Reason For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 1)

by Adrian D. Roberts

Valerie held her hands up, palms out in signal of her surrender. “Alright, alright already. I can say it, I’m big enough to admit it,” she smiled at her family. “You’re right, this is a fantastic coat. You’re also right, I do feel out of place wearing my normal clothes out in the Boundary. Thank you. All of you, I love it.”

  In fact, the idea behind the coat hit a little closer to the truth than Valerie would prefer. Yes, for Eleanor Doherty, diplomat shuttle pilot, it would be just the thing for when she could be spending weeks kicking her heels on a Boundary world, while she waited for the Diplomats to need ferrying somewhere. For Major Valerie Carter of Shadow Company, if the coat was as good as Tom thought and she would have it checked thoroughly by her techies, it would be extremely useful. She had spent enough time freezing her back side off undercover in cheap, thin clothing, while scouting one target or another, to not properly appreciate just how good this coat could be.

  “Since you all have been so nice to me, with all these fantastic presents, why don’t I bake us some of my special muffins?” Six and four year olds, weren’t known for sleeping in. It was still only 7.30 am Zeus standard time and if you couldn’t have breakfast muffins on your birthday, when could you?

  The kids cheered loudly at that idea. “Great idea, the three of us can play in here so we don’t get under your feet.”

  “OK, have fun.” Valerie took the coat off and slipped it over the back of the sofa before heading into the adjoining kitchen. She switched the VIS onto a Radio station, playing her more preferable orchestral music, and started getting out the ingredients, mixing bowl and scales from various cupboards. The kitchen was equipped with a full food processor capable of making many items such as cakes, breads, pies and other foods, all programmable to the family’s personal preferences. Like most people, Valerie enjoyed cooking or baking at least. It was a running joke in Shadow Company, if you wanted to wheedle something out of the Major, you made sure you started out with cake, the more chocolate involved the better.

  The large kitchen diner had three entrances, double doors behind her led into the palatial garden and outdoor swimming pool. Directly in front of her was the door going into the lounge where she could see Tom, Daphne and Bobbie playing. Tom was on his knees with Daphne hanging on his back, her arms around his neck while he tickled Bobbie on his lap. On the same wall, just further to the left, was the third door leading into the large front hall. Through this she could see the front door. The lounge also had a door leading into the hall that was directly in front of the front door. Tom and the kids were in front of that, with a sofa between them and the door to the hall. Valerie kept a wary eye on both doors, it wouldn’t be unusual for the kids to come charging through, being chased by their father.

  Humming along to the music, with the back ground noise of Tom and the kids at play, she started by putting butter and sugar into a large bowl, creaming it gently with a spoon. Baking soda and flour went in next before she began to beat the eggs in. Valerie was about to add her mix of spices when something caught her attention. In the years that followed, she would blame herself for not noticing sooner, that for the first time, her decades of combat experience let her down. The truth is, in this moment, she was happy, content and the most relaxed a human being can possibly be. The trained soldier and killer inside of her fully asleep, while the mother and wife spent time with her family.

  The front door exploded inwards and two black clad men burst in, Mag rifles up and ready. Valerie could see it in their body language, she could see what they were going to do, the one to the right glanced in her direction for the briefest moment, before concentrating at their obvious target. She saw Tom stand up in surprise, Bobbie still in his arms, Daphne swinging from his back. Valerie wanted to shout, to scream a warning, anything to stop them, but she was frozen in shock and horror. There was no hesitation other than aiming at their target, and the rifles hummed in rapid fire.

  Tom, Daphne and Bobbie were shredded, blood sprayed all around them. The rifles stopped and were lowered.

  Valerie had no memory of how she got there, but she was suddenly kneeling down in the blood and gore, crying as she held onto the lifeless bodies of her family. The two attackers hadn’t moved, they’d stood there, not responding to Valerie’s move from the kitchen into the Lounge. Much later, when Valerie had gone through it all over and over again, she came to the conclusion two things happened. First this was a kill mission. Tom was their target and they were so focused on him, they had not seen or even registered the children, before firing. Secondly, it was entirely possible they were horrified at killing two young children.

