After waiting for the appropriate opening, the sergeant pulled out the rocket launcher and sat up, then hoisted it onto his shoulder. Without hesitation, he sent a missile streaming toward one of the advancing ground Elites.
They nailed him in the shoulder right after the shot. He fell backward, but his missile skimmed the ground, almost striking a rock before hitting one of the bug Elites and blowing it apart in a satisfying blast. Its partner skittered behind an abandoned hovertruck. The Elites had learned to fear the unarmored man.
The gunship abruptly pulled away from its engagement with Erik for another strafing run on the soldiers. The sergeant avoided its wrath with a quick roll, but the attack perforated his rocket launcher. Jia unloaded the TR-7, which produced a trail of smoke, but not bring down the enemy.
“I-I think I did it,” Malcolm announced, licking his lips. “I kind of cheated by using an already existing—"
“Just turn it on!” Jia shouted, shoving the TR-7 back into the hidden forward storage compartment and lifting her arms in front of her. “We’re running out of time before they blow someone’s head off.”
“Bring in your three fingers on your right hand to fire.” Malcolm’s hands become a flurry of movement, a confident smile building with each keystroke. “I’m not just a fashion genius, I’m a master under pressure. I’m as good as a billion-credit AI.”
Glowing rings appeared on Jia’s hand and a targeting display materialized in front of her. The MX 60 rumbled and the turret deployed.
“Playtime’s over,” she declared.
Jia twisted her hands, the turret responding to her movements. She narrowed her eyes and then brought back her three fingers. The turret roared to life, sending a stream of bullets toward the gunship that had ignored damage from the rifle. She painted a ladder of bullet holes in the back of the Elite before it plummeted toward the ground, leaving a dense trail of smoke. The impact sent debris everywhere, along with splatters of blood.
The remaining Elite jumped onto a building and tried to crawl away. Erik turned the MX 60, trying to keep it level and fighting against it listing to the side as Jia lined up the turret. Her bullet storm sheared off the lower halves of its legs and left its body a hole-filled wreck. It fell off the building and landed hard on the ground, its stumps immobile and pointing up.
Erik circled the area for a half-minute. Other rapidly approaching contacts appeared on the sensor display, accompanied by Army transponder codes. He nodded at Jia and retracted the turret, then settled down in front of the gate and canceled his alerts, but not before noticing the engine damage warning. They couldn’t risk going much farther with the MX 60 in that condition. The Elites had wounded the Taxutnta well. If Emma had been there, she would have been furious.
The sergeant sat on the ground with a med patch on his arm. He stood and stared at them before gesturing at his PNIU. Other soldiers were helping wounded soldiers and civilians over to the checkpoint and applying med patches.
“Jamming’s gone,” Malcom reported. “I think it must have been the second bug-looking one.”
Erik reached down to his PNIU and transmitted Alina’s credentials. He lowered the window and waited. An Army hovertank rumbled up behind them, and a squad of six exos ran over in close formation.
The sergeant’s eyes went back and forth as he read their transmission in his smart lenses. He scoffed. “Thanks. You saved our asses there.” He winced and gripped his shoulder before nodding toward the approaching reinforcements. “I think they’ve got it if anything else shows up. You should have just sent your codes to begin with, but it’s nice to have you ghosts do something useful for a change.”
“We’re not exactly ghosts,” Erik replied.
The sergeant frowned. “But these are ID codes.”
“It’s complicated.” Erik shrugged. “But we’re here to help with the rebels, and especially those merc Elites. We’d like to avoid advertising who we are. It’ll help us do our job better.”
“I know—standard ID bullshit. You were never here. We never saw you.” The sergeant nodded. “I can send you temporary codes to get you through other checkpoints easier.” He looked at the MX 60 with a grim expression. “I can also recommend a place where you can rent a hovertruck without many questions. Just tell them Sergeant Vines sent you. This thing looks a little beat up, and I don’t care what color it is, it stands out.”
