She stopped at the first aperture that led deeper inside the island. It looked identical to the one that had fed into this air passage, except the three-circle symbol was much clearer here, etched in scar tissue into the wall above the aperture.
Scar tissue…?
Who was she kidding? This place was organic. It was, at least at some level, alive.
But if it wasn’t a living creature that had beached here—and she couldn’t bring herself to believe it was—then what did that mean? Had whatever lay inside been grown here countless ages ago?
“Let’s see if we can find out,” she told the aperture and pushed through.
A short while later, the connecting tube excreted her out into a water-filled channel. Alerts flared in her Tri-V.
She wasn’t alone.
Burbling through the water, she could hear voices.
Human voices.
The passage fanned out into three parallel tracks like the base of a trident, except the end of each passage opened into the same cross-running tunnel.
Blue couldn’t make out what the Humans were saying, because she wasn’t intercepting their signals; they were speaking to each other on secure links and her CASPer was picking up the vibrations their facemasks transmitted through the water.
Friend or foe?
She knew what Gloriana would say. Inside the exclusion zone around Romalin Island, the only races permitted were aquatic or amphibious. The Human Midnighters who were readying for possible defensive operations here should be the only air suckers in the place.
But Gloriana wasn’t here. Blue would decide for herself.
Since the voices appeared to be coming from the middle of the three passages, she picked the left and walked along it as softly as the 800-kilo mech suit would allow. She reached the end without alerting the intruders, and with each step she took, their words became clearer. They were talking about sabotage. A bomb. About how best to respond to the mercs who had suddenly arrived earlier that day.
Those were her people, the deaths they were planning.
“At least that makes this a whole lot easier,” she whispered inside her canopy.
She placed the last of her signal repeaters on the floor and backed away.
The repeaters were commonplace multifunction devices. Most commonly, they were used to extend a network of secure line-of-sight comms, beaming from repeater to repeater through mazes such as this, though in her case, if she squawked for help, she’d have to resort to short range radio comms for some of the links.
But they had other uses, too. Including a speaker rated for underwater use.
Once she was back at the base of the trident, she took the right-hand passage, jogging now because she desperately didn’t want the intruders to move away from their convenient ambush point.
Just before she reached the cross corridor, Blue pinlinked to the repeater and sent a message in one of the principle Selroth languages.
“Surrender immediately or be killed,” gurgled the underwater speaker. “Put down your weapons. Now!”
She burst into the corridor, looking right to confirm her flank was clear, then left at the intruders twenty yards away with their backs to her. They were waving small arms in the direction of the Selroth voice.
Three were Human, one Selroth. They were armed with a harpoon carbine, a pair of slug-thrower pistols, and an old coil-needler that would barely puncture skin but could easily rip through air hoses. Their equipment was too random, too underpowered, and too worn out for them to be professional mercs.
Then she noticed the Union-standard equipment crate at their feet and guessed that was the bomb they had been discussing.
Blue raised her right arm and readied her 25mm auto cannon. The gun was rated for underwater work for up to 40 atmospheric pressures. Though she’d practiced many times in underwater sims, she’d never fought in anger in this environment.
If she had, she might have anticipated the sound her cycling weapon made that transmitted through the water and alerted her targets. They scattered, turning in alarm to stare in horror at her CASPer.
If Sun were here, she would tell Blue to keep one alive for questioning.
Blue hesitated, but only for a moment.
These bastards were planning to kill her people.
They had to die.
Her targeting reticle centered over one of the Humans, a man waving the needler at her.
She readied the punching gesture that would chop him into minced shark bait as a bullet fired by a compressed air charge bounced harmlessly off her canopy.
“In the box is a bomb,” she had to tell herself, because if it weren’t for that, she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to kill this group.
They looked incapable of threatening an arthritic Jeha with extreme trench foot along both sides. In fact, the white-haired old man she was targeting looked as old as Father Christmas, with a girth to match.
