Fourteen minutes had passed by the time the top of the elevator shaft appeared. I wasn’t sure what would happen if the power died while I was on the elevator and I really didn’t want to find out.
When the elevator platform came even with the bottom of the door, I hesitantly removed my thumb from the button. The elevator stopped and I breathed a silent sigh of relief. We hadn’t plummeted to our death the last time, but then Ian had been at the controls. I still half expected to fall.
I unlatched the doors and pulled them open a few centimeters. The hallway beyond appeared empty. Ian’s concern had been well-founded but unnecessary. I listened in on the signals I could hear, but the teams on this floor had gone silent.
I eased out into the tunnel. There were three gates between me and the next set of elevators. The tunnel wasn’t perfectly straight, so I couldn’t see any of the gates from here. Several dark doorways lined either side of the main passage, smaller tunnels that led into the maze of the mine. I couldn’t possibly clear them all.
If I was setting up an ambush to capture rather than kill, I’d position a few soldiers in the side tunnels to come in from behind and trap us against the main force of soldiers. It would also prevent us from retreating.
I set off slowly, keeping a mental ear on the wireless signals, searching for Ian’s specific signature or for soldiers trying to flank me, but everything stayed quiet.
The codebreaker opened the first gate in less than ten seconds. I wondered if the stairwell had locked doors, and if so, how Ian planned to get through them. I really should’ve asked more questions instead of letting that kiss scramble my brain. I left the gate open.
A few meters farther down the tunnel, a flurry of messages spiked through my head. The virus had been loose for a little less than ten minutes. The cybersecurity team was trying to get ahead of it and not having a lot of success.
Thirty seconds and several messages later, the lights went out. My smart glasses adjusted, then adjusted again when the intermittent emergency lighting came on. Vast sections of the hallway were now bathed in shadow.
Coms went down and silence rang in my head. An emergency evacuation alarm went off, stopped, then went off again. I chuckled. I’d never seen this particular virus in use, but it was even better than advertised. I’d have to send my contact a bonus for a job well done.
I moved toward the next gate, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. Various alarms went off and were silenced, but the coms didn’t come back up. The second gate appeared in the distance. As I approached, I caught the whisper of a com signal. Someone was transmitting nearby, but no one was responding.
I crept forward, trying to determine the location. Dark spots flashed in my vision. I was using my dubious gift too much and paying for the effort. Pain was my constant companion, but I needed every edge I could get.
I peeked into the next tunnel and found a soldier, com to his ear. I’m not sure who was more surprised, him or me, but I recovered faster and shot first. I’d been aiming for center mass, but I must’ve pulled it at the last second. The soldier fell dead, a perfect shot through the middle of his head.
Well, that was my allotment of luck for this century.
That proved true a second later when the soldier behind him shot me twice with a stun pistol before I even realized she was there. I went down with a scream of agony. I clung to consciousness by the tiniest of threads. Stun pistols packed less of a wallop than stunsticks, but my brain implant still did not appreciate the jolt.
“You stupid bitch! You killed Katz!” Her steel-toed boot to my stomach drove the breath from my lungs. She pulled back for another kick, but a third soldier stopped her. “Imbor wants her alive!” he said.
“Imbor can fuck off,” she growled, struggling.
The male soldier shook her. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, Private. Now help me cuff her before she regains muscle control.”
The private rolled me over none too gently and drove a knee into my spine. I couldn’t prevent my groan. She wrenched my arms around and secured them behind my back. My left arm throbbed with pain as the blaster wound reopened.
“You’re a dead woman,” she whispered into my ear.
She would have to get in line.
The male soldier searched me and took my blaster, smart glasses, and codebreaker. He left my inactive shielding cuff, thinking it jewelry. It dug into my arm above the restraints, but the pain meant I still had one form of protection if I needed it.
The man picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder. Blood rushed into my head and his shoulder dug into my bruised stomach. If I vomited on him he was totally going to deserve it.
He moved briskly down the tunnel. Without my glasses, I couldn’t accurately judge time, but it felt like just a few minutes. If I remembered correctly, the second and third gates were fairly close together.
