Author's Note: Thank you once again to those that reviewed, and I'm glad you like it. The story continues!
CHAPTER 3
Through Blood and Sweat
Cornerian Army HQ, Corneria City
1142 hours
"Oh, stop your whining," he huffed, tossing the used cotton into a nearby trash bin. "You're lucky to be alive after all that. It's only a minor laceration on the ear, and small bumps and bruises elsewhere."
"Joy," I grumbled. I hated doctors' offices with a passion. The hate didn't work well with my profession, unfortunately; it seems I spend half the time sitting on a table for some wound or another, especially since I started taking more land jobs. I looked up at Gage, who had been standing in the corner with his arms crossed and his narrow-eyed concern look on the whole time, and said, "Can we get out of this torture chamber now?"
"Yeah. Thanks, doc."
I waited until we were walking through the HQ halls to gingerly touch my ear and grumble, "What the hell happened? How did they know to be there?"
"I don't know," he answered, shaking his head. "It doesn't make sense. They would have needed a signal to trace or a reason to tap that phone. And to respond that quickly, they would have already needed to be scoping the place. God, I feel like shit. If I had known..."
"Don't worry about it. You didn't know. Besides, it's just not a vacation with Gage Birse unless I walk away with some kind of injury."
Gage grinned, but it fell just as quickly. "Well, your day's about to get better or worse depending on how you take what I called you here for in the first place."
"Worse, knowing the kind of news you bring."
Gage led the way through the Logistics wing of the base until we came to a small room buzzing with all sorts of consoles and flashy machines that could have, for all I know, cooked a potato or launched a missile. A large screen took up an entire wall across from the computers. Gage punched some of the buttons and the screen started to flicker.
"I ran a pattern scan of that symbol we saw stamped on the gold bars. You'll never believe this. It's the insignia of the Black Scythe."
I stared back blankly.
Gage sighed and continued. "The Black Scythe was basically Andross's version of Dagger during the war; a totally secret covert special operations group, though they not only went after military targets. These guys were like pirates. They would receive orders to burn an entire town to the ground, kill or capture all the civilians, and loot the place. And they'd do it, without question, and with the expertise of any first-tier specops group. Entire outposts fell to them."
The screen finally finished its churning and began showing military profiles of different soldiers, though all their names, ages, things like that, were X'd out. Seeing the grizzled faces of soldiers who looked forward to their next kill was enough to turn my stomach anyway. "They look like real church boys."
"Don't you see? This mystery man on the tape could be former Black Scythe. Only those soldiers know where they stashed all the stuff they looted. It was never found by Cornerian forces."
I stared at the screen for a few minutes, clicking my teeth in thought. Finally, I said, "Gage, how in hell did you think this wouldn't make my day worse?"
He shrugged. "Well, now we know what we're up against."
"Wonderful." I touched my ear again and wiped it on my pants, but I felt something shift in my pocket. Suddenly, I remembered the patch that I ripped off the one merc's coat. I took it out and looked at it closer. It showed a symbol of two swords crossed over a silver sun.
"What's that?"
"Got it off one of the bastards that attacked me." I tossed it to him. "It's the Arcothan emblem. They're a mercenary group that—"
"Arcothans, a large mercenary group operating near Zoness, named after Francis Arcotha, the founder of the group originally called the Raiders. They changed their name to honor him after his death at the hands of the Cornerian military over thirty years ago. Today, they have close to seventy members and run smuggling rings, slave trade, black market weapons, pirating, and drug rackets all over the galaxy." He flipped the patch back to me. "Real assholes."
I nodded, impressed. "You have a run-in with them?"
"They were part of the group I told you about that Venom paid to attack Dagger."
I frowned. The Arcothans were pretty popular in the mercenary ring, and not for their generous donations to charity. They pretty much controlled every illegal act that Gage rattled off and killed anyone who got in their way. If these guys were ballsy enough to go after Dagger, and succeed in killing a few, then there's no telling how far they'd go to get me. I certainly didn't want to find out.
"So what do we do now?" I asked; a question I had no answer for.
