Chapter 5
The guards were secured.
Unconscious.
Wyatt counted a full five seconds anyway.
Adrenaline still thrummed warm in his muscles, the aftershock of violence buzzing through his veins. His knuckles stung where they’d hit bone.
And God help him, part of him felt clearer for it—the old battlefield quiet slipping back into his bones as if it had been waiting for him. It still felt too damn good.
He straightened. Two down here. Twelve more on the deck above. Fourteen hostiles so far.
He flexed his hand and turned to the armory door. Heavy steel. Biometric lock with a keypad backup. A red light glowed above the handle.
Military-grade security.
No way in hell he was opening it without tools or time.
He paused.
A faint sound above him—breathing that wasn’t his.
Wyatt stilled.
He didn’t look up, just let his gaze track upward.
Air vent. Maintenance access. Heavy gauge steel. The corners weren’t fully seated. Could be hostile. Could be crew.
Either way, he couldn’t ignore it.
He backed up three steps, reached up, hooked his fingers through the slats—
—and ripped.
The vent cover screeched free. A woman’s face in the opening—eyes wide, shock frozen on her features.
Dark hair, fierce eyes, blood on her temple—and she was already swinging.
He caught her around the waist, trying to control the momentum, but she was moving too fast. They went down together, his back slamming into the deck with her weight driving the air from his lungs.
Rig worker. Coveralls. Tool belt. But air punched out of him as her elbow found his ribs—fast and vicious.
Hell. She fought like she meant to win.
His grip loosened, and she twisted fast, reaching for the wrench on her belt.
Not happening.
He caught her wrist, applied pressure to the nerve cluster. The wrench clattered to the deck. “Hey. I don’t want to hurt you—”
She kicked his knee.
He absorbed the impact with a grunt. “Can you listen for one goddamn—”
She came at him again, her stance decent. Someone had drilled her on basics—but she was outmatched. He redirected her momentum, and she countered with a knee toward his groin. Wyatt twisted, took it on the thigh, hissed through his teeth.
Okay. Enough playing.
He swept her legs. She hit the deck hard, tried to roll, but he followed—pinning her beneath him, one hand securing both wrists, the other braced beside her head.
Warm breath ghosted across his throat. Soap, metal, adrenaline. Clean beneath the blood.
“I’m Coast Guard,” he growled into her ear. “I’m not—”
Voices. Drawing close.
He clamped his hand over her mouth, her breath hot against his palm. She stiffened beneath him, panic flaring in her eyes.
Too close to the man he used to be. The one who pinned people down and didn’t let them up. Breathe.
“Don’t,” he murmured against her ear. “They’re right there.”
Russian voices drifted down the corridor, discussing sweep patterns. Moving slow. Careful.
Wyatt stayed still as stone. The armory door was still locked. He couldn’t open it. But maybe she could.
He leaned closer, his voice a whisper. “Can you open the armory?”
Her eyes flicked to his—terrified, angry, weighing odds.
The voices grew louder. Closer.
“Can you open it?”
She nodded against his palm.
Her gaze locked on his—storm-gray and sharp even under fear.
“Okay.” He eased his hand away and helped her up. She jerked free immediately, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, glaring daggers that could power the whole damn platform.
She pressed her palm flat against the door lock.
Green light.
The lock disengaged.
He pulled the door open, grabbed her arm, yanked her inside. The door sealed behind them with a heavy, echoing thunk. He held her against him, her breath fast and hot against his neck.
Emergency lighting only—red strips along the floor casting the armory in bloody shadow.
Hexagonal, maybe twelve feet across. Weapon racks lined five walls.
Pistols. Carbines. Ammunition stacked waist-high.
His gaze snagged on shaped charges in a locked rack.
Breaching charges. Enough there to make a hell of a mess if they needed one.
Outside—muffled voices.
“—heard something—”
A sharp beep.
Another.
Muttered curses.
They don’t have the code or an authorized palm print.
“It’s locked down.”
“Override it.”
“I’m trying. The system isn’t responding.”
The woman relaxed a fraction—just enough that Wyatt felt the subtle shift in her body. She must’ve triggered an internal lock when she opened the door.
Smart.
The voices faded, and as the heavy footsteps retreated, silence returned.
She bit his hand.
Pain stabbed, and he jerked back, more startled than hurt.
Jesus—she has teeth.
He released her, and she spun to face him. No wrench this time—just fists, held as if she fully intended to use them.
“You’re Coast Guard.” Her voice was raw with accusation. Like she’d breathed fear for hours straight.
“Yes.”
“Prove it.”
“We don’t have time for this—”
“Our cleaning crew are the terrorists.” Her breath came ragged. “Why not the Coast Guard too?”
He swallowed a curse. Fair.
Trust was easier on a battlefield. Out here? In the everyday? He never knew what to do with it.
“I flew in on the Jayhawk. MH-60. My crew’s Bishop, Henley, and Rey. We diverted from a training SAR to pick up your medevac. Crew member with head trauma.”
