by Lea Linnett
The hands whirled her around, and she looked up (and up) at Niro’s face, which wore more emotion than she’d ever seen on him before. His brow plate was furrowed deeply, but his eyes were wide, shock, concern, and not a small amount of frustration evident on his features.
She yanked his hand from her mouth, ineffectually fighting his grip on her weapon hand with the other, and glared. “I’m getting the job done that no one else here has the balls to.”
Niro blinked, drawing an exasperated sigh from her lips.
“I’m going after Siikas.”
The huge levekk’s jaw dropped in almost comic shock. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m perfectly serious. Now either tell me where he is or let me get back to looking for him.”
“Are you insane?” he asked, his deep voice cracking as he tried to keep to a whisper and failed. “He’s surrounded by his guards. How do you think you’re going to get to him?”
“However I have to,” she said. “I’ll take out every one of his guards if I have to.”
The levekk just stared at her. “You really are insane. You know, I thought that out of the two of you, that asshole levekk you were with was the idiot, but now I see stupidity comes in pairs.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you didn’t have Cara calling the shots, I doubt you would have made it even this far.”
Taz again tried to jerk the hand holding her gun from his grip, and when that failed, she thought about kicking him in the goddamn groin because how dare he talk about Cara or Kamanek like he knew them, but the much larger levekk flipped her around again. He pulled her hands behind her back, squeezing her wrist until she had no choice but to drop the gun, and it clanged against the metal floor.
Niro leaned in closer, murmuring, “Look, I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t even want to stop you, personally, but if you go in there, you’ll die. This is foolish.”
“I think it’s way more foolish to help Siikas make money while you’re trying to ruin him or whatever.”
An aggravated sigh. “Turn back. I can’t believe Cara okayed this.”
“It doesn’t matter what Cara thinks. It matters what’s right.”
“Oh, I see,” he said, and she could practically hear his eyeroll. “So she specifically told you not to do this, but you—”
“Niro!”
They both froze, Niro’s claws turning to iron around her wrists. Taz turned toward the new voice in horror, because she recognized it too.
Siikas stepped down the corridor on light feet, his thinner frame dwarfed by the five guards that flanked him. Taz didn’t know how they’d missed hearing them coming, but she heard them now, their clawed toes clicking against the metal floor as they approached.
“Mr. Siikas…” Niro began, but his voice fizzled out.
“You’ve caught something?” Siikas asked, tilting his head to look down at Taz when he neared. She held her breath, her eyes wide, waiting for him to recognize her. She wanted him to know who she was before she gutted him.
But Siikas just smiled, the movement pulling his ugly scar sideways. His eyes roved her body appreciatively. They then narrowed, falling to the gun that lay abandoned on the floor.
“She doesn’t look like one of our stock.”
“She’s an intruder,” Niro said after a moment, and Taz wriggled in his grasp.
“Huh.” Siikas leaned closer, reaching out to grip her chin between his clawed fingers. “She has very dark eyes. Interesting.”
Taz didn’t think twice about wrenching her jaw from his grasp and snapping at him. She didn’t care how it made her look. It was bad enough that he didn’t recognize her; she wouldn’t let him see her as anything less than a threat. “Get the fuck away from me,” she snarled, pleased when he winced back.
“She’s nothing like the others,” Siikas mused, still staring at her, although his smile had dampened. “Almost like an animal.”
“How dare you—”
She was cut off by Niro’s large hand clapping back over her mouth, and she screamed into it, infuriated.
Siikas was watching her now with a more calculating expression. “She’s quite… hard isn’t she? All muscle and sinew.” At that moment, Taz jerked her wrists, almost coming free of Niro’s grasp and making him stagger. Siikas hummed. “But I think we could make some credits off her.”
“Sir?”
Siikas’ eyes—green and sharp—flicked up to Niro’s. “We’ll add her to the shipment. She’ll be just what we need to spice up the offerings on CL-29.”
“But sir,” he said, pausing to regain his grip as Taz struggled. “She’s—ugh—a bit of a fighter. Do you really think she has the right temperament for that?”
“Oh, trust me. I have a few clients who’ve expressed an interest in claiming something like her. Humans are so fragile; so many of them turn docile once they’re taken off-planet. If she stays even a fraction as energetic as this, though…” He looked her up and down. “She’ll make us plenty.”
“Yes, sir,” Niro said, although he sounded dubious even to Taz’s ears. She hoped he might let her go then, let her launch at the preening levekk and rip the smug look from his face while his guard was down, but Niro’s grip remained firm. “Shall I take her to the loading bay now, sir?”
Siikas didn’t reply for a long moment, his sharp eyes still roaming Taz as she kicked out with a booted foot, fighting the grip anchoring her to Niro’s huge body.
Then, he narrowed his eyes at Niro. “Why don’t we all go? I’d like to check on the merchandise before it ships tonight.”
Taz paused just as Niro’s body stiffened against hers. If Siikas went to the loading bay, he’d discover that all the humans had been taken already, and as much as she relished the notion of seeing that horror spread across Siikas’ face, it would definitely put her and Niro in an uncomfortable position. She hoped the others had left already, and taken the humans with them. The further away they were, the less likely it was that Siikas could track them down.
