Suicide Run

by TS Hottle

  "Rendered? You're talking about draining a human being of a vital substance, then cutting her up into lab samples. Are you really that savage? Why not just clone her, you murderous bitch?"

  "Where's the fun in that, Yun?" She closed her eyes for a moment, as if anticipating reducing Jayne Best to clumps of meat to be sold to the highest bidder. "How many Section 11 executions did you perform during the occupation of Amargosa?"

  "Two. Far fewer than a lot of officers of my rank." She smiled. "During the last one I witnessed, your own toady became dinner for some angry natives." She waited as Salamacis's eyes widened. "Oh, yes. Seems they spotted you not long before a fusion blast destroyed Riverside. And one of my protégés saw your master speaking to Lucius Kray via hologram only hours before it happened."

  "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "Cybercommand does. What happens when your master…"

  "I'm no slave!"

  Suicide looked over the woman and made a show of studying her neatly tailored suit. "But you are. At least to fashion. Anyway, your boss. What happens to him when people stop believing he was a humble sales rep duped by a shadowy organization?"

  Salamacis gave a thin smile as she fingered her wrist chip. "How old are you, Commander Cui? Forty-five? Forty-six? You look good for someone who has not rejuved in ten years." She stroked her finger down Suicide's cheek. "Your marrow might make a good control sample to use against Jayne Best's." She stroked her whole hand down the cheek this time. "And I'm pretty sure you'll yield valuable tissue samples."

  Suicide resisted the urge to vomit. She wished she were Gelt at the moment. They could vomit at will, which would probably throw the ice queen off her game. "What happens when Amargosa does not hear from me?"

  Salamacis gave an exaggerated sigh. "Yun, Yun, Yun, you silly girl. You and your team were killed trying to extract Jayne Best, who was being held hostage by Goshenite Refusers."

  "Uh-huh, and what happens when Lady Yamato doesn't report back to Bonaparte? Or her strike team?"

  "Well, now, that complicates things, doesn't it?" Salamacis made a show of thinking, finger on chin, looking to the ceiling. "Perhaps I was being held hostage as well. So, you, your pretty little trust-fund baby copilot, and Lady Yamato all died trying to storm this facility. Who's to say otherwise? I can order the Khirovsky to destroy your ship as soon as we find it, and the evidence of your companions will be digesting in the gastric sacs of the audreys." She leaned into Suicide's face as though talking to a child now. "You don't understand, Yun. I have the entire Compact at my fingertips. The captain of the Khirovsky follows my orders as though they come from President Leitman."

  "Acting President Leitman."

  "Same thing. I am an extension of him." She sounded breathless, making Suicide wonder if the woman slept with Leitman. "I am his instrument."

  "Well, you are a tool." That made the hard slap from Salamacis so worth it.

  Two guards came for Suicide. She did not resist as they bound her wrists in front of her and took her by the arms. The walk down the corridor gave her time to study them. Light body armor, probably chest and back plates under the clothes. Same as police anywhere in the Compact, only with shabbier uniforms. Neither wore helmets.

  "What we wanna do wit' dis one," one of the guards said, speaking as though Suicide were not there.

  "Prolly cut her up for samples," said the other guard, a female.

  The accents had the twang of those not exposed to Compact media or off-worlders on a regular basis. Goshenites had such an accent, theirs sounding almost cockney. These sounded more like the Hill People of Jefivah, but sharper. They called Jefivah "the Appalachia of the Stars" for its poverty and perceived lack of culture. These locals made the Hill People look like the jaded dwellers of the Compact's major cities.

  Which meant that Juno had hired locally, expecting to need only a police force. It would explain how four—Well, three, since Partlow had worn his chest plate—unarmored people mounted an unplanned frontal assault on the building and walked inside to almost no resistance beyond the plants, the ones Salamacis called "audreys."

  Put it in the middle of literal nowhere, she thought, and worry only about the locals. Someone had thought enough to take out their chartered aircraft with a portable railgun. Had they come with Mitsuko's full team, armed for battle, the building would be a smoking crater when they finished.

  The route took them to the elevator where they had ridden. One of the guards ordered the lift to the fifth floor. As the doors closed, she willed herself to go limp.

