Assassination Protocol: An Intergalactic Space Opera Adventure (Cerberus Book 1)

by Andy Peloquin

  “Reinforcements are thirty seconds out.” Taia flashed an image onto his HUD. Four trucks filled with heavily armed White Sharks sped down the street toward him. They’d reach the stash house just outside the Shipyards and surround the place before he finished dealing with the last three goons hunting him.

  “Got it!” A vicious grin tugged at Nolan’s lips. “I think they get the message, right?”

  “Maybe just leave them one last present,” Taia purred. “Go out with a bang, right?”

  Nolan couldn’t help chuckling. “Ahh, Taia, Master Sergeant Kane would have been so proud of that sentiment.” He drew his last thermal frag grenade and lobbed it toward the pallet of barrels the goons had been so careful to avoid hitting with their blaster fire. Kissy Face—the latest and most popular version of the Old Terran MDMA—was dangerously combustible in its raw, unprocessed liquid state.

  The moment the grenade left his hands, he took off in a mad dash toward the nearest exit. Blaster fire sizzled hot on his trail, but the combat suit lent him impossible speed. He charged through the thick, choking haze filling the warehouse—courtesy of his smoke grenades—and burst through the front doors. He bowled over the two White Sharks rushing to reinforce their besieged comrades, shattering bones and sending them flying to the right and left. Shouts of fury echoed in the warehouse behind him as he kicked on the boot thrusters and leaped high into the air.

  BANG! A giant fireball blossomed in the darkness behind him, brightening the night and illuminating the Shipyards for kilometers in every direction. Taia amplified the boot’s thrust, sending him flying out of the blast radius and the inevitable rain of burning debris.

  “Warning: thruster malfunction!” Bold red letters flashed across Nolan’s HUD, and the boot thrusters gave a little sputtering crackle. Nolan suddenly found himself flying uncontrolled, carried on his forward momentum. He opened his mouth to give the order to snap out the suit’s wings, only to remember the old model didn’t have gliders. Not even a parachute—nothing to slow his crazy arc through the air.

  “Taia!” he shouted. “Do something!”

  The distant rooftop hurtled toward him at blurring speed. He windmilled his arms, as if that could somehow slow him down. If he hit it at his current velocity, not even his combat suit could stop the impact from jellifying his body. He’d seen the gruesome effects of a HALO jump gone wrong—he wasn’t certain even his unexplainable healing abilities could keep him alive from that.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  Gritting his teeth, he braced himself for the inevitable. For that bone-shattering, flesh-pulping impact. After every battle with the Terran League he’d managed to walk away from, this might be the one he didn’t. Not unless—

  “Got it!” Taia’s voice chirped in his ear, and the boot engines suddenly sputtered to life. The AI-controlled legs of his combat suit thrust forward, burning ion hard. Just enough to arrest his forward momentum and slow his descent.

  He’d still hit hard, he realized. Too damned hard. Even the legs of his combat suit couldn’t absorb the impact without breaking. His only chance of surviving was to throw himself into a forward roll and trust the metal armor would shield his body.

  The collision with the tenement building’s roof knocked the wind from his lungs, and his head smashed against the interior of his helmet. He rolled head over heels, over and over, crashing through ventilation fans, heating units, and a wire-and-wood cage filled with birds. The lights on his HUD winked, flickered, and went dark.

  Sparks spun in his vision and the world flashed out of focus for a moment. When he regained his senses, he found he’d stopped rolling and now lay on his back. Static crackled through Nolan’s comms, barely audible beneath the ringing in his ears. Even when the HUD sprang to life, his vision swirled and the world spun crazily around him.

  He drew one painful breath, then another. The throbbing ache in his head and gut told him he’d survived, but that was as much as he could manage for long seconds.

  “Nolan?” Taia’s voice chirped in his ear—directly in his ear this time, not through his still-rebooting helmet comms. “You alive?”

  “Barely,” he managed to mutter through the waves of pain radiating up and down his torso. With a groan, he rolled over onto his stomach. That proved a bad move, as it only intensified the misery coursing through his body.

