Michael Anderle - [Heretic of the Federation 03]

by Time to Fear (epub)

  If she’d timed it right, it would work perfectly.

  “Get down!” Frog yelled, and she fell prone.

  The grenade blew and the pirates fell around it, their suits fragmenting in a storm of flechettes. She didn’t take the time to celebrate. Instead, she looked for more.

  When the boarding tube remained empty and no more invaders emerged, she glanced at her teammate. He stood in the middle of a circle of bodies, breathing hard, and his blade dripped blood.

  “I thought you said to not let them get close.”

  “I can’t use a sword if they don’t get close,” he retorted, “and these guys needed killing.”

  “So, can I?”

  “How good is your sword work?”

  Ivy paused. “I don’t know.”

  “Exactly. Stay with the blaster if you can.”

  She looked around for the next threat. “Where are the others?”

  Frog laughed. “Trust me, there are more. That was only Level One. We have to see how many levels we can work through before you die.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll come back. If you die, we lose.”

  “Oh…” Her gaze swept the concourse again. “So, where’s Level Two?”

  He pointed at the ship. “Are you coming?”

  The girl began to jog toward him but noticed the opening to the other boarding tube and changed direction. “Lemme close this first.”

  “Close it?” he asked as she reached the end of the tube and lobbed a grenade into the airlock at the other end. “Oh…”

  Ivy didn’t wait to see what the effect was and simply bolted to where he stood. Alarms sounded from inside the pirate ship and he gave her a look of disgust.

  “Well, now they know we’re coming.”

  She checked her blaster and moved to the other tube. “Are you leading or following?”

  Frog sighed. “Well, I am the instructor.”

  “And if you die, you come back,” she reminded him as he came alongside.

  “I thought I would take the lead.”

  “Didn’t you want me to learn how to work as part of a team?” she asked and added before he could answer, “Besides, Marcus and that guy next to him—”

  “Johnny,” he supplied.

  “Johnny,” she continued. “They had this set of actions they did when a ton of them attacked.”

  “What makes you think there’ll be a ton?” Frog asked as they reached the airlock and sprinted through.

  “It’s kinda their ship,” Ivy retorted. “What makes you think there won’t?”

  Movement caught her eye and she began to fire. “What’s the objective?”

  “We have to take their command center.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “Here.” Frog sent the data to her HUD. “You can plot us a path.”

  More Dreth appeared and she fired again.

  “We need to go right…and up,” she told him.

  “And survive,” he reminded her as they reached an intersection and Dreth appeared from three directions.

  “This is bad, isn’t it?” she asked and threw a grenade down the corridor to her right.

  Frog eliminated the pirates in the corridor to her left. “Not yet, it isn’t—shields!”

  Ivy found the command in her HUD and managed to get the suit’s shields online before the grenade detonated. Some Dreth died, but more survived and continued their advance.

  She managed to kill most of them with her blaster, then drew her knife and thumbed the control that gave its edge a blue-limned hue.

  “Nice,” she murmured, and the Dreth chuckled.

  “Typical human,” he rumbled, “bringing a knife to a gunfight.”

  Without warning, she lunged forward, then threw herself into a slide as he fired. The first rounds passed over her head and chewed the deck behind her as she wrapped one hand around his ankle and sliced the blade through the armor cover on his other ankle.

  The pirate roared, and she realized she’d made a small mistake. Being under a pirate as he collapsed in an angry heap was not her smartest move.

  Shots and screams sounded from where Frog was fighting as Ivy scrambled away from the falling Dreth. She came to an abrupt halt against two sets of legs and was hauled to her feet.

  “Captain’s gonna have—” one began, but she yanked a grenade from her bandolier, depressed the timer, and waved it over her head before she simply dropped it.

  “Are you suicidal?” Frog gasped as the pirates released her and started to run.

  “Nope,” she told him and landed already in motion. She took two strides and dived forward, rolled over the top of two rapidly cooling corpses, and caught hold of one to arrest her forward movement.

  When the grenade exploded, she was tucked behind the large body, which was more shelter than her previous captors had. The blast caught them before they’d cleared its range and they sagged in two bloody heaps as shrapnel passed over her head.

  “Mother of—” her teammate began and fired several shots in quick succession. “You are banned.”

  “Banned?”

  “No. More. Grenades.”

  Ivy snickered. “I still have six left.”

  Frog groaned and changed the subject. “The corridor’s cleared. Which way?”

  She checked and snagged one of the pirate’s blasters as she stood.

  “Mine’s running low,” she said when she caught her teammate’s raised eyebrows.

  As she spoke, she fired and felled a Dreth who had rounded the corner ahead of them.

  “If we’re quick, we can—” The words cut off as she dove forward when the ceiling opened above them and several Dreth dropped on them.

  If Frog was impressed by her quick thinking, he didn’t say. He released his blaster and went straight to blades. Ivy rolled forward, drew her blaster, and dealt with the closest one. Her blade was in her hand when she regained her feet and she stabbed forward, remembering Frog’s instruction.

