Steel-Winged Valkyrie (Lady Hellgate Book 5)

by Greg Dragon

  “Your friend Zulia, did she patch you up?” Helga asked, and the younger woman nodded. “She’s a good friend then. Did you tell her about the documents? Are you sure it wasn’t her that set you up with those thugs?”

  Blue hair covered Fio’s face as she sat forward on the chair, resting one hand on her knee as she stared at the floor, looking bone weary. “Thought about it,” she said finally. “She and I had history, but it wasn’t a bad break-up or anything, so why would she set me up? For credits? She came home to find those two losses shot, didn’t flinch, and admitted to knowing them. If she was in on it she wouldn’t have come home the way she did, and she would have acted much differently … I know her. Can we just leave Zulia out of this, please? I’ve already got one person killed, and she’s innocent. She doesn’t deserve any of this.”

  “So, how would they have known who and where you were?” Fumo chimed in, looking up from his wrist-comms to regard them.

  “It was a lengthy flight, and I wasn’t exactly hiding. Bloody gash on my neck, bandaged poorly, and the black mark on my clothes from where my old communicator had exploded. If my name made the wanted ads, someone would have recognized me. Then when I came here, I was likely followed back to Zulia’s. I wasn’t myself, you understand? I barely remember even being on that shuttle, and she took care of me only for me to get her place raided. So, it’s not her.”

  “What do you think, Commander?” Fumo said.

  “I’ll send the codes up to Rendron, see if we can learn its origin. The council can decide the rest,” Cilas said. “We’ll remain here for a time until we get our orders. Until then, I think you should come with us, Fio. We have room for you onboard our vessel. It will be safe for you there, and our physician can look into those wounds while we wait to hear what our next steps should be. Would you like to come with us? If they attacked you once there are bound to be more looking to cash in.”

  “Alright,” she whispered, and Helga could have sworn she sensed some excitement underneath all the melancholy and pain.

  “Are those bounty hunters still in custody?” Cilas turned to Fumo, who seemed on the verge of shooing them out of his office now that he’d fulfilled his part of the business.

  “We had to let them go,” Fio answered for him. “To make it easy on Zulia, since she sort of knew them. Can you let them off the hook? I shot them both, and like I said, Zulia’s done so much for me, and all I wanted to do was get you all that message. It’s what Djesu would have wanted.”

  “It’s not up to me,” Cilas allowed, but more of a warning than him wanting to pursue the idea of detaining them.

  The door slid open and a spacer marched in, stopping with the stomp typical of juniors still fresh from OEC, Officer Education Camp, and saluting so hard that an audible “thump,” could be heard by everyone. Helga caught herself smiling at the spectacle, recalling how she was once this green, stomping around in front of her seniors and denigrating the rates. She inhaled to compose herself, glancing over at Cilas, who was as stoic as Colonel Fumo, who nodded at the boy to give him permission to relax.

  Helga, being so young an officer, was well aware that she was always being judged, either by those who envied her position or the ranks above her who suspected nepotism. Under Cilas what she had learned of leadership was to tread carefully, keeping the line taut but malleable for her fellow officers and rates. When something was off, however, it was difficult not to react immediately. This took focused discipline, despite a lifetime of living and breathing Alliance Navy rhetoric.

  Cilas, however, was a master stoic; men and women at the helm were supposed to appear “icy” in the face of anything. Her commander had mastered the art since his first day as a cadet, but she still struggled with it, especially now, when she saw the boy enter and knew deep down that it would be negative. The young man handed a note to Colonel Fumo and he read it quickly before slipping it into the front pocket of his jacket.

  “Thank you, Ensign, and thank the major for the heads-up,” Fumo said, and the boy, taking the hint, saluted again before taking two steps backward towards the door.

  “I take it that’s our signal to get this woman out of this building,” Helga said, looking to Cilas for their next move.

  He nodded and motioned towards the door. “Get on comms and tell the Nighthawks to secure that landing platform, but remind them that we aren’t cleared for violent action, so exercise good judgment. We need the lifts cleared and everyone back on Ursula. Let’s see if they’re bold enough to come take her once she’s on the ship.”

