“Alright, Hamish,” he mumbled, marveling at the machine’s awesome scale as it continued to churn out power with a steady, rolling hum. “Showtime.”
Navigating the maze toward the core, Hamish selected the dome’s farside control panel to conduct his work, and kneeling down behind the cover of his friends, he lifted his shirt to reveal the vest containing the handful of components he’d need that couldn’t exactly be carried in a standard issue toolbox. Then, unscrewing the grate at the base of the console, he went to work on the spaghetti-like wad of wires inside; meanwhile Danny and Lee did their best to look busy.
“How’s it goin’ down there, Hoss?” Lee asked nervously, feeling a bit exposed as the time continued to pass.
“Don’t rush me,” Hamish grumbled. “I’m not wiring a bloody home theater system here. It takes time.”
“It doesn’t have to be perfect, bro,” Danny added, watching the guards from the corner of his eye as their attention grew noticeably more fixed in their direction. “Just wire the thing up as best you can, and let’s get gone, okay? The natives are getting restless.”
Another minute ticked by and Lee gulped hard when one of the techs (a middle-aged man who’d seemingly taken a keen interest in their activities over the last few minutes) stepped away from his terminal and approached the guards. Following a brief conversation, one of them broke ranks and headed their way.
“Oh, this can’t be good,” Lee thought.
“Is there a problem here, gentlemen?” the guard asked in a firm voice, rounding the desk toward them. Before he could respond, a loud thud reverberated through the console below.
“Aye, you’re damn right there’s a bloody problem!” Hamish snarled, rubbing the back of his avatar’s throbbing head as he jumped to his feet. “And it’s standing right in front of me with its stinking breath and silly-looking hat!”
Taken aback by the tech’s strange accent and ornery tone, the guard’s face went pale as the large, menacing figure leaned in to look him in the eye.
“What seems to be the issue here?” he stuttered, rushing to recollect his authoritative composure.
“Issues, plural, and I have two of them,” Hamish mocked with a pair of thick fingers. “Issue number one: Ya’ve got a significant amount of Caldrasite residue built up over the loading ports of the main injection system; and when that happens, it has a nasty tendency to gum up the works. Bear in mind,” he added, “that’s the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario occurs when the ports go too long without proper cleaning, thus causing the entire system to overheat, short out, and eventually—oh, I dunno—explode, blowing us all to kingdom come and thereby causing lots of gore, guts, death, and bloody mayhem to ensue. That brings me to issue number two, which is that I feel like a dog’s breakfast this morning after the night of complete debauchery that me and ma lads here had last evening, and frankly, sir, I’d rather not have to stand here and be subjected to the types of idiotic questions that you’re wasting ma valuable time with right now! So, how about ya run along like a good little soldier boy and go play with yar guns whilst the experts handle the science-type work? Is that okay with ya, or would ya like to personally explain to the commandant why a complete imbecile—such as yarself—felt it necessary to singlehandedly destroy the most strategically crucial installation of this war?”
Watching the guard’s mortified expression over Lunley’s grim assessment of the situation, Lee and Danny fought hard to hold their respective poker faces. Meanwhile, Hamish held his loom over the subject of his ire.
“Well then,” the soldier blurted awkwardly. “Carry on.” And with that, he was gone.
“Bloody Numpty,” Hamish sneered, and returned to his work.
“Mac, you got a copy?” Lee asked, stifling a grin.
“Go ahead.”
“How’s it comin’ on that transpo?”
“Good to go,” she answered, “for the moment, anyway. We’re the second one from the left along the north wall. Link’s running through the pre-flight now. How’s it going with you?”
“Aside from the guard that’s cryin’ in a corner right now, thanks to Hamish, we’re almost there. Just a few more minutes.”
“Ahhhhh, guys?” Link interrupted—fresh nerves in his voice. “We might have a bit of a problem here.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Danny agreed, and peering over his friend’s shoulder, Lee spotted Lunley’s whipping boy huddled up with his cohorts, pointing a rather unnerving finger in their general direction.
