by Andria Stone
“Parker update,” Ohashi announced. “I’m tied into the whole MPLE Security System. She must be traveling on a counterfeit ID. There wasn’t even a blip on my screen when the sneaky bitch passed through the Gate in Dome 2. She also hasn’t used credits since all the Argus transactions.”
“Argus?” Rayburn’s eyes were now piercing. “The arms merchant?”
“Yes,” Kamryn confirmed. “The Parkers made several major purchases.”
Rayburn asked, “Is it safe to assume she’ll have weapons there, too?”
Mark muttered, “It sure as hell is.”
“Then we should even the playing field.” Rayburn stepped away to contact someone on his tablet, but not far enough they couldn’t hear his side of the conversations. “I’m calling in the debt you owe. Deliver everything you have on hand to my ship, within the hour. Within. The. Hour.”
Ohashi nudged Mark under the table. He glanced over. She rose and moseyed toward the bedroom, carrying her screen, with Mark following a moment later.
“HQ sent verification of a raid on 112B Starburst Lane, the last known weapons location,” she informed him. “They found nothing. No guns, cyborgs or clones.” She began kicking at the pile of clothes they’d left on the floor. “This is driving me crazy. It’s gotta be somebody inside the MPLE.”
Mark caught her arm. “Listen, to move a large number of weapons, so many times, so fast, it must take an army of very strong men, or cyborgs, plus a fleet of vehicles to transport them. Do the Parkers own vehicles, trucks, or vans? How many? Do they have GPS or data recorders? Can we track them? Where are they?”
“Oh, why didn’t I think of that?” As they sat on the bed, Ohashi attacked her screen. “They own three vans, which are clustered with six others at the Aurora Spaceport tarmac.”
Mark could have run to the others with this news, but he needed more. “Can you backtrack them to find where they’ve been in the last 48 hours?”
“All three bunker addresses you’ve gotten from interrogations: Hillside, Skyview, and Starburst.”
Mark raced back to the kitchen, shouting, “She’s been moving the weapons around like musical chairs, from one bunker to another! They’re at the spaceport!”
Everybody scrambled to grab their gear and bolted for Rayburn’s van. He careened through the back streets as they donned battle gear. On the way, Mark huddled with Ohashi in the back.
“Contact Major Essex with the coordinates of the vans. Tell him under no circumstances is he to transmit or share this data with another living soul. If he ever wants to be a colonel, he must get there in the next ten minutes.”
***
Axel’s tension mounted as he crept forward in the semidarkness. At least six or eight cyborgs were transferring crates from vans into the hold of a boxcar-shaped transport ship. The entire team, except Rayburn, fanned out in a ring circling the craft. They tightened the perimeter one footfall at a time, like drawing in a belt. Rayburn was sent to await the weapons delivery at his ship and return with heavier firepower in time to bring down the cyborgs.
“Incoming,” Axel breathed into his comm. Lights of a hover trolley zigzagged across the tarmac grew nearer. Seconds ticked by. A sense of urgency intensified his heart rate as the lights advanced, not stopping until they disappeared into an area sandwiched between the vehicles and the ship. He heard muffled voices of several passengers milling about in the shadows, their faces hidden from view.
At the slightest noise to the rear, Axel spun around, both guns leveled at a figure burdened with three oversized rifles.
“Thought you might need these,” Rayburn whispered, holding out a tactical, semiautomatic GK-91.
A devilish grin creased Axel’s face. He took two, pulling the slings over his head; one rifle on his back, one in front. Axel flipped off the safety, fingered the trigger of the weapon, an old favorite nicknamed “Giantkiller” by every soldier who’d ever used one.
Another set of lights sped toward them. He shoved a handgun at Rayburn, motioning for him to stay back. The lights belonged to a dark van. It pulled up close to the open hatch, unloading a half-dozen people. Axel recognized the human outlines as mercenaries by their guns and body language, trained killers all of them. Tremors of exhilaration crept up his spine at the prospect of a firefight with bad guys. It had been too long.
From outside the dome, five linear rows of red lights flashed in a sequence from the belly of a giant warship hovering high overhead.
“Aw shit… Nothing like ringing the doorbell, Major Dumbass.”
