Tales of B-Company: The Complete Collection

by Chris Pourteau

  “Quiet,” said Trick. “You complain worse than Stug ever did.”

  The last of the prisoners were pounding down the ramp of the airbus. Bracer and Trick held fast to the vehicle’s undercarriage, waiting.

  “I sure hope they follow protocol and stow this ship for the night. You don’t think they have more prisoners to pick up, do you?”

  “Quiet.”

  Pusher and Hawkeye had gone ahead. In all, three airbuses had landed near the fountain and offloaded more prisoners, who were herded into the Detention Center. After lifting off, each of the three ships had landed on the building’s roof to be refueled and readied for the next day. The sergeant and spotter had hitched a ride on the previous airbus; they should be waiting on the roof for Trick and Bracer to join them.

  “It’s gonna be really loud when those anti-gravs—”

  Before Bracer could finish, the airbus fired up its booster engines. The doors closed. Air rushed around them. As the craft overcame planetary gravity, the main anti-grav engines kicked in and Bracer watched the ground fall away. He closed his eyes and turned his head to stare at the bottom of the vehicle. His knuckles were harder than the reinforced aluminum frame he held on to for dear life. He hated heights.

  Less squeamish as the airbus lifted off, Trick watched the Transport soldiers that had guarded the ramp follow the last of the night’s catch into the facility. Neither looked up to spot the infiltrators wedged beneath the airbus. Why would they? Their attention was focused straight ahead to ensure a prisoner didn’t get desperate before being locked away.

  Transport had ramped up its roundup of dissenters in the last week; half a dozen airbuses had been offloading prisoners every night after midnight. Why, Trick had no idea. The Authority was abandoning the City to TRACE. So why go to all the trouble of gathering fugitives, Wild Ones, derelict TRACE operatives, and suspicious citizens? Why wasn’t Transport focusing its resources on securing the cities beyond the Great Shelf? It made no sense that Trick could see, either strategically or tactically.

  Bracer hardly had time to be terrified before the bus began its landing approach to the center’s roof. A blast of the booster engines, and the craft descended. Though he was used to the rapid thrrrit-thrrrit-thrrrit of his 18-millimeter heavy machine gun, the screaming servos of the anti-gravs made him close his eyes in an irrational attempt to protect his ears.

  Soon enough, both men felt the slight jolt of the hydraulic landing pads as the airbus settled onto its parking spot. A final blast of controlled air, and the engines themselves powered down.

  “How long do we—”

  “Quiet or you’re a private again.”

  “How can you demote me?” Bracer whispered. “We’re no longer officially in TRACE!”

  The doors opened above their heads, and the ramp descended again. The heavy boots of the flight crew tromped down the metal gangway, the man and woman murmuring to each other after a long day. Once they stepped onto the roof, the ramp automatically retracted and the doors shut tight.

  Trick listened to the tread of the flight crew crunching away across the roof. Bracer started to move, but Trick made a sound that stopped him.

  Just then, the sound of a fist making contact with a jaw. A startled half-cry. A grainy thud as one body fell to the roof, then another.

  “Now,” said Trick, detaching himself. Bracer winced as he pried his white-knuckled grip from the airbus’s frame.

  Crouching and keeping the row of airbuses between themselves and the roof’s access door, the two men made their way to their companions. A quick glimpse showed them that the plan was working so far. Pusher and Hawkeye were hidden behind the first airbus, the one nearest the access door; they had ambushed the third bus’s flight crew, stripped them of their uniforms, and were already almost fully dressed again.

  Hawkeye motioned for Trick and Bracer to keep low, keep right, and advance. Trick went first, followed by Bracer.

  “Hawkeye, report,” said the captain as Pusher zipped up.

  “There are four cameras on the roof, each facing a different direction from the point of entry there,” Hawkeye said, pointing at the access door leading down into the facility. “But I found a blind spot. Once we slip under their eyes, we ease along the building and we’re in. One AA Gatling laser, unmanned at the moment, protects the roof.”

