by M. R. Forbes
Options. What were his options? He needed to escape. How? They had stuck him in here for a reason. It was stripped down, basic. It was the perfect place to keep someone with his skillset.
He put his hands against the wall, sliding them along it, feeling it out. There were a few slight ridges on the sides, small indents that bolstered his assumption they had put him in a shipping container. He kept going until his hands came up to the front, finding the nearly invisible hinges and seals at the base. If he had use of the Gift, he might be able to pop them free. Now?
He reached out for the Gift.
There was no response.
Damn it.
He kept running his hands along the sides. He had to find a way out. He had to think of something. Hayley was gone, and unless he did something the whole war effort would be gone with her. He knew the Gloritant wouldn’t kill her, that would just make Abbey angry. He would hold her hostage, use her to make Abbey comply. That was worse.
He took a few more minutes to explore his prison. Then he sat back again, considering, forcing himself to stay calm and think. It wasn’t over until he was dead.
Then again, Thraven could do things to him that would be worse than death.
He forced the thought away. He wasn’t going there.
He stood again, returning to the front of the container. He ran his fingers into the seam at the bottom. Freich’s soldiers had taken everything from him. Everything except the Gift. They could diminish it; they could distract it, they couldn’t take it. He had to get it to respond.
He focused on his hands, trying to will the naniates to shift from the location of the poison to the end of his fingers. He closed his eyes, concentrating. He still didn’t know exactly how commands were delivered from his consciousness to the atomic machines. Chemicals? Electric impulses? Brainwaves? Did it even matter?
“Come on,” he said. “Do something. I’m dead anyway if I don’t get out of here.”
He held his fingers in place, waiting to feel his skin tingle, a sign the Gift was present and responsive.
Nothing. Still fragging nothing.
He drew his hands back in frustration.
“Fragging hell!” he shouted, the sound echoing in the box.
He heard another echo beyond it. A thump, then a pop. Then three more. Then it stopped.
He waited. Listening. Breathing. His stomach rumbled. He put his hand on the injection site. It was still warm from the poison. He waited a few more minutes. Had he really heard something out there?
He sat down, fighting to keep himself calm. The Republic was doomed. The galaxy was doomed. The Gate was finished, so maybe the One was screwed, too? It served the fragger right.
Something knocked on the front of the container. Three times in quick succession.
“Mann? Cage? You in there?”
Olus hopped to his feet. Who was that?
“Anybody home?”
“I’m here,” he shouted. It came out as a dry cough. He cleared his throat. “Here.”
The container hissed as the seal was broken, the doors opened from the outside. It slid up and out of the way, revealing a bloody Colonel Quark behind it. He stared in at Olus as he licked some blood from his lip.
“Where’s Cage?” Quark hissed.
“They took her to another ship,” Olus said.
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes?”
“Maybe they haven’t left yet.” Quark tossed him a sidearm. “Let’s go.”
22
“What the hell is going on, Quark?” Olus asked as they ran from the small hold where he had been left. It wasn’t the same place as where he had been thrown into the container, confirming that he had been moved.
“Fragging chaos,” Quark replied. “My apologies, Captain. I didn’t know what the Don had planned.”
“You got me out. Forget the past. We need to get to the hangar.”
“I like your attitude.”
They reached the door to the hold. Quark threw up his hand.
“Four tangoes,” he said. “Two and two.” He motioned both directions. “You take port on my mark.”
“Roger,” Olus said. He glanced down at his sidearm. It was a standard Republic pistol, simple and effective.
Quark waited a few seconds, looking ahead with his augmented eyes. Then he dropped his hand, at the same time he swung out into the corridor, facing the right.
Olus was only a half-second behind him, pivoting to the left. He found the two blacksuits in an instant and squeezed off a pair of rounds at the same time he dropped to a knee. He heard Quark’s reports behind him, and he didn’t spare a moment to think the mercenary might miss.
“Targets down,” Olus said as the two blacksuits dropped.
“Same here,” Quark said. “Staying that way?”
“Standby.”
Olus watched the two soldiers for a few seconds. They didn’t move again.
“Staying that way,” he said.
“Clear,” Quark said. “This way.”
“How do you know where the hangar is on this ship?” Olus asked as they ran.
“I already asked for directions on the way down,” Quark said. “He was more than obliging with a knife to his throat.”
They turned the corner. A squad of blacksuits was coming at them, and they froze in surprise at their sudden appearance.
Quark didn’t slow at all, barreling into the soldiers, his shoulder forward. He shoved them aside, knocking them against the walls with the strength of his suit, pushing past before turning on his heel.
Olus didn’t miss a beat, swinging his weapon right up against the head of a soldier and firing, kicking a second hard enough in the chest to drive him to the floor, ducking a hard punch and feeling warm blood hit his neck when Quark shot the blacksuit.
“Weeee,” Quark said, laughing. “You are my kind of badass, Captain.”
He returned to his run, leading Olus to a stairwell. They bounced down two decks, pouring out near the hangar. The doors were open, a larger star hopper facing the energy shield that kept the vacuum of space from entering.
