Tara woke up on Earth after more than two weeks of continuous sedation. Her spinal cord was bruised, but not severed, and the process of ensuring her nerve functions and sealing up the damaged vertebrae took several weeks. Hanging suspended, face down, in a traction rig, unable to touch herself in any way proved to be far worse than any amount of pain she’d ever felt. When the medicos finally released her restraints, she’d marveled at the simplest actions—running her hands through her hair, scratching an itchy spot of skin, simply touching the floor with her bare feet. The new-again sensations motivated her in physical therapy. Her therapists pushed her harder than most patients because of the resolve she showed.
Come back stronger. Her adopted motto, tattooed forever on the inside of her left arm, became a rallying cry. Tara pushed her physical limits to return to duty faster than anyone who’d been similarly injured had done since the Alpha Contracts, or so her doctors said. It didn’t matter. She’d only wanted to get better, stronger, and ready for the next mission. Except the missions hadn’t come.
She heard footsteps, the crunching sound of sand under sturdy boots. Wiping her eyes, she looked up. Xander Alison walked toward her in his dirty, patched green coveralls, carrying an orange hardhat with a large light strapped atop it. His longish brown hair caught the last vestiges of sunlight. A soft smile creased his face.
“It’s something, isn’t it?”
Tara wiped her eyes with one sleeve of her coveralls. “Yeah. I hadn’t been up here before.”
“I know,” Xander said. His voice was soft, making him sound more like his younger brother than she liked. The pitch of his voice made her chest ache. “Was wondering when ya would.”
“Takes time,” she said. Tara stood and brushed sand away from the knees of her coveralls. “What do you have?”
Xander didn’t move. “You wanna talk about it?”
Tara shook her head. “No.”
“I’m here and willing.” His voice was soft and barely audible over the breeze. He stepped closer, and his shadow merged with hers on the ground.
“I’m fine.”
“Bloody hell you are,” Xander said. “You need to talk.”
Why? So, you can tell me I’m a failure and coward, too?
She shook away the thought. A fresh tear tried to escape her right eye, but Tara wiped it away. “This isn’t the time. I have a mission to get underway.”
“And how’s that going?” Xander’s face twisted into a sarcastic half-grin. “I think you and your team need to spend a little time learning about each other’s fears.”
Tara squinted. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s an old quote from Churchill. Something about getting the most powerful Humans in the world together and all you get is what they fear. Something like that.” Xander shuffled in place, stuffing both hands into his front pockets like a nervous, but expectant suitor. “There’s four of you on the mission. You should understand why everyone is there. What they want and what they fear; that’s all.”
“I don’t need to know all that,” Tara said. “They just need practice. Repetitions. They’ll be fine after a couple more simulator runs.”
“Tell me what you really think.”
Tara sighed. He’d asked the million-credit question. Her mind quickly flashed through the team and their strengths and weaknesses. “We need a lot more troops and weapons; that’s a given.”
“Unless a small force was what the Peacemaker Guild envisioned. I take it you’ve done something similar before.” Xander spread his hands to indicate the hallowed ground they stood on. “Something tells me you don’t need a few ships’ worth of soldiers and weapons. You need the right combination of both at the right place and time.”
“You sound like a logistician.”
Xander laughed. “Guilty as charged, but that was a lifetime ago. Really, though, combat operations are about being organized, trained, manned, and equipped for the mission. It’s no different than what I face on a digging mission. From the tools in the vehicles to the ship, my job is to have everything ready. That way, all I have to do is fly the ship and oversee my crews.”
“You make it sound easy,” Tara said. “Leadership.”
“It is and it isn’t.”
Tara snorted. “I hate bullshit statements like that, Xander.”
“Except you know it’s true.” Xander tilted his chin down toward her. “You think leadership is trying to replicate what you’ve seen. That’s a good start, but it’s more. It’s about how you act in a given situation. You’re not Jessica Francis, Tara.”
