“Think of who you’re dealing with, kid,” Ward said. “You know these people are as ruthless as they are cunning. They were waiting for the right moment to strike.”
“He’s right,” added Amaru. “I’ve worked with these people long enough to know they don’t do anything straight and even. They’ve always got the inside track and are willing to use it.”
“How can I trust either of you? For all I know you were working us from the beginning, Janis.” She gestured at Ward with the gun. “Him being here might be part of your plan. How can I tell?”
“That’s insane!” cried Amaru. “Why would I give you Lee if I was in on his plans? Why would I betray him to you in the first place?”
“Who knows? You’re all so fucking devious! You’ll do anything to get your way. You’ll roll over and crush all of us!”
Ward saw it in Valeri’s eyes. She was dangerously close to the edge. Any second now, she would shoot them both and run, or let them go. It was impossible to tell which way she would go. No micro-expressions or gestures could possibly let Ward distinguish between those two choices. Not anymore.
He pushed himself onto one foot, then the other, his hands raised. Valeri backed up, keeping the gun trained on him. The sounds of gunfire were getting closer, the loud thud of ballistic weapons, followed by the muffled noise of energy weapons slicing through air.
“Listen to me. There’s a reason these people hired me to do this job. They were looking for a sucker, someone they could use who wouldn’t ask a lot of questions. Amaru, for all I know, was being played too. She tried to help you people. And the moment I started to suspect, I went to Finch and told her I would share whatever Lee was hiding. I wanted to help you too! I wanted to know what they were really up to out here! Now we know, and they won’t let that get out.”
Valeri was still shaking her head, struggling to come to terms with what Ward was telling her. But he recognized the festering doubt in her eyes. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes and her arm was beginning to tremble from the effort of keeping the gun trained on him. She didn’t know what to believe anymore. For that matter, neither did he. All he knew was, somebody with big guns was going to come through the room’s doors and force her to make her mind up any second now.
So Ward made up his. He pulled down the defense overlay, cancelling its demands to strike out at Valeri, and lowered his hands to his sides. If she took the shot, he would die.
“If you’re going to shoot me, do it now. You’re running out of time.” A loud thud sounded just beyond the door, as if to punctuate his point. He looked at Amaru, giving her a weak, reassuring smile. “Just promise me you’ll get her out of here, okay? She’s got nothing to do with those people out there. And if they find her here, they’ll kill her.”
Valeri straightened her arm, retraining her aim at his head. “You’d do that? You’d be willing to die for her?’
He looked at Amaru again. She also seemed more than a bit surprised by the gesture.
“Yeah. No one else is going to die because of me. Not today.”
Valeri’s reaction was unexpected, to say the least. She lowered the gun and swore under her breath, wiped the tears from her eyes and started issuing orders.
“All right. The two of you follow me. We’ve got exactly one chance of getting out of here alive.”
Thirty-Six
Valeri led them to the rear access door. She poised her hand over the manual release, raising the Rutger in her other hand. The sounds of the firefight were more muffled at this end of the room, though that wouldn’t last much longer. Valeri turned to Ward and Amaru, issuing some last-minute instructions.
“Follow me. And stay close. At the other end of the facility is an emergency escape hatch. We need to get there if we’re going to have any chance of getting out of here in one piece.”
“I can cover us,” said Ward, nodding to his gun. “You lead the way, I’ll make sure no one gets behind us.”
Valeri’s eyes narrowed at him. “We’re not there yet, Ward. I still don’t know if you’re going to betray us the second we get out there.”
“Okay, but you’ll need to set to hypersonic if you want to make a dent in their armor. You’ll also need this.”
Opening his jacket and his shirt, he exposed the armor beneath. Valeri took one look at it and shook her head.
“You keep it. You’re more likely to be shot, pulling up the rear. We ready?”
