“Is that the best you got?”
“I know your favorite pastime is ribbing me, but what brought this on?”
“Like I said, I was thinkin’. I mean, I have a rep too, you know. One of these days, you’ll eventually wither and die while I keep going. I would like a better rep than ‘Super-advanced EI who was previously partnered with gig drifter.’”
“We’ve only been together a year and a half, and you’re already thinking of replacing me?” Kaiden asked. He tried to sound sarcastic, but a trace of genuine anger tinged his voice.
“Kaiden, baby, please don’t be like that,” Chief mocked. “I’m merely a future planner. Plus, with all the shit you get into, the reaper’s gotta be creepin’ up on your ass.”
“Yeah, and I’ll blow his bony ass away, too,” he challenged. “Besides, isn’t that part of the reason I have you? To make death less likely?”
“And I’ve done that quite well, don’t you think?” Chief inquired. “But I ain’t a miracle worker, man.”
“So you choose this moment to show some humility?” he jeered, and hesitated as he looked at the drop ahead. “Hold onto your encouragement for now. Let’s see where this goes.”
Kaiden grabbed the rim of the end of the shaft and peered down into a darkened room filled with boxes and parts of ships and robots alike. It appeared to be a storage area. He eased out and dropped to land on the balls of both feet.
As he stood to examine his surroundings more closely, a large arm smashed into his neck and knocked him back several feet. He skidded, but used the momentum to flip himself and stand as he took Sire in his hands and aimed into the darkness
“I figured you would come this way,” a guttural, growling voice stated. “I was able to get a bead on your ID for a while. You didn’t hide it, only switched the codes around. Otherwise, it would have been obvious that you weren’t who you were supposed to be.”
Kaiden pulled the trigger to charge a shot.
“Rats always like this room, damn little pests. It figured you would end up here.”
“Have we met?” he questioned. A large figure stepped into the light. He was almost as big as Wolfson, with long, matted hair, tanned skin, and thick eyebrows. While he scrutinized Kaiden, the ace saw that the left side of his face was traversed by two long scars and no pupils were visible in his eyes. He wore a red and black coat with black pants and boots, and held a shotgun in one hand.
“You are making a mockery of my colors,” the man rasped. “I’ll have to peel them off you if you won’t take them off yourself.
Kaiden raised his weapon. “First off, your colors? I’m fairly sure the Red Suns, the WCM Hell Diver Division, and at least five hundred colleges back on Earth would have something to say about that.” He took a step forward. “Secondly, if you’re propositioning me, I don’t think you quite grasp what a pirate means when he says ‘booty.’”
The man aimed his shotgun and fired in an instant. The ace returned the shot, ducked, and rolled to the side. He fired several quick uncharged shots at the man after his first blast sailed past his target. The pirate deserved some credit. For someone as big as he was, he could move damn quickly.
Fortunately for Kaiden, he had trained with Wolfson, and he moved quicker than this bastard.
The ace aimed one last shot directly in front of his attacker and fired. The man saw it coming and threw a container up in an effort to block it. The energy shot merely drilled through the flimsy barrier and struck home in the side of the man’s arm. Kaiden smiled for a second before the shot simply slid off and slammed into a pole behind him, and his face dropped.
“What?”
His adversary smiled. “Barrier threading in the coat,” he explained as he straightened. “I don’t much like all that heavy armor stuff—it’s too restrictive—but I have tricks.” He aimed his shotgun. “My name is Captain Logan Swarn, and it’s my turn now.” He released a volley of rapid blasts at Kaiden, and kinetic shots whipped around him as he tried to dodge but was hit in the shoulder, left arm, and right knee. He felt the impact, but his armor blocked the bullets from entering at the cost of it shattering.
The ace took refuge behind a large stack of boxes tied together by a rope. His opponent threw the gun aside, but when Kaiden looked out, he had already drawn a new one and now fired to push him back under cover.
