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

by C. G. Hatton

  She was standing just staring. He thought she was going to say something and he would have liked to think she showed some emotion, but there was nothing. The hand tightened on his neck.

  “Dammit, wait,” Martha shouted, coming forward. “He’s our only way out of this.”

  The moment hung, the absolute silence in the room edged by the distant rumble of explosions. The old man looked around, incredulous that anyone would argue with him, but then he looked at Martha and she said again in that persuasive way she had, “I know him. Those troops landing are going to sterilise this facility. He has a plan to get out of this and that’ll be our only guaranteed way out.”

  Hil looked up with a faint half-smile and let an expression of total indifference dance across his face.

  Martha got the message.

  “Oh shit,” she said quietly, “he hasn’t got a way out.”

  Everyone in the room turned to Martha. She looked at Hil with dismay.

  “Sir,” the guy in the suit said urgently, breaking the mood and taking the old man gently by the shoulders, “we have to go.” He turned, pointed at Hil and said harshly, “Get that restrainer back on and bring him to the executive hangar.”

  They left then, hurrying out as bombs devastated their stronghold and troops descended, Anya and the other bodyguard scurrying after them.

  Hil tensed. There was no way he wanted that damned device hooked back into his spine. The cuffs were pulled tight around his wrists and a hand was gripping his hair.

  He shut it all out, judging his weight, the distance and exact point of balance. The hand tightened around his neck and Hil shoved the table, bracing his feet at just the right angle and throwing himself back. His head impacted with a face behind him and the chair went flying. It wasn’t deft or as powerful as he hoped but it sent Scarface tumbling as he fell into him. The device went clattering along the floor and Hil went flying as the big man managed to grab a handful of his shirt and throw him against the wall.

  The next blast took out the power and the room fell into darkness. Hil blinked, not sure for a minute if it was his eyesight that had gone. He shuffled along the wall, moving away from the sound of shouting. His own plan hadn’t extended much past this point but there was no way he was going to die with his hands tied so he made himself some space in the darkness and began to work the cuffs free.

  Emergency lights flickered on almost immediately, casting a blue tinge to the room. A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him upright before he could get free and the gun was pushed into the side of his neck again.

  “You know,” Scarface hissed into his ear, “the plan was to kill you later anyway. Give me an excuse. Go on, try to escape. Just give me a reason. The old man won’t care.”

  “Is that all you’ve got?” Hil said back, trying to twist away to ease the pressure.

  As far as he could see, there was no one left in the room but he was banking on Kase and Martha being there behind them.

  “I bring a shit load of freaking bombs,” he said, “flying into your lap, on top of us all trapped right here together and you threaten to kill me. Yeah, you’ll have to beat them to it.”

  The guy didn’t appreciate the irony and the pressure eased as the gun was pulled back and returned for a swift blow to the side of his face.

  Hil staggered slightly and laughed. “This is what we do when people screw with the Thieves’ Guild,” he said, blinking blood out of his eye. “Enjoy.”

  He thought he’d misjudged then. Maybe they were alone and he thought Scarface was going to shoot him outright but Kase intervened, coming out of the shadows fast, pulling Hil away and aiming his own pistol unwavering in the guy’s face. “Back off,” Kase said, “he’s ours. Go do your own job and get the boss out of here.”

  “The boss?” Hil couldn’t resist saying incredulously, “excuse me but I thought our boss was NG, Kase. You that far gone?”

  Kase ignored him and stared down the guy, both holding guns up aimed at each other, Hil in the middle, until Martha stepped up adding a third pistol to the equation.

  “You heard him. Back off, buddy,” she said. As stand-offs went it was impressive. The explosions were getting closer and the lights flickered like they were threatening to go again completely. Hil’s hands were still tied and Kase still had a firm grip on his arm. If he broke away now, maybe all three of them would shoot each other. He twitched as if he was going to make a break for it and flinched as Kase’s pistol fired up close to his ear, deafening, and Scarface dropped with a hole in his forehead to match that of his twin.

