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- Herausgeber: Tami Veldura
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
Closer Than Touch
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Read Next
Chapter One
About The Author
Copyright
Closer Than Touch
By Tami Veldura
To Sarah and Kate.
Chapter One
Deia melded the angles of his body into a dark corner of the warehouse, a joint of crates beyond the limp reach of a single dangling fluorescent. He took a slow breath through his nose, letting sensations from the Gemini suit untangle in his brain.
He could feel the sharp weight of metal in Mordekai's hands as if he held the gun himself, despite the distance of half a building and countless crates between them. The other man's breath was unsteady and his heart was simply racing. Deia let himself take another calm breath, unwilling to follow into that panicky state of mind. Mordekai wasn't cut out for this. He was able enough in workouts or drills, but in the field? Deia should have pressed harder for reassignment. Again.
Deia let the stillness of the crates seep into him, slid his broad shoulders with less than a whisper to the edge of the box, and glanced around. The Gemini suit pushed data around the edges of his vision, a head-up-display that Deia filtered with simple contact signals against his hip. The HUD offered no more sign of anyone than there had been a moment before. He padded across the smooth cement floor, carefully balancing speed and stealth. It wouldn't do to announce himself early, but time was moving with or without him. He felt the distance between him and Mordekai grow with each step like a physical pull around his midsection. The suit's ridged feet gave him perfect traction. Its smooth latex-silk, embedded with tech, hugged his angles as no lover could. The Gemini within the Zodiac Forces were an elevated breed. The civilians they protected compared as though blind and deaf at once.
He circled closer to the light, a distant point at the far end of the warehouse. So far things were going nicely according to plan, but no amount of preparation ever survived first contact with the enemy. It was simply a matter of time.
Deia flowed forward like the inexorable tide. He felt Mordekai take a hand off his gun to shape a signal with his fingers. <Bay clear. Green.> Deia tapped his left thumb to his ring finger once to acknowledge. This kind of in and out theft shouldn't require one of them to be stuck as a lookout, but trying to patch an Aries transmission through corrugated metal was an exercise in futility. No Aries on comm meant one had to stay behind. Deia wasn't entirely upset it had to be Mordekai.
The space around him echoed suddenly. Deia flashed out of the aisle and between a turn of crates. He pressed two fingers of his right hand together. <Contact.> The echo of sound resolved itself into a chair scraping back along the floor, a man stretching, a groan, lips smacking. Deia prowled up his stack of crates, the catsuit echoing Mordekai's quick heartbeat back at him. He leaned out over the edge and spotted a man below, rubbing hands over his face. A long rifle hung from a shoulder harness. A handgun rested on the opposite hip. The night watch. Deia felt his plan wavering. This guy was carrying far more firepower than they had expected. <Outgunned,> he touched to Mordekai.
Deia refused to allow Mordekai's sudden tension into his muscles. He flexed his fingers and dropped from the crate. He landed precisely with a muffled thump. Deia wrapped his arm tightly around the guard’s neck and squeezed arteries shut. Blood pressure and heart rate displays popped up on his HUD. The guard wasted precious seconds scrambling at Deia’s solid arm. The man may be well armed, but he was not well trained. It was a simple matter of seconds until unconsciousness slumped the body.
Deia kept his arm locked for an additional count of three. He had no desire to kill but the guard needed to be out of the picture. Satisfied, Deia stripped both rifle and pistol from the man, stowed them in the closest crate he could pry open, and left him strewn in the aisle of boxes. <Green.> He crept toward the light.
Jittery touch passed from Mordekai, <Contact. Bay not clear. Vehicle.>
Shit. They were early. Deia sprinted toward the light. The catsuit kept his footfalls muffled by design; hopefully the incoming truck would cover the rest of his noise.
<Second vehicle.>
Deia's intel was falling apart at the seams. Typical. He touched to Mordekai, <Abort?>
The negative came back quickly, then, <Doubletime.>
Deia vaulted up a crate and ran along the top of the row. He could see his target, a low crate under the florescent. A man sat on it, facing away from Deia in low conversation on a walky. Deia's HUD offered distance and depth measurements. He lunged into open space, feet first. The guard never saw him coming. The walky squawked as it bounced away, Deia rolled to his feet, drew the gun from his back in the same motion, and shot twice.
<Made you. Incoming. Four.>
Yeah, no kidding he was made. Deia wrenched the top of the crate away and threw piles of packing fluff on the floor. He dug out a sealed box and blew the front panel clean. It was blank. Touchtech, not a turn dial. Fuck.
Deia took the whole firebox and hauled his ass up the closest tower of crates away from the bay where his silhouette was least likely to show. Footsteps crowded the air. He set the box down quietly and stretched out flat on his stomach. The florescent projected its light mostly downward; he was in shadow but only just.
