Mach skidded to a halt at the second to last cell.
Adira’s green-tinged face pressed against the glass. Her delicate claret lips, ski-slope nose, and dazzling emerald eyes looked as beautiful as ever. She took a step back after seeing Mach and her eyes widened.
Mach placed the swipe against her door. He wouldn’t have time to explain and hoped Adira would follow. The guards were close. One of them shouted, but he still didn’t have a visual.
Adira ripped the door open and stepped out. Her black ponytail flicked over her shoulder. “Mach, what the hell?”
“You’ve got two seconds,” Mach said. “Follow me. I’ve got a ship outside. Are you in, or do you want to stay here?”
“Where are we going? The guards—”
“Decide,” Mach said, cutting her off. “I’m going now. Are you in?”
“Lead the way,” Adira said.
“We all need to throw ourselves at the vague square outline,” Mach said and pointed to the false wall five meters away. “It’s a hidden emergency exit.”
Sanchez dropped his shoulder and charged. Carson immediately followed, making sure they created a dual impact. Adira’s footsteps lagged behind, but she carried far less weight. Her skills were stealth and expert knife handling.
Mach threw himself at the wall. Sanchez hit at the same time and they punched through a section of painted plasterboard and hit a firmer wall half a meter on the other side of it.
Guards skidded around the corner and aimed their lasers. Adira jumped in the cavity and slipped to one side.
Sanchez slammed his boot against the outer wall, but it didn’t move.
Mach joined him and they kicked it repeatedly. Nothing happened. He raised his smart-screen. “Danick, Lassea, bring up the map and check the cavity.”
Adira waved them to the right. Mach hunched and followed her between two thin walls. She edged around a right angle and continued forward.
Dust hung in the cool air and stung Mach’s eyes. He squinted into the gloom as his shoulders bumped against either side of the blocks.
“There’s a sewer system. Leads to the landing zone,” Lassea said. “We’re tracking you and it’s fifty meters ahead.”
“You’re a diamond,” Mach said. He rushed forward and grabbed Adira’s shoulder. “Keep your eye out for a sewer entrance in fifty meters.”
“Got it.”
Mach glanced over his shoulder. Sanchez’s stocky figure followed directly behind. A figure appeared at the end of the cavity and a laser zipped into the gloom. It passed over their heads and dust dropped from above.
Adira rounded another corner. She knelt by a circular metal hatch and heaved. Mach dropped to his knees, shouldered her out of the way and grabbed the handle. He gritted his teeth, heaved, and the hatch opened upward with a metallic groan.
Shouts echoed along the cavity. Mach waved Adira and Sanchez down. They both descended down a ladder into the gloom. A laser fired again, passing underneath his arm.
Mach ducked and scrambled through the hatch. He gripped the cool ladder rungs and clanked down. A stench of human and alien waste invaded his nostrils, reminding him of the long-drop toilets on Fides Gamma.
Sanchez and Adira waited at the bottom and peered up at Mach. He jumped a meter from the water and his boots splashed in the fetid mess.
The tunnel led left and right. He raised his smart-screen. “Give me a direction?”
After a brief pause, Danick replied, “Left and up the second ladder. It takes you close to us. We’ve got the Phalanx-E ready to go.”
A laser punched down the shaft and sizzled in the water. Mach ran between Adira and Sanchez and headed down the tunnel. He cupped his hand against his nose and ignored the small objects that brushed against his legs. They both followed.
The metal clanks of somebody descending the ladder echoed through the tunnel, between their splashing footsteps.
Mach reached the second ladder along the tunnel. He scrambled up it and thrust his arm against the hatch. Adira and Sanchez followed him up the five-meter ladder and waited. He shoved it again and it swung open.
Rain pelted against Mach’s face from the pitch-black sky. He came out between two swallow-shaped horan fighters and hauled Adira out of the gap.
“You need to get this off me,” Adira said, gripping the security ring around her neck.
“We landed inside the perimeter,” Sanchez said after climbing out and retching. “I’ll get it off when we get back to the shuttle.”
