Fatal Extraction Read online

  “How can you be more qualified than her?” Nirvana chided Ching. Beaming at Eryn, she hurried over to give her a tight hug. “Ignore him. I’m happy to see you. I hope you brought something for sore muscles.”

  Eryn nodded and patted her satchel, “Anti-inflammatory gel and muscle relaxants.”

  Nirvana kissed her cheek in delight. “Zane will be most grateful.”

  “I’ll go check on him,” Eryn said with a smile.

  “He’s inside, pumping up the generator.” Nirvana pointed towards the yurt.

  Ching opened the carrier box of Eryn’s hoverbike, lifted her medical kit out of it and slung it over his shoulder. “I’ll carry it for you. It’s heavy.”

  Eryn reached out and jerked the sling away from him. “I can manage just fine.” She heaved the kit over her shoulder. “I’ve been managing all this on my own just fine,” she grumbled softly as she stomped towards the yurt.

  Interesting.

  Ching frowned and watched her as she went into the yurt. He raised his hands in surrender and shook his head. Reaching into his satchel, he pulled out a new CommsB. “This should fit you better.” He snapped it onto Nirvana’s wrist and jiggled it a little. Satisfied, he removed the one on her arm and snapped it back onto his wrist.

  “Let me help you. Take a break,” he offered and took the ax from her.

  “You assume I needed help,” she poked at him. “What if I don’t?”

  He glared at her.

  “Ok, ok! I was just kidding.” She laughed, raising her hands. “Yes, I’d appreciate your help. Thank you.”

  She walked over to a stump and sat down, rotating her shoulders and stretching her arms to soothe the aches. She noticed that Ching couldn’t help but kept glancing up at the yurt in between the splitting. She was contemplating what to say to him when he broke the silence.

  “Eryn seemed very concerned about your guy. Been pestering me to take her here since morning.”

  “Why are you bothered by it? She’s being responsible, especially after her slip up yesterday. You, however, sound like you’re jealous.”

  “Pi!” he spat and split the log with more strength than needed. “You know I don’t trust strangers.”

  Oops, she’d better change the subject quickly. “Is Eryn seeing anyone?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. Hopefully it’d divert Ching’s attention away from Zane.

  “No.”

  “How long has she been back?”

  “About eight months I think.”

  “No suitors?”

  “Lots.”

  “She’s not interested in any of them?”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders.

  “Did she actually snub them? Or have you been a cock-block?”

  “What?” He stopped and frowned at her. “Of course I haven’t been… Why would you say…”

  He hesitated as he gave her question more thought.

  Nirvana crossed her arms and looked pointedly at him.

  Ching cursed and swung the ax into a log.

  “She’s twenty-two, very pretty and a recent graduate from a prestigious medical school,” Nirvana listed. “I know Rai and Shiao must be feeling extremely relieved that their only child has decided to come home after six years in Nayrie and definitely hoping she settles down here. So, if she hasn’t been on any dates, I’d say you’re probably responsible for it.”

  He threw the ax on the floor and stared at the pile of logs, hands resting on his hips. Then he looked up at Nirvana.

  “What makes you think I’m responsible for it?”

  “Your entire network of informants would have told you if someone was trying to court her.”

  “I don’t see what’s wrong with me looking out for her.”

  “What do you do if someone you don’t have a good opinion of tries to ask her out for a date?”

  “Stop him of course.”

  “How many have you stopped?”

  Ching didn’t reply at first. Then, he walked over and sat down beside Nirvana with a heavy sigh. “I watched her grow up. She’s like my little sister.”

  She reached over and patted his thigh. “She’s a grown woman. She can date whoever she wants. You, on the other hand, need to stop with the sister thing. You’re not her brother, for heaven’s sake. Men only come up with all this little sister crap when they want an excuse to hover and stake a claim over a woman they think they can’t have.”

  “That’s utter rubbish!” he retorted almost immediately.

  Nirvana stood up and stretched her back. “Dig deeper into your feelings.” Then, she turned and walked towards the yurt without waiting for his response. Hopefully she had said enough to point his thoughts in the other direction.

