by M. D. Cooper
The AI made a noise that sounded like a snort.
Katelyn sent her a mock-scowl.
There was a slight pause, and Katelyn felt her heart rate speed up.
Oh shit, maybe Sands never watched—
Then the AI snickered.
Katelyn forced a laugh.
She sat back and blew out a breath as she turned back to Clarke. “Okay, our ride out of here’s all set up.”
He nodded and turned back to the comm station. Pulling up a map of the sector once more, he pointed to the outer perimeter wall on its west side.
“Our local freedom fighters have agreed to be our distraction. They’ll attack the spaceport once we have the node. That should cover our departure.” His expression turned grave. “There are two things we’ll have to worry about. One, the EM signature of the signal I send them is likely to be noticed by someone. Two….”
Katelyn stiffened. “Oh crap,” she breathed, as realization struck. “You’re worried they’ll discover the node’s missing before we’re gone.”
He nodded. “If that happens, things can go to shit real fast. If we need to split up, you haul ass back here and take off in that shuttle. Lose yourself in Tarja. Shouldn’t be too hard to do with a population of eleven million. I’ll use your suit’s IFF tracker to find you, okay?”
“It’s your show. Like you said, I’m the rookie. I know how to take orders.”
Clarke’s grin returned, only to disappear behind the hood of his skinsuit as he pulled it down to cover his face.
“Ready to go grab your friend and get the hell out of here?”
“Hell yes I am,” she muttered, sealing her own skinsuit.
As they crossed to the hangar’s exit, she returned her attention to the sensor feed that showed Aaron’s node. Williams was still in the room with the two Marines who had accompanied him.
Frowning, she manipulated the feed so she could get a closer look at them. Something about the woman to Williams’ left looked familiar….
She tagged the two, and sent a query to the TSF HQ net, but it came back null. Then the woman turned.
Katelyn sucked in an alarmed breath as she got a good look at her face.
It was the MICI agent from Cruithne.
* * * * *
Williams had been grilled for the full ten-minute walk to the classroom Tippin had claimed as his temporary workspace. He’d been forced to relay everything, down to the smallest detail, about the skirmish the prior evening. Something about the way the woman fixated on Katelyn’s ship bothered him, so he didn’t mention that he’d recognized Joe’s sister.
Don’t ask, don’t tell.
He’d heard that somewhere once before, and since the Mickey was rubbing him wrong, the sentiment worked well enough.
He didn’t much feel like being charitable toward these two. If they came straight out and asked him if he knew any of the Diskers, well, he wouldn’t lie about it. He just wasn’t going to volunteer the information.
Williams nodded at Tippin.
“Commander,” he greeted as they approached.
Tippin’s mouth kicked up at one corner.
“Gunny,” he replied in a tone that recalled a time years ago, predating the mustang’s jump from the green to the gold side. Tippin’s humor seemed to desert him, though, as the man took in the two accompanying Williams.
Yeah, I don’t much care for ‘em either.
Ignoring the MICI agents, Williams looked down, surprised to see Tippin hadn’t cracked the half-meter cube wide open yet. The thing’s size suggested that, although it might contain a substantial amount of data, its power core would be no match for a Marine tech bent on incursion. It was certainly well within Tippin’s own skill set.
“Looks a bit large for a standard NSAI node,” he observed as he drew to a stop next to the commander. “You having trouble breaking into it?”
“Not sure I’d call it trouble, exactly. Better to be cautious in cases like this,” was Tippin’s careful reply.
The second agent looked over at Tippin with a scowl. “You let us worry about that. We’ll take it from—”
His words were interrupted by Bruno.
Williams stepped away from the MICI agents at the battalion AI’s words.
That was all Williams needed to hear. He pivoted and began heading out the door, ignoring the agents’ protests.
In answer, a map appeared on his HUD, showing the breach half a klick to the south of their own building, inside the airfield’s main hangar.
Bruno hesitated.
Williams’ mouth tightened.
