Anandra watched with bewilderment as she dashed into her workroom, grabbing the signal scanner from where she’d carelessly stashed it on a shelf.
“What are you doing?”Anandra asked, trailing behind Gus as she stalked through the kitchen and back into the entryway to where the bodies still were.
Please let me be wrong, Gus whispered in her heart.
Waving the scanner over the body, she cursed when it beeped as soon as it passed over an arm.
“You mildew infested swine,” Gus hissed.
Her knife.Where was her knife?
Unfortunately, there were none lying around.There was, however, a pair of garden shears sitting on one of the tables from the last time she’d decided to prune the plants in here.
Gus grabbed them.“You’ll do.”
Adapt and overcome.That was a motto somewhere, wasn’t it?
“What are you—?”Anandra blanched as Gus stabbed the tip of the shears into the man’s bicep.She wiggled them around, none too gentle as she widened the wound.
You’d be surprised how versatile garden shears were.They could easily sever a finger, along with the branches they were intended for.
Using the scanner as a guide, Gus dug around until she judged the wound deep enough.Tossing aside the shears, Gus stuck her fingers into the man’s bicep and felt for what she suspected was there.
Almost.Almost.
Something bumped against her fingertips.
Got you!
She closed her fingers around the thumbtack sized device, yanking it out and holding it up to the light for study.
“Of course, they were tagged,” Gus growled.
Gussy, you nincompoop of a spiderwort.What were you thinking?
Protocol demanded she scan them for signal transmittersbeforebringing them into her home.But with everything that had happened, and these three’s companions threatening to discover them, she hadn’t had time.Then Caius attacking her as soon as she’d walked through the door had further thrown her off her game, leading to the situation as it stood now.
This was the biggest difference between her and people like Kira.Gus was easily flustered; like any normal civilian.Kira never was.
“What does that mean?”Anandra asked with an expression that said he already knew.Or at least suspected.
“We have to go.”
Gus hurled the tracker back into the container with the rest of the bodies.She was so fucking angry at herself.A moment’s inattention had cost her the home she’d spent years building.
Moving back into her living quarters, Gus’s thoughts turned from the grief and rage of being driven from her sanctuary to what she needed to gather before they departed.
Did she even have time?
Possibly.
One of the first modifications she’d made upon moving in was reinforcing the walls with signal jammers.Her paranoia had led her to go a step further and install them in multiple spots in the docks.It was why the docks of Titan were known as something of a communication desert and what made them a popular venue for clandestine meetings.
She couldn’t completely black out the docks without drawing unwelcome attention, but it should be enough to buy her some time.If she was lucky, the tracker in those men’s arms wouldn’t be able to give off an exact location.
It would, however, give their friends a place to start looking.
Needing to know just how much time she had, Gus placed her palm on the nearest wall and waited for it to verify her identity.“Perimeter security feeds.”
