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Category:
Science Fiction
Publisher: J.J. Snow
ISBN-10: 9780989778
Type: Fiction
Pages: 614
Copyright: 16 September 2013
ISBN-13: 9780989778107
Price: $4.99 (eBook)
Captain Reilly Campbell and her crew have seen it all. During the last 12 years, they served in the Interstellar Units, an elite military branch charged with the most dangerous special missions in the galaxy. The crew is ready to retire but Commander Zain has other plans for them.
When Captain Reilly Campbell and her gunship crew left the ISUs they thought they could finally live life on their own terms. With their demons behind them and a lucrative business venture as part time mercenaries and full time interstellar transporters, things were looking up. But when a retrieval mission on a remote moon goes bad, the crew is forced into a new battle, one they never saw coming.
Pursued by high tech enemies and caught in a power struggle between two psychopaths, Reilly and her team once again find themselves on point, fighting for the galaxy they call home and the people they love. Time is short, difficult decisions will be made, and truths will come to light that will make the crew question everything they have known.....and this is only the beginning.
Excerpt
It was a perfect day. The sky was a crisp, clear blue, the kind of sky seen at the beginning of fall. A slight breeze flowed gently across the plain, pushing the tall, golden grass towards a cluster of gray-green trees that swayed in the near distance. The sound of insects humming filled the air. Nearby, a bird chirped loudly then went silent. Mother Nature seemed to signal that all was well, just another normal day. It was almost believable, too. Except for the two dark figures in the middle of the field, it looked just like a scene from some nature video on prairie dogs. Even the people could pass for normal as long as one didn’t look too close. The woman wore a mix of what would pass for modern and vintage military surplus. The man crouching in the grass next to her could’ve been her camera man in his tan BDU pants, camo t-shirt and boots. They appeared to be one with the landscape, and only their diverse array of tactical gear gave them away as much more than naturalists.
Reilly was on the job. The grass eddied in wind-driven currents around her waist as she casually surveyed the plain, one hand scrolling across a small handheld device, the other resting on the grip of a black-and-tan blaster holstered on her thigh. Beside her, barely visible in the grass, was her former platoon sergeant, Joby Ty. He sat unmoving, patiently waiting, like a mountain lion anticipating its prey. His muscled frame strained under the armor plates he wore strapped to his chest. Over the body armor, he sported a tactical harness with several magazine pouches and a largish handgun. In his hands, he held an even bigger weapon that looked like something out of a video game Reilly had played as a kid.
The team had been doing well since departing their previous life with the ISUs. Civil war had erupted and then ended, but they had been mostly unaffected, sticking to the regions of space that had jobs but not too much in the way of fighting. Their military contacts helped keep them employed, earning them enough credits to get by on. The work varied from specialty jobs to cargo transport. It wasn’t always sexy, but they had the freedom to choose the jobs they wanted, which was a big improvement over their time with the units. Now they could move about as they pleased without the government locking them down for one-way missions that had the best possibility of getting them killed. They picked the jobs, limited the risk and focused on the payoff, taking in the sights between gigs and trying to make up for lost time.
Today’s mission was a simple retrieval. Their employer had requested that they break into a compound on Vervian 813, a small, vegetated moon in the Argos solar system, to retrieve a family heirloom that his brother had interned there to spite the rest of the family. The pay was exceptionally good, with 60% up front in digital credits to their accounts, the balance to be paid upon return of the item along with a new Bofors laser turret to replace the ship’s aging laser pod launchers and rail gun. Reilly had thought the job sounded a bit too good until the credits showed up. Their employer swore that the item was of great value to the family, irreplaceable and of a religious nature. Only with its safe return would the family finally get some closure. This wasn’t the first time sentiment over some object and family strife combined into a fantastic opportunity for the crew to make some credits.
The problem was, now that they were on mission, Reilly was beginning to wonder and not for the first time if something didn’t stink about this job. She thought back to the trouble that had started almost four hours earlier when they arrived in orbit and headed for the surface.
“Coming up on Vervian 813, Captain!” Duv flipped a few switches and turned the gunship slightly as he began to descend. Reilly stepped through the hatch and onto the deck to look at their destination.
“Anything?” she asked quietly as she manipulated a touch screen on the console in front of her.
Duv turned a trained eye to his scopes and gauges, then swung back around. “Nope, I’m not picking up any emissions, so looks like low security, if any at all. Should be an easy payday!”
Reilly smiled. “Good, that’s what I like to hear. Head on in and put us down within walking range of the compound. I’ll grab Ty, and we’ll get this knocked out.”
“Maybe even in time to be back for dinner?” Duv grinned evilly as Reilly shot him a look and walked out the hatch.
“I’ll take that as a no!” he called after her.
Reilly kept walking as she pulled on her chest plates and tactical rig. Her former gunnery sergeant and longtime mentor, Forlan Chang, had been on one of his rare superstitious kicks again. She shifted the harness, tightening it down as an uneasy feeling swept over her. Chang was a hell of a fighter and had taught her everything she knew from her days as a new lieutenant. He wasn’t one to back down easily, but every now and again he would go off. After listening to him spout a bunch of prophetic bullshit followed by dire predictions of some kind of dark cloud hanging over this mission, Reilly had finally threatened to tie him to the bulkhead as their new hood ornament if he didn’t shut up. He had gotten surly and retreated to the mess, slamming around the kitchen gear, mumbling to himself about dark days, which told all of them that dinner was likely to be less than mediocre, if it materialized at all. Chang loved to cook, but when he was in a mood, the chow and the crew suffered. Reilly shook off her unease and was punching in the code to release a rifle when the ship gave a sudden violent lurch, tossing her between the walls in the corridor.
