Partials Sequence 02 - Fragments by Dan Wells

Author:Dan Wells [Wells, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062071088
Amazon: 0062071076
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Published: 2014-03-11T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Afa had been shot through the thigh by a bullet from one of the invaders�� guns—the only shot that had been an actual bullet. The rest of the shots turned out to be tranq darts, presumably intended to incapacitate their victims. The same bullet had also shattered Afa’s screen, and Kira wondered which had been the true target: the man, or the data? Had the Partials followed them here to capture them, or to stop them from learning what was on the computer? Had it been both?

Kira couldn’t help but wonder if it had been neither. She glanced at Heron, slowly regaining consciousness on the floor. Had she shot Afa? Had Samm? What motive could either of them possibly have for doing so, and why now? If they were colluding with the attackers, why go through the ruse of pretending to get tranqed? That would only make sense if they knew they were going to lose, and if they knew they were going to lose, why bother with the attack at all? It didn’t make any sense, and Kira knew it; the most likely explanation was that the Partial attackers had come to kill Afa and capture the others. Even so, Kira couldn’t shake the lingering doubts. How could the Partials have even found them, unless someone had provided them with a location? She cursed herself for not keeping one alive to interrogate, though she had to admit that she’d barely made it out alive as it was.

Kira finished binding Afa’s wound while he was still unconscious, and checked each attacker in turn, pulling out their weapons to count the bullets. One of them, in fact, had a sidearm that was short one bullet. Kira couldn’t tell how long ago the weapon had been fired, but it didn’t seem likely that a trained soldier would enter combat with anything less than a full clip, and so this was likely the one who’d shot Afa. But “likely,” she knew, wasn’t the same as “true.”

“Scavenging ammo?” asked Heron. Kira turned to find the Partial spy standing behind her, looking disheveled but alert. Kira slapped the clip back into the gun and dropped it on the fallen Partial’s chest.

“This one shot Afa,” she said, and rose to her feet. She tried to keep her voice casually curious. “Why do you think they shot him and tried to tranq the rest of us?”

“They were probably shooting the screen to kill the light,” said Heron. “They were prepared for the dark and we weren’t—standard ambush procedure. Those tranq darts don’t have the penetrating power to shatter a piece of glass like that.”

“That makes sense,” Kira admitted, and it did. Maybe. She shook her head. “Shooting the screen almost guaranteed hitting Afa in the process. If they were trying to take us alive, why risk hitting him somewhere lethal?”

Heron smirked, and pulled the Partial girl’s helmet off. Her face was Chinese, like Heron’s, and strikingly gorgeous. “She’s espionage. There was no risk.”

“How many?” asked Samm.

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