“We have some currency and goods we can barter,” he insisted, voice tight.
The colonel marshal took out a square of linen and mopped his neck. “If you wish to buy any other provisions while you’re here, spend your currency at the supply marketplace, but I won’t have you paying for the ship parts.”
Rian looked down at his sister. “Zahli, do we need any other supplies?”
“We could do with some fresh fruit, veggies, and meat to save us an extra stop next week. Unless you want to keep living on repli-rations until we reach the Rim.”
He made a face, the same one they all made at the prospect of eating repli-rations.
“Get what you need to provide us with meals for a few days. We’ll do fresh food for the first half of the trip and live on repli-rations for the last few days, right?”
“Is it all right if Lianna comes with me?”
So his sister didn’t want to wander around the big scary prison complex on her own? “Sure thing, Zi-zi.”
As she stood, she glared at him for his use of her childhood nickname. Yeah, he always called her on it whenever he thought she was being a wimp. What the freck did she think could possibly happen with all these IPC officers around?
“If you go back down to the main square, you’ll see a sign directing the way,” the colonel said as she and Lianna walked to the end of the room.
Once the girls had left, the colonel turned to him with a wide grin. “Now, Major Captain. How about we go get a brew and dust off some war stories?”
Rian sent the general a taut smile. Oh, fun. Just what he’d love to do. About as much as swallowing boiling plasma.
The conference room doors slid closed behind them and Zahli dropped a hand to rest on the butt of her pulse pistol. “This place really is like hell. I think I could have happily lived my life without visiting.”
Lianna didn’t have her hands on any weapons, but her posture was rigid and tense. “Let’s just hope Jensen and I can get the ship fixed sooner rather than later. And pray we never have reason to come by this part of space ever again.”
They took the elevator down and crossed the main square. Even without the signs, she probably could have guessed where the supply marketplace was situated. It seemed to be the only building with a constant stream of people going in and out. As they got closer, she saw most wore the uniform of an IPC officer, but some seemed to be wearing the obvious colors of inmates.
“I thought the colonel marshal said the inmates couldn’t get into this part of the compound.”
Lianna moved closer to her as they reached the doors. “They’re not acting or being treated like inmates. They seem to be shopping.”
“They must be prisoners, though. Why else would they be wearing the uniform?”
“Maybe they’re allowed in here for good behavior or something.”
It seemed hard to believe anyone sentenced to Erebus could be trusted enough to mix freely with the officers. Just inside, they moved out of the way of two women wearing inmate uniforms. One of them smiled and greeted them politely, a stark contrast to the violent people she’d observed outside the walls. Stopping by the computers where currency was exchanged for goods, she grabbed a hovercart and followed Lianna into the isles of products on display.
Lianna stopped by a stack of powdered cleaning solution. “If we split up, we can get out of here and back to the ship sooner rather than later.”
“As much as I don’t want to walk around here by myself, the thought of getting back to the ship sounds great.” Zahli looked along the isle to where she could see vegetables and fruit gleaming under the harsh lighting. There were plenty of people around, many of them officers. Nothing could happen to her between here and buying a few supplies.
“I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes then.” Lianna turned and headed off in the other direction, while Zahli instructed the hovercart to move towards the back of the store.
She loaded the cart with what she’d come to learn was a fine balance between the amount of food Rian expected to see versus the amount of currency she spent, and then moved onto the meat section. She grabbed a few cuts of beef, but took mostly jerky since it’d last longer. Her shopping finished, she directed the hovercart back to where she’d started. But typical of shopping carts, it decided in that moment to develop a mind of its own and have a mini-meltdown. The cart seemed intent on squashing her against the refrigerator and she took a few steps back, only to bump into someone behind her.
“I’m so sorry.” She blurted out the apology before she’d even turned around, still trying to get the stupid hovercraft to stop ramming the refrigerator door.
“No problem. Here, let me.” She glanced up as an officer leaned over to tap one of the icons on the hovercart’s control screen, bringing the device to a rattled stop.
“Thanks.” She puffed out a small breath of relief and checked the more delicate vegetables hadn’t gotten squashed by anything heavier in the commotion.
“You’re from the damaged ship that landed a while ago?” the officer asked, stepping back and casting a quick look around.
“Yes. The colonel marshal said we could get supplies. I am in the right place, aren’t I?”
He gave a quick nod. “There’s only one marketplace in the spaceport compound. But there’s been a security breach. I need you to come with me.”
He took her arm, tugging her away from the shopping cart as her heart pushed up into the bottom of her throat.
“What happened?”
He shook his head, expression tense. “I can’t say here. I just need to take you to a more secured area.
“But, I came here with another of the crew. We need to go get her—”
The officer hurried her along an aisle, not seeming deterred by her hesitation.
“Another officer has been dispatched to get her.”
