The other pilots may not appreciate the technological marvel the new fighters were, but she certainly did. The adiamene and the reduced need for force shields it brought meant no extra weight, no bulk that wasn’t engine or weapon. Though they weren’t flying in-atmo today, the design was nonetheless optimized for it, so aerodynamic drag would be essentially nil. And the entire cockpit was virtual. Forget whisper displays—for her the controls now acted as an extension not of her eVi, but of her quantized mind.
She arced above the sprawling Rasogo II facility and toward the center tug on the far side. The cabling strung out for some two hundred kilometers. Good. It reduced the risk of one of the vessels crashing into the structure.
The starboard side of her fighter lit up in weapons fire from the tug. It was powerful—she’d been right about them being unusually heavily armed—but it didn’t mar the adiamene.
She fired on the thick double cables, circling them in a tight arc as her laser burned through the tough, durable material.
Olsen shrieked on the squad comm. Help! This tug’s tearing me apart!
Commander Lekkas: No, it’s not. Calm down and concentrate on your mission.
Olsen: But I—
The cabling fell away, and Morgan yanked hard to port. Olsen was flying erratically, jerking around ineffectually in an attempt to avoid the tug’s attacks. She targeted Olsen’s assigned cabling as soon as she came in range. It broke apart just before she reached it, and she sailed through the widening gap.
Commander Lekkas: Get out of here Olsen, before you kill somebody.
In her tactical vision the final cabling from the final tug fell free, the rest of the squad having managed to do their jobs.
She switched comm channels.
Commander Lekkas: Harper, you are clear to go.
HarperRF: Acknowledged.
Five red dots grew on the map as the fighter protection neared.
Commander Lekkas: Everyone else, engage those fighters. Remember, draw them away from here and toward the designated coordinates, so you can help each other out.
Now to deal with the tugs in a more final manner. She spun and accelerated above the plane the structure occupied. A smile grew on her lips. Damn, it was good to be home.
As she neared the closest vessel, she released her first payload. Two high-powered yet miniaturized plasma bombs dropped and attached themselves to the vessel’s hull. The tug captain likely didn’t even know it had happened.
She repeated the action for the second and third tugs then veered across the top of the facility toward those on the other side.
The long expanse of metal beneath her shuddered in a blast of light as several of the tugs fired on the facility. Of course they fired on the facility. If they couldn’t have it, they intended to destroy it.
Terrific. The exterior hull was strong of necessity, but it wasn’t a military structure designed to withstand directed assaults. It wasn’t going to last long.
Harper growled in her ear. Dammit, Lekkas, you said we were clear!
Commander Lekkas: Seven seconds. Chill.
Fourth tug. Fifth. Sixth. She blew the charges the instant the last one stuck.
The explosions were contained by design. The tugs crumpled in on themselves rather than exploding outward, which would have sent dangerous debris hurtling toward the facility.
Commander Lekkas: Now you’re clear.
HarperRF: Am I?
She flinched at the bite in Harper’s tone. Out here, yes. Anyone hurt?
HarperRF: Not yet.
RASOGO II
Romane Stellar System
Kennedy gasped when the walls and floor began to shake violently. The strewn crates and equipment jostled around, and she yanked her foot in an instant before a crate fell where it had lain.
Noah moaned as the debris crushing his arm shifted. She crawled closer and brought a hand to his face. It could be the dim light, but he looked so pale. His skin felt clammy beneath her palm. He’d passed out half an hour ago, and despite the moan, the shuddering didn’t wake him now.
Her head was throbbing, eVi-provided pain suppressors notwithstanding, but it hardly mattered. She probably had a concussion, and her eVi had kept her from falling asleep so far. She was so very tired…but she needed to be awake in case Noah stirred.
The station shook again, more viciously this time. Her eyes widened in horror as the crate balanced above the one pinning Noah teetered. She threw herself over him and buried her head in the curve of his shoulder.
