Supremacy's Outlaw: A Space Opera Thriller Series (Insurgency Saga Book 3)

by T. E. Bakutis

  The Truthers also, apparently, had a large underground gym with a number of treadmills, free weights, rowing machines, and two sim cabinets. Jan whistled softly as Hanson and their armed chaperone entered the crowded gym to find it disturbingly underpopulated. The massive gym had only two other occupants. One ran while the other lifted weights.

  The giant laundry system was one thing. The fully stocked underground gym was another, and the pool? There it was, behind a transparent plastic shield at the back of the huge gym. There was not a single person swimming in it.

  Luxuries of this sort did not come from an underground resistance. Perks of this variety came only with a government contract, for government workers. The brash ambition of the Truther scam was so utterly obvious in hindsight that Jan felt profoundly stupid for missing it in the first place.

  President Mendoza, it seemed, was a very good liar.

  “I’ll start with the pool!” Jan announced. He cast a hopeful glance at Hanson. “Will you be joining me?”

  “Oh, man,” Hanson said, “I wish I could. But I’m on duty. I’m just here to chaperone you.”

  Jan smiled at the entirely unsmiling soldier beside Hanson. “I thought he was doing that.”

  Jan’s guard frowned beneath the darkened visor of his gray riot helmet. “We both are.”

  “Very well.” Jan spotted a sign with a vaguely male abstraction above one of the two doors beside the pool. “Will you both chaperone me into the locker room, then?”

  The locker room, too, was empty, with not another soul in sight. This despite it being the middle of the day. This, combined with the all but empty halls through which they’d walked to get here, halls that had been thick with bodies only days before. Jan also noted, to his great satisfaction, that there was only one camera inside the locker room.

  After he stowed his clothes and one additional item, the rest of Jan’s excursion went swimmingly. He was genuinely disappointed when Hanson’s guard called time, but he emerged, dripping and wearing only his very tight bathing suit, without complaint. Hanson certainly wasn’t complaining.

  Hanson tossed him a towel. As he dried his hair, Jan turned his gaze on the soldier beside Hanson. “You know, we’ve been seeing each other for days, but I don’t even know your name.”

  “That’s right,” the soldier agreed.

  “May I ask it?”

  “That’s Frank,” Hanson said, with a wry smirk. “He’s just pissed off because he got left behind on babysitting duty.”

  Frank turned his scowl on Hanson. “Really?”

  Jan frowned as all the tumblers on his prison lock clicked into place. “I don’t wish to be any trouble.”

  “Right,” Frank said, turning his scowl back on Jan. “So don’t be. Back to the locker room, Sabato. You’re getting changed, and then you’re going back to your room.”

  Jan inclined his head. “Thank you.”

  “And, Hanson?” Frank pointed at the door. “You’re done here. They need you back at the infirmary.”

  “Who?” Hanson demanded, but he grimaced and gave Jan an apologetic shrug. “We’ll do this again soon, all right?”

  Jan smiled at him, and he felt just a tiny bit lighter now that he wouldn’t have to murder the pleasant nurse. “I look forward to it.” Truther or not, Hanson was a noncombatant.

  “All right, off we go,” Frank said. “Move.”

  Jan strolled easily to the locker room, counting the falls of Frank’s booted feet at his back. They passed into the locker room and out of sight of the rest of the gym. They passed under the camera and to the locker, into the blind spot in their surveillance Jan had instinctively singled out.

  As Jan reached into his locker for his clothes and what was hidden in them, familiar concerns rose. Did Frank have a spouse at home? Did he have a child? It wouldn’t change what was about to happen, and this man was a Truther. Still, an act like this should never feel easy.

  But it was necessary if Jan wanted to escape.

  A moment later, the sharpened thermometer once hidden in Jan’s locker was buried inside Frank’s head. Somehow, it had entered through his nose and traveled at the exact angle it needed to puncture his skull. Jan Sabato, as his enemies often learned too late, was very skilled with sharp objects.

  It took little time to strip Frank of his armor and uniform. It was a halfway decent fit, with a helmet and darkened visor completing the best disguise Jan could ask for. Now he just had to hope whatever sap Esparza had left behind to watch all the security feeds in this underground base was looking elsewhere.