Williams grunted in annoyance.
Distantly, Williams noted the two Mickies were following in his wake. As long as they didn’t get in the way of him doing his job, that was fine.
He dismissed them mentally as he reached out to the fireteams who were already on the move.
* * * * *
Katelyn had been monitoring the feed as she and Clarke crossed over to the main building. They paused in a small copse of palm trees just outside the entrance when the Marine from the fuel depot jerked his head around suddenly.
Katelyn sent him a nod as they entered the stairwell in the main building that would take them up to the floor where they were holding Aaron.
His node hadn’t been left unguarded. The lone Marine who had been studying it was still there, and a feed of the corridor outside the room showed two privates taking up residence on either side of its door.
Clarke slid through the stairwell exit and out into the corridor, Katelyn on
his heels. He stopped at an intersection that led to Aaron’s room to deploy a mix of jamming and sound-masking nano ahead of them.
She waited as Clarke stepped between the two Marines stationed on either side of the door. She watched, puzzled, as he placed a hand briefly at the base of each Marine’s neck. Neither moved, but suddenly Katelyn was certain that neither could move.
She was surprised Clarke didn’t immediately enter the room. Instead, he waited. Studying the room’s feed, she realized what he was doing—waiting for the Marine inside to turn away from the entrance.
Good catch. He might not be able to see us, but he sure as hell would see a door opening.
The Marine turned to a piece of equipment behind him, and Katelyn followed Clarke into the room, her eyes fixing on the Terran running tests on the node. Her attention snapped back to Clarke when she felt something being pushed into her hands. It was the smaller of the two packs he’d been carrying.
Their luck ran out three meters from their destination, when Katelyn’s foot hit a stylus that had fallen from the table. The sound of the pen skittering across the floor caused the man to freeze. An instant later, he whipped around, pulse weapon firing in the direction of the rolling implement.
Clarke leapt on the man just as the weapon’s barrel began to track toward Katelyn’s location. The pistol went flying, and the Marine landed on the floor with a whoosh of expelled air. Clarke’s fist pounded into the man’s head, while his other hand closed around the Marine’s neck, squeezing.
The Marine broke Clarke’s chokehold, twisting to avoid a punishing jab he must have sensed coming from his invisible opponent. Katelyn caught the glint of a CNT blade, then heard a grunt and a soft curse. She saw a bloom of red appear in Clarke’s lower left side.
The Marine ripped Clarke’s mask off just as Katelyn slapped the L-PAC on the man.
“Good job.” Clarke spoke aloud for the first time since they’d left the ship over the water as the Marine slumped bonelessly to the floor, his body succumbing to the chemical cocktail delivered by the device. “Let’s get out of here. His mednano’s already trying to counteract the paralytic agent.”
Clarke shrugged, tugging his mask back into place.
Clarke rose, pulled a medpatch out of a suit pocket, and a stealth patch from another. He grunted once more as he slapped the first over his wound. He placed the second over the tear in the skinsuit. Katelyn saw it shimmer before integrating seamlessly with the suit.
Once encased, the node vanished before her eyes. It popped back into existence on her suit’s overlay as the system’s IFF registered the activation of the sheath. Lifting the oversized node, Clarke motioned for Katelyn to follow him out the door.
The AI had remained silent throughout the altercation, since he couldn’t know the identity of those now in possession of the unit.
Clarke sent her a nod.
She tried, but there was no response.
Distracted and a bit worried by Aaron’s silence, she nearly plowed into Clarke as he came to an abrupt halt.
She looked over his shoulder and spied the gunnery sergeant stalking toward them, his body vibrating with anger.
She backpedaled then pivoted, following Clarke back toward the room where the two Marines still stood, immobilized by the breach nano planted on them.
Katelyn saw the cloud of sound-masking nano Clarke controlled shrink as they neared the room they’d exited mere minutes ago. To her shock, Clarke pulled to a stop.
