Val peeked around the back of the shuttle, squinting into the gloom. Something moved at the edge of her vision, but when she faced in that direction, she didn’t see anyone. Had she been too late? Had someone slipped into the tunnel? Or had it been her imagination?
If that hint of movement hadn’t come from the direction of the sleeping quarters tunnel, Val might have ignored it and gone back to work, but Gregor and the rest of her team were back there. What if someone was after them? Some assassin sent by the other side. But a handful of mercenaries wouldn’t be the most appealing targets here. No, someone would be more likely to strike at the base commander. Or Admiral Summers.
Val thought of the bombing that had been going off earlier. What if that had been part of a distraction? Something designed to let a person slip in unnoticed while the defenders were busy in the sky? Was that possible?
Val touched the grip of her pistol and eyed the tunnel. She should go check on things, but the idea of wandering back there armed made her nervous. Since Anstrider had forbidden anyone from trying to break out Gregor, would people assume that was what Val was doing if they found her skulking around with a weapon? Was it possible she would make things worse for him? And for herself? Maybe she should stay in her shuttle and do nothing. She sure wouldn’t cry if Admiral Asshole was killed. Except these people needed him. And, the Gregor-Summers problem aside, they had been decent to her. She didn’t want to see anyone here buried under the mountain if those bombers finally succeeded.
Growling to herself in frustration, Val headed for the lit tunnel. She would stop at Anstrider’s room and ask about the defense shields. Then the woman would know Val wasn’t plotting some breakout. And she would know how to check to see if the defenses had been deactivated or if someone had slipped in somehow.
As soon as she reached the tunnel, Val slowed down. It stretched out ahead of her, and she didn’t see or hear anyone, but she didn’t want anyone to hear her coming. If there was an assassin, he or she would doubtlessly be better trained than Val at combat.
Ears straining, her pistol in hand, she crept toward the first intersection. Going straight would take her to the kitchen and dining hall, but she assumed nobody would sneak into the facility to steal the mushroom burgers. The tunnel to the left led to the sleeping quarters. Val peeked around the corner. The passage stretched away to stairs at the far end, with at least sixty metal doors to either side before them. She had never bothered to look upstairs, since the Mandrake Company people had all been given lodging down here, but there were supposed to be more rooms up there. The Admiral was on that upper floor, she was fairly certain, but Anstrider was in one of the closer rooms, near the rest of the complex if anyone needed her in a pinch. Since Val had eyed the door a couple of times that day, in the hopes of catching the woman alone, she knew exactly where it was, the second on the right. Surprisingly, it stood open.
Was Anstrider still at that meeting? The tunnel leading to the admin offices and briefing rooms had been dimmed, so Val had assumed everyone had gone to bed. Even if Anstrider was at a meeting, why would she have left the door to her private room open?
Keeping one eye on the end of the tunnel, Val walked to the door. She raised a hand to knock, realized she was still holding her pistol, and stuffed it into her belt before stepping up to the doorway. Showing up at the base commander’s bedroom with a weapon in hand might be misconstrued.
As she drew even with the threshold, she realized with numb shock that it wouldn’t have mattered. Anstrider lay on a bloodstained beige rug, her gray hair spread out around her face, her eyes wide open but unseeing. Blood was still dribbling from the gaping gash at her throat, but it was too late to help her. Those vacant eyes said as much.
Val bit down on her fist, her plan of action shattering into a thousand pieces. She had the presence of mind to step inside and put her back to the wall, lest someone try to sneak up behind her, and she scanned the room twice before letting herself believe that the killer had left. The space was better furnished than her own, but no bigger, so her perusal didn’t take long. Then she stared back at the body. Damn. Now what?
“Get out of here before someone thinks you did this,” she whispered, “that’s what.”
She stepped back into the hallway, more to distance herself from the murder than because she had a plan as to what to do. She didn’t know who was second in command. Squadron Leader Zimmerman? Which room was hers? One in the middle, Val thought, but she hadn’t paid attention to the number when she had seen Zimmerman come out once. Maybe she should start knocking on random doors, alerting base personnel, except what happened if she ran into the assassin that way?
