Ying closed her eyes, wishing Marat could have come along. But he must have been dragged back to his ship by now.
Wolf clasped his hand around Ying’s throat and stepped back. With his body no longer against hers, she should have dropped to the floor, but his powerful arm kept her pressed into the wall, her windpipe squeezed under his grip. She gritted her teeth, refusing to whimper or cry out as all of her weight dangled from her neck.
“Take her inside,” Wolf told the android, “and search her thoroughly.” His eyes glinted. “Very thoroughly.”
“Yes, sir.” The android tilted its head toward Hazel, not moving right away. It did grab Ying’s arm, its grip even more steel-like than Wolf’s.
Wolf released her abruptly and faced Hazel, a gun finding its way into his own hand so quickly that Ying did not see him draw.
“Did you need something else, Sergeant Hazel?” Wolf drawled. “I’m guessing from your presence here as delivery girl that Mandrake knows he was in the wrong and you’ve come to beg for my pardon.”
Hazel snorted. “Eat your cock, Wolf.” She jammed her pistol into its holster and walked away, either confident that Wolf wouldn’t shoot—or confident in her armor.
Ying tried not to feel like every hope was abandoning her as the sergeant walked away. She reminded herself that she had never expected help. Of course, she had also hoped Wolf wouldn’t figure out who she was until it was too late. She had wanted to feed him that information as he lay dying on the floor at her feet.
As the android dragged her into the airlock, she lamented that her scenario could never happen now.
8
Marat hunched close to the holodisplay, keeping it to a narrow view since the computer terminals were out in the open concourse, with people streaming past, brushing his shoulder with their shopping bags. A cleaning robot with rotating mops nearly ran over his foot. What was on his display probably didn’t matter to anyone here, but he couldn’t help but glance around as he typed in commands, trying to find a way to access the pirate ship’s network. Unfortunately, the old override codes hadn’t worked. He was disappointed, but not surprised. It had been several years since he had served on that model of ship, and even if the pirates hadn’t changed the codes, Fleet might have in that time. Since he no longer had access to the Fleet network, he could not check.
“Done yet?” came Striker’s voice from behind his shoulder.
It was only when he spoke that Marat realized he hadn’t done so for quite some time. Earlier, Striker had been pestering him with questions and sighing dramatically to show his boredom.
“Trying something new.” Marat glanced back, then looked again. “Where did you get that?” In addition to his pistols and bandolier of grenades, Striker now wore a compact backpack attached by a hose to a two-handed weapon with a broad metal muzzle. “Is that a flamethrower?”
Striker grinned. “Wilma.”
“Pardon?”
“Her name is Wilma, and yes, she’s a flamethrower. A Darkstar 3636, one-hundred-meter range with a burn time of—”
“Striker.” Marat lifted a hand. “There’s no way Wolf’s security is going to let us walk onto the ship with obvious weapons, especially not with obvious weapons bigger than a tank.”
“I thought I could make her look like a fire extinguisher.” Striker patted the side of the flamethrower lovingly.
Marat groaned and turned back to the terminal. If this next attempt to get in didn’t work, they might have to try a frontal assault with the flamethrower, after all. Two men against a crew of fifty to one hundred did not sound promising.
“Any luck?” Striker asked.
“I’ve learned that the pirate ship’s computers haven’t accepted any of the Fleet-wide updates in the last five years.”
“Was that a yes?”
“It means that the old override codes, the ones I know, should work. But they’re not. Oh, I just realized...” Marat went back to typing, his fingers flying through the air over the holo keys.
“That the flamethrower would be an effective way to set their alarms off? Without computers?”
“Once you agree to help, you throw everything into it, don’t you?”
“I’m a good soldier.”
Marat snorted as he hit the last button. He leaned back, holding his breath.
“What’re you doing now?” Striker asked.
“Before, I was trying to give the live operating system some orders. Now, I’m trying the testing system. All we need is, hah.” Marat pointed at a flashing “Accepted” that displayed in the air.
