Countdown (The Shadow Wars Book 9) Read online

  “I don't know,” he replied as he started buzzing his head. “I mean, my life has been essentially two things. Insane, bloody, screaming mayhem and unwinding in the downtime. Unwinding usually means sleeping, watching crap movies and, lately, having awesome sex with you. All of this has been done either by myself or with you. I mean, there was that time I partied with Trent and Drake...” He hesitated, frowned, didn't want to think about that, not with Trent gone now. Kept going. “Anyway, I haven't had to be, well...social, you know what I mean?”

  “Are you worried you forgot how?” Eve replied.

  “Maybe,” Greg admitted. “And not just because I haven't done it in so long...I can't ever remember being social, honestly.” He finished buzzing his head and set to work on his jaw. Just as he finished up and set the electric razor down, Eve appeared behind him, mostly hidden from view in the mirror by his own body.

  Her arms came up around him and hugged him. “Don't worry,” she said, resting her chin on his shoulder. “You'll do fine. And besides, come on, it's just dinner with Allan and Callie. After all the crap we've been through lately, it'll be nice to do something, well...normal. Anyway, I'm sure they're just as worried as you are, especially Allan. He's been in the dark for a long time, so he's probably feeling his way back to the social light just like you...hey, maybe you can hold his hand and help him along,” Eve replied with a grin.

  “Yeah, I'll get right on that,” Greg replied.

  She let go of him and stepped back. He turned around and stopped.

  “Whoa,” he said.

  He could tell that she'd put on makeup when he saw her face, and it did look great, but all he'd been seeing was a portion of the picture. Staring at her entire body left him a little breathless. She wore a tight black dress that was cut quite short, showing off a lot of her pale thighs. It had spaghetti straps and showed off a lot of equally pale cleavage. Her blood red hair was pulled into a short ponytail, her lips were reddened, her eyes darkened, the skin on her face clean and smooth. She smiled at him and he realized she was blushing slightly.

  “Clean up nicely, don't I?” she asked.

  “That's not exactly the phrasing I had in mind,” Greg replied.

  “Oh?”

  “I was thinking that...somehow you've managed to become even more attractive with your clothes on,” he replied.

  Eve laughed. “Well, thank you dear,” she said. “Now, get dressed. As much as I like looking at you naked, I imagine some of the rest of the crew wouldn't appreciate it.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” Greg replied, setting into his room to find his evening attire.

  * * * * *

  It wasn't exactly a fancy, candlelit dinner in an open-air café on Mezzanine, but Greg enjoyed it just the same. They sat in the main mess hall, taking up one table in the corner. They'd been forced to prepare their own dinners, but it wasn't really a big deal. Greg, inexplicably, remembered how to make apparently very good tacos, so he fried up some ground beef for everyone. The night seemed a little mismatched to him.

  He and Allan had come in cargo pants and t-shirts. Callie had thrown on a formfitting white tanktop and a skirt that seemed very out of place on her. Greg thought Eve might have felt overdressed, but she seemed very happy in her black dress. Here they were, on a double date, all of them, to varying degrees, trying to remember what it felt like to put down the gun and take off the armor and have a real conversation.

  And they were eating homemade tacos.

  “So, how are things actually going between you two?” Eve asked. “I'm fiercely curious and very nosy,” she added.

  Callie laughed. “Fair enough,” she said. “Things are going great. Allan and I fit together very well.”

  “I'll just bet you do,” Eve replied.

  Greg couldn't help but laugh, and Allan remained silent, blushing. Callie laughed. “Not what I meant but...not a false statement,” she said. “No, I mean...we both had hard times finding someone. I had kind of given up on it lately, focusing wholly on my career and my training. I was happy for a while, but...I didn't realize how much I'd missed companionship and someone to rely on until I met Allan and things sparked.” She smiled, reached out and took his hand, then gave it a squeeze. He smiled back. “What about you two?” she asked.

  “We're having a lot of fun,” Eve replied.

  “Fun?” Allan asked.

  “Fun,” Greg confirmed. “It's a nice thing to have after...tragedy strikes. Again. And again,” he said, unable to keep his tone from darkening slightly.

  Eve was a little more diplomatic. “Greg and I like to keep things simple. At the moment, we're dating and having fun and we generally don't look beyond tomorrow.”

  “The day after tomorrow if we're feeling particularly bold,” Greg said, trying to lighten up a bit. It at least got a laugh out of the other couple.

  They continued eating.

  * * * * *

  “Do you really think we fit well together?” Allan asked.

  He and Callie were laying down on a foldout couch someone had set up in the observation deck, which was a small room with a domed window overhead, offering an amazing view into the vast infinity of space. They were alone in the room. After dinner, when the two couples parted, he and Callie had come up here to lounge around and relax.

  “Why do you ask that? Of course I do,” she replied, sitting up and looking over at him. “Do you think we don't?”

  “What? No! I agree. I just...” he sighed. “It's been a long time since I've been with anyone and it's gone well. I guess I'm always kind of half-worrying that, you know...I only think it's going well but I'm really blind to the fact that something huge is wrong and you're just...being nice to me.”

