Fort Liberty, Volume Two Read Free

tech, R&D from before the mother world’s descent into chaos. It was only later she learned he was sending men to their deaths to get it, forcing them to scrape around old military research centers, areas so contaminated that a fifteen minute visit will make the lungs bleed.
    She sucks in a pained breath. “What do you want?”
    “I need a favor.”
    “ Favor. ”
    “I want to you to use that secure link you’ve got, and call that Assaulter friend of yours, Colonel Voss. Tell him you’re a hostage now, and can be exchanged for that girl they got.”
    “What?”
    “I brought sixty men across big sky with me for this job, all of them experienced Assaulter hunters from Earth ghettos, finest in my employ. We need that girl. You know the one.”
    Petra stares at him, lips parted but unable to reply.
    He grins, like the charming psychopath he is. “My powerful friend wants the girl dead before her big scientific debut, which means we’ve got to hit them today. Voss has been ordered to take the girl down-canyon to the BIOSTAT station for indoctrination, and we’re going to hit them hard when they get there… liquidate that whole place. My friend gave us backdoor codes, and we’re already into the BIOSTAT system, already shutting down comms like they’re errors, nice and subtle, already fucking with them. We’ll fly right past the defenses, no problem, but Assaulters could still manually fire a rocket at us from the hangar, or try to take us out before we can land… which is why we got you.”
    “Voss doesn’t care about me.”
    “He cared enough to give you a secure comm link.”
    “Wants to track me. Doesn’t mean he’d die for me.”
    “Who says he intends to? When he finds out we’ve got you, he’ll let us land, thinking he’s going to kill us all, and surprise… there're enough men and firepower on this vessel to vaporize half of Red Filter. He can surrender, or die.”
    “He’s not going to let you land.”
    “Depends on how convincing you are,” Kazak says, leaning forward and spreading his fingers in the light, as if it’s a magic trick. “And we both know you’re plenty convincing when you want to be. I’ve heard that the only reason you’re free, and alive now, is because you caught the colonel’s eye. Pretty Petra, eh? Just like old times. Men would give you anything, and count themselves lucky if they lived to tell about it. So what’s different now? There’s good profit in this venture, I promise you. You’re a good trader. One of the best. You get us into that facility, and you’ll never have to work again. Now’s the time to name your price.”
    “You don’t know Voss.”
    “Oh, I know enough. You know how we kill Assaulters on Earth? We just capture one of them. The rest of them will all die to save that one, a member of the team. Works every time. They’re surprisingly sentimental.”
    “I’m no Assaulter, no member of any team.”
    “He likes you though.”
    “So?”
    “So… you can convince him. We connect, and you tell him that we’ll exchange you for Niri---like that’s all there is to it---and you beg him to save you, tell him you need help. He’ll believe it. I mean, look at you… full of shrapnel. You’ll die soon without someone’s help. You’d die now if I loosened that tourniquet. Assaulters would never turn their backs on such as you, even if President Wexler ordered them to. It can’t fail.”
    “Can’t it?” she asks, mouth parched, tongue like sandpaper.
    “C’mon, don’t play coy. My powerful friend has doubts about you, suspects you’re loyal to Voss, but I said ‘no, that’s not her’. It’s all about price. Don’t waste time pretending it’s not, because there’s a lot of blood here, and maybe you haven’t got much time left. Help us out, and we’ll make you rich, and we’ll get you the med care you need… right after the connection’s made.”
    “Your powerful friend’s going to give me a contract too?”
    He smiles