Read Ronan: Ziva Payvan Book 3 Online
Authors: EJ Fisch
This is it.
A blade did pass through flesh, but it wasn’t his. The sound of a man choking on his own blood filled Aroska’s ears, followed by a familiar female voice: “You might want to duck.”
He complied without question, using his forward momentum to force the last Nosti’s kytara aside. Another blade materialized over his left shoulder, reflecting the greenish tint of the room’s lights as it careened forward and embedded itself in the man’s stomach. Aroska shied away as Ziva wrenched the sword to one side, throwing the smaller man to the ground; how the delicate blade didn’t break was beyond him.
A moist ripping sound echoed through the room as she yanked the sword free and plunged it into his neck, putting a halt to his struggle. He lay there writhing for a moment as blood gushed from his throat. Having no desire to watch, Aroska turned and saw that the other man had been impaled in a similar fashion from behind. He too lay there in a pool of his own blood, though he’d already fallen still.
By the time he turned his attention back to what was in front of him, Ziva was kneeling down and using the loose fabric from the man’s uniform to wipe the blood from her blades. Reacting to her words had felt so natural, almost like a simple reflex. It took Aroska a moment to remember she wasn’t even supposed to be there.
“You come here to try to stop me?” he asked, unsure why he felt compelled to add a bit of an edge to his tone. Perhaps it was partially the embarrassment of realizing he’d bitten off more than he could chew.
She rose to her feet, breathing hard. She had stripped down to a simple tank top and also sported an anti-plasma shield; he could see it shimmering around her if he squinted a little. Based on the blood splatter on her face and neck, she’d already had another run-in with some Nosti soldiers. The fact that she was standing there relatively unscathed and they were nowhere to be found told Aroska all he needed to know.
With a flick of her wrist, the blades slid back into the hilt of her kytara. “I’m not going to kiss you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Heat rushed through his face as he recalled what he’d done in Kat’s garage. He’d been honest when he’d told her it wasn’t how he should have handled the situation. It had been an impulsive move, a diversion to make her think twice about going off to face Dasaro on her own. Since then, he’d wondered on a couple of occasions if he’d subconsciously done it to express how much he truly cared for her, despite the fact that he’d still been trying
not
to care for her at the time. Either way, he’d only made the situation worse for her.
He gave her sweaty, bloody body another once-over and feigned disgust. “I’d rather you didn’t anyway,” he said, though after all they’d been through, he almost wished she would. At least it would seem like a sincere gesture this time.
Then it dawned on him that coming here had been the sincerest of any gesture Ziva could ever give. He had no idea how she’d finagled her way out of going to Haphor, but he had a sneaking suspicion she hadn’t done it with permission. If that were the case, she had risked not only her career but also her life to come after him, just like she’d done at Dakiti.
“How’d you get here?” he said. “I saw those guards. Emeri and Ganten were hell-bent on keeping you planetside.”
“We have an unlikely ally.”
She proceeded to give him a quick rundown of the situation, describing how Aura Stannist – of all people – had helped her escape Headquarters in the
Intrepid
before recounting an experience that helped explain her motives for doing so. They’d traced his comms to this vessel and Ziva had followed his scent from the docking hangar. The look on her face told him she was glad she’d found him when she had. He was, too.
“So what’s your story?” she asked, glancing down each of the corridors in turn to make sure they weren’t about to have company. “Thought you’d play hero and come up here to take on Ronan by yourself and avenge Maston?”
Aroska felt his face flush again; avenging his brother had certainly been a large part of his motivation. “Not exactly,” he replied, going on to explain his plan to find a computer and transmit all the Res data to the Federation.
To his surprise, Ziva actually seemed interested. “Not a bad idea,” she said.
“So you didn’t just come to get me out safely.”
“Hell no. I came all this way – might as well do what I can to rip the Resistance a new one while I’m here.”
He couldn’t help but crack a smile as he beckoned for her to follow him in the direction he’d been headed. He still had no idea how the two of them could possibly fare against Ronan and a whole dreadnought full of Nosti soldiers, but her presence alone brought him indescribable comfort.
