by A. K. DuBoff
Mark’s scowl deepened. “What did you say your name was? I can’t recall if we’ve met.”
“I’d like to see your credentials,” Mark requested.
Kira patted her chest and hip with her left hand. “Darn, I think I left my badge at my desk.”
A blaring siren erupted in the hall, causing Mark to jump.
“What the…?” He looked up at the flashing red light.
“Oh shite!” Kira exclaimed. “Are they here? Darlene warned me…”
“Who?” Mark asked, clearly perplexed.
“She didn’t tell you?” Kira swore under her breath. “Look, there’s no time to explain. You have to check on the backups. We can’t be found here.”
Mark glanced in the direction he’d come from. “Shite. All right.”
“Good luck.” Kira acted like she was going to hurry away in the other direction. She took several steps, then glanced over her shoulder to make sure Mark was leaving.
When he turned a corner, Kira headed back to the office where her team was hiding out.
Kira smirked.
Kira was certain Jasmine wasn’t going to like that plan, so she decided to keep the details to herself for the time being.
As soon as she opened the office door, she was greeted by three handguns pointed in her direction.
Her team lowered the weapons when they saw it was her.
“What the fok did you do?” Ari asked in a low voice.
“I improvised.” Kira turned her attention to Dave on the floor. “Sorry, buddy, looks like we’re going to have to shoot you after all.” She readied her multi-handgun. Her team quickly cleared the blast cone.
She fired a sonic blast, and Dave’s head lolled to the side as he fell unconscious.
Nia raised an eyebrow. “Care to explain?”
“No easier way to clear a path than by posing as the heroes trying to help the injured guy,” Kira replied with a mischievous grin.
Ari sighed. “I’ll get his arms.”
Kyle groaned. “Sandren is going to give us so much shite about this.”
“Relax, everything is under control.” Kira returned her handgun to the back of her waistband. “Follow my lead.”
She stepped back into the hall.
Ari and Nia followed behind her, carrying unconscious Dave, with Kyle bringing up the rear.
As they took the first turn in Jasmine’s directions, they encountered a group of seven Protheon workers headed for the same stairwell.
“Stars! What happened to him?” one of the women exclaimed when she saw Dave being carried.
“The alarm must have spooked him,” Kira replied. “I think he tripped and hit his head. We found him on the floor like this.”
The woman’s face dropped. “The elevators are locked down. Can you get him down the stairs?”
“I’ve got him, don’t worry,” Ari said. The soldier took Dave’s full weight, slinging his legs over one arm and cradling his shoulders with the other.
“I’m sure a medic will respond to the alarm,” Kira said to the group of Protheon workers.
“Go on ahead,” a man in the group said, gesturing Kira’s team toward the stairwell.
“Thanks.” Kira ran ahead to prop the door open while Ari carried Dave through.
She exchanged glances with Nia while she passed by with Kyle.
Jasmine said.
They descended the staircase from their current position on the sixth floor. The Protheon facility was like any of the private industry structures Kira had ventured into over her career with the Guard, with sophisticated common areas and emergency stairwells cast in plain concrete with steel stairs. She could have been anywhere, for all the distinguishing features of the stairwell. In some ways, that was a poetic expression of her covert ops activities—same mission, different bad guys, different place.
Despite Ari carrying Dave, the group made fast time on the descent. The Protheon employees were only a few steps behind, so Kira elected to remain silent.
When they reached the bottom of the stairwell, Nia opened the doorway and ushered Ari through, followed by Kira and Kyle.
Kira scanned the lobby, looking for the right place to deposit Dave.
Employees were pouring out of other stairwells into the lobby, and the bank of elevators had a red ‘X’ above each door. Half a dozen employees dressed in orange vests were shouting instructions for people to head outside.
That’s as good a target as any. Kira bobbed her head toward one of the orange-vested women nearest their stairwell, and she broke into a light jog, headed in that direction.
Ari followed her lead.
“He just collapsed!” Kira exclaimed as she approached the target woman with Ari.
The soldier set Dave on the floor.
“Did you see what happened?” the woman asked, concern clouding her face and she looked over Dave’s unconscious form.
