by Nick Cole
“Nachu funfvon meks!” shouted the wobanki over the rattle and cacophony of the cockpit. Proximity alert alarms were now bursting forth with shrieking regularity.
“Now!” shouted Rechs.
Rechs backed off the throttles completely. The view outside the canopy pivoted sharply away from the underbelly of the giant automated freighter, and then the Obsidian Crow was dropping like a rock too.
It was like flying inside an avalanche.
It was the war bot that began to moan first. The terror in its basso rumble suggested it perceived an approaching end to its runtime. Then Prisma gave a short scream and the wobanki uttered some sort of battle yowl. Rechs just clenched his jaw. He was fighting to avoid most of the small asteroid-sized falling rocks and watch the altimeter at the same time. They had to drop below two thousand feet before he could bring the power back in. The drop had started at ten thousand.
The lush mountains of Andalore raced up at them, and Prisma found herself pushing back into her seat as falling debris streaked past the ship and into the massive canyon below.
“Restart ignition masters,” Rechs ordered.
The wobanki flicked a couple of switches—and nothing happened. The wobanki roared. It wasn’t a happy roar.
Rechs reached over and slammed his fist against the main engine master restart cycler. The thing flickered to life and the engines came online with a less than enthusiastic hum.
“Thirty-five hundred… bringing in the power now. Full deflectors to ventral array,” Rechs shouted above the scream of atmosphere whistling past the canopy.
They fell another thousand feet. Rechs went to full throttle as soon as they dropped below two thousand. Then they shot away from the avalanche of falling rock and into the misty mountains of Andalore.
“All right…” Rechs said. “Let’s find a relay station to cut into and find out what’s going on here.”
23
The parkland in front of the Republic’s Sector Defense Administration Campus on Andalore was a richly landscaped parade ground off-limits to the public and dominated by a courtyard of statues, used only for promotion ceremonies and grand soirees with visiting Republican elites. Andalore Prime, the capital of Andalore itself, spread away from the manicured confines of the government buildings that occupied the best property within the city. At most times, the area was quiet, even peaceful.
But at the moment, a small war had broken out.
Republican legionnaires were everywhere and shooting at everyone. Squads of them were coming in via dropship. A Brotherhood fast attack ship was pulling some kind of op on the Defense Admin’s main citadel. The big ship had made an unauthorized landing on the platform and had immediately taken out the local security detail. Brotherhood bounty hunters were currently holding the platform and the roof. Whatever was going inside the citadel was unknown to the legionnaire command structure at present.
Captain Antullus, the point in command of the legionnaire reaction force assigned to handle the situation, had issued orders to go ahead and terminate everyone involved, keeping civ casualties to a minimum, if possible. In other words, it was a full-scale free-for-all with pros shooting at pros. The Brotherhood were firing down on the legionnaires, who’d been forced by Antullus’s bad decision to land in the courtyard as opposed to assaulting the platform by air and controlling the high ground, as per Leej Sergeant Mach’s unsolicited recommendation.
In the midst of all this was Tyrus Rechs. The bounty hunter and the wobanki had ended up in the middle of the wild firegfight while trying to recon the location and lock down a positive ID on any Brotherhood who might be doing the same. Now they were both pinned down by a heavy crossfire between the two opposing elements, as the leej squad and the Brotherhood snipers on the tower went to blasters with the intent to kill.
The wobanki popped up and unloaded both barrels from its blaster on a nearby legionnaire NCO who was trying to organize some type of flanking assault. The intuition, combat experience, and good sense of that NCO—Sergeant Mach—were thereby lost. Antullus would go on to receive a commendation for his actions, and a promotion to major.
Rechs popped a fragger and heaved it over the pedestal he was crouched behind. That was when he noticed two things.
One, the lumbering war bot advancing through the courtyard dropping legionnaires left and right. The war bot was followed closely by tiny Prisma Maydoon, with a needle blaster of her own.
