Renegade

by Joel Shepherd

  “To get here,” Trace explained. “In this room.”

  The Colonel frowned. “To what purpose?”

  “To do this.” She grabbed him across the table, yanked him over it, and broke his neck with a twist. Then she hurdled the table, smashed one guard to the midriff, then judo-threw the other over her shoulder as he grabbed her, depriving him of a weapon in the process. The first guard went for his own, so she shot him, then put a spread of five shots through the glass. The window was tough, but the bullets made holes big enough for a uniformed arm to smash the rest without injury, revealing several officers sprawled and scrambling on the floor.

  One had her pistol out so Trace shot her, side-kicked a spacer captain into a wall, then grabbed the Admiral off the floor and shoved the gun up under his chin. “Where’s LC Debogande?” she asked him.

  “You fool!” he hissed, eyes wild with terror and disbelief. “Don’t you know who I am?”

  “I know exactly who you are, Admiral Keith,” said Trace. “But karma rules us both at this moment, and one more dead officer hardly weighs the scales. LC Debogande, where is he?” No reply. Trace shot him in the foot, then put the hot muzzle back under his jaw as he screamed. “Where?”

  “Level two, C-21!” he hissed between sobs. Trace smacked his head against the wall and dropped him. Then she opened the door to the observation room, and ran out. Alarm klaxons were howling, and lights flashed red. Immediately there were two armed guards up the corridor coming to a halt and raising pistols at her. Trace opened fire, fading her stance from high right to low left and a shoulder crouch against the wall. She’d been good at that since age nine, and with both her targets down, she took off running once more.

  Across the next corridor too fast for anyone to shoot at her, then left down stairs and hurdling the flight across to the lower level. She landed two steps up and rolled to avoid snapping her ankle. Broke her fall with a free arm and looked right then fast left from the floor. Another couple of guards tried to aim at her and she shot one, backrolled to her feet and pressed against the corridor wall, moving one way while aiming back the other. The other guard wasn’t reappearing, so she ran ten yards then pressed to the wall again… sure enough the sound of running footsteps brought him out for a clear shot at her back, only to find her braced against a wall and putting two through his chest.

  The speaker system was now announcing something, calling her name, telling her to stop in the vain hope she was stupid enough to listen. As though stopping now could possibly stop them from executing her if they caught her. And probably the LC too, now that she’d started shooting they had a perfect excuse to get him caught in the crossfire. But using the speakers was stupid of them, because now every guard in the complex knew exactly who they were chasing. Many would probably stop trying very hard to find her.

  Another guard she predictably found sheltering at a corner ahead… but too close, shooting at point blank against an expert was even harder than shooting at extreme range. She went around him, took his leg with an arm to his chest and crashed him to the ground hard enough to stun. She grabbed his collar, dragged for several doors, then propped him upright with an armlock before room C-21.

  “Key the door,” she told him, and he did that.

  “Please don’t kill me!” he gasped.

  “That’s out of my hands,” Trace told him. She pushed him first into the doorway, and was now in the plastic-partitioned half of a detention cell. There were two guards on the far side, pistols out and yelling at her to stop. And LC Debogande, in wrist and ankle restraints on the bed, looking otherwise unhurt. Trace kicked the chair into the doorway, to block the door in case someone closed it by remote. The doors weren’t heavy enough to break a chair, this was light detention, not maximum security. “Key the door,” she told her prisoner.

  “Don’t do it!” yelled a guard on the far side, pistol trembling. “Don’t you do it!”

  “Key the door or I’ll start blowing holes in you,” Trace told him. He reached his trembling palm to the reader, ID card in hand. “You two, shut your mouths and put your guns down or I’ll kill you.”

  Fear on both faces, battling with duty. And possibly pride, given there were three of them, all told. “Okay!” said one, raising his hands. “Okay, we’re putting our guns down!” They did it very slowly.

  Trace didn’t have time to wait, every second in this room was getting her trapped, if someone worked up the nerve to come up the corridor behind. Unlikely for a few moments at least, lesser soldiers always froze when people started dying. The plastic door opened, and Trace pushed the guard ahead of her as a shield.

