Haywire (25 page)

Before Artemis could react, Shawn reached out and hugged his mother in a tight embrace. Never in his life had he ever felt so loved and cared about by her, and in that moment he knew their relationship was forever changed for the better. Warm tears fell down his face, and when he pulled back he could see them shimmering on her cheek.

“
Fine,” Artemis said as she stood up and opened the booth door. “And for the record, I didn’t ask for any of this either. You’ve had a rough day. I’ve had a rough hundred years. We all do what we have to do.” The Titan then exited the booth without looking back.

“
She has a point,” Shawn said, sympathetic in spite of himself.

His mother shrugged her shoulders. “She does, but so do I. Now make your call. We’ll be waiting outside.”

His fingers shook as the door closed and he typed the routing sequence for Ilona’s mobile comm. It had only been a day since he’d last spoken with her, but with everything that had happened since then it felt like weeks. He didn’t know what he was going to say to her. There was no way he could tell her the truth. He could barely believe it all himself, and he’d lived through it. The best he could hope for was to calm her fears and remind her that he loved her. He’d worry about the rest of it later, when the fate of all humanity wasn’t hanging in the balance.

When Ilona’s face appeared on his screen, he could tell she’d been crying. Her cheeks were slick with tears, her almond-shaped eyes were puffy, and her hair was a mess. His heart broke at the sight of it.

“
Hello?” she said, her voice dry and raspy.

“
Hey, baby,” he replied. A lump ballooned in his windpipe.

Ilona’s eyes flared wide. “Oh my god, Shawn, is that really you? Are you okay?”

“
Yeah, I’m okay. For now, anyway. We… What have you heard?”

Ilona wiped beneath her eyes and said, “Nothing that makes any sense. Your dad called me as it was hitting the news. He said a federal investigator told him some sort of terrorists had taken you and your mom, and that some people had gotten hurt, and it was possible you two escaped. It was all... I don’t know, I didn’t understand it. I tried to sleep, but I was just too worried, so I’ve been sitting here freaking out and fearing the worst. I thought… I had this terrible feeling something bad had happened to you.”

The lump in his throat grew larger. “I’m not. I’m okay. See?” He waved at the screen and forced a smile to his face. “Things got hairy for awhile, but I’m alive, and so is mom.”

“
Then where are you? Can you contact the police or that agent who called your dad? Do you need me to do that? What can I do?”

“
You can calm down,” he replied, his smile still etched across his face. “I’m okay, but there’s something we have to do, and until it’s done I can’t go to the authorities. I–”

“
I don’t understand,” she said, cutting him off. “If you’re okay and safe, why don’t you get help? I want you to come home, Shawn. Right now.”

He was all too familiar with her ‘
I’m putting my foot down
’ tone, and he knew he’d have to move quickly to keep her from digging her heels in. “I wish I could, but I can’t. Not yet. If you love me, then trust me. I’m in… We’re all in a lot of danger, still. This isn’t over.”

“
What isn’t?” she insisted. “What in the hell is going on? Are you okay or aren’t you?”

“
I am, for now. I just... I need you to trust me. And, if you can, get a message to dad letting him know I’m okay and that I’ll contact him as soon as I can. Will you do that?”

Ilona closed her eyes, and her nostrils flared as she breathed deeply in and out. “Damn it, alright. I love you, and I trust you.”

“
Could you sound a bit more happy about that?” he asked, his smile finally genuine.

Ilona laughed, and her eyes cleared as she looked back at him. “I am happy about it… Shawn, are you sure you’re alright? You seem… I don’t know… different.”

He flexed his hands beneath the display, feeling the nanites on his skin flex with him. “I’m a-okay,” he told her. “And I love you, too.”

“
You better.”

Chuckling, Shawn pressed his gloved right hand to his lips and blew her a kiss. “I have to go now, baby. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.”

Ilona leaned in toward her distant display and planted a kiss on it. Her lips left a red smear on the image in his monitor, and without thinking about it he reached out and touched it, feeling her kiss from so many millions of kilometers away.

“
You be safe, you hear me?” she said. “If anything happens to you I’m going to be mad as hell, and you know you don’t want that.”

“
No I do not,” he replied with a soft laugh.

“
Good. Then go if you have to go. I’ll call your dad.”

“
Thanks.”

A tear rolled down Ilona’s cheek, and as it fell Shawn felt his heart go with it.

“
I love you so much,” she said.

Feeling like he was about to choke on the lump in his throat, he spoke quickly. “I love you more than you’ll ever know. I’ll… see you soon.”

Ilona blew him a kiss as he reached out with trembling fingers to close the comm line. He tried to stand up, but the tremors moved from his hands to shake his entire body. It was nearly a minute before he was able to rise and leave the booth.

“
Everything okay?” his mother asked as the booth door closed behind him.

He wasn’t sure how to answer her. “Yeah, I guess so. She said an investigator called dad. You think it was your boyfriend?”

His mother’s lips pressed together in a thin line as she nodded. “I would have to assume so. Damn it, I didn’t want him involved, though I suppose it was unavoidable. At this point it’s neither here nor there, though. Come on, let’s find a place where we can sit in privacy and get something to eat. I’m starving, and I’m not in a hurry to cram myself back into that freighter until I have to.”

Torn between his love and the fear of what was coming, Shawn nodded and stepped in behind his mother as she led them back toward the Promenade, but his hands were closed into fists, and the nanites that covered them sizzled against his skin. Never in his life had he felt so lost, caught by forces he didn’t understand, and he worried that when the time came for him to stand tall, he’d crumble under the weight of the moment, and the universe would crumble with him.

