Richmond chose a direction, but he could only guess and hope that he was moving toward some kind of exit.

  He walked for five minutes before he heard voices. He changed direction a few times to follow the sound. He found Hayes and Aemon standing in an intersection talking in a low murmur.

  "How the hell do we get out of this maze, sir?" Hayes demanded. "We can't find any of the others."

  "We'll just have to go in one direction and hope for the best," Richmond decided. "Come on."

  He followed the same route, and in a little while he found the central tunnel.

  "All these smaller tunnels must be the ones connected to the cells," Aemon remarked.

  They met up with Niur, Zuna, Fadek, and Leatherwood in the main tunnel. From there, the friends didn't have any trouble finding their way to the exit point. It opened into another nameless street in another nameless city neighborhood. "Take us to the nearest Gelara safe house," he told Zuna.

  "Don't even think about going back to Madoc," Niur grumbled.

  "I didn't plan to," Richmond replied. "Let's get off the street as quickly as we can."

  The group set off through the streets. Zuna led the way, and Richmond turned his brain off again. He had a ship to take him and his friends to safety. He just had to lie low and wait for the mechanics to finish working on it. He also had powerful alien allies on this planet who would give him a place to spend the next day or two while he healed up. Then he could leave. Nothing could be simpler.

  He followed blindly wherever Zuna led. He didn't even care to check the surroundings or try to take charge of this catastrophic expedition. He would gladly have handed over the reins to her entirely if she'd only let him, but she wouldn't.

  The friends fell into another silence, walking single file through the streets. The Gria influenced everyone. Now the friends followed the same style of doing everything.

  Richmond didn't hear a sound or see a single living thing outside. The city lay in deep slumber.

  He let his thoughts drift, but he snapped alert fast when Zuna turned another corner.

  Two dozen armed Narillians stood in an intersection, aiming their weapons at a different building. These Narillians must have been planning to carry out a nighttime ambush--and Madoc was with them.

  Richmond didn't recognize any of his other people. The only Thalek he knew had all died in the assault when the Lilri recaptured his party.

  He and his friends froze when they realized they had just blundered straight into a Thalek ambush. All these Thalek were heavily armed. He and his friends were defenseless.

  Madoc and the other Thalek froze when they realized the same thing. Madoc's fierce eyes locked on Richmond for a second. Neither man looked away.

  Without warning, Madoc swiveled his laser rifle in Richmond's direction. Richmond had just been wondering if he would react like this.

  Richmond dove out of the way, and the friends scattered as all the Thalek opened fire. Their lasers smashed walls, shattered windows, and exploded vehicles as the Thalek followed the fugitives' movements all over the place.

  Richmond dove backward behind the nearest corner and shoved Fadek and Niur in front of him to get out of the way in time. He didn't see what the rest of his friends did. He dragged Fadek and Niur into a run.

  Those lasers lit up the neighborhood, snicked everywhere, and made telltale hissing noises every time the Thalek fired at something. They traced back to the shooters' position and gave the friends just a few precious seconds to make a run for it.

  Richmond turned a corner and collided with Hayes, Leatherwood, and Aemon coming from a different direction. He glanced around for Zuna. He didn't see her, but he did see plenty of lasers coming closer.

  The Thalek gunfire told the friends all they needed to know about where the aliens were. The six men dodged and ran through dozens of streets, alleys, intersections, and neighborhoods.

  Richmond couldn't think about anything but putting as much distance as possible between him and the Thalek, but after another ten minutes of running, the party overtook Zuna after all.

  She grabbed Richmond and pulled him in a different direction, waving her hand to beckon the others to follow her. No one dared to speak. They didn't have to. They just needed to find the nearest safe house.

  The Thalek knew the friends were out on the street. They must have seen the broadcast of Richmond and his party getting recaptured, beaten, and sent back to the Necrodrome.

  Now the Thalek knew Richmond had a different way to escape. How long would it take for that information to make it back to the Vasyke?

  Zuna led the way again, but the party didn't walk single file this time. They ran in a loose cluster, with everyone holding onto everyone else.

  The Thalek must have gotten wise to their lasers making too much light and noise. Richmond would have liked to believe that his group got away from them, but a quarter of a mile later, Madoc's people caught up with the fleeing allies again.

  The Thalek materialized out of the neighborhood itself. Zuna had led the group into another ambush--this one set for their party and no one else. Richmond's group saw their mistake the minute they walked around the corner, but it was too late.

  The Thalek raised their weapons, and gunfire exploded across the street. Richmond ducked under his arms and dropped to the pavement for cover, but the gunfire didn't hit him or any of his friends.

  He shut his eyes tight and waited for death to take him--but it didn't. The guns belched and roared inches away from him, but none of their shots hit him.

  The noise stopped. He lay frozen in petrified shock for a second, but he was definitely still alive. His head and body still hurt as much as ever.

  He dared to peek out from under his arms, and his world stopped again.

  Twenty Lilri soldiers surrounded the dead Thalek. Richmond couldn't see from here if Madoc was among the dead.

  The Lilri muttered to each other under their breath, poked their rifles at the bodies, and fired into a few rebels who were still alive.

