by Mel Odom
Sage let the Phrenorian take the lead and followed him.
Out in the wide metal-and-ceramic hall, Sage glanced up at the cams located along the hallway. “I know you didn’t mention our destination back in the sec office, but they’re going to track us. They may warn everyone on whatever floor we stop at.”
“They will not be tracking us,” Mato said with calm authority. “I have blinded their vid and aud sec systems, and I have created a passcode that will allow us access to most compartments on the ship.” He stopped in front of the ship’s elevator and used a lesser hand to punch a keypad.
The doors slid open with a whoosh.
“You did all that in the little time you spent on their computer network?” Sage asked.
“Some things you prepare for ahead of time, Sergeant.” Mato stepped into the elevator and held the door till everyone entered, then he pressed the D Deck button.
Sage was impressed, and he made a mental note to talk to Pingasa when they returned. Computer security at the fort needed to be hardened—immediately.
The elevator dropped toward D Deck.
D Deck
The Hooded Vorol
0751 Zulu Hours
When the elevator doors opened, Sage blocked the way with his arm and looked at Mato. “I want to know where we’re going.”
Mato turned to Zhoh. “Captain?”
“Tell him,” Zhoh said.
“Of course, sir.” Mato turned back to Sage. “Our destination is Unit Forty-seven. She was registered as Deborah Jones. An innocuous name. Other Joneses are listed as being on the ship. It seems to be a popular name.”
Sage chose not to explain why Jones or Nguyen or Ivanov might be so popular and focused on the mission. “You’re sure it’s her?”
“The Hooded Vorol keeps a vid log of its guests. I matched her photo. She has changed her hair length and color, and the color of her eyes, but it is her.”
“I’ll take the lead,” Sage said, pulling his Birkeland and setting it to stun.
“Of course, Sergeant,” Zhoh said.
Sage stepped into the hall and kept going. The first units were numbered 61 and 62, but the living quarters were tiny, claustrophobic areas for most people who weren’t used to them, so Unit 47 wasn’t so far away.
Only a few guests were in the hallway. One glance at the black, battle-scarred Terran Army AKTIVsuits—or maybe it was the Phrenorians, Sage conceded—sent them scurrying.
Just before Sage reached the door to Unit 47, two men stepped out of the unit across the hall. They wore armor and carried weapons, so Sage knew the no-weapons rule wasn’t enforced on the ship. The men looked seasoned, carrying scars and the air of men used to combat.
One of the men—a short, swarthy older man with an obvious cyber eye and the smooth way of moving that advertised he had wired reflexes—triggered the face-recog programming in Sage’s near-AI. Attention, Sergeant, the man before you has been identified as Xander Singh, a known associate of Velesko Kos from time spent in the employment of Domanska Mining Corp in the Awver system. He is a wanted fugitive in three different—
The door to Unit 47 opened and Ellen Hodgkins left the room in a hurry. Evidently the ensign had managed to send out an alert somehow from the sec office.
THIRTY-FOUR
D Deck
The Hooded Vorol
0753 Zulu Hours
Hodgkins had cropped her hair as Mato had said, cutting it to jaw length, and it was now electric blue with silver streaks. She wore black-lensed eye protectors, so he couldn’t be sure about the eye color, but her profile was a match to the facial-recog that had been dug up when they’d investigated Velesko Kos. The skintight sky-blue bodysuit flaunted her curves, making her stand out yet be instantly dismissed as window dressing for some corp exec. She carried a small matte-black case in one hand.
Singh stepped forward, putting himself between Sage and Hodgkins. He spoke over his shoulder to the woman. “You need to go.” He drew a vibro knife from the sheath at his hip. The blade was as long as Sage’s forearm and the weapon hummed in readiness.
“Ellen Hodgkins.” Sage drew the shokton he’d equipped himself with for use on the ship. Fighting in space was problematic. Beam weapons and depleted uranium rounds ricocheted off the bulkheads when they didn’t punch holes in a hull. “By the authority of the Terran Army, you’re under arrest for conspiracy regarding the attack on Fort York and for weapons trafficking.”
