by J. N. Chaney
Landing using the jump rigs could get tricky, but I was ready and landed lightly on both feet.
“Right behind you,” Farah warned, urging me to scoot forward out of her way.
We both turned to watch Calliope’s landing when the train rumbled to life.
“V, how long has the train been stopped?” I barked.
“One minute and thirty seconds,” she answered.
“Then why the hell are we moving?”
There was a hum as the engines powered up, and the car rocked gently as it moved forward.
“Unfortunately, it appears that the transportation company has cut its stop times in an effort to be more efficient. It arrived a little earlier than we were expecting.”
“Cal’s gonna cut it close,” Farah said on our private channel.
“I think I can make it!” the girl called out.
“Fuck.” I could already see a disaster in the making and started running as Calliope’s wings shot back into the pack on her back and she dropped like a weight.
Her feet landed squarely on the car, but she couldn’t keep her balance as the train picked up speed and stumbled back. I leapt toward her, my arm outstretched as Calliope’s momentum took her into a backward roll.
My hand closed around her ankle and I pulled hard to keep her from sliding off the edge. The move would have worked, except the train took a curve that sent us both sliding.
“Activate mag boots!” I growled to Vega.
She didn’t respond but the clunk of the boots securing to the car answered for her.
“Shit, that was close,” Calliope panted when we were both standing again. “Thanks for the assist.”
“No problem. Let’s get down there.”
We’d landed on a car that didn’t carry passengers, and it only took Farah a few seconds to get us inside. She was fast becoming an expert on the tech side of our little group and that was fine with me.
“Okay, V. What do you got for us?” I asked once we were inside.
“Still nothing that matches the dossier,” Vega admitted. “However, there is a trace signature nearby that suggests some type of explosive is aboard this train.”
The line went quiet for a moment as I processed that. Farah and Calliope both looked stunned.
“V, did you just say explosive? As in not an ingot, but a fully functioning device?” I asked incredulously.
“That is correct. It appears—” The AI stopped talking midsentence.
“V? You still there?” I looked at the others, who shook their heads.
“I can hear you,” Farah said.
“Me too,” confirmed Calliope.
I didn’t like the feeling in my gut. “No way that’s a coincidence.”
“Someone’s jamming the signal,” Farah agreed. She checked her wrist unit and nodded. “Vega sent the location before she was cut off. Looks like it’s just a few cars down. Private compartment.”
“And we still have helmet comms, so that’s something at least,” Calliope said.
I checked my own unit and homed in on the data Vega sent. “We have enough to finish the op,” I told them. “Once we have it, we can worry about the rest. Keep your visor dark.”
They followed me out to the first occupied car and I turned on the suit’s external comms to address the passengers who were eyeing us with looks of alarm. “Everybody stay calm, we are doing a routine security check to audit the transportation company.”
That settled people down, though some still eyed us with looks of distaste. I repeated the schtick in each car until we reached Vega’s coordinates.
It turned out to be more of a space designed for meetings that held tables with large privacy screens.
“We’re going to have to clear it out,” Farah murmured.
“No. One of them might be in possession of the bomb. If it leaves this area we won’t know it.”
A harried man in an attendant’s uniform spotted us and hurried over. “Identification,” he snapped.
He was short and I had to tilt my head down to look at him. His uniform bore a pin that read “Barry.” “We’re here to test security. There’s a training device somewhere in the area. As soon as we find it we’ll move on to the next car and be out of your hair.”
“Nice try,” Barry chuckled. “You’re not going to catch me on anything. Part of our security protocol is to check all identification of those onboard.”
He smirked and held out his hand.
“This is a Sarkonian claimed planet,” I sneered, putting a hand on my sidearm and taking a menacing step in his direction. “The Empire’s soldiers aren’t beholden to scum such as yourself. Now back off and let us do our job.”
Barry went pale and dropped his hand. “S-sorry. I didn’t realize. Take all the time you need.” He backed up and took a seat off to the side, keeping his eyes averted.
I felt like an asshole, but it couldn’t be helped.
“The wrist units aren’t as sophisticated as the Genesis, but they should be able to pick up the readings at this close of range,” Farah said. She tapped commands into hers, then gestured to the far end of the car. “There. It’s accurate to about two meters.”
Gauging the width of the car, I didn’t think all three of us needed to go. “Farah and I will each take a workstation while you clear people out,” I told Calliope. “Just tell them their fares will be refunded for the inconvenience or something.”
“Copy that,” she said, walking to the other end.
Farah and I moved forward together, splitting to check our respective areas. I rounded the privacy screen to find a large man dressed in all black working on a data pad.
“Sorry to interrupt, sir, but I need to check your belongings. Security audit.”
He didn’t look up. “Beat it.”
The man’s response sparked irritation and I drew myself up to tear him down like I had Barry. “That is a directive from a soldier of the Sarkonian Empire. Failure to comply will earn you a hefty fine and possible jail time.”
He looked up at the same time Farah said “clear,” and I froze.