Pandemonium broke out. People fled with the speed of roaches abandoning an urban slum. It took Axel eight microseconds to shoot both eyes out of the nearest four cyborgs, the targeting beam sights were perfectly calibrated. He aimed, fired, and they dropped like dominoes as the rest scattered.
Mercs jumped back into their vehicle to hightail it out of there as he burst from the shadows into the chaos, but Axel blasted the van’s power cells, rendering it inoperable. He fired into the van’s windshield, then set about disintegrating the power cells in each van as he passed.
Kamryn ran toward him, shouting, “Only use pulse weapons on humans. Not ammo.”
Axel unslung the GK-91 from his chest, heaving it at her. She caught it, whooped for joy, turned back to pursue errant cyborgs.
Axel pulled the spare rifle around to his chest, also drawing his sidearm as he neared the craft. Chaos reigned. Loud expletives filled the air as he darted from one vehicle to the next.
Coming around the rear of a van, he smacked head-on into a merc running at full tilt. They both staggered backward. Axel recovered first, nailing the merc point-blank with the heaviest stun possible. The merc’s knees buckled. He caved at the midsection, taking a nosedive to the tarmac.
Petra bolted into view, her left sleeve showed a ragged tear at the bicep. “Come quick!”
He trailed her to the hatch. Four bodies lay in a crumpled heap. Regardless, he recognized two: Colonel Oliva Rushing and Scarlett O’Donnell. “Damn.”
“No-no. They’re not dead. Just stunned. Eva and I did it.” Petra beamed with self-satisfaction. “I even got shot.” She pointed to the tear in her leather jacket. The excitement sparkling in her eyes was combat euphoria.
Axel picked up Rushing, hauled her into the ship, stuffed her in a chair, then repeated the process with the others. When they’d finished taking images of the comatose bodies, Axel broadcast into his comm, “Retreat.”
The tarmac outside vibrated with the unmistakable jarring footsteps of armored soldiers. Everyone made a dash for the hidden trolleys which would take them to Rayburn’s ship. Once everyone was aboard, Rayburn hurried to taxi through the airlock for the trip south to Meridian in Dome 2.
Axel found a MedKit while Petra eased out of her jacket and shirt, then held her hand for moral support. He scolded himself, a throwback to his sergeant’s days as the one responsible when his troops were injured.
Mark assumed his doctor duties again, but not before noticing Petra’s undergarment. “Do all our women wear lacy red lingerie?”
“We bought in bulk.” Petra winced and scrunched up her face as Mark cleaned the wound and applied butterfly bandages. “Oh, now I’ll have a battle scar! I’m going to get a tattoo just like yours.”
Mark ran to the pilot’s cabin, returned with a bottle of brandy. “Rayburn’s sorry, but there’s no painkillers, only brandy.
Petra took a swig straight from the bottle. “This is for medicinal purposes.” She smiled, then took a second. “This is one for the road—or sky.”
Mark draped a blanket over her chest before harnessing her in for the flight.
Rayburn announced over the comm, “Liftoff in five…four…three…”
They all scurried to fasten harnesses prior to launch.
“Sitrep,” Axel said. “Causalities, logistics, intel.”
Kamryn began. “I neutralized two cyborgs and a merc. Saw someone who might have been the pilot, but he got away.”
“No, he didn’t,” Ohashi said. “I stunned the crap out of him, plus a merc who called me a ‘girl’. He won’t be thinking that when he wakes up.”
Eva raised four fingers. “Petra saw feet underneath the vessel. We crawled beneath it to ambush them. If I’d known who they were, I might not have been able to fire on them.”
“I knew who they were: Rushing, O’Donnell, and both Bryant’s. I’d memorized the faces of everyone even remotely tied to…this situation....” Closing her eyes, Petra leaned against Axel’s shoulder. “I don’t mind getting winged at all…for one of our own….”
“I got two mercs,” Mark said, “plus images of the weapons in crates, ship’s ID, and disabled cyborgs.”
