Enemy Games (23 page)

“Baxt’k!” Janka growled. “Guild Mistress?”

“Do it.” Kannoi’s voice filtered over room speakers. “It will not leave us entirely defenseless.”

Janka charged to Damen’s side, activated another panel, and entered an override code.

Access alerts continued to fire from points all over the station. Damen thought he’d begun to detect a pattern. If he was right, the team was pulling the station’s complete data set. No handheld could handle files of that magnitude.

Damen smiled and straightened.

“What is it?” Janka said.

“I know where they are.”

D
AMEN met Janka’s searching gaze. “Send your people to the central processing core. It will be booby-trapped. Expect those traps to be lethal.”

Janka’s expression tightened into a grim mask. “This button here. Direct com line to my badge code. You tell me when.” He turned and, shouting orders for guns and officers, sprinted out the door. It auto-locked behind him.

Damen could break the code lock if he could find a way to disable the room monitors. After he’d found Jayleia. He forged a path through the data trees, looking for the branch he wanted. He shifted. He should have found it already. Swearing, he backtracked. The marker code had been changed. Damen shook his head. If the access code had been changed, Jayleia might get away with her brash robbery, and he’d never have the chance to tell her how crippled he’d be without her. How much he admired her. How much he needed her now that her blood was his.

Heart pounding, Damen input the code he’d supplied to Jayleia so many hours ago. He waited, hands shaking. The tree lock flashed from red to green. He sucked in a deep breath and rushed from the station computers into the system aboard the mothballed ore freighter.

“Twelve Gods,” he muttered at the control panel. The data tree ended in another lock. One he hadn’t put in place. It flashed “ident” over and over.

Interesting.

No one used identity locks anymore. They were a relic too easy to defeat, but damned deadly in the wrong hands. The code was simple enough. It checked an entered identity against an existing list. If your ID was listed, you were in. If it wasn’t, you were kicked out. If you had on a SEM, you were tossed out in the worst and most fatal way possible. Without a SEM, the feedback surge could easily blow out a panel.

Damen hesitated. Who’d written this file and how pissed off was he or she?

“Ident.”

He keyed in his name and waited. File-check loops were notoriously . . . the lock code vanished. He sat at a blinking cursor. Nothing happened.

“Jay? Let me help,” he typed in Claughwyth, knowing the computer on board the ship had a translator. He’d put it there himself.

No response. He kicked himself mentally. Of course she wouldn’t be aboard the ship. She’d have his family there where they’d be safe if Janka’s team managed to suddenly work it all out.

“Secure station?” someone aboard the freighter typed.

“Janka’s,” he replied.

“Monitored.”

“Not text. Disabled at root.”

“Com capability?”

“No,” he replied. “Room monitored.”

“Damn it. Need to hear your voice.”

He hid his grin from the room camera, his heart in his throat. “I need far more than that from you, Jayleia Durante.”

“Sorry it took so long. I kept waiting for you to call on me for rescue.”

He hid a grin. “They weren’t infected kuorls.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Let’s finish this. Command me.”

“Issue the recall order,” she typed. “Data pull at ninety-two percent. By the time everyone assembles on board, we’ll be clear.”

Data pull at ninety-two percent?
He reeled.

“How’d you get through the data lock?” he typed.

“Bellin gave me the key.”

Damen stilled, frowned, and rubbed his forehead. “What was it?”

“You.”

He blinked.

“‘Tahem loves you,’” she typed. “Your name was the key.”

Proximity claxons wailed through the station.

“Problem.”

“I hear,” Jayleia answered.

“Stand by.”

“Acknowledged.”

Damen spun to another station, opened a com channel, and said, “Operations? What the Three Hells is going on?”

Shouted obscenities overrode the alarm before it fell silent. “Incoming, unidentified craft!”

“What is it?” the security chief bellowed over his com badge.

“Get me a visual!” Damen ordered, bringing a monitor to life.

He keyed in to station communications as the operations people directed external feeds to his monitor.

“No ID!” Damen yelled and scanned the visual field outside the station.

“I’ve got three, no—five marks, coming in hot!” the ops head hollered.

“Ships? Get me an ID!” Janka demanded.

“Got two!” Damen replied. “Chekydran cruisers! Nothing on the other marks. Get station weapons online!”

Another alarm warbled through the operations center and Janka’s office. Collision warning.

Damen swore.

“No response to hail!” a young woman bellowed. “No voice contact!”

“Biomech soldiers,” Damen said, digging into the proximity sensors for a coded glimpse of the single-occupancy fighters. “It’s a dual attack! Look for a mother ship! The fighters will land or ’port the occupants in! Stand by to repel boarders!”

“Chekydran and biomech soldiers attacking my station?” the guild mistress bellowed, her voice ringing over the room com. “This is your demonstration of goodwill, Eudal?”

“I am not so stupid that I would order an attack while I was on station,” Gerriny Eudal snapped in reply.

“Collision! Two-minute warning!” Calmin yelled. “Current course, central docks.”

Cold rage swept Damen. “Can we teleport the pilots out and use guns to deflect the ships?”

“Negative, Major!” the head of operations replied. “I’m reading a ’port jammer.”

“Baxt’k,” Damen and Janka said in unison.

“Damen?” flashed on his screen.

“Chekydran. And biomechs, like Kebgra.”

“Why?” she typed.

“Don’t know.”

“Issue the recall. Let’s get off this accursed station.”

“How?”

“Here. Parameters set.” She sent him into a file tree.

Damen studied the short program. It was an emergency transmission routine he’d set up when the guild had first locked down the freighter.

“Executing.”

