by Aer-ki Jyr
9
Green Team searched through the complex in two parts, finding level after level deserted and partially cleaned out. Furniture and nonessential items were still there, but all computer hard drives had been removed, many storage rooms were completely emptied, and skid marks and wall latches attested to where other equipment had previously been. It seemed that The Word had known they’d be coming and had cleaned house in anticipation.
Twelve bomb-laden prisoners had been discovered, spread out across the lower levels. They were still sitting there in the dark, unconscious, while the Archons completed their search…finding the most significant discovery last of all on the uppermost level where the facility connected into one of the city’s dark zones via a hidden doorway the size of a cargo tram. Green Team had avoided going in that way because the door was thick and probably guarded on the inside with who knew what kind of defenses.
“Huh,” Devin said, looking at what Assad had come across and all of Green Team was now staring at. “That’s one hell of a door prize.”
“Do we disarm it or leave the way we came in?” Jet asked.
“I’m not sure the door will even work without power,” Nathan offered.
In the dark, visible only through their Pefbar, David pointed to the left. “There’s a manual release in the wall panel. Let’s see if we can’t get this neutralized. I don’t want some Brazilian team opening the door a month from now and going boom.”
“We could warn them,” Jet pointed out.
“I also don’t want to drag the prisoners out the way we came in.”
“Point,” Nathan agreed. “Where do we start?”
“It’s not complicated,” Lio offered. “It’s set up to go off when the door opens. They didn’t expect anyone to get at it from this side,” he said, referring to the lack of security measures. The bomb attached to the inside of the door was literally a stack of explosive bricks identical to those strapped underneath the prisoners…only there had to be thousands here, enough to pop the door off its hinges and bust out the walls, floor, and ceiling, creating a crater around the entry point into the base.
Then the prisoner bombs were just a bonus for anyone who didn’t die at the doorway.
“Same way we handled the others,” David said. “Pull the wires out of the bricks.”
“I can do better than that,” Assad said, walking up towards the bookcase-like stack covering nearly the entire inner side of the door. “There’s one cable coming from the contact points to the detonator, then a bazillion going out to the explosives. If we remove the power source from the detonator it won’t be able to go bang.”
“What kind of power source are they using?” David asked, walking up to Assad and standing beside both him and the brick wall that was less than a meter ahead. The detonator was in the middle of the stack with the wires coming out the front and arching around to connect with the narrow ends of each of the bricks.
“One that wasn’t designed for the detonator,” Assad said, seeing into and through the various components. “The original has been removed and a portable power cell has been tied in. It’s sitting behind it and connected by a handful of thicker wires.”
“I see them now. We have to make sure it’s the only power source.”
“Lio was right, this isn’t designed to be tamper proof. Pull the connecting wires and the juice will be gone.”
“Take the left one, I’ve got the other,” David said.
“Wait,” Nathan said, walking up on his other shoulder. “Ok, do it now.”
“What was that?” Assad asked.
“I turned off the power on the cell. There’s a button on the side.”
David looked at it again, trying to see what he meant. After a few long seconds Nathan telepathically sent him an image, then David was able to make it out. “Good catch.”
“Thank you…but I’d still recommend disconnecting the hard lines.”
“Oh yeah,” David agreed. “Assad?”
“Pulling,” the Archon said, telekinetically yanking on one of the cables. The end attached to the detonator wouldn’t budge, but when he tried the plug-in to the cell it disconnected cleanly. He looped it back on itself and coiled it up inside the detonator cavity that had held the original power source.
“Done.”
David finished up 10 seconds later, making sure the wires weren’t going to come loose and work their way back out and accidentally make contact with the cell. The odds of that happening were nil, but with this much explosives they couldn’t afford to take chances. Armor or no, if this thing blew they’d be dead.
“Alright, we’re clear. Open it up.”
Assad walked over and opened the wall panel, which revealed both a latch and a wheel. He pulled the large switch, disconnecting the lock on the lock, then began wheeling the locking stubs out of the side of the door and into their wall niches, all of which the Archons could see, thanks to their wall-piercing sight.
“Ok, start pushing,” Assad said, referencing the lack of power. David and four of the other Archons found handholds on the spots on the door that did not have explosive bricks and used their enhanced muscle strength to pry the half meter thick door out of its fitting, pivoting on the right side.
As soon as the edge passed out a bright band of light broke through the Archon’s helmets as the lit interior of the ‘dark’ zone shown in. In keeping with their hiding protocols, the power lines for the door and base didn’t mix with the ones that were part of the normal infrastructure, meaning the blackout was only present in the levels that didn’t officially exist.
“Nathan, stay here with me,” David said, taking a couple steps out and feeling normal gravity return. “The rest of you go grab a prisoner.”