“Hamish?” Lee said with a hint of anxiety. “Don’t take my head off for this, but we really need to go. Like, now.”
“One more minute. I’m almost there!”
“We don’t have a minute,” Lee said through his teeth as the huddle broke and the guards started toward them—rifles raised.
“This little piggy went to market,” Hamish murmured, wrapping the small red wire clasped between his thumb and index finger into the charge and splicing them together. “This little piggy stayed home…”
“Hey Dr. Seuss, can we drop the nursery rhymes and get the hell outta here already?” Danny growled, removing the pistol from his shirt and draping it out of sight beside his hip while Lee did the same.
“Both little piggies cried ‘wee wee wee’ when Hamish smoked ribs on the bone…”
Then, tucking the charge back into the port to conceal it among the boundless cluster of wires, circuit boards, and microprocessors inside, Hamish snapped the panel back into place and jumped to his feet.
“Put ‘em away, lads. We’re all done here.”
“Ahh, guys?” Link asked again through the comm.
“Stand by, Link,” Lee mumbled, shoving the pistol back into his shirt and turning for the door.
“Alright, gentlemen, everything appears to be ship-shape once again,” Hamish assured them, dusting off his hands and maintaining as much calm as possible en route behind his friends to the exit. “Many thanks for yar patience, and we bid ya a good morning.”
Picking up their pace toward the lift, Lee glanced back just in time to see a sudden look of revelation rip across the face of the terminal guard, and leaping from his seat, he lunged for his holster.
“Ah hell,” Lee blurted and with that, both he and his digital counterpart whirled around on their heels—their hands flowing with an almost effortless fluidity past the holster in his shirt and out into the familiar, broken triangular shape of the modified weaver firing position. With a light vibration through the gun in his hands, three precise shots erupted from the weapon’s virtual barrel, bristling down the hall in silent, muted pops before landing in a tightly packed cluster atop of the man’s chest and head. As he fell to the floor, the other two guards joined him there—each one struck with similar precision by Danny and Hamish who’d also recognized the threat. At that instant, the lights in the corridor slammed from white to hot orange as the security alert rang out.
“Damn it!” Lee barked, jamming a finger on the button for Level 10 once everyone was inside.
“Must’ve been one of the eggheads back there in engineering,” Danny barked over the alarm.
“Maybe, but it doesn’t matter now,” Lee agreed before returning his attention to the comm. “Heads up, Mac. We’re comin’ in hot!”
“I leave you alone for five minutes and this is what happens?” she groaned.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” said Lee. “Just get ready.”
“Delay that” Link shouted in frustration, “Hey, asshat, you got time to listen to me now?”
“What Link? What is it?” Lee growled as the numbers on the lift panel counted up toward 10. “The drop has been made, and we’ve got to go before our little present gets discovered. So what?”
“If you’ll shut your pie hole for a sec, I’ll show you.”
With that, Lee listened as Link piped in a radio exchange over the comm.
“Valzer, you’re cleared for service at Bravo station on the far side of Platform 4,” a
male voice crackled through the static. “Docking sequence will initiate in T-minus five mics, however be advised that disembarkation has been temporarily suspended. We have a security situation in main engineering and until it’s locked down, all crews are being asked to stand by and keep all hatches secured. Please acknowledge.”
“Roger that, Morrius Tower,” another voice responded. “All hatches secure, proceeding to Bravo-4.”
Lee’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “So what? Another ship is stoppin’ for gas. What’s the problem?”
“It’s a prisoner transport,” Link explained. “In transit to some P.O.W. Camp in the Ganlyn System… and Top?” he paused, “they’re reporting 276 aboard, plus flight crew.”
Lee grimaced at the number that, never in a million years, could have been mistaken as arbitrary.
“Yeah, that struck me as an interesting headcount too,” Link echoed.
“Whoa, what are we talking about here?” Danny asked, not following.
Lee’s expression went sullen. “276 was exactly the number of missing personnel from the colony on Sygarious 3.”
Danny’s face sank.
