Read Ronan: Ziva Payvan Book 3 Online
Authors: EJ Fisch
What do you know?
For once, it was a struggle to sort out her thoughts. Usually there was so little going on, so little to think about, that it took no effort whatsoever.
My name is Zinnarana Vax. I’m an intelligence officer at HSP. Something is very different. Something is very wrong.
The subtle swaying of the floor had escalated to full-out rocking. It wasn’t enough to throw her around or even really jostle her, but after being so disoriented for the galaxy only knew how long, the sensation was certainly noticeable.
After a few moments of consideration, she realized she was neither sitting against the wall nor lying flat on her back. She was lying in what felt like a semi-fetal position in the center of the room. At least she guessed it was the center of the room – in the pitch blackness, it was impossible to tell. The odd empty feeling she’d noticed in the past was nothing but a whisper in the back of her mind. That in itself was what told her the situation was
different
. The Emptiness was always the first thing she was aware of when she regained consciousness – or whatever happened – and the absence of it left her feeling almost rejuvenated.
Or maybe it was just the adrenaline surging through her in response to the change in her surroundings. In addition to the tremors in the floor, the vague hum in the walls had risen to a dull roar; it was almost as if something somewhere had come alive and was currently working at full capacity. The sense of urgency was what told her the situation was
wrong
.
My name is Zinnarana Vax
, she thought again as she struggled to roll onto her back. She began her self-examination routine, forcing her brain to focus on one thing until it could process the rush of new information. Her arms both felt like lead, but she pushed them into action anyway, running her hands over her face, torso, and what she could reach of her thighs. She wiggled her toes for good measure and was satisfied that her legs were in working ord—wait. No shoes? Had her feet always been bare?
She lay there for what seemed like several more minutes – her sense of time had long since been lost – and did her best to examine each detail of the situation and sort out the facts. For the first time, she felt alert enough to investigate her surroundings. She’d been awake plenty of times previously but had only been lucid enough to realize that and that alone. Nothing outside of the space she occupied had been within the realm of comprehension. But even now, despite her desire to know more, it took all of her strength to lift her head and the slightest movements sent a cold fog swirling through her mind. She had to settle with remaining as still and quiet as possible, devoting all her energy to listening, smelling, feeling, just as she’d done before. Any moments of clarity needed to be taken advantage of.
For the first time, she wondered if she might be inside a vehicle of some sort – a ship, maybe. That would explain the movement in the floor, especially if she were in a cargo space. The hum in the walls could be the rumble of engines. So she was on a ship, and they had taken her blood.
But why?
And why had the movement become more violent now? Why was the hum so much louder? She felt panic encroaching as her mind began to stray from what she did know and dwell on the things she
didn’t
know.
Stop it. Calm down. Think. What do you know?
…I don’t know!
In that instant, the rocking in the floor ceased altogether and the hum of the engines – that’s what she’d decided to call it – reduced itself to a mere vibration. She lay still and listened, but she imagined she was deep enough within the ship’s bowels that she’d be sufficiently isolated from any activity. The only sound she could hear was her own heartbeat, and she was amazed by how real, how
strong
it sounded.
I’m still alive
, she told herself.
The mental celebration was cut short when her surroundings shuddered and the engine noise rose once more to an angry roar, louder and more powerful than ever. She felt the need to brace herself and dug her fingers into the cold metal floor despite the fact that she wasn’t moving. One thought still plagued her:
something is very wrong
.
A metallic screech echoed through the room, startling her. Red light streamed in as the door opened, but she was forced to squeeze her eyes shut before she had a chance to ascertain its location. The light burned even through her closed eyelids, and she felt the familiar wave of nausea set in.
Voices. Footsteps. So many footsteps. Someone is yelling. Whimpering, crying. Body heat. Movement.
The sudden overload of information made her want to scream, but when she opened her mouth only a hoarse squeal came out.
