Page 25 of Relyn (Warriors of Etlon #6)

Relyn

I t was not a task for the impatient, and Relyn kept telling himself that they were in no hurry.

But Bright and Relyn had visited three hole in the wall establishments, ordered drinks and had dropped hints and code phrases at each of them, but so far there were no bites.

Everyone on this station seemed closed lipped to strangers and even a pretty female like Bright couldn’t entice anyone into giving them any information.

Relyn knew that just their presence might alert a response, a chain of messages might pass to Alana that Gale was looking for her.

Until that happened, they would be in a holding pattern.

As they exited the third shady bar, Relyn’s com flashed on the emergency channel he’d set up. It was Grom and he was gurgling on about something. What exactly, he wasn’t sure.

“Give the com to Nora,” Relyn said. Bright peered around him to look.

Relyn knew it had been a mistake to let Nora and Wendy leave without coms, but he hadn’t realized they didn’t have one until they were nearly out the hatch, and by that time, none of them wanted to stop and wait to replicate the sensitive devices.

“Gone. Took. Shoppppfs,” Grom said.

Relyn didn’t wait for more information. He began to all out run toward the shopping district of the station. Two minutes later and he’d found Grom smashed up against a wall, just now gathering his form and putting himself back together.

“Five, six of them. Big. Yellow. They went that way. Took them. I tried, I tried to stop them,” Grom said.

It was clear that the kid had met his match. Relyn gave clear instructions. “Get up, go to the ship. Find Bright and fill her in on the details.”

Relyn grabbed the laser pistol that lay beside Grom and headed in the way that Grom had pointed.

He stopped when he came to the first intersection and closed his eyes.

Relyn concentrated on tracking. Had it been anyone else, Relyn might have been lost at that moment, but it was his mate, and he knew, by instinct and a slight whiff of her in the air, which direction to turn.

He followed it into the temporary housing section of the station, until he reached a set of doors, right next to each other.

Not knowing which was the correct door, Relyn rang the door buzzer.

Relyn pointed his gun at the first one to open.

It was a Melian, a tall thin species hardly matching the description Grom had given.

The Melian backed up, panicking, until Relyn got a good look in the room, verifying that Nora and Wendy were not there.

He focused on the other door that did not open.

Relyn entered an override code that the Mahdfel commonly planted on stations like this for emergency situations.

A large yellow Poling was blocking any view of the room, but the smell of Nora was enough for Relyn to grab the thing by a lock of hair, pull it down, and shoot it at point blank range right under the jaw.

The gun fired, but sizzled after so he dropped it and decided a knife would make a better choice.

He dumped the first Poling into the hallway and stepped over it to another.

That one received the same treatment as the first, except it was a knife into its simple brain instead of a laser shot.

Hot orange blood spurted out onto his hand.

The other four were now alerted to his presence, and were now shouting in unison.

“Kill him, kill him, kill him!”

The chant echoed through him and triggered the memory of his first consciousness. That in itself was enough to strengthen his resolve as he quickly made it through the creatures and dropped them one by one.

They weren’t even much of a challenge. The poling were no more than husks that could be controlled from a short distance away. They were bred to be hands and feet and mindless workers, not trained assassins.

Nora surveyed the carnage at her feet, an unbloodied knife in hand. She’d backed Wendy into a corner, protecting her from the Poling. Relyn felt pride surge through him at his mate’s ability to protect the girl.

“Hi,” she said simply. “What took you so long?”

Relyn paused, and traced back his movements, trying to figure out where he’d lost time.

“That was a joke, sweetie,” Nora said. “How does one get out of here?” She stared down at the lumps of fur that blocked her path.

“Do we need to report this?” Wendy asked. “I mean six dead bodies is going to draw some attention.

“They are not bodies,” Relyn said. “They are husks, controlled by a source. They are biomechanical workers.”

“Oh,” Nora said. “That makes a lot of sense, considering they all talked at once.”

“If they spoke, the controller must be nearby.”

The range of motion control was about a hundred yards, but for speech, the controller needed to be within ten yards. The Melian!

Relyn leaped over the bodies just in time to catch the Melian exiting his cabin with three large cases under his arms. Relyn grabbed him by the back of his coat and yanked him with ease back to the room with Nora who had begun to climb and jump around the Poling corpses.

“This guy is the brains behind the operation?” Nora asked.

The Melian dropped his cases and flailed, trying to get loose.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. Let me go! Let me go!” He was so thin that his punches were more like taps on Relyn’s frame. He pulled a small stunner out of his pocket, but Relyn was too fast for him. He knocked it away before it could do any harm.

Then the Melian started crying, sobbing, actually, big sparkling purple tears.

“Is that glitter? Is he crying glitter?” Nora asked.

“Sure looks like it,” Wendy said.

Neither one seemed too upset by his tears, which stopped immediately the moment Relyn gave his coat a jerk.

“Please don’t kill me.”

“You wanted them to kill him,” Nora prodded. “I think an eye for an eye might be an acceptable punishment. Clearly the people on the station are willing to look the other way when something shady goes down.”

He started crying again.

“Why did he take you?”

“He wanted,” Wendy said. “The code.”

