A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy

by Alex White

  While it was no Taitu, Prothero had more than its fair share of civilization. According to Armin, the planet was 90 percent immigrant workers with only a tiny slice of native citizenry. Many of those citizens, however, commanded vast sums of argents that stunted Nilah’s racing largess by a considerable margin.

  The first mate manipulated the bridge projections to show the forbidden airspaces of the wealthy landowners below. Prothero’s picturesque green hills turned red with scanner patterns. These people liked their privacy, that much was certain.

  Nilah watched the threat analysis, noting the kinds of anti-air measures the Protherans possessed with some interest. Since hooking up with the Capricious, she’d gained a smattering of military knowledge, and she recognized a few of the autoturrets on the ground.

  The wealthy of this world were equipped to repel a few goons in a light craft, not a marauder. She prayed Bill Scar would be no different.

  “Distance to Scarett residence, forty klicks,” said Armin. “We’ll be in his airspace soon. Scanners indicate standard defenses.”

  “All right,” said Cordell. “Looks like we won’t be worrying about network attacks. Miss Brio, head to the cargo bay and get ready to drop.”

  Boots turned to her from the imaging station and nodded. “Hey, kid! Easier than jumping to the Harrow, right?”

  Nilah smiled as she left, then rushed down the stairwell, leaping between floors in the combat gravity. When she reached the cargo bay, she found Orna prepping Charger’s fusion blade. The bot’s vents rumbled with pleasure as it tested the blinding sword before retracting it. The quartermaster, clad in a combat flight suit, spared Nilah a glance as she entered, then gestured to the nearby lockers where her own flight suit awaited her.

  There hadn’t been an opportunity on the voyage to explain to Orna just how she felt, to reassure her that she’d … what? That Nilah would always be around? That had never been the promise of their relationship; it’d just been a good time that turned into something more lasting.

  Nilah tugged on the last straps of her suit as the cargo bay door howled open. She snapped on her helmet and pressed the test button on her descender. The all-good icon spun into focus—the ingredients were still ready to go. Striding over to Orna, she switched on her comm.

  “Hunter Two here. Come in, Boss.”

  “Boss copies,” said Cordell. “Hunter One, how we doing?”

  “Ready to rock,” said Orna.

  The heads-up display in Nilah’s helmet initialized, and she saw the world in shades of bright red. The words AWAITING AGGREGATOR FEED scrolled across the bottom of her vision.

  “We’re making a surveillance pass over the operational area now,” said Cordell. “Going to see what sensors he’s got the place equipped with. Once we’re done with that, you two drop out the back and take down his networks. No alarms, you hear me? We’re a day away from the closest jump gate if the local cops show up. Can’t rebuild the jump dump again, either.”

  “Copy that, Boss,” said Orna, slinging a bandolier of grenades across her torso and clipping it to her suit. “In and out like miner mice.”

  “Prince here,” said Armin. “The only two priorities are getting station credentials and stealth for the duration of the mission.”

  “So any OPFOR casualties …” Orna began.

  “Suboptimal, but acceptable,” said Armin. “Just make sure they deserve it.”

  Nilah caught the glint of a smile through her girlfriend’s helmet and her stomach lurched. Orna was always efficient and brutal, but Nilah saw something darker on her face. She was going to enjoy this.

  Color returned to the world as the aggregator connection stabilized. Nilah tethered and walked to the wailing edge of the cargo bay to look down. Far below, she spied a sprawling manor house, dotted with bright red spheres.

  “I’ve relayed the sensor pickup patterns to your visors,” said Armin. “We’re not seeing any personnel on the grounds proper, but that doesn’t mean the coast is clear.”

  A small green X flashed in the center of one of the roofs, beside a large atrium window.

  “This will be your optimal point of ingress,” he continued. “There’s a comm tower here, through which you can access the manor security. Depending on network topology, you may be able to access their power grid.”

  “Boss here. We’re coming around for another pass. Stand by to execute.”

  Orna clipped in and stepped up next to Nilah. “Hunter One, acknowledged.”