“What the hell was that?” Joby Ty was staggering up the hall as the ship stabilized again. Reilly shook her head as they headed for the bridge.
Duv hollered back to her as he heard the footsteps coming up the metal stairs. “Restraint field, Captain! It almost had us for a second there, except I got a prox alarm at the last minute telling me to pull up. No warning at all…pretty strange…I’ve never seen one like this before…”
Duv pointed at the three-dimensional hologram of the restraint field’s spiked dome that appeared to hover over the dash next to him. Below the dome was an accurate map of the surface, showing the moon’s rugged terrain.
Reilly flicked the image with her finger, and it spun slightly as the computer coughed up details on the restraint field. Duv whistled softly as the computer indicated that a full-system lockdown would have occurred if their ship had entered into the field’s engagement zone. Duvall “Duv” Jackson had also been in Reilly’s unit and was one of the best pilots she had ever met. Only his quick reaction to the security warning had prevented the bird from being captured and held tight to the moon’s surface, making them easy prey for salvage crews or other dangers.
Reilly shoved the uneasy feeling back again and pointed out one of the nearby canyon areas that appeared to be clear. Duv nodded as he guided the gunship over and gently set it down. The crew began their system checks automatically before Reilly could say anything. She smiled briefly as Ty disappeared down the hall to do an integrity check while Duv pulled up the systems network operations center to run a scan. Five years out of the military, but everyone was still in synch with their training. Reilly leaned in to look over Duv’s shoulder as the scan finished. Even with his quick reaction, several of the primary systems had been tweaked and would need to have components replaced before they would be able to get space-borne again.
Duv grimaced and then cursed, punching the comms button. “Skeeter, I could use a hand up here with this piece of…” He trailed into a string of curses as he clicked off the mic, grabbed a well-used coffee mug with the slogan “To Hell with Gravity” imprinted on the side, and filled it to the brim with the thick, dark brew before slamming the coffee maker back into its slot.
“How long, Duv?” Reilly asked, calculating the amount of time they had already spent on the surface.
“At least a couple hours—we got lucky, but we didn’t get off completely free. Skeeter will get ’er up and running again.” Duv took a swig from his mug and pulled out a tool bag and some parts from a small side compartment.
A few minutes later, Duv’s fourteen-year-old prodigy of a son, Skeeter, was scrambling around the ship working his magic to test out repairs while his father cursed in the background, handing him parts and downing cup after cup of black coffee like a fiend. Reilly paced impatiently, jamming the comms button to on when Ty called in his report. She could hear the echo of his digitized voice bouncing around the cargo hold, causing feedback on the mic. Just another thing she needed to get fixed when they finished this mission. Ty’s frustration came through loud and clear.
“That must have been a hell of a field, Cap. Looks like it killed all the modulators in the heavy blasters. I checked every one, and they’re all dead. We’re going to have to go old school on this mission.”
Reilly cursed. This was bad news. If they had the misfortune to come up against any advanced machines during the mission, they’d lack the ability phase shift their fire. This meant the machines would be able to adapt their shields and defenses to the team’s weapons after only a few shots. Then their weapons would be useless. She held the mic for a moment and glanced down the corridor to see Chang briefly flit across the hall. The uneasy feeling came back, but she stubbornly shook it off.
“Ty, grab a backup weapon and some grenades, then get Maude ready.”
She clicked off as Ty’s “Roger that” faded away and grabbed her gear. Duv gave her a surly wave and turned back to his work while Skeeter disappeared under part of the raised flooring, hauling a bunch of wires along with him. She walked down the hall and then jogged the stairs from the catwalk down to the floor where Ty waited with the Tactical Off-Road Retrieval Rover, or TORR, its motor grumbling loudly in the mostly empty bay. Chang had dubbed the four-person, heavily armed, high-speed tactical vehicle “Maude,” although no one really knew why. The name had stuck. Maude had saved their asses on more than a few occasions, and the vehicle was almost like family now.
Reilly nodded to Ty as he climbed up to man the rear turret gun. She turned the vehicle tightly and headed down the ramp into the dusty canyon. The unexpected restraint field, the damages to the ship and the weapons—it was enough to set them all on edge.
Reilly watched their surroundings for any sign of danger while the vehicle holo-display projected the fastest route to the compound. The lack of activity only made her more wary. One thing was certain, when things went wrong early on a mission, they tended to keep going wrong until they ended with unusually bad results. The sensor suite on the vehicle was going haywire, creating a field of static and causing random energy spikes on the system. The TORR grumbled to a halt as Reilly pulled up to the edge of an open field area.
“I’m getting some strange readings. It could be from that restraint field, but everything is too jacked up to tell for certain. Let’s leave Maude here. We can take the handheld and check it out on foot first.”
