by Jason Hutt
Regards,
Roland
Akimbe called up the star maps and narrowed in on Seguin. His finger hovered over the intercom. It would only take a moment to re-route the next jump. He held fast, sighed, and pulled his hand away. He got up and went for another walk around the ship. He had stretched orders enough for one day.
***
A small crowd huddled around a makeshift table as water dripped from the stalactites overhead into the small puddles that littered the cave floor. Six people, three men and three women, were staring at the projected blueprints of the Sequin Governor’s Hall.
Hannah stole a glance at each person around the table. Four of the other five were young men and women much like herself. A warm glow of confidence spread through her chest and her hair momentarily stood on end.
“Hannah, are you with us?”
“Yes, sir,” she responded, “Sorry.”
“Focus. You’re the key to this. Review what you’ve got. Let’s make sure you’ve got this down,” Lonny said. Lonny’s graying temples and deeply-lined forehead set him apart from the rest of the group. He had paced around the cave with a noticeable limp as they formulated the plan. Hannah was sure it must have come from some previous skirmish with the Republic.
“I’ll access the hall via a service hatch on the roof using the override code you provided,” Hannah said.
“Get that hatch open and closed as quick as you can. There will be a reader looking for chips. When it doesn’t scan anything, protocol is for a guard to do a quick walkthrough. You hide and they register it as sensor error.”
“Right. I should expect minimal resistance inside the hall. There will be cameras lining most of the corridors; I’ll use the disruptor to create interference.”
“You know how to use it?” Lonny interrupted.
“It’s straightforward enough, just a quick tap of the control stud. When the indicator light is green, it’s working.”
“Good. What next?”
“I go down the back stairway to the first sub-basement. The utility room will be the first door on the right. I flip the main switch and shutdown building power.”
“Good. Oscar and Nuna, that’s where you come in. You keep the guards occupied at the front entrance, while we come in the back. Hannah, you meet us back in the Governor’s quarters. All the security systems will be geared toward detecting and targeting ID chips. You’re the only one who will be able to slip past the detection field. If any of us try, we’ll be electrocuted on the spot. Hannah, it’s up to you to sedate him. You have the slap patch?”
“Yes.”
“Ever done it before?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Just use some of that anger you’ve stored up and slap it on any exposed skin. He’ll be out in seconds. Then you’ve got to drag him beyond the door and out of the field. At that point, we can help you. Everybody understand?”
Everyone nodded. The Nuna, a young woman with dark green hair and a scowl cold as a sunless planet, raised an objection. “How do we know we can trust her with this?”
“I know,” Oscar said.
“I’m glad you two had a crush as kids, but that was a long time ago, Oscar,” Nuna said, “What’s she been up to since?”
Lonny tried to put an end to the discussion. “We’ve all seen the wanted notices, Nuna. The Republic didn’t put those out for show.”
Nuna shook her head. “We’re rushing into this. Why do this now?”
“Those same wanted notices,” Lonny admitted. He locked eyes with Hannah. “The net the Republic’s throwing will close quickly. Hannah is the only person who can do this, so if we’re going to do this, we need to do it now, before all hell catches up with us. She’s living on borrowed time.”
Hannah caught Oscar’s eye and held his gaze. He tried to give her a reassuring smile. Oscar opened his mouth to say something when a dull buzzing started to rise above the background drips and drops of water.
Lonny cocked his head and everyone started looking around the cave. Something bounced off the hard rock floor of the cave with a crack and erupted in a deafening wail and blinding flash of light.
Hannah couldn’t see. Someone grabbed her arm and she yanked it free.
“Run!” Someone yelled.
“Don’t move!” Another voice. A woman, someone not in the group.
Someone yelled. Hannah heard a collision, then something smacked off the rock floor.
“Go!” Lonny’s voice. “Now!”
The hand clamped around her elbow again.
“Come on!” Oscar’s voice.
