“RPG,” she said, locking her eyes on the middle man. The suit raised the launcher up over her shoulder and took aim. The three Belters only had a moment to register a look of surprise before a twenty-millimeter rocket-propelled grenade struck the man in the center and turned into a cloud of shrapnel that would kill anything within ten meters.
Some of the shrapnel sprayed across her breastplate and visor, with a sound inside the suit like hail hitting a metal roof. A half second later, the shrapnel was followed by a spray of blood and viscera.
“Motherfuckers,” Tanaka said, then used the right arm of her suit to shove the oxygen tank away from her chest. Its mass was significant, but the suit was up to the challenge, and a few moments later she was back on her own two feet, pain-free and jittery from the drug cocktail in her veins.
“I’ll make you a deal,” she yelled out, turning the suit’s speakers up so high that anyone in the warehouse space with her would probably suffer permanent hearing loss. “The person who brings me Teresa Duarte lives. They’re the only one who gets to walk out of this place in one piece. So if you have her, you’d better be the first to show up with the girl in your hands.
“Because everyone else here is going to die.”
Chapter Twenty-Two: Jillian
As soon as the Laconian stepped into the base, Jillian knew she’d fucked up. She tried to believe that it was just nerves, that the trade would go down as promised, but in her gut, she’d known.
She hunched down in the access channel, head low. Blood was wicking through the fabric of her shirt, making the cut along her ribs seem bigger than it was. In the distance, the Laconian’s amplified voice echoed, but Jillian only made out a few of the words. Duarte. First. Die. She plucked her hand terminal out of her pocket with her left hand, thumbing through the options with the same crisis-calm she’d always prided herself on. Her impulse was to go take care of the prisoners herself. Instead, she opened the comm.
“Jillian?” Kamal said. Even though the connection was voice-only, she could picture his worried expression.
“I made a mistake,” she said as she hit the atmospheric release. The hiss of air rushing into the corridor outside their rooms was loud enough to come through the comm. “The Laconian’s wearing an assault suit. She may be tracking me.”
“Are you okay?”
Jesus, but that was just like Kamal. Jillian had locked him in a cell, asserted her own authority over the civilian chain of command, invited the enemy into their base, and Kamal was worried if she was all right.
“I’m where I should be,” she said. “Stupidity’s supposed to hurt. Get your people to your ship and get out.”
“Where can we get armed up? Can you get us—”
“Get your people and go, Kamal. You don’t need guns to run like hell, and you need to run like hell. I’m giving you cover.”
She heard other voices behind him—Nagata, Holden, the black-eyed monster, the girl. She could hear in the breathiness of Kamal’s voice that they were on the move. “There still a couple Laconian ships heading for us once we get out?”
“There are. One’s here, one’s coming.”
There was a pause. He might have been thinking. He might have been running. “All right.”
“Ping me when you’re launched. I’ll make this as easy for you as I can.” She dropped the connection and a section of the wall behind her blew apart. She’d been found.
Jillian put her head down and pushed off, half running, half skimming in the microgravity of the base. A volley of bullets tore through the air around her. If the Laconian had meant her to be dead, she’d be dead already. All the enemy wanted now was to keep her scared and moving. It was working.
The heat in her face was shame and hatred. Shame for herself, hatred for the enemy. And fear too, but she wasn’t going to feel that now. That was for later, if later came.
Jillian got to a T intersection, grabbing handholds and swinging her body around the corner in the direction that would take the enemy away from the path Kamal would be on. Chase me, Jillian thought. Come on, you asshole. Come and get me.
Draper Station was small, but it was home. Jillian could close her eyes and navigate the whole place like it was her childhood ranch. Her handheld was lighting up with alerts and errors, some from the station crew, some from the automated systems. Alarm was spreading through the base like adrenaline through a bloodstream. There had been a time less than an hour before when Jillian would have followed up on every one of them. Part of her dreaded that she’d have to go through them all later. A part of her knew better, but that was for later too.
Still on the run, she pulled up her saved comm groups and hit Live-send to the crew of the Storm. “Draper Station is being attacked from within. Prepare Storm for emergency launch in… five minutes.”
She didn’t wait for any replies.
Behind her, the Laconian was shouting something about Teresa Duarte, but all Jillian could hear was the joy in the vast electronic voice. Her own mind was already dancing ahead. Up two levels, and there was a tunnel that looped back around to the hangars. If she could stay far enough ahead, the curve of the tunnel itself would give her some protection from enemy bullets. She reached the ladder up, hauled herself to the next level, and slammed the access door closed behind her. It was going to be about as useful as rice paper for stopping the enemy, but the point wasn’t stopping the enemy. Just slowing her down. Getting a few extra seconds for Kamal and for herself.
Something seemed to distract the Laconian, because she fell behind for a moment. Jillian was almost all the way to the tunnel’s far end before she heard the access door being blown aside and the impact of the mechanized armor pulling itself after her in a fast, even stutter. Jillian let herself down and then moved to the right. The passage to the Storm’s airlock was two levels down, but Jillian couldn’t wait for the lift. Still on the move, she hit the lift door override, and by the time she reached it, the shaft stood open. She dropped, but slowly. Gunfire came from behind her. Some fragment of Draper Station’s security force making their stand. Some people Jillian knew and had been responsible for, dying because she’d let herself believe she could trade the Duarte girl so she wouldn’t have to watch her planet burn. The mistakes you made at the high-stakes table were always the ones that cost the most, and Jillian had a lot of chips.
Two levels down, she kicked off the back wall and stumbled into the airlock corridor. The Storm’s outer lock was already open and waiting, and Jillian hurtled into her ship and thumbed the doors closed. Down the corridor, the mechanical armor slammed into view. The Storm’s outer doors began to slide closed, and the enemy let out a shout amplified by her suit until the sound was almost an assault.
An RPG launched toward her, and time seemed to slow. The dark body of the grenade with a brightness behind it like a ship and its drive plume. Jillian tried to step back, as if that could help. The doors hissed closed, and then rang like a gong. The skin of the Gathering Storm was probably the only thing on the station that the Laconian couldn’t blow a hole through. Another quarter second, and the grenade would have detonated in Jillian’s lap. But that was for later.
“Bridge, this is Captain Houston. Report.”
As the inner airlock doors cycled open, Caspar’s voice came over her hand terminal. “Drive’s prepped, but we’re missing some crew.”
“They’re too late. No way to get them in now. Is the Rocinante launched?”
“No, still in dock.”