  "What the hell?" the female muttered.

  "She's collapsed," the other one barked. "Get her up."

  They struggled to get her to her feet. She called on everything she knew to make herself go completely limp. They lowered her to the floor. One of them held her feet. She kicked.

  The man screamed. She kicked her legs out wide and took him down. Opening her eyes, she saw the remaining guard, slack jawed.

  "Hey, idiot," Suicide grunted. "Always bind a prisoner's hands from behind."

  "What?"

  She brought the binders up and slipped the chain behind the woman's neck. She yelped. Suicide pulled and dragged the woman forward. The guard tripped on her shoulders and went tumbling over, smacking into her companion. Suicide kicked again, partly to disable her captors and partly to use them as leverage to push her back against the wall.

  Someone, either intentionally or by falling against the panel, hit the elevator's emergency stop, causing the guards to fall. One of them clutched at a KR-7 pistol. She grabbed it, pulling the trigger as she did. The noise, amplified by the enclosed space, made her ears ring. Everyone flinched. The alarm going off didn't help matters.

  She fired again, hitting the woman in the face. The other went for his pistol. She squeezed off three shots, one going wide and embedding in the elevator's wall. She hoped she hadn't disabled the car. Pushing herself to her feet, she launched herself at her remaining captor. The barrel of her pistol buried itself in his gut.

  "Undo these binders," she said. "Now. And I'll let you live."

  "Bitch," he hissed. "You shot me in the knee."

  "Not my problem. Your problem is staying alive." She poked him with the gun. "Unlock them. Now."

  He did as he was told. Whenever he made a move to grab the gun, she jerked it.

  "I've got a round in the chamber, and it's cocked."

  The left bracelet clicked, freeing her arm from the other.

  "You said you wouldn't shoot me."

  "I did." She spun around, hoping the motion would confuse him, then brought her elbow down on his shoulder. He collapsed.

  "I said nothing about leaving you conscious." Of course, he was conscious, but the effect was the same. He wouldn't move for a few minutes. She killed the alarm and restarted the lift. She had the other bracelet off by the time it open. Two guards stood before her, KR-27s pointed at the door. "Oh, thank Marilyn, you're here," mimicking their twang and hoping they thought it was Jefivan. "He just went berserk. Killed the other one and almost killed me." Her eyes darted about as though she were looking for escape. "I knocked him out. Hurry. Before he gets another gun."

  She bounded off down the corridor. A bulkhead started descending from the ceiling. Suicide went into a slide and barely cleared it before it came down. The new guards were cut off. She scanned the corridor. No drones floated through the air. While the place had to have security cameras, she saw none in this section. Never mind the elevator. She was out and had no intention of going back.

  A man stepped out of an office, looking around at whatever the commotion was. Suicide used both hands to hit his shoulders where they met his neck. He sank to his feet. Another blow to the back of the neck put him down. Stunned, he would not be able to resist. She only wanted his lab coat and ID card, anyway.

  She still had the binders and cuffed him. Hands behind, of course. Then she patted him on the face. "Jayne Best, the Thulian. Where is she?"


  "Fuck you," said the man.

  Suicide took out the K-7 and pressed it against his nose. "I'm sorry. Does this make my question clearer?"

  "End of corridor. Turn right. Big double doors."

  "Is she intact? Because if they've carved her up and put into petri dishes, I'm going to be very, very upset."

  The man trembled. "They're harvesting her marrow. Have to go slow so it's not damaged."

  "Thank you for your assistance." She smacked him with the barrel of the pistol, stunning him again.

  Partlow waited by the double doors, his weapon up. He lowered it as soon as he saw Suicide. "Good God, someone was cheap on the training. I swear security outnumbers the medical personnel here. All I've seen are these black-suited guards, though. Nothing resembling a real paramilitary force."

  "Locals," she said. "They expected only to need a police force to handle whoever still lives in this dump. Where's Austin and Yamato?"

  "Don't know." He patted the KR-27 he now cradled. "Borrowed this from one of my captors. He kindly informed me with his final words that Madam Best is in here." He looked her over. "You've got blood on your face."

