Authors: Elliott Kay
Their cover was imperfect. Samir cut down one fighter, then another, practically vaporizing them with each hit. Most
attackers wore little in the way of protection; indeed, few had any body armor at all. His problem was not in the hardness of his targets, but in the lack of visibility. For every one he actually saw, a dozen more gunmen shot wildly through the smoke. Their fire was largely inaccurate, but it intensified with every moment. Numbers began to tell.
“Reserves to the west entrance!” Samir demanded. The planter he used for cover crumbled under machinegun fire. He shifted from it, feeling bullets bounce off his armor without doing serious damage. The captain kept low, moving over to grab the body of a fallen corporal and drag him back with one hand while firing his plasma repeater with the other. “Drop the barricades!” he said. “Drop them on my auth—“
She practically flew up from the stairs, moving straight for Samir with blades in her hands and murder in her eyes. The woman wasn’t big. She wore only ordinary clothes. Given a moment to consider her, Samir would have dismissed the threat of her blades. Yet she rushed up at him, her thick blonde braid trailing in her wake, and before Samir knew it one of those blades pierced through the vulnerable right armpit of his armor.
He yelled as much in rage as in pain, jerking involuntarily. The pla
sma repeater stayed in his hand more by the function of his armor than his muscles. Samir swung at her head with his other arm. The blow would have crushed her skull had she not ducked under it.
The woman swept under and around him. She targeted yet another of the suit’s vulnerable points, this time behind the knee.
The strong mesh fabric under the armor plating could withstand great heat and stress, but it wasn’t proof against every attack. The blade came in as Samir stepped backward, stabbing through his leg in a bloody mess. Armored plates at the back of his calf and thigh pinched and snapped the blade in half as his leg bent again.
The powered armor’s automated gyroscopes prevented Samir from falling entirely. He staggered back into the entryway, bumping into a wall beside him
. Samir struggled to spot his attacker and retaliate.
She had another blade, and now she had another shot. His helmet protected his head, his chest piece protected his shoulders and torso. Yet the suit had to allow for flexibility around the neck.
Nothing around Samir slowed or silenced as the blade punched into him. His whole body went numb. He suddenly couldn’t think straight. Samir felt the metal that robbed him of movement and sensation as he fell. He heard himself hit the ground, realized his visual perspective had changed, and yet he couldn’t do anything about it.
The blade came free from his neck with a jerk. He couldn’t breathe. He felt like he was drowning. The blonde woman looked away from him, waved her blade in the air to gesture for others to follow, and then walked past.
Combat at the entrance quickly ended. Samir saw no more explosions, heard no more gunfire. Men and some few women rushed past his fallen form, all of them armed, all of them moving with purpose and determination.
A
younger man in a smudged, dirty silk shirt and polarized lenses stopped over Samir. He looked down at Samir from over the barrel of his plasma carbine. His expression revealed his indecision. After a moment, the younger man swallowed and moved on.
“Jesus, Darren,” someone said in the young man’s wake. “You’re just gonna let the fucker bleed out like that? God damn. And I thought I was cold-blooded.”
A moment later, another man with a gun stood over Samir. This one did not hesitate before pulling the trigger.
***
“I am Prince Khalil,” the holographic image said. “To whom am I speaking?” The prince wore hand-tailored slacks and a silk shirt, cutting an image of sophistication and affluence without the opulence normally displayed by the rest of his family. Though he stood tall and proud, signs of stress were plain. His breath came out heavily. It obviously required no small effort to remain calm. He felt fear, and also rage, but Khalil strove to master both.
Casey
didn’t hold it against him. The guy was completely fucked, just like all his people. “Afternoon, your highness,” Casey said. He reached out to grab one of the five men kneeling before him with hands behind their heads, shoved the poor fellow down onto the ground and casually put two bullets in his back. “
That’s
who I am. Just so we understand one another. You can call me ‘captain,’ by the way. That’s all you get.”
