Planet Broker Book 2, page 28
Silence was the only response I got for a long time. I knew it was a hard pill to swallow, I knew it was killing Buchanan to even consider the offer, but we both knew he had to say yes unless he wanted hundreds of his men to die and for this PR nightmare to become a thousand times worse.
Finally, static crackled once more at my ear.
“Fine,” the T-N executive conceded. It sounded like he had to spit the word out. “We agree to your terms.”
After a moment he added blithely, as if he couldn’t care less, “Is Mr. Warrick still alive perchance?”
I looked back to the sickly soldiers. No one had fallen over dead yet.
“I believe he’s still breathing,” I admitted, “though he might be a little worse for wear.”
“Then we ask that you return him to us,” Buchanan responded, “so that proper justice can be dealt for the crimes Mr. Warrick committed on Proxima V.”
A wicked smile bloomed across my face as I looked to the Almort around me and the defeated soldiers we had surrounded.
“Well, Mr. Buchanan,” I said in my best broker voice, “I think I’m going to need that in writing.”
“We’ll need time to prepare the paperwork,” the T-N executive argued. “Will you administer the cure to the troops in the meantime?”
“Mass genocide isn’t really my cup of tea,” I replied, “so yes, we will save your men.”
“Then we will call you when the paperwork is completed,” Buchanan announced, and before I could respond, he cut the transmission.
Still smiling, I tapped at my earwig again. “Hey O, send the drones from the medical tent and have them release the cure,” I instructed my AI.
“On it, Colby,” Omni responded.
It took nearly fifteen minutes for the drones to reach us but, once they did, they swooped low over T-N’s troops and sprayed a fine mist over the coughing men. The soldiers were so weakened, only a few managed to do more than sit up before the cure began to take effect. Then, the coughing and hacking began in earnest as the vaporized Almort herb expelled the mites from the men’s lungs. The Marsh Tribe chieftain had even worked a little bit of a sedative into the mixture, so even when the troops were free of the mites, they were too groggy to stand or even remain conscious for very long.
Once the aerosolized cure had dissipated, I was about to approach the drugged soldiers to find Warrick when Omni came back on the comm system.
“Colby, you have another call,” the AI informed me.
I frowned. “Is it Buchanan again?”
“No. The call is coming from the Mercenary Star.”
My heart skipped a beat as my eyes darted back to T-N’s troops. Had Warrick not followed me?
I walked back to one of the trucks and took the call on the monitor. Warrick’s face appeared on the screen almost instantly. The other broker wasn’t looking so hot. His perfectly coiffed hair had been mussed, there was dirt streaked across his cheek and nose, and his shiny, new, red and blue flight suit was ripped and scuffed.
“Doing all right there, Warrick?” I taunted, even though I was unsettled that the other broker wasn’t with the rest of his men. “It looks like you got a little something on your face there.”
Warrick bared his teeth but didn’t otherwise rise to my bait. Warning sirens began to go off in my head. The other broker should be foaming at the mouth. He didn’t exactly look happy, but he definitely shouldn’t look this calm.
“You think you’ve won, haven’t you,” Warrick hissed as he narrowed his eyes.
“Took the words right out of my mouth,” I replied. “Actually, I’ve already spoken to Nolan, so this conversation is a little redundant.”
I scrutinized the other broker’s face. What was he hiding?
“I know,” Warrick hissed. “He’s already sent out a message to all the troops that I’m to be brought in. The transmission was clever, but you lose points for originality since you copied the idea from me.” A dark and wild gleam glinted in his eye. “But once you and your savages put down your weapons, Buchanan will forgive me. This will all blow over. Hell, he’ll welcome me back with open arms!”
Warrick looked a little unhinged as he shouted. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. That wasn’t good.
“I think you’ve got it backward.” I frowned. “I already have all your men surrounded and drugged. They’ve been neutralized, Warrick. You’ve lost.”
“But have I, Colby?” Warrick simpered as a wicked smile began to climb across his face.
