Rites of the Righteous, page 7
Freeman went even paler than usual. Don Ribiero tried to reassure him. “Relax, Dr. Freeman. They will handle whatever pittance OmniCorp throws at us. Just keep your head down and follow instructions.”
“You sound so calm...”
Ribiero scoffed aloud. “Hah! I’ve done this before. Believe it or not, you almost get used to it.”
Lucia entered the main atrium, clad in snug gray fatigues beneath an armor harness festooned with ballistic plates and a large carryall on the back. Her CZ-105 flechette pistol sat on her right hip where she could get at it quickly and she wore an AR tac Visor over her eyes. “Why aren’t you people dressed?” she said through a scowl.
Mindy stood and zipped her blue jumpsuit up to her neck. The sophisticated flexible armor squeezed against her body like a second skin, making the display bizarrely sexual despite the fierce look on her face. Roland knew better than to get distracted. The suit was proof against most small arms and housed a sophisticated suite of gel tubes that could harden to provide extra protection, staunch bleeding, or brace broken bones. The ensemble probably cost more than most people made in a decade, but in Mindy’s line of work, that level of protection was a valid expense.
Manny struggled into his own harness. “I hate wearing plates,” he muttered.
“Get some MyoFiber and OsteoPlast, then,” said Mindy. “Then you can wear a Flex Weave like me.”
“Not worth it,” he replied. “I’m still making payments on my arm.” With his vest in place, Manny tied his hair back into a ponytail and grabbed his ubiquitous green satchel. What it held Roland could not say. The youth always seemed to have a fresh set of weird gadgets ready to go, and trying to keep track of them all gave the big cyborg a headache. He grabbed a stumpy Tavor scattergun and clipped it to a sling on the front of his armor. “Ready.”
Freeman and Ribiero wriggled into harnesses not unlike the one Lucia wore. Freeman’s physical discomfort and rampant anxiety painted his features in slashes of deep lines against ghastly white skin. Roland suppressed an irritated grunt. The fugitive Prospector needed far too much babysitting. Last night’s concerns over Freeman’s survivability bubbled to the surface of his thoughts. Roland shoved them back down and tried to focus on the mission. To hide his own darkening expression, Roland slid his helmet into place and slapped the faceplate down. It clicked aloud, and a soft hiss told Rolland it was pressurized. With the only outward sign of his humanity thus concealed, Roland felt a familiar detachment wash over his mind.
From inside the helmet, he was Breach. Strongest of an elite group of cyborg super-soldiers, the enemy saw Breach before anything else. His faceplate, silver-white and ghostly, was molded in the shape of a mouthless metal skull. Against the flat black of the helmet, the impassive death’s head seemed to float in space. His skin, a thick black techno-organic mesh of armor impervious to all but the heaviest of munitions, sat atop dense synthetic muscle fibers powerful enough to crush granite into powder. These sinews wrapped like anchor cables around bones far stronger than steel. People like Lucia made it easy to forget things, to forget the monster he had been made to be. The helmet always reminded Roland.
Breach did not need armor. Breach was armor.
Long ago he had abandoned the childish conceit that somehow “Breach” was separate from “Roland.” In truth, he was only one person, imposing helmet or not. Now more in tune with his emotions, Roland understood that putting the helmet on changed nothing except his attitude. Breach was not a person; Breach was a mood.
“All business today, Roland?” Don Ribiero shattered his reverie.
“I figure they’ll be after the football more than anything. Figured I’d give them something to shoot at, so they’ll leave Freeman alone.”
“We need to get you a new helmet,” Lucia said with a shudder. “I hate that one.”
“Bunny ears!” Mindy squealed. “He needs bunny ears!”
This time, Roland’s rumbling growl could not be restrained. Lucia shook her head. “Focus, people. It’s time to move.” She opened the team channel from her visor. “Rejects! You online?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Patton’s voice replied. “Outside the door. Bloody Mary and Winner are walking the route ahead of us. Bubba and I will escort once we are moving. Privateers have secured your route as good as it can be, and I have four Shepards scanning and sweeping in every direction. They aren’t well-armed, but their sensor gear is top notch. We are clear to extract.”
