Empress Game: The Empress Game Trilogy Book 1 (37 page)

::We will go. Wait here.:: She and Luliana left before Hekkar would stop them. Kayla could tell he was pissed.

Seconds passed. Twenty. Thirty. Surely they should be there by now. Hekkar started forward when feet could be heard scrambling against the floor.

::It’s safe:: Tia’tan called.

Kayla rushed after him up the stairs. Two guards in Dolan’s lavender uniforms were pinned to the wall by unseen hands, red-faced, with bulging eyes.

::Should we strangle them unconscious?::

“That’s too inexact for my tastes. One of them might die.”

Tia’tan shrugged as if to say, “so?”

Hekkar stunned the immobile guards and the Ilmenans let the bodies drop. Kayla helped Hekkar bind and gag them after stripping their comm units, lithodisc creds and weapons.

“We’re at the lab,” Rigger said. “Breaching door security now.”

“Noted,” Hekkar replied. They climbed the rest of the floors uninterrupted and paused outside the door to the hallway that ran parallel to the prisoners’ ward. He slipped the door open, inserting a tiny mirror in the crack to peer down the hallway.

“Nothing, come on.”

The short hallway ended on both sides in solid quadtanium doors. She’d seen less secure hatches on spaceships. According to the schematic a chamber lay beyond each that would hold them until the doors shut. The inner door would release if the right code was entered, but the inner and outer doors could not be open at the same time.

Beyond that waited Vayne.

Kayla started toward the one on the left.

“Luliana, go with her. Tia’tan, you’re with me,” Hekkar said. “We’ll breach at the same time and take the security out from both sides.” Kayla was surprised when Luliana followed the order, but apparently the Ilmenans understood the wisdom of having a psionic at each entrance.

Kayla had her hand on the outer door before Luliana caught up. “Let’s see if Rigger’s as good as I think she is.” The latch released with a hiss of pressure locks disengaging.

Luliana followed her into the nine meter square chamber, sealed on the other end by an identical door. Kayla waited impatiently for the portal to swing shut and across the length of the hallway Tia’tan and Hekkar did the same.

The door shut with a vacuum-sucking sound and the interior lights of the chamber came on. A soothing female voice prompted them to enter the security code and Kayla’s breath lodged in her throat—her mother’s voice. She withdrew the scrambler device from her pack with shaking hands. Luliana had to take the scrambler from her and affix it properly to the palm scanner–keypad device when her mother prompted them again to enter the code.

“The scrambler’s working through algorithms on our side.” Hekkar’s voice pulled her out of it, grounding her in the here and now.

“Same,” Kayla commed back. The scrambler flashed a digital light show as it ran through possible unlocking sequences. The interfacing lasted a minute. Two. Three.

“How long does this take, Hekkar?”

His voice came back worried. “Should have found the code by now.”

::Let me see.:: Luliana pried the faceplate off of the keypad, pulled a case of instruments from her pack and selected a diode modulator. The circuitry beneath the plate flashed green-blue as data zipped back and forth. Luliana manipulated first one pathway node, then another, realigning the current flow.

Kayla glared at the door. Her family waited on the other side. Her twin. If she had to beat the door down with her bare hands, she would do it. She reached out and touched the quadtanium surface, splayed her fingers against the cool metal. This close. Eighteen centimeters of quadtanium were all that separated her from Vayne, now, after all this time.

Luliana spoke into the comm. “I’ve got the code entered and Tia’s got it on your side. Give the go and we’ll pop the locks at the same time.”

“Rigger—we’re about to make entry, things are likely to get hot. Status on the data upload?”

“Slow, but making progress.”

“Okay. Get ready to bug when I give the word,” Hekkar said.

“Got it. And good luck. Rigger out.”

“Kayla?” Hekkar asked.

“I’m good,” she said, drawing her ion pistol. “Let’s do this.”

Luliana flipped the workaround she’d rigged and the pressure locks on the nearside door released. She and Kayla flattened themselves against the wall, letting any guards announce their presence with a blaster shot before they offered themselves up as targets. When nothing happened, Kayla crept forward in a crouch.

The corridor she entered was nothing like what she’d imagined.

