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

by Andy Peloquin

  If that was the case, Nolan would put a bullet in Wolfe’s head, Agent Styver be damned. But until he knew exactly what was going on or what had prompted someone to shoot up the Spacer’s Paradise, he wouldn’t make a move against the Protection Bureau’s orders.

  Which was what brought him to this festering rat’s nest of a dump in the filthiest, darkest corner of the Bolt Hole’s east side. The buildings around him were little more than sun-bleached corrugated metal roofs and decaying concrete walls. And not even the long-lasting ultracrete used by most buildings, but the primitive stuff first brought to Exodus VI on the first colonist ships decades earlier. The building looked one bad storm away from crumbling.

  Exactly the sort of place where I’d expect to find lowlifes that would shoot up the Spacer’s Paradise.

  With one last check on Bex—still sleeping soundly, burning through her latest stepped-down dose of Blitz and IV nutrients—Nolan gave the silent command to Taia to shut off the footage of the peeler bar. He stared through the scope at the figures visible within the building. Infrared showed four. Three shooters and a driver.

  Taia had tracked the vehicle here. The four hadn’t bothered to cover their tracks once they put a few kilometers between them and their victims. Their carelessness had led Nolan right to them.

  He looked through the scope one last time—IR pinpointed the locations of all four goons, who hadn’t moved from their comfortable seats on couches and chairs in the ten minutes he’d been studying their hideout—then stowed the MK75 on its magnetic holster on his back. The rifle would be too easy. Too easy for the bastards that had shot up the Spacer’s Paradise. Their actions had earned his attention up close and personal.

  Kicking on his boot’s anti-grav function, Nolan skated to the opposite end of the roof. Without ion thrusters, he’d need a run-up to get across the wide, debris-littered street in front of the abandoned building. Besides, every good Silverguard knew the value of an explosive entrance to startle, terrify, and disorient the enemy.

  But these weren’t Terran League Banshee Marines with bleeding-edge weapons and skills to rival the Silverguard’s. The pricks in that building had never truly tasted the sort of holy hell Nolan was about to rain down on them.

  And they’d deserve every bit of it.

  Gritting his teeth, he pushed off the roof, skimming forward a few centimeters above the black, stinking asphalt coating, his boots soundless. His combat suit’s camouflage cells were fully active—they’d never see him coming until it was too late.

  Faster and faster he went, pushing his pace until he was gliding across the flat rooftop at a blurring speed. His eyes locked on the low wall at the roof’s edge—thirty meters away, now twenty, ten, five.

  He leaped.

  A flood of power surged through his combat suit’s anti-grav boosters and his AI-controlled legs pushed off with every shred of force the powerful motors could summon. He flew through the air like an MK75 bullet, hurtling toward the building at breakneck speed. His muscles tensed and he braced for impact.

  Wood and metal exploded inward as he barreled through the boarded-up window, and a hail of flying splinters and shards peppered the occupants of the room. Nolan landed hard, dropped into a forward roll, and came up onto his feet, pistol already out of its holster. He spun in a full 360-degree arc, his finger squeezing the trigger four times in quick, precise succession. Blaster bolts sizzled through the dimly lit, filthy room, each eliciting answering screams of pain.

  Nolan moved toward the biggest of the four—and the likeliest threat—first. A single bound propelled him across the room to where the big goon was still leaning against the wall, screaming and staring down at the mangled ruins of his gun hand. Before the man even looked up, Nolan brought the butt end of his blaster across and smashed it into the thug’s face. Cartilage crunched beneath hard gunmetal and the goon dropped, blood gushing from his nose.

  Even before the first thug hit the ground, Nolan darted toward the next likeliest threat. The second goon was equally stunned by the sudden entrance; the blaster bolt that cut through his palm and severed two fingers left him shrieking, wailing, and bleeding all over the crumbling wooden table where he’d been sitting. Nolan’s flying punch slammed his head into the wall behind him and knocked him senseless.

  Seizing the slumping goon, Nolan lifted him from the chair, spun, and hurled him at the thug on the room’s lone couch. The man cried out at the sight of his comrade flying toward him, who appeared to have been thrown by an invisible hand. The impact knocked the couch backward and the two fell ass-over-heels in a tangled heap of limbs.