“That’s probably it,” Quark said. “Come on.”
Olus followed him for a few steps before reaching out and grabbing his shoulder, bringing him up short.
“It’s too late,” he said.
“What? Bullshit?”
“Look,” Olus said, pointing out nearly a dozen soldiers in battlesuits. “We can’t get past that before-”
The thrusters on the star hopper flared bright blue and white, and it rocketed forward. The shields dropped just long enough for it to exit the Asmodeus, quickly gaining distance before vanishing in a disterium plume a few seconds later.
“Frag,” Quark said, seeing it go. “I should have checked here first.”
“You should have,” Olus agreed, his disappointment renewed. “Damn it.”
“Well, we still need to get ourselves off this bucket before we wind up on a one-way trip to the middle of the shitpile. Which means we still need to get through them.”
“What about your team?” Olus asked.
“The Riders? What about them?”
“They’re still cloaked out there, aren’t they?”
“How’d you know they’re cloaked?”
“Considering the fact that you’re here trying to help me instead of back with Don Pallimo they’re either cloaked or dead, and I don’t think you’d let them die that easily. What happened to the Don, anyway?”
“Long story, short on time,” Quark said. “I’ve got his cane right here.” He reached behind his back, pulling the device from his belt. He stared at it for a few seconds. “Hmm. I’ve got an idea.”
He pulled back, away from the hangar. Olus followed him. They ducked into a nearby unsecured room.
“Can you figure out how to work this thing?” Quark asked, passing the cane to Olus.
“What do you mean?” Olus asked.
“I dunno. It’s technical. I’m no
t much for technical past a certain point.”
“Says the merc with the bionic eyes.” Olus took the cane, looking it over. “It would be easier to decipher if I had any of my tools. Reich picked me clean.”
“Are you saying you can’t do it?”
Olus examined the cane. The surface was metal, and for the most part smooth. There were a few depressions on it that could potentially serve as triggers or inputs.
“It would help if I had any idea what I was looking for.”
“The Don used the cane to control his machines, among other things. Freich is loading up a bunch of drones that Thraven was planning to use to hunt down General Kett.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Only the Don wasn’t as much of a turncoat as we thought. They’re holding him hostage, the real him I mean.” He paused to laugh. “Whatever the real him is. Anyway, his synth pretty much handed me the cane before I destroyed it, which leads me to believe that he set up a nice surprise for these assholes.”
“And a distraction for us,” Olus said.
“Damn straight.”
Olus put his fingers on the cane’s inputs. “It wouldn’t make sense for him to use a complicated trigger. But it wouldn’t be smart to use something too simple, either. You knew the Don.”
“I work for the Don,” Quark corrected. “Big difference.”
“True, but if you’re right, the input has to be something you would guess. Something that Thraven either doesn’t know or wouldn’t give any thought to.”
Quark laughed. “Six sixty-six,” he said.
“What?”
“That’s the value of my contract, in millions.”
“Six six six?” Olus said, raising an eyebrow.
“The number of the beast, hell yeah. I know a lot more than most men like me should ever need to, and that’s all I’m going to say about it. If you know how to put it in, put it in.”
Olus found the first three inputs on the side of the device, and pressed them at once, six times each.
A red light started to flash on the top of the cane.
“It did something,” Olus said.
Quark opened the door, leaning out. “Hmm. I don’t-”
A warning tone began to sound in the ship, and the lights started alternating between red and white.
“Bam!” Quark said. “Now to call in the cavalry.” He reached to his suit, withdrawing a backup communicator. “Mullet, you copy?”
“Roger that, Colonel. Where are you? I’ve been trying to-”
“Yeah, whatever. You been keeping tabs on the big-ass warship orbiting the planet?”
“Of course, sir.”
“What do you see?”
“Looks like drones, sir. They’re swarming near the battleship’s hangar.”
“Perfect. I want the Quasar inside that same hangar in t-minus thirty seconds.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t ask questions, Mullet, just do it.”
“Roger.”
“Time to go, Captain,” Quark said, dropping the comm.
They moved back into the corridor, running toward the hangar. The sound of fire was obvious now, and when they got in view of the landing space, they could see the soldiers in battlesuits engaged with the drones, which had broken away from storage and were firing small lasers. They were simple things, wedge shaped and half the size of a starfighter. They were just large enough to mount small thrusters and a disterium drive, though the range on them had to be fairly limited based on the available storage space.
“I could stand here and watch this all day,” Quark said.
“Come on,” Olus said.
They charged into the hangar, taking the soldiers by surprise. The sidearm Olus was carrying didn’t have enough punch to get through a battlesuit, but he did, the seraphsuit providing enough strength for him to grab the armored soldier and throw him to the floor. He ripped the weapon from the soldier’s hands and turned it around, firing it point-blank into the solid chest piece of the suit at close enough range that the round was able to penetrate.