Instead of stark and sterile it was painted a muted coffee color with dark and light accents. The floor was carpeted in a soft synthfiber of contrasting cream, and sconces every few meters gave the walls a warm glow.

Kayla padded forward, wary of an ambush. Three steps past the door and a glance to the left showed her that while the ward might have been decorated like a hotel, it was most certainly a gilded cage. A hallway led off that way, and looked to contain a series of apartments… apartments with glass fronts and electrically charged doors. She started down the hallway.

The first apartment stood empty. Glass lined the front of the living room and revealed a sofa, complete with spotless matching pillows and end tables, a bookshelf with nothing on it and vases with no flowers. Nothing inside marked this as a place where someone had lived for five years. Maybe someone
had
lived here, only they hadn’t made it five years.

A chill spread over Kayla’s skin and she picked up the pace. “Any sign of guards?” she whispered into her comm.

“None from here,” Hekkar replied. “We’re fanning out down a secondary hallway.”

“Same.”

She passed a second empty apartment, decorated differently than the first but equally as abandoned. Light shone from the apartment just ahead, painting the cream carpet golden yellow.

Kayla halted.

“We found one here,” Hekkar said, tense excitement coming through the comm.

“Who?” She couldn’t breathe past the hope in her chest.

“Natali. She doesn’t look well.”

Thank the stars, her older sister was alive.

Luliana tapped her shoulder to get her attention. ::You investigate this one, I’m going on ahead to scout the guards.::

Luliana walked right past the front of the lit apartment as if Kayla’s life didn’t wait inside. Kayla forced one foot to move, then the other. She crept forward, slipping into the pool of light as if it would burn her. She froze when she reached the middle of the glass wall.

She saw him in profile.

He sat at a high, elegantly structured table, a fork held absently in one hand while he read from a datapad held in the other. A half-full wineglass was just within reach and a curl of steam escaped from his dinner server. The top half of his cobalt hair was pulled into a stubby ponytail at the back of his head. The rest was down and looked to be about jaw-length, but it was tough to tell with the slight wave it had. His pale skin made his lips look more violet than red, and they moved as he read from the datapad.

Her soul realigned. Every last fragment shifted and found a new configuration.

Vayne lived.

She wanted to bang on the glass to get his attention. Couldn’t he feel her standing here? His presence called to her so strongly she thought her atoms would stream through the glass to reach him.

Sweet Mother, he’s alive
.

She ran for the door and fumbled with the control to deactivate the electric bars. All the while she kept one eye on Vayne, afraid that if she looked away for even a nanosecond he would disappear. The bars dissolved and the door split open. She pushed the glass aside when it didn’t slide fast enough for her. Five years he’d been taken from her. Five long years.

A trillion thoughts and emotions ran through her in a hyperstream but all she could get out was, “Vayne.”

Nothing happened.

Had Dolan damaged his hearing? She stopped short, a strange awkwardness creeping in.

“Vayne?”

He sighed and set the datapad down on the table with a snap. He finally turned his attention to her, looking her over from head to toe with an annoyed expression.

“This again?” He lifted his chin and pitched his voice as if talking to the ceiling. “Haven’t you hit this note enough lately?”

He reached for his wineglass and spoke to the ceiling again as if she wasn’t there. “I know you have a hard-on for my sister, but really, what’s with that suit? She looks ridiculous.” He took a sip of his wine, his posture saying, “I couldn’t care less,” but his aqua eyes told another story. Harrowed. Piercing. “I’m in the middle of dinner, so maybe you could save your mind-frutting until after dessert, hmm?” He turned back to his meal.

What the frutt? He thought she was one of Dolan’s mind-games? She stared at the cold turn of his shoulder, more muscled than she’d remembered. What had Dolan done to him that he wouldn’t trust his
ro’haar
?

“It’s really me, Vayne. I came to free you.”

He lifted the datapad again and resumed reading.

“We have to get moving. Now.”

Her words had no effect.

Damnit. They didn’t have time for this. She reached for his arm. “Vayne—”

He jerked back like she meant to cut him. “Don’t touch me.” His voice snapped like a whip and his furious stare pinned her in place. “You are
not
my twin. You might look like her and sound like her, but you are
not
her.” He raked her with his gaze. “I don’t know what void Dolan brought you from to play ‘Kayla’ for me, but you had better run your ass back there this instant, or I swear I will rip her face from yours.”

