Michael Anderle - [Heretic of the Federation 03]

by Time to Fear (epub)

“Well, this will suck,” he grumbled as she shot another enemy and turned to him.

  “Which way?”

  “Uh…” He picked a door at random. “That way.”

  They bolted toward it, and Ivy eliminated the Enforcer in their path while John dealt with one more. The corridor was temporarily clear, so she turned back, reefed a grenade clear of the bandolier, and tossed it into the server room.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” she asked as it exploded.

  “Cable,” he told her and looked at the damage she’d caused.

  “Gotcha,” she said and started toward the next set of stairs leading down.

  When she saw he wasn’t following, she came back and grabbed his arm. “It’s time to go!”

  They’d almost reached the stairs when figures appeared coming up them. She threw another grenade, took a sudden turn to the right, and raced out along one of the spokes to where the relays were located.

  “Don’t break them,” she ordered and pointed to the dishes interspersed by a clear view of space. “Some of the satellites need more time.”

  “How do you know?”

  She tapped her skull.

  “The clock in my head,” she told him. “It comes in handy.”

  “How about the map in your head?” he demanded. “How’s that working?”

  “Well, it tells me that if we can make it around the spoke before the heavies arrive, we can take a zip-line elevator to the cable car level.”

  “And if we can’t?” John asked and skidded to a halt as half a dozen heavily armored figures raced out of the spoke they’d aimed for.

  “Pods, Ivy!” he shouted as he raised a shield between them and the incoming fire.

  “Back two spokes,” she snapped and gasped when he snaked an arm around her back and turned them.

  “Go!” he shouted. “I’m right behind you.”

  “Promise?” she called and jolted into a sprint.

  “Promise!” he said, running hard on her heels with one hand extended to maintain the shield.

  He almost fell over her when she stopped abruptly.

  “Now what?” she asked and backed away as more heavies emerged from the spoke between them and the pods.

  John slammed a second shield up.

  “That’s not going to—” Ivy began.

  “Shhh. I’m thinking.”

  In fact, he didn’t know what to do. He merely believed there had to be something—and as if belief had been enough to summon it, he heard a voice, familiar and strong.

  “If you can dream it and believe it, you can make it,” she told him and he raised his head.

  “Trust me?” he yelled and offered her his hand.

  Ivy looked up, met his eyes, and let his gaze hold her as time stood still.

  “Forever,” she told him and placed her hand in his.

  John closed his hand around hers and bolted toward the figures advancing slowly towards them. She raced after him and followed him when he made a sudden swerve toward the outer wall and blasted it out of existence.

  “Not again!” she screamed and fired one-handed behind them as he pulled her against his chest.

  The sound was lost in the roar of air as they were sucked into space.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  This time, the team had a Dreth escort. No sooner had Avery and Johnny dropped out of the shuttle bay than they were cocooned by a swarm of Dreth fighters.

  “Do these guys know how hard they are making it to fly?” Avery complained, and his teammate punched him.

  “Do you know how many of them won’t make it because they’ve surrounded us?”

  “I don’t want anyone to die for me,” he griped, and Johnny punched him again.

  “Get your head in the game and fly! They’ll stay out of the way. They want us to get there, not fail.”

  He was right, and the swarm broke apart as the vessel closed. The crowded air space made it hard for the Rise’s gunners to target the dropship, and when the fighters began to strafe the ship itself, the point was moot.

  They went after the greatest threat that wasn’t a dropship that didn’t demand their attention.

  “Those boys know how to fly,” Avery commented.

  “And they’re crazier than you,” Johnny told him as three fighters blew a hole in the Regime ship’s side. “I think they want us to land there.”

  His teammate grinned. “Well, it would be rude to refuse them after all the trouble they’ve gone to.”

  Todd stuck his head in through the cockpit door. “Guys, hangar bays— Never mind.”

  He ducked out and yelled, “Buckle in. This ride’s getting bumpy.”

