“Lifetaker,” comes the reply.
All of us spring up from our positions. It’s Masters’s voice on the other end.
“Masters,” I say. “It’s us. We’re coming around the corner. Don’t shoot us.”
“Is Devers with you?” Masters asks. “Because no promises if he is.”
He says the last bit on external comm while stepping calmly around the corner. We clamp hands and dole out manly half-hugs. I peer down the corridor. Somehow, Masters approached the MCR from their rear and dusted every last one of them. The crew all have gaping holes in the back of their heads. The barrel of their KL-5 is still smoking.
“You’re here, too?” Exo says. “Hell yeah! See, that’s what I’m talkin’ about. They ain’t stoppin’ us now. Gonna take that bridge, and then y’all can call me Captain Exo.”
“How’d you get here?” I ask Masters.
“Saw a marine who looked pale. I got him to fake a gut-bug in exchange for my holochit collection. Didn’t tell him he’d have to go to Moona Village to collect them.”
I smile. “I figured already that you made it on board an assault shuttle. What I mean is, how did you find us?”
“Oh, uh, well, I heard from one of the marines I came in with that I wasn’t the only leej to make his way onto an assault shuttle. So when they were all hustling to the knock-down drag-out on the main corridor, I moved to where the hullbusters said your shuttle was supposed to hit.”
The first sergeant approaches us while his marines carefully make their way past the dead MCRs. “So you’ve seen what lies ahead? Because I’ll be straight. Ain’t nothin’ looked right since we moved past the deck’s life support rooms. We were supposed to be on the main thoroughfare, and this ain’t it.”
“Yeah,” Masters agrees. “It’s all clear behind me. I think these guys were a detachment form the main force stationed this way just in case. And it seems the MCR did some reconfig to the usual Ohio-class layout. They obviously didn’t have close to the necessary crew to man this thing, so they sealed off a lot and made new corridors. I’d guess they had enough crew for battery emplacements, hangar, pilots, bridge, and armed insurgents to help fend off any boarding parties—no koobs, thank Oba. Don’t wanna see one of them again unless I’m part of the firing squad.”
“Let’s push up,” Wraith says, nodding for Masters to lead the way. He turns to First Sergeant, but the marine has one hand over his ear, listening to his comm.
“Command wants to talk to you, Leej,” the first sergeant tells Wraith. “Looks like our fire team lucked out and got behind the resistance.”
“Patch him over to my channel. I’ll send you a sync-burst.”
“Got it. Coming through.”
I can hear only Wraith’s side of the conversation that follows. It’s a lot of yessirs.
“So what do you think they want?” Exo asks, shifting from one foot to another as though he can’t wait to pick up the fighting again. “Sneak up behind the main force and wipe ’em out?”
I shrug. “My money’s on sending us straight to the bridge.”
“Yeah, that’s the thing,” Masters says, his voice animated. “I’m pretty sure this corridor we’re in will take us right up to the bridge’s port-side blast doors. It’s configured all wacky—bad weld jobs really start to show up further down the line—but I’m pretty sure I passed it. Ohio-tech cameras—not that they’re working with the Mercutio ghosting them…”
Wraith finishes up his conversation. “Understood, sir. Victory-1 out.”
We all look at Wraith expectantly before Exo asks, “What’s the word, Captain?”
Wraith speaks loud enough for the marines to hear. “That was Mercutio’s legion commander.” He pauses and looks to the first sergeant. “I assume he informed you that this is now officially a Legion op and that your fire team is under my command.”
First Sergeant nods. “Yep. A little confused why everyone is calling you ‘Captain’ since you got lieutenant bars on your armor, though.”
Masters holds up a hand. “I can answer that. Captain Ford was promoted in the field. And that sergeant,” he points to me, “is actually a lieutenant.”
“And what are the two of you?”
“Exo and me are still specialists. You had to kill a certain number of koobs to get a field promotion.”
Exo shakes his head as if troubled. “Captain Ford and Lieutenant Chhun kept stealing our kills.”
