Thief (30 page)

She yanked on her boots and strapped on her gear. Her stomach rumbled loudly. Startled, they looked at one another. She looked to her belly then Jace. “I guess it’s just thanking me for a great last meal.”

Jace tossed her another gun. “If you’re as good in a fight as you are in the kitchen, it won’t be your last meal.” He tossed her three clips.

“I take it you’re not turning me in.” Kraft checked the sight of the gun. Off by less than two degrees. She nodded as she holstered it on her back butt-cheek. She liked her blade to her left so she could draw it with her right hand as primary weapon, but the gun drew second. She could yank it off her fanny faster than most men could blink.

“Not after Trickster turned us all in.”

“He what?”

“The details are sketchy, but most like that scrimshanker told them my name, my ship, that you were on board, and that we were responsible for the IWOG transport job.”

“If we survive this, Captain Lawless, Trickster is going to have to pay. That fetch cuts in way too much on my dancing and the only way to stop him is to cut off his damn legs.”

“On that, we agree. But we got bigger and better at our back door at the moment.”

“How long do we have?”

“Not long at all.”

She followed Jace from her room to the cargo deck. Garrett, Heller and Payton waited.

As soon as Kraft set foot in the room, Heller lifted the gun strapped to his chest. He flicked off the safety and pointed it right at her head.

“What’s she doing here?” Heller snarled. It was the first time he’d seen her unchained in days.

She lifted her hands, palm open, to her shoulders.

Jace stepped directly in the line of fire.

Heller yanked his gun to the sky. “Shit howdy, Jace! Don’t step in front of my gun like that!”

“Then stop pointing it at my crew.” Jace’s hands hovered over the pistols in his double holster.

Heller flipped the safety on and let his gun fall back to his chest. “She’s part of the crew again?” Heller looked baffled then betrayed.

“Ten minutes, Captain Lawless.” Bailey did his best to calmly report the moment of doom, but everyone heard naked fear in his voice. Bailey didn’t have to say what all of them were thinking.

They were going to die.

No two ways about it.

Mutiny
would vanish and none of them would be so much as the tiniest fleck of rain in the most vast desert of the Void.

The IWOG attack ship had fifty fighters.
Mutiny
had, as Garrett once said, one crazy lady, three fighters, one pilot and two docs. It was so hopeless Jace almost burst into hysterical laughter. Nothing had ever come easy. Anything that looked easy turned out to be anything but. This situation was so hopeless from the get-go he almost wanted to toss himself out an airlock. He couldn’t run. He could fight but he’d never win.

They were going to die.

“Look, I don’t want to step on your captain toes, but I know about that ship,” Kraft said. “I know how they’re going to attack. And even though they have three times the crew we do, we can win.”

“They have ten times the crew we do,” Garrett pointed out. “Stress that toe leather all you want, girl, but we’re screwed.”

“No, we’re not.” Kraft shook her head. “
Mutiny
is small, so we can’t outrun them, but we can fight. Being small in a fight isn’t always a bad thing.”

“You couldn’t fight off a Trifecta,” Heller snarled.

“Because Randoms don’t run the same plan every time they attack.” Kraft flipped her hair over her shoulder. “The IWOG does.”

“By the book,” Jace said.

Kraft nodded. “The IWOG runs seek and destroy by the book. And I know the book. They need to confirm the kill. That’s why they haven’t just blown us apart. They need to board the ship which means they are going to take certain steps.” Kraft looked to them all. “The IWOG is nothing if not consistent. They have their code of conduct. That’s why they’re gonna make this a lot easier than it should be.”

“She’s got a point, Captain,” Garrett said. “If she knows them, what they’ll do—”

“She’s just laying a trap for us!” Heller was a twitch away from pulling his gun on Kraft and shooting her without further ado.

“Where my own neck is like to get yanked?” Kraft glared at Heller then looked at Jace. She dropped her hands to her hips. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got no strong desire to die today. If they board
Mutiny
, you know for a fact there won’t be a one of us who’ll live to tell about it.”

“Maybe they’re only here to arrest you,” Heller said.