“I want the Shepards way out, Pretty Boy. If trouble comes, I want to know yesterday.”
“Understood, ma’am.”
Mindy snickered, earning her a glower from Lucia. Mindy feigned innocence. “What? I bet he just loves it when you tell him how to do stuff he’s already good at, boss.”
Lucia declined to reply and let her facial expression wither Mindy like a daisy in the desert. Roland rescued her with a gruff, “Let’s roll.”
Patton and Bubba met them at the door, and they began the long march back to Exit Wound. The corridors seemed even less inviting then their precious trip. At least on that occasion they were well in front of their pursuers. Even with the ludicrous speed of the refit, thirty-six hours felt like far too much time to be sitting still. Maid of Orleans had not gated in yet, but no one present was foolish enough to think that meant they were safe. It was a tight-lipped and scowling octet that stomped away from Sector Twelve. Patton would occasionally mutter into the team channel or issue commands to the four drones he commanded. Manny’s eyes stayed glued to every corner and shadow, twitching and darting in their sockets like a person high on exotic stimulants. Lucia’s spine might have been forged from steel. Her body betrayed tension and anxiety with an intensity that set Roland’s teeth grinding. For himself, he had already accepted that something was going to go horribly wrong. It was an old trick. If he expected the worst at all times, then every surprise became a happy one. Not even Mindy proved immune to the palpable sense of unease. Her aura of blithe sexuality was nowhere to be found. She stalked on light feet, her thighs and calves springing with each step as if she expected to leap into battle at any moment. She wore a brace of pistols, one on each hip, and Roland noted that her hands never ventured far from the grips of either.
Bubba Riley did not share in any of their apprehension. Roland recognized the bland look on that scarred face. Bubba did not care if they got attacked or not. If they made it to their destination without incident, the hulking mercenary would be perfectly fine with that. If the enemy attacked them, Bubba would kill as many as possible before dying or completing the mission. It was not courage that kept the big man so calm in the face of these probabilities. Roland had known far too many men like Bubba to mistake his attitude for anything so heroic. Bubba simply did not waste time worrying about things that might happen. There was no “what if” inside his head. Bubba was the kind of single-minded grunt who could play cards in a foxhole right up until the instant things got violent, at which point he would put the cards down, grab his weapons, and fight until death or victory. Then he would sit back down and pick up the game exactly where it left off. Not because he was brave, but because he had learned to live only in the present. Roland knew that beneath the facade, Bubba feared death. It took more than a blank expression to hide that kind of fear from people who knew how to look for it.
Roland knew, and he saw it in every stupid choice Bubba Riley made. In battle, Bubba fought like a berserk madman because his brain figured out that dead men cannot hurt you. If your enemies are dead, there is nothing to fear, and so Bubba made them die. Thus, his fear made him strong in ways that others could not be. Despite the lack of sophistication, Roland could not deny that Bubba’s coping mechanism enjoyed a brutal sort of merit. His exploits were the stuff of legends, and he was an asset to any team that fielded him. Yet his strength came at a terrible price. Bubba was a man without connections or a future because he could not stomach thinking about either. That is where the fear lived, and Bubba refused to go there. Roland had flirted with the same fate himself, and staring at the back of Bubba Riley made him glad he met Lucia Ribiero.