“Uh-huh,” grunts First Sergeant. “Good luck keepin’ your rank once we get back to the ship. Republic is stingy that way. So what’s the plan, Captain?”
“The Mercutio’s intelligence corps believes the MCRs on the bridge are attempting to dump data before making an exit in the escape pods. Every other marine on this ship is fighting a sizable force farther down the corridor. We’re behind all that mess. Our orders are to move to the bridge, infiltrate, and secure it. We are to take the ship’s captain and all possible bridge officers alive.”
“Be a lot easier to kill ’em all…” Exo mumbles.
“Those aren’t our orders,” I say.
“Time’s wasting,” Wraith says. “Let’s get to the bridge. Masters, you’re on point. First Sergeant, do what you do best with your marines. Kags, you’re up with us.”
The army basic grins and jogs to catch up with Masters. We’ve got a bridge to sweep and a ship to capture.
***
We reach the bridge’s port blast doors with zero resistance, but I can clearly hear the frenetic battle happening elsewhere on the main corridor thoroughfare. I can see that the marines are thinking about their buddies; they’re eager to bring the hammer down on the MCR and put a stop to the fight. But the truth of it is, if we take the bridge, we take the ship. And surrenders typically stop the enemy much faster than fighting to a total team kill.
A marine pushes against the blast door. “This one’s thicker than the one back there.”
Exo lets out a sigh. “We’ll all die of old age before those torches cut through.”
“Well we gotta do something,” says Masters, stating the obvious.
I chew my lip. “If we start cutting, they’ll know we’re out here, and they’ll either send a detachment to engage us or get off the ship before we have a chance to grab them. Even Ohio-class escape pods will jump to hyperspace at launch. Our gunners won’t have time to touch ’em.”
Wraith nods in agreement. “I’ll get Mercutio’s Legion command on the comm, see if they have anything shipboard that we might be able to use to blow the door open.”
Crouched against the corridor walls, we have teams covering every direction, carefully watching to make sure nothing gets the drop on us.
“It’d be nice if someone from inside the bridge decided to come out on their own,” Masters says to me. “Y’know, stretch their legs.”
We both look to the door. It stays shut.
“Chhun,” Wraith calls over the comm. “Move up to the door panel. Legion command says they have something.”
I hear a direct-comm burst over my headset. “Go for Chhun,” I say.
“Glad you made it out alive,” I hear over the comm.
I know that voice. “Andien?” The scientist. She’s back on ship then? Or am I speaking to her via relay from Kublar’s surface? There’s a mob of questions moving through the streets of my mind. The strongest of them, the one that I express, is, “How’s Rook?”
There’s a pause.
“Let’s… let’s focus for now on the task at hand, Lieutenant Chhun.”
Dead. Rook is dead. I bury it and him all at once. I look at the panel. It’s old tech. Tactile buttons, visible wires behind perforated paneling, and a faded alphanumeric display screen. “What am I doing?”
Andien’s voice is steady. “Every Ohio-class battleship has a command override for access to the bridge.”
“Okay, what’s the code?”
“Not quite that easy. The code is dependent on how the access panel is hard-wired. You have to tak
e the panel off. There are four tenor bolts. Unfasten them.”
And me without my tool bag. I call out to the first sergeant. “I need a cutting torch up for this panel.”
A marine steps forward and lights his torch. A three-inch long flame leaps out of the wand’s end.
“Dial it back, pal. I need the panel’s tenor bolts off, not extra crispy.”
The marine dials back the intensity so that a miniature glow is all that the torch emits. He works quickly around each bolt, shearing it off at its head. I grab each hot bolt in my gloved hand as it falls, then snag the panel. I lay all the pieces at my feet—not that anyone on the bridge would hear if they hit the deck.
“Okay, plate’s off. What next, Andien?”
“Tell me what you see.”
Multicolored wires run from a node into a veritable nest of microcircuitry. The wires are just a little cooked from the torch—scattered black scorch marks mar the blues, greens, and yellows, as if someone held a lighter to them.
“Uh, I see thirteen nodes with different-colored wires hooked into them.”
“What color is the first wire?”
“Uh… reddish-brown?”
