by Alex Kings
“Then override them!”
“I can't.”
Sukone snarled. “Very well. Every free guard outside that door. And Zino. Get Zino in position! Further, they must have come in a shuttle. Find it.”
“Yes, Sukone,” said the Glaber, striding out of the throne room.
*
The second attempt was more successful. The trembling Petaur member of staff gave Mero another password, and this time the terminal didn't freeze.
Lists of recordings flicked past the screen too fast for the (human) eye to follow.
“Here,” said Mero after a moment.
“What is it?” said Rurthk.
“A plan to disrupt a trade deal between Albert Wells and a smaller gang. Ah – and here's something older. Assassins Sukone has hired. I recognise the names from before.”
“Take it,” said Rurthk.
Olivia rushed forward and transferred the files to her tablet. Then she shared them with the rest of the crew so they all had a copy.
“Check they're not corrupted,” Rurthk said. He extended his tablet and played a bit of the recording. It was clean. Everyone else did the same.
“What are we gonna do about the hostages?” said Olivia. “Maybe not the best idea to leave them alone in the operations room.”
“Could kill them,” said Mero.
“Mero,” said Eloise.
Mero held his hands up. “Just keeping our options open!”
“We'll have to lock them in somewhere,” said Rurthk. He'd studied the base plans so much that he knew them off by heart. “There's a cell behind us. We can lock it from the outside.”
Olivia gestured at one of the terminals. “I think … here's the feed. It's empty, and there's no one guarding it.”
Eloise had taken some smart matter clay out of her pocket and was fashioning it into a cable. “Stand up,” she told the hostages, and began to tie their hands behind their backs. Mero followed her lead.
Olivia, meanwhile, was still looking at camera feeds on the terminal. “I don't see many guards at all,” she said, frowning. “The barracks are full still. Sukone's in his chamber still … and there's Zino … and a couple of Glaber guards. But that's all.”
“Is that a problem?” said Rurthk.
“I don't know,” said Olivia. “They have to be somewhere, right? If they're not somewhere we can see them …”
“Then they're somewhere we can't see them,” said Rurthk, his veins icing with worry. “And we covered every camera between here and the shuttle.”
Olivia turned to look at him. “Yeah.”
Chapter 77: A Gunfight
“There's one way to find out,” said Rurthk striding across the operations room.” Everyone, take cover. Olivia, get the hostages behind that terminal. Mero?”
“Grenades?” said Mero.
“If you would. But only if we see resistance.”
Rurthk and Eloise stood either side of the door, with Mero hanging from the ceiling directly above it. Olivia unlocked the door at a terminal, then scampered behind it.
Rurthk opened the door.
Before it slid all the way, there was a roar of gunfire coming from the other side. Bullets sparked off the stone floors and tore into a terminal. The hostages shrieked.
Without ceremony and without hesitation, Mero threw a grenade out into the corridor, and Rurthk closed the door again.
The second of silence was like an intrusion from another world. It seemed to drag on. It was cut off suddenly with a bang kicking against the doors.
“There goes the quiet way out!” growled Mero.
Rurthk opened the door again, and looked into the clearing smoke. Shadows moved in the darkness. He shot at them. Eloise did the same down the other side of the corridor. Return gunfire came, sporadic and uncertain at first, but gaining in confidence.
Rurthk ducked back into cover. Another Glaber came running out of the smoke, face covered in blood, one incisor broken, but the other still a weapon. It grabbed Rurthk and knocked him back before he could fire.
Eloise was there instantly, crippling the Glaber with a blow to its exposed neck. She moved back into cover and shot it while Rurthk was still recovering his aim.
“We can't get pinned down here,” said Mero, shooting a human guard.
The corridor outside was clear, for the moment.
“Agreed,” said Rurthk. He turned to the hostages. “Change of plan. You hide in here while we kill your friends.” To the rest of his team he said, “Let's move!”