She remained there for untold seconds, scared to move, knowing another shudder would bury them both.
The blow never came. Finally, she gingerly pulled away and checked his condition again. He was still breathing…it was all she dared say with any confidence.
She scooted back to the wall, exhausted from the minimal activity.
Maybe she’d been wrong to stay; maybe she could have successfully escaped and returned with help by now. But she had no weapons. If she’d run into whoever had invaded the facility, it would have meant a permanent end to her life.
She lifted her hand off the floor to run through her hair, but stopped when she noticed it had come up from the floor sticky with blood. She skittered farther down the wall. Jeffrey Kass’ blood. It had to be. She thought his body had been trampled under the heavy equipment, leaving his blood to ooze out from beneath it.
The stark realization made her gag. She leaned over to retch, but only saliva dribbled out from between her lips.
A muffled shout drove the unpleasant images away, to be replaced by new ones. Were the attackers coming around for another pass now that they had full control of the facility?
She’d have preferred to die in the initial attack. At least then she wouldn’t have had to suffer these hours of despair, huddling here in the dark watching Noah’s life seep out of him.
More noises echoed in the distance, chaotic and uneven. She couldn’t make any sense of what was happening. Was someone fighting back? Was this rescue in the making?
Boots thudding against the floor—lots of them—drew closer. This was it, for good or ill.
A light illuminated the hallway, blinding her momentarily.
“Anyone alive down here?”
If it was the attackers, all was already lost, so she shielded her eyes with one hand. “Yes! Please, we need help!”
Four people jogged down the hall toward her. Two turned to face away, guns raised; the other two knelt beside them. “What’s the situation? Are you injured?”
“I’m fine, but Noah needs urgent medical attention. His arm’s trapped—”
The soldier cut her off. “Noah? Terrage?”
“Yes.” She squinted into the harsh light. “Captain Harper?”
“Affirmative.” The woman leaned across Noah and shone another light at his upper arm where it disappeared beneath the crate, then up the pile of debris. “Okay. We’ve got a medical evac in-bound. It’ll be here soon. I’ll notify the medics of your location.” She held her hand out behind her, palm up. “Verela, I need a bio-bond injection.”
One of the other soldiers grabbed a syringe and a vial out of his pack, snapped the vial into the syringe casing and handed it over. Harper pulled the collar of Noah’s shirt down and shoved the needle into the soft tissue above his collarbone. “We don’t dare try to free him until the medical personnel are here to intervene once he’s clear, but this should help isolate the injury and keep him stable until they arrive.”
To intervene. Harper didn’t know what they would find once the crate was moved. Nothing good, so many different possibilities of bad.
She took a deep breath. “I understand. I’ll stay here with him.”
Harper peered at her suspiciously. “You have a head wound.”
“What? Oh, it’s nothing.”
“I need some collagen gel.”
The same soldier retrieved the gel and passed it to Harper, who set the tube beside her. Then, without asking, she grasped Kenn
edy’s head with both hands and began feeling for the wound.
A second later a soothing coolness spread down the back of her head, and Harper released her. Kennedy tried for a grateful smile, but she wasn’t exactly at her best. “Thank you.”
A curt nod accompanied the woman vaulting to her feet. She pointed to one of the soldiers behind her. “This is Bryan Pello. He’s going to guard this junction up here. We need to finish sweeping the facility. Civilian comms are back up, so if there’s a problem, message me at »HarperRF.”
Were they? She hadn’t noticed. Her injury might be worse than she thought.
The soldiers took off once more, but the one Harper had pointed to halted at the junction and took up an alert stance.
She leaned down and kissed Noah’s forehead. “Hey, guess what? You were right. Rescue came. You’re going to be okay. Just hold on for a while longer.”
Her squad took out all five fighters before Morgan reached the battle, surprising and impressing her. The rapid victory also explained, however, why the mercenaries had wanted to steal the facility. They needed adiamene if they hoped to match their adversaries in the field.