“Tell me why you’re here and I won’t bother with torture,” the captain offered as he strolled toward him. “I’ll kill you either way, but I’ll be generous enough to let you decide if it’s today or when I finally get bored.”
“Power core at critical level. Please engage safety measures.”
“What in the blazing hell?” Swarn roared.
“I guess I don’t have to tell you now,” Kaiden said cheerfully as he drew his blade, cut the rope, and shoved the crates violently toward the captain.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“They’re destroying the core. Are they fucking insane?” a pirate yelled as he and a group of more than fifty others rushed into the central station.
“Someone, get it open.”
“To hell with that! We should abandon this wreck.”
“Can we even shut it down now?”
“Everyone, stop your blathering and take them down!” The group of men ran to the door, and one of them set up at the terminal to force the doors open. “There’s no way they will survive all of us. Even if they did somehow make it past the turrets and bots, they gotta be tuckered by now. We have them by the—”
The doors swung open, and the group was immediately greeted by a hail of gunfire from repurposed droids that waited for them within the chamber. Some of the pirates tried to retreat, but several turrets descended from the ceiling of the central station and annihilated them before they had even moved a few yards.
“Well played, Chiyo,” Genos complimented his infiltrator teammate from where they stood on the far side of the room. “How much longer?”
“I’ll use the droids as a distraction. I’ve charted a path to the hangars from here. I don’t have any resistance to my hacking, so I guess whoever is in charge of cybersecurity has more foresight than this group.”
The Tsuna nodded and chuckled as the droids left the room and continued their assault. “I doubt the ship we came in on will be ready. To finish this test, I assume we would have to get far enough away to not be caught by the blast.”
“That would be in the ‘not dying’ part of the objective,” Chiyo agreed.
“If we can pile into a fighter, or at the very least a mid-tier shuttle, we should be good.” He glanced at her. “Can you find anything in the stations’ inventory or directory to tell us if we have something?”
“I’m sure there are plenty of fighters.” Chiyo moved her hands as she looked around the map on her holoscreen. “It would all depend on whether we can get to them in time, and before they are all taken by others trying to flee.”
“I would assume that those higher up the chain have their own personal vehicles,” he said thoughtfully. “They would certainly have something with enough power for us to get out in time.”
“Agreed. Let me see…” She continued to scroll, and her eyes lit up after a moment. “Here. There’s an AA-class shuttle in this hangar. It’s closer than going for the main hangar bays.”
“Should we expect trouble?”
A blast from overhead shook pieces of metal from the walls and knocked some of the railings out of place. “I think we’re already in trouble. How much longer do we have?”
“A conservative guess would be about fifteen minutes.” Several wires near the console sparked alarmingly. “I would prefer we leave in ten if we can manage that.”
“Let’s move. I’ll contact Kaiden.” Chiyo turned her screen off, and the teammates hurried away as she opened her comm. “Kaiden you there?”
“I’m a little busy,” he shouted as the captain threw another box at him, fired the last two shots in his shotgun before throwing it to the side, an
d yanked the machine gun from his back.
“You come to my station, kill my men, and then blow it up?” Swarn yelled. “I’ll tear your guts right from your stomach!”
“I don’t think this guy will let up anytime soon, Chiyo. We’ve had something of a misunderstanding.” Kaiden dropped Sire, drew Debonair, and fired at the captain’s gun and hands in an attempt to make him drop his weapon.
“This isn’t the time for you to fight for sport, Kaiden. You have five minutes to get out of there and make it to a hangar. We’ll pick you up.” With that, she signed off.
“We have five minutes to kill this guy, Chief.”
“That’s essentially what I took from that,” the EI agreed. “That coat is almost impenetrable, so killing him will take a headshot.”
“I tried, but he hasn’t exactly given me a lot of room to aim properly.” He snatched Sire up and dashed across the room as the captain fired a stream shots from his machine gun. “That coat can deflect moderate laser blasts. What about a charged shot?”
“That’ll definitely break through, but he’s already shown that he can dodge them. You gotta get close.”
