“He looks like he killed a mechanic and put on his skin,” chuckled Exo.
Bombassa flitted his eyes from Exo to Keel. “See?”
“Can’t be helped,” Keel said, trying not to roll his eyes. The last thing any of them should want was to get identified as military. Cresweil reacted violently to anyone they believed might be there to enforce that now-forgotten three-percent tax… or to shut things down on behalf of some Republic world tired of not having their exorbitant tariffs paid out.
Keel watched as a vendor at their corner gestured demonstratively at an N-4 rifle he held in one hand, seeking to convince a prospective buyer that what he held was the weapon the shopper was looking for. The vendor, who wore a flak jacket bulging with charge packs and fraggers, jammed a fresh pack into the N-4 and fired several rounds into the air, as if to demonstrate the reliability of his inventory.
Exo and Bombassa instinctively jumped, while Keel sat on impassively. “Relax, guys.”
Scowling, Exo said, “Yeah, well, shock trooper training kind of requires that sort of response, bro.”
“So does Legion training,” added Bombassa, giving Keel a hard look. “Or at least… it once did.”
Keel gave a sardonic half smile. “Well, around here… jumping at the sound of blaster rifles shot into the air reveals you as a fresh-off-the-ship sucker. Or a soldier. And neither of those do well on Porcha.”
Exo looked around. At first, Keel thought he was scanning the crowd for the rest of his team of shock troopers to arrive. But instead he said, “When’s our drinks getting here?”
A server—some species that looked like a hybrid of snake, octopus, and human—emerged from the interior of the cafe. The three men had taken advantage of the sunny weather and sat outside. As the server slithered toward them, its torso upright like a gorgon, its tentacles delivered drinks to the various patrons sitting among the maze of tables.
“Here you go,” a fairly attractive human-like face said, delivering three drinks.
Keel nodded a silent thanks, while Exo practically dove for his drink.
“I said bring me two!” Exo called out after the server. He fished out a pulpy citrus rind that floated with the ice on the surface of the red liquor. “She better not take her time,” he mumbled to himself.
Bombassa took a sip of his own drink, made a face of displeasure, and set it back on the table. He looked to the steaming cup of caff Keel had in front of him. “Why are you the only one not drinking?”
Keel held out an open palm plaintively. “Because one of us has to stay sober.” He leaned back in his seat and scanned the bustling streets. “When is your team supposed to arrive? You’d think they’d be waiting for us.”
Exo bottomed out his glass and breathed a ragged sigh. “They said on the comm that they hadn’t left the ship before now. Probably got lost on the way.”
“Swell.” Keel thumped the side of his drink. If the shock troopers had spent all their time holed up in their ship, then there was no way that Gannon could have had the opportunity to perform the task he’d been hired to do. Which wasn’t the worst thing in the galaxy, but it certainly took some options off the table.
Through the teeming crowds of the bazaar, three men pushed through the throngs of people like drops of water in a pan of hot oil. They each had the high and tight quarter-inch haircut popular among Republic marines and other combat personnel. They wore black T-shirts, parade-polished black boots, and black fatigue pants. The bulge of their concealed blasters was obvious.
“Oh, brother,” Keel said upon catching sight of the coming shock troopers. They were moving at a slow jog and looked as though they were part of a city garrison out for some friendly PT in the streets. More than a few bots and drones seemed to be monitoring their movement from overhead, and every shopper, vendor, or gang member they jostled past responded with the most telling of glares. It was obvious the guys had never been in Dark Ops with the way they were drawing attention to themselves. Keel wondered if they were ever even Legion. Their entire manner seemed somehow… off.
He glanced over at Bombassa and Exo. They didn’t convey any sense of warm-heartedness over the pending reunion. Their faces were all business.
“Your friends are making quite a scene,” Keel observed dryly. “They all former Legion like you?”
Exo exchanged a look with Bombassa before focusing his attention on Keel. “They’re shooters, and they say they’re Legion.”
“But…” prompted Keel.
