by Mark Wandrey
* * *
“What in the hell?” he wondered aloud, even as he finished plotting the five figures’ locations. They were all oriented between himself and the starport. Since nobody had shot at him when he’d first landed, he had no choice but to assume they’d come down on the ship which landed a short time before.
Jim initiated a scan of Human-used frequencies and found one in use. It was a basic encrypted comms channel. He broke the encryption with casual ease and listened in.
“He hasn’t moved,” one man said.
“I can see that for myself,” replied another.
“Just use another rocket,” a third suggested, and Jim felt a growing panic.
“Damned thing won’t load,” a fourth said.
“If you’d hit the car instead of the ground, we wouldn’t be talking about this,” a final voice said angrily.
There’s the leader. The Humans were all speaking English with various accents. The leader sounded North American, maybe with a light northeastern accent. Jim activated his radio through his pinplants. “Why are you doing this?”
Only silence answered for a long moment. Clearly he’d caught them off guard by monitoring their frequencies, then breaking in on them.
“Who is this?” one of them demanded. Jim thought it was the fourth one, the rocket launcher guy who couldn’t figure his weapon out.
“Who do you think it is, you idiot?” the leader snapped.
Jim set his jaw and tried to defuse the situation. “Look, I don’t know who you guys are, or why you are doing this. Maybe you saw my ship and figured I was an easy mark? I can assure you I am anything but. I’m also not running around the galaxy with a hold full of red diamonds.”
“You mercs is always rich,” the first one Jim had heard speak said.
“Hector, shut the fuck up!” The leader barked.
Jim started to smile, but the expression died before it finished. How did they know he was a merc? Either they were far more perceptive than he was giving them credit for, or this was no random attack. He was leaning hard toward the latter. While they weren’t overly organized, they outnumbered him. He also had an injured Fae on his hands.
“Change frequencies,” the leader ordered.
While he waited, Jim checked on Splunk. There was no change. She was breathing but still unconscious. The bleeding had largely stopped, which was something. He considered his medkit for a moment before discarding the idea. As far as he knew, it wasn’t designed for Fae, and every merc had heard horror stories about using unconfigured nanites.
What he needed was a distraction to get through these idiots and to Pale Rider before they got their backs up and made a run at him. He used his pinplants to search radio frequencies again and quickly found the channel they’d switched to. The drone confirmed it; they were getting ready to move in.
Jim grabbed the silver case and quickly activated the other drone. It took less than a second, its tiny engines spinning up into minute screams as it climbed. Jim sent it off toward his adversaries. A second later, he heard a transmission.
“Got the rocket launcher loaded again!”
“About damned time. Finish this,” the leader said.
“Shit,” Jim cursed and switched targets. The drone banked hard and accelerated just as the man with the rocket launcher stood up.
The drone wasn’t designed for combat. Its main tasks were surveillance and reconnaissance. What it did have was an extremely power-dense capacitor it used to drive its motors for hours of operation—and a failsafe designed to keep it out of unfriendly hands. A split second before it rammed into the man raising his reloaded rocket launcher, Jim triggered the failsafe.
Inside the drone a tiny chemical charge triggered a thin spray of mercury which shot into the high-voltage leads for the capacitor, shorting them instantly. The drone, hurtling at the man at high speed, exploded in his face and sprayed him with burning capacitor gel and razor-sharp alloy fragments.
As screams echoed across the cold ruins, Jim got up and ran, his friend unceremoniously tucked into his backpack as he raced along the rubble-strewn avenue. He could see in his pinplants the rocket launcher-wielding man was down, rolling in the dirt, clawing at his breathing mask, which was now on fire.
One down. One of the remaining four spotted Jim and unleashed a stream of automatic weapons fire. Sparks flew off the paved surface around Jim, and he sent the last drone racing at the gunman. Jim could have done the same trick again, however, he elected against it. The drone was his last and if he used it as a weapon, he’d lose his eyes-on-high. Instead, he buzzed the man within centimeters of his face. The man stopped firing and dropped to the ground, afraid of suffering a fate similar to the first man.