  Bracer took note of the anti-aircraft gun positioned near the door. “No need to man a gun when you’ve got air superiority twenty-four seven,” he said. “Guards?’

  “None on the roof, just the cameras. Inside?” Hawkeye shrugged. “Unknown.”

  “Transport’s bugging out,” said Pusher. “All day we sat at that café and watched them. I only saw fifteen different faces, even with the guard shifts. They were rotating personnel in half shifts to make it look like they have more soldiers on duty than they really do. I think they’re even sharing personnel between the prison and the military, two different branches of the service.”

  “Skeleton crew?” wondered Bracer.

  Trick shrugged. “Like Pusher said, Transport’s bugging out. Why not?”

  “That’s a big assumption to make, sir,” said Hawkeye.

  The captain nodded and paraphrased the manual: “Our plans are only as good as the intel we have.”

  “And no battle plan survives contact with the enemy,” said Pusher, quoting battle wisdom much older than the TRACE Manual for Engaging the Enemy in the Field.

  “So are we gonna try and impress each other by quoting Sun Tzu next, or are we gonna get them out?”

  Trick granted Bracer’s point. “Lead the way, Hawkeye.”

  “Only one direction sir,” said the spotter. “And that’s down.”

  When Transport began escorting the survivors of Bedrock in ones and two to more permanent accommodations in The Dungeon, they took the children first—including Anne. Stug almost started the party then, but Hatch restrained him. There were still half a dozen guards on hand to control the holding room, but they knew as the room became less dense with prisoners, Transport would likewise reduce its on-duty force. Executing their plan too soon would end their breakout before it ever started. And civilians could be injured.

  After prioritizing the children, the Authority began remanding prisoners based solely on geographical convenience; each time the guards returned through the door that led to The Dungeon, they just rounded up whichever prisoners were nearest and took them away. So Hatch and Stug simply positioned themselves on the opposite side of the room. They sat on the floor next to Logan, who floated in a sleep-sea of morphine.

  It didn’t take long for most of the hundred prisoners to be removed. Soon, fewer than thirty remained. And only two guards monitored the room.

  Hatch knew they needed to move quickly; he had no idea when Logan’s bomb would go off. Actually, he wasn’t even certain a bomb existed. Maybe it was a figment of Logan’s imagination—stirred up by hatred for Transport, his injuries, and the morphine. Or maybe the rumor from his fifth-column source had been planted by Transport to flush Logan and his salvager rebels out.

  But Hatch knew he couldn’t take the chance that the bomb wasn’t real. And in his gut he believed Logan. It sounded exactly like something a desperate Transport—that petulant child with massive weaponry—would do in the wake of TRACE’s gains in the region. A way to demonstrate its power with a blatant disregard for life, all for the sake of maintaining a papier-mâché facade of absolute control.

  It’s true, Hatch assumed. When will it go off? How can I possibly know that?

  He suspected that, as long as there were more prisoners to bottle up in the Detention Center, the Authority wouldn’t set the bomb off. Perverse logic, that. It’d make a better public relations splash, a better object lesson, to have the highest death toll possible when the City was consumed. That might explain the constant influx of prisoners brought in by airbus every night. Transport was putting all the rats on the same ship before blowing a hole in its hull. The Authority pride
d itself on its efficiency.

  “Notice how the same four or five guards are rotating back to pick up detainees and take them below?” asked Hatch. “And how they’re only leaving two behind to guard the room?”

  “Now, yeah. Less bodies to cause trouble, less guards needed. Short-staffed, are they?”

  “Yeah, seems that way. Easier for us.”

  The room’s two guards were coming their way, escorting the doctor and his nurse who’d examined Logan earlier. Those four were the only Authority personnel left in the common room.

  Stug rapped Hatch on the shoulder. Now’s as good a time as any, his look said.

  Both men stood up.

  “Any change?” asked the doctor.

  “Still out,” reported Hatch, sounding concerned. “I don’t think he’s gonna make it, Doc. He was breathing pretty heavily before. Now he’s hardly breathing at all.”