“Godsdammit, I know that!” Tara flared. No sooner had her temper risen then it fell away. She wiped her wet cheek with one hand. “That’s the second time I’ve heard that today.”
“It’s true,” Xander said. “And not in the negative way you’re thinking.”
Tara stared at him for a moment. His smile reminded her of Hex. The swaggering, confident smile of a man who knew what he wanted. With his brother, a year ago, Tara hadn’t been willing to entertain the thought of a relationship. Yet, there was something about Xander that intrigued and comforted her.
She blinked the possibility away. Focus, Tara.
“Negative way?” Tara asked. “Yeah, I can’t do what Jessica did either here or on Weqq.”
“Why not?” Xander challenged. “She was a mercenary, just like you. You commanded tank platoons in several companies with success, and we all know Death On Tracks was not your fault. Weqq, though, you were in a bad place. As soon as you understood the situation, you did everything right. You charged into that compound and took on Reilly and his band of criminals. In the end, Jessica succeeded, thanks in no small part to you. That’s why you’re on this mission, Tara.”
He was right. Beyond the core of self-doubt and the nagging voice telling her she wasn’t good enough—and never would be—Xander was right. She’d done everything as right as possible. That she’d been in place to assist Jessica was half crazy and half surreal.
Tara shook her head. “I wouldn’t have been on that mission had I not gone to the CASPer course. That’s what’s crazy about this. I was a tanker through and through, until I climbed into that rig with Lucille in my ear. That’s where I was supposed to be all along. I shouldn’t have been there, but I was.”
“What do you mean?”
“I left the hospital against medical advice to go to the CASPer course. I shouldn’t have been there.” Tara shook her head and laughed. “But that’s another story for another time. What do you have for me?”
“I went into the Raknar this morning.”
“That’s against—”
“I know,” Xander raised his hands in mock surrender. “I woke up last night thinking about how Jessica plugged Snowman’s chip into the system, and the Raknar started to power up. I wanted to see what I could find out about that connection. You know? Why the beacon worked?”
“What did you find?”
“The Guild scrubbed it, that was pretty clear, but I did manage to find a bunch of meaningless data with timestamps from around the time Snowman and Jessica went through that thing with a fine-toothed comb. It’s not much, but I found a few things that correlate to your target list,” Xander said. “One of them was listed twice. Uluru.”
Tara squinted. “What’s that?”
“You ever heard of Ayer’s Rock? In the Australian Outback?”
She shook her head. “I’m from Nebraska, Xander. I’ve been to seventeen planets, but I haven’t been outside of North America on Earth.”
“We’ll have to change that.” He smiled. “Come on. I’ll show you the data feed. I think you’ll find it interesting that I found another reference to an Uluru away from Earth.”
“Away from Earth?”
“The Haulers traveled extensively, Tara. Snowman found something out there that reminded him of Ayer’s Rock, of Uluru. He’s smart enough to avoid Earth, but I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t a clue to where he might be
.”
“You have the data feed?”
“Localized on my slate. It’s in my security locker.” Xander shrugged. He smiled at her, his eyes bright. “There’s a bottle of red wine, too. I was saving it for a special occasion. I figure it’s time to open it. Maybe we can talk about what’s next.”
“Your mission is complete?”
Xander nodded. “But I have a feeling yours isn’t going to get started without help. That’s what I’m here for.”
* * *
Overlooking D’Nart Spaceport
Araf
An hour after nightfall, a small Cochkala dragged a worn purple and black travel case away from the passenger terminal. For a moment, the Cochkala stood out against the stream of GenSha, Selroth, and Altar arriving passengers. A few other species were present, and the crowd helped hide the Cochkala from the naked eye within a matter of moments. Mnam laughed to himself and ducked past the lone eatery in the terminal and out toward the monorail connecting the major settlements. He’d successfully snuck into the terminal, posed as a passenger, and come out the other side of the secured transportation area unscathed. He’d performed the trip three times in the last seven days, each time carrying the tools of his trade further into the secured area and closer to his target.
