Dark Ice (Mercenaries Book 2) Page 7

  Digging

  The secure comm was only as large as the palm of Quinn's hand. It wouldn't wrap around the wrist, was kept out of sight. A circle made up of a screen, it awoke when Quinn pressed his thumb to the face. Blue hues outlined his thumb before collapsing into a black and white grid. Every black square a data file. The grid had room for nine, but Eden only filled four of them for this mission.

  This mission. Every job had these locked comms attached to them now. So paranoid about losing secrets, losing ships, losing anything. Those black squares held Eden's information on every crew member, on both ships, their purposes and potential threats. Quinn tapped the first one, the data file on key personnel. The ones who knew the full extent of the mission, the Karat's purpose in extracting the ice diamonds. Photos of Captain Gage, one of the Karat's captain, Quinn, and a few others.

  Quinn swiped over to the next file. One dedicated to threats. Espionage from other corporations. Crew members deemed risks due to unstable personal or money problems. There was a new entry here, though. A download done since Quinn checked last.

  Remnants of the Red Voice

  Evidence and rumors indicate the terrorist organization may not be as defeated as previously thought. With all known accounts frozen, their only source of financial gain may be in black market moves. If they learn of the Karat's mission, there is substantial risk that the Amerigo may be attacked. To account for this, we are providing additional security through a mercenary group.

  The file went on, giving known details on every single one of the Wild Nines members. Last known job protecting the growing Eden Prime settlement, dismissed after charges of murder, charges that had been suspended. Quinn tried to punch up more details, but the comm came back blank. When Quinn tried to request the download, the comm reported back that their files were sealed. Who wanted to protect these mercenaries?

  Sounds echoed down the hallway. Running boots on metal floors. The enemy was here. Quinn slipped the secured comm into his pocket. Pressed the button next to his cabin door. It shunted closed as the pounding footsteps came closer. Three sets, the footfalls coming through as vibrations more than noise.

  The first set landed outside his door. Quinn pressed the exit button, the door shooting open as the second set stamped by. The third, belonging to a scrawny mutt with a wild look in his eyes, tripped as the man saw Quinn and his gun standing there. The stumbling momentum carried the man past Quinn's door, and Quinn reached out, grabbed the man in a headlock and pulled him tight to Quinn's body.

  With his left hand, Quinn grabbed the sidearm out of the man's holster and, the two leading enemies turning too slowly, shot both of them. Orange bolts.

  "Killers?" Quinn said to the scrabbling man, gurgling as he struggled to breathe in Quinn's grip. His eyes locked with Quinn's, narrowed.

  "Funny, coming from you," the man said. "All you've ever done is killed us,"

  Quinn put the man on the ground. Watched as the last breath escaped from his lips. That line. Killed us. No normal pirate or random criminal would bother saying that. It would be pointless. Quinn inspected their uniforms, the bodies lying around him. Each one wore a patchwork quilt of fabrics and even parts of boxes, furniture, other things sewn together. Quinn had seen the reports, the change when the Red Voice had done this. When they'd taken parts of their lives and wore it to generate empathy from the billions that watched their struggle on the satellite feeds throughout the solar system.

  What it meant was that they weren't being boarded by simple pirates, but that they were in real trouble. These people had a cause, and the ones with causes couldn't be bribed, couldn't be persuaded, couldn't be defeated unless their breath was taken away. And the best place to do that was the bridge. A bottleneck with defenses.

  Quinn turned to head that way when the sounds of lasers scoring off metal echoed along the hallway. More of them. Might as well clear some of these bastards out on the way.

  21

  Hijackers

  Mox on the left, Davin on the right of the shuttle's exit door. Opal had her long rifle out, spread across the seats that, a few minutes ago, they'd been sitting in as Viola bounced the shuttle to its landing. As for the pilot, she was back in the short connection between the shuttle's back and cockpit. The best spot to keep her out of fire, though Viola held a weapon of her own.

  Davin checked Melody, the energy-spewing shotgun left as a gift from the Jumper's previous captain. Davin looked around, caught quick nods from Mox and Opal, then opened the door.

