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

by Andy Peloquin

  Wolfe had abandoned his skimmer craft, and now strode through the darkness outside the hangar toward a quad-engine starspeeder, the sort of ship used both for travel around Exodus VI and to the other planets within the system.

  The White Sharks lieutenant was fleeing New Avalon.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Anger burned within Nolan. The bastard’s running!

  Wolfe hadn’t gone underground; the coward was taking to the skies, heading out of town—either to New Ekland, Phobury, or any one of the other big cities on Exodus VI. If he knew Gustav and Declan had both died, he’d command the White Sharks’ operations. He could do that from anywhere around the globe. Hell, even from off-world.

  But he wouldn’t stay gone. Not after what Nolan had done to Ledren, his kid brother. To cement his leadership of the White Sharks, he’d have to prove his right to lead, which meant he’d come after the wheelchair-bound former IAF grunt that had murdered the better part of two dozen of his men. He’d come back in full force, hunting one Nolan Garrett, and innocent people would get caught in the crossfire.

  Not if I can help it!

  He was already moving toward his combat suit as he called, “Taia, how do we stop him?”

  “His starspeeder is already pulling out of the hangar and preparing for takeoff,” the AI said, talking even as her robotic arms helped Nolan remove the framework smart steel suit and don the one she’d finished repairing. “But he won’t be running north, not with the storm kicking up over the Frostbarren.”

  Taia fell silent for a few seconds, but her arms never stopped moving, locking Nolan’s combat suit in place one piece at a time. The metal of the framework suit rippled, puddled on the floor, then re-formed into the shape of Nolan’s sparse and terribly uncomfortable backup wheelchair. Another of her arms stowed the already-collapsed chair into its compartment.

  “Weather forecasts are expecting another stratospheric storm over Firedeep Canyon and the eastern edge of the city, and the Strongarms have already locked down the Shipyards.”

  “Which means his only clear flight path out of New Avalon is west!” Nolan’s heart hammered in his chest, his mind racing. “Any chance you can track his starspeeder once it takes off?”

  “Not unless I hack into Imperial radar systems. And you know how much the government hates it when we do that.”

  Nolan ground his teeth. The last thing he needed was to draw more attention to his actions. Already the IDF and the Strongarms would be interested in who had left so many bodies over the last few days, and the utter absence of camera footage—courtesy of Taia, one of her most critical functions related to his job as Cerberus—would only fuel their fire. Hacking the radar might draw the interest of someone placed high up enough in the government to put some heat behind the investigation.

  “Then how the hell are we going to find him?” Nolan reached for the MK75 and gave the modular sniper rifle a quick once-over. “The minute he leaves New Avalon airspace, if we can’t track him, he could disappear anywhere.”

  “Then we stop him before he does.”

  Something in the AI’s voice snapped Nolan’s head up. “You’ve got an idea?”

  The footage of Wolfe’s starspeeder disappeared, replaced once again by the blue-lined grid of New Avalon.

  “Wolfe will be taking off as soon as his ship’s gone through takeoff sequence,” Taia said. “But while he’s within New Avalon airspace, he’ll have to adhere to the Imperial aircraft speed limitations. And he’ll have to avoid all restricted zones—IAF operation areas, the Imperial government buildings—“

  Nolan sucked in a breath. “Which means you can calculate his flight path!”

  “There is an 85.6% chance that he will be using this route to leave New Avalon.” A red-dotted line traced a path from the hangar toward the western edge of the city. “We don’t have to follow him. We simply need to intercept him.”

  “Bloody hell, Taia, that’s brilliant!” Nolan’s eyes locked on the route Taia had calculated for Wolfe. “Tell me there’s something along that path that gets me close enough to bring him down.”

  “Here.” Taia set a blinking red dot at a location that Nolan recognized as the Bolt Hole. “On top of the building where Gustav met with the White Sharks.”

  Nolan felt a grim smile tug at his lips. A fitting place to put an end to the last of the White Sharks’ leadership.

  “How much time do I have?”

  “Fourteen minutes.”

  Nolan’s smile turned to a grimace. “Damn, that’ll be cutting it close! Think the skimmer bike’s up for that kind of speed?”

