Markus jolted awake, gasping for air. His heart pounded in his chest as he took in his surroundings. He was in a dimly lit place, laying on a hard surface. The air was damp and musty, and there was the familiar ionized discharge of recently used blasters. That caused the memory of what happened to flood into his mind.

  The attack by Zorren. He was here! How the yavit had Zorren gotten onto College grounds without anyone knowing?

  Adar!

  Markus struggled to get to his feet. It took a few tries, but he managed to make it up to a standing position. He gave himself a moment to center himself. He was terribly close to the sleeper when it went off. Technically, he should get a treatment. Exposure could cause havoc on the nervous system until a treatment could reset it back to normal, but there wasn’t time. He needed to get to Adar.

  He turned to stumble over to the top of the staircase that led to the main part of the tunnel, but even before he got there, his hopes of helping his friend dropped. There only a few steps away lay the dead bodies of the two men Nathias had sent as rear guard. One had a blaster shot through the forehead. The other straight through the heart.

  Fear blossomed in Markus as he raced to the top of the stairs. He looked down to find no one there. The tunnel was empty. Either Adar had managed to escape, or far likelier, Zorren had taken Adar elsewhere to exact his revenge.

  “Yavit!” Markus screamed.

  The outcry did nothing to help his circumstances, but it at least released his anger for a moment. He could feel it boiling inside, ready to strike out. But he needed a target, and right now there was no one for him to lash out at, except maybe himself for letting this happen in the first place.

  “Voice Comm Nathias,” Markus said as he marched for the tunnel exit. The door was closed again. The scanner top was still loose and to one side allowing Markus to quickly dial in the code. The door remained closed. While he worked, the unity ring beeped as it tried to make the link. Markus scowled at the yavit dial pad as his impatience and anger grew.

  Finally, his unity ring stopped beeping and a message ran across the small bracelet display.

  Leave message?

  A mixture of concern and anger ran through Markus. Either Nathias was still too busy with the attack to pick up or something had happened to him. Markus put his concerns for his old friend aside. He could only focus on one crisis at a time, and if Nathias was hurt there wasn’t much he could do about it right this minute if he was locked in this yavit tunnel.

  “Voice Comm Jamiss,” Markus said.

  After two beeps, Jamiss answered. “Nador is the Heir secure?”

  “No! I was hit with a sleeper. Adar is gone. Now I’m locked in this yavit tunnel and can’t get out.”

  Markus heard Jamiss curse. “The code Tetki gave you isn’t working?”

  “No, not on the administrate building side of the tunnel.”

  “Hold on.” Jamiss said as he muted his end.

  Panic built in Markus. He didn’t have time for this! He had no idea how long Zorren had taken off with Adar, though he figured it couldn’t be more than a quarter hour if he could still smell the ionized discharge from the blasters, though it was quickly dispersing. A moment later, Markus’s unity ring activated with another voice call. This one from Tetki.

  “Try this code.” Tetki said as soon as Markus connected with the Protector. “It’s the newest override for everything related to the administrative building. My latest assignment was security for that whole building. So it should work.”

  Markus typed the numbers as the Protector rapidly recited the twelve digit code. As soon as he pressed in the last of the digits, the door slid open. Markus gasped as he looked at what lay beyond the door. Lieutenant Yendo and five of his men were sprawled out on the other side.

  “Guess that explains why Yendo didn’t answer his Comm,” Markus said tightly as he carefully stepped forward past the bodies and into the corridor of the administrative building.

  “What?” Tetki asked.

  “You need to alert head of security of the College. Yendo and his team are down. None of them look like they are moving, but I’d send Caretakers anyways,” Markus said.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Yavit,” came Tetki’s response.

  “Are you seeing any action where you are?” Markus asked.

  “No, it’s been completely quiet up here,” Tetki responded.

  “Then I doubt you will. Whatever was supposed to happened already did. Someone needs to check on Nathias and his team. I tried to Comm him first and he didn’t respond.”

  “Copy that.” There was a muttering in the background. It was probably Jamiss talking to the Protector. A few moments later, Tetki continued, “I’m assuming you are going after the Heir. Stay where you are, I’ll be right down.”

  Irritation spiked through Markus. No doubt Jamiss wanted Tetki down here to take charge. There wasn’t time to wait around. Who knew how far of a head start Zorren already had.

