Through the Nether, page 8
part #4 of Order of the Centurion Series
The pistol-armed legionnaire looked up at the dining area to see almost two dozen spacers with weapons drawn.
A firefight erupted that cut the legionnaire down in the first exchange. Soren began to reevaluate his assessment of the vaunted Dark Ops as the bark of hand cannons and carbines rattled in his ears like a dozen discordant drums as he vaulted over the desk and ran for a side hallway.
Fire burned across his thigh as a bolt cut through his pants. He didn’t know if it was a deliberate shot from the Dark Ops or a wild round, but he charged forward. His injured leg gave out and he fell onto his chest and slid into the hallway.
The skinny waiter was there, his back pressed against an unmarked door, chest heaving and skin pale.
“I’m sorry!” he raised his hands to cover his face. “They-they made me!”
Soren touched his leg and it came back slightly bloody and oozing. A tear and burn. He flexed his thigh and felt a stab of pain through his skin, but not deeper.
“Open the door,” Soren hissed through his teeth as he got to his feet. The gunfire from the lobby continued unabated. “Open the door and I’ll forgive you.”
“I can’t!” the waiter squealed. “We’re trapped and they’re coming.”
Soren put his back to a brick wall between him and the shooting and ducked as a blaster bolt sizzled past him.
“They’re already here.” Soren looked at his pistol, well aware of how inadequate it would be at anything but point-blank range against Legion armor, especially Dark Ops who wasn’t required to wear the flashy garbage their fellows wore in the line units.
“Not them! The waiter shook his head. “Not—oh no.”
Through the gunfire, what Soren first thought was approaching sirens dissolved into braying. The sound of wrenching metal came through the door and the waiter looked at Soren’s tarha armband.
“Give me that!” the waiter lurched for Soren and the spy whacked the butt of his pistol against the side of his head, sending him into a heap on the ground.
The door shook with a kick, then a zhee hoof burst through the door, knocking out a hinge. Soren looked back at the foyer, then at the unconscious waiter, and dropped his pistol next to the man’s hands.
The door burst open and a muscular zhee locked eyes with Soren in the doorway, his eyes red with fury. The zhee, and the dozen more behind him, screamed to their gods and rushed inside, all armed with swords or rifles with wooden stocks.
The first zhee through grabbed Soren by the jacket and lifted him into the air, slamming him against the bricks. Lips pulled back to reveal red stained teeth as it snorted hot breath onto Soren, bringing to him the smell of spice and rancid meat.
The shooting in the foyer paused, then resumed with more ferocity as the humans turned against the zhee.
The zhee holding Soren glanced at the arm band, then to the opening where his fellows were screaming bloody murder.
“Hajeh!” sounded over and over again from the donks.
“You are paid.” The zhee dropped Soren and ran to the battle.
Soren scooped up his pistol from the waiter, who was battered and bloody after being trampled by the zhee, and escaped through the door.
He ran down an empty street, glancing over his shoulder once to see more zhee streaming from their no-go zone to the hotel. He turned a corner and bumped into a rickshaw, the wobanki driver with his straw hat crouching against a building.
“Idiot humans,” the wobanki said in broken standard. “Shooting hit donk temple. Only one way to piss off all donks at one time, that poke their gods.”
“Wasn’t me.” Soren leaned heavily against the rickshaw, the red stain on his pant leg had spread down to his knee. He holstered his pistol and rapped the side of the passenger seat. “Hey, I need a doctor. Know a place?”
“I take you back to ship,” the cat man hissed. “You should leave. Need a deck hand? I work cheap. Zhee be mad, real mad for this, and not even at the wobanki.”
“Hospital.” Soren climbed into the seat. “Longer you wait, more I bleed on your cushions.”
The wobanki jumped onto the wall then sprang to the rickshaw’s seat. He rang a bell on the handlebars twice and carried Soren away from the blaster fire and the brays of the zhee.
