The Last Spartan 2: DJ's Mission

by A. E. McCullough

  DJ stretched once more and took in his surroundings.

  They had slept in the stolen skimmer after Jax had parked it in a very public parking garage. DJ had initially thought this to be a crazy idea but noticed that there were at least seven other skimmers of similar make and color nearby. Jax had made the comment about hiding in plain sight and it seemed to have worked. None of the multitude of passersby had even given the stolen vehicle a second glance. Jax had also changed plates and contact codes with one of the nearby skimmers, just in case. It was one of those simple things that DJ wouldn’t have thought of or knew exactly how to do.

  There came a double tap on the front glass seconds before Jax opened the door and slid back in. “Morning. I got us some coffee and doughnuts for breakfast.”

  DJ replaced the safety on his Graver Mk7 and holstered the weapon. Reaching up, he unclipped his Red Falcon helmet and pulled it off. Even though he’d worn similar helmets for extended periods of time during his stint in the service and they weren’t particularly uncomfortable, it was always joyous to pull them off.

  Jagger Jax just stared at him for a moment before passing him the pastry and coffee. “Okay, I have to admit you’re not what I expected.”

  DJ grinned. “Truth be told, this armor is not what I’m used to wearing. It’s still a bit strange to me.”

  “From what I’ve heard, the Red Falcon has never been seen without his armor.”

  DJ nodded. “Yep.”

  “But you’re unmasking for me? I’m honored.”

  “Just my way of saying that I trust you, especially considering what we will be facing later today.”

  Jax grinned. “Gracias.”

  “De nada… now on to business.”

  As DJ began to lay out his plans, the ex-pirate played the devil’s advocate and complicated them. Soon, they were both spit-balling ideas and possibilities about the mission. It was actually amazing how the two approached the upcoming OP.

  Jax tended to look at it from the wrong side of the law. His pirating and thieving days allowed him to slide around the confines of the legal system and possibly avoid trouble. It was just another heist to him.

  DJ approached it with his military mindset, always looking at the angles of attacks and/or avenues of retreat. He also insisted that they worked up a GOTH – GO To Hell - plan. A backup plan for their backup plan, the one they would fall back on if everything went wrong.

  They spent the better part of the morning hammering out the details until they were both satisfied and thoroughly familiar with every aspect of the plan. DJ also contacted Aeolus and informed him of his portion of the plan. When it was all said and done, all that was left was the waiting. And every solider would tell you, that is truly the hardest part.

  * * * * *

  Lieutenant Ed ‘Tinman’ Brockbank check the status board of his HUD for the tenth time in the last hour.

  There were no new alerts or orders. He didn’t like it but they had been ordered to stay hidden inside the Rings of Saturn until otherwise commanded or a transport left Titan bound for the Pluto region. He’d taken flak from the rest of his squad when reports came in that the 1st Fleet had moved into attack formation at Wolf-359.

  They all wanted to join the rest of the Fleet but orders were orders. They were to hold this position and not break radio silence until ordered otherwise, the transport left Titan or they were low on fuel. Checking his fuel gauge, he did the math in his head quickly. Their Dragons weren’t burning much energy just idling, which meant they had over 48 hours before they were even close to having to use their reserve tanks.

  Tinman switched his radio over to the local tac-net. Since they were using laser micro-bursts, the odds of anyone outside a thousand meters of his flight picking up the transmission were almost nil. He keyed his mic. “Okay team, be aware that our mission remains unchanged and we are to hold here until otherwise ordered…and that comes all the way from the top.”

  Joey ‘Sandman’ Sanders, his second-in-command was the first to respond but his disappointment at the orders was evident in his voice. “Roger that LT.”

  Within a matter of seconds, all seven of his Flight responded with their confirmation and they went back to waiting for something to happen, one way or the other. One thing every warrior learns early in his or her career, waiting sucked.