Hodgkins ran for the stairwell doorway at the other end of the hall. The second man trailed after her, drawing a sonic mace capable of delivering hydrostatic damage to anything that held fluid. The sonic blast could do significant damage even through a hardsuit.
“Get out of the way,” Sage told Singh.
The man shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.”
Sage feinted with the shokton, then he delivered a backhand blow with the weapon aimed at Singh’s head. Singh stepped back to avoid that, and when he did, Sage tossed a non-lethal tangler grenade at the man’s feet.
Moving smoothly and quickly, Singh swept the grenade behind him with the vibro blade and ducked away from the released plaswire coils that exploded out of it. The strands looped uselessly in the empty expanse between Singh and the other bodyguard.
Still in motion, Singh went on the attack. The vibro blade blurred in front of him. If not for the musculature of the hardsuit, Sage knew he’d never have been able to keep up with his opponent. Again and again, the blade bit into the armor on Sage’s forearms as he blocked thrusts and slashes. The cuts ran deep, drawing sparks from wiring and sometimes blood from Sage’s flesh beneath the armor. The nano-circuitry repairing the hardsuit scrambled to rewire all the systems to keep Sage’s hands online and operational.
Warning, Sergeant. Suit integrity in forearms and hands are at 57 percent. Continuing to battle in this manner will result in eventual failure of—
In the past, Sage had been up against opponents wielding knives and swords, and he’d fought them on the battlefield and in rough bars, in the hardsuit and unassisted. Singh was one of the best he’d ever encountered, but the man had dropped into a rhythm. Perhaps fights didn’t normally last this long for him, or the rhythm had come from sparring with the same partners too long, but Sage spotted the cadence and anticipated Singh’s next strike before he made it.
When Singh struck, Sage closed his hand around the man’s knife hand and squeezed, feeling the bones in the hand shatter even though they were reinforced. To his credit, Singh ignored the pain and dropped the vibro knife into his other hand. He stabbed at Sage’s stomach and managed to get at least six centimeters of blade through the armor on Sage’s right side.
Administering pain blocker. Administering coagulant. Do you require—
Before Singh could drive the vibro blade any deeper, Sage backhanded the man on the side of his face, breaking his jaw and slamming his head into the wall. Singh’s eyes glazed and rolled up into his head. Sage allowed the man to sink to the floor when his legs gave out beneath him.
“On your left, Sergeant.” Zhoh brushed by Sage in the narrow hallway, quickly followed by Mato.
Ignoring the fading pain in his stomach as the meds kicked in, Sage wrapped a hand around the vibro blade and pulled it out. Nausea swam through his mind and it knew it was more from shock combined with lack of sleep over the last three days than any damage he’d suffered. This wasn’t the first time he’d been stabbed.
Blood pooled inside the armor, but it was already responding to the coagulants and nanobots in his system.
“Clear my head,” Sage said as he steadied himself.
Administering stimpak. Recommending med center and sleep. You are nearing exhaustion.
“Sage.” Kiwanuka stood beside him.
“I’m fine,” Sage told her, and started tow
ard the other end of the hallway, where Zhoh had engaged the other bodyguard.
The Phrenorian captain stood his ground and blocked the sonic mace again and again with his sword. The stims hit Sage’s system and his vision narrowed to dark tunnels. For a minute he didn’t think his legs were going to hold him. He’d pushed himself too far, too hard, and for too long. If it hadn’t been for the hardsuit and the microgravity in the ship, he didn’t think he would have managed to remain standing. Stab wounds tended to have that reaction more than bullet or beam wounds. There was something visceral about getting pierced by a knife.
Beyond Zhoh, Mato, and the bodyguard, Ellen Hodgkins opened the stairwell and went through.
6313 Akej (Phrenorian Prime)
The female was getting away.
The realization of that infuriated Zhoh. He resented the bodyguard standing in front of him, preventing him from reaching his prey. At another time, he might have respected his opponent’s knowledge of arms and the bravery with which he fought, but that time was not now.
