Outriders

by Jay Posey

  “First floor, clear,” Lincoln said.

  “Top floor, clear,” Wright responded.

  He let his weapon dangle on its sling, and went to work on the console, quickly overriding the failsafe. The whole team held still for fifteen seconds, waiting for any sign that they’d been discovered. But there was no hostile response, no alarm, no shouted warning.

  “Looks clear,” Sahil said.

  Wright rejoined Lincoln on the first floor, and they exited through the rear entrance, and took up position at one corner. Inside the compound was much more well lit, and there wasn’t a covered approach from anywhere by the outer wall to the main house. There wasn’t much hope of reaching the target building without alerting someone to trouble, so the team had decided to go ahead and alert them themselves.

  “Thumper, what’s the word on power?”

  “Almost there, Link,” she said. “Charge is set, but I’m blocked. Got two hostiles between me and approach.”

  “Sahil?” Lincoln said.

  “I see ’em,” he answered. “You want the tall one, or the fat one?”

  “I’ll take the tall one,” Thumper said. “Be harder for you to miss the fat one.”

  “Sure do wish Mikey was here,” Sahil said, and then a moment later. “All right, I’m dialed in. Say when.”

  “Three, two, one,” said Thumper, then, “fire, fire, fire.”

  Lincoln couldn’t hear the shots, but a few seconds later, Thumper reported.

  “Good hits. Two hostiles down. I’m moving to position.”

  Wright recalled the ascenders, and then redeployed one towards the main house. She, again, would take the top floor, and work her way down. Under normal circumstances, Lincoln would never have sent anyone off on their own, armor or no, but they had too much ground to cover too quickly to be able to stick together. He just had to hope for the best.

  “Thumper, in position.”

  “Everyone set?” Lincoln asked.

  “Sahil, set.”

  “Wright, set.”

  “I already said I was good,” Thumper said.

  “All right. Thumper, hit it.”

  “Detonating.”

  A muffled thump sounded from the opposite side of the main house, and an instant later, the lights sparked out with a dull buzz. Lincoln launched from the corner of the guard house in a dead sprint for the front door. Wright, behind him, veered off headed towards her ascension point. And through his visor, Lincoln saw Thumper’s tracking indicator closing in on the rear entrance.

  “Hostile, top floor, east side,” Sahil reported. And then a second later. “Nevermind.”

  Lincoln reached the front entrance and didn’t slow for the door. He barreled through it, his strength coupled with the weight of the suit destroying the locking mechanism as the door exploded open. Two armed men were in the front corridor, but neither one of them had time to raise their weapons before Lincoln’s rounds found his targets. He was already past them before they’d even finished falling. Lincoln’s visor automatically amplified the light, and though it was nearly pitch black for everyone else in the house, he saw everything in perfect clarity.

  The first two rooms he checked were empty, but the centermost room had its door wide open. He moved through it with quick, but quiet, steps and there, standing by a window, he found what he’d come for.

  She was facing away from the door, as if unconcerned by the darkness and the noises she had undoubtedly heard. But she had a pistol in her hand. Lincoln stood in the center of the room, silent, his weapon trained on her. A few moments later, thirty-five seconds after they’d shut off the main power and just as Thumper had predicted, the emergency power kicked in. The lights came back up, dimmer, and the woman turned. When she did, she flinched, but she didn’t seem all that surprised to see Lincoln standing there.

  “Well,” she said. “I don’t believe I’ve seen your kind before. Seems I’ve attracted some very important attention.”

  She looked younger than he’d expected, healthier. In her mid-forties, perhaps, and fit. Capable. Dangerous.

  “It’s over, Amanda,” Lincoln said. “Put the weapon down, lie on the floor, and place your hands behind your back.”

  She smiled.

  “Amanda,” she said, and she gave a single, clear note of a laugh. “No one has called me that in a long time. A long time.”

  Her voice was steady, with a pleasing tone.

  “Get on the floor,” Lincoln repeated.

  “Why?”

  “Whatever you had hoped to accomplish, you’ve failed,” Lincoln said. “And I’m here to take you back to face the justice you deserve.”

  “Oh, are you?” Amanda said. “It looks to me like you’ve come to deliver that justice yourself. Or, what you believe is justice.”

  She was completely calm, completely at ease. And seeing how she held herself, so poised, so confident, Vector’s words came back to Lincoln then. About how no matter how cornered he thought he had her, she’d find a way out. Lincoln had thought it was just the nonsense of a fanatic at the time. But now, given her demeanor, he couldn’t help but think he was overlooking something.

  “And what would justice be?” she asked. “What crime have I committed?”