  The physician took in the information, then knelt beside his patient. Hatch nodded to Stug.

  The sergeant stepped forward quicker than anyone his size should have been able to move. He grabbed the barrel of the first guard’s laser rifle and ripped it out of the man’s hands. Fatigued from long shifts, the second guard stood and gawped while Stug threw a haymaker with all the force his slightly off-balance body could muster. The man flew backward ten feet and landed heavily on the floor, his lungs whooshing out air.

  Stug smiled. He recognized the man: the bully from earlier. It truly is the little things, he mused.

  The doctor looked up. The nurse screamed.

  Hatch dove on top of the first guard and delivered a right cross to the jaw. The soldier was out cold.

  “Hey! I called dibs!” said Stug.

  Hatch snatched up the unconscious man’s sidearm and pointed it at the physician. “No personal alarms, please.”

  The doctor raised his eyebrows, like he knew something Hatch didn’t, then slowly raised his hands over his head. The nurse shut her mouth.

  When Stug had knocked him to the floor, the bully guard had lost his laser rifle. He fumbled with his sidearm now, crab-walking away from the mountain looming over him. Stug took two giant strides forward and pulled the man up by his uniform collar. Feet dangling in the air, tired eyes terrified, the man dropped his pistol.

  “Wise,” said Stug, grinning. He set the man lightly back on his feet. “Now see, wasn’t that easier?”

  The guard half-smiled his relief.

  “Not so tough when it’s not a little girl you’re facing, huh?”

  The bully’s smile disappeared as Stug drew back his right arm. The blow shot out from the sergeant’s shoulder like a cannonball, and the bully guard covered half the length of the room, unconscious before hitting the floor again. He was quickly surrounded by fascinated Wild Ones looking down at his still form.

  “I must be getting old,” said Stug. “That took two punches. Still … very satisfying.” He bent over and picked up the man’s rifle.

  “Who are you people?” It was the older woman, the one who’d earlier protested Hatch’s attention to Logan.

  “You’re too late,” said the doctor. “I’ve already alerted the entire complex.” As if on cue, the klaxons sounded around them. The ambient lighting snapped from standard to red.

  Hatch stared at the doctor. The man had used his BICE, of course. Transport didn’t suffer the same restrictions TRACE did in the City; there was no dampening field inserting an annoying buzz into their brains. Their IP addresses were shielded and their BICEs worked perfectly. The doctor had undoubtedly sent an alert over the Authority’s security network the moment Stug had attacked the first guard.

  A rifle butt found the back of the doctor’s skull, and he crumpled into unconsciousness. Hatch gave Stug a look that was both amused and annoyed.

  “He was a douche.”

  “Fair enough,” replied Hatch. “But we don’t have much time.” He nodded at the floor. Stug turned his weapon on each of the unconscious Transport guards in turn. Two blasts later, they were both dead.

  “Did you have to do that?” the nurse asked, her voice bordering on hysteria.

  “Actually, yes,” said Hatch. “And this, too.” She watched, petrified, as he moved behind her and wrapped his left arm around her neck.

  “Please … please …” Her voice was weepy and filled with paranoia bred of the disinformation about TRACE that Transport fed its loyal citizens.

  Hatch put his right arm behind her neck and captured her throat in the crook of his left.

  “This won’t hurt.”

  The nurse started to scream again, maybe even pray to herself for the forgiveness of sins.

  “Please—”

  Hatch applied pressure. In seconds, she was out.

  “Did you kill her?” the councilwoman asked, horrified. Maybe she believed the rumors about TRACE too, Hatch thought.

  “Of course not,” he said. “But she’ll wake up with a headache.”

  “I like my way better,” said Stug.

  Hatch ignored him. “Listen to me, people. We’re going to do our best to get you out of here, but you have to be patient. We all have people below we want rescued. That’s gonna take time, and we don’t have a lot of it. I need two volunteers—your best fighters.”

  The crowd looked around uncertainly at one another.

  “I don’t have all day.”

