by Evan Currie
The crowd had thinned. Most of those fleeing had fled, and the rest were far more likely to be targets rather than civilians. Sorilla would give anyone with human-designed weapons, lighter ones at least, the benefit of the doubt. Anyone holding an alien blaster was going to be lit up before they had a chance to identify themselves, however.
“Room looks clear,” Nicky said as they paused at the entrance to the ballroom. “No movement.”
“Roger,” Sorilla said, “proceed.”
“Roger. Proceeding.”
They broke cover, keeping Eri and Kriss—much to the annoyance of the Lucian—safely in the center of their formation. Their footsteps echoed off the stone in the now-quiet room. Where there had been a veritable flood of targets just minutes earlier, now everything was quiet.
Halfway across, Sorilla suddenly drew her weapon and fired into the upper floor on automatic. Everyone started, pivoting and looking for targets, but by the time the team had adjusted and looked around, she was already holstering her weapon.
“What the hell was that?” Strickland demanded.
“Sanders.” Sorilla ignored the question. “There’s a warp blaster on the upper deck. Retrieve it please. Smith, cover him.”
The two soldiers exchanged confused looks, then snuck glances at Strickland, who just glared at them.
“You heard the colonel.”
“Yes, sir, ma’am!” Sanders said, breaking formation and running up the stairs with Smith in pursuit.
At the top floor, Sanders slowed to a crawl as he checked the area.
It was empty, aside from a body in the middle of the dance floor, an Alliance warp weapon on the ground beside him. He slowly crossed the floor, with Smith on his six, and knelt by the body.
“How did she know?” he asked, making sure he was on a private link to Smith. “Did your scanners pick up anything?”
Smith just shook his head. “Nothing. Yours?”
“Zip.”
Sanders slung the Alliance weapon and stood up, sweeping the area again. “Alright, let’s move.”
The pair headed back to the staircase and started down to where the others were waiting.
“Got it,” Sanders said, patting the weapon.
“Good. Let’s go,” Sorilla said.
They stayed close, making it to the door in a few more seconds, where they paused and surveyed the street.
“I don’t like this,” Strickland said. “That’s a kill box out there.”
“The alternative is staying here,” Sorilla said, head on a swivel as she looked for any sign of movement. “This building isn’t secure enough to hold.”
“I know.”
“APC arrives in one minute!” Nicky announced.
Sorilla reached out a hand. “Rifle.”
“What?” Strickland asked.
“I need a rifle. Now.”
Strickland hesitated only a second before handing his battle rifle over to the colonel.
Sorilla accepted it, checking the action and ensuring there was a round in the rifle’s chamber. She secured the breach, then shouldered the weapon.
“APC in thirty seconds!”
“Cover me,” Sorilla said as she stepped out into the open.
*****
Making a target of herself was an incredibly stupid thing to do, but considering the rest of her career, Sorilla wasn’t going to split hairs on what was an intelligent decision. She closed off most of her HUD displays, focusing instead on the accelerometer suite SOLCOM had implanted in her body.
She made her way out into the middle of the shockingly empty street, considering how crowded it had been just a short time earlier, rifle to her shoulder but at the low ready position.
The APC was only seconds away, and she knew that the Alliance weapons could do serious damage to their only way out. If there was a trap, she’d set it off now.
Her guts twisted just a couple steps from the center of the street, and Sorilla spun around and dropped into a crouch as she lifted the muzzle of her weapon. The warping of space passed over her head, and she settled the muzzle of the rifle on the source and started firing as she rose back to her feet.
The ground exploded behind her, this time shrapnel barely being noticed as it rattled on the back of her armor. Her rifle bucked into her shoulder, hammering sounds into the upper floors of the Red Room with twenty high-velocity, armor-piercing rounds. She stopped firing when the feeling in her gut changed, and dove forward as another blast tore through the air she had just occupied.
Hitting the ground in a roll, Sorilla twisted around, but by the time she’d brought her rifle to bear, the rest of the team had opened fire on the target. Her implants counted one hundred twenty-three rounds into the target before they stopped.
Not even the Alliance weapon survived.
The slight whine of the APC’s electric motors was audible as the armored vehicle rolled in.
“Go hot,” Sorilla ordered. “Live targets in the LZ!”
Powerful servos whined as the APC’s gun rotated out of the armored housing. Strickland and the rest of the team bolted from cover as the APC skidded to a stop, the rear hatch dropping open. Sorilla leapt forward, planting one foot on the angled armor of the APC, and launched herself to the top of the vehicle.
“Get inside!” she ordered, linking to the APC and stealing control of the gun.
*****
Strickland shoved Eri ahead of him, pushing his head down so he wasn’t brained on the armor. Behind him he could hear the others doing much the same as they forced the Lucian Sentinel in behind him.
“As soon as the colonel is inside, seal up and get us out of here!” he ordered.
‘Belay that!’ Aida’s voice echoed over all their comms. ‘Seal up, roll out!’
“C…Major!” Master Sergeant Chavez snapped, twisting around. “She took the gun!”
“Get us out here!” Strickland snarled.
Chavez nodded, hammering the back of the driver’s seat. “Move out!”
