Madame Guillotine

by Jason Anspach

  “Tyrus Rechs,” said the slimy unshaven dock rat in a dirty suit standing in front of them, wiping a sweaty hand across his dirty scoundrel’s vest.

  And suddenly all the tension in the greeting bunker went and took itself off on vacation. Because the name Tyrus Rechs meant what it meant.

  “He’s here?” asked the LT incredulously. “On the ground? On Detron?”

  * * *

  It was ironic. In fact, it was very ironic that at just the very moment Giles Longfree was alerting General Sheehan’s chain of command that the most wanted criminal in the galaxy was here on Detron and active inside their AO, that trouble came in bunches.

  Rechs had found that to be true. Operations never got easier; they had a tendency to grow hydra tentacles and multiply off in unintended directions drawing more and more stuff, people, enemies, connections, hazardous materials, explosives, random armed psychotics, and the occasional sociopath, into the vortex of an operation.

  Rechs knew that because he’d learned it because he’d lived it. Every plan went sideways sooner rather than later. Don’t get upset. Just adapt and overcome. And always stay on mission.

  Except Rechs didn’t realize at that moment that variable number two had just hit the deck on Detron. Arriving via jump shuttle from the mid-core world that had been its origin point, a brand-new variable had set down inside the Docks. Arriving in-system and transferring off the destroyer Castle from the hangar deck to a drop transport inbound with fresh replacements for the marines. Everyone on board was big, bad, and scared. Some dealt with it by talking about how much they were looking forward to the situation going hot.

  Then, they promised each other, it was full auto rock-n-roll, brothers and sisters. Game on!

  The Legion officer among them just rolled his one good eye, a patch covering the other, and made sure none of them touched the tactical package he’d brought with him. The Legion-stamped anthracite gray clamshell case lay on the deck. Everyone saw it. And no one messed with it.

  The drop transport came in over the cliffs of the Docks and fell thirty stories down into the red-and-ochre dust-covered floor of the world’s broken canyons and dry volcanic plains. Vast crevasses, like lightning strikes forever frozen in stone, shot off in every direction. The old shipyards that lay within them were like uncovered graves, and some of the more knowledgeable marines tried to identify the remains of the old warships by the skeletons that remained.

  Repulsors flared, and the drop transport landed inside the marine Green Zone atop a tall modular LZ overwatched by three prefab gun towers. Brief glimpses of the city showed those disembarking a view of the tall wagon-wheel towers climbing up into the red-ash-flavored sky. Smoke drifted, or just clung, to the upper reaches of the towers. And through this miasma SLICs laden with marines swarmed the city. Even over the howl of the drop transport’s engines—the pilot was keeping the idle high for a fast dustoff to clear the pad for the next load incoming, or maybe simply because she didn’t want to stick around too long—they could hear the drums and roar of the crowd that thronged the front of the Docks and infected every city street for as far as the eye could see. It felt like a frozen tidal wave of seething anger that would break at any moment and wash over them all.

  Smoke flares arched over the crowd’s vast length, as did giant inflatable beach balls. A thousand chants came up at the scared disembarking marines and the NCOs who’d been assigned to “greet” them on the pad. The sergeants quickly took charge and gave the new replacements something to be afraid of other than the mob, their voices barking like they’d just swallowed some caustic cleaning chemical. Immediately humiliating anyone who managed to stumble, or stare too long, at what the marines were facing on the Docks.

  Amid the barking, the Legion officer with the one eye activated the micro-repulsor lifts on the clamshell and made sure the case’s settings indicated it would follow him wherever he went. The package levitated off the deck, and the officer, in Legion duty uniform, stepped off the drop transport and onto the modular landing pad, beholding the spectacle and pomp of the useless twits who thought they could affect the balance of power within the House and Senate.

  They had no idea.

  No idea they were nothing more than pawns in a game that had been going on for centuries. But in a way, even though they didn’t know it, they were on the same side he was. And he found that mildly amusing.