  “Bloody hell!” Nolan coughed and sucked in another breath. Strength flooded his limbs and he struggled to push himself up to his hands and his knees, then to his feet. Grimacing and stifling a groan, Nolan staggered back across the debris-strewn rooftop in the direction of the White Sharks stash house. “Not to be that guy, but didn’t you say the suit was operational, Taia?”

  “It was.” The AI’s voice was calm, almost defiant. “I gave the suit a complete diagnostic before we took it out. It’s not my fault we ended up with defective hardware.”

  The schematics of his boot thrusters popped up on the helmet’s HUD, with a flashing red light to indicate the component that had burned out and—only temporarily, thanks to Taia’s quick action—shut off the power supply.

  Nolan grunted a wordless retort. He couldn’t help being glad his legs weren’t in control of the suit; the pain in his torso would have made any sort of movement in his lower body agonizing. Even now, he found it difficult to fill his lungs.

  That was too damned close!

  He wasn’t just talking about the combat suit malfunction. He’d have to give the armor a much more thorough once-over in the workshop, but that was far from his only problem.

  More of those IAF weapons in the wrong hands! He growled a silent curse. He’d been on the receiving end of heavy blaster fire enough times to recognize it as a military-grade light machine gun—most likely the M751 SAW.

  He chewed the situation over in his mind as he walked. Agent Styver had better be doing his job and tracking down how they got out of the IAF armory and into the hands of the White Sharks and German French’s goons, or else things are going to get even more out of hand.

  His plan to force Gustav Wylun out of hiding could lead to an all-out gang war—after all, he’d blamed the first stash house raid on Los Espadones, the second one he’d hit earlier that night on Five Hand Syndicate, and the comm device he’d “dropped” in this last stash house would point a finger squarely at German French’s Rücksichtslos. To protect his territory, the White Sharks’ leader would seriously have to consider retaliating against the gangs that appeared to be coming for his head.

  If war broke out between the gangs, civilian casualties would skyrocket. Things would turn real ugly, real quick if all the White Sharks—and the other rival gangs—carried military-grade firepower. Who knew what other small arms and heavy ordinance had been lifted from the IAF armory?

  With German French out of commission, he had a good chance of stopping any sort of gang war from breaking out. If Agent Styver wanted to set Wolfe up as the head of the White Sharks, it meant he had the gangbanger under his thumb. The Protection Bureau had the means—both a carrot to incentivize Wolfe and a great big stick in case he needed convincing—to keep things from escalating out of control. A few raids on their rivals’ stash houses would be enough to give the White Sharks the “eye for an eye” needed to satiate their desire for vengeance.

  But first, he had to take the head White Shark off the board.

  “Any sign of our target?” he asked Taia.

  “I’ve kept a close eye on CCTV cameras surrounding the locations where Agent Styver’s dossier said he was most likely to surface,” Taia said. “The minute he pokes his head up, I’ll let you know.”

  “Good girl.”

  Nolan reached the edge of the roof, just in time to see the four trucks of White Sharks roll up outside the burning warehouse. A few of the gangbangers from within had managed to stumble out of the smoke, choking and coughing, stoned out of their minds by the fumes of the narcotics caught up in the blaze.

  Crouching, he watched the White Sharks congr
egating around their comrades. “Any chance you can hear what they’re saying?”

  “No, but I’m fully capable of reading their lips.” Taia brought up zoomed-in footage of the scene in front of the warehouse. “It looks like our little ruse is working.”

  One of the surviving thugs plucked Nolan’s decoy comm device from a pocket and handed it to the White Shark leading the questioning. The man snatched the device and scanned the contents.

  Nolan wasn’t certain the plan would work. Granted, drug runners weren’t typically known for their smarts, but even they ought to have brain cells enough to be suspicious of a comm device with no password protection and a convenient file that dropped hints at German French’s plan to take over the White Sharks territory.

  It turned out that “moderately intelligent” was a bar too high for these thugs to reach. Angry shouts echoed from the goons clustered around the warehouse, and the one who’d led the questioning reached into his pocket to pull out a comm device of his own.

