by Lili Zander
Her face hardens. Food was always scarce in the re-education camps. Raven must find the waste appalling. “What a lovely place this is,” she says.
I don’t reply. There’s really nothing to say.
According to the intel Ragnar’s people have procured, Gerra Clay is going to be visiting a club in Section 14 called Club Tranche. Our plan is simple. We’ll watch Ragnar’s teams retrieve the boarium. Once the precious fuel is safely in our possession, Ragnar, Saber, and Nero will take a small strike team to Club Tranche to take Gerra out. Raven and I, along with a handful of guards, will head back to the Valiant and wait for them there, ready to take off as soon as they return.
It’s a deceptively straightforward plan, but a million things can go wrong. I don’t normally worry about what could happen, but this isn’t a routine operation. This time, we have Raven to protect.
Leaving her behind on Gao 69P wasn’t an option, not with Marya Revit on the hunt, but I hate the idea of bringing her to Banrilia. I hate exposing her to the sleaze that is this planet. I offer a silent apology to Saber. I’d told him to cut it out when he threatened to lock Raven up to protect her, but right now, I know exactly how he feels.
We pile into a rental skimmer and head toward Section 13. Nero drives. Saber sits in the front, and Ragnar, Raven, and I huddle in the back. We pass through a dozen automated checkpoints. Each time, drones scan our identities and clear us to move on. “Most of Banrilia’s security is done by drones,” I tell Raven. Talking keeps my nerves at bay. “There’s less carnage that way. It’s not a safe planet.”
“It’s a wretched piece of shit hellhole,” Nero says cheerfully. “And for that, I’m grateful. We’re almost there. I think we’re in the clear.”
He barely finishes talking when purple lights flash for another checkpoint. This time, it’s a manual one. Fuck.
Nero slows down with a sigh. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”
Three soldiers run the checkpoint. All vampires. “Can we take them?” Raven murmurs.
Saber answers. “If it comes down to it, yes. But if we do, we blow our cover. And at the slightest hint that something’s wrong, Gerra’s security forces will hustle her off-world.”
We fall silent as one of the soldiers strides toward us. Nero rolls down his window. “Where are you from, and where are you going?” he asks, his voice hard and unfriendly.
Nero gives the guy an expansive smile. “Banaras,” he says. “We’re going to Le Saphir.” He winks at the man. “There’s nothing like the private rooms there if you know what I mean…”
The soldier remains stone-faced. He shines his light inside the skimmer, and his gaze runs over me, then Raven, and stop on Ragnar.
Uh oh.
“Have I seen you before?”
Ragnar doesn’t miss a beat. He nods eagerly. “I won the main hand seven years ago,” he boasts. “Got my picture in the holos and everything. Fastest draw in the galaxy, they said about me.” He gives the soldier a wide, beaming smile. “I saved the clips. Mercy Banu interviewed me. Mercy Banu, can you imagine? The guys at work couldn’t believe their eyes.” He holds out his screen. “Want to watch it?”
The guard draws back as he catches a whiff of the stink of stale booze rolling off Ragnar. “Not even if you paid me, buddy.” He runs the ID scanner over each of us and then waves us through. “Enjoy your time at the Pleasure Planet.”
We move again. When the checkpoint is safely behind us, I exhale in relief. “That was close.”
“Too close,” Nero says, his voice dark. “I’ve got a finely developed instinct for trouble. That soldier stared at Ragnar a fraction too long before he waved us through. We need to be ready to evacuate in a hurry.”
The Command Central is a plain unmarked plasteel building located in the middle of the Family Clay warehouses. Nehal Kuri and Stefan van der Klein are there when we arrive, and they’ve already set up the equipment. Three large screens cover the walls. A long table dominates the center of the room. “Tomas Cabal is standing by,” Nehal tells us. “As are the warehouse teams.”
I take a seat at the table and plug in my equipment. Ragnar sits down. “Six soldiers are patrolling the perimeter,” Nehal continues. “With your permission, we’ll join them, Sir.”
Ragnar nods. “Thank you.”
The two of them leave. I bring up the three warehouse teams on the main screens. Thirty-six soldiers in all, three teams of twelve. They’re dressed in black from head to toe. Hoods cover their faces. Night is falling, and they’ll blend into the darkness.
