Shadow Agents: The Benevolency Universe (Outworld Ranger Book 2)

by David Alastair Hayden

  She threw open the door and hopped out of the car. As she had expected, the thug trained his rifle on her. Before she could draw a bead on him, he fired. She had practiced a scenario like this many times before. Seeing the round before it reached her, she rolled forward just in time. The round, unable to change direction that quickly in such a short space, blasted the floor.

  She returned fire with her plasma carbine. Her shots burned through the grating on the catwalk and scorched the thug’s leg. Undaunted, he kept his rifle trained on her. She prepared to leap aside, unsure if she could dodge another.

  Suddenly, his head blew apart as a plasma bolt burned through his skull. As his red dot vanished from her locator, Kyralla glanced over to see that Mitsuki had jumped out to take the shot.

  Mitsuki waved. “Thanks for distracting him.”

  “Whatever gets the job done.”

  Kyralla ran to the car and looked in on Bishop. According to Rosie’s scan, he was okay, only concussed. She patted him on the shoulder. He stirred but didn’t come to.

  “Knocked silly?” Mitsuki asked.

  “Basically,” Kyralla replied.

  Mitsuki headed toward the man Bishop had knocked out with his neural disruptor. “Serves him right the way he drives.” She kicked the thug’s pistols away then bent over to examine him. “I think this one will live…if we let him.”

  Kyralla backed away from the car. “We’d better go rescue Siv before—”

  “Incoming voice request from Silky, madam.”

  “Approved,” Kyralla said. “And it’s always approved when there’s danger.”

  “Acknowledged, madam.”

  “Siv escaped death,” Silky piped in. “But so did Zetta. She’s heading your way, but I can’t track her.”

  “Is Siv following?”

  “Negative. He’s…indisposed.”

  “But okay?”

  “Well…he’s not injured or dying.”

  Kyralla turned to Mitsuki, who nodded. She’d gotten the same message.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Silky said. “There are three ways in there from Siv’s location.”

  Just as Kyralla summoned a map of the freighter in her HUD, she spotted the slender, alien woman out of the corner of her eye. She sprinted out onto the catwalk and leaped down, fifteen meters away, on Kyralla’s side of the bay, opposite from Mitsuki and the car.

  Kyralla opened fire, but her shots sailed wide.

  Zetta tossed a grenade, and Kyralla’s mind hyper-focused, her forewarning ability kicking in. She trained her carbine on where the grenade would be as it arced through the air. She opened fire. The first shot missed, arriving too early, but the second struck home.

  The grenade exploded halfway between her and Zetta.

  The force of the blast slammed Kyralla back against the Tezzin. At least one rib cracked. Before she hit the ground, a wave of white-sparkling energy unleashed by the explosion washed over her. Then everything went black.

  15

  Oona Vim

  As soon as the Tezzin entered the freighter’s loading bay, Oona was able to get live security camera footage from inside the ship. Normally, Silky could have hijacked the cameras from within the Outworld Ranger, but the Star Cutters were using surprisingly advanced jamming equipment to prevent that.

  Oona could not, however, get a security feed from Siv's location, nor could Artemisia establish a connection with Silky. There was too much interference. Somehow, the alien assassin was disrupting signals near her position, or else the Tezzin needed to get closer to Siv first.

  So while watching the feed of Kyralla, Mitsuki, and Bishop making their assault on the bad guys, Oona reached out with her feelings to keep tabs on Siv. She wasn't able to tell exactly what was happening with him. But she could once again sense the alien woman's presence, along with Siv's chaotic emotional state, a raging cycle of desperation, desire, and grim determination. She wasn't sure what was going on with him, but it wasn't good.

  When the Tezzin plowed through one of the criminals, killing him, Oona threw her hands over her mouth, stifling a scream. Then, when it crashed violently into the wall, she leaped up out of the command seat. What in the galaxy was Bishop thinking, driving like that?

