Path stamped her front hoof, frustrated. “And where is Chiddle? And where is Ghost?” She set her hands on her waist and drummed her fingers, humming with thick annoyance.
They had reached a brightly lit but empty lab.
The cavern contained white pipes and thin, multi-colored wires running the length and width of the ceiling, all avoiding the rectangular lights that hung from four arms and intersecting with black boxes embedded in the rock. Thick black wires ran from those, down the half-tiled walls, and to tall metal poles, where they spanned out and attached to blocky, grey tech cabinets set in u-shaped configurations throughout the area. Screens of all sizes sat on desks pushed together, some displaying static, some black, a few with information scrolling fast, though no one manned them.
Drinks splatted across the white tiles. Thin crispy wafers and half-eaten fruit lay on tables, some on the floor, crushed in the dash to leave. Chairs had tipped over, desks pushed askew. Table lamps and pictures of smiling family and pets had toppled over or crashed to the ground, breaking. Those working within the confines of the room had run away suddenly, without caring to retrieve anything of sentimental value.
Since some of the tech fizzed and sparked, their sides torn apart by a weapon, Lapis had a good idea who drove them from their work. Because of the damage, she expected bodies but did not notice blood smears, let alone a corpse.
“Is anyone here?” Brander asked, pivoting. Tech noise, humming and beeping, answered him.
“No,” Patch said. He pointed at the destroyed machines. “I think these were taken out on purpose, after the workers left. The damage isn’t as random as I’d expect if the attackers targeted fleeing people and missed.”
Dagby shuffled to a screen and glanced at the contents. “But you’d expect someone would have come back by now and tried to recover what they could.” He tapped the surface. “Too bad Cassa isn’t with us. She could read this.”
Lapis wandered over to a desk littered with tools, khentauree parts, and that still had a lit screen. A window filled it with a half-written page and a blinking line after the last symbol. “This looks like someone stopped typing mid-sentence. Gredy’s attack caught everyone by surprise.” She glanced at the men. “I still think it’s weird that the mercs attacked. Why? Weren’t they focused on the workstation?”
“He wasn’t making headway and knew they had more sophisticated stuff down here,” Brander guessed, staring at a squashed food item at his feet. “He may have tried to bargain for it, and things went sour because Gredy’s an ass. Then those red trident mercs showed up and took everyone out. I doubt it was Hoyt; his shanks are scared and useless.”
Considering the fear in every guttershank they encountered, Lapis agreed. “And our luck, Gredy made it through.” If he survived his infiltration of Ambercaast, he would probably turn his attention to Jiy and hunt down those he considered responsible for his humiliation, with her at the top of his list.
Patch touched his eyepatch and the flashing blue lights sped up, creating a circular pattern that spiraled into the center. “An armed group’s approaching.”
The lab did not exactly have exceptional places to hide. They followed Patch to one of the u-shaped clusters at the far right-hand wall and squatted behind the dented tech. Path knelt, wrapped her arms about her torso, and stilled. It disconcerted Lapis, because she froze in place, with not even a twitch. Her partner settled his hand on her back, and she gave him a wavery smile.
The men, relaxed, expectant, drew her envy. How many dangerous missions must she complete before she possessed the same aplomb? Oh, the enemy is coming? Yawn, same ol’, same ol’.
The shouting caught their attention. She recognized the outraged, supercilious voice. “That’s Markweza Eldekaarsen,” she hissed. “He was yelling at someone that I think was Hoyt while I freed Rin and Tovi.”
Patch peeked around the outer corner, his patch dulling so the blinking lights did not attract attention. “Did you get a good look at Hoyt?”
“No. He had his back to me.”
“Too bad,” Dagby murmured, though the anticipation in his eyes worried her. He wanted Hoyt, and as badly as her partner.
Lapis peeked through the thin gap between machines but saw no one. She heard them, though. The markweza especially sounded like a shrieking whirlwind tearing through the place, throwing anything within arm’s length against the floor.
After the rush of motion, a loud bang, like someone punching one of the cabinets, echoed through the room, and quiet descended, but for tear-tinged, raged gasping.
A calm, though no less angry, voice spoke, the reverberation making the quiet words unintelligible.
Sudden silence, and tense anticipation marred the atmosphere. The thump of multiple feet racing their way rang from the entrance nearest the markweza. Stumbling sounds and gasps followed.
“You survived,” the royal said, speaking Lydissian. He sounded dull, the anger underlying his tone a faint wash of emotion, as if the furious outburst exhausted him.
“No thanks to you.”
She gasped at the ominous statement. “That’s the man I think is Hoyt.”
Patch glanced at her, then edged further around the corner.
“I’ll go look,” Dagby offered, rising.
“Not yet,” her partner said, waving him back.
“He’s your commander!” Hoyt said, his voice slicing and incensed.
“Not mine,” the markweza hissed.
“He ran your command post, which makes him your commander.” The thicker Jiy Grey Streets accent broke through the disgruntled disbelief.
“He’s working for someone else,” another said. A hiss to silence him went unheeded. “He killed our people, just like he killed yours.”