“Look, she’s calmed down,” Siikas noted, peering down at her. Taz glared back, putting as much hatred in the look as she could muster. But it only made him chuckle. “You can let her speak. Maybe she can tell me why she’s been skulking around my property while we walk.”
Taz let out a stream of curses as soon as the hand left her face, but she couldn’t do much when Niro rearranged his hold and started walking her along the corridor, mere paces behind Siikas. His grip was unrelenting, and Siikas’ security fell into a loose pattern around them, their guns at the ready. One of them had picked up Taz’s gun and pocketed it, and she couldn’t reach her knives with the way Niro was holding her.
Siikas did all the talking, his voice echoing off the walls as he marveled at just how deep inside his compound she’d managed to end up, but when they turned a corner Niro briefly leaned in, using Siikas’ voice as cover.
“Sorry,” he whispered. She gritted her teeth. His grip was tight, but not painful, and although she hated to admit it, he hadn’t been as rough with her, before and after Siikas’ arrival, as he could have been. Maybe he was still on her side.
But if he didn’t prove that by the time they made it to the loading bay, she’d cut him down along with all the others, she told herself. She had to believe she could do it, because the alternative…
She needed to come up with a plan, some way of getting loose and launching at Siikas while everyone was confused by the missing humans. So while she spit obscenities at him, answering his questions with all of the pent up hate she’d nursed for so many years, she planned.
And she absolutely didn’t allow herself to hope that Kamanek or Cara could help her.
It would be better for everyone if they’d already left, humans in tow. Whether she came out of this alive or not, it was her fight. One she intended to win.
---
Kamanek led the way as he and Cara threaded through the corridors. He held the tracking module tightly in his hands, ha
rdly daring to take his eyes off it as they gave chase.
Taz was heading remarkably steadily towards the warehouse’s center. He hadn’t seen her studying the maps Niro gave them for long at all, and the soft beeps that emanated from the tracker every time she changed direction made it clear that she was feeling out her route as she went along. But she was closing in, and Kamanek felt the lump in his throat growing larger and larger, wondering how they hadn’t caught up yet.
His size might have had something to do with it. He was larger than a human, and couldn’t squeeze into the dark corners that Cara managed, so more than once they’d had to hide in an empty room to evade a patrol, waiting until the sounds of the passing guards had moved well and truly in the opposite direction before they could continue on. Thankfully, none of the rooms they’d entered had been occupied, most of them holding stock of the non-human variety, but it was clear that many were intended to function as some kind of break room when the compound was at full capacity.
The warehouse was a strange place, obviously capable of holding far more inhabitants than it currently did, and Kamanek wondered what Siikas once used it for.
“Are we close yet?” Cara asked, trailing behind him with her weapon drawn.
He glanced down at the tracker. “Getting there. Taz has swerved north slightly, but she’s really close to the operations center.”
“Shit.”
“Shit is right. I don’t—”
“Who are you?”
Kamanek’s head snapped up to find a gun barrel pointed directly at him. The levekk holding it was frozen in the adjacent corridor, and he cursed himself for not checking before he stepped into view. He was caught now, helpless to do anything but stand there as the guard looked him up and down, his brow plate dipping.
“Who are you?” the guard repeated.
“Me?” Kamanek turned on the spot very slowly, tucking his tracker behind his back. “I’m security.”
“Not Niro’s.”
“No. Siikas hired me.”
The guard’s eyes narrowed. “So, why aren’t you with him?”
“Well, you see…” Kamanek stalled, daring a glance down the corridors that flanked him. Cara was pressed against the wall on one side, out of sight, watching him carefully. The direction they’d been heading in was empty.
He studied the guard again. He had to be one of Niro’s; both from his reaction and his equipment. He only had a handgun, not a rifle like the mercs they’d seen outside. Maybe he could use that.
“Answer my question,” said the guard.
“Look, I’m not really supposed to say, but…” Kamanek relaxed his posture, leaning forward conspiratorially. “I think Siikas is suspicious of your head of security. Niro, I mean. He asked me to poke around a little.”
That got the guard’s attention, and he stepped forward, lowering his gun. “Why would he be suspicious of Niro?”
“Because of the missing cargo,” he hissed. “If customers aren’t getting what they’re paying for, well. It makes Siikas look bad, right?”
“No cargo has ever gone missing from inside this warehouse.”
“Yeah, but after,” he said, shrugging. “I’m just saying, he thinks there might be something going on.”
“Well, there isn’t,” the guard insisted.
“I was just told to look,” Kamanek said, raising a hand. He backed away, continuing in the same direction he’d been heading before, away from Cara’s hiding place. “Hey, why don’t you come with me? Prove I am who I say I am.”
“I don’t know,” said the guard, but he followed, watching Kamanek carefully. “I thought I heard another voice down this way. Female. Did you hear any—”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Behind him, Cara slipped into the light and leaped into the air, bringing the butt of her gun down with a solid thunk against the guard’s ear, just below the hard plating that adorned his skull. He dropped like a stone, rendered instantly unconscious, and Kamanek blinked down at him with wide eyes.
