Ronan: Ziva Payvan Book 3 (11 page)
Read Ronan: Ziva Payvan Book 3 Online
Authors: EJ Fisch
“Stop the vehicle!” Taran ordered, his eyes glued to the tracking device’s viewscreen. The groundcar slowed to a stop and came to rest on the soft sand. He leaped out, immediately taken aback by the heat. Without the protection of the force field, the sun was not only beating down on the ground – the rays were also bouncing back off the sand, making everything twice as hot and, it seemed, twice as bright. The sudden need for fresh air was overwhelming, but he didn’t dare lift his helmet visor for fear of what the sun would do to his skin.
He’d gathered a small team to investigate the disappearance of the execution squad, and they’d spent the last hour or so of the sandstorm waiting directly in front of the portal. The Gatekeepers had opened it just moments before, and he’d wasted no time in bringing his team through. They’d managed to establish locks on the communicators of the missing soldiers as well as the truck they’d taken. All five signals had been immobile for the duration of the time they’d been tracked, tying Taran’s stomach into an uneasy knot.
A strong breeze still whistled over the desert and small clouds of sand still swirled by every so often, but the storm was effectively over. It had been over eight hours since the soldiers had gone missing; that was a long time for sand to be piling up on top of them.
“Got one, right here!” Taran hollered, coming to a halt as the tracker zeroed in on one of the target communicators. He continued moving, listening as Mae got out and directed the operation of the digging equipment they’d rented from the city officials. His viewscreen beeped progressively faster and lit up in green, indicating that he was standing on top of the truck. “Got the vehicle!”
Another few moments of searching revealed that the other three men were a short distance away, no doubt to secure the prisoners and perform the execution itself. With the amount of heat reflecting off the sand, using infrared to check for the Haphezians’ bodies was futile. He pocketed the viewscreen and stepped back as his team moved forward with the machinery. They’d find out what was down there soon enough.
A good ten minutes of careful digging passed before they caught a glimpse of the truck. The massive shovel moved down along the edge of the vehicle, scooping out mounds of sand and casting them aside as quickly as possible.
“Start looking for the other three,” Taran ordered the soldier operating the machine, waving him toward the markers he’d set up several meters away. “We’ll take it from here.”
Mae tossed him a hand-held shovel and, along with young Cowen, they slid down into the depression and began to dig more precisely toward the spot the viewscreen had indicated. Taran’s shovel struck something solid and the sand began to slide away, revealing black cloth. He abandoned the tool in favor of his own hands and began clawing at the material until it was revealed to be a pant leg. He established a grip on it and pulled, finding a boot and clumps of bloody sand.
“Help me with him,” he said, continuing to pull. The man’s other leg became visible and Mae and Cowen took hold of it, brushing away sand as they all dragged him out into the open.
None of them said a word as they stood there staring at the body. The bloody sand was the result of a gaping hole that had been blown through his left thigh. Judging by the trail of dark brown clumps, he’d been shot and had attempted to drag himself to safety behind the truck before being struck again in the chest.
Mae and Cowen both swore and turned around, but Taran couldn’t pry his eyes away from those gory holes. All the members of his squad wore uniforms made of lightweight fiber mesh so they were virtually plasma-resistant. Whatever this man had been shot with had completely obliterated the material, and the entry wounds screamed
high-caliber projectile
.
“Sir, over here!” called another woman in his squad.
Taran peered over the edge of the crater and could see her crouching on the edge of the hole the machine was digging. “How many?”
“Just the three, sir.” With her helmet obscuring her face, it was impossible to see her expression, but in her voice he heard the same dread he was feeling. “No sign of the Haphezians.”
Taran scrambled out of the depression and jogged over to find the rest of his team hard at work clearing the sand away from the three bodies. One had been hit in the chest in the same manner as the first. The other two had been shot cleanly through the head; not even their anti-ballistic helmets had stopped these rounds.
“What the hell happened here?” Mae murmured somewhere behind him.
It was doubtful he’d see anything of interest after eight hours, but Taran swept his gaze over the surrounding landscape anyway, looking for shapes, reflective objects, anything that didn’t belong. But that was the thing about the desert. Even without the presence of powerful sandstorms, it was always changing, shifting in the breeze. With the amount of sand the storm had dumped on his soldiers, he imagined the landscape looked completely different than it had that morning. It was impossible to know where the shots had come from.
