The Star Thief

by Jamie Grey

  “Smart man.” Their gazes locked, and she almost forgot the job she was here to do. Dammit. She could not let herself go down that road again. Being involved with Finn and his team already broke every rule she’d set for herself, and the job was suffering for it. But something in her was still drawn to this man—the way the muscles in his chiseled jaw clenched when he was angry, the blue eyes that seemed to cut past her barriers.

  “The facility is over this ridge,” Keva said, stalking past them with a glare to crouch against an outcropping of burgundy stone. “Are you coming?”

  Renna snapped back into job-mode and called up a map of the area with her implant. “I’m detecting heat signatures from inside the building, but I can’t get a read on how many or where.” She frowned at the rough rock surface as if it could answer her. “Usually my implant can get a better sense of numbers.” Maybe Aldani’s upgrades had affected something else. Or maybe the heat signatures weren’t actually human. Whatever it was, they’d have to be careful going in.

  “Is there a place where we can get inside without anyone spotting us? We need at least four minutes to use the destabilizer to open a door,” Finn said.

  She peered over the ridge at the facility below. It sat in a wide, sandy valley, with jagged hills surrounding it. The place was a lot bigger than she’d expected, maybe almost as large as a city block back on Hesperia. She had no idea how it had gone unnoticed for so long. Especially when the dull metallic material of the building stood out against the golden sand like a scar.

  The sun shimmered off the walls, highlighting the perfectly smooth façade. There were no doors, windows, or blemishes standing out anywhere.

  “Download schematics,” she ordered.

  “Error. No schematics available,” her implant said in its soft, robotic voice.

  “Download area map.”

  “Error. No map available.”

  She tapped her foot against the sand. “Download building material list.”

  “Error. No list available.”

  Renna gritted her teeth. What the hell was going on? “I can’t get any information on this place,” she said, turning to Finn. “I hope Aldani’s upgrade didn’t break my implant.”

  “I suppose there’s nothing else we can do but take our chances. At least MYTH surveillance hasn’t found any trace of people going in and out of the place.” Finn ran a hand through his hair. “Keva, Doyle, get back to the ship and prep for takeoff. I don’t want you hanging around here too long. Just because we haven’t seen anyone doesn’t mean we’re not being watched.”

  “But sir…” Keva’s face twisted with indecision. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

  “I’m not important; the mission is. If we’re not back within six hours, get back to Aldani’s lab and contact MYTH HQ on Preill. They’re the closest branch to this system. They’ll send backup.”

  Keva’s jaw tightened, ready to argue, but Renna interrupted. “Captain, this isn’t necessary. I can go in alone. There’s no reason for both of us to risk it.”

  “I’m going with you. There will be no discussion.” He pinned both women with a steely gaze, and Renna threw up her hands.

  “Whatever you want, Captain. It’s your call.” Part of her was relieved, but she couldn’t ignore the other voice that whispered suspiciously at the back of her mind. Was he really coming with her because he still didn’t trust her?

  “Be careful, sir,” Keva said. She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something else, but shook her head.

  Beside her, Sergeant Doyle saluted. “Good hunting, sir. Ma’am.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Finn and Renna snuck down the dune toward the building. As they got closer, the building seemed to tower over them, at least two stories high. It was a lot bigger than it had looked from a distance, and the closer they got, the more the strange material threw her off.

  She rubbed at the prickling skin on her arms. “Do you feel that?”

  Finn pulled his gun from its holster. “What the hell is it?”

  “Some kind of force field. I think they’re blocking all communication in and out of the place. Probably why my implant isn’t working.” But there was something else there, too, just below the low hum. Something simmering at the edges of her mind.

  They crept toward the building. Finn scanned the area, his gun at the ready, while Renna studied the structure in front of her. She scooped up a handful of cold sand and let some of it stream between her fingers. Then she threw the fistful at the side of the building.

  Nothing happened. The sand slid off the strange material as if it was perfectly smooth. Not even a grain left behind.

  “What do you think it is?” Finn asked, peering at the wall.

  “I wish I knew. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” Whoever had built this facility had gone to a lot of trouble and expense to create this material. But why?

  “We’re not going to figure out what’s going on by standing here. Are you ready?”

  Renna moved closer to the building, trying to ignore the energy that cobwebbed against her skin. She pulled the particle destabilizer from her pack. The globe was smaller than her fist, and the silver metal seemed to move and shiver the closer it got to the building. She gripped it and twisted the top and the bottom away from each other, pulling it apart to reveal a core of glowing elemental antimatter.

  “Here goes nothing.” She pressed it against the strange metal wall. Surges of electricity ran up and down her arm, and she forced herself not to jerk away.

  “What’s wrong? Are you all right?” Finn moved closer, but she stopped him with the shake of her head.

  Slowly, the point at which the device touched the wall started to glow blue, the light moving in circles from the center outward, growing larger by the moment.

  “What is it doing?” Finn asked, peering over her shoulder.

  “It’s agitating the molecules. Aldani said it could take up to three minutes to burn through, depending on the material.”

  Finn’s lips tightened, but he simply nodded and glanced back toward the hill where Keva and Doyle were hiding.

