by C. Gockel
Non-tracker thoughts kept intruding every time Luka stirred in his sleep or she became aware of the sound of his breathing or his scent.
It was going to be difficult to go back to Etonver, seeing him only when he needed a personal security detail. Assuming she’d be allowed to continue in that capacity once they heard Haberville’s accusations of a jack crew background. While the last two weeks may have been unusual for Luka, he’d be able to pick up where he left off as a top investigator for La Plata, and would do even better since he was doggedly regaining control of his talent.
But her life had changed forever. There would be no more anonymity of the night shift, no more camouflage of the dull and ordinary, no more safe solitude. It terrified her, but the thought of never seeing Luka again terrified her even more, even though she knew the CPS would destroy him if they ever discovered her.
She was used to planning everything, and the unknowns made her uneasy. Her carefully mapped, invisible life had become a puzzle to which she had only some of the pieces, and only the vaguest notion of what the whole might look like.
18 * Planet: Insche 255C * GDAT 3237.044 *
DAWN FINALLY APPROACHED. Mairwen shouldered the lightened pack she’d prepared the night before, drank the nasty-tasting but nutritional protein drink, then tugged on Luka’s booted foot to awaken him. He stretched and groaned softly, then lifted the netting and sat up. His thick hair looked even more wavy and disarrayed than usual, and they all desperately needed basic hygiene and clean clothes. She’d do anything for a clean pair of socks.
She touched his shoulder and spoke softly. “When it’s light enough, eat and break camp. If you think I’ve been gone too long, don’t come after me unless you take at least Jerzi as your security detail.”
“How long is ‘too long’?”
She shrugged, then remembered it was still too dark for him to see. “I don’t know. Two hours at least.”
“Okay.” He found her hand and kissed the back of it. “Try not to get killed.”
She slid her hand to his face and cupped his jaw, enjoying the unexpected texture of the soft stubble of his beard. “Stay safe.”
She swung down to the forest floor and started a fast walk toward the installation. The closer she got to the security perimeter, the more annoying the low humming became, until she finally had to shut down her awareness of it, at the cost of some sensitivity to sounds beyond it.
The field fence would have been a lot quieter if one of its ground points, about ninety meters to the west, hadn’t been downed by a recently fallen tree. The leaking acidic sap made a feedback loop with every power pulse. It only took a careful walk along the tree trunk to breach the fence.
About two hundred meters beyond, she found the landing field and nearby large, flat building, which someone had helpfully lit up like a holiday display. The interstellar ship Luka had seen before the Berjalan had crashed was still parked on the landing field.
Although nearby trees had been clear-cut when the installation was built, it looked like no one had bothered since then to keep the undergrowth from encroaching. Mairwen dropped into half-tracker mode as she circled the irregularly shaped one-story building. She had plenty of time to hide behind a thicket when a uniformed man carrying a beam rifle rounded the corner. He might have discovered her if he’d been wearing his night-vision lenses in front of his eyes instead of on top of his head, but his attitude said he believed guard duty was a waste of good sack time.
She spent another forty-two minutes oozing her way through the rapidly fading shadows, listening, scenting, and gathering intelligence. The unnatural quietness of the area made it easy to hear conversations among the mercs, and their inattentiveness made it easy to avoid them as she scouted the building, ships, and perimeter. Just outside the building’s oversized cargo bay doors, she lucked into an unattended stack of supplies, which she raided for useful items, the grand prize being a full case of variable frequency communication earwires and a booster. Now their small team would be able to communicate, and the mercs would have to rely on voice if they had no other earwires.
She slipped away into the forest and across the fence via the fallen tree. She took a quick reading with the compass, then made a beeline back to where she’d left the others. Luka smiled when he saw her. She wondered if she’d ever get used to the relief she felt when she saw he was alive and well.
They'd organized the gear into four packs and readied the weapons. Haberville and Jerzi sat on the forest floor, tying knots of mono line around leaves. It took her a moment to realize they were making a sniper’s camouflage cloak. She handed out the liberated earwires, then told them what she’d found as Luka dug out and triggered a self-heating meal for her.
