by Blaze Ward
“Never, and you know it, Royo.” Those eyes got dangerous. “What happens if the messenger arrives?”
“If he’s in an unarmed courier, you might as well capture it and steal his ship,” Jorge grinned like a shark. “If it turns out to be Wild Duck, my crew and I would appreciate you staying around long enough to evac us off the surface, and then we’ll run like hell. I can’t imagine Wild Duck would be welcome back at Draconis, if he’s really been a Salonnian spy all these years, but that’s up to the Governor and whoever else you want to tell. Simple?”
“Oh, it sounds it,” the man had a grim smile. “But these things never work out that way.”
26
They had literally flipped a coin, and Rob was with Roxy’s team, working with Ganesh and fourteen others. Jorge had the smaller team, but he was taking out flight control, so they were expecting criminal bureaucrats rather than hooligans with guns. Longbow would be with Jorge until they had casualties.
The planet was a moon circling a medium-sized gas giant right out at the edge of the Iceball range from the star. There was just enough atmosphere overhead to twinkle stars, but not even enough to pick up dust and swirl it on a wind.
The base was right over on the edge of the terminator, where the moon was tidally locked with the gas giant, meaning the parent always appeared low on the horizon like a malevolent eye peeking over the horizon. The local sun was a really bright star that rose and set, but didn’t warm things much. The gas giant actually kept the surface not all that far below water freezing, had there been any.
At least those were the images and details the Service had provided. They were on final approach now, and would see it in all its glory shortly for themselves shortly.
The rock, Rob knew, was dead. Cindered, gray rock for the most part with some smoothing, just from the flow back and forth between planets. Rob couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to live here, but he supposed that if you wanted a well-placed, secret base, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Everyone was in combat suits for this. Semi-rigid armor over a regular space suit, so you could move around quickly without the risk of tearing something. Bullets or beams would still penetrate, but everyone was equipped with patch kits to keep away from death pressure.
The do-or-die portion sucked, but the men were all getting paid well, and the rest of them were Lincolnshire agents. Apparently, Levi had even initiated his band into the secret, but Rob and Jorge hadn’t had a chance to really work out what that might mean to future missions, if the Service decided that the Can’t Shoot Straight Gang was needed.
Rob hefted his camera and looked around at the men, and woman. They had all brought their own suits to this, so no two soldiers looked alike. At Jorge’s insistence, everyone had a blue stripe across the forehead of their helmet, going all the way around like a crown. That told you who to not shoot at, hopefully.
The transport box was already in vacuum, so everyone was buttoned up tight.
“Weirdest damned thing I’ve ever been part of,” Ganesh grumbled over the comm, looking over at Roxy in her skin-tight, sexy, golden suit.
She just smiled up at the man.
“I get weirder things in my breakfast cereal, sergeant,” she replied.
She had her bolter rifle, but nobody but Rob had seen her use it in action. The rest of the team was about an even mix between pulse rifles and bolters, depending on their previous experiences with sand, dust, rain, and such. Pulse rifle was a much better weapon, when it wasn’t raining. Bolts didn’t care.
“All hands, this is the bridge,” Kedzierski’s voice suddenly came over comms. “Four minutes to horizons.”
They had broken out of Jump nearly two hours ago and had been under a strict radio silence as their tugs carried them down to the deck and then started to race across the surface of the moon. Coming out of the gas giant, as it were, instead of out the sun on a regular planet.
Hopefully, that would mess up scanners. At least long enough.
Everybody stood now. Stretched kinks out of arms and legs. Checked weapons one last time.
Like most of the rest, Rob had a pistol on his thigh, in case he needed it. He would just be filming things, hopefully. If they could get any sort of movie out of this, everyone’s covers would be fine, as most folks would chalk everything else up to Jorge being even weirder than most actors.
Roxy stepped close and motioned Rob to bend down. He touched faceplates with her and noted the wicked gleam in her eyes.
