by Greg Dragon
Cilas saw what he meant, and Raileo complied instantly, despite the bullets volleyed back at his location. He crawled out from behind the statue, picked up Helga, cradled her close and ran back into the shadowy ruins. Two armed figures materialized in the location where he was running, and Cilas feathered the trigger at a stroke, perforating them.
Meanwhile, on the north side, the enemy picked up on what they were doing and aimed their weapons at the balcony instead. Cilas placed a hand on Quentin’s rifle, wordlessly telling him to stand down and take cover behind the stone balcony. “We’ll come back for Anders,” he promised the big man. “Hopefully they assume that he’s dead and start searching the grounds while we go get Sunveil.”
Quentin pulled back his rifle and ducked below a solid section of the balcony’s railing, shouldering the auto-rifle to arm himself with his sidearm. Cilas Mec chanced another glance down to where Anders lay half-submerged in the pond, like a creature from the depths in its final death throes. The armored Marines surrounded his body, one kicking him hard in the side which resulted in him recoiling, hacking up the filthy remnants of the drink.
The kicker signaled to the others, and two of them rushed forward to pull him out onto the grass, where they started questioning him violently while the others stood guard, some scanning the balcony above them. Cilas cursed under his breath. “We need to move.” He signaled to Quentin, and together they leaped the gap to return to the door leading back to the hall in which they had been fighting earlier. “Q, that first doorway opens out into a staircase leading down to the first floor. We need to seal it in case the target tries to run.”
“There’s also an elevator. Managed to see it through the smoke on our way out,” Quentin reported. “No one rushed out before the bomblet. You think there’s a chance they’re still in that room up here?”
“If they weren’t, we’d have seen them down there,” Cilas guessed. “Not unless they went down a floor just to hide, which makes very little sense.”
“I’ll jam the elevator and seal the door to the staircase then,” Quentin informed him, and Cilas dropped to a knee, raising his auto rifle up to eye-level. The hallway was surprisingly empty but still had the lingering smoke from the earlier bomblet, limiting his vision and forcing him to cycle through a variety of filters on his contact lens.
He saw someone emerge from a doorway in the distance, armed with a rifle and slinking blindly towards where he knelt. One of Cilas’s shots struck him in the chest, the other through the faceplate, killing him instantly, and the Nighthawk exhaled slowly, trying to maintain control over his nerves. Two bullets had punctured holes in the wall near where he knelt, and he realized just how close he had come to finally meeting his death.
“Doors are jammed, I’m on my way back out,” Quentin reported before another shadow followed the first, firing erratically at Cilas. A bullet struck the Nighthawk in his chest plate, painfully, but the composite weaving prevented it from penetrating. Cilas took his time to aim steadily, and set the shooter to screaming with a bullet in his abdomen.
Quentin materialized next to him. “Both doors are permanently sealed,” he said. “Heard your weapon report, with no call for contact. Looks like you’re hit. Are you good?”
“Golden, and we’re thyping live alright.” Cilas grimaced. “Now, let’s go get this cruta and be done with this hell.”
They moved quickly down the hallway to the second of four open doors. Inside was a large room with five small windows letting in the moonlight. Random folding chairs were scattered about, and the ratty tan carpet was dotted with splotches of garnet-colored blood from one of the men Cilas had killed. Moving in carefully, they came upon a cracked door, which was fortunate since it too blended in with the wall that held it.
“I won’t ask what they do in here,” Quentin commented as he stepped to one side, aiming down his sights. Cilas mouthed a countdown, yanked it open and ducked out of the way. When nothing jumped out, they stepped through to a set of stairs leading down into blackness. Cilas turned on his night vision and through a practiced signal urged Quentin to do the same.
“Got a line on the third step: booby trap. How do we play it?” Quentin said.
Hidden room leading down to the first floor where they can sneak out. Cilas analyzed the situation in the span of a few seconds. “I neutralized their lookout, so they know at least one of us is up here. Two intruders wouldn’t give Sunveil cause to run off just yet. We still have time, but we need to move fast. Trip the bomblet and we’ll use the element of surprise to rush in.”