  Rosie relayed that Kyralla and the others were fine, just banged up. Shaking, Oona collapsed onto the edge of the chair. Her connection to Siv was gone.

  Kyralla and the others were taking a lot of fire from the remaining criminals, and the skimmer’s force field was going to collapse soon.

  Oona could hardly breathe until Mitsuki took out the last criminal with the rifle on the catwalk.

  They were safe. Oona took a deep breath and tried to focus her mind. Only Siv’s fate was—

  Silky finally broke through to Artemisia. “Zetta’s on the move. But I can’t track her.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Oona tried to locate the alien woman, but she couldn’t pinpoint her. She did sense Siv’s increased anguish.

  “What’s wrong with Siv? Why isn’t he chasing her?”

  “He’s not injured, but…it’s complicated,” Silky replied. “Keep trying to find Zetta.”

  On the security feed, Oona spotted Zetta entering the transfer bay at the same time Kyralla did. The two cameras nearest Zetta immediately fuzzed out, but the ones from the other side of the bay still worked.

  Oona watched with terror as the grenade Zetta tossed tumbled through the air. It exploded in a white flash halfway to Kyralla, who was blasted backward then—

  Oona leaped up.

  All the cameras in the bay had gone out at once.

  “Kyralla!”

  “I can’t establish a connection to Rosie, madam,” Artemisia said, her voice heavy with concern. “Now trying to reestablish my link to the security cameras.”

  Oona’s heart thumped hard, her breath drew short, her throat tightened. She couldn’t just wait here. She had to do something. “I’m going to the freighter. They may need help.”

  "Madam, you are locked away here on the ship for a good reason. You're supposed to wait. And if something terrible happens to them, you are supposed to leave. You promised you would do that."

  Oona shook her head. “I don’t care what I promised. I have to find out if Kyralla’s okay. Can you get in contact with Silky?”

  “Negative, madam. I can’t contact anyone. The grenade unleashed a neural disruption wave along with some sort of pulse that’s scrambling the camera feeds.”

  “Do you have any idea when the signal will clear?”

  “I’ve never heard of anything like it, madam, so I have no idea.”

  Oona started down the main corridor, heading toward the back of the ship.

  “Madam, you really shouldn’t go. The alien assassin may still be alive. It’s too dangerous.”

  Oona paused. “Play the footage of the explosion again for me.”

  “Are you certain, madam?”

  “I need to see it again, all of it. Zoom in on Kyralla first, then the others, including the assassin.”

  Her stomach knotted as she watched the explosion knock Kyralla back against the car again. The video winked out the moment after she struck, and even in slow motion, there was no way to tell if she was okay. The only views they had were from the far side of the bay, placing the car in between the Kyralla and the cameras.

  Oona couldn't see Bishop at all. Before the explosion, he had slumped down in the front seat, apparently knocked out by the injuries he'd sustained in the car crash. Based on the readings Artemisia had gotten before the explosion, his injuries hadn't been too severe. The car was armored, so it was likely the blast hadn't hurt him.

  The explosion tossed Mitsuki several meters back, but she had been farther away, and on the other side of the car, so it didn’t hit her as hard. She also didn’t end up striking anything.

  Zetta was blown back into the far wall, perhaps slamming into it harder than Kyralla had struck the car. She fell to the floor like a limp doll a
s the video ended.

  “Kyralla could be seriously hurt. And the assassin was knocked out in the blast. I think it’s safe for me to go in.”

  “What about the other crew members and the traitor with them, madam?”

  “I should be okay. They weren’t moving before, and only one of them’s a bad guy.” Oona lifted her left arm. “And I’ve got my force shield.”

  Hers wasn’t nearly as powerful as the one Siv used, but it could absorb a single plasma shot straight on, maybe two glancing ones.

  “Besides, Siv might come to his senses and help me.”

  “If you insist on going, madam, then you should arm yourself.”

  Oona frowned. “I guess so.”

  “I insist, madam.”

  “Did anyone leave any weapons behind?”

