Final Break: A Space Opera Adventure (Shades of Starlight Book 4), page 22
Maybe Jules was wrong, and the bomb wasn’t here.
The problems of too little air and too much water remained.
When he reached the elevator shaft, the car wasn’t in place in the clear tube, but the chamber was intact. He inspected the area to make sure these doors weren’t rigged too, before overriding the panel and opening them. He stepped inside. The sides were smooth, which meant no climbing, and he doubted anyone in the room had hoverboots.
He spun. And froze.
Above the door, inside the chamber, he spotted a very bad-looking device.
He grabbed his comm again. “Jules? I found it.”
“I have bad news, too. The room’s control system has been completely destroyed. It would take me a full day to fix this. And I estimate you have an hour of air.”
“Right. So I have to disarm the bomb before I pass out or drown.”
“Drown?”
“Things are getting a bit worse here.”
“Shades. What happened?”
“Leak. But that doesn’t matter yet. What about the bomb?”
“Alexei.” Jules’s voice was full of so much sorrow, his heart clenched.
They didn’t have time for the luxury of sympathy. Focus. “I can handle it. We use explosives in mining. You’ll walk me through every step of disarming it, okay? Make sure I do a good job.”
Possibly someone else in here knew more than he did, but he knew enough, and there was no way in the galaxy Alexei was telling everyone about this.
Already, people were arguing with the soldiers, while others inspected the room as if a secret escape door had been hiding all this time. Some were sitting bent over, others recording messages, at least one crying. A soldier crouched next to a woman who had either fainted or had a panic attack. A few people argued loudly.
“Shoot a hole in the wall,” one said. “And we’ll swim out.”
“Don’t be an idiot. The room would flood. The water would crush us.”
“And not all of us can swim,” said another.
“Plus the pressure. Our bodies aren’t adjusted because the building keeps us safe.”
“We could try to climb the elevator shaft.”
Shades.
Several people turned Alexei’s direction.
“What are you doing?”
“Is he leaving without us?”
“Can we get out that way?”
The voices overlapped as a group moved toward Alexei.
“Stay back,” he said. “There’s no car.”
Of course, Rodge was the first one to push past him into the chamber.
“Shades, is that—?”
“Yes. We need to keep them away.” Alexei kept his voice low.
The man looked at Alexei. “Okay.”
Okay?
Rodge stepped toward the others. “The kid’s right. There’s no car. We’ll see if we can summon it, if everyone will give us room.”
What was happening?
People grumbled but did as asked. When Rodge faced Alexei, the man asked, “What do you need?”
Alexei moved directly under the bomb, ignoring the wet pants clinging to his legs now that the water reached his calves. A cylinder a little larger than a loaf of Neridian barley bread, with multiple wires coming out of it, stared back at him.
He was going to need a chair to reach it.
“Something to stand on. And someone to hold a camera.”
“I’ll do it.”
While his new ally grabbed a chair, Alexei called Jules. “I’m ready. I’ll send you live video. Tell me where to start.”
Rodge held a comp-pad and transmitted to Jules while Alexei climbed onto the chair, putting the bomb directly at eye-level. He’d faced danger plenty of times, but never had it stared him in the face so directly.
“Okay,” she said. “Remove that panel on the front.”
He inhaled slowly and wiped his hands dry on his shirt before carefully detaching the panel to reveal parts and wires inside. Jules narrated calmly, instructing him to locate the power source and the initiator. In the mines, he’d used dangerous equipment every day, where one wrong move could endanger him and his entire crew. This was no different.
As long as he didn’t think about the fate of the galaxy.
Heart pounding in his ears, he followed Jules’s instructions. A slight tremor shook his hands. Water was lapping at his feet, though he stood on a chair. A crowd had gathered, and though none entered the chamber to see the bomb, he wondered how many suspected he wasn’t simply trying to summon a car to carry them away.
Finley joined them, offering to film anyone who wanted to talk.
