Thieves' Guild Series (7 eBook Box Set): Military Science Fiction - Alien Invasion - Galactic War Novels

by C. G. Hatton

  “What’s happened to Mendhel?” Hil said, a chill clutching at his stomach.

  “Hil,” the guy said, “that’s not your biggest problem right now, trust me. NG wants to know what the hell you were doing out there.”

  “I don’t remember,” Hil said, frustration fuelled by obnoxious belligerence and every hurt yelling at him to fight back. “I don’t know where I’ve been. I don’t know what I was doing. I don’t even know your name.”

  He didn’t get an answer before the woman stomped up next to them and gave him a disgusted look. “God, you people are so damned cocky when it’s all tickety-boo. It’s pathetic to see you like this.” She hit the button. He hadn’t seen the light turn to green. “Go, scoot. Get your ass up to Medical. I’m sure NG will send for you when he’s ready.”

  He had a dozen questions on the tip of his tongue but he couldn’t formulate a whole sentence. He kept his mouth shut and was halfway down the tube before he thought to turn.

  “Thanks for the rescue,” he said and went home.

  Medical was the last place he wanted to be. Hil checked the docking schedule but there was no listing for Skye. If they were bringing her in, she hadn’t got there yet. He had to get to Acquisitions if he was going to have any chance of finding out what had happened to LC and Mendhel. His nerves were trembling, from the crash, the drugs or what, he couldn’t tell, but he felt edgy and uneasy as he’d never experienced before at home. Home was a secure, safe place but something had changed. He tried to remember exactly what the guy had said but the words slipped out of his memory and were gone, try as he might to bring them back.

  The dock area was busy. He didn’t want to be around people who would ask him awkward questions and he didn’t want this nightmare making public. He knew that Skye always logged in their successful deliveries and let him know if there were any urgent requests for him to contact Mendhel. He could remember that much even if he couldn’t remember anything from this latest job. Usually coming in after a big tab involved checking the bank account, picking up any messages and heading out to R&R. Downtime on the Alsatia between routine tabs meant time in the Maze, training, getting to grips with any new upgrades to bioware or just flat out pushing to get fitter, faster, stronger and better for the next one. Coming home was usually a cocky checking of the standings before waltzing out on the next tab. But not this time.

  Hil slunk into the lift and kept his eyes on the floor. Three dock jockeys edged in after him and he squirmed, expecting a hard time but either they hadn’t heard or they didn’t recognise him. They pushed the button for three and two grunts entered the lift between the closing doors. Hil pushed his back against the back wall and let the lift take him up. They reached three and the doors opened. The three dockies jostled each other out and Hil made a move to push the button for ten. He was pushed aside by a black armour-clad arm that pressed twelve. He could see the grey insignia of the Watch – guild internal security – so they weren’t just grunts from the guild’s militia wing, they were here to pick him up. Shit. They turned to face him as the doors closed and the lift started to rise.

  NG was waiting for them as the lift doors opened. NG was the guild’s head of operations, head of the guild effectively because no one else ever actually met the guild’s council of elders. The Man was the only one of those mysterious figures who ever visited the Alsatia and he only dealt with NG. It was NG who knew exactly who was where, what was what and where they were going. Why everyone called him the New Guy was a mystery because he’d been there as long as Hil could remember.

  NG was rumoured to have a sixth sense and it was a relief to see him, to recognise the face and be able to put a name to it. Hil almost fell towards his outstretched hand.

  “It’s good to have you back, Hil,” NG said softly. “We’re in the shit and I really need to know what you can remember.”

  It was like clutching a warm surge of electricity when you shook hands with NG. The guy was an enigma. He was like everyone’s big brother but no one knew anything about him. Kase and Martha must have reported in already, Hil realised, suddenly remembering the names of the two extraction agents who had rescued him. And realising who it was who had been sent to extract him sent a chill right through him that set him off shivering. He tried to calm down – this wasn’t a good place to go into shock.

  NG put a hand up to the back of his neck and nudged him gently into motion down the corridor. That warm hand was reassuring and Hil felt his heartbeat settle slightly. He couldn’t help raising his own hand up to the patch behind his ear, awkward and embarrassed.

  “I… they… NG, I’m sorry, I don’t remember anything straight.” He was rambling like a fool so he took a deep breath that caught in his chest. “What happened to Mendhel? Has someone told Anya?” He didn’t even know where Mendhel’s daughter had been living recently.

  NG shook his head. “We’ll go through a full debrief later. Right now I need to know whatever you can remember. You okay for this?”

  They stopped at the door to the conference room.

  No, Hil was screaming inside his head. “Yeah,” he said. You never said no to NG, he had a habit of hearing yes anyway.

  There were four people sitting at the round table. All display screens were off and there were no recording devices evidently out. Chances were the monitors were off too – that was a bad sign. That meant that they didn’t want a word of this meeting going any further.

  Hil sat down and tried hard to place the faces looking at him. Section chiefs. He was sitting with the five most important people in the guild. Oh crap. And he hadn’t even had a chance to wipe the blood from his hands. A simple screwed up tab wouldn’t warrant this kind of inquisition, surely? Or was this what happened to all the suckers hauled in after screw-ups?