Outside the terminal, Mnam ducked into an employees-only passageway that sat unguarded in the late afternoon lull. A few minutes later, he emerged in the maintenance terminus thirty meters below the central tarmac. The terminus was at the center of eight passageways that ran the length of the tarmac and approach corridors. Each followed a major point of the compass and ran more than four thousand meters into the surrounding featureless terrain. Mnam waited until the maintenance team held their end-of-shift meeting before he snuck out of the terminus and into the southeast passageway. The minimal security system was easily defeated by a localized electromagnetic spectrum jammer he wore under his coat, allowing him to scamper the three thousand meters to the access point he’d entered six hours earlier. His case lightened by eighty kilograms of high-density explosives, Mnam effortlessly lifted it from the ground, tucked it under one short arm, and ran.
Mnam skidded to a stop at the accessway. The two-meter-wide main passageway seemed like a thoroughfare compared to the small tube structure. Slowed by the tight space, Mnam silently pushed the case through ahead of him and worked slowly toward the end of passageway three hundred meters to the south-southeast of the maintenance corridor. Near a set of spare batteries for the outer marker navigational beacons, Mnam stopped, then clambered up a recessed ladder toward a tiny grate some thirty meters above. With one hand holding the empty case between his short limbs and one on the uppermost rung, Mnam pushed against the metal grate with his back, and it slid open easily.
Cool night air ruffled his light fur and refreshed him from the day-long effort. He pushed the case up and out of the grate, then followed it. With no moons of consequence, the night sky of Araf blanketed the surrounding terrain in near total darkness. The relative brightness of the passageways had stolen his immediate night vision, so Mnam crawled down from the grate, cradling the case against his chest, and blinked slowly, willing his eyes to adjust. In less than thirty seconds, Mnam could see clearly in every direction. The rounded, rocky hilltop to his immediate right was his final destination. Case under his arm, Mnam moved up the hill quietly, bouncing with infinite grace between the rocks. Near the top, he heard a distinct chitter in the wind. Pausing, he chittered a response with his tongue and front teeth.
A whisper floated down to him via the rising breeze. “All clear.”
Mnam crept the last fifty meters to the protected outcropping his team called home. They had been on the planet for more than four weeks, with provisions for another twelve if their mission required. Their temporary home almost resembled a Cochkala burrow, with its deft tunneling and layout of individual quarters and fighting positions. Mnam scrambled to the entrance and froze. A large, curving blade with a blackened finish hovered in the darkness a few centimeters from his nose.
“Mnam,” he said. “Unobserved.”
“Concur.” The blade moved away from his nose, and Mnam continued his climb into the outcropping.
His sapper team consisted of him and four young recruits, fresh from their training schools. Two of them, by design, were asleep in their half-burrows. The other two maintained security and kept themselves awake with gentle stimkits. They’d rotate through a six-hour watch, allowing a full night’s rest for the others. As their leader, Mnam could sleep as long as he wanted. The fatigue in his legs and arms said that would be a long time, but he first needed to eat. That, however, had to wait until he reported his findings.
Their employer would be waiting for confirmation. Almost everything, Mnam believed, was ready for a final assault. Given what he’d learned from the careless employees within the spaceport and their equally careless computer system, their employer would be pleased.
Mnam reached for the coded radio set and saw the instructions for the day were a thirty- second burst on the Ka band at precisely 2340 hours local time—an hour away, which was just as well. Food would help him craft the ideal message to accurately portray the events and the information. His operator in orbit would forward the intelligence report to their commander, but it would not matter. By Mnam’s calculations and the cryptic communications of the last two days, he would soon have a very interested observer.