  “Ooh, interesting!” Taia said. The footage on the HUD display zoomed in on the man’s hands as he punched in the code, then on his lips as he spoke.

  Nolan might not have had Taia’s lip-reading recognition software, but even he understood the man’s words from this distance.

  “Sir, we’ve got a problem.”

  The ruse had worked. Gustav was coming to him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Anxiety simmered in Nolan’s stomach as he raced along the rooftops of the Bolt Hole in pursuit of the sleek pleasure craft. I can’t lose him, not again!

  Without his glider wings and his boot thrusters on the fritz, his only means of getting around was via the anti-grav function. He could skate across flat rooftops with little difficulty, but long jumps across the broad avenues intersecting Grove District were a different story. He’d already had to backtrack three times, and each time he’d lost ground and lost visuals on Gustav Wylun’s vehicle.

  Not for the first time since leaving the Silverguard, Nolan found himself missing his Spotters. The twin drones—he’d nicknamed them Hugin and Munin after twin ravens found in Old Terran mythology—had been his eyes, ears, rangefinders, camouflage penetrators, software hackers, and more. Basically, they were Taias long before he’d had the AI chip implanted in his brain. There were many things she could do that the drones would never be capable of, but at that moment, their primary function—tracking enemy targets—would’ve come in damned handy.

  Not that Taia was falling short in her duties. “He turned left five hundred meters ahead, down Lunar Avenue,” the AI said. “I recommend this route to catch up to him before he reaches Wharf Street.”

  Again, the black-and-blue-lined grid of New Avalon popped up onto his HUD, with a dotted red line cutting across it in the direction Gustav Wylun’s vehicle had disappeared.

  Nolan didn’t have the breath to respond; the mad race halfway across New Avalon’s rooftops was straining even his Silverguard-bred stamina. Taia could draw some power from the inactive boot thrusters to keep his suit’s legs pumping, but the ten-kilometer dash had set his heart pounding and more sweat trickling down his face than the suit’s internal cooling could dry off.

  The injuries from his attack on the last White Sharks’ stash house weren’t helping matters. The ache in his head and gut had diminished, but the throbbing in his chest remained persistent—made worse by the exertion of racing across the rooftops. It would heal, but until it did, he’d have to bite down on the discomfort hard. Nothing could distract him from his target.

  Leaping over a narrow alleyway, he followed the route Taia had laid out for him. He sprinted across a rooftop, vaulted the next street, and landed with a heavy crash onto the apartment building beyond. The tenement buildings of Grove District were all of similar height and design, but even a two-story difference would force him to deviate his course. Every delay could cost him—if Gustav ducked into a building or turned down an alleyway with no CCTV cameras, Taia would lose him.

  The glow of the early morning moon filled the air with enough illumination to see his way clearly. But if he wasn’t in position before Lunarus was joined by Solaria’s red-golden light, he’d be highly visible to the men he tracked.

  That position would be determined by wherever Gustav was. With no idea where his target was headed, Nolan had no choice but to follow and hope the White Sharks’ boss pulled in someplace where he could get a good vantage point.

  “Got him!” Taia displayed a CCTV video feed on his helmet, showing Gustav Wylun’s vehicle pulling into the parking garage of an old, abandoned high-rise deep in the western fringes of the Bolt Hole.

  Damn it! The thirty-story skyscraper towered above the buildings surrounding it. Few other structures even reached fifteen floors.

  “Find me a good overlook,” he told Taia. He hadn’t had time to stop at any of his safe houses and pick up any eavesdropping equipment, so he wouldn’t be able to overhear Gustav’s conversation with his goons. But with a good enough perch, he could put a bullet in the head White Shark’s skull—with a second for Declan Tian, who’d doubtless be at the meeting—and be done with Agent Styver’s job today.

  “One moment.” Taia went silent for a long second. “I’ve hacked into the building’s camera system, and found where Gustav is headed.”

  A video feed popped up on Nolan’s HUD, displaying footage from inside the empty skyscraper. Gustav Wylun, Declan Tian, Wolfe—last name unknown, according to Agent Styver’s dossier—and a small army of White Sharks strode down a long, carpeted hallway toward the huge wooden doors of what looked like an old conference room.