“On your command,” the big Genesian responded, still aiming down the staircase.
“Now,” Cilas whispered, and Quentin triggered the trap, causing them to nearly collide when they scrambled back up the stairs to avoid the shrapnel. “Are you good, Q?” Cilas whispered, and when he gave the sign for okay, the two of them rushed back down the stairs. It wound down to another landing, this one covered in rubble from the explosion, then even more stairs leading to what Cilas assumed would be the basement.
“An underground compartment,” Cilas mused, while Quentin took point, probing for more surprises. When they reached the bottom, they found a space illuminated by a solitary light bulb. Another lounge, from what it appeared, this one much larger than the first. On the carpeted floor squatted several Genesians hiding below tables and assorted furniture. Another bar in the back revealed one carefree member who sat sipping at his liquor as if he had no fear.
It took a mere second for Cilas to get a lay of the land, and even less for Quentin Tutt to step up and aim his rifle at two shadows attempting to flank them. No words were exchanged, Quentin just started firing. Crouching to a duck walk to avoid the response, Cilas crept behind a table and placed three bullets in the side of the bar where the drinker had ducked to retrieve his weapon.
One of the bullets struck home, and the man stood up to escape, but a fourth shot threw him back against the wall where he slumped down, lifeless. He had been the last of Sunveil’s guards, so Cilas ordered the civilians to gather in the center of the room where they could be questioned. He counted eighteen, all having the appearance of pampered diplomats unused to being on the receiving end of the violence. They were ordered to lay prone with their limbs outstretched.
Cilas picked out one of their number, a mustachioed dandy who looked about as close to what he’d imagine an official from Basce City would look like. Snatching him by the collar, he dragged him away from the others to stand by the corpse of the man who had pretended to be there drinking.
“Garson Sunveil?” Cilas asked, but the man kept staring at Quentin, seemingly petrified.
The big Nighthawk did look frightening, even through the night vision, covered in the rubble and blood from the night’s ongoing conflict. Out of patience and worried for his Nighthawks outside, Cilas stepped forward and struck him in the jaw with a closed fist, sending him backwards into the bar. He slid to the floor, holding his face.
“Garson Sunveil?” he tried again, and when the man wouldn’t talk, Cilas knelt down and pulled his knife, placing the tip of the blade inside a bloody nostril. “Closing your eyes won’t stop me from lopping it off. One more time, are you Garson Sunveil?”
“I’m Garson Sunveil,” someone announced from the people lying prone in front of Quentin. Cilas snatched up the man he had been questioning and shoved him back towards the rest. He then walked over to the one claiming to be Sunveil and placed a boot on his back to prevent him from moving.
“If you’re really Sunveil, then give me the name of the woman you’ve got your goons from BasPol tearing the tenements apart to find,” Cilas demanded. “There’s a lot of people in here, and one of you is bound to be our target, so either answer the question or Quentin there will start shooting. Do you want a demonstration?”
“No,” the man said quickly. “What is this about? Did Djesu’s little girl really hire you to come after me?” He seemed more intrigued than frig
htened now, despite the environment.
Cilas shot the prone man in his leg, aiming at the fleshy part of his outer thigh. The kinetic round hit its mark, but ricocheted off the tiles to strike an area of the ceiling where a shower of dust came down on their heads. Garson Sunveil screamed out in agony, prompting the commander to step down harder on his back. “You have one minute to convince me that you are who you say you are, or the next one goes into your head.”
“Fio Doro is a smuggler,” Sunveil said quickly. “She fumbled a package that put a lot of heat on some important people over the tenements. The residents hid her, so we were forced to resort to violence. You mercenaries or whatever you are wouldn’t understand the sort of hell that will be unleashed if we don’t turn her over to our government. Think BasPol was bad? You haven’t seen anything yet. But if you let my guests go, I will be willing to talk.”
