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

by Andy Peloquin

  “Are you really willing to trade your life for theirs?” Taia asked. “You’d let yourself be killed to save people you barely know?”

  Nolan answered without hesitation. “Yes.”

  Taia’s robotic arms suddenly froze, and the camera scanning his armor swiveled toward him. “I…don’t understand.”

  Nolan’s smile grew. “It’s a very human thing. Maybe in time, you’ll figure it out. But for now, can you trust me, Taia?”

  A moment of pause greeted his question. “I trust you,” Taia finally said.

  “Good.” Nolan nodded. “Now, get me a way to talk with Wolfe.”

  As Taia worked, Nolan wheeled himself toward one of the storage lockers scattered around the room. Opening it, he pulled out the two collapsible wheelchairs he kept there. He considered them both.

  “Take the lighter one,” Taia told him. “It’s not as plush as the other, but—“

  “Good choice.” With a nod, Nolan pulled out the chair Taia had indicated. It was little more than a metal frame, with none of the comfort of his usual cushions. “Better not to waste the good wheelchair on this trip down to see Wolfe, right? Blood and bullets will do terrible things to the soft, suede-covered cushions.”

  Taia said nothing as he opened the collapsible chair, but a little green light in the folding frame blinked to life as she connected herself with the built-in short-range wireless transmitter. With a grunt, Nolan settled into the sparse wheelchair. His back immediately began protesting; for once, he was glad he couldn’t feel anything below the waist, because the metal bars would be doing terrible things to his legs and butt.

  “You’re on the speakers downstairs,” Taia chirped.

  “Wolfe, can you hear me?” Nolan glanced toward the screen.

  As the sound of Nolan’s voice played through the peeler bar’s sound system, Wolfe spun around, his pistols waving wildly. “Who said that? Who’s there?”

  “I hear you’ve come asking about me,” Nolan said. “For a friendly chat over a nice whiskey, right?”

  Wolfe’s face darkened. “Or over a vat of acid, but yeah, you’ve got the right idea.” He pointed one of his pistols at Mimi’s head. “In case you can’t see me, I’ve got a lot of guns pointed at a lot of people. I’d much rather we have this conversation face to face, but if you don’t come down, I’m going to have to start shooting.”

  Nolan’s jaw clenched as the fifteen White Sharks leveled their assault rifles at the occupants of the Spacer’s Paradise. That many military-grade guns would make mincemeat of everyone there.

  “There’s no need for that.” Nolan tried to keep his voice calm, to hide the hammering beat of his heart. “Give me a minute to straighten my hair and put on a clean shirt, and I’ll be right down. Your goons can be waiting for me near the elevator to make sure I don’t try anything stupid. But if you’ve found me, it means you know enough about me to know that I won’t make a move. Not against so many of you.”

  Anyone connected to the Imperial holo-net could do a search for Nolan Garett and find records of his two years of service in the IAF. No trace of his Silverguard days would be accessible, but a man thorough enough to track him back here and know that he lived in one of the apartments above the Spacer’s Paradise would know that he had a military record. That would make Wolfe cautious, certainly. Perhaps cautious enough that he’d be too focused on wariness and checking Nolan for hidden weapons to bother shooting up the peeler bar.

  “Sounds fair.” Wolfe inclined his head. “I’ll have a welcome party waiting for you by the elevator.” He barked an order and seven of his thugs broke off from the rest, moving toward the back of the peeler bar. “But just in case you are thinking of trying something, just know that I won’t hesitate to put a bullet into anyone here. The question is: will I start with this little beauty here”—he grabbed Mimi by the neck and squeezed, forcing her down to a kneeling position between his legs—“or put another bullet into Stedd.” His pistol moved to point at Stedd’s forehead. “So many choices!”

  “No tricks, no weapons, no funny business,” Nolan said. “Just me and my chair. That’s all.”

  “Two minutes, Mister Garrett!” Wolfe made a show of looking at the gaudy watch on his wrist. “Time’s ticking!”

