Read Online [01] Elite: Wanted by Gavin Deas - Free Book Online

toffee. She was aware of, rather than saw, the
Song
’s military laser stabbing out into the Cobra until the other ship’s pulse lasers stopped firing.
    Ravindra made it to the Cobra’s loading ramp. She could feel the ship shift underneath her. Jenny was holding a thermal cord frame charge in her left hand, her EM carbine at port in her right. She adhered the frame charge to the inner airlock door the moment its assembly program had finished. Behind and beneath them the loading ramp was rising and closing to form the external airlock seal.
    ‘They’re rabbiting,’ Ravindra said over the comms link. A moment later she felt the Cobra judder as the ice shook. The
Song
had just vertically launched a missile.. Ravindra and Jenny stood either side of the frame charge and Jenny sent the detonation sequence. The thermal cord glowed white hot and part of the inner airlock door turned to molten metal as the cutting charge burned a large rectangular hole in it. They felt the unmistakeable sensation of a ship taking off as the Cobra left the ice asteroid.
    ‘Through!’ Jenny shouted over the comms link.
    Ravindra delivered a suit-servo assisted kick to the rectangular piece of blast door. It slid out with a clang onto the cargo bay floor and then fell forwards. The edges of the hole were still glowing bright white. Jenny was already diving through, firing a fragmentation grenade from the underslung grenade launcher, to clear the Cobra’s cargo bay. The recoil kick on the grenade launcher was almost enough to halt her forwards momentum in the microgravity. Ravindra fired the underslung grenade launcher on her carbine. The recoil bounced her back, the suit servos compensated for a degree and the griphook soles kept her anchored. Then she dived forwards following Jenny. Someone fired a grenade at them from inside the cargo bay. One of the incoming grenades clipped her, sending her spinning, as it flew into the airlock compartment. Even through her armoured suit she felt the burning heat as the spin made her leg contact the white molten metal edge of the newly cut hole. Then all four grenades went off.
    Because they had been in freefall, the first of the concussion waves from the two fragmentation grenades they’d fired kicked them about, bouncing them off walls and the ceiling. Shrapnel embedded itself in their suits’ armour. Then the two grenades in the airlock went off. The airlock contained most of the explosion, but it didn’t stop them from getting another battering.
    Ravindra triggered the magnetic element of the griphook soles and shot up to the corner of the roof and the wall, one foot on each. She had a moment to take in the cargo bay. It was the usual large open space – rails running along the roof, connections for winches and containers. Empty tool shelves ran up either side of the cargo bay. The far door, the one that led into the crew compartment and bridge of the Cobra, was sliding shut.
    The two mercenaries left in the cargo bay were starting to recover. Their armoured suits were a mess; Ravindra was pretty sure that one of them was no longer functioning. They were trying to bring their laser carbines to bear on the two intruders who would have no reflective chaff to help them this time.
    There was a strobing burst of red light. Ravindra screamed as her skin burnt, even through the insulating layers of the suit. One of the ceramic plates on the front of her suit turned red for a moment and then superheated and exploded. She brought the EM carbine up and fired another grenade, the recoil throwing her back into the ceiling. It hadn’t been her best shot, but it was a trick that Harnack had taught her. Hundreds of razor sharp flechettes burst from the grenade launcher’s muzzle and spread out. You only had to be so accurate when you fired the equivalent of a thirty-millimetre shotgun cartridge loaded with armour piercing needles. She caught the merc who had been firing at her. He staggered back. She saw his