by M. D. Cooper
It got smiles out of Ricket and Rogers. Kylie knew the positive response would make Marge happy.
Aloud to Rogers and Ricket, Kylie said, “Join me when you can. We don’t know when the vid that led us here was made. These people could be hurt, or worse. Maybe once this is over we’ll finally have some answers about what is happening on this damn rock.”
Kylie would like nothing better than some solid answers, but she knew sometimes life wasn’t that pat. Sometimes you were just left wondering forever. What would turn a decent man with passionate beliefs into someone capable of genocide?
Rogers held out his hand. Kylie and then Ricket placed theirs on his. “On the flip side. Once we find Winter, we really really need to have a good meal,” Rogers said.
“Amen to that.” Finally, something Kylie could look forward to.
* * * * *
They rode the lift down to the bottom levels of the asteroid. The moist air was thicker, hotter, and seemed to cling to Rogers’ face.
If anyone saw the doors open, they would have wondered why no one exited. Of course, three people did, but the vanilla guards patrolling Facility 99 didn’t stand a chance of seeing the stealthed figures.
Rogers followed Ricket’s marker on his HUD as Kylie moved off to the left. Every so often he could make out a footprint when she stepped in soft dirt, but otherwise there was no visual trace of her.
They reached their destination—a set of doors mounted into the rock—only to find a guard leaning against them.
Ricket laughed.
Ricket laughed and he saw her rise on his HUD.
Rogers complied, watching via the team’s combat net as Ricket approached the guard leaning against the doors. He couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed like she might have touched his neck.
The guard seemed to slump a bit, then go rigid. After a moment he rose a few centimeters off the ground and then moved next to the doors, lifted by an invisible force.
A minute later they were inside the room, and at the main power junction for the facility’s lights.
Rogers found the main breaker and prepared to flip it off.
Rogers gave a soft sigh, and Ricket chuckled in response.
STORM
STELLAR DATE: 11.05.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Facility 99
REGION: Chimin-1, Hanoi System (independent)
While Rogers and Ricket had gotten into position, Kylie had worked her way into the worker’s breakroom.
Inside, she found two CSF agents drinking coffee at a small table. She walked quietly toward them, drawing her pulse pistol for a stun shot.
Just as she was about to fire, one of the men rose, turned, and walked right into her. Coffee splashed across her body, disabling her armor’s stealth.
“What the—” the man cried right before Kylie shot him in the chest, knocking him backward. The second man rushed toward the door and Kylie chased after him—just as Ricket told her they were ready.
She caught up with the man, grabbing his wrist and twisted it behind his back, while giving Ricket a countdown to kill the lights. The man squirmed, and she saw a small device in his ear and pulled it out.
“Physical comm unit?” she asked.
“Kylie Rhoads?” the man grunted, apparently recognizing her voice. “Yeah, the word’s out. Everyone knows you’re here. Not that it’s a big surprise.”
“So?” Kylie asked before punching him in the face and throwing him against the back wall.
The first man was rising to his feet and Kylie took a deep breath as she steadied her pulse rifle and fired a shot into him, and then his comrade.
She crept out of the break room and down a dark hallway, saw the shape of a man through an office window, and quietly stepped inside. The figure was a man in tattered clothes, only half lying on a table, his head tilted up toward the ceiling, wide eyes unblinking.
One of the workers. Kylie knew it was futile but still checked for a pulse. There wasn’t one. His eyes were a milky white, almost as though they were covered in a layer of cream that completely masked the color of his irises.
Kylie grated her jaw back and forth as the anger mounted.
Marge’s words only cemented her resolve.
Kylie moved out of the office toward the double doors at the end of the hall, reaching them just as the lights shut off and more than one terrified cry came from deeper in the structure.
* * * * *
Kylie pushed through the doors into what had been the grain processing and sorting facility. Not that it served that purpose anymore.
She’d entered the lab from the videos. Vats lined one wall, and equipment covered a pair of long tables where the workers were shackled.
A pair of guards came into view, lights mounted on their rifles as they swept the space. Kylie’s armor reported only seventy-percent stealth capability and she decided not to rely on sneakiness as she circled the first table, opening fire on the guards.
The workers ducked down, some crying out in fear as the firefight erupted around them.
“Stay down!” Kylie screamed at them.
Shit…so much for a clean strike.
More guards entered, and indiscriminate weapons fire streaked across the room. Kylie took a breath and ducked behind a table. The CSF officers on her HUD were advancing on either side, working on flanking her.
