Fire with Fire, Second Edition

by Charles E Gannon

  One bright white silhouette was just entering the main room, the suggestion of another one, maybe two, hanging back in the corridor’s entryway.

  Trevor pulled Peak’s pistol out, sighted carefully, high in the first silhouette’s chest, and fired twice.

  The silhouette went down, and after a quick, blind fusillade, the other two ducked back.

  So did Trevor—only to discover the hostage trying to pull the tape off her mouth. For one incongruously mischievous moment, he was tempted to make her leave it there—but toggled his radio, instead: “Crossbow, I have the package.”

  “Copy that, Quarrel. I see the fuse now, and have locked on. Ordnance is hot and ready to fly. Waiting your mark.”

  “Roger, Crossbow. Out.” Turning: “Into the ball. Right now. No talking. We’ve got to go.”

  To her credit, she was already pulling the activation tab. The ball’s two halves burgeoned outwards; she sat between them. Trevor nodded approvingly, sidestepped back to the doorway; a thermal glimmer suggested the kidnappers had returned to their earlier covering position at the doorway into the corridor.

  This was the tricky part—how to get the loaded rescue ball from the storm room to the exfiltration point he’d chosen. He hoped the last four of the bastards hadn’t had the time to fully suit up; if they had, his plan might not work. But their lack of both time and discipline was on his side. Of course, there was also the backup plan—to call in the heavy artillery—but even in the storm room, there was no guarantee that he and the hostage wouldn’t wind up as corpses themselves. Rockets tend not to be discriminating about who they kill, and the walls of the storm room were designed to keep out brief bursts of solar radiation—not hypersonic projectiles.

  Trevor turned back, found himself face to face with a Day-Glo orange and reflective-white bubble, topped by a set of heavy handles and a winch loop. He grabbed a handle, moved the ball to one side of the pressure door, then set the MP-5 to full automatic. Twenty-five rounds left: not enough to win a gun battle, but that wasn’t his plan anyway. He just had to make sure that they kept their heads down for a few seconds.

  Releasing the MP-5 to hang on its sling, and taking Peak’s Sig Sauer in a steady, two-handed grip, he swung to the opposite side of the pressure door and leaned out a bit. From that angle, he could just see the small window in the outer airlock door: a plate-sized thermal anomaly. Taking careful aim, he started to fire. On the third shot, he hit it—

  The klaxon started to shriek yet again—now in the triple-time yowling that meant a critical pressure breach. The smoke gusted out in that direction, along with a slow cyclone of papers, napkins, and other rubbish. Trevor stowed the pistol, grabbed the MP-5—just as one of the kidnappers poked his head around the corner. Trevor sent a snap-burst—three, maybe four rounds—in that general direction. The figure ducked back—hit or not, Trevor couldn’t tell.

  And didn’t have the time to ascertain: grabbing the top of the rescue ball, he lifted its sixty-three kilos as though it were twenty-five—thankful for the 0.37 Mars gravity that made such a feat possible. He sprinted out the door—the ball and occupant bouncing sharply off the jamb as he went—and then through the already-diminishing maelstrom of escaping air. Halfway across the room, he spun, fired a quick burst at the corridor entry without stopping to check if there were any targets. Trevor just wanted to keep their heads down long enough to get out, because once the kidnappers had all clambered into their spacesuits, there would be plenty of real targets—too many.

  As Trevor reached the far wall, he pulled out the ten-millimeter pistol and emptied the remainder of its magazine in two vertical lines, about four feet apart. The rounds did not penetrate, but the metal prefab sheeting was bent, and, at the impact apexes, ruptured. He snapped down his helmet, produced and opened the last small packet he had removed from his LSU: a 1.5-meter cord of C-8 plastic explosive with a pinch-contact igniter—all together, about the size of a shot glass. He stuck one end of the plastique on the wall above the left set of bullet holes, unspooled the rest in a chest-high arc to end at the top of the other vertical line of scars, yanked the four-meter microwire igniter leads out straight—and turned on his heel to fire another burst back at the passageway behind him.

  Just in time: an emerging figure ducked back, firing two wild rounds.