“You’ll tell us everything whenever and wherever we choose, cruta,” Quentin barked, his muscular jaw clenched so tight he looked menacing. “This is no longer your game, unless you haven’t been paying attention.” Sunveil could only manage a momentary glance at him to see that he wasn’t bluffing. “Feels like stalling, brother, what are your orders?” Quentin asked of Cilas, who happened to be thinking the same thing.
“He says he’s our man, so let’s just collect him,” Cilas instructed. “Even if he isn’t, he’s bound to know something, even if we have to cut it from him.” He looked up at the guests still sprawled out prone on the floor. “The rest of you don’t move a thyping muscle until we tell you,” the Nighthawk commander told them.
Removing his boot from the injured Sunveil, he flipped him over and placed the muzzle on his chest. Using his free hand to thoroughly search him, Cilas discovered a small handheld communicator with a name on its face. “Garson Sunveil,” it read, with an accompanying image of the man who lay bleeding out below him. Despite himself, Cilas had doubted they’d find him. A part of him believed Sunveil had already escaped the property.
“Mission accomplished, brother,” Quentin assured him, and Cilas allowed himself a brief moment to appreciate those words and their meaning.
23
Prior to every mission since leaving the nightmarish moon of Dyn, Helga would stand before a mannequin bearing her PAS armor and make herself a promise to never again be taken prisoner. When the Geralos had her, she’d been subjected to countless horrors being dealt to her fellow captives while waiting day after day for it to be her turn. Barely conscious throughout the days that she hung from a hook waiting, she couldn’t have known everything they did to her back then.
When Cilas eventually found her, she had been inside a room by herself, naked—which she hadn’t been able to remember happening—with tubes running in and out of her body. Later, a Louine physician had informed her the tubes were for a transfusion so the Geralos could find a way to bite her safely. She was a Seeker, having the gift of sight that the Geralos harvested and massacred millions of her fellow Vestalians to find, but she was also a Casanian, a species whose blood was dangerous to ingest.
She hadn’t been the same spacer since her capture, and the only person to understand had been Cilas. His support, along with her learning of her gift, were the only things that kept her among the living. Many drunk nights inside her cabin, lonely and fearful, she had contemplated the worst to end the pain. Cilas and Joy pulled her back from the precipice, and ever since then she had started the ritual of making promises to her mannequin.
Helga came awake to darkness, noise, and confusion. The world was spinning, everything ached, and it tasted as if she’d made a meal of dirt prior to her fall off the balcony. The fall hadn’t killed her, and she could barely recall what caused it when her eyes came open to a dim light shining.
High above her was a ceiling with a gaping hole, through which the rain was soaking her through and through. As her vision cleared, she began to recognize Amberle, Genese’s solitary moon, whose off-white, cratered face defied even the clouds. She assumed the cold wet rain had roused her, and she split her lips apart to allow the droplets to collect inside her mouth.
Turning her head to face a muddy pile-up, she spat the remnants from her mouth. Just that slight movement was enough to send a wave of unbearable pain throughout her body, so she stopped and closed her eyes to try and remember where she was. Helga was inside one of the ruins, this she could tell from the holes in the wall letting in the floodlights, and half her body was buried in a mountain of rubble, with a generous sprinkling of broken glass.
How am I here? she wondered, flexing each digit on her hands and feet, methodically. In doing this exercise, she could determine if any part of hers was damaged to the point of needing a splint. Fingers were stiff, but curled on command, toes as well, though the restriction of her boots didn’t give her confidence. I guess we will know once I attempt to stand. She surrendered to fate, moving on to attempt to bend and unbend her knees and elbows very slowly.
The poor light from the moon proved insufficient for truly scrutinizing the damage. Helga reached up to examine her chest, where she was sure that a bullet had struck. But while there was a depression, the kinetic-resistant fabric had held. She breathed a sigh of relief of not only being alive, but to still be clothed in her composite body armor. Though much of it had been damaged, her having it on meant she was not in fact captured, but had survived the explosion and consequent fall.
