The weapons of the suit clicked out of safe mode, a sound that also echoed around the room. The guards shot nervous looks at each other.
“Fleet Admiral Trejo,” Jillian Houston said, breaking first, “guaranteed us that if we gave you the girl, all Laconian forces would withdraw from the Freehold system without further attacks. We have his word on it.”
Tanaka chinned the external speakers back on. “I’m not seeing Teresa Duarte. Where is she?”
“Before I hand her over, I need more than vague assurances that you are acting in good faith.”
“Moving the goalposts?” Tanaka said.
“I need more than assurances,” the Houston girl repeated. Apparently they’d gotten to the end of her script.
“Where’s Nagata?”
“Excuse me?”
“The admiral made his offer to Naomi Nagata. You aren’t her. Teresa Duarte’s not here. What’s really going on?”
Houston lifted her chin like Tanaka had accused her of something. “Naomi Nagata is in operational control of the civilian action of the underground. As the commander of the Gathering Storm, military decisions fall to me—”
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t care for your tone of voice.”
This was the moment. Playing it safe hadn’t worked in New Egypt. Life was risk, and the fact that even if it all came down poorly, there could be no consequences for her personally was a little intoxicating.
She wasn’t going to shoot the Duarte girl. They weren’t likely to do it. The only danger was an accident, and even if the girl did take a bullet, there was a percentage of those wounds she could recover from.
And once the shooting started, they might try to evac the prisoner, in which case she had two ships ready to disable the enemy. Flushing Teresa out of the base was probably the safest way for her.
She realized she’d taken a long time responding. Jillian Houston’s heart rate was ticking up with her anxiety.
So this was it. Play nice with the enemy, or do the obvious thing.
“You know, we’ve got some of those suits,” Jillian said, pointing at her armor. “We aren’t wearing them as a sign of good faith.”
“Wouldn’t matter if you were.”
Fuck it.
“All right,” Tanaka said, locking eyes with each of her four guards in turn and using the touchpads in her gloves to target them. “I’ll just go get her myself.”
“No—” Jillian started.
Tanaka said, “Go loud.”
The left and right arms of her suit snapped up into firing position much faster and more accurately than if she’d been driving them manually. The second the weapons were lined up on the outer two guards, they fired a short five-round burst that blew their heads off. Her arms snapped to the second position and fired a second time. The two people standing next to Jillian Houston disappeared from the chin up. The entire process took less than a second and a half.
Smoke filled the room, and the roar of the guns was still bouncing around the space when Jillian Houston spun on her heel and pushed off, flying down the corridor behind her. Tanaka watched her go. She could have turned the woman into a dancing bloody rag doll a hundred times over in the time it took for her to flee.
“Track her,” she told the suit, and Jillian Houston’s rapid heartbeat got a special tag on her HUD. If Houston was in charge of the base, she’d know exactly where the girl was. Teresa Duarte’s value as a hostage was the only thing that might keep any of them alive. In the meantime, Tanaka had other business she could do.
She used the suit’s mag boots to keep her secure to the floor as she casually strolled down the corridor following Houston. All around her the heartbeats of the station’s denizens were running around and speeding up as the panic spread. That was fine. It wasn’t like her plan relied on secrecy. Let the revolutionaries prepare. Let them arm up and dig in. None of it would matter. They could have the courageous last stand all the romantics craved. It would still be a last stand.
She moved into a corridor junction, and her suit blatted an alarm tone at her microseconds before a barrage of gunfire hit her on the left side. The suit marked three targets, all using light automatic weapons and hiding behind improvised cover. Tanaka tapped a pad in her glove and the left arm of the suit snapped around and fired three times. Three shredded bodies drifted out from behind their cover, spraying globes of arterial blood into the air.
The ammo counter for the left gun went down by another fifteen rounds. Tanaka noted this without concern. Full ammo packs on both guns. Plenty for everyone. And if not . . . Well, the alternative was messier but it had its charms.