He was already tapping in overrides via his microcomp when Makaiden asked, “Can you keep them out?”
“I’ve got the hazardous-substance-leak lock activated. That doesn’t mean they can’t bypass it.” He knew Varrod ’bots’ programs were prone to glitches. He was using one now. “It will just take them longer.”
“Devin, do these ’bots have a self-destruct sequence?” Barty asked.
“Levels one through three that you can set on a three-, five-, or ten-minute delay.”
“Set it for ten minutes, level one. A good diversion with minimal damage.”
“Five minutes, level two,” Makaiden said. “That should activate the blast doors without blowing a hole in the outer bulkhead.” She stepped next to Devin while he worked the microcomp.
“Decompression is a problem we don’t need,” Barty said tersely as the hammering grew louder.
“Decompression, if it happens, will trigger the blast doors and panels in the accessways,” Makaiden pointed out. “It shouldn’t affect us and, providing we can clear the subtunnel, won’t hamper where we go. But it could keep them guessing as to whether we’re dead or alive.”
Barty nodded. “Agreed.”
Devin looked up from the Rada. “It’s set.” Then he focused on his Rada again and didn’t stop his transmissions even when Makaiden grabbed his arm.
“What are you doing? We don’t have time—”
“Moving the ’bots away from the hatchway so they don’t blow a hole in the doors,” he said as the pallet hummed. “I don’t want to make it any easier for whoever is out there to get in here.”
“Three minutes before you get a hole blown in you.”
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Captain Griggs.” The flippant remark was out before he even realized he’d said it. Where in hell did that come from? There was no time to ponder this new personality quirk. He tapped the microcomp off, shoving it in its holder on his belt as he jogged quickly after Makaiden. Their boots hitting against the decking made a hard, sharp sound in counterpoint to the hammering on the bay’s hatchlock door.
Two and a half minutes later, shock waves from the explosion sent them all stumbling, falling to their knees in the cramped confines of the narrow subtunnel. Kaidee lost her grip on her handbeam. It hit the flooring with a clunk, and suddenly they were surrounded by darkness.
Sirens whooped. Another wailed in a staccato-like tempo.
“Blast doors closing!” Kaidee shouted, her heart rate spiking. There were a lot of warning noises on station, but the rapid pulse of a blast-door siren was hard to forget. “Move, move!” They had to clear the next reinforced panel—which served as a blast door in the accessway—and get out of the subtunnel or they’d be trapped between the blast panel behind them and the one ahead for anywhere from minutes to hours. Or longer.
Trip and Barty—she knew the sound of the older man’s wheezing rasp by now—clambered ahead. Devin … damn it all! She could feel him down by her ankles, groping around for her handbeam. She reached out in the darkness until she found a fistful of his jacket. “Leave it, damn you. Move!”
She yanked hard. He bumped against her, his arm snaking around her waist, and then he was dragging her forward. “Got it.” His voice was a deep rumble. Light flared weakly—something must have broken when she dropped it—but it was enough to see Trip and Barty, enough to see the rough ribbing of the tunnel jutting out at measured intervals. One of those ribs was a panel. It should be closing by now. She should be able to see …
There! She grabbed Devin’s hand and jerked the handbeam up and to the right. Shit! They were too far away, the tunnel’s low ceiling and uneven flooring littered with piping and conduit slowing them down.
“We have to clear that! Go, go, go!” Her voice rasped, her lungs burned, and her shoulders, arms, and hips were hit, poked, and impaled by all sorts of flanges and protuberances, but she couldn’t slow down.
Barty shoved Trip ahead of him, and she heard his breathy command: “Keep going. I’ll get there.” The man had to be tiring, his age catching up with him.
“I’ve got him,” Devin said, shoving the beam at her with one hand, his other against Barty’s back.
There was no time for argument or hesitation. She was smaller, lighter, and even with the pipes jutting out from the tunnel walls hampering her, she could move faster than the men.
She might also—with Trip’s help—be able to block the blast panel with something, keep it from closing. The panels had no manual overrides. She pushed ahead, the beam zigzagging as she ran.