Through his faceplate, she saw a frown of worry that looked familiar.
Very familiar.
She knew this man!
Knew him well.
“Holy hellburner,” she said on an open radio channel. “Captain Jenkins? Skipper?”
She was so astonished she didn’t notice the movement captured by her rear cameras as a man moved out from the alcove he was concealed within and fired a pressure gun at her back.
* * * * *
Chapter Sixty-Nine
“Hurry up!” Branco urged the carbine. It could throw a powerful pressure wave over a surprisingly long distance for such a short-barreled weapon, but the cycle rate was abominable.
Ignoring the pain, he used his pinlinks to activate the motors in his diving sleeve without taking his hands off his carbine.
The Scythe’s paymasters could clearly afford the best mercs because that was a Mk 8 CASPer he’d just shot. It was battered from heavy active use, but professionally maintained.
He gasped as the shockwave reflecting off the CASPer punched him in the lungs as it passed through him. He braced for more reflected pain as his weapon neared a full recharge.
On the far side of the mech, Jenkins was waving his arms. “Ceasefire! Ceasefire, Branco!”
The Scythe CASPer slowly drifted in the water, its pilot either stunned or playing a game with them.
Jenkins was far too trusting.
“We’ve been through this,” he shouted across the radio link. “I don’t like fighting Humans, but I did it on the Raknar job, and I’ll do it again here.”
The CASPer bounced off the wall, turning slightly to show a Midnight Sun emblem on its shoulder.
Branco gulped. He’d heard mercs were arriving, but not in his worst nightmare could he have imagined it would be the Midnighters. His people.
His carbine bleeped its readiness to fire again.
“We’ve chosen our sides,” he murmured bleakly. “No going back now.”
Saying the words was difficult enough. Following through on them was impossibly hard. He probably knew the person inside that CASPer. They probably didn’t want to kill him either, but once a merc took a contract, most of them saw it through to the end, however grim that might be. Midnighters were no exception.
His finger trembled over the trigger.
“Don’t you fire again, Saisho Branco,” demanded Jenkins. “Call me old-fashioned, but if you ever did the decent thing by Sun, then the woman inside this CASPer would be your sister-in-law. Much as we might sometimes be tempted, we don’t kill family.”
“What’s he saying?” asked Sun, who was with Skuilher-Dour, steaming along the middle of the three channels to join him. “I could only catch scattered words.”
She had her grenade launcher out. He wished she didn’t. Unlike the shaped pressure wave of his carbine, setting off a grenade at close quarters would probably kill all of them except the pilot inside the CASPer.
“Skipper said—” Branco regarded Sun’s weapon with rising alarm. This wasn’t the kind of news Sun took easily. He cleare
d his throat and fessed up anyway. “He said I just shot your little sister in the back.”
* * * * *
Chapter Seventy
Through the trail of breadcrumb relays that led to Captain Blue, a gurgling noise transmitted through to Jex’s CASPer.
It sounded like underwater pollywiggle talk. Or maybe Selroth.
“Surrender immediately or be killed,” said the translation. “Put down your weapons. Now!”
“Hell and buggeration,” cursed Jex as he activated the chain of repeater nodes into a fully active state, and brought Captain Blue’s CASPer into his squad net. “I knew this was a bad idea.”
To his relief, Blue’s status board was green. Vitals were fine. Suit undamaged. She hadn’t even fired a weapon, though her auto cannon was hot and free.
He was about to tap into her camera feed when the captain’s medical status flashed angry alerts. She was unconscious. An emergency medical nanite kit was automatically being administered by the suit. Her mech was damaged, too.
Dark misgivings growled in his belly and he keyed in Albali. “Top, we got a problem.”
“Better be good,” the Spaniard thundered back. Jex groaned. First Sergeant Albali was not gentle with those he felt had let him down. “I was in conference with Colonel Mishkan-Ijk.”
“Picture is worth a thousand words, Top. Stand by while I loop you in.”
