Red Angel: Book II: Raiders (Red Angel Series 2)

by C. R. Daems

Cody and Brett paled as the gravity of their situation struck home. Neither man had any doubts the dealer would carry out his threat. He meant it. He would do just what he said, and if there had been any doubt, one look at his security men erased it.

  "Who?" Brett asked, feeling sick.

  "Let me sweeten the pot, give you a reason to want to honor your oath to me—one million credits each. Half immediately as a token of good faith and the other half when you succeed." The dealer smiled as the two marines' expressions turned from fear to smiles. "Enough to leave the marines and live happily ever after ... or join us and get even richer."

  "A half million each in advance?" Cody asked.

  "Yes."

  Cody looked at Brett, who nodded. "You have a deal. Who?"

  "Two NIA agents are joining the Vulcan. You're to kill or permanently disable them. When you do, the other half million will be deposited into your account."

  * * *

  "I thought they would kill us," Brett said as they sat in an upscale nightclub later that night.

  "That was an elaborate setup. They knew we were marines stationed on the Vulcan ten minutes after we walked into that nightclub." Cody picked up his glass, sniffed it, and then took a drink. "And greedy."

  "True, but this is like dying and waking up in paradise. Until they call us back from shore leave, we have our choice of women, booze, and accommodations. And—"

  "And if we live through the experience, a life of excesses." Cody took another drink from his glass and sighed with pleasure. "I never thought I could afford a glass of New Orkney Malt Scotch. The women we're used to don’t cost as much as this glass of whiskey. It’s brewed with the same formula and process as a famous Scotch whiskey brewed on old Earth a thousand years ago."

  "Shore leave isn't going to last forever, so let’s find some high-class women to match your high-class whiskey."

  * * *

  "What have you learned?" Brett asked as they sat alone in their four-man room three days later.

  "The dealer was right. Two Lieutenant Commanders came aboard yesterday. They're from the Oxax NIA office. The problem is that new group of marines under Major Pannell is their security. If they leave the ship, they have two marines guarding each one, and while on the Vulcan, they always have at least one marine each. They even have a guard at their door while they’re in their quarters," Cody said, rubbing his chin.

  "Explains the reason he’s paying two million credits."

  "The problem isn't going to be killing them. The problem is going to be getting away with it long enough to spend our hard-earned reward."

  Brett nodded agreement. "Fortunately there’s no time limit. We need to establish their routine and then develop a workable plan, because not trying isn't an option. It's all or nothing." Brett held out his fist and Cody touched his to it.

  "Rich or dead."

  * * *

  "I've come to the conclusion they don't have a schedule. They eat in the Mess usually but not always, use the firing range daily but at odd times, have access to the Bridge, and use the captain's conference room. That's probably the place they spend the most time," Brett said as he and Cody sat eating breakfast early one morning.

  "That's the place where they’re together, only have two guards, and the area has the least traffic," Cody said.

  "They’ll still have a guard outside the door and one inside. And sometimes Pannell stays with them in the conference room."

  "Pannell would be a problem, but the outside guard isn't going to be suspicious if he’s approached by a marine ... with a message for someone. And if a marine opens the door, then the inside guard will hesitate long enough so we can kill him. I doubt the women carry their weapons into the conference room to work, but even if they do, the two of us should be faster than navy officers." Cody laughed. "They would need to stand, take a shooting position, and aim before firing. Anyway, we’ll be wearing vests in case they get lucky."

  "All right, we just need to pick a time when Pannell is busy in the marine area."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Vulcan: Good days and bad days

  I sat on the Bridge with Kris as we approached the coordinates we had deciphered from the Eastar puzzle message.

  "No sign of activity, Captain," said Lieutenant Commander Childs, the radar operator.

  "Any suggestions?" MacLin asked, looking back to where we sat.

  "How far are we from the nearest moon-sized object?" I asked out of curiosity.

  "Radar?"

