Rebels and Lovers (21 page)

“Frinks has more muscle than just the Taka. He could easily get half a dozen armed thugs to take us on when we get to my ship. And if the stripers are working with him, they could get behind us in the tunnels, herd us toward Frinks, and—”

A loud hammering made Devin spin around. Someone or something was pounding on the hatchlock doors. There was no question this time, and the noise didn’t go away. The hatchlock lights flashed but—for the moment—stayed red.

He was already tapping in overrides via his microcomp when Makaiden asked, “Can you keep them out?”

“I’ve got the hazardous-substance-leak lock activated. That doesn’t mean they can’t bypass it.” He knew Varrod ’bots’ programs were prone to glitches. He was using one now. “It will just take them longer.”

“Devin, do these ’bots have a self-destruct sequence?” Barty asked.

“Levels one through three that you can set on a three-, five-, or ten-minute delay.”

“Set it for ten minutes, level one. A good diversion with minimal damage.”

“Five minutes, level two,” Makaiden said. “That should activate the blast doors without blowing a hole in the outer bulkhead.” She stepped next to Devin while he worked the microcomp.

“Decompression is a problem we don’t need,” Barty said tersely as the hammering grew louder.

“Decompression, if it happens, will trigger the blast doors and panels in the accessways,” Makaiden pointed out. “It shouldn’t affect us and, providing we can clear the subtunnel, won’t hamper where we go. But it could keep them guessing as to whether we’re dead or alive.”

Barty nodded. “Agreed.”

Devin looked up from the Rada. “It’s set.” Then he focused on his Rada again and didn’t stop his transmissions even when Makaiden grabbed his arm.

“What are you doing? We don’t have time—”

“Moving the ’bots away from the hatchway so they don’t blow a hole in the doors,” he said as the pallet hummed. “I don’t want to make it any easier for whoever is out there to get in here.”

“Three minutes before you get a hole blown in you.”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Captain Griggs.” The flippant remark was out before he even realized he’d said it.
Where in hell did that come from?
There was no time to ponder this new personality quirk. He tapped the microcomp off, shoving it in its holder on his belt as he jogged quickly after Makaiden.
Their boots hitting against the decking made a hard, sharp sound in counterpoint to the hammering on the bay’s hatchlock door.

Two and a half minutes later, shock waves from the explosion sent them all stumbling, falling to their knees in the cramped confines of the narrow subtunnel. Kaidee lost her grip on her handbeam. It hit the flooring with a clunk, and suddenly they were surrounded by darkness.

Sirens whooped. Another wailed in a staccato-like tempo.

“Blast doors closing!” Kaidee shouted, her heart rate spiking. There were a lot of warning noises on station, but the rapid pulse of a blast-door siren was hard to forget. “Move, move!” They had to clear the next reinforced panel—which served as a blast door in the accessway—and get out of the subtunnel or they’d be trapped between the blast panel behind them and the one ahead for anywhere from minutes to hours. Or longer.

Trip and Barty—she knew the sound of the older man’s wheezing rasp by now—clambered ahead. Devin … damn it all! She could feel him down by her ankles, groping around for her handbeam. She reached out in the darkness until she found a fistful of his jacket. “Leave it, damn you. Move!”

She yanked hard. He bumped against her, his arm snaking around her waist, and then he was dragging her forward. “Got it.” His voice was a deep rumble. Light flared weakly—something must have broken when she dropped it—but it was enough to see Trip and Barty, enough to see the rough ribbing of the tunnel jutting out at measured intervals. One of those ribs
was a panel. It should be closing by now. She should be able to see …

There! She grabbed Devin’s hand and jerked the handbeam up and to the right. Shit! They were too far away, the tunnel’s low ceiling and uneven flooring littered with piping and conduit slowing them down.

“We have to clear that! Go, go, go!” Her voice rasped, her lungs burned, and her shoulders, arms, and hips were hit, poked, and impaled by all sorts of flanges and protuberances, but she couldn’t slow down.

Barty shoved Trip ahead of him, and she heard his breathy command: “Keep going. I’ll get there.” The man had to be tiring, his age catching up with him.

“I’ve got him,” Devin said, shoving the beam at her with one hand, his other against Barty’s back.

