Crystal Conquest (5 page)

Cheryl wrapped up a marathon session
with her defense array project team. One of her concerns—that the public drama had
upset team dynamics—proved unfounded. It turned out no one liked Geitz; the
most common descriptor she heard in her conversations was “weasel.” They all
seemed glad she’d found and fixed the problems he’d created.

Tired and hungry, she followed Sid through a set of doors and
into the base canteen. He thrust his chin at an open table on the far side of
the dining hall and veered toward the food service units to see what looked
good.

She grabbed two coffees and moved through the room to the
table he’d indicated. Setting his cup down, she took her seat and gripped her
cup with both hands. It warmed her fingers and, in the process, drained some of
the tension from her body.

She took a sip and peered into the crowd, finding Sid weaving
around the tables. He approached with a tray of food, and she took a moment to
enjoy the nimble grace of this big man.

He was a legend in the shadowy world of covert warriors, and
she knew only portions of his storied career. She felt both guilt and
excitement that he occasionally accepted mundane assignments just to be with
her.
But you’re getting me in the deal, buddy. I’m worth it.

Acting like her waiter, he picked a muffin and a fruit cup off
the tray and placed them on a plate in front of her. He unfolded and handed her
a cloth napkin and then sat down across from her. His attention shifted to the
steaming bowl of macaroni and cheese he’d selected for himself.

Sid attacked his food like it was an adversary to be
defeated. She broke off a piece of her muffin, slipped it into her mouth,
closed her eyes, and savored the apple-spice delight. “Mmm.”

Sid, his bowl empty, eyed her muffin. She pushed the last
half over to him.

“I have three of my best on the way,” he said between
mouthfuls. “They’ll be here in a few hours. They’re fully embedded as Fleet
crew—a lieutenant, a tech sergeant, and an ops specialist. We can hand this off
to them and be on tomorrow morning’s shuttle.”

Cheryl rubbed a finger around the lip of the coffee mug and
reflected on his words. The defense array was her project, and she was glad
they’d caught the bad guys. But from her perspective, there were additional
issues that needed her attention.

“The situation is under control, so it makes sense for you
to head back.” She caught his eye and smiled, acknowledging this isn’t what he
wanted to hear. “I need another day or two. I want to spend more time with my key
people. It’ll be good for me and good for the project. And I want to stand in
the command center, run some drills, and feel positive vibes from the group.
When everyone is working together and looking ahead, I’ll come home.”

Sid started to speak, but Criss intruded with clear urgency
in his tone. “Cheryl’s life is in danger. A man is coming to kill her. I’m
sorry I didn’t catch this sooner.”

She knew Sid received the message, because his head pivoted
as he scanned the room. “Where?” he said. “I don’t see him.”

“He just came through the entrance,” Criss replied in their
ears.

Cheryl looked over to see a man standing inside the canteen
door. Wild-eyed, he scanned the crowd and held up a firearm. “I know that bitch
is in here.” He pointed his weapon at the nearest table. “Where is she?”

Cheryl had no sooner zeroed in on the source of the
commotion than she felt her chair tilt backward. Sid had stretched his leg beneath
the table, hooked his foot under the front of her seat, and lifted upward. She
reached out her arms and instinctively flailed in an attempt to regain her
balance. The look on Sid’s face left no doubt that she should halt that
behavior immediately.

She careened in a frightening arc backward. Her chair hit the
floor, and she let out a quiet
oomph
as the impact forced the air from
her lungs.

A firm hand gripped her arm and started to pull. She turned
her head to see Sid, already under the table, dragging her next to him. It
registered then that he’d tipped her over to get her out of the line of sight.
He was now moving her to cover.

* * *

“Stay here,” Sid whispered in her
ear.

He began to slither on his stomach, using his knees and
elbows for propulsion, as he moved silently behind a row of tables. He didn’t
notice the glops of food that previous diners had spilled onto the floor. He was
too focused on his triangle—the man with the weapon, Cheryl under the table,
and the wall partition he picked as his destination.