  At the time, this had no relevance whatsoever. The black clad murderers moved up and one of them grabbed Valerie, starting to pull her to her feet. Up until this point, they hadn’t been important, just part of the scenery, completely obscured by the dead bodies of her family. Now they laid their hands on her, the cold dark killer lying deep inside woke. She reacted instantly.

  Valerie turned towards her assailant. He was wearing a helmet with a Plexiglass visor, leaving his lower face exposed. It was covered by a thin piece of black fabric, presumably to protect his identity. It also gave her the perfect angle of attack. Her right arm shot forward, palm back, fingers curled and the heel of her hand slammed into his nose, driving the bone deep into his brain. He was long dead before he hit the floor.

  Valerie continued the move, rising up, even as the body in front of her fell back to the floor. She gathered up the rifle from his dead hand and shot his partner cleanly in the face, below his visor. His body now joined the others on the floor.

  Her mind worked in a distant manner, taking in the attacker’s clothes, armour and weapons. Standard issue police special weapons squad, all insignias removed. Two man fire team, there would be more outside. There was no hesitation as she strode to the door, rifle at the ready.

  She stepped outside. An armoured aircar sat on the driveway. Two more black clad, armoured figures standing next to it, a man and a woman. They glanced up at her as she stepped out into the bright sunshine. Their rifles came up in surprise at her appearance, evidently they were well trained. Valerie’s rifle was already at her shoulder and aimed straight for her first target.

  It should be raining. The errant thought flitted across her brain. She shot the man before his rifle was even halfway up.

  It shouldn’t be like this. Her second shot killed the woman before she had the chance to depress her trigger

  It should be dark with thunder and lightning, not sunshine. For a moment Valerie stood there, not thinking, trying not to feel

  Years of training and experienced kicked in, screaming at her. She went back into her home, where so very many happy memories had been created and went to her family. Kneeling down beside them, she carefully straightened Tom’s body where he lay on floor. Gathering Daphne up, she gently laid the girl down next to her father and placed his arm around her. Then she did the same for Bobbie on Tom’s other side, so her husband was cuddling their daughter and son, just has he did so many times before.

  She took a deep breath, the tears were there but this was not the time for them. “I’m sorry, Tom. I’m sorry, Bobbie. I’m so very, very sorry, Daphne. I should have been able to stop this. I let them do this, I let my guard down. I wish I could stay here with you, but this is not the time. I’ve got to go. Whoever sent these murderers will come looking for them soon and when they do they will do everything they can to kill me. I can’t let that happen. Not yet.

  “Goodbye, Bobbie. Goodbye, Daphne. Goodbye, Tom. I will never, ever forget you. You will always be with me.” Valerie stood slowly and saw the coat, the last thing her family would ever give her, lying there completely untouched on the sofa. She gathered it up and drew it on. It settled easily on her shoulders. She glanced around, looking for Bobbie’s model, but she couldn’t see it. Very well, the coat would be reminder enough and she had her memories, nothing would ever take them away from her.

  She stepped up to one
of the killer’s bodies and quickly searched it, finding nothing to identify him. She hadn’t really expected to, it was still worth checking. He wore a Pulse pistol on his belt, which she took along with several clips of spare ammunition. The coat’s inside pockets easily hid them away. The pistol fit neatly in one of the outside ones, where it was accessible. She picked up the body easily and hurled it clear across the room, away from her family. The second followed the first and she headed outside.

  The armoured aircar was unsurprising still there. Mag rifles were quiet weapons and it was unlikely any of her neighbours heard anything. The police would be monitoring the area though, to make sure nothing would interrupt their off the clock colleagues earning a little extra on the side. There would not be any spycams in the area to cause any embarrassing evidence either, which worked in Valerie’s favour.

