“Joanna! Over here!”
“Tyson, get the double halos,” the female guard sternly replied, relinquishing her gaze from Darryl. She shot Darryl one more stern expression before darting off to join the others.
Darryl shoved ahead faster, trying to keep Cricket with him. The last thing he wanted was to be separated. Once those idiots regained consciousness and the nausea had been extinguished, they’d talk to the guards all about him and Cricket. Then again, maybe not if they really were hired as warm bodies for the Kem Core Corporation. Either way Darryl longed to be back on The Inquiry by then.
“Let’s go,” he ordered, slicing through the hordes and pulling her along with ease. They emptied out on the opposite side, along with a slew of others. “Hurry!”
He didn’t wait. He pushed forward, still holding Cricket’s hand tightly in his as he lurched through the throng.
“Darryl, slow down!” she shouted, huffing and puffing behind him.
“In a minute,” he said. “We’re two steps to the ship. Once onboard, we’ll be safe.”
His heart thundered in his chest and tunnel vision took over. All he could see was the docking bay and safety. Hopefully, he sounded more certain than he felt, and he winked at her.
Once he got her back on the ship, everything would be fine. Everything would be all right.
Chapter 13
Cricket’s breath came in sharp pains to her waist, little daggers stabbing her side. So quickly had Darryl bowled through the EPSS’s hallways, she was winded and crushed. With her hands on her hips, she greedily sucked in air as they crossed over into the cargo bay. The doors hushed close, slicing off the drone. And danger.
“Enough!” she gasped, clutching the stitch in her side. “Enough!”
Darryl began to punch the panel beside the cargo doors’ release, keying in some sequences, his attention never deviating. It was as if he hadn’t heard a single word she said.
Cricket’s labored breathing slowed, and she walked in circles to keep the cramps at bay. Panic pushed at her throat. She longed to flee to her quarters and lock the doors, but she wanted Darryl to come with her.
One glance at his face told her he wasn’t in the romantic mood. And the burning steel in his eyes warned he was in no mood for giving up either. Soldier shot out from his face -- all about the mission.
“Let’s go up,” she said, calming down, but a residue of uneasiness glazed her spirit. What had just gone down defied a positive explanation. Those traders wanted to kidnap her. Just how far did Wang’s reach extend? To the upper echelons of the EPSS? Earth Prime’s centralized president? How far?
“Something’s wrong,” he said, a severe scowl drifting over his face. He rubbed his scar with the back of his hand. “No one’s answering in the ’shoe and security is offline.”
“Maintenance?”
“No. This is different. Commander Taylor, Privates Rojas and Kovacs, even Lee aren’t answering their comms. Something is very wrong here. Someone should be monitoring us, responding to us, and to my hails.”
A dark look shadowed his face. The turbo lift’s doors gaped between them -- Darryl on one side and Cricket the other. No one exited.
He started into the circular lift, removing his grimace in the process. His hand fell to his laser gun. Face stoic, he stopped before fully entering the fray and looked back at her. “Stay here,” he ordered with a sweeping glance over his shoulder.
“Nuh uh,” Cricket said, scampering to catch up with him.
No, he wasn’t leaving her to the unknown. She trusted him, and if he died, she wanted to be with him, if only to ferry his soul home or to hold his hand as he crossed from this solar system to some alternate one.
“No,” he thundered louder than before. It echoed across the vacant cargo bay.
Cricket flinched at his volume. “Um, yes,” she retorted, and walked into him.
He barred her entrance with both arms stretched wide.
“I’m going with you,” she said sternly, pinning him with her eyes. “We don’t know what’s up there and we don’t know what’s down here either. The danger be damned, because I’m going.”
His face twisted in emotions as he sighed. Shoulders slumped in defeat. He opened his eyes to meet hers. She glimpsed sorrow and… and fear.
“I can’t have you in harm’s way,” he said, his voice ragged with shame. “If this is bad or it goes wrong, I, I, won’t… I can’t… Cricket…”
Cricket leapt into his arms and with a kiss swallowed his worries and his fear for her well-being. I love this man.