I zoom in on the team leads. Jun Watanabe is a veteran Imperial Army captain whose reputation precedes her. She racked up victory after victory, yet she was repeatedly passed over for promotion because she’s human. She’d retired five years ago. I had no idea Ragnar had recruited her.
Sara Boutros, a vampire I don’t know, leads one of the other teams. Egon Dalsgaard, a human I know by reputation, leads the third.
There’s a lot of talent invested in this mission.
I route Tomas’s feed to a smaller screen in front of me. “Tomas, can you hear me?”
Cabal nods. “Loud and clear.”
Tomas will provide primary support to the three teams. If need be, I’ll back him up. “Good. Ragnar, you’re all set.”
Ragnar stands up and moves to the middle of the room. “Jun, Sara, Egon. Can you hear me?”
All thirty-six soldiers instantly become alert. “Yes, Sir,” three voices say in unison.
“Excellent. One of the warehouses we’re searching contains stolen boarium. Finding it is extremely important, but it is not more important than your safety.” He takes a deep breath. “The warehouses could be booby-trapped. They’ll be guarded. Be extremely careful. I don't want anyone taking any unnecessary risks. I definitely don't want to lose anyone tonight. Go in and check the warehouses. Get out if anything seems wrong.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Tomas will provide remote security,” Ragnar continues. “He’ll give you heads up if anyone's approaching. Zeke’s on point to hack into the warehouses once you reach them.” I can hear the tension in his voice. “Good luck, everyone.”
Tomas takes over. “As always, I’ll use your designation to call out targets,” he says. “Bourtros, your team is Alpha 1-12. Watanabe, Beta 1-12. Dalsgaard, Gamma 1-12. Got it? Let’s go.”
The teams get moving. We watch as they pile into large skimmers with blacked-out windows. They travel through the back streets of Section 13 and pull up a few blocks from their destinations. “They’ll do the rest on foot,” Nero says to Raven.
He gets up and starts pacing behind me. “Watching is excruciating,” he mutters. “I hate it. I’d so much rather be out there. When you're in the middle of things, you don't have time to think about the fact that you're putting your soldiers’ lives on the line.”
Ragnar gives him a thoughtful look. “I agree.”
My screen beeps. Unexpected troop movement, heading toward Team Alpha. “Tomas.”
“I see it. Team Alpha, incoming patrol. Six vampires, approaching from the northwest.”
Sara Bourtros signals. Four members of her team peel off to deal with them. I watch over the other teams while Tomas runs the attack and calls out targets. “Alpha Five, one o’clock,” he calls out.
The soldier is perfectly trained. She raises her gun and fires the second Tomas calls out the shot. No hesitation, no second-guessing.
In the shadows, one of the patrol members drops silently. Nice.
Tomas doesn’t miss a beat. “Alpha Seven, three o’clock. Alpha Six, seven o’clock. Alpha Eight, five o’clock. Alpha Five, two o’clock. Alpha Seven, four o’clock.”
Five shots ring out. Five bodies drop. Tomas waits for a second, and then another. “All clear.”
The soldiers rejoin the others. I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding, and look for the next set of patrols.
Team Alpha runs into two more patrols. Each time, they take them
out easily.
Saber starts to smile. “This is the downside of storing your boarium on Banrilia,” he says. “You can't bring a large group of soldiers to guard it because that will make the local authorities suspicious. And in this case, the local authorities report to Family Clay, one of your rivals in the Council. So Levitan has to be discreet. All he can do is station a dozen soldiers to guard his fuel.” He shakes his head. “A reasonable strategy, assuming nobody could find the boarium.” His smile widens. “Unfortunately for him, Zeke and Tomas found the boarium.”
“We’re not in the clear yet,” Ragnar warns.
On the screen, Team Gamma arrives at the warehouse. “We’re here,” Dalsgaard says. “Not much of a lock. Hang on…” The door swings open, revealing a warehouse filled with haunches of frozen meat, hanging from ceiling hooks. “False alarm.”
Disappointment rushes through me. Damn it. People are putting their lives at risk based on my intel. What if I’ve screwed up, and we don’t have the locations right after all?
