The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy (9 page)

“Hello, Brad. How are you?”

The voice in his head almost startled him. Allysha. How had she obtained the access code for his

implant? He looked at her through the partition, at the slight curve of her lips, the sparkle in her green eyes. Silly question. She was incredible; absolutely incredible.

He concentrated, activating the reply.“Does this work both ways?” He thought the words.

“Of course. But only if we’re near each other. I thought it might be useful.”

“It certainly is.”

“Have you done your homework on the K-400?”

“Uh-huh. I’m ready to go on that. Have you picked an explosive?”

“No. We’ll have to do that together. Can you ‘disappear’ me at twenty-five hundred?”

“Sure. Meet you in the store room.”She rose to her feet.

“I love you.”

She hesitated. Would she say it? I love you, too?

“See you soon.”

And she was gone, out through the door into the tunnel. He sighed, a tingle of disappointment in his

heart. But this was meant to be, it had to be. It was as if destiny had organized for his idiotic sacking just so he could be here to meet her. His mother would have agreed with that hypothesis, even if she

wouldn’t approve of him marrying an outsider. Well, that was too bad.

He set off on his first routine check of the mine, down to the gate, around to the hangar to check the K-400 was still there, where he exchanged a few casual words with the guard. He strolled past the

medical center where he nodded to the attendant. Then back to the control room.

Time dragged, as it always did when you watched the clock. At last the minutes ticked around toward

twenty-five hundred. He headed for the store room, walking at his normal pace. The tunnels were empty, as they always were at this time of night. She was there, waiting, just inside the infra-red barrier. She smiled, a taut lifting of the lips, when he came in.

“Hello. Nervous?”he said the words in his head.

She nodded.“Yes. But I’m ready.”

He dropped the infra-red barrier for the time it took to pass behind the counter and went to the secret warehouse for the explosives. He pulled down the carton and took out two packs of shardite and

detonators, enough to blow the room to smithereens but not bring down the mountain, and slipped the

blocks into his pockets.

She had her oblong device—she called it her techpack—in her hand. “Give me a sec to adjust the

inventory.” She raised her head. “Done.”

“Now for the medical research center.”

She followed behind him, back to the main drive, along to the medical center and into the laboratory.

“Copy some of the data off the system so we have the evidence and then destroy it all.” He’d made it an order, damn it. “Please.”

While she worked on the computers he pulled the two shardite charges out of his pockets. Where best

to place them? One on top of the benches to cause maximum damage. He molded the material around

the fixtures and attached the detonator. And another here. Allysha had disappeared, he guessed into the foyer. He opened all the cupboard doors, switched off the climate conditioning and set the second

charge.

A screeching howl from the room with the cages froze the blood in his veins. He leapt to his feet, heart racing.

Allysha charged toward him, eyes wide, mouth open. “A kartek.”

She tried to slam the door behind her but a heavy, clawed foot stopped the movement. A hooked talon,

long as a saber, appeared in the gap above her head.

Saahren grabbed her arm and flung her behind him as the beast smashed the door aside. He pulled out

his pistol, flicked the power to maximum and fired a beam at the kartek’s muzzle. It howled, a

high-pitched shriek that jangled his nerves.

“Go for the door, Allysha.”

He heard the soft swish as the door slid aside behind him. The kartek advanced on two powerful hind

legs, claws clicking on the tiled floor. Eyes like lamps fixed on him, red and resentful. Its breath stank like

rotting meat, hissing between the needle-like teeth in a jutting jaw. Saahren backed away, the Emson held in both hands. The best he could do was to delay the creature for long enough to get out and lock the door.

“Nearly there,” Allysha said. “Two more steps.”

“Be ready to close it as soon as I’m through.”

The beast lunged, striking down with terrifying speed. He dodged, heart pounding, and fired a long

stream at the kartek’s eye. It screamed in agony, thrashing its head from side to side. He dived through the exit, rolled and kept firing at the kartek through the dwindling gap until the door thunked closed.

