Darkspace Renegade Volume 1: Books 1 & 2: (A Military Sci-Fi Series)

by G J Ogden

  13

  The first two muggers ran at them, and Hallam saw the flash of a blade glinting under the flickering yellow lights. He parried the thrust with the rusted metal bar, kicking the man in the chest and driving him back along the side gangway.

  Hallam glanced across to see Dakota evading a similar attack, but then she yelped in pain as a knife glanced her side, nicking her ribs, just below the chest plate of her renegade armor. Her attacker tried to press his advantage, but Dakota sidestepped then hammered her chain-reinforced fist into the man’s masked face, sending him down with a crunch.

  One of the second pair of muggers then charged at Hallam from behind, and he turned in to the man, catching the improvised club that was swung toward him. The first attacker recovered and slashed his knife at Hallam, scoring a groove across the armor on his back. Hallam shifted his weight, throwing the second man into the first and knocking both down.

  During the scuffle, the final attacker had shot ahead and was racing down the central walkway toward Dr. Rand. Hallam abandoned his skirmish with the other two and sprinted after the new threat, tackling the figure from behind and dragging her back. He caught a kick to the gut before the assailant pulled a dagger and lunged at him. Hallam felt the metal scrape against his chest plate as it slid lower and cut his belly. He cried out but retained enough presence of mind to grab the attacker’s arm. Using all his strength, he twisted the woman against the railing and shoved her hard, sending her toppling over the top bar. Her screams faded into the darkness below, like the sound of police sirens from a patrol car that had raced past in the night.

  Turning back to the others, Hallam saw Dakota squaring off against the remaining two muggers. Dr. Rand appeared behind Hallam, and he almost took a swing at her before recognizing the scientist and halting his attack.

  “Stay back!” cried Hallam as he ran to help Dakota, boots clanking on the shaky metal gangway. The nearest mugger to him saw Hallam’s approach and met his advance, again stabbing the blade in his direction. Hallam parried again with the bar, but then was caught on the arm. He yelped in pain and felt blood wet his skin before the two locked up, each trying to wrestle the weapons from the other. The mugger’s forehead smashed into Hallam’s nose, and he was temporarily stunned, before then finding himself bent backwards over the railings. He panicked and let go of the bar, which silently slipped into the void. Gritting his teeth, Hallam tried to fight back, but his opponent was bigger and carried more weight. He could feel himself tipping further back over the railings.

  Suddenly, the hold on him relaxed, and Hallam pushed away from danger, gasping for breath. In front of him, the mugger was staggering back along the gangway as Dr. Rand landed repeated sharp kicks to his knee. Seizing the opportunity, Hallam darted forward, slamming his shoulder into the man and driving him over the top of the railings on the opposite side. The man’s petrified screams soon faded to nothing.

  Dropping to one knee from exhaustion, Hallam twisted back to face Dakota. Blood covered her ear and neck, but her opponent looked worse for wear. Stepping in, Dakota landed a fierce combination of punches, ending with a hard right-cross from the chain-covered fist, and the fight was over.

  “I sure as hell hope you have the readings you need now,” said Hallam, looking up at Dr. Rand.

  Dr. Rand nodded. “Yes, and I believe it would be a good time for us to leave.”

  “That’s something of an understatement…” replied Hallam, though he was at least relieved that the determined scientist was finally ready to go.

  Dr. Rand helped Hallam to his feet before they were met by Dakota, who was limping slightly.

  “Are you okay?” said Hallam, quickly inspecting the cut to her head.

  “I’ll live. How about you?” Dakota answered, noticing the bloodied and torn section of Hallam’s shirt, and the blood still dripping from his nose.

  “I’ve had worse just from sparring sessions with you,” Hallam said, laughing and instantly regretting it as pain shot through his side.

  The group headed out of the condemned section of the habitant ring and descended toward the main plaza level, moving as fast as they could without drawing unwanted attention. Even so, wary eyes followed their progress almost every step of the way. Hallam tried hard to conceal his face, but he could sense that he’d been recognized on at least half a dozen occasions.