  “It will have to be. You’ll never get there in time using only boot thrusters.”

  “Good!” Nolan spun toward his armory and drew out a pair of rocket-propelled plasma grenades, along with the modular attachment to secure it on his MK75. His Echosteel blade and holster hung on his belt, and next to it he dropped two smoke grenades, three frag grenades, and, for luck, his favorite compact blaster pistol. He could never have too many weapons when trying to take down a starspeeder—not to mention White Sharks armed with IAF-grade guns. The combat suit could more than handle the weight.

  As he turned to race out of the workshop, a glimmer of pink caught his attention. The vials of Blitz still sat on the steel table, shimmering, reflecting the light with an almost magical gleam.

  Once again, Nolan felt the clawing urge, the deep, throbbing ache that set his hands shaking and turned his mouth dry. He hated those vials, hated the power that the liquid within had over him. Not just before he kicked the habit, but even now, so many years later. He’d come within a heartbeat of relapsing just hours earlier.

  Anger flared bright and hot, burning like Firedeep Canyon’s lava flow in the core of his being. He stalked toward the vials and snatched them up, preparing to crush them in his armored fist. Better to be rid of them now that he felt strong than risk temptation at a moment of weakness.

  But something kept him from smashing the vials and letting the marvelous, foul, wonderful, and terrible liquid splash across the floor. That same voice in his mind that whispered “Just in case” stopped him. Another voice, this one belonging to a dead man, gave him an idea.

  His jaw clenched. Just in case.

  Slowly, he slipped the vials of Blitz into his combat suit’s pack and strode into the living room to recover the applicator.

  “Nolan?” Taia asked. “Knowing your history, is it—“

  “Do you trust me, Taia?”

  A moment of silence, then the AI responded. “I do.”

  “Then lock the apartment down behind me and keep Bex safe and alive until we’re back.” He’d had one moment of weakness; he wouldn’t have another.

  “Will do, boss!”

  Nolan spared a glance for Bex, still resting after her ordeal. Taia would have said something if she needed his help; he had to let the AI, with access to every shred of medical knowledge available today, handle the Silverguard’s care. He had more important matters to deal with.

  Turning away, he raced back through the workshop and out the door into tunnels and the way out. It felt good to be back in a proper combat suit, even one this antiquated. With its twin fuel cells recharged, he could move freely, his legs propelled by the anti-grav thrusters built into the boots. Silent as a wraith, he skimmed through the tunnels and leaped up the exit hatch, landing lightly on the rooftop above. His HUD showed energy levels at one hundred percent, and the hasty meal he’d eaten had restored his vitality. Gone was the pain of his wounds—bullets, blasters, brass knuckles, and stun baton—and in its place, adrenaline crackled like electricity through his veins.

  Wolfe and the White Sharks had messed with Nolan Garrett. Now it was Cerberus’ turn to join the party.

  A single leap carried him across the alley to the building behind the Spacer’s Paradise, and thirty seconds later, he was dropping to the alley where he’d left the skimmer bike. The heat emanating from the engines hadn’t fully diminished from his
last desperate ride through New Avalon.

  “Run diagnostics and see how well this baby can run,” Nolan said as he swung a leg over the bike’s saddle.

  Taia’s smart fibers slithered into the ignition and the engines roared to life. “Analysis of the skimmer bike’s hover engines reveal substantial heat damage to its stabilizers. Excessive temperatures could push the thrusters beyond critical temperatures and result in—“

  “Will it get us where we need to go in the time we’ve got?” Nolan asked.

  The map of his route through New Avalon popped up on his HUD, along with footage showing Wolfe’s sleek starspeeder going through the last of the warm-up procedures. “Yes,” Taia told him, “but we’ve got to hurry.”

  “Then let’s do this!” Nolan gunned the skimmer bike’s engines and tore off down the alley. At the broad street that served as the border between Grove District and Shimmertown, he turned north, toward the highway that would lead to the Silver Towers high-rise district. The distance might be longer—thirty kilometers north, then a sharp left toward the slums on the western edge of New Avalon, more than one hundred kilometers away—but the expressways that ran between the business district and the Shipyards would be perfect for pushing the bike’s speed to the max. Far better than trying to wend his way through the narrow alleys of Grove District and the Bolt Hole.

