by C. G. Hatton
Finally LC pulled Sean to a stop and they crouched in the shade of a ventilation shaft.
The hairs on the back of his neck were bristling. He couldn’t distinguish any individual targeting them, there were too many threats in all directions, too many people searching and too many hiding and fearful for themselves. Christ, the town was flooded with bounty hunters and half the townsfolk probably had prices on their heads and even if they didn’t match DiMarco’s five hundred thousand, it was enough to make them nervous.
“This isn’t going to work,” he sent. “We need to find somewhere to lie low.”
She nodded.
They waited until he was sure it was clear and made a run for the roof’s edge.
They didn’t make it. There was a yell. Shots.
LC dropped, rolled and fired at the guy running out behind them, turning without waiting to see if he’d hit and pushing up from the crouch into a sprint to catch up with Sean. Something hit him in the back and his knees buckled, lights sparking behind his eyes. He shut out the pain, staggered to his feet and looked up to see Sean crumple to the floor.
He spun around, fired at two of the guys coming at him and knew there was a third closing in. Something heavy hit the back of his head and a blow to his arm sent the gun flying. They moved in fast, two grabbing his arms and the other clamping a hand around his neck from behind.
LC dropped his head, slowed his breathing and relaxed every muscle for a single heartbeat. Then he moved, lightning fast, precision blows, throwing his weight so fast they didn’t have time to react. He took out the one on the left with an elbow to the solar plexus and a fist to the face, dropping to one knee. The guy at his back stumbled forward, off balance. LC dropped his shoulder and tucked in tight, throwing the guy’s weight up over his head, turning fast to land a blow on the one struggling to hold onto his right arm. It connected with a crack and another blow put him down. LC spun and finished off the other guy with a kick.
All three were on the ground. He stood for a fraction of a second then looked round. He could sense more closing in, drawn by the sounds of fighting. He glanced over at Sean, made an agonising decision and ran.
He made it back to the cover of the ventilation shaft before anyone else appeared on the roof. He ducked down. He kept his heart rate low and controlled, sensing the essence of the searchers like pinpoints of bright light flowing and ebbing all around. No need for elaborate technology. The focus of the moment made him realise it like never before. He could sense lifeforms and that gave him an insight he’d never had from any gizmo or gadget. He looked briefly into each mind, flitting from one to the next in a dizzying spiral. It was powerful, another kind of invincibility, hypnotic and intoxicating.
The ones close had heard the shots but didn’t know where he was.
He tracked them as they got close, a door crashing open on the far side of the roof and footsteps crunching through the layer of dust. There were two of them, both bulky men, armed and moving with a tight focus that marked them as professionals. They saw Sean lying motionless and moved over to her, an exclamation of recognition hitting both minds as they looked down at her.
That changed everything.
The intense hate that emanated from them hit LC with an almost physical blow. He edged round to gain a line of sight, a cold chill settling deep inside. He sent an urgent and demanding query through the Senson and felt her stir slightly, the shock of the FTH still resonating.
One of them kicked her viciously.
LC twitched.
“Kill the bitch,” the other one said, cold and malevolent, an edge of satisfaction in his mind as he looked down at Sean through black shades. He was older, close cropped grey hair and a silver badge at his belt that was glinting in the sun.
The younger guy pulled out a knife and nicked his thumb along its edge, a smile creasing his tanned face.
LC stepped out and yelled, “Hey,” no thought in the plan other than to stop them.
They looked up in unison, Sean forgotten in a heartbeat and eyes narrowing, identifying him instantly as their target just from his silhouette, proximity to O’Brien and lack of a weapon. It was weird but LC felt like he’d met them before.
Two guns snapped up, aimed directly at him in a slick synchronised motion. He turned and ran.
A rush of adrenaline got him to the edge of the roof, full on sprint, no slowing down as he closed in on the edge. He jumped, time slowed, and he hit the next roof, taking the impact in his knees, tucking into a roll and letting the momentum take him on into a staggering run.
They were following.
LC crossed the roof and veered left, running to the edge and crouching, pausing and listening, very aware that he could just as easily run headlong into a bounty hunter as run away from them. The two at his back didn’t hesitate at the jump and very quickly he had no choice but to drop down to street level.
He ran.
An FTH round hit him between the shoulder blades. He stumbled against the wall, shook it off and ran, pain flashing behind his eyes. He couldn’t count how many more shots hit him. One caught him in the back of the head and finally he went down.
Out cold.
Chapter 27
The Man’s hand hovered over his queen, thumb rubbing over his fingers.
NG watched. There was nothing resting on the outcome of this game but he couldn’t help feeling it was a test of his ability and judgement, not merely at chess but at running the guild. He was being reckless but every move was a calculated risk, the same as every move he’d made to defend his field operatives.
The Man looked up. “Such as hiring O’Brien to track him down? A stroke of genius,” he said and paused, “but she led them to him.”
“They would have found him anyway,” NG said. Sean had covered her own tracks adequately enough. LC had simply run out of places to run to. And ultimately run out of time.
