Page 25 of Advance and Retreat (Dark Empire #6)

Matara Hope gazed at Mereta. “So I see. Excuse my surprise, Secretary-General. I was under the impression Piras was merely making contact, not conducting an actual rescue mission.”

Mereta bowed. “Circumstances made time of the essence, I’m afraid. How far out of harm’s way are we?”

“As safe as we can be, which isn’t as safe as I’d like it,” Kila snorted. “And bound to get more dangerous as the hunt for you begins.”

As if to underscore his words, the sole door Mereta saw in the room banged open. The group shrank behind the shelves, Mereta included. Between a couple of bins of wiring, he watched a Dantovonian buzz in. The door slid shut behind him.

“Containment on, lethal setting,” it nearly shouted. “Piras!”

“Yes, Elcoger.” Piras stepped out to greet whom Mereta assumed was their host.

“What have you done? Alerts are going out all over the city...hell, all over the planet. Tell me you didn’t bring him here!”

“Where else could we take him?”

Mereta stepped forward. “Greetings and apologies for my obviously unwelcome presence. I assure you, I hadn’t anticipated putting you in such a precarious position.”

“Precarious?” Elcoger’s awe overrode some of his outrage. “Of course I wish to help your eminence in any way I can, Secretary-General, but I didn’t sign on to be executed.”

Lokmi snorted. “No, you signed on for all the money you could lay your hands on.”

“Which isn’t enough to cover this situation!” Elcoger’s fury erupted. “When are you taking him away? It had better be today! Within the hour!”

“You realize there’s no chance of that,” Piras answered. “If we budge, we’ll be caught. You’ll be on the hook too, and you know it. Tell me about the delivery shuttle. Will it be traced?”

The Dantovonian’s facial segments ground together in his agitation, but his reply managed some equanimity. “Do you think me an amateur? It’s used solely for secret deals. It has no markings and no transponder for it to be traced. My workers are stowing it in its hidden berth as we speak.”

“Excellent. We did our best to leave a confusing trail, so we have a good chance authorities will never think to look in your shop.”

“A bad chance is still a chance.”

“Don’t play the innocent,” Piras snarled. “Though we didn’t spell it out, you had to guess we came to find and help Mereta.”

“I thought you’d at least have the sense to have an exit strategy in place. Not bring him here!” Elcoger shook a clenched pincer at Piras. “I’ll have Kalquor’s entire treasury for this unfair use of my hospitality. Make no mistake; the empire will pay!”

He ordered the containment disabled and flew out of the room, buzzing louder than before. As soon as the door closed behind him, Kila ordered its protective containment on lethal.

Hope sighed. “That went well.”

“Poor fellow.” Mereta’s sympathy was real. He was all too aware of how much peril his presence caused the hapless Elcoger.

“Think he’ll turn us in?” Lokmi asked Piras.

“Not if he wants to live. He’s aware the All won’t spare him just because he didn’t know how hiding us would end up.” Piras shook his head. “If he had, he probably would have done it anyway.”

“Money talks, and it’s the only language he speaks,” Kila agreed.

Mereta wasn’t so sure. Beneath his anger, Elcoger had looked terrified. Justified or not, it had been the secretary-general who’d put such fear in him.

* * * *

K alquor

Cassidy shifted on her stool as a slight cramp tightened her abdomen. She barely noted it between her examination of the microscope vid of Dark tissue, the computer analysis of the specimen, and wondering if she’d seen the last of the Other.

Distraction was good. Though she despised the Darks, it had been as hard as she’d feared to take samples from her subjects.

Because she had no anesthetic that numbed the creatures, they’d had to endure brutal pain of removal of flesh, eyes, and the various organic matter required for study.

The screaming and pleas for the All to save them had made her think of her own soon-to-be-born child crying for her.

No amount of reminding herself how unmoved the All and its entities would be if the situation were reversed could ease the stabs of conscience she felt for inflicting torment.

