Partners: Book Two, page 41
“Marginal,” Kurok said. “This was the last of them, I think. They got comms as I got into the back halls and they took off, left a squadron behind to clean up.” He studied the bodies on the floor. “Hope that’s all of them. There’s not much in the way of protection left here.” His eyes lifted to Jess’s. “And they will be back.”
“What about people?” Elaine asked. “Anyone else from the teams here?”
Kurok just looked at her.
She shook her head. “Shit.”
“Maybe Bock was right,” April said. “He said it was over. We were just prolonging it.”
Jess watched them rigging a sling, then she walked back over to where Dev was seated on the ground, extending a hand down to her. “He was right.” She hoisted her partner to her feet. “But it doesn’t matter because we don’t stop just because it’s a lost cause.” She studied Dev. “You okay, Devvie?”
What, really could she say to that? “Yes.” Dev looked around at the dissipating smoke, and the bodies on the ground, and her battered colleagues, and Doctor Dan. “Seeing as I thought they were going to make us dead.”
“Not yet.” Jess sighed. “Maybe soon.”
“I see.”
“Let’s see how hard we can make it for them.”
IT DID SEEM a lost cause. Dev was on her knees, her head inside a wall panel as she studied the readouts on her retrieved scanner. There was so much damage everywhere, it seemed very difficult to know where to start with fixing it.
Brent was in the next panel. “Crap. This is bullshit.”
Dev construed that to mean Brent agreed with her assessment, and she made a small noise of assent. “The batteries are being drained at 10 percent per standard hour. Then there will be no power available.”
“We can suck off the carriers for a few hours,” Chester said. “But that’s it.”
Brent touched the comm set on his head. “Tuck, you there?”
Dev continued her evaluation, trying not to think of the long corridor they were next to that led eventually to her quarters, and rest. There seemed to be no end in sight to the trouble, and she’d reduced her wishing to a simple one for some water and maybe even a packet of those seaweed crackers Jess hated so much.
The power generation systems were offline, that being the crux of the issue. Without them, the citadel had to run on what power was in the batteries, and that was draining rapidly. “How were they operating before? The systems were up when we were downstairs.”
“Someone had the security systems turned off,” Brent said, darkly. “Whatever jacktard let them in, prob. Hope they’re carbon char somewhere.”
Dev pulled her head out of the cabinet and looked at him. “You mean, someone here was on their side?”
“Sure,” Brent said. “Knew there was a stinker left here. Let them in the first time, when they bombed the bay.” He tapped his comms again. “Tuck? What’s up in med?”
Dev could see the tense lines in his face, and she knew a moment of understanding there, that despite the gruff words and attitude. There was caring there for his partner, who had looked very damaged to Dev before they’d taken him away.
Doctor Dan had gone back downstairs to bring up the downed sets, and Jess had started inspecting the facility to see what harm had been done to it, apparently having taken no damage herself in the fight.
“Okay, thanks,” Brent said into comms, crouching back down and going back to studying the panel. “They got power to med.”
“Damn good news,” Chester said. “They can splint up Mike’s arm, too.”
The comm set in Dev’s ear rustled and she turned her attention from her scanner. “Ack?”
“Hey, Dev.” Jess’s voice burbled through. “Your buddy got some help up and going and we cleared out centops. Bring the wrenchers up here. Got better access.”
“Ack.” Dev stood up. “Jess said we should go to the operations center. They have made it more optimal.”
“And they’ve got chairs.” Doug climbed down out of a service hatchway. “No damn connections here anyway, just service trunks. Two of the big power transfer banks got fried. This is a mess.”
“Yes.” Dev closed her scanner and secured the panel. “But at least no one is trying to make us dead at the moment, and we have good work to do.”
“You bios talk funny,” Doug said, as they headed down the hall toward centops. “You know that?”
“We talk funny?” Dev eyed him. “We don’t spend most of our time talking about excrement and posterior body parts at least. I had to load a custom dictionary into my scanner just to know what all of you are saying most of the time.”
Doug eyed her, trying to hold back a smile. Brent didn’t bother, snickering under his breath as they moved through the central hall and past the now active scan gate into ops.
“Hey, what was that with you giving me your box and taking off before?” Brent asked, suddenly. “You looking to get fired on purpose?”
“No,” Dev said as they approached central systems. “I was concerned that Jess was in danger.” She glanced up as the emergency lighting overhead flickered a little. “So I wanted to see if I could help in any way.”
They reached the ops door and the conversation stopped. They entered and found Jess and April inside.
The ops center had taken considerable damage. Two of the console banks were burned and dark, and there were blaster scores on the walls. But the emergency lighting was on and two more of the banks had some limited screens active, and the room was cleared of any bodies.
“Ah, the wrenchers are here.” Jess looked up from a large piece of plas she had spread out on the console top. “What’s the status?”
“Batts are crap,” Brent said. “Got maybe three hours left.”
Jess nodded. “That’s what the scan said here too.” She indicated one of the two working consoles. “We need to get the exchangers up. We don’t get power going we might as well just get in the buses and go fishing.”
“Yah.” Brent sat down at one of the working stations. “Nothing’s working down there.”