There was no time for argument or hesitation. She was smaller, lighter, and even with the pipes jutting out from the tunnel walls hampering her, she could move faster than the men.

She might also—with Trip’s help—be able to block the blast panel with something, keep it from closing. The panels had no manual overrides. She pushed ahead, the beam zigzagging as she ran.

The panel, sliding from the right, was almost at the halfway point. She saw Trip sidle around it and skitter to a stop.

“C’mon, Captain Griggs!” He held out one hand toward her, as if he could pull her along.

She wanted to turn around, wanted to know where Devin was, wanted to know he’d make it, but she couldn’t waste a second.

“Jam the panel!” she shouted to Trip. “Keep it open!”

He twisted around, pulling at various protuberances on the wall, but nothing came loose.

She reached him just as he turned back. “The floor. Even something small. Slow it down.” She aimed the beam downward, illuminating conduit, junction boxes, and … yes! Trip dropped to one knee, grabbing the discarded squares of metal before she could tell him to do so. He shoved a thin square under the front of the sliding panel, then sat back quickly, hands against the floor, and kicked at the square, using the heel of his boot as a hammer.

The blast panel made a grinding, squealing noise, and for a brief moment Kaidee thought they’d jammed it. Then the metal square slid sideways. The panel jerked forward, with less than two feet to go to seal the tunnel completely.

Trip grabbed another metal square, wedging it in place with his boot as Kaidee followed his attempts with her handbeam. She kicked the plate back into position when it twisted sideways, sweat trickling down her face and the back of her neck. “Damn it!” Devin and Barty were still in the first part of the tunnel. Her heart pounded, her fury at Devin dissolving under the very real fear that he’d be trapped, injured. And Barty—

“Grab him!” It was Devin, Barty stumbling in front of him. She had Barty’s wrist, then Trip was on his feet, thrusting his arms under the older man’s armpits, lifting him through the narrowing gap.

Kaidee jumped back. They needed room, Devin needed …

Devin plowed into her, knocking the handbeam from her grasp again. There was the loud clunk of the panel meeting the wall, a flicker of light, then nothing, complete darkness, as a hard, muscled body pinned
her against the tunnel wall and its row of lumpy piping. Her face was crushed against Devin’s chest.

She angled around. “You okay?” She could feel Devin breathing hard, the rise and fall of his chest moving the soft suede of his jacket against the side of her face.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. His other arm tightened across her back. “Trip? Barty?” He stepped away from the wall, taking her with him.

She went willingly. She couldn’t see, and staying with him was preferable to flailing around in the dark, stumbling over his feet.

“Here, Uncle Devin.” Trip’s voice came from somewhere to her left and below her knees.

“I think … I need … to sit for a minute or two.” That was Barty. And he didn’t sound good.

“Are you hurt?” she asked him.

“No. Just … not as young as I’d like to be.” He rasped out a soft laugh.

Guilt shot through Kaidee. Barty had asked for ten minutes to clear the accessway. She’d insisted on five, not even thinking—
yeah, use your brains next time, Kaid
—that Barty would need more time. It was easy when around him to forget his age. But the past several days had to have been hard on him. And she’d damned near killed him.

She pulled away from Devin. His arm around her waist felt too comforting. She was supposed to be angry at him, but more than that, she didn’t deserve comfort. Not from him.

A small glow flared on her right, barely piercing the darkness. She recognized it immediately: Devin’s microcomp, its screen emitting a soft green light.
Good thinking
. Hell, he wasn’t Mr. Perfect for nothing.

A moment later, a second glow: Barty’s microcomp.
Then a rustling noise and a whiter light from a unit in Trip’s hand.

The gloom receded somewhat.

Devin squatted down in front of Barty and angled his microcomp toward the older man. “Can you make it?”

Barty snorted, shoving himself to his feet. “It wasn’t so long ago I beat you on the basketball court.”

Devin and Trip rose along with Barty, shadowy forms with small luminescent centers.

“It’s not much farther,” Kaidee said, “and we will be getting some light in through the gratings as we get closer.”