Smells. Scents. Specific scents. So many of them. Haphezians? Five, six, eight, ten…eleven. Eleven scents. Eleven people. It’s crowded in here
. Someone stepped on her arm, tripped, fell on top of her. It was a small person, but the elbow that jabbed into her ribs was no less painful.
The door slid shut and the red light disappeared, casting the room into darkness once more. She opened her eyes but was met with only a black void, just as she’d grown accustomed to. The sounds and smells around her hadn’t gone away, and the darkness had only aggravated them.
Cha’sen. So much crying. Legs moving, hands reaching. Small voices
. She did her best to wriggle out from under the individual who had fallen on her, and in turn the person wriggled away from her.
Can literally smell the fear. Small people. These people are children. Eleven small children. They’re all terrified.
I’m terrified.
Mustering all the strength she could, she ran her tongue over her lips and swallowed. “My name is Zinnarana Vax,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “Who are you?”
“What do we know?” Skeet and Ziva said simultaneously as they approached Emeri in the detention corridor.
Skeet couldn’t help but steal a quick glance at her. Her eyes remained on the director as she waited eagerly for an answer. It was like nothing was different, nothing had changed. Everything was strictly business, as always. The fact that she could act this way after everything she’d just revealed only showed him how easily she’d deceived everyone over the years.
“Witnesses say a freighter-sized ship flew into Salex and touched down in the middle of the plaza,” Emeri answered. “Five or six armed men emerged and grabbed eleven children who were on an educational trip to the processing center. Shot their instructor and took off.”
“
Sheyss
, kids?” Skeet said.
To Ronan’s credit, Salex was the perfect location to abduct someone and get away with it. It was a small community nestled among the farming plateaus east of Noro, about an hour’s journey by car. Many of the surrounding small towns had just been absorbed by the city, but Salex was isolated enough to garner its own recognition. It was separated from the Noro valley by a range of heavily-forested hills and was the location of the region’s largest govino orchards. Most people considered it a resort of sorts; the small population there was well-off, and the banks of the Tranyi River were lined with vacation homes where wealthy visitors could lounge in the sun sipping govinolin or freshly-pressed govino juice all day. The little town was manned by an HSP outpost, but if the ship had touched down as fast as Emeri said, none of the agents would have had time to react.
“What would Ronan want with a bunch of kids?” he asked, running his fingers through his hair.
“No idea,” Emeri replied. He jerked his head toward the nearest holding room. “I’m hoping our friend in there can shed some light on the situation when we begin questioning.”
“Now wait a second,” Ziva piped in. “How do we know this was Ronan? There was no gas involved. It could have been pirates looking to make off with the children of wealthy govino farmers.”
Emeri nodded. “That’s what the Salex HSP office thought too at first, but when they attempted to trace the ship’s exit path, they sent the data back to us and—”
The way he hesitated made Skeet’s stomach turn over.
“—the emissions signatures match the ones you’ve been trying to track for the past five weeks. This is the same ship that abducted Officer Vax on Niio.”
The ability to speak eluded both Skeet and Ziva as they tried to process what the director had just told them. It was almost inconceivable that the same ship they’d been chasing for weeks was suddenly present again, here, now. Then came the realization that whatever had happened to Zinni could be happening to those children.
Ziva spoke up first. “What do you mean they
attempted
to trace the ship’s path?” she said.
“After leaving Salex, it entered orbit and merged with traffic departing from Noro Spaceport,” Emeri said. “The agency had a fix on it until it broke off from the group and performed an out-of-lane FTL jump. We didn’t have a strong enough lock on it to calculate trajectory and possible destinations.”
“An out-of-lane FTL jump?” Skeet exclaimed. Not only did the Resistance have possession of eleven Haphezian children, but they were performing one of the deadliest maneuvers in intragalactic travel while transporting them. He hated to admit it, but things already weren’t boding well for these kids.
“They must not be going far, then,” Ziva said, as calm and collected as ever. “They wouldn’t risk jumping outside of an established travel lane unless their destination was close by.”