  Moving onto the main plaza, they turned down the street toward the docking garage, but two enforcers were heading in the opposite direction.

  Hallam cursed and turned away. “We’ll have to find another route,” he muttered under his breath as Dr. Rand and Dakota also spun on their heels.

  “Hey, you three!” came the shout from behind them. Hallam glanced back and saw that the two enforcers were pushing through the crowd toward them, speaking urgently into their radios.

  Hallam cursed again and took stock of their location, head on a swivel as he searched for an avenue of escape. He’d never been to Habitat C before, but he had stayed in Habitat A, which was close to where the small, planetary Randenite depot was located. He figured they should all pretty much follow the same layout, and remembered seeing a service gate out the rear of the docking garage, close to where the Tanker Division crew room had been.

  “Follow me!” called Hallam, running out into the lead, shoving bystanders out of the way and receiving a barrage of curses and thrashing blows to the back of his head as he went.

  Hallam peeled off down a less-busy side street, hoping that his memory was accurate, and that the habitat did match the other he’d visited. Then he saw two different enforcers heading the other way. This time, there was no option to turn back, and there was nowhere else he could divert. Hallam gritted his teeth and dug in his heels even harder. The enforcers yelled at him to stop and tried to frantically usher bystanders out of their line of fire, but they were unable to get off a shot before Hallam ploughed through them like a wrecking ball.

  The collision knocked Hallam off balance and he tumbled down the street, wiping out two more pedestrians en route. His light armor spared his elbows and knees from savage cuts and bruises, but the scrapes and knocks he took to other parts of his body more than made up for it. He felt hands underneath his arms, pulling him up and ushering him on.

  “Where now?” cried Dakota, holding Hallam by the shoulders.

  Hallam tried to shake some awareness back into his dazed head and looked around, quickly spotting the side gate in the high fence. “Through there,” he said a little groggily. “It’s a service entrance to the docking garage.”

  Dakota and Dr. Rand hauled him on as the shouts grew louder behind them. Hallam could see surveillance drones buzzing around too, though so far, none were directly over their location. They reached the gate, and Dakota tried to open it, but it was locked.

  “Damn it, we’ll have to climb!” Dakota cried, slipping her fingers through the chain-link fence.

  “Wait!” called out Dr. Rand, who had already pulled the palm computer out of her pocket and was working feverishly on it.

  Dakota hung on the gate, and Hallam stood ready to follow her, waiting with bated breath for whatever miracle the scientist was about to perform. Then the gate lock clicked, and Dr. Rand pushed it open.

  “How the hell did you do that?” said Hallam, skidding inside after Dr. Rand.

  “I’m a genius, remember?” replied Dr. Rand, waiting until Dakota was also inside before closing the gate and tapping a final command into the palm computer to lock the gate again.

  “Over here!” said Dakota, ushering them toward a covered storage area.

  Hallam and Dr. Rand followed, weaving themselves in amongst the barrels and containers. He could hear the hum of drones overhead now, and despite their covered location, he knew that the automated spies in the sky would be able to see them in spectrums beyond visible light.

  “Those surveillance drones will still be able to tag us here,” said Hallam, jabbing a finger toward the corrugated roof of the storage ba
y.

  Dr. Rand was still working on her palm computer, using a command interface that Hallam had never seen before. She even seemed to be entering commands in a unique language.

  “What are you doing now?” said Dakota, who had seemingly also noticed Dr. Rand’s endeavors.

  “I am hacking the security system to make sure those drones see right through us,” replied Dr. Rand calmly. She then finished the sequence and secured the computer back into her pocket. “There, now, even if they see us, they won’t see us,” she said, letting out a relieved sigh. “I’ve made it so that the image-processing system will map different faces onto our heads.”

  Hallam huffed a laugh. “That’s a neat trick. I hope you gave me a pretty face.”

  “It wouldn’t be hard to give you a prettier one than you already have…” said Dakota, jabbing Hallam in the ribs with her elbow.