And two, the statue he’d just thrown the grenade over. It was a statue of him. But back in the day. Back when Andalore had been a hot spot in the Savage Wars. He’d been called the Butcher of Andalore then. Except this statue had a bronze plaque that stated he was the Liberator of Andalore.
Rechs pushed a thousand images of that terrible conflict out of his head and waited for the fragger to explode right where the NCO was no doubt receiving medical attention from noob leejes gathered to protect their wounded. It did, and those leejes were thrown into the air by the blast.
Things like that—lobbing a grenade at people who were trying to rescue a wounded soldier, a wounded leej—things like that were why they called you the Butcher.
Things like that, except on a grand scale.
And then he reminded himself that he’d always played to win, never mind the means. At least in combat. There were no rules. And there could only be one winner.
That had been the problem. The House of Reason and the Senate Council were always insisting on rules, and oversight, and acceptable losses. That’s what had driven Caspo and so many others to try and take matters into their own hands in their misguided attempts to save the Republic from itself.
The Repub had hated the Legion. It hated the fact that it needed the Legion to defend itself. And it especially hated guys like Rechs and Caspo. Guys who’d inspired the phrase, “When you go to war… go Legion on your enemies.”
A legionnaire squad took up a position inside the entrance to the park and laid down heavy fire from a crew-served N-50. The big war bot now was forced to take cover as well. Its enhanced impervisteel frame could generally stand up to most light arms, but the powerful N-50 could knock it down. And if the leejes brought out anti-armor, it would be game over for the killing machine.
Two leejes rushed Rechs’s flank, weaving in and out of the statues to get close. Rechs leaned against the pedestal beneath the statue of himself and squatted down. He waited for his targeting reticule to fall on the lead trooper, then he fired, blowing off the guy’s head. The next trooper dove and managed to roll behind cover as Rechs chased him with a blossom of auto-fire.
The heavy, crew-served N-50 at the park entrance continued to chew up everything that moved.
So Rechs didn’t move.
The second trooper popped from cover and shot Rechs in the chest plate with his blaster. Rechs’s armor fritzed and rebooted, but Rechs already had the guy in his sights. His hand cannon spat briefly and tore through the cheap ceramic they made leej armor out of these days. That leej was out of the fight and most likely dead.
Play to win.
Brotherhood snipers saw their opening and got off several blasts. Marble and tile disintegrated all around Rechs as he pushed off from the wall and ran for better cover.
He heard a blaster shot strike KRS-88 with a loud daaaank!
A low, humming drone sounded from the sky—a Republic buzzship drifting over the cityscape beyond the park and the tower.
“Everyone down!” Rechs shouted.
Fighting against instincts, he didn’t drop until he saw Prisma do so first. She pushed her face against the pavement of a wide walk that wound through the park. She didn’t have a wall or statue to duck behind, but her bot provided better cover than any standing structure could ever hope to.
Good girl.
In the face of this buzzing specter of death overhead, the Brotherhood snipers sent hurried shots at the craft’s front windshield in a desperate attempt to break through and wound the pilot. The buzzship waggled only briefly, then s
teadied and unleashed a torrent of blinding blaster fire. The snipers, along with the building facades they’d used as cover, were reduced to smoking chunks of debris.
Always ready to heap more firepower upon an enemy, the legionnaires at the park entrance focused their fire on the Brotherhood as well. It wasn’t needed. As the rapid fire of the buzz ship’s blaster cannons slaughtered everyone on the citadel’s roof, the whine of the guns reminded Rechs of the slaughter on Andalore. And all the other slaughters the galaxy never seemed to tire of.
Play to win.
Rechs brushed away that faint cobweb of a memory. With the Brotherhood out, the legionnaires would be free to concentrate on him now. He needed to find an exit.
He reviewed the battlemap his HUD provided, looking for some landscaping or statuary to slip through, or an unobserved stretch of parkland to double back on to get behind the Republic troops.
“Crash! Where are you going?”
