Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1) (11 page)

“Just long enough to grab a bite in the mess before gettin’ back on the road,” Lee assured him. “We’ve still got a couple of stops to make in a few of the border systems before the day’s out, so we won’t be long.”

“Hope you like powdered eggs,” the old man grunted.

“Thanks for the tip, but I’ll stick with the coffee,” Lee added, to which the officer grunted again as he breezed over the final page. Then, with a quick ka-clunk of his red ink stamp, he ripped off a copy and handed the rest back to Lee.

“Take the main drag outside three stops up and turn right. The mess is two buildings over on your left. Just follow the stench.”

“Appreciate it,” Lee smiled and headed for the door.

Offering a quick nod to the sleepwalking guard as the group passed, Lee looked over his shoulder to see a trio of workers, already en route to the shuttle’s cargo hold.

“I owe ya one, Wilson,” he thought, watching them reach for the first stack of contraband crates.

Spanning roughly three square miles under the night sky, the Morrius base wasn’t unlike other Alystierian installations that they’d encountered throughout the game
.
Because it had been established as a temporary means of housing personnel and resources during the depot’s construction, many of its buildings were comprised of either basic cinder block or pre-fab metal, thus making them easy to throw up in bulk and capable of serving virtually any purpose. Organized in a grid-like layout of rows, the complex was divided by a series of makeshift dirt roads which during peak hours were primarily occupied by troop haulers, canvas hooded supply trucks, and the occasional jeep. For the moment however, headlights were few and far between at such an early hour, and Lee was thankful for that.

Still, with personnel transports and supply shuttles scheduled around the clock, the same couldn’t always be said for the sky; and hearing the rumbled of new thrusters in the distance, Lee looked up to see two sets of lights on approach.

“Alright guys, that’s the night shift comin’ in so we’re officially on the clock,” he commanded, tapping one of his sidearm’s thumb pegs to access the digital map in his HUD. “It’s 05:15, which means a lot of these guys are gonna be rollin’ out of their racks in the next 15 minutes. According to this, the technical staff barracks are roughly 30 yards from here toward the southeast corner, so how ‘bout we hustle it up.”

In full agreement, the five wasted no time ducking into the shadow of a nearby alleyway and proceeding up the path toward their target—Danny on point, as always. Rounding the corner of the final structure, Danny’s character flashed a quick closed fist, signaling everyone to halt and be silent.

“Dude, what’s the holdup?” Link groaned aloud, drawing a vehement “
shhhhh!!!
” from the others.

“Volume-sensitive mics, moron! Remember?” Mac whispered a scold.

Craning his neck around the corner, Danny watched as a lone Alystierian soldier—barefoot and dressed in a wrinkled undershirt and fatigue pants—stepped through the door of the barracks. Yawning as he stretched, the man knelt down to take a seat on the steps below—coffee cup in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other.

“Okay, looks like we’ve got an early bird coming out for his first smoke of the day,” Danny whispered, spying the momentary flicker of a lighter in the distance. “It appears he’s alone for now, and we do need a keycard to get in, so what’s the play? Do we take him out?”

“Negative,” Lee answered. “We start shootin’ this early and every guard, officer, and tech-head with a gun will come runnin’ out of the woodwork to shoot back. Just wait for him to finish his smoke, then slowly head his way.
Slowly
! Remember, we’re all one big, happy Alystierian family here, so keep it casual.”

As instructed, Danny held still at the building’s edge as the man puffed away at his morning nicotine before stepping out ahead of the others to begin his stroll toward the building.

“Morning,” the soldier said in a throaty voice to the five strangers trudging up the gravel road toward him. “How’d it go up there tonight?”

“It went,” Lee said in his best weary voice. “I swear man, it don’t matter how many of us they cram into this project, it just doesn’t seem to be enough, ya know?” The soldier nodded in full agreement, exhaling the final drag from his cigarette before flicking it to the ground beside him.

“Yeah tell me about it,” he huffed. “This is my third trip out here.
Third
! I’m the chief engineer back on my ship and believe me, you have no idea how much work is piling up on me right now. But for some reason—god knows why—these idiots act like I’m the only guy in the empire that knows how to wire a basic comm system. Go figure.”

“Comm guy, huh?” Lee asked.

