Half-Alien Warfighter (Lady Hellgate Book 3)

by Greg Dragon

  “I understand, Lieutenant, and I assure you that I will do my best. This is just out of the ordinary, so please bear with me.”

  Helga saw the recognition register across his face when she mentioned that they were ESOs. She was surprised, considering the general ignorance of anything war-related, but it was enough to make him change his tune, and that at least was progress.

  The dockmaster stood up suddenly and touched one of the walls, causing it to distort and become a vid-screen. An image of Sanctuary appeared, showing the way it looked from space. “About what time did your ship report the intrusion?” he said.

  Helga made to reply, using the Ursula’s natural readout, but the dockmaster was a civilian on a station that kept its own time. Unlike the Navy—whose clocks started at 0:000 and ended at 1:440—Sanctuary went with the old Vestalian system, matching the cycle of their sun. Instead of three shifts, they used two, B/N for the hours before noon, and A/N for after.

  Alliance Navy, on the other hand, could not account for “noon” since there was no sun on a starship, artificial or otherwise. Since both systems were based on the same hours and minutes from Vestalia, Helga was able to translate the time using her wrist-comms for assistance.

  “The intrusion happened at about 5:19 A/N, Sanctuary time,” she said, feeling proud of herself for getting it right.

  The image of the station zoomed in, twisted a few times, and then stopped above the Ursula. The dockmaster rewound the time by several hours before freezing it at 5:15 A/N. The large man glanced back, and Helga nodded her head in approval, so he rolled the time backward, converting whole hours into minutes. A tiny blip so small that it would have been missed if not for the scale, detached itself from the corvette and backed away steadily.

  Helga hopped up to her feet and approached the screen, taking in the details of the transport leaving her ship. It flew to a section of Sanctuary’s ring and docked, which was when the footage froze.

  “My worlds,” the dockmaster whispered. “That is—”

  But he didn’t get to finish his thought.

  The door suddenly flew open, and something was tossed inside.

  Helga, on instinct, dove behind the chairs, snatching at their backs to pull them down. The explosion caught her mid-leap, causing her to briefly lose consciousness when her head struck the wall. Fire took hold of the furniture, and she woke up coughing, scrambling to exit the room. She eventually found the door and stepped out into the chaos of people struggling to leave the building.

  Another explosion went off, but she didn’t even notice as she looked around at the people escaping to see if any stuck out as the assassin. It was hard to make out anything as everyone fought to gain the exits, but when she made to move a shot rang out, and a figure in black rushed towards her.

  Behind him she saw one of the dockworkers fall from a wound in his chest. The man in black turned out to be Sundown, nonchalantly tucking a pistol into his belt. He reached for her hand, and she let him take it, despite hearing Quentin’s objections echoing inside of her head.

  They ran to the back of the starport and onto a glass-covered pathway leading to the center. “Don’t run,” Sundown whispered. “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” Helga said, slowing her jog to a brisk walk, which was necessary to keep up with the Jumper’s lengthy stride. “Do you have another one of those for me?” she said, pointing at the gun inside his belt. He waited until there was a gap in the crowd rushing past, then brought out the pistol and handed it to her.

  “I know you don’t trust me, girl, so take this as a gesture of friendship. If you think I was the one that tried to kill you, then put it to my head and get your revenge. If you choose not to do it, however, I will accept that you see me as an ally.”

  Helga looked down at the weapon and saw that it was a Weylin service pistol, which was a Marine’s sidearm. Odd contraband to be found on Sanctuary. “Why are you helping me?” she said suddenly. “You’ve followed us for two days, so tell me the truth.”

  “I’m a lost son of Virulia, looking for a way out of this hole. You all have a ship. Do I need to say anymore?”

  Helga could tell by his body language that he was still on his guard, and she too was on edge, knowing that an attempt had just been made on her life. Her team could be in danger and she needed to warn them, but that would have to wait until they were in the clear.

