Taken By Terror by Lolita Lopez

Chapter Twenty-Three

Stealing a small transport ship was much easier than Maisie had expected. Terror made the most daunting tasks frighteningly simple. Watching him disable locked doors and override alarms fascinated her. She tried to commit his work to memory, certain she might need those skills someday.

A tiny part of her believed that uncovering the Splinter infiltration would help her earn a pardon. Of course, it was more likely that exposing the contents of the chip was going to cause her death and Terror’s. She wasn’t a naturally morbid person. If anything, she tended toward optimism and a belief that she would always come out safe in the end. But, if the worst happened, she took some comfort in the idea that she and Terror would be together when they died.

Morbid, obviously, but romantic in a bittersweet way.

When they reached the deck where escape shuttles were kept, Terror made a beeline for the nearest one. She grabbed his arm to stop him. “We can’t take an escape pod!”

“Why not?”

“Because if this ship has an emergency, they won’t be able to evacuate all of their passengers!”

His mouth settled into an irritated line. “Really? We’re going to argue about the possibility that the ship is overbooked and they need every single pod for escape?”

“Yes,” she insisted. “I don’t need that on my conscience. Not after what happened back at the skyport!”

His irritation vanished. They hadn’t explicitly discussed the fact that she had lured a bounty hunter to his death and shoved him out of an airlock. It had remained unspoken between them, even now.

Terror cupped the back of her neck and drew her close. He tenderly kissed her forehead. “Fine. We’ll steal something from the cargo bay.”

She trailed him toward the emergency access stairs and followed him down from the evacuation deck to the cargo bay. The first deck held crates of food, beverages, merchandise and other sundries needed for a pleasure cruise of this size. The next deck in the bay had been reserved for maintenance and engine access. The final deck held all of the cargo the pleasure cruise ferried from one destination to the next for profit.

“That one,” she decided, pointing to a slim, fast Cloudcoupe. It wasn’t very big, but it was quick and could slip through vulnerable radar points.

Terror silently agreed and approached the ship. It didn’t take him long to disengage the wing locks or hotwire the engine and navigation to life. He checked his watch as she buckled up in the passenger seat. “We should be able to sneak out around the same time the planet excursion group leaves. Hopefully, the engineers will assume the hatch alarm down here is glitch. There isn’t external security on the cruise. No one should follow us, and I doubt there’s even an Alliance ship within responding distance.”

“But?”

“But we may have problems getting off 4S-8KN,” he cautioned. “If the captain of this cruise reports a theft and does a headcount to find us missing, the Shadow Force will find out about it.” He grimaced. “Most of the men I can trust, but there are enough names of double agents on the chip that it’s a possibility we could run into serious trouble.”

She reached over and grasped his hand. “I understand the risk.”

Terror lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. “I love you.”

She smiled sweetly at his slightly clumsy hand signs. “I love you, too.”

Reluctantly, she let go of his hand and gripped the armrests of her seat. Flutters of anxiety filled her belly. What waited for them on the abandoned outpost planet? Would she find evidence her parents had once lived there? Would it be nothing but a disappointment?

Their luck held as Terror expertly exited the ship and navigated quickly away from the pleasure cruise. She had half-expected to find bounty hunters or some of Terror’s colleagues waiting for them. When there was nothing but wide-open space, she relaxed marginally. There was still so much unknown ahead of them.

As Terror piloted their stolen aircraft toward 4S-8KN, she cast quick glances in his direction. While preparing for their mission, she had asked him twice if he felt sick, but he had denied it each time. Holding his hand before takeoff, she had been able to feel the difference in his body’s temperature. It wasn’t simply his biology. It was a fever.

Considering how many missions he likely completed in a year, it wouldn’t surprise her if he had missed more than one annual physical and immunizations. He had also been weakened by his captivity. With all the travel they had done, they had been exposed to all sorts of biological hazards and contaminants—like the disease mentioned on the skyport infoboards. He has it. I know he does.