::Found two guards in an office midway between the corridors. I need help with them:: Luliana said in her head.

Hekkar’s voice sounded low in her ear. “We found Ghirhad, and two other empty rooms. Luliana, I’m coming to you, do not engage the guards yet.”

Kayla grabbed Vayne’s arm. “Come on.”

He twisted free of her grasp as he shot to his feet. His chair screeched across the floor behind him and toppled.

“I warned you not to touch me.” He squared his shoulders to her, stepping toe to toe and staring slightly up at her with blazing aqua eyes. His body was thicker than she remembered, padded with muscle he’d never had before.

“Kayla, what’s happening down there? The guards are up,” Hekkar said.

“I am your
ro’haar
,” she said vehemently to Vayne, “and I am doing this for your safety so you will come with me
now.
” Once, the words would have resulted in instant acquiescence.

Instead they raised a low growl in his throat. It was pain and rage and hatred in one sound. He struck before she could react, shoving her away from him so hard she rebounded off the glass front of the apartment.

Alarms went crazy.

“Kayla, report!” Hekkar said.

Pistol fire sounded down the corridor.

That stopped Vayne short. “Well, this is new.” Another ion discharge seared the air and someone screamed. He half-smiled. “At least you brought something fresh to the table.”

Kayla whipped out the hand-tranqer. “Don’t make me stun you and carry your ass out of here like I did at the Gorgent fiasco,” she said over the alarms, “because you know I’ll do it.”

The air left his lungs in a rush as if she had kicked him in the gut. “Kayla?” He stared at her, seeming to see her for the first time.

“It’s me.” Relief flooded her system but it was short-lived, cut down when another blast sounded in the hall. “We have to get out of here.”

“Luliana’s been hit,” Hekkar commed her. “We neutralized the guards but they managed to call for backup. Do you read me, Kayla?”

“I hear you.”

“We’ve rescued two Ordochians, that’s all we could find. I’m calling this mission, everyone to the exit, now.”

Rigger commed in. “We’re not quite done.”

“Now, Rigger. That’s an order.”

“I’ve got Vayne,” Kayla said, “we’ll meet you in the stairwell.” Only three Ordochians rescued, out of seven. She wanted to rush down the hallways and check each apartment herself, just in case he’d missed someone.

“Do you need to bring anything with you?” she asked Vayne. He looked at her like she was out of her mind. Or a phantom. Maybe both. “Come on.” She was almost through the door when his hand gripped her shoulder and yanked her backward.

“What the—” The hairs loose from her ponytail rose up and brushed her face a nanosecond before blue-green bolts of energy shot from the doorframe and connected with the floor, locking her in. Her comm link went dead.

“Trust me,” Vayne said, “you don’t want to touch those.”

“Hekkar!” She banged the butt-end of her hand-tranqer against the glass, trying to make as much noise as possible. “We need help!” Thirty seconds of that with no response convinced her it was too late. The others had either been captured or escaped out the prison wing through the quadtanium doors, putting them beyond earshot.

“Get back.” She grabbed her ion pistol and fired at the glass wall. The discharge dissipated across the surface harmlessly.

Fear bloomed as the reality of the situation crystallized. Trapped. In one of Dolan’s prison cells. She turned to Vayne. “Do you have any ideas?”

“If I did, do you think I’d still be standing here?”

“Psi powers?”

He shook his head. “Dolan keeps us dosed so we can’t access them. Besides, he harvested mine too recently. Try yours.”

“Mine are dead.” Like she would be if she got trapped here. Dead or worse.

The alarms cut out. The sudden silence unnerved her. It was as if the empty hallways waited for something.

“I truly hope that is not the case, my dear.”

Dolan.

His voice piped in through the room’s comm system. “In fact, I’m counting on it.”

Her tongue felt fuzzy. Fuzzy and swollen. Her mouth was… humming. Buzzing. She swallowed, tasting something sweet in the back of her throat.

“What—”

Vayne seemed to be fading away, or maybe she was fading away. The room stretched out away from her. She heard Vayne from a distance of light-years.

“You should lie down.”