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

by T. E. Bakutis

  “We can’t,” Jan said.

  “We have to,” Emiko said.

  “I’m not saying we let them blow up Star’s Landing, Em. I’m saying you can’t warn anyone.”

  Emiko stared at him with wide eyes. “Why?” She pitched up noticeably at the end.

  “Esparza’s mini-nuke is already in Star’s Landing.”

  Emiko’s jaw fell open. The autotruck rumbled on. Then she closed her mouth and grimaced.

  “You know I’m right,” Jan said.

  Emiko nodded. “The Truthers have people in the CSD, in the government, in every agency.” She wasn’t even looking at him anymore. “One will intercept any warning we send, and it’s not like Esparza will just eff off and say ‘We surrender.’”

  “No,” Jan said. “He will, instead, set off his bomb.”

  “And Star’s Landing has almost a million people in it. They wouldn’t be able to evacuate even a fraction in time. The Truthers could still claim the Advanced bombed the parade, because, really, what proof would anyone have otherwise?”

  “Exactly,” Jan said. “Though, I doubt Esparza plans to kill more than a thousand or so. His tacticians have certainly estimated the fallout radius and run casualty projections. Even the radius of a perfectly placed mini-nuke would only—”

  Emiko slammed one flat palm down on Jan’s bed. “I’m a fucking mathematician, Jan! I know how to calculate radii!”

  Jan captured her hand with his. “Of course.”

  Emiko glared at him, but she didn’t pull away. “And just how do you know the nuke’s already there?”

  “Rafe told me,” Jan said. “Or close enough.”

  Rafe had told Jan yesterday that Esparza was done prepping for his operation, and the Truther base clearing out confirmed that. If the Truthers were still moving the mini-nuke into Star’s Landing, they wouldn’t have been “done.” Esparza wouldn’t mobilize his people unless everything was already in place.

  “Right, about Rafe.” Emiko grimaced. “There’s something else you need to know.”

  “He’s working with the Truthers,” Jan said.

  “He sold you to the Supremacy.”

  It took Jan a moment to absorb that information, square it with everything he already knew, and then add, “What?”

  Emiko explained everything Fatima and Kinsley had explained to her, days ago, and as she did so, the vexing mystery of his five years in Tantalus prison clicked into place. The explanation he’d waited five years to learn arrived.

  Jan smiled. He felt undeniably warm now.

  “I’m sorry.” Emiko leaned close, brow furrowed. “I thought you’d have figured it out by now.”

  “It’s fine,” Jan said. And it was, finally.

  Fatima hadn’t sold him out five years ago. She’d been betrayed as well, by Rafe, and Jan only now realized he’d always feared that he’d done something to deserve being betrayed. That he’d disappointed his family somehow.

  That hadn’t happened, though.

  One of them had simply colossally fucked up.

  Jan pressed his other hand over Emiko’s. “No one is perfect.” And though Rafe’s own fuckup hurt, some, it was possible to bear because Jan understood why it had happened.

  “I’d do anything to score a little bliss,” Rafe had said a day ago, as he sniffled his eyeballs out in their shared cell. “I did a lot of stuff I don’t even remember, and the stuff I do remember, I’m not proud of.”

  Rafe had probably planned to break Jan out of CSD custody after he sold Jan out for his drug and/or gambling fix. He’d likely had no idea Captain Varik planned to seize Jan from the CSD and send him to orbit. The problem, with Rafe, was that he was just smart enough to think three steps into a four-step plan.

  There had been no malice involved in Rafe’s actions five years ago, simply stupidity. Stupidity didn’t hurt as much. Jan focused his thoughts on the mini-nuke problem, because deciding how to deal with Rafe was going to take a while.

  “We can’t let Esparza’s coup succeed,” Jan said, “but we also can’t send any warning the Truthers in the government might intercept. We will need to handle this ourselves.”

  “Right,” Emiko said. “So we’ll just gun through a hundred or so Truthers, give or take?”

  Jan tried to sit up, winced, and failed. “Actually, I have a plan that involves considerably less risk.” To his people, anyway. “When does Fatima return with Bharat and his family?”

