Read Wolf Time (Voice of the Whirlwind) for Free Online

the suit was still on transmit or whether anyone was listening. The Wolf had visible light and IR detectors, motion scanners, scent detectors, sensors that could detect the minute compression wave of a body moving through air.
    There was no way the Wolf would miss anyone in the ship, given enough time.
    Reese’s heart thundered in her chest. “Get into vac suits!” she ordered. “Abandon ship! Get onto the station. Try and hold out there.”
    Chung’s voice snapped over the outside speakers. “Where the hell are you?” At least someone was listening.
    “I’m moving upship toward the control room. Oh, fuck.” The heads-up display indicated the Wolf had detected motion from the docking cockpit, which meant the armored bulkhead door was open.
    The Wolf caught Falkland as he was trying to fly out of the cockpit and get to an airlock. The flechettes failed to penetrate the exoskeleton, so the Wolf flew after him, caught him bodily. Reese felt her left hand curling around the back of Falkland’s head, the right hand draw back to strike. She fought against it. Falkland was screaming, trying to struggle out of the Wolf’s grip. “ I’m not doing this !” Reese cried, wanting him to know that, and closed her eyes.
    Her right arm punched out once, twice, three times. The Wolf began to move again. When Reese opened her eyes there was blood and bone spattering the faceplate.
    “I’m still heading upship,” Reese said. “I don’t think the Wolf knows where you are.”
    Chung didn’t answer. No point, Reese thought, in his sending a radio signal that might give away his position. The Wolf reached the forward control room, then began a systematic search of the ship, moving aft. Reese reported the suit’s movements, hoping to hell he’d get away. The ship was small, and a search wouldn’t take long.
    Custom thread , Vickers had told her. Woven into the target-acquisition unit. Berger had done it, she knew, not only wanting to wipe out the station personnel but anyone who knew of Cuervo’s existence.
    She was riding in an extermination cyberdrone now, trapped inside its obscene, purposeful body.
    Mandate. Liquid. Consolidation . The code had sent the Wolf on its rampage. The liquidation is mandated. Consolidate knowledge about Cuervo.
    Displays flickered on the screen. The thing had scented Chung. Reese could do nothing but tell him it was coming.
    Chung was by the aft airlock, halfway into the rad suit he’d need to flee through the airless engine space.
    His face was fixed in an expression of rage. “ Steward !” Reese screamed. The ten-gauge barked twice, and then the Wolf froze. The displays were gone. The Wolf, still with considerable momentum, continued to drift toward the aft bulkhead. It struck and rebounded, moving slowly toward Chung.
    Reese tried to move in the suit, but its joints were locked. Her crashing pulse was the loudest sound in the helmet. She licked sweat from her upper lip, felt it running down her brows. Chung’s body slowly collapsed in the insignificant gravity of the asteroid. Drops of blood fell like slow-motion rubies. The gravity wasn’t enough to break the surface tension, and the droplets rested on the deck like ball bearings, rolling in the circulating air.
    Reese’s heart stopped as she realized that the sound of the Wolf’s air-circulation system had ceased. She had only the air in the suit, then nothing.
    Her mind flailed in panic. Shouting, her cries loud in her ears, she tried to move against the locked joints of the Wolf. The Wolf only drifted slowly to the deck, its limbs immobile.
    Like Archangel, she thought. Nothing to look forward to but dying in a suit, in a tunnel, in the smell of your own fear. Just like her officers had always wanted. She tasted bile and fought it down.
    I’m using air , she thought, and clamped down, gulping twice, trying to control her jackhammer heart, her panicked breath.
    Chung’s furious eyes glared into hers at a distance of about three