Rechs whipped his bucket around toward the sound of the girl’s voice. The war bot was up and moving across the park toward a memorial hall of fallen heroes. Streaks of blaster fire from the N-50 darted above and behind it, sending showers of dirt and permacrete skyward with every near miss.
“Stand down and return to the line!” Rechs ordered. But the bot ignored his command. It walked at an even pace through the storm of blaster fire.
“Crash!” Prisma shouted as a blaster bolt struck the bot in its shoulder. The bot’s armor shrugged the blast off—it took more than a few glancing hits to take one of those beasts down. But the girl… the girl was reacting. Responding without thinking.
Running after her war bot.
“Crash! Crash!”
“Prisma!” Rechs shouted. “Stay down!”
What had he been thinking? He’d brought a little girl into a war zone, and what? Thought that because he told her a few words of wisdom and taught her a few things about a blaster that she’d keep her head under fire?
The girl kept on running after the bot. Whether ignoring him or not hearing him, Rechs didn’t know. Growling, he took off after both of them. As he ran past the catman he called, “C’mon,” trusting Skrizz to follow.
The bot had entered the warehouse, and Prisma wasn’t far behind. She disappeared inside its shadows, and Rechs heard her scream—but just for a moment. It ended abruptly.
Rechs ran faster.
The N-50 tried to lead him. Statuary and paving disintegrated all around him. He didn’t bother to dodge or weave.
This is going to be it. You’re charging into an enclosed space against an unknown foe.
He kept running.
Stupid. Find an alternate entrance. Toss a fragger in first. The girl got herself into this. Play to win. Remember.
But he ignored those meaner voices and kept running as fast as he could, hoping desperately to catch her.
He reached the door. The wobanki was close at his heels.
Rechs expected to be greeted with a sea of blasters. Part of him wondered if this Goth Sullus had set up a counter trap just in case some bounty hunter showed. Guys like that, local galaxy’s edge thugs-slash-warlords, they were smart and crafty that way. Had to be out here. Anything was possible all the time.
Rechs pointed his hand cannon in the darkness and prepared to deal as much death as possible—and hopefully get the little girl out alive.
That’s important to you now? asked that voice.
He stopped short. There were only two blasters leveled at him.
One belonged to the war bot. The retractable forearm blaster in its left arm was pointed directly at Rechs; its right hand assembly was clamped down on Prisma’s mouth. She looked frightened. Kneeling beside her was a pink-skinned Endurian princess—they were all princes and princesses on that planet. The Endurian was attempting to… comfort Prisma?
Rechs wondered if his mind had finally gone like it’d been promising to do. How much is real, and how much is just my mind falling apart?
Part of his mind wondered that. The other part—the tactician; the general; the killer; the butcher… the survivor. That part assessed the situation. And it told him the entire tableau was an act to keep him off guard.
Rechs looked down the barrel of the second blaster pointed at him. It was a bullpup model that promised a good punch. Held by a… legionnaire? But not. Modified armor of an older sort, maybe a decade ago. Victory Company. Kublar and all that mess. The last set before the Republic put the leejes inside those ridiculous, cheap, reflective pieces of junk that were more for show than survival.
“You’re shorter than they say, Tyrus Rechs.” The legionnaire-but-not spoke like some kind of ghost. His voice modules sounded like sand passing through impervisteel. A dry, punching way of speaking. All business.
Most likely a mustang officer. A real leej. Not some House of Reason point.
The legionnaire—now a mercenary of some sort—was not alone. A skinny kid with glasses, who looked out of his element, moved forward from the shadows, some sort of device in his hand. And a turbaned Sikh stood in the background. That instantly brought up memories of some Savage War battleground Rechs had arrived at too late. The dead and the dying being burnt by the mountainful. It had been medieval.
Bio scans from Rechs’s visor said the Sikh wasn’t really there. A ghost? He’d seen stranger things. But no—his visor also identified the TT-3 bots that gave away the hologram’s trick.
