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Ansa dropped her arm from around Cade’s shoulder and grabbed his wrist-comp with her free gloved hand, her gun dipping toward his feet. He tried to pull away.
“Unh Unh.” Ansa raised the muzzle into his side. “You’re not keeping that. I’m not taking chances.”
He stopped resisting and let her take it. The device was his last hope of contacting Space City, but it wasn’t worth getting shot over.
She threw his wrist-comp on the ground several meters away and put a few rounds in it. He stared with remorse at the debris until she nudged him with her gun.
“Double time, princess,” she ordered, motioning toward the facility.
He strode toward the entrance, keeping a wary eye on the Malsain as he passed them. Neither had lowered their weapons. He was half-afraid they’d shoot him from behind.
“Why are we not killing him?” the dark green Malsain asked. “He’s a liability.”
“Epnis, we don’t need to kill everyone we encounter on a job,” Ansa said.
“It’s warranted here,” Epnis replied. “He’s a cripple. He’s got nothing to offer. Keeping him alive is an unnecessary risk.”
Cade bristled at the name, and also that she’d spotted his limp so easily.
“Epnis, Zethys, lower your weapons,” Ansa demanded. “We’re taking him with us. I won’t tolerate any further insubordination.”
The shorter, pale yellow-green Malsain licked the air with its forked tongue but didn’t touch the glass face of its helmet. Were the two debating whether to take him and Ansa both out right now?
Several seconds passed before they lowered their weapons. Cade breathed a sigh of relief. He had a feeling that the wrong word or move from him might end with one of them accidentally shooting him.
“Let’s go,” Ansa growled as she prodded him in the back with the muzzle of her gun.
Only their flashlights, which Ansa and the Malsain attached to the tops of their guns, lit up the facility as they entered. Aluminum trunks, equipment, and other debris littered a long, dark hallway, as if people had abandoned stuff as they fled. As he considered it, Cade supposed they probably had.
He gave everything they passed a wide berth, afraid of tearing his suit on an unseen jagged edge and exposing himself to radiation.
The lighter-scaled Malsain pulled out a square device similar in shape to a wrist-comp, but larger. Its screen glowed, lighting the Malsain’s face—a female he believed—through the faceplate. A half-dozen yellowish scars marred her right eye, left cheek, and her neck.
“The engine is one floor up,” she said, taking the lead.
“Are you here to steal the AED antimatter engine?” Cade asked. Why hadn’t he guessed that earlier? Even a prototype would sell for a high profit.
“Salvage it,” Ansa corrected. “The AED hired us to retrieve it and anything else of value not ruined in the explosion.”
“Why hire you?” he asked. “Why not send their own employees?”
“They wanted people who could get what they needed and not ask stupid questions.”
He got the hint. It also confirmed the AED were conducting illegal activities.
They marched up a flight of stairs, soon coming across gaping holes in the walls. The ruptured remains of equipment littered the floors all around them. Several blockages forced them to detour through the holes into offices and labs strewn with debris.
As they waded through the wreckage, Cade searched for weapons, or comm equipment he might use to send out a distress signal, or places that might serve as hiding spots if he escaped. He wished Ansa hadn’t destroyed his wrist-comp so he could check the radiation levels inside the facility.
Before long they reached a bright lab with most of the roof blown away and a good size chunk of the floor gone, too. The light from Equuleus shining through the hole in the floor illuminated everything. The telltale signs of an artificial magnetic barrier sealed off the hole in the floor. Another secured the hole in the ceiling. That’s how the facility’s artificial gravity is still operational.
Blackened scorch marks and soot covered everything in the lab. Most of the equipment appeared ruined beyond repair, either destroyed in the initial explosion or burned up in a subsequent fire.
“This is it,” the scarred Malsain called to them, standing over a twisted machine along one side.
“Good work, Zethys,” Ansa said, hurrying over to the Malsain.
The antimatter engine was smaller than Cade expected, no more than a four-by-four black box with one side blown out. It must’ve been a prototype engine. It couldn’t fly any spacecraft with passengers. Perhaps it could power rovers or smallsats.
“The magnetic containment for the engine core cracked,” Zethys said, inspecting the engine. “That likely caused the explosion.”
“Meaning?” Ansa asked.
“It’s not reusable.”
Ansa clucked her tongue in disappointment. “Let’s take it, anyway.”
“We won’t be able to carry it. Too heavy.”
“I’ve found help for that,” Epnis said from across the lab. She returned with a large AED robot on wheels. It had thick metallic rods for arms and legs and resembled a mechanical power lifter.
Zethys pressed her device against the side of the robot for a moment, then studied the screen. “It’s an AED hauling droid, model: FG746W29Z. It should be able to handle the antimatter engine based upon its specs.”
She ordered it to do so, and the droid’s arms reached out and grabbed the engine, hoisting it easily.
“That thing could be worth some money, too,” Epnis said, studying the droid.
“Forget selling it,” Ansa said. “Think what we could carry with that thing on future missions. Let’s see what else of value we can find in here.”
I thought you weren’t stealing, Cade thought. Then another thought occurred to him. “Why didn’t AED take the engine with them when they cleared out all personnel? Why send you later to pick it up?”
Epnis pointed her gun at him again. “I’m telling you, we should kill him.”
“I’ll handle it.” Ansa marched over, raising her gun and holding it before his faceplate. His eyes locked onto the hole in the gun’s barrel, and chills rippled through him.
“Keep talking and I’m going to throw you out the hole in the floor,” she warned. “Leave you as part of the wreckage orbiting this star.”
“O... Okay,” he gulped.
She kept the gun in his face a few seconds longer, perhaps to underscore the threat, before resuming her search of the lab. The Malsain joined her, ignoring him.
Why did she snap at his questions about AED hiring her? What was she hiding?
Whatever the answer, staying in their hands was dangerous for him. He searched for anything that might assist his escape. As he passed a desk along one wall, he spotted a wrist-comp strap sticking out from beneath an overturned drawer. He retrieved it. The wrist-comp seemed in good shape.
Would it work? He slipped it into a pocket in his explorer suit for later.