FORT LIBERTY: VOLUME ONE (11 page)

Ahead, Petra grabs the inside of a hatch and pulls herself into a weightless crouch between sections. She leans toward them, her words quick and curt, delivered on frosted breath. “We got five evacuation shuttles, each for ten people… so plenty more than we need. Three of ‘em are lined up here. They power up on automatic signal from the flight deck. They got beacons, and they’re programmed for direct path to Midstation, or Mars Port, whichever’s closer. They got standard fuel engines which fire at intervals and take an extra two or three months to reach the closest destination if no rescue picks up. All have enough rations, and redundant life support units to account.”

Voss shakes his head. “And you think we’re about to need these?”

She locks gazes with him, looking as if she might want to lash out, but it turns into something else, some hint of genuine fear, for her ship and crew certainly, but also—if he’s not mistaken—for him too. “You got someone powerful what wants you dead. Cruiser you were supposed to be on is now floating in the black, and every ship from here to Mars Port in the crosshairs.”

“Crosshairs?”

“Of a striker, most likely.”

“A
what
?” Gojo asks.

“A ship that can hide from grid detection an’ so attack without warning. It’s the only explanation for such violent hull breach on a cruiser. Sabotage is too difficult with AI monitoring. Rocks and debris on flight path are seen and tracked, repelled by magnetic force shielding, but invisible attack ships, and what advanced missiles they may fire, are not. There were plenty of such ships in earlier days, and now there’s supposed to be none, so whoever’s after you has lethal imagination and a powerful cash flow.”

“Fucking kidding me,” Gojo mutters.

Voss ignores him. “So we’re preparing for an attack.”

“
Sparrow
’s not a cruiser,” she replies. “Won’t survive an attack. We’re initiating full accelerator burn and a straight sprint to Mars. We’re closing all compartments, everyone in slim suits with helmets kept at arm’s reach. Time to think hard about putting your executive here, ready in an evac shuttle, because you might not have time to get him here otherwise.”

“Especially if we deviate, “Gojo says. “It’s a bad idea to miss your stop and just blast toward Mars. You’ll flag us for everyone who’s watching. They’re going to know that this is the ship. They’re going to—”

“Gojo,” Voss shuts him down.

The younger man hisses under his breath, stopping short of saying more, though Petra—and her temper—have already risen to the bait.

“No, go on,” she quips. “Tell me all about bad ideas, e’en though you’re maybe not the smartest chunk of muscle who ever got strapped into a rocket, as it turns out. Once they find out you weren’t on that cruiser, they’ll start searching through the records on other ships, and they’ll find you easily enough, as we falsely registered you, as a last minute addition, a comm crew, and had to do such because the airlock security systems on Copernicus record all traffic. You were on vid when you floated aboard this ship, and that vid is available to the same people who can access passenger manifests of cruisers.”

Gojo takes a second. Then his gaze cuts to Voss. “Colonel… ”

We’re in deep shit.

“Not finished,” Petra continues, her voice all edge and breath. “One of these evac shuttles is not so much about evac-ing. Retrofit to the ship. Bought it off an old pirate who bought it off an e’en older one. Operational, but needs someone with the right skills to make it work.”

Voss grimaces. “What?”

She presses a few keys on a console and a series of locks release, popping a hatch loose from the wall. She grabs hold and swings the thing open, revealing an open airlock and a cramped flight deck set into the compartment beyond it. A semi-circle of computer screens flicker on, followed by a labored hiss of air from an oversized life support unit, the small craft struggling to come out of cold sleep.

It’s old style… very old style. No holo grid. Angled cockpit windows and aluminum bulkheads … rows of panel switches, caution lights…

The thing’s a relic.

Only it’s got teeth. To the left of the pilot’s chair is a crude weapon’s station with its own seat, controls equipped with a protruding black joystick, trigger grip, and targeting screens that appear to be based on the early grid system.

“Gun,” Gojo murmurs.