  Wild rounds, yes—but they weren’t blind, this time: they could see him just as well as he could see them, now that the smoke had been sucked out. Time to go.

  Dragging the rescue ball so that it was behind his body, Trevor let the MP-5 fall loose on its lanyard and pulled the safety sleeve off the pinch contacts. He pressed them together.

  The blast was not loud in the thin Martian atmosphere, but it tumbled him off the side of the rescue ball. Catching up the MP-5 in his right hand, and the ball in his left, he toggled his helmet’s commo bar with his jaw. “Crossbow, I am removing the package.”

  “Quarrel, I see your new doorway. We are locked and off-safety.”

  At the jagged hole that he had blasted in the side of the dome, Trevor had to pause to maneuver the rescue ball through without slicing it open on the torn edges of the prefab, all the time keeping his body angled so he could keep an eye on the passageway. Good thing: two spacesuited figures came around that corner, one high, one low—the high one firing with his own MP-5.

  Trevor crouched, aimed, dumped the entire magazine: the standing shooter went down, the other one put a crease in the left arm of Trevor’s suit before ducking back behind the doorjamb.

  Trevor rolled the rescue ball through the gap—feeling the contents thump awkwardly around as he did so—and popped out into the tan-pink dust swirls of a fifty-kph Martian breeze. “I am out—and it is a hot exfil, Crossbow. Repeat, hot exfil.”

  “You call it, Quarrel. I have you only five meters from the target zone, and I see thermal blooms in the building behind you.”

  “Do you have smoke?”

  “Negative: live warheads only.”

  “Give me my range.”

  “You are at twelve meters from target. Do you see the gully—at your two o’clock?”

  “Roger. Good eyes.”

  “You are still danger-close.”

  “Just fire on my mark.”

  Trevor swerved in the direction of the gully, felt something clip him in the rear of his right thigh as he pushed the rescue ball over its edge. As he dove into the natural trench himself, he yelled, “Mark!”

  There was a half second of silence, and then, even through the thin Martian atmosphere, there was a momentary, soaring roar—like an up-dopplering freight train driven by jets—which passed almost directly overhead. It was cut short by a tremendous blast behind him, which sent fragments of stone and metal spattering into and over the trench, and which painted the surrounding rocks with a flickering glaze of orange and red light. Then the light was gone, and, a moment later, the concluding rumble of the detonation had faded as well.

  Trevor stood up as the last pieces of debris came down. The entire northeast corner of the dome was gone, some of the edges pounded inward, others torn outwards. Thermal imaging showed the heat of some quickly smothering fires—and one or two prone, rapidly cooling biomasses. Any others were either cowering further inside—or had been reduced to protoplasm.

  “Quarrel, we show all clear. Confirm.”

  “Crossbow, the LZ is clear.”

  “We’ll be there in fifteen seconds. Quarrel, your biomonitors are showing us three suit breaches, two wounds. One of those breaches hasn’t been fully autosealed. Recommend you use suit patches all speed.”

  “Already on it, Crossbow.”

  Ten seconds later, the transatmospheric assault VTOL—a cubist wasp with ordnance bristling under its wings and belly—swerved into sight, sucking up coils and curlicues of the tan-pink dust as it banked, straightened, and hovered, just a foot off the ground. Trevor picked up the rescue ball, discovered that his left leg was wobbly, got a hand from a tan-and-gray spacesuited figure
who hopped down from the payload bay. Together, they hoisted the ball inside the VTOL with one heave.

  “Thanks, Carlos.”

  “N’sweat, sir. Up you go.”

  Leg shaking, Trevor rolled into the VTOL, heard the warning klaxon and saw the orange lights: imminent high-speed closure of the bay’s pressure door. Which it did with a bump and a metallic slap. Trevor lay still for a second, feeling the noradrenal rush begin to fade, prepared to suppress the post-op shakes his body—and mind—always wanted to have, but which he never permitted. Then he propped himself up on his elbows—

  And saw a woman emerge from the rescue ball like Venus on the half-shell, her figure still discernible through the heavy clothes and tattered duct-tape remains. She must have seen him looking at her: raven-black hair fanned out as she quickly turned her head toward him. Her startling green eyes smiled when they met his—and tears started to run down her cheeks.

