Vagabond, page 17
part #1 of Guild Series
“We need to get moving. We’re fifteen minutes behind schedule now.”
“Speaking of which,” Richard said, finally catching his breath. “Thank you for giving me a bit of leeway. I promise I’ll be much better at arriving on time in the future.”
“You were able to get the things we needed with her thumbprint access, right?” Richard nodded and patted his pocket to show the items were there. “Good. One last thing to do and then we can finally execute the plan.”
Seventeen
Tuya woke to find her body was still sending complaints of pain and soreness from all over. The marines who had “questioned” her during the night had been well trained to cause maximum damage with minimal outward signs, and there had been few parts of her body that they didn’t touch.
She had been drifting in and out of consciousness as they dragged her to the med bay, but had caught enough of the conversations to understand that they were going to have her implants removed that afternoon so that she was unable to withstand so much pain. The thought of the removal hurt her more than any of the beatings. The main reason the cybernetic implants were illegal was because the body became dependent on them over time, and once they were removed it was incredibly likely that she would be left paralyzed or close to it.
She blinked her eyes open, the harsh light of the stark white chamber painful as her eyes adjusted. She could hear movement outside the curtain that walled her off from the rest of the large room, and lay silently listening. There was only one person moving around, but she had no doubt the ubiquitous marine guards were by the door watching carefully to ensure she did not try to escape. There had been discussion of shackling her to the bed, but they decided on heavy sedation instead. Her head was fuzzy with it, and she knew that she would have been out for days without the implants.
The curtain twitched, and a woman in a teal uniform peeked around the edge. She smiled to see the patient awake, and held up a finger in front of her lips to signal that she should remain quiet. The curtain fell back into place as the woman disappeared, and Tuya heard her approach the guards and talk softly with them. She strained to make out the conversation, but the hum and beeps of machines in the room crowded out the voices.
Several minutes later the woman returned, pushing past the edge of the curtain and holding a tray with instruments and syringes. She set the tray down on the rolling table placed near the bed, and then turned to face Tuya.
“My name is Jen,” she whispered, placing a hand on Tuya’s. “A group of us are working with your crew to get off the Indomitable. I can’t go into the plan now, but I need you to trust me and be ready to move when I give you the signal. Can you do that?”
Tuya stared into the woman’s green eyes, searching for any deception. She could see a familiar pain in them, that of terrible loss, and decided that she had no choice but to trust and hope it was not a ruse. She nodded her assent.
Jen patted her hand, turning to grab a large syringe. The woman placed the needle into a port on the line that connected Tuya to an IV bag, and pushed the plunger to inject the solution into the flow. Tuya’s eyes widened at the betrayal, and she reached across to yank out the IV line.
She found that the needle was no longer inserted into the veins on top of her hand, however. The solution was instead leaking out onto the plastic surface of the bed and being soaked up by her blankets. She looked up at Jen to receive a wink, relaxing with the knowledge that her trust was well placed so far.
After leaving the curtained-off area, she heard Jen call out to the guards that the solution would take effect within half an hour and that the doctor would arrive shortly after for the operation. Tuya sensed that whatever was expected would happen before that time, and she started to slowly tighten her muscles for a few seconds at a time to ensure that her body would be ready to move. The grogginess of the sedatives was still strongly affecting her, and she knew that even a half second of slowness could be disastrous in a fight.
She heard the faint hiss of the main doors opening and then closing about twenty minutes later. The guards gave a surprised greeting to whoever entered, and asked why they were there. A cocky voice replied, moving as the speaker stepped farther into the room, and then she heard the noises of a fight. Tuya was about to rise from her bed and rush out to help what she assumed was a rescue, but the scuffle was soon finished.
The curtain around her bed was retracted on its rail, revealing two marines standing over two other marines on the floor. She was concerned that the wrong side had won the fight, until Jen stepped up with a smile.
“These are my friends, Tom and Richard. Hop out of the bed, and we’ll get the guards hidden here.”
Tuya rolled to her feet, standing on unsteady legs and suddenly grateful that her assistance had not been needed in the fight. The two men Jen had introduced quickly stripped the armor and bio suits off the unconscious guards, before pulling them onto the bed and arranging them as best as they could under the covers to look like one sleeping person. It was an illusion that would only fool those who weren’t paying much attention. Jen injected each with a sedative to ensure that they didn’t wake until their plan was complete.
“Okay, you two get suited up,” the one she thought was Tom said. “The bio suits should fit pretty well, but the armor plating will be a little big. You just need to look passable, though, so that’ll work.”
“How long do we have?” the other man asked as the women stripped down and started to get into the marine gear.
“The doctor is a lazy bastard, so I fully expect he won’t show up for at least an hour to make sure he can leave right after the scheduled operation’s completed.” Jen struggled to stretch the bio suit material over her large bust, and could then zip everything up. “One of the nurses will probably be here in half an hour to prep, but I don’t think they’ll check on the patient. Everyone around here seems to assume I’m the only one that should do the grunt work.”
“That works out great for us,” probably Tom said. He was keeping his eyes averted from the women while they changed, but Tuya noted that the other man openly watched the process with a joyful glint in his eye. Her scowl did nothing to turn away his gaze.