“Oh, now we’re getting smarter,” Petra replies. “Seven barrel, attached exterior, under the cockpit. Fires thirty millimeter, armor piercing rounds that are belt fed from the lower deck. But the loader’s jammed, and mechanics who could fix it proper are in short supply.”

“Wyatt.” Gojo looks at Voss, knowing he can’t compete with sniper expertise on matters of antique gun maintenance. “Wyatt and I will get it running.”

“Get him down here.”

“Yes, sir.” Gojo pulls himself back into the corridor then disappears up-ladder, leaving Voss floating in the cold with Petra.

For a moment she looks trapped, like she can’t get around him, or around the thought of him… it’s unclear which.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Should’a fixed that gun before now.”

“We’ll fix it. I thought you said this vessel was unarmed.”

“Looks unarmed, is what I meant,” she mutters, drifting to another console, her attention set on the keypad. “Got to power up all the shuttles. You know how to hit an ignition button, I take it, in case I’m not here to show you such.”

And there it is.
In case I’m not here…

She’s scared. And she should be. The threat is immediate, a vessel that can fire from a distance, tear up her ship before its presence is detected, rip away walls, destroy sealed compartments, drag any of them out into the void, last words left unsaid, life unfinished.

She opens a hatch and pulls herself into the murk beyond it, her lithe silhouette now colored by red panel lights, indicators blinking on start-up, system checks, her movement eerily silent amid the glow of activity.

Voss follows her, descending into a small compartment with a console, flight chairs and two short rows of seats. It’s the other kind of evac shuttle, the standard, unarmed box with engines, every inch of wall and floor space fitted with metal pipes, tanks and supply boxes, food, water, med kits, life support…

He’s seen enough to suspect that there is, indeed, just one button to be pressed for the entire machine to perform its purpose. Human intelligence not required. Sit in the seat. Push blinking light with finger. Get blasted off flight path and into the whole of big sky, life riding on probabilities, on one-use technology never field tested.

“It’s here,” Petra says, pointing to that exact control, a button covered by a clear switch guard, blinking with a precisely timed sense of urgency.

“Got it,” he says.

“Same, more or less, on all of them. Press it. Airlock closes. Autopilot engages. We can do it from the flight deck too, but… ”

“Understood.”

They’re maybe a foot apart now, swathed in frosted breath, and he can feel the tension in her, always there, always drawn as tight as a bow string. Touch her, mind or body, and she resonates.

It’s not the right time for it to cross his mind, but it does anyway. Because the threat is close, and that makes everything significant. What might be the last thing you did, the last thing you said to someone…

Sometimes it’s like this, in the electric calm before contact with the enemy, only he’s never in the presence of a woman he’s attracted to, much less one he’s put at risk. Petra’s placed her life, and some portion of her livelihood, on the line to get his team to Red Filter.

If she succeeds, it’s likely she’ll remain a target. The same people who attacked a base, who attacked a cruiser, would welcome the opportunity to wring additional intel out of a smuggler who can’t fight back. And she couldn’t be that hard to find, operating on a limited map of illegal clients and deliveries.

The knowledge refuses to settle. Rather, it rips a hole in his gut, as the man who has always, for some reason, survived the battles that others didn’t.

“You have somewhere to go after this?” he asks, bringing her gaze back. “Somewhere you’d be hard to find?”

Her expression darkens, thin brows furrowing. “Does your executive have such? Towers of Fort Liberty are made of thin shielding, clear as glass, because of the oh-so-pretty view of red plain. My kind’s used to what destruction might be wrought upon us through greed, or lust for power. Your masters are used to getting their way all the time. They’re not prepared for this kind of warfare, up-close and personal. This executive of yours is DOA, no matter what transpires between us and one particular striker.”

“You’re worried about my ‘executive’ now?”

“You’re surviving on the low, only you’re not so good at it.”

“Oh.” He smiles. “So you’re worried about
me
.”

