The mercenary with the scar on his chin, apparently named Chavos since he was leading her squad, pressed a switch to slide his visor up into his helmet once he got his bearings. She and the rest followed his lead.
“Talon’s keeping them occupied,” he said. “Let’s do this quick. You three.” He pointed to Sage and two others with whom she wasn’t familiar. “Head down to engineering and disable all systems. We’ll take the cargo bay.”
Sage’s group nodded in unison and one of the mercenaries took the lead. They began to head down the corridor with their weapons at the ready. They moved slowly, in a staggered line formation with Sage taking up the rear position.
“Did you study the schematics?” one of the mercenaries asked as the leader peaked around a corner. It was clear.
“I think it’s this way.” The leader waved them on when suddenly a group of Tribunal soldiers cut around the far end of the hall and opened fire. A bullet burst through his head, splattering his brains on the inside of his helmet.
“Fuck!” the surviving mercenary shouted as Sage pulled him back around the corner.
“Give me cover fire!” she ordered.
Without questioning her, the mercenary poked his rifle around the corner and fired. Bullet trails danced and smoke leaked out as the walls were peppered with a spray of projectiles. Sage dove over the leader’s carcass, rolling safely to the other side of the opening and sliding down the wall so that her legs were cocked. She glanced at the reflection in the corpse’s half-shattered visor. There were four Tribunal soldiers pressing forward in two rows through a misty haze. The two in front were crouched with the other standing at their backs.
Sage held up a fist to the mercenary to get him to stop firing. He looked back at her with a baffled glare, but he obliged. All of the gunfire stopped, leaving only the alarm and the hiss of leaking pipes. She listened for their footsteps, waiting until they were at the right distance.
“Beta squad!” Talon’s anxious voice rang over the com-link. “We’re receiving heavy resistance at the command deck!” He paused. “Beta, take out the defense systems! Auto turrets up here have already taken out two of us!”
“On our way,” the mercenary beside Sage whispered as the footsteps grew nearer.
“My group is in a standoff at the cargo bay entrance. We should hold!” Chavos said.
“They were ready for us,” Talon declared. “Use whatever means necessary! We’ll take this son of a bitch down with us if we have to!” Talon’s transmission cut out with a chorus of screams and gunfire.
His words urged Sage’s artificial finger to wrap around the trigger of her pistol. Then she froze for the first time since boarding the ship.
What am I doing? she thought to herself as she peeked around the corner. They were soldiers of the Tribune, serving the same faith as she did. She should have been helping them, but the Executor order was far too secretive for any normal Tribunal soldiers to know who she was. To them she was no different than any of the other Ceresian mercenaries. She reminded herself that she was the extended hand of a just and righteous Tribune. Talon and his crew were not responsible for the other attacks. She couldn’t allow them to be blamed. Then the Tribune would still be in danger from the real culprits. All she could hope to do was make it out alive in order to continue her assigned mission.
For the good of the Tribune, she thought as she slowly exhaled and then she went to work.
She nodded to the other mercenary and he fired blindly to draw attention. Just as the soldiers unloaded their clips at him she snapped around the corner, firing four succinct shots. The bullets stopped flowing and she rushed forward into the haze. The soldiers lay in a moaning heap on the ground. None of the shots were fatal, but all of them were incapacitated.
“Clear!” she hollered back as she kneeled and set her sights down the corridor.
“By the fuckin’ Ancients!” the mercenary marveled when he saw the four writhing bodies. He raised his rifle to execute them, but Sage grabbed him.”
“There’s no time, you heard him. Let’s move!” Sage urged the mercenary. He listened. They began to move at a faster pace. She was no stranger to the layout of a tribunal freighter, and Talon was right. No transport should have as many defenders as they faced. The Tribune was baiting whoever had been raiding their ships to attack again, and they had fallen right in the middle of their ploy. Only Talon and the rest of them weren’t who they were looking for.
