“Yes.” Eazi was quiet for a moment. “Flato wiped every piece of information that led us there off the system, replaced it with maps that showed there was nothing of interest there at all. And for once I agreed with him. There are some things out there that are bigger, more advanced and nastier than we are, Captain. And retreat was the only logical option.”
Fee lifted her bracelet and turned it this way and that. “The Tecran got a taste of their own medicine?”
Eazi laughed, and she realized it was a mimic of her own. “Yes, very much a taste of their own medicine.”
She smiled. “Well, let's go give them another one, shall we?”
* * *
The Larga Ways runner with Cy imprisoned on it blasted space dust into Hal's face as it took off in the launch bay.
Eazi refused to send him back to Larga Ways though, and Hal didn't blame him. He hadn't wanted Fiona going back there alone for the same reason.
There had to be Tecran spies on the way station, and there was no way to guarantee Cy would not be freed or murdered by his own people to make sure he didn't talk if he arrived unaccompanied.
Eazi's solution had been the same one Hal was going to suggest for Fiona. The runner would be sent out into space and left there until they were able to pick it up later.
As the runner disappeared through the gel wall, Hal noticed that two other vessels were missing from when he'd last been in here.
Fiona must have seen him looking because she put a hand on his arm. “The bodies went in one, and Eazi wanted to take one himself so he can monitor us from above and help break into the facility's systems. And it won't hurt for him to be away from the Class 5, either, in case the worst comes to the worst.”
Hal froze. He'd made the mistake of thinking Eazi was the Class 5, but he wasn't, the ship was just the framework in which the thinking system lived. As long as the runner he'd sent out the launch bay was in communication with the Class 5, he could, as Fiona said, help them without being stuck in the static of Kyber's Arm.
“Good thinking.” He started toward the small drone Eazi had insisted was their best bet at getting down to the Balco facility undetected.
“So this won't be seen?” Fiona touched the side with a delicate, long-fingered hand.
Hal shook his shoulders loose. “Eazi explained the cloaking capabilities to me, and there is no way they'll see us coming.”
“Even though it's their own drone?” She sounded so suspicious. He liked that she refused to take anyone's word for it if it didn't make sense.
“Apparently not.”
Fiona gave a reluctant nod. “I suppose Eazi knows what he's talking about.”
Well, he certainly had a lot to lose if he was wrong, so Hal had chosen to trust him.
The drone's door opened, and at a glance, Hal could see it was going to be a tight fit with both of them in there.
He gestured to Fiona to go first, and she slipped in, lying on her side on the cushioned chair that was more like a sleeping couch and strapped herself in. He had to squeeze in next to her, chest to chest, and bumped her as he fought to get into his own harness.
Their bodies were touching and Fiona reached around him to untwist a shoulder strap, both arms coming around him in an embrace.
He said nothing as the door closed, and the pressure of their take-off shoved them back against their cosy padded bed. There was the familiar hum as they cleared the gel wall and then the drone shuddered as they exited out into the storm that was Kyber's Arm.
Fiona was silent as the drone flew straight up and out of the center of the storm. It angled down, twisting as it went, so Hal was hanging by his straps over Fiona, their breath mingling.
He saw she'd forgotten to take off the necklace Eazi had found to go with her dress, and then realized he was staring at her breasts.
He jerked his eyes up to her face and found her watching him.
“Carpe diem.” She sounded nervous as she said it, and her tongue came out to wet her bottom lip.
He found himself unable to look away. “I'm sorry?”
“It's an expression on Earth, in a language no one uses anymore unless they're lawyers.” She paused. “It means seize the day.”
He was trying to work out why she was telling him this when she leaned forward and brushed her lips against his.
It was just a gentle touch, a whisper of a kiss.
He shivered, and then lifted his hands to cup her face, deepened the kiss until she opened her mouth under his.
He jerked back at the touch of her tongue, so aroused he couldn't remember ever feeling this way.
“This . . .” He shuddered. “No.”
She bit her bottom lip, and his eyes tracked the movement helplessly. He realized he was holding his hands out level with his shoulders, pressing them against the sides of the drone, as if to keep them as far from temptation as possible.
“No fraternizing with the enemy, huh?” she said at last.
He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, he saw she was looking down, to where his erection strained against his pants.
He tried to grab hold of something, found nothing for his hands to grasp, and fisted them. “You are not the enemy.”
“It's okay. I get it. You're unsure of me, and getting mixed up with Eazi hasn't helped that. I understand.”
He looked away. “I'm a senior officer of Grih Battle Center. Captain of one of Battle Center's most powerful battleships. You are a key witness to gross abuse of the Sentient Beings Agreement by the Tecran and the Garmman, and now it seems you're our liaison with another Class 5. It would not be . . . appropriate.”
She sighed, and his gaze flicked back to her face.
“One of the reasons I'm attracted to you is your commitment to doing the right thing, so I can't blame you for doing it now. I'm just sorry that's how it's worked out.” She managed a cheeky smile, which he had the feeling was an effort for her. “Maybe one day you'll be able to seize the day with me.”