  The “mute” symbol appeared on the screen as Taia cut the sound. “Nolan, are you sure about this?” Worry echoed in the AI’s voice. “Going down there unarmed and unarmored isn’t exactly the smart play.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s all I’ve got for now.” Nolan unclipped the sheath that held his Echosteel blade and set it carefully on the workshop table, next to the bottles of Blitz. “We’ve only got one shot at getting through this alive.”

  He wheeled out of the workshop, unarmed for the first time in…well, he couldn’t remember when last he’d gone without weapons of some sort. A pistol, even an ankle-holstered blaster, his blade, something. He felt vulnerable without it, yet he had no other choice. He couldn’t give Wolfe any reason to start shooting. Nothing to antagonize the man until they were well away from the Spacer’s Paradise.

  On his way to the service elevator, he paused only long enough to glance at Bex. The Silverguard hadn’t regained consciousness—nor would she, if Taia kept her sedated throughout the Heavy Detox. He hated leaving the woman alone, but the man downstairs was his priority. She would understand.

  “Look after her, Taia.” The doors of the service elevator slid open, and Nolan wheeled into the metal car. As it clank-thumped its way down toward the ground floor, Nolan drew in a deep breath. His eyes went to the bolt hole that was all he had left of Tanis—aside from the guilt and pain he carried over her death. She had worked as a bouncer, keeping the people of the Spacer’s Paradise safe. He owed it to her to do the same.

  One last breath as the elevator cart began to slow. “Initiate Reinforcement Protocol.”

  A schematic of his apartment popped up on the screen, and one by one the various entry points turned from green to red as Taia locked them down. Now, only his fingerprint or voice command would open the doors. Bex would be as safe in his apartment as if she stood in the Imperial Palace on Genesis.

  “I’d feel better if you shut off privacy mode,” Taia said in his ear. “That way, I can keep an eye on you.”

  “Of course, dear.” Nolan gave the mental command that enabled her to once again see through the cameras connected to his optical nerve. “We’re in this together, Taia. Come hell or frozen water.”

  When the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, Nolan found himself face to face with a wall of guns and heavy-muscled White Sharks. With a smile, he raised his empty hands high. “Greetings, gentlemen. I believe your boss is expecting me.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Nolan grunted as the bag was pulled off his head, grimacing at the brilliant light shining into his face. Momentarily blinded, he could do nothing but blink away the tears and keep his eyes closed until they adjusted.

  Even without his vision, however, he could take stock of his surroundings. Someone coughed behind Nolan and to his right, and to his left another someone shuffled in place, boots scuffing on permacrete floors. The way the sound echoed told him they were in a large, empty building—almost certainly a warehouse. That tracked with the direction he guessed Wolfe’s thugs had taken him. Using what he’d learned in the Silverguard, he had counted the passage of time, followed each turn, and paid attention to the subtle changes in the city sounds around him. He was most likely in the Shipyards, or just outside it on the fringes of the Bolt Hole.

  Either way, being here meant he was far away from the Spacer’s Paradise. Wolfe’s goons had rolled him out without a word—or the rattle of gunfire. He’d gotten the White Sharks out of the peeler bar with no more casualties.

  One problem solved. One more to take care of.

  That second problem, of course, was how to get the hell out of wherever Wolfe had brought him. Handcuffs locked both wrists to a chair—not his wheelchair, but some even more uncom
fortable collapsible steel seat that felt ready to sag beneath his weight. Even if he somehow managed to break the restraints, he’d have to retrieve his wheelchair and roll out of the warehouse. All while evading the White Sharks and the inevitable hail of bullets.

  So it’s a bit of a bigger problem. His jaw muscles worked. But I’ve gotten out of worse before, haven’t I?

  He racked his brain, dredging up memories of his days in the IAF, the Silverguard, and his time working for the Protection Bureau. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t been in worse situations before.

  First time for everything, then.

  Nolan blinked again, and his eyes adjusted enough to make out a few details. Beyond the blinding beam of light shining directly in his face, darkness filled the high-walled building, with nothing but tall steel shelves, concrete pillars, and metal shipping containers visible from his position. Night had fallen, which meant they’d kept him sitting in the windowless skimmer craft for at least three hours before hauling him in here. Wolfe had likely given the order to drive him around, get him properly lost before bringing him to this location for whatever torture he intended.

