Outriders (47 page)

“You busy now?” said Wright.

Uncle H chuckled, and looked at Baby Vegas.

“Hangar 17,” Baby Vegas said. “We can be out in three hours.”

Two and a half hours later, they were loading the last of their gear onto Uncle H’s ship,
The Lightfinger.

“A bit on the nose there, don’t you think?” Lincoln said to Wright, pointing at the name. She nudged him with her elbow, as Uncle H was only a few feet away.

“Hey, you hear about Flashtown?” Uncle H said.

“No,” Wright answered. “What now?”

“Got raided by some feds.”

Wright snorted. “
Whose
feds?”

“Don’t know. Some think Eastern Coalition, some UAF, some CMA. Doesn’t really matter. Couple hundred dudes showed up, made a big mess, confiscated some gear. Mayor Jon’s in a bad way.”

“Sounds like Mayor Jon decided to clean house and blame it on outsiders.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” Uncle H said with a shrug. “Still though. Probably gonna steer clear of there for a bit.”

“That’s probably good practice no matter what, H.”

“Yeah, but… the place has style, you know? And there’s this one noodle bar on deck 34 that’s worth shooting your way to.”

“What about on the way back out?” Lincoln asked.

Uncle H looked at him and smiled. “If you didn’t make it back out, it’d still be worth it.”

“We’re cleared to go,” Baby Vegas called from the front. “Get yourselves comfortable, and if anybody stops us to ask questions, keep your mouths shut!”

T
HE TEAM SPENT
the entire trip in jump seats back in one of the cargo holds. It wasn’t luxurious, but actually wasn’t that much more uncomfortable than most of the military transports Lincoln had been on. Not quite comfortable enough to sleep, but he was at least able to doze.

They’d already been over the schematics, laid out the plan as best they could. It was amazing how much information they had access to, once they knew what questions to ask. Between Thumper’s work and ample support from 23rd, they’d tracked Amanda Flood, or whoever she was now, down to a compound in Rocknest. From there, it was just a matter of pointing a few satellites in the right direction, and they had enough to work with to plan the assault.

But now, on the way in, he couldn’t stop thinking about Mike. Mike was fine. Alive and well. Just back home, instead of on mission with his teammates. But somehow, that didn’t matter. Not as much as it should have, or as much as Lincoln wanted it to. The fact remained that Mike had been killed in action, under Lincoln’s command. As strange as it may have seemed, as hard as it would have been to explain to anyone else, the fact remained that Lincoln now faced an entirely new burden of leadership. It was bad enough to lose one of his people. But now, he faced the very real possibility of losing his people more than once. And that thought nearly crushed him. How many times would he see Mike die? How many memories would he accumulate of his friends, killed in action, over and over again?

Undoubtedly the four-stars back home had thought this was a tremendous breakthrough, an unmitigated triumph over death and loss of warfighting capability. To Lincoln, as a team leader, it seemed something much closer to hell.

“Sure could use Mikey on this,” Sahil said, from across the bay.

“You’ll do just fine,” Wright said.

“Yeah, I know. But I always feel better when he’s on the long gun.”

Apparently Lincoln wasn’t the only one thinking about their missing teammate. And he was missed, sorely. Lincoln hadn’t really noticed how much the team needed Mike’s easy nature to round them out. And, now that he thought about it, he hadn’t really noticed when he’d started considering himself such a part of the team, either.

Baby Vegas came in over internal comms.

“We’re coming up on a CMA check,” she said. “Then we’ll be headed down-planet. We’ll let you know when we’re on approach.”

“Thanks, BV,” Wright answered.

“Almost go time,” Lincoln said.

“Sure could use Mikey on this,” Sahil said again.

“
T
WO HOSTILES
,” Sahil said. “North side, three hundred meters.”

“Copy that, I see them,” Lincoln answered. “Thumper, you good?”

“Got a smoker,” she replied. “Trying to wait until he goes back inside.”

“How much time do you need at the box?”

“Depends on what I find when I get there,” Thumper said. “Thirty seconds at least. Couple minutes at most.”

“Sahil, you have a good line to her?”

“Yeah.”

“Wright and I are moving up.”