He finished the last of his wine and rested the goblet back onto his knee. The guild had sent extraction agents to T72 as soon as they’d received word that LC and Sean were there but it was already too late.
“It’s hard to lose good people,” the Man said softly, and swept his queen across the board to take one of NG’s pawns, an outright and confrontational attack. Another one down.
NG stared at the board.
It was hard to lose anyone.
•
Coming round was a painful return to awareness. He was lying on a bench, in a vehicle, he realised, travelling at speed over an uneven surface. His hands were restrained, knees and ankles bound, and a persistent throbbing pain was pulsing in the back of his neck.
It felt like his eyeballs were on fire. They must have kicked him while he was down because his ribs were hurting and one eye was swollen and wouldn’t open.
He blinked the other one and a gun barrel was pushed up under his jaw line.
“We have ourselves a live one,” someone said.
There was a laugh.
His heart was pounding. He worked on slowing it down and keeping his breathing steady. He was shielded somehow, so no chance to use the Senson.
It was just him and the two bounty hunters.
The younger guy was driving, the older one watching him. LC looked into their minds and felt nothing but professional pride, greed for the bounty and intense satisfaction at having beaten the rest, Sean most of all. They didn’t care who he was, just that he was the one. And they were sure; they’d run a retina scan. Christ, how much did these people know about him?
He wriggled slightly to test the restraints around his wrists and got a slap to the head.
The older guy leaned down and held a remote device in front of LC’s face, making a show of pushing down on the control.
A stabbing needle of agony drove through the back of his neck into his spine, unrelenting and excruciating. He curled up, squeezed his eyes shut and tried to take it and bundle the pain away but it magnified. It lasted a second longer than unbearable then vanished.
/> He took a slow breath and lay still.
The message was clear – don’t try anything.
They had him. Caught. First time in his career.
Shit.
The vehicle skidded to a halt.
The throbbing pulse sparking into his spine started up again, just intense enough to take his attention off anything but keeping conscious.
Doors slammed. They sliced through the restraints holding his legs and he was pulled out into the sun and dragged into a short run in the open before they were back inside. He was thrown down into a cage-like cell, arms pulled tight behind his back as the restraints were tied to something. Breathing was difficult and he started to think ribs might be broken.
He didn’t fight them. There’d be a way out but he knew he needed to bide his time. He could feel from their heightened emotions that they’d kill him given half a reason. They knew the bounty was higher if he was delivered alive, a lot higher, but they knew it was a risk and they weren’t entirely sure it was a risk they were prepared to take, not with that kind of cash at stake. It was only the older guy arguing that he wanted to deliver this sucker still breathing that was keeping him alive.
A hand pinned his head to the floor and a sharp pain pierced the top edge of his left ear.
Once done, the guy stood, kicked him hard and left. The door slammed shut.
LC lay quietly, listening. He was cold. They’d stripped him of his jacket, belt and boots. And he wasn’t sure but it felt like they’d ripped the wristband off his arm. The restraints clamped around his wrists were hefty, tight, with no room to manoeuvre. The virus was doing its best to compensate for the physical damage but the constant pulse that was throbbing in his neck in time with his heartbeat was draining every ounce of his energy, his system struggling to deal with it.
He could hear the two men talking, a third voice joining in. He couldn’t feel any trace of another living entity so he reckoned he was on a ship with an AI. They were gearing up to leave.
It was hard not to panic.
And it was hard not to regret being so stupid as to give himself up. What the hell had he been thinking?
But coming back to it time and again, he couldn’t have stood there and watched them kill her.
He felt the engines start up, a deep vibration through the deck.
He had no tools, no tricks and no way to reach anyone.
Lying there, breathing slowly and keeping still, listening to the engines fire up, LC realised that this was the closest he’d come to finding out who was behind this. Somewhere along the line, these guys would hand him in to the people who had sent them into that lab.
His heart started pounding, adrenaline pumping. It wasn’t exactly what he’d planned when he’d decided it was time to stop running.
He reached out desperately, a sweeping scan as far as he’d ever tried, looking for Sean or DiMarco, any essence that he could recognise. There were other people near by but no one he knew. It made his head hurt and he spiralled into grey for a while, coming round to sounds of shouting and banging.
The engines were quiet, the ship still. The two bounty hunters were arguing, with each other and with their AI.
LC struggled into a half sitting position, feeling a rush of aggression from the younger guy. They had their golden ticket and all they had to do was deliver it, he was thinking, and the damned ship went into shut down on this godforsaken rock.
Something was wrong with the AI.
And the two bounty hunters knew there were people who’d fight them for him. “We should kill the bastard now,” LC heard one of them say, “and get the hell out of here. I’d settle for ten million.”
There were sounds of a struggle then the young guy appeared at the cell, a rifle in his hand and as he swung it up into an aim, LC knew where he’d seen them before. The last time it had been in near dark, running through the claustrophobic accessways of Sten’s World station. Someone had intervened so he could get away.
This time he tensed, nowhere to go, looking down the barrel of the rifle, feeling the desperation, knowing the guy wasn’t going to let him escape again.
