by Richard Fox
“We’re looking for tube AA-92 through 96,” Garrison said. “Should have our Q-shells and new gauss weapons so we can fight like almost-proper Marines.”
“Ninety-five,” Max said, slapping a palm against a large canister and flipping up the lid. “Gauss rifles. Check.” He struggled to pull a case out then called Opal over.
“I don’t see the others.” Garrison put his hands on his hips and stared at the racks of smaller canisters. “Bet our needle’s in that haystack. Figures.”
He went up a set of stairs to the lowest receiving platform and made his way down the corrugated metal path, glancing at the tubes in the bays.
“B-92, C-17,” Garrison read as he went. “You’d think they’d have someone here to help, but sunset is the new pumpkin-time for Eridu and—”
Warning lights flashed at an empty cradle just ahead of Garrison and a tube clattered to a stop.
“Think we’re that lucky?” Garrison asked Max, who was leaving the building with his arms full of a gauss ammo pallet.
Garrison fumbled around with the cradle’s controls before it opened with a hiss of hydraulics. The Marine looked over the canister and cursed.
Another empty cradle announced an imminent arrival.
“Of course the marker’s on the other side,” he muttered, putting his hands against the canister and rotating it. A window came into view, and Garrison pressed his face to it. He put a hand next to his eyes to block the lights and saw a woman inside, her hands bound and mouth gagged.
“What in the hell?” He pulled back and looked to the door, but neither Max nor Opal had returned. “Hey! Get back here!”
He jiggled the slide on the window and got it open. “You OK? Hey, you’re Lilith Yarrow.” Garrison reached into the window and Lilith responded, her speech muffled as she gestured wildly with her cuffed hands.
“I don’t speak mumble.” Garrison pulled the gag out of Lilith’s mouth.
“She’s here! She’s here!” Lilith shouted, eyes wide.
“Who? Why can’t anything ever be easy on this planet?” Garrison grabbed Lilith by the shoulders to pull her out when he heard a pistol’s hammer lock back.
“Who else is with you?” a familiar voice asked from behind.
Garrison froze, acutely aware that he did not have a weapon on him. He turned his head slowly and found Masha behind him, pistol leveled at his face. He brought his hands out and raised them next to his head.
“You…” Garrison’s eyes narrowed. “I owe you.”
“Yes, me,” Masha said. “I really did not want to meet up with you Jarheads again. I know we had a bad parting on Koen, but we can move beyond that, yeah?”
Garrison’s eyes darted to the doors that Opal and Max would come through any second.
“You tasered me and locked me in a cell,” Garrison said, his focus back on Masha.
“I was being nice and I did mention you’d die if you—or any of Hoffman’s lackeys—got in my way again.”
“You’re stalling.” Garrison’s eyes narrowed.
“So are you.” Masha half turned her head to the door then snapped her gaze back to Garrison as he leaned his weight forward to the balls of his feet.
“She’s after the artifacts in the lab,” Lilith said. “There’s a—”
“Shut up!” Masha took a step to one side. “You. Knuckle-dragger. Hands interlaced behind your head and on your knees. Now.”
The double doors opened, distracting Masha for a split second, and Garrison struck out with one palm, twisting his body out of her line of fire. His hand struck the Ibarran spy’s wrist and sent the pistol flying.
Garrison, off-balance, tried to grab Masha’s sleeve, but she yanked it away and stepped closer to him, jabbing him in the throat. Garrison made a noise between a gag and a choke as her shin connected square against his crotch and his feet lifted off the ground.
He went down in a heap of pain, eyes watering and lungs refusing to breathe. He heard shouting and two gunshots before he managed a ragged breath and looked up. He saw Masha’s feet running away, a second pair of boots keeping pace with her.
“Garrison, you OK?” Max yelled from behind a canister.
Garrison waved at Masha and gagged.
“Was that who I think it was?” Max asked.
Garrison gagged a bit louder then collapsed against the ground, pain radiating from his testicles and his throat. Just which was worse would change as time went on. He looked at the doors and wondered, Where the hell is Opal?
