Gabriel's Redemption

by Steve Umstead

  Takahashi smiled inside his helmet. “Okay, doc, you’re in. I want you taking rear guard when we enter. I’ll take point, and Isaiah,” he tapped the Poli on the shoulder, “will follow me.” He looked at Isaiah and leaned in close. “You follow me, yes?”

  Isaiah nodded vigorously. “Follow you, yes.”

  Takahashi turned back to Gilchrist. “Keep an eye on our friends here, and above all, stay quiet. Ready?”

  Gilchrist gave the thumbs up again. “All set.”

  “Then let’s get moving,” he replied, turning back to the ladder and grabbing the first rung.

  Sabra and Gregorio clomped up the stairs in their helmetless combat armor. Gregorio’s Chinese-made suit looked almost comically-large and cumbersome compared to Sabra’s light battlesuit. The mercenary cursed as he struggled to lift his feet over the high steps, stumbling each time.

  “Nice gear your boss got for you,” Sabra said with a sneer. “The mob not paying as well anymore?”

  “Shut up,” he snapped. “Paid better than you are on your government salary.”

  She laughed. “Government salary? I think you’d be surprised how much Santander’s paying us. Hazard pay, having to live with those idiots for the past year.”

  They reached the top of the stairs, and Gregorio tripped on the top step and fell to his knees on the landing with a crash. “Dammit!” he cursed, picking himself up. “We’ll see who gets the better end of the deal when this is all over.”

  Sabra dismissed him with a wave and reached for the door handle. “Yeah, good luck with that.” She pulled on the door.

  Takahashi froze outside the stairwell door at the loud crash and raised his closed fist, signaling the others to halt. Isaiah missed the sign and stumbled into his back. Takahashi quickly turned around and put his finger to his helmet visor in what he hoped was a universal gesture to hush. Isaiah saw it and spun to the others, repeating the motion.

  Takahashi turned back to the door and heard muffled voices behind it. He took a couple of quick steps to the other side of the door, and pointed back to Gilchrist, then back at the other side of the door. Gilchrist understood, his mask now hanging around his neck, and slid over to the wall next to the door, pistol raised. The Polis stepped back out of the line of sight of the doorway, Isaiah motioning to them silently.

  The door opened with a creak, and two figures stepped through. The first one through was dressed in a large clunky battlesuit, helmet dangling from its waist by a lanyard. The second one through was in NAF armor, helmet also dangling, with a wash of blazing red hair hanging down the back of it. The two were in the corridor before either noticed the men pressed against the near wall.

  Takahashi raised his Heckart, aiming directly at the woman’s face. “Hello, Sabra,” he said, the pistol humming in his hand.

  She stopped in her tracks, startled to be caught so off guard. “Oh, shit,” she said, starting to drop into a combat stance, her pulse-rifled arm rising.

  “Don’t move!” Takahashi said sharply, stepping forward and blocking her arm with his free hand. The armors’ surfaces clanged off each other, but the pistol never wavered from her face.

  Gregorio was slower to move in his cumbersome armor, but his assault rifle powered to life and started to swing forward.

  “Drop it,” came a voice behind him. Gilchrist’s pistol muzzle pressed into the back of his head.

  Gregorio stopped moving with a muttered curse, then powered down the rifle and dropped it to the floor.

  Takahashi reached up and popped the seal on his helmet, lifting it over his head.

  Sabra sneered. “Keven Takahashi. I would have thought you’d have been cowering in a corner of the lab,” she said.

  “Not quite, Mikaela,” he replied, emphasizing her first name in the same manner she spat his name. “You know, I never did like you. Or that ass Lamber. But I would like to know, before we use you as leverage - why?”

  “Because I’m tired of the grind. Because I’m good at what I do, and I’m not appreciated. Because the money’s good. Anything else?” she snapped.

  “No, that’s enough for me,” he replied, clipping his helmet to his waist. “Just thought I’d give you a chance to come up with something noble, but I’m not surprised.”

  She laughed. “Screw you, Ensign.”

  Takahashi started to reply when from behind the four soldiers came a high pitched voice.

  “Sah…brah?” said Isaiah, stepping forward.

  Sabra looked over her shoulder, surprised at the appearance of four Polis. “Oh nice, you brought the monkey army.”

