Animus Complete Series Omnibus, page 263
“I had come to that conclusion,” the CEO stated as he nodded to the leader to put his weapon down and held his arms out. “Very well. It would appear that my value to Merrick is lost, at least in his eyes. Perhaps I could still prove valuable to some—” The words died in his throat when he felt a sudden pressure in his chest, followed by immense pain. He staggered as the Red Sun leader spun, followed by the troops behind the figure in black who rushed forward.
“Kaiden, sniper!” one of the Tsuna shouted as Kaiden caught the wounded man and flung them both to the ground. The other troops fired at the attacker, but Solos’ hearing had begun to dull. He moved his hand over his chest and felt the blood from his wound.
Surprisingly calm, he looked at the resistance soldier. “I suppose I haven’t much to give at this point.”
Kaiden shook his head and glared at the councilman. “Are you gonna be like the others? Start spouting about how Merrick is doing this for the good of all and how we have no chance?”
“Not…exactly.” The CEO chuckled and it ended in a slight cough. “I do think your chances are grim but I didn’t follow him out of devotion. It was business.”
“Your business killed millions.” The ace growled with restrained emotion.
“And would have made me trillions.” He sighed while his gaze drifted over the soldiers fighting to where the Omega assault ships began to crash. “There isn’t much business without those to sell to, however. I can see that this…may end differently than…how I expected…guess it…already has.”
“Do you want your last words to be your regrets? You still have a chance to help,” Kaiden reminded him.
Solos refocused on him and smiled to reveal a smear of blood on his teeth. “Anything I have left…I had hoped it could be a …bargaining chip in case something like this happened… I won’t get…any use out of it now.” He tapped the metal of the roof. “The safe room… There is a vault…card to open it is…in my coat pocket.”
Kaiden removed one hand from his back, slid it inside the coat, and withdrew a folded handkerchief. He unwrapped it to find a white card with a silver ouroboros emblem.
“So… How will this… end?” the wounded man asked.
The ace looked at him. “With Merrick dead. I haven’t thought much beyond that.”
Solos’ smile widened as his eyes closed. “That would have…infuriated me a…couple of months ago…” He dragged in one last deep breath. “Now…I think it sounds…rather promising.”
Chapter Two
Haldt eliminated the droid under his boot with two shots from his pistol as Silas and a soldier ran up. “Is that all of them?” he asked.
“We’re sweeping now,” the military trooper responded. “Some escaped and left the droids to hold us back. But the assault ships are down and unless they can sneak shuttles in, they shouldn’t be able to get far.”
“Unless they all have bombs in their head,” Silas countered and earned confused looks from the others. “Weren’t you guys there during the assault on their factory? Ah, okay, but when the factory blew up, all the remaining scientists and techies were found dead in the hills. Apparently, a remote device detonated and left no survivors.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember being filled in.” Haldt sighed. “Well, that is a possibility at this point. Merrick doesn’t seem to be playing whatever his version of chess is. He’s made our work of killing his forces easier.”
“I don’t get this guy’s plan,” the enforcer admitted. “He’s recalled most troops to the embassy and he’s sent teams from what few strongholds he still has here to kill his board members? Doesn’t he need their expertise or something? Why have them in the first place?”
“From what we know, they helped build and maintain the AO over the last couple of decades,” the military man explained. “But at this point in the fight, I don’t think he has much use for them. We’ve been able to freeze most of their accounts and have the various corporations on lockdown. They are more use to us for information than they are for Merrick’s games.”
“Oliver Solos was the last one we know of who is down here.” Haldt looked at the roof. “They should have recovered him by now, right?”
The door to the manor—or rather what remained of it—was kicked out and Kaiden stood in the doorway, his arms folded. “Get in here. Solos is dead.”
The three men looked at each other and Silas’ eyes widened in surprise. “Well…shit.” The military trooper ran to help with the search for survivors and Haldt and Silas joined the ace. “What happened up there?” the enforcer asked as they walked into the mostly destroyed first floor.
“It was a sniper shot but not a complete loss.” He held up the key card he had taken from the victim as they walked into the living room. “He said any info he has is down in the safe room in a vault. The door to the room is on lockout but Genos said he has a way in.”
“Indeed I do,” the Tsuna announced. He held his gauntlet up and it took the form of a claw. His expression smug, he drove it into a panel, grasped a number of wires that he pulled out and sorted through, then touched three together. Bolts on the inside of the door clicked loudly. “There, that should do it.”
“So you don’t even try for subtle anymore, Genos?” Silas asked as Kaiden walked to the door and took hold of the lever.
“Given our surroundings, I don’t think it is much of a problem to destroy one more thing.” As if to accentuate his point, a few pieces of glass still stuck in the frame gave way and spilled onto the floor.
The ace slid the door open and the group descended cautiously. When they reached the bottom, they scanned the lavish chairs, a stocked liquor cabinet, several monitors, and even a few paintings. Clearly, Solos had intended to ride through any tragedy in luxury, at least while he could.
