by Thomas Webb
Pyro swiped the files, reading along. Her other hand drifted, coming to rest on Monty’s shoulder. Ok—that definitely was not Shane’s imagination. “Is this a military space station?” Pyro asked.
“Yep,” Monty answered. “A decommissioned one, by the looks of it. I just cross referenced it to UN DOD records. It’s Shemari. Looks like it was supposed to have been destroyed. Broken down for scrap in the shipyards out in the Gomorra system.”
“Right,” Shane said. She crossed her arms. “That’s what we found as well.”
Pyro studied the holographic image floating in front of her. “Hmmmmm. . . so how does a supposedly destroyed space station wind up—hey, hold one a second. Where did you find this thing anyway, Valkyrie?”
It was time to share, Shane supposed. Pyro always was a quick study. “It belongs to a woman named Julia Clayton. She’s an executive for United Les Space.”
Monty made a face at the mention of ULS. “Roger that. Word on the street is they’re on the outs with the UN. I believe they were recently put under Allied Planetary audit, right?”
Not for the first time, Shane was impressed at how Monty kept up with current events. Probably part of the reason why he was so good at what he did. “That’s the one,” she said.
“I heard about them on the news feeds,” Pyro said. “What are you doing checking into some corrupt interplanetary corporation?”
The news feeds were reporting on ULS, but even they didn’t have the full story. Not yet. Monty looked like he wanted to say more about it, but instead looked to Shane. She thought she was beginning to see the picture. Something was happening between Pyro and Monty. He didn’t want Pyro to get caught up in any of this, if it could be helped. Shane would honor that for now. For as long as she could.
“It’s part of my new job,” Shane said, leaving it at that. “We’re looking into something that has to do with that, uh, audit Monty just mentioned.”
Monty let out a quiet sigh of relief. “So back to this Shemari space station. . . black market military tech is pretty serious business,” he drawled. “Especially something of this size.” He paused. “Let me guess—you need the access codes, right?”
Shane gave him her best emerald green puppy-dog stare. “Yeah.”
Monty rolled his eyes at that. “Yeah—that kind of intel wouldn’t be available through regular channels. Would be military only. I’ve gotta warn you. . . getting these codes is gon’ be tough, Shane. Maybe more than tough.”
Shane closed her eyes and nodded. “I know. If there was any other way than asking you to get the access codes to that thing . . .”
The gangly intel analyst rubbed the back of his head. “I’ll definitely need to cover my ass on this one.” He looked up at the sky, as if searching for guidance.
“How long until Monty can report to the chain of command that he got wind of this?” Pyro asked.
“Not long,” Shane said, noting how protective she was of Montgomery. “The UN will be kept in the loop, for sure.”
Monty frowned, thinking. “Not sure I can pull this off without raising some alarms. But I’ll do some discreet digging. When do you need it by?”
Shane looked away and swallowed, gathering her courage. She turned back to meet Monty’s gaze.
“Yesterday,” she said.
“Jeez, Shane!”
“You know I appreciate you, Monty. Anything you need to get this done—anything at all—you let me know. I’ll see if my boss can’t pull some strings. Run you some cover.”
Monty’s face fell. “Shane. . .”
“I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important.”
“So your boss has that kind of pull?” Pyro asked. “Friends in high places, huh?” Shane’s old second stick eyed the transport Silvio had allowed her to use. “Civilian life must be treating you well.”
“I can’t complain,” Shane said. She was glad someone had shifted the conversation. God, she hated asking for things. Especially from her friends. Especially things that could land those friends in the stockade.
Pyro walked over to the transport to check it out, running her hand along the keel. “Nice. What is this? A model six?”
“Model seven, actually. They aren’t on the regular market yet.”
Pyro swore, then laughed.
“It belongs to my boss,” Shane clarified. “But he lets me take it for a spin once in a while.”
“Perks of the job?” Monty asked. Good. At least he was speaking again. She hoped that meant he wasn’t too pissed bout the favor she’d just asked him to do.
