The Covenant (13 page)

gave the scene a pretty, if somewhat eerie glow. Because of power rationing,

most of the buildings were dark.

“Can we trust Governor Halden that no one knows we’re no longer in

isolation?” He pressed his hands against the sill of the window, uneasy all of

a sudden. “What about missing our scans? Surely medical personnel will

figure it out.”

“He never promised we’d have a lot of time.” Aspen walked up next to

him and stared out at the unfamiliar scene. He’ll try and deflect too much

interest for as long as he can. You heard him.”

Her slender body was tense. Trey could see it as he glanced over, her

profile in relief pure and lovely. He said slowly, “There’s corruption in one

of his highest ranking offices. Maybe we shouldn’t stay here, in a place the

Governor arranged for. I have this bad feeling.”

Larik, one shoulder propped against a sleek metal wall, repeated, “Bad

feeling?”

“Pilots get them all the time. It usually means trouble, trust me. Gut

instinct has saved my ass more than once.”

Aspen glanced at him and then at Larik. “You know, he might be right.

You’re the one Ravenot wanted to stop. It’s reasonable to expect he’d have

some sort of surveillance set up in the quarantine area. He’s chief engineer,

so he surely has access and capability for that.”

“He did.” Larik’s mouth twitched. “I disabled it.”

Trey shook his head, a wry smile fighting to surface. “Damn, Armada, is

there nothing you can’t do?”

“Fly a transport. I know next to nothing either about combat weapons. If

we have to fight or escape, you two get to handle that part of it.”

“Let’s hope neither of us has to do anything then. In the meantime—”

The first flash was blinding. Instinctively Trey grabbed Aspen around

the waist and shoved her to the floor, following to cover her smaller form

with his body. The window imploded, spraying glass everywhere,

showering down on them.

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Annabel Wolfe

With the second one, the building rocked.

Fuck!

“Come on,” he urged, grabbing Aspen’s arm and urging her to crawl

through the debris toward the doorway. “Armada?”

“Here.”

Trey saw him on the floor also, but his face was bleeding and Larik

shook glass out of his hair. “Didn’t see that coming so soon, I’ve got to

admit it. Mantonium or regular explosives?”

“Let’s worry about getting fuck out of here first and save the analysis

for later.” A shard of glass ripped through his uniform and sliced into his

elbow and Trey stifled a wince. “I’m open for suggestions, believe me.”

It was Aspen who said, “I’ve stayed in military quarters like this all my

life. Commanders always have a separate exit. They might expect us to

know that, they might not.”

“It’s better than walking out the front entrance.”

He levered himself up and let the laser read him, grateful the mechanism

still worked and the door slid up. In the hall, he saw at once a melee of Rapt

One military personnel, some of them half-dressed due to the late hour, on

this level of the building almost all of them officers.

The building shook again, the noise deafening. Trey pulled Aspen out

and promptly grabbed one man with an unfastened tunic and a confused

look on his face. “This is General Thorne’s daughter. Who’s the highest

ranking officer here?”

“What’s going on?”

“I just told you, this is General Thorne’s daughter. She’s a guest of

Governor Halden. Whatever is going on, she needs to talk to the highest

ranking officer on this floor. Now.”

The young captain looked at Aspen and maybe it was her calm, cool

lieutenant expression or more likely it was her striking beauty, but he

nodded. “Follow me. I’ll see if I can find Colonel Pearce for you.”

* * * *

Three tall males dwarfed her in size and she was sandwiched in the

middle. Colonel Pearce, who the half-dressed soldier Trey had

commandeered introduced them to, led the way, weapon drawn like hers.

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79

Aspen had felt it only fair to tell him in a few terse words what might wait

as they emerged from the besieged building. “Possible terrorist attack.”

“So it’s true?” He was another true S-species male, with vivid green

eyes and auburn hair, a decade older than any of them, with a brusque

demeanor and a welcome air of tough competency. “There’ve been rumors

building over the past month but no one is leaking much information.

Apparently our high alert status hasn’t helped.”

The corridor was long and dark, only the occasional flicker of the failing

lighting system helping them stumble through it. It led downward steeply

and during the moments when the light was obliterated she felt a

claustrophobic panic rise that she had to force down.

First and foremost, she was a soldier, trained to keep her nerve in just

this type of situation.

Wasn’t she?

No, she admitted, feeling her way along the wall in pitch blackness.

First she was a female and a breeding one, at that. Now that she’d become

accustomed to the idea of a life growing inside her, the perspective she’d

always held on life had changed.

Drastically.

It wasn’t until the walls began to glow blue she truly understood exactly

where they were. At least it provided illumination but the idea of the tons of

water above their head made her take in a deep breath.

“We’re under the fucking lake?” Trey, who spent his time flying across

galaxies, sounded almost comically horrified. If she had been capable of a

laugh, she would have, but she felt a little too much the same way.

Ahead of them, the colonel nodded. “We’ll emerge on the opposite

side.”

Behind her, Aspen heard Larik ask in his typical way, “I think I read

about this project. The beryl is difficult as hell to penetrate. I’m trying to

remember the logistics of it, but—”

“Armada, take off your engineering hat for a damned minute, will you?”

Trey sounded strained. “Does anyone know what we’re going to do when

we get—and I can’t wait, believe me—to the other side? How many people

know about this? Who’s to say they won’t be waiting for us there?”

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“There’s a secured building.” Pearce looked unworried, if a bit strange

with flickering cobalt light playing over his face. “And I’m sorry, Armada,

there’s no way anyone could have read about it. The project was classified.”