“Roger,” Thumper said.

Lincoln led the way on the approach, with Wright close behind, just off his left shoulder. The compound was isolated, built on an outcropping thrust out in an artificial lake, and surrounded by a wall, three meters high. The main gate didn’t have any guards posted outside, but their early reconnaissance had mapped out several vantage points from the central house that had clear lines of sight to the entrance. There was too much courtyard to cross between the gate and the nearest building. They’d decided the infiltration team would go over the wall; that meant Lincoln and Wright.

“All right,” Thumper said. “Smoker just left. Sahil, am I good to move?”

“You’re good,” Sahil answered.

“Thumper, moving up.”

Lincoln reached the wall of the compound and dropped to a crouch. Wright slid in behind him, covering the opposite direction. The darkness of the Martian night and the limited lighting around the wall probably made their reactive camo unnecessary, but they were both running it anyway. Judging from what they’d seen earlier, their suits gave them an overwhelming advantage, but when it came to this kind of work, Lincoln never wanted to go into a fair fight. He’d take any and every advantage he could get.

“On the box now,” Thumper reported.

“We’re at the wall,” Lincoln answered. “Holding for you.”

“Sixty seconds,” she said.

“Prepping ascenders,” Wright said. She released a pair of palm-sized drones, which lofted silently upward, each spooling out a thin cable as they went.

While the ascenders attached themselves at the top, Lincoln pulled a device off his harness and affixed it to the wall next to him. A guard house was on the opposite side. The device was a penetrating scanner, and once it had identified human signatures, it would track them and continuously update the team’s threat matrix without requiring anyone on the team to maintain visual contact. When it came online, the scanner showed five figures manning the guard station. That was two more than they’d seen throughout the day. Five was a lot to deal with.

The guard house posed the first big risk; that was where the most immediate response would come from. Thumper was working on the automated security system, but there were redundancies built in. For Lincoln and Wright to breach the guard house undetected, Thumper had to bring the system down from an external source. But once she took it offline, Lincoln and Wright only had a few seconds to get in and disable the system from the inside, to prevent the whole thing from going off.

And with five hostiles inside, that was going to be tricky work.

“Thirty seconds,” Thumper said.

Lincoln and Wright hooked in to the ascenders, activated the retractors, and climbed the wall. They held just below the top.

“Sahil, are we good to top the wall?” Lincoln asked.

“Negative, stay put,” he answered. “Fella on the balcony, main house.”

They held position, feet against the wall, waiting for the all-clear. Even though he knew the chances that anyone could see them were remote, Lincoln still felt exposed and mostly helpless, suspended there.

“Ten seconds,” Thumper said.

“Lincoln, you’re clear to top,” Sahil said. “Thump, you got two hostiles headed around your way.”

“We’re going over,” Lincoln said. He switched to direct channel with Wright, and counted it off. “One, two, three.”

On three, they simultaneously completed the ascent, clambered over the wall, and reset on the opposite side. From there, Wright descended just far enough to where she could kick off the wall and reach the balcony on the second floor of the guard house. Lincoln continued all the way to the ground level.

“Box is tapped,” Thumper said. “I’m pulling back.”

Lincoln unhooked from the ascender, drew in close against the back wall of the guard house. Above him, Wright slid silently over the balcony rail and into position.

“Wright, in position.”

“Lincoln, in position.”

“Thumper, good to go.”

“Sahil,” Lincoln said. “I’m gonna need your help downstairs.”

“Roger, Link, I got you. Two hostiles front room. One in the back.”

Lincoln pulled his short-barreled rifle in tight, slid up next to the rear door, let his suit scan the lock and spoof the credentials.

“Wright, you have good marks?”

“Roger, good marks,” she said.

Lincoln activated the lock on the rear door, grasped the handle and turned it, keeping his weapon shouldered with one hand.

“Go on Thumper’s count. Thumper… on you.”

“Stand by…” Thumper said. And then, “All right, security shut down in five, four, three, two, one. Go, execute, execute, execute.”