She turned the TORR off and Ty jumped down from the turret, landing next to her, as she began to wade out into the field of tall grass. Her handheld was picking up an electrical emission that was different from the natural noise of the moon. Patiently, she watched as the device scrolled through threat profiles for restraint fields and security systems, attempting to match the signal to a known entity. She continued to walk forward, her rifle slung, while Ty cautiously took in the landscape around them. Halfway across the field, she paused. The signal was stronger here. Ty took a knee next to her, his height just enough for him to peer above the top of the grass around them. Reilly looked up, scanning out across the ocean of vegetation, looking for signs of trouble. She stood stock still as the device gave a quick beep, affirming the identity of the signal. The grass continued to ebb and flow in waves around her, waist high, like a sea of gold in the afternoon sunlight.
There. As the wind blew, there was just the slightest deviation along the right edge of the field. The pattern sought to mimic the wind, but the movements were too precise and stood out to her trained eye. She flipped open the screen in her left hand again, queued up the pattern analysis program, and smiled grimly as it confirmed what she already knew. Ty still crouched, head and gun low, unmoving.
The machines had already targeted them, so silence and stealth no longer mattered. “Three on the way, heading in from two o’clock, all class threes, and if there’s more I can’t see them through this damn interference.” Vervian had strange magnetic patterning due to the surrounding rock layers in the hills that played hell on electronics.
Ty grimaced. “Well, isn’t this just turning into the most fraggin’ awesome job ever.” He punched the button on the side of his rifle, which whined to life as the blaster cells charged up.
“Hmmmm.” Reilly calmly pulled her blaster and thumbed off the safety. “I seem to remember a mission not too long ago that a certain someone told me was the ‘golden ticket,’ the one that was going to keep us in credits until we were a hundred…you remember that mission?” She kept her eyes on the handheld as the dots moved closer.
Ty muttered something under his breath that sounded like “Never lets it go…” and pointed his blaster out and left.
Reilly waded a few steps forward, watching the three lines snake towards them in the grass. “I seem to remember getting shot four times, rolling down the side of a mountain, and having to hide out for two days with no water in some dark hole filled with bat guano. After which we had to hike miles to find the landing zone because someone told the crew to take shore leave without my permission. Oh yeah, and then when we got there, we had to fight off a bunch of locals who were salvaging parts from my ship.” She gestured in the direction of the approaching threat as Ty turned in response.
Ty moved slowly, still slightly crouched, a twinge of annoyance in his voice. “How was I supposed to know that we were being set up? We’d done a bunch of deals with Father Darcy and he never crossed us before! He was a priest—ain’t they supposed to be trustable like?”
Reilly rolled her eyes. “He was a smuggler and in with the Aman Brothers Crew…and he was a Catholic! He can kill five folks before lunch and drop some credits to atone for his sins!” She quickly stowed the handheld in her tac-gear and brought her blaster up.
Ty grumbled, “I’m a deception expert, not a mind reader. I actually have to be in the same room with someone to…” He went quiet as Reilly raised her fist.
The breeze stopped and the grass went still. They both tensed, waiting, frozen in place.
“Do you see them?” Ty whispered. “They should be right…” He poked lightly at the grass just in front of them.
The ground erupted. Two machines launched at them, crossing in midair.
“Enforcers!” Ty shouted. He unleashed a spray of laser fire at the nearest threat.
The machines were made of metal coated with nano-polymers that changed with the environment, allowing them to better blend in with the grass. As they leapt, the gold and brown stripes changed to a dull metallic gray. A single eye-like sensor emitted green as it tracked the targets, recording height, weight, armament, armor. Reilly rolled to the right, hitting the ground and firing up as the machine attempted to adjust to her movement, rolling and twisting in midair itself. Its knife-like claws grasped at where she had been as she blasted upwards into the thin underbelly plating. The primary processor resided there, and damaging it would limit or completely destroy the machine’s ability to prosecute its target. The first shot missed, and she dove again as the Enforcer hit the ground and leapt in an arch above her, firing as it moved. The machine hit the ground on its forelegs, and Reilly swung her boot, placing a kick against the closest joint and forcing the machine slightly off balance. The rear legs compensated, and the Enforcer turned again in a dizzying circle, launching directly at her head and chest. At the last moment, Reilly threw herself backwards and punched up with her blaster firing several rounds. The machine fell to the ground, fading between gray and grass stripes as it lurched forward, attempting to reach its target. The mouth snapped open, revealing a set of titanium fangs that receded only to be replaced with a rifled laser shot barrel, forcing Reilly to roll as it blasted two large holes where she had been. She shot it again, this time just behind the plating that guarded the neck and shoulder connection, severing the metallic head.
Meanwhile, Ty had blasted his machine in the face, blinding the sight and heat sensors, forcing it to revert to secondary tracking mechanisms. The machine searched for vibrations by sending out a quick sonar ping to detect his heartbeat and movement. It came at him a second time, swiping with sharp claws and metal fangs that could easily cleave body parts. Whoever had set these machines up liked to see them play with their prey first. He twisted away and rolled, landing on his stomach as the machine seemed to turn on a dime to come back at him. Ty pulled a black, segmented grenade off his tac-vest and rolled it out. The device split into six pieces that began to give off heartbeat signatures that mimicked his own and immediately spread out around the periphery. The machine, confused for a moment, turned, trying to decide which one was the appropriate target. Ty lurched forward, put his weapon under the metallic beast’s head, and pulled the trigger, obliterating the entire front end. He staggered up, getting to his feet just as the third machine emerged from the grass behind him.
