Something moving.

  She couldn’t tell what it was. Maybe it’s Tyrell or Doc, she told herself, but the feeling in her gut made it clear she didn’t believe that.

  Her hands tightened on the rifle, and she could hear the coarseness of her own breathing as she took one step forward, and then another.

  Then, the door began to slide open.

  Andi’s insides tightened, as though some massive hand had grabbed her body and squeezed. Maybe it is Tyrell or Doc. Maybe they saw us coming, or the scanners managed to penetrate this far down the corridor. That all sounded good enough, even plausible, but she didn’t buy it.

  She didn’t believe any of it.

  She looked around, almost frantically. There was no place in the hallway to hide, nowhere even to grab some cover. If there were hostiles coming through the landing tube just ahead, it was going to be a quick and dirty fight, right out in the open.

  She was already bringing her rifle up, her eyes focusing on the sights, as the hatch slid completely open…and a Foudre Rouge trooper stood there ominously, his lateness in bringing his own weapon to bear suggesting he was no less surprised to see Andi and the others, than they were to see him.

  Then, everything went to shit.

  Fast.

  * * *

  “Sy, when we get there, I need you to figure out the data networks as quickly as possible. My first choice is to do something that way, trigger an error that will cut power to the magnetic fields or something else that causes a critical malfunction.”

  “Cap…I have to be honest with you, I don’t think…”

  “I know, Sy…I know. You may not be able to do it, especially not in the few minutes we’ll have down there. But, do your best. It’s all any of us can do.” He turned his head to the other side. “That’s where you come in, Yarra. You know your way around reactors a hundred times better than me. If Sy can’t do what we need in the software systems, we’re going to have to trigger a structural failure. I know we used the two big charges we brought, but we’ve still got some parts, plus guns, ammo, equipment. Once we find a sensitive point, we’re going to have to rig some kind of explosive device powerful enough to get the job done.”

  “Captain, it could take days to even get a feel for a system like the one that has to be powering this place. No, not days. Weeks. Months.” A pause. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to do anything any quicker than Sy can inside the datanets. I’m not sure I’ll be able to do anything at all.”

  “Both of you, I understand. We’re up against it on this one…but we can’t leave without rigging this thing to self-destruct.” He looked at Sylene. “I know you’ve got family back in the Confederation. Do you want to see Foudre Rouge landing wherever they live, blasting away the Marines and other defenders with unstoppable weapons? Because if the Union gets control of this place, even for long enough to have research teams tear it apart, that’s what you’ll be looking at. Maybe in five years. Maybe ten. But believe me, I know the mentality of those who run the Union, and if they can get a dominant edge in technology, they will use it.

  They will use it to turn everyone else on the Rim into their slaves.”

  “We’ll get it done, Cap. Somehow.” Yarra nodded as she spoke, as though it helped her believe her own words.

  “Yeah…somehow.” Sylene sounded no more than half convinced, but that was an improvement.

  Lorillard turned back, facing forward, and he continued down the long corridor. He had no hard data on how far they’d come, but a review of Sylene’s schematics combined with his own experience, gave him something less than certainty and more than a gut check. Seven hundred meters, maybe eight hundred. They should be close. There was an intersection up ahead, and the corridor to the right should take them to the reactor.

  At least if Sylene’s data was correct. He trusted her implicitly, but he also knew the task he’d given her had been close to impossible. She’d done the near impossible before, but it was a dangerous thing to count on.

  If we fail, we die, and if we die, the Confederation might die, too.

  Lorillard knew his people were a band of misfits, that most of them had some level of resentment toward the Confederation authorities, anger and bitterness that obscured their view of the realities at stake. He’d been born in a totalitarian nightmare, and he’d suffered and fought and sacrificed to escape from it.

  He had friends and loved ones who hadn’t made it out, who had died trying, or who were still there, living the sustenance level life of a Union peasant or factory worker. He couldn’t leave the station to Sector Nine and the Foudre Rouge. He wouldn’t, whatever it took.