  Captain Hess pulled his black Legion beret from off his shoulder clasp and affixed it atop his skull, taking a moment to make sure it was just right.

  Dress. Right. Dress.

  Sure, he’d been thrown out of Nether Ops only recently. Except they hadn’t called it “thrown.” But technically he was still assigned to them while all the internal reviews went down on the misconduct and incompetence charges he was currently facing regarding his prosecution of the hunt for Tyrus Rechs.

  It was ridiculous. It was as though he were the criminal and not Tyrus Rechs.

  Hess laughed to himself as he watched some of the protestors try to breach the wire farther down the Docks. Rolling old flaming cylinders probably filled with some low-grade explosives into the wire. Sure, the wire was breached, but the marines in the prefab gun towers working the mounted SABs would cut them down in a second if the protestors got two meters into the clearly identified kill zone. No doubt about it. Then the cries of “massacre” would start, as would the inquiries and civil suits. It was a mess waiting to happen. Every NCO and officer knew it. Hess could practically smell their fear. He’d experienced a raw deal himself for all the same reasons.

  “All this,” muttered Hess, and didn’t finish the rest out loud. For a couple of legionnaires.

  He wasn’t supposed to be here.

  Hess’s mission was over. But that was only what Nether Ops command had had to say. According to Hess… his only way out from under his charges was to finally get Tyrus Rechs. By himself if that’s what it took.

  Then… all would be forgiven.

  He walked down the ramp of the prefab landing pad and made his way toward the OIC on duty. He had enough of a bogus story that no one could really check it out. Nether Ops had taught him how to do that much. It would give him a little working room. Nether Ops had basically told him that in so many words left unspoken.

  Hadn’t they?

  Yes. They must have. Because Hess knew of other agents who had failed and had paid for it with their lives. Because there’s no place to put someone who knows too much except the dirt. And Hess was still alive. Which meant… all would be forgiven.

  35

  Tyrus Rechs knew well what the scatterblaster death-gripped between his claws, because that’s what they felt like, the claws of a wild beast howling at the moon, did to the body.

  At close range and tight quarters, it tore flesh to shreds. Because of its overpowered nature even armor didn’t stand up well. The scatterblaster was both a professional’s weapon… and an amateur’s. It was an equalizer. It made whoever was employing one a force to be reckoned with. The weapon was unforgiving and not to be taken lightly when encountered. In the hands of Tyrus Rechs it became a tool of fury and vengeance. And he became a kind of angel of death.

  A narrow warren of tight quarters was a perfect hunting ground for someone like Tyrus Rechs. Especially with that weapon.

  The lives of a leej and a marine were on the line. The link to finding them was in there, in Basement Six, according to good actionable intel. The basement had gone dark after the initial capture, according to the kid. Now it was active once more. Information would be found there.

  And the kid Rechs tailed went in there. At a minimum, that meant someone more important than the little puke was inside. That’s how it worked.

  Rechs was going to use the scatterblaster to force his way to the leejes. No. Leej. There’s just one left now.

  He stowed the weapon on his back.

  Obser
vation of the location indicated that while it surely contained pros who would be treated accordingly… the location was also filled with amateurs and pretenders who misguidedly thought they were pros themselves. Affirmation by association.

  Rechs liked to avoid needless loss of life among those types… when he could. But there would be pros in there. Shooters with blasters capable of using them regardless of the amateurs that might get in the way. Mixing both made things messy, if one cared. Which always worked best for the other side because they didn’t seem to care. Just wanted to ignore classifications and let the coroners sort the dead. There was an argument to be made for both approaches.

  But Rechs had learned that you lived with your actions. And he’d lived a long time. It was easier to do things you weren’t going to have a hard time living with.

  And the scatterblaster wasn’t selective or discriminatory. Firing blasts in a wide cone, it shredded anyone who managed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Down sight from Tyrus Rechs was always a bad place to be. Tight corridors made things worse. There wouldn’t be room to discriminate in there.