“You could call it that.”
Monty exhaled. “Alright Shane… if I’m going to do this—and that’s a big ‘if’—I’ll need some assurances. I’ll definitely need that cover you talked about your boss giving me.”
“Done,” Shane said, relieved.
“Okay,” Monty said. “Oh—almost forgot. You mentioned ULS. I’ve been keeping tabs on ‘em some, ever since you came by last time.”
“How did you know I’d need intel on ULS?”
Monty looked hurt. “C’mon Shane. I’m a professional.”
Shane held up both hands. “Point taken. I surrender. So what’d you find?”
Monty went to work at his field unit, the look on his face like a kid on Christmas. His earlier misgivings seemed to have taken a back seat to his love for his work. Soon he had an array of images and files floating before him.
“Check this out,” he said, handing her the unit.
Shane looked at the files, then back at Monty. “Order forms?” she asked.
He nodded. “A metric shit-ton of them, by the looks of it.”
She kept skimming. There were invoices for weapons, armor, and what Shane knew from her time in the Air & Space Command were fighter parts. She looked up from the holo images. “Are these numbers right? Who could need this much gear?”
“Nothing short of an army,” Monty said.
“There are parts for fast movers listed here.”
“You can add a squadron of fighters to that small army,” Pyro chimed in.
“If ULS had its own private army and fleet, that would be in violation to a whole slew of interstellar laws,” Monty said. “Both United Nations and Planetary Alliance laws.”
Shane knew they’d already begun issuing warrants and secret kill orders for much of the ULS leadership. She wasn’t sure if Monty or Pyro knew that just yet, though.
“I also heard some chatter,” Monty said, almost as an afterthought. “There’s a company-sized movement happening. Something outside the normal shipping channels. Had to wade through an ocean of transactions to spot it.”
“Company-sized?” Shane asked.
Monty nodded. “Affirmative.”
Alarms went off in Shane’s head. “Did you go to your superiors with any of this?” she asked.
Monty shook his head. “Naw. Thing is, they aren’t technically doing anything illegal. But my guess is that they’re planning something. Exactly what, though? That’s harder to tell.”
Shane felt uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. “How old is this intel?”
“Pretty fresh,” Monty said. “A day old? Maybe two?”
Suddenly not telling him that ASI was possibly being hunted down seemed like an error in judgement. Like leaving out the middle piece of a jigsaw puzzle.
“What system did that intel originate from?” Shane asked.
“The Urias system,” Monty said, looking confused. “Why?”
“Do me favor and run a query,” Shane said. “See if you can spot anything big enough to carry a combat-sized contingent originating from that system. Something that would have left within the past couple of days.”
Monty’s fingers flew. Less than minute later he had her answer. “Uhh…yeah. As a matter of fact, there was.”
“When?”
“Thirty-six hours ago?”
Shit. Shane’s mouth went dry. Her heart beat faster. The answer to her next question was cri
tical. “Where is that transport? Right now?”
“The transport is. . .” he pulled up the data. “Exactly one jump point out from Earth.“
Shane’s heart leapt into her throat.
Oh no.
Her mind began to race, thinking of all the favors she’d need to call in to get what she needed done in time. “Pyro-is there any way you can get me on base? To the gunships? Not the Avengers. . . the big ones.”
Pyro grinned, nervous at the look she must have seen in Shane’s eyes. “Sure. I guess? I mean, what do you want—a tour of the ships or something? Or—“ Her almond-shaped eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m going to need something,” Shane uttered. “A favor. Not like the intel stuff. . . this one’s a big ask. I’ll try to smooth it over afterwards, but I’m not going to lie-this could mean real trouble.”
Pyro paused. She looked at the floor of the forest, unable to meet Shane’s eyes. “I’m sorry ma’am. I can’t risk it. My career. . .”
“I-I understand,” Shane said. Her eyes burned. “But I’m getting on that base. One way or another.”
Pyro looked up. “No way I can do what I think it is you’re asking.”
Shane’s heart fell.