“Ty, drop!” Reilly ordered. He fell to the ground like a rock, rolling onto his back as he realized what was happening. He shot twice into the machine’s undercarriage, paralyzing the back legs and taking out the processer as it passed over him. He lay there a moment getting his breath, then jumped to his feet. Reilly was a few feet away looking down at the last machine. She had shot it as well in the front visor, blinding it, but not before it had torn a nice slice down her arm.
“Shit.” She was bleeding all over the place. Ty jogged over. “Looks like it got a piece of ya.” He quickly elevated her arm, tore the tattered sleeve away, and then pulled an olive drab cloth out of his side kit, wrapped it twice, and cinched it down to stop the bleeding. She winced.
“You think? That’s just fraggin’ great!” Reilly angrily tested the arm. It was painful, but she could wait until she got back to the ship to get it looked at. The muscle was intact, so she could still pull or lift with it, which was good.
Ty wiped his brow and looked around. “Well, what do you want to do, Cap? We weren’t expecting any kinda welcome, but we’re sure getting one. Not in the price I remember getting quoted for this job.”
Reilly swept angrily at the thin trickle of blood that was seeping out from beneath the makeshift bandage as she looked around. She pulled out her handheld and scanned the area again while she thought. At this rate, who knew what else was going to come up. She had half a mind to turn around and forget the whole thing. But she had never failed to complete an op before, no matter what came up, and she was damned if this cursed mess was going to be the first.
“I got nothing.” She met Ty’s look. “Let’s get Maude and finish this.”
They jogged back to the TORR and continued cautiously on to the squat gray concrete building that was currently the cause of all their troubles. It was nothing special. Small, made of cinder blocks and cement, with a standard tactical force field around it. Reilly used her handheld to run a quick security hack, and then they pushed the heavy metal door open. The inside was equally unimpressive. Three walls were lined with metal and mesh lockers, while the floor was covered in green crates. Ty shot the locks off the cages and looked for the box they had been sent to retrieve. Once he found it, he secured it in his pack and turned to Reilly.
“Got it. What now?” Ty walked over to where she stood and gave a low whistle.
Reilly stood staring at the contents of the containers she had opened. The two crates up front were loaded with weapons and HEAT grenades which could blast through titanium plate like a knife through butter. Another crate had breacher charges which could be put out an airlock, remotely guided to another ship’s hull, and then detonated. This was top-grade military weaponry, hard to come by even on the Allied-controlled planets, let alone in someplace like this shithole of a moon.
“What did we get us into, Captain?” Ty muttered.
“I don’t know, but we’re here now. Let’s load it up. All of it.” She glanced around again. “I think me and Welch are going to have a bit of a chat when we get back to Arias.” Reilly tossed her torn, bloody jacket aside, cinched down the black bandage, grabbed a crate, and headed out.
They had been working for around twenty minutes, loading all but a few of the crates up, when their earpieces crackled to life.
“Um, Captain?”
“Duv—yeah, I’m here, what is it?” Reilly responded as she finished tying down a set of crates on the TORR. Ty carried out a couple more boxes and went back in to get the last of the crates.
“We’ve been getting some real odd readings up here. Where are you exactly?” Duv asked. “You aren’t by chance those two little dots by that itty bitty little building, are you? Damn interference is making it hard to see…uh oh.” Duv inhaled sharply.
“That would be us. We’re finishing up the load-out, should be done here in the next ten minutes or so. Is there a problem?”
“Well, if by problem you mean five class-four Enforcers coming out of nowhere and moving in on your position from the west at about eighty clicks per minute…then yes, a big damn problem!”
Reilly dropped her crate in the vehicle and jumped on the TORR. “Ty! We got company! We gotta move!”
Ty ran out and jumped into the seat next to her. “Bad?” he asked as she strapped in and hit the throttle, jacking Maude into high gear and swerving out onto the road. She nodded tersely. He climbed into the back and snapped his harness into the turret post, looking out backwards over the cargo.
“Five class fours heading our way at eighty clicks from the west.” Reilly focused on driving, ignoring the ruts and hoping that they would come out of this best case with some of their haul, or at least with their lives and most of their limbs still intact.
“Maybe Chang was right; maybe this job really is cursed!” Ty turned the turret west as they bounced along the edge of the field towards the ship. “Where the hell did they come from? We scanned everything!”
“I don’t know. Maybe they were activated by something we moved, or maybe they were just hiding in the noise,” Reilly said as she touched her earpiece. “Duv, I need you to come our way. We’re going to need some cover fire to get to you.”
“Roger that. You know I have to lift off to fire, though—we may have to get creative with getting you guys on board.” Duv fired the engines, pulled on the comms-mic, and announced to the rest of the crew, “Lock it down, folks. We’re on our way to pick up the Captain, and we may experience turbulence, gunfire, and explosions.” He slammed the mic back into place and turned the ship low and fast, moving towards the canyon.
