Nobody said a word. There was a time when Kira would have scorned Cade for such an epic failure, but she couldn’t bring herself to react that way now. Whatever caused Cade to suffer this loss wasn’t just a case of him messing things up; this was deeper and more profound than that. Kira could see him bearing grief and regret, she could see him shouldering the burden of whatever had happened.
“The important thing,” 4-Qel said, patting Cade’s back, “is that you’re okay.”
“Wow, thanks, Four-Qel,” Cade said. “That means a lot.”
“Oh, no, I was being sarcastic,” 4-Qel said, his hand spread over his chest plate, signaling his embarrassment. “You allowed the galaxy’s most powerful, destructive weapon to fall into the hands of a maniacal tyrant. This is a catastrophe.”
Cade shoved 4-Qel away and stood next to Kira in the center of the group. The look on his face spoke to Kira’s observation that Cade had, in some way, changed.
“Listen, Ga Halle isn’t the same person she used to be. She’s changed in ways that … it’s too hard for me to even explain. But that doesn’t even matter, because she only got the Rokura because of me. I misused the weapon, and it’s my fault. I can fix it, though. I think—no, I know how to beat her. I know what to do with the Rokura. I just need a—” Cade’s eyes searched around, and as luck would have it, they fixed on Ortzo’s shido sticking out of the ground just a few feet ahead. “Here we go, a weapon. But—”
Cade stopped in his tracks, just a short distance from Ortzo’s dead body. He turned and looked at Kira, a stunned expression on his face. “Did you kill Ortzo?” he asked.
“Damn right I did,” Kira said, flexing just a little with the pride she felt at taking down one of the galaxy’s premier badasses. She let her desire to boast of her conquest subside, prioritizing their need to stay on task above all else.
“Look, it’s great that you’ve had this epiphany with the Rokura,” Kira said, “but we still have our mission. Millions of lives are at stake, right here, right now, and we have to stop Praxis from being torn apart.”
“I know, the Crucible,” Cade said, a touch of solemnity in his voice. “That has to be where Ga Halle was heading, and it’s where we’re heading, too.”
“All the paths are converging,” Kay added. “I think it’s time we faced our enemies.”
Kira’s and Cade’s eyes met, and they seemed to share an understanding: Their paths did more than converge; they intertwined. And neither would let their paths break apart again.
Feeling her team growing antsy, Kira knew it was time to put their nervous energy to work. But one question lingered in her mind, one she didn’t want to ask for fear of the answer.
“Where’s Percival?” Kira asked, drawing closer to Cade.
“He…” Cade began. He stopped, then he closed his eyes and let out a deep, mournful breath. “Ga Halle. She killed him.”
Kira gently grabbed Cade by his bicep and turned him toward her. “I know you two didn’t always see eye to eye … but he meant a lot to you. To all of us. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Cade said as he turned and shuffled forward. “But not as sorry as Ga Halle is gonna be.”
With Kira taking the lead, Cade, Mig, 4-Qel, Kobe, and Kay began their journey toward the Crucible. They walked at a brisk pace, as time was at a premium. Ahead, the nearest star was setting just over the ridge, its waning light shimmering off the rolling surface of the waterfall. There was beauty in the juxtaposition of the water’s raging current and the light’s ability to play off its chaos.
It gave Kira an idea.
“Kay, you know the schematics of the Crucible, right?” she asked.
“Yes and no. I have a bird’s-eye grasp, but I couldn’t tell you, say, how to access the garbage chute.”
“That’s fine, I just need to know one thing: Does the Crucible have any ancillary buildings? Any satellite structures, anything connected to it in any way?”
Kay thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said eagerly. “There’s a powering station nearby, tucked in the forest. Why?”
“Because Ebik needs a signal to set off the detonations, right?” Kira questioned, the ideas in her mind starting to gain momentum. “Mig, if we got inside this powering station, could we cut off the signal between here and the planet?”
Mig rocked his head back and forth and weighed the possibility with his hands. “Maybe,” he said, though not with the conviction Kira would have liked. “The signal could be relayed independently of the Crucible. But,” Mig continued, and Kira could almost hear the cogs turning in that big, beautiful brain of his, “even if we can’t kill the signal, if we get inside the station, we could at least mess some stuff up.”
