Jack frowned. “You mean, this is loaded with nukes?”
Sean shook his head. “Hell no. Very little call for those, now we have the tech to not have that nasty radioactive fallout for centuries on end…”
Jack’s face relaxed. “You mean, the Etheric Empire has managed to make its war heads environmentally-friendly?” she asked, shaking her head in amazement.
Sean grinned, and chuckled a little. “It sounds silly, but when you think about it, it’s the most sensible thing to do. The only reason we would normally be using force is to bring people around to our way of thinking. Devastating planets isn’t generally what leads to a healthy inter-empire relationship. We learned that the hard way…”
Jack looked skeptical, and Sean noticed.
Sean looked back at where he was flying. “Okay, so there are some exceptions…” he conceded.
“Like?” Jack prompted.
Sean looked uncomfortable for a moment. “Like when this Kurtherian race disrespected the queen’s guard, and videotaped it. That was enough for Bethany Anne to go nuclear. In more ways than one.”
Jack looked over in concern. “What happened?”
Sean visibly grimaced. “We don’t know, yet. She’s still off, ‘dealing’ with it.”
Jack nodded, knowing full well she was only getting part of the story. “This Bethany Anne is beginning to sound pretty intense.”
Sean chuckled. “You could say that,” he agreed. He checked his visuals and then the route. “Okay, we’re coming up on our target soon. Remember, he’s been preparing for a few days; if even half of the intel is correct, he’ll have men and artillery sandbagged there.”
Jack nodded. “Got it,” she confirmed. She looked anxious. “I could really do with testing these weapons, though.”
Sean shook his head. “No time. And the internal systems would flag any errors. Just go with what you know, and assume the ship can handle it,” he instructed.
He glanced over at her. “And don’t worry, love. I’ve got the flying bit,” he winked.
Jack shook her head, smiling. “Well, let’s hope so,” she retorted.
Just then, an alert she had set up on her console started flashing. “We’ve got heat sigs on that location,” she reported in.
Sean rolled his head to glance at her display. “Yeah, thought we might. How many?”
“Ten,” she counted.
“Fuck,” he sighed. “Well, too bad for them…” he concluded.
The ship quickly arrived at the target, and Sean dropped to a cruise for the approach. “Let’s get a visual recky first, and then nail them on the return,” he suggested.
Jack immediately adapted the weapons she had ready to lock on, and looked over at him, her eyes wide. “You’re worried in case they have missiles?” she checked, the thought dawning on her as she made her adjustments.
Sean looked somber. “I’m almost certain they have. I also just want to make sure we know what we’re about to level. I’m going to hail them. Be ready, though.”
Sean pulled up a comm channel and opened a line. “This is the Etheric Empire calling for Mr. Mac Kerr. Mac Kerr. Do you read?”
The line buzzed.
Sean repeated the message.
The line hummed again, and then there was a response. “What do you want, Grjónapungur*?” *(transl: cocksucker)
Sean smirked. “Wondering if you want to come out quietly, and save the lives of those innocent folks you’ve got holed up in there with you?”
The line crackled with interference. “Not going to happen. We’re going to take you out.”
With that, an anti-aircraft gun started firing at them.
Sean couldn’t be sure if it was a result of the interaction, or just because they’d come into range. Either way, he decided it was disrespectful.
Sean flicked a switch. “Okay, well don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He closed the channel and looked over at Jack. “Okay, I feel much better wasting this fuckwit, now,” he told her.
Jack smiled. “You turning her about, then?”
Sean nodded. “Yeah, just as soon as-”
There was suddenly an enormous roar that rocked the ground, and then the ship, as a rocket launched past them.
Jack spun around in her seat, briefly catching sight of the rocket out of one of the side windows. “That was a fucking missile!” she shouted. She paused a second, realizing something. “How come it missed us?”
Sean grinned. “We’ve been emitting anti missile bots in a suspension since before I hailed him. Their online systems aren’t going to be able to get a fix on us.”
“However…” he added, spinning around in his own special anti-grav console chair. He pulled up a weapons console similar to Jack’s. “Watch and learn,” he told her.,He then pulled up a holoscreen and wrapped it around his console chair, so that it gave him a 180-degree view of what was outside the ship.
He flipped a few switches, and then steered what looked like the holo of a gun around to seek the missile. Finding it, the system automatically locked on. He hit “FIRE,” and, a moment later, a smaller missile of their own went screaming from their ship to collide with Mac’s.
