Madame Guillotine

by Jason Anspach

  That stopped everyone.

  Hess had the general’s attention. As well as the rest of the command staff. To them, he was a legionnaire. To the general, he was a spook from Nether Ops. And both general and command staff were listening accordingly.

  Funny how sinners become saints when people get desperate enough, thought Hess in one corner of his mind.

  “I can stop him and give your marines enough time to take advantage of this chaos,” Hess said. “Perhaps identify the location and hit it to secure our personnel.”

  The general studied the twisted and scarred figure of Captain Hess. He looked capable despite the old injuries and missing eye that he for some unknown reason had decided not to repair. Things were turning into a mess. That was clear enough.

  “Make it happen, Captain.” The general turned to his adjutant. “Colonel Styles, get this man what he needs and shut down the planet-pounder before it can cause more damage.”

  Ten minutes later, Captain Hess was kitted up in the Legion armor Nether Ops had once provided him, aboard a gunship-configured SLIC lifting off over the marine-held docks, flying above the edge of the vast sprawl of the tired old city.

  49

  Three floors up, Rechs entered the public areas of the building. It was two minutes’ work to identify a target using the armor’s sensor scan. Rechs moved swiftly through a shadowy atrium that had once held some sort of hanging garden display. Now the giant off-world ferns were nothing more than dead skeletons and the dirty floor below was littered with dry trash and dead leaves. One of the pros was watching the central well from a balcony two stories above.

  Bio-sensors indicated that many of the rooms held groups of people. All of them huddled or unmoving. But alive. Prisoners, presumably. Most likely citizens the Soshies wanted to keep out of the way. Or perhaps they were being held hostage to bargain for petty ransoms.

  There was also a third option…

  But that was none of Rechs’s business. The huddled masses were none of his concern. He was here for the legionnaire and the marine. That was all.

  And they would be held up higher. Closer to the top of the building.

  And yet, as he passed the doors behind which clustered what he presumed were civilian prisoners, Rechs felt a nagging sense of responsibility. He decided he needed to at least verify his theory that the people in the rooms were captives held against their will.

  Moving down an unlit hall lined with old apartments, he tested one of the doors by waving his gauntlet over the access panel. Normal tech would have either opened the door or announced a ringtone that someone was visiting. Neither happened. Instead all Rechs got was the panel turning red and a ghostly hologram asking him for a passkey.

  Locked from the outside.

  Rechs debated what to do. They were safer trapped in there if the rescue turned into a firefight. But leaving them in the hands of terrorists looking to make a point could make them the next sacrificial victim once Rechs had deprived the Soshies of the leej and the marine.

  He checked the panel. He could hack it from here, but not without burning up a lot of time. He needed to find the central security panel.

  But first he needed to find out what was going on.

  He moved toward a balcony that sat off of a grand room, the sort that looked to be the epicenter of parties long ago. His sensors indicated that a sentry was standing on a similar balcony directly above him. Rechs dropped his tac bag, set down his blaster, and engaged the armor’s stealth systems. Then he stepped to the edge of the balcony and began to climb to the next one up using the powered armor to dig himself a grip.

  Like a trap eel, Rechs lunged upward, grabbed the sentry by his carrying harness, and yanked him over the railing. At the same moment, with all his might, he added to the man’s momentum by yanking him down onto the balcony below. The sound of his neck breaking as he went face first onto the hard duracrete floor filled the bounty hunter’s audio receptors.

  Breathing heavily and listening to the silence of the building, Rechs waited for a response.

  Nothing. No one had heard. Just the muffled sound of the rioters chanting out there in the hot streets toward the end of the day. A few distant explosions and their ever-present drums. And the marines in their SLICs. And one more sound that shouldn’t have been among the cacophony… the rhythmic pounding of HK-PP legs striking the streets. Coming this way.

  That would have everyone’s attention.

  Rechs stripped the dead man of his comm and listened in once he had it synced into his own bucket.

  The first thing he heard was exactly what he’d hoped. They were reacting. Departing from their plan. Making it easier to run his.

  They were shifting the prisoners.

  50

  “Rechs, Gabi here. I’m leaving this message to let you know I’ve uncovered something really big that links to Syl Hamachi-Roi, who I still think gave the message to the Soshies to go ahead with… their little guillotine act.

  “Years ago, the Guild did business with a financier known as Zauro. We ran an extraction mission to get him away from a Nether Ops hit squad that was out to get him. All of this went down a long time ago near the end of the Savage Wars. Anyway, this Zauro was acting as an arms dealer for the Savages who were then having trouble putting together weapons and equipment after the debacle at Cassandra’s Folly. Word was he was selling next-gen tech direct to them. Stuff the Republic had used to destroy the last of their cruisers during the Legion boarding surge that marked the end of it all.

  “So here’s where it gets murky, and it’s not one of the Guild’s proudest moments. But we took a lot of credits to get him off Ankalor with no less than three Nether Ops hit teams closing in. Big op, bad day. Lost six Guild members in less than a cycle. Before your time. Way before mine. Anyway, the Guild hid Zauro for years in safe houses. Guy’s a longevity mummy. You know, always paying for the latest upgrades in life extension. Years in cryo coffins doing business with his mind only. About twenty-five years ago he let the protection contract run out. Frankly, the Guild hierarchy at the time was glad to be rid of him. Lotta weird Savage voodoo stuff involved. Was a big collector of their artifacts.

