“He won’t have an option.”
“Oh.”
Jamie would hope for a lax controller over there then. After all, they were using a Laframboise craft and flying in from the next island over, not docking an unknown spaceship from another planet.
“Thrusters on,” Jamie said, hoping whoever was banging on the hatch was bright enough to scurry out of the way. If there were exterior cameras that could cycle through outside displays, she hadn’t found them yet. And instead of a view screen, they had an actual windshield that was looking out at a wall at the moment. As they rose, the wall turned into a rooftop. Jamie applied more power, and they continued upward quickly, lifting up over the stadium and the skyscrapers of the city. Clouds obscured the blue of the ocean that would lie far below, but she punched the coordinates of Laframboise’s floating island into the computer, and they were soon heading in the right direction. “Thirty-seven minute ETA.”
“Good.” Sergei smiled at her and gripped her shoulder.
“I’ll check on your other requests, but I think we should let the others know about our change of plans.”
Sergei lifted his brows. “The plan is still the same.”
“Gluing people to their chairs wasn’t in my original proposal.”
“No? Strange that you didn’t think to account for that.”
Jamie pulled out her private comm unit. “Do you want to talk to Ankari, or shall I? Just to make sure the captain is ready to come in and blow some things up if we need a distraction.”
“I hardly think that will be necessary.” But Sergei accepted the comm.
“Humor me.”
“Ankari here,” came the familiar voice over the comm. “Problem, Jamie?”
“This is Sergei. Did you know that your earnest, young pilot has a command streak? Perhaps you should encourage her to take the lead in some of your business adventures.”
“Is ‘command streak’ code for she’s ordering you around?”
“More or less. I also don’t think she approved of the fact that I glued the pilot to… himself. And a row of seats.”
“Oh, dear,” Ankari said. “Does that mean she’s flying?”
“Yes,” Jamie said, “and I’m fine. Just looking up some things in the technical manuals again. Sergei can fill you in.” Now that the craft was on autopilot, she swiped through the manual, hunting for a way that they could depart on the island, then get their prisoners out of the way for a while, in a manner that wouldn’t permanently strand anyone.
“Zharkov,” came Mandrake’s growl over the comm. “How did you fu—screw this up so quickly?”
Sergei’s face grew more serious. “We didn’t anticipate a blood check. We’re going to land on our own and continue with our plan. We shouldn’t need…”
“Ass rescuing?”
“Right.”
“Let us know if that changes. The men are itching for a fight after a week off, and Lieutenant Calendula assures me she can blow things up as spectacularly as Frog. She also assures me that, unlike Frog, she can blow up only the things I ask her to blow up.”
“I thought she was just along because Frog wasn’t willing to fly a pink shuttle,” came someone’s voice in the background.
Others snickered, then abruptly fell silent. A result of the captain glaring at them, no doubt.
Jamie tried to ignore the talk and concentrate. It was going to take some reprogramming to convince the autopilot to do what Sergei wanted. It would be much easier to simply leave the people glued up and hope nobody came in to clean the shuttle or check on the interior while she and Sergei were infiltrating the compound, but she supposed what he wanted was safer.
Shaking her head, Jamie set to work. She found a hack on the network and installed that, hoping that would save her time. Minutes ticked past with her barely aware of her surroundings, the sighs and moans from the glued passengers, the white clouds drifting past the windshield, or Sergei’s gaze as he alternately watched her work and checked on his prisoners.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked softly.
“Is it too soon to ask for massages?” Jamie didn’t know how he could remain so calm. Tension knotted her shoulders, and she was all too aware of the seconds bleeding past.
“No, but I’m afraid the bliss of my touch would distract you from your work.”
“You have a high opinion of yourself.”
“You’ll find out why when we’re done with all this and I treat you to my skilled hands.”
She almost snorted, but his hands had been skilled last night. The memory of the way she had squirmed and pleaded for him made her cheeks warm. He was watching her, and she wondered if he could read her thoughts, because a slight smile turned up the corners of his mouth. She pursed her lips and concentrated on the task in front of her.
Twilight was gathering outside, but the lights of a city came into view, its dark base nestled among the clouds. It was much smaller than the other floating metropolises they had visited. Still, it reputedly housed a thousand people, and the shuttle’s sensors reported it was at least a mile across.
The comm hissed, then a woman said, “You’re cleared for landing, Cloudstar Seven.”
“No challenge?” Jamie asked. “That’s lucky.”
“Yes, but she didn’t direct us where to land.” Sergei leaned forward, eyeing the layers of lights in the city. The outermost buildings only rose a few levels, but a clump of towers in the center shone lights from twelve or fifteen stories. “You think she has her own independent docks at the house? Or are there city ones we’re supposed to use?”
Jamie dug into the logs for the answer to where the craft usually docked. “Last few times, this shuttle came from the second story of the west tower.” She pointed to what was presumably the Laframboise mansion.
“Good. It should be easier to get in from within the house itself. Er, tower. Tower system.”
“Palace?” Jamie suggested.
“That might be the word.” Sergei rose to check on the prisoners, or maybe apply more glue. “Did you get the autopilot figured out?”