At least eight soldiers filled the hallway, standing in a pool of light. “Is that the woman?” a male voice asked. “Where are the man and the miner?”
“She was alone,” the female who kicked me said.
I was unceremoniously dumped on the floor. I climbed to my feet and marched for the far elevators, the ones leading up to the base.
An older man grabbed my injured arm in a tight grip and spun me around. He sneered at me. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I think I’m getting you all to face away from the tunnel I just arrived through, I thought to myself. Out loud, I said, “I am returning to the base to contact MineCorp. That crazy son of a bitch I hired shot me! Me! He’ll never work again once my supervisors hear about this.”
Keep talking. My brain caught the signal before I even realized who it was from. Ian was nearby.
“And you all can kiss your jobs good-bye, too,” I said, my voice rising. “Who attacks a MineCorp representative? Don’t you know who I am? That bitch who stunned and kicked me is first in line for firing. She should be happy that I don’t demand her head. Release me this instant!”
The soldier holding my arm released me and everyone else laughed, but it had a tinge of uneasiness. Command might’ve said I was a fake, but my tone and accent said I was high class. I just needed to sow enough doubt to keep them distracted.
Keep talking and don’t move.
I mentally rolled my eyes. Like I was going anywhere. I launched into another tirade. “I’m going to demand that MineCorp immediately revoke all House Rockhurst contracts. You clearly cannot be trusted—”
The heat of a blaster bolt seared my left side. The soldier who had grabbed me dropped to the ground. The other soldiers in the hallway soon followed. Only two had managed to get shots off.
“Time to go, princess,” Ian said, stepping out of the shadows.
My whole body sagged in relief. “Can you find the key to the cuffs?”
“No need.” Ian popped the plastech cuffs open with his bare hands, which should have been impossible. I was beginning to think the word didn’t apply to Ian. But when he touched my wounded arm, his grip was gentle.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Is Ferdinand? Where is Ferdinand?” I looked Ian over, checking for injuries. He didn’t have any obvious wounds, but his shirt was soaked with sweat—what do you know, he was human after all.
“We’re both fine. Ferdinand is a little way back. Thanks to your virus, we’re going to have to go up the stairs. Can you do it?”
“Yes,” I said. “Can you? How did you get up here so fast?”
His grin was sin and temptation. “Stamina.”
A frisson of heat wove through me. “I see your ego didn’t take any damage,” I said with a laugh. “Go get my brother while I find my stuff.”
I retrieved my stuff from the soldier who had searched me. Thanks to the smart glasses I could see the gate to the elevators in the distance. I kept an eye on it, but nothing moved. Based on the number of soldiers here, this was the sum total of everyone they’d sent down.
Ian returned with Ferdinand draped over his shoulders.
“Think they’ll send a squad down the stairs?” I asked.
Ian shrugged. “Maybe. It seems like your virus is causing enough chaos that they’ll try to deal with that first, though. Have you heard anything from Aoife?”
“No. Coms are down. I only heard you because you were close.”
“Do you have a plan for once we reach the base level?”
“Keep climbing,” I said. “If the ship is still there, we take that. If not, we steal something.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
Ian set a grueling pace and I kept up out of sheer stubbornness. When I slowed, he took my hand and pulled me up a few floors until I recovered a little. He hadn’t been joking—his stamina seemed inexhaustible.
When he stopped a floor below the top, I nearly collapsed in gratitude. My lungs burned, my stomach burned, my legs burned. Everything burned. Now that we’d stopped, my legs trembled uncontrollably.
“This is the base level,” he said. “We’ll have to change stairwells to climb to the surface.”
I listened for signals, but the coms were still down. “I don’t know what’s happening up there,” I said. “There could be a platoon of soldiers waiting for us for all I know.”
“Your optimism knows no bounds,” Ian said drily.
I shrugged. “I’m too tired for optimism.”
“Activate your cuff,” Ian said. “We’ll run for the stairs, then run for the ship.”
“What if they left already?”
