by Richard Fox
Something beeped in Egan’s cockpit.
“We’re going to docking bay…twelve,” Egan said, reading from a display.
“Anyone going to meet us there?” Hale asked.
“Just lists three transport pods in the instructions.” Egan gently touched the control stick and a harsh buzzer sounded a warning. His hands flew away. A pair of turrets mounted on the inner wall came to life and swung up to track the shuttle.
“Bad idea,” Egan said. “Doubt we’d have any luck flying a bomb into the palace. Deviate from the flight path and they’ll blow you out of the sky.”
Their shuttle dipped low and landed in a landing bay built into the side of the wall surrounding the city. There was nothing in the shuttle bay but a small control station and three coffin-sized black boxes floating next to it.
“Look alive, people,” Hale said into the IR.
The ramp descended from the shuttle and the engines powered down. Egan tossed his hands up in despair.
“Not me, sir. There must be some central control system keeping everything in order. Like how Ibarra automated all the traffic in Phoenix with his smart cars,” Egan said.
“That’s going to make getting out of here a bit difficult,” Hale said. “Get changed into a kadanu uniform and meet me outside.”
Hale left the cockpit and went down the ramp with Cortaro and Standish. He saw the entire city from the raised hangar as a breeze brought the smell of damp earth and poor sewer lines. Hot, humid air surrounded them.
“Ugh, feels like we’re in Juarez,” Standish said. “I had a couple crazy weekends there when I was stationed at Camp Pendleton.”
“Juarez was off-limits for decades,” Cortaro said, his brows knitting in confusion, “and the border was sealed. How did you do that?”
“What was that, Gunney?” Standish wiggled a finger in his ear. “The war’s taken a real toll on my hearing.”
“Grab those caskets and get the bodies in there,” Hale said. “That should buy us enough time to get out of here and lost in the crowd.” He looked up the ramp and saw Lilith with Yarrow, the Marine donning the last stolen uniform. Lilith shook her head and moved a sash from Yarrow’s right shoulder to the left.
Hale waved them down. Lilith caught herself when she saw the palace, her hands bunched beneath her chin.
“It’s beautiful, just like the stories I learned as a little girl,” she said.
“Focus, Lilith. I need you and Egan on that control panel. See if you can access the system. You’ve got the spikes, Egan?” Hale asked.
Egan ran down the ramp and patted a sack he had attached to his hip.
“Spikes?” Lilith asked.
“Old hacker tool,” Egan said to her. “Ibarra’s probe reversed enough Toth computer cores recovered from their wrecks to make us a couple disposable and undetectable intrusion devices.”
They made their way to the control station and Egan looked it over.
“Same tech as we’ve seen before, that’s good news,” Egan said. He took a marker-sized metal spike from his pouch and found an access port. “Here goes nothing.” He connected the spike and stepped back.
Screens lit up and Toth writing scrolled rapidly from side to side.
“OK…we’re in. I’ve got the local networks on the screen. Now let me…that’s not right.” Egan frowned at a large keyboard covered in runes and jabbed at a few characters.
“What are you trying to do?” Lilith asked.
“I’m trying to find a map to this damn place but this keyboard isn’t what I was trained on,” Egan said.
“Open the secondary overlays and load up the utility network,” Lilith said with a shake of her head.
“Is that…this key?”
“Move!” Lilith pushed Egan aside and her fingers flew over the keyboard, tapping with amazing speed. A wire diagram of the city appeared on a screen, a red pulsating dot showing their hangar.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“How do we shut off the shielding? What about the turrets?” Hale looked over her shoulder.
“That…I can’t do from here,” she said. “All essential functions route through the palace…no they don’t. Someone set up a shunt relay to make it look like the hub is beneath spire three. Amateurs. When in reality…” A green dot appeared on the map over the stepped pyramid Hale’d seen on the flight through the city. “Sub-basement level two,” she said.
“What is that place?” Hale asked.
“Kadanu headquarters,” she said.
