“Where did you say they were from? Lantaria?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think that many people made it off that rock, we may have the only survivors back on Home. These are from the Sicila system, two of the larger moons. The moons were destroyed two months ago.”
“What?” How in the hell had she not heard about something that big? Part of being good at her job was knowing what was going on in the Commonwealth systems and beyond. Yet moons were being blasted apart with no word in the space lanes?
“Someone or something is destroying smaller outlying worlds, and it’s been going on since before Lantaria.” His eyes were as flat as his voice, but Vas knew that masked fury. She couldn’t blame him. Two months? Yet the Commonwealth had done nothing? She’d never been a huge fan of the Commonwealth, but she respected the way it protected its people. Until now.
As much as she’d like to walk away from this, she knew they couldn’t. She couldn’t. Something was changing in her more than just going a little soft and having feelings for Deven. Besides, Deven’s money had already been transferred.
“Shit.” Vas said, and then opened a ship-wide comm. “I need a landing crew to get to the shuttle in the next ten minutes.” She turned back to Deven. “We get in, get the ones still on the planet, then lead the whole bunch out of here.” She jabbed him in the chest. “But not Home. There are a few thousand people out there in those ships, and I’m not flooding my only refuge. We can find that moon you said Marli has been hiding on.”
“She’s not going to like it.”
“I don’t really care. That’s as good as it gets right now.” She turned to finish her orders for the ground crew. Low-tech planets were interesting in that they called for weapons that required more skill than pulling a trigger. However, when her goal was to get in and out as fast as possible, they were a pain in the ass. And she’d have to play by their rules. She couldn’t take the risk that it was the entire Commonwealth selling these people out. She didn’t need to lose her merc license.
“Make sure those population ships can hold the people from the planet. We’re not taking them in our ships.”
“Already done.” Deven’s smile told her he knew she’d give in on this. And he most likely knew it wasn’t because of the huge sum of money he’d thrown at her. Well, mostly it wasn’t.
“You’re making me a fool.” She got in his face and spoke low enough that none of the rest of the crew could hear.
“No one thinks you’re a fool.” The look in his eyes was gentle but that just made her want to smack him more. “Maybe this is who you’re meant to be.”
Vas held his gaze for a few seconds then stalked off. “Go to hell.” She didn’t really mean it, and she swore she felt his eyes bearing into the back of her skull. She’d bet all those credits that he knew she didn’t mean it either.
It took surprisingly little time to get a full landing crew down to the planet. Well, as full of a crew as Vas could gather from her command staff. Since Deven had originally said this was a cleanup mission, she’d only counted on twenty fighters. Given the new situation, she’d been able to add another fifteen, but more than that and the Warrior Wench would be dangerously undermanned.
What had her jumpy was that while there were definitely a fair amount of fighters in the refugee zone, there were no warships in orbit. There should have been at least one cruiser out there lending support, but Gosta continued to report nothing beyond the mammoth population ships full of refugees.
The area of the fighting was rough, the terrain far too mountainous for a clean pickup. Vas scowled at the mountains as she flew the shuttle in. Close enough to be a major problem if enemy troops were hiding in them, far enough to be a pain in the ass to go check out.
The city before them had clearly been abandoned long before any fighting took place. Buildings showed new scars from primitive mortar rounds next to already crumbling buildings. Which made sense. Easier to take over an area if it was already discarded. The refugees had probably been welcome to the place.
“Since you’re our client, what do we know about them?” Vas asked as she watched her crew unload. “Did the locals accept them?”
“I know what you’re thinking, but yes, from the reports I gathered, the local population welcomed them. This part of Asterlia is extremely underpopulated and the refugees were willing to pay a fair amount.”
Vas sighed and buckled on her sword. “So it’s not the locals, and we have about eighty people still to get off planet.” She poked him with her fist. “Paying fees or not, you owe me for this. We’re not a rescue barge, you know.”
Deven nodded, but Vas could tell he wasn’t sufficiently cowed. He never was.
The rest of her crew was armed and ready, so they jogged into the town. The dangerously silent town. In Vas’s world, silent was rarely ever good.
The city wall had once been made of a light yellow brick, probably not more than five or six feet high, which indicated a low level of aggression between neighbors. Most of it was little more than golden dust now, blown apart by something far heavier than a low-tech planet could produce.
Not good. That reinforced that whoever did this was not part of the merc companies fighting to the north and didn’t care who knew it. The penalty for bringing high-tech weapons to a designated enforced low-tech world was brutal. The fact that whoever was behind this did it without a care chilled Vas almost as much as the continuing silence did.
“Be careful, people,” she said as her team prepped to spread out. “I want a full recon in groups of four or more. If you lose sight of one of your team, come back to base. There is something very wrong here.”
Vas nodded to her three and they slowly moved out. The stillness of the place crawled along her spine. A crunching of rubble followed by the high-pitched whine of a pair of arrows was the only warning. With a warning yell to her people, Vas flattened herself to the ground. The arrows thunked into the broken building behind them. Her two archers leapt to their feet, ready to fire back. For moments no one moved, the wind lifting the rubble was the only sound.