At first, Darryl froze at her actions, but soon her hot love melted his icy terror. Cricket glowed inside as she felt his arms meld around her as if old hat. Succumbing to her intensity, he clutched her tight, and soon he took the lead, stealing her momentum as if this kiss were their last.
It ended as abruptly as it began.
His steely eyes locked on hers. “Stay behind me -- close,” he ordered, his hand on her chin, holding her gaze. Then his face softened and he brushed her lips again with his, painting them with his desire. “I love you, Dr. Moore.”
“And I you, Sergeant Snow,” she breathed, her heart swelling at the sheer depth of his love pooling in his eyes.
He grinned, forcing his scar to bulge. Then it was gone as if she’d touched a screen -- the happy, in love Darryl blinked off. In the next, the IGO sergeant emerged.
Weapon first, Darryl entered the lift. The gun’s long barrel sliced the manufactured air with clean strokes. Cricket followed him, but not too closely, as he stepped fully into the lift.
No one was inside. She scampered as far back from the doors as she could and then inched her way around the arc to her right. Darryl waited for the doors to close behind him before turning to his left.
Cricket watched in surprise as he transferred the gun to his left hand and he dug his fingers into the square panel above the screen. He ripped open the paneling, popping the plastic tacks keeping it hidden. With rapid snatches, the multi-colored wires sprawled out like bowels. He disconnected the video feed. She could make out the familiar raised blue vf cord. Darryl disabled and rerouted the vine-like cables with one hand.
“There. Now, they can’t trace our heat signatures and I’ve disabled the video to all four turbo lift cameras.”
“What are you expecting?” she asked quietly. “I mean, it could be nothing except routine maintenance, a glitch or some other common issue.”
His beautiful back, clad in the standard, mundane IGO gray one piece uniform, mocked her calm question. With a sweeping glance over his shoulder, he sighed. “I’m the head of security. I know it better than anyone. This is -- is off. Those men were targeting us, you. Paid to do so, no doubt, to create a diversion. To kidnap you. Best to err on the side of caution. I’ll not lose you now that I’ve found you.”
Cricket nodded. She understood his concern. None of the situation was on par. The Inquiry was his home and it had been inundated with threats. If anyone understood displacement, she did. Having lost her home and security on Io’s outpost, Cricket missed the familiarity of a “home.” She’d been grossly violated when Wang expelled her from the outpost on Io. For Darryl, Cricket was certain the situation was worse. The very security he oversaw had been used against him.
The lift’s doors slid back to reveal the commanding horseshoe flickering in shadows. Sparks shot out, casting temporary illumination onto three individuals before fading. “Rojas,” he growled, immediately recognizing one of them.
“Lights!” Darryl barked, but instead of lights, he received streams of neon green laser fire. They zipped into the elevator, sending him windmilling backward to avoid being hit. The blasts shattered the air around them.
Cricket screamed as the event unfolded in both slow motion and rapid-fire speed. She saw Darryl curl his arm backward around her, and he pivoted out of harm’s way, moving her along with him. It happened so fast. One second she was behind him, and the next one he pinned her aga
inst him, his back to her front -- her human shield. With the same fluid grace, Darryl fired back, gun in his right-hand fist so swiftly, Cricket couldn’t believe it.
Three rapid beams lit up the gloom, and two howls of anguish and grunts of pain shot up in their wake as they bore into the targets.
“Snow!” snarled the whiny JC Lee. “What a surprise! You should be dead.”
“That you, Lee?” Darryl asked, a wicked smile etched across his face. “Thought I smelled something foul. So glad I didn’t disappoint.”
In astonishment, Cricket watched him maneuver with finesse and skill.
“Lights!” Darryl shouted, but the A.I. failed to respond. “Offline.”
Cricket swallowed the terror building in her throat.
Darryl peered out into gloom. “What have you done?” he bellowed to the sinister dark. “IGO regulations state this is an act of mutiny! Where are Commander Taylor, Lars, and Kovacs?”
“Give me the doctor!” Lee roared. “That’s all I care about!”
Several more laser gun blasts plowed into the lift’s container, punctuating Lee’s demands.
