Crusade For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 2) (46 page)

“We told you already.”

“Yeah, but Sneaker doing someone a favour by training a street kid, hardly qualifies as an explanation.”

“What can I say?  That’s all there is to it.  The kid has a gift and was fortunate enough to find out what it was.  Now are we going to open this door or what?”

“Alright, Barney, your turn.”  Julianna set herself, ready to assault the door and Troll joined her on the other side as Barney put a burst into the door lock’s panel.  As they had come to expect, it exploded like all the rest.

The door slid open, but this time there was no shooting or grenades coming through.  Julianna was about to order Troll in with herself, when a shout came from the other side.

“Don’t shoot!  Don’t shoot!  We surrender.”

“Well, that’s no fun,” Troll said.

***

“Ma’am.”

“Yes?”  Captain Maritta Percival said turning to the communications Tech in the Rock’s Command Centre.

“I have Senior Guard Nanjappa from Wing six.  She says it’s urgent.”

“It’s all urgent!” Maritta snapped before stopping herself and taking a deep breath.  All five prisoner wings were under attack by forces unknown.  They had lost communications with the commanders of one, two, three and four, almost straight away.  What guards they were able to get hold of were ranting and raving about heavy armour before they died.  “Put her through.”

“It’s audio only,” the Tech said.

She nodded in acknowledgement and Nanjappa’s voice spoke through her com.  “Captain, we’re under heavy fire,” the guard shouted.  In the background Maritta recognised the distinctive roar of Plasma Cannons and the high pitched clatter of Blasters.  “We‘ve been attacked from the rear by soldiers in heavy armour.”

“Have you seen them?”  Maritta said brusquely.  She could not believe the Rebels managed to find even one suit, let alone enough to storm the Rock.  All the other reports were second-hand or cut off halfway through.

“Yes, Ma’am.  I managed to get a glimpse before they tore through my position, like Cerberus herself has been unleashed from hades.”

“What?  Describe them!”  Maritta demanded.

“Matt black.  Plasma Cannons on the left arm.  Blasters on the right.  Missile systems on the shoulders.  Thankfully they haven’t used those on us.”

Maritta felt light headed as the blood drained from her face.  Anyone could paint armour matt black, but only one Fully Powered Body armour system had an electron cell powerful enough, to mount both a Plasma and a Blaster, while being small enough to enable them to walk around the Rock.

“Did they have an insignia?” she asked quietly.

“I only saw it for a split second.  A white circle with a black shape in it.  I didn’t have time to make out what it was.”

Reaching behind her, Maritta found a chair, pulled it out and sat down heavily.

“Where are you, Nanjappa?  Are you safe?”

“For the moment, Ma’am.  When they hit us, I was knocked down by some debris and managed to crawl out of the way.  I think there are more coming down the corridor.  Yes I can see them.  That’s...  How?”

“What is it, Nanjappa?”

“I think, I think they’re prisoners, Ma’am.  They have guard armour on, but none of it fits and they have yellow armbands.  It looks like they’ve been taken from prisoner jumpsuits.”

“Surrender.”

“Ma’am?  We can’t surrender.  They’ll kill us!”

“Those are Legion Commando Devils out there, Senior Guard.  I don’t know what game the Families are playing, but someone has sent them.  If you try and fight, you have no chance.  It won’t mean anything to you, but those Devils are from Shadow Company and they’re a legend, even in the Commandos.  Surrender is you’re only hope.  It’s the only hope any of us have of getting out of here alive.”

“I.  Yes, Ma’am.  I understand.  I’ll try and get word to our people here.  Good luck.”

“You too, Senior Guard Nanjappa.”  The com clicked and Maritta sat staring at the floor, seeing nothing.  With the feeling of finality and a head heavy with the gravity of a black hole, she looked up.  All her energy was gone, all her drive to find a solution to this assault on the base she was responsible for, was gone.

The eyes staring back at her from around the room knew it.  They had seen and heard her react to the call.  They now knew they faced something only the enemies of the Pantheon should need to fear.  Maritta turned to the Communications Technician.

“Do we have any news from Commandant Polledo?”