08
Soren’s leg throbbed with pain as he mingled through the bazaar. He’d made it to a small clinic and received a quick skinpack and a hefty antibiotics shot before more badly injured civilians from around the hotel had arrived.
What passed for triage on Qadib ended up being who could pay the doctor the most first. Soren had got away with a handful of bandages, a lighter wallet, and no questions asked. Then he was pushed out the door to make room for those who would get billed more.
An air of terror filled the bazaar as customers hurried from stall to stall. Several shopkeepers had closed up early as the sun set, but the rows of merchants selling weapons and other high-end goods remained opened.
Soren was a good two miles from the Misfire, but he could nonetheless see smoke and flames dancing within the structure. From what snippets he’d overheard, the zhee burning down the location of an offense against their four gods was normal. Whether or not they’d torch the surrounding blocks would depend on their priests…and how much the local businesses were willing to donate to repairs for the three blaster bolts that struck the temple’s outer wall.
The agent took a few careful steps to the next stall, where a hard faced woman sold body armor.
“You should’ve come a few hours ago,” she said, motioning to his leg. Blood had seeped through the fifth-rate skinpack visible beneath the cut in his trousers. “Might have helped. Would’ve been cheaper to buy then, for sure.”
“Prices always go up after an…incident?” Soren asked as he pawed through synthweave shirts.
“Market conditions.” The woman took a drag from a cigarette stuck into a long black filter. “You looking to protect that nice skin of yours from the donks? Their munitions are mostly crap, third rack’s what you want.”
“More like protection from what’s found in the mid-core systems,” Soren said.
“You getting off world? Smart.” She reached behind her and took down a black, synthprene body suit with silver wires run through it. “Delurian Arms. Legionnaires wear it beneath their armor and if it’s good enough for the boys in silver its—”
“Garbage. Delurian lost their contract after several quality control investigations,” Soren said. “Not even trace amounts of synth in that thing. You have Fandrall? Tich’Ok’Lan?”
“A connoisseur.” She set down her cigarette and lifted a panel behind her, removing a plastic wrapped bundle of red cloth. She set it down with a huff.
“Tich armor weave,” she said quietly. “Hand spun, still in the factory seals. Those bugs have some sort of non-Newtonian fluid in the fabric that hardens when struck. Fits easily under clothing. You can walk and run normally, just don’t go ballroom dancing, eh handsome?”
She raised an eyebrow at him and he responded with a poker face.
The woman shrugged. “No one else will have something this good. Not on Qadib. Tich gear will take most anything, just don’t go picking fights with Drusic carrying a vibro halberd. Industry leader in blaster heat dispersal, rated against most every old tech slug thrower you’ll come across on Qadib.”
“Still hurts like a bitch to get shot.” Soren noted there was no price tag on the body armor. He began doing mental calculations of his credit balance.
“Laws of physics being what they are,” she said with another shrug, “not getting shot is always the best advice. But my customers are realists. You want it, it’s seventeen hundred.”
She spat on her palm and extended it to him.
“Twelve hundred,” Soren offered back.
The woman huffed and took the armor off the counter.
“Anyone that can pay twelve hundred is about to get the hell off this planet,” Soren said. “Your customer base is about to be the poor and desperate, and they’ll want cheap, not quality. So you can sell that to me at twelve hundred and pick up some more Delurian garbage from your supplier and make a hefty profit…or take the money and run. That’s enough to get you a spot to another city, even a nearby system.”
The merchant gave a half-smile. “I make money where there’s a fight. You give me fourteen—”
“Twelve.”
“Twelve.” the word seemed to cause her pain as she said it.
He held the credit chit and dialed in the balance. There was just barely enough. Though he hadn’t decided firmly on it, getting Heywood a new chassis was almost entirely out of the question now. But maybe someone would be looking to liquidate before everything went up in smoke.
“Here.” The woman stuffed the gear in a dark burlap sack and held it out for him. “I tossed in a pair of pants on the house. Yours don’t look so good.”