  Rawlins’s voice came over the comms. “I’m gonna need a new shuttle, aren’t I?”

  “Um…sorry, ma’am?”

  “Just come back in one piece. I don’t want her upset.”

  And by her, she could only mean one person.

  Their grins vanished. “Neither do we, ma’am.”

  The shuttle streaked through the gap, landed hard, and bounced through one of the internal walls. Klaxons sounded and men screamed as the section depressurized.

  “Oops. Our bad,” Avery muttered as he flung his harness off and rolled out of his seat.

  Johnny was already through the cockpit door and following Todd off the shuttle. They glanced at the hole the Dreth had made.

  “How long before that seals over?” Todd asked.

  “If no one shoots it again? Ten minutes, maybe twenty?”

  “We don’t have that long,” the Hooligan leader snapped and pivoted to find his second. “Ka! Find me a sealed compartment we can use to get into the rest of the ship.”

  He swirled his hand to draw the Marines around him and included the squad that had asked to accompany them from the Tempestarii.

  Captains Sartre and Moser had sent them on the condition that they “behaved” and didn’t “get underfoot”—and warned Todd against teaching them “bad habits.” No one told the captains it was already too late and that the teaching had begun the minute they’d entered the pods.

  “I got you a doorway,” Ka told Todd. “We’re gonna have to blow a hole in the floor and through a couple of waste lines to get to the deck we need, though.”

  “Are you saying you want to get us into the shit again, Corporal?” Reggie asked and paled as she gave him a saccharine-sweet smile.

  “Want to, can, and will, Private First-Class. Thank you for volunteering to lead the way.”

  “But—”

  Before he could say anything more, Piet clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, son. You and me have work to do.”

  “But—” Reggie looked at Todd, caught the look on his face, and closed his mouth.

  “Sergeant Willard.” Todd called the other sergeant over. “This is how it’ll go…”

  The two sergeants talked as they walked, and their teams formed a protective perimeter around them. Not that they had any opposition. What had been in the section had either been sucked out through the hole in the hull as they came in or had made it past one of the bulkheads into another section.

  Alarms blared a second time as Ka hacked past the door leading into one of the sealed rooms in the section. It looked like it had been a recreation area.

  Angus and Darren rolled past her, followed by Henry and Dru. Half a dozen Navy men had holed up in the space. They died from a few well-placed rounds before they’d had a chance to do more than grab for their guns.

  “Clear!” The confirmation floated over the comms as the last of the Marines reached the room and sealed the door behind them.

  “In…and locked,” another replied.

  Ka and Piet paced the length of the room.

  “Are you sure it’s the best way?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “You’ve made the calculations.”

  She pursed her lips. “I have.”

  “And this will take the ship off-line while they repair it,” he wheedled.

  The c
orporal still didn’t look happy. “Yup.”

  She glanced at Todd, and he nodded.

  “Do it.”

  The room repressurized as Piet laid out the explosives and checked the charge placement against the ship’s schematics.

  “Ready,” he warned when they were done, and the teams took cover as he blew the floor.

  The response was instantaneous. Lights went from white to amber. Those in the compartment below began to flash red. Shouts of alarm and disgust rose to meet them, and the Hooligans went to work.

  Reggie dropped a grenade through the hole and the shouts turned to screams, which were quickly silenced as he dropped through the hole. He wrinkled his nose as he landed boot-deep in muck, but he didn’t let that put him off his aim.

  “Clear!” he called as Ka landed behind him.

  “This way,” she ordered and sent a map to their HUDs with the route marked in green. “This ship has Marines but they’ll be new.”

  “Such a shame,” Gary snarked as he joined them.

  She turned and opened the door. “I have the surveillance feeds,” she informed them. “We have company coming in from port and a few trying the stairwell in the north.”

  “Willard, keep our rear clear,” Todd ordered and trotted toward the stairs. “Are we going up or down?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Neither,” Ka replied and jogged beside him.