A scar ran down one eye, from his eyebrow to the top of his cheekbone. An eye that was a different color than the other. For a moment I just stared because I thought it was Dolph, the Void operative we’d worked with on Sobek, but the face and hair were wrong.
Instead of Dolph’s close crop of dirty blonde hair, this guy had dark brown, though cut similarly. His jaw wasn’t quite as square either. His lips curved up into a mocking smile so cold that I had to stop myself from taking a step back. He might not be Dolph, but I knew in my gut he was a Void operative.
“I guarantee that I outrank you, soldier. Unless you want to be stripped of whatever rank you currently possess, I suggest you take your leave.”
His gaze went to my exosuit, looking for my name and rank. The eye with the scar zeroed in and I saw a brief flash as it scanned.
Cybernetic, I realized.
I pulled my sidearm and leveled it at him to break his concentration and he reacted immediately. The man stood up so fast that the table tipped over, and he towered over me by almost half a meter. I had a second to register the bomb he’d been concealing under one of his arms, ticking down with just under four minutes to go before he tagged me with a right hook that sent me flying.
“Alyss!” It sounded like Farah on the comms, but my ears were ringing and the room swam from the impossibly strong blow.
“He’s Void!” I yelled struggling to stand.
When my vision cleared it was to see Calliope rushing forward.
“Cal, don’t!” But it was too late.
She leapt into the air, ready to climb him the same way she had the soldier on Boltin, but he caught her by the throat in midair and slammed her down into the ground.
The gun had flown from my hand and I had to pull my secondary firearm, training it on his back.
I fired with no warning and the first bullet slammed into him. At this close of range he sho
uld have screamed or jerked, done anything to indicate the bullet that had just hit him, but there was nothing.
Nothing, except he turned and focused a cold stare on me that filled my body with dread. For the first time in my entire life I was paralyzed with fear, unable to move.
He let Calliope go and charged. I fired again, self-preservation finally kicking in, but by then he was on me. It happened so fast that I couldn’t tell what he’d hit me with. All I knew was that one second I was standing, firing at him, and the next I had hit the wall behind me and was lying in a heap of malfunctioning exosuit with the giant of a man advancing on me. He approached slowly this time, fully aware I was in no position to do anything about anything.
A blue glow behind him caught my eye and I saw it was Farah. She had her bow out and arrow knocked.
“F, get out of here!” I tried to yell, but my voice came out cracked and shuddering.
The arrow dug into his leg, stopping his forward motion. He twisted to look at the arrow, then reached down to pull it out and spun to stare at my friend.
She dropped the bow and I wondered if she was experiencing the same loss of control I had.
“Farah, what are you doing, move!’
The man tensed and I knew he was going to charge her. My hands scrabbled around me, looking for something to hit him with, but I’d lost both guns.
I watched in horror, helpless to do anything else, when Farah ripped her helmet off. The expression on her face wasn’t one of fear. It was pure shock.
“Jax?”
7
The man stopped in his tracks.
Did she say Jax? It was impossible. Her brother was dead.
“Sophie.” A statement, not a question. Of course, he wouldn’t know about her new name.
Apparently not as dead as the government had led his family to believe.
Groaning, I forced myself to stand and go to Calliope, who wasn’t moving.
“How?” I heard Farah say.
“You’re going to have a lot of questions,” Jax replied in a tone that implied she wouldn’t be getting answers right now.
“Damn right I am!” she seethed. Even with my back to her I knew she was staring him down, hands on her hips like an angry parent.
“Now isn’t the time. Right now, we have to disable the bombs.”
Calliope coughed and started to sit up, so I jerked around to look at Jax. “Did you say ‘bombs,’ as in plural?”
Jax nodded briskly then went to the one he’d been working on. “Not enough time,” he muttered, working on the pad. “There are only two minutes left. We have to go now.”
“But the other one, we have to disable it!” Farah protested.
“There isn’t time!” he barked. “The most we can do is hit the emergency brake on the way out.”
Farah tried to object again but he shot forward in another blur of movement and threw her bodily over his shoulder, heading for the back of the train.
Calliope was on her feet now, though still a little wobbly, and I put her arm around my shoulder to help her limp out. Even with Jax carrying Farah’s added weight we had a hard time catching up as he whipped through the last two passenger cars to reach the one we’d used to enter the train.
“On the wall,” he said over his shoulder.
I scanned for an emergency brake. It sat behind a thin layer of glass on the wall closest to me and I punched it out. Tiny shards fell as I brushed them away to put my hand inside.
“Get ready!” I warned, bracing myself.
Calliope grabbed onto a mounted handhold and Jax planted his feet, Farah still slung over his shoulder.
I pulled the handle down.
The brakes engaged and we were thrown back as the train tried to slow from the high speed it had accumulated. Jax opened the door and I was pulling Calliope behind me a few seconds later.
The city scape flew by, its buildings still a blur. The train was slowing, but not fast enough to survive a jump.
“Time’s up,” Jax said. “Gonna have to chance the jump.”
“Fire up your rig,” I ordered over the comm, stepping to the side so Calliope could go first.
“Wait, I’m not ready!” she cried out.
“V!”
“I have control of the jump rig,” she answered at once.