  Opal fired. The near-silent expulsion of bright yellow laser light from her rifle streaked out even as the shuttle's door was receding into the top. Davin peeked around the edge in time to see one of several people fall back behind a doorway leading out of the docking bay. In that flash, Davin recognized the Eden uniform, but also the trailing end of a gun barrel.

  "One hit," Opal announced, her face stuck to the scope.

  Mox dashed outside the shuttle, moving to the side to clear Opal's firing line. For the moment, the hijackers waited behind their doorway. Davin followed Mox out, turning to the right, towards the back of the shuttle. Depending on Opal to cover his back, Davin moved around the rear, keeping Melody raised and ready. Could be anyone lurking around the inside of the bay.

  Rounding the engines, Davin dropped into a crouch, adopting the lower profile as he left the cover of the shuttle's body. The other side of the bay looked like the first, a stretch of wall and another exit and . . . what was that? Two of the hijackers were kneeling in the doorway, holding a giant tool in their hands, a long, skeletal tube with metal supports keeping it together. Smaller lines ran away from the central tube to a pair of fuel tanks strapped to the second hijacker's back. And it was pointed right at the shuttle.

  The front kneeler saw Davin, whipped out a sidearm and squeezed off a pair of shots before Davin could pull Melody's trigger. Both lanced over his shoulder as Davin backpedaled behind the engines.

  "There's another exit on the back of the shuttle," Davin commed. "They're setting something up there."

  "I've got them pinned up front. Take care of it," Opal replied.

  "Mox? On three?"

  The comm clicked affirmative. Mox carried his chest cannon, a minigun capable of lighting up the universe with hundreds of bolts per second. The man's exoskeleton held the weapon and kept it positioned right in the center of Mox's chest. Between the two of them, coming from both sides, yeah, it would be a massacre.

  "Three. Two. One," Davin said, then stepped forward and raised Melody.

  A loud shriek sounded and the bay lit up like a supernova. The shuttle broke apart, shattered as its center turned to molten liquid. The rear, no longer supported by struts up front, fell forward away from Davin while the front did the opposite. Split fuel and coolant lines exploded into the air, a fiery fog that expanded to fill the bay, burning Davin's lungs even as it singed his hair. He dropped to the ground and rolled away from the shuttle, pulling Melody with him.

  "Mox? Viola? Opal?" Davin wheezed into the comm, blinking to get the stinging smoke from his eyes.

  "Here," Mox said. "Pinned down in front. Enemy fire."

  How could they even see? Davin looked towards the front of the shuttle and saw flashes through the mist. A sucking roar filled the bay. The Karat's own support systems spooling up. Vents sucking away the gas. In a few seconds, it would be gone. Leaving his team out in the open.

  Team? Viola and Opal were silent. Who knew if they were even alive?

  Davin pushed himself up to his feet, holding his breath, and ran towards the flashing lasers. In a few steps he'd made it to the doorway. The giant weapon was lying on the ground, the two hijackers positioned at the front of the doorway flinging death towards Mox. Not even looking Davin's way. Melody came up, Melody fired.

  Six green balls of fiery doom spat out of Melody's honeycomb barrel towards the two hijackers. There wasn't any sound, so the first notice the enemies had that they were being attacked was when the fire struck
their backs. The super-heated balls burst their sea green Eden uniforms into flame. Both of them tried to roll, collapse to the ground to smother the heat.

  Davin didn't sit and watch, but closed in and kicked the sidearms away from their writhing forms, trying not to look at them. Melody's flames wrapped themselves around the pair, eating away anything remotely flammable. Clothes, accessories, hair, and on. Melody was terrible.

  And this called for terrible weapons.

  A glance at the doorway showed it to be empty, a short hallway that forked, likely to rooms meant for holding cargo. If Gage was right, ten people went to Neptune on the Karat. That meant eight left. Melody had the ammo.

  "Back end looks clear," Davin commed.

  "Front end is scattered," Mox replied. "Retreated"

  "Count? I have two."

  "One. Opal's. They ran when cannon opened."

