Losing Mars (Saving Mars Series-3) (30 page)

Pavel raced along the corridor behind a hover-gurney. Jessamyn’s coloring appeared appropriately sickly, in keeping with her supposed condition. Bonhoeffer was shouting for nursing personnel as Pavel guided the gurney toward the new room, which sat beside the exit to the parking spaces of the hospital’s twelfth-floor elite surgeons.

Pavel heard heated words exchanged between the guards and the Head of Consciousness Transfer.

Turning, Pavel shouted at the guards. “You can’t come back here. Do you know how important this patient is? You cannot be allowed to contaminate the room! Stay back!”

But the guards pushed forward. “We’re under orders from Major Wu to keep the prisoner in visual range.”

Pavel’s stomach dropped as he heard Wu’s name. Now more than ever, he had to keep it together. He, Bonhoeffer, and Jess weren’t going to make it to the exit this go-round. What could they do instead? Words tumbled from his mouth.

“Visual range?” Pavel demanded. “You can’t possibly be serious. We can’t risk microbial contaminants—”

Bonhoeffer cut Pavel short. “The surgery has a decontamination chamber,” he said to the guards. “Inside, both of you! Immediately! I will not operate with you in the room under any other conditions.
Do you understand?
”

As the guards appeared to debate the doctor’s demands, Pavel added, “It’s your heads will roll if we lose the patient, not ours.” He added a small shrug.

“Nurse!” called Bonhoeffer, “assist the guards with a level seven decontamination
at once!
”

A nurse came running around the corner and into the room. “Gentlemen, in here, one at a time.”

“No,” cried Bonhoeffer. “Together. There’s no time to waste.”

The guards filed inside the decon room. As the nurse assisted with the guards, Pavel slid a dermal patch onto her wrist. She dropped to the ground just as another nurse entered.

“Nurse!” called Pavel to the second nurse. “See what’s wrong with your colleague!”

As the second nurse knelt, Bonhoeffer administered an injection to her, and she promptly fell alongside the first nurse.

“Secure that decon door,” Bonhoeffer ordered Pavel.

“Already done.” The guards inside met his eyes with fiercely blazing anger. They pounded upon the chamber door, but it held.

Pavel’s eyes ran across the room, landing on a small cylinder of gas, which he grabbed. He jammed the gas nozzle into a port beside the decon door. Both guards slumped forward, asleep within seconds.

Pavel helped Jess off the gurney.

“Come on,” Pavel said, turning to Bonhoeffer.

Bonhoeffer swung the surgery door open and the three emerged into the corridor, the exit door once more in their sights.

A voice rang out from behind them.

“Halt!”

Bonhoeffer pushed Jess and Pavel forward as a single shot rang out. Bonhoeffer crumpled, his body keeping the door out to the parking pad opened.

“For the transport,” Pavel said, handing a plastic strip to Jess.

~ ~ ~

Jess grasped the strip automatically. Beside her she heard Pavel cry out, “Zussman?” as if he recognized someone.

Jess knew the name. Zussman was Lucca’s butler.

The guards shouted once more for the remaining pair to halt. Jessamyn reached for Pavel, to pull him alongside her, but he was already running toward the three men pursuing them.

“Halt or we open fire,” called one of the red-armored guards.

Jess located Bonhoeffer’s Atlas-class flyer.

Zussman, holding his arms wide to either side, stepped slowly forward into the space between Pavel and the guards.

“It would be advisable to do as they request,” said the plainly dressed butler.

“Or what, Zuss? They shoot you? They shoot me? They shoot her?” Pavel kept himself between Jessamyn and the others. “
Go!
” he whispered to Jess. “
Now, while there’s a chance!
”

Jessamyn shifted forward on one foot and then back again, caught in an agonizing moment of indecision.

“I am uncertain as to these gentlemen’s orders,” admitted Zussman. “I don’t suppose you can disclose them?” he asked one of the guards.

The one closest to Zussman aimed a weapon at the butler. The other aimed a weapon at Pavel.

“I’m sorry, Zuss,” said Pavel. “But if it’s between her and you, she goes free.”

Pavel turned an agonized glance at her.
Go
, his eyes pleaded.

Jessamyn inched toward the transport, her heart beating at frantic speeds.

“You promised,” Pavel said to her, his voice barely audible.

Jessamyn choked back a cry and leapt into the transport.