“Like what?” Kira said, a devilish smile forming.
“I dunno.” Mig shrugged. “There’s no telling what that station is used for, what’s routed in and out of it. Get me in there, and I’m sure I’ll be able to wreck something.”
That was good enough for Kira. If they couldn’t stop Ebik’s plans at the powering station, they’d at least strike a blow at the Crucible.
And that’s how they’d do this: blow after blow after blow until the whole thing crumbled down.
* * *
They stalked through the forest on soft feet, crouching tactically with their weapons hot. By the time they closed in on the power station, the darkening sky provided them with just enough cover to move stealthily forward, staying low and close to trees. It’d been some time since Kira had been part of a ground assault mission, since before she’d formed Omega Squadron at the Well. Like muscle memory, the experience of embarking on a raid all came back to her, and she at once felt exhilarated and scared, pining for the moment when it would be all over. She didn’t like how fast and messy they were; even with the best planning, storming an enemy on their turf was never a predictable endeavor. But soldiers, Kira knew better than anyone, weren’t made in training, nor were they made in the war room. Soldiers were made in combat, on the ground or between the stars. Strategizing was great, and simulations were fine, but nothing kept a soldier alive to fight another day more than his or her instincts, reflexes, and plain old common sense.
Kira could only hope that her combat instincts were as sharp as they once were. And, as the commanding officer driving this mission, that her squad’s instincts were even better.
A break in the forest’s otherwise tightly packed trees signified the start of a clearing, which was exactly what Kira had been looking for. Kay’s memory of the Crucible’s powering station led them in this direction, and given how vast the forest seemed to be, they were lucky to be on the right path. Kira held up her fist, signaling for her squad to stop. She turned and pointed to 4-Qel and called him to the front. She needed his eyes to see deeper and with more clarity, thanks to his nighttime vision, into the area ahead.
“There’s a structure ahead, a little more than fifty yards out,” 4-Qel relayed to Kira in his quietest tone. “Guards. I see four patrolling, all very near the structure.”
Taking down four unsuspecting grunts wasn’t a problem; taking them down quickly and silently was where things got tricky. Even if they were on a regimented patrol pattern, she didn’t have time to figure out the rotation, not with the clock ticking. They had roughly eighty-five precious minutes until Praxis was turned into an asteroid belt, and allocating time to four patr—
“I can neutralize the guards.”
Kira startled at Kobe’s hushed voice. He’d snuck up behind her without making a sound, as if to prove his point. Kira didn’t doubt Kobe’s abilities; he was skilled in ways she didn’t even understand. But he was injured, and the stakes were a little too high to find out what he was—and, more importantly, wasn’t—capable of by throwing him into a situation that had absolutely no margin for error. She explained to him as much, but Kobe wouldn’t accept it.
“I know my limits,” Kobe said, and he held up a pair of tree branches the size and shape of his quarter staffs. Kir
a hadn’t even noticed him picking them up along the way. “There won’t be a sound.”
It didn’t take long for Kira to run through her options and realize she had none. Even hobbled by injury, Kobe was the best stealth option they had. While Kira had learned plenty of lifesaving tactics from her commanding officers, she’d taught herself one or two as well. Particularly, she’d learned the value of flexibility. Of improvising. You use what you have, and don’t give a second thought to what you don’t. Getting caught thinking—or worse, overthinking—was just another way to end up dead.
“All right, you’ve got this,” Kira whispered, then she brandished her sidewinder for Kobe to see. “But I’m your backup. I’ll set off a thousand alarms before we lose anyone else.”
Kobe nodded, and after 4-Qel relayed the guards’ positions—three on the north side of the station, one more on the south—Kira was off, following the silent warrior through the dark forest.
First up was the lone guard on the station’s south end. Kira huddled into the shadow of a tree a few yards out and watched as Kobe stalked his prey. Lithely, he darted between the trees leading up to the guard like they were put their specifically for him to traverse between; he spun and pressed his back against a trunk just large enough to conceal his frame and waited. The guard was walking past the tree that concealed Kobe, and the moment he moved completely past it, Kobe went around the other side, behind the guard, and battered him into unconsciousness.