  Which, understandable. Mox's cannon liquefied morale as well as it did armor. The mist cleared, giving Davin his first real look at the remains of the shuttle. They weren't going home in that thing. Ignoring the gash where the laser had split the shuttle in half, ignited fuel torched the rest of it, leaving wires dangling, bent and twisted, and the engines themselves broken into shards scattered across the bay floor. If they were leaving Neptune, it was the Karat or nothing.

  Davin ran his eyes around the wreck, looking for any sign of Opal, of Viola, when a whirring noise buzzed his ear. Davin whirled, swinging Melody around at chest height, and saw Puk hovering in front of his face.

  "They're in the front," Puk said. "My comm system is damaged, so I cannot transmit."

  "Show me."

  Davin followed Puk towards the shuttle's wreckage, towards the collapsed front half, with the nose pointing up towards space. The little bot veered to the gash, then slipped inside it. Davin, moving gingerly, stepped over scattered metal plating, sparking wires burning out the last of the shuttle's energy, and charred bits of things he didn't recognize.

  Inside the shuttle, at the point where the two wrecked halves touched in a tent-like shape, the cargo section where they'd been sitting was a melted mess. The seats were no longer visible. Puk waited for Davin just inside, then moved towards the front. Between the cockpit and the back was the shuttle's only lavatory, a tiny slit of a space for anyone that needed a moment on one of the shuttle's intended short jaunts. The door was open, and Puk slipped through.

  Davin followed, turning to look inside, and saw Opal, with Viola's arms wrapped around her, lying on the floor of the bathroom. Opal looked unconscious, stretches of her uniform black and scarred from the laser, but whole.

  "Hey kid?" Davin said, slinging Melody over his shoulder. "How hurt are you?"

  Viola turned up to look at Davin, and he saw stains of tears through the charred grime on her face. Little lines through the dirt. And more forming every minute, like racers speeding down the girl's face. Her mouth opened, but only a chopped sob came out.

  "Their vitals aren't critical. Opal inhaled too much gas after the fire, knocked her out," Puk said. "I noticed the mining laser before it fired. Opal dove into Viola and they fell in here."

  "The mining laser?"

  "The thing that split the shuttle? You were standing next to it a moment ago?" Puk replied.

  "I know," Davin said. It made sense. Why wouldn't they have a mining laser on a mining ship? And why not roast invaders alive with it?

  "Viola may need a minute," Puk said as the girl closed her eyes and shoved her face into Opal's hair.

  "We don't have that time. We're outnumbered and they know exactly where we are," Davin said, clicking his comm. "Mox? Opal will need a hand."

  "Swap then?"

  Davin affirmed, then turned to Viola.

  "Listen, kid. I know this stuff is rough. You don't know how to handle it. But you're going to have to deal with that later. Right now we need you awake, alert, and not falling apart."

  Viola blinked, looked at Davin, and took a shuddering breath. Nodded. Davin swapped with Mox. The metal man barely fit in the shuttle even when it wasn't a wreck. Now it was a joke. Mox had to tear his way to the lavatory. Davin didn't have time to watch that though. With Melody once more in his hands, Davin walked to front exit from the docking bay, where Opal's victim lay still on the ground, and peered around the corner.

  At the end of the hall sat a large set of elevator doors. Made for handling crew and freight. Gleaming silver and new. Through those doors was the rest of the Karat, and seven more traitors wanting to put a laser between Davin's eyes.

  22

  The Lost Pilot

  Merc landed the Viper in the cavernous ancillary bay, meant more for cargo containers than normal ships. Only the maintenance lights were on, leaving the hundreds-meter bay covered in shadows. Waiting for the Karat and its ice diamonds. The Amerigo had an identical bay opposite this one, taking up most of the non-crew portion of the freighter.

  All that space made for easy landings, though.

  The Viper's cockpit popped up and Merc scrambled out, using handholds on the side of the fighter to get himself to the floor. A ladder would've been the preferred route - could never tell how stiff those muscles would be after sitting in the cramped Viper - but Merc planted himself on the ground without falling. He tuned his comm to the Wild Nine's general frequency, but heard no noise. Which meant his teammates weren't talking or, more likely, they were keeping things directed. Not wanting to give away anything to listeners. Merc twisted the frequency to Phyla's signal.

