Animus Complete Series Omnibus, page 247
“Oh, you dick!” Kaiden was about to expand on his opinion when he noticed a mech about fifty yards away, the jock’s cover partially shattered. “We’ll talk about this later. For now, get me close to that mech.”
“On it,” the EI acknowledged. The jets whipped him around as he charged a shot and he waited until he was close enough for the jock to see him coming. The lumbering arms of his target weren’t fast enough to fire first or block his shot and it streaked through the damage in the jock’s canopy. The mech stalled and fell in the blast of green energy and red mist.
“Heh, nice,” he said smugly. “Let’s look for Zena or Desmond. Find a relatively safe place to land so I can get this off me.”
“Uh, Kai—to your left,” Chief said as a small arrow formed and pointed in the direction in his HUD.
One of the Skyway Kings’ jet jockeys flew beside him and pointed to his helmet to indicate that he tried to establish a commlink. “Go ahead, Chief.”
“Who the hell are you?” he asked once they could communicate. “Nice pack, by the way.”
“Appreciate it, but I only borrowed it for the moment.” He looked down and fired at an Omega who ran below and prepared to fire a cannon. “The name is Kaiden Jericho. I worked with you guys not too long ago. I’m looking for Desmond or Zena. Have you seen them?”
The jockey nodded and made an okay sign. “They’re in the base. Desmond took a fairly big hit and they are patching him up.”
Kaiden responded with the same gesture. “All right. I’ll go take a look. If you see another guy with a pack like mine and white armor, don’t shoot him. He’s with me.”
“At this point, as long as you aren’t firing at us, we’re cool.” With that, he broke off and the ace headed toward the main building.
He contacted Haldt. “Hey, I have the leaders’ location and I’ll go have a talk.”
“Understood. I’ll help out where I can, but we need to do something about that assault ship,” his teammate replied. “Even if we drive all the ground and air troops back, I don’t see anything here with enough power to destroy that. Maybe a concentrated attack by the gangs’ ships might work, but that relies on them defeating the Omegas ships and there being enough left for an attack.”
“I’ll think of something after I talk with the leaders and get back to you soon,” he promised.
“Roger,” the man acknowledged as a large explosion sounded over his comm. The ace looked at the field as Haldt flew through it and tossed a couple more thermals.
“I wonder if this is him cutting loose or if it’s normal,” Chief said.
“He’s a man after my own heart if the latter.” Kaiden finally landed in front of the base and a couple of guards aimed their guns at him. He held a hand up as he removed his helmet. “Tell Desmond and Zena it’s Kaiden. I wanted to talk.”
The men lowered their weapons slightly. “I remember you,” one said. “We’re a little busy here if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Did they send for you?” the other asked. “We’re grateful for the help, but is it only you?”
“Nonsense, there’s three of us,” he responded. The two guards exchanged a disbelieving glance and one rolled his eyes. “Trust me, it’s more than enough. Can you take me to them already?”
The first man nodded. “Head in. They are in the lobby. Desmond wanted to get patched and go back out. I think Zena is trying to make him stay.”
“It’s funny to think she cares so much now,” his teammate commented. “Only a couple of years ago, they were rival leaders at each other’s throats.”
“We would have been too, stupid,” the first guard replied and pointed to his red armor and the other’s blue armor.
He walked past them and into the building as the guard responded with a succinct, “Good point.”
“Hey, Zena! Desmond! Are you there?” Kaiden shouted and drew the attention of several other gang members in the building as he walked in.
“Who is looking and why aren’t you fighting?” Desmond shouted in response. Footsteps approached from the western hallway but no one had appeared as yet.
“Take it easy or the gel won’t set,” Zena ordered. She finally stepped into view, pushing against a taller man in blue.
“We need to get a crate of ultrafast setting gel when we are done with this,” Desmond muttered and glanced up to see Kaiden. “Well, I’ll be damned. Zena was just saying we should give you a call.”
He extended his hand as the woman turned to see the ace as well and shook both their hands and nodded. “I tried to call you. How long have you been under attack?”
“We’ve only been fighting for about forty minutes,” Desmond explained, “but just got back from a different gig. The bastard Omegas jammed our comms. They’ve tried to take our base over the last few weeks. They were already here in force when we got back.”
“I guess they thought this would be easy pickings,” Zena muttered. “They want our supplies and the fort but thought we would simply roll over when they brought real firepower instead of only a few armored shitheads with big guns. My guess is they’ve learned that was a painful miscalculation.”
“I’m glad to see you can still give as good as you take.” A blast rattled the area and a few of the remaining windows broke from the force. “I wanted some help but it looks like you need it first. Let’s get these guys off your lawn.”
“I’ll be right behind y—ugh.” Desmond stepped back a bit warily. “This damn gel is making me woozy.”
“That would be the blood loss, idiot,” Zena snapped. Kaiden finally noticed the long trail of dried blood on the armor of the Skyway Kings’ leader. There was a large patch around his left shoulder, cuts along his face, and another trail from his right ribcage to his leg.
“What happened?” he asked and checked his supplies to see if he had anything to help.
