CHAPTER 1
Sonia Fairchild crouched behind the low stone outcrop and stared off into the cold night. Ahead of her, snow sliced sideways through the howling wind, a wall of white that all but swallowed the dark, sulking shape of the geothermal plant two hundred yards in the distance. Fairchild didn’t need binocs to see the guards moving on their patrols. The augmetic implants in her eyes already gave her all the amplification she needed.
She’d been watching them for almost an hour now, studying their patterns. There were two of them stationed beside the eastern entrance, and two more patrolling the perimeter, just inside the fence. It took them an average of six minutes thirty-seven seconds to complete a circuit. Fairchild had timed it.
“Predictable bastards,” she said, her voice muffled by her face mask.
Beside her, Dane nodded in agreement. The team leader was dressed in the same white thermal suit as Fairchild, though his was bigger to fit his larger frame. The suit covered everything except his stern eyes. When he spoke, his voice was low, but Fairchild could hear it loud and clear through the com-speakers built into the cowl of her own suit.
“Undisciplined,” Dane said. “They’re fanatics, not soldiers.”
True. If this mission were a simple matter of clearing out the terrorists, it would have been a piece of cake. Unfortunately, the situation was a bit more delicate than that.
Two days prior, Planetary Governor Halden Quale had been touring this remote geothermal site when he’d been ambushedby a revolutionary group calling themselves the Broken Chain. They’d managed to wipe out the governor’s security detail, along with the entire staff of the plant. Now they were holding Quale hostage somewhere deep inside the facility. It was the Mercs’ job to get him out alive.
Fairchild glanced over Dane’s back at the other two members of the squad. Rook was a woman like herself, and the resident sharpshooter of the team. She had her long-range rifle locked and loaded, just waiting for the go-ahead from Dane. Beside her was Bryce, the team’s sapper and explosives expert. The two of them were an item, though they weren’t exactly exclusive. They’d even invited Fairchild to join them in bed on one occasion, but she’d politely declined. When it came to sex, Fairchild preferred to be the dominant one, and she knew there was no dominating a guy like Bryce.
“Alright,” Dane said at last, “here’s how we’re gonna do this. Rook, on my signal, you take out the two guards by the entrance. Bryce, you’re in charge of breaching the fence.”
He turned and looked at Fairchild with his stone-gray eyes. She could see the augmetic implants glowing like embers behind his pupils, the same way hers did when she looked in the mirror.
“Fairchild, you and me are gonna take out the other two guards as soon as they come around the corner. You go left, I’ll go right—got it?”
She nodded.
“Remember,” Dane said, “quick and quiet. If the terrorists realize they’re under attack, they’re liable to kill the governor.”
“They won’t know what hit ’em, sir,” Fairchild said confidently.
The lines beside Dane’s eyes crinkled slightly, and she knew he was smiling behind his face mask. It was a nice smile, when it wasn’t covered up. The kind of smile that made most women melt.
But Fairchild wasn’t most women. She was a Merc.
“Good,” Dane said. “Okay, get ready…”
For a long moment, nobody moved. The only sounds were the wailing of the wind, and the softer whisper of snow crystals skittering across the outcrop in front of them. Fairchild’s heart was beating slow and steady inside her, an icy sixty beats per minute.
“Now,” Dane growled.
On the other side of him, Rook fired twice, the shots muffled by the suppressor on the end of her gun. The guards by the facility entrance slumped to the ground like marionettes with their strings cut, a pair of red starbursts staining the wall above them.
Fairchild was up and running before the second guard even hit the ground. The other Mercs were right beside her, driving forward through the whipping wind like a pack of white wolves. Bryce reached the fence line first and sliced through the chain-link with his lascutter. Then he pulled it back for the others to pass through. Dane went first. Fairchild was right behind him. They broke off in opposite directions.
Fairchild reached the side of the facility just as the patrol was coming around the corner.
Right on schedule.
Before the man had a chance to react, Fairchild rushed him and grabbed hold of his submachine gun with her left hand, wedging two fingers behind the trigger, so he wouldn’t pull it when he died. With her other hand, she jammed the tip of her knife straight into the center of the man’s throat, blocking his windpipe. She swung him around the side of the facility before slashing through his carotid, painting the snow red with arterial spray.
Fairchild’s pulse remained a chilly seventy-five bpm as she stashed the body behind some crates and kicked clean snow over the stain. When she returned to the entrance, the rest of her team was already there waiting for her.
“What took you so long?” Dane teased.
“Very funny, sir.”
Bryce was working on the security keypad beside the door. It took him less than a minute to hack it. As the door slid open, Fairchild and Rook rolled into position, aiming their rifles down the long corridor within.
Empty.