  That left just one. One man, still too stunned by pain, blood loss, and shock to scrabble for his gun with his uninjured hand. He could only stare into empty space wide-eyed, his face white as bone, as Nolan came for him.

  Nolan seized the man’s throat in one hand, uninjured wrist in the other, and hurled him across the room. The flying goon slammed into the wall with bone-jarring force, and he finally found the strength to cry out. His shrieks of pain intensified as he landed on the hand Nolan had put a blaster bolt through. Though there was no blood—the white-hot bolt had cauterized the wound—he’d be in terrible agony.

  Good. A grim satisfaction coursed through Nolan as he stalked toward the screaming thug. Just a little taste of what Mimi and the others suffered.

  Stooping, he lifted the wailing thug and hauled him toward the upended couch. He dropped the man atop his comrade, who was still struggling to get out from beneath his unconscious friend, then dragged the pistol-whipped brute over to join them. It didn’t matter that only two were awake—he only needed one talking.

  “Shut up.” He slapped the screaming man across the face—hard enough to set his head ringing, but not knock him out. The blow had the desired effect. The man’s high-pitched squeals diminished to low, hushed whimpers. “Better,” he snarled.

  Nolan stared down at the pile of goons. All bore the gang tattoos of the White Sharks, gape-jawed sea monster and all. Definitely street-level thugs, which meant they answered to someone much higher up the criminal food chain. All that remained was to find out who that someone was—the someone who’d thought shooting up a Shimmertown peeler bar was a smart play—and why.

  “Look at me.” At his mental command, Taia shut off the suit’s camouflage cells. The two conscious goons’ eyes widened as they got their first good look at him. Clad in his combat suit—heavier, military-grade armor than they’d likely ever seen in their miserable lives—and with the business end of his blaster pointed down at them, he knew exactly how terrifying he looked to them. About as terrifying as these gun-wielding goons had appeared to the men and women they’d shot up in the Spacer’s Paradise.

  “You have exactly one chance here.” Nolan held up a finger. “I’m going to ask two questions. Give me the answers I want, and I won’t have to fill you with so many blaster holes your buddies will use you as wind chimes.” He squatted, lowering his heavy-helmeted head closer to the white-faced thugs. “But believe me when I say I won’t think twice about what I’ll do to you if you choose to play hero and keep your mouths shut.”

  To punctuate his point, he put a shot into the floor a millimeter from one goon’s face—close enough that the bolt singed the man’s cheek and left a scorch mark near his left eye.

  “Yes!” shrieked the man. His hands were tangled beneath the body of his unconscious thug, but he shook his head wildly. “Ask us, and we’ll tell you!”

  A wild light shone in the other thug’s eyes—mingled panic, pain, and the effects of some mind-altering drug. “Anything!” At least he was cognizant enough to realize the severity of Nolan’s threats.

  “Question one.” Nolan tapped the barrel of his blaster against the half-stoned thug’s forehead, right on the bridge of his nose. “Who sent you to the Spacer’s Paradise?” The barrel, still hot from his last shot, left a red ring on the goon’s skin.

  “Our boss!” squealed the man, cringing away from th
e weapon.

  Nolan growled low in his throat and applied painful pressure to the blaster barrel against the man’s forehead. “You’re really going to make me ask who that is?”

  The goon tried to squirm out from beneath the gun, but Nolan clamped a hand down on his throat and squeezed.

  “Wolfe!” the thug cried out after a second, his voice half-choked by Nolan’s grip on his neck. “Our boss is Wolfe!”

  The name sent a wave of fury through Nolan’s veins. He’d been right about the White Sharks lieutenant after all. Wolfe had sent those men to shoot up the Spacer’s Paradise. Wolfe was responsible for the sixteen dead and forty-some wounded—Jadis among them.

  “Question two,” Nolan growled. Without releasing his grip on the struggling goon, he pointed his blaster at the one trapped beneath the two unconscious White Sharks. “Why?”

  The man’s eyes crossed as he stared at the barrel leveled at his left eye. He stammered, stuttered, and wept, and the stink of urine wafted up from beneath the pile of thugs. Nolan grunted in disgust and pulled the trigger. The bolt sizzled through the man’s face, punched through skull, brain, and out the top of his head in a messy spray of charred flesh and bone. His panicked jabbering fell silent as his head lolled to one side.

