[01] Elite: Wanted

[01] Elite: Wanted by Gavin Deas Page B

Book: [01] Elite: Wanted by Gavin Deas Read Free Book Online
Authors: Gavin Deas
Tags: Science-Fiction
his friend hadn’t come back? Then they’d come looking …
    The cameras showed a pair of junkers coming the other way. She had a few seconds, that was all. She flashed Sweet’s card against the nearest door but it didn’t work. Probably kicked off a warning of an unauthorised access attempt somewhere. She looked wildly for a place to hide and darted into another corridor a moment before the junkers came round the corner. There was nowhere to hide there, either. All she could do was press herself against the wall, shocker at the ready, and hope they didn’t look. She could hear them. The junkers were talking, laughing, one of them telling the other some story or other that apparently was hilarious. Ziva stayed perfectly still and quietly prayed that they’d walk on by.
    ‘… And then he gets out this bucket, right, only it’s not just a bucket …’
    Cloaking device. Bloody Jameson again. There was a story – more of a legend – that he’d got his hands on a prototype cloaking device once. She couldn’t remember whether it was supposed to be Thargoid or whether it was some secret corporate military thing.
    ‘… It’s the biggest bucket ever made. You could hide a whole person inside it …’
    And it obviously wasn’t true either, since a hundred years had passed and neither the Federation nor the Empire were flying around in invisible ships. Nor, as far as she knew, were the Thargoids.
    ‘… And he slams it down on the table in front of Christoph, and the look on his face …’
    As far as she knew.
    The junkers passed the end of her corridor, one of them gesticulating wildly, the other laughing with his friend. They didn’t turn and they didn’t look and they didn’t see her. Ziva listened as they walked away. For a while she stayed where she was. Catching her breath. Letting her heartbeat slow. It had seemed like such a clever idea back on the
Myla
. Trick them into bringing her through all their front-line security and then snoop about.
    She set off again.
Snoop about?
She hadn’t thought this through, not properly. If the Syndicate caught her here, they’d kill her. It wouldn’t trouble them much, either.
    A minute later, the cameras spotted someone coming towards her again. A woman on her own, walking quickly – seemingly in a hurry. The choices were better this time. Ziva slipped around an unlit corner and watched the woman rush past.
    Close to the data cores now. Fuck knew what security they’d have on the cores themselves. She turned a corner and a door opened right beside her and she almost collided with another uniformed steroid-junker. He stared at her and started to open his mouth … Speed. That was always her edge. She snap-kicked him between the legs and whatever he’d been about to say died in a whimper. As he doubled over, she grabbed his hair with one hand, pulled his head down further and slammed the heel of her other hand onto the nape of the junker’s neck. He dropped and didn’t get up.
    Cameras. Check the cameras. But the corridors around her were clear for now. She crouched and checked the junker’s pulse. Still alive, which was something. Whether he’d walk again without some expensive nerve surgery was another matter. That was the trouble with junkers – you never knew quite how hard you had to hit them to take them down. If she hadn’t almost walked into him, she could have used the shocker …
    The camera behind her flashed a warning. Two men approaching from behind.
Damn it!
She had about five seconds. The open door was right there; she dragged the junker inside and closed it just in time. Now the camera ahead of her was flashing a warning too. Another pair of junkers, coming the other way. She looked about for a weapon. The unconscious man on the floor had a burst pistol but the grip would be coded to his palm print and probably to his DNA. He had a trio of stun grenades that wouldn’t be, though. Ziva bared her teeth. You could never go wrong with a stun

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