He sagged, panting. How long had it been since he’d last done any hand-to-hand fighting? The trapped

beast howled its pain and outrage amidst muffled crunching and smashing. It must be tearing the place apart. He’d hardly need the explosives.

Allysha knelt beside him, a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you all right?”

He pulled himself upright and stared at her. She was disheveled, frightened but unmarked. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her, his hands sliding over her back, squeezing. If that thing had reached her, if that talon had stabbed her… She’d put herself in danger. Idiot. Beautiful, adorable idiot.

He held her at arms length, staring down at her. “What in blazes possessed you to let that thing in?”

Her eyebrows rose. Then she frowned. “I went to see those cages they kept the ptorix in. I heard

scratching against the far door and I thought there might have been ptorix through there. So I opened it.”

She was angry, irritated. He sighed, shaking his head. He’d messed it up again. This woman thing wasn’t part of his job description.

“You frightened me, Allysha. You have no idea how much. If anything had happened to you I would

never have forgiven myself.”

“I wasn’t too thrilled myself.” The anger had evaporated. Now she stood, eyes downcast as if

embarrassed. She probably was.

“How did it get here?” he said. “Was that a holding pen for a kartek or a passage outside?”

She brought up the mountain graphic and enlarged the medical area. “A passage outside.”

“Yes, I thought so. That’s how they disposed of the bodies.”

She shuddered.

He put an arm around her. “Come on. We have a K-400 to steal.”

****

planet. Yet another reason to get the hell out of here. Brad blasted the locks on the door marked ‘No admission’ before they left the medical center. Fair enough, too. She’d hate for anybody to walk in on a kartek.

She made a show of getting out her techpack and sent the command to the security system to fix Brad

as being in the control room. She’d already set her own location as her room. Brad checked his tablet, intact on his belt despite his dive and roll through the door, nodded and stepped out into a dark tunnel.

“Time to blow the lab,” he said.

She sent the command to trigger the detonators. A dull whump and then the sounds of breaking glass,

rumbles, clatters, crashes that quickly dwindled into silence.

He turned on his torch. She took it from his hand and turned the beam down to a glow. “It’s enough for me to see,” she said.

“How?” Amazement colored his tone.

“My eyes were modified when I was a baby so I could see the same frequencies as the Tors. Come

on.”

She led the way through the tunnels to the store room and into the secret warehouse, walking between

tall rows of shelves

“Anything new here?”he asked via his implant.

“Not that I can see.”

She stopped at a wide, high doorway.

“The hangar’s through here.”

They slipped through a personnel door set in the larger door into an enormous open space, sparsely lit.

New surfaces, pale and smooth, stood out against the darker unworked rock where rock cutters had

done their work. This had been a natural cave, shaped and widened for its purpose. Prefab buildings

lined a wall, offices and storage space. Only the guardroom glowed with light, a beacon in the dimness.

The K-400 cruiser, its wings withdrawn into the fuselage, stood to one side. Sleds and maintenance

vehicles were parked in orderly lines. Piles of neatly stacked crates occupied a corner.

“I’ll take the lead,”he said.

She stood aside for him. The pistol in his hand, he sidled along the wall toward the pre-fabs, squeezing past the fronts of the line of vehicles parked side by side.

Bright light blinded her.

She stopped, pulse pounding, as her eyes fought to adjust. Shit. They’d turned on the main lights. Brad grabbed her hand and ducked under the closest sled’s nose. It wasn’t much, but the shadows were

deep.

A motor engaged. Nerves jangling, she peered around the sled. The massive door that sealed the cavern from the jungle rose steadily into the rock. Something huge and dark and noisy appeared in the bay

entrance. Fear rippled up her body. And subsided as her brain registered a ship, maneuvering through the opening. A small freighter, snub-nosed and ugly, landed gently on the rock floor not twenty meters from where they hid. She narrowed her eyes against the cloud of fine dust raised by its thrusters.

As the engines shut down and the craft settled, the cargo door opened and a ramp slid down. Men

emerged from the tunnel that led to the main drive.