  NG took his place and started up proceedings. “Chief,” he said to the huge man sitting opposite Hil, “do you want to take this up?”

  Chief was the chief of Acquisitions. He was the only section chief known as Chief, the others referred to by their section. Acquisitions looked after all the handlers, field-ops and security. The Chief was a good guy but Hil had never had to talk to him before without Mendhel smoothing the way first.

  He took a deep breath, the loss hitting hard and the loss of memory of recent days making a confusing swirl of empty cold deep inside. He tried to sidestep his emotions and take control. He was with friends here. These people were on his side.

  The Chief shook his head, placed his huge hands out flat on the table in front of him and leaned forward. “Where the hell have you been and what the hell have you been doing?” he said coldly. “We get word Mendhel is dead, your emergency beacon yells for help and suddenly we can’t contact LC. We were hoping he was with you but obviously not.” His voice turned icy. “Tell me the three of you weren’t out on a tab that we didn’t know about.”

  What? Hil blinked and felt a pulsing tick above his eye start to flicker. No one ever took an unauthorised tab. Not ever.

  “We’ve found evidence of a tab at Mendhel’s safe house on Earth,” Legal piped in. She was a smart, black-clad woman who everyone said had connections to the Assassins. Hil had never seen her this close up. She was stunning and scary as hell. “He was handling an assignment that had not originated from the guild. What do you know about that?”

  There was silence as the accusation swirled around the room. He didn’t know what to say.

  “Do you fully appreciate the consequences of this?” Media was another woman, softer in appearance but with an even more scary reputation. “I can’t believe Mendhel would do that. We need you to detail exactly what Mendhel gave you, where your pick up took place and what the instructions were for drop off because I am very disturbed that one of our handlers could have been acting independently. What did he say to you?”

  The room went quiet and Hil looked from face to face. Science was sitting there, a stony look on his thin face, fidgeting with a data board in front of him like he couldn’t believe
they were wasting his time with this.

  Hil fumbled inside his brain for a set of words to string together into a sentence. He opened his mouth before anything was ready and shut it again when he realised he couldn’t remember the question.

  He was saved by the Chief who pushed back from the table and stood up. “Let me set this straight,” he said. “You left here with LC. That’s logged. It is not in dispute and don’t deny it. What the hell were you two doing?”

  What?

  He must have shown something in his face because NG shot a glare straight at him.

  “You don’t remember leaving with LC,” NG said quietly. It was a statement rather than a question and he had it right.

  Hil tried to set his face to neutral. It was hard not to fidget. He had dried blood under his fingernails still and his face must have looked a mess. Beyond the pounding in his head, he felt nauseous and the more he concentrated the more he could feel each twinge of pain, in his ribs, his right arm, left ankle, that cold spot behind his ear. He didn’t know what had happened so he didn’t know what to say. He’d never faced this before. Mendhel had always handled the fallout from any little upsets his ego had gotten him into. He felt distanced from it all – it all seemed so unreal.

  Legal pushed a data board across to NG, the thin display screen flickering. Hil squinted at it but couldn’t make out any of the text on it and he looked to NG, feeling more and more helpless.

  NG glanced at it but didn’t say a word.

  Hil looked over to Legal and saw that she was staring at him, eyes cold and distrusting.

  “It took us five days to get to you,” she said. “After we picked up Skye’s distress beacon, it took us five days to find you. Can you account for that time?”

  He shook his head miserably. It hadn’t felt like five days.

  She looked to NG again. “We still haven’t been able to identify ownership or allegiance on the facility where he was eventually found. I have some leads but nothing substantial as yet.”

  Hil felt disgustingly tainted. God knows who’d had their freaking hands on him. He wanted to go and shower, feeling more and more uncomfortable.

  “…and that leads us onto the other matter,” Media said, “the implant. That was a Senson Six, right?”

  He stared, and absently reached up to his neck.

  “Whoever took that has violated the guild. We cannot underestimate the damage that can be done because of the loss of that implant. That technology is military grade hardware and anything even approximating its capacity is not expected to be available commercially for at least another two years or more.”

  “A year at best,” Science said.

  “Regardless, it still means the loss of a distinct advantage across all spheres of our operations. Whoever took it must have been one helluva bio-engineer,” Media said. “We had protections on it, I assume.”

  Hil felt distant from the conversation. They were talking about him as if he wasn’t there. He’d answer their questions if he could but they weren’t giving him time to think.

  “Of course, we did,” said Science, with disdain. “We wouldn’t send out such a valuable asset unless it was absolutely secure.”

  “So what consequences are we looking at here?” That was from Media he thought but their voices were merging and he couldn’t see straight.

  Hil faded out, like he was sitting in the centre of a bubble that was shielding him from everything outside.

  A hand gripping his shoulder shook him back to the room. He braced and tried to focus as the Chief helped him up. “Let’s get you to Medical. We can go over this later.”

  Chapter 4

  NG took a sip of the wine. It was hot and strong, and even that small sip burnt his throat.

