The Great Game

by O. J. Lowe

  “This is the Wild Stallion, Wolf Rose, identify yourself immediately.” The voice on the other end of the line was taut, harsh and sounded stressed. “Who is this?”

  “Lieutenant Alexandra Nkolou…” She grimaced, still hated the way her own name failed to roll off the tongue even after all these years of practice. “Formerly of Wolf Squadron. I have an albus-class ship and… Damnit!”

  She jerked the Rose to the side, still grinning like a little kid inside at the way the ship responded to the deftest of touches, a hiss of laser fire streaking off just above where they’d been a few seconds earlier. She continued to weave the ship down through the fray, letting loose with the forward lasers every time an unlucky eaglefighter happened across her bow. Above and below her, the turrets continued to blaze away as Navarro and Sullivan pumped high powered blasts into anything hostile that happened too close for comfort.

  “What is your identifying number?”

  “Ah… Four alpha, three six two eight bravo…” She furrowed her brow. Yeah that was right. Hard to remember numbers sometimes when… Alex jinked the ship up between the gap left by two eaglefighters, saw them both explode in the periphery of her vision. “Seven! Sorry there was a seven on the end of that. Also have Sergeant Ross Navarro on board and Agent Anne Sullivan, all of Unisco.”

  “Well it appears you no longer require permission to join the attack,” another voice said dryly. There was something familiar about it. “Lieutenant, this is Admiral Criffen. You’re closer to that damn thing than any of us. We’ve had data forwarded to us by your team on the inside. Targets of convenience in disabling those guns. Can you take them out?”

  Alex didn’t hesitate before nodding to herself. “I can start the run on your mark, Admiral.” She flicked several buttons, found the data packet he’d mentioned. “Requesting fighter support.”

  Criffen looked across the deck at one of his aides, already holding out his hand for the data file that was being held out to him. He wanted a quick look at Lieutenant Alexandra Nkolou before he gambled more ships to join her. Already this engagement was turning out to be most irregular. The Sitting Target was bombarding the airbase with long range shots from its cannons but they didn’t look to be having much effect from range. The more craters they tore in the outer shells of their target, the more vigorously it felt like it was shooting back.

  Nkolou… Wolf Squadron Lieutenant… Unisco pilot for five years, several classified missions in her native Vazara and in Serran… Graduated her class with top marks… Exceptional reflexes and cool under pressure… Great judgement in crisis. Presumed dead.

  That last one was a little surprising but if she’d been on that airbase… Her last assignment had been to escort a high security prisoner to mainland Vazara from Carcaradis Island, a transport that had vanished on the way there. There’d been some evidence of an attack.

  The late, presumably, Richard Wolfmeyer, commander of Wolf Squadron had left in his notes that she was an exceptional pilot and potential command material.

  Her code did match. Voice pattern analysis had matched. It had to be her. And he’d watched the first few moments of her entering the fray, straight into the midst of the largest concentration of eaglefighters…

  She could fly. It had been many years since Criffen had entered a fighter cockpit himself but she was handling the much larger albus like a HAX. That took some special skills.

  “Lieutenant Nkolou,” he said, glancing down at one of the screens. He tapped on three separate squadrons that had taken severe depletions to their numbers, Five, Nine and Seventeen. “For the duration of this engagement, I’m giving you a field promotion to Commander. Squadrons Five, Nine and Seventeen, gather your remnant numbers and converge on Commander Nkolou’s ship.”

  There it was. Another gamble, one he hoped paid off. Tactically, it made sound sense on every level. Five, Nine and Seventeen had eight fighters left between them. Forming them back up as one unit would hopefully give Nkolou’s potential suicide mission more of a chance of success. And the temporary increase in rank would hopefully get them over the line, glue them all together just enough to form one final push. Those guns needed taking out.

  “Thank you, Admiral,” Nkolou said. She sounded both surprised and grateful. He took that as a good thing. “Over and out. Join up on me, squadrons. Keep your call-signs.”

