Reason For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 1)

by Adrian D. Roberts

  “Charges set,” he simply said. “Everyone get clear.”

  Valerie rolled to her feet and dashed to the side of the room as far away from the new set of ceiling charges as she could and the others did the same.

  “I’m the Forlorn Hope,” she called. They all looked at her blankly. “Never mind,” she shook her head. “I’m going in first. Do it, Sneaker.”

  The charges were designed to be directional. Sneaker shaped them to aim their force directly up into the ceiling and the security room. The concussion and noise in such an enclosed space was still deafening and disorientating. Valerie could not allow those above time to react and fought through the confusion in her head. She staggered to her feet pulling a grenade from her coats right pocket. At least this time I get to use my natural arm. The random thought skittered across her brain before, being mindful of her bewilderment, she carefully armed and tossed the grenade up through the hole. As soon as the grenade left her hand she jumped back, almost toppling into the hole in the floor she came through moments before.

  She narrowly avoided it, but couldn’t stop herself losing her balance, crashing to the floor as the grenade went off in the room above. With a growl, she rolled to her feet and launched herself at the brand new entrance Sneaker had blown open into the Security Room. Catching hold of the edge of the hole, the momentum of her lunge swung her feet forward, pivoting on her hands. She used that motion to bring her feet up against the ceiling, dug in her boot toes and pushed off. With this extra drive, she pulled herself up with her powerful arms, flipped herself into a roll and came up onto her feet, drawing both her pistols.

  There was no need. The room wasn’t large and the grenade had done its job extremely well. Three complete walls of VI screens surrounded her, each with two chairs. All six seats were turned towards her and each contained a dead body. It was apparent the initial explosion caused everyone to turn towards it, only for the grenade to explode directly in front of them, killing them instantly. The metal shards embedded around the explosive core, did the work they were designed to do effectively.

  The staff weren’t the only thing affected, many of the screens and consoles were perforated by the grenade. Most of screens were dark, only a few were still showing images. Valerie holstered her guns and called down the hole.

  “All clear. Sneaker, you’re first.” She lay on the floor and reached down into the hole. Sneaker jumped, grabbing her wrist as and she pulled him up so he could seize the hole with his other hand. She moved up to her knees, continuing to pull him and further helped him, by clasping the back of his belt, heaving him into the room.

  Sneaker scrambled to his feet. “Wow, you’re a lot stronger than you look. That was a lot easier than when Hobbs helped me.”

  Valerie was used to this kind of reaction and didn’t even acknowledge his comment. “The grenades have done quite a bit of damage but see if you can get hooked into their cameras.” She ordered and got ready for the next person. “Come on Rush. You’re next.” She pulled Rush and Hobbs up quickly, both giving her very similar looks to the one Sneaker had.

  “Any movement down there?” she asked Hobbs.”

  “Not yet, the workers certainly hadn’t moved and I didn’t see any of Tumblers people yet,” he answered. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they came in there pretty soon. What’s our plan now?”

  “You and Rush see if you can find out what’s outside that door with what’s left. I’ll cover our new back entrance. Sneaker how are we looking?”

  Sneaker was right under one of the consoles, you could only see his legs and his muffled voice came out. “I’ve found where the data from the cameras is coming into the room. It’s undamaged so I can connect a transmitter that will send an encrypted signal to my datapad. It’ll give us access to all the remaining cameras. The problem is that they will be able to remove mine and do the same for themselves, as soon as we’ve left. I can rig a tamper switch with some of the explosives, but there is no guarantee that they won’t be able to get past that either.”

  Valerie pondered that for a moment. “Can you set charges in here to destroy as much of the equipment as possible, without damaging your uplink, including the anti-tamper?”

  Sneaker dragged himself out from under the consol. “I think so, but I can’t be sure we won’t lose everything. There’s a real chance my tamper switch will blow with the rest of it. Even if it does, they could blow the relay on purpose and cut us off.”

