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

by C. G. Hatton

  LC flinched as the cold wet air hit his face. He wanted to shut it all out but at the same time a deep unease settled, every ounce of intuition clawing at the back of his neck, urging him to check out the immediate vicinity, scan round and be sure. He was surrounded by guild personnel, Security, extraction teams, Hilyer and his Hailstones adding an extra level of surveillance. But there was something wrong.

  There was a drop ship waiting for them.

  It was tempting to break into a run.

  But he held back, taking a step back into the shadow of the wreckage.

  Sienna backed off with him, murmuring, “What’s wrong?”

  He couldn’t tell without scanning wider and he didn’t know if he could do that without falling in a heap again.

  “Where’s Hil?” he said quietly, watching as Hal Duncan stopped with a glance back.

  “Why?” Sienna said. “What’s going on?”

  ‘Hal, wait,’ he sent. He started fumbling around in his pockets, hardly able to control his hands, frustration making it worse, the aggression and tension all around threatening to overwhelm, and the sickening dread in his stomach settling like lead.

  Sienna stopped him, taking hold of his wrists and pulling him close. She was feeling his pulse he realised, peering close into his eyes, and glancing behind her because she damned well knew they didn’t have time to be dicking around.

  “You can’t take any more,” she whispered.

  His internal temperature was rocketing. The virus wanted energy. The deep yearning need pulling at his every sense was just a need for energy.

  He blinked at Sienna, trying to focus. “I need it,” he said, concentrating to keep his voice stable, the request reasonable. It didn’t work. She was thinking he sounded like a junkie. He tried again, softer, more calm. “I need it.”

  She still wasn’t convinced, swearing under her breath, but she steadied him, pulled the ampoule from his pocket and pressed it against his wrist.

  He muttered, “Stay close,” breathing through the heat as he realised it was the insanity she was giving him. He closed his eyes and scanned out and round.

  He was vaguely aware of Sienna turning. She must have moved two inches from him to look out.

  He caught the intention a fraction of a second before the command was given, saw her in the crosshairs and moved, shoving her aside with a yell.

  Something hit his helmet, hard, head rattled like he’d been hit by a sledgehammer, the impact knocking him sideways. He fell into her, more rounds ricocheting off the wreckage behind them, ears ringing, the crack of each shot amplified and echoing. They sprawled, shouts and more shots erupting all around. LC slumped to the wet ground, deadweight, couldn’t budge, couldn’t think, couldn’t stop his eyes closing even though he knew he had to move. Someone grabbed him and pulled him close, dragging him into cover.

  There was swearing. Whoever it was had one hand on his throat, feeling for a pulse, trying frantically to check him out, and firing a handgun at the same time, right by his ear, yelling for help. Hilyer. It was Hilyer who had hold of him.

  Sienna was in pain, that filtered through the fog in his head, bad pain.

  He sensed Hal Duncan dropping in next to them and heard Hil say, “What the fuck is happening?” in amongst the gunfire, the too close retort of a pistol firing relentlessly right next to him, driving a knife into his skull with each shot.

  Duncan was firing his cannon of a handgun. “Dane McKenzie. That’s what’s fucking happening.”

  Chapter 16

  “Y’know, Devon once said to Nikolai that if she wanted to take him down, she’d use a high powered rifle over distance. ‘Large calibre rounds to the head rarely fail.’ Luck has a lot to answer for.” Sebastian laughed.

  The Man raised his head. “We are lucky he wasn’t killed.”

  “He should have been.”

  “Luka has always sailed on the edge of that luck. It’s what gives him an advantage above all else. He knows where the edge is and he defies it. What would we be capable of if we could all be that free?”

  Sebastian straightened up slowly. “You dare speak to me of freedom?”

  “What I did was necessary.”

  “You imprisoned a five year old child and proceeded to lock away his memories, personality, essence, so you could create a being more pliable and amenable for you to control? Do you even understand how vile an act that was?”

  “It was necessary. If I hadn’t, then the human race would not have survived this long. Face it, Sebastian, you could not have done what Nikolai has done over the last century.”

