He had distrusted the creature known as X from the start.
As a Legion Dark Ops officer, his E&E skills were the best. Escape and evasion. Owens knew exactly what to do in the next few seconds. Put as much distance between him and his pursuers as possible. Slow them down by making them learn to be more cautious in their pursuit.
In other words, he would make them afraid. And once they were afraid, they’d slow, whether they liked it or not. And then, hopefully, he could lose them.
The first ambush he set up for them wasn’t more than three hundred meters from where he’d left the shock trooper with the busted knee that would never work again unless it was completely rebuilt. Owens had noted this location on the way to the meeting with Goth Sullus. A dark access off the main passage led into a portion of the deck that was still under construction.
He ran full tilt, legs and arms pumping, unarmored, to the spot he’d selected. And he knew that they knew that this was where he was making for. They’d think he planned to use the twilight-lit decks and chaotic dishevel of the unfinished systems and installs as an egress into a maze he might lose them in. Therefore, it was vital to capture him now.
That’s what the shock troopers would be thinking. There was no telling where he might go once he was in there.
So of course, they had no idea that he’d set up a kill zone just beyond the opening where a blast door would one day actually control access.
Owens missed with the first shot, striking the ceiling with a spray of sparks as the bolt smashed into the impervisteel. The weapon was more powerful than he was accustomed to, and it actually bucked on trigger pull. The part of Owens’s brain that had been pulling triggers for fifteen years, professionally, processed this information and made the necessary adjustments.
His next two shots smashed into the chest plates of the first two troopers to breach the entrance. One went down on his back, his armor smoking. The other fell to his knees and then went face forward.
The rest, Owens knew, would hold up and figure out how to pin him down. Toss bangers in and come for him, probably. But Owens had already moved on. He was gliding past power cores yet to be installed and conduit micro-cables coiled in bundles, and stepping over places in the deck where the plating had been pulled up in the service of some install. Halfway across the skeletal maze he spied something that gave him an idea.
It was like any one of the other dark pits where deck plating had been pulled up. He slid to his belly, heard the first banger go off in the distance, and crawled head first down into the darkness below.
The hard metallic clack of the shock troopers’ boots, many of them, came rushing toward him. He couldn’t know what their leader would be telling them now to organize a search protocol—but most likely, given the sprawling expanse of the gloomy deck, they’d spread out. Make contact. Pin him down. And rush him.
Owens waited down there in the darkness, listening as they drew closer, wondering if their leader was telling them to check the exposed deck plating. He didn’t hear anyone speaking; they must’ve had some kind of L-comm.
He held his breath as they passed overhead. He was sure their chatter was alive with search orders, threats, and clearance confirmations, but without access to their comm, to Owens they were like a passage of ghostly knights, all linked to some hive mind of ancient purpose that would remain arcane unless one knew their history, understood the reasons for their nightly march.
Owens had studied Savage history. And that medieval time of the galaxy always popped into his mind at the strangest of moments, providing allegory and context in a way that made him understand situations a little better. But he didn’t talk about it anymore. The few times he’d tried to bring up such references professionally, the legionnaire on the receiving end of the discussion had stared at him like he was some crazed intellectual who’d devolved so far down into the academic he was all but unintelligible. So Owens had stopped actively using such allusions and just kept his thoughts to himself.
The dark armored troopers moved beyond his hole, and were now heading deeper into the deck. Still he waited. He listened to the cadence of their boots like it was some musical piece. He felt its rhythms, waited for the false note to strike. Listened for that one pair of boots that stopped and held its ground.
And there it was.
He tried to place where it had come from.
He couldn’t.
When he was sure the other boots had moved on, he gave it another few moments.
All was still.
Down here, in the darkness, he could see the other holes in the deck above. Each was marked by a dusty shaft of light trickling downward. He studied them. Was there any one shaft of light that held a shadow that made it just a little darker? As though someone were standing near its edge?
No. There was nothing.
Controlling his muscle groups, moving like a tree snake, he slithered up to the opening and raised his eyes just above the lip of the deck. It was then that he spotted his prey—just a few meters away. One trooper had stayed behind standing beside another hole in the unfinished deck.
Just as Owens would have done, the shock troopers’ leader was dropping troopers along the way to wait and see if he’d gone to ground.
“Trooper,” the order would have gone. “Halt here and play Thermasloth. Watch and listen. If he comes up, start shooting. We’ll come back if we hear blaster fire.”
Owens descended back into the darkness. he laid the blaster down without a sound, then moved through the crawlspace in the direction of the shock trooper the patrol had left behind. Sweat ran down his forehead. It was hot down here, and his entire body was tensed, almost hovering above the deck as he tried to leave as little imprint on the physical world as possible. And when he reached the open decking space behind the trooper, he made the decision not to halt, for fear that some sixth sense on the part of his target might need just that amount of time to turn and do a back scan—and see Owens waiting down in the dark like a ghoul.