  Chapter 11

  Eryn was wrapping up the pads from the device when Nirvana entered. “Zane seems to be doing fine. I’d like to check again tomorrow if you don’t mind,” she told Nirvana.

  “Tomorrow?” boomed Ching at the doorway, startling everyone in the yurt. “He looks just fine to me!”

  “Maybe you should take over the infirmary since you’re the expert,” Eryn snapped. She turned back and looked at Nirvana. “I’ll make my own way down if I have to.”

  Nirvana shot a look at Ching. He placed some food containers he was carrying on the table and rubbed his buzz cut in frustration.

  “I’m sorry. I overstepped.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll take you here after work tomorrow. If you want, that is,” he quickly added. “I know you are fully capable of traveling on your own.”

  Eryn stopped packing and slowly turned her head to look at him.

  “Yes, Eryn.” Nirvana patted her shoulder. “The mighty Sima Ching just tasted a slice of humble pie. You should let him accompany you here if you can. There are animals roaming around. It’s not safe to come here on your own. Oh my gosh!” Nirvana exclaimed after she opened the food carrier.

  “Is this what I think it is?!” she asked excitedly.

  “Ching told me you like curry,” Eryn answered shyly.

  Nirvana clapped with glee. “‘Like’ is an understatement. I love it!” she gushed and went to lay out the table eagerly. “I don’t think the table is big enough to hold all the food you’ve brought.”

  Ching pointed at Eryn. “I told you.”

  “It’s all small portions,” Eryn protested. “I thought you’d like the variety, since you haven’t been back for almost a year.”

  “We appreciate it though.” Nirvana went up and gave Eryn a hug “Please join us for dinner! There is so much food!”

  Eryn looked a little uncertain and looked at Ching, who had already started helping himself to the bowls in Nirvana’s cabinets.

  Son of a gun, Nirvana cursed internally at Ching. He probably planned this so that he would have a legitimate opportunity to interrogate Zane during dinner.

  Much to her discomfort, Ching was unnaturally friendly to Zane while they were laying out the table getting ready for dinner. The normal Ching was gruff and serious all the time, the smiley and polite Ching was reserved for political meetings. She didn’t know if Zane was a good liar or if Ching would call her out on her bullshit after dinner.

  It was too late to regret not spending more time coordinating her story with Zane. The priority now would be to think on her feet to see how she could best remedy the situation during dinner.

  They dug into the sumptuous spread, heaping praises on Eryn for her cooking. Nirvana tried to dominate the conversation by telling Zane about each dish and the plants they come from and asking Eryn to tell them how each dish was prepared. Her plan was going smoothly until Ching decided he’d had enough.

  “So, Zane,” he interrupted. “Tell me how you and Nirvana met.”

  Nirvana looked daggers at him.

  “What? I’m really curious,” he said. “It seems none of your crew members knew about your secret romance with Zane.”

  “You told all of them?” Nirvana snapped. “Why couldn’t you have minded
your own business?”

  “It IS my business. You brought a complete stranger, who stole the most powerful battle craft from Panderon, into my mountains. I need to know who he is. You can imagine my surprise when none of your crew had even heard of him.”

  “I spent the whole day cooking!” Eryn cut in and glared at Ching. “If you wanted to interrogate them, you should have told me. I wouldn’t have bothered to put in so much effort in the food since everyone’s appetite’s going to be ruined by you!”

  She was about to leave the table when Zane held onto her arm. “It’s not ruined, Eryn. I haven’t eaten anything so delicious in a long time. It’s ok. I can talk about how we met. Won’t ruin anything,” he assured her as tugged on her arm lightly to ask her to sit back down.

  “We need to talk about the elephant in the room anyway,” Nirvana added, shooting a warning glare at Ching.

  Ching rose from his stool and mumbled an apology to Eryn. He held onto her shoulders and gently nudged her back to her seat. She glared at him, but took a deep breath and sat down, much to everyone’s relief.

