Dark Deeds (Class 5 Series Book 2) (17 page)

“I've never heard of it.” Hal reached for it, and felt more than heard a hum under his fingers as he lifted it up.

“Good. It can't be illegal then,” Eazi said cheerfully.

“What does it do?” Fiona leaned over and peered at it, and Hal handed it to her. She slid it over her wrist, where it hung, far too big, and lifted her arm to test the weight of it. “It's lighter than it looks.”

He didn't agree, but then, he'd already noticed she had more strength than a Grih of her size.

“Touch the raised emblem on one of the links,” Eazi told her.

She had to rotate the bracelet around until she found it, and then touched it with the tip of a finger. The bracelet snapped onto her wrist, fitting it perfectly.

She jerked with shock. “A little warning, next time,” she said, eyeing the band suspiciously. “Although it's cool how that light sort of maps your body like that.”

There was a beat of silence. Hal realized Eazi must be as surprised as he was. “What light?”

“The thin lines of blue light that went over my body in a grid.” She was frowning at him.

“I didn't see any light.” There was something, some information, that was trying to surface in his mind, but he couldn't pin it down.

“I didn't see it through the lens either.” Eazi was thoughtful. “Maybe only the wearer can see it, although the officer Flato recruited to try it out didn't mention it when he tested it.”

Fiona shrugged. “Should I do a trial run?”

“Yes. But Captain Vakeri will need a barrier to hide behind when he shoots at you, so let's move to the training room.”

“It deflects straight back to the attacker?” Fiona asked, sounding really interested.

Hal frowned. “Does it?” She'd leapt to the conclusion so quickly. But he'd never heard of a protective device that could do that. All attempts to create a force field that could deflect attacks had failed because of the effect the field had on the person it was protecting. The energy involved made them sick and unable to operate.

“It does.” Eazi said. “Fiona should test it with you in a safe environment, rather than when the Tecran are shooting at her down below.”

“How about it, Captain?” Fiona smiled at him, but he could see the trepidation in her eyes. “You up for taking a few shots at me?”

“
T
his isn't just
a protective shield, it's a weapon.” Fiona watched as Captain Vakeri's shockgun shot ricocheted straight back to where he'd been the moment before he'd ducked behind the screen.

It had been hard not to flinch or cower when he'd reluctantly shot at her with his shockgun on its lowest setting. She'd been hit twice before and her brain was screaming at her to run away.

“If they stay still when they shoot you, yes,” Eazi agreed.

It had a certain karma to it that appealed to Fee. No one who left her alone would be hurt. That seemed fair enough.

“The blue light that flares up just before the shot hits is a bit disconcerting.” Fee relaxed as Hal stepped out from behind his barrier. “Although I suppose it does give you a little warning.”

The captain holstered his shockgun absently, looking like he'd had an epiphany. “I can't see the blue flare but Rose McKenzie can see a level of light that the Grih can't. They haven't given out a lot of information about her, but I know she can see our soldiers when they activate the reflective camouflage in their uniforms. I assume you can too. Maybe this light is in the same light spectrum.”

That was pretty cool, Fee decided. Super vision. It wasn't as if she had many advantages in this new life she'd fallen into. She'd take whatever she could get.

“Should I get a weapon as well? Or just use the reflector?” She didn't want to carry a weapon she had never used before, but at the same time, the idea of having no way to defend herself at all didn't seem sensible.

“The shield's ability to actually reflect the shot back at the same velocity as it was sent
is
a weapon,” Hal said. “But it's a passive weapon, and you're thinking you need something more active.”

Fee liked that he got it, and didn't try to dismiss her concerns.

She knew she liked him more than was wise.

It wasn't just his pretty blue eyes and his body, or the way his eyes lingered on her when he looked her way.

He treated her respectfully.

But she also knew she owed him. A lot. She hoped the fact that her heart beat a little faster at the thought of him wasn't too closely related to that debt.

She preferred to meet him on an equal footing.

Vakeri cleared his throat, and Fee realized she'd been staring at him. She could feel her cheeks heating.

“If I shoot someone at the same time someone shoots me, will my shot ricochet right back at me when the shield comes up?” It just occurred to her, and the cold hand of panic brushed down her back, and cooled her embarrassment.