  Also, he had to take this Rattclopp alive.

  And time was running out. Had already run out for the leej named Beers.

  Rechs pulled a stun baton from the tactical bag and gave it a deft flick. The slender baton extended out two lengths and popped a blue spark, indicating its readiness for action.

  The bounty hunter crossed the street, passing a few streaming clusters of resisters on their way to the next flashpoint in the riot carnival. Off the street and on the curb with just ten meters to the set of stairs that led down into the warren known as Basement Six, Rechs pulled the hand cannon off his hip holster. A targeting synch from the powerful weapon appeared in his HUD.

  He selected single-fire.

  Accuracy for effect.

  He rounded the steps leading down to the basement and saw two large Soshies on the landing below. The Savage-era armor immediately identified, graphed, and outlined the weapons they were carrying. Subcompact blasters in hand. A pistol for each inside the jacket. One with a holdout as well.

  But Rechs didn’t need the armor’s weapons scanning to see they were pros. He knew by the way they carried the subcompacts and the LCEs each one strapped. Load-carrying equipment with actual military-grade equipment fastened on. Flashbangs, charge-pack carriers, even blast deflectors across their chests. No seamball bats, imitation katanas, hoverbike locks, or neon-green paracord carabiners with dangling, sticker-covered water bottles attached.

  Rechs shot them both in the chest with little flair and almost zero interval. You can be a pro… but surprise is surprise.

  He didn’t need to finesse this first contact. He just needed to make sure both were down so he could violate their secret bunker system. The hand cannon boomed powerfully in rapid succession as Rechs put the fifty-caliber slugs into them. The blast-deflector carriers across their chests did little to mitigate the effects, as those armor systems were intended for something much less powerful. Not old-school dumb slugs of depleted uranium, chemically propelled.

  Both dead men crumpled to the dirty well of the landing, one gasping and reaching skyward while the other just chose to hurry along and die. A look of shame on his face because he’d been caught so flat-footed.

  Rechs boosted his armor’s cybernetic assist and kicked in the reinforced steel door that guarded the bunker. The broad daylight came in with him, and the midnight beyond the portal ahead seemed to shrink from Rechs. Targeting threw imaging filters for every light-source grade within his field of vision. What needed to be amplified was amplified. What was hidden was plain.

  Rechs saw a lot of surprised kids sitting completely motionless inside some kind of common room. And one babysitter pro with a medium blaster. The guy immediately moved into shooting stance, thinking he had a good sight picture on Rechs’s silhouette filling the kicked-in door and framed by the tired orange afternoon daylight of Detron.

  Like it was his lucky day.

  Jittery, he fired his blaster twice and hit the doorframe. Of course he’d gone from complete inaction—babysitting a bunch of tools whom he had to watch posture with lotus pipes in their mouths while chanting various lyrics from their resistance mixes—to suddenly finding himself with a first move in a firefight. That he got two shots off so quickly was to his credit. That he’d aimed badly reflected on poor training and low-grade mission discipline.

  He paid the price in the next second.

  Rechs blew off the shooter’s head, allowing the HUD to clearly paint the target as the bounty hunter ducked to both pass through the doorway and shrink his profile.

  The massive barrel of the hand cannon still smoking, Rechs moved further into Basement Six and scanned for new threats. A big kid came at him with a lead pipe, probably thinking of himself as a threat. But before he could even strike, Rechs smashed him in his bulbous nose with the solid butt of the hand cannon.

  The kid went down on his knees, screaming in nasal tones. Unaware that the only reason Rechs hadn’t killed him was because he was lucky enough to be an amateur.

  Another kid playing at being a tough guy came at the bounty hunter in a rush, thinking the little pig-sticker he’d brought to the riot would do the trick. That he’d somehow have better success. The kid was small and mean-faced. Beady eyes that moved quickly. Chances were he’d pulled this move before. Chances were he’d come from the tough neighborhoods of some not-too-good world and got caught up at the university in the resistance. The knife skills he’d learned on the streets probably came in handy every so often among the sheltered kids whose parents had taken out loans from the banks to pay for all that the Republic still wouldn’t. Mainly just room and board.