  Dru and Gary skipped past. “So we don’t need the stairs, then?”

  “Nope.”

  The pair high-fived each other and reached for the grenades they carried.

  “Bowling for busted!” Gary crowed, and Todd shook his head.

  “This way, boss. The data center’s on our right.”

  “I have Marines coming from our left,” Reggie called.

  “Enforcers to the right,” Jimmy reported and Ka giggled.

  “Enforcers to the right of us, and Marine boys to the left,” Henry sang and was quickly joined by Dru and Gary. “Here I am.”

  Todd groaned. “This is all my fault.”

  “Yes, boss,” Ka told him as they passed where Dru and Gary had waited out the explosions of their double delivery and fired on anyone foolish enough to still make the attempt.

  A door opened ahead of them, and Ka and Todd fired in unison. Behind them, they heard Piet ask, "Boss needs you. Why don't I seal this so no one comes through?”

  He made it sound almost reasonable, but Dru turned. “Are you saying we have other places we need to be?”

  “Are you guarding my back?” Piet suggested mildly.

  “Gotcha, Lance,” Dru told him and let him close the door.

  It didn’t take him long to fuse the door frame to the door with a self-heating sealant.

  “How long does that give us?” Ka asked as she and Todd turned into the data center. Their suit shields sparked from light fire and they eliminated the shooters hard and fast.

  “It almost seems unfair,” she mused.

  “Except they’re trying to destroy the data,” Johnny pointed out, and she raced to the nearest console with a curse.

  Johnny and Piet ran beside her.

  “Boss, how are you at locked room puzzles?” she asked and plugged into the surveillance as she cracked open the first layer of security.

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re gonna need an extraction from a locked room.”

  “You know it’ll only remain locked for as long as it takes them to cut through,” Willard mentioned, and she checked the feeds again.

  “Good point.” She nudged the engineer. “Piet?”

  He left his console. “Seal ʼem?”

  “Tight!” she snapped and the keyboard rattled as she changed the room’s access codes and locked the newly arrived Naval Enforcers out.

  “Do you have my data yet?” Todd demanded.

  “Do you have my ride home?”

  “You keep up with that attitude and I’ll leave you on the curb.”

  Ka waggled a data stick at him. “Almost. See? The stick is being plugged in."

  He glowered at her but his attention was drawn by a glow coming from the far end of the room.

  “Willard!”

  “I’m a little busy, sarge.”

  Piet threw his hands up and hurried to Ka and Johnny. “There’s no point in sealing a door they won’t use,” he told her, “and three will be better than two.”

  He retrieved his gear and settled at a different machine. Todd advanced toward the wall, aware of Angus and Henry moving beside him. Two of Willard’s Marines came with them.

  Together, they found cover behind the servers closest to the glow and waited. It wasn’t like they could stop them from cutting through.

  Angus pulled a sticky from one of his pouches. He exchanged glances with Henry, who did the same. Before Todd could say anything, the pair had scooted out from cover, darted forward, hurled the stickies at the wall, and retreated.

  The explosion caught them halfway through, but it caught the Enforcers on the other side of the wall completely unawares. Todd stepped out from behind the stack and began to fire over the corpses as he advanced past his fallen teammates while he laid cover down.

  Willard’s Marines took their cue, caught hold of Angus and Henry, and pulled them back into shelter before they moved beside the sergeant and pitched two grenades through the space.

  Todd dove for cover as the first grenade exploded. The Marine who’d fallen prone ahead of him began to wheeze with laughter, and a second round of explosions followed.

  “What did you—” Todd began and moved back so he could see for himself.

  The hallway was a wall of flame as the ship’s anti-fire system activated. He pressed up against the end of a stack.

  “Sartre’s gonna kill me,” he muttered.

  He scanned the area for any movement, speaking quietly as he did so.

  “Steph? I need an exit plan.”