Hannah felt for his hand. He was pulling her deeper into the cave. Bright floodlights broke through the darkness. Just before them stood a line of shadowy figures. She tried to count feet, but quickly lost track.
“Surrender and lay your weapons down!” A male voice this time.
Hannah caught a quick glimpse of a woman lying on the rock floor, blood seeping out from under her head. Lonny let out another feral yell and fired an old laser rifle. The beam cut through one of the spotlights and caused an intense explosion that made everyone in the cave recoil.
“Let’s go!” Oscar said. Hannah turned and ran with him. She didn’t know where she was. Oscar turned again and again and Hannah knew she wouldn’t be able to find her way back. She could hear the footfalls of pursuers and could occasionally hear them shout something out.
“Twenty meters.”
Oscar seemed to be running faster. Hannah followed as the tunnel of the cave seemed to grow smaller and smaller.
“Fifteen meters,” came the shout behind them. “Two targets. Male and female.”
Oscar ducked right and Hannah tripped over a rock jutting up from the floor. She hit hard and felt blood on the palm of her hand. He pulled her up and kept running. They made a sharp left and then another. Hannah tripped and almost face-planted again; she couldn’t see anything in the cave ahead. The voices behind them faded a bit.
“Wait,” Hannah said, “I need to catch my breath.”
“No time,” Oscar said, pulling her forward.
They heard another report. “I’ve got them. Two subjects on the branch to the left – one male, Oscar Wilhelm and an unknown female. Suspect Hannah Cabot.”
They started running again. Hannah heard a splash and realized she’d stepped into a small stream. Oscar stopped and Hannah almost bowled him over.
“What are you doing?” She asked.
“We have to split up,” he said.
“What? No…”
“If I am with you, they will find you, Hannah. They will always find me. You have to get away.”
She squeezed his hand tighter. “No…I don’t…”
“They won’t stop, Hannah. You have to go. Now!” He pulled his hand free. “Follow the stream. Follow the right fork and you’ll come out into the valley. Watch out for when it joins the river.”
“Okay,” She said, her voice filled with uncertainty.
“Go!” He screamed.
She ran.
“There they are!”
Hannah didn’t look back. She was running full speed in the dark, her feet splashing in the stream. She heard a growl behind her, then a zap, then nothing.
“She went up ahead!” The words echoed far behind her. She didn’t dare stop. The floor curved, Hannah’s foot caught a rock, she stumbled and then her feet flew out from under her. She forced herself up, chest aching, as she lurched forward. The sound of rushing water now filled her ears.
Then, the floor fell away and she was falling. She hit the cold water with a gasp, inhaling water as she did. She swam upwards in the dark, chest burning with the need to breath, until she finally surfaced and started coughing. Minutes later, she scrambled up the riverbank. She heard nothing but the sounds of insects in the trees. Hannah was alone.
She tapped a spot behind her ear. “Reggie, please come get me. I need help.”
***
Max piloted a small shuttlecraft t
hrough a field of debris, taking care to avoid the large thruster nozzle that was spinning and sputtering just off to port. He idled the craft along the hull of the gleaming white luxury liner looking for the maintenance access hatch that was somewhere on this aft section of the Ironheart’s latest victim, the cruise ship Starlight Express.
The hatch came into view, just over the giant lettering that spelled out the name of the ship. With a small burst from the thrusters, the shuttle eased up next to the liner. With a thunk, the much smaller ship sealed to the hull.
“All right, Gauntlet,” Max said, “You and your team are good to go.” Max looked behind him and the pink-haired, muscle-bound thug gave him a thumbs-up with one of her mechanical hands. Max nodded and started the timer. Gauntlet’s team had ten minutes to complete their sweep.