  Glancing back at the smoke coming from the rooftop of the starport, she wondered how many people had died from the blast. Transports with security personnel started flying in above their heads. “Here come the thugs in uniforms,” Sundown muttered, then hurried her through a door to the center. “Guns are illegal here, Parshy. Hide that tool. It doesn’t matter if you are Alliance; if they catch you with it, they will throw you into a cell.”

  Helga thanked him for the warning, then slid the gun into a holster beneath her arm. “Who is Parshy, because she’s not me,” she said.

  “It’s a term they use here for multi-species people. Parshy, as in partial. I mean no disrespect.”

  “You saved my life and I am grateful, but call me Parshy again and I will shoot you,” she said. “You can call me Helga, Ate, or ma’am if you’re feeling formal, but don’t assign me nicknames, particularly anything that has to do with my heritage.”

  The center was buzzing with people reacting to the explosion, and from what she could hear there had been casualties, one from the bomb and the other from a gunshot wound. She got a few suspicious looks from people who recognized her from the dock, but she brushed it off as paranoia and followed Sundown through the forum.

  Helga thought about how guilty she would look having survived the explosion unscathed. She had made a ruckus to get an audience with the dockmaster, who died shortly afterward from a bomb. He died, and she escaped only to meet up with a man who put a bullet into a dock worker.

  “I’m so thyped,” she whispered, imagining all the evidence they would have against her. “Who was behind this? Do you know?” she said, walking faster to keep up with him. “Is it a gang?”

  “No. Mercenaries, mostly ex-Navy,” he said, casually. “That old boy back there, the one with a gaping hole in his chest; I recognized him from the bar earlier. That’s when I became suspicious. He’s a murder-for-hire guy, one of the busiest in the underworld. Men like that, they don’t have starport jobs, not unless they’re staking out a mark to clip. That or he was playing spy for one of them,” he whispered, pointing up at the ceiling.

  “The Alliance council?” Helga mouthed.

  “The lady’s got it,” Sundown said.

  Helga had a sinking feeling in her gut that went all the way down to her legs. It confirmed a theory she had discussed with Raileo Lei. He had guessed that corrupted-Bira would find a way to escape, and she had countered that by saying one of the councilmembers would want to destroy the pod. The thought of a brain-biting Geralos living inside of Sanctuary was not the kind of thing that would sit well with everyone, so someone was bound to object, and objections could be violent.

  Maybe this robbery was an attempt to get the pod so that they could destroy it, and the dockmaster knew enough to implicate the guilty councilperson. To make sure he didn’t talk, they hired a goon to do what was necessary. Remove the Nighthawk asking too many questions, and silence the dockmaster, permanently.

  “Any other intel on the assassin, Sundown? Like which guild he was a part of, and where we can go to find them?”

  “I will tell you what you want to know, Helga, but we must wait to talk.”

  They had been walking through a large hallway filled with people staring at kiosks. These were stores that offered up goods, ranging from toiletries to sleek, expensive transports. Helga saw that coming to the center was the right move, since it allowed them to shake anyone trying to keep an eye on them. They still stuck out like two black vipers amid a sea of multi-colored worms, so she wasn’t exactly confident that they were in the clear.

  When they reached the open
market where local vendors hawked their wares, Sundown slipped behind a vacant stall and through an open door. Helga followed him inside, pulling her pistol to hold near her leg as they made their way down a corridor. At the end was another door, which Sundown cracked and peered inside. After a few seconds he motioned her forward, and she entered a dusty storage room stacked full of old furniture.

  “We can rest here, and you can call your comrades,” he said, sliding down to the floor with his back against the wall. Helga contacted Raileo to tell him what had happened at the starport, then after assuring him that she was okay, told him to update Quentin. She hadn’t called him herself because he would inquire about Sundown, and she wasn’t in the mood for an argument.

  “You have a look in your eye that tells me you want answers,” he said, as she walked over to the opposite wall and sat on the floor facing him.

