One last shot from its turret hit the back of the truck and spun them around to face the wrong direction. Cars swerved all around them, like the truck was a boulder plopped into a fast-moving river. Darius jammed the truck into full reverse and swept it into a fairly clean 180-degree slide. It put them in the right direction, but they had lost precious time. According to the HUD in his visor, they had only 15 seconds left until the city traffic AI took over the wheel.
He punched the accelerator, and the cars in front of him dived out of his way as their evasive action algorithms kicked in. He felt like a bit like Moses parting the Red Sea.
The APC followed behind, but using its turret cam to steer was evidently more than the driver could handle. It wasn’t catching up any time soon, and it wasn’t going to open fire on a public street. He hoped.
It seemed that if military officials had known about the archive in Darius’s possession, they would be glassing the neighborhood from orbit right now. Then again, if they’d known, they already would have airlifted the entire house and transported it directly back to New Earth under the watchful eye of an entire naval flotilla. Sar-Zin set traps, but this wasn’t his kind of bait. All the empire knew was that there was an individual who roughly matched the description of a high-priority fugitive, and he was now speeding away and leaving a wake of grenades.
He had less than ten seconds to find another manhole. The map on his visor had already identified a candidate, this one on the main avenue. The authorities would assuredly spot the team from orbit as it clambered into the sewers, but getting underground would at least buy Darius and his crew a minute or two to breathe.
The traffic AI took over and slammed the brakes on the truck just a few meters away from the manhole. The team leaped out of the cabin and scrambled to the manhole as their six-wheeled pursuer came lumbering around the corner. The city traffic AI had redirected all civilian vehicles, so it was just them and the APC. Which meant that it could resume firing at any moment.
But for now, the truck hid the team from its line of sight. They took advantage of the cover to grab the manhole and yank it off. Darius’s enhanced armor made that part easy. He jumped down inside and held his arms out to catch Nadira. She dropped in moments later, and Cahill was right behind her. The Marine wrenched the manhole back into place and slapped something on the underside of it before sliding down the ladder.
“What was that?” Darius asked her.
Cahill grinned. “Like my CO always said, ‘When in doubt, plant an explosive.’”
He thought that was a good cue to get clear of the manhole. They scrambled to the next subterranean junction, and they tore their costumes off as they ran. Darius’s ears were still ringing from the APC’s initial turret round, even with the sonic suppression provided by his helmet.
He looked at Cahill. “You ready?”
She nodded. “I break off here, hustle a few blocks, come back to the surface, make a scene, and hopefully draw the grunts off your trail.”
“Good luck and gods speed, Cahill. It’s been an honor.”
“Don’t get mushy on me, chief—you still owe me a drink. I plan to collect.”
“All right, then. Send me a postcard from the brig.”
She winked at him and ran down the western tunnel. Darius watched her go until she disappeared, and then he and Nadira hustled down the eastern route.
Cahill was probably going to die.
✽✽✽
Darius and Nadira trotted down a long series of tunnels. They were in less of a hurry now. Cahill needed time to pull the dragnet fully in her direction anyway. If the troops were still on top of the whole team when they surfaced, then her effort would be pointless.
The Federation had dropped off a second truck a few blocks away from his current position, because there are always at least two vehicles in a heist: the getaway ride you use to flee the scene, and the clean one you switch to before the law closes in.
Darius and Nadira paused at the bottom of the ladder that would lead them to the clean ride. Nadira was breathing heavily, while Darius was barely winded.
“We’ll get there,” he told her. “We’re doing fine. Better than I expected, even.”
“Darius,” she said in between breaths, “I’ve been through ops like this...too many times...to accept that bullshit. But I appreciate the effort.”
“We still have everyone we need to get the job done. And you and I haven’t shot a single round yet.”
She shook her head. “Now you’ve jinxed it.”
“Crew 3, this is Central,” said Figueroa. “Your window is open, please proceed, over.”
“Copy that, Central.” He looked at Nadira. “All right, here we go. Stay close.”
Darius climbed up the ladder and pushed the manhole cover up a few inches to take a peek. Their anonymous delivery van was just a short distance away, and the coast appeared to be clear.
He shoved the cover the rest of the way off and headed straight to the back of the van. There was a stray dog down the alleyway that looked oddly familiar. Darius realized that he’d seen it forever ago, wandering around Rali’s apartment on the night he went to bail his brother out of trouble. It wagged its tail at him.
He swung the rear door of the van open and helped Nadira hop in. He climbed in right after her, closed the van up, and began setting up the vehicle for remote control. He lifted the reinforced cover of the pad on his left wrist and fiddled with the controls. Memories of his escape from the gift shop came bubbling up from his subconscious. He batted them away. Soon he had a video stream of the van’s front camera. After a few moments of calibration, they were pulling away. To a casual observer, it would look like any other delivery truck on an automated route.
Darius made sure to avoid running over the dog. That would have been very bad karma. He liked dogs, and there was also no one more superstitious than someone in the middle of a heist.
“Central,” he said, “this is Crew 3. We are heading back to the ranch now. Transmitting ETA, over.”
