southern satellite array and took the EMP disk Chace handed her. She peeked around the clunky box and visually measured the distance between her and the knockout fence. It reached high toward the brightening sky, separating Glory’s dregs from off-worlders and the very small population who had enough money to buy their way inside the gray-walled spaceport beyond it.
“Watch that guard tower,” she said to Hauch.
“I’m watching it,” he said, which was about all he could do with the pulse-pistol in his hand. They weren’t accurate at this range, and even if he hit his target, the pulse wouldn’t be strong enough to do much more than give the guard a good shock. Hauch had insisted on bringing the nonlethal weapons though. He wasn’t comfortable with killing someone who was just doing their job.
Ash had to remind herself that she wasn’t comfortable with it either. Fortunately, Hauch didn’t object to bringing their Covars as backup. If Scius’s dregs found Mira before Ash did, she’d kill the bastards, no hesitation.
Ash glanced at her comm-cuff one last time, hoping Mira had grown a brain and returned her message, but no new communications lit up the screen.
They were doing this.
She looked up at the tower again. Its soot-stained facade was the closest part of the huge, star-shaped spaceport. Each of the star’s five points contained a landing platform and terminal. This one, Terminal E, was, according to Chace, deserted aside from the two guards stationed in the tower. He’d made entry sound easy. He’d better be right.
She waited until both guards looked away, then she sprinted the distance to the knockout fence. Ten meters before she reached it, she launched the EMP disk. It hit and stuck to the metal latticework, then flashed with a blue spark that split into a thousand tiny fingers and exploded outward.
With perfect timing, Ash jumped. Her fingers hooked into the fence just after the sparks flickered out. It took only seconds to reach the top, swing over it, then drop to the ground on the other side.
Ash sprinted to the tower, then pressed her back to the wall beside the door. Power glitches were common on planets like Glory, but standard procedure would be to send someone down to check the perimeter.
Seconds ticked by. They turned into minutes. Ash didn’t move, but a tendril of uneasiness snaked up her spine. The spaceport’s guards would be underpaid and corrupt as hell, but surely their job performance wasn’t this bad.
She eyed the door handle. She had a breach disk, but it would be loud. The guards would call for help before—
The door opened. Ash shot the man before he stepped outside.
Profanity signaled a second guard. Ash darted inside, knocked the weapon from his hand, and shot him too.
He dropped with a loud thud.
She looked at both unconscious men. Neither one had been at the top of the tower. There were more than two guards stationed there.
Suppressing a curse, she sprinted up the spiral staircase. At the top, two men stood with their backs to her, scanning the knockout fence with sight magnifiers.
Ash’s pulse-pistol hadn’t recharged enough to drop another person so soon. She swung it into the back of the nearest guard’s head. He went limp just as the man next to him turned.
Ash slammed the pistol into his face. He stumbled backward, still conscious, and tried to draw his weapon.
Ash hook-punched his jaw. He fell unmoving on top of his companion.
After a signal to Hauch and Chace, Ash quick-tied both guards, then moved to the security console. Someone had triggered the power reboot. Ash interrupted the command, pulled up the source code, then rearranged the startup sequence. Security cameras would stay down for another three minutes.
By the time she ran back down the steps, Hauch and Chace were inside.
“Just two guards?” she said.
“It’s usually two guards,” he said, giving her an assessing look. “You move fast.”
She’d always been quick, but now she had training, experience, and a body amped by the anomaly program’s booster chem.
She let his bad intel go and helped him and Hauch secure the first two guards she’d dropped.
Hauch moved to the door at the tower’s base and placed a breach disk over the internal locking mechanism.
“Boom in three,” he called, sidestepping two paces.
Three seconds passed and the charge detonated, blowing a perfectly round circle the size of a fist into the door.
Hauch yanked it open and Ash swung inside, recharged pulse-pistol raised.
“Clear,” she said, scanning the long corridor.
