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

by Andy Peloquin

  “It’s Bex!” the AI shrieked in his ears. “If you don’t get to her in time, she’s going to die!”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  For a moment, Nolan believed he’d imagined Taia’s words, or it had been nothing but the wind whistling in his ears.

  “What’s wrong with her?” he finally managed to get out.

  “It’s another seizure. Worse than the last one. And the medication I already gave her isn’t working. I need something else, something stronger.”

  “So get it!”

  “I can’t.” Taia’s AI voice was firm. “At least not in time to save her. She’s already been seizing for half a minute with no sign of it letting up. She’s going to go status epilepticus in a matter of minutes, and when that happens, her brain’s going to start dying. The only way she gets out of this unscathed is if we get her that medication in the next ten minutes!”

  Nolan sucked in a breath. Ten minutes. Ten minutes to get from the Shipyards back to his place in Shimmertown. It might have been possible in his combat suit, but on the back of this skimmer bike?

  “Now, Nolan!” Taia thundered. “She’s running out of time!”

  The mental image of Bex writhing and jerking on the floor of his apartment filled him with dread. He hadn’t gotten her so far along the detox process just to let her die now.

  But how could he let Wolfe get away? What would happen then? Would the White Sharks lieutenant storm the Spacer’s Paradise again and massacre everyone? Or would he disappear underground until he found the right time and place to enact his revenge on Nolan? If Wolfe escaped him now, there was no telling what he would do in the name of vengeance for his brother—and, at least for the sake of saving face with his gang, for Gustav and Declan.

  “You said you’d let yourself be killed to save people you hardly know,” Taia said. “But if that’s the case, why are you hesitating to save someone you’ve already done so much for, someone you seem to care about?”

  Much as Nolan hated to admit it, the AI had him there. Killing Wolfe mattered—a great deal, given everything the bastard had done and would likely do—but saving Bex’s life mattered more. It had to.

  “Damn it!” He gritted his teeth against the acid surging into his throat. It took all his effort to form the words. “Get me where I need to go, Taia!”

  “Will do, boss.” Taia sounded relieved. “Hard left!”

  The bike veered hard in the direction the AI had indicated, skidding around a corner with the shrieking squeal of straining metal. Nolan sucked in a breath as the side of the bike came within a hand’s breadth of crashing into a huge dumpster. Taia managed to steer the skimmer away just before the metal sheared off Nolan’s legs.

  With a grimace, Nolan cast one last glance at Wolfe’s vehicle before it slipped out of view behind the towering walls of a warehouse. It felt so wrong to let the bastard get away, but he knew he’d made the right choice.

  Bex needed him. Silverguards never left one of their own to die.

  He raced through the darkness of the Shipyards, cutting between warehouses, skimming down wide concrete alleys free of debris and garbage, following Taia’s directions. The night was a blur of flickering motion-activated lights that sprang to life behind him as his skimmer bike roared through the silent, shuttered warehouses.

  More lights shone in the distance. Strongarms guarded the entrance to the Shipyards, their heavy vehicles drawn up beside the broad gate that allowed access in and out of the Imperial Planetary Port. But the private security forces had no time to respond to his sudden presence; even as they scrambled for their weapons, he raced through the checkpoint and out the gate into the tight, cluttered streets of the Bolt Hole.

  “Shit sticks!” Taia cursed in his ears.

  “What’s the matter?” Nolan shouted over the wind.

  “I’ve been crawling through the records of every hospital and clinic between us and Shimmertown searching for the medications we need to stop Bex’s seizures, but I’m not finding somewhere to get it!”

  “What?” Nolan’s brow furrowed and he squinted into the wind, trying desperately to see in the darkness of the Bolt Hole’s narrow, cramped alleys. “There’s no meds anywhere?”

  “Oh, there’s plenty,” Taia replied. “But they’re either locked up, guarded, or, worse, in short supply. Like the clinic and shelter on the north side of the Bolt Hole.”