Buckling the last strap on her chest plating, Tuya was feeling the grogginess subside and her energy return. She helped Jen with her armor, grateful for her own smaller breasts when she saw how the other woman’s chest piece had to be tilted to leave a large gap over her stomach.
“They couldn’t have put at least one female guard on the duty roster today,” Jen grumbled as she tried to adjust the hard plating and failed.
“Sorry,” the jerk who had to be Richard replied. “The women on our shift are up on bridge duty today.”
“What are we doing?” Tuya asked, tired of being left out of the loop on the plans.
“Getting you out of here, for a start.” She was sure now that he was Tom. She liked him immediately, but had doubts about the other man. “We need to get through a lot of corridors and down several levels, so stick close and try to copy our posture. If we do pass another patrol, they should focus on me and Richard and just glance at the two of you behind us.”
“I’ll fill you in on the plan while we walk,” Jen told her.
The group left the medical bay after checking the corridor was clear, and began the long trek. As they walked, Jen whispered of the nighttime conference between groups and roughly outlined the plan that they had come up with. At Altan’s behest, she left out his name and that of their ship. He wanted to be the one to break the news of his survival.
“Isaac came up with all of this?” Tuya asked in disbelief at the end of the recitation.
“He had the broad strokes, and the rest of us filled them in with more details based on our experiences. Working on the crew of the ship the last few years has given me and my friends a good idea of the weaknesses of the routines.”
“I owe all of you a great debt. If that operation had happened, I don’t know that I would have wanted to live much longer.”
Jen placed a reassuring hand on her wrist, then stiffened as a couple of off-duty crew members appeared farther down the corridor. Both women tried to make themselves appear taller, knowing that their slightness would make it hard for them to pass as men without the camouflage of Richard and Tom in front of them. The face shields of their helmets were down to keep all but their mouths hidden behind the dark visor. The boisterous pair approached, laughing over some joke and clearly on the way to inebriation.
The woman in the duo whistled loudly. “I’ve always loved a man in uniform, and here we have a group of fine specimens.”
Tuya grimaced, keeping her eyes forward and marching in step with the men in front of her. They silently passed the off-duty crew, and it shocked her to feel a hard pat on her bottom as she walked by. Laughter erupted behind, and it receded as the duo continued on their way.
“We’re almost there,” Tom said quietly, as they entered the lift to make the descent. It was empty of other occupants, and she was grateful for the low number of crew on the ship. If there had been even a quarter of the full complement a ship like this would carry, the corridors would have been crowded with men and women carrying out tasks or returning to cabins for rest between shifts.
It had taken half an hour to reach their destination, and time was growing short before Tuya’s absence from the medical bay would be noticed. Tom held out a hand to bring the group to a stop as they approached an intersection, and leaned forward to take a quick look.
“Still only two guards on the door,” he whispered. “Richard and I are going to see if we can distract them the way we did the guards in medical. If you hear us call out, come running.” He glanced at the women to make sure they acknowledged the plan, and then pulled a flechette pistol out of a low-slung holster and passed it over to Jen. “Don’t hesitate to shoot them if you have to.”
“They’d do the same to me, I know,” Jen replied with her lips in a tight line.
The men stepped around the corner and sauntered down the corridor. Tuya could hear one of them call out a friendly greeting, met with an answering growl. She slid down the wall and then leaned over to peek around the corner at a height where she would be less noticeable. Tom was standing a few feet from the guards, trying to engage them in conversation while Richard moved nonchalantly past them. The guards were not in a friendly mood, however, barking out an order to be on their way.
She watched Tom take a step closer, and the guard nearest him pulled their weapon and centered it on his chest. Tom raised his hands, and tried to talk the guard down.
Richard, meanwhile, had made his way to the other side of the group and was in a perfect position to attack from behind. He planted his feet, however, and casually placed his hands behind his back in a resting position. “The implant freak is around the corner with the orderly,” he told the guards as Tom looked at him in shocked betrayal.
“What the hell?” Jen breathed as Tuya ducked back from the corner. They heard Tom ask what was going on, and then the sound of a stun pistol shooting a dart. Soon followed by his collapse to the ground.
“Come out,” Richard called to the two women. “There are patrols converging on this area now, so you have nowhere to go.”
“How could you do this?” Jen called out, her voice wavering with shock and fear.
“Are you kidding?” Richard replied disdainfully. “There is no way a guild freighter could ever get away from a warship. One railgun blast, and that freighter would be scrap floating through the belt with our bodies. I went to the Commander to confess our plan while Tom thought I was involved in a tryst. Guildersen promised to promote me and make me a full member of the squad.”
“You bastard!” Jen yelled back. “You turned your back on friends close enough to be family just for a promotion?”
“Better to be a part of the winning side than one of the casualties of the war.” His tone had a hint of mocking laughter in it, an arrogant cockiness.
Tuya ground her teeth and took another quick peek around the corner. Two more helmeted marines had exited the cabin, and all four had their weapons drawn and pointed in her direction while Richard stood unarmed as he talked. She felt the anger flood her body, and turned to the woman beside her. “Give me the gun.”
