The Dangerous Type

by Loren Rhoads

  Copyright © 2015 by Loren Rhoads

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Night Shade Books, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover illustration and design by Cody Tilson

  Print ISBN: 978-1-59780-814-9

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-59780-828-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is dedicated to Martha J. Allard, who was there when the story began.

  CHAPTER 1

  Kavanaugh had serious qualms about robbing graves. It was bad enough that the rest of the galaxy blamed humans for exterminating the Templars. If it were discovered that a human team was now looting Templar graves, the galaxy would feel justified in its low opinions of humanity. He didn’t like to think where that would lead.

  Still, as Sloane said, it wasn’t as if the bugs inside the tombs were using the weapons and armor and grave goods buried with them. And it wasn’t as if Sloane hadn’t paid off every official in the quadrant who might be intrigued by what the “archaeological” team was doing. And, yeah, Kavanaugh himself hadn’t known anyone responsible for the Templar genocide: that didn’t keep him from feeling bad about it. It sickened him that he was part of a species who could conceive of wiping another people out of the galaxy, if those people stood in the way of humanity’s expansionist dreams. Kavanaugh didn’t think about it much, but when he did, he supposed that the kind of humans who could unleash such genocide probably didn’t think of Templars—or the other sentient species of the galaxy—as “people.”

  That Sloane could loot the Templar tombs without a second thought saddened Kavanaugh. And yet here Kavanaugh found himself, leading the team, wondering how the hell he’d volunteered for this.

  The Templars chose these caves for their tombs because the stone was impossibly difficult to cut. They meant for their graves to be sealed for all time. It took Kavanaugh’s team hours to calculate how to open each cavern. Unfortunately, Sloane didn’t accept facts as excuses. The grave robbers had a quota; Kavanaugh’s job was to see they met it.

  At least the impossibly hard stone kept the caves’ contents incorrupt. The metal was as polished as the day it had been entombed, corpses as fresh. In the past couple of weeks, Kavanaugh had seen more than he wanted of dead bugs contorted by the plague.

  Nothing indicated that this cavern would be different from the others. If it had been up to Kavanaugh, he’d have let the men close down the machinery for the night and sent them back to the bunker to get out of the knifing, granular wind. Unfortunately, the boss had made it clear to him that not meeting the quota would cost Kavanaugh his job. He was on the verge of saying, “Fine, I quit,” but the boss, long ago, had been a friend.

  Lim, the team’s engineer, checked input of the measurements once again as they all huddled in the lee of the loader to wait for the calculations to be done. Kavanaugh thought longingly of the flask inside his jacket, but he wasn’t about to lift his face screen to sip from it. It wasn’t worth losing an eye to the obsidian grit in the wind.

  The men were too tired to grumble. They’d already opened one tomb today, stripping it of grave goods and packing the antiques carefully to be shipped off-world.

  Sloane had warned Kavanaugh to watch the men closely to prevent pilferage. The memory made Kavanaugh snort. So far they hadn’t come across anything to tempt the men. Anything that got stolen wasn’t leaving, except on one of the boss’s ships. Nobody was stupid enough to risk crossing Sloane.

  The computer chimed as calculations scrolled across its screen. “Back to work,” Kavanaugh translated.

  Lim called out coordinates for Curcovic and Taki to place the charges around the huge stone slab sealing the tomb’s mouth. Kavanaugh fingered the flask again, mouth watering, hoping that the tomb would be empty so they could be done for the day and get out of the wind sooner. It wasn’t like he was going to sleep tonight, but at least in the bunker he could lie down and rest. The tension of taking these risks for Sloane was killing him.

  The men sprinted back toward the loader. The four of them huddled together against the big machine as Taki pressed the switch.

  A huge explosion dropped the ground from beneath their feet. Then the blast wave knocked them back against the loader, holding them in place for a moment, air crushed from their lungs, as it boomed through the stone valley. When it released them, Kavanaugh counted the seconds until the echo rolled back down the valley to them.

  “Think you used too much,” Kavanaugh commented.

  “Don’t tell Sloane,” Curcovic drawled.

  “I used just enough,” Taki huffed. “Take a look.”

  The slab had shifted sufficiently that the men could get levers around it and roll it back enough to squeeze past. Lim pulled the levers from the loader and handed them around.

  As he bent to work, Curcovic said, as he always did, “Hope there’s something good in this one. I’m bored with dead bugs in shiny armor.”

  “It’s not like they’re gonna have left dancing girls in any of them,” Taki complained. “That’s the only thing I wanna find.” He turned to Kavanaugh to ask, “When do we get off this rock again?”

  “Not soon enough,” Kavanaugh answered again. Curcovic laughed, as he always did.

  According to plan, they’d wriggle into the tomb one at a time. Kavanaugh always went first. He was the crew boss, hence the most expendable if they tripped a booby-trap. It was a point of honor for him that he didn’t ask the men to do anything he wouldn’t volunteer for himself. It made him better than Sloane. Besides, Curcovic always joked, Kavanaugh would need the others to figure out how to free him if the slab slipped.