Alexei ignored the questions and suggestions, letting Rodge tell them to stop talking as the man held the camera and kept the chair steady. The water reached Alexei’s shins and Rodge’s waist.
“Next you need to remove the three wires,” Jules said. “Very carefully.”
She kept her voice neutral, but he knew enough to know that if he slipped, boom, and she was underplaying the danger to keep him calm.
He set his jaw.
Even if he disarmed the device, they still faced the issue of rising water—and air. How much of Jules’s hour had passed?
Doesn’t matter. Focus.
A person outside in the water startled him. The figure wore the armor of Cobalt soldiers. Through the mask that sealed the person’s head, he recognized Micah.
Finley placed her hand on the glass on the inside, and Micah did the same opposite her.
“Jules?” Alexei said. “A Cobalt soldier is in the water outside.”
“Tai sent him to check the exterior. He said the tunnel is lost. He hasn’t found anything else.”
“What about the elevator car?”
“I’ll have him check.”
A few seconds later, Micah saluted Alexei and darted toward the surface.
Back to the wires. Gritting his teeth to keep his hands steady, he eased them out one at a time, muscles clenched as if he could contain a blast through sheer willpower.
When all three wires were free, he flexed his hands and blew out his breath. “Now what?”
“See that pin on the right?” Jules asked. “Remove it slowly, and that should do it.”
“Okay.” He drew a ragged breath. “This is it. I’m either about to deactivate the bomb entirely or make it blow up. If it doesn’t work—”
“It will work,” Jules said.
“Now who’s the optimist?”
“It’s not optimism. It’s good engineering and knowing I’m right.”
He chuckled softly. “And trusting my skills?”
“Exactly.”
“All right.” He nodded at Rodge, who returned the gesture. “Here goes nothing.”
He reached for the pin.
23
Jules held her breath and clenched her fists. Despite her confident words, and though she was nearly certain they’d done this right, there was a slight chance she’d missed something.
She waited. Exchanged tense looks with Reina, Perrin, and Tai, who also sat in the operations room.
No loud noise filled the comm. She swallowed.
“Alexei?” she asked.
“I think it worked,” he said. “How do I know?”
She exhaled hard. “The fact you’re talking to me is a good sign. The red light?”
“Gone.”
She sagged in her seat. “You’re good, then. Good work.”
Around her, the others relaxed, too.
Alexei let out a shaky laugh. “Let’s never do that again. Now how about the slight problem of water that’s up to my chest? Don’t suppose you can teach me how to swim in five minutes?”
She straightened again. “Micah checked the lift. The car was disabled, but the shaft is our only option.”
“He says they can get you out,” Tai relayed. “The Cobalt soldiers have jetpacks and can carry people up. They have to remove the car to clear the way, but go ahead and have everyone form a line.”
Jules heard splashing and Alexei’s voice, relaying the orders.
“I am never going underwater again,” he said.
Jules laughed, too loudly. “How deep is it? We’ll tell Micah and the others to hurry.”
“Let’s just say we’ll be sending the shortest people up first.”
“And you’ll wait for last, even though you can’t swim?” she asked. “Don’t bother answering. I know you. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Got her,” Reina said from across the comm room.
Jules spun. “Who?”
“Our saboteur. An engineer for Perrin. I’ve been looking at everyone with the skills to build the bomb, and she was the only one unaccounted for.”
Tai leaped to his feet.
“Nissi?” Perrin asked. “On the ship that just arrived? How many more employees do I have who are working for the bad guys?”
Tai squeezed her hand. “We’ll get you espionage training when this is over.”
She punched his arm.
“She’s good,” Reina said. “But she missed the external cameras. I located her, outside, heading for the boats.”
Tai and Perrin raced to the door, and Jules scrambled after them.
“Alexei, I gotta go. You’ll be fine now.”
“Be careful,” he said.
Jules ran after the others, into the lobby, and out the front doors.