So Owens coiled and leapt upward through the deck like a trap viper from Vungalal IX. He grabbed the trooper’s shoulders, yanked him backwards, and dropped back into the hole like a rock. The trooper’s bucket hit the edge of the exposed deck with a thud, pushing the man’s head impossibly forward.
If that hadn’t already broken his neck, Owens’s next move, involving both hands and a wrenching twist, did the trick.
A moment later Owens had the dead man’s bucket disengaged from the armor system and was stripping out the comm. Thankfully the system was detachable just like in the Legion buckets—a precaution in the event of damage to the actual protection system.
He had comm now. No HUD, but at least he could listen in on their plans.
For a little while.
***
When Desaix heard the blaster shot, he whipped his head around—just in time to see the second blaster shot. Both hit their targets, and both shock troopers guarding the cell fell to the polished black floor of the detention center.
Owens entered, moving quickly to the main security console. After a bit of searching, he got the force fields down, releasing them.
As Corporal Casso retrieved the blasters off the two dead men. Owens brought Desaix up to speed on the new situation. The captain was stunned that events had managed to change so dramatically in such a short space of time.
“We have a few things going for us, Captain,” said Owens, as though he were breaking down the opening situation paragraph in an op order. His eavesdropping on their comm, and a quick surveillance of their net, had allowed him to assign some certainty to his conclusions. “That shock trooper detachment and two others are the only ones aboard this monstrosity. Also, the ship’s internal systems aren’t operational, so they can’t use scanners or incapacitation systems. Now, as for what’s working against us—”
“Whoa,” said Desaix, holding up his hands as though trying to halt a runaway Tybarian bull. “I thought this was a diplomatic mission. I though
t—”
“Everything you knew was a lie,” said Owens bluntly. “We were all pawns in that crazy old man’s game. Best-case scenario, we would have been left as prisoners for the duration of the war. Worst case… he’d have had your whole crew murdered to cover things up for no good reason other than ‘just in case.’”
Desaix took a moment to absorb this. Then he pivoted as effortlessly as if being a potential homicide victim was a thing he did all the time. “Right then. What’s our escape plan?”
“As I was saying, Captain,” continued Owens, “what’s working against us is that docking tractor. It’s got to be disabled or you won’t be able to make the jump to light speed without tearing your ship apart. I’ll handle that. I need you to follow Corporal Casso back to the ship. When you’re there, I need you to jump from this system directly to Utopion and link up with Legion General Keller. I’ve recorded a message for him on this.” Owens produced a small memory drive. “It’s encrypted. That message is vital to the future of the galaxy. Deliver it at all costs. Do you understand me?”
The normally cavalier Desaix sobered quickly at the thought of something being vital to the entirety of the galaxy. He took the memory device and stuck it in one of the pockets of his flight jacket.
***
As the crew of the Audacity—led by Corporal Casso, with just two blasters between the seven of them—began their race back to the ship, a ship-wide warning klaxon began to bellow apocalyptically.
“I thought their internal systems were mostly down?” said Atumna.
“I think ‘mostly’ was the key word,” replied a huffing Jory as they trotted down the wide gleaming white passage that led away from detention.
At the first major intersection they encountered a JL9-series heavy-duty maintenance bot installing some paneling. The bot snapped its head in their direction and chattered something in Mechanica.
Corporal Casso shot it.
“They could be using the ship’s workers as sentries in lieu of a working system,” explained Casso.
“KTF, Leej,” replied Owens. Turning to the rest he pointed and said, “Follow that passage back to the starboard spine. Remember that massive spar that was still exposed when we came in from the hangar? Turn right there and keep working your way back to the hangar deck. Once you’re there, it’s gears up and get out. I will have no way to signal you that the tractor has been disengaged, but obviously don’t go to jump if it’s got a tracking lock established. That means I failed.”
Which means you’re dead, thought Desaix. Because for you… there’s no other reason why you would fail.
There would be no capture for the Dark Ops Major.
“Go,” ordered Owens. “That message must get through.”
And then he was gone, racing off down another passage.
***
The escaping crew of the Audacity picked up their first detachment of shock troopers near the outer spar that signaled where the hulls of the massive battleships had been joined.
It was the shock troopers, and only two of them, who fired first. Jory took a hit in the thigh. He spun and screamed like he’d been stuck by a bee that had been born in an active volcano.
That was how those who’d been hit by blaster fire—grazed, really, in Jory’s case—described such a wound. Jory had signed on with the navy, and bridge systems operation in particular, specifically to avoid ever being in a position to confirm or deny the accuracy of that description. At the moment he would confirm it. If he weren’t so busy screaming and going into shock.
Rocokizzi and Casso returned fire while Desaix and Atumna dragged the wounded sensor operator out of the way of more return fire. Lieutenant Nadoori did her best to assess Jory’s wound, applying the bare-bones medical training admin deck officers were given in the event they needed to support medical staff in a mass casualty situation. She was able to determine that there was no artery damage.