  “Are you really a Jumper?” she said. “Tell me the truth. At this point, I don’t care if you’re really just a fast-talking pirate. You’ve done a lot for me already, so I will put in a good word to my commander. What will get you passage, however, is helping us catch those thieves that broke into our ship. They took something important from us.”

  “The pod,” he said, and she blinked at him with surprise. “I take it your commander didn’t inform you that I am here by my master’s command? We have some time, so I will tell you my tale, and hopefully by the time I’m done, you will trust that I am committed to your cause.

  “I wasn’t born here. I’m a visiting traveler, just like you. The agency sent me to escort a councilman home from his visit to our temple, and I did just that, only to discover the real reason they sent me on that mission. Exile.” He seemed to grimace when he uttered the word. “I had gambled away an important artifact when I ran out of credits at a poker table. This was a few years ago, when I was an active agent, but I had developed a bit of a habit.”

  “You don’t sound like you were a very good agent,” Helga said. “Lamia’s discipline was unreal. I thought all Jumpers were above things like gambling.”

  “I admit that I am not as strong as Lamia was, and for that, I’m no longer recognized as a person by my agency. I was sent here to rot, with no credits or las-sword with which to protect myself. Not even a way to plead with my master, who cut me off from all communication. I was forced in with thieves, outlaws, and assassins, and I became a contract killer, living on the streets. I’ve been here for a year, Nighthawk, cut off from my Jumper family, and what I want more than life itself is to return to the temple to atone for my sins.

  “Had your captain not reached out to my master for assistance, I would have believed that I was sent here to die. An agent’s service is eternal, except for those like me who abuse their freedom. Death is better than disgrace for a Jumper, and I’m already there. I was a good Jumper until that one mistake; it’s probably the only reason the agency kept me alive. So, when my master made contact after all this time, I took it as a chance for forgiveness.”

  “That’s some story,” Helga said. “So let’s say I believe you. Could you tell me who just tried to kill me? You said it was an assassin that you knew, some sort of professional?”

  “The man I shot back there? He’s no professional, but he’s been busy. You were lucky to survive where nineteen others are now on the other side. He’s with a group called the Hopeless. They’re one of the larger sets on this station. They’re who the wealthy go to for murder-for-hire, as well as pulling off impossible heists.”

  “Like robbing an Alliance corvette,” Helga said.

  “Exactly. Their leader’s name is Domina Ryse, she’s a dangerous woman with a lot of stripes on her belt. She’s a graduate of crook university, a hard case who surrounds herself with the lowest bastards on this station. So, if you’re thinking of going in, guns-a-blazing, you may want to come up with a plan, because if they know that you survived that fire, they will expect you to retaliate.”

  “I have a sniper that doesn’t miss, and a giant that can vanish into shadows,” Helga said, dismissively. “We’re going to take back our goods, and there is nothing she can do to stop us.”

  32

  It was near midday, and Cilas Mec was out of patience, waiting around for Admiral Archon Mor. After ordering his team to retrieve their stolen goods, he had gone to the Alliance Navy office in the Victory District’s commerce center.

  He had arrived early in his dress whites, only to be informed that the Admiral was busy in another district. The Louine at the front desk had asked him to sit inside the conference room, where she served him coffee and an assortment of treats. This would have been fine, if not for the fact that this was now his second day on the station, and he had yet to meet the officers responsible for the pod.

  The admiral was in meetings every hour of the day, and the Geralos wasn’t important enough to break his schedule. Cilas hated waiting, but what choice did he have? In this strange place with all its beauty and indifference towards the war, he and his Nighthawks were probably a nuisance to the citizens, a reminder of a reality that they were lucky to escape.

  This last thought confused him. If they were indeed unwanted here then why hadn’t the admiral sent one of his lackeys instead? They could have retrieved the pod, sent confirmation to Retzo Sho, then send the Nighthawks back to the war where they belonged. Instead it was all of this waiting and waiting, which allowed thieves to rob them and complicate the mission.