  “What’s this?” Zane asked Eryn while scooping a generous helping of stir-fry onto his plate.

  “It’s danbuk,” Ching answered softly. He scooted his stool closer to Eryn and rubbed her back. “It’s my favorite dish.” He looked at her solemnly. “Thank you for making it.”

  The gesture of affection did not go unnoticed by Nirvana. “Two slices of humble pie in a day,” she mumbled. “Must be a record.”

  “The first time I saw Nirvana,” Zane said before the two started fighting again, “was on the evening news.” He took Ching’s plate and started piling it with danbuk. “She was returning the stolen Narian crystals to the King of Loperia.”

  What the hell? Nirvana thought. That was more than a decade ago. Where was Zane going with this?

  “It was huge news back then because it was Kraken, the most powerful and feared pirate ship at that time, who had stolen them. Not only did she take the crystals from them, she blew up the ship and decimated the entire crew. She was hailed as a hero for getting rid of Andromeda’s menace.”

  “Until she became a menace herself,” Ching huffed.

  Nirvana gaped at Ching in outrage but Zane reached out and tilted her chin to make her face him instead.

  “You had short hair then, up to here.” He traced her jaw with his finger. “There was this whole ceremony to honor the return of crystals and reward you for getting rid of Kraken, but you just walked into the hall, dropped off the crates, saluted the King like this.” He demonstrated, raising two fingers to his temple and gave a slight wave. “Then left without saying a word.

  “I was totally mesmerized.” His face beamed. “I thought you were the most magnificent, badass woman I’ve ever seen, and I decided then I was in love.”

  “You didn’t tell me that when we met,” she said, frowning. “That was so long ago! How old were you?”

  “Nine.”

  “Hey! You make me sound really old!”

  “It didn’t matter at all then and it definitely doesn’t matter now. After that night, I would scour the Galactic News extensively every day in hope of catching anything related to you. You became up quite a bit in the Chikara News too.” He gave her a crooked smile and brushed her cheek gently. “But yeah, I’ve been your admirer since I was nine.”

  Nirvana was totally flabbergasted by Zane’s unexpected and totally outrageous display of affection. For the first time in her life, she blushed. She had to give it to him. If this was something he’d made up on the spot, it was the most convincing lie she’d ever heard.

  “Naturally,” Zane continued, “when I finally got to meet my dream woman in person, I wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip. This is Captain Nirvana Faust we’re talking about. I’m not going to get her attention by just buying her a drink. I needed something really impressive.”

  Ching laughed heartily and slapped Zane on his back, “The Peregrine was impressive, alright.”

  “I was lucky,” Zane chuckled. “Wasn’t that difficult for me since I’m a mechanic. I stole one of the newly manufactured Peregrines which hadn’t been tagged with a tracker yet. I can show you where the tracking devices are usually installed if you want.”

  “Yes, show me,” Ching said. “I’ll also make it a point to instruct Dawa to seal all tracking devices deep into our vehicles and space crafts.”

  Zane’s story seemed to have pacified Ching. The rest of the dinner went smoothly, with Zane asking Eryn about her time in medical school and Ching sharing stories about the history of Athar.

  Nirvana was still reeling from the bomb Zane had dropped earlier. She tried hard to focus on the dinner conversations but her mind kept drifting back to what he’d said. Maybe he’d looked her up on the Galactic Net before working with her. She didn’t think news from fifteen years ago would still be circulating around but that was the most plausible reason.

  “I’ll need to pop by the HQ to send a message parcel to my crew,” Nirvana informed Ching quietly when they walked out of the yurt together to put the food carriers into Eryn’s hoverbike. “How did you manage to get hold of them?”

  “They reached out first. I wouldn’t have known how to contact them. They might already be on their way here.”

  “When did you hear from them?”

  “Last night. I told them you’re here with Zane.” Ching glanced at Zane, who was chatting with Eryn off in the distance. He looked like he was about to say something but struggled with himself a little.

  “What is it?” Nirvana asked, feeling curious. Ching was never one to mince his words.

