Crucible (24 page)

TWENTY-ONE

"Run that by me again, Gabe, and this time don't skimp on the stuff about how those psychos at Milli-com are actually planning to nuke Nordstadt and everyone there who's still supposed to be on our side."

They were back at their squadron base. Rafe had been confined to quarters on the orders of an outraged flight commander as soon as they landed, pending a disciplinary investigation for disobeying orders. Rafe wanted to get back in the air again, but any change in her current restricted status wouldn't make any difference to that wish. The entire squadron was grounded. Milli-com was planning something big, everyone said, and had imposed a five hundred kilometre no-fly zone around Nordstadt for every Souther pilot and aircraft. "Operation Hammerfall" was the whispered name on everyone's lips, although no one had a clue what the hell it was.

Gabe knew, though. Armed with the access codes he had picked up during their last illegal expedition into the Souther high command's intelligence and communications network, he had picked up enough to find out what Hammerfall was all about. Going into Milli-com's central system would have tripped dozens of security alerts and brought him crashing up against the impenetrable barrier of Milli-com's inner core cyber-hack defences and Gabe wasn't programmed to be that stupid or reckless. Instead, he had lurked amongst the hundreds of auxiliary systems and satellite networks, picking up a small clue or nugget of information from many of these different, scattered locations. The information he had amassed might have taken a human team of Milli-com's own data analysts and intelligence strategists days to sift through and extrapolate some kind of meaning out of it all. Gabe had accomplished the same task in a matter of minutes, unlocking the secret of Operation Hammerfall.

And now Rafe knew it too. She had no doubt that what she and Gabe had uncovered would be enough to get Gabe's personality matrix and memory files wiped and her condemned to whatever it is Milli-com and the gene-genies did with GIs who had proven to be more trouble than they were worth. No, she had no doubt about what would happen to them if Milli-com knew what they had discovered, just as she had no doubt what it was she had to do now.

She reached into her footlocker, rummaging through the sparse collection of personal effects stored there. GIs, without families or a life before military service, didn't tend to amass much in the way of personal belongings. She soon found what she was looking for, checking and loading it in one well-practised move. She had had to surrender her regular sidearm as a formality when she had been confined to quarters, but like any other combat pilot, she always made sure of being in possession of a strictly non-regulation backup piece.

"We going somewhere, babe?"

"Yeah. Nordstadt," she answered, moving towards the door. Gabe's drone shell obediently hovered after her.

"We sent Rogue into there," she told him. "He's still there, so we've got to go find him and get him out before they nuke the place right off the face of Nu Earth."

"And how we going to do that, toots?"

She opened the door, checking that the coast was clear. Luckily, despite her confinement to quarters, even her asshole of a flight commander hadn't managed to swing having an armed guard put on her door.

"Simple, Gabe. We're going to steal a shuttle. They want to put me in front of a court martial, then I figure it might as well be for something worthwhile."

Stealing a shuttle wasn't as simple as it sounded. With the squadron grounded, the fighter and shuttle hangers were all in lockdown, the ground crews taking advantage of the unexpected halting of all flight ops to run full maintenance checks on all the squadron's aircraft. Even if Rafe could find a shuttle to steal, there was no guarantee she would be able to even take off in it, not with its flight systems stripped or one of its engines disassembled and lying in pieces on the hanger floor around it.

Rafe's progress through the base drew a few looks and raised eyebrows - Bluegirl, isn't she supposed to be confined to quarters, they probably wondered? - but thankfully there were no challenges from anyone in authority.

"Out of luck, hon. No shuttles, no rescue mission."

Rafe's eyes scanned the tarmac of the runway, tracking the trace of a memory of something she had seen as she had brought her Seraphim into land less than an hour ago.

She found what she was looking for, parked in a secluded corner of the base perimeter, well away from the ordinary, day-to-day business of the squadron. She even recognised the two figures walking towards it.

"Saddle up, Gabe," she smiled. "We've found our ride."

"A good bit of business, Mister Brass?"

