She nodded. “The yield in the explosion two days ago was a small fraction of the devastating forces unleashed at Bikini.” She shuddered. “And the trigger is cleaner, too. We shouldn’t underestimate the need to check for contamination of soils near the blast, but the long-term effect on the coral ecosphere will be negligible.”
“Which means,” said Branco, “that if we can limit this blast to a one-off incident, it shouldn’t screw up your fishing contract, Jhast. Obviously, you’d have to ensure any fish you supply isn’t irradiated, but that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Sun stood. “It’s not that simple. I would not buy fish I knew was sourced from a nuclear blast site.”
“Precisely.” Branco badly wished he could stand to emphasize his point. “Nor would I, if I knew.”
Jhast got to her feet again, the nictitating membranes flickering over her eyes. “Who would have thought it from a Human? But he’s right. If we can defeat the Scythe, then the only barrier remaining to our success is one of marketing.”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” thundered Jenkins. “But the Scythe will be waiting for us, and I don’t fancy taking on those dropships.”
“That’s why you brought me in as military advisor,” said Sun. “I don’t think we can take out that base on Stromsay without suffering terrible losses. So let’s not try. Jhast, when are the official celebrations to mark the first off-planet shipment of fish?”
She rubbed her snout, confused. “They were to have been in two days’ time. But they were cancelled after the explosion.”
“Then un-cancel them. If you will forgive the mixed metaphors, we’re going to use that fish as bait to set a honeypot trap. And there’s no time to lose.”
* * * * *
Chapter Fifty-Five
City Plaza, Point Clear, Thananya
“Midnight-1, this is Tentacle-3. Two dropships and two submersibles just set off, headed for Point Clear.”
“Acknowledged, Tentacle-3,” Sun replied. “Wait two mikes, then make your assault.”
“Assaulting in two. Good luck, Major. Tentacle-3 out.”
A flutter of fear and excitement pounded in Sun’s chest. There were a lot of unknowns here, and an entire world counted on her to have made the right calls. Her sister found this sort of thing easy, but she never had. Doubts choked her. She swallowed hard and drew strength from Branco, who was chugging down his pint of fake beer in the company of Captain Jenkins and Laverna.
He caught her attention, smiled, and mouthed at her, “You got this.”
But she didn’t. She gave a desperate shake of her head.
Her pinview showed an incoming message from him. Only that morning he’d told her that accessing his pinplants felt like scratching his brain with blunt needles. “If you don’t got it,” said his message, “then act like you do. You know whom to channel.”
She did indeed.
Sun stood and shook some swagger into her shoulders, imagining she was a bald thrill addict who liked to steal captains’ greatcoats.
Lifting her glass of tea in celebration, she shouted a toast that cut through the reveries in Point Clear’s modest version of a town square. “To the Spine Nebula.”
“The Spine Nebula!” echoed a score of voices.
She took a long sip of her tea, wishing it was the whiskey it was meant to resemble.
“Keep calm, everyone,” she said over radio comms. “The enemy’s on their way. Jhast, make sure the last of the civilians are escorted out of town. Patriot fighters, I know that in normal life you’re deckhands, drivers, bakers, fisherfolk, and accountants. Today you are warriors defending your home and the dreams and hopes of your children, hatchlings, and progeny. The Scythe will have spies and cameras trained on us. Don’t spook them by acting like you know what’s coming. Let’s celebrate. Make some noise, people!”
Arms out, she spun slowly around, taking in the view of the square decked out in flags and colored ribbons. She made sure to make direct eye contact with each fighter in turn and a nod of support and belief.
A stage had been built in front of city hall. Microphones awaited the dignitaries who would mark the momentous establishment of trade links outside the nebula.
Those dignitaries were evacuated an hour ago and the fish shipment packed behind the stage in freezer crates was fake, the real shipment safely cached a hundred miles away.
She’d only gone looking for her chief engineer’s Jeha girlfriend to give Branco a route out of his funk. But it had led her here to a group of brave fighters who believed in her.