“Oh my god,” Mac uttered. “Guys, if that’s true, there are whole families on that ship.”
“I know,” Lee snapped, “and they’re about to dock on Platform 4, which means every single one of ‘em is about to die—right along with everybody else on this god-forsaken facility.”
“So, what are we doing?” Hamish shouted over the alarm.
His thoughts filling once more with the mysterious fate of the only other team to make it this far, Lee steepled his hands over his face and weighed his options.
“This has gotta be where you went wrong,” he thought.
Chapter 8: Boost
Slamming down on the emergency stop button, the lift came to a grinding halt as the lights overhead flickered with its abrupt stop. Staring at the level indicator which flashed on 9, Lee’s mind raced to formulate the plan which would now be operated totally on the fly.
“Mac, can you patch me into that prisoner transport on a closed channel?”
“Whoa, why? What do you have in mind?”
“I’ll explain later, but we don’t have a lotta time. Just do it!!”
A series of staticky radio chirps later, the comm reopened.
“You’re on.”
“Velzer, this is Morrius Tower, do you copy?” Lee said, fighting back the nerves in his voice to emulate a calm, military tone.
“Go ahead, Morrius, what’s up with the cloak and dagger?” the voice returned.
“Sorry about that, but that security snafu we told you about seems to have gotten a little outta hand, and honestly, we don’t know who’s listenin’ right now. It might take us a little longer than we originally thought to get everything cleaned up, so in the meantime, the brass is redirectin’ all inbound traffic until further notice. However, since you fellas are on fumes as it is, we’re gonna send one of our refueling shuttles out to service you in transit, if that’s okay.”
“Roger that, Morrius. What happened to the other guy?” the voice asked, audibly puzzled.
“Guess this mornin’s chow didn’t agree with him,” Lee laughed, “because he darted for the head as soon as he got off comm with you earlier. I’m just coverin’ for him until he gets back.”
“Understood, Morrius. Never was much of a fan of those powdered eggs, myself.”
“Amen to that, Velzer. Stand by at your current coordinates, and the shuttle will be out to you shortly. Morrius Tower out.”
Hearing the channel disconnect, Lee returned to his Com-Spec. “Alright Mac, now lock out the control tower before they have a chance to figure out that they’ve been duped.”
“Okay, but what the hell are we doing, Lee?” she asked frantically.
Before he could answer, the lift doors slid open to reveal four highly surprised, and very well-armed guards in the hallway outside. Seeing their rifles jerk alert, Lee dropped reflexively to one knee while Danny slid in behind him, his arm outstretched over Lee’s shoulder as both men opened fire. Across from them, Hamish did the same and within seconds, all four guards were down.
“Hamish, gimme the detonator,” Lee shouted, snatching a rifle from one of the slain guards and giving it a quick press check as Hamish slid the handheld device across the floor to his feet.
“Lee, what the bloody hell are ya doing?” he blurted, but Lee said nothing as he continued his pilfering of the guards’ uniform pockets. Then, sliding a blood-stained tac-vest over his shoulders, and loading it down with every spare magazine he could find, Lee snatched the pin from a grenade and lofted it down a nearby hallway.
“They’re on 9! They’re on 9!” he shouted into a radio, mindful to keep the mic button pressed so every ear listening would hear the blast, further authenticating his ruse.
“Lee, what’s going on?” Danny yelled over the carnage, but Lee waved him off and returned to the comm.
“Mac, Hamish and Danny are comin’ to you. As soon as they’re onboard, radio me and I’ll blow the charge.”
“Whoa, what’s happening?” she snapped.
“I’m gonna buy you the time you need to get outta the bay and over to that transport ship, which you guys are gonna boost in transit.”
“Hold on there, Toretto!” Link intervened. “Every time we try some kind of ‘Good Samaritan’ crap like this, one or all of us gets thrown under the bus! Now I hate to be the morbid bearer of reality here, but those people are not the mission. The mission is to blow the depot and get our collective digital butts back to the ASC side of the line. Sorry if that makes me a heartless tool, but I say let’s do this and go home!”
