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

by C. G. Hatton

  I crawled to her and hugged her tight.

  I pulled back and looked at her, so close our noses were almost touching. She moved towards me and I thought she was going to kiss me, but she put her finger against my lips and just breathed, “Kiss me when we’re out of here.”

  I could hardly speak, throat beyond dry, but I nodded and croaked, “Race you to the end?”

  She managed a smile and we staggered up and on.

  We were almost on our knees when we hit the end of the tunnel. I pushed her up the ladder ahead of me and we emerged into warm, clean air, and chaos. I squinted, shielding my eyes. It was bright outside, the rising sun already high. The sky was full, ships taking off, gunships and drop ships buzzing over the space port. The noise of vehicles and voices from the gate was at fever pitch. Deep rumblings and the sound of explosions were carrying from the direction of the garrison.

  I twisted around to look. Smoke was billowing out across the entire skyline as the KRM bombed the Imperial stronghold and took out every outpost. I didn’t find out until later how bad it was. It wouldn’t be long before the onslaught reached the space port. And this base hardly had any defences. The panic to get out was overwhelming.

  Maisie sank down to the ground. We weren’t far from the medical centre. I couldn’t get her to her feet, couldn’t gather the strength to lift her, every muscle screaming, too close to dropping myself.

  I squeezed her hand and gasped, “Wait here.”

  I didn’t even know if she heard me. She didn’t respond. I dragged myself away from her, limping, stumbling, towards the emergency room.

  There was no one there. They’d abandoned the place already. I pushed my way through and slipped into a side room, rifled through drawers and threw dressings and jars aside, no idea where they’d keep any antidote. I leaned on the counter, vision narrowed to a dark tunnel, looked up and saw that sweet little label on a box in a glass cabinet. It was locked. I smashed my elbow through it, grabbed the box and tumbled out the single injector left in it.

  There was only one dose.

  My hands were shaking.

  I turned and ran, staggering back out into the open.

  It felt like time slowed.

  I could see Peanut waving at me from across the compound, there was shouting from the other side, powered armour-clad soldiers emerging from the tunnel. And Maisie was lying out there on the tarmac.

  I had one dose of antidote clutched in numb fingers.

  I looked at Peanut. He had the courier ship out from its maintenance bay, engines fired up, and he was standing on the ramp, gesturing at me like mad to get over there. I didn’t know if he could even see Maisie. He shouted again, yelling to me to get to him. That was my chance to get away.

  I looked across to the other side. The guy in black was striding across the tarmac. He had his helmet in his hand, face like thunder.

  There was no way I could leave Maisie.

  I looked from Peanut to the IDC guy again and back to Maisie. She wasn’t moving.

  I staggered out to her and sank down beside her, heart pounding, trying to feel for a pulse, and fumbling the vial of antidote in fingers that felt like lead. She wasn’t breathing. I injected it into her neck and held her tight. I couldn’t even feel if her heart was beating, mine was pounding so hard. I cradled her there, my head against hers, tears streaming down my face, hearing the shouts getting closer.

  I couldn’t lose her. After everything we’d been through, I couldn’t bear to lose Maisie as well. I stroked the hair back from her face, not caring that I was dying there with her.

  Footsteps thundered up, weapons clattering. They were on me in seconds, dragged me away from her and threw me forward.

  My knees hit the dust and I almost sprawled except someone grabbed the back of my shirt and hauled me upright. They grabbed my arms and pulled my hands behind my back, restraints clamping my wrists tight.

  I squinted, head pounding, stumbling as they pushed me forward. The bindings were cutting into my skin. My knee had gone. I couldn’t put any weight on it at all. And the pressure in my chest was almost unbearable.

  I tried to twist round to see Maisie but they wouldn’t let me.

  It was quiet.

  For a second.

  Then they started shouting, searching me roughly, hitting me about the head and emptying my pockets, throwing all my stuff onto the ground in front of me, kicking it around to see what it was as if they didn’t want to touch any of it, screaming at me the whole time, yelling right in my ear.

  I didn’t listen to what they were saying. They shouted louder but I zoned it all out and didn’t fight them. I’d trashed their AI and left them wide open to attack from an enemy that was in frenzy, the entire colony rising against them. To say they were pissed and to say I was screwed was the understatement of the century.

  I knelt there in the dust, agonising waves pulsing up and down my leg, hands tied behind my back, head down and a gun barrel pressed against the back of my head.

  End of the line.

  Not exactly Latia’s firing squad against the wall but not far from it.

  I could almost feel the finger trembling on its trigger, almost see the look of disappointment in Latia’s eyes. I was glad Charlie wasn’t there to see me like that.

  The IDC guy leaned down in front of me and picked the key out of the dust. “Bad mistake, kid,” he said. “Kill him.” And he walked away towards his ship.

  The soldiers tensed. Someone grabbed my shoulder, hard, and the gun pushed, forcing my head down.

  I closed my eyes.

  Then someone shouted.

  I was vaguely aware of vehicles pulling up and skidding to a halt all around us, wheels kicking out dust, and doors slamming. There were more shouts, someone ordering them to stand down, barking at them, and I felt them back off, even the pressure of the gun against my head easing back slightly.

