by J. N. Chaney
Burner noted how quick the soldier was to take the blame from his men, a dangerous move when dealing with someone whose eyes burned with the level of violence that Cypher’s did. It seemed that he had a genuine concern for his men’s wellbeing, something Burner could find admirable if it hadn’t been wasted on traitors and murderers.
The man called Cypher turned on the soldier, breathing hard and clenching his fists at his side. After a few moments he exhaled, and his fists unclenched. “See that it doesn’t, Killington.”
He turned his attention to the rest of the group. “Plans have setbacks. No matter how much you prepare, no matter how many contingencies you put into play, there is always a level of chaos to be expected. What separates the pretenders from those of us with the power to effect change, real change, is the ability to adjust. To learn from their failures and adapt.”
Without warning, he spun around and slammed a nearby wooden beam with his fist with enough force to shake the barn’s roof. “As much as those failures make you want to lash out, you have to channel that rage into something productive. Otherwise, it is wasted.”
When he turned back to the group his hand was bleeding. “As for Burner and his threats...” He spoke the words threats with the intonation a parent would use when they caught their child saying a dirty word. “He is one man, whatever his talents. Even if he had the balls to try and go through with them, we will deal with him because we work as a team. He is a loner. It is, after all, part of the reason we chose him. What’s the worst he can do? Kill a few of us before meeting his own end? No, he’s too practical for that, he won’t leap to his death. And even if he did, is there anyone here who is not currently prepared to die for our cause?” His gaze scanned the stunned faces around him. “Is the passion of any among us, the desire for change, so small that we are not willing to sacrifice everything for it? If not, leave right now. Run to the farthest reaches of space, where Burner and his kind will never find you, and leave the work to us, the true believers.”
Half rant, half speech, and all blazing passion. The faces of those around him had hardened in resolve. Cypher had managed to wash away all their doubts and realign them with his plan with just a few words. Burner’s distant threats were no match for the conviction in Cypher’s voice, the rage in his tone, and that burning look in his eye. The gathered terrorists nodded to him and then to each other, their dedication to the cause renewed.
Satisfied, Cypher turned his attention to the mole. “Stack, how are things progressing with the documentation?”
The mole straightened up. “On schedule. It’s slow going, as we expected it would be. Union security protocols were designed to prevent me from doing exactly what I’m doing, but I’ve pulled some strings, called some favors, and found some workarounds. I’ll have all the files in place and ready to be leaked when we pull the trigger.”
The corner of Cypher’s mouth curved in what almost passed as a smile. “Good. Seems the other parts of our plan are still working as they should be.”
Burner’s ears perked up. Files? Was there some bigger part of their plan he had missed?
Cade stepped up. “In even better news, I’ve also had word from our eyes on Pharbis. The Union is deploying a number of ships to the station. Hard to imagine how an organization this predictable could hold onto power for so long. I almost feel bad picking on them.” He gave a wry smile, glancing sheepishly in Cypher’s direction for approval.
From his hidden vantage, not all of the words reached Burner’s ears, and he filled in the blanks by lip reading. He had almost been positive he had mistranslated a word somewhere. According to his theory, the goal of the terrorists had been to make the Union seem weak and ineffective through destroying the station in combination with the assassination of the admiral. That message would be muddled if the Union still maintained a strong fleet presence in the region, so why would they be glad that they had mobilized ships there?
It suddenly dawned on Burner that he had missed an essential part of the plot. They didn’t want to just make the Union look lazy and incompetent. The plan was to make the Union look downright evil. And they were going to accomplish that by making it look like the Union had blown up the space station themselves.
Burner had made the mistake of underestimating the logic of the terrorist, comparing them to passion-driven cells he had encountered in the past. But Cypher understood that you couldn’t overcome people’s natural lethargy and motivate them into rebellion without giving them an enemy they couldn’t ignore. And from the looks of it, they were planning to make the Union that enemy.
Now that he had all the pieces, Burner couldn’t help but admit it was a brilliant plan. Assassinate the well-respected admiral who had kept peace in the region and have the blame pinned on an ex-Union agent living in the Deadlands. Burner’s next order from the terrorists would be to go to the station, but even if he refused and disappeared, Stack’s falsified files would show him heading toward the station. From there, it was just the matter of making it seem like the Union destroyed the station in retaliation for the assassination, willing to kill thousands of innocents just to get to Burner. The files would show an order for a Union ship to fire on the station.
And it would all be more believable because the Union had evacuated their own ships beforehand. The terrorists wanted the Union to figure out their target. Perhaps Burner had forced the revelation sooner than they had planned, but in the end it didn’t change the fact that the Union was doing exactly what they wanted them to do.
People wouldn’t just be fearful. They would be pissed. Demands would be made for those responsible to be held accountable for the loss of friends and family, and no matter what evidence the Union could provide after the fact, they would have already been tried in the court of public opinion and found guilty. The region would be thrown into chaos, and the Union would have its hands full trying to suppress one uprising after another.