  “One of Archangel’s associates… let’s call him the Reader. Well… it’s Reader’s job to know everything for the Guild committee’s private consumption. He keeps the decision-makers informed. Anyway, Reader kept an active file open for years and concluded Zauro had been silently laying the groundwork for something political. Something big.

  “Reader didn’t have any hard evidence, but he knew Zauro was financing a lot of campaigns for House of Reason seats. He was using front groups to finance groundswell campaigns made to look like grassroots initiatives by the locals. Look close enough, you find the organizations are always slick and ready to go, professionally run from the get-go.

  “I’m telling you all this because, one… Reader tagged Zauro as a very bad guy, felt he wanted to destabilize the galaxy. And two… and I have no direct evidence of this… but Zauro is still a wanted war criminal because of his dealings with the Savages. Which still carries an automatic death penalty via Legion tribunal. Which is to say, a visit from a kill team.

  “So, Syl Hamachi-Roi’s campaign is straight out of the Zauro playbook. Linking her to Zauro would shut that little slut down overnight.

  “I’m sorry. I know that sounds harsh. It’s just that… anyway, never mind. I hope you’re okay. I’m leaving this message because maybe you can find something that makes the case. Do that and we can get a little payback for…”

  Gabriella paused.

  Rechs would listen to the message later. But she paused as though whatever she was about to say got caught in her throat.

  “…for the… sergeant… and the kid who didn’t make it back. Okay. I’m here, Rechs, when you need me. I’ll be standing by at all hours. I’m in a coffee shop. It’s late where I’
m at. But… I can help. If you need me. We can get this girl… I have her flagged as Madame Guillotine in the Guild archives. That’s how much I believe she’s the one who made Detron all happen. We can pin a connection to Zauro on her. We can prove it.”

  Then nothing. Just the end of a long message Rechs would have to listen to later.

  51

  “Lyra,” whispered Rechs over the comm as he moved through the halls of the building, trying to avoid the clusters of pros. The sensor-sweep readings indicated they were starting to group up in order to evac the building. Their comm traffic he was listening in on confirmed as much.

  “Yes, Tyrus,” replied the Obsidian Crow’s AI.

  “Gears up. Fly evasive to my loc. LZ to be designated upon arrival. Most likely going to be hot.” Then Rechs cut the comm before her insecurity could rise up and she talked herself out of flying… herself.

  The booms of the incoming mech’s legs striking the ground were now seriously shaking the building. The little Nubarian had done the trick and freaked out the pros. Over comm they were bleating rather unprofessionally about getting out of there before they got stomped. Once or twice Rechs heard the voice of someone in charge giving terse orders to “stand by” and “hold your position until we get the prisoners out.”

  The voice was clipped, cruel, and efficient.

  And Rechs was pretty sure it belonged to Loth. He’d been around the man, briefly. Just one of those times where more than one bounty hunter is looking to do the same job. Rechs had gotten it done, and they’d exchanged what passed for pleasantries.

  The powerful mauler cannon mounted atop the inbound HK-PP shrieked out a powerful whine, rattling hiss, and then massive BOOOOOM as it decimated some structure a few blocks away.

  Keep it up, little guy, thought Rechs.

  The bounty hunter continued to listen from the shadows within the building, avoiding the panicked pros as they tried to evacuate. Watching.

  He needed to know the route they’d assigned to get the legionnaire and the marine out. Then he could ascertain how best to take them once the pros decided to execute the transfer. Everything was happening fast. On the fly. And really there was no margin for error.

  For them. Or for him.

  The whole situation had all the makings of something that could go horribly wrong at any moment and get a bunch of people killed. But it was the only chance the legionnaire and the marine had. So Rechs decided to take it.

  “Extraction convoy inbound for link-up,” noted one of the pros over the comm. The voice and matter-of-fact demeanor almost the opposite of the rest of the channel. “ETA three minutes.”

  Rechs calculated. They weren’t going for the quick escape via the lone vehicle in the garage. They wanted a whole convoy to protect the precious props that were their prisoners. Now was the time to deny them. All he needed was a route to the link-up.

  He waited. A veteran like no other of operations such as this, Rechs knew the route, or some hint of the route, would come next. A last-minute decision made amid the chaos.

  “We’re going for the east stairwell. Moving them now.”

  It was the voice he’d identified as possibly Loth’s. Terse. Hard. In charge. Demanding everyone not fail. All of that in between the words. Rechs knew the type.

  The bounty hunter studied the building map in his HUD. He found the east stairwell relative to his position and scanned for an intercept point.

  Then he heard the next transmission and felt a chill right down to his bones.

  “Set the charges to blow the building for ten. That means we got two minutes to clear once the convoy arrives. No room for error, people,” demanded the cruel-voiced man. “They’ll think the mech fired on the building. Damn thing’s doing our job for us better than we can do it ourselves. Investigations will prove otherwise, but that’ll take weeks and by then it won’t matter. I’m telling you all this so you understand how close we are. Every one of you who survives will be retired and living on the interest.”