Blue’s CASPer has suffered only a minor disruption and even those systems were rebooting. Jex quickly hooked into the front view showing on Blue’s Tri-V and pushed it as a feed to the first sergeant’s CASPer.
They were looking straight into the face of Major Sun.
“Hellfire, Jex. Whose CASPer am I looking out from?”
“Private Garbo, Sergeant.”
“I know what the suit identifier tag says on the feed. I can also read her medical state. If you’ve screwed up, Jex, I’m gonna rip you a new one. If you don’t tell me this instant what’s going on, I’ll rip you several more.”
Jex grimaced. Could he say this on an open channel?
He realized the people he was now hiding from where the Goltar, his comrades in arms. This was a rum old do indeed. “It’s our recon specialist, Top.”
“Our what now? Speak plainly, man.”
“You know the one. Our princess. Forever blundering ahead on instinct before her minders have a chance to tell her not to. I told her it was a bad idea.”
There was a dangerous pause. Jex could almost hear the lightning spark through Albali’s mind as realization struck. “Holy shit, Jex! You move ahead and retrieve our princess. I’ll be right behind you with a medical team and evac prepared. Hurry!”
* * * * *
Chapter Seventy-One
Jex reached the danger zone ahead of the rest of his squad, slime still clinging to his CASPer from that last passage through the—he shuddered. He would need therapy to get over the memory of being passed through those fleshy orifices. Therapy in the form of a dozen pints of strong ale, but he had this mess to sort out first.
He emerged into a corridor that was hosting a freakish Mexican stand-off. Captain Blue was there with her auto cannon trained on Branco, of all people, who was wearing a jury-rigged motorized swim sleeve that had “Jeha side project” written all over it.
Among the three Humans and a Selroth he didn’t recognize, Major Sun stood between her sister and her lover, shouting at each in turn.
Sun looked up in alarm at his approach, and then glared at him through his CASPer’s canopy. “Who are you?” she said on an open channel.
“Sergeant Jex, ma’am. Are you the Golden Rat?”
“How dare you call me a rat.”
“He means a Veetanho, sweetie,” Blue pointed out.
Sun narrowed her eyes at Jex. “That’s much worse.”
“We’ve come to retrieve you, ma’am—I mean, Private Garbo.”
“Garbo?” Behind her faceplate, Sun rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re pulling that game again.”
“We’re taking you back, Garbo,” Jex said loudly. “Are we taking this lot with us as prisoners or guests?”
“Neither. But we are retrieving that equipment box by the feet of that slightly rotund gentlemen. And be careful with it. The bomb inside has a 200-kiloton yield.”
“You’re on the wrong side of a bad contract,” Sun snapped. “You can take this device, but we’re just the advanced recon team. There’s plenty more on the way.”
“Have you seen the armed city surrounding the island?” asked Blue. “How do you expect to get through that?”
“A city?” said the old man. “You mean underwater?”
“Yes, underwater,” said Blue. “You got in from above, didn’t you? You’ve no idea what you’re facing.”
“You’ve no idea what you’re about to face,” Sun thundered.
“A few infiltrators?” Blue scoffed. “Not a chance. You’d better pack your bags and leave.”
“No, I mean the Spine Patriot fleet. They should have come through the emergence point about ten minutes ago.”
“The what now?” said Blue.
“The good guys in this grubby little war,” said Branco. “I doubt even Midnight Sun can stand up to the Patriot fleet. Especially not if her commander is absent.”
“But she isn’t,” said Blue. “I’m in the CIC as we speak.”
The rest of Jex’s squad arrived before anyone could question the latest of Captain Blue’s pronouncements that made no sense.
“Plunger, Turnaround, guard that box with your lives and shoot anyone who gets in your way. Everyone else, keep your weapons targeted on these unexpected guests of ours. If you think you recognize any of them, keep that thought buttoned up tight and mention it to nobody. If fired upon, don’t hesitate to return fire with lethal force, even if you’re shot by the toy pistols these jokers are carrying. We’re getting out of here and fast.”
