Sudden Death (A Military Sci Fi Thriller) (The Biogenesis War Files)

by L. L. Richman

  His scope had just landed on Davila as the PFC slipped inside Bungee Two on the platform’s far left-hand side. As with Ramirez, the building’s IR scan revealed nothing. Boone moved on.

  His next location was the lazy river—Asha’s territory. He watched as the medic smeared mud across her exposed flesh to better camouflage herself, noticed the instant she tensed, sensing something up ahead. He lifted the rifle’s scope a fraction, seeking whatever it was that had alerted her.

  There was a flash of movement as a body slipped into the water behind one of the empty boats. The river hit the man mid-thigh. He sank quickly to shoulder level, his weapon held above the waterline, hidden just below the boat’s gunwhale.

  Boone started to warn her but then his scope tracked back to the medic, and he realized she was already aware of the man’s presence. She’d repositioned herself behind a bush, her gaze fixed on the floating vessel behind which he hid, her P-SCAR tracking the boat as it drifted slowly toward her.

  A notification flashed on Boone’s HUD, the scout app spotting movement directly behind Asha. Boone jerked his scope to the left in the direction of the new threat and realized the man was braced to fire. He sent a single round into the man’s shoulder, the bullet’s impact this close-in virtually instantaneous. A supersonic crack rent the air, and the man went down.

  32: SUSPECT

  Clock Tower

  Boone kept the downed man centered in his scope and his finger on the trigger as Asha rolled to her feet, weapon trained on the downed man. The medic approached cautiously. The man stirred, then froze when she stopped in front of him.

  {Sitrep!} Thad’s voice cracked across the combat net.

  {One enforcer tagged, another got away,} she responded

  {You take any hits?} The lieutenant’s tone was sharp.

  {Only casualty’s his shoulder. A through and through.}

  Thad whistled. {Remind me to never piss you off.} Then he added. {Of course, I guess you could always just patch me back up…}

  Asha snorted at that. {Afraid I can’t take credit. It’s not my handiwork.}

  {Thought I heard a crack from the Kingsolver,} Gabe replied.

  Asha sent a mental nod. {Bastard nearly got the drop on me. Nice shooting, Archangel.}

  Asha’s praise faded into the background as the spotter drone alerted him to movement behind her. Quickly enlarging the feed on his overlay, Boone saw a hot spot moving at a fast clip through the foliage. The figure was racing for the water ride’s border.

  {Asha, your other tango just fled the river,} he reported, though the barrel of his rifle remained on the current threat lying on the ground before her.

  {Asha?} Thad’s voice was insistent.

  {Hang on. I just told this bastard to cuff himself, or I’d have the corporal shoot him in the other arm.}

  A beat later, and she added, {Okay, he’s giftwrapped for security. Dropping him off at the ride’s entrance and then going after the one that got away.}

  That settled, Boone panned the scope to the next location. The situation at Bungee Two was the same as the one at Bungee One. Like Ramirez, Davila would have to clear the building the old-fashioned way, without his help.

  Boone had just begun his sweep across the open pools when an alert popped up on his overlay. This one was from the surveillance drone he’d sent after the woman he’d encountered on the roof.

  {LT? I just got a warning from the drone I sent after that maintenance worker,} he called out.

  {What kind of warning?} Thad asked.

  {She just breached the virtual perimeter I’d set.}

  {Is she trying to leave the platform?} Asha asked.

  {Possibly? It’s unclear. Looks like she’s in a maintenance room near the main entrance. It can’t be too far from their loading dock. She’s rummaging around inside a locker, and … }

  His voice faded as he maneuvered the drone to better see what was inside. The small spherical object she pulled out was familiar. He tensed when she began punching in a command string to the control panel embedded in its side.

  {Sir, it’s a dazzler! I think she’s got a—}

  Boone swore when his transmission cut off abruptly and the combat net winked out. He tried reconnecting, but his wire sent back the message, ‘signal lost.’

