Guilt in Innocece Page 12

  Tobi threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, I have to tell you, Ori-Inu, seeing that look of confusion on your face is the most wonderful sight I've seen all year. You'll be happy to know that the farce of 'searching' for Olokun Station has been abandoned. We're heading straight there now."

  Hembadoon nodded. "You know where Olokun Station is."

  Based on his tone, Hembadoon had put it together—so had Folami. "You run Olokun Station," she said. "Ojiji—you're the one in charge?"

  The war chief clapped sardonically at that. "Very good, both of you. And the reason why your precious Oba didn't know about it is because we're hardly going to tell the buruku we want to overthrow about the project designed to overthrow him."

  Now Hembadoon rolled his eyes. "You have got to be kidding me. That's what this is all about?"

  Tobi looked witheringly at Hembadoon. "That's what everything's about, Hembadoon—power. Isembi doesn't deserve it. No flatbrain does."

  Folami started. "No."

  Looking back at Folami, Tobi grinned. "Ah, now the Ori-Inu finally starts to understand."

  Hembadoon was shaking his head. "Here I thought I always got a bigger headache around you 'cause of your loud-ass voice."

  Frowning, Folami said, "I've read your file, you're a second-level."

  "It's easy to fake records if you're good enough, especially back then when the procedures for finding telepaths weren't as efficient as they are now. And," he added with a vicious smile, "I've always been more than good enough."

  Hembadoon looked at Adejola. "So you were just coming on to Folami to help soften her up?"

  "No!" Adejola said defensively. "Honestly, I just wanted to—"

  "Shut up, Cavalry Chief," Tobi said. "Believe me, Hembadoon, if it was up to me, this fool wouldn't have gotten within a meter of the Ori-Inu. She's just a tool, nothing more."

  "Really?" Folami asked. "Funny, Oranmiyan was going on about how Nide are free."

  "Nide aren't Ori-Inu," Tobi said tightly.

  Folami noticed that that didn't actually address her point. Is Oranmiyan just another tool, too?

  However, before she could pursue the matter, Modupe's voice sounded over the intercom. "Infirmary to War Chief Tobi."

  Looking up, the war chief said, "Tobi."

  "We're ready to do the Ori-Inu's surgery, sir."

  "Good. Send the medtechs down for her."

  Folami stared incredulously at Tobi. "The doctor's in on this?"

  "He is now. You'd be amazed how much you can accomplish with threats to a weak-willed person, Ori-Inu."

  Hembadoon shook his head. "Threats only work if you're going to follow through on them, War Chief—and even if you do that, you have to be ready to pay the consequences."

  "Oh, don't worry, Orisha—I'm more than willing to actually kill Modupe's wife and daughter, and if I do there are guaranteed to be no consequences whatsoever."

  But Folami didn't care about that. She was using Hembadoon's outrage as a cover to concentrate.

  Hembadoon, bless him, kept talking, engaging the war chief's attention for a few precious seconds. "I'm curious as to why I'm still breathing, War Chief. Folami's your latest recruit, I understand that, but what does keeping me alive get you? Not that I'm complaining, mind you."

  In essence what Folami was doing was isolating her mind from the rest of her body. It wasn't something she could do for very long without risking permanent brain damage or death, but if they were about to take her for surgery of some kind, she needed to be prepared.

  "Oh, you have your uses, Hembadoon," Tobi was saying. "I know your loyalty to Isembi is fleeting at best. And you have other skills I can use."

  "You don't know the first thing about me or my loyalty, War Chief. And I owe a lot more to Isembi than I do to your murdering ass."

  "We'll see," Tobi said with a smile. Then he turned to Adejola. "Do it."

  The pilot activated a control, and seconds later, Folami started to get the same dizzy feeling she had in his cabin.

  They were gassing her.

  But this time she'd be ready.

  The gas still had an immediate reaction, putting her body to sleep, but she had managed to telepathically keep most of her brain safe from the gas, leaving her clear-headed.

  She faded in and out of awareness.

  One moment, she felt the arms of two of Modupe's medtechs picking her up and removing her bathrobe and underclothes, replacing them with a hospital gown.