  Richmond went through another confused torrent of jumbled ideas before he fully understood what happened. He didn't get it until another troop of soldiers entered the intersection from a different street to his left. The new soldiers crossed to the bodies, exchanging words with the Lilri who'd shot down the Thalek, and then a few other soldiers showed up to join their squad.

  The Lilri must have come from over there. They must have been in that street already--either they had been lying in wait for the Thalek, or else the Lilri saw the Thalek walking around armed at night and getting ready to shoot someone.

  The Lilri had been facing the Thalek. The Thalek had been facing Richmond and his people.

  A block of buildings separated the Lilri from Richmond's party. They didn't see his people; they only saw the Thalek. They'd faced the Thalek the whole time they had been shooting down these rebels.

  Richmond and his friends hit the bricks behind the same buildings. Now the Lilri stood around with their backs to him. They didn't see him or his friends lying on the pavement in plain sight.

  But the fugitives weren't in plain sight--not in this darkness. It would have been difficult for the Lilri to see the fugitives even if they'd been looking straight at them. They couldn't see Richmond or his friends as long as they lay perfectly still and didn't make a sound. The Thalek weren't here anymore to give the friends away.

  Richmond would have liked to put his head back down on the ground, but he stayed too frozen even to do that. He could only lie here and stare in confused disbelief that it had actually worked out this way.

  The Lilri finished screwing around in a minute, held another hushed conversation about whatever they planned to do next, and left by the same street they used to get here.

  CHAPTER 3

  Richmond lay on the pavement holding his breath for a long time after the tramp of soldiers' feet faded into the vast silence of the sleeping city.

  The city wouldn't stay asleep much longer. The sky was already starting to change color.

  "Sir!" Leatherwood hissed from a few feet away. "What do you want to do? How long should we stay here?"

  Richmond shuddered and pushed himself off the ground. He got another white-hot stabbing pain in his chest when he put pressure on his arms.

  "How close is the safe house?" he asked Zuna.

  "Only a few blocks. We should be there in a couple of minutes, barring any other unforeseen disasters."

  "Let's go. I want to get off the street before daylight."

  The group set off, and this time, nothing got in their way.

  Zuna led the party into a large apartment complex, entered through the lobby, and opened a broom closet near the elevators.

  The brooms, mops, and other cleaning gear hung on hooks on one wall. Random crap and broken equipment packed all the other space in the closet.

  She took hold of one of the hooks on the wall where a broom or mop should hang, pulled on the hook, and the entire wall swung open to reveal a hidden stairway inside.

  The friends crowded inside. It was a stone stairway plunging straight underground.

  Richmond never felt such relief as when Zuna pulled shut the broom closet door and then latched the wall back into place with him and all his friends hidden out of sight.

  A ripple of sighs went through the group. No one moved for a second as they all took that moment to just stop and catch their breath. They were finally safe.

  Zuna recovered first, of course. She wedged herself between her larger alien comrades and led the way downstairs. The stairs descended into another underground catacomb eerily similar to the Thalek compound.

  This one was definitely carved straight out of rock, and the safe house was much smaller than the compound. The whole structure consisted of a corridor twenty feet long with six rooms, three on each side. That was the entire safe house.

  Instead of the square ceiling windows the Thalek built into their compound, the safe house used much smaller, circular holes. They barely let in any light at all, but they also vastly reduced the chance of detection. They opened into the street outside.

  The faint noise of activity drifted down the tubes, but it didn't disturb the sense of safety and calm in this place.

  There was no other way out except up the stairs and through the hotel lobby broom closet, but that actually made Richmond feel so much more secure.

  One of the rooms was an office full of computer equipment. The other was a kind of lounge with couches, chairs, and a kitchen against one wall.

  The other three were bedrooms full of three-tier bunks. This place had obviously not been designed for comfort or luxury, but it sure fit the bill.

  "Corporal Hayes and Sergeant Leatherwood, you come with me and the captain so I can tend to your injuries," Zuna ordered. "The rest of you can go get some sleep or something to eat. Make yourselves at home. No one will find us here."

  Fadek, Aemon, and Niur went into the nearest bunk room and collapsed groaning on the beds. None of the friends had gotten any sleep last night.

  Richmond followed Hayes, Leatherwood, and Zuna into the lounge room. She opened a small door into another microscopic medical treatment room exactly like the one the Thalek had used.

  "Your injuries are the worst, Joel," Zuna told him. "You go first."

  Richmond glanced over at Hayes and Leatherwood to gauge their reaction. He didn't like the idea of taking care of himself first, but neither of the two men argued. They didn't frown or scowl or even pinch their lips in frustration that they had to wait.

  Richmond didn't know what he looked like, but he felt awful. He didn't have the strength to argue about it--not now that he finally found himself safe behind these walls.

  He entered the room and tried not to wince when he stretched out on the shelf. He stared up at the ceiling while Zuna unfolded the machine from its compartment up there. She positioned it over his head, turned it on, and he passed out completely.

  He woke up hours later, lying alone in one of the lower bunks in the bunk room. He heard the others talking nearby, but he was the only person in here.