“What’s that mean?”
“There’s a little button in engineering that’s now flashing. I’ve got their fire suppression system stuck in a testing cycle, so the software that monitors everything will be getting uppity because that means the main system is offline.”
“An uppity button. That’ll make those pirates wet themselves.”
“It’ll open a door.” Marat shut down the terminal, wincing when he saw the charges that had been wracked up in the hour he had been working. Seeing how much time had passed made him wince for another reason. Hazel would have turned Ying over to Wolf by now. She could already be in all kinds of trouble.
“If you say so.”
“Come on. We need to find uniforms, preferably with helmets to cover our faces.” Marat glanced at Striker. “We need to find someplace to hide your weapons too. There’s no time for you to go back to the ship.”
“We can hide them on me.”
“The odds of us passing as station firefighters are low, as it is, especially since Wolf and his androids have already seen us. Carrying a flamethrower would only be acceptable if you were lighting back-fires on the side of a mountain somewhere.”
“Wilma can light back-fires.” Striker patted the flamethrower again. “We’ll just do it in engineering instead of in a forest.”
Shaking his head, Marat jogged toward a lift. Earlier, while he had been waiting on the network, he had memorized the route to the small fire station on Level Five.
When the lift doors opened, two security officers walked out. Marat ducked his head and slipped past them, hoping they wouldn’t glance twice at him. He also hoped they wouldn’t stop Striker and ask why he was carrying armament enough to take out the entire station.
They didn’t stop him, but one of the men did pause and look back. He frowned, lowering his hand to his pistol. Both of the men wore armor, but Striker growled, and neither pulled a weapon. As soon as the lift doors closed, Marat slammed his palm against the panel for the level they needed.
“Wolf got station security paid?” Striker asked.
“Maybe. Or maybe your grenades just made them uneasy.”
“No laws against going about armed here.”
“You’re more than armed. You look like you’re ready to rob a bank.”
“Rob? I could level a bank with all I got. Too bad hardly any banks actually hold gold anymore. You think the one here does?”
“Not now, Striker.” The lift doors opened, and Marat jogged into a corridor that was thankfully devoid of shoppers and security officers. Following the route he had memorized, he took two rights, then a left before stopping in front of a door at the end of a short hall. Judging by the pictographic sign warning about chemicals inside and the sprinkler system schematics bolted to the wall, he had found the right place. Unfortunately, the door did not open when he waved a hand at the sensor.
“You need help?” Striker dug into one of several pouches on his belt. Between the pouches, the ammo, and the weapons hanging there, it was a wonder his trousers stayed up.
“Of the explosive variety?”
“What other variety would there be?”
“I thought you might have something subtle, quiet, and that wouldn’t do permanent damage,” Marat said. “Like a lock-picking tool.”
“Please, I’m no thief. Besides I’ve got all the tools I need, right here.” Striker pushed Marat to the side.
As much as Marat hated the idea of blowing open any doors or doing anything else that would cause Mandrake Company trouble, they didn’t have time to locate and bribe someone who had access. Though he worried there would be consequences later, he stepped back and let Striker work.
Fortunately, Striker didn’t simply stick a bomb to the door and back away. He rapped his knuckles on the metal wall beside the door in a couple of places, then attached a black sticky patch. He jammed a button-sized device—a detonator?—into the middle of the patch, then backed up, waving for Marat to do the same.
The button disappeared in flame, then a moment later, a gush of smoke came from the patch. A sizzling sound followed, then a square of metal clunked to the floor. Striker fired into the now-open piece of the wall, melting circuits. The door opened an inch, hissed, and stuck. Growling, Striker thrust his hand into the gap, leaned his shoulder into the jam, and pushed. His face turned red before the door finally groaned open.
Striker grinned and backed away, then tapped his biceps. “Tools.”