“Thanks,” Erik replied, leaning out the window to inspect the vehicle. Huge holes decorated the body. “Next time, we’ll try to keep a lower profile.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Damir jogged down the side of the street, his mottled gray cloak fluttering with his movement. He’d spotted mercs in this area earlier but no FSA troops. That made the day’s patrol route easy to decide. Everything would be easier with less risk of collateral damage. He slowed at the sound of a cough and murmurs above him, his prey making itself known.
The bombed-out four-story building beside him used to be an administrative center, judging by the scorched signage. Now it was just another tombstone in a dying city, one he’d helped murder when he was supposed to be saving it. He craned his neck upward but couldn’t see anything. A glance to his left revealed an emergency ladder and recent footprints in the dust below it.
Luck or destiny, or perhaps the Devil pulling him down the path to Hell. He wouldn’t know until he was dead. Before then, he would do what was needed to preserve the honor of the rebellion.
Damir walked over to the ladder and placed a hand on a rung. After a moment of consideration, he patted the pistol he’d pulled off a merc the day before. It’d be more satisfying to kill them with their own weapons, but he needed to confirm the targets before shooting. That was the one line he would never cross, the restriction that made sure no matter what he did, he wasn’t as bad as them.
He pulled himself up on the ladder slowly, taking his time to avoid revealing himself. The ever-present sounds of distant gunfire provided some cover, but he had not seen another person for the last hour, meaning any nearby noise would stand out and alert whoever was on the roof. The slow climb took its toll, straining his arms and legs, given the huge pack on his back.
After a long climb, he reached the top. Jamming his feet into the rungs, he peeked at the roof. Two mercenaries lay in front of sniper rifles on tripods, carryaids next to them.
Damir pulled himself onto the roof and drew the pistol. He crept toward the mercenaries, raising the gun. They’d grown bolder and more arrogant since they arrived. That arrogance would cost them.
“The unit should be coming soon,” one of the mercs murmured quietly. “Orders remain the same. Neutralize all the rebels in the unit.”
“What did these ones do?” the other merc asked.
“Does it matter?” The first merc shrugged. “It helps if you think of them as simple targets. That’s why I don’t talk to them much.” Using a dedicated scope instead of relying on smart lens magnification suggested an extremely long-range shot.
“It’s how I’m keeping my sanity while we’re stuck on this rock,” the first merc explained. “They should just let us off the leash already, so we can finish things off. Sometimes I feel a little bad, but then I think it’s their own fault. I like to think of them as sacrifices for a better future.”
The second merc continued looking through his scope. “If you say so. I just like to know why I’m killing someone.”
“The higher-ups have a plan,” replied the first merc. “The only thing we need to worry about is doing what we’re told. And from what I hear, these guys were asking about one of the shipments going to the camp. Does that help?”
Damir narrowed his eyes. There was a merc encampment a few kilometers away. He’d scouted it yesterday and nearly been spotted by a patrol, which would have ended his little counter-rebellion.
The second merc sighed. “You’re right. That’s the problem with the rebels. All up their own asses about their petty little cause, like it’s important. And here
we go.” He grinned, closed an eye, and moved closer to the scope. “I’ve got five contacts. They don’t have a clue.”
“Five confirmed,” the first merc replied. “You take the two in front, and I’ll take the two in back. I bet you the guy in the middle panics and freezes. We can both nail him.”
Heart pounding and holding his breath, Damir moved closer and pointed the pistol at the back of the second merc’s head. The mercenary scum had accepted money from the FSA and were killing them when their backs were turned. At least the Army soldiers thought they were performing their duty. There was some small honor in that.
“On my three count,” murmured the second merc. “One, two…”
Damir put two rounds into the back of his head and charged forward, kicking the other man’s rifle off the roof before he knelt and jammed the pistol into the man’s face.
“What the hell are you doing?” the merc snarled. “I’m on your side, you frontier piece of shit.”
