Supremacy's Outlaw: A Space Opera Thriller Series (Insurgency Saga Book 3) by T.E. Bakutis (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📗

“I mean ... yeah! Like last time, when I didn’t go with him and he got caught.” His eyes darted around before settling on Jan, on the floor. “Ah, there he is. C’mon, we have to get him back to the Hole.”

“And why would you think that is our plan?” Kinsley asked.

“Oh, the tracker I stuck in Jan’s vest,” Rafe said, backing up and beckoning. “It’s got audio too. I’ve been listening to you all since you got to the Bowsprit. That’s how I knew where to find you. Now c’mon, hurry, get him up!”

“Effing hell,” Emiko said, but she hurried over and shoved one arm under Jan’s armpit. “C’mon, Kinsley, now.”

So Rafe had been listening to them talk this whole time? That meant he knew about Fatima’s betrayal. Emiko didn’t know if that was good or bad, or if Rafe would even believe it.

“Rafe,” Kinsley called, as she slid both arms under Jan’s other armpit, “you could at least help.”

“I am helping!” Rafe shouted from beyond the crate. “I hot-wired a maintenance scow!”

Emiko and Kinsley had made it all of six steps before Jan’s sudden thrash sent one fist slamming into Kinsley’s side. She grunted as he fell, and rolled, and screamed.

The raw agony in Jan’s earsplitting shriek chilled Emiko’s blood. That didn’t sound like normal torture, though Emiko had only heard that sound once. This sounded even worse.

“Nanos kicked in!” Rafe shouted. As if they didn’t know.

Emiko tried to pick Jan up again, but his thrashing, flailing, shrieking body made it impossible to get any true purchase. Emiko took an elbow to the gut and a slap to her face. A crackle of electric current silenced Jan’s screams.

Emiko blinked at the weapon in Rafe’s hand, the wires trailing off it, and the studs buried in Jan’s neck. “You stunned him?”

“Had to. Only way to make the nanos reboot. Probably won’t last long, though, so get him on the scow!”

Emiko grabbed Jan again, pulling hard with Kinsley on his other side. They dragged Jan’s panting, drooling body over to the repulsorcraft. Rafe lowered the tailgate, and it took all of Emiko’s remaining energy to help Kinsley lift Jan. They somehow shoved him into the scow’s bed.

Rafe slammed the tailgate and stepped back, grinning at nothing in particular. “Hey, we did it! Good job.”

Jan chose that moment to resume shrieking.

Bharat blinked in accident-induced shock as the gullwing doors to the autocar that had hit Pollen like — well, like an autocar — hissed open and rose. Fatima stepped out of the vehicle and rushed over to the giant armored woman now flat on her back. Fatima dropped to a crouch at Pollen’s side.

“Oh, come on.” Fatima checked Pollen’s pulse, scowling. “I scarcely tapped you. Get up, you big baby.”

Pollen mumbled something.

“Fatima, get back,” Bharat warned as he strode forward. “She may be—”

Pollen snatched Fatima’s neck and yanked her into a choke hold. Fatima gurgled, batting at Pollen’s thick arm. Pollen sat up, scowling at the blonde woman she now choked.

“You,” she growled, “hit me with a car.”

“Pollen! Listen!” Bharat crept closer, trying to ignore the urgent urks of Fatima choking to death. “Fatima and I worked together to free Jan from Tantalus! We freed him!”

“No,” Pollen said, as Fatima continued to flail and gasp. “She put him in prison. Rafe played the audio for me. Jan told the others Fatima betrayed him.”

“That’s a lie,” Bharat said, wondering how the hell Rafe was involved in this. “Let her go and we’ll explain.”

Pollen glared up at him and grinned. “Make me.”

“HOLD NOW, FRIENDS!” A booming, unnecessarily heroic voice echoed down the street. “END THIS BUMBLING JACKASSERY! JAN SABATO’S LIFE HANGS IN THE BALANCE!”

Pollen frowned as her gaze followed Bharat’s. “Bumbling?”

Bharat took in the tall, green and yellow armored figure striding toward them, green cloak billowing in his wake. And as Bharat spotted the sniper rifle strapped to the man’s back, he remembered the sniper who had supported Fatima’s efforts to free him from the Truthers last night. This armored ostentation was Marquis, the bounty hunter, and last Bharat had asked, Fatima no longer had the money to hire him.

“POLINA ROSTOV!” Marquis boomed. “RELEASE THE GOLDEN WIDOW!”

Fatima was now basically passed out. Bharat moved closer, looking for any opening to pounce. “Please, Pollen. You’re going to kill her. You can’t learn the truth if you kill her.”

“Hmm.” Pollen glanced at the now unconscious woman in her choke hold, shrugged, and dropped Fatima on the ground. “Fine.” She stood up. “You can talk to me.” She glanced at Marquis as he arrived. “But if either of you try to free the woman who sent Jan to orbit, I will make you dead.”

“I’D NOT DREAM OF SUCH!” Marquis boomed.

Pollen and Bharat both winced. “Turn off your voice mag!” Pollen shouted.

Marquis went silent for a moment. “Sorry.”

“Now speak,” Pollen said. “You have one minute to tell me why I should not poop her head.”

Bharat blinked. Surely, Pollen had meant to say pop.

“Fear not, Bharat!” Marquis said, before Bharat could say anything. “Emiko Okazaki hired me to find you, and I, as a man of my word, have done so. Here you are!”

“Oh,” Bharat said. So this was good somehow?

“Emiko, Jan, and the fair Kinsley Baker now rush toward the Hole in hopes of slipping Jan into a coma, before the sickness in his blood drops him in a hellish world of profane agony!”

“But I can stop that,” Bharat reminded everyone.

“Indeed!” Marquis boomed. “That is why I have come. Jan and the others fled into the old maglev tunnels—”

“Hey!” Pollen shouted.

“—and there is a sealed entry a block