“Erm.  Yes, Ma’am.  He and his detail have managed to exit their powered-down lift car and are using the tunnel to bring them back to here.”

“Very well,” she took a deep breath.  “Get him on the com as soon as you can.  Have the rest of your team contact whoever they can get hold of and tell them to surrender.”

“Is Carter still over there?” Billy Bacc demanded.

Sneaker saw Forlani’s back stiffen slightly as she leaned over the tactical table and she stifled a sigh before it could become too obvious.  Billy was back at his place in the centre of the room, watching the main display as the next flight of shuttles loaded with prisoners left the Rock.  The Rebellion equipped the Wandering Pony with livestock freight modules, so they would have the life support to carry over twenty thousand people without running out of air.

There were commercial passenger modules available, but they would have caused a lot more scrutiny.  The prisoners would not have a comfortable ride to their final destination and there had not been time to clean the pens out properly, so they still smelled horrible.  Sneaker could not see any of them complaining about their newfound freedom though.  Each module included its own docking bay and would make unloading easier.

With a total lift capacity of three thousand, two hundred people, they needed six round trips to get everyone onto the freighter.  The third flight was leaving the Rock now and Valerie was still not on board.  Sneaker smiled wryly to himself and decided he would try to explain her to Billy.

“She said she won’t leave until the Company do and she means it.” Sneaker told him.

“If you don’t order your people to drag her onto the next flight, Sneaker, I’ll order mine.”

Forlani spun round.  “You do that and you’ll have a stand up fight with my Company, Billy.”

There was a clear ten metres between the tall, broad shouldered leader of the Rebellion and the short, blonde commander of Shadow Company, and still the air crackled with tension between them.  Sneaker stood and interposed himself, his hands up, palms outward.

“Now, now.  I know we’re all a bit stressed here, but starting a new fight on the Rock won’t do any good.  Nor right here, for that matter.”

Sneaker turned to the Rebel leader.  “We can’t do anything about Valerie, Billy.  She’ll leave when she’s ready and not a minute sooner.  She wouldn’t be half the person you hope she is if she did.”

“Billy?” Sutherland, the Rebel Intelligence Officer interjected.

“Yes, Alan?” Billy asked.

“I’ve had a report, Carter has left the bay.”

“What?  Where in hades has she gone?”

“Into the lift tunnels with a small group.”

Billy rounded on Forlani.  “Major?” he demanded and Sneaker grimaced.

Forlani met Billy’s eyes for a moment before activating her com.  “One, this Lead,” she paused as she listened to the response only she could hear.  “Are you with Major Carter, Saito?”  The pause was longer this time.  “That’s something I really needed to know, Lieutenant.  Alright, I understand.  We’ll talk it through in the debrief later.  In the meantime, keep getting the prisoners ready for transport.”

Frowning, Forlani deactivated her com and looked over to Sneaker and Billy.  “Major Carter took Julianna and a few others into the tunnels after talking to Hanna.  She refused to tell Saito why, and ordered him to stay quiet.”

A glance at Billy, showed he was about to explode and Sneaker immediately keyed his com for Hanna directly.

“Hey, Sneaker,” her voice spoke out to the room.

“You’re on speaker, Hanna,” he told her.  “Valerie’s gone off into the Rock after talking to you.  Do you know why?”

“She asked me not to say.”

“Well, I’m asking you to tell me.  It’s important and if we have to, we can ask Captain Benz what he overheard.”  There was a long pause from the other end before a big sigh.

“That’s cheating, but alright.  It’ll get garbled if I don’t tell you myself.  I found the Rock’s Commandant.”

“He’s not in the Command Centre?”  Forlani asked.

“No, he was unlucky and caught in one of the lifts when I shut the place down.”

“Where’s he now?”  Sneaker asked.

“He was on his way to Wing Six.  I have him on the lift car’s camera, leaving the car and entering the tunnel.  There aren’t any sensors or cameras between the stops and intersections, so I can’t see him right now.  I plotted the locations he entered the surveillance systems envelopes and gave them to Valerie.”

“Send it to my screen, Hanna.”  Sneaker told her and an instant later it was there.  He forwarded it to the main display.