The attack came without warning. Roland did not even see where it came from. A flash of movement from the corner of his eye drew an involuntary flinch from the big cyborg. Something hot and sharp traced a line across his forearm, parting the surface armor like soft cheese and severing the cords and tendons beneath. Numb fingers released the case in his hand, and Roland roared a frustrated expletive. His right fist swung in a brutal arc; a punch hurled with lethal intent. The air snapped in its wake, though he struck nothing. The sound of Lucia’s CZ105 came next, the staccato reports of hyper-velocity flechettes ringing in Roland’s ears like angry metallic popcorn. Things were happening too fast. Lucia’s reflexes seemed to be the only things staying with the action, because even Roland with his great speed still could not find the assailant. Mindy had begun to move, though at the current pace of events the blond killer would have her work cut out for her if she expected to catch up. Durendal came around, linked to Roland’s helmet sensors. The enormous pistol tracked targets as a blurry form passed through the targeting reticle. Roland found nothing to shoot at, just the movement of Patton and Bubba as they dropped into crouches. The sounds of shouted orders followed.
Dimly, through the fog of war, Roland remembered the dropped case. His fingers still refused all commands and his HUD informed him that this would be the case for the next forty-seven minutes. The cut ran deeper than he had realized. The enemy either had a very good blade or enough strength to push a mediocre one through his armor. Either way, if Roland wanted to grab the bag it would mean holstering his pistol. He rejected this outright and elected to step over and stand astride the case instead.
“What the hell was that?” Patton hissed.
“Fast-mover,” Lucia replied through clenched teeth. “I barely saw him. Male. Tall. Looked like a sasori blade, Roland.”
“That is not good,” Manny said.
The snap-hum of Mindy’s blade coming to life made Manny jump. The blond killer held a pistol in her left hand and the gently glowing black dagger in her right. “I hope he comes back,” she muttered.
“He will,” Lucia said. “Roland still has the case.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Grimes fled the corridor with a small, satisfied smile on his face.
He had drawn first blood, and his initial pass at the target had proved most informative. His dagger had sliced through Tankowicz’s armor as if it were nothing. He now knew for certain he could kill the giant oaf at any time. This knowledge made the rest of the job far less problematic. He also knew for certain that the black case did not hold the missing memory core. None of them had even flinched when it fell, and Grimes had suspected all along that they would employ a decoy. Richardson was much too clever and experienced to not do so. That left the woman’s backpack or Richardson’s satchel as the other probable locations. He ruled out Richardson right away. The boy lacked the physical skills to protect the device if found out. The woman, on the other hand...
Grimes remembered his previous bouts with that woman. Her speed and reflexes were the fastest he had ever known. She also appeared well-trained, for a civilian. He looked down at the still-smoking tear in his shirt. The flechette had passed less than an inch from his bottom rib. Even at full speed and with the element of surprise, she had nearly killed him. No one could be that fast. It simply was not possible. Nevertheless, Grimes lived in the real world and did not waste any time or energy denying the evidence of his eyes. That woman warranted more care next time, and next time was coming up shortly.
He checked the Privateer tactical feed. Acquiring their private codes had taken some doing, but with OmniCorp on his side nothing was impossible. Sure enough, the target group had resumed their trek toward their ship. With greater speed now, he observed in passing. Grimes grunted in approval. They would be in the more public areas next and with a sense of urgency that encouraged mistakes. No one would risk a shootout in the public areas, and Grimes depended upon encountering limited firepower for his escape. It seemed the Privateers understood this, too. Station security converged on his last known location with a vengeance. Everything was going perfectly.
With a twist of his watch dial, Grimes disabled his clothing’s stealth features for one full second before turning the countermeasures back on. He checked to ensure that the damage to his shirt had not rendered the systems moot and frowned. While there were noticeable gaps in the coverage, it was nothing that would stop the mission. He stood and began to jog while adjusting his hood to ensure its sensor-obscuring weave covered his whole head. As long as OmniCorp continued to spoof a rotating series of counterfeit biometrics through his clothes, there would be no way to track him. He allowed that the hole in his electronic cover might make it possible to pierce this illusion eventually, but the chances of that felt low. Besides, he had given them a little look at his true position on purpose. Desperate for a break, the blip of his position in scanners must have felt like a godsend to the station security teams. Spirited tac channel chatter confirmed that security had taken the bait without a second thought. As planned, multiple squads of Privateers converged on where he was, not where he was going to be. Grimes turned his jog into a run, each long stride pushing him further from the depths of the station and closer to the more public decks. He did not slow until he stepped through a double door into a customs floor adjacent to the loading areas. Endless rows of queues stretched out before him, stuffed with hundreds of bored and irritated spacefarers waiting for a chance to be scanned, questioned, and taxed before leaving Enterprise Station. A wall of sound assaulted his ears in a solid wave of human voices raised in various levels of frustration and indignance.
