Empress Game 2

by Rhonda Mason

  Everywhere was shouting and movement and cursing. Corinth shuddered in his arms as Vayne wrapped him tight. Relief dropped them both to their knees.

  He’s safe. He’s safe.

  It was over. Corinth was safe. He hadn’t failed Kayla.

  Natali stood perfectly still, gaze locked on Vayne. Her eyes glowed with loathing and pain and betrayal. “I should have known it would be you, brother.”

  32

  SHIMVILLE, FALANAR

  Hekkar didn’t like the feel of this exchange. Not at all.

  It went against the grain to let Vega pick the location, but she hadn’t given them another option. Now he, Rigger, Trinan and Vid were in a different section of Shimville, gathered across the street from what looked to be a drug manufacturing facility—and not the legal kind.

  Every warning bell rang in his head when they arrived and he realized Vega wasn’t there yet.

  “A trap,” Trinan muttered. They couldn’t be certain—the meet time hadn’t passed yet. Still, he would have expected Vega to be in position well ahead of the appointed time.

  “Damnit, Vega,” Hekkar said.

  The words seemed to summon her. A sleek, unmarked hover car skimmed down the street and parked directly in front of the drug lab. Vega got out, followed by two other agents Hekkar didn’t recognize.

  “Where the frutt is Malkor?” Kayla asked over comms. She was out of sight, stationed in the building next door as their secret weapon. To the best of their knowledge Vega still had no idea she was in hiding with the octet. They needed any advantage they could get.

  Hekkar marched to the hover car. The interior of the passenger compartment was empty, and two other agents sat in front.

  “No sign of him.”

  Kayla swore in response.

  “Of course not,” Senior Commander Vega said calmly from the other side of the car. “Do you really think I’d bring my most valuable bargaining chip to this drop in person?”

  Now what? Hekkar’s first instinct was to call the whole thing off—no way he was trading Dolan’s data for anything less than Malk’s life.

  “Don’t worry,” Vega said, “he’s close by.” She arched a brow at the tactical suits they wore, and then headed into the drug lab with her two agents following.

  Hekkar ordered his team in after her. The whole op had already gone sideways, but what else could he do?

  He found Vega and her men standing on one side of a battered and scarred workbench, looking at their mobile complink as it booted. A datapad already lay on the bench. Hekkar took position directly opposite Vega, Rigger beside him and Trinan and Vid bracketing them.

  Vega looked them over. “I have to admire Senior Agent Rua,” she said. “He certainly knows how to form a loyal octet.”

  “Best of the best,” Hekkar said. “Now, proof of life or this ends right now.”

  “You’ve got the chip?”

  He nodded, and Vega seemed to take him at his word. She knew he wouldn’t risk not bringing it.

  Not when I’m planning on screwing you over anyway, bitch.

  Vega powered on the datapad and handed it to him. On the screen, Malkor sat in a chair, wrists and ankles manacled to it. The lighting was bright in that one area, deeply shadowing everything else. He could barely make out rotting pallets in the background. A warehouse?

  Great, only a million warehouses in Shimville.

  Hekkar’s mobile comm triple buzzed—high-priority alert—but he didn’t dare check it. Who knew what would set Vega off?

  Rigger surprised him by setting the chip case on the lab bench before he okayed the move. He shot a “what the frutt are you doing?” look that she ignored while reaching for her mobile comm.

  Everyone in the room tensed. Rigger raised her other hand non-threateningly. “I need my comm to unlock this.”

  Vega nodded to her agents to relax and Rigger took out the comm.

  Thank the stars for Rigger. The case didn’t need a signal from her comm to open it. No doubt she’d adopted the ruse to read the alert they’d received. She glanced at the screen and keyed in an entry.

  “I got your message, Rigger,” Kayla said in his ear a second later. “Parrel says Malkor’s being held two blocks over, warehouse for Alvano’s?” Parrel must have sent that to all of them. He wouldn’t have known Kayla’s mirrored comm signal, which is why Rigger took the risk to send it to Kayla.