“That’s what they tell me,” the soldier snorted, visibly annoyed. “On a more personal note, this isn’t exactly how I envisioned spending my honeymoon, either.”

“Congratulations,” Lee offered. “When did you tie the knot?”

“Last week,” he beamed, though his exuberance faded quickly after that. “I was supposed to be on a beach right now, sipping cocktails with the new Mrs. and coming up with new excuses why we never made it out of our room for dinner but
nooooo
. I have to get an emergency call from my CO the night before the ceremony, telling me I’m being redeployed back to this craphole!”

“Typical,” Lee scoffed.

“Amen to that!” the man agreed. “Well, speaking of the boss, I’ve got an early morning tête à tête with him before check on, so let me run. Good talkin’ to you,” he said, offering a handshake and reaching for the barracks door.

“Likewise,” said Lee. “Don’t work too hard, alright?”

The man laughed. “You kidding me? These inconsiderate jerks oughta be happy I’m even here. As far as I’m concerned, any productivity that might occur during that time is just charity on my part.”

And with that, he slipped through the door and vanished into a nearby stairwell.

“Chatty fellow,” Danny remarked once they were alone.

“Ah, give the guy a break,” said Lee. “You’d be pissed too if your honeymoon had gotten highjacked by the Powers That Be.”

“You know he’s not real, right?” noted Danny.

“Crazy, huh?”

Peering down the barracks’ dimly lit main corridor, Lee counted eight doors on each side of the hall before it turned off to the right into what was no doubt more rooms. Stepping to the closest one—marked “A-1”—he examined the small removable tab posted beside the door. On it, there were nine names, all written in pencil.

“Looks like we’ve got nine unis in this one,” Lee gestured to the tab. “We need five, one bein’ a female. Everybody take a door and let me know when you find one.”

“You mean these guys do co-ed bunks?” Link exclaimed. “Man, I’m totally playing for the wrong team here!”

“Most of the time, no. But when they’ve got as many people crammed into a project as they do here, they’ll stack some of the lower-level staff like techs and med personnel for the sake of space. Now if you’re done with your Peeping Tom fantasy, how ‘bout you find me my marks?”

The group fanned out and began searching their respective panels, moving quietly from door to door. Finally, Mac signaled that she had something.

“Looks like six in this one, and one of ‘em is a chick,” she told the others. “That’s the smallest number I’ve seen so far.”

Nodding, Lee removed the suppressed pistol from his avatar’s shirt and readied himself at the door handle while the others did the same. Then, following Lee’s silent three-fingered count, the group slipped through the door and assumed their positions in front of their respective bunks as, for a brief instant, the pitch-black of the room ignited with a synchronous series of muted muzzle flashes. When the firing finally ceased, Danny reached for the light switch to reveal a total of six blood-soaked beds before him.

“Damn it, lads,” Hamish frowned, cramming his sidearm back into his shirt as he reemerged from the bathroom. “That was just plan mean, killing them in their sleep like that.”

“Yeah I know,” Link snickered. “It was awesome!”

“Eh,” Hamish shrugged. “I don’t like it. No sport in it at all.”

“Whatever,” Link said, poking one of the corpses with the barrel of his gun. “Dead is dead. As long as it’s them and not me, that’s all I give a crap about.”

Amused, and a little disturbed by his friend’s morbid sense of humor, Lee motioned to Danny. “Danny, you’re on the door. Mac, you’re up.”

Wasting no time, Mac hurried to the bedside footlockers of each of the slain technicians, and rifling through their contents, she recovered the ID badges from each. Then, retrieving a small rectangular device from her shirt pocket, she slid each ID through the slit on its side, mindful to make sure that each one coded properly.

“Okay, that’s it for the badges,” Mac said, scurrying for the computer terminal in the corner of the room. “But I’m gonna need a couple of minutes to update our security profiles in the network.”

“No problem, just don’t dally,” Lee said with a glance at his avatar’s watch. “We’re on a tight timetable here.”

Choosing to ignore the hard, sarcastic eye roll of the female avatar in front of him, Lee stepped past Hamish to take stock of the bathroom that Hamish had just cleared.

“Danny, stay on the door and keep an eye out,” he said, rejoining the others by the bunks. “Link and Hamish, while she’s doin’ that we need to pile these bodies into the head, lock the door, then make these beds with some fresh linens out of that closet over there.”