Security lights thumped on around the building behind them, brightening the area around the prison. Mach sprinted straight for the shuttle, two hundred meters away.
By the time the guards approached with caution from the sewer, it would be too late to catch them; they could cover the ground in twenty-five seconds. The reception door slammed open and two other guards ran out. It wasn’t too late for them.
One crouched and fired. A thin red line stabbed into the gloom, passing just over Adira’s shoulder.
Sanchez cried out and stumbled. “They hit my bloody boot.”
Mach grabbed his arm and pulled Sanchez along. He staggered and winced but didn’t slow too much.
The Phalanx-E’s side door opened. Mach could just make out Danick’s and Lassea’s faces through the cockpit window, probably wondering what the hell was going on. Adira raced up the ramp. Mach dragged Sanchez up. The two men collapsed to the smooth black rubber flooring.
The door slid down behind them with an electric whine.
“I take it we need to go,” Lassea said, already manipulating the holocontrols.
“Took the words out of my mouth,” Mach said. “Head away from the drones.”
“What about the ring?” Adira said.
Sanchez produced the multipurpose tool from the back of his pants. “Come here and I’ll take the damned thing off.”
The shuttle’s engines roared and they rose off the ground. The chasing guards had stopped their pursuit, their weapons no match for the protective armor of an E-class shuttle. Only the drones stopped them getting away.
“Guys,” Mach said to the JPs, “this is Adira. Be nice to her or she’ll slit your throat.”
Lassea looked over her shoulder and nodded. Danick remained focused on the controls. “Tracking three drones to the west,” Danick said. “We’ll head east and go straight for the atmosphere.”
They thrust diagonally up. Adira took a sharp intake of breath and grabbed the security ring around her neck.
“It’s tightening,” Sanchez said while he worked on the electronics. “Make a pass over the prison.”
“It’ll give the drones time to catch us,” Danick said.
“Do it or she chokes to death,” Mach said. He sat in the captain’s chair and watched the tracking monitor. The shuttle banked over the prison. Rain battered against the window and sheet lightning flashed in the sky.
“It’s still tightening,” Sanchez said, his voice rising an octave.
Adira gasped and coughed.
Three drones closed in, only a klick away. Mach looked through the window and saw their dim lights approaching in the dark angry sky. Metal clanked against the floor behind him. He turned to see the security ring on the floor. Adira rubbed her neck and took a deep breath. Sanchez sat with his back against the door and unfastened his boot.
“Head for the atmosphere,” Mach said. “Give it everything.”
Lassea worked the controls and the ship thrust upward. Mach continued to watch the holoscreen. Two of the drones changed course and headed straight after them. The other went into a holding pattern below.
“They’re actually going to try to shoot us down,” Mach said.
Danick’s hands trembled on his controls. “You can’t be serious?”
“Do I look like I’m joking, boy? The drone in the holding pattern is there to take us out after we crash land. Get ready to switch to the LD.”
“We can’t jump inside the atmosphere, it’ll rip us to pieces,”
Danick said.
Mach rolled his eyes. “Wait until we’re three-quarters through. Don’t they teach you anything at the academy?”
At least the two young JPs were reacting. Mach remembered Morgan saying that the best way to test a person was to chuck them in a container of runny shit. Some naturally swam; others sank while taking a mouthful. Morgan probably quit opining the analogy now he was an admiral, but Mach found it to be true.
The Phalanx-E juddered as it entered the atmosphere. An electronic beep pulsed from the console.
“Torpedoes locked on,” Lassea said. “Preparing to L-jump.”
“Wait for my command,” Mach said.
Ten more seconds would do it. Adira and Sanchez joined Mach in the cockpit and gazed at the tracking monitor.
The electronic beep switched to a constant hum.
“Torpedoes deployed,” Danick said.
Mach watched two red dots arc toward the shuttle.
“They’re gonna hit us!” Lassea said.
“Engage light,” Mach snapped.
