchback turn down to their cove. Cursing, he made his way around the car, intent on carrying the woman into the ship. Keats stepped out of his way, watching the scene with growing curiosity. Zimmerman's hand whipped up when he reached her, a small, cylindrical object in her hand. Sensing the danger a moment too late, he ducked as she sprayed something at him. Choking, stinging, eye-swelling pain assaulted the left side of his face.

He swiped a hand at her wrist but missed, his vision blurring with the chemical burn. Through his watery, hindered eyesight he spotted her running away from the car and toward the ship. Somewhere in the back of his mind he commended her for going to get her friend but wondered what she intended to do when she confronted Freeman or Jellison. Huffing a half amused, half rueful laugh, he turned back to Keats, who was staring after Zimmerman with the same mix of humor.

"What the hell was that?" Myron called, running up from the beach.

He couldn't see out of his left eye but he didn't miss the fact that the pilot hadn't been on board the ship. The sirens grew louder as the vehicles approached and they all turned for the Lothogy.

"Something chemical," Hedric said as they ran. It hurt like hell and put him off balance, but he had a notion of what it was. "Likely pepper spray."

"If you're lucky," Keats shouted above the whine of alarms.

His feet hit the metal gang plank leading onto the ship. Jellison was already at the doors, holding a fussy Zimmerman's wrist as she struggled to pull away from him. Well, he thought, it didn't matter how she'd gotten on board, just that she was there. Keats slid through the door and tore off for the engine room, seeming to sense the need for expedience. Myron half-leapt up the ladder leading to the metal-meshed walkway, headed for the cockpit just as Jellison shut the heavy metal door, sealing them all in.

Zimmerman gasped and redoubled her assault, catching Jellison in the shin. The soldier grunted but ignored her. "Where should I put this one?"

"With Mesa," Hedric tenderly touched the skin under his left eye, hissing in pain. "And get them both robes."

"Let us go!" Zimmerman protested, slapping Jellison full on the face. It surprised him enough that his grip loosened. Then, out of mingled irritation and exasperation, Jellison slapped her back. Or, well, it was more of a cuff, really. But it had the desired effect. Zimmerman toppled to the side, dazed enough that Jellison could lift her and carry her off.

Hedric watched them go, felt the Lothogy begin to move and heard the distinct pang of bullets against his ship before he hurried to the cockpit. The blur of the chemical still made it hard to see but he was at least capable of functioning. The orders on the MEDS screen were to head back, following nearly the same trajectory that had brought them here in the first place. Myron didn't complain this time, didn't even seem to care about the police shooting at them in their escape and didn't curse - which was odd. Hedric glanced at his pilot.

Myron's mouth was in a tense line and his face was paler than Hedric had ever seen it.

"Myron?"

"It'll keep, Captain." The pilot met his eyes for a moment. "At least until we reach the other side."

Hedric nodded, slowly, and felt the ship make the dive under the water.

"General Archibald Reed, current Head of Makeem Loyalists, announced Sunday that liberal Christian Fundamentalists were a dying breed. Proclaiming that Christian tolerance and tradition were to blame for the near extinction of the human race, Reed went on to urge all females to hide their shame. In congregations across the globe, women were provided with dark, head to foot robes concealing everything from view. The action was met with a surprisingly small amount of resistance; the G.A. - Genetically Altered Females - seemed to welcome the new rule."
A.P. July 14, 2209

The dead pilot's name was Blake Knox. Twenty-nine years of age, father of eight-year-old Andrew Blake Knox and husband to Cadena Knox. Matthew read through the information on his handheld computer as he made his way to the funeral procession. He didn't really need it; he knew all of this information. At an early age, Matthew had taken to training with the men in his father's security force. No one in the family had ever really understood his fascination with the Field Arcs, but since he was the youngest son they'd allowed him to do it. And then David, his brother, had chosen to make science his main focus. At first, Matt had been afraid that his father would forbid him from working with the security force after that. He was, after all, suddenly being groomed to take over the company. But Jason Borden must have seen something of value in the rigid program and allowed Matt to remain.

