Chapter 4

“REMIND ME TO yell at the boss for sending us in here without backup.” Kira

shot at one of the security guards barring her path.

“No one was supposed to be here,” Nia said while squeezing off two

quick shots at another opponent.

They were trying to incapacitate rather than kill, but the enemy was being

a pain in the ass about it. After a few more carefully placed shots, Kira’s team

was able to force the enemy into a side hall so they could go around them to

access the exit.

It was time to run for their lives.

A plasma beam streaked past, two centimeters from Ari’s head. “Play

nice!” he spun around and landed a precision shot in the offending pursuer’s

leg.

Kira brushed her left hand over the drive tucked away in her armor.

Whatever we have here, MTech doesn’t want us to leave with it.

Too bad.

They reached the secondary entrance that they’d flagged as an emergency

egress point while planning the op. Fortunately, the facility didn’t seem to be

fully staffed with security or they would have been trapped.

Kira ushered her team through the outer door. Ari hung back to lay down

a barrage of suppressive fire to buy seconds for the run to their landing

shuttle on the surface of the barely habitable moon.

The team piled into the shuttle through the back hatch, and Kira took the

controls. “Come on, Ari!” she urged.

Gunshots sounded from the direction of the facility exit.

“On my way.”

Kira powered up the shuttle, waiting for her final team member to run on

board.

“I’m in. Go!” Ari hit the controls to close the back hatch. Even before the shuttle’s door had sealed, Kira lifted the craft from the

ground. The craft launched on a steep, upward trajectory at a dizzying speed.

They slipped off their helmets once the interior had pressurized.

“That was close.” Kyle released a slow breath.

Nia slumped back in her seat as the artificial gravity kicked in. “Didn’t

they run any thermal scans of the facility before we went in? It should have

been obvious it wasn’t abandoned.”

“Yeah, someone certainly knew it wasn’t,” Kira replied. “Whatever

information we have, someone wants it very badly.”

“Don’t accidentally drop the drive and smash it to bits,” Ari jested.

“No worries. It’s right up against my boobs—I protect that region at any

cost.” She patted her chest.

Ari cast her a sidelong glance.

Kira narrowed her eyes with playful challenge. “Yes, soldier, that’s

closer than you’ll ever get to them.”

He shrugged. “I will continue my admiration from a respectful distance in

the shower.”

Nia smacked him upside the head.

“What? Yours are nice, too,” Ari added.

Nia exchanged an exasperated eye-roll with Kira and left it at that. It’s

not like the ladies hadn’t done their own comparisons of their male

counterparts—they were just more discreet with their conversations.

Kira activated the auto-pilot. “When we get to the Raven , how about—”

A violent jolt rocked the shuttle.

“The fok?” Nia checked the scan. “Shite, they just fired a missile at us!”

“Where’d that come from?” Kira instinctively activated the stealth mode

and then took over manual control to alter course, hopefully enough to throw

off any other weapons locks. When she’d completed the evasive maneuver,

she consulted the scan data on the holodisplay. Sure enough, a hidden

defensive launch array on the surface was aimed at them.

“They’re nuts to shoot at a Guard ship!” Kyle exclaimed.

Ari frowned. “Or desperate.”

Their shuttle wasn’t large, but it was packed with the Guard’s best tech.

Even with a direct hit, it was unlikely anything the weapons array could send in their direction would do any significant damage—and with the stealth

systems activated, the ship would be invisible. But, that was beside the point.

“How in the stars did MTech get these kind of armaments?” Kira

murmured.

“This might explain it.” Kyle added a holographic overlay over the front

viewport.

Their interstellar Guard ship, the Raven , was in orbit at the spinward

horizon line from their present position, but there was also a new ship, which

hadn’t been there at the time they headed down to the moon for the op. ID

tags marked it as Mysaran military.

“Shuttle 1, proceed to berth immediately,” a familiar voice broke in over

their shuttle’s comm.

“Major Sandren, what—” Kira started to ask.

“You were never on the surface of that moon and this Mysaran cruiser

never saw us,” her commander replied.

Checking the scan again, Kira realized that the Raven ’s stealth was also

active.

“Yes, sir,” she acknowledged. “On our way.” She ended the comm link.

Nia’s brow pinched with concern. “What kind of shitestorm did we just

stumble into?”

Kira shook her head. “I don’t know, but I want answers.”

Operating on auto-pilot for the rest of the short voyage, the shuttle looped

a quarter of the way around the moon before meeting up with the Raven . At

two hundred meters long, it was just large enough for a small crew to not go

crazy if they were cooped up for more than a week or two. A cargo hold

underneath the matte black vessel provided berthing for two pods.

The shuttle directed itself into an open bay door protected by a force

field. As soon as the shuttle was on the deck in its usual slot, the outer hatch

slid closed over the hold’s opening.

Kira rose from her seat at the controls. “I’ll hand over the loot and see

what Sandren knows.”

Ari’s eyes gleamed, his spirits already recovered from their recent

firefight. “While you do that, I have to, uh, file my report with the combat

data.”