  He rolled to his feet and paced the roof as he considered how he should proceed. He wasn’t of any use as overwatch if he couldn’t report on what he saw, and he was damn sure the jamming device that had just come online originated from the dazzler core he’d seen in her hands.

  Folding the tripod, he secured it to his tac vest, packed up his sniper rifle and scope, and slung it over his shoulder. Crossing over to the door, he tried it and found it locked. This was no surprise. Had their positions been reversed, there was no way in hell he’d have left his opponent with the means to easily get back down to street level.

  Davila’s LockPik was still in his pocket; he pulled it out and tried it, but after a few seconds, it flashed red. It did no good to wish the PFC had swiped a crowbar instead. Davila would never have done anything that stupid anyway.

  Crowbars were brutes. Once they broke a lock, the thing stayed broken. A LockPik was more civilized. It didn’t break a lock; it merely worried at the problem until it came across a workable cypher. Boone didn’t have the time for the thing to keep trying various iterations until it hit upon the right combination. He needed to get down to street level, now.

  Frustrated, Boone stepped to the ledge and peered down at the building’s faux-brick surface. The tower was about the same height as the free climbing wall his DIs had forced recruits to scale in basic, but it lacked the soft sand pit at its base.

  He grimaced; he’d hated free climbing back then and was pretty damn sure this wasn’t going to be any more fun. Knowing there was no way out but to go through, he swung a leg over the ledge and began feeling for toeholds, resolutely refusing to look down at the sidewalk below.

  Six meters later and minus a few layers of scraped skin, Boone was far enough down to feel confident he could survive the drop and remain functional. Unlike his last fall through the air, this time Boone landed correctly, rolling out of it with just one or two more aches and pains to add to his tally.

  Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, he unholstered his CUSP. Holding it at low ready, he set off at a fast trot for the maintenance worker’s last known location. As he went, he strained his senses to their limits and kept his head on a swivel, fully aware that there were still six tangos at large.

  He kept to the shadows that reached long fingers behind each building, now that Little Blue rode low on the horizon. He made best use of these to conceal his advance. Official planetary sunset was still a few hours away, but the platform’s sunset was upon them now. The angle of the star and the sky park’s altitude combined to make that possible. As far as Boone was concerned, this was a good thing. The night was always best for hunting.

  From the sound of running feet and anxious voices, there were still a number of civilians who had not yet made it to safety. He wondered fleetingly if it had occurred to the gunrunners that hostages were an option. He sincerely hoped not, but realized the time was quickly running out.

  33: REGROUP

  Sky Park Grounds

  Gabe drew to a stop when Boone’s words cut off midsentence. Based on what the corporal had said, it was no surprise when the combat net flickered out of existence immediately after. It wasn’t hard to figure out what must have happened. Somewhere in that stash of stolen matériel had been a Dazzler’s core. Worse, they’d figured out how to use it.

  The error on his overlay tracked with Boone’s last transmission, flashing the words ‘network unavailable’ at him. A swamper would have continued to show the network as busy.

  This changed things. They’d lost the ability to coordinate takedowns. Any tactical advantage gained from Boone’s position atop the clock tower was gone. Gabe knew the kid was smart enough to figure that out on his own; chances were
, he was already headed down to join the battle on the ground.

  Gabe sidled toward the edge of a building, his focus once more on the two people in his immediate vicinity. He and the enforcer had been playing a game of hide and seek for the past ten minutes.

  The third individual was a bit cagier; Gabe had managed nothing more than a quick glimpse of the woman. He was sure she was one of the smugglers the enforcer was hunting.

  Time to thin the herd a bit.

  With the garrote dangling from one hand, Gabe stopped just short of the corner. He knelt and grasped one of the ActiveFiber lines he’d strung. This one was attached to a planter on the other side of the walkway. He pulled gently on the line, increasing pressure until the planter moved just enough to make a low, scraping noise.

  Up ahead, he heard a soft, indistinct sound and knew the enforcer’s attention had shifted toward the planter. There would never be a better time. Gabe rounded the corner in a smooth move, the garrote held between his gloved hands already clearing the enforcer’s head.