Jen willingly passed the weapon over, shoulders slumped in defeat. Tuya had no such doubts, however, and thumped the woman’s chest plate to grab her attention.
“I need you to listen. When I’m engaged, you need to check on Tom. Make sure he’s still alive, and get him out of the danger area. If you can grab a weapon and help out, that would be great.” Jen nodded morosely, and Tuya gritted her teeth. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself. “Now ask him about the others.”
Jen furrowed her brow in confusion, but followed the command and yelled out the question. “What about the rest of the Vagabond crew? And our friends?”
Richard barked out a cynical laugh. “Those idiots are in the cabin, and Mira’s with them. As for….”
He broke off as Tuya rounded the corner and sprinted down the corridor. She raised the flechette pistol and pulled the trigger as quickly as she could, one of the marines going down in a heap as the others ducked down and raised their weapons to return fire. Stun bolts passed within inches of her twisting body, and she heard the hum of lethal flechette rounds passing by as well. With a grim smile, she jumped up to spring off the wall and flip over the group to land behind them. As they turned to face her, she put a round through the faceplate of the closest marine.
The remaining two troopers fired at the same time, a stun bolt impacting her chest plate while a flechette round passed through a weak point at her shoulder. Tuya leaped forward to kick the gun out of the hands of one marine, and followed up by grabbing the man’s helmet to give it a brutal twist. Releasing her hold on the dead man, she reached out to grab Richard’s wrist as he was finally moving to draw his weapon. She snapped the bones with a quick jerk, and then pulled him close and turned him to use as a shield against the final marine. That man looked down at his stun pistol, then looked back up at her with fear in his eyes.
She raised her pistol to point it at him and pulled the trigger. A dry click signaled that the weapon was out of rounds, and she tossed the pistol at the marine. He raised an arm to deflect the missile, only to be surprised as Tuya swung a yelping Richard around in a circle and released him to collide with the marine. Tuya sprinted forward to grab the stunned marine, flipping him around and wrapping her arm around his neck above the chest plate as she held him tight against her body. The man struggled in her grasp, his hands ineffectually trying to pry loose her grip, but she held on with enhanced strength as he struggled to get air. She smiled down into the wide eyes of the traitor as she choked the life from the last marine, dropping his lifeless body after a long silence.
Tuya stepped toward Richard as he tried to crawl away in a panic. “Please,” he said. “Don’t hurt me. I didn’t mean it. They forced me to do it. I swear!”
She said nothing, only smiled wider as she advanced on him.
“Wait,” a croaking voice called out. She looked up to see Tom leaning on Jen as they stood nearby. “I know the bastard deserves it, but he’s my friend. We’ll restrain him in the cabin. Let him explain how he failed to stop us from getting away. The Commander will punish him more than we ever could.”
Tuya considered the request, kneeling over the traitor as he lay before her. She grabbed his chest plate, pulling his torso up off the floor, and tilted her head to examine the wretched looking man. “Okay,” she finally said.
Hope blossomed in his eyes, and then blinked out as she raised a fist and with a lightning strike knocked him unconscious. She dragged his limp body to the side of the corridor, retrieving restraints from one of the dead troopers and binding his hands and feet. Then she stepped across and slapped the button to open the cabin door, moving quickly into the room at a crouch and scanning for any hostile troopers.
“Tuya!” she heard Erik call out from the bunks where he, Isaac, and Fynn were sitting with their hands cuffed behind their backs. A woman sat with them, who she assumed to be Mira.
Jen and Tom entered the cabin behind her, the marine being escorted to sit in a chair so that Jen could get a better look at the small stun bolt that was lodged in his shoulder between armor pieces.
“Where are the others?” Mira asked, looking toward the cabin door as Tuya moved to cut away the restraints from the four prisoners.
“Richard turned on us,” Tom said through grunts as the bolt was pulled out, looking over at his former friend’s slumped form. “The bastard traded us all in for a chance to be one of them.”
“What about Altan?” Fynn inquired. “Do we know if he succeeded in his part of the plan?”
Tuya turned sharply at the name. “Who? Did you say Altan?”
Eighteen
Erik massaged his wrists; the rough plastic restraints had rubbed his skin raw with the slightest movement and left several bloody spots. When the marines had entered the cabin half an hour before, pushing Mira before them already restrained, he had felt all of his hopes fade away. Somehow the Syndicate had figured out what the freighter crews were trying to do, or at least the part that Mira played. The marines had not spoken a word while in the cabin, only restrained everyone and then waited for the signal which sent them scrambling out into the corridor.
He had been delighted to see Tuya, looking a bit battered but otherwise as unshakeable as always. That joy was diminished in learning that one of their group had betrayed them, but knowing the source of the Syndicate’s information was better than worrying at how they had screwed up. The small number of marines on board the cruiser was the only thing that had kept them from laying a trap with overwhelming numbers. He had a feeling that the commander who sent them had also underestimated the danger that Tuya presented. If the operating system had reached the Vagabond, then they still had a very good chance at success.