  Nolan’s jaw clenched. No way he could take from those places, even to save Bex’s life. That clinic—and others like it—received no Imperial financial assistance, but were all funded privately. Which meant they were terribly underfunded and desperately needing whatever medications they had on hand.

  Damn it! His mind raced as fast as the skimmer bike roaring beneath him. “What kind of medication is it?” he asked Taia. “Is it something rare or expensive?”

  “That’s the thing, it’s something we should usually find everywhere!” Taia replied. “Benzodiazepines are incredibly common, but there’s been a shortage in New Avalon the last month. There were none available when I put in the order for the medications to help Bex recover, but I calculated her chances of seizures at an acceptably low 4.5% so I ordered a lower-dose, more available anti-epilepsy medication. The one that’s now not working.”

  Again, Nolan’s brow furrowed. “Wait, back up. Did you say benzodiazepine?”

  “Yes. A class of psychoactive drugs that—“

  “I don’t need the chemistry lesson, I know what benzos are!” Nolan whipped around a corner so fast he would have skidded out had Taia not lent a hand stabilizing the skimmer bike. He came within a meter of crashing into the crumbling concrete walls of a tenement building, but managed to right himself and raced off down the street. “But you’re saying a benzo is what will keep Bex alive?”

  “Yes,” Taia replied.

  “Great!” Hope surged within Nolan. “Then I know where we can find some. Think we’ve got time to detour to Grove District? Bleecker Row, on the corner of Hawthorne.”

  Taia went silent for a moment. “Calculating our route, I estimate it will take us seven minutes and fifty-five seconds at the current speed, including extra time for our detour.” The skimmer bike’s engine roared even louder, and the vehicle leaped forward, gaining speed.

  Too slow, or so it felt. Nolan had no HUD to count down the time, but he could feel the seconds passing, marked by the hammering of his heart against his bruised ribs.

  Come on! He leaned lower over the handlebars and willed the bike to go faster. It was no use. The skimmer was already pushing max speed, and even with Taia helping him control it, the bike barely fit between the narrow streets and back alleys of the Bolt Hole. Wind whipped at his face, and dirt and dust stung his eyes, but he gritted his teeth and drove on. Bex was counting on him.

  He sucked in a sharp breath as the slender streets of the Bolt Hole gave way to the broader lanes of Grove District.

  Yes!

  Skidding around a corner, he sent the bike racing up Bleecker Row. Straight toward a five-story building that stood on the intersection with Hawthorne Street. Gritting his teeth, Nolan braced himself for a full-speed collision as he barreled toward the building’s front door.

  “Nolan, isn’t this—?”

  Taia’s voice was drowned out by the thunderous BOOM of the building’s front door exploding inward beneath the impact of the skimmer bike’s front bumper. Though the door was solid metal, the hinges and frame were old and dangerously rusted—a fact he’d discovered the last time he was here. His full-speed charge tore the door off its frame and sent it hurtling into the building at deadly speed—deadly to the four men lounging within the old hotel’s abandoned front lobby.

  The door crashed into the men, crushing them, the smattering of bottles strewn across the table where they’d been playing cards, and the table itself. The terrible crunching of shattered bone and pulped flesh echoed loudly beneath the roaring of the skimmer bike, answered a moment later by shouts of alarm.

  B
ut Nolan didn’t slow. He drove the skimmer bike straight toward the nearest staircase, trusting the anti-grav engines to keep him stable as he sped up the stairs. Peeling floral wallpaper, crumbling and hole-ridden walls, and faded carpet raced past him in a blur, but Nolan had no time to cringe at the decrepit décor. His eyes locked on the stairs that circled the building’s interior.

  Just as he reached the first floor, doors around, above, and below him banged open. A flood of goons wielding blaster pistols and crappy automatic rifles burst out of the rooms. Those nearest Nolan were too surprised by the presence of the skimmer bike to do more than cry out before he ran them over. Others, however, managed to raise their weapons and fire.

  Bullets and blaster bolts whined toward him, peppering the bannister, the crumbling walls behind him, and the faded carpets on the staircase. He ducked low over his bike and let Taia take over the controls. “Top floor, penthouse suite!” he told Taia with a silent command.