The guilt he’d felt about killing the Haphezian agents was now being overtaken by sheer anger – anger at himself for not just ending them right there in the apartment complex, and anger at whatever unknown elements were at play here. “Those two men couldn’t have done this,” he murmured, half to himself and half to whoever bothered to listen. It was the one thought that brought him some comfort. “They were too heavily-drugged.”
“You think they had backup?” Mae asked. “Were there more of them in the city that we didn’t know about?”
Taran shook his head. “Possibly, but they arrived alone and hadn’t been in contact with anyone but each other. Perhaps they already had contacts in the city. What became of the data your team recovered on Ronan?”
“I’ve had a tech working on it,” Mae replied, “but so far he hasn’t managed to break in.”
All Taran could do was crouch and gaze off into the distance, but he found he wasn’t focusing on any particular point. Devani was safe – the Haphezians hadn’t captured her like he’d feared, and so far she’d found nothing tying them to the Resistance. But these HSP agents were on the planet, stalking his unit, and they possessed heavily encrypted data on the Res’s highest-ranking individual. Something didn’t add up.
“Who are we dealing with?” he muttered.
As if on cue, the comm unit in his helmet buzzed, indicating a transmission from one of their men at the base. “Go ahead.”
“Sir, we have a problem,” said a shaky voice.
“What’s going on?”
“S-s-standby.”
There was a silence that lasted just long enough to make Taran sweat – it was a cold, sickening sweat that bore distinct differences from the perspiration caused by the heat.
“Hello, Taran,” said a female voice. It sounded vaguely familiar, like he’d heard it before and should know it from somewhere. Based on the way his stomach turned over when the woman spoke, he knew any previous encounter with her hadn’t been pleasant.
“Who the hell is this?” he demanded.
“Why don’t you come see me? We need to have a chat.”
The transmission went dead.
Ziva perked up when the sounds of voices and approaching footsteps reached her ears, as did the Durutian soldier sitting across the table from her. Aroska nodded from his place at the tinted window, confirming that the noises were originating from the visitors they were expecting. She nodded back and gestured at the Durutian. “Stand up.”
They stood in Ray’s café, a location that had been deemed suitable neutral ground after a bit of consideration. The rest of the ’borgs had done exactly what she’d expected them to do: returned to their base, found the man who had summoned them back to be mysteriously absent, then traced his location to this shop. Based on the way he was dressed, this young man wasn’t combat-ready; he was merely a tech, maybe a communications officer, and as such he’d been easy to grab while the rest of the group had their attention devoted to the bodies in the desert.
She, Skeet, and Aroska had stormed into Ray’s shop with the Durutian in tow, informing the few customers that the establishment was closed until further notice. Ray himself remained in the kitchen, insisting he at least be allowed to continue fulfilling call-in orders if they were going to steal his business for half the day. Aside from the sizzle of the stove and the clanging of utensils, the space had been dead silent until the group approached outside.
Skeet and Aroska stepped away from their places at the front windows to flank the door, weapons held low but ready. Ziva drew her own pistol and moved around the table to stand behind their captive, pressing the barrel of the gun to his spine and closing her free hand around the back of his neck. “Open a transmission,” she hissed in his ear.
The man did as he was told, holding his communicator up so she could hear and participate in the conversation if desired. “Sir?”
The footsteps outside ceased abruptly. “You okay, kid?” the Durutian leader asked after a brief hesitation.
“I just want to talk, Taran,” Ziva said before the soldier could respond. “The front door is open. You and one of your people may enter. If anyone else so much as looks like they’re trying to get in, I’ll shoot them and then I’ll shoot your man here. Understand?”
There was a bit of muttering in the background followed by a heavy sigh. “Yes.”
The atmosphere within the restaurant was tense to the point of becoming unbearable as the door slid open. The interior lights had been dimmed, giving Ziva a better view of those entering than they initially had of her. A man stepped inside, followed by a woman with curly red hair – no doubt the one Aroska had described. Both remained armed, but neither had drawn their weapons.
Keeping herself hidden behind her prisoner, Ziva took advantage of her superior position and studied the man for a split second before his implants could adjust to the shadows. He was exactly who she’d expected him to be after hearing his name, and she allowed a small fraction of the tension in her body to release. “Reddic.”
His face hardened as if he’d simultaneously recognized her and managed to place her voice. “Payvan.”
