“As much fun as that sounds,” Molon quipped. “I think I’ll pass. You get started on cutting this door. John, you play lookout near the cave mouth. The last thing you need is to get caught flat-footed by a patrol coming to check out all the noise in the hangar.”
“Where are you going?” John asked.
“To find another way in. If I can find another access door, I can route through from the inside and meet you all on the other side of this door. I’m in uniform, so should blend in well enough.”
With that, Molon scrambled back down the cliff face below the hangar bay and headed south toward the main entrance. If he intended to bluff his way in, the front door would be the least expected place for someone unauthorized to walk in. Go big or go home!
The front doors to the facility, on the south side of the hill, were locked down tight. The gate area showed no sign of activity, so blending in with a delivery or patrol was not going to be an option. However, from the other side of a single, clear panel on the west side of the vehicle-sized double doors, a young man in a Dawnstar security uniform stared out at Molon as he approached. The insignia on the man’s uniform indicated a lowly private. Molon’s own stolen combat vac-suit marked him as a sergeant. He hoped that was enough to carry his bluff.
“Private, open these doors,” Molon shouted while still a few paces away, marching with intensity toward the doors as if he expected they would open quickly enough to prevent the need for this surly sergeant to even break stride.
The man blinked with uncertainty before issuing a calm response.
“Sergeant, did you forget your security card?”
“No,” snapped Molon, as if that completely addressed any possible questions. Unfortunately, for the inquisitive private, it did not.
“I don’t recognize you, are you one of the reinforcements from Hececcrir?”
Molon pulled off his tac helmet so his lupine snarl would have no impediment to communicating his displeasure.
“I’m from Hececcrir all right, but if they had transferred me to this crap pile of a planet, I’d have shot myself in the head. I’m here with a SEC-COM for your CO.”
“Oh, I see,” the private answered, but before he could formulate another question, Molon took control of the exchange.
“Now you listen up, private. I just walked halfway around this glorified dung heap because it looks like someone has been using your hangar bay for testing tac-nukes. So, if you leave me standing in this dust bowl any longer, I’m gonna claw my way through that security glass, rip your pale head off, and take a dump down your neck. Do I make myself clear?”
The private went even paler than usual for humans. The man was clearly shaken and deliberating the best course. Suddenly, the young human’s curiosity got the best of him and his brow furrowed as he spotted a possible hole in Molon’s cover story.
“Why wouldn’t Hececcrir just transmit the SEC-COM on an encoded message via a System Express ship?”
This private was smarter than most. That was most inconvenient. Time to push the limits and hope military discipline outweighed this private’s intelligence and inquisitive nature.
“You want I should catch some rack time out here in the dirt while you dispatch a System Express jumper to ask the brass that question? I’m sure that’ll make you real popular. Yep, bright career ahead of you, grunt.”
“But—,” the private started to interject, but Molon was already neck deep in this gambit and couldn’t risk losing momentum. He cut the young man off as he continued his tirade, bringing his volume up to just below a full-on shout.
“And your boss will be thrilled he missed a critical SEC-COM because you decided to play twenty questions. I’ll be sure to note your helpful inquisitiveness at your court martial. Maybe they can reference it on your tombstone as well.”
That tipped the scales for the young private. Molon hadn’t been sure this young man was going to cave. Fortunately, the military drills its recruits so harshly about following orders that an extra stripe or two was usually enough to make them more afraid of disobeying a superior than of any consequences of not adhering to boilerplate procedures. Following wrongful orders might land someone in hot water, but disobeying a lawful order during wartime was a capital offense. Since the Shattering, the entire Empire of Humaniti had been considered at war, and lawful vs. unlawful orders was a very gray area. The default choice in these situations was to err on the side of obeying a superior, which was exactly what Molon had counted on.
The private punched a button in the booth and Molon heard a loud clang of the electronic locks opening on the doors.
“Good choice, private,” Molon said as he moved toward the heavy metal door now slightly ajar. “Now tell me, where can I find your CO?”
