32
Ball Buster
Clio jerked awake to the sound of screaming. She opened her crusted eyes just in time to see Alvar being dragged through the cell’s opened door by two Vargs in SenSec uniforms. She found herself still leaning against the metal panel.
A third officer stood over her with his hands resting on his hips, his moustache draping like curtains over his mouth.
With some discomfort, he kneeled down next to her and slid his hand along her inner thigh.
Clio turned away, but his other hand grabbed her chin and forced her to look into his eyes.
“Come on,” Burly called from outside.
“I’m coming,” Samity complained.
“We haven’t got all day. Sergeant Chin will be pissed if we haven’t gotten what he wants by the time he gets back.”
Samity leaned in close to Clio’s ear. “Don’t worry, girl,” he whispered, his moustache brushing against her earlobe. “I’ll save the extra special treatment for you later. Save some of your fight for me. I like my girls feisty.”
Had she the energy, Clio would have launched at him, but she could barely move let alone attack someone.
Without another word, he withdrew and limped into the adjacent room. The door snapped shut behind him, and Alvar’s screams dulled to a hum before fading entirely.
Clio tested her arms and legs. They were stiff and sore, but nowhere near as bad as before. She braced herself and rocked forward, putting her knees under her pelvis. She forced her legs down and her torso up and she started to stand, her knees shaking. She lost her balance and stumbled back against the wall but remained on her feet.
Even if I could break out of here, I wouldn’t make it far.
The situation seemed hopeless, but she had to try. She didn’t get to where she was by rolling over and letting life fuck her in the ass every time something didn’t work in her favor.
She held onto the wall, using it as a guide and support as she felt her way around the box-shaped room. Apart from the area by the door, the room was completely dark. Bare metal covered every wall. She didn’t feel so much as a screw or bolt, let alone a vent or window cover. She moved to the last corner and something on the floor pressed against her boot. Ignoring her body’s objections, she tentatively reached down and found a bundle of cloth. Next to that, she felt a tray with some food still on it, and a cup with an inch of water.
Suddenly her stomach growled. Without a care, she wolfed down the tasteless mush with her hands and washed it down with the water. She craved more, but she couldn’t find anything else in the area. She sat back in the corner, pulling the bundle of clothing over her shoulder, ignoring its stench. She tried to think of a way out, but a heavy fog rested over her mind, making forming a plan all but impossible.
They must have drugged me.
She leaned forward and pulled the tray to herself, imagining she could form it into a weapon, but it was fashioned from thick plastic that refused to bend let alone break.
If I was stronger, perhaps…
A loud bang against the door caused her to drop the tray on the floor.
Someone screamed outside, but it didn’t sound like Alvar.
Maybe the Shanti was fighting. Maybe he got one of them. She was more saddened than excited by the thought. They’ll kill him for sure.
Another thud struck the door and it snapped open, flooding the room with light and forcing Clio to shield her eyes.
Two silhouettes entered the beam of light flooding into the room.
“There you are,” a vaguely familiar female voice said. “We need to get you out of here.
The female TEK walked closer, but Clio still couldn’t make out her features.
“Who are you?” she croaked.
“Shit, Clio,” the woman bent down to her level. “They beat you pretty good, didn’t they?”
“What’s going on?”
“You might not remember me from the Bakura. Name’s Eline. Straiya sent us to bust you out of here. Can you walk?”
“Just about,” she said, struggling to get back on her feet.
Eline offered a helping hand and she accepted.
Clio could hardly believe her eyes and ears. She thought the SenSec officers might be playing a cruel joke, but it was Eline’s voice alright. Clio hadn’t met the Shanti Aegis while on the Bakura, but she’d seen her on the bridge and had since heard the impressive tales. The Shanti warrior had taken down a Chit tank all on her own. No mean feat, even if she did almost die in the process.
“We need to hurry,” the male TEK at the door said urgently. “The neurotoxin we pumped into the building won’t last long. We can’t afford to have anyone on our tails when we hit the hangar.”