  In a smooth motion, Kase shoved Hil away, and it was all he could manage to stay on his feet and look defiantly at the two people who were supposed to have been on his side. Kase switched his aim to Hil.

  “You’ve played this all wrong, Hil,” he said. “You stupid son of a bitch couldn’t just do what you were supposed to do.”

  Hil looked from Kase to Martha but she’d switched her aim too. “What the hell are you doing, Kase?” he said. “The guild is never going to let you get away with this.”

  Kase’s eyes were alight with a fury he’d never seen before. “This is bigger than the guild,” Kase said, his voice raising in pitch. “The guild’s done. Finished. And this was our ticket out, except you’ve screwed it up for all of us.”

  His gun wavered and for a moment Hil seriously thought he was going to pull the trigger, but Martha said calmly, “Kase, Hil’s our only way to the package. Think about it.”

  Kase started to nod, but then shook his head. “No, this bastard has done nothing but screw us around.”

  A blast close by shook the room and the lights dimmed. Kase swore and took a step forward, gun up and finger tightening. The lights flickered again and as Kase fired, Hil dived to the side too slow to avoid a burning hot graze to his arm. He fell and rolled, a second shot punching into the floor beside him. The third shot came nowhere near and after he’d rolled again and come up onto one knee, Kase had dropped his arm and stood, wavering, clutching at a hole in his chest. He staggered and dropped, gun spilling from his outstretched hand, eyes staring.

  Martha lowered her pistol.

  “Shit,” she said and looked over at Hil with something that could have been sorrow but equally and more likely was disappointment. “Well, if you don’t have a plan to get out of here, I damn sure do.”

  Chapter 29

  The Man poured the wine slowly, taking a deep breath and inhaling the fumes as the dark liquid splashed into the goblets. “Jameson has been a valuable ally. Can you say that is still true?”

  It was a loaded question. When could they ever truly trust any ally?

  “We have an uncomfortable understanding,” NG admitted. “I’ll be much happier when we find LC and I can return their property. As it is, we’re maintaining a precarious situation between the two powers. And we’re nurturing several breakaway factions. The situation is still volatile.”

  “Jameson was a fool to over-react with such vehemence.”

  “Earth is afflicted by pride,” NG said. “They lost control of the colonies a long time ago and they still refuse to acknowledge it. They still think overpowering force is the only way to subdue a potential threat.”

  “And that very threat of force is exactly what fuels the stubborn defensive nature of the colonies and Winter. They are all fools.”

  The Man pushed one of the goblets across the desk. “Zang acted beyond any limits of treaty. I trust that we are wooing Ennio Ostraban.”

  NG almost winced at mention of that name. The man was an obstinate, pig-headed egotist. “He presumes to represent Winter and we deal with him as such, but there are numerous others that can claim equal if not more valid regard. The incident with Zang has made all of them nervous. And nervous doesn’t suit these people – when threatened, they have a tendency to lash out.”

  •

  “You didn’t need to do this, Hil,” she said when they were out in the corridor, klaxons screaming, broken intermittentl
y by a recorded voice advising all personnel to evacuate the facility. Martha was pulling him along by the arm, keeping him close as if she was worried she could lose him. She’d taken off the cuffs and checked his arm, which was bleeding but really was little more than a scratch. He’d shrugged her off and demanded a weapon. She’d refused.

  “You didn’t need to betray the guild and sell us all out,” he said, pulling back because he could hear footsteps. “Wait up,” he whispered and backed up.

  Ahead of them, doors banged and there were yells and screams of “Don’t shoot,” thin and scared voices pleading innocence that were silenced by sudden and unrelenting gunfire.

  Martha cursed and they backed away, veering off into a narrow smoke-filled corridor. Another explosion sent them reeling into the wall.

  “We have to go down,” she shouted. “Find a stairwell.”