“I got four cyborgs in addition to a merc,” Axel reported. “So, we might have missed two mercs, who may have escaped, if they’re smart, but the two cyborgs will be caught. I wasn’t close enough to hear conversations, only muffled voices. But O’Donnell and Rushing being there—”
“Is unsettling, yes,” Mark said. “I’m not willing yet to decide if their presence was a ruse to go undercover, or if they’re capable of joining forces with the likes of Valerie Parker.”
Petra’s head lolled to her chest. Axel swung his arm around her shoulders to steady her.
Mark continued, “Somewhat off the subject, I calculated a minimum of 300 crates of weapons are no longer bound for Dome 2. I opened a crate.” Mark held out his tablet for Axel to see the screen. “Do you recognize these?”
Axel stared in disbelief at the image. “Those are Terran.”
Mark asked, “Since Argus sold them, wouldn’t they be Terran? Or does Mars manufacture their own weapons?”
“No, I mean TMD Military grade weapons. The same GDX-97 model is currently being used.”
“Well, either someone stole them from the TMD, or the company is branching out into the illegal arms trade,” Mark theorized.
Axel turned to Ohashi. “Can you encrypt and send from this ship?”
She delivered a deadpan look.
“Of course, you can.”
Both men handed their tablets to her. Ten minutes later, files were uploaded, encoded, and sent to Dimitrios with a special warning to inventory all GDX-97 weapons identified by Axel.
The team dozed in silence until they landed. Except for Axel. Holding Petra rekindled thoughts of Maeve. His mind drifted to the last quiet time he’d spent with her in the garden on the Space Station after her birthday dinner. With eyes closed, he recalled the way her hair glowed in the starlight.
Axel’s eyes popped open, he shook his head, tossing the maudlin thoughts away before the pain settled in. Eva warned him about “stuffing his feelings,” calling it an unhealthy coping mechanism, but from their combat tonight, such as it was, he felt relaxed. He’d released the tension that had been building since the run-in with Victor Parker and his mercs. Killing Valerie Parker would put an end to his obsession for revenge. In the process, it would stop her takeover of Mars.
A mental image of her roasting on a spit over the fires of hell brought a smile to his face. Axel savored it until Rayburn announced, “Landing in five…four…three…”
Chapter 12
Valerie Parker hummed to herself while she inventoried the most recent shipment of weapons transferred from Aurora to her warehouse in the Dome 2 city of Meridian. She expected another delivery soon. These armaments were a means to the end of a plan set in motion by her mother years ago. After a few recent mishaps, everything remained on schedule. In the end, Dr. Mark Warren would lose his life, and Mars would be under her control.
A beep from her tablet echoed in the warehouse. She read the message. The expertly applied makeup on her plain, small-featured face cracked with rage. The three young female clones who were assisting her saw the transformation and tried to back away.
The nearest girl wasn’t quick enough.
Valerie smashed the tablet against the girl’s face with such violent force it propelled her up into the air. Blood spurted from her nose as she fell on a stack of containers. Terrified, the girl twisted around and scaled the cases, trying to escape.
Valerie whirled to face the others, now too far away. If she’d been quick on her feet, she might have caught them, but the Parker’s were what was referred to on Old Earth as “corn-fed,” thick in bone and girth. “Come back here, you scrawny little—”
Her tablet beeped again. She grabbed a rag to wipe off the smeared blood on its surface, then tapped the screen. The new message reiterated the information she’d just received, however, this vid recording showed a furious mercenary screaming threats.
“—an ambush by Terran Military. On Mars. Who the hell invited those sonsabitches? They seized the weapons, which you hadn’t paid for yet. Shot the shit out of the vehicles. Only two of us escaped. I delivered. You owe me. If I don’t get paid in the next couple of hours, there will be fatal consequences. You hear me, bitch? Don’t even think about doing business with someone else! I’ve already blacklisted you!” He finished by giving her a universal one finger salute.
Hmph. She’d pay him all right. With interest. But he wouldn’t live long enough to spend it. Valerie spun on her heels to search out the runaway clones.
Now for the Terrans. She knew it involved Mark Warren. Why was that one human so hard to kill? The other three Terrans on the Space Station hadn’t presented much of a problem. Well, the woman had kicked Victor in the genitals and spat on Valerie. Poor etiquette for a woman about to lose her life, although it had taken four shots to bring her down.
