Through the nether, p.5
Through the Nether, page 5
part #4 of Order of the Centurion Series
With the weapon gone, the legionnaire mashed his other elbow against Soren’s throat, cutting off his airway. Soren could feel the pressure mount in his head, causing his eyes to bulge.
The pistol clattered to the ground somewhere nearby. Soren reached out, slapping the ground, searching for the weapon.
“She wants you alive,” the captain said. “Didn’t say unhurt.”
The legionnaire lifted his arm from Soren’s throat and beat his elbow into the spy’s jaw. The armored strike was enough to cut out Soren’s vision momentarily, like he’d blacked out for a second. But in that moment, his seeking hand found the blaster pistol.
Spitting out blood, Soren pressed the muzzle against the captain’s helmet and pulled the trigger. The blaster bolt broke through the armor, cooking his brain as pieces of helmet ricocheted in the enclosed space, bouncing around the captain’s skull like the blades of a blender.
Soren pushed the body off of him and sat up. Dimly aware that there might be still one more to deal with. But all was silent.
“Zelle?”
His word came through his ears like they were stuffed with synthprene. Blood dribbled down his chin from where the captain had elbowed him and pain radiated across his face.
He shook his head quickly and looked for the fourth legionnaire. The major lay in a pool of blood beneath the Iago. Heywood’s head and most of his upper chest were face down, sparks snapping out of shorn wires.
“Zelle!” Soren looked to the ramp and saw rivulets of blood tracing down the from the cargo bay. His partner lay on her side in the cargo bay, red craters in her back. She lay still.
Soren raced up the ramp, avoiding the blood streams coming from Zelle. Her mouth was agape, carbine held loosely in her hands. Eyes open but staring at nothing.
“Zelle, say something.”
Soren touched her neck and didn’t find a pulse. The front of her jacket was soaked in blood, the grim result of a blaster bolt fired at close range, cooking the immediate skin but punching through so fast that it caused traumatic tissue damage. The legionnaires had shot her through the heart and lungs.
Death was instant. At there was that much. She didn’t suffer.
“Ah, by Oba.” Soren sat next to her on the ramp, his mind racing as he struggled to process the fight, pain clawing into his face and grief.
Why? Why had they tried to kill them?
“Function,” Soren said to himself. “There’s still a mission.”
He looked down at the carnage on the landing pad. The four legionnaires may not be all that were coming. And the way the one had spoken, the Nether Agent in this sector had authorized what just happened.
He needed to vanish.
Soren pushed himself to his feet and hurried down the ramp to the dead lieutenant he’d shot in the head. Tilting the body up, he removed the identity chit hidden beneath the left side of the breastplate. He went to each of the other dead and collected their chits. The major’s was covered in blood and cracked, but should still viable.
“Sir?” Heywood chirped feebly, on arm still partially holding onto the Legion Captain, the bot’s head resting face-down on the dead man’s chest. “Sir, I am unable to see you.”
Soren slipped the four chits into a pocket, then went to his bot and flipped its head and shoulders over.
“Thank you, sir. My motor functions seem to have been damaged.”
“Can you still fly the ship if I hardwire you into it?” Soren asked.
Heywood cocked his head to one side and saw the rest of his parts and the dead legionnaires.
“This is most vexing,” the bot said.
“Yes or no?”
“My data core is undamaged, sir. Simply connect my—oh!”
Soren slammed what remained of Heywood onto the repulsor cart and he pulled it all back into his ship. The pain in his face grew worse, and a tightness in his chest formed as he passed Zelle’s body again.
“Where is Ms. Zelle?” Heywood asked, his gaze stuck on whatever is right above him.
Soren cut the power to the cart’s repulsors and locked it to the deck. He mashed a button and raised the ramp then wrapped an arm around the bot’s neck, looping under its armpit. Sparks from the severed limb spat against the Soren’s jacket as he lugged the bot up the stairs toward the cockpit.
“Ms. Zelle! Sir, why haven’t you rendered first aide?” Heywood asked.
“She doesn’t need it,” Soren grunted. He dropped the bot into the co-pilot’s seat and sat at the master controls. Soren brought the ship up to power and waited for the main engines to warm up.
“Sir, as much as I’d like to fly I am at a distinct lack of mobility and dexterity,” Heywood said. “You have yet to hardwire me into the ship.”
“No time.” Soren put a headset over his hears and frantically tapped at the controls. “I can get us into space. For now, I need you to…to check our comms logs. Zelle’s data feeds. Anything from the beacons?”
“My wireless antennae are badly damaged.” one of the bot’s optic disks flickered on and off. “Frustrating.”
The Iago shook as the engines came to life and the ship lifted off into the haze. Soren reached into the co-pilot’s seat and flipped down a small hatch on the controls between the two seats. He pulled out a jumble of wires.
“Red?” Soren asked. “No, green.”
“Blue with white chevrons,” Heywood said, his words slurring.
Soren’s hands trembled as he pulled the data line out and plugged it into a port on the back of the bot’s head.
“The connection is-is-is pooooooor,” Heywood said. “Peanut. Nostril. Happy clams.”