  Jan emerged from the locker room and walked briskly to the exit. Only one woman remained from earlier, still jogging on her treadmill, and she didn’t even glance his way. No alarms blared, but that didn’t mean anything in a base this big.

  Jan exited back into the main hallway and walked at the same unconcerned pace away from his cell. When Rafe had left his datapad behind, he had mentioned the tech pit was “just past the gym.” It was thus comically easy to locate the open entry leading to a pit with a number of darkened monitors, only a few of which were lit. As Jan had surmised from his own observations, and Hanson’s offhanded comment about Frank getting “left behind to babysit,” this base was practically empty.

  Esparza had taken the bulk of his soldiers on whatever operation he’d planned, which suggested it was something big. Knowing the Truthers, that was going to be very bad for someone, but that wasn’t Jan’s problem. An unsecured data center was too good an opportunity to pass up.

  Jan stepped inside, found a few pale technicians staring at monitors, and swiped the first datapad he found. He wasn’t about to flee an enemy this powerful without snatching something he could, hopefully, use to blackmail them. He tucked the stolen datapad into his armor and walked right out the door.

  Jan knew of no good direction other than “up,” so he used that to guide him as he walked, ascending flight by flight until he found a single stairwell leading even farther up. He passed a few uniformed people as he walked. Some nodded his way, and Jan nodded back. He said nothing.

  This was too easy. They had to know he was going to escape. Yet Jan emerged from the final stairwell to the underground hangar without issue, and encountered only one problem there.

  The hangar was completely and blessedly empty of aircraft. There was only the open expanse of biocrete and the sheds on either side, none of which were big enough to shelter a helo.

  Jan scowled and pondered his rapidly dwindling options. What type of operation could be large enough to empty the hangar of its aircraft? Just what had Rafe gotten himself into?

  “Hey!” someone shouted from behind Jan. “You!”

  Jan turned around and scowled. “What?”

  “What are you doing here?” The speaker was a young woman in an orange uniform, suggesting she worked as maintenance. Oil stains covered her pale hands. More marred her cheek.

  “Excuse me?” Jan marched forward with all the bluster he could manage. “What are you doing here?”

  The tech’s challenging glare faltered. “I work here.”

  “On what?” Jan gestured. “Do you see any aircraft to service here, tech—” he eyed her nametag “—Woodard?” He was right on top of her now.

  “This isn’t an aircraft hangar,” Woodard exclaimed, but then her eyes widened. They had both, at the same time, realized Jan should know that. “Oh, shi—”

  Jan snatched Woodard into a choke hold. She struggled, and had a lot of struggle for her size, but she was at least ten years younger and half his weight.

  The moment she sagged, passed out, Jan set her down. This young woman most likely genuinely believed in the Truther cause, but she was a technician, not a soldier. She wasn’t Frank. Or, at least, that was what Jan would keep telling himself.

  He rifled through Woodard’s pockets until he came up with a gray key fob, then clicked it furiously. A faint rumble drew his gaze. A single door rose in the distance, revealing a rectangle of daylight a bi
t bigger than an autocar.

  It was then that Jan took another look at the empty hangar and remembered Woodard’s words. This wasn’t an aircraft hangar. Giving the Truthers their own fleet of helos would be too obvious, even for the scam Ceto Security Division had arranged.

  This was a garage.

  Jan hurried across the open expanse and broke into the first large shed he found. Multiple all-terrain vehicles in various states of repair waited inside. Jan pocketed the key fob and got to work on hotwiring the first ATV he found that had four wheels, two seats, a motor, and at least one sheet of armored plating.

  The big vehicle started up without issue, and then another complication occurred. Shouting. Very angry shouting, just outside the shed. Whoever was watching the cameras had finally decided to do their job, or opening that garage door had triggered an alarm. No help for that now.

  As Jan settled into the driver’s seat of the ATV, he noticed another problem. This ATV did have one plate of armor, but that plate was on the wrong side. It was on the left side, and the shouting — and the entry to the garage — was on his right.

