by M. D. Cooper
Jason and Calista skirted the open span of the bay, as Shannon navigated the craft through the containment field. The two fighters piloted by Tobias followed in Shannon’s wake.
Jason spotted a hand truck, and motioned Daniel toward it when the Enfield security man dropped from the shuttle’s hatch. Daniel ran to grab it, while Jason shifted crates to make a path large enough for the truck to navigate.
There was something obscene about seeing more than two hundred sentients, squeezed between boxes of vidalia onions and solenoids like so much merchandise. It was an abomination so repulsive that Jason found himself deep within the zone, hungry for something to destroy.
He stood immobile, his hands flexing into fists as he battled to contain his rage.
Something must have given his emotional state away to the Weapon Born, because the AI opened a private Link and asked quietly,
Jason stepped aside to give Daniel room to float the hand truck in. He nodded mentally to the AI as the security chief began to load the isolation tubes.
Jason helped Daniel guide the hand truck out from among the crates, then followed the man as he loaded them into the shuttle.
Before Jason had a chance to ask, the AI's avatar held up a hand.
Jason caught Calista's eye, and signaled to get her attention just as Tobias spoke.
Daniel turned from where he had just sealed the shuttle’s hatch.
Daniel glanced between Jason and Calista, then nodded.
Jason nodded and turned toward the cargo bay door.
* * * * *
Terrance watched via drone feed as an enemy soldier advanced along the maglev. Then he rose slowly from cover while the cartel woman was distracted by shots from Landon. Terrance took a moment to steady his arm. The woman’s head hung in the same place for a few seconds, and he fired a railgun pellet that struck true and took her out.
he said to Eric as he resumed moving along the maglev line toward the lift shaft a kilometer distant.
Terrance watched on the drone feeds as Landon shot another pursuing cartel soldier.
Terrance ignored Eric’s jab and nodded to Joel, who had paused several meters ahead. Referencing his HUD and the route Gladys had laid out for them, he told the agent,
Joel nodded and began moving again.
Terrance could barely make Landon out from a few meters away, as the AI’s mech frame glided through the darkened ring level. Further to the group’s left, Logan kept pace.
Gladys added.
Terrance smiled at the thought, and was about to ask Gladys if the lift would be waiting for them, when the drone feed picked up the sound of an approaching shuttle.
Terrance took a moment to consider how impressive it was that the pilot could fly the craft within the ring. Ninety meters seemed like a lot of room until you watched a ten-meter-tall ship streak through it at over two hundred kilometers per hour.
Logan’s first shot missed the cartel ship, but the second struck true, burning a hole in the fuselage just above one of the vessel’s stubby wings.
The craft didn’t slow, continuing to bear down on Logan, projectile rounds streaking out toward the mech. Terrance raised his weapon to fire on the shuttle, but Eric barked an order in his mind.
Terrance obeyed the commodore’s order and rushed forward, putting a hand on Joel's shoulder to keep him moving.
Through the drone feeds, he saw that the shuttle was nearly upon Logan and wondered if the craft’s pilot was simply planning on smashing into the AI, when Logan crouched low, flattening himself against the deck while a dark shape streaked toward the shuttle, leapt into the air, and landed on the craft’s nose.
Terrance couldn’t help his cry of glee as he watched Landon fire his electron beam into the shuttle’s cockpit before leaping off, alighting on the deck not ten meters away.
* * * * *
“Get the fuck out of my way!” Mack shouted as he strode toward the flight bay that housed the pinnace he regularly flew between the ring and the Sylvan.
He wasn’t sure what was wrong with the ship’s AI, but it was responding so sluggishly that it was hardly of any use at all. He’d ordered the thing reshackled twice already, but it hadn’t helped.
The feed from the ring had been dead for a few minutes now, and Mack needed to get down there. He had to assess the damage fast, before Victoria completely lost it and shot his ass out the nearest airlock.
What the hell is wrong with everyone on this ship? They’re acting like they’ve never seen a systems failure or been in an emergency before.
That brought him up short. Maybe that’s what came of being top dog on the crimina
l side of the law: these people were used to doling shit out, not taking it.
He’d have to see about remedying that…later.
Now, he just needed everyone to get the hell out of his way, before Victoria changed her mind about ordering him down to the ring. With the feed down, he had no good way of knowing how many of his people had survived. A few scattered reports were filtering in, which suggested that some were still in the fight. If they were, he intended to join them.
As he marched toward the flight bay, he yelled obscenities at the ship's AI as he attempted to ping various cartel factions not associated with the operation deep inside the ring. He barely got a word out before the Link dropped, and he had to order the damn thing to reconnect.
If he could just get a message to other cells, he should be able to assemble a reasonable force to combat the shitheads who had done this. And if he ever found out the shitheads' identities, he was going to personally kill them and their families.
These people would be made into an object lesson—an example of what happens to those stupid enough to go up against the Norden Cartel.
COMPLICATIONS
STELLAR DATE: 07.07.3189 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: NorthStar Yacht Sylvan
REGION: El Dorado Ring, El Dorado, Alpha Centauri System
“Space Traffic Control reported a disturbance within the privately-held space area above the NorthStar Industries compound this evening. Reports indicate a high-speed chase involving several craft took place along one of NorthStar’s spires. When we approached NorthStar’s public affairs department, they refused to comment.”
Jason pulled back just in time to see a man storm past.
Jason got the message.