  Kavanaugh always had a moment, as he slithered past the edge of a slab, when he feared it would rock back into place and crush him. Or worse, it would rock back after he’d passed it, trapping him inside the tomb. No telling how long it would take someone to die inside one of those graves, how long before the air ran out or dehydration made breathing cease to matter. It wasn’t as if Sloane would feel he had enough invested in the team to rescue anyone. Kavanaugh wouldn’t put it past the boss to decide it was more cost effective simply to hire new men, leaving the originals behind as a warning to be more careful.

  Most of the tombs they’d entered had warehoused whole companies of bugs, the dead warriors of a single campaign buried together. Kavanaugh played his light around the inside this cavern but found only a single catafalque, an uncarved slab of obsidian in the rough center of the room. Whoever lay atop it must be important, he thought. Shouldn’t take too long to loot one body. Maybe there would actually be something worth stealing this time.

  Kavanaugh peeled off his face shield and lifted the flask, sucking down the last half of its contents. His boot knocked something over. When he bent down to retrieve it, he found a human-made electric torch. Damn. Had someone beat them to this one?

  He raised the torch, toggling its switch, but it remained dark.

  “What’s a huma
n girl doing in here?” Taki asked.

  Kavanaugh stopped fiddling with the torch to see his team converge around the catafalque. He couldn’t make sense of what they were saying. Why would there be a human girl inside a Templar tomb?

  “There’s your dancing girl,” Curcovic teased. “Maybe you can wake her with a kiss.”

  “’Cept for the dust,” Lim commented.

  “Well, yeah, ’cept for the dust, Lim. Damn, man, don’t you have any imagination?”

  “Just what did you have in mind?” Lim asked skeptically.

  Kavanaugh started toward them, to see what they were talking about. “Are you sure she’s human?”

  “I think she’s just a kid,” Curcovic answered. “No armor. You think she was somebody important’s kid?”

  “She’s the best thing I’ve seen on this rock so far,” Taki pointed out. His hand wiped some of the dust from her chest.

  Kavanaugh was halfway across the uneven floor to join them when a low female voice said clearly, “No.”

  Curcovic stumbled backward, dropping his torch to fumble at the gun at his hip. The corpse sat up, straight-arming her fist into Taki’s face. Stunned, he cracked his head on the stone floor when he went down. He lay still at the foot of the catafalque.

  Lim backed away, light trained on the figure rising in the middle of the tomb. It was hard for Kavanaugh to make her out in the unsteady light: a slip of a girl dressed in gray with a cloak of dusty black hair that fell past her knees.

  Curcovic finally succeeded in drawing his gun. The girl darted sideways faster than Kavanaugh could follow in the half-light. A red bolt flashed out, blinding in the darkness. Lim collapsed to the floor, cursing Curcovic’s friendly fire.

  The girl rounded on Curcovic, turning a one-handed cartwheel that left her in range to kick the gun from his hand. She twisted around, nearly too quick to see, and cracked her fist hard into his chest. Curcovic fell as if poleaxed. Lim groaned from the floor, hands clasped over his belly.

  None of the men were dead yet, Kavanaugh noticed. She could have killed them as if they’d been standing still, but she’d disabled them instead. He suspected that was because they posed no real threat to her. Maybe she needed them alive. He hoped that was true.

  Cold sweat ran into Kavanaugh’s eyes. He held the flask in his gun hand. He’d have to drop it to draw his weapon. If the noise caught her attention, he’d be headed for the ground before his gun barrel cleared his holster.

  “We didn’t mean you any harm,” he said gently as he let go of the flask.

  She wheeled toward him and crouched like an animal. He wondered if she was crazy. How had she gotten into this tomb? Had she been imprisoned here? How had she possibly survived?

  “I know you.” Her voice was rusty. “Switch on your light. I want to see your face.”

  With his left hand, Kavanaugh pulled his torch out of its loop. He heard her move, dodging away from where he saw her last, so that he couldn’t blind her with the light. Instead, he turned the beam on and held it to illuminate the left side of his face. He closed his right eye, hoping to retain some night vision in case she attacked him . . . not that there was much he could do against her speed.

  “No,” she said, her voice desolate. “You only remind me of someone I used to know.” She was moving toward the mouth of the tomb. Kavanaugh shivered at the thought that she might knock the chocks aside and seal them in. At least the loader was parked outside—unless she stole it—so that Sloane would know where to start looking for them.

  If he cared enough to look for them . . .

  “Where will you go out there?” Kavanaugh asked desperately. “It’s a rock. Barren. You can’t get off-world without our help.”

  Somewhere in the darkness, she laughed. The sound wasn’t entirely sane. “You’re grave robbers. You’re going to help me?”

  “We’re archaeologists,” Kavanaugh lied. “We work for Gavin Sloane.”

  Her response was completely unexpected. “Gavin? Still alive?”

  “You know him?” Kavanaugh asked.

  She ignored the question. “Is he here?”

  “He’s on a moon orbiting the planet. I need to report back to him this evening. Why don’t you come back to the bunker with us, get cleaned up, and you can speak to him when I check in?”

