Gaz looked at Victor. “What the fuck you plannin’?”
Victor glanced to Gaz. “A prisoner revolt.” He then looked to the starchild. “Cormac, you said they probably keep weapons in a separate area?”
“Yes, but I do not know where it is,” Cormac said.
“I do,” Lena said. “I saw a sign for the armory.” She pointed down the left corridor. “About fifty meters that way, then a left, then another hundred meters.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Fara.
Lena smiled coyly and told Fara, “Because, my dear, I counted my footsteps when I was taken away. I figured it would come in handy for any escape.”
“Clever,” Fara said.
“Thanks, though I appreciate you guys saving me from becoming a party favor,” Lena said.
“We’re just heroic like that,” Fara said.
“Ahem,” Victor said to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, so the first step is to free the prisoners. Lena, how many guards are there?”
“Five,” Lena said.
“Total?”
“Yes, there’s a central area where all the prisoner cages open. They keep us separated based on gender and what kind of slaves they plan on making us.”
“We’ll need to take them down quietly. Gun shots will probably travel through this entire base,” Victor said. “Gaz, you ready for some close-combat work?”
Gaz stripped off the gloves of his suit, showing the silvery metal grafted onto his knuckles. “I was made for it.”
“Good.” Victor said, “Lena, lead the way.”
“You got it.”
Victor tightened the strap of his assault rifle to keep it from rattling around and making noise. He then pulled out his blood-covered cutlass and followed behind Lena, with Gaz behind him.
Cormac and Fara were farther behind, Fara supporting herself against Cormac with one hand and holding a pistol in the other. Cormac similarly held Victor’s old hand-me-down carbine in his free hand.
Even with their effort to be quiet, the sound of the heavy space suit boots reverberated against the metal deck of the corridor. Victor clenched his teeth, willing himself into silence.
He got so focused on being stealthy that he almost didn’t notice the pair of pirates who rounded the corner. Lena bumped into the chest of the nearest one.
“Wha—” was all the pirate said before Victor grabbed a fistful of Lena’s jumpsuit and pulled her back, then brought down his cutlass on the surprised pirate, slicing him open from clavicle to crotch.
As the pirate gurgled, blood leaking from his mouth, Gaz leapt past Victor and drove his metal-tipped knuckles into the other pirate’s temple with a wet crack.
The man fell, and Gaz landed on top of him, punching him three more times, pulping the pirate’s face.
By that time, the pirate Victor cut had fallen over and died.
He turned to Lena. “Were these guys guards?”
“No, I haven’t seen these two before,” she said.
“How much farther to the prison?” he asked.
“Twenty meters down and to the right.”
“All right, leave the bodies here.”
They moved along the corridor with as much stealth as their bulky equipment allowed. As they approached the prison, voices became audible around the corner.
“Why did Nevs and Jakes have to take the redheaded girl?” said one man. “She was the prettiest of this lot.”
“Because she pissed off Lucille. You know what happens to slaves who piss off Lucille,” said someone else. “Don’t worry. You’ll get your turn with her when we’re off duty.”
“Eh, she won’t be very fresh after that.”
Lena stopped and leaned around the corner before retreating. She held up three fingers.
But where are the other two guards? Victor thought. He replaced Lena at the corner to get a look through the doorway. Three pirates sat at a table. All had their backs turned to the door. He guessed the other two were out of view.
He looked to Gaz and signaled him to follow, then charged around the corner and through the door.
The clacking of his suit’s armor drew the attention of the pirates as Victor slammed into the table, knocking the first three down.
The two other pirates guarding the prisoners stood next to the four cages off this central room. One had his hand through the bars to grope the women inside. The other stood watch between the two cages to the right.
The women in the left cage immediately grabbed the arms of the pirate trying to touch them and pulled the screaming man against the bars. The other pirate turned around with a gun in his hands, but, before he could aim, Gaz pounced on him, crushing his face with a reinforced fist.
The three pirates Victor knocked down scrambled for their weapons, but three quick slashes with his cutlass ended them within seconds.
The last pirate to die was the one with his arms trapped by the women in the left-hand cages, his face a mass of scratches.
Gaz walked up to him and snapped his neck, then turned to Victor. “You’re a real killer with that sword.”
“Thanks,” Victor said.
The prisoners clamored for release. Victor looked at the pirates, seeing which ones had the keys when Lena ran in and knelt over one of them.
“Captain! Open the cage!” yelled one of the male prisoners.
Lena pulled a keycard from one of the guards Victor had cut open and walked up to the right-hand cage, sliding the card into the reader and pressing a button on the control screen.
The gate opened, and the prisoners charged out. A few of them gathered around Lena, hugging her. She tossed the keycard to Victor. “Open the others.”
He did, freeing the rest of the three hundred prisoners. Some of them picked up weapons from the dead pirates.
“You said you knew where the armory is?” Victor asked.
Lena nodded. “I do. Follow me.” She hefted her stolen pistol and walked from the prison.
Victor sheathed his cutlass and unslung his assault rifle. The time for stealth was over.
They passed Cormac and Fara along the way, Fara leaning against the bulkhead while Cormac guarded the corridor with his carbine.
