Starcrossed - Bianca D'Arc Page 0,80

advanced into the stairwell. The bots were already at the bottom, scouting ahead and giving Tigh a running account of their findings.

Tigh opted for the stairs, rather than the lift. He left a bot at the lift opening to deal with anyone that might come up that way, but he wasn’t too worried about it. If anyone managed to escape out to the surface, the women aboard the Phenix would take care of them, he was sure.

When he reached the bottom of the staircase, he found himself in a chamber containing a multitude of hooks with various kinds of coats hanging on them, as well as a row of footwear along one wall. This was a vestibule, of sorts, where inhabitants would gear up for going outside or relieve themselves of outerwear before going deeper into the facility.

“Tiggy, status?” Tigh asked, taking a moment to observe the chamber and plan his next move.

“They’re moving down a long hallway. They came across one cubby that was loaded with bags of trash, but that’s it, so far,” she reported.

“Roger that,” he told her. “Alert me the moment something changes.”

“Aye, sir,” Tiggy replied.

Hansa and Jimnai also had earpieces and had heard Tiggy’s report. Tigh looked at them now. He had given access to the bots, reporting feed to both men, and all of them were seeing data on one side of their combat displays showing what the bots had discovered so far.

“Looks like a straight shot down to a lower level,” Jimnai observed a moment before one of the bots encountered a room where five men were sleeping.

“A barracks?” Hansa asked rhetorically as Tigh ordered a thorough scan of the room. “Only one exit,” Hansa observed as the report came back from the bot. “Seal them in for now. We can deal with them later,” he suggested.

Tigh ordered the bot to do exactly that and stand guard at the lone entrance with orders to stop anyone from leaving, should they somehow be able to bypass his lockout codes that sealed the door. As emperor, he had backdoor and override codes to every piece of tech made by jit’suku—including every programmable door lock in this place.

“I could lock everything down,” Tigh mused as they began walking again.

“You could, but the ladies are on the move. Better, perhaps, to let them move freely and keep the bots doing recon and dealing with problems as we find them. With any luck we’ll meet in the middle,” Hansa offered.

Tigh nodded. He wasn’t sure which was the better option, but he knew Ginny wouldn’t like being locked in anywhere, even if it was for the best of intentions. As they began to move again, another bot reported activity in a compartment it was about to search. Since Tigh had ordered all the bots to approach with caution and stealth, it waited to receive orders.

He paused for a moment, shifting the feed from that bot’s sensors to his display. There were four life signs in the room, and they were talking and moving around. Tigh instructed the bot to climb to the top of the open doorway and deploy a miniature sensor stalk at one corner, where it probably wouldn’t be noticed, to do a sweep of the room.

The data came in, confirming this room, like the other barracks chamber, had only the one entrance. Tigh ordered the bot to return its sensor, and he quickly issued the order to the door’s electronic system to close it and lock it down tight. He stationed the bot at the door, in case the men inside found a way through, then resumed moving. He and his friends were in the next long stretch of hallway that spiraled gently down into the rock of the mountain when Tiggy’s voice came to them.

“They’re at a doorway to what looks like a laboratory. There’s one man inside. The door is closed, but transparent,” she reported.

“Can you send us an image grab of the man?” Jimnai asked before Tigh could get the words out.

“Done.” Tiggy’s confirmation preceded the image of a man in a lab coat by a fraction of a second.

“That’s Gruber!” Tigh cursed under his breath as Jimnai exclaimed.

“He’s seen them. He’s coming over to the door,” Tiggy told them breathlessly.

If only they could communicate with Ginny and tell her to get as far away from that madman as possible. But the cameras weren’t receivers. Just transmitters. Tigh started running, his two friends bringing up the rear. The time for subtlety was over.

“He’s