"The good news is that they were greedy enough to try and capture you first. Gage shrugged. "I don't know if they'll take the chance again, but it might hold off an all-out assault. We have to get somewhere safe. I know an old outpost on Fortuna that might work. Where's your Arwing?"
I rolled my eyes. "Your generous commander had it carted to the storage hangar across the city."
"Let's get going then. We can figure this all out once we—"
Gage was interrupted as the door whooshed open and a tall, bulky jaguar walked in like he owned the place. One glance at the name strip on his pocket and I realized he actually did. General Tharan, the commander of the Army HQ in Corneria City, flanked by two stoic guards. I never formally met him, but the name rang a bell. Sometime toward the end of the war, he actually got off his ass and commanded some successful missions. Now, he glared at me as if he caught me stealing his car.
"What the hell have you done, McCloud?!"
I raised my eyebrows. "I'm sorry?"
"You've brought a shit storm down on this base, and I will not compromise the lives of my men because of this. I want you out, now!"
Asshole officers: even out of the military, I couldn't avoid them. I narrowed my eyes. "Wait a minute...you seem familiar. Ah, that's right! Weren't you there when I got that medal for winning your war for you?"
Tharan's jaw set and I wouldn't have been surprised if he took a swing at me. But Gage placed a hand on my shoulder and stepped in. "Hang on. Sir, what shit storm? The fight was half a mile away. The mercs would never think of—"
"This shit storm, Birse." Tharan pounded the security feed into the room's wall-sized screen, which showed me more than I wanted. The outside security cameras showed multiple ships, most the size of the Great Fox, descending on Corneria City. Even at that distance, I could see that not all were the Arcothans. The mercs had joined together for the same goal...me.
"There's a goddamn mercenary fleet surrounding this base," Tharan continued. "I want you out of this base, McCloud, now."
Gage's eyes widened. "Sir, you're going to send him out into that? He doesn't stand a chance. The base can easily defend against that."
"I'm not having my men fight your war."
"What if I said that half a decade ago?!" I shouted. My blood was on fire. All I saw was red and this ass right in the middle. "You wouldn't even be here right now to shrug me off! You piece of sh--"
"Get out, McCloud!"
Distantly, I felt Gage pulling my arm and leading me out while I shouted. In the hall, the room had attracted quite a crowd of astonished soldiers. I looked round and felt even more anger, rage at people whom I thought were allies. I growled and shouted again. "Bastards, all of you! You all remember this when I'm dead! Remember! And you better hope the next man that comes to your aid never finds out what you do to your allies!"
I pulled from Gage's grasp and walked away, the fire in my brain slowly cooling. I heard footsteps behind me, then Tharan's voice.
"Captain Birse, where are you going?"
"With him."
"Stand fast, captain."
"With all due respect, sir, shove it. You can court martial me when I get back."
Corneria City
1224 hours
The swarm of large ships cast huge shadows on the city, blanketing entire skyscrapers and creating a general panic unlike anything I'd seen since the siege on the city during the war. People stared up, horrified. Traffic stopped, causing a symphony of fender-benders that rang out through the alleys. I looked up as well, hopeless, feeling a tight knot in my stomach. But Gage wouldn't let me resign just yet.
"Come on!" He pulled my arm towards the parking bunker. "How the hell did they find us?! None of this makes any sense. What did you do since you landed here?"
I jogged after him, not being able to resist stealing a few glances at the encroaching fleet. "I don't know...nothing. I came here, and we met."
"No one was following you? No one tapped your Arwing?"
"No, nothing."
"Are you sure?"
"Nothing!"
"What about the apartment? Did you make any phone calls?"
"No, I—" I stopped. "Wait...well, I called the hotel my team was staying at."
He angrily punched the side of the truck as we approached it. "Dammit, Fox! I told you no phone calls!"
"But it was to a hotel! There's no way—"
"These guys are pro! All they did was filter the entire Corneria communication network for your voice pattern! What did I say?! I said no phone calls!" He pointed up. "All this is because of that goddamn phone call!"