It would lead to mass deaths and the destabilization of the region for generations. And maybe the terrorists would get exactly what they wanted after all: the removal of the Union completely from the frontier and its bordering space. Unlikely, but stranger things had happened.
This was a far more dangerous organization than he had feared. If their plans were allowed to succeed, it wouldn’t just be the thousands of lives on the station that were lost. Millions would die in the unrest that followed.
Burner needed to take them down.
Though that was easier said than done at the moment. Everyone gathered in the barn was heavily armed. And while he hated to admit it, Cypher had not been wrong. There was only one of him right now, and if he tried to launch an attack it would just lead to his death.
That didn’t stop his mind from working through all the possible combat scenarios. The most important target was Cypher, the leader. Burner didn’t have a shot from his current position behind the barn door, so he’d have to go inside. If he burst in, he could catch them off-guard, quickly dispatching Cypher and maybe even the second-in-command before the terrorists could fire back on him. After Cypher he would have to dive for cover. That pallet was his best bet. From there it would be a drawn-out gunfight. If he could control the flanks, he might be able to pick off two or three more of them, but then...
Eventually, he would be killed. And his death might not even accomplish anything. Cypher’s plans were already in motion, and the survivors could still carry out the final phases.
Maybe if Sara was here, the situation would be different. But his comm still wasn’t getting any signal, and he hadn’t seen any sign of her despite her target being part of this meeting. Maybe he had given her the slip. Burner didn’t want to imagine the darker possibility.
What he really needed was to learn the situation with the bomb. Was it here, in this barn? Or maybe the farmhouse? Or could it already be at the space station? And those questions brought with them another important one: were they planning to plant the bomb themselves, or was that the job of anothe
r team?
It would be irresponsible to act without that intel. Even if he somehow succeeded in killing them all, it might not stop the plans that had already been put into motion.
For now, he would observe. One of them would eventually slip up, and Burner would learn about the bomb.
Soon it would be time to act. And when it was, he would make Cypher see he backed up his threats.
22
Barn, Unknown Location, Trion City Outskirts, Demeter
“We should get a jump on tomorrow by loading up tonight.” The frizzy haired man’s suggestion was met with groans by the rest of the group.
“Leave it,” Cade replied, putting his arm around the other man. “We should get some rest tonight. Tomorrow’s a big day. Besides, Eggie’s got a bottle of something nice for us to celebrate. Don’t ya, Eggie?”
The man who had kept a distance from the rest for most of the meeting grunted in response.
With that, the terrorists began to make for the door of the barn. Burner backed away silently and blended into the shadows. He watched as the terrorists filed out one by one, making their way toward the farmhouse. Eventually, only two were left, the second in command, Killington, and the mole, Stack. Burner got the impression that they had intentionally been dragging their feet to be left alone together. He was proved correct when the two stopped to have a conversation.
Killington waited for the others to be out of sight before speaking. “That other thing we discussed, are you ready for it?”
Stack looked uncomfortable, but after a moment of fidgeting and glancing at the door again, he stood straighter and looked Killington in the eye. “Yeah, all the preparations are made. I won’t let you down.”
The soldier nodded solemnly. “Good. I’m counting on you.” He held out his hand to the mole. “I want you to know that despite what some of the others think about you, I’ve considered it an honor to work alongside you. You’ve been an invaluable asset to this unit, and your courage to operate right under the Union’s nose has impressed me. Thank you for your service.”
The mole looked shocked about the sudden compliments. Then he nodded and shook Killington’s hand. “I was glad of the opportunity to fight for something real. Thanks for letting me along for the ride.”
With that short exchange finished, the two of them also departed, killing the lights in the barn as they left.
That left Burner alone to sort through the implications of their conversation. It sounded as if Killington and the mole had something of their own in the works, something that they clearly didn’t want Cypher to learn about. The finality of their words also made it sound like two of them were planning to never see each other again.
Another mystery that Burner did not have an answer for at the moment.
The sound of a vehicle caught his attention. He had thought that the two were heading back to the farmhouse, but it seemed at least one of them was heading out. He’d guess it was Stack, running whatever secret mission Killington had sent him on. Burner considered going after him, but the bulk of the terrorists were still here, and therefore so was his best chance of locating the bomb. He’d have to let him go. For now.
He decided to take a quick look around the barn in case he could find any clues they might have left behind. It was not likely he’d find anything, since the barn had seemed mostly empty aside from old rusted equipment. But some of his toughest cases had been cracked through random strokes of luck. Dropped IDs, discarded credsticks, even forgotten datapads had provided him with goldmines of information. Luck was one of the important but often overlooked parts of an investigator’s toolkit. It’s also why you never turn down a potential source of clues, whatever the odds of actually finding something.
It was far too risky to turn the lights in the barn back up, so he instead flicked on a low, focused light from his comm as he stepped carefully inside and began his search.