There wasn’t time to stop and examine the shocked looks Skeet, Aroska, and the woman were displaying. “Shut and lock the door,” Ziva said. “Can we agree to remain civil, or should I have your weapons confiscated?”
Skeet and Aroska moved in behind them as the door closed. In response to her question, both Durutians lifted their hands and stepped forward, their silver eyes flitting between her and their captured squadmate.
“Sergeant Reddic – if it is still
sergeant
– would you kindly join me at the table?” Ziva waited until he began to move then leaned forward to whisper in the captive soldier’s ear. “Walk.”
She gave the man a light push and stepped back, keeping her pistol pointed down but not loosening her grip on it. She skirted back around to her side of the table and slipped into her chair, watching as Reddic did the same on the other side. Skeet and Aroska holstered their weapons and took up positions on either side of her; the other two Durutians followed suit with their own leader, clearly uncomfortable with the fact that their backs were to the door.
“What do you want?” Reddic growled.
“Let’s forget, for just a moment, that you tried to have my agents here executed,” Ziva began. “I seem to recall demonstrating what happens to people who get in my way—” her gaze shifted to his cybernetic arm “—and I would have thought you’d learned your lesson.”
“What’s she talking about, Taran?” the red-headed woman asked through clenched teeth. She stood with tense muscles, no doubt itching to draw one or both of the pistols she was packing.
“Remember that story I told you about the Haphezian assassin who was chasing the same target as me a few years back?” Reddic answered without removing his eyes from Ziva. “The one who blew my arm off when I got too close to taking her bounty?”
Ziva ignored the woman’s ice-cold glare and drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “You’re in my way again, Reddic. Do I need to take your other arm?”
“You murdered my men.”
“Because they were about to murder
my
men.”
He shook his head, cracking a faux grin. “I gave them a chance. If they’d just told me what I wanted to know, told me why they’re working for Ronan—”
Ziva had always been careful not to allow her facial expressions to betray her thoughts, but whatever flashed through her eyes just then made Reddic hesitate. She took advantage of the silence and slapped the table, incredulous. “You think
we’re
working for Ronan? You’re the ones who captured our agent on Niio!”
“
What?
” the woman exclaimed.
Reddic’s face mirrored her confusion. “We don’t even have a team on Niio. We’re the only unit in this sector.” He scowled. “How do you explain the Durutian Special Tasks Unit that went missing near the Noro system?”
“I can’t. I don’t know anything about that. How do
you
explain these, taken at the Niio spaceport a little over four weeks ago?” Ziva produced her data pad and slapped it down in front of him, displaying Tobias’s surveillance photos.
The room was quiet for a couple of minutes as he studied the images, zooming in, zooming out, comparing them side by side. He finally muttered a rough Durutian curse and beckoned to the woman. “Mae, look at these.”
“Those are your people,” Skeet said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. Well, no,” Reddic said. The tone of his voice had softened significantly. “This is our armor, and that symbol on the shoulder pads designates this group as the Delta Patrol, the unit that went missing right outside your system.” He paused and swallowed. “But this isn’t them.”
“The weapons are all wrong,” Mae explained. “We don’t carry anything like that. And nobody’s worn their uniforms this formally for years.”
Ziva lifted an eyebrow. “What are you saying?”
Reddic reached out and squeezed Mae’s hand as he answered. “I’m saying we’ve thought Ronan was responsible for the disappearance of our people all along, and we were right. But it wasn’t you.” He returned his attention to Ziva. “And I’m saying you thought Ronan’s people captured your agent, and you’re probably right. But it wasn’t us.”
“If you’re not working for Ronan, then how do you even know what it is?” Aroska said.
“I could ask you people the same thing,” Reddic answered, giving them each a wary look in turn. “You first.”
Ziva cleared her throat – curiosity was getting the better of her. “A freelancer friend on Chaiavis was investigating one of Ronan’s facilities after a colleague of hers was held captive there. They’re both dead now, but we have their data and we’ve been trying to continue their investigation. At this point we’re still trying to figure out what Ronan even is.” It was as much of the truth as she was willing to reveal at the moment.
“That’s the data you recovered from our hotel,” Skeet said, crossing his arms. “We went back to check the place out this afternoon. Thanks for tearing everything apart – looks like you owe HSP some new long-range communication equipment.”