****
Opal sprinted down the outside of the tube station. He turned his momentum into a slide as he came around a corner, careening into a pile of broken canisters around a dumpster. A ground car, its headlights on, was parked in the alley, trunk open.
Masha stood behind the open passenger door, her jaw loose as she saw the doughboy.
“Oh…arraio.” She swallowed hard. “Medvedev, this one’s for you, my love.”
The trunk slammed shut and an Ibarran legionnaire in work overalls swung a rifle over the top of the car.
Opal swiped a hand against the broken canisters and shot one straight at Medvedev. It whacked against the barrel and deflected the shot just enough to miss Opal’s face by a fraction of an inch.
The doughboy crouched low and charged. His shoulder hit the car and pushed it back a yard, knocking Medvedev off his feet and sending him into the alley wall.
Masha yelped and ducked into the car. Opal slammed her door shut and went for Medvedev.
The legionnaire was big by human standards—six and a half feet tall and built like a professional fighter—but he didn’t have Opal’s mass or the taller battle construct’s reach. Medvedev popped to his feet and slipped something out from beneath his belt. He flipped a switchblade open and held the knife out, his other hand up near his face.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” Medvedev said. “Your programming keep you from killing me?”
“Can hurt you.” Opal feinted a punch and got Medvedev to swipe the blade through air. The doughboy jabbed again and caught Medvedev on the shoulder. The legionnaire ducked and kicked Opal in his leading knee, shifting him off-balance.
“No time for this!” Masha crawled out of the car and went for the rifle.
Medvedev stabbed his weapon toward Opal’s heart, but Opal caught him by the wrist. Medvedev tried to yank his hand back, but Opal’s grip held. Opal swung a haymaker at the man’s face but missed as Medvedev dove forward.
Opal kept his grip and the legionnaire’s momentum pulled him off-balance and against Medvedev’s leg. The doughboy tripped forward and went face-first into the side of the car, letting go of the wrist.
Swinging a blind fist, Opal caught Medvedev’s forearm raised in a block. The doughboy pivoted to one side as the switchblade ripped across his torso, tearing his fatigues and cutting flesh. Opal punched Medvedev in the jaw and sent him sprawling.
Opal reached down and snatched Masha by the calf as she reached for the rifle. He yanked her back, whacked her against the front tire, then turned back to Medvedev just as the man threw the switchblade at Opal’s face. Opal raised a palm and the knife buried itself up to the hilt in his flesh, the knifepoint a half inch from Opal’s eye.
Medvedev kicked Opal in the stomach, doubling him over. He smashed an elbow into the doughboy’s nose then landed an uppercut to Opal’s chin, snapping his head back.
“Not so tough,” Medvedev said as he chopped a hand against Opal’s neck and the doughboy fell against the car.
“Old.” Medvedev slammed a fist into Opal’s ribs. “Obsolete. Tra—”
Opal caught Medvedev’s fist and growled. Rearing his head back, Opal slammed his forehead into Medvedev’s face. He gripped the legionnaire by the neck with one hand, squeezing until the man couldn’t breathe and blood stopped flowing to his brain.
“Go sleep,” Opal said.
Medvedev slapped at Opal’s arm weakly, his consciousness fleeing.
“Opie! Hey, Opie,”
Masha called, holding up a small video tablet in one hand. “Got something for you.”
Grainy footage of a man with permed hair and a wide-collared shirt standing in front of a half-finished painting played on the screen.
“Mix up a little more color here, then we can put us a little shadow right in there. See how you can move things around?” the man said with a kind voice.
Opal let Medvedev go and his eyes went soft.
“Happy little trees. Right, Opal?” Masha asked. “They didn’t adjust your programming after our last run in? Sloppy. You tell Hoffman I remember my enemy’s weaknesses.”
Medvedev coughed and picked up his rifle.
The other doors burst open and Garrison and Max froze in the threshold as Medvedev brought his rifle up and fired from the hip, shooting through the car’s windows and missing the Marines. The two scrambled back into the building as Medvedev put rounds into the walls every few seconds as Masha got the car started.