  Again, the bike’s engine gave a deep-throated roar and surged up the stairs. He reached the second floor, skidded around the corner, and ran down a goon standing between him and the next staircase. Another managed to leap out of the way in time to avoid the skimmer bike’s heavy front engine, but Nolan kicked him hard enough to shatter the wooden bannister behind him and send him plummeting to the lobby floor.

  As another thug leapt out of his path—this time moving away from the bannister—Nolan leaned hard to the side and snatched the gun from the man’s hands. Not IAF-grade hardware, but the sort of low-quality, cheaply manufactured blaster pistol that seemed eternally available on the streets of New Avalon. But at the moment, he didn’t need quality or accuracy—high rate of fire paired with his bike’s insane speed would serve him well.

  He slid the gun along his leg, catching the bolt handle on the wire framework to cock it one-handed, then brought the blaster pistol up, leveling it at the staircase ahead. The lamps glimmering around the staircase illuminated the goons raising their rifles and taking aim at him.

  But these thugs matched the caliber of their weapons. Nolan whipped his pistol up and loosed a wild spray of bolts that tore through the goons too slow to dodge. The rest, stunned by the sudden threat in their midst and the skimmer bike roaring toward them, never had a chance. Those Nolan didn’t gun down he drove down.

  Resistance on the third floor was light, and the fourth floor was all but empty. Barely a smattering of bullets and blaster bolts followed up the last set of stairs—the goons on the lower levels could barely fire an accurate shot, and he’d left them far enough behind that he didn’t have to worry. For now.

  Reaching the top level, Nolan brought the skimmer bike around sharply and raced down a corridor toward the only door on the floor. He raised his blaster pistol and shot the lock two seconds before Taia sent the bike barreling into the double doors. Wood exploded inward and splinters showered the room within.

  The moment Taia brought the bike skidding to a halt and retracted her smart filaments, Nolan leaped off and raced toward the heavy wooden desk along the far corner of the room. Like the plush armchair, the ornate bookshelf, the massive metal safe, and the expensive decorations, it was far too pricey and opulent for a crappy place like this. But what else would be expected from the man who had, until a few days earlier, been the most powerful gang leader in New Avalon?

  Nolan tore the top drawer open so fast he nearly ripped it out of the desk. Relief flooded him as he caught sight of the glass ampoules within.

  Thank you, German French!

  Snatching up the medications, he spun and sprinted back to the bike. Taia inserted her steel smart fibers so quickly she had the hover engines revving and ready to go before he’d finished climbing into the saddle.

  “Get us out of here!” Nolan shouted. “And preferably a way that doesn’t take us back through all the angry Rücksichtslos we just pissed off, yeah?”

  “Searching for exfil route.” Taia went silent, which meant Nolan could easily hear the shouting of the gangbangers racing up the stairs toward him. This sort of insane frontal assault wasn’t his style—suicidal attacks were for fools—but he didn’t have much choice at the moment. Not with Bex’s life on the line.

  Shouts and the thundering of heavy boots echoed in the hallway outside German French’s office, growing louder with every furious beat of his heart.

  “Any day now, Taia!” Nolan growled.

  At that moment, the first of the Rücksichtslos goons burst through the door. The man had his rifle shouldered and ready to fire, but Nolan was quicker. A blaster bolt tore through his forehead, leaving nothing but a sizzling, blackened hole.

  Even as the first Rücksichtslos goon fell, more charged in behind him. Nolan had gotten off one good shot, but that was all the blaster would get. The gun was terribly inaccurate—IAF grunts called them “spray and pray toys”—but from this range, they did the job. He squeezed the trigger and emptied the high-capacity magazine into the bodies of the goons racing into the office.

  But Nolan knew he had just seconds before his clip was empty. Without armor, he was as vulnerable as them. His only advantage was speed and the chaos of his arrival. But if he didn’t get out now before the bulk of the goons arrived, he was in serious trouble.

  A rifle bolt clipped Nolan’s hand and tore the gun from his fingers, sending it spinning away into the darkness of the office.

