Zero's Heart (Lathar Mercenaries: Warborne Book 1) Read online

  Before Allen could reply, the double doors slid open and Mills walked back through, face like thunder as he pushed a cuffed man ahead of him.

  Zero.

  She was out of her seat before she knew it and halfway across the space between them. Mills was sporting a livid bruise around one eye.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “This asshole,” Mills snarled, shoving Zero forward and slapping a gun-belt with some heavy-duty hardware in it on the booking desk. Zero’s weaponry. He’d been wearing it buckled around his hips in the bar earlier. “Decided to just randomly clock me as soon as I walked out the door. No idea why. Just walked up to me and wham! Almost landed me on my ass!”

  Eris raised an eyebrow. “Left or right hook?”

  “Right. Why?”

  “Uh-huh, no reason.” She motioned Zero forward. “I’ll book him. Don’t worry. Go get that seen to. Okay?”

  Mills stood for a moment, anger written in every line of his frame. Then he nodded. “You sure you don’t need me here, boss? He’s dangerous.”

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’ll arm the auto-defenses if necessary.”

  He didn’t look convinced, but she shooed him toward the door anyway. “Head to medical and get that checked out. You could have cracked your orbital socket or have a concussion or something.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine. I think I should st—”

  “Go!” she ordered, pointing at the door while grabbing Zero by the arm. The sound of the door opening and closing behind them told her the officer had left.

  “Alone at last,” Zero’s lips quirked as he looked down at her. Gods above, he was tall… and broad.

  “Is that why you decked my officer?” she demanded. “To get me alone in here? And don’t think I don’t realize what you did…” She grabbed his right arm, the metal hard under her fingers. “If you’d wanted to hurt him, you would have. So you didn’t want to hurt him… Well, I have news for you. Your plan failed.”

  “Oh?” He leaned in. The scent of his cologne, warmed by his skin, made her weak at the knees. “I dunno. I think it worked pretty well.”

  “Apart from the fact we’re not alone.” She leaned around him and nodded toward Allen.

  Zero turned and nodded. “Hey, Sparky. How’s it hanging?”

  The ex-con grinned. “Oh, you know, to the left as usual.”

  She almost groaned. They knew each other. Of course they knew each other.

  “Since you two are on such good terms, I’ll stick you in together. You can keep each other company.”

  Allen unfolded himself from the bunk and sauntered toward the energy field at the front. “Yeah… sorry, doll, but I do believe my time is up.”

  “Of course it is.”

  There weren’t enough curse words in existence to adequately express her frustration at the current situation. All she could do was go with it.

  “Computer, release prisoner Allen, J.”

  “Yes, Chief Archer,” the security computer replied, its feminine voice all sex worker breathiness. It had grated on her nerves since she’d arrived but never more so than today. She’d get it recoded tomorrow. First thing.

  “Later, ‘gators!” Allen quipped as he sauntered out of the cell when the forcefield snapped off. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  Winking at them, he disappeared through the main doors.

  “Seems to know his way around,” Zero commented.

  “You could say he’s a regular guest. In,” she ordered, nodding toward the cell.

  He inclined his head and stepped into the cell. Sensing an occupant without a security identity tag, the forcefield snapped back on, throwing up a shimmering blue wall between them. At the same moment, the nano-bonds on his plasti-cuffs gave, dropping to the floor in little more than dust.

  “Would you like to tell me why you wanted to get locked up?” she asked, sliding her flexi out of her thigh pocket to book him in.

  “What makes you say that?”

  He stood in the middle of the cell, studying his surroundings. They weren’t much—three bare walls, the fourth made up of the barrier between them, and one bunk bolted to the wall. The facilities were the same, bolted to the wall behind a half-height privacy screen. Somehow though, despite the fact he and Allen were of a similar height, he managed to make the cell seem tiny.

  “You only gave officer Mills a black eye,” she said, nodding toward his metal arm. “Yet if you’d wanted to, you could have put his head through a bulkhead. So… you hit him, but not hard. Just hard enough to get arrested. Why?”

  He turned and sat on the narrow bunk recently vacated by Allen.

  “I would have thought that was obvious,” he looked at her meaningfully.

  She barked a laugh in surprise. “You really don’t take rejection well. Do you?”

  Looking up, an undignified squeak escaped her, and she almost dropped her pad. He was right on the other side of the barrier, looking at her intently. She hadn’t heard him move, nor had she ever seen anyone move that quickly or silently before.

  “Name?” Her voice was sharp as she tried to cover the fact that he’d startled her. Well, ignore it anyway and if he had any instinct of self-preservation, he would totally let her and not say a thing.

  “I told you… Zero.”

  Her fingers paused over the screen. “That’s not a name. It’s a number.”

  He folded massive arms over his equally massive chest. “It’s the only one I got, beautiful.”

  “Alright.” She shrugged and entered the single name into the system.

  “World of origin?”

  “Unknown.”

  She looked up. “What do you mean ‘unknown’?”

  “Exactly that.” His smile wasn’t as cocky as before. “I have no idea what planet I’m from.”