  “The blade’s an extension of yourself.”

  She hadn’t fully understood what he meant but she did now. It was like her fist had grown another four inches—another four very sharp inches with the ability to slice through medium armor.

  The problem was that she couldn’t reach a pirate throat and punching into their stomachs made hers roil. She might have been able to fight well enough to get herself out of trouble, but she’d never fought to kill.

  The Dreth screamed and she jerked her hand back, leaving the blade behind when it snagged. It was easier to pull the smaller pistol and fire it point-blank until the pirate fell away from her. Then, it was easy to keep shooting until the next invader was no longer a threat.

  Ivy switched targets and moved forward until her pistol clicked in her hand, the charge drained. With a grimace, she looked around quickly, found another on one of the fallen pirates, and picked it up.

  Checking its safety, magazine, and battery, she located the next target, barely aware of Frog moving beside her to mirror her actions. When they reached the stairwell, the alarms fell silent, even though the lights still flashed.

  “What happened?” she asked and panic edged her voice.

  “It’s the end of Level Two,” he told her. “Level Three starts when we enter the stairwell.”

  “Level Three?” Her chest heaved with exertion. “Exactly how many levels are there?”

  “That depends on how long we survive.”

  “You mean it doesn’t stop when we reach the command center?”

  “Don’t you mean if we reach it?”

  Level Three was a challenge. Firstly because the stairwell was the only way up and the Dreth were waiting, and secondly because the Dreth had no compunctions about dropping grenades down the shaft.

  “What are we supposed to do about that?” Ivy asked as one sailed past her.

  “Toss it back?” Frog suggested, did exactly that, and dragged her under the stairs as it exploded above them.

&n
bsp; “Oh, har. Very funny,” Ivy told him, but she caught the next one and followed his example.

  Doors crashed open above and below them, and the heavy footsteps rattled the stairs.

  “Here they come,” he murmured.

  “You don’t say!” she snapped, then ducked out from under the stairwell and fired at the Dreth who descended.

  Frog took on the Dreth who came from the lower levels, and his shots forced them into cover instead of taking advantage of Ivy’s position. That worked until the invaders began to rappel over the edge.

  “You need to get to the landing!” her instructor shouted, and Ivy nodded.

  A pirate appeared in front of her, and she shot him through the faceplate. The force of impact launched him into freefall. She darted out from under the stairs and continued her ascent with her teammate hard on her heels.

  This time, they reached the floor they needed to be on and stopped on either side of the door. Frog nodded toward the entry pad and checked his blaster, and Ivy went to work and rapidly disabled the security system.

  She took a quick look, saw the corridor was clear, and slid out with him close behind. For a minute, they stood in silence and took stock of their surroundings before he asked, “Where to?” and she pointed.

  The pirates waited until they’d cleared the next intersection before they slammed a blast door closed behind them. A second blast door clanged shut ahead of them, which left only one connecting corridor open.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” Ivy muttered, and Frog agreed.

  They moved forward together, slid closer to the intersection, and peered around the corner. Two gleaming autocannons stood at the other end.

  “Is this the only way through?” he asked, and she checked the HUD.

  “We can’t go back, but there’s an alternate route on the other side.”

  “Those cannons will fire the second we start crossing,” he told her, and she nodded.

  She glanced at the ceiling. “What if we go over?”

  “Have you watched footage of the Hooligans?” he asked as his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  “The who?” Ivy asked, and he shook his head.

  “Never mind.”

  “No, come on. Who? Because they sound like they’ve done this kind of thing before and I can look them up.”

  Frog shook his head. “There’s a reason they’re called the Hooligans, you know.”

  “They sound like my kind of people,” she told him and blasted a hole in the ceiling panels above them.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked.

  “It’s the only way,” she pointed out. “We need to get past the guns and they have the corridor covered.”

  He shrugged and laced his fingers together.

  “Let me give you a boost,” he said, and she nodded, stepped lightly into his hands, and launched off them as he flicked her up.

  Ivy scrambled into the ceiling cavity and was relieved to find it empty.

  “You missed an opportunity there, boys,” she told the non-existent Dreth as she inched along the edge of the walkway.

  She was surprised when she peered around the corner and found no guns waiting. Curious to see where it led, she moved forward cautiously and smiled when she reached a door. Swiftly and quietly, she returned to where her teammate remained in the corridor below.

  “You need to come up here,” she told Frog. “We’re almost there.”

  In the end, she had to reach down so he could grab her arm and steady him as he scrabbled up to join her.

  “This way,” she told him and led him around the corner to the door. “The guns are down there and the command center is across this bulkhead there.”

  He looked warily at her. “Are you sure?”

  Ivy nodded. “Take a look.”

  She waited while he inspected the schematics in his HUD and smiled when he nodded.

  “But we don’t know what’s behind this door,” he reminded her.

  “I’ll hack the surveillance system,” she replied, and he nodded.

  “And I’ll keep watch.”