The two missiles exploded in a rain of fire.
He closed the holos down, looking satisfied. “Can’t have those things just wandering around out there like that.”
Jack turned back to monitoring her own instruments. “You didn’t strike me as a tidy kinda guy,” she smirked.
Sean was back to flipping switches on the ship and turning her around. “I’m not. The military beat it into me, though.”
He pulled at the control wheel, and the ship’s nose pointed up, and banked steeply to the left. Jack was thrown back and up in her harness. “Fuckerty fuck!” she yelled, gripping the armrests on her seat, her knuckles turning white.
She noticed the g-meter in her display clocking the acceleration. It passed 30 Gs, and she started to feel her vision blackout. “Sean…” she tried calling out, desperately realizing what was happening to her.
The force suddenly started to drop off as Sean levelled the ship out. A few seconds later, her vision started to return.
Sean chuckled, as he rolled out the weapons console. “Quite the little G-monster,” he commented. “Most people would have loc’d out,” he added, his voice conveying he was genuinely impressed.
Jack scowled at him, recovering her vision. And attitude. “You know I was a fighter pilot for six years, you prick.” She pulled up her own console ready to unleash some mayhem. “And a bit of warning wouldn’t go amiss.”
Sean glanced back at her. “Noted,” he conceded, as way of an apology. Still, he caught her lips upturned a little in the corners. He could tell she was having the time of her life. “Okay, you ready with those differential missiles?” he checked. “We’re on the approach. Let’s see if you can take them out with one hit… Or else I’m going to have to pull this bird around again…”
Jack was already selecting the missiles and target as he spoke. “I’ll be ready before you get us a visual,” she told him confidently.
And with that, she felt the ship pull forward even faster.
Iantrogen Offices, Downtown Spire
The firing had subsided, but reinforcements were still on their way.
Crash was leaning against his pillar, recouping more from the adrenalin bolt than the exertion of shooting. “Good shooting, Lady Boss,” he called over to Molly.
Molly had her eyes and ears open, scanning the area for any sign of life. She emerged from her position behind the pillar a little way over. “Not bad going, yourself, Mr. Pilot-Guy,” she commented. She packed away her weapon for the time being and bent over, her hands on her knees.
Crash was watching her while he gathered himself together and holstered his weapon. “Takes it out of you, doesn’t it?” he commented softly.
She looked up. “Yeah. The adrenalin still makes me feel sick.”
Crash nodded, pursing his lips. “Yeah.
I remember that from early training. Hated it.”
Molly glanced around and stood upright again. “Okay. Time to finish with Jessica, and then get the fuck up out of here before those reinforcements arrive.”
Crash looked more animated than his usual calm, collected self. “I’m with you on that one,” he concurred. “I’m just going to tap into their cameras, and see what else is going on in the building. Oz has a call into Sean, but he’s offline at the moment. Joel isn’t picking up, either.”
“Okay,” Molly acknowledged, as she turned back to where she had left Jessica. She strode through the cubicles, and landed at the spot where she had left her.
There was no one there.
“Shit. She’s gone,” she whispered to Crash over their open comm.
Crash responded immediately. “Want me to come help you find her?”
Molly glanced around. “No. She can’t have gone far. Keep an eye on things from here, and I’ll go find her.”
She and I have unfinished business.
Molly strode off in the direction of Jessica’s office.
If you’re under fire, you’re going to go for what is familiar. That’s the place where she is most likely to have a panic button or a weapon.
Reinforcements will be here in twelve minutes.
Okay. Thanks, Oz. We’ll be gone by then.
Molly found her way through to Jessica’s office pretty easily, having been there once before. The place looked different somehow, though.
Maybe they changed the decor.
Either way, she figured, it was a waste of her money… given that she just lost everything.
Molly heard movement from within the office. Carefully, she drew her weapon again, and pushed her way through the door. She scanned the assistant’s office. No one was there. There was another sound from within the office… like a clunk of something metal hitting a desk.
Molly took another step, and there, in the main office, was Jessica— holding a sword, the ornate sheath in her hand.
Jessica stood defiantly and looked at Molly, now unaffected by the gun trained on her.
Molly stepped into the room. “Not really the time to be examining your antiquities,” she commented. “Mind you, it might be the one thing in this place that will hold its value for you. You can sell it for rent money.”
