Hayes recalled Bellona’s careful instructions and the blueprint she had blown up large on a screen taking up most of the sidewall of the Alyard’s bridge. The bay where the trucks were kept was to his right.
He craned his head to peer over the tops of the rows and could see a walled off section against the far side. That would be the bay.
Hayes didn’t run toward it. He had long legs and if he walked fast enough, it covered ground almost as quickly. As he went, he checked off Bellona’s instructions in his mind. It was important that nothing went wrong, this first time working on his own without a handler to give constant directions. Xenia—Bellona—would lose trust in him if he messed up.
Not that he could remember a handler and being directed. Xenia, though, assured him he had worked that way—a dog on a long leash. Bellona, he corrected himself. She was no longer Xenia, the graceful dancer he had known in Ledan. But then, she hadn’t been a real dancer, any more than he had been a real gardener. Bellona had slipped her leash, just as Hayes had. Just as they all had.
His instructions were detailed yet missed a vital point. They didn’t warn him the corridor he was striding down had a break in it, where another corridor intersected. He stepped out into the middle of the intersection before he realized it was there. He was exposed.
Two Eriumans were leading an empty truck down the length of the cross-corridor. They were three rows away. The one with the truck’s control panel in his hand dropped his mouth open in surprise.
The other was a faster thinker and his hands were free, too. He reached for the one-handed ghostmaker on his hip, brought it up and fired as Hayes reached the other side of the wide intersection.
The bolt skimmed past the small of Hayes’ back. He felt the heat of it sizzle through his shirt.
No alarms, Bellona had insisted. No surprises, no full scale security responses. In and out, very quietly. We don’t have the numbers to engage.
For a second, Hayes dithered. If he went after the two guards, then he would be delaying the others, for they were waiting on him to bring a truck to the location of the stash.
Preventing the guards from raising the alarm seemed like the higher priority, though. He could bring the truck afterward, although he worried that the delay may cause further problems.
He realized he was waiting for someone to tell him what to do. If he stayed here waiting, then he would disappoint Bellona in yet another way, so he pushed himself back around the corner into the wide cross-corridor and ran at the guards, fending off the ghostmaker bolts with his hands.
The two guards backed up a step, looking almost comically surprised. Postings to the Criselda depots were considered the soft assignments. Inside the warehouse itself, the guards were even more relaxed. Now they were slow to react.
Their shoddy reactions gave Hayes the time he needed to skirt the low truck, grab them both by the neck and knock their heads together. They slithered to the ground.
Hayes bent and picked up the small ghostmaker, pleased, for now he had a gun. It would offset his delay. Bellona had given the only two guns they had to Khalil and Thecla, leaving everyone else to use their preferred weapons or bare hands. That had stressed Retha more than usual, because he was smaller and weaker than all of them and guns were his first choice. Bellona had not given him a ghostmaker because the only two weapons they had found on the Alyard, after the Karassians had sabotaged the weapons store, had been two old, large guns that had been tossed in a bin.
Thecla had decided the guns were for spare parts, which was unlikely, for the Karassians did not preserve or recycle anything. Thecla, though, had fixed the guns. She was useful that way. Both of them were two-handed weapons, which Retha didn’t use, so Thecla had got one and Bellona’s Khalil, the other.
Hayes tried to check the weapon’s charge, but his left hand didn’t move. It twitched by his side, while he could feel something grinding in his upper arm. The external tendon whined, as if it was overloaded.
Hayes looked down at his hand where it hung uselessly. It was a strange sensation, to lift his hand and not have it obey.
Peeling back the outer layer of the wall must have damaged the hand in some way. Thecla would be able to diagnose the problem, later. For now, Bellona was waiting on him and he had delayed long enough. He could use the two-handed gun just fine in his right hand.
He put the gun on the top of the truck’s casing and punched the green button on the controls the guard had been kind enough to leave sitting on the top, too.