  “Checking, madam… Unfortunately, they did not. I will consult the ship and see if there’s anything onboard.”

  Oona shifted back and forth. She was so nervous and agitated she felt like she might hop out of her skin.

  “There’s a PK-39 plasma snubbie hidden in a holster under the command chair, madam.”

  Oona rushed back onto the bridge, dropped to her hands and knees, and pawed at the underside of the chair until she found the weapon. She pulled the dainty pistol with its almost nonexistent barrel free from its holster. It didn’t look like much of anything, but it was better than nothing, and it did fit her hand perfectly.

  Oona had completed a single practice session using Kyralla’s neural disruptor, but she’d hated the experience, and so she had avoided doing any further training. The idea of shooting someone, even with a neural disruptor, had so disturbed her that she hadn’t ever wanted to think about it again, and practicing meant thinking about it.

  Now that they were in danger, though, her reluctance seemed naive and shortsighted. She should have trained more. She should own a disruptor, maybe a force-staff too. And she should know how to use them.

  A red light pulsed above the snubbie’s grip.

  “It’s DNA locked to Gav Gendin, madam. It would take me approximately seventeen hours to break through the lock.”

  Oona sighed and focused her mind on the gun, trying to gain access by bending it to her will.

  One of the powers she had acquired upon her initial awakening was the ability to sometimes affect technology, to alter how it functioned, to bypass certain routines, or to increase device capabilities.

  She discovered the talent by accident and destroyed over a dozen old c|slates and hundreds of cheap electronic toys trying to figure it out. But in the end, the only things she could do with any consistency whatsoever were removing passcodes and improving battery life. And the latter sometimes backfired—literally.

  She’d had some small success making Artemisia more powerful and independent, by spending half an hour focusing on the chippy each day during meditation. She never tried to force those changes, though, since she didn’t want to break Artemisia. And despite several years of effort, what she’d accomplished was nowhere near as effective as the update Silky had given her.

  Taking deep breaths, Oona stared at the gun in her hand. She didn’t have time to bypass the DNA lock any other way. Kyralla needed her. If she ruined the gun, then she'd just have to go in without it.

  Artemisia’s words echoed in her mind. There was a traitor with the crewmen, and Zetta might get up any second.

  Oona needed the gun. She had to bypass the lock. She focused her mind on what she wanted and unleashed her will upon it.

  The red light flipped to green.

  She smiled broadly, then sagged to the floor, her knees striking hard.

  “Madam! Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “You should know.”

  “Your vitals read fine, madam. Though I suspect your knees are bruised.”

  Oona grabbed the command chair and lifted herself up. “Oh…I guess…it was a…mystical energy…thing.”

  She staggered a few steps, stopped to take a deep breath, then continued. Slowly, her strength returned.

  “I still cannot establish a connection to any of the others, madam. Or restore the video feed.”

  Kyralla needed her. Adrenaline and purpose surged back into Oona. She rushed to the back door, took a deep breath, then said, “Ship. Open the…uh…”

  “Boarding ramp, madam.”

  “Open the boarding ramp. I need access to the docking tube.”

  As the ramp retracted into the ship, Oona activated her force-shield and tightened her grip on the snubbie. She could do this. It was all going to be okay.

  As soon as the door was most of the way open, she realized she’d made a horrible decision.

  Zetta was sprinting down the tube and was already halfway to the Outworld Ranger. A sinister grin spread across the alien woman’s face as she locked her eyes on Oona.

  “Close the door!” Oona shouted as she raised the snubbie, finger easing toward the trigger.

  The door finished retracting and reversed course. Then, for some unknown reason, it groaned to a stop only a half meter down from the ceiling.

  Zetta’s eyes locked onto the snubbie, and in one quick motion, she lifted her heavy plasma pistol and fired. Oona got her force-shield up just in time. The blast deflected off the circular energy disk, which flickered and dimmed so that it was barely visible.

  “Shield at five percent, madam!”

