“The assassin is female; we’d already figured that out. This is a team. The Thranes often used bonded pairs for undercover work.”
“How do you know that?”
She grinned up at him. “Undercover agent, remember? It’s my job to know.”
“Your job.” He touched her face. Frowned. “You know, it’s my job to protect my ship—and everybody aboard her. Not yours.”
Sweet, so sweet—but she couldn’t allow it. “So I’m supposed to sit on my protected ass in your cabin while everyone else on the ship works to solve this life-threatening problem.”
At last the muscles of his jaw relaxed, and he almost allowed a smile. “Not going for it, huh?”
“Not while I’m drawing breath.”
He held her gaze. “Figures. I don’t suppose you’d like to search the living quarters with a squad of Security instead?”
“Well, I could join the disposal team. I have munitions training. Would that be better?”
“Hell, no! It’s just . . . you’re still recovering, you know.”
“I’m fine. We tested out the equipment just a little while ago, remember?” She let her fingers slip down his arm, stroking. A warm little thrill of remembered pleasure shot through her core.
He squeezed her hand—the only touch he would allow himself. “Then remember what I told you a while ago. I don’t say those kinds of things often. So be careful.” He turned and was gone.
“How could this have happened, Rexus?” Zetana didn’t bother to limit the venom in her hiss. She was tired of hiding in this cramped service tube, tired of waiting, tired of his excuses. “We are so close—we should have had a signal from the shalssiti Grays already—and now the crew is crawling all over this ship looking for your explosives. They’re on high alert. What in the name of Portal’s balls happened?”
She could smell her mate’s sweat in the hot, enclosed space. Then she saw in his mind an image of the dark-skinned human female—the ConSys Intel agent. One word seared across their linked minds. Her?
Rex dared not use their link to answer. “She saw me coming out of Sickbay, but I swear at the time she raised no alarm; she had no suspicion. I hid the package in an unused emergency surgery. Why would she have reason to be there?”
Zetana cursed. “What does it matter? She found it, the mulaak bitch, and all it took was one discovery. Now the captain has ordered a ship-wide search. I will kill her with my own hands.”
“Don’t worry, beloved.” Rex’s voice was both smug and cajoling. At this moment she hated the sound of it. “They can’t possibly find every one. And even one is enough to destroy this ship if it goes off while they are in jump.”
That was a comforting thought. Still—“The explosives had another purpose, and you know it. Our slimy little friends will need the distraction to allow our escape. And besides, you fool, this search is just as likely to find us!”
“We’ve managed to avoid them so far, k’taama.” He didn’t sound quite so confident now.
“Come, we can’t stay here.” She uncoiled from her place in the tube and began crawling toward the exit. “There’s more freedom of movement in hull space.” And pray to the gods that signal comes soon.
Rayna floated in the semi-dark of hull space and waited. The others in her search party criss-crossed the space in pairs at wide intervals, hoping to flush out their quarry, but Rayna thought the Thranes were too smart for that. They’d hidden in plain sight for days already, avoiding any sighting by or suspicion from Murphy’s crew. They wouldn’t panic and make a mistake now. But they couldn’t stay in one place forever, either, hunkering down in a service tube or an empty storage locker. With the search in its sixth hour now, they’d have to give themselves some maneuvering room. From a shadowed spot between the hulking backsides of the ship’s air filtration pumps, Rayna looked down on the empty space between hulls and watched for them to make their move.
At the far end of her line of vision, where the band of hull space narrowed at the fore of the ship, something caught her eye. Had someone found something down there?
The Security team leader’s voice came through the commpiece in her ear. “Dawson-Pak, is that you up at the fore? What’s going on?”
The response came back. “Yes, sir. We’re checking in a new team.”
A new team? “What new team? Let me hear ’em.”
There was a pause, long enough to make Rayna twitchy. “Sir? This is I’x and Taylor checking in. Chief Chen sent us up from the living quarters detail.” Light static underlay the voice.
