by Dan Moren
Kovalic glanced at the hatch. “Let’s say yes?”
“It was the fastest way out of the vault,” said Brody. “Good thing the console let the commander take control of the shaft’s airlock systems and shut down the laser scanning grid, or I would be having a much worse day.” He reached over to offer Sayers a hand up, but she waved him away and pushed herself up the wall, shaking her head.
“You guys are even crazier than I thought.”
“I think that’s what our unit insignia says,” said Brody.
“Hey,” said Kovalic. “Focus.” He walked over to the table where the partially unwrapped Aleph Tablet sat, light glinting off of it. Upon closer inspection, it was a bright silvery metal, utterly smooth and flawless. With a slight thrill, he took it in both hands – maybe it was made by aliens and maybe it wasn’t, but it was sure as hell a part of history. It was surprisingly light in his hands, but dense and solid nonetheless. History: never quite as weighty as you expected it to be. Maybe there was something in that, but now definitely wasn’t the time to ponder it.
“All right,” he said, rewrapping the object and stowing it under his arm. “Let’s get a move on.”
Addy’s breath was still coming loud in her ears, and she prodded gingerly at her throat. I don’t think he did any permanent damage, but that’s going to leave a mark. She reached over and plucked the KO gun from the man’s holster, the tension bleeding out of her shoulders at the familiar weight of a sidearm.
“We get what we came for?” she asked, nodding at the package under Kovalic’s arm.
“Let’s hope so. Otherwise, we just got ourselves in a shitload of trouble over nothing.”
That oughta be my motto. She couldn’t entirely banish the pleased feeling that washed over her. But we’re not out of this yet.
“You won’t get far,” growled a voice, and Addy looked over her shoulder to see Xi, a nasty cut on her forehead, pulling herself up on the security console. She lifted her arm, where one of the bangles was now glowing bright red. “My security teams are all on alert.” Her eyes moved to Addy, and almost softened. “I’m disappointed in you, Adelaide. You could have been something special.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Addy sweetly, “I am.”
“Maybe we should take her with us?” said Brody. “Might help us get past security if we’ve got their boss.”
Xi bared her teeth. “I welcome you to try.”
“Good idea,” said Addy. “Sleep well.” She raised the knockout gun at Xi and fired.
Another flash of a bangled arm and the stun field splashed off harmlessly. Xi grinned, her smile almost feral and flicked her other wrist at Sayers. A small barrage of flechettes zipped forth, but Addy dove out of the way as they implanted in the bulkhead behind her.
Xi rose to her feet, kicking off the heels she’d been wearing, and raised her hands into a fighting stance.
Oh, you want to dance? Addy returned the smile, and stowed the knockout gun in her waistband.
“This isn’t the time to settle scores,” said Kovalic. “She’s stalling until her goons get here – we need to move.”
Addy waved him off. “This won’t take a minute.” More to the point, she was going to enjoy the hell out of it. Like she could be bought with money and promises. Ofeibia Xi was going to learn that there was more to Addy Sayers than something broken that needed fixing.
“Addy,” said Kovalic, and when she glanced over, his gray eyes were serious. “She’s not worth it.”
Her teeth ground together and she fought back the red pulsing at the edges of her vision. It would feel good, she knew, the impact of her knuckles into flesh, but as the throbbing started to fade, she saw it for what she was: another, separate part of her that reveled in the simplicity of violence.
“Yeah,” she said finally, letting out a breath. “Let’s go.” She started backing towards the door to the vault room, Brody and Kovalic flanking her.
With another smile, Xi touched a different bracelet on her wrist and the vault room door slammed closed with the whine of a magnetic seal. “I’m afraid you won’t be going anywhere. My security team has standing orders for just such a situation: they’ll flood the room with a sedative gas and incapacitate all of us.”
Behind Addy, Kovalic cursed as he tried to pry the door open. “She’s locked it down.”
“Oh good,” said Addy, cracking her knuckles. “In that case, I don’t mind having a go. You get that door open.” She launched herself across the room at Xi with a feint-jab combination.
