Fatal Blade (Decker's War#3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

sure as heck wouldn’t pass for a working lady.”
    “Why would I be the entertainer?  I’m willing to bet I could pimp you out easily enough, big boy.”  She smirked at him over her shoulder.
    “I’m willing to try if you are.”
    “No doubt.  Now how about you get your mind out of the gutter and earn your pay?”
    “All systems are up and running,” he replied without missing a beat.  “The Navy did a good enough job that I might just stop complaining.”
    “That’ll be the day.  Give me some time to sort myself out.  It’s not like we have much leeway getting out of this slot and I’d rather not scrape our nacelles on the way up.”
    “It’ll add character.”  He touched his screen.  “Incoming from the station, they’re ready to withdraw the cammo net.”
    “How kind.  Tell them I’d like a few more minutes.”
    “Sure.  Just don’t let us get too old sitting here, will you?”
    Talyn mumbled something that might or might not have been obscene, and he smiled fondly at her back.
    “I’m ready to go,” she finally announced, flexing her fingers.  “They’ve put a good AI aboard, so I’ll not be flying her alone.”
    “Glad to hear that.”  He touched his screen again.  “Control, this is Chimera .  We’re ready.”
    “Overhead retracted,” a voice replied moments later.  “There’s no traffic in any direction for a thousand kilometers and nothing in orbit above this location.  Godspeed and good hunting, Chimera .  Try not to damage her too much.  We put a lot of hours into the conversion.”
    “No promises,” Talyn replied absently, her attention on the controls.
    Though she seemed calm, Decker could read the tension in the set of her shoulders and the hard lines marking her face.  There was nothing he could do to help, so he simply sat back and tried not to think of all the things that could go wrong lifting out of a tight space in a large thing with the flight characteristics of a slab of granite.
    “I hope you’re strapped in, Zack.”
    “Why?  Are you going to perform aerobatics to amuse the folks on the ground?”
    “Strap in, Zack.”
    “Yes, ma’am.  You concentrate on flying.  I’d like to keep the nice engineers who gave us this toy happy, so don’t dent it.”
    She briefly scowled at him over her shoulder, then pushed the thrusters to full strength.  Chimera ’s lift-off rumble echoed through the canyon, and the rock walls began to drop away.  The little ship felt steady to a degree that surprised both operatives and within seconds, it was free of the mesa and gaining altitude fast.
    “Remember to retract the landing gear,” Decker said.  “We might need it some other time.”
    “Done.  The AI in this thing is impressive.  I thought we’d sway like a boat in a storm until we were out of the canyon.”
    “Thank you.”  A disembodied voice startled the two agents.  They looked at each other, then Decker shook his head.
    “Oh no.  Not happening.  I’m not having it speak to us, especially in that voice.”  He called up the relevant subroutine and entered a command string.  “That should do it.”
    This time, a soft chime sounded.
    “Much better.”  Zack smiled at his partner.
    ***
    Gradually, the blue of the sky faded to purple and then to black when they passed through the upper atmosphere and into the vacuum of space.  Talyn chose not to spend any time in orbit and broke out immediately, headed for the hyperlimit.  With nothing else to do, Decker spent his time productively by compiling a detailed inventory of the ship’s systems while happily humming a marching song.
    They’d almost reached the point where they could go FTL when his tactical screen flashed an insistent warning.
    “A Navy sloop just lit up, and it’s targeting us.”  Pause.  “We’ve been ordered to heave-to and prepare to be boarded.”
    “No reply,” Talyn said, shaking her head.  “We can outrun her.”
    “Can I ping her with my