“There, Kaiden—in the corner.” Jaxon pointed to a large standing vault in the rear of the room. They hurried toward it and Haldt and Genos checked for traps as they drew closer. Kaiden saw a small, thin hole where the handle should be. When he knelt and slid the card in, three red lights appeared. Each took a second to turn green before they blinked in unison and the door opened with a sharp pop.
At the bottom of the vault were several paintings, antiques, and other items of immense value. The way they had been carefully packed left little doubt about that. Above them on the next shelf stood several containers, all silver boxes. Kaiden took one and examined it carefully. They simply had numbers engraved on them so he passed it to Jaxon and retrieved the rest. There were six in total, which left him holding two and his teammates one each.
“Do you think they’re safe?” Haldt asked.
Genos examined his box. “I don’t see anything that would suggest a trap. There are no triggers or odd protrusions. I would have to run a scan to see if there are—”
Kaiden interrupted his train of thought when he flung a box across the room. It thudded into the wall and opened, and three items fell out.
“They seem fine,” he stated as he wandered forward to pick it up. His teammates looked at each other and shrugged as they opened their containers. The ace retrieved his, along with the three sticks that had fallen out. They were storage devices, probably filled with information on the AO, but how much use it was at this point was debatable. Solos had been one of the credit managers, as far as they could tell, so most of this could simply be receipts and spreadsheets.
“I have a video device,” Genos alerted them and held up a small stick with a circular indentation on it.
“Most of these seem to be only storage,” Silas muttered as he glanced at their haul. “I guess we can search through them when we get back.”
Kaiden looked at one of the monitors and saw a slot on the console beneath. “Genos, pop it in,” he ordered and pointed at the insertion point.
The mechanist nodded and hurried forward to insert the device. The group waited as dozens of video files appeared. When they scanned through them, most seemed to be personal logs or records of meetings. The ace stretched over his teammate and pressed a second tab to reveal another page of videos, these marked with more unique names. Interrogation_IS and Colossus_Found caught his interest, but the one that captured his attention was marked, M_Confession.
“M?” He frowned thoughtfully. “Do you think that could be Merrick?”
The group members glanced at each other. “It could be. We should still have enough time before we depart,” Jaxon told him.
Haldt nodded to the screen. “Load it up.”
Kaiden tapped on the file and a video player appeared on the screen. The footage displayed a somewhat hazy video of a man seated in shadow while a hand moved away from the camera, possibly having activated a secret recorder on their lapel.
“I can’t say I understand, sir,” Solos said. “I thought our objective was to continue the evolution of humanity and push it forward. But you wish to go to war?”
“I’m saying it may come to that, Oliver,” the man said, his voice grim and low in tone. He looked up and the ace recognized him as Merrick, although he was much younger. There were fewer lines on his face and his arched brow and set jaw were less pronounced than he remembered, so this must have been recorded years before. “When they gave me the serum, it not only increased my physical ability, it opened my mind like never before.”
“And it gave you…what? A vision?”
“A premonition. Or something contacted me. Something is coming for us, our planet, and our galaxy. We have to be prepared. That is why I’ve sought you and the others out.”
“I see. But I was enticed by the potential profits as they were explained to me,” Solos stated and sounded irritated. “It is rather easy to profit from war but from extinction? The ramifications of what you are saying this could lead to—”
“Are inconsequential compared to there being nothing,” Merrick snapped and pushed from his chair in an abrupt movement. “You’ll get your pay and you’ll get a title when this is all over. But if you want it to mean anything, you’ll need to live to see it. We all will be indebted to those who brought about our salvation and our evolution. That should help bolster your records, shouldn’t it?”
Oliver shifted in his seat and the hand he’d rested on the table tensed. “It certainly would. Even simple thought on the matter confirms that this could result in a tidy sum for me. But if this ‘premonition’ of yours is true and you are able to force your hand to get humanity to your side, what can be done against this being you talk about?”
The Arbiter leader drew a deep breath. “Our focus will be to prepare for a war the likes of which this galaxy has never seen. We will start with the Ark soldiers and give them the same gift I was given.” Kaiden, Genos, Silas, and Jaxon looked at one another. “They will see what I have seen and will know and convince the rest of what needs to be done. They will all be my students once again.”
Kaiden’s fist balled and he struck the screen to shatter it as he yanked the drive out. He shoved it against Genos’ chest as he picked his cases up and walked to the stairs. “Like hell.”
Chapter Three
Sasha Chevalier and General Hartman walked through the halls of the temporary WCM military HQ in London. “Team Alpha reported in before you called,” Sasha stated. “They said Solos was killed during the rescue attempt but they were able to retrieve a number of storage units from a vault in his safe room.”
“Then it means any remaining AO council members are on the stations.” The military man sighed. “They’ll return soon, correct?”
“They said they are already on their way,” the Nexus chancellor confirmed and adjusted the cuffs of his jacket. “Team Bravo, on the other hand, are still preparing, but they should begin their strike in only a few minutes.”
