by Daniel Gibbs
“Much obliged, Ram,” she murmured.
“Contact,” Brant warned.
Gina silently signaled back that she saw the heat signature, humanoid, female, moving with a peculiar grace. They were the strides of a person who knew she had limited time and was heading where she shouldn’t be but was determined to achieve her goal.
The pistol loaded with disruptor rounds rode on Gina’s belt. She slowly, deliberately lifted it free and took aim. The heat signature faded and vanished, the figure still in midstride. Gina raised the muzzle.
“What the hell?” Brant snapped. “Confirm you’ve lost her on scans.”
In a moment. Gina lifted her visor, letting her eyes adjust to the pale-blue light. The figure was still there, a dark silhouette. Whatever the woman wore, it wasn’t as efficient of stealth garb as Gina’s suit, but it masked her body heat well enough to throw off Gina’s wrist unit scanners and whatever other lab detection systems Brant had tapped.
“Two, I said, confirm.”
Yes, dammit, confirmed. Gina sent the reply.
“Visual established?”
Creepy he could see every move she made—but also reassuring to have a colleague watching over her. Gina duplicated the affirmative reply.
“Two, do not engage, repeat, do not engage. Shadow and report. I’ll check in with One, over.”
Shadow. Gina snorted. Not a problem.
She eased from her crouch and proceeded, ghostlike, across the lab floor, one wraith pursuing another.
“Echo One, this is Echo Home. Two has encountered unknown infiltrator, next level up, outside the lab core. I’ve ordered her to shadow. Do you want her to intercept? Over.”
The rising tension in Brant’s question didn’t help Jackson settle his mood. He imagined the lieutenant’s emotions bleeding out of the comm so badly that both Cho and the annoyingly diligent lab tech could hear. “Who authorized this late night of work, Technician?”
“I don’t have to tell you a damn thing about where I get my authorization. You think Tactisar can tell me what to do?” The tech prodded Jackson’s chest with his tablet.
“Tactisar can tell you whatever it pleases.” Jackson stepped closer, ignoring Cho behind him.
For all his bluster, the tech’s tells were appearing. He shuffled his feet after he spoke, and he stared at Jackson the entire time he talked. Those and other indicators were clear—the man was hiding something.
Jackson decided to press the issue. “Sneaking in here late. Acting hostile toward security. That doesn’t make me suspicious at all. I’ll give you five seconds before I take the tablet and download whatever shady shit you’ve got going on, then turn it over to your supervisor—or maybe Ms. Bui herself. She’d like that. Good pals with Mr. Noor, isn’t she?”
The man seethed, glaring at Jackson and Cho but not making a move either way.
“One, this is Home, advise. Intercept?”
Not yet, not yet. Jackson folded his arms, so he could slip a finger inside his sleeve and trigger the quick reply to hold. “Or leave now, and we forget this happened.”
The tech pushed between them, stomping down the stairs.
Cho exhaled. “Good one.”
“Thanks. I’d better tell Ram.” Jackson typed out a message on his wrist comm—actually two messages. One to Brant, telling him to watch the tech and make sure he did indeed leave through the lab entrance labeled “03,” which was where Jackson saw him head. The other was a copied, pasted, and modified version of the same message, that one to Ram.
He’s heading out. Keep it up. Boyd’s codes for the front door.
Front door, indeed.
The lab core was built of transparent walls, laced with a security grid Jackson could see glimmering even in the dim lighting. Only one door in and out, a red hatch twice as thick as those walls.
Cho had made himself busy, planting charges around it then spreading out to complete his work elsewhere in the lab. A total of sixteen explosives, high enough yield and flashpoint to obliterate the lab contents but not enough to breach other floors.
Jackson checked his tablet. Their window was getting slimmer. “Hurry it up.”
“Almost done.” And he was, joining Jackson less than ninety seconds after they’d reached that floor. “The data’s in there.”
“Our pal Boyd didn’t mention anything about the code for this door.” Jackson frowned. “She give you another one?”