Gregor’s guard, that was who she should talk to. She belatedly realized that the man wasn’t at his post outside of Gregor’s door. Fear fluttered in her gut—if he wasn’t there, did that mean someone had stalked into Gregor’s room too? Just because she hadn’t thought the Mandrake Company mercenaries would be targeted by an assassin didn’t mean it was so.
Her pistol in hand again, Val crept in that direction. She resisted the urge to run, knowing her boots would clomp on the cement floor. It was quieter than death in the tunnel now, and any noise she made might float right to the intruder. Wherever he was.
She glanced at each door as she passed by, making sure no others were open or ajar. The last thing she wanted was for some assassin to jump out behind her. Though with the image of Anstrider’s slit throat now imprinted indelibly on her mind, she wasn’t sure she would have the courage to look into any more rooms.
But she might not have any choice. Before she reached Gregor’s room, she spotted dark dots on the floor in front of it. Blood? What else could that be? Not his, she prayed. His door was still shut. And locked, she hoped, with him safely inside. The door on the opposite side of the hall, the one leading to her room, was shut too. If the guard had left the blood—she couldn’t imagine who else’s it would be—where had he gone afterward?
A faint hum emanated through the walls, and she jumped, her finger so tense on the trigger of her pistol that she nearly fired. It was a generator or fan clicking on somewhere, nothing more. Assassins didn’t hum like machinery. Unless they were android assassins, but no, she was fairly sure androids didn’t hum, either.
“Focus,” she whispered to her racing mind.
Val gripped Gregor’s doorknob. It was locked. She hadn’t wanted to find it open, with him dead inside, but she scowled at the keyhole, anyway. Before, she had been worried someone would think she was trying to break out Gregor when she wasn’t, but now, she couldn’t imagine continuing on without his help.
She could melt the lock—and most of the door—with her laser pistol, but the whine would be louder than footsteps. She eyed the blood spots on the floor again. There was a smudge in front of her door, as if a boot had been dragged through a bigger drop.
Val set her jaw, bracing herself for what probably lay inside, then turned the knob on her door. It didn’t swing open all the way. The body on the floor blocked it. As she had suspected, it belonged to the guard. He must have been killed, simply because he was in the hallway. There was a stun gun on the floor next to his open hand, so he’d had an opportunity to pull a weapon before being jumped, but he must not have had a chance to fire or yell out a warning. The assassin had either run the twenty, thirty meters to the center of the hallway in a flash, or maybe he had been so good, the guard hadn’t noticed him until the last second.
Though it made her squeamish, Val dug into his pocket, looking for Gregor’s key. She worried she was taking too long, that by the time she reached Admiral Summers’s room, he would already be dead. Fortunately, she found the keychain. She pulled it out carefully so it wouldn’t jingle and crossed the hallway again, checking in each direction four or five times as she went. She didn’t want to join that guard, dead on the floor because she had been in someone’s path.
She unlocked the door and pushed it open, her finger already to her lips. She expected G
regor to be sleeping, but in case he wasn’t—he might have heard the struggle with the guard—she wanted to warn him not to make noise. But he was in bed, breathing heavily, as if he had just flopped down after doing a few hundred jumping jacks. Oh, that wasn’t quite it, she realized, as she stepped inside and the light from the hallway slashed across him, catching him with his pants down—literally—and the most embarrassed expression blooming on his face. Hah, someone else must have been having vivid dreams.
Later, she would tease him, but for now all she did was close the door, turn on the light, and whisper, “There’s an assassin on the base. Anstrider is dead.”
In an instant, his face shifted from an expression of chagrin to one of cool professionalism. He donned his clothes in seconds, asking, “Anyone else know?” as he dressed.
“Not yet. I was alone, working late, and thought I heard something. Turns out I did.”
