The Way Back (Champions of the Crystal Book 4)

Chapter 3.2

She hopped down, put her helmet on, and said, "I need to get another angle. I think it's Tirqwin in there, but I can't get a sense of where everybody is."

"Over here," Lndor said, pointing to a gap at about waist level. It looked a little wider.

Sabrina took her helmet off again and pressed her face against the wall. This time she had to look up at the table, but she caught a glimpse of Tirqwin's profile, pale and inert. Memory clutched at her so hard she nearly cried out, and she sat back and took a deep breath, dispelling the image of him unconscious on a table at Malvarak's mercy.

Lndor made a gesture of concern, but she waved it aside and looked again. She thought she could make out one guard—no, there was one beyond him too—at what she knew was the door. Then there was the other man, a scientist maybe, whom she'd seen moving around before. And in the corner, just out of range, she thought she saw the edge of a sleeve. She wriggled around, trying to widen her glimpse, and was about to give up when the figure obliged her by stepping forward. Sabrina watched, horrified, as a tall, slender woman with pale green skin and long hair the color of red-brown seaweed reached out a hand to stroke Tirqwin's cheek, a feral smile on her coldly beautiful face. Who is that? It can't be Emalicia, she's dead, and she had blackish hair. But she's so familiar!

The woman's gold-green eyes flicked sideways and locked onto Sabrina. In that moment Sabrina knew beyond a doubt that she was looking at Varla, Emalicia's daughter, who had been bonded to the creature. She'd been a mere child ninety-two years ago; now she looked a mature, but not elderly, woman.

Sabrina flung herself away from the wall, her hand to her mouth. Lndor handed her her helmet, and as soon as it was fastened enough to deaden her voice, she said, "I think she saw me. We've got to get out of here!"

"Who?" Lndor asked, helping her up.

"Varla. It's her. I think she saw me."

"But how could she—"

"And she's got Tirqwin!" Sabrina cried, in a sudden rush of panic. "She's the one who knew how to trap a Wayship—she was bonded to the creature and it absorbed Sribarak! God knows what she's doing to Tirqwin! And Mara—oh my God. Lndor, we've got to—"

Lndor drew his stunner and led the way toward the door, but before he could get there it filled with Stanosians. He fired calmly, precisely, but their sheer numbers would overwhelm him eventually, and they knew it.

"My lady, make yourself a way out!" he urged.

Sabrina holstered her stunner, grabbed her blaster, and pointed it at the back wall. Then she hesitated, swung around, and blasted the wall adjoining the laboratory. The air was instantly filled with fine, rusty-yellow dust, and she heard Lndor stop firing as Stanosians on both sides of the ruined wall shouted in dismay. "Lndor, come on!" she urged, jumping blindly through the hole she'd made. She stumbled over some debris and pitched forward, catching herself on the edge of a table. Something warm and heavy shifted against her hand, and she realized it was Tirqwin. "Lndor, I've got him! I need help to move him!"

"Coming," Lndor said, his voice strained but calm.

Someone jostled Sabrina, and she turned and grabbed. The dust was beginning to clear, but some of it was clinging to her helmet faceplate, so she still couldn't see very well. But the arm under her hand wasn't wearing combat armor. "Exterior com," she ordered. "Translate: Help me move this man or I'll shoot you."

Her captive stiffened and stopped struggling as she shoved the blaster forward. "I obey," a deep, hoarse voice said.

"Carry him out," Sabrina ordered, stepping back and taking a better aim as she tried to remember the command to clean off her faceplate. As the Stanosian wrestled Tirqwin off the table, she ran rapidly through the Operational Manual menu on the inside of the faceplate until she found it. "Autoclean," she ordered.