  Charger crept up to the edge as well, its artificial balance able to easily compensate for any turbulence. It chirped its readiness.

  The quartermaster’s stance was sure and full of malice, as though she could reach down and tear the residence to pieces with her bare hands. She seemed so unlike the woman Nilah had fallen in love with in that moment: a wildcat that once loved to be stroked, now geared for murder.

  Nilah reached out and touched her arm, and Orna jolted.

  She didn’t wait to see what Orna might say. “Hunter Two, acknowledged.”

  The ship made a slow bank, and the manor passed out of sight behind the ramp struts. When they completed their next loop, Nilah and Orna would get the orders to jump. She swallowed. It had to be easier than the Harrow, with its heavy cannons and surface-crawling defenses, but that didn’t still Nilah’s heart. A jump was a jump, and it could always end in a splat.

  “You are go for jump,” said Armin.

  Leaping out of the back of a moving spaceship wasn’t the sort of thing tackled lightly. Merely stepping off could cause a person to tumble uncontrollably, and so to survive, Nilah needed to commit. Following in Charger’s wake, Nilah sprinted down the ramp and into the gathering twilight.

  The air tore at her visor, seeking purchase on the seams of her flight suit as Nilah went spread-eagle to level off. Race car drivers were always thrill seekers, so this wasn’t the first craft she’d jumped from—but she was accustomed to having a jetpack.

  And there typically weren’t security autoturrets at the bottom.

  Charger’s armor unfurled around it; its ordinarily sleek silhouette became feathered, each plate of regraded steel sweeping outward to create maximum drag. Orna soared through the air, landing on Charger’s back and riding it like a skyboard.

  The altitude counter on Nilah’s heads-up display plummeted toward the inevitable, Armin’s helpful addition to her data feed.

  Then the words TRIGGER DESCENDER flashed in her face in bright white, and she nearly lost her balance recoiling from the shock. Nilah snapped the descender disc, and green phantoplasm enveloped her, bouncing her off the roof once before popping. She came to rest against a flat part of the building.

  “Okay, Prince,” she hissed. “I know you’re trying to be helpful, but those warnings—”

  “You’re on the atrium glass! They can see you from below!” said Armin. “Get out of there!”

  Nilah rolled to get her legs under her and looked around, seeing only a sea of red no-go zones. The bounce had disoriented her, and she cast about for Orna and Charger, finding them behind her. Orna waved frantically, and Nilah scrabbled off the thick panes of the atrium.

  They held still for a moment, both listening for a siren, slinger fire, or even surprised shouts. When nothing came, Orna whispered, “Hunter One, package delivered.”

  “Copy that,” said Cordell. “We’ll be waiting up top.”

  Looking around, they spotted the comms antenna array—a series of a half-dozen dishes and metal pipes. The trio weaved through the plumes of red sensor detection, shimmying through canyons of falloff.

  “How accurate are these projections, Prince?” Nilah grunted as she squeezed between two fields.

  “Plus or minus one-point-two percent,” he replied.

  “Better not be plus,” said the quartermaster.

  Orna relaxed as she cleared the last detection zone, rushing to the comms array and drawing her glyph. She touched her glove to the antenna tower and her eyes rolled
back in her head. Orna was in such a hurry that Nilah worried she’d botch the hack, but no alarms sounded and the quartermaster wasn’t fried by any countermeasures.

  Drawing her own glyph, Nilah pressed her palm to the junction box and psychically wound through the network. What she found was a path of severed circuits and burned-out relays rent asunder by a virtuoso. Not that Nilah liked to criticize, but Orna’s typical attacks were brute force and a bit graceless. This was surgical.

  Then her connection snapped closed as the system went dead.

  “Nice work,” Nilah breathed, eyeing her girlfriend for a response.

  “I know.” Orna took her hand from the antenna and clicked off the locking ring on her helmet. Testing the fit of her earpiece, she whispered, “This is Hunter One. Comms are down.”

  Nilah followed suit—no helmets meant better situational awareness. Charger flipped open its fusion blade, bathing them in a split second of startling light. It carved a perfect circle through the roof and snatched the core with its claws to stop it from falling. The blade went dark, leaving only orange glowing rings of molten metal as Charger gingerly placed the roof core to one side.