“Admiral Summers may be a target, as well.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” Val handed him the laser pistol, keeping the guard’s stunner for herself. Relieved to turn the lead over to him, she was glad when he headed for the door first.
After checking the hall, he eased outside, but had taken no more than a step when he halted, his hand raised. Still in the doorway, Val glanced both ways and didn’t see anything. A second later, she heard what he must have heard. Footsteps. Running footsteps. They weren’t coming from the stairs but from somewhere beyond the intersection.
She assumed someone else had figured out there was trouble—there was no way the assassin would be making that much noise—but she readied her stunner in case she was wrong. A familiar blonde figure ran around the corner, almost caroming off the opposite wall in her rush. Jamie. And she carried a black laser weapon that Val didn’t recognize. She spotted them and stopped, her top lip rearing back in confusion.
Val lowered her stunner and waved Jamie toward them, patting the air to tell her to slow down and try not to make noise. Jamie figured it out. Gregor poked his head into Val’s room when he noticed the guard’s legs sticking out from behind the door.
Not wanting to talk in the hallway, Val waved again, this time for everyone to go into her room. She whispered, “What happened?” as soon as the door closed behind them.
“Some man attacked me in the kitchen. The dining room. I mean, I was getting some cheese and… coming out of the kitchen… and I crashed into him.” Jamie’s words came in a jumble. Her chest was heaving as she caught her breath.
“Slow down,” Val said, keeping her voice low and hoping Jamie would do the same. “We have an assassin on the premises.” She pointed at the body.
“I know,” Jamie whispered, her eyes round. She barely seemed to notice the guard. “I just killed one.”
“In the kitchen?” Gregor looked down at the body, probably wondering the same thing Val was wondering. Was Jamie talking about the same person who had killed the guard, or was there more than one assassin?
“Yes. He grabbed me, and I thought—it’s stupid but after what we were talking about, I thought he was trying to… force me to have sex. I clunked him in the face with my tray. It was heavy, ceramic or something. It surprised him, but he grabbed me as I tried to get away. I tripped on his foot. But I had grabbed the knife before throwing the tray at him. I wasn’t thinking about anything except defending myself, getting away. When I fell, I was all tangled up with him, and he fell with me. I didn’t mean—it was the craziest accident that would never happen again, but the knife jammed into his chest. I almost didn’t go back to check, but when I was running away, it surprised me that he didn’t follow. He was just lying there, and I thought… I don’t know. I wasn’t sure if I should get help, but I realized I didn’t recognize him, and then I saw he had a patch on his shoulder. Like our Mandrake Company comm-patches, but this wasn’t familiar. I thought he might be a spy. Anyway, I grabbed his gun and ran here to tell—I was going to look for the base commander.”
“She’s dead too,” Val said grimly.
“I… was she the target?” Jamie finally calmed down long enough to look down at the guard. “Are they assassins?”
“We assume so.”
Gregor had heard enough, it seemed. He reached for the doorknob. “I’m going to check on the admiral. If it’s not already too late.”
“I’m coming with you,” Val said. “Jamie, why don’t you stay here?”
“Alone?” Though she didn’t add, with the body? Jamie did give the dead guard another long look. “I’d rather go with you.”
Gregor, already out in the hall, frowned slightly, but he didn’t object when Val and Jamie followed him. He probably didn’t think much of having a pair of women trailing after him, especially one who didn’t have any combat experience— barring freak incidents with cheese knives. Too bad. Val knew she could help. And she could understand Jamie not wanting to be left alone too.
They reached the stairs, pausing at the last set of doors before going up. The wall was a darker shade of rock next to the stairs. Maybe it had been harder to tunnel through, forcing the upward shift. Val doubted Gregor had stopped to admire the rock. He had tilted his head, listening to something. Someone at the top of the stairs? Val was already bracing herself for more carnage. She almost waved Gregor onward, but realized his ear wasn’t cocked toward the stairs but toward a door beside them.