  Footsteps crunched up ahead of us. I squinted, blinking dust out of my eyes, to see boots, uniforms.

  They stopped.

  The same someone gave a command to get me up, a quiet voice but loaded with so much authority that they hustled, helping me up and even dusting me off. I had to balance on my right leg and they had to keep hold of me to stop me sinking back to the ground. I kept my head down but I looked up, eyes hooded, not sure if this was a reprieve or something worse.

  Whoever it was stepped forward. He wasn’t a big man, not like most of the soldiers, but he had a presence about him, dark eyes that were piercing with a glint in them that made me dare think this might be okay.

  He looked at me for a long time, what felt like forever.

  “You get to choose,” he said.

  And it felt like everyone else disappeared, faded out into the background, and it was only me and this man standing there in the heat of the sun. I still had my arms restrained behind my back, chest wheezing with every breath.

  “You come with me, right now,” he said, “or you get a bullet in the back of the head, right now.”

  I stared at him.

  He had the sleeves of his fatigues rolled up, Earth Marine Corps uniform, colonel’s tags on his arm and a black band like Charlie’s around his wrist. He lowered his voice even though it felt like there was only me that could hear. “Understand this,” he said. “You choose to come with me? We go now. You do not get to say goodbye to anyone, you do not get to take anything with you. You cease to exist. You will never return to Kheris. Do you understand?”

  I couldn’t move.

  “Or I give them the go ahead to shoot you.”

  My head was pounding with every heartbeat.

  “What is it to be?”

  It was an impossible choice. It was everything I wanted. But not just for me, never just for me.

  He made it easy.

  He leaned close. “You make the right choice, I can make sure that girl over there gets out of this alive. She’ll be fine. Your great-grandmother will be fine. That kid over there who was about to ste
al a ship for you… will be fine. Be smart, Luka, now of all times. Think about it.”

  He stepped back.

  I nodded, heart in my stomach, but I nodded.

  And that’s how I met Mendhel Halligan.

  He said something I didn’t catch and the soldiers around me hustled again, freeing my hands.

  I doubled over, coughing, dry retching, and he caught hold of my arm and turned it, looking at the numbers scrolling on the band there.

  He cursed, dropped my arm and caught up the dog tags around my neck, holding them in his palm and looking at them for a second before swearing again. He turned to walk away, beckoning me to follow as he went back to the vehicle. I could hardly walk but someone ran up and helped me get there, sitting me down and popping injector after injector into my neck.

  The pressure in my chest started to ease straight away. Antidote. “Maisie,” I said without thinking, panicking, “She…”

  He interrupted with a curt, “She’ll be fine.” He turned to the woman who was checking me over. “Is he good to go?”

  I was trying not to react as she pulled the rag off my right hand even though it took a chunk of flesh with it. She sprayed it with something and tied a clean bandage around it, then wrapped some kind of field dressing around my leg, pulling it tight, a warm pressure easing the pain.

  It felt too good to be true. And the whole time, Maisie was lying out there and I had no idea if she was even still alive.

  “He’s as good as he’s going to get,” the woman said. “This knee needs surgery. And the hand is a mess. We’ll need to quarantine. Same as the other kid.”

  The colonel didn’t look impressed and muttered under his breath.

  “Are we going in now?” she said to him, peering into my eyes with some kind of bright light that stung like a bitch.

  I flinched away.

  She checked my pulse again, speaking to the guy as if I wasn’t there. “He needs a medevac. You want me to let Control know?”

  I suddenly, more than anything, needed to go back to Maisie, even if just for a second. I blurted out, “Wait,” before I realised what I was doing.

  They both looked at me like I was some stray dog that had just spoken.

  I was close to tears. “There’s something I need to do.”

  “I said no goodbyes,” the man said, moving to close the door.

  “It’s not a goodbye, I swear. It’s something I need to do.” I’ve never needed anything so much in my entire life. My heart was thumping.

  I thought he was going to pull me out of the vehicle and throw me to the ground, fire that bullet into my head himself.

  He didn’t.

  He closed the door and climbed into the front. The woman got into the driver’s seat.

  “No goodbyes,” he said again. “You are going to have to learn to listen to me, Mr Anderton.”

  I couldn’t help reaching for the dog tags.

  He looked back at me. “We need to call you something. LC Anderton will do just fine. Charlie was one of our best. I expect you to live up to his name.”

  I looked back out of the window as we drove off. Maisie was still lying on the ground, medics buzzing around her. The soldiers were backing off, guns held down, boots kicking up dust, as the medics worked on her. Her face was pale, one hand outstretched.

  I could see her hair, soft curls black against the red dirt.

  We drove away.

  And that was the last time I saw her.

  I never did get to give her that kiss.

  There was another kid on the ship they took me to. They helped me on board and steered me to a seat. They hadn’t given me any more drugs.

  I didn’t recognise the type of ship. It wasn’t any kind of Imperial military spec I was familiar with, there were no insignia, no badges, nothing to identify it at all. It was clean, spotlessly clean, and just the right level of warm. The seat was comfortable, the lighting soft, the gravity light enough to make me feel like I was floating. It didn’t feel real.