Valerie sent a message to her MMC connection demanding to know why he hadn’t warned her concerning the TMD raid on the ship. No answer came. Maybe the stupid twit had also been apprehended.
Another beep from her tablet. Not her inside man with the Martian military, but the attorney for her brother. Victor and the mercenaries were being transferred off-world to an undisclosed location, bail was denied, and her attorney would not take the case.
She felt an episode coming on; histrionics, a total meltdown. Her volcanic temper would erupt at any moment. She pulled the stun baton out of her pocket as she quickened her search for the runaway clones. A gray tarp shifting in the corner drew her attention. She flung it away, uncovering the three shivering girls. Valerie set the stun on the lightest setting, jabbing the girls one after another, countless times, while they whimpered and cried until they were unconscious.
Winded, she doubled over to catch her breath, then messaged her warehouse foreman to bring three fresh clones. She would let him do whatever he wanted to with these.
The last two mishaps meant she’d have to start the countdown a little earlier than projected. In her office, she set up a vid conference with her contact in the Dome 1 city of Polaris.
“Dreghor, I have a new proposition for you.”
A bald albino male with multiple skin piercings materialized on her screen. His reddish colored eyes darted back and forth. “I’m game. What kind of Machiavellian twist do you want to throw into the mix?”
“We'd agreed on a cascade effect, except something's come up. I need all military communications shut down simultaneously.”
“Whoa, that’s three times as hard to do. I’m assuming you don’t want the geosats blown up, just taken offline for a short time, huh?”
“Correct. There’s a half-million-dollar bonus in it for you, plus twenty clones.”
“Fifty clones.”
“Twenty-five.”
“Forty.”
“Thirty.”
“Done. Half of them now.”
“Ten now. The rest upon delivery.”
“Agreed,” he said. “Is this still according to your original timetable?”
“Correct. It’s to coincide with the synchronized bombings of the MMC compound in each dome. While the military’s disabled underground, all communication capabilities must be taken offline. That won’t be a problem on your end, will it?”
“I may not be pre
tty, but I am efficient. Consider it done. Put those girls on a shuttle and send them over, tout suite! I got a new game I wanna play.” He flashed a toothy grin, showing teeth chiseled into razor-sharp points.
“Of course.” She pierced him with a glare. “You will send me progress reports every other hour beginning…now. Understand?”
“No problem.” His smiling image faded as the screen returned to black.
Valerie flipped to another screen, checking for the umpteenth time on the status of the explosive devices hidden in each military complex. Victory was so close, the sweet taste of success hovering within her grasp. Her mother’s dreams of establishing a clone-cyborg presence on Europa had never come to fruition because she’d been murdered by Mark Warren. Now he was about to pay with his worthless life as she claimed her destiny.
***
Mark and Axel unloaded weapons into Rayburn’s small safe house in Dome 2 while the women emptied the van. Ohashi assembled her digital components on the table, hoping to catch news of the tarmac skirmish back in Aurora.
Nothing. No webnews coverage. No netchatter. Nothing.
A cranky Ohashi sat glowering at her screens, lips pursed, arms crossed, waiting for a hit matching any of her programming.
People avoided the kitchen until she hollered, “Vid conference! Hurry!”
They came running.
Major Essex appeared alone on screen in a dress uniform, giving them a victorious grin like he’d just been promoted. “After recent events, General Lance has, at last, acknowledged the presence of an unidentified spy in the MMC who’s working for the Parkers. We commandeered the Gemini ship, captured eight cyborgs, arrested six mercenaries, and seized 279 crates of illegal TMD weapons. Ah, this is the sticky part. The four people inside the ship, including Rushing, maintain they were following a lead, trying to infiltrate—”
Axel cut him off, shouting, “Have you seen the vid of the cryopods in the governor’s basement? O’Donnell and Rushing playing kissy face with the Bryant’s? Or heard the interrogation from Victor Parker stating their plan to take control of Mars, with Bryant on their payroll?” The veins bulged in his neck as his hands knotted into fists. “How about the guns, cyborgs, mercs, and the female clones being abused? Three TMD officers are dead! What more do you need?”