  The pair of women peered into the darkness of the house for a moment before donning their echo imagers and drawing slingers. Orna would be able to see through Charger’s eyes, too, which were much more powerful than Nilah’s lenses.

  The bot went through the hole first, landing absurdly silently for a creature made of regraded steel. Then Orna stepped off the roof, falling into Charger’s arms and popping up to a ready stance, slinger barrel scanning for any sudden movements.

  Fear gripped Nilah’s heart. The distance between the roof and the ground was so much shorter than the jump from the back of the Capricious, and yet she didn’t want to go inside; didn’t want to follow Orna into the house. Though their slingers were full of overloader rounds to minimize casualties, Orna didn’t need a weapon to kill someone.

  The quartermaster looked back up at her, body gray in the echo imagers, and signaled the all-clear. Holding her breath, Nilah leapt into Charger’s arms. It caught her and placed her to one side as easily as a doll.

  The immaculate urmurex corridor before them shimmered with echo reflections like it was made of thousands of broken mirrors, disorienting her. Nilah just hoped Charger could spot any traps.

  The bot sunk low, its head snapping to some unseen threat, and Nilah looked about for cover, settling behind a large buffet running along one side of the hall. She toggled her optics to visual and saw a long sliver of light just around the bend, a person’s silhouette growing within its confines. The bot took off, and to Nilah’s surprise, Orna followed in its wake. The quartermaster usually let the bot act as a shock troop, only diving in once the threat was subdued, but she was hot on its heels.

  They rounded the corner, and a woman’s gasp came echoing down the hall. Silently, Nilah sprinted down the hall to find the bot holding a guard by her neck, her eyes wide with fear.

  “Where’s Bill?” Orna whispered to her. “Two seconds to comply.”

  “I don’t know—” came the woman’s reply before Orna placed her slinger barrel against the guard’s temple and pulled the trigger.

  A brief flash of violet light erupted and snapped the woman’s head backward, then purple smoke came snaking out of her nostrils and mouth. Charger tossed the stunned woman to one side like a piece of trash, and Orna leveled her slinger to continue advancing down the corridor. The stench of the stun spell almost gagged Nilah—she hadn’t forgotten what it had been like for Boots to jam a sleeper into her gut. It’d been cruel to shoot that woman point-blank, but at least Orna hadn’t killed her.

  “This is Boss,” said Cordell. “We’ve got some flashlights out on the grounds below. I think they know the comms are down. Some of the guards may be on alert.”

  “Copy,” whispered Nilah.

  “If Boots flies for me,” said Aisha, “I can snipe those guards with a stun rifle. We’re only two klicks out, and my scope can pinpoint targets.”

  “Copy that,” said Cordell. “Be advised, Hunters, we’re putting a thunderbolt in play. If you go outside, give us a warning.”

  Nilah swept the area on their phase, keeping her back to Orna and Charger. “Hunter Two, acknowledged.”

  The scent of clean water filled Nilah’s nostrils. They emerged onto a landing overlooking the vast atrium. Overhead, stars twinkled through the panes of glass. She thought she could see the area where she’d landed almost directly above them. A gilded forest filled the floor below, jeweled leaves confusing her imager with their prismatic reflections. A light, resonant tinkling swelled in her ears as the metal branches chimed in meditative bliss. She switched into optical mode and saw winding brass trunks of corded wire, glimmering in the lights of floating lanterns. Through a clearing, past a murmuring fountain, stood a pair of double doors two meters high, lined on either side by statues of celestials in supplication. Directly before them, a spiral staircase to the lower level, open on all sides with no cover.

  Orna motioned for Nilah to go down so Charger could provide cover. As she descended, Nilah tried to remember how it felt to ride inside the bot, and more importantly, whether Charger’s imaging lenses would be defeated by the canopy of gemstones. They so fouled Nilah’s optics that every shadow across the floor seemed impenetrable.