  “Oh good, he’s awake!” Wolfe’s voice echoed off the high ceilings and steel walls of the warehouse. “Time to get this little party started.”

  The voice snapped Nolan’s eyes to the semi-blurred outline of the man walking toward him. Still the same gaudy, flashy bastard as ever, Wolfe had a fancy new tailored outfit—one styled with no sleeves, revealing the intricate tattoos inked into his arms—ethernium studs in his ears, and a freshly plucked moustache and eyebrows. The two golden pistols he’d carried in the Spacer’s Paradise now sat in twin holsters on his belt, along with a vicious-looking combat knife of the sort IAF grunts carried.

  The gangbanger dragged an equally dilapidated steel chair over and set it in front of Nolan. “Not so tough, are you, gimp?” His face creased into a cruel sneer as he took a seat, arms folded and leaning forward on the chair’s backrest. “I’d almost say it’s impossible that you could have been the one to mess up Ledren and his crew, but I guess IAF training never really goes away, does it?” He pointed a finger to one of the tattoos on his right bicep. “Some things are just pounded into us too hard to forget.”

  Nolan’s eyebrows rose. He recognized the Imperial symbol—a twisting serpentine creature slithering around a vertical stripe—inked atop an Old Terran-style shield. Everyone in the IAF got some variant of that tattoo. The Silverguard was the tip of the sword, the IAF the shield that kept the Terran League at bay.

  “You were an Ironhand?” he asked. Nothing about Wolfe screamed former military.

  Wolfe’s lip curled into a snarl. “Damned right I was. And a bloody good one, too. Best in my unit. Until some uppity bitch got it into her head that I laid hands on her the wrong way and got me cashiered.” Fire blazed in his eyes. “That was the day I saw the truth.”

  Nolan cocked his head. “And what profound universal epiphany is that?”

  Wolfe’s jaw clenched; clearly he wasn’t the sort to take dismissive mockery with a smile. Long seconds passed as he glared down at Nolan, anger etched into the lines of his tattooed face. “That everyone’s your buddy until your usefulness runs out,” he finally said. “After that, you’re no better than trash. Only way to get what you want is to take it for yourself.”

  “Deep.” Nolan allowed only a trickle of sarcasm into his voice. Baiting the White Sharks would only hasten whatever tortures Wolfe had in mind; he needed to delay the process until he could find the right moment to act. “And it doesn’t bother you that you’re hurting the people that you swore to protect when you took the IAF oaths?”

  “Please!” Wolfe rolled his eyes and gave a derisive snort of laughter. “You know as well as I do that’s a load of bullshit.” He shook his head. “What we did to the Jackboots in the Proxima Centauri system, there was nothing righteous about it, no matter what our precious Empire tries to say otherwise. Now, instead of fighting someone else’s war, we’re just fighting our own, and walking away with our own spoils.”

  We? Nolan twisted his head to look around the room. An empty warehouse, as he’d suspected, complete with thick layers of dust, permacrete support beams, a dripping leak somewhere behind him, and stacks of metal shipping containers. Closer, however, were four of Wolfe’s goons—all of whom bore similar IAF tattoos on their forearms. The way they held their Machnikov X-ARs made it immediately apparent that they knew their way around the weapons. Their stance, at once relaxed and wary, eyes locked on him and Wolfe, was that all-too-familiar posture of a trained Ironhand.

  Worry hummed through Nolan’s bones. The thugs that had raided the Spacer’s Paradise had been gangbangers, but these were clearly higher-level White Sharks, likely loyal to Wolfe. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be talking so freely with them nearby. Their presence also made any chance of escape exponentially more difficult. He might be able to fight his way through street thugs and gangbangers, but Ironhands were a different story.

  “Under different circumstances,” Wolfe continued, drawing Nolan’s attention once more, “I might have considered inviting you to join us.”

  Nolan’s eyebrow lifted a fraction. That was the last thing he’d expected to hear.

  Wolfe nodded. “The IAF might not be good for much, but it definitely teaches a man how to take care of his business. Men like that come in handy in my line of work.”

