by M. D. Cooper
His breath was forced from him when an invisible fist plowed into his abdomen. He returned the favor with a few punishing jabs of his own.
Both were augmented, evenly matched. So when Williams’ fist met his opponent’s ribs, he could feel the other man’s CNT-reinforced bone give way under his own enhanced onslaught.
Gonna hurt like a bitch until your mednano catches up to you, Williams thought in grim satisfaction, wishing certain parts of his own anatomy had been a bit more reinforced.
He grabbed the man’s collar in a vicious twist, and was rewarded by a wheezing sound. Maintaining the chokehold, he drove the back of the man’s head once more into the plascrete floor, just as the man drove both fists into his kidneys.
Pain radiated across his lower back, and Williams’ grip slackened the slightest bit.
It was enough. With a single, powerful shove, his opponent threw him off.
Williams flew across the corridor, shoulder slamming into the wall with a disturbing crack. The jolt sent fresh waves of pain slicing across his torso. He remained in a crouch, one arm wrapped protectively around his side as he scanned the hallway. There was a small displacement of air, and then the area grew still.
His attacker had fled. Williams didn’t need the sudden return of his Link to tell him that. But he sure as hell hadn’t expected it to light up like a friggin’ meteor shower.
With a groan, Williams straightened, fingering a split lip.
Williams hissed as he probed his lower back. Some of what he was feeling must have telegraphed itself to the AI.
Bruno let loose with a litany of curses.
He’d known something was about to go down. He should never have let himself get distracted by the false alarm at the airfield hangar.
The timing of that was rather convenient, despite the assurances of the AI based at Teka’s spaceport. What Bruno had sensed as a potential security breach turned out to be a Coastie working on the ammo requisition for Bravo Company.
Or so the spaceport’s AI claimed.
Williams still doubted the late-hour request, but when Bruno questioned the AI about the Coastie, she’d gotten testy with him.
Williams had told Bruno to stand down.
* * * * *
Katelyn flinched as the first explosion rose above the storm, before she realized what it was. Clarke must have sent the signal to the freedom fighters. If she was going to get out of here, she’d better hustle. She hoped Clarke had managed to break away from Williams and make it off the base without any more trouble.
How did Sergeant Asshat manage to find us, anyway?
She hoisted the node higher in her arms and turned her feet toward the hangar.
Katelyn slumped against the bark of a nearby tree.
A part of Katelyn’s brain wondered at the smartass attitude she was channeling. Then she realized she was in pretty much the same headspace right now as the one she occupied when engaged in a dangerous flight maneuver.
Guess snark’s my go-to stress reliever. She straightened.
A map appeared on her overlay. Aaron dropped an icon on top of a nearby building.
She took off at a run in the direction of the icon, only to stumble to a stop as she neared the building. Beyond, she could see Marines everywhere, fanning out to cover the base’s exits, while passive scan identified clouds of drones rising to patrol the perimeter.
She ducked inside the building, mindlessly following the flashing icon as her mind catalogued what she’d just seen.
She snorted, but Aaron’s cocky attitude had her smiling.
She slipped into Sands’ quarters and stripped off the skinsuit, revealing the Teka Coast Guard uniform she wore underneath. Rummaging around in the smaller pack Clarke had handed her, she pulled out a matching cap.
She paused, fingering it, before giving herself a small shake.
Hard to believe we’ve been skulking around here for the better part of three hours….
Katelyn set it on her head and turned for the door, but stopped when Aaron made a rude buzzing sound.
Katelyn huffed out an annoyed breath, but pulled it back off and looped her ponytail into a tight bun. “Better?”
She rolled her eyes at him as she set the cap back on her head. A mental tap on her shoulder pulled her up short just before she pushed through the door.
* * * * *
Williams ran one hand through his high-and-tight, squeegeeing the water out as he exited the admin building’s first aid station. The other hand ripped open the mednano patch gripped between his teeth. He tossed the wrapper in a nearby recycler and then stood there a moment while he tried to assess his injuries.
Deciding his kidneys were what hurt the most, he slipped the patch under his shirt and slapped it onto his lower back before resuming his walk. He paused just outside Commander Lauren’s command center to adjust his uniform, and then pushed his way in, nodding to the CO as her eyes found his.
“Fireteams are reporting back in,” she told him as he came to a stop beside her.
Williams looked down at the holo Lauren had been studying, a quick glance encapsulating the locations of each team. Jansen and one/one were headed back into the spaceport. Becker and one/three had the Veefs on the run and were giving chase.
Williams shook his head as Perez’s avatar flashed him a grin.
He heard Weber groan.
Williams could tell from the way they’d acted earlier that neither MICI agent had ever served as a ground pounder, much less a FROD Marine.
