Witch Of The Federation III (Federal Histories Book 3) Read online

  “You have reached sixty-five,” BURT told her over the comm link and she cursed again. “Sixty-six.”

  “Thank you, BURT. I don’t need to know—”

  “Understood. The ‘shit-licking muffin-stuffer’ you just forced off the skyway has landed safely and will survive, while those in your apartment are almost done. How soon before you get here?”

  “Not long, now,” she told him as she caught a glimpse of a car coming in from the side. “Damn.”

  Elizabeth shoved the steering column forward and added a little twist to it and the vehicle pitched below the roadway. The impact above her showered small pieces of metal and glass down around her. Some bounced off the bonnet.

  “Littering?” she screamed when the alert flashed up on the dashboard. “For goat-sucking real? Littering? That wasn’t even my trash.”

  More fines ticker-taped their way across the dash as she rolled the air car the other way, this time going over and around the lane below rather than directly through it. The second car she’d seen followed and the first one dropped past her.

  It was smoking a little and missing one of its rear doors, but the men inside were intact.

  “You piss-farting shit-stains need to find a new job.” She snarled and fired out the window at them. The blue car jinked wildly and skated under the first shot, but the second bullet drilled into its chassis and sparks erupted in its wake.

  “Suck. On. That,” she told them.

  More notifications streamed across the dash, but Elizabeth ignored them and focused instead on inserting herself back into the traffic stream and keeping a vehicle between her and her two pursuers.

  Sirens sounded and she maneuvered quietly across two lanes of traffic, hoping her pursuers were far more noticeable.

  “Busted door and smoking,” she snorted. “Who are you kidding?”

  The blue car was gone when she approached the exit, and its dark-gray counterpart was nowhere to be seen. Hoping the traffic patrol only had her original plates or the second set, she pressed the forbidden switch again.

  The message on the dash flared and everything inside the car flashed red.

  “Well, fuck me sideways,” she grumbled and looked for the nearest open space.

  A local park caught her eye, and she set down between a set of swings and a roundabout, grasped her tablet, and locked the car behind her once she stepped out. It didn’t take her long to have a rental delivered a block away, and she thanked the driver politely as she signed for the keys.

  She patted her gray-streaked wig to make sure it was in place and wrinkled her nose to re-seat her glasses while he scanned her license and checked that her payment had gone through.

  “Thank you, dear,” she creaked and slid into the driver’s seat. He smiled and waved her on her way before he called a cab.

  Tamora Clyne’s driving days might be over, but Mrs. Burton had a perfectly respectable driving record. A dark-gray vehicle with familiar license plates cruised past her as she indicated to pull out and she was glad of the quick-change kit she’d kept under the seat.

  By the time she eased onto the skyway, though, the gray car was back on her tail.

  “What the fuck?” she exclaimed. “Who the fuck are these guys?”

  “We have been issued a traffic infringement for foul language,” the AI informed her. “One hundred and twenty credits.”

  “That’s nothing, sweet cheeks.” She growled her outrage and pushed the throttle forward.

  Having left Elizabeth to her career as a moving traffic violation, BURT returned to the hunt. He’d found the method the intruders had used to hack into her security systems and that alone was impressive.

  His dear Ms E hadn’t bought cheap—or easy. The security she’d used was top-of-the-line, with a few extra twiddles thrown in. Now those were downright clever, he acknowledged. He set up a sub-routine to make a note of them and went after the hackers.

  It was a shame to waste this much talent but he would fry their circuits as soon as he caught up with them. It took him a while but he finally managed to access the tablets carried by the men setting up the bomb.

  “Now, that’s more like it,” he murmured as he sorted through the files, followed shortly afterward by, “Well, fornicate with an aquatic bird—how inconvenient.”

  Firstly, there had been nothing remotely useful on the tablets—a couple of dead account numbers, the tablet numbers they all shared, and a single out-of-service number they reported back on. Each of the devices had been purchased the day before using pre-loaded credit sticks with no chain of sale.

  If he’d been human, he’d have cursed a blue streak and beat his head against a desk, but he was not. He was better than that. When those searches failed, he tried to track the men’s movements using the tablets, only to find himself blocked.

  “Well, well, well. How creative. You truly are a resourceful pack of butt-monkeys,” he said, co-opting one of Ms E’s more recent phrases while he set one of his own corrupting infiltration programs against the security program that had popped up.

  He needed to see and record what they were doing inside the apartment, so BURT sent a worm into the cameras, took control of the recordings, and downloaded them to a small server for inspection. While he analyzed those, he scanned the live feed to monitor both the apartment’s external and internal cameras. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for.

  “There you are, you scum-sucking primates.”

  He was so busy observing what they were doing that they’d already reclaimed three of the feeds before he realized they had discovered him.

  “Right,” he snarked. “You’ve asked for it.”

  It surprised him to discover he was having fun. It had been a long time since someone had succeeded in challenging him when it came to taking a system over but whoever these people were, they had managed it.

  “Got you,” he said, only to find they’d popped up somewhere else. “And again.”

  Inside, the intruders had finished unpacking the explosives and setting them up around the apartment’s interior.