Pyro met her eyes. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t help you.”
“Thank you,” Shane breathed. She clasped Pyros hand, then turned toward Lima’s bird. “I need you and Monty to mount up. Right now. We have to hurry.”
-6-
Hale swept down the peristeel corridor, the massive shoulders of his FAST armor well clear of the bulkheads. An ordinary space station hallway would barely give him clearance; it would have been a tight squeeze, but the retrofitted luxury station’s dimensions were much wider than standard. With Zombie, Kris, and Lash evenly spaced at his six, they operated down the length of the passage at a smooth pace.
The four-person team moved to a set of stairs, which would have been a simple ladderwell under ordinary circumstances. The stairs led to a sublevel. Hale didn’t’ break stride as he signaled the team to follow him down.
When Hale was operating, the problems of the outside world—the real world—ceased to exist. All that mattered was what was in his sights, and the target that lay somewhere ahead.
“Razor team to TOC,” Hale spoke into his comms, keeping his voice low. “Passing checkpoint Stargazer now.”
“Good copy, One,” Lima’s voice replied.
There was a sealed peristeel hatch at the end of the corridor, the locking mechanism on its surface looking menacing. Hale stopped, first signaling ‘hold position,’ then ‘breacher up.’ His HUD flashed a green icon on the move as Lash shifted forward and into position. The big Salayan, even bigger in his FAST armor, pulled a hand-held torch from his gear. He clicked the mechanism to fire it, then placed the plasma blade against the lock and began cutting. Hale checked his chrono-two minutes in, and they were ahead of schedule.
As they set security on the entryway Lash cut a round chunk into the door, creating a circle encompassing the locking mechanism. He pulled a mag-locked shotgun from his back, looking to Hale for the ‘ok.’ The two locked eyes through their helmets—Hale’s human blue one and Lash’s Salayan red—before Hale gave the nod. They both understood what it meant.
They were about to lose the element of surprise.
“Going loud,” Lash said into the comms. He racked the breaching shotgun and pulled the trigger.
The lock exploded with a boom. Lash strained to heave the door open, and they flowed inside like oxygen escaping a hull breach. Their movements were liquid. It was a slow is fast, fast is smooth entry. Hale and his team moved quickly through the space and down the corridor, until they hit a second set of stairs.
“First two levels clear,” Hale announced over the team wave.
The team proceeded forward. They hit a corner and cleared it, slicing the pie and conquering the space while exposing as little of themselves as possible. An android sentry waited ahead. The robot turned, and Hale dropped it with two well-placed pulse rounds. The android dematerialized. They kept moving.
The team moved until they reached a landing. The space station control center, nexus of the orbital platform, waited below.
“Hold,” Hale ordered.
A second android emerged from underneath the landing. Zombie and Kris were first on the shot, dropping the machine in a burst of concentrated pulse fire. Like its fellow, it dematerialized into a million pixels.
Hale and the team didn’t hesitate, stepping over the railing by two’s and dropping to the deck several meters below. Their armor’s anti-grav units kicked in just before they impacted, countering the station’s gravity generators and letting them down as gentle as a spring breeze. Soon they all stood at the entryway to what would ordinarily have been the station’s command center.
“Razor One, be advised that additional security forces are inbound,” Lima warned them. “The clock is ticking.”
“Copy, TOC.” Hale turned back toward the team. “Lash—you’re up again. Everyone else, hold.”
There was a chorus of ‘copies.’ Hale, Kris, and Zombie set hasty security wile Lash moved up to the door.
For the team’s designated breacher, it was a repeat performance from earlier. The plasma torch had just enough juice to address the second reinforced door. With the door cut, Lash racked his breaching weapon again. A pull of the trigger later and the berracite-loaded shotgun did its job a second time.
This go around, it was Zombie who served as head door kicker. The prior-service Green Beret took point. Kris flowed in behind her. Hale stayed right on Kris’ six, and Lash transitioned from breacher to rear security in the blink of an eye.
