“Can I take the gloves off without exposing myself to the gas?” he asked.
“No. Your air would still flow, but it would break the containment and let gas into your suit. Also...” Tamryn checked a reading. “It’s still coming out of the vents. A scientific suit might have been able to analyze it, but the combat armor is just designed to help us kill things and stay alive while we do it.”
“Understood.” Makkon laid his hand on Dornic’s chest.
Tamryn didn’t know whether to hope his men were dead or not. If the gas was designed to kill, it would take out Gruzinsky too.
The thought arose that if Gruzinsky died, there wouldn’t be anyone alive who had witnessed her kissing the enemy and who could report on that fact later. She quashed the notion, hating herself for even having it.
“They’re breathing,” Makkon said, “but shallowly. And they’re deeply unconscious. I can’t rouse them.”
“This would be a good time to find the pirates and round them up,” Tamryn said, though she doubted he would go for it. Unlike Brax, he clearly saw the scientists as more of a threat. And he was surely right. She had long since figured out that he wasn’t dumb. That was why she had to be careful in picking her moment. Just because he liked kissing her didn’t mean he wouldn’t shoot her if she threatened him. Sadly, she acknowledged that they were similar kinds of people, both dedicated to their duty. And if what he had told her about his people starving was true, he had even more reason than she to make sure he adhered to his duty.
“I’d like to round everybody up,” Makkon said after a long pause. He stood up, not looking at her. “But that’ll be hard to do alone. I should take these men back to the armory, see if I can get them into suits too.” He rapped a knuckle against his chest plate.
“I doubt they’d fit into any of the units that were left on the racks.” Tamryn could understand Makkon wanting his allies back, but for her and the station, it would be better if he didn’t get them. “And they’re already knocked out. Who knows how long it would be before they woke up? Better to take care of the pirates first. I’ll help.”
“Hm.” Makkon regarded her thoughtfully, and she worried he could guess her every thought. “The scientists are more of a threat right now.” He waved at the air around them, even though the gas wasn’t anything that they could see.
“Do you have a plan for stopping them?” Tamryn couldn’t imagine that he intended to knock down a door and leap inside to confront thirty scientists by himself, especially if he didn’t intend to shoot them. And he had better not be intending that. She trusted that he still wanted hostages.
“If I cut a big enough hole in the floor, the gas may take care of my plan for me.” Makkon tapped the big laser lance he had plucked out of the armory.
Tamryn suspected the scientists would have a contingency to deal with a gas leak, since it was their own concoction, but she said nothing. With all of Makkon’s people knocked out, this was her chance to take back the station. If she could deal with him somehow. She was sympathetic to the Glacians’ plight, but it was her duty to reclaim the station if she could.
Makkon found a short, dead-end corridor that he seemed to like and slung the thermite lance off his back. Tamryn didn’t know if he’d had an opportunity to consult a map, perhaps back when he had been poking around on her tablet, or if he was simply going to guess and hope no major conduits, pipes, or structural supports blocked their way. She would laugh if he managed to knock out the lights.
He ignited the lance and set to work burning a hole in the floor. Tamryn quietly watched him work, though her mind was anything but quiet. If he made it through, that would be the time to attack, the moment when he was busy facing off with the scientists. She didn’t know if they would hear him cutting through the floor and be there, waiting with rifles, but she assumed they had armed themselves by now, with some kind of weapon at least. The idea of attacking him—turning on him, it felt like—made her break out in a sweat, both because it was dangerous and because it would feel almost like a betrayal now. Even if she had tried to kill him multiple times, and he couldn’t be surprised by it, that had been before they had kissed. Before that, none of their shared moments had been real, but she would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that the kiss had been real. If she succeeded, she hoped she could come up with a way to let him walk away with his life. Fleet never would, not after he and his team had killed so many, but maybe—
“We’re almost through the top layer,” Makkon said.
We. As if this was a team effort. As if she wanted to break into the scientists’ level and help him recapture them.
“I judged about five feet between levels when we were roaming through the maintenance shafts and up and down ladders,” he added.
Roaming. As if he hadn’t been chasing her, and she hadn’t been fleeing for her life.
“Sounds right,” she said, so he wouldn’t wonder why she had gone quiet.
Makkon broke through the top layer, set the lance aside, and removed the smoking circle he had cut, the gloves on the suit offering him protection. She eyed the lance, aware that it could make a useful weapon, perhaps even better than a rifle at close range. But she waited. He wasn’t that distracted.
There were some conduits and thick beams running beneath the floor, but they were off to the side of his hole. By luck or research, he’d picked a spot that was fairly empty, with nothing but insulation padding the open space. He ripped that out and tossed it aside, then quietly lowered himself to the ceiling of the level below. He braced his boots on support beams, then pulled the lance down and set to work again.
A bleep of light showed up on one of the displays in Tamryn’s helmet. She stared at it in surprise for a moment before the significance fully registered.
She adjusted the comm, so that she had a private line with Makkon, and they weren’t transmitting system-wide. “Another suit just came online.”
He paused and looked up at her, only his head and shoulders visible above the floor. “You mean someone else climbed into some combat armor? Should that be possible? The gas has been flowing for ten, fifteen minutes now. My people were knocked out.”
