“If a warrior is sentenced to this place, his honor dictates that he serves out that term with dignity. Nobody would dream of trying to escape. In modern times, the facility is used to house mostly normal geltens. The walls and cells are more than enough to hold them,” Mazer explained. Jason was glad he was partnered up with the younger brother this night. Morakar was a bit more harsh and brooding than Mazer, not necessarily a bad thing but not exactly pleasant company for a night of boring recon of a stationary target.
“That makes sense,” Jason said. “But even then, other than a couple of guard towers, I don’t see much in the way of surveillance on the outside.”
“Isn’t that better for us?”
“Yes, but I’ve long ago learned to distrust things that look too easy,” Jason said, continuing to sweep the complex and memorize the details. He knew the interior was much more secure than the outside looked from their multiple intel briefs. The cells were arranged in rows and had heavy steel bars that even Lucky would be unable to simply bend out of the way. The floors along the walkways were also pressure sensitive and individual footsteps were tracked when the cells were all closed and locked; even an increase in walking speed from one of the guards would trigger an alarm and bring more into the area. There were also autonomous, airborne bots that patrolled the entire cellblock in random patterns and would look in on occupied cells to confirm bio signs and scan the room with lasers to ensure the physical dimensions were the same from lockdown.
“We’ll stay another hour and then move to our next position,” Mazer said, moving to keep an eye out for approaching vehicles and letting Jason concentrate on the prison. The next thirty minutes passed in comfortable silence before Mazer spoke up again. “I say this with no intent of giving insult,” he began, “but is Kage as … flighty … as he appears?”
“He’s just excitable,” Jason said a bit defensively. “He’s solid though. We’ve been in more than a few scrapes we thought we weren’t going to walk away from and he’s come through every time.”
“Good enough for me,” Mazer said with a shrug. “I will admit to you, Jason, that I’m nearly overcome by jealousy of you.”
“Me?” Jason said, surprised. “I can’t imagine what for.”
“We train from the time we’re children to the time we die to be the best individual warrior we can be,” Mazer said. “While we organize ourselves into legions, we’re very much in competition with each other and want nothing more than to apply what we’ve learned in real combat, but for generations we’ve done nothing but train. There’s a certain ideology that is also imparted to us, and it’s very much embodied in the mission you and your crew have taken on without being asked.
“The thought of travelling between the stars, finding individual injustices to rectify, and all through that fighting beside Lord Felex as an equal.” He heaved a huge sigh before looking at Jason with a slightly sheepish grin. “I know I’m probably romanticizing it and that there are challenges with the life you lead, but it’s a pleasant daydream I distract myself with.”
“Sometimes you need a new perspective to realize how fortunate you are,” Jason said after a moment. “It’s easy to forget how unique our position really is sometimes when you live the mundane day to day routine. The bickering, eating ship food for months on end, no privacy, annoying friends, no gratitude from those we help … you get the point.”
Mazer just laughed. “A small price to pay, my friend,” he said. “Trust me.”
“Well, I think we’ve exhausted all possibilities at this location,” Jason said. “I think we can confirm the intel claiming a lack of external presence at night. This place reeks of complacency.”
“We’ll be doing them a service,” Mazer said as he started the vehicle. “The excitement of tomorrow night will be the highlight of their careers.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Jason laughed as he stepped out to replace the body panels they’d removed earlier. They sped back down the hill to the first vehicle swap point in a series of drops that would eventually get them back to the warehouse they were squatting in. Along the way, Jason had nothing to do but reflect on how badly things could go wrong the next evening.
*****
The next evening everyone was assembled and already geared up by the airtruck. The temporary barracks and remaining equipment had already been packed up and removed earlier in the day and Meluuk had scrubbed the area clear of any evidence they’d ever been there.
“Are we ready for this?” Jason asked simply, looking around at the major players. He received an affirmative response from everyone. “Good. Let’s load up and get to it.”
They all piled into the airtruck and waited as Meluuk climbed into the driver’s seat and eased them out into the early evening air.
They rode in silence for the hour trip it took to get to their first waypoint: a food prep service that had the contract for Casguard Prison. Meluuk backed up to an unlit corner of the grounds and killed the repulsors on their airtruck. It was another twenty minutes before another large airtruck, emblazoned with the company logo, pulled out of the gated staging area and eased to a stop in front of them, blocking off the view of them to any curious employee who happened to be walking through the yard. The driver of the airtruck climbed out, nodded to Meluuk, and made a big show of inspecting the front, right repulsor pod.
“We’re on,” Crusher said, pulling the hood of his specialized suit over his head. Jason followed suit and the pair climbed out of the vehicle. They slunk across the short distance and slipped up to the rear quarter of the cargo area. Crusher turned and kept watch as Jason opened the hinged access panel that led into the airtruck’s chassis. The area normally contained redundant running gear required by Galvetic law for safety in case the primary drive failed. On this particular airtruck, it had been hollowed out to provide an area big enough for Crusher and Jason to lay side by side in.