The gangster blocked the strike, then flashed a kick as her dress ruffled. Her heel took Addy in the thigh; there’d be a bruise there tomorrow. But it also gave Addy a moment to push closer, driving her other knee into Xi’s mid-section. That one caught the gangster off-guard, and she doubled over, withdrawing outside of Addy’s range.
Addy pressed her advantage, coming in with a low kick and following it with a swing at Xi’s head, but the other woman straightened suddenly, her windedness evidently a ruse, and turned sideways to avoid the strikes.
She’s fast, Addy just had time to think before a fist caught her in the shoulder. There was a click and a hiss and she felt something sharp pinch her; the arm went numb, flopping lifelessly to her side.
Fuck. She snarled at Xi, as she massaged her left shoulder.
Xi smiled, dancing away, then beckoned with one hand. “Come.”
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Brody and Kovalic trying to pry off a panel next to the door. She looked back at Xi and tried to figure out which of the many bracelets she’d used to trigger the lockdown. It had been that one, right? The flat, gold cuff? Maybe she could undo it, if she could just get close enough.
Well, if you ever bragged you could win a fight with one hand tied behind your back, now’s your chance to make good.
Addy circled Xi warily. At least she’d managed to keep the usual blood-pounding ferocity at bay. This wasn’t a fight that was going to be won by sheer strength or agility.
No, this time she needed to be smarter than her opponent.
There was a zap and a curse from behind her and she heard Brody utter a string of expletives, but there sure wasn’t the sound of a door opening. Steeling herself, she charged at Xi.
Rotating her torso, she let her limp left arm flail towards Xi; there was no control behind it, but Xi couldn’t afford to ignore it, so she turned toward it, bringing up a forearm to block it. As the dead arm bounced uselessly off her opponent’s, Addy kept moving, bringing herself around into a spin kick, her opposite heel scything through Xi’s block and into her shoulder.
Unbalanced by her numb arm, she landed in a stumble – Sergeant Djalair would have made her do it again – and followed it by coming up from her low center of gravity into a bullrush, taking Xi right in the stomach and slamming her back against the bulkhead.
Xi hit the wall with a grunt and Addy rebounded off her, both of them falling to the deck. Addy immediately tried to scramble upwards with her one good hand as leverage and launch herself on top of Xi in a pig pile.
It’s not elegant, but it’ll get the job done.
Xi’s hands came up, her nails raking at Addy’s face, raising long welts on her cheek and barely missing her eyes.
Addy dropped all of her weight on Xi, trying to pin her down, but the other woman wriggled underneath her. That was just fine, though, because all Addy needed to do was grab Xi’s wrist with her right hand and press her finger against the cuff there.
There was the clank of a magnetic seal releasing and the door to the vault room slid open, startling Brody, who was still working on the panel.
Trying to keep her weight on the flailing Xi, Addy looked over her shoulder at Kovalic and Brody. “Go.”
Kovalic started towards her. “Not without you.”
“You said the mission comes first. Now go,” she said as Xi screamed, swinging again at her face. But Addy kept her finger on the bracelet even as the woman’s fists caught her in the h
ead, making her reel. Dimly, she saw Kovalic grab a protesting Brody and drag him out the door.
With a smile, she let go of Xi’s wrist and heard the door slide closed again. A breath of relief left her and she let the other woman push her off.
“I expected better from you than playing the tragic hero,” said Xi, drawing herself up into a crouch. She was breathing heavily, her perfectly coiffed hair thrown into disarray. Her dress was torn and grimy from rolling around on the floor, but despite that, she still managed to conjure an air of elegance.
Addy grinned from her place on the floor. “I don’t know, ‘tragic hero’ has a certain ring to it.”
“Your friends won’t escape,” said Xi, touching another control on her bracelet. “All you’ve done is doom them – and you – to a slower, more painful fate. I assure you, you will all live to regret this.”
Oh good, thought Addy as she stared up at the ceiling. Something to look forward to.