“Where’s he going?”  Sutherland asked to the room at large.  The route the Commandant was taking was convoluted at best.  At first he had been heading towards Wing Six, only to divert down parallel with the wing, before going towards Wing Five.

“If you match the time stamps to the change in direction, it corresponds to when the assault force arrived and the surrender.”  Hanna told everyone since she’d had more time to study the data.

“It makes sense,” Sutherland said.  “He starts heading towards the prisoners to try and prevent a breakout.  When he finds out that’s beyond his capability, he goes for the computer core, thinking he can interrupt our control.”

“That’s my conclusion, certainly,” Hanna agreed.  “He was either the one who ordered the surrender or at least agreed with it, and turned away, rather than risking his people by angering us.”

“No one here disagrees with you, Hanna.”  Billy said, his voice tight with anger.  “What I want to know, is why you specifically told Valerie this, and why she’s gone haring off after the Commandant.”

“If anyone knows anything on the Rock about Valerie’s capture or her family’s death it will be him.”  Hanna replied firmly.

“We didn’t come all this way and risk all of our lives for her personal vengeance!”  Billy roared.

Sneaker quickly shut off the connection to Hanna before she said something they would all regret.

“That’s her mission, Billy!”  Forlani snapped.  “You knew it as well as I did before we agreed to this, so don’t try and change things now!”

Billy swore loudly, threw his hands up in the air and stormed out.  Sneaker shook his head and joined Shannon at the tactical table.

“If he keeps this up,” she said to him quietly.  “She won’t agree to anything and nor will the rest of us,” He looked around, but they had a fair bit of space to themselves and everyone was studiously working away.  No one so much as glanced in their direction.

“Cut him some slack, Major.”  Sneaker said, in a tone quiet.  “Don’t forget, you may do this for a living, but neither Billy nor I do.”

“You’ve both run operations before.  You’ve told me so yourself and they’ve been some good ones.”  As part of building their Alliance, the three of them sat down and talked through their various skills and experiences.

“Running a Job is one thing or those raids the Rebellion have been executing, but this is completely different.”

“Why?”

“It’s the scale, first of all.  Billy has committed over four hundred fighters to this operation, plus another thousand people in support and that doesn’t include this freighter.  This ship is his command post and if he loses it, that’s not something his organisation can come back from easily.  He’s bet, what I would guess, is a sizeable proportion of his resources on this roll of the dice.  Now his pay-out is sitting just over there, almost in reach. 

“My nerves are stretched almost to breaking point and I don’t have nearly the amount of exposure to this as he does.  The waiting is the worst part.  We’re just sitting here out in space, with a Legion Battle group within reach of us.  If they turned right now and came straight at us, we wouldn’t have time to recover the shuttles before we had to jump into hyperspace.”

The blonde woman smiled at him.  “I get it, I do.  I’ve left almost everything behind and now ninety-five percent of what I do have is over there as well,” she shook her head.  “We can’t let that get to us.  We continue the mission and we complete it.”

“I’m sure he knows that.  Billy’s a smart guy.  He just has a lot riding on what is, by anyone’s definition, long odds, and he’s frustrated by his inability to affect the outcome.”

“You’re right and I’ll try not to be so antagonistic if his nerves get the better of him again.”  Forlani sighed and shook her head again.  “When Valerie’s safe on board ship, we’ll all be having words with her.”

Sneaker couldn’t help but grin back.  “And what makes you think she’ll care for an instant what we have to say?”  The response he got was not what he was expecting.  The expression he saw on Forlani’s face was of abject sorrow.

“From what I’ve heard from Hanna, Deni and you, not much.  When I knew her, she would have.  She would have cared a great deal about what her friends thought.”  She stood up straight, shook her head, as though to clear it of that morbid thought, and looked at the main display.  “The shuttles are two minutes out.”

Sneaker nodded in understanding.  He could tell she didn’t want to continue the conversation.  “I’ll check in on Hanna and see if the Rock’s guards are still being nice and quiet.”  He went back to his seat.