“Uh, right.” Marat made himself add, “Thanks,” though he couldn’t help but think about how Mandrake Company would now be getting irate calls from the station as well as from the local pirates. “Come on. There should be some suits in here.”
“Suits?”
“Like combat armor, except rated to withstand extreme heat and toxic environmental conditions.” Marat jogged past a big control station with cameras that monitored the different levels of the station. Some of the feeds were blacked out, and the dust on the panel and the smell of moldy food left behind a console somewhere suggested this room wasn’t maintained often. He doubted they would find suits that could actually do what he had promised, but so long as they came with helmets that would partially hide their occupants’ faces... “Here they are.”
Dust fluttered out of the cabinet when Marat opened it, and there were only three suits inside. The first one had the armpit chewed out and soot stains smeared all over one side. An even more dubious stain in the crotch area prompted him to hand the suit to Striker.
“Uh.” Striker wrinkled his nose. “Combat armor would have been better.”
“Just put it on.”
Marat grabbed a suit that looked like it might fit him. It was almost as grimy as the other one, and stank of stale sweat and fear, but it wasn’t as if he had many options.
“I don’t think you’re going to get another kiss from your cranky girlfriend if you rescue her in that,” Striker said.
Busy buckling his legs into the bottoms, Marat almost ignored him, but his mind hiccuped over one of those words. “Another?”
Dear Buddha, how much had Striker and Hazel heard as they were creeping up on them?
Striker grinned. “There’s no way you’d go through all this for a girl you’re plutonic with.”
“Platonic.”
“That too. Are her lips as sweet as they look?”
“How is it even remotely possible that you outrank me?”
“Seniority, young pup. Now, does this TacZip go in the front or the back?”
Though the waste of time grated on Marat, he helped Striker dress. It was a Herculean task, not only because Striker didn’t know where the zipper went, but because he wanted to get as much of his armament as possible inside of the suit. When they donned their hoods, Marat was pleased at how much they did to obscure their faces, though he didn’t truly believe Wolf’s security would let them inside without asking them to take off their gloves for a chip ID scan. He would hope for extreme ineptitude or extreme gullibility. If neither of those happened, he would hope Striker could blow up a pirate android more quickly than that android could call its boss.
“My flamethrower fits in this toolbox,” Striker said, his voice a pleased purr. He had found some bottles in a cabinet and stuffed them into the box, too, along with a handful of his grenades.
“Fits, yes. Is hidden, no.”
Striker grabbed a grease-smeared rag from the storage closet and draped it artfully over the box.
Marat would have rubbed his face if he hadn’t already put on the helmet. “Let’s go,” he said. He did not give voice to his growing certainty that this would never work. Ying needed help. He had to try.
“After you, fire boss.”
Marat did not jog back to the lift, but only because the cumbersome suit was heavy and lacked motors and mechanization that would have assisted its wearer. It lacked environmental controls for the interior, as well, and he soon grew hot, with sweat dribbling down the side of his face. He reminded himself that Ying was likely in a much worse place and hurried through the corridors as swiftly as he could. He was glad the Albatross was docked on the opposite side of the station from the pirate ship, because he wouldn’t have been surprised if Mandrake had woken by now and sent men out to hunt down his missing people.
Several security guards looked in their direction as they passed, and Marat had to force his hunched shoulders to lower. Any second, he was certain one of them would shout for him to stop. Even if the fire station corridor had been empty, he believed Striker’s sabotage had likely set off an alarm somewhere. Soon, security would be on the hunt for two men in stolen suits.
“It’s down there,” Striker said, pointing toward a faded red B sign over a corridor entrance. His voice sounded in Marat’s ear, over a private comm that connected the suits.
“I know.” Marat made the last turn toward the bank of airlocks.
Several men and women stood guard down the length of the corridor, but Marat’s gaze fastened on a male figure at the end. He groaned to himself. It was one of those androids again. An android would definitely adhere to protocol and demand identification.