At that moment Rayna would have given a lot for a crew manifest and the means to use it. Her instincts tugged at her sleeve, warning her that something was off. Still, logic dictated that on a ship this small, crew would recognize crew.
“All right. Fall in the pattern at the end of the line, side-to-side sweep. Keep your eyes open. And adjust your comm; you’re breaking up.”
“Aye, sir. We’re on it.”
The two new crew members pushed off from the inner hull, separating from the others and forming yet another weave in the net that was meant to catch their fleeing fish. They were too far from her position for Rayna to see their faces, but she could identify them as one male and one female, both tall and dark-haired. As they floated closer, she could discern the muscular build on both of them, hers lithe and tight, his lean and broad-shouldered.
Damn it, they have to be Thrane! Why didn’t—wait, of course. They’d been close enough to touch the others, close enough to use the mind control techniques for which the Thranes were feared throughout the galaxy. And now they were making their way to another hiding place, one that had already passed inspection and had egress to other parts of the ship.
Rayna didn’t bother with the comm; the Thranes were listening in and no one was close enough to grab them before they could disappear again. The criss-crossing pattern of the search made it impossible to predict where they might break out of the grid—port side or starboard side—and go to ground. She could only watch, muscles clenched, sweat trickling down her spine, and wait for them to make their move.
At last they slowed and drifted away from the tight formation of searchers. There was no order to re-form from the Security team leader. The pair pulled up next to a hull space access hatch on the port side just aft of Rayna’s position, opened the hatch and swung in, one after the other. Before Rayna could scramble out of her hiding place, they had dogged the hatch shut behind them and vanished.
Rayna launched herself across the expanse of space toward the hatch, using the seconds it took to hurtle through the empty air to put two fingers to her mouth and blow a shrill whistle. Startled faces turned in her direction from all over hull space. She reached the hatch and waved an arm, pointing inside. Then she put a hand over her mouth and shook her head, hoping they’d understand not to use the comms. It was the best she could do; she’d already wasted too much time. She opened the hatch and ducked inside, turned and dogged it shut, waited impatiently for the pressure to equalize in the antechamber.
The go-light went green, but still she stood flattened against the inside of the hatch, peering through the porthole for a glimpse of her quarry. Either they’d gone, or they were well out of sight. She gripped the stun gun they’d issued her as part of the search detail, opened the hatch and slipped out into a square of light surrounded by an unknown quantity of darkness—filled with containers. Fuck! Finding those two in a cargo hold would take more time than they had, even with half the crew looking.
Rayna was out of her depth now, she knew it, but watching an opportunity float out of reach just wasn’t part of her personality. She lifted the gun into ready position and stepped off into the darkness, trusting that her eyes would adjust to the lower light in a few seconds. She passed the first few meters without incident and started breathing again.
You should have been waiting for me right there, you mulaak idiots. I wouldn’t have been able to see you.
As it was, alarms we
re blaring from every nerve in her body. She was a house cat stalking two tigers, and from what she’d read of the fierce Earth predators, the puddy tat didn’t have a chance. Don’t engage them, Ray, you hear me? Just shoot ’em dead and ask questions later. Like most lectures, this one rolled right off her back. When she was on the hunt, she listened to no one, not even herself.
She tried without success to call up her location from what she could remember of the ship’s layout. The main cargo deck was crowded with LO’s; this must be a secondary hold for storing water, foodstuffs, raw materials for the replicator and other bulky goods necessary for life onboard.
Rayna crept down a wide aisle, the containers stacked high on either side limiting her view to a few meters just before and behind her. The constant hum of ventilation fans filled the unplumbable darkness beyond that tiny circle of awareness. The back of her neck prickled with nerves—she refused to acknowledge the feeling as fear—waiting for an attack that could come from anywhere. Why should they run when she made such an easy target?
Rayna came to the end of the row and pressed herself against the last container. Wary of exposing herself, she peeked around the end of the big crate, only to jump back as a thin white line of laze fire shot past her face and burned a hole in the polymer container next to her. The angle had put the shooter up on a catwalk about six meters above her and to her left.