The tactic bought Jim the time he needed. He made it to the nearest building and flattened himself against its side seconds before the remainder of the hit team acquired him. He was only a few dozen meters closer to the starport, but at least he wasn’t in a crossfire anymore!
One of the four raced after Jim, barreling along a lot faster than the portly merc could hope to. Though Jim had recently managed a short endurance run, it didn’t mean he did it quickly. He considered himself inadequate in a sprint; there was simply too much of him. The remaining drone tracked the man as he prepared to chase Jim around the side of the building.
Jim guessed the guy hoped to clear the corner and get a shot at him before he could make it around the next building toward the starport. The guy had no clue how bad a runner Jim was, nor that he was under surveillance. He rounded the corner at a dead sprint and was unable to stop as Jim swung the crowbar into his face.
It wasn’t a solid impact. The man managed to turn his head just enough so the crowbar didn’t split his skull like a cantaloupe. It did take a chunk out of his nose and skin off his forehead. The man’s feet went out from under him and his head hit the ground with a sickening thud! He didn’t move.
Jim didn’t know if the guy was alive, and he really didn’t care. He took a second to reach down and snatch up the fallen man’s weapon before continuing his run toward the next building. Four more blocks, he saw from the drone.
As his legs pumped, he looked down at the gun. The great-grandson of an American-made AR-style rifle, it was cheap 3D-printed crap, probably bought at a starport for less than 50 credits. The only electronics were a bullet counter on the magazine showing 22 rounds left. Jim had no clue what caliber it was, only it was likely next to worthless against half the aliens he’d fought. He missed his handy and configurable C-Tech handgun, which was probably still in the vehicle, but it was better than nothing. He flicked the safety on and continued running.
Somehow, he’d lost track of one of the remaining three men. He guessed that man was tending to the guy who’d eaten Jim’s first drone. Whatever the case, he didn’t have time to order the drone to circle back and verify, so he huffed onward.
The starport was just beyond the next line of buildings. Jim leaned back into a hole created by a collapsed wall and gasped to catch his breath. He should be doing better in a low-G environment. Checking the display built into the mechanical part of his mask’s mouth area, just visible by looking down to the right, he saw, “Power 10%.” Son of a bitch.
The mask was decreasing output in order to keep at least some oxygen going. It had probably been damaged in the explosion and subsequent crash. He pulled his backpack around and glanced inside. Splunk’s mask didn’t have a similar readout, being custom made by the little Fae. He could see a flashing blue indicator and felt it whirring when he put a finger against it. She still showed no signs of stirring, though. Fear churned in the pit of his stomach. He needed to get her to the autodoc on Pale Rider.
“Cut him off already!” one of the men yelled over the radio.
Jim wasn’t going to let them know he’d locked in on their comms again. He pushed himself out of the hole in the wall and ran. When he reached the end of the building, something made him stop before stepping all the way out. A lin
e of bullets tore up the ground a meter in front of him, and he backpedaled.
“Found him!” another called out.
Jim moved the drone to the road intersecting his line of movement and spotted the one who’d shot at him. He was standing right out in the open. A grin formed on Jim’s face. He ordered the drone to just miss the guy’s head. It passed so close it touched his breathing mask. The guy jumped in surprise and fired at the drone, a hopeless prospect. Jim turned the corner and raised his gun.
He’d only purposefully fired a gun at a fellow Human once before, back on Earth, in Houston, shortly after he took command of the Cavaliers. A gang of thugs who specialized in kidnapping people to harvest and sell their organs had jumped him, and he’d responded with deadly force. It had all happened fast, and because Jim’s C-Tech pistol was linked to his pinplants, it was more like a videogame than reality.
The AR knockoff was old-fashioned and matter-of-fact in its build. This was killing the hard way—iron sights and all. Because of the distance, firing to wound wasn’t an option. He shouldered the gun, got a sight picture on center-mass, swept off the safety with his thumb, and stroked the trigger.