  “LC Anderton and Zach Hilyer are our two best operatives, by far,” he said. “They’ve made acquisitions no one thought possible. There have been jobs I almost turned down and there have been items that departments within the guild decreed that we needed that I almost vetoed, but in every case one of those two has successfully pulled it off. No one else is near. Their instincts are astonishing. They never work together, they’re very different and they’re fiercely competitive. Mendhel was the only handler who’d ever been able to keep control of the pair of them.”

  He paused to take another drink. The Man was sitting quietly, unmoving, keeping his full gaze focused. It seemed to be getting warmer in there, if that was possible.

  “In your judgement,” the Man said, “was there a risk?”

  “Their loyalty to the guild was never a concern to me,” NG said. “They came to us young and they both knew they’d found their home here. Their aptitude for our area of expertise is inherent. But I can see now it wasn’t surprising that when an entity outside decided it was going to cross the guild, those were the two targeted.”

  •

  “Hil honey…”

  The moment of impact crashed through his bones and sent a spark of pain drilling through his skull. He jerked awake again at the voice, expecting smoke and engine oil and the taste of blood.

  “Hil, we’re home. Calm down that heartbeat or they won’t let you go.”

  Instead of a hard, cold console, Hil felt pillows.

  “That’s better.”

  “Skye?” he thought and reached up to feel smooth intact skin behind his ear, just the vague feeling of an implant beneath his fingers.

  “We’ve both been through the mill, honey but we’re home now.”

  “God, Skye, I’ve missed you.” He felt breathless. The shock of losing contact with her was sinking in worse now that she was back, as if he hadn’t let himself feel the full effect of it.

  “I know, honey. When I lost touch with you, I thought… I thought they’d killed you, Hil.”

  It hadn’t occurred to him to consider what Skye had been going through. He tried to take a deep breath but his chest was hurting. “What happened? They said I was there for five days.”

  “Whoever they were on that planet, they impounded me, hon. They broke in and busted open the package. There was nothing in it, Hil. They were really angry. They just left me there. And I couldn’t find you.”

  “The package was empty?”

  Hil sat up, favouring his left arm to lean on. There was a brace on his right wrist and the pain had numbed down to a throbbing ache. His head felt better though, a little woolly inside but more settled than it had been. He was in a private room in Medical, white walls and sparse furniture with racks of medical equipment that were beeping at him erratically. Apart from routine exams, he’d never spent time in here. He’d never had to and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

  “We’re in trouble, Hil,” Skye whispered. “I’ve been locked down. They won’t even start repairs yet. They don’t know what happened and it’s scaring a lot of people. Can you remember anything?”

  “We crashed,” he said.

  “No, honey, before that. I’m missing a memory module, hon. How did that happen? How could I not know? They’ve told me I’m out of action until we find out what happened. Did they tell you about Mendhel and LC?” She sounded scared. How could an AI sound so scared? “What were we doing, Hil?”

  He rubbed his left hand across his face, and felt the tug of an IV line. It was irritating so he pulled it out and dropped it to the floor, holding a corner of the sheet against his hand until it stopped bleeding. He felt rung out but he wasn’t going to sit there like an invalid.

  They were in the shit. His head wasn’t scrambled that badly. He could remember what Kase had said and how NG had reacted. He’d been hauled in front of the section chiefs, for god’s sake. Skye was a mess too, they’d said. She was worried and scared for him.

  Hil clambered out of the bunk, trailing wires he hadn’t realised were attached to him. He pulled loose and looked around for his clothes. The things he’d been wearing when he was extracted were bundled into a locker by the bed, filthy but it was all he had. He rummaged through the pockets an
d swore as he realised his toolkit and knives were missing. They hadn’t just taken his Senson then. He instinctively checked his left arm, the nondescript-looking band still snug around his forearm. It might not look it but it was his favourite piece of kit. The dull black metal band concealed a lock pick, hidden flexed along its edge, and the band itself was an intricate piece of bio-engineering that included an automatic sensor to warn of contaminants and toxins. It had cost him a small fortune, saved his ass several times, and thankfully, whoever had nabbed him had been stupid enough to overlook it.

  “Hil, I’ve heard rumours that Legal want you thrown into the brig,” Skye said. “They’re saying we’ve gone rogue. Have we? Why don’t I have any record of LC being with us on that last trip? What was he doing?”

  “I don’t know, Skye,” he said, aware that he was being sharp with her and he tried to be patient, but he didn’t know. How many times did he have to say it?

  He pulled on his shirt and combat pants carefully, trying not to flare up the sore spots he could feel through the drugs they’d pumped into him. He put on his boots, not bothering to lace them to avoid bending over any more than he had to, and checking as he did that his knife was still hidden there – it was, they’d missed that too. He pulled it out and sat staring at it, tracing a finger over the delicate pattern of etchings worked into the hilt and weighing up its perfect balance. Mendhel had given it to him a long time ago. LC had one that was identical, Mendhel swearing it was a crime to split up the matching pair but what else could he do with the two of them so close in the scores? Throwing it with astonishing accuracy was about the only thing Hil could beat LC at. That and poker.

  His hand started to shake.

  He slipped the knife back into his boot and stood up.

  “What are you doing, Hil honey?”

  “I’m leaving,” he said. “How long have I been here?”