  “Tonight, if all went well.” Emiko shuddered. “Or never, if things went south over Phorcys.”

  “Fatima succeeded,” Jan said. “Also, we’ll need the mimetic camouflage suits we salvaged off Phorcys six years ago.”

  “For what?” Emiko demanded. “What can two half-invisible people do against Elena Ryke, a Truther army with a mini-nuke, and the entire effing CSD? They’re still hunting you.”

  “Don’t forget Senator Tarack.”

  “Right,” Emiko said. “Fuck her too.”

  “This plan will require coordination on par with the most complicated jobs we’ve ever pulled, and even if we succeed, Ryke will hunt us for the rest of our lives. I despise the necessity of making you a fugitive again, but if we don’t do this, thousands of people are going to die.”

  Emiko shrugged. “I’ll piss off Ryke if I have to. Maybe we can just move to Phorcys after it’s all over.” She tilted her head. “So ... what exactly is your plan?”

  Jan went ahead and told her.

  It surprised him when she started laughing.

  Rafael Garcia was many things. A skilled lover. A talented hacker. Marginally successful at committing arson. What he was not, Rafe decided as he finished wrenching in bolt one of four in a metal support, was a mechanic. Seriously, fuck this noise.

  Rafe set down the heavy wrench, rose, and wiped his sweaty brow with one arm. The soldier beside him — a tall, beefy man who communicated mainly with grunts and farts — glanced Rafe’s way as Rafe walked away from the job site. The man had tightened eighteen bolts in the time it took Rafe to tighten one, so he was probably just happy to have Rafe out of the way.

  Two flights of stairs took Rafe down from the job site to the ground level of the abandoned sewage treatment plant beneath Star’s Landing. The arched biocrete ceiling was six stories above Rafe’s head, and he had to walk around or duck under an endless series of dripping pipes to make progress. The plant had been built by the first natural-born on Ceto, and after the Supremacy took Ceto over for ten years, they’d decommissioned it in favor of newer tech. No one would look for them down here.

  Ill-lit weathered gantries stretched through the space overhead, and the faint sound of traffic and people on the street above was a constant, droning hum. The only illumination came from big metal work lights the True Sons had brought with them. The entire plant smelled like mildew and piss.

  Rafe made it halfway across the plant before he spotted the two heavily armed soldiers standing at the entry to the northern sewage tunnel. Each kept a watchful gaze on the round tunnel beyond. Best not to bother them.

  Instead, Rafe picked his way through more pipe gaps and a number of pieces of dusty, inactive machinery. He soon found an isolated spot where he could sit and rest. Rest was good for the body and soul, or so his therapist constantly reminded him.

  Rafe checked the temperature on a waist-high nozzle. Perfect. He’d just sat down when a glimmer burst from a set of pipes and immobilized him.

  Rafe failed to squeal and peed himself a little. He couldn’t really do anything while pinned against the waist-high canister, staring at very angry-looking, bearded, dark-skinned Advanced. Or, oddly enough, his floating head.

  “Remember me?” Bharat whispered.

  Rafe felt one big hand on his chest and another over his mouth, but he couldn’t see either hand. He didn’t want to die here. He didn’t want to die anywhere, but here especially, and not because a big Advanced commando in a mimetic camouflage suit had decided he was the best guy to stop and interrogate.


  “I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth,” Bharat whispered, “and I’m going to ask you questions. If you scream, I will kill you. If you lie, I will hurt you. Do you understand?”

  Rafe nodded as best he could.

  Bharat removed his hand, or Rafe assumed he had. He couldn’t see it. He could breathe, though.

  “First question,” Bharat, the floating head, said. “Do you know where Esparza set up his mini-nuke?”

  Rafe tried to answer that one and failed. He had to come up with something, or Bharat was going to hurt him. Rafe really didn’t like to be hurt, so he opened his mouth to answer ... but only one confused phrase tumbled out. “Mini-nuke?”

  “So you didn’t know.” Bharat scowled. “I’ll rephrase. Where is the sealed biocrete chamber Commander Graham Esparza had you and others heavily modify once you came down here?”

  That Rafe understood. What he didn’t understand was the part about the mini-nuke. “Run that by me again, mate?”

