Zero's Heart (Lathar Mercenaries: Warborne Book 1)

by Mina Carter

  Like burst into tears over an asshole man.

  Eris didn’t return to their quarters that night.

  Grumbling under his breath about women and their moods, Zero had gotten ready for bed and tried to sleep. He wasn’t too worried about her going and getting herself into trouble. The Sprite was a small ship and everyone on board knew she was with him.

  She’d probably gone to Red, he reasoned. Who would have offered Eris the spare bunk in her room until she’d calmed down enough to see sense. There was no way she should be heading into combat, not after the kind of major treatment she’d had. He was surprised Talent hadn’t raised an objection in the briefing. But… he was still a relatively new member of the crew. Probably didn’t want to rock the boat.

  He sighed and looked at the underside of the bunk above. The Sprite had originally been a troop carrier, so each room had two bunks. Most of the crew used the extra for storage. There were forty-eight rivets in it, he noted idly.

  Yeah… Eris would be fine. She’d sleep and then realize he was right. She should leave the combat to him and the Warborne, all of whom were hardier races than humanity. Sparky… well, he liked the human, but the guy was quite frankly insane. If Sparky wanted to hurl himself headlong into danger at the drop of a hat, Zero couldn’t do anything about it. The man wasn’t Zero’s responsibility.

  “When we fucked? Sorry, sunshine, but me letting you shove your cock inside me, good as it was…”

  Her words came back to haunt him just on the edge of sleep, and he winced at the crude phrasing. They hadn’t just fucked. There had been a real connection. He’d felt it all the way down to the soul he wasn’t sure he had.

  No, he knew he had a soul. He had to because otherwise, how had he felt such a connection between them? How had mere fucking made him feel so alive and near to heaven? How did her smile and the mere fact she existed make him, a creature who believed in facts and figures, in data and code, believe in the existence of something as intangible as heaven?

  But… she’d said it was good. He’d argue it was better than good… but good he could work with. A smile curved his lips as he cheated and used his onboard to trigger a sleep cycle. His last thought as his body went lax and he drifted off was that he would make pancakes again in the morning after Eris came and apologized to him…

  “Wake up, Zero! We’ve got a problem!”

  A heavy fist hammering on his door yanked Zero out of sleep abruptly. He gasped and jerked upright, almost slamming his head into the metal panel of the bunk above.

  “What the fu…?” He scrubbed at his eyes and checked the time. Shit. He’d overslept. They were only ninety minutes out from the moon lab.

  “I’m up,” he yelled back, opening the door remotely as he tumbled out of bed, reaching for pants at the same time.

  “Oh jeez…” Red recoiled. “Underpants, Zero. They’re a thing.”

  “The seams rub,” he growled and hauled his combats on over his bare ass.

  “Whatever. Nice package,” she commented, but without the usual sass and bite. An automatic response. “Get your ass up to the bridge. The humans are gone.”

  He froze, still shoving his feet into boots, his blood running cold. “What?”

  “Humans? You know… kinda small,” she waved a hand about shoulder height where Eris came up to on her. “Talk back a lot. Remember them? Yeah? Well, they fucked off in the combat shuttle with a couple of power suits.”

  “Shit.”

  Zero finished dressing and reached the bridge in record time to find the rest of the Warborne already assembled. T’Raal’s face was grim.

  “How? When?” was all Zero could get it together enough to ask.

  “An hour ago.” The Warborne leader’s face was not a happy one. “Somehow they managed to disable the internal alarms and launch without anyone being any the wiser. They took two of the combat power suits from the locker and went dark just after launch.”

  “So we can’t track them?”

  T’Raal leaned on the edge of the holo-table and looked up at him, long hair framing his face. “Track the combat shuttle? Our combat shuttle?”

  Yeah… he knew better than that. The combat shuttle was designed from the nuts and bolts up for stealth insertion. Great. They were completely dark.

  Then it hit him. She’d left him. While he’d been wrapped up in happily ever afters in his own head about the morning, Eris had had other plans. He’d told her she wasn’t on the team to rescue her brother and she’d taken matters into her own hands.