  Helga touched the metal transmitter pinned to her ear, and a heads up display with the Nighthawks faces and vitals appeared. Reaching up to interface with the menu, still skeptical whether it would function like her PAS helmet would, she selected the option for hailing everyone and was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked. Cilas gave his farewell and thanks to the colonel, then ushered the two women out before reaching over to pluck the beret from Helga’s head.

  She reached up to object, but was too slow to catch him, too busy explaining the situation to the Nighthawks and Ursula’s rated personnel. She ordered them to beat to quarters in case the men coming for Fio grew wise to their intended destination. Cilas gave the young woman Helga’s beret, and she promptly donned it, pulling it low to conceal her face.

  “Walk the way we do,” Cilas urged. “Quick but purposeful, and keep your eyes forward. Don’t be frightened; we’ve got you covered. Just stay calm and look natural.”

  Having made the call, Helga focused on her surroundings. They were walking below a wide, curving staircase, heading to the terminal to ride the lifts. The starport had become busier, and this was a stroke of good luck. Robed Genesians, whisking away on the soft tiled floors, floated from one end of the building to the next, purchasing tickets for flights. If there were troopers, Helga didn’t see them, though she kept her head on a swivel all the way to the kiosks.

  Twenty-four stations for ticket buyers sat in neat rows before the lifts. It was busy here as well, but only civilians from what she could tell. Following Fio and Cilas past them, she dared to hope that they would get to Ursula without any incident. A woman screamed an expletive before falling to the floor as a man in black ceramic armor stepped over her to grab Fio’s arm. Helga, seeing this, instinctively took Fio’s other arm to pull her back.

  Cilas leaped into action, moving so fast it was as if he had seen the man on approach, and timed his ambush for when he took hold of Fio. Chaos ensued as Genesian patrons scrambled to get free of what they saw would be a fight. A few formed a circle about the tugging match, shouting support for the Nighthawks, though it was unlikely they knew their roles or commitment.

  With two quick moves Cilas had his arms around the armored man’s waist. The trooper reached for his face, but Cilas shifted his body to the man’s right side, trapped his leg and took him down to the floor in a blindingly quick twist. Helga, seeing an opening, kicked at his elbow to get him to release Fio’s arm. Alliance-issued officer’s small soles struck their target, and despite all the armor, she managed to hyper-extend the arm, forcing him to let go.

  Fio ran forward and kicked him in the face, screaming obscenities, but Helga pulled her away from him, sprinting past the gawking crowd to gain the lifts. Once they were on and rising upwards, Helga allowed herself to exhale. With no weapons and all the Nighthawks rushing back to the ship, they could have been in some real trouble if the trooper had been bold enough to bring a gun. The security on Neroka was plentiful, but she had noticed that none of them wore a gun.

  “Didn’t see any security on the platform, Cilas. Did you, by any chance?” Helga said, pacing about on the platform as it took them up to their ship.

  “Yeah, but it’s ballistic cannons, and two snipers on watch setup on one of the towers. Saw them from my cabin before we got off earlier. That at least gives us hope, right? But we can’t trust them. Whoever wants Fio is likely to have people on the station�
�s staff. So keep your wits; that goes for everyone. The mission is simple: when we get up there, we get Fio to the Ursula by any means necessary.”

  The ride to the top seemed faster to Helga than when they had made their descent to the ground floor earlier. The platform was clear but for five dockworkers diligently refueling their assigned vessels. She made out Ursula against the backdrop, resting atop the outstretched bridge. Below the closest wing stood the imposing figure of Quentin Tutt, dressed in his PAS suit, carrying an auto-rifle and waving them on, letting them know it was clear.