  “The murder of hundreds of innocents is a pretty good start,” Lincoln said. Wright and Thumper both checked in, reporting all clear, but Lincoln barely heard them.

  “You fight for a nation that has killed a thousand times more,” the woman said. “A million times. What is it that makes my actions so much more detestable?”

  “I’m not going to argue philosophy with you,” Lincoln answered. “You almost started a war.”

  “War is man’s disease,” she said. “And now, it is our gift to the stars.”

  “Not yet,” Lincoln said. “I said almost. Yours failed. We stopped it before it could even start.”

  She smiled. “You dear boy,” she said, “war is not an event. It is a process. And once that process begins, it is very difficult to stop, until it has run its full course. No, no, you may have delayed it a bit. A week, a month. A year. But you haven’t stopped anything.”

  Lincoln had every intention of shutting her up, of cuffing her hands, putting a hood over her head, and marching her out. But for some reason, he wasn’t doing any of that. There was something about her, something almost mesmerizing, that kept him from taking any action.

  “This used to be a game of state, you know. War was the province of nations, and we, the people, were at their mercy. But not anymore. All this I built with my own hands, and with a handful of trusted friends. Capture me, kill me. Let me go free. It will make no difference. My work is done. The board is set, and I’ve chosen the pieces. And the United American Federation will finally reap the war they planted and never got to harvest.”

  Whatever her intent, her words struck Lincoln with unexpected force. Maybe it was the echo of Mr Self’s lecture, or maybe she was simply powerfully persuasive. But for a moment, she shook Lincoln’s confidence, made him question his own intentions. What was he expecting? Was she right? Would anything he did here matter? Did his decision matter?

  But no. Of course it did. Lincoln couldn’t control the future. He couldn’t control the UAF, or the CMA. He couldn’t control anything, outside of where he was right then, at that moment. But that moment was his, and he would see justice done.

  But before he could order her one last time to surrender, Amanda spoke.

  “Here,” she said. “I’ll save you the burden of choice.”

  She raised the pistol, pointed it at him. But it was a small caliber affair. It wouldn’t penetrate his armor, and thus posed no threat to him. If she’d been trying to force his hand and get him to pull his trigger, she’d failed.

  But in a fluid, almost casual motion, she bent her arm and placed the muzzle against the side of her own head. Lincoln was astonished to see her smile, as if she’d pulled some great trick or had outsmarted him, just before she pulled the trigger.


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  THE LIGHTFINGER WAS ALREADY WARMED up and ready to go when they reached it. The cargo ramp was down, and Baby Vegas was waiting for them at the top of it.

  “Just four?” she said.

  “Just four,” Wright answered.

  “Well,” Baby Vegas said. “All right.”

  Lincoln boarded, last of the team to do so. Still in a daze over what had just happened.

  “You OK?” Baby Vegas asked as she activated the ramp to close.

  “Yes ma’am,” Lincoln said.

  “Anything I can do for you?”

  Lincoln nodded.

  “Take us on home.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  THE TEAM WAS in the middle of enjoying a mini-reunion in the gym of their facility back on base. Back on Earth. They’d shared a meal together, and more than a couple of beers. Now, Lincoln stood over by the door, watching his team as they blew off some steam and celebrated being home again. His team.

  His head was still spinning with everything he’d come through. There was no telling how long it was going to take him to process it all. And Amanda’s bizarre final moments. The others had all shared their theories; that she couldn’t face capture, or that seeing all her plans come to nothing had been too much for her to bear. But none of those sat well with Lincoln. Another mystery. Another question that might never be answered.

  None of that seemed to be bothering any of the others, though. Sahil and Thumper were going at it hammer and tongs on the mat, with Wright and Mike standing to one side, acting as commentators. Actually, Lincoln noticed, only Mike was doing any commentating. But he was talking enough for both of them, using two different voices as he called out the various moves on display, and added color commentary with whatever embarrassing stories he could come up with on the spot. Wright glanced over and saw Lincoln watching them, dipped her head and gave him a smile and a little shrug, as if she didn’t know what they were going to do with Mikey.

  And as right as it seemed that Mike should be there, there was a strange melancholy hanging over Lincoln for it. As if something in their relationship had changed, even though nothing really had. Mike was still Mike; same jokes, same stories, same easy smile. But there was a distance there, too, that Lincoln couldn’t quite explain. But then, there was a lot he couldn’t explain these days.

  “Did you get what you were after?” Almeida asked from behind him. Lincoln turned to see the old colonel standing in the hall, just outside. He waved him in, and Almeida crept in and stood beside Lincoln.