“They don’t know the Legion,” Exo continued before looking around for the absent server. He eyed Bombassa’s drink and smiled as the shock trooper slid it in his direction. “Thanks,” Exo said. “Hot out today.” He took a large gulp. “Anyhow, yeah. They get how the Legion works, but in that way that makes you feel like they weren’t actually in the Legion. ’Bassa thinks they were RA or marines embedded with leejes.”
Keel looked to Bombassa to see if the big man was willing to provide any elaboration.
Bombassa shrugged. “They are quiet whenever talk of former units, commanders, shared acquaintances—things like that—come up.”
“I guess as long as they know how to fire a blaster in the right direction,” Keel offered, blowing away a column of steam rising from his caff, a hot drink for a hot day, but that never bothered him. “I mean, look at the MCR. You can start out as paramilitary, be as sleek and professional as you want, but at the end of the day, it takes a hell of a lot of blasters to go up against the Republic. Eventually you just need bodies.”
Bombassa grunted in agreement while Exo finished off his second drink. He snapped his fingers in an attempt to gain the server’s attention—to no avail. “What’s a guy gotta do to get his second drink, threaten the waitress with a blaster?”
“You had your second drink,” said Bombassa.
Exo winked. “I had your first drink. Still waiting on my second.”
Keel laughed, and Exo smiled. “So you’re right about the numbers thing,” Exo said, clinking two round chunks of ice at the bottom of his glass. “I’ve always said the whole point of throwing in with Sullus is to get the Legion to open their eyes and add their strength to the fight. That’s how the House of Reason comes down. Sheer force.”
“If they go for it,” Keel countered.
“Yeah. But how about you? Why don’t you add yourself to our numbers, Ford?”
Keel gave his most patronizing smile and slowly shook his head. “Because there’s a lot more money to be had as a free agent.”
“Some things,” Bombassa said, his voice earnest, “are more important than money.”
“Not from what I’ve seen.”
Keel’s comm chimed, and he looked down at the signature pattern lighting up from the comm unit attached to his shirt. “That’s Ravi. I’m gonna take this inside. Too many ears for hire out here to talk about anything real important, fathom?”
“The Black Fleet is important,” Exo insisted.
Keel winked. “Sure. Don’t let your buddies make the mistake of unpacking those blasters they’re trying to hide when they show up. I wouldn’t like it, and neither would any of the dozen or so others watching them come your way.”
The shock troopers arrived at the table just after Keel disappeared into the quiet darkness of the main building.
***
“Okay, Ravi, go ahead.” Keel was sitting alone in the darkest corner booth he could find. The niceness of the day, combined with it being hours before the rush of sellers and buyers done with a day’s trade and demanding drinks to celebrate or mourn business deals, left the place empty enough for Keel to keep close watch on anyone who might be observing him, but there was still enough interior buzzing to provide a din of conversation to drown out his voice.
“I am watching the shock troopers’ craft via TT-9 observation bot. Gannon is only now making his move, though one soldier remains on board.”
“Yeah,” Keel frowned, “Exo said they packed themselves inside like pilgri
ms on a lighthugger, waiting for us to arrive. This is the first chance Gannon has had.”
“I know this too,” Ravi said. “I have been monitoring their S-comm transmissions.”
A pair of Hools walked by, their venomous spines shining wet at the tips with their lethal poison. They approached the bar, the rest of the patrons giving them a wide berth. Keel loosened his blaster pistol as one of the two aliens looked menacingly toward him. Keel gave a fractional nod, his face unreadable. The Hool turned away and made demands of the bartender, a beat-up looking servitor bot.
“Anything else of interest going back and forth on the comms?” Keel asked.
“Nothing of note. They are expected to report in to whomever their handler is, but this is Bombassa’s job, so it has not yet been done.” There was a pause, then Ravi provided his interpretation of their flexibility. “It seems this team has a great level of freedom afforded it. They talk as ones authorized to do whatever is necessary to complete their mission, free of interference.”
“Good to know in case we want to take them on a detour or two before getting Leenah and Garret.”