  As quickly as she could, she plugged her tablet in and worked feverishly, then whistled softly when she’d broken through and could update the schematics they had for that deck.

  “We can win this,” she told him, and he smiled as he gestured toward the door.

  They could win this, but there was one small problem she’d overlooked.

  He opened fire before the door was fully ajar. The two Dreth inside fell to two short bursts as he pushed past them, and Ivy followed.

  “To win, you have to kill the captain,” he told her and began to move out over the space the command center occupied.

  “Frog…” she began uncertainly, and he winked at her and indicated a point mid-way between them.

  “He’s below us—there.”

  Ivy moved forward and glanced at him for confirmation that she’d reached the right location. When she had, he gave her a cocky grin, prepped both blasters, and pulled their butts firmly against his sides.

  “Ready?” he asked and she nodded, although her face said she had no idea what he had planned.

  He grinned at her, aimed the blasters downward, and began to fire.

  “Then let’s go!”

  Ivy didn’t wait to be told twice. She stooped to lift the ceiling panel she needed and jumped quickly into the room below to land behind one of the largest Dreth she’d yet encountered. Beyond him, hidden behind the pirate and the control panel in front of him, she could hear Frog firing.

  Other weapons were fired as well and she realized they were outnumbered.

  To win, you have to kill the captain, Frog had said.

  “To find him, I need to take this guy out first,” she muttered and earned a startled grunt.

  She ducked under a hastily swung fist, angled her blaster up, and pulled the trigger, and the rounds cut into the pirate’s armor at point-blank range. Their impact drove him back a few steps, but not before he’d swung a second massive fist in her direction.

  That one connected, but she continued to fire as she fell.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered and registered two things.

  First, the pirate she’d shot was dead and out of the fight, and second, the rank tabs denoted that he was captain. The third thing she registered was the utter stillness that had descended over the control room.

  “Frog?” she whispered over their comms and only barely remembered to keep her voice soft.

  A soft sick feeling rippled through her chest when he did not reply. She crept quickly to the edge of the captain’s console and peered around it, surprised to see how many Dreth were slumped over their consoles or dead on the floor.

  Her instructor had let loose and had a field day.

  Ivy looked up and located the hole in the ceiling before she looked down. Dreth bodies obscured her view, but none of them moved. All those who’d survived remained still, too.

  “Roma?” she asked but again received no reply.

  Cautiously, she moved out from behind the console to where she thought Frog would be. It wasn’t until she’d reached the space beneath the hole that she found him with only one boot protruding from beneath a pirate.

  It took effort to drag the Dreth clear, but her instructor lay motionless, as dead as his enemies.

  “Frog?” she asked and refused to believe it. She placed a hand on either shoulder and shook him, but his body shifted bonelessly in her hands and his head turned to show a crater where the left side of his skull used to be.

  “Frog?” She looked around wildly as sadness rose through the nausea that had settled in her chest.

  Bullet holes pockmarked the consoles and marred the armor of the Dreth she’d turned over. Frog’s sword stuck out below them. It didn’t take her long to determine what had happened, and she dropped his body and thumped a fist onto his chest as she realized what he’d done.

  “You selfish, stupid sonuva—” she
began, knowing full well he was none of those. He had simply known what they faced in the command center and had put the mission—and her survival—first.

  She punched him again, and a wordless cry echoed around her—her wordless cry, although the fact of that didn’t truly register. Tears followed, and she kept her hand on his chest and sobbed as the training scenario swirled away around her.

  Chapter Nine

  The Marines searched the Tempestarii’s decks. They pulled panels open, investigated storage caches, and checked the cavities housing pipes of suppression gas but found nothing.

  “To your right.” The ship’s instruction came through their comms.

  They exchanged glances and veered right. The ship was good, but even she couldn’t see everywhere, and they knew that. Still, if she directed them in that particular direction, she’d seen something.

  “There is residual heat,” she explained, and they nodded.

  Residual heat meant a warm body—or something more serious, but in that case, there were other sensors that would have been triggered and they hadn’t. Her quiet instruction led them to an alcove reserved for storing cleaning equipment and a woman who tried to pull the panel shut behind her.

  When she saw the Marines, she stopped and stepped out into the corridor, her hands partly raised. The Marines exchanged glances and relaxed.

  Crewman Sawyer had a spotless record with no sign that she’d ever been in contact with the Regime, let alone had the chance to be turned by it. She kept her hands raised, took two tentative steps forward, and waited for them to react.

  They did not disappoint.

  “If you’ll come this way, ma’am,” one stated and was surprised when she put on a sudden spurt of speed and shoved him into his partner as she bolted past him.

  Caught off balance, he stumbled, and the two of them fell in a rattle of armor and equipment as Sawyer sprinted back the way she’d come.

  In all truth, she hadn’t realized what she was until the captain had made his announcement for the crew to gather and that there would be testing. When that had come through, something inside her had snapped, and she’d understood that this was “it”—the entire reason she’d sacrificed three years of time with her family.