"Let's pull it and boogie," MG said. "Sully is on the horn now bitching that we're taking too long."
"Pull it," Jacob ordered. Taylor shrugged and popped off the two connectors and, using his knife, pried the box off the bottom of the environmental unit's chassis. When he did, there was an audible click and a warbling tone that made everyone freeze.
"And that would be the bomb inside this enviro unit that you just armed," Murph sighed. "If you move the box too far away from the unit…kaboom."
"Taylor, you dumb fuck," MG said.
"You're the one who told me to take it off!"
"Why would you listen to me? I'm a weaponeer, not a tech. It's actually the LT's fault for agreeing with me."
"You morons shut up!" Jacob snapped, his mind racing. "Taylor, I'm going to kneel down next to you and take the box. Once I have it, the rest of you haul ass back down the way we came and get clear of the building. I'll give you sixty seconds."
"Sixty seconds until what, exactly?" Murph asked.
"We need the data on this box," Jacob said. "I can survive a jump off this roof—probably—and I think I can run and clear the edge before the bomb triggers."
"That's some wild assumptions you're making. Why don't we take a moment to think—"
"Your time starts now. Move!"
Murph's protests were cut off as four Marines turned and hauled ass for the access hatch in the roof. Jacob watched as they made an orderly withdraw and counted the seconds once he saw the last of his men disappear. His plan was high-risk, but he wasn't suicidal or insane. The bomb had armed once they'd removed it but hadn't detonated. He could assume it was on a proximity trigger, and he would get a bit of a head start before the device would have time to actually detonate depending on how large the radius was. The edge of the roof was only six meters away, and then it was a twelve-meter drop to the street below. No problem…hopefully.
"We're all clear, LT…let 'er rip," Taylor's voice came over the team channel when Jacob was only halfway through his count.
"Standby," he said. After several calming breaths, he shifted his legs around so his left heel was braced against the leg of the environmental unit. The bulky metal box was anchored to the roof, and he wanted to use it to push off rather than risk losing his footing by trying to accelerate too hard on the composite material.
He said one last quick prayer, and then yanked the box to his chest, shoving off on his anchored foot with all his might. The metal leg he braced against buckled, and he pitched forward, reaching out with his left hand to catch himself before he face-planted. Now panicked, he pushed ahead in a wild, uncontrolled leap, clearing the edge just as the warning tone of the box changed and the explosive charge within the environmental unit detonated. The pressure wave pitched him end over end, and he could feel the searing heat as he was flung from the rooftop. He watched, helpless, as the ground rushed up before he could change his body position and get his legs under him to hit in a controlled landing.
Still clutching the box to his chest, Jacob landed in the street on his back. Mercifully, he blacked out upon impact.
5
"He's tough, but that fall fucked him up pretty good."
"You said he'd make a full recovery."
"He will…it's just going to take more than forty-eight hours. What the fuck do you want from me, Murph? He fell two stories onto a hard-packed dirt alley. It's a miracle he's not dead."
"I've been out for two days?" Jacob asked, his tongue feeling heavy and dry.
"What was that, LT?" Mettler asked, shooting a glare at Murph.
"Two days?" Jacob asked, this time his voice stronger.
"More or less. You broke four ribs and dislocated your left shoulder when you hit, but there doesn't appear to be any significant trauma to your spine or head," Mettler said, reading off the tablet he held. When they were in the field, Jeff Mettler served as Obsidian's medic. The medical nanobots they had at their disposal made treatment for most things fairly straight forward, but they couldn't perform miracles. If Jacob had broken bones, they would take time to heal.
"How long until—"
"I wasn't done," Mettler interrupted. "You have a lacerated kidney, bruising of the major muscles that's severe enough I'm worried about clots, and you're bleeding somewhere in your GI tract, and I don't have the equipment to pinpoint it."
"Then how do you know I’m bleeding in— Oh, never mind," Jacob said.