  He didn't get up right away. He still felt drained from his injuries, but he didn't want to move anyway. He just wanted to lie here in comfort and safety before he did anything.

  He had a ship. He had his people. He had a way off this planet.

  Richmond didn't let himself think about whether something else would happen. It didn't matter, because he had this moment.

  All these little isolated islands of calm and reprieve...they acted on his mind like beads on a string. He could travel from one to the next, from one blessed island to another through raging seas of chaos and destruction.

  He could stand anything else as long as he had this. He could even face it if something went wrong and he lost the ship or lost one of his people or didn't get off the planet the way he planned. He just had to keep fighting the storms until he got to the next island.

  The storms didn't make each island any less blissful. The hardship didn't make any particular bead less beautiful.

  The storms made them more beautiful. Maybe that's what this was all about. Maybe he needed the storms, chaos, danger, and destruction to make him finally realize how beautiful those islands actually were.

  He could finally appreciate them because of all that other shit. He could cherish these moments as treasures. He could revisit previous beads and islands when he needed to feel that calm.

  The constant talk and even laughter coming from the other room eventually drove him out of bed. He heaved into a sitting position and rubbed his head while he worked up the energy to get to his feet.

  The others actually burst into cheers, whistles, and more laughter when he staggered into the lounge. His friends slouched around on the couches, eating and shooting the breeze.

  He had to smile at them when he finally slumped onto the couch next to Leatherwood. "Thanks," Richmond mumbled. "It's nice to be back."

  "We thought you were dead, sir," Leatherwood told him.

  "We did not think he was dead," Aemon sneered. "He was injured and we already knew he would recover." He turned back to Richmond. "You look much better, Captain. I think what Sergeant Leatherwood means is that you looked dead."

  "You certainly did," Niur added.

  "I couldn't have looked worse than Zuna," Richmond pointed out.

  "No, it wasn't that bad." Fadek handed Richmond one of the food trays. "Eat something. You look like you need it."

  "Thanks," Richmond murmured again.

  The group went back to talking about something completely different.

  Richmond sank even deeper into this sense of blessed relief when his friends ignored him completely after that. They weren't worried about him anymore.

  "Did any of you see if Madoc got killed in that last Lilri attack?" Niur asked.

  "I didn't see, but he was standing right there at the front," Hayes pointed out. "He would have been the first man down."

  "He was standing at the front when we first surprised the Thalek," Aemon corrected. "He wasn't standing at the front when the Lilri opened fire. I didn't see him at all then."

  "Neither did I," Leatherwood added. "I'm not even sure he was with them."

  "He's too slippery to die like that," Fadek grumbled. "He must have gotten away."

  "I don't think Madoc would put himself at the front of anything as long as there was going to be gunfire involved," Zuna chimed in. "He didn't put himself at the front during the airfield raid."

  "He didn't hang back, either," Hayes pointed out. "He was right there leading his people into the assault."

  "Actually, he was leading his people onto the airfield," she countered. "The Lilri surprised the rebels the same way we surprised the Thalek earlier tonight. Madoc just happened to be standing nearest to us. He didn't raise his weapon until he saw that we were unarmed."

  "That's true," Aemon replied. "He must have set up that second ambush when he knew there would be shooting involved, so he removed himself from the line of fire. Then the Lilri would have shot the Thalek in front first. That would have given Madoc time to get away, if he was still there at all."

  "Why do you think he turned against us?" Richmond asked. "It can't be because we brought those Lilri fighter craft to his compound."

  "Maybe he never wanted to help us in the first place," Zuna pointed out. "Maybe Eben and his friends really were working for Madoc all along. Maybe Madoc told us one thing and sent Eben and his men to get rid of us."

  Richmond cocked his head. "Do you think so?"

  "I don't see any other reason why Madoc would turn against us the way he did. It would explain both his behavior toward us and Eben's actions."

  "We should have stuck around long enough to check to see if Madoc's body was among the dead rebels," Leatherwood remarked.

  "Why don't you go back out there and check, Sergeant?" Aemon suggested. "You can come back and tell us."

  "Hell, no!" Leatherwood countered. "I'm not going out there! What the hell did you have to say something like that for?"

  The others laughed at him and the conversation turned. Hayes and Leatherwood talked about what they were going to eat and which girls they were going to visit as soon as they got back to the real world.

  "We'll have to find a way to take some Drichi, Gulepe, and Yenus females off the planet with us," Fadek decided. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life by myself."

  "You don't need to bring any Gulepe females," Niur added. "They give me too many problems already. I'm leaving the planet to get away from them."

  The others all laughed.

  Aemon and Fadek kept firing ideas and suggestions back and forth. The two men went into wilder and wilder and more ridiculous imaginary scenarios about how they could smuggle Drichi and Yenus females off of Narillia, smuggle them onto Chronon Vanguard battleships, and consort with them without anyone finding out.

  "Just make sure you don't join the Vanguard before you do something like that," Hayes told them. "The rules for civilian passengers are much lighter than they are for regular Vanguard service people."

 

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