Both Reddic and Mae shot him unimpressed looks. “Well, we’re currently one of several Special Tasks Units the Federation hired to patrol the Fringe for Resistance activity.”
“You’re working for the Feds?” Ziva said.
Reddic nodded. “You said you’re still trying to figure out what Ronan is? It’s a person. Tav Ronan, leader of the entire Resistance.”
Ziva heard Skeet swear behind her.
Well, things just got a lot more interesting
. “Leader of the Resistance. You’re kidding.”
The man shrugged. “And that’s all we know. The Federation dossier is incomplete. We have very little data, no photo. Just the name.”
“That explains why we haven’t been able to find anything,” Aroska mused. “If the Feds don’t even know anything about Ronan, how is anyone else supposed to?”
“Why don’t they have any data?” Ziva asked. “The Feds and the Resistance have been going at each other for years. Surely they have spies who could have gathered more intel.”
“They do have spies,” Reddic replied. “The intel is just new. The Feds have suspected there was a sole figure at the top of the Res’s food chain for a while, but it’s like Ronan is just now coming out of hiding for some reason. The name only started cropping up about four months ago.”
About the time Kat was looking into it
, Ziva thought.
“One of the biggest issues is that the Resistance has been trying to expand further out into the Fringe, away from Federation presence,” Reddic said. “We can’t get intel on them if they’re not around to give us any. That’s where our unit comes in – we’re supposed to be driving them back toward the Core systems where the Feds can keep a better eye on them.”
Mae’s eyes were still glued to the images on the data pad. “But now that they’ve taken our people, probably killed them—”
“This has become personal,” Reddic finished for her. “This is no longer just a battle between the Federation and Resistance. It’s a battle between us and Ronan, and I intend to avenge our soldiers by any means necessary.”
Ziva bristled. “And I can’t let you do that until we’ve recovered our agent.”
One thing she hated about the Durutians’ optical implants was that it made it harder to read their eyes. Still, there was a certain amused twinkle in Reddic’s that she didn’t care for. “How sweet. I never thought you people were the no-man-left-behind type.”
“This has become personal for us, too,” Ziva snapped. “HSP is considering it an act of war against the agency. I’m not going to let you go destroy some Resistance facility if there’s a chance my agent is inside.”
“It’s been over four weeks, Payvan. My people are probably dead. What makes you so sure yours is still alive?”
It was a reasonable question, really. Ziva told herself this was a unique situation; Zinni had been taken by an unknown entity that posed an unknown threat level, so in a way, no news was good news. Besides, Kat and Corey had both survived their encounters with Ronan, though for a limited amount of time. Still…if Zinni was alive and had the means to do so, Ziva knew she would have made contact by now. The chances she’d survived until this point were slim, and they grew slimmer with each passing moment.
“That’s what I thought,” Reddic said when she didn’t respond. He stood up and pushed his chair in. “This has been a lovely chat, but we should really be going. We’ve just wasted over three weeks on this rock.” He turned to Mae and leaned down to speak quietly in her ear. “Call Devani. Let her know Haphez is a dead end.”
Ziva stood up as well, not the least bit comfortable with him looking down on her. “You’ve got an agent on Haphez?”
“A Representative,” Reddic replied. “What’s it to you?”
She tilted her head as she spoke, addressing Skeet and Aroska as well as the Durutians. “A foreign dignitary would have been taken into protective custody by the agency. If she can be reached by comm, it means the lockdown is over. Call her.”
“And talk about what? The weather? Why don’t you call in yourselves? Like you just said, the lockdown is over.”
“You seem to forget that someone smashed our comm equipment,” Skeet muttered.
Ziva had yet to holster her weapon, and she reestablished her grip on it. “
Call her
.”
“And say
what?
” Reddic asked again. Despite his gruff tone, he reached for his communicator.
“Ask about the agency, about the lockdown. Ask about Na.”
He seemed confused but heeded her instructions, keeping a distasteful eye on her as the transmission connected. “Devani?”
“Remind me to go away more often,” said a woman’s voice. “We don’t even talk this much when we’re on the same planet.”
“I hate to break it to you, but it’s time to go home. New intel – Haphez is a dead end.”
“I did not spend five days sitting in a holding room for you to tell me that.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. We just learned from a new…
source
—” the way he said the word made Ziva fume “—that the Haphezians are hunting Ronan just as much as we are. There’s not going to be a Resistance presence there.”