Trey gave a grim laugh. “Colonel, maybe someday I’ll explain how

naïve that statement is when it comes to our friend here, that is if we live

through this. How far is it to that damned building anyway?”

“It’s a ways.”

“That’s the official distance?”

Finally there was a crack in Pearce’s formal demeanor and he chuckled.

“Yes, it is. It’s hard to gauge distance in the tunnel anyway and without

light, practically impossible.”

It seemed like an eternity but the passage slowly sloped upward and

they finally came to a set of doors. A glowing light above one was red, and

Pearce stopped dead. He muttered, “One of the hatches is down. That’s not a

good sign, because I’m in charge of security when we do maintenance and it

was in perfect working order just a few days ago. They have independent

contained power sources for just this kind of emergency. Even without

regular power sources they can run for at least a while.”

“Is it safe to use the other one?” Larik frowned.

“It’s that or stay here.”

Trey spoke up, “I’ll go first, no problem. The one thing I’m
not
doing is

staying here.”

Colonel Pearce shook his head. “I’ll go first, Pilot. There are guards

posted above and I’ll need to scan us through. I recommend weapons drawn.

I’m not precisely sure what’s going on, but from what little you told me, I

don’t like the hatch being dysfunctional. The timing seems too

coincidental.”

Unfortunately, Aspen couldn’t agree more, but when Trey stepped in

front of her, she caught his arm. “How much weapons training did you do?”

She knew the answer as well as he did. Pilots had to only take a basic

course, while she’d had to take extensive and highly competitive instruction,

especially before her last promotion. He looked down into her face and

hesitated.

Then he bent and kissed her. Hard. In contrast his fingers gently touched

her cheek.

Afterward he stepped back and let her follow the colonel into the hatch

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81

The ride up was swift, smooth, and noiseless. Though she’d been

prepared in every way possible, Aspen had never dealt with an actual

combat situation and this one—with an unknown enemy—was more

difficult than most. Adrenalin made her mouth a little dry, but otherwise she

felt simply anxious to see what might be going on.

They stopped and the colonel moved to let the optical scan beam flash,

the brief blink followed by the lift of the door.

Silence and darkness.

Colonel Pearce stepped forward cautiously. He murmured, “There’s

emergency power back up, naturally, so I don’t—”

The brief flare came to his left and the hit caught him in the abdomen.

He fell with a heavy sickening thud, his weapon clattering to the floor. Still

in the open hatch, Aspen swore under her breath, not able to see much

except maybe some shadowy forms. She fired, doing her best to calculate

where the attack had come from, but there was no return fire, just ominous

silence.

They were trapped. If they went back down, they didn’t have the ability

to scan themselves out of the tunnel on the other side. If they stepped out of

the shelter of the open hatch, they were easy targets.

“Now what?” Trey asked through his teeth. “This isn’t exactly ideal.”

“It would be helpful if we knew exactly where we are.” Larik didn’t

have a trace of his usual nonchalant casualness in his tone. “Cutting out all

the power was smart because we don’t even know where the exit to the

building is. For that matter, we don’t know if we could open it either. The

problem with high tech security buildings is sometimes it’s as hard to get

out as it is to get in.”

“They have every advantage, and they know it,” Aspen said, the grim

reality of situation making her stomach clench and a thin film of

perspiration prickle her skin. She also felt a little queasy, which was

unwelcome at the moment. “The real question is how did
they
get in?”

“Ravenot,” Larik supplied, an ironic note in his tone. “He’s been pretty

busy while we were locked away.”

Sprawled on the floor just a few—very dangerous—feet away, Pearce

twitched and groaned.

“He needs help.”

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Annabel Wolfe

Trey caught her arm. “Don’t you dare think about stepping a foot out of

here, Aspen. You couldn’t move him if you tried. Look, I’ll do it. You open

fire and cover me. If we want to get out of here, I think we need the colonel.

Armada, help me drag him in.”

The idea of either of them in the line of fire terrified her but she nodded.

Trey glanced at Larik behind him, gave a curt jerk of his head, and dove out.

She leaned across the doorway and began to fire, praying for the best.

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83

Chapter 8

The beep woke him and Ran thrust up on one elbow and blinked. The

communicator sat on the small table by the side of the bed and he reached

for it.

“Kartel.”

“We have explosions on Rapt One, Ran.”

He’d recognized Ian Helm’s signal before he answered. They were old

friends and formality only existed between them in public. Helm, as a top

ranking officer with high military clearance, was in charge of outlying

colony surveillance. “Tell me what you know.”

“Three small explosions first. Heat sensors show combat activity in

what should be a restricted sector, and communications are down.”

The tension in Ian’s voice came through clearly. “What do you hear

from Governor Halden?”

“Nothing. Like I said, for whatever reason, governmental lines aren’t

responding.”

“That has a grim ring to it.” Ran tried to think, to not feel the bite of

panic. Next to him, his wife, Jerra, stirred and rolled over, coming awake.

Beautifully disheveled and nude, she sat up and shook back her hair,

listening.

“Mind telling me if you know what’s going on?” Ian said in his normal,

calm tone. “Isn’t Armada on Rapt One right now?”

“Larik is there,” Ran confirmed, since that wasn’t classified

information. “As far as the explosion goes, I have no idea.”

Jerra’s mouth parted and she looked alarmed, her pale hair tumbled

around her slender shoulders. She whispered, “Larik?”

He attempted a reassuring smile that probably didn’t work.

Explosions. Mantonium.

Well, shit
.

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Annabel Wolfe

Ian said in a cool, business-like voice, “As governor of Minoa, I respect

you and your authority, you know it. As a member of the Universal Council,

you have a lot of power and I would take an order from you without