  “Maybe not,” he conceded. “But I can do what must be done now.”

  •

  LC scrambled for some kind of desperate grip on his senses. He couldn’t afford to drift off but he couldn’t so much as open his eyes. The heat of the insanity was pounding like thunder inside his head.

  Someone else appeared beside him, fingers tugging at the chin strap of the helmet. Even with that slight movement it felt like his head was going to implode. Cold air stung as the weight of the helmet disappeared, a sharper sting hitting his forehead with the pressure of a hand holding a dressing there.

  The gunfire was still close, automatic rifle fire creating a wall around them.

  “We need to get into better cover,” someone yelled.

  “Can he move?”

  “Probably shouldn’t.” There was a bang overhead. “Jesus Christ, someone take out that bloody sniper.”

  LC was floating in a pool of pain. He didn’t recognise the voices. Someone gripped his arm.

  “No,” they shouted right in his ear. “No time. We’re gonna get overrun if we stay here.”

  A hand touched his head, pressing right where he’d been hit, for fuck’s sake. He couldn’t rise above it, wanted to scream, cry, crawl out of his skin.

  “It’s just concussion, the round didn’t penetrate. We need to move now. Someone get Sienna.”

  He couldn’t sense her anymore. He tried to ask if she was okay but he couldn’t even form the thought, couldn’t sense Duncan anywhere, and when someone grabbed his arms and pulled him upright, his tenuous grasp on reality swirled away into grey.

  When he came to, it wasn’t in the safety of a drop ship. He felt cold, tiled floor against his back as they let him down, resting his head down gently, someone he didn’t recognise staying close and pressing fingers against the pulse point in his wrist.

  He was soaked through. He blinked, trying to work out where everyone was, where the drop ship was, and why the hell they weren’t leaving. It was a hotel. They were in the lobby of a Wellbeing.

  ‘You okay?’ Duncan thought, crouched next to him.

  ‘Just tired.’ He was beyond tired. He was so wiped out, he felt sick. His head was pounding. Whatever it had taken to use the staff and take out the Bhenykhn like that, it had left him drained and the virus virtually dormant. Even the shot of insanity hadn’t lasted long.

  He still had one in the pocket of his jacket, wherever that was.

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  He sat up, nausea clutching at his stomach, a swirl of dizzy buzzing around his eyes as he squinted at the big marine.

  ‘You used it,’ Duncan thought. ‘Don’t you remember?’

  No, he didn’t. Shit, there was only one other time in his life that he had no memory of doing something. And that was when a goddamned AI had screwed with his head when he was a kid.

  He leaned his head back against the wall. He could hear gunfire, shouting. It wasn’t the Bhenykhn. He couldn’t sense the hive. The Wintran forces were firing on each other.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he thought vaguely. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Looks like someone is trying to cash in on those cards. Dane McKenzie and a load of his cronies. Half the Wintran militia are Zang and UM. We’re surrounded.’

  ‘What happened?’ His mind felt thick, heavy.

  ‘Before or after you got shot in the head?’

&n
bsp; That would explain it.

  ‘Just sit tight, bud,’ Duncan thought to him. ‘We’re working on getting ships down here, then we’ll bust out. But for now, just don’t do anything stupid. It’s you they want and they’re not going to risk killing you.’

  ‘They just shot me in the head.’

  ‘You really don’t remember, do you?’

  He reached a hand to the dressing on his forehead. It didn’t feel like much more than a graze.

  ‘Thank Sienna for making you wear that helmet.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  Duncan didn’t reply. LC glanced sideways. She was on the floor, medics around her, hustling. He’d seen her wounded before, nothing this bad.

  “We need to give her the virus.” He said it even knowing it could kill her.

  Duncan shook his head. “She has a med alert on her tags, a living will. She doesn’t want the virus.”

  He felt numb, distant.

  Duncan told him again to sit tight, as if he was a child that was being particularly irritating, and went off to talk to Pen Halligan.