  Something strong seized Rafe’s arm and twisted. Rafe would have screamed had Bharat’s invisible hand not smothered his mouth. Tears flowed until Bharat untwisted Rafe’s arm, removed his hand, and repeated the question.

  “Back there about forty paces,” Rafe whispered, wheezing, “two flights up. The old pump control center.” Rafe worked it all out. “But ... hold on. It’s a security scanner.”

  “A security scanner in an underground sewage plant,” Bharat whispered, “with several stories of biocrete between it and the Star’s Landing capitol building, hemmed in by pipes and metal. Yes. This is the perfect place to set up a security scanner.”

  Rafe wanted to protest, but he wasn’t sure how. It did sound pretty dumb when Bharat explained it like that. Yet the Commander had been very clear about why they were here. They had to protect the Armistice Day parade from the Supremacy.

  This must be a trick! Bharat must be part of the Advanced infiltrators Esparza had said might try to hurt the people at the parade today. Rafe had to stop him!

  Invisible Bharat pinned Rafe against the canister the moment he even thought about moving. All thoughts of heroism were devoured by Rafe’s struggle to breathe. Bharat’s disembodied head floated close, his voice a raw whisper.

  “You are the reason Commander Graham Esparza was able to cut off Jaxon Cole’s toes and shoot him in the chest,” Bharat practically growled. “You are the reason two very large men beat the shit out of me for almost an hour, and worse, you are the reason your best friend went to orbital prison for five years.”

  Rafe felt fresh tears pouring down his cheeks, but not from pain. Bharat knew everything. Did Jan know too? And if Jan knew, how could Jan ever forgive him?

  “If it were up to me, I’d crush you like a bug and get on with saving your people,” Bharat said, “but I have been blessed with good fortune of late, and Jan asked that I not kill you unless you knew about, and endorsed, Esparza’s plot.” Bharat sighed. “So this day is disappointing for us both.”

  Invisible hands eased off Rafe again, and Bharat’s head bobbed backward. “Now. Listen. I’m not here as part of Esparza’s imaginary Advanced attack. I’m here, with Jan and all the others you betrayed, to stop the man you call the Commander from detonating a mini-nuke and killing a thousand people.”

  Esparza would never do that. Rafe knew Esparza would never do that. At least ... he thought Esparza would never do that.

  A datapad emerged from the nothingness that was Bharat. “Don’t believe me? Fine. Hack it yourself, Mastermind.” The datapad floated Rafe’s way, and Rafe, hesitantly, took it.

  Rafe opened the datapad and found it already decrypted. He flipped through True Son files he recognized from his work over the past week, files that were now no longer redacted. The bottom of his stomach dropped out.

  Bharat wasn’t lying. Commander Graham Esparza really was going to set off a mini-nuke beneath the Star’s Landing Armistice Day parade, in six hours, and murder thousands of innocent people. Rafe felt like his thumping heart was going to burst.

  This was too big a fuckup. No amount of therapy could redeem Rafe from helping with this. This was unforgivable, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it now.

  Except Jan. He could always help Jan. Rafe returned Bharat’s datapad and stared. “I’m yours, mate. Tell me what to do.” Rafe trembled at the thought of poor little children dying of radiation. “Please, God, tell me what to do.”

  “Dry your face,” Bharat said. As he rose, his head vanished again from view, hidden by the mimetic camouflage hood he must have just pulled back on. “You’re going to lead me to the building you mentioned, and you’re going to convince as many of the soldiers there to leave as you can. We’ll handle the rest.”

  “We?” Rafe asked, but no one answered him. He couldn’t even see if anyone was there anymore. Bharat’s mimetic camouflage was that good. Rafe wiped his cheeks, looked around for someone he couldn’t see, and took a deep breath. Then he started walking.

  He ducked pipes and slid through narrow openings on the way back to the work site, all the while listening for any trace of Bharat behind him — the rustle of mimetic cloth, the sound of a padded footstep on biocrete, anything. He heard nothing. So either he’d just hallucinated — or Bharat moved really quietly.

