Standish

by Donald B McFarlane

  “Which one?” Standish asked.

  “Zalenious and Admiral Preylax.” Bender looked down at Reyn, “Get on comms and give them a landing zone.”

  Reyn jumped to his feet and put his helmet on.

  “And personally escort the admirals here with the rest of the team.”

  Reyn nodded and moved off.

  “The last thing we need is our patron gunned down by some lone sniper.” Bender said with a smile on his face. “They will also be bringing some engineers to help put the Alliance station into action.” Bender knelt in front of Standish’s father. “There is no chance of having something like this happen again.” He placed his gloved hand on the old man’s knee, then looked over at Standish. “Let’s go meet the admiral.”

  When the pair reached the landing zone, it was apparent to Standish that their small team of eight operators weren’t required for the two admiral’s security. The heavy assault corvette that was dropping slowly through the sky was one hundred and fifty metres long, and bristling with guns, and as soon as the ship landed, a pair of Heavy Sentinels marched out of the primary ramp in the underbody of the vessel, followed by a platoon of infantry, and finally an attache officer who walked up to Bender, and gave the proper greeting.

  “Is the area secure?”

  “It is.” Bender replied; his voice metallic coming from his helmet’s speakers.

  The aid looked over Bender’s armour then over to Reyn. “Don’t you think you should have washed that blood off before the admiral's arrival?”

  Before Bender could reply, Reyn flipped up his blast shield and took a long step towards the junior officer. “Fuck off and get the adults out here.” He then dropped his hands to his blasters on each hip and flipped down his blast shield.

  The officer cast a quick glance towards Bender, but it was clear that he was unmoved, and after another second’s hesitation, he pulled out a communicator and placed a transmission to the ship. Less than a minute later, the two admirals appeared with what looked like a fleet media team and strode towards Bender in their full-dress uniforms.

  When Zalenious and Praylax reached Bender and his team, the morbidly obese Zalenious was almost out of breath.

  “Well done, Grade One Bender.”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  “Show me this town.” The admiral said, starting off towards the centre of Port Sunlight.

  An hour later, the engineers arrived, and the admirals departed. Standish had taken off her armour and was sunning herself in just her combat undergarments on top of the Havoc. The sun was warm, and the air was still. She had been told by the admiral's aide that all the pirate ships in the system had been destroyed, and all gang activity on the lone space station in the system had been neutralised. Standish didn’t bother asking for details.

  After her father had gone home, she had asked for and received a week’s leave to spend on the planet, after that, she was to report to Mella II for Dynamic Operations flight training and start the next phase of her career. She had gotten a taste for flying when she had been in the Sanduran system, and now she was looking forward to being the team pilot for the most elite strike force in the Alliance.

  With the waves of delicious heat hitting her body, Standish slowly drifted off and was only woken when Reyn climbed up to the top of the ship, dressed just in his shorts.

  “Good?” He asked, laying down next to her.

  “Good.” She replied.

  “It was worth it.” Reyn said dryly.

  Standish looked over at her superior who was laying a metre away.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The price.” He kept still, his head resting on the hot top of the ship. “For freeing your world.”

  “What price?” Standish asked. She was starting to wonder what she had missed.

  “Zalenious has us in his pocket now.” Reyn replied. “It’s just a question of how long we remain there.” Reyn looked up towards the sky. “Don’t worry kid. I’m going to turn you into a gunfighter. A guardian of those you love, and a vanquisher of those who oppose you. Welcome to the Prime team.” A broad smile beamed across his face.

  Standish looked back up towards the sky and closed her eyes. She knew that there was a price to pay for everything in the galaxy. She also knew that everyone had a different threshold for pain, and for Bender, what she had done for him on Sandura 26G, was worth the cost of freeing Nadolo Prime from the crime-syndicates that controlled it.

  Trying to relax, Standish’s mind drifted towards thoughts of her father, and him being able to tend his fields without molestation. The future weighed heavily on her, but she knew that whatever was to come was worth the sacrifice to free her people, and save her father, because, in this life or the next, nothing was more precious than the ones she loved.

  Casting a final glance towards Reyn, she could hear his voice in the back of her head once again. It whispered quietly to her not so much in words, but in thought, that she was finally the warrior she had set out to be so many years ago in that little amphitheatre not far from where she was laying now.

  She was among the best.

  She had arrived.

  78

  The Present

  Fury 161

  The armour fit perfectly. It was the newest kit off the production line in the Etelainen. Her Dynamic Operations fighting knife on her right thigh. Blasters on both hips. Assault rifle slung over her shoulder, so it was hanging off her right side. Standish checked the power systems; everything was fully operational. Picking up the still damp cape, she threw it over her shoulders, then picked up her helmet and slipped it on.

  Set, she pulled the hood of the cape up over her helmet, grasped her rifle close to her body, and headed out of the ship.

  The rain was still falling, but it was warm and comfortable in the armour. Giving the armour a quick test, Standish planted her foot, then dashed ahead, accelerating up to almost sixty kilometres an hour in the blink of an eye.

  This drew the attention of those along the main promenade, but after giving her a second look, they knew not to interfere.

