Crusade For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 2) (17 page)

“How easy is it to contact your handler?”

“It could take a couple of days.”

“Alright.  Start sounding out the rest of the Company.  Pass the word Carter is alive and needs our help.  Tell them the Privileged killed her family.  Once you have them on board then bring up Furioso and she did it while crazed with grief.”

“Yes, Ma’am.  If they know this is coming from you, and it’s to help the Major, I can’t see anyone telling tales to Legion Intelligence.  They know the Major as well as we do.  They’ll agree she was pushed far harder than was prudent to do so.  What about the officers?”

“I’ll handle them.  The only problem I can see is Gibson and if it comes to it, I’ll take care of him.”

Button nodded.  Captain Gibson didn’t like Manuals and he didn’t make any effort to hide it from the rank and file.  He thought, as Major Carter’s official second in command, it would be him who took over.  After Major Forlani was picked to run the Company, he made his displeasure clear.  When she said she would take care of Gibson, she meant he would not live to cause any problems.  Button didn’t feel sorry for him in the slightest.

“What about Lieutenant Saito?”  The young lieutenant had been brought in to take over command of First Platoon.  “He’s never even met Major Carter, but he’s wanted to join this Company for years to be under her command.  He’s still badgering everyone for new stories about her.”

“If he finds out she’s alive, he could be willing to go along,” she mused.  “Keep him in the dark for now, make it clear no one is to tell him anything until I give the go ahead.  We’ll take him along if we go, unconscious if we have to, and let Valerie make the decision once she’s met him.”

“OK.  Do you want me to make contact with the Rebellion in the morning?” he asked.

“No, I want to make sure we’re ready to move first.  Once everyone is agreed, then we can go to the rebels.”

“What about the Major?”

“It’s been two and a half years.  Whatever she’s doing, she must be playing the long game.  If she had done something before now, we would have heard.  We’ve got some time.”

Neither of Olympus’s moons shone in the pitch black night.  Valerie could still see as though it was daytime thanks to her combat goggles.  These were her full up Commando version from her Tea Chest and fully sync’d to her wristcomp.

“Two minutes,” Deni’s voice said quietly in her ear.

Deni was skimming the aircar only metres from the surface of the sea.  Valerie crouched by the open side door as they approached the insertion point, three kilometres from Ison Island.  It was set in amongst the Steps of the Gods, among the other island domains of the oldest and most powerful Pantheon Families.

Hanna copied the ID from an aircar belonging to one of those who lived on one of the islands.  This individual enjoyed late night sea skimming.  It would not be unusual for those monitoring the highly sophisticated sensor net surrounding the islands, to see him out and about.  The team hoped he wasn’t out tonight.  Hanna managed to Hack his schedule and he was meant to be meeting a friend for dinner and drinks in the city centre.

“One minute,” Deni reported.  “All ready?”

“Just say the word, Deni.  I’m cutting power to my electronics.”

“OK, watch for the green light and good luck.”  Deni said and Valerie turned off her wristcomp.  The only other thing active were her goggles and when they went off, she struggled to see out into the night, even with her enhanced vision.  An amber light lit up on the door and the aircar slowed suddenly.  Deni brought the aircar round expertly.  Valerie was now facing directly towards the unseen island out in the night.  She dived into the sea when the light went green.

Just as Hanna and Valerie did on their first Heist, Valerie was using the simplest approach possible to get around the security surrounding the island.  All the technology she was carrying was powered down.  She had only her muscles to get her to the island.  With the waves pushing at her, she set off, her powerful legs pumping and arms cutting through the water.

Normally a three kilometre sea swim would take Valerie a little under half an hour.  With the roughness of the sea, she estimated it would be about forty minutes.  Her all in-compassing swimsuit slick against the water, the bulk of her equipment and pistols smoothed out and streamlined by its design.  The flippers on her feet helped push her through the water.

Keeping the time in her head, she swam for ten minutes before stopping.  Strapped to her wrist was a very old piece of technology, so old and with no power source, it wasn’t even considered technology any more.  Deni called it a compass, no more than a simple piece of metal reacting to the planet’s magnetic field.  The mechanics put together a waterproof instrument with a strap for Valerie’s wrist, based on designs passed from Deni’s grandfather to her.

She told them it was how some of the tribes navigated in the mountains.  The compass was a big surprise to Valerie.  It explained one of the reasons why the Butler clan were so hard to track all those years ago.  Now it guided Valerie to her destination and the irony was not lost on her.