  “That will create one hell of a bang,” BURT observed and seized control of yet another camera.

  He watched them finish what they were doing and leave, then used the surveillance system to follow them by jumping from camera to camera and trying to lock them out of each one as they passed. Twice, he had to steal a camera back and a few times, he had to kill a program trying to trace the source of his control.

  “I want to know who you are,” BURT told whoever was behind the trace, “but right now, I need to know where your lackeys are going. I’ll deal with you later.”

  In reality, he could probably initiate his own trace while tracking the minions, but he was fairly sure that would put a spike in the system that would alert the system engineers and he wasn’t ready for that yet. Instead, he diverted the next tracer into a virtual training program for Naval hackers and let them chase it.

  “That should keep you busy for a while.”

  Chapter Six

  “Sweet-cheeked, butt-sucking monkey dick,” the rental car’s AI said. “Fine two hundred and forty credits.”

  “Shove your rules book up your pixilated ass,” Elizabeth told it. She contemplated shooting the speaker in this vehicle but wanted her deposit back and decided against it.

  “Road rage. Two hundred and ninety credits. Ma’am, I should warn you that you are in danger of being listed as a repeat offender and your license tagged as high risk for car rental.”

  “Well, fuck a duck,” she retorted scornfully. “That would be the second one today.”

  She yanked the steering column hard to the right, thrust it forward, and pulled the sky car out of the barrel roll she’d thrown it into. Somewhere, a rental agent was no doubt having hysterics and Mrs. Burton would be blacklisted for life.

  “Ma’am, are you confessing to possessing two driver’s licenses?” the AI asked.

  “No,” Elizabeth told it. “No,
I am not.”

  “That is good,” the AI replied. “Possession of more than one driving identity is a Federation felony carrying several years’ jail time, and I would be forced to return to the rental garage until authorities could collect you.”

  She made a note to wipe the car’s memory if she had the time and also the rental company’s voice records. “No need. This is my only driving identity.”

  That I’m willing to own up to, she added—silently and to herself, where the AI could not hear her. She could always tell a lawyer she’d meant to add that out loud but had been too busy trying not to have her ass shot.

  It made her wonder what kind of consideration avoiding two cars’ worth of assassins would bring her or if that would only find her facing additional charges of reckless endangerment since she’d continued on the skyway once she’d noticed the danger existed.

  The driver ahead of her must have looked in his rear-view mirror because he swerved out of her path. Unfortunately, he must have kept his eyes on the mirror and swerved into the car beside him, shoved it into the car one lane over, and the three of them hit their horns.

  Elizabeth pulled the rental up and over the wreck.

  “Changing lanes in a dangerous fashion,” the AI continued.

  “Three hundred credits,” Ms E chorused with it, “I know,” and changed another two times.

  “Leaving the site of an accident, seven hundred and fifty credits.”

  A few seconds later, she spoke in unison with it again. “Illegal entry into a skyway, nine hundred and fifty credits. I fucking know, you garbage-stuffing Dreth pirate’s backside!”

  “Road rage, two hundred and ninety credits,” the AI informed her and this time, she did pull the blaster out of her bag and shoot the speaker.

  Willful damage to property. Illegal possession of a firearm. You have been banned from car rental, scrolled across the windscreen in bright red letters. Please return your vehicle to the nearest agency depot. A felony charge is pending.

  “You have to be fucking kidding me,” she shouted and more words scrolled in response.

  We have been issued a ticket for road rage.

  “Two hundred and ninety credits!” Elizabeth shouted as she caught a glimpse of the car that had just descended in front of her own.

  It flew backward, nose to nose with her, and the covers raised slowly to reveal two concealed gun ports.

  “Oh. Fuck. Me.” she yelled, pushed the column to the left, and dove while she rolled the underside of the car up.

  “Are you there yet?” BURT asked.

  Ms E checked. “Almost.”

  “Very good. I will be waiting.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Bullets rattled on the underside of the car before she dropped and was able to curve under her attacker. She called out the number for the team.

  Making a private call whilst in control of a vehicle, instant suspension of license. Please return your vehicle to the nearest agency depot.

  Elizabeth ignored it.

  One of the team answered the call. “Hello?”

  “Lars?” she asked as more red letters scrolled in front of her.

  Illegal exit from a skyway, seven hundred and fifty credits.

  “Ms E? Is that you?”

  “No, it’s Father Fucking Christmas. Of course it’s me. Who else calls you on this number?”

  Bullets rattled along the side of the car and she spun the rental in a fast one-eighty and went vertical before she looped and accelerated. This time, she abandoned the skyway altogether. There was only one way to get rid of these fuckers.

  To her right, a driver panicked and swerved into a building.

  Ouch! That will be expensive.

  Right on cue, the AI confirmed it.

  We have received a ticket for causing a serious traffic incident.

  “What? It was only one car,” she protested.

  “What?” Lars asked at the same moment that Elizabeth saw the car’s occupant eject from the vehicle. “Ms E, are you in a fight?”

  She relaxed as the chute opened and tried to ignore the fireball as the car plummeted toward a city park. Dear God, she hoped people were looking up.