“Then we’ll improvise. Don’t borrow trouble.”
I nodded and activated my cuff. I promised myself that once this was done, I’d spend a week on the pink sandy beaches of GCD One doing nothing more difficult than sipping a fruity drink with a tiny umbrella in it.
We climbed the last floor to the base level. The codebreaker made short work of the door at the top of the stairwell and the door leading into the main part of the base.
“I’ll cover you while you open the stairwell door to the surface,” Ian said. “It’s just past the elevator.”
I nodded and we lunged into the main hallway. Ian shot the guard at the gate, but more soldiers milled in the hallway beyond. I attached the codebreaker while he laid down suppressing fire.
The door popped open. “Now!” I shouted. We dashed up the stairs. This stairwell was blissfully short compared to the one from the mine, but soldiers streamed in below us, shooting both bolts and stun rounds.
We surprised a quartet of soldiers in the hangar. I shot one and Ian shot three. Outside, Opportunity was in defense mode. Aoife stood on the cargo ramp in combat armor. At least four bodies in spacesuits littered the ground. An atmospheric barrier shimmered over the cargo bay door.
Ian put Ferdinand on his feet. “Bianca, help Ferdinand to the ship. I will be rear guard.” He cut me off before I could protest. “I’ll be right behind you. Remember, the air outside isn’t breathable, so take a deep breath and get moving.”
We didn’t have time to argue, so I slung Ferdinand’s left arm over my shoulder and pulled him into a slow jog that made him grunt with every step. “Deep breath,” I said right before we hit the hangar’s atmospheric barrier.
I sucked in air just as my cuff vibrated and blaster bolts sailed past. The ship was twenty meters out. Ferdinand dragged at me, but I pulled him inexorably forward. My lungs burned with the need to breathe. I gritted my teeth against the instinct.
My cuff vibrated again. I wanted to check on Ian, but if I stopped, I might not start again. Fire burned through my chest. The need to breathe became impossible to ignore. Ten meters.
We crossed into the ship’s shield. Someone had turned off ground protection, so at least we weren’t instantly incinerated.
Five meters.
I blew out some of my precious air, just so my body might think I was breathing and give me a fucking break.
It didn’t work.
Ferdinand coughed and gasped next to me. Aoife stopped shooting long enough to come down the cargo ramp and drag us inside. I wanted to collapse into a coughing fit on the cargo bay floor, but I turned, looking for Ian.
He was still in the hangar, on the ground, surrounded by at least two squads of soldiers, half in helmeted spacesuits.
He’d promised to be right behind me. He’d lied and sacrificed himself. Irrational anger seared away all of my worry and fatigue.
Fuck that noise. He didn’t get to die heroically for me. I was going to explain that to him in great detail using very small words, just as soon as I retrieved his captured ass.
I opened my crate of supplies, looking for my armor, but digging it out wasn’t going to be fast enough. “Aoife, strip. I need your armor. Take Ferdinand and stick to the plan. I’m going after Ian.”
“You can’t,” she said. She reached for the cargo door button.
“Touch that button and I’ll fling myself out the door without a weapon or armor. I’m going, so start fucking helping.”
I grabbed my primary com and a pair of long blasters from my crate. Aoife was half out of her armor, and as she took pieces off, I strapped them on. It would be too tall, but I’d make it work.
Ferdinand tried to stop me, but I batted his hands away. “I have to do this,” I said. “If you keep slowing me down, it’s going to be harder.”
He backed away with a curt nod.
With Ian secure, the soldiers in spacesuits were approaching the ship. “Get Ferdinand to Benedict. I’m trusting you, Aoife,” I said.
She nodded. “Good hunting. Don’t die or Ian will resurrect himself just so he can kill me.”
My feet weren’t all the way in the boots and the face mask was a little higher than ideal, but I’d used oversized armor before. It clamped around me tightly enough that I could make it work. I put my com in the chest compartment and closed the face guard. I didn’t have time for squeamishness.
