Page 105 of Enthraller

She caught the faintest rev of an engine, although it was difficult to see anything in the darkness, and then the ground beneath her feet trembled a little as something heavy set down up ahead, and she guessed a Razor had just landed.

One of the pallet hovers cut out early, powering down and landing softly on the ground. The other two continued on beside her, and followed her all the way to the side of the sleek black ship.

As soon as they came to a stop, she stepped away, but Opek reached out and grabbed her arm.

“Sorry. You need to stay.”

She hadn’t planned to go anywhere, but it was better if he thought she was still a delivery person caught up in a bad situation.

All the better to control him.

She pulled at her sleeve, as if to free herself from his grip, and got the fabric high enough that they were skin to skin.

By the time the back ramp on the Razor was open, she had him in her thrall.

She decided it would be better to keep Opek silent.

She waited for the Caruso soldier who strode out to reach them. He almost faltered a step at the sight of her, then gave anod which Wren returned. “There you go,” she said, with a wave at the pallets.

“What about that one?” The Caruso soldier spoke broken Aponi as he pointed to the pallet that hadn’t had the energy store to make it all the way.

“The battery died,” she said. “It’s not too far, though.”

Beside her, Opek opened his mouth as if to speak and then, with a push from her nanos, clicked his teeth together.

The Caruso gave a grunt, waved a big, gloved hand, and more soldiers jogged out to start moving the bags.

They cleared the farthest pallet first and then the other two with quick efficiency, hauling the bags to the rear ramp.

Wren stood by Opek’s side, taking in the ship, taking in the Caruso, who were much taller and wider than she’d realized.

The natural plating on their faces, like organic armor, made them so different from the Verdant String natives, but still, they were bipedal, with arms and legs. The two groups looked more alike than not.

“Satisfied?” Wren asked.

“You were late, but if grade is high, this will be acceptable.” The leader stopped to talk to them again, his presence intimidating as he loomed over them both, a bag of trivolun in his hand.

Her nanos needed to activate the timer in that bag, and hopefully it would then arm the one closest to it, and so on, until the whole ship was full of activated explosives.

She finally let Opek speak, in order to get things moving: “We’ll expect to hear from you, then.”

We have a problem, her nanos said.We cannot activate the timer remotely. You have to touch the bag. You have to touch each bag.

That . . . would be difficult. Given they were almost all loaded in the back of the Razor.

“Not so quick.” The leader spoke slowly in answer to Opek’s dismissal, his grasp of the language clearly not fluent. “You don’t have control of Demeter.”

She was going to have to dart forward, touch the bag. And hope when it activated, it sparked the rest of the explosives in a chain reaction.

“No, we don’t,” Wren said, eyeing the distance between herself and the bag. It was only a couple of steps. “It was never going to be easy. But I’m sure we’ll get there, and the rewards should more than make up for it.” She waved a hand at the back of the Razor to remind him of the ore that had been loaded.

“You said you had control.” The soldier looked toward the building at the other end of the port. “What good is deal without it? The ore can only come to us if you in control.”

She saw the moment his body language changed. He flung the bag behind him, toward the Razor, and moved to grasp the big weapon slung across his chest, lifting it up.

For a split second she thought he was aiming it at her, and then she realized it was at someone behind her.

As she spun on her heel, her heart leapt to her throat, frightened it was Ed that he’d spotted.

---