As he said this, he leaned off-screen and jerked something toward him. An instant later, Sef’sla stumbled into view. Her hands were bound in front of her, and her mouth was gagged. There was also a dark, indigo bruise that bloomed against her temple, and blue blood trickled down her cheek.
“Sef’sla,” I gasped as I took in the sight of the Almort princess. My heart felt like it stopped in my chest. Everything faded to white noise. All I could focus on was Sef’sla and Warrick’s grubby hand wrapped tight around her elbow.
“Let her go,” I snarled at Warrick, fury unlike anything I had ever felt boiling like magma in my veins.
“Sure,” Warrick replied with a shrug. “When you surrender, and the savages sign my contract.” He met my gaze with nothing but cool, calculating cruelty in his eyes. “You have thirty minutes. If I don’t have your surrender by then, you can say bye-bye to your little savage princess.”
I looked to Sef’sla, saw the terror in her eyes, and opened my mouth to promise her I would save her, that she would be alright, but Warrick shoved her off-screen before I had the chance.
“One hour, CT,” Warrick repeated as he held up one finger. He smirked at me and, just before the transmission cut out, he lowered his index finger and raised his middle one.
“Your move,” he taunted, and then the screen went black.
Chapter 18
I stared at the black screen for what felt an eternity. Everything was just static in my ear. The world had gone gray around the edges gray. The only word that echoed through my mind was Sef’sla’s name.
Sef’sla, Sef’sla, Sef’sla.
It dimly registered in the back of mind that I was going into shock. I shook my head, but when that didn’t help to clear the fog that was settling over my thoughts, I reached up and slapped myself.
The slight bite of pain helped to center me. I blinked, clenched my fists, and feeling returned to my numb fingers. My shattered and chaotic thoughts also began to fall back in line.
“Omni, I need you to open a line between all the chieftains,” I croaked, my voice hoarse as it punched through my constricted throat. “Patch in Neka and Akela, too.”
The Almort chieftains were busy checking on their tribesman and keeping an eye on T-N’s drugged troops.
“Yes, Colby,” the AI intoned, and a moment later, static crackled loud in my ear, interspersed with the chaotic symphony of battle.
“This is CT,” I called into the comm. My heart beat steadily in my chest, but my throat still felt too tight. The image of Sef’sla, bruised, bloody, and bound kept flashing in my mind. “U’eh, you and the other chieftains need to meet me with some of the trucks. Omni will send my exact location to your data pads. There’s something… urgent we need to discuss.”
This seemed like an impossible thing to tell U’eh, but I owed it to him to at least deliver the news in person. There was a brief moment of static, but then everyone tried to start speaking at once.
“What happened?” the Almort chieftain hissed in response.
“Are you okay, CT?” Akela asked.
“You didn’t breathe any lung mites, did you?” Neka exclaimed in terror.
I rubbed at my mouth harshly and took a deep breath. “No, I’m fine,” I replied. “It’s… not me. I’ll explain everything when the chieftains and I are together.”
“We will be there shortly,” U’eh clicked, and I shut my eyes as I palmed at my forehead.
Goddamn Warrick. I wanted to pump him full of lung mites and watch as they chewed their way out. No matter what, I was getting Sef’sla back safely, and I would make Warrick pay for thinking he could take what was mine.
Within five minutes of the ransom call, the chieftains along with U’eh’s son, Cy’lass, had made their way to my location. I slid out of the truck right as Chief U’eh stepped up to the door.
“What has happened?” he immediately asked, straight to the point.
I didn’t know how to put it eloquently or tactfully. My brain was too busy running itself into the ground trying to formulate a plan, so I came right out and said it.
“It’s Sef’sla,” I said, and the princess’s name caught in my throat. “Warrick has her. He’s holding her hostage until we surrender and you sign his contract. He thinks if he can get you to sign, Terra-Nebula will take him back.”
A moment of silence followed my announcement. I could hear Neka gasp over the comm system. The other chieftains let out a simultaneous hiss of anger and displeasure.