“Put this on,” Eline said, pulling a mask over Clio’s face. “It’ll protect you from the gas. We need to go.”
Eline pulled one of Clio’s arms over her shoulders and helped her to the door.
The male Shanti pushed a blaster into Clio’s free hand. “Some of them may have escaped the gas. If you see any SenSec officers move, try to incapacitate rather than kill them. We can’t give these bastards anymore dirt on us if we can help it.”
She nodded, accepting the gun, it’s weight almost dragging her down.
They left the cell and wound their way through hallways and staircases. In one corridor they passed a room with the door open. She recognized the table and the recorder inside as belonging to the interrogation room.
“Wait a minute,” Clio said, pulling away from Eline and stumbling toward the door.
“What is it?” the Shanti complained. “The others have already been transferred to the transport. You’re the last. The longer they wait for us, the greater the risk we’ll be discovered.”
She looked inside the door and found Alvar slumped over the table unconscious.
Burley lay across from him, his face also planted on the table. Samity was splayed on the floor on his back. He coughed and wheezed, holding a handkerchief to his mouth. He spotted Clio and his eyes went wide, but he could barely move, the toxin still acting on his body.
The male Shanti popped his head inside and noticed Samity was conscious. “Shit, it’s already wearing off,” he growled.
“We need the doctor,” Clio demanded, pointing at Alvar’s unconscious body.
Eline tried to pull her away. “We don’t have time. We need to go now.”
“We need the doctor!” she said much more sternly, pulling her arm free and stumbling through the doorway.
Eline sighed. “Fine, we take the doctor.” She gestured to the male Shanti and he moved toward Alvar.
“I’ll take care of this bastard.” Clio leaned down and pushed her blaster into Samity’s brow, forcing his head into the ground. “You like them feisty, eh?”
His body jerked and twisted as he tried to move away. His tongue desperately flopped about with his moustache, but he couldn’t form any words. Saliva pooled in the back of his mouth and he began to gurgle and choke. His eyes welled up and tears streamed down his face.
“No killing, Clio,” Eline said by her side.
“Don’t worry, I won’t kill him,” she said, letting Eline lend her support again.
She pointed the blaster and pulled the trigger.
A dark patch erupted on Samity’s crotch and he started convulsing.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Eline said, hauling Clio out of the room.
“I didn’t kill him,” she countered, allowing herself to be dragged through the corridor by the arm. “I just blew his balls off.”
33
Bullet in The Head
Taza crouched behind a stack of crates in a shadowed corner of hangar H1S9. He checked the schematic on his SIG and confirmed he was at the correct control box.
Before removing the panel, he peeked over a crate to check for hangar security. The last thing he needed was for a patrol to find him after all the trouble he went through to sneak into the area. He’d already used his TEK
’s ghost-drive to gain access to the hangar. The device had eaten seventy-four percent of his battery which was enough to make him more than a little nervous. The remaining power was enough for a day’s worth of normal operation or thirty minutes of fighting. Even less if he wanted maximum shields. With only ten minutes of invisibility time left, he hoped he wouldn’t have to use the G-Drive again, but he kept it primed just in case.
The outline of the North Star’s prow jutted from the darkness in the bay ahead, her smooth curves partially illuminated by the dimmed flood lights above. Her shields rumbled with a barely inaudible hum, making Taza’s hairs stand on end even from forty yards away.
Active shields were forbidden in the Sentinel’s hangars, but the North Star had a mind of her own and refused to let unauthorized personnel on board. A scattering of machinery on the bay floor around the vessel showed evidence of recent efforts to bypass her defenses.
Taza had never been on board the ship but he already liked her spirit.
He looked to the defense turret housing mounted toward the rear of the hangar ceiling. His job was to deactivate those defenses before opening the hangar doors, allowing Eline and Grimshaw’s respective transports to arrive safely.