“No. It’s same one.”
Jackson rolled his eyes. “Then you type it if you’re so sure.”
Cho snatched the tablet and punched in the same sequence they’d used to bypass the security locks at the front door.
The red hatch’s access panel flashed green. It hissed open, revealing a pedestal-type console inside a room barely big enough to accommodate two people. The white letters glowing in a clear screen read, “Project Life Swarm.”
“There it is.” Cho sighed. “Our jackpot.”
“Sure is.” Jackson drew his plasma pistol and rested the muzzle at the back of Cho’s neck. “Remove it, and give it to me.”
“I—what?” Cho flinched. He instinctively tried to turn around.
“Nope.” Jackson drove the muzzle against the vertebrae under Cho’s collar, making the Tactisar sergeant wince. “I’m not gonna say it a third time, Cho. Remove the module. Hand it over.”
“You backstabbing bastard.” Cho’s hands shook as he unplugged the module from the underside of the clear console. The project title faded from the screen. “What the hell do you think’s gonna happen when you show up at the ship? Ramsey won’t let you board without me. And the codes for the double airlocks in the cargo tunnel—”
“All on the tablet, courtesy of your guys’ foresight and planning. Many thanks. Turn around.”
Cho did. His face was contorted by fury but fear too. He wasn’t a guy ready to be a hero, well, or at least a brave criminal.
“One, what are you doing? Ramsey’s going to be monitoring all this.” Brant’s tone was taut. “You’re deviating from the op.”
Jackson knew he was, but he’d played a hunch—taking a rash action to provoke the other side into something similar. The original plan of he and Cho waltzing out to meet with Ramsey was clearly in jeopardy with the introduction of the woman Gina was tailing.
He reclaimed the tablet and shoved it into a pocket. “No hard feelings, Cho. But I figure I can get way more for this solo than splitting it four ways.”
“The benefactor won’t give you the money!” Cho snapped.
Jackson sneered and leaned closer, pressing the pistol to Cho’s chest. “Who says I don’t have my own benefactor?”
“One, this is Home. Two reports she’s lost sight of the intruder. You need to move. Now.”
Sounded like a good plan to Jackson. “Let’s go, Sergeant. I don’t have all—”
The blow came from his right and sent him reeling into a desk. Jackson corrected, turning his flail into a controlled roll, but still he ended on his back, the wind knocked from his lungs. He clutched the module in one hand, but his pistol had spun off into the lab’s twilight. More data modules, tablets, and storage chips spilled onto the deck.
A woman crouched near Cho, who had flattened himself against the hatch. Jackson had a hazy moment in which he wondered why Gina had just kicked him until the woman straightened, and he realized the suit was of an entirely different cut and color than Gina’s. The woman slid a formless white mask down from her face until it crumpled at her chin.
“I think,” Ciara whispered, “we’d better renegotiate the terms of our arrangement, Jack Arno.”
22
Nosamo Aerothermic Laboratories, Sector A120
Bellwether Station
Caeli System
26 November 2464
* * *
Jackson’s gamble to draw out the shadowy intruder had worked. His lower back wished it hadn’t.
“That’s not good.” Brant muttered in Tagalog as he entered command
s into his console. “Our initial passes into her background didn’t raise any red flags.”
Clearly, they’d missed something. She wasn’t just a highly paid administrative assistant to a wealthy, powerful CEO. Ciara’s body language was entirely shifted from the poise she demonstrated when on the job and the languid way in which she carried herself around Ramsey. She was all action, a tensed muscle, ready to pounce. Like Gina, yes, but the comparison didn’t bring Jackson any comfort, considering the position he was in.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jackson tried to push himself up off the floor. Doing so gave him the advantage of placing a hand near his belt, where he’d stowed a compact particle pistol.
“Stay still.” Ciara’s voice carried the same sultry overtones of command except, instead of giving him a new job assignment, she’d scooped up the plasma pistol Jackson had dropped and was aiming it down at him. “I was right not to trust you.”