Probably wouldn’t know camaraderie if it bit them on the—
He shook his head, wondering why he was wasting mental headspace thinking about the Mickies right now. Perez was beginning to rub off on him. Either that, or the pounding he’d taken at the hands of the mysterious soldier had jarred something loose.
He shifted as he mentally replayed the sound he’d heard when he’d taken a flying leap in the direction his spidey senses had told him a stealthed soldier stood.
Did I imagine it, or was there someone else in that corridor?
Just then, Bruno’s voice came over a private channel, interrupting his musings.
Williams cupped the back of his neck and squeezed to relieve some of the tension as he increased his speed, jolting into a painful jog.
* * * * *
Aaron had made a few adjustments to Katelyn’s flight plan—without consulting her—while she walked from Sands’ room to the airfield. She stopped and stared in dismay as the duffel holding the node slid off her shoulder and hit the plascrete floor of the hangar with a dull thud.
“I requisitioned the Dolphin, not this broken-down old relic. Does that thing even fly?”
The shuttle before her was so old, it had an actual plas windscreen with an ancient FLIR thermal imaging system integrated into it, instead of a true holodisplay.
“By all means, let’s make it convenient for you, why don’t we,” she muttered under her breath. “Hope that thing’s got updated navcomms in it. Hell, let’s just hope it starts.”
“Yeah, right. Keep selling it, buddy. No one’s buying.” But she shouldered the duffel once more and clambered up inside.
After a quick once-over, she reluctantly admitted the antique ship made sense; the airframe had been restored to peak condition, and Sands had upgraded the cockpit so that the FLIR system integrated with her Link.
Aaron’s NSAI node was tucked between the legs of the mech frame, the stealth sheath covering it hiding it from view. As she maglocked it into place, she saw the AI extrude a thread of nano into a nearby port.
She began to protest, but his avatar waved her off.
She shot the node a dirty look, then stood.
Katelyn grinned down at the node before turning toward the cockpit. She took the pilot’s seat, powering the shuttle up and maneuvering it out onto the tarmac.
Aaron made a scoffing noise.
She sent him a middle-finger salute by way of reply.
Chuckling, she powered down the cockpit once more and stood. The lights bathing the run-up area shone wetly through the pouring rain, and Katelyn touched the brim of her cap, grateful her disguise offered some protection from the deluge outside.
She hopped out of the hatch and began her walkaround visual inspection. She’d just inspected the port side ram air turbine when Aaron pinged her.
Katelyn froze for a second, thinking.
Aaron sent his mental agreement.
Pulling her aviators out of her side pocket, she shoved them on over her eyes, reasoning that she could use the rain as her excuse for wearing them after sunset. She rounded the tail of the shuttle so that she could keep her back to the approaching gunnery sergeant, then strode purposefully toward the hatch and pulled herself inside.
* * * * *
There was something tantalizingly familiar about the form that he saw hopping up into the shuttle. He queried the spaceport for all personnel in the vicinity, and a Coast Guard token for a Lieutenant Veronica Sands appeared, her locator beacon superimposed over the shuttle before him.
He tapped the token, accessing her personnel file. A tall redhead appeared. The form rotating in 3D on his HUD matched the glimpse he’d had of the woman as she entered the small craft.
Still, something nagged at him. He stepped up t
o the hatch and peered in.
“Lieutenant?”
From where he stood, he could see her seated in the pilot’s cradle. Her head swiveled, and he caught a partial profile: classic aviators sat atop a standard Coast Guard cap, which rested atop a cap of smooth auburn hair, pinned neatly at the nape of her neck.
“Yes, Marine?”
“You headed somewhere?”
She turned with an exasperated sigh, the harsh glare of artificial light streaming through the plas windscreen—a real windscreen, and not a simulated one—casting her face in silhouette and obscuring her features from closer scrutiny.
“Only if you want your platoons to be able to spin up their crew-served guns.” She paused, cocking her head as she added pointedly, “You do want to retake Tarja and run those Veefs out of here, don’t you? Or do you like our Coast Guard hospitality so much, you don’t mind camping out with us for a while?”
Williams couldn’t restrain the snort that slipped out. The woman had sass.
Shaking his head in amusement, he stepped back from the hatch. “No, ma’am. We Marines have asses to kick and names to take.”
“Bet that’s what they all say,” he heard her mutter under her breath.
He took a moment to scan the interior of the old shuttle, surprised it was so well-maintained for its age. There wasn’t much to see. The hold was empty, save for a lone mech frame. Its torso was open, its interior empty.
Not that the NSAI node would have fit inside anyway.
He slapped the side of the shuttle once and gave her a brief nod as he moved away.
The AI sent a negative.
Williams sighed, rubbing the back of his head with one hand as he strolled to the edge of the tarmac and watched her seal the hatch. Something about the way she stood had him replaying the memory of another hatch, another woman standing in much the same spot….