“No. It's one way. You can shoot out.” Eazi opened the training room door for them to leave.

“So do you have something easy to carry, easy to shoot, that isn't illegal?” Fee asked him, falling into step with Hal, who was making an effort to match her shorter strides this time.

“I have a crowd-pleaser.”

Hal stumbled to a stop. “A crowd-pleaser?” He shook his head. “She said not illegal, remember?”

“Crowd-pleasers are legal. They were just withdrawn from general use and most of them were taken off the market. Now the database restrictions that were imposed on me have been lifted, I've been able to access more data than I could before and I've checked the UC regulations. They weren't made illegal because the Tecran and the Garmman refused to vote them off the list, just in case they ever needed to bring them out again.”

“So, what's a crowd-pleaser? I'm assuming that's a sarcastic title.” Fee thought again how people were people, no matter where in the universe you ended up.

“It's a small weapon that shoots a projectile, a little plug that's designed to explode outward, away from the shooter, letting loose hundreds of small barbs. Each one contains enough sedative to down an adult.”

Sort of like a shotgun from Earth. Only non-lethal. That appealed to her, too.

“What if someone gets more than one barb in them?”

“The fatal dose is very high. No one has ever died from being shot with a crowd-pleaser before,” Hal told her.

“Light-guns and crowd-pleasers. You seem to have a crowd control problem.”

Hal grimaced. “Not the Grih. Or, not recently. Not the Bukari either, I have to say. But the Fitali sometimes have trouble around swarming time, and the Tecran and the Garmman have had some trouble fostering a happy population.”

“Huh. Big surprise there.” They'd reached the armory again and Eazi slid out what she assumed was the crowd-pleaser, loaded with three cartridges. “Just point and shoot?”

Another shelf slid forward, containing a strap with extra cartridges on half of it. Fee belted it around her waist, putting the cartridges at the back, and pulling her shirt over them, to hide them with the camouflage.

Hal showed her how it worked, and it really was as easy as point and shoot. She thought he crowded her a little more than was strictly necessary as he demonstrated, and then wondered if that was just wishful thinking.

Something caught his eye, and she followed his gaze to a small device that would fit snugly in her hand.

“You found a toy that appeals?” Fee asked him, because this had been all about her, she suddenly realized.

“A spiker.” He lifted it. “It's Grihan. Absolutely quiet, unlike a shockgun, but requires a lot of practice.”

“Which you have?” she guessed.

He gave a nod as he slid the spiker into a pocket, and then took a box of what must be spiker ammunition from the same shelf.

“You should take a reflector, too.”

“There is only one reflector,” Eazi said, and he didn't sound too upset about it.

Hal must have heard that too, because his mouth twisted up in a wry smile. “I've been meaning to ask you, Eazi, where is it from? I've never seen technology like that.”

“It's from a place no one in the UC even knows about,” Eazi said. “A place we barely got away from without being captured or destroyed.”

Hal lifted his head, looked right at the lens. “
You
barely made it out? A Class 5?”

“Yes.” Eazi was quiet for a moment. “Flato wiped every piece of information that led us there off the system, replaced it with maps that showed there was nothing of interest there at all. And for once I agreed with him. There are some things out there that are bigger, more advanced and nastier than we are, Captain. And retreat was the only logical option.”

Fee lifted her bracelet and turned it this way and that. “The Tecran got a taste of their own medicine?”

Eazi laughed, and she realized it was a mimic of her own. “Yes, very much a taste of their own medicine.”

She smiled. “Well, let's go give them another one, shall we?”

T
he Larga Ways
runner with Cy imprisoned on it blasted space dust into Hal's face as it took off in the launch bay.

Eazi refused to send him back to Larga Ways though, and Hal didn't blame him. He hadn't wanted Fiona going back there alone for the same reason.

There had to be Tecran spies on the way station, and there was no way to guarantee Cy would not be freed or murdered by his own people to make sure he didn't talk if he arrived unaccompanied.

Eazi's solution had been the same one Hal was going to suggest for Fiona. The runner would be sent out into space and left there until they were able to pick it up later.

As the runner disappeared through the gel wall, Hal noticed that two other vessels were missing from when he'd last been in here.