  What she planned would certainly get everyone’s attention. She went to search the bodies for the aircar’s key card. Not finding it, she frowned thoughtfully before trying the door, to find it unlocked and the card still inserted in its slot.

  “Sloppy, very sloppy,” she said to herself. Shaking her head she wondered at their arrogance, it was an inconsequential thought. Her brain was wandering all over, anything to keep her mind away from what lay on the floor of her home.

  Opening the aircars rear compartment, she threw the two bodies in one after the other. Shutting the door she went back to the front, climbed into the driver’s seat and activated the safety harness so she was securely belted in. The aircar was sitting at standby. It took her just a moment to power up the engines. The aircar rose gently under her control and hovered on its antigravs, a metre off the ground. She manipulated the controls easily, bringing the nose round and pointing directly at the house. Boosting the thrust engines, it rocketed forward and slammed though the front wall of her home.

  The aircar was designed to keep the pilot safe in the event of a full speed crash landing. With its heavy armour, it went through the external walls and the internal one’s easily. Valerie got the power just right and stopped in the lounge, close to the centre of the house. She had no intention of seeing the damage. Swiftly, she deactivated the harness and climbed into the back.

  It was a troop carrier, with seats down either side of the compartment and the two bodies lay on floor in the middle. She pushed them out of the way with her foot and opened a maintenance hatch in the floor. Inside was the electron power cell, generating all the energy the aircar would ever need, without any form of pollution. To the majority of the population they were safe and infallible.

  They were still a source of energy and if you knew how, that energy could be released. The Legion taught Valerie many useful skills, including how to take a safe, civilian power unit and turn it into a bomb. It wasn’t particularly easy, but it was possible if you knew how.

  They taught Valerie two different approaches, the complicated option was to re-route the power output back into the cell overriding all the safety cut outs with an intricate and powerful virus. Valerie didn’t have one with her. She went for the quick and nasty alternative. A shot from her Pulse pistol made a mess of the control box attached to the cell. A second shot did the same to the thick output cables. Sparks fountained out, the cell struggling to contain its power with its limited internal systems, rather than the more powerful external one Valerie just destroyed.

  Given time, the cell would cycle itself down to make itself inert. Valerie had no intention of letting it. She plucked a remote grenade from one of the aircars weapon racks, activated it and dropped it neatly in front of the exposed cells output. Now was the time to leave and she didn’t waste any time, she headed straight out the back of the aircar, through the rear troop hatch and out of what was left of the front of the house.

  She needed to get clear quickly, an exploding electron cell would completely destroy the house and anyone within the properties boundaries. It really wasn’t a concern of Valerie’s, but her neighbours would be fairly safe if they were inside. Their houses were strong enough to absorb the energy, as long as they were outside the immediate blast radius.

  Directly underneath her Kingfisher was a maintenance hatch. It should be locked and secured, as it led straight down to the tunnels for the underground mass transit system. Both prior to Shadow Company and since forming it, she was sent on a number of covert missions outside the Pantheon. These had been in places where, if her identity was compromised, she would be immediately targeted by either the system government, whoever was the target of her mission, or in many places, just because she was a Legion Commando Devil. She always had an exit of some sort that was unexpected and could be accessed quickly.

  It became a pre-requisite for all her homes outside of the Legion, to have an exit that could be used in an emergency. When she and Tom were looking for a place to raise a family after they were married, it had been second nature for her to include it in her list of must haves. She knew it was illogical and she had never been in danger within the Pantheon. There was a certain level of animosity to members of the Legion, but actual incidents against them were rare. Valerie knew she would not be able to relax without some sort of emergency way out.

