Havoc (Dred Chronicles 2)

“You didn’t have to come with me,” he said quietly.

“Of course I did. You’re my man, yeah?”

“Am I?” A few bed games didn’t constitute a commitment.

“I’m not having this conversation with you now, Tameron. Watch ahead.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Despite the tension locking his spine, he stifled a smile. With caution and stealth, he skirted the danger zones and guided them to the power conduit that kept the force field up. While the mercs had the code to shut this down when it came time to leave, they probably hadn’t considered that somebody could circumvent the security and go after their ship.

“Is there any way we can just steal this and take off?” Martine asked.

“It’s late to be asking, isn’t it? I thought you had background in this sort of thing.”

“Not ships.” She seemed to read a question in his eyes though he hadn’t been aware of one. “Jewels, paintings, sculpture. On New Terra, I pilfered pretty, expensive things. That’s probably why I’m drawn to you.”

He raised a brow. “You think I’m pretty and expensive?”

“Aren’t you? That accent doesn’t come from the streets.”

She’s too clever by half.

Tam turned to study the ship through the force field. He couldn’t start the transport without the piloting codes, and the system would be too sophisticated for anyone to hack without special gear. Plus, there was the additional problem of needing override codes to open the bay doors. Otherwise, he’d have led the others here, and they could’ve hopped aboard, leaving the mercs stranded. Tam regretted the impossibility of that scenario because it would be such poetic justice. Hoist with their own petard, as they say.

“If Katur was right, I should be able to interrupt the field protecting the transport bay by shorting this out.”

As the alien had said, this was definitely a design flaw, as some of the fields could be powered down by localized power outages. It was a temporary solution, obviously, as he had to be fast, darting in before the backup engaged. But a few seconds should be all they needed.

“Wait here,” he said to Martine. “And be ready to move when the force field flickers.”

Bracing himself, he opened the box and yanked out a handful of wires. No finesse, and the resultant shock blew him backward. He slammed into the wall and shook his head to clear it, seeing only blurry movement. He had no sense of whether Martine was safe, but his heart pounded in his ears. Tam stumbled toward the force field. If she was too slow, it could’ve hurt her. But Martine danced in triumph on the other side of the amber light, arms in the air. Then she curtailed her celebration to power the field down for him to pass through.

“I took a quick look at the ship . . . and I can’t even get inside.”

Tam smiled. “I don’t need to.”

He scrambled underneath the transport and went to work on the wiring. It didn’t take long to frag up certain functions, so that when the mercs started the vessel, all power would be immediately routed to the engines, causing an instant and critical overload. Tam wished he could be here to see the results of his handiwork. Between the grimspace drive and fuel in the tanks, the explosion should take out the whole bay.

“That’s impressive,” Martine said, as he crawled from beneath the ship.

“Thanks. Now let’s find the force-field codes, so we can activate it from the outside.”

She stretched out a hand and pulled him to his feet. “Agreed. If we cover our tracks well enough, they’ll never see this coming.”

* * *

“THIS is bullshit, Vost.”

Casto was asking for a beatdown. He had been insufferable since the attack on what some monster had told him was called Queensland, and he hadn’t gotten better after they failed to acquire more Peacemakers. When the Conglomerate sealed this place up, they did so fairly tightly, and the prisoners had already stolen everything that was readily available. He’d spent hours trying to work around the corrupted overrides, but they kept changing before his limited equipment could solve the problem. Other assets offered potential acquisitions, but it would take time, and Casto had the patience of a brain-damaged kid.

“We’re getting nothing accomplished here,” his lieutenant said. “We could spend half a turn crawling over this place and not stamp out all the maggots.”

While he was an ass**le, he wasn’t wrong. There were too many decks and levels, too many bolt-holes. When they’d hit Queensland, half the populace disappeared. Oh, they’d gotten a good number of them. The stink of blood and shit from dying men was ingrained on his brain, so he knew when he’d led a successful strike.

You didn’t lead it. You butchered them with a Peacemaker.

He’d been a merc long enough to recognize that there was no such thing as honor in combat. You iced your targets, and you went home. End of story. But that fight had been one-sided enough to send a pang of regret through him. Their leadership had shown enough craft and cunning to make him feel like they were worthy opponents, regardless of crimes committed. It was an odd fragging situation, to be sure.

“Here’s what I propose,” Casto went on. “You stay here with Duran and Redmond. I’ll take the rest of the men to mop up those skin-eaters. I don’t think there are more than fifty of them left. We can handle it.”

Vost shook his head. “We’re not splitting our forces. I’ll go with you.”

“With all due respect, Commander, the last time we all went out, the scum crawled up our asses and stole our shit. We need you here to guard what’s left . . . or we’ll come back to an empty command post.”

Starvation was a real danger. They’d packed enough paste for a three-month campaign, but prisoners had stolen it in the robbery, along with other critical equipment. Vost tapped a hand angrily against his thigh. Sometimes it felt like no decision was the right one.

“I don’t like it, but you have a point.”

Casto saluted. “I’ll be back as soon as I’ve wiped out the mooks.”

Once the men rolled out, Redmond strolled up. “You sure about this, boss? I wouldn’t trust him to wipe his own ass.”

“Then you should’ve taken the promotion when I offered it to you.” Vost would’ve preferred Redmond because the man was solid, but he was also lazy as shit.

The other man snorted. “Like that’ll ever happen.”