Chapter Eighteen: Point Broke

Chapter Eighteen: Point Broke  

                        Cygni XII

                        Connor sat on the back of the hover transporter, his hands clasped behind his head. All around him, he heard the slow, steady breathing of sleeping people. Based on the pitch of the breathing, he guessed four men and six women. One of them was Ruby, which he knew because he had listened to that sound before. She had a slight rasp in her breathing because of a bullet wound to the side of her right lung, a trait that made it instantly recognizable. His eyes were closed, but he was not sleeping. Unlike most people, he could easily survive on less than four hours of sleep, an endurance that he had put to good use in his murdering days. He never called them soldiering days, as soldiers fought on a battlefield. Connor, by contrast, had always waged war in the shadows, if it could be called a war. Even with his eyes closed, he could hear everything going on. A child shifted beside his mother, nestling himself closer to her. She adjusted her seating as he did, drawing her son closer to her bosom. A man turned his head to the left and began snoring, his intonations loud and grating.

            “Are you all right?” The sound came from his left. The voice as low, masculine. It was Eli Gabriel. He had been up front, seeing to the course corrections for the vehicle, but now was in the back for whatever reason.

            “Fine.” But he wasn’t. Connor could feel himself doing it again; envisioning knife thrusts, throat slashes, neck snaps, and spine-severing chops to the back. As much as he wanted to turn off the analytical killer inside his mind, he couldn’t. The harder he ran, the easier it came, the harder he fought, the more stubbornly the assassin pushed back.

            “That sounded convincing,” the preacher responded sarcastically.

            Connor shook his head. “It wasn’t supposed to. But I don’t want to talk about it.” He opened his eyes. “Talking is overrated.”

            “I know,” Eli murmured. “We tell ourselves that talking makes us feel better, but it doesn’t. It hurts us beyond anything we can understand to confess the wrongs we do. And confession is what hurts, because forgiveness doesn’t have to follow. It’s when it does that it feels better to speak, and it’s when it doesn’t that it feels worse.”

            “Is this experience talking?” Connor asked.

            “It is. My family wasn’t forgiving by nature, and I…I did something that hurt them badly. When I saw what I had done was going to destroy them, I tried to make it right. It didn’t work. They cast me out, told me I’d never be anything of value. So I struck out on my own, tried to do everything by myself, and that’s where I went wrong.”

            “Is that how you…”

            “…became a preacher? No, that’s how I became a criminal. I stole to keep myself alive, at least at first. Then it got...fun. That was how I ended up in prison.” Connor opened his eyes and started massaging the scars around the sockets. Whenever he got agitated, the wounds began throbbing, something he was still waiting for science to explain.

            “And what happened there?” The man shrugged.

            “A larceny sentence doesn’t last forever,” he explained. “But it lasted long enough to meet a minister we all called Booker. Wasn’t his real name; that was Edwin Carver. But everyone called him Booker anyway.”

            “What’d he teach you?” Connor asked.

            “He taught me one thing I’ve never forgotten,” Eli told him. “He explained to me that there’s no such thing as an unforgivable sin.” The clone snorted.

            “I’m not sure I believe that. I mean, people do some horrible things, and those things are hard to forgive.”

            “I’m not talking about human forgiveness,” the preacher answered. “People can be spiteful, boy. I meant divine forgiveness. Sure, if you don’t believe in God, that kind of forgiveness doesn’t seem like much. But wait until you do believe, and until you know what you’re really guilty of. Then it seems like the greatest of gifts.”

            Connor looked down at his feet. “I don’t know. One of the most compelling cases against there being a God is that there are still people like me.”

            Eli stared at him. “What do you mean?” He asked.

            “Well, you believe that God is just? How can a just God permit murderers to live? How can He allow child abusers to go unpunished? How…if God is just and good, why allow evil in the world?” The preacher sighed. He had heard the question many times before, and he had once struggled to answer it himself.

            “Because of free will,” Eli answered. “Giving man free choice meant having both good and bad.”

            “So God wanted sin?” Connor queried. “Isn’t that inconsistent with his nature?”

            “God, in His mercy, allowed men free choice. The story of man’s fall alone tells us what humanity chose. Eve, for her part, was tricked. The man was not. What Adam did, he did willingly. Romans tells us that. And all men, left to themselves, will choose evil.”

            “So you’re saying that depravity is human,” Connor surmised.

            “Yes,” Eli said. “I am. But you don’t have to remain that way. If you want to, that’s your decision to make. I can’t decide that for you, but you need to understand that you don’t have an excuse.”

            The clone sighed. “But redemption. How? Taking another person’s life is the ultimate crime, Eli, and I’ve perpetrated murder many times. How am I not guilty enough to die? And What makes forgiveness possible for me?”

            “Because the only sin that can’t be forgiven is the one that unbelievers commit. Not believing is the only reason a man is damned.”

            “And you think that I can be redeemed?”