“By having me follow people? Funny way of showing it, lady.”
“Yes, but I was right, because here you are, trying to scuttle our plan by taking what’s ours.” Ciara glanced at Cho. “Did you have a chance to download or copy the module’s contents?”
Cho had turned his attention to the pedestal console. “No, and no remnants are stored on this unit, so he’s got the only copy in existence, as far as we know.”
“It is the only copy. I can confirm from Mr. Noor.”
Cho glared at Jackson. “What’s Ram want? Because I say we cut down the split to three.”
“Two.” Ciara pivoted her aim and shot Cho in the chest.
The plasma pistol’s shriek cut off Cho’s surprised yelp. The blast threw him over the console, where he slumped, arms spread, eyes wide in shock. Steam rose from the ugly, cauterized burn at the dead center of his shirt.
The assassination caught Jackson by surprise, too, but only for a moment. He rolled onto his side, drawing the pulse pistol from his belt, and swept it up over the side of a desk. He had time to fire off two bursts before Ciara—who had slipped around the edge of the Project Life Swarm enclosure—scorched plasma blasts across the top of the desk. They left blistering furrows where a flat work surface had been.
“You’d better get moving,” Brant snapped. “The patrol drones registered the weapons discharges. I’m sending PRD 311 to interfere, but you don’t have forever.”
Jackson ground his teeth. He sprinted from the ruined desk toward another workstation, one shielded with tall, semitransparent barriers a few centimeters thick. Given it was attached to a test unit that looked like it employed laser cutters, it was a decent gamble it was better shielded.
Ciara’s blasts seared the air in front of him—and cut off abruptly when weapons fire of a different pitch erupted from a new direction. Jackson slid on his knees, coming up ready to shoot around the side of his new sanctuary.
That was when Ciara lost her pistol to a well-placed strike to the wrist. Gina was a spectral being in her stealth suit, with only the purple outlines delineating her from an actual apparition. She tried to shoot Ciara in the head, but the latter deflected the blast with a blow that sent Gina reeling.
Jackson shifted his aim, but the way in which they fought left no room for a wide opening. One moment he had Ciara’s back in his sights. The next it was Gina’s. Though they were well matched, Gina’s more fluid, acrobatic style seemed to be wearing down Ciara, who favored shorter, sharper strikes of a martial arts Jackson found brutal.
Ciara dodged a blow from Gina that Jackson was sure would have left the other woman in a heap. She struck back with the side of her hand, catching Gina on the collarbone. Gina’s muffled cry brought Jackson to his feet.
A pair of patrol drones zipped up the stairwell.
Well, great. Jackson hurried across the floor, staying low. He shot the first drone down, but owing to his jerky movements and the adrenaline coursing through him, it took three hits and three near misses to do so. Which left the second drone plenty of time to pepper the air with stun rounds—nonlethal, to be sure, but he had no time to spend hours knocked senseless.
The crash of breaking furniture drew his attention from the remaining incoming drone. Gina had slammed Ciara onto another desk, leveraging her up and over. Ciara gasped, her breath knocked free—Jackson knew how that felt. Before Ciara could counter, Gina drew a knife from her suit and stabbed it deep into Ciara’s unguarded shoulder.
Ciara’s anguished cry brought the drone spinning off its intercept course with Jackson—and he abruptly realized why Gina had chosen that method of attack. The patrol drones, corrupted as they were by Ramsey’s and the League’s programming, still harbored basic, overriding protocols to respond to an injured person—the prime trigger being blood.
Jackson aimed for the last drone as it breezed across his field of vision—
Only for PRD 311 to barrel in from behind, knocking both out of the air.
The drones shed plastic bits and even some of their propulsion units as they bounced off workstations and left a path of ruined bots standing silent sentry deeper in the lab. Lights flickered on both patrol drones, but neither was going to be flightworthy.
“You okay?” Jackson panted as he approached Gina.
Gin looked at him, only her eyes showing, but the features under her mask shifted enough to tell Jackson she wore a sly smile. “I thought about stunning her, even for a minute, but it’s better if she can walk.”