  “I’m sensing a ‘but’ in all this.” Nolan gave Wolfe a calm smile. “Wait, is this about the chair?” He thrust his chin toward his wheelchair, which he’d spotted a few yards away and off to the side. “And here I thought drug dealing was an equal opportunity career.”

  Wolfe’s face hardened, a scowl twisting his lips. “Don’t play stupid,” he said. “The second you put a bullet in my brother’s head, you signed your death warrant.”

  “Damn!” Nolan gave a wry shake of his head. “Just when we were bonding, you had to go and bring that up.”

  Anger burned on Wolfe’s face and his hands balled into fists in his lap. Yet the fact that he made no move only added to Nolan’s suspicions. He’d push a little harder just to be sure.

  He fixed the White Sharks lieutenant with a hard stare. “Tell me, Wolfe, how much is it killing you right now to sit here talking to me when we both know you’d rather empty a clip into my face?” A cold smile broadened his lips. “It would make you feel so much better to take it out on me, but there you sit, impotent and restrained like a lapdog.”

  The words had precisely the desired effect. Wolfe leaped to his feet so violently the chair went spinning off to Nolan’s right. His face deepened to a vicious, angry crimson. This time, when he clenched his fists, he made no attempt to keep them at his side. His right arm whipped around and drove a punch into Nolan’s jaw.

  Stars blazed in Nolan’s eyes and the world went dark for a heartbeat. Something struck the opposite side of his head, his face, and shoulder. He found himself on his side on the floor, a throbbing ache pounding through his jaw and skull.

  “Boss,” one of the former-IAF-turned-gangbangers rumbled, “we can’t—“

  “I know what we can and can’t do!” Wolfe shrieked.

  “Nolan!” Taia’s voice echoed in his earpiece.

  “I’m okay,” Nolan told her silently. “Even Bex hits harder than him.”

  He spoke too soon. His vision stopped whirling just in time to see Wolfe’s boot driving straight toward his gut. Pain exploded in his chest and the air whooshed from his lungs. Gasping and gagging, he curled up around the agony and tried desperately not to retch.

  Harsh laughter echoed from above Nolan. Wolfe crouched and spoke in a low, cruel voice. “Just because he told us to wait for him to kill the prick bastard, he never said we couldn’t have fun in the meantime!”

  Nolan had no answer; he was too busy trying to draw breath into lungs that refused to function, and fighting to keep down his last meal.

  “Get him up!” Wolfe spat.

>   Strong hands seized Nolan’s chair and lifted it and him from the floor, setting it right. Nolan slumped in his seat, hunching to protect his bruised torso—and to hide the hint of a smile. He’d been right.

  The rasp of a knife being drawn snapped his attention toward Wolfe. He looked up and found the gangbanger staring at him with a cold, cruel smile on his lips. His right hand gripped the gunmetal handle of his IAF-issue combat knife while the fingers of his left toyed with the blade.

  “You’d be amazed what sort of tricks you can pick up in an IAF barracks. Especially when you’re bunking next to an interrogator.” With a sneer, he stepped forward and crouched in front of Nolan, lifting the knife to hold it dangerously close to Nolan’s face. “I’ve found those enhanced interrogation techniques awfully handy at times just like this.”

  He slashed, so quickly Nolan had no time to flinch away. The knife bit deep into the meat of his right arm but pulled free without a tug—dangerously sharp, that blade. That’d be both a good and bad thing. Wolfe would know how to make the most of it.

  “That’s for Enger,” Wolfe growled. Another quick slash, just beneath the second. “And that’s for Deal.”

  Nolan gritted his teeth. The two cuts felt like lines of fire in his arm, but he would be damned if he gave Wolfe the satisfaction of hearing his pain.

  Wolfe stared down at the knife, at the trickle of Nolan’s blood on the blade. “Truth be told, I never liked Warrick, but I guess“—he stabbed this time, driving the tip of his knife into Nolan’s left arm so deep it grated against the bone—“that one’s for him.”

  Nolan growled low in his throat as Wolfe pulled the blade free. Warm wetness slithered down both arms, and the throbbing ache had already set in. Though his body would heal from the wounds, that didn’t make them hurt any less.