Soren made a fist and whacked the bot.
“Rebooting,” the bot’s eyes clicked off.
“Damn it,” Soren pulled up the astrogation menu and looked at the star systems within range. Worlds with heavy MCR presence. Which meant more legionnaires. Stars with nothing but pirates and smugglers. A few Republic strongholds.
He wiped blood off his chin and winced as pain grew stronger. He needed to visit the ship’s med bay. His jaw felt broken. But first, where to go? Where to run?
The Nether Ops chief on the world must have ordered the attack after they realized he’d been to the asteroid cache. How could old model legionnaire armor be that important?
“Much improved,” Heywood said, his reboot cycle finished.
“Anything from Zelle’s beacons?” Soren repeated.
“Affirmative. We have one data packet with hyperspace coordinates to Qadib.”
“Qadib?” Soren found the system on the astrogation charts, its name in amber text. “Can we reach it?”
“Not at top speed. I’ll have to adjust our hyperspace velocity to—”
“Do it. Just get us out of here.”
Soren entered his override and accessed Zelle’s profile. Several voice messages with Legion frequency tags had been opened. But not L-comm, thankfully. That was a nut even Nether Ops hadn’t been able to track. They were talking to someone on a Republic encrypted voice. And Soren had a good idea who it was. He double tapped the last one.
“What do you mean they’re unsealed?” Farn’s voice played through the headphones. The local Nether Ops agent sounded irate. “By Oba they’ve been to rock. How the hell did they…I want the agent alive. Kill anyone else and slag the ship.”
A massive headache gripped Soren as he tried to piece together what had just happened. Zelle…Zelle must have been listening in real time once she spliced into the legionnaire’s helmet comms and heard the station chief’s order to the captain. She’d tossed the dazzler down the ramp to try and save him and been cut down.
The Iago shook briefly, then all the turbulence faded away.
“Sir, may I take over? We’ll make hyperspace in three minutes.”
“I need,” Soren tapped his ringing ear, “I need some time.”
“You’re bleeding all over my seat. Please seek medical attention before you lose consciousness. I’ll be of little help should that happen.”
“Anything in the system?”
“It seems we’ve been flagged as smugglers. Several fighter squadrons are on an intercept course…and we’re being hailed with another code crimson.”
“How long until we’re in weapons range?”
“Eight minutes, provided the fighters do not exceed peacetime engine tolerances.”
“Haven’t been at peace in a long time.”
Soren stared at the pulsing icon for the incoming hail. He reached for it with bloodstained fingers, ready to show Farn that he was still alive. There was a temptation to play the audio file proving her treachery and involvement with the smuggling…
Soren pulled his hand back.
“What the enemy knows, they can act on,” Soren said.
“Sir?”
“She doesn’t know what happened. If any of us were killed. That we know where the weapons went. She’ll lash out and try to find us. She’s desperate. And the desperate make mistakes.”
“And how would you characterize our situation, sir?”
He wiggled his jaw back and forth, suspicions that it was broken growing.
“Determined.” He got up and went to the back of the bridge where they kept an emergency medical kit.
06
Soren sat next to Zelle, her body in a black bag zipped up to her chest. Her eyes were still half open, skin pale. Soren worked his hands open and shut, feeling the cold slick of her blood against his skin.
His jaw and ear ached, the pain lessened by a number of injections from the med kit. Cellular nanites were already working to knit his fractured jaw back together, but it would probably be a few days before he felt whole again.
He’d had the chance to examine Zelle’s wounds and found confirmation that there was nothing he or Heywood could have done for her. Not even a full Legion field hospital could have saved her. She was likely dead before she reached the deck.
“Sir?” the bot said through the ship-wide comm. “May I take this opportunity to—”
“Skip the condolence programming and get to where you’re useful,” Soren snapped.
“The data query on the Legion identity chits is complete. Would you like the findings?”
“Not now.” Soren tugged the zipper on the body bag higher, then stopped. Only Zelle’s head and neck remained exposed. He wiped a bloody hand on a rag and closed her eyes. “It’s not fair, you know that, Heywood? Nether Ops promised her a reduced sentence if she served as an auxiliary. She could’ve said no, served out her sentence and left prison alive. Instead…she’s dead because of me. Because of Nether Ops.”
“Shall I reengage my condolence programs?”
“No. You’d tell me she chose this course of action with knowledge of the risks, and that her sacrifice served the Republic, wouldn’t you?”
“That is correct. I would have also added the percentile likelihood of her being killed in prison. How did you know?”
“It’s what I would have said back when I was in the navy.” Soren pulled the body bag the rest of the way shut. “Does she—damn me for not knowing this—does she have any next of kin?”
“She has an aunt listed, but Ms. Zelle’s personnel file states not to contact the relative in the event of death or injury.”
“Religious observances?”
“While she has used Oba’s name in vain frequently, she’s listed as non-denominational.”
Soren worked his lips into a snarl then lifted the corner of the body bag where a malleable, plastic screen was attached. He flicked his thumb across the device and scrolled through a menu that appeared. He pressed hard on an option and the screen beeped twice. The body bag tightened against Zelle hard enough that he could make out her face, like she was sleeping.