  She paused, just out of reach of the slice of grainy light falling through the entryway. “I do know you. Your voice . . . I used to know you.” There was a pause before she asked plaintively, “How long have I been in here?”

  “Can I look at you?” Kavanaugh asked. “Maybe I’d recognize you.”

  “Your men are wounded. Take them to your bunker, patch them up, and we’ll catch up later.” She laughed again. “I want out of this hole in the ground.”

  “Understood. Do you need something to wrap your face? The sand is like slivers of glass out there.”

  When he shined the light toward the entry, she had gone.

  * * *

  The dream was so vivid that Jonan Thallian woke shaking. He roused Eilif, sleeping beside him, and sent her to bring him a carafe of coffee. He intended to sit vigil through the remainder of the night.

  In the dream, he’d stood in the throne room at the heart of Earth. Stood and did not pace. Stood at attention, as the Emperor catalogued the expense Raena Zacari had put the Empire to: officers and soldiers killed, ships destroyed or disabled, an Imperial mining prison in ruins. That was in addition to the time Thallian himself had wasted pursuing the girl. Clearly, Thallian was not to be trusted in matters concerning her. The Emperor was deeply disappointed.

  Thallian remembered the boom of the Emperor’s voice, the conversational way he detailed Thallian’s failure.

  Eilif pulled Thallian out of his memories when she returned, carrying a carafe of fragrant coffee. She poured a cup, blew across its surface, and then sipped from it. Thallian watched her. When nothing happened, he took the cup from her and drank.

  His wife didn’t ask what had woken him. She sat on the floor at his feet, leaned her back against his chair. Thallian stroked her graying hair.

  Sipping his coffee, he sank back into memories. The video transmission had been poor quality, but the Emperor had watched it avidly. A squadron of human engineers used a sophisticated anti-grav feedback system to roll back the large wheel of black stone that sealed a tomb. When the grave’s maw finally gaped open, Marchan emerged from his shuttle. He carried Raena’s slight body down the ship’s ramp toward the tomb. Her limbs dangled. She was unconscious or drugged.

  Thallian remembered how he’d studied her, instead of his rival. Her face was turned toward Marchan’s chest, so that Thallian saw only the white column of her throat. He remembered its warm strength under his fingers. Locks of her long black hair thrashed like tentacles in the wind. Her tiny feet in their absurdly high-heeled boots were alternately hidden and revealed by the flapping edge of her cape. One hand had fallen out away from her body, its palm just visible behind her unconsciously curled fingers. That seemed so childlike, so innocent, it tore at Thallian to remind himself she had betrayed the Empire. She had betrayed Thallian himself.

  Turning away from the playback, the Emperor had said, “As a favor to you, my friend, I am not condemning her to death.”

  Thallian understood exactly what the Emperor left unspoken. If Thallian proved his loyalty to the Emperor’s satisfaction and beyond, perhaps one day Raena would be set free. As if she would be sane then. As if she would thank anyone for sparing her life.

  Thallian finished the cup of coffee. Eilif roused herself and poured him another. They repeated the tasting ritual. Then Thallian said, “Go back to bed.”

  “I don’t mind sitting up with you, my lord.”

  “Go,” Thallian repeated. “You’ll be no use to me tomorrow if you’re exhausted.”

  “As you wish, my lord.”

  The dream had called the memories back full force. Thallian remembered the sour, medicinal smell of the old Emperor. He rem
embered the tearing ache he’d felt in his chest as he watched Marchan walk alone out of the tomb and give the order for the engineers to replace the stone slab.

  He’d heard Raena scream, “No!” Felt it.

  Then he’d fallen on his knees at the old man’s feet and swore once more, “I live only to serve you and the Empire, my lord. I beg you to command me.”

  That was when he agreed to commit genocide in the name of Humanity.

  What else could he have done? Any other action meant death.

  If he was lucky.

  If he was luckier than Raena had been.

  He sipped the synthetic coffee, savoring its artificial bitterness and remembered every inch of Raena’s flesh. He knew which of her scars he had inflicted. He knew the stories she told about the others, how she had really come by them. He knew the smell of her, the taste, the sound of her breathing. Twenty years had done nothing to dim the memory.

  Even so, he was surprised to see her in his dreams tonight. It had been a while since he’d thought of her, longer since he’d missed her as intensely as he did now. The ache returned to his chest, the hollowness, as if something had been torn out. He’d thought he had finally outlived all that.

  If she had survived very long in her tomb—and Thallian honestly did not know—she would have been emaciated, frail, and quite, quite mad by the time she finally died. He wondered if he would recognize her corpse.

  Kindness was a gesture Thallian seldom considered. However, in Raena’s case, it would have been a kindness to end her misery once the War was over and the Emperor executed.

  Nothing had prevented him from doing just that, except—and this was difficult to admit even in his own thoughts—fear. He had been afraid of what time and captivity and claustrophobia had wrought. He feared seeing Raena twisted and broken. He could not bear the thought of contaminating his memories with the horrible truth.

  The unattainable perfection of the past mocked him. He would desire her always, and she would never, ever, be his.

  As always before, Thallian resolved to let the past remain buried.