A Greater Duty (Galaxy Ascendant Book 1)

by Yakov Merkin

  Nayasar smiled. “If I’d become boring, would we be here right now? But seriously, I’m not sure if I could easily pinpoint what I see in Felivas. Maybe it is the fact he is so different from me; I just know that we work. I’d be hard pressed to find someone more devoted than he is. But enough of this,” Nayasar said as Mir—‘their captain’, as he liked to call himself—notified everyone that they were making the final approach, and the others began to join them in the central area. “We have more important things to worry about.”

  A few minutes later, the entire team, except for Mir, was on the ground. Once again, Nayasar had given High Captain Vitrek command of the second group, simply due to rank—there would have been no way to convince Felivas to lead the second team.

  On the one hand, this mission was theoretically less complex than the previous two. Aside from the fact that there would be two targets at roughly the same location, the city they lived in was very small, housing only a small number of very wealthy people: politicians, business owners, and their like. There would be less of a risk of randoms seeing anything suspicious, and less risk of collateral damage during the operation—though Nayasar did not particularly care. She was going to kill these evil people, no matter who stood in her way.

  On the other hand, however, as these were all private estates, they had their own security services, good ones, who would respond much faster than police would. There was more risk this time. And after they succeeded here, others in the Alliance might begin to connect the marks and realize that people were being hunted. It would only get more dangerous from here. Felivas would say that the smart, safe thing to do would be to stop after this. Fortunately, he was not in command.

  As Nayasar looked out at the beautiful estates, the elaborate homes, all she could see in her mind was the aftermath of the massacre; a beautiful city, destroyed for petty reasons, by people who thought themselves untouchable—who were just about untouchable.

  “Team Two in position,” Bohdan said over the secure channel. “All exits from the main building are covered. The targets will not escape.”

  “Monitoring comm channels,” Mir added from the Harbinger a few moments later. “You’ll have at least some warning before security comes down on your heads. Ready to bail you out.”

  “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, Lieutenant Commander,” Nayasar replied. “We won’t need saving. Just be sure no one spots you and shoots you out of the sky.”

  “Haven’t been shot down yet, Srei Felitzvah,” Mir replied, then ended the transmission. Of course he did, once he’d gotten the last word in.

  “Team One,” Nayasar ordered, “Let’s go pay the ren Talbins a visit.” She drew her rifle from its clip on her back and expanded it to functional size, then led the way, still cloaked, to the mansion.

  Biram ren Talbin and his son Vumir were part of an old, well-connected Darvian family with strong ties to the Darvian military and government. Old Biram had served in the military for decades, and upon retirement had taken the next logical step, becoming an arms manufacturer and dealer. He and his son were co-owners of the business now, and ardent patriots, with the requisite anti-Felinaris sentiment that came along with that. Nearly all of the ordnance that had been dropped on Selban had been from their company. It hadn’t come free, of course—that was where Serak’s money had come in—but it had been at a significant discount. And Nayasar would never forget seeing their smug faces on the commNet news the day after the massacre, comfortably in their home, talking about how the Felinaris had deserved it for hoarding valuable resources, and thinking they were above the rest of the galaxy, all the while of course denying any knowledge of the attack. Nayasar prayed she had the time to make their deaths painful.

  “Up we go,” she ordered as she stopped below a balcony several floors above them. After many tedious hours of reconnaissance, they had learned that that balcony led to Biram’s office, where both he and his son worked. It also appeared to have no lock. Which made sense: They were safe here, among friends, protected by expensive security services on a lightly populated world.

  Nayasar took her grappling device from her belt and attached it to her rifle. She used the weapon’s scope to aim, then fired the grappling claw, which embedded itself in the stone balcony as she had her armor play a birdcall over its external speakers to mask the sound. She probably could have just jumped it, but it wouldn’t be easy, or certain. The grappling claw was a surer bet.