Cricket plastered herself against the flat non-fabric section of the wall. Lee was one of the crew. What connection did he have to Wang? To her? She knew next to nothing about the junior commander. What did he want with her?
“You’re finished, Lee. Dr. Moore stays with me!” Darryl warned. He turned to the control panel behind him and began keying in items, bypassing screens and receiving flashes of scarlet alerts.
“Finished? We’ve only started, Snow! The doctor for the commander.”
Cricket smiled. “His dialogue is terrible.”
Darryl looked at her in complete confusion before cracking a brief smile. “No kidding,” he said, turning back to the screen. “There. Got it. The A.I. has been disabled by Lee’s authorization code. He couldn’t do that fully to the security modules without the commander’s codes entered as well.”
“Where is the commander?” Cricket asked, whispering too.
Darryl’s face mashed in anger. “I don’t know. But I will find him.”
The wall opposite Cricket erupted in flames as a phase ball slammed its deep navy material. A gloved hand swung out of the gloom and grabbed Darryl’s chest. With a fist full of his uniform, Private Rojas stumbled into the lift’s revealing light. Cricket squealed out a scream as Rojas, forearm bloody, teeth clenched, punched Darryl in the face. In an instant, her lover transformed. Darryl maneuvered his body to the left, throwing his right shoulder forward, and swung his left leg between Rojas’ legs.
Both men went sprawling to the floor -- Rojas on his back, smacked against the floor. Rojas’ bronze face swiftly deepened from crimson to puce as Darryl’s wide and often wonderful hands crushed his windpipe.
So intent on the rumble on the ground, Cricket didn’t hear the click until a full second after the gun’s safety was off. Ragged breathing reached her a split second before Lee appeared.
JC Lee pointed his weapon at the back of Darryl’s head. With enraged eyes narrowed in hatred, Lee’s flat nose wrinkled as if she and Darryl were the ones spreading the funkiness. Nope. That odor came from Lee himself. Cricket wondered if the man’s soul was rotting.
“Freeze,” Lee said, working hard to project a calm his face betrayed. “Let Rojas go.”
Darryl laughed -- it was anything but kind. “Shoot me then,” he retorted, eyes on Rojas. “I’m not letting go. He deserves to die for what he tried to do today. As do you.”
Before Cricket thought about it, she kicked -- hard. The gun flew into the air and cracked against the wall out of Lee’s reach. IGO conditioning took over. Rusty and out of practice, she swung a left, knowing as she threw it that it was too slow. To her surprise, it caught Lee clean on the jaw. The surprise of her disarming him froze him in place.
“Bastard!” she yelled, fury flowing out in volume. “Leave him alone!”
Lee gritted his teeth and dodged her next punch. He roared, holding his wrist, dodging her uppercut and her left punch. “Ow, fuck! You bitch!”
Cricket’s anger flooded her system with savage adrenaline.
“Caught me off guard, doctor,” he said, shaking his wrist and face as if he could toss away the pain. “Got a thing for the sergeant?”
“Oh, it’s more than a thing,” Cricket shot back and swung. “Slime like you couldn’t understand.”
Lee snagged her fist and bent her arm behind her, twisting it upward until she screamed. The pain flared up to her shoulders like wildfire.
“Let go of me!” she shouted.
Just then, Darryl whirled up, a rising tsunami of fists, jabs, punches, and grunts of fury so foreign she hardly knew it was him. It took Cricket a moment to realize Darryl was muttering curses. Lee released her -- he had no choice if he wanted to ward off Darryl. Fighting Darryl required two hands. Distorted by rage, Darryl’s words overshadowed Lee’s groans. Lee responded in kind, but it was obvious he was losing the battle.
“Not… my… woman!” Darryl shouted in plain English. “If… you… ever… touch… her again…”
Cricket knew she couldn’t stand here and wait around to see how it ended. With her heart thundering in her ears, she scooped up Lee’s discarded weapon. She pointed it at the wrestling soldiers, the tangle of IGO gray uniforms, legs and arms, on the floor. Trying her best to ignore her trembling hand, she trained her eyes on Lee’s sneering mouth.