He still trained with the Fomorri, which was how he came to know the intimate details of Blake Knox's life. Though he'd never met with any of his men socially - that would be tantamount to calling them equals and earn him the ire of every businessman in the galaxy - Matt gleaned enough of this sort of information in the training yard.

Striding through the grand, open central bay of the Balor, he finally lowered the handheld computer. Even with the subdued atmosphere of mourners crowding the space there was a sense of richness, of vitality in the sharp red velvet tapestries that hung from its vacuous ceiling. It was written in the matching red carpet that made a wide circle on the floor, complementing the metallic nature of the ship rather than trying to hide it.

Matt thought it was an inappropriate thing to notice given the gravity of the situation and focused his attention on the surviving members of his team. They each had exhaustion hanging off of them, their shoulders slumping in that mix of physical pain and emotional grief. He took a moment to compose himself before he approached them, shoving aside business politics and the financial costs of Knox's death, and wondered how long it had been since he'd felt a loss.

Not merely the loss of money, he thought.

In all his life, Matt couldn't remember feeling anything as acutely as his men did at that moment. His five most trusted, his five remaining elite, wore identical expressions of a sorrow so deep that none could find the voice to speak it. Similar in size and build, they could only be distinguished from each other by their faces. The rigors of space flight inside the Fomorri vessels required that each man be lithe and trim, capable of sitting in the smaller fighter ships without being squashed by the controls. When they were in uniform, as they were now, it was even more difficult to tell one from the other.

Chamberlain, Fom 1, was perhaps the easiest to spot at a distance. Dark red hair shined in the halogen lights of the room, resembling a bloody sort of smudge that contrasted the white of his uniform. He had a flat sort of face that hinted to a bit of Asian ancestry, but oval rather than rounded, and wide-set eyes that flickered a bit when the man caught sight of him.

The Fomorri soldiers had only just arrived an hour before the funeral was to take place, and Matt had to forcibly ignore the fact that David was in the back of the crowd somewhere.

The other members of his elite spotted him a moment later, their shoulders squaring in rigid adherence to protocol as he passed them. The stark white of their uniforms was offset by straight, red lines that ran the length of their pants, signifying rank and position. Stiff red buttons on the front of their dress jackets gleamed under the lighting, and he could see the shine of polish on their black boots. The Fomorri were inspiring, to say the least. A small part of him wished he could simply be a soldier, and not the head of a multi-billion dollar company.

He moved to the seat beside Finnegan, ignoring the fact that the entire room seemed to focus on him. This wasn't the first funeral Matt had been forced to host, and he highly doubted it would be his last.

Harry Romberg, known as Fom 2, had replaced Jeremiah Brown two years prior. Danny Newbill, Fom 3, took Lorence Maldanado's place six years ago after a tragic accident on Mars. Finnegan, Fom 4, was actually an original member of the Fomorri. He and Chamberlain had been the only two to escape mishap since Matt had formed the group. And Jacob Pitts was the newest member of the team, with a scant seven months under the title of Fom 5.

An agitated silence roved through the crowd as the halogens dimmed and they were told to take their seats. Matt spotted the widow just to the left of the stage. Her long, black robes hid almost all traces of the woman beneath, but he knew who she was anyway. The little boy beside her stared hard at the holographic image of his father as it appeared on the stage, trying to look brave but only succeeding in looking small and frail.

For a moment, Matt couldn't do more than watch young Andrew Blake Knox. The similarities between father and son were evident - smooth, easy features that promised he would be a handsome man when he passed adolescence. Blonde hair, combed down for the occasion, a slightly pert nose that could almost be called feminine. The turbulence in the boy's face touched something inside Matt. It was like an echo, an image of his own past come to vivid life. Twenty-six years ago, he'd been that boy, standing brave and unrelenting while his father's final words were given to the assembly.

Had it really been that long?

"There's no real great way to start a funeral," Blake Knox's voice came out sounding metallic and hallow, and the hologram on stage made an attempt at a smile. "I thought about trying a joke to open, but it didn't feel right. I've been to enough funerals myself to know that it wouldn't help any of you. So I'm just going to keep this simple."