“The landing field has a light-drive ship, twice as big and three or four levels taller than the Berjalan, and a heavy high-low flitter that seats twelve and is outfitted with beamers. No identifying marks. The building is one level with living quarters, lab, and storage. It hasn’t been occupied for a while except the last few days.”
“Prophet Ayeleh’s tears,” muttered Haberville. “So much for taking the base quietly.”
Mairwen used a stick to draw a rough map of the installation, pointing out doors and windows, and describing what little she’d gleaned about the interior. She paused to eat several quick bites of what purported to be meat.
“There are fifteen mercs wearing blue uniforms with a starburst and lightning logo. They speak a mix of English and Spanish. From what I overheard, some of them spent yesterday afternoon transferring cases of samples from the base’s cold storage onto the ship. They’re preparing to destroy the installation, but are waiting for a laboratory specialist to identify things worth saving. They expect her and another squad tomorrow with more samples to transfer to the ship. They have four more bases to empty and destroy on this continent, and will move the flitter and the ship to each. There are other ships on the planet of unknown type and quantity.”
“Shit,” said Jerzi. “They’re sparking out.”
“For now,” said Luka. “I’d lay odds that Loyduk Pharma, or whoever, won’t kill the planet. They’ll just vacate it and hope they can come back in a few years after everyone has forgotten about it.”
Haberville nodded. “Besides, killing a planet is expensive. If the government wants the planet poisoned, let them pay for it.” She snorted, but it turned into a cough. “Your taxes at work.”
Haberville stood and brushed the dirt off the back of her pants, a largely wasted effort considering how filthy they all were. Even their flexin armor was stained and streaked.
“That light-drive ship... Is there any way we can take it from a whole squad of company mercs?”
Luka ran his fingers through his hair, but his expression was determined. “Mairwen, any recommendations?”
Mairwen hated the pressure of sharp scrutiny from Haberville, but she knew Luka didn’t really have better options than to use her expertise. Haberville already thought she was a jacker, so Mairwen wouldn’t be exposing much that Haberville didn’t already suspect. Haberville had little gunnin ground force experience; Jerzi was a specialist, not a tactician; and Luka had already told her his combat experience was limited to abbreviated military basic training for civilians from fourteen years ago. She’d been trained to act alone and in stealth, but at least she had plenty of experience in planning infiltrations and assaults.
“Our options are narrowing by the hour. They’re planning to send five mercs in the flitter to investigate the Berjalan later today. They weren’t expecting it.” She organized her thoughts as she drank half a cup of chemically filtered water, an improvement over the taste of the meat sauce. Before Luka’s continued bad influence, she hadn’t paid attention to her preferences in the tastes of foods.
“The installation has two dormant shipkillers, and two mercs are working to get them and the surface-to-orbit scanners back online. If we want to neutralize them, the best time is now while they’re still bottled
up and distracted. They believe nothing could have survived the crash and won’t expect us.”
“What kind of shipkillers?” asked Luka.
When Mairwen described them in more detail, he nodded. “Üler Mark Twenties, I think. They’ll be cabled with compulsator power. Ammo is loose but racked for autofeed. The targeting gimbal is comp controlled.” Mairwen gave him a brief smile to tell him how much she liked that he knew things like that.
“If Lord Buddha loves us, we can take the light-drive ship, which gives us a whole lot of other options,” said Haberville. “Did you see any gunports on the ship?”
“No,” said Mairwen. “It looks like a transport. The flitter’s two beamers are amped large-array. The mercs have rifles, sidearms, and military-grade wilderness gear. More weapons may be stored in the ship or in the building. They plan to use thermobarics to destroy the facility.”
She finished the last of her meal and folded the container for packing as she talked. “We should neutralize their pilots and the shipkillers first. We can’t stop them from calling for help, but based on conversations I overheard, I think it would be several hours in coming. Maybe we can get away in the flitter or the light-drive ship long enough to buy us time to be rescued.”