There was a crash. A gunshot. The bounty hunter fell, LC recoiling from that black pop of void.
Hal Duncan ran past without a word, Thom following, both of them armed and running the rescue mission with military precision, tight and focused with pinpoint accuracy.
Thom glanced in, saw him and stopped, slamming open the bolts on the cage.
There were more shots from inside the ship. A burst of automatic gunfire followed by the loud retort of Duncan’s gun. Two shots then silence.
Thom knelt by LC’s side. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine now,” LC muttered, trying to stop the shaking in his limbs, twisting round to give Thom room to free his hands. “Nice timing. How the hell did you know where I was?”
“Elliott’s been tracking you. He screwed with their AI somehow. Sean’s on her way in. We need to get out. There are others coming.”
The manacles snapped open. LC rubbed his wrists and tried to flex some feeling back into his shoulders as Thom sliced through the other restraints with a knife. He whispered a thanks and tore the patch off his neck, trying to stand and reach out to Sean at the same time. He didn’t quite manage either.
“Oh crap,” he said faintly, “I have something in my neck,” feeling like he was going to pass out.
Thom reached around gently and pulled the device out, a spike of pain sending LC’s senses reeling. He greyed out again, heard Duncan demanding his attention and thought he felt Sean close by. Then he was being pulled up and led out, Duncan on one side, Thom on the other.
The deck was cold beneath his bare feet.
“Wait,” he mumbled, “I need my stuff.”
“We’ve got it,” Sean said from somewhere. “Come on, we have to go.”
He smiled stupidly and let them walk him out into the sun and across towards a vehicle.
Halfway there he realised half the pain he was feeling wasn’t his own. He looked sideways at Duncan. “Hal, what are you even doing up?”
The big man looked pale and clammy. He glanced at LC, gave the briefest smile, eyes rolling up into his head, and fell backwards, crashing to the floor.
DiMarco had the engine running. They bundled Duncan into the jeep and crowded in, Sean sitting close and keeping a firm grip on LC’s arm like she was damned if she was going to lose him again. At least this time, she was thinking, the bastards were dead – she shouldn’t have left them alive on Sten’s World. It had been Sean who’d saved him. He stared at her, that realisation making his heart skip a beat.
They set off before the doors were closed, careering away from the airfield and into the desert.
It was a rough ride. LC closed his eyes, shutting out the massive mix of emotion from the others, not quite believing he was home free until the jeep tipped sharply up a ramp and into the cold darkness of the Duck’s hold.
The cargo bay door slammed shut.
It was hard to drum up the energy to move. LC heard the jeep’s doors open and half opened one eye.
DiMarco twisted round from the driver’s seat. “Hey, the gang’s all here,” he said with a grin. “C’mon kid, give me a hand to get the big guy up to medical.” He winked at LC.
Christ, the jerk was setting him up to be alone with Sean. And from what he was picking up from Sean’s current state of mind, that was the last thing he needed.
Thom and DiMarco helped Duncan out and left, footsteps echoing across the hold.
LC geared up to move, needing to leave with the others, but Sean squeezed his arm.
“I need to talk to you,” she said quietly.
She was angry.
“Sean, I feel like crap.”
She faltered at that, taking in the bruises and reaching a hand up to touch his ear. He flinched away but not before she’d pulled gently at the tiny metal tag pierced through the edge there.
He pushed her hand away. �
��I know I screwed up,” he said. “I know you’re pissed. And I know you want to leave. But there’s something I have to do first.” He got out of the jeep and leaned back in, resting his weight wearily against the door. “Where’s my stuff?”
Sean stood with her arms folded, watching as he struggled into his boots. The knife was gone. That sucked more than anything.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” she said.
LC ignored her as he shrugged awkwardly into his jacket, ribs complaining. Sean stared at him as he quickly checked each pocket. They’d stripped out everything and they had taken his wristband. He turned and met her gaze. “Sean, in everything you’ve read in my file and everyone you’ve talked to about me, where did you ever get the impression that I give a shit?”
She scowled and stuck her hands in her pockets as if she needed to restrain herself from slapping him. She was furious. He could read her as easily as if she was yelling at him. She was fuming, angry at him and angry at herself for falling for someone who was a target, purely a pay-on-delivery, don’t get involved, no emotions attached target. Who had a butt that was way too cute to ignore, a look in his eyes that she’d die for and dimples in his cheeks when he smiled at her that made her melt.
He couldn’t help the grin that slipped out. He stepped in close and for a second he thought she was going to kiss him but she frowned instead.
“You and Hilyer are exactly the same,” she said in a voice that was little more than a soft whisper. “You’re pathologically incapable of appreciating the danger you’re in. It’s institutionally ingrained in you. I thought it was arrogance but it’s not, is it? You can’t see it. You really don’t see it. Your guild gives you the perfect cover. You don’t exist so you don’t need to care.”
He could feel her heart beating. He stared into her eyes and looked deep into her mind, seeing the plan she was trying to convince herself was the only way they were going to get out of this alive. Her ship was on its way in. And she was thinking that if she risked alienating him so that he hated her then fine – at least he’d be alive.