Page 20 of Alien Mercenary's Wife
He keyed his comm against his jacket. "Eris. We've got company."
"How many?"
"Hard count, at least eighteen. Probably more." He highlighted targets through their shared tactical network, painting hostile signatures in his visual overlay. "This is a coordinated operation. Corporate security, not local law enforcement."
They'd planned for this, but hoping for an easy extraction and preparing for armed resistance were different kettles of hippos... or whatever the human saying was.
"Orders?" Eris asked, though her tone suggested she already knew the answer.
He studied the situation like he had hundreds of times before. The stealth approach was blown—too many watchers, too much coordination. But the backup plan would still work if they moved fast and hit hard enough to create chaos.
"Switch to the alternative approach. Signal Skinny and Red for immediate intervention." He was already moving, flowing through the crowd with predatory grace. "I'm going direct to the target. You take overwatch and start painting hostile positions for the cavalry."
"Copy that. Moving now."
The encrypted channel dissolved into static as Eris shifted to the backup communication network. The familiar shift when talking stopped and killing started washed over him.
He'd spent the past hour thinking like a rescuer, focused on extracting a wounded veteran from corporate hunters. Time to start thinking like what he really was: a predator who'd learned to kill quietly in places no one would find the bodies.
The warehouse district was about to become a very dangerous place for anyone who wasn't Warborne.
He smiled, the expression carrying nothing resembling humor, and began his approach through the maze of industrial debris. Somewhere ahead, a woman who'd served with honor was walking into a trap.
Time to even the odds.
6
Rust and diesel fumes drifted between the containers. A truck rumbled somewhere in the distance, the sound of its engine echoing off the corrugated metal walls around her. Reese moved between the containers with the same caution she would a minefield as the motors of the exo-legs hummed softly against the sides of her knees.
She crouched against the side of a container, keeping herself low as she looked around before moving again. The co-ordinates on the message had brought her to a storage location on the far side of the city’s industrial sector. Industrial buildings blocked sections of her view, their windows flashing with reflected light as she moved between the machinery.
She'd been tracking the surveillance teams following her for twenty minutes now, and the picture they painted wasn't encouraging. Their routes would have looked random to normal people, but Reese easily recognized a pattern when she saw one.
Sheesh,whothe hell did they think they were hunting? Some civilian straight off the streets.
Oh, they were good, she’d give them that. But they weren’t good enough to fool her. The problem was that theyweregood enough to make getting the hell out of here complicated, especially if her legs decided to play silly sods.
She should walk away, disappear into the urban maze of the city, and find another way to survive that didn't involve walking into what was about to become a trap. She should… but that'd just reset the clock, and a day, a week… she’d be back somewhere like this, trying again.
Besides, someone had answered her message. Someone who knew the authentication codes from her unit. She worried her lower lip with her teeth.
Fifty-fifty odds it was genuine help versus another trap. But fifty percent was infinitely better than the zero percent she faced everywhere else.
She checked the time and grimaced. Time to get moving. The co-ordinates from the message led to the big warehouse ahead of her. Sliding out of cover, she approached slowly, carefully, using the industrial debris around her as cover.
She was halfway there when her left hand seized without warning, fingers curling into a claw.
”Fuck it,” she hissed between her teeth at the pain, trying to straighten her fingers with the other hand as she massaged feeling back into them.
The implant was getting worse. It wasn’t just paralysis anymore, but it had evolved into active rebellion...Crap crap crap.She really hoped the message wasn’t a setup. She had to get this donenow.Soon, even the exo-legs wouldn't be enough to keep her mobile.
She was positioning herself to observe the loading dock when movement caught her eye. Without pausing, she slid into the deeper shadows and froze. Someone was following her, and it wasn't any of the surveillance teams she'd been tracking. They were ahead and to the left, not behind her.
This was different. A woman, moving with fluid confidence. She wore civilian clothes chosen for mobility over concealment, but the hood of her jacket was up. Smart move. No way for facial recognition to get a look at her that way.
Reese leaned back, using a pane of glass from an old window leaning against the container opposite to get a better look at her pursuer. Average height, with dark hair, and a bearing that screamed military background, despite the casual clothes. Reese frowned. There was something familiar about the woman’s movement, something that nagged at the edges of her memory.
The woman was closing the distance, but not aggressively.