*
Sukone heard the blast echo through the walls. It was followed by tinny and distant-sounding gunfire.
“Combat,” he murmured. He tried to think of something wise to say about combat to cover the growing ball of worry in his chest. Nothing came.
Instead, he activated the comms. “Team leader A, what is the status of the intruder?”
He got only static in response. He tried another channel. “Zino! What is happening?”
“Hell of a fight,” said Zino. Sukone could hear the glee in his voice.
“Kill them. This is your chance to redeem yourself.”
“I'm sure it is,” said Zino.
The comm chimed – an incoming call.
“Sukone, sir,” came a new voice.
“What is it?” he said.
“We've found the intruders' shuttle. It is outside the left jet maintenance corridor. Shall we destroy it?”
“No,” said Sukone. “Take a mine from the armoury and place it inside the shuttle. Prepare to seal the corridor off against vacuum.”
“Yes, Sukone.”
Sukone smiled. The intruders could kill the guards. That didn't matter, so long as they didn't leave the base alive.
*
Rurthk checked both sides of the corridor.
The mosaics had been scoured off the wall by the blast. Their pieces lay amid chips of stone from the cracked floor. The air was thick with acrid smoke and ozone. Bodies lay on the floor.
He grabbed an assault rifle from a body, and threw another to Eloise. Mero picked up one of his own.
Rurthk led his team a couple of metres down the corridor then stopped. Up ahead, he could hear boots pounding against the flagstones.
He didn't want to engage unless he had to. Going back into the operations room would leave them pinned down and vulnerable to retaliatory explosives.
That left going back, deeper into the ship. They could find another way around.
“This way!” he told his crew, pointing down the corridor.
They ran together. Mero took another grenade and pitched it behind them with his tail. A couple of seconds later there was a loud boom and rush of heat. Still, the sound of pursuit didn't stop.
“Worth a try,” he said. He frowned. His ears swivelled forwards. “Uh, Cap.”
“I hear them,” said Rurthk. More guards were coming from up ahead.
A lone guard, a Glaber, came into sight, standing outside an ornate set of doors. As soon as he saw them, he went for his weapon. Eloise shot him in the arm before he had managed to aim it, then slammed his head against the wall to knock him out.
“Rurthk,” she said. She nodded at the ornate doors.
“The throne room,” said Rurthk, realising.
There were guards ahead of them, guards behind them, no cover. “If we're going to have a fight, let's make it one that counts,” said Eloise.
Rurthk saw the wisdom in that. With Sukone dead, even the Glaber's loyalties would waver. He hadn't come here to kill Sukone, but when opportunity presents itself …
He ripped the Glaber's pass off its neck and held it up to the door.
The doors slid open.
Chapter 78: Rurthk Vs. Sukone
Zino ambled through the base, hands in his pocket. He smiled when he saw the damage the grenade had done outside the operations room, and kicked the chips of mosaic. They skittered across the cracked flagstones.
“You!” roared a snarling voice. “Where ha
ve you been?”
A Glaber came running down the corridor from up ahead. Zino recognised it – it was the one who had given him the tablet earlier. Behind it, it had a small group of guards.
“For a walk,” he said, smiling.
“The base is under attack!” snarled the Glaber. “We must kill the intruders.”
“Oh, I'm sorry,” said Zino. “Not my department. I just do administrative stuff now.”
“Sukone is under threat. Help us!”
“I was thinking,” Zino said lightly, “I might try and open up the barracks.”
“They are locked. The intruders have destroyed the means of opening the doors. It is impossible to access, even from the operations room”
“I might have a way,” said Zino.
The Glaber snarled. Its patience had run out. It wrenched an assault rifle from the hands of one of its subordinates and thrust it as Zino. “You will fight!” it said.
When Zino took the weapon, it sensed his species and reshaped its trigger system and handles to fit human hands. He turned it over in his hands, as if examining it.
“If you insist,” he said, and opened fire on all of them except the Glaber.