  He reached up with his metal hand and tapped the side of his temple gently. “Long-term memory before I woke up like this…” He waggled his fingers. “All gone.”

  Shit. He must have lost his memory in the accident that had given him the replacement.

  “No worries. Current planet of residence?”

  “Lathar Prime.”

  And just like that, all her guilt at quizzing him disappeared, anger taking its place.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Will you take this seriously?” she demanded.

  Lathar Prime.

  She’d heard of the Lathar, of course. Who hadn’t? Like the rest of the human population across the territories, she’d been glued to the newsfeeds. But… he didn’t look anything like the leather-clad alien barbarians. “You do realize I can charge you with obstruction of a security officer’s duties?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Does that mean I get you cuffing me this time, Officer? Because if so, I’m all in.”

  “It’s Chief!” she hissed, turning as the department doors swished open. The interruption was timely and would stop her from committing murder in her own department.

  Her brows snapped together as a guy wearing the uniform of Michael’s, the premier and only restaurant on the station, wheeled a delivery trolley in.

  “Errr… can I help you?” she asked, forcing her voice to its polite setting.

  “Yeah, I got an ultimate romance dinner delivery for a…” The delivery guy checked his list. “For a Mister Naught?”

  “Zero?” They both chorused at once, and he grinned.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Where do you want it?”

  4

  “I know where I’d like to put it,” Eris ground out, voice clipped.

  She waved the poor delivery guy to leave the trolley by the booking desk and turned on Zero. For a woman he was trying his utmost to charm, the amount of fury in her eyes made him take a physical step back.

  “So, this was all a setup, huh?” Her voice was quiet.

  Hope filled him, and he tilted his head to the side slightly. “More ‘creating an opportunity’?”

  She nodded and he took a step forward
. Perhaps she was just annoyed they’d been interrupted? Sure, he was on the wrong side of a security barrier for what he really wanted… to pull her into his arms and see if her lips were as soft as they looked… but that was better than her initial reaction.

  His onboard tickled at the back of his mind, trying to get his attention. He ignored it, far more interested in the woman in front of him.

  “So… what happens now?” She tilted her head to look up at him. This close, he was struck by how much smaller than him she was. That was to be expected, though. He was a large male, bigger physically than most males of any species. Even if she was tall for a human… they were one of the smallest species in the galaxy.

  It was also a leading question, and he knew he was being tested. Nothing about her body language and demeanor said as much. Still, women were women, no matter what the species, and the look in her eyes told him to tread carefully.

  “Well…” he drawled, leaning one shoulder against the wall nearest to him. “I was kind of hoping you’d drop this barrier, and we could have a nice, romantic meal.”

  His onboard flagged him again, the interruption getting more insistent. Not wanting to divert his attention, he suppressed the notification.

  “Really now?” her voice was sickly sweet, and she smiled.

  Shit. That was so not a good smile.

  The notification tickled again. This time his onboard didn’t give him a choice. It broke through his suppression, flaring a warning across his vision.

  Incoming hostiles detected. Take evasive action.

  The smile fled from his face, and he straightened up.

  “Eris, you need to let me out of this cell. Right now,” he ordered, focusing on the door. His onboard had been idly monitoring the security feeds on the station, and it had picked up coordinated movement coming their way.

  She chuckled, starting to turn away. “Yeah, right. Like I’m going to do that. Pro tip… if you want to impress a woman, don’t get arrested. But… thank you for the food, I’m sure the lads will appreciate it in the morning.”

  “Seriously, Eris, you’re in danger!” he exclaimed, using his uplink to the station to monitor the corridor outside security. Armed men in black masks flooded into the area, any civilians fleeing quickly. No heroism or warning in a place like this.

  Hostiles approaching active zone. Prepare to engage.

  “Yeah, yeah…” She walked away from him toward the front of the booking desk. Where she was, she’d be directly in the firing line when those assholes came through the door.

  “Bollocks.”

  He hadn’t wanted to do this. Closing his eyes, Zero diverted all his processing power for a second to break into the security department system. Monitoring the primary station feeds was one thing, but the security department was a separate, more sophisticated system. It took him over a second to crack, an unforgivable delay before the forcefield snapped off.

  “What th—?”

  Eris didn’t finish her sentence before he had her, forcing her down behind the booking desk as the front doors shattered. He curled his larger body around hers as the air around them was peppered with gunfire. The delivery trolley was the first to buy it. Bullets ripped through the thin metal and sent the chicken chasseur dancing in the air like a prima ballerina.

  She didn’t scream but instantly went for her gun, the weapon in her hand as she edged toward the corner of the desk, ready to return fire. He helped by plunging the department into darkness while reaching up to grab his gun belt. But it skittered from his fingers, dropping out of reach on the other side.

  “Bollocks.” Okay, he was going into this unarmed. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t done before and he was hardier than most.

  “Shit,” she hissed, ducking around the edge of the desk and firing off a couple of bursts. Two dull thuds followed… bodies hitting the floor. “Two down… six to go.”

  Her voice was low but he still heard her over the clatter of gunfire. Catching her gaze, he pointed to himself and indicated to the left. For a split second her eyes filled with confusion but then she nodded. Holding three fingers up, he counted down. On zero, they both broke from cover, Eris firing with a precision that warmed his combat-bitten heart. His girl was awesome, dropping her targets like a machine.