She ordered the fighters back to Rasogo II for patrol duty then landed in the docking bay.
Controlled chaos awaited her. She scanned the bay and determined a medical transport was serving as the focal point for much of the chaos. One person was being loaded on a stretcher into the transport, and another was being treated with some exigency on the floor beside it. Two medical personnel rushed out of the bay into the interior carrying a med kit and collapsed stretcher.
Commander Lekkas: Harper, report.
HarperRF: All accessible areas are secure. Two sections are cut off by debris. We’ve got nine dead mercenaries and three in custody. Fourteen dead civilians, eight injured and five unharmed. Four are missing, but given the state of this place I expect we’ll find their bodies when the debris is removed—hold one.
While she waited, she watched two medics guide another stretcher toward the transport, followed by two bedraggled, dazed workers stumbling along in its wake.
HarperRF: On our way to you with two of the prisoners.
Commander Lekkas: Any word on Rossi or Terrage?
HarperRF: Yeah. Rossi’s ambulatory, but Noah got pinned by equipment. He may live, but no way he’s not losing an arm.
Morgan cringed. She didn’t care for the man, but that didn’t sound good.
Harper and five members of her team emerged from the dark hall with two handcuffed mercs in tow. Harper had one by the arm, driving him forward roughly.
Morgan went over to meet her at the shuttle. “They say who they’re working for?”
Harper shoved the prisoner into a jump seat and secured restraints around him. “Haven’t bothered to ask. Been a little busy.”
She looked like it, too. Blood decorated various parts of her tactical gear and much of her face. Strands of damp, no longer blonde hair peeked out from beneath her helmet, and she had a cut above her left cheek. Her skin shone with sweat and was flushed from exertion. A Daemon hung off one hip and a daisy chain of grenades off the other.
Morgan blinked. Shit, she’d been staring. Luckily Harper was busy double-checking the prisoner’s restraints and hadn’t noticed.
Yet another stretcher emerged from the entry hallway. Even tangled and blooded, Rossi’s curls were unmistakable as she hurried behind it. The figure on the stretcher—Terrage, she assumed—had a large medical stasis device surrounding his left shoulder, and the arm below it was completely encased in thick medwraps.
Rossi looked up and, spotting Morgan, mouthed a ‘thank you.’ She nodded tightly in response.
When Harper stepped away from the prisoner, Morgan climbed into the shuttle and got in his personal space. “Then I’ll ask. Who are you working for?”
The man spat in her face.
She rolled her eyes and wiped the spittle off her cheek. Then she punched him square across the jaw before grabbing him by the throat. “Who are you working for?”
The man’s teeth gritted in her grip behind busted lips. “You’re like her—crazy glowing eyes. Unnatural, inhuman eyes.”
She released him with a dramatic shove and leapt out. “Olivia Montegreu, like we thought. Somebody really needs to kill that bitch.”
Harper took the next prisoner from two of her team and tossed the woman in an empty jump seat. “Point the way.”
ROMANE
Independent Defense Consortium Headquarters
Brooklyn found Morgan waiting for her in the briefing room when she returned from cataloging all the equipment and making certain it was checked into the system. Mostly and haphazardly. The rush from the op still buzzed around in her brain like a fly she couldn’t—and frankly didn’t want to—swat away.
She hesitated in the doorway. “If you want to do a debrief tonight it’s fine, but any chance I can take a shower first? I smell like smoke and blood.”
“Your arm could use a medwrap, too.”
She glanced down at the abrasion running the length of her left forearm and shrugged. “I’ll rub some gel on it later.”
“Good work today. I mean I didn’t see much of it, but given what I did see, and the results…good work.”
