Star Crusades Nexus: Book 09 - The Black Rift (18 page)

Again the man nodded yes.

"We've all seen the material. Last night we saw the latest report from Helios Prime. There were some big arguments, and one guy was dragged out. I haven't seen him since."

"Okay, so you know what's happening? The President is in the middle of a violent coup, but the military are not going to help. The only reason this could happen is because our troops are off fighting at Helios. Any other time they would have stepped in and kicked him to the ground. Now it's up to us. Will you help end this?"

The man looked at the bodies on the ground and back to Johnson.

"Who are you, Sir?"

Johnson straightened himself, doing his best to look the part.

"I'm Intelligence Director Johnson, head of Alliance Intelligence."

The man tried to smile, but no matter how hard he tried, it just wouldn't happen.

"We were told you were executed, along with the traitors."

Johnson laughed.

"Do I look dead? No, none of those bodies is mine, and I'll tell you something else. They are not Alliance generals because right now, all of our senior commanders are in their bases on ships or engaged in battle."

"So who are they?"

Johnson shrugged and began moving across the open ground. He walked without bothering to hide himself and simply stood up tall and straight, as if he owned the entire place.

"Is he mad?" asked the soldier.

Agent Colee shook his head.

"Often the best place to hide is right in plain sight. Does he look out of place?"

The Director walked for nearly half a minute until reaching the statue dedicated to the glorious dead of the Uprising. He paused, looked at the detail, and tried not to laugh; or even worse, to attack the piece of so-called art. The monstrous creature with its tentacles reaching out resembled nothing he'd seen in the war.

And who are these, the brave soldiers of the Confederacy fighting to save the city?

He looked down at their armored forms and tried to imagine who of them had actually fought the creatures.

Perhaps the reality of collaboration would have made a lesser statue.

He then looked at the bodies that had been unceremoniously dumped on the ground. A quick look confirmed there was nobody watching. He bent down and pulled back a cover. The pale, puffy flesh made it hard to make out, but one thing he instantly noticed was a tattoo on the neck. He leaned in closer and then worked out the unusual shape. It looked like an antenna with the round shape of a planet underneath it.

The War Correspondence Unit for the ANN?

He pulled back the covers to check the others and found the same markings on them all. He closed his eyes upon the realization that these were another group of people that had died, essentially due to his own orders. He pulled his secpad from his side, held it over them, and recorded a video sequence. Using the secpad was his first mistake. Three bullets hit the sculpture, and one struck his ankle, instantly felling him.

Crap!

Johnson rolled and kept on rolling until he was to the side of the great piece of art. Gunfire ripped into his position, but he was now in big trouble.

You idiot, now what?

He looked down at the equipment he had to hand, a secpad and a pistol. With one in each hand, he looked between them while at the same time a flurry of shells hit above him. Chunks of stone ripped from the plinth, and slivers of metal smashed off to clatter on the ground. One of the creature's tentacles seemed to explode above him.

Secpad, get the information out there.

He ignored the gunfire and sent the data packets directly to the public reception point at the Alliance News Network. It was the standard way to send unsolicited data. In less than ten seconds, he'd finished and lifted himself up to take a look.

What the hell?

Two groups of soldiers from the Colonial Guard were spread out and engaged in a violent gun battle. He estimated there were at least twenty on each side. It was the one on the right where he had just left that seemed to be doing best. They used cover and spread out while the other group moved headlong in a desperate attempt to overrun their position.

Young hotheads versus experience, always the damn same.

The gun battle was short, and he was forced to watch from the exposed position at the sculpture. Finally, the last of the soldiers was sent running, and a pair pursued them a short distance before falling back. The soldier that had helped him before came over to him but kept low in case he was shot at.

"Director, the President is trying to escape."

That surprised even him. He stood up, and the man positioned himself in the way of any stray soldiers.

"My entire squad, bar two, has refused their illegal orders. There's a message from our Colonel to begin a crackdown."

"But it's not working, right?"

The man nodded slowly.

"Less than nine hundred turned up for duty today, out of eight thousand. With this order, only one company has stayed back. They are right there."

He pointed off to the domed structure at the side of the palace.

"The Senate building?"

The soldier nodded.

"Yes, Sir. They are fortifying it as we speak."

The two operatives signaled to him, but for now he stayed where he was. Even so, he lifted himself up and looked carefully at the man.

"We have to end this today. If Harrison escapes, he will carry on this little insurrection of his."

The man sniffed, opened his visor, and rubbed at his nose.

"What are you thinking?"

Johnson was without access to his normal data sources, but he did know the city and the people. He considered the options for a few more seconds, and then a small, slightly crooked smile formed on his face.

"Get your men and meet me at the entrance to the Senate building in five minutes."

The man nodded and went to leave, but he stopped and looked back.

"I can get sixty, maybe seventy guys. That won't be enough to break in. Harrison has a picked company of man and carefully chosen ground."

Johnson’s expression implied he completely agreed.

"Sergeant," he said for the first time using the man's rank, "What's your unit’s designation?"

"Pegasus Company, Sir."

"Well, Sergeant. I'll get your winged horses back up in a matter of minutes. President Harrison will stay and fight, but only for so long as he think he can win."

"Very well."