  He knew how it looked but refused to consider it. Not treachery, here in their most coveted station… yet what he had seen on Sundown’s chip was still on his mind.

  Cilas had watched it that morning when he checked on the Ursula after reading a message from Captain Retzo Sho. All night he had stressed over Sundown and what might be on the chip, so he had taken it to the only place where he was guaranteed privacy: his ship.

  Captain Sho corroborated Sundown’s story, that he had reached out to the Jumpers, but he didn’t add a reason, merely stating that someone would meet him on the station. Cilas had sent a message back, keeping it as cryptic as the one he received, then added his frustration over being sent in blindly to a potentially hostile environment.

  Once that was done he had Ursula scan the chip for anything nefarious, and when she found nothing he had let it play from his comfortable captain’s chair. It was the feed from a reaper-drone, a three-dimensional shot of a transport landing inside a park. This was obviously on Sanctuary; the drone picked up hints of the artificial sun reflecting off the vehicle’s exterior.

  A Satellite Security officer emerged from the front and three others followed, standing at attention in a single-file line. The last passenger to appear wore the robes of an Alliance councilmember. The officers waited while he went for a stroll, and Cilas had begun to wonder at the point of spying on a councilman enjoying nature. But after several meters, the bushes moved and a man stepped out, dressed in all black.

  He had expected the assassin to attack him, thinking the evidence was that of a murder, but the man in black saluted, and they walked away to a patch of grass bordered on all sides by trees. The drone settled onto a branch, close enough for their speech to be recorded, and Cilas was able to hear them talk, though their Sanctuary dialect obfuscated much of it. What he did make out was the councilman’s refusal to go along with something he phrased as “playing God.” Then he spoke in more of their odd dialect, to which the man in black replied, “I will see it done.”

  That was what he got from the recording before going below deck to learn they had been robbed. There was no connection, so far as he could tell, but it was disappointing to learn that a member of the coveted council was having doubts about the war. He had expected to be impressed by both Sanctuary and its leadership, but it had turned out to be one disappointment after another.

  Sure, if he were there as a retired serviceman, the fluff it presented would have been enough, but this was Alliance HQ, and the fate of his people was being decided by a handful of pampered elites. Th
at was the impact of the feed Sundown gave him, a jolt of reality for where he and his Nighthawks stood. The Alliance Navy that he loved was in shambles, and it was beginning to put his mind in a really dark state.

  Maybe it was this room that he was waiting in, which reminded him of the wardroom where Commander Lang had taken his own life. He had been the first man to see it after it happened, and smell the sulfur from that self-inflicted wound. Bloody missions had been his long career, yet none of them haunted him like the moment when he heard that gunshot and walked into that carnage.

  “Commander Mec, apologies for the wait.” A voice snapped him out of his thoughts and he saw a uniformed man in front of him.

  Cilas rose and the man saluted half-heartedly, the sort of sloppy attempt that earned you a million pushups as a cadet. Sanctuary was really grating his nerves, as even the officers seemed to be casual with their discipline.

  Cilas returned the salute crisply, showing the stranger how it was done.

  “Commander Verillion Wren, aide to Admiral Mor,” he said. “I’ll be facilitating the collection of the um, lizard person.”

  “Good to meet you, Commander,” Cilas said, forcing a smile as he clasped shoulders with the shorter Vestalian. “Concerning safety, I want to be sure that you understand, you’re receiving something akin to an unstable warhead. She may look like a cadet, but she’s completely taken over by a Geralos. Have you dealt with one before?”

  “What, a cadet or a lizard?” Verillion said, laughing, then walked around to the opposite side of the table where he helped himself to some coffee. “I’ve dealt with both, extensively, but never one and the same. That seems awful for a child. Can she be saved?”

  Cilas noticed that the man grew nervous after he mentioned the Geralos. He had removed his hat to smooth back his black hair, and his hand was shaking visibly.