“That’s about as likely as them being here to exchange recipes. They aren’t here to arrest anyone. They’re here to kill everyone.” Kraft looked him full on. “Call me IWOG scum or not, Heller, they’ll kill me too. I’ve been gone too long to be an effective weapon for them anymore. They aren’t gonna waste their time brainwashing me when they got legions of folks who are more advanced than me.”

“Captain? Five minutes.” Bailey’s voice crackled with tension.

Everyone revved up a notch.

“The wolves are baying at the door, Captain Lawless. You’re gonna have to decide if you trust me or not. If it helps, I swear to you, I don’t want to die today.”

Jace looked at her for a long moment. Hatred for her past battled with a longing to trust her. In the end, his own desire to live won out. “Run it, Kraft.”

Nodding, she pointed to the main hatch. “They’re gonna latch to that airlock, so we narrow it down.”

Under her direction, the crew pushed everything in the hold against the airlock.

“Don’t block it all the way yet. Okay. Who are your two best sharp shooters?”

“Heller and Garrett,” Jace said.

“Garrett, you stand up there on that catwalk. Find a rope so that if we need you, you can slide down. Heller, you do the same from that catwalk. Both of you pick them off as they come in. Take those flood lights and train them on the hatch. Jace, you and Payton are down here. If Garrett or Heller misses one of them, you pick them off from here.”

“Where are you going to be?” Jace asked.

“I’m going to be in the airlock.”

Everyone looked at her as if she was completely mad.

Kraft shook her head. “They won’t see me. I’m a shadow, remember? I’ll kill as many as I can as I shadow my way onto their ship. Once in their ship, I’m going to muck it up and lock it down then blow it up—take care of our mutual problem.”

“I’m not even going to ask if you know how. I got a feeling you do.”

“I told you once I don’t care much for killing, but we’ve got no choice this time. We can’t leave a single one of them alive. If we fail, even if we limp away, our lives are gonna get a hell of a lot more dangerous. So we have to kill them all. Since they’re IWOG scum, I don’t imagine this is much of a problem for anyone.”

Nobody said anything.

“Glad we’re all in agreement.”

“How are you gonna get back onto
Mutiny
?” Jace asked.

A part of Kraft wanted to be nastier than hell at that moment. She wanted to turn to him and jeer,
Don’t you want me to die with my IWOG brethren? Isn’t that what you’re all hoping for?
But she didn’t. Because she really didn’t want to die.

“If I make it back, I do. If I don’t, as soon as the airlock closes, you run. And don’t look back. You ever been to Corona?”

“No.”

“Perfect. You go there, to Borealis. After this you won’t ever be able to go anyplace where anybody knows you. You understand?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to blow that ship apart and you don’t want to be anywhere near when I do.”

“How do we know she ain’t setting us up?” Heller asked.

“You don’t,” Kraft said. “I hate to say it, but you’re gonna have to trust me.”

“There’s an idea. A very bad one!” Heller yelled.

“Do you not grasp this, Heller?” Kraft shook her head. “Everyone’s butt is in a sling, including mine. We either stick together and fight, or we’re all going down. I’ve never crossed you or a soul on this ship, and you know it. You’ve got about sixty seconds to decide if you want to die today or not.”

Heller clambered up onto the catwalk. “I swear, if you’re lying—”

“If I am, you have my permission to kill me. But let’s survive this first.”

Everyone got into place as Bailey allowed
Mutiny
be locked to the IWOG ship.

Before she slipped into the airlock, she looked at Jace. “Once it starts, you run your crew without a thought to me. When that lock closes, you go. Go to Corona. Take that money in my money belt, change your names and go legitimate. Okay?”

“I’m not ever going to see you again, am I.”

Kraft laughed, then winked as she grinned. “The Void has a powerful hate for me, but it hasn’t killed me yet. And I really don’t feel like dying today.”

Kraft slipped into the airlock and Jace crouched behind the mound of goods that cluttered the passageway to the airlock. He could hear the IWOG ship dock, just as Kraft said they would.

“Let her be right about everything else.” Jace heard his crew cock their guns in the darkness, waiting for the airlock to open. When it did, huge lights blared into the mouth and blinded the men who tried to breach it. They staggered forward, blinded by night vision goggles.