“I had better apologise to her for cutting her off while I’m at it,” he muttered to himself.  He knew he was going to get an earful.

***

Briseis stopped in the tunnel ahead and held up her hand, fist clenched.  Julianna halted with those around her.  Carter was just ahead of her, with Troll and Barney to either side.  The other two Spartans, Cheimon and Phrike brought up the rear.  There were spare sets of MP armour identical to her own in the Scarab shuttle.  Carter and the three Spartans exchanged what they took from the guards for the more powerful suits.  Fortunately there had been a large number available, just in case they needed to equip the prisoners to fight, including enough large female armour to outfit the Spartans.

Julianna was used to being looked at for having overly large shoulders for a woman.  She wasn’t as big as Shadow Company’s Lieutenant Aycox, who took body building to the extreme, but with her extensive martial arts training, Julianna wasn’t small.  The Spartans made her look like a ballerina in comparison.  She looked forward to seeing what Lucy Aycox made of them.

The seven of them were here in the tunnels searching for the Rock’s Commandant.  Julianna wasn’t sure why they were bothering.  After a surprisingly brief greeting of Troll and Barney, Carter asked them to accompany her on this hunt.  She already had the three Spartans with her and Julianna knew she wasn’t needed, but she couldn’t let her last surviving team members go off without her.

They were in an unlit, horizontal lift tunnel, tracking the Rock’s Commandant.  Hanna spotted him at the last intersection, a couple of hundred metres behind them and there were lights further up.  With the MP armour they didn’t need any lights to illuminate the way.  The Commandant did, although his two escorting guards were in their armour, the Commandant himself was dressed in normal fashionable, clothes common amongst the Privileged, with an emergency enviro suit over the top.

Only sound could give their team away.  For Valerie and the Spartans, it was like their feet didn’t even touch the ground, they gave off no noise whatsoever.  Troll and Barney were not that good, but still caused less noise than a mouse between them.   Of all of them, Julianna was the least experienced at moving silently and she knew she wasn’t a slouch.

The seven of them waited in the dark, watching the lights bobbing ahead of them in the tunnel.  When there was no sign their prey had noticed the teams presence, Briseis waved for them to continue.

The ground ahead was smooth permacrete, the walls curving up around them to meet overhead seamlessly.  Briseis picked up the pace.  Carter waved for Julianna and the rest to continue on, but let Briseis get ahead of them, and sped up herself to catch up.  Julianna enhanced the resolution on her helmet and watched the dark shapes of Briseis and Carter moving through the tunnel.

The two guards were caught completely unawares.  Carter went for the Commandant first, a kick to the back of the leg and a short quick blow with her left fist, dropped him quickly.  She moved so fast the guard on the Commandant’s right only started to turn towards her.  Her back fist hit him squarely in the visor.  He fell back, spinning to the ground.

When Carter hit the guard on the right, Briseis tackled the one on the left.  The butt of her rifle hit him in the stomach as he turned, then came up to meet his descending head.  The blow snapped his head back and in one smooth motion, Briseis spun her rifle, putting a burst into his face.

To finish hers off, Carter kicked him solidly in the body where he lay on the ground, unslung her own rifle and put a burst of her own into him.  The attack took less time, from Carter kicking the Commandant, to the last Pulse burst, than it took Julianna to move forward two more steps.

“Is he alive?”  Troll asked as they caught up.  Briseis and Carter chose not to shoot the guards initially.  They wanted to make sure the Commandant would not get caught in the crossfire.

“Yeah, he’s fine.”  Carter answered as she picked up the limp and presumably unconscious man from the floor.  “I didn’t hit him very hard.  He’ll wake up in a few minutes.  We’ll head back to that last intersection.  I saw a maintenance room there we can use.  Briseis, take point and pick up the pace.  We don’t need to be quiet anymore.”

“Yes, Valerie,” the tall Spartan said and must have taken Carter at her word.  The pace she set was a hard one, Julianna quickly found herself breathing heavily.  They all ran along the tunnel, the Commandant slung unceremoniously over Carter’s shoulder.  The woman kept her pace with the rest easily, not showing the least sign the extra weight was slowing her down.