  “Matthias,” said a weak voice behind him. Hatch turned. Logan was pointing blearily. “The thin man over there. And Bridget. She’s good too.”

  Hatch turned around and motioned to them. “Matthias, Bridget, front and center.”

  When no one moved, Stug barked, “Now, people!” in his best boot camp voice.

  The two came forward.

  “Take these rifles,” Hatch said, handing them the recent acquisitions from the Authority’s dead. “Guard the door at the east end of the room—the way we came in. Keep Transport out. We think they’re working with a reduced force. If we’re right, it’ll be a while before they can bring enough troops down to try an assault. By the time they do, I plan to have us all on the roof.”

  “What about Logan?” asked the councilwoman. She was pointing at his cot. And his condition.

  Hatch assessed Logan, knowing what the right answer to her question was. He gave her the fence-sitter answer instead. “Detail two of your people to carry him. When we come back up from below, he’s your problem.”

  “I’ll go last,” said Logan, finding Hatch’s eyes. To the older woman, he said, “So whoever volunteers needs to know, they’re going last too.”

  Hatch nodded and turned away.

  “Can we get on with it now?” Stug whined.

  Hatch clapped him on the shoulder and led the way.

  Going down was easy. The facility was virtually deserted. More evidence for their theory that Transport had, indeed, evacuated most of its troops already.

  Hawkeye and Pusher descended the stairs from the roof, cautious and covering one another like they were trained to do. Trick came next, and Bracer watched their backs.

  When they made the second floor, the only way to get past the security lock on the door was to blast it. No one had the required palm print to fool the scanner. But they had to scout the floor, clear it if possible. As soon as they were through, the sergeant and spotter pushed into the hallway, pistols at the ready.

  Empty.

  They backed out again and continued down the stairwell to the first floor. Pusher flinched as she blasted the second palm reader granting them access to that level of the facility. They were trained to be quiet—and they were being anything but.

  She cracked the door with her foot and swung her pistol down, ready to shoot anyone resisting their progress. But, as with the second floor, the first was empty.

  “Maybe we can move a little faster,” she said over her shoulder, descending the stairs.

  “Don’t get cocky,” replied Trick. “When it seems easiest is the most dangerous time.”

  “Hey, Ca
ptain, you’re really getting this command thing down,” said Bracer.

  “Move,” ordered Trick.

  Without warning, the lighting turned a harsh red and the facility alarm began pounding their ears.

  “Shit,” said Pusher, hunching down on instinct and sweeping the corridor with her pistol. No enemy were evident, but they soon would be. “What’d I do?”

  “Maybe nothing,” said Trick. “And there’s no need to tread lightly now, Sergeant.”

  “Sir, yes sir!” Pusher motioned to Hawkeye, and the two of them headed down to the common room level. The commandos switched from stealth mode to engage-and-destroy.

  “Really think it was wise leaving the scavengers in charge of the rear guard?” asked Stug.

  Hatch moved with his back against the wall. It made him a thinner target should an enemy soldier suddenly appear from below and start shooting while they made their way down the stairs to The Dungeon.

  “Our other choice being?”

  “Okay, there’s that.”

  “You don’t get paid to strategize.”

  “I don’t get paid at all, now.”

  “Well, there you go. Stop trying to think.”

  Hatch threw up his hand, and Stug stopped short. Boots echoed from the other side of the door below—probably the escorts for the last bunch, responding to the alert.

  Stug hopped to his left and kneeled, while Hatch dropped to one knee on the right. They were exposed on the stairs, no cover to protect them. But they had the element of surprise, as well as the high ground overlooking the open kill zone below.

  The door below was flung open and a guard came through. Two more were right behind him. The first man had already taken two of the stairs before noticing the men blocking his way on the landing above. And then he was dead and falling back down.

  His comrades stopped, surprised as he fell down the stairs in front of them, then took hasty aim. But all their recent overtime spent guarding prisoners had deadened their reaction time; they were slow. Hatch and Stug were not.

  It was over quickly. Hatch and Stug stepped over three bodies at the bottom of the stairs.