Solar Kill

by Charles Ingrid

“Boss—you’re going bare into that thing?”

  He turned around and tossed the shirt to Barney. “The contacts go on bare skin. Besides, if that thing doesn’t protect me, a shirt won’t help any.”

  “Guess you’re right there.” Barney tucked the shirt into his weapons belt and joined Jack as he lowered the suit to its feet.

  Inside, the world was muffled. He’d left the com lines on low volume to shut out the nervous chatter of the others. Jack watched the other mercenaries filter into staging, only half seeing them, the other half of his mind occupied with the data Tomcat had shown and discussed with them. Libya came in, complete with bracers made of Endura, an armor combination that left him fleet, mobile, and still well-protected. The black man grinned and saluted Jack. Barney, standing anxiously at his side, saluted back.

  At the airlock beyond staging, a team in deep-space suits stood ready. Their job was to force a lock open, mate the ship to the space station, and stand back from the breach. If any were going to die, they’d be the first to go. Their job would be easiest if the stealth equipment worked and hardest if they were detected. Of course, the change in air pressure as they blew the lock, then repressurized it would give way their presence, but by the time Gilgenbush’s men mobilized, Jack would be leading the others in.

  Like an onion, Tomcat had described the station lair of the rogue general. They’d have to peel layers away to get at the general himself, but they had to have Gilgenbush to open the vault. If the general refused to cooperate, Sadie herself had ordered Tomcat to bring the man back. Amber would have a new neighbor in the cold vault until someone decided to pay the loan off in order to revive the general. As Gilgenbush had many enemies, as well as friends, it was only a matter of time until someone paid to thaw him out. Sadie would have her money and her pound of flesh. Tomcat was fairly certain Gilgenbush could not fail to see the reason in her methods.

  Barney said something. Jack turned the speakers up to normal, as the nervous crewman repeated, “That’s it.”

  The gentle cushioning jolt of the warship coming to a halt trembled through its length. Jack nodded.

  Mercenaries began grinding out smokes and getting to their feet. Tomcat himself appeared. He broadcast. “Get in place, Jack.”

  Jack and the suit moved out. He wove gracefully through the throng of mercenaries, many of whom couldn’t move fast enough to get out of his way. He read the shock and surprise on their faces. They had figured his bulk to be lumbering, awkward, not lithe and graceful.

  He stepped into the airlock and waited for the bulkhead to open up. The contacts pinched at his torso and he felt the itching again. Maybe Sarge had been right. Maybe the gel used to anchor the contacts was bothering him. Jack twitched involuntarily as he found himself about to turn and tell the sarge that, and caught himself. He stood there, shaking, an adrenaline surge pounding through his bloodstream, waiting for the doors to open, waiting to be unleashed. Any second now … soon … there … NOW!

  Jack burst through the airlock tunnel almost before it opened.

  His rearview cameras showed the others following, but he barely acknowledged the seeing. His attention was on the corridor ahead. As long as his path led inward, he could use full power, outward; he ran a chance of punching a hole through the outer skin of the rotating station.

  His missing finger itched. He cocked his glove and took out the first security camera in the tunnel. Coming in, Gilgenbush’s men would have to move in blind. His mikes picked up the alarm signal, an oscillating klaxon. The space station systems showed the breach. Too late. He was in and the rest of the mercenaries were on his heels.

  Three men appeared in front of him. Jack used the left gauntlet, firing singly, before they could sling their rifles around to fire. They dropped and he vaulted over their bodies, leaving them behind for the others to move. He had but one objective … to clear the tunnels.

  He ran, the metal plates resilient under the weight of the suit. A warning light went off and he plowed to a stop. He ducked, missing fire from a sentry unit embedded in the wall. How many of these had he passed without noticing, moving too quickly to be hit, leaving the mercenaries on his heels for targets? Too late to wonder now. He let out a burst of laser fire, frying the control panel.

  Back in motion, he took out as many of the automatic weapons as he could. He came to an intersection, did a calculation and took the right hand passage. Layers, upon layers.