He’d been expecting a single shot. All the data he had on ARs said the first click off safety was semi-auto. Instead the gun unleashed a long burst, and with Jim unprepared, the recoil carried the gun up and to the right. Instead of a single shot to the torso, the hapless dude was stitched with three rounds from groin to chest. He hit the ground in a bloody, jerking mess.
Jim gawked for a second, looking down at the rifle’s ammo display, which now read 17 rounds left. Oops. Down to two left, and one of them likely back with the guy Jim attacked with the drone. He briefly considered relieving the dying man of his weapon, which looked to be the same POS AR knockoff, or at least the spare magazines in his web harness. Too risky. He set off once more toward the starport.
Passing the last building, he entered a wide-open area free of larger buildings, which was marked as Q’posa’s nominal “starport.” Around 300 meters away rested Pale Rider’s lithe outline, quietly waiting for its master to return. He sped up as much as his tortured lungs would allow. Worse than his lungs, he felt a hint of the all-too-familiar giddiness. The mask wasn’t keeping up with his body’s need for oxygen.
The shot was aimed for his center of mass. Instead it hit him just above his left kidney. Jim felt like he’d been impaled by a spear. It caused him to stagger mid-step, and he fell face first toward the jagged, rubble-strewn roadway. He did the only thing he could—he rolled sideways to the right.
When he hit the ground at full speed, shoulder first, it sent a lightning bolt of pain through his right arm, and he felt a snap. Not good. He wasn’t an acrobat. During P.E. classes back in high school, he’d provided ample amusement to his classmates whenever he tried any acrobatics. He’d been halfway decent at tumbling, being in a shape conducive to such activities. The roll he managed now would have embarrassed even him.
Halfway through the roll his addled brain remembered he wasn’t carrying a backpack full of junk, his best friend was unconscious inside. He threw his arm back as he went over, the move causing him to scream in pain, but it also caused him to pop up a bit as his back went around. It was just enough so the pack didn’t get squished under his weight. It also ended up laying him out flat in the middle of the road.
Jim rolled up just enough to put a hand behind his back. The pain was exquisite. When he pulled it back he expected it to be covered in blood, yet it wasn’t. The armor held. It wasn’t anything more than a ballistic weave built into his Cavaliers’ uniform jacket and pants. Almost worthless against most of the weapons he’d faced in alien hands, but apparently it was enough against a shitty, cheap Human weapon. Pain radiated from the small of his back in waves. The uniform stopped the bullet from punching into his back, but not the ballistic energy. He wondered if the impact had cost him a kidney.
“Well, here we are,” a voice said.
Jim looked up and saw the missing man. He hadn’t gone back to help the other man; he’d circled around in front of Jim and waited for him. The missing guy trotted over and looked down at Jim with a smirk. He wore a simpler breather than Jim’s, with a full face shield giving him a maximum field of visibility.
“What are you smiling at?” Jim snarled.
“Big smartass merc,” the man said, and kicked Jim in the gut.
Jim gasped and coughed, his breath knocked out of him. The pain in his back and shoulder intensified, and he howled in agony. He struggled for a moment to control his breathing. “Kicked your asses,” he finally managed.
“Whatcha got now?” the same man asked.
“Shut up, Fin,” the one who’d shot him said. Jim recognized the leader’s voice.
“Why are you doing this?” Jim asked again as he was confronted with the team’s leader. “You want my ship? You ain’t getting it. I set the computer when we left, and I won’t tell you the codes.” The leader shrugged. “Money? I doubt it, or you wouldn’t have been trying to kill me. Of course, that was your goal all along, wasn’t it?” The one named Fin’s eyebrows knitted together.
“How’d he know?”
“Entropy, Fin, shut your cake hole already,” the leader yelled. Fin looked nonplused and glanced away. “Yeah, you guessed it, Cartwright.” Jim’s expression, even without a full facemask, must have belied his surprise. “Yeah, we know your name. They gave it to us when we were hired to kill you.”
“By who?” Jim asked, splitting his concentration.
“You made some enemies back on K’o,” the leader said.