Hiding the guilt was also difficult, but necessary to keep her clanmates and Emperor Egilka from barring her from her work.

Above all, she had to find a way to destroy the All, no matter how inhumane it made her feel.

I bet the Other would be interested to know the effect taking the samples have on me .

After a week since its last visit, Cassidy wondered if she’d see the neighboring dimension’s second occupant again.

The idea the Other had lost all interest in her dealings with the Darks worried her immensely.

Each day that ended with no contact had Egilka and her exchanging hopeless glances.

Another distant pain rippled through her, and she shifted. She ordered the microscope to zoom in on the membranous coating of a cell.

A stream of vicious threats erupted in her head. Cassidy glanced up at Egilka, who sighed. He offered her a wry smile. “Hearing it?”

“Oh yeah. It’s definitely unhappy. Be glad you can’t hear what it would like to do to you. What setting are you using?”

“Point-five seems to be the sweet spot in dimensional shift to allow any bit of the Dark samples to revert to their in-between state and assume a separate entity.”

Separate? I’m no Separate! I’m the All, you—

Cassidy snorted as the specimen reverted to language she’d only heard from Degorsk when he’d been in full rage over a careless pilot running into his brand-new shuttle a day after he’d bought it. “How small was the sample?”

“Blastocyst. I’m wondering if a single cell has the same ability. Seems silly to check when we need to drag the entire All into our dimension so we can send the fleet in to destroy it.”

“Since that doesn’t seem possible, we have to start small and work our way up.” Cassidy grimaced and adjusted her posture.

Egilka’s attention intensified. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been sitting too long on this stool.” She stood and stretched so her spine crackled satisfyingly.

“Are you sure?”

“Just some cramps.”

“In the abdomen? Coming and going?” He stood and rummaged around the sample jars, computers, and assorted materials on his side of the table.

Cassidy’s eyes widened when he approached holding a medical scanner. “Uh-huh. Is that your bright idea or my hysterical Imdiko clanmate’s?”

Egilka grinned at her winningly. Funny how charming and warm the usually aloof scientist could be when the need arose. “Degorsk asked me to have it on hand. Since you’re so close to your due date, I agreed it would be a good idea.”

Cassidy had to admit she might be having contractions. As the father of two, the emperor would recognize the signs. “Fine. Did you chase Empress Jessica around with a medical scanner when she was expecting?”

“No, but I worried her endlessly during her third trimesters by asking constantly how she felt. I seem to remember my life being threatened on more than one occasion for being a pest. I imagine I might be missing a few limbs if I’d tried to scan her.

” Egilka operated the device, waving it in front of Cassidy’s distended abdomen and lower.

“It might not register if it’s early labor. I think I first started feeling something maybe forty-five minutes or an hour ago?”

“You’re right...not seeing anything right now. Tell me the next time a cramp comes along.”

They didn’t have long to wait. About a minute later, Cassidy felt the tightening again as she was telling a laughing Egilka about the sludgy vitamin drink Degorsk had concocted a few months earlier and his efforts to get her to consume it.

“Checkup time.”

Her pulse quickened when Egilka beamed. “Definitely a contraction. Baby’s on the way.”

“My water hasn’t broken. It could be false labor. We should wait before sending my clanmates into full freakout. Why don’t we wrap up our latest reports, then do another check?”

Egilka chuckled and clicked the scanner off.

“It’s funny how we dads-in-waiting get so excited while those of you who do the actual work stay calm.

Actually, I’m kind of nervous for you myself.

You’re right though. At this point, there’s no rush.

If your water breaks, we’ll head to the birthing center. ”

“Excellent.” Cassidy turned back to her experiment, and the emperor returned to his station.

Maybe she looked calm, cool, and collected to Egilka, but a giddy rush filled her at the prospect of seeing her child soon.

No thoughts of the Other or the pain she’d put the Darks through intruded as she dictated her research notes and waited to see if the baby was ready to make an entrance onto the world’s stage.