Unknown Cargo (The Meridian Crew Book 1)

by Blake B. Rivers

  “Anyone’s dog for a bone,” said Benkei.

  “Oh please,” said Drummond, rolling his eyes and drawing out the word “please.” “This is all part and parcel of the mercenary game; you of all people should know that, big fella. I find it hard to believe you’re risking your neck for those granola-eating hedonists over at the Presidium out of the kindness of your little hearts. And believe it or not, wholesale genocide is a little beyond the pale, even for me.”

  “That’s anew take for you,” said Amelia.

  “Hey,” said Drummond, surprise on his face. “People can have…a change of heart.”

  “Get to the point,” said Amelia.

  “My point is that you’re free to go. Our friend, Dr. Bryson, is currently en route with the payload that you’re being paid to destroy, so I suggest you get a move on.”

  “And what’s in this for you?” she demanded

  “I suppose telling you that I still have a small bit of fondness for you after all these years isn’t enough? Well, it’s true, believe it or not. And what’s more, I’m quite interested in what your little group is going to accomplish in this new world of ours. Call it professional curiosity, if you like.”

  Amelia scanned the group of men, expecting one to take advantage of her lowered guard and open fire. But not one did. Drummond looked at the three with an expectant expression.

  “Well, what’re you waiting for? We’re just as eager to ditch this place as you are,” Drummond said.

  “How do I know you won’t pump us full of plasma as soon as our backs are turned?” demanded Amelia.

  “I suppose you’ll just have to take a leap of faith on that particular score,” said Drummond with another smirk.

  A moment passed.

  “Let’s go,” said Amelia.

  With wary eyes, the three moved away from the door, past the Bowery Boys, and down the hall.

  “I’ll be seeing you, Ms. Durand!” called out Drummond, his cocksure voice carrying down the hall, over the sound of the team’s rapid footfalls.

  Chapter 30

  “Guys,” said Sam, her voice piping in through the comms on Amelia’s slate. “I hope you’re ready for a pickup, because you’re not gonna believe what’s going on out here.”

  “One thing or another,” said Benkei.

  “We’re ready,” said Amelia, the encounter with Drummond still on her mind. “Be ready for us in five minutes.

  “Got it.”

  The team ran through the halls, backtracking via the route they’d entered from. But though the area was just as black and foreboding as it had been before, it was now completely devoid of people.

  “Looks like they evacuated to wherever they were planning on evacuating to,” said Sasha, his voice echoing down the now-empty hallway.

  The three made their way to the airlock, suited up, and climbed back out of the escape hatch. Within moments, the Meridian swooped in, came to a stop above them, and opened the bottom hatch. Amelia, Benkei, and Sasha climbed in, sealed the hatch, and shucked their suits before rushing to the flight deck.

  “I was getting worried about you guys,” said Sam, looking over the group.

  “We had a few close calls,” said Amelia, settling into her seat and buckling in. “How’re things out here?”

  “The battle’s still going strong; I don’t know what’s gonna happen. But there’s something else on the battlefield now.’

  “What is it?” demanded Amelia.

  “Better that you just see,” said Sam.

  She pulled up on the stick, bringing the ship high above the city. The battle was still raging, with small blossoms of explosions lighting up and winking out, and contrail streams arcing here and there. The ship flew closer, covering the span of Crater and getting even closer to the battlefield, where they could see that it was indeed still raging, though now the field was littered with wrecked ships, dead troopers, and pulverized mechs.

  “See that?” said Sam.

  She pointed towards a massive white battle mech that was in the process of moving towards the battlefield.

  “Look at the size of that goddamn thing,” said Amelia, awe in her voice.

  “If it’s this noticeable from this distance, it has to be at least three times the size of a standard mech,” said Benkei.

  “That’s gotta be Bryson,” said Amelia.

  “Right,” said Amelia. “And if he’s got the payload, he’s definitely planning on launching it at Presidium.”

  “And I looked over the data when I was deleting it, and there’s no way he’ll be able to control a nano- machine swarm of the magnitude consuming the Presidium will result in. It’ll devour the city, then everything on the battlefield, then everything on the moon within hours.

  “I doubt he’s going to be listening to reason,” said Benkei.

  “Then we’ve got to take him out before he can do it,” said Amelia.

  “Here we go,” said Sam, gunning the engines and flying towards the mech. Once they got close enough, they could see the massive mech for what it was. It was enormous and, unlike the bipedal and quadrupedal designs that were common throughout the system, it was a hexapod, each leg large and curved, giving it the appearance of a huge, robotic spider. But they only had a few moments to look the thing over before a row of lights along the side of it illuminated and grew in intensity by the second.

  “Shit, those’re ion cannons!” said Amelia, noting the swirling white spirals forming in front of the lights.

  “Dreadnought-class weapons on a mech?” asked Benkei.

  “The amount of power that he’s got in that thing must be incredible,” said Sasha, awe in his voice.

  The cannons charged further, preparing to fire.

  “Sam!” shouted Amelia. “Move!”