“I was shot by a sniper in the shoulder. The armor took most of it but it was a ballistic round—small but still an annoying little bastard,” Desmond stated. “Then a gut strike by a plasma blade. I killed both of them for their trouble, but things got a little dark.”
“His men brought him back. They stitched him up and put some healing gel on. Not the really good stuff, unfortunately, and the fool thinks he’s okay to go back out there like this.” Zena sighed.
The ace shook his head. “It looks to me like you may be all right on that front. You still gotta fight hard, but the bigger problem is that ship.”
“No kidding.” Desmond groaned as another rumble shook the fort. “Those are probably from it firing on this building to batter the shields. Either they are trying to scare us or they’ve taken the position that if they can’t have our stuff, we can’t either.”
“It’s better that they focus on us rather than fire at the grunts,” she pointed out. “We don’t have any big cannons or anything like that to destroy it. We were hoping to maybe make a run with explosives using the jockeys but it’s too hot right now. Even the craziest jockeys won’t fly through a battlefield carrying armfuls of explosives with all this fighting and them exposed.”
“Do you think you have enough explosives to blow a hole in its hull?” he asked.
Desmond shook his head. “Probably not, but we’ve seen troops drop out of it so thought we could blow up the underside where they’ve come from and get in to plant more.”
“So you can get inside the ship?” he asked as a thought crossed his mind and he tapped the strap of his jetpack. “Or, rather, maybe I can?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wolfson was pursued by three enemy fighters after he’d eliminated the Interceptor that had attacked him and two other Omega ships and he assumed he had their full attention by now. Or they simply wanted to beef up their kill tally and his dropship was a bigger and more appealing target than the Skyways’ smaller, faster ships. If so, it meant they were probably rather pissed at how agile his modified ship was.
The head officer grinned as he flipped a switch on his console to focus his remaining shields on the front of the ship as he spun it in place to face the three pursuers. He fired his cannons and caught two of them off guard to destroy them with little effort and clipped the third. It was able to break away but one of the Skyway fighters streaked in to deliver the final strike.
He shook his head and sighed as he pressed the shield switch again to cover the whole ship. “Pah. I’ll still count it.”
“Hey, Wolfson, are you free?” Kaiden asked and his voice crackled over the comm—that would need to be repaired once they returned.
“I still have a good number of targets, boyo, unless you have something more interesting.” He lowered his dropship a little to offer air support for the gang members who fought on the ground.
“It’s more of a taxi service but still appealing.”
Wolfson chuckled as he fired at a group of Arbiter bots and Omega troops on the ground. “Will you pay me?”
“I need you to take me close to that big ship,” the ace explained. “I have explosives we’re gonna use to blast through the bottom. I’ll infiltrate and take it over.”
His gaze moved to the assault ship and he realized how lucky the unintended warning had been when a couple of the mounted turrets swung toward him and opened fire. He rolled his ship and forced it up while he punched it to gain distance. “Do you think you can take on the entire crew of an assault ship?”
“Have I ever given you reason to doubt me?” the younger man retorted. He had to admit, everyone knew Kaiden’s specialty was destruction, but this sounded almost like a plan, which gave him pause. “Besides, from what Zena and Desmond have told me, there really aren’t that many people on board. Most have been deployed onto the battlefield. At worst, I’ll fight a skeleton crew and maybe a handful of spare droids.”
The head officer pulled his craft up and spun to make a run at the assault vessel. He fired the two missiles he kept at the front of the ship for emergencies but they merely impacted with its shield to create a large red glimmer but no damage. More turrets began to fire at him and his own shields fell as he sped away. It didn’t look like he had the firepower to destroy it, which was something of a disappointment. He had kind of hoped to show the younger soldier up.
“I don’t hear a reply, Wolfson,” Kaiden badgered. “Come on. I’ll buy you dinner.”
He sighed, although his smile was broad. “Fine, fine. Where are ya, boyo?”
“At the entrance of the big-ass building. There’s a landing pad a few yards down and to the left. Open the bay and I’ll get in and we can go.”
“I’m on my way.” Wolfson activated the jets, hurtled across the battlefield in a little over a minute, and fired a few shots at the enemy along the way. He saw the pad and circled to lower the back ramp while he hovered the craft above the landing zone. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that Kaiden scrambled on board with a large sack. The younger man pointed up and the pilot nodded as he retracted the ramp and elevated sharply again.
“What’s with the bag?” he asked as the ace walked into the cockpit.
“It’s the explosives,” he replied and withdrew a gray box about a foot-and-a-quarter long to show him.
“That’s not exactly the correct storage for high-grade explosives,” the head officer noted jokingly.
Kaiden put the explosives in the bag and tossed it over his shoulder. “Oh, I’m aware of that. Why do you think I asked you to carry my happy ass over there instead of simply jetting in myself?”
“So I’m your nanny, then?” he asked as they closed in on the assault ship.
“Taxi,” his companion clarified as he opened the side door of the ship. “Keep the tab running.” Wolfson twisted the ship to its side as the other man dove out. His jet activated as he flew to the underside of the assault ship and the large vessel flew away but delivered a few shots at the target to annoy those inside.