One down.
Kira moved in an arc through the trees, following Kobe’s movement as he hugged the station’s outer wall, cloaked in the darkness it cast. The station itself wasn’t the imposing structure Kira envisioned it being. It was a squat, gray concrete bunker with a corrugated metal roof. A satellite was perched atop, and Kira hoped that destroying it would cripple Ebik’s ability to commit genocide from thousands of miles away. It wasn’t a lot to ask.
Kobe reached the northeast corner the exact moment a guard was turning toward his position. Had Kobe so much as taken a step around to the other side, he and the guard would have collided. Kobe, as if drawing from a sixth sense, instead pushed himself into the corner, concealing himself completely in shadow. The guard passed by without noticing him, but he didn’t get far. Kobe reached out and pulled him back into the darkness. Moments later, Kobe emerged; the guard did not.
Two down.
The two remaining guards would be a problem. They were engaged in conversation and had been since Kira made eyes on them. Worse, they were centrally positioned on the building’s side, and there was no way to sneak up on them from either side. Kobe and Kira exchanged a look; they both knew they didn’t have this kind of time to waste. Kira reached down, grabbed a stick, and held it between her hands; breaking it, she figured, would be subtle enough to draw the guards’ attention and too inconspicuous to warrant an alarm. She held the stick up for Kobe to see; he nodded and crouched into his position, makeshift staffs gripped tightly. Kira snapped the stick, and it sounded like a firecracker thrown into a monastery. The guards heard it pop, and after a moment of conferring, they headed toward its source. Kira was already belly-down on the ground, but she could still see the guards approaching, and Kobe waiting, through the thin grass that obscured her line of sight. Tension made knots of Kira’s stomach as the guards stepped past Kobe’s position. They didn’t even flinch toward his direction.
In a flash, Kobe pounced. He leapt from behind the soldiers, greeting the first with a staff against the back of his head. The guard immediately dropped to the ground with a thud; he didn’t move again. The second turned, faster than Kira would have expected, and nearly had her blaster raised on Kobe by the time she was facing him. Smartly, Kobe crashed his left-handed staff against the guard’s fingers, preventing her from getting a shot off. Before the guard could react, Kobe drilled her with an uppercut blow with his right-handed staff, then followed it with a roundhouse kick that sent the guard spinning off her feet. She smashed to the ground and, like her mates, was out cold.
Kira thought the coast was clear. She pulled herself off the ground, but just as she was about to step toward Kobe, she sensed something at her side. The moment she turned, she identified what had triggered her internal radar: a previously unseen fifth guard, deeper in the forest, not ten yards away. Their eyes met at the exact same time, and Kira could only watch as the guard’s blaster sprang up in his hands. He had her dead to rights, but he didn’t fire. The guard didn’t do anything but alter his expression in the subtlest way. In an instant, his face went from cold indifference to confusion. Then he collapsed to the ground.
Standing behind him was Cade, bloody shido in hand.
The squad regrouped at the station’s front entrance. A reinforced blast door shielded the only way in or out, and that would have presented a problem had Mig not swiped a security keycard off one of the fallen guards.
“The minute those doors open and whoever’s inside sees us and not their squad mates, there’s going to be trouble,” Kira assessed. “We need to be faster than fast; we cannot let any of them trigger an alarm.”
“It’s risky, firing blindly into a space you can’t visualize against an unknown number of enemies,” 4-Qel said contemplatively as he studied the door.
Kira shrugged. “Yeah, it’s a risk, but—”
“Leave it to me,” 4-Qel interrupted, sounding chipper. “I’ll kill them.”
Kira’s glance met Cade’s, and she saw on his face a skeptical expression that matched her own. 4-Qel possessed physicality—strength, speed, and agility—that no living person could even dream of matching. But there was a lot at stake here. And if 4-Qel missed just one guard, they’d be screwed.