  Whatever the sacrifice.

  “Cap, I think I hear something…” Yarra stopped and turned around. Then, she said, “Boots, Cap…there’s someone coming down the corridor.”

  Shit.

  Lorillard knew whoever, or whatever, it was, the news wasn’t good. The only friendlies within a hundred lightyears—and really, the only friendlies anywhere as far as he was concerned—were heading back toward Nightrunner.

  He’d been concerned about security bots, but the mechanical guardians didn’t wear boots. And, that left only one possibility he could think of.

  Foudre Rouge.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Near Free Trader Nightrunner

  Inside Imperial Station

  Orbiting Zensoria, Osiron VI

  Year 301 AC

  Andi’s finger tightened on the trigger, and her rifle spat forth fire and death. She was the first to shoot, on either side, and she beat her enemy by a good half second or more. But hers was the inferior weapon, and her target was heavily armored, far more protected than she was.

  The bullets ripped down the corridor, a cloud of destruction, most of the shots slamming into the Union soldier’s breastplate. Chunks of metal ricocheted all around with a series of loud cracks, slamming into the walls and the landing tube door. Andi knew the Foudre Rouge’s armor had stopped most of her bullets, but she couldn’t tell if any of her shots had actually struck the soldier himself.

  Even as she maintained fire, her mind roughly counting down the last couple seconds to the end of her clip, her adversary opened up. Heavy rounds zipped by her, traveling much faster than her own, their sounds higher-pitched, and somehow more terrifying. They slammed into the stark white of the walls, and two or three went by close enough that she could feel them.

  A few of the shots, the ones hitting on the most direct vectors, cracked the nearly indestructible material of the walls, but most of them came in at sharper angles, and bounced off, continuing on new vectors, with drastically reduced velocities.

  It was one of those nearly spent rounds that hit her.

  The impact pushed her back, hard enough to upset her balance, and send her stumbling to the ground. Even as she fell, she could see the forward Foudre Rouge trooper down the corridor dropping hard as well, his rifle skittering to the floor, even as his body hit the deck with a loud thud.

  Andi lay where she was, feeling around for the wound on her body, the point of impact she couldn’t feel, save for a painful bruise on her side. But there was nothing. That’s impossible. Whatever hit you knocked you right off your feet…

  She felt all over, with increasing intensity. Then, her hand moved over her pack. There was something there, hard, metal. The first aid kit.

  She always carried the med kit in her pack, one of the vestiges that still remained of her rookie status on Nightrunner. The small, steel case was dented now, she could feel that through the soft material of her pack. It was a miracle. The Foudre Rouge’s bullet would have torn right through the thin metal of the medkit, and into her body, without question…if a full speed shot had hit her.

  The wall had saved her, the ricochet. It had slowed the projectile enough. Perhaps just enough, she thought with a grimace, as she turned and felt a jolt of pain from the bruise the impact had left.

  She was surprised at the inaccuracy of her enemy’s fire. That wasn’t what she’d been led to expect from Foudre Rouge. Then, she realized. She owed her enemy’s poor aim to her own bullet, the one that had taken him down. That half second advantage she’d had, it had been the razor’s edge for her. The difference between life and death.

  She was still down on the floor, leaning forward, propping herself up with one arm. Pain radiated out from her side, worse than she’d thought at first. She’d been spared the bullet ripping into her flesh, but the force of the shot had pushed the first aid kit hard into her hip. It was a bad bruise at least, and, she thought as she winced from the pain, maybe a fractured pelvis.

  But it was still better than a kill shot to the head.

  The air was full of fire in both directions. She heard a thud behind her, but she forced herself to remain focused. She tried to bring her rifle back to bear, but she couldn’t manage it. She dropped the weapon and whipped out her pistol. The small gun was weaker than the rifle, and she knew she’d have to put her shot in just the right place to do any real damage to an armored opponent.