  Vega hit a button on the datapad, opening a comm link to the warehouse.

  “Talk to your octet leader,” Vega said. “You’ve got ten seconds.”

  “Are you real-time, boss?”

  “Hekkar?” Malkor said. “Yes. And don’t you dare trade that data for me, that’s an order.”

  Vega reached over and hit mute on the datapad. “Satisfied?”

  “I don’t trust Parrel,” Kayla said in Hekkar’s ear. “But I trust Vega even less. I’m going after Malkor. No way she’s keeping her end of the bargain.”

  There was no way for Hekkar to stop her without giving away that he had a man outside.

  “Stall her,” Kayla said, “and jam comms so she can’t get any warning from the warehouse.”

  Vega powered the datapad down. Now more than ever Hekkar worried what was going to happen to Malk. Hurry, Kayla. He gave Rigger the prearranged sign to jam all signals. Hopefully Vega wouldn’t notice for a while.

  Vega smiled slightly. “Let’s get a look at that data.”

  * * *

  Kayla sprinted down the stairs and out the backdoor of the building she’d hid in. She could almost see a timer counting down, and felt the squeeze as her window of opportunity to rescue Malkor—before Vega figured out something was wrong—started to close.

  Damn tactical suit, she cursed as she ran.

  She’d been baking alive since putting the tac suit on. The last time she’d worn one was during the rescue of her family, and she’d forgotten how hot the damn things were. If it didn’t promise at least two shots’ worth of protection against an ion pistol blast she would have ditched it long ago.

  Kayla crossed the street at a dead run and rounded the next block in thirty seconds. Alvano’s warehouse looked especially decrepit, even for Shimville. Rotting pallets and abandoned crates filled the alleyway. Sheets of metal hung over the windows. Only half of the windows were secured—she had her choice of ingress.

  No time to be choosy. If Malkor’s captors didn’t hear from Vega in short order they would know something was wrong, and then Malkor’s life would be over.

  Thankfully he should be sparsely guarded. Vega had loyal people, but she didn’t have endless resources to trust with something as controversial as freeing an enemy of the state in exchange for the plans to the Influencer. Something this high-level would have as few people involved as possible.

  Kayla jogged the perimeter of the building, looking for the easiest point of access that wasn’t the front doors. High-pitched chittering drifted out to her from every window. She didn’t have time to analyze the sound as she decided on a side window that already had crates stacked under it.

  The metal sheeting was razor sharp on the edge. As she slipped underneath it and shimmied onto the window ledge, the sheeting caught her across her back, tearing into her tac suit and slicing her skin. Hopefully the injury was a good sign, meaning no one expected this window to be used. She pulled herself up and over, then dropped to the floor inside the warehouse. The chittering she’d heard outside increased in volume and frequency, and a stench powerful enough to make her gag hit her nose.

  Shit. Bats—and she’d sent them into a tizzy of chirping communication.

  At least they weren’t mobbing her… yet.

  She crouched low and crept forward. The rickety floor she’d landed on seemed to run the entire length of the building as a second level of sorts, with an office at one end and assorted junk strewn about the rest of it. The smell of years of bat shit piled on top of more bat shit was enough to keep most people from claiming even a temporary residence
here. Motley floodlights lit the warehouse floor, but she was in shadow for the moment.

  “You might as well come out,” someone called from below.

  Frutting bats.

  “You tripped the perimeter alarm.”

  Ah. That would do it, too.

  “I’ve got orders to kill the agent if anyone gives me trouble, so if you were planning on making trouble, quit it.” She recognized that smug voice.

  Siño, the biocybe.

  * * *

  Hekkar watched as Rigger took her time opening the case carrying the chip with all of Dolan’s scientific data.

  Two biometric scans and two sequences of numbers shouldn’t take that long. Rigger managed to make it look like an intricate art as she went through the process.

