by R S Penney
She glared at him.
Larani was the only other person present, and she stood near the air-lock with her shoulder pressed to the port-side bulkhead. Perfectly calm, or so it seemed. But then Larani had been through this many times.
“Why is the telepath here?” Aydrius asked.
Cassi squinted at the man, then shook her head slowly. “Why are you here?” she asked. “Ms. Armana has been working with us for some time now, but we've only just met you.”
The man looked at her, light glinting off the lenses of his sunglasses. “Well, I think it would be pretty damn obvious,” he answered. “You folks said you wanted to take down Grecken Slade, and I want in on that.”
“You will have to forgive Agent Seyrus,” Larani chimed in. “She's one of the two officers that I assigned to investigate Keepers who may be working as moles for Grecken Slade. She takes her work seriously. Tell me, Cassiara, you and Jack have been reviewing mission reports and personnel records from almost every Keeper who has served in the last twenty years. Have you seen anything to implicate Operative Aydrius?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps we should trust him.”
For his part, Aydrius stretched both arms while his mouth opened wide in a yawn. “See that's what a man like Slade will do to the Justice Keepers,” he muttered. “Just five years ago, we would never have questioned each other like this.”
He turned his head slightly, monitoring Keli with his ear. A symbiont would allow him to keep tabs on her with spatial awareness, but he would have learned to rely on his hearing from a very young age. Cassi suspected that it was more than that, however; she suspected that he wanted Keli to know that he was watching her.
Keli turned on her heel and continued her frantic pacing in front of the SlipGate. If she was aware of Rajel's scrutiny, she gave no sign of it. “Do you have a problem with telepaths, Operative Aydrius?” Cassi asked.
“He's Antauran,” Keli replied before he could answer. “Like me.”
What?
Larani was leaning against the bulkhead, her lips pressed together as she nodded along with that. “I do believe you're correct,” she said. “I reviewed Operative Aydrius's dossier before assigning him to this mission, and he is one of the few Keepers to have come to us from Antaur.”
Slouching down with arms crossed, Rajel directed a knowing smile at Larani. “Yes, I'm Antauran,” he said. “Which means I know what it was like to grow up as a blind boy in a world that values genetic purity above anything else. I was a second-class citizen all my life. But telepaths? They were royalty.”
“That,” Keli said. “Is not my problem.”
In the instant that Aydrius opened his mouth to say something else, Larani stepped forward and delivered a glare that silenced him. She quickly turned that fiery gaze upon Keli. “We're about to go into a very dangerous situation,” she said. “Perhaps now is not the time to be at each other's throats.”
Just then, the comm unit beeped and Lenai's voice came through the system. “You guys might want to buckle up,” she said. “We're going in.”
Cassi was already in one of the fold-out seats along the wall, but she made sure that her seat-belt and harness were fastened. The others did the same, each one unfolding a cushioned seat from the wall and strapping themselves in. The shuttle's gravitational drives made it so that changes in velocity didn't send people flying into the bulkheads, but they couldn't compensate for external factors like enemy fire.
I hate this part, she thought to herself. I really hate this part.
Pushing open the wooden door to Valeth's chambers, grunting from the very mild exertion, Leo stepped inside and found the woman seated in a large blue chair with its back to the fireplace. She was wearing a sleek blue dress and cradling a cup of tea in both hands. “What is it?”
Leo forced a smile and lowered his eyes to the floor. “It seems we've been found out,” he said. “Our long-range scans have detected three Justice Keeper shuttles headed this way. I'm fairly certain they're looking for us.”
Valeth bounded to her feet, her mouth tightening as she glanced this way and that. “Execute the evacuation protocols,” she said. “Purge our systems of every last scrap of data that might be used against us.”
“As you wish.”
“Contact Isara. Tell her we will be joining her at the beta site.”
Standing with his fists balled at his sides, a self-satisfied grin on his face, Leo kept his gaze fixed on the floor. “I think I will stay,” he said. “Me and a small contingent of our troops. We will cover your retreat.”
Valeth looked at him as if he had just declared his intention to drink poison, then quickly shook her head. “Yes…” she said at a last. “Yes, do that. Once our main force is through the SlipGate, you may join us.”
He had to suppress the urge to laugh. This woman was a coward, one who would take any excuse to avoid direct confrontation. Oh, she could fight, if it came down to it, but she would much prefer to run and strike from a distance. “Go quickly,” he said. “Just leave me a few dozen men, and I'll ensure that all your precautions are taken.”
The shuttle's nose dipped, and landscape came into view through the window – a jagged mountain range with pine trees dotting the sides of each peak. The land quickly sloped down into a wide basin where sunlight glittered on the surface of a rushing river. “Closing in on target,” Jack said. “One hundred twenty kilometers.”
Anna set her jaw, squinting as she scanned her surroundings. “Be ready to activate weapons,” she said. “But wait for my signal. I don't want to make any aggressive moves until we know what we're dealing with.”
“On it.”