“I can escort you, sergeant,” the young guard replied.
That was the last thing Molon needed. One time, just one time, couldn’t things just go smoothly and according to plan? Molon didn’t want to do anything drastic, but he was on the verge of this situation going pear shaped in a hurry. He moved inside the heavy metal door and spoke to the guardsman from the open, inside door to the guard post.
“You wanna add abandoning your post to your list of distinguished achievements, soldier? Just point me in the right direction. I’ll find my way.”
Molon released a subtle sigh as the young man nodded and began giving Molon directions to the warden’s office. Fortunately, from the last couple of turns, Molon recognized part of the path he had taken on his previous visit. From there, he knew his way to the hangar. Molon suppressed a smile, relieved his bluff had worked...Until it didn’t.
“I’ll call ahead, sergeant, and let the warden know to expect you.”
Poor kid. Too smart for his own good.
“Yes, you do that, private.”
When the young man turned to access the comm panel at the security desk, Molon quickly grabbed him from behind, giving his neck a sharp twist. He heard the unmistakable sound of breaking bones just before the private collapsed in his arms like a rag doll.
“Sorry, kid,” Molon said as he allowed the limp body of the dead private slump to the floor.
The young man had unfortunately picked the wrong place and time to be good at his job. Molon had no love of killing. The private was just a cog in the Dawnstar wheel. He wasn’t responsible for any of this, and likely had no idea about any of the events that had led to his death today. Where had this kid come from? What turn of events in his life had brought him to this desolate place?
War was full of bad choices, and there had been no good choice to make here. If their cover was blown now, Molon, Voide, John, and possibly everyone aboard Star Wolf might be killed. Taking one life he didn’t know to protect dozens he did—would these choices ever get easier? He hoped not.
Molon snaked his way through the passageways, following the route the guard had laid out for him, to the point of getting to a familiar area. Molon focused his concentration on the route, shutting down stray thoughts in an attempt to cease deliberating about the young man whose life he had just taken. Why was this one sitting so uneasily on his conscience?
He had taken half a dozen lives in this very prison without a second thought when he rescued John. But those were nameless, faceless. This kid he had talked to—connected with, however briefly. How many young men just like this one had died while serving aboard Star Wolf, just from following Molon’s orders? Unfortunately, he knew that number all too well. Maybe that’s what made this one feel so different.
As he wound his way through the winding corridors of the Ratuen prison complex, Molon noted there was even less activity than during his last visit. How many prisoners did this ball of dirt house, anyway? He doubted they would leave anyone important here. Security this close to the border would be nearly impossible. For anyone worth hanging on to, Ratuen was likely just a staging area before they were shipped to a more central world with better defenses.
For the rest of the time, a place like this ge
nerally had one purpose—holding someone you wanted to deny was in your custody. That fit the profile for John and Elena Salzmann. Maybe the place was empty since Elena’s death and John’s escape. Molon hoped that was the reason for the inactivity and not that the complex’s security forces were all poised somewhere waiting to ambush the intruders.
Molon passed only one Lubanian security guard en route to the hangar bay. The guard bore no rank insignia, indicating a raw recruit still in training. He gave Molon a cursory nod rather than a salute as he passed. Many of Dawnstar’s security were from the private sector, with little to no military background. It was hard to get used to seeing uniforms without the discipline that generally accompanied ex-military, but that also meant they weren’t as attuned to trouble as a battle-hardened vet would be. If Molon’s team did end up having to blast their way out of this place, he’d rather face ten civvies than one experienced combat vet.
As Molon approached the hangar bay door, he noticed the telltale red glow from Voide’s small cutting laser had completed three-hundred degrees of a circle about seventy centimeters in diameter.
“Cutting that a bit tight, aren’t you Voide?” he called through the thin gap.
“Thought we were in a hurry,” Voide replied. “Besides, I can easily slip through this. If the pale can’t fit, I guess he stays here.”