“Intimate. Got it.” The ace fired a few more shots at Swarn from Debonair before he holstered it and closed Sire’s vent. He released a couple of half-charged shots to rocket past the captain and hit parts and boxes. Hopefully, the shrapnel would help to disorient him. He held the trigger to charge the weapon as he closed in, then retrieved his blade as he saw the man reach for his pistol. He threw the blade instinctively. It struck the gun as his adversary fired, and a powerful round whizzed overhead. Kaiden held Sire up and fired when he was only a few yards away. The recoil from firing a shot with only one arm pushed his aim slightly off-center, but at that range, it didn’t matter.
The captain saw his intention, but he was too close to leap out of the way. His eye glared at Kaiden as he whipped his coat off and held it in front of him to contain the blast. The discharge of energy blew up the containers and any parts around them and hurled the ace back even farther. He crash-landed, and sparks, steam, and metal fell around him as he looked around, but he couldn’t find Sire. His ribs felt like they were broken, and he wheezed as he checked his body. Most of his armor was intact, so he had that at least.
As he looked around for an exit, heavy boots thudded behind him. He cursed and moved a hand to his belt as he spun on the floor. Swarn, covered in blood and burns and his face a mask of rage, walked toward him with a large cleaver in his hand.
“I’ll give you respect for being a fighter,” the captain growled as he stopped a couple of feet in front of Kaiden. “But that won’t excuse you from my wrath.”
“Do you really want to die in the middle of one of the seven deadly sins?” the ace asked as he pushed himself onto his elbows and fixed his adversary with a hard look. “Although I guess by this point in your life, you ain’t much of a one for repentance, huh?”
“Choose your last words and say them,” the captain ordered, and brandished the cleaver at him. “At least the ones that won’t be screams.”
Kaiden flicked his thumb to remove the pin from the device in his hand as he sat up and threw it at his attacker, who caught it in his free hand. “Are you trying to go out fighting?”
“I’m going out of here in a ship,” he responded. “You’ll go out in pieces.”
The frag grenade in the captain’s hand exploded a split second after a surprised and angry howl. Shrapnel from the explosion embedded in the ace’s armor and a shard almost blinded him as it pierced his visor. Chief’s avatar looked at it in the HUD with a wide eye before the display went static and disappeared. Kaiden removed his helmet and stood to remove the other pieces of his armor. Swarn appeared to be very dead. His left arm had been blown off, and blood dripped from his head and chest.
“The coat may have given you style points, but you still should have had armor,” he remarked snidely, and threw his chest piece to the ground beside the corpse.
The body shifted, and Kaiden immediately drew for Debonair and aimed it at the man’s head. Swarn looked at him and sneered before he shook his head, confusion on his face. His laugh sounded wispy and almost inhuman. “So Walker was right. You are one of those damned siks.”
“Sik? The hell is a sik?” Kaiden asked.
“I think that blast knocked out the Broca’s area of his brain,” Chief volunteered.
“To think…that Swarn…captain of the…Dead Space Crew…would…be felled…” His voice became thinner and thinner, his breathing ragged as it slowed until Kaiden could barely hear him over the flames and electrical static. “By a damn…doll.” The captain’s head fell to the floor, his body finally motionless in death.
Walker and his two assistants made their way to the ship—a sigma-class shuttle, and one of the few luxury items Walker had amassed. He had, in fact, wrenched it from Swarn’s clutches. He tapped a button on his tablet and the shuttle ramp lowered. “Quickly, now. I’d prefer to be in a safe harbor before this place blows up,” he ordered.
One of the assistants turned to take the case he carried. He looked over the leader’s shoulder and lurched for his gun, but a laser shot pierced his head and caught Walker off-guard.
The leader spun as the other assistant was gunned down in a hail of laser fire. Two other DSC members walked up to him. Now would be the opportune time for a mutiny, but he could deduce who these attackers were.
“I assume you are two of the three people we can thank for this current situation?” he asked as they approached, their guns at the ready.