She stops on that, like she didn’t know that she was, or didn’t think he’d figure it out. Her eyes narrow, fixed on him in hostile admission. “Now you’re just trying to piss me off.”

“No.”

“Then don’t you think it’s time for truth? What kind of human attracts this much mayhem? No one in Red Filter’s worth the trouble, all data secure, all functions redundant. All those executives who got blown out into space have already been replaced by others just as special, I promise you that. No one they can’t do without. So who the hell you got in that cabin?”

Voss nods, acknowledging her right to ask. “Better to focus on the threat.”

“Do you even know what they got you into?” she asks, anger straining the words, making her sound vulnerable. “You could’a burned to death. Could’a been you and your team screaming to be let out of those cruiser compartments.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Still could be. Your team, my crew, all of us.”

“No,” he says, as if he’s talking to a fresh kid on his team, a recruit who doesn’t know better than to chase the rabbit, allow fear to define the environment. “We’re not going to let that happen. This is a different scenario. We expect an attack. We have the advantage of knowing they’re coming.”

She looks pained, as if the divide between soldier and smuggler has never been wider. “Just tell me it’s worth it. Look at me and tell me that I’m risking this ship, good people and good profit, for one of those honorable causes that Assaulters so famously defend. Tell me it’s not all for nothing, some idiot in a white suit, high on greed. Tell me this isn’t going to end with you getting killed the minute you cross into red sky, after all the trouble you’ve been.”

He hesitates, not sure how to take… any of that.

But then she reaches out, her fingers tentative, tracing the scars that root their way through the light growth of his beard, veins of white through silver. And he feels it. Human contact, as raw as it gets, in the thin, frozen air of a metal cockpit, the empty burn of worlds glinting through its flight shield.

He doesn’t move, but she does, close enough for him to feel the warmth of her breath, the nudge of her lips against his. It’s a Petra kind of kiss, its softness edged with her particular brand of fire, impatient, demanding.

Not a goodbye kiss, though maybe she’d thought it would be. It’s electric, filling his blood, provoking the need she’s only teased at before. It hits him in the gut this time, hooking him with this lush, open-mouthed kiss so sexual he can feel in his groin.
Damn, Petra…

The woman isn’t subtle. She tugs at his shoulders and he slides one arm around her, pressing her up against him. He hears her breath catch and knows he’s got her, knows how good he could make it for both of them, if there’d been time…

“Col?” Wyatt’s voice calls from the corridor.

Petra pulls out of reach, swearing, at herself, or at him… he isn’t sure.

Voss blinks, breathing hard, taking a second to let her go. “In here.”

“Yeah,” Wyatt replies, as if he might have known that. “Gojo’s getting some tools, be here in a sec. I, uh… ”

“Came right down,” Voss finishes for him. “Good.”

“Yeah,” Wyatt’s tone brightens. “So where is the lovely lady?”

“What?”

“The gun.” Wyatt says, enthusiastic. “Heard you found a new girlfriend for me, and she’s got seven barrels.”

Interior lights go red. And it comes, a shudder through the ship’s metal skin. Ladders vibrate. Light panels rattle. The air itself is trembling with it… all three accelerators cycling up to full burn. Petra grabs for the closest rung in the cargo hold, heavy thrust mimicking the effects of gravity, able to yank bodies back toward walls, hurl unsecured items across compartments.

It kicks in. and suddenly she’s time-and-a-half her weight, thrown toward the panels and left dangling, one boot scuffing at a shining metal rung. She grits her teeth and finds footing, sliding both boots onto the ladder with an extra thirty kilos of drag to lift all the way to the flight deck.

Crew members are now waiting in the two largest evac units, shuttles attached to the cargo hold and packed with the richest merchandise. She passes one airlock, then another, and sees them all staring out at her, squeezed into slim suits between cases of rare gemstones, relics and vodka—and unhappy about it—nothing to say as she heaves herself up another rung.