  In seconds, he’d left the smoky haze of Shimmertown behind, and was headed up the ramp onto the elevated highway that led straight toward the heart of Silver Towers. His helmet sensors blocked off the shrieking of the wind, shielding his face and head as he raced along the expressway at speeds dangerously close to three hundred kilometers per hour. The vehicles around him appeared like slow-moving slugs, a trail of red and white lights that zipped past him in a blur.

  “He’s taking off,” Taia warned. The starspeeder on the video feed actuated its engines and, with a white-hot burn of ion energy, lifted off into the night sky. “I’ll use CCTV cameras to follow him as long as I can, but if I lose eyes on Wolfe’s ship, our only hope of stopping him from fleeing the city is to be on that rooftop when he flies over.”

  “We’ll be there,” Nolan growled. We have to.

  After everything Wolfe had done, he deserved to join his fellow gangbangers in whatever miserable afterlife awaited vile scum. The idea that the White Sharks lieutenant might escape retribution here and now infuriated Nolan. If Wolfe got free of New Avalon, he wouldn’t just avoid Imperial punishment for his crimes; Agent Styver and the Protection Bureau wanted to use him, which meant they’d protect him.

  No, this was his only chance to wipe the slimy bastard off the face of Exodus VI—leaving it, and the entire universe, that much of a better place.

  The steel and glass structures of Silver Towers loomed in the distance, growing closer with every heart-pounding second. Lights of countless flashing advertisements, billboards, and digital displays nearly blinded him, setting the entire high-rise district glittering like diamonds.

  That one small part of New Avalon—along with the Upper Heights and Imperial Residences to the north—stood in such stark contrast to so much of the rest of the city. The men and women in those impossibly high-up offices and boardrooms overlooked the slums of the Bolt Hole, the low-rent Grove District, and the bawdy glamor of Shimmertown. They stared down on the city beneath them, like the gods of Old Terran mythology, controlling the fates of the eighty-five million Exodians that shared New Avalon with them.

  With a grimace, Nolan shook his head and turned his gaze away from the skyscrapers. The people in those buildings, the ones who manipulated the Imperial government to their whims, weren’t his target. Not tonight, at least.

  He weaved between the lanes, merging onto the expressway that cut sharply west and slightly south toward the Shipyards. This highway had fewer vehicles, and at his instruction, Taia opened up the engines as much as she dared.

  “Wolfe’s estimated ETA to intercept point, six minutes and thirty-four seconds. Our ETA, six minutes and thirty seconds.”

  Nolan cursed. Four seconds to get in position, aim, and bring down a bloody starspeeder. That kind of shot was damned near impossible, even for him.

  “Push this thing as fast as it’ll go!” Nolan snarled.

  “It’s already operating at fifteen percent above recommended safety limits,” Taia said. “I push it any harder and we’ll go up in flames long before we get in sight of Wolfe.”

  Frustration roared within Nolan, and every second seemed to drag on as he raced west toward the Bolt Hole. Doubt nagged at the back of his mind. Would they reach their destination? Could he get into position in time, or would Wolfe’s starspeeder disappear into the darkness before he could take it down?

  Come on! He bit down a growl of impatience and concentrated on staying alive, keeping the skimmer bike stable as he zipped through the late-night traffic.

  It seemed like an eternity—but couldn’t have been more than three or four minutes—before Taia guided the bike off the highway. Nolan sped down the off-ramp and barreled through the light, glad for the emptiness of the Bolt Hole after midnight. Here, at least, vehicles were fewer—after all, those who lived in New Avalon’s slums could barely afford to eat and live, much less own a skimmer bike or craft.

  Nolan’s eyes locked on the building that towered fifteen stories above all the others in the Bolt Hole. That thirty-story skyscraper was just ten kilometers away, but that distance seemed interminable as the numbers on his HUD’s clock counted down toward zero. Toward failure.

