by M. R. Forbes
He reached another corner, coming to a quick stop when he heard the hatch to the stairs open, and muffled voices in tactical helmets. Did they have a response team just waiting for something bad to happen? He couldn’t lean out to get a look without the whole weapon kit leaning out with him and making him a huge, obvious target. He also couldn’t wait for them to get more organized.
He gnashed his teeth together, talking himself into the next round of craziness. Then he ran around the corner.
Four rifles were pointed his way. He activated his own, opening fire, using the element of surprise in his favor again. It didn’t keep the soldiers from shooting back, but they had been expecting a Terran or larger, and so their shots were too high. They cried out in turn as the flechettes dug into and through them, the close quarters allowing the rounds to easily puncture their lightsuits.
They were dead before they could adjust their aim, leaving Gant alone in the corridor, his ears ringing from the noise.
“Bad design,” Gant said, putting his hand to the ear closest the rifle. “I probably have hearing loss from that.”
He opened the entrance to the stairs. They were clear. It would take a few minutes for the bridge to catch on that the team they had sent was already dead. He needed to make as much progress as he could in that time.
He made his way back up two decks, intent on returning to Ursan’s quarters, knowing they were close to the bridge. He ran recklessly, not worrying too much about being seen or shot at or killed. He had already taken out ten of Gall’s individuals, a good score by any account, and ten fewer than Abbey would have to worry about. He was hoping to claim the bridge, but anything at this point would be a bonus.
He ran into two more crew members on the way, shooting them before they had much time to react. He hated killing in cold-blood like that, but they had chosen their side. He just happened to be on the other one.
He slipped into Ursan’s suite. It was empty. He threw himself onto the floor on his back, reaching up and working the screws to the makeshift rifle mount. He couldn’t go onto the bridge with guns blazing. He’d wind up destroying half the terminals and Olus had told them to bring the Brimstone back, not destroy it. Even if he wanted nothing more than to turn it into dust after what he had seen.
At least he had kept the knife.
He grabbed it from its spot on his mount and moved back toward the door and then out into the hall. He headed forward, becoming more angry as he got closer to the bridge. If Gall wasn’t in his quarters, he was probably there.
He reached the bridge unimpeded. There were still no alarms going off. No warnings. He knew there weren’t that many crew members on the ship, but it seemed ridiculous to him. What the frag was going on?
He stood outside the hatch, listening. He didn’t hear anything. It was as though the bridge had been deserted. He reached up to the door controls, tapping it and then backing away, knife up, ready to pounce on anyone who happened to be there.
A woman was standing in the doorway. She was young, with short, dark hair and a tired face.
She had her hands up.
“Wait,” she said. “Don’t kill me.”
“What?” Gant said, confused.
“My name is Lieutenant JG Olain Iann. We surrender.”
“What?” Gant repeated.
“I said we surrender.”
Gant hesitated, unsure what to say. “What do you mean you surrender? Where’s your Captain?”
“Captain Gall went down to the city. He’s lost his mind, and taken us with him. He disobeyed General Thraven’s orders. He nearly killed Ligit. I signed on to help him fight the Republic, not to get mixed up in this craziness or have him kill me because I looked at him funny. You’ll tell the General that, won’t you? ”
Gant held back his laugh, finally starting to understand what was happening. “What about the rest of your crew? How many of you are there?”
“On the Brimstone? Thirty-two. No, that’s wrong. Twenty-four, after Drune. Twenty-two, with the Captain and Commander Dak gone. There are fifteen more on the Triune.”
“The Triune?”
“Our original ship. You can see it out the viewport from the front of the bridge.”
“How many on the bridge?”
“Six.”
Gant did the math. “There are still four of you out here somewhere. Are they mutinying, too?”
“I. I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”
“If they want to stay alive, you need to get them here. The rest of my team is sweeping the ship right now.”
“Aye, sir,” Iann said.
“Can I trust you enough to put this thing away?” Gant asked, showing her the knife.
“Aye, sir. We’re all in agreement. We never intended to cross General Thraven, but we’re loyal, sir. We’ve known Ursan a long time. He isn’t the same man, and I’m sure this ship is more valuable than he is.”
Gant stared at her. Were these soldiers? They were acting more like mercenaries. He would never sell Abbey out, no matter how much she changed. No matter what she became. He would rather die than turn on her.
He lowered the knife. He wasn’t ready to let go of it just yet. If these individuals could turn on someone they had worked with for years, they might turn on him. Especially if they realized he was here alone and he would sooner cut Thraven’s throat and urinate down his neck than ever work for him.
“Surrender accepted,” Gant said. “I’m assuming command of the Brimstone immediately.”
“Aye, sir.”
“See if you can get the others to turn themselves in to me. I would hate for the General to have to have them killed.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Don’t just stand there, Lieutenant. Lead the way.”
“Aye, sir.”
Iann turned and moved into the bridge ahead of him, announcing him as they arrived. The six members of the bridge crew all saluted him. He acknowledged them with a return salute, and then sat at the command station, covering his face with his hand to hide his laughter.