  * * * * *

  When Pridgen walked back into Mocha’s he had changed clothes and assumed his habitual scowl that was part of his bouncer persona. He didn’t know why Kassinger was keeping him undercover at the casino. He’s already gathered enough evidence on Mocha and a half-dozen other people in the bar to convict them for a good long time. But he had been ordered to work the case, so he went about his normal daily routine.

  Sometime in the early afternoon, Needles came limping in. He’d been insistent on meeting with Mocha, enough so that the bouncers at the front door had called him.

  Pridgen looked the dealer up and down. It was obvious that he was in bad shape. His clothes were torn and filthy. His hands and face still held traces of blood, like Needles had been in a hurry to wash up but not very thorough. Pridgen didn’t speak for several moments. He wanted to see how the dealer would react. Other than his right leg twitching rhythmically, Needles seemed calm. Pridgen took one look at the dealer’s eyes and knew that he was tweaking.

  “Now is not a good time, Needles.”

  “Listen here dwarf; I want to see the boss.” Needles tapped his waist. “I got my payment.”

  Pridgen cocked his head to the side and studied the bulge in the dealer’s pants. It was too large for a cred-stix nor was it the right size for a bag of trader gold but before he could voice his doubt, Mocha’s voice came over the intercom. “Bring him up.”

  With a shrug, Pridgen pushed the small time crook toward the door. “You heard the man, move.”

  Needles limped his way up the stairs and straight to the owner’s office. Mocha was exactly where he expected to find him, sitting behind his desk watching the video feeds from all over his casino. Knowing he only had one chance at this, Needles pulled out his gun and took his shot.

  Mocha would’ve been dead if Pridgen hadn’t reacted out of instinct.

  Even though the dealer was over a foot taller than him, the Jovian was immensely strong and very well trained. The moment Needles’ hand slipped into his pants, he was moving. Even as the small-time hood was squeezing the trigger, Pridgen was deflecting his aim.

  The blast flew past Mocha’s head, missing him by mere inches but still close enough to give him slight contact burns on the right side of his face. The back of his chair disintegrated as the disruptor blast struck that instead. The casino owner threw himself out of his ruined chair and failed to see the deadly efficiency of the Jovian at work.

  Pridgen’s block was only his first move. Without hesitation and with the ease of someone long practiced at weapon disarms, the dwarf swept Needles’ feet from under him, wrenched the disruptor pistol from his hand, breaking several fingers in the process and drove his right fist into the hood’s chest at the same time he landed flat on his back. Unfortunately for Needles, in Pridgen’s haste he failed to pull the punch and basically drove his fist through his chest and only stopped when he hit the metal floor. Needles the dealer was dead before his body stopped bouncing.

  Mocha crawled out from under his desk. “What the fuck?”

  Pridgen’s right hand was blood covered but that didn’t prevent him from examining the weapon. Without asking, the dwarf moved over to the nearby couch and sat down. “Wow, a Peregrine Disruptor Mark three, the latest model.” Looking up from the weapon, he locked eyes with his employer and pointed at the barrel of the pistol. “You can tell from the distinctive flaring of the barrel ports. The mark twos only had two ports, where the mark threes have three.” Pridgen shrugged as he began to break the pistol down and check its condition. “I would imagine if they make another model it will have four ports. Did you know that these things fire a beam of energ
y that is ninety-nine point nine percent deadly at ranges up to fifteen meters?”

  Mocha shook his head. “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Incidentally, disruptors were originally developed for medical use. The beam was supposed to re-align the molecules of a wound causing them to knit back faster. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. In early test trials the beam caused some sort of feedback in the atoms of its targets which caused them to fly away from each other very rapidly making the target literally explode.”

  “I didn’t know that either.”

  Pridgen snapped the weapon back together with amazing familiarity. “These things have been outlawed by the Coalition for nearly three decades for being inhumane. They are supposedly too painful. Although I’ve heard that the Confederation has picked up the contract from the manufacturer and is mass producing them for their soldiers.”

  “Why would Needles have a Confederate issued gun, I mean disruptor?”