The four-member team departed and Max was left sitting alone on the shuttlecraft. Ahead in the distance, he could see the thruster flares of another shuttlecraft as it sidled up to the hull. Ironheart’s team was frightening in their precision. Ironheart had once again used his drones to make quick work of the liner’s robotic escorts. Then, in quick succession the Phantom had loosed several slugs from rail cannons that obliterated the liner’s bridge and engine pods.
About twenty yards in front and to the left, Max could make out the silver-uniformed bodies of several crewmembers drifting in the vacuum. He grimaced and had trouble taking his eyes away. Max checked the elapsed time. Halfway there. He checked diagnostics on the ship’s attachment system and thrusters. They were ready to depart. He fidgeted with the small patch that was stuck on his right temple. The neural piloting interface was all right, but Max preferred the tactile feedback of a traditional piloting system.
Two minutes left. Max heard a clank on the hatchway behind him.
“Finished early,” Max said as he turned. Except the head that popped through the hatch didn’t belong to Gauntlet or any of her crew. Max popped his restraints and grabbed the plasma pistol on his hip. The young man scrambled through the hatch and brought a small laser pistol to bear on Max. The two men stood meters apart, fingers on the triggers of their weapons.
“Don’t do it, kid,” Max said, “You’ll never escape alive.”
“Get out,” the kid said, “I’m taking the shuttle.”
“Do you think you’ll get far? Do you think the ship that carved up this liner will let you leave in peace?”
The kid hesitated.
“You’ll just end up working for him, kid. Take my word for it, you don’t want that.”
Gauntlet burst through the hatch, slammed one fist into the kid’s chest and pulled his weapon away with the other. She threw the weapon on the ground, grabbed the kid around the neck, and started to squeeze.
“What are you doing?” Max asked.
“What does it look like?” She replied.
“Don’t kill him.”
“What?”
“Let him go.” Max raised his weapon.
“You better be prepared to shoot that, Max.”
“I am,” he said, “Let him go.”
“Why should I? Why do you care?”
“Because he doesn’t need to die, Gauntlet. He’s just a kid, a scared kid who was just trying to run away.”
“Gauntlet, report,” Ironheart’s voice burst over their earpieces.
“Standby, sir,” she said. The kid was pulling at the oversized fingers of her robotic gauntlet, his face red from exertion and desperation.
“Let him go,” Max said, placing a second hand on the pistol to steady his aim.
“What do you think will happen to you, Max? Think Ironheart will let you live? You’ll be dead as soon as you pull that trigger.”
Max stared at her, unblinking. “I know. Death might be a bit of a relief at this point. I’ve lost my daughter, my wife…well, my-ex. No friends. I don’t have much to live for. Can you say the same?”
“Gauntlet, report,” Ironheart said again.
Seconds ticked away as Max and Gauntlet stared each other down. Max’s finger tightened on the trigger.
With a snarl, Gauntlet loosened her grip and the kid gasped. She grabbed him by the scruff of the shirt and threw him through the hatch.
Max lowered the pistol and put it back in his holster. Gauntlet stared at him and the other members of her team filed on-board. Silence lingered between them.
“Gauntlet, goddamn it, what’s going on?”
She put a finger to the back of her right ear. “Gauntlet here, sir. We’ve finished our sweep.”
“What happened?”
She looked at Max. “Nothing of note, sir. Just a passenger trying to throw a wrench in the works.”
Max exhaled. “Thank you,” he said.
The shuttle’s hatch closed. “Return, return, return.” The order from Ironheart came through all their earpieces.
Max turned and sat in the pilot’s chair. His heart was pounding in his ears. The shuttle eased away from the liner and Max took a deep breath. A robotic hand clamped onto the back of his chair and crumpled its edge. “Do that again,” Gauntlet said, “And you better shoot.”
“Thank you for letting him live,” Max said, “You did a good thing.”
“Save it,” she said. She walked away and sat on a bench of the rear of the ship.
The shuttle turned and the Phantom filled Max’s view.