  “We can live with that,” Valerie said nodding to herself. “If the tamper goes off it will destroy the relay and stop anyone else using it. Hopefully the destroyed equipment will delay them long enough so they won’t go looking to connect up themselves, and for us to meet our objective, before they realise what we’re doing. Even if they find and blow the relay, it’s better for no one to have the cameras, than just Tumblers people. Set it up Sneaker. Quick as you can, I think we’ll have some company soon. What are we looking at on the other side of that door, Hobbs?”

  The mercenary and Rush managed to bring up the feed from the cameras around the Security Room. They were displayed onto half a dozen still working screens. “We’re seeing a few turn up outside. It looks like they had a defensive set up out there, waiting for us to attack them. I’d bet they rushed off when we entered their Drugs plant and now they’re drifting back in. Someone’s realised where we are and they’re trying to turn their defences round. Unless we move right now, it’ll be a slaughter if we go out there.”

  Valerie shook her head. “No. We don’t go until Sneakers finished. We’ve got to disable this room and the cameras are enough of an asset to make it worthwhile waiting. Check the floors above us. Are they up there yet?”

  “You want to go up again?” Hobbs questioned incredulously. “We are seriously running low on explosives. We’ve got enough for one maybe two more.”

  “Hopefully that’ll be enough,” she answered. “All we can do is keep our heads and react to the situation as it presents itself. No plan lasts beyond first contact and ours ran out after we crashed through the front door downstairs. As it is, we’re still alive and they are down to a third of their Enforcers. Now comes the fun bit. We’re the hunters.”

  The whole time they were talking, Valerie’s gaze never wavered from the hole and neither had the aim of her pistols. She stood so she had a clear view through both holes at the same time. Her pistols each hummed once. The number of Tumblers troops dropped by one more. Mag rounds scattered through the first hole, but they couldn’t get the angle to shoot directly at Valerie, unless they exposed themselves. They learned the hard way not to give her the slightest chance for a kill shot.

  Hobbs grimaced, clearly not happy with where they were, he turned back to the screens. Rush had already pulled up the footage from the floors above and below them.

  “She’s so bloody sure,” he muttered. “Too sure I reckon. The further we go in the harder it gets.”

  “I don’t think she cares a whole lot,” Rush replied. It was only a whisper, but Valerie heard it clearly. She felt a slight twinge of something inside her, she couldn’t quantify it and it bothered her a bit. She did acknowledge to herself that he was right. She wasn’t going to deliberately lead them to their deaths, but she just didn’t care if she fell in this battle.

  Hobbs and Rush studied the screens intently, struggling to tell where the cameras were in relation to the Security Room using the damaged equipment. Rush noticed something and reported it to the others.

  “I don’t think our friends have access to the same plans as us, or at least they think they know what they are doing, rather looking it up.”

  “What do you mean?” Hobbs asked.

  “Look how they’re milling around on the floor above and the one beneath us. They know what we’ve done and they’ve guessed what we’re going to do next. The problem is that they are struggling to find the right rooms. They haven’t even found the one below us yet.”

  “Well that’ll make our life easier,” Sne
aker said. He was standing on a chair setting the charges onto the ceiling. “I’m just about done. The good news is the uplink is connected and I’m receiving the camera’s output. The tamper proofing is ready and the room is set to blow along with the ceiling, though of course not at the same time.”

  “What’s the bad news?” Rush asked the obvious question.

  “We are now out of explosives, just the grenades left.”

  “It’ll have to do,” Valerie interrupted. “Is the room above still clear?”

  Hobbs took that one. “I think so, there are no cameras in the rooms themselves, but we think we’ve isolated the one in the right corridor. No one’s gone in or out of the room we need. They do seem to be moving in and out of a couple of others. My guess? Rush is right, they don’t know where we could come up and the two they’ve picked are the wrong ones.” He paused before quantifying. “Of course I’m the one who could be wrong.”

  “We’ll take our chances. Anyone in the room will get a surprise from the blast anyway and that will give us an opening. I’ll take it from there.” Valerie looked at Sneaker. “Set that crate underneath to give me a leg up and it’s over to you.”