The other bays lay vacant, leaving a wide-open view of the hangar. He cycled through his visor’s electromagnetic spectrum filters and found no signs of activity.
Satisfied, he crouched in front of the terminal box and began removing its bolts with a manual driver as quietly as possible. Taza set the cover on the ground, revealing a tangle of colored-spaghetti inside the box. He dug his fingers through a cluster of cabling, searching for the maintenance serial interface port. His gloves brushed against the socket, and he extended his SIG’s interface cable, attaching the end to the control panel.
Breaking through the first two security layers took seconds, but the third proved troublesome. It used a series of encryption algorithms foreign to his SIG’s injection program.
They don’t really want anyone breaking in here, huh?
Taza ran a trace and found that a nearby secondary security node was creating a block. He checked the schematics again and found it was located just below the terminal he was already at. He got on his chest and checked where the wall met the ground. A metal plate had been welded over a hole in the wall.
They didn’t do a very good job of hiding it.
He thought that strange, but then hangar maintenance and security probably cut corners like everyone else. Removing the plate would mean creating some noise.
Taza held his breath as his plasma pen cut the metal plate, then he waited a minute to make sure no one had heard.
His TEK’s radial sonar didn’t register anything out of the ordinary, and he went back to work, connecting to the serial interface port and firing up his hacking program. A spark flashed.
Before Taza knew what had happened, he was staring up at the hangar ceiling, his left fingers twitching. Smoke stung his nostrils. He tried to lift his hand to adjust his air filters, but his servos moved in the opposite direction then seized up.
A controller disruption attack. Shit!
He cursed himself for not checking for a trap. It wasn’t the first time someone had taken his TEK out with a CDA.
If I could just pull the interface cable free.
Two armed SenSec officers appeared above him.
Taza stood on the loading bay platform surrounded by a dozen SenSec heavies. They had dragged him there as he lay helpless, his TEK refusing to cooperate. He had a good view of the bay platforms and the locked hangar doors. Several SenSec and Chimera squads were positioned in the hangar eaves below where they waited for the Aegi transports to arrive. Grimshaw and Eline would be vastly outnumbered.
It’ll be a slaughter.
He finally regained control of his TEK, not that it was any use to him with three phase rifles pointed at his head. His weapons had been confiscated and stored inside the crane control compartment around twenty paces away.
“You know, when Farmorai told me you were alive, I didn’t believe him,” Sergeant Chin said. “We were pretty sure we got you in that accident back in the day.”
Taza launched for Chin, suddenly overcome with rage. His vision flashed as the butt of a rifle smashed into his face, knocking him sideways. He caught onto the platform rail to stop himself from falling.
“Careful, Taza. I asked my boys not to kill you unless they really have to. I’d hate for you to miss the show. You’ve got front row seats up here. What more could a man want?”
“Kicking you in the balls would be a good start,” Taza said, spitting blood to the hangar floor below. He turned to look at Chin and his crew. They appeared to be enjoying themselves.
Chin chuckled. “That’s always been the difference between you and I, Taza. You go for the nuts. I…” he pointed his index finger at Taza like a gun. “I like to put a hole straight in the head. I get the job done.” He blew a stream of invisible smoke from the muzzle of his mock blaster.
“You always were an asshole, Chin.” Taza licked the blood from his lips. “But I didn’t think even you could stoop so low. Now I know why they made you a Sergeant at SenSec.”
Chin brushed his fingernails against his shoulder and checked as if to make sure they were clean. “Doing whatever it takes does come with its perks.”
“Doing whatever it takes?” Taza laughed as he stood upright and faced Chin once again. “You mean betraying the very people you claim to serve.”
“Taza…Taza. You always were one to lecture about justice and truth, but that’s what got you killed…well almost.” He turned to his men with a cocky smirk. “We’ll make sure we get you this time.”
The officers grinned and chuckled like a pack of school-kids.
