Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [117]
The ridge wasn’t very high, only a couple of stories at most, but footing was treacherous and picky. They could hear the hum of the CST as it maneuvered on the other side of the ridge, but could see nothing but the abutments of stone and hard dirt.
Stiles glanced into the sky behind them, fearful that the CST might be picked up on scanners now that it was out of the protective cover of the deep lake. They were only minutes from safety now. Once inside the Saskatoon they could buzz away from this forsaken planet and get out there and do some
real good. Then he could talk some sense into Zevon. Once Zevon got back into space, saw how wide the galaxy really was, remembered things that Stiles had also forgotten during his incarceration here-everything would be good again. It would be.
Stiles took the rear, holding the phaser where it would do some good as he picked and climbed his way up the rocky slope behind the ambassador and Zevon. He was watching the rocks, nursing out footholds and handholds and avoiding the dangerous sharp edge of the mica-like slabs, when a hard force caught him across the jawbone.
The mighty blow drove him backward and spun him sideways. He skidded onto his side on a sheet of pebbles. As his head rang, he managed to put out an arm and stop himself from sliding all the way down. “Stand still or die!” Stiles blinked up through a wave of dizziness.
There above them, taking an attack stance between them and freedom, stood two armed Pojjana assault troopers and an even more heavily armed woman. A Romulan woman!
“Drop your weapon!” The woman aimed her own rifle ferociously at Stiles’ head. “Or I will kill you now!”
Chapter Twenty-three
“SYKORA, DON’T KILL HIM!”
Zevon rushed to Stiles’s side and put himself between Stiles and the woman’s rifle. Spock, luckily, stood aside and let events play out as he watched with attentive interest. He put his hands up, though, so the guards wouldn’t arbitrarily open up on him either. A Romulan woman! Or was she Vulcan? Either way, she shouldn’t be here at all. “How can she be here?” Stiles demanded.
From higher on the rocks, Spock agreed. “This is Red Sector Did the Romulans violate that without the Federation’s-“
“The empire has nothing to do with me. I came on my own to protect Zevon,” the woman snarled with a toss of her long braids. She was absolutely fierce in her intent. “Anyone who threatens him, I will mutilate!”
As she brandished her weapon at Stiles, Zevon held up a hand to back the woman off. “Sykora, please. This is Eric.”
“Eric-” Her tone changed instantly. Her eyes narrowed. “Eric Stiles?” “Yes.”
“What’s going on?” Stiles asked as Zevon pulled him to his feet. “What’s she doing here?” “Drop your weapon !” Sykora demanded.
“No,” Spock interrupted. “Dropping a phaser could be deadly. If the trooper would simply take it-“
Sykora snapped her fingers at one of the guards, who snatched the utility phaser out of Stiles’ hand. That quickly were the tables turned. Frustrated, Stiles griped, “How’d she find us out here?”
“He is my husband;’ Sykora said for herself. “I took after him.” “Husband? Since when!”
Zevon nodded. “Sykora is the reason I knew you got the message through to my family. And why I knew they were never planning to come for me.”
“I am a subcommander” Sykora interrupted, “in the Imperial Solar Guard. I could never stomach the royal family’s abandonment of their prince. I want nothing to do with those disloyal monsters. I confiscated a three-man ship and came to rescue trim myself.”
“My own defense systems destroyed her ship,” Zevon admitted with some sheepishness. “Her two crewmen fought and were killed by the Pojjana planetary guard, but Sykora succeeded in finding me.”
“And I will kill any who threaten him,” the determined woman said. “Even Orsova fears and respects me.”
Even deprived of his weapon and his moment of success, Stiles leered at Zevon in private admiration. “She’s pretty tough.” “Yes… she is.” “How’d she find us?”
“I actually don’t know.” Zevon looked at his wife. “How did you?”
A little more agreeable,