  "Combat hazard." She cocked her head toward the door. "Shall we?"

  They pushed through the door with their weapons up, fingers on triggers. Two people in surgical scrubs stood over a pale Jayne Best. One of them looked up. "You can't be in here," he said in a man's voice. "We can't have the marrow contaminated."

  Suicide targeted one of the surgeon's heads. "Unhook her now."

  "But Madam Salamacis said…" He never finished the sentence but dropped to the floor with a bloody hole in his forehead.

  "Do you have any objections?" asked Suicide, her weapon now trained on the remaining surgeon.

  The surgeon, with raised hands, said, "Please don't kill me." She had a woman's voice.

  "Then please unhook Madam Best and revive her. She's expected on Amargosa."

  "You're too late, anyway. We have enough bone marrow for our…"

  Suicide heard Partlow flip the switch on his KR-27 to full auto. He opened fire on a glass tank sitting near the surgical table, exploding it with a spray of bullets. She suspected the spray had been to make a point since one or two shots would have sufficed. The substance inside looked like blood, only darker and thicker. Hitting the tank would not have been her first choice, since Jayne Best would need replacement marrow as soon as possible.

  "You idiots." The surgeon put herself between Best and the shooters. "You've ruined…"

  Suicide fired a single shot over the woman's head from her pistol. "Look, Juno is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. So, I don't give a damn what's been ruined. Now unhook that woman, or I'll kill you with my bare hands."

  Partlow leaned into her. "Laying it on a bit thick, Commander."

  "Already killed one today."

  "I'm up to three. But remind me never to piss you off. Sir."

  The surgeon scurried to unhook Best from the tubes snaking into her thighs. She injected her with something. Jayne Best's eyes fluttered open.

  "What's happening to me?" she said. "Where am I?"

  Partlow covered the surgeon while Suicide helped Jayne off the table.

  "What did they do to me?" asked Jayne. She looked down at her bare thighs. "You're stealing my bone marrow?"

  Suicide aimed her pistol at the surgeon. "You. Give her your surgical gown."

  The surgeon complied, but said, "You'll never leave this facility alive."

  Suicide accepted the gown and gave it to Jayne to put on. "We got inside, didn't we?"

  "Commander," said Partlow. He gestured to another nearby table with an unconscious woman lying on it. Suicide studied it for a moment.

  It was Jez Salamacis.

  "What is that?" Suicide demanded.

  The surgeon laughed. "Madam Salamacis likes to have a backup whenever possible."

  "Backup. Of what?"

  The woman smiled in a way people did when they wanted someone to know they were screwed. "How do you think she killed the Sovereign of the Realm without leaving any evidence?"

  "It's a clone," said Jayne. "She uses stolen resurrection technology."

  "So, the charming bitch I spent time with earlier is…"

  "Another clone," said the surgeon. "Kill her, and she'll just pop up again somewhere else."

  Suicide pumped three rounds into the clone's chest and a fourth into its skull. "Not with this body." She shot the surgeon in the leg.

  "My knee," the woman cried out.

  "Grow a new one," said Suicide. "Madam Best, can you walk?"

  "I need help," said Jayne, "but yes."

  Partlow put his arm around her to support her.

  It took only a couple of minutes for them to be surrounded again. This time, four guards donned armor and helmets. Idly, as Suicide brought up her weapon, she wondered if the helmets had heads-up displays or merely kept the wearer from taking a bullet to the face. She squeezed off two rounds before they pushed her, Partlow, and Jayne Best into a corner. One round shattered a guard's visor. So, now she knew what kind of helmet they wore.

  "Hands on your heads," one of the remaining guards called out. "On your knees."

  Jayne did not need to be told. She sank to her knees as Partlow let go of her.

  One of the other guards reached for Suicide's weapon. A loud thump sounded. The guard's back stiffened before he fell. A second guard collapsed as his head fell off his shoulders. The leader whirled and saw what Suicide now saw.

  Mitsuko Yamato stood with her sword poised to swing, blood dripping from the blade. Next to her stood JT, looking pale, a patch of red staining his shirt. He held a KR-7 pistol at his side, his finger now out of the trigger guard. Both of them had full KR-27s slung on their backs. The surviving guard put up his hands.