  Approaching the front of the building, she spotted the two guards that were posted out front, and in a show of strength, just pulled back her hood revealing her armour, and instantly, the two guards lowered their weapons, and let her pass. They didn’t know what they were looking at, but they knew it was something they couldn’t handle.

  The top floor was just as it had been. Hundreds of revellers, music pumping, a light-hearted atmosphere. As she panned her head from side to side, the armour automatically registered every weapon in the room. They were everywhere.

  Again, she was able to make her way the length of the room unnoticed. Her hood still up. Her assault rifle down by her side, but ready for action.

  She queued again. Head down, her armours sensors doing all the work. It took in all the sounds, noises, and movements around her. Nothing was going to surprise her.

  At the end of the room, Jintana Fu was still sitting on her little throne, the figure with the green beard next to her, still in his Coalition armour. Liboa was nowhere in sight.

  Her turn came, and she flipped up the front blast plate of her helmet and pulled her hood back.

  “The old lady is back!” Jintana boasted. “You can’t teach.”

  She was cut off by the figure with the green beard and the shiny Coalition armour. His hand gently touching Jintana’s back, but his eyes were locked on Standish.

  “Silence!” Jintana screamed. “I want fucking silence!” It was as if the air in the room was drawn out in a single breath.

  It put a smile on Standish’s face.

  Jintana’s eyes were bulging out of her skull.

  Her eyes shot to the figure with the beard. “What?” It was almost a whisper.

  “The armour. The knife.” The figure with the beard was inching his hand towards a disrupter rifle that was half a metre away.

  Standish shot her eyes towards the male. She knew he wasn’
t a member of the conventional forces, not with armour like that, but his weapon was too far away from him to challenge Standish. He probably was highly trained. Either way, he understood what was standing before him.

  “What about them?”

  “She’s dangerous.”

  Standish didn’t have to say a word. Her look, her presence was enough.

  “And that’s enough for her to come in here? Again?”

  “But.”

  “Shut up, Sinus!” Jintana turned her attention back to her front. “What do you want?”

  “I want the ring Liboa has.” Standish said.

  “Sinus, go get him.”

  Standish watched the figure in the new armour get up and move away from the perch he had been sitting on. He left his rifle where it was.

  It didn’t take him long to retrieve Nal Liboa. He was drunk. The ring was hanging around his neck.

  “That,” Standish pointed at the ring with her armoured hand. “Doesn’t belong to you.” She was keeping her temper under control, but it would only hold for so long.

  Liboa spun around and looked at Jintana. “You’re going to let this old bag dictate terms.” He waved his hands skyward. “In your great hall?”

  Jintana rose to her feet and pointed down at Standish. “My younger brother thinks we should fear this one.”

  Standish glanced at the green beard. He was off to her left.

  “Well, what’s the Melcore Combine come to if you fear one old woman?” She asked.

  The wall that was holding the temper at bay was starting to buckle.

  “You.” Liboa pointed at Standish. “I know who you are!” His eyes went wide with fear. “She’s!”

  Standish had had enough of listening.

  She pulled her Dynamic Operations dagger out of its sheath in a smooth motion, then brought it across Liboa’s neck with enough force to cut his head clean off, and without missing a beat, Standish reached forward and pulled the necklace with the ring free from the body before it and the detached head hit the ground.

  The knife was slipped back in its sheath, and she gently placed the ring into a compartment on the chest of her armour.

  “You!” Jintana let out a burst of anger.

  Standish was already a step ahead of her. She flipped down her blast shield, flicked off her cloak, and brought her rifle up to the ready position. “Don’t.” The warning was stark and boomed out from her suit’s speakers.

  The room froze. The data being fed to Standish’s helmet identified everyone in the room, and all the weapons. Her focus was on Jintana and her brother, but she knew that she’d have to battle her way out the opposite direction to get back to the lifts if things went loud.

  “Don’t make me.” It was her final warning.

  Jintana dropped her hands to her sides, glanced at Liboa’s dead body, then to Standish. After a moment’s pause, she looked back at the figure in the dark blue armour.

  “Now what?”

  “I’m leaving.” Standish said.

  The shot came out of nowhere. Her suit hadn’t detected the threat, and she took a hit to her lower abdomen. The blast went straight through her armour and sent her reeling to the ground.

  “Fuck!” Her heads-up-display flashed red. Looking up, she could see that the young male with the green beard had pulled a mini-disrupter and taken his chance to take her out. Only he had failed. Standish might have been old, but she wasn’t easy to kill.

  The suit automatically activated the medical systems and went from its nearly idling model into combat mode, taking maximum use of the suit's power and capabilities.

  Wrong move, kid.

  Hopping up to one knee, Standish flipped off the safety on her rifle and killed the leader first, unleashing a long burst of fire at Jintana, who was frozen in place. The blast shredded her chest enough to almost blow her head and arms off her torso.

  Shifting her weight, Standish rolled to her right, away from Sinus Fu, while firing off a few wild shots in his direction. He had missed his golden opportunity to take her out, and he had done so off-script. There hadn’t been another shot fired in the room. The fight was contained. For now.