  Once she had confirmed it was secure, she signaled the rest of her team: Felivas, Flis, Tzia, Kiari, and Davir. They stood nearby and lined up shots. At another signal, they fired, and Nayasar played the birdcall twice more. Another signal, and they all climbed up the ropes. The line could have been retracted to lift them on its own, but even the slight sound it made could be noticed in so quiet an area, and the birdcall cover sound could become suspicious if overused. Also, leaving the ropes, which were nearly impossible to see from afar, hanging where they were, would make their eventual escape all the easier.

  Less than a minute later, all six of them were on the balcony. After a quick glance around confirmed that there was nothing else on the balcony besides several empty chairs and tables, Nayasar ordered the squad to approach the transparent steel window—reinforced and weapons resistant, to confirm that their targets were inside. She knew they weren’t alone; her scanner showed five life signs in the room. Unfortunate collateral damage. People shouldn’t associate themselves with evil people; there could be consequences.

  Looking through into the room, Nayasar saw five Darvians, all as ugly as any she’d ever seen, with their large armored skulls covered in shaggy hair, carapaced mouths that when closed looked like a digging machine, eyes sunken and red. It was a wonder they could speak normally at all. And of course, each Darvian in the room was larger than she was, including one that had to be a juvenile, and one a female. Wrong place, wrong time, she told herself again.

  Nayasar tested the door, and when it proved to be unlocked, shoved it open and dove into the room, landing as silently as possible opposite the Darvians, who had stopped their conversation to stare at the empty space where Nayasar, and then the rest of the team, stood.

  “Nobody move. Any muscle that moves without my permission will be removed from your body. Understood?” When the Darvians, appropriately afraid, stared silently, Nayasar decloaked, and was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath from the elder ren Talbin.

  “You seem surprised, Biram,” Nayasar said, pouring all of her hatred into her voice. “You, less so,” she added, turning to Vumir. The younger ren Talbin partner did not appear as shocked.

  “I knew Serak and Giran’s deaths were no coincidence,” he muttered.

  “Shut up,” Nayasar ordered, unless you want to be short a lower jaw. She had had the fortune of being able to get to Powen Giran, the Darvian diplomat who’d secured the rights for the attack force to move through other systems’ space en route to Felinar, while he had been vacationing on a private moon outside the security of the core systems. Giran had been known as an avid mountain climber, so Nayasar had taken advantage of the opportunity and had left him at the bottom of a ravine, a tragic accident. Serak’s death had been far more conspicuous.

  “But I take from your remark that you know who I am, and why I am here.” There was no sense revealing how many she had with her; she was still the only one visible.

  “Selban was a horrible mistake,” said Biram quickly. “I had thought the attack would be on a military facility, if that means anything. And I’ve since given thousands to relief funds. We’ve repented for our part in the tragedy. Please. If you leave now, I won’t breathe a word of this.”

  It was true. A few weeks after the massacre, Biram had personally donated significant amounts to private relief funds, to allay his obvious connection to the attack. A whole lot of good it did the dead or those who’d lost entire families. Notably, the younger ren Talbin had not. “Not good enough,” she said.

  “So how many did
you bring to kill an old Darvian and an unarmed citizen?” Vumir spat. “How many more of you worms are hiding in the shadows?”

  “I never said you could talk, child,” Nayasar snarled. “And I could kill the both of you in my sleep. But,” she continued with a shrug, “I suppose I can’t expect you to bargain as well. Your father, at least, has some sense of self-preservation.”

  “Felinaris parasite!” he spat. “You talk so much with a gun in your hand. If I wasn’t unarmed, you’d be quiet, as all of your kind should be.”

  He was clearly trying to bait her into doing something stupid. Unfortunately for him, her stupid action quota was already filled. “Cute,” she said. “I’d give you half a second before you were lying dead or dying on this nice carpet.”

  “Even if you do kill us, there’d be dozens of guards swarming the area in moments. You’d never escape.”

  “If you were so eager to martyr yourselves, one of you would have tried that already,” Nayasar said, carefully watching both Biram and Vumir for any movement.

  “He’s right though,” Biram added. “When you do decide to kill us, I will call for aid, and at least some of you will die.”

