A tear leaked down the side of her face as she waited for the inevitable.
If she’d believed in any god, she’d pray… her only request just one more moment with Zero….
16
The moon base on MD-892-A was utterly underwhelming.
“Is that it?”
The entire crew were crowded onto the bridge as they approached the moon listed in Eric’s information as the location of the lab. It looked like every other moon Zero had ever seen. Nothing special.
Until a flare of bright light illuminated the edge, like a sunrise that was here one moment and gone the next.
“Okay, what the hell was that?” T’Raal demanded, the main view screen focusing in on the flare. Whatever it was had been just over the horizon, so they couldn’t see anything now apart from rocks and more rocks.
“Errrr… that was our combat shuttle,” Beauty informed them as the ship rounded the side of the moon and the rocks gave way to a blasted crater with edges like broken teeth.
Zero’s heart stalled in his chest, his hands frozen on the flight controls. Eris and Sparky had been on that shuttle...
“Scanning the remains. No biological matter detected. There was no one on board.”
His heart restarted with a painful thump. Just the idea of Eris… gone like that. It shorted his onboard and biological systems in ways he’d never encountered before. It was painful and not convenient, not when it locked up his systems and didn’t allow him to think.
Bringing them parallel with the surface, he swung the ship around. The lab was laid out in front of them, a spidery network of domes and leg-like corridors connecting them. There was no armoring, no defenses… he frowned, using his uplink to the Sprite to bring the scanners to bear.
“The shot came from a ship on the other side of the base,” he recounted for the rest of the bridge crew. “Definitely combat-capable. Rail guns and point defense cannons. There’s a scientific vessel there as well, both attached to the base by boarding tubes.”
“Okay. It looks like they’re getting ready to up and leave then. Chances are they know something’s up if they took out the shuttle. We need to get down there. Since we’re down a shuttle, it’ll have to be a suit drop. Beauty, Red… bridge duties. The rest of you, suit up.”
“Hell yeah!” Zero handed off flight control to Beauty’s console. He was off the bridge almost before T’Raal had given the order. Sliding down the stair rails on his hands, his feet hit the deck of the staging area and he was half in his suit before the others piled in.
They suited up with quick, economical movements. While the empire might only use power suits in extreme circumstances, they were par for the course for the Warborne. Why refuse to use an advantage because some outdated honor system forbade it? Especially when there were creatures like the Krin out there.
“We go in hard and fast,” T’Raal ordered, his voice muffled for a second as he pulled his helmet on. A second later, his voice filtered over suit comms. “Technically, this is an act of war, so I don’t want anyone down there getting too good a look at us. Zero, can you block all the security cameras down there?”
Zero nodded, doing up the last zips and latches on his suit, and then turned to check Fin’s. Giving his battle partner a thumbs up, he answered T’Raal as Fin returned the favor. No one went ex-atmosphere without double checks, even when they were on the clock. Not unless they wanted to suck cold, hard space.
“As soon as we go boots down, I’ll jam everything and its mother,” he promised and then grinned. “And as for a good look… I can promise you, they won’t be looking at us.”
“Good.” As usual when they went into action, T’Raal’s voice was clipped and professional. Zero hefted the heavy machine gun he preferred—in the suit he couldn’t use his arm-mounted gun rig—and turned to face the ramp.
“Dropping ramp in three…” Beauty’s voice came over the comm. “Two… one… go!”
They were already running before he finished talking, flinging themselves off the end of the ramp as the Sprite flew low and fast over the central part of the lab.
A battle cry broke from Zero’s lips as they dropped like stones—armor-clad, heavily armed stones. Parting his feet, he brought his gun to bear as they crashed through the ceiling of the dome below.
Shattered glass and the shriek of environmental alarms surrounded him. His visor was slapped by foliage for a second before he landed heavily in the dirt below.
The rest of the Warborne hit the deck around him, plus one, heavier addition that made Skinny grin behind his helmet visor. “Too fucking right they aren’t gonna be looking at us!”
“Stay quiet on comms,” T’Raal ordered. “Remember, we’re behind enemy lines and not supposed to be here. No one gets left behind to give them any evidence to start a war with. Zero, let’s go get your girl.”
BOOM!
Eris tensed as the room exploded with blackness and gunfire. But where was the nothingness that was supposed to come after? Her breathing rasped in her ears, and her heart pounded in her throat…
But she was still on her knees with the same bit of metal that had once been part of some sort of lab equipment digging into her skin. Wasn’t there supposed to be more bright lights, harps and whatnot?
Two spotlights snapped on, and she winced, pulling her bound hands from behind her head to shield her eyes. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear those were the shoulder lights on a Scorperio…
“Don’t go into the light!” Sparky warbled and then grinned as heavy footsteps brought Skinny and Zero into view from the darkness. Dressed in power suits like the ones she and Sparky had stolen, they both had their helmets down and
