Allie looked around and tried to get the images from Ben’s scan to match the reality of the ship’s interior. “I think it’s that way,” she said. She pointed down one of the other passages.
“Okay. I have point.” Shank took off at a steady trot, so Allie didn’t even have time to promise that she would do better watching their six this time. She hurried after him, and this time she kept her eyes focused on every shadow, every niche, every door they passed. They were in some sort of crew or guest quarters now, with doors at regular intervals. Shank ignored them all since anyone who hoped to keep the ship would have to hold the bridge, but Allie was painfully aware that someone could come out of any of those rooms and ambush them at any second.
She was so focused that thewhine-popof an energy weapon was the first she knew of problems in front of them. She dropped to a crouch even as she whirled around. Shank was firing at a figure standing in a doorway up ahead, but the doorway was on the left, and Shank was standing on the left side, which meant he didn’t have a clear shot.
Allie made eye contact with the shooter for one half second before she realized she was standing on the right and had no cover. She and the gunman were in plain view of one another. She brought her gun up and fired about the same time he did. The heat of the blast caught her arm, and if it weren’t for the heavy jacket one of Shank’s cousins had given her, she would have had a terrible burn. As it was, the smell was worse than the pain.
Her own shot had done more damage. Allie could see the splatter of blood and the look of utter shock as the force of the bullet drove the man back against the side of the doorway. His hand came up, and Allie pulled the trigger again.
“Drop the weapon!” Shank yelled. He made eye contact with her, and Allie lowered her gun. Only then did he run down the hall, his own weapon up. “Drop it!” he repeated.
The gunman collapsed. She was staring at the body when she heard the distinctive click of an unlocking mechanism. She turned as a woman came out from one of the rooms behind them. Allie brought her gun up and fired, but her hands shook so badly that bullet after bullet careened wildly down the ship’s passageways without hitting anything.
The noise did make the woman fall back into the room she’d come out of, and Shank threw a gas grenade over Allie’s head. The corridor quickly filled, and Allie could hear a body drop to the ground.
“I’ll check,” Shank said before he went running down the hall. Allie held her gun and tried to count the number of shots she’d fired. Jacqs had pounded it into her that she had to count them. If you changed clips too soon, you wasted ammo. If you waited too long, then you ran the risk of running out.
Shank came hurrying back. He stopped in front of her and grabbed her arm. “We’re good. We just need to get to the bridge, okay?”
Allie gave a sharp nod and hit the release on the side of her gun to drop her first clip. She shoved a second one in place. “We have to hurry. If that alarm signal got through, we’re running out of time.”
“I’m on it.” Shank offered one of his cocky smiles, and then he was trotting down the corridor again. Allie’s nerves were singing, and she had to intentionally relax her trigger finger to avoid firing her gun without meaning to, but they made it to the bridge without any more confrontations.
“Check internals. See if we have any more guests,” Shank said. He hurried to the security computers. Allie went to one of the secondary controls and quickly ran through the internal sensor logs. The woman in the nearest corridor and the man they encountered both showed signs of life. The one Allie had shot was definitely dead.
He was the first she’d killed, but she couldn’t summon any guilt the way the trainers in boot camp warned them. Of course, when they’d talked about human casualties, they’d been talking about friendly fire victims. The trainers had all warned them that if they were in hand-to-hand that the bats were so fast that a human trying to fire on one would inevitably hit another human if the conflict was around others. They hadn’t counted on the fact that Allie would have to fire on another human who actually wanted her dead.
“We’re clear. We gassed the only two life signs on board,” she said. She turned around and watched as Shank ran through security protocols for undocking. “I’m really sorry about that.”
Shank turned and looked at her. “Sorry about what?”
“That was not the best job in the history of armed conflict,” Allie said.
Shank gave the computer one more command before he offered her his full attention. “I thought we were covering each other’s sixes pretty well.” Shank caught her hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Really? Because I think I just fit into that weird stereotype of women not being the ones to go on missions.”
“Oh jeez. Allie, I did go to a wasichu school, and I served with Lieutenant Haslet. I’m pretty sure that woman would have beaten most of my cousins in one-on-one combat. I don’t have the same assumptions my mother does. You completed the mission. We completed the mission. Trust me when I say that I have faith in you, but right now, maybe you can do what you’re truly wonderful at and focus on those computers.”
Allie knew she’d screwed up, but she had a job to do and now wasn’t the time for insecurities. “I’ll get the nav computer up and install some new security codes,” Allie said as she slipped into the captain’s chair on the bridge. This had definitely been a luxury liner, and she had to wonder if someone was going to come looking. After they finished their rescue mission, they were going to have to dump the ship.
For now, though, Allie appreciated having fully upgraded systems and computers that responded to queries without making her wait. TheCandiruhad an amazing crew, but the ship itself wasn’t exactly top-notch. Most days they had at least one system redline, and the techs were always patching things back together.
“I’ll clear the dock so we can get out of here.” Shank headed out, and Allie set to work checking flight readiness. As much as Allie trusted Ben, scanners were just computers, and computers broke. Usually they stopped working at the worst possible time, so she wanted to check flight systems herself. Allie was surprised to find upgraded external sensors. She watched as Becca and Shank moved all the guards and Claire into the service corridor where they wouldn’t get sucked into space when the ship pulled free.
Pity.
Allie flinched as she thought of the man she’d killed. Maybe they didn’t all deserve to die. She wondered if that man had been someone trying to earn a living, or if he’d been as twisted up as Claire. Allie was starting to think Claire was dysexual. She certainly seemed to have gotten a perverse pleasure out of tying Shank up and then describing how she was going to turn him over to the government. In a perfect world, she’d turn Claire over to the authorities and make a complaint about her getting off on stealing someone’s power rather than having a healthy dynamic exchange. However, since the authorities were trying to catch them, that didn’t seem wise.
They had all agreed to keep radio silence, so when Copta’s voice came over the comm, it startled Allie badly enough that her fingers fumbled on the computer controls and she had to quickly cancel out a diagnostic of the hyperspace engines that would have taken them off-line.
“I need someone out here. I don’t know what to do with this,” Copta said. She had a note of panic under that calm voice, and coming from Copta, that was enough to make Allie scramble for the exit. Something was definitely not going to plan.