“Make sure you get several gratuitous shots of my ass, Handsome,” she said, laughing.
“How about now?” he replied.
She nodded, and Rob stepped well away from her. He started filming by centering her bottom in the viewfinder and just lingering there. It truly was a fantastic ass on any woman, let alone one in for early forties. He zoomed slowly, letting her turn slightly and rock her weight enough to flex all those muscles. As he got closer, she turned some more, until you had a long shot of where her breasts would be, if not for all the plates and armor in the way, rendering them more imaginary than anything.
Finally, he got to her face. She was leaned forward enough that he could keep the camera below her heroically as her face grew serious and intense. Mrs. Jones again, and not Roxy playing her.
“All right, men,” she said into the camera. “They think they’re safe from us here. Who would ever do something so insane, just for revenge? Sergeant, what’s the count?”
“Fifteen locked and loaded, ma’am,” Ganesh said in an equally serious voice.
“Very good,” Mrs. Jones exclaimed. “If they aren’t us, they aren’t friendly, boys. Prisoners would be nice, but not necessary as there is nothing here they can tell us. We need to get in and kill that gun tower so the rest of the force can land and take this base. Everyone stand ready.”
Rob held the shot for a few seconds as she looked beautiful and deadly.
“And cut,” Rob said. He turned to Ganesh and stepped slightly to one side, kneeling to make the man look huge. “Rolling. Repeat your line in two seconds, Ganesh.”
“Fifteen locked and loaded, ma’am,” the sergeant repeated.
Around him, the men amped up their swagger a notch.
“Cut. Perfect,” Rob called.
He rose and moved to the outer hatch. Mrs. Jones followed, and the others shifted. Ganesh stayed at the far end, where he would be the last man out, save for the camera.
“Okay,” Rob called. “Everyone confirm that your face and helmet cameras are on right now. Don’t worry about anything at that point, except looking tougher and meaner than everyone out there. We’ll edit all that footage as we need to, and then come back later with lines for you to speak as overdubs, once we get home and are doing this on a soundstage. This will be one take. The hatch opens and I’ll capture her leading you. Each man will follow in order, and I’ll get you as you go by. I’m the last one out, and I’ll be blind, carrying this camera, so I would appreciate you boys killing anybody that might shoot at me. Deal?”
That got a lot of laughter and ribbing. He didn’t bother telling them that Jorge had written those lines a week ago to motivate them, and he would be saying the exact same speech to his team. These men needed to concentrate on their jobs.
Rob was busy protecting the team’s cover as actors.
The transport pod suddenly lurched a little and everyone stumbled.
“Ten seconds to ground,” a man’s voice came over the comms. “Stand by.”
The space got as quiet as the tomb.
There wasn’t enough atmosphere out there that the sound of weapons would travel, unless a beam him them, so Rob was just as well that it was quiet. He knelt and turned on the camera, again tracing Mrs. Jones from knees to gorgeous face, except she was ignoring him now, staring at the hatch she would open shortly, leading a charge of armed maniacs across a dark, quiet field to commit mayhem.
Not exactly why he had signed up for the Service, but sometimes you didn’t have
much choice about how to save the galaxy. Any little thing he could do help to bring down the criminal syndicates of Salonnia.
The box lurched as the tug put them on the ground.
“We’re down,” Mrs. Jones announced to her team and the audience. “Follow me!”
She threw open the hatch as Rob pulled the focus back several notches. Out she went, followed by the next man in quick order. One by one, until only Ganesh was left, and he went through at a hard jog.
Rob slung the camera up on his shoulder, adjusted the viewfinder, and chased Roxy into battle.
27
Levi hadn’t done this in a while, but it was like riding a bicycle, as long as you didn’t faceplant before you remembered where the pedals were. He was about two-thirds of the way back in the line of soldiers as Nigel filmed everybody exiting, with a pistol in one hand and his overstuffed messenger back filled with first aid gear in the other. On his belt, he had three temporary shelters he could inflate, in the event of casualties. Hopefully nothing he would use today.
