Page 30 of True As Steel
“He arrived a couple of hours ago, a good hour sooner than we expected,” Lanish said in a slightly disgruntled tone.
A sliver of amusement surged through me at this display of grumpiness from the Narengi. The massive male had possessed magnificent antlers, proportional to the rest of his frame, and that testified to him being a prime male specimen. However, as they were far too recognizable, he’d had to get them shorn instead of the usual trim Narengi regularly got to maintain them. Although the carver had done a fantastic job, Lanish’s ‘crown’ had effectively been reduced by half. At least, they would grow back to their former glory in a few months.
But back to the more serious topic at hand, Dr. Timmons’ early arrival could either play in our favor or against us, depending on what plans Grellik had in store for the Cyborg. Putting a control chip inside one of us wasn’t that simple. After all, we had been designed to be invulnerable to pretty much any attempt at hacking or taking control of our neural processors. Grellik would first try to woo the Cyborg into joining forces with him. Failing that, he’d start playing hard ball. That would give us time to rescue him first.
“The fact that after a week in their custody—and ten days since his arrival on Xyva—they still want Dr. Timmons to treat him implies the Cyborg likely sustained some serious damage to his implants,” I countered. “The nanobots in his system should have handled all of his non-lethal, physiological injuries. To me, his early arrival is a good sign.”
“Good sign or not, we’ll find out soon enough,” Yelena interrupted while beginning her descent towards the spaceport. “We’re arriving in ten minutes. Everyone look alive and remember your part. Jarog, time for you to go.”
I cast a glance at Tamryn. She eyed me with a focus and determination that spoke of experience facing danger, and revealed the signs of pre-battle adrenalin beginning to course through her veins. We exchanged a smile, and an unspoken communication passed between us. I couldn’t have put it into words had I tried to, not that it mattered. I’d never been to battle with her, and yet, I implicitly trusted her to have my back.
Illogical…
Fighting the urge to kiss Tamryn, I rose to my feet and headed to the back of the ship. She followed me in silence. I sat on top of the speeder brought specifically for me while she opened the door of the hold.
“See you soon,” Tamryn said.
I winked at her, activated the stealth shield, then shot forward out of the shuttle. I allowed my transport to freefall for a few seconds before activating the jetpack that allowed me to transition into a smooth descent near the ground. I looked at the shuttle, already turning into a small dot in the distance as I raced to catch up.
Any minute now, the spaceport controller would hail them to enquire about their purpose in Tarkis before directing them to one of the shuttle bays. As much as I would have loved to have remained with them, the basic scan my three companions would be subjected to while going through the spaceport control would have revealed that my skeleton was covered in a hyperalloy. Even though many mercs had gotten various cybernetic implants and enhancements over the years, none rivaled what I had in me. They would have automatically known what I was.
Unlike Satos, which was much smaller and fully contained within defensive walls, Tarkis had grown much too big and sat open on many fronts. You could just walk right in. Granted, the surveillance system saw you coming quite a ways away—one kilometer further in than where Yelena had dropped me—but that one wasn’t as thorough as the one in the spaceport. I deactivated my stealth shield before crossing that line and raced to one of the more weakly defended spots, but not the weakest.
By the time I reached my destination, my teammates should already have disembarked, cleared controls, and begun releasing the airborne activating agent that would set the gazers in a frenzy. They would proliferate at an exponential rate over a couple of hours, at which point their concentrated presence would start setting off alarms in various sectors of the spaceport, eventually forcing an evacuation, and causing chaos.
As I closed in on the city, I spotted a drone in the distance headed in my direction. Keeping a calm demeanor, an easy task since my transformation, I continued gliding just above the ground at high speed. The drone lowered to my eye-level without interfering with my ability to see where I was going and adjusting its speed to mine.
I casually retrieved the forged ID Lanish had provided me with and held it up for the drone’s camera without even looking in its direction. It had already scanned me for weapons and found none. Open carry of lower-range caliber weapons was allowed in every merc city—outside specific establishments. But as I wouldn’t be allowed inside the lab with them, bringing any would have been pointless.
Evidently satisfied, the drone flew back up, shifting its attention towards another newcomer arriving in the distance.
Tarkis embodied everything people both loved and hated about mercenary cities. A plethora of shops and stalls peddling stolen or illegal goods lined every street. Two massive junkyards framed the city, which crawled with every possible type of character. Between the shady merchants, clever patrons looking for good deals, criminals on the run trying to blend in, and the con artists hunting for easy prey, lurked the quiet elite, the true predators whose business you preferred to know nothing about.
Judging by the way people were giving me a wide berth as soon as I pulled into a parking lot, they had accurately guessed that I belonged in that last category—a really bad thing under the current circumstance. I forced myself to display a more casual expression on my face as I made my way to the rendezvous point. Picturing Tamryn’s face helped me soften.
As I turned the corner into the main street, I spotted Miko. He exuberantly waved at me with a big grin, as one would when finally meeting up with the friend you were going to party with. I did my best impersonation of enthusiasm as I closed the distance with him. The whole time, my eyes were noticing and analyzing everything and everyone around us, looking for the slightest sign the Fereins were on to us.
So far, so good.
He handed me a small package that contained doronium crystals. Or rather, what looked like them and would fool any scanner into believing they were. They were in fact zomoran crystals. Once attached to any weapon, they would multiply the damage output tenfold.
“Tamara has cleared security,” Miko said, using Tamryn’s fake identity. “She’s dropping something on the way, and then she’ll meet us at Bantas.”
“Let’s head over there then,” I replied.
We were saying those words in case anyone was eavesdropping on us, which I highly doubted. However, better safe than sorry. We hurried to the famous Tarkis pub where many a deal had been concluded. Miko and I settled on the small terrace outside, in the front row seat for the show that would follow shortly.
Seven minutes later, Tamryn’s sexy silhouette turned the corner as she strutted her way towards us, with a good ten to fifteen minutes to spare before our target would drive by. As much as I would have preferred a brutal breaking and entering, we needed to be stealthy about this mission.
Tamryn sat next to me, and we flagged the waiter to bring her a light alcoholic drink, just like ours. This early in the day, it wouldn’t raise any suspicion because patrons rarely went for the strong stuff since they wanted a clear head to negotiate all remaining business.
“Target incoming,” Shalla’s voice suddenly said in my earpiece. “I’m on my way. ETA one minute ten seconds.”
A glance at the others confirmed they too had received her communication. We continued to chat away nonchalantly, our every sense on high alert. Thirty seconds later, the transport vehicle pulled into our street. At the other end, Shalla also popped up, racing down the road in the opposite direction. With perfect timing, she set off the electric spark on her speeder, sending it into a tailspin before it crashed against the transport vehicle. The latter had abruptly stopped, slightly veering right to attempt to avoid the collision in vain.
As one, my companions and I jumped out of our seats, rushing towards the scene while the driver hurried out of his vehicle. He reached Shalla’s side, who was curled up on the ground moments before Miko caught up with them. Tamryn and I circled around the truck, her hand casually leaning on it to place the tracking tag while I went to recover the speeder that had slid a short distance away.
“Are you all right?” the driver exclaimed, crouching next to Shalla.