  Markus considered that. Where would Zorren take Adar? He couldn’t have gotten off the planet, not with the storm raging outside, so he must still be on College grounds. They might even still be in the administration building. Markus took a moment to check on Yendo and his men. They were unconscious. They must have been hit with a sleeper too. It shouldn’t be too much longer before the roused on their own.

  He stood up and looked around to get his bearings. He was in the north end of the administration building. This was where the interrogation room and holding cells were. It was also the furthest away from where most of the Command and regular staff offices happened to be, and the least occupied area of the building.

  Markus walked up the hall past the very holding cell he’d been detained in a few days ago, not seeing a single person. Though, he was probably sure that Yendo and his men were pulled from this area to greet him and Adar at the tunnel entrance. Markus went to the end of the hall and checked the next corridor. That one was empty too. He stood there for a moment as he contemplated where Zorren might have gone.

  Could he really still be in the building? And why would he take Adar and not just kill his brother outright? Though Markus supposed that question was easy enough. From Zorren’s perspective, Adar had been a threat to his ambitions for years. Zorren wasn’t the kind of person to make a quick kill to get rid of a threat. He liked to play with his victims. So he would need a place that would give him the time and privacy to do that.

  Markus was finding it difficult to image where he might do that at the College. The place was always busy. Though things were a little more insane with the shield down and a sandstorm assaulting the College. He knew the protocols for such a thing. It had never actually happened while he’d been in the Program, but the holograph simulators definitely had this sort of situation in its top emergency drills.

  The first thing order of business would be to lock all the buildings down and create staging areas near every exit and entrance to keep people from going out, and be on the lockout for those trying to enter to get out of the storm. It was highly doubtful that Zorren would have been able to get Adar out of the building. So it was most likely they were still here. Somewhere.

  “Nador!”

  Markus looked down the hall he’d come through. He could just see Tetki at the far end as he stepped through the tunnel entrance and into the detention area of the administration building.

  “I’m down here,” Markus said.

  A few moments later, Tetki was coming up beside Markus. “You checked them?”

  “Just unconscious,” Markus replied. “I figure Zorren might still be in the building with Adar. Thoughts where that might be at?” Markus knew where the detention area was and Commands’ offices, but he had done everything in his power to not to get to know this building well in his time in the Program. If Tetki had been working security for the administration building, then the man knew the layout much better than Markus.

  “Prince Zorren is here? Are you sure?” Tetki looked incredulous.

  “Yes, I saw him right before I passed out from he sleeper he nearly dropped on my head.”

  The Protector cursed. It was a moment before Tetki responded to Markus’s question. “This place is huge. They could be anywhere and with the storm everyone will be at the staging areas.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Too bad the Heir didn’t get the bond. We could follow that.”

  That was exactly what Markus had been thinking. And this was exactly why Protectors were needed. The bond made it impossible for the charge to mysteriously disappear or be abducted since they could be traced through that connection. They could try tracing Adar through his unity ring, but Zorren was smarter than that. He probably threw it in an empty office just to through them off the trail. Then another thought occurred to Markus.

  “Can you access the Cadet files? See if Jasper Ruloc got his identity chip put in before his cover was blown?” It was a long shot, but worth a try.

  Tetki immediately pulled up an administration page on his unity ring and started to scroll through it. Thankfully, it seemed his access code allowed him to get into the Cadet files. He reached Ruloc’s page. Command hadn’t told anyone to delete the file yet. And sure enough, a chip tracker was listed. Tetki highlighted it, and they both waited in anticipation for the tracker to data show.

  Markus squinted at the transparent map showing a tiny blinking red dot. The chip was nearly twenty miles beneath the administration building. “Well, that can’t be right.”

  “Actually I think it is, and now that I think of it, it would be the perfect place to escape attention.”

  Markus gave the other man a look. “How did they get all the way down there?”

  “You never did get the bond, so you didn’t see the bonding chambers.” Tetki explained. “I was just down there this morning getting my bond. The bonding agent stores better in very cool and damp places, and the actual bonding is much easier in such environments too.”

  Tetki shook his head. “I know they told us about the bond before we became Pledges. They spent an entire day telling us about what to expect, how it’s done, the benefits, the risks, and what happens after the bond is severed, but they don’t tell you where it’s actually done until you are ready to go through it. Come one. I’ll show you how to get down there.”