Ward and Amaru nodded. Valeri slammed the manual release and the door slid open. They were immediately hit by a wall of noise. Gunfire, screams, barking orders – it all hit them at once. Directly in front of them, Cronians rushed forward, trying to fill the gap left by their dying comrades. Valeri let them run by, waiting for a gap. As the last of them passed, Valeri waved Ward and Amaru forward. “C’mon! We got to move!”
Ward and Amaru ran to keep up. As they passed into the hallway, Ward felt the reverberations of gunfire echoing off the walls. Every shot was a deafening boom in the enclosed space. The air stank of melted metal and burnt meat, the result of directed energy shots melting bulkheads and grates, and cutting through flesh.
Ward chanced a look back while he still could. He saw those directly behind him firing on the advancing enemy. A blinding shot from one of Adler’s men sliced two of them down at once, dismembering a third. This injured man screamed as his arm, still holding his gun, fell to the ground.
The sight sent Ward running faster. They quickly turned a corner in the rear, entering a narrow, poorly-lit tunnel. They fell into single file, Valeri and Amaru ahead of him. It was a tight fit. Ward’s right arm contacted a conduit protruding from the walls, sending a painful shock up his arm. His bioimplants responded by boosting his endorphin production. They also began working overtime to maximize his blood oxygenation and boost his adrenal receptors, everything he needed to stay on the move and ignore anything that might slow him down.
“Up here!” Valeri yelled. A few meters more and they were approaching a back wall. The tunnel widened slightly around a single pressure door. There was enough room for Ward and Amaru to stand adjacent to Valeri now.
“This will take a second,” she said. Unlike the other doors, this one was secured. Opening a panel to the right of it, Valeri began punching in an access code. The door beeped at her when she didn’t get it right on the first try, prompting her to swear.
Ward looked down the tunnel they had just come through. At the far end, a shadow began to obscure it. He called up an overlay and enhanced his vision. Two bodies were falling back towards the entrance, both wearing the same garb as the other facility personnel. They turned to fire, their weapons spraying fire and slugs behind them.
Ward’s breathing grew faster. The enemy weren’t yet upon them, but they were getting closer. He looked back at Valeri’s progress. She swore once again.
“What the fuck is taking so long?” Amaru demanded.
“This door is secured! The code changes nightly!”
She kept punching in codes, one long string of numbers followed by another. The panel beeped at her twice more, rejecting both.
Ward looked back at the end of the tunnel. The two bodies pushing their way towards them suddenly went limp. A spray of pink mist filled the air around them as a bunch of flechettes sliced through their bodies. Another shadow appeared then, one which Ward wasn’t hoping to see. A quicksilver skin, a bright set of glowing eyes, and the unmistakable bulk of a Kōjin carbine.
Ward didn’t hesitate. He sped his reflexes up and shot around, snatching his Rutger from Valeri’s grasp. Before she or Amaru reacted, he had it pointed down the tunnel towards the hostile silhouette. He squeezed off multiple rounds, firing shot after shot.
Even with his slowed perception of time, the rounds appeared to strike the hostile mercenary instantaneously. Hitting him center mass, they sent small blobs of mercurial material off in all directions. The first few removed enough of the protective metal skin to expose the man in the interior. Before th
e suit compensated by filling these sections in, two rounds plunged into his midsection, causing his guts to explode in a hail of viscera. The body fell hard and hit the icy ground.
Ward drew a deep breath, becoming aware of the screams coming from around him. Tearing his eyes from the fallen man, he noticed the arms waving at him in his peripheral vision. The ear-splitting sonic booms had temporarily deafened him. Amaru appeared to be okay. Her fingers reached her ears shortly after the first shot. Valeri seemed worse off. She had a hand to her left ear, her fingers stained red as blood seeped between them.
With her free hand, she was waving frantically at him from the now open doorway. Ward responded, but couldn’t hear his own words. His overlay, still up, was protesting at him, alerting him to the fact his ears had been exposed to far too many decibels, as if he didn’t already know.