Hoping to see Lianna, she cast one more look into the marketplace as they reached the doors. Despite the fact that this officer had told her there’d been a security breach, no one inside or outside the marketplace seem to be acting anything other than normal. Suspicion stirred below her apprehension.
Maybe it had something to do with their ship. Maybe someone had said something to piss off Rian and he’d reacted with his typical violent tendencies, and now they were all being detained. Damn it, they couldn’t take her brother anywhere. But this wasn’t like getting into some bar fight on Palomo, one of Auberon’s lawless moons. They were on Erebus. If ever there was a time Rian should keep a tight leash on his temper, it’d be while they had their boots on the dirt of the IPC’s prison planet.
By the time they’d rounded the building next to the marketplace and the officer paused to put his security clearance into a door, she’d worked herself into a pretty decent indignant rage over what her brother had done to cause them trouble this time. Usually she cut him some slack—he wasn’t anywhere near as bad now as when he’d first gotten home from the war. But the possibility they might have to stay here for even a short amount of time to sort out any issues left her fuming.
She followed the officer into a quiet corridor lined with shut doors. This section was somewhat more utilitarian than the other buildings she’d seen. The sound of the conflict going on beyond the walls was louder in here, and the interior had a chill to it that left goose-pimples racing over her skin.
Crossing her arms, her steps slowed as something about this registered as not right. Where was the rest of the crew? In fact, where was anyone else? There didn’t seem to be any other people in this building—neither officers nor prisoners.
Her escort had stopped in front of another door, pausing to put another security code in. He glanced up to where she’d stopped a few feet away.
“Come on, I need to secure you in here.” He pushed the door open and stepped back, waiting for her to join him. But the absolute emptiness of this place had started creeping under her skin.
“If it’s all the same, I’ll just wait until Lianna or
the rest of the crew turns up.”
The officer’s expression tightened into lines of anger, and in that second, being alone with him was about the dead last thing she wanted.
As he started to take a step forward, frigid fear crashed through her limbs and she turned, taking off at a sprint back along the corridor. Halfway there, he grabbed her from behind, half tackling her and putting them both off balance. They careened into one of the walls and Zahli turned on him, aiming to catch him offside before he could get his bearings and a better grip on her. Having Rian Sherron for a brother came with some benefits, not the least of which had been him teaching her how to fight.
She half spun, bringing her leg up and catching him in the side with her knee. It forced him back a few stumbling steps. Before he recovered, she stepped in with a full round house kick. Because he was taller, she couldn’t quite reach his head, but she got him in the upper torso and laid him out.
Not waiting to see whether she’d knocked him unconscious or not, she launched into a run, making it all the way to the end of the corridor. But the door was locked from the inside, flashing for security clearance codes to open.
She pounded a fist on the door and yelled. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed the officer hauling himself to his feet, looking even more infuriated than he’d been before.
He reached for the P-Mk-2 on his belt—a modified type of pulse pistol issued to select IPC officers and military. It was a stun-only weapon designed for maximum pain to incapacitate its victims. She palmed her own pulse pistol but it was too late. She’d only brought her gun halfway up when the officer let off two rounds that hit her in the chest.
She slammed back against the door behind her, but that was nothing compared to the agony twisting through her body, radiating out from the middle of her chest, cutting off her breath and making all of her muscles contract.
Everything went black for a long moment, and by the time she could suck in a cutting breath, the officer had picked her up and was carrying her back along the passageway toward the open door.
The room seemed to be a small holding cell of some kind. There was a toilet, a tiny sink, a chair, a desk, and a slim cot with a bare, cardboard-like mattress.
As the officer dropped her down on the cot, she tried to get her limbs to move, but it was like the shot from the P-Mk had interrupted the neural pathways from her brain to her extremities. She was paralyzed, couldn’t do anything as the officer leaned back with a satisfied smirk on his face, his gaze traveling up and down her body.
“Usually I don’t have to pulse the prison bitches, but I have to admit, taking you down was more fun than I’ve had in a while.” He leaned down, bracing a hand next to her head. “I might have to kill you when I’m finished though, otherwise I suppose you’ll blab to someone. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken the risk, but I saw all this honey-gold hair and couldn’t help myself.”
He sifted his fingers into the hair at her temple, gentle at first, but then wrapping his hand in tight and yanking. She clenched her jaw against crying out, but couldn’t do anything about the sting making her eyes water. The pain made her fingers curl, however, telling her that she was only moments away from regaining full control of her muscles.
As the officer leaned in to inhale a fistful of her hair, making her stomach churn like after the Imojenna had dropped out of void-space, she shifted her arm in difficult, gradual degrees until she could wrap her fingers around the hilt of her knife.