“It’s not black?”
“It doesn’t look black.”
“And you’re sure it’s not just red?”
I look again, inspecting each of the thirteen wires just to make sure that I’m not missing something. If I had my bucket, it could tell her the exact wavelength of the color. I think about asking Wraith to take a look, but I trust my gut.
“No, it’s not red. The red wire is definitely in the seventh node from the left.”
“Okay… let me think.” Andien breathes into the comm as though she’s blowing her hair away from her forehead.
Think? Exactly who is this woman who claims to be a scientist, but seems instead to be an expert on communication tech, both modern and antique?
“There’s a blue wire right next to the reddish-brown one, if that helps.”
“Thanks,” Andien says. “Are the first five wires reddish-brown, blue, white with yellow stripes, black, and then green?”
I mentally check off each wire as she speaks the colors. It’s exactly as she describes it. “That’s it, yeah.”
“Okay. You’re going to need to pull out that first wire and replace it with the red one. There’s a quick-release tab just above it. Don’t yank it out.”
“What do I do with the brown one?”
“Brown?” There’s mild alarm in Andien’s voice.
“Sorry. Reddish-brown.”
“Nothing. Just leave it unhooked.”
I detach the first wire and then port over the red wire. The display screen for the panel blips for a second, but otherwise everything is as it was. “Made the swap,” I announce.
“Well done, Lieutenant Chhun. You’re ready to open the door to the bridge. You just need to enter the code.”
I motion for the marines and my fellow leejes to prepare themselves. Hands go to N-6 rifles and ear-poppers. Wraith, Exo, and Masters are stacked outside the door, ready to clear the room as soon as the ear-poppers detonate.
Exo looks at the marines. “Better only send in one of those. Confined space, they’ll be too deaf for questioning if you cook off more than one.”
The marines nod.
“Okay,” I say over the comm. “Give me the code.”
Andien relays a series of alphanumeric characters. I diligently enter them on the keypad.
“Last character,” Andien says, waiting for me to give the go-ahead.
I nod to Wraith, who steels himself.
“Go,” I say.
“Six.”
I press the corresponding key and bring my N-4 to the ready. The bridge door whooshes open, and I see an ear-popper fly into the room. It drops at the feet of an MCR security ensign.
And fails to detonate.
With no time to toss in another popper, we open fire, dropping the ensign as we storm the bridge. The ship’s captain and mates all wear masks of stunned surprise.
“Hands! Hands!” Wraith is on them, his voice amplified and booming. He forces the captain and mates to their knees, his N-4 aimed down at their necks. “On the deck!”
The bridge of an Ohio-class ship has a raised command platform sitting above a crew pit manned by helmsmen, sensor techs, and the like. Kags and I move to the platform to help to secure the command crew, trusting Exo and the marines to lock down the bridge pit. As soon as the crew is ener-chained and disarmed, I look over to Exo to check on his progress—and I see a tech attempting to surreptitiously remove her sidearm.
“Blaster!” I shout in warning.
Exo and Masters swing their N-4s in unison. They find the target and open up in quick bursts. The suddenness of the action causes the marines to open fire into the pit as well. Before my eyes the entire tech crew is laid to waste.
“Cease fire!” I order. The command is echoed by Wraith and First Sergeant.
The shooting dies down, and we’re left with shaking MCR officers and a pit full of dead crewmen. The silence hanging over the bridge is interrupted by the chime of the comm announcing a priority message.
“This is Colonel Fitz. We’re keeping the Republic at bay. Their marines are suffering heavy casualties. Advise ETA to data dump and jump.”
Data dump and jump. They weren’t looking to escape, only to hedge their bets. Dump whatever data they don’t want discovered should we take over the ship, then jump to safety, effectively stranding whatever marines were on board. The Mercutio surprised this ship; they probably figured that with the Chiasm gone there’d be no other Republic vessels in reach. Just a few surviving leejes on the planet’s surface to be dealt with by their Preyhunter squadrons. The thought makes me grow hot with anger.
