Keep talking. My brain caught the signal before I even realized who it was from. Ian was nearby.
“And you all can kiss your jobs good-bye, too,” I said, my voice rising. “Who attacks a MineCorp representative? Don’t you know who I am? That bitch who stunned and kicked me is first in line for firing. She should be happy that I don’t demand her head. Release me this instant!”
The soldier holding my arm released me and everyone else laughed, but it had a tinge of uneasiness. Command might’ve said I was a fake, but my tone and accent said I was high class. I just needed to sow enough doubt to keep them distracted.
Keep talking and don’t move.
I mentally rolled my eyes. Like I was going anywhere. I launched into another tirade. “I’m going to demand that MineCorp immediately revoke all House Rockhurst contracts. You clearly cannot be trusted—”
The heat of a blaster bolt seared my left side. The soldier who had grabbed me dropped to the ground. The other soldiers in the hallway soon followed. Only two had managed to get shots off.
“Time to go, princess,” Ian said, stepping out of the shadows.
My whole body sagged in relief. “Can you find the key to the cuffs?”
“No need.” Ian popped the plastech cuffs open with his bare hands, which should have been impossible. I was beginning to think the word didn’t apply to Ian. But when he touched my wounded arm, his grip was gentle.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Is Ferdinand? Where is Ferdinand?” I looked Ian over, checking for injuries. He didn’t have any obvious wounds, but his shirt was soaked with sweat—what do you know, he was human after all.
“We’re both fine. Ferdinand is a little way back. Thanks to your virus, we’re going to have to go up the stairs. Can you do it?”
“Yes,” I said. “Can you? How did you get up here so fast?”
His grin was sin and temptation. “Stamina.”
A frisson of heat wove through me. “I see your ego didn’t take any damage,” I said with a laugh. “Go get my brother while I find my stuff.”
I retrieved my stuff from the soldier who had searched me. Thanks to the smart glasses I could see the gate to the elevators in the distance. I kept an eye on it, but nothing moved. Based on the number of soldiers here, this was the sum total of everyone they’d sent down.
Ian returned with Ferdinand draped over his shoulders.
“Think they’ll send a squad down the stairs?” I asked.
Ian shrugged. “Maybe. It seems like your virus is causing enough chaos that they’ll try to deal with that first, though. Have you heard anything from Aoife?”
“No. Coms are down. I only heard you because you were close.”
“Do you have a plan for once we reach the base level?”
“Keep climbing,” I said. “If the ship is still there, we take that. If not, we steal something.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
Ian set a grueling pace and I kept up out of sheer stubbornness. When I slowed, he took my hand and pulled me up a few floors until I recovered a little. He hadn’t been joking—his stamina seemed inexhaustible.
When he stopped a floor below the top, I nearly collapsed in gratitude. My lungs burned, my stomach burned, my legs burned. Everything burned. Now that we’d stopped, my legs trembled uncontrollably.
“This is the base level,” he said. “We’ll have to change stairwells to climb to the surface.”
I listened for signals, but the coms were still down. “I don’t know what’s happening up there,” I said. “There could be a platoon of soldiers waiting for us for all I know.”
“Your optimism knows no bounds,” Ian said drily.
I shrugged. “I’m too tired for optimism.”
“Activate your cuff,” Ian said. “We’ll run for the stairs, then run for the ship.”
“What if they left already?”
“Then we’ll improvise. Don’t borrow trouble.”
I nodded and activated my cuff. I promised myself that once this was done, I’d spend a week on the pink sandy beaches of GCD One doing nothing more difficult than sipping a fruity drink with a tiny umbrella in it.
We climbed the last floor to the base level. The codebreaker made short work of the door at the top of the stairwell and the door leading into the main part of the base.
“I’ll cover you while you open the stairwell door to the surface,” Ian said. “It’s just past the elevator.”
I nodded and we lunged into the main hallway. Ian shot the guard at the gate, but more soldiers milled in the hallway beyond. I attached the codebreaker while he laid down suppressing fire.
The door popped open. “Now!” I shouted. We dashed up the stairs. This stairwell was blissfully short compared to the one from the mine, but soldiers streamed in below us, shooting both bolts and stun rounds.
We surprised a quartet of soldiers in the hangar. I shot one and Ian shot three. Outside, Opportunity was in defense mode. Aoife stood on the cargo ramp in combat armor. At least four bodies in spacesuits littered the ground. An atmospheric barrier shimmered over the cargo bay door.
Ian put Ferdinand on his feet. “Bianca, help Ferdinand to the ship. I will be rear guard.” He cut me off before I could protest. “I’ll be right behind you. Remember, the air outside isn’t breathable, so take a deep breath and get moving.”
We didn’t have time to argue, so I slung Ferdinand’s left arm over my shoulder and pulled him into a slow jog that made him grunt with every step. “Deep breath,” I said right before we hit the hangar’s atmospheric barrier.
I sucked in air just as my cuff vibrated and blaster bolts sailed past. The ship was twenty meters out. Ferdinand dragged at me, but I pulled him inexorably forward. My lungs burned with the need to breathe. I gritted my teeth against the instinct.
My cuff vibrated again. I wanted to check on Ian, but if I stopped, I might not start again. Fire burned through my chest. The need to breathe became impossible to ignore. Ten meters.
We crossed into the ship’s shield. Someone had turned off ground protection, so at least we weren’t instantly incinerated.
Five meters.
I blew out some of my precious air, just so my body might think I was breathing and give me a fucking break.
It didn’t work.
Ferdinand coughed and gasped next to me. Aoife stopped shooting long enough to come down the cargo ramp and drag us inside. I wanted to collapse into a coughing fit on the cargo bay floor, but I turned, looking for Ian.
He was still in the hangar, on the ground, surrounded by at least two squads of soldiers, half in helmeted spacesuits.
He’d promised to be right behind me. He’d lied and sacrificed himself. Irrational anger seared away all of my worry and fatigue.
Fuck that noise. He didn’t get to die heroically for me. I was going to explain that to him in great detail using very small words, just as soon as I retrieved his captured ass.
I opened my crate of supplies, looking for my armor, but digging it out wasn’t going to be fast enough. “Aoife, strip. I need your armor. Take Ferdinand and stick to the plan. I’m going after Ian.”
“You can’t,” she said. She reached for the cargo door button.