“You expect me to believe he shot up this place?”
Good question. Lapis hoped Hoyt followed that line of thought.
“Yes, because he wanted the research into khentauree.”
“Dagaavis!” the markweza snapped.
“We need to get it back. You have to help.”
“I’m not helping you with shit,” Hoyt said, his low voice threatening.
“Money’s no—”
“You left me to die,” the underboss snarled. “I ain’t helpin’ with shit.” His careful, merchant-inspired speech patterns broke under his enraged stress. He sounded like any other Stone Streets guttershank, which, oddly, put Lapis at ease. She had no idea how to handle a markweza, but she understood shanks.
Patch looked at Dagby, who raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll pay whatever you want,” the markweza promised. “Just stop that science ship from taking off!”
“Path, is there a place in this area large enough to handle an evacuation craft?” Patch asked quietly.
“There are two,” she said, still not moving. “But the landing pad outside the Mica Tunnel is close to the Caast Tunnel, and it is the way they first brought equipment to the mines.”
“If it’s already set up for an airship, that would make it easier to load cargo and those modded khentauree,” Dagby said.
“How far is it from here?” Patch asked.
“Not so far,” Path said. “But we must take the way the Hoyt came from. Around will be too long, and we need to find Chiddle and Ghost.”
The Hoyt? Lapis smiled. This adventure gave her an appreciation for alternative views of human names.
Patch pressed at his patch. “Hoyt’s people are in the entrance,” he said. “So even if we sneak over there, we’re still going to expose ourselves to get past. They’ll be shooting at our backs.”
“You get them mercs to help.” The underboss’s fury reverberated off the multiple hard surfaces, causing several echoes. “We’re leavin’.”
“I said—”
“Do I look like I care you’re royalty? Some offshore prince who shit his drawers and his family sent ‘m away to air out? You don’t like it, take it up with Diros.”
“You common—”
Patch’s fingers cracked. Lapis snagged him before he did anything rash, and he glared, his eye sizzling with repressed wrath.
“Diros?” Dagby whispered. “That’s the court noble Hoyt hooked up with?”
“Yeah,” Patch said in simmering rage.
Lapis shook her head. “Diz said that he thought that Hoyt looking for me was mixed up with Diros. There’s definitely something going on between them, and it’s more than some debt.”
“Diz.” Dagby’s unamused disgust concerned her. “I’ll ask Granna Cup to talk to him. She never takes his shit.”
Patch laughed darkly; she and Brander exchanged confused looks, then the thief shrugged. If her grandson asked, did she like him well enough to have a chat with the fixer?
The shouts that erupted from the two pissed men put their argument in the mining cavern to shame.
Path’s head snapped up. “Chiddle comes,” she said. “Ghost became ghost and there is fighting at the landing pad. He said we must go.”
Lapis almost—almost—asked after Chiddle before screams exploded and guttershanks fled through the tech, huffing, panting. Her group popped up, to witness a chubby man wearing identical clothing to the man she thought was Hoyt, yelling at the shanks to give way and sprinting past his men, eyes wide. Brown makeup smeared across his fat cheeks and chin, and marred the collar of his blue button shirt. He painted on his beard? What self-respecting shank did that?
“Dammit!” Patch turned towards the fleeing shanks, Dagby with him, but Path shouldered them aside. She wove elegantly through the tech and to the tunnel entrance, where an impatient Chiddle stared down at a cowering, pleading markweza. The people surrounding him pointed their weapons and quaked; she doubted they would land a single hit, they shook so hard.
She snagged her partner’s hand as he righted himself; he glared, his blue eye lit with a hateful fire, and she glowered back. “We need to retrieve that information,” she reminded him. “You can hunt Hoyt down in Jiy when we get back.”
“I’ll go,” Dagby said. Patch nodded abruptly, and he hustled after his targets. Lapis drilled a hole in his receding back, but he ignored her concern. Yes, grabbing Hoyt was important, but modded khentauree plans took priority. And Dagby was no longer a hunter or chaser. Skills died without use, and while individual shanks had little chance against him, a terror-driven group did.
“You want me to stay and watch him?” Brander asked.
But!
“Yeah,” Patch said. “If we can’t stop the ship, the markweza’s people know what they took.”
“You don’t think we’ll be able to halt the evacuation,” Lapis said, her heart and confidence falling.
“No.” That blunt. She swallowed, fighting the crash of conviction in their task.
The royal’s buddies shrieked loud enough to wake the mythical Underearth demons as Path trotted around them. Patch snagged her hand, and they scurried around the tech while the frightened group sought shelter from their perceived enemy. She glanced back at Brander’s hiding place, mentally wishing him luck. They all would need it.
Path’s voice crashed through the room. “Why did you leave him? He cannot get blown up! I will tell him so!”
And the khentauree took off.
“Path!” Chiddle called, his voice amplified. “There is too much fighting!”
Lapis and Patch streaked past, following at a dead run. She thought she heard the mechanical being cursing in an intense, fuzzy tone, before bringing up the rear.
No tech weapon fired after them. That counted as a good sign. It had to.