“Do you see the door, Chief? the ace asked. He wanted to breach quickly before too many of the other soldiers saw him.
“Yeah, hold on.” He drifted to the left and located the drop door of the assault but scowled when he saw a hard cover over it.
“I guess they thought it was a weak point too.”
“It’s fairly standard on ships with a hatch on the bottom but it still won’t be enough to stop us from getting inside. Five should be enough.”
He hovered under it, retrieved the explosives from the sack, and stuck five onto the cover. “We have five left. What should we do with them?”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something.” After they were securely in place, Chief guided him far enough away from the impending explosion. “Should I start a countdown?”
Kaiden drew Debonair and aimed at one of the charges. “Nah, I got this.” He fired and they detonated with sufficient force to destroy the door and thrust him back a few more feet even at a safe distance.
“Damn, those things pack a punch.” The ace righted himself as laser fire from below indicated that Omega mercs who hadn’t noticed him before sure as hell had now. “Let’s get going, Chief,” he shouted and held the bag with the remaining explosives close when everything in his mind and body screamed for him to hurl them away before they were hit. Chief controlled the jets and flew into the underside of the ship to land inside a small room and to the side of the entrance as more shots streaked through the hole and into the ceiling.
Kaiden removed the jets and set them aside as he turned to a heavy door that barred their way out of the room. “I assume that’s locked.”
“Yeah. It shouldn’t be a problem for me, though.” Chief had already begun to take control of the terminal. “Although I pick up a dozen energy signatures, both droid and armor shielding. You can expect a warm welcome by Omega standards.”
“How nice of them,” he muttered sarcastically as he placed the bag on the ground and fished out one of the explosives. “I probably shouldn’t run around with these but can only fit one into the storage compartment on my armor.”
“I told you a few times that you should have sprung for the armored backpack for instances like this. Oh, more are coming. I have about twenty-two door-greeters now.”
“Shut it,” Kaiden snarked, placed the explosive into the compartment on his leg, and held the sack up. “Our plan wasn’t to blow the ship up but I still have a use for these. Crack the door a little, would you?”
“Fire as soon as this little bitch opens the door,” one of the mercs ordered, his shotgun ready as a green light flashed above the doorway. A hiss of escaped air was followed by a heavy clunk as the bars unlatched. “Got it?”
The other troops nodded and the droids merely aimed their blasters at the barrier and stood unmoving. It began to open slowly. A flash of brown peeked out and lurched toward the first soldier in the group. They all fired at once and the sound masked a click when the door locked again.
Even with the sound dampeners in his helmet activated, the explosion was loud and the force it unleashed shook the entire compartment. When it steadied, all Kaiden heard was crackling and thuds from metal falling to the floor. He paused for a moment, knocked on the door, and listened for a response. Nothing other than the sound of falling debris from the destruction could be heard.
“Do you think they’re dead?” he asked jokingly.
“Even with all the medical advances in the world, I don’t think we’ve come up with anything that can take remaining pieces and turn them into a proper human,” Chief responded and turned a sickly green. “If you need me to say it, kills confirmed. Also, you will have a hell of a cleaning bill walking through there.”
With a grin, he released the lock and opened the door. “Do you really think there’s that much—” He stepped out, gaped at the damage, and almost slipped on something that was totally unrecognizable. When they returned to the base, he’d have to apologize to some poor bastard responsible for the upkeep of the military armor who would definitely not be impressed by the gunk he’d accumulate. He grimaced. The situation was not helped at all by the gross remains that dropped off the ceiling, and he decided to ignore it all and push through as quickly as possible.
Besides, he had a whole ship to negotiate, and if there were more stubborn troops in there, this was really only the start of it all.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Haldt landed in the middle of a group of Omega soldiers and the surprise of his sudden appearance blindsided them. He held his hands up and two pistols emerged from his gauntlets and settled smoothly into his palms. The four troops hadn’t fully recovered when he fired, although one managed to duck under the strike that caught his buddy. The officer delivered two point-blank shots into the trooper’s chest before he swept another off his feet and finished with rapid shots at the fourth.
The grounded man tried to retaliate from his prone position but he simply kicked the gun away and finished him with three precise shots to the head. He had to admit, although he loathed how things had become, being out in the field in real combat was exhilarating compared to his days as a security officer.
A droid tried to sneak up on him and he glanced over his shoulder as it crouched in preparation for an attack. He turned to face it and as it leapt toward him, he activated his jets, soared up and over it, and fired as he descended. The mechanical uttered a metallic screech as it fell beneath the hail of laser fire. Haldt landed gently on top of its corpse and smiled. It definitely was good to be back.
“Hey, Haldt!” Wolfson called over the comms. “How is it going out there for ya?”
The officer looked at the carcasses and shrugged as he replaced his pistols in his gauntlets. “Well enough, sir. How about you?”
“My ship has taken its licks but given them back three times as hard,” he replied and followed it with a proud laugh. “There still seems to be a good number of these bastards but keep it up. Kaiden is taking care of the assault ship.”