CHAPTER 25
Eli watched the door slam closed behind him, his hand still outstretched. He stared for a moment, then whirled on Kovalic.
“Goddamnit, why didn’t you do something?”
“Not now, Brody.” The major was surveying the corridor, the wrapped tablet still underneath one arm. Red lighting flashed around them and all the screens in the hallway displayed the word LOCKDOWN. At least there weren’t klaxons going off everywhere. Yet.
“When, then? Should I wait until after you’ve gone back and killed her yourself? Like with Page?”
Kovalic froze and suddenly Eli had that feeling you got when a foot went out from under you and your stomach was hanging in mid-air. That may have been the red button.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Kovalic, without turning around.
“Tapper told me you don’t leave people behind,” said Eli. He pointed at the door. “But this makes twice just in the time I’ve been on this team.”
“Brody, she stayed behind so we could get away, and you want to stand here jawing about it?”
“No, I want you to go back in, kick the shit out of that gangster, and get our teammate back.” Eli crossed his arms over his chest.
The older man opened his mouth to respond when there was a loud clatter of footsteps from the direction of the vault complex’s antechamber. Kovalic spun in that direction, then looked back at Eli. “Xi’s security. We have to go.”
“Not without– ”
“Damn it, Brody, if we don’t go now, then Xi will have all of us, and freeing Sayers will be the least of our problems. Now move.”
Goddamn it. But there was the ring of logic to Kovalic’s point, so Eli let himself be dragged along away from the vault door. We’ll get you back, Sayers. I promise.
Kovalic tapped his earbud. “Aegis, we need another exit from the vault access complex.”
Taylor’s voice came over the comm. “Oh good, you’re still alive.” If it was intended as dry, the note of genuine relief undercut the attempt. “Checking the schematics. Give me a minute.”
From down the hall, Eli could hear the tramp of boots. What sounded like a lot of them. And they didn’t sound like they were walking puppies.
“There’s a maintenance hatch about halfway down the main corridor, on the port side,” said Taylor.
Kovalic snapped a finger at Eli and pointed at the wall. “I’ll hold them off.” He pulled out the KO gun he’d taken off Xi’s guard and removed the power pack.
“But that thing didn’t work on any of–”
“Brody, open the goddamned hatch.”
It took a moment for Eli to find the seam; the luxury liner took pains to disguise all the unpleasant necessities of space travel, instead aiming to convince its passengers that it ran on magic.
But Eli had spent a lot of time on spaceships by this point – he knew all the ins and outs of the Cavalier – and it didn’t take him long to find the catch. He pulled the panel away from the wall, revealing a passageway just large enough to admit a person at a crawl.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw Kovalic lay the tablet down against the bulkhead, then do something to the KO gun’s battery before shoving it back in place. The major rolled up his jacket sleeve, tore a strip off his shirt, and wound it through the trigger guard, tying it tightly.
A loud whine began to build from the weapon and Kovalic hurled it down the hallway, even as a half dozen White Star security in riot gear rounded the corridor. One of them shouted as the knockout gun slid towards them.
Kovalic grabbed the tablet from where it lay and ran towards Eli, hitting the deck in a slide. “Go.”
Eli didn’t need any more encouragement. On his hands and knees, he shimmied into the crawlway. He could hear Kovalic following him and was about to ask a question when the hallway they’d just left exploded.
Shouts and cries came from behind him, Kovalic kept pushing him forward. The crawlway quarters were tight, lined with pulsing conduits and pipes covered in condensation. A couple times, Eli singed himself coming too close to those carrying steam or other heated gases. His knees and elbows began to ache from the repeated banging against the hard metal.
After five minutes of crawling, the tube widened into a four-way junction large enough to fit them both at a crouch. Kovalic rested the tablet between his legs.
Eli rubbed his knees. “What the hell did you do back there?” He raised an arm to wipe the sweat off his brow, only to remember he was still wearing the bulky vacsuit. No wonder it’s so hot. The sweat reclamation system didn’t work very well without the helmet on.