  Sneaker quickly placed the equipment case under the explosives he’d set. “OK, everyone. Take as much cover as you can.” Hobbs, Rush and Sneaker huddled as far away from the ceiling charges as they could, covering their ears while Valerie stayed in place. Their ‘back door’ still needed watching. Tumblers people seemed to be hanging back in the Drug lab, waiting for those on the floor between them and Valerie to find the right room. From there they would be able to attack Valerie with a much better probability of success.

  “On three,” Sneaker called. “One, two, three!” The concussion wave pounded at Valerie, coming from behind and above her. In these instances she didn’t really appreciate having enhanced senses. During her early training, she found she was more susceptible to the disorientation associated with proximity explosions. When in combat with the Legion, she wore specially designed com plugs, giving her full communications and protected her sensitive hearing. In combat you couldn’t rely on any equipment or drugs, you never knew when it might break or run out. While you have them, they’re essential to giving you that important edge, but you can’t allow yourself to be incapacitated without them. Valerie was taught to be able to function in conditions even those with normal hearing would struggle in. This along with Sneakers expert placement of the charges, allowed her to at least be functional and still standing after they detonated.

  Valerie kept her eyes squarely on the hole in the floor, watching for movement. Two men darted out at the sound of the explosion, looking to see what was going on and trying to take advantage of any distraction. Valerie gritted her teeth, willing her body to respond to her commands and shot them both dead. Not with her characteristic pinpoint accuracy but deadly none the less. She aimed a pistol at each of them and fired five times. On the left, two shots went wide, three impacted across the targets body, blood spraying out behind him. On the right only two shots struck home, both were dead centre on his chest and the two bodies dropped down next to one another.

  While they were still falling, Valerie spun on the ball of her foot, holstered her pistols and took two running strides to the equipment crate Sneaker had put in place. With will power and training overcoming her disorientation, she leapt again into the unknown and once more her luck held. She wondered as she rolled to her feet how many times she could do that, before she ran into someone ready with a Pulse rifle aimed at her head. It was a fleeting, almost instinctive, thought, which couldn’t penetrate the all-consuming grief and guilt for surviving when her family had not.

  With no time to waste she dropped to the floor, reaching through the hole ready to pull the first of the team up.

  “We need to move,” she called down. Valerie could see Hobbs reacted first and stumbling through the dust to the crate. He stepped up on it, jumped for her hand and she hauled him through. Once he was up and on his feet, Valerie pointed to one of the walls. “We need a hole through there. These walls are thin enough, the Mag rifles should do the trick.”

  “You really don’t like doors do you?” Hobbs said shaking his head in bemusement.

  “Keep the enemy guessing.” Valerie replied as she dragged Rush up next and Hobbs got to work on the wall. “That’s the name of the game. In any battle, if the other girl doesn’t know where you are or what you’re doing, you’ve got a much better chance of beating them. Particularly in an environment like this. Rush, help Hobbs,” she ordered as he stood up. “The plan is to go through here to the lift shafts. Without the cars, hopefully they won’t think of them as a way to get around.” Sneaker was last up and looked a bit shell shocked as he staggered to his feet.

  “Hobbs and Rush. You’re on point. Keep going straight, the lifts are twenty metres away. Sneaker, sling your rifle and get on your datapad. You’re command and you stay in the middle. Use the cameras to tell us what’s going on and blow the Security Room on my order. I’m rear guard. They’re going to be in here any second.”

  “Room clear,” Hobbs called after he quickly stuck his head through the hole he just made.

  “Move out,” Valerie ordered.

  Hobbs and Rush darted into the next room. Hobbs pointed to its only door. “Cover that, Rush. I’ll create another exit.” Sneaker followed them in and Valerie stayed by the hole. There were two doors in the room and she heard movement from behind one of them. She could see they were made of the Carbonfibre frame with Polycarb sheets mounted on them, just as Sneaker predicted, and Valerie’s Mag pistols could penetrate with ease.