  Sam nodded, turned back towards the controls and pulled the ship into a hard bank. And as soon as she did, three brilliant, white bolts of light as wide as the Meridian shot from the spider mech, barely missing the ship, dissipating into the depths of space beyond.

  “Goddamn!” shouted Sam. “The power on those beams is…is…just insane!”

  “Then let’s try not to get hit by them!” said Amelia, unbuckling from her seat.

  “Where are you going?” asked Benkei.

  “Bottom turret,” said Amelia. “Only way to get a clear shot.”

  But before she could leave, the image of Dr. Bryson appeared on the screen.

  “You made a foolish decision in turning against me!” he said, his face twisted in maniacal anger and illuminated by the deep red of the mech cockpit, a sheen of sweat glistening on his face.

  “The only stupid decision happening here is you using that weapon!” said Amelia, bracing onto the back of her chair as Sam prepared to evade another barrage of ion cannon fire.

  “On the contrary,” Bryson said. “Once I reduce the Eden cities to nano-paste, I’ll have all the raw material I’ll need to sculpt the moon.”

  “Wrong,” said Amelia. “You use that weapon, you kill everyone on Luna.”

  “Ha!” exclaimed Bryson in a barking laugh. “You think my data could be incorrect? I designed this entire colony! And now I’ll remake it in my image. After I destroy you all and your ship, that is.”

  The screen went dark and, not wasting a second, Amelia ran to the lower turret station, strapped in, and trained the reticle on the massive, lumbering mech.

  “What’re the odds I can punch through this thing?” asked Amelia into the comms.

  “No clue,” said Sam. “The armor on that mech’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before; it’s got to be as tough as a battleship.”

  “More bad news, Am,” said Sasha. “You have to shoot to disable. If you blast that mech apart, you might set off the weapon.”

  “Great,” said Amelia.

  “We’re scanning the mech now to see if there are any weak points you could exploit,” he continued. “Just hang in there.”

  Just as he finished, Amelia spotted a long row
of missile ports opening.

  “Sam, that thing looks loaded with stiletto missiles,” said Amelia. “Those things’ll swarm on us if you let them get too close.”

  “Yeah, no shit,” said Sam. “Try and shoot down the ones you can; I’ll dodge the rest.”

  Right then, the missiles launched from the back of the mech, flying towards the Meridian with wild, curving contrails. Amelia exhaled, placed her fingers on the triggers of the twin sticks, and fired, launching a rapid stream of laser fire at the missiles. She swept slowly across the swarm of incoming missiles, managing to connect with a handful, which exploded in small puffs of fire. But a few still remained and raced towards the ship, closing in by the second.

  “Hold on!” shouted Sam.

  She then pulled the Meridian into a frantic spin, pulling up and away from the missiles. Amelia pressed back into her seat under the force of the climb, the stars beyond spinning into white circles. But it worked; the missiles flew past the ship and exploded in harmless bursts.

  “Nice flying, Sam!” called Amelia through the comms.

  “All my flying is nice flying.”

  Amelia shook her head and smiled just as Sasha’s voice broke through the comms.

  “OK, Am- here’s the deal. Those ion cannons are connected directly to the power supply. If you can knock them out while they’re in the process of firing, it should short the mech’s internal power plant.”

  “So, all we have to do is fly directly into the path of the ion beams that’ll carve us into pieces if they connect.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say it would be easy.”

  “Great.”

  Amelia looked down toward the surface and saw that they were nearly on top of the battle.

  “Sam..” she said.

  “I see it, I see it,” Sam replied.

  They matched the speed of the mech, with Sam trying to bait it into an attack. But the stray fire from the battle was now starting to come dangerously close. Amelia watched as a pair of Eden tanks fired on the mech, only to be blasted into hot scrap by the mech’s forward-facing plasma saws. Sam began banking left and right, dodging both the weapons-fire and the various spacecraft that were busy launching salvos of plasma and coil-gun fire at one another.

  “We’re running out of time,” said Amelia.

  But right at that moment, the ion cannons on the side of the mech began to power to life once again. White hot charges began to form, and Amelia could see that they were all pointed right at the Meridian.

  “There!” Sam called out. “We got about fifteen seconds before they fire!”

  “I’m on it,” said Amelia.

  She centered the leftmost cannon in her reticle, exhaled, and fired a blast of plasma at it. It hit home, exploding the cannon battery in a burst of white-hot light.

  “Eight seconds,” said Sam.

  The remaining two batteries were nearly charged, the swirling light in front of them increasing in intensity and speed. Amelia breathed in and out, and fired. The second battery suffered the same fate as the first, leaving only one left.

  “Nice shot, but you got four seconds!”

  The battery was now super-charged, the light seeming to wobble back and forth violently as it pointed directly at the ship. But Amelia fired one last blast. It hit, the white light blinking out, the mech freezing in place, now covered in jagged arcs of electricity that coursed across its smooth white body.

  “Got it!” said Sam, Benkei and Sasha cheering in the background.