I stared blankly. Now I'd gotten my ass and Gage's in this impossible war because of this tech shit. For some reason, the thought of an apology seemed a bit hollow, and he didn't look like he'd appreciate one anyway. He punched the truck again and headed for the driver's-side door. I caught his shoulder and brushed past him.
"I'm the pilot, I'll drive. You're the grunt, you shoot. How far is it to my Arwing?"
Gage hopped in the passenger seat and said, "Storage? Ten miles, maybe less. Step on it."
Traffic was sparse, thankfully. I pulled out of the base to a long stretch of eight-lane city road that disappeared in the horizon of cars and buildings. I tore like hell down the road, dodging cars and keeping my eyes off the sky. As the buildings blurred past us, I wondered how in hell I'd make it past this apparent blockade. I didn't have long to wonder, as Gage informed me that we'd have enough trouble getting off the ground in the first place.
"We have incoming," he said in a calm voice, peering in the rearview mirror. "Cars behind us, maybe half a dozen. Wheel models, not anti-grav."
I glanced in my mirror at the quickly-gaining specks of black. "I can't out-run them in this thing."
"That's why I left some toys in here. Keep it steady."
I held the wheel straight as he kicked open his door, shimmied along the side of the truck, and slipped under the canopy into the back. After a couple minutes of him rummaging and me glancing nervously as the cars edged nearer, I heard the first spurts of gunfire from the attacking mercs. Muzzle flashes flickered in my mirror and red lasers split the air outside my window. Gage answered with his first discovery; a box of grenades. I heard the metallic clinking as he dropped the explosive darlings out the back, followed by the explosions and bursts of fire and smoke around the cars. His fifth grenade finally tagged one and it blew high into the sky, causing the merc in the car beside it to panic and swerve. With a squeal of tires, he flipped over into a shower of sparks.
"Good one!" I shouted. Gage answered with full-auto fire from an assault rifle that chewed up the road and any cars he managed to hit.
My celebration was short-lived. I squinted ahead and my heart froze as I saw at least a dozen more cars coming right at me, trying to sandwich us. I don't really know what happened next. Pride would like me to say that I didn't panic, that it was just a slip, but that would be lying. I panicked. I wasn't used to driving things that couldn't fire twin lasers from the nose. I jammed on the breaks, causing the truck to swerve and rear-end an abandoned civilian car. I felt a nauseous flip in my stomach as the truck tilted and finally fell with a horrific crash in its side.
With a groggy groan, I pulled myself out of the wreck and felt my forehead. My hand came back wet and red, but it was the least of my concerns. Far in the distance – very far in the distance – I could hear the wail of police sirens, but they were much further away than the roar of car engines that were rapidly descending on us. Gage staggered from the back of the truck and thankfully skipped berating me this time. Trickles of red on his head and arm told me he hadn't escaped unscathed, but he went right to business with the crates. He tossed me an assault rifle and an armload of mags that fell in a pile like jelly beans between us. He hefted up his own rifle.
"Cover north!" he shouted. "I'll get south!"
Fate had decided to throw me a bone finally. My graceful crash had collided with the civilian car to form a V that gave us both cover from both sides of the road. After loading up, I propped the rifle on the car's hood, flipped the safety to rock n' roll, and held the trigger back until my hand turned numb and my eardrums screamed for mercy. The lasers didn't claim any kills, but the onslaught halted the oncoming merc cars. They skidded to form their own barricade, and I soon had a barrage of lasers coming back at me, searing the metal and kicking up rubble from the road.
It was like a dream. A mid-day attack of this size in the middle of Corneria City? I couldn't understand, and this wasn't the time to figure it out.
Gage held his own behind me, firing around the side of the wrecked truck with the steadiness and precision that got him into Dagger. I saw at least two black-clad corpses around the blockade he was facing. After burning through his current mag, he slipped into the back of the truck and came out with a few more surprises; a high-powered machine gun usually mounted on dropships, and two rocket launchers. He dropped the launchers and lay prone with the machine gun on its bipod.
If I thought my eardrums hurt before...