  Nayasar smiled. Times like this it was almost a pity her face was hidden. “So you’ll die and give me a chance to kill more Darvians? I don’t see the downside.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Biram said. If only Darvian faces weren’t so stiff; she’d have loved to see him visibly sweating, trying to find a way out. “Let my other son, and Vumir’s wife and child leave here alive and the guards will not be summoned.”

  The female Darvian let out a strangled cry in her native tongue and Vumir shouted something. “Quiet!” Nayasar snarled. “I can’t do that. Can’t have witnesses to potentially identify me. And I don’t particularly want anyone to live with a grudge against me, you understand,” she said, glancing from Biram to the child then back to the old Darvian.

  “So be it then,” he said, closing his eyes.

  “I only regret we didn’t get all of you!” Vumir shouted. “We should have given the martyrs thermonuclear missiles! But at least we had our victories, both there and at our own homeworld. How many more of your kind died there?”

  Nayasar raised her rifle. “How painful do you want your death to be, kerakhi?”

  “See this?” he took a small object out of his pocket. A bone. “I have a friend who was part of one of the relief teams. He brought this back for me, a little trophy—” Nayasar screamed and expended an entire power cell firing into Vumir’s thick skull, and he crumpled to the ground, the little brains he had leaking out. Biram made a motion, and immediately he was felled by a flurry of laser pulses, but he had likely alerted his security.

  The other three Darvians tried to run for the office door, and made it a surprising three meters before Nayasar, her power cell replaced, and one of her squad—Kiari by the location of the gunfire—felled them all. Like the office workers at Serak’s compound, they had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. A pity they had to die, but Nayasar felt no remorse.

  “Time to go,” Nayasar ordered, and the squad ran out to the balcony, Nayasar pausing briefly to recover the bone, then ripped a Darvian flag from the wall and tore it in half.

  As they lowered themselves to the ground, Nayasar accepted a communication from Mir. “You’ve got a house party headed your way. At least a hundred guests. I don’t think there’ll be enough food.”

  “Shut up and get over here!” Nayasar ordered. “Maybe I’ll let you shoot something.”

  “Sounds fun. On my way.”

  “Team Two,” said, “targets down, regroup at the following coordinates for pickup. Enemies inbound.”

  “They’re already here,” Bohdan replied, “and they’ve got a vehicle with a scanner. We’re taking fire.”

  And us with no heavy weapons. “Get yourselves away!” Nayasar ordered, then opened a channel to Mir on the Harbinger. “I’ve got a target for you!” she said as she forwarded him the location of the vehicle.

  “On it!” he replied.

  Nayasar heard a sound to her left and dropped to the ground just before an antipersonnel rocket soared over her, flying harmlessly by. Say what she would about Darvians, but their security services came prepared.

  “More targets!” Kiari shouted as she tossed a pair of grenades around the corner of the building, sending several heavily armored Darvians flying into the air, where several precise sniper shots in rapid succession finished them off.

  “High Captain, what’s your status?” she asked Bohdan. They still had not arrived.

  As she fired at another pair of approaching Darvians he replied. “We ran into another squad that was headed behind your current position. We had to fight our way through. What remains of them is busy with one of Tresken’s toys. We have two wounded, nothing serious provided we get out of here soon.”

  “Keep moving toward my position; we’ll start heading in your direction and meet halfway.” Nayasar tossed an incendiary charge at a group of Darvians attempting to set up a heavy turret, then fired at the charge, detonating it in midair, bathing the Darvians and the abundant plant life around them in flame. “Mir, where are you?” she demanded.

  “Take a look,” he responded, as only he would. Moments later, the Darvian command vehicle exploded. “Picking up Tzalaf now; on my way to the rest of you.”

  Nayasar didn’t respond. There was no need now, especially with dozens of enemies still approaching, now from a different angle due to the raging fire. Unfortunately, though the scanner had been destroyed, they would still have a general idea of where Nayasar and her squads were.

  “Picking up the rest of Team Two now,” Mir informed her. Good. At least he was getting to those who needed help first, as opposed for coming for her as many would. She turned abruptly as she heard Flis curse audibly. She had taken a hit on her leg. “I’m alright. Barely penetrated the armor.”