Jory alternated between swearing and crying until he finally hyperventilated and passed out. By that time Desaix and Atumna were dragging him away from the running gunfight, with Nadoori and Thales following behind. Rocko and Casso were holding off the shock troopers for now, but Desaix had no doubt they had already called in their location and requested support. Which was probably not far away.
In short, they needed to hurry.
Atumna and Desaix carried Jory between them, his head thrown back like he was already dead, as they raced for the warren of corridors that, they hoped, would eventually lead to the portside hangar deck.
“Chances they’re guarding the ship, Captain?” asked Atumna with more than a little worry in her voice.
“Most likely to certainly, Lieutenant. But we’ll deal with that when we get there. Keep his head up so he doesn’t choke on his tongue.”
A high-pitched cacophonic volley of blaster fire sounded behind them.
“This escape isn’t going as smoothly as the last one,” Desaix muttered.
“No,” said Nadoori, who shuffled just behind the unconscious Jory.
Atumna groaned and renewed her heft of the dead weight of the comm and sensor operator.
“Careful there, don’t drop him. No one gets left behind today,” said Desaix.
And then he remembered Owens.
Corporal Casso came sprinting by, weapon at port arms, powerful legs pumping like he was sprinting the four forty. Rocokizzi was keeping the rear attackers busy while the corporal was moving ahead to clear the front and lead the way back to the hangar.
Desaix was certain they wouldn’t reach the hangar without a fight.
Sure enough, twenty seconds later, in the massive dark tube that led to the portside hangar, Casso engaged hidden shock troopers lying in wait. All Desaix could see was the sudden bright flash of blaster fire illuminating the shadowy circumference of the passage. But when he and the others caught up to the spot, huffing and puffing, Casso stood over three dead shock troopers. He’d already relieved them of their weapons, and held them out to the others.
“Take these,” said the olive-skinned legionnaire, whose devil-may-care smile never seemed to waver.
“Uh…” began Atumna with a bashful smile. “I don’t think I can carry Jory and a blaster.”
“Just take it, Lieutenant,” said Casso, quickly yet kindly. “I’ll carry him from here on out.”
And with that the powerfully built, trim and compact legionnaire hoisted the unconscious Jory over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and started off down the dark tube, his blaster still held before him in his free hand.
Desaix felt a pang of jealousy as Atumna watched the muscular young corporal go. He couldn’t help but notice she was biting her full lip.
Of course she likes him, he thought to himself. They’re closer in age. And for the first time in his life, other than the occasional dawn in which he found himself exiting a casino during shore leave out on some fringe backwater pleasure world, Desaix felt old.
He felt like an old man in a galaxy that was made for the young.
And then he made sure everyone was moving forward together toward the ship.
Which is what old men and captains do.
***
Miraculously, the shock troopers never detected Owens on their comm. In fact, he even managed to hijack a comm identifier, and at one point, when the shock troopers were this close to closing in on the crew of the Audacity moments before they reached the hangar deck, he successfully ordered the troopers to pull back and take the tractor array instead. He would have preferred not to have brought more firepower against himself, but he had no doubt the enemy was already well aware of his destination—the tractor array had to be disabled for any escape to occur—so this particular bogus change of orders had the added benefit of plausibility.
Still, he was shocked when he got the two-click acknowledgments. That, he thought, was an exploitable detail. And as he raced toward his objective, he wished there was some way to communicate with Legion intel that the shock troopers didn’t
fully own their comm systems yet. They were still responding to a voice that carried command authority instead of cross-checking the authenticating tag that always confirmed each transmission source. Or at least that was how it worked with the Legion’s L-comm. From what he could tell, the two systems were similarly designed.
But the chance that he would have an opportunity to pass along that bit of tactical intel had diminished to zero.
By his own choice.
It was to Owens’s advantage that the ship was still under construction. Not only was the ship lightly crewed, and many of its security measures not yet online, but some careless shipbuilder had left out a datapad that gave Owens a detailed schematic of the ship’s passages. He leveraged that to define a secondary route to the tractor array, reaching his destination after only two hostile encounters, both two-man patrols. Each time he had the element of surprise. Each time the other team didn’t even have a chance to return fire.
But now, he was exactly where they knew he would be. Exactly where they knew he needed to be. For the next encounter, surprise would not be on his side.
Nor would he have cover. The tractor device’s resonance chamber was a massive and silent cavern, with the array’s two pole towers meeting in its center, one hanging from the stories-high ceiling above, the other erupting from the equally deep floor far below. The only access to the towers was by a slender bridge that leapt out through the mechanical-smelling void.
The truth was, Owens had no idea how to operate a tractor array. Leading a patrol, casualty management, or emplacing an N3 anti-personnel mine—these were his skills. Along with physical training, hand-to-hand combat, and marksmanship. Operating a tractor array was a naval technical skill, not a legionnaire officer command skill.
But that didn’t matter now. He would figure something out… or he wouldn’t.
As Owens pounded across the narrow technical bridge, blaster fire flared forward from several entrances to the massive chamber. The bolts smashed into the bridge in showers of sparks.
Message for the Dead Page 20