Chapter 28
Exhaustion dragged at Arco’s boots. She was running on max adrenaline and zero sleep in the last thirty-six hours. But the sheer, lightheaded relief of having Brenner back kept her moving.
The strobing warning lights and blaring alerts of closing blast doors turned the spaceport’s corridors into a fractured, migraine-inducing maze.
Because the automated security system was sealing off direct routes to the launch pads, Arco and her team were forced to take a massive detour back through the main passenger terminal to reach the freight docks.
For Brenner’s benefit, she subvocalized into the team’s secure earwire to tell him where they were going.
“Soleil offered us a ride on her ‘party’ boat.” She glanced back to see N’Dwama and Nilsson flanking Brenner, their hands firmly gripping his arms to keep him upright.
Someone had put Arco’s fluffy green cap on his head, presumably to make it harder to track him visually.
Arco tapped her tablet, sending another encrypted ping to Soleil’s comms, but still received no answer.
“Don’t know if they’re still in town, but staying here isn’t a good option. ”
To Arco’s eyes, Brenner was already looking less like a drunk and more like a competent person.
As they’d hastily agreed while putting distance between them and Wutala crew, N’Dwama’s sifter abilities would flush Wutala’s chemical control measures from his brain, and Nilsson’s healer talent would fix what she could.
Arco wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around him, apologize for getting him into her messy situation, and tell him how utterly terrified she had been.
But they had an audience, and orderly spaceport operations were rapidly collapsing around their ears.
“How are you holding up?” she subvocalized instead, forcing a professional calm into her tone.
“Better,” Brenner’s deep voice rasped over the comms. He shifted his weight, allowing Tōn Ko to seamlessly take over for Nilsson as his support.
“But not all systems go.” Arco assumed he meant his electrical talent was still offline.
After at least two stunner shots and probably more, she was surprised he wasn’t still drooling.
Minan took point, leaving Nilsson to step up and flank Arco as they finally plunged into the absolute bedlam of the main passenger terminal.
It was a humid, sticky nightmare that smelled aggressively of unwashed bodies, wet dog, mold, and rancid fryer grease.
Automated announcements blared continuously in a dozen languages, begging for patience while flight information was updated.
Glitching overhead displays cast a sickly, flickering light over stalled people-mover walkways.
Beleaguered spaceport staff were drowning in a sea of shouting travelers, wailing children, spilled luggage, and an escaped screeching pet bird vengefully dive-bombing a determined cleaning bot.
Arco was grateful to have a destination that was somewhere else. The blast doors to the transition walkways to the giant freight terminal were blinking red but still open. She suppressed the urge to walk faster. It wouldn’t help, and might draw attention.
From behind a square support column, a high voice caught Minan’s attention. “Lookin’ for a sunshine party?” Fish, the fierce teenager from Soleil’s studio, stepped into view. Rustom, the ex-Jumper with the heavy Albion accent and cybernetic legs, shadowed her closely.
Minan cracked a smile at the oblique reference to Soleil’s name and slowed so Fish could catch up. “Yep.”
“Lookin’ for Mags,” Fish said. “S’posed to be here by now.”
Rustom fell into step with Arco. He seemed to be completely ignoring the teenager’s existence.
“Know where you’re going? The port is closing the blast doors to seal the sections to keep people contained.
” He snorted in cynical humor. “Well, trying to. Last maintenance cycle was probably a decade ago. Bloody doors don’t work any better than my legs.
Plus, staff didn’t send out a ‘give way’ warning, so half the doors are jammed open with gravcarts and loader bots. ”
Fish turned to look over her shoulder at Brenner. “You a lucky homme. Most Wutala lambs be ghosts.”
Brenner flicked a glance at Arco. “Red angel on my side.” Beside him, N’Dwama and Tōn Ko looked amused.
Arco decided it must be the team’s operational nickname for her because her journalist online avatar had red hair. But the “angel” part stumped her. “Are you helping Fish?”
Rustom shook his head. “I have no idea who you’re talking about. Last time any of us saw her or any of the kids, they were in the studio.”
Before Arco could work out what that meant, a new, deafening synth-voice announcement suddenly overrode the terminal’s noise, freezing half the crowd in their tracks.