He ripped the Glaber's rifle out of its hands and slammed it against the wall with his forearm across its neck and his rifle in its belly.
“You …” it snarled, too surprised and angry form anything more cogent.
“Yes, me,” said Zino, staring into its eyes. He fired. Blood ran down his suit. He stepped back and let the body dropped to the ground.
Now, he thought, it was time to see about opening the barracks.
*
Rurthk stepped forwards into the gloom of the throne room, shooting the two Glaber as they turned to look at him. On the far side of the room a fire roared. Above was a new addition – an oil painting of Sukone.
In the middle of the room, the real Sukone lay on his cushioned bench, the red and green swirls of his scales glittering under the heat lamps hanging from the ceiling.
His mouth opened briefly in surprise, unintentionally showing rows of teeth in a jaw large enough and strong enough to bite any of the other races in half. He recovered his composure a moment later, and stared at them balefully.
“Olivia, get the door,” said Rurthk, his eyes locked on Sukone.
Olivia went to the door, leaned out, and shot the control switch outside. She closed the door from the inside with the Glaber's pass.
All the while, Rurthk kept his eyes locked on Sukone. “It didn't have to be like this,” he said, a snarl creeping into his voice. “You could have just kept your word and paid us. It would have saved us all a lot of trouble.”
“Saving trouble is not my concern,” said Sukone with a deep, calm bass rumble. “Though you have been more trouble than most. But I see the reason for that, now, and all is well.”
“I'm glad you think so,” said Rurthk coldly. He glanced at the rest of his team, catching their eyes, then looked around the room.
“Yes,” said Sukone. “I am threatened now by those I thought trivial. A lone Glaber playing at mastery on a small, unarmed ship. Yet you have become a true challenge.”
Mero, Eloise and Olivia sidled around the perimeter of the room, surrounding Sukone on one side, so he wouldn't be under cover of the bench.
“But to achieve great works, a man must face great challenges,” Sukone went on. “If he does not, he is a mere charlatan, a jester with a false crown. No. Glory requires true opposition. And the universe had provided it to me in the form of you, Captain Rurthk. It is my destiny to defeat you here.” He looked around the room, his grin widening. “So as my final gift to you, I say: Take your best shot.”
“I thought you'd never ask,” said Rurthk. He brought up his assault rifle and fired at Sukone's eyes.
His crew fired with him. A cacophony of rapid fire filled the throne room. Bullets sparked off the stone bench, tore into its cushions, and bit into Sukone's flesh. With startling speed, Sukone lifted his arm to protect his eyes and rolled in one fluid motion off the bench.
Still under fire, Sukone took out the ceremonial Varanid helmet from his table and put it on. He bled from a dozen wounds where he'd been hit, but he didn't seem to mind. He put a strip of smart matter on his back, which extended into a copy of ceremonial armour.
Then he was up on the desk again, his body like a tensed spring, thick with muscle. He leapt at Rurthk, covering over half the distance between them in one go, and landed with a crash that Rurthk felt through the floor. He hit the ground running, and was upon Rurthk in moments.
Rurthk dodged to the side just in time to avoid a huge fist, which shattered the mosaic and foot-thick stone behind it. Sukone's punch missed, but his middle hand closed around Rurthk's rifle.
Before Rurthk could fire, Sukone ripped it out of his grasp and threw it across the room at Mero, who leapt out of the way. The gun collided with the wall and gave an electrical twang as its coils broke.
Rurthk sprinted across the room while the others continued to fire at Sukone. An aura of sparks danced across his body as bullets hit him. The armour was coming apart quite quickly.
Sukone made another run across the room, and the crew scattered. Olivia ran to Rurthk, holding out her rifle; it was more dangerous in his hands than hers.