She didn’t blink. Still calculating.
“One of them put a bomb on our bird. I ripped it off. My crew got out. I didn’t.”
“Convenient.”
“It’s the truth.”
“The cleaning crew smiled at me for six months,” she shot back. “Then pointed guns at my face today.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. He knew the shape of betrayal. Wyatt softened his voice by a hair. “You don’t have to trust me. Just trust what I can do.”
Her jaw worked. Blood had dried in a dark line that reached her jaw. She was shaking—barely, but there. Shock. Adrenaline crash. Fear.
“You can help me lock them out of the weapons systems.” She exhaled shakily. “Permanently. If you’re really Coast Guard, you’ll help me protect Seven.”
“Deal.”
The word hung between them. Neither moved.
She was still looking at him like she might change her mind and go for his kneecap again. But she’d stopped reaching for a weapon. For now, that was enough.
“I’m Wyatt Meyer. Coast Guard pilot.” He offered his hand.
She didn’t take it. “Jennifer James. Jen. Chief Engineer.”
Chief Engineer.
Ah. She wasn’t just a survivor. She was the key to the entire station. The systems. The missiles. Everything the terrorists wanted access to ran through her.
Which meant the moment they realized she wasn’t dead or captured, every hostile on Seven would be hunting one person.
Her.
“We need to move. They’ll be back with cutting tools or explosives. This door won’t hold.”
“I know.” She scanned the racks. “We arm up first. Then we go.”
“Where?”
“Engineering control room,” she said. “Three levels up. Missile Command sealed themselves in—the launch systems are safe for now. But the terrorists aren’t trying to launch. They’re trying to steal the missiles.”
That stopped him. “Steal them?”
“I overheard. They have buyers.”
He dragged a hand over his mouth before moving down the racks, assessing magazines by feel. M4 carbines. Beretta M9 sidearms. A couple of Mossberg shotguns. Standard military armory—nothing fancy, but enough.
He grabbed an M4, press-checked the chamber, and started loading magazines.
“My crew will have reported the situation. Help’s coming. But the response team’s coming in blind—they don’t know how many hostiles. We need to get intel out. Give the rescue op actual intelligence to work with.”
She pulled a flashlight from a shelf, tested it, then stowed it into her belt.
Her hands were shaking, but her movement was purposeful.
Efficient despite the fear. “Communications is trashed. Command’s sealed,” she said.
“That’s where I heard the discussion about buyers.
” She swallowed. “They’ve got tech trying to open the airlock into command.
They shot one tech in cold blood to motivate the other. ”
Fuck. “I’m sorry.”
Her head jerked in a nod, and sniffed.
“Is there anything else we could access? Backup system. Emergency beacon. Anything?”
She rubbed her cheek on her shoulder. “There’s an old analog uplink. Exterior maintenance deck. Cold War era hardline to a geosynchronous satellite. It was kept as backup when Seven was built, they never decommissioned it.”
“It still works?”
“Should. It’s analog. Simple. No network connection for them to hack or disable. But the transmitter’s outside. Mounted on Seven’s outer hull. We’d have to climb down to access it.”
“How far down?”
“Twenty feet. There’s a maintenance ladder.”
Outside. Exposed. Hanging off the side of the station in full view of anyone with a weapon. Outstanding. “Okay. That’s our first port of call—”
“Then we head to engineering control. I can disable the loading systems from there—cranes, launch tubes, exterior hatches. Lock down everything they need to physically move the missiles.”
Wyatt turned that over. Exterior climb first to hit the uplink, then through hostile territory to engineering control. Two objectives, one route, and even if the terrorists breached command in the meantime, they wouldn’t be able to physically move the missiles.
Not bad for someone who’d been running for her life an hour ago.
His pulse didn’t spike. It steadied.
This he understood. The part he was far too comfortable with.
Jen grabbed one of the M4s from the rack, but she flipped it in her hands as if she was trying to remember which end was the deadly one.
“You’re left-handed?”
She scowled. “I know how to use a gun.” Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “I run a missile defense station. I can handle—”
“Sure,” Wyatt cut in. “Just before you take your own head off—let me—”
“Statistically, that won’t happen.”
“Great. Let’s keep it that way.” He stepped in close, gently repositioning her hands. “Left hand here. Support the weight. Shoulder the stock. Good. No, not like a violin—this thing kicks.”
She tensed as his fingers adjusted her grip. “This isn’t my area of expertise.”
“No kidding.” He stepped back. “There. Now you only have a fifty-percent chance of shooting me instead of you.”
“High praise.”
“You’ll get more once we survive the next ten minutes.”
Wyatt slung his weapon, then stowed a handgun in his vest, exactly where his hand would find it. “Stay behind me. Close. And do exactly what I say.”
Her gaze was granite. “I don’t take orders well.”
“You’ll make an exception.” He nodded toward the door. “Ready?”
“No.” Her chin lifted. “But let’s go anyway.”
Damn.
Chief Engineer James was going to be trouble.