  Trev smiled back. “Hi, sis. It’s good to see you, too.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  TELEMACHUS

  Commodore James Beall leaned back and glared at Trevor Corcoran. “So let’s add up the list of violations to which you have already admitted. Exercising multiple command prerogatives in a unit to which you are not assigned, including illegal access to communication logs, orbital imagery, meteorological projections, and counterintelligence databases. Conceiving, planning, and executing an operation with the assets of said unit, without consulting or even informing its actual command staff. Requisitioning combat equipment—including a fully loaded attack sled—and authorizing the application of lethal force. Suborning three persons of this command, and inciting them to desertion—”

  “Hold on. I gave them orders—and they didn’t know I didn’t have the authority to do so.”

  “Nice try. They already told us they were operating as volunteers.”

  “Bullshit. They’re lying. They’re just trying to keep me out of the brig.”

  “Commander Corcoran, you’re the one dishing out the bullshit. You have personal connections to all three, and they all know damn well that you’re not a part of this command. Hell, just three years ago, you were their CO. You’d be a shitty SEAL officer if your men weren’t ready to volunteer to get your ass out of a sling.”

  The door opened. “Not his ass, Commodore: his sister’s.” Downing walked in, Elena behind him.

  The commodore stood, stiffly, but also cautious. “Sir, I’m not sure what you think you’re do—”

  Richard already had his credentials out; he handed them to Commodore Beall as he walked past, moving to Trevor’s side.

  Beall looked at the credentials, eyebrows rising slightly. Then he put them on the table, slid them down toward Richard.

  “Very well, sir. You certainly have the authority to be here and to watch these proceedings, but—”

  “Commodore, I also have the authority to end these proceedings and dismiss whatever charges you have recorded against Lieutenant Commander Corcoran.”

  “Mr. Downing, with all due respect—”

  “Commodore, Commander Corcoran was operating on my orders.”

  Trevor managed not to start in surprise—or smile.

  Beall frowned. “Sir, you’ll forgive me if I find that extremely improbable. You’ve been Marside less than three hours.”

  “I wasn’t aware you were monitoring my travel itinerary.”

  “You’d be surprised what we monitor here, Mr. Downing—or actually, you shouldn’t be surprised, of all people.”

  “Regardless, rescuing his sister was an urgent and immediate priority, and had to be done without taking any chance of alerting her captors to the operation.”

  “Well then, Mr. Downing, I would appreciate you telling me why it was necessary to leave me out of the loop—and, sir, if I don’t like the answer, I will have no choice but to lodge a protest.”

  “Feel free to do so, Commodore Beall—and I recommend that you skip all the intermediate steps and send it to your very highest superior.”

  “Admiral Tanaka?”

  “No, President Liu. Or didn’t you note the clearance and rank-equivalent on my ID?”

  “I did sir, but—”

  Downing just kept staring at Beall.

  Who ultimately shrugged and looked away. “Sir, why did it have to be this way—or are you just retroactively covering Trevor’s ass?”

  Trevor wondered if Downing would be able to avoid smiling at Beall’s insightful question. Elena—still standing at the other end of the room—continued to look tense. She’d never seen high-stakes interagency poker, in which each party plays its authority cards until someone blinks and the game is over. And Beall had blinked.

  Richard’s voice was level, nonconfrontational. “Commodore Beall, I am unable to answer your question due to matters of national security.”

  “Oh, fer Chrissakes—look: I’d have been happy to help. And I can keep a lid on things. We could have worked together—under the radar, out of sight of the higher brass.”

  “I know, and I appreciate your willingness to help. But, Commodore, do you realize that that same kind of willingness has now landed Lieutenant Winfield, Chief Petty Officer Witkowski, and Petty Officer Cruz in your brig?”

  “Okay, I’ll let ’em off—as Trev always knew I would.”