The grassland turned to red dirt as the TORR sped into the stretch of canyons. Right now, all they had going for them was speed and a laser turret, and that wasn’t much against class fours. Enforcers had been created by the black-market programmers as mobile security systems. They were relatively cheap and more reliable than regular human security forces. Over time, they had developed numerous forms, although many looked like overgrown metallic lizards, cats, or wolves, depending on the designer. Class ones were the cheapest models and could be easily defeated by anyone with the right training. The versions Reilly and Ty had encountered in the field had been class threes. It was rare to come across them, but someone with the right connections and enough cash could pick up a few and save some change on the care and feeding of regular thugs to watch over their stash. The machines were much more reliable and completely loyal to their programming. Each machine had its own unique code that was generated securely and provided to the owner to ensure that the system had not been compromised. After receiving the code, the owner could set up any number of daily tasks or situations for the machines to respond to, create a schedule, and then let the program run. A computer log and updates could be sent to the owner’s handset as well as alarms and resolution reports when a threat had been stopped or neutralized. The Enforcer series went up to class five. During her time in the ISUs, Reilly had only ever seen one class four. It had taken apart an entire platoon and a half of elites before the firepower from two other platoons and an interplanetary tank round rendered it a smoking hole in the ground. For someone to have not one but eight upper-class Enforcers running around in a small, uninhabited area on a semi-vacant moon was not a good thing.
Ty looked through the holographic sites, watching the horizon. He couldn’t see them yet, but the system was tracking the dots coming up on the outer proximity ring. Two split off and stayed west, while the other three headed south and east.
“They split—looks like they are trying to get above us on top of the canyon walls while the other ones run us down from behind,” Ty hollered to Reilly over the rush of the wind.
Reilly focused on the dirt track up ahead. The Heads-Up Display showed the rock outcroppings and the canyon walls beginning to narrow. Several box canyons off to the right would make great ambush spots for the machines. To their left, the rock wall was solid until they got to the main ridge. Then it disappeared into thin air with a thousand-foot drop to the canyon’s floor.
The red rocks flew by as Maude bounced and jolted along. Ty watched behind them. The three Enforcers coming from the rear were now visible and seemed to be speeding up.
“Probably because they have target acquisition and are waiting to get within range of the old girl to blast her to pieces,” he muttered to himself. A shower of rocks tumbled down on his left. He glanced up to see another Enforcer above them on the canyon’s ridgeline. The head was lizard-shaped and an odd metallic gold color. A sudden bright light flashed, briefly blinding him.
“Incoming!” Ty yelled.
The rockets slammed to the right of Maude as Reilly swerved behind a boulder using the terrain as cover for the vehicle. Two more augured in just behind them as she reversed direction and skidded back left down the track that led to the main ridge.
Ty blinked furiously, trying to clear his sight. The turret gun gave an audible tone indicating that a threat had been locked on. Ty gripped the trigger, pulling back hard. As his vision turned from splotchy dots to a gray haze, Ty saw the rounds connect with the target, knocking the Enforcer on the ridge back several feet. Smoking, it shook itself off and leaped forward, disappearing from view. The holo-sights showed the machine moving behind the ridge line but still keeping pace with them. He trained his gun to the rear on the three Enforcers there. He made solid contact with the first machine, laying down a stream of laser-propelled molten tantalum rounds until it dropped into a heap. He grinned and fired at the second one. The rounds bounced off like rain. Crap. They had phase shifted. He turned the dial to shift the laser and try again. The gun thundered, and a second Enforcer lay smoldering in a heap of molten metal.
“Yeah! Take that, you metallic bastards!” Ty unleashed another stream of fire, but this time nothing happened. These Enforcers had phase-shift adapters, which meant that they could read the gun’s output and adjust to the rate and type of fire as well as predict and defend against any variances that the system could produce after two shifts by the weapon.
“Uh, Captain? I think we’re in trouble.”
Reilly glanced back “Shit! Look out!”
An Enforcer had launched from the top of the canyon ridge, using the high ground to propel itself down onto the TORR. They watched as the machine opened up, revealing laser-rifle barrels and titanium claws as it fell.
Suddenly, the Enforcer disappeared in a bright blue flash. Reilly looked over to see Duv on her left providing top cover as they made their way down the canyon. He swung the gunship sideways, facing in towards the canyon wall, watching for any other movement. Ty gave a whoop and kept the gun trained behind them as they continued to jostle down the canyon edge.
Reilly motioned to Duv, gave the rally sign, and pointed at the end of the canyon. “You sure?” he asked in her earpiece.
“Yeah, we gotta get off of this rock before we die here—and we’ve still got two more Enforcers about to be on us in a hot minute.”
“Alrighty. I’ll meet ya there!” Duv veered off, the ship’s engines roaring overhead.
“Hey! Where the hell is he going?” Ty hollered out. The last two Enforcers reappeared and began to gain ground again. He unloaded another stream of fire at their pursuers. When Reilly didn’t answer, Ty glanced over his shoulder. And then did a double take.
Duv had positioned the ship at the end of the canyon ridge and was opening up the cargo bay doors.
“Oh, hell no! We ain’t doing this!” Ty looked back to find an Enforcer almost on top of them. He blasted a few more rounds, which the machine dodged. “Shit, go faster, go faster!”
“I thought you said we weren’t doing this,” Reilly yelled back at Ty.
“I changed my mind!” Ty fumbled with his gear rack and pulled out a smoke grenade. It wasn’t much, but it might just buy them a few seconds while the machine switched sensors. He pulled the pin and lobbed it in the back of the TORR. White smoke whirled out, obscuring his view and hopefully the Enforcer’s, too.
