by Richard Fox
“Yes, sir.” Garrison set off down the street, looking vulnerable without his Strike Marine armor but still ready to scrap.
Hoffman thought they still moved as a team, looking about as subtle as bulls in a china shop. With the exception of the one well-wishing patron at the sports bar, no one seemed to notice, or if they did, they kept their distance.
He walked with Booker while Max stayed a few strides behind, pretending not to be in the same group. Once they'd fallen into their traveling formation, everyone relaxed. They couldn't just walk down the street like normal people. They’d been through too much.
"Why are there so many cops around here?" Booker asked.
"I think there's a police station nearby." Hoffman stopped for a minute, putting his back toward the wall like he was going to just hang out, and checked on Max, who had fallen farther behind than normal.
Booker joined him. "Why do you think that?"
"The cars heading that way," Hoffman said, nodding to his left, "are clean. The ones coming back are dirtier."
"Are you sure about that?" Booker asked. “If there's a difference, I can't see it. And maybe there's just a car wash down here. You want to storm a car wash?"
"Good point." He signaled Max to catch up and then joined Garrison near a food cart across the street from an official-looking building. Looking back, he could just barely see the asylum.
"Can you explain the difference between a police station and a car wash?" Hoffman asked the breacher.
"Is this a trick question?" Garrison asked with a sly smile that suggested he didn't get the joke but really wanted to have gotten the joke.
"Never mind. I don't think this is a good place for a long conversation. The last thing I want to do is piss off the local cops," Hoffman said.
Max pulled out his Blackberry mission tablet. "I was just starting to make progress. It's a good thing we moved when we did. You're right, LT. There is some state-of-the-art Ibarran security tech around that place.” He pointed to a cluster of antennas on the top of the building. “The second antenna from the right is a Flagel 4000, definitely post–Ember War tech. If we had stayed there, we might've gotten a visit from unpleasant people. Anyone remember Medvedev? The asshole that shot me?"
"Yeah, I remember that guy," Garrison said. "I'd rather not butt heads with that dude again."
"Max, is there anything you can do about their security?" Hoffman asked. “Can we take out that tower with a precision shot?”
Booker studied the cluster of antennas, shaking her head slowly. “I think I could hit it, but would it disable the signal?”
“You only have to hit near the base of the Flagel. The maintenance box is notoriously glitchy. It wouldn’t stand up to a gauss round,” Max said.
“I don’t have a gauss rifle, and I don’t know if a more primitive weapon would deliver the kinetic energy to damage something like that from this range,” Booker said. “Duke loves old rifles—any rifle, really—but I only have a general idea of what’s available in this era.”
“OK, let’s put that option aside for now,” Hoffman said. “What about remote access? Can you hack it, Max?”
"Yeah, probably, I think so. But I need access. The only other tower like that I’ve seen so far is on top of this city’s police headquarters.”
"Tell me more," Hoffman said.
“Well, in layman's terms, there's a security node very nearby that could shut down the invisible security around the asylum. They maintain a separate network via their own satellite relays and tower system. Makes it easier to secure a network when you have your own completely independent network," Max said. "The problem is, I don't have any way to access it remotely, so I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way."
"You want me to blow something up, don't you?" Garrison asked with exaggerated casualness.
"Not yet, Garrison. Max, give me a better option,” Hoffman said.
A gate to the basement parking garage opened and a police car rolled out. The entire team watched it drive down the street.
"Well, we need to get into that police station, find a computer—such a weird word for a slate—on their local network, hack it, and put the Flagel 4000 node into a loop. Basically, it’s like taping a picture to a security camera so it never sees an intruder. Any signal to the contrary will be perceived as an error because the F4000 is completely automated. No room for human error," Max said.
“Or human intuition that might see through the deception,” Hoffman said.
“It’s a major design flaw, overreliance on technology,” Max said. “So we have to get inside. Makes me wonder what Masha would do in our situation.”
Hoffman, Booker, and Garrison glared at Max.
“Hey, I’m just saying this is a job for a spy. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not saying I want to see her again…ever. She’s hot, but I’m married. And she’s totally Ibarran. And give me a break, I was just brainstorming,” Max said, looking more and more uncomfortable.
“We wouldn’t be here if not for her,” Booker said. “I blame the last ten missions on her.”
“She would be able to walk in and out of that place without a problem,” Garrison said. “Sure, I could blow up something, distracting the cops and allowing us to swoop in during the confusion…wait…I seem to be missing something.”
“Shut up, Garrison,” Booker said.
Garrison systematically patted each of his pockets. “Nope. No denethrite charges or tamping packs here. Just a wee bit of det cord—”
Booker back-fisted him in the gut.
“Ooof.” Garrison bent at the waist. “You could have just told me to shut up again.”
“We need to think like spies,” Hoffman said, eyeing the station.
No one said anything for several seconds as they watched the driver of a yellow taxi cab hit his brakes and shake a fist at a pedestrian crossing against the light. From somewhere nearby, music played from another vehicle.
"Anyone an expert on the inside of a police station?" Booker asked, turning dramatically to stare at Garrison.