“There are probes sweeping the system now,” Emeri said, “but we’re running into the same problems as we did when looking for the source of that fighter that crashed on Na. Noro is the last major spaceport in this sector of populated space, so there’s an incredible amount of traffic traveling through the system at any given time. Identifying which vessels are threats and which are harmless – quickly and efficiently, anyway – is nearly impossible. By the time we got a fix on the target, it would either be long gone or back here engaging in another attack.”
Skeet felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead as he imagined Zinni alive aboard this ship. Five weeks was a long time, especially in light of the things they were seeing on Na and in Haphor, but one could always hope. “Why don’t we just hit them at the source? You told me the Resistance is on Forus.” He stole another glance at Ziva; she’d no doubt been the source of that information, and he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around how she knew all this and how she’d kept it from him.
“If only it were that simple, Lieutenant,” Emeri sighed. “There have already been talks taking place on Na, but I just don’t see how it’s feasible. Ronan and the majority of the Resistance’s military strength may be located on Forus, but they’ve also got upwards of twenty other planetary systems on their side. I know we take pride in the Grand Army, but we’d be no match for a combined force of that size, especially if some, most, or – galaxy forbid –
all
of them are Nosti.”
“We have help,” Ziva said, taking both Skeet and Emeri by surprise. “I know one person with a small but motivated force who has already offered to assist. Another is emotionally invested and I’m sure it wouldn’t take much coercion to get him on board.”
Skeet wasn’t sure who the first person was, but he assumed the latter individual was Taran Reddic. His first instinct was to vote against involving the Durutians since they seemed so hell-bent on wiping out everything that got between them and Ronan, but as long as the team got Zinni back first, he didn’t much care how Reddic went about attacking the Resistance. Perhaps they could send the Durutians to Forus while the agency continued the search for this elusive ship.
Emeri remained silent for a moment, and Skeet couldn’t tell if he was sending Ziva an unimpressed glare or looking slightly behind her as he contemplated her words. “We’ll keep that in mind,” he said quietly as if he were still lost in thought. “Forus is about a day and a half FTL trip from here, so we’d have to coordinate arrival times with the rest of this
help
you speak of.” He sighed. “I’ll go ahead and let Na know we’ve got limited support in the event that they decide to launch a counterstrike.”
Ziva dipped her head and wandered over to the viewscreen on the wall outside the holding room. The monitor was divided into six sections, each of which streamed feeds from one of the cams inside the room. From the hallway, they had a perfect view of the Resistance agent from multiple angles. The man had been sedated with a paralytic similar to what the Durutians had subjected Skeet and Aroska to on Aubin. They couldn’t risk knocking him out entirely for fear of compromising brain activity for the cranial scans. The paralytic wouldn’t stop him from using his Nostia – or whatever it was called – but at least he’d remain completely immobile during the tests. As if all his physical restraints weren’t enough…
“What do we know about this guy?” Skeet asked, moving up beside her to take a look at the viewscreen himself.
“At this point, not a lot,” Emeri replied. “He’s a Nosti, which means there’s a successful nostium formula out there somewhere. I have to agree with Ziva’s theory that the nostium used in these attacks is tailored specifically to us, though we don’t know why. We’re guessing he’s an underling and received orders to target the Royal General from someone of higher rank, possibly Ronan. We have agents from the Royal Guard and the Haphor field office combing the city looking for any sign of a vehicle he may have arrived in, but we’ve come up short so far.” He turned and looked at them both, lowering his voice a bit as if he didn’t want to speak the words. “And the fact that he managed to take out a member of the Jaroons’ security detail tells us how dangerous he is. It’s not every day you see a human that size who can best one of our soldiers.”
He sighed again and rested his face in his hand for a moment. When he looked back up, Skeet could tell how tired he was. His perfectly-combed hair and impeccable uniform couldn’t hide the dullness in his turquoise eyes. The questions and uncertainty surrounding the situation were already beginning to take their toll on everyone.