  The next, she was floating in a featureless void.

  Then she was sitting in the dining hall during training—but she was dining with three Eso.

  Then she was back in the void, but with Oranmiyan and Hembadoon alongside her, and the three of them were playing a card game.

  Then she was being brought down a L'owuro corridor on a gurney, the medtechs checking her vitals.

  Then she attended her tenth birthday, the last birthday she had at her home in Nupe before her parents gave her over to Olorun. Tobi and Abeje were at that party, and they really enjoyed the soup.

  Then she was in the corridor that led to the infirmary.

  Then she was back in the void—

  —but she couldn't be in the void! She had to come back!

  Come back!

  Hembadoon, Oranmiyan, the Eso, Olorun, her parents, they all yelled at her to come back!

  Then she sat up on the gurney, slamming her hand into the throat of one of the medtechs while kicking the other one in the gut, both moves that would render them incapable of speech for at least a few minutes.

  Not that it mattered, as it turned out that Tobi remained cautious and intelligent. Four cavalry had been assigned to guard her as she was transported to the infirmary. Three of them were cavalrypeople she had saved from the Eso down on Oshun: Kehinde, Juhoke, and Iwohu. The fourth was their CO, Cavalry Chief Olugbanma.

  However, they hadn't been expecting the patient to leap up out of nowhere and attack the medtechs, either. So they wasted a precious second being shocked before they raised their weapons.

  Juhoke and Iwohu were in front of the gurney, with Olugbanma and Kehinde behind. Kehinde and Olugbanma only needed to fire, where Iwohu and Juhoke also needed to turn around, so she went after the cavalry chief and Kehinde first.

  Consciously not wrinkling her nose (and thank you, Oranmiyan, for letting me know about that tell...), Folami concentrated and telekinetically tore the pair's Ayokas into a dozen pieces.

  As for Iwohu and Juhoke, she sent them both careening down the corridor, after yanking their Ayokas from their hands.

  Kehinde was on the deck, cradling his hands, which had been injured by the exploding weapon even through his armor, but Olugbanma had whipped out his sidearm, a Bayo pistol.

  Before she could fire, Folami telekinetically fired the two Ayokas she'd grabbed from Juhoke and Iwohu, shooting half a dozen rounds from each one at Olugbanma, who was knocked back to the deck, the chestplate of his armor ripped to shreds.

  She hadn't wanted to kill anyone, and so far she hadn't. These men and women had fought alongside her against the Eso just a few days ago, and she wouldn't kill them now without reason. She did, however, short out and shut down the armor of all three cavalrypeople, rendering them useless.

  Hesitating, she scanned all six of them. The medtechs and the cavalrypeople were simply following orders, and were unaware of the existence of Ojiji beyond possibly seeing it in a recent report or overhearing it on board.

  Cavalry Chief Olugbanma, however, was on the program. And Folami's scan revealed that most of the higher-ranks on board were fully aware of what War Chief Tobi was doing. The lower ranks weren't, but they also generally weren't dumb enough to openly question their superiors.

  Olugbanma was groaning on the deck, and Folami knelt down next to him. "You tell Tobi, Cavalry Chief, that Ojiji's finished. I'm going to destroy it."

  "Buruku..." The cavalry chief then coughed up blood.

  Getting to her feet, Folami reloaded the two Ayoka
s, grabbed some more spare ammo, then mentally ripped the remaining weapons to tiny pieces.

  A headache started to slice into her skull behind her right eye. Gotta take it easy, she thought. You're armed now—use the guns, save the psionic tricks for when you need them.

  With the upper ranks on Tobi's side, staying on L'owuro was suicide. She needed backup and she needed to get off the ship in order to call for it.

  No alert had gone off, but eventually someone would notice that she hadn't made it to the infirmary. If nothing else, Modupe would probably whine to Tobi asking where his patient was.

  Instinctively, she tried to interface with the ship's computer, but of course, she wasn't wearing her body armor. She considered and rejected returning to her quarters to retrieve it. Her cabin was on another deck, and it would take too long to get there, and then to the dropship bay.

