by Robyn Bachar
“Where were you?” Gabriel glowered at them as he gripped the hilt of the knife in his ribs and debated whether to pull the blade free. The wound was a fresh torment added to his already abused body, and black spots danced at the edge of his vision.
“Tending to Raiya. She had internal damage that needed surgery to repair.” Tomas swatted his hand away. “Don’t touch that. Who the hell was that?”
“No idea, but he was killing your patients. He killed Diesel.”
“Bastard. Must be the KGB agent we’ve been looking for. It’s back to bed for you.”
“I need to speak to Lindy.”
Tomas nodded. “She’s busy. I’ll let her know.”
Busy. Of course—she was the captain, and didn’t have time to hold his hand. Still, Gabriel needed to talk to her. He had a multitude of sins to confess, and was running out of time to beg for her forgiveness. His knees buckled, and he prayed that if he fell unconscious he wouldn’t wake up in a shipping container bound for Alliance headquarters.
* * *
The Novosibirsk dropped out of hyperspace at the edge of the system that housed the New Nairobi colony.
“I’m scanning for Mama Mo now,” Maria said. “I’m not picking her up yet. She may be late. She left after us.”
“Understood.” Lindana eyed the Soviet pilots warily as Sveta rose to stand behind them. “Head toward the colony. Hail them once we’re in range.”
“Aye, Captain.” Lindana and Maria exchanged a glance. Maria knew the go-codes that would give New Nairobi the all clear, otherwise a Soviet ship would be shot on approach. Not that the colony had much in the way of defenses. Guns were expensive and ammunition more so, as Lindana could attest to after refitting the Mombasa for combat.
“Hailing the surface now.” The seconds ticked by as Maria repeated her hail, and time seemed to stretch as no reply came.
Lindana frowned and turned to Ryder. “Communications malfunction?” she guessed.
“Possible. I don’t like it.”
“Put a visual on screen when we’re in camera range,” Lindana ordered.
Sveta joined them. “This is not usual?”
“No.” Lindana shook her head, a sense of unease rising in her gut.
“Ship detected. It’s the Mombasa.” Maria sighed in relief. “I’m connecting to her now.”
“Captain Nyota?” Jiang asked.
“I’m here. Good to hear your voice, Lieutenant,” Lindana said. “What’s your status?”
“The engine rats are about to riot without their queen, otherwise the ship’s in good shape. A few minor injuries. Tomas’s team functioned well enough without him.”
“We lost four people, mostly against Kowalczyk’s men. Maria is transmitting their names now. Maria, any reply from the colony?” Lindana asked.
“No, Captain.”
“The colony hasn’t hailed you?” Jiang sounded surprised.
“No. We’re almost in camera range. We’ll send you our visuals,” Lindana said.
The camera blinked on and thick black smoke obscured the screen. Lindana’s stomach dropped. The bridge was eerily silent; the only sound was the soft hiss of the open comm link to the Mombasa. As the ships drew closer to the planet, the images solidified. The colony was burning, and the only movement visible was the orange twist of devouring flames and billowing clouds of smoke.
Lindana wanted to say something, but the question caught in her throat and threatened to choke her. Could this be an industrial accident? No. Nor had a natural disaster befallen New Nairobi. No earthquake had caused this. She’d seen this sort of damage before, during the war, when orbiting gunships rained fire and destruction onto the surface of the planet below.
“Who could have done this?” Maria’s voice was soft and strained.
“Why would they do this?” Ryder asked. “New Nairobi is a Class 3 colony. It has no strategic military importance. Makes no sense to obliterate it. It’ll take years to rebuild the spaceport alone.”
“They were looking for you.” The bridge crew turned at the sound of Gabriel’s voice. He stepped out of the lift with a grim expression, moving slowly but surely. “For the Mombasa. Whoever hired Kowalczyk must have hired other groups as well. Unless the C3 or the Soviets attacked them, but I doubt they’d be so direct. It would be an act of war.”