  A general chorus of acknowledgement came up over the communications system, voices of all kingdoms and genders. This was happening. Her time to shine. He hoped she wouldn’t let him down.

  “Let’s win this thing.”

  David Wilsin hit the wall and just for a moment, his vision went black. He couldn’t keep this up for much longer. His knuckles were raw, red and bleeding. He was sure he’d broken some of them but he had to keep on going. His entire body felt like one big bruise and worse still, his giant opponent still looked fresh and healthy.

  “When you get to the hells,” the big guy growled, striding over to him. “Tell ‘em Domis Di Carmine sent you there in the name of the glorious Mistress.”

  It hurt but he managed to roll his eyes, pushed himself up to his feet. He was unsteady, tottering and just about able to keep his balance. Maybe he should just give up, let it all go and let death take him…

  No!

  It was only a quiet voice but it cut across his subconscious like a blaster shot, burning deep into his pain fogged brain. You never surrender, you never give up and you never die on the job until it’s complete. It had been years since he’d been through the Unisco training, but those words had never left his mind.

  He turned, threw a punch that the blank slate… Domis… caught one handed and raised a craggy eyebrow in bemusement. As if to say ‘really’? Wilsin tried to jerk his hand back away from him, found it caught tight in the vice-like grip. Domis wasn’t even squeezing, just holding him at arm’s length, appraising him like a butch appraised a fine cut of meat. Those dark little eyes ran him up and down, Wilsin continued to try and jerk himself free…

  Jerks that were cut off when Domis brutally kicked out at him, the blow catching him in the side and he felt something give, at least one rib snap and fire shot up through him. He’d have fallen had Domis not still held him up, slowly and gradually applying more pressure to his hand.

  “I always heard that you Unisco were something special,” Domis said in that slow deliberate voice. “You are nothing and I am going to show you that. You will be broken.”

  His face split into a grin and then everything changed, just a little too fast for Wilsin to realise what had happened but suddenly it felt like he was sat on top of a miniature explosion, the bang and the light and the heat and suddenly the cold sucked at him, threatening to draw him in. For a moment he thought he was dead but he could still feel the pain. He blinked through the blood gushing in his eyes, saw the light breaking through a hole in the wall… Domis was distracted, he jerked his free hand back, desperate to ignore the screaming pain and went for the X7 holstered at his waist.

  As Domis turned his head back towards him, the shots were perfect, two straight between the eyes. But he didn’t stop there. They’d been marginally more effective than the previous attempts to shoot him, Domis was in pain, blinded and staggering back. Some brain function had to have been affected right there, Wilsin took a deep breath and tried to ignore the pain before lunging towards him. It was like hitting a brick wall with his shoulder, fresh pain shot through his body but it had the desired effect. Domis staggered back, off balance again and at the lips of the hole.

  One more step and he’d fall. The wounds on his face were already starting to close again and Wilsin didn’t hesitate. He pulled the X7 again and fired again and again, emptying the power pack into him, taking a step forward with every shot until he was shooting at point blank range. More than one hit him in the face, he reached out with one giant arm and clasped at the ragged edge of the wall, still desperate to hold himself up.

  The final shot hit him in the hand and that was e
nough, any strength in his fingers faded catastrophically for him and suddenly they were scrabbling at empty air. He couldn’t hold himself up any longer and then he was gone.

  He slumped down, suddenly relieved, all the exertions and the pain catching up with him in that moment. David Wilsin felt his back hit the wall, felt fresh stabbing sensations creep up through him and yet that was fine. He’d done a good job here, he’d done something he’d thought was impossible moments earlier and he’d come through it relatively unscathed. He was chalking this one up as a win. A very big win. The cold air continued to buffet him, threatening to drag him down and reluctantly he got to his feet and moved off away from it, reloading his weapon as he did.

