JakesPrisoner (3 page)

Jake tugged impatiently at the fastenings on his dress tunic.
He wanted tonight to be over. Of all the crazy stupid things he had ever done,
falling in love with a girl he was spying on topped them all. The ring box lay
in the middle of the bed. Five carats of the finest Naxos yellow diamonds
nestled in an elaborate gold setting. He had bought the ring weeks ago from a
trader at the spaceport. Pete had almost gone supernova when he saw it. He had
planned to propose to her tonight. They would get a special license to marry
from the Cyraelian ambassador and Tanith would travel back to Earth with him.
His wife—he never thought he’d like the sound of those words.

One communication from Cyraelian intelligence had changed
everything. Raoul had returned to the city and he was furious about his
sister’s new lover. Instead of a romantic dinner for two, he was going to play
decoy while Pete and Strom tried to capture Raoul. He had asked Strom if he
could move Tanith onto the ship until it was over, but the big guy had refused.
Tanith was more useful to them if she stayed on the planet. How the hell was he
supposed to protect her with Raoul on the loose? No matter what happened
tonight, there was going to be huge fallout. Tanith would never marry someone
who was involved in her brother’s imprisonment. He’d be lucky if she ever spoke
to him again.

The cabin door opened and Pete eyed the ring box on the bed.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

Jake flipped the box closed and dropped it into a drawer.
Picking up his weapon, he slid it into the pocket of his tunic. “Yeah, Pete. Ready
as I’ll ever be.”

Her human was quiet tonight. They weren’t in their favorite
restaurant as they had planned but sitting at a boring function for two hundred
people at the ambassador’s residence. She couldn’t understand it. Jake always
hated these things. Between the interminable speeches, he had reached under the
table to hold her hand, but he didn’t laugh or joke or try to pull her into a
quiet corner to steal a kiss. During dessert, he whispered that he was feeling
ill and that he had to go. Then he kissed her and almost ran from the hall.
Something was very wrong. Tanith made her excuses and followed him, but the
rear lights of the Terra-pod were already passing through the gates.

“Hello, Tanith,” a voice called from the shadows. “Don’t you
have a hug for your brother?”

Tanith spun around. He was a little older, perhaps thinner,
but it was he. She ran to him, laughing. “Raoul, when did you get here? Why
didn’t you say that you were coming?”

His cold expression stopped her in her tracks. “Where is he,
Tanith? Where is the human you’ve been whoring with?”

What was wrong with him? Why was he saying these horrible
things to her? “It’s not like that, Raoul. Jake and I love each other. We want
to—”

His hand reached out to strike her and she sidestepped the
blow, stumbling on the gravel. “You stupid bitch, your lover is a Fleet Command
spy.”

He was wrong. Raoul had to be wrong about Jake. Jake loved
her, it couldn’t be true. Raoul grabbed her arm roughly. “Go home, Tanith. I’ll
deal with the human.”

With that, he strode angrily to his Terra-pod and climbed
inside. The vehicle shot through the gates at a screeching speed. She felt
sick. Raoul was going to hurt Jake. Her eyes raked the vehicles parked near the
entrance. She needed something fast.

Tanith raced through the city until she reached the narrow
streets surrounding the spaceport. There was no sign of either of them. As she
passed the entrance to a side street, she heard the low thrum of laser fire and
her heart dropped. Abandoning the vehicle in the middle of the street, she
kicked off her heels and ran toward the sound. She couldn’t let Raoul kill him.
Tanith could hear sirens in the distance. A crowd of onlookers had formed at
the top of the street, watching the battle from a safe distance. An elderly
Cyraelian stepped in front of her. “Law enforcement officials are on their way.
It’s dangerous, don’t go down there.”

She brushed past him and kept going. Tanith crept along a
line of parked vehicles until she reached the safety of a doorway. Why hadn’t she
brought a weapon? Jake could be hurt. From her vantage point, she could see one
man lying in the middle of the street, his arm outstretched at an unnatural
angle. He was obviously dead. Two others exchanged fire across the narrow
street. Tanith watched as an injured man dragged himself behind a parked
Terra-pod. His clothing was dark.
It’s not Jake
, she realized with shaky
relief.
It’s not him.

