by Ben Wolf
Justin covered his mouth to keep from laughing, but that proved impossible.
As Zed lifted his hands and squared off with Ritz, Val clapped her hands once, and they both turned to look at her. “Enough.”
At that, they both lowered their hands and pulled away.
Once he managed to stop chuckling, Justin addressed Ritz again. “So you were working for ACM?”
“Yeah. And my CO was a major cockatrice, if you know what I mean,” Ritz replied. “And I mean he was a dick of legendary proportion. A real man-banana.”
Justin thought back to Oafy and Gerhardt from ACM-1134, and to Carl Andridge himself. “Must be a theme with ACM.”
“I’ve never worked for ACM a day in my life.” Zed folded his arms and raised his chin. “Hate ’em. Always have.”
“Then what got you thrown in here?” Justin asked.
“Tried to blow this ship up.”
Justin’s eyebrows rose. “Is… that possible?”
“Cram enough explosives into a sealed metal tube in the vacuum of space and light a fuse… oh, she’ll blow alright. Like a trombonist in the background of an amateur adult movie.”
Justin cocked his head at the analogy, but he got the idea.
“But they caught me, took away my gear, and threw me in this dump.”
“I was with Farcoast,” Bear said. “I was runnin’ one of the mechs in that battle the other day, but they blew out my mech’s knee joint, and I went down. Was doin’ fine ’til that happened, but then I couldn’t move.” Frowning, he quietly added, “Too much weight.”
“You were aboard the Nidus?” Justin asked.
“Yeah. They captured me and brought me here. Not much I could do ’bout it, but at least I ain’t dead.”
At this point, that might as well be the mantra for Justin’s life—at least I’m not dead.
Around that time, the guards noticed Jonesy was still lying there and had been for awhile, so they ordered everyone back to their hexpods over the comms, locked them inside remotely, and came in to collect him.
Justin marveled at the sight of Bear squelching into his pod. He fit, but only just barely.
All told, the guards didn’t seem to care that Jonesy had been killed. They removed his body and returned with meager lunch portions for everyone, which they left out on the Plastrex tables in stacks of trays.
While he was in his hexpod, Justin checked his screen for updates from Keontae.
{: You okay? :} was Keontae’s first question.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Justin said. “Your timing was perfect.”
{: Yours more than mine. Saw that kick, bro. Fire. :}
“Thanks. Where are we at?”
{: Still need some time. I’m outta the brig, and I’m between the ship’s subnetworks tryin’ to squeeze through the cracks into the main network. Once I do that, we’re golden like grahams. :}
“Good. I think I’m safe for now, but the sooner we can get out, the better. I can’t imagine what Captain Marlowe, Arlie, Hallie, and the others are doing right now to survive.”
{: They’ll be alright. Captain Marlowe’s a beast, that Bryant guy seems good, and Arlie’s more dangerous than the two of ’em put together. :}
“Still…”
{: I know, I know. You’re worried ’bout your girl. Don’t blame you. She don’t have enough booty for me, but I get your attraction to ’er all the same. We’ll get you back there soon enough. :}
“Thanks, Key.”
When the guards finally left and the hexpods reopened, Justin slipped out. But rather than heading toward the stacks of trays of food on the tables, he found Val instead. He motioned her off to the side, and she met him away from the others, who were tearing into the food trays like wild animals—especially Bear.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“I’ve got a plan to get outta here,” he said. “But I could use some help. Someone to watch my back.”
She shook her head and scoffed. “You’re not getting out of here.”
“Yes, I am.”
Her head continued shaking. “No. No chance. This place is locked down.”
Justin didn’t want to argue with her. “Okay. Suppose I do get out. If I manage it, do you wanna come with?”
“You won’t.”
“But hypothetically, if I did, purely in your imagination, would you come?” Justin asked. “The fantasy version of me could use your help.”
Val stared at him with narrowed eyes. “If you were to get out, and I could get out, too, then yeah, I’d back you up.”
“Great. That’s what I needed to know.”
“But you won’t get out.”
“Yes, you’ve made that very clear.” Her certainty was getting on his nerves, but he couldn’t exactly explain Keontae to her.
“What makes you think you can get out?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You wouldn’t be asking these silly questions if it was nothing.”
Justin lowered his voice even further. “I have a friend on the inside. That’s all I can say.”
“Well, unless he outranks the admiral, we’re not going anywhere.”
“In that case, you’ve got plenty of time to tell me about who you assassinated.”
She scoffed. “Which one?”
Justin couldn’t tell if it was bluster or if she was serious. “The one that landed you in here.”
Val frowned. “The one that landed me in here was a failed attempt. Got caught before I could even pull the trigger.”
“Who was the target?”
“Admiral Sever.”
Justin blinked at her. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Why him?”
“It’s a job.” Something about the way she said it wasn’t wholly convincing.
“No. It’s more than that. I can tell.”
She stopped making eye contact with him. “Fine. It’s… personal.”
Should he pry more? Or should he leave it at that? Justin opted to leave it alone for the time being.
“Oh. Sorry. I don’t need to know anything else abo—”
“He had my parents executed,” Val interrupted.