The legionnaire was still shooting, his body half in and half out of the car as it sped away.
“Opal?” Max called out from the corner. “Opal, what’s wrong with you?”
“There…let’s have some more fun. Let’s take some black. Some Prussian blue,” came from the tablet at Opal’s feet. Max peeked quickly around the corner, then ran to Opal. He crushed the tablet with his boot and Opal’s head snapped up.
“Bad ones.” Opal looked around. “Where?”
Garrison pointed down the alley, croaked, then gestured wildly back to the tube station.
“He’s right.” Max looked Opal over, concern writ across his face as he examined the blade still stuck in Opal’s hand. “We need to get back to Hoffman and tell him about the Ibarrans.”
Garrison mimed shooting a gun.
“And the gear.” Max looked at the sunset. “Got to hurry. You OK, Opie?”
Opal pulled the switchblade out and tossed it aside.
“Unit functional,” Opal said.
“I’m really starting to hate those assholes,” Max said. “Let’s move.”
Chapter 16
Garrison winced as Booker touched his throat with an exam wand.
“It was her, sir,” he said hoarsely to Hoffman. “Positive it was Masha and they’ve got Lilith.”
“And Medvedev was there,” Max said. “He managed to not shoot my guts out this time, not for lack of trying.”
King stood up from a field telephone, the archaic handset against his ear.
“Lieutenant, report from checkpoint seven: a car got through the outer wall. Heading north.”
“The gate was open?” Hoffman’s brow furrowed.
“Locals say the guards in the tower are dead,” King said. “There must be more than two Ibarrans on this planet.”
“They have a ship,” Steuben said. “That is the only reason they would leave the city.”
“If they try and take off anywhere that the Beast can get line of sight on them, it’ll fry their systems,” Hoffman said. “But the Ibarrans aren’t stupid. Can’t make the mistake of underestimating them again.”
“Ow,” Garrison said, pushing Booker’s probe away. “Quit it…oh, that is better. How about my balls?”
“Motrin and water,” Booker sneered. “You’re lucky you got your ass handed to you by a girl, else you’d be in serious pain.”
“That stings, corpsman, it really stings,” Garrison said as he adjusted the ice pack on his crotch.
A tablet in Hoffman’s cargo pocket buzzed. He whipped it out and a screen of Yarrow and Fallon appeared.
“Sirs,” the lieutenant said, “I was just about to call. We’ve got a situation—”
“My wife is missing,” Yarrow said. “Her office was ransacked and—”
“Ibarran agents,” Hoffman said. “We’ve had a run-in with them before. Chances are they’re still on world. Last sighting had them moving straight into Beast country.”
“That’s suicide,” Fallon said. “It’s nearly dark.”
“Assume they have a plan,” Hoffman said. “If they had a ship in that jungle, where would it be?”
“They have Yarrow’s mate,” Steuben said. “She is an expert on Qa’Resh technology, yes? Where is the only other source of that tech on this planet?”
“The lab,” Hoffman said. He swiped down on the screen and pulled up a map. “There’s a road from checkpoint seven that runs close to the excavation site…if they’ve been on world since before the Beast woke up, they might have set down near the lab.”
“Then we need to get out there, track them,” Steuben said.
“How are we going to—?”
Steuben pointed at Garrison. “He bears a scent. So does Opal, one far stronger.”
“I keep forgetting you’re an amateur bloodhound,” Hoffman said.
“Amateur?” Steuben raised an eyebrow.
“I monitored that,” Fallon said from the screen. “Get out there and recover Lilith Yarrow. Both that Medvedev and Masha you described are wanted for murder on Mars. Bring them in alive if you can. If not, no complaints.”
“There is the Beast,” Hoffman said, looking over at the crates Garrison and Max had brought with them.
“We’re sending up drones to lure the Beast away,” Fallon said. “We can buy you some time. Let’s hope the quadrium rounds work as intended.”
“I love being the guinea pig,” Garrison muttered.