  No, a dropship won't do any good. Range is too limited. Same with the escape pods.

  The flight deck was just a few meters from here, though. If she disabled the control systems there—which would require massive use of her telekinesis—then she'd be able to move more freely about the ship and escape without L'owuro being able to track her.

  Which still left the question of what she could escape in.

  As she made her way toward the flight deck, she remembered Hembadoon. Unfortunately, rescuing him was an even worse idea than retrieving her battle suit. Taking out four surprised cavalry and one medtech was one thing, but an entire ship of cavalry was more than she could handle alone.

  I'm sorry, Hembadoon.

  Then it hit her: Hembadoon had come here in his ship! It was the very same ship he'd brought her to Yemoja in, and the very same ship—

  Tears welled up in her eyes, the new memories bleeding forth from the back of her mind. He had Ebun, the ship he'd brought her to Yemoja on, and the ship he'd rescued her with. She had been in recovery for months after that, and it had taken longer for the techs to fix Ebun. Isembi would have given him a new ship, but he insisted on keeping that one.

  Best of all, an Orisha's ship would respond to the commands of an Ori-Inu. And because it wasn't assigned to L'owuro, it didn't carry the risks of taking one of Tobi's own vessels that he might have modified for his own use.

  As she approached the door to the flight deck, it slid open. Even with L'owuro at GQ, the flight deck door wasn't secured—that would only happen in case of a security alert, which would be sounding any second now.

  The personnel on duty all turned to look at the beautiful woman wearing only a hospital gown and holding up two Ayokas.

  She fired one shot from each of the rifles into the ceiling to get everyone's attention—not that she didn't have it already.

  Cavalry Master Ama was in command of the deck, and rose to her feet from the tactical station. "What're you doing, you crazy buruku?"

  "I suggest you all move away from your consoles."

  Then she shut down each station on the flight deck.

  Surge protectors kept the consoles from sparking and burning, but only barely. Displays went down, controls stopped responding, static filled the speakers, and holographs went dark.

  The one surge protector that failed was the tac console, which literally blew up in Ama's face.

  For one second, the deck was silent.

  Then: "Scanners down!" "Helm not responding!" "I can't get a fix!" "Nothing's working!" "Mogbe!"

  Folami turned around, waited for the door to shut, then mentally adjusted the controls so that the flight deck was in lockdown mode.

  She wiped her nose with the gown sleeve, and blood came off onto it. The spike behind her eye was now a drill. Okay, that's definitely the last psi trick for a while.

  Running barefoot through the corridors proved mildly painful, as her feet were unaccustomed to functioning without the boots that maximized comfort and minimized stress injuries in the field. The unyielding metal slamming into the balls of her feet as she ran was going to be a problem if she kept it up.

  A klaxon sounded, indicating that somebody had either noticed that she was missing, that the flight deck was cut off from the rest of the ship, or both. Either way, she just had to get to the dropship bay and she was clear.

  About thirty meters from the bay doors, she sensed two cavalrymen on guard. They stood at attention but were bored to death. They'd gotten this assignment because they were caught playing cards while on duty.

  Sorry about this, but telekinesis is not an option right now.

  As soon as they were in sight, she shot them each with her borrowed Ayokas.

  Like Olugbanma, they would live if they got medical attention soon, though their armor was shot to pieces.

  The bay door didn't open at her approach, and she didn't have her body armor to interface, so she had to manually enter her Ori-Inu ID and allow the computer to scan her biometrics.

  Once that was done, the door obediently slid aside for her.

  Sure enough, there was a one-person craft, standard issue for Orisha in the field.

  She approached, activated the hatch and climbed in. The startup sequence was simple enough, and her Ori-Inu priority started the procedure to depressurize the bay and open the bay doors. The only way it could have been overridden was from the flight deck, and that wasn't happening any time soon.

  As the air was blown out of the bay, equalizing the pressure with that of the vacuum of space, Tobi's voice came over the intercom. "Security alert! The Ori-Inu has gone renegade and the flight deck has been compromised! She is considered a first-class target."

  Folami smiled grimly. A first-class target was to be killed on sight. I guess I should be flattered.