Dark gray clouds hung low in the sky, and the wind was whipping the palm trees horizontal. Rain slanted in sideways sheets, peppering her face. They skidded down the paved walk and onto the beach. The sand was a wet, sludgy mess. Ahead, the dock with surface boats waited.
Sand exploded in front of them.
Before Jules registered what happened, Tai was pressing her to the ground. Wet sand clung to her face. He tugged her hand, and the three of them scrambled behind a clear, round shelter made of plastic.
Tai and Perrin drew weapons. More stunner shots flashed, as someone on the beach fired toward them and Tai and Perrin returned fire. Eerie glows lit the stormy darkness. The attacker’s shots glanced harmlessly off the shelter. They came from behind one of the thatched huts. Perrin hit it repeatedly, her aim impressive.
Tai motioned to Perrin, gestures Jules didn’t understand. But Perrin nodded, and started firing constantly. Tai made a dash for a nearby tree.
When he reached it, Perrin said, “Stay here.”
Then she darted off, too, toward small, personal boats lined up in the sand, out of reach of the roaring waves. Tai fired a barrage of blasts. Sand exploded in Perrin’s path, but she didn’t slow until she’d thrown herself behind the boats and taken cover, laying on her stomach.
Jules was thoroughly drenched, keeping her head down, hands and knees coated in sand as she crouched behind the shelter. The wind whipped at her hair.
More blasts flashed, and then a figure raced away, zigzagging through the sand. Perrin stood and took aim. The figure rolled, leaped to her feet, and jumped into a boat.
An engine revved, barely audible over the roaring wind, and the boat took off, kicking up a trail of spray in its wake.
Perrin and Tai raced after her, so Jules scrambled to her feet and followed, stumbling in the thick sand, then splashing through shallow water as Tai started a second boat. Perrin extended a hand and tugged Jules aboard.
Tai zoomed after the first craft.
Rain pelted her face as they raced across the water, the boat bumpier than a ship in a wormhole as it crested the waves. The boats were fast, and the woman they chased steered around the small islands. Tai had to follow her path so he didn’t ground them on a sandbar. Their target had ceased firing, but Perrin kept her stunner ready, occasionally trying to take aim before they whipped into another curve and she lost her shot.
The woman was steering toward an island where a spaceship had landed. The water was free of smaller islands now, just dark blue capped with frothy white where the wind whipped the surface. It was a straight-up race, and the woman was ahead. Perrin stood, bracing one hand on Tai’s shoulder, raising her stunner with the other.
“Keep us steady,” she called over the roaring wind.
“Yeah, I’ll tell the ocean to stop moving,” Tai replied.
Perrin laughed and aimed. A flash sailed from her weapon.
It hit the woman square in the back. She slumped in the boat and went still. The craft veered sideways. Tai steered them alongside it, their boat jolting as he bumped it.
“I got it,” Perrin called.
She leaped into the other boat and grabbed the steering wheel. The craft slowed, and Tai slowed theirs alongside it. Perrin and Tai cheered.
“She’s unconscious,” Perrin called. “Let’s get her back and talk to her.”
Tai moved aside. “Can you drive this one? In case she wakes up?”
“What? Oh, sure.” Jules took Tai’s position at the wheel, and he jumped to the other boat with Perrin, keeping a weapon pointed at the motionless prisoner.
Jules followed Perrin to shore, spray and rain spattering her face. Her heart roared louder than the wind. Dark clouds glared at them from above.
She’d seen enough to confirm that the woman they’d captured was indeed Nissi, another of Perrin’s engineers. Jules had so many questions.
She knew it was selfish, but the one that kept pushing to the foreground was, did Nissi know Jules had betrayed the Obsidian Force, and had she told anyone?
When they reached the dock, Tai slung the unconscious woman over his shoulder, and they trudged to the main building, dripping water and wet sand on the lobby floor.
Jules trailed the others to the room where they’d questioned Hendrik and stood, shivering and wet, as Tai tied the woman to a chair.