All too soon the lights of the island could be made out when the sea pushed Valerie up to the top of a wave.  Even with all the defences surrounding the island, Valerie was not expecting them to pick up on a lone swimmer.  It was the last thing they would be expecting.  She felt the waves surge when they began to encounter the rising ground.  Her fingers brushed the fine sand as they swung underneath her in the water.  She brought her feet forward to rise in a slight crouch.

The water buffeted her, trying to topple her over and she fought through to get to the beach itself.  It was an isolated area of Ison Island and she dashed up across the sand to a beach house.  It was shut but not locked, a simple mechanical handle held the door closed, she slipped inside.  Stripping the swim suit off, Valerie repowered her equipment.  The goggles did an excellent job of keeping the water out of her eyes, but it was a welcome relief to have their lowlight capability back.

Leaving the swim suit in the hut, she stalked out into the night.  Her coat moved silently about her, the bulk of her medium armour stretching the material.  She left her pistols in their holsters, not wanting to appear too threatening.  She was confident she could draw them quick enough not to make a difference.

The holomap of the island came to Valerie’s mind.  There they caught a break, four years ago a holovid had been made about Ison Island.  It was a way for the Ison’s to say ours is better than yours, to all the other Families in the Steps of the Gods.  The program showed the team the exact layout.  One of the man-made islands in the Steps, Ison Island was built around a single central hill.  Fantastic beaches went most of the way around, the exception being the harbour.  The main town was situated there. 

It wasn’t really a town, but a collection of large houses for those members of the family, not high enough in the hierarchy, to be entitled to live in the central mansion perched on the very top of the hill.  The town and harbour were to the east, with rolling grassland to the south and the north.  West of the mansion, and hidden from view by the steep hill, were the shops, cafes, bars, restaurants and school servicing the Ison Family.  Nearby were the living accommodations of the Manual workers who provided the staff for everything.

Beyond, lay a thick ‘natural’ forest and it was this Valerie stalked through.  At this time of night, all those bars and cafes would be shut and the workers and family members at home in bed.  It gave Valerie the best approach to the mansion without being spotted.  If any of the family security people saw her, they would shoot first and worry about who she was later.

At the moment, everything seemed to be going to plan.  The forest around her was alive with all the animals imported to live there.  Here the most dangerous thing Valerie expected to encounter were the panthers who made it their home.  Completely undomesticated and untrained, they wore collars preventing them from leaving the forest, and warned local residents they were nearby.  Hanna wasn’t able to find the access codes to those collars.  Valerie was keeping her senses open, looking and listening, in case she had to deal with a seventy kilo panther defending its territory.

Valerie filtered out the insects, birds, movement of the leaves by the wind and all the other little sounds of a forest at night.  She was listening for the slight discrepancy denoting a human being or a feline predator.  A slight movement gave it away, a twitch not in tune with the swaying of the tree branches.

There, hanging down, off to Valerie’s right, was a black tail, curving slightly at the end.  She followed it up with her eyes and took in the large cat carefully hidden on a thick, high branch.  Its eyes were open and staring straight at her.  Even with her enhanced senses, the cat saw her before she had seen it.  Resisting the instinct to freeze in place, she rose to her full height and stared back.  Slowly she drew her Stone Dragon blade and held it loosely at her side.

For a long time the two predators held each other’s gaze, neither giving a millimetre.  Finally the cat gave a snort and rose gracefully to its feet.  With agility, almost impossible to believe in an animal so large, it backed away from Valerie and leapt off into the night.  She relaxed slowly, slid her knife back into its sheath and continued on her way.

It was strange.  She actually missed having Hanna’s voice in her ear.  It was a comfort she hadn’t realised she came to rely on again.  While in the Legion, it was common for someone to be permanently on the other end of her com.  First when she flew Vectors, and then in the various special combat teams until finally, it was her Command and Control team, back at whatever base Shadow Company were operating from.

For so long, someone was out there watching her back and now it was Hanna fulfilling the role.  Here and now, Valerie’s com was neither receiving nor transmitting.  It was much too easy for the Ison Island security system to pick up on a unexplained transmission from an unknown source.  Also all of the islands security systems were hard-walled from the datanet.  Without some sort of physical access, there was nothing Hanna would be able to do.  Valerie knew the girl was still back at base waiting anxiously for her to call and say the mission was a success.

The trees began to thin and Valerie came to an edge of a green expanse of grass.  It ran for twenty metres of open ground to the first of the buildings.  With her goggles she looked carefully at every corner and edge of those buildings.  In her Tea Chest sat a powerful scanner attachment for a datapad.  Using it, she could be sure no one was hiding and waiting to pounce on her, but any active sensors, not part of the island’s security net, would set off alarms everywhere.  She needed to rely on what she could see.