  Several feet away, he found his Featherstone, bent down to pick it up with some difficulty. Close by was Harper, he didn’t want to look at her but he couldn’t help himself. It was something that he needed to do. He needed the reminder. He wanted to take her out of here, make sure she got the proper burial, but sometimes it just couldn’t be done. It might just be a sacrifice she’d have to make, one last one in a war that she’d never started and had finished her off.

  “Damnit,” he said softly. He looked at her, then the hole in the side of the station, the air still blowing in. Be better just to kick her out here than let Coppinger and her lot get their hands on her. He didn’t even want to consider doing that, he felt dirty for thinking it.

  The anger on her face was noticeable, she’d screwed it up like old paper and Nick was sure she was just seconds away from a full breakdown. Already she’d gone crimson and it was slowly turning to purple.

  He hadn’t known Caldwell was a Unisco agent. Nobody he’d spoken to had either. And privately, he wasn’t prepared to take his word on it until he heard from either Arnholt or Brendan King in relation to the matter. If anyone knew, then one of those two had to.

  Still, it looked good that he might be. He had the feeling all of this was just some twisted game to someone and, if it was Claudia Coppinger, then she’d just been dealt a massive blow. More than that, she already looked like she was set to take it personally.

  “You…”

  “Unisco,” Caldwell corrected, he looked a little sorrowful as he said it. “Sorry, sister. But things happen. Family is what you make of it. One family kicked me out, another took me in. I was so pleased when you got back in touch. My superiors will be pleased with me when I report to them what you’ve been up to here. I suspected you were up to something when you got back in touch. This was just the perfect opportunity for them to find out for sure.”

  “You betrayed your blood!” She spat out each word as if they were poison. “There’s going to be a special place in my new hells for you, Collison!”

  He shrugged. “You know it’s not going to happen, sister. I’m sorry to tell you that and if you still believe it will, then you might be able to get away with an insanity plea.”

  “You know I’m not insane!” she hissed. “You two both are if you think you’ll be able to stop me from achieving my destiny.”

  “Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound right now?” Caldwell asked. “I’m sorry, it’s embarrassing. There is no grand destiny for you. All you’ve set out to achieve is what you sewed yourself. That should make you proud, but it should also disgust you.”

  “I’m beyond petty emotion like that,” she retorted. “Morals, ethics, decency, disgust… They’re just words and what are they compared to power.”

  “Words can have power, just as much as actions, Claudia,” Caldwell said. More and more, Nick was starting to feel like a spare part. He wondered if he’d be better off just shooting her here and now, just give her one in the head and spare the five kingdoms a lot of time, credits and pain. It’d probably be for the best.

  But… It wasn’t the right thing to do. And he had previous for doing this. Nah, he’d let the two siblings play out what they were doing, it was what they seemed to want to do. Let them. There were some real issues here between them, it was almost entertaining. He glanced around to where the fighters were. Both had vanished and one of the hangar doors was already sliding shut. If he focused his ears, he could still hear the clash in the distance of their weapons meeting with ferocious intensity.

  “You’re right,” she said. “The type of power that needs to be backed up by actions. Words are cheap, they are the tools of governments and pawns. My rule…”

  “You do know that you can’t be allowed to rule,” Nick said, cutting her off. “Don’t you? I mean, you’re insane for a start. That’s usually a pretty destabilising factor when you want to be in charge. It makes long term planning erratic at best.”

  “If the two of you insist on pointing those weapons at me,” she said, her face splitting open into an awful grin. “I in turn have to insist that you use them. I’m either walking out of here or I die here. I’m not going with either of you. I have too much to do and submitting to your notions of justice just doesn’t appeal.”

  “You sound like you think you have a choice, sister,” Caldwell said.

  “No,” she replied. That grin grew wider. “You think you do. But you haven’t realised just how wrong you are yet.”

  Derenko’s team hadn’t found Nick Roper, but they had found something else just as good, if not better in the context of the greater mission. A lot of it had to do with them being taken by surprise but you just went with it and claimed the victory where it was. They’d found the heads of most of the great crime syndicates around the five kingdoms all sat together in one great room. Some of them had been armed and had tried to resist. They’d been killed immediately, as had their bodyguards who had made the same life choice to die. The others had been held at gunpoint as Derenko had stepped forward to speak.