The thick blue lasers tore through the blockade, sending the mercs sprawling and at least two cars exploding into pillars of fire. The victory was shallow, as still more cars poured out of nowhere to join the fight. I reloaded and turned back to my increasing blockade. A couple bold mercs tried to move out of cover, but I dropped them before they could even look up. I ducked as my little attack was answered by a storm of lasers that blew out the car windows and came close enough to singe my fur.
"We can't do this forever!" I shouted. My own voice sounded muffled, as if in a snowfall.
"What the hell else can we do?!" Gage said between bursts from his machine gun. Unfortunately, it was the question I had hoped he had the answer to.
After another minute of exchanging fire, a new sound decided to enter the mix: the high whine that could belong to nothing except a fighter. I looked up. Sure enough, three small merc fighters in a tight formation were diving at us like a vulture to finish off the wounded prey. Gage didn't notice, but if my ear was that close to the gun, I wouldn't hear it either.
I felt ironically vulnerable; three lousy fighters, and me without my Arwing. I dropped my rifle and grabbed up one of the rocket launchers. Fortunately, it was a model I had used before. I flipped up the sights, shouldered it, and took a bead on the lead fighter. I held my breath and squeezed the firing pin.
I couldn't see much with the trail of smoke in my face, but the sound of an explosion on my poor abused ears told me I hit my mark. The other two fighters scrambled as their comrade plummeted to the ground in a fiery twist of metal that nearly took my head off as it soared past and crashed to the ground.
I dropped the empty tube and grabbed the other launcher in case the fighters made another pass, but I soon became aware of static in my ear. I focused on the faint sound in my headset earpiece and realized it was ROB. That metallic monotone was as sweet as an angel's song at that moment. There was no way my comm could reach to the asteroid belt. How did ROB know to come? I played with the frequency tracking until the calls came in clear.
"ROB...ROB, can you hear me?"
"Yes, sir. Assistance was requested. What are your orders?"
"How did you know to get here?"
"General Pepper called in the request, sir."
I rattled off another stream of lasers at the mercs with my rifle before answering. Looks like Pepper pulled through. "They have a blockade set up in the air. Can the Great Fox make it through to ground level?"
"Unlikely for continued presence. The shields will last for five to ten minutes."
I fired again to keep the mercs' heads down while my mind worked. After a few seconds, I knew there was only one thing on the Great Fox that could get us out of this mess. "ROB, keep the boosters warmed up and descend to street level. Follow the smoke. Drop the Landmaster, fire up the boosters, and don't look back."
"Yes, sir."
I gave my attention back to the fight, rejuvenated by a second wind at knowing that help was on the way. I shouted over my shoulder, "Hold on, Gage! The cavalry's coming!"
When he didn't answer, I realized that it was too quiet; his machine gun was silent. I looked over my shoulder and my heart leapt to my throat at the sight of my friend lying face-down next to the gun, a spreading pool of blood under his torso. I dropped my gun and knelt at his side. I debated whether to move him, and finally flipped him onto his back. He had a pulse, which at least got my heart back to beating normally. A nasty shot had taken him in the lower shoulder and he was losing blood fast. I tore off the already-shredded sleeve of his shirt and bound it tightly around the wound. It was about as far as my medical knowledge went, and the best I could do in the situation.
"Damn it all," I mumbled, clenching my eyes shut and slapping the wet asphalt. I never felt such guilt, but I knew I had to stow that feeling for now. "Hang on, man. Don't you die on me." Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew he wouldn't. I knew Gage. He had fought too many battles and been through too much shit to allow some punk merc to off him.
Some of the mercs on Gage's side knew they had tagged him and were starting to traverse the no-man's-land between us and the blockades. When they saw me man the machine gun, they blinked and tried to turn back, but I had a little favor to return from Gage. The machine gun was quite a weapon, and the effect was great; a few chewed-up mercs and dozens more who would think twice before coming at me.
But their persistence wore me down. When the machine gun fired on empty, I retrieved the rifle and kept at it, alternating between the two sides of the road and thanking God that the truck was armored enough to keep the attackers from hitting the stockpile of weapons. But the barrages intensified. I wiped blood and sweat from my eyes and kept firing with a numb arm, my cheek too fried from the gun's heat to even feel it anymore, my chest heaving with each labored breath of the smoky air.