“I’ll fit just fine,” came John’s voice from farther away. “You just hurry up and get that hole made.”
Within ten minutes the heated disc was hanging on by a thread of steel. The weight of it finally broke away from the rest of the door and it fell to the hangar bay floor with a deafening clang. A grating, metallic grind then echoed through the abandoned hangar as the heavy metal disc rolled unsteadily across the floor. Hitting a small imperfection tipped the rolling disc into an ever quickening heavy thrumming that resounded off the hangar bay walls before settling with a booming thud into deathly silence. The three companions stood motionless, listening for the sounds of alarms or of feet rushing down the corridor to investigate the cacophony.
“Well,” John snapped as he jogged over from the hangar entrance. “If anyone didn’t know we were here, they do now.”
“Not necessarily,” Molon answered. “These stone walls are thick, and the place is nearly deserted. Anyway, there is nothing to do about it now, so get in here and let’s get moving. We’ll check the cells first.”
Voide’s lithe form flowed through the opening like water. John took a bit more maneuvering, earning a few minor burns from the still-hot edges of the circle, and a scratch or two from places where Voide’s cut had not been perfectly smooth. Voide drew her sword. John extended Voide’s bow and nocked an arrow, ready to draw. Molon pulled his automag and attached a suppressor to the barrel.
The three slipped down the corridor toward the prison cells. The naked ceiling bulbs cast flickering shadows before and behind them. The light was enough to see, but the bulbs were spaced far enough apart to give plenty of hiding places to any would-be ambushers.
Molon was unaccustomed to being the loudest one on an away team. John was remarkably stealthy for a civvy, and Voide was, as always, silent as a shadow. Molon’s combat vac-suit was not designed for stealth, and its sheer bulk made an inevitable clack-clack with each step. Footsteps in prison halls were not out of place, however, especially given any guard with an outside patrol route would be similarly attired.
There were only twenty cells in the place. All but two so far had been empty. One held an emaciated old man with a beard that appeared to have been cultivated for over a decade. Only a slight rise in his chest as he sat, slumped against the far wall, gave indication he was even alive. Alive or dead, however, he wasn’t Elena Salzmann.
The other occupied cell had held a man in the tatters of a Dawnstar security uniform. The man had been beaten badly, and his breathing was erratic and labored. Molon doubted this man would even be capable of regaining consciousness. He bore marks of the less than gentle ministrations of a torturer. Molon had no doubt this man had suffered under the same inquisitor that had been at John and Elena when Molon had made his earlier rescue run. He wondered what he had done to earn the torturer’s ire. Whatever his crime, he was beyond their help at this point, and was also not Elena Salzmann.
As they approached the last cell, John stopped moving. He breathed in shallow gasps, his bow dropping from the ready position to hang limply in his hand. The last unchecked cell door seemed to be holding John mesmerized, standing motionless in the corridor with his eyes locked upon it.
“You okay, John?” Molon asked.
“Yeah,” John replied, shaking his head as if to free himself from the daze surrounding him. “It’s just…that was our cell.”
“I understand,” Molon said, trying to comfort him.
Whether or not Elena was in their old cell, it was the last one to check. He silently motioned Voide forward. She slipped quickly to the last cell door and glanced through the small, barred window.
“It’s empty,” she announced in an elevated whisper.
John’s brow wrinkled.
“Empty? But that’s the last cell. She has to be here.”
Molon sensed John was on the verge of a humanesque emotional outburst. Which was precisely why Molon had wanted John to remain on the ship. If the doctor lost it here, it could get them all killed. He had to try and defuse the situation.
“John, we knew this was a longshot. She’s gone, and we need to leave before we are detected. Quick and quiet, remember?”
Molon had never seen a look like the one now on the face of the human doctor. There was a dark determination in his eyes that ran contrary to everything Molon had known about this normally good-hearted Faithful.
“I’m not leaving until I look in the eyes of our torturer and ask him if Elena is dead.”