Queenie was going to love this.
30
“We’ll be arriving in ten minutes, Captain,” Commander Usiari said.
“Thank you,” Olus replied.
He closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. There was no part of him that was looking forward to his arrival on Earth. His conversation with General Omsala while en route had been anything but pleasant, and while he had managed to tie up his loose ends on Feru and claim innocence in the activity around the Eagan estate, he was certain that the General was one of Thraven’s, and the Fizzig knew damn well that he had been there.
For the moment, Omsala and whoever else on the Committee was compromised were keeping things quiet, and trying not to disrupt the state of the galaxy. The media had blamed the fugitives from Hell for the attack and the murder of both Mars and Emily Eagan. They were claiming the Rejects were also behind the original theft of the ships and destruction of the ring station, and that there were links to the Outworld Governance that could potentially lead to the Republic declaring open war. Not that any of that was even remotely possible for a small crew to carry out, and ignoring the fact that they had ‘escaped’ after the original attack on Feru. Someone was pulling the strings on that one too, and he had a guess who they worked for.
The question was: where did that leave him? Thraven had to know the Rejects had escaped, and that he had escaped with them. Olus wasn’t convinced the Gloritant hadn’t wanted that very outcome. It was an unorthodox way to run a war. Then again, he had personally expressed his desire to Olus to kill God, which was as unorthodox a motivation as he had ever heard. Whoever or whatever God was to Thraven. Too much of the backstory was still a mystery to use it to build a profile and begin estimating what he might do next.
Except Olus already knew what Thraven was going to do next. Finish retrofitting the starships, and then begin attacking the galaxy.
Would he start with the Outworlds? Or would he move right thr
ough to the Republic, and keep playing the Governance for fools. How much awareness did the Governance even have of him? The Outworlds were all so loosely bound; it was easy to hide within them. It was easy to take advantage of them.
His instincts had been right when he had freed Gant. The Gant had somehow managed to get on board the Brimstone, and was trying to reach out to Abbey even now. He was sure Ruby would notice the beacon. She was programmed to observe things like that.
His instincts had been right when he had gone through the extra effort to break Abbey out of Hell, too. She was a natural leader, and had the strength and focus to see this thing through. The Gift Thraven had given her was taking her to the next level, turning her into something else. What? He wasn’t sure yet. There was a risk there. A question. Would she be able to control the power without succumbing to it? He had urged her to embrace it, to claim it, to use it. Would she be able to do that without turning on them all? He hoped her daughter was enough of a motivation to keep her playing for the right team, but in the end it was all on her. If she submitted, if she failed? God help them all.
Where were those instincts leading him now? To Earth to deal with Omsala and the Committee, to find out what the hell happened to Iti, and to learn as much as he could about the so-called Covenant. What he needed more than anything right now was information. Intel he could use to out the crooked members of the Republic government. Intel he could pass on to Abbey, with the hope of finding something, anything that might be able to slow or stop Thraven’s advance.
First things first. He was scheduled to meet with General Omsala in less than an hour. He had a feeling he knew what the General was going to say, and he had been doing his best to prepare for it. He expected that shortly after the meeting started, he wouldn’t be the Director of the OSI anymore. He was working under the assumption that he might not make it out of there at all.
Thraven had maneuvered him in play to waste time on Mars Eagan while he stole the Fire and Brimstone and built his ships. Misdirection. Only he had a new scapegoat now. A new target. One that Olus had given him, and led right into his hands. At the same time, he didn’t regret it. They would be worse off without the Rejects than they were with them. It was on him to work his own way out of his own mess. He wasn’t some green cadet who didn’t know how the Republic machine worked. He was an experienced intelligence agent, and an experienced killer, and he wasn’t afraid to do what he had to do in order to protect the Republic and the citizens within.
Hell, he was even willing to help protect the Outworlds if it meant stopping a lunatic like Thraven kill innocents.
Olus opened the case he had brought onto the Driver with him. It wasn’t a standard OSI operative kit, though that’s what he had told Usiari’s crew it was when they had brought it on board. Instead, it was an assassin’s toolset. A list of equipment that the Republic would deny even existed if questioned. It was the kind of stuff most Directors of the OSI wouldn’t even know about, let alone carry. But he wasn’t most Directors of the OSI.
He pulled out the clothes first. Standard, generic, formal attire, suitable for wear both to meet General Omsala, or to wander pretty much anywhere in the galaxy where a wealthy target might be found. A fitted base layer containing synthetic musculature similar to a lightsuit but less powerful, adding twenty to thirty percent strength enhancement. Enough to overpower someone in a grapple, but not enough to crush their skull in his hands. A similar base layer for the legs. A collarless, formal merge-weave shirt, a pair of black pants, and a collarless black jacket with two columns of silver buttons across the front, all of it impact resistant, able to take rounds from most smaller arms.