For now, she wasn’t going to push it. She decided to watch and wait for him to admit that he was infected. She had seen breakouts of that particular virus so many times that she knew the course of the disease. It progressed slowly. He would develop a rash soon, and after two or three days of fever, the coughing would start. Right now, there was nothing either of them could do about it anyway. After they finished their mission and extricated themselves from the gigantic mess they were about to make, she could worry about finding medical care.

When they entered the atmosphere and dipped under the cloud cover, Maisie was surprised by the beautiful landscape that greeted them. From her mother’s tales of this place, she had expected brutal barrenness, but there was something otherworldly about the tundra that spread out for miles and miles around them. There were thin forests with tall, skinny trees and winding rivers filled with giant blocks of floating ice. They descended even closer to the ground, and she spotted wildlife like birds and deer.

Maisie understood then that it wasn’t the planet’s environment that made it so abhorrent to her mother. It was the experience of living here that had made her mother remember this place as an absolute hellhole. It was the people who abused her, and the hopelessness of being abandoned by her father.

Terror pointed to the left, and she leaned over for a better look. Three ugly buildings came into view. With their weathered stone, they looked so bleak against the skyline. Two of them had caved in roofs. The third was mostly intact and seemed to have all the pieces to its communication array.

That wasn’t what interested her, though. She pointed to the rough crater gouged into the dirt, and the crippled ship half-buried at the end of it. The hunk of crumpled metal looked survivable, but only if the occupants had been wearing their harnesses and all crash systems had been operational.

“We’re landing where I can find cover,” he decided and steered the aircraft toward a thick patch of scrubby trees with vibrant yellow foliage. He landed the ship among boulders covered with a carpet of green moss and pale pink lichen. “This will have to do.”

She nodded and unlatched her safety belt. She reached into the small cargo area for the backpack holding their supplies and the two jackets they had been using since the safe house. The weather wasn’t inhospitably cold, but it was chilly enough they would need the protection of an outer layer.

“Maisie.” He gripped her wrist as if afraid to let go. She gazed at him questioningly, and he relaxed his grip. “If something happens to me, you get back on this ship and you flee.”

She shook her head and tugged her hand free. “No. I’m not leaving you.”

“Maisie!”

“Terror!” She grabbed the front of his shirt and jerked him close enough to feel his heavy breaths on her skin. “We came here together. We’re leaving together.”

He wanted to argue. She could tell. With a resigned nod, he accepted her conditions. He placed his strong hand along her cheek, and she nuzzled into him. “Maisie, we have to be quick. We scout that crashed ship first. We get the chip up to the communications array. We broadcast the message. We get back in our ship. We go.”

She shook her head. “I need to see where my mother lived, Terror.”

“Maisie.”

“Please,” she begged, rubbing her hand in a circle over her chest. “Please, Terror. This is my only chance.”

His stern expression softened. “Thirty minutes, and we’re off this planet.”

“Thank you.” She kissed him with all of her love. “Thank you, Terror.”

“Don’t make me regret this, Maisie.” He tried to look hard as he delivered his warning, but she could see it came from a place of concern.

“I won’t.”

He seemed unconvinced as he grabbed the jacket and pulled it on, gesturing for her to do the same. After she zipped up her jacket, he took the backpack and motioned for her to exit the vehicle. Her first step out of the ship and onto a boulder was a slippery one. The carpet of moss was squishy beneath her boots and slick. She adjusted her weight and managed not to slide off the boulder. Carefully, she picked her way to the ground, moving from the boulder to the wing of the ship and then hopping down next to Terror.

Like an overly anxious parent, he reached over to finish zipping up the last few inches of her jacket. “It’s cold,” he said when she shot him a really look. “You’ll get sick.”

“Like you?” she asked pointedly.

He frowned. “It’s a mild fever.”

“For now.”

He leaned down to kiss her. “When we’re done here and somewhere safe, we can play doctor and patient all you want. Okay?”

She held up her pinky. “Deal.”

With a snort, he hooked his pinky around hers. “Deal. Come on. We need to get moving.”

They moved through the thicket of trees, sidestepping muddy bogs and using large rocks and higher ground to escape the frigid water pooled in the lower areas of the terrain. At the edge of the trees, Terror gestured for her to wait. He scanned their surroundings and then crept out from the shelter of the trees toward the crashed ship. He carefully inspected it and motioned for her to join him.

