We’re all friends here, she smiled at them, willing it to be true. A large-caliber pistol loaded with high explosive rounds pressed into the small of her back in case it turned out they weren’t.
“Venom One,” a voice said in her ear. “Check check.”
“Venom Two at southwest corner, I’ve got Holden,” came a different voice.
“Venom Four northeast, I’ve got Bluto,” said a third.
“Three covering south.”
Tanaka smiled. Whatever happened from here in, her enemy was well and truly fucked.
“All right,” Tanaka said to Teresa, playing for time. “Please come with me. Do it now, and in return I won’t kill your friends.”
The girl looked uncertain. She’d never believe a threat made to her. Not really. But threats to her friends she believed. Her file made it clear she had significant abandonment issues. If things like that didn’t make you strong, they made you weak.
“You hearing this?” Venom One asked, his mic buzzing with background noise as he spoke.
A distant rumble was growing, the tall swordlike foliage whipping as something blasted toward them. The girl was talking, but whatever she was saying was drowned out by the noise.
“Sparrowhawk,” Tanaka said, activating the bone mic in her jaw.
“Mugabo here.”
“Rocinante is oscar mike,” she said.
“On our way,” Mugabo replied. He’d hidden her ship around the far side of the planet to avoid detection. She’d known that was a risk. She didn’t regret it. Not yet, at least. “I’ll be to you in twenty.”
Tanaka’s gaze flickered across what was about to be a battlefield. She probably couldn’t stall for twenty.
“Forget me,” she said to Mugabo. “Stay on the Rocinante. Do not let it leave this planet with the girl on board.”
“Are you . . . authorizing force? Even if the girl is on board?”
Tanaka didn’t answer. She needed to get her hands on the target before the Rocinante showed up. She couldn’t risk losing the girl if the situation went violent. And when her team moved on the two adults and the Sparrowhawk showed up overhead, things were liable to go very violent indeed.
Out of time and out of options. Something like pleasure flowed through her. It was time for someone to make a decision.
“You have to the count of three,” Tanaka shouted at the girl as she beckoned. Come to me. “One—”
Burton shoved the girl behind him and pulled his gun. The Rocinante blasted into view, barely skimming the tops of the foliage, the powerful landing thrusters in her belly flattening everything it passed over. Tanaka found herself impressed by the recklessness of the maneuver. Here she was, working so hard not to put the girl in any danger, and the Rocinante crew was willing to throw a spaceship at her to keep her away.
“Venom, take the girl,” she shouted over the deafening sound of the ship, pulling her gun from behind her back in a smooth, practiced motion. Burton saw her do it and drew down on her as he continued pushing the girl back toward the approaching ship. Tanaka dove behind a low stone planter box just as he fired, the bullet blowing a fountain of soil into the air.
“Shots fired,” one of her team said.
“Five millimeter caseless. Low threat,” someone else said, as flat and emotionless as if he were placing a lunch order.
“They’re firing at me,” Tanaka shouted back. “Get the girl!”
“Free fire?” Venom One, the team leader, asked.
“No, no shooting. Pull the other two apart with your hands if you need to, but do not risk firing toward the girl,” Tanaka yelled, then peeked up over the planter box. Holden, Burton, and the girl were about thirty meters away now, still backing up. The Rocinante had taken up position about two hundred and fifty meters farther away, still hovering on its landing jets. It would have to put down to let them board, but the pilot wasn’t taking any chances.
A metallic-blue figure dropped into the courtyard between Tanaka and Holden, then darted toward the fleeing group in a blur. Three more figures dropped from the canopy above, surrounding Holden and the girl. Burton pointed his gun at one and started firing.
“Taking fire,” Venom Two reported.
Her team moved toward the three, not returning fire but moving fast. Aggressively. The old-style Martian Navy sidearms Holden and Burton carried would never penetrate a modern suit of Laconian power armor. They could fire their guns dry, and her team would just walk up and snap their necks. Quick, neat, almost no danger to the girl unless Burton shot her. But the old mechanic was careful and methodical as he fired. Every shot hit one of Tanaka’s team, and he kept the girl behind him.