Read Online Task Force by Brian Falkner - Free Book Online Page B

tried to warn her.
    Price blew again, a little harder, and the Bzadian turned her head. Her eyes opened in shock and Price caught her as she dropped with a face full of spray.
    With a quick glance around, Price dragged the motionless figures into the interior of the old stone ruin.
    She hovered for a moment over the female soldier. Her eyes remained open, and she was breathing steadily. Her mouthmoved a little—her forked tongue extending and quivering as if she wanted to say something—but she made no sound.
    Price took her own Bzadian uniform out of her pack. She stripped off her wet suit, standing naked over the paralyzed guards, and reflected that if anyone came out of the buildings at that moment, it would seem a very odd scene. The guards glared at her but could do nothing else as Price quickly dressed. Her face was streaked with mud, and she wiped it off as best as she could.
    Price walked casually toward the complex of buildings, as if she had every right to be there. She skirted around the first dome—the head of the turtle—then past the two smaller domes on the left side of the facility, to the tail, the entranceway to the complex. Through the open main doorway, she could see a security desk. Two guards sat there while another stood by the door.
    Price frowned. Her target was the plant room, the left front leg of the turtle-shaped complex. But to get there she would have to get through the security pod. That wasn’t going to be easy.
    Out on the water, the lights of the ship were approaching the wharf.
    A circular door slid open in the smaller dome to her right and a Land Rover roared out, followed by another, both with top-mounted fifty-caliber machine guns. Price slipped through a line of trees and saw them emerge onto a road that led down the hill, heading for the wharf.
    “Angel Two to Angel One,” she hissed urgently, but got only static for a reply.
    “Angel Two to Angel One,” she repeated. “Heavy Bzadian presence heading your way. How copy?”
    Chisnall’s voice came back in bite-sized chunks.
    “No copy … Pr … peat.”
    As she watched, the vehicles reached the end of the spit and proceeded out along the wharf.
    “LT, something has spooked the Pukes,” she said. “Be prepared for a hostile reception!”
    There was no reply but static, and she glanced up in frustration at the geodesic sphere above her. Through the trees she saw the semicircular door to the vehicle dome begin to close.
    She swore under her breath and began to run toward the dome. There was nothing more she could do, except get on with her own job. Whatever happened at the wharf was up to Chisnall.
    She reached the door with seconds to spare, dropped to the ground, and rolled underneath, her silenced pistol ready in her hand as the door slammed shut behind her.
    A Bzadian standing behind a control desk glanced at her in confusion.
    “What did you shut the door for?” Price asked.
    “But …”
    “And what are you still doing here?” Price asked, taking a few steps closer to the guard. “You’re supposed to be at the front entrance.”
    “No, my orders are to …” He stopped, seeming to sense that something, somehow, was very wrong. He reached for a button on the wall.
    A puff of smoke exploded from his chest and his voice gagged in his throat. He slumped forward onto the desk and then slid unconscious to the floor.
    Price holstered her pistol and trotted through the vehicle garage. The open garage door had been a stroke of luck. She opened the door to the large tube that led to the central building. It was lit by long strips of fluorescent lights. A door at the far end led into the main dome. She stepped inside.
    “Looks like we’ve got company,” the Tsar said. He was on the small deck at the rear of the bridge, watching the island through binoculars. “Two vehicles approaching the wharf.”
    The wharf was a long strip that ran out from the end of the island. It was a basic wooden construction, empty