  “That leaves just you.” Nolan turned back to the thug squirming in his grip. The White Shark immediately ceased his struggling, his eyes going so wide they looked ready to pop out of his head.

  “IDF databases identify him as Riath Lannis, age twenty-eight, born in the Bolt Hole, with known ties to the White Sharks.”

  “Please!” the man said, tears brimming and slithering down his cheeks. “Please, don’t kill me! I-I don’t—“

  “Answer the question, Riath!” Nolan pressed the heated tip of the blaster into the man’s forehead. A loud sizzling and the stink of burning flesh joined the myriad stenches filling the filthy room, accompanied by the thug’s cry of pain. “Why did Wolfe order you to shoot up the Spacer’s Paradise?”

  Whether Riath was more terrified by the gun in his face or the fact that the armored killer knew his name was unclear, but it had the desired effect. “Because of Ledren!” he managed to gasp out.

  Nolan’s eyes narrowed at that name. Ledren. The drug-pusher that had assaulted him at the dead drop, the one he’d been forced to kill—along with the rest of his crew.

  Taia had sent the message to Agent Styver to squash the IDF’s investigation into the gangbangers’ deaths, but it seemed the White Sharks’ sources inside the Doofs had leaked the information first. Or even after the IDF closed the case—it didn’t matter when, only that the news had gotten back to the White Sharks.

  Yet something about it didn’t sit right with him. A gang as large as the White Sharks would likely be looking for payback against the man—or men—that had killed Ledren and his crew. But shooting up a place like the Spacer’s Paradise? That made little sense, especially considering Wolfe had been at the peeler bar not two nights earlier for business.

  Nolan’s eyes narrowed. Something’s not adding up.

  “Why does one more pusher’s death matter so much to your boss?” Nolan pressed the barrel harder into the man’s forehead. “What’s so special about Ledren?”

  “He’s family!” Riath screeched. “Ledren is—or was—Wolfe’s kid brother!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dread settled like a boulder in the pit of Nolan’s stomach. His brother.

  He gave Taia a mental command, and the images of Wolfe and Ledren popped up on his HUD. Wolfe’s face was broader and more heavily muscled, Ledren’s wasted away by his use of the drugs he’d been peddling. Yet side by side, the resemblance between the two was immediately visible.

  The sharp claws of anxiety dug into the back of Nolan’s mind. He should have seen it, but nothing, not even Agent Styver’s thorough dossier on the White Sharks, had hinted at a connection between the gang’s lieutenant and the manic drug-pusher Nolan had encountered in the alley.

  But the damage had already been done. Ledren was dead; no taking back the blaster bolts Nolan had put in the thug’s head and chest. All he could do now was figure out the best way to salvage the situation without any more innocent casualties.

  “Why the Spacer’s Paradise?” Nolan demanded. “Why does Wolfe think some peeler bar has any connection to his brother’s death?”

  Riath’s face had begun turning red from Nolan’s relentless grip. “He wanted…the gimp!” he choked out.

  The words caught Nolan off-guard. It took him a second to recover, to push back the sudden flash of worry.

  He moved the blaster away from the thug’s head and loosened his crushing hold on the man’s throat. “What do you mean, the gimp?”

  Panic flared in Riath’s eyes. “I-I don’t know his name, I swear!” The man’s weeping intensified, his words turning incoherent beneath a storm of blubbering and sobbing protests.

  He had killed Wolfe’s brother, then Wolfe’s men had shot up the Spacer’s Paradise. They’d killed Clive, wounded Jadis, left so many more dead, dying, and injured. All because of him. Because of the decision he’d made in that alley to put a blaster bolt in the unconscious Ledren.

  Guilt flooded Nolan, setting acid worms writhing in his stomach, but he seized on the painful emotion and twisted it into something hard and cold. Something angry. Shutting down now wouldn’t help him. Anger would be his tool to draw the truth out of Riath.

  With a growl, Nolan slapped the gibbering man. “Focus!”

  The blow rocked Riath’s head, and his eyes wobbled in their sockets.

  “Tell me!” Nolan seized his collar and shook him. “What does Wolfe know about the gimp?”