  Once she reached the bottom, Charger leapt down after her with a quiet thwomp, followed lastly by Orna, her slinger focused on anything remotely threatening.

  Reunited, the trio proceeded to the far wall, where they could at least make certain that there were no lurking dangers to one side. They wound through the synthetic forest, and Charger’s head swiveled erratically to each leaf that dared chime out in the darkness.

  Then everything went as bright as day as all the leaves became torches. A deafening, modulated screech filled the air, paralyzing in its intensity, nauseating Nilah and sending Orna to her knees. Charger’s head shivered uncontrollably as it tried to isolate the sound, then a spell bolt slammed into it. Arcane energy crackled over Charger’s exterior, and it collapsed into an inert sprawl. Orna was screaming for him, but Nilah couldn’t hear what she said. They both ripped off their imagers, which had been fouled by the sonic and visual attacks.

  The sound went dead, leaving only a ringing in Nilah’s throbbing skull. Flashes filled the forest, red and white, disorienting her further. Only when they stopped could she see the half-dozen armed guards advancing on her, shouting for her to drop her weapon.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Overture

  Bworg!” was the guard’s first word to her.

  Nilah squinted, blinking at the guard with her hands up, finger hooked in the trigger guard of her slinger.

  “Down!” the guard repeated, her words becoming clearer to injured ears.

  Orna huffed on her knees, slinger clutched against the soft, synthetic grass floor.

  “Hunters! Status!” called Armin, but Nilah’s addled mind couldn’t find the words to reply. “The atrium is all lit up. What’s going on?”

  Were there six guards? Numbers were so slippery after that attack. There was a word Nilah needed to escape the situation, but she couldn’t quite muster it.

  “Get down now!” the guard shouted, her fellows remaining steady where they were. “Toss your weapons aside!”

  It started with a th. It made a flash and a rumble, and sparkly things. It could set fires in forests. This was a forest.

  “Charger …” muttered Orna, her jaw working furiously.

  “Th—thunderbolt,” Nilah whispered.

  “Copy that,” came Armin’s voice. “Zipper, pick a target and take them out on my mark.”

  “Focusing in on the leader,” said Aisha. “Standing by for mark. In three …”

  The guards closed in, still barking orders, but Nilah feigned being more stunned than she actually was. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

  “Two …”

 
; If she let go of her slinger, she’d be unarmed when the shooting started. She got down to her knees, making a show of compliance.

  “One …”

  The leader gestured to the side. “Now throw your weapon to—”

  “Mark,” said Armin, and a long, blue knock round shot through the roof glass, smashing into the leader, sending her sprawling across the ground.

  Nilah spun her slinger to grasp the butt and planted an overloader into the next closest guard. The man’s arms splayed wide and smoke roiled from his mouth before he crumpled. She took another shot, the spell bolt smacking another guard across the cheek and knocking her out.

  Orna darted out from behind her tree and shot one of the guards in the hand. He sluggishly tried to bring his slinger to bear on her before she put another round into his chest. He stiffened and keeled over backward.

  The last one hunkered down behind a tree, pinned by the two women. Nilah made sure he kept his head down while Orna advanced on his position with steely eyes. She reached him, and he tried to jump up and fire into her belly. She slapped his slinger aside and smashed the back of his head into the tree, ripping his weapon free of his stunned grasp. The rifle clattered to the roots of the tree, its chamber glowing the same blue as the bolt that had felled Charger.

  Orna saw it, too. She pinned him by the neck and fired a bolt into the dead center of his chest. Purple smoke leaked from his lips. Then she fired again, intensifying the plume.

  Then once more. She was trying to fry his brain.

  “Orna, stop!” Nilah shouted, halting the woman’s trigger finger.

  Orna glared at Nilah, then released the convulsing man, who shook awhile longer before falling still. The quartermaster’s shoulders rose and fell in long breaths, her lips twisted in an enraged scowl.

  “Had to make sure he was down,” she huffed.

  Nilah nodded a little too quickly. “He’s down.”

  Orna traced her glyph and rushed to Charger’s side, tossing down her slinger. After slapping her palm to his chest plate, she let out a long breath.