Treasure of the Empire (Enemies of the Empire Book 2) by Hadwin Fuller

Author:Hadwin Fuller [Fuller, Hadwin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent
Published: 2023-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

23

Chapter 23

“My fault?” I repeated, my voice hoarse from shouting. “How can it possibly be my fault?”

“I don’t know,” said Renard, her scowl deepening. “Maybe because it was your job to deactivate the explosive device, and you failed!”

“Only because I was almost falling asleep with boredom!”

“Boredom?”

“Boredom. I might have been alright if it hadn’t been Sinclair who was giving me the instructions for what symbols to press. I swear, I don’t know how anyone who attends any of her lectures can stay awake longer than five minutes. And in any case, you can’t seriously be blaming me alone for the failure of the mission?”

“Why not? After all, if you’d done your job properly and got the shield systems in that sub online, we wouldn’t even have had to sneak into any secret entrances. We could have had a nice, leisurely flight to Tenebris, then made our way carefully through the Shadowlands before snatching up the next tatha. But no. Instead, we had to sneak onto the planet under Draven’s nose, find a way in through a secret, never-before-opened doorway, then try to disarm an ancient booby trap.”

“I think you’re forgetting,” I replied as red heat flooded my face, “that it was me who opened that secret doorway, and it was me who risked their life to try to deactivate that bomb. Just because I failed doesn’t mean I didn’t try.”

“Maybe not, but it does mean that you didn’t care.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I stared at the field commander across the prison cell. Blackwood, Sinclair, Dr Campbell and Donovan were spread out around the cell, Blackwood standing by the enerbeams while the others sat on their beds. Renard and I took up the space in the centre of the cell, facing off against each other. Aria was parked in the corner of the room, her upper body hanging limply over her wheelbase. In the centre of her torso was the EMP patch that had shut down her circuits. My fingers still stung from the electric shock I had received while trying to peel it off.

None of us had any idea how long we had been in the cell - all of us having woken up in captivity after being knocked out by stun blasts from our imperial phantomguard friends - but it couldn’t have been more than a few hours at the most. Stun blasts didn’t take long to wear off, and once the phantomguards had us safely incarcerated inside the cell, they wouldn’t have had any reason to keep us unconscious any longer.

“What it means,” said Renard, her voice calmer but somehow more dangerous, “is that you don’t care one bit about the fight against the empire.”

“You’re finally catching on, are you?”

Renard shook her head despondently. “I never should have taken you along. I shouldn’t have listened to Corporal Kane.”

“Hey, leave Val out of this. None of this is her fault, either.”

Renard sighed wearily and sat down on her bed. “No, you’re right,” she said, the anger gone from her voice.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.