Luka looked directly at her, then at them all. “That’s what we’ll do, then.” Jerzi and Haberville nodded. They all looked at Mairwen expectantly.
“Our team is too small to give Jerzi a spotter. He’ll have to find his own vantage points. He’ll be needed to protect the rest of us and to take out the two merc pilots, if he can.”
“Agreed,” said Luka.
Mairwen described to Jerzi the two men she’d seen during her reconnaissance.
“Copy,” Jerzi said, as he strapped an extra railgun ammo pack around his waist. Mairwen noticed his normally amiable expression had been replaced by the detached look she’d seen in people who had experience delivering death. It probably looked a lot like hers.
Mairwen fingered the low-res beamer in her pocket. “I’ll run point and take down targets or identify them for you. Luka, you and Haberville will be the followup attack force, taking out as many as you can.”
Luka looked grim but resolute as he handed the projectile rifle and its ammunition to Haberville. She checked the magazine and safety, then slung its strap across her right shoulder and stuffed the magazines in her pockets. Jerzi distributed the unclaimed energy weapons among the packs.
Mairwen would have liked to ask them all to disable instead of kill, because Luka didn’t need to feel responsible for any more deaths, but with such an asymmetric assault force, they couldn't afford the luxury of mercy.
Haberville surprised Mairwen by pulling her aside. “You’re jack crew or worse, and I don’t trust you. You only care about Luka, but it’s kept the rest of us alive. Get me that ship, and I’ll get your lover boy and the rest of us off this Godforsaken mudball.”
Mairwen nodded. She respected Haberville’s piloting skills. The woman’s personal opinions didn’t matter as long as she did her job.
They each attached the stolen earwires to their mandibles, hooking the thin wire in the ear, then tested them while pocketing the spares. Mairwen gave Jerzi the range booster, figuring he’d be better able to protect it. She hoped they wouldn’t need it, but it would be a nice fallback for when, not if, things went twisty.
It only took them twenty minutes to get to the downed tree. She crossed first, just to make sure the mercs hadn’t decided to add a guard. They hadn’t, so she gave the all-clear sign.
Once beyond the fence, they could hear shouting from the direction of the installation. When they got close enough, they saw two mercs fighting. Several others were cheering them on instead of separating the combatants.
Jerzi took the opportunity to slip away toward the east to find a nest for himself. Mairwen led Luka and Haberville to one of the larger dense thickets southwest of the landing field. They shucked their packs and hid them under the foliage, along with the medical and xeno sample kits.
Mairwen subvocalized into the earwires. “Give me ten minutes to check status. Luka and Haberville, take out any singles who come your way, if you can do it quietly. Jerzi, protect us as long as you can.” Luka’s expression was focused and determined. Haberville was, thankfully, in professional pilot mode, and had no comment, though her cough was back.
She hoped to hell Luka would be all right, because there was nothing she could do about it if he wasn’t. She’d never been on a mission with a team, let alone with people she cared about.
She used the vigorous undergrowth for camouflage as she eased around the airfield toward the building. She listened closely as she circled the light-drive ship that took up about half the field, but heard nothing, not even near the ship’s portal. She’d need to get inside to take control of it, but that would have to be done later.
Once clear of the ship, she got a better look at the mercs watching the skirmish. The fighters, a small man and tall woman, were still going strong, and the spectators now numbered eight. She had no idea why the squad’s commander allowed the fight to continue, but she wasn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste.
She slipped into half-tracker mode and ghosted closer to the corner of the building, where she discovered the mercs had rolled one of the shipkillers onto the landing field and locked its anchors. She eyed it quickly, looking for the features Luka had described, but had to duck away fast when two mercs pushed the second shipkiller, with its trailing cable, out of the big equipment storage area. It was slow going because the field’s plascrete pad had cracked and buckled where vigorous rainforest plants had pushed up through it. The two mercs complained to each other about not getting any help.