  She aimed her pistols and fired, punching rounds through the lightweight materials, at chest height along the width of the door, as fast as she could. Someone screamed from the other side before cutting off with a gurgling sob. Valerie followed the rest of the team quickly. The door she shot through disintegrated in a storm of Mag and Pulse rounds. A woman ran in spraying fire as wide as possible, but Valerie was now directly to her left with a straight line of sight through the hole in the wall. Two rounds from Valerie’s pistols slammed her off her feet, sending her tumbling through the hole in the floor to the Security Room.

  “Blow the room!” Valerie shouted to Sneaker as she withdrew backward, firing as she went. The charges went off, causing the weakened floor to fall into the Security Room, with more of Tumblers people who rushed in. Valerie glanced back to see Hobbs, Rush and Sneaker were all through the next wall and she followed quickly. This room again only had one door which Rush was covering and Hobbs was at work on the wall. Short bursts of three Mag rounds each, carefully aimed by Hobbs, punched holes through the thin walls. Hobbs placed his holes evenly in a rough circle, rationing his rounds carefully. Valerie took the moment of calm to re-load her own pistols. Designed to be compact, but with the heavier calibre, they could hold seventy-five rounds each. With her capability to place highly accurate shots, she could make those seventy five rounds last a long time. She was running low, a soft amber light glowing on each of the pistols grips.

  Sneaker strapped his datapad to his left forearm and studied it intently, watching the input from the cameras they hijacked. “Two goons heading to the lifts. They’ll be there any moment,” he said.

  “Which way are they coming from and is that the last wall?” Valerie queried him.

  “Definitely the last one. I can see the shots coming through the wall. The goons are coming from Hobbs’s right.”

  Valerie looked at the wall and Hobbs was three quarters round his rough circle. “Cease fire, Hobbs. I’m going through.” He immediately stopped, raised his rifle and stepped back. Valerie drew her pistols, took two running steps in the small space and launched herself at the wall. She raised her arms up in front of her face and with her legs up, she jumped so her knees and arms took the impact, as she crashed into and through the already weakened wall.

  Dust and debris obscured her view and she stumbled slightly as she lande
d in a crouch. Quickly righting herself, she turned and rose up to full height, both pistols pointing in the direction Sneaker indicated, down the corridor she landed in. The dust was clearing and she had a good view as two women came running full pelt around a corner. They were trying to get ahead of Valerie and her team but to no avail. Both of their faces revealed their surprise, when they saw Valerie standing in front of them, before their heads exploded into bloody messes.

  The lift doors stood next to the two new corpses. Valerie moved swiftly to take up position at the corner to watch for any others.

  “All clear,” she called back to the team. Sneaker came out first, followed by Rush, Hobbs came last.

  Sneaker, with his rifle slung and his pistol in his left hand, used the right to manipulate the datapad. His fingers danced as he swiftly switched from one camera to the next. “This floor is clear I think. Bad guys on the stairs both above and below us. They look confused and are shouting at each other.” He looked up at Valerie where she had her back to him. “They look scared.”

  “Good.” Valerie simply said. “Find me a floor where we can get to the stairs unopposed. Preferably with a few targets nearby we can take out. I want to thin the herd a bit before we go for Tumbler. Rush and Hobbs. Get the doors open.”

  “Lightning, at this point if, I was them I’d be terrified,” Valerie heard Hobbs mutter.

  “Hey, I’m just happy to be alive.” Rush replied. He broke the control panel off with the butt of his rifle and ripped most of the electronics out. The buildings cheap and simply construction helped, there were no complicated or wireless systems, just wires running from the control box directly to the doors. Rush quickly sorted through the various wires, found the ones he was looking for and connected them together. The doors slid silently open.

  Hobbs switched on the light at the end of his rifle, panning the beam up and down the dark shaft. Light, heat and smoke was coming up from the still burning wreckage of the lift cars, Hobbs and Valerie destroyed earlier. The light was dim and the heat would be uncomfortable rather than dangerous, it was the smoke that would cause the problem. It was thick and heavy with chemicals from the lifts various systems.