“Show yourselves,” Vas yelled as she dusted off her knees. “We’ve come to take the refugees off planet.”
“Captain Tor Dain? Isss that you?”
The extended “s” sound relaxed Vas’s shoulders. She knew that Silante voice.
“Carrix? You old bastard, what are you doing ambushing proper mercs?” With a nod to her archers, she sheathed her sword. Carrix was a mercenary captain of a small company of Silantians. While single species companies weren’t common, some worked extremely well.
Carrix had one that did.
A rumble of ruins slid down about twenty feet from where they were standing. Moments later five short, dust-covered forms came out. Vas’s frown grew even deeper. Two were limping badly. It took a hell of a lot to make a Silantian limp. And they usually stayed in much larger groups. Keeping an eye on Carrix and his four-member team, Vas scanned the ruined buildings lumbering around them.
“Please tell me you brought more people than what I see.” Carrix stopped in front of her, letting the man he was helping slide to the ground. Silantians were a small reptilian-based race, not more than five feet in height. However, what they lacked in height, they made up for in bulk, and their short powerful legs served them well.
Vas glanced around again, but still saw nothing. “We have another thirty spreading out. What the hell happened? Where are your people?”
The small captain before her was clearly exhausted, another thing she didn’t think could happen to Silantians. His golden slitted eyes held hers. “It’s a trap.”
Vas had her sword out before he drew another breath, but he grabbed her arm and slid her weapon back. “Easy, old friend, the trap was already sprung. Although it may have been you they were after. They didn’t seem happy to see forty Silantians swarming the town.”
“Should we be standing out here?” Vas held off from responding to his grab of her sword hand. She and
Carrix went back to her first merc job. That, and Silantians had a different concept of personal space than other races.
Carrix’s residual gills on either side of his neck flittered in embarrassment. “No, we shouldn’t.” He shook his head. “Forgive me. We’ve been trapped down here for a month, and my mind is not functioning.” He turned and led all of them into an enclave of crumbled buildings.
Vas motioned for two of her people to stand guard but stay behind shelter. Normally she would trust Carrix to have some sort of guards, but she had a sinking feeling the four with him were all he had left.
The main room he led them into was collapsed, but the next room was clear and had clearly been home for the five Silantians. Vas held her tongue until Carrix got the two injured fighters settled. “Damn it, Carrix, what the hell is going on?”
He sighed and patted a rough stool next to him. “In a viper’s egg, I have destroyed my company. We answered a call for help thirty days ago. There is a sanctioned action in the far north.” At Vas’s nod that she knew that, he continued, “We received a plea. None of the companies fighting to the north could or would come down, and the plea was from a group of Silantians on board some slow-moving population ships. The ships are still in space, yes?”
Vas nodded. They’d checked them out. Were they not legitimate?
Her concern had been clear on her face, and Carrix patted her hand. “Do not worry; they are not the ones to fear. They called out legitimately asking for help for the people still trapped here. They had no way of knowing they’d already been slaughtered.”
“When?”
“Before we got down here. That much is known. We were attacked by unknown forces the moment we set down. We pushed them back into the mountains, thinking we were going to save the people trapped here. They doubled back and laid a trap.” His eyes closed. A look of exhausted sorrow filled his scaled face. When he opened his eyes, the gold had faded to a light green. “My company was butchered in that first day. I only could save these. Before reinforcements could come down, a pair of unmarked ships blew the Guardian out of the sky.”
Vas heard Hrrru’s intake of breath behind her. She’d kept him with her since he was the calmest of the three she had, but even he couldn’t help but react. Carrix’s ship held over 250 people and had often worked together with Vas’s company.
She wanted to extend her sympathy, but the Silantian way was to mourn their dead only after they had been avenged. “Do you know anything about the ships that attacked? There’s nothing out there now but the refugee ships.”
“Not much I am afraid. Their attackers hit without warning. There was very little my people could say before they were destroyed. I would tell your Gosta to be on extreme alert.”
Vas nodded, and thumbed open her comm. “Gosta, Carrix is down here. His ship was destroyed without warning. Gather the refugee ships as close as you can.….” She paused, ten slow-moving population ships against something that could blow a heavy cruiser to bits. “Belay that. Have six Flits escort the refugees out of here. Now. Take them to Home and make sure to have them go through enough jumps to throw off anyone following. But get them out of here and stay on red alert.” That would only leave a skeleton crew on the Warrior Wench but she didn’t have a choice.
“Aye, Captain.” Gosta’s voice was clear and calm even though she knew he too would have been shocked by the destruction of the Guardian. “There is a pocket of plasma not far from here. Shall I move to it? The shielding on this ship is unlike any I’ve ever seen, we can safely stay there for some time. And it will help mask us from sensors should they come back.”
Vas glanced at Carrix, but if he realized that pocket was most likely the remains of his ship, he gave no response. Most likely he knew full well what it was.
“Aye.” She turned to Carrix. “Did they happen to mention if the ships were gray unmarked heavy cruisers?”
“Yes, two of them. You have dealt with them before?”
Vas sighed. “Yes. They destroyed Lantaria.” She clicked her comm back on. “Gosta, it’s the gray ships. Get close to that pocket as soon as the Flits and the refugee ships have gone through the gate.”
