Mesmerized Read Online Free PDF Page B

before they’d have alerted her people.
    “Company coming. I want it all locked down. Weapons hot. I’ll be there shortly.”
    Behind her, Kenner strapped in as she got lower and headed to the landing pads.
    “I don’t like this, Piper,” he muttered, checking his weapons.
    “Like I do? Look, follow my lead, all right? Hold on to your ass.” Opting for speed over finesse, she touched down and jumped from the cockpit as soon as the engines quit.
    Eiriq met them, tossing her a las-rifle. As weapons went it wasn’t sophisticated. But it could put a hole through anyone who got in her way, which was just the sort of message she wanted to send.
    “Everyone is in place. We’ve got the kids down in the shelter with the pregnant women and the elderly.”
    Taryn ran up. “There are more than you first thought, Piper. This is going to be a possible problem.”
    She sighed at the sight of the dust plume rising from the convoy of vehicles approaching the compound. “You can tell none of the ones in front are soldiers. They may as well have voice projectors announcing their arrival.” She glanced at Taryn. “We may have to call in some help. Be ready.”
    The high, solid fencing surrounding the compound halted the vehicles’ movement.
    “Cover me,” she called out, keeping to the edges of the buildings as she moved closer.
    The lead conveyance opened, and Minister Cheney got out, sneer firmly in place.
    “I believe I did tell you we’d be back and you’d regret not taking our offer earlier,” he called out. “Why don’t you let us in so we can discuss this privately.”
    “I have no intention of inviting you into my home. I said no. I mean no. I’m not interested in what you’re peddling.”
    One of the others, this one clearly a soldier of some sort, identifiable by the way he carried himself, approached the gate, pulling a weapon free.
    Kenner stepped up, swinging the barrel of his blaster straight up, making his intentions unmistakable.
    “Supreme Leader Fardelle does not favor these sorts of games. He is busy. Far too busy for this. Now open these gates so we can broker this contract and I can quit this place.”
    Driven to anger, she spoke her mind. “I don’t give a care for your offers or your murderous boss. What your Fardelle does or doesn’t want is nothing to me and mine.” She said it loud and very clear. Her people snapped to attention all around where they stood.
    “Is that what you need? To be assured this is about goods or services that won’t hurt your precious Federation? Fine, fine, that’s what it is. A humanitarian mission, if you wish.” He bowed, mocking.
    “She told you to leave. Take your people and go. You’re trespassing, and trespassers get shot.” Kenner gestured with the weapon to underline that.
    “You’re playing a dangerous game, girl. The kind of game that gets people hurt. Take your profit, keep your mouth shut and deliver the goods.”
    “Profit is one thing. Betraying my government is another entirely.” She shot at the ground near his toes, satisfied when he emitted a high-pitched squeal as he jumped back. “Get the fuck outta here.”
    She turned, and if she hadn’t lost her footing when she tripped over her kit bag, she’d have taken a blast to the back.
    People scattered, shouting orders as the whoosh of auto-loading las-guns zinged through the air. Bullets cracked. The stench of black powder and laser off-gas from the blasters was enough to make her eyes water as she managed to get behind some shelter.
    “Don’t waste ammo. Shoot to kill,” Kenner ordered into his wrist mic. Shots rained down on the Imperial soldiers from the sniper posts in the courtyard towers.
    “Gas!”
    She managed to grab a mask from the kit Kenner had tossed to her, her tears already flowing.
    “There are two dozen heavily armed soldiers. I don’t know how I feel about these odds,” Taryn said, mouth set in a grim line.
    Kenner hissed. “Eleven. Yeah that’s right,