The truck floated forward and Hayes nudged it toward the intersection with his knees.
A small delay, a little issue. Nothing critical. Bellona would still approve.
* * * * *
Retha stood back while Vang dealt with the guard they had come across on the darker perimeter of the warehouse. He was bothered by the lack of weapons. With a ghostmaker, Retha could have taken out the guard from the last corner they had turned, even the heavier ghostmaker they had found on the ship.
Vang, though, didn’t need weapons. He preferred using his bare hands, as he was now. His pale brown eyes under the thatch of white-blond hair were dreamy and peaceful as he throttled the guard.
Not for the first time, Retha marveled at the strength of Vang’s hands. Vang wasn’t much taller than Retha. Which meant he was short, too. His shoulders and arms, though, were astonishingly powerful.
Retha was glad that, for reasons he still didn’t understand, Vang chose not to use that strength against him. With Retha, Vang was extraordinarily kind and gentle.
Which was why Vang was taking out the guard right now. He had pushed Retha back out of the way and leapt on the taller man with a grunt of pleasure.
The guard finally dropped and Vang picked up the ghostmaker and turned it over, examining it. He held it out to Retha. “Big guns for big idiots. It works, though. Want it?” His eyes were peace-filled and calm. That wouldn’t last long.
“It’s better than nothing,” Retha admitted, taking the ghostmaker. “Noisy, though.”
“Use it as a club, then. Save your hands.” Vang grinned and patted his cheek. “C’mon, we’re running behind. Where are we?” He looked around.
The criss-crossing aisles between the stacks of equipment were too similar to each other and disorienting because of it. Retha had used the big, square cargo bay in the roof to orient himself, instead. “That way,” he said, pointing down the wider corridor.
“Maybe we’ll find a guard with a couple of one-handers for you,” Vang said as they hurried down the corridor.
Retha snorted. “These guards are the dregs and outcasts of the Eriuman navy. The bigger the gun, the better.”
“They’re not really discriminating, are they?” Vang remarked, with a grin, for that was a word he had only recently explained to Retha. Now he used it all the time, as if it was a private joke between them. Which it was, really. Retha didn’t care about the others rolling their eyes when they heard it, especially Thecla, who didn’t have much time for anything, which was odd, because she was—had been—Karassian once, just as Vang had been.
* * * * *
The ghostmaker bolt took Thecla square in the chest, knocking her onto her back. She landed heavily, the ghostmaker tumbling out of her hand to slither across the floor.
Fontana bent and picked it up, then fired at the two guards hiding behind a squared-off pile of upper-atmosphere mines. The gun fizzed and sparked. No bolts.
“Shit,” he breathed and tossed it away.
Aideen, hunched next to him behind their mound, drew in a ragged breath. “We’re pinned down, aren’t we?” Her grip on the staff tightened, turning her fine knuckles whiter than they normally were.
“Not if we don’t let them raise the alert,” Fontana assured her. He curled his gloved hands into fists and moved past her, toward the other corridor, breaking into a fast sprint. Around the corner, down to the nearest break in the hillocks, then through the tiny squeeze, back to this corridor.
; He came up behind the two guards, who were busy watching Thecla where she lay. Probably, they were watching to make sure she didn’t get back up. As if anyone got up after taking a ghostmaker bolt to the center of the chest.
Idiots.
He tapped the nearest one on the shoulder. The man turned, a comic look of surprise on his face.
Fontana punched him, not holding back anything. The guard dropped with a satisfying thud.
The front man was bringing his ghostmaker around. No problems. Fontana got his fist through the closing space between the ghostmaker and the man’s jaw.
The second guard folded up over the top of the first.
Fontana picked up the two ghostmakers. They were this year’s model, of course. Thecla would know better which particular model they were, because that was Thecla’s thing. They just looked new and shiny to Fontana.
“As long as they work,” he muttered to himself and stepped back into the corridor they had been travelling down before being interrupted. He bent over Thecla and rested one of the ghostmakers against his lower leg.