Her stunner wasn’t made for distance, but the Max Level would at least make them duck and cover. She shifted right and fired in the direction of the laze gun, saw the tracer line splash against the metal decking of the catwalk and outline the shadow of movement there. She fired again, leading a pair of fleeing shadows, then ran after them. Laze fire whizzed by her head and kicked sparks off an electrical panel. Shit, did that just fry the gravity lock hatch?
She zig-zagged across the floor to the stack of containers opposite and shot upwards again, but she’d lost sight of her quarry now. The catwalk circled the cargo hold, allowing access to the stacks with ramps above the main aisles. At the end of each ramp was an exit to the deck above. There was no way to determine which way they’d gone.
Where the hell is my backup? Rayna’s hand slipped to the comm at her throat. She had little to lose now; the Thranes already knew she was on to them. But . . . shit! She turned a corner and saw their goal at the aft end of the hold—the freaking dematerialization pad! They were trying to get off the ship!
Her quarry ran for the pad. She fired, but the range was too great for her little stunner. The Thrane male actually laughed before he launched a round of laze fire in her direction. Rayna dove for cover and hit her comm at the same time.
She heard the D-mat sequence start up. “Security, this is Carver. Shut down—” But that’s all she had time to say before a roar of fire and flame erupted at her back and the world flipped upside down.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Voices and alarms assailed him from every direction, demanding attention. The captain held up a hand and commanded silence. Hands slapped down on consoles, jaws slammed shut and the bridge fell eerily quiet.
“Mo, can we pinpoint that explosion?”
“Aye, Cap. Deck Six, Cargo Hold Four A, near the D-mat pad.”
Sam turned to a pale crew member monitoring equipment on the other side of the deck. “Is that the same D-mat pad you were trying to tell me just went active without authorization?”
The kid looked at him and swallowed. “Aye, Cap.”
“Destination coordinates?”
The crewman read them off, and faces turned toward an empty viewscreen.
But Sam knew what they were seeing was a lie. “Shields up! Now! Battlestations!”
Alarms began to blare anew all over the ship as the call went out to man battlestations.
“Arnett, get me Captain Manneh on the Fleeflek.” Manneh had been with him almost as long as he’d been captain of the ’hawk, and she wouldn’t panic if they were under attack by a whole fleet of Gray cruisers. When her face appeared on the screen, he didn’t waste time with greetings. “Fatou, get your shields up, if that pile of shit has any. I expect a Gray attack any second. Stay in my shadow if you can. I’ll do my best to protect you.”
A grin creased Manneh’s smooth face, but didn’t reach her dark eyes. “Don’t worry, Cap. We’re not completely defenseless. I think there’s a working ion cannon onboard, at least.”
“Good. You can watch my back, then.”
“Will do. Good hunting, Cap.”
He nodded back to her and signed off. He turned, meaning to get a quick damage report from Mo, but the grim expression on his XO’s face stopped his heart.
“What? Tell me.”
“The bomb caused automatic fire control systems to shut down the hatches to Cargo Hold Four. We’re having a little trouble getting inside to see the actual damage.” The Pataran didn’t seem to know how to go on.
“Okay. And?”
Mo straightened. “At last report, Agent Carver had tracked the Thranes into that hold. Security received a partial transmission from her just before the bomb went off. They haven’t heard from her since.”
Sam’s vision blanked as the blood rushed from his head to the center of his body in a futile effort to protect his heart. He swayed.
Mo grabbed his arm. “Sam?”
He forced himself to breathe. “Find a way into that hold. I don’t care how you do it. Find her.”
“We’re on it, Cap.” Mo dropped his arm, recognizing the steel in his captain’s voice.
“What’s the status of the sweep for explosives in the rest of the ship? We can’t miss any more of them.”
Mo shook his head. “Ninety percent complete.”
“Not good enough. Once we’re in place at battlestations, have each person inspect his or her area—”
Deep, rolling booms shook the Shadowhawk at her core. The deck rattled under Sam’s feet. New alarms blared on the bridge. On the viewscreen, their attackers remained hidden.
