by Terry Mixon
By this time, the diversionary mission should be gearing up, though Randy wouldn’t allow it to proceed. It should have all of Chandra’s attention and hopefully more than a few of his thugs set to repel it.
The breach point that Brad was going through was situated near a storage room in a sublevel of the residence. The reinforced wall was covered with explosive charges, and the Marines were back in an old transit tube that had been discontinued and sealed over a few decades before.
It wasn’t connected to the area where they were breaching. Or it hadn’t been before someone had dug through a stretch of Mars. If word of this got out, Brad wondered how many wealthy families would start doing something about unexplored access points.
“Five minutes,” Rico said. “My people go in first. We’ll head up the stairs and isolate the main entrance. The other teams will try to box the targets into the primary hall. I don’t want any of you to engage unless you feel as if you have no choice. Is that clear?”
He was looking at Brad when he said that.
“I hear you,” Brad said, not really promising anything.
The man sighed. “Once this kicks off, everything will happen all at once. If you get separated, I want you to hunker down. Under no circumstances do I want any blue-on-blue fire. My people will probably recognize you, but accidents happen.”
“How long do you think it will take you to secure the whole residence?” Falcone asked.
The officer shrugged. “That really depends on how organized the resistance is. If they’re understaffed and not heavily armed, we’ll roll them in less than fifteen minutes. If someone sets up a hard point, we’ll blow it and them to Darkness.
“If they have anything more than basic rifles and shotguns, it might take as much as half an hour. If they break and run, it’ll take longer to mop them up.”
Lieutenant Tomas stepped over to them. “All breach teams report ready, sir. We can kick this off whenever you like.”
“Everyone proceed to their primary assault positions,” Rico said. “Breach in sixty seconds. All teams sound off.”
Brad couldn’t hear the teams calling their readiness reports, so he focused on his people.
“Trista, I want you to watch my back. With that busted arm, you need to stick to pistols. Lisa, trail after Falcone. Try to keep her from getting in over her head.”
Falcone scowled at him. “Did you seriously just warn me about getting carried away? After that duel with the Terror?”
He grinned. “Helmets on, ladies. We’re about to get busy.”
Brad and his people were stacked behind the assault team. As soon as the breaching charge went off, they’d race forward and he’d follow. If the room beyond was empty, they’d be on their way up the stairs in less than a minute.
If it wasn’t empty, that would make things significantly more interesting.
“Breach in ten seconds,” Rico said. “Here we go.”
Brad turned away from the tunnel when the Marines did. His helmet would protect him from the overpressure, but why take this cavalierly?
The breaching charge went off, and even the sound dampers in his helmet couldn’t stop it all, though it did keep his ears from ringing. The Marines whirled as a group and raced forward.
The wall where Brad had seen the breaching charges earlier was gone, replaced by a massive hole filled with smoke.
He found out the room beyond wasn’t empty when they started taking fire, even before they made it into the residence. Heavy fire, not just a few scattered shots.
The Marine in front of Brad fell, his helmet shattered.
Brad stepped into the smoke-filled room beyond the breach. He saw movement to his left and found himself face to face with an armored man. One not in Marine armor, either.
He fired his shotgun into the man’s face. The flechettes mostly bounced, but not all of them were deflected. Some penetrated the thinner material at the man’s throat, and he staggered back.
A flicker of blue to Brad’s right sent him diving for the floor. A mono-blade swept over his head and took the arm off the injured man Brad had just shot. He rolled onto his back and shot his attacker several times, but wasn’t sure if he’d disabled him, as the man leapt back.
All around him, the Marines were in a life-or-death struggle against a heavily armed and armored defensive point. Their plan had officially gone to shit.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Brad pulled his mono-blade from his hip and activated it. The line snapped out with a hiss. Then, still lying on the floor, he slashed an enemy off at the ankles before following up with a strike to the man’s head.
“Up you go, sir,” Trista said, pulling him to his feet as she fired on the enemy with her off-hand pistol, not looking as if she’d broken that arm at all. “We need to withdraw.”
“Screw that,” he snarled. “We advance.”
He let his shotgun hang from its strap and grabbed the fallen Marine’s automatic rifle and spare ammo. Then, using short, controlled bursts, he advanced into the smoke, looking for people who needed killing.
The initial appearance of heavy resistance proved illusory. While there had been armored enemies, there weren’t many of them. Not standing, anyway. Most lay scattered on the floor, taken out by the breaching charges.
The Marines crushed the remaining resistance and led the way up the stairs a few moments later. They left two of their own dead at the entryway and had several more injured at their heels. Now they wanted blood.
It looked as if the area they’d chosen to breach the building had also been the defenders’ command post. Well, that should disrupt things for Chandra’s people.
Brad had time to look over one of the dead enemies while he waited for the call to proceed down. The similarities to the commandos they’d fought at Jupiter were too great to ignore. These men wore the same armor and carried the same kind of weapons.
These men weren’t Chandra’s people. They were Mader’s. That meant he was still there.