The torpedoes closed a klick. Two seconds before a hit. Mach braced. Switching to light had the least chance of destruction, but carried risk because they weren’t far enough through to assure structural stability.
The Phalanx-E shot forward. The stars ahead turned to streaks. The ship’s engines increased in tone and they accelerated clear of the torpedoes. The monitor map changed and Summanus rapidly shrank in size. Mach sighed with relief. “Set a course for Minerva. We’re going to pick up an old friend. ”
Chapter Eleven
Morgan read his latest dressing down from Marshal Kenwright and felt his guts burn with acidic bile. The old goat had warned him over his assuming command last week. What the hell was he supposed to do? Just stand there and watch the blundering fools in Ops, none of whom had actually served in any kind of military operation, make a mistake that cost the treaty…
He closed the message on his smart-screen and kicked away his office chair. The seat crashed into a metal pot stand, knocking over some fake tree that was supposed to emit relaxing chemicals into the air to keep the stress down.
But it was stress he needed, not some pathetic job that kept him locked up in an office doing nothing but signing off on dull reports of nothing in particular. To make matters worse, he still hadn’t heard from Mach after the kerfuffle on Summanus a few days ago. He just hoped that Mach was en route to get Kingsley Babcock.
Taking a deep breath, he stood at his windows and watched as yet more junior pilots and infantry units marched up and down the parade square, pretending they were soldiers. It all seemed such a waste of money if they weren’t actually being used for anything.
A knock on the door brought him out of his funk. He turned and said, “Come in.” He was just happy for a distraction at this point. With the ships in transit, moving to their locations, there was nothing much else he could do but wait.
Like he had time to wait.
The door opened and one of his assistant staff entered. “Are you busy, Admiral?” the fidesian said.
“I wish I was, Seazza. I’ve mostly been occupied these last few days with the mind-crushingly dull act of waiting. Waiting for reports that only require me to sign off and sit here, doing nothing.”
Seazza fiddled with the edge of her blue headscarf and looked away, unsure of how to respond. Morgan had taken a shine to her a few years ago when she was transferred over from central CW government. She used to be an aide to Fides Gamma’s Senator Orloza. Orloza had now ascended to vice president, no doubt due to Seazza’s exceptional organizational skills.
But she also had something else that most at the CWDF didn’t have these days: combat experience. “Before your diplomatic role, how much did you enjoy your time as captain of the Harrakziestra? Oh, and please sit.”
Seazza slid her lithe body onto the chair in front of Morgan’s desk.
“Well,” she began in Salus Common, “it was a demanding role. I commanded the Harrakziestra heavy bomber into vestan territory. We won some battles, lost a few, but ultimately we provided our CW brethren with good support.”
Morgan nodded, listening to her diplomatic answer.
He thumped his closed fist against his chest. “But in here? Did you feel that rush inside? That fear, the excitement, that heightened sense that you were meant for it?”
The blush on her face told him she hadn’t. She inclined her eyes and politely stared at the desk surface.
Morgan sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I guess I’m just getting sentimental in my old age.”
“It’s quite all right, Admiral. I have something that you wanted to see.”
“Yes?”
“I’m patching you in now. It’s the feed directly from the capital ship, Aeon. It’s arrived at the coordinates of the wormhole. Captain Mieko Mori is on the line.”
Morgan nodded. The holographic display hovered above his right forearm.
“Good afternoon, Captain Mori,” Morgan said to the Japanese woman. She cut a formidable sight with her fitted captain’s uniform of gray and gold and more medals on her lapels than Morgan knew even existed… yet this was someone who hadn’t yet fired a weapon in anger.
“Admiral Morgan,” Mori responded with a clipped accent and a curt nod. “I was told to report my findings to you regarding Orbital Forty and the wormhole.”
“Indeed, what can you tell me about the attack? And of the wormhole itself?”