  The strange blue ring was almost as big as a plate now, and the energy shimmered just enough that she caught a glimpse of the facility beyond. “I think it’s working,” she said, leaning forward.

  Finn’s presence was warm against her back as he moved to stare at the wall. His MYTH uniform was covered in a fine dusting of the sand, dulling the navy fabric. Her own clothes were probably covered in it, too.

  The ring of light was as large as a person now, and it had finally stopped expanding. Slowly, the molecules of the wall started to go translucent.

  “Looks like there are some large boxes and crates on the other side. I think they’re hiding our entrance.”

  “No sign of an alarm?” Finn asked.

  “Not yet.” She paused and said, “Facility schematics please.”

  “Facility schematics not found.”

  “Still nothing.” She let out a sigh in frustration. “Whatever this building is made of, it’s still blocking any signals.”

  Finn shifted his weight. “This whole situation feels wrong.”

  Renna nodded. For once, she was in complete agreement with the captain. Then she froze. The wall had gone completely transparent. She could see into the facility like she was gazing through a window.

  “Finn.”

  Together they peered inside. Stacks of boxes and crates lined the walls of the warehouse. Bright helolights hung from the ceiling, giving everything a hard, cold glow.

  “It’s empty? I thought, with this kind of security, it would be full of workers.” Finn craned his neck to see further in, his voice sounding troubled.

  “Maybe they’re in another part of the building? Once we get inside I think we’ll have a better sense of the place.”

  He nodded. “I’ll go first. Once I verify it’s all clear, you can follow me in.”

  “Wait just a minute. I’m the thief her
e. Let me go first.”

  Finn shook his head. “We are not going to argue about this. I’m in charge of this mission. You need to listen to me.”

  He definitely hadn’t gotten less bossy with age.

  “And I’m here because of my exceptional skills. Might as well let me use them to make sure there’s no one around to catch us.” Carefully she pulled Aldani’s device away from the wall, half-expecting the hole to snap closed. But it stayed open, the edges shimmering slightly with the strange blue light. She slipped it into her bag, then straightened from her crouch.

  “Are you ready?”

  He scanned the scene one last time. “I’m right behind you.”

  Renna stepped silently over the edge of the wall. Inside the facility, the temperature was a good twenty degrees warmer. The air hung heavy and sluggish, the scent of metal making her nose itch. There was another scent there, too, just at the edge of recognition, but when it didn’t come to her, she focused on scoping out the rest of the facility.

  “Schematics,” she whispered.

  “No schematics found.”

  Dammit. So much for Aldani’s upgrades. She was going to have to do this blind.

  As Finn stepped through the hole, she inched around the side of the crate to see better. Inside, the room was a maze of boxes and machinery. A conveyor belt ran along the ceiling of the room, but it didn’t seem to be turned on at the moment.

  Instead, silence pulsed around them.

  Finn pushed past her, his gun still in his hand. “Where to?”

  Renna swallowed. Tried to stretch out her own senses to get a feel for the place. After years of doing this, even an implant was only a little better than her intuition, but somehow, this was different. Whatever the building was made from, it messed up more than her implant’s sensors. She’d be damned if she let the captain know that, though. Instead, she squared her shoulders, pulled her own pistol from the holster, and moved forward toward the next stack of crates.

  “We need to check the perimeter. I can’t tell if the whole facility is one large room or broken up into smaller areas.”

  Finn nodded. “On your six.”

  They snuck around boxes toward the north end of the facility. Renna’s feet were noiseless on the concrete floor, but Finn moved like a soldier, methodical and precise. But not silent.

  If this was a real job, she would have fired his ass.

  “Can you pick up your feet a little, soldier?” she asked as they paused at another bank of crates. “You sound like an elephant.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m moving as quietly as I can.” He stared down at the heavy boots he wore.

  “It’s not working. How about I give you some lessons when we get out of here? Evidently your time in the military has dulled a few skills.” She smirked at him and pushed past to scope out the rest of the area. She might have let her arm brush against his on purpose, but she’d never admit it.

  He stiffened at the touch but didn’t say anything as she headed for the far side of the room.

  Her implant buzzed in her ear, and Renna froze in front of a narrow doorway leading off the space. “Warning. Heat signatures detected.”

  “Show heat map.”

  The implant still couldn’t display an image of the facility, but the red blobs of heat that appeared seemed to be dead ahead through the door. They weren’t moving, but that didn’t mean anything. They could be waiting for Renna and Finn to get close enough to attack.

  “What’s wrong?” Finn’s words were hot against her ear, and she shivered, ignoring the surge of…something that shot through her midsection.

  “There’s something beyond the door, but I can’t tell what it is.”

  “Then let’s find out.” He crept closer, pressing himself against the wall. Renna followed. She recognized the keypad on the door as one of the SEU series. She’d have to be careful with this one.

  Pulling out the small nanotech pliers she used for jobs like these, she carefully slid them into the hidden port on the bottom of the lock and fished for the grounding wire. Her first connection made the keypad scream in protest, and Renna jerked back, heart pounding.

  Finn hissed at her. “Quiet!”