            “It’s sheerest egotism to believe otherwise, boy,” Eli told him. “To say you can’t be redeemed is to attribute to yourself more power than you possess. You aren’t unredeemable. Sure, you can choose not to be, but that’s your decision, not His. And that’s no statement on His power, but rather on your sinfulness.”

            He sighed, laying back against the metal surface, his eyes scanning the ceiling. “You say that evil is reality; I understand that very well. But is good a reality, then? If man is as corrupt as you say, if evil comes so naturally to us, then is there still good in this world?”

            “There is. But good exists because of men as much as in spite of them. God, in His mercy, works through men. I know those who surround themselves with evil have little insight into good. But there is insight to be found. All you need to know is where to look and what good looks like.” Connor massaged his scarred face.

            “So let’s say I believe you. Let’s say redemption sounds feasible. How do I start? It’s clear that there’s nothing I do. But what beyond that?”

            Eli sighed. “Well, at least you’re sitting. This is going to be a long story.”

            Hangar

            District 12 Prison

            Stefan and Dani exited the elevator on the hangar level, seeing Brooks at the controls of a prison transport. All around them were strewn a number of guard bodies, most of which had rising and falling chests, indicating that Brooks had not killed any of them. Dani rolled her eyes.

            “At least he could have done is break a few ribs,” she remarked quietly. Suddenly, her communicator beeped.

            “Watkins.” It was Shepard, and remarkably short for her.

            “Yeah?” She asked. Dani had not expected the curt interjection by their tech expert, and was in no mood for that kind of attitude.

            “We have a problem. Kane’s heart monitor’s gone dead.”

            “What?” Stefan asked. “Dead? You’re sure?”

            “Yes.” This was Psyn’s voice now. “His neural implants are still intact and functioning, but the heart monitor’s been damaged. Plus, his other vitals indicate distress.”

            “He’s been injured?” Dani had not meant to convey that level of concern, but she had all the same. In truth, she felt more than a little maternal responsibility for all her team members.

            “It would seem so. The…oh…” Shepard gave a horrified gasp. “He’s in trouble. The elevator shaft on the east end of the station just exploded. And he was on it with Anders.” Stefan pulled his grapnel launcher out of his belt.

            “This is Bakrylov,” he said, keying his communicator. “I am in route to the site. The team is preparing the escape craft, and I expect to rendezvous with them shortly via airlock. Do you copy?”

            “I copy.” Shepard’s voice sounded hollow. “I’ll see what I can do with the airlock security.”

            “Roger that. Bakrylov out.” He turned to Dani. “I’m sorry,” he said, remorse and concern spreading across his face as he saw hers. “Should I have…”

            She shook her head. “I know you’re faster. Go on up there. And, Stefan….”

            “Yes?”

            “If either of them are dead, make them pay. Make them all pay.”

            Solitary Confinement

            Maximum security area

            Iniktos sat in his cell, his head resting against the metal surface. It had been yet another long day in the prison, and it had been filled with more pointless psychiatric evaluations and words. Endless words. He had fixed them, though. Let them speak and speak and speak; his words held more meaning than theirs ever would, and yet required wisdom to solve. If course, he could not actually speak. Otherwise, he would not have been named “The Silent Witness”. During his fight with a being only referred to as The Enemy, Iniktos had found himself at his deadliest foe’s mercy. Bizarrely, though, The Enemy had not killed him, seeming content to slash out his tongue and leave him for the humans. That had reduced him to speaking in riddles, a habit which terrified and disturbed those around him. Now, here he was, alone with his thoughts once more, and in heaven. Or in hell; amazing how the difference between those two seemed so fragile nowadays. Maybe they had been right at first to call him mad. He was unsure that, even if he were, he would know. The thoughts ended as he heard the force field around his cell deactivate. The former military and cult leader was not expecting anyone, and that did not bode well. To his surprise, it appeared that there was no one there. That was when he saw the heat shimmer and he knew what he was looking at.

            “Iniktos.” The voice was soft, but there was no doubt as to the icy menace in it. The alien proceeded to sign with his hands.

            So ghosts do have faces. From behind his camouflage, the White Phantom’s eyes narrowed. He anticipated this; the Voice had told him of it. Iniktos, because of his injuries, could not speak, and he communicated only in puzzles. It seemed to amuse him, the Phantom thought.

            “Yes. It’s me.”

            The dog to his vomit.

            “I hate having to come back, but we need you now.”

            Why does God have need of the devil?

            The White Phantom’s eyes narrowed. “God needs a sinner’s help to find the devil.”

            Hmm…but one need not look for the devil in hell. Then the question remains: where do holy angels fear to tread, but the fallen ones rush in? Or, perhaps the fallen and his deceived?

            “Do you know something?” The Phantom’s voice was low and insistent. “You know something.”

            Don’t look for the devil. Look for his jailer.

            “So you need me to find his handler? You mean he didn’t act on his own accord?”

            No. Even the wildest of fires can be made to run a course. The question is what course was he made to run?