  The enforcers raced past, shouting into their communicators, and Hallam waited until their bootsteps had faded before venturing out of his hiding place. With Dakota and Dr. Rand again in tow, he then rounded the corner of a maintenance hangar and caught sight of the docking garage. Then Hallam closed his eyes and cursed again. Dakota’s fighter was right where they’d left it, but it was now guarded by four Palean enforcers and surrounded with a cordon of bright yellow security tape.

  14

  Hallam snuck under the metal shutter door of the maintenance hangar and crept behind one of the many storage racks at the rear of the space. He could make out three people inside, over by a messy office desk, all lounging around and chatting idly. Meanwhile, through the open hangar shutter, he could also see a super-freighter taxiing toward the massive external doors of the habitat dome in preparation to take off.

  The plan, hastily agreed between them but primarily developed by Dakota, was simple in principle. Using her computer wizardry, Dr. Rand would again hack the enforcer’s security system and trick the drones into seeing a fake Hallam and Dakota over in the opposite side of the dome to where they were now. The hope and intention was that the habitat’s security enforcers would then flock to that location in an attempt to apprehend the phantom renegades. Using this distraction, Hallam would recover the security key to the engine covers that had been placed over the main drive exhaust of Dakota’s fighter to prevent it from taking off. At the same time, Dakota would deal with any remaining enforcers on the tarmac and prep the ship for launch. If they timed everything just right, they’d be able to maneuver underneath the super-freighter, which would mask their own engine signature, and sneak out of the habitat with it, like a fish surfing on a whale’s back. After that, it would be down to Dakota’s piloting skills to get them clear of the planet before any of the Palean Enforcer patrol ships shot them down. Dakota had described the operation as being “a piece of cake,” though neither Hallam nor Dr. Rand shared her optimistic appraisal of the plan.

  Hallam checked his watch, waiting for the timer to tick down to the allotted moment when Dr. Rand would initiate the diversion. The counter hit zero, and Hallam again peered out toward the main airstrip, waiting to see what effect – if any – the phantom sighting would have on the forces in the docking garage. Seconds ticked away with no change to the normal, humdrum routine, until the radios on the shoulders of the two enforcers guarding Dakota’s fighter crackled into life. Hallam was too far away to make out anything other than a muted jumble of noise, but whatever the message was, it had jolted the officers from their boredom.

  A few seconds later, heavy boots thudded across the airstrip as a squad of enforcers dashed inside two waiting quadcopter dropships. The vessels’ sliding doors were slammed shut, and the dropships lifted off and sped away, the vibrant hum of their rotors resonating through the maintenance hangar.

  Hallam smiled. “Well, I’ll be damned, it actually worked,” he said to himself before turning his attention to the three men lounging by the desk.

  Hallam had no idea what the key to the engine covers looked like, and so figured he had one of two options to find it. The first was to storm over to the maintenance workers and threaten them to hand over the keys. However, the average Palean was not one to walk away from a confrontation. The typical evening pastime for most of the workers in the habitat was to finish their shifts with a few pints in a local pub, followed by a good fight. This left him option two, which was to bluff his way out. He was already dressed in flight gear, and judging from how little work the three men were engaged in, he doubted they’d interrupt their afternoon of skiving off to interrogate Hallam too much.

  Hallam crept out from his hiding place and dusted the dirt off his knees before standing tall and striding toward the three workers.

  “Who the bloody hell are you?” said one of the three men, who was loafing in a beat-up old office chair with his feet on the desk.

  Even from his reclined position, Hallam could see that he was huge. A small tow tracker was parked up several meters away, but Hallam guessed the man could probably haul some of the smaller ships into the hangar just using his brute strength.

  “Jed Deckard,” said Hallam, thinking on his feet. For some reason, he hadn’t even considered that the man would ask his name, and so was forced to make one up on the spot. The startling similarity of his invented persona to that of the mercenary who was hunting them again showed how much Cad Rikkard was weighing on his mind.

  Hallam followed up the announcement of his name by pointing to the fighter, still surrounded by yellow tape and guarded by the two enforcers. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could now see Dakota sneaking up on the ship, using the various container loaders, fuel and water trucks, and other common items of docking garage equipment as cover.