  “Not exactly,” Lincoln said, looking back at the others.

  “I hate to tell you I told you so,” the colonel said. “But… get used to it, son.”

  “I don’t know how I did on my first time out, colonel,” Lincoln said. “But right now, I’m just glad to be home.”

  “Getting home is a win,” Almeida said. “Maybe the only win. The rest of it…” He shrugged.

  “I’m putting the team on standby for two weeks,” he continued. “I think we can get you some time to get squared away on base, make sure we get Mike back up to full speed. All that travel’s hard on the body, it’d be good for you all to get a little down time.”

  “Actually, sir, I’d like authorization for a training exercise.”

  “Training exercise?”

  “Yes sir. Team’s not gelled as much as I’d like, I’ve got a scenario I’d like to tackle with them.”

  “Huh,” Almeida said, and he looked at Lincoln with more than a little suspicion. “You have a location in mind, captain?”

  “Yes sir, I do.”

  “Care to share?”

  “No sir, I do not.”

  Almeida chuckled. “Captain Suh,” he said. “I hate to admit it to your face, but I think you might be getting the hang of this job already.”

  “I’ll try not to let it go to my head, sir.”

  “See that you don’t. Let me know what you need for your exercise,” said Almeida, turning to leave. “And how long you expect it to take.”

  “We won’t be gone long, sir.”

  The colonel nodded. Lincoln saluted. Almeida returned it, and left.

  Lincoln turned back and watched his team. Mike had joined the others on the mat, and was trying to pin Sahil’s arms behind his back while Thumper continued the assault from the front. His team.

  “All right, Outriders!” Lincoln called. The others reacted immediately and stopped dead, looking at him, surprised at his booming voice.

  “I think you’ve all had enough fun for a week,” he said. “And I have a promise to keep. Time to get back to work.”

  EPILOGUE

  “I DON’T KNOW,” the NID security officer said. “Some kind of glitch in the detector, I guess.”

  “You checked it, though?” his partner asked.

  “Yeah, three times. But look, it’s showing like fifty contacts right now, and I don’t remember a single day where I’ve ever seen fifty people on the whole station.”

  “Well, what do you want to do about him?” asked the partner, flicking his head towards their charge. The small man was seated on a bench by the wall, his hands bound at the wrist with quick-cuffs. He was rolling his wrists back and forth; slowly, rhythmically, back and forth.

  “He’s not going anywhere,” said the security officer. “Why’s he doing that with his hands, though?”

  “I don’t know. Nervous, I guess.”

  “See, there it goes,” the officer said, tapping the display. “Now it’s all clear again. I’m telling you man, one of those techs must’ve goofed something up.”

  The words were barely out of his mouth when the power went out with a pop.

  And the small man on the bench, Yayan Prakoso, smiled to himself.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Even though my name is on the front of this book, there are many people responsible for its existence. My most sincere thanks to:

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  … Jesus, for courageously leading a twelve-man team on the greatest hostage rescue mission in all of history, and for making the ultimate sacrifice.

  … my wife and children, for your faithful love and unwavering support, and for being my greatest reward and treasure.

  … Marc Gascoigne, Phil Jourdan, Mike Underwood, Caroline Lambe, Penny Reeve, and everyone else at Angry Robot for all their patience, encouragement, and their assurances that I’ll be spared when the robot uprising begins.

  … Lee Harris, for giving this book a chance to be.

  … Richard Dansky, for your mentoring, and for being the best uncle ever.

  … the denizens of the Dark Tower, particularly the Lorde who dwells therein, for providing a place for me during many cold morning hours.

  … Jocko Willink, for challenging me with the 0445 Club.

  … all the fans who’ve taken the time to reach out and let me know they like my books. Your kind words have kept me going through the “why did I ever think this was a good idea?” moments.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jay Posey is a narrative designer, author, and screenwriter by trade. He started working in the video game industry in 1998, and has been writing professionally for over a decade. Currently employed as Senior Narrative Designer at Red Storm Entertainment, he’s spent around eight years writing and designing for Tom Clancy’s award-winning Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six franchises.

  A contributing author to the book Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing, Jay has lectured at conferences, colleges, and universities, on topics ranging from basic creative writing skills to advanced material specific to the video game industry. His acclaimed Legends of the Duskwalker series is also published by Angry Robot.

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  jayposey.com • twitter.com/HiJayPosey

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  Copyright © Jay Posey 2016

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  Jay Posey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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  UK ISBN 978 0 85766 450 1

  US ISBN 978 0 85766 451 8

  EBook ISBN 978 0 85766 452 5

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