“Want me to take Doug and see what the status of the intakes is?” April asked. “Might as well move the carrier into the big bay anyhow.”
Jess nodded. “Do a fly around and get a comp scan while you’re at it. We need to get at least enough cycles to get scan and met up.”
April nodded and headed for the door, with Doug following her obediently.
“Lift’s cycling from downstairs,” Brent said. “Getting biologic readings. Looks like the Doc got things going down there.” He studied the screen. “We should get scan relayed in here until we can get power up. Those buckheads could be sweeping down on us and we’d never know it.”
“I have our carrier configured to relay that,” Dev said. “So far there is nothing approaching and the weather seems all right.” She took a seat and started connecting her portable scan to the console. “I will send it in here so everyone can see it.”
“That’s my driver.” Jess put a hand on Dev’s back and gave it a little friendly scratch with her fingertips. “There were fewer bodies in here than I thought there would be. Only two.” She changed the subject. “We took them to processing, and after Elaine finishes with Jason and Mike in med, she’s going to do a foray to see if there are more. There’s a lot of people missing.”
“Maybe they got out?” Brent said. “Could be they were trying to evac when they were getting crunched.”
“Well, if we don’t find bodies, and there’s nothing floating ashore, that’s a possibility.” Jess turned as there were footsteps in the hall, and then let her hand drop to her blaster as the doorway was filled. “Ah. You.”
“Ah, me,” Dan Kurok said. “I’ve brought all bio alt sets up, and instructed them to start repair, or restoral, whatever they are capable of. They told me someone should check the carrier bay out, as they thought some might be trapped in there.”
He sat down in one of the watch chairs and leaned back, his pale eyes reflecting the emergency lighting despite their bloodshot nature.
“Home sweet home, eh?”
Jess returned a wry grin to him, then keyed comms. “April, ack?”
“Ack.” April’s voice came back, with the sound of wind behind it. “We’re moving across the external fascia.”
“When you’re done with recon, inspect the carrier bay. Word is people might be in there.”
“Bodies might be in there too,” April said. “My guess is they dropped some nasty in the top there. Big place, all you’d need is gravity.”
“Find out and report,” Jess said. “We’ll be working on the tie lines in here.”
“Ack.”
“So, they were on batts the whole time?” Brent looked a touch confused. “I don’t get it. When we got here it was like they had no idea we were coming, except that hatch on the north side.”
“They were on batteries,” Kurok confirmed. “This place has big ones. I had quite a bit of trouble getting them shut completely down.” He looked at his hands, and then flexed them. “No way to get the systems they were using to watch for everyone off except for that.”
“So they had scan?”
“They had, I think, very limited internal wire plots,” he said. “I got the sense, when I was sneaking around trying not to get shot that whatever the plan was originally, there wasn’t much left before we got here.” He looked thoughtful.
“Common problem,” Jess said. “All right, I’m going to go down to the intake cavern.” She glanced at Dev, who immediately stood up and set her scanner down on the console. “We’ll be back.”
They walked out into the dimly lit corridor and Dev felt glad they were now by themselves and it was quiet. A motion flickered in and out of her peripheral vision, and she recognized one of the BeeAyes carrying a box away from the cafeteria. “I’m glad Doctor Dan made them all right.”
Jess nodded, her face quiet and pensive. “Know what I feel like doing?”
The question opened up a lot of possibilities. “I’m afraid I don’t,” Dev finally answered.
“Wish I could go to my quarters, take a shower, eat two sets of rations, and sleep for two days,” Jess said. “This is so fucked up I don’t see an end to it.”
“Mm.” Dev nodded a little. “I would like all that, and also, to lay in bed with you.”
Jess managed a smile at that. “Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“Yeah, that would be nice,” Jess said. “Damn, I’m tired.” She draped her arm over Dev’s shoulders as they walked through the unnaturally silent halls. “Y’know, I just don’t get what was going on here.
They come here, supposedly to get me, but then they take off, and leave a watch squad who can’t even tell when they’re being infiltrated by us?”
Dev shook her head. “I don’t understand most of this either.”
“I mean, what the hell?” Jess went on. “You know?”
“No, I don’t know. What’s hell?” Dev noticed they were passing one of the dispensers in the hall. “Can we get a drink?”
“Sure.” Jess detoured over to the alcove and bumped the door open, removing a container and handing it to Dev, then taking one for herself. The residual cooling in the casing had kept the temperature relatively down, and she popped open the drink and took a sip while she stood there thinking.
Jess turned, as something out of place caught her eye. She set the container down and drew her blaster. “Stay here.” She started down the side hall toward a half open door that had no business being accessed.
It was an unmarked door and there was silence beyond it. Jess cautiously pushed it open with the muzzle of her blaster and waited, ears cocked, as the rough crunch of the manual opening faded. After a moment she glided around the edge of the doorway and into the room, hitting the preamp on the blaster and lighting up the room in pale blue wash.
Then she replaced that with the glare of her hand light and holstered the gun, letting out a long, aggravated sigh. “Dev!” she called out. “C’mere.” She keyed her comm set as she heard Dev’s light footsteps approaching, and half turned as Dev entered. “See if you can get some lighting on in here, wouldja?”