  Nayasar deployed a bubble shield generator which, while it would reveal her location, would give protection and time for her personal shields to recover, as well as draw enemy fire. Nayasar fired through it at the steadily advancing security forces as the shield quickly began to weaken.

  “Nayasar. Nayasar!” Felivas shouted over the comm channel a few seconds later. “Ship’s here, it’s time to go.”

  “Understood.” Nayasar tossed another grenade and ran to the barely discernible line hanging down from the ship as the shield finally failed. “Go!” she ordered Felivas, who reached the line at the same time. “That’s an order.”

  He did as ordered, and quickly climbed the rope. Nayasar fired another few shots, then leaped as high as she could, grabbed the rope, then clambered up, rifle still in hand. Her shields took a few more hits as she was pulled up into the ship, but they held.

  “Everyone in?” Mir asked.

  “Yes, go!” Felivas ordered.

  Fortunately the Darvians had not been prepared for a ship, and they had lacked weapons sufficient to do more than scratch the shields. Within minutes, they had cleared the planet.

  “Are you alright?” Nayasar asked Nirra, Kanaah, and Flis, the three wounded.

  “I’ve had worse,” Nirra replied. “Same here,” Kanaah added.

  “Our supplies should be more than enough to patch everyone up,” Flis, the medic, said with a wince as she cleaned the wound in her left thigh. “Stings like all hell, but not deep. If my fellow wounded would accompany me into what counts as the med-bay on this ship, I can see to everything.”

  The three of them rose and left the room. “Nirra and Kanaah were incredible,” Bohdan said. “Between the two of them they took out at least fifteen Darvians, half of those after they were injured.”

  “Nobody would have been hurt if we’d simply taken the targets from afar, or made a quick hit,” Felivas said. “We took unnecessary risks.”

  It was true, Nayasar realized. But how could she explain that she needed to see her enemies’ faces, confront them w
ith their crimes as she killed them. It was the only way the screaming souls could be at peace.

  Fortunately, Kiari changed the subject before she had to reply. “A bigger problem,” she said, “is the some of us didn’t fire when targets tried to escape.”

  “We went there to kill criminals, not innocent bystanders who had nothing to do with what we are avenging,” Felivas said.

  Davir nodded. “We cannot lose ourselves to this cause, however justified, or we risk doing as our enemies have done.”

  “No, we are not at all like them!” Nayasar snapped. “We came to kill evil people. Anyone else who dies is simply collateral damage. It’s not our fault if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing can come between us and vengeance.”

  Davir was silent, though he did glance at Felivas, whose face betrayed his thoughts. He was worried.

  “I’m fine, Felivas,” she assured him, and perhaps herself as well. “There were no wholly unnecessary risks. Everyone is okay. Our enemies are dead. There is nothing to be concerned about.” Only four more, and she could be at peace. Four more despicable life forms to go. Nayasar noticed Kiari stand up and move behind her, then rest a hand on her shoulder.

  “The resident assassin agrees with our commanding officer. We accomplished exactly what we set out to do. Now who’s up for a round of drinks for a job well done?”

  “Since we can’t well return to the fleet with several of our number plainly wounded, we’ll be changing course. There are two Reizan’Tvay outposts nearby,” Felivas said, abruptly changing the subject.

  “What in the fiftieth level of hell are Reizan’Tvay?” Tresken asked from across the room.

  “More Tyrannodon stuff,” Kiari guessed, crossing her arms.

  “I’ll explain once we’re en route,” Felivas said. “We might as well do something to help Darkclaw considering what we’ll be missing.

  The battle.

  Darkclaw was going to be leading the fleet against Ranivantum, the capital world of the Talvostan Union in less than a day. She’d completely forgotten. They hadn’t expected to be gone this long. Darkclaw wouldn’t be happy—it really felt strange being able to say that—but he’d get over it. Nayasar had things to do, though she did feel bad not being there for her troops, and Darkclaw. But who knew? Maybe they’d get lucky and find a shiny piece of old technology to bring back to him. That ought to make Darkclaw feel better.