Turning Point (Galaxy's Edge Book 7)

by Jason Anspach

  The stealth shuttle banked, invisible to scanners, at risk only in the unlikely event that a watching eye, looking at the stars against the night sky, not only happened to sight it but also to track it. And even then, the technology that kept the bird invisible to sensors kept it from getting locked on by auto-turrets, launchers, and virtually every other piece of modern anti-starcraft weaponry.

  Ahead, beyond the limits of Ankalor City and its Green Zone protected by Legion base Black Snake, was the massive fortress the Republic touted as the future of security, peace, and prosperity for the zhee species. Under Republic protection, naturally. The air around the fortress glimmered, an indicator that its powerful shield was operational.

  Cassius flipped on the internal comm. “Two minutes out.”

  ***

  Viina Kop sat in the back of a flatbed repulsor truck, watching the night sky. His zhee partner, Guva, slept on the ground beneath his cloak, preferring to risk the venomous bite of a scowert rather than contort himself among the unforgiving ammunition crates and cold steel bed.

  It was Guva who had received the orders through the chain of command. He was the senior, older than Viina by more than a decade. Guva guided Viina across berms and flat pans of ground, the old repulsor truck whining in protest when its tired engines were unable to lift it over the uneven terrain. And when at last the repulsor truck arrived at this wilderness location, well beyond the glow of Ankalor City, Guva pointed his hoof-like hand to the brilliant star, known as Kash the Unrepentant. “Here,” Guva said, and then bid Viina’s eyes to follow his hoof across the sky to another star, Herpio. “Here.”

  Viina nodded and swung the quad barrels of the anti-aircraft blaster cannon back and forth from Kash to Herpio as Guva settled down to sleep.

  Hours had passed since then. Viina was tired but dared not tear his gaze from the skies. He could piece together his purpose based on the weapon entrusted to him and the heavens he monitored. What would it be? A Republic tri-bomber seeking to destroy his village? A warrior king flying a black dragon from one of the other zhee worlds, seeking to bring about the ascendancy of the zhee to the galaxy? Whatever it might be, it was happening on Ankalor. Blessed Ankalor, first home world of the zhee. Home of the rightful heirs and rulers of the zhee and the apostate galaxy, appointed by the gods at the foundation of all things.

  Viina would not bring shame on Ankalor, should the gods choose him as a servant vessel.

  A glimmer appeared in the sky, coming from just behind Kash the Unrepentant and moving toward the fortress. Viina had to strain his eyes just to see it. It was as if he were watching a spirit streak across the night sky, a ghost from the great lagoon of the dead.

  “Guva!” Viina whispered, afraid that his voice might be heard, whether by spirits or by the Republic and their sensors. “Guva!”

  Guva stirred beneath his cloak but remained quiet. He could sleep through the arrival of Varuud-Ma Kop, if such a thing were possible.

  Viina still dared not take his eyes off the glimmering phantasm. It was moving fast, like a starship. Act now, fool, or the chance is lost!

  Was the voice his, or was Viina being called by the gods themselves?

  He let out a furious bray and sent white streaks of explosive blaster bolts toward the invading ghost.

  ***

  The urgent warning tone sounded only seconds before the first volley of anti-aircraft blaster fire erupted around Chief Warrant Officer Cassius’s forward window. Just long enough for him to look at the flashing red triangles indicating the position the shots were coming from.

  “Incoming AA fire,” reported Hot Plate, his voice calm, not giving way to the spike in adrenaline Cassius knew they both felt.

  “Hang on,” Cassius shouted into the ship-wide comm, almost in time with his nosing the flight control down to enter a dive.

  They were less than two minutes out, and Cassius knew that the Dark Ops legionnaires in the back would be up and ready to disembark, and the crew chief would be ready to control the doors and get on the heavy N-80. Cassius hoped that the warning, slight though it was, would be enough for them to at least brace themselves and avoid serious injury.

  Given the alternative—being hit square in the thin hull of the stealth shuttle—the evasive maneuver was the only option. The larger assault and armored shuttles could have taken the hit, but a stealth shuttle going up against the explosive bolts of anti-air blasters… that was not a fight this bird could win.