“He’s got a point, Lee,” Danny admitted. “Besides, if we divert from the plan, what’s to say the engineering team doesn’t find the little present we left for them in the reactor core? They know exactly where we were working, and I can guarantee they’re combing through that panel as we speak.”
“Not to worry there,” Hamish noted. “In lieu of Lee’s decision to detonate before we could vacate the premises, I sorta figured that 90 seconds might be pushing it a bit, so I took the liberty of wiring the charge with a very special Dead Man’s switch of ma own design. Mind ya, it’s by no means tamper-proof, but it should buy you a solid 15 extra minutes before ya’ll have to activate the charge. Then at that point, ya’re back to yar original 90-second countdown.”
“Nice work, Hamish,” Lee said, returning to his original train of thought. “Call it a hunch or whatever, but I think sackin’ the prisoner ship in favor of completin’ the mission is exactly what the other team did, and that’s precisely why they never got another crack at this level of the game,” he explained. “Think about it, guys… how many little moral dilemmas like this have we faced throughout this process, and what happened every time we did what was perceived, at the time, to be ‘the right thing’? Link, you’d be locked up in a stockade right now if you hadn’t have gone back for Katahl on 19, and besides, if all of this was real, you know there ain’t a snowball’s chance in hell that we could leave these people behind—not and be able to live with ourselves, anyway. I’m tellin’ ya guys, my gut says this is what we’ve gotta do.”
“What about you?” Mac posed. “Ninety seconds isn’t a lot of time to find an alternate ride off of this heap, and if you’re killed off, that’s it. Your character is dead, which means you don’t move on with us in the next game.”
Lee’s lips thinned. “Yeah well, all I’m worried about is the here and now, and at present, this seems like the only way to have our cake and eat it too. So just do it and don’t worry about me. I’ll see you back aboard the Praetorian.” Then, sliding a pair of rifles across the floor into the lift, he shouted, “Take ‘em and go, now!”
****
Once the doors had closed, Lee set his watch for a 15-minute countdown and jumped to his feet as the distant sound of clattering boots and shouting voices drew nearer to his position. El
ecting to keep the radio for monitoring enemy chatter, he secured the stock of the rifle to his shoulder and headed out. No sooner had he rounded the first corner, however, than an additional pair of guards spun around to meet him, and in a loud crackle of unsuppressed, fully-automatic weapon fire, both hit the floor—as did the second pair that emerged on Lee’s flank. Moving cautiously through the cloud of gun smoke and ricocheted sheetrock, Lee kept his rifle trained on the corridor ahead as his eyes peered through the tiny windows of each passing door—hopeful of spotting a stairwell entrance or some other way out. The Alystierian radio now all but screaming at him as the voices in the distance grew ever closer, he searched.
One door… two doors… three doors… Stairs.
Jumping inside, Lee cleared the area around the door before closing it shut with a silent nudge behind him, meanwhile, more voices echoed from several flights down the stairwell below. Then, turning the radio dial down so as not to give away his presence, he descended to level 7, where he dropped an empty Auran mag beside the door. There was little doubt that getting back to the docking bay on 10 was definitely out, but at the very least, he could lead a few of the security teams on a wild goose chase long enough to find an alternate route off the station. Then it occurred to him—the hatch he’d spotted above the hangar. It had to lead somewhere, and it was almost certainly large enough to fit a ship through—a maintenance bay, maybe.
Figuring it to be his only lead, Lee eased a fresh mag into his rifle and headed back up toward the 11th floor.
“Lee, you still with us?” Mac rasped through the comm as he reached the level’s entrance.
“Yeah, I’m still here,” he whispered, sliding into an alcove out of sight. “Y’all airborne yet?”
“Just now. The target is 350 klicks out, and we’re on course to intercept in approximately three minutes. No sign of pursuit just yet, but I’m sure they’ll be along shortly. FYI, the docking bay is locked down tighter than a drum, so don’t even think about it.”
Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1) Page 10