The captain’s voice went quiet as he stepped to the center of the bridge. “Talk to me, crew.”
“Two more explosions, Cap.” It was the young crewman at his internal sensors, even paler and shakier than before. “Uh, mess hall and shuttle bay. Damage control teams are on it.”
“Thank you, Ordman. Let me know as soon as they have a damage estimate.” He motioned his XO closer. “Run down the results of our search for me again. How many packages did we find?”
The Pataran matched his low tone. “Nine. They were all over the ship.”
“Yes. Living quarters, cargo, hull space, Sickbay, now the mess hall and shuttle bay. But not Engineering, not Weapons, not Environmental Control, not the bridge. If they’d wanted to really hurt us, they’d have planted the things where they could do some good.”
“That’s an easy one, Cap. No access. Security’s not that tight on the ’hawk, but we do watch some things. How was an outsider going to walk onto the bridge and stick a plasmion strip under your conn?”
Sam turned the air blue with a string of curses in three languages. “He wasn’t. He was going to go through the crawl space between decks. Send someone between decks to check Engineering and Environmental Control; that should cover Weapons, too.”
“Aye, Cap. What about the bridge?”
“I’ll do it my—”
“Captain! I have a vessel approaching at 184 point 45 mark 7. Distance 56,000 kilometers. Identification as Minertsan battle cruiser, class D.” Sipritz looked up to meet his gaze. “Weapons read hot.”
“Shit, they’re right on top of us. All hands brace for incoming fire. Ot, fire starboard cannons as we bear.”
A duet of “Aye, Caps” met his orders just as bright white light flared out from the enemy ship and splashed against the Shadowhawk’s forward shields. The bridge shuddered and rocked under the impact. The ’hawk’s cannons stuttered out an answer, but the fire glanced harmlessly off the Gray’s shields amidships.
“Keep at him, Ot, just a few
degrees to port and you’ll have his engines!” Sam stalked the narrow walk above the control console like the Angel of Death. “Dartha, keep that slaver behind us as much as you can.”
But the Gray ship was dodging fire now and lifting for an attempt at coming up and over to attack them from aft, leaving the Fleeflek vulnerable. “Belay that! Come about to port and let Manneh take them.”
The ’hawk’s stabilizers screamed as Dartha pulled her into a tight turn out of the way of the Fleeflek’s cannons. Manneh saw what was coming at her and fired as soon as her companion cleared the way. The bigger enemy cruiser was hit again amidships, but shrugged off the blows and kept coming, bearing down on the slaver.
“Aft cannons now, Ot! Aim for his shuttle bays. The shielding is weaker there.”
“Aye, Cap. Firing aft!”
The cruiser sheared off to the starboard side of the Fleeflek, raking the battered hulk with laze fire. Sam saw the shields along the ship’s flank flicker and spark under the assault before the Grays pulled up and came about to bear down on the ’hawk.
“The slaver’s down to 40 percent of her shields on the starboard side, Cap.” Mo straightened from his sensors. “She’s losing maneuverability, too.”
“Draw us away from her, Dartha. Give us some fighting room. Sip, how far are we from jump?”
The Mper shook her head. “Too far to do us any good. Thirty-two minutes at tow speed.”
Sam swallowed. He’d never hold the Grays off that long. As if to prove the point, laze fire bloomed across the ’hawk’s bow, knocking him into the rail at his gut.
“Shields!” he demanded when he could get his breath back.
“Still holding at 80 percent, Cap.” Mo glanced up from his sensors. “But not for long.”
“Damage reports, sir!” Ordman tried his best to keep his game face on. “Fire teams working on Decks One, Two, Three, uh, well, on all decks now, sir. Assistant Engineer Ang reports some concern over ventilation system overload, but she’s working on it. Major structural damage reported in Cargo Hold Four and hull space Section Seven; the rest is minor. Sickbay reports minor casualties so far. But there’s rioting in the main cargo bay among the LO’s, sir. Security Chief Chen had to send in a squad.”
Fools Rush In (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 3) Page 13