“No, but we thought we should get him out of there when we heard the alarm,” Kira said. “I’ll see if I can find a medic. Check over there,” she said to Ari, nodding toward the corner of the lobby opposite their current position.
“Stay with him,” Ari told the woman.
The Protheon worker knelt over Dave while Kira and Ari disappeared into the crowd.
Kira lost sight of her team in an attempt to blend in with the flow of traffic heading outside.
The throng of people flooding from the fourteen-story building directed Kira out through the lobby doors into a well-landscaped pavilion. A fountain filled the center of a circular drive, which led to the main roadway a kilometer to the east.
She blinked in the sudden midday sun—a harsher light there on Dakar than she was used to in her home system.
People gravitated toward a grassy field to the left of the entry driveway, presumably a predetermined evacuation site.
Kira, however, headed toward the left as inconspicuously as she could, toward a pathway that led through an opening between two low hills to the employee parking lot. There was no cover available between Protheon’s entry and the pat
h, but she walked with purpose.
Ten meters ahead, she spotted Kyle and Nia hustling in the same direction.
“You can’t head home. We need to do a roll call!” a man shouted behind Kira.
Kira picked up her pace.
“Hey!”
The man was jogging in her direction. “Meeting area is back this way,” he called.
Kyle and Nia were almost to the pass between the hills. Once inside, they’d be able to disappear.
Kira spotted Ari twelve meters to her right, following the edge of the circular drive. She didn’t notice anyone watching him at the moment, so the best bet was to allow him to make a clean escape.
She stopped. “I already checked in with my floor marshal,” she stated without turning around.
“We need a headcount,” he insisted.
Except I’d be an extra. Kira took a slow breath, noting that Ari was about to pass into the pathway between the hills. “My dog is in my car. I need to walk her,” she said.
“Wha…?”
Kira bolted for the pathway. Her perception shifted so every footstep seemed like it was in slow motion relative to her surroundings. She looked back over her shoulder and saw the man raising his hands in frustrated protest, but the movement was barely perceptible.
She returned her focus ahead and ran. Though the world around her didn’t seem to move, each of her steps was at a normal running pace from her vantage. In what seemed like six seconds, she caught up to Ari, just as he was rounding the bend in the pathway between the hills where he would be hidden from the pursuer.
Kira returned to normal speed. Her heart pounded in her ears—not from exertion, but from exhilaration.
Ari did a double-take when she appeared next to him. “How did you get here so fast?”
“Putting my new abilities to use. Come on, we need to hurry.” She continued running alongside him at a brisk pace.
Kyle and Nia were waiting at the entrance to the employee parking lot.
“We’ll be all over the security footage,” Kyle muttered as soon as Kira was within earshot.
“And they won’t be able to connect us to anything, aside from the mock profiles behind our forged credentials. That’s precisely why we had visitor badges,” she replied.
“I’m going to vote against future ops where we have to dress like this,” Nia said with a downward glance of distaste at her attire.
“Agreed.” Ari flexed in his business suit. “We’re supposed to be covert ops, not playing dress-up and impersonating people.”
Kira sighed. “It’s not like this was the first time we’ve done this.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I got used to being shot at,” Nia replied. “And getting to shoot back.”
“That’s definitely more fun,” Ari agreed.
“That’s precisely what’s going to happen if you keep standing here and complaining. Move!” Kira shooed them toward the back of the parking lot, where their stealthed shuttle was waiting for them.
As they approached the shuttle, Kyle made entries on his wrist controls to open the back hatch. They piled inside. Kyle and Nia went to the cockpit while Kira and Ari strapped into the back.
“So, things didn’t go quite as we planned, but we got what we came for,” Kira commented.
“Glad it’s your job to explain that to Sandren,” Nia said while she powered up the shuttle.
“It won’t be an issue,” Kira assured her team. At least, I hope not.
The problem was, Kira wasn’t sure she wanted it to go away. She decided to keep that notion to herself.
The shuttle lifted off from the ground and launched into space.
Stealthed in orbit, the Raven was awaiting their return. The shuttle slipped into its berth in the belly of the larger ship.