  After a minute, he groaned and rolled his eyes.

  “Well, yes, we broke the shuttle.”

  The deck vibrated beneath his feet and he glanced at Ka.

  “Are you done yet?”

  “Almost.”

  “Johnny?”

  The guard pocketed the data stick and grabbed his blaster. “Done.”

  “Piet?”

  “Almost there, and they are gonna want to see this! The comm lines to Earth are down.”

  As he spoke, the intercom went live.

  “All crew, all crew, all crew. Rear-Admiral Spokane has ordered a tactical withdrawal. Stand by for transition.”

  Piet glanced at Todd as he and Ka pulled their data sticks. “You got us an exit?”

  “To me,” he ordered, and the teams surrounded him.

  Blue light formed a door from which it spread to engulf them.

  “Let them go,” Stephanie ordered as the closest Regime ships altered course away from the battle. “If they fire on us, destroy them.”

  The Knight’s gun crews sent a flight of missiles into a destroyer as it turned.

  “I said—”

  “One of the guns twitched,” the Knight replied. “Firing first seemed like a better plan.”

  She rolled her eyes but she didn’t argue.

  “Todd?” Rawlins asked as the Earth’s Rise’s engines increased power.

  Stephanie lifted a hand over her head and clicked her fingers to open a portal in front of herself. A bubble swelled out of its center and burst, depositing Todd, the Hooligans, and a very stunned Marine team onto the deck.

  “You owe Ebony a shuttle,” she told Todd as he pushed to his feet and approached her.

  He stooped for a kiss and sauntered toward the door.

  “And take your toys with you!” she ordered as the Marines and Hooligans untangled themselves.

  His smile faded as she sniffed the air. “Is that…”

  The teams were on their feet and moving swiftly to the exit before she could finish.

  “I’ll clean it,” Todd pro
mised and palmed the exit panel.

  The door didn’t open.

  “Ebony?”

  “No one goes anywhere in those boots,” the ship declared, “and I’d better be spotless in very short order.”

  He glanced at Rawlins, but the captain was studying her boards and the Knight’s guns were firing. One of the Regime ships had tried to take advantage of the retreat.

  “Sergeant, I’ll need any pilots you can spare for pick-up duty,” Rawlins said and raised her head as emergency pods ejected from one of the Regime ships. “That was one of our boarding parties.”

  “They’ll be in the hangar bay in ten,” he informed her, palmed the door and caught the Knight off guard, and trotted into the corridor.

  Given the captain’s request, the ship didn’t stop them. Some things were more important.

  The incoming comms for one thing. Before the comms team knew it had arrived, Ebony had shunted it to the forward viewscreen.

  “Admiral Jaleck!” Stephanie’s exclamation carried into the hall, and Todd signaled the team to halt and turn. They arrived in the command center as Jaleck replied.

  “Stephanie.” The admiral smiled but her face turned somber. “I need to check on Dreth, but I also need to stay here. Can you…”

  Stephanie nodded.

  “I’ll see to our planet and our people,” she promised and placed her fist over her heart.

  Behind her, Rawlins relayed the order. Jaleck’s return salute was barely complete before the Knight vanished from the system.

  Back on Earth, Remy had looped his arm around the Talent’s waist to support her as she directed them out of the complex. Amaratne took rear guard and fired back down the corridor at anyone in pursuit.

  The AI kept the way clear ahead of them and the Talent warned him of any Enforcers that they would encounter.

  “That’s some gift you have,” he told her, and she managed a weak laugh.

  “The Regime wouldn’t think so.”

  Remy squeezed her gently. “They don’t count anymore.”

  “There’s a small entry point ahead,” she told him. “It’s not…well…” She sighed. “I’m not the only one who knows about it.”

  Amaratne moved closer behind them. “How many?”

  “I sense a half-dozen,” she replied, “and more are coming. They think you will be undefended when you walk through that door.”