He turned his head, catching a second soldier tracking him. He dove away, rolling along the floor as bullets skipped off the ground behind him, the soldier’s aim catching up. He came to his feet facing the enemy at the same time the first of the rounds reached him. He felt one hit his shoulder, another dig into his abdomen. He fell again as the fire stopped coming, the soldier taken out by a dropship that hadn’t been there a few seconds earlier.
Olus rolled over, his body wracked with pain. The ship touched down in the hangar, side-mounted turrets adjusting and firing, the roar of the guns deafening in the space.
“Shit, Captain,” Quark said, coming up beside him. “Live long enough to get your ass on board, and we can fix this.” He leaned down, helping Olus to his feet.
The Gift wasn’t healing him. It was too weak, and the damage was too great. He could barely breathe, and when Quark lifted him, he thought he was going to pass out.
“Hang in there,” Quark said, holding him up and practically dragging him to the dropship.
He was mildly aware of the hatch opening, the two soldiers descending the ramp to cover him as he was carried on board. Then the soldiers returned, the hatch closed, and the light faded. He could feel the dropship accelerate hard, the forces pushing him back harshly enough he cried out in pain.
“Sorry, Captain,” Quark said. “Had to get away from the disterium field in a hurry. We’ll be on the Quasar in a minute, and I’ll hurry your ass down to medical. I’ve got something that’ll kick you right back into high gear.”
Olus grunted. Hayley was gone.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to get back up.
23
Gloritant Selvig Thraven sat on the bridge of the Promise, a smile spread across his face. It felt good to smile. It had been so long.
The Don had never seen it coming. He, or perhaps it was more correct to call the Don ‘it,’ had no idea that the Gloritant knew the truth of his passing, or of the neural network that had taken on the Don’s identity afterward.
After all, over two hundred years of life was easily attainable for wealthy Terrans. In fact, the right combination of stasis and regen treatments could allow the well-to-do over three hundred years in the right circumstances.
But poor Don Pallimo had fallen ill, stricken with an intractable brain tumor that was the result of his experiments with brain implants. What had been designed to augment neural function and open up a new realm of potential in organic and machine integration had been his death instead.
Poor, poor Don Pallimo.
He had come upon the Don’s dirty secret almost accidentally. It was Trinity who had carried out his command to kill the Minister of Oberon, the Outworld planet where the Don had stationed his artificial intelligence. It was Trinity who had examined the dead Minister’s brain and had come to the funeral in her search for information about his business dealings. Of course, Don Pallimo hadn’t been buried as Don Pallimo. He had taken yet another pseudonym while his network continued to make decisions about his businesses, and shortly after started to churn out synthetic replicas of the most powerful executive in the galaxy.
He had sent Honorant Freich to Gamlin to confront one of these synths without telling his Officer the truth of the matter, not right away. Not until his secondary units had captured the unmarked datacenter in the Oberon forest where the Don’s artificial doppelganger had been stashed. It was one of his smallest victories, and yet the one he was most pleased with.
Captain Mann had gone to Gamlin with Hayley Cage, seeking the protection of the Don. Only there had been no shelter to be found there, only betrayal of the best kind.
With the younger Cage under his thumb, the older Cage would follow soon enough.
But where was Abigail Cage? That was the question that circumvented his thoughts. They had crossed paths, and he had nearly killed her. He had come so close, but again she had escaped. And then? She had gone to General Kett, no doubt. Was she still wi
th the General? It was possible, but it didn’t sit well with him. She would never stand on the sidelines while her daughter was threatened.
So what was she doing?
“Your Eminence,” Honorant Bane said, approaching him and bowing.
“Honorant Bane,” Thraven said. “You have news?”
“Yes, Gloritant,” Bane said. “I’ve gathered reports from our assets throughout the Republic.”
The Honorant paused, waiting for permission to continue.
“Go on,” Thraven said.
He expected good news, but even setbacks in the overall effort couldn’t dim his spirits. Not today. They had the numbers. They had all of the advantages. He knew it was only a matter of time.
“Curlat has been seized by Honorant Shurin,” Bane said. “They are in control of the capital and have enacted martial law in the city and the surrounding area. Small pockets of resistance continue, but she expects them to be stamped out within the week.”
“Excellent,” Thraven said.
“The Fringe planets of Hulse and Boson have also been captured, your Eminence, in conjunction with the forces provided by the Governance. Chairman Swami sends his congratulations.”
“Chairman Swami still believes this war is for the benefit of the Outworlds,” Thraven said. “I’ll enjoy killing him myself. What about Earth?”
“The Nova Battlegroup has been dispatched back to the Terran homeworld to bolster the orbital defenses. As expected, the fiercest fighting is occurring there.”
“It is vital to our efforts that we gain control of Earth as soon as possible,” Thraven said. “The planet is a symbol of strength for the Republic and beyond, and the longer it remains contested, the longer my will is opposed.”
“Perhaps we should consider bringing the Promise into the fight, Gloritant?” Bane said, slightly hesitantly. “I’m certain you could end the resistance swiftly.”
“No. With Kell destroyed, we must conserve our advanced resources for our confrontation with the One. That is our true focus and goal, and the real source of the glory to come. If it takes a little longer to capture Earth, then so be it.”