  Moments later, Jan shot out of the garage as fast as the ATV could go ... backward. Gunshots echoed, and a thwack or two smacked the armor plating, but Jan kept his gaze over his shoulder and his foot on the acceleration pedal. Another crack sounded as a searing pain erupted in his upper arm, and then the daylight beyond the garage door began to shrink.

  The door was halfway shut when Jan’s ATV slammed into it hard enough to blow the segmented door off its support rails. There was a moment of blessed heat and blessed brightness, and then Jan slammed on the brakes, spun the wheel, and had the ATV pointed forward in less time than it took to breathe.

  The sun on his face felt good.

  As Jan tore off toward freedom, he found the way ahead as flat and empty as the hangar he’d left. An endless expanse of dirt and scrub stretched before him, and with nothing to dodge, he noticed how much his arm ached. He touched his left arm with his right hand, momentarily driving with his knees, and looked down at a dark palm slick with bright red.

  Jan couldn’t help but chuckle, even though chuckling hurt. Through armored plating, through body armor, while going full speed backward through a giant garage, a single bullet had still found its mark. He was bleeding out at a decidedly distressing rate. That was shitty luck on a shitty day.

  And he now heard two more engines gaining on him.

  16: Scam

  Jan felt like he’d been driving for half a day, but honestly, it had probably been five minutes. Five minutes crouched low in his driver’s seat, unable to even see over the dash, as he grew increasingly dizzy due to what was certainly rising anemia. He was losing a lot of blood.

  If he hit something, he would probably flip. If he poked his head up, he would probably get it shot off. And if he stopped driving, he’d get dragged out of this ATV, pummeled and kicked until his captors got tired, and then shot.

  Yet Jan still thought he’d find a way to get away. He believed it until his vehicle’s overtaxed engine literally exploded, belching a cloud of metal fragments and smoke high into the sky. So, not getting away after all.

  The vehicle slowed and stopped as the engines behind him rose in pitch. He’d die in the desert instead of in his cell, but he’d die free, with the sun shining overhead. It wasn’t the worst way to die, not by a long shot.

  But it was still dying, and dying sucked.

  “Get out of the vehicle!” someone very angry shouted from behind his ATV. “Hands up! Out now!”

  Jan wasn’t going to make it easy for them. He pondered leaping out of the driver’s compartment when the first Truther asshole came into view, but scarcely managed to raise his non-wounded arm. He felt like he’d just run a marathon.

  Life was all sound, then. The sound of wind over the front of his stolen four-wheeler. The sound of boots crunching dirt as they approached. The soldiers didn’t ask him to surrender again.

  The sound of a massive rifle crack split the blessed solitude of impending death. That single report echoed across the open field like thunder off a rolling storm. It was followed by another crack, then another. Then silence.

  Silence reigned until it was broken, again, by another engine. Jan’s eyes remained heavy, but he focused on the steering wheel and forced himself to stay awake. More boots crunched dirt, and then a towering shadow rose over his ATV.

  “Hey,” Pollen said. “You tired?”

  “Shot,” Jan whispered.

  “Big surprise,” Pollen said, before turning away and waving one arm. “I got him! He got shot!”

  Jan grunted and let his heavy eyes close.

  When Jan opened his eyes again, he thought, for a long moment, that the whole feverish escape had been a dream. The bone-wrenching pain when he attempted to raise his now bandaged arm shattered that illusion, and the sound of his own raspy breathing chafed. Jan was really, really tired of pain.

  “Took you long enough,” someone grumbled at his side.

  Jan turned his head and verified it was indeed Pollen sitting at his side, scowling mightily. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and forced a smile. “You were worried.”

  The hard bed beneath him was rumbling, and the IV bag hanging to his side was swaying gently. They were moving. They were in the back of an autotruck.

  “Hell yes I worry,” Pollen said as her scowl deepened. “You tell anyone back home, I shoot you again.”

  “Where are we headed?” Jan assumed they were somewhere on the wilderness of roads between big cities, but he wasn’t sure anywhere was safe from Esparza’s goons.

  “Star’s Landing,” Pollen said.