  The next several seconds felt like an eternity. The shuttle dropped in altitude so abruptly that Cassius felt his stomach jump before the inertial dampeners caught up with him.

  Hot Plate called in the contact to the air boss back on Mercutio. “We’re taking AA fire from an unmarked position. Repeat, taking fire from an unmarked position over the Grodan Wastes.”

  There were anti-air towers strategically placed all around Ankalor, and although those towers were technically under the control of the Republic, this mission was definitely not Republic-approved—so the possibility of those towers being used against the stealth shuttle had been deemed a legit threat. Hence the route over the Wastes—far from Ankalor’s anti-air defenses. Yet here was someone out here in the middle of nowhere, waiting for them with a mobile AA cannon. The question on Cassius’s mind was… who? And how did they know they were coming?

  The stealth shuttle responded to Cassius’s touch like he was married to it. He knew exactly how to make it move the way he needed it to and could feel the craft responding. More bursts flashed around the ship, causing it to shutter and vibrate, but caused no damage.

  Boom!

  Something rocked the rear of the shuttle. It wasn’t like being struck with a missile or even peppered with heavy blaster fire; it was something Cassius heard more than felt. A new indicator light began to flash, adding its own warning tone to the cockpit’s AI-conducted symphony of trouble.

  Cassius felt his shuttle slipping; it was slow to respond to his stick and paddles. “She’s feeling loose,” he advised his co-pilot.

  “Showing engine damage,” Hot Plate responded.

  “Night Stalker, this is Overlord.” The comm relayed the message from Mercutio’s war room. “What’s your situation?”

  Cassius felt his shuttle tremor, and then control came back. He eased the shuttle out of the dive and into a new flight pattern, and scanned the holo relays. No trailing smoke, no visible damage. “We were hit by incoming AA fire. Engines are good. Hull integrity is good.” The spray of anti-air fire continued to streak toward the position they once held. Whoever was shooting hadn’t been able to follow the shuttle’s descent. “We are eyes shut,” Cassius reported, giving the update that told his air boss that they had reacquired operational invisibility.

  “Affirmative,” responded Mercutio. “We have a Legion Quick Reaction Force on standby in the Green Zone. Deliver your cargo and advise. We’d rather you get off planet, but the Legion base will do if needed.”

  “Copy,” Cassius answered. He went to the ship-wide comm. “How’s everybody doing back there?”

  “Like a case of meal packs orbit-dropped into a mountain range,” barked back one of the legionnaires.

  That would do. If they could crack a joke, they were probably all right.

  Cassius scanned his instruments. The dive had put them off course, and he’d have to loop back around to the insertion point. That meant another five minutes, unless he cut toward the city outskirts. With the likelihood of the zhee calling in an intelligence report, he decided that getting the team on the ground fast was priority one.

  “Two minutes,” he announced.

  “Said that two minutes ago,” said the Dark Ops team leader.

  Cassius smiled and looped the ship around. “How’re we reading?” he asked Hot Plate.

  Hot Plate shook his head as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing on screen. “Everything looks good, Della. We dodged a close one.”

  Boom!

  This one, Cassi
us could feel. The cockpit went ablaze with flashing lights and was washed over with shrill beeps and whines all competing to be the loudest, all saying the same thing: This is bad. Cassius had no paddle control, no thrust; he could feel the shuttle slipping away from him, beginning to wobble and pitch in the sky. Visuals showed a thick plume of smoke trailing behind.

  He pulled on his stick, attempting to fight off the spin the shuttle was beginning to build up as gravity pulled the craft downward with no forward propulsion.

  “We’ve lost primary and secondary repulsor engines,” reported Hot Plate, his voice spiking with panic.

  It was no use; Cassius couldn’t maintain control. “We’re going down,” he called out, surprised by the calmness in his voice. It was so matter-of-fact. So clear and clinical.