“K’o? You’ve been following me halfway across the galaxy?”
“Yup,” the man said and nodded. “Those enemies have deep pockets and contacts in the Cartography Guild. Every time you went through a stargate, you left your next destination filed as a flight plan. Every time you stopped, we got a little closer.” The man looked around the cold ruins. “Finally caught up to you. Didn’t expect to lose three men in the process, though.”
“Bigger cuts for us,” Fin suggested.
“Yeah, I suppose,” the leader acknowledged.
“So, you never said what you got which we don’t.” Fin reminded him.
“Forget it,” the leader said, “just kill the fat merc.” Fin started to raise his gun.
“No,” Jim said. “I’ll tell him.”
Fin hesitated, and the leader shrugged. “He’s just trying to live a few more seconds. Tell us, kid, what do you have we don’t?”
Jim looked up in Fin’s eyes. “What I have is pinplants,” he said, and turned his head slightly so they could see the silvery pinlinks embedded in the side of his head. “Oh, and resourcefulness.”
“Fat lot of good it’ll do you,” Fin said and glanced at his leader. The man nodded, and Fin raised his rifle to aim it at Jim’s head.
Jim checked his pinplants and grinned. Fin’s expression turned to one of confusion a half second before the last drone hit him in the back of the head at 200 kph and then exploded. Jim was much closer this time, and his delaying allowed him to set up the perfect trajectory and timing for the failsafe. The tiny—yet energetic—explosion blew Fin’s head apart like a watermelon.
Blood and gore flew far in the low gravity and thin atmosphere, splattering Jim and the assassination squad’s leader. It had mostly hit Jim in the head, and he tried to wipe the gore away from his mask’s eyes so he could respond. He was only confused for a moment. Unfortunately, the leader was only splattered on the torso, and when Jim could see through the red, gooey haze, he saw the barrel of a rifle pointed at his head.
“You are a resourceful shit, ain’t you?” the man said as he took aim. “Tell the devil I said hi, will ya?”
An object hit the leader square in the chest. The man grunted and took a half step back from the impact and looked down at what was stuck to him. Jim, even through the blood and gore, had a clear look at what it was, and instantly rolled away from the grenade.
He howled in pain from his tortured body, folding the backpack with its precious cargo against his ample gut as the grenade went off.
It wasn’t a titanic explosion, but the muffled whump! of a stun grenade. Even so, the blast was only a meter from Jim, and, in his already weakened state, it knocked him loopy. The hapless assassin leader was blown completely off his feet.
Jim turned his head and tried to focus. A tall figure strode toward him. Another Human, its outline blurry and hard to isolate. He couldn’t concentrate, but he still tried to reach for the crowbar in his bag. His hands wouldn’t respond to his commands. The buzzing from his mask said it was no longer working, and he felt the return of the earlier feelings of euphoria. Only this time, a dark cloud of unconsciousness was right behind them.
The figure stopped at the leader, head turning down to regard the man. The leader was shaking his head and trying to pull a pistol from his belt. The new arrival stepped on the leader’s wrist, and even through the fog, Jim could hear him scream in agony from broken bones.
“Not today, dipshit,” the stranger said. “Not today.” His left hand came from behind his back, holding a tiny laser pistol. A brilliant beam of ruby light connected the pistol with the assassin’s head, and the leader was no more.
The killer turned toward Jim, who struggled to see who it was. The other man wore a complicated rebreather mask with blacked out eye-glasses. He couldn’t see anything. Not today. The phrase echoed in his mind as he lost consciousness. The last thing he saw was the newcomer striding toward him, still clutching the laser pistol at the ready.
* * *
“How can you do this?”
“I do whatever I want.”
“And you do it without thought or concern for the family.”
Jimmy crept closer to the banister, straining to hear the voices. One was Daddy; he didn’t recognize the other. They both sounded angry. When grown-ups sounded angry, bad things could happen. He yawned and looked through one of the big windows in their mansion. The moon was high in the sky, and the gardens were lit by only its pale light. It was late.
