Chelen City: Chapter Twenty, Part Two

 Notes: And we're off, into spaaaaaace! Time to send up the cavalry and see if Kieron actually needs them. ;)

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty, Part Two

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Chapter Twenty, Part Two

 

There were some good things about knowing that someone was trying to assassinate the vice president of Gania. Firstly, absolutely no one in a position of power, up to and including President Moreno, was going to interfere with anything happening on the Stellar Cabinet. They couldn’t afford to be traced; bad enough that the Cabinet’s ability to communicate with the planet was being blocked by someone in Chelen City—someone who Elanus had set Catie to tracking down.

Assassination was an accepted form of social maneuvering, yes, but assassinating a politician you disagreed with? That was just crass, and a surefire way to provoke chaos. The people who ran Gania didn’t want chaos—that interfered with profits. They were pouring everything they could into this attempt, but if it failed they would go into face-saving mode quickly.

Secondly, and as a direct result of the first point, Lizzie’s stealth skin was in all likelihood going to be more than enough to get the two of them into the Cabinet’s orbit. All the extra sensors and alarms and security measures that Elanus would normally have worried about, none of them were going to apply. The Stellar Cabinet had been left blind and dumb, rendered helpless so that a very high profile target could be removed. Whoever had the power to set this up, they wanted to make sure Restaria died. That meant no stumbling blocks in the way of their killers.

They should have engineered an accident on the Cabinet itself. That’s what Elanus would have done—caused a computer malfunction or a system overload that led to some sort of grand tragedy. He could understand why whoever was behind this hadn’t gone that route, though—they wanted Restaria dead, but they didn’t want to have to sacrifice their incredibly expensive space hotel to get xir that way. So instead, they’d taken the traditional route, with human assassins. And Restaria had countered with…

Kieron.

How did xe know he’d be capable of defending xir long enough for me to get there? It was a big risk for someone who didn’t know Kieron the way Elanus did. Restaria had to be getting inside information on him from someone.

His mind went to Ms. Farraday, Kieron’s therapist, first. But she’d been the one to alert them about the problem…she could have stayed silent a little longer, or send a written message, not actually called. So then who…ah. Ah. Fuck.

Well, those problems could wait to be solved until Kieron was safe again. Which would be really fucking soon, if Elanus had anything to say about it. “Bring the engines up slowly,” he reminded Lizzie as the bay doors swung open. “No more than twenty-five percent per minute, or we’ll burn too fast and it’ll take longer to break atmosphere.”

“Yes, Elanus.”

“Thank you. Catie, is the dummy flight plan logged?”

“Yes, Daddeeee,” she said. “You’re going to do maaaaintenance on a satelliiiiite.”

“And you provided me with the perfect cover, you smart girl.” She really had knocked some of those satellites for a loop. The malfunctions were wreaking havoc in certain sectors, and Elanus had promised to take care of the ones close to his own hardware.

And he would. Just…not right now.

“We need to go,” Lizzie said fretfully. “I left a message for Xilinn and Pol, they won’t worry.”

“They can check in with Catie if they do,” Elanus said. “All right, let’s go.” He sat back in the pilot’s seat and watched his girl rev up, skating near the line he’d laid for her but not quite going over it. They lifted off and slid out into the night with barely a trail left behind, and then it was up and through the layers of clouds and activating passwords and keycodes to get them through the layers of red tape involved in breaking atmosphere from outside a formal space dock, and then finally…

Elanus felt the weight of the world momentarily drift off his shoulders as they entered space. For a second all he saw was black, with distant stars too far away to worry or trifle with, and it was a beautiful thing. Then reality reasserted itself as Lizzie turned to get on course with the Stellar Cabinet, which was currently several hundred thousand kilometers away.

“Watch the approach,” Elanus murmured. “We don’t want to disrupt your skin. Did you leave the decoy in place?”

“Yes, Elanus.”

“Good girl.” The decoy was a small device that took up more space virtually than physically, which would mock their presence in the sky where he’d confirmed they’d be for up to four hours. “Catie, what are the scans of the Cabinet showing? Any change in life signs?”

“No, Daddeeee. There are changes in temperature, though.”

“Talk to me.”

“The cabin where Kieron and Vice President Sanclaaaaare are locaaaated is getting very, very cold.”

Ah. Someone’s hacked the environmental controls. “How cold?”

“As much as ten degrees below freeeeeeeezing.”

“Kee will be cold,” Lizzie said, and her power indicators surged as she sped up.

“Not so fast,” Elanus warned her. “We can’t afford to give our approach away.”

“Kee needs us.”

Elanus bit back a sigh of frustration. “He needs us to be whole and stealthy and ready to help, not fighting off drones deployed to take out intruders because we couldn’t keep ourselves under the radar, baby. Please, I’m begging you, tone it back. I’m doing everything in my power to make sure we don’t risk Kieron, all right? He’s tough. He can handle himself a little longer.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Lizzie applied thrust in the opposite direction and slowed them back down to a moderate pace. “I apologize,” she murmured.

“It’s all right. I know you mean well.” She was a good girl, and Elanus was going to make sure Kieron knew all about it when they got him back. “What’s our ETA?”

“Seven minutes and two seconds.”

“Catie, can you send us a visual of the imaging you’ve got of Restaria’s cabin?”

“Yes, Daddeeee.” She sounded a little puzzled. “It’s verrrrry strange, but I think somehow the cabin has sprung a leak.”

“A…leak?”

“Yes, Daddeeeee. There’s water pouring all over the floor. Its source is inside the cabin, though, in a dedicaaaaated bathroom. It isn’t coming from outsider interfeeeeerence.”

“Then Kieron is the one behind it.” And given how fucking cold it must have gotten during the winter season at Hadrian’s Colony, Elanus was pretty sure he knew why. “I need that visual, sweetheart.”

“Here, Daddeeeee.” A colorful expanse popped up on Lizzie’s viewscreen, and it only took Elanus a few seconds to pick out Kieron and Restaria.

Yep. He was the one adding water to the situation.

Oh, the people coming after him didn’t even know how screwed they were yet.

Hang in there for us, babe. We’re close.