Kovalic was peering back down the crawlway. “Overloaded the KO gun’s power pack and then jammed down the firing mechanism.”
“And that turns it into a bomb? Where was that earlier?” Leaning against the wall, Eli yanked off one of the gravboots, letting it fall to the floor with a clunk.
“Not a bomb,” Kovalic said. “Just a distraction. A loud noise, some bright light. It’ll buy us a little time, but it’s not going to be long before they figure out where we went, so we need to make ourselves scarce.” He put one finger to his ear. “Aegis, we appear to be at junction T-16-425. Any idea where that is?”
No response came from Taylor. Kovalic frowned, then tapped his earbud again. “Aegis, you copy? Bruiser?”
Dropping the second gravboot, Eli glanced at the conduits lining the walls. “Too much interference from all this equipment, probably. All the shielding is in the bulkheads and we’re behind them.” He started peeling off the top half of the vacsuit.
“Great,” muttered Kovalic. He seemed to ponder something for a moment, his eyes flicking back and forth rapidly. “OK, we’re going to have to split up.”
“That sounds like a terrible idea.”
Kovalic flicked a holoscreen from his sleeve; the mission clock, bright orange, flashed at both of them. “Twenty minutes until we exit the wormhole, Brody. Time’s not with us on this one. You need to find Tapper and figure out how we’re getting out of here.”
Oh good, the easy job. He let the rest of the suit puddle to the floor, then extricated his feet. “What are you going to do?”
Kovalic patted the tablet. “I’m going to find a safe place for this. Someplace nobody will think to look.”
“That sounds nice. Can I go there?”
Ignoring the comment, Kovalic waved his sleeve at the junction plate, then eyed the display. “Looks like this one should lead back to the esplanade,” he said, pointing to one of the other crawlways branching off the junction. “You take that one. I’ll go this way. Check in with the commander as soon as you’re clear of the interference.”
Eli nodded and crouched down, then gave a look back at Kovalic. “We’re going to get Sayers, right?”
Kovalic’s gray eyes settled on his. “We’re all getting out, Brody.”
“I’m holding you to that.”
Kovalic tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Get moving.”
Wincing as his sore knees hit the dec
k plate, Eli tipped Kovalic an informal salute. Should have brought kneepads.
Once Brody had disappeared from view, Kovalic let out a breath. That jab about Page had hurt more than he thought it would, all the more so because he hadn’t been expecting it from Brody, who usually seemed so upbeat and easygoing. But it just went to show that everybody dealt with pain in their own way.
Kovalic hadn’t wanted to leave Sayers behind, but the specialist had made the call, and tactically speaking, it had been the right one. The mission came first. He looked down at the tablet. As long as this damn thing was worth it.
Taking a deep breath, he centered himself. The job wasn’t over yet. He still needed to make sure the tablet was safe before he thought about getting his team – his whole team – off this ship.
Dropping to his knees, he pushed the tablet into the passage in front of him and started his long crawl.
Five minutes later, he’d come to another junction, this one with an actual egress port. Granted, if Xi’s goons had figured out where they’d gone, there was every possibility that a squad of them might be laying in wait. But, tempting as it was, he couldn’t live in the maintenance tunnels of this ship forever.
He wedged the tablet in between some conduits, then popped the hatch open and peeked out.
The corridor beyond was carpeted in a rough rust-colored weave and fortunately empty. He hoped Nat had managed to throw a wrench into the Queen Amina’s security system, or this was going to be over pretty fast. He retrieved the tablet, then replaced the panel.
Doors with frosted glass panes lined the corridor, each leading to what appeared to be private rooms for those who needed to get some work done while on vacation. Not, perhaps, the most frequented part of a ship that also contained casinos and restaurants, but that was just fine for Kovalic’s purposes.
“Aegis,” he said, trying comms again. “You copy?”
Still no response, and for the first time he started to feel something churning in his gut. It hadn’t just been the interference. He tried Tapper too, but no luck from him. Or Brody. Or Sayers. Were all the signals being jammed, or just his? Maybe the lockdown was screwing with their comms somehow.