  Alarm bells rang in Jan’s head. Elena Ryke was in Star’s Landing. “May I ask why?”

  “Yes,” Pollen said.

  Jan waited. Waited some more. “I’m asking why, Pollen.”

  “Ask Emiko,” Pollen said, shaking her head. “I will go and get her. Do not try to kill yourself.”

  Jan winced as Pollen crouch-walked past him to enter the cab of the autotruck. So Emiko had told Pollen about the incident in the maglev tunnel. No wonder Pollen was so pissed at him.

  The door slammed, then thumped open again. Emiko limped into view, and Jan craned his neck to find a white brace wrapped around her right shin. She wore a tank top and brown camouflage shorts, but sensible shoes. Jan smiled at her. “Ah, Em—”

  She slapped him hard enough to snap his head to the side. Yet that, too, was understandable. It was all understandable, and he was alive, thanks to her.

  He met her furious gaze. “Em, I made a mistake.”

  “You think?”

  “I was frightened.” Jan was not ashamed to admit that, though he was ashamed, now, that he had given up. “That’s why I tried to off myself.”

  “Still no excuse.”

  “It isn’t. I’m also extremely pleased to be alive.”

  Emiko’s glare slid into a frown. “So I was right?”

  “Absolutely and unquestionably right.”

  “Hmm.” Emiko slid just a bit closer. “I was looking forward to slapping you again.”

  “Why are we heading to Star’s Landing?”

  She sighed heavily. “Your fault, as usual.” For the first time, Jan recognized how frightened she was. “Kinsley decrypted the datapad you snagged on the way out. It’s really bad.”

  So they now knew the disturbing truth as well. “The Truthers are financed by our own government.”

  “That?” Emiko scoffed. “Oh, that’s a walk in the park compared to what Esparza and his pocket senators have planned.” She leaned close. “They have a mini-nuke, Jan.”

  Jan missed a breath. “No.”

  “They plan to set it off on Armistice Day.”

  Jan went through all the reasons Commander Graham Esparza would set off a mini-nuke in Star’s Landing on Armistice Day, and drew a resounding blank. There wouldn’t even be any Advanced in the city. It would be nothing but natural-born Ceto
citizens celebrating the day when, three years ago, Ceto’s restored government and the government on Phorcys signed the treaty that kicked the Supremacy off Ceto forever.

  Why would Esparza’s Truthers want to blow that up?

  “It’s a coup,” Emiko said. “Tarack’s data disc confirmed everything we suspected about the Truthers’ financing. Shockingly enough, President Mendoza’s not actually in bed with those assholes. It’s a small cabal of Ceto senators backing Esparza, funneling his soldiers government money, but it’s all been under the table until now. They plan to change that.”

  “By irradiating Star’s Landing?”

  “Guess which Ceto senators abruptly cancelled their attendance at the Armistice Day parade,” Emiko said. “And guess what Esparza told about a thousand former freedom fighters, all of whom are camped outside Star’s Landing, ready to swing into action if ‘the Advanced’ attack the celebration.”

  Jan believed it. Even people as despicable as Truthers wouldn’t sign up to irradiate their own families, but Commander Graham Esparza and his zealot core had no reason to tell the rank-and-file anything. Esparza likely thought his actions justified, a few thousand sacrificed to “save” Ceto.

  The vast majority of Esparza’s Truthers must believe they were acting as extra security for the Armistice Day parade. They would be as shocked and angry as the rest of Star’s Landing after tomorrow’s mini-nuke went off ... at least, as angry as those who were still alive. Jan hated to admit how good a plan this was.

  A mini-nuke going off on Armistice Day would both wipe out the vast majority of opposing Ceto senators and create a power vacuum with President Mendoza’s death. It would both prove the inability of the CSD to protect the city and unite the people of Ceto against their barbaric Advanced “oppressors.” And worst of all, when the Truthers rolled in to save the day, it would offer Esparza’s people the perfect platform to claim legitimacy.

  Still, all this deadly nonsense didn’t answer Jan’s earlier question. “And we are now headed to Star’s Landing why?”

  “Why do you think?” Emiko asked. “We’re going to blow the whistle on it. If we warn everyone today—”