  One of the two inside abruptly changed his mind and dove sideways, angling for a shot. It surprised Trace not at all, and she shot him halfway through the move. But her response exposed her to the second man, who also aimed. Trace threw her shield at him as the gun went off. The shield-man fell, exposing the remaining guard for a desperate second at Debogande’s bedside. Trace blew his head all over the wall, then knelt in the mess to retrieve keys and unlock the LC on the bed.

  Debogande was swearing and shaking, badly shocked and spattered with gore. “Oh good god,” he muttered as Trace removed the restraints and gave him a gun and ammo from a dead guard. “Major what have you done?”

  “Do you want to live?” Trace asked him, pausing for a hard look in his eyes. “Then do exactly what I say, when I say it, and kill anyone who tries to stop us. Let’s go.”

  There wasn’t time for anything more. All spacer crew knew basic close quarters combat, but few had actually done it, and none of those by choice. Worse, they didn’t have a marine’s combat augments or gene-mods — a pilot like the LC would have reflexes every bit her equal, but total physical coordination was a different thing again. He was definitely going to get in her way, and she’d have been much better off alone, but Trace didn’t make a habit of worrying about things she couldn’t help.

  She cleared the corridor first, then set off running with the LC behind, keeping 45-degrees ahead so he wouldn’t block her view back. A fist up at the next cross-corridor, and he stopped, but on the wrong side of the corridor instead of behind her. She cleared the corner with a fast look, then ran on and angled left for the next stairs… someone dropped a stun grenade from above, and the LC might have panicked but she grabbed him and spun him neatly about the next corner, and had time to clear both ways before it exploded.

  She put her gun around the corner to fire blind up the stairs at whoever might be thinking of following that grenade, loaded a new clip and ran up the next corridor to the security entrance, gesturing the LC to keep low as they approached. Sure enough the guards on the far side saw movement and opened fire with assault rifles, big rounds exploding windows and kicking open doors. Trace scrambled on all fours where the thick wall gave better cover than the windows, and put her back to a security scanner.

  “We have to go around!” the LC insisted, wide-eyed and terrified as she’d expect from someone unaccustomed to firefights, but holding his nerve despite it. Trace ignored him… there were only two well armed troopers, they just made a lot of noise with those rifles, and the one on the left was exposed in the wrong spot by the outside wall. Trace rolled through the open first security door, crawled to the second, waited for a pause in fire, then pushed the first door open enough to show the left-side trooper, but not his friend.

  One shot put him down, his buddy fired on panicked full auto until his gun clicked empty, whereupon Trace swung fully around the doorway and shot him too. Then she ran quickly, got a better weapon and more ammo, handed the other to the ashen-faced LC as he followed, then hit the elevator call button.

  “We’re taking the elevator?” Debogande asked in disbelief.

  “Yes.”

  “Could use a fucking grenade.” He checked his rifle with shaking hands.

  “Do you see any grenades?”

  “No.”

  “Then be quiet.”

  The elevator arrived — e
mpty, and Trace got in and hit the parking level. Debogande leaned against a car wall, breathing fast and hard as the doors closed. “You don’t think they’ll slaughter us at the parking level when we get out?” he asked.

  “We’re not getting out at parking level.” She hit emergency stop and shouldered her rifle. “Boost please.” The LC got the idea and she stood on his hands to open the emergency access hatch above, then wriggled out. Helped the LC up after her, then grabbed the shaft cable and climbed fast. If someone overrode the emergency stop beneath them, they’d be in trouble, but she didn’t think they were working that fast, or that the elevator would work with the top hatch open. The higher she climbed, the better her uplink signal became.

  “I’m here,” she said as the connection came clear. “Let’s go.” And she waited, hanging on the cable opposite the doors two levels above the main parking level. The LC hung on grimly beneath her, thankfully breathing too hard to make more useless suggestions.