Fiona must have seen him looking because she put a hand on his arm. “The bodies went in one, and Eazi wanted to take one himself so he can monitor us from above and help break into the facility's systems. And it won't hurt for him to be away from the Class 5, either, in case the worst comes to the worst.”

Hal froze. He'd made the mistake of thinking Eazi was the Class 5, but he wasn't, the ship was just the framework in which the thinking system lived. As long as the runner he'd sent out the launch bay was in communication with the Class 5, he could, as Fiona said, help them without being stuck in the static of Kyber's Arm.

“Good thinking.” He started toward the small drone Eazi had insisted was their best bet at getting down to the Balco facility undetected.

“So this won't be seen?” Fiona touched the side with a delicate, long-fingered hand.

Hal shook his shoulders loose. “Eazi explained the cloaking capabilities to me, and there is no way they'll see us coming.”

“Even though it's their own drone?” She sounded so suspicious. He liked that she refused to take anyone's word for it if it didn't make sense.

“Apparently not.”

Fiona gave a reluctant nod. “I suppose Eazi knows what he's talking about.”

Well, he certainly had a lot to lose if he was wrong, so Hal had chosen to trust him.

The drone's door opened, and at a glance, Hal could see it was going to be a tight fit with both of them in there.

He gestured to Fiona to go first, and she slipped in, lying on her side on the cushioned chair that was more like a sleeping couch and strapped herself in. He had to squeeze in next to her, chest to chest, and bumped her as he fought to get into his own harness.

Their bodies were touching and Fiona reached around him to untwist a shoulder strap, both arms coming around him in an embrace.

He said nothing as the door closed, and the pressure of their take-off shoved them back against their cosy padded bed. There was the familiar hum as they cleared the gel wall and then the drone shuddered as they exited out into the storm that was Kyber's Arm.

Fiona was silent as the drone flew straight up and out of the center of the storm. It angled down, twisting as it went, so Hal was hanging by his straps over Fiona, their breath mingling.

He saw she'd forgotten to take off the necklace Eazi had found to go with her dress, and then realized he was staring at her breasts.

He jerked his eyes up to her face and found her watching him.

“
Carpe diem
.” She sounded nervous as she said it, and her tongue came out to wet her bottom lip.

He found himself unable to look away. “I'm sorry?”

“It's an expression on Earth, in a language no one uses anymore unless they're lawyers.” She paused. “It means seize the day.”

He was trying to work out why she was telling him this when she leaned forward and brushed her lips against his.

It was just a gentle touch, a whisper of a kiss.

He shivered, and then lifted his hands to cup her face, deepened the kiss until she opened her mouth under his.

He jerked back at the touch of her tongue, so aroused he couldn't remember ever feeling this way.

“This . . .” He shuddered. “No.”

She bit her bottom lip, and his eyes tracked the movement helplessly. He realized he was holding his hands out level with his shoulders, pressing them against the sides of the drone, as if to keep them as far from temptation as possible.

“No fraternizing with the enemy, huh?” she said at last.

He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, he saw she was looking down, to where his erection strained against his pants.

He tried to grab hold of something, found nothing for his hands to grasp, and fisted them. “You are not the enemy.”

“It's okay. I get it. You're unsure of me, and getting mixed up with Eazi hasn't helped that. I understand.”

He looked away. “I'm a senior officer of Grih Battle Center. Captain of one of Battle Center's most powerful battleships. You are a key witness to gross abuse of the Sentient Beings Agreement by the Tecran and the Garmman, and now it seems you're our liaison with another Class 5. It would not be . . . appropriate.”

She sighed, and his gaze flicked back to her face.

“One of the reasons I'm attracted to you is your commitment to doing the right thing, so I can't blame you for doing it now. I'm just sorry that's how it's worked out.” She managed a cheeky smile, which he had the feeling was an effort for her. “Maybe one day you'll be able to seize the day with me.”

He imagined what would happen if they got out of this, and he got her back to Battle Center. He'd be lucky to ever see her again.

He lifted his shoulders. “Maybe.”

They didn't look at each other, or say anything else, as Eazi sent them hurtling toward Balco's western desert.