  She flashed a glance down the corridor. The Foudre Rouge she’d shot was down, not moving. She didn’t know if he was dead, but he didn’t seem to be an imminent threat, either. The soldier who’d been behind—the only other one she could see—was prone now, on one knee, also apparently wounded—the work of one of her comrades—but still firing.

  She heard a shout from behind her, and then a blast of fire that caught the Union soldier in a storm of bullets. His armor turned most of the shots, but at least three of her comrades were firing, plus her with the pistol, and the Foudre Rouge finally succumbed to the storm of bullets and dropped his rifle. He stumbled forward, holding himself up for a few seconds, and then, still in the middle of the fire tearing down the corridor, he fell on his back to the deck, pierced by at least two or three more shots.

  Andi gritted her teeth, and she leapt up. The pain was bad, though perhaps a bit less than she’d expected. She stared down the corridor satisfying herself the enemy soldiers were at least out of action. Then, she spun around.

  Tears welled up in her eyes almost immediately. Gregor was doubled over, breathing heavily. The already wounded giant had taken another round, this one in the thigh. His hands were down on his leg, trying to hold back the hemorrhaging, but blood spurted out between his fingers, quickly turning his light khaki pants bright red.

  But Gregor’s wound wasn’t the one that gripped Andi’s spine and nearly tore her self-control from her.

  Anna was on her knees, near the back of the small column. Her arms were out, cradling Jammar’s unmoving body. Andi tried to hold onto some hope, even a shred, but one look at her shipmate removed all doubt. Her friend had been hit three times, or four, she couldn’t be sure, all in the head. There was nothing left of his face but a grisly mess of blood and shattered bone.

  He was dead, there was no doubt. The first of Nightrunner’s crew to die since she’d joined the ship.

  And only the second one ever. She’d heard stories about Cara, a few times at least, when the crew was in a particularly somber mood, about how she had died. But she hadn’t known Cara, and as much as she empathized with the pain the others still felt at the loss, she’d never been able to drum up much emotion for someone she’d never known. Her closest affiliation with Nightrunner’s lost soul had been discomfort with the way the others had said things like, ‘she’s in Cara’s bunk,’ or ‘she can stow her gear in Cara’s locker.’

  Mercifully, such things had stopped quickly, and as the crew had accepted her, they’d stopped making those kinds of remarks. Now she had her own pain of the Nightrunner family’s loss, fresh, biting.

  Jammar was her comrade, her shipmate, her friend. She looked down at him, for as long as she could bear, and then she averted her gaze from the wreckage of his face, locking eyes with Anna for an instant. The woman was still cradling Jammar’s body, tears pouring down her face now. Andi’s sadness fed off the sight of her friend’s crying, as well as the image of her dead comrade, and the water welled up in her own eyes. It poured out, first one long streak rolling down her face, and then a dam breaking, almost as if some part of her thought tears might wash away the sadness. She detested displaying weakness, but in that moment, she was helpless to stop it.

  There was rage, too. She was going to gut the next Foudre Rouge she saw, and she was going to watch the bastard die. Whatever it took.

  She didn’t know when that would be as she made the silent oath to herself, but in the end, she only had to wait a minute, maybe less.

  She shook off the despair and stood up, grabbing her rifle as she did. She pushed thoughts of Jammer away. There was no time, not now. The two Foudre Rouge her people had fought had come out of the ship.

  She knew what that meant, and what it might mean for the two crew members they’d left behind. She had to get into the ship immediately, had to see if Doc and Tyrell were alive or dead.

  And, she had to kill any more damned Foudre Rouge who were in there.

  She pushed forward, her heart beating like a drum, through the open hatch and down the tube. She stumbled in on the pliable material of the tube’s ‘floor,’ and she pulled one hand from her rifle to reach out to the side wall and steady herself. She wobbled a bit, but she held her balance, enough, and she made her way down toward the familiar dark gray of Nightrunner’s airlock hatch.

  She’d forgotten all aspects of leadership that had been passing through her mind, and she barely noticed as her friends followed her in.

  She was driven just then by anger, by hatred. By the need to kill.