52

ZUSSMAN

“I’m sorry, Zuss,” Pavel said, one eye on Jess as she fled.

But before the words were out of his mouth, Zussman dropped low, spun toward the guard taking aim at Pavel, and leapt up, bringing his foot up into an arc before it landed solidly against the guard’s torso, just below the ribcage. The guard was caught unawares and crumpled, his weapon skittering across the smooth floor of the parking pad.

“Watch out!” Pavel cried as the remaining guard took aim at Zussman’s still-moving form.

In a blur, the butler swung his foot so that it impacted the guard’s hand, causing him to lose his weapon. Before the guard could retrieve it, Pavel saw Zussman strike at the guard, preventing him from reaching it. Circling slowly, the two feinted and sparred, neither making any solid connection.

Pavel ran for the nearest weapon. As he ran, Zussman took a blow to one side of his head, but he appeared to roll with it, recovering quickly. As the butler rose, he kicked out against his opponent’s foot, causing him to lose balance for just a moment. And in that instant, Zussman delivered a knock-out kick to the groin. The guard gasped for air.

Before Pavel could form questions aloud, Zussman grabbed the weapon beside him and used the back end of it to rain a blow to the head of the first guard, who was stirring once more.

Both lay still and Pavel gazed in wonder at the man who used to bring him hot chocolate with extra whipped cream.

~ ~ ~

Seated in a cockpit once more, Jessamyn’s hands did the work her mind could not turn itself toward. She knew she had minutes—or maybe seconds—to get clear of New Kelen. But her heart cried out for the boy left behind, and instead of lifting up and away, she found herself pulling the Atlas-class ship in a tight circle for one last glimpse of Pavel. What she saw made no sense.

Pavel and his aunt’s butler were standing, each holding a weapon. Weapons Jess knew ought to have been in the hands of the two guards sprawled on the pavement.

Jess brought the craft back to ground, beside the two. Even before she touched down, she extended the hatch.

Zussman shouted over the noise of the engines, “Now would be an excellent time to depart, sir.”

And with that, the butler took Pavel by the elbow and leapt aboard Jessamyn’s waiting craft.

“What gives, Zuss? I don’t understand at all,” Pavel was saying.

“Good morning, Miss,” the butler said in tones reverential.

“Zussman?” asked Pavel.

“Ah,” replied the butler. “I believe I have significantly increased my chances of surviving to a ripe old age by choosing you over the Chancellor. Life is all about choices, sir, and you appear to me eminently suited to making the better sort of choices.”

“Strap in,” called Jess.

But as Jess pushed the craft hard into the sky, Pavel threw his arms around his friend, laughing when the angle of the ship toppled them both.

~ ~ ~

Jessamyn had no time to inhale the twin miracles of escape and the fact that her escape had been accomplished
with Pavel.
She would have to save her regrets for Bonhoeffer for later. For now, she was all pilot, dodging other vehicles, pedestrians, and buildings as she wove her way from New Kelen Hospital.

“If I might ask, sir, miss, whither we are going?” asked Zussman, his tone one of impeccable restraint.

Pavel laughed. “Madeira. So, next best thing to the Azores, huh, man?”

“Indeed, sir,” replied the butler. “If I might recommend heading north by northwest to the Baltic Sea in order to confuse our inevitable followers?”

“Already on it,” said Jessamyn.

“Very good, miss. I would estimate our head start at approximately three and one half minutes, based upon my prior experiences with my former employer.”

“The tracker—does this ship have one?” asked Jess.

“You can count on it,” replied Pavel. “This baby is state of the art. No expenses spared.” He ran an approving hand along the dash.

“So shut the tracker down, already!” demanded Jessamyn. “You can admire her all you want once there’s no one on our tail.”

“I’m looking,” said Pavel, his hands jumping rapidly through pages of ship’s specs. “
Shizer
. They’re not making it easy. It’s connected to the CCMS, as well. I can’t promise I can pull one without the other.”

“What’s a CCMS?”

“The Central Collision Mitigation System, Miss Jessamyn,” replied Zussman. “You might also wish to know we have approximately two minutes of unaccompanied flight remaining.”

“Two minutes, Pavel. Enough of this flying low-and-slow,” said Jess. “I need high-and-fast! Get me invisible
now
!”

