Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1) (53 page)

“Under the rule of Chancellor Zier, sir?” Hourne asked, a hint of suggestion in his tone.

“Be careful, my young Captain,” the other cautioned. “Should such innuendo fall upon the wrong ears, you could find yourself in a most precarious position, to say the least. Alas,” Masterson sighed, “this is talk for another time. For now, I must return to the Kamuir to prepare for the attack. We deploy in six hours, and providing that they found the intel we left for them on the Phantom, they’ll be waiting for us when we hit Auran space, which means we must be well coordinated. But worry not, son, we will be. After today, their fleet will lie in ruins, and you will have been right here by my side from the beginning. As such, the days of your hiding will finally be at an end.”

“Thank you, sir!” Hourne declared, the heel of his boot stomping into the concrete floor with his salute.

“Very well,” said the commandant. “I’m off. Unfortunately, I must leave you here in charge.”

“But sir, I can—”

“But nothing,” Masterson halted his protest. “Unlocking the secrets of that fighter is our first priority, and I need someone I can trust overseeing its handling. That means you. When Dulaston falls, we’ll have a direct path to the Kendaran mine with little or no resistance to stop us and when that happens—and it will happen—that fighter will hold the key to making pure Caldrasite technology a reality. Understood?”

“Yes sir, and what of the woman?” Hourne asked. “Leaving the Phantom’s computer core intact for the Aurans to find means we run the risk of them using it to find their way back here. Tampering with it any further meant chancing discovery.”

“Not likely,” Masterson dismissed. “The whole point of this plan was to lure the majority of their fleet into the battle, and by my estimates, they’ll need every able-bodied man, woman, and ship available for any chance of success. A rescue operation for one fighter, or its pilot, won’t be a priority—not today, anyway.”

“So what is to be done with her?”

A dark pause ensued.

“Get what information you can, and then kill her,” Masterson said with glacial indifference. “Too many loose ends have a nasty tendency of turning themselves into a noose if one isn’t careful. You would be wise to remember that, my young captain.”

****

Following Noll off the lift onto Deck-12, Lee led the others down the hall toward the Praetorian’s armory, his mind still swimming in the informational soup of his briefing with Ryan and the sergeant major. Because Myrick 4 was located in such a remote part of space, not much was known about it beyond its thick, jungle terrain and mostly uninhabited status. Using a civilian cargo ship that Ryan had described as antiquated, at best, their unit would enter the system posing as smugglers on an undocumented supply run—a fitting cover given the region’s reputation as a haven for the less than scrupulous.

The downside of that story, however, was that they’d have to set down several miles away from the facility in order to preserve their ruse. After all, what smuggler in their right mind would do illegal business anywhere remotely close to a military base, filled with armed authorities and iron barred cells? This meant the final leg of their journey would have to be made by vehicle, and possibly even by foot, both of which burned up time—time Lee prayed that Mac still had.

From there, everything else was significantly less clear-cut. Finding the base wouldn’t be a problem—they could do that from orbit—but intel on its layout, resources, troop deployment capability, surface-to-air response time, and routine security protocols would all have to be scouted from the ground. That meant advanced reconnaissance—yet another element that would require time. But it had to be done, or else they’d be going in blind.

They did have one thing going for them, however. By the time they touched down on the planet’s surface, they’d have a solid two hours until dawn, which meant that the day shift of personnel would probably still be in their bunks, while the night shift wrapped up a 12-hour rotation.

Further complicating their situation was the presence of Mac’s Mako—a piece of equipment that absolutely could not be left in the hands of the Alystierian enemy. This meant that, in addition to being an extraction op, this was also a search-and-destroy mission, though in Lee’s mind, that part fell considerably further down the priority list. But if possible, one of them would have to split from the group, locate the stolen fighter and destroy, it while allowing themselves enough time to regroup with the team to break atmo, preferably with all of their skins intact.

Rounding the final corner, the group halted at the armory’s security checkpoint where a tall, dark-skinned soldier rose from his desk of gun parts, grease rags, and cleaning supplies.

“Staff Sgt. Wilson,” Noll greeted him. “I take it you’ve been briefed?”