Sage slid leg first around the next corner, the whiz of bullets over her head tossing her hair back. The two soldiers were incapacitated before they could locate her and she sprinted forward over their wriggling bodies, challenging the other mercenary to keep up.
The door to the engineering bay was just ahead. A turret sprang down from the ceiling in front of it. She threw herself into the wall, the bullets zipping passed her and cutting the mercenary in half. As it turned toward her she fired at the base of it, sending out a shower of sparks as the disabled turret slumped down.
Turrets by engineering. This ship has been outfitted to hold, she realized. The entrance to the engineering bay was sealed, and the expanse of frosted translucency beside it was too opaque to see through. She hurried to the retinal scanner at the side of it. Emergency procedures had locked it with only ranking members of the ship able to override, but an Executor could bypass such systems. She placed her eye in the scanner. The door slid open and she crouched at the side of it. A soldier peeked out for a second before she elbowed him in the temple with her artificial arm and knocked him out. She picked up his rifle.
“Raiders!” men inside the room shouted. They fired at the open door, but she was already moving down the corridor outside. She squeezed her artificial hand into a fist and slammed it through the thick, bullet-proof glass. She lifted the rifle up to her shoulder and blasted harmlessly through the break toward the ceiling in order to distract them. Shrieks rang out as she ditched the rifle and rolled back to the door. She pressed through with her pistol, disarming all resistance inside with ease.
“Any progress back there?” Talon shouted over the comm.
Before answering Sage ran over and tossed an engineer away from a console before sitting down. Even as an Executor she couldn’t disable the Vale Protocol so that they would be able to take control of the ship. She was, however, able to power down all of the automated defenses and cameras. She also switched off the primary lighting systems, so that only the reserve illumination would paint the whole ship in a dull red. The darkness would make it harder for both sides, and hopefully keep Talon and the rest of them alive long enough for her to help.
“Automated defenses deactivated! Hold on up there. I’ll try to give you a gravity boost,” Sage announced through her com-link. She didn’t hesitate before leaving the engineering bay and heading in another direction.
“Sounds good.” Talon wheezed heavily. “We’re pushing into the command deck.” There was a barrage of loud blasts followed by bloodcurdling screams. “A Mech has us pinned down! Fuck, it came out of nowhere!”
“Just hold tight!” Sage didn’t bother to be cautious. They were on the defensive and nobody would expect her to come charging. She was on her way to the Gravitum Generator, which was toward the back of the freighter across from its reactor core.
After a short sprint she could hear the echoes of Chavos and his group battling for the cargo bay. She stopped and peered around a corner, where she saw her destination as expected. There was a set of stairs leading down, with two guards on either side of it. Before they noticed her she sent a single bullet through their knees, and as the fell kicked them both in the heads. Too easy. I’ll have to let Benjar know.
She moved swiftly, suspecting that there would be no guards down by the reactor. Nobody would be foolish enough to engage in a firefight where only a single stray bullet could send the core into a meltdown.
She reached the bottom, where an elliptical catwalk was suspended around a smoldering, red sphere surrounded by an a
rray of violently, rotating blades. There were only engineers on the floor below, monitoring the reactor, and they wouldn’t hear her over the racket. She hopped over the rail, hanging down until one of the engineers passed beneath her. Then she dropped, knocking him unconscious with an elbow to the head.
After making sure that none of the others noticed, she passed stuck to the shadows as she made her way toward a chamber sealed by a thick door. She came to the retinal scanner and keyed the override. Then she closed her visor and made sure her suit was completely sealed. She’d been told that the suit could withstand direct exposure to Gravitum and keep her from risking contracting the Blue Death, but she’d never had to test it. The heavy door slowly rose, revealing the pulsating blue of the Gravitum generator, and she stepped in. It was a necessary risk.
CHAPTER THIRTY—TALON RAYNE
Cornered in the Void
Talon threw his back against the wall outside the freighter’s command deck and switched on his com-link. “We’re receiving heavy resistance at the command deck!” He yelled. He popped around the corner and took out one of the auto-turrets on the ceiling. “Beta Squad take out the defense system! Auto turrets up here have already taken out two men!”