            “His reason matters not. Justice must be served. Now, where do I look?”

            Go to Pluto. Iniktos dropped the riddles now, his voice earnest. South Quadrant. There’s a weapons dealer there named Clive Danforth. He can tell you what you want to know. He knows everything. Getting him to talk will be difficult, but you Phantoms enjoy the difficult things in life.

            The White Phantom nodded. “Thank you. Keep the faith, brother. We shall soon be redeemed.” And just like that, he was gone.

            Elevator

            East End

            Kane woke up in the ruined elevator, a metal railing handle sticking out of his stomach. It hurt like nothing he had ever felt before, but he mentally shelved the pain. He had to try to pull himself up, to get the two of them out of there. It wasn’t until he reached Anders that he knew it was pointless; more than one piece of shrapnel had torn right through her torso, lodging in her lung and maybe one in the heart. Suddenly, her chest heaved and her eyes snapped open. Almost immediately, she coughed up blood, which she followed with a curse.

            “Oh…” she murmured, looking down at her chest. “That…that isn’t…good…” Kane crawled into an almost-upright position.

            “Is there anything I can do?” He asked, and then winced as the diaphragm contraction caused him a massive jolt of pain.

            “Not…really,” she told him, grimacing. “How…do you…fix that?” Anders reached out and took his hand. “Find…Watkins. Give her...” Anders reached into some part of her jumpsuit and pulled out a small data receptacle “…this…” she finished. “It’s…got….some good stuff. She’ll…know everything. Delete…the files on Bakrylov, though. She…she can’t know. He’s…a good kid. Don’t…let her…know…” And her hand suddenly went limp. Kane frantically checked for a pulse, but there was none. Anders was gone. He tried to get his communicator to work, but the impact had fried the sensor relays and audio components, rendering it useless. That meant fighting his way out of the wreckage to find the others, an idea that filled him with no small amount of anxiety. He looked back at Anders, his eyes tearing up. Though he barely knew her, he felt it improper not take her body back. She might not have been the kindest or most helpful of people, but she at least deserved a proper burial. At minimum, someone ought to say a few words in recognition of her passing. But there was no time for that now; it was everything he could do not to end up fried in this slag heap of an elevator. Grimacing as he felt the metal digging into his gut, Kane began pushing melted and rent metal aside. It would take a good long while to break out of here, but he figured that they were not going anywhere.

Cygni XII

            Ruby tossed her sack of meager belongings into place beside her bedroll, sighing as she did so. They had been traveling for hours upon hours, and yet they had seen little save sparse vegetation and fire-blackened earth, with the occasional volcanic smoke vent breaking the monotony thereof. Two entire transports’ worth of civilians had been compelled to settle on the open plain; while everyone was setting up, the two leaders of the expedition, Jonathan Lancaster and Eli Gabriel, were engaged arguing in the command tent. Connor, for his part, had been running all over camp, helping families prop up tents and get situated. Unlike most of the others, he had told Ruby he intended to sleep outside.

            “Ground’s more comfortable anyway,” he explained. “I won’t rest otherwise.”

            “There’s extra space in at least a dozen tents,” she had told him. “You should at least get to know someone here.”

            He snorted caustically. “Right. That’s a great idea.”

            Ruby had shaken her head in exasperation. “Don’t be stupid, Connor. People don’t hate you. They wouldn’t mind.”

            “Of course they wouldn’t mind,” Connor growled. “They don’t hate me because they don’t know me. If they did, the hate would come. Trust me.” He turned to leave her tent. “But short answer: No, I’m sleeping outside.” He slipped out under the flap and watched one family struggling to set their tent up. He flexed his metal knuckles, hearing the hydraulics pump. Maybe I could give them a hand, he thought. Couldn’t hurt.

            Command tent

            The fight in the command tent waged over whether or not to continue; Lancaster, the senior officer, had ordered them to stop just before sundown, while Gabriel had advocated stopping at midnight to let them rest. The problem with that was the vastly different territories they were passing through. In the first few hours of the journey, they had land predators to fear; several invasive species of Paleonix raptors, as well as lodestar cats, which were notoriously hard to kill. In the areas that they anticipated traversing after nightfall, they would have to deal with dracomanders, fire-breathing amphibians that inhabited the steaming tar pits on the planet

            “I don’t really care what you think is a good idea,” Gabriel told Lancaster. “It’s a bad idea. Did you forget the predators that roam at night, or do a couple of lives really not matter to you?”

            “It doesn’t matter what we risk,” Lancaster said angrily. “The magma worms hunt using the aboveground movement they sense, and they are most active at night. Traveling then would have run the risk of attracting them, in which case you would have lose both transports.”

            “Resting earlier would have done us no good,” Eli argued. “Out there, land or sky predators would have gotten to us, without a doubt.”

            “I know,” Lancaster murmured. “But this was the best I could come up with. Tonight is expected to be extremely cold, which will hopefully keep them belowground.”