He imagined what would happen if they got out of this, and he got her back to Battle Center. He'd be lucky to ever see her again.
He lifted his shoulders. “Maybe.”
They didn't look at each other, or say anything else, as Eazi sent them hurtling toward Balco's western desert.
26
At least saying no had really, really hurt him. As Fee adjusted the balaclava Eazi had made her, she decided that was some comfort. Cold comfort, but comfort, nevertheless.
If he hadn't thought he was breaking some kind of trust with Battle Center, he'd have been fully onboard.
Her lips, hidden beneath the hood, quirked upward, as she remembered the look of agony on his face.
Yeah, it helped to soothe the sting a little.
That, and the way he was trying not to touch her now as they lay side by side, looking down at the Tecran's facility.
Eazi had landed them on a small plateau and they'd walked for an hour up through the hills to find themselves above a building that looked like a weather station or observatory, painted a color the interior designer Fee used to work with would have called sienna, to match the color of the desert sand. It reminded her of a caramelized peach, and at the thought her mouth started to water.
It didn't help that the wind blowing grit into their eyes was dry and hot, sucked in from every direction to feed the massive tower that was Kyber's Arm, which teetered above them like a toppling pillar.
There was a dome set in the middle of the roof, and it looked capable of retracting.
“To let runners in and out?” Hal mused. He had put a similar camouflage cover over his head, and only his eyes were visible.
“The building doesn't look big enough to house over three hundred people, let alone a fleet of runners, so I'm assuming it goes down into the ground. But why would this be considered a good place to spend your time off?” Fee had expected more. More bustle, more signs of life. A place crew would prefer to ship duty if they had the opportunity.
“Sometimes,
anywhere that's different is better than nothing,” Hal said. “If they've been on ops for years, which from what Eazi says is possible, then any time you can get planet-side is a good time.”
That was probably true.
When they'd landed, she'd crouched down, let her fingers slide through the dry sand and tilted her face toward Balco's sun.
Larga Ways had been a step up from a battleship, but this was real terra firma. It had been nearly three long months and she wouldn't have cared if it had been hell itself, she was just happy to be breathing non-processed air.
“There's a squad coming in north-east of you.” Eazi warned them. “They're running a standard scan, so don't move.”
It was helpful to have an eye in the sky.
The runner Eazi was piloting was small and agile, and capable of hovering just within Balco's atmosphere. It obviously also had really powerful lenses.
But he'd asked her to wear a small lens on her collar, as well, so he could see what was happening when they got inside the building.
“Here they come,” Hal murmured.
Fee kept very still, and beside her, Hal did the same. He'd touched something on his uniform before they'd started out from the drone, and it had gone a similar reflective shade to hers, except it also had a sepia outline around it that sort of defeated the purpose.
Although it sounded like she and Rose McKenzie were the only two who could see it.
Fee squinted in the harsh midday sun and saw a group of sienna-outfitted troops jogging their way.
“I'm surprised they don't have the same camouflage as you,” Fee said.
“Probably don't think they need it,” Hal said. “I know they have the tech.”
They watched the tight group of thirty or so soldiers run toward the facility.
“What's fun about running around in this heat?” Fee wondered. “If this is the equivalent of shore leave, it sucks.”
Hal snorted out a quiet laugh. “They need security patrols, and to keep the crew fit. They're probably on rotation.”
The soldiers stopped in front of the building. A door opened and someone stepped outside to confer with one of them. Then they all filed in and the door closed behind them.
She'd known getting in unseen wouldn't be easy, but now she wondered if it was even possible.
A quiet scrabbling just behind her distracted her, and she looked over her shoulder.
Froze.
“Hal.” It was a choked whisper.
“What?” Then he was quiet, too.
“What is it?” Eazi whispered in her ear. The lens on her shirt obviously wasn't at the right angle.
“A lizard thing.” Her voice wobbled, and she spoke in English, because anything else would have been too much for her right then.
It was about half as long as she was, sleek and narrow, its back a pattern of dark and light orange, blending in perfectly with the sand, but its eyes . . . Fee swallowed. They were bright yellow and feral.
It hissed at her and reared up, using its long tail and back legs to balance. Its underbelly was the most delicate shade of peaches and cream Fee had ever seen. Just as it lunged, a spike was suddenly buried deep in its throat.
It twisted as it fell, landing short of her. She scrabbled back as it thrashed wildly.
Fee crawled as far as she could, only stopping when she came up against a large rock, and looked over at Hal.
He was crouched, cool and calm, the device he'd chosen from the armory in his hand. The spiker.
She loved spikers.
The lizard gave one last heave and lay, panting, on its side.
Guilt gripped her. A little.
After all, they were the interlopers here.
“Do you think it would live if we pulled the spike out?”
Hal looked over at her. Gave a nod. “The frien are very hardy. But they're too aggressive. If we don't kill it now, it will keep trying to attack. We must be near its burrow, and if it has young, it will never stop. And we can't risk it drawing attention to us, or hurting us.”