  LC sat there, feeling particularly irritable, back against the wall, trying to listen in and failing miserably. Coming down off the insanity combined with the concussion was worse than shit. He rested his elbows on his knees and let his head drop forward, arms wrapped around his skull, fists clenched. He couldn’t slow down his heart rate no matter what he tried and every intake of breath felt like his throat was lined with razor blades.

  He looked up and stared at the medics tending to Sienna. She was dying, he could feel it, a cold spot of inevitable loss twisting deep inside. He stumbled across and no one stopped him as he pushed his way through to her, sat at her side and held her hand as they worked on her. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t heal the way NG could. No one could.

  He gripped her hand tight and kept his head down. He didn’t want to watch because he knew what was coming. Knew it with such certainty that when it came, he just pushed to his feet, asked someone where the bathroom was and threw up. Retched until his ribs hurt, then bent over the sink, splashed cold water on his face and leaned his head down on his arms. He couldn’t stop shivering.

  Someone appeared behind him and nudged a cold bottle into his hand.

  He unclenched his fingers and took it, uncurling slowly.

  “You okay?” Duncan said.

  LC nodded slowly. He was still shivering, hand trembling.

  “She’s saved my ass so many times…” His voice broke and he couldn’t say it. Couldn’t say how much he owed her, how much he needed her. He bit his lip, biting down the deep swirl of loss that was threatening to overwhelm.

  “I…” Duncan stopped, looked up with a frown and cursed. “Dammit. Stay here. You understand? Stay here.”

  LC watched the big man stalk out of the bathroom. He couldn’t clear his head enough to read what was going on and like hell was he going to stay out of the way. He followed and stopped at the door.

  Hilyer was raising his voice, ticked off. “No,” he was saying. “This is it. We’re surrounded. And no, there’s no way out unless you want Iona to level a five block radius around us. But that’ll take out friendlies as well as hostiles. Everyone’s in cover but our positions and theirs are pepper-potted across the whole area. And we’re not even sure who’s on which side right now. Hell, even the bloody Wintrans don’t know.”

  “We’re not negotiating with that bastard,” Duncan said.

  “We have to talk to him,” Olivia said. Not Olivia.

  LC hugged his arms around his ribs. It wasn’t her. Olivia was dead. Sienna was dead. Mendhel was dead. Charlie was dead. And nothing could bring them back. Was that his fate? To leave a trail of death in his wake?

  Each breath shuddered deep in his chest.

  “What’s he offering?” he said, raising his voice enough to be heard.

  Everyone turned to him.

  Not Olivia was staring at him.

  “Tell him the answer is no,” Duncan snapped.

  LC was shaking.

  He looked at Not Olivia.

  “Say it,” he muttered. “Tell me what he’s offering.”

  She glanced at him, dismay in her eyes, worse in her thoughts. She was torn in two. Those were her people out there and she had a chance to save them. She owed him nothing. She didn’t even know him.

  “Tell him it’s no,” Duncan said again.

  Everyone was looking from them to him, only an occasional rattle of weapons breaking the silence.

  “What’s he offering?” Hilyer said, dark, temper smouldering.

  “Say it,” LC said, tipping the bottle up, expecting water and downing more of it than he should have when he realised it was beer. They must have found a bar in the Wellbeing. He felt the virus snatch at the tiny amount of energy it contained.

  Sean stepped forward. “An exchange,” she said. “McKenzie is saying they know where NG is. They’ll give us that intel, and they’ll let us go.”

  “In exchange for LC?” Hil took a step towards her, rifle cradled in his arms. “No way. Tell that son of a bitch to stand down or he won’t know what’s hit him.”

  Hal Duncan shook his head and turned on Sean. “No. There’s no way they know where NG is. We don’t negotiate and we’re not giving up LC.”

  “I know we’re not,” she fired back, “but let me speak to McKenzie.”

  LC couldn’t help thinking, not intending to broadcast it, ‘What if they do know?’

  There was such a swirl of emotion in the room, and he was so exhausted, he felt like he was going to keel over. He couldn’t follow who was thinking what.