“On Oliphant, we believe Oba lets the spirit linger,” he said. “Longer if the life ended…badly. You were brave. Strong. Clever. All the things Nether Ops could have ever asked for in an agent. I’ll see you receive a full pardon. May you move on with no burden on your soul. As for Farn and the traitors working with her…they will be dealt with. You have my word.”
Heat radiated from Zelle’s body as the bag began the cremation. In another hour, all that would be left of her would be ash.
Soren returned to the bridge and found Heywood face down in the co-pilot’s seat. He lifted the bot back up and propped him against the back.
“Thank you, I imagine if I were human I would be very embarrassed.”
“If you were human you’d be very dead right now.” Soren sat in the pilot’s seat. “What am I going to do with you?”
“We do not have a spare chassis aboard,” Heywood said. “Qadib is a world under heavy Zhee influence, but should you find another KH-1188 unit you could swap my data core. Such a repair is relatively simple. Even for you.”
Soren gave the bot a sidelong glance.
“Ms. Zelle would have had no such difficulty.” The bot’s head snapped from side to side. “Bother. My servos are malfunctioning.”
Soren clamped his hand atop the bots head and held it still. There was a whirr and a snap within Heywood’s neck.
“Now I can’t move my head at all.” The bot sounded almost depressed.
“You found something on the legionnaires?” Soren kicked his feet onto the controls and picked up a datapad.
“Indeed. What made you think their identities would prove useful? Dark Ops almost always operate under alias.”
“If they were Dark Ops they would’ve killed us easily. Those legionnaires were sloppy. Then, they were all officers. And the only thing three or more officers ever do together is have a meeting. Bunch of officers together on a mission? Never happens. I should’ve noticed something was off soon as I saw them.”
Soren opened the file on the captain that had died last. His eyes darted across the information.
“Nothing jumps out at me. Rear echelon postings. On his first command of a company sent to Rintaka for jungle training.” Soren snorted in disgust. “He’s a point.”
“‘Point’?”
“Appointment commission. Politically connected individual that can pass the lowest possible bar to serve as an officer. Rep Army has them. Navy has them. Marines. And for some reason the Legion, the Republic’s preeminent fighting force, has them. No one likes points, except for other points, of course.”
“Their performance is questionable?”
“How well do you think someone that got their job because of political donations, and keeps that job because of donations, will do? They’re a cancer—you know what that doesn’t matter right now.” Soren flipped to the next file and looked over one of the two lieutenants.
“Junior officer…just commissioned…no campaign ribbons or medals so he’s…also a point. Huh.” He flipped to the next file. “The major’s also a point.”
He went to the next. “A point.”
“Given the known percentage of appointed officers in the Legion,” Heywood’s optics winked on and off as his data core worked over time, “the chance of encountering four officers with such a background in such close proximity is—”
“Not a coincidence.” Soren tapped the screen and looked deeper into the captain’s file. “He’s from Pardith, major core world…and he was appointed by Delegate Dryden. He’s on the Defense council, banking committee. Been in the House of Reason for decades.”
“That one of his appointees was involved in an attack on a Nether Ops agent will be quite the scandal,” the bot said.
Soren flipped to the next file and his face went pale. He flipped two more times, then tossed the datapad onto the controls.
“Something awry?” Heywood asked.
“Senator Dryden appointed all four of them. Doesn’t make sense. Pardith isn’t part of the MCR. The planet’s entire economy depends on the Republic’s good fortune. Why would Dryden…he wouldn’t be. He can’t be a traitor too.”
Soren sat quietly, watching stars streak past the windows as the Iago flew toward Qadib.
“Shall I prepare a summary report for the Carnivale?”
“No, not yet. We can’t implicate Dryden in this. Evidence gathered during sanctioned Nether Ops missions is almost impossible to use in court. And right now this could all be waved away as nothing but a coincidence.”
“You seem prepared to continue your investigation on this apparent coincidence.”
“I’m a spy. I need a plausible suspicion to work against someone. Lawyers and judges need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.” Soren picked up a water unit from the side of his seat and took a sip.
“And if this senator is involved with arms smuggling and the MCR, what will you do? Assassinate him? The state of emergency declared after the MCR attack on Kublar allows for extra-judicial killing should a clear and present threat to the Republic be discovered,” the bot recited.
“This isn’t some edge warlord or career criminal that no one will cry over if they wake up dead…this is a long-standing Delegate. One that’s friends with Orin Karr.”
“Then what is our course of action?”
“We need evidence. Even if it doesn’t lead us to Dryer, we’ll find out who’s responsible for the stolen leej weapons…and what that armor’s for.”
“As you like, sir. We’re an hour out from Qadib.”
“Come out of hyper short of the usual translation points, I need a signal back to the Carnivale and I don’t want to risk anyone eavesdropping, even on a dirt ball like Qadib.”
“We are almost out of fuel. I will note that if the local Nether Ops chief is…less than loyal…we will have a difficult time escaping the system.”
“Good point…” Soren rubbed his chin and winced as he touched the hairline fracture in his jaw.