  And why shouldn’t she? She was a soldier like him.

  “You won’t allow it? Tell me, when did what I do become your decision?”

  He groaned as the truth hit him like a sledgehammer. He’d cast himself in the role of white knight rescuing the damsel in distress, but she hadn’t needed or wanted that. She’d needed a comrade in arms, not a rescuer.

  “Shit.” He blew out a breath and looked at T’Raal. “Okay, when are we leaving to go after them?”

  15

  The moon that housed Eric’s Lab was so small it didn’t even warrant a name, just an identification code.

  MD-892-A.

  “Charming place, huh?” Sparky asked, his voice loud in her ear as they exited the shuttle airlock. She winced and nudged the volume down with the rocker button near her jaw. The suits they wore… “borrowed” from the Sprite just like the shuttle… might have been designed by and for an alien species, but they were so intuitive to use, she might as well have been in her Scorperio unit. Well, apart from the lack of bloody big guns.

  “Scientists. They don’t care much for views. Or anything apart from their work,” she commented, her rifle held loosely as they jogged lightly over the surface of the moon toward the lab. The gravity was a fraction of Earth normal, but just enough they could use a loping run.

  Designed for low-gravity it would ensure they stuck to the surface and didn’t need to use their suit thrusters to stay down. The trick was to glide their feet over the surface, not push. Slamming a foot down would just spin them off into space, which, when they were trying to stay unnoticed, would not be a good thing.

  They’d opted to land a couple of clicks away from the lab, concealing the shuttle in a deep valley before covering the rest of the distance on foot in extravehicular activity-suits for two reasons. Trying to land on a top-secret base no one was supposed to know about without clearance? Never a good idea. Trying to land on a top-secret base no one was supposed to know about in an alien combat shuttle? That was an even worse idea.

  So they’d dropped in while the base was on the dark side of the moon and its sensors were out of commission. That way, even if they did get spotted, no one could send a message out. Even so, they’d sat for long minutes, monitoring all the comm ranges, just in case.

  Not a peep.

  No one had seen them. No alarms had been raised. They reached the last rise, crouching in cover to get a look at the lab.

  It was nestled in a shallow valley, a sprawling mass of domes and corridors. The larger domes had to be the labs, the largest probably hydroponics to support the environmental systems, and the smaller ones residential. A landing pad with extendable docking arms was just visible on the other side of the domes.

  “All quiet on the lunar front,” Sparky murmured, his gaze intent on the lab. “Doesn’t look like they have any perimeter patrols set.”

  “It’s a lab,” she replied, using her helmet’s display to zoom in on the nearest section. There was a service airlock not far from them. “What would they be guarding… Lab equipment and reports? Did you see the shit Eric sent? I couldn’t read more than one word in three. Made no fucking sense to me whatsoever.”

  Sparky’s lips compressed as he motioned for them to move. “Yeah, a lab that’s researching weaponized genetics. Anything that involves weapons usually has way more guards and guns than this. It feels… odd.”

  “That’ll be your suit, pick a smaller size next time.” She told him as
they ran toward the buildings.

  At any moment she expected the nearest dome to sprout point defense canons and cut them down before they could get anywhere near. By the time they reached the relative safety of the nearest building, hidden from view by the curve of the wall, sweat trickled uncomfortably down the hollow of her spine.

  “Not my fault these things are cramped in the ol’ jewels department,” he groused. “Had to go up a size so I didn’t squash anything… important.”

  “I’ll squash something important if you don’t shut the fuck up,” she murmured, slinging her rifle and sliding to her knees by the airlock door. Levering the panel loose with her combat knife, she slid it under her knee to stop it floating off and peered inside.

  “Standard mag-seven unit,” she said, reaching in. “I can have this open in a few.”

  “Well, aren’t you a dark horse?” Sparky whistled softly as she worked. “Goody two-shoes Chief Archer breaking a mag-seven… I’m impressed.”