But it was U’eh that I looked to. The Almort chief’s face was deadly still. His dark, fathomless eyes betrayed nothing. “How did this happen?” he hissed softly, and a shiver went down my spine. It would have been better if the chieftain had roared and raged. This icy, silent fury was terrifying. Beside him, Cy’lass had blanched at the news of his sister, his face drained of nearly all color, his features left a washed out, pale blue.
Before I could respond that I didn’t know, another voice came over the comm system.
“She left the medical tent,” Kot’ep, the Marsh Tribe chieftain, reported. My data pad buzzed in my pocket with an incoming video call, and I took it out to see Kot’ep’s face as Omni patched him through. Blue blood was splattered across his cheeks, but the Marsh Tribe chieftain looked otherwise whole.
“What do you mean she left the tent?” U’eh snapped as snatched the data pad out of my hand and snarled at his brother-in-law. “She was meant to stay by your side and tend the wounded! She was to be safe behind that shield!”
“I know,” Kot’ep cringed as he held up his six-fingered hands. “But there were many wounded, and someone ran into the tent and said they needed help to carry an individual with a broken leg. With most of the starmen’s forces following you into the desert, Sef’sla thought it safe and ran out to help. I thought she was still tending to people in the field. I had no idea she had been…”
The Marsh Tribe chieftain trailed off in horror, his own green features pale and sickly.
Before U’eh could explode, I cut in and asked, “Kot’ep, have there been any casualties as yet?”
Kot’ep’s eyes flicked back to me. “N-no,” he hissed. “Mostly minor injuries, only a few severe, but they will all live. The masks your machine-healer worked as well. We have had no cases of lung mites.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. So my plan had worked. The weaponry had demolished T-N’s forces, the sandstorm decimated them, and Akela even released that damning transmission, forcing T-N to surrender. Then, this bombshell happened.
Goddamn fucking Warrick. He was going to live to regret this.
“We need to surrender, now,” U’eh declared, and his voice cut through my thoughts. I looked to the Almort chieftain, but Kot’ep was already nodding his head on-screen.
“Yes, I agree,” the chieftain of the marshlands added.
“No one is surrendering,” I argued as I stepped forward with a frown.
U’eh bared his teeth, and he spun to face me. “That is my daughter,” he hissed, his eyes wild with fear and fury. “I do not care about your starmen games. Whatever is required of me to get her back safely, I will do it.”
“Even at the cost of your people?” I countered. “Your planet?”
“Whatever the cost,” U’eh snarled. His gills flared and lights raced down his arms to his clenched fists.
“You must see how unreasonable that is, U’eh,” Za’ec said as he crossed his arms in front of him. The Desert Tribe chieftain had a frown etched across his face. “There are whole tribes to consider here, hundreds of lives. You’d sacrifice all of them for one?”
“Would you not have done the same for your son?” U’eh snapped, his voice serrated.
Za’ec’s frown deepened, but he wisely did not respond.
“The starmen saved your boy,” U’eh hissed in accusation. “They have taken my daughter. Do not speak down to me as if you would behave any differently if our positions were reversed.”
“Okay, enough,” I said as I moved between the two tense chieftains. “Enough. We’re not surrendering.”
As U’eh opened his mouth to argue, I held up a hand, looked in his eyes, and added, “But I’m not going to allow Warrick to harm Sef’sla.”
“We’re going to rescue her,” I declared firmly, my chin raised in defiance and my spine ramrod straight.
“How?” Cy’lass croaked as he came to stand beside his father. His face was still pale, but an ember of hope flared in his eyes.
Ever since I had spoken to Warrick, my mind had been churning through ideas and half-cocked plans, anything to save Sef’sla. I had immediately disregarded the notion that Buchanan would be any help at all. He was a professional at washing his hands of responsibility, and I could hear his excuses of Warrick being a rogue operative, how he wasn’t following orders, how Buchanan’s hands were actually really tied. I didn’t have time for his bullshit, so it was up to me to find a way. The problem was Warrick knew me, just like I knew him. We had been taught all the same tricks in negotiation. I had to think of something out of the box. Something he wouldn’t expect.