“Stop!” she shouted. “Or I’ll shoot!”
The tumbling continued until she fired into the ceiling, successfully damaging the stainless steel surface.
Darryl cast a glance from the corner of his eye. Lee yelped as Darryl threw one final punch and pushed himself off of Lee’s now unconscious body. He yanked down his uniform and, breathing heavily, held his hand out for the gun. “Thank you, baby.”
She passed it to him, all too aware of her relief to have it out of her hands. Fighting hadn’t been her calling -- she was a scientist. Though she’d trained long enough to pass her soldier field tests, she hadn’t ever been in live combat, not like this. Simulation, mock combat sessions and VR trials aside -- real blood and real damage had been inflicted here.
“Lee’s out of it,” she said, aware she was whispering. “Rojas is too.”
“Not enough hours logged in combat training,” Darryl said, running a punishing hand through his buzzed hair, smearing a streak of blood across his forehead. He searched around, evaluating the scene, still logged into security chief mode.
Sweat dripped from his face, and a slash had been added to his left cheek already littered with the downward edge of his scar. A bite mark also decorated his person, an inch below his right ear. His lower lip bled, and Cricket wanted to kiss it all away. The once pristine IGO uniform hadn’t fared any better. Frayed, torn and in some places darkened where blood, saliva and other liquids had soaked into the fabric, the uniform had been battered as well as the body beneath.
Darryl opened a small rectangular panel at the bottom right of the lift. He removed a dense plastic box and from it he took out two IGO gray squares, flat like gum but more durable. Cricket knew at once what they were, although she hadn’t seen them used in ages -- since her time at the IGO institution on Earth Prime.
Darryl placed one on JC Lee’s wrists and pressed the tiny button in the underbelly of each one’s center. Two electronic circles erupted, vibrating in dark lavender, joining and locking Lee’s wrists together. He wouldn’t be able to break out of them, even if he could push the small button on each one. Once on, the ECS, electronic containment spheres, couldn’t be disabled without the A.I., Darryl’s or Commander Taylor’s codes. Lee’s codes would have to be discontinued. Cricket saw Darryl at the screen and its flat keypad. He entered codes of some sort.
Ruckus from the rear of the lift knocked Cricket out of her memory of the stale air and humid days on Earth Prime and back to the danger in the lift.
Rojas shoved himself to a standing position, usi
ng his legs to propel himself upward. His hand massaged his injured throat, but he was shaking his head no. The glare frosted over his somewhat handsome face and it was all for Darryl. If looks could kill, Darryl would be dead.
“Don’t,” Cricket said to Rojas, the alarm clear in that single word. He had to know she wouldn’t tolerate him attacking Darryl. No longer a bystander, she’d fight him if he threatened. “Don’t make him kill you. You’re already injured.”
The laser beam hole in his shoulder had plowed through skin, muscle and bone. Cricket could see the wound clearly as the hot beam had cauterized the injury so it wasn’t still bleeding. Sweat poured from Rojas’ face, and he puffed out each effort to breathe.
Rojas’ black eyes slid over to her. Face crumbling when he didn’t find her sympathetic, he made no attempt to disguise his disappointment at her words. He opened his mouth, and his lips moved. There wasn’t any sound. He punched the wall with a tight fist, and tried again. The noise drew Darryl’s attention away from Lee, who lay sprawled beneath him.
Darryl rose up, standing and seeming to fill the doorway. “Don’t get carried away, Rojas. She doesn’t want anyone to die. You’re in the soup, so spill it. How many on your side still in the ’shoe?” he asked, stepping over Lee and closing the distance between them.
Cricket crept out of his way. Darryl wouldn’t hurt her, she knew that. But he did need room to work. She inched along the wall to the panel where Darryl had disabled the cameras. The urge to peer around the corner was overwhelming, but she didn’t want to get new head decorations -- like a laser beam hole to the brain.
“Don’t do this, Rojas,” Darryl was saying as she turned to him. “Use your fingers. Two more? Three?”
Rojas put down his hand.
None or has he simply refused to answer?
“My patience wanes, Private,” Darryl said.
IGO: Sudden Snow Page 9