She believed in them too, dammit. When did this become real to her?
Jenkins walked over and put an arm around her shoulders. “Come have a fake beer in our final minutes. That was a pretty speech, but right now, you need to radiate calm. Beers are on me.”
She laughed. How had this become real? Captain Jenkins—the Skipper to those who followed him—probably had a lot to do with it.
She accepted a glass of diluted fruit juice, with a fake beer head of powdered egg white and lemon juice, and sat beside Jenkins, Branco, and Laverna—her friends, new and renewed.
“Tell me, Skipper,” said Branco. “A sudden and profound change came over the Spine Nebula in the recent past, sometime after Blue and Sun defeated Endless Night. Everyone tells us that, but whenever we ask you about it, you evade. I think it’s time you told us what you’re hiding.”
“You pick your moments, Branco.”
“Thank you. I was trained to.” He indicated the decked-out city square with its almost thirty Patriots. “I think we’re all in this together now, so why hold back any longer?”
“All right,” Jenkins muttered. His brow beaded with sweat. “Sounds crazy, I know, but when I told you we know nothing about who is running the Scythe and why, that’s absolutely true. And yet I do know that we took out whoever had been running them a few months ago.”
Sun frowned. “How can you kill someone when you don’t know who they are?”
Jenkins closed his mouth.
“I think I understand,” said Branco. “Let’s get this clear. You don’t know the who, what, or why about your enemy, but you know they’re dead?”
“Yes.”
“You hired an assassin, didn’t you?” He gasped. “A Hunter?”
Jenkins’ gaze darted to all the shadowed areas of the square. He could face the imminent arrival of a Scythe attack without showing fear, but the memory of this assassin terrified him.
“We tried to hire a Hunter. A Depik, he called himself. We put the word out around the nebula, but we couldn’t raise sufficient funds to offer a contract. Somehow, he knew anyway. He told me the reason I still lived was because the strangeness of the Spine Nebula was unexpected knowledge, and that was payment in compensation for the insult of the derisory fee we’d offered.”
“I thought you didn’t make the offer,” said Sun.
“We didn’t.” Jenkins shuddered. “A Hunter assassin isn’t someone you contradict. The Hunter vanished—literally disappeared—leaving us grateful we still possessed our lives, but I suspect he was more curious than he let on. Who was the mastermind behind the Scythe? I think that mystery drew him in, and he did not like what he discovered. Whoever was behind the Scythe, as far as I can tell, the Hunter killed them all.”
“What price did he claim?” asked Branco “There’s always a price.”
Jenkins nodded. “Weeks later, he appeared on the bridge of the Unlikely Regret. Just…appeared out of thin air after we came through an emergence point, washed himself for a bit, and then said he was welcoming us to our negotiation. Negotiation, he called it. Hah!” Despite the heat of the day, the man shivered at the memory. “The Hunter conducted the negotiation by prowling the banks of deck stations, blinking his eyes and enjoying our gasps as he disappeared and reappeared at will.”
“Rachid,” Sun exclaimed. “That’s why Rachid disappeared suddenly.”
“Enslaved.” Jenkins sighed. “Taking the sigil, the
Hunter called it. Said he’d been watching and understood that Rachid was the real financial brains behind my operations. He was right, of course. For some reason, the Hunter wanted Rachid to go willingly, and he did. Rachid said he’d pay that price any day of the week.” He forced a laugh. “He’d been dreading retirement. He said he wanted one last challenge in his life and not to be dropped off at some godforsaken port and left to rot. And now…here was his opportunity. That may be so, but Rachid was a braver man than I’ll ever be.”
* * * * *
Chapter Fifty-Six
Flight Deck, Dropship Hunter-1
“We are two minutes out, sir,” said the Selroth copilot.
Grenshal looked at the real-time Tri-V as the port of Point Clear rushed toward them. It looked peaceful. Smug. Unprepared.
He growled deep in his Zuul throat. It won’t stay peaceful for long.
