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  I maintained my own position in the shuffle and carried a rifle along with a pistol and a few half kilos of putty explosives, but just for backup.

  With everyone in position, we moved on the target location as one, clearing the next two corridors. We saw no one, not a single soldier stood guard when we reached the final passage. This wasn’t altogether surprising because the underground facility we’d broken into was on a Union-controlled planet.

  In fact, it was one of only two facilities on the entire world and as such wasn’t heavily guarded. The majority of the soldiers patrolled the grounds outside the facility. The Union was arrogant and probably thought that any enemies would trigger their sensors long before they reached the ground. If the Union was anything like the Sarkonians—cheap—they wouldn’t want to pay for more soldiers than they felt were needed.

  Typical government cutback bullshit while politicians probably lined their pockets. It was hard to complain though since their oversight was making our op a cakewalk.

  The door was made of thick steel with a card reader to the right of it, exactly as we’d been briefed. Haas looked back at Navari, who nodded her approval. He removed his kit then turned to the panel and began disassembling it. Sophie and I covered the hallway behind the group, keeping an eye out for threats.

  “Scan the door,” Navari said from behind us. “I don’t want any surprises on the other side.”

  “It’s clear,” Haas confirmed a few seconds later, his voice slightly muffled. “The radio scan shows twenty meters in. Three warm bodies, I assume unarmed. Lab rats by the looks of them.”

  “Good. Get it open, Ensign.”

  A few minutes later, the door still hadn’t opened, almost tempting my attention away from my post to see what was happening.

  “What the hell is taking so long, Haas?” hissed Navari, her tone sharp with impatience.

  “We’re in,” said Haas from the entryway.

  2

  The door slid open, revealing the lab within. Mateo entered first, weapon up, and swept the room, the rest of us fanning to opposite sides.

  As Haas had said, there were no threats. Beeping equipment, wall screens, and an array of substances in various states of analysis dominated the room, looking exactly like every science holo vid I’d ever seen.

  Two women and one man, Union scientists according to their lab coats, gaped at us with mixtures of shock and confusion. It didn’t take long for that to morph into matching visages of fear. I couldn’t blame them—seeing five heavily armed soldiers from an opposing military was enough to ruin anyone’s day.

  No heroes here, I thought, scanning the small group. They looked ready to piss themselves, but the scientists were hardly equipped to deal with the likes of us. That was what the Union supplied security for. We all had our places in life.

  Commander-Navari strode toward them, her long legs crossing the length of the floor quickly. She looked intimidating in the black spec ops gear with slashes of Sarkonian red accents and a scowl that I was pretty sure had become permanent years ago. When she reached them, she propped the rifle on one shoulder and pulled out her pad. “Sergeant,” she said, jerking her head to indicate I should join her.

  I knew she only picked me because of my preference for adversaries that could fight back, but I moved forward without hesitation. I motioned my weapon at the Union research aces to indicate they should come to Navari.

  “No sudden movements,” I warned.

  They moved slowly until all three stood in front of us, eyes rounded with uncertainty.

  I never liked this part but brought the rifle down into ready position. “On your knees, hands behind your head.”

  The man and one of the women whimpered and leaned back but the last one, a woman with bright red hair and freckles, nudged her chin up defiantly as she knelt. Squaring her shoulders, she looked at Navari expectantly.

  Maybe I had been wrong about no heroes being here after all.

  “We’re here to retrieve this,” Navari said, directing her attention to the small group and holding out the pad. The solo bold member of the three flicked a glance at the pad, but no one spoke.

  I stayed silent but rolled my eyes internally. Navari had an annoying habit of being dramatic when she had to interact with others.

  “If someone gives up the data cube, no one will die. If you don’t,” she drawled, then paused for effect, her lips forming a thin smile. “Well, let’s just say I don’t mind taking you out one by one, as painfully as possible. Either way, we’ll find what we’re looking for.”

  “It’s not worth your lives,” I advised, not lowering my weapon.

  The three exchanged glances before the woman with red hair got to her feet.

  “Amanda!” hissed the man, moving to stop her.

  “Quiet!” snapped Navari. She lifted the rifle and shoved it in his face until it pressed into his cheek. “One more word and I’ll separate that smart head from your shoulders.”

  His mouth snapped shut and he swallowed hard. Pity welled up inside of me, but I tamped it down. That kind of thinking didn’t lead anywhere good.

  Amanda raised her hands. “Hey, there’s no need for that. I’ll tell you where it is. Just leave them out of it.”

  From the grim determination and set of her jaw, I thought the scientist might attack Navari. If that wouldn’t have meant certain death for the poor woman, I would've paid money to see the look on my commander’s face if she had.

  “Fine,” said Navari, stepping back and arcing one arm. “Show me and you have my word that no one will be harmed.”

  Sarkonians might fight dirty, lack the newest tech, and be smaller than the Union, but we were people of our word. Navari wouldn’t go back on it as long as Amanda delivered.

  She pointed across the room to a secure cabinet. “It’s in there. It requires a code to open.”

  “Better get to it,” the commander said lazily.

  “If I do that the Union will accuse me of treason,” the scientist protested.