“Yes, I programmed in a course that will take them to Fergusson’s spa.” It was on the other side of the planet and four hours from their current location.
“Really? I wouldn’t have guessed these people were the typical spa clientele.” Clothing rustled, and Sergei, said, “The pilot passed out.”
“You didn’t rough him up too much, did you?”
“No. He’s snoring and drooling, so he can’t be that uncomfortable.”
“I’m uncomfortable,” the talkative woman said.
Her comrade grunted in agreement.
“Sorry,” Sergei said. “Want another smoke for the ride?”
The towers loomed tall, their walls made from some black material that shone like polished stone when the shuttle’s headlights passed over them. Jamie flew around, looking for the loading dock or garage or whatever this place had. The wide slide-up door was the same dark hue as the walls, so she almost missed it in the deepening gloom. At the last moment, she spotted it and swung out so she could fly straight in.
“Hope that door opens automatically,” she murmured. She didn’t see a guard post or anything on the outside, and she didn’t dare call the person who had given them permission to land. Certainly, she would find it suspicious if the shuttle’s pilot had changed gender. Even if Sergei did the speaking, the person might notice the change in voice.
“We’re getting close.” Sergei returned to the front and stood behind her seat. “You’d think it would have gone up by now, if it was going to.”
Jamie had slowed down and was nearly hovering in front of the door now. It hadn’t budged. She had already studied the control panel, but she looked over it again, wondering if she had missed some obvious button.
Behind her, Sergei squatted, looked under the console, then stood up, reaching for an overhead control box that tinted the windshield when necessary. He plucked a small device
off the side of it. A second later, the sliding door disappeared into the wall above it, revealing a hangar full of shuttles like theirs. A big grocery hovercraft was backed up to a loading dock on the far side.
“Guess that works.” Sergei showed her the device with a single small button on the top. “I thought I was going to have to interrogate the pilot after all.”
“Is it hard to interrogate someone who’s snoring and drooling?”
“Moderately so.”
Jamie eased the shuttle into the hangar. From the logs, she knew it didn’t have an assigned docking spot, so she picked one more in the shadows than the others. The craft shouldn’t be there for long, so it probably didn’t matter. Still, a few people were working on the main dock, unloading the groceries, and they might wonder when Jamie and Sergei wandered out unaccompanied.
“It’s programmed to leave in—” Jamie set a timer, “—five minutes. I wonder if that garage door opens on its own if a shuttle is heading for it from the inside.” Sergei had replaced the door opener, but she plucked it from its home and stuck it in her pocket. “In case we need to linger and make sure.”
He nodded. “Yes, if the shuttle crashes into a door, that’ll give us away quickly.” He scratched at his jaw, starting slightly at the lack of the beard. Or maybe he was rethinking the merits of the autopilot ploy and feeling alarmed.
“I could cancel it and leave the shuttle here,” Jamie said.
Sergei looked back at the women, freshly lit cigarettes dangling from their lips and filling the air with a noxious miasma of green smoke. “No, do the autopilot. I want to take care of business before anyone in here is questioned. And who knows? They may prefer working for Fergusson in that fancy spa.”
“Fancy isn’t quite the word that comes to my mind.” Jamie set the timer and stood. “Five minutes, let’s go.”
“The comm?”
Jamie cursed. “I forgot.” If anyone of those three escaped the glue, they would jump onto the comm first thing.
She could have downloaded another program to mess with it, but there wasn’t time for that much finesse, not with the countdown already set. Not to mention that the people on the dock might start to wonder what was going on with the shuttle if nobody came out.
She pulled out a screwdriver and removed a panel with a few quick buzzes. She crossed several wires and winked at Sergei. “Let’s see how their mechanic likes that test.”
“I hope those were for the comm system and you didn’t just relegate these people to falling out of the sky. I hear the ocean is chilly down there.”
“It’s the comm, yes.” Jamie waved him toward the hatch. “Now it’s your turn. How do we get inside?”
“Follow me, my lady.” He bowed like some court knight from Old Earth.
“So gallant,” she murmured.
She had parked so the hatch was on the side opposite of the loading dock, so the workers couldn’t see them when Jamie and Sergei climbed out. A few other silver shuttles were in sight, settled between lines on the hard gray floor, but the windshields were dark and nobody was walking around them.
“Wait here, please.” Sergei held up a hand at the nose of the shuttle, then slipped around it and out of view.
Jamie crouched down, her back to the hull, and did as told. She might know a few things about computers and robots, but when it came to sneaking past people, that was his realm. She did check the time often while he was gone, worried that she should have set the countdown for longer. When it reached two minutes, she was on the verge of opening the hatch and going inside to change it. But a squeal and several yells came from the direction of the loading dock.
She stuck her head around the front of the shuttle in time to see the grocery hovercraft ram into a thick post in the middle of the hangar. The post, made from some sturdy material, didn’t so much as chip, but the front corner of the food craft crumpled, then sagged to the ground.
“What the hell happened?” someone demanded.
Several people who had been in the middle of unloading hopped down and ran to the craft. A groan came from inside the cargo area.
