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A half dozen other droids, in various states of destruction from the explosion and fire, lay scattered around the lab.
“If we get them back to the ship, I could fix them,” Zethys said.
“We’ll return for them later,” Ansa said as she motioned for them to follow her out.
They pushed past charred debris, taking care not to puncture their suits. At a couple of points, Cade thought they’d have to retreat. Instead, one of them directed him, at gunpoint, to crawl over or under debris, his heart thudding in his chest until he reached the other side.
Along the way, Ansa peeked into other labs, but didn’t bother searching them.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“If AED hired you to retrieve tech from the facility, didn’t they give you a list of what they wanted and where to locate them?”
“There might be other valuable items not on the list.” She pushed open a door to what turned out to be a utility closet.
“So, you are here to steal.” The world made sense to him again. She had conned AED into sending her here.
“It’s an abandoned facility,” she said, letting the door close with a bang. “Are deep-sea divers stealing when they salvage wrecks in the ocean?”
“Nice justification.” In any situation, she seemed to discern every way to exploit it to her advantage, and she had no qualms doing so.
Up another flight of stairs, they stumbled upon another lab. As they entered, Ansa’s eyes widened and her lips curled into a greedy smile. “This is what we’re looking for.”
A silver coronal mass ejector, mostly assembled, rested in a firing chamber in the floor pointed toward Equuleus. No. The CME was complete, but modified—the barrel shorter and curved outward a bit at the end.
Ansa ignored the CME, instead slinging her rifle over her shoulder as she approached a crate filled with what looked like mobile rocket launchers. A nuclear symbol marked the side of the crate. Dozens of similar crates filled the room.
Were those mobile nuclear launchers? He hadn’t read anything about AED manufacturing weapons, especially not nuclear ones, in the research he’d done on the company. That must be the reason AED was trying to cover up what had happened here. He doubted they were doing so legally.
Ansa picked up a launcher and cradled it in both arms. She carried it to a long, clear tube in the wall no more than a few meters in diameter. Without warning, she pulled the trigger.
“Are you crazy?” He tensed to run, but a cap inside the hole sealed it off. The rocket soared downward and crashed into Equuleus. An explosion rippled across its surface.
Ansa whistled. “These babies will be worth a fortune.”
He couldn’t disagree, but the question was, to whom? Would she let AED know she had recovered more of their tech and charge them an increased payday? Or would she try to sneak it to some other buyer?
Zethys and Epnis lifted other heavy-duty weapons and grenades from other crates. Antimatter engine R&D formed only a piece of the work AED had conducted at the facility. And at least a dozen more facilities like this one were part of the AED swarm surrounding Equuleus. With that size operation, who all were they selling to?
“How did the AED expect you to bring all this back to them?” Cade asked. “In one small ship.”
“They didn’t,” Ansa replied, returning the nuclear launcher to its crate. “They wanted the antimatter engine prototype only. The rest they wanted covered up, so they paid us to blow up the facility and crash into the sun. We’ve already wired up explosives at strategic points.”
His skin crawled at the mention of explosives. He hoped none of them had made a mistake setting them up.
“If we can get more of those droids working, they can haul these crates back to the ship,” Ansa said to Zethys.
The Malsain left the lab.
Between retrieving the antimatter engine, the droids, and all these weapons, Ansa’s ship would overflow. Even then, they’d have to leave plenty of valuable tech behind or have no room for themselves. Or an extra passenger. Especially one who knew what they’d stolen.
It was time to find an escape.
While Ansa and Epnis searched crates, Cade eased back toward the open door, peeking out into the hallway for any sign of Zethys.
Hoping she’d been gone a while, he ducked out into the dark hallway and activated his night vision on his contacts. Striding quickly but taking care to remain silent, he moved deeper into the facility and away from where Zethys likely went to retrieve the droids. He debated returning to his ship, but didn’t know how long it would take him to repair it, if he could. He needed another way to escape.
Before long he found an elevator. He tapped the call button, not expecting anything since the facility lacked power, but he tried anyway.
Shouts from behind alerted him that Ansa and Epnis had noticed his disappearance. Thudding boots swept closer. This time he knew they’d shoot first.
Across the hall, a ladder well ran up through the ceiling and down through the floor. He abandoned the elevator, crossed to the ladder, and descended. At the next floor he debated getting off but decided to put more floors between him and Ansa. As he neared the third-floor landing, a cry of rage from above preceded gunfire. He fell out of the well to the floor, clapping his hands over his ears.
They had shot at him!
He checked himself, but didn’t see any wounds. Not even a nick to his suit.
They’d actually shot at him!
It was one thing to expect it, quite another to experience bullets flying past him.
He scrambled to his feet, knowing they’d be down the ladder in seconds. He had to find somewhere to hide.