Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (27 page)

“Yeah, here to rescue us.”
Sean’s tone said otherwise.

Green energy wells dropped from
the immense blue ship. Electric arcs leaped through the cylinder as the
Armadans’ armor brushed against the well’s side on their way to the Tredificio
cantilevers that remained standing. Huge thuds peppered the area just above
Sean and Sara. The fully armored Armadans were almost as disquieting as lensed
fraggers. Almost.

“At least our assassin won’t
try anything with
them
around.” Avoiding the Armadans and finding
an alternate way off the island could be her best escape. Simon would assume
she perished in the eruption. She could start over, get another identity, get
rid of the irradicae. The small hope filled her with vigor. “They won’t be
able to rescue everyone, though. Probably won’t even be able to account for all
the bodies.”

“Probably not,” Sean
agreed.

“A person could just
disappear among all this chaos and no one would ever know.”

“They sure could.” Sean
stared at her.

She watched the troopers coming
closer, her chances of fleeing dying by the second.

“Do you want to disappear
with me?” Sean took her hand. She knew he wasn’t running just for her,
even if he guessed her torture had been Embassy-sanctioned. He had his ghosts,
but he was asking her to go with him. To trust him. He had nothing else to
lose. Neither did she, and that’s what he understood.

“Yes,” she said.
“How?”

He pointed to a fleet of smaller
auxiliary craft. “That’s where they’re loading the labor force separately.
We catch a ride back to the Hub, then I can get us far away from here,
somewhere they’ll never find us.”

“Then, let’s
disappear.”

He smiled from the corner of his
mouth and led her inside the glass pyramid and away from their military rescue.

After maneuvering around debris
and backtracking to be sure no one, including the contractor with the darts,
could follow them, they came to a utility ladder which led down to the next
cantilever. Sara grasped the rungs and descended quickly down the narrow
ladder, its meager stability welcome after her experience on the damaged
walkway.

“We don’t exactly look like
staff,” Sara said as they surveyed the scene from behind a support.

“Other Uppers are
boarding.” Sean grabbed a guest’s discarded wrap and handed it to Sara.
“Might be better if they don’t know you’re an ambasadora.” He wrapped
the long, silky cloth over Sara’s shoulder and around her waist, then tied it
at her side.

She tucked her hand in the crook
of his arm to hide its faint glow. Linked together, they made their way to the
craft farthest from the troopers.

A mishmash of Lower Caste staff
and Socialite guests crowded for position at every craft’s metal doorway. Uppers
were always given preferred consideration, then Lowers with more prominent
positions in the labor force.

Sara heard voices raised in
dispute as she and Sean waited to board crafts near the middle. She eyed a man
dressed in a plain tunic and dirty pants moving toward three hosts. His arms
waved madly to keep them away from the craft.

“We’re in for trouble. Not
everyone’s going to fit,” Sean said.

A plump man in a filthy
maintenance jumper pushed his way between Sara and Sean to the commotion at the
far launch. He smelled of grease and fire.

“This is our ship! Get your
own,” the man roared as he moved through each set of waiting boarders.

“He’s drawing too much
attention,” Sean said.

Sara glanced at the Armadans who
watched from the main ship’s boarding ramp.

“Wait here.” Sean
washed through the crowd in the man’s wake.

A trooper stepped away from his
post.
Or hers.
They may as well have been asexual in that armor.

Sara cut into the next line,
aware of penetrating looks from those behind her. She didn’t stay among them
long before mingling with another group of boarders, slowly making her way to
Sean at the far launch. As he talked with the Lowers, they were actually
calming down. Then the man in the tunic started screaming again. The
maintenance man lunged at him. Sean stepped between them. The maintenance man
pulled back an elbow and struck at Sean’s face. Sean blocked him, sending him
falling into the line of people just in front of him.

Sara stood on the outskirts of
the fight, ready to jump in. Sean made a pacifying gesture with his upraised
hands to the crowd. A host grabbed Sean around the neck from behind. Before
Sara could break through the circle of people, Sean had thrown the man off him,
just in time to exchange blows with the maintenance man again.