War. The word sent a violent shudder through Lindana’s body, and she hugged her arms to her chest in reflex. “Looking for us? Why?”
“To stop you from reaching the Novosibirsk, and Raiya.” He nodded toward the woman in question, who scowled under his regard.
“That makes no sense. We haven’t been here in weeks. Why would they...” Lindana trailed off.
“New Nairobi is the Mombasa’s port of registry,” Gabriel said. “Whoever did this knew you’d return here after this mission. They likely didn’t know that we were delayed.”
Delayed because Lindana had been busy throwing a temper tantrum at Gabriel’s assignment to her ship. Dear God—could they have prevented this if they had arrived sooner? Lindana shook her head and stared at Gabriel in numb disbelief. “If they wanted to stop us why didn’t they attack us at Tortue?”
“Because it’s a Swiss station. Too many witnesses, too much at stake in attacking a neutral party. An attack like this could be blamed on pirates. It likely was pirates, after all. They might even try to pin it on you. Make it seem as though the Mombasa has gone rogue.”
“We would never attack our own people,” Lindana said. “No one would believe that.”
“Captain Nyota. Orders?” Sveta asked.
Lindana swallowed hard. “We need to land. Put those fires out. Check for survivors. There may be fuel and supplies that haven’t burned yet.”
“It’s wiser to run,” Sveta advised.
“No. We don’t leave anyone behind. Scan the surface for radiation.” Lindana shuddered again—if the attackers had used nukes, the colony would be beyond saving, but nuclear weapons were expensive to buy, dangerous to transport and a bitch to maintain. Pirates and privateers didn’t bother with weapons that tainted the goods one wanted to steal.
“Radiation levels are within normal,” Maria said.
Allahu akbar. At least one thing on this mission was in their favor. “Sveta, prepare the ship for landing. Chief Kalani, get a landing party together and have them meet us in the cargo bay.”
“Aye, Captain,” Ryder said.
Lindana scowled at Gabriel. “You’re staying here.”
“No.” Gabriel straightened, though he winced at the movement.
“That’s an order, Lieutenant. Get your ass back to the med bay.”
“No.” Gabriel lowered his voice. “You need all hands on deck for this. I’m fit enough to help with the evacuation. I refuse to take up a bed in the med bay when there are civilians who need it more. Besides, you fired me. You can’t order me back to bed.”
Technically she had un-fired him in a fit of fear for his safety, but he likely didn’t remember that. Tomas had said that Gabriel’s wounds had mended clean—he wouldn’t be one hundred percent, but he should be healed enough to handle this mission. Lindana’s eyes narrowed as she glared her disapproval, but then she gave a curt nod. “Fine. But if you pass out, we’re leaving your ass there for scavengers to pick over.”
“No, you won’t.” A smile tugged at the edges of his mouth.
“I hate you.”
“I know,” he whispered.
Their eyes met and the moment seemed to hang between them, suspended in air. Lindana didn’t want him dead, injured or suffering, and that was...new. Something had changed, and she wasn’t certain how to feel about it.
She scowled and pushed past him. “Let’s move out.”
* * *
The Novosibirsk was a
beast of a vessel, and Gabriel did not envy the pilots responsible for landing it. The retasked warship was capable of landing, but had been designed primarily for bombarding targets in space or from orbit. As it touched down on the shattered landing pad that had once been part of the New Nairobi spaceport, the entire vessel shook and shimmied like a wet dog after a bath.
In a perfect world Gabriel would have time to properly recuperate before heading out on another mission, but as he looked through the cargo bay’s viewports at the thick black smoke emanating from New Nairobi, he was reminded with a sinking feeling of dread that nothing was perfect about this situation.
The Mombasa’s boarding party stood side by side in the cargo bay with the crew of the Novosibirsk—or at least the crew who claimed that they intended to defect and follow Red Raiya into a life of piracy. There wasn’t enough time to study them closely and analyze their true intentions. The frightened political prisoners had been moved to another area of the ship for now. Gabriel wondered if the ship was sufficiently supplied to support the crew, their cargo and incoming refugees. Soviet ships were known for carrying the bare essentials when it came to food and medical supplies, even fuel.