  ‘They don’t,’ Duncan thought back and pointed at Olivia, accusing, furious, as something occurred to him. “You sent us the request to meet you here. And you knew that LC would come. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t give that same intel to McKenzie and Zang.”

  “You’re accusing me of betraying LC?” She spun and stared at him. “My god, LC. No. Why the hell would I do that?”

  The big man switched to direct thought and sent to LC, calm and clear, ‘She’s playing a dangerous game. She’s hiding so much, I can’t tell. Can you? She’s not who she’s saying she is. Is there any chance this girl could have sold you out?’

  LC felt as if a chasm had opened up beneath him, the look Duncan cast across to him sending ice into his veins. He was having enough trouble just standing. There was no way he could concentrate enough to read her deeply enough to know for sure.

  ‘It wasn’t just McKenzie and Zang that knew we’d be here,’ he thought. ‘The Bhenykhn knew.’

  He watched, cold, as Duncan looked back at the leader of the Wintran Coalition, the girl who wasn’t the Olivia he’d known so well.

  The big man put his hand on his holstered gun. “Well, someone’s sold us out.”

  Not Olivia looked horrified but then her expression changed. LC caught a hint of confusion, then a clear defiance.

  She turned on them. “Wait.” Her tone was that fierce determination he’d only seen a few times in Olivia, when she’d had to make a stand at the Reo against rivals who were trying to muscle in on her business. She was looking from face to face. “I didn’t request this meeting. We received the message from you.” She ended up at LC, stare boring into him. “You can read my mind. If you don’t trust me on anything else, check that out. Believe me, we did not bring you here.”

  Pen, of all people, wasn’t one to stand back and observe. He wasn’t convinced and jumped into the argument. “So who did? Someone got intel to us all at the same time? Who had that kind of access?”

  “We need to get back,” Duncan said. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

  Not Olivia looked relieved and rattled at the same time. She was still staring at him as if she wanted him to say everything was okay, thinking that she wished it had been different, that she’d been glad to get the message to meet them here because she’d thought it would give her a chance to speak wit
h him, to let him know, to let him down gently.

  There was a moment of quiet then Hilyer said, blunt, “How do we get out? You want me to bring in Iona, I will, she’s waiting, but there’ll be a shit load of casualties on both sides.”

  Pen was fast to respond, taking control. “No. We’re supposed to be fighting the goddamned aliens, not each other. Let me speak to McKenzie. I’ve dealt with this asshole before. But I need you…” He pointed right at LC. “…to come with me.”

  Chapter 17

  “Do you know who betrayed them?”

  Sebastian shook his head, sitting down and leaning back. “Believe me when I say that what matters more is why. Humans are despicable. At the best of times. Earth – Winter – the Order – the Merchants – the Assassins – the Bounty Hunters. They all wear their badges of allegiance, nurture their precious, age-old alliances and prejudices.” He waved his arm in a dismissive gesture. “Your precious guild, at the centre of it all, maintaining its delicate balance…” He sat up and leaned forward. “A common enemy descends, an enemy far superior and stronger in every way, and what do the humans do? Band together? Stand shoulder by shoulder to face this foe?” He laughed. “Like hell. It has brought out the worst in them. You ask who betrayed them? I’ll let you work it out yourself. Ask who benefited the most from the loss of the Alsatia. Who stands to benefit now, should the guild, or what is left of it, fall entirely?”

  “No one benefits from the destruction of the human race.”

  “Perhaps not in the terms you understand. There are always winners and losers, but winning may not be the same for everyone.”

  •

  There was a moment of pause, silence, then Hilyer planted himself firmly between them. “No way,” he said, standing up to Pen.

  LC was just trying to stand upright. He couldn’t tell what Pen was thinking. He couldn’t tell what anyone was thinking, couldn’t think straight himself. He still had the empty beer bottle in his hand, and all he could think about was the flask of moonshine, wondering where it had gone, trying not to think about Sienna and trying to ignore the way Sean was looking at him. He tried to drag his attention back to the room, tried to remember what they were talking about. It felt like he should say something but he couldn’t process fast enough to figure out what.