Even though he knew this couldn’t work, not without chaos and bloodshed, Marat forced himself to stride confidently toward the pirate’s airlock.
“This where the fire is?” he demanded of the android without preamble.
“Pardon?” It peered through his faceplate.
Marat made no move to accommodate the android by removing his helmet. This appeared to be a slightly different model than the ones they had dealt with before, but he wouldn’t bet that pictures hadn’t been shared around among the pirate’s people.
“Your ship is venting smoke,” Marat said. “Fire is a danger to the station and every ship docked here. You’ll either need to leave immediately, or let us in to inspect the problem and determine whether you need assistance or the fire can be contained easily.”
“I will check on your claim. Remain where you are.”
The android backed several steps into the tube and tapped a comm pin. His voice was too low for Marat to make out, but he knew that alarm he had activated should be flashing on a display in engineering.
“Think this’ll work?” Striker murmured over their private comm. “If not, I can take a shot at him while he’s talking.”
“Wait to give it a chance. Androids can withstand laser fire and bullets enough that he’d make it back inside and warn his people.”
As he finished the sentence, two of those people strolled through the ship corridor that connected to the far end of the tube. They paused to peer at Marat and Striker. Given their tattoos, motley clothing, and belts laden with illegal weapons, Marat had no trouble identifying them as a part of the pirate crew. He and Striker would never get to engineering—or to Ying—if they had to fight their way past fifty men.
The android returned. “We do see that there’s an alarm, and someone from engineering is investigating it. The captain has been informed. He may come to address your concerns.”
“It’s not necessary to interrupt your captain’s sleep cycle,” Marat said, the balloon of panic swelling in his chest. Even with the helmets, Wolf would definitely recognize them. “Just allow us to inspect the unit with your men. We’re trained firefighters.”
The android had doubtlessly already taken a full assessment of them when they walked up, but his gaze shifted toward the toolbox
Striker carried. “I’ll need to see your identification before allowing you onto the ship.”
“I was afraid of that,” Marat muttered, his voice soft, just for Striker. He turned to his comrade. “Sergeant, we need to show our identification. What do you think about that?”
“I think my work badge is in this toolbox.” Striker dropped his load with a clank.
Marat stepped forward, hoping to draw the android’s attention. “Here,” he said, making as if to remove his glove. “Do you have a reader?”
“Hold this, will you?” Striker tossed one of the bottles at the android. “It’s in here somewhere.”
The android caught the bottle without taking his gaze from Marat. “I have a built-in chip reader to handle banking and personnel situations for my employer,” it informed him in a bland voice. “Place your finger on—” The android looked at the bottle, realizing it was dribbling onto his shirt. “This has the aroma of a petroleum-based product.”
“Yes, it does.” Striker whipped up his flamethrower.
Guessing the android would try to flee for the ship, Marat rammed into it, trying to knock it into the wall and block its escape. Even with all of his weight behind the attack, it barely moved, merely taking a step back. A gout of flames engulfed it and Marat, as well. His stomach clenched with instinctual fear, but the suit took the brunt of the fire, as it was designed to.
“Got trouble,” someone in the ship yelled at the same time as Striker demanded, “What’re you doing, Azarov? Get out of the way, you idiot.”
As Striker aimed the flamethrower more toward the android and less toward Marat, the android leaped for him, yanking a pistol from its belt. Normally, Marat would have helped Striker, but two men leaned into the tube from the ship, both raising laser guns.
With few options, Marat charged them. His own pistol was zipped into his suit, so all he could do was hope the fire-rated garment could withstand a few laser strikes. He felt like a drunk bear as he lumbered through the tube at his top speed. He didn’t even try to dodge the crimson beams that lanced through the air toward him. He felt them punch into his suit with the weight of bullets, battering his ribs even through the sturdy material, but his momentum carried him forward.
Mandrake Company- The Complete Series Page 146