“Move!” shouted Mero. He grabbed Olivia and pulled her back. A moment later a chunk of the stone wall thrown by Sukone hurtled past them. It hit the wall opposite and shattered; Olivia yelped as shards scattered across her and Rurthk's armour. Had they not been wearing armour, the shards would have cut to the bone.
The dance continued. Sukone lunged across the room at one attacker and threw stones at another. They dodged each time, but they were so occupied they had almost no time to shoot. It was a stalemate, a fight to exhaustion. Outside, guards hammered ineffectually at the door. The mosaics on the wall were quickly ruined; the fireplace damaged, the painting torn.
Rurthk stood by the wall, panting.
Sukone retreated to his stone bench. His armour was torn to shreds and covered in blood. It made him look more like a demon than the wannabe philosopher kind Rurthk had first met in this room.
“Enough,” said Sukone. “I have given you your little playtime. It is time to end this farce.”
He struck the bench with the elbow of a middle limb. The stone casing broke apart, revealing a cavity inside. Sukone pulled out two weapons.
They were huge. Too large for any species but a Varanid to handle, their surfaces thick with auxiliary structures.
Sukone swung one to face Rurthk. Rurthk needed no further signal; he sprinted across the throne room.
“I'm sure you appreciate the irony,” said Sukone. A stream of blue flame sprayed from the weapon and coated the wall. Rurthk, at the edge of it, felt the bite of heat even through his armour. He heard Olivia shriek.
“No irony for this one. It's just useful,” said Sukone. Rurthk and his crew sprinted back across the room as Sukone fired a rocket. The rocket hit the wall and exploded, taking most of the stone off the carbide skeleton beneath.
Sukone offered a smile of white teeth and red blood as he levelled both weapons together at them.
“Oh, shit,” muttered Rurthk.
Chapter 79: Fire
Zino practically skipped down the corridor. The shouting and gunfire in the background just made it more fun. He carried with him a box filled with every mine he could find in the armoury. They were small, flat black cylinders, just about big enough to fit in a human hand, with a control panel on one face.
He reached the barracks and tapped on the door. “I'm going to get you out,” he called to the guards trapped inside. “Step away from the door.”
After a moment he heard a muffled voice from the other side. “Understood.”
Zino attached a mine to the door, and tapped at the control panel to make it a shaped charge, facing inwards.
Then, smiling to himself, he spread the rest of the mines in the corrid
or outside, hiding them where they wouldn't be immediately obvious. He'd counted a little over thirty.
He ran a little way down the corridor, took cover around a corner, and extended his tablet to show two buttons.
Zino tapped a button.
A small bang echoed down the corridor. After a moment, there was the squeal of a ruined door being hauled aside, a triumphant shout, and running footsteps.
“Wait!” someone shouted.
Zino tapped a second button.
A much larger bang sounded. The bulkheads juddered. A wave of burning air rushed past. There were a few brief screams, then silence.
Laughing, rifle in his hands, Zino ran down the corridor to survey his work.
*
They had to get out. There was no way they could survive in a confined space while Sukone had weapons like these.
Rurthk sprinted to the door with his team in tow. Rurthk reached the door and stopped. He hit the panel to open it.
Sukone levelled his weapons at them. There was no time to jump away.
A huge explosion echoed through the bulkheads.
Sukone paused, bewildered
Rurthk leapt backwards.
Sukone fired his flamethrower.
The door opened.
Surprised guards on the other side looked up.
“Damnit,” snapped Sukone as the guards went down.
Rurthk waved his team forward. They rushed through the door, past the dying guards. Burning slime clung to Rurthk's boots and armour as he rushed past. A rocket exploded behind them. Rurthk's armour whined that, between fire and shrapnel, damage levels had reached “severe”.
“Yes, run!” shouted Sukone after them.
Rurthk heard the huge Varanid feet pounding behind them. He led his team round the first corner he could find. His best hope was to lose Sukone, at least for a while.
The ornate corridors were in tatters. Decorations damaged by gunfire or explosions, bodies scattered on the ground.