A tap on Jamie’s shoulder made her jump. Sergei had returned without a sound.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“Someone must not have applied the emergency brake properly.” Sergei pointed at the open door at the back of the loading dock, one that nobody was looking toward at the moment, then led the way without waiting for an answer.
Remembering how little time they had, Jamie hustled after him. They hugged the wall, heading for stairs that led up to the dock. People’s eyes were focused on the grocery craft, which was smoking impressively now. In fact, Jamie was fairly certain not all of that smoke was coming from a damaged part. It had the same green hue as the air that had wafted from those women’s cigarettes.
Sergei glided up the steps and reached the door, pausing to look inside. More worried about the people outside, Jamie walked up and over as quickly as she could without making noise. As she reached the door, the thrusters fired up on their shuttle.
“What now?” someone growled, turning in that direction.
“Did Jameson ever unload his passengers?”
“Just worry about getting the groceries back over here. Nobody wants to answer to the queen.”
Sergei pulled Jamie inside before she could register in anyone’s peripheral vision.
“Wait,” she breathed, lifting a hand before he could tug her farther. She waved the door opener. The shuttle had rotated and was facing the exit now. Jamie peeped out long enough to press the button. The door rose, and the shuttle floated toward it. “That should do it.”
She turned and almost crashed into a float pallet stacked with boxes of produce and casks of wine. Sergei took her hand and led her around it, past two doors, and into the back of a kitchen. The clanking of pots and pans came from beyond racks, and a robot rolled by not far away. Sergei didn’t linger. He led Jamie through a wide side door with the words Robot Garage in calligraphy on a plaque. They stepped into the dark room, and lights flickered on. Several dormant robots, some wheeled and some hover models, rested on the opposite side. Workbenches and toolboxes filled the walls, with industrial-sized shelving units rising on either side of the door.
“I want you to stay here,” Sergei said.
Jamie supposed there were worse places to loiter, but she was reluctant to hide in a corner of the kitchen while he went out and risked his life. Granted, it was what he did, and he presumably knew how to stay alive, but she asked, “You don’t need me to help in any way?”
He started to shake his head, but paused. She didn’t know if he had truly thought of a way she might help, or he simply wanted to give her a task to make her feel useful, so she would lose her sad-puppy face. “Maybe you could do something in here? Arrange some kind of distraction, in case I get myself into a tight situation? That shouldn’t happen, but if I’m not back here in two hours… I might need help.”
“Just so long as you don’t die. I’m still waiting for my massage.”
“It’s coming.” He clasped her hands and kissed her. He probably meant it to be brief, because he drew back after a couple of seconds, but he paused with his face inches from hers, and returned, his hand coming up to cradle the back of her head.
Jamie slipped her arms around his waist. His face might not look that familiar at the moment, but the curve of his muscled abdomen beneath his shirt… that had grown quite familiar last night. Not to mention the way his lips brushed against hers, his tongue sliding along them and into her mouth, teasing her own tongue, sending curls of heat downward to her core. Her hands tightened about his waist, the fear that they could be discovered—that he could be captured out there, or worse—making her want to pull him closer.
Sergei stepped back before his mouth managed to let hers go, and he sucked her lip gently before finally breaking away. “I better go, before I end up doing something stupid. Like making passionate love to you in the cellar
of Captain Mandrake’s new arch enemy.”
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t let you.” Probably. After that kiss, Jamie found it as hard to let him go as he did to let her go. “I’m shy, and there are robots watching.”
“So there are.” His eyes crinkled, and then he was gone.
Chapter 15
Sergei stepped out of a closet on the sixth floor of the tower, leaving a butler and a seamstress tied and gagged inside. And glued. He had lifted a few practical items on his way through the earlier floors, such as twine, but the glue did add an artistic element to tying people up. He should probably be mature enough not to amuse himself thusly, but when one caught a butler shagging the boss’s personal seamstress, while using the vacuum attachment of a robot maid for an interesting prop, it was nearly impossible not to leave the pair in a compromising position. Besides, it was always possible that when they were discovered in the embarrassing state—along with the vacuum attachment—their stories about an intruder wouldn’t be believed.
In the meantime, Sergei headed for the emergency stairs and the penthouse. He had questioned his prisoners independently of each other to ensure the information he was given matched. Neither butler nor seamstress had shown any loyalty to their mistress, not with his hands around their throats. They had given the location of Laframboise’s quarters immediately. Sergei could have guessed that she was on the top floor—oddly, the wealthy never opted to put their luxury suites in the basement—but the security system remote control he had obtained from the butler made the diversion worth it. It wouldn’t open all the doors up there and bypass all of the security measures, but Sergei wasn’t above sneaking in through the laundry chute the butler did have access to.
Thanks to more convenient lifts at the center of the tower, the dark stairwell was empty. Sergei ghosted up the flights, pausing at the last landing to look out a small window. Though he hadn’t confessed it to Jamie, he was concerned that they had tied up so many people so early in their infiltration. The darkening sky didn’t hold any police shuttles zipping toward the towers, but he wouldn’t be that surprised if they showed up eventually. Preferably after he caught Laframboise.
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