He lifted the spiker again and shot, and another slim bolt lodged itself in the frien's eye.
It went still.
Fee shuddered, slid her hands under the balaclava, and rubbed her face.
“Okay. That was not fun.” Her heart was still pounding so hard, she thought she was going to be sick. She forced herself to take a deep breath and stood to get a better look at her attacker.
“It was beautiful.” She curled her hands into fists. “Thank you for stopping it.”
Hal looked at it, too. “Yes, it was beautiful, but there is poison in its bite, and although I brought a small med pack from the Class 5, I don't know if the anti-venom would work on you. Better not to find out.”
“You seem to know a lot about it.”
He shrugged. “We've had to come to Larga Ways often enough it was worth learning more about the Balcoan wildlife.”
She was silent, using the time to draw her composure around herself again. “What now? That building looks pretty secure.”
“That part of it is.” Eazi said, and from the flick of Hal's eyes, Fee guessed Eazi was speaking in his earpiece as well. “But I've been able to use the runner to get part way into their systems, and I've found a few tunnels that are less secure.”
“Tunnels?” Hal asked.
“Mostly part of the air filtration system.”
“They surely know that's a weakness and have some security?” Fee did not believe they would leave themselves that vulnerable.
“They do.” There was a laugh in Eazi's voice. “But they've used my own systems to set it all up. They just copied the code I created for the Class 5 and reused it.”
Fee smiled. “So we're in?”
“Oh yes. We're in.”
* * *
Every scrabble and scrape Hal heard in the tunnel had him tensing.
While Eazi had led them unerringly to the entrance, and given them the code to open up the filter cover that doubled as a door, construction had obviously been rough and quick, straight into the sand, with no quick-set layer to seal it. He'd seen more than one gaping hole in the sandy side walls, just the right size to have been burrowed by a frien.
He had acted without thinking earlier, done what he had to do, but the sight of the deadly lizard poised to strike Fiona was burned into his retina.
He'd wanted to pull her close, hug her tight, but he made himself keep his distance, content with the fact that she was only a little shaken, not dead.
He'd downplayed the incident. A lot.
Friens caused more deaths than any other living organism on Balco. That's why he knew so much about them.
His hands shook a little in delayed reaction, and he forced himself to focus on the way ahead.
The lighting was on standby, just enough to see by.
His only worry was a lurking frien, which is why he was going first, spiker ready in his hand.
At least he knew the anti-venom worked on him.
There was a wind blowing at their back, sucked in from the outside to replace what was being used in the facility. It brought the hot, spicy scent of the desert with it, and mingled with the earthy smell of the tunnel as it swirled past them.
They walked at a downward angle, going deeper and deeper into the ground.
When he finally heard sounds of activity, he guessed they were at least five stories underground. Fiona had edged closer to him, so when he stopped suddenly, she ran into his back. She stayed plastered there, even curled her hands around his biceps, and he realized she was trying to look over his shoulder.
He forced himself to hold still, although he wanted to step away, get some distance between them. Either that, or push back, feel every single inch of her.
She was so slight and short in contrast to him, the feel of her delicate hands on him, sliding up to his shoulders as she used him to pull herself up a little to see, made his heart beat too fast in his chest.
“What is it?” She b
reathed into his ear and he closed his eyes against the shiver that wanted to run through him.
“I think someone is working just around the corner.”
When he moved forward, she followed close behind, her hand fisted in the fabric of his shirt. Although it was better if he was completely free to protect her, he couldn't force himself to tell her to let go.
They edged around the last curve of the tunnel, and Hal saw the room ahead was a sub-station of some kind, probably the recycle plant for sewage and waste.
A technician was watching a screen and another was lying under a large pipe. They were clearly adjusting something, calling numbers to each other.
They waited the techs out, Fiona plastered against him again to see as much as possible. It was more about wanting to see danger coming, to not be taken unawares, he realized, rather than any attempt to make him uncomfortable or press her point. It helped him ease back a little from the edge he was standing on.
Although not completely.
When the Tecran started putting away tools, he felt her tense, and as soon as the men left the room, they ran quietly after them, crouched and looked around the open arch the men had gone through to see which way they went.
There were no tubes here to get to the floors above. The techs were walking up a spiral staircase.
It became clearer by the moment the facility had been hacked out of the ground as quickly as possible, and they hadn't thought they'd be here long enough to install any of the functionality of a standard base. Either that, or they'd been too nervous to take the time to do so, for fear of discovery.
That they'd been here over a year meant the lack of home comforts had to be starting to chafe.
Hal led the way to the staircase and they climbed it silently in the wake of the stomping techs above them.
He heard the change in tone of their footsteps, and guessed they'd reached the next floor, but the tone of their chatter changed, too.
The distance and his poor grasp of Tecran made it hard to make out what they were discussing, but the joking died out of their voices and they lowered the volume, too.
Just as he got to the final bend, he heard the ringing sound of them climbing the next set of stairs, and their subdued voices died away.
Dark Deeds (Class 5 Series Book 2) Page 19