I strapped one long gun to my back and held the other one with the muzzle pointing down. I activated the external speaker. “Go as soon as I’m on the ground,” I said. “They must not catch you. I’m going to shift blame to Silva. If questioned, do the same.”
“I’ll make you a hole while the door closes. Make use of it. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
I hoped I did, too. If Ian was already dead, I’d personally revive him just so I could yell at him for being a lying bastard.
Aoife started picking off the soldiers. I bounded down the ramp, shooting as I went. I wasn’t nearly as accurate as Aoife, but not too many of the soldiers wanted to take on an armored opponent. They scattered for cover.
I had an extremely narrow window of time where that shock would carry the day. Then they’d armor up and overwhelm me. I had to be gone before that happened.
Once I was clear of the ship’s shield, I brought the suit’s shield up. Aoife’s armor was top of the line and responded beautifully, even with the bad fit. I barreled toward the soldiers who were dragging Ian toward the elevator. If they got him inside, I was done for.
With Ian mostly on the ground, I had a clear line of fire on the soldiers around him. I did not waste the opportunity. After two of them went down, the rest dropped Ian and ran for cover.
Ian did not move.
Dread curled through my belly. Ian wouldn’t give up; he would fight to the end. Was he truly dead?
I skidded to a stop next to him. The suit’s heads-up display detected a faint heartbeat, thready and too fast. Not dead, but seriously injured. I carefully scooped him up in my left arm with the suit’s help. His torso left a bright red smear on the hangar’s floor. He hung limply from my grip.
I spun and checked my options one last time before I decided. Opportunity was gone and I breathed a sigh of relief. Even if my stupidity got me killed, at least Ferdinand had a shot.
A small Rockhurst planet hopper sat outside, covered in a layer of snow. Another small Rockhurst transport ship was parked in the hangar, but it hadn’t been here when we’d arrived. That meant it had likely jumped in more recently than the hopper. Neither would have a sophisticated medbay or FTL drive.
There were no other options. Where in the hell did they keep their military ships?
I would have only one shot at this. If I chose wrong, we were captured at best, dead at worst.
Trusting my instincts, I ran for the ship outside. Ian was inside my shield, but I shot at anything that moved, trying to keep them from returning fire. I couldn’t tell Ian to hold his breath, so I’d have to give him CPR once we were inside. I silently prayed he would hang on.
The cargo ramp was down, and the door opened when I pressed the button. Alarms sounded as unbreathable air came in with us. The ship automatically began a purge as soon as I closed the door. I locked it behind us. It might buy us a few seconds.
Once the air was safe, I laid Ian on the floor and stripped off my gloves and helmet. He wasn’t breathing. I started CPR, pressing his chest and filling his lungs with oxygen.
When he took a shallow breath on his own, I nearly cried. My hands came away red, but I had to get us in the air before I could do more for him.
I pulled out my com and searched for the Rockhurst override codes I’d recently found for Ada. In addition to the six standard codes spanning a dozen years, I had five newer specialized codes I could try.
I started with the standard codes because they were the most likely to work on a nonessential ship like this. The newest standard code didn’t work, nor did the second newest. But the third code, the one from six years ago, gave me administrative access to the ship. How long had it been since they’d serviced this scrap heap?
I changed the override codes, wiped the existing crew, and set myself up as captain. I was conscious of each second that slipped past. I stripped off the rest of my borrowed armor and dropped it carelessly on the ground. I ran for the flight deck.
The ship had some technical name I couldn’t remember. “Computer, plot a course to NAD Seven.”
“Yes, Captain White,” the ship responded. I’d used my secondary identity, just in case.
On the flight deck, I didn’t bother to sit down. I leaned over the captain’s console and checked the flight plan. It was both better and worse than I feared. The bad news was, we’d have to jump twice. The good news was, the FTL was ready to jump now. Any recent von Hasenberg ship could make the trip in a single jump, but this ship was designed with a cheap FTL for hops between relatively close planets.
I told the ship to follow the suggested flight plan, but a warning flashed on-screen. Rockhurst was refusing takeoff permission. Of course they were. I moved to the manual controls and clipped in.