17
“Long time ago. Ten, fifteen years, maybe. I lost count,” Val continued. “Been a rough life since then. Orphanages, mostly, ’til I was sixteen. Lit out and never looked back. Found some ex-military guys willing to train me in exchange for… you know. And cleaning. I had to clean up after them, too.
“But in the end, it was worth it. I made a career out of what I learned. Set off on my own, did a few simple hits, made some credits. Paid for more advanced training. Got that. Did a few more jobs. Got some ink. Got some piercings. Got more ink and more piercings. You know, the cycle continues.
“All the while, I’m looking for the guy who did it. The guy who ordered my parents killed. I knew his face, knew he was with ACM. Finally found him and started making plans. Then, when I had my best chance, I blew it,” she finished. “Now I’m in here.”
Justin stared at her. His childhood had sucked, but hers sounded worse. Then again, if someone had executed his parents, he might’ve been better off in the long run.
Still, he could empathize with her to a certain point. She’d gone through some shit, just like he had, and she’d come out the other side stronger and better.
“Sorry,” she said. “I know it’s a downer of a story.”
“No, no. It’s fine. I get it,” Justin said. “Sorry you didn’t get him.”
“Yeah. Maybe someday.” She quipped, “Like when you break us out of here.”
“Make fun of me all you want, but it’s gonna happen. Mark my words.”
“‘Mark my words?’ What are you, a medieval baron? No one says that anymore.”
“Well, I just did.” Justin smirked. “So mark ’em, and mark ’em well.”
“C’mon.” She motioned with her head. “We’d better get some grub before Bear thinks he’s entitled to o
ur breakfast.”
Ever since they’d left Justin behind, Hallie wondered if his plan was going to work. It was, on the surface, the dumbest possible idea she could’ve imagined. For him to willingly get caught with the hope of somehow accessing the Avarice’s network and hacking into it…
Suffice it to say, it was farfetched, but he’d been so certain he could pull it off when he pitched the idea. Had Captain Marlowe and Arlie and their surviving crew members not backed him up, she probably wouldn’t have agreed to it.
Then again, his assessment of the situation was still correct. Eventually, ACM would’ve breached the house’s defenses, and then they’d have no means of escape. Leaving and staying mobile would at least buy them more time.
Most importantly, their only way out of this was to either get past ACM or to take them down. They couldn’t escape if ACM had any significant presence on the Nidus or was waiting for them once they left.
She tugged her satchel higher on her shoulder. The asset was heavy, but she would bear it forever if she had to, especially if it meant keeping it out of ACM’s hands.
The idea that she might use it against them had crossed her mind as well, but…
No. That was a bad idea. She wouldn’t do that unless she had no other choice. And even then, once she opened that cage, she could never put the canary back inside.
By now, almost a full day had passed. Thus far, they hadn’t noticed any change in ACM’s collective behavior. The soldiers’ search continued full force, and Hallie’s group hadn’t heard anything from Justin, either.
So was he dead? Captured and locked up? Helpless to do anything?
Or was he still working on it, making progress, and about to turn everything in their favor?
Hallie and the others had no way of knowing. All they could do now was stay on the run and try to buy time, so that’s what they were doing.
Her satchel weighed on her shoulder more with each passing step. Bryant, Luke, and Captain Marlowe had all offered to carry it for her, but she’d declined. She refused to entrust its contents to anyone else. She preferred to be the one in control of what happened to it.
Plus, even though Luke, her fellow scientist, knew what the satchel contained, the other two didn’t, and she wanted to keep it that way. If it was with her, she controlled who knew what it was.
As they hunkered down in an alley, Luke pointed at the dome over the city. “Look at that.”
From Hallie’s vantage point, several tall buildings blocked her view of whatever he was pointing at. She leaned forward and tried to line up her view with his.
“There, between the two tallest skyscrapers,” he clarified.
By now, she wasn’t the only one trying to get a look. The rest of her fellow scientists and the Viridian’s crew strained to see as well. Only Bryant remained behind, watching the entrance to the alley with his rifle held at the ready.
At first, she didn’t see anything. Then a small glowing orb shot upward, sort of on a curling trajectory. It looked like it might’ve been a signal flare, but then a beam of harsh red light dashed through the sky and hit the orb. It flashed bright orange, and then it was gone.
A second later, another orb launched into the night sky. It, too, was hit by a red laser, and it exploded. That’s when Hallie realized what she was seeing.
“Escape pods.” Her gut twisted at the thought of all those people dying because of ACM’s invasion. “Launching from an auxiliary docking bay, maybe.”
Luke nodded. “ACM is shooting them out of the sky.”
The fact that she’d lured ACM here, albeit inadvertently, gnawed at her insides. So many people had perished because of her decision to sign on to this project in the first place. How many more would die before the end?
No. You can’t think like that, she chastised herself. What you’re doing will end the fighting and put the control back in the Coalition’s hands once and for all. No matter how many die here, you’re saving millions of lives across the galaxy. Maybe even billions.
“We should keep moving,” Bryant said from his position at the end of the alley.
“We should get underground,” Captain Marlowe said.