“
Sheyss
, this is a mess,” the director muttered. His tone gave Skeet the impression he was speaking to them as old friends rather than subordinates. “The media was already in an uproar after realizing the attacks on Na and the Royal General came from the same unnamed source. Now they know we’ve got a suspect in custody and they’re starting to demand more information on that front. It will get progressively harder to keep this man’s identity a secret.”
“How many people are in the loop so far?” Ziva asked. “I know Luko Zona is.”
Emeri nodded. “As of right now, the ops captains and lieutenants are the only people who know exactly
what
and
who
we’re dealing with here, along with other key agency personnel we’ve advised. Then there are, of course, the few officials in the government and military who have been briefed. We’re still working hard to keep everything as restricted as possible, but we’re briefing additional people on a need-to-know basis. Everyone has agreed that it’s best to continue operating under the pretense that we’re oblivious to Ronan’s presence in all this. If the Resistance finds out we know and decides to launch a full-scale attack, well…the simple truth is that we’re not ready.”
“Let’s hope this guy can help us get ready,” Ziva muttered, eyes still fixed on the monitor. Based on the way the muscles in her jaw twitched, Skeet could tell she was wishing she’d just killed the Nosti agent while they were in Haphor. At the same time, he imagined it must be rather surreal for her to come face to face with one of…
her kind
after so many years.
“How long until we can begin an interrogation?” he asked, trying hard to stay focused on the task at hand. Now was the time to be thinking about Zinni and the ship that took her, not about Ziva and all her secrets.
“The tests should be nearly finished,” Emeri said. “I want to keep any interrogation completely in-house to avoid premature disclosure of certain facts.” He threw a glance at Ziva. “I’d prefer if one or both of you did it. I’ll question the bastard myself if I have to. The point is, the information we need is delicate, but time is of the essence.”
The sound of approaching footsteps echoed through the hallway and the three of them turned to find Aroska moving toward them. Skeet wasn’t sure where he’d been for the past ten minutes or so. The man had been glued to his communicator since they’d arrived at Headquarters, speaking at length with someone out in Salex. Perhaps he had a soft spot for children; after all, these most recent developments had the entire Noro region in a frenzy.
Tarbic held up the comm unit as he drew closer. “Salex was wondering if we’d be willing to send someone from ops out to take another look at the abduction site,” he announced, pocketing the device. “I went ahead and volunteered. Figured having prior experience tracking the ship might come in handy.”
“Good,” Ziva said. “Let us know what you find.”
“Actually, I was wondering if you would come with me. It wouldn’t hurt to have an extra set of eyes.”
Ziva tilted her head. “Why me?”
“Come on, Ziva,” he said. “You came halfway around the galaxy and found us on Aubin. You of all people should be able to recognize the little details, see things the rest of us are missing. Finding things is what you do best.”
Skeet couldn’t help but feel that there was something odd about the request. Aroska seemed rushed, preoccupied. Based on the skeptical look on Ziva’s face, she could sense it too. Then again, he had a point; she
was
good at finding things, especially things that didn’t want to be found. Besides, they’d all been preoccupied about one thing or another as of late. Skeet dismissed the behavior as normal considering the circumstances.
“Fine,” she said after another moment of silence. She didn’t appear completely convinced, but her desire for efficiency always seemed to trump any uncertainty. “But I don’t want to take too long. I want a piece of this guy.” She turned once more to stare at the viewscreen.
“Sure,” Aroska said.
“Want me to save him for you?” Skeet asked.
She shook her head and moved over to stand beside Aroska. “We need information and we need it fast – there’s no time to wait around. We’ll be back as soon as possible, but in the meantime, he’s all yours. Get something out of him before we return.”
With that, she and Aroska turned and took off at a brisk pace down the hall. Skeet watched them go for a moment before fixing his eyes on the monitor once more and cracking his knuckles.
“With pleasure,” he muttered.