“The code, the code, the code,” Nora echoed. Relyn was pretty sure they were mocking the Polings.

“What code?” Relyn asked.

“Exactly! What code?” Nora asked.

The Melian remained silent. Relyn gave him another shake.

“The credit account code,” he blurted out.

Nora held out a credit stick.

“He seems to think it’s got a code. I mean, it’s only got like a thousand credits on it.”

“Run it past my com scanner,” Relyn said. He looked at the results, shifted his grip, so he was holding the Melian aloft with one hand. He pressed a few buttons on his com and the answer became clear.

“The daily limit is a thousand. The account itself has four million credits in it. You need a code to access the account.”

“Ohhh,” Nora and Wendy said in unison.

Relyn couldn’t believe he’d let them go around the station flashing so much money without an escort. No wonder they had been picked as an easy target for thieves.

“Shall I kill him now?” Relyn asked. He wanted to punch something, but the Melian seemed like such a flimsy target that it would take no skill and the fight would be over in five seconds.

“I have information!” the Melian shouted.

“What kind of information?” Nora asked.

“All the information. Any kind of information. I deal in information. How do you think I got word of your account balance? I am the one guy you need to find out all the secrets. But dead people don’t tell secrets,” the Melian said.

“Right. We can just break an arm or two instead,” Wendy said.

The Melian laughed pitifully as if she had just told a joke. “Release me, unharmed and you can have any information you want. I got unlock codes that will knock your socks off. You want a pleasure palace coupon? I got one that makes it nearly free.”

“What’s a pleasure palace?” Wendy asked.

“A brothel. What makes you think we need a brothel?”

The Melian shrugged. “You seem a little uptight.”

“Perhaps that’s because someone just abducted my mate!” More shaking ensued and the Melian lost his nerve.

“What information do you want?” he asked quietly.

Relyn unsnapped the com off the Melian’s wrist. He tossed it to Wendy who began to scroll.

She squinted and tried not to laugh. “What’s the code?”

“The code, the code, the code,” Nora repeated, giggling. At least they were in a good mood after being abducted. Most females would have been passed out with terror before now.

“Bring it here and I’ll key it in,” the Melian said.

“No, that’s not how this works, buddy,” Nora said. “You tell us the code, and we don’t break your arms. That's how this works.”

The Melian gave the code and Wendy nodded when it unlocked the com.

“Good,” Relyn said. “Can you open that case? Empty it.” Nora reached down to the largest case and opened it. She dumped the contents out on the floor.

“Now wait one minute here. That’s my stuff. I gave you what you wanted,” the Melian protested.

“Yes, that’s why we’re not going to kill you.

I’m sure in a place like this, unattended luggage won’t sit for long,” Relyn said.

He stuffed the Melian into the case. “Move your arm or I will break it,” Relyn warned when he tried to resist. Finally the fight went out of him and he curled up into a ball with a whimper.

Relyn shut the case and dropped it on the ground with a thud.

“Does he need air holes?” Nora asked.

“No, cheap case. He’ll have enough air to breath in there for a couple of hours. I doubt it will take anyone that long to steal it,” Relyn said.

The key was to get back to the ship and download the data before the Melian escaped from the case and got to a terminal where he could delete the data or lock it down.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Whatever happened to Grom?” Wendy said as they headed back. Relyn was tempted to carry his mate, but considering they could only go as fast as Wendy could walk, it would serve no purpose, and she seemed to find it objectionable.

“He’s fine. A little splattered, but he was supposed to put himself back together and head to ship with Bright. I’m sure she’s got things handled on that end.”

Another minute and they were back in the hangar. Bright greeted them, hands full of two sensor beacons.

“I see you managed,” Bright said. “Not that I doubted you would. I’ve seen what happens when someone gets between a male and his mate.” She held up the beacons. “That asshole put two of these on the ship. I did a triple check. Pretty sure that’s it. We’re clear to go wherever we like.”

“And we got this,” Wendy said, holding up the Melian’s com. It’s information, or so we’ve been told.

“Shall we get the heck out of Dodge, just in case the dude’s got friends?” Nora asked. Relyn agreed. It was best to leave before anyone came asking questions, or they drew any more attention to themselves.

They boarded the ship and within a minute, Bright had clearance to leave and they were off.

He plugged the Melian’s com into the ship’s computer and began to comb through the download.

Bright joined him as soon as they’d left the space around the station and were far enough away from the station to make pursuit difficult.

“Where did you find this? If half of it’s true, this would speed up any and all operations in at least eight sectors,” Bright said.

She was right. Laid out in front of them were coordinates of safe houses, bank account numbers, arms merchant connections, flesh merchant connections and much more.

This was going to throw a new wrench in the plan.

They had to get this information to the Mahdfel so they could use it before it all went cold.

He was going to have to tell Nora that her trip to Terra was going to be delayed again. There could be no way around it. He checked the charts.

“There’s a Mahdfel carrier here. If you contact them now, we can meet in eight hours.”

“That’s in the wrong direction,” Bright warned.

“I know. But a small delay is worth potentially saving thousands of lives.”

Bright nodded and Relyn stood up from his chair. He didn’t delight in telling his mate, but perhaps some imagination could soften the blow. He smiled to himself. He might have just the form to do it.