Though horrified,
Khalil reasserted his composure with a sharp, deep breath. He saw other pirates there in the palace conference room with Casey, along with four other trusted servants—men and women with families—right in their reach. “Please,” Khalil said, maintaining his composure as best he could, “no further demonstrations are necessary.” He swallowed hard, trying not to look at the body on the floor. “I am… told you wish to discuss demands.”
“Yeah,”
Casey grunted. “A cease-fire, more or less. Not that many of your guys are left to shoot at us anymore. But I’m sure you’ve got a few in reserve in your little bolt-hole there.” Casey took a cup offered to him by a comrade, sipped, grimaced and tossed it aside.
“Ugh. Tea. Y’know, I had it in my head that I was gonna come down here and have this conversation over some good wine. I mean I figured hey, this guy’s royalty, he’s gotta have some good stuff, right? But then I got here and one of my guys reminded me that you
Hashemites don’t drink. And I knew that. God dammit, I knew that. So now I don’t know whether I’m more disappointed in you or in me.”
Some of the conflict in the prince’s eyes settled. He took in a deep breath, settling more on the side of contempt than fear. “What is the meaning of this attack?” he asked flatly.
“Thievery,” Casey nodded. “We’re here for thievery. That’s pretty much it.” He paused a moment before elaborating. “Long as you want to cut right to the chase: we’ve got your palace. We’ve got your city, and we’ve pretty much got this whole planet by the balls. Help is a couple days away at least.
“We’re gonna loot this place and leave. We’re gonna take every valuable thing that ain’t bolted down, and we’ll probably pry up anything that is bolted if we like it enough. My men are running through your streets looking for cash and jewels and if they find any people they like, they’ll take them, too. But I’m pretty sure that the single most valuable thing here is you.”
Khalil took another deep breath. Someone outside the view of his cameras objected, but he held out a quieting hand. “If I turn myself over to you, will you end this attack?”
“Well. Agreeing to end the attack would imply that we aren’t gonna loot anymore, and that’s what we came for in the first place. But
I can tell my guys to lay off with the violence, especially here in the palace. I can’t say it’ll stop completely, but we’ll get it under control. I’m sure we’ve made our point by now, anyway. Mostly it’ll just be up to your people not to get stupid.”
“I find it hard to believe that all of this was done for the sake of simple thievery.”
“Believe what you want,” Casey shrugged. “Anyway. It’s like this. You come out of that bunker, alone and unarmed, and we don’t come in there and murder everybody we find.”
“If you could do that, why haven’t you already?”
“Mostly ‘cause it’s a pain in the ass. I’d lose guys. Also, I’ll admit, it may be more trouble than it’s be worth. But we get sore when we don’t get what we want. So yeah, maybe we won’t break down the doors and kill everyone slow. Maybe we’ll just bombard the palace from orbit until there’s nothing but a crater a half-mile deep.
“Khalil,” the pirate said, “I
bet there’s more down there with you than just bodyguards. You’ve got three kids. A wife. Probably some staff you care about. You turn yourself over and they’ll all make it through this mess alive.”
“You come here a thief and a murderer, and you expect me to believe you will hold to your word?” Khalil asked, his frown deepening into a scowl. “How do I know you won’t kill or kidnap them once you have me? And what do you mean to do with me if no one pays for my freedom?”
“Oh, they’ll pay, Casey scoffed. “Don’t sell yourself short, kid. Your dad kicked you out of the house to keep the peace with your brothers. It’s really too bad for everyone you aren’t the eldest, ‘cause your brothers are shits. Anyway, I’m pretty sure you’re the only one daddy actually cares about. He’s a hard man and he’s a realist, but everyone’s got
something
they really care about.