  She finally finished opening the case and proffered it to Vega. Rigger looked as cool as the other side of the pillow handing over a chip that contained enough info for Vega to create a new Influencer. Hekkar was on edge. Their entire plan to foil Vega rested on a virus Rigger had written this afternoon. His basic understanding was that it was a two-stage virus. Stage one: the first time the chip is accessed the virus is activated and primed to deploy. Stage two: the second time the chip is accessed the virus launches and writes over the data, rewriting and rewriting ad infinitum so that the data can never be recovered.

  Rigger’s virus would work as planned. He just hoped no one on Vega’s side knew how to look for it.

  Vega handed the case with the chip still in it to one of the agents. “Let’s see what surprises you have planned for us.”

  The agent took his time examining the chip with microglasses, no doubt looking for a burn strip that would fry the chip the second it was powered up in a complink. The octet had debated installing one but decided against it in the end. Vega had to walk away believing she had access to everything she wanted in order to get Malkor back. The two-stage virus was the only way to assure that.

  Vega’s agent finally decided the chip hadn’t been tampered with and inserted it into the complink, then started tapping away. Vega let him do his thing without looking at the screen—the agent must be searching for viruses, not accessing the actual data yet.

  Hekkar itched to be out of there. He wanted to be on the rescue mission, kicking down doors, cracking skulls and pounding the shit out of IDC conspirators. Instead he was on “stalling” duty, for frutt’s sake. He had to rely on Kayla for the skull cracking and give her as much time as possible.

  At least Vega’s agent was helping him out by being thorough.

  By the time the agent finally passed the complink to Vega to delve into the files, Hekkar felt ready to snap. Instead, he forced himself to relax and distract her.

  “Don’t know why you’re so hot for those files,” he said. “Without Dolan to hold your hand, you’ll never be able to build another of those machines.”

  Vega raised her gaze from the complink with a slow smile. “Whatever gave you the idea we need to build one?” She chuckled at the stunned look he couldn’t hide. “We have version three, Dolan’s newest. The one your little Wyrds destroyed was version two.”

  Holy shit. This went way beyond “worst possible outcome.”

  “We don’t need the schematics to build one; we need Dolan’s files on how to use it.”

  Not possible. “Without a Wyrd to control it…” He drifted off. That one fact should be the death knell to all her plans.

  Vega smiled at him. Her lips never moved, but her voice sounded in his mind as she said, ::I have that part handled, don’t you worry.:: Then she turned her attention back to the complink.

  Holy frutt.

  Hekkar glanced left at Vid, silently asking, “Did you hear that?” He saw the same fear running through Vid’s mind as his own: even with Malkor’s life in the balance, even with Rigger’s virus in place, could they really let Vega walk out of here with all that data, knowing she had gained psi powers?

  “You might as well settle in,” Vega said, eyes still on the screen. “Our deal’s not complete until I’m certain I have everything we need.”

  * * *

  Kayla froze when Siño’s voice came from below, calling her out of hiding.

  She pulled her ion pistol and checked its charge.

  Damnit!

  Frutting damn, it had been disabled.

  Wyrds had the tech to disable advanced weapons that relied on digital firing sequences. It didn’t work on weapons that relied on mechanical systems. Not that it mattered, since she didn’t have old-style weapons on her.

  Dolan really didn’t scrimp on the tech he handed over to the imperials, apparently.

  Frutt.

  Shooting Siño in the head from here was her best, and probably her only chance to beat him. For once, having her kris didn’t fill her with total confidence.

  She peered over the edge of the catwalk. Malkor sat in a chair in the center of the room, cuffed to it hand and foot. He’d been roughed up, swollen face, bloody nose—Siño had probably gotten bored. Her gaze skimmed over him, checking for any other signs of injury. Malkor seemed alert and calm. She eased out a breath in relief. Part of her had feared she wouldn’t be in time.

  The biocybe stood at ease beside Malkor, an old-style firearm on his hip that he hadn’t bothered to draw. He knew whoever came would be disarmed by the disrupter tech.

  Smug bastard.

  Siño drew a knife from a boot sheath and held it to Malkor’s neck. “I’m getting a little fidgety down here, so if this is a rescue mission, might as well get on with it.”