  A massive crash from outside the elevator doors, and yells. Trace leaped to the doorway and pulled the doors open — with augmented strength it wasn’t hard. On the far side was the main lobby to one of the big HQ towers… only the glass wall was in shattered ruin all over the polished marble floor, and people were running everywhere for cover. The cause of it, a civvie cruiser, sat waiting for them on the marble, doors open and two armed marines covering with pistols. Trace and Erik ran, threw themselves in as the marines bundled after, and the driver powered them up and out the shattered glass wall.

  The driver was Lieutenant Dale, and he kept them low, howling across the memorial yard toward the distant Shiwon towers at head-height in case the defensive emplacements were active yet. It was early evening, the grounds still full of uniforms despite the fading light, and Trace didn’t think they’d shoot so low over everyone’s heads.

  “LC, you okay?” asked Private Tong in the rear seat. Because the LC was still covered in blood and bits of brain. He hadn’t fired a shot, Trace noted, and that was just as well, given he could have hit anything, her included.

  “I’m okay,” said Debogande. “Holy fuck. You’re all in on this?” As the cruiser rocked a turn, accelerating and now climbing for some altitude as they howled over suburbs.

  “Major set it up,” Tong confirmed. “Put us on standby when you got arrested.”

  “You saw this coming?” Debogande asked incredulously.

  “They’re called emergency precautions,” said Trace. “Something’s always coming.”

  “That’s why she’s the best,” Dale shut down the argument. “What’s the damage Major?”

  “Killed a bunch of them. They tried to stitch me up too.”

  “Was it necessary?” Debogande asked, still trying to get his head around it. As though still in a daze, and expecting himself to wake up at any moment. “Major, you killed all those people! Fleet people!”

  “Hey asshole!” Dale snapped. “Those Fleet people just declared war on us, you get that? They declared war on you, on your family, on our Captain, on all of us. They murdered the Captain!”

  “Are we right to go at the spaceport?” Trace asked Dale, not especially interested in the LC’s distress.

  “We’re rolling,” Dale confirmed. “We’ll be there in five minutes and just hope they don’t shoot us down first.”

  “Over the suburbs, I don’t think so,” said Trace.

  “Hey LC,” said Tong. “You really didn’t kill the Captain, did you?”

  “Oh that’s great Private,” said Dale. “Real useful time to ask.” Tong shrugged and handed Debogande a cloth.

  The LC wiped himself down. “We won’t make the military spaceport,” he muttered. “They’ll shoot us down over the tarmac, those air defence systems can kill a fruit fly at two klicks.”

  “We’re not going to the military spaceport,” said Dale.

  “You’ve got a civvie ride? Up to Phoenix?”

  “Yep.” The Shiwon skyline shone in the night to their right. They were headed north-west, past the main city, heading for Lei Quan Spaceport. Down below, the main freeway from the military port to Shiwon central, that they’d come along on the way to the parade. To their right, a circle of lights marked Memorial Hill, directly above the freeway.

  “What about Phoenix crew?” Debogande asked, scrubbing the worst of it off his uniform. “What about Huang, is she in on this too?”

  “Nope,” said Dale, searching traffic net for signs of pursuit. “She made it clear early she wasn’t interested. All marines ‘cept for us went up yesterday. Second-shift crew’s still up there, some of first and third went by civvie lift as well to Fajar Station.”

  “Without telling me?”

  “After you got arrested,” said Trace. “Docked at station just a few hours ago.”

  “How… how do you get Phoenix’s crew off Homeworld on civvie transport? With HQ locking everything down?”

  “Your sister helped.”

  “Which one?”

  “Lisbeth. Allied Transit, your local hauler. She chartered one for us. Well, two, actually.”

  “And HQ didn’t try to stop you?”

  “Four hours ago getting Phoenix crew off Homeworld probably sounded like a good idea to them. No media on Phoenix, no politicians, it’s quarantine. They’d thought.”

  “And what is it now?” said Debogande, disbelieving.

  “Well I don’t know about you,” said Trace, checking her rifle mag as the bright lights of the civvie spaceport lit the horizon ahead. “But after what we just pulled to get you out, I’d suggest we run like hell.”