  The man must have heard the slight whistle of the cord as it passed through the air. Instinct had him throwing a hand up; the ActiveFiber caught it, the garrote tightening around both hand and neck.

  The enforcer jammed his weapon down, and Gabe danced out of the way just in time to keep a round of flechettes from tearing into his leg. The tiny, vaned projectiles chattered against the ceramacrete, the sound cutting into the relative silence of the nearby area, defeating entirely Gabe’s reason for mounting a silent attack in the first place. Annoyed, Gabe shoved the enforcer forward, brought his CUSP up and shot the man in the back.

  If the sound of flechettes hitting ceramacrete hadn’t scared her off, the whine of his weapon’s discharge would have done the trick. The patter of retreating footsteps confirmed his suspicions. His second target had fled at the sound of the scuffle.

  “Thanks a lot, pal,” he told the insensate man.

  With a sigh, Gabe reached into a pocket and extracted a ziptie, which he slapped right beside the rope burn he’d left on the man’s neck. Dragging the enforcer into concealment behind a low wall, Gabe made note of the location and headed reluctantly for the rendezvous point. At the moment, a regroup was more important than chasing down the one that got away.

  Two blocks from where he’d left his victim, Gabe heard a noise. Pivoting, he brought his weapon around, only to jerk it back down to the pavement when Asha materialized from the shadows.

  “Jammer,” she said in a low voice as she crossed over to his side.

  Gabe nodded his agreement. Wordlessly he motioned in the direction of the clock tower. They set out into the waning afternoon light.

  “You have any luck back there?” Her voice was pitched so that only he could hear.

  “One down; one got away. You?”

  Asha grimaced. “Same. I ziptied the guy Boone tagged and stashed him under some bushes at the entrance to the lazy river. The other one ghosted on me.”

  “Okay, so that’s, what? Six down?”

  Asha began listing them off. “We have the guy who was chasing Boone. Thad took out another two…”

  “There’s the one Boone ziplined into.” Gabe smiled. “You hit that one out of the park, if I recall.”

  Her lips twitched at that before continuing her tally. “Then there’s the lazy river guy, and yours—”

  Gabe lifted his ActiveFiber cord. “Call him Garrote Guy.”

  That earned him some side-eye. “Fine. Garrote Guy makes six. Which means there are still two enforcers and three smugglers at large, plus the maintenance worker Boone spotted.”

  Gabe stared thoughtfully up at the clock tower. “Boone’s a resourceful guy. He’ll have figured out by now that the jammer kills his overwatch. I think it’s a good bet he’s gone after that woman.”

  Their rendezvous point was only a few dozen meters away. No one seemed to have arrived yet.

  “Over here.” Asha motioned to an abandoned kiosk. “We can monitor the area from inside without being seen.”

  He followed her, pushing past a rack of shirts. “Guess not all their buildings have ES fields,” he commented as he looked around.

  Asha rubbed the shirt’s fabric between her fingers. “Doesn’t make much sense to equip them all, I suppose; the ones like these are too small to hold many people, anyway.” She shrugged and turned to face him. “There’s something else.”

  Her tone had Gabe’s gaze swinging sharply in her direction. Digging a hand into her pocket, she pulled out a small, oddly shaped device.

  “I think the enforcers can still communicate, even with the jammer.”

  He frowned. “That’s not possible. The jammer’s built to block all frequencies.”

  Asha lifted a finger. “All modern frequencies. Certainly, all military ones. But what if they’re using ancient tech? Something that’s lower frequency, different bandwidths?”

  His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he studied the item she held. “It’d have less reach. That’s why we abandoned those for comms. What is it?”

  “Could be a bone conducting mouthpiece,” she said. “I heard the guy subvocalizing before he was ziptied. I found it when I checked him over.”

  Gabe held out a hand, and Asha deposited it into his palm. He peered intently at it, the item jogging something loose in his brain. “I think you’re right. I’ve read about these in a history book,” he said slowly as memory surfaced. “They were called molar mics.”