“What about Mentiq? Any way we can get to him?”
“There’s the bazaar. He’s mentioned during the schedule for the opening ceremony. Think he’ll make an appearance?” Lilith asked.
“Doubt he’d miss the big event, not when it seems like everything on this planet is done in his honor.” Hale touched the screen with the map and zoomed in. A raised platform, just on the opposite side of the gates to Mentiq’s palace, was covered in red markings. “Is that where he’s going to sit?”
“You can read Toth?” Lilith asked.
“Snipers,” Hale said into the IR. “Find a nest with line of sight to this point.” He pointed the camera on his gauntlet at the map and sent an image to Rohen and Bailey.
“You think we can get IR with the Breit?” Hale asked Egan.
“Yes, sir. The shield must let heat out or this place would turn into an oven. I’ll go set up the dish and finally make myself useful.” Egan trotted back to the shuttle, crossing paths with Standish, Cortaro and the three floating coffins.
A message flashed on one of the screens.
“Some place called the ‘distribution center’ in the palace wants an update on the ‘product,’” Lilith said, reading. “It wants me to send the coffins there right away.”
“When that happens, they’ll look inside and see they’ve got the wrong delivery,” Hale said. “Then things will get difficult.”
“About that, sir,” Standish said, raising a hand. “I have an idea. Can you send these meat sticks anywhere else?” he asked Lilith.
“There are distribution nodes…all located at the big glass buildings we saw. Those seem to all belong to different corporations…Tellani’s, Naalfur, Anshul’jik, bunch more,” she said.
“Here’s what you do.” Standish leaned over the control station. “Send the coffins to Naalfur’s distro center, have them linger for an hour then forward them on to Tellani and disable the trackers. They’ll start looking for their ‘product’ eventually and when they find three dead kadanu in Tellani’s storehouse…”
“Tellani will blame Naalfur,” Hale said. “Claim the other corporation got the real anointed and sent off the fakes to their storehouse so they’d get the blame. The two corporations will point the finger at the other.”
“And the harder they claim innocence, the guiltier they’ll look,” Standish said with a smile. “The old quartermaster two-step. One of my favorite ways to launder goods. If I still did that. Or ever did that. Hey, look at the time.” Standish gave one of the coffins a pat. “These boys have someplace to be.”
“Do it,” Hale said to Lilith. The coffins floated away on their own a few seconds later.
“I’ll change the point of origin to a hangar on the other side of the city,” she said.
“Sir, Bailey. Rohen and I can get a great shot from the top of that pyramid-looking place,” the sniper said.
“We have to head over there anyway,” Hale said. “Knock out the central computer core.” He opened an IR line. “Egan, can you get us a local IR network? Something the Toth won’t detect but will reach back to you here?”
“So long as you’ve got line of sight to the snipers and they’ve got line of sight back to here, we’ll be secure,” Egan said from the top of the shuttle where he was setting up a satellite dish.
“I see where you’re going with this, sir,” Cortaro said. “Trick’s going to be bringing enough firepower to the party.”
“I think
I’ve got an answer for that,” Hale said as he opened a channel to the entire team. “All right, Marines, here’s the plan.”
****
Valdar walked behind the bridge’s workstations, glancing at the clocks on the crew’s screens.
Any minute now, Valdar thought. Hale should have coopted a transport to Mentiq’s city by now. The lack of any news from the lieutenant was a good sign; he wasn’t calling for extraction from a botched operation. Still, the time of flight from the human enclave to the city wasn’t long; they should have checked in by now.
“Guns,” Valdar said to Lieutenant Commander Utrecht, “any progress on a firing solution to get through the city’s energy shields?”
“No, sir.” Utrecht shook his head. “Even with the little data we got from the Marines on the ground, the disturbances in the upper atmosphere throw off the impact time—”
“Sir!” Ensign Erdahl nearly jumped out of her seat at the communications station. Valdar crossed the bridge to her. “Message from Hale. They made it in.”
“They say how long until they can neutralize Mentiq or get the shields down?” Commander Ericson asked.
