Sparky nodded and turned. Reaching under the bunk, he pulled free a trunk and opened it. It was filled with weapons—from assault rifles to lethal-looking trench-knives. Eris whistled softly.
“Well, guess we know who’s been keeping the gun-runners on base busy. Don’t we?”
Sparky chuckled, already beginning to arm up. The way he moved, strapping weaponry to his body in various holsters and sheaths… yeah, him having been military made complete sense.
“Always better to have and not want than need and not have. That’s what my momma always said anyway.”
“I’m not sure what’s scarier…” Zero quipped, selecting a pump-action shotgun and a couple of vicious blades to add to his handguns. “You having a mother, or that she might be like you.”
Sparky grinned. “Nah, you got it backward, squire. Chip off the old block, me. Apart from the fact she’s scarier. I’m a teddy bear compared.”
“Yeah, that’s what scares me.” Zero moved to the door, un-focusing his eyes for a moment so he could concentrate on the corridor outside. If the troops aboard were as good as Sparky claimed, it wouldn’t take them long to figure out they’d been duped and start clearing the station level by level. “So… ship?”
Fully armed with body armor in place, Sparky slid a flexi from his pocket and flicked it on. “May I suggest the Aegis, currently on docking arm fifteen… she’s a heavy freighter who usually runs cargo to the Terra-Nova systems.”
Eris looked up at him sharply. “Pirate territory?”
He nodded. “Aye. Which means they’re gonna be packing decent shields and rail-guns despite the fact they’re listed as unarmed.”
“Good point. Okay… fifteen isn’t far from here.” She reached over and flicked the screen to a view of the station. “If we head down through these sectors here and here… a service elevator here is always listed as out of service, but I have the override codes for it.”
“Not yours, I take it?” Sparky asked quickly. “‘Cause, sorry to break it to you, but thirteen will have locked everything of yours down six ways to Sunday, sweetheart.”
She gave him a hard look. “Do you take me for a fucking idiot? Of course it’s not mine. I memorized the chief engineer’s codes the last time I went down there with him.”
“Smart,” Zero commented to get their attention. “Corridor’s clear outside. We should move now before they start a level-by-level search.”
Sparky locked and loaded his assault rifle. “After you, big guy.”
❖
If anyone had told Eris yesterday she’d be trying to escape the station with an alien cyborg and an ex-con, she’d have laughed them off the damn thing. But here she was, creeping down the corridor hoping like hell they didn’t run into a team of the scariest special-forces soldiers in the known galaxy.
“Hang left. Tangoes coming down the right-hand corridor,” Zero said quietly behind her.
He’d been keeping up a quiet commentary, guiding them through the station corridors as they headed toward docking arm fifteen. Three times they’d had to double back or wait. She didn’t need to tell either of them that the frequency and number of enemy patrols weren’t a good sign. From the tone of Zero’s voice and the grim expression on Allen’s face as he took point and then held position to cover them as they moved, both already knew.
They took the left corridor but halfway down Zero hissed. “Fuck, they doubled back.”
They froze in place in the middle of the corridor. She and Allen covered opposite sides of the hallway.
“Which way, big man?” Allen asked, voice terse. “We really don’t want to be caught here. They’ll cut us to fucking ribbons.”
She didn’t take her eye off the corridor in front of her, finger coiled around the trigger. As soon as anything moved on her side, she was ready to toast it.
“No direct route to the docking arm… shit… there’s too many,” Zero growled. “We’d need a tank to get through.”
“Taking point,” she said abruptly, moving out of position as Zero took her place at the back of the group. “Got a plan.”
Two corridors later, they walked into hell. As they were halfway down, they heard yelling behind them.
“Contact rear!” Sparky bellowed, already returning fire.
Half her brain paused to admire the way he moved. The joker disappeared, and in his place was a lethal soldier, his rifle barking as he cut down the commandoes filling the corridor behind them with a deadly aim.
She and Zero joined the fray, and she lost herself in the rhythm of battle. Aim, fire, move… take cover, aim, fire. Move… Over and over. She ran out of ammo for her primary weapon, so she discarded it, going to the handguns she’d holstered to her hips.
“Where the hell are we going?” Sparky demanded as she led them down to the storage units. “We can’t hide in one of these, they’re not shielded. We’ll be sitting ducks.”
“Just hold the line,” she ordered. “Buy me a couple of minutes. That’s all I need.”
She didn’t wait for an answer as she placed her weapon by Zero’s knee and sprinted down the corridor. Keeping low, she ran fast and tried to stay in cover as much as she could. Still, the skin between her shoulder blades itched. Any moment she expected to catch a bullet between them. Which would suck. After everything she’d been through, she didn’t intend to buy it in a scratty storage area on a rust bucket like Tarantus.
She skidded to a halt in front of her storage unit and punched her access number in. Her fingers slipped on the pad, and the screen bleeped an error code at her.
“Fuck!” she hissed, sweat trickling down her spine as she concentrated. She needed to get the numbers right. Three wrong tries and she’d be locked out. If that happened, they were fucked. Six ways to Sunday. Without lube.
She tapped numbers again. Every second out of cover, her survival instincts screamed at her.
“Code confirmed. Access granted,” the smooth voice of the computer announced. The door opened with a hiss of compressed air and a