She stopped him when he began to discard his kytara and bring his rifle back around in front of him. “Keep that. It may just save your life.”
He almost asked if she was serious, but the look in her eyes answered that question for him. “I don’t have a clue how to use it, and I haven’t had any melee training in years.”
“And you think I have?” she scoffed. “It’s kind of like piloting a hoverbike. No matter how long it’s been since you’ve done it, it all starts to come back before long.” She broke into a jog and threw a cynical glance back over her shoulder. “Just pretend it’s one of those training shafts.”
Well, at least they were on the same page. Aroska shook his head and smiled again as he rushed to catch up, no longer quite so afraid of what was to come.
“You mind telling me where the hell you are?” Skeet hissed into his communicator, unsure why exactly he felt the need to keep his voice down. It wasn’t like Zinni and Emeri couldn’t hear him.
“You know good and well where I am,” Ziva’s hushed voice replied.
Emeri had resigned to his desk and sat there massaging his forehead. “Payvan, do you have any clue how much troub—”
“Would you believe me if I said this wasn’t even my idea?”
Skeet turned toward the director and shrugged. Based on the story they’d gotten from Emeri’s two guards, Agent Stannist was indeed the one who had made the first move. She’d failed to check in with the pilot who was supposed to deliver them to Haphor and had instead led Ziva to the landing pad where the
Intrepid
was docked. One of the guards had come away with a broken arm and a control panel had been completely fried, but in both cases the damage had been caused by Aura alone. Part of Skeet was glad she’d finally decided to see reason, and the other part was still having a hard time comprehending that she would have done such things.
“Look,” Ziva continued. “Aroska rode out on one of the military transports. I couldn’t just leave him up here on his own.”
“You found him?” Skeet said. After close to an hour of trying to figure out where Tarbic had gone, they’d traced his communicator to some point in open space, moving progressively closer to the incoming Resistance fleet. They’d simply had to sit by and hope for the best; it was futile to waste resources bringing him back, the same reason they’d let Ziva and Aura continue on their way. “Is he okay?”
“Fine,” came Aroska’s voice. “Might not be if Ziva hadn’t shown up when she had.”
“Dare I ask where you are now?” Emeri asked, his voice tired but firm.
“Aboard Ronan’s flagship,” Ziva answered.
The nonchalance of her response made it sound like they were simply taking a stroll in the park. Skeet almost laughed out loud at the ludicrousness of it all, but the idea that his two friends were pressing forward into such dangerous territory suppressed his chuckle.
“I assume Agent Stannist is with you,” Emeri said.
“Negative. She remained aboard the
Intrepid
and is manning the guns in order to keep the hangar clear. We’re going to need a way off this bucket eventually.”
“What can we do on our end?” Skeet asked, throat dry.
“You can start by making sure nobody blows this thing out of the sky while we’re aboard. The GA’s got strike teams in here trying to take out the shield generators so it will be a while before it
can
be blown out of the sky, but I don’t know how long our little task is going to take.”
Skeet began to ask what, precisely, that “little task” was, but she continued talking before he had a chance to say anything.
“Were you able to find anything useful on Payne’s communicator?”
He moved over to where Zinni had been set up in a comfortable chair in front of Emeri’s conference table. A dozen holographic screens rendered before her, each one depicting video feeds from corresponding HSP strike teams. A larger screen branched off from those, displaying tracking data for the teams that had seen success as well as those that had not yet found their quarries.
“Coded messages had been sent out to twenty-three individuals,” Zinni explained. Her hands flew over the keypad even as she reclined. A rep from the med center had even come over to give her an IV and monitor her vitals occasionally. “We traced those transmissions and sent teams out to find the recipients. Fifteen have been neutralized so far, and we’re closing in on the others.”
“Hey, you,” Ziva said, her voice softening significantly. “Good work. How are you holding up?”
“Not bad, all things considered.”