  She chuckled. “Who said I was a goody two-shoes? Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

  The locks on the airlock clunked and switched from red to green. She quickly replaced the panel and slid her knife away just as the door opened to let them in. It was a close fit with the two of them.

  “We need to move fast. This is one of the maintenance locks, so it will show open on a console somewhere, probably in operations.” She reached out and patted the wall. “This model is old, prone to false reports. Hopefully, they’ll think it’s just playing up and check it out on the next rotation.”

  He nodded, his expression focused as they waited for the cycle to complete. As it did and breathable air poured into the tiny compartment, they cracked their helmets, letting them fold back into the neck of their suits to conserve their air for the way back.

  “Let’s go in weapons hot, just in case. Eh, doll? Don’t fancy getting caught with my pants down, not with just the two of us and no backup.”

  “Copy that. In, locate Eric and the prisoner, out. Simple,” she murmured, bringing her rifle up as the door in front of them opened with a hiss.

  She’d half expected the corridor beyond to be filled with commandos armed to the teeth. Instead, it was empty. Deserted. They stepped from the airlock, turning in concert to cover both directions. No one shot at them. No alarms went off.

  “Nothing doing,” Sparky murmured. “Okay. Going left, heading for the lab. Use this as the RV point if we get split up.”

  She nodded, but he’d already turned away. Conversation dropped off after that as they made their way through the corridors of the lab facility. Mostly it was deserted, but several of the labs they passed by showed signs of occupation. One had a scientist sitting at what looked like the bastard love child of a microscope and a cannon array. They’d been forced to bend almost double to scuttle by, just in case he should happen to turn around.

  Finally, they turned the last corner, the small red dot on her wrist display telling her Eric’s lab was just up ahead on the left.

  “Easy,” Sparky warned as she took point, entering the code that had been in Eric’s message. The door slid open in front of them and they stepped inside, Sparky sweeping the corridor outside with his rifle before backing in.

  “Lights,” she ordered, squinting to try and make out details in the darkness. She should have kept her suit helmet up. It had night sight capability. When the lights began to snap on in sequence, starting at the door, she wished she hadn’t bothered.

  The lab was trashed. Equipment had been ransacked and shattered, glass and metal parts were strewn over the counters and floor. She stepped back with a gasp… Blood pooled on the floor and splattered over the countertops and walls.

  “Hey, boss,” a familiar voice said from the darkness ahead of her. “Good of you to finally join us.”

  The rest of the lights snapped on to reveal Officer Mills, but not as she remembered him. The happy-go-lucky, charming smile was gone, replaced by a harder, more dangerous expression. Likewise, his station uniform was gone and in its place was the black-on-black combat uniform of SO13—the same uniform the armed men emerging from the darkness behind him wore.

  But those details paled into insignificance to the gun he had pressed against her twin’s temple.

  “What are you doing, Mills?” she barked. “Let him go.”

  She snapped her rifle to aim at the small patch of skin between Mills’ eyebrows with her finger on the trigger. Just one little squeeze. That’s all it would take. A slight tightening of the muscles in her hand, as natural as breathing, and her former security officer’s brains would decorate the counters behind him.

  Her gaze slid downward, to the gun Mills held against Eric’s head. Mills’ smile broadened.

  “Release trigger,” Sparky warned in a low voice. He’d taken a few steps to the side as much as the space in the narrow lab would allow, but it wasn’t going to be enough. There was no cover. One burst from an assault rifle would take them both out.

  “Yeah.” Her voice was sharp. Clipped. “I see it.”

  Shit. She couldn’t fire. Rather than pulling the trigger, all Mills had to do to send a bullet through her twin’s brains was let go.

  “Eris.” Eric’s face was pale, his voice shaky. “I’m so sorry. I didn—”

  “Shut it.” Mills shoved his muzzle against Eric’s head, and her brother winced. “And keep shut unless you want your sister to see what the inside of that egghead brain looks like.”

  Eric nodded, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. He fixed his gaze on her, as though she were the only thing in the room. She understood that response, her expression calm and reassuring as she met his eyes.