  They were going to kill everyone in the building and blame it on the HK-PP. Rechs didn’t think it was a half-bad improvised plan, and it reminded him not to underestimate Loth. Not that he would have anyway. Not that he ever did with anyone he faced. Pros were as deadly as Sontherian pit vipers, and even amateurs got lucky.

  “On it,” said someone. One of the pros. “Heading for Maintenance Five to arm the device.”

  Rechs scrubbed the intercept point. He had to shut down the bomb first.

  52

  Moving fast, Puncher and Baldur took the back streets of Detron’s Heights district, avoiding the crowds and closing in on the last known location of Shaker and the marine.

  Trouble, thought Baldur, the dog keeping pace with the huffing leej.

  “Yeah,” gasped Puncher out of his armor. The SAB was killing him. He too could see the massive mech rising above the buildings down the street. From this angle it looked like it was headed straight for the same location he was. Except they were closer. Just a block away.

  Trouble… warned the dog again.

  Closing, they slowed to a walk, returning to the guise of wandering homeless. The armor tagged all the hostiles in the intersection and wide plaza surrounding the possible location of Shaker and the marine.

  Puncher had been in his fair share of uneven fights. Had even walked away the winner in a couple. But there were simply too many this time. There was no easy way to do this. And most likely, he would get himself and the dog killed.

  Good thing I brought the SAB, he thought.

  Because if it came right down to it, he’d blast his way in, if only for the reason that he wouldn’t have to die alone that way.

  If only for that.

  Every leej has a last fight. And as far as he could give an account of himself… he hadn’t forgot nothin’.

  53

  Rechs raced for Maintenance Five. It was two flights up a central stairwell and down a long hall. There was no way he was letting a hundred or so people die in an explosion the marines would get blamed for. It would cost him his intercept, but maybe he could still hit them on the street and possibly take over the vehicle they were in. Then drop a new rendezvous location to link up with Lyra and the Crow.

  Bad plan going to worse… but it was all he had now. Adapt and overcome. Everything was in motion and would be until it was finished.

  Win, lose, or die.

  He pounded down the hallway, Jackknife deployed into subcompact mode in one hand as he pulled for all he was worth to reach the bomb. If they armed the device before he got there, then he’d have to hope he could hack it. And hope he had time.

  Which didn’t seem likely.

  Three silhouettes of armed men appeared at the end of the hall and stopped suddenly, seeing the running armored bounty hunter headed straight at them. Blaster fire came at Rechs in an instant.

  The access door to Maintenance Five lay between both parties. And now they would fight to reach it first. Winner take all.

  Rechs smashed through a flimsy makeshift door that entered a vacant apartment halfway down the hallway’s length. He crashed through just in time to avoid getting hit by the incoming blaster fire.

  As he heard them trying to run for the access door to Maintenance Five, he held the blaster out the door and pulled the trigger on full-auto. The Jackknife was a ridiculously efficient pray-and-spray weapon. Within five seconds, it had spat out a hundred tiny needle-sized blasts and run its charge bone-dry.

  Rechs stepped out in the hall and was greeted by three dead men. He slapped in a new charge pack and advanced on the maintenance room.

  A second later, two fraggers bounced out to greet him from the maintenance room and exploded, devastating walls and doors and sending fragments into Rechs’s armor. The blast knocked him back and spun him round into a wall.

  His HUD went down for a secon
d, but he held on to the blaster. Mind wonky and reeling, he stumbled to right himself and moved toward the door, knowing he’d taken a hot burning fragment in the forearm. He entered the maintenance room shooting because there was no other choice. And no time left.

  The guy on the comm who’d said he was going to handle it had gotten there first. He was calling in status reports, telling the team of pros that they had contact. He had two other men with him. The three in the hallway had been insurance.

  Rechs dropped all three men the moment he swung into the room, spraying them with bursts from the Jackknife as if flinging drops of water from wet hands. They fell as one, and the guy who’d come down to arm the bomb looked at the bounty hunter with terror in his eyes.

  Rechs shot him a dozen times, his blast-rattled mind reeling and distant as his eyes took in the one most salient fact among the carnage.

  The bomb had already been armed.

  Its countdown clock read seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds… six… five…

  “Damn,” muttered Rechs.

  The device was top-grade. That was for sure. He could already see a three-phase-redundancy arming trigger. That would take far too long to hack.

  Get out of the building. Now.

  The armor was already applying pressure to the fragment wound and hitting him with localized painkillers. An option appeared for more heavy-duty stuff along with some anxiety suppressors to deal with the wound. That meant it was possibly serious.

  But it would degrade his ability to perform.

  Scanning the room, he spotted a master building alarm panel. He ran through it quickly and found the failsafe building locks override. He hit this—and knew that every door, no matter how hard it had been locked down, would now force open. Unless it had a localized locking source outside the grid itself. But the doors Rechs had inspected hadn’t had that, meaning the prisoners should be able to at least open the doors of their cells… assuming they weren’t bound.