            “And if it doesn’t?” Gabriel asked. “If you’re wrong?”

            “I’ve taken…measures to ensure we at least have a chance,” Lancaster replied, stepping out of the tent. “Though, honestly, I don’t know how effective they’re going to be.”

            District Twelve Prison

            East Elevator

            Stefan ran through the cell block without even slowing down significantly; any prisoner or guard unfortunate enough to be in his way found himself shoved aside with bone-snapping force by the former Ministry agent’s metal arm. He sprinted through the entire four hundred yard cell block in minutes, leaving unconscious bodies strewn in his wake. The elevator was in awful shape; the impact had crumpled the metal on the outside doors, as well as that on the inside. Contact with the metal surface revealed that the metal was hot to the touch. Stepping back, Stefan took out a plasma torch and sliced through the metal, cutting away layer after layer or steel and titanium. The elevator looked like it might have been designed to be bulletproof, but that proved little more than annoyance to Stefan. What his cutter could not remove, Stefan simply ripped from the frame. It took about twenty agonizing minutes, but he finally tore through the metal on the cylindrical elevator and dropped down into the bottom of the chamber. There, he saw the devastation in full color. The pounded and torn metal looked like someone had detonated a nano-warhead inside, and the metal would have taken days to dig through. Stefan programmed the micro-sensors in his headset to scan for bio-signatures instead of heat sources, as heat source scans would turn up all objects hotter than the environment, whether or not they happened to be alive. The bio-scan turned up what he was looking for; two neuroelectricity signatures, one weak, the other still strong. Anders and Kane, and they were both still alive. Well, he amended, at least one of them was. The one with weak vitals was fading, and it appeared to be Anders. Mentally, Stefan swore. If they lost the commander now, that meant the whole mission had been in vain. It also meant that the injuries he had just observed in Kane were similarly meaningless, and that was a notion he refused to abide. The next thing he knew, he felt something snap inside him, and all logical thought was replaced by an unreasoning fury that blotted everything else ot. How Stefan did it, he had no idea, but the next thing he knew, he was standing in the center of a bowl-shaped crater in the metal, right beside Anders’ ruined body. She was dead, and there was no doubt of that in his mind. The pieces of metal had penetrated lungs, her liver, intestines in several places, and one had lodged in the left ventricle of her heart. Impossible as it seemed, she had been alive only moments before. He reached behind her head, feeling for her dog tags. They were still there, and he fished them out. He knelt beside her, smoothing the blood-crusted hair away from her face. Bizarrely enough, her face looked peaceful, almost happy. He sighed, getting to his feet. Anders was dead.

            “Command, this is Bakrylov. The…” he stopped, his eyes tearing up. “…the commander is KIA. Repeat, the commander is KIA. Request permission to evacuate, over.”

            Shepard’s voice sounded void of emotion. “Copy that. Evac green. Repeat, evac green. B team, you are free to evacuate.”

            He nodded. “Dani, did you hear that?”

            “I did,” she answered, sniffing. “Preparing for evac.”

            “I’ll meet you outside the airlock,” he told them. “See you there.”

            Cygni XII

            Connor sat on a large rock, cleaning hiss gun. It was more nervous habit than anything else, as the gun was more than spit-shined already. Still, he certainly held to the fact that the inside of the gun was the most important part of the weapon, and that the outside was merely wallpaper. Still, he kept the outside clean as well, because it purveyed an image of efficiency he worked hard to uphold. His eyes scanned the area, taking on an odd light as they did so. After a moment, he shook his head. Thermals negative, he thought angrily. Guess the heat’s screwing with the infrared.

            “Switch to neuroelectric-motion,” he told Grey.

            “On it,” the AI responded. After a moment, he said, “Um…you’ll want to see this. I’m getting movement and bio-sigs all over the place.”

            “Of course there are,” Connor said, getting to his feet and strapping the weapon to his back. “We’re stuck inside a camp full of people. Of course there are bio-sigs all over, and of course they’re moving.” Suddenly, the view switched to Heads-Up Display, and Connor’s eyes widened. He saw that the sigs to which Grey was referring were outside the camp, by about three kilometers. Worse, the neural patterns did not match any known human patterns, which indicated that they were alien life forms. The speed that they were closing meant predators, too. He took the gun from his back and attached the shotgun and grenade launcher. He activated the microphone on his head.

            “Sentry Two to Sentry Prime. Come in, Prime. Over.”

            “Copy, Two, this is Prime. Begin Transmission. Over.”

            “Motion rig reading sigs outside camp, and bio-sigs indicate non-human, over.”

            “Verify, did you say non-human, over?”

            “Repeat, signatures are non-human, over.”

            “Can you confirm visual, over?”

            “Negative, Prime. I…” At this moment, someone broke in, talking rapidly.

            “This is Sentry Seven, calling for immediate assistance. We have raptors. Repeat, we have raptors. Three kilos and closing fast. Requesting assistance, over.” Connor checked the load in his rifle and then Seven’s location. Twenty meters west.