  The shuttle continued to spin, each revolution faster than the next. Cassius saw the darkened ground of the Ankalor City outskirts whirling past him in a blur and the star-speckled horizon twinkling in contrast. There was a part of Cassius’s mind that held on to his training; he’d been flying shuttles for a decade. He knew that if he could coax the ship to land on its stomach, its landing repulsors might soften the impact.

  The ground grew rapidly closer. The shuttle spun down between two tall buildings. It was a miracle they didn’t simply crash into one. A wide dirt street seemed to pull them in…

  Cassius heard himself scream just before impact.

  His world turned black.

  ***

  It was a burning sensation in his back that caused Cassius to first flit open in eyes in a pain-wracked consciousness. Everything was muted and blurred. He couldn’t make out anything around him, though he knew on a cognitive level that he must still be in the shuttle’s cockpit. An alarm, almost a whisper to him, kept a steady hum around him.

  He tried to adjust himself, then cried out at a sharp pain in his leg. That hurt. Don’t do that again.

  The additional spike of pain helped focus his vision. He could see the instrument panel in front of him. The shuttle’s canopy window was missing, revealing an empty street lit by fires inside steel drums, and a stucco wall painted with graffiti in zhee letters. Cassius looked down at his leg and saw that it was bent where it shouldn’t be—in a place much too high, between his knee and hip. The realization that his femur was snapped brought on a new wave of pain and nausea.

  “Hot Plate?” Cassius’s voice was a croak, a whisper. “Buddy?”

  He looked to his right and peered into the lifeless eyes of his co-pilot. The impact of the crash had sent Hot Plate’s dash into his thighs like a meat cleaver. Pink muscle and tallow-colored fat lay exposed to the dusty cabin air. A dark pool of blood had already formed beneath him.

  Cassius pulled off his flight helmet and felt the sweat on his hair bristle as each follicle was swept by the helmet’s lining. He tossed the helmet on the seat next to Hot Plate. A report of automatic blaster fire sounded from somewhere in the distance. A staccato reply came from another direction, echoing off the buildings and high walls.

  Cassius fumbled with a compartment at the base of his seat. He pulled out a subcompact machine blaster and turned it over to read the charge pack. It was green. He primed the weapon and, unable to move from his seat, watched through the open canopy as the blaster fire outside grew louder and nearer.

  He waited like that for what seemed like a quarter hour. He didn’t bother with the comm, because it had never once relayed the series of requests for status he had anticipated—had hoped for. He told himself that the pain wasn’t so bad now. He wondered if the zhee would arrive before a QRF.

  There was a crunch outside. Footsteps. Cassius held his breath. Quiet. But the crunch was real. He hadn’t imagined it.

  The crunching noise sounded again. Moving toward the front shuttle canopy. Cassius held up his machine blaster. It felt so heavy.

  And then a thought occurred to him. Those crunching feet might belong to a legionnaire. Perhaps the QRF had arrived already. He had no way of knowing how long he’d been out, though he imagined it had been only a few minutes. But who could say how consciousness worked once you’d lost it?

  He decided to call out a warning. Because he didn’t want to shoot a friend, and if it wasn’t a friend… well, he was dead either way.

  “Ha-a-p,” he managed. That wasn’t what he’d meant to say, but it was what issued forth from his mouth. He didn’t know what it meant.

  “Don’t shoot,” came the otherworldly voice of a legionnaire speaking through his helmet.

  Cassius lowered his weapon.

  The legionnaire seemed to sense the resolved tension, and a pitch-black form appeared at the corner of the shuttle’s missing front canopy. Had Cassius not spent many of the last ten years flying Dark Ops from one mission to the next, the sight of the black ghoul standing darker than night would have terrified him. As it was, he felt only moderately scared.

  The Dark Ops leej approached. “You okay?”

  Cassius was not okay. But the legionnaire knew that. He was really asking, How bad are you hurt?

  “My leg,” Cassius managed, grunting from the very memory of seeing that grotesquely fractured limb.

  The legionnaire clambered up to take a look. Outside, another legionnaire limped into view. He held a blaster rifle and seemed to be scanning for zhee.