It took just moments for him to reach the partition that separated
a service area from the larger dining hall. Once behind it, he rose up on his
hands and knees. Keeping his head low, he peeked around the near corner to
assess the situation.

The man babbled a string of nonsense threats and accusations
as he wandered among the diners. “If you’re wearing a uniform, put your head on
the table.” His slurred speech made him sound like he was drunk, or perhaps it
had been too long since he’d slept. “If you know where the bitch is, point her
out and this’ll all be over.”

Many of the diners had their heads down. Others appeared to
be watching calmly, perhaps waiting for an opportunity to take action. There
were lots of civilians in the canteen that morning, making the intruder’s job
of identifying Cheryl more challenging.

Sid sat back against the partition and scanned the items stacked
in the different bins along the opposing wall. The top row held glasses,
utensils, and napkins.
This is where people can grab things for their meal.
He
leaned over and took another peek at the man. Continuing his rant, the aggressor
moved deeper into the dining hall.

Sid started crawling to the far corner of the partition and
stopped when he caught sight of a bin of steak knives. Sitting back down, he
hefted one. He was disappointed by its light weight and awkward balance. But it
had a sharp tip and a serrated edge. He twirled it to get a feel for its
balance and center of mass. Taking a practice grip along the back of the blade,
he visually identified where he should put his thumb and fingers for maximum
control.

He scooped up a couple of knives and set them on the floor
at the near corner of the partition. After a quick peek around the corner, he took
two coffee mugs and set them next to the knives. Grabbing two more mugs, he
crawled to the far corner. On his knees, he held the partition with one hand
and leaned out. Aiming in a direction where there were no diners, he flung a
cup low and fast so it skittered across the floor.

The gunman whipped around and raised his weapon at the
noise. When the cup slowed, Sid pitched another one, again keeping it low and
using a hard sidearm so it bounced and tumbled. The man turned his ear to
locate the source of the rattle. Sid heard a quiet
zwip
. A bolt of white
energy discharged from the man’s weapon as he fired a wild shot in the general
direction of the sound.

While the second cup was under attack, Sid scooted on his
knees to the near corner of the partition. He leaned out far enough so his arm
could move freely and pitched a cup in a high, gentle arc far across the room.
The gunman lifted his eyes to track its path.
Got ya.

With the man’s head tilted up and his eyes on the cup, Sid
cocked his arm and flung a knife. It wobbled more than he expected, and while
it hit point forward, the knife was angled on impact. Despite the less-than-optimal
trajectory, it succeeded in piercing deep enough to hang loosely from the
fellow’s neck.

Stunned, the attacker lowered his weapon hand and let it
hang freely at his side. He used his other hand to explore the unexpected
sensation below his ear. Feeling the knife, he pulled his hand away and looked
at the blood dripping from his fingers. His moan sounded more like anguish than
pain.

Three crew from a nearby table used the distraction as an
opening to finish the job. Moving together, they jumped the man and wrestled
him to the ground. Base security, watching at the door for an opportune moment,
rushed in and took control.

Sid leaned back against the partition and closed his eyes. In
his pre-Criss life, he’d traveled to the most lawless parts of the world at the
behest of the Union of Nations to confront ruthless tyrants. He’d once fought
five coldblooded killers armed only with a stick. And he loved it.

But when it came to fighting for Cheryl, he got scared.
What
if I lost her?

* * *

Cheryl turned her back to the room,
pretending to study a wall display while base security questioned Sid. “Geez,
Criss,” she asked. “Why the late notice?”

“I’ve been using resources to address an unexpected development
here with Juice.”

Cheryl, tense from the attack, reprimanded him. “You know
that Sid and I are in a hostile situation. You should have been tracking this.”

“Of all the people on Lunar Base involved in the conspiracy,
this fellow had the lowest threat profile. I was monitoring his audio feeds but
just sampling his visuals. I missed it when he was slipped instructions on a
scrap of paper.”

“What have you learned?”

“The syndicate is holding his wife and daughter hostage. He had
three hours to find and kill you or his family dies. He was in a no-win
situation.”

