Gambit by Kim Knox Read Free Book Online Page B

friends.”
    “Ah.” The low sound vibrated through her ear and she grimaced. That was not right. Interference cut across the piece. “I…will be…ready—”
    Chae tapped her ear, running her fingers around her shell to try to joggle the Samekh tech implanted in her ear, but Zayin had dropped to silence. The tech was dead. She pulled it free. And sat it on her palm. She frowned at the blackened mold of the earpiece…and poked it. It turned over and no charge stung her skin. What was it with her Samekh-supplied tech? She never seemed to hold onto anything for very long. “Does that look dead to you?” She cursed. “Someone fried it. All I got was that he’ll be ready.”
    Daned lifted an eyebrow but didn’t reply. She’d activated unknown tech he didn’t trust, even when it fell apart on her palm. She scrubbed her hands together, the gritty black dust coating her trousers as it drifted to the floor. She brushed it away. Fuck, now they had no way of communicating with Zayin.
    She glanced up at Daned, but the vacant look on his face said he was still refusing to talk. She wanted to board a ship so she wouldn’t have to think about every bloody word that came out of her mouth. Her fingers flexed around the grip of her Sel-9 and she lifted her shoulders. “Ready, pretty?”
    “Yes, lady.”
    He handed her his leash and her stomach cramped. She would’ve been on her ship now, waiting in the queue to enter the rift lock. Not this. Not standing with her heart in her throat waiting for the lift to hit the city floor, the screen to roll up and for them both to run like hell.
    The lift thunked and she staggered. “So not ready for this,” she muttered.
    Daned’s hand closed briefly over her shoulder and she didn’t want to find strength and comfort in the patronizing gesture. But she did. The light hum of the disconnecting security screen filled the silent lift. “A meter off the floor, we duck and run.”
    “Understood, lady.”
    “Glad that man had you grown with half a brain.”
    Daned glared at her. “Thank you, lady.”
    A grin cracked across her mouth. She couldn’t help it, the fear and wild rush of adrenaline firing through her body. The outside world began to clear, the cool night air breaking through into the lift.
    “Why did I leave my ship today?” Chae muttered the words, trying to calm the rapid thud of her heart. “I could be on board now. I have a bath, for fuck’s sake. With water. And a host of not-exactly-illegal oils.” She fixed her gaze on the clearing shield, counting down the seconds over the pounding in her blood. “But, no, what am I doing instead?”
    Shit. Enough height to break out. All right, she could do this. She’d done this sort of insane shit before. And had the unsightly scars to prove it. She flexed her fingers around her Sel-9 and Daned’s leash.
    “What am I doing? I’m jumping into a gunfight.” She burst out of the lift, Daned at her side—
    “Captain Beyon. A pleasure.”
    “Well, fuck.” Chae stared down the barrel of an Ar-20, a monstrous weapon that could obliterate her and a twenty-meter area with one light press of the trigger. Panic whipped through her in a hot wave. She fought it down. It couldn’t help her. She blew out a slow breath and looked beyond the glittering black barrel to the suit holding it. “That wasn’t much of a gunfight.”
    The man, an Ordan from the tattoos edging his jaw, gave her a bleak smile and pointed at her own weapon. “On the floor, please.”
    “A polite henchman.” Slowly she bent to place her gun on the stone floor.
    Where the hell was Zayin? Her gaze flicked around the empty streets, finding only silence. The first spatter of rain dropped through the angles of sharp white light and pinged against the metal struts of the sky track that sank deep into worn stone. Nothing moved. No Samekh with a small militia hid in the shadows.
    Her gut twisted. She was so screwed. Had he seen the Ar-20 and run like hell? She