“Janka?” Damen said aloud. “The biomechs are Chekydran made.”

“I have the file,” the security man growled. “You gave it to me eight months ago.”

“Face shots. They’re landing.”

“Secure my data banks!” the guild mistress commanded.

“I’ve got their ringleader backed into a corner,” Damen replied. “And it’s not the core, Janka. Stand by.”

The deck beneath Damen’s feet vibrated as station weapons came to life.

“Can you get to your ship?” Jayleia asked.

“What’s your destination?”

“Safer if you don’t know.”

“Have to make it look like I’m working against you. Beating you.”

“Lock me out of station. Blow dock clamps.”

“Engines not powered?”

“Not yet.”

Station guns fired. The consoles rattled.

“I’ll find you. I love you.” Grinning, not caring who saw, Damen dropped out of the ship system, back into the station tree before Jayleia could respond. He prayed with all his heart she’d responded. And would again when he met her on her mother’s world. Where else would she go with an ore freighter full of his family?

He entered a swift clip of code, tucked it into the station security parameters, and executed the change. The computer access alerts ceased.

“Got them!” Damen crowed. “Going in for the kill.”

The station guns fired again.

“Collision warning!” Calmin cried from ops. “All hands brace!”

“Recall, Janka! Recall. I’ve isolated the hackers. They’re on the docks,” Damen yelled.

The guild mistress and Janka began issuing demands and commands at the same time.

“Clear the com!” Damen bellowed over them. “They are locked out of your systems. I’m isolating them now. Let me do my job.”

Silence.

“Of course, Major,” the guild mistress said, her tone placating. “You have assured my faith in the alliance between the UMOPG and the Claugh nib Dovvyth.”

“Assuming I’m not still under arrest, I’ll be certain to tell Her Majesty so,” he retorted as he surreptitiously flipped on the video feed monitoring the freighter. He could see Jayleia in her black and crimson uniform. That she waited at the hatch for the rest of his people to heed the retreat orders, he could guess.

As he watched, three teens scrambled up a rise, dragging a fourth, larger form between them. Damen bit back a curse.

Vala was down.

Jayleia bolted from the hatchway, swept the woman into her arms.

The teens sprinted into the ship. At the hatch, Jay lowered Vala to the decking.

Damen could see that Jayleia crouched beside Vala, but with her back to the camera, he couldn’t tell what she’d done.

She rose slowly. Bent as if curled in upon herself, she turned and stumbled down the stairs, her arms wrapped tight around her middle.

Damen’s heart stuttered.

Vala was dead.

Jayleia sat down hard on the dock floor and buried her masked face in her hands.

He ached to wrap her in his arms, to offer comfort, and to take comfort.

She looked up, shoving herself to unsteady feet as her head moved as if following something overhead. Leaving the shelter of the freighter, she spent several seconds fiddling with something out of camera range.

Damen bit his lip to keep from shouting at her to get back aboard.

She straightened, glanced back the way the kids had come, and ran for the hatch. Pausing half in, half out of the door, she slumped for a moment, then looked into the camera eye, brought the fingers of her right hand up, not to her forehead in mocking salute. Not this time. Instead, they stopped where her lips were hidden behind her mask. Then she tipped her fingers out, pointed at the camera.

Damen leaned in. Where had he seen that gesture . . . he remembered and warmed. She’d blown him a kiss.

Just before she pulled a gun and took three shots to blow out the camera.

“Baxt’k.” Damen blinked, momentarily blinded by the flash.

“We’ve got them cornered!” Janka called.

“Aboard that dump of an ore freighter,” Damen said. “I know. And your mystery woman, the one who attacked your security cordon is on board. If you have troops in the vicinity, pull them back.”

“Not on your life!”

“I watched her arm a trap, Janka! Pull back! Now!”

“Sol! Fall back! Fall back!” Janka shouted.

“Intruder alert! Intruder alert!” Calmin screamed. “Weapons fire reported on dock ring D-sixty-four, C-eighty-two D . . .”

“Acknowledged! Acknowledged!” Janka shouted. “Seal the docks! Evacuate civilians! All available personnel! Full armor! Face shots only!”

Damen’s heart kicked hard. The soldiers were on station. He had to get Jayleia off.

His vision cleared piecemeal, but he couldn’t wait. He keyed deep into the system again, jockeying his way to docking control. Via Janka’s open com channel, Damen heard something pop. Someone screamed. Another pop and a second voice joined in, shrill and terrified.

Damen began swearing in a steady stream. His pulse thundered in his ears and his breath came in shallow rasps. She hadn’t killed anyone unnecessarily, had she? She wouldn’t start now. She wouldn’t.

On the other hand, Jay would give him ample reason to blow the dock locks, release the clamps, and make a show of assuming the freighter would simply float free in space until the UMOPG sent tugs to get it.

The station jerked and shuddered.

That felt like a direct hit on a station gun. One down, untold dead, five more guns to go.

For a split second, artificial gravity cut out and it felt like the station and everyone on it fell through the endless reaches of space.

Fire alarms wailed, sounding far away.

“Damage-assessment teams! Report to . . .”

Gravity slammed on.

He shut out the audio feed broadcasting fire, casualty, and damage reports. He didn’t have time.

He redoubled his efforts. Jayleia and the remaining people who looked to him for protection were counting on him. The locks holding the freighter in place let go. Damen activated the emergency dock release. Charges fired simultaneously at each clamp, sending the dead-looking freighter away from the station.

“Gotcha,” Damen said aloud for the benefit of his audience. “Do I send security tugs after them? Or do we blow them out of the sky with the remaining guns?”