  That’s what he was probably thinking as he tried to dance in and make a quick gut cut near Rechs’s belt: that he knew how to bring down this intruder. Find a place where the synthprene was exposed. If he was lucky, the kid would end this right here.

  But he wasn’t lucky. The wicked little curved knife merely drew a fine scratch along Rechs’s armored chest plate. The armor had a lot of scratches and damage, so the mark would fit right in.

  Rechs smashed the stun baton down on the kid’s shoulder and watched the little punk light up as twenty thousand volts surged through his body. He did a spasmodic jig for half a second and then collapsed from neural overload.

  The charge was spent and the weapon wouldn’t reload until Rechs swapped out a battery pack or dragged it along a surface that could draw enough static electricity to convert to a full charge. But it still worked in analog as a club. Everything did. That was as old as mankind.

  Two more kids rushed the bounty hunter, who wasn’t caught off guard, but was surprised at their tenacity. Hanging out with pros and taking on the helpless had clearly emboldened them. But these two didn’t even get their feet under them as they pushed off the dirty couch they’d been sitting on with a couple of girls clad in designer T-shirts that just barely fit the Soshie color scheme.

  Rechs smacked one on the jaw with a quick swipe of the baton and was rewarded with the solid crunch of bone. The snap was so loud both girls shrieked.

  But Rechs wasn’t done. The backhand of the stroke that took down the first attacker hit the side of the second’s face and probably fractured the skull.

  “You broke his jaw!” said one of the stoned Soshies on the floor who’d wisely chosen not to get involved in all this “hassle.” But that didn’t stop him from attempting to shame Rechs for doing what he’d done.

  “He’ll live,” muttered Rechs, the armor modulating his voice to nightmare. “Get out. Now! All of you!”

  They hesitated for a second, then began to scramble to their feet.

  And then Rechs saw the body.

  The body of the leej named Beers.

  He was a kid himself. Just barely older than these, still south of h
is third decade. The kid’s corpse lay on the floor. Discarded. His neck stretched. His head badly hacked off.

  His propaganda value spent.

  And if these kids were willing to sit through and around something like that… what made them deserve his mercy?

  Rechs would kill them all in that instant.

  “Get out of here!” he shouted to get them clear of his murderous self.

  Sensing the peril they were in, they fled through the door into the streets of Detron.

  Rechs strode past the body, knowing a Legion or marine recovery team would soon be on hand to take it on that long journey back home.

  But Tyrus Rechs had other business to see to first.

  From further within the warren of Basement Six, shadows shifted position. The B-team was down. And now something akin to a Soshie QRF was mobilizing to meet its contingency. But while they likely expected a marine fire team or Legion kill team, they would instead find a crazed bounty hunter driven to run down their remaining prizes.

  Rechs could see them in the highlighted darkness, moving to respond to the carnage he’d begun.

  Blaster fire careened down the dimly lit hall. Bolts illuminating the darkness as they streaked toward Rechs. The armor’s sensors swept the area and detected multiple inbound threats. Rechs fired at a moving shadow and may have gotten a hit.

  And then he charged.

  It was the best thing he could do. He needed to close ground and find a new position now that they were coming his way. The common room he’d entered was open to fire from all quarters. Not a good place to hold out for a firefight. He needed to get in and among them. A short dash down one hall led him to a flimsy wooden door. Rechs shouldered right through it, taking him out of the line of fire but right into the midst of a pro who was busy with one of the young resister girls.

  Or rather, had been busy. Most of her clothes were still off and the guy quickly brought a snub-nosed blaster to her head.

  “I’ll kill her, buddy!” he screamed desperately at Rechs. His eyes were wild and freaking out.