Devin stepped up next to her, with Barty behind him and Trip at his side. Kaidee wondered if either Devin or Trip saw what she did when Devin aimed his microcomp’s light at Barty—a small capped vial peeking out of Barty’s jacket pocket. A medicine vial, she was fairly sure. It hadn’t been visible before. In the darkness, he probably was unaware that it wasn’t fully concealed.

Barthol may have been able to challenge Devin at basketball a few years ago, but there was something wrong with the former ImpSec operative now. Something more, she suspected, than just his age.

And she had no idea what they would yet have to face to get to the
Rider
.

“It’s too quiet,” Kaidee whispered, flat on her stomach and peering down through the narrow grating of an even narrower air duct, which offered her a decent view of the
Rider’s
starboard side and main ramp. She was shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip with Devin, her gaze raking the familiar bay, her mind wrestling
with how damned difficult it was to be furious with someone she’d always had so much respect for. Trip and Barty—who still looked in pain despite his protestations otherwise—were twenty or so feet below, in the larger main access tunnel. Her ship’s bay had seemed too quiet and too empty from there. Hence, her and Devin’s current position—a means to provide a more complete view.

She wasn’t totally sure something was wrong. But something definitely wasn’t right.

Frinks, the stripers, Fuzz-face … someone should have made a move and staked out the
Rider’s
rampway. But no one had.

“It’s not impossible that our diversion worked,” Devin said, his voice equally low. “Which is all the more reason we need to get on board. That diversion won’t last forever.”

She knew that, and she’d almost gone charging into the bay five minutes before when they’d cautiously approached the access grating—and heard and saw nothing that could remotely be construed as a threat. Even the
fuel available
light on her bay’s utility panel glowed green. Something she’d not seen in several weeks.

“And you said if someone had breached ship’s security, you could tell at your airlock.”

She had. She could.

“Makaiden.”

She nodded. “Okay, okay.” It was a whisper, but a whisper through clenched teeth. Which she forcibly unclenched when she reminded herself that Devin Guthrie owned her ship. And her. Her job was to take them home, not argue security strategy.

And not be so aware of Devin that she could feel the heat off his body.

Not good, Kaid
.

She pushed herself backward, slithering out of the air duct as slowly and quietly as she could, until she was sure she was far enough away from the grating that her thunks and bumps couldn’t be heard in the bay.

Devin moved as quietly as she had, and not for the first time she took a moment to appreciate the lean muscle tone of his body. He played handball competitively, she remembered. Though right now he clearly favored his injured shoulder.

Her boots dangled suddenly in midair, and she knew she’d reached the ladder. A little farther and her feet found the rungs, then she was climbing down, still keeping noises to a minimum. Devin’s boots appeared when her own hit the accessway flooring.

He took the rungs two at a time.

“Keep the Carver on stun,” she said when he faced her. “I’ll change the lock code on the corridor hatchway. Get Trip on the fueling; he’s done it with me before. I need to find out how soon traffic control will grant us a departure slot.”
Providing we’re not ambushed the minute we enter the bay
.

She and Devin were first through the accessway into the bay; Trip and Barty followed. The
Rider
sat—a hulking deltoid beast with a narrow rampway jutting out—on landing struts that, planetside, would deploy wheels for taxiing. Good hiding places. Heart pounding and pistol out, she swept the bay, left to right, as Devin moved right to left.

“Clear,” he said, after a minute.

She wasn’t convinced. “Cover me.” She sprinted for the hatchway to the corridor, and twice her fingers slipped as she recoded the lock. Finally it took. The dockmaster’s office could still get in, but it would take them longer.

It occurred to her that if Frinks had someone in the bay, she’d just locked them in.

She turned. Barty was leaning against the base of the ramp, not looking well at all. She trotted toward him, pistol still out. “Trip, do you remember how to fuel—”

“Sure do. On it!” He sprinted to the fuel port.

She reached the rampway base and checked the ramp codes and ship’s security status on the control panel, aware that her heart had yet to slow down. Everything looked exactly as she’d left it.

Luck, or a trap? She headed up the ramp, with Barty following behind.

After all the troubles they’d had, things couldn’t possibly go this smoothly, be this easy. All she needed now was for traffic control to say they were cleared for departure in the next thirty minutes and she’d really get nervous.