Rath's Reckoning (The Janus Group #3) by Piers Platt

Author:Piers Platt [Platt, Piers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

“That’s the last component,” Rath said, wiping sweat from his brow. “Hook it up.”

Paisen lifted the Hurasu’s deck plate and slid the power cable into an open port on the ship’s auxiliary battery pack. “It’s attached.”

Rath turned on the datascroll affixed to the side of device, which served as a makeshift control panel. On the screen, he opened the Settings menu, and selected Power On. They both took a half step back.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Rath said, after a few seconds.

The door slid open, and Beauceron walked into the cargo bay. “Done?” he asked.

“It’s on,” Rath told him. “I think.”

“We need to test it,” Paisen said. She checked the time in her heads-up display. “We’ve got less than an hour before we arrive at Emerist.”

“Martin, can I have your notepad for a second?”

Beauceron pulled out his notebook and handed it to Rath, who tore out a single sheet of paper and then handed the book back. Rath placed the paper in the device’s scanner tray, and then tapped on the control panel. A grid of red lasers appeared momentarily, criss-crossing the sheet of paper.

“The scanner works,” Paisen observed.

Rath picked up a small bracelet from the workbench, and slid it onto his wrist. He tapped a button on the bracelet. The control panel on the main device lit up and beeped back at him. “Detonator bracelet’s got a good signal connection to the base unit.”

Paisen picked up the sheet of paper, and they followed her as she left the cargo bay and walked up the ship’s corridor to the cockpit. The door slid closed behind them.

“This is about as far away as we can get. Maybe fifty meters, with two bulkheads in between us and the base.”

“Ready?” Rath asked.

“Ready.”

Rath tapped the button on the bracelet again. In Paisen’s hand, the sheet of paper burst into flames, disintegrating in an instant. She dropped it hurriedly, and stamped out the cinders when they reached the floor.

“I’d call that a successful test,” Rath said, grinning.

“Yeah,” Paisen agreed.

Beauceron grimaced. “God help us.”

They found Dasi reading a datascroll in the lounge.

“Are you ready?” Paisen asked her.

“Sure,” Dasi agreed.

She stood up and faced the older woman. Paisen studied her face: the curve of her jaw, her cheekbones, the color of her eyes. Dasi watched, fascinated, as Paisen’s face transformed, her skin darkening, the hair changing color and lengthening.

“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” Dasi said, when Paisen was finished.

“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” Paisen echoed, testing the vocal match. Then she walked over to the table and called up the hologram of Lizelle’s airship. “Let’s walk through it one last time.”

“From our infiltration?” Rath asked.

“No, we’ve covered that enough. We’ll skip ahead to starting positions on the airship.”

Rath pointed to a small, wooded rise on the grounds of the estate. “I’m in a concealed overwatch position here, ready to support-by-fire.”

“I’m with Rath,” Dasi said.

“Doing what?” Paisen prompted.

Dasi patted a set of binoculars at her waist. “Scanning the mansion, helping Rath gather intelligence.

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