“By emergency order of the Mabingion planetary government and the CGC Military, this spaceport is temporarily closed. All military and CPS employees must report to Terminal M immediately. Passengers and commercial travelers, please remain where you are.”
Rustom frowned. “That’s not good.”
Minan’s voice came over Arco’s earwire. “I’m monitoring the military frequencies through my comms jack. The actual orders for military personnel are a lot less polite. They want every agent on site to report right damn now. No exceptions, no excuses.”
“We have to go back now.” Rustom looked straight at Arco but said it loud enough for everyone to hear. Fish’s shoulders hunched, but she nodded.
“Let’s go,” said Brenner. “I’ll keep up.”
Once they made it past the blinking red doorway, they picked up the pace and moved with purpose.
Luckily, none of the passengers thought to follow them.
The route through connector halls and into the freighter terminal turned into a bruising obstacle course.
They scrambled over abandoned gravcarts and squeezed through the narrowing gaps of closing blast doors.
Arco’s lungs burned as they worked together to jam a discarded luggage hauler into the track of one section interchange, buying just enough seconds for Brenner and Tōn Ko to slip between the sliding doors.
They finally arrived at the correct docking node in the freighter terminal, trotting through a side corridor and walking fast down a wide ramp into the freight hauler node.
Arco slowed a moment to catch her breath. The air here was noticeably colder but less smelly, unless she counted the smell of mold and dust.
“For anyone who is interested, Party Central says the late guest beat us here.” Rustom, currently in the rear, addressed his comment to the ceiling.
Fish let out a whoop as she took off straight toward a central bank of lifts and sprinted around a corner and disappeared.
Rustom pointed to the left, where the wide ring-shaped walkway curved.
They walked quickly, passing an open storage room filled with dormant loading bots.
The node was a lot bigger in real life than the spaceport map’s sectional diagram suggested.
Arco had only ever traveled as a passenger.
In other circumstances, she’d like to learn how a freight terminal operated, but right now, all she wanted was to get everyone safely on Soleil’s mysterious party boat and put the whole stinking planet in her aft-view display.
Suddenly, N’Dwama stumbled forward, just as Rustom shouted, “Fucking stunner! Take cover!” Arco turned in time to see a hooded figure dressed in a gray tactical suit shooting a weapon at Rustom’s legs, and Rustom twisting to point a weapon at the attacker.
Brenner lunged to grab her and spin her away toward a stack of crates, but not before she saw more people in gray coming on fast from the far side of the ramp. The world exploded into motion.
Ten minutes of brutal cat-and-mouse had reduced the massive freight node to a deadly playground.
Arco crouched behind a stack of incalloy shipping crates near the open loading bot room, her shoulder pressed tightly against Brenner’s.
Haunting, visceral memories of the last transit hub ambush — Jaffasso’s betrayal, Ringo’s death — clawed at her.
She ruthlessly shoved them all in a mental box and slammed the lid.
Panic would get her killed. Staying hyper-present was the only way to keep her people alive.
Brenner crouched beside her, looking alert and thoroughly pissed off.
A heavy, wicked-looking maintenance tool he’d scavenged rested easily in his grip.
He had flatly ordered her to keep the forceblade Nilsson had slipped into her pocket earlier for the negotiation with Wutala.
Nilsson herself was currently tucked behind the interior wall of the bot room, providing cover.
Two attackers were already down. Rustom had shot the first one before scrambling into a gravcart corral with Minan.
Tōn Ko had dispatched the second attacker with a garrote when the man blundered past his hiding spot.
“I think the attackers are a military tactical unit,” Minan subvocalized over the secure earwire. “New, maybe? Rustom agrees they’re undisciplined.”
Arco’s finder talent flared, connecting the bloody dots.
That attacker lay motionless on the ramp with a charred hole in her chest armor.
The woman was left-handed and had led her attack with a dramatic, gymnast-style lunge.
Arco had seen that same move from a guard on Jane Pennington-Smythe’s security detail.
The woman in the building in Arazak had been left-handed.
“I think it’s the CPS Elite Squad, or at least some of them,” Arco subvocalized. “I thought they answered to Pennington-Smythe. Now I think they answer to Hujuru in Covert Ops.” Beside her, Brenner grunted and gave her a nod of agreement.