Ty turned to look forward as Reilly reached the cliff’s edge and launched the TORR. He looked back again behind them just in time to see the Enforcer’s head burst through above the smoke.
“Duck!” he yelled. A laser round sizzled in the air above them and was gone. Maude hit the rear ramp, skidding a bit as Reilly floored it to prevent them from sliding backwards into the canyon. The wheels caught and gained traction, flinging the TORR into the cargo bay and promptly flipping it upside down as the bay doors closed behind them. Maude grumbled, then wheezed and became silent as the engine cut out. Reilly and Ty dangled upside down in their harnesses, gasping for breath and surrounded by the scattered cargo that had broken loose.
“Well, that was a first,” Ty noted as he painfully moved his limbs to make sure they were still all there. They could feel the gunship lurch upwards and then gain altitude. Reilly slowly unbuckled her harness and let her feet slide down to the ground while hanging onto Maude’s now-dented frame.
“That was awesome!” a voice called down from the catwalk up top.
They looked up as they climbed out of the TORR to see Duv’s son, Seth “Skeeter” Jackson, bouncing along the catwalk excitedly.
Reilly gave a crooked grin and shook her head, then continued digging her way out of the crates surrounding Maude. She examined the dent and decided it could be hammered out. It wasn’t the first time they had had to give poor old Maude some body work.
“Well, quit your blabbing and get your skinny butt down here. You can help me get this mess cleaned up, starting with moving this cargo up to the front of the hold,” Ty groused as he worked to free himself from his harness. “Damn. I think I dislocated my shoulder again!”
“You know that entire sequence had a twenty percent chance of working? I mean, the physics was totally against it, and if the right trajectory and speed hadn’t been met, you guys would be dead right now!” Skeeter happily reported as he jounced down the steps to the cargo bay floor.
“Yeah, great, thanks for that!” Ty leaned over and slapped one of the smaller crates to Skeeter while still probing his shoulder with his index finger. “What were you doing down here anyway?” Skeeter normally stuck close to Duv on the bridge when things got tight.
“Oh, yeah. Duv wanted me to look at the laser damage and see how bad it was. It fried some of the circuits to the main engine room and some of the ones to life support, too.” Skeeter pointed up to the blackened front wall of the hanger bay.
“What? Shit, would you look at that!” Reilly gazed up at the front of the loading bay. The last laser round that had missed them had gone into one of the main control boards above the first catwalk. “It wasn’t shooting at us. That thing was trying to bring down the ship.”
Most cargo-class gunships had two control boards on the loading bay deck. Disabling the lower one could cause all kinds of issues and if hit with a high enough voltage could even short out the engine in older models. Reilly had spent extra to make sure the electrical system was protected against any kind of overload or interference and had built in a backup electrical system just in case. That was the only reason the ship was still in the air now instead of at the bottom of a canyon.
“One Enforcer jumped on the back—Duv says he’d never seen them do anything like that before. He was jinking and getting ready to roll to shake it off”—Skeeter reached the bay floor and picked up the small crate—“then it just dropped back off again…pretty weird.”
At that, Ty looked over at Reilly. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
Reilly punched the comms speaker on the deck. “Duv, run a scan for foreign objects on the hull. Tell me the minute you find something.” She clicked off. “Ty, I want you going through all of this cargo, everything, and tell me what has us getting so much attention since we started this mission.” She glanced down at her arm, which was bleeding again. “I’m going to go find Gunny and get this stitched.”
Reilly stepped up and onto the catwalk, continued climbing, and then turned down a passageway that opened into a common room where the crew took their meals. Just off of the main area was a smaller kitchen area, and past that another room and then a bunk area. She found Chang in the kitchen.
“So, you made it back in one piece, huh?” he said, turning and then raising an eyebrow as he took in Reilly’s bloody arm. “Hmmmm, or maybe in a few pieces…sit down here.” Chang pointed at a small stool in the corner by some potato peelings and then pulled an ISU medical kit out from under the counter. Reilly obediently sat as he began to unwrap the black cloth. He hissed appreciatively.
“This is pretty deep—you always did suck at knife fighting.” He pulled out some disinfectant and supplies along with a needle and stitching thread as she gingerly rolled up the sleeve on her t-shirt. “It’s going to leave a pretty scar for you to add to your collection.”
“It was an Enforcer, a class three. It was going for Ty. And I don’t remember ever losing to you in a knife fight!” Reilly grimaced as Chang jabbed her with a needle to numb the site and started to stitch up the wound.
“Overconfidence is a fickle creature that if not tempered with humility can lead to a sudden precipitous fall.” Chang smiled brightly as he continued stitching. “You just ignore the odds, and someday it will get you killed. My grandfather used to say, ‘One who drives like hell is bound to get there!’”
The shipboard comms crackled to life. “Captain.” Reilly picked up and hit the transmit button while Chang focused on his sewing.
“I found something—looks like a tracker on the starboard hull of the ship,” Duv reported. “I don’t know if it has a detonator, but it’s definitely sending out a signal. What do you want to do?”
Reilly looked down and thought for a minute. “Duv, can you jam it out? Try just enough noise to cancel it so it still transmits but at a reduced range, in case it does have an anti-jam detonator on board. We’ll have to wait to touch down to get a better look at it. And keep scanning to see if we have any company.”