Valeri jumped inside the open airlock and motioned at them to follow. Amaru went first, and he ducked in after her. Valeri shut it tight behind them, resealing the door, and turning to yell at him. Slowly, and only with the help of his medimachines working to repair his eardrums, was he able to hear her.
“What the fuck was that?”
Ward began to respond, adjusting his volume as his hearing gradually came back.
“One of them was behind us! I didn’t have time to warn you. I’m sorry.”
“Did you get him?”
“Yes,” Ward said. “I didn’t see anyone behind him. We should be clear for now.”
Valeri wiped at the blood from her ear. She looked at Amaru to determine if she was okay. Seeing no obvious sign of injury, she nodded approvingly, looking down at the gun in Ward’s hand. Ward offered it back to her, but she refused. “I think we’ve finally established trust.”
“So, what now?” he asked.
She motioned to the wall behind her, where several pressure suits hung. “Get one on. The shuttle’s not far. But we need to double-time it. We’ll be sitting ducks if they follow us out there.”
Ward wasted no time. He knew it wouldn’t take Adler’s men long to make it down the length of the tunnel. The lock would pose no difficulties at all for them, and they might not even bother trying to cycle through. They might simply cut through the pressure door with their energy weapons. Exposure to the surface atmosphere would be no threat to them in their armor. The thought of them slicing through the door was enough to get him suited up in record time. As soon she was suited, Valeri was busy working the other lock. This one was unsecured, and it took her no time to get it unsealed and open.
She pulled Ward towards her, letting Amaru fall behind him.
“You’re to stay right behind me. That package can’t fall back into their hands,” she said over their suit’s unsecured comms. Ward nodded, glancing back at Amaru to see how she was doing. Her face was steely, but she was anything but calm, though her resolve was clear. She would watch his back and make sure they made it out.
“Whatever you do, don’t fall behind,” cautioned Valeri. “It’s nighttime out there now. Damn easy to get lost!”
#
Valeri hadn’t been lying. The shuttle was a short distance from the base, hidden in a small dimple in the surface. This one didn’t appear to be the result of a crater, though; more like a natural depression caused by weathering. At the center, aimed at an angle facing the sky, was a small craft mounted to a set of rails. It looked slightly more sophisticated than the ice hopper they’d used last time. By comparison, this was an inspection craft, meant for trips to and from orbit. Properly converted, it could go even further.
Valeri led them to the side, where the vessel’s door lay. Opening a small terminal there, she began punching in the commands causing the door to pop open.
“All right, get in! The craft is pre-programmed to fly to Rhea. Once there, you’ll need to contact our people. They’ll get you to safety.”
Ward stopped when Valeri reached the door. “What are you doing?” he asked.
Valeri got the door open and looked back at him. “What are you talking about?”
“This craft, it’s been modified for long-range flight. There’s not enough room for three people to make it all the way to Rhea.”
Amaru reached his side and noticed what he meant. “He’s right. This craft can only carry a few hundred kilos of payload. We won’t have enough fuel to get anywhere they can’t intercept us.”
“I know,” Valeri said. She walked over to Amaru and put her hands on her shoulders. “Sorry, Janis. This wasn’t meant to be a three-person trip. You’ll have to get him to Rhea and take things the rest of the way. If your plan can really work, then you’ll have to see it through. Not purely for the sake of exposing those bastards, but for everyone who sacrificed themselves to make sure you got out. You’ll do that, right?’
Ward couldn’t see Amaru’s expression from where he was standing, but he caught the stiff gesture that appeared to be a nod. Valeri placed her helmet against Amaru’s and patted her shoulder. They separated then, and Valeri came to Ward next. Taking him by the shoulders too, she looked into his faceplate. He became aware of her eyes for the first time, a deep green seemingly all the brighter and piercing given her tan complexion.
“You meant what you said, right? You’re going to let everyone in the System know?”
“Amaru and I will. You have my word.”
Valeri held him for a second longer, as if trying to overcome the last vestiges of doubt. She patted him on the shoulder finally. “Good luck. I hope we meet again someday.”