“Help me hide him,” Cara snapped, all business, and Kamanek jumped to attention, slipping the tracking module into his pocket.
“Wow, you really got him,” he said as he hooked his arms around the levekk’s shoulders, somewhat in awe.
“I just knocked him out. He should be fine.”
“I didn’t realize you knew how vulnerable we were in that spot.”
Cara scoffed, taking his legs. “It’s kind of obvious, looking at how fleshy your ears are. But Taz and I trained to take idiots like you down, remember? Why do you think she’s so confident in getting this revenge?”
“That’s… a fair point,” he admitted. He thought of all the times he’d let his guard down around the human, or how easily she could have ended their fight in the Lodestar base if he hadn’t taken her by surprise, and shivered.
They dragged the guard into a nearby empty room and kept moving, not wanting to lose Taz. But as they headed in the direction of the warehouse’s central operations, Cara glanced at him.
“You could’ve turned me over to that guard, pretended I was an intruder.”
Kamanek frowned. “If I wanted them to know there was an intruder, I could have shot the guy myself. Then everyone would know.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said.
“What did you mean, then? Taz would kill me if I let anything happen to you, and Siikas would recognize me in an instant.” He slowed, checking around another corner as they passed. “Besides, putting this place on high alert would only put Taz in danger.”
“…That matters to you?” Cara asked.
He paused, looking back at her. “Of course it matters to me.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why are you here, rescuing her? Your orders were to follow my orders and get the humans out. I could’ve done this alone.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. Apart from the fact that they wouldn’t have even gotten this far without his tracking equipment, Cara’s line was such a distinct echo of Taz that he wanted to laugh. Maybe these two humans were more alike than he’d previously thought.
“Look, I…” He hesitated, swallowing down the words that threatened to spill from his tongue.
Taz was gone. Anything could have happened to her. And if Siikas had found her already, he might hurt her, sell her, kill her. Or worse, take her with him.
And it was all because Kamanek had pushed her away. He saw that now. If he’d stayed at her side, maybe they could have faced this together, but instead he’d tried to distance himself, and all it had done was drive her to do what he’d feared the most. Of course she’d endangered herself and gone off on her own—that’s what she did. Siikas was an ongoing danger to all of them, so she’d decided to take the matter in her own hands.
Now, it was too late. He might have lost her already, but that didn’t stop the words he should have said to her welling up now. He needed to tell someone.
“Whatever you and Taz may think,” he began, looking Cara dead in the eye, “this isn’t all about credits for me. If I could stay here with her—if she’d even have me—I would, but…”
“You want to stay?” Cara asked, looking at him incredulously.
“I do,” he said. “I haven’t cared for anyone like I do for her. I didn’t know what it meant before, but now…”
She stared at him, eyes wide.
A soft beeping from Kamanek’s pocket interrupted them, and he pulled out the tracker. What he saw on the screen made his thundering heart skip a beat, panic gripping him.
“Fuck.”
“What is it?”
“She’s changed direction.”
“What do you mean?”
He held up the tracker for her to see. “She’s circled back behind us somehow.”
Cara’s brow furrowed. “Do you think she’s going back to the loading bay? Why would she change her mind?”
Kamanek’s brain was already conjuring a dozen reasons, the worst of which made his stomach turn ove
r. “I don’t think she’d turn back by choice,” he murmured, meeting Cara’s eyes as they widened in realization.
“You think they found her?”
“Yeah. And if they’re taking her where I think they are, they’re going to discover that we lifted all that live cargo from under their noses.”
They shared a horrified look. If Siikas suspected that Taz had anything to do with the missing cargo…
“We need to get her out of there,” Cara hissed.
“If Siikas is there, he’ll have lots of security. He doesn’t go anywhere without it,” he pointed out.
She gave him a long look, her lips pursed in thought. “Well, I trust you’ll watch my back for me, then. For Taz’s sake.”
“As long as you watch mine as well. I don’t think Siikas is going to be happy to see me.”
She nodded, her gaze dropping down to the tracker. “Lead the way.”
31
“So, are there any more of your kind sneaking around my compound?”
“Fuck you!”
Siikas laughed. “She doesn’t have a very varied vocabulary, does she?” he said, glancing back at Niro. He ignored his guards completely. Most of them were stone-faced, staring blankly ahead unless they were passing an intersection that required a quick perusal. They moved like robots, but Taz suspected the truth was simpler. They were mercenaries, just here to collect an easy, but boring paycheck protecting a businessman. The five of them revolved around Siikas constantly, and she thought that he must have had a lot of enemies for him to hire so many.
“You think you’re clever,” she spat, “but you won’t sound so smug when we get to that loading bay. I promise you.”
He frowned, the ghost of a smile still etched onto his features. “Now, what could you mean by that?” He glanced at Niro. “Could there be a trap waiting for us?”
Niro jostled her, and his voice was strained when he replied. “I doubt it, sir. Nothing’s shown on the cameras all night. She’s bluffing.”
“Then how did she get in?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
He shrugged. “Well, no matter. Trap or not, they won’t be getting through this amount of security.”