The wobanki caught up and skidded to a cat-scratch halt beside Rechs, panting and obviously waiting for Rechs to make the first move. Its double-barreled blaster shifted from one target to the next. The guns were now even, if you didn’t count the fact that the war bot was programmed to terminate company-sized levels of resistance.
“War bot!” Rechs shouted. “Release the girl and turn your weapon on that legionnaire.”
The legionnaire-but-not tilted his head as if to say, “Really?”
“Permission to fire?” requested the bot in a low and terrible voice. One programmed to strike fear in the heart of mortals it was about to massacre.
“Granted,” Rechs replied, readying himself for the action.
But the bot didn’t move. “Denied,” whispered the ghostly legionnaire.
The war bot kept its blaster aimed at Rechs.
“Authorization: guild-cyan-six!” attempted Rechs, using an older code, the highest level of clearance he could recall at the moment.
Still the war bot remained in target mode. It seemed only interested in killing Rechs.
The skinny kid said, “It’s no good. I had a lot of time during our jumps trying to catch up to you to get this just right.” He waggled the device in his hand. “Your codes and clearances? Gone. Big guy’s all ours now.”
The wobanki hissed at the kid—an unmistakable predatory hunting call. The skinny youth, probably a coder, tugged at the goggles hanging from his neck and retreated into himself, dropping his gaze downward and ducking his head below his shoulders so as to avoid eye contact with the cat. Wobankis could rip your arms off after they opened your guts with their claws. They often found employment with the warlord who liked to be left very alone.
The hologram stepped to the front. “We have come here to talk with you, Tyrus Rechs, and I am wishing to point out that had our intent been to kill you, we have had ample opportunity to do so. But of course… you can see that we have not.”
Rechs remained silent.
“Had we instructed the war bot to open fire on you while you took cover during the buzz fighter’s attack run, there is a seventy-seven point six percent chance that the surprise attack would have been fatal to you.” The hologram twisted his pointed mustache and looked at the catman. “Ninety-three percent for your wobanki friend.”
Skrizz growled in reply.
Rechs stared coldly at the hologram. “Talking to people who point blasters at me makes me want to shoot them in the face.”
The Sikh nodded. “Yes, I understand this. However, even if I were to discount sixty per
cent of what is told about you as legend—and I suspect that might not be enough—the likelihood of you shooting before asking questions was too high for us to remain unarmed. You former legionnaires let go of many things, but KTF is not one of them.”
Rechs lowered his weapon and signaled for the wobanki to do the same.
The ghost legionnaire followed suit. He called out to the bot, “Stand down, but keep hold of Maydoon.”
Rechs squared himself and stood in front of the legionnaire. They faced off like two gunfighters at high noon. “You know who I am,” Rechs said. “So who are you?”
The hologram’s eyes flitted to the legionnaire. Clearly he was interested in hearing how the leej would answer. Maybe a false ID was coming…
“I’m you without the marketing campaign. Name’s Wraith.”
Rechs rolled his shoulders. “I’ve heard enough whisper about a Wraith for me to believe—if you’re him—that you’re well on your way to having a few legends told when all is said and done, kid. For whatever that’s worth these days.”
Rechs looked to Prisma. She’d calmed herself. And she was listening to every word. They were all listening. All wanting to see what would happen next.
“Why don’t you just let the girl go,” Rechs suggested. “I’m the only bounty you’ll ever need to collect on. Wealth… and rep-wise.”
Wraith shook his head. “Might scream. Ravi?”
The hologram cleared its throat, a quaint little trick to convey humanity. “The legionnaires are currently being given a series of bogus orders to keep them unfocused and busy while we conclude our business. Wraith’s… particular access allows us the time to have this conversation. But they will no doubt investigate the hysterical screams of a girl child. Republic standard operating procedures require them to look for what the House of Reason calls ‘heroic moments for purposes of publicity.’”
“That’s an impressive trick,” Rechs said. “Telling legionnaires which way to go.”
“Only lasts long enough for them to get chewed out by their CO,” Wraith said.