“We’re on a spaceship,” Cecilia said. “Is there such a thing here?”
“Sewers,” Arlie said. “Maintenance tunnels, maybe.”
The idea of traipsing around this city’s sewers wrinkled Hallie’s nose, but getting caught wasn’t an option. “If that’s what we have to do, let’s go.”
“There’s a grate here, but it’s locked.” Captain Marlowe crouched down in the alley and nodded toward a grate at his feet. He pulled a silvery tin out of his inner coat pocket and popped it open. “Looks like pretty standard steel and not some fancy alloy. We could shear through it, but it might be noisy.”
“We either find another way in, or we risk cutting through it here.” Captain Marlowe pulled a narrow metal stick out of the case, put it in his mouth, and bit down hard. Then he shut the case and tucked it back into his coat pocket.
“Would any of these buildings have access to the maintenance tunnels?” Luke asked.
“Maybe,” Arlie said. “No way to know for sure without checking.”
“And that’ll take time,” Captain Marlowe said. “And we might get cornered or trapped inside one of them in the process.”
“Wait. I have an idea,” Luke said. “Bryant, let me have your plasma repeater for a sec.”
Bryant didn’t move. “Why?”
“Just trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
Bryant’s stillness continued for another few seconds, then he relented and held it out. “You shoot yourself with this, I’m not responsible.”
“Please. I served in the military, too.” Luke took it from Bryant, hooked his index finger in the trigger guard, and spun it around in a series of fancy moves. “Spent a lot of time playing with these things and picking them apart.”
Luke had a PhD in weapons engineering, and he’d proven to be one of the finest weapon designers Hallie had ever worked with, despite his youth. Aside from his intelligence and capability, his attention to even the smallest details had impressed her the most.
He stopped spinning the repeater and deftly deconstructed it with his bare hands, revealing its insides. Hallie hadn’t even known that was possible, but he’d just done it right in front of her as easily as shucking an ear of corn.
“These repeaters have limiters designed to inhibit the amount of energy they project,” Luke explained as he worked the repeater’s insides with his fingers. “Modify the limiter, and they project more or less. The problem is, they’re delicate mechanisms and hard to manipulate.”
Hallie marveled at his lightning-quick movements.
Luke snapped the repeater’s outer shell back in place. “Do it wrong, and the whole thing might blow.”
“Blow?” Captain Marlowe eyed him.
“Blow,” Luke repeated, again spinning the repeater on his finger. “As in, it could explode in your hand like a grenade when you pull the trigger, and with just as much kinetic energy.”
Everyone recoiled, and several of them gasped.
Luke just laughed. “Fortunately, I’m a genius with this stuff. Literally.”
He crouched down, took aim at the locking mechanism on the sewer grate, and fired.
An orange light burned in the alley like a star going full supernova, and a brief but deafening hiss sizzled in the air.
Most of the group yelped and gasped, but as the light faded to nothing and Hallie’s vision returned, she saw the aftermath of Luke’s blast: not only had the repeater’s blast shorn through the lock in the grate, but it had also seared half of the grate itself and some of the concrete around it into oblivion.
Hallie checked her satchel, mostly to make sure it hadn’t somehow gotten damaged. The last thing she needed was its invaluable contents slipping out onto the street or into the sewers while they were on the move.
Luke himself was fine. He stood there, gaw
king at the results of his handiwork. He turned and chuckled to the rest of the group, most of whom were still blinking away the negative image of the light flare or rubbing their eyes.
“Well…” he said, “I may have loosened her up a tad bit too much, but we should have no trouble getting into the sewers, at least.”
“We’ll be lucky if the whole ACM army isn’t heading our way after that blast.” Bryant snatched the repeater from Luke and tucked it into his holster.
“Um… you’ll want to be careful with that,” Luke said. “The limiter’s still set to that crazy-high setting, and after that blast, it dropped to about 50% charge, so if you try to use it, it’ll shoot another blast like the one I just did.”
Bryant glared at him. “Is it gonna blow up in my hand?”
“It shouldn’t.” Luke shook his head. “I mean… I don’t think it will. If it didn’t the first time, there’s no reason to think it would the second time.”
“How about the fact that it didn’t do what you expected the first time?” Bryant suggested.
Luke gave a nervous smile and nodded. “The limiter is fixed—as in, it won’t move unless I adjust it again, so you should be okay. Probably.”
“Uh-huh.” Bryant motioned toward the small crater around the sewer grate. “You go first. Help people get to the bottom.”
“Sure… No problem.” Luke climbed into the opening and descended the ladder.
Bryant gave Hallie an eye roll, and she grinned. “You scientists. You’re gonna be the death of me.”
“Uh… can someone lower a flashlight?” Luke called from within the sewers.
The brilliant flash of orange light from the northwestern quadrant of the city caught Vesh’s attention. It also reignited the burning behind his eyes.
He gritted his teeth and blinked it away, as usual. Thus far, the sensation hadn’t affected his mission, but if it persisted, it might. At best it was a harmless distraction. But if it grew any worse…
Vesh had to complete this mission and get checked out sooner rather than later. That was that.