***
Two hours after the raid and The Phantom’s bar was backed with just about every single one of Ironheart’s crew, save for the captain himself. Max retreated to a small two-person table along the side wall out of the main flow of traffic. It took him about twenty minutes, but he was finally able to get a beer. He took a long draught, emptying half the mug. The beer was bitter and had a trace of a chemical smell, a sign that somewhere in the bar’s distillery was an overused and under-maintained water processor.
Max drained the mug with another long pull and put it down on the table. He saw across the room that Gauntlet was sitting with the three other members of her crew. One of her crew, the one with the mechanical eye, Max thought his name was Iris or Vision or something, caught sight of Max and waved him over. For a second, Max considered grabbing a beer and heading back to his quarters, but that would mean sitting their staring into the void alone with only the sound of his thoughts. Max ambled to the bar and ordered two more beers.
Nobody batted an eyelash at him as he wound his way through the crowd back to Gauntlet’s table. He held his breath as he put a full mug on the table in front of Gauntlet. “Thank you,” Max said, “Thank you for letting that kid go. No hard feelings?”
The conversation at the table stopped. Gauntlet looked up at him and the other three members of her crew looked at her. She stared at Max and her piercing gaze made him want to slink back to his table along the wall.
“The would require her to have feelings,” the scraggly young man with the mechanical eye said.
Gauntlet rolled her eyes and smiled. “Optic, shut the hell up. I want to make him stand there and squirm for a few more minutes.” She raised the beer and nodded at Max. “Brute, Crank, make room and let our fair pilot have a seat. He survived his first mission.”
Max exhaled and sat between Brute, a bald young woman who seemed to have computer screens grafted into her arms and silver fingertips on both hands, and Crank, a young man with silver robotic joints in his shoulders, elbows, wrists, and well, Max had to guess at the rest.
Gauntlet took a large drink. “I want to know why though, Max. Why’d you stick your neck out for him? If the situation were reversed, I doubt he would’ve batted an eyelash if someone was going to off you.”
“Maybe,” Max said with a shrug, “Can’t say for sure. Just didn’t see a reason for him to die.”
“He was a threat to our mission.”
“He still had the safety on his pistol,” Max said, “He was just scared and confused. That’s not a reason to kill him. Shouldn’t kill if you don’t have to.”
“Aren’t
you the saint?” Gauntlet said.
“No,” Max said, “No, I’m not. I just think a life should be worth more than that.”
“More than what?” Gauntlet challenged.
Max took a long drink. He really wasn’t in the mood to get his face pummeled by Gauntlet and whoever else decided to join in here. He was searching for something else to talk about when Gauntlet decided to back off.
“As long as you pull our asses out of the fire with the same courage you showed back there,” she said. The others laughed and some of the tension faded.
“I gotta tell ya, Max,” Crank said, “You got real balls of steel to pull a stunt like that. When you finally decide to sign on for good, we’ll change your name to Nuts.”
“Goin’ to be hard to tell he’s walkin’ around with an iron sack,” Brute said.
“He’ll be walking around everywhere like he’s got a load of crap in his pants,” Gauntlet said, “We’ll be able to tell.”
They laughed again. Brute signaled the bartender to bring them another round of beers.
“Nice,” Max said, “But I’m not here for the long haul.”
“I said the same thing ten years ago,” Gauntlet said.
Max’s eyes widened. “You couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16.”
“14,” she said.
“What happened?” Max asked.
“That conversation requires a helluva lot more beer,” Gauntlet said, “Another time.”
“Fair enough,” Max said.
“What are you after, Max?” Optic asked.
“A young woman who was helping me.”
“Your daughter?”
“Heard they were after both of ya.”
“No,” Max said, “Someone else. A kid caught up in something she didn’t understand.”
“How old is she?”
“23,” Max said, looking at Gauntlet. “But she didn’t…”
“Didn’t what?” Gauntlet asked.
“Well…I just don’t want her to spend the rest of her life in a Republic prison.”