Sara exhaled in relief when the last of the terrorists finally made their way out of the barn. They had come close to discovering her hiding place several times during their meeting, but luck had been on her side and she had managed to avoid detection.
Now her priority was to somehow regroup with Burner. This meeting had revealed a lot about the terrorists and what they were really planning. Between her and Burner, they should be able to devise a next step for stopping them.
Yet, how she was supposed to find him was still up in the air. Her comm wasn’t receiving any signal, and Burner was a master of not being found when he didn’t want to be. She may have to assume he was just as good at making himself available when he needed to meet. She would head back to the city and visit a few obvious places to see if Burner had at least left any indication of where he would be.
Just as she was carefully picking her way through the dark toward the front of the barn, she heard the door begin to crack open. She quickly ducked low as a beam of bluish light pierced the night sky.
She narrowed her eyes, but they hadn’t completely adjusted to the dark yet and she was unable to make out the figure holding the source of the light. Had one of the terrorists forgotten something and come back? Some brilliant criminals were defeated when they accidentally dropped a key piece of evidence. Seemed this one had at least been smart enough to quickly realize he was missing whatever it was he had dropped.
By the size of his outline, it wasn’t the bulky Killington or the smaller Stack. If it was Cypher, he wouldn’t be wandering around in the dark. That left the lackeys, or perhaps a member of the organization who had not been present in the meeting.
She had been presented with a golden opportunity to get one of the terrorists by themselves and question them. It would be a risky maneuver. If they grappled and made enough noise to alert the others out in the farmhouse, then she’d have to make a rapid escape. But if she did this right, knocked this guy out and dragged him into the woods, she could potentially get the location of the bomb and put an end to this quickly.
With this in mind, she began quietly circling the room, moving to position herself behind the terrorist and prepare for the takedown.
Burner had a sixth sense for when he wasn’t the only one in a room. It was one of those gut instincts that he had developed over the years, this one in response to the common enemy tactic of lying in wait for an ambush. He couldn’t count on both hands how many times some asshole had been hiding under a bed with a shotgun or been crouched behind a desk with a pistol, and that nagging feeling had given him a nudge that had saved his life.
That same instinct now told him there was someone else in the barn with him. He couldn’t say what it was specifically that clued him in. Something in the air, perhaps, or a sound that was not audible on a conscious level but that his subconscious could pick up.
He continued to move, pretending he wasn’t aware of anything while his mind tried to reason why the terrorists would have left someone hiding in the barn. A lookout, perhaps, if there was actually something important hidden here. That would mean he was on the right track. The more concerning explanation was the group had known that Burner had been there the whole time and left someone to deal with him.
Where some people saw problems, Burner tried to see opportunities. He had been given a chance to get one of the terrorists alone. If he played this right, he could get a chance to question him one-on-one and learn about the bomb. The trick was to handle this without making any noise. If the terrorists in the farmhouse heard anything, it was game over.
Burner also had to be prepared to kill whoever it was if it meant keeping them quiet. He slowly pulled a hidden knife into one palm and waited while pretending to inspect a pallet on the eastern wall.
Whoever it was, they were proficient in stealth. Despite straining his senses, Burner couldn’t hear a thing. But he knew they were there. His gut was practically screaming it.
At the last moment, the softest whisper, a single breath, alerted him to someone behind him. He spun, his leg sweeping low to trip his assaulter. His assaila
nt hit the ground, but as Burner prepared to drop atop his prone opponent and place his knife at his throat, he was surprised to find his own legs going out from under him. From the back, the ambusher had kicked his lower leg out from under him.
Burner let himself fall into a roll. His opponent was on top of him instantly, deftly, and the two of them began grappling on the ground. Burner’s knife was pinned to his side, so he used his other arm as leverage against a throat. His opponent was a skilled grappler, but Burner was stronger and larger, and he used that advantage to gain control and flip himself on top of his enemy. As he did, he nearly blinded himself by accident by positioning his arm so that his light was directed at his eyes.
Suddenly, the person he had pinned stopped struggling. “Burner?”
The voice caused Burner to freeze. He loosened his grip on the person and aimed the light down to reveal Sara’s face.
She squinted with the light directed at her. “Would you mind not pointing that right at me?”
He muttered an apology and scrambled off her, then he knelt over to offer her a hand up. “I guess this means you didn’t lose track of your target after all.”
It was hard to tell in the dark, but Burner got the impression that Sara looked offended. “Of course I didn’t. My guy turned out to be Blabbermouth. I saw your mark too.”
“Two Pizzas. Yeah, I caught him sitting down for a bite.”
Sara smiled. Then she ran him through her matches of their profiles with the others who Burner did not get as clear of a view from the door. They both agreed on Cypher’s identity as The Planner, and Burner shared his revelation that Stack was a mole.
“That’s the guy who spoke to Clock after the other’s left, right?” she asked, using Killington’s profile name instead of his real one. “That was an odd conversation. They were talking as if one of them was about to move to the other side of the galaxy.”