Zhoh thrust at the bodyguard again and once more found the sonic mace intercepting his blow before it could be delivered. The initial block shivered along Zhoh’s arm, but the immediate sonic discharge that followed threatened to tear his arm from his body. Zhoh didn’t dare expose a limb to the destruction the sonic mace would carry. A humanoid’s skeleton would fracture under the onslaught, but under the chitin, his body would be destroyed. Lannig would not remedy that.
The stairwell door closed and erased sight of Ellen Hodgkins.
Cursing, Zhoh lashed out again. This time the bodyguard was not quick enough to block the keen blade completely and it sliced along his brow over his right eye. Enduring the sonic blast again, aching from the injuries he’d suffered, Zhoh moved to the bodyguard’s right and took advantage of the temporary blindness caused by blood weeping into his eye.
Zhoh thrust again, but the patimong only delivered a glancing blow. The blade cut into the bodyguard’s armor, but didn’t reach the flesh beneath. Knowing he had an opening, the bodyguard whipped the sonic mace toward Zhoh’s head. Zhoh managed to get his other primary up to block the bodyguard’s blow, avoiding the weapon and striking his opponent’s wrist.
Twisting slightly, Zhoh whipped his tail forward and sank the tip into the bodyguard’s jugular, putting his strength and weight into the strike. Envenomed, already dying and losing motor control, the bodyguard stumbled back and grabbed at his throat as his air passages closed down.
Mercilessly, Zhoh shoved the soon-to-be corpse to the hallway floor and continued on. Mato followed him, and the sergeant was once more moving, with the female sergeant at his side.
Zhoh’s thoughts raced as he opened the stairwell door and went through. He could not allow Ellen Hodgkins to tell what she knew about Rangha’s criminal activities, and he didn’t want to fight Sage and the other soldier here. If he and Mato killed them on the Hooded Vorol, Zhoh was certain the ship’s crew would never let them leave the vessel alive.
Defeat seemed determined to snatch victory from his grasp. Pausing in the stairwell, Zhoh smelled the woman’s scent and knew that she had gone up rather than down. He rushed up the steps that were built for humans more than they were constructed for Phrenorians.
He opened a comm to Mato. “You have seen the ship’s blueprints?”
“Yes.”
“The woman is going up. What is up there?”
“Three decks up, there is a shuttle holding area. If she can get one of those vessels, she can leave this ship.”
Zhoh redoubled his efforts, launching himself up several steps at once, taking advantage of the microgravity.
G Deck
The Hooded Vorol
6371 Akej (Phrenorian Prime)
Stepping out of the stairwell on G Deck, Zhoh gazed around the wide-open desk. Bulkheads set the 5,000-meter-long space off from the rest of the Hooded Vorol on three sides. The fourth side held three door bays that allowed shuttles to leave the ship.
The shuttles were small, space-use only, and not meant to make planetfall. Several shapes and sizes occupied the rows before Zhoh, ranging from single-pilot slingers to small cargo carriers.
“Hey.” The speaker was one of five Cheelchan sec guards emerging from around a boxy cargo shuttle much like the one that had brought Zhoh and the others to the Hooded Vorol, only this one was on a much smaller scale and looked more frail. “Put your weapons down and stand against the bulkhead.” His battle armor gleamed and he held a pistol in his hands before him.
The other sec guards looked like copies of the first and only maintained a ragged sense of combat, not spread out the way they should have been.
Mato, Sage, and Sergeant Kiwanuka joined Zhoh in the shuttle area.
“I’m Terran Army,” Sage declared, flashing his ID on a holo in front of his hardsuit. “We’re here on a peacekeeping matter. These people are with me. Now back down and let us get our jobs done.”
“We have orders to detain you,” the sec leader said. “Now get up against the wall.”
A handful of beings stepped out from the other side of the shuttle space, saw what was taking place, and quickly retreated.
“Captain,” Sage said quietly over the comm link, “I’m not going to let these men stop me.”
“Agreed,” Zhoh replied. “Mato and I will go to the right—”
“Sergeant Kiwanuka and I will go to the left. If you have to hurt them, hurt them. But do not kill them unless you’re forced to.”
“Understood, Sergeant.” Zhoh readily agreed to forestall an argument, but he would do whatever he needed to in order to achieve his goal. If these beings had to die, then that was the way it would be. “Go!”