When his fist at last untangled from her hair and his fingers started a rough trail down her neck, instinct had her yanking the knife from its sheath before his hand went any lower. She braced herself and heaved, rolling both of them off the cot to hit the floor with the officer below her. He reached up to grab her wrists, but with a two-handed grip on the knife, she plunged it downward, right into the middle of his chest.
The door banged just as the knife rammed home, and she glanced up from the shocked officer’s face to see a prison inmate standing in the doorway.
Jerking the knife free and surging to her feet, she held the weapon up, blood dripping off the end as she backed into the corner.
No matter how many of these bastards she had to take out—prison officer or inmate—she would walk out of here untouched, or she wouldn’t walk out of here at all.
Chapter Three
Tannin pulled to a stop in the doorway, the scene in front of him not the one he’d expected to burst in on.
He’d been standing in front of the meat cool-store in the marketplace trying to decide what cut of beef he wanted for dinner, when he’d noticed the woman from Sherron’s ship, the same one he’d seen just inside the hatchway on the docking bay. Getting a close up look at her hadn’t helped his guilt over stowing away and totally distracted him from thoughts of dinner. He’d taken in the deep blue eyes and curvy figure, not the least bit hidden inside the faded black cargo pants and fitted green top she had on. Like Sherron, the woman carried weapons, though not nearly as many as the major captain had displayed.
Just as he’d decided his guilt and apprehension at going through with his escape plan left him with no appetite, an officer approached her.
He would have left, but he knew this particular officer. The man had a reputation of taking advantage of female inmates, though none of his victims ever reported him—who would believe a woman who’d done something terrible enough to deserve a life sentence on Erebus?
But surely the scumbag wasn’t brazen or dumb enough to try something with one of Rian Sherron’s crew. Everyone knew Sherron’s reputation. So this officer was either an idiot who thought he’d get away with it, or a moron who thought his ranking would offer protection against Sherron taking action. Either way, the guy was a total imbecile.
Tannin abandoned the few groceries he’d picked up and followed them at a distance. When the officer led her into a block of vacant holding cells, he was pretty sure he had his answer about the bastard’s intentions.
He debated. Go find Jase or another officer to intervene? But by that time, it might be too late. The easiest and fastest way of getting to her would be to hack through the security system. But if he got caught, it would mean the end of his escape. He’d be detained and questioned for who knew how long, possibly ejected out into the general population and lose all of his privileges. Was saving one woman he didn’t know worth wasting twelve years of planning, worth giving up the rest of his life?
However, when he’d heard her banging on the door, yelling for help, his decision had been made.
He yanked his commpad out of his pocket and glanced around to make sure no one was nearby. Things had gone silent on the other side, making his heart pick up speed as he hurried to the door. Damn it, why had he stood there arguing with himself?
He secured the commpad to the small crystal display screen, quickly tabbing up a program to override the lock. By the time he jacked into the system and circumvented the lock codes, long minutes had passed.
Once the door clicked open, he disengaged his commpad and ducked inside, hearing the murmur of the officer’s voice drifting from one of the many closed doors along the corridor. It took him a few stops and starts before he found the right room, and then he had to go through the same steps with his commpad again, though he was faster this time.
Just as the lock gave way, a shout sounded from inside the room. Tannin shoved the door open, causing it to smash into the wall behind it, but froze as he took in the woman kneeling over the officer, both hands wrapped around the knife in his chest.
Her head snapped up, a wild gleam in her eyes as she jerked the blade out of the officer’s chest, lurched to her feet, and backed away from both of them. Glancing down, he saw the officer fight for his last breath and go limp.
Jezus. She’d killed him. Well, he supposed that was far better than the alternative.
“Come on. I can help you get out of here.” He looked back up at her, but she hadn’t reacted to his words, still standing rigid in the corner with
the knife thrust out in front of her. Pointed at him. Crap, she was beyond spooked and probably thought he would attack her as well.
He took a careful step forward, holding out his hands so that she could see he had no weapons.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I saw him bring you in here and came to help.”
Her shoulders dropped a fraction, the knife point drooping a little.
“How did you know?” Her voice came out a little thin, as though her vocal chords had been strained.
“He’s got a reputation. I didn’t really think he’d be dumb enough to try something with you, but I thought I should check. Seems like he picked the wrong girl to mess with.”
The knife lowered at last and she seemed to take a deeper breath, some of the wildness leaving her gaze. “Thank you.”
Her words had been almost automatic, her gaze bouncing from him to the dead body between them. Okay, they really needed to get out of here before she either went into shock or someone discovered them. The second option was a little less likely, given the building was currently decommissioned for upgrades. It also meant maybe no one would find the body until well after Sherron’s ship had departed.
“Are you all right?” The question came out a little awkward, because he didn’t know if it was his place to ask; he just felt like maybe he should. Maybe in other places that weren’t a hellhole of a prison world it would have been the polite thing to do.
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