Jason became a blur as he sprinted down the passageway, one eye on the destination marked on his HUD, the other on swiftly approaching obstacles.
He leapt nimbly over a service bot trundling down the corridor, and ignored its warning beep as he flew by. As he approached a cross corridor, he swerved slightly to avoid an automated cart just clearing the intersection.
At this speed, Tobias's access to the Sylvan's net and his ability to see Jason's path ahead proved invaluable. It wasn't that Jason didn't have the reflexes to dodge; they just didn't have any time to deal with such obstacles.
Their destination was just ahead, down the next hallway, and Jason didn't slow for the turn. At the last moment, he rose, planted one foot against the far wall of the cross corridor and pushed off, using the point of contact as a ricochet to alter his trajectory. The change in momentum served to help slow his progress as he approached the entrance to engineering.
Jason chuckled at the AI's artful misdirection.
Jason nodded and entered, his gaze taking in the reality before him and comparing it to the schematic that Tobias had provided over his HUD. Jason slipped silently around the conduit and worked his way forward until he spotted the engineer standing over a junction, looking perplexed.
Stepping behind the man, Jason clipped him smartly on the back of the head, knocking him out. Catching the engineer as he fell, Jason lowered him to the deck then glanced around.
An icon flashed on his HUD, and Jason stepped over the man's inert form toward a unit against the far wall.
He reached for Ashley's cylinder and carefully inserted her into the isolation tube. He had just bent to settle her inside his pack, when the warning sounded.
The bulkhead above Jason zinged, and he heard controlled pops coming from the entrance, as his attacker's weapon attempted to track his movements. Jason had thrown himself to the deck at Tobias' warning, rolling behind the cover of a console—for all the good it did him. The weapon's projectiles ricocheted off the bay's steel walls, the sound dancing around the room.
Most of Jason's body was covered by the combination shipsuit and base layer that the ESF had provided, but he'd left his helmet back with the fighter, counting on his L2 speed and reflexes to keep him out of harm's way.
It would have, if someone hadn't started pelting the engineering bay with flak.
Jason moved fast in a low crouch, angling toward a bank of consoles that were between him and—if he'd heard Tobias right—Victoria North. Springing from his crouch, he ripped an access panel off one, and flung it like a discus at the woman just rounding the corner.
Her weapon went flying, but she recovered quickly, activating a lightwand that fell into her hand with the flick of her wrist.
Jason sent Tobias a mental nod as he activated his own lightwand and stepped around the consoles.
“Well, well, what have we here?” Victoria taunted softly as she approached Jason. “A pretty boy, playing soldier, perhaps?” The woman's eyes met his, a mocking light in their depths. Her mouth twisted into a leering smirk.
Jason didn’t respond as the pair began circling one another. Victoria flipped her lightwand from one hand to the other, and Jason made note of her relaxed movements.
Ambidextrous or cocky show-off? He couldn't tell—yet.
He remained silent as the two continued circling.
Victoria's mouth turned down in a mocking pout. “Oops. Did my mean words damage my latest acquisition?” She jabbed her lightwand in a feint, toward the cut on the side of Jason's face.
He jerked back, conserving his strength, and used just enough speed to evade her as he whipped his own wand up to parry the thrust.
The wands clashed, and Victoria's eyebrows rose at the speed with which Jason's electron-blade had risen to meet her own.
“Mmm, more than just a pretty face, then.” She bared her teeth in a smile that didn't reach her eyes. “It would be a shame to damage such a nice...package. You aren't leaving here, pretty boy. Drop it, and I'll let you live. It's your call—alive or dead, you're mine now.”
“Yours? Is that how you run things around here? Is that what you consider all those AIs you kidnapped? Your property?”
Some of what Jason felt must have carried in his voice. Victoria licked her lips, discovering another weapon she could wield against him.
Jason didn't need Tobias to tell him his response to Victoria had been ill-advised. He knew he should be seeking his center, something he'd mastered through Kai-Eskrima years ago. But with Victoria's next words, he ceased to care.
The woman shrugged in disdain. “Call it what you like. Those little bits of code bring big credits, and that's all I care about.”
“Those ‘little bits of code’ are sentient creatures. Free people, like any human being.”
As his heated words rang out, Victoria whirled, dropped into a crouch, and swept out her leg, upending Jason. Her lightwand followed, slashing down in a deadly arc he barely managed to evade.
The world stilled as he rolled to one knee, and then levered himself up and around the next thrust of her blade. She was fast, but when fully immersed in his altered state, he was just a little bit faster.
Tobias was right; it was time to end this.
Jason watched her stance shift and anticipated her next move. As Victoria’s wand sliced through the air, he pivoted. Moving inside her swing, he grasped her wrist, driving his thumb into the pressure point, forcing her to drop her weapon.
She jerked back, and he followed through with a punch to her solar plexus, pulling his strength back to normal levels. The air whooshed out of her, and he followed with a satisfying flurry so rapid she was unable to raise a defense: jab, cross, jab, uppercut.
He knew he was taking his anger out on the cartel leader; he didn't care. The smacking thud of each blow he landed was satisfying, cathartic in a way he didn't care to examine too closely.
He allowed himself one final hook to her head, targeting the 'button'—the spot right behind the ear. The shot landed with a satisfying crack, and the woman went down.
Jason's face burned, and he jogged over to his pack, shaking his fist as the mednano began to repair the bones he had just fractured in his hand. He hadn't heard that kind of censure from Tobias in years. Not that he didn't deserve it.