Wraith has tied the ship’s captain’s arms behind his back with an ener-chain. He hauls the rebel to his feet by his collar and walks him to the bridge’s comm relay. “I’m going to need your cooperation, Captain. Is that clear?”
The captain, a bearded man somewhere in his fifties, stares back at Wraith defiantly.
Wraith nods at the comm. “Order your men to surrender immediately.”
“And should I refuse?” the captain replies.
Wraith answers with a vicious, armored elbow to the man’s face. The captain drops unconscious to the deck, a pool of blood forming around his head.
Wraith removes his blaster pistol and calls out to the other officers. “Your captain is incapacitated and unable to command this vessel. Who is next in the command chain?”
A timid hand goes up. “I am.” The kid looks much too young to warrant a first mate position, but there he is all the same.
Wraith motions for me to bring the kid to him. I oblige. Roughly.
“Order your men to surrender immediately.” Wraith thumbs off his blaster’s safety, as if emphasizing the last word.
The first mate looks down at his battered captain and speaks into the comm. “This is First Mate Darehl Lund, speaking on behalf of Captain Entressex. The bridge has been captured by the Republic and you are hereby ordered to lay down arms and surrender immediately. This ship is no longer able to enter hyperspace. Surrender. Repeat, surrender.”
“Good,” Wraith says. He mockingly pats the cheek of the fresh-faced officer before I take him away.
First Sergeant has his hand to his ear. “Report on the comm is that most of the MCR are comin’ out, hands up. Few pockets of resistance, but they’ll get chewed up before long.”
Wraith seems preoccupied. Like he’s having another conversation over L-comm. Finally, he acknowledges First Sergeant. “Nice work, marine. It was a pleasure, as always. Lieutenant Chhun, round up the prisoners. Legion Command is sending in a shuttle for retrieval, followed by immediate interrogation. We’re gonna find out how the MCR pulled this off.”
04
Somewhere at galaxy’s edge. Two months before the Battle of Kublar.
He was known as X.
&
nbsp; He was the Director of Operations and the grand pooh bah of espionage within a small Nether Ops unit known as “the Carnivale.”
They got that name because the operations they pulled were often viewed by other Nether Ops pooh bahs as third-rate, showy, all flash, a bit of theater, and of little value in the grand scheme of Republic intel-gathering.
What is Nether Ops?
Most citizens have heard of Dark Ops. It’s run by the Legion, and has the best operators from a war fighter perspective. A military check to balance the bureaucracy of the House of Reason and Senate Council. Dark Ops has budgets and offices and it’s all very proper and legal.
Nether Ops, on the other hand, is the whisper of a rumor. Even in Dark Ops, few people know what really goes on there. Nether Ops does for the Republic what the Legion won’t. It’s the fulfillment of a dream that died the day General Rex and his Dark Ops legionnaires refused to obey. And so the Republic stopped asking Dark Ops to do what it really wanted and formed Nether Ops. A clandestine unit that did what needed doing.
And often… what shouldn’t be done.
Because sometimes bad things—downright horrible things in fact—must be done. For the greater good of the Republic.
The “greater good” is, after all, what the Republic is founded on.
The greater good. All for all.
Isn’t that what the elites at the top like to say every time they bother to go through the pomp and circumstance of an election? All for all? As they switch seats and positions just often enough to keep the rubes believing it’s all a democracy? Or a “modified galactic republic”—that’s how they teach it to the younglings.
Emphasis on “modified.”
Most citizens, the great unwashed, would be surprised at how “modified” it truly is.
They wouldn’t like to know how the steaks get cut.
X knows this better than anyone.
As he walks along the wet streets of the North Sea commons neighborhoods, just beyond Utopion Prime, the weather is fine and misty, some would say gloomy. His destination is the old starship works near the harbor. The Carnivale, an off-off-off-book operation, has always liked to be away from the hustle and bustle of the capital, with all their big modern buildings, sprawling conference rooms, high-tech security, agendas, planning committees, power, politics, and hot-potato games. Out here, in a refurbished engine housing manufacturing headquarters, is a nice place to do business and blend in with the locals.
Kill Team (Galaxy's Edge Book 3) Page 3