  The tunnel lights went out, putting any not wearing night-sight goggles at a disadvantage. But Tomcat had prepared his men for that. Jack, with his helmet and suit, scarcely wavered. The intersection looped over and he found himself face to face with Barney and Libya.

  They relaxed their weapons.

  Jack took a breath. Crimson splashes licked up Barney’s boots.

  “Where to?”

  “Down.” Jack took a bearing and pivoted. He watched his screen as it triangulated and gave him a logical presumption. “Secret door, back that way.” He retraced his steps. His cameras showed a heat leak, minor, in the panel. Jack kicked the trigger at his left ring finger, traced the panel, found the portal, and wrenched it open. A black hole greeted him and he jumped in, feet first.

  He landed, activated the lift and stepped out of the well as the elevator whined upward. Barney and Libya would follow him in a more conventional way. He turned around, and saw a bank of men run in and drop to their knees in defensive firing position. Men and more … Thraks, and one or two other aliens he wasn’t that familiar with, except that he was sure brain power wasn’t among their strong suits.

  His heart did a stop beat, then caught again. What the hell were Thraks doing here? He licked his lips even as he dodged back inside the elevator well for cover. He hated Thraks. Inside the suit, he began to shake.

  And then it caught him. It sang inside him. He knew a tremendous anger and hatred and it consumed him like the firestorm that had consumed Claron. He checked his gauges and cocked his gauntlet for automatic fire.

  Jack came out of cover, laying down a spray. Bodies blossomed. They crumpled at the torso, exploded at the head and toppled. His wrist circuit tingled at the expenditure of power.

  He caught the Thraks dead center, and didn’t even bother to step over their bodies. He waded through them, enjoying the crunch.

  He heard war howls as Libya, Barney, and others came through in his wake.

  Jack kept firing, driving reinforcements down, down, farther into the tunnels. He followed their line of retreat, letting them lead him into the bowels of Gilgenbush’s domain. He lost track of time and damage, hearing Tomcat’s voice flickering on and off in his helmet, signaling back when he had time for it, knowing the commander was following him on down. He knew he had to remember the amount of time spent in the suit, but a fierce joy seized him, and he lost track of everything.

  The man sat in the center of his web and watched the monitors. The suited monster plowing through the security of his system had ceased to even blast the cameras as he went through. Resistance was a futile exercise. Gilgenbush watched him plow through well-trained soldiers as if they were practice dummies. He lifted his cigar and took a deep, thoughtful drag. “My men can’t stop him.”

  In the shadows, another man answered, “I can. I’ve seen the suit operate.”

  “Then go out and meet him.”

  “Why? He’s exhausting his power. I’ll meet him when I have to.”

  The general, who was general over everything and everyone in his satellite except the other inhabitant in his office, bit into the end of his cigar. He said nothing, knowing this man wouldn’t follow his orders anyway. He had other … options … waiting to meet the battle armor. But Gilgenbush didn’t like what he was seeing. He exhaled, filling the air with blue-gray smoke, partially obscuring the closest monitor. He shouldn’t have to worry much longer at any rate.

  Jack set off the first booby trap, deep in the center of the satellite, where soldiers had failed the general, and he’d gone to gadgetry.
It caught him by surprise, the gas cylinder exploding under his feet, filling the tunnel with white frost.

  Jack plowed to a stop as his suit gauges showed an incredible drop in temperature around him. He waited as the face plate cleared. A normal man would have been flash frozen in the tunnel … normal men like Barney and Libya and Tomcat, following him inward to Gilgenbush’s lair.

  He caught a shuddering breath, and wondered how long ago it was that he’d ceased to think—to do anything but kill.

  He panned the connector tube. Hidden chill points showed him where three more cylinders lay waiting behind plates, like mines. Jack systematically fired them one at a time. He waded through the chilling fog as it affected the suit’s temperature, but only momentarily until the suit adjusted itself. A tiny chill remained at the back of his neck.

  Jack paused and checked his compass. The bulkhead before him led to a connective link with five arms branching off. The suit and his own senses told him he was making his way steadily to what must be the operative center of the satellite. He needed to continue straight ahead. He stepped into the connective link.