“That’s good to know. We’ll need those access codes for the next stage,” Hartman noted as they entered the war room. A large circular table stood in the middle surrounded by many holoscreens and monitors, each showing feed from different campaigns and stations. He walked to the table’s console and activated it, and it displayed a holographic recreation of an Omega Horde encampment. “They will need to work quickly. We are already preparing to strike the stations. The codes they retrieve won’t be active for more than another three days according to the report. We’ll need to capture the Icarus base by that time and upload them to command the station.”
“That’s understood. They’ll get it done,” he promised.
The general nodded. “And you made sure they understood that they had permission to do this as viciously as they pleased? There’s no need for stealth maneuvers at this time.”
Sasha allowed himself a small smile. “I did one better. I chose my team based on those who wouldn’t bother with stealth anyway.”
“Team three reporting. Still fucking nothing,” an Omega merc muttered into his comm. He sighed and turned to look at his two teammates. “When the hell are we leaving? We’ve been on this station for three months now, doing the same boring shit while everyone else is taking off. What about us?”
“Quit your bitching,” another responded and flipped through videos on his tablet. “I’m glad to have a little break. I was at Nexus Academy during the fight a couple of months back and barely made it out. If we have plans to take it to the military, I’m fine with waiting to live to see it.”
“Agreed, but he has a point too,” the third man interjected. “More of the Horde are being called back. The longer we stick around, the more we’ll become a target. We should get into the stars with the others.”
“We’ll be out soon enough,” the lazy one grumbled. “I heard shuttles and a transport carrier will be coming in a few days. Until then—” His sentence cut short when all three heard a couple of loud bangs, not like a gun but rather something heavy detonating. He put his tablet down and snatched his shotgun up as they looked down from their tower. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know. An animal maybe?” one reasoned.
“It sounded mechanical. One of our generators?” the other responded.
“We don’t have one in that direction,” the third reminded them and his gaze shifted to scrutinize the jungle. “We should check with the techies to see if anything is picked up on the—”
The roof of their tower caved in as two heavies powered through. One was aglow with energy and the other wielded a large hammer. The merc with the shotgun turned to fire but was hurled out of the tower by a blast from the vanguard. The titan raised his hammer and pounded it onto the floor, and a portion of it collapsed. The two guards plummeted through the hole and banged off the spiraling stairs below during their painful descent.
“Our tower is clear,” Luke announced as he and Mack leapt off the tall building to the ground below. The rear gate to the Omega base was obliterated and a team of Nexus soldiers rushed in. Marlo vented his cannon as he jogged with the party.
“So is ours,” Cameron announced as the fourth member of the defenders was felled by a shot from Flynn. “Indre, Otto, how are the internal defenses?”’
“They are down so there’s no need to worry,” Otto replied as he closed his holoscreen.
“I doubt they were,” Indre replied as she launched three drones. “Let’s join the fun, huh?”
An Omega tried to man one of the stationary turrets but was knocked over the head by a tracker drone. Raul grinned smugly as Izzy slid under an enemy heavy and vaulted onto her opponent’s back. She pressed her pistol against his armor’s power unit and fired to cripple the heavy until the gun overheated. As she vaulted clear, Luke raced forward and swung his hammer into the side of the merc’s chest and the force of the impact hurled him against the wall of one of the buildings.
“Is anyone wounded?” Julius asked as he lobbed a grenade at a group of oncoming mercs. It erupted and filled the area with purple smoke. The enemy began to choke and staggered out of the gas but within moments, they fell and began to curl where they landed.
“I don’t think anyone will ask for help from the man with chemical weapons,” Amber told him as she finished attending to an arm injury for one of the soldiers and turned to fire her pistol at a merc who tried to sneak up behind them. She forced him back until a shot from Flynn from a higher vantage killed him.
“Chemicals can be used for life and death,” Julius explained. “And what of your actions?”
“I’m a battle medic. Kindness and aggression both have value on the battlefield,” she retorted as the two medics returned to the field.
“We’re here for those codes, right?” Mack asked. He formed a barrier around a couple of enemy grenades to seal their blast off as several other soldiers ran past. “Maybe we should get on that before these jackasses try to get away with them.”
“It doesn’t work like that but it is nice to see you being the voice of reason for once.” Otto’s compliment held an undertone of amusement.
“Right. Otto, Indre, Raul, and Izzy, you guys are with me,” Cameron stated. He used his grappling hook to snag the underside of one of the towers and swung down. “The rest of you…well, keep it up.”
“Did we vote him as leader?” Flynn asked as he shot an enemy demolitionist’s launcher out of his hands. Marlo turned and fired a blast from his cannon. It exploded beneath the enemy’s feet and launched him into a nearby group of mercs. “Because I don’t remember that.”
“Do you wanna argue or work on your score?” the bounty hunter retorted as his group gathered. “Besides, you’re still rusty from your nap, Rapunzel.”
“That was Rip Van Winkle, you dumbass,” the marksman told him as he moved from his current position when an Omega sniper tried to take shots at him.
“Ah…right. Shit,” Cameron muttered. He located the hostile sniper, eliminated him with two shots of his rifle, and opened the vent. “Whatever. You’ll have your turn when we spin the wheel. Let’s go.” As the group hurried to the main building, one of the docks opened its massive doors and several heavies emerged.