He dressed himself in the clothes before digging deeper into the case, removing what looked like a pair of thin cards but were in truth flat-pack knives, nasty weapons that were easy to hide and would make it right through security in the Pentagon. They wouldn’t get through a battlesuit. They would barely cut through a lightsuit, but most of his targets weren’t wearing armor. He stuck one in each of his front pockets before reaching in and grabbing a more harmless looking device. A Republic identification card, a requirement to be permitted on Earth. Right now, it had his real name and information printed on it. With the right motion along the surface, it could scan nearby cards and ‘borrow’ the information from them, allowing him to steal the identity of anyone he was close enough to, useful for travel when the original cover was blown.
Finally, he removed a pair of eye lenses and a follicap from the case. The lenses would give him a basic terminal overlay to a tiny CPU embedded in one of the jacket’s buttons, allowing him to use the setup as a simplified softsuit. The follicap was slightly different than the standard used for cosmetic alteration. There was also a fold at the bottom of the cap that could be brought down and stretched over the face and then programmed to alter the general shape. It couldn’t mimic another person entirely, the tech for that was too bulky to alter on the fly, but it could add contours that made a huge difference in recognition. Those same updates would be automatically synced to the id card to prevent confusion.
He carried the follicap and the lenses into the bathroom, taking out a hair remover and quickly running it over his scalp. It had been a while since he had been completely bald. It made him look older and more frail. He didn’t feel that way. He pulled the follicap on, leaving the mask portion tucked beneath it, taking his time getting it on properly and then using it to regrow the hair he had just abandoned. He also placed the lenses in his eyes, blinking a few times to get them positioned right. He had heard that they had augmentations nowadays that could replace the lenses, but he had never been a fan of the idea of permanently altering his natural state.
“Captain Mann,” Usiari said, his voice coming out of the communicator Olus had left with the case. “We’ve entered Earth orbit. A shuttle is standing by to bring you down.”
Olus headed out of the bathroom. “Thank you, Commander,” he said, lifting the communicator and sticking it to his chest. Then he closed and locked the now empty case.
He couldn’t help but think of Abbey as he made his way to the hangar and boarded the waiting shuttle. Was she on her way to the Brimstone right now? Would they finally get their hands on one of the ships, and maybe discover where Thraven was hiding with the rest of them?
Or would Thraven have the last laugh once again?
31
“We’re dropping in two minutes, Queenie,” Bastion said. “You know this is crazy, right?”
“I’m moving shit with my mind, Lucifer,” Abbey replied. “I’m so far beyond crazy; this almost feels normal.”
“Roger that. I think what I meant to say is, you know this is suicide, right?”
“Either Gant is on board the Brimstone making life difficult for the Outworlders, or we’re going to dump out of FTL right into a trap. What’s suicidal about that?”
“Funny.”
“You outmaneuvered the Brimstone before.”
“I got lucky. What do you think the chances are I’ll get that lucky again?”
“Fortunately for you, we aren’t running from her.”
He laughed sardonically. “Yeah. We’re trying to board her. I feel great about our chances of doing that. How do we know she won’t be cloaked?”
“If she’s cloaked she can’t attack us. I thought you were a badass drop-jock? You should be embracing the challenge. Unless you think Nerd should take over?”
Bastion glanced at Erlan in the co-pilot’s seat. “This guy? He’s not touching the controls of this baby until I’m dead.”
“Stop bitching and start twitching,” Abbey replied.
“You’re not allowed to say that,” Bastion said. “You were never a pilot.”
“I can do it,” Erlan said. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got all of the controls memorized.”
“Pretty sure?” Bastion said. “Sorry, Queenie, I’m not that keen on dying today.”
“Good. Fury, Jester, are you ready back there?”
“Locked and loaded, Queenie,” Airi replied.
“I’ll be ready in a minute, too, Queenie,” Pik said. “Just have to get this suit on.”
“You’re supposed to be in Medical,” Abbey said.
“Frag that,” Pik replied. “They took my favorite hand. I want restitution.”
“I don’t want to know what favorite hand means,” Benhil said.
“Can you carry a rifle?” Abbey asked.
“Affirmative.”
“Fine, you’re in. Stay in the rear and shoot over our heads.”
“With pleasure.”
“Ruby, any word from Gant?”
“No, Queenie.”
“Trap,” Bastion said again.
“So was Feru,” Abbey said. “We made it out of that one.”
“Not without casualties.”
“You mean the Imp?”
“Yeah. That ride was sweet after the freak-monkey fixed it.”
“Do you have to keep calling Gant that?”
Bastion laughed. “Whenever he isn’t here to bust me for it.”
“Hey,” Erlan said. “What’s that?” He pointed to one of the controls on the console between the two pilot seats, to a blinking red LED.
“We’re being hailed,” Bastion said.
“By who?” Abbey asked.
“The little red blinking light doesn’t say,” Bastion replied.
“Smart ass. Answer it.”
“We’re about to drop out of FTL.”
“All the more reason.”
Bastion reached over and tapped a physical button beneath the light.
“This is the Faust, Outworld identifier 12498166647,” he said.
“Oh, it’s you,” Gant replied, sounding truly disappointed.