Despite her amicable response, Skeet saw Zinni bristle a bit. She had yet to comment further on Ziva’s newly-revealed connection with the Resistance, but he had a hunch that was what was causing her current discomfort.
“Shall we keep you updated?” he asked.
“No,” Ziva answered. “We’re going dark in a few minutes – getting too close to the bridge to risk the excess noise. Coordinate with Aura in the
Intrepid
, and do what you can to keep Ganten off our backs until this thing is over.”
“Got it,” he said with a sigh. “We’re monitoring the fleet from here. Looks like everyone is holding just fine, but we can’t do much until those shields are down. Based on their attack patterns, the Resistance wasn’t expecting us to be ready for them, and it has thrown them out of rhythm. We’re closer to matching them in numbers than I originally thought. It probably won’t be pretty, but we should be able to take them out eventually.”
“Yeah, about that….” Zinni murmured.
When Skeet looked back at her, she was sitting bolt upright, her gaze directed straight ahead as she manipulated the controls and minimized the screens. A holographic representation of the battle appeared in its place, with the relative positions of all the participating vessels marked by colored dots. They’d tapped into the GA’s network so all the Resistance ships appeared red while all the Haphezian ships had turned green. She zoomed out until the battle was hardly more than a tangled mess of red and green spots. A smaller cluster of yellow dots appeared on the edge of the hologram – the edge of the GA’s sensor radius – and moved steadily toward the conflict. At least twenty more ships were approaching, and they were coming from the same direction as Ronan’s fleet.
“What’s happening?” Ziva demanded. Skeet had almost forgotten the transmission was still open.
“I’m trying…” Zinni said, eyes narrowed and brows furrowed as she brought the incoming ships into full view and sorted through the data the GA was picking up on them.
Relevant information appeared after just a few seconds, which both relieved Skeet and startled him. The ships weren’t Resistance; that much was clear. They were from a world that had just as little business participating in this fight as the Haphezians. And based on the hail that was now coming through, they belonged to a person he’d never expected to see in this part of the galaxy.
“Hey, uh, Z? You wouldn’t happen to know what Tobias Niio is doing here, would you?”
As the ship surged forward through the FTL tunnel, Taran still couldn’t believe he was on comm with the head of the Niiosian Mob. He could hardly consider himself “on comm” though – the gangsters were busy trying not to get themselves shot down by the Haphezians, who were quite understandably on edge. The transmission to Tobias Niio’s ship was still live, but the man had probably forgotten about Taran by now, caught up as he was in conversation with some admiral aboard the Haphezian flagship.
“Stand down,
Soroya
,” crackled a new voice. “New intel from home. These people are on our side – add their ships to the network.”
“On whose authority?” Admiral Ostin cried.
There was muffled shouting in the background, followed by a perturbed female voice: “—st patch me through.” The voice sent a chill down Taran’s spine.
“
My
authority,” she said, her voice clearer now. “Captain Ziva Payvan, HSP spec ops. And before you tell me I have no authority in this situation, I want you to stop and ask yourself if you really want to win this battle.”
“Agent Payvan, it’s wonderful to hear your voice,” Tobias crooned. “Ziva did invite us to this party, Admiral, and I would tend to agree with her. You people need all the help you can get.”
Taran swiveled in his chair to look at Mae, who shook her head and kept her gaze directed ahead as she piloted the ship. He’d been on comm with Tobias for the past hour, and not once had the mobster mentioned being summoned by Ziva. Then again, Taran hadn’t mentioned it either, mostly because he was still considering this a matter of defending his own people, not helping the Haphezians. As far as the other party knew, each of them was responding to Ronan’s presence for personal reasons and they’d just happened to stumble across each other’s fleets on the way.
Ostin sighed. “Fine, add them to the network.”
“I should also inform you that there’s a Durutian fleet en route in the Alpha 26 FTL lane,” Tobias continued. “You’ll want to extend this courtesy to them as well.”
“The Durutians?” Payvan said. “About damn time!”