  Her shots went astray, and after the initial shock of seeing his sister killed, the younger Fu opened fire again. Dashes of charged laser beams charging towards Standish. The air tingled as the bolts moved through the air, evaporating into nothingness after just twenty metres.

  Putting her right foot down hard, Standish braced herself, adopted a tight firing position, and fired off the rest of the shots in her rifle, chasing Fu as he ran wildly to the right. When the rifle went empty, she dropped it where she was, rose to her feet, and pulled her the blasters from both her hips.

  She didn’t have to wait long to use them.

  Fu popped up to her right, and her reactions were just like they had been years ago as a young operator. A squeeze of each trigger sent a pair of purple balls of charged energy towards either side of Fu, bracketing him. The result was as she expected. He flinched to the left, and took a blast to the centre of his chest, sending him tumbling to the ground.

  Holstering her weapons, Standish moved over quickly to the downed figure, kicking away his blaster.

  “You alive?” She asked, flipping up her blast shield.

  “Uhh.”

  She inspected the hit point. It was almost precisely centred, but it hadn’t penetrated the armour, but the electromagnetic charge from the round had disrupted Fu’s nervous system.

  “You’ll be fine in ten minutes.” She patted the young male on the cheek. “Nice try.” She looked down at her injury, she was bleeding profusely down the front of her armour. Shaking her head, she looked back at the young Fu. “Now stay down.” She ordered, flipping down her blast shield.

  Righting herself, Standish turned around, and looked back down the great hall was filled with a silent rabble staring at her with blank expressions on their faces. Walking back to her rifle, she picked it up and quickly reloaded.

  Taking a deep breath, Standish gave another glance to the mass of figures that were standing before her, and it suddenly dawned on her that they were slowly approaching, step by step, and some of them were armed.

  She shook her head. Fuck. This wasn’t getting any easier.

  “Identify all contacts!” She shouted at her AI.

  Her HUD was rapidly filled with red boxes surrounding the centre-masses of nearly three-hundred figures to her front.

  “You ready for this?” She asked herself sarcastically. There was a smile on her face behind her armoured mask. “You got the ring. But are you going to walk out of here alive?” She asked herself.

  Muscle memory kicked in.

  She crouched down into a tight firing position, rifling coming up to engage the first target.

  Here.

  We.

  Go.

  Her fire was rapid, lethal, and merciless.

  Her breathes were shallow. But they kept coming. Standish was slumped in a corner at the end of the hall. To her right were the lifts. To her left was a trail of destruction. Flipping up her blast shield, she looked down at her armour. It’s once pristine sheen and colour had been ruined. It was now a picture of destruction. Blast holes and even a massive dent struck from a heavy axe.

  Popping open her chest compartment, she pulled out the ring and looked at it. It was gorgeous. A blueish-purples in colour that looked incredible, even in the poor lighting of the hall.

  Closing her eyes, Standish swallowed. It tasted like iron. She had internal injuries. Her heads-up-display system had died halfway through her fight towards the lift, and she wasn’t sure if her armour’s nano-medical bots were active, or if she was dying.

  Looking back at the ring, she took a moment to stare at its brilliance, then popped it back into her chest compartment. Looking towards the ceiling, she tried to relax. She needed a vacation.

  A permanent vacation.

  Epilogue

  The wind blowing off the lake gave Stand
ish a chill, so she wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders. She was tired, and as the sun started to set in the west, the sounds of birds and other creatures in the forest surrounding the lake would begin to quiet with the fading light. It was a very peaceful place to be, on a planet where she was the only inhabitant. For some reason, Rauha had escaped the horrors of the war that Standish had participated in for almost fifty years, and without a carnivorous predator on the planet, she was completely safe.

  Standish’s journey to Rauha was built on a foundation of loss and sorrow, but once she had met Bender and Reyn, she became more than she thought she could ever become, and her life had been irrevocably changed from one of sadness to one of joy and success. From having everyone she loved ripped away from her, she went on to reach the highest heights of the Alliance.

  The only time she ever had company on her back-water retirement world was the once a month supply runs that were still made, the benefits of retiring as the head of the Dynamic Operations command, before taking a position as a senior advisor on Mechcharga to the Princess as the head of the Royal Protection Syndicate. After all those years of fighting and death, Standish had decided that she needed solace in her final years, and rather than returning to Nadolo Prime, she had selected Rauha.

  The planet was in the Pyh-Pil Cluster, and far enough away from the Pohjois that she was never in any threat of encountering the Coalition, and as the world was listed as a nature reserve, and off-limits to all civilians, it was the perfect retreat.

  As the sun continued to set, Standish looked at the woods around the lake as they grew darker. She needed a long walk in the morning to clear her mind, she thought to herself. Now that she was finally able to make time, and reflect on her life, she tried to focus on the positive parts of it.

  Her eyes drifted over to her cabin, made from local trees. The modest house was more than enough for someone of her age and needs. Her gaze moved back towards the lake, she closed her eyes, and slowed her breathing, and fell asleep. Finally, on a world untouched by the war, and at peace with her soul, and everything she had seen and done.