  No way to surprise him from here. Two well-lit sets of stairs led to the floor, and Siño had situated himself with a view of both. The drop from her height to the ground did not look like a good time, and a broken ankle was no way to start a fight with an augmented human.

  “You’ve got three seconds to show yourselves. One.”

  Kayla stood and waved. “I’m here. Didn’t want to tax your brain with more counting.”

  Siño grinned, knife still at Malkor’s throat. “I knew it would be you. Got anyone else up there?”

  “Got anyone else down there?”

  He shook his head. “You’ve got me all to yourself, Princess. And I know you like to work alone, so why don’t you come on down and we’ll settle this.”

  “Take that knife from his neck and you’ve got yourself a date.”

  Malkor’s eyes blazed, and if he could have opened his mouth without slitting his own throat he would be shouting at her to get the void out of there and leave him. As if she could ever do that when he needed her.

  Siño chuckled and lowered his knife hand. Malkor drew breath to shout something and Siño punched him in the solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs. Malkor doubled over and Siño grabbed his hair, yanking his head back up. “No interruptions, Agent. I’ll deal with you soon enough.”

  Kayla jogged to the closest set of stairs, scanning the rest of the warehouse as she went. It seemed Siño hadn’t lied. The place was emptied out, and unless someone hid in the office, there was no one else here. And why would there need to be? With modern weapons deactivated and Siño’s enhanced—well, everything—he was more than a match for anyone. Or any two. Or three. And Vega knew there were only four octet members left on the loose.

  As Kayla picked her way down the stairs, Siño’s smile of anticipation found an answering fire in her heart. He’d gotten the best of her twice before. He’d had a hand in murdering Rawn. He’d beaten Malkor.

  He was going to die. Right here, right now.

  Or she was.

  First, though, she had to get him away from Malkor. That close Siño could lunge at any time and sever an artery before her eyes.

  She hit the ground floor and crossed to her right, widening the distance between her and Siño, hands at her side, ready to draw her kris. Her tac suit was useless now; it wasn’t designed to stop ballistic projectiles, and she wished she could toss it.

  She glanced past Siño to Malkor, barely visi
ble beyond Siño’s huge shoulders.

  I’m getting you out of here, if it’s the last thing I do.

  Kayla forced her concern for Malkor into a mental box. She fixed his location in the room so she’d always be aware of keeping the fight from him, and let go of the rest. This was all about her and Siño now. She’d need all of her concentration if she was going to beat the biocybe.

  That and a miracle.

  “Don’t be shy, Princess,” Siño called. He beckoned her with two fingers. At least he showed no indication of drawing his gun.

  “Hey, I came down a whole floor for you. Gotta meet me halfway.” And get the void away from Malkor.

  Siño chuckled, enjoying himself way too much for her taste.

  Let’s see what we can do about that.

  He took a few steps toward her, holding the knife out in front, ready but not yet engaged. She held her ground even as her survival instincts warned her to run.

  She rested her hands casually on the pommels of her kris. “I see you brought the right party favor this time.”

  He turned his hand so the knife glinted in the light. “Only fair to let the weaker opponent choose the weapon, don’t you think?”

  Score a point for Siño. “In that case, how about tossing that cannon in your belt over yonder.” She made a sideways motion with her chin, indicating the far end of the warehouse.

  “I don’t believe in playing quite that fair.” His grin was evil and eerily compelling at the same time. In another universe, she could almost imagine enjoying sparring this man.

  Today, she’d enjoy killing him.

  Kayla shrugged one shoulder. “Suit yourself. You’ll be that much more embarrassed when I beat you.”

  He laughed, genuinely amused. “Frutt, woman, if I didn’t have orders to kill you I’d be taking you against the wall right now.” He thought it over. Then, his eyes never leaving hers, he slowly drew out the gun. He cocked the hammer and pointed the barrel straight at her. Kayla forced herself not to react. Breathe. Breathe. He doesn’t want to kill you like this, he wants full gratification. Her heart slowed as she controlled her breath.

  “All that talk and now you’re cheating me out of a good time?” She faked a disappointed sigh. “Men these days.”