  She glared but didn’t respond. Renna let out a breath and tried to calm her racing pulse. Rookie mistakes would get them both killed. There was no excuse to be jittery now. She wasn’t thirteen with a crush on her mentor anymore.

  She slipped the pliers back into the port and tried again. This time, the connection took, and the nanotech ran through the security program, searching through the holes in the code. A few seconds later, the red glowing light clicked over to green.

  “We’re in,” she said with a grin as she pressed her back against the wall and gripped her gun. “Ready?” He nodded, and she shoved open the door.

  Finn popped into the doorway, did a quick scan of the room, then popped back. He shook his head.

  Renna moved into the room, her gun at the ready. It was empty, but the blob of heat signatures still showed on her implant scan.

  “What the hell?” Maybe her implant was broken. The room was the size of the command center back on the Athena and was completely deserted aside from the three holo lights hanging from the ceiling and a few worn crates in the corner. The walls and floor were the same dull gray as the rest of the facility.

  Renna moved her gaze slowly through the room, searching for anything that might give them a clue as to who owned the facility or what the owners were doing here.

  Finn followed close behind. His presence felt warm, like sunshine on her back. When she was younger, she’d gotten really good at knowing when he was close. That skill had come back faster than she’d expected. Old habits died hard.

  “I don’t get it.” Finn shook his head. “There’s nothing here.”

  “What about the crates?” It was the only possibility. And she didn’t like what it implied.

  They exchanged a glance and headed for the closest of the large metal bins. Renna pulled out her nanospanner sonic screwdriver and loosened the bolts holding down the top of the crate. “Okay. It’s off. Help me with this.”

  Finn took the other side, and they lifted off the panel and set it on the floor. “What in the seven gods is that doing here?” Finn’s eyes widened, and Renna glanced down into the box.

  A mech—a human-like robot—was curled into a crouch. The shiny metallic body had limbs made of the same dark metal as the walls of the facility. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing back out the door they’d come through, into the main facility. There were hundreds of these crates in there. Were they all filled with mechs?

  Her hand trembled as she ran a finger over the lifeless form’s skull. She found the control pad and turned on the diagnostics. “They haven’t been programed with an AI yet, but they’re primed and ready to go. Finn, they’re equipped with weapons. State-of-the-art weapons.”

  Finn stared down into the box. “So this facility is building robot soldiers? But the Treaty of Thermesium…”

  “When has that stopped anyone?” Renna shook her head. “Look at my implant. And the Empyreans are still selling programmable AIs on the black market for personal use. It’s a matter of affordability. If you’re rich enough, you can buy anything.”

  She moved to the next crate and unscrewed the top. This one was full of robot parts, arms and legs and heads jumbled together. A pair of lifeless eyes made her shudder, though she’d much prefer that to the cold glow of an activated mech.

  “What do we do now?” Finn scanned the warehouse space.

  “There has to be something else here. It doesn’t make sense. Why would they build an impregnable facility to build robot parts?” Renna headed through the stacks of crates toward the other end of the building. She didn’t bother masking her steps or waiting to see if Finn followed. If someone else was here, she would have heard them by now.

  She passed through a large arch and into another wide room. The facility seemed to be divided
into sections: storage, assembly, prototypes. In this room, the crates were gone, replaced by machinery and conveyor belts holding mech parts in various states of completion.

  At the end of the assembly line, she spotted a faint glow in the floor. “Finn, over here.”

  A perfect glowing square appeared in the dark material. It was the size of one of the crates, and if she didn’t know better, she would have dismissed it as a stain. “It’s some sort of hatch. This facility has a lower level.”

  She crouched over the space and ran a finger along the seam. The cement was slightly raised, like the two pieces didn’t quite fit back together after being cut. “There doesn’t seem to be any way to get it open from here. I think it’s an access panel.”

  “And that means there’s bound to be a door somewhere around here.” Finn spun slowly on his heels, while Renna paced back and forth trying various commands to get her implant to upload building plans or updated heat signatures. Anything that might give her a sense of what was going on here. “Dammit. Nothing’s working.”

  The weight of Finn’s gaze made her shoulders hunch, and she forced herself to stay calm. This is what Dallas had hired her to do. If she couldn’t do the job, they had no reason to hold up their end of the bargain.

  Finally, she stopped and turned to the captain. “There’s got to be another way down. Search the south side of this room and keep your eyes open. The doorway will be hidden like this one.” She headed to the north side of the room and started in the corner, raking her gaze over every inch of the wall. She just needed another seam. Or a keypad. Or something.

  Renna’s whole body still thrummed with the electricity that ran through the facility. Her heart raced like she’d consumed too many energy drinks, but her senses felt dulled. This place was dangerous, and the sooner they got out, the better.

  “Renna, over here.” Finn’s voice carried across the warehouse. She was at his side in seconds. “There’s a control pad here, and it doesn’t seem hooked into any of the machinery.” He gestured at the nearby conveyor belt. “I can’t figure out what it does.”

  “Then let’s find out.” Renna jacked in her device and ran the program again. It hummed and vibrated in her hand as it worked, and she’d almost given up hope when the code finally broke and the light turned green.