Cheryl couldn’t muster sympathy for the injured man. How
could someone join a conspiracy that was so obviously dumb and think it’d turn
out okay? She did feel concern for the wife and daughter, however. “Can we help
his family?”

There was a brief silence. “Law enforcement will arrive
momentarily at the site where the wife and child are being held hostage. The
thugs at the site have received a message they believe is from their boss telling
them to set the two free.”

“Thanks,” said Cheryl, lowering her guard a small amount.

“Would you like me to make life difficult for the syndicate
boss and his lieutenants?”

She nodded, caught in the emotion of the moment. “Yes, I’d like
that.”

“When the boss checks his finances, he’ll learn their
enterprise is bankrupt. Accounts across their distributed wealth network now
show a zero balance.”

There was another moment of silence. “He and his inner
circle have lost service to their coms, and none of them will be successful in
restoring service for months. This will leave them isolated. Also, the nav on
any car they enter will malfunction. No matter their desired destination, the
car will drive in a random path for an hour and return them to their starting
point.”

She smiled at his evil genius. “Beautiful. We should have
done this when we first learned of them.”

“Yes,” he said. She didn’t recall that he’d suggested
similar actions during a leadership meeting, but the group had focused on other
issues.

Sid, done with the on-scene questioning from security,
walked over to Cheryl. She gave him a hug. “Fleet certainly trains their
project liaisons quite well. Thank you for what you did.” Before he could
respond, she pulled back and, with her hands still on his shoulders, added,
“And don’t spoil it by telling me it’s your job.”

Sid looked her in the eyes. “I can honestly say it was my
pleasure.” He turned his head and she followed his gaze. Much of the crowd was
sneaking glances in their direction. “It’s time for a change of scenery.”

They exited the canteen, and Criss guided them as they
navigated corridors, climbed stairs, and at one point walked over a pedestrian
bridge spanning a road where service and delivery vehicles drove below.

They stopped in front of a set of sturdy doors. Large
letters labeled them as Base Security. They entered but their progress was
stopped after a few steps by an institutional-looking counter that ran the
width of the room, separating them from the activity and people behind. Cheryl
approached the one person providing service. His name tag identified him as
Sullivan.

“Cheryl Wallace to see Chief Medina.”

“You got an appointment?” Sullivan made a half-hearted
attempt to access information on a panel but didn’t seem overly interested in
anything it might be displaying.

“We were to meet the chief later this afternoon,” she said
with a bright smile. “You can tell him we’re early.”

“Who’s that?” asked Sullivan, nodding toward Sid.

“He’s with me.”

Sullivan pointed to some chairs along the wall. “Have a
seat.” A few of the chairs were occupied by people whose bored appearances suggested
they’d been waiting for more than a few minutes.

Sid walked to a pair of empty chairs while Cheryl hesitated
at the counter, thinking about pushing on this fellow a bit harder. As she
pondered her next actions, the chief appeared in the background.

“Hey, Cheryl.” He gave a quick wave. “Sully, you can let
them back.”

They settled into chairs around a small table in what looked
to Cheryl like a suspect interview room. She wasted no time in going on the
offensive. “What the hell, Chief? Yesterday we provided you details about a
theft ring operating under your watch. You heard a confession from one of your
own men. And today they’re free to roam the base with firearms?”

The chief slumped back in his chair and looked down at his
hands. “We had them pegged as thieves. We get that sort up here more than we
care to admit.” He lifted his head and shifted his eyes from Cheryl to Sid.
“Tech thieves aren’t violent offenders. My instructions were to confine him to
quarters while we reviewed the material you gave us.”

“Were they at least being monitored?” asked Sid.

“Yeah, but we gave them plenty of rope. This is the moon.
You can’t run that far if you want to stay where there’s air.”

He leaned forward, animated by his next point. “And your
information had the kind of detail only someone on the inside could provide. If
there was going to be violence, it seemed likely to me that it’d be because the
group was issuing its own justice. How that played out would tell us a lot
about who was leading and who was following. It doesn’t make sense they’d go
after you. That one caught us by surprise.”