The panel, sliding from the right, was almost at the halfway point. She saw Trip sidle around it and skitter to a stop.
“C’mon, Captain Griggs!” He held out one hand toward her, as if he could pull her along.
She wanted to turn around, wanted to know where Devin was, wanted to know he’d make it, but she couldn’t waste a second.
“Jam the panel!” she shouted to Trip. “Keep it open!”
He twisted around, pulling at various protuberances on the wall, but nothing came loose.
She reached him just as he turned back. “The floor. Even something small. Slow it down.” She aimed the beam downward, illuminating conduit, junction boxes, and … yes! Trip dropped to one knee, grabbing the discarded squares of metal before she could tell him to do so. He shoved a thin square under the front of the sliding panel, then sat back quickly, hands against the floor, and kicked at the square, using the heel of his boot as a hammer.
The blast panel made a grinding, squealing noise, and for a brief moment Kaidee thought they’d jammed it. Then the metal square slid sideways. The panel jerked forward, with less than two feet to go to seal the tunnel completely.
Trip grabbed another metal square, wedging it in place with his boot as Kaidee followed his attempts with her handbeam. She kicked the plate back into position when it twisted sideways, sweat trickling down her face and the back of her neck. “Damn it!” Devin and Barty were still in the first part of the tunnel. Her heart pounded, her fury at Devin dissolving under the very real fear that he’d be trapped, injured. And Barty—
“Grab him!” It was Devin, Barty stumbling in front of him. She had Barty’s wrist, then Trip was on his feet, thrusting his arms under the older man’s armpits, lifting him through the narrowing gap.
Kaidee jumped back. They needed room, Devin needed …
Devin plowed into her, knocking the handbeam from her grasp again. There was the loud clunk of the panel meeting the wall, a flicker of light, then nothing, complete darkness, as a hard, muscled body pinned her against the tunnel wall and its row of lumpy piping. Her face was crushed against Devin’s chest.
She angled around. “You okay?” She could feel Devin breathing hard, the rise and fall of his chest moving the soft suede of his jacket against the side of her face.
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. His other arm tightened across her back. “Trip? Barty?” He stepped away from the wall, taking her with him.
She went willingly. She couldn’t see, and staying with him was preferable to flailing around in the dark, stumbling over his feet.
“Here, Uncle Devin.” Trip’s voice came from somewhere to her left and below her knees.
“I think … I need … to sit for a minute or two.” That was Barty. And he didn’t sound good.
“Are you hurt?” she asked him.
“No. Just … not as young as I’d like to be.” He rasped out a soft laugh.
Guilt shot through Kaidee. Barty had asked for ten minutes to clear the accessway. She’d insisted on five, not even thinking—yeah, use your brains next time, Kaid—that Barty would need more time. It was easy when around him to forget his age. But the past several days had to have been hard on him. And she’d damned near killed him.
She pulled away from Devin. His arm around her waist felt too comforting. She was supposed to be angry at him, but more than that, she didn’t deserve comfort. Not from him.
&nbs
p; A small glow flared on her right, barely piercing the darkness. She recognized it immediately: Devin’s microcomp, its screen emitting a soft green light. Good thinking. Hell, he wasn’t Mr. Perfect for nothing.
A moment later, a second glow: Barty’s microcomp. Then a rustling noise and a whiter light from a unit in Trip’s hand.
The gloom receded somewhat.
Devin squatted down in front of Barty and angled his microcomp toward the older man. “Can you make it?”
Barty snorted, shoving himself to his feet. “It wasn’t so long ago I beat you on the basketball court.”
Devin and Trip rose along with Barty, shadowy forms with small luminescent centers.
“It’s not much farther,” Kaidee said, “and we will be getting some light in through the gratings as we get closer.”
Devin stepped up next to her, with Barty behind him and Trip at his side. Kaidee wondered if either Devin or Trip saw what she did when Devin aimed his microcomp’s light at Barty—a small capped vial peeking out of Barty’s jacket pocket. A medicine vial, she was fairly sure. It hadn’t been visible before. In the darkness, he probably was unaware that it wasn’t fully concealed.