  However, Folami had, naturally, done her job well. Tobi had no idea she was on Hembadoon's ship, nor that she was making her escape via the dropship bay.

  By the time the flight deck was operational again, she would be long gone from L'owuro's sensors.

  And then she would start working on a plan to keep her promise to Cavalry Chief Olugbanma to stop Ojiji.

  ELEVEN

  Olokun Station

  As soon as War Chief Tobi—the head of Ojiji—set foot onto Olokun Station after L'owuro docked, Abeje knew something was wrong.

  Folami wasn't here.

  Based on the look on Oranmiyan's face next to her, he had come to the same realization.

  Olokun Station was buried inside an asteroid—one of the remnants of the destruction of Yemoja. Since returning from Oshun, Abeje had taken a tour of the facility and been very impressed. War Chief Tobi had had an engine installed inside the rock of the asteroid, and the facility built elsewhere, with sophisticated scan blockers combining with the mineral composition of the asteroid to confuse scans. Not that anyone usually wasted their time scanning one asteroid that looked like every other piece of Yemoja that was floating around.

  After the docking procedure was complete, War Chief Tobi had stepped through the airlock. Abeje knew who Tobi was, but she had never been assigned to Rufiji, so she'd never met him. He was much taller than she'd imagined, and his personnel image didn't convey the fury in his hazel eyes.

  Though she figured the latter had to do with Folami's disappearance.

  "What happened?" Oranmiyan asked without preamble.

  "We need to use Olokun's scanners to try to find the Orisha's ship."

  "I asked you a question, War Chief," Oranmiyan said tightly.

  Tobi stared at Oranmiyan. "And I gave you an order. Kindly follow it. The Ori-Inu escaped in the Orisha's ship and sabotaged L'owuro on her way out the door. We have to find her."

  Oranmiyan started. He had told Abeje that radio silence was standard operating procedure for Tobi when he was approaching Olokun, but now it seemed that that silence was enforced this time.

  Folding his large arms over his larger chest, Oranmiyan said, "You told me that I shouldn't take on Folami down on Oshun. You told me it was too risky, that she was too good. You told me you'd have it easier, since she'd be at ease on
L'owuro instead of fighting every step of the way against me and my Nide. So I'm asking you again, War Chief, what happened?"

  Tobi stared stonily at Oranmiyan. "In case you've forgotten, I don't report to you. This is my project, and I don't appreciate your tone. Modify it."

  "I could've taken Folami myself. I had her half a dozen times on Oshun, but I let her go because you said so. You did sedate her, right?"

  "Of course we did," Tobi said tightly, "but she beat it somehow."

  "You use anatherizine, like I told you?"

  "There was no need to waste it. That stuff's expensive, and we've got plenty of hathronol as part of our standard security system."

  Oranmiyan threw his head back and laughed. It was a scary laugh, one that made Abeje nervous. But she also understood why he was reacting that way, though she was starting to think that the anger was better.

  The laugh reminded her far too much of Akanke.

  "Something amuses you?" Tobi asked frostily.

  Abeje decided to speak up before the tension between the two men came to blows. "One of the first tricks Hembadoon taught us was how to beat hathronol. Not all telepaths can do it, but Folami nailed it pretty early on."

  "Which is why I told you not to use it!" Oranmiyan was yelling now. "Let me guess, she waited until she was in a corridor, took out the medics and any guards you had on her before they could call for backup, then went to the flight deck and wiped all the systems, then she was gone before you even knew anything happened, right? And I bet she didn't kill anyone, either, because she's sweet like that."

  Putting his hands on his hips, Tobi asked, "How did you know that?"

  "I trained with her! I know how her mind works, which is why I should've been the one taking her in!"

  "We'll find her. Meanwhile, I've got something for you to do. Your precious Orisha Hembadoon is in the brig. He's a sensitive, and he was exposed to Shango-oti. I want to know what the full effects were on him. He doesn't seem to have any of the instability we've come across."

  "We've done more than 'come across' it, War Chief. I had to put down Akanke after she went crazy. She killed Sere and hurt Ayoola before I could stop her."