“What, we housekeeping now?” Link protested.

“Yeah,” said Lee, “because if someone comes in here after we’re gone, we need it to look like these guys have already cleared out for work. Follow?”

“Fine,” Link relented. “I’ll take Manwich duty if you guys will make the beds. Never could get those top-sheet corners right.”

“And if somebody checks the john?” Danny asked, drawing a shrug from Lee.

“Well, in that case we’re screwed, so cross your fingers and hope nobody around here runs outta TP this mornin,’ alright?

Five minutes later, once Hamish and Lee had finished the last of the dreaded top-sheet corners, Lee rose to his feet and glanced back to the computer terminal.

“Tick tock, Mac,” he said curtly. “We can blend in to the crowd at the security gate without any problem because it’ll be filled with people. But the folks in the next room might get that we don’t belong here if we don’t get a move on.”

“Keep your panties on,” she muttered, fingers still racing over the keyboard. Then, with a final, emphatic pound of the “enter” key, she jumped up to rejoin the others.

“Hey, just out of curiosity,” Mac asked, cocking an eyebrow at Lee. “What was your plan to get past security into main engineering once we’re onboard the depot? I mean, were you just gonna use your rugged good looks and award-winning charm or what?”

His lips thinned.

“Uh huh, that’s what I thought, McFly,” she snarked. “FYI, I took the liberty of planting a phony maintenance requisition for work on the energy core while I was in the system. That should give security a valid reason for your presence there when you hit the checkpoint.”

“Thanks,” he said, a little embarrassed.

“Don’t mention it,” she chirped, obviously proud of herself.

“Hey guys, you gotta come in here and check this out!” Link called from the bathroom.

A little startled, Lee rushed inside to find Link propped lazily against the wall.

“Whoa, where’d they go?” Lee asked, scanning the spotless tile floors for the dead Alystierian technicians that Link had been assigned to place there.

Then it hit him. Hamish had opened all of the bathroom stalls earlier when he’d cleared the room. Now, inexplicably, each one was closed shut.

Looking back to Link, who was all but giddy over his idea, Lee hunched over to see six sets of legs dangling in front of the toilets inside.

“You’re kiddin’ me, right?” he said through a twisted expression.

“I know,” Link beamed. “I call it ‘The Elvis.’”

****

Exiting the barracks back out into the main thoroughfare, the group returned to the docking area where they were greeted instantly by a weary mob of 80-plus soldiers and technicians, each of whom carried the same “tired and pissed to be here” expression as their newlywed friend from earlier.

“IDs at the ready as you approach the gate, please,” the guard ahead instructed as the sleepy mass before him awaited passage by his terminal. “IDs displayed, please.”

Reaching for the small laminated card hanging from his neck, Lee inspected the badge. A double sided piece, the back side featured the bar code which now contained all of their forged information. The front however, was an entirely different ordeal.

There, backed in its signature blood red, was the black silhouette of an ancient broad sword. Dark and foreboding, with its hard edged lines and thick, hefty blade, the weapon rested squarely atop the white silhouette of an eccentrically shaped star, and it did so in such a way that the black sword seemed to impale its white counterpart. According to legend, both had been chosen for a very specific reason, though in 41 missions that’d never been revealed. Still, the inscription at the base of the Alystierian flag left little doubt as to its intended message. Two words which, when translated, meant simply, “Divinely Triumphant.”

“You sure these things are good to go?” Lee muttered, a little nervous as he and Mac approached the gate.

She frowned an annoyed response.

“IDs?” the guard huffed, and handing his over, Lee glanced past the man’s shoulder to see his forged name, along with those of his team, appear on the monitor; Waters, Gilmore, Mason, Wright and… Joplin.

“Thank you, move along please,” the guard droned, hurrying them through the checkpoint to keep the line moving.

Veering left through the crowd toward their designated transport ship, the group trotted up the boarding ramp and proceeded down the main deck into the passenger cabin. Slumping down into his seat, Lee exhaled with relief.

“So I’m gonna step out on a limb here and guess that the original names on these IDs probably weren’t the four members of Pink Floyd?” he said to Mac who dropped down into the chair beside him