Threading the needle so that neither Marine would come into contact with the foreign cloud of nanoparticles that masked their presence, Clarke motioned for her to step back inside the room.
He hustled her over to the far wall and pulled her to a stop.
They didn’t have long to wait. A vicious curse from the corridor indicated the two frozen privates had been discovered. Williams entered, fury written on his face as his eyes swept the room before he knelt to free the Marine on the ground.
“Hell of a sight, Tippin, you all trussed up with one of our own L-PACs like that,” he drawled, while giving the other man a hand up. If Katelyn hadn’t seen the wrath in his eyes, his tone of voice would have had her thinking he was amused by the entire situation.
“Shit, Staf—Gunny.” The Marine ran his hands through his hair, his own anger telegraphing itself in his body’s jerky movements. Slamming his palm flat on the empty surface where Aaron had recently sat, he cursed fluently.
“How many?”
“Two of them, in skinsuits. Pulled the hood off one of ‘em. Stuck him, too. Big, ugly fucker.” The Marine shook his head as he bent to retrieve his CNT blade. “Didn’t see the second one, but he sounded like a smaller guy, by his tread.”
Williams’ eyes narrowed. “Marines in the hallway said they had a jamming cloud that also masked their approach.”
The other man nodded. “Think it slipped while they were in here. I definitely heard footsteps. Second one’s either not modded or much smaller.”
Williams’ brows drew down, his expression grew even darker. “Could it have been a woman?”
Katelyn stiffened at the words, and then felt Clarke’s hand close about her upper arm, squeezing once in warning.
The Marine who Clarke had subdued paused, considering. He nodded. “Yeah, might’ve been.”
A direct-link connection formed on her HUD, Clarke’s voice entering her thoughts.
Her attention refocused on the two TSF Marines as they strode purposefully toward the exit, Williams instructing those in the hallway to spread out. She and Clarke waited as the voices faded into nothing as the building emptied.
They gave the Marines another two minutes before stirring.
They’d made it past the second hallway intersection before Katelyn caught movement out of the corner of her eye. An involuntary yell escaped her as Williams rushed them.
How did he know where we were?
The gunnery sergeant barreled into Clarke as if their stealth systems weren’t even there. The SWSF soldier wen
t down under the weight of the other man.
His last words were cut off as the gunnery sergeant slammed Clarke’s head into the floor. It galvanized her into action. She lunged for the node, grabbing it with both hands, then hauled ass down the stairwell and back out into the storm.
The contrast was shocking, from the sounds of combat to the singing gale of a tropical storm. All around her, the coast guard station lay silent, save for the steady drum of sheeting rain.
No horde of Marines, waiting to take her into custody. No blaring alarms, warning of intruders.
She stumbled to a halt, willing her heart to slow and her breathing to calm.
Now what?
FIVE-FINGER DISCOUNT
STELLAR DATE: 3227475 / 06.05.4124 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Venus Coast Guard Sector Teka, outskirts of Tarja
REGION: Venus, InnerSol, Sol Space Federation
The knowledge that they’d left the Disker node virtually unattended had clawed at Williams’ gut, sending all sorts of warning bells his way. He left the two Mickies combing the airfield, and returned to the main building—just in time to get his ass kicked by a ghost. He was damned if that was going to stop him, though.
The trick to fighting a stealthed opponent was to hack their tech. Or have superior tech. Barring that, there were a number of ways Williams could think of to track someone who wasn’t there.
Problem was, Williams had neither the time nor the resources on hand to do any of it. So he did the only thing he could. When he heard a faint sound that betrayed the intruder’s presence, he launched himself at it.
Whoever it was gave as good as he got, and the Marine cursed himself for being dumb enough to wade in without backup. Now he was caught in his opponent’s dampening field, with no way to call for help.
He saw stars when the man’s knee connected to his groin, but managed to block a follow-up with his thigh as he hung onto his invisible attacker with grim determination. Vision clearing, Williams tried to trap the other man in a clinch hold while driving his head into the ground.