“Copy that, Crew 3. ETA received. We’ll leave the light on for ya. Over and out.”
He guided the van onto the street, at which point the traffic AI took over. He set the destination, leaned back, and closed his eyes.
“We’re doing great,” she said. “That last hurdle could have been a serious one.”
He chuckled. “Now you’re the one doing the cheerleading. I appreciate it, Nadi, but it doesn’t come to you naturally.”
“I suppose not. But I do feel better than I did five minutes ago.”
Darius scanned for signs of Cahill, for probably the twelfth time since they’d parted ways. Her vitals had gone offline. He told himself that it could mean a variety of things. He tried not to think about all the military sims where it meant only one.
As the minutes stretched on, there remained no sign of pursuit. The tension in his chest slowly unclenched. Maybe they’d gotten clear of it. Maybe Cahill had made such a mess that the army couldn’t tell how many people they were up against. That would be like her. That would be the kind of way she would have wanted to go out.
He wanted her to hold out long enough to hear the broadcast of Sar-Zin’s dirty secrets go out on all channels—to know that the Federation’s middle finger was hard at work. But he didn’t think it was in the cards. That, to him, was worse than writing her off as KIA. He wanted more for her than what she was going to get, after all she had done for him, and after all she had sacrificed to get this far.
Nadira put her hand on his shoulder. “Every op goes a little sideways, D. No plan survives contact with the enemy. What matters is that we haven’t shit the bed yet.”
He nodded. “That sounds more like you.”
There was still no sign of Cahill when they met up with Bellamy and Figueroa at a warehouse outside of town. They just shook their heads at him, and everyone got on board the transport.
Darius strapped in and peered out the porthole window that pointed back down the
highway that they’d just taken out of the city. He wanted to see a car, a van, even a rusty jalopy suddenly heaving over the rise. He wanted to at least hear the crackle of her voice on the radio—one last foul-mouthed nugget of wisdom for the road.
He strapped in, and Figueroa took them up without a word. The sun had just gone down. The glittering city of New Caledonia splayed itself further and further across the land as they rose. He wondered at all the people that buzzed within its hive without a care in the world. Preparing another dinner for their family, or getting ready to go for a night out on the town, or kicking back for another evening of vid watching.
There were worse places for heroes to die.
✽✽✽
You could have flown right past satellite TLM-DVK-5 on your way to another planet without ever really noticing it. Darius certainly never had. From the day he had first looked up at the night sky until the day of this very mission, he had given no mind to the objects that orbited Telamat in a string of blinks across the darkened heavens. As the team made their approach in the transport, Darius found it hard to believe that this forgettable metal box the size of a dump truck was going to be the linchpin of everything that would come next.
If they had broadcasted groundside, they never would have made it off the planet. Cracking a news satellite and jetting out of orbit was the only way to get clear of the trace in time.
Darius sat with Nadira in the back of the ship. He pulled the pendant out and inspected it. He asked her, “So is it really true that this guy had a whole underground city on Mainar IV?”
“More or less. Stored people down there like cattle.”
“How do you keep something a secret when it’s that big?”
“That’s part of his genius. The facility operated out in the open—under false pretenses. Only a small number of people knew its true purpose. The employees only knew that they were dealing with violent criminals who, through their actions, had given up their citizenship.
“The empire told the workers that the extraction of fluids was part of an experiment to study criminal behavior—to save the lives of innocent, upstanding imperial subjects down the road. The workers bought it, the public bought it, but it never sat right with me. So I went digging.”
“I’m sorry,” said Darius, “it must have sucked when you found out where the gel was all coming from.”
“Once I allowed myself to be suspicious of its origin, I guess it was only a matter of time until I began hunting for the truth. And like I’ve said before, don’t feel sorry for me. I kept using it. I can tell myself that I did it to continue my search. So that I wouldn’t have to worry about handing it off to someone less qualified or even untrustworthy. But in the end, I became as attached to it as Sar-Zin himself. Living is addictive. The old and infirm start to appear weak and lesser.”
“So it separated you,” said Darius.
“From my humanity, yes. I think it separates Sar-Zin from his. I still have a few strands left, and I’ve hung onto them long enough to bring us to where we are now. They have been a kind of lifeline. Perhaps with the exposure of his sin, of my sin, I can find some measure of absolution.”
“So you won’t use that stuff again?”
“I think I’ll always want to, D. I don’t think that craving will ever go away.”
They were coming up on the satellite now. Bellamy began a final gear check for his EVA.
“How much time do you think you’ll need?” Darius asked him.
Bellamy shrugged. “It’s been a while since I cracked one of these. If we stay off the radar, it should only take a few minutes.”
Darius handed him the cartridge. “Don’t lose this, we’ve only got the one.”
Bellamy put it around his neck. “No backups, then?”
Nadira shook her head. “None that are anywhere near this accessible. The others are hidden deep within imperial archives. I didn’t anticipate losing access to them so suddenly. I should have planned better.”
“Someone once told me that no plan survives contact with the enemy,” said Darius.
“All right,” said Bellamy. “I’m heading into the airlock. Be back in a jiff.”
