Traitor's Duty by Richard Tongue Read Free Book Online Page A

escalate to the heating. The lights flashed on again, and Orlova slid her reliable hacking datarod, recently augmented with Cabal programming, into the door slot, and with a series of quick clicks, it opened.
     For a brief second, she paused. All of this was going a little too smoothly, too much according to plan. Regardless, she pressed on into the building, heading for the central corridor. It was only a three-floor office complex, and at a single glance she realized that the plans filed in Central Records were complete fiction; nonetheless, the top levels were unlikely to have anything interesting. Too easy to access by members of the public.
     Downstairs was the key, into the basement level, and as she suspected, there was a hatch access to the old shelter complex, a ladder leading down into the gloom. An ear-shattering alarm began to sound, and she tensed up before realizing that it was the depressurization alarm, again, Harper’s work. While actually knocking out the protective dome or messing with the atmosphere was something she’d never consider, the alarm systems were surprisingly easy to set off. One more distraction.
     Moving quickly, she scrambled down the ladder, tossing a small sphere above her as she slid down the shaft, hearing it rattle on the floor above. She planted another on the wall, tucking it over one of the old light fittings; the equipment here was a century old, but the pioneers built it to last. Not that they would have ever considered that an enemy intelligence service would make use of their work.
     She dropped down to the floor, and immediately found what she was looking for – a series of cells running the length of the corridor, the old living quarters re-tasked to a new function. Each of them had their own airlock, bulky and old-fashioned, intended as an emergency shelter back in the old days. The systems had recently been updated to top-of-the-line Cabal standards, but she had plenty of experience at hacking them. It was easy to tell which of them had been used recently, the trails on the floor were testament to that, and at the first try, she peered through the viewing window at the Commandant, sitting cross-legged on the floor in meditative pose.
     Rolling another sphere across the ground, she quickly started the work on the lock, and got her first shock when a loud report sounded when she opened the door; the pressure inside had been left slightly higher than in the corridor, enough that the echo reverberated around the walls. The Commandant rose to his feet with a smile.
     “What kept you?” he asked.
     “You’re damn lucky that I came at all,” she replied. “Come on. We need to move.”
     She turned to see a familiar figure walking down the corridor, and snatched her pistol from her holster in time to match his draw. The two of them stood, facing each other, guns out and pointed in textbook fashion.
     “Captain Tarrant,” she said. “I should have expected you to be here yourself.”
     “I’m surprised at you, Maggie,” he said. “To have fallen for so obvious a trap.”
     “I was in a hurry. Nevertheless, unless part of your plan was an elaborate murder/suicide pact, I don’t think things are working out for you.”
     Shaking his head, he replied, “You have no intention of shooting me, and the two of us know it. So why don’t we stop the pretense and get on with our business. My offer for you to join our cause remains.”
     “I never thought I’d say this, but I’ll stick with the Commandant.”
     With a wide grin, the Cabal officer said, “I’m very pleased to hear it, especially after everything we have been through together.” 
     “You’d side with an enemy over a person wearing the same uniform as you?”
     “All I see in this corridor is a traitor and a prisoner.”
     “I’m doing…”
     “Your duty,” she said. “We’ve covered all of this before. I haven’t changed my mind, and I have no intention of so