One, two, three, four, jump…one, two, three, four, jump…
Drake held that pattern for six of the stubby transport trucks trolling down one of the internal highways within the city. They had no driver or cab and were rolling along on six wheels, each in a convoy taking cargo from one distribution center to another, keeping their computer-controlled spacing and speed almost perfectly aligned on the straight, 5-laned road. The even spacing allowed the Archon to make the jumps between them easy enough, but he was more impressed that the fugitive he was chasing was doing the same.
Red Team had just smashed a security station and grabbed a number of officers they’d concluded were either Word operatives or in league with them, capturing and eventually releasing the other security officers, but during the raid one of them had broken loose, jumping out a window and going across several building tops until he hopped down off a walkway bridge into the traffic flow.
Drake had been on his heels when he did, and he was surprised the man hadn’t been run over…but the man had successfully landed on a long-bed transport, then had been hopping from one to another up to this convoy that had more than 20 short cargo trams in a row.
The acolyte paced him, waiting for him to slip up and drop to the road…which he didn’t want him to do. They were only moving at 40-50 miles an hour, with all of the cargo transports moving at the same speed, but they were still plenty heavy enough to squash him if he got ran over. The other vehicles, however, were moving at a range of speeds, allowing both the fugitive and the Archon to hop from one cargo transport to another as they made their way down the road.
Drake hoped the man would get caught at the front of the convoy, with no more trucks to jump to, but when he got to the first in line he hesitated only slightly before jumping to his right and down, landing on a squat personnel transport. It had no driver, but seats for 4 people inside, two of which were currently occupied. The man road on top of it past the convoy, gaining meters of distance as Drake jumped up to the front truck top…where the gap had become too large for even him to jump across.
“Damn it,” he said, looking around. There wasn’t anything else in that lane for about 50 meters back, but there was a larger personnel transport two lanes away, and it was moving faster t
han the trucks too, giving him a window of opportunity until it completed the pass.
“Kung fu grip,” he reminded himself, backing up to the edge of the truck then sprinting a couple of steps into the jump. He flew across the empty lane and landed against the side of the bus with his knees hitting the edge. His torso slammed down on top with his legs missing and beginning to drag him down over the side, but he splayed his hands out on top and he clung to it like a tree climbing frog long enough to get his toe tips against the side. From there he climbed his way up, seeing the front truck in the convoy he’d just been on drifting off behind him.
He looked ahead, seeing the man riding the cab and looking back at him, realizing that it was moving slightly faster than the bus.
“Oh no you don’t,” he said, climbing to his feet and running to the back of the bus…where he turned around and sprinted down the length into a long jump ahead to medium length truck, tucking into a somersault before coming to a halt on his knees on top of its roof. Behind him the bus pulled out into the next lane so it could pass the slower moving vehicle, but Drake was running and jumping ahead again before it could catch up, moving up to another truck before making a cross jump to a long-bed across the empty middle lane that the bus was now coming up.
The long-bed was carrying crates, but only on the front half. Drake landed on the back, then climbed up on top and headed to the first in line, with no cab to jump off of, just a sheer drop off like at the back of the flatbed. The gap up to the next truck was a bit longer, but he made it across to the back of an enclosed tram, hanging off the back for a moment as he was only able to catch the back edge with his hands.
When he came up top he saw the man on the cab was still ahead of him, but not as far as he had been…and Drake had a long line of trucks in this convoy to catch up on.
One, two, three, four, jump…and he was up to the next one, then the next, and the next until he pulled even with the man, but before he could hop out to the cab the man jumped the opposite direction, grabbing hold of the edge of another truck by his fingertips, then pulling himself up top just as Drake hopped out and landed on the cab.
He didn’t know who this guy was, but he was starting to get impressed.
Drake set himself and followed the man across to the truck, then pursued him over to the next lane as the man jumped onto a short convoy that was heading off the road and into an offshoot. Then amazingly the man leapt up as the trucks moved under a pedestrian walkway and clung to the railing as the convoy passed underneath him.
Drake shook his head and moved to the head of the truck he was on, then reached up and grabbed the man’s left leg, latching on and yanking him loose as he ducked down to miss the overhang that was about a meter and a half above the top of the trucks.
The man got peeled off none too gently and smacked down onto the top of the truck, bloody from the abrasion against the edge of the walkway. Drake stood up after they passed under it and pinned the man down with an armored knee on his chest.
“Nice try,” he offered as the wind whipped past them both, even as the trucks were gradually slowing down as they headed into a terminal. “Who are you?”
The man’s nose was bleeding heavily from a nasty gash, but more shocking than that was the way his eyes went wide at his question.
“You don’t know?”
“No clue,” Drake said easily, still pinning him down.
“Why are you after me?” the man asked, blood dribbling down into his mouth. He turned to the side and spit some of it out, but more kept bubbling out making it hard for him to breathe/speak.
“You ran.”
“What?” he coughed.
Drake backed up and pulled the man into a sitting position, letting the blood run down onto his blue security uniform.
“Who are you?” the Archon repeated.
“If you don’t know I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
“We’ll get you ID’d soon enough.”
“You didn’t come for me?”