“Kill him, XO. We’re here to kill him. Let’s not mince words,” Valdar said.
“Nothing follows from the initial message,” Erdahl said. “But they promise regular updates.”
“The ball’s rolling, but we’ve still got the same problems.” Valdar went to the tactical holo tank behind his command chair and waved Utrecht and Ericson over. A slice of Nibiru with the Toth fleet anchorage, the prowling dreadnoughts and a distant Breitenfeld appeared in the tank.
“How do we cover Hale’s extraction? And evacuate the human settlement. And the Karigole. And jump back to Earth without being blown to bits,” Valdar said. He ran a hand through his thinning hair and drummed fingers against the side of the table.
“This isn’t a rescue mission,” Utrecht said, earning a dirty look from Valdar. “I know you don’t like hearing that, sir. But we came here for one purpose. The people in the village, the Karigole, maybe we can get them out. I don’t think we should risk this ship for them.”
“I agree with Guns, sir,” Ericson said.
“Do you know what the Toth will do to them if we leave them behind?” Valdar asked.
“No, but neither do you, sir,” Utrecht said. “They’ve been down there for a long damn time. They’re too valuable to just destroy out of spite. The Toth are vicious drug addicts, but even they know better than to mess with their supply chain.”
“We find a way or we make one,” Valdar said. “Don’t shrug off this problem. Pretend rescuing those civilians is the mission.”
Ericson let out a deep breath. She put a finger on the tip of her nose, then furrowed her brows.
“You know,” she said, “the Toth sure don’t trust each other. Look what they’ve done.” She reached into the tank and zoomed in on the many ships crammed into the anchorage. “See how close they all are? My guess is they’re packed in like sardines to block lines of fire on the city and on the dreadnoughts. The way the dread orbit, they always have their guns trained on the anchorage, never on each other.”
“The dreadnoughts must all belong to Mentiq,” Utrecht said, stroking his chin. “Fits with the data the salvage crews pulled out of the Naga. The rest of the Toth fleet we blew to hell belong to some Tellani Corporation, but not the Naga.”
“So pretend you’re the lizard running one of these dreadnoughts,” Valdar said. “What would you do if one of those ships in the anchorage fired on you?”
“Mass punishment,” Ericson said, “hit everything in the anchorage.”
“That would keep everyone in line,” Utrecht said. “Makes the Toth police themselves before the big boys open up on them.”
“We need to pick a fight,” Valdar said. “Guns, XO, I’m authorizing a nuclear weapons release. I’m going to the cemetery to talk to the Iron Hearts.”
****
Hale stepped around the hulking mass of an alien covered in a filthy piece of cloth so large it looked like it had once been a drape for a grand room. The alien had wrapped packages and barrels strapped to its back. He looked over his shoulder and saw a bull-headed creature with a single eye trudging forward through the crowded street.
“OK, that one was definitely weirder than the bird-person,” Standish said.
Hale, flanked by Cortaro and Standish, cleared a path for Lilith who followed close behind. The city was alive with Toth menials and several alien races Hale had never heard of or even imagined. They’d come across a few humans, all of whom fled once they saw Hale and the Marines’ misappropriated uniforms.
“A Felnara,” Lilith said, “barely sentient, used as beasts of burden on some worlds. They have an excellent sense of direction and never question orders. Plus, they’ll defend their portage to the death.”
“So don’t steal anything, Standish,” Cortaro said.
“I don’t steal, Gunney. I liberate. On occasion, I forage,” Standish said.
“Snipers, status,” Hale said.
“We’re about two blocks ahead of you,” Rohen said. “You’re almost to the square.”
Hale looked up and saw a puff of dust on a roof ledge as one of the snipers landed on it. Rohen and Bailey were cloaked, opting to leapfrog from building to building than try to dodge through the crowd. Hale hadn’t seen an obvious weapon on anyone in the city, and the two armored Marines with their sniper rifles wouldn’t have made it very far without their cloaks.