Before she’d finished saying her first “execute”, Lincoln was already in motion. The rear door swung smoothly open, and before the man inside could even turn at the sound, Lincoln had felled him with three quick shots. One of the men in the front room cried out in surprise, but in the next moment, Lincoln was there, dispatching him before he could sound any alarm. The second man in the front room was already down, taken by Sahil’s long range shot.

“First floor, clear,” Lincoln said.

“Top floor, clear,” Wright responded.

He let his weapon dangle on its sling, and went to work on the console, quickly overriding the failsafe. The whole team held still for fifteen seconds, waiting for any sign that they’d been discovered. But there was no hostile response, no alarm, no shouted warning.

“Looks clear,” Sahil said.

Wright rejoined Lincoln on the first floor, and they exited through the rear entrance, and took up position at one corner. Inside the compound was much more well lit, and there wasn’t a covered approach from anywhere by the outer wall to the main house. There wasn’t much hope of reaching the target building without alerting someone to trouble, so the team had decided to go ahead and alert them themselves.

“Thumper, what’s the word on power?”

“Almost there, Link,” she said. “Charge is set, but I’m blocked. Got two hostiles between me and approach.”

“Sahil?” Lincoln said.

“I see ’em,” he answered. “You want the tall one, or the fat one?”

“I’ll take the tall one,” Thumper said. “Be harder for you to miss the fat one.”

“Sure do wish Mikey was here,” Sahil said, and then a moment later. “All right, I’m dialed in. Say when.”

“Three, two, one,” said Thumper, then, “fire, fire, fire.”

Lincoln couldn’t hear the shots, but a few seconds later, Thumper reported.

“Good hits. Two hostiles down. I’m moving to position.”

Wright recalled the ascenders, and then redeployed one towards the main house. She, again, would take the top floor, and work her way down. Under normal circumstances, Lincoln would never have sent anyone off on their own, armor or no, but they had too much ground to cover too quickly to be able to stick together. He just had to hope for the best.

“Thumper, in position.”

“Everyone set?” Lincoln asked.

“Sahil, set.”

“Wright, set.”

“I already said I was good,” Thumper said.

“All right. Thumper, hit it.”

“Detonating.”

A muffled thump sounded from the opposite side of the main house, and an instant later, the lights sparked out with a dull buzz. Lincoln launched from the corner of the guard house in a dead sprint for the front door. Wright, behind him, veered off headed towards her ascension point. And through his visor, Lincoln saw Thumper’s tracking indicator closing in on the rear entrance.

“Hostile, top floor, east side,” Sahil reported. And then a second later. “Nevermind.”

Lincoln reached the front entrance and didn’t slow for the door. He barreled through it, his strength coupled with the weight of the suit destroying the locking mechanism as the door exploded open. Two armed men were in the front corridor, but neither one of them had time to raise their weapons before Lincoln’s rounds found his targets. He was already past them before they’d even finished falling. Lincoln’s visor automatically amplified the light, and though it was nearly pitch black for everyone else in the house, he saw everything in perfect clarity.

The first two rooms he checked were empty, but the centermost room had its door wide open. He moved through it with quick, but quiet, steps and there, standing by a window, he found what he’d come for.

She was facing away from the door, as if unconcerned by the darkness and the noises she had undoubtedly heard. But she had a pistol in her hand. Lincoln stood in the center of the room, silent, his weapon trained on her. A few moments later, thirty-five seconds after they’d shut off the main power and just as Thumper had predicted, the emergency power kicked in. The lights came back up, dimmer, and the woman turned. When she did, she flinched, but she didn’t seem all that surprised to see Lincoln standing there.

“Well,” she said. “I don’t believe I’ve seen
your
kind before. Seems I’ve attracted some very important attention.”

She looked younger than he’d expected, healthier. In her mid-forties, perhaps, and fit. Capable. Dangerous.

“It’s over, Amanda,” Lincoln said. “Put the weapon down, lie on the floor, and place your hands behind your back.”

She smiled.

“Amanda,” she said, and she gave a single, clear note of a laugh. “No one has called me that in a long time. A long time.”

Her voice was steady, with a pleasing tone.

“Get on the floor,” Lincoln repeated.

“Why?”

“Whatever you had hoped to accomplish, you’ve failed,” Lincoln said. “And I’m here to take you back to face the justice you deserve.”