“Move it, you fellows,” a voice she didn’t recognize said. “The sooner you get that cargo off, the sooner you can go back to bed.”

The men slouched toward the row of sleds where she and Brad hid. Uh-oh. If they needed more than

two or three sleds, she and Brad were in trouble.

“Don’t move, whatever you do,”Brad said.

She hadn’t been intending to. But then again, they could probably hear the thundering of her heart.

The first sled from the end of the line moved off.

“I hate these unexpected arrivals,” somebody grumbled. “I was dead asleep.”

The next sled’s engine started.

“Aah. Just think of the money,” a man replied.

The sled slid away, maneuvered around and headed for the freighter.

The pilot climbed down from the cockpit and walked toward the main tunnel to meet two new arrivals.

Allysha stifled the groan. Oh, buckrats. Van Tongeren and Sean.

“Do you know who he is? The blond one?”

“His name’s O’Reilly.”That was true, after all. And she’d tell him the rest later.

The three men stopped four meters away. Beyond them, the ground crew shifted cartons and crates out

of the freighter and added them to the existing piles.

“Good trip?” van Tongeren said. He’d raised his voice to be heard above the bangs and crashes and the whine of the sled motors.

“Yes, uneventful,” the pilot said, peeling off his gloves. “The Feds have got their hands full with the Qerran crisis, being very careful not to upset anybody.”

“It’s certainly a useful distraction. Duggan over there can take you to quarters for the night,” van

Tongeren said.

The pilot nodded and walked away, dodging a laden sled.

Van Tongeren stood with his back to her, hands on hips, legs apart. Surveying his domain, no doubt.

“It’s going well,” he said. “The AR70 assault rifles are in demand. We’re going to have to see if we can get some more. Is your Qerran contact ready to collect them?”

“Yes, they’ll send a ship to pick up,” Sean said.

Her nerves tingled. Qerran contact? Sean had a Qerran contact for rifles? What was that about?

Van Tongeren chuckled. “I must say, O’Reilly, that wife of yours has done a marvelous job with the IS,”

van Tongeren said as the last of the cartons was loaded onto a sled.

“Oh, yes, my Allysha’s one smart lady,” O’Reilly said.

Oh, fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck. She looked at Brad. He’d gone tense. His eyes swiveled to fix on her face.

She couldn’t read his expression. She didn’t need this. Not now.“I can explain. Please.”

Sean and van Tongeren started to follow the sled toward the tunnel that led to the warehouse, walking slowly to match its speed as it floated above the ground.

“Do you think she’s done enough to prove her worth?” Sean asked. “She must be nearly finished.”

Her worth? To what? She glanced around. The load crew had all left the hangar. “I have to hear this,”

she said to Brad.

She crept along the wall back the way they’d come, a little behind the two men as they dawdled along, Brad following.

“Oh, she is. As near as may be. She showed Emment the interface today. In fact, I called Tepich a few days ago. He’s on his way.”

“When do we discuss the contract?” Sean said.

Van Tongeren grunted. “Later. Don’t worry, you won’t be disappointed.”

They were gone. The secret door clicked into place and the main hangar lights went out. She stopped,

crouching in the dark. Allow somebody she didn’t know to take her somewhere to do something else

that was definitely illegal? What happened to the divorce? What happened to her half of the money? Why had she ever believed him?

“Bastard.”She ground the word out.“Lying bastard.”

“But your husband.”

Oh, buckrats. She squeezed her eyes shut. What would Brad be thinking? That she was a whoring,

lying, cheating bitch? He’d be the sort of man who thought marriage was forever.

“We’re estranged. I’m getting a divorce.”And the sooner the better. And she might just cut off his balls before she did it. Bastard.

“We need to talk. But first we get off this planet.”

Nerves wriggled in her stomach. She wished she knew him better. She couldn’t tell if he was happy or

sad or angry—or what.“I was going to tell you. Later.”

“You will tell me later. As soon as we get that freighter into space.”He headed off back down toward