  The moment his feet touched, the metal throbbed. The plates beneath him hummed as machinery kicked into gear with a whoosh. Jack hit his hover jets, propelling himself into midair as the link rotated briskly.

  The connective tunnel rolled and gyroed, the arms swinging open and shut in front of him in a dizzying array until Jack closed his eyes in sensory vertigo. His hovering suit became the center of the universe, the constant needed to keep him sane.

  And he fought with himself, with the bloodsong wild in his ears to keep from bolting, from fighting wildly, to accept the passive inaction of hanging in midair. There was no enemy here, he told himself. Just machinery.

  The connective link halted abruptly. His compass rotated erratically. If he had not vaulted into midair and stayed there, he would have been hopelessly disoriented.

  Jack began to grin. He kicked the hovers down on low and glided across the intersection into the tunnel opening he’d selected originally, thinking that Gilgenbush had an extremely devious mind.

  He’d no sooner stepped into the corridor, than the heat seeking projectile fired, its orange flash arcing like a tracer path from the far end of the tunnel.

  Jack froze in place. He checked his gauges and saw the projected trajectory. He held still. The suit shuddered around him as though it knew he was a walking target.

  At the last second, he leaned to the right and felt the vibration of the small missile pass him by. It passed because the suit did not even begin to approximate the body temperature of a living target.

  It hit the connective link and exploded. The backlash of energy washed around Jack like an inferno. Jack squinted as he turned to look at the damage, and then he grinned fiercely. Gilgenbush was running out of options. He turned and strode purposefully down the corridor.

  “Damn.” Gilgenbush snubbed the stub of a cigar out. “He’s almost here.” “No tricks left?”

  “No.”

  “Then I suggest surrender.”

  The general gave the shadowy figure a smoldering look, even as the metal walls of his inner office clanged and began to turn molten under attack.

  Jack burst through the final door, melting its center seam and peeling it back. The man behind the desk inside, prepared though he thought he was, reacted strongly, shock and surprise flooding away the stoic preparedness.

  “My god,” Gilgenbush said. “What did Sadie hire?” He wiped the palm of his hand nervously over his balding skull, ruffling up a fringe of prematurely snow-white hair. His hawk nose jutted out fiercely, shadowing his gaunt and worried eyes. He wore his uniform, the brown fabric setting off the gold braids and epaulets, neckline buttoned severely into a jawline only slightly sagged by age.

  “You can’t say I didn’t warn you,” a voice said smoothly.

  Jack pivoted to the corner, his blind spot, as the harpooner stepped out. His weapon was loaded, lance head glinting in the office light.

  Jack’s fierce joy drained away.

  Chapter 13

  You made it here before me,” Jack said, eying the lance. “But then I guess you must have known where you were going.”

  The harpooner grinned. He was yellow-skinned, slant-eyed, and muscled like a gymnast. He carried the heavy harpoon with an easy grace. “Remember what Tomcat said—the man you work with today may be the man you fight tomorrow.” He centered the lance on Jack’s stomach. “Or vice versa.”

  The general made a steeple of his thick fingers. “No, Khan, you’re wrong. This man is not the Owner of the Purple, though I can clearly see why you might have thought he was. This man is another law unto himself. You did well to tell me about him.”

  “What’s he talking about?”

  They looked at Jack. “Another mercenary,” Gilgenbush said, shortly. “If you live and stay in the business, you’ll meet him sooner or later.”

  Khan took the safety off the harpoon gun. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  Gilgenbush said, “You’re sure the suit’s repairable?”

  “That should be your least concern,” the harpooner told the rogue general.

  Gilgenbush made a diffident movement.

  Jack realized then that he had the luxury of not being seen that well inside the helmet. He would not be telegraphing his movements. “I take it that you’ve reached a financial agreement.”

  The white-haired general smiled, very thinly. “The madam does charge an outrageous interest. Khan’s proposal leaves me a great deal more money. He tells me that once you’ve been taken out, my men can mop up the rest of the detail rather quickly.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that if I were you.”

  Khan snapped, “We’re wasting time.”

  “Right.” Gilgenbush got to his feet, “Take him out.”