  Tension tightened in his back and shoulders as the building drew closer. Closer, one kilometer at a time. Zipping through debris-strewn back alleys and cutting between crumbling buildings, clinging to the skimmer bike’s handles and trusting Taia to keep him stable and in control.

  Then he reached the building. The bike skidded to a halt so fast it snapped his head forward. Nolan leaped off and kicked on his boot thrusters in an instant. Ion engines roared to life and propelled him upward at maximum speed. Like a speeding bullet, he shot up toward the rooftop, a blur in the darkness. He killed the thrusters at the last second—leaving his energy levels at just 70%, according to his helmet’s readout—and landed hard on the rooftop. Rolling with the impact, he came up to one knee, unholstered his rifle, and snapped the scope up to his eye.

  Desperation thrummed within Nolan as he scanned the star-filled sky for any sign of Wolfe’s starspeeder. Empty air and the distant lights of Silver Towers and the Upper Heights met his searching gaze. Far in the distance, northeast of New Avalon, a towering wall of white swirled, the ice storm that gave the Frostbarren its grim name. Farther south, beyond the eastern edge of the city, the purple, ozone-heavy tempest brewed in the night sky, blocking out Lunaria’s last weak rays of moonlight.

  Yet he saw no sign of his target.

  No! Had he missed his window? Had Wolfe’s starspeeder already passed and disappeared into the empty darkness west of New Avalon?

  He swallowed the surge of panic. It can’t be! He can’t have gotten away.

  His worry increased as he scanned the sky through the rifle’s scope. “Switch to IR!” he told Taia.

  The scope’s infrared filter flicked on, and hope washed over him, a blazing warmth as bright as the burn trail immediately visible in the night sky. Wolfe’s sleek starspeeder might’ve been all but invisible to those in the city below, but to the digital thermal imaging in Nolan’s scope, the heat radiating from the ship was unmistakable.

  Got you, you bastard!

  Nolan tore his eyes away from the MK75’s scope just long enough to reach into his combat suit’s pack and draw out the grenade launcher module. Clipping it into position beneath the rifle’s barrel, he lifted the MK75 once more and sighted on Wolfe’s ship. The starspeeder was flying low, but Taia’s projected flight path carried it past his current position nearly half a kilometer out. He’d have to have damned good aim to hit the ship with the plasma grenade at that range. If he could, however, the plasma
would burn through all but battleship-grade durasteel. Wolfe and the thugs traveling with him had no chance—if he could place the grenade in just the right spot.

  “Run the math for me,” he told Taia. He might not have had Hugin and Munin, but the AI could do far more for him than his twin Spotter drones ever had. Taia’s computing power could work through the calculations of distance, slant range, atmospheric conditions, and every other tiny detail that went into making the perfect shot in the space of a few milliseconds. “And activate aim assist mode.”

  That last one was definitely something his Spotter drones could never have pulled off. Some shots required far steadier hands than even the most capable human possessed. IAF and Old Terran snipers had utilized exoskeleton suits for centuries, enabling the best marksman to make shots nearly twice the unassisted distance. Nolan always preferred being in control of the aim and when to pull the trigger, but at that moment, with everything on the line, he would use whatever tool gave him the greatest edge against his enemy. Mission objective above all.

  Instantly, Taia took control of the combat suit’s arms, moving them into a position based on her calculations. He would still be the one to pull the trigger and make on-the-fly adjustments; she was just keeping his arms rock-steady, and feeding him all the data he needed to make the shot.

  Numbers scrolled across his HUD so fast his conscious mind had only a heartbeat to process it. But his subconscious mind—that cool, calm part of his brain that took over whenever he sighted on a target—understood it. Compensated for the crosswinds, the altitude and trajectory of Wolfe’s ship, and the atmosphere thickened by the phosphorus, ion, and ozone in the distant storm.

  In that moment, the world around him faded. The stars, the distant lights of the Silver Towers and Upper Heights, the angry violet stormclouds boiling to the south and east. Everything disappeared, until only the infrared outline of Wolfe’s ship remained. Nothing but empty air between him and his target. He dimly heard Taia’s countdown, barely saw the trajectory she marked on his HUD. All that mattered was the starspeeder flying toward his position.