Free Frost Station Alpha 1-6: The Complete Series by Ruby Lionsdrake Page B

the weapons room after her. All thought of disobedience and escape fled her mind when she saw what waited in the circular chamber. The bristling barrels of long, anti-spacecraft guns were visible through the 360-degree view the shielded windows provided, but it was the man sitting against the base of a console below those guns that drew her eye.
    Sergeant Gruzinsky, blood dripping from his face and saturating his abdomen, was surrounded by pounds and pounds of explosives. He had strapped them to his sides. Wires ran from each bunch to a small square detonator gripped in his hand. His thumb rested atop the single button visible on it, and that button was already depressed.
    Alarm flooded through Tamryn as the implications slammed into her. The man who had reported to Makkon hadn’t exaggerated. There were enough explosives that if he let go, the entire station would be blown into nothing more than shrapnel orbiting Glaciem. If he died... or passed out... his finger would relax, releasing that button. And Gruzinsky’s face was paler than the ice moon. He looked like he could pass out at any instant.
    Makkon touched her calf, and she realized she was standing half on the ladder and half in the room, gaping at the sergeant. Though she wanted nothing more than to flee to the opposite end of the station, she forced her numb legs to take her the rest of the way into the chamber. Nowhere on the station would be safe if those explosives went off.
    An irritated sigh came from the side and only then did she notice the other person in the room. A gray-haired pirate with a white tiger tattoo sprawled across his nose and cheek. He leaned against a console, watching her and watching the sergeant, his fingers drumming a beat on the metal.
    “No change?” Makkon asked, pulling himself into the chamber, his big arm and shoulder muscles flexing as he did so.
    “You’re still here, aren’t you?” the other man snapped.
    Judging by the lack of honorific, Tamryn figured he might be Makkon’s commander. She didn’t know how she felt about that. Even if Makkon was every bit the killer that the rest of them were, and even if he had scared the piss out of her as he’d been stalking her through the station, she had him pegged as one of the least odious of the pirates. She didn’t trust him, but at the same time, she thought he might stay true to his word to keep her alive if she cooperated with him. Too bad she couldn’t do that.
    “Now show me what you think the girl can do,” the man added.
    Makkon shrugged. “She’s an officer.” He waved at Gruzinsky. “He’s not.”
    The man looked at Makkon like he was an idiot. If the look bothered Makkon, he didn’t show it. He put a hand on Tamryn’s shoulders, as if they were good friends and such a gesture were natural. Please. As if he hadn’t been hauling her around by the neck an hour ago. She got the gist of what he wanted before he asked.
    “Tell him to stand down,” Makkon said, “and let us disarm the explosives.”
    “I’m not on your side, asshole,” Tamryn said.
    The gray-haired man smirked, though it held no humor. It was more of a smug I-was-right smirk. Tamryn instantly disliked him. She almost wanted to work with Makkon to make the man eat that smirk.
    “If the explosives go off, we all die,” Makkon said calmly, not showing any annoyance at her statement.
    Tamryn wanted to say something flippant, like then we all die , but she didn’t truly want that. The sergeant had guts for rigging this, but this wasn’t a military installation guarding military secrets. This was a civilian installation, guarding secrets that went beyond the military. They were here to protect those scientists and secrets, not blow them up. Beyond that... she wasn’t ready to die. She’d barely had a career, a life.
    Swallowing, she looked in Gruzinsky’s eyes, trying to gauge whether he truly intended to blow everybody up, or if he was bluffing. Unfortunately, she didn’t know him that