  Jack moved before the harpoon left the gun, reaching out and grasping the shaft in his gauntlets, and bending the deadly lance into a hook. Khan gasped, dropped his weapon and turned heel to run, but Jack caught him by the scruff of the neck.

  “If you’d been with me,” Jack said grimly, “like the others, you’d have seen how fast I can move.” He jammed the butt of the spear into the wall and hung Khan from his own hook, while Gilgenbush stood transfixed by the side of his ornate desk. The general held up his hands.

  “I know when I’ve been beaten. Why don’t I just give you the location of the vault … I doubt you’ll have any trouble opening it.”

  “Why don’t you just walk with me anyway, general. Your men might get the idea that this battle is over.”

  Gilgenbush smiled that thin smile of his. It was a pale line under his outstanding nose. “Well put. This way, then.” He pressed a button and a panel opened, while Jack broadcast to Tomcat that the quarry had been taken.

  Tomcat sounded out of breath, and busy, but congratulated him. “We’ll be there in a minute. Jesus, Storm—you plowed right through them. I’m still wading through bodies back here.”

  He felt a moment of panic, because he didn’t remember killing more than three or four men and a few Thraks. But he remembered the fierce joy that had gripped him, and now he heard the buzzing in his ears, the awakening song of whatever it was that possessed the suit and fought to influence him. Which of them had been in control?

  As Jack followed the old man in the brown and gold uniform, he was afraid he knew the answer.

  “Sadie was so pleased she let me out two days early,” Amber crowed. She squeezed his arm again.

  Jack looked down at her, faintly quizzical and unexpectedly pleased, at Amber’s joy in seeing him, though he disliked the influence Madame Sadie had had on the girl. No … not girl. Not any more. He didn’t know if it had been the weeks away, or Sadie’s work, but Amber had finally crossed the nebulous border from girl into young woman. His nerves tingled at the discovery.

  Amber laughed. “You still look surprised.”

  “I am. I was expecting to find you
in hypothermia.” He reached out to ruffle her hair as he would have once, and drew his hand back. She’d spent too much time on the arrangement to mess it up. One of the differences between a girl and a woman was her reaction to having her hair mussed. He swallowed instead and gently regained control of his right arm.

  “So what’s this bonus you got?”

  “A new apartment. Nicer section of town, no too far from here.”

  A subtle expression filtered through her happiness. Then she said, “Farther away from Rolf.”

  “That’s one advantage.” Sadie had a taxi waiting for them, and one of her men was standing guard by the small pile of Amber’s belongings. She looked around as the guard returned to Sadie’s fortress. “Where’s the suit?”

  “In storage.”

  “Did refrigeration help?”

  He took her by the elbow and seated her in the vehicle. “I think it did more good for you than for the suit.”

  She waited until he settled and then said, “It wasn’t so bad. I thought it would be awful on account of …” Her voice faded off.

  “Why? On account of what?” Very small voice. “The way you act.” “I have different reasons,” Jack said reluctantly. He fed a hard disk to the autodriver.

  “I know.” Amber folded her hands in her lap. “Still …” She brightened. “Madame Sadie told us to come back any time. I think she likes you.” “Right.” Jack looked out the taxi window. The streets here were infinitely brighter, houses instead of buildings crowding the curb. And trees. He’d forgotten how much he missed them. Every square meter of free space was planted with grass and shrubs, and trees. In the back, where the houses reigned, flowers paled under the Malthen sun. But it was the trees he watched as they boldly leaned over the curb and waved their branches over his roadway.

  Amber seemed to sense his mood and lapsed into silence herself, though he caught her nibbling at her newly polished nails, a brilliant gold, thanks to Madame Sadie. She looked into her side mirror and saw a squat, ugly man ducking beyond the boundary of Madame Sadie’s house. There was no doubt in her mind that he was a mercenary because of the jumpsuit he wore, and the ever present weapons belt, but he was so ugly, she gave a little shudder. She thought of telling Jack, took a look at his bemused expression, and changed her mind. He hadn’t been one of Rolf’s contacts, and so she didn’t worry.