“Roger, sir.” Hoffman looked at King. “Gunney, have the team load up. We’ll get our gear squared as we move.”
“Oorah.” King slammed the phone down and ran out of the room.
“Steuben,” Yarrow said, “please…it’s my wife. My love. You have to get her back.”
“I owe you more than that,” the Karigole said. “She will return to you. I swear it.”
“Garrison, can you drive?” Hoffman asked.
“Sure thing, sir. My lead foot is at the ready.” The breacher got up and waddled toward the door, dropping ice cubes from the plastic bag held between his legs.
****
Masha flipped the floodlights on as darkness fell across the jungle. She swerved around a bend, eyes darting from side to side.
Medvedev nursed a sore jaw and dabbed a suture wand at a cut just beneath his eye. Dried blood ran down his cheek and stained his overalls. The car swerved and he poked himself in the temple.
“Let one of them drive,” the legionnaire said, glancing up at the rearview mirror. Three more legionnaires in black fatigues were crammed into the backseat, two men and a woman, their face shields adorned with red crusader crosses.
“We can’t stop here. This is Beast country,” Masha said, “and I don’t know about your judgment. Why didn’t you shoot the doughboy? You want him to catch up and turn your face into hamburger again?”
“Opal was disabled,” Medvedev said. “No longer a threat to us. No honor in killing one that can’t fight back. Besides, if I’d shot him, the other Strike Marines would have had no reason to hang back. We needed the space.”
“A doughboy,” one of the male legionnaires said.
“They’re not to be taken lightly,” the female said.
“Masha, you’re going to plow into a tree before the Beast finds us,” Medvedev said, “which will be sooner than later if the ship didn’t get our signal.”
“They acknowledged,” a female legionnaire said. “Decoy electrical sources are in the air. The lights are concentrated chem-lights, but the noise of the combustion engine is a big ‘eat me’ sign for the Beast.”
“We’re almost to the lab,” Masha said. “We’ll have to go in on foot anyway. Just a quick stop before we leave this Union crap hole.”
“We’re not going straight to the ship?” Medvedev lowered the suture wand.
“Lady Ibarra sent us here for the asset in the trunk,” Masha said. “But she needs Qa’Resh tech, and what’s in that lab is worth the risk.”
“Our mission—”
“Is half complete with just
the scientist,” Masha snapped. “You want to return to the Lady in failure? The armor came back from their mission to rescue the last Aeon in shame after they failed. We won’t let down the Lady or the Ibarra Nation, will we?”
“The Lady wills it,” one of the legionnaires said from the backseat.
“And who are we to question her?” Medvedev said, looking over his shoulder to the female sitting in the middle.
She beat a fist against her heart twice in salute.
“Then we’re in agreement,” Masha smiled. “And Hoffman and his bunch of meddlesome twits are on our tail. They’ll either slow the Beast down or take care of it for us. Win-win for us, any way it works out.”
“You have more faith than I do.” Medvedev glanced at a paper map. “There, the next turn. You can see where the Pathfinder vehicle cut through the jungle.”
Masha pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road and looked through the thick undergrowth. The Pathfinders traveled in all-terrain vehicles; their car was meant for jaunts over paved roads in a city.
“You guys like walking, right? You’re ground pounders. One of you carry Lilith,” she said.
****
Garrison pumped the brake as the cargo truck rounded a corner, its headlights sweeping over a car half off the shoulder, the front end buried in reeds.
“Think that’s the Ibarrans?” Garrison asked Hoffman, who sat in the front passenger seat.
There were two slaps on the roof.
“The engine is still hot,” Steuben shouted. “Dismount and follow me.”
“Aggressive, ain’t he?” Garrison shut the truck off and killed the lights.
“When in doubt, attack.” Hoffman kicked his door open and hopped out, assault rifle braced against his shoulder. The rest of the team jumped over the rails and formed a quick perimeter.
Steuben sniffed at the air and took off at a quick jog down a pair of beaten foliage paths.
“Those are Pathfinder excursion-vehicle tracks,” Max said. “We really need Steuben’s nose to follow that?”