“Okay, okay, I found it.” Pavel ducked under the nav panel and began tugging at a metal sheet. “They’ve got it sealed up good and tight.”

“If I might suggest
Archimedes
, sir,” said the butler.

“Arc-of-what?” muttered Pavel, still tugging at the panel.

“The
lever
, sir.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Pavel snapped his head up. “That would work.”

“Here you are, sir,” said Zussman.

Pavel grabbed the metal strip the butler had removed from who-knew-what part of the ship.

“Miss Jessamyn, once your friend has succeeded in disabling the tracking device, it is extremely likely the CCMS will no longer function. You will be far more vulnerable to collision, as others will have no warning of your approach. In addition, you will no longer receive information pertaining to the distance between your ship and other surfaces.”

“So I eyeball it,” replied Jess. “That’s fine by me.” She pulled the ship hard to port along a broad boulevard.

“Approximately one minute remaining,” said Lucca’s former butler, his calm voice at complete odds with the situation.

“The Baltic’s at least an hour from here,” said Pavel, his voice muffled from under the dash. “We can make the Alps in less than twenty minutes if you punch it.”

“We’ll be dead in less than a minute if you don’t get that—”

Pavel cut Jessamyn off mid-sentence. “Got it!”

The ship tilted off to the right. Jess countered.

“That would be the CCMS gone, I take it?” she said aloud.

“Yeah,” replied Pavel. “It tends to do a bit of auto-stabilizing for a smoother ride.”

“This ride’s about to get bumpy fast,” said Jess. “Strap in, city-boy.”

“I beg to apologize for the interruption,” said Zussman, “but it would appear our, ah,
escorts
have joined us.”

“Hold on tight!” said Jess. “There’s going to be some broken glass down below, because we are breaking the sound barrier in three-two-one, mark!”

“Punch it!” shouted Pavel.

The ship shot forward, slamming all three passengers into their seats. Jess wished she could enjoy it.

“We can make those foothills in forty-five seconds,” she said, pulling the ship up and over a last row of multi-storied buildings.

“I regret to point out we may not have forty-five seconds,” said Zussman. “It appears we’ve been fired upon.”

Jess let her eyes drift to the nav panel for just long enough to identify a pair of pursuing missiles.

“Holy Ares!” she shouted.

“There’s another valley to your right, coming up fast,” said Pavel.

“Got it!” Jess burned a forward thruster at the same time that she directed the ship hard to starboard. The spoilers whined.

“
Shizer
, Jess!”

“You wanted to get up-and-close with explosives instead?”

“I’m good,” said Pavel, throwing his arms up in surrender.

The ship hugged the valley, just missing the wall to the right. Twin explosions rocked the craft from the left side.

“Oh, yeah!” shouted Pavel. “Those bad boys are last night’s news!”

“You can bet they’ve got more,” said Jess, hopping up and over a row of hills and sinking down into a neighboring valley.

“We’re coming in range of an area with lots of tourists,” said Pavel. “That will mean hover-cruisers and people not paying attention to their airspace.”

“Do you have a better suggestion?” asked Jessamyn. They wove up and down the narrow valleys, encountering ships more and more frequently.

“Perhaps we might do a bit of sight-seeing ourselves?” asked Zussman. “You seem a very capable pilot, Miss Jessamyn. I wonder if you could bring us down into the traffic? The Atlas-class is a very popular style vessel among the wealthy.”

“And the Dolomites ahead are a prime destination this time of year,” added Pavel. “Good idea, Zuss.”

“Whoa,” called Jess, “Red Squadron Forces ships. I count two. No. Three. Hold tight!”

She careened into the next valley, dropping the ship down to mix among the tourist vessels and sight-seeing transports.

“Pavel, I’m keeping my eyes on what’s outside. Do you see the RSF ships?”

Pavel shook his head. “I think they’re still behind the last ridge.”

“Good,” murmured Jess.

“No!
Shizer
! There they are again.”

Jess pulled hard toward the valley wall on her port side and then doubled back. She dropped a swift glance to the nav panel:
4 g’s
.

“Sorry,” she said, forming the word with great difficulty. “Gonna—get—worse!” And then it did, the panel reporting a nauseating
5.5 g’s
.

“Uh, we lost Zuss,” said Pavel as the ship returned along the same valley, now headed in the opposing direction.

Jess spared a quick glance for the butler, who had, indeed, passed out.