With that, the man was gone, and Director Johnson was left on his own. He didn't waste time and ran to cover the ground to his two comrades. Both were still hunkered down behind the column.

"Sir, that was a little..."

"A little what?"

"Uh...a little crazy, Sir."

Johnson couldn't argue with that. Instead, he looked back and pointed at the opposite end of the palace. The columns of smoke had increased from one to three, and visibility was already decreasing. He'd seen footage of this kind of thing before. The first time had been during the popular uprising on Kerberos. More recently, he'd seen just the same on Helios, amongst the Zathee who had turned to violence against their Animosh oppressors.

"We need manpower, and outside the palace we have untold thousands."

Agent Colee checked his pistol and looked in the same direction.

"How do we know they won't turn on us?"

Director Johnson tapped his temple. Agent Colee leaned in and stared intently at the Director's eye.

"You're wearing a Retina?

He blinked with just the one eye.

"Since we were attacked in our offices."

He pulled out his secpad.

"I've been transmitting since we left. ANN have been getting this via the emergency transponder."

Agent Colee looked less confused already.

"I see. That would explain why they are already out there protesting."

"So let's find a way for to them help us. Follow me."

He ran from their current position and down one of the narrower paths through the public gardens. There were large stretches of open ground all around them, but line of sight to most of the buildings was interrupted by shrubs, bushes, trees, and columns. Agent Bowyer spotted movement to the right and ducked down just as gunshots blasted out at them

"Get down!"

Director Johnson ducked but refused to stop. A pair of bullets struck the ground, and Agent Colee joined Agent Bowyer as they took aim. Both fired precise shots, but at this distance, the soldiers with their rifles had a substantial advantage. They succeeded in suppressing them for a few seconds.

"I've got this," said Agent Bowyer.

He looked to his superior.

"Keep going. I'll buy you time."

More shots hit near their position, and Johnson placed his hand on his agent's shoulder.

"Thank you."

He ran as fast as he could and ignored the shots coming in. Agent Bowyer moved one step at a time toward the gunfire. As all of the agents had been trained, he made use of careful shooting, never wasting the chance to hit a target if it presented itself. Something moved overhead, but he was far too busy to take his eye off the three, perhaps four targets ahead. He took aim at another moving shape.

"Sir, we've got air cover in the area, be advised."

It seemed to take an age, but after another minute of running, Director Johnson and Agent Colee were at the wall and the bottom end of the palace. The memorial site was overgrown and the sections of ships and war machines covered in graffiti. The old path ran to a large square door that was blocked with a thick and heavily rusted chain. Two small pillboxes protected each side, with sentry turrets tracking back and forth.

"Look, they've activated the sentry guns. No wonder they are building barricades."

Agent Colee reached for his secpad.

"Sir, I can do this."

He moved off to the panel at the side of the door and entered his security details. The override unit flipped out, and he placed his secpad nearby. Electronics and security overrides were a standard part of the Intelligence Division training. Director Johnson waited patiently while his agent deactivated the guns. He looked back and could see Agent Bowyer taking cover alongside the wreckage of a CES engineer suit. The armor had been stripped of weapons, and it had been placed to look as though it was standing as a sentinel against an invader. The agent might not know, but Director Johnson knew too well that the only CES units involved in the fighting on Terra Nova were those that had been on the Confederate side. The attackers led by General Rivers, Spartan, and the rest.

"Almost there, just a few more seconds."

The sound of turbofans increased in volume, as did the amount of dust being kicked up around the open space. Every second the level increased so much that he was forced to move nearer to the wall.

"Almost there," said Agent Colee.

The only way to tell that the weapon system was armed was by the color of the light at the back of each pillbox tower. It was currently green. Agent Colee looked back and gave the okay signal. At the same time, the lights flashed once and then turned red.

"Good. Now the door."

He looked back to the unit and began pressing buttons.

"Get away from the panel!" said a high-pitched, heavily amplified voice.

Agent Colee ignored the words and continued to press buttons. The craft, a small civilian Cobra shuttle twisted about to give the passenger a clear view of the large locked door. A light flashed, and a round struck Agent Colee in the arm. It must have been high-velocity because it slammed him hard into the wall. He dropped to the ground unconscious.

"Bastards!" Director Johnson shouted.

He turned around and took aim with his own pistol. Another round fired and missed him by mere centimeters. He took his time and aimed at the armored glass cockpit. With a single squeeze, he sent one high-power round straight through the glass and into the goggles of the pilot. The craft spun about lazily, and to Johnson's satisfaction, the shooter tumbled out and fell the short distance to the ground. Even as the man struggled to move, he took aim and put another right into the man's chest.

"Stay down," he muttered.

As the craft continued to spin out of control, he moved back to the control panel. The code sequence had been bypassed, and all that remained was to select ‘deactivate’ on the screen. With one tap, there was a loud clunk, and the chain dropped to the floor. Nothing else happened, and for one terrible moment he doubted his plan. Then centimeter-by-centimeter the door opened. A hand pushed inside and then all kinds of pandemonium ensued. Dozens of men and women wearing improvised riot gear ran inside. Some wore sports armor, others looted security gear, but every one of them wanted to get inside the palace grounds.

"That way!" Director Johnson shouted, pointing into the grounds.