“Two more suits just came online, same location as the first. They’re up in the armory where we got ours.” Tamryn shrugged. “Maybe someone else figured out a temporary way to avoid the gas and thought of the suits.”
“Can we speak to them?”
“Yes. I made us a private line, but the default is to transmit system wide.” Tamryn crouched down as much as the unwieldy armor would allow and looked at his face, wondering if he was expecting anyone else to join them. “Do you want to talk to them?”
“I... don’t think my people would have thought of your combat armor as an option to shut out the gas.”
“I don’t think our civilians would have, either. There are hazmat suits in the labs that would have been more natural for them to select.”
“Hazmat?” Makkon asked slowly, perhaps not familiar with the term. “Hazardous materials?”
“Yes.” Tamryn wondered if she should have given him that information, especially if he had been hoping his leak would send gas flowing below to knock out the scientists. “They’re mostly working with animals that they made from genetic material gathered from the ice down there, but there’s always the possibility that they’ll bring back something dangerous from the planet.”
“All right.” Makkon brought the lance to life again with a flare of orange light. “Can you monitor the conversations the people in those other suits have?”
“Already doing it, but nobody’s talking yet. They may have the comms off and simply be speaking loudly enough to each other to be heard through the helmets. If they’re pirates, they may not know how to turn on the comms.”
“What if they’re your people?” Makkon had his head bent as he worked, so she couldn’t see his face.
“My people? The soldiers?” She thought of Cox and Powell, who had presumably been b
etter off than Gruzinsky and able to walk out of the lounge with the scientists. That would only account for two people in suits, unless someone else had been hiding on the station and had joined them. “My people would know how to use the comms.”
“And they’d know that they could be monitored, right? And that there are two other suits out there?”
“That’s true. I’m going to guess pirates got to the armory, though, and also thought of the suits as an option for avoiding the gas.” Though she didn’t know how they would have survived those long minutes exposed to the gas to get to the armory. Nor did she know how they would have known where the armory was. Unless someone on that team was familiar with the station.
She shook her head. She was going to give herself a headache with all of this rampant speculation. Makkon was more of a concern than three people in suits on another level, at least for now. With his head down and most of his body in that hole in the floor, she wondered how effectively he could dodge laser fire. It would take a sustained blast or a more powerful weapon to breach the armor, and he could leap out and get at her before she could finish him off. Besides, as she’d already admitted, she no longer wanted to “finish him off.”
“About to break through,” he said, oblivious to her thoughts.
Well, no, he probably wasn’t oblivious. As many times as she’d tried to kill him, he was probably very aware of the fact that she was standing above him and armed. He might even wonder if the kiss had been real or if it had been part of another ruse. As if she was that good of an actor. Without the influence of that drug, she never could have gotten down on her knees in front of him. Even now she felt embarrassed and almost scandalized by her brazenness. Of course, there was a part of her that imagined some future in which she could do it again, not as enemies, but as lovers.
Makkon turned off the lance and set it on the floor next to her. She forced her wandering thoughts back to the moment.
“Get ready.” He bent low, the shoulders of his suit scraping against beams and conduits, and tore the last bit of metal free so he could lift up the ceiling panel. It squeaked faintly as he worked it free.
He paused before lifting it, looking into the level and listening.
Tamryn tried to listen too. Makkon had been quiet, but the lance had made noise burning the panels, and if the scientists had heard him, they would be ready down there.
A soft clink sounded, followed by a second one. At first, Tamryn thought the scientists were doing something. Then Makkon pulled the panel free and maneuvered it out to lay it on the floor by the first one, and she glimpsed yellowish-green smoke wafting up from the floor below. He seemed calm about it.
“Did you do that?” she whispered.
He showed her a compact canister he held in one hand, and she recognized it immediately. A tear gas grenade. She hadn’t been the only one shopping for goodies in the armory. Damn, she hadn’t seen him grabbing those.
A cough came from somewhere below. Makkon disappeared from sight so quickly that she thought he had fallen. But he had jumped down of his own accord, landing in a crouch in the smoke, then disappearing from her sight.
Cursing to herself, Tamryn clambered down after him. She landed less agilely, almost toppling over, thanks to the unaccustomed weight of the suit. The stabilizers helped catch her and soften the landing. She almost didn’t realize that she was standing in several inches of straw. Had they landed in some animal pen? She couldn’t feel the cold through her suit, but the display showed a below-freezing temperature.
Smoke hazed the air all around her, but her sensors showed heat signatures. Numerous heat signatures. A laser rifle squealed.
Not certain whether Makkon had fired or if people were firing at him, Tamryn sucked in a deep breath and took her gamble. First, she ordered his suit to inject him with the painkillers, hoping that would dull his reflexes, and then she ordered the self-ambulation function to turn on, to walk him toward a wall.
More lasers fired, too many to be just from Makkon, and Tamryn ran forward. As she came to the edge of the smoke, she saw his suit, saw that he was struggling with it. He might have the strength to fight back the orders she had given it, but she didn’t think he would risk taking it off. Eight figures in bright red hazmat suits came into view, all shooting at him with rifles. The beams glanced off the suit, but if they sustained fire for long enough, even the armor wouldn’t save him indefinitely.