“Yes sir, sure was,” Wilson answered, turning to the four strangers behind his CO. “I was really sorry to hear about your friend. Just from listening to folks around here talk, sounds like she was a pretty special lady.”

“She still is,” Lee said matter-of-factly, and Wilson nodded his understanding.

“Fair enough,” said the sarge. “You guys just tell me what you need to get her back, and we’ll make sure you have it—and then some. Name it and it’s yours.”

“Guns, guns, guns, and oh yeah—guns!” Link announced.

Wilson’s mouth twisted into a tight smile. “Oh, don’t you worry, gentlemen… guns? Guns we’ve got.”

Swiping his keycard through a nearby access panel, Wilson stepped aside as the massive vault door behind him groaned open, casting a momentary silence over the four men at his desk, each of whom stared in thunderstruck awe at what lay beyond its thick steel barricade: a two-story, sprawling labyrinth of pure firepower.

“Now we’re talking,” Danny marveled.

It was all there—packed, stacked, and racked—three crates deep by six crates high along shelf after shelf, and row after row, for as far as the eye could see. Assault rifles, sidearms, shotguns, explosives, launchers, artillery, tactical gear, onboard electronics, comm packages, custom camouflage, and enough ammunition to fuel a small war of its own, this place had everything, and it was all theirs for the taking.

Hearing two gasps and a penile reference behind him, Lee stepped toward the door.

“Hold on, Summerston,” Noll said, catching him by the arm as the others rushed inside. “This is the end of the line for me. Sgt. Wilson will take it from here and get you everything you need.”

Lee threw him a puzzled look. “Where ya headed, sir?”

“The admiral’s ready room,” said Noll. “We’ve gotta prep for a possible ground incursion.”

“You think it’ll come to that?”

The sergeant major shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s gonna be a helluva fight in orbit though, that’s for sure. At present, we only have 19 ships in range to join us and if too many of them falter, the Alystierians could breach our line for a surface attack. Anyway, that’s not why I came down here,” he shifted. “I wanted to wish you guys well out there, and tell you how sorry I am that I can’t be on deck to see you off.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lee said, truly grateful as he shook hands with arguably their biggest critic going into this. “Thanks for everything.”

“You guys have done a spectacular job—you really have,” Noll commended, “and you’re gonna be fine. Don’t get me wrong,” he chuckled. “I’d run this op myself, with an experienced crew if I could. But in lieu of that, and for what it’s worth, I’d send your team and not have a second thought about it. You can do this. Just remember what we taught you: Watch each other’s backs, and try to keep your heads on straight if things go sideways. Do all of that, and you’ll make it back in one piece—all of you.”

“Yes sir,” said Lee. “We’ll try to bear that in mind.”

Satisfied that there was nothing more to say, Noll turned to take his leave as Wilson gestured Lee into the vault.

“Sgt. Major Noll?” Lee called after him, not certain at first whether he wanted to say anything. “Stay alert out there, alright? Somethin’ about this just doesn’t smell right to me.”

Noll halted, turned, and raised a brow.

“I’m no expert when it comes to the history of your world,” said Lee, “but I do know mine, and back where I come from, we had a guy that went chargin’ headlong into a set of circumstances real similar to yours… a fella by the name of Custer.”

“Yeah?” said the sergeant major. “How’d that work out for him?”

Lee’s lips thinned. “Not that great, sir… just be careful. Masterson has another card to play here. I ain’t sure what it is, but watch for it.”

“Copy that,” Noll acknowledged with a look of gratitude, then vanished down the hall.

Stepping inside the armory where the high-powered shopping spree was already well underway, Lee grabbed an olive-drab duffel bag from the pile inside the door and proceeded to the first rack of A-90s. His thoughts still filled with Mac, and of the dark stories that Noll had spoken of that first night in the Milky Way’s mess hall, Lee’s jaw tightened as he slammed a handful of magazines into the duffel.

“Hey,” Danny looked up from across the aisle. “Relax, bro. She’s gonna be fine.”

“I hope so, Danny,” Lee murmured, press checking a rifle and throwing the strap over his shoulder. “I just can’t help but wonder what’s happenin’ to her right now, ya know? You heard that stuff Noll told us when we first got here, about what those people do to their prisoners, particularly the women.” He shuddered. “Hell man, it’s all my fault she’s even there to begin with.”