Around him, Hunter-1 hummed with power. These Maki-built Hunter-class dropships were not subtle transportation devices. They moved you fast and furious. The uprated variant he was flying packed a punch, too.
By the gods, he would make the arrogant Spine dwellers pay for what they’d done to his command. “Commanders, report.”
“Green Company in position,” said the Selroth commander in one of the two submersibles lurking in the harbor.
“I am in position, too…with Blue Company.” The Tyzhoune commander’s report was grudging, but she had fifty troopers in her unit who had been swimming to their target over the past couple of hours.
Grenshal ground his jaws. Chaos and confusion had reigned in the system for months now. No one knew for sure what was going on. The only reason the Tyzhoune and Selroth commanders still acknowledged his authority was because each would rather obey him than be under the authority of the other.
“Hunter-2, report.”
“Weapons free and eager to acquire targets,” replied his deputy in the other dropship, fifty feet off his port bow.
“Let’s rip the throats out of these fishing scum and remind them to be afraid. Execute the assault.”
The Hunters came in low over the harbor, churning the water in their wake as they passed over the Tyzhounes clambering unopposed onto the pier, and the Selroth submersibles breaching the water.
He left the amphibious assault troops to it, gripping hard onto his seat arms as the Bakulu pilot flew Hunter-1 over city hall and down into the square beyond. The pitiful savages had actually decked the place with flags. What arrogance!
The gunner—a Zuul once from a respectable clan—howled with delight, spitting twin lines of destruction into the square from the two belly turrets, each with twin coil guns.
The civilians had fled, but they couldn’t have gone far, and Grenshal’s plan made sure they wouldn’t get any farther. Hunter-2 circled around the outside of the square, ready to shred anyone trying to flee Hunter-1’s fire.
“You will die,” Grenshal roared, broadcasting to the Spiners outside via external speakers. “You will die so others will remember this day. No one has the right to dream in the Spine Nebula. Your place is to cower in the dirt and be grateful for your pitiful lives.”
His roar was empty, though, because the attack so far was disappointing. Where were the screams? The scent of blood?
Then he spotted something in the Tri-V that made his long lips curl up into a toothy smile. “Gunner, in front of city hall…See those crates? Inside is the fish they are so proud of. Destroy it all.”
“With pleasure.”
The pilot assisted by spinning around at the center of the square to face the target. The wash from the dropship’s eight ducted fans caught hold of flags, tables, glasses, and assorted detritus of celebration, blasting it all into the edges of the square like dry leaves in the fall.
The guns acquired the shipping crates and lashed them with fire.
The targets fitted the profile of Galactic Union Size O/Z transport containers. Grenshal had seen the same attachment points for standard cargo brackets and straps on a thousand shipments, but he’d never seen an O/Z container withstand concentrated fire. Hypersonic darts ricocheted off the containers, coating them in actinic flashes.
Grenshal snapped his jaws. “Pilot, get a safe distance from those crates, then take them out with a hellfire missile.”
“Roger that.” The pilot banked sharply, heading for the far corner of the square to avoid the shockwave of their own missile. “Coming about to destroy perfectly good fish.”
“Damn you, Bakulu shell slime. Just obey my orders.”
“Orders have more authority when personnel are paid on time,” bitched the Bakulu, but he knew better than to disobey.
As they maneuvered, he noticed the crates behaving strangely in his Tri-V display. Their fronts fell open. He couldn’t see what was inside, but it didn’t look like fish.
Missile lock alerts flared!
“SAM launch! SAM launch!” shouted the Selroth copilot. Grenshal saw missile boosters spout flame.
“Four launches…six launches.”
The pilot might be a surly bastard, but the instant the alarm blared, he had Hunter-1 boosting out of the square in a cloud of defensive munitions. Grenshal’s gut was thrown about in ways the gods had never intended as the dropship hopped over the nearest building, then dropped into the street below.
The Spiners’ missiles passed harmlessly overhead or slammed into the other side of the building Hunter-1 was sheltering behind.