  “Oh great,” he said tiredly. “You needed a captain. With Huang out, I’m the only command level pilot left. That’s why you busted me out.”

  “Yes,” Trace admitted. “That, and you’re our last remaining command officer, and we’ll need you if we’re ever going to get to the bottom of this.”

  “And root out the fuckers who’ve planned this whole mess,” Dale growled, “and kill the fucking lot of them.”

  “The way this is starting to look,” said the LC, “I think that might take a revolution. Or a civil war.”

  No one in the cruiser had anything to say to that. A few days ago, they’d thought the war was over.

  7

  The Lei Quan Spaceport was a huge, sprawling facility with four main terminals around a central traffic island, all joined by freeways and maglevs. It was busy tonight, traffic crowding the roads and big shuttles rolling upon the taxiways, or locked into the big, covered gates for refuel and reloading.

  Dale flew them at the far perimeter where the cargo vessels waited aside from the main terminals, as the cruiser’s navcomp squawked perimeter warnings and threats of action against airspace violation. But here along a line of waiting cargo vessels was a big shuttle with running lights flashing and thrust nozzles angled down. Dale put coms on speaker and then they could all hear the ongoing shouting between Spaceport traffic control.

  “AT-7, you have no clearance for departure, I repeat, no clearance for departure! Turn off your engines and stand down immediately!”

  “Lei Quan control, this is AT-7, we are leaving in three minutes, either make a space for us or expect it to get very tight and crowded.”

  Erik’s heart stopped at the sound of that familiar voice. “That’s Lisbeth! What the hell is she doing here?”

  “She got us the ship,” said Trace. “I told you.”

  “You said she arranged it! You didn’t say she was on it!”

  “She’s a grown woman LC, she can do what she wants.”

  The perimeter fence flashed beneath them, the cruiser slowing even now as it came alongside the row of transports and flared toward a landing at the shuttle’s angular nose. They touched, doors open in the warm Shiwon night to let in an earsplitting howl of engines, as the marines and Erik all clambered out. Several yellow vested groundstaff ran to them, yelling and waving them off, then changed their minds at the sight of levelled rifles.

&nbs
p; Erik ran up the ramp and into the empty shuttle hold, then into the left access and up the narrow, curving staircase that circled the forward starboard mains. Then ducked out of the low doorway and into cockpit access, finding two marines strapped into engineering posts and awaiting takeoff. Past them was the cockpit, a narrow arrangement of pilot and co-pilot one behind the other, the pilot offset so the co-pilot could squeeze past.

  A slim figure squeezed out of the pilot’s chair and flung herself at him. “Oh thank god!” Lisbeth gasped. “You’re okay! The Major got you out, I knew she would!” With a young civilian’s innocence of the horror that entailed.

  “Lis.” Erik hugged her back. “Okay Lis, out. We’re leaving.”

  “I’m coming too!”

  Erik stared. “No you’re not! Lis, we’re fugitives! We have to…”

  “Yes you’re fugitives!” she exclaimed. “And they will blow you out of the sky without me! If I’m on board they won’t dare!”

  “Guys, we have to go,” Thakur said urgently at their backs. “LC, Lisbeth’s our willing hostage for the moment, it’s the only way we’ll get out of here. That’s the plan.”

  Erik wanted to hit something, but everything was so crazy and the time for violence was past. And hit who? Lisbeth? He’d rather hit Thakur, even though it could be his last use of that arm for a while.

  He swore and pushed past her into the pilot’s seat — a fast glance over controls and systems showed the pre-flight was all done and they were ready to go. He buckled in as Lisbeth pushed past into the co-pilot’s seat up front. She was licensed on family shuttles, one of the first perks she’d insisted on to go with her engineering degree.

  “When was your last launch?” Erik asked her.

  “Um, I did a run with Trioli last month to Fajar Station as co-pilot, he gave me an A-minus.”

  “So where the fuck is Trioli? He’s our damn pilot, why isn’t he helping?”

  “I had to leave him in the dark,” said Lisbeth. “He wouldn’t have gone for it Erik, he’d have told Mother and she’d have grounded us.”