I hadn’t manually flown a ship in a dozen years. This would be fun.
I flipped the switches, overrode the warnings, and pulled back on the controls. The tiny ship shot into the air, far faster than I’d been planning. New warnings blared and I eased back on the controls. Once my stomach climbed out of my feet, I took a shaky breath.
I watched both the console and the forward vid screens, searching for other ships. They had to be out there, but I just needed to clear the atmosphere and then I’d be free to jump.
“Incoming communication,” the ship intoned.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Commander Rockhurst of the Santa Celestia.”
I laughed without humor. Of course Richard Rockhurst would be here. Why wouldn’t he be? The universe fucking hated me today. The Santa Celestia was a Rockhurst battle cruiser capable of blowing me out of the sky without even breaking out the big guns.
Had Opportunity escaped before he’d arrived? They had a little less than an hour before they could jump. If they could get enough distance, they could go dark and make themselves a harder target to hit, but hiding from a battle cruiser was a losing proposition.
“Accept voice-only,” I said.
Richard’s face appeared on-screen. With the trademark Rockhurst blond hair and blue eyes, he was gorgeous—or he had been. We were both twenty-five, but he looked like he’d aged a decade in the few months since I’d last seen him. “Stand down at once and return to XAD Seven,” he demanded.
I adopted the rolling, lilting accent typical of the Silva family. “It is you who should stand down.”
In three minutes, I’d clear the atmosphere. I just had to keep him talking. I pulled back on the controls a little more, pushing the ship to the edge of safety.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“I am no one. A promise fulfilled,” I said, “nothing more. But if you interfere, I will become an enormous problem.”
“You’re from the Syndicate?”
I said nothing. The silence stretched.
“What does the Syndicate want with one of our miners? We would’ve happily negotiated for his release.”
I laughed low. “I know how you negotiate, Commander. MineCorp took something from us. We retrieved it. I regret that so many of your troops failed to stay out of our way, but such is life.”
“Was the other ship the distraction or are you the distraction?” Richard asked.
“Perhaps we are both the distraction. Have your troops reached the mine depths yet, Commander?”
He gestured to someone off camera.
“What will the Syndicate give me for your safe return?”
“You should ask what they will do should I not return safely. That is the far more interesting question.”
“If I let you go, you must do something for me in return.”
“If you let both ships go, the Syndicate will honor one future request from you, free of charge.”
“No, not them. You, personally.”
I chuckled again. “I am no one. You are trading gold for dirt.”
“It is my choice.”
“What do you want?”
“I haven’t decided,” he said, “but can you put a price on two ships and multiple lives? My request will be worthy of that debt.”
Did he know? Could he have possibly guessed who I was? I should promise him whatever he wanted and then break that promise, but even now, I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. Ian’s lifeblood leaked in the cargo bay every second I delayed and even if we jumped, Aoife, Alex, and Ferdinand were trapped for another hour.
“Very well,” I said. “If you look the other way while both of our ships exit your system, I will personally honor one future request from you that will take no longer than a week to complete and must not harm me or mine.”
“How will I contact you?”
“Post a public request for information on a source of gold dragon scales. I will contact you.”
“Very well, my lady. I accept. But if you go back on your word, I will destroy everything you love.” He said it softly but steel laced his tone.
The blood froze in my veins. He knew. If not about Ferdinand, then about me at the very least.
“Why?” I whispered.
“Your family may yet prove useful to me,” he said. Then with an arrogant little smirk, he cut the connection.
I didn’t trust Richard in the least and expected a barrage of fighters from Santa Celestia at any moment, but the ship’s sensors weren’t picking up anything. I couldn’t keep hesitating. I had to trust that Alex and Aoife could take care of Ferdinand.
I released the manual controls and let the ship take over. I checked our flight plan again then pressed the jump confirmation button. The engine noise changed and ramped up for an alarmingly long time before my stomach dropped and we jumped.
I checked our location, then put the ship in what passed for stealth. We would drift for four days before we could jump again.
Now I had to save Ian. I prayed I wasn’t already too late.