  Amelia sat back in her seat, watching the body of the mech grow smaller and smaller, along with the rest of the participants of the battle, as Sam pulled the ship up and away. But as they rose, Amelia watched as the three remaining ovoid ships of the Lunar Initiative were lit up with a barrage of sustained fire from the Eden fleet. The ships rippled with slow, creeping explosions before being pulled gently down to the surface by the low gravity of Luna. The ships crashed into the bulk of the Initiative forces, engulfing everything nearby in a tremendous explosion.

  “I think the tide of that battle can now be considered ‘turned’,” said Benkei over the comms.

  Amelia unbuckled and left the turret room, returning to the flight deck just in time to see the image of the Guru appear on the screen.

  “We did it!” he said, jubilation in his voice. “The command ships of the Initiative have been destroyed, and the rest of the forces have been routed. And I assume your mission was a success?”

  “Just barely,” said Amelia, exhausted beyond measure.

  “A ‘barely’ success is a success, nonetheless,” he said. “Please, fly back to the Presidium. We’re going to mop up the rest of the enemy forces, and once we do, we want to give you the thanks you deserve.”

  With that, the screen went dark.

  “Thanks are great,” said Sam, pulling the ship into a steady, straight path. “But money’s better.”

  Amelia laughed. She couldn’t agree more.

  Chapter 31

  Amelia looked over the body of Dr. Bryson. Or, more accurately, what remained of it. His lower half had been reduced to the same gray, hard material that had remained when Sasha had managed to turn off the signal to the nanoweapon in the test lab. But it wasn’t just limited to his legs; the material had managed to consume the left half of his body, from his waist up to his face, which was twisted into a horrible expression of agony. He was half-melted into the goo, only a small portion of his body remaining untouched when the nanoweapon ceased consuming him.

  “We thought you’d like to confirm that this…beast was dead before we incinerated his body,” said the Guru, his slim hands folded in front of him as he stood near the team in the large medical facility where they were all gathered.

  “Not the way I’d prefer to go,” said Benkei, leaning over the body where it lay on a metal rack, the harsh yellow light from above illuminating it.

  “It’s not the way any of us would like to….go out,” said the Guru. “And we have you to thank for saving us from this fate.”

  “What happened?” asked Amelia, looking over Bryson’s ruined body.

  “When we overloaded the power supply of the mech, the nanoweapon broke free from its containment, just as we feared would happen,” said Sasha. “The power supply on the ship eventually went out entirely, shutting off the nanoweapon. But not before they were able to do, well, this.”

  “Good riddance,” said Amelia, turning away from the body.

  “Let us leave this place,” said the Guru.

  They five of them left the medical area and went back out into one of the many halls of Presidium.

  “You will have full payment transferred to your account by the end of the day, naturally,” said the Guru. “And, as the saviors of our people, you are free to indulge in any and all of the luxuries our city has to offer.”

  Amelia thought that over, but, deep down, she was really just eager to get off the rock and back out into space.

  “What’s going to happen with the Lunar Initiative, if I might ask?” said Benkei.

  “The battle between the cities was a resounding victory for us; we managed to break the back of the Lunar Initiative forces despite their technological advantage. A meeting between our delegations has been arranged, and we expect their full cooperation in submitting as a client- state to us, as well as giving our people full supervision over their research, in order to make sure something like this never happens again.”

  When the group reached the large plaza that led to the Guru’s hall, the Guru held his hand up, bringing them to a halt.

  “I’m afraid there are many pressing matters that I must attend to,” he said. “Much is to be done now that the conflict has been resolved. Again, you have my thanks, and the thanks of my people. Farewell, my children.”

  And with that, the Guru left, leaving the group alone in the vast plaza, the soft bubbling of the many fountains the only sound in the air.

  “I suppose our engagement in this little conflict has be
en the thing to tip the balance of power in this region,” said Benkei.

  “Yeah, for better or for worse,” said Amelia, leaning against one of the nearby classical-style columns that decorated the plaza and slipping a cigarette out of her pocket.

  “I can’t help but think having these Luddites monitor the research of the Initiative won’t be in the best interests of technological development.”

  “Perhaps,” said Benkei. “But when life-exterminating superweapons are what’s being developed, maybe the brakes can afford to be pressed just a bit.”

  Then, Benkei’s face brightened, and he clasped his hands together.

  “Well, I’d say we’ve deserved a little bit of a break after what we’ve been through,” he said.

  “No kidding,” said Sam. “I’m gonna take inventory of what the Meridian needs for when we get to the next supply station, now that we actually have some money to spend, then I’m gonna find a real bar with booze that isn’t wine that tastes like candy bars.”

  Amelia noticed that Sasha had a faraway look in his eyes and a playful smirk on his face. Turning to see what he was looking at, she saw Galentina sitting on an ornate bench nearby, dressed in the muted colors of the Edeners, a seductive expression on her face as she made eyes at Sasha.

  “I think I know how I’ll be passing the next couple of days,” said Sasha, starting off towards Galentina. “Call me if you need anything…or better yet, don’t.”

  “And what about you, Am,” asked Sam. “If anyone deserves a break, it’s you.”

  “I don’t know,” said Amelia. “I’m not really the lounging-around-eating-grapes type.”

  “I can understand that,” said Benkei. “But in our line of work, you need to get your rest and relaxation whenever and wherever you can.”