Roxy’s team was at one corner of the landing field, and he and Nigel were at the other, just because the control tower and the defense tower were so far apart. As he followed in the wake of Jorge’s raiders, Levi noted that the locals had started the process of digging some underground facilities, but hadn’t gotten too far yet. Everything everywhere was above ground right now, including one medium-sized hangar building off to one side, where presumably starcraft crews could work on a ship in atmosphere. It looked big enough to hold two Starfighters at once, or maybe one bigger craft, like the tug and cargo pod he had ridden to get here.
The nearest garage door was suddenly punctured as the tug behind him opened fire with their turret gun. Levi knew it was them because there was just enough air to fluoresce under the power of the bolt passing overhead. Most of the buildings would be too reinforced to damage like that, unless you were just going to blow them apart and let everyone inside die in vacuum. As it was, the garage had to be taken out before anybody could launch a fighter at them.
Jorge’s orders had been specific: Neutralize the place without killing anyone more than needed it. Right now, that meant taking the control tower and spiking the guns. Queen of the Borders would be coming over the horizon shortly and could engage any fighters that got off the ground. But until then, the ground teams would be slaughtered
At least that was the theory. Levi was just a guitarist and combat medic. He hadn’t killed a tenth as many people as Jorge or Roxy in his career. Hell, Handsome was the only person who had killed fewer, exactly one, but that was because the kid was only just getting started.
Of course, if the new album was as good as he thought it might be, Levi wondered if he’d have to retire from the Service and go legit.
If only his mother could see him now, he laughed to himself.
No more outbound fire from the tugs. They needed to hide behind intact Starfighters on the field until the tower couldn’t shoot anymore, on the belief that the locals wouldn’t immediately blast their own landing field and destroy everything. They would get there, once they started to panic, but that was later.
Hit them hard now and eliminate their options.
Jorge was against a door in the side of the ugliest, gray anthill Levi could remember. Huge, but men were ants here. Alarms were sounding on various channels in the background, but Levi was ignoring most of it. The call he needed to hear would be for a medic. Hopefully, it would not come today.
Everybody outside were in suits, so Nigel blew the door apart with one of his rockets, after people quickly ducked away from any flying slivers of metal that might puncture even these suits.
That was one way to get everyone’s attention. Nothing like a breach warning on top of fire alarms and intruder alerts. Rouse the dead, sort of thing.
Everyone poured through the now-obliterated airlock, Hachiro coming last, with a hand on Levi’s back as the gunner was watching the rear flanks.
Inside, it was even uglier. Seriously, did they work at that, or was it just the outcome of bad culture? His music had never sold all that well in Salonnia, so he knew they had no taste at all, but this architecture was hideous.
Or maybe they just had a thing for hallways that sloped in at the top. That would give the rooms on the other side a strange vaulting effect, especially if everything felt like stretched hexagons, instead of perfectly functional rectangles.
Weirdoes.
And the lighting was too bright, even without atmosphere. A solid stream of light down the center of the room, so white it made his eyes hurt. Red lights flashed madly above up and down the hall.
Jorge had poured through a door, leaving three men here to guard the hallway. Levi moved past them and took up a spot in the stairwell out of the way, but close enough to support everything as Hachiro stayed at this end of the snake and got things organized.
Interestingly, three of these men were watching the open gap behind them, rather than the interior hallway. But that made a sort of sense. You’d need an airlock to get to them, and the building wasn’t all that big. Someone might as well exit and circle the building as open a second hatch somewhere inside where they could sneak up on you.
They’d think of it, if Jorge gave them time. Too bad for them.
Something flashed and Levi found himself on his ass on the stairs.
He shook his head and stood up, realizing that there was enough atmosphere still to convey shock waves. And some asshole had just hit them with a rocket, or maybe lobbed a grenade into the hallway.