  JT cocked his pistol. "I'll need your armor, your weapons, and the keys to a tracker, preferably armed."

  The guard's chest rose as though he were going to say something.

  "Let's not do this the hard way," he added. "We already have to shake your buddy's head out of his helmet."

  The guard's put his hands on his head as got down on his knees..

  Suicide knelt by the one she shot. "We'll need an extra helmet. And Austin, you look like shit."

  "Oh, good. You noticed."

  Partlow pulled off his shirt, leaving only his chest armor and undertunic. "I'm sure we can salvage a helmet on the way out. Give one to Madam Best here."

  "Just make it look like I'm a prisoner," said Jayne weakly.

  Suicide helped her to her feet. "They know we sprang you."

  They worked the dead guard's armor off and each put it on. Suicide helped Jayne with hers. "Good thing this isn't custom fitted, or we'd be screwed."

  "I can't breathe," said Jayne. "This thing is stifling."

  "She's not kidding," said JT. "Mitsuko, I think he puked right before you took his head off." The decapitated guard's head lay at his feet. "Please tell me you shot the ice queen."

  "No such luck," said Suicide, now helping herself to the surviving guard's armor. "Come on. Let's have it."

  He scowled up at her, his red hair matted with sweat. "You know they'll…"

  Mitsuko rammed the butt of her KR-27 into the back of his skull. "Sorry. Had enough speeches today."

  Suicide pulled on the survivor's helmet, which reeked of sweat, halitosis, and something that smelled like garlic. The armor itself was simple polymer plating, no servos to augment motion. Athletes in Etrusca's arenas wore more protection. She looked over at Jayne. "Can you make it down to the garage?"

  The helmet moved in a way suggesting a nod. "Yes," she breathed.

  "Stay in the middle. We'll hide your condition by surrounding you." She looked over at JT, himself swaying a bit. "That wound."

  "Just a lousy flesh wound," he said. "Mom."

  "I field-patched it," Mitsuko added, "but he needs a doctor or a nurse practitioner."

  "I'm okay."

>   "You're swaying. Yamato, stay with him. Partlow and I will take point. Madam Best, you stay center. Austin, Yamato, grab her if she goes down."

  "What if he goes down?" asked Mitsuko.

  "I'm more worried about her. He looks like he can make it to a vehicle. Let's move."

  They headed for the nearest stairwell, Partlow keeping his head down.

  Retroact: 418 IE

  New Salt Lake Province, Goshen Protectorate

  "Suicide, Sky Devil, I show your stabilizers on fire. Bank right, and you can ditch in the lagoon."

  Yun wanted to throttle her wingman. He meant well, but she now had her wounded bird almost on top of the artillery battery taking out her squadron. "Sky Devil, Suicide. I am not leaving that nest to chew up the next squadron."

  "Suicide, you're committing…"

  "Don't say it. We're down six birds. Seven when I hit these degenerates."

  She could hear heavy breathing over her comms. At first, she thought it was her, but her respiration had calmed since she stopped pulling over three Gs. Maddox, aka Sky Devil, was stressing out and at a moment she needed him to stay calm.

  "Let the Kunowksy hit them with kinetics," he finally said.

  Right. A rod from God fired from a hundred fifty clicks up would be no better than a clean fusion bomb, taking out rebel and civilian alike. She wasn't having it. Not when she rode a more surgical weapon. "Advise the Hancock I'm going to need a pickup and a replacement bird."

  "Suicide, you can't be…"

  She killed the comms and put her Interceptor into the artillery battery's blind spot. The bird fought her, its stabilizers ready to sheer off. She had no doubt she looked like a black comet in Goshen's blue sky as she went into a steep dive. Her altimeter read seven hundred meters. She tripped the comms one last time. "Black Squadron, Hancock Actual, this is Black Leader. Suicide is ejecting."

  She pulled the handle beneath her seat. As the canopy blew off, she braced herself for the five-G blast. It slammed her into her seat as the explosion shot her vertically. She watched through narrowing vision as her bird began spinning. It slammed into the battery, setting off multiple fireballs, the largest being the Interceptor's fuel tanks.