Barthol may have been able to challenge Devin at basketball a few years ago, but there was something wrong with the former ImpSec operative now. Something more, she suspected, than just his age.
And she had no idea what they would yet have to face to get to the Rider.
“It’s too quiet,” Kaidee whispered, flat on her stomach and peering down through the narrow grating of an even narrower air duct, which offered her a decent view of the Rider’s starboard side and main ramp. She was shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip with Devin, her gaze raking the familiar bay, her mind wrestling with how damned difficult it was to be furious with someone she’d always had so much respect for. Trip and Barty—who still looked in pain despite his protestations otherwise—were twenty or so feet below, in the larger main access tunnel. Her ship’s bay had seemed too quiet and too empty from there. Hence, her and Devin’s current position—a means to provide a more complete view.
She wasn’t totally sure something was wrong. But something definitely wasn’t right.
Frinks, the stripers, Fuzz-face … someone should have made a move and staked out the Rider’s rampway. But no one had.
“It’s not impossible that our diversion worked,” Devin said, his voice equally low. “Which is all the more reason we need to get on board. That diversion won’t last forever.”
She knew that, and she’d almost gone charging into the bay five minutes before when they’d cautiously approached the access grating—and heard and saw nothing that could remotely be construed as a threat. Even the fuel available light on her bay’s utility panel glowed green. Something she’d not seen in several weeks.
“And you said if someone had breached ship’s security, you could tell at your airlock.”
She had. She could.
“Makaiden.”
She nodded. “Okay, okay.” It was a whisper, but a whisper through clenched teeth. Which she forcibly unclenched when she reminded herself that Devin Guthrie owned her ship. And her. Her job was to take them home, not argue security strategy.
And not be so aware of Devin that she could feel the heat off his body.
Not good, Kaid.
She pushed herself backward, slithering out of the air duct as slowly and quietly as she could, until she was sure she was far enough away from the grating that her thunks and bumps couldn’t be heard in the bay.
Devin moved as quietly as she had, and not for the first time she took a moment to appreciate the lean muscle tone of his body. He played handball competitively, she remembered. Though right now he clearly favored his injured shoulder.
Her boots dangled suddenly in midair, and she knew she’d reached the ladder. A little farther and her feet found the rungs, then she was climbing down, still keeping noises to a minimum. Devin’s boots appeared when her own hit the accessway flooring.
He took the rungs two at a time.
“Keep the Carver on stun,” she said when he faced her. “I’ll change the lock code on the corridor hatchway. Get Trip on the fueling; he’s done it with me before. I need to find out how soon traffic control will grant us a departure slot.” Providing we’re not ambushed the minute we enter the bay.
She and Devin were first through the accessway into the bay; Trip and Barty followed. The Rider sat—a hulking deltoid beast with a narrow rampway jutting out—on landing struts that, planetside, would deploy wheels for taxiing. Good hiding places. Heart pounding and pistol out, she swept the bay, left to right, as Devin moved right to left.
“Clear,” he said, after a minute.
She wasn’t convinced. “Cover me.” She sprinted for the hatchway to the corridor, and twice her fingers slipped as she recoded the lock. Finally it took. The dockmaster’s office could still get in, but it would take them longer.
It occurred to her that if Frinks had someone in the bay, she’d just locked them in.
She turned. Barty was leaning against the base of the ramp, not looking well at all. She trotted toward him, pistol still out. “Trip, do you remember how to fuel—”
“Sure do. On it!” He sprinted to the fuel port.
She reached the rampway base and checked the ramp codes and ship’s security status on the control panel, aware that her heart had yet to slow down. Everything looked exactly as she’d left it.
Luck, or a trap? She headed up the ramp, with Barty following behind.
After all the troubles they’d had, things couldn’t possibly go this smoothly, be this easy. All she needed now was for traffic control to say they were cleared for departure in the next thirty minutes and she’d really get nervous.
Traffic control cleared the Rider’s departure in twenty.