They jogged down the dark hall, passing trash bins and dead floor scrapers, until they reached a broken door. It hung from one hinge, bent in the middle despite being made from recycled ship hulls.
The musty smell of mildew tickled her nose when she stepped past it and into the terminal. Gray fungus clung to cracks between floor tiles and crawled up graffitied walls and empty kiosks. Half the frosted windows in the arched ceiling were broken. Sunlight filtered through the jagged openings, casting shadows over ripped chairs and couches.
Glass crunched underfoot as Ash led the way across the deserted terminal. A minute, maybe two, and they’d be outside where they could join the mob of Gloridians and off-worlders.
When they reached the opposite end, Hauch muttered, “This is too easy.”
Ash didn’t like it either. In her experience, the smoother an op went, the bigger it blew up in your face.
“You thinking ambush in the marketplace or at the platform?”
“The platform will be more isolated,” Hauch said.
“Yeah,” Chace agreed, “but Scius loves human shields.” He used the sleeve of his longcoat to clean the dust off a small section of a window.
“He’d provoke the oligarchs if he disrupts ’port operations,” Ash said.
“Scius doesn’t give a damn about the oligarchs.”
She paused with her hand on the door. Glory’s bosses had been accruing power for decades, but they tended to leave the planet’s government buildings and spaceports alone, giving the oligarchs the illusion that they ran things. If the bosses started to inconvenience the oligarchs though, the oligarchs could, theoretically, call in Coalition support. They hadn’t yet because they profited from the corrupt balance of power.
“Let’s hope today isn’t the day he chooses to piss them off then.” She opened the door.
All thoughts of Scius and the oligarchs fled when the stench hit her. The alley reeked of sewer and toxic waste oils. When Chace had said this part of the terminal wouldn’t be guarded, she’d had her doubts. Now she understood why no one watched the alley.
She breathed through her mouth, walking quickly, eager to escape the nauseating fumes. When she spotted the crowded market, she tucked her pulse-pistol into a holster beneath her longcoat. Hopefully, the stench wouldn’t stick to them. They needed to blend in with the crowd, not have the crowd shun them.
She pretended to be engrossed in one of the huge displays that hung over an entrance to another ’port terminal. It made it plausible that she’d wandered away from the swarm of people. She rejoined them casually, her gaze still locked on the screen. The market wasn’t usually packed like O2 tanks into a too-small freighter, but the minute people spotted the tachyon capsule’s huge, ugly oval in the sky, they flocked to the spaceport. Merchants fought for the best spots in the rows of kiosks that combed through the market’s center.
Ash was about to change her route and cut down an aisle when the giant display switched to the latest interstellar news download.
The picture flickered several times, a side effect of outdated tech trying to swallow the gargantuan amount of data the capsule force-fed the planet. When the picture finally settled, Javery filled the screen.
The view zoomed out, showing the planet and its moons and the Saricean warships strategically distributed through the star system.
Ash’s chest felt like it was filled with bruidium. She pried her gaze away, but she couldn’t refocus her mind. There were more Saricean ships than there had been in the last update. The Sariceans were after Javery’s thrysite, a rare mineral they used to build their new tachyon drive. The technology allowed individual ships to travel via time-bend, and it was the reason Jevan Valt had intercepted her team’s shuttle, murdered her brothers, and left her kneeling in five expanding pools of blood, telepathically silenced.
And the bastard was still alive, sitting in a prison on Caruth.
A woman stopped in front of her, and a man veered abruptly out of her way. Others glanced at her face, then found other things to look at.
She filled her lungs with air, slowly let it out, and erased the tear-down-the-universe expression from her face. She couldn’t strangle Valt right now, and she couldn’t do anything to help Rykus or his home world, not until she met with Neilan Tahn.
Besides, her fail-safe was the hero of Gaeles Minor. His father was Javery’s Grand General. They knew what they were doing, and if the Sariceans tried anything, they would send the enemy straight to hell.