She could hear a voice coming from the far end of the
street, but she couldn’t see him. It was shouting now, but she couldn’t make
out the words. There was a brief flash of laser fire and one man flew across
the street, colliding with the side of a dark Terra-pod. Tanith glimpsed a pale
uniform emerging from between two vehicles. A laser blast narrowly missed him and
he returned fire. Then there was an eerie silence. The battle was over. She
called Jake’s name and ran toward him.

“Tanith?” Jake’s expression was a mixture of surprise, guilt
and regret.

Tanith looked beyond him at the body lying on the street
and, with an aching feeling in the pit of her stomach, she knew. She tried to
get past him to reach Raoul, but Jake blocked her path. She flung herself at
him, beating her fists against his face and his chest. “You used me, you
bastard. All this time you pretended to love me so that you could kill my
brother.”

Jake reached for her. “Tanith, please, listen to me. It
wasn’t like that.”

Her eyes blazed with hurt and anger. “Don’t touch me, Jake.
Don’t you ever touch me again.”

The rest of the night passed in a blur of questions. She
spent hours sitting in the small interview room repeating her story over and
over for the security forces. None of them expressed sympathy for her loss. It
didn’t matter to them that her brother had been killed. She could almost taste
their disapproval. No respectable Cyraelian female would take an off-world
lover. It was almost as if she deserved this.

When they released her at dawn, she caught a last glimpse of
Jake climbing into a law enforcement transport unit, accompanied by two officers.
He was wearing restraints on his arms. She should have been glad, but the sight
of him like that made her heart break. Captain Hallstrom and Jake’s techie
friend, Pete, emerged from the building and followed her down the steps. The
captain called out to her, but she turned her back on him and ran across the
street.

* * * * *

The red graffiti had been cleaned away but the words were
still faint but visible on the door of her apartment—
Die, Wanton Whore
.
Tanith jumped when she heard the elevator doors open and she inserted her
access card into the lock quickly, trying to get inside before she encountered
her neighbors. The building supervisory committee had already left two
messages, requesting that she contact them. It looked as if she would have to
leave.

When the judges issued their verdict of acquittal this
morning, her official bodyguards had abandoned her without a backward glance.
She was no longer the star witness for the prosecution. She was just a
scandalous Cyraelian woman whose human lover had killed her brother.

She had gone to the tribunal every day. Not because Raoul’s
crazy friends insisted, but because she wanted to see the humans. Strom’s voice
had been calm and steady, no matter what the prosecutor asked him. Pete was
obviously uncomfortable but determined, and finally, Jake. He had borne the
brunt of the cross-examination and his eyes watched her face closely as he gave
his answers to the tribunal. Answers she didn’t want to hear.

Yes, he had been ordered to seduce her by his captain.

Yes, he had done it to provoke Raoul.

Yes, he had killed her brother—but only in self-defense.

Each response had been like a knife in her heart. She dug
her nails into her palms, trying not to cry. She wouldn’t give him the
satisfaction. It had all been a lie. Everything that happened between them was
a lie. All the nights that she had lain with Jake, loved him. How the human
must have laughed at her. She held Jake’s gaze until he flushed and turned
away. At least he had the grace to look ashamed.

Her evidence hadn’t been compelling enough to convince the
tribunal otherwise. She hadn’t seen Jake shoot Raoul. She had glimpsed laser
fire on the street and her brother had died with a weapon in his hand. Despite
allegations of criminal activity on other worlds, Raoul had never been
convicted of any crime on Cyraelia and her people didn’t extradite their own
citizens. On the face of it, Raoul was an innocent man, shot dead in an
alleyway by an off-worlder.

The judges were undecided. Just when it seemed that Jake
might be convicted, the humans offered to bring irrefutable evidence of Jake’s
innocence. It was then that she discovered that her former lover was
tech-enhanced. With the aid of a holo-projector linked to Jake’s cerebral
implants, Raoul’s last minutes were played out for all the court to see. Jake
had taunted him with remarks about their sexual relationship, trying to enrage
her brother. How good she was in bed, how willing, how sweet. She watched Raoul
emerge from the darkness, his eyes dark with rage as he fired his weapon.
Finally, she heard Jake’s words as he returned fire. “This is for Ingrid.”