  It was hard to breathe. Down made sense because everyone else was fleeing upwards. He really didn’t want to get caught up in any crowds, but down?

  He hesitated and bent over coughing, and Martha grabbed hold of him. “I don’t care what agenda you had coming here,” she yelled at him, “but I’m extracting you. That means you’re mine, you have no say from here on in.”

  Her eyes bore into him, close up. The smoke was sooty so something was on fire. It wasn’t just dust. The facility was crumbling and burning around them.

  Hil caught hold of her hand, bunched as it was around the front of his shirt.

  “What do you care?” he said quietly, nose to nose.

  She shoved him away. “You have no idea,” she said viciously and grabbed his arm again, pulling him along, half running, half stumbling, each blast feeling closer and closer.

  She pushed him through a doorway that led to a set of steep stairs. They teetered at the top, listening. Footsteps thundered above them, entire levels emptying of people as they tried to flee. Below them was a silence that echoed with rumbles of instability.

  “Down,” she said again, and propelled him ahead of her.

  Hil caught his balance and jogged down the stairs. “When did you know about Anya?” he said, without looking back, raising his voice enough that she’d be able to hear.

  “Not until we got here, Hil,” she said, sounding even more pissed. “I swear. I didn’t recognise her. I’ve never seen her before.”

  They reached the next level and he paused at the landing, not sure what she intended. It seemed freaking insane to keep going down.

  “Down!”

  Who was he to argue with a mad woman? He took two steps down then stopped as red dots danced up the stairs towards him. He backed up. The clatter of armour and weapons echoed up towards them. Martha grabbed him and pulled him back up.

  “Shit.”

  They backed up to the landing and pushed through the doors into a level that was dark. No emergency lights and air that was still and warm.

  “The central core,” Martha whispered into the back of his neck. “We’ll go down from there.”

  They moved quietly and fast, veering away from any voices, and twice running from sounds of gunfire and screaming. Hil kept moving from instinct more than any actual decision to go with her.

  She led the way and watching her shadow up ahead, it was impossible to figure out what she was intending. It was tempting to stop, slide away and never see her again.

  But there was something about Martha that messed with his head and there was a reason why she was going to such efforts to keep him alive.

  “What are you in all this, Martha?” he whispered.

  “You don’t want to know,” she whispered back, “just trust me right now.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “Hil, there’s more to all of this than you’ll ever know. The guild’s in trouble and Earth’s about to declare war on Winter. The guild has been acting as if it’s oblivious to a lot of crap that’s been going on and now it’s all landed right on its doorstep.”

  She stopped suddenly at the sound of voices echoing from behind them.

  “Give me a gun,” he whispered.

  “No way!”

  They glanced back over their shoulders. From the sounds of gunfire, corporate security was trying to put up some kind of defence and they were caught in the crossfire. Two soldiers in corporate uniforms appeared, yelling and raising weapons. Martha shoved him and they ran, veering off through the nearest doorway.

  They crashed through onto a balcony that extended around a massive conference hall. The emergency lights were flickering on and off, casting a flashing blue strobe effect throughout the area. As they ran round into the open, they were greeted by more shouts and gunfire that raked across the balcony’s handrail and ricocheted off the wall.

  “Go!” Martha yelled and sprayed a hail of bullets down towards the soldiers running across the hall towards them.

  Hil kept his head low and ran, shots trailing him. There was another opening directly opposite the one they’d come from. He trusted that Martha was behind him and ran for it. There was a deep boom and the landing ahead of him erupted into a blaze of flames and debris. Hil staggered back from the shockwave of the grenade and flinched as shots homed in on him and something hot punched into his side, sending him spinning back, knees buckling.

  A hand clutching the back of his shirt yanked him backwards and he stumbled, holding his side, fingers feeling hot and sticky. He was vaguely aware of another explosion on the balcony behind them then Martha was dragging him, screaming at him and firing, taking down the two soldiers who burst out through the door and hauling him past them as they fell. In the temporary safety of the corridor, she pulled him upright and hissed in his ear, “Don’t let me down, Hil,” and they ran and stumbled, falling through another door into a stairwell.