A sense of relief eased the brittle tension. Everyone was now moving with purpose and alacrity. Sun’s people made no attempt to impede them.
Not so happily, that freed Jex up to update Top.
“I’ve secured our runaway princess, First Sergeant. She encountered a…long lost relative with…some dangerous friends on their way here.”
“Holy shit! An assault force? Headed here?”
Jex winced; he was trying to be subtle. Not that subtlety was a strongpoint for either of them.
Albali growled Spanish curses. “Let me guess. The two sisters are on opposite sides.”
“How did you know?”
“Because I’ve been around those two longer than you have, Jex. Which is also why I know we’re wasting time trying to speak in code.”
Jex looped Blue’s CASPer into the command net.
“Captain,” said Albali, “I assume you want to head back to Midnight Sun, so I’ve prepared a fast exit. Unfortunately, we will need to use Goltar pilots to get out.”
“Good work, Top. We’ll just have to chance it.”
“Ma’am…” Albali hesitated, something Jex had never heard before. “We are still on the same side, aren’t we?”
“You, me, Kenngar, Midnight Sun’s crew, and the CASPer pilots, yes. Everyone else? We’ve got until I get back to Midnight Sun to figure that out.”
* * * * *
Chapter Seventy-Two
The moment they disembarked from the suborbital shuttle after escaping from Romalin Island, it was obvious to Branco that he’d wheeled himself into an armed camp readying for battle. Grim-faced soldiers from a multitude of races were embarking on transport aircraft. They wore light combat armor adorned with the fifteen stars of the Spine Patriots. Equipment crates were towed by mini tugs around the wide apron of the starport. Beyond the sheer drop of a cliff face, in the maritime port area of Lhanganhoe, the activity was even more frenetic, because this was to be primarily a naval assault.
He’d had no idea the Patriot operation was so extensive.
He had to push hard at hi
s chair’s wheels to keep up with Sun and Jenkins, who were steaming through the crowd toward a destination unknown to him.
“You want a push?” asked Skuilher-Dour.
Branco grimaced. The di-cloxorin yellows were working wonders at keeping his mind straight and his body usable—for now—but he was still tiring far more rapidly than before his disease. Penetrating the Scythe island of Romalin had left him shaking with exhaustion.
“Please,” he said. “Scotty is still working on a motor for this chair.”
His Selroth friend made no comment on Branco’s nickname for the Jeha mechanic who’d adopted him as his special project. Skuilher-Dour simply grabbed the handles and charged through the crowd, forcing Patriots to scatter out the way.
“I expect you’ve had enough surprises for one day,” Jenkins was telling Sun as Branco and Skuilher-Dour stormed through to join them inside a shadowed warehouse. “Hopefully this is a better kind of surprise.”
Captain Jenkins switched on lights that flooded one half of the warehouse. Branco’s mouth curled into a grin as he saw a mech resting in support clamps with its canopy open in invitation. Nine-feet tall and nearly two tons when you included equipment and a diminutive operator, it was a Mk 6 CASPer.
Sun had barely spoken a word since they’d escaped from Romalin and her sister, but now she cooed in delight as she walked toward the old mech.
“I told you we just needed a resupply of parts,” Jenkins said with a chuckle. “There are two more that should be ready by tomorrow. Coil gun on the right arm. Left shoulder, mounted rocket pack loaded with a mix of IR missiles and underwater torpedoes. It’s got full loadout except for jump juice. Can’t source any. Sorry.”
Tomorrow is too late, Branco thought, but he kept silent to avoid puncturing Sun’s good mood. She looked back over her shoulder at him and smiled. “It’s not just any old Mk 6,” she told him. She leaped up the access ladder like a mountain goat and hopped into the canopy. “She’s my Mk 6. This is Leona.”
Endless Night (The Guild Wars Book 3) Page 32