"Agreeably profitable, Mister Bland. Agreeably profitable."

They were crossing the runway, heading back to where their shuttle was sitting. Two pairs of their picker robots trailed after them, carrying several bulky containers of brand new Souther aircraft spare parts and computer boards between them.

"Yes, not bad at all, Mister Brass. A few more trips like this and we won't have to look for one of those lovely Seraphim fighters to salvage and sell on. We'll have enough spare parts to build one of our own!"

"An excellent plan, Mister Bland. We'll have clients queuing up to purchase such an item. We'll just neglect to tell them until after the deal's done that this particular bargain only comes in kit form."

They laughed, both of them thinking of the nest-egg they were building together. The proceeds from their entrepreneurial activities were all salted away in various secret bank accounts lodged on worlds far away from the war. One day, when either the war was over and there was no more material left to salvage, or when even their combined avarice was satisfied by the vast sums of money they had accumulated together, they would retire and live off the rewards of their labour on some remote and luxurious retreat.

Mister Bland favoured one of the pleasure worlds in the Vargas Cluster where, for a price, anonymity was assured and almost every whim and desire could be catered for. Mister Brass, however, considered the Vargas Cluster pleasure worlds and their inhabitants to be rather too vulgar for his tastes and preferred something a little more private and sedate. When not engaged in the important business of making money, one of the salvage merchants' main pleasures was arguing between themselves about what to do with the money itself.

They arrived at their shuttle and quickly went through their usual routine. Bland disarmed the shuttle's expensive security systems and went into the cockpit to begin the launch procedure and programme in the flight plan to their next port of call. His partner supervised the loading of the merchandise through the main cargo hatch to the rear. Their craft was deceptively antique looking, but a considerable amount of their profits had been ploughed back into it, to give it various hidden features that made it quite unique, even on Nu Earth.

Bland hummed a tune to himself - one of his favourite arias from one of his favourite operas, a far cry from those terribly bombastic Nort musical affairs that his partner tended to favour - while he flicked switches and entered flight programme codes.

"Ready to go up here, Mister Brass. Everything secured and sealed back there?"

No answer. He frowned. Morrie tended to fuss too much over the safe securing of the merchandise, Bland thought, but it usually didn't take him this long to get them ready to go.

"Mister Brass?" he asked again into his chem-suit's comm-unit.

He saw a light blinking on the console in front of him, signalling that the rear cargo hatch was now closing. A few moments later, the cockpit door behind him hissed open. "About time, Mister Brass. Time is money, as you always tell me, and-"

He stopped right there, seeing the figure accompanying his partner into the cockpit. A tall, blue-skinned figure was holding a gun to the back of Brass's head.

"Nice shuttle. Mind if I hitch a ride with you boys?" asked Rafe.

The salvage dealers' shuttle took off a few moments later. No one on the base paid it any attention. The squadron commander's private dealings with those two vultures were his own affair, and if they knew what was good for them, everyone did their best to ignore the scavengers' frequent and completely unofficial visits to the base.

No one watched it go. No one paid any attention to its course. No one noticed that it was heading straight into the no-fly zone around Nordstadt.

"What kind of comms and encryption packages this thing got?" asked Rafe, inspecting the shuttle's control systems, careful not to take her eyes off the two body looters sitting in the cockpit seats in front of her. Gabe hovered nearby, also watching them closely. Gabe's drone-shell was equipped with a short-ranged but surprisingly powerful mini-blaster weapon and he had already made the necessary power and targeting calculations. One shot and the body looters would be smeared all over the inside of their cockpit window.

"The best money can buy, naturally," answered Brass. "You name it, my dear, and we can call it up or hack into it with the equipment we have here. You wouldn't believe how many bargains Mister Bland and I have chanced upon just by keeping our ears open, so to speak."

The two salvage dealers exchanged glances while Brass spoke. They had been together so long, were so in tune with each other's minds, that with a few glances and a twitch of a raised eyebrow or a pursing of the lips, it was almost as if they could exchange thoughts.

A GI female, Mister Brass!