  “This Sah…brah?” Isaiah repeated, looking at Takahashi. A low growl came from the other three Polis behind him.

  “Yeah, I’m Sah…brah,” she mimicked, now turning to face Isaiah. “Is there a problem, monkey?”

  The growl intensified, and before Takahashi could say another word, Isaiah launched himself at Sabra, knocking her to the floor, and the other three Polis piled on.

  Gregorio started to step towards the scrum, but Gilchrist’s pistol pressed harder. “Not so fast.” Gregorio froze in place, watching the fight unfold.

  Isaiah clawed at Sabra’s face, leaving deep red furrows, as she struggled to free herself from the pile. Her armor whined in protest as she attempted to dislodge the four Polis, but the sheer weight and determination of the natives was too much. She screamed as Isaiah pounded her head into the floor. The others tore at her armor, and piece by piece it was breaking down.

  Takahashi was more stunned than anything. The small Polis were fighting like mongooses on a king cobra, yelling in their high pitched voices and beating on the traitor. Sabra swung wildly with her arms, one already bare, the other armored arm starting to come apart. Takahashi wanted to step in, but a part of him wanted to see the Polis get justice.

  It didn’t last long. With Isaiah bashing Sabra’s head into the hard floor, and the other three ripping at her body with their knives, in a few moments she was still. Blood pooled from the back of her head and oozed from dozens of wounds on her face and arms.

  Isaiah stood up from the carnage and wiped his small hands on his vest. He straightened himself up to full height as the other three did the same. He faced Takahashi and spoke slowly. “Brother die, Sah…brah die. Even.”

  Takahashi looked down at the native and gave a small nod. “Yes, Isaiah. Even.”

  Gregorio was staring in horror at the mess the Polis had made of Sabra. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “What are these things?”

  Gilchrist angrily shoved the back of his head with the pistol, making the mercenary wince. “They’re humans. More human than you or her.”

  Takahashi walked over to Gregorio and held out his hand, palm up. “Give me your comm. We’re going to make a little trade with your boss.”

  “What was that?” asked Santander, standing at the center platform in the Operations center.

  “What was what?” asked Isham, who was inspecting a workstation.

  Santander looked over at the stairwell where he thought the noise came from. “That sound. Sounded like…” his voice trailed off. He reached for his comm at his waist and clicked it. “Gregorio, what’s going on?”

  Upstairs, Takahashi had just taken the comm from Gregorio, who was slowly removing his combat armor at gunpoint. The comm crackled to life. Takahashi looked down at it, back at Sabra’s body, then back to the comm. “This is Ensign Keven Takahashi, North American Federation Navy,” he spoke into it. “I’ve got a little proposal for you.”

  Santander stared down at the comm in shock. What the hell happened? he thought. Looking around the room, he found Sheakely going through a binder of papers.

  “Sheakely, Isham, get up there!” he yelled. The two mercenaries jumped into motion, headed for the stairwell door, assault rifles drawn.

  Santander looked back at the comm. He gripped it tight in one hand; his other hand pressed palm down on the holotable, knuckles whitening.

  “Hello, Ensign. Nice to m
eet you. I’m Quentin. What can I do for you?” he said in a light voice.

  Lamber was looking over his shoulder at Santander, a worried look in his eye. Ran kept his rifle trained on the seated prisoners, who were staring as one back at Santander.

  “I’ve got one of your people here. We’re going to make a little trade, and we’re all going to walk away from this mess, understand?” Takahashi’s voice crackled.

  Santander triggered the comm and laughed into it. “Trade? Son, I guess you don’t realize who you’re dealing with here. I don’t make trades, I take what I want, when I want. My people are expendable, and they know it.”

  Lamber called out. “Mister Santander, he said one?”

  Santander frowned. “One you say? What happened to two?” he asked into the comm.

  “Your pet Sabra didn’t make it,” Takahashi said with contempt. “And your other one is next in line.”

  Lamber’s eyes went wide. “What?” he yelled. He turned towards Santander and gripped the rifle tightly.

  St. Laurent spoke up behind him. “Oh, so sorry, Marco. You two were actually an item?” she asked sweetly.

  Lamber spun back to face the prisoners, rifle at the ready. “You shut up!”

  Gabriel raised his hands. “Slow down, Ensign.”