"I've been in a few," Garrison said, slightly indignant. "Who hasn't? It starts with, ‘Let's just have a round of shots,’ and next thing you know…"
"We're not here to get arrested," Max said.
"Maybe we are," Hoffman said, studying the breacher.
"I'd like to point out we're carrying stun guns and the cops in that building have real bullets. Not sure I like where this is going. If somebody pointed one of these very real-looking weapons at me, I'd assume it was lethal and respond accordingly,” Garrison said.
“We just have to get inside,” Hoffman said.
“But what if something goes wrong? Because that tends to happen to us.” Garrison checked over his shoulder almost casually. “I don’t like the idea of shooting humans. Give me a good bug fight any day.”
"I'd rather not hurt any cops. They’re Ibarrans, but they're still noncombatants," Booker said.
“We agree on one thing—everyone on this planet is a noncombatant. They don’t know what they’re doing,” Hoffman said. “We keep it nonlethal. We don’t rush to failure. This doesn’t have to be another firefight.”
****
Duke lowered the volume in his earpiece, annoyed with the Dotari Marine’s propensity to talk and work at the same time. He didn’t remember other Dotties acting like this. Gor’al had probably spent too much time around Garrison and Max. The younger generation had their foibles and drama. All they did was talk, talk, talk—most of it complaining and navel-gazing.
He marked his location with coded IR markers. Getting lost on the surface of a large ship wasn’t his idea of a good time and it was easy to get disoriented. Looking across the deck, it could be hard to tell where the Breitenfeld ended and the spaceport began. Everything looked the same.
One of his boots lost its grav lock when he lifted it too high, giving him the unsteady feeling of disconnection. Easing it back down, he tried to remember how long it had been sinc
e he made such a rookie mistake. He needed to concentrate.
There was a reason he went to sniper school: he liked having his boots on dirt, natural camouflage pulled down around him, his sights on an enemy.
Climbing the side of a superstructure, he looked across his domain and spotted the perfect target. Someone had left a maintenance hatch open on one of the more distant antenna arrays. The one-foot-by-one-foot panel would be impossible to hit from here for most marksmen—not because of atmosphere or gravity, but because of the disorienting Coriolis effect more noticeable on small moons and space stations.
Every shooting solution needed a bit of math tempered by instinct and experience. Duke could make the shot, and when he did, the damaged antenna array would scramble its neighbors. He had the angle now and would feel cheated if he didn’t get to exploit it.
Taking the station’s comm antennas was mission-critical. They couldn’t allow word of Valdar’s escape to reach the station.
****
Gor’al searched for a terminal on the inside of the Breitenfeld’s airlock. If he could find a way into the system, he could duplicate the program and run them in parallel, cutting the time in half and contributing to the success of the mission. Maintenance walkways connected workstations in the engine room. It was a huge place—probably full of noise and danger when the ship was running at full power. Now it felt like a tomb full of ghosts. He searched for another terminal and dreamed of how spectacular his success would be if this worked.
“You! What are you doing here?” demanded a hard female voice.
Keeping his visor darkened, Gor’al glanced at the redheaded legionnaire in void gear, visor clear and internal lights shining around her face. He kept his eyes down and his body turned away from her, thinking he should recognize her but didn’t. The idea was strange and disorienting. Why should he know her? Why did she seem angrier and more suspicious than other Ibarrans?
“I was just checking a sensor reading. There was something funny, but it turned out to be nothing.”
“Hey, look at me,” she said, moving closer.
Gor’al shuffled away, trying to appear as though he were working on something. “I really need to check this sensor.”
“You need to stop what you’re doing right now and look at me,” she demanded.
Gor’al continued to struggle with the feeling he should know her. Maybe it was because Garrison and Duke told endless stories about how difficult redheads were. He didn’t like the way this one was pushing him around, even though he wasn’t actually being pushed. It was human thing to say. Thinking in Terran English was difficult. His translation device didn’t always help.
He didn’t have a good ear for human languages, but he felt the woman spoke the Ibarran Basque language less naturally than others he had encountered.
“I said stop right there,” she said, advancing rapidly.
Gor’al braced himself, knowing it was now impossible to avoid a fight. “Duke, can you hear me? I need assistance.”
“What the hell did you just say?” She grabbed him by his shoulder.
“Nothing. I said nothing.” He tried to pull away. “I was not trying to summon help.”
He swallowed hard, embarrassed by his inept attempt at subterfuge.
She spun him around and looked through his visor, hesitating at first because he had it set to maximum darkness, but quickly realizing he wasn’t human. “You’re Dotari!”
“I can explain!” Gor’al said, even though he knew this was false. There was no way to convince her he belonged here.
She grabbed him by one arm and tried to spin him around, probably to restrain him or take him to the ground. He twisted free and shoved her back.
For one second, she stared at him incredulously. “Keep your hands where I can see them,” she said, drawing a pistol and pointing it at him.
He drew his weapon, sidestepping when she fired. A second later, he rushed forward and knocked her backward, hoping to disarm her and end the fight quickly.