Danny’s expression went flat. “And how, exactly, do you figure that?” he retorted. “Last time I checked, we’re all adults here and we all came of our own accord. That’s kinda the point of a vote, remember?”

“Yeah, but I’m the guy who put us on Reiser’s radar,” Lee said miserably. “It was my ideas that got us through the game, my strategies that beat it. I scouted the environments, did all the workups, wrote all the briefings, and for what? So we could all fly away on some wild, interstellar road trip from hell where one of us gets kidnapped by serial rapists and the rest of us get killed tryin’ to mount some kind of half-assed rescue?” He snorted in disgust. “Reiser promised us this was never supposed to happen, and yet here we are. I just pray that Mac doesn’t pay the price for my foolishness.”

Danny spun around on his heels and glared at his best friend. “
Of all the ignorant, ridiculous, self-righteous…
” He broke off. “How can you possibly—in any way, shape or form—put this on yourself? What? Because one sunny day you strolled into the local gaming shop, picked up a random title, and thought ‘Gee, this could be kinda cool to play with my friends’… that somehow makes this
your
fault? Seriously, bro, there’s noble and then there’s just plain stupid.”

Lee rolled his eyes. “Danny—”

“Lee, you’re my brother, and I love you. But for now… shut your mouth and listen closely to what I’m about to tell you.” Danny dropped his bag to the ground and stood up straight to face Lee directly. “More times than not, I’m willing to sit back and let you shoulder far too much of the blame for a bad situation because—having known you as long as I have—I know that’s how you work through your issues. It’s just how your brain is wired, and I understand that… hell, even when things finally went south between you and that psycho you were married to, you did this. It didn’t matter that everyone around you—Mac included—was shouting from the mountaintops that you’d dodged a bullet, you still opted to lock yourself indoors and stew into a bottle of Jack about where you went wrong and how you could’ve been a better husband… and you know what?” Danny exclaimed with a finger in Lee’s chest. “You could’ve been! Lord knows I could’ve been, with both of my exes and pretty much every other pointless relationship I’ve ever been in. But at the end of the day, you know what that means? It means that I’m human, you’re human, and she’s still the same certifiable, psycho bitch who cheated,
period
, and that’s not on you, nor is what happened to Mac, and if she were here she’d kick my ass out of the way so she could be the one in your face, making the same point.”

Heaving a somber sigh, Lee moved to the rack of sidearms and picked up his favorite model—the .45—cramming it into a thigh rig.

“I appreciate that, Danny,” he said. “I really do. But regardless of how or why we all got here, the fact remains that Mac is alone out there, man, and as tough as she is, she’s no more ready to face somethin’ like this than the rest of us, and it mortifies me to think of what she’s goin’ through right now. What’s worse is that as it stands, there ain’t a damn thing I can do to stop it.”

“We all feel that way, Lee,” said Danny, “every one of us. That’s why, as mind-blowingly insane as all of this is, we’re with you on this mission.” Danny placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder, his expression turning rock solid. “We’re gonna get her outta there, bro. Bet on it, and god have mercy on any Alystierian son of a bitch who stands in our way, because I can assure you… none of us will.”

Staring into the fiercest look of determination he’d ever seen on another human being, Lee wondered if Danny would ever know how truly grateful he was for the honor of their friendship. Even spanning back to those earliest of days—in a beginner’s guitar class at Lions High—he always had been.

“Ya know…” Lee remarked, trying as best he could to stave off a smile that came anyway. “You really shoulda been rockin’ the Styx with that speech… just throwin’ it out there…”

Danny racked back the slide on his A-90, which echoed down the corridor with a loud, metallic
kla-klack
.

“Oh, these judges will have their revenge today, bro. Don’t you worry,” he simpered. “Now grab your gear, and let’s go get your girl.”

“
Link, Hamish…
” Lee barked across the armory, stuffing a comm package, two gas masks, and a handful of flashbang grenades into his duffel before zippering it shut. “Playtime’s over! Let’s roll!”

“
Just a minute, Mom!
”

****

Scrambling to make what few modifications he could to the aging cargo ship, Wyatt scowled under his breath at the decrepit state of the thruster assembly in front of him.