From what he could ascertain, Victory Twelve and her crew would remain in D’Nart for another 72 hours at a minimum. They continued to use power systems to run simulation equipment for three Human CASPers and two external sim rigs that played armored vehicles or some type of Human-based weapon systems. Their training, as Mnam knew it to be, was not going well. There was dissension among the crew, two of whom he believed to be Peacemakers incognito. An Altar, apparently well-known and respected among the planet’s citizens, was the fourth member. The crew appeared to be attempting to work together, but unity was not within reach.
More curious, though, were the frequent trips Tara Mason was taking to the old mining complex and the dilapidated Raknar a hundred kilometers away. He’d paid a local flyer pilot ten thousand credits to figure out what was there, only to be told Mason apparently had a Human romantic interest running a salvage operation. Mnam had snickered at the news. Humans were predictably stupid in almost every situation. They were unable to leave their emotions out of conflicts, much less innocuous situations, and this led to mistakes that became open doors to an experienced enemy.
We will make them pay.
Mnam sat down, opened a ration pack, and smelled it. His stomach quivered in anticipation, and as he ate silently, staring out into the star field toward what he believed to be home, he knew his team would accomplish their mission and earn Kr’et’Socae’s respect. Mnam nearly panicked at the news their mission commander was now the fallen Peacemaker. The Equiri were a proud race, and Kr’et’Socae had been an Enforcer, the best of the Peacemaker Guild. He’d committed egregious crimes and instead of seeking to clear his name, the Equiri pursued a life far from the auspices of Union law. He was much more than a tale parents told their children to scare them onto the path of good and light. Of the darkest figures inhabiting the Union’s shadows, none was darker.
One more mission, and this can become a younger pup’s game.
Mnam continued to eat, his mind on his future life no more than a hundred hours away, if everything went according to plan. There was no reason to assume they would not succeed. If they failed, their employer would not hesitate to kill them. Mnam’s lifetime of skills would have to be enough to secure success and any chance he had of a peaceful life’s end.
* * * * *
Chapter Five
D’Nart Spaceport
Araf
“Two minutes to sim start,” Tara said into the linked communications suite. All of the units showed online and ready to begin including those for Bukk, Vannix, and Rains, as well as a sim console
for Xander to play observer/controller and to act as commander for air support from Victory Twelve. The only member who did not readily accept the change was Jackson Rains, who wanted to be the air support coordinator even though he hadn’t mentioned it until he heard Tara say something about it during the mission brief. The start of this simulation session was more tight and awkward than most.
Everyone wants to know if they’ve signed their death warrants by agreeing to this. Tara sighed inside Deathangel 25. I didn’t want it to be like this.
<
“I’m fine, Lucille.”
<
She laughed. “I know, Lucille. I’m trying to figure out what to do. Leading Humans is like herding cats.”
<
“Thanks, Lucille. What would I do without you?”
<
On her multi-function display, Tara saw a half dozen options flash onto the screen. Terrain, time of day, and aggressiveness of the feral Oogar enemy forces were all things she could adjust based on her soldiers and her training objectives. She’d messed with the settings in many ways over the last three weeks, but nothing seemed to matter.
“Randomize, Lucille. Your choice of settings.”
<
Tara grinned. Hollywood hadn’t been the motion picture capital of the world for a hundred years, but the military’s derogatory term for operations without real objectives stuck. After taking her initial VOWS on Earth, Tara had gone to a knock-off parachutist school in southwestern Missouri. The two-week course had been laughably run by men she could only see as wannabes. Some of them may have had actual military experience, but most of them personified their favorite characters from war movies. One of them, though—Torres—had the look and attitude of a hard-assed, non-commissioned officer. Tara liked him immediately. Torres gave no quarter to any trainee. If they screwed up, they spent hours doing push-ups or other tortuous exercises he dreamed up. But when he taught what he’d learned as a paratrooper, it was gold. He’d hated the jumps at the school because they were all Hollywood jumps—devoid of actual gear or weapons.
Deathangel Page 5