As she jogged toward the ship, she noticed the red stripes that identified the craft as part of the Splinter fleet. A familiar painted badge was barely visible beneath the dried mud and moss covering the metal nose of the aircraft. She peeled away the mud to reveal the next four letters and numbers. She glanced toward Terror who watched her with interest. “This ship was at the mine.”

Terror’s jaw visibly tightened. He looked from the crashed ship to the three buildings looming in the distance. “Devious?”

She shrugged. “Maybe? It would make sense, right? If he escaped that cell, he would have taken a ship. Maybe he came here because he knew it’s abandoned?”

“Then where is he?” Terror looked around the ship for any sign of tracks and scowled. “It’s been too long. Any tracks would have washed away by now.”

She stepped up onto a crimped wing to get a better look into the cockpit. She had flown in similar ships many times so she was familiar with the layout. She leaned over the seat and dug around in search of a first aid kit and emergency rations. When she came up empty, she told Terror, “It’s been picked clean of supplies. If he crashed, he walked away with food and first aid.”

Terror huffed with frustration. “He could be anywhere.”

“And hurt,” she added, thinking of how much damage the ship had taken. Her gaze drifted back to the ship, and she spotted something metallic on the floorboard near the passenger seat. She slipped into the ship to reach it. As soon as her fingers tugged it free from the mat and brought it into the sunlight, she recognized the shape. It was the scalene triangle that the Splinters used on their gear and their personal arms.

Noticing the blood smudged on that triangular tag, she turned it over and rubbed away the maroon smear to reveal the stamped details on the back. Her heart thudded in her chest. “This is my stepbrother’s.”

“Kris?” Terror clarified.

She nodded. “He must have been the one who got Devious out of the mine.”

“And left you behind?” Terror asked unkindly.

“I’m sure he didn’t want to,” she replied defensively. “It’s war, Terror. He probably had to make a split-second decision. It was the right one.”

Terror grumbled something she couldn’t understand. Before she could ask him to look at her and repeat himself, he gestured toward the buildings and faced her. “We’ll have to split up, Maisie. You search the two buildings for Devious and Kris. I’ll go up to the roof and try to get the communication equipment working.”

She appreciated that he didn’t lecture her on what to do or how to do it. Even though he cared deeply for and worried about her, he was learning not to micromanage. That seemed like a healthy step in their relationship. Knowing he trusted her to do a good job meant a lot coming from him.

They left the crash site and made their way toward the buildings. When they reached the building with the communications array, he touched her arm, silently asking her to wait, and then handed over his weapon. “If you need help, fire it. I’ll hear it and come to you.”

“Okay.”

“Thirty minutes,” he reminded her before backing away toward the building with the communications equipment.

Weapon in hand, she turned toward the other two buildings. The least damaged of the two still sported broken, faded letters above the entrance. There were many letters missing, but she could still make out the words school and dormitory. Certain this was her best chance to find answers, she walked toward the building and cautiously entered.

The gaping hole in the roof allowed enough sunlight so she could see fairly well. Even in its prime, the building must have been cold and austere. There was nothing warm or inviting about the space. It seemed hollow, empty and sad. She tried to imagine her mother as a child in this awful place.

So much of Maisie’s childhood made sense now. The way her mother had filled their living spaces, even the temporary ones, with happy drawings and plenty of books. Maisie had never gone hungry, and there had always been fresh fruit and milk with her meals as well as little treats. Her childhood might have been unconventional, especially once they started following her stepfather’s Splinter cell. Looking around this desolate place, Maisie appreciated the warmth and love her mother had always shown her.

She moved through the first floor of the crumbling building, trying to keep her steps soft and her movements smooth. She wanted to make as little noise as possible. Of all things Devious had taught her, being invisible was one of the most useful. This place seemed abandoned, but there was a chance Devious and Kris weren’t alone.

Maisie stepped through an open door into a classroom. Most of the desks were knocked over. Some were broken. A thick layer of dust and dirt covered the floor, and the cracked panes of glass let a chilly breeze and dampness into the space. She wandered through the classroom and back out into the hall. The other rooms on the left side of the hall looked exactly the same as the first.