I pushed the girl out, watching as her wings unfolded and the rig thrusters activated, and I followed when she was clear.
A rumble came from the front of the train and I turned to see a burst of light as the bomb went off. Cars jumped into the air like they weighed nothing, their frames spiraling off the track and landing in a scattered pile. The sound of rending metal tore through the air and flames licked at the sky.
“We have to go,” Jax said from behind me.
“No! We have to help them!” Farah was standing with helmet in hand, tears streaming down her face. “I’m a medic, I can help people!”
“They’re beyond help,” he said harshly. “None of us can be here when the authorities arrive.”
I laid a hand on her shoulder. “He’s right,” I said gently. “If anyone survived, there’s nothing you can do. The way we help is staying alive and out of prison.”
Taking a step back, she nodded and jammed the helmet back on her head.
“Did you knock out our comms?” I asked Jax.
He nodded. “Yeah. I’ll put them back.”
“Thanks. You have a way out of here?” I asked.
Jax looked at Farah. Sophie to him. “Yes, but if it’s okay with you I’d like to talk to her before I go.”
“That’s up to her,” I said, jerking my chin in Farah’s direction.
“Fine, after I check Cal over.” The words came out clipped and short.
“Captain, are you alright?” Vega’s worried voice sounded in my ear and relief surged through me.
“We’re alive I said. Op was a bust though. On our way back now.”
“Acknowledged. The ship’s coordinates are already loaded into the rig’s GPS systems.”
I checked my wrist unit to confirm and saw that she was right. “F, you good?”
She inclined her head in answer and activated the jump rig, shooting up into the sky.
“You next,” I told Calliope.
“No argument here,” she replied, voice raw. “I think something’s broken.”
When it was just Jax and me I leveled a stare at him. “You have plans to kill us?”
“No. I had no idea another team was coming to disable the bombs. Last communication said there was no one around who could take care of it.”
I didn’t know the man well, but from the way he’d gotten his sister out of the train and the unflinching expression on his face, I thought he was telling the truth.
“Then you’re welcome aboard the ship. Unless she doesn’t want you around.”
He raised an eyebrow and I knew we were both thinking the same thing. With the way he’d just mopped the floor with all of our asses we couldn’t stop him.
“I give my word to leave without violence,” he said.
Sirens wailed in the distance, but my hand hovered over the wrist unit as I eyed Jax. “I don’t think my rig can take us both up.”
I didn’t see his hands move but suddenly a pair of wings unfolded from a pack I hadn’t seen him wearing.
Okay then, I thought. We were airborne the next second and headed for home.
Farah was already taking care of Calliope in the med bay, so I took care of my rig and motioned for Jax to follow me to the bridge.
The Second Genesis was a sizeable ship, but he still almost had to tilt his head in some of the areas due to his height. I couldn’t help studying him out of the corner of my eye as we walked.
Jax shuffled along next to me and his gait struck me as unnatural. I was about to ask if he’d gotten injured jumping from the train when it dawned on me and my cheeks got hot. I was moving slow from the fight and he was slowing to keep pace with me.
“How d
id you know what I was?” he asked, breaking the silence.
I hesitated, unsure how much I wanted to tell him. “I’ve met one of you before,” I admitted, deciding Farah’s brother was trustworthy. “Dolph.”
His head jerked back in surprise. “You know Dolph?”
“Our unit worked an op with him a while back,” I replied, not going into the details.
“I see. I have to say, I’m a little surprised he didn’t mention you.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, confused. “Aren’t all of your missions top secret?”
Jax shrugged. “Sure, but we still talk shop without getting into specifics. And I say that because you tried to fight me.”
“So?”
“Most people that know anything about the Void don’t do that,” he said with a smirk. “You shot me. That makes you either crazy or stupid, and I’d bet credits you aren’t stupid.”
“So, you’re part of the rebellion too?” I asked, sidestepping his remark.
“Yes.” Jax paused like he was distracted, then glanced at me as we reached the bridge. “I just received a transmission from a contact saying that the explosion is all over the gal-net.”
“V, bring up the news, anything broadcasting what happened here.”
“Working.”
I walked to the display with Jax and watched as a familiar male reporter named Quintin Dallas blinked on. “Ugh, V. Something else, please. Dallas and the UNN are so fake.”
“Of course, Captain,” Vega replied. “The most highly rated news corporation is DLN32.”
“Put it up,” I told her.
“This is Brice Howard reporting for the Deadlands News 32. We come to you with this breaking report on a developing story originating on the planet Solaris.”
The image switched to an aerial view of the wreckage currently smoldering beneath the Second Genesis.
“Hundreds are believed to be dead, and with no official statement as to the cause of the crash, citizens are left to wonder. Was this a terrorist attack?”
The image flipped back to the news anchor again, a familiar red headed man, but he was looking away from the camera and seemed distracted. “Hold on, folks. I’m getting some new information here. A group calling themselves the Solaris Initiative has come forward and accuses none other than Vice-Admiral-Kaska.” Howard’s face went slack, and his gaze darted back and forth between someone or something off screen and the camera.