  Navari smiled again, showing her teeth with a feral look in her eye. “You’ll open it,” she purred. “Or being accused of treason will be the least of your worries. And no one says you have to die fast.”

  To her credit, the woman didn’t flinch at the threat. If anything, she got even more angry, clenched her fists to her sides, and held her ground. For a long moment it looked like she might strike Navari after all, but instead she crossed the room at an even pace, the commander on her heels and pushing the rifle into the small of her back. At the coded lock, she began to input numbers slowly, pausing deliberately between each key.

  I smirked. For a Union pawn I had to say she was fast growing on me.

  “What’s taking so long? Hurry it up,” growled the commander.

  “If I get it wrong, I’ll have to start the sequence over. Too many wrong attempts and special locks will slide into place. That happens and the only way you get it out of here is by taking the whole thing,” the scientist replied cattily without looking up.

  Navari’s features tightened and her gun hand jerked slightly. I wondered if she wanted to take a swipe at the woman or shoot her. To be sure, the commander wasn’t used to being spoken to with such disrespect.

  A peppy beep emitted from the lock before she had to choose, and the scientist backed away, sweeping an arm to the open cabinet, indicating it was all ours.

  Commander-Navari retrieved a data cube from inside and scanned it with her wrist unit. Whatever it told her must have been what she wanted because the cube went into a pocket and nobody died.

  “Let’s go,” she barked. “Ensign, make sure they can’t raise an alarm and lock the door controls.”

  A few scant minutes later our unit was standing back in the hall while Haas modified the locks.

  No sooner had the door slid closed behind us than an alarm began to blare and flashing red lights illuminated the corridor.

  Warning! Intruder Alert! Warning!

  “Shit,” m
uttered Mateo.

  “What the hell, Haas?” barked Navari.

  “I’m not sure, sir.” His eyes furrowed as he consulted his gear. “The connection is clean, and it didn’t come from inside the lab. The alarm must’ve been triggered by something else.”

  “Everybody, move,” she ordered.

  We made our way down the hallway on high alert. It stayed empty until we reached the guard station. My heart sank when I saw the source of the alarm.

  The guard I’d restrained had freed herself and now stood facing us. Dark red stains trailed from her nose and the hands holding the gun shook slightly as she trained it in our direction. The woman jerked it from side to side until it landed on me. There was a loud crack as she pulled the trigger and a burning sensation flooded my arm.

  I didn’t react except to step forward. Pain training was standard for elite units and I’d been through far worse. “We outnumber you. Put it down and let us pass.”

  Her eyes had a wild look to them, and they darted from me to each of my team members. The bruising around her eyes was a mottled purple from our earlier fight, and she was breathing heavily, chest heaving. The gun wavered in her hand as she debated what to do, then she began to lower it.

  I smiled, but before I could breathe a sigh of relief, a rifle blast sounded behind me. A slug whistled by me and tore into the woman’s chest cavity. A look of confusion covered the guard’s face as her body jerked back from the impact. She stumbled drunkenly, then hit the desk and collapsed to the ground as her legs gave out.

  Her mouth opened and closed, and a raspy sound escaped her lips. Navari shouldered past me and went to the woman, then pulled one of her blades as she knelt. The commander blocked her feeble attempts to stop her, then she yanked the guard’s head to one side and slashed down in a single, expert motion.

  When Navari stood the guard was no longer moving, so she continued down the hall, not giving the body a second glance. I followed, falling into step with the rest of the team and keeping my eyes forward when I passed the dead woman’s form. There was nothing more I could do but keep moving. Death was part of the job description.

  Thanks to the relative unimportance of the outpost, the response time to the triggered alarm was slow and we had no more confrontations until we reached our exit. Haas had rigged it to always register as closed to the system, even in the event of a total lockdown, so that it remained unlocked.

  As we reached the door, a voice rang out from the far end of the corridor we’d just come from.

  “This way!” The shout was muffled, and I estimated we had seconds before whoever it was came around the corner and spotted us.

  “Go, I’ll cover,” I said, dropping to one knee and bringing my weapon to ready position. The hallway was just under one hundred meters, according to my scope, and I took a breath to steady my aim.

  No one argued and I heard the door close behind me as they exited. Hopefully I’d be joining them soon enough, but if I died here, at least I’d done my part to help them escape.

  Thirty seconds later, the clomping of approaching combat boots grew louder and I moved my finger to the trigger. Two Union soldiers—one man and one woman—burst into view.

  The woman reacted instantly, dropping to the floor with a yell for her partner to do the same.

  He was slower than her and took a few more steps, fumbling to free his weapon from the holster on his hip.

  I took advantage of the moment.

  The man dropped to the floor when my round punched through his skull. A spray of blood and brain matter exploded from the back of his head and coated his partner.

  The remaining soldier stared in disbelief as her comrade landed next to her, then her gaze lifted and shifted to me. Shock registered on the woman’s blood-spattered face and she seemed frozen. Her face contorted in anger and began to recover in the next second, training kicking in, but it was too late.

  I let loose another bullet and watched long enough to see the Union soldier’s eye explode and her body slump forward to join her friend.