  He roared as he broke cover, drawing the attention of the black-clad soldiers in the room. It was easy to see from the way they moved they were experienced in combat. Deadly.

  He was deadlier.

  The first guy swung around, bringing his rifle to bear. Zero grabbed the muzzle, shoving it upward even as the soldier fired. The bullets disturbed the air by his ear before ripping through the ceiling tiles above them. A lighting unit was hit and showered them with sparks.

  Zero snarled as he slammed a hand into the guy’s throat, crushing his windpipe. A second later, he’d flipped the gun out of his opponent’s hands and fired. Using all his senses, both organic and cybernetic, he stepped over his fallen opponent and turned the rifle on the others. Bullets spat. One managed to tag him, his onboard registering the hits but instantly suppressing his pain reaction. Two shots later and only he and Eris were left standing.

  He looked at her. She stood over the bodies she’d just gunned down of the men who’d tried to kill her, hair wild and her chest heaving. Their gazes clashed and held.

  “We need to get out of here,” he told her, his onboard warning him of more movement heading their way. Bending down, he scooped up his gun belt and buckled it on. “Or we’re sitting ducks.”

  ❖

  She had no choice but to trust him.

  Eris checked her ammunition and nodded, gesturing toward the door. She’d have time to figure out what was going on when they were free and clear. For a second, he looked like he wanted to say something but then just turned toward the door, recovering a weapon from one of the fallen bodies before they moved out into the corridor.

  Not allowing herself to look down at the corpses, she followed him. They moved automatically as a team, covering each other and firing arcs as though they’d been operating in combat together for years. Even though she was years removed from live combat situations and wasn’t in her armored suit, she fell right back into old habits. It was like sliding into a comfortable pair of slippers.

  Her leg ached, but she ignored it in favor of focusing on her surroundings as they moved through the corridors. She had no idea where they were going, but it really didn’t matter. Anywhere away from the security department and the central area was good. The first because they could easily be bottle-necked and trapped there and the second because any shoot-out would cause massive loss of civilian life. As station security chief, she wanted to avoid that at all costs… even if people were trying to kill her.

  She wouldn’t have civilians in danger, not on her watch.

  The corridors were mostly deserted. Like rats, the station occupants had a sixth sense when shit was going down and had fled the main areas. The few people they encountered ran as soon as they spotted the pair, hightailing it down corridors or through doors before she could warn them to get out of the public areas.

  The emergency lighting had come on, rendering the corridors dark with low-level light. Better for them, but she couldn’t help the shiver that stole along her spine. The atmosphere had turned the station from the semi-friendly place she knew to something ominous and foreboding, harboring potential enemies around each corner.

  “If we head down to the storage bays,” she said in a low voice, moving past Zero as he covered the corridor, “there’s a small unused office down there and we can access the security logs from there. Find out what the fuck is going on.”

  She took up the next position and he replied when he moved past her. “Clear space coming up ahead. We’ll need to cross it then drop down a level.”

  She nodded in assent, knowing the section he meant. One of the larger lounges, it was occasionally used as an arrivals lounge. In other words, it was a large area they needed to cross with
out any cover available.

  Her heart thundered in her ears as they reached the end of the corridor and stepped out into the clear. Regulating her breathing, she kept in step with Zero, noting he’d shortened his stride to match hers. Approval filled her. He wasn’t at all the hoo-rah and gung-ho type she’d assumed.

  He was definitely a soldier, though. Her gaze flicked to the hand cannons he carried like they were nothing. They weren’t a design she recognized. Perhaps something experimental… which raised the question as to who the fuck he was? A spec ops soldier undercover? That would account for the fantastical story he’d given her about being from Lathar Prime. As if she’d fall for crap like that.

  Halfway across the hall, the automated screens flicked from the usual colonization ads.

  “Breaking news…” Red banners screamed across the screens, followed by an image of her face. “An alert has gone out for Terran First Terrorist Eris Archer. Archer… accused of the mass murder of civilians during the Krath-Seven campaign… has recently been sighted in the Tarantus system, where it is believed she was posing as security personnel.”

  She almost stopped dead, the blood draining from her face. “What the fuck? I was never anywhere near Krath-Seven.”

  Zero shoulder-bumped her to keep her moving. “Answers the question as to who they’re after,” he rumbled in a deep voice as he covered their rear. “Someone’s gone to a shit-load of trouble to frame you. Any idea why?”

  “Not a clue,” she growled, ignoring the screens as they blared about the price on her head. “But that’s a fucking fortune. Every bounty hunter on the base will be out looking for me.”

  “Yeah… kinda think that’s the point.”

  Zero’s face was grim as they reached the corridor on the other side of the hall. She felt the presence of that ticking clock like a sword hanging over her head.

  They were both silent as they moved through the corridors. Down here, the “luxury” smooth paneling of the main areas gave way to bare metal. She made sure to roll her feet as she placed them to avoid her boots clanging on the decking. Zero moved just as soundlessly, taking point as she covered the rear.