When she crossed the hall, she slipped through a set of shattered double doors. The room she entered was enormous, running the full length of the building. At first glance, it looked like some kind of gymnasium. It wasn’t until she got close enough to read some of the faded posters still tacked to the wall that she understood this wasn’t a regular school gym. No, it was a training facility for killers.

The posters on the wall depicted various fighting techniques, some hand-to-hand combat and others using knives or batons. The ratty old mats on the floor had cracked from the constant exposure to the elements, but she could picture how they had been arranged when the gym was new and bustling with students. In her mind’s eye, she could see her mother tumbling on the mats and striking at the dummies standing so creepily in the corners of the tumbledown gym.

All the little questions she had always had about her mother finally had their answers. She had always wondered why her mother was so assured in dangerous situations and why she never shied away from a fight. Her mother’s skill at handling a knife had always been something that fascinated her. Even just watching her mother chop vegetables or field dress meat was a wonder.

This was why her mother had rarely spoken of this place. This was why her mother had remembered this part of her life with such abhorrence. This was why her mother hadn’t run away from Randy or his Splinter cell. She had been a spy.

Overwhelmed by the realization that her family was even more fucked up than she had ever imagined, Maisie backed out of the gym and crept toward the staircase. She planned to go as high as she safely could. If Devious or Kris had taken cover inside the building, they might have chosen to go to the second or third stories.

The second floor of the building housed the dormitories. They were split into two large sections, one for boys and one for girls. There were locker room style bathrooms at each end and smaller private bedrooms for staff. She walked down the rows of beds in the girl’s dormitory, imagining all the little girls sleeping in them. Did they wonder if their parents were coming back for them? Were they afraid? Hungry? Angry? Depressed?

A book sticking out from the edge of one of the beds interrupted her troubled thoughts. She crouched down to pick it up and swept the dust from the cover. When she cracked it open, she found the loopy scrawl of a child’s handwriting. She thumbed through the book of combat techniques and experienced a wave of sadness. This wasn’t right. Children shouldn’t be treated like this.

Her thoughts turned to Terror. Like every other Harcos male, he had been sent away to the Academy at the age of five. He had probably been plucked from the ranks of first years and pushed into a program that trained assassins and spies. He had been shaped and molded in a place just like this, exposed to intense pressure and pain to become the hardened warrior he was today.

Yet, he somehow had such tenderness in him. Once she had earned his trust, he had gifted her with his love. He had made himself vulnerable and opened his heart. He hadn’t allowed a cold, harsh education like this to ruin him.

Thinking of him up on that roof, tinkering with the equipment, spurred her into action. She had promised to be quick and thorough in her search for Devious and Kris and any clues about her parents. Lingering here would be a waste of time. She considered taking the book but decided it belonged here and put it back where she had found it.

Leaving the dormitories, she carefully climbed the staircase to the third floor. Half of the floor had fallen along with the roof, sliding out into the courtyard and leaving a giant hole. From her new vantage point, she could see the building where Terror had taken the chip. She caught a glimpse of his jacket and leaned closer to the cracked wall for a better look. He ducked under a transmitter, and she backed away from the hole.

Reassured he was safe, she skirted the edge of the broken section, making sure each footstep was firm before applying her full weight. There were only two rooms up here that were still intact. Both had doors hanging off their hinges.

She entered the first room and discovered rows of filing cabinets. It seemed odd that the records here would be paper, but perhaps they were trying to keep this facility a true secret. Maintaining analog records completely off any sort of easily accessible digital network would be more secure. Burning shredded paper was easy enough in the event of an evacuation.

So why hadn’t they destroyed these records? She glanced toward the ruined roof and the obvious signs of destruction surrounding her. Had the facility been bombed? Or perhaps there had been some kind of natural disaster? It must have been evacuated before the damage occurred because so far, she had found no signs of bodies in the rubble. There would have been bones or tattered scraps of clothing if people had died here.