Jason slapped Crusher’s shoulder and motioned to the opening. The big warrior contorted his body and slid foot-first into the opening and scrunched himself up against the opposite side. Jason entered afterwards in the same manner and then pulled the panel closed after him.
“This is cozy,” Crusher said as they felt the airtruck lift up and pull out of the food service company yard.
“Yeah,” Jason said. “If this goes to shit we don’t have a lot of room to do anything other than get shot.”
“You worry too much,” Crusher said. “They’ll pull you out and detain you. They’ll shoot me.”
“You think these suits will actually work?” Jason asked after another few minutes.
“Sure,” Crusher said without much conviction. “The scanners at Casguard are over eighty years old and the gate checks are mostly just to satisfy procedure.” Each of them was wearing a specialized suit that was supposed to mask their bio signature from the scanner embedded in the tarmac at the prison’s gate. There was also a specialized liner installed in the compartment they were in that would help that out. The trick was not to completely blank out the sensors and create a dead space that would be equally suspicious. This was one of the parts of the operation that Jason had to trust to the geltens, and he wasn’t happy about that. He would have much preferred to have Twingo set up the truck and test their suits.
As it turned out, the gate inspection would be the least of their concerns. The vehicle didn’t even come to a complete stop. It slowed down, was apparently recognized and waved through, and accelerated through the gate far too fast for a detailed scan with such antiquated equipment. There were some more stops and starts before the airtruck finally came to a halt and they could feel the repulsors power down and the vehicle settled down to the ground. A minute later there was a bang, then two more sharp bangs on the sheet metal.
“Thirty seconds,” Jason whispered, counting down the time in his head. When he reached thirty he grabbed the handle and eased open the body panel they had entered through, pulling his hood off so he could see now that the sun
had fully set and darkness had fallen. The airtruck was in a dimly lit parking area, backed up against a brick retaining wall, exactly as they had planned. The driver could be heard talking boisterously with two of the guards as they went through shift change and prepared for the evening lockdown.
Jason slid soundlessly from his hiding place and helped Crusher do the same, supporting his friend’s bulk as he slid his legs out of the hole and under him. He slowly closed the panel and followed Crusher away from the vehicle as they crept along the wall at a quick but deliberate pace. They were heading for a storm drain at the center of the walled-in parking area that was right up against the retaining wall. Thankfully their luck held and the intel was still accurate, as the holes that used to contain the bolts anchoring the grate were missing and looked to have been for some time. Jason looked around while Crusher squatted down and effortlessly lifted the grate, which must have weighed at least two hundred pounds, and placed it off to the side.
“Go,” Jason whispered. Wordlessly, Crusher squeezed his way down through the opening, his shoulders scrunched up and still barely fitting. Once he was down, he clucked his tongue twice. Hearing the signal and still looking out across the parking area, Jason stepped off the ledge and dropped into the gaping black maw, trusting his friend to arrest his descent.
Crusher caught him by the waist and slowed his fall to a silent, soft touchdown in the cylindrical runoff sewer. “Ready?” he asked. Jason nodded once and crouched down in front of his friend. “Go!” Crusher whispered harshly. Jason leapt up, his newly augmented body easily clearing Crusher’s shoulders and propelling him high enough to grab the lip of the drain. He felt Crusher grab his feet and maneuver up underneath him so he was standing on the big warrior’s shoulders. Once he felt the double tap on his right foot, he reached over and picked the grate up. Just as silently as Crusher had lifted it, he carefully maneuvered it back into place and settled it into its recess in the pavement. He paused for a moment and listened to the continued diversion their driver was providing with his loud and bawdy joking with the guards before letting go of the drain grate and hopping forward, allowing Crusher to once again catch him and lower him without making a loud splash in the shallow water.
“Good to go,” he whispered. Crusher nodded once and started moving deeper into the drain towards the main complex of Casguard Prison. Jason took a quick look around before turning and following him at a distance of ten meters.
After creeping along for another one hundred and fifty meters, they came to another drain. This should be the one that led up into an outbuilding that contained one of the six emergency generators around the complex. According to their intel, it hadn’t been opened for anything other than cursory annual inspections in over a decade, and even then it was only to ensure no equipment had been stolen.
“Looks quiet,” Crusher breathed almost soundlessly. He motioned for Jason to repeat the procedure they’d used to replace the other grate. After leaping up on the big warrior’s shoulders Jason immediately noticed a problem.
“Shit!” he whispered down to Crusher. “The fucking bolts are still in place.”
“This is the right generator shack, isn’t it?”
“It has to be, it’s the only one on this side of the complex,” Jason whispered back. “Watch out, I’m coming down.”
“So, now what?” Crusher asked after Jason was back on the floor of the sewer pipe.
“We need that equipment,” Jason stated simply.
“Can you force it with your new muscles?” Crusher asked, only partially joking.
“Not a chance,” Jason said. “Maybe Lucky could if he braced against something. Those bolts are at least an inch in diameter and there are four of them.”
“I thought something like this might happen,” Crusher said. “Hang on.” He then began pulling components out of the waistline of his sensor-stealthing suit and assembling them. “I never fully trusted Morakar’s network here on Galvetor, so I brought just a tiny bit of insurance.” He handed Jason a compact laser cutting torch. The unit looked fairly capable, but with a woefully inadequate power supply. He would have maybe ninety seconds of cutting time.