“As for
trusting me? I could say you can’t. I could tell you that you really don’t have any choice. All that cliché shit. But to be honest, you can trust me because I
have
to play this one fair if I want anyone to take me at my word after this. I need the credibility. Surely you’re recording this whole conversation, or transmitting it, right? Gotta hope it’ll provide some leads on how to track us all down when this is over. Sooner or later I’m gonna have to negotiate other things, either for profit or to save my own neck. Doesn’t really help if I have a reputation as a double-dealer, does it?
“I don’t want you dead, your highness. You’re not worth any money to me dead. But if you don’t come along after we’ve had this conversation? Well then leaving you and yours alive is bad for my rep, too.”
Silence fell between them. Casey waited as Khalil considered the offer. It was clear that others spoke to the prince, their voices shielded from the comm channel. Casey rather doubted that anyone encouraged the prince to put himself in the hands of vicious pirates. It surely wasn’t something Casey would agree to do.
“If you leave now, and bring no further harm to my people,” Khalil ventured, “I will pay you right now.”
“Oh, well that depends. How much have you got?”
“I can give you forty million in bearer cards. I would offer you more, but much of my remaining cash on hand is marked corporate scrip or electronic transfer. It would be easily traced.”
“That’s considerate of you,” Casey snorted. “But you’re worth at least a whole ‘nother digit on top of that. Anyway, now I want you and the cash. Shouldn’t have brought it up.”
Khalil’s eyes grew ever colder with rage. “You were ready to gamble against my surrendering myself at all
without the money. If I am to endure insult along with injury, I want something in exchange for this ransom.”
“You aren’t in much of a position to make counter-demands,”
Casey said. “You really want to watch your children die? It’ll be slower than this asshole,” he added, reminding him of the dead man at Casey’s feet.
“No,” Khalil shook his head. “Nor do I want to see my people suffer. I will bring the cash. In exchange, you will leave the hospitals unmolested.”
Casey gave it a moment’s thought. “Deal. Forty million and we leave the hospitals alone. Show up alone and unarmed.”
“I will,” Khalil agreed.
“Oh. And bring that wedding ring your wife’s wearing. News said it’s worth at least two million. You’ll live with whatever insults I dish out, Prince.” With that, Casey cut the channel.
He waited for the other pirates in the room to finish chuckling. “Hey, when
he shows up, make sure we keep some stunners handy. He’s got some balls on him to bargain like that. We don’t want him committing suicide by pirate or anything.”
“Hospital loot’s a lot to give up,”
Lauren noted soberly.
“Yeah, but it ain’t forty million in portable cash,”
Casey countered. “Send the word. No looting the hospitals, no more shooting anyone just for the hell of it. Everything else is fair game, but we’re out of here in eleven hours.”
“Should I be doing something to help?” Tanner asked the flight deck chief. He stood behind the safety track lights o
n the flight line, waiting with the other navy crewmen under a cold, starry sky. This far from the star of Archangel, there was very little difference between night and day. Were it not for a carefully engineered greenhouse effect, Augustine would still be the frozen, lifeless rock it had been for billions of years.
The chief dismissed Tanner’s offer. “Nah, we’ve got this. You don’t want to get that uniform dirty. Chances are you’ll put it right back in its storag
e bag in half an hour. Probably won’t wear it again for months, anyway.”
Tanner nodded. His service uniform wasn’t quite as formal as his dress uniform, but it still felt out of place. The only people he ever saw in service uniforms worked behind desks. The occasion gave him the chance to wear his small, subtle but significant badges for marksmanship, close combat and zero-g ops—not that he really wanted to invite more of the latter—but he felt self-conscious about them rather than proud. He was still a brand new non-rate crewman apprentice about to have his first real day of work.
Waiting for twenty minutes now, Tanner shifted around the weight of his gear bag and the plastic folder carrying hard copies of his orders and personnel file. He watched the sky for any sign of his ship. The deck crew was less interested. They discussed other matters several feet away from him, all seeming to be in good cheer. Tanner appreciated seeing some social normalcy. He hoped to put the stiff formality and constant stress of Fort Stalwart behind him.