  At the top of the ramp, her trained eyes spotted Raileo Lei, his black PAS nearly invisible against the shadows of the entrance. He was laying stationary behind his OKAGI “Widow Maker” sniper rifle, aiming at the location of the lifts. Weapons weren’t allowed past the landing platform, and especially not inside the starport proper. Since the Nighthawks had been allowed to dock with their equipment, however, they were able to prepare their loadouts after Helga’s orders.

  What Helga found strange was that there were no alarms going off and the ballistic cannons sat idle despite the presence of weapons on the dock. This let her know that someone had either disabled the security system or there simply wasn’t any, and the cannons were merely a deterrent. Anders stepped out from a parked vessel toting a collapsible baton. Either he snuck that past the security sensors or he took it off one of the dockworkers, Helga decided.

  The three Nighthawks surrounded the smuggler, making themselves her shield as they hurried to the landing platform. Helga on her left, Cilas on her right, and Anders brought up the rear, walking backwards to protect their flanks. They walked briskly past the parked spacecraft, a thopter in repairs, and a handful of Genesians too busy to care. Helga took a moment to look back across the platform to the distance, where the farmland curved up into the clouds.

  Everything was beautiful here, from the people to the clothes, but she felt no community, just workers and industry going about their business. What once intrigued her now felt like a prison in a sense. Despite the illusion of distance and travel, it was still limited by the boundaries of the cylindrical station. Then there were the Neroka colonists, and the looks she had received on her way to Colonel Fumo’s office. Helga found she didn’t much care for the people. They reminded her of the Genesians she’d met on an Arisani station, who looked down their noses at all Vestalians.

  Cilas ordered everyone onboard and the hatches sealed, and Helga ran to the bridge where she had Ina bring the thrusters online in case they needed to go. She had wanted to launch where Fio could be safely away from the station, but Cilas wanted to wait out her pursuers. If nothing occurred, Fio would remain onboard, and a few select crew would be allowed to disembark and finished conducting business inside the starport.

  His primary goal was to contact Rendron, inform Captain Sho of their status, and send to him the list of stolen codes. Then they would be made to wait for the Alliance’s next order, which he speculated to Helga meant either they’d be sent after the man who owned the documents or they’d escort Fio out to another ship. With them already here and fitted to operate covertly on any order, Cilas assumed a planet drop would be the most likely scenario.

  It will be Meluvia all over, Helga thought, dreading the memory of trudging through the jungle, nursing a bite from that bone-shelled, segmented monstrosity known as a brovila. Having recovered her beret from Fio, who was whisked off to medbay to see Dr. Cleia Rai’to, Helga changed out of her uniform and donned her PAS.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked herself, remembering how defeated Fio had seemed once they got her onboard. She had been through a lot, that was obvious, but there was a deeper pain that couldn’t have come from a shot. Helga pitied the girl, but there was something about her that made her want to keep her distance. Something about her eyes, a pretty violet, but beneath them was a dark pool of something tragic that made Helga queasy even thinking about it.

  She walked to the door of her cabin but felt compelled to stop, turning to look back at the beret where it hung from a hook. There on the top was the Rendron’s emblem, bringing to mind her captain, Retzo Sho, the man responsible for building the Nighthawks and one of her staunchest supporters. Seeing that symbol brought to mind that fateful night of her graduation when he’d taken time out of his busy schedule to speak to her—then a lowly cadet—about her father.

  As with most spacers built on Rendron, the thought of disappointing Captain Retzo Sho made Helga anxious. She recalled his speech after their last mission, and those famous words, “We lay down our lives for the Alliance, because to the chosen, there is no other choice.” That call to service made her feel proud then, and remembering it brought back the zeal she used to have for wearing the PAS and carrying out orders.

  They were there because there was no one else, armed and ready to defend a woman with information that could save thousands of Alliance lives. Helga couldn’t be prouder. Being here made those younger years of rigorous discipline worth something. Becoming what she was today had made her survive BLAST, and wanting it more than over 150 other hopefuls had led to her becoming the first female Nighthawk.