“And Prisma and Skrizz,” Ravi added.
“Sure.”
“Gannon and his men are forcing their way onto the ship. They are moving very well. I am impressed, actually.”
“I guess we’ll find out if the guy inside has time to raise an alarm.”
Ravi didn’t answer.
“What’re you seeing? Can you risk sending the feed to my datacard?” Keel removed the small rectangle from his pocket and flicked its corner to wake it up.
“I would not recommend that,” Ravi said, somewhat absently. “There are enough slicers looking for data that a tri-streamed transmission might be observable. Perhaps if Garrett were here…”
“Okay, so you give me the play-by-play.”
“There’s not much to be said. Two of Gannon’s men are outside, blasters in hand. They are dressed… it looks paramilitary. I am going to magnify the bot’s cams and see if I can identify anything peculiar. They are doing… very well so far.”
“Gannon knows his way around a blaster.”
Again, Ravi gave no reply.
“Ravi?”
“Captain Keel, Gannon is employing the use of MCR soldiers. I can see the relevant insignia on their uniforms.”
Keel groaned inwardly. It didn’t surprise him that the mids would take a job for hire—they needed the money to stay relevant. And it wouldn’t surprise him if Gannon had made pals with a local MCR general. Gannon was the type who always looked to firm up his own self-important beliefs. He lived in a world where he was, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, the most skillful smuggler and merc the galaxy had ever seen. Any time he didn’t live up to that infamous and prestigious title… well, that was other people’s fault. Never his own.
“As long as they do the job and don’t blab about it, that’s not the worst thing in the world.”
“I am not so sure the job they’ve done is the one you have hired them for.”
“What?” Keel practically shouted, shifting abruptly in his seat. A nearby green-skinned arine looked quizzically at him. “Sorry,” Keel mumbled, holding up a menu card at his elbow. “These prices… try the tyrannasquid.”
With the alien disregarding Keel with a shake of his head, Ravi painted a picture of what Gannon was up to. “They are exiting the ship now. I see Gannon is holding something… it looks to be a forge-vault case with a handle.”
“Probably thinks there’s something valuable in it,” Keel said.
“Yes, nigh-indestructible cases typically are used to house valuable items. This is a most helpful observation.”
“Shut up, Ravi. What else?”
“The MCR are running back and forth with armloads of weaponry. Blaster rifles… I see det-crates… charge packs… Oh, an aero-precision launcher.”
Keel frowned. That was to be expected. Fighting a war was expensive, and the mids no longer got the funding they once did when they seemed like they might be a credible threat to the Republic. “No sign of the shock trooper on guard?”
“Of a sort. They are carrying out his armor. And the armor belonging to the others.”
Keel was about to say something about how they wouldn’t have anyone capable of putting it to good use when Exo burst into the cafe.
“Yo! We gotta go right now. Our boy on the ship is in trouble!”
“Ravi, I gotta go,” said Keel, rising from his booth and flipping a credit chit onto the bar counter, between the two Hools.
“Understood. I will cycle the Six on preflight standby.”
***
The sunlight was painfully glaring compared with the subdued darkness of the cantina’s interior. Keel squinted through the searing radiance and saw Bombossa and his three shock troopers with weapons out, clearly agitated.
They weren’t the only ones. The denizens of the bazaar seemed to have had their suspicions confirmed that the three jar-headed men in black shirts and fatigues were some sort of foreign military power. A multitude of fingers, fins, flippers, tentacles, and claws pointed at the shock troopers, with just as many guttural shouts and angry whispers into comms.
“We need to get out of here,” Keel said.
Bombassa looked around and soaked in the hostility. “Yes. Someone forced—”
“Tell me on the way,” Keel said. “Where’s your ship?”
“Two kilometers east,” answered one of the conspicuous shock troopers. “Pezzola Docking Bays, E-13.”
“Couldn’t find a closer spot?” Keel quipped, and then he was running into the crowds of the bazaar, blaster in hand, leaving the shock troopers to stand and look at one another.