“Hold fire,” Tamryn yelled. “It’s Lieutenant Pavlenko and—” And what? Her ally? Surely not. “My prisoner,” she finished.
Hoping she wasn’t being suicidal, she leaped into the laser fire. Her displays lit up, warning her of the sources and giving an estimate of damage and how many more shots she could take. She gave Makkon’s suit one final command, to pop the helmet.
She heard the hiss-snap even over the commotion. The people in the hazmat suits had stopped firing their rifles—she thanked the Buddha for that—but they were yelling at her, or maybe at each other. She couldn’t make out individual voices over the clamor.
Tamryn rushed forward and grabbed Makkon’s helmet. As she pulled it off, he overpowered the command that was trying to get him to walk into a corner, and his arm struck her, flinging her a dozen feet away. She landed hard, hitting the deck and skidding through the straw, but she heard the clunk of his helmet hitting the floor.
Someone threw an electric net at him, the blue strands of energy crackling as they flew through the air. Normally, Makkon would have avoided it easily, but he was still fighting his armor, and the drugs Tamryn had pumped into him might have been having an effect. His heel slipped in the straw, and the net tangled around him. The net had a magnetic feature designed to snap the ends together to bag its target. Tamryn knew the scientists used them to contain dangerous animals when they had to close in to tranquilize or otherwise drug them. Several red-suited civilians darted toward Makkon now, injectors in their hands.
He still thrashed dangerously, and someone else went flying across the room, landing not far from Tamryn. She climbed to her feet and grabbed the injector from the dazed man. Not certain the scientists would be able to subdue him on their own, she jogged back in to help.
Before lunging in, she glanced at the injector. “This is a tranq, right?” She didn’t think the civilians would kill people, even those who had killed the station’s soldiers, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Yes,” came a familiar voice, a frazzled one. Anise was trying to slip in from behind Makkon, guarding the hand holding the injector with her other hand.
But Makkon had gotten his feet under him, and he spun slowly, swatting anyone who came close. His swats, even when sluggish, were enough to break bones when they knocked people away. Anise took an elbow to the solar plexus and stumbled, her gasps audible even through her helmet.
“He’s not feeling the pain of the net’s electricity through the armor,” someone yelled.
“It’s on his head, too. He has to be feeling it.”
Makkon roared, and even with the electricity snapping all around him, he lunged for his fallen rifle. Afraid that he would forget his hostage plan and start shooting the civilians, Tamryn ran after him. She leaped, intending to land on his back and stick the injector in his neck. The fact that he’d been kind enough not to stick a needle in her neck flashed through her mind, along with a wave of guilt, but it was the only vein she could get to with the armor encasing most of his body.
He reached the rifle more quickly than she expected—damn him, the suit and the drugs were supposed to be slowing him more—and he started to turn as she flew through the air. She struck him first, wrapping an arm and her legs about his upper body, the armor clanking at their awkward crash. He raised an arm to fling her away, but not before she jabbed the tranquilizer into his neck.
As soon as he felt its bite, he lowered his arm. It should have taken a moment to kick in, but the fight bled out of him, and he just stared at her, that look of hurt and betrayal in his eyes. She couldn’t bri
ng herself to say that he should have known all along not to put his back to her. Instead, what came out was a whisper of, “Sorry.”
She couldn’t say it loudly, not with the scientists all around them, and she didn’t know if he heard it or not. He said nothing. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he crumpled to the deck. Tamryn jumped away so she wouldn’t go down with him and be caught under his armored body.
Someone cursed from the floor a few meters away. “God, they’re dangerous. It’s like trying to bring down a Goran Dragon.”
“Get him into one of the fridges,” someone else said.
Tamryn turned to look for Anise and noticed that several rifles were pointed in her direction. They were loosely pointed, and some targeted Makkon, but still, fresh fear raced through her limbs.
“Uh?” she said. “It’s Lieutenant Pavlenko.”
The rifles did not lower, not until Anise came forward and spoke. “It’s all right.” She waved to the scientists. “I’ll talk to her. Just find the hover pallet and lock him up, please.”
A few people grumbled, and Tamryn shifted uneasily. Did they suspect her of colluding with the enemy? Because she’d been taken away from them for so long?
Several of the red-suited civilians strode away. Anise smiled at Tamryn through the faceplate of her helmet, and Tamryn allowed herself to relax an iota.
“This way, please, Tam. We’re collecting the Glacians and figuring out how to secure them so they won’t be able to escape until Fleet gets here to deal with them.”
“Refrigerators?” Tamryn imagined Makkon kicking open a door, even a thick metal one that was locked from the outside.
“They’re more like vaults,” Anise said as they walked out of the hay-filled pen and into a wide corridor lined with labs. “We keep compounds in them that have finicky temperature requirements, and because some of them are toxic or extremely valuable, they’re locked up. We cleared out three of them to store the Glacians.”
“Everyone’s in hazmat suits. Does that mean the gas is on this level too?”
Frost Station Alpha 1-6: The Complete Series Page 20