  Lamber swung the rifle to Gabriel. “You too! Both of you, shut the hell up!”

  “Yeah, relax, Marco. You’ll find another one. Try Animal Control,” St. Laurent said.

  Gabriel again tried to calm the situation, reaching a hand over in front of St. Laurent. “Whoa, everyone, let’s all shut it down a bit.”

  But Lamber had reached his breaking point. His grip on the rifle intensified, and rage spread across his face. “You!” he spluttered as he swung the rifle from St. Laurent to Gabriel and back. “She’s dead! She’s…you’re alive…dead…dammit!”

  With that, Lamber fired on full auto. The caseless slugs stitched their way up St. Laurent’s armor, sparking and ricocheting wildly from the carbotanium surface. The last slug caught her just under the chin, and her head snapped back against the wall in a spray of blood.

  “Cease fire!” Santander bellowed from the center platform.

  St. Laurent gurgled, blood spilling from her mouth, and reached for Gabriel. He leaned over and grabbed her by the arms, looking into her face. Her eyes were wide, pleading, as she bled out from the neck wound.

  “Chief, stay with me!” he said, reaching for the wound, trying to stanch the flow.

  She pawed at Gabriel’s chest with one hand, the other hand trying to support her body upright. “Commander,” she coughed. “You need…need…”

  “Don’t speak, Chief,” he replied, pressing against her neck in what he knew was a useless gesture. The blood spurted between his metal fingers, her combat armor’s medical systems unable to keep up with the blood loss.

  “Long range,” she gasped. “Look…for…long range…”

  “Don’t go anywhere, Tee,” he replied, watching helplessly as the life drained from her body. “You’ll see the vineyard again, hang on,” he said soothingly.

  “No,” she said, coughing up blood. “Long…range…” she said weakly Her eyes closed, and one last sigh of breath came from her lips.

  Chapter 27

  Gabriel lowered St. Laurent’s lifeless body to the floor, and slowly turned to Lamber, a look of pure fury in his eyes. “You,” he said in low voice.

  Lamber was still gripping the assault rifle tightly. “I said shut up!” he spat, a wild look in his eyes.

  “Shit, Lamber!” Santander yelled. “We need them alive for now, otherwise the goddam plan falls apart!”

  Gabriel slumped against the wall and looked down at his hands, now covered in St. Laurent’s blood. Brevik next to him was growling. Jimenez and Sowers were tensed, both with the same look in their eyes as Gabriel knew he had himself. One of their own, one of the team, killed in cold blood by a traitor.

  His mind raced, trying to figure out a way out of their predicament. It was obvious now that this Santander had no intention of letting any of them live, that he was just setting them up to take the fall for the invasion, and would leave their bodies as evidence. The jammer was still in place, so his neuretics were offline, and their armor unpowered. Unarmed, under guard, with no backup.

  His gaze swept around the room, looking for something to grab onto, some kind of salvation. Lamber’s wild-eyed stare standing directly in front of him, the rifle shaking in his grip. Over Lamber’s shoulder, Gabriel caught sight of Santander standing at the holotable, Zack’s unconscious form near his feet, the long range probe sitting on the holotable. It clicked. Long Range. St. Laurent wasn’t trying to tell him about her vineyard, she was trying to tell him to use the probe!

  He concentrated on his neuretics, trying to get his system to burn its way through the jamming. He ran one of his hacked worms, sending it zipping through his system, looking for a hole. In seconds, it found a minuscule opening in an unused download pipe. He ordered it to reverse the data flow and expand it, and the worm complied. Within a few milliseconds, it had created enough of a window to allow Gabriel to get a narrow band signal out. He jumped on it, sending a signal to the probe on the table.

  From his seated position, he saw a tiny light on the probe illuminate, and he knew he was in. His neuretics struggled to use the tiny window of opportunity, and he threw everything he could into it. A fuzzy schematic of the probe’s system appeared in his Mindseye, and he flipped through the info at high speed.

  There! His worm found the laser trigger Jimenez had reprogrammed. He ordered it online, and asked for a visual of the targeting system. Another grainy image appeared. He had the worm clean it up, adjust, and send the signal to fire.