  Andi Lafarge hadn’t spent a lot of time on inner reflection, on wondering who she truly was. But it didn’t take too much of that to come to one realization.

  She had one hell of a nasty temper.

  Just as she reached the inner door, it opened…and another Foudre Rouge trooper stood there, staring right at her.

  She was two meters away, perhaps less. She almost brought her rifle up, but then something inside her took hold. There wasn’t time for that. She launched herself right into the Union soldier, hitting him in the midsection before he could bring his own weapon to bear.

  Andi felt a wave of pain as her shoulder rammed into the Foudre Rouge’s hard, armored breastplate. Her enemy had been caught somewhat by surprise, and the force of her impact cost him his balance. He fell over backwards, Andi coming down on top of him as they both went down.

  Even as she was falling, her mind was racing, her hand moving to her side, pulling her blade from its sheath. Her enemy was armored, proof against even the sharpest knife over most of his body. But even high-tech armor had its weak spots, the areas where protection had been sacrificed to mobility. She sucked in a deep breath and jammed the blade hard, aiming for the soldier’s side, for the narrow line where the breastplate met the top of the thigh armor.

  She felt resistance as her blow hit, and for a fleeting instant, she thought she had missed her mark, that her killing strike would bounce harmlessly off the armor.

  But then, she felt the razor-sharp blade cutting through something softer…and then she felt warm wetness on her hand.

  She jerked hard, driven forward by the feel of her enemy’s blood, cutting with the knife, driving it deeper, struggling with all her strength to slice open his stricken body.

  To gut him like a fish.

  She was still cutting and stabbing when she realized her enemy had stopped struggling. She pushed herself back, and scrambled back to her feet. She was wobbly, dizzy, and the bruise on her thigh hurt like hell. But as she looked down, she realized immediately, the soldier was dead. She had killed her enemy—again—and she felt exhilaration.

  For a second.

  Then thoughts of Jammer came flooding back, the words of the oath she’d sworn to herself, and carried out almost immediately. And no more than a second later, she saw another figure standing just inside the airlock, at the edge of Nightrunner’s wardroom, staring right at her. Another Foudre Rouge.

  He held a rifle, and it was moving it up, pointing right at her head.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Reactor Core, Imperial Station

  Orbiting Zensoria, Osiron VI

  Year 301 AC

  “This is definitely it, Cap. I can’t say I understand much of this, at least at first glance, but I can tell you without any doubt…this is an antimatter reactor.” Yarra stood, and despite the fatigue, the fear, the desperation, she was clearly mesmerized by the technology she saw in front of her.

  The room was a marvel, enormous and full of all sorts of incredibly advanced technology. There were devices and stations that defied Lorillard’s efforts at identification, and even the things that looked more or less normal had a…difference…to them. And everything was spotless, gleaming and looking like it was all brand new.

  Lorillard stood behind Yarra, looking around with a good deal more confusion in his expression. There were three large cylinders down at the far end of the vast room, the biggest structures by far. The whole place felt a little strange, almost a tingle in the air. He tried to decide if he was just imagining that or if it was some kind of energy or radiation, but in the end, he came up with a coin toss.

  He flashed a glance back to Sylene, who was edgily standing guard at the door they’d used to enter. She was the least likely choice for guard duty, not only among the three of them, but also the entire crew. But Lorillard had wanted to get a quick look himself, and he’d left her to keep watch. He’d hoped Sylene would be able to hack into the control system, but she’d run into a wall almost immediately.

  They’d run into one security bot on the way. They’d escaped without injury, thanks to a lucky shot by Yarra, but the bot’s appearance shattered the fragile hope that the station’s defensive system was out of operational units. Lorillard had allowed himself to hope for a safe and quiet trip back to the ship, but he had a strange feeling in his gut. He wasn’t sure what it was, nerves, fear, intuition, but he was sure something was going to go wrong. He’d always gone into missions cautiously, but the sense of doom clouding his mind just then was something new.