  Pridgen clicked on the safety and slipped the lethal weapon into his pants. “Better question, why would he want to kill you?”

  Mocha stood up straight and tried to regain his composure. “The only thing I can guess is that the Falcon crashed his drug deal and he blamed me for sending the bounty hunter after him.”

  “Why would this Falcon character even come to you for help?”

  “I owe him my life, well the original Falcon.”

  Pridgen saw his opening. “There are more than one?”

  Mocha snickered. “The way I figure it, there are three right now. The original, the man I owe a debt to, sent the Falcon you tussled with earlier, here to get my help.”

  “What help could you give him?”

  “Nothing much, just information, the Falcon has been hired to kidnap the Admiral’s daughter.”

  Pridgen swallowed hard. “Seriously? That’s ballsy even for a bounty hunter.”

  “Evidently, he was hired by the girl’s biological father but don’t worry. We’re clean. All I did was give him some information and sent him to the Cartel.”

  Pridgen’s mind was racing. “Do we know when this was supposed to take place?”

  Mocha was busy straightening out his desk and didn’t see that the Jovian had pulled out the disruptor. “Not sure, I would guess tonight but that…” He stopped talking when he turned around and found the deadly gun pointing right at him.

  “You know I failed to mention one side effect that can be both a positive and a negative to this marvelous weapon. When a person is struck by the beam of a disruptor, it is said to be extremely painful. Even though the area touched is only twenty millimeters wide, when the target area explodes it causes a wound nearly one-hundred times the size of the beam. For example, if I were to shoot you in the shoulder with a standard blaster, it would hurt but with enough willpower, you could still function. However, the same wound with a disruptor would cause the arm to explode and you could possibly die from the blood loss and shock, if left untreated.”

  Mocha pointed at the pistol. “Quit playing around.”

  “I’m not playing around, you bastard. Tell me what you know about the Red Falcon and his mission or I will use this on you. And I won’t be targeting your arm either.” Even as he spoke, Pridgen lowered the barrel of the gun until it was level with the casino owner’s crotch.

  Whatever Mocha was about to say was interrupted by someone banging on the office door. Mocha was about to call out, when Pridgen smacked him across the temple with the butt of the pistol and he was unconscious. Tucking away the pistol, the Jovian ran to the door and through it open. Outside were Tinya, Lashandra and about a half dozen employees.

  “Mocha’s been shot!”

  Tinya immediately rushed inside while Lashandra made to call the ambulance. The rest kind of milled about, unsure of what to do. Pridgen didn’t want to completely blow his cover if he could help it, so he started bellowing orders. “Lashandra, you’re in charge until we get back. Tinya, go pull my skimmer around; I’ll take him to the hospital myself. It’ll be quicker.”

  Since they had no reason not to trust him, they ran off to do his bidding and even helped him carry the unconscious Mocha to his skimmer. Within minutes, he was free of the casino and his detestable cover. Plus, he had a bonus for Sheriff Kassinger, valuable information and the trussed up casino owner.

  * * * * *

  Commander Alex Cline and Lieutenant Virgina Evans played their parts to a tee. They were overly professional to each other while being polite and friendly to everyone else. Virginia went as far as flirting with their escort but would constantly cast glances at Alex as if to see that her actions were making him jealous. However, this stopped when their escort led them through the plant and they reached the Observation Deck.

  The factory they were inspecting was actually on the Dark Side of Titan. However it was truly never dark, since this side of the moon was always facing the gas giant Saturn and it gave off its own form of light. Even though that sight was magnificent, it wasn’t what captured their attention. It was the Dreadnaught Horus.

  The nearly complete hull was made of a dull grey composite-alloy steel made from harvested moonlets found in the Rings of Saturn. This alloy, named Cassini after the ring where the particles were harvested from, had the tensile strength of tungsten steel but half the weight. With the discovery of Cassini, Titian Avionics was able to construct the largest ship ever built by man. Shaped like an elliptic cylinder, it was over a half-mile long.

  “Rather impressive sight if I do say so myself,” came a voice behind them.