The APC jerked as the wheels started turning, biting into the hot pavement as the driver pushed the throttle down. Strickland lurched forward, grabbing onto the edges of the bolstered seats to steady himself.
“What do you mean ‘she took the gun’, Master Sergeant?” he demanded.
Chavez looked up from the gunnery controls. “I mean she inserted her codes into my system and TOOK MY GUN!”
Strickland looked over the data coming from the APC’s gunnery panel just as the gun swiveled into action and the APC was rocked by the sonic boom of the EM accelerator firing a fifty-centimeter tungsten steel rod. Across the street, a third-floor room exploded, showering hot plasma and debris out above them.
“Was there a target there?” Strickland demanded.
“No!” Chavez snapped. “Wait…I don’t know.”
He played back the shot, freezing it just before the weapon discharged. The computer sharpened the image, interpolating to higher detail, and the two soldiers found themselves looking at the gleaming profile of an Alliance warp blaster.
They exchanged glances; the master sergeant’s eyes were wide.
The APC rocked again as the gun discharged. Chavez instantly called up the shoot records. It only took seconds to identify a familiar profile in the imagery.
“Sir, she’s beating my gunnery system to targets before they expose their position! How in the hell, sir!?”
“I don’t know,” Strickland said, “and right now, I don’t care.” He looked past the master sergeant to the driver. “Get us out of here!”
“Yes, sir!”
*****
Grant watched the Earthers’ armored vehicle accelerate away, vanishing down the street and around the corner. He couldn’t believe how much of a debacle the whole operation had turned into. The Xeno weapons were supposed to have been game changers. They completely outclassed anything Arkana could produce, but an entire team using them had utterly failed to accomplish anything!
The Earthers migh
t not have been lying or bragging as much as I believed. They may have actually fought the Xenos and won.
That was a wrinkle he did not need at this point in the plan, damn it.
Damage control on this was going to be a bitch.
*****
The APC had put several kilometers between them and the kill box before Sorilla banged on the top hatch and it popped open. She dropped down into the vehicle, pulling the hatch shut behind her.
“We’re clear,” she said. “No sign of pursuit, no Alliance weapons in evidence. Is everyone okay?”
“Yes. You?” Lieutenant March, the team medic growled. “You’re only standing because of the nerve blockers, ma’am. Sit down, or I’ll override the blockers and drop you where you stand.”
She chuckled weakly, allowing herself to be pushed to the front of the APC and settled into a sling. “Yes, sir, Lieutenant.”
“White blood count is spiking, temperature is going up…your body is reacting to the injury already, Colonel,” March growled, ignoring the mildly sarcastic jab. “You’d be fine if you cleaned the shrapnel out, but of course you had to leave it all in your damn back, ma’am.”
“We were in a rush at the time, Lieutenant.”
“That armor is going to have to come off,” March ordered, looking around. “We don’t have room for this here. Get us back to the shuttle!”
“Negative!” Sorilla countermanded. “We are not done here.”
“Ma’am, you already have the start of an infection,” March snapped. “If we clean it all now and get you back into some fresh suit gel, it’ll save you a hell of a lot of pain.”
“We have a job to finish.”
“You have a back I need to look at, and we don’t have room for that here,” March countered.
Sorilla looked over. “Eri! You have room for some impromptu surgery at your place?”
“What?” Eri looked confused.
“We need your paperwork for those guns; I need some pieces of table picked out of my back,” she said. “Let’s kill two birds with one stop, shall we?”
*****
The APC pulled into the garage of a massive villa, the door lowering shut behind it as the soldiers disembarked from the armored vehicle and moved to ensure the area was secured. Lieutenant March helped Sorilla step out, ignoring her protests that she hardly needed help and countering with a threat to lock up her armor on a medical override if she didn’t shut up.
Major Strickland found the whole scene amusing and made certain to record the interaction. He suspected that the old man would find it endlessly entertaining.
In the meantime, the lieutenant colonel was right about one thing.
“Mr. Constantine,” he said, pulling his helmet off, “we really do need to see your paperwork for those weapons imports.”
The blond shakily nodded his head. “I keep them in the office.”
“Show me,” Strickland ordered. “Sentinel Kriss, we’ll need you for this.”
“Of course,” the Sentinel said, straightening up.
Eri shook his head at the absurdity of the situation, but led the way to his office. Inside he went straight to the wall safe and opened it with his biometric signature.
“Those are the files,” he said, nodding to the Alliance-issue data clusters inside.
“Sentinel?” Strickland gestured.
Kriss produced his device and began examining clusters at random. After the first few, he shook his head. “These are aboveboard, as he said.”
“I expected no less,” Strickland said. “He wouldn’t have illegal data here, and wouldn’t lead us to it if he did.”
“Then why have me examine them?” Kriss demanded, irritated.
“Because those files will tell us what should be here,” Strickland answered. “We already know some of what shouldn’t, but telling the difference will be the trick.”
“I do not understand any of this,” Kriss grumbled. “You sound like Seinel.”
“The Alliance intel puke? Shut your mouth, Sentinel,” Strickland glared at him. “I work for a living.”