There were four left in Alpha Squad including Talon, Vellish, and two other mercenaries who stood on either side of the wide entrance into the command deck. They, and the Tribunal soldiers inside, were locked in a stalemate. The turrets were protected by a constant spray of fire from rifles. The chaos had already left half a dozen bodies from both sides lying throughout the opening. As they were battered by bullets, blood sprayed up from them to form a congealing red mist. Smoke and sparks poured out of the walls to mix with it, making it difficult to see.
“Vellish!” Talon lifted his visor and shouted across the hall. “You have any smoke left?”
“Got one!” he responded as he fired around the corner.
“Toss it right at the other side of the entrance. As soon as it’s thick, move in and use the consoles for cover. Everyone pick a spot where the turrets can’t get you.” Talon waited a moment to gauge his destination and let the others do the same. “Okay, everybody ready?” he asked, to which they all nodded. “Toss it!”
A cylindrical grenade with a band of white light around the top rolled across the floor. “Fall back!” one of the men inside barked as the device clanked to a halt, thinking it was an explosive. There was a deafening bang and a flash of light, and then a thick veil of smoke began to leak out. His ears ringing from the blast, Talon shouted: “Go, go, go!”
They swept in, firing blindly through the shroud. Talon heard a yelp as the mercenary behind him took a shot through the chest. He dove, a bullet glancing harmlessly off of his right arm, and slammed against a console.
Only a flesh wound, he thought to himself gratefully as he noticed the gash cut into his armor, a thin line of blood dripping out. There wasn’t much time to analyze it. Sparks spewed over his head as bullets rained down on his position. He scrambled to pull in his legs, firing blindly over the console until he was safely in cover. Then he glanced over to see that Vellish and the one other surviving mercenary had also made it.
“Any progress back there?” Talon shouted over the comm. He peeked over the console and took out one of the soldiers before a flurry of bullets zipped overhead and forced him back down with his hands over his ears.
After around half a minute in cover, holding back the Tribunal soldiers as best as they could, the lights throughout the command deck suddenly went off.
“Automated defenses off! Hold on up there, I’ll try and give you a gravity lift!” Agatha announced over the com-link. The news reinvigorated Talon, who, in concert with the other mercenaries, immediately sprung from his cover shooting. They pressed forward, cutting the defenders to pieces and turning the tables on the few Tribunal survivors who had to drop to lower level of the command deck in order to shield themselves. The soldiers clearly hadn’t expected to lose their advantage so swiftly. Their new position was perilous. Against the backdrop of the ship’s expansive translucency they were silhouetted against the star field.
“Not sure what that means, but anything sounds good right about now,” Talon panted over the com-link as he took a soldier out with a burst of fire. “We’re pushing through the command deck.” Just as he said it, the floor shook and a powerful volley cut the mercenary beside Vellish’s head clean off. Talon ducked quickly, looking between the legs of chairs and consoles to see a Combat Mech stomping through the entrance. The hulking mass of metal tore across the deck with the chain gun on its arm, clipping Vellish’s leg as he clambered for cover.
“A Mech has us pinned down,” Talon screamed. “Fuck, it came out of nowhere!”
“Just hold tight!” Agatha’s optimistic voice came through.
Talon looked behind him to see the soldiers at the viewport coming out of hiding. He rolled onto his back and unloaded on them until he had to switch out his clip.
“Move down there Vellish!” he shouted across the room. Vellish was on the ground holding his bleeding leg, but was able to turn and fire down at the lower level, killing the men attempting to sneak up behind him. He crawled over the edge and Talon made sure there were none left before he went down as well.
Talon peered over the edge frantically. They were only about six feet below the main deck. The Mech fired in his direction, stray bullets slamming into the glass viewport in such tight succession that it was ready to shatter. Protective panels slid down as Talon’s ears popped and his body was yanked backward. The entrance behind the Mech sealed shut as well as it stomped forward, each of its massive limbs causing the whole room to shudder. Vellish pulled himself to his feet and sent a few rounds into the Mech to draw its fire.