After a few more security commands, Vas called Deven and the others. She wanted them to continue their search, but they were now searching for hostiles, not potential victims.
“Did you recognize anything about the ground troops?”
Carrix rose and helped one of his injured men drink some water. Both were probably not going to survive.
“No, they have on heavy black atmosphere suits.” He turned and held her eyes. “They didn’t say anything except for one order. They demanded to know where the Victorious Dead was.”
Vas had been sipping out of her canteen and almost choked. “What? They asked for my ship?”
“Demanded,” Carrix said. “I told them they could go to hell.”
“Damn it.” Vas clicked open her comm again. “Gosta, they came here looking for the Victorious Dead. Make sure your codes are scrambled. Only call down when you have to. Otherwise maintain comm silence.”
Gosta’s response was a crisp affirmative, then a few muttered comments about missing ships.
Vas smiled. She knew she wasn’t supposed to hear that part; clearly her navigator was more than a bit frazzled. “I’ll keep my end open, you just listen and record. Just don’t respond unless it’s desperate.” The recordings from her comm could be important if they didn’t make it out. She contacted Deven and asked him to warn the rest of the teams. She also suggested they regroup into teams of eight.
“What did Gosta say about looking for the Victorious Dead? His speech was too fast for me to hear.” Carrix said.
Vas flashed her old friend a smile. “You shouldn’t be listening in on other conversations, old man.” She trusted Carrix and his people but she couldn’t be sure that their base wasn’t compromised. They’d clearly left it more than once. If those gray ships and their mysterious black-suited fighters were looking for the Victorious Dead instead of the Warrior Wench, let them.
“He was being his usual smart-ass self. Don’t worry; he’ll keep my ship out of sight.” She should just grab her people, Carrix’s people, and flee. The instant he’d mentioned the gray ships she knew it was too late. The only reason they hadn’t attacked yet was probably because they were trying to confirm it was the Victorious Dead out in orbit. Which meant her people were already targets.
She rose then went to the back of the room. A pile of golden brick rubble showed where a wall had once been. Beyond that was another, larger room. Part of the ceiling had crumbled, but it would hold her people.
“Deven, we need to pull back and get back on the shuttle. Call back all groups and meet at my location.”
“Aye, Captain. We haven’t seen anything, but there are too many ruins to check. I’ll—”
An explosion rocked the building as well as knocked out the comm signal. Vas was flung to the floor as more of the unstable building tumbled around her.
“Crap, what was that? Deven? Report.”
“Gon here, Captain Vas.” The deep rumbling voice filled the airwaves, but still cut in and out. Whatever the blast had been it had physical destruction as well as EMT after-effects. “We’re near the outer rim of the town. Someone has destroyed our shuttle.”
Vas rubbed her face. She hadn’t thought someone would be able to hack through their system to drop the shuttle’s shields that quickly.
Unless they’d used enough fire power that they destroyed the shields instead of hacking through them.
She almost called Gosta, but the fact that he hadn’t contacted her with the destruction of the shuttle confirmed what her gut was telling her.
At least one of the gray ships was up there right now.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Damn it. Gon, get your people back here. Do not go near the shuttle wreckage under any circumstances. Lock into my location and get back here as fast as you can. The hostiles are here and in sp
ace.”
It seemed like hours, but was most likely only minutes before the rest of the teams came in. But not Deven’s.
“Gon, did you see any of Deven’s team?” She knew he picked up a second team, but they should have made it by now.
“No, Captain Vas, I have not seen him.” The giant man turned back toward the entrance. “I’ll go get him?”
Vas almost laughed; no doubt he’d probably pick Deven up and put him over his shoulder. At least that was the tone of his voice.
She’d glanced outside when she let Gon’s group in, still a few hours from nightfall. Deven would have called if it had been safe, or he could have simply found something and gone to track it down.
“No, we wait. He knows where we are. If he doesn’t show up soon, we’ll go out for him.” She turned to her people. “And no comms. From here out, we assume the enemy can hear us.”
“It is generous of you to stay and die with us, but how do you intend to leave?” Carrix had been silently sitting in the corner. However, he’d obviously heard everything.
“We’ll find a way. Our enemy, whoever in the hell they are, isn’t as on top of things as they appear.” She nodded up to the ceiling indicating the sky above them. “Things aren’t what they—” Her words were cut off as another explosion rocked nearby, this one clearly ground based and far too close to their hidden location.
Vas counted her limbs from the gravel-filled pit she’d been flung into then called around for the others. “Is everyone okay?” The responses varied in tone, but all reported positively. She was heading for the doorway when rapid weapons fire echoed through the tight buildings near them. Damn it. How could they compete with high-tech weapons when they only had bows and swords?
A memory of something Gosta had said about the newest toy he’d invented trickled into her mind. Swearing to herself she scrambled to her pack and dug through it. She hadn’t paid much attention to Gosta, but it seemed he thought his toy could knock out tech weapons for a period of time. Of course he wasn’t completely sure for how long, nor how far it would reach. Nor if it even worked.
Asarlai Wars 1: Warrior Wench Page 24