She reached down for her belt, pushing a pile of rocks out of the way, probing for the tiny hip-pack holding essential medical supplies. Pulling it open, she dug inside for an emergency resuscitation transmitter, commonly known among the Alliance Navy as a revita-shot. It was a form of processed spice, highly addictive and illegal without consent from a medical professional. Dr. Cleia Rai’to had shown it to them, and urged Cilas to make it a requirement for every Nighthawk to carry.
Helga placed the tip of the needle against her neck and made to push it in but hesitated. She was suddenly aware of her surroundings, the dead comms and the rain’s rhythm pattering all around. Where were her Nighthawks? She looked about frantically, ignoring the pain. The room was small, busted-up, and windy, with muddy debris everywhere, but there were no Nighthawks aside from herself.
“He’s on the rooftops,” she heard a man shout, startling her, followed by a laser-rifle’s whine and a loud, blood-curdling scream. The unmistakable sound of Raileo’s Widow Maker striking an unsuspecting target.
No stranger to pain, Helga worked herself up to her elbows and felt around in the rubble for her backpack. Come on cruta, earn your name, she thought, biting down hard as she worked to get up to a sitting position. It felt as if her muscles were being torn off the bone, but she eventually propped herself up using the back wall for support.
The next effort was to gather her bearings and work out how she’d wound up here without her Nighthawks. Was she in immediate trouble? Did the enemy drag her in here to die, or had she managed to do it herself? Gunfire was an indication that fighting was happening, but the Nighthawks would never have left her, making her predicament even more confusing.
Remembering her implant, she touched her ear, and through the dry, caked-up blood and mud, she located the cold metal surface of the controller for her lens. Tapping at it gingerly to trigger the interface, Helga exhaled with some relief when the HUD appeared before her eyes, brilliant blue lines hovering before her, forming a menu of options for her to interact with.
“Ray, can you hear me?” she managed before an itch in her throat sent her through an uncontrollable wave of coughing to expel the gunk.
“Ate,” Raileo breathed into his comms with relief. “Oh, thank the maker, you’re awake. How are you feeling now? I was working my way back to get you. Can you move?”
“More or less,” Helga admitted, though he spoke so fast, she was still trying to process what he said. “Are you with the others, Cilas, Q, and Anders? How long was I out?”
“It’s been a few hours. Ci
las and Q went to get our target and I’ve been out here trying to locate Anders,” he reported. “We got you to safety, but then all hell broke loose. I think they took Anders captive, and the commander ran off with Quentin. Told me to watch over you, that was my job, but they started sniffing about here, so I had to let loose. Wait … sorry … I have to go silent, Ate. Hold tight and I’ll reach you. I’m almost there.”
“You find that, thype yet?” a gruff voice called from somewhere behind the wall where Helga slumped.
She remembered her promise to never get captured, and it steeled her, pushing past pain, disorientation, and the need to use her one and only revita-shot. Desperate fingers rifled through the rubble beneath her boots, turning this way and that to see if she could locate where her backpack and guns had gone. Eventually she surrendered. Raileo would have taken it, she decided. To protect us from being identified while he cleared us an escape.
Lightning struck, illuminating everything, and a piece of timber caught her eye, as thick as one of her arms, and long enough to serve its new purpose as a club. Reaching out to grab it, she used it to assist her getting up to a kneeling position, though the sudden movement made her waver at the edge of collapsing. “Oh, thype this,” she whispered and jammed the needle into her neck. Hot fire exploded through her veins, numbing the hurt but allowing her to stand, still unsteady but no longer fearful of passing out.
She hobbled over to stand near the sole doorway, feeling stronger with every second, senses focused, and her heart rate slowing, bringing with it a calm. Someone had come into her hideout, and despite the feedback from the gunfire in the distance, she could hear him sucking in breath as he conducted his search. His large boots crunched wet glass, and rotten timber as he explored the rooms, looking for what, she could not know.