"Yeah…I'll be happy when you can get up to use the head on your own," Mettler said. "To answer your question, you're banged up pretty bad but healing well ahead of what the computer predicted. I figure you'll be up and about within a day, able to move and fight within a week. After a couple more weeks, you won't even know you fell."
"I can live with that," Jacob said. "At least tell me it wasn't for nothing, and we recovered the data on the box."
"The computer is breaking into it now. We're expecting it to be cracked any hour now," Murph said. "In the meantime, we thought it would be smart to leave the Cluster. We're flying at low slip-velocity back towards ConFed space."
"Good, good." Jacob nodded. "That was the right call. Give me an update when the computer breaks into the data recorder. Meanwhile, I think I'll pass out for a while longer."
"Sweet dreams, LT."
"Hey! How they hanging, LT?" Sully asked two days later, when Jacob hobbled up to the flight deck.
"Oddly sore, to be honest," he answered. "Did you know you can bruise your balls by falling onto your back hard enough?"
"I actually did know that."
"Yeah…I just found out. Where are we?"
"About another full day's flight until we reach the ConFed border." Sully pointed to one of the multifunction displays that showed their course, speed, and approximate position in real-space. "I took the scenic route so we avoided most of the occupation force's patrols in Eshquarian territory. This ship is running clean codes, but everyone is a little jumpy right now after the attack on Miressa. I don't feel like getting hauled aboard a ConFed cruiser to answer questions."
"That wouldn't be optimal," Jacob agreed. "I'll leave you to it. Once we have a better idea where the hell we're going, I'll let you know."
Mettler had cleared him for light duty and had been genuinely shocked at how fast his body had worked with the nanobots to heal most of the damage. The ribs were still tender, there was an overall soreness to his body, and he still pissed blood…but, all things considered, he felt pretty decent. He felt even better when Mettler's stingy ass would fork over a few of the pain pills he had in his kit.
He went slowly back down the stairs from the flightdeck and made his way aft to the galley, where the rest of the team lounged. The computer had cracked the encryption locks on the box he'd risked his life for, and now Taylor worked to extract the data while Murph helped parse it up into something useable. MG, who was more or less useless at that type of meticulous tech work, had mostly been keeping Sully company until the pilot could take no more and banned him from the flightdeck. His actual words were, "Keep that nasty motherfucker away from me." Apparently, MG had been regaling him with detailed stories of various sexual conquests while in the military. Jacob had heard most of them and felt the weaponeer was likely exaggerating the numbers a bit.
"What's the good word, boys?" he asked, shuffling over to the galley and getting a mug of coffee. They'd cleaned out an NIS safe house during their last mission and had walked away with a coffee machine and a couple cases of coffee from a company on a planet called S'Tora. The company had the unlikely name of Rocky Mountain Coffee Co., and the words were in English. Jacob knew there were a few entrepreneurial humans already out in the galaxy making their fortune, but he was impressed that someone had managed to set up an agricultural operation already. He made a mental note to make it out to S'Tora some day and meet the person behind the company. It was probably a great story.
"Taylor is putting together a preliminary review of what was on that data core," Murph said.
<
br /> "When?"
"He said he'd be ready in an hour or so," MG said. "Do I have to help with this? Sitting around watching hours of security footage isn't really something I'm good for."
"No shit," Jacob deadpanned. "Don't worry, Corporal…your uselessness once again works in your favor. Since you've managed to piss off Sully, you get to go help Sergeant Mettler."
"What's Mettler doing?" MG asked.
"No idea. Hopefully something disgusting," Jacob said. "Get lost."
MG left to go aft towards the infirmary and cargo hold, grumbling the entire time. Murph just shook his head and laughed.
"Part of me hopes I never get sent back to NIS," he said.
"That'd make two of us," Jacob said, sipping his coffee. "Do you get your regular NIS agent pay and your E-6 pay on top of that?"
"My cover had to be absolute," Murph said with a smile. "If I wasn't drawing a paycheck, it'd be pretty easy to begin taking apart my background with a quick call to finance. What I'm not sure about is whether they're going to let me keep it."
