Chapter 7

Checking the security feed, I saw the two men in the office conferring, heads together, and I figured I was out of time. They would have expected check-ins, and when none were forthcoming, they had to know their plan was falling apart.

Merging with the shadows inside the hangar, I grabbed a flash-bang from the armory, and double-checking the feed, squatted beside the door to the office. Turning the handle, I stared at the feed to see they hadn’t heard anything. I lobbed it inside and retreated on swift feet, diving behind a dismantled ship when it exploded. A flash-bang in close quarters? They were out of commission for the duration.

Just as I’d hoped, the explosion brought the sound of running feet. When an unrecognizable face appeared, I realized it was the other missing figure. I should have known the professionals wouldn’t be lured from their posts guarding the drop ship.

Sighting the runner’s forehead in the scope, I made the kill shot, then approached the bay doors for the last time. I still had no idea why trained assassins were working with common street thugs, but at this point, I just wanted the siege to end. Cam must be losing her mind, but the fact she hadn’t sent me a flurry of anxious messages suggested she was holding herself together.

Check that; from what I knew of Cam, there was no circumstance that would hamper her ability to keep it together. In fact, she was probably on comms with Knife talking shit about me. The thought made me smile, and I sprinted on silent feet to the side hangar door, a seldom used exit because of its inconvenient placement relative to the tarmac.

Finding the other side clear, I ran the length of the hangar until I stood at the corner. I could make out the legs and boots of one of the operatives, but my drop ship’s landing gear obscured the location of the second one.

My mind tracked possible strategies. There were only two operatives left with clear orders to keep my drop ship under armed threat. No one was getting in or out.

Except they didn’t know who they were playing with.

A loner for as long as I could remember, I might have met the only woman in the known universe who could capture my interest; and she was stuck inside that ship. The ship was Janessa’s ticket to safety, and the two of them were my responsibility.

Shinterran’s Deep nor human hell was going to stop me from getting what I wanted.

I wondered on whose orders the black ops were working. A day ago, I would have guessed the Enforcer had his fingerprints all over this, but now I didn’t know.

Breathing deep, I considered that our previous distractions hadn’t so much as made the operatives flinch. Creating another diversion would do next to nothing.

Falling back, I leaned against the hangar’s wall and kept the security feed open so I could see the men guarding the ship while I commed Suva Cam.

“How are you holding up?” I messaged.

“Trying not to feel frantic. I saw Janessa kill that man,” she replied.

“Apparently, she has strong feelings for you,” I typed.

“I’m safe inside the ship, though,” she said. “You’re the ones in danger. I can wait them out. Take Janessa somewhere safe.”

“These goons guarding my ship prove there is nowhere safe in this city, Cam.”

“This is my fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t have come with her. Now she feels beholden to me and has done nothing but try to keep me alive instead of living her life.”

“I’ll let you take that up with her when we reunite,” I said. “In the meantime, you resurrect the Suva Cam who managed to get Knife to smile. I thought his smile muscles were permanently damaged.”

“You’re right. I’m not doing anyone any favors feeling sorry for myself. All I told Knife was that he didn’t look like he needed a babysitter, and could I take the sitter off his hands for a while?”

My pulse slowed to molasses then picked up again, imagining Cam saying that to Knife … it almost sounded like flirting.

When I didn’t respond, Cam sent ellipses.

Taking a deep breath, I worked out what to say next.

“And that’s when I walked in, huh?” I said.

“Yes. I wonder what his answer would have been,” she said.

“He doesn’t exactly own me, you know.”

“Hm. What do you say, Roderick? Can I hire you? Of course, I can’t pay you much. And my kid can be a real terror. But something tells me you’d be great,” she said.

Chuckling, I sighed and closed my eyes for a second, imagining a different kind of life. Instead of the dingy apartment I shared with two other bachelors and a revolving door of recruits, what if I lived in a cozy place outside town with enough room for Janessa to play in a yard and catch Jeppsit 5 lizards while Cam and I cooked in a tiny kitchen and traded war stories about the street life. Such a dream seemed impossibly out of reach for an ex-space marine with questionable morals and a sealed juvenile criminal record.

“We’ll have to work out the terms of payment, and I need a promise that your kid won’t try to kill me in my sleep, but I’ll consider it,” I finally typed out, smiling.

What the hell was I doing? Flirting with a very sick Shinterran woman while black-ops mercenaries laid siege to my drop ship? I’d had enough of this day. I was taking those two out, climbing aboard my own damn ship, and kissing Cam to within an inch of her life.

The feed showed the men shifting slightly in their stances but otherwise unmoved from their posts. Readying my weapon, I planned to skirt my ship and attack the man farthest from the hangar first, using the other ships to obscure my location, when I heard a sound that chilled me to the bone.

A child’s cry.