When the guards were within a few meters, Kylie broke cover, rising and firing on the woman to her left. Then she pivoted and shot the closest enemy on her right. She kept her bursts short, worried that one of the workers would stand up and take a shot in the head.
Return fire ricocheted off her armor, but Kylie barely noticed as she fired on two more of the guards.
friend?”
A second later the lights snapped back on and the full horror of what the worker’s situation hit Kylie all at once. The men and women cowering on the floor, were shaking with weakness as much as fear. It was as though they were deliberately being worked to death.
Directly ahead of her, stood five remaining CSF officers—all in armor with helmets in place. The one in the center had her arm wrapped around a bruised and battered man, a ballistic pistol pressed against the whimpering prisoner’s temple.
“One shot is all it takes,” the guard said, gripping the hostage’s neck. “Look around. You know I’ll do it.”
“I don’t want any more dead,” Kylie said. “Let him go and let’s discuss this woman to woman.” Kylie raised one hand in a show of good faith, while lowering her rifle, though not loosening her grip on it.
The woman laughed. “I’m not talking about shit until you kick that rifle over to me.”
Not to mention the fact that Rogers and Ricket were fully stealthed, creeping up behind the guards. Still, things could go very wrong for that poor hostage.
“All right…” Slowly, Kylie lowered her rifle to the floor and kicked it toward the security personnel. One of the guards bent to pick it up, but never took his eyes off her.
“Now we talk.” Kylie took a few steps forward. The woman holding the hostage took a step back, shoving the barrel of her pistol harder into the man’s temple.
He gave a cry of dismay, his thin arms trembling at his sides.
“Where’s Raynes? Where are my people, Winter and Bubbs?” Kylie asked as she gingerly placed one foot in front of the other, taking one more step.
“Where you will never find them. Chimin-1 is a dying rock. You should have got off when you could—Raynes gave you that chance out of respect for your family.”
Rage surged through Kylie. “Respect? You’re all sick fucks. From what I can tell, Chimin is dying only because of you. Here’s your one chance at a deal. Turn over the hostage, help me get medical attention for these people, and I’ll let you go. But first, I’m going to need to know where Raynes took my men. Where they’re hiding. I want him, not some hired thug.”
The woman’s eyebrows rose. “Thug? Is that what you think I am?”
“You’re holding a weak and injured man as a human shield—you’re worse than a thug. You’re an insult to thugs everywhere. I know better scum than you.”
“I’m a revolutionary,” the woman whispered with a zealot’s passion in her voice, her eyes widening behind her helmet’s clear visor. “I thought you of all people would understand. What your family started, their legacy and what they carried out—”
“Turned my father into a monster and painted my entire family as villains to anyone with the hint of a conscience. Don’t talk about him like he was a savior.”
“He was. He spoke the truth.” She squinted at Kylie. “I have to say, I’m disappointed in your narrow view. If you won’t join us—” She gestured, shoving her pistol against her captive’s temple. The hostage squeezed his eyes shut, sucking on his bottom lip as he prepared for the worst.
The ceiling grate above them began to smolder. The female security guard gasped and looked up. Kylie seized the moment and closed the distance between herself and the hostage-taking thug.
Somehow, she managed to get a hand on the woman’s gun an instant before she fired, the round streaking through the air just above the hostage’s head.
Kylie tried to wrench the gun free, but she wasn’t strong enough to best powered armor. It was, however, enough that the woman loosened her grip on the hostage.
Then the grate fell to the ground and a jet-back female figure fell through, her left arm ending in a long-barreled gun-arm.
Bubbs.
Gunfire erupted just as Kylie got the hostage away from the female CSF officer. Rogers fired a shot from behind the guards, distracting the enemy right before one of them fired on the hostage.
Kylie half-pushed, half-carried him around one of the tables. “Stay there,” she ordered.
The man nodded, biting on his thumb, tears running down his cheeks. “Thank you, thank you…”
Kylie didn’t reply, instead turning back to the fight. The female CSF officer had been knocked down, but struggled back to her feet before charging toward Kylie.
The woman’s gun was gone, but that didn’t seem to stop her—she must have believed that her powered armor could best Kylie’s. She was probably right.
As the woman lunged, Kylie spun to the side, and slapped a hand on the attacker’s shoulder, dropping a dose of nano.
The woman spun, and then her armor froze and she toppled over. “Ahhh!”
