Now it was really over. Gurminder raised his hands, nudged Tory to do the same.

The men stopped a few feet from them.

“What took you so long?” came the voice over their suit speakers.

“I don’t understand,” he replied.

One motioned for them to open their helmets. Gurminder followed suit, motioned Tory to do so also. But… something wasn’t right here. They weren’t acting at all like he expected them to, hadn’t ordered them to their knees, weren’t really behaving in a threatening manner at all.

The two men also opened their helmets.

The man who had made the order was bearded, older, strips of silver in his black hair. The other one was younger, had a steely gaze.

“You aren’t Liang,” the older guard man said. “You’re an Indi. Who’s the throwback?”

“I’m not a throwback,” Tory protested. “I’m not ev-”

Gurminder cut her off with a gesture. This must have been the insurance Mina talked about the Chin having. He hoped. He prayed.

“Liang and his team never showed up,” he told the man. “Ignore the midget. She’s just a code specialist.”

The two looked at each other. They young man nodded. Wait, was he in charge? This didn’t make any sense. They weren’t Martians for sure. But then, how did they get here? How did Mina know about them?

“Backup,” the younger guard told his older man. “The Indi is in the book. But he’s not a tech, at least not yet. It clears.”

He then turned his eyes to Tory, narrowed his gaze as she stared fearfully back at him.

“The shorty too,” he replied. “Confirm the transfer.”

His voice sounded funny as well, monotone in a weird way.

“Fine,” the bearded man said. “We’ve got the package ready for you. But you’ll have to move quickly, because it’s so late. There’s a military flyer inbound but there’s been no clearance made from Marsec. Must have gotten some intel on the op, or something else is going on. Another few minutes and this would have been SNAFU.”

“Give us the package and we’ll be gone,” Gurminder told him.

The older man gestured for them to follow.

“This is super weird and creepy,” Tory whispered to him as they stamped down the corridor after the two guards. “Did you know this was going to happen? Because-”

“Of course I didn’t,” he told her. “Mina said something might- she didn’t give any details. Just told me to trust her.”

She squinted her eyes at him, but didn’t say anything further. Maybe she thought he was an idiot. Maybe she was right.

More trips around corners, enough to get him lost, but, he hoped, not enough for Tory.

They finally reached a storage area filled with all kinds of crates, most of them labeled toxic, flammable and all sorts of other nasty.

That was where the older guard handed him the bomb.

The nuke was smaller than had been described, a small case that could easily be smuggled in his Transport, well lined with lead and camouflage screening, as the younger guard pointed out with his scanner.

“Tell Varlamov that this is the last favor,” the bearded guard told him. “No more help going forwards, you are on your own.”

He wondered briefly what Varlamov could possibly have on members of the ColCorp security, not to mention one has highly placed as this one. What kind of deals were going on above his head. What did Earthers see as an advantage in giving bornehere Martians a nuclear bomb? Did Mina even know about what her father was up to with Earthers?”

“And good luck,” the man finished pushing the case into his hands. “You’re going to need it.”

Once out of earshot, Tory finally asked, “he’s an Earther like me,” she said. “Why would he help you steal a nuke for your people? What could his reason be? We have to find out, don’t we? Because it could change everything, couldn’t’ it?”

“I know,” he told her and kept walking, case in hand. “I know.”

The sounds of weapon’s fire erupted behind them.