For a second, Val was confused, until she leaned closer and caught the thumps and moans. Ah, no, those weren’t sounds of a fight. She would have waved Gregor onward, but he was already shaking his head and starting up the stairs.
He stopped a few feet from the top, and Val squeezed up beside him so she could see too. Another body waited on the floor a few doorways down. Nobody had bothered hiding this one. The man’s hair was dark, so it wasn’t the admiral. Gregor started forward again, his pistol raised. A door near the man stood open, and a light was on inside. Gregor gave Val a significant look. Did that mean this was the admiral’s room? He held up a hand in a wait-here sign.
She wanted to object, but he was a better fighter than she, and probably more practiced at sneaking up on people. Reluctantly, she gave him a nod. She put her back to the wall, so she could watch the hallway and the stairs, and waited for Gregor to sneak forward and have a look. Jamie took up a similar position across from her.
He followed the wall, the same one that held the open door, and kept his pistol pointed forward. Val held her breath as he neared the admiral’s bedroom.
At that instant, an electronic braying started up in the hallway. Val nearly dropped her pistol. Alarm. It had to be. Someone had figured out there were intruders or noticed that someone was missing from a post.
A door clanged open on the floor below. The whole base would be awake soon. Would that stop the assassin? Or make him act more quickly?
Gregor had disappeared into the admiral’s room. Val was about to start in that direction—it wasn’t as if stealth mattered now—but Jamie blurted, “It’s one of them.”
She flung her hand toward the bottom of the stairs. Only two doors were visible, two doors that had been closed. One was open now, still swinging on its hinges.
“He went in there,” Jamie added in a whisper.
It was the room where the people had been having sex. Val didn’t know who they were or why they might be targets, but she gave Jamie a nod and charged down the stairs. At the worst, they would be mistaken, but maybe they could save someone.
Taking the last four steps in one jump, she landed and ran through the door. It was dark inside, so she paused, but a surprised yell propelled her farther. As she fumbled for the palm switch, a streak of crimson lit the air. Laser beam. Hell, the switch wasn’t activating the lights. Someone must have disabled it. Val did her best to guess where the shot had been fired from and blasted the spot with her stunner. Unlike with the laser weapons, it didn’t matter much if she hit the wrong person.
A grunt came from her right, and she fired over there too. By the time
she was done spraying stunner blasts, she had probably hit everything in the room. Belatedly, she hoped Jamie hadn’t misconstrued what she had seen and sent Val in to stun half of the officers on the base.
The alarm continued, reverberating through the walls like the gongs of some massive old bell. Shouts sounded, too, as well as more door slams.
“Where are the damned lights?” Val demanded, wanting to know what she had done in the room.
“I’m trying to bring them up,” Jamie said over the clamor from the hallway. “Someone shot the panel.”
“Bloody hell.” Val patted down her clothes, trying to remember if she had her tablet with her. Yes, there it was. She pulled it out, unfolded it, and the hologram display brightened the air around her. That was already enough for her to make out the outline of furniture and people—unmoving people. “Lamp,” she said, and the hologram turned into an image of an old-fashioned light bulb. The illumination highlighted two bodies tangled on a bed and a third person wearing black and lying in the middle of the floor, a pistol clenched in his grip. That was the one she must have hit with her first shot.
“That’s him,” Jamie said grimly, removing the pistol from the unconscious man’s hand. “He’s wearing the same outfit as the one who attacked me.”
The “outfit” was nothing but tight black clothing with a utility belt that held a rappelling kit and a couple of other tools. Val pointed her light toward the bed. She had already discerned that the entangled bodies were naked—it seemed a lot of people had sex on the mind tonight—but needed to identify them. She didn’t recognize the woman, but that was—
“Uh,” Jamie said, “is that the admiral?”
“Yes. Horny bastard.” Val snorted, realizing his oversexed tendencies might have saved his life. This wasn’t his room, so the assassins must not have known at first where he was. They would have been looking for him in his room.
Trial and Temptation (Mandrake Company) Page 19