Thecla groaned. “Son of a bitch…” she muttered and pressed her hand to the scorched section of her shirt and the bloody patch of flesh beneath. “That hurts.”
“You’re lucky. It would have killed anyone else,” Fontana pointed out.
Aideen hurried to them. “We’re late,” she hissed anxiously. Her face was paler than usual and her gaze skittered about ceaselessly.
“Deep breath,” Fontana told her.
“They had time to warn someone,” she added. “Maybe it was a silent alarm. Maybe the rest of the guards are on their way here.”
Fontana held his hand out to Thecla. “Up and at ’em,” he told her. Then, to Aideen. “There’s no alarm. The gutless pair were watching Thecla, worried she might come back and club them for shooting her.”
Thecla gripped his wrist and climbed to her feet, moving slowly.
“Are you okay?” Aideen asked her, speaking quickly. “Are you too hurt to go on?”
Thecla pulled together the front of the ruined shirt. “I’m fine,” she said shortly.
When Aideen bit her lip, Thecla relented a little. “They hit me directly over the chest plate. Burnt skin is the worst of it.” She tested her arms, the external tendons stretching and retracting smoothly. “See?”
Aideen and Thecla had both been Karassians, once, yet apart from the blonde hair and brown eyes they shared, they had very little else in common. Aideen was as tall as Fontana and slender enough to be called bony. Thecla was six inches shorter, ten kilos heavier and all of it was muscle. And tattoos. And enhancements.
Fontana picked up the ghostmaker leaning against his calf and held it out to Thecla. “Aideen, you keep your staff. You’re better with it.”
Aideen nodded.
Thecla patted the firewheels strapped to her belt. “I’m better with these.”
“Not if you’re more than a meter away,” Fontana told her.
She scowled and took the gun.
Fontana looked up at the roof, where the dark rectangle that marked the cargo bay was visible. “We’re nearly there. I want to be first. Come on.”
Chapter Two
Criselda I, Criselda, Eriuman Republic
There was a single guard patrolling the corridor where the ghostmakers and personal grenades Bellona wanted were stashed. Hero mentally shrugged. A single man was never a problem.
She stepped into the corridor and strolled toward him, letting the combat jacket she had shrugged into before leaving the barracks swing open. She was still naked underneath, because the rushed fools had torn her clothing into shreds. Naked didn’t bother her, but it was cool in the warehouse. Cool became uncomfortable in bare skin.
The guard turned to spot her when he heard her boots on the fused earth surface. As expected, he froze, his lips parting. Hero never got sick of watching someone’s intelligence drain, while the lizard brain took over. She often wondered if it would ever fail to work this way.
She smiled as she got closer. “Honey, you look bored,” she crooned.
He frowned, scrambling to put it together. “Who…are you?”
Hero reached up and rested her palm against his cheek. He sucked in a breath, startled. She leaned close. “I’m your worst nightmare,” she whispered. She slid her hand from his cheek, her fingertips stroking his flesh. As she lifted her hand away, she let the nail of her index finger scratch across the skin. The pressure was enough to activate the toxin gland.
The guard flinched a little, but his hormones were raging. He completely failed to recognize he would soon be dead. He stood with confusion fighting hope, trying to figure out what was going on.
A ghostmaker bolt took out the back of his head, making Hero jump a little. She had been concentrating on watching arousal flare in the guard’s eyes, waiting for the moment when he recognized just how fucked he really was.
She pouted as the guard dropped soundlessly to the floor and looked up as Khalil strode toward her, the ghostmaker swinging from his hand. “You spoiled it.”
Khalil just shook his head. Bellona and the android were right behind him. The android was checking pallet numbers.
“These two,” he said, pointing at the smallest two in the aisle.
Khalil looked at the two pallets, then up and around the corridor. “That can’t be right.”