“Thanks, you know where I can get bot parts?”
“Two rows that way.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “The Gomarii. Stay away from Vivian’s place, she’ll rip you off in a heartbeat.”
“Friend of yours?”
“This is Qadib. No one has friends here.”
Soren made his way back to the bakery he’d visited before, hoping that the woman who ran the place would be obliging enough to allow him to change into newly purchased armor. The smell of smoke hung in the night air as he limped through the streets, far enough away from the chaos at the hotel to avoid and out-and-out panic, but close enough that everyone moved quickly, heads down. The sky was clear, but the stars washed out by street lights and the distant glow of burning buildings.
He found the bakery empty and closed up for the night.
“Great.”
He could continue towards the Iago as-is, but the whole point of buying the protection was to even up the odds should the fighting in the streets roll down this way. Soren looked around to make sure he wasn’t be watched and then turned his attention to the shop’s lock. It was a fairly basic dual battery security system, using electromagnets to freeze the swinging door in place. The kind of security strong enough to stop someone from forcing their way inside, but not the sort that would stop a determined splicer. But seeing as how most of the people looking to break into a bakery would be dimwitted criminals hoping for day-old pastries to satiate a late-night munchies call, the old woman likely had all she’d ever need.
Under normal circumstances.
Soren quickly shined an ultrabeam into the door seems and then removed three conical devices from his pocket, fastening one on each section of the door where a lock was engaged. He waited several seconds, holding his palm open beneath the lowest of the three lockpicks. A second later each device beeped and then dropped from the doorframe, falling neatly in Soren’s hand.
Pushing the door open, Soren was pleased not to hear an alarm. And that sweet smell of cinnamon and confectionary sugar wasn’t half-bad either. Closing the door behind him, Soren found a dark corner of the room to remove his robes and clothing and put on his armor. He threw on the loose-fitting robes and new pants over the gear to remain inconspicuous and then walked to the counter, leaving a fresh credit chit just in case the old lady had holocams on him. Because she’d helped him when she didn’t need to. And that wasn’t the sort of spirit Soren wanted to extinguish in the galaxy. It was the sort of thing he was fighting to protect, truth be told.
Back outside, Soren reengaged the locking mechanisms and headed back towards the docking bay. Tracer rounds rose in the sky in the distances. An out and out street war was raging between the zhee and the locals, and if it wasn’t suppressed, it would only be a matter of time before it caught up to him.
Limping down the street, Soren ducked his head and hid his face as repulsor bots zoomed overhead, broadcasting repeated warnings from the governor for all non-zhee to return to their homes while the zhee were afforded a ‘moment of rage’ after their temple was damaged.
But as far as Soren could tell, the residents of Qadib didn’t seem to care, especially as the governor’s palace was kilometers outside of the city itself. No, they were either watching the fireworks or, in some cases, moving with blaster rifles in hand towards the fight. This night would get worse before it got any better. And one way or another, the morning sun would bring with it hell to pay.
The Iago was just across the street, but Soren didn’t move directly for it. Instead he moved towards a building sharing the same city block. He found a metallic fire escape, the bottom run of its ladder hanging tantalizing close to him. But there was no way he could make the jump. Not while wearing armor and nursing an injured leg.
Soren found a refuse bin sitting beneath a garbage chute. He crept over to it and activated its repulsors, easily pushing it under the ladder. Climbing the bin, he was able to gain access to the fire escape and take it to the roof.
The wind blew in Soren’s fair, cooling what skin was exposed. His goggles were off, stowed in a pocket for this. Soren dropped down low and crept forward on his stomach until he reached the edge of the roof. He removed a silver roll from his pocket and glanced over the edge of the roof. The Iago was still where he’d left it, locked up tight and powered down. He tossed the silver roll at the ship’s antennae array and the packet broke into thin strips that floated down and clung to the array.