“No.” Damir shook his head. “You aren’t on my side. Let’s talk about the shipment that is so important you need to kill for it. I don’t mind our conversation taking long enough that the rebel patrol you were going to murder walks away unscathed.”
The merc spit in Damir’s face. “Are you insane? I have no idea what you’re talking about. You just killed an ally. Let me go, and I’ll forget your face. I get that this war can drive a man out of his mind.”
Damir stood and slowly backed away, keeping his gun trained on the man. “How many people have you killed? I’m not talking about Army. FSA? Civilians?”
“I’m supposed to be providing overwatch of a rebel patrol, and you’re going to get them killed, you idiot. If you don’t care about me, you should care about them.” The merc sneered. “They’re risking their lives for your freedom.”
“The shipment,” Damir insisted. “Tell me about it. Why is it important enough to kill for?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The merc’s hand drifted toward his holstered pistol.
“But it’s going to the nearest merc camp?” Damir asked, watching the man’s face carefully.
The merc’s face twitched. He went for his gun.
Damir fired first. He held his hand in place for a while before scoffing and heading toward the remaining sniper rifle and the carryaid next to it. The pistol was satisfying, but using a merc sniper rifle would be perfect.
Lying flat on his stomach and half-buried in rubble, Damir increased the magnification of his scope. He was watching the mercenary encampment about two kilometers away. Small numbers of drones circled overhead, but given the mercs’ preference for jamming to disrupt the Army, they couldn’t do much other than close-range laser comms. He’d quickly learned how to exploit the mercs’ weaknesses in his one-man campaign against them. His luck would fail eventually, but until then, he’d continue to deliver revenge.
Exoskeletons and mercs in tac suits and carrying rifles patrolled the tall fenced perimeter, along with a handful of bug and Torch Dragon Elites. Anti-air artillery ringed the small area, with guns on the ground and on top of the tall, wide building they’d commandeered. Judging by the doors on the side, it’d been a garage before they’d moved in. He caught a brief glimpse of parked gunships and cargo flitters inside.
The mercs had encampments all over the city, but after his earlier fight, he suspected this one was special. Damir didn’t know for sure, and he couldn’t go back to the FSA. He’d thought about approaching a patrol, but he couldn’t find one without at least a couple of mercs and often an Elite lurking nearby. No matter how corrupt the FSA had become, he refused to fire on a fellow rebel. They would see the light eventually. He’d force the issue.
A hovertruck flew up to a gate guarded by an exoskeleton on either side. After a couple of seconds, the gate opened and the truck moved inside, then turned around and backed up to one of the garage doors. It parked on the ground, and the back opened, a ramp extending. The garage door retracted, ready to receive cargo.
Damir shifted his rifle to get a better angle, but he couldn’t get a clear view of the back of the truck. He changed to thermal mode, but he couldn’t see anything inside the truck. It must have been insulated. He switched back to normal optics.
“What are you scum up to?” he whispered. “You’re worse than the government. I know you are. Just make this easy for me so I can get it over with.”
A couple of mercenaries stepped into the garage from the main building. They slung their rifles over their shoulders and jogged up the ramp as they laughed and said something to one another. They returned a moment later and gestured at the back.
Damir waited, his breath held. A man in a cargo-loading exoskeleton approached and walked up the ramp. He leaned forward and locked long clamps onto something hidden by the back of the truck before backing up slowly, pulling out a hoverdolly almost the length of the back of the truck. A gray crate several meters in length but barely a meter across lay on top. After backing up and releasing the dolly, the cargo loader went back into the truck and pulled out an identical dolly and box.
Those boxes were worth the lives of at least five men, probably more. The mercenaries could have been delivering more Torch Dragon Elites or something similar, but that didn’t seem unusual enough to warrant wiping out an entire rebel patrol. The mercenaries might be tightlipped about the details of their not-so-secret weapon, but they weren’t killing any rebels who asked about them. There was something else in those containers, something Damir suspected might put an end to the rebellion.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
October 15, 2230, Gliese 581, New Samarkand, Sogdia, Cargo Bay of the Argo
Lanara circled the MX 60, clucking her tongue. She squatted by the back and stuck her finger in a hole. “Wow, Blackwell. Just wow. You didn’t stop to crash into a building on the way back?”