Hachiro was stunned but moving. The others were just recovering as well. Levi saw movement in the outside hallway.
He fired blind, not bothering to identify his target. Movement drew the barrel of his pulse pistol.
Worked. Somebody fell down. Wasn’t wearing Jorge’s blue crowns.
His team was still recovering. Must have gotten a flash/bang grenade in their laps and absorbed the pulse.
Levi swore and moved forward. He had no grenades. And someone on the other side had reacted too rapidly.
He dropped low and stuck his head around the corner after turning off the light on his helmet. Several more men were creeping forward, less than five meters away.
Levi shot the nearest one in the chest and ducked back. Bastards would probably put another grenade into the hatch as soon as they got organized.
Rather than wait, he threw himself forward, out onto the turf of the moon, and tumbled in the dust of the lunar surface. That kicked up a small puff of cloud that would hopefully distract them.
Turning, he fired at the nearest man, catching the guy just turning to see what had emerged.
A second shot as Levi walked fire down the line of ducklings. The third was finally turning enough to get a shot off, so Levi threw himself sideways. It worked. The shot missed.
But he fell on a big rock he hadn’t seen in the semi-darkness, and dropped his pistol. Without light, he couldn’t see it, either, leaving him down on his hands and knees in the dirt and about to get shot. Bastard over there saw the situation and paused to aim.
This was going to suck.
Hachiro stepped out of the hatchway and shot the man with a bolter rifle. It was an ugly way to die, since the holes went all the way through you and your suit. And four shots meant the guy was dead before his body stopped falling.
Levi found his pistol and scampered back to cover, pausing to grab some grenades from the first man he had shot.
“I thought you said you were the harmless one, Longbow,” Hachiro ribbed him as they got to relative safety.
“I am,” Levi smiled at the man. “You haven’t seen Jorge or Mrs. Jones in action.”
“Crap,” the sergeant laughed. “Now I’m not sure I want to.”
“Hey,” Jorge’s voice came over the comm. “Could you to pay attention? I’m expecting a counter-attack shortly.”
“You missed it, boss,” Levi laughed. “Four men with grenades and surprise, but we got them
all. How’s the top?”
“Neutralized,” Jorge said. “Damn, we must be getting old. They shouldn’t have reacted that fast.”
“Hire a better script consultant next time,” Levi replied.
“Hold on. Go ahead, Mrs. Jones,” Jorge said.
“I said, the guns are out of commission,” Roxy repeated in a tetchy voice. “Have these stupid mooks surrendered yet?”
“I’m working on finding out who’s in charge now,” Jorge said.
Long gap of silence.
“Longbow, did you get everything on helmet cam?” Jorge was back.
“Maybe,” Levi said. “Wasn’t really paying attention at that point.”
“We’ll review the footage later,” Jorge growled. “But one of the guys you just shot was apparently the base commander. They’re unhappy about giving up and think they can take us.”
Levi started to say something, when the landing field suddenly exploded in light. Seriously, it was like dawn over Puerto Peñasco when you were too hung over to pull the curtains closed.
As the light faded, one of the Starfighters had exploded. A second one went up in flames a moment later, and then a third.
“Ground force, this is Command,” Captain Kedzierski’s calm, malevolent voice suddenly filled the airwaves. “Explain to them that I will continue annihilating their base until they do surrender. After the flight wing, I’ll be going after the barracks with ship’s cannon.”
Levi stuck his head carefully out the hatchway and looked up. There was no real atmosphere, so Queen of the Borders had been able to fly incredibly low without much risk. Especially since nobody was looking up at the moment.
And, because the captain was like that, he had turned on all his running lights. A 1-Ring Mothership wasn’t anywhere near the size of her big sisters, the 4-Rings, but she still looked enormous, flying above the base at barely five thousand meters elevation.
The night sky was just like those alien invasion vids, when the invader suddenly emerges from the clouds and all hell breaks loose.