“You don’t know Grimshaw and his crew like I do. You’ve barely got half the men you need to take on a force consisting of Aegi and war veterans.” He chuckled, hoping a display of nonchalance would make the bluff believable. “They’ll tear you all to pieces.”
The officers continued mocking him, but signs of doubt crept into their voices. Their body language suddenly didn’t seem so sure.
“Nonsense,” Chin said. “The only thing Grimshaw is going to do is walk straight into our trap.”
The Rivarian swiped his SIG and the hangar doors rumbled as they slowly started to open.
Taza looked through the growing gap between the two giant sliding panels. “We’ll see.”
“Yes, we will,” Chin said, still brimming with certainty. “Did you know that the courts are planning to repeal the execution order? Killing so many people with one order made a lot of councilors and ambassadors nervous. I mean, it’s been decades since an execution order was carried out on the Sentinel, so I can’t blame them. However, your people breaking out of jail puts the ball back in our court. Why do you think we let them get this far? We knew you’d try a break out all along.”
It took everything Taza had not to run at Sergeant Chin again. He wanted nothing more than to punch the grin from his scaly face. “You’ll pay, one day.”
“Perhaps, but not today.” Chin looked like he was listening to something on his vox. He suddenly stared at the ceiling toward the North Star’s stern. “Shall we get on with the show?”
The SenSec Sergeant swiped his SIG again and a loud mechanical sound echoed through the hangar as two turrets unfolded from a ceiling recess.
Taza looked to the hangar doors. They had almost opened, and he could make out several lights in the distance as Eline and Grimshaw’s transports sped closer. They were being pursued by three SenSec aircars. Taza’s eyes squinted. He couldn’t be sure given the distance and the darkening sky, but he could have sworn that smoke bellowed from one of the Aegi transports. It was worse than he’d thought. Grimshaw and Eline thought he’d successfully opened the doors, and the SenSec aircars were driving them straight toward the turrets.
“Shit,” Taza muttered under his breath.
Chin sighed. “You kno
w, it’s been seven years since someone’s been given clearance to use the Sentinel’s internal artillery. I’ve been looking forward to this all day.”
Chin operated his SIG and the turrets whined as they powered up.
In a matter of seconds, the Aegi transports were within range.
“Ready for the fireworks?” Chin said.
Taza watched in horror as the turrets sped up and the Aegi transports came closer.
Chin suddenly looked back to the turrets, confused.
“They aren’t working.” He looked to his officers in a rage. “You were supposed to get the maintenance guys to make sure they’d been checked.”
“They confirmed they were working, sir,” a Varg officer said. “I’ll get them on it right away.”
“It’s too late now, you idiot! We’ll have to do this the old way. Get—”
A roaring cacophony cut Chin off as a stream of plasma blasted from the turrets.
“Yes!” Chin shouted in triumph.
One of the SenSec aircars spiraled out of control and smashed into a row of squat buildings beyond the hangar.
“What?” Chin screamed, furiously working at his SIG.
A second SenSec aircar exploded in mid-air and the third pulled off to one side, speeding away.
Red plasma followed its path, but it moved beyond the turret’s line of fire.
Taza watched as one of the turrets shifted their aim and pointed at him…no the officers behind him.
Seeing the heavies distracted, Taza deployed his helmet and threw himself to the ground.
Screams of confusion were quickly replaced by cries of agony as molten plasma rained down around him.
The thunderous shots stopped, and Taza scrambled to his feet just as the first Aegi transport came in for landing next to the North Star. The SenSec and Chimera forces opened fire.
A squad ran out to intercept the Aegi aircar just as the second slammed into the ground at the hangar entry. It crash-landed and skidded across the bay floor, crushing a dozen or so Chimera troops. The entire hangar erupted into mayhem.
The Galactic Sentinel: Ultimate Edition: 4 Books with 2000+ Pages of Highly Entertaining Sci-Fi Space Adventure Page 67