  She shot him a quick, warning look. “It might still be on, so maybe it’s best if we—”

  “Say no more.” He handed it back to her. She waved him off, so he pocketed it.

  “What do you know about them?” she asked.

  “I don’t think they’ve been used for a hundred years or more. What I find interesting is what this implies.”

  Asha’s eyes held a knowing look. “The enforcers knew the gun runners had a jammer.”

  He nodded. “That means there’s a ringer inside the den of thieves. My credit’s on the park employee who’s their inside man.”

  Asha’s lips quirked. “Or inside woman, if Boone’s guess is correct.”

  “Agreed. What I can’t quite figure is why Mastai would let things go this far if they knew about it in the first place.”

  The medic tilted her head. “Give them enough rope to hang themselves?”

  Gabe frowned. “Maybe. Something still feels off, though—”

  He bit off the rest of his words, his head snapping around when motion in his periphery caught his attention. He held up a hand and then pointed.

  Asha followed his eyeline. Across the open center of the town square in the area that bordered the second waterway came a scraping sound and the flicker of a shadow.

  {You go left. I’ll go right,} Asha sent as they ghosted out of the kiosk. {Stay low.}

  They split up, using as many objects for cover as they could find. A sandwich board sat between Gabe and his objective; he crept up on it from behind and peered cautiously around. The sight that met his eyes had him rising to his feet. Several meters away, Asha did the same.

  Their sudden appearance had Thad dropping the man he’d been hauling, weapon snapping up. It snapped back down the moment recognition set in.

  The man at his feet was clearly out for the count. From the way Thad looked, Gabe wondered how close the other man was to being the same. The man’s shirt was covered with reddish streaks, and blood trickled sluggishly from a wound on his upper thigh.

  “What the hell happened to you, man?” Gabe asked as he jogged over to him. “You look like you’ve been in a slaughterhouse.”

  Asha joined them and motioned to the injury. “You need help with that?”

  “Naw,” Thad waved her off. “I’m good. Most of this isn’t even mine,” he added with a feral grin.

  Gabe exchanged a quick glance with Asha, silently indicating he’d cover them. The medic holstered her CUSP and bent to examine Thad’s wound. He brushed her hand away, a
nd the medic glared up at him.

  “Stand down, LT, and let me do my damn job.” She began prodding at the wound. “Tell me what happened.”

  He pointed to the thief. “That one shot at me while I was in the middle of exchanging words with one of the enforcers.”

  “Words?” Gabe’s brow rose, though his eyes didn’t deviate from the surveillance he’d set for himself.

  Thad made a fist; it landed with a light smack in his flattened palm. “I might have added a bit of punctuation to them.”

  “Of course, you did.” Asha’s verbal eye roll was blatant in her tone.

  Gabe’s attention was drawn to the cries of voices in the distance. “You run across any civilian stragglers?”

  “Yeah,” Thad’s voice was tight. “About that… There were a couple of them when I got here.”

  His voice turned gentle as he reached out and grasped Asha’s arm. Her hand froze against his thigh, and she rocked back on her heels, looking up at him. “Cher, they were some of Tatiana’s friends.”

  Asha shot to her feet. “Which way did they go?”

  Thad lifted his chin in the direction the girls had headed. A dense forest of green rose in the air, just beyond them, the beginning of the lazy river area. The only thing that broke the cluster of lush tropical plants were a pair of small bridges that crossed the river in two spots, and a small cluster of freestanding displays littering the edge of the walkway.

  “Plenty of places to get lost in there.” Asha’s grim assessment hung in the air between them.

  “Go,” Gabe told her. “We’ll wrap things up here and follow.”

  With a quick nod, Asha jogged off into the dense overgrowth.

  34: MISSING GIRLS

  Approaching lazy river

  The fight Petra had just witnessed was as vicious as it was silent. Other than the sound of the enforcer’s flechettes striking the ceramacrete, there had been very little noise. Petra watched in sick fascination as the stranger slipped a garrote around the enforcer’s neck and pulled it taut. The enforcer fought back, but the stranger held the upper hand.