Raven sees my expression and gives my hand an encouraging squeeze. “Pull out,” Ragnar orders calmly. “Back to base.”
Gunshots ring out. This time, Team Beta is under attack. I call out targets, and Watanabe and her team swiftly dispose of the patrols.
“We’re here,” she calls out a few minutes later. “Shit. It’s a timer lock.”
Timer lock. Seven layers of security. Thirty seconds to get through each layer, otherwise they reset, and you have to start over.
“Fuck.” Frustration is etched on Ragnar’s face. “That’s impossible to beat.”
“Not impossible. Nothing’s impossible. It’s just very difficult to break through.” Everyone turns to me. “I got past my first one when I was fourteen.”
Ragnar shrugs. It’s obvious he doesn’t believe me. “Do your best.”
I enter my cone of focus. The room fades to the background, and nothing remains but the problem. My fingers fly over my keyboard. Numbers dance in the air in front of me. Peace settles in my gut. I’ve hacked all my life. In my childhood, I broke into systems without realizing what I was doing. People died because of what I did.
When I learned the truth, I rebelled. It wasn’t until I helped find Nero’s mother that I fully realized that my skills could be used for good. Still, there’s always been a small part of me that’s never forgotten that because I emptied Tohen Family accounts, the Oensi killed Bruno Tohen.
There’s always been a part of me that’s been ashamed of what I can do.
Until now.
The warehouse door swings open. An expression of shock washes over Jun Watanabe’s face. “How…?” Then her training snaps into place. She enters the warehouse, and we see what she sees.
Crate after crate of softly glowing boarium fuel cells.
Ragnar has a very peculiar expression on his face. “When this is done,” he says. “Remind me to make you another offer. You’re wasted in the Imperial Army.”
I refrain from pointing out I’m not part of the Imperial Army anymore. “Cargo trucks to Team Beta,” Tomas calls out. “Excellent work, everyone. Team Alpha, report?”
I hear sirens. They seem to grow louder, and then they recede, and I realize they’re coming from Team Alpha’s feed. “Command, get a load of this.” Sara Bourtros pushes open her warehouse door, and I see cage after cage of endangered animals from all around the galaxy.
The trucks have pulled up at Team Beta’s warehouse. The soldiers swiftly and efficiently load the boarium into the back.
I do a quick search. “The animals are headed to a trophy hunter reserve in Section 25.” My lips curl with disgust. “Fucking Banrilia.”
Ragnar clenches his jaw. The sirens sound again. “I’ll take care of it,” Tomas says. “I’ll clean it up. Team Alpha, pull out. You’re about to be swarmed.”
The noise is getting louder. It’s not coming from the screen. It’s coming from outside. Multiple alarms go off on my console. I glance at the screen and stiffen. “We’ve got good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?”
“The bad news, please,” Ragnar replies.
“We’ve got trouble. Security forces are on their way here. We’ve got to evacuate now.”
“What’s the good news?”
“Gerra Clay has landed. She’s made her way to Club Tranche. We can head there now, or we can head back to the Valiant and take off.”
What’s it going to be? Kill Gerra or evacuate?
Saber grimaces. “We need to stick together. Taking Raven to Club Tranche…”
“Do I get a vote?” Raven asks. “Because I vote to kill that bitch.”
Saber and Nero and I exchange glances. “Don’t treat me like a doll, guys,” Raven warns, her voice dangerous.
“We can protect Raven in Club Tranche,” I say reluctantly. “The club isn’t dangerous. Just vile. I vote to kill her too.”
Ragnar straightens his shoulders. “Voting. What an interesting decision making process.” He nods decisively. “Let's do it.”
30
Raven
Club Tranche is massive. Twenty stories tall, each floor the size on an entire sector on Boarus 4. The club holds thousands of vampires. I’ve never seen so many of them in one place.
There’s a line to get into the club. We join it. A group of five male vampires stands in front of us, and they leer at me, their gazes hungry. One of them drops his fangs, and I instinctively shrink back, recoiling from him.
It’s going to take me a very long time to break the habits that helped me survive on my home world.
Zeke puts a protective hand around me and gives the offending vampire a death glare. “If I were you,” he says, layering threat into each syllable, “I’d back down. Quickly.”