  “I’m part of the enforcement squad,” Hallam went on, now switching to the story he’d concocted with Dakota and Dr. Rand. “I need to take that fighter over to the main enforcer base for analysis, but some asshole has left the engine covers on it.”

  The large man’s brow furrowed as Hallam said this, and his two co-workers – who were possibly subordinates – suddenly appeared agitated. The giant man slid his feet off the desk and pushed himself out of the chair, which groaned under the additional pressure and looked on the verge of collapse.

  “Some asshole, you say?” the man said, folding his tree-trunk arms across his barrel chest. Hallam swallowed hard, realizing his mistake: Paleans didn’t take kindly to insults. Hallam’s thoughtless quip was tantamount to a challenge. “Well, I’m the supervisor here, so I guess you must mean me?”

  Hallam tried to keep his cool and stay the course. The worst thing he could do now was back down, as the large man would consider such lily-livered behavior to be even more of a slight.

  “Noodle, pass me the pad, will ya?” the supervisor said, though without taking his eyes off Hallam. One of his companions – a stick-thin man, which was presumably the source of his nickname – placed the pad into the supervisor’s enormous palm. “Nope, there’s nothing on here about removing the engine covers for some rando enforcer who strolls in like he owns the place,” the supervisor added with a shrug, though he hadn’t even looked at the pad. “Do you see anything on here about taking the engine covers off for this rando, boys?” the man continued, addressing his co-workers but still staying laser-focused on Hallam.

  The other two men chorused, “No, boss,” though both now seemed to be enjoying the little exchange.

  The supervisor thrust the pad back at “Noodle,” who took it dutifully, and then bent forward, bringing his round face more onto a level with Hallam’s.

  “Sorry, pal,” the supervisor began, showering Hallam’s face with spittle as he spat the words. “No orders, no covers. So why don’t you sod off and come back when you have the right permits?” Hallam could smell coffee and tobacco on the man’s breath, plus the hint of something considerably more flammable.

  Suddenly, there were shouts from outside, and Hallam looked out to see the two enforcers aiming weapons toward a water truck. From the flickering shadows unde
rneath, Hallam guessed that Dakota had been spotted. Their plan was unravelling faster than a cheap woolen sweater.

  “Hang on, I know you,” said Noodle, pointing a thin finger at Hallam. “You’re that bloody terrorist they’re after!”

  The supervisor turned back from the scene outside and peered down at Hallam, suddenly recognizing him too. A smile curled his wide mouth and he cracked his knuckles. “Good spot, Noodle,” he chipped in, smacking a fist into his palm; a gesture that left Hallam in no doubt as to the brute’s violent intentions. “There’s a nice little reward for this muppet too. Looks like it’s our lucky day, boys!”

  Hallam had tried the clever approach of bluffing his way to the keys, and it had failed spectacularly. Now it was time for plan B. Wasting no time, Hallam launched a kick at the supervisor, expertly angling the toe of his boot directly at the target area – the man’s groin. His foot connected sweetly, and the supervisor crumpled to his knees, clutching his unmentionables while producing a sort of half-yelp, half-wheeze. He went down so quickly that it was as if the man had stepped into one of Dr. Rand’s gravitational anomalies, and suddenly become five times heavier.

  Hallam turned his attention to the other two men, who had been stunned by the sight of their hulking supervisor being felled so easily. He stepped in and laid out the second man with a powerful right cross before rounding on Noodle. However, the thin man just shot up his hands in surrender. Hallam smiled. It seems that some Paleans like fighting a lot less than others, he thought.

  “I need those keys,” Hallam growled, still threatening Noodle with his fists. “Where are they?”

  Noodle reached back onto the desk and threw Hallam a keyfob. “Use the red one with a black stripe,” the man said, thrusting his hands up again.

  “Hey!”

  The shout had come from outside the maintenance hangar. Hallam spun around to see one of the two enforcers racing toward him, weapon ready, while talking frantically into his radio.