“Good news…our contact didn’t have many guests so it was easy to parse the data down to what we needed,” Taylor said as he walked into the galley. He interfaced his own Navy-issued tablet to the ship’s wall display and began opening up video files. “The resolution isn't great since that system used holographic imagers and this tub only has flat displays.”
The first video played, and Jacob could see immediately they had a major problem. It was an external view by the front door, and the guests standing outside were unmistakably human, and he knew one of them.
“Elton Hollick,” Murph growled. “Looks like he survived you shooting off his hand.”
“If you look closely, he has a prosthetic unit on that arm,” Taylor said. “It looks like Margret Jansen’s One World faction is not only looking for our missing cruiser, they beat us to the punch.”
Elton Hollick was a former NIS agent who had been tasked with infiltrating the One World Faction, a radical group led by former Terranovus administrator Margaret Jansen. Their stated mission goal was to more cohesively unite humanity under one banner, something that was already in place with the United Earth Council. She claimed that, until the individual nation states on Earth were dissolved, humanity would never be on parity with the more advanced species of the quadrant. The truth was that Jansen did indeed want to unite Earth…under her rule.
She’d come to Earth once with a battlefleet she’d assembled in secret on Terranovus and was turned back by a rogue mercenary unit called Omega Force and an alien collective called the Cridal Cooperative. When the dust settled, Earth had signed into a partnership treaty with the Cridal, and Jansen, along with her remaining loyalists, fled. Hollick had been sent to report back on her movements, but he’d been turned and now worked for her. Obsidian had run across Hollick before on Jacob’s very first mission, and the rookie lieutenant had blasted the veteran agent’s arm off with a plasma rifle. He’d managed to escape, and Jacob had hoped he’d died of his injuries, but that turned out to be wishful thinking.
“Kellska…it’s been some time,” Hollick was saying on the video.
“Not long enough.” The alien named Kellska was immediately recognizable as the corpse they’d found in the upstairs bedroom. “What do you want, human?”
“Is that any way to talk to an old friend?” Hollick asked, pushing his way into the home with a pistol in his hand. The view automatically switched over to one of the interior imagers. “We’re looking for the fleet that attacked Miressa.”
“Oh, you only want the most wanted criminals in all the galaxy,” Kellska laughed. “Is that all?”
“I’m looking for a single human cruiser that will be flying with the Cridal rebels,” Hollick said. “I’ve no doubt a low-level gutter dweller like you has no idea where they are right now, but you’ll have heard something about where they could be hiding. Are they in the Cluster?”
“No, human…they’re not in the one most obvious place someone would look for them,” Kellska said. “That’s as much as I know, and certainly as much as I’m willing to give you. Now, leave.”
“Not very hospitable of you,” Hollick said, moving deeper into the home and looking around. “How bad did you screw up to get stuck out here, Kellska?”
“It’s none of your concern.”
“No, but it’s definitely yours. How would you like to get out of here? I can offer you a job with Margaret Jansen’s intelligence service,” Hollick said, sidling up to the alien and wrapping the prosthetic arm around its shoulder. “Think about it…no more hiding out here in the asshole of the quadrant, looking over your shoulder for your former employer. You would be a welcomed member of the team again, and all you have to do is go ahead and tell me everything you know.”
“A change in tactics, I see,” Kellska said. “You offer a boon rather than threats of torture. Frustratingly, you’re right. I want to leave this place more than anything…even if that means making a deal with the likes of you. What are my guarantees?”
“Just give me what else you know, and we’ll all fly off this rock together,” Hollick said smoothly. “Back to a planet with a big city again, with all the perks that go with it. One World will offer you a position within our intelligence service as well as protection from your former employer.”