“Take a left,” Chace said, sliding through the crowd to walk beside her. Hauch strode on her other side, scowling up at the billboard.
Ash had neutralized her expression, so she received fewer sidelong looks, but now eyes followed Hauch instead. He towered over nearly every other person in the market.
“Seeker’s God, Hauch, slouch or something,” she said.
He frowned. “You want to find Mira, don’t you?”
“I want to find her without painting a big fat target on us. Blend in.”
The frown turned into a glare. He rolled his shoulders forward and bent at the waist.
Chace cursed beside her, and Ash stared.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked.
“Slouching.”
“That’s not a slouch, that’s… Never mind. I changed my mind. Do your thing, but do it over there. You’re the perfect decoy. Not a soul will notice me and Chace.”
“All right,” he said, “but do you want to know I found her now, or do you want me to yell it from twenty meters away?”
Of course he’d spotted her.
“Don’t get smug,” she said. “Where is she?”
“Forty degrees. I can give you a boost.”
She punched his arm.
“Careful,” he admonished. “You might draw attention.” With his self-satisfied smile firmly in place, he veered right, easily cutting a path through the crowd. Ash followed, an uneasy sort of contentment spiraling through her chest. She’d had this friendly banter with her previous team. She’d grown used to them, let them get past her defenses. Let them become family.
And she’d let them die.
No, damn it.
She pushed away the guilt, the oppressive regret. It hadn’t been her fault. She had to stop focusing on the past and focus instead on the present. She would get Mira safely to the capsule, then she would shake Neilan Tahn out of the stars.
They reached a break in the line of kiosks, and Ash followed Hauch’s line of sight. She spotted Mira near the entrance to platform C. The sign above the check-in desk said a TessonPense transport had landed one minute ago.
Huh. TessonPense. That was the same company that—
Mira spotted them. Quickly she turned back to the platform agent and swiped a finger across her comm-cuff to send her ID.
The man stared too long at his own cuff, then he looked up and to his left. A trio of determined-looking men approached.
Damn it.
“Got one on my right,” Hauch said beside her. “Strike that. Two. Pincher maneuver.”
“Take them,” Ash said. “Chace, you’re with me.”
Hauch split off toward his two targets.
Ash dodged through the crowd, shoving people who didn’t move quickly enough. The trio had almost reached Mira. Ash had to get to her before Scius’s dregs did and before they or the agent hit the button for the security barrier that would cut the platform entrance off from her and the market.
The agent’s gaze found her. He reached toward the console.
Ash drew her pulse-pistol and fired. Re-aimed at the trio—
One got a shot off before she dropped him. It hit someone in the crowd behind her.
Ash strode forward, shot at a second dreg, but he dove behind the check-in counter.
The third man lunged for Mira.
Ash’s shot hit him, but her pulse-pistol needed time to recharge. He didn’t go down, and now he had Mira as a shield.
He reached toward the console.
Ash sprinted forward the same instant Chace did.
The dreg tapped the screen. A red warning light flashed above their heads and an alarm blared once.
Twice.
Ash dove over the yellow line marking the security barrier.
The alarm wailed a third time before the barrier shot up fast behind her and Chace.
Too damn close.
Ash rose to a knee and drew her Covar. The dreg backed away with Mira, angling toward the opening in the back wall.
“Don’t move,” Ash ordered. Neither the dreg nor Mira listened. Ash couldn’t get a clean shot.
Then Mira dropped her weight down. The dreg’s gaze followed her. He must have tried to lift her back to her feet because suddenly she surged upward. The top of her head clipped the man’s chin. She rammed her elbow into his gut and tried to slip free.
He kept hold of her, but there was just enough of a target…
Ash fired.
The dreg fell.
Mira stumbled into the back wall. She leaned against it, breathing hard, then stared down at the unmoving man.
Ash rose. The security barrier behind her blocked their exit back to the marketplace. It left them in a small room with the only way out being the narrow opening beside Mira, which would lead them to the landing platform.