Figueroa hit a button in the cockpit, and the external airlock clamps slid out of the way. “Don’t be a stranger, Davy.”
“I’ll bring you back some flowers, Rosie.”
“I would settle for a rack of heatseekers.”
Bellamy cycled through the airlock, snapped the ship’s tether to his suit, and floated over to the satellite.
Darius’s visor was tapped into the ship’s scanner systems. He didn’t have a traffic controller’s eye, but he didn’t see any trouble on the way yet.
He did see Nadira rubbing her hands up and down the armrests of her seat. “I know,” he told her. “I’m feeling it too.”
“Figueroa,” said Bellamy over the radio, “how’s the lidar look?”
“We’re green across the board, Davy. You just focus on cracking.”
“Roger that. I’m already interfacing. Shouldn’t take long.”
It looked to Darius like something was on approach from the planet surface. He glanced at Nadira. Her hands had stopped rubbing.
Darius unlatched his seatbelt and floated over to the starboard window. He gazed down at Telamat and set his visor to maximum zoom.
Yes, at least one ship was vectoring towards the satellite—and moving quickly. He decided now would be a good time to be strapped into something. Just in case.
He settled back into his seat and buckled all the belts and straps. Nadira began doing the same.
“All right,” said Figueroa, “looks like we may be having a party after all. My ETA is...seven minutes. How’s the crack looking, Davy?
“Well, I just got past the first gate, but it looks like two more have just popped up. If our new friends are seven minutes out, Rosie, we may not be able to get clear.”
“Roger that, Davy. I’ll start running some tactical sims.”
Figueroa asked the ship's AI to simulate a few options and outcomes. She'd imported the neural map from the Archimedes, so it had the experience, and then some.
Based on the incoming ships’ armaments and IDs, it wasn’t looking good. They were heavy gunners pushing as hard as their engines could take it. And as they climbed out of Telamat’s gravity well, they would only continue accelerating.
Darius opened a private channel to Figueroa. “We’re not gonna be able to stay, Rose. We have to move. Now. We have to pull their attention away from the satellite before they decide to run a visual check.”
“We can’t just leave him,” she said.
“We may not have a choice. Rosie...He knew what he signed up for. We all do. So, I can ask you, or I can order you. I’m sorry, but this has to happen, and it has to happen now.”
“Fine.” She closed the channel.
On the team channel, she said, “Davy, darlin’, we gotta take a little detour. A couple party crashers are on the way, and we gotta make sure they don’t spoil the surprise gift we’re cooking up. You copy?”
“You do what you have to do, Rosie. That’s what you do best. You know I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“You just sit tight, babe.” Her voice was getting a little tight. “We’ll be back before you know it. Try not to drink all the good booze by the time we get back.”
“You know I always save the best glass for you. Over and out.”
Figueroa slammed a button on her deck that released the tether, and the ship lurched into motion.
“Bakari,” she said, “you’re about to see why the Federation recruited me. I hope you’re fully strapped in. It’s time to shimmy. We’re gonna give these fuckoids a run for their money.”
As the acceleration mounted and Darius sank deeper into his seat, it became clear that the Avalon was no ordinary transport vessel. He brought up the specs on his visor and noted about three times the usual number of armaments, including a pair of previously hidden gimballed c
annons that were slaved directly to the ship AI imported from the Archimedes. He was willing to bet that the combat algorithms had gotten some custom tuning as well. Probably by Bellamy himself.
She also sported a bonus set of maneuvering thrusters for higher agility.
The lady was loaded for bear.
He watched on his visor with dread as Figueroa powered her way down the gravity well. Two missiles detached from their racks with a thump-thump, and he looked out the portside window as their exhausts flared up and blasted them out of view. He gripped his armrests like the whole seat could be ripped out of the ship at any moment.
The Avalon rolled, dipped, climbed, and slid as her thrusters worked their magic. Tracers flew past. Chaff bloomed in her wake. Figueroa dropped a chain of holographic decoys to confuse the enemy’s targeting systems—and even the decoys had their own acrobatics and fake gunfire.
Darius fought to keep his lunch down as the Avalon swung and banged and creaked.
“All right!” said Figueroa. “Things are about to get a little toasty!”
Unable to imagine how the situation could get even more intense, Darius could only go in the other direction, towards a trick the mindworm sims had taught him: clear your mind, take a deep breath, let it out slowly. Wash, rinse, repeat, and maybe some of the terror will wash over you.
The ship pulled up hard, and they went into a climb that made Darius feel as heavy as a pile of bricks. The tell-tale signs of atmospheric burn flickered around the windows. They were coming in way too hard for an actual landing on the surface, so she had either decided to take them all out in a blaze of glory, or she had something else up her sleeve.
As the ambient temperature gauge on his suit began to rise, more blasts of chaff shook the Avalon. The explosion of pursuing missiles briefly lit the interior as though the sun itself was chasing them. The gee was so heavy now that it seemed like his guts would surely be pulled out at any second. But then, when the downward g-force couldn’t get any worse, it finally eased. Only to be replaced by another push deep into the cushions of his seat.
The Animus Gate (Book One of The Animus Trilogy) Page 26