And one of those fascinating auto-flight drones we've heard so much about, Mister Bland. The Wachowski-Linder Industries GABRIEL-302 model, if I'm not much mistaken.

Their minds worked simultaneously, each of them doing a quick appraisal of the relative market value of the goods under discussion. Both came up with a pleasingly high figure, an agreement they reached with another glance.

Rafe and Gabe didn't notice any of this.

"Gabe, can you hook into this comms-rig and broadcast another signal on the old GI Regiment frequencies? We need to get another message out to our friend in Nordstadt, to warn him what's about to happen and let him know we're coming to pick him up.

"With the equipment they've got here? Definitely not going to be a problem, Rafe."

More glances between the two salvage merchants. More looks of silent agreement.

You hear that, Mister Brass? "Our friend in Nordstadt?" The Rogue Trooper, you think?

My thoughts exactly, Mister Bland. This little hijack escapade gets more and more interesting all the time. And more and more potentially profitable for our own humble little operation.

My thoughts exactly, Mister Brass.

"Help yourself to whatever meagre resources we have, my dear," Bland told Rafe. "My partner and I are always happy to lend a helping hand to the brave men and women of the Confederacy, isn't that right, Mister Brass?"

"Indeed, Mister Bland."

Another shared glance. Another silent agreement.

Let's play this one by ear, Mister Brass, and see where it takes us, shall we?

Indeed, Mister Bland.

Rogue leaned his head back, stretching his neck back as far as the chains holding him in place would allow and opened his mouth, catching some of the droplets of water that dripped down from the ceiling. The stuff tasted foul, full of Nu Earth contaminants. Rogue's system would have no problem neutralising them, however, and right now, his body needed all the sustenance it could get.

One of his guards broke off from what he was doing, raising his head to watch him suspiciously, but did nothing to stop him. He and the other guards were busy ransacking the equipment carried by Bagman and much of it lay scattered on the floor around them as they squabbled and rolled dice to contest ownership over the choicest items. They must have switched off the Bagman biochip's voice modulator as well, since there were no sounds from Bagman as the scavengers eagerly emptied him out.

There was no sign of Gunnar and Rogue suspected the traitor or one of his lieutenants had already lay claim to that particular prize. Helm lay discarded on the ground a few metres away, not too far from Rogue's feet. Clearly, none of the scavengers were interested in what looked like just another helmet. Rogue guessed this situation would change once the Norts arrived on the scene. His biochip equipment would be almost as big a prize as he was, and Rogue guessed that Helm, Gunnar and Bagman would probably end up as war trophies decorating a Kashan Legion officers' mess or the private office or dining room of some Nort general.

Too low for human ears to hear, a faint static hiss emerged from Helm's voice speaker. Hidden within that hiss was Helm's synthesised voice, speaking at the biochip equivalent of a hushed whisper.

"Rogue? Can you hear me, Rogue?"

Rogue shifted slightly, emitting a sound that his guards would have interpreted as a random grunt of pain.

"Glad to hear you're still with us, buddy," whispered Helm. "Listen carefully, Rogue. I'm picking up a message on the same old GI frequency as before. It's Guardian Angel, again. She's coming to get us. I'm going to use every bit of signal juice I've got left to beam back our location coordinates so she can zero in on us. Hang in there just a while longer, Rogue, help's on its way. You copy?"

Rogue stirred again, drawing another suspicious glance from one of his guards. The glance was longer this time.

Rogue played possum, hanging limp and lifeless in the chains. Help might be on its way, but that didn't mean he was going to stay here helpless while someone else stuck their hand into the fire to pull him out of trouble.

A plan formed in his mind. He swilled those last few precious droplets of water around his mouth, taking all the energy he could draw from them, then swallowed them and concentrated as he kick-started a bio-process unique to GI physiology. All he needed now was for someone to step within a metre or two of him, and then he would show them what being a Genetic Infantryman was all about.

"Copy on that signal we just sent out, Rafe. We're getting a response back. It's faint as hell. Trying to get a proper location lock on to it..."