Soren slowly crawled back and returned to the stairwell at a crouch. He pushed the refuse bin back to where he’d found it and then entered the docking bay.
“Heywood, I’m back.”
The Iago’s ramp lowered and Soren was greeted with clean, temperature controlled air. He took a moment to appreciate it, basking in the artificial slice of heaven before moving up the ramp.
“I’m most pleased you weren’t eaten by the zhee,” Heywood said through the ship’s internal comms.
Soren dropped a bulging burlap sack and did a quick scan of the cargo bay, noting nothing out of place. “Me too.” He raised the ramp, triggering the locks the moment it shut with a hiss.
“Did you happen to purchase a new chassis for me in your travels?”
“No such luck.” Soren took the stairs two at a time up to the bridge and went to the bunk room.
“Was there nothing available? I’ve compiled a list of maintenance tasks for you. Tasks I would have taken care of had I been mobile. Naturally.”
Soren opened Zelle’s locker and slipped a felt lined box into his pocket, then went to the bridge and found Heywood, what remained of him still where he’d left the bot in the co-pilot’s seat.
The bot’s servos whined in a futile attempt to see Soren in the cockpit. “Not very talkative, I see. The local networks have been abuzz with—oh my.”
The bot stopped talking as Soren ripped the data wires from the back of his head. Twisting the metal cranium to one side, Soren lifted it off of the shoulders, holding Heywood’s head in his hands.
“Was I mistaken?” the bot asked hopefully. “Is there a new chassis on the way? I do hope you shilled out enough for an upgrade to the Mark IV. I’ve read wonderful reviews about the self-cleaning systems.”
Soren sat in the pilot’s seat and put the bot’s head on the console, knocking on the top of the machine’s head as though a good luck charm. Then he punched in the keys on the comm panel before looking Heywood straight in the optical discs.
“No transmissions sent or received in the last twelve hours?” Soren said.
“You did instruct me to maintain radio silence.”
Soren gave a wan smile. “Zelle taught me a few tricks while we were on Strach.” He plugged the box he’d retrieved from bunk room into a port next to the thruster controls. “Like how the Iago’s comm system holds the last fifty messages in the buffers. Neat trick the Republic built into all government ships for record keeping.”
“Sir…I can explain,” Heywood said.
Soren tapped in a code and text with time stamps scrolled up the screen.
“You thought you erased everything once I showed up,” Soren said. “Then you tried to send a message to a ship in orbit…which didn’t go through. The chaff will dissolve in another half hour.”
“You are a junior agent,” Heywood said evenly, “not authorized to operate independently without authorization from your handler. Which you do not have. My Nether Ops programming is quite clear on how to deal with a renegade.”
Soren scrolled through the message queue with a flick of his fingers.
“Waited all of thirty seconds after I left the ship to contact the Carnivale, I see.” Soren shook his head. “But you didn’t contact Nix.”
“There is a clearly delineated chain of communication.”
“They sent a Dark Ops team to kill me,” Soren said. “Tried to blow my head off from a stealth shuttle. When that didn’t work they came in shooting. Any idea how many people are dead because of your programming?”
“Irrelevant. And, it was a Nether Ops kill team.”
“What?”
“Dark Ops isn’t at the beck and call of Nether Ops. And they’re difficult to work with. Too many questions. And you see, this is all really just further evidence of your status as a junior agent. You don’t know how much you don’t know. Agent Voss, I must request you to lift your foolish Onyx condition immediately and report to your supervisor.”
Soren looked at the bot’s head for a moment, then kicked it against the cockpit windshields. Heywood bounced off and went spinning across the bridge floor.
“Your anger is unbecoming a Nether agent,” the bot complained. “And I am not responsible for how Nether Ops chose to respond.”
“No, you’re not responsible.” Soren took a sonic driver from a tool kit beneath his seat. “You are a machine. And machines follow their programming.”
He picked the bot’s head up and looked into its optics.