Jia had expected a reaction like that since Lanara was still complaining about the damage they’d suffered in the battle against the pirates even though she’d repaired most of it. Sometimes it seemed like the woman would die if she didn’t get to bitch at least ten times a day. It was like she expected special bitching privileges for being so talented, and for the most part, Jia and Erik gave them to her.
Erik shrugged and offered a sheepish grin. “We managed to make it back. Hey, if it can still fly, it’s not that bad, right?”
“That’s an opinion. A correct one? That’s debatable.” Lanara pointed her thumb at a stub that had once been a grav emitter. “This is what happens when you get cocky. Given you’ve had your arm blown off twice, you think you’d be more careful.”
“It’s not intended to go up against gunships,” Erik replied with a shrug. “But we took one down without getting blown up. That’s not bad, and we’re not going to beat the Core being careful. I won’t apologize for taking chances that save lies and take out assholes.”
Lanara sighed. “I suppose you want me to repair it.”
Erik chuckled. “That’s the idea. We left the other two behind with Emma and Raphael, and you don’t want me trying to fix all this.”
“No, I don’t. You’ll just mess everything up.” Lanara wrinkled her nose and dusted off her pants. “You know, I was planning to finish the earlier repairs and then start planning more massive improvements, but what the hell. That can wait, right?” She jabbed a finger at Erik. “Those are improvements you can use, and every time I have to fix something like this or a busted exoskeleton, it slows me down. Keep that in mind.”
“What massive improvements?” Jia asked.
“All that power efficiency tuning I’ve been doing isn’t just for fun. Well, only about half for fun.” Lanara lifted her chin and let out a quiet snort. “I’m trying to help you survive the next time you run into something more impressive than two loser pirates with barely any weapons.” She pointed to the roof. “Depending on how we do things, we could stick a capital-ship-scale cannon on this thing. Something that’d let you get a nice solid hit
on a cruiser or carve through something smaller with one shot.”
Erik whistled, impressed. “That’d be major firepower. You can do that on this tiny ship?”
Lanara’s mouth twitched. She was in danger of smiling. “I could set up a secondary reactor in the cannon and supplement the power from the primary reactor. It might be harder to conceal, but depending on how we set it up, it won’t be blazingly obvious.”
Jia shook her head. “I don’t think we need a major cannon on the Argo. If we’re getting in fights with cruisers, we’re doing something wrong.”
“Let’s not be hasty,” Erik interjected.
Lanara scoffed. “You say that now, Jia, but what happens when the Core sends one at you?” She threw her arm toward the MX 60. “If the space battle version of this happens, it’s going to be a lot nastier than you limping back to a hangar to waste my time. The best way to survive is to blow the hell out of the other guy.”
“Exactly.” Erik inclined his head toward the door. “If you can put a cannon on the ship, do it, but I don’t think that’s going to happen while we’re on New Samarkand.”
“Obviously, Blackwell.” Lanara put her palm to her forehead and shook her head. “I was talking about doing other optimizations, but fine, back to boring repairs rather than optimization and upgrade preparation.” She patted the MX 60. “I won’t be able to pound this out in a few hours. You have more internal damage than you might realize.”
“That’s fine,” Erik replied, motioning to Jia’s flitter. “We have that for now, and we’re going to go rent a local vehicle tomorrow to keep a lower profile.”
Jia’s brow lifted. “Tomorrow?”
“Yeah, we made enough noise for one day. We need things to settle down before we show our faces again.”
* * *
October 16, 2230, Gliese 581, New Samarkand, Sogdia, Sanni Rentals
Unfaithful Covenant Page 28