“We’re taking this ship,” one of them stated.
“I’d rather you didn’t, but considering the circumstances, I’ll not argue.” He retrieved his case that had fallen to the floor. “My name is Alfred Walker. Might I request that I accompany you?”
The two looked at each other, each seemingly as surprised as the other. “Is this part of the mission?” Chiyo asked
“I don’t see any bonus objectives. Maybe it’s a secret one? In these situations, you would want to bring back high-ranking men like this for a bounty or to stand trial, right?” Genos questioned.
“Maybe there’s something wrong with the Animus? It might have to do with the upgrades. This could be a secondary option of some kind.”
Animus? Walker noted that word. He had heard of this device and what it was capable of. He thought back to what he had discovered earlier, put the pieces together, and smiled. So that’s what they were doing. He would play along.
“I am unarmed, and while I’m sure at least one of you is a brilliant hacker, I can activate the ship with the press of a button,” he assured them.
“Trust me, my EI could get it running just as fast,” Chiyo said.
“I’m sure it could, but I should let you in on a little secret, albeit an open one. To keep some of my men from taking my precious ship for joyrides, I installed a proximity mine.” He held up a hand with a bracelet on it. “Should it be activated without me on the ship, it will explode.”
“Can you confirm this?” Chiyo asked and glanced at Genos.
He studied the ship, and his visor shimmered in purple light. “Scan the ship, Viola, and look for— Oh, it’s not well hidden, is it?”
“That would be the point, yes,” Walker noted dryly. “I’ll submit to any restraints or injuries you feel are necessary, but I would prefer a shot in the leg to being obliterated.”
The duo talked among themselves. Genos said he could disable it, but it would take at least twenty minutes. By that time, the bomb would be the least of their worries.
“Get on, activate the ship, and find a seat. No talking to either of us,” Chiyo ordered.
“As you wish,” Walker said and turned toward the ship again. “Much obliged.”
“Chiyo, Genos, where are y’all?” Kaiden asked as he raced through a station that was rapidly falling apart around him.
“We had a slight hold up, but we’ve taken off,” Chiyo explained. “W
here are you?”
“The hangar bay next to hangar twelve.”
“Most of these hangars are sealed, and the loss of power is depleting the shields. You have to find one that is still active unless you wanna be spaced.”
“Any suggestions?”
“The closest is hangar fourteen, but that could go at any moment. Hangar eighteen is your best bet.”
“Back to the start,” he huffed, “Chiyo, meet me at hangar eighteen.”
“On it.”
He quickened his pace and covered more than half a mile in two minutes. As he raced toward his destination, the entire station shook. “My guess is we’re low on time. Something big just fell off.”
“That would be about a quarter of the station.”
“Great. Chiyo?” Kaiden entered the hangar. A few pirates remained, obviously seeking to escape. “How close are you?”
“Coming in now.” A silver shuttle floated into the hangar, and he ran toward it. When the other men followed suit, he yanked out another frag grenade and hurled it at them. The group scattered and cursed vociferously. The ramp lowered, and the ace flung himself on board. “I’m in. Take us away,” he shouted as he took a few shots with Debonair at the pirates who had recovered and resumed their rush to get aboard.
He entered the cockpit and greeted Chiyo and Genos. A man with thin white hair and a goatee sat in the corner. “How long do we have, and who the hell is he?
“One minute and thirty seconds exactly, and he’s the guy who owns this ship. I’ll explain when we’re done,” the infiltrator informed him from where she sat across from the DSC leader with her gun in her hand.
“I assume you are the one Swarn attacked?” Walker asked. Kaiden simply glared at him in response. “Since you are alive, I would guess that he is not.”
“Yeah, he’s gone. He really couldn’t wait a few more minutes to go down with the ship,” Kaiden deadpanned. “You gonna miss your buddy?”
Animus Boxed Set 2 (Books 5-8): Revenant, Glitch, Master, Infiltration Page 18
