The heavy door sealed off the noise of the throne room with surprising effectiveness. They stood in an access hallway, gaudily decorated but empty other than the six of them. Ranald and four guardsmen accompanied her. Although none of them had drawn weapons, all of them had a hand on their short stun batons incase she decided to try anything. Ranald took a pair of magnetic binders from a pouch on his uniform and invited her to hold out her wrists.

“Captain Cyckali please…” She spat in his face, her lips curled in sneering contempt. Something hit her across the kidneys and she fell to her knees. The fact that she had expected the blow allowed her to keep from crying out but the power of positive thinking didn’t protect you from the power of positive electrode. Ranald stood, his face set in a mask of disgust.

“I saved your snivelling master at least three times by my count, and this is the thanks I get?” she demanded. She felt the guards behind her raise their batons, the pricking of their charges tingling against her bare skin, but Ranald shook his head and held out the binders. Without a weapon her chances of victory were nonexistent. Reluctantly she extended her wrists and the binders snapped around them.

“All you have to do to win your freedom is tell us where the murderers are,” Ranald said, wiping his face clean with the white ceremonial gloves he wore tucked into his belt. A vein in Sayeeda’s temple began to throb and her vision redded. 

“Win my freedom?!” she snarled, her vision narrowing.

“By the Goddess’ bleeding tits if I hadn’t been here Aiden would be on the executioners dock right now!” Ranald opened his mouth to say something but she didn’t give him the chance. With a shocking swiftness she drove a knee into his crotch and simultaneously bought her head forward, catching him on the bride of the nose as he doubled over in pain. The veteran staggered back gasping for breath and with blood pouring from his nose and lip. She kicked out sideways, planting one of her high heeled boots against the knee of one of the guardsmen with a dislocating pop that sent the man screaming to the ground. Her bound hands swung upwards in a vicious arc, driving her binders into the face of a second guard who toppled back screaming and grabbing at his broken jaw. Ranald rose to all fours but she kicked him in the belly and then drove the heel of her boot into one of his kidneys. Her back arched as one of the shock batons caught her across the shoulder blades. A second jolt of blue white light flashed as the remaining guard thrust his baton against her hip. For a second she stood, contracting muscles contorting her painfully and then one of the batons gave out and she slumped to the ground. Vision narrowed to a black slit and then there as darkness.

Consciousness returned as an unpleasant rush. She was laying in a bed and she was about to throw up. With a tankers self control she fought her gorge down. The fighting compartment of an armored vehicle as no place to throw up. No matter how bad things got, they didn’t improve for the smell of vomit in the air recycler. She was laying on a cot in a cell. It was dimly lit but she could tell she as the only occupant. Experimentally she tugged at her wrists and found them unrestrained. She was still wearing her party clothes, though they were a little worse for wear. Obviously she hadn’t been out for very long.

The cell as small, with a screened of refresher, semi opaque or a minimal amount of privacy. Security mesh was stretched over the entryway, razor sharp and probably electrified. A pair of armed guards, both wearing palace livery and carrying riot suppression guns stood facing the door, watching her impassively. Her back ached tremendously and she didn’t doubt she had burns to match. Well it had gone well enough for five against one. She touched the back of her breastplate suspiciously, her fingers finding a small burn mark. It as probably ruined, typical.

“Six to Control,” she said in a whisper. Her implant hissed in her head unable to reach Lonney. She tried Taya and Neil but received similar static. Either this place as shielded, or, more likely, this place was buried deep enough below the palace to prevent radio communication. The implant had its uses but it was intended to be linked to a much more powerful array in a vehicle or infantry repeater station, none of which were available.

“Did you say something?” one of the guards asked with a slight sneer.

“Yes,” she replied but then lay back on the bed refusing to elaborate. There would be a way out of this. Somehow there would be
[@POOHEAD189]