  “Listen, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I really don’t care about you all here and now. Your people shot first, that’s why they died. But we’ve got bigger fish to deal with and so I’m giving you a limited time choice. You can surrender now and come with us when we leave, submit to Unisco justice, we’ll even put good words in for you about how you did the right thing when it came down to it. Showing signs of contrition and all that, how you were clearly all in over your heads and all that stuff. You were taken in by someone who managed to fool you all as to what you were getting into.” He gave them all a friendly grin, as if to remind them that shit happened sometimes.

  “Or you can leave and none of us will stop you, you can take the head start and sooner or later we will remember what we saw here and devote all our resources to hunting you down at a tremendous waste of time and manpower. It’s going to annoy everyone involved. And when we do find you, you’ll likely be killed resisting arrest because we won’t be doing it gently. So, it’s your choice. Leaving will be considered a sign of complicity and I really don’t think you want that. Because we’re probably going to have to name a bunch of crimes after your boss and I really don’t think you want to go down with her.”

  He gave them a few seconds to think about it. It wasn’t technically proper procedure but as he’d said, they weren’t the reason they were here. Bigger fish and all that. Coppinger was the mission target. These would be a nice bonus.

  Some of them did surrender immediately, once Anthony Fratelli stuck his wrists out and sighed. Of all the faces in the room, he was perhaps the most well-known. Maybe even the most wanted.

  “It is in my best interests,” he said reluctantly. “None of us wanted this. She is crazy and I don’t truck with crazy. Not her kind of crazy. She’s like fire, she’ll burn up all before her regardless of who and what it is.”

  “Thank you, Don Fratelli,” Aldiss said. It was slow at first but most them did make the same gesture, a sign of deference and surrender. They’d given up. Doubtless most of them had seen the battle going on outside between the two fleets, they’d felt the pounding the airbase was taking from long range weapons and they figured that being alive gave them a chance. That was something you could always rely on with these cri
minal types, they had an incredible sense of self preservation. Derenko grinned to himself. Even if they didn’t get Coppinger, if they managed to leave with all these, it’d be a good second prize consolation.

  Now where the hells were Harper and Wilsin?

  “Okay, everyone form up on me!” Alex shouted. “You’ve got your targeting data, go in groups of two and hit them hard. First fighter draws the weapons fire, second one hit it with your missiles. By the way, you’re now Makeshift Squadron. Make the name proud.” She hit a few buttons. “Keep your numbers from before.” Her radar shifted to display the change in ID’s, just so she knew where everyone was.

  “Right away Commander,” Makeshift Two said quickly. She had Two, Three, Five, Six, Eight, Ten, Thirteen and Seventeen. Knew nothing about any of them, who they were beyond the call signs but she was relying on them for this. Plus, commander had a nice ring to it.

  Apparently, Navarro agreed with her.

  “Check you out,” he said. “Commander. Straight out of captivity. Nice work, Alex.”

  “Thanks, now keep shooting!” she ordered. Eaglefighters were everywhere, she didn’t want to take a stray shot in the rear because Navarro was too busy trying to have a chat. She jerked the Wolf Rose straight down into a dive, cut across the bow of two onrushing fighters and saw them both explode under a barrage of fire from the twin turrets, shrapnel and shards buffeting against her shields for just a moment until she hit the thrusters and accelerated away from their remains, Navarro cheering in her ear.

  “Boom, have some of that!” he yelled.

  “You do know there are people in those things, don’t you?” Sullivan asked mildly. Her voice betrayed disappointment, almost sternly so.

  “Yeah, they’re trying to shoot at us,” Navarro said, more than a little indignant at her reaction. She knew when he was pissed, his voice took on a higher pitch.

  “Doesn’t mean you have to like it.”