  She dragged him down two levels before she let him sag onto a step and slump against the wall.

  “Shit,” he muttered, holding onto a burning stitch in his side, trying to breathe and calm his heart rate.

  Martha knelt by him. “Let go,” she said softly and pulled away his hand, pulling up his shirt to slap on a patch that stung as if she’d poured acid onto him. He recoiled and tensed, swearing, then relaxing as the heat eased and his side numbed. He let her tape the patch into place and watched her as she popped a couple of shots of meds into his side. He was shaking but she was as steady as if she’d just been for a stroll in the park.

  “What do you want, MJ?” he said. “The twenty six million?”

  She glared at him as if he’d slapped her. “No, Hil, I want you.”

  She stared and he stared back, holding in a grin that was probably more to do with the drugs than what she’d just revealed.

  They sat there for a moment, then he said, “I don’t get it.”

  “What don’t you get, Hil?”

  He waved a hand generally. “All this. I don’t get it.”

  “No, you don’t. This corporation decided it was big enough to take on both sides, and it thought it could ride roughshod over anyone that stood in the way. Bringing Earth Special Forces down on them isn’t going to change anything, Hil. This is one facility out of thousands. You think this is going to affect anything they do? You’ve all been so superior in your cosy little guild, dabbling in this and that but you’ve been used to do their dirty work. Earth wants control of the colonies back and the Wintrans have just been stupid enough to give them a reason to do it.”

  “The bio-weapon?”

  “Yes, the weapon you were sent to steal,” she said. “I don’t think Earth itself even knew exactly what their lab was developing but when a Wintran corporation took enough of an interest to send the Thieves’ Guild in after it, a lot of eyes were suddenly looking in this direction. They nuked the lab you broke into, did you realise that? Earth destroyed their own facility, completely, razed it to the ground. Two thousands lives snuffed out in an instant just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Earth were that desperate to cover this up. And you wonder why so many
people want to find you and LC?”

  She stood, pulled out her back-up pistol, checked its magazine and handed it to him. “Come on, we have to move.”

  The drugs had numbed his whole side. He prodded absently at the bandage. “I’ve never been shot before.”

  “Yeah, well welcome to the delights of the trauma patch. You’ll feel it later.”

  They worked their way down to the next level and he waited while she checked the corridor was empty. After a moment, she ducked back into the stairwell and beckoned him to follow.

  It hadn’t slipped past him that she’d referred to the guild as his, like she wasn’t part of it. He asked quietly as they walked, “Who are you working for, Martha?”

  She ignored the question.

  “Who was that old man back there?” he asked, starting to feel belligerent.

  She stopped and turned, and said, “Hil,” in that way she had that was always the start of an argument, but then she was cursing and her pistol was up and firing past him. He flinched away and shots from behind peppered the wall next to him. Red laser dots danced across the corridor. He stumbled and ran, catching up with her as she backed away, firing. A canister bounced past them, rolling against the wall and belching out smoke.

  “Shit,” she said and pushed him through a door. He took the lead then and, sensing she was right behind, he ran through what looked like a canteen.

  “The kitchen,” she yelled. “We can get to the maintenance vents from there.”

  The doors crashed open behind them and more canisters flew past. The smoke was acrid and his eyes were stinging, throat sore, before they managed to get through to the back of the room. It was dark but the assault teams would have infrared, low light and thermals so the advantage was all on their side.

  The kitchen was warm and he bumped into hot surfaces that burned his fingertips as he half ran, half staggered through, not caring much beyond the need to get away. Martha pulled him sideways into an alcove and they dived through a hatch, slamming it shut as footsteps thundered into the kitchen behind them, pans clattering with the impact of high velocity rounds as bullets strafed across the room.