Jessica had tears drying on her face. Her eye makeup was smudged, and her hair and clothes were now dishevelled. Apart from that, she was relatively unscathed.
Jessica nodded at Molly’s arm. “I see my security detail took a bite out of you,” she sneered.
Molly looked down, and noticed a tear in the upper arm of her suit. There was blood trickling out of the hole; presumably from a bullet wound. She couldn’t feel any pain, but her arm had been feeling weaker. “Looks like a graze,” she concluded. She knew what would happen if a bullet were lodged, or had been shot through her arm, and this wasn’t it.
Jessica smirked. “Let’s hope you have good insurance,” she told her. “Or else that’s going to be expensive.” Her voice lilted with venom.
Jessica stepped away from her desk and started chanting, holding the sword out in front of her.
Molly interrupted. “You think that your ancestors can help restore your empire?”
Jessica stopped what she was doing and turned her head to face Molly. “I’m not asking for their help,” she spat angrily. “I’m asking for their forgiveness!”
Jessica was about to continue her chanting, when she stopped herself, lowering the sword a little. “You don’t have a clue about all this, do you? This… shame, of what you’ve inflicted on me. It’s worse than death!”
Jessica turned the sword around so that the tip was pointing at her own chest. “The only way to redeem one’s essence from this kind of shame, is to fall on your ceremonial sword and hope the ancestors take pity on your valiant attempt to make things right.”
Tears welled in her eyes.
She turned, looking off into the distance in front of her again, her eyes glazing over. “For what you have done to me, I hope your ancestors forsake you!” The hatred and bitchiness in her eyes and voice were palpable. Molly felt a coldness in the air, and the noise of the building seemed deafening. She watched Jessica’s eyes turn black, and she started chanting again.
Something wasn’t right. Molly felt a presence, a darkness, start pooling in the room. Yet her eyes couldn’t perceive anything. Molly subconsciously took a few paces back, looking for something around her to steady herself against.
Jessica continued chanting her strange incantations, more and more forcefully now. She glowed with a dark light; a malevolence that seemed to exude from her once blue, effervescent skin. Molly felt her gut tighten. This was bad.
She looked around the office and noticed that not only had it become noisy, but also there was a strange wind circulating around them. Molly scrambled to get back to the door, but found herself paralyzed, unable to move. Unable to run. And unable to peel her eyes from what was happening before her.
The wind turned to a dark gray smoke. Molly could barely see what was happening.
For the first time in a long time, Molly felt not just scared, but deeply afraid. On a spiritual level.
Oz, what’s going on?
All parameters seem normal. It’s just your senses that are perceiving the activity.
Could this be…?
Molly didn’t get the chance to finish her question. Just then, there was an almighty crack, a flash of light, which blinded her from seeing what was happening, and then the shape in the smoke that was Jessica fell forward onto the sharp end of her sword.
Molly, terrified, lunged forward to try to stop her, but it was too late. Her fingertips barely touched Jessica’s shirt sleeve before her body was beyond her reach, and then on the ground.
Molly looked down through the gray smoke, and saw the sword blade had gone straight through her.
The noise started to calm and the wind subsided. The room stopped vibrating, and everything settled down again. When the smoke cleared, the room seemed to have returned to normal, and the sensation of an evil presence receded like a bad dream.
Molly stepped closer, shocked and horrified at the bloody sword sticking out of Jessica’s back. Jessica’s body lay facedown with her head turned, so Molly could see her eyes. They were still abnormally black.
Molly knelt down beside her, trying to process what had just happened. Sure it had been a possibility that Jessica might kill herself; and Molly had wanted her to suffer. But this? This was just wrong.
As she watched, Jessica’s eyes returned to normal and her facial muscles relaxed, making her look almost angelic and peaceful.
Molly, three minutes. We’ve got to leave.
Molly used her hand to close Jessica’s eyelids, and stood up. Understanding what had just happened was going to have to wait for later.
A moment later, she was running back through the open plan office area and jogging down the aisle of cubicles. Crash saw her coming, and opened up the window so they could escape into the pod hovering outside.
With one final tug, he slid the window open. “Come on, Lady Boss. We’ve got to move.” He started to put his foot out into the pod, and was thrown back. “What the…?”
Sanctioned Page 16