Zhoh hurled himself to the right and Mato was right behind him. Sage and the female sergeant split off to the left. Immediately, the Cheelchan sec guards fired their assault weapons. Zhoh expected the rounds to ricochet from the bulkhead the stairwell door was located on, but they shattered against the surface instead. Dye marked the impact areas around small projectiles that studded the wall. Almost instantly, the projectiles sizzled with energy.
Mercy weapons. Zhoh wanted to scoff at their opponents’ weakness. Such weapons would never be allowed in the hands of a Phrenorian. He slid behind the bulk of a nearby shuttle and smelled the air, getting a sense of the direction the female had taken.
Listening to the flurry of armored boots striking the metal deck, Zhoh knew the sec guards had split up in an effort to apprehend Mato and him as well as the Terran soldiers. Zhoh ran to the back of the shuttle and ended up between it and the bulkhead.
The wall was part of a machinist’s bay. Magnetic strips held heavy torque wrenches and other tools Zhoh could not identify. Except as potential weapons.
Seizing a fire extinguisher from the wall, Zhoh tossed the red container to Mato, who caught it easily and grasped the intention. He armed the extinguisher and pointed the nozzle at the corner of the shuttle as the sec guards approached.
Zhoh picked up two wrenches as long as his primary arm, kept one, and tossed the other to Mato, who caught the tool in his lesser hands. Together, they awaited the sec guards.
When the Cheelchans rounded the shuttle, bunched too closely together to be effective instead of spread out as Zhoh would have trained his warriors, Mato emptied the fire extinguisher in a single, long blast as he dove to the deck.
Purple foam struck the sec guards and covered them, bonding instantly the way it was supposed to in order to smother a flame. The fire retardant could be lethal to an unprotected being.
The foam blinded the guards and turned the deck slippery beneath their boots. Zhoh stepped in with his wrench before they could recover and swung at the first Cheelchan’s head and nearly took off his helmet when the blow landed. Unconscious or nearly so, the guard dropped.
From his posi
tion on the deck, Mato lay beneath the stream of mercy rounds that sprayed a full meter above him. He swung his wrench and knocked down the nearest sec guard, then, when the guard hit the deck, he hammered the Cheelchan again. The sec guard’s helmet bounced against the deck and he lay still.
By that time, Zhoh had thrust his wrench into the remaining sec guard’s helmet and drove him backward so suddenly that his feet shot out from under him. Before the Cheelchan could fall to the deck, Zhoh swung again, slamming the heavy wrench against the sec guard’s helmet.
The guard quivered and lay still.
Zhoh kept hold of the wrench and followed Ellen Hodgkins’s scent.
Three rows down, the female was climbing into a small shuttle, ducking beneath the uplifted hatch. Zhoh ran to her and reached her before she knew he was there. He gripped her foot and yanked her from the spacecraft, throwing her down to the deck. He stood there, towering over her.
She’d lost her goggles and gazed up at him with cold, cruel eyes. Her hands were outspread. She no longer carried the black case.
Zhoh motioned to the shuttle. “See if you can find the case she had.”
Mato scrambled up into the shuttle cockpit as autofire sounded from the other side of the shuttle. Sage and the female sergeant must have engaged the remaining sec guards.
“What do you want?” Hodgkins demanded.
Zhoh squatted down beside her and held the wrench upright beside him. He swung his tail forward, making his captive tilt her head back to keep the venomous tip from breaking the skin at her throat.
“To see you dead for your treachery,” Zhoh answered.
“Who are you?”
“I am Captain Zhoh GhiCemid, a true warrior of the Phrenorian Empire.”
Recognition flared in her dark eyes. “Rangha told me about you. You’re kalque, and not fit to be part of the Phrenorian Empire. They sent you out here to bury you.”
Zhoh barely restrained the rage that filled him. His grip on the wrench tightened and all he could think about doing was crushing the female’s skull with it. He raked her with the tip of his tail enough to leave a scratch that must have burned from the venom. The poison wouldn’t kill her, but she would be in pain until she got meds.