Falcone was going from body to body, collecting wrist-comps and other electronics. Brad left Lisa to guard her and started down the stairs as soon as the Marines gave the all clear, with Trista on his heels.
The main level of the residence looked like a war zone. The other Marine attack teams had beaten them there and obliterated all resistance. It seemed the only heavily armed defenders had been where Brad had come in.
The dead men here were unarmored and carried pistols that they’d seemingly decided gave them some kind of chance against the Marines.
Rico was standing at the base of the stairs while his people proceeded to search into the main part of the house. Like many other in-ground homes, the entrance was at the top of the structure and the floors below housed the residents.
“The other teams haven’t hit any strong resistance,” the Marine officer said. “They’re pushing down pretty fast. If Chandra has an exit, he’s probably using it right now.”
Brad held his wrist-comp toward Trista. She pulled off her helmet and shook her hair out before dialing the number the detective had given her.
“It’s happening,” the female mercenary said before killing the call.
If anyone was monitoring the calls, they wouldn’t see Brad. He hoped that in all the rush, no one would ask too many questions about who had called that in and what it had meant.
“We should keep the pressure on,” Brad said. “Let’s help drive them out of the house.”
“My people have that under control,” Rico said.
“We already had this discussion, Major. My operation. My rules.”
The man sighed but stepped out of the way.
Brad went down the stairs two at a time and found the Marines set up at the bottom of the stairwell. Several of them were exchanging shots with people outside while the rest were preparing to break out.
“What do we have?” Brad asked Lieutenant Tomas.
“The classic last stand,” she said. “They’ve got enough cover to pr
otect them from grenades, but we’ll rush them. They don’t have much in the way of heavy weapons. While I wouldn’t call it safe, it shouldn’t be a suicide charge.”
“Do we know if Chandra and Mader are in there?”
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “We won’t know until we’ve finished clearing the building.”
“LT,” a man said. “We’re ready.”
“Go,” she said.
The Marine stuck a grenade launcher through the door and started firing. He held it high so his comrades could crawl underneath his fire. Explosions rocked the corridor beyond the stairs.
That pushed the enemy back enough for the Marines to make a bridgehead into the lowest level. Resistance cracked at that point, and the criminal thugs started throwing down their weapons and surrendering.
Not that the Marines trusted them. Each potential prisoner was thoroughly searched for weapons and cuffed.
In all, it took half an hour to be sure they’d secured the entire residence. There was no sign of Chandra or Mader, and no one was talking.
“There has to be a secret exit,” Rico said, frustration in his voice. “By the time we find it, they’ll be long gone. We’ll have to hope that Huddleston and her people catch them before they get into orbit, or that the Commodore’s blockade keeps them where we can get at them.”
Falcone was making a pass through Chandra’s rooms. They were surprisingly austere.
“All the comps are trashed,” she complained. “Our people might be able to get something from them, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. We need Chandra and Mader.”
Brad nodded. “Rico, do you have any extra breaching charges?”
“A few. Why?”
“This room is the most likely terminus for the exit tunnel. I want to trash some walls and find it.”
Ten minutes later, they were in the hall and Rico triggered the reduced charges. They rushed into Chandra’s rooms and found one of the walls collapsed into rubble, revealing a narrow tunnel.
Brad didn’t wait for anyone to lead the way, taking charge of the pursuit himself.
The passage twisted and turned, providing plenty of places where a defender could hold back people chasing him. Brad didn’t expect Chandra needed that, so he was surprised when someone ahead leaned back and shot a pistol at him.
The flechettes rebounded off his armor, and Brad stepped back behind the last turn in the passage.
“Whoever you are, we have more than enough force to come through you,” Brad said. “Put down your weapons and surrender.”
“And what if I’d rather go down fighting?”
Brad recognized the voice. Chandra. Falcone had played a few vids of the man, and he had a very distinctive accent.
“Give it up, Chandra. Mars Security is all around us and I’ve got Commonwealth Marines behind me.”
“Who are you?”
“Brad Madrid. I want the people above you. Give up now and you don’t have to die.”
The man laughed. “Someone was just talking about you. I told them your reputation had to be overblown. My mistake.”
“That was Jack Mader, or whatever his real name is,” Brad said. “He got away, but I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me for ruining his life.”
There was a long pause. “I’m impressed. It was Jack Mader. I’m willing to make a deal.”
“I’m listening.”
“My family is here with me. Mars Security has the exit to my tunnel blocked. I will stop fighting if you allow my family away unharmed.”
“Mr. Chandra, this is Agent Falcone of the Commonwealth Investigative Agency,” Falcone called from behind Brad. “I’m willing to agree to that, so long as your family has no direct ties to your criminal enterprises. And by that, I mean direct control.”
“I’m sending them out,” Chandra said. “Don’t shoot.”
Brad covered the approach with his pistol and saw a woman and three children coming hesitantly forward. They didn’t seem armed, so he allowed them to pass and Falcone handled them.