“Looks like things are about to get loud,” Fara said, glancing at Victor’s rifle.
“You’re right. This place is now a war zone,” Victor said. “So keep your heads down.”
She scoffed. “We’re mercs like you, Victor. We can take care of ourselves. But thanks for the thought.”
Victor nodded. “Direct the prisoners. Get them to the armory.”
“You got it,” she said.
“Cormac, I’ll need you with us to hack the armory’s doors.”
The starchild nodded his long, thin head. “Of course.”
Victor ordered the unarmed prisoners to stay behind with Fara while the armed ones followed Victor, Gaz, and Lena.
As the only ones wearing combat armor, Victor and Gaz took point, followed closely by Lena.
She directed them to a corridor with an arrow painted on the side and the label Armory stenciled in.
“Okay, Gaz. You and me lead the way,” Victor said.
“You got it,” he said.
They followed the signs to the armory. On two occasions, they ran into lone pirates in the corridor. On both occasions they gunned them down without stopping.
Behind them, Lena shouted to her people to stay back and let the mercenaries do their work.
An alarm went up just as Victor and Gaz made the last turn toward the armory. Someone must have noticed the gunfire.
A guard appeared in the doorway, weapon at the ready. Gaz and Victor dropped him with a burst from their assault rifles and then charged forward.
Reaching the hatch, Gaz pulled a stun grenade from his belt and then tossed it inside.
A loud bang and a flash of light came from the hatch, followed by screams.
Victor and Gaz turned the corner and killed the three pirates still alive in
a short one-sided gunfight.
As Victor anticipated, the door to the armory itself was locked, and none of the guards had matching keycards.
“Cormac, get over here!”
The starchild bounded in on his long legs. Without preamble, he pulled out a multitool and took apart the door’s control console.
Gunfire and shouting came from the corridor.
“It appears the pirates are now alert to our activities,” Cormac said, pulling wires from the panel. “You should keep them from interrupting me.”
“Right. Gaz, guard Cormac while he works,” Victor said before he ran into the corridor.
He followed the gunfire to the adjacent junction. The armed prisoners had taken cover and were firing down one of the three corridors leading to the junction in front of the armory. They needed to hold this position if they wanted to get the other prisoners to the armory.
Lena crouched around the corner, shouting orders. Victor ran up to her. “I’ll hold this junction, Captain. I need you to bring the other prisoners here so we can arm them.”
“Have you opened the armory then?” she shouted over the gunfire.
“Cormac will have it open by the time you get back,” Victor said. He hoped that was true.
Lena nodded and turned to run up the corridor leading toward the prison.
A prisoner fell, wounded by a gunshot to the shoulder. Victor pulled him from the line of fire and took his place at the corner. Setting his assault rifle to full-auto, he leaned around the corner to fire.
He felt something glance against his chestplate, but ignored it as he emptied the assault rifle, forcing the four pirates to duck for cover.
He took cover and checked his chestplate, feeling a small dent in a flank where a bullet had hit but did not penetrate.
Good.
He reloaded as the pirates returned fire. They appeared to only be armed with small hand weapons. But more would come. He regretted leaving Gaz and his grenade launcher behind to guard Cormac.
Victor fired another burst, this one more controlled. He thought he saw a pirate drop, but two more appeared to take his place.
When he returned to cover, he saw Lena leading the rest of the prisoners to the armory. He shouted to the armed ones, “Covering fire!” and then took aim down the corridor and fired a series of bursts to hold down the pirates.
The footsteps of dozens of prisoners drummed behind Victor as he kept up the fire. He stopped to reload, his place taken by an armed prisoner with a machine pistol, who emptied the weapon with abandon down the corridor.
Slamming home a fresh magazine, Victor turned around to fire another burst, just as more pirates piled into the corridor.
He took a hit right to the chest, knocking the wind from him and forcing him back around the corner. His armor stopped the round, but his sternum hurt from the impact.
The last of the unarmed prisoners made their way to the armory. Victor hoped that Cormac had hacked the door by now.
He checked around the corner and saw pirates advancing up the corridor under the covering fire of their comrades.
Victor pulled out a hand grenade and primed it, then threw it around the corner toward the pirates. He didn’t hear it bounce over the roar of the gunfire, but he did hear it detonate, causing a sudden drop in the incoming fire.
Victor took the opportunity to fire another long burst from his assault rifle, holding down the pirates until his magazine emptied.
He reloaded his weapon, noticing he was down to his last magazine. Soon he’d be reduced to his revolver.
Then, in a running march from the armory, came dozens of armed and angry merchant crewmembers, carrying all manner of guns.
Lena and Gaz led the mob. They stopped beside Victor, Gaz saying, “We gots ourselves an army now.”
“That’s good, but the pirates have this corridor saturated with fire. We’ll need to flank them,” Victor said.
“I know a way around,” Lena said.
Gaz nodded, holding up the light machine gun he had liberated from the armory. “I’ll hold their attention here. You and the redhead do the flankin’.”
“Uh, right,” Victor said. “I could use some ammo.”
Lena tapped one of the men on the shoulder, a big man covered with guns and ammo belts.