  "There’s a small uninhabited planet about two light seconds away. According to Holy Star's directory, it's named Cobalt."

  "Can we take a look?" I asked.

  MacLin nodded. "Nav, plot a course to Cobalt."

  "Vector on the Helm's board. Approximately two hours and five minutes at five hundred gravs."

  "Helm, execute the vector at five hundred gravs." MacLin turned back to us. "Expect anything there?"

  "No, sir. Just one of those stones we can't leave unturned without risking missing the one with the prize," Kris said, mimicking my thoughts.

  "Comm, notify the Lapis and Cabiri we're going to inspect Cobalt."

  The three cruisers circled the planet twice with all sensors active but found no sign of activity—just a cold pock-marked rock.

  "Onto Westar?" MacLin asked.

  "Yes, sir," Kris said after seeing me nod.

  * * *

  "Look at this." Kris slid her tablet in my direction.

  I looked down at the screen and recognized a similar collection of what looked like random sets of two and three characters that I had found on one of my attempts.

  "They must be using a different language." After a few minutes scanning the page, I leaned over and gave her a tight hug. "You're a genius! You've solved—" I shouted just as the conference room door opened.

  Our inside guard's hand went toward his weapon but stopped when a marine uniform appeared. A scream stuck in my throat as a laser burned a line from his eye to his temple.

  Panic surged through me as I twisted Kris out of the chair and onto the floor and struggled to get my gun free.

  The chair saved us. A laser beam sliced through the padding and upper portion of the frame.

  I had just gotten my shard gun free when a second marine came in holding the body of our outside guard. He slammed the door shut, disrupting the shooter, and dropped the body, which hit the floor with a sickening thud.

  "The bitches are under the conference table on the left side," the first man said, sounding amused. He suddenly appeared from around the table, grinning as he searched for us.

  I shot him in the chest. He recoiled backward into the wall. Surprisingly, he didn't collapse but rotated to the left and out of sight.

  "They're wearing protective vests," I whispered to Kris who now had her laser out and pointing under the table toward the other side of the room. She fired twice when the other man crouched to look under the table. Unfortunately, there were too many chairs in the way for a clean shot.

  "That second bitch has a laser," the other man screamed as he jerked back up and took several steps backward, looking at the laser burn on his sleeve.

  "We haven't got time for this, Brett," the first one said, and I heard someone jump onto the table and move slowly toward us.

  "Make a noise on the other side," I whispered to Kris as I thumbed the spread on my shard gun to medium and threw Red to her.

  Kris nodded as she swept Red under her, swiveled on her side, and slashed out with a leg, kicking one of the chairs.

  As she made contact, I rolled out until I could see the man standing on the table. He had reacted to the chair moving and was now facing away from me.

  I shot just as he began to turn in my direction and then rolled again as I heard the humming of a laser discharging and smelled burning wood next to me. When I looked up, the man stood there rubbing blood out of his eyes. My wider spread had caught him in his unprotected face, neck, and arms, just as I had hoped. I thumbe
d the spread to tight-beam and shot at his head.

  His laser discharged. The beam sliced just above my head as the man was propelled backward over the table, crashing onto the chairs.

  "Cody!" Brett shouted, backing toward the door. He couldn't leave, as we knew his name. With Cody dead, this particular Brett would be easy to identify. I guess he decided his best chance—his only chance—was to kill us and make up some story about trying to stop his friend from killing us, because he bent down and began removing our marine guard's multifunctional weapon from his dead hand.

  "Kris," I hissed, pointing under the table and making a kicking motion with my leg. She nodded and slid a little closer to the chair and looked to me.

  Just then, Brett jumped onto the table and began spraying the table and chairs, laughing as he walked.

  "I'm going to send you bitches back to whatever black god sent you. You owe me one million credits worth of pleasure. When I'm finished, your mothers won't recognize—"

  I nodded to Kris and rolled to a kneeling position as a chair shot out the other side of the table.