  When they looked at the house in Gooseberry Green, she saw the maintenance hatch and knew it would be perfect. Right now it was her way out. She punched in the override code programmed in years before, the hatch parted and she swung smoothly in. Slapping the close button even before her head was clear, the doors missed her by the barest of millimetres. When it was secure, she activated the grenade and the place she had called home for almost ten years, along with the bodies of her family, exploded in a white hot inferno.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Valerie hung there in the dark, just listening to herself breathe and she could feel tears running down her face. The shaft was pitch black, the heavy duty hatch above her not letting any light in. It was part of a landing pad and designed to a much higher specification, than they normally would use, in case of accidents. The explosion above and resultant devastation she presumed followed, could not be heard here in the dark.

  Below her, she knew the shaft was a straight drop of just over a hundred metres. It was so tempting to let go of the ladder and let it all end here and now. No, she made that choice already, only moments ago, to live and let her family live on in her memories. She swallowed and shook herself mentally, even if the police hadn’t been monitoring their ‘off duty’ colleagues, they would be very aware of the massive explosion and would be here in droves shortly.

  It was time to leave. She headed down the shaft carefully by feel, counting the rungs. She could have used the light on her wristcomp, but other than a couple of status panels by the hatch, there were no obstacles until she reached the bottom. The shaft was a rough skinned tube with the single ladder being its only feature. Like most of the infrastructure in the Pantheon it was designed to be basically functional for the Manuals who did any simple work that was needed. It also included the capability for a grav-sled to be used, by the much more highly trained and paid engineers, should for whatever reason they be needed.

  At rung fifty two she stopped and felt the shaft wall directly behind her. Unlike the solid rock that had been bored through and then skimmed with a permacrete layer to seal it, this part yielded easily to her hand. She couldn’t see it at the moment, but Valerie knew it looked no different from the rest of the shaft. Shortly after moving in, Valerie came down here and dug a hole into the wall. Covering it with some of the Legion’s top-of-the-line Camocloth. Not only did it blend in perfectly with its environment, making it indistinguishable from its surroundings, it also could fool all but a direct scan.

  She pulled it aside and felt along the inside for the light attached to the wall of the hole. Switching it on, she could see the four back packs stored there. The equipment was up-to-date, with two large packs for Tom and herself and two much smaller ones for Daphne and Bobbie. Valerie didn’t think she could feel any worse than she already did. The sight
of the bags especially for her children showed she was wrong and wrenched her heart.

  Taking a deep breath she moved round on the ladder, so her feet were on the rungs, while her hands held onto the edge of the hole and her body was suspended over the long drop. The slightest wrong move and she would go plummeting down with no chance of survival. Carefully, she pulled Tom’s pack over and dug into it, pulling out the bundle of cash. Peeling off a dozen notes, she put those into one of the hidden internal pockets in her coat. Pushing Tom’s pack back in, she grabbed her own and put the remaining cash in with what was already there.

  Removing the com circuit from her wristcomp, Valerie snapped it several times, breaking vital components and preventing it from being traced. She selected a new one from the several stored there and slotted it into the wristcomp. This one had no connection to Eleanor Doherty. Without being activated, none of the others were detectable. A small lamp from her own pack clipped onto the front of her coat. Finally she swung the pack over onto her back, pulled herself back onto the ladder, switched the light off and replaced the camocloth.

  She looked down into the inky black darkness beneath her and sighed. It was going to be a long climb down and there was a distinct time limit. At some point, the Police or some other part of the emergency services, were going to contact the Legion and inform them Lieutenant Eleanor Doherty was dead. That would set off red flags going all the way up the line to the very top. The questions coming back down would be very sharp and to the point. While asking those questions, they would flag Valerie Carter’s file and if she used her access for any Legion facility, alarms would go off.

  The Legion did not take kindly to any of its Officers being arrested without being informed first, let alone killed in the middle of a fire fight in some residential neighbourhood. Valerie was sure that given the nature of what happened and a Legion Officer being involved, no matter how low a rank she was, the Police would spend quite a bit of time setting up a suitable cover story. Valerie’s best chance of getting off world, was by using the Legions resources and she would not be able to do that once the alert went out. She had to get to the main base in Zeus and get a flight up to Furioso as quickly as possible.