  “We’re gonna have to get you out of here,” said the legionnaire.

  Cassius recognized the voice. Trident. Cassius knew the man well enough; he’d delivered this team more than once in times past. Trident was a good soldier. “Oba, I’m glad to hear your voice.”

  Trident reached inside and unfastened Cassius from his harness. This caused more of Cassius’s weight to sit on his broken leg.

  “Agh!”

  “Sorry, buddy,” Trident said. There was compassion in his voice, but also urgency. He was not so sorry that he was going to stop. “But we’ve got to get you out now. Zhee are coming.” The legionnaire made a motion with his arm, but no words came from his helmet. Probably a discussion over their private L-comm.

  The other legionnaire joined Trident half-in and half-out of the shuttle, their legs on the ship’s angular, sloping nose. Each man grabbed a handful of Cassius’s flight suit at the collar. They looked at each other, then pulled Cassius from his seat and through the window.

  Cassius roared in pain all the way out. He was nearly hyperventilating by the time the legionnaires lowered him to the filthy dirt street. Resting, he felt his senses coming back to him. The pain was still intense, but at least he was no longer being jostled and jarred. He never wanted to get picked back up.

  He realized he’d dropped his machine blaster inside the shuttle’s cockpit. “Weapon,” he panted.

  “We’ll get you one,” said the second legionnaire. Revo, Cassius thought he was called. “First we gotta get you to cover. Zhee are coming.”

  The two legionnaires hoisted Cassius off the ground and fast-walked him into a three-sided shed with a view of the crashed shuttle. The trip hurt, but not as bad. They rested Cassius upright, with his back against the wall. Then the two men left Cassius alone—only to come back the moment Cassius told himself they’d forgotten him.

  “Here.” Trident handed Cassius an NK-4 rifle and four charge packs.

  Cassius took the weapon and primed it. He leaned his head against the wall and felt its cool through his wet scalp and hair. He wanted something to drink. “Others?”

  “All dead.”

  Cassius felt his chest heave with emotion, as though he was about to burst into tears. The sensation passed. Black spots paraded across his vision. He heard the ocean, could see the beach. It was beautiful. The glowing orange sunlight reflecting on the shimmering sea looked like a field of unearthed diamonds.

  But then the crashing waves of the ocean morphed from a peaceful respite into the shouts of an angry mob. Cassius heard blaster bolts—close. He shook his head and cleared his vision. A legionnaire was running in his direction. Trident.


  “QRF is inbound. We gotta hold out until they get here. I need you to watch our backs.” Trident pointed to the wall of the shed opposite where Cassius sat. “An alley runs alongside that wall and empties out by the front of the shed. Anyone comes from down that alley, you kill ’em. Got it?”

  Cassius nodded and readied his weapon.

  He watched the two legionnaires use the wrecked shuttle for cover as they sent blaster fire into a mob of approaching zhee. Many of them were armed, but not all. It seemed to be a mix of males, females, adults, and children, all wearing their rage on their faces. And every time a zhee shooter would attempt to storm forward, the legionnaires would mow him down. This repeated over and again, until the sight of zhee falling before Dark Ops was almost soothing.

  Cassius heard a clatter coming from the alley. A zhee in red robes emerged and ran by, carrying a blaster rifle. Cassius fired several rounds into the zhee’s flank, dropping it in a heap. The Dark Ops legionnaires kept up their murderous fire, ignorant of the threat Cassius had just eliminated. The swelling zhee crowd pulsed around the wreckage.

  Another zhee fighter ran screaming from the alley. Cassius shot this one dead as well.

  The legionnaires were synchronized killing machines, sharing charge packs, reloading in the time it took Cassius to blink, and killing zhee with every pull of the trigger.

  Cassius killed a third zhee. Then a fourth. He wondered if they would ever notice the bodies. Ever stop trying to run the gauntlet of death the legionnaires had charged Cassius with overseeing.

  Two zhee sprinted together. Cassius killed one and wounded the other. He needed to change charge packs. The legionnaires slew their enemies. He needed to change charge packs.