“We’ve got to take the long way around,” Bailey said. “We’ll be out of IR contact for a bit, which means you’ll lose the connection to Egan back at the ship.”
“Copy. Move out and get set up. The festivities are about to start and Mentiq seems to be a stickler for timetables,” Hale said. He heard a double-click on the IR as Bailey acknowledged his instructions.
A pack of Toth menials hissed and snarled at passersby from the front of a two-story building with overly tall doors. Hale stopped and felt for his missing rifle as the doors swung open and a Toth overlord ambled from building, fine gold filigree encrusted against the tank. The overlord moved toward the square as the pack of menials formed a protective cordon around it.
A red-skinned alien with thick arms and a triangular-shaped head stood in the doorway. It held a gold bar up to its mouth and bit thick molars into the corner. Behind the alien were pictures of overlord tanks, each with a different mosaic of inlaid gold and platinum along their tanks.
“Overlord tattoo parlor,” Cortaro said. “I’ve officially seen everything.”
Hale slowed as they came to the end of the road where it spilled out onto the square. A pair of guards stood between the rest of the city and the square. Both were almost seven feet tall and almost twice as wide as Hale. A canine head hung between stooped shoulders; scraggly black fur hung from long snouts and matted what little of the alien wasn’t covered in earth-colored armor plates. Both aliens carried long pole arms, the blades crackling with electricity. Bright white eyes flicked from person to person as they scanned the crowd.
Aliens and Toth menials moved freely between the square and the city without any reaction from the hulking guards, and Hale decided it would be better to keep moving than risk attracting attention for standing around with no obvious purpose.
“Act natural,” Hale said. “We need to get to the data center.”
Hale stepped over a puddle of something black and bubbling and made for the square. He got one step beyond the guard when a furry paw grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.
The lupine face pressed toward Hale’s with a snarl.
“The human Primus wants your kind in the city.” Breath that stank of rotting meat assaulted Hale’s nose. “The bazaar is Kroar territory,” it said. Hale heard the undercurrent of Akkadian language from the guard as his voice box translated into English.
“My Primus just reassigned us to the hangars on the far side of the city,” Hale said. “Of
course we have to be there before Lord Mentiq honors us with his presence. If I cut around the bazaar, we’ll be late. You mind?”
The Kroar sniffed the air.
“I don’t know your scent,” it said.
“And all of you look the same to me.” Hale pulled his shoulder away from the guard’s paw and squared off.
A scream rose from the bazaar behind the guard. It lumbered around and reared up to its full height. It clicked two claw tips together and the two guards trotted away.
“Move,” Hale said, “before they come back.”
They pressed into the crowd and came to one of the large white stages they’d seen on the city map. The stage was a white slab of marble embedded in the ground, reaching four feet high. A menial crouched on each side, each wearing a skintight suit covered in bright-orange frills.
On the stage was a cluster of neon-blue-skinned aliens, all bound together by chains connected to hand and ankle cuffs. Tiny horns pocked along the aliens’ jawlines and over their scalps. The aliens looked around in wonder, none seeming to notice the crowd at their feet.
“Is it me,” Standish asked, “or do those aliens look familiar?”
“They’re…Shanishol,” Hale said. “From Anthalas, remember?”
“I’d rather forget about that place, if that’s all right with everyone,” Yarrow’s disembodied voice said.
“I thought the Xaros wiped out their home world. Certainly weren’t any left after that sphere finished with them,” Cortaro said.
“They’re a consignment for Mentiq,” Lilith said. “These are for display only. The Tellani claim access to several million more and can deliver any number of units on request.” She swallowed hard. “Their taste is considered shallow, but in sufficient numbers can induce a state of euphoria lasting almost an hour.”
“How do you know that?” Hale asked.
“There,” she said, pointing to electronic Toth script running across the top of the stage like a ticker on a news broadcast.
“Not for you, meat.” A menial scampered over and snapped its jaws in the air. “Not your meat. Move for paying customers.”