“You have cruelly manipulated my desires, human— I mean, Elton Hollick,” Kellska said, the indecision plainly visible on his flat face. “Very well…I was being truthful before. This rebel fleet was wise enough to not come back to the Cluster as nearly every intelligence service in the quadrant is looking for them. While I don’t know where they may be currently hidden, I do know there was more to the fleet’s makeup than just the Eshquarian Imperial Navy remnant as has been widely reported. There was a strike force from the Cridal Cooperative, led by Admiral Kellea Colleran herself, as well as a sizable number of ships from the Blazing Sun syndicate.”
“Blazing Sun?” Hollick was visibly startled. “Saditava Mok has thrown in with this insurrection?”
“Not openly,” Kellska said. “The fact the ships and personnel belonged to the syndicate isn’t widely known. In fact, his own captains likely don’t even know, but I have contacts within his personal fleet that gave me the information.”
“This goes well beyond the bribing of council members or judges. It doesn’t make any sense for one of the quadrant’s most notorious gangsters to be playing this game.”
“It does if you know that the man who calls himself Saditava Mok used to be a highly placed officer within Imperial Intelligence,” Kellska said. "For him, this is likely personal."
“Mok is Eshquarian?” Hollick asked.
“Surgically altered after his departure from the service to change his appearance, but yes,” Kellska said. “That’s a fact that isn’t widely known although it isn't clear if he changed his appearance to fool Blazing Sun's leadership or to hide from the Eshquarians. He secured his place in the syndicate after an overboss named Bondrass was killed under unusual circumstances.” Hollick looked at the alien speculatively for a few moments before smiling widely.
“Take him upstairs and kill him,” he said to one of the armed men who had accompanied him. “Then toss this place.”
“What!? Why? I have told you all I know!”
“And I believe you,” Hollick said, his voice full of mock sympathy. “But now, you’re a liability. Others will certainly come looking for this same information. I’m sorry, my friend, but I just can’t let you stay here alive.”
“I thought I was to go with you!”
“Now, why would we want a disgraceful failure like you in our ranks, Kellska?” Hollick laughed. “We both know you were exiled here for cause. Margaret Jansen doesn’t suffer fools, and you are most certainly a fool.”
Kellska was dragged blubbering out of the room by the two troops Hollick had brought while the former agent ripped into the house, looking for additional intel. The video split into two view
s, and now they were also looking into the upstairs bedroom.
“On your knees, alien,” one of the troops said, pulling a long blade. Kellska made a show of cowering and going down to his knees…but the troops weren’t in position to see him reaching under the low bed. Kellska snapped up with a weapon in his hand, firing into the face of the troop who had been taunting him.
“Fuck!” the other shouted, opening fire just as Kellska turned and shot him in the gut. The force of the blast from the trooper’s weapon flung Kellska up onto the bed, where Jacob remembered finding him while the human sunk to the floor, racked by spasms and screaming in agony.
“What is all the— Oh, you stupid sons of bitches,” Hollick said when he ran in on the scene.
“Help me!” the wounded trooper moaned. Hollick pulled his sidearm out and aimed it at the wounded man’s head.
“Trust me, this is a mercy you want. There's no treatment for the gun he hit you with,” he said, pulling the trigger before the trooper could protest. Hollick then went and checked over Kellska’s body before pulling out his com unit. “This is Hollick…I need a cleanup crew to the objective’s domicile to remove two human bodies and sanitize the house. I want all the security hardware and any personal effects pulled, but leave the alien’s body where it is. After you're done, pull back to base and await orders. I'm going ahead alone…you idiots are just slowing me down.”
Hollick took another look around the room and walked out without so much as a second glance at his downed men.
“That’s more or less it,” Taylor said. "There was another vid where four more humans showed up in a ground car with two Ull and cleaned the place up."
"Shit," Jacob muttered. "Not only does One World know about the Talon, but they've sent agent shitbag after it, too."
"Former agent shitbag," Murph corrected. "He's persona non grata to the NIS. Believe it or not, that's a serious thing among spies. Even double agents and traitors are able to cut deals and be brought back in under certain circumstances. Hollick is listed as kill on sight."
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