She could feel the stares of the other people in the
courtroom. Her cheeks blazed with shame. Jake’s words had utterly humiliated
her. He had painted her as being little better than a whore. Not only had he
seduced and betrayed her, but he had done it for another woman. She had left
the courtroom then without a backward glance. After the dreadful weeks of the
trial, she was glad to be alone again.

Tanith sat down heavily on the couch and emptied the
contents of the envelope onto the table. The authorities returned Raoul’s
personal effects to her after the tribunal had issued its verdict. There wasn’t
much to show for a lifetime. Access cards to his vehicles and her home, some
large denomination credits, at least they would be useful. She might not have a
job for much longer.

In a small black wallet was an image of the two of them
together when they were children. Raoul was taller than she, the big brother
with his arms around his little sister. Out of the wallet tumbled a platinum
chain with a half-moon pendant. She picked it up, toying with it between her
fingers. The writing on the back of the pendant wasn’t Cyraelian. Raoul must
have picked it up on his travels. Tanith fastened the chain around her neck. It
was hers now. She would wear it in memory of him. A slow tear welled up and
rolled down her cheek. She was so tired of everything.

* * * * *

The Terra-pod pulled up outside the custody unit and Jake
climbed into the passenger seat. Pete clapped him on the shoulder. “Good to see
you, Jake. The ship is leaving for home in a few hours. Let’s get the hell out
of here.”

“How about making a little detour first, Pete?”

“If you’re asking what I think you’re asking, the answer is
no. Forget her, Jake. There are plenty of other women out there who aren’t half
as much trouble.”

Jake reached for the door. “I guess I’ll have to go alone
then.”

Pete muttered under his breath as he entered the destination
on screen and they headed toward the west of the city. Jake watched through the
window as the second sun set. It was good to be outside again. The Cyraelian
authorities had treated him well enough, but there wasn’t a single night that
he didn’t miss Tanith or that he wasn’t racked with regret for what he had done
to her. Raoul had deserved to die, but Tanith would pay the price.

Every day during the trial, she had sat in the same seat.
Apart from the state bodyguards, she was always alone. The worst day had been
the cross-examination, when he had to tell a courtroom full of people how he
had seduced and betrayed her. She waited until he finished giving evidence and
then she left the courtroom. He hadn’t seen her since then.

He understood enough about Cyraelian culture to know what
the future held for her. Without Raoul’s protection, Tanith would lose her job
and her precious home. Worst of all, she would be vulnerable to others who
lived on the edge of society. Jake’s hands clenched into fists at the thought
of his beautiful Tanith with someone like Atam Sorza. He was never going to let
that happen.

By the time they reached her apartment block, it was almost
dusk. Pete switched off the engine and they sat in silence. “What a mess.” Pete
sighed. “What are you going to do, Jake? I mean, what can you say to her?”

Jake looked down at his hands. “There’s no point in talking
to her. I know that she won’t listen to me and I don’t blame her.”

Pete looked around him impatiently. “Then what the hell are
we doing here?”

“She’s coming back with us, Pete. I’m not leaving her
behind. Now will you help me or not?”

Pete started up the engine. “Okay, Jake, but you owe me for
this one.”

He parked the Terra-pod near the service elevator at the
rear of the building. The security codes hadn’t been changed since the last
time Jake had been here and they made their way up to her floor. Pete was still
hesitant until they reached the door of Tanith’s apartment and he winced when
he read the words. “Jake, if we’re caught doing this, neither of us will see
Earth again.”

Taking a small laser tool from his pocket, Pete worked on
the lock until he heard a soft click and they hurried inside. The apartment was
in darkness, except for a lamp in the sitting room, which he switched off.
Along the corridor, Jake could see a chink of light under the bathroom door. He
went to the bedroom and dragged the quilt off the bed. Knowing Tanith, she
wouldn’t leave willingly and they would need something to wrap her in. As he
turned, his foot brushed against the bag on the floor. He looked around the
bedroom. The images were gone from the shelf and a dark outfit hung neatly on
the back of the door. Tanith was leaving.