“Imagine you’re in that station right now and the doors open,” 4-Qel said, picking up on Kira’s doubt, “but it’s not the people you know standing in the entrance. No, it’s an angry Qel. Do you respond as a good soldier would, hit the alarm, and fight for your position, or do you mess your pants?”
“The latter, most definitely,” Kay chimed in.
“That moment of hesitation is all I’ll need.”
Kira nodded her acquiescence. She lived and died by trusting her squad, and she knew she could certainly do worse than trusting a determined Qel.
Keycard in hand, 4-Qel was as ready as he’d ever be. He was just about to open the doors when he looked back at Kira.
“If you’re still concerned over this, just know that while I don’t show it, I’m upset over being shut down and placed in a containment field,” 4-Qel said. “Very upset.”
“Okeydoke,” Kira responded. 4-Qel’s words sank in, and knowing that the drone was not only determined but also angry made her feel a lot better.
4-Qel swiped the card, and the door hissed and belched steam at its corners as it slid open. From her position a few paces back from the station and off to the side—there was likely to be errant blaster shots coming from within—she could just barely see inside. From what she could tell, there were five guards for 4-Qel to deal with. Four were seated at a table—playing tatow, it looked like—and one was at the door. He was dressed down to his skivvies with a look in his eyes that said he was either drunk or shaking off a heavy slumber.
“It ain’t break time yet, get back—” he said, but stopped himself. His gruff demeanor flushed out of him in the blink of an eye. Being utterly dumbfounded took its place. A stupefied “What?” was his final word.
4-Qel grabbed the guard by his head and, without exerting a shred of effort, lifted him off the ground, snapping his neck in the process and then whipping his lifeless body at his four mates.
What followed was a blur of death.
Needing only three bounding strides, 4-Qel rushed the remaining guards who were all in various stages of confusion and disarray, having had a corpse flung at them. They tried to collect themselves, they tried to fight back, but it was no use. 4-Qel was too fast, too strong, and too skilled.
The lethal drone attacked with the meticulous precis
ion of a surgeon. One guard was quicker than the rest, and she managed to get her hand on the butt of her sidewinder, holstered at her side; 4-Qel grabbed that hand, snapped it, and launched the guard headfirst into a wall. Kira wasn’t sure how many vertebrae broke upon impact, but it was enough to crumple the guard like an accordion. In the process, 4-Qel somehow managed to come up with her blaster, a modified outpost pistol, and he fired two shots apiece at the nearest guards, getting them both right in their chests. The final guard was a moment away from meeting the same fate, but he’d managed to arm himself with a chair before 4-Qel could get the pistol aimed. The guard swung the chair at 4-Qel with all his might; the chair splintered in a dozen pieces, shattering upon impact. 4-Qel was undisturbed. Kira assumed that, if anything, getting smacked with the chair only made 4-Qel madder.
4-Qel lifted the last remaining guard off his feet and pulled him close. The guard resisted, kicking and punching because, well, he had to do something. But there was no gain in his efforts. 4-Qel held him in his grasp and studied him as if he were trying to peer into the man’s soul.
“You’re on the wrong side of this war,” 4-Qel said, then he crushed his head against the guard’s face—once, twice, three times, mashing it to bloody pancake batter.
His job done, 4-Qel tossed the guard aside and turned to the front door.
“All clear!” he called, signaling his friends with a goofy wave.
They all entered the station, doing their best to ignore the grim scene all around. Mig bolted right to the computer terminal at the far end and got to work. Kira couldn’t even pretend to know or understand the finer details of his capabilities. 4-Qel stood over him, protective of his friend as always—more so now, it seemed, since his brief encounter with being decommissioned.
Meanwhile, Kira, Cade, and Kay gathered at the mouth of the station. They seemed to share the same sentiment: This was a nice start, but there was still a long way to go and not a lot of time to get there.
“So,” Cade began, getting the question that was on the tip of all of their tongues out there, “if Mig can’t shut down the signal from here and we have to infiltrate the giant, heavily fortified, heavily guarded prison turned fortress … how do we do that?”
We Are Mayhem--A Black Star Renegades Novel Page 29