  The woman squeezed my shoulder and, finally, popped a couple more shots into my neck. She leaned in close and whispered into my ear, “Welcome home,” before she walked forward to take a seat.

  I stared at the kid opposite. He looked a bit older than me, dark hair shaved close to his head, black bruising under one eye and a set to his jaw like he was expecting a fight and wasn’t sure which direction it was going to come from.

  He looked up at me, wary.

  I had a feeling I was looking at him the same way.

  Mendhel was stripping off his uniform. He threw the jacket into a waste disposal unit and walked between us. “LC, this is Hilyer. Hil, LC. Welcome to the Thieves’ Guild.”

  •

  “And that’s how I ended up in the most secretive guild in the galaxy.”

  The candle has burned down to a nub. I watch Luka take a swig of liquor from his flask and give it a shake. I can tell there’s not much left. He drinks too much. But who can blame him for that?

  It’s been over ten years since that night on Kheris. I know he’s never talked about it before. To anyone. I don’t know why he’s telling us now. Maybe to say there’s always a way out. However bad it seems to be.

  These kids, huddled with us in this dark basement, are staring at him with their cold little faces, and I know exactly what they’re thinking… he wasn’t much older than most of them when he did it, even younger than some. Even now, he’s not that different, at least not in some ways.

  I don’t know how much longer he can keep them quiet. I can hear sporadic gunfire in the distance, that guttural roar of troop carriers overhead that makes him shiver when he thinks no one is watching.

  “What happened then?” one of the little ones says.

  Luka shrugs. “Mendhel took us to the Alsatia and we ran riot. The guild was never set up to take kids. I didn’t know it at the time but Mendhel put himself on the line doing what he did that day. There was no way back for any of us.”

  I look up. I can hear drop ships descending right above us.

  Luka catches my eye and nods.

  A cold knot twists in my stomach. I hope they’re ours. I know he doesn’t have much ammunition left.

  He makes a move to stand, but one of the kids touches his arm and whispers, “Tell us about the time you broke into Yarrimer.”

  Another one pipes up, “And Polaris.”

  He grins. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed.

  “That was all back when we were invincible,” he says, “when we were chasing for the top and the standings were all that mattered. But those stories’ll have to wait for another day.”

  “What do we do now?” one of them asks.

  I watch as he checks the mechanism on his rifle. That’s what is different. Luka was never a soldier. Now he carries a gun and he carries scars that none of us will ever understand.

  “Now?” he says. “Now we survive.” He stands and starts to move them out, herding them ahead of him, this rag-tag bunch of kids in misfitting thrown-together body armour that he managed to get here to safety. We lost a couple when it got really bad. They might be out there somewhere, safe in some other place with someone, but I doubt it.

  I stop him on the stairs and hand him his helmet.

  He gives me a smile. “Cheers, Spacey.”

  He promised me that night on Kheris that he’d come find me. It took over ten years but he did. He always keeps his promises. And he saved us out there tonight.

  I can’t help asking, “Will we?”

  He looks puzzled. “Will we what?”

  “Survive,” I say simply.

  He shrugs again. “We have so far…”

  We can hear shouts echo down from above us, familiar voices, guild voices.

  I smile back. “Do you promise?”

  •

  BEYOND REDEMPTION

  (Thieves’ Guild Origins: LC Book Two)

  by C.G. Hatton

  •

  Published by Sixth E
lement Publishing

  Arthur Robinson House

  13-14 The Green

  Billingham TS23 1EU

  Great Britain

  Tel: +44 1642 360253

  www.6epublishing.net

  © C.G. Hatton 2017

  www.cghatton.com

  Also available in paperback.

  C.G. Hatton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  •

  For Hatt

  And with a big thank you to everyone who has put up with me, helped, supported and encouraged me throughout these slightly bonkers times…

  Chapter 1

  I don’t see the blood until we stop. Until Luka hands me his rifle and I can see in the flickering light of the lantern that it’s slick with red.

  He squeezes my shoulder and says, “Keep watch.”

  He’s pale. He has a scar across his cheekbone that someone said was from a machete. From a Bhenykhn machete. I know he was on Erica. And I know the intricate pattern branded into his chest is from when he was caught by them. Hilyer told me. Luka doesn’t talk about it.

  I stare at him as he sinks to the floor and pulls out a field dressing that he pushes against his side. He’s hurt really badly and I don’t know what to do. I don’t think rescue will be coming so easily this time.

  “Tell me about the guild,” I blurt out.

  It worked before. He kept a whole basement full of kids quiet as he told us about Kheris. This time, it’s just him and me. Separated from everyone else. In a tunnel I’m scared is a dead end.

  He doesn’t answer. I glance back. He’s closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. I can tell he’s in pain.

  “I just need a minute,” he mutters.

  I go and sit opposite him, positioning myself so I can see the way we’ve just come, the rifle in my lap and my finger on the trigger. “I want to know what happened after you met Hil.”

  “No, you don’t,” he says, voice so quiet I can hardly hear. “He was an idiot. He hated me. And the first tab we were sent on almost got both of us killed.”