  A quick audio scan and glance down each side of the hallway told me there were no more immediate threats, but I moved cautiously down to the side hall they’d emerged from.

  It was empty and I was out the door less than two minutes behind the rest of my unit.

  I didn’t see them outside so I pulled up the map on my wrist unit. The alarms shrieked, mixing with the shouts of soldiers as they searched the area, but it looked like the area was fairly clear.

  Abatis station resided on a rocky dwarf planet and was pitted with deep craters from some long-ago celestial event. Our ship, the Dreadnight, was 400 meters from my location, just on the other side of a ridge with tall stone spires that speared up from the ground in clusters like trees.

  More rock formations and a few scattered structures the Union was using to store supplies were my only cover before the ridge. I just hoped my luck held.

  I kept to the shadows and followed the side of the building before coming to what looked to be a large trash receptacle. Using it as cover, I edged around to the other side and checked for any Union grunts.

  The way looked clear from what I could see, and I took off in the direction of our ship in a crouching jog, my weapon at the ready, just in case.

  “Sergeant-Delgado, what’s your twenty?” a voice said over the comm in my ear. It was Mateo.

  “Two hundred meters to the south,” I replied.

  A door slammed behind me, and I dove behind a large boulder. I peeked around the side to get a better view and saw the noise had come from where we’d exited the building. Two more soldiers stood there, scanning in all directions.

  “I’ve got company,” I muttered, keeping my voice low. “Hold on, they might go back in.”

  They didn’t, splitting up instead. One of the men moved further away, but the other started in my direction.

  “One headed my way, Lieutenant,” I whispered.

  “Got him on the holo. Get ready. On my go, start running. We’ll drop the ramp once you’re in range,” he said.

  I stayed completely still, barely breathing for a few beats as I waited for Mat’s signal.

  “Go now, Sergeant.”

  Pushing up, I broke into a sprint and made it past the last of the buildings before my luck changed. A shout sounded behind me, ordering me to stop, but I didn’t slow. A projectile whistled past my face, a little close for comfort, missing me and slamming into the spires ahead, sending up a shower of stone dust and shards.

  The stand of rock pillars was just ahead, marking the end of the encampment. My arm throbbed and my leg burned where the guard had cut me, but I dug in deep and surged the last few meters.

  More shots rang out and pieces of rock exploded as bullets embedded into the formations around me. I was almost through the other side when something struck my back, hard, propelling me forward. One of the Union soldier’s rounds had connected and tagged me in the back of my suit.

  The armor stopped it from going through, but the force knocked the wind out of my chest. I managed to roll with the momentum but I landed sloppily, rocketed between two of the spires, and slid down the embankment on the other side.

  I realized my error when I had to twist out of the way of an outcropping of rocks and narrowly missed another before coming to a stop near the bottom. Gritting my teeth through the pain, I got to my feet and studied the empty basin.

  Come on, I thought. Drop the ramp so I can see where you are.

  For one heart-stopping second, I thought my unit had left me behind. Then the air began to shimmer, and I could see the cargo bay of the Dreadnight like it was on the other side of a portal. The ramp lowered with Mateo and Haas riding it down, weapons trained at the top of the ridge.

  I rushed forward, reaching the bottom of the ramp as the first of the soldiers came into view. Mateo took him down with a single bullet, his body rolling and sliding down the rocks. Then the ramp closed and we lifted away, Mateo pulling me into the hold be
hind Haas so the airlock could seal.

  A few pings told me the ship was being fired on, but unless they had some serious artillery, we’d be fine.

  “Raising cloak,” announced Z9-77A, the ship’s A.I., in a robotic but distinctly female voice.

  “Computer, take us back to the SSF Ambiana,” Navari barked over the intercom.

  Z, as I’d taken to calling her, didn’t respond right away.

  “Z9, set a flight plan—”

  “Acknowledged,” interrupted the A.I. “Pardon the minor malfunction. All personnel, please proceed to the bridge and fasten safety harnesses, per protocol.”

  I wanted to smirk, but now that the adrenaline had left my body, it was all I could do to limp through the cargo bay. Haas had already joined the others, but Mateo lingered.

  He looked as though he might’ve offered to help me, but I was glad when he didn’t because I didn’t like showing weakness. Neither giving nor accepting help was the Sarkon way.

  Instead, he gave me a nod and walked away, leaving me to limp my way behind him.

  By the time we’d entered slipspace, my wounds were screaming.

  “Corporal-Singh, tend to the sergeant. She looks like death,” Navari ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Sophie, coming to my side.

  I fumbled with my buckle for a moment, then struggled to my feet. Not wanting the others to see how bad I really felt, I forced myself to walk off the bridge. It might’ve been the galaxy’s slowest exit, but I did it.

  Outside, Sophie put one of my arms around her shoulders and supported me as we made our way to the medical bay.

  Most ships in the Sarkonian Space Fleet didn’t have sophisticated medical bays, but the Dreadnight was a unique ship and similar to a nova class vessel. The Union had gifted it and a few others to the Sarkonian Empire during a recent deal. I didn’t know specifics, but I knew that we’d been the only unit like ours to receive one.