            “This is Sentry Two, moving to provide assistance to Seven. Over.”

            “Copy that, Sentry Two. Five moving to assist as well. Prime out.”

            “Be careful,” Grey advised. “Raptors are easy to hit, but take multiple shots, and be sure of the spacing. Attack cardiac or brain tissue first, but be advised with the latter that they have distributed nervous systems. Hit them as hard as you can, but aim for both spinal cord and head. I’d advise you not to aim for the ribcage, but your bullets are designed to pierce shields. You shouldn’t have a problem.” He shook his head, sliding a 40 mm grenade into the launcher and cocking it.

            “I don’t intend on using the AP rounds,” he responded.

            Sentry Seven was Kyle Hansen, a former Green-jacket Marine armed with a large-caliber sniper rifle from his military days. As the raptors approached, he slowly aimed, sighted, and fired, all with the same practiced coolness. Each raptor, once hit, went down, their heads blown to smithereens by the high-velocity rounds. But dispatching all of them would be a time-consuming task; the sniper rifle had a mere three bullets to a clip, and reloading took a while. With ten raptors closing in on his position, that was not a good thing. Not a good thing at all. He had eliminated six when the first made it within jumping range and took a leap. Kyle was in the process of reloading, and he did not flinch as the creature leaped for him, claws splayed. He knew he was about to die, but he was past caring. Facing death itself seemed to have a strangely calming effect on his psyche, and he closed his eyes, expecting death…but the raptor never hit the ground. Instead, he heard suppressed cracks, followed by splattering noises similar to hitting overripe tomatoes with a baseball bat. A shower of something wet and warm sprayed him in the face, and he heard a muted whump as something hit the ground. He opened his eyes to see the raptor’s headless body hit the ground. Or rather, its mutilated body; the head had been blown mostly away, but enough of it was left to indicate the hit had not been clean. Other bullet holes were visible under the raptor’s left arm and just to the right of its collarbone, in addition to several spanning its grey chest, but they were barely bleeding at all. The gunshots were followed by a massive explosion, which turned the raptors’ growls and snarls to shrieks of surprise. Now, looking over his cover, he saw that one of the raptors had been simply blown to bits. In its place stood a fire-blackened crater filled with smoldering body parts. The other two beasts turned their heads to face to Hansen’s left, screaming in rage. One looked as though it were about to leap, but gunfire from Kyle’s right drew its attention. It turned and started running toward a spot about ten meters to his right, only be mowed down within feet thereof by gunfire. The last raptor had almost made it over the makeshift barricade that the travelers had erected when Hansen heard an earsplitting blast he recognized to be a shotgun. The beast screamed as the shotgun fired again, blasting away pieces of flesh and bone and pitching the raptor over the fence. He heard the click of the weapon being pumped, and he turned to see a man with unkempt dark hair and a souped-up assault rifle standing three feet away from him. The man placed another grenade shell into the launcher attachment below the barrel and clicked it shut.

            “Looked like you could use a hand,” the man remarked.

            “I needed one,” Hansen said. “Thanks, by the way.”

            “Well,” said Sentry Five, cocking his hunting rifle. To Connor’s surprise, he recognized Eli Gabriel under the helmet. And he was talking fast: “It looks like we’ve got more coming. At least five, though probably more we can’t see yet.”

            “Give the order to evacuate,” Connor told Kyle.

“We should make sure we have all the areas of entry first.” Kyle keyed his communicator and spoke into it. “Prime, this is Seven. Contacts neutralized. Are there any other approach vectors we need to watch, over.”

            “At least two,” replied Prime. “Northeast and southeast. Stay where you are. Repeat, remain in position. Over.”

            “Copy that,” Connor said, cutting in. “This is Sentry Two, requesting evac for civilians present. If they panic, they’ll be moving directly into the line of fire. Over.”

            “Northeast vector is the only remaining point of egress. We would have to requisition guards to secure evac, over.”

            “Do what you have to,” Eli told Prime. “Get these people out of here.” Connor raised his weapon and aimed it over the fence.

            “More coming, Prime. We’ll update you as we go. Two out.” And there were; five moving in in a spread out fashion, their feet moving in the rapid, jerky fashion that they had seen before.

            “Another grenade?” Gabriel asked.

            “Sure,” Connor said, placing his middle finger on the trigger. “Why not? I prefer my lizard charbroiled.” He sighted the weapon through the holographic targeting indicator that replaced the scope and squeezed the trigger, sending the grenade streaking toward its target. At first Gabriel thought he had missed for certain, and then he realized that Abel had aimed for where the animal was going to be. Then, the beast made up the distance between itself and the shell, which exploded in a burst of orange fire and a shower of smoldering limbs. The still-smoking back half of the body, all that survived the blast, fell backward into the volcanic sand. A shot from Eli’s hunting rifle laid out a second, and Kyle’s assault rifle splattered a third’s brains across the sand. A second grenade blasted the other two apart, as they had been close enough to hit together. Connor looked around; by now people were out of their tents and moving toward the transports. He pushed the broadcast button on the communicator.