She rested on the door frame and crossed her arms over her chest, ignoring the burning sensation as the abrasion rubbed against her other arm. “Were you expecting something less than ‘good work?’ ”
Morgan’s gaze drifted across Brooklyn and away again. She hopped off the edge of the conference table to pace around the room while drumming her fingers on her thighs. “You never can tell about these things. I’m not comfortable relying on others to get the job done.”
“You mean you’re not comfortable being in charge of more than a few pilots.”
“No, I’m not used to being in charge of more than a few pilots. Big difference.”
“Well, I can be in charge if you want. I don’t mind.”
“You’re quite….” The woman’s face screwed up, her eccentric—and Brooklyn now knew unequivocally Artificial—lavender irises flashing. “Did you just make a pass at me?”
She wiped sweat and probably a little blood off her forehead with the back of her hand. “Oh, if I make a pass at you, you won’t have to ask.”
Morgan’s tongue flicked out to lick her lips. She likely didn’t realize she’d done it, but it sent electricity shooting up Brooklyn’s spine. The electricity mixed with the adrenaline still coursing through her veins to create a volatile mixture.
Then Morgan scowled and headed decisively for the door. “Fucking Marines….”
That was uncalled for.
Morgan tried to evade her on the way out the door. Brooklyn’s arm darted out and grabbed her wrist, then slung her into the wall and pinned her there before she could escape. The woman’s wrist was surprisingly small, almost dainty; Morgan’s arrogant and flippant demeanor hid a slight, thin build.
“You should try that, actually. You might learn a few things. Oh, and in case you were confused, this is me making a pass at you.”
Morgan’s free hand snaked around her waist and yanked her closer until their lips lingered a trace apart. The woman’s voice had dropped to a sultry whisper and taken on a hint of a velvety Senecan accent. “You think you have something you can teach me? By all means, enlighten me.”
Brooklyn reached over to the control panel in the wall, closed and locked the door.
She felt behind her for her shirt. When she found it she wadded it up and stuffed it behind her head as a makeshift pillow. The marble floor was cold beneath her bare skin, though she hadn’t noticed until now. “So what did Stanley think? Or was it not his first time?”
“It’s not like that, not really.” Morgan rose up on an elbow to lean over her.
She had never seen the woman’s hair unbound before tonight, but now it hung in tangles to graze her chest. It was a rich, deep chestnut color. She chuckled throatily as Morgan shifted he
r head, sending the tips to tickle Brooklyn’s skin as they brushed over her breasts and back again.
She tried to concentrate on Morgan’s words instead of her hair and its mischief. “How is it, then?”
Morgan’s nose crinkled. Always aloof of countenance, in the repose of afterglow her face was expressive and her features bordered on…soft. Best to not say it aloud, however. Dainty bones or no, the woman had demonstrated earlier tonight that she packed a hefty right hook when properly motivated.
“He’s fading away or…being subsumed into me. I think his personality and individuality weren’t well enough developed before we joined—he hadn’t existed for very long—and he can’t maintain it now that there’s no physical separation.”
“Hmm.” She’d learned only the most basic details about the Prevos and had never directly interacted with an Artificial. In this respect, Morgan had much to teach her. Maybe a few other respects, too, not that she was ready to admit it.
Brooklyn moved onto her side and reached up to run fingertips along Morgan’s temple. “Still have the eyes, though. Looks to me as if they’re shining as dazzlingly as ever.”
A smug grin spread across Morgan’s face. “You fancy them, do you?”
“They don’t suck.”
“No, they don’t. And no, they’re not fading. None of the quantum processes cavorting in my brain cells are. It’s only his consciousness, his…voice which is diminishing. It’s not happening to Annie or…honestly, I’m not entirely sure what Mia and Meno even are anymore.”
She winced. “I didn’t mean to kill him. And sometimes…sometimes I find myself thinking or saying something that sounds like him, so maybe it’s more we’ve truly merged, just on a deeper level than I can perceive. I know, all this sounds weird and creepy.”
“Damn. Here I thought I was having a threesome—”
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