“Yes.” Dev turned on her own hand light and explored the room, finding a control console across from where Jess was. “It appears this facility isn’t used.” She sat down and keyed in a command. “It’s empty.”
“That would be the problem.” Jess tapped her comm set again. “Centops, Tac 1, ack?”
“Centops,” Brent answered. “Go-head.”
“I’m in sector blue thirty,” Jess said. “Looks like they borrowed a few things.”
“Ack,” Brent answered. “Relay?”
“Ack,” Jess responded. “We’ll pick it up later. Proceeding.”
“Ack. Relay and mark,” Brent said, clicking off.
Dev had succeeded in getting the low level illumination on, and now she turned and regarded the empty room. “What is this space?” she asked. “I don’t think you showed it to me before.”
“No,” Jess said. “Let’s get walking and I’ll tell you about it.” She waited for Dev to join her and they headed down the hall again. “That room...it’s a complex. There’s more than one space in there. It’s where all the black ops stuff ends up.”
Dev nodded gravely. “It seemed quite dark.”
Jess regarded her. “Was that a joke?”
Dev shrugged.
“Anyway, the biggest thing we had in there was a new weapons rig that you kind of plugged into,” Jess explained as they got to the access hallway. “It’s gone. Few other things are too but that one—” She shook her head. “Hard to say if it’s more dangerous to us or them.”
“Like that thing they made,” Dev said. “That was dangerous to them, wasn’t it?”
Jess thought about that as they walked down the steep passageway into the cavern. “Yeah,” she said, after a bit. “But this was...well, if they figure out how to make it work, all those fights you saw us in? Us against them in the hall? It would give them an advantage.”
“They wear more things than you do,” Dev said, eventually. “Is that to protect them?”
Jess worked the airlock into the final cavern. “Yeah. Our plasmas are more intense than theirs, and they don’t train agents like we do.” She led the way into the rock pathway. “They care about living. It’s what makes us crazy to them.” She paused, regarding the huge space. “We’re harder kills because we don’t care.”
Dev’s brows creased. “So this thing will make them not care?”
Jess produced a brief, grim smile. “It wires your guns into your head. You fire at the speed of thought.” She put her hands on the rock, her fingertips twitching. “I let them rig me into it once.” She turned and looked at Dev. “You never want to stop shooting. I nearly took out the test chamber.”
Dev frowned. “I don’t think I understand that,” she said, in an apologetic tone. “Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?”
Jess shook her head and pointed down to the board storage area. “It’s not stable. Next guy who tested it fried himself. They ended up giving him a mercy kill.”
The waves were thundering in from under the rock wall, and the spray coated them as they reached the platform and looked out over the fractious water. Unlike the previous time, when the intake tunnels were in work and the water was swirling in a powerful, predictable way, now the waves were smashing against everything, breaking hard against the rocks and sending explosions of water halfway up to the ceiling of the cavern.
It seemed wild and frenzied. Jess leaned back against the rock wall, and folded her arms over her chest. “What is going on here, Dev? That’s the question.”
“Well.” Dev copied her pose, glad to be still and quiet for a bit. “I was thinking about that when we were on the carrier on the way back here, and one thing that seemed interesting to me was those people on the other side are really focused on you.”
“On me,” Jess repeated, in a doubtful tone. “Why me?”
“That’s what I was wondering.” Dev said. “They got that man Joshua to do bad things and caused you difficulties. Then the man, Bricker tried to use me to make it less difficult, and after that, the man Bain got you not to leave. Then they paid the captain to do bad things. Then they were trying to get us on that market island, and they chased us and when we got back, we found out they took those people and Doctor Dan and wanted you in return for them.”
“Hmm. Yeah,” Jess said. “I thought it was because of the Gibraltar run, but you know what? It started before that.” She frowned. “It started with Joshua, but turn an agent, and go through all that just to put me on ice? Why?” She unfolded her arms and paced a little. “I’m a good agent, I’ve got a pretty decent record, done a bunch of missions. But nothing more or less than someone like Jason, or Elaine, or hell, even Sandy had done.”
“I see.”
“That’s why they were all pissed when they bumped me to senior, by the way.” Jess produced a self-deprecating smile. “I wasn’t about to turn it down, but I really hadn’t earned it. Shoulda probably been Elaine.” She crossed her arms again. “But I guess Bain had his reasons.”
“Doctor Dan told me I could trust you, and the man Bain,” Dev said, unexpectedly. “So maybe there was a reason for that. Maybe there are things we don’t know.” She paused. “That happened a lot with us in the creche. They would do things a lot and you never really knew why because they didn’t tell you everything.”
Jess looked thoughtful. “Doesn’t really matter now I guess.” She studied the cavern. “The raceways down there look clear. If they’re all right on the outside we can try a restart after we check the transfer stations.”
“What will happen then?”
“We get power.” Jess started trudging back up the ramp. “We can bring systems up, and talk to home base, and figure out what the hell we’re going to do when those bastards come back here.” She paused, and looked back at Dev. “But they’d have done that already, right? Send word to HQ about all this?”