Before he could worry further, the cargo bay doors opened with a ponderous groan. The smell hit him first—the peculiar stench of singed flesh, exploded munitions and burning buildings that reminded him of the worst parts of the war—followed by a furnace blast of heat from the flames and the planet’s hot, arid climate. Gabriel had been trapped in the heart of the city during the siege of Sydney on New Australia. The screams of the dying still haunted him, and for a moment he reconsidered accompanying the team into the colony. The med bay would certainly be quieter than this, but it would be an empty comfort.
There was only one direction to move—forward.
“Have your team hold until my signal,” Lindana ordered Raiya. “The locals know us. They’ll recognize us. Don’t want them to shoot you thinking you’re a raider.”
Raiya smiled grimly. “I am a raider.”
“Not today. Today you’re search and rescue.” Lindana motioned her crew into action.
Gabriel followed behind and to her right as they jogged down the ramp, while Tomas and Chief Kalani formed up on either side of their captain. The trio was grim-faced, likely flooded with haunting memories of the war similar to the ones that plagued Gabriel. Scorched, broken ground crunched beneath their boots as they stepped onto the planet’s surface. Communications were down, as was the power grid, but any survivors would have witnessed the massive Soviet ship landing—if there were survivors. Judging by the fat columns of smoke rising from the shattered buildings, the chances of finding colonists still alive seemed slim.
The New Nairobi colony had been founded on a Class 3 world, a desert rock which most of the super powers would hardly consider worth the fuel to reach and less so the artillery it cost to attack it. Class 3 colonies took years to become sustainable, and decades to become profitable. Pirates raided small colonies on occasion, but Gabriel doubted that New Nairobi possessed anything worth stealing, and this level of destruction was almost unprecedented for a pirate group. There was no profit in it.
Gabriel grimaced, but dutifully followed as Lindy jogged away from the ship. The main spaceport terminal was engulfed in flames, and the heat was so blistering that Gabriel almost expected it to scorch his armor and singe his hair. The Mombasa touched down behind them, and the ship was dwarfed by the massive bulk of the Novosibirsk.
“This way.” Lindana waved them on. “The closest shelter is there.”
The shelter in question was a simple armored bunker dug halfway into the ground. The metal that comprised it appeared battered and burned, but there was no smoke emanating from it, which Gabriel considered a good sign. Lindy banged three times on the shelter’s front door, and the hatch cycled open to reveal the business end of several shotguns.
“Don’t shoot, we’re friendly.” Lindana held her empty hands high.
“We know,” a woman shouted in reply. “Pirates don’t knock.”
“Kesi! What happened?” Lindana asked.
An older dark-skinned woman with soot-blackened clothes stepped forward. She studied Lindana with a furrowed brow. “You don’t know?”
“No. The sky’s empty.” Lindana waved an encompassing hand above them. “Who attacked you?”
“Damn. I thought you could tell us. They didn’t identify themselves,” Kesi snarled. “We had no warning. Our sensor grid hardly works as it is, and we didn’t detect them until they were right on top of us. Most people didn’t have time to get to the shelters.”
The Mombasa’s crew’s comms beeped, and Lindana touched her ear cuff. “Go for Captain.”
Jiang answered, her voice broadcast to all of them. “Cap, we’re getting fluctuating readings from the power plant.”
Chief Watson cursed. “They’ve got nuclear power. If the reactor melts down...”
“Right.” Lindana turned to her brother. “You and Sveta evac the civilians. Watson and Kalani, with me.” She paused and looked Gabriel up and down. “Fine, you too.”
His mouth twitched as he fought a smile. “Of course, Captain.”