  To her surprise, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. “I love you,” he muttered into her hair. “Whether we work out as lovers or not, you will always be my friend.”

  Nirvana was suddenly overcome with guilt. Had she been too callous about his feelings?

  “You know I love you too,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat, holding him tightly. She shouldn’t have hurt him like that with Zane.

  “I know you do,” Ching said gently and pressed his lips to her forehead. “I’ve never interfered with the things you do but whatever you are keeping from me this time, I want you to know that I am still here if you need help.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  They broke out of their embrace when Zane cleared his throat in the distance.

  “Nirvana needs to go to the HQ tomorrow so I’m leaving my bike for her,” Ching told Eryn. “We’ll take yours back.”

  Eryn nodded and climbed onto the passenger seat. To everyone’s surprise, Ching lifted her by the waist and moved her to the rider’s seat instead. She sat frozen, eyes wide with shock, while Ching climbed onto the pillion seat behind her.

  “I want to know if you are a safe rider, or if I need to give you riding lessons,” he explained. He was so huge that he had to nudge her forward a little so that he could take part of the rider’s seat. “Go on.” Ching patted the side of Eryn’s thigh. She fumbled on the controls and jumped a little when he wrapped his arms around her waist.

  Nirvana was shaking with silent laughter at the sight. “Ride safe!” She gave them a cheeky wink and waved as they rode off.

  Chapter 12

  Nirvana had been itching to ask Zane about what he’d said at dinner. She couldn’t wait until they entered the yurt before she blurted out, “Where did you even find that footage of me returning the crystals?”

  “Where?” Zane asked, looking very puzzled. “I saw you on the news.”

  “Did you really?” She couldn’t believe it.

  “Of course I did!” he said, looking a little offended.

  “That was fifteen years ago!” She looked at Zane in shock.

  He smiled and shook his head. “You were a hard woman to forget.”

  “So you really noticed me when you were nine?”

  “Yep.” Zane nodded, looking slightly embarrassed. “Wasn’t lying.”
>
  “Why did you behave as if you didn’t know me when we first met?”

  “Technically, I don’t know you. It’s not as if I can come up to you and say, ‘Hi! I’ve been an ardent fan of yours since nine.’”

  True that. Nirvana walked to the counter to pour herself a glass of water and drank deeply. She had been convincing herself throughout dinner that he’d cooked up the story. Now that she knew the truth, she didn’t know how to handle it. She was used to flattery from men and she knew she was attractive, but somehow, hearing that from Zane unsettled her.

  “What else do you know about me?”

  “Not much.” He shrugged. “Just whatever information I would get on the Galactic Net and Chikara News. Night is still young. Do you want to go through some plans?”

  Shady fella was changing the topic again. Might as well, since she didn’t quite know how else to proceed with the conversation. It wasn’t as if she could say, “Tell me more about your feelings for me.”

  It didn’t take long for Nirvana to be pulled out of her jumbled thoughts. Zane opened up the large metal suitcase he’d brought with him and laid out the pieces of equipment on the floor. She walked over to sit beside him and watched with interest as he assembled the parts.

  Lo and behold! The suitcase had transformed into a hologram projector. Zane flashed a smug grin of satisfaction when he saw Nirvana gawking at the hologram of the stronghold that appeared.

  “Where did you get this from?” she marvelled, studying the equipment curiously.

  “My workshop.” He laughed. He opened the duffel bag and added a few more pieces which become the control panel.

  “You invented this too?”

  Zane nodded.

  Impressive, impressive man.

  “I work from home sometimes,” he explained while keying in some instructions. “It’s easier when I can bring work home.”

  Work from home? How? Nirvana was about to ask Zane more about his work when he started rattling off information about the stronghold.

  “Hayashi’s main residence is in the state of Asago. When he’s away, his second-in-command Deyus Abaga, is in charge. The stronghold is massive. It’s almost a city in itself. I can’t squeeze the entire plan onto one screen, but I can break it up into sections for you. Which part would you like to see?”