  “Damn it, Taia!” Nolan shouted, ducking low to shield his body behind the skimmer bike. “We need to get out of here before—“

  “Got it!” The AI’s voice echoed in tandem with the revving of the bike’s engine, and the skimmer suddenly swiveled beneath him, so quickly he had to drop his pistol and grab the handles for dear life.

  The skimmer leaped forward at full speed, heading right toward the picture window on the far wall of the room. Plate glass shattered as the bike crashed through the window and plummeted toward the street, five stories below.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Taia!” Nolan roared. His heart jumped into his throat and his stomach did terrible things as solid ground dropped away beneath him. For a sickening heartbeat, there was nothing but darkness—and the promise of a five-story plunge into empty air. The skimmer bike beneath him and the wire framework around his legs would do little to diminish the bone-shattering impact from a fall that far.

  “I’ve got this, Nolan!” Taia chirped.

  The bike’s forward momentum sent it sailing over the street, dropping toward the two-story building opposite the abandoned hotel. Nolan sucked in a sharp breath as the roof came racing up toward him, braced himself.

  At the last moment, the hover engines flared to life, slowing the fall just enough that the bike skimmed along barely two meters above the rooftop. Instead of the painful impact, there was hardly a jolt. With Taia helping him keep the bike under control at top speed, Nolan zigzagged around ventilator fans and rooftop climate control units.

  “Southeast corner,” Taia told him, taking over the bike’s driving to steer it toward the direction she’d indicated. Instinctively, Nolan gritted his teeth as the skimmer flew off the far edge of the roof. But this time, he only dropped a single story, and the hover engines kept the bike racing along without the slightest bounce. One last drop, and he was at street level, racing east through the darkness of Grove District toward the western edge of Shimmertown.

  “Good thinking back there,” the AI said. “In all my calculations, I failed to take into account German French’s history of epilepsy. Searching my archives now, I found the footage I captured during our stakeout of his office, complete with restocking his supply of benzodiazepine.”

  Nolan grinned. “Don’t sweat it, Taia. You’ve got your hands full keeping Bex alive, tracking our targets, driving the skimmer bike, and cleaning up the CCTV camera feed on our trail. Even you have your limitations.”

  “A fact that leads me to conclude that I need to expand my capabilities as soon as possible.” The AI’s voice sounded dangerously clo
se to irritated. “If I am to be fully functional and provide you the support you need in your role as Cerberus, I must have more computing power available.”

  “A problem we can deal with later!” Nolan leaned lower over the bike’s handlebars. “First things first. How much time do we have left?” Without his HUD display, he had no countdown timer, no clock, nothing but the pale light of Lunaria to mark the passage of time. No way to know if Bex was already past the point of no return.

  “Four minutes, thirty-seven seconds until the risk of severe neurological complications increases to 65%.”

  Nolan cursed. He was no doctor, but even he knew that prolonged seizures could seriously mess with the human brain. If they didn’t get the medication to Bex in time, she might not wake up again. Or, and to him it was far worse, she’d wake up impaired.

  “ETA to the apartment?” he asked.

  “At current speed, I calculate six minutes and forty-five seconds.”

  “Damn it!” Nolan hunched over the skimmer bike. “Can you take this thing any faster?”

  “The vehicle is already operating at the maximum speed deemed safe by its manufacturers.”

  “Which is your way of saying you can make it go faster, but if you do, it could very well explode on me, right?” An image of the explosions back at the Shipyards flashed through Nolan’s mind.

  “Let’s just say you don’t want me to tell you the probabilities that the hover engines will experience critical overheating if I take off the fail-safes.”

  The fireball that consumed Declan’s vehicle had also blown the White Sharks lieutenant into shreds of bone and flesh. And the way the skimmer bike had burst into a thunderous pillar of flames after crashing into the dumpster at full speed left him all too wary—and not a little fearful—of what would happen if Taia’s worst-case predictions came true.

  Yet he hesitated for only a moment. In a battle for life and death, the only way to win was to take gambles. For Bex’s sake, he had no other choice.