  “You think I'm sparing your feelings? That I secretly hate you or something?” she asked with a slightly bewildered smirk on her face. “Really?”

  “Well, not hate, exactly, but...” he shrugged. “Something like that.”

  “Oh, Allan...” she murmured, then she leaned in and kissed him. “I'm happy. I wouldn't lie to you. If I had a problem, I'd tell you. I hope you'd do the same.”

  “I would,” Allan replied.

  “Good.” She settled back down and rested her head on his shoulder. “I am happy. Happier than I've been in a long time. I'll admit, I'm afraid. I don't like resting my happiness on someone else's shoulders, especially in this line of work, but I'm so tired of being alone. I'd forgotten what it was like to have someone there when you fall asleep and when you wake up...if you don't mind my asking, what was your last serious relationship?”

  “Back on Lindholm,” Allan replied. “Although it was hardly serious...well, that's not fair. It was serious. At least she thought that. I tried but...it just didn't work. We were from different worlds and all that crap. We moved in together for a while...what about you?”

  Callie sighed. “I was almost married,” she said. “He was a civilian. We went to high school together and dated all through it. Then we broke up, I went on to join the military...I met him again about three years ago, about two months after I'd joined Spec Ops. He'd just gotten out of an unhappy relationship, I was in a decent place in my life...I was on a rotation. Three months on, three months off. We started dating, we thought we could make it work. We did...for about a year. He proposed to me six months in...”

  “So what went wrong?” Allan replied.

  She sighed. “I was on a mission...last one before I rotated back. I was a few weeks from getting married. I...almost died. It was a really close call.” She laughed bitterly. “I don't even know why it set me off, I'd had lots of close calls but...I broke it off as soon as I got back. As soon as I saw him. I told him that it wouldn't be fair, to him or to me, to get married. Because I loved my job too much and because it was too dangerous. I said, I'd rather break it off now than come home in a box one day. It was the lesser of two evils.”

  “Wow. That takes guts,” Allan replied.

  Callie shook her head. “Not as much as you'd thin
k. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't lying to him, I believed what I'd told him, but...there was another part of me, a small but powerful part of me, that was worried about his...loyalty.”

  “Did he give you reason to worry about it?”

  She sighed. “No...not exactly. It's just...we were apart for so long. And he wasn't bad-looking. He was very handsome and charming. And I...”

  “You what?”

  “I...was this plain-looking, musclebound, too tall military chick who didn't know how to put on makeup and didn't even own a single dress.” She looked over at him and must have read the look on his face. “I...don't get me wrong. I know that doesn't make a woman and it doesn't fucking matter in the real world, and I've come to realize that any guy who is put off by my career, my body type, my looks, wouldn't be right for me anyway and hey, those guys can go fuck themselves, but...I also know that it's a big part of 'normal' life, you know what I mean? It's just so common and so many women can just...do it. Like it's no big deal. I wasn't really too popular in high school or college. I've dumped a lot of my baggage of the years. I kick fucking ass on the field, I can run, I can gun, I do all that shit. But when it comes to having a personal life? I've honestly never been too good at it.”

  “First of all, you aren't plain looking. You're fucking hot. And I'm not just saying that cause I'm your boyfriend. I've seen a more than a few guys checking you out. Muscles aren't unattractive and you've got a hot face. Makeup would be a waste on you because you look great without it. And I can really sympathize with those feelings. I never really figured out the whole 'fit in and play nice' thing myself, not to mention god alone knows how many fucking hours I've sat there hating my face for looking like crap...” Allan muttered.

  Callie laughed. “You're very handsome, Allan,” she said. “And I'm not just saying that cause I'm your girlfriend.” She kissed him and he kissed her back. Then she slipped her tongue in and climbed on top of him.

  “Should we go back to our quarters?” he asked.

  Callie smiled. “I locked the door when I came in.”

  “Oh, in that case...” Allan began sliding his hand up her skirt.

  CHAPTER 04

  –The Last Lead–

  “So, given the fact that the last one was a trap, who wants to place bets on the odds that this one is going to be a trap, too?” Drake asked.

  Greg glanced over. They were all gathered in a galley onboard the speedship they'd been tossed onto this morning. Altogether, they'd managed close to three days' downtime on the Atonement. He'd split his time between sleeping, working out and spending time with the others, though by 'others' there'd really only been Eve, Allan and Callie. Gen and Drake had both become almost fanatical about working out or training. Greg didn't blame them, Trent's death still hurt, he'd gotten to really like the man, but he knew his pain was a mere pinprick compared to the indescribable agony Drake, and probably Gen, must be going through.

  When the fourth day had dawned, Hawkins gathered them. He'd told them that they had a sheer luck breakthrough...which is why it was so suspicious. At any given moment, there were between fifty and a hundred solar systems around the absolute edge of known space. They had been discovered by recon crews and deep space probes, but hadn't yet been actually fully explored. Because Rogue Ops tended to hide in the cracks of society and along its peripheral, Hawkins had put out a call for those deep space probes to begin searching for any activity in these far flung systems. One of them had hit upon something.