They were descending toward an old-growth forest of conifers, though from this height, it was impossible to make out individual trees. All she saw was a sea of green and the sparkling river. “Shuttles two and three,” Anna said into the comm. “Form up on my wing. We approach slow and easy.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
There was always the chance that Leo wasn't in that castle, that someone else was responsible for the strange jamming field. The worst part was that she had no idea what to expect. They might have anti-aircraft guns or the Companion alone knew what else, and if they had any remote scanners, small probes planted deep in the forest, then they would know that three shuttles were on their way.
Within a few minutes, they were swooping low over a dense forest of pines, firs and spruce trees, some standing more than two hundred feet tall. They flew at over twice that altitude, but she could see them clearly, and it was magnificent. One day, she would have to take a camping trip up here.
Biting her lip, Anna blinked a few times. “Are we picking up anything?” she asked, swiveling partway around. “Any sign of activity.”
Jack was at his console with a look of intense concentration on his face, shaking his head as he checked the readouts. “Nothing,” he said. “No weapons signatures, no force-fields, no hostile aircraft.”
She turned back to her window.
As they got further away from the mountains, the forest began to thin near the river, the result of centuries of men cutting down trees to build small communities. The ruins of old stone structures were still visible, and they even passed over a small village with a large bridge that spanned the rushing waters.
“Another forty kilometers,” Jack said.
She nodded.
At such a low altitude, they had to travel at reduced speeds. Anna didn't much care for that – she didn't like giving their adversaries more time to prepare for their arrival – but there was no getting around it. After several minutes of uneventful flight, Jack said, “We're close enough for a visual.”
“Show me.”
A single green dot appeared at the bottom of her window and then expanded to a square that zoomed in on a castle with high towers at each of its four corners and large modern cannons that would fire high-calibre bullets positioned along its ramparts. If those things fired EMP rounds, t
hey could phase right through her shields. Even large bullets wouldn't do that much damage to her shuttle's hull, but the charge that they carried could knock out the shield emitters, leaving her vulnerable to heavier artillery.
Gritting her teeth, Anna shook her head. “Well, now…that confirms it,” she hissed. “Whoever's in there, they're up to no good. Charge the shield emitters but keep weapons powered down for now.”
“Aye, ma'am.”
Anna snorted.
“What? It sounded like the thing to say.”
When they got within a hundred metres of the castle, Anna brought the shuttle to a halt and used the gravitational drive to hover about fifty feet above the ground. The other shuttles settled to a stop as well, one on either side of her. Slight magnification gave her a good picture of the fortress.
Two men in black clothing were standing on the castle's side wall, one pointing at her while the other gesticulated wildly. There was a third making his way to the nearest cannon. This might end badly.
A few quick taps at her console activated the comm-system, and she projected her words through the exterior speakers. “This is Special Agent Anna Lenai with the Justice Keepers to the current occupants of Reginar Keep,” she said. “We have reason to believe that you are harbouring a known fugitive, and we have acquired authorization to search the castle and detain anyone inside. Surrender peacefully, and you will not be harmed.”
“That should get through to them,” Jack muttered.
One of those cannons swiveled to point at Shuttle Two, on her right, and then white tracers sped from its muzzle. Alarms blared, and she checked her instruments.
Her console displayed a green wireframe outline of Shuttle Two with the port-side wing flashing red. “The shots managed to hit one of their anti-grav stabilizers,” Jack said. “They're losing altitude!”
“Tear gas!” Anna shouted.
Those cannons were manually operated; an abandoned castle wouldn't have the necessary infrastructure for anything else. Incapacitate the operators and you rendered the cannons useless. But she would not kill those men. Not unless they left her with no other options. Keepers were precise in their use of force.
A cylindrical canister of tear gas shot out of the nose of her shuttle and sped across the open plain toward the castle wall. Just before it landed, a huge flickering force-field sprang up from out of nowhere and intercepted the canister, causing it to explode in a cloud of smoky vapour.
“Shuttle Two is on the ground!”
Anna winced, sucking in a breath. “Break and attack!”
With a flick of the flight-stick, she turned her shuttle in a long banking arc that put its belly toward the castle wall. For a moment, the ground was on her right and the sky on her left, and yet she felt no g-forces.
She reoriented herself to fly upright, if only to appease her internal sense of how the world should look, and flew off over the grassy plains, toward a line of trees nearly a kilometre away.
Shuttle Three had gone in the opposite direction, toward the river. “Jack, give me EMP rounds,” she said. “We'll come back and make another pass. They must have force-field generators along the base of the wall. If we can disable them, we might be able to get a clean shot.”
“We have to get back there,” Jack said with desperation in his voice. “Shuttle Two is a sitting duck.”
Anyone who tried to flee on foot would be cut down by those guns on the walls. Keepers could Bend, yes, but in a wide open field with no cover and bullets coming in from multiple vectors…Even Keepers had their limits. “We won't leave them-”
She cut off as the treeline drew nearer and nearer, and she saw something rising out of the forest. A small, one-man fighter, similar to the one that she had tangled with in the Velezian System.
Sleek and silvery, shaped very much like an arrowhead, it rose with its nose pointed forward. “Oh no…” she said. “I think we might have bigger concerns.”