            “This is Sentry Two, requesting a casualty report. Over.”

            “This is Sentry Prime. Things look bad. Over.”

            Connor sighed and clanked him knuckles together. “Give me status, over.”

            “Three men dead, two wounded. Over.” Eli looked at Connor.

            “That was the first rush. They might give us a break, but they’ll be back in force.” The other man nodded.

            “Do they still have one of those hoverbikes we can use?” He asked.

            “They might. Why?”

            Connor activated his communicator. “You there, Prime? Over.”

            “We read you, Two. Over.”

            “Any hoverbikes left with the transports? Over.”

            “Two. Over.”

            Connor nodded. “Leave one. Over.”

            “Verify, did you say one, over?”

            “Correct. Over.”

            “But only two people can fit on a bike. Over.”

            “I know. Leave it. Two out.” He slid another grenade into the rifle and checked the load in the shotgun attachment. “Okay, listen up. Motion trackers indicate that the next wave is ten kilometers out, but closing fast. It looks like we have about a quarter of the people loaded on the transports, and the pickets are back to provide cover fire for them from the top. So I guess we run interference on the ground until they’re gone.”

            “Then what?” Kyle asked.

            “Then you two take the bike and haul your sorry posteriors out of here,” Connor answered, checking the load in his sidearm.

            “And you’re going to do what?” Eli asked. “Get ripped apart?”

            Connor shook his head, pulling a set of flash suppressor goggles out of the utility pouch he wore on his back and sliding them over his eyes. “Nothing’s going to eat me, Gabriel. Wouldn’t want food poisoning, after all.” The googles flared yellow, and Connor grinned.

            “Are you sure?” Kyle asked. “I don’t like leaving men behind.”

            The other man raised an eyebrow. “And you think you are?” He asked. Kyle was about to ask what he meant, but the meaning was clear: I’m not human.

            “Ooookay…” He said, shifting uncomfortably. “Then are we going to help evac in the meantime?”

            “Don’t see why not,” Eli responded. “It’s not as though there’s any noise on the front.”

            Pluto

            Southern Quadrant

            Clive Danforth wanted early retirement badly. Aside from a lousy clientele, long work hours, and little to show for all his pains but abject destruction, Danforth also had the burden of acting as an intelligence agent for a variety of criminals. Right now, he was negotiating with the essential head of the intergalactic mob, something he was far from enjoying.

            “I told you, I sent the missiles,” Danforth snapped. “But they were impounded. I don’t have control over the government, and neither do you. Yet.”

            “It doesn’t matter. We gave specific instructions not to smuggle in the method you chose, and now it’s cost us both. The Hyperion system chapter’s expecting those missiles, and now we don’t have them.”

            Danforth raised an eyebrow. “And that’s my concern why? If you hadn’t been sloppy about how you handle operations, maybe they wouldn’t have been suspicious. But such considerations are moot now. Accept what we’ve given you. It’s all we have.”

            “Then get more,” the man’s voice was furious. “We need those missiles, and you’re going to get them for us.”

            The other man shrugged. “Says who? Besides, if I have to go buy extras of these missiles, I’m going to send one to you a lot faster than the last one.” The crime boss’s nostrils flared, but he said nothing. After all, what could he say? Of all the weapons providers in the Terran Core, Danforth alone dealt in the kind of firepower he needed, and he knew better than to cross him. So, after several minutes of a silent staring contest, the man got up and left.

Danforth breathed a sigh of relief as he watched him go. In truth, he hated dealing with men like him. There really was no point. After all, this man had come to expect all men to answer to his every whim, and Danforth never did that. He sold what he had as best he was able, but sometimes his best was not enough. Disappointing people was no competitive sport, and yet Danforth believed that he would have made a gold medal in the Galactic Olympics otherwise. Here, in his warehouse, he felt most secure dealing with such men. Though he had no visible security, Danforth had hidden sentries with holographic refractive camouflage throughout the base, ready to strike if he should be in danger. Now, he opened the microcomputer on his wrist and looked at the screen, checking the GPS signal on the drones. That’s odd, he thought. Weren’t there five of them?

Danforth scratched his head. Then, he hit the RECALIBRATE option on the screen. The signals blipped and changed, this time with only three showing up.             HE swore and reached underneath the table, seizing his customized shotgun from under the table. The weapon had twice the range of a standard shotgun and a fully automatic fire rate. As though that were not enough, he had also fine-tuned the reloading mechanism to a scientific operating system, designed specifically to prevent the weapon from jamming.

Now, how’s come to call uninvited? He wondered, checking the load in the weapon. It was full. He slid on a pair of camouflage canceler goggles and was about to move forward when he felt something long and metallic slip around his neck and tighten painfully. His hands flew to the garroting chain, but the force holding it in place was far beyond even anything he had felt at the hand of a war drone. As his hands scrabbled along the metal surface, they touched something cold, but significantly softer. In strangely detached manner, his brain still wanted to analyze this.