  One such probe had found a faint power signal and traced it to an asteroid where a cursory, passive scan had revealed a structure. A coded message was recorded going out and although the message itself and its destination were both still a mystery, as the probe was only a cheap shell, the type of coding was identified as Rogue Ops.

  So they had their lead.

  Unfortunately, they were basically running blind. The Atonement had taken them out on the first leg of their journey, then met up with a military speedship that would shoot them at FTL speeds across the galaxy out to the distant frontier, into the uncharted system. Greg had to wonder how expensive the speedships were...they tended to lose them on missions like this. After the briefing, they'd gotten into their power armor, which had been recharged, refitted and cleaned up, ready to go once more unto the breach.

  Greg had, of course, needed to have a completely fresh set made. It looked much more standard than his old suit, since custom jobs took longer.

  Eve had wanted to go, eager to begin her first real assignment away from the ship, but Hawkins had ultimately overruled her, much to Greg's relief. It wasn't that he thought she was incapable or the simple fact that he feared for her safety, it was that he knew the supplements she was taking to make her taller and give her a bigger build left her unbalanced. Even with her previous training and all the new training she was going through, he knew she still wasn't ready. He thought he'd be more afraid of having her on the field with him at first, but already he really was looking forward to having her out there with him, mainly because it was nice to have someone you trusted to have your back, but also because he knew it would make her happy.

  “It's almost certainly a trap,” Allan replied. “But that's kind of beside the point. Right now, we're at a total dead end.”

  “Yep,” Callie said. “So we'll kick in the door and kick some ass anyway.”

  Greg had to give her that. They didn't really have a choice. Rogue Ops had vanished. They'd finished running down a complete list of leads a week ago, and that included long shots. Hawkins' researchers had also exhausted searching through all the data they'd recovered, stolen from a scant few ships and sites belonging to the renegade faction that hadn't been wiped clean or booby-trapped. So, trap or not, they had to complete this mission. He at least consoled himself with the notion that they weren't going in completely blind.

  The probe had revealed a little intel. One fact was the general size and shape of the structure, which was built right into the surface of the asteroid. The second was the population: there had been a little over seventy human life signs detected. A third, and this was probably the most important bit, was a large power source had been detected in a detached structure: what turned out to be a solar array meant to power the station. That had led to the only real portion of their 'plan' they'd concocted. Allan and Callie would lead Donovan, the Spec Ops tech from the previous mission, to the solar array so he could sabotage it, cause some confusion and allow the others to slip in hopefully undetected. From there, they were on their own.

  The goal of the mission was simply to gather data.

  Yes, very simple.

  They weren't far now.

  * * * * *

  The speedship set down behind a rocky rise along the surface of the asteroid, hidden in deep shadow. Allan, Callie and Donovan set off around one side of the rocky hill, while Drake, Gen and Greg set off around the other. Allan was out on point, rifle in hand, scanning the starkly lit, rocky, pockmarked surface of the asteroid. The only light came from the facility, an eighth of a mile ahead, and from the distant local star. Everything was reduced to shades of black and white. His audio sensors picked up next to nothing in the zero atmosphere environment. It was ominous and eerie. It had been a while since he'd been in such a location.

  As he rounded the rocky hill, he spied the solar array. It was essentially a large collection of golden panels beneath a glass dome. Allan had seen such rigs before. The dome was there to protect the panels against random meteorite and micrometeorite strikes that would easily shatter the collection panels. Donovan promised he'd be able to get through the entryway, into the dome and sabotage the power supply without much trouble.

  His time was nearly at hand.

  After another ten minutes of making slow progress across the surface, they arrived at the entryway. They didn't see anyone inside the glass dome. Good. Donovan knelt by the control panel next to the door, which looked odd: a rectangle of dull gunmetal gray material set into the glass wall
. He had it open inside of a minute. The trio made their way into the dome, not closing the door behind them, as they'd need to be leaving rather quickly. They moved through the shadows, beneath the vast surfaces of the panels over head, in a forest of metal support struts. A ghostly yellow light provided the only means of visibility, emanating from lights fixed to the struts. Before long, they came to the central control node for the array.

  Allan opened up his radio. “We're in place.”

  “We're almost there,” Greg replied.

  “Affirmative. Beginning the procedure.”

  Donovan set to work. Allan shifted his gaze outwards, into the field of pylons, the ghostly yellow light...something wasn't right. This was all too easy. They hadn't dared scan anything, even passively, or else they ran the risk of being detected. They were already running that risk enough by simply being there and having arrived with their ship.

  “We're in place,” Drake said.

  “Cutting the power now,” Donovan replied.

  A few seconds went by, then, all at once, every light in the immediate area died.

  “Power confirmed cut at our end,” Drake said. “We're going in now.”

  “Good. We'll be there as soon as we can, out,” Allan replied.

  As the yellow lights fully died and his visor kicked in, readjusting itself to offer him optimal vision, a shiver of anticipation whispered through him. He raised his rifle and saw Callie and Donovan doing the same thing.

  They had felt it too.

  He looked among the monolithic pylons for threats of some kind. And then, up ahead, something detached itself from the shadows. A suited figure holding a weapon. Allan began to call out a warning and take aim.

  Then he saw about a dozen more of them.

  * * * * *