Movement behind them made Hero sway around him to spot the newcomers. Thecla, Aideen and Fontana, a scowl on his face. He was a good-looking man for a free stater—or would be, if he ever stopped being angry. She didn’t bother wondering what had him upset now. Everything pissed him off. His constant anger would make it interesting to pull him into a dark corner, except he had other priorities and wouldn’t tolerate even a quick encounter.
Thecla was bleeding. She’d taken one to the chest plate. Lucky her. It could have been her head, like the guard at Hero’s toes. She sighed. The fun was almost over, alas.
Sang looked from one pallet to the other, frowning. “I’ve checked three times. These are the ones we were told about.”
Khalil was counting. “There are only fifteen crates on this one.”
“There were supposed to be fifty ghostmakers,” Bellona said. “Was another ship supplied since we got the data?”
As she spoke, Vang and Retha turned the corner and ran up to where they were. Retha had unbent enough to carry a two-hander. Vang looked happy…and strong. He was freakishly powerful and completely not interested in her. Hero had tried. Vang had no time for anyone but Retha.
Sang shook his head. “No, no shipments. Nothing. The records still say fifty.”
Bellona looked around and over her shoulder. She was beautiful in the way the Eriuman primary clans were all blessed with—perfectly smooth, coffee-colored skin, full lips, black eyes and glossy hair, a figure molded by a fighter’s muscles. Plus, she was strong. Not just woman-strong, but gutsy, courageous and driven. It made Bellona more than beautiful. It made her sexy to her bones, although Hero didn’t for a moment entertain the idea of approaching her. Khalil would kill her for trying, if Bellona didn’t.
“Three minutes since we entered. Too long. Where’s Hayes? We need that truck,” Bellona muttered.
“We’re going to take the stuff, anyway?” Khalil asked.
“No choice. We must arm ourselves. We still need to make a statement, too.”
“If the records say there are fifty, then that’s what they’re going to say you made off with,” Fontana pointed out. “It’ll still sound big.”
“Twelve boxes of personal mines,” Aideen said, glancing at the second pallet, then going back to watching anything that moved. Hero didn’t see her pause to count them, but she was freaky in that way. In all ways, she was strange. Counting and numbers were her weird-good thing.
“Here’s Hayes and the truck,” Retha said quietly, nodding down the corridor.
Hero glanced over her shoulder. The big giant was lumbering down the corridor, directin
g the midget truck with his thighs, the two-hander ghostmaker clutched in his big right hand. He looked embarrassed about arriving last.
“Transfer the guns over to the mine pallet,” Bellona said. “They’re lighter. Move it,” she added, her tone urgent. She put her knife away and bent to pick up one of the crates. Moving quickly, so did the other eight.
As they combined the contents of the two pallets onto one, Hayes fumbled with moving the truck into position to hitch the pallet controls. He was only using one hand. The other hung uselessly by his side.
Hero bumped him aside with her hip. She tried, at least. Hayes was a solid wall and didn’t move.
“Let me at it,” she told him. “You’re useless.”
Hayes glanced at Bellona, who wasn’t paying any attention. He nodded and stepped aside. His face was red.
Hero studied the controls, then moved the truck into position with the manual guidance ball. She completed the hitch and the pallet quivered and lifted a hand-span off the ground. The others completed stacking it and Bellona nodded at her. “Know where to go?”
Hero looked up at the roof, where the square cargo door was showing as a dark shadow. “Yeah.”
“Fast as you can, then,” Bellona said.
Hero got the truck moving. “Fast” was relative. She could still outpace the thing at full speed. Just one truck, though, could haul a pallet loaded to the roofline with heavy armaments. They were slow but mighty.
The others trod alongside the pallet, watching for guards, as she threaded the truck through the maze to the center of the room. The lift plate was down and the truck slid over the lip. The lift guided it until the pallet was in the center, then the truck unhitched itself, trundled off the plate and down the corridor. It would return itself to the truck bay.
Suns Eclipsed Page 2