  “Merely a traffic scuffle,” she replied. “Nothing to worry about.”

  Please remain at your current location. Traffic authorities are en route to assist you.

  And who knew AIs could be programmed to lie like that?

  “Look,” she snapped and changed the subject before anything else could happen. “I need you guys to be on your toes tonight. Keep an extra close eye on our girl, okay?”

  “Roger that.” He paused and Elizabeth swerved around a particularly slow-moving carry truck. Horns honked in protest, and one of her pursuers slammed into the back of her car.

  “What was that?”

  “The traffic’s a little thick, today,” she told him, angled the rental toward her new companion, and aimed the blaster out the window.

  The other driver panicked and slid away, and metal screamed in his wake.

  “This…uh, thick traffic,” Lars said. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with your warning, would it?”

  “Perhaps,” she admitted, then murmured. “Man, these guys have some hideous levels of skill.”

  “I beg your pardon?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Ms E replied, her gaze on a counter she’d stuck to the dash. It climbed closer to the one hundred percent marker but kept hanging or dropping back. “Damnit.”

  “Maybe you need your own protection team,” Lars suggested. ‘You know, to keep you out of trouble.”

  “I don’t know,” she murmured as the counter ticked up over eighty-nine.

  “I’m serious, Ms E. We might need to increase the security team.”

  “You’re always trying to increase your budget,” she teased, jerked the car up, and accelerated into another twisting climb. This time, the bullets were lit with tracer rounds and some of them pounded into the traffic lane above.

  She increased speed and chose a short cut across the city outskirts, steered the vehicle off the skyway, and watched as the gray car lifted out of the lanes behind her.

  We have been issued with a ticket for leaving the skyway, the AI’s ticker-tape warned her. The penalty is fifteen hundred dollars, payable in Federation credits or coins.

  “Damn, these guys are good.”

  The counter reached ninety-seven percent, and she slid the car sideways and dove down toward the darkened trees of a small piece of woodland.

  “Do you need me to find back up?” Lars asked.

  Ms E glanced at the counter and saw the green line holding steady over one hundred percent.

  “Not tonight. I’m good,” she told him, glad she’d remembered to stick her purse to the back window as the gray car settled in behind her.

  Maybe her disguise as Mrs. Barton hadn’t been as good as she thought. She pressed the button on the counter and all the lights in the car behind her went out a second before it plunged into the forest behind her.

  “I seriously hope that thing doesn’t start a fire,” she muttered as Lars continued his argument from a moment before.

  “Are you sure?”

  Ms E sighed. “Well, I thought—”

  “What? That if someone does get to the inimitable Ms E you won’t be around to teach Stephanie any new tricks?” he suggested and sounded hopeful.

  She checked the skies around her and let the silence stretch between them.

  Finally, she answered. “Yes, something like that. Take care of our Stephanie, okay?”

  “Got it. Lars out.”

  “Elizabeth out.”

  The comm link went dead and she released a long breath before she continued to the apartment.

  Chapter Seven

  They took the shuttle to one of the clubs on the other side of the city.

  “We might as well make a night of it and this monster can fly us anywhere,” Lars explained as Avery and Brenden took their places i
n the cockpit.

  “And park anywhere it darn well pleases, too,” Todd replied as he marveled at the sheer size of the transporter.

  “Be nice,” Stephanie told him, took his arm, and dragged him into the seat beside her.

  This earned her a hiss from the yellow-and-black cat, so she tapped it on the muzzle with her fingers.

  “Uh uh, Bumblebee. This is Todd and I’ma gonna sit next to him if I like. You get to sit near me anytime else.”

  The feline studied him as though trying to work out if it could get away with biting him, and she caught its attention by tapping it in the middle of the forehead. “I can see what you’re thinking, Bee, and don’t.”

  With a long-suffering huff of air, the cat lay at her feet and twitched its tail. The black-and-white one lay beside it, gave it a conciliatory lick on the face, and regarded Todd with a long, unblinking stare.

  “They wouldn’t really eat me, would they?” he asked and stared nervously at them.

  The guys filed in and sat around and opposite them. Lars laughed when he saw the look on his face. “Don’t let them fool you,” he said. “They’re really only a couple of pussy cats.”

  The rest of the team burst into laughter. Vishlog leaned down and used his knuckles to massage the animals’ foreheads. “Good kitties,” he told them, and they rubbed their heads against his hands, their tails twitching.

  “I thought we were going to play nice, tonight,” Stephanie told them.

  Frog snorted. “Come on, Steph. This is us. We are playing nice.”

  Todd grinned. These guys reminded him of Navy guys, and the other man had a point.

  The club was in full swing when they arrived and the entry line stretched out the door and down the block. The boys dropped Stephanie and Todd, Vishlog, Lars, Marcus, Frog, and Johnny outside the door and went to find a place to park.

  They left the cats in the car. “It’ll be a nice surprise if anyone decides they want to take a look inside,” Lars explained.

  Todd nodded and frowned at the line. “It’ll be dawn by the time we get in.”

  Steph laughed and thumped him on the shoulder. “You’re forgetting who you’re with,” she told him and headed confidently to the door.