Without flinching or apologizing, Mori said, “Nothing, Admiral. There is just the usual debris one would expect and nothing else. No sign of the wormhole or of any craft that did this. I’m afraid our journey has been a waste of time and resources. The forces at Retsina could have told us exactly the same thing.”
Morgan bristled at the accusations. “That might be so, Captain, but I wanted to have an experienced crew’s assessment of the situation given the scale of the issue we’re dealing with, or would you have preferred to stay at home while the Axis Combine forces continue to mass on the NCZ border?”
Mori’s eyelid twitched. She took a breath and bowed her head a few millimeters. “No, of course not, Admiral. My crew and I are ready to serve the CW. But about the Axis Combine, we’ve detected that they have moved into an attack formation.”
“And where are they currently?”
“Still on their side of the NCZ, but their intentions are clear.”
“No, they’re not,” Morgan said. “I spoke with their commander recently. They’re in the vicinity to investigate the wormhole anomaly and for no other reason. Do not engage.”
“I’m sorry, Admiral, but I’m afraid that isn’t your call.”
Morgan’s face flushed with blood, bringing heat to his cheeks. He slammed his left fist on the desk, letting out the built-up anger. “How dare you, Captain! I am your admiral! You’ve only had simulation experience. You do not get to make that call. Now stand down and remain in patrol.”
Mori didn’t flinch, just stared at him via their holographic displays. “I’m under orders of the space marshal. I suggest that if you feel so strongly, then you speak with him. We will, of course, send you any reports should we happen to spot another mythical ship appear from nowhere.”
With that, Mori’s display shut down and the line cut.
Seazza fidgeted in her chair, her thin lips moving as though trying to work out what to say. Morgan slumped in his chair, too tired for a tirade. What good would it do anyway? With his disciplinary threat from Marshal Kenwright three days ago and now this, it was clear to him the rank of admiral meant absolutely nothing.
“The Atlantis ship mission is bullshit, isn’t it, Seazza? Just a way for the marshal to keep me out of his hair. I’m beginning to doubt if it even was this elusive Atlantis ship. There’s been no sign of it since the first attack. I’m starting to think this is just the marshal’s way to keep me occupied. He’s treating me like a fool, isn’t he?”
“I… couldn’t possibly specu
late, Admiral. But… if I am to speak freely?”
“Of course you are. What is it?”
“Even if it is true that the marshal is just playing you for a fool to keep you out of his way, there’s still the question of what destroyed Orbital Forty. Whether it was this Atlantis ship or not, if you were the one to find and capture this enemy, whatever it is, would that not give you some standing to go to the senate and appeal for a new role within the defense force?”
Morgan nodded his head slowly, gripping his chin. “I suppose that’s one option. He did promise me a way in to active duty if I completed this mission, but if he truly believed it to be a real threat, why not give me more resources? More ships? According to him, we’re still in peace mode, so even if the Axis are gathering their forces, it doesn’t mean he couldn’t have spared at least one destroyer.” Morgan’s brain worked it over.
The whole idea of this being a small, covert mission smelled funny to him now that he thought about it. He’d let his excitement and hope of being back on a ship cloud his judgment. He looked up at Seazza.
“I think there’s a chance that there might be a grain of truth in that,” she said, hitting the nail on the head in the most subtle and noncommitted way possible. For her, this was as close as Morgan would get to a complete confirmation.
“That old bastard,” Morgan said, standing up and pacing across his office. “Would Orloza be open to my concerns, do you think?”
Seazza pondered on it for a moment. “It is unlikely in the current climate, but it wouldn’t be impossible to gain his favor. He and the marshal are old friends, but Orloza is no fool. If the Axis Combine is preparing for war, it would make strategic sense to have someone of your captaincy experience in the chain of command. But you would need to find a way to get his attention. He has spent many years climbing to his current position. He won’t act on a whim.”
“So I’m back to square one, a useless title in an organization that is sleep-walking its way into a war, and probably defeat.”
“Not necessarily,” Seazza said with a conspiratorial tone in her voice that he had never heard before. He cocked an eyebrow and waited for her to expound her point.
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