“Strawberry or grape? I’m on it.” The mic clicked off as Duv hung up.
Chang watched Reilly’s face from the corner of his eye. He had been a master guns when she was a new lieutenant earning her bars in some of the ISU’s bloodiest battlefields. The captain had been fearless in defense of her soldiers, earning their respect daily by fighting with them shoulder to shoulder. She took bullets for them, charged hills, bandaged wounds, negotiated their freedom with cunning, lasers, and tantalum rounds, was there for the victories and to steady the dying and bury the dead. Chang knew if she was worried it didn’t bode well for any of them. Her intuition and instinct had saved a lot of lives in battle, including his. Besides, the signs didn’t lie. Something bad was coming. If only he knew what. Chang finished up the last stitch and tied it off, covering up the wound with a clean bandage.
“So? Now you believe me about the bad luck, huh? I can sense this stuff. Got it from my grandmother.” Chang smiled as Reilly rolled her eyes. He wadded up the bloody fabric and tossed it into the chute for the ship’s incinerator, then wandered over and used sterigel from a wall dispenser to clean off his hands. He wiped them on a small brown cloth and began chopping vegetables again.
“I believe in cause and effect. And yes, we are having some bad luck. But I also believe that at the bottom of that bad luck is a sniveling backbiter who set us up for his own benefit.” Reilly looked down to admire his handiwork. “Thanks,” she said looking over at him. “Stay frosty, Gunny. This job stinks and I don’t like it. When we get back to Arias, Welch better have some answers for me.” She stood up to leave.
Chang waved his knife at her as she went out the door. “Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than a question is an answer.” He began to whistle a cheerful marching tune as Reilly shook her head and kept walking. Once she was out of sight, Chang threw three knives into a wooden block above the door frame, rapidly one after the other, and then continued merrily dicing up the potatoes. He was always frosty, that’s why he was still alive. He shot one more covert worried glance at the captain’s retreating back before turning back to his cooking.
#
Reilly made her way forward to the bridge. Duv was at the flight controls working a jamming solution when she stepped through the hatch. He pretty much ran everything on the bridge when she was on world or working an operation. They still had several crew slots open, but Reilly was particular about who came to work on her ship. Duv had been hinting hard at getting some more help, so she’d finally made him a deal that they’d look for new crew members once this mission paid out. If it pays out and doesn’t cost us more than we bargained for, Reilly thought to herself.
She punched up a holoscreen at the back of the deck. “I want all records on Welch, Errat Kelvin, and his brother Welch, Razam Rian.”
The Holographic Automated Intelligence Linked Ethernet or HAILE, pronounced Hail-lee, whirred to life. The system had been designed to speak in a soft, feminine voice that was supposed to be soothing in stressful situations. During her time in the ISUs, Reilly had seen many of these units upgraded with more authoritative masculine, computerized voices. In combat, the pilots tended to tune out the female voice, much like they would tune out a spouse or girlfriend at home or a mosquito buzzing in their ear. Either event could result in disastrous outcomes, but even more so when the information turned out to be critical to flight operations. This particular unit had been modified so that it sounded like a woman with a really deep, grating voice who had just downed multiple cups of Duv’s heavily caffeinated Iram coffee—not a good combination. Reilly frowned. She’d ask Skeeter if he could take a look at the voice modulator program once they made port.
The machine announced, “Complying. Records search underway.”
Duv laughed. “Good thing it’s not a virtual. Don’t think I could stand looking at it! That voice could only go with a woman built like a linebacker, with an Adam’s apple and facial hair to boot!”
“So she’d look just like that woman you fell in love with when we were based in Syon for eighteen months?”
“Yeah, well, they all go up about five or ten points when you’re stuck in a barren wasteland surrounded by mutant hoards who are trying to kill you—she was the Queen of Syon, no I ain’t a-lyin’, and she stole my heart and my soul.” Duv began to sing one of the unit’s old drinking songs. “We drank lots of whiskey, an’ then we got frisky, that big woman she took me just like a she-Wookiee, and now I’m just not the same! No, after that lovin’, you just keep on puffin, ’cause three hundred pounds tends to crush your rib cage!” He gave a whoop and turned back to his console with a wicked grin.
Reilly leaned back and swiveled her chair so she could look out the front deck windows. The stars glimmered brightly around them, and for a moment she just breathed it in. More than anything else, this was where she belonged, where she fit in. The military had suited her well and she had loved it, learned from it, survived because of it. But it had kept her on the move and no place was home. This ship was closest thing to a home she had, and her crew was her family. It wasn’t fancy, but it was work and life on her terms, and that sure as hell beat the last twelve years of touring the backside of the universe, living on the government’s time.
“Records returned for Welch, Errat and Welch, Razam,” HAILE reported.
“Bring them up,” Reilly ordered.
The rear holo-display showed a photo of Errat Welch, their current employer. A thin, redheaded, weasel-faced man, complete with all personal specifics, education, work, residence. He held an official post with one of the lower ministerial offices on Arias only because his father was the financial minister for the planet forum and had seen fit to arrange a place for his youngest son. Unofficially, he traded moderately in black-market goods, mostly hard-to-come-by items, liquor, and some antiquities. So he was dirty, but on the lighter side of black.