Captain Nathan Townsend of the AAS
Culper
didn’t consider himself a bad person, but as a ship captain under the joint command of Naval Intelligence and the Alliance Security Agency, it was his duty to go into dark places to do dark things. It wasn’t his job to question his orders, only to carry them out. As he looked at the hardened Marines that sat before him, he knew they would follow their orders with the same grim determination.

“
You’ve all read the briefing packet sent by General Harper’s office,” he said, looking around the cramped briefing room and gripping the slender podium in front of him tightly in his long fingered hands. “You know what the stakes are. We
cannot
and
will not
allow Titan technology to fall into enemy hands. Period. And, while I hate to give credence to what seems to have amounted to little more than a wild flight of civilian fancy, if there is a Titan involved somehow, our jobs will be a lot more difficult.”

The group huddled in the briefing room murmured among themselves, the sound low but more than enough to fill the confined space. Townsend knew similar whispered conversations were going on all over the ship, but he ran a tight operation, so he held up a hand and waved them back to silence.

“
I know how unbelievable that sounds, but even if the chance is slim, we still need to be ready for it. Am I clear?”

A chorus of “Sir, yes, Sir!” rumbled from the seated men.

“
Very good, then I turn you over to Major Hill.”

As Townsend gave them a firm nod and backed away, one of the seated Marines pushed up from his chair, stepped to the podium, and saluted. Townsend returned the gesture before shifting backward and leaning against a bulkhead.

“
Alright, people,” Hill said, his hair gray and cut in the age old high-and-tight style Marines favored. His pale blue eyes were like frozen marbles as they peered into his men. “This one is gonna be a doozy, I shit you not. As the captain said, our primary objective is Dr. Alicia Campbell and those with her. We don’t know what she has to do with the pirates who broke into the Groesbeck Museum, and frankly I don’t give a shit. We also don’t know what they might have with them, so far as Titan tech is concerned, up to and including a possible goddamn Titan. So, unlike our usual missions, this ain’t gonna be easy.”

The Marines laughed, which was good. Considering what they might be facing, laughs could soon be in very short supply.

“
On this op we’ll be using powered armor. It won’t make us as strong or as fast as a Titan, but in numbers it should help even the odds. Our primary weapon, though, will be our EM grenades. I know, those usually ain’t good for more than knocking out local electronics, but Titans – being what they are and all – should get their noggins good and scrambled by ‘em. In theory it’ll do the trick, but we all know what can happen with theories.”

Another collective laugh rippled through the Marines. Townsend admired the easy air of command that Hill possessed. The man was of average height and build, but that didn’t stop him from being one of the deadliest fighters the captain had ever seen. What made his especially adept at his job, though, was his complete lack of mercy or sympathy, qualities reflected in the men under his command.

“
To make things more interesting,” he continued, “we’re not the only dogs in this hunt. Seems there’s also an Alliance Federal Investigator backed up by a SWAT team. Should they find our targets before we do, we are authorized to terminate, along with anyone else in the area. We’re salting the earth on this one.”

Townsend had wondered if that bit of news would stir up unease amongst the Marines, but the lack of reaction in their eyes said it didn’t. Like everyone else on the
Culper
, they followed orders without question or hesitation.

“
Make no mistake,” Hill said, pounding a finger on the podium like a gavel, “we are to end this threat before it becomes any greater, and we’re to make sure no one lives to tell the tale of it. Once again our country calls us to defend it at all costs from all threats, and we will answer that call. Do I get an ooh-rah?”

The sound of Hill’s Marines belting out a collective “Ooh-rah!” was loud enough to make Townsend’s ears ring.

“
Alright then, people,” Hill said, a small smile adding yet another line to his sun-cracked face, “The
Culper
’s stealth systems are running at maximum, so we should be docked and burned into that place before they even know what’s going on. If we’re not firing the first shots, I’m going to be sorely disappointed. Now move out.”

As the Marines stomped out of the briefing room, Townsend looked at each of them as they went by, and steely resolve was in every eye he caught. A shiver went up his spine, glad they were on his side. He almost felt pity for the people they were going after, but he squashed that down and made his way to the bridge. Before the Marines could complete their mission, he had to get them there, and he aimed to do just that.

Alex paced back and forth between the rapid response shuttle’s cockpit and the rear staging area. All around him Alliance SWAT agents checked their weapons and made sure their body armor was strapped down correctly, but he was too busy wearing a groove in the floor to do the same. All he could think about was Alicia and her son. They were on the run, possibly with a pirate holding a gun to their backs. He’d never felt so helpless, so unprepared.

“
Agent Delgado,” the shuttle’s pilot said over his shoulder, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’d appreciate it if you’d stop that. You’ve been doing it since we left Minerva Terminus.”

The co-pilot snickered. “You’re like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

Alex looked over at the two men as they flew the shuttle through the thickening field of rocks that littered the space around Hygeia. Lanes had been cleared between the different conduit rings and the asteroid cluster, but that didn’t mean the occasional errant asteroid didn’t stray in from time to time.

“
Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you could see me.”

“
I can’t,” the pilot replied. “We can hear you though. Clomp! Clomp! Clomp! It’s driving me crazy.”

Alex sighed. “Understood. I’ll… I’ll go to the back and get ready.”

“
You do that,” the co-pilot said. “Shouldn’t take too long to get to Hygeia, so the sooner you’re good to go, the better.”

Restraining another sigh, Alex turned away from the cockpit and stepped toward the men and women in the rear. They were all dressed in dark gray uniforms overlaid with black plates of armor. Black helmets sat on racks along the sides, and beneath them were rows of rifles, pistols, and grenades. It was an impressive collection of firepower, but when it came to SWAT he expected nothing less.

“
You ever been on a raid, Delgado?” a man said sitting on a bench to Alex’s right. The nametag on his chest read HUTCHINS. He was the agent in charge of the SWAT team.