Dead Space by Kali Wallace (top romance novels txt) 📕

mining equipment. Thirteen huge, toothed boring machines to gnaw away at the solid rock. The wide conduits to transport the material to the center of the wheel. The series of crushing drums and filters at the center. The cone where crushed rock was shunted into the furnace to be scorched to ash, where the intense heat would extract all the water, volatiles, and metals.

The mine was quiet for now. Nimue was in a stabilization phase, prepping for the next stage of expansion. The mining machines were due to fire up within a few days, according to Sigrah; that was why she had refused to stop work.

So much closer to the physical center of the asteroid, gravity did not tug us much in any particular direction, and the cluster of lights around the lift did little to illuminate the vast space. The air smelled of metal and tasted of grit. It felt at first like an abandoned station, or a mausoleum, misted with rock dust and so dim the distant outer edges faded into darkness. It was hard to imagine how different it would be when the mine was fully operational.

But there was movement in the darkness. I became aware of the noise first: metal on metal, faint clatters and clanks, the momentary hum of an engine that revved and faded. I looked around frantically, searching for glints of silver in the darkness, bracing for another hateful little spider—then realized the source was an army of inspection and repair bots crawling over the machinery. I spotted about ten, maybe fifteen, glimpsed through gaps in the machines and in shafts of light in the distance; they were the same dull metal hues as the equipment and darted in and out so swiftly it was impossible to know where they might emerge. It reminded me of roaches swarming a refuse heap.

“Marley.” Adisa’s voice was quiet. “There.”

He nodded toward the left. Along one of the catwalks, about thirty meters from the lift, a bright ring of light surrounded a solitary figure. With his electroshock weapon in hand, Adisa went first. Hunter’s silver hair caught the light. She wasn’t trying to hide—but neither was there any way for us to approach her unseen. As we neared, I saw that she was on her hands and knees beside a control console. She had the front panel popped open as she rooted around inside. There was a tool bag clipped to the walkway railing beside her.

She noticed our approach when we were about halfway to her. She looked up and sat back on her heels.

“Oh, hello,” she said. “Did you need something?”

She reached for her tool bag, and Adisa said, “Don’t.”

“I was only—is my radio not working? What is it?” she asked.

“Put the tools down and stand up, please.” Adisa didn’t raise the stun weapon, although he was now close enough to use it. “Slowly.”

“I don’t understand.” Hunter rose to her feet, brushing her hands on her jumpsuit. I saw the exact moment she noticed the weapon in Adisa’s hand. Her eyes widened. “What’s going on?”

“What are you doing down here?” Adisa asked.

“I’m only trying to finish some work.”

“Alone? At this time?”

“I know it’s not smart, but . . . What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“Something’s not right,” I said quietly.

Adisa didn’t respond, but I knew he heard me. He had to feel it too. She was afraid, she was confused, but there was nothing in her demeanor that suggested guilt. It had taken us several minutes to get here on the lift, but she had obviously been working for some time. There was no sign of the black mech suit.

Before any of us could say anything else, our radios clicked on.

“You have a problem, Mohammad,” said van Arendonk.

Adisa grabbed his radio. “What?”

“The Overseer has been able to track Hunter since she left her quarters. She was never out of range of an ID scan.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you looking for me?” Hunter asked.

Van Arendonk continued, “She went straight from Res to the lift. Stopped at Level 2 for a few minutes. Went back to the lift. Stopped at Level 5. Back in the lift. Her ID chip was scanned every time.”

“I told you, I’m finishing some work,” Hunter said.

“Oh, fuck,” I said. My heart began thumping anxiously. I clicked on my own radio. “Was she—”

“No,” van Arendonk said. “She was not. She hasn’t been scanned at any of the warehouse entrances since several hours ago.”

Hunter’s expression was baffled. “What are you talking about?”

“Then who the hell was that?” I asked.

Van Arendonk said, “I have no fucking idea, Marley.”

“Check the surveillance in the tunnels,” I said. “You can get permission for that, can’t you? Where did they come from? How did they get there?”

“Please tell me what’s going on,” Hunter said.

“And,” van Arendonk said, “the rest of the crew are accounted for. All the tracking data is solid. None of them were in the warehouse when Mary Ping died.”

“What?” Hunter’s mouth dropped open. “Mary is dead?”

“For fuck’s sake.” Adisa ran a hand through his hair, then looked at me. “How is that possible?”

“How is what possible? Please!” Hunter’s voice rose to a shout, but she looked abashed when we both stared at her. “What’s going on?”

Adisa clipped his stun weapon to his belt. “Mary Ping was killed in the cargo warehouse about half an hour ago. You were the only crew member not accounted for at the time.”

Hunter put her fingers to her lips. “Oh, no. I didn’t do anything. I swear. I was here.”

“Somebody has to be fooling the surveillance system,” I said to van Arendonk. “Where did the killer go? Are they still in the transport tunnels?”

“Oh, you’ll love this,” van Arendonk said. There was a slight waver in his voice: he was rattled. “There is no surveillance in the cargo transport system. None at all, no matter what permission we get.”

“Bullshit. There has to be. Ask the—” Shit. There was no sysadmin to help him, because both sysadmins had been murdered. “There has to be.”

“The system hasn’t