Reilly touched the screen and slid Welch’s files to the side, pulling up his brother Razam’s files. The records had the same personal specifics, education and residence information, but it showed that this brother had worked for his father briefly before taking off for the central planets to pursue a series of jobs with the Interplanetary Security Command on Sargon. The records tracked him up to five years back, when it was listed that he went missing in an attack while visiting one of the Outland planets to conduct a security inquiry. Reilly assumed that now that he was out of the picture, Errat had wanted to see if her team could penetrate his brother’s site security on Vervian. If they were successful, then she was sure that he would want to “consolidate” his brother’s possessions so he could appropriately administer them in the best interest of the family, meaning himself of course. She and the crew had hoped to get enough credits from the job to keep them from having to work for a bit. That of course was long before they had been introduced to Razam’s Enforcers. Reilly wondered if Errat knew about the presence of the machines. Either way, their return visit would not be very pleasant for him, even less so if he had intentionally let them walk into a death trap.
“I have a jamming solution in place and ready to go,” Duv announced. “Want I should switch ’er on and see if anything blows?”
Reilly responded sternly, “Nothing blows on my ship, Duv. Jam it out.”
“Roger that.” He launched the solution via their cybertronic network and waited. A green light came up on his status board. “Okay, it’s in place and blocking about eighty-seven percent of the signal. Anybody trying to track it now would have to be up our ass or pretty damn close to it. Do you want a system workup of initial specs, now it’s contained?”
“Yeah, see what you can get off of it. Set the containment to detect any triggers before we sweep-scan it. I don’t want any more surprises today.”
“Heard that alright.” Duv brought up the virtual view of the cyberdefense suite and set the containment field to flag any triggers or back doors prior to the sweep reaching those points. Then he turned his attention to finalizing their course plot. He brought up the route on his holo-display for final check to make sure all of his calculations back to Arias were valid and not going to drop them into controlled space, unfriendly patrolled areas, a star, or a black hole. He confirmed the coordinates and launched the flight pattern, turning control over to the ship’s computer to get them back to Arias by the next day. He got up to come look over Reilly’s shoulder, cup of coffee in hand. She had returned to the Welch records and was looking through everything HAILE had pulled up.
“Seth did really well with this program modification. It’s pulling up everything, even classified records. And he’s sure it’s untraceable?”
“He says it is. Even got us access to the ISUs’ main frame, for those special times when you need the very best!” Duv laughed, then sobered. “Must have got it from his mom—she was always the smart one, teaching him on this stuff from when he could barely walk. Good thing, too. That kid deserves better than being just another dumb stick jockey who can’t even see what’s right in front of him.”
Reilly looked up. “You gotta stop blaming yourself. There were no indications, nothing until it was already over. If you had been there, you’d be dead like the rest of them.”
“I still feel like if I had been there I could’ve made a difference, maybe saved her and my other boy. At least we got Skeeter out…thanks to you. You saved his life.” Duv gave an ironic laugh and shook his head. “You’ve saved all our lives at one time or other.”
“Don’t go getting sentimental on me now, Jackson. You know I hate that shit and I’m already in a hell of a mood after all our fun today!” Reilly growled. “In fact, my day would end a lot better if I could finish it out by kicking your sorry ass!”
“Well, you are right, his ass is sorry, but you’ll have to wait to kick it. Ty asked me to come get you. He has something to show you in the hold.” Chang was quiet as a ninja when he wanted to be.
“Something wrong with the ship’s comms mic?”
“The link is still out between the bay and the forward compartments. Something about a metallic bastard shooting lasers at you when you were boarding?”
“Right. Okay. I’ll head that way. Thanks, Gunny.” Reilly ducked out of the compartment, but as she went, she was sure to give Duv’s shoulder a quick squeeze.
Duv looked over at Chang. “That’s one tough lady. I’m glad she’s with us.”
Chang glanced back at the door. “An army of a thousand is easy to find, but very difficult to find a general. You hungry or what?” He revealed a bowl of brown-looking glop with pieces of potato in it.
“It smells like dirty socks!” Duv made a face.
Chang looked insulted. “It’s dinner. Special potato stew with protein sauce.”
“Special? I don’t like special cooking, I like good cooking.”
“It has ingredients to help banish bad luck. You eat it and the bad luck goes away. This is from a very famous recipe passed down to my family over hundreds of years. One of my great, great, great aunts, I think. Back home, it’s considered an art form to prepare this meal for honored guests, so that they will prosper in the coming year.”
Duv mashed the glop around the bowl. “Huh. Never would’ve guessed they’d make an art form out of abusing food this way and then forcing people to eat it. Your great whatever-she-was must have been a sadist. Or maybe she just wanted the family inheritance. Besides, I really doubt potatoes are going to magically solve our problems.”
Chang grabbed the dish back. “Fine.” He threw a military protein ration from his pocket at Duv, then turned and stomped out, grumbling about “people with no appreciation for good cooking…”
Duv watched Chang disappear down the hall. “Man gets more like a woman every day…it’s just not natural.”
Duv pulled open a hidden compartment under his console, revealing a can of Spam and some crackers with cheese whip from one of the storage bins. He kicked up his feet and popped open the Spam. “Now, here we have the battle pilot special: heavily preservative-laden pressed pork with a side of cheese and crackers guaranteed not to hex you, bind you up for a week, or give you the shits. A real pig in every tin. Now that’s good eating!”
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