Three Socialite couples next to
Sara took advantage of the commotion to shove to the front of the line. The
craft’s pilot allowed the group to board even among the uproarious shouts from
the agitated crowd. Several men and women from the crowd closed in around Sean;
society’s hierarchy slid through the fist of panic as it tightened its grip.

A host shoved Sean from behind.
The crowd sprung at him. Sean deftly threw the closest man to the concrete with
an evasive twist of his body and a well-placed shove to the lower back. Sean
used the mob’s clumsy aggression against them with well-timed blocks and
practiced feints, his moves almost contractor-like, not as polished, but maybe
a little more effective.

Sara plowed through the
on-lookers. The maintenance man grabbed a bent piece of rebar and charged Sean.
Sara shoulder-checked the man, throwing him off-balance. When he tumbled to the
ground, she stomped on his wrist to dislodge the weapon. He reached for her
foot, but she shoved her heel into his nose.

“Armadans!” A yell from
the far end of the dock sent many scurrying from the fray.

Three troopers clomped a path through
the Tredificio refugees.

The pilot stuck his head out of
the shuttle’s grey metal door. “Last call to board.”

Sara grabbed Sean’s arm and
pulled him aboard. Six Lower Caste workers stared at them from the launch. On
their faces she read a mixture of hatred, disappointment, and resignation.

“I don’t know what they’re
looking at,” a Socialite male next to Sara said. “Like we did
something wrong.”

“We did,” Sean said,
his stare remained on their accusing faces until the door hissed shut.

“You’re a Socialite. You
acted quite within the confines of the law.” The man patted Sean on the
back.

Sean shoved the man’s hand away.
“It’s an antiquated law.”

The few Lowers who made it aboard
flicked a look at Sean, but still gave him a wide berth. Sara’s heart softened
at the shame she saw on his face.

Rainer passed through the
transparent door of the
Bard
‘s medical suite, noting the shelves and
cabinets of pastel green glass, the soft blue floors and ceiling. Comfortable
and relaxing. The Embassy could take some style notes from this place.

He crossed into a waiting area
for the private rooms. Only one of the three doors was shut. He headed for its
shimmering metal surface. With the reporter he had lifted from David’s chair on
the bridge, Rainer keyed the door open.

Solimar Robbins sat up in her temporary
bed, light blue braids falling across one mocha shoulder and one wrapped in a
silver bandage. Just a curve of her bare breasts peeked out.

She hugged a pillow to her chest.

“Trala, I have to go. Talk
with you soon,” she said to a viewer on the wall in front of her bed.

The very pregnant woman on the
receiving end looked like she wanted to cry. The tight skin around her eyes and
mouth suggested she was younger than her amour. “Soon, Soli. I mean you’ll
come here soon, right?”

“Yes. Now rest. Our daughter
needs all your attention,” Solimar said in a tight voice.

Before Trala could respond, Solimar
ended the transmission.

Her blue eyes, which were much
darker than her hair, gave a glimpse into her sensual nature, even as they
regarded Rainer with fear.

“Congratulations. Trala
looks to be due any day.” Rainer enjoyed the way her rounded mouth gaped
slightly at the casual mention of her family.

“Sorry. I should have
introduced myself.” He sat in the dark green chair across from her. Its
back attached to the wall by a metal post, much like the matching bed, giving
them the appearance of hovering in space.

“I know who you are,
Contractor Varden.” Solimar’s voice sounded small, but didn’t quaver.

“Ah, as an archivist you
would know all of the Sovereign’s closest staff.”

“I’ve also seen numerous
clips of you on the Media. A woman doesn’t forget a face like yours.”

She was playing on his conceit,
but he couldn’t keep his arousal for females into SG. If they weren’t going to
respond to him, he couldn’t be bothered with them. He thought of Sara’s
responses—even her anger aroused him. “And, you’ve been monitoring me ever
since you could sit up in that bed, haven’t you?”