  “Now we all know where we stand,” Mills grinned again, his jovial tone making Eris wish she’d shoved his fucking coffee mug where the sun didn’t shine back on the station. “How about you put those rifles down before I have the boys here fill you with more holes than swiss cheese?”

  There were too many of them to take on. Eris bit back her growl of frustration and lowered her gun. At Mills’ gestures, they both crouched to place their weapons on the floor at the same time. Two troopers moved forward at Mills’ nod.

  Sparky sighed as he put his hands behind his head. “Swiss cheese, seriously? Mate, if you’re going to issue bad-guy-level threats, you really need to up your game.”

  Mills flicked him a hard glance. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  “You know… threats of dire punishment, torture, that kind of thing,” he continued, not fighting as one of the troopers cuffed him. “Dairy-based threats are so passé.”

  Eris closed her eyes for a second. This was it. She was going to get killed because of some smart-fucking-alec ex-con who didn’t know when to keep his freaking mouth shut.

  “For krath’s sake. Shut the fuck up, Sparky!” The other trooper hauled her around, yanking rip-cuffs tight around her wrists behind her head.

  She tried to pull a fast one, holding her wrists parallel rather than over one another. If he’d fallen for it, it would have given her enough room to slip her hands free. His slight grunt of amusement as he forced her hands palm to palm said he was too long in the tooth to fall for it.

  “Hey,” she muttered, looking up as he forced her to her knees. His blue eyes were amused, but that was it. Beyond the amusement was a chilling coldness that said he would put a bullet between someone’s eyes without questioning the order. “Can’t blame a gal for trying. Can you?”

  “No talking!” Mills ordered harshly, hauling Eric to his feet. “Now me and your brother will be taking our leave. The powers that be want him alive.”

  He grinned as he pulled the smaller man closer, tapping the muzzle of his handgun against Eric’s temple. “Or, rather, they want the knowledge he has in this egghead of his. Kline and Patterson here will be escorting you to your final destination.”

  “No! She comes with me!” Eric struggled against Mills’ hold, managing to break free enough to take a s
tep toward Eris. “I won’t give you anything without her.”

  Mills’ face hardened and he surged forward to knock Eric to his knees in front of Eris, pressing the gun against the back of his head.

  “Now the thing my boss realizes about situations like this,” he said calmly. “Is that accidents happen. Do you want to be an accident, Doctor Archer?”

  “It’s fine, Eric.” Eris smiled as she lied. “Do as they say, and no one will get hurt. Isn’t that right, Mills?”

  “Your sister is a wise woman, Doctor. Pity things had to go this way...” Mills looked directly at her as he hauled Eric to his feet. Her heart went out to her brother; he was terrified and so out of his depth it was laughable.

  “... perhaps in another time and place we could have gone out for that drink… dinner and back to my place. It would have saved me going through hoops to tag that fucking awful takeout coffee.”

  She sucked a breath in. “It was me. You had a tracker on me all this time?”

  Her stomach dropped, a sour taste in her mouth. All this time, she’d put Zero and the rest of the Warborne in danger. All because of her damn coffee addiction.

  Mills chuckled. “Of course. We knew the good doctor here was at risk of turning, and with something as important as Prometheus, we couldn’t afford that. We had contingencies in place in case he went rogue. Good job we did. No way do we want that information to get out. Now it’s all contained, there’s no more threat to the program. Now, if you’ll excuse us, the good doctor and I have a shuttle to catch.”

  He turned away, shoving Eric in front of him. The rest of the troop turned to follow, apart from the two behind Eris and Sparky. Kline and Patterson. The fact that Mills had named them was not a good sign. It meant their next “destination” would be their final one. A bullet to the back of the head before being thrown out the nearest airlock… No one would ever find their bodies this far out.

  “Oh boy…” Sparky began to chuckle, his face creased with amusement followed by an outright belly laugh. “You really think we were stupid enough to come here alone? That we didn’t have a backup plan.”