Ward’s mind flashed back to a most uncomfortable memory. A hallway, a friend saying goodbye, and a guard waiting to pull him away. He had known then such words were hollow, and the one he was saying them to wouldn’t let him finish saying them. By comparison, the odds of ever seeing Valeri and any of her people again were even more hopeless. Now, though, hardly seemed like the time for realism.
“Count on it!” Ward jumped into the vessel, the door closing behind him, securing Amaru and himself into the cramped cockpit. They jumped into their seats and busied themselves with the restraints as the ship’s automated navigation system began counting down towards launch.
Thirty-Seven
Ward and Amaru barely had enough time to strap in before the craft blasted off. They were both thrown back into their seats as the vessel pulled what felt like a four-g burn. It took mere seconds before Titan’s dense atmosphere cleared from outside their ship’s cockpit window, and they were looking at a field of stars. The cabin stopped shaking violently, and Ward heard his heart beating in his ears.
He also heard Amaru breathing rapidly. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she replied, between heavy breaths. “How about you?”
Ward had to give that one some thought. His bioimplants were sending him all kinds of messages, but aside from elevated heart rate and an overabundance of adrenaline, everything was in the green. “Yeah. I think so.”
Amaru looked at the control panel in front of them. The pilot’s seat was currently empty, the autopilot doing all the work at the moment. The displays were all active, beeping with automated commands and displaying images of the system. Every moon was represented by a differently-colored ball. From their current position above Titan, represented by a large brown one, the opal filament that was their trajectory extended to a pearl-colored one. As indicated, this was Rhea, above which their shuttle would put them into a tight orbit. The clock in the display corner was rapidly counting down, adjusting their ETA based on their acceleration.
By the time they hit cruising speed, the clock indicated they would reach their destination in a little under sixteen hours.
“Nothing to do but wait, I guess. Don’t suppose we might have time to fit in a nap?”
Ward laughed at Amaru’s question. If he so wanted, he could issue the commands to initiate a sleep cycle, a simple boost in his dopamine and melatonin, suppression of adrenaline. He would be out like a light. It wouldn’t exactly be natural, but his body would
n’t be able to tell the difference.
Amaru didn’t have that luxury. Despite their obvious exhaustion, there was no natural way she might expect to get some shuteye, but she was still determined to try. Lying back in her seat, she closed her eyes and began breathing steadily. Ward decided to join her, to partake in a little unguided meditation. It seemed like the only considerate thing to do.
He was only a few breaths in when the entire process was rudely interrupted.
“Hello, Jeremiah.”
His eyes snapped open. He knew that voice, and it wasn’t coming from his comlink. The ship’s own communication system had become active. Amaru heard it too and came to with a start.
“What the fuck is that?” she demanded.
Ward undid his restraints and moved to the pilot’s seat. Settling in, he eyed the console before him, it was relatively straightforward, analog setup, and it didn’t take him long to locate the proper commands. He first checked to see where the transmission was coming from. It was coming from the surface, from the location they had abandoned.
“Are you there, Jeremiah? I think we need to talk.”
Ward keyed the reply. “How did you get this frequency, Adler?”
“We’ve taken the facility, Ward. We’ve commandeered everything – all their records, comms, all their equipment. Every inch of this place belongs to us now. The Gendarmerie are being fed this information as we speak. They’ll be interested to know about a cell of domestic terrorists operating on their moon.” Adler paused for a moment to gloat, then added, “Oh, and that ship you’re in, it was registered in their databanks as well. It wasn’t hard to find you.”
Ward sighed. He knew Adler wasn’t simply referring to their current situation. He suspected the answer would bring him no peace, but he still had to ask. “How did you know where to find us?”
The reply sounded almost amused. “Did you really think we wouldn’t anticipate they’d take you back to one of their bases? We’ve been preparing this op ever since Lee disappeared. We assessed all the angles ahead of time and were prepared for any eventuality.
The Cronian Incident (The Formist Book 1) Page 31