Grimes let his eyes narrow as his focus tightened. His timing would need to be perfect. Since it always was, Grimes did not mind. He knifed through the crowd in a straight line, targeting the exit to boarding and loading areas. Being with the Privateers did not exempt the enemy from customs, though he expected them to enjoy every advantage in clearing the gates. He need not have worried. The need for care made the fixers slower than his headlong flight, and he arrived with minutes to spare.
He saw them enter from across the deck. The scarred giant walked in front with the lieutenant in tow. Richardson followed, and Grimes felt his pulse quicken for an instant. He let the internal conflict pass and set his mind to his task once more. The cyborg entered with the woman and the scientists next. He fixed his sights on her backpack, confident that this is where he would find the memory core. The little blond assassin came through last, and this made Grimes smile. She suspected something. He could see it in her frown. Grimes could respect a fellow professional, and he reminded himself that this was not the time to test his skills against a peer. He began his stalk, moving between clumps of people like a lion through tall grass. He did not hurry. He did not rush. He was alongside the group in less than a minute. A throng of tourists blocked him from their sight, the frightened group of travelers kept well from the twin glowers of the big mercenary and hulking cyborg.
Now, he thought.
Grimes inhaled, found zanshin, and sprang.
Several things happened at once, and even Grimes with his enhanced reflexes struggled to keep track of all of them. As soon as he cleared the tourists, the woman’s hand began to move to her pistol. Too fast. Faster than him, which he did not think could be possible. Nevertheless, planning for the impossible had saved his life more than once. He started his slide even as her weapon cleared the holster. As he knew she would, the woman hesitated. The CZ105 was an expensive weapon with projectiles capable of penetrating mild body armor. Firing such a weapon in this space virtually guaranteed a civilian casualty, and Grimes already knew she did not have the stomach for that. Her speed made no difference if she declined to pull the trigger.
The others reacted in order of their reflexes. The big cyborg moved next, turning to block his charge a fraction of a second behind the woman. Grimes had chosen his moment well and already knew the monster would not complete his maneuver in time. Mindy was the last to move. She did not attack, but rather stepped in to defend the scientists. She was a professional, and professionals knew their roles. It made her reactions predictable.
The distance between Grimes and the Ribiero woman dissolved to nothing, and his hand extended in a long thrust with his dagger. The woman dodged, and he saw the tight frown on her face as his blade passed by her ribs without making contact. She was right to be confused. Grimes had not been aiming for her in earnest, but rather to make her turn in exactly the manner she just had. She probably figured it out right at the moment his dagger opened her backpack, which made his victory all the sweeter. The black box tumbled from the bag, and Grimes caught it with his left hand. He did not turn, he did not gloat, he did not fight.
He ran.
Grimes poured every ounce of speed he could drag from the steel-strong muscles in his legs as he fled. He flitted through the crowd like a supersonic hummingbird, missing passengers and leaping kiosks with superhuman grace. Grimes did not look back. He knew his destination and how to get there, so there was no point in checking for the pursuers he knew had to be close. At the exit to the boarding areas, he slapped his palm to a reader, which connected his DNA to his boarding pass and opened the door. The vestibule flashed his ship’s docking bay number, and he made note of it in passing. This cost him three-quarters of a second, which felt like an hour considering how many angry killers were right behind him. He darted through the door, which closed behind him. He kept up his run, though he relaxed knowing that the fixers would be slowed by the boarding AI. Perhaps four or five seconds at most, but at his speed that may as well be a lifetime.