It was hard to pass up the chance to disable the mercs and slag the guns with her beamer, but the likelihood of being discovered was too high, and she still needed to find the other mercs. She also decided against infiltrating the building for now, since she’d lost the cover of darkness. She subvocalized to the team what she’d seen so far. Someone snorted—Jerzi, she suspected—when she described the continuing fight and its growing audience.
She eased around the northeast side of the building, peering into the small, high windows of the sleeping areas she’d discovered during her pre-dawn reconnaissance. The rooms were empty, but the beds had been slept on. She slowed as she approached the southwest corner of the building, listening to the fight. She dropped into full-tracker mode and time slowed...
The smells of the vegetation were more varied, and she detected hints of charring and harsh chemicals mixed with it. She dropped into a low crouch, then stretched into a lunge that let her peek around the corner at the area where the flitter was resting.
It may once have been intended as a shaded area, but the hard canopy had fallen apart and left pieces on the ground. The burned vegetation smell came from a blackened spot on the far side of the flitter, and the chemicals were unburned accelerant, meaning somewhere there was flame-throwing equipment. More likely in the building than on the light-drive ship or the flitter, she judged. Considering the squad's lack of discipline, it wouldn’t surprise her to learn they’d found a flamethrower in the building and had been playing with it.
The flitter was half-angled in between the canopy’s support posts. It was unattended with its side doors wide open, but they faced toward the fighters, who were only about six meters away. Mairwen studied the mercs for a few hundred milliseconds to confirm they weren’t looking her way at all, then leaped and rolled to the far side of the flitter, out of their view. She contemplated whether or not to take the unexpected opportunity to disable the flitter, knowing it to be a gamble either way.
Finally, she decided on the simple expedient of using her wrist blade to cut the control cables to the front and back airflows. It could be fixed, but it would take the mercs time to track down the problem. She chanced a peek around the back end of the flitter to see what was happening with the fight. One of the fighters had misjudged
a kick and hit one of the spectators, and the group dynamics were changing.
She allowed time to speed up to half-tracker mode as she faded back to the partially charred thicket behind her and used it for cover. She told the team what she’d done as she made her way quickly to Luka and Haberville’s position.
She crouched next to Luka and subvocalized the plan she’d come up with. She hoped it would survive first contact with the enemy.
19 * Planet: Insche 255C * GDAT 3237.044 *
ANOTHER SHOT WHINED by, and the projectile thudded into the dirt. Luka was pinned down behind the long side of the flitter, with shooters targeting him from both ends. Thus far, the mercs had taken care not to damage the flitter, but they might be willing to sacrifice it if they got desperate. His emotions made a roiling mass in the pit of his stomach. It was completely insane to be taking on an enemy squad of fifteen, except the alternatives were even worse.
They'd started with good luck. When the fight ended, the mercs had dispersed and gone their separate ways, and he, Eve, and Mairwen had neutralized five mercs before anyone even noticed they were missing. He’d chosen the hand-held beamer with the best cohesion range, and it did the job.
Their luck continued until someone’s shout drew two people out of the light-drive ship to see what was happening, and Jerzi took them both down. The remaining mercs came alive after that and the battle was on.
The mercs were using the cover of the building to shoot from, but it had several blind spots. His small team had managed to keep any of the mercs from getting to the ship, but so far hadn’t been able to pry them out of the building. Luka felt the pressure of time, knowing the mercs would have called for reinforcements by now.
His and Eve’s task had been to keep the mercs distracted so Mairwen could disable the shipkillers. He thought she’d already gotten one. From what he’d overheard, the mercs thought there were six or seven attackers, probably because Jerzi moved between takedowns, Luka was good at anticipating movements, Eve only took guaranteed shots, and Mairwen was devastatingly fast and deadly. It kept the remaining mercs cautious and behind the building’s walls instead of boiling out to kill him, but he was still pinned.