Free The Knights of the Black Earth by Margaret Weis, Don Perrin Page B

in, I’ll back you up,” Ito said in a low voice.
    Xris considered,
but not for very long. He and Ito had come too far to quit now. They’d been
ordered in by their controller, who knew the situation. They didn’t. They’d do
the best they could without Rowan. After all, they only needed evidence of a
probable Hung alliance with the Corasians in order to start an official
investigation. A carelessly written memo might provide that much.
    Xris swallowed the
remainder of the soggy twist and nodded gloomily. Ito began to move, heading
for the access door leading into the building. Xris stopped him.
    “The door’s
probably got an alarm on it. This truck’s backed in and sealed into the loading
dock. If we go through the cab and cut our way into the cargo container, we
should be able to just walk inside. Plus, it’ll make this look more like a
robbery attempt.”
    The door to the
cab of the hovertruck was unlocked. The two climbed in, crawled over the seats.
Ito took out a small cutting laser, opened up a six-inch hole in the back end
of the cab. He peered through it into the trailer portion.
    “Empty,” he
reported.
    He started to cut
a larger hole, but it soon became apparent that this was going to take too much
time. Using a spreader clamp, Xris quickly widened the aperture to about a
meter.
    “You go first and
check the truck’s back doors. If they’re unlocked, open them a crack and scan
for movement inside the loading dock.”
    Ito wormed his
upper body through the hole, ripped his gray fatigues on the jagged metal
edges. Pausing, he rotated onto his back to gain leverage, dragged his legs
through. He landed on the trailer floor and ran to the rear.
    The doors were not
locked. Ito pushed one side slightly ajar. Taking out his night-vision goggles,
he peered into the darkness beyond. He motioned Xris to follow.
    Xris was
considerably bigger than his partner and had difficulty squeezing through the
hole. He decided to go feet-first and was doing fine until he came to his chest
and shoulders. For a panicked moment, he thought he might be stuck permanently,
but a grunt and a heave bent the metal and propelled him forward, though he
left a large amount of fabric and skin on the jagged edges.
    Ito waited for him
at the back end of the truck. “I figured I might have to leave you here, a
Utile present for the Hung. I was going to tie a red bow around your ankles.”
    “Very funny,” Xris
muttered, wincing and rubbing his shoulders. “Shut up and move out.”
    Inside the loading
dock, all was quiet. Maintenance lights cast a pale, sickly yellow glow over
the entire area. The two jumped out of the truck, ran for cover behind a row of
shipping pallets. Pausing, they looked around, matching their location to that
on the mental map each carried inside his head.
    The dock was
filled with row after row of container pallets. To one side was a small office,
probably for the shipping supervisor. At the back of the area was a divider
wall, with several sets of double doors. The chemical storage room doors were
marked bright yellow, with black warning signs posted on them.
    Ito studied his
scanner. “All clear.”
    Xris keyed his
commlink.
    “Sunray, this is
Delta One. We are inside. Over.”
    “This is Sunray.
Proceed. Out.”
    Ito took the lead.
They left the loading dock through the double doors, entered the chemical
storage room. It was completely dark. Only the red exit sign on the far side of
the room provided any light, and the two padded silently toward it. Xris lit
his nuke lamp, flashed it over a set of double doors fitted with electronic
sensors.
    He glared at it. “Damnation!
This wasn’t in the plans. Might be some sort of newly installed alarm system.”
    He could contact
the controller, but if it wasn’t in Armstrong’s original plans, he wasn’t
likely to know anything about it, either. Rowan would. He could tell from the
type of sensors used whether the door was rigged to alert someone on opening or
if