A street started on the other side of the grass and ran almost straight away from her.  This was the commercial hub of the island; shops, bars and cafes ran down both sides of the street.  At the far end, a cliff rose up with the Ison Mansion perched on top.

She could see nothing out there, no movement of any kind.  Taking a deep breath, she darted out at full speed.  Those long marathon runs back on Blaze did the trick, she was back to her peak.  A swim in heavy seas followed by a hike uphill through a forest, didn’t slow her down.  She felt as fresh as when she got up that morning.

She was almost at the first building, a shop of some kind, when a slight movement caught her eye from her left.  It was much like the panthers tail, except it was a person’s head bobbing down below the edge of the roof of the building across the street.  Valerie didn’t think, she acted, diving to her left.  Pulsar fire ripped through where she had been running.  Her shoulder landed hard on the permacrete street, her armour absorbing the force, and she rolled to her feet, both pistols out.

Today she brought her Pulse pistols rather than the familiar Mags and they whined in tune.  There were dark, bulky shapes all along the roof top and two dropped back.  Her burst of Pulse rounds hitting each in the chest.  Dashing back the way she came, Valerie kept firing up at shapes with her right pistol and with her left, blasted open the door of a shop.

Pulse blasts hit all around her, only her superior speed allowed her to stay alive.  She ducked and weaved constantly.  The same could not be said for her opponents.  Every time she fired, another died.  These weren’t the self-trained Enforcers of Blaze, but nor were they Commando Devils.  They were good enough to force Valerie back into the shop.

The moment she was out of sight, she ran to the back and activated her com.

“Mission blown!” she shouted.  “Do not respond.  I repeat.  Do not respond.  Extract and go to ground.  I will make my own way out.  Carter clear!”  She shut down the com and hoped the girls would listen.  This ambush was too well co-ordinated, they knew she was coming and what route she would take.  They would guess she had others backing her up.  She couldn’t let them get anywhere near the girls.

The internal doors of the shop were not up to the job of stopping her.  She crashed through them as though they were made of paper.  Finding a stairway, she ran up it as fast as she could.  They would be expecting her to go out the back.  No doubt there were sensors sweeping the building and tracking her, but it took time to read the data, tell whoever was in charge, and relay it to their troops.  She didn’t plan to give them that time.

Her pistols blazed and the roof door disintegrated in front of her.  Her right boot took care of whatever was left and she was outside.  Armed men and women were spread out all around her, in the process of moving from the front to the rear of the building.  For an instant they all froze as she appeared in their midst and swept both guns around in a deadly arc.  Two, four, six dead in under three seconds.

Rifles swung in her direction and they hesitated.  They had to aim to hit Valerie and avoid their own people on the other side of her.  For Valerie, there was no hesitation, she whirled more gracefully than any ballerina, death at her very fingertips and where she pointed, men and women died.  Shouts and screams came from all around her, so confident minutes ago, they now died.

The last two dropped to the ground and shots whipped past her from across the street.  Valerie continued to move erratically, ducking, dodging and weaving to evade their fire.  Then, in a sudden dash, she ran straight for the rear of the building.  Her foot hit the edge and she launched herself into the night.

There would be more out there.  Whoever set this trap had some idea of her abilities.  A full platoon of twenty men and women were on that roof with the same on the other side.  It was a lot to kill one expected individual.  At least a reserve platoon, but more likely a full company would be moving into a ring around her.  An aircar would be launching to track her from above.  They could co-ordinate with the ground troops, drive her to where she could be cornered and killed.  It’s how she would do it.

How to get out?  How to counter that strategy?  Valerie’s mind worked in overtime, running through scenario after scenario and discarded plan after plan.  Ahead of her were the Manual quarters, it was the most logical place for her to go.  The tight, twisty alleyways would force them to come at her in smaller numbers and give her the advantage.  They would have their most powerful force right there, ready to intercept.

When her boots slammed into the ground, she knew what she had to do and darted left.  This put her on a straight line towards the Mansion, along a tree lined walkway running down the back of the shops.  A five person squad ran out of an alleyway to her left.  The first two died before they could raise their rifles.  Pulsar blasts ripped into the ground around her.  She dove and rolled forwards.  Coming back to her feet, the second two died.  A side step to the right threw off the aim of the last one, his shot going wide.  Valerie’s burst caught him directly in the chest and flung his body back against the wall, coming to rest with the remains of his squad.