They double-timed it through the rubble-strewn streets. Gabriel tried not to catalogue the destruction as they moved, but some sadistic part of his mind insisted on analyzing everything. Too much training, he supposed, and it distracted him from the constant, dull agony festering in his side. He counted corpses, noting their positions and speculating on what they were doing before they died. Market day. A flashback superimposed over his vision—a memory from the war of a terrorist bombing that had devastated a small village during a wedding celebration. Two entire families wiped out in one bomb blast—
Gabriel stumbled and slapped his hands atop the dusty hood of a ground transport as he caught himself. He struggled to breathe the superheated air as Chief Kalani appeared at his side.
“You good?” the big man asked. Gabriel swallowed hard—his throat was parched from heat and smoke—and he nodded sharply. Kalani studied him for a tense moment, his eyes darkening as a vein twitched in his jaw. “I know,” he said soft, almost under his breath. “You’re good. We got this.”
“Thank you.” Gabriel winced a bit at the chief’s enthusiasm as Kalani clapped him on the shoulder.
“Get your asses in gear or go back to the ship,” Lindana snapped from ahead of them.
“Aye, Cap,” Kalani said. Gabriel forced his legs to function once more as he stumbled after the giant and struggled to keep pace with him. Each step was accompanied by an increasing ache in his gut that relentlessly reminded him that he wasn’t one hundred percent healed yet.
The power plant’s pair of massive cooling towers had been hidden from view by the smoke, but they loomed into view like disapproving giants as the group approached.
“I got point,” Chief Watson called out. “Someone needs to scan for radiation.”
“Lieutenant Steele?”
“Aye, Captain.” His multitool included a Geiger counter—every standard issue multitool did, though he wished for the finer sensors included on the Intel-issued tablet sitting unused in his quarters on the Mombasa. Gabriel switched the scanner to the correct setting and the display on the handle promptly lit up with a number. “We’re green.”
“You squawk if it even twitches yellow, Lieutenant,” Watson said.
“Aye, Chief.”
“Damage doesn’t look too bad here,” Watson said. The majority of the smoke was behind them in the city proper. “Main structure’s intact. Not sure what the problem is. Ryder, get the door.”
“On it.” Chief Kalani stopped in front of the entrance. The security looked fairly standard—a card reader and a code keypad. Ryder wrenched the entire panel free and went for the wires beneath. It was clearly not his first time performing such a ta
sk.
Gabriel felt someone’s gaze upon him and turned to find Lindana regarding him with a quirked brow, as though daring him to comment on their less than legal activities. God knew that he had broken into countless buildings during missions and certainly couldn’t cast the first stone.
“Readings are green, Captain,” Gabriel said. Lindana snorted, and the door opened.
The power plant’s corridors were empty, but Chief Watson navigated them unerringly, steadfastly leading them to their destination. One lone man in a faded khaki coverall stood in the main control room, hunched over a data terminal as readout displays flashed red, yellow and green lights at various intervals.
“Damn it, Mike. What happened?” Chief Watson blurted out. She hurried to the terminal next to his and promptly began tapping away at the interface.
“Friend of yours?” Gabriel asked Lindy.
“Mike Jenkins, one of the colony’s tech specialists. We’ve worked with him before, and he’s—”
“I don’t know what happened!” Mike said. “We didn’t sustain that much damage here. They went straight for the residential and commercial areas.” The man dragged a hand through his dark blond hair and growled in frustration. “But the controls are going haywire. Every patch I make is undone a minute later. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Watson shoved her glasses up on her nose and then snapped her fingers at Gabriel. “You. Get your ass over here.”
“I’m not familiar with this technology,” Gabriel said.
Watson cut him off from further explanation with a wave of her hand. “Don’t need to be. You’re looking for recent data downloads. Whoever attacked us must have sent a virus to take out the power plant.”
Us. The word was not lost on Gabriel—New Nairobi was the Mombasa’s port of registry. Their home away from home, and someone had tried to obliterate it. Why? Because of Raiya’s intel? What the hell was she hiding?