Kriss laughed. “Some of you humans are actually worth speaking with…on occasion.”
*****
“Ow! Damn it, doc!” Sorilla snapped as the lieutenant pulled a piece of glass from her back.
“Oh, boo hoo, Colonel,” March told her. “It’s your own fault for grinding this junk in deeper. You’re lucky none of this crap cut into your spinal cord. Goddamn stupid heroics.”
Sorilla rolled her eyes as she pressed her face down into the cushion and restrained the urge to yell again as he plucked a chunk of wood from her lower back.
“Impressive,” March said. “I expected a scream from that one. It was only a few centimeters from your kidney.”
“Fucking sadist.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Sorilla rather thought that the least he could do was turn the nerve blockers back on. She did not buy that bullshit he’d spewed about needing to follow the nerve signals to ensure he got it all.
Medics were all fucking sadists.
*****
Strickland and Kriss spread out the paperwork for importation of Alliance technology to the colony, and after a few minutes of it, the Sentinel gave up in frustration and pulled out a communicator to get Seinel in on the hunt.
It was the spymaster’s job anyway.
“What have you found, Sentinel?” Seinel demanded, his image floating above the communication device as Kriss set it to room-scale communication.
“Insurgents here are using Alliance weapons,” Kriss growled.
“Insurgents everywhere use Alliance weapons, Sentinel. I know this. You know this.”
Kriss sneered at the image. “Insurgents do not acquire blanks, Seinel. Weapons more blank, in fact, than any issued to me in my position as a Sentinel. Perfect blanks.”
Seinel shifted back, his face growing pensive.
“That is disturbing. What about the components?” he demanded.
“Complete blanks, Seinel,” Kriss growled. “Every component.”
Seinel scowled. “That should be impossible. No insurgent group, or even black market supplier, should possibly be able to produce blanks for every component. Alliance law prevents organizations from owning the rights to every component for military projects.”
“What a shocker,” Major Strickland scoffed, “someone is breaking the law.”
Seinel looked over at the major. “I’m afraid you don’t understand the level of illegality involved here, Major. In order to do what Sentinel Kriss is describing, someone would have to own…not one, not even two or three, but as many as several dozen fabrication facilities…facilities that Alliance law expressly prohibits any single entity from owning more than two of, specifically so things like this, among others, cannot happen.”
“Why is it so important that these weapons have serial numbers?”
Strickland didn’t understand the import of what he was hearing. It didn’t make sense. What could be so important about weapons manufacture that they’d split up sourcing to that degree. Initially he had assumed it was a combination of anti-competitive measures combined with simple tracking, but it didn’t sound like that at all.
Seinel’s image looked over to Kriss for a moment before turning back.
“I am not at liberty, as you say, to give you that information, Major,” Seinel said firmly. “Frankly, we have likely told you far more than we should already. Suffice to say, it is incredibly illegal.”
“They’re terrorists, Seinel,” Strickland responded. “Illegal is what they do.”
“It is also indicative of a penetration into Alliance fabrication at a higher level than I have ever heard of before,” Seinel said reluctantly. “A level so high…I do not, even with Sentinel Kriss’s word, entirely believe it now. Sentinel, I will look into this. I can say this, however: The level of merchant traffic in this system is far above what it reasonably should be. There is more here than I believed.�
�
Strickland frowned. “What about Greatness?”
“Excuse me?” Seinel looked confused.
“The other colony we were to investigate, Greatness of God. Are they also running more traffic than can be explained?” Strickland asked.
“I do not know,” Seinel said.
“See if you can find out,” Strickland asked. “It might give us a better idea of what’s going on.”
“I will have the information redirected,” Seinel replied. “In the meantime, I can confirm Mr. Constantine’s importation certificates are complete and to date.”
Strickland nodded. “Thanks for that. We’ll be able to narrow things down on this side using that information.”
“Good luck,” Seinel said. “Whatever is going on, I do not like the feeling I am getting. This is not a minor insurrection.”
*****
“Okay, that’s the last of it,” March said as he pulled a sliver of wood from her back. “Going to seal you up, but this is going scar without immediate attention on the ship, ma’am.”
“Chicks dig scars,” she joked. “Just do the job.”
“Yes, ma’am,” March chuckled. “I’ll make it as neat as I can, minimize it at least.”
Sorilla nodded into the cushion as the medic produced a stack of sealing adhesive sheets, using them to draw her skin together tightly. He took special care to make certain that the injuries were sealed with good vertical and horizontal alignment so that the skin wouldn't pull awkwardly either before or after healing.
It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could do short of the medical decks on the SOL.
“Finish clearing out her suit,” he ordered over his shoulder. “I want her in fresh suit gel as soon as I’m done here.”
“Almost done,” Nicky called from where he was wiping down the last of the used gel, contaminated with debris from her wounds. “Hey, Smitty, hand me that canister, would you?”
Smith dropped a fresh canister of suit gel into Nicky’s hand, shooting a look over at the colonel as he did. He leaned in. “You see anything in there that explains how she did all that stuff?”
Nicky shook his head very slightly. “Standard SOLCOM suit. No additional gear I can see.”