  Downing shook his head. “Commodore, I wasn’t trying to get them released, nor call attention to the rather striking inconsistency in your own insistence upon proper chain of command procedure—”

  Beall flushed. “Now, listen—”

  “What I was trying to indicate is that we had to keep Ms. Corcoran’s name completely out of all reports, and out of all media. As far as anyone knows, she was never abducted. And that means you do not have to lie about having mounted a rescue operation—because you didn’t. Nor did your superiors.” Downing paused. “Do you understand?”

  Beall turned round to look at Elena, looked back at Richard. “Yes, I do. Sir.”

  “Very well. I have one last directive for you to expedite.”

  “Very well.”

  “I would like the three SEALs you have in the brig released and issued immediate medical furloughs, with transport passes for Earth.”

  “What? Why? My men—”

  “Commodore. Those men are no longer ‘your’ men. We can’t have them talking to their teams.”

  “And I can’t spare them, Mr. Downing. I’m pretty shorthanded up here; I’ve only got two teams in the shack and these three are my most experienced—”

  “Commodore, I’m sorry, but this cannot be a matter of debate. And I would also appreciate your writing them sterling letters of recommendation should it become necessary to discharge them from service.”

  Beall went back in his seat as if he had been hit in the chest. “Discharge them from—? Downing, this can’t be necessary. These are good men—the best. They can keep a secret—Christ, they’re already sitting on a few. You don’t need to—”

  “Commodore. Your appreciation of them is duly noted. And I assure you, this will not in any way damage their careers. Now, if you would kindly begin the necessary paperwork . . .”

  Beall frowned. “Not as though I have much choice, anyway.”

  “I’m sorry, but no, you don’t.”

  Beall looked over at Trevor and jerked his head toward the door. “We’re through. And Trev—”

  Trevor heard the shift in tone, stopped.

  “Sorry about your father. You too, Ms. Corcoran.”

  * * *

  “Thank you, Uncle Richard,” Trevor said. “Those were some inspired lies.”

  Downing shrugged, smiled as they entered the transit car.

  “But how did you find out that Beall had detained me? Hell, I didn’t even know you were on-planet yet—”

  The car’s doors closed with a rough sigh. “No, but evidently Elena did.”

  Trevor slid into the seat next to his sister, smiled at her. “Nice work, sis.” The car started its
pneumatic journey down into the residential levels of Syrtis City.

  “One good rescue deserves another, I always say.”

  Richard leaned back as he looked at her. “You do seem remarkably well-collected after your ordeal.”

  “Which only goes to prove that you were right about my having missed a career in the theater,” she said. “I’m just looking forward to getting into a hot bath. And then shaking. A lot.”

  Trevor resisted the impulse to nod in empathy. “I’m sorry, El, but I’ve got to ask: have you remembered anything else about the bastards?”

  “No, just what I told you in the VTOL. They were careful not to talk around me and wouldn’t answer questions. But they seemed impatient—as though they were waiting for orders and didn’t know what to do next.”

  Richard nodded. “Cat’s-paws. Pawns in someone else’s game.”

  “Whose?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe the megacorporations—but kidnapping the daughter of a recently deceased hero is daft. Frankly, I can’t see how it would benefit any of the players we know about. And I’ve got another mystery I’d like solved.” He turned to Elena. “How in blazes did you know I was here already?”

  “Because you’ve been fussing about Dad’s memorial for two months, making sure we’d all be here on time, were not traveling together—and making sure it was timed so that Mom’s schedule didn’t allow her to come out. Don’t give me the big-eyed innocent look: it might not be obvious to her, but it was to me. If the main purpose for this memorial was to honor Dad’s memory, you’d have made sure that Mom was here.”

  Trevor was suddenly aware that his mouth was open: What was this all about?

  Richard’s response only made his confusion worse. “No fooling you, eh, El?”

  Trevor felt the car buck sideways and then drop: they were in a descent tube, now. “If it’s not too much trouble, would one of you please tell me what the hell you’re talking about?”

  Elena nodded toward Downing. “Dad’s memorial is a cover for something else. Richard and Dad used to do this sort of thing all the time. They created social events which were an excuse for them to be in the same place at the same time—so they could get their work done. And that’s what this memorial is: a cover.”