  Brett's weapon swept in the direction of the noise, shredding the chair.

  I fired three shots in the direction of his head. The first shot spun him around and his weapon on automatic spewed pellets across the ceiling. The second caught him in the face and blood sprayed in a halo-effect as he continued to spin. My third shot missed, gouging out a piece of the wall.

  He collapsed face down on the table. A deathly silence descended on the room.

  Kris lay there, one hand holding Red to her side and her other arm over her eyes.

  I knelt there not breathing, just listening with my gun frozen in my hand. I don't know how long it was before I realized I wasn't breathing and sucked in a deep breath.

  "Kris, are you all right?"

  "No. Are you?"

  "No." I crawled over to Kris and put my arm around her.

  "Aren't we safe anywhere?"

  "Yes, with each other," I said, thankful I had met Kris and she had become like family—an older sister I could trust. I smiled as I felt Red enter my sleeve. I wasn't sure what relation Red was, but he was definitely family.

  "Yes. We make a good team, little sister." She squeezed my arm.

  I don't know how long we lay there—spent, exhausted, happy to be alive—when the door burst open. Neither of us moved. Either it was the troops to the rescue or we were going to die.

  "Anna, Kris!" Pannell's voice seemed to echo off the walls after the long silence.

  "Over here," Kris's voice was surprisingly normal.

  A second later, Pannell pulled a chair aside and knelt near us. "Medics!" he shouted. "Have you been shot? Can you move?" His voice trembled with concern.

  "No to both questions," Kris said, with a hint of amusement. "Just turn out the lights, I think we'll sleep here tonight."

  "What happened?" MacLin roared from the doorway. "Are they dead?" His voice was closer this time.

  "No. I don't know how, but I think they're unhurt, although emotionally exhausted," Pannell said.

  MacLin knelt so he could see us. "Doesn't that krait bother you, Sinclair?" He sounded nervous.

  When I looked, Red was lying with his head between us.

  "No, I'm his nanny when Anna acts wild." She giggled, and I felt the pent up stress begin to ease. "Sorry for the mess we made, Captain. I'm afraid the party got out of hand."

  "That's alright. I was getting tired of the gray walls, and the beige chairs were old." He stood. "Get Doctor Renata—and get stretchers to take these two to sick bay."

  "Who are the dead marines, Pannell?"

  "Two are the security guards assigned to watch Commanders Paulus and Sinclair. The other two are Cody Jaeger and Brett Trout, assigned to the Vulcan. Third tour marines. Cody was reduced in rank once. Brett was Cody's cohort."

  "I want to know why, Paul. I don't care what you've to do to find out. Those two women are hot on the trail of those raiders, and right now catching them is number one on my to-do-before-I-die list."

  "Yes, sir."

  * * *

  Doctor Renata examined both of us, gave us each a shot of something, and I don't remember anything after that. When I woke it was dark. Of course, that only meant the lights were off.

  "Lights," I said, and the room lit. Then I remembered Kris was in the same room.

  "Hi, Anna. I guess that wasn't a bad dream, since we're sleeping in the same room and it smells like sick bay."

  "Good morning, ladies," Renata said as she opened the door to the room. "I see you're awake. How do you feel?"

  "Like I want to go to the firing range," Kris said, and I didn't detect any amusement.

  "You've had a very bad experience. You might want to talk with a professional."

  "Talking won't help. I'm past worrying. I'm past being scared. I'm even past being angry. I'm into screaming mad. We're going to find those raiders and let MacLin, Thayer, and Hardgrove send them to perdition."

  "I think I hear my favorite snoops," MacLin said as he approached the room, knocked, and opened the door after I indicated he could enter. "You find them and I'll take care of their transportation." He laughed.

  Pannell entered just behind him. "Can you tell me what happened? From the look of the captain's conference room, it's a miracle you're alive."