  14

  The orders from the Alliance had come in quickly, two cycles following the rescue of Fio Doro. Commander Cilas Mec summoned his Nighthawks for a brief. They filed into his cabin, where he had chairs arranged in a circle, while he leaned against his large desk, his shiny black boots blending in with the soft dark carpet. At his feet was the Alliance’s symbol of an A. The line in the center expanded to become the fighter’s thruster, flying an angular halo around the letter.

  On the walls were vid-screens displaying star maps of the three systems, and directly behind him above the desk was a framed painting of the council, smiling and standing in two rows as if ready to administer judgment on the viewer. The compartment was resplendent in black and red, with excellent lighting, allowing them all to see everything and everyone clearly. Outside Cilas’s cabin, it was as if nothing had changed since the cycle they first touched down.

  With Fio safely on board, the crew was again given leave to disembark and explore the station, but on their return, they would be subject to a decontamination process before being allowed back on the ship. This was protocol suggested by Dr. Cleia Rai’to, who expressed disappointment at the lack of due diligence by the Neroka security.

  “A petri dish of galactic diseases and plague,” were her words, before going into graphic detail on what it could mean for the crew and their health. She had spoken to Cilas, and he agreed that all spacers were to be scrubbed and scanned for any infections before re-entry. Spacers who engaged in physical relations with the colonists were to be quarantined and checked before getting clearance to be around the other crew members. These strict protocols made leaving the ship too much trouble for some of the crew, who chose instead to stay on Ursula, content with looking out from her windows.

  Inside his cabin, now functioning as a briefing room, Cilas spoke to the four other Nighthawks about the orders they’d been given. “You’re probably all wondering why we’re being sent to the surface,” he began, pacing the deck as he always did during briefings. “Well, as much as I’d love to say we’re going to meet Tutt’s family, this won’t be for a house call or exploration.” His joke was met with laughter, nothing forced or false, but a low chuckle from Quentin himself, who had made it known that he and his family were estranged. “We have two high-level targets: one, a man posing as an Alliance recruiter, the other, an individual who will be revealed to us once we locate the thype stealing our honor.”

  “Who lies about being Alliance? If you want the honor so much, have the heart to sign up,” Raileo complained, his face showing the disgust he felt for someone playing the role of a spacer for their personal gains.

  “Seems to be a thing across the galaxy,” Cilas said, sharing a knowing glance with the sniper, who was still stewing over their target. “We’re to settle in there and await orders.
No identification, no PAS, and no formal titles or signals. Helga, Tutt, Ray, you know the drill. This will be similar to Meluvia. We have to go in covertly and blend with the locals. Chief Anders, this is what you trained for. Discretion is everything, am I clear?”

  “Yes Commander,” everyone present sounded off, their voices coming together almost harmoniously.

  “Alright, here’s the situation. The Alliance suspects that we have a leak in our intelligence, and someone on the ground is feeding information to the lizards,” Cilas said, resulting in a chorus of disbelief from his Nighthawks. “The poser I mentioned is the man responsible for destroying the proof that could have easily identified the network that’s behind this. Proof went poof, so all we have is the man orchestrating the cover-up. We seek him out and get him to start talking. Sound doable?”

  “Righteous,” Quentin whispered, grinning cruelly.

  Cilas walked forward to stare up at the overhead, his right fist resting against the small of his back. “We have to go in silently, so we can’t take the Thundercat, unfortunately. If it was to be ID’d on approach to the planet, it could have us exposed before we even get started. We’ll be taking a merchant vessel, a hauler. We managed to get one for a good price from a local shipwright, loyal to the Alliance. Ate, that being your area, I know you’re going to want to run diagnostics, so tonight we launch and make the pickup, and you along with Mr. Weinstar will have a cycle to check it out.”

  “Excellent, an atmosphere drop in a junker,” Helga joked. “We’ll have her checked out and ready, Commander, but there are some preliminary concerns. You never know how a ship will behave in atmosphere until you take that leap of faith to find out. With that element of mystery, I will need everyone on their game, ready to move whenever I say. When we’re on board, those restraints are to remain on the whole trip. Do you hear me, Nighthawks?”