She counter-grabbed him and knocked his weapon free. He opened his visor and bit her on her wrist, forcing her to drop her gauss pistol.
He rushed forward, slamming her against the wall. She was lean and he thought he could overpower her, but she surprised him, driving her knee into his stomach, creating a small bit of distance so she could slam an elbow into his visor. The force was enough to drive him backward.
He kicked her in the chest as soon as he recovered his own balance. She grunted as air whooshed from her lungs and she staggered backward, trying to aim one-handed even as she flipped her void helmet visor down with the other.
Gor’al hissed a war cry and tackled her, yanking her legs into the air and driving her head downward. The impact rattled her teeth even with her helmet on and Gor’al dropped his weight on her to increase the effect. He hadn't practiced his Dotari martial arts for a long time and had only been a mediocre student of something the humans called “akidoka” or “karateka,” maybe ja’tak’don, but that still made him pretty good in this type of fight.
The woman held her weapon away from him with one hand and used the other to fend off his attack. Whenever he tried to pin her, she thrust up her hips and twisted out from under him, forcing him to scramble back into a dominant position. She was very strong and fought like a banshee.
He drove his knee into the side of her leg several times, causing her to grunt in pain.
"Ungrateful asshole," the woman said.
Gor’al didn't understand the insult.
"Your entire population would've been wiped out if not for us," she said, slamming her elbow into the side of his helmet again and again.
Gor’al spat another battle curse in her face, hissing to add emphasis. He struggled against her strength, overwhelming her inch by inch. "We owe. The Ibarrans. Nothing."
"That's not what I…" She seemed confused as he started to choke her out, applying pressure gradually to the side of her neck to cut off blood flow to her brain. "Before I was…"
She muttered something Gor’al couldn't make out, something that might've been an Ibarran, as if she hadn’t been dropped out of a tube like all the rest of Stacey Ibarra’s soldiers. Of course she had. She was one of the tube babies the megalomaniac leader of their nation used as legionnaires, even if she fought like a Strike Marine.
“I hate to do this, but it is better than killing you," Gor’al assured the unconscious woman. He bound her with cables from a supply closet, then located a storage locker. He broke commo modules off her helmet and tossed them under a tool box. It took three hard pushes to shove her inside and force the door shut. “I really hope you survive this unfortunately necessary confinement.”
He checked the vents near the top of the locker door, jabbing the tips of his fingers through to make sure the gaps were clear. He imagined she would yell for help the second she awoke.
****
"What's your status, Gor?" Duke asked through a static-filled connection.
Gor’al rushed from corner to corner, desperately trying to remember his way back to the hatch. His HUD helped, but he'd come farther than he remembered. At every corner, he feared encountering another legionnaire. It seemed that the strange woman was unusually vigilant this time of night watch.
What had she meant when she claimed to have saved Dotari? He shook off the thoughts and concentrated on what he was doing. Slipping through the hatch to rejoin Duke was both satisfying and terrifying. He really didn't like extra vehicle activities.
"What took you so long?" the sniper asked.
"I had to tie up a redheaded human woman and put her in a closet,” Gor’al said.
"You have my attention," Duke said, turning to face Gor’al.
“I was almost done with my task when she accosted me. We fought like Titans. In the end, I was victorious."
Duke looked skeptical and slightly alarmed. "You just tied her up and put her in a closet?"
"What else should I have done?" Gor’al asked.
>
“Who was she? What’d she do to get stuck guarding a space dock?”
“We did not trade names while we traded blows. Is that how humans normally join battle? ‘Hello, I’m Gor’al the Dotari. Accept my fist in your sternum. Pleased to meet you.’”
Duke shrugged. "Fine. Let's continue the mission."
Chapter 20
Hoffman turned away from the police station to stare down the street toward the insane asylum, deciding it must have been a school or an old-world hospital before being converted into what it was now. The electric fence, including the coils of razor wire at the top, stood out as a brutal reminder of its new purpose.
The metal chain links gleamed in the sun, more than adequate to keep prisoners in and intruders out. He gathered his thoughts, watching for patrols or other factors he’d missed during their initial assessment.
Garrison, Max, and Booker argued, and Hoffman held up one hand for them to stop.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” said Hoffman. “Booker and I will go into the station to make a report. We’ll tell them someone stole her cat or something. Give us about five minutes, then Garrison comes in and makes a scene in the lobby. Max, I want you to play it cool and be invisible.”
“Then what?” asked Max. “I just start typing away at one of their computers and shut down the node to the mental-hospital perimeter fence? It’s probably much more heavily guarded than it looks. If my readings are right, the police station controls security functions for this entire section of the city, not just the insane asylum.”
“I understand. We have to be flexible. If we get in there and it’s obvious this won’t work, then we finish up our playacting and back out. For example, if there are hard security barriers between you and where you need to get to a computer, just scout what you can and leave. We’ll meet back at the sports bar.”
“Finally, a part of this plan I like,” Garrison exclaimed.
Hoffman continued. “From what I’ve seen so far, their security shouldn’t be like what we’re used to back in Phoenix or on a starship. Look down the street. Everything’s set up for citizens. Even the cops pander to them.”