The files were alphabetized and separated by gender. She opened the cabinet she needed and thumbed through them until she found her mother’s name. Hastily tugging it out of the cabinet, she placed it on top of the other files and opened it. A photo of her mother as a child stared back at her. This wasn’t the smiling face she had known growing up. The little girl in the photo looked desolate and broken, her eyes hollow and despondent and her body painfully thin.

Her chest seized as she turned the pages and read the notes. Her mother was described as angry, obstinate and rude in her first days at the facility. The instructors applied techniques to break her down and force compliance. Maisie’s stomach turned as she read about the cold showers, exposure to the elements, denial of food and the beatings her mother endured.

She closed her eyes and shut the file. If she kept reading, she would become lost in the trauma of her mother’s childhood. Later, there would be time to dissect and digest the contents of the file.

Before she closed the cabinet, she noticed a green tag on the side of her mother’s folder. She checked it more closely and noticed it corresponded to another file. She looked at the cabinets and found the green labeled drawer.

When she opened it and began to thumb through the files, she realized they were for personnel. She glanced at the tag again to get the correct file number and finally found it in the middle of the drawer. She tugged it free and placed it on top of the other files.

Her stomach dropped when she opened the file and saw the photo there. It’s my dad. Her heart felt like it had jumped into her throat as she scanned the file and tried to make sense of what she had discovered.

All her life she had been told her father, a deaf man, had met her mother when she was nineteen and looking for work on the outer mining belts. This file proved it was a lie. Her father wasn’t born deaf. He had been injured during a training exercise at the Academy and lost his part of his hearing in his left ear.

Everything she had been told was a lie. Her father hadn’t been working in the mining belts when he met her mother. He had been an engineering instructor here. He was her teacher.

Maisie felt sick. Her father had been in a position of power over her mother. She did the math and realized her mother was only thirteen when her father, a twenty-three year old man, had started his job at the training facility. Her stomach revolted at the possibility that her father was a predator who had groomed a young, impressionable, lonely teenager.

She turned through the pages of the file, skimming the notes until she found the first mention of her mother. She swallowed hard and forced herself to keep reading, even as she feared what she would learn.

Instructor Crow was found in engineering lab after hours with Student Sandrine. Instructor Crow was cautioned and reminded of facility rules and regulations regarding fraternization between students and instructors. Student was disciplined and removed from engineering course.

Maisie looked at the date. Her mother would have been fifteen, almost sixteen, at the time the note was made. She shuddered and skimmed the rest of the notes. There were almost a dozen entries, all of them detailing illicit trysts between her very underage mother and her adult father.

The notes ended with a signed and stamped written warning and notification of an upcoming tribunal for misconduct with a student and misuse of educational funds. There was a receipt attached showing diverted money from the engineering department’s budget. It was a sizable chunk, enough for a new start in a different part of the galaxy.

Maisie’s mind ran wild with conjecture. Was this how her father had started his mining company? By embezzling money from here?

There were more notes attached to the embezzlement charge. Her eyes widened when she saw Randy’s name. He had been arrested by Shadow Force crossing the No Fly zone around the planet. In the cargo hold of his ship, there were stolen items from the school. Items Randy swore he had purchased from her father.

She looked around the destroyed facility and began to tie together snippets of information from her past. What was it her mother had said about Randy? That she owed him a debt? That he had been her father’s friend? Maisie’s stomach turned as she wondered if Randy had been double-crossed by her father. Had her mother paid the price for that? Given herself to Randy to clear that debt?

Maisie had come here looking for answers, but she was leaving with even more questions. She wasn’t sure she wanted the answers to these new questions. Maybe it was true what people said about leaving the past buried.

Confused and upset, she took both files. Out in the hallway, Maisie cautiously approached the wide angular hole in the wall on the far side of the third floor. From here, she could see into the half-collapsed building across the courtyard. At first glance, she didn’t see anything to garner concern. It wasn’t until the clouds shifted and allowed more sunlight into the ruined building that she saw the ship hidden there.

The active camouflage was only discernible because she could see the slight wave and glimmer of the projection in the sunshine. Her belly swooped as she realized they weren’t alone. Oh, shit.