“Now what?” Jules stared at the woman. They hadn’t spoken often, but she’d seen the woman around Modicium, where the shipping company was based.
“I’ll question her, but I doubt I’ll get much,” Tai said. “You might have better luck.”
Jules scoffed. “I’m no interrogator.”
“Yeah, but you two have lots in common. See if you can get her talking about why she joined the Obsidian Force.”
This was going to be pointless, but Jules supposed she could try. “She knows what I did here, though. She’ll see me as a traitor to the Obsidian Force. You think she’ll trust me?”
“Doesn’t hurt to try.”
Jules shivered, brushed sand from her hands, and used her wet shirt to unsuccessfully wipe water off her face as Tai injected the woman with a drug to wake her then slipped out of the room.
Jules had come very close to being in Nissi’s position. What had led the woman to the Obsidian Force? She was about Chayanna’s age, with pink hair Jules had a sudden longing to copy, and a tool belt she was itching to steal.
The woman blinked awake, eyes slowly coming into focus on Jules.
“Jules Carver,” the woman said. “Engineer on the Star Chaser. From Abernath. You were supposed to be my contact. My backup.”
Here went nothing. “Nissi Ryder. Engineer on the Cruiser. Successfully hid your allegiance to the Obsidian Force. For how long? It was a year for me. Every job I did, I was worried about my crew finding out. I thought I was the only one.”
“That’s how they like it.” The woman briefly tested her bonds, but her tone remained conversational. “I didn’t know about you until this mission. I hear you’ve done good work.”
“Then you know more about me than I do about you. I was your contact here? Not Hendrik?”
“He was a tool, nothing more.”
Good to know Tai had been right. Hendrik was safe, and hopefully his daughter would be soon, as well.
If the woman was scared of what Jules and the empires might do to a captured terrorist, or scared of what the revolutionaries would do to her if they learned her mission had failed, she showed no signs of it. Her chin remained lifted, her gaze direct.
“Why did you join them?” Jules asked. “For me, it was lack of resources. Then black fever that killed my cousin. We were all so mad at the Republic.” She didn’t think this woman’s crew was involved in the smuggling operations Perrin did, so she should stay quiet about that. “My cousin connected me. I assume from that bomb that you did sabotage jobs, too? You assembled it quickly. I’m impressed.”
The compliment didn’t make Nissi blink. “What made you turn on us?”
Jules’s stomach churned. If the woman knew, had she been able to send a message? “Did you ever do a job that hurt people you didn’t mean to? I started working with the Obsidian Force to help, not to make things worse. And when those files were released? Kidnapping, working with pirates? That’s not the kind of galaxy I wanted to help make.”
Nissi scoffed. “So you wanted to help when it was easy. You can’t walk away from them. When they find out, and they will, it won’t go well for you.”
“I’ve accepted that.” Or, she was working on it. “I got a second chance, and I didn’t want to waste it. There might be consequences for what I did in the past, but going forward, I want to be on the right side.”
“Good luck with that. These talks are doomed. Even if they reach an agreement, the Obsidian Force has ships, supporters, resources everywhere.”
“You might be right about the talks. But isn’t it worth giving them a chance?”
Now she sounded like Alexei. If he heard Jules repeating his arguments, she’d never live it down.
The woman snorted and didn’t answer.
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me where those Obsidian Force ships and supporters are?” Jules asked.
“When I pick a side, I stay loyal.”
“Loyalty is a great trait,” Jules said. “But so is being able to think for yourself and admit when that loyalty was misplaced.”
“Nice try, kid. I’m not saying anything.”
“Would you rather talk to my friend? I don’t know what exactly he’s trained in, but based on his other skills, I’m guessing interrogation techniques is one of them.”
“I’m not scared of you or your friends. You’re going to lose. The Obsidian Force is the only way to bring true change. The time for talking is over. Are we done here?” Nissi shifter her bored expression to the wall.