She answered quickly. “I’m
sanctioned through Embassy law—”

“You don’t have to quote law
to me. I enforce it.”
And ignore it when necessary.
“Do the
other passengers aboard the
Bard
know you have monitors all over the
ship?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Even in their private
suites?”

Her blue eyes greyed.

“You see, Solimar, I know
more about everyone on the
Bard
than even you do. And, I know you sell
private vids of the passengers to pay for your grand lifestyle. I hear the ones
of your pilot teaching his young Socialite how to dock fetch the best prices.”

Tears flowed freely from the dull
lakes of her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do, and that’s why
I’m willing to help you. I’ll keep your illegal sales to myself if you provide
me with all of the raw data from your monitors.”

“I didn’t keep any of the
data.”

They both sat very still, quietly
regarding one another.

Rainer pushed up from the chair
and walked toward the trembling woman. He drew a mini-viewer from his side
pants pocket and tossed it onto her lap. It showed Trala back at their estate
sitting with a pink-haired contractor. Soli squeezed the pillow closer to her
chest and her quiet crying turned to sobs.

“This woman’s name is Faya
Renault. She’s not someone you want around the mother of your child.”

“My data cache is at the
estate.”

“Where?”

“Only I have access to
it.”

He considered the truth in her
revelation. He didn’t believe she’d put her family in jeopardy to hide some
video footage. “Then I suggest you get dressed. You’ll be visiting Trala
sooner than either of you expected.”

“They’re dropping us at the Hub,”
Sara said, her voice bouncing as the shuttle lurched in for a landing. Restraints
dug into her bared shoulder and tugged at the wrap hiding the other one. Sean
held the smothering nylon straps away from his chest with his thumbs.

“We can’t stay here
long.” They were the first words he’d said since they boarded. Several
workers looked up at the sound of his voice. He avoided their scrutiny.

“Let’s catch a transport
out. Any ideas?” she asked.

The bouncing evened out as they
descended toward the bustling Hub.

“Latulip,” he said.

“That’s a high end
entertainment district. Not very low profile.”

“Its Underground is as low
as you can get.”

Sara had never visited the
Underground and wasn’t crazy about the idea now. But it made sense if they were
trying to disappear.

A series of bumps signaled their
landing.

Sean unfastened his harness and
activated the exterior door controls without waiting for the pilot. He and Sara
scrambled out ahead of the other passengers. The wrap slid from her shoulder.
She thought she caught it in time, but mutters of “Ambasadora”
followed them outside.

She and Sean maneuvered through
thousands of disembarking passengers. They came from all parts of the system,
Upper and Lower Caste alike. Small military transports swarmed from the immense
battle cruiser above while dozens of service shuttles joined them in a queue
for docking space. They were lucky to have been in the first group.

Sara’s apprehension rose as she
contemplated danger in each face they passed. A hand snagged her arm. She
twisted out of the grip and nearly struck Sean in the face.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m pretty
jumpy, too. This way,” he said.

She followed him to the
transportation schedules nearest them. Magenta text swirled through updates on
huge kiosk viewers.

Sean pointed to the one for
Latulip. “It’s six kilometers to Latulip on the far side of Carrey
Bay.”

“I think the boats will be
faster than the monorail.”

Sean looked toward the boat
launch. “There’s a more direct way.”

“Than straight across the
bay?”

“Yeah,” Sean said.
“Under it.” Then he asked, “Have you ever ridden a hover
bike?”

“A man’s headed this way,
Sean.” Hover bike racers, donning helmets and padded clothing, and fans
drinking beer and spirits from bottles roamed around the garage amid the smell
of soldered circuits and fuel spills. Up until now no one had paid Sean and her
notice, maybe because they looked like poor laborers in their ruined garments.
She’d cut off the emerald green train with the bottom part of her gown to be
less conspicuous. They had managed to clean off enough ash and blood not to
look like evacuees any more. Sean had even
found
Sara a pair of shoes
that were only a little too small for her feet.

“Sean.”

“Almost there.” He
tapped a set of controls scrolling across his palm. The heavy bike hummed to
life and lifted off the ground.