  Lamber had taken a step towards Gabriel, brandishing the rifle. “You’re next, you son of a…”

  A pencil-thin blue beam shot from the probe on the table and caught Lamber squarely in the back of the head. In less than a tenth of a second, it burned through his skull and emerged from his forehead in a burst of bloody steam, burning into the wall above Gabriel’s head. Lamber’s eyes rolled up in his head, and his body stumbled forward onto St. Laurent’s, the rifle clattering to the floor. In that same instant, the jamming curtain Lamber’s neuretics controlled lifted.

  As one, the team’s systems came online. Without a word, Brevik launched himself into Rheaves, who was still stunned by Lamber’s quick and spectacular death. The two men came together in a clash of massive bulk and combat armor.

  Gabriel was on his feet before Lamber landed. He reached out and grabbed Ran’s rifle by the barrel and crushed it, pieces of steel falling to the floor. The mercenary’s face was still showing surprise when Gabriel’s other carbotanium fist crashed into his jaw. His unconscious body crumpled to the floor next to the shattered assault rifle.

  Sowers and Jimenez had leaped to their feet and were sprinting to the far side of the room, where Isham and Sheakely had started to head to the stairwell doors. Jimenez sent a burst to Sowers, giving him a quick signal of where they were to go, and the men spread out, flanking the two mercenaries. Isham and Sheakely shook off their surprise and dove behind a workstation, firing their assault rifles over the edge.

  Gabriel stepped over Ran’s body and sprinted towards the center platform, where Santander had been standing. Not seeing him, he ran a quick active scan and detected a figure running through the hub. He skidded to a halt at the platform and bent down to his brother, who had just started to regain consciousness.

  “Zack, you okay?” he asked.

  “Fine,” he replied, rubbing his jaw. He began to stand, but then he heard the rifle fire on the other side of the room and changed his mind.

  “Stay down,” Gabriel said. “If you can, make your way to the stairwell, we’ve got people upstairs.” He looked back at the main doors. “I’ve got someone to find.”

  Gabriel started to move, and Zack grabbed him by the arm. “Be careful, little brother.”

>   He looked back at Zack’s hand gripping his armor and had another memory. An image of the catamaran dream came back to him, of Zack eating conch Gabriel had caught, and the backhanded praise. “No worries,” he said. “It’s what I do.” With that he stood and ran for the doors.

  Meanwhile the titanic struggle between Brevik and Rheaves had reached a crescendo. The two bodies were crashing into workstations, chairs splintering under their combined weight. Rheaves was slightly larger, but in the clumsy Chinese battlesuit lost out to Brevik in dexterity. Realizing this, Rheaves attempted to keep the fight close to overwhelm Brevik, but each time he thought he had the upper hand, Brevik slid from his grasp.

  The two men separated briefly, panting hard. Brevik’s pulse rifle arm had already been damaged by Rheaves’s first grapple, and Rheaves’s assault rifle was well out of reach. Both men were unarmed, but neither cared.

  “Well, old friend,” Rheaves said, gasping for breath. “Is that all you have?”

  Brevik gave a dead smile. “It’s all I need. You should have never left the academy. You had potential.”

  Rheaves laughed. “Potential. Yeah, potential to get stuck in a dead end job like you?”

  Brevik eased closer, preparing for another assault. “I’ve got friends here. You’ve got nothing. One last chance for you. Give it up,” he said.

  Rheaves spat on the floor. “Screw you, Harris.” He rushed Brevik.

  Brevik caught the big man’s left arm and spun, using Rheaves’s weight and momentum against him. Rheaves twisted awkwardly, crashing into a workstation, and shards of screen glass sprayed in all directions. Brevik gave a hard yank, and Rheaves’s armor cracked, the shoulder popping from its socket with a tearing of cartilage. Rheaves bellowed in pain and rage, and pushed up from the workstation’s wreckage with his good arm.

  “I’ve lost my patience with you, Harris,” he said, grimacing in pain as his left arm dangled uselessly at his side. He lunged forward, right arm outstretched.

  Brevik stepped inside Rheaves’s move, blocking his arm, and punching with all his strength into the center of mass. His combat armor’s servos whined in protest as his own muscles pushed the armor beyond its limits. His armored fist crashed into Rheaves’s chest, and the Chinese-made battlesuit collapsed in on itself, metal splintering, flakes of paint erupting in a tiny dust cloud.