The skin and strength are inconsistent with most humanoid species. The hide is hard, and his muscles are far more dense than even most metahuman species. So, Tordrax. Great.

“Listen carefully,” the voice was deep, softly accented, and reverberating. “Your robots have been deactivated, and they will be restored to power when I depart. But for now, I need you unaccompanied to answer a few questions.” The chain loop slackened slightly, and Danforth started breathing again.

“What do you want to know?” He asked. “I’m known as a source of information.”

“Let us begin where we must.” The alien suddenly appeared, and Danforth inhaled sharply. He had seen Tordrax before, but never one dressed like this. He wore thick white metal armor, with several weapons tucked in his belt. A long, thick rod rested squarely on his shoulders, and his tail had surgically attached spikes that looked as though they would impale even the toughest of armor. “This man,” the alien said, holding up his arm and generating a hologram of a man with dark hair and colorless eyes. His body was clad in nondescript flex-plate armor, and he had some kind of rifle slung on his back. Danforth felt his heart sink.

“Him again,” he groaned. “I’d hoped I’d never see the freak a second time.”

“Who was he?” the alien asked.

“He was…” the man sighed. “Here.” He handed the alien a flash drive. “This has everything you need to know about him.”

“And where I can find him?” The alien asked.

“That’s a bit of a touchier thing,” Danforth told him. “He recently escaped from his masters. That’s a problem.”

The alien shook his head. “I doubt that very much. Thank you. I will reactivate your drones on my way out.”

Danforth lowered his eyes. “Thank you. Why do you seek him?” He asked.

“He is our great Enemy,” he answered. “Someone guilty of much blood and terror. We wish to find him and end his miserable life if we must, but hope that he might stand trial before his crimes.”

            “What would be his sentence?” Danforth queried.

            “What is the penalty for murderers?” The alien asked in return.

            District 12 Prison

            Stefan hauled Kane’s body up from the twisted and still-smoking metal, his prosthetic arm groaning in protest. The electrical circuits, since they were several years old, did not run on bioelectricity like the newer models, which mean that head and magnetism were not good for them. Kane had been overcome by the smoke, but Stefan had taken an oxygen mask out of his medical kit and given it to him. The Russian knew enough about his past to understand that, even in this oxygen-depleted environment, he would have no trouble surviving for several minutes. He hauled the unconscious other man through the battered elevator doors and up onto the metal floor. What he saw as he climbed up after his package took his breath away; black-clad men in riot gear, with the only delineating markings on them being red M’s on their right shoulders. Each one had a black sword symbol behind it, which meant these were not only Ministry agents, but Counterterror operatives, which meant the nastiest jackbooted thugs on the planet. His eyes narrowed, and his hand went to his back.

            “Don’t,” one of the men growled. “Get your hands up and prepare to die.” The Russian rolled his eyes.

            “If I had a nickel for every time I heard that…” And just like that, his assault rifle was in his hands and blazing. Two men went down instantly with holes in their foreheads, while another dropped his gun as a bullet blew his index finger away. A fourth raised his gun and opened fire at Stefan, only to miss as Stefan dropped flat on his stomach, allowing the shots to pass over and tear apart the man behind him. He rolled over, wrapping his legs around the neck of a fifth, which he used to vault over his back and take several shots at the man behind him. Then, Stefan finished the backflip and threw the man he had been strangling with his metal limbs into another. The last operative reached into his belt and held up a grenade.

            “Don’t,” he warned. “I’ll blow us all to bits.” Stefan looked from the grenade to the man’s face. “I’ll do it.” The Russian looked down at the ground, seeing one of the fallen men had done the same thing, arming a grenade as he fell. Suddenly, an idea crossed his mind, and he processed the thought and decided what to do in less than a second. Then, he was all business, ready to fight. Or rather, end the fight.

            “I believe you,” he replied, kicking the already-primed projectile at the man and grabbing Kane as he jumped back into the elevator shaft. Stefan covered his head with his hands, waiting for the explosion he eventually heard. After the blast, billows of smoke poured through the ruined doors, followed by the brief crackle of flames, which eventually went out. Stefan pulled himself back up into the hallway. Everyone in his way had been blown to microscopic pieces, thanks to the grenade, and now his path was clear. He hauled Kane from the bottom of the elevator, cradled him in his arms, and slowly commenced his ascent for the second time. Stefan sincerely hoped that there would not be much more opposition. That would be a shame; after all, he was fairly certain he had hit his quota of kills today.

            “This is Bakrylov,” he said, making sure it was set on Dani’s frequency. “I’m en route to the rendezvous point. Cargo is in tow. Repeat, Kane is still alive, but in need of medical attention. Over.”