“ECM shroud active and effective,” said the Selroth, calmer now.
“Hunter-2, come in,” snapped Grenshal.
“Sir, we are inside our ECM shroud,” pointed out the co-pilot. “We can’t get a signal out.”
A fireball erupted behind the dropship, throwing out a hot shockwave that funneled through the narrow street, making Hunter-1’s rear buck wildly. A fan duct was carried along by the shockwave. It was followed by the torso of Grenshal’s deputy.
With debris from the destruction of her sister ship clattering against her hull, Hunter-1 side-swiped the wall it was sheltering behind, partially collapsing the building. But the dropships were tough. The pilot steadied the craft and accelerated away.
“We’re taking fire,” said the copilot.
The insulting rattle of small arms fire impacted against the port side. Hunter-1 accelerated away, oblivious.
“Pitiful,” said Grenshal. “If the Spine scum had more SAMs they would have fired them by now. We will retreat and support the harbor assault. Even if they did have more SAMs, they would not stop the Tyzhoune and Selroth attacks.”
“Um, sir,” said the gunner. “They weren’t just firing rifles. I think there must have been lasers, too. Both belly turrets are showing critical failure. What do we do now?”
“Do I have to repeat my orders? Take us out to sea, we will support Blue and Green companies with our missile fire.”
“Yes, sir.” The gunner stank of fear. “It’s just…with all the changes with the System, we haven’t been resupplied for months. We only have one missile left.”
“It will have to suffice,” Grenshal growled.
Ten seconds later Hunter-1 was re-engaged with the battlespace over the harbor. Greasy smoke poured from the wreckage of the two Selroth submersibles that looked to have been taken out by missiles. The Tyzhounes were hugging every mooring post, low wall, and pebble in a desperate search for cover. They faced tripod-mounted automated cannons lined up on the seafront behind sandbag walls. His troops had taken out four of the gun emplacements with grenades, but there were six left that he could see, and their assault had stalled.
“The only way out is forward,” he hissed. “Stay there and die.”
“Do you want me to deactivate the ECM shroud?” asked the co-pilot.
Grenshal held his answer as a pair of Tyzhounes dashed forward under cover of a curtain of exploding grenades fired by their comrades.
The auto-fire cannons weren’t fooled. Tracking camera stalks popped out of the sandbags at randomi
zed locations. They spied movement in their programmed fire zones and five of the auto cannons lifted out of cover on their hydraulic mounts and blasted away at the approaching attackers.
When the automated guns dropped back down a couple of seconds later, the charging Tyzhounes had been chopped into mincemeat.
Grenshal weighed the usefulness of planting his last missile along that formidable line of cannons. At best, he calculated he could take out two of them.
He spotted crouching humanoid shapes rushing from the shadows into the back of the gun emplacements. They carried ammo drums on their backs.
“There’s nothing we can do here,” Grenshal said. The words tasted like ash, like a justification for cowardice. Perhaps they were, but they were true, nonetheless.
“Maintain ECM shroud. Abort mission. Pilot, return to Stromsay Base.”
Who the hell supplied this rabble? It had to be a merc company the fisherfolk had paid. That wasn’t supposed to be permitted. The whole damned nebula was out of control.
They put a mile of open water between them and the hell of Point Clear before they deactivated the shroud. It was another mile before they received worse news.
“I have a response from Stromsay Base,” said the co-pilot.
“Finally! What are they playing at there?”
The co-pilot hesitated, and Grenshal knew the answer would be grim. “The base has been destroyed. Survivors are rendezvousing at the northern reef. They request immediate extraction.”
“How many survivors?”
“Six confirmed, sir.”
Grenshal’s jaw dropped, and his tongue wanted to drop out submissively. His mission had failed. He had failed. But he could still unleash a world of pain on these filthy fisherfolk who had brought him down. “Leave them. Take us back to orbit, pilot, and dock with the mothership.”
Endless Night (The Guild Wars Book 3) Page 26