“As long as she doesn’t bleed out.” Jackson pulled an aid patch from his pocket. It would be enough to seal the wound. “We have to do this carefully. Remove the blade when I—”
Gina gave the knife a twist and yanked it free. Ciara’s second shout was even more tortured than the first.
Jackson swore and slapped the aid patch down on the gaping, bloody wound. “Dammit,” he snapped. “I don’t want her dead. She’s vital to telling us about the benefactor and to testify against Ramsey.”
“Pretty sure she can do both with a prosthetic arm, if worse comes to worst.” Gina helped Jackson get Ciara upright. She bound the other woman’s hands behind her back. “Come on.”
“Wait.” Jackson moved to Cho’s body. He spared a brief grimace and closed the man’s eyes, expecting the same wave of grief and guilt as when the bomb had killed Euke on Aphendrika, but it didn’t come. Time for that worry later. Instead, he rummaged through Cho’s pockets until he found a slender black device studded with tiny controls. “The detonator.”
Ciara chuckled, a choking sound coming from her throat. “Do you think Ram was stupid enough to give Cho the only one?”
Jackson and Gina stared at each other for a moment, then forced Ciara ahead of them in a run for the cargo tunnel leading out of the lab.
Ramsey Moss stormed through the vast Nosamo hangar bay, cursing his luck and the incompetence of others. He hated having to rely on anyone else. Besides Ciara, of course.
He’d monitored the whole foul-up from promising beginning to disastrous interruption. Everything had worked—the drones, the codes, even Jack’s shooing the nosy lab tech along. Right up until Jack had gotten greedy and taken the data module for himself. It was a good thing Ramsey had made sure Ciara followed along.
Though her shooting of Cho… Ramsey scowled as he checked the charge on his plasma rifle. She shouldn’t have shot him. That drew too much of the wrong kind of attention. But it couldn’t be helped. Cho was never supposed to survive the heist. Neither was Jack. Ramsey hadn’t planned on taking the pair along for the getaway he had in mind with Ciara.
Time to clean up the rest of the mess. He pressed the button on the side of his small tablet. The rumble from Cho’s explosives sent tremors throughout his sector of Bellwether. His remaining scanner and camera feeds from the lab blanked to static until the tablet screen showed him nothing of use.
Sorry, Cho. But at least you didn’t have to worry about the blast taking you out. That left Ramsey without evidence to erase too.
He consulted his comm message
s as he hurried toward the cargo tunnel. He’d called in an assist. Screw Fernand if he complained about it. The least he could do was use his hired thugs for something other than smacking around Ramsey’s people. His people. Ramsey shook his head. He would have to reevaluate that definition, pronto.
The rendezvous was still on. All he had to do was intercept Jack and—whoever the woman was. Take them both out. If he could use Ciara’s codes right, he might even be able to emergency vent, but that would be too dangerous. Sure, he could make a sweep of the whole catastrophe like he did with Nels if Ciara could get clear.
“Damned mess,” Ramsey muttered. Forget the vent. He would take personal delight in burning that bastard Jack into crispy atoms.
He could see the hatch for the cargo tunnel far off, around the curve of the hangar bay. That section was empty of personnel. Ramsey let himself grin at that aspect of the plan turning out all right. The so-called emergency would keep them going for a while.
The explosion sent him stumbling into a crate. His shoulder slammed against a support strut. Ears ringing, he instinctively ducked, even as the rumble faded. Where in space did that come from?
Emergency klaxons blared throughout the hangar, and beacons bathed the entire section in red. The vents worked extra hard to steer smoke rising from one of the freighters berthed nearby.
Seriously? The Seven Seven? Ramsey slapped the container. He didn’t have a clear view, but he could tell from the way the ship was canted onto its nose that the forward landing gear were wrecked.
Another explosion shook the hangar, that one farther, but he could see the jet of flame rip through the low, wide body of a long-range courier. It wasn’t going to get out into space without major repairs.