“We can’t hold out against this!” Vellish groaned. His wounded leg gave out and he fell down.
Come on Agatha, Talon thought to himself. He glanced up again at his impending doom, the metal goliath painted in ominous red light every time the alarms wailed. A host of soldiers were arrayed in a line on either side of it, slowly pushing forward until there would be nowhere left to run.
“Talon…Talon are you there?” Agatha’s voice pleaded over the com-link.
“We’re here.” He coughed. His lungs were filled with smoke. “Whatever you’re gonna do, do it!”
He had the sudden urge to close his eyes as the Mech got closer. It wasn’t the way he had expected to die. But then, just before the machine could reach his cover, the gravity of the room shifted. Talon felt himself being slowly pulled upward.
Gravity lift, Talon realized her earlier meaning and couldn’t help but smirk. “Hold on Vellish!” he yelled and grabbed onto the grated floor. Vellish did the same and they watched as the Mech and the soldiers floated up into the air, looking around anxiously since they had no idea what was happening to them.
“System will override in thirty seconds. Hold on!” Agatha’s voice urged into his ear.
The Tribunal soldiers thrashed around, trying to swim through the air as they dangled. Talon kept his eye on the Mech and as soon as it tapped against the tall ceiling, the gravity rapidly returned to normal. Everything fell to the floor, the Mech landing with a loud crash. Talon caught his pulse-rifle when it plummeted and quickly turned to fire. The bewildered soldiers dropped in succession as he ran up the stairs. Struggling to come to its feet, the Mech stretched out its arm and fired, forcing Talon to sprawl behind a console out of the way.
A deafening torrent of bullets tore through the equipment, burrowing toward him. And then, just as he thought the Mech was going to tear him to pieces, the shooting stopped. He peered around the corner. The entrance to the command deck was cloven, and as he came further around he saw her.
Agatha was standing atop the colossal Mech, her artificial hand reaching through its chest and into the pilot’s chamber. The whole thing twitched a few times until she pulled her arm out. Its heavy limbs collapsed to the ground, almost throwing Talon off balance
as he stared at her.
Who is this woman?
“They knew we were coming!” she snarled as she slid down the Mech’s chassis. She landed nimbly on two feet, as if she didn’t even realize how remarkable the move was.
“I know,” Talon panted. His eyes widened over Agatha’s handiwork. “You realize you—”
“We need Ulson to get here now!” Agatha heard one of the fallen soldiers reach for his gun and shot him in the arm.
Talon stammered for words as Agatha ran down to help Vellish up to the command deck’s main level. Unable to take his eyes off of the Mech, he held down the button on his chest. “Chavos, what’s your status?” he asked.
“We just took the cargo bay!” Chavos responded immediately. Talon could hear what sounded like tarps being peeled back through the feed. “There’s nothing! It’s all empty! All the Gravitum is gone. Fu—” Chavos was cut off by static when the whole freighter lurched to the side, knocking Talon off of his feet.
“Holy shit, Tal!” Ulson spoke somberly over the comm. “The whole Cargo bay just went up in flames!”
Talon used the Mech’s leg to prop himself back up, his heart sinking. “The Tribune knew…” He looked to Agatha, his eyes glazed over as though all hope was lost. “They knew.”
It only seemed to fill her face with fervor. She stopped in front of him with her arm around Vellish and switched on her com-link. “Ulson, I know it’s crazy, but stay on the back of the ship. We’re gonna come through the cargo bay and float to you.”
“It’s only sparks and bodies now,” Ulson informed them. “You should be able to make it through.”
Talon stared into her eyes and nodded firmly. He threw his arm around Vellish to assist her and they headed toward the door as fast as they could.
“Wait,” Ulson said. “There are more ships coming.”
“Is it the other raiders?” Agatha questioned.
“No. Tribunal! I’ll try to—” Ulson’s voice cut out to static before they could hear his screams.
The Circuit, Book 1 Page 18