Something just a little bit crazy.
“I have a plan,” I announced. I looked around at the gathered chieftains and my crew, all who gazed expectantly back at me. “But I’ll need a little help and a lot of trust.”
I turned to the data pad in my hand. “I need something from you,” I said to the Marsh Tribe chieftain, “and I need it in the next thirty minutes.”
“If it’ll help save my niece,” the chieftain replied with a fire of rage in his strange, dark eyes, “I will give you anything you ask for. I will give you my life.”
“Thank you,” I chuckled at his bloodthirsty enthusiasm, “but I have something a tad bit easier in mind.”
Ten minutes later, with the plan already set in motion, I gave Warrick one last call.
“Finally come to your senses, have you?” the other broker drawled smugly as he appeared on-screen.
I kept my face carefully neutral. “The Almort have agreed to your terms. They will surrender and sign Terra-Nebula’s contract if you return Sef’sla alive and unharmed,” I replied through only slightly gritted teeth.
“Oh, she’s fine,” Warrick said dismissively as he waved his hand. “She only has a little bump on her head is all.”
“In thirty minutes, we will meet you outside the city at a neutral location away from both of our ships,” I continued as if he hadn’t said anything. “I will send you the coordinates, and we’ll make the exchange there.”
Warrick narrowed his eyes at me. “If they’ve already agreed, why not meet now?” he countered suspiciously.
“Because you gave us an hour deadline, and we have to make sure your men don’t die before we trek back across the desert,” I snapped. I put a little more fire and emotion in my voice to make the excuse believable.
It seemed to have worked because Warrick rolled his eyes. “Such a bleeding heart,” he muttered. “Fine. I’ll meet you in your little neutral zone. Bring the savages’ leader. The main, big brute, but no one else, just the two of you. And don’t try to slip any more past me. As you know, T-N flight suits have a proximity scanner of up to one hundred meters. Well, maybe you don’t know. It’s a newer upgrade.”
“I’m not the dishonest one, Arden,” I said evenly as I ignored his last jab, although my hands itched to wrap around his neck and squeeze.
“Don’t be such a sore loser, Colby,” Warrick fired back as he sniffed in disgust. “It’s pretty pathetic.”
“I’ll see you in half an hour,” I replied, not rising to his bait, and then I cut the transmission.
Warrick’s ruination began to take form in my mind's eye. I swore to myself right then that I was going to destroy the blond prick for daring to lay his slimy, awful fingers on Sef’sla.
When it was time to go, a truck waited for me with U’eh standing impatiently beside it, his face an impenetrable, stern mask. We drove as fast as the vehicle could take us back toward Oe’huk, and as we drew closer to the city, the medical tent came into view. The other chieftains plus Neka and Akela stood outside.
Neka bounded to my side the second I stepped out of the truck and after one look at my face, she threw her arms around me.
“Your plan will work,” the cat-girl said reassuringly as she pressed her face into my chest.
I held my assistant tightly against me and felt grateful to have her in my arms.
“It’s a little crazy,” I chuckled dryly as I dropped a kiss against the top of her head.
“Yeah well, your middle name is crazy,” Neka replied with a serious look on her face. “In the ten years I’ve known you, you haven’t let me down once, CT, not once. You’re not about to start now.”
I looked down at my assistant, who trusted me one hundred percent, who followed me around the universe blindly and with the utmost faith. So many thoughts swirled around in the chaotic eddy of my mind, but only one tumbled out of my mouth.
“I love you,” I said earnestly.
Neka blinked in surprise but then smiled sweetly. “I know you do,” she replied. “And I love you, too. But now’s not the time for that.”
The cat-girl extracted herself from my arms, tugged on the lapels of my coat, mussed my hair, and then stepped back and ran a critical eye over me.
“Perfect,” she declared. “Now, you better get going so you can punch Warrick in the face, and bring Sef’sla back home safe to us,” she ordered as she shoved me toward the other chieftains and Akela. She even went so far as to slap me on the ass.