            Dani’s voice replied. For someone who had lost her commanding officer, she sounded remarkably calm. “This is Watkins, Bakrylov. We read you. We’re outside the drop area now, and we’ve disabled the shield protecting it. The fans are offline, so you should be fine in environmental suits. According to telemetry readings, there should be a few inside it. Over.”

            “Copy that,” he replied. “Hope to see you on the other side. Bakrylov out.” He began to move double time toward the airlock. Hoping, of course, that there were no guards there. Though, based on previous showings of luck, he would probably bet that there were. He sighed.

So much for not killing anyone else today, he thought.

            Cygni XII

            Connor slid another 40 mm shell into his launcher and scowled. How many of these things are there? He wondered. I’m going to be out of grenades soon, and I’d rather not break open a new crate. The clone raised his rifle and sighted before he fired. The shell streaked through the air and obliterated an incoming raptor, sending body parts and boiling blood across a pile of rocks. With the civilians still evacuating from the area, he had to make sure that none of the beasts breached the defensive perimeter. A few of the guards had shotguns, which they used to lethal effect on the raptors. They were not without casualties, though. Even with Eli’s hunting rifle and Connor’s uncanny accuracy, they had suffered at least a half dozen casualties, four dead and two wounded. Fortunately, there was a doctor among the civilians there, and the man had magnanimously agreed to stay and help the wounded as best he could. Drexler was one of the two injured; when he had seen another man in danger, Kyle had selflessly stepped in front of him and fired his rifle point-blank through the raptor’s skull. This had had its price, though, as the raptor had torn a hole in his left shoulder.

            Connor put two more bullets in a raptor’s head, and then swapped out his clip. As he did so, Eli laid another out. “There’s far too many,” the preacher remarked, sighting again.

            “I know.” Connor blew a third’s brains from its skull. “But we have to hold them. For now, anyway.” He sent a grenade into two more, sending their ruined bodies careening all over the place. Eli looked over his shoulder before he fired again, seeing the last transport filling with men. Then, he turned and shouted at the men in the trenches.

            “Boys, if you’re leaving, now’s the time.” A few men got up from the trenches and ran full-out for the transport, but most kept up a measured retreat. Some kept firing at the raptors, but others helped haul the dead and wounded out of the trenches. There seemed something unethical about leaving the men for the raptors to eat, and they determined to give them a proper burial.

            “Move it,” Lancaster shouted. “Let’s get going while we still can.” Connor drilled a raptor moving in on the left flank. A hail of fire from behind them ripped through several more; the other troops were moving in now, mounting the transports. Some took positions on the roof, still firing at the raptors. After an agonizing fifteen minutes, they were all aboard. Lancaster gestured to the drivers.

            “GO!” He shouted. “Snipers, clear a path. Transports, GO!” The engines revved with a massive groan, and a storm of bullets tore through the raptors in front of them. As the beasts fell, the hovercrafts lurched off into the desert. Connor turned, looking at the bike they had left.

            “Can you drive that thing?” He asked Eli.

            “I can,” the preacher answered. “Why?”

            Connor pointed to the rifle. “I’m going to need that, old man. I’m the better shot.”

            “Prove it,” Eli countered. Connor shrugged and sighted with his gun. He squeezed the trigger six times, and six raptors fell in separate sprays of blood.

            “That do?” He asked. Eli nodded.

            “I think that should suffice.” He jumped onto the hoverbike, tossing Connor his rifle as he did. “Are you sure you can hit something while we’re moving?” The other man shrugged.

            “Try hitting an alien pilot through the forehead at six hundred yards in a covered cockpit.” He slipped several extra rounds from his belt into the gun’s clip as the engine roared to life, replacing it and checking the scope. Decent magnification. Not military-grade, but it would suffice.

            “What are those?” Eli asked.

            “High-velocity armor-piercing,” Connor answered. “I don’t have my sniper rifle, but yours uses the same caliber bullets. One hit from these rips through plate steel like paper.” He lined up a shot on three raptors that were moving in pursuit of the other craft and squeezed the trigger. The bullet streaked away, tearing through flesh and bone like a plasma blade through a stick of cheap margarine. Eli’s eyes flicked over the spectacle, and he shook his head.

            “You might have mentioned that sooner,” He muttered.

            “Yeah, I was a little busy at the time,” Connor snapped. Two more raptors met HV ammunition, with the same results. The transports were pulling away from the raptors, who seemed to be falling back. A few more shots killed the foremost of the pursuers, and Eli wheeled the bike around for a second pass. Connor reloaded the rifle with a clip from the preacher’s belt, and then he fired a new volley. The raptors never had a chance; not one of Connor’s shots missed their targets, and each of the raptors fell with fresh ventilation holes in their skulls. The transports pulled away, and Connor heard a cheer from inside.

            “We got ‘em,” Lancaster shouted. “Good work, boys. How much farther to our settlement, pilot?”

            “Twelve miles,” the jubilant man replied. “We can make it tonight if we push. Permission to accelerate, sir?”

            “Permission granted,” the leader replied. “Let’s go home.”