“You don’t think he will lie?” snapped Voide.
“I’ll know if he does,” John replied.
While not the emotional outburst Molon had feared, he was not sure this sudden dark determination was any better. Sneaking around an almost empty detention facility was one thing, but deliberately confronting the inquisitor was something else altogether. He had no idea where to find the torturer, but if he couldn’t sway John from this course, he at least knew someone who could tell them where to find the inquisitor. It would be an even worse idea than confronting the torturer, but there was no other way.
“Fine,” Molon answered. “The front gate guard told me where the warden’s office is. We find the warden, he’ll know where to find his pet inquisitor.”
Twenty-Two – Inquisitor
Molon, John, and Voide carefully picked their way down the deserted halls toward the warden’s office. Luck had held so far. Molon alone and in uniform might go unnoticed by a passing guard. Voide, even with her human-tinted skin, bearing a sword, and John armed with a bow and arrow would be a bit harder to ignore.
Molon raised a fist, giving the signal for hold position as they approached the last corner before the warden’s office. Voide grabbed John and pulled him back before he could walk forward in plain sight around the bend. Of course, the civvy wouldn’t know military hand signals. Voide’s vigilance had prevented disaster.
Molon nodded at Voide who turned on her suit’s stealth mode, fading from view. Her shimmering silhouette peeked around the corner before she drew back and decloaked. She held up two fingers and made the sign for armed targets. Molon crouched and motioned John and Voide to draw in close for a whispered huddle.
“Low and slow?” Voide whispered.
“No,” Molon replied, shaking his head. “Too risky. Besides, you are the only stealth asset we have.”
“Well, you have the uniform,” Voide noted. “You going in loud and proud?”
“That’s the best play, I think. But you shadow in there quick to help, or things are likely to go all Charlie Foxtrot, fast.”
Voide nodded. John just looked confused. This was another disadvantage to working wi
th a civilian. All the things military or security-trained folks took for granted were like a new language to John.
“I’m going in like I belong here,” Molon explained in a low whisper to the puzzled doctor. “Voide is going to stealth her way into position near the other guard while they are focused on my approach. Once I get close enough to take out at least one guard quickly, Voide is going to quickly take the other out so we can make as little noise as possible.”
“Yeah,” Voide whispered, with a mischievous grin on her face. “If we don’t take them down quickly and quietly enough, we are going to be in a real cluster—
“Ahem,” Molon interrupted as quietly as possible.
He emphasized his annoyance with a grab of Voide’s forearm. He knew she was trying to offend John’s Faithful sensibilities, but now wasn’t the time for such shenanigans.
“We’ll be in a real soup sandwich,” Molon added, using much tamer military vernacular to explain what a Charlie Foxtrot situation was. “That is what Voide was trying to say, if you catch the meaning.”
“Gotcha,” John whispered, nodding. “I actually caught it before. Don’t worry about Voide shaking me up with foul language, captain. I’ve patched up spacers, soldiers, sailors, miners, farmers, and truckers. I seriously doubt gray-face here could utter any profanity I haven’t heard before.”
“I’ll take that bet,” Voide snarked.
“You two can play at swapping swears later. Right now we’ve got work to do,” Molon snapped in a stern whisper.
He rose to his feet and strode confidently around the corner as Voide reactivated her stealth field and followed a few steps behind. Still holding his automag, Molon walked with his empty hand grasping his wrist, keeping his arms behind him as if he were out for a casual stroll. He approached the two guards standing outside the warden’s office. The pair reached for their sidearms, but relaxed as Molon’s Dawnstar vac-suit uniform complete with sergeant markings came into clear view.
“Good morning, sergeant, can I help you?” one guard said with a nod instead of a salute. Another civvy. Molon noted neither wore rank insignias. Rent-a-guards, probably replacement recruits for the guards he had killed while extracting John. Excellent.
Star Wolf (Shattered Galaxy) Page 33