  “He’s on the thirteenth floor,” Taia said in his ear. “And I’ve found the perfect perch.”

  A flashing red dot appeared on his HUD, pointing him to a fifteen-story apartment building on the south side of the skyscraper.

  “Taia, you beautiful genius!” Nolan was already on the move, racing toward the fire escape staircase that climbed the three stories up to the top of the apartment building. “Any chance you can pull up sound?”

  “Again, I’m pretty sure I should be offended that you’d even ask.”

  The speakers in Nolan’s helmet crackled to life, and the sound of heavy footfalls, clattering guns, and mouth-breathing goons filled his ears.

  “Keep an eye on them until I get into position, will you?”

  Had this been his regular suit, he would have activated camouflage and used a quick boost of his ion thrusters to send him rocketing up to the rooftop. But his old suit lacked the energy capacity, and that small use would drain his power too much. Worse, the use of his boot thrusters could alert any watchful goons to his presence. He’d have to climb the old-fashioned way.

  Nolan raced up the fire escape as fast as he could. Taia kept his anti-grav function on the lowest setting, just enough to stop his boots from clanging against the metal staircase.

  “After you, sir.” A deep, resonant voice boomed through the speaker helmet.

  “Thank you, Declan.” Another voice—Gustav’s, most likely—accompanied by the clack of shoes on marble tile. “Wolfe, Shayne, Eighty, Loren, Karrl.”

  “Sir,” came the response of multiple voices.

  At that moment, Nolan reached the top of the fire escape. He raced across the rooftop toward the northern edge of the building, toward the perch Taia had found for him. The low roof wall gave him both cover from watching eyes and support to steady his rifle, and the stretch of rooftop chosen by the AI was clear of debris, puddled water, and roosting birds. The perfect sniper’s nest.

  Dropping to one knee at the designated spot, Nolan unlimbered the sniper rifle and peered through the scope at the building opposite him. Through the clear glass window, he caught sight of nearly two dozen men and women filling the empty conference room. Gustav Wylun, Declan Tian, and Wolfe he recognized at once, and the rest were faces he’d seen from Agent Styver’s dossier. All bore the face, neck, and arm tattoos marking them as White Sharks.


  “I want to know everything you know about tonight’s events.” Gustav Wylun addressed his lieutenants and gang soldiers in a calm voice. Sharply dressed in a royal purple pinstripe suit and polished black shoes, he looked every inch the drug kingpin—down to the gaudy gold and ethernium-encrusted watch and tie pin. Even the sea monster tattooed on his flabby neck and face had an air of elegant artistry, the work of a very high-priced inker and the finest quality colors.

  More than that, unlike the thugs Nolan had dealt with tonight, he was in utter control. Not only of himself, but of every person in the room—along with his small army of street-level gangbangers and however many Imperial and local government officials and IDF officers were in his pocket, a fact he clearly knew. He spoke with an unhurried tone, yet his words rang with an underlying edge of menace.

  The White Shark leader folded his hands in front of himself and stared at each of his subordinates in turn. “Once we are certain who is behind this, I can promise there will be swift retaliation. But first.” He nodded to Declan. “Let us be certain we are—“

  A harsh ringing echoed through Nolan’s helmet, so loud it sent a stab of pain through his eardrums. “Taia!”

  The jarring sound faded to a low buzzing, then fell silent altogether a second later. “Sorry about that,” she replied. “It seems Gustav Wylun has certain anti-eavesdropping measures in place.”

  Nolan gritted his teeth, wishing he could remove his helmet to scratch at his ringing, irritated ears. “So there’s no way you can get ears in there?”

  He watched through the scope as Declan gave his boss a thumbs up and stepped away from what looked like an ordinary light switch. A moment later, a sudden flare of light blossomed in his helmet’s visor and filled his scope, so painfully bright it set sparkling motes dancing in his vision.

  “Damn it!” Nolan blinked, tears springing to his eyes. “What the hell was that?” He tried to look in his scope again, but all of the conference room’s windows shone so bright it nearly blinded him.