They hear the threat, loud and clear. Unfortunately, they’re too drunk to recognize that Zeke can break all five of them with his bare hands. “Or what?” the man asks belligerently. “What are you going to do, fight me? For a human?” His eyes roam over my body. “She’s pretty enough, but nothing special.”
Zeke’s smile promises violence. I stiffen, but before I can intervene, one of the other vampires cuts in. “Boris, if you get into a fight and get us kicked out before I can get to the thirteenth floor, I will kick your ass myself.”
Our altercation has drawn attention. Two uniformed security guards stride menacingly toward us, their hands on their weapons. “Do we have a problem here?” one of them asks, staring at the vampire who has his fangs extended.
Boris finally decides that discretion is the better part of valor. He retracts his fangs. “No problem.”
I half-expect Saber or Ragnar to tell Zeke off for almost getting into a fight at the lobby, but to my surprise, they just look worried. “Don’t let her out of your sight,” Saber murmurs. I realize why when we reach the club employee who’s working the entrance. She’s a female vampire. Tall and imposing, her dark hair is slicked back into a tight ponytail. Her nails are painted blood red, and when her gaze snaps on me, she looks hungry.
“What is your pleasure?” she asks Nero, who’s in the lead. “If you’re looking for a replacement for your human, the auction is on the thirteenth floor. The club’s commission is ten percent. You can register for another hour.” She gives the vampires a considering look. “You look like you could use the money. The human is young and fresh. She’ll do well in the auction.”
Nero laughs loudly. “She would do well,” he agrees, his words slurred. “But we’ve not yet had our fill of her.” He leans forward, swaying slightly on his feet. The woman draws back as the reek of stale booze hits her. “Ramona,” he says, reading her name tag. “What an unusual name.” He gives her an irresistible smile. “It’s my first time here,” he confides. “I’ve heard so much about your feeding rooms. They’re on the top floor, aren’t they, Ramona?”
She thinks he’s drunk, but you’d have to be a drone to be immune to the charm Nero’s turning on. I’ve been the recipient of that smile
before. I don’t blame her for grinning back at him like a stupid fool. Don’t get me wrong; I’m jealous, and I want to claw her eyes out with my nails, but I don’t blame her for it. “No, the feeding rooms are on the nineteenth floor,” she replies. “The top floor is for staff.”
Nero leans even closer to her, his lips inches from her ear. “I’ve heard stories,” he murmurs. “I’m in the mood for a human tonight. Not Raven, she’s a bit too old. You wouldn’t happen to have something younger, would you?”
Ramona’s eyes go wide for a split-second, and then she stiffens and draws back. A professionally bland mask slams over her face. “It is illegal to feed from a human under the age of sixteen,” she says. “We follow the law at Club Tranche.”
Nero steps back, holding his hands up. “Sorry, darling. Didn’t mean to cause offense.” He gives her another disarming smile. “I’ve heard so much about your club. I can’t wait to try it out.”
The smile does its magic. Relaxing, she affixes a stamp on each of the vampires’ wrists. “Don’t leave the human unattended. We’re not responsible for her safety.”
“What time do you get off?” Nero rubs his thumb over her palm, and I clench my fingers into fists and try not to care. It’s a role; I know it’s a role. But he’s mine. “Can I buy you a drink?”
Ignoring the lengthening line behind her, she responds with a breathy laugh. “In three hours, and yes. I’d love a drink. I’ll find you.”
As expected, we pass next through a weapons check. Saber, Zeke, Nero, and Ragnar surrender their knives without a murmur of protest. I hold my breath as Zeke’s pack passes through the scanner. It’s stuffed to the brim with hacking equipment, and I’m bracing for alarms to go off and guards to come running.
It passes through without a problem. Zeke eyes the expression on my face, and his lips tilt up. “A little more confidence, yäirta. This isn’t the first time we’d done this.”
My cheeks heat. “I know. I’m still nervous.” Club Tranche isn’t directly owned by Family Clay—it gives them plausible deniability about what goes on here—but this is still the Chipwa Sector, and Gerra has a lot of influence in Banrilia. We’re in hostile territory, and there are thousands of vampires here. If this goes wrong… we can’t fight our way out. We will die here.