“Stay there or I’ll be forced to kill you, which would be a shame because I told myself I was going to cut back—but I’m willing to make exceptions.”
The woman snarled up at Kylie, straining and grunting as she tried to move. Now, instead of her armor enhancing her strength, it just bottled it all up in a convenient little shell.
When Kylie turned back to her team, the battle was already won. Rogers was bent over, breath labored, while Ricket checked on one of the enemies who was still moving.
Bubbs stood in the center of the group, her long gun-arm—one Kylie had never seen before—sweeping across the room.
“Bubbs,” Kylie said and motioned for the woman to come over.
The flow armor slid off Bubbs’ face as she approached. Her face was downcast and she pulled a rifle off her back, handing it to Kylie.
Kylie immediately recognized Dolph when she saw it—Winter’s favorite weapon. Someone else using it seemed like sacrilege, like stepping on the dead.
“Where’s Winter and Raynes?” Kylie asked Bubbs.
“They took him before I got free. I managed to find his gun, but not him…”
Kylie turned back to the woman in the locked armor.
“Where’s Raynes? Where did he take Winter? Talk!”
The woman only shook her head inside her helmet and scowled out at Kylie.
Kylie wanted to pull the woman out of her armor and beat her senseless but knew that wouldn’t help matters. Instead, she turned back to Bubbs.
“Nice moves, Bubbs. How’d you get away?” Kylie asked as Rogers approached.
Bubbs nodded. “We were fed lunch. I suspected it was poisoned but Winter ate it anyway. When he was affected, they came and got him. He couldn’t fight them off. I managed to escape, but by the time I eluded them and found my gun arm, I couldn’t pick up any trace of Winter or where they had taken him.”
Her face was so mournful and disappointed that Kylie felt bad for her.
“I’ve never seen you use that arm before,” Kylie said, looking at the long, sleek barrel, a tri-fire weapon unless she missed her guess.
“It was the only one I could find in their evidence lockup,” Bubbs said, giving the weapon attached to her body a disapproving look. “It’s from before. Back in the war.”
She didn’t seem to want to say more, and Kylie let it drop.
“They say anything about where they took Winter?” Rogers asked, eyes narrowing angrily as he regarded Bubbs. “Or did you just get out and save your own skin.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” Bubbs said and seemed to struggle to get the words out. “I tried to hunt him down, but I lost the trail…like I just said.” The pitch of her voice crept up, clearly offended and on edge. Kylie let it go—her team felt what they felt. She couldn’t regulate it for them.
Rogers, however, didn’t know when to quit. “You gave up on him.”
“No,” Bubbs growled. “I don’t give up. I
got out of there the best I could, the fastest. There were just too many of them and by the time I managed to get my weapon—”
Rogers opened his mouth to speak, but Kylie held up her hand. She could see Rogers’ flushed cheeks and the menace in his eyes. He and Winter were friends, he was upset, but she wouldn’t let him tear Bubbs down out of worry over Winter.
“We’ll find him,” Kylie said. “Both of you, I promise. We’ll get Winter back. Knowing him, he’s already taken some ship over and is stealing a fortune from this place.”
Bubbs’ face twitched into a smile. “I’d help him, if I knew where he was.”
“Are you ready to work, Bubbs?”
She nodded. “Absolutely. Whatever you need, Captain.”
Kylie wiped her brow as she surveyed the room. “Head back to Precinct 3. Take this prisoner and any other surviving guards with you. Lock her up until I get a chance to question her. You’re the new warden. Don’t let anyone in who isn’t one of us. You able to handle that alone?”
Bubbs glanced down at her gun-arm. “With this thing, I could take out the whole station. Promised myself I’d never put it on again…” she paused and swallowed before meeting Kylie’s eyes. “Consider it done.”
“You sure you can handle that?” Rogers pressed. “You—”
His mouth snapped shut and he glared at Kylie before walking away. Kylie would deal with him once he cooled down. It wasn’t like Rogers to fly off the handle so easily.
“He’s just worried about Winter,” Kylie said, looking back down at their prisoner. “You’re going to need to find a cart or something for them all.”
“Yeah,” Bubbs nodded. “About Rogers…he’s not saying anything I haven’t told myself, haven’t heard from others. I’m a mechanized soldier. It’s my job to charge forward, win at all costs, but there’s only so much I can do. There was no way out of that cell until they opened the door.” Bubbs looked like she was going to say something else, but instead reached down and grabbed the armored enemy, dragging her out the room by the collar.