Just when I felt I was too weak to even load another mag, I finally received a blessing from above: yellow lasers from the Great Fox's main guns, pounding the blockade to the south. If ROB could keep that up, I could just unfold a lounge chair and sip margaritas all day. But the fleet in the air noticed him, as I expected, and started firing at my beloved ship. The Great Fox lowered until I could feel the air from its thrusters and my gift lowered itself from the hangar with its retro boosters. The Landmaster, everything a man could want in a tank. Only problem was that it landed about twenty meters from my position. Not too far for a carefree jaunt, but a kill zone for a battle, especially if I were to heft Gage along.
The Great Fox boosted away into the horizon, and the pursuing ships gave up, preferring to concentrate on me. Trying to be as careful as possible with his wound, I lifted Gage over my shoulder, faced the Landmaster, and took a deep breath. Then another. And another. Lasers darted by the area between me and the tank, and I was reminded of the old saying of "dodging the raindrops." Only here, the raindrops were deadly.
Before I could think again, I sprinted. Lasers kicked up bits of gravel and pinged against the solid hull of the tank. Just as I approached arm's-reach of the Landmaster, I felt a searing pain explode in my thigh and I fell to my knees, groaning through gritted teeth. It hurt like blazes, but my adrenaline wouldn't take that kind of shit. I forced myself up, my entire leg feeling like it was on fire, and popped the canopy. Gage and I would have to get chummy, but the tank could fit us both, and neither of us were complaining about the accommodations. As if my poor heart hadn't had enough, as soon as I was in place and the canopy lowered, a shot that would have made abstract art of my head smacked against the window in front of me. I swallowed and fired up the engines.
As I wrapped my hands around the controls, I couldn't suppress a small, devilish grin. I was in my element again. The mercs seemed to realize it too. The firing minimized and they ran, but some were unlucky enough to get caught in my first charged blast which blew one of the cars sky-high and sent its two neighbors tumbling into a mess of twisted metal. I laid off the rapid-fire energy guns and concentrated with the charged blasts, eventually blowing the blockade to hell. One of the cars tried to get away, but the Landmaster had the last word, sending it end over end in a ball of flame.
The tank jolted violently and my shields took a sudden plunge. My buddies at the other blockade were approaching, some sporting rocket launchers. Time to book. With another shot for good measure, I upped to full throttle and literally tore down the asphalt, grinding over any debris in my way. Gage would have been proud, had be been awake. Another trio of fighters started a strafing run behind me and I set up to take them down as they passed. But, with a frustrated grunt, I released the lock-on trigger. Police and civilians crowded the area I had entered, most ducking and praying, and it would be just my luck to shoot a fighter down and have it land neatly on some civvies.
The worst I did was run over the hood of an abandoned police car that blocked the way. Hey, I'm not perfect, and hell if I was slowing down to save the city a few repair credits. Whether from the mass of police, my newly acquired armaments, or lack of functioning transportation, the chase stopped. But I didn't stop until I nearly knocked the gate to the storage bunker down. When the guards saw me, stained with gun grease, blood, sweat, dust, and carrying a nearly dead soldier, they didn't ask questions. I got to my Arwing without delay. The Landmaster I could pick up later.
Luckily, the mercs hadn't counted on me getting that far, and the ships were in no position to blockade me from breaking orbit. With Gage tucked away in the small passenger seat the size of a large glove box, I tore through the sky until blue turned to freckled black and I was blessedly alone. I locked onto the Great Fox's position – quite a distance away; I knew we got ROB for a reason – and sat back, breathing hard. With the adrenaline wearing off, I was able to concentrate on the excruciating pain from the shot in my leg. What a life.
It was as though the pain fueled my anger even more. Right there, coasting through space, it became clear that I would never be safe or free as long as this bounty existed. As a great man once said, the best defense is a good offense. These bastards should learn to read up on a target's history before going after him. They had stirred up a hornet's nest. Now, I would make them feel the sting.
--Chapter 4 coming soon--