“We came for your bosses. Why’d you rabbit instead of fighting?”
“I thought you were after me.”
“Why would we be?”
The man didn’t say anything, instead he pinched his nose trying to get the blood to stop…then he jerked as he realized most of the tip of his nose had been torn off by the edge of the walkway.
“What do you know about The Word?” Drake asked as the trucks slowed to a near stop as they rolled into individual lateral berths where they could be unloaded. From the corner of his eye he saw more security guards approaching, having noticed the pair of people on top of the truck.
“What word?”
“The criminal organization that’s taken over this moon,” Drake said bluntly. “It was their operatives we were after in the security station. If you’re not one of them I don’t care, but tell me now or I’m taking you in for questioning…in how many pieces is up to you, but your buddies over there aren’t going to be able to stop me,” he said, thumbing over his shoulder at the arms guards approaching.
“I’m on Star Force’s detain list,” he admitted. “When I saw you break in I thought you were after me.”
Drake swiped his hand across the blood dripping from the man’s face, then held it up for him to see. “I’ll find out for sure in about an hour, so tell me the truth or I may hunt you down just because. What do we want you for?”
“I’m a hacker. I gave myself a new identity here where I didn’t think you’d be able to find me. Figured a security officer would be the best place to hide.”
Drake’s helmet nodded. “Sorry about the face,” he said, running past him and jumping off the truck down to the curb.
The security guards yelled at him to stop, but he weaved his way through the workers and machines coming out to unload the trucks, working his way out into the pedestrian walkways accessing the terminal. Despite the fact that he was running through the people wearing bloody silver armor and drawing all kinds of stares, they didn’t get in his way and he easily outdistanced Brazilian security.
“Report,” he asked over the comm as he continued to run through the wide walkways that were entirely separate from the roads.
“Tagged and bagged,” Derrick answered. “How about you?”
“Red herring. He’s a Star Force fugitive who thought we were coming after him. Made a pretty good run of it before I caught up to him.”
“What’d you do with him?”
“Let him go. I’ve got a blood sample so we can make a positive ID, then let security handle it. We’ve got bigger targets to deal with.”
“How good of a chase?”
“I got to play frogger on top of the cars. Any problem with the extraction?”
“None yet.”
“Oh crap,” Drake said, skidding to a halt with the people nearby reflexively jerking away from him as he stared at a newscreen flashing a bulletin…one with a warning to the population on Tyr that a Star Force strike team was in the city and responsible for the deaths of over 40 people. They were labeling them a rogue faction, now unaffiliated with the mega corporation, and were requesting any intel on their locations.
“What?” Derrick asked.
“We just made the news. So much for our underground war with The Word.”
“We’re already off the grid, where are you?”
“Nowhere important,” Drake lied as he started to run again, with people’s stares changing into pointing and yelling. “Don’t wait up on me. I’ll make my way back by another route.
10
May 14, 2430
Alpha Centauri System
Tyr
David shot one of the spaceport workers in the chest with a stinger, not because the man was a threat, but because he no longer had the luxury of being choosey. Every person he came across he was taking down as he and half of Green Team had already fought their way past the security guards and were in a hurry to catch a cargo shipment that was just about to launch.
D
uring their initial recon of the dark zones in the city blueprints, Green Team had placed tracking beacons on some of the sites that they couldn’t assault immediately. Those crates and pieces of equipment had then been spirited away soon after, giving the team a few leads to follow now that it was clear that The Word knew it was compromised and was pulling out…or relocating within the city. It wasn’t clear yet what their progressing agenda was, but this beacon had gone to the spaceport and David knew they had to get at it before it flew off and had a chance to disappear in the transit network.
The other four members of Green Team were scrambling into the spaceport at different spots, all of which were trying to get to the beacon before it left. David was coming through a staff area, having blown through a locked rear door using the plasma rifle that was now snuggly tucked onto the back of his armor as he shot another passerby with his stinger version…or rather as he passed by, for he was running through the interior halls following the beacon on his battlemap.
The blueprints the battlemap was drawing from put it squarely in the hangar, meaning it was probably already onboard a dropship. He could call for Star Force to intercept the ship once it took off, but he didn’t have a long range transmitter on him, and even if he went back to their armory stash and got one, or commandeered a local one, there would be a delay in getting a ship here. The dropship would most definitely dock with a starport or ship in orbit before that happened, allowing the cargo to disappear.
Even if the beacon kept broadcasting there was a chance that the cargo would be split and they’d lose some of it, which was why it was important to get to it now…not to mention if there was more than cargo onboard. He didn’t know if it’d contain Word personnel or not, but he intended to find out.
David rounded a corner and ducked his shoulder as he rammed into another worker, knocking him aside and into the wall as he blew by. He didn’t turn around to shoot him unconscious, instead sprinting on as fast as the narrow hallways allowed. He had several more turns to make before finally popping out into the hangar and spotting a few guards firing at Jet and Nathan who had already come in through other entrances.