  "Phyla, I'm on the ground in the ancillary bay. What's going on?"

  A few seconds passed in silence. Merc glanced around the bay. The cavernous space punctuated its worn vastness with dimpled lights every few meters, white dots casting Merc and his fighter in a day-bright glow. For all its size, there was only one exit, outlined in bright red paint. Looked to lead back towards the freighter's bridge. He walked that way.

  "Merc!" Phyla's voice came over rushed, like she was speaking and running at the same time. "Head towards the main bridge, but stay away from the Jumper and the docking bays. They're taken."

  "How do I get there?"

  "Figure it out. Can't talk," Phyla's voice cut out to the sound of something shrieking, hit by a laser and heated passed the point of its endurance.

  "The bridge it is, then," Merc said as he jogged.

  The Viper didn't have much room for gear, so the only thing Merc had on him was a small sidearm. Close-range and not very forgiving. He'd need to be precise to cause any real damage, and if he was in any real firefight, running would be a better option. Still, Merc held the weapon in both hands as he left the bay. Motion lights came on in the hallway, blinking as he moved. Always walking towards the dark.

  The first branch split the hallway with a pair of narrow signs. Straight ahead read the obvious one, Bridge and Bays. To the right, Engineering. Gotta love a well-marked ship. Merc walked straight, heading towards the bridge, when a shout came from the other way. An angry noise, someone surprised and annoyed about it. Then the shunt of a door slamming shut. Merc paused. Phyla's ordered him to the bridge, but then, that might not mean much if this group took control of the Amerigo's engines. At the very least, Merc could gather intel.

  Backtracking towards engineering, Merc slowed his pace. The hallway split again a few meters ahead, with a double-wide door on one side. Above the door, a flat-bottomed, rounded-top piece, sat the word Engineering in block white letters set against the dark green Eden color. On the right of the door was panel for badged access, its red light glowing at Merc.

  Merc didn't have a badge, which meant no way was he getting through that door. But beneath the panel was a small button labeled Comm. Maybe . . .

  "Hello?" Merc said as he pushed the comm button. "You guys in here yet?"

  Waited for a breath or two.

  "Who's asking?" Came a grumbling voice. Stressed, sounded like.

  "Your boss, that's who," Merc replied.

  No reply came. Which meant eit
her they were ignoring him, or—

  The door shot open and a big man stood there, staring at Merc, holding a long two-handed rifle in his hands, red coils tying the weapon to a strapped-on backpack power source. The man looked down, yeah, down at Merc and raised an eyebrow. He was wearing clothes Merc could only describe as the rejects of space-faring fashion, a true looter's ensemble of military gear, discount trash, and knickknacks like a chain bearing the crest of the Red Voice. Merc took all this in and knew the moment this gun-toting wild man realized Merc wasn't part of his group, a quick death was next.

  The same feeling Merc had in the Viper flooded through his bones, a cold steel that threatened to freeze out everything with possibilities lost should he not survive. Only this time, Merc was ready for it. Treated the feeling a warning, a sign to keep the impending disasters from exploding beyond correcting. That only by acting now would he have a chance at taking those threads of the future back in his hand.

  Merc dove forward, pinning the man's big gun to the side and preventing its lethal nose from getting a good look. The big man grunted in surprise and pushed back, while Merc pulled the trigger on his sidearm. The little gun fired, its angle also off to the side, but jammed against the assault rifle. Its laser burrowed into the larger gun, which popped and then exploded with concussive force as the gas used to create its lasers burst from its pressurized seal.

  Merc flew back into the wall, bouncing off and losing his air. Gasping, he looked around for the big man and saw him hunched against at the opposite wall.

  "You are so dead," Said a woman, adorned in equally ridiculous fare and pointing a old-fashioned slug-throwing shotgun at Merc.

  No way to win today. Merc looked at the woman and threw a half-smile. You try, you fail, and sometimes when you fail, someone's there to lay into you with a shotgun. There was a saying he'd learned back in the service, something the fighter jockeys muttered to themselves as a blessing against impossible situations: Give'em hell cause Hell's gonna be given to you. Merc tensed his legs, ignored his burning lungs, and waited. The woman raised the gun.