Trip and Devin locked down the fuel port and showed up on her bridge with thirteen minutes to spare. She and Barty had already searched both decks of her ship for intruders—or any devices they might have left behind—but her trip alarms were undisturbed, biothermal scans were negative, and, as far as it appeared, it was just another shipday hauling cargo. Or, in this case, passengers.
Except Orvis had to be frothing at the mouth, and more than several someones wanted Trip Guthrie in their clutches—or sights. Yet no one was pounding down her airlock’s door.
Nervous didn’t even begin to describe it.
“Maybe Fuzz-face and friends shot Frinks, and the stripers hauled ’em all to prison,” Trip offered, no small amount of glee in his voice as he settled into a chair in front of the navigation console.
Kaidee glanced at Barty sitting at communications—he assured her he could operate the console—and at Devin next to him.
“From your lips to God’s ears,” she replied, powering up the docking thrusters. “Ship shows secure. Sending signal to open bay doors. If you’re not already strapped in, do it now. We’re going to leave this bay at max allowable speed the moment I get the go sign from traffic control.”
She intended to shadow anything larger and longer than the Rider the minute she cleared the bay. She didn’t believe for one moment that trouble had given up on finding her. She feared it had just changed location and now waited with weapons primed somewhere between here and the jumpgate to Aldan.
Kaidee held the Rider’s position just short of Dock Five’s inner beacon and listened to the monotone words of the departure-control ’droid. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry—and in relief or in anger. Or both, for both reasons. “Acknowledged,” she said when the ’droid asked for her response. “I’ll have an amended flight plan filed with you in”—she checked the data on her screens—“five minutes. Maintaining course and heading as directed.”
The Imperial ships babysitting Dock Five were tiny blips on her long-range scans, but she knew they could pinpoint her easily. Don’t shoot at me; don’t shoot at me.
She half-swiveled in her chair and faced Barty and Devi
n. The older man still looked a bit pale. She’d have to deal with that once she figured out where they were going. Because they were not going back to Sylvadae. Or even Garno. Their bad luck had returned.
“Baris Central Traffic refuses to grant us clearance to cross the border into Aldan,” she said without any preamble. Barty sat up straighter. Devin had been poking at his microcomp. He raised his face now, frowning, eyes narrowed behind glasses sitting crookedly on his nose.
If she wasn’t so slagging annoyed at him—and if he wasn’t a damned Guthrie and her damned boss to boot—she’d have found him endearingly attractive right then. But she was annoyed, and he was all of the above.
Trip was the first one to speak out. “Why?”
“Tightened security procedures, coupled with the fact that we have a shiny new passenger-transport certificate, which places us on some kind of temporary watch list,” she said, with a nod to Trip. “We’ve not been cleared through the central databanks at Starport Six yet. All that usually means is the ship has to file more-detailed docs until clearance comes through. Usually.”
“But now they’re restricting where we can go,” Barty said.
Kaidee nodded. “Now they are. Baris Sector only.”
“For how long?” Devin asked.
“Forty-two to seventy-two hours was the usual delay. But I was just informed the delay is now one shipweek, minimum.”
“A shipweek?” Devin clearly wasn’t happy.
“We’ve been given clearances for Calfedar and Talgarrath.” Oddly, both were close to the Calth border. It was almost as if someone wanted to see if they’d make a run for it, into Alliance territory. “Or we can return to Dock Five. That’s it.” Devin started to speak, but Kaidee held up one hand. “Hear me out, because traffic control is keeping me in a holding pattern out here until we file a destination, and that doesn’t make me happy.”
Devin sat back and nodded. Kaidee continued: “Calfedar is out of the way, quiet. It doesn’t have a major commercial spaceport like Garno, just three minor ones, and one of those is controlled by the Englarian Church. But they have a spacedock—a small station—and we’d have the option of tethering out there on an external bay if it’s available. It’s about a quarter of the size of Dock Five, pretty basic, but it’s clean and, I think, safe. If we have to hole up somewhere, it’s a good place to do so. An external bay means we can leave quickly. But if someone’s looking for a Blackfire 225, we’re spotted pretty easily. Pros and cons.” She splayed her hands.
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