Ash glanced at the console. She could bring the barrier back down. It should only take a minute.
The voice-link hooked over her ear clicked on.
“Status?” Hauch demanded.
“We’re okay. You—”
“Good,” Hauch said. “Find another way out. Security is swarming toward you.”
“You need help?” She could hear him breathing hard, moving quickly.
“No. They’re after you. Get out.”
“We’ll meet at—”
“You need to get back to the Corps.”
Not yet, she didn’t. She strode toward Mira.
“You hear me, Ashdyn?”
“Yeah. I hear you.” She ended the transmission and stepped over the dead dreg.
Mira looked up.
“You’re an idiot,” Ash said as she passed.
“The agent was helping me.”
“You think so,” Ash said with zero inflection in her voice. She entered the short hallway. The landing platform lay on the other side, a large hexagon with protective walls to either side of her. The opposite side was wide open with a drop of at least fifty meters, and in the hex’s center sat the TessonPense transport.
The thing was old, its underside slightly warped from thousands of atmospheric entries. Steam vented from the craft’s cooling and stabilization cylinders. The internal enviro should balance out soon, and the crew would begin unloading freight onto the conveyor belt beside the craft. That belt led underground to the network of tunnels where the cargo would be sorted, then sent to delivery vehicles.
“We’ll get out on the belt,” Ash said.
She started across the platform, Mira and Chace close behind. They were halfway to the cargo tunnel when the transport’s bay door began to lower. Not a major problem—the crew should mind their own business—but a low hum made her spine stiffen.
It was the sound of an approaching ship. It wasn’t unusual to hear that at a spaceport, but the trajectory didn’t feel right. Commercial spacecraft entered atmospheres over the ocean. This one came from behind them.
“Run!” Ash yelled.
Too late. Strafing bullets cut across their path as a Kataran light raider roared overhead. It air-braked when it reached the other end of the platform, then rotated its guns toward them.
Ash changed course and sprinted for the nearest cover: the transport’s landing gear.
She kept herself between Mira and the raider. Bullets struck her twice. Her longcoat kept one from breaking skin. The other passed through and embedded into a rib.
Ash ignored the injury, shoved Mira toward the landing gear, and drew her Covar. It wouldn’t do anything against the raider, but the small attack craft had descended almost level with the platform. A door opened. The dregs would charge out soon.
Definitely Scius’s people. The bastard was determined to take her alive. Make her an example. Make her suffer.
She wouldn’t let that happen.
Bullets pinged off the landing gear and pelted the ground to either side, keeping her, Mira, and Chace pinned.
Ash looked up. The gap between the landing gear and the transport’s hull wasn’t big, but the three of them should fit.
“I’m going up,” she said. It was one hell of a jump to reach the edge of the opening, but she should be able to make it.
She bent at the knees, then funneled everything she had into her legs.
She caught it! One hand slipped off, but she managed to hold on. She breathed through the pain in her side, hauled herself up—
And nearly had her head blown off.
She scurried behind a wall of crates. Bad idea. She was cornered, and some asshole kept firing at her.
What the hell was this? It wasn’t unusual for cargo crews to be armed, but these people were efficient. They’d identified the transport’s vulnerability and positioned themselves to take her out.
Ash tried to call out, to tell them she wasn’t with the raiders and to lower their fucking weapons, but they couldn’t hear her over the sounds of battle.
Damn it, she didn’t want to kill these people.
She was crouching behind the makeshift wall of crates, trying to decide on a course of action, when the crew stopped shooting. She realized her mistake the second something thumped behind her.
She spun, tried to bring up her Covar to aim, but pain shot through her arm and the gun went flying.
She went for the knife at her thigh.
A vise locked around her wrist, digging fingers between her tendons.
She swung her other hand toward her attacker’s face.
He caught that too.
Ash was one second away from kneeing him to oblivion when she recognized the face staring back at her.
“Rip?”