Mae leaned over and tilted the comm receiver toward her. “You didn’t think we’d let you have all the fun, did you?”
Taran was glad to see that her face remained emotionless. Despite the joking nature of her words, she wasn’t smiling.
Good
. She’d been far too cordial with the Haphezians from the beginning, in his opinion.
Payvan made some sound that might have been a cynical chuckle; it was hard to tell with all the noise on the channel. “What’s your play?”
He spoke up before Mae could, hoping to reinforce the fact that both his people and the Niiosians were there of their own accord. “We’re still a few minutes out, but we’re planning to break out of the FTL lane at the last minute and take the Resistance by surprise. We’ll be coming in from the southwest while Ronan’s fleet is focused on Tobias’s ships approaching from the northeast. Our force consists of sixty-three vessels sent by the Durutian army as well as five of our scout ships that have been commissioned by the Galactic Federation. Combined, we’ll have more than enough firepower to overwhelm the Resistance.”
“Good,” Ostin said. “I’ll send ships to fill in the perimeter when you arrive.”
In all honesty, the plan had been Tobias’s; Taran had to give him credit for being a good strategist, and he wondered if that skill came from years of having an entire moon – hell, an entire sector of the galaxy – under his thumb.
“All the ships in the universe won’t do us any good until we can get those shields down,” Payvan said.
“What can we do?” Mae asked.
“We could use some additional manpower aboard Ronan’s flagship. Help the strike teams take out the generators, or at least run interference and keep the Res troops occupied.”
Mae shot Taran a glance. “Will do.”
“Copy that. We’re going dark – Payvan out.”
The channel was silent for a moment before someone from the
Soroya
came back on. “Durutian scout ship, we’re picking you up on our scanners now. Transmitting network codes.”
Taran turned his attention to the screen on the dashboard, watching as hundreds of colored dots appeared. A smaller cluster representing Tobias’s fleet moved in behind the Resistance ships, and the group representing his own ships was closing in on the battle with incredible speed.
Mae’s hands flew over the controls and she opened a second comm channel for their fleet. “Leaving FTL in three, two, one…”
There was a brief jolt as the
Deonida
jumped out of the FTL lane. Space stopped swirling and the view outside came into sharp focus. Despite the distance that still remained between their ships and the battle, the combined forces of Ronan and the Haphezians completely filled the front viewport. Taran’s first thought was that it wasn’t what he’d been expecting to see, but if not this, he wasn’t sure what he
had
been expecting. The fact that the Resistance had been building an armada of this size aside from what they already possessed within the Core was inconceivable, yet there it was, right in front of him.
Mae reached over to mute the comm system. “You didn’t mention the fact that Matney is on his way out here with more Feds.”
“It’s irrelevant,” Taran replied, watching as several of the larger frigates they’d brought surpassed their ship and headed toward the conflict. The
Deonida
was agile and was outfitted with basic weaponry, but Command had ordered them to let some of the better-equipped vessels lead the assault. Now that Taran was getting a look at the scene for himself, he had no desire to argue. “It’s not like he’s actually planning on taking part in the fight. All he wants to do is wait on the sidelines and take Resistance prisoners once the rest of us have done all the dirty work.”
“Well,” she sighed, “at least the Federation blockade is still holding.” She nodded toward the mess in front of them. “This is a big enough fleet for my taste – we can’t afford for Ronan to have any more reinforcements coming from the Core.”
Taran drew a deep breath and readied himself to take control of their weapons systems. “So, where shall we start?”
“You heard Payvan,” Mae replied with a shrug. “I’m picking up strong shield readings on that flagship, and there’s no way we’re taking that monster out until those shields are down. I don’t know about you, but I have a hunch Ronan’s aboard that ship, and in that case, I’d suggest we make it a priority.”
Taran smiled. It was tempting to reach over and take her hand, but he decided against it for fear of compromising her ability to fly and his ability to control the guns. “We’ve established that we’re ready to save the galaxy,” he said. “You ready to make good on that?”