An Ancient Peace Read Free

could breathe, cracked ribs topside. Then, avoiding the spreading puddle of vomit, she got out the zip-ties.
    A few moments later, after elevating Dipshit’s leg on Bearded Guard’s hip, they ran side by side up the tunnel, the extra gun slung across Torin’s back and the knife filling the empty sheath in Mashona’s boot. Retracing Torin’s approach, they passed the first guard. She’d regained consciousness . . .
    â€œYou going to let her say that about your mother, Gunny?”
    â€œI thought she was talking about your mother, Mashona.” . . . went through a hatch and up a level, boots ringing against metal treads. As they reached the top of the stairs, the upper hatch flew open and they came face-to-face with one of Varga’s men heading down.
    The anarchy symbol tattooed on his forehead dipped in and out of his frown, deep purple against the kind of pale, pink skin that could only have come from time spent behind insufficient shielding. His gaze locked on their weapons, not their faces. “What the hell . . . ?”
    â€œBig hatch is jammed,” Torin yelled without slowing. “We need the tools from the mechanic’s locker.”
    â€œBut that’s empty.”
    â€œLet’s hope not!”
    As he turned to lead the way, Torin took him down and held him as Mashona applied the zip-ties.
    â€œOkay,
that . . .
” She crossed his wrists and yanked the tie tight. “ . . . was definitely about your mother.”
    â€œNext time, we bring gags.” Torin led the way topside, guarding Mashona’s back as she dogged the hatch shut behind them. Varga’s increasingly hysterical orders blasted out of speakers at both ends of the corridor, the actual content lost under the fight going on in the background. “If I had to guess, I’d say Craig . . .”
    Binti was Mashona on the job. Craig was always Craig. But then Craig hadn’t been Corps.
    â€œ. . . hasn’t found the override for the inter . . .”
    Silence.
    Broken by a snicker.
    Torin shrugged. “Never mind.” She could see the door to the control room and could hear . . . Boots. Pounding up metal stairs.
    There were two open hatches between them and the control room and two beyond. With Varga quieted, the sound of the boots bounced off multiple hard surfaces, their source impossible to pinpoint.
    The first hatch they passed had rusted open.
    â€œWe’re in sealed tunnels under the desiccated surface of the dark side of an uninhabitable moon. How the hell is there enough moisture for all this rust?” Mashona snarled, misstepped, and lengthened her stride to catch up. “Gunny, that sounds like . . .”
    â€œLike a benny charging.” The bennies, BN-4s, were tight-band lasers that also contained a molecular disruption charge and, although they were susceptible to enemy EMPs while the KC-7s were not, they were a Marine’s weapon of choice in places where a projectile weapon would be a bad idea. Places like stations and ships, where smart people thought twice about blowing a hole into vacuum. Or rock tunnels where ricochets were a given if the round fired didn’t immediately hit a soft target. Given the presence of black-market KC-7s, it came as no surprise that Human’s First had gotten hold of at least one benny. Torin tongued her implant and didn’t bother subvocalizing. “Craig, we’re five meters out. We’re coming in hot.”
    The control room hatch unlocked as they reached it.
    Mashona shouldered it open and Torin stepped through on her heels, slamming it behind them. Her hand still on the metal, she felt the buzz of an MDC impact. And then another, and another. “Idiot.”
    â€œOh, yeah, and you’re so smart. You’re locked in here now, too.”
    Torin turned her head to see a young woman in her mid-twenties