  The alien assassin was almost on top of her. If Zetta captured her, it was over—all because she’d foolishly opened the ship. The others, even if they were alive, would never catch Zetta in time.

  Oona had to stop her. It was all on her.

  No one else could save her.

  She lifted the snubbie, half turned her head and pulled the trigger. A fiery blast roared out of the gun with so much force that it knocked Oona backward into the Outworld Ranger’s loading zone. The gun burned so hotly that Oona reflexively tossed it aside.

  ”What in the galaxy was that?” Artemisia blurted.

  Oona sat up and winced as her nervous system suddenly registered the burns on her fingers and palm and the blisters running up her arm. The gun she’d tossed aside was glowing hot, and the stubby barrel had melted into slag.

  Her eyes flicked to Zetta. She already knew the alien woman was dead. She’d felt her life-force wink out.

  Oona walked into the docking tube. The smell of charred flesh made her stomach turn. Zetta’s eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. Her mouth was slack. The gunshot had burned a twenty-centimeter hole straight through her stomach and out her back. Smoke drifted up from the still sizzling flesh.

  Oona began to retch, her eyes filling with tears. She hadn’t wanted to kill her. She’d only wanted to stop her. She knew she’d had no choice, but this…this was horrible. The contents of her stomach surged up into her esophagus. She fell to her knees and threw up, just a meter away from the body.

  “Madam…there’s something moving…on the corpse.”

  “What?”

  Oona spat and turned her head. Something stirred along the woman’s chest, beneath the mesh of her jacket. Wiping her mouth, Oona stood and edged closer to the body.

  “What is that?”

  “I can’t tell, madam. I’m not getting a reading on anything except Zetta’s corpse.”

  Zetta’s jacket tore open, and a purple, snakelike creature half a meter in length sprang toward Oona. She stumbled backward, raising her shield. The long-fanged snake struck the disc and landed.

  The force-shield fizzled out, its energy spent.

  Stunned, Oona backed away as the one-eyed creature recovered and coiled to strike again.

  16

  Mitsuki Reel

  Ears ringing, lights dancing in her eyes, Mitsuki sat up. The room swirled around her, and she could hardly tell up from down. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this dizzy before. But more than anything, she was sleepy and desperately wanted to lie back down, just for a short nap.

  But she willed herself to sta
y up because the last to wake would wake in the land of the dead. And she didn’t want to be the one to bear that honor. And she especially didn’t want Zetta to be the one to send her there. That bitch was the worst.

  Her thoughts scattered, her awareness practically nonexistent, Mitsuki patted haphazardly at the ship around her, trying to find something to grab onto, so she could help herself up. But there was nothing nearby. She was lying in an empty spot in the transfer bay.

  She placed her palms on the floor and shoved herself upward while pressing hard with her legs. She reached a standing position and staggered as if she’d taken two doses of Calm and chased them with a bottle of wine.

  She just then realized her HUD was down.

  “B…status update?”

  No response from her chippy. Damn. What kind of neural disruption grenade had Zetta used?

  Blinking hard, she got her eyes to focus, which took so much effort she nearly collapsed. She stumbled a few steps as she scanned the loading bay. The Tezzin swung drunkenly from side-to-side. She couldn't see Bishop, but she was pretty sure he'd passed out before the blast. The car didn't appear to have suffered any more damage, so he should be okay.

  Mostly the explosion had unleashed the sort of energy a standard neural grenade released on impact. The rest must have been some sort of electromagnetic distortion field.

  Zetta always had a few weird tricks up her sleeve. Mitsuki hated her more than ever.

  Kyralla wasn't in sight, but she should be on the opposite side of the car. Mitsuki thought about leaning down to look underneath, but she was pretty sure that if she dipped her head, she wouldn't be able to bring it back up. The floor was already calling to her, and it was all she could do to walk.

  Kyralla would’ve taken the full brunt of the blast, along with Zetta. B beeped through her startup sequence as Mitsuki careened toward the Tezzin. She had nearly reached the car when she spotted movement out of the corner of her left eye.