What men Garrett and Heller didn’t pick off from above, Jace and Payton got from below. They didn’t have a chance. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

As his crew picked them off, they sent in more and more, eventually, by sheer luck, they hit one of the flood lights and Jace’s crew lost a bit of advantage. But not for long. The opening was still too narrow and made the IWOG soldiers easy targets. All he could think of was Kraft.

Kraft shadowed her way through the IWOG attack ship. Blade hacking, she cut down IWOG soldiers. The hallway became slick with blood. Following their code to the letter, they didn’t stop coming even though they could see something killed the men in front of them. Even the strangest phenomena couldn’t break their code.

She locked down rooms and outright killed anyone who got in her way as she ran to the bridge. It didn’t take more than twenty seconds to break the code and enter.

The IWOG officers turned to the open door. Careful of the computers, she shot them all and then locked the door behind her.

She shoved the dead body away from the main console, ignored the blood and flung herself into the chair. She let her fingers fly like a furious virtuoso on keyboards. If anyone were to look over her shoulder, the commands would be flying so fast they wouldn’t understand a tenth of what she did. At her feet, the body leaked crimson from a perfect hole centered in his bald head.

Time pressed on her like the pull of thirty Gs and she worked as fast as she could. Entering the last of her commands, Kraft stood, looked around and said, “This is the last time I let you cut in on my dance.”

She left the control room, fused the door closed and headed back to
Mutiny
. She killed more fighters on the way back. Her blade, her arm, all the way to her shoulder, became saturated with blood and gore, yet she refused to think of it. Her mind focused solely on completing her mission. She became a machine, mindless in pursuit of her goal.

“Get home. Get home.”

When she got to the corridor formed by the airlocks, the sheer volume of IWOG soldiers had breached
Mutiny
. Jace, Payton, Heller and Garrett were all on the main floor.

An alarm went off and the yellow light above the airlock flashed. The huge doors started to close.

Kraft leapt into
Mutiny
’s airlock as the IWOG soldiers retreated. Jace took a shot right to his chest. He glanced down as if shocked. Staggering backwards, he slipped and fell onto his side.

“No!” She rushed forward, forgetting to shadow.

She took a blast squarely in her belly. Now she understood his stunned surprise. The impact was so painful she fell on her back. Using her elbows, she crawled backwards to the huge doors where Jace lay. She tried to drag him onto
Mutiny
, but she could barely drag herself.

The airlocks were going to separate at any moment. If they didn’t get inside, they were going to be sucked out into the Void. Since she had to choose, Kraft gave up trying to drag them both and tried to shove Jace home.

Heller grabbed Jace by the arm and yanked him away from the closing doors.

Garrett struggled to drag Kraft in.

“Leave her!” Heller bellowed.

“No!”

If Garrett didn’t hurry, she was going to be cut in two when the huge doors closed.

Payton rushed forward, grabbed Kraft’s other arm and they barely managed to yank her onto
Mutiny
before the airlocks closed. She left a long streak of bloody gore.

“Go, Bailey!” Garrett screamed into the com.

Mutiny
darted away. Heller dragged Jace into the infirmary as Garrett and Payton struggled to drag Kraft.

“You heavy, girl,” Garrett said, grinning down at her.

“All bone and muscle, darling.” Blood trickled out the corner of her mouth. It tickled and she wiped her face with her shoulder. “Do we all live to dance another day?”

Garrett and Heller lifted Jace up to an infirmary table. Payton and Charissa set to work on him.

“Help me get Kraft up,” Garrett said.

“No.” Heller leaned over Jace. “You should have just let that bitch die in the airlock.”

“Dammit, Heller, she saved our lives!”

When Charissa and Payton came around the table to help, Heller pulled his gun and flicked off the safety. “You stay right where you’re at and fix Jace.”

Payton flinched. “How dare you?” She shook with rage.

“I ain’t letting him die and neither are you. Get back to work.”

Garrett came around and Heller swung the gun at him. Garrett lifted his hands. “This is mutiny, Heller. I’m second in command, not you.”

“You think I give a rat’s? I ain’t letting Jace die, not to save that worthless IWOG bitch.”

“We can save everyone if you’d just let me—”

“I ain’t fooling here!” Heller swung the gun back to Payton. “You work on Jace and only Jace!”

“Then let me work on her,” Charissa offered. Tears of anger and fear ran down her cheeks.