“You could have mentioned this earlier before I compressed my spine,” Jason said with clenched teeth. “And we weren’t supposed to bring anything with a power source through the main gate.”
“So are you telling me that little holdout blaster in your waistband is non-powered?” Crusher asked blandly.
“We’re not talking about me,” Jason said loftily. “Now get ready to hold me up there again. I need to figure out how well this little torch is going to cut through that grate.”
Once he was back up on Crusher’s shoulders, he inspected the problem carefully. There was not enough power to cut through the individual rungs of the grate and he would rather not make it too easy for the investigators to determine how they’d gotten into the prison. He brushed along the edge of the heavy iron flange that the grate was bolted into.
“Take your time,” Crusher muttered. “It’s not like you haven’t gained a ton of weight lately or anything.”
“Quiet,” Jason said. “I’m thinking.”
“I don’t believe we have that kind of time, Captain,” Crusher said. Ignoring him, Jason pressed the tip of the torch right up against where the grate met the flange and activated it. The acrid smell of burning metal filled the confined space and the sound of the beam sizzling seemed shockingly loud. He fired the beam a total of four times before slipping it into his waistband, thankful that the laser cutting tool didn’t heat up like a plasma torch at the tip. He pressed against the grate and found that it was still holding fast.
“I’ve cut through the bolts between the grate and the flange,” he whispered down, “but it’s still stuck. I think it may be rusted together.”
“So what do we do? Wait for it to rust the rest of the way through?”
“No, asshole, we’ll need to put enough pressure on it to pop it loose,” Jason ground out. “This means your legs and my arms. I’ll lock my knees and you push up with your legs at the same time I do with my arms. Hopefully we have enough strength to push it off.”
“Sounds like I’m doing most of the work,” Crusher grumbled, but bent his legs so that Jason could lock his knees. “And … push!” At his command, Jason began to push up against the grate, straining his shoulders and triceps against the immense pressure Crusher was putting against him with his powerful legs. The grate held fast, so the pair dug down deep and pushed harder. The pressure against his feet and knees was excruciating, but Jason gritted his teeth and put everything he had into rotating his arms up against the grate.
POP!
The drain grate let loose and, thanks to the enormous force the two were putting on it, went flying up with so much velocity that Jason lost his grip and it went careening around the generator shack with a deafening clang. “Shit!” he exclaimed and grabbed the edge of the hole to pull himself up through the opening and grab the errant chunk of iron.
“Captain! Get back down here!” Crusher said, still trying to stay somewhat quiet. Jason ignored him and grabbed the grate, stopping by the locked doors to listen. If he heard anyone coming he was prepared to dive back down into the hole and replace the drain, hopefully leading to a curious poking around for the noise and not a general alarm raised. If they came in and the drain grate was lying across the room, the mission would be scrubbed and they would lose their only chance to get Fordix out. While he was still not completely clear on why they needed to do that in the first place, a job was a job and it was worth doing right.
After a tense five-minute wait, Jason relaxed and made his way back over to the open drain. “Still down there?” he called.
“Where else would I be?”
“Just get up here,” Jason shot back. “We’re clear and we’re also losing time.” He stepped back so Crusher could leap up and get a hold of the edge and pull himself through. This drain was wider than the previous so he ha
d no issue pulling his bulk up and into the room. Once he was in, they went behind a dusty equipment rack and found what they were after: two large duffle bags.
They quickly and efficiently pulled out their gear and inventoried it before stripping off the skintight sensor-stealthing suit and donning their tactical gear complete with load-bearing vests and personal weaponry, although the latter was on the light side compared to what they normally carried. The biggest weapons they had were high-capacity stun rifles that were designed primarily for riot control situations. The prison guards were not their enemies nor were they technically combatants; they would not be shooting their way out if they were caught.
Once they were geared up, Crusher went over to look at the drain flange as Jason maneuvered the grate back over to the edge. “Nice job cutting all the way through the bolts, Captain,” Crusher said sarcastically. Jason peeked over his shoulder to see what he was talking about. Sure enough, two of the bolts, at opposite corners, hadn’t been cut all the way through. Each had retained about an eighth of an inch and that was what had held the grate down. Though the heat had weakened the steel, there was still enough left to hold the grate fast.
“Hmm,” Jason said. “Sorry about that.”
“Apologize to my knees,” Crusher said. “Here, hand me the bags.” Jason began handing him their discarded gear and Crusher threw it down the drain before jumping back into the sewer himself. Jason took a final look around before hopping back down as well. He had fully expected Crusher to grab him again, so he wasn’t ready when he continued to fall and crashed into the floor of the sewer with a bone-jarring impact that made his teeth slam together.
“Hmm,” Crusher said, “sorry about that.”
“I seriously think I may shoot you before this is over. Now get me back up there so I can replace the damn grate, you big baby,” Jason said.
Omega Force 5: Return of the Archon Page 11