“Time for you to come out,” Brad called out.
Chandra stepped out, his hands up and empty. Brad walked out to meet him.
“I knew someone would come for me one day,” Chandra mused. “I just didn’t expect such a dramatic ending.”
“Where is Mader?”
The other man smiled. “Gone. He left as soon as we received word the cargo he was shepherding had been traced. He’s already left Mars space.”
If true, that was a blow. It might be a lie, though. Brad wasn’t giving up so easily.
“You work for the Cadre. I want to know where their base is.”
The other man’s smile widened. “I was never trusted with that level of information. I only dealt with people via coded accounts and cover names. The Cadre jealously protects their base location. Even if I wanted to help you, I couldn’t.”
Falcone stepped around them and cuffed Chandra. “Then where are these middlemen?”
“I wiped my computers as soon as I realized we were under attack. My people at the warehouse will have done the same. That was an excellent distraction, by the way. Well played.
“No, I’m afraid you’re not going to find a way through to the Terror in my organization. It’s the only way to make sure the maniac doesn’t kill me one fine day to keep my mouth shut.”
“Dammit,” Brad said as he slammed the heel of his fist against the stone wall. Another dead end. Michelle’s time was running out and he was no closer to finding the Cadre base than the day he’d started.
Every computer was searched as soon as Lieutenant Huddleston put in an appearance. As expected, her superiors were less than pleased, but the work was done. They could complain now, but it would make them look petty. Not that the prospect seemed to slow them.
No doubt, some of them were on Chandra’s pay and would love to find a reason to undo everything, but the amount of illegal weaponry in the residence and the stolen cargo recovered at the warehouse made that impossible.
The smug bastard wouldn’t tell them anything about his organization, and no one admitted to knowing anything about the Cadre. It was even possible that most of his minions had no clue who their ultimate employer was.
Brad knew he was going to be there for a while, so he decided to let his people know where he was. If anything did come from this, he’d need them at Mars soon.
The com signals from Mars to the Io Yards took time, but that seemed to be something he had in quantity. He sent an update and waited for their response.
Shelly had a message back to him far sooner than he’d expected. The original signal couldn’t even have reached Io yet.
“We picked up your signal, Commodore,” she said. “We’re on our way to Mars right now. We’ll be in orbit in a day or so. And don’t think I’m not going to give you shit for slipping out like that.”
Bemused, he sent a signal back. “How did you find out where we were? And why isn’t the Cadre after you?”
A few minutes later, she responded. “We slipped out after a Fleet destroyer cloned our transponder. They wanted to see if they could lure some of the Cadre ships into an ambush headed up by the cruiser battle group we met at Saturn. I hear it worked wonderfully, by the way.”
“Well, I’m glad to see you made it out safely,” Brad said. “I’ll be back in orbit by the time you get to MOSO. We’ll have to transfer Dr. Duvall from Lion to Oath. She’ll be thrilled at the extra space.”
So would he.
He’d just sent the last bit when the door opened and Falcone walked in.
“Good news,” she said without waiting for him to respond. “I might have a lead on one of those elusive middlemen.”
That snagged his full attention. “I thought they’d wiped all the computers.”
She grinned. “They missed one of the Cadre commandos. The commander of the detachment, I think. He had a note in his wrist-comp to contact a merchant on Oberon to get passage back to his boss when this was
all over.”
Oberon. Interesting. That was the outermost moon of Uranus. Definitely not the kind of place upstanding folk did business.
“Was there a timeframe mentioned?” he asked.
“He had passage arranged at MOSO for two days from now, for him and his people. If we hustle, we can be at Oberon before he’s expected. If the merchant doesn’t know what this guy looks like, you might be able to use that.”
Finally, a break.
“My new ship is going to be here tomorrow,” he told her. “They figured out where we’d gone. We can boost for Uranus as soon as we move Dr. Duvall.”
“We should talk with Commodore Bailey to see if we can get some support, too.”
That hope was dashed a few minutes later. It seemed her bosses were less than pleased that she’d gone around them. Until the investigation was done, she was going to be cooling her heels on MOSO.
Well, he’d just have to solve this riddle on his own. He’d have the time on the way out to Oberon to settle on a course of action. One way or the other, he’d make this merchant talk and then he’d rescue Michelle.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The people who’d created the main settlement on Oberon had been—in a word—cheap. There were no domes, no artificial-gravity plates, and not even a real surface spaceport. Oberon City, a grandiosely named trading town of maybe fifteen thousand people, was nothing more than a massive warren of crumbling tunnels.
Finding anything in that maze, Brad had discovered, was hard. He’d found Ferarre’s trading company’s computer system with relative ease from orbit. While its security was laughable, he couldn’t find anything helpful.
Everything Ferarre bought or sold involved clients marked only by numbered accounts. Brad had the number of the client who was paying for the dead Cadre commandos to be brought out, but no transactions in the system for that client had destinations.
If he was going to get the lead, Brad would have to get them face to face.