  Rafe trembled as he walked, because he couldn’t stop thinking about what kids looked like when their skin got burned by radiation. He’d seen it in vids. He didn’t want to let that happen, but he had helped make it happen. Why? Why would the Commander and the others make him be a part of this?

  No sound from Bharat as Rafe climbed the first flight of stairs. No sound as he climbed the second. Rafe returned to the job site and saw it with fresh eyes, saw what he’d missed either due to inattentiveness or actively not wanting to know.

  All the windows of the old sewage plant’s pump control room were now filled in with biocrete and metal. At least ten True Sons of Ceto surrounded the entirely closed off building, far more than you’d need to guard a security scanner. A single antenna gleamed in the faint light, as did the round, heavily reinforced metal apparatus they’d welded on top of the old control room. It was like a giant inverted funnel.

  A mini-nuke exploding in that room would open an enormous sinkhole directly beneath the Star’s Landing capitol building and the streets around it, the epicenter of the parade. That sinkhole would swallow and crush any bodies that were not incinerated in the initial explosion. Neither the CSD patrolling above nor the drones filling the skies would see it coming.

  Rafael Garcia knew a lot about bombs. He also knew a lot about explosions — specifically, making them go places. He should have seen what this place was and why it was built the way it was immediately, but maybe he hadn’t wanted to see it.

  Maybe he just wanted to be a good guy for once.

  Two soldiers moved to intercept him the moment Rafe reached the floor with the sealed-up control room. He recognized the leading woman behind her riot helmet and darkened visor. Sergeant Kast. She’d always been friendly to him, so maybe ...

  “Rafe,” Kast said, “what’s the problem?”

  Right. There must be a problem, because otherwise, why would Rafe have come up here? He needed to get as many of them to leave as possible.

  “I think I heard something,” Rafe said. “Downstairs.”

  After a moment of staring at each other, Kast asked, “Could you be more specific?”

  “Um. Walking.”

  “One of us?”

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t see anyone, actually, just heard walking in the pipes downstairs. But I didn’t think anyone was down there.” He frowned. “Is that weird?”

  Kast snapped her fingers and glanced at the other soldiers. “Briggs! Kali! Tac! With us! Marson, you’ve got the nest. Radio if you hear anything that you shouldn’t.” She turned back to Rafe. “Stay here.” She strode off.

  “Supremacy infiltrators?” Kast’s partner asked as she, her partner, and thr
ee soldiers descended the stairs to the ground level.

  “Could be,” Kast said. “Could be nothing. Hate to disappoint the commander.”

  Rafe tuned out the rest of their chatter and focused on the soldiers who were left. The man Kast had left in charge was named Marson. Rafe didn’t know Marson. He stepped forward to say hello, only to have Marson raise his rifle.

  “Hey!” Rafe raised his hands. “What’s the deal, mate?”

  “Nobody approaches the nest,” Marson said.

  “Oh.” Rafe nodded as if that was perfectly reasonable. “But, uh ... shouldn’t we finish securing the funnel?”

  “The what?”

  “The big metal funnel on top of the building.” Rafe pointed at it. “You don’t want it falling on us, right?”

  Marson’s weapon lowered incrementally. “Why would it—”

  Marson’s head snapped around, 180 degrees, of its own accord. He was still falling when the soldier beside him snapped in half. The others had just enough time to gawk before they, too, had their necks snapped violently, a chorus of quiet, rapid pops. They fell like a chain of dominos.

  Rafe felt faint, but he reminded himself he had a responsibility and kept standing. He’d never seen five people violently snap their own necks before. Of course, the invisible, unstoppable, Advanced commando he’d led up here had actually killed them. Rafe wasn’t sure what to feel guilty about.

  “That should buy us the time we need,” Bharat said, his voice just a ghost on the wind. “Now, find the Commander.”

  “What?” Rafe squeaked. “I was supposed to lead you here.”

  “And you did,” Bharat’s disembodied voice said. “And that’s done. Now, I need you to find the Commander. He’s by the north tunnel last I saw, checking over his security arrangements.”

  “But ... why do you want me to find the Commander?”

  “So you can tell him Jan Sabato just seized his mini-nuke.”

  This was making less sense by the moment. “Now?”

  “Unless you want a thousand innocent people to die.”