In the courtyard, surrounded by four stone walls, Leo felt safe as he watched men in black and gray uniforms scramble to defend the fortress. Some were climbing up the stairs to the ramparts carrying assault rifles that would fire EMP rounds. That probably wouldn't do much good against shuttles, but every little bit helped.
Leo stood in a patch of mucky earth with his neck craned to direct a frown at the sky. “Come on, Hunter,” he whispered. “Let's dispense with these pointless pyrotechnics. This is about you and me.”
One of the shuttles – a sleek craft with long wings that curved forward – flew low over the castle. It fired on the wall-mounted cannons, but the shields flickered in a giant dome of electrostatic energy.
Charged bullets phased through the barrier and struck the ramparts with enough force to send chunks of brick flying, causing men to throw themselves down on their bellies in some sad attempt to avoid getting hit.
One man came running out of the keep along the cobblestone path that cut through the courtyard, carrying a large case that was probably full of computing equipment. He was probably trying to take the shortest path to the SlipGate chamber.
“The server room,” Leo said. “Hunter will probably go there.”
In her window, Anna saw the tiny fighter racing over the treetops toward her with its guns hot. White tracers exploded from cannons on either side of its nose, and she had only an instant to react.
She flicked the flight-stick.
At her command, the shuttle executed a ninety-degree roll, dipping its left wing and raising the right, allowing the bullets to drift harmlessly past its belly. Now, it seemed as if the ground was on her left and the air on her right, which was only mildly disorienting.
She executed a banking turn, looping around to head back to the castle. When she righted herself so that the trees were rushing past beneath her, the small fighter came into view in her window.
She was right behind them.
Anna fired and watched as twin streams of white tracers sped from her wings and converged on her enemy. The fighter slid upward in her field of vision, and every single bullet flew past beneath it.
Suddenly, the fighter slowed, and she was rushing past it. Now they were behind her. A good place to get a clean shot that would severely damage the shuttle's engines. “Jack!” Anna shouted. “Give me secondary weapons!”
She pitched the shuttle's nose upward and flipped upside-down so that she was flying backwards over the trees. Or well…under them from her perspective. The fighter came into view with its nose pointed at her.
She fired.
Two orange plasma bolts the size of a man's fist launched from her wings and soared over the trees. The fighter had only a second to pitch upward and speed off into the open sky.
“They're coming back around!” Jack said.
Stiffening with frustration, Anna shut her eyes and shook her head. “We don't have time for this,” she said. “Aft shields to full, ready anti-targeting countermeasures. If they want a fight, they're gonna do it on our terms.”
She flipped the shuttle upright again, continuing on the same course. The last of the trees vanished, and then she was flying over a grassy field with a stone structure visible in the distance.
A single green dot appeared on the window's surface and then expanded to reveal Shuttle Three flying toward them. “We've got him!” the pilot's voice came through the speakers. “Take out the defenses around that castle. We'll keep your friend up there off your back.”
The other shuttle rose into the sky, firing.
“All right,” Anna said. “Let's do this.”
As they approached, the castle grew larger and larger in her field of vision, and red dots appeared to highlight cannons on its back wall. Charged bullets came at her. A force-field appeared in front of her shuttle, but the EMP rounds phased through it. Some hit the window while others scraped paint off the hull.
“Minor damage,” Jack said. “No critical systems hit.”
Another volley came at her.
Anna thumbed the h
at-switch and used the gravitational drives to push the shuttle upward, enemy fire zipping past beneath her. She aligned her targeting reticle with the top of the wall and fired.
Two streams of bullets passed through the force-field that popped up to protect the men on that wall, but she couldn't see much through the flickering static. When the shield dropped, she had a brief glimpse of a smoking ruin that used to be a cannon.
And then she was flying over the courtyard, over the keep's front wall and the field that led down to the river. Any second now, those men on the walls would start shooting at her backside. Pulling back on the throttle, she reduced the shuttle's speed until she was hovering over the rushing waters.
Stepping on the pedal caused the shuttle to yaw around until the castle came into view. Men on the front wall were reorienting cannons to point at her, and one was clearly shouting orders at the others.
Anna reacted quickly.
Her shuttle slid upward, rising into the sky with its nose pointed forward. A quick adjustment to the pitch, and she had her window pointed down at a castle that receded as she climbed higher and higher. But not at the wall. Her weapons were aimed at a small strip of land right in front of the portcullis.
Glowing bullets erupted, rushed downward and drove themselves into the mucky ground at the base of the front wall. Even from up here, she could see sparks as the force-field generators buried just beneath the surface exploded.
More bullets came at her from below, phased through her shields and slammed into the shuttle's body. The lights flickered, and her screens went dark for half a second before auxiliary circuits kicked in.
She leveled off and flew the shuttle backward, watching as multiple streams of tiny white flecks passed through the space where she had just been. She targeted her weapons on the castle's front wall.
“Jack!”
Her boyfriend knew what to do.
Another canister of gas dropped out of the shuttle's nose and fell upon the rampart where men were reorienting their cannons. It exploded on contact, unleashing a cloud of expanding vapour.