“Give this man a gun and fresh ammo,” she told the big man.
“Got it, Cap.” He hooked his thumb through a strap and pulled a big black beast of a gun off his back.
Victor set down his assault rifle and accepted the drum-fed autoshotgun, along with a bandolier holding four spare magazines. He flung the ammo belt over his neck and hefted the weapon, pulling back the slide to make sure it was loaded, then looked to Lena. “Show me the way but stay behind me. I’m the one with body armor, after all.”
“You got it,” she said.
Victor, Lena, and a half-dozen former prisoners who were Lena’s crew moved up the corridor, leading back to the prison.
“Go that way.” Lena pointed to the left corridor of a four-way intersection. They ran down the corridor, going straight through another intersection.
Victor didn’t like the headlong rush; it would be too easy for them to blunder into an ambush.
Just as he finished that thought, a dozen pirates ran around the corner in front of him.
Both groups stopped.
Without thinking, Victor brought his autoshotgun to his hip and held down the trigger.
The big gun roared, firing more rapidly than Victor expected, launching a swarm of barely aimed buckshot into the pirates, spraying blood all over the corridor. Lena and her crew fired their own weapons and, in seconds, killed all the pirates.
Victor looked down at his now empty shotgun, smoke rising from the vents in its muzzle brake. “Holy hell!”
“Looks like the pirates had the same idea we did,” Lena said.
“Yeah.” Victor released the empty drum, letting it bounce against the deck in the low gravity. “Let’s move before they figure out we’re coming.”
“Lead the way. They should be just up ahead,” Lena said.
“Right,” he said. He could already hear the gunfire. Loading a new drum into the shotgun, he moved forward, more cautious than before.
When the gunfire got loud enough to be almost deafening, he leaned around the corner and saw the pirates behind cover. He was almost directly on their left flank.
He hefted his autoshotgun, and looked to Lena and her people. He mouthed, three…two…one… and then shouldered his shotgun and turned the corner.
With a light squeeze of the trigger, he announced his presence with a two-round burst into the side of the first pirate he saw, splattering the man against the bulkhead.
The other pirates turned to him just as he fired another burst, reducing the head of another pirate into a red mist.
Then Lena’s crew opened fire and rained bullets down on the exposed pirates. Those who weren’t hit didn’t even bother to return fire; they turned and ran.
A cheer went up from the left corridor, and the other armed merchant crewmembers charged after them.
“Hold fire! Hold fire!” Victor yelled to keep Lena’s crew from shooting their allies.
“We need to get to the control center,” Lena said.
“Do you know where that is too?” Victor asked.
“Uh, not really, no,” she said.
“Great,” Victor said.
Gaz came around the corner, his weapon at the ready. “Where to now?” he asked.
“We need to find this base’s control center,” Victor said.
“What about the hangar? I thought the plan was to escape,” Gaz said.
“That was before we had an army,” Victor said.
“Right, gotcha. So where do you think we should look?” Gaz asked.
“Let’s find Cormac. If he’s hacked their network, he can find the control center,” Victor said.
Victor, Gaz, Lena, and her crew made their way back to the armory wh
ere they had left Cormac. There they found a line made up of the few remaining unarmed prisoners. At the end of the line, Cormac and Fara handed out the guns to would-be slaves looking for a little payback.
Gunfire echoed through every corridor. The fighting spread like wildfire through the base, punctuated by the blasts of grenades and other explosives going off.
Victor clenched each time he heard an explosion. An atmospheric breach would not be much of a threat to him, since he was still in his suit, but none of the prisoners wore pressure suits. If one of them or the pirates blew a hole in the side of the rather sturdy-looking dome,…it could get messy.
“Cormac, we need your services,” Victor said as he shouldered his way past the prisoners waiting for their guns. None of them appeared to mind seeing one of their liberators cutting through the line.
Fara put a hand on Cormac’s shoulder. “I can handle handing out the toys, Cormac.”
The starchild nodded his long head and moved away from the end of the line to Victor. “What is it that you require, Victor?”
“Can you find where the control center is?” asked Victor.
Cormac rubbed his chin. “Yes, I can do that.” He walked over to the armory’s security terminal, already broken open with optical wires attached to one of his datapads.
He picked up the datapad and tapped the screen, swiping the display until it showed a map of the base with a web of lines radiating from a central point near the hangar midway in the base. “Yes.” He tapped the screen. “That’s where all the base’s controls and alarms are routed to. I’ll upload the map to your suit computer.”
A query appeared in the display screen inside his helmet. Victor accepted it and downloaded the map from Cormac’s datapad. Soon he had the most direct route to Lucille’s Bay’s control center overlaid in his helmet display. “All right. Cormac, come with us. We’ll need your expertise.”
“I am right behind you,” Cormac said.
Lena tapped him on the shoulder plate. “Me and my people will stick with you in case you need backup.”
Victor nodded. “Okay. Me and Gaz will take point while you and yours watch our flanks.”
The freighter captain nodded. “You got it.”
Victor followed the path laid out on his display, Gaz at his side. Cormac and Lena followed behind them, with the merchant captain’s crew taking up the rear.
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