“Last man,” Hale said, slapping the Salayan’s massive armored shoulder as he swept past. Zombie had broken right. Kris went left, leaving Hale to own the center. Hale heard fire from the right as he moved outside the fatal funnel. In that instant his brain filed the information away. Discipline and training meant he saw to his sector first, making sure it was clear before engaging in someone else’s. He focused on his part, and his part only. It was a good thing, too.
Hale spotted a single android, the robot’s pulse pistol barrel rising to point at his chest. It took only a millisecond for Hale to assess and execute two near simultaneous trigger pulls. He watched as the machine dropped, dissolving in an array of pink photons.
“Right side clear,” Zombie said.
“Left side clear,” Kris said.
“Center clear,” Hale said.
The entire evolution had taken mere seconds. With all sectors clear, Hale made for the station’s central computing node. His rifle pointed toward the ceiling, he pulled an intelligence module from his gear and attached it to the command console.
“TOC this is one,” Hale spat into his comms. “No joy. Repeat—no joy. HVT is in the wind.”
“Copy, One. Excellent work. Grab what intel you can and get to your exfil. You have incoming.”
“Copy, TOC.”
Hale and his team formed up and moved swiftly back to their entry point. When they got to the space station hatch, Lima’s voice interrupted them.
“Index, index, index. Razor Team—you are secure from training exercise.”
The lights came up, shifting from a washed-out crimson to a bright, clear white. Hale and the rest of the team popped the seals on their FAST armor and removed their helmets.
Hale mag-locked his rifle to his chest and ran a hand over his head. “What was our time on that last run, TOC?”
“Five minutes and twenty-seven seconds, Staff Sergeant,” X37 answered over the wave.
“Not bad,” Lash chuckled. “That was twenty seconds faster than our previous best.”
“Yeah,” Hale growled. “I think we can do better.”
“Dammit Hale,” Zombie swore. “You ever let up?” She shook her head. “Speaking of letting up. . . hey TOC—that new holographic android in the stairwell was a nice touch.�
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Hale agreed. “Having the HVT split before we got there was a god change-up, too.”
“We have to throw in some surprises,” Lima said.
“You want Razor Team to stay sharp,” Kris said.
“Was that an attempt at humor?” A surprised Hale asked her.
Zombie smirked and flipped the bird in the general direction of the Sao Paulo hanger a few hundred meters away.
“We have optics here in the TOC,” Lima said. “I can see you, Razor Two.” Hale could practically hear the old man scowling on the other end of the comm wave.
“I know,” Zombie replied, not skipping a beat. “So when are we heading downrange to do this thing for real? These training runs are getting old.”
“Ready to smash some non-holographic skulls?” Lash asked.
“You f’n know it, big guy.” Zombie stuck out an armored fist and Lash bumped it with his own.
“We’ll go as soon as the old man gives us the green light,” Hale grumbled. “Not a minute before.”
“Soon,” Lima announced over comms. “Within days. My sources say Clayton’s newly-hired security patrols are almost ready to rotate out of orbit. When they do, we move.”
Hale nodded. “Let’s get it set up again, TOC. I want to run it one more time.”
Hale ignored the questioning looks from his team. They were pros. They should act like it.
“Negative, Razor One,” Lima said. “Secure from the exercise. We can debrief inside the TOC.”
Hale double-clicked his reply to Lima before addressing his team. “Okay people—you heard the man. Looks like we’re done for the day. Let’s head to the armory and then get inside for debrief.”
Lash was first. He popped the exit hatch in the space station mockup, entering their adjustable shoot house. As Lash and Kris headed for the door, Zombie hung back.
“Hey boss,” she said. “What’s eating your ass? I know you’re a perfectionist and all, but you’ve been kind of snappy lately. Didn’t think much of it at first, but your spacing was off on that last training op.”
Hale stayed quiet. Zombie knew him better than he’d realized.
“Much as I hate to admit it,” she continued, ignoring his silence, “you’re too good at what you do for that to be normal. So what gives?”