  It took a force of willpower to pull their eyes away from the massive ship but both Fleet officers managed and were surprised to find retired Admiral Roger Thomas standing there. He smiled and held out his hand in greeting.

  Cmdr. Cline was the first to shake his hand. “Admiral, it is a pleasure to finally meet you.” He gestured to Virginia. “My aide-de-camp Lieutenant Evans.”

  Roger knew it was campy but the ladies seemed to like it when he did it, so he brought Virginia’s hand up to his lips and kissed it. “The pleasure is mine.”

  Virginia blushed. Not out of true embarrassment but because she was certain that was the reaction he expected. She purposefully turned away and looked back to the Horus.

  Roger stepped forward and began spouting off facts on the Dreadnaught. Nothing the two Coalition officers didn’t already know but it would be rude to interrupt the Admiral.

  “When she’s finished she’ll house one-hundred and thirty crewmembers but due to the advanced automation we are installing, it could be run by one-fifth of that. She will also be capable of carrying about one-hundred starships depending on the size of the ships. That would be about one hundred Dragons, I prefer the Raptors myself….”

  Cmdr. Cline grinned at the overt plug for the starfighter his company produced but didn’t comment. It was supposed to be rhetorical and they both knew it.

  “…up to about ten destroyers or a mixture of aircraft of course. The launching tubes will have the latest EMALS…”

  Lt. Evans interrupted. “Excuses me sir but EMALS? What’s that?”

  It was the Commander who answered. “Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, think of a railgun that catapults fighters into space faster and safer.”

  The Admiral nodded. “Very good Commander that is exactly the concept, I see you’ve done your homework.”

  Cmdr. Cline saw his opening and pounced. “Yes sir, but I do have questions.”

  Lt. Evans only halfway listened as the two men started talking in the technical terms associated with building such an immense ship. This was all part of their plan. As he would get them talking, she was supposed to wander around and see what she could discover. Finding an unlocked gate, she slipped through, totally disregarding the ‘Authorized Staff Only’ sign.

  She wandered down several walkways until she was completely lost. She knew that she should turn back but since she had no idea where she was, it was easier to just keep going straight,
although she did pause at an intersection when she heard two people arguing. They were far enough away that the constant hum of the machinery around her didn’t allow her to make out the words. But she could tell they weren’t too far to her left. Not having any better idea, she turned toward the voices and proceeded on. By the time she reached the control room, whoever had been in here was gone but they had left the computers running and she moved over and sat down. On the displays were itemized lists of two Dreadnaughts, plainly labeled the Horus and the Merrimack.

  Virginia quickly thought over everything she’d read on the Dreadnaught project and there was no ship to be named Merrimack to the best of her knowledge. Her curiosity awakened, she began typing in commands to the computer and everything they had been looking for was right here; cost overruns, reasons for shortages and delays, modifications, anything and everything she queried was right at her fingertips. Taking a closer look at some of the data, she realized why the costs for the Horus had almost doubled. Titan Avionics was building a second ship at the same time on the Coalition credits. And according to this file, both would be operational with the month, not the six months they’d been told. But who? Who would pay to have such a ship at their fingertips?

  It couldn’t be Thomas. He might be a bit egomaniacal but even he couldn’t take on the might of the Coalition with only this ship. That left only the Confederacy. For some reason, Admiral Thomas was building a second ship for the Confederates. When Virginia heard the scuffle of a boot behind her, she knew that she was busted. She instinctively knew her best bet was to play the dumb blonde card.

  With a simple keystroke, the incriminating evidence disappeared off the monitors. All she had to do now was retrieve her data crystal without being seen. Standing up quickly, enough so that her chair fell over, Virginia pasted the dumb blonde smile on her lips and turned around. She intended to move to her left as whoever was behind her helped her with the chair, then as they were bent over, she would remove the data crystal and be on her way. However, seeing a soldier in the grey uniform of the Confederates with a Peregrine Disruptor pistol pointing at her was not what she expected.