  “O-Only what that old beggar told us,” Riath said, his face blanching. “That the guy in the wheelchair sometimes hangs out around the Spacer’s Paradise.”

  Old beggar. Nolan’s throat tightened. It had to be Bastien.

  The idea of the ex-IAF grunt betraying him felt like a kick to the teeth, but Nolan could understand. Bastien lived a hard life on the streets of New Avalon; the White Sharks could have offered him a few thousand credits and he’d have been willing to spill what he knew.

  Which, admittedly, couldn’t be much more than would be found with a few well-placed questions or a review of Shimmertown CCTV. Everyone in the Spacer’s Paradise knew the wheelchair-bound Nolan by sight—some, like Jadis and Clive, were on a first-name basis with him. No, Bastien hadn’t played him dirty. He’d given them just enough to earn the credits that would keep him alive on the streets for a few more weeks while getting the White Sharks off his back.

  But that didn’t answer the question of why this idiot had shot up the Spacer’s Paradise without confirming a target. “So Wolfe told you to find the gimp, right?” he asked, earning a terrified nod from the thug. “And when you did, what then?”

  “He…” Riath’s eyes darted aside. “He told us to finish the job, shatter every bone in his body. M-Make him suffer for Ledren.”

  Nolan’s jaw clenched. That sounded a great deal like the Wolfe he’d seen in the hallway and read about in Agent Styver’s dossier.

  One of the two goons in the pile began to stir, groaning and struggling to extricate himself from the tangle of limbs. Nolan rabbit punched the base of his skull, his armored fist crunching into flesh and bone. The man slumped and lay still—dead or unconscious, Nolan didn’t care.

  Riath’s expression grew even more terrified. “L-Look, man,” he said, “I-I didn’t want to do it, but Carl there—” He gestured with his chin toward the one Nolan had shot through the forehead. “—he was the one who had the idea. Once he saw the gimp rolling through the bar’s front door, he figured he’d kill two sky-warblers with one blaster bolt.” He swallowed hard, blinking at the thick beads of sweat rolling down his forehead and into his eyes. “T-Take out the gimp that ganked Ledren and send a message to Shimmertown that you don’t mess with the White Sharks.”

  Something about the thug’s words
confused Nolan. “Taia, check footage of the Spacer’s Paradise front door cam.”

  Images of the video feed flashed past on his HUD, far too fast for Nolan’s eyes to register, until Taia finally slowed it down. The footage showed a man in a wheelchair rolling through the front door of the peeler bar. A few minutes later, Taia played footage of the same man being wheeled out on a stretcher by the paramedics, shot full of blaster and bullet holes. It didn’t matter that he’d looked nothing like Nolan; the idiotic White Sharks hadn’t bothered to verify his identity, but just gone ahead and shot up the place.

  Anger bubbled within Nolan’s chest. The bastards had killed and wounded dozens of people, all to satisfy their boss’ desire for revenge. No thought of consequences, like so many other men armed with weapons far more powerful than their common sense and backed by gangs like the White Sharks.

  He returned his attention to the terrified thug. “And Wolfe knows you carried out this hit?”

  “N-No.” Riath licked his lips, and more sweat dripped down his face. “We’ve been trying to get in touch with him for the last half hour, but his comm’s offline.” His eyes darted to the comm device that still sat neatly on the table. “If you let me up, I can—“

  Nolan silenced his words by slamming the butt of his blaster into Riath’s face. Cartilage and teeth crunched, flesh split, and blood gushed down the man’s head, which lolled to the side, his eyes half-open.

  “Taia, give the Doofs a call and let them know to come pick these pricks up.” Standing, Nolan searched the room for anything he could use to tie up the still-living White Sharks. A roll of half-rusted baling wire lay among the debris, and it made the job of trussing the thugs’ ankles and wrists quick, easy work.

  “IDF alerted and on their way,” Taia reported as he finished the task. “We’ve got fifteen minutes to get out of here.”

  “That’s plenty of time.” Nolan stared at the mess he’d made of the room. The guns he’d shot out of the thugs’ hands would give the IDF all the proof needed to tie them to the shooting at the Spacer’s Paradise, especially when paired with the skimmer parked below. These idiots, at least, would spend the rest of their natural lives enjoying the hospitality of the Imperial Reformation system.