As Keel raced down the crowded streets, people took notice of his blaster pistol—and the five armed men moving in his wake. They gave him a wide berth, occasionally arming themselves, but not causing any trouble. The resulting open lane allowed Keel to kick into full speed. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that only Exo was able to stay within a few meters of him. Bombassa, while imposing and fit, lagged behind, his large frame unable to move lightly and quickly enough. The shock troopers, for their part, had the fitness level of your standard marine: they were in shape, but they weren’t Legion-conditioned.
“Ravi,” Keel called between exhalations, breathing cyclically through his nose as he ran, “whatcha got on Gannon?”
“They’ve loaded into a caravan of three speeders and are heading in the opposite direction of you on a parallel avenue. If you cut into the alleyway on your right, there is an eighty percent chance that you will have an opportunity to intercept.”
“You could’ve just said ‘turn right,’” Keel huffed.
“Apologies, Captain. Turn right.”
Keel peeled off and made toward the alley. An oblivious humanoid with a shriveled, tan face nearly walked right into him, narrowly escaping collision by jumping backward as Keel juked out of the way. The creature shook a nine-fingered fist and uttered curses in foreign and domestic tongues as Keel ran by.
The alley’s sudden shade made it feel as though the temperature had dipped several degrees. After flat-out running in the sun’s heat, the soothing cool was a welcome relief.
“Wraith!” Exo called from somewhere behind Keel. “Wrong way, man. Ship’s down the other road.”
“I saw someone with your armor moving down this way,” Keel shouted back. “I think this’ll give us a chance to ambush ’em!”
“Oh, hell yeah!” Exo exclaimed.
Keel jumped over an empty box stuffed with thick brown paper as he streaked down the alleyway. The intersecting street, some ten meters in front of him, was bathed in sunlight. Perfect. Anyone on the street would have a hard time seeing into the alley from the sun-drenched thoroughfare, but Keel could see them just fine.
And what he saw was the lead vehicle of the three-sled convey moving past. The speeder was cruising at a moderate pace, not drawing attention to itself. It was a get
away vehicle driven by those who thought they’d already gotten away.
Keel adjusted his pistol grip and went into a two-handed shooter’s stance. He leaned forward slightly and walked slowly toward an optimal firing position. “C’mon…” he mumbled as the open-air sled rolled by.
The driver was an MCR insurgent wearing the usual MCR green fatigues. Apparently the mids weren’t seen as a problem on Porcha the way the Republic or other planetary militias were. Gannon was seated next to the driver, with two more mids in the rear section.
“That them?” huffed Exo in a low whisper as he came to a stop next to Keel, blaster pistol ready. “We shootin’?”
“That’s them,” Keel confirmed, but waved his hand to let Exo know that despite this, he should hold his fire. “Here comes a second sled. On my mark… now!”
The two men began firing on the four mids traveling in the second sled. Keel sent a single heavy blaster shot from his Intec x6 into the driver’s head, and two more shots into the chest of one of the stunned passengers sitting in the rear seats. The sled nosed down, scraping the road, before turning sharply toward Keel and Exo—and colliding with the corner of the building that the alley ran behind.
Panic erupted in the bazaar, and a flurry of humanoids and other alien species began running in all directions. A pack of kimbrin—though not MCR—surged into the alley, then hesitated in fear upon realizing that the blaster fire was actually coming from their chosen path of retreat.
“Move!” commanded Exo as he kept the two surviving mids pinned down in their sled. The vehicle wasn’t armored per se, but the alloyed frame was designed to stand up to significant impacts. Indeed, the nose of the sled showed hardly a dent from crashing into the poured composite building, and it had stood up to Exo’s blaster pistol fire. Keel knew his hand cannon could punch through… provided he could guess where to shoot.
“Changing packs!” Exo screamed. He pressed his pistol’s quick release, caught the charge pack, and slammed in a fresh charge in a fluid, practiced motion.
Turning Point (Galaxy's Edge Book 7) Page 10