  "We were sitting in the conference room working on the puzzle messages. One guard had stayed in the hallway and one was in the room with us when ..." Kris went on to detail the events—between interruptions from Pannell with questions to me.

  "I guess our two would-be assassins assumed two female NIA agents would be easy kills." Pannell shook his head. "I think we should keep the details a secret. No sense giving the raiders helpful information. The two men you killed each had just under a half million credits in an Oxax bank, obviously a down payment, judging by what you heard Brett say. So the contract was for two million, one million each."

  "I'm not sure I like being worth more dead than Red is alive," Kris said, looking at me.

  "You shouldn't. One hundred thousand credits attracted all sorts of professional criminals, but at least they had to be careful not to kill Red. These bounty hunters don't have that problem."

  "Maybe you should wear a vest. It would protect you as well as Red." Pannell stood there looking thoughtful.

  "Let's just catch the bastards," Kris said, and for a second she looked on the verge of tears.

  "I know it's a little late, but I'm enlarging your security detail on board," Pannell said. "I'm afraid I thought the cruiser safe ... If you would feel better, I'll have your security guards' rooms—"

  "No." I looked to Kris, who shook her head. "Two marines died protecting us. Let's not tarnish their deaths by questioning the other guards' honesty. I don't imagine you've anyone on your team who has a blemish of any kind on their record."

  "Thank you. You're right, every one of your security guards has an outstanding service record." Pannell left, closing the door behind him.

  "I'm starved. Let's get something to eat before we get back to work." Kris stood and began getting dressed.

  When we left the room, four guards fell in behind us. The mess hall was not crowded, as it was close to closing time, but we got stares and heard whispered conversations from those who were there.

  About halfway through our breakfast, Kris stopped eating.

  "What did you mean when you said 'You're a genius!' just before ... we were interrupted?" Kris gave me a wry smile. "I've always thought I was, but you're the first to recognize it."

  "You figured out the puzzle's code."

  "I did?"

  "You said it looked like they were using a different language. Take a look at this and tell me what you see. Take your time." I typed out a line and sent it to her tablet:

  Lan( gua &ge di $ff ere #nt a) u-s *mu =st #th *ey.

  "Looks like the garbage in the puzzle message," Kris said after playing with it for several minutes. "But if I remov
e the special characters ... and spaces, it becomes words ... a sentence if you read right to left!

  Language different a use must they

  "Correct. Except they didn't use UAS standard for the message, they used old-Latin. It was used in the Free Peoples Union in the early years. In fact, their current standard language is a derivation of old Latin. They used old-Latin, reversed the order, broke it into two and three letters, and then added non-Latin characters to further confuse the connection. For my example, I used special characters as non-meaningful ones, but they used G, J, U, W, and Y, which aren't part of the old-Latin alphabet."

  "So you can decipher the message?"

  "If I'm right, then yes." I was yanked out of my chair and dragged several steps before she stopped so suddenly I ran into her. "Where are we going?"

  "I was heading for the conference room ..."

  "All right with me. They must have made it functional by now." Except for all the holes, I mused.

  "You're crazy." Her gaze went off into space.

  "Adrian says we're both crazy." On reflection, I had to admit he might be right.

  "I'm beginning to believe him. Okay." Her face stiffened in determination. "It will be worth it if we’ve cracked the code."

  When we reached the conference room, a guard stood in front of the door.

  "Commanders, Captain MacLin says you are welcome to use his office until the conference room is repaired." He walked down to MacLin's office door and opened it for us.

  "Thank you, Sergeant," Kris said.

  But before she could enter, one of the corporals in our security detail stepped inside, looked around, and then nodded for us to enter. Two guards stayed outside and two came in.

  I made myself my moo-coffee drink and Kris poured a cup of regular coffee. "All right, let me watch so I understand."

  I brought up one of the puzzle messages, removed all the non-Latin characters, removed all the spaces, then broke the string into meaningful Latin words and finally reversed the sentences to read left to right.