“Good work, team,” Kira said while disembarking the shuttle. “I’ll see you after my debrief with Major Sandren.”
“I’m telling you, he’s going to be pissed,” Nia said with a slow shake of her head.
Kira shrugged. “Maybe, but I doubt it.”
“Here’s the drive.” Kyle handed their bounty to her. “Hope it goes well.”
“Thanks. See you in a few.”
Kira jogged toward the ladder that led up from the bay to the deck housing the galley, living quarters, and Sandren’s office.
“What the fok was that alarm about?” Sandren demanded as soon as Kira’s head cleared the floor of the ladder shaft.
She gulped. Okay, so maybe this won’t be as easy a conversation as I thought.
CHAPTER 2
“Hello, sir.” Kira finished scaling the ladder and then clasped her hands behind her back.
“My office. Now.” Major Sandren stormed down the corridor.
Kira asked Jasmine.
Kira wasn’t particularly eager to find out. She followed the major into his office and closed the door.
Sandren stood behind his desk, resting his hands on the back of his chair while leaning forward. “Please explain to me how and why you evacuated the entire facility that you were supposed to be in and out of without causing any disturbance?”
Kira took a slow breath and met his gaze. “Well, sir, we had to abandon the original plan as soon as we got inside. Our badges got us through the front door just fine, but when we reached the communications room, it was occupied.”
“Dealing with one individual should be well within your skillset.”
“Yes, sir.” She nodded. “He was belligerent, but we easily subdued him. I glanced at his mind and quickly determined he didn’t know anything pertinent to our mission, so we bound and gagged him. Nia and Kyle proceeded to retrieve the information.”
“What about the alarm?” Sandren prompted.
“We got some unexpected additional company, so I improvised.”
The major wiped his hand down his face. “Captain, going from one bound individual to triggering an evacuation alarm for a whole building isn’t just improvising—it’s changing the whole foking plan!”
“The more people who came to question us, the quicker our cover would have fallen apart. The fastest way to get out was to blend in with the many other people who were leaving.”
“Except you were seen parting ways from the group of evacuees. Plus, we had very intentional reasons for sending you in the way we did. This disturbance upset plans beyond this one operation.”
Kira looked down. “You didn’t inform me about those other activities, sir.”
He glared at her. “I shouldn’t have to. If you had followed orders, it wouldn’t have been relevant.”
“With all due respect, sir, plans need to change on the fly more often than not. If there were critical activities tangential to this op, then telling me would have allowed me to make a more informed decision.”
Sandren sighed. “Kira, I know this has been a difficult month and a half for you, but your new abilities don’t entitle you to break the rules. We have a chain of command and mission orders for a reason. Consider this your official warning.”
Kira took a deep breath. “Yes, sir. Understood.”
“I expect your full written report in four hours. Dismissed.” Sandren sat down in his chair with a huff.
She exited the major’s office and then headed for the washroom. The only thing worse than getting reprimanded by her superior officer was having it happen while she was out of uniform. Getting back into her shipsuit was top priority.
Just as she touched the washroom door’s handle, the hallway lights flickered.
“The fok…?” Kira froze.
The lights flickered again.
Kira quickly opened the door and raced into the washroom.
The three members of her team were drying off in the showers.
“Don’t suppose you saw the lights flicker?” Kyle asked.
“It was doing it in the hall, too,” Kira confirmed. “Power fluctuations ship-wide.”
“I told you it wasn’t the steam messing with the overhead fixture!” Nia ran toward her locker.
“Get dressed,” Kira encouraged her team. “It might be nothing, but if we have an issue, we need to be prepared.”
“Foking great.” Ari ran for his own locker.
Kyle followed suit.
“How’d it go with Sandren?” Nia asked while she dressed.
“Fine,” Kira replied, grabbing her shipsuit. “We’ll get in our mission reports and explain what happened.”
Nia eyed her. “He was pissed, wasn’t he?”
Kira kept her gaze focused inside her locker. “We accomplished our mission.”
“Yep, thought so.” Nia finished securing her shipsuit and closed her locker door. “I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up if the ship is rapidly decompressing.”
