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The Coral Sea, 250 kilometers south of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
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The Beskar Golem banked sharply to the east to avoid Confederate search radars stationed in Port Moresby and along the Australian coast at Cairns and Townsville.
The gunship had started its life as a Russian MI-26 military helicopter which had found its way into an aerospace museum in ChristChurch. After the war and Death Watch's ascendancy to the peak of New Mandalore's government, Prime Minister Bacara had split the rogue nation along loyal house lines. Her clan had purchased the museum piece, removed its rotary engines and replaced them with Hoersch-Kessel star drives and made her space-worthy. The Beskar Golem was armed with a stealth package of defenses and weapons that were secreted away in defense pods all around the gunship's hull.
In an atmosphere she was capable of hitting subsonic speeds. She carried an illegally-obtained transponder with some of the latest Confederate identity codes. Her titanium skin was covered in radar-absorbing stealth tiles. Even so, her pilot hugged the waves to avoid detection by staying underneath the Confederate radar net.
Being cautious had already paid off when the Beskar Golem had left the New Mandalore Maritime Exclusion Zone. For two hours she had played a slow game of cat-and-mouse with a pair of patrolling Confederate Air Force AWACs and the Confederate Navy's submarine and patrol boat picket line.
The ironic thing was that the pilot of the Beskar Golem was something of a hero in the Confederacy of Earth Nations, having led one of the elite strike teams of Task Force Odysseus in the raid that had ended the Earth-Empire War. Or was it the Empire-Earth War? Living in New Mandalore for nearly nineteen years had confused the matter a tad.
Major Jane Jade, ex-officer of the North American Union Navy's SEAL Team Six, had always hated her name. In New Mandalore her clan knew her simply as Jade, and that's the way she preferred it.
Major Jade had never imagined in her life that she would ever be compelled to defect from her homeland. But after the Empire-Earth War she had been forced to watch the new Confederate Army massacre innocent civilians who didn't fall in line with President Harris's vision for a new Earth.
Jade had watched the collapse of the pre-war Earth governments and seen the legal system fail during the massive solar system spanning war with the Empire. In its place she had seen a return to fascism, caste-systems and monarchy under the guise of democracy. The Confederacy's obsessive need for security had frightened her to her core. She couldn't be held up as an example of Confederate bravery and honor when President Harris had turned his dogs away from a receding Empire and unleashed them on poverty stricken populations.
She had been stricken ill at the sight of Confederate soldiers in China suppressing the Uyghur population for simply not contributing enough during the war. She heard of rebellious enclaves from Arkansas to Australia to Arabia being butchered for objecting to the pace the CEN took over at every level in every corner of the Earth. She wanted no part of it.
In the chaos created by the end of the war and the widespread apocalyptic levels of destruction left in its wake, Jade had made contact with the bounty hunter Nichole Felk, who had plucked her from China aboard her own Firespray-31 gunship, the Buckshot 1. From there the Mandalorian had taken her back to New Mandalore. Jade had taken a crash course in Mandalorian ideology and culture at New Auckland University under Felk, who had served as a mentor to the young Earthling commando and introduced her to the world of hunting bounties for country and profit.
New Mandalore had been a culture shock. With a hearty isolationist viewpoint amongst its people and a deep hatred for the Confederacy for chemical attacks on their children, the New Zealanders had thrown in their lot with Imperial clones; soldiers who had abandoned the Empire after years of indentured service and in some cases outright slavery to the previous 1st Galactic Empire.
Much in the way that the Death Watch movement had swept the democratic elections of New Zealand, Mandalorian culture and style had also grown into an almost crazed state of mind amongst the Kiwis, and they had brought Jade right along with them when she had arrived as a refugee on their shores. Fiercely protective of their rights and democracy, the people of New Mandalore, clone and Kiwi alike, had been swept into a clan system based loosely on New Zealand's previous provincial borders. Each clan was responsible for taxation, education and health care within their territories, which resulted in a much smaller central government in Wellington. Which suited Jade and everyone else just fine. One needed to look no further than their neighbor the CEN to see the dangers of giving all power to one person and his elitist 1st class citizens.
Multiple like minded clans tended to ally themselves with one another in political houses, which were represented in the nation's Parliament. At present most clans owed their allegiance to the house Death Watch had built, though a smattering of smaller houses built around the former National and Labour parties had attracted the support of some of the less influential clans.
Though Jade had spent several years training under the tutelage of Nichole Felk, who had hung up her bounty hunting cape to teach, Jade had not followed Felk into the folds of Clan Cody. She felt Felk's loyalty had only been marital seeing as she had married the clone Clan Cody owed its name to shortly after the war. Clan Cody worked for better open relationships with both the CEN and the 2nd Galactic Empire, almost to the point where Clan Cody wished to drop the maritime exclusion zone and allow Confederate traders and tourists onto New Mandalorian soil. Traders and tourists only meant spies and saboteurs to Jade. She knew the people in Confederate Center would not rest until New Mandalore collapsed and rejoined the rest of the Earth under President Harris's banner of hatred.
The Clan system of loyalty, mixed with a healthy dose of respect for absolute democracy in the central government, worked well for New Mandalore. With equal rights and universal suffrage for all. Which didn't exactly mean that rugby and cricket games were entirely peaceful when their stadiums were filled with devoutly fanatical fans dressed in heavy Mandalorian and Kiwi armor.
Each clans' values and belief were summed up in their individual 'Ways'. A way was the path a clan member walked and to divert from such a path was to bring dishonor unto your clan. For every Clan, this was the way.
Jade had been drawn to Clan Bly. Clan Bly were converted bounty hunting devotees who dedicated their clan to bounty hunting and information gathering. They were the spies and infochants of New Mandalore and operated from the Earth to Palpatine Prime at the very end of the Bloodstripe Run. They treated with Confederate and Imperial clients alike. Their only loyalties were to Clan Bly and New Mandalore and they were staunch isolationists in favor of keeping their country's borders closed.
Bounty hunting was a complicated business.
No more so for an Earthling defector like Jade. While most of Clan Bly's other bounty hunters worked in the Empire or took jobs inside New Mandalore, Jade and only a handful of Kiwis managed to take jobs inside the CEN. Unlike Clan Salvo, Doom or Gett, they had no problem taking off their helmets to blend into Confederate society. Jade and the Kiwis on her team had other ways of disappearing which would ensnare a clone or Imperial. They knew when to say words such as windows instead of viewscreens, spectacles not glasses, pens instead of stylus, ice cream instead of frosty treats and of course phasers over blasters.
The Confederacy of Earth Nations hated bounty hunters and as such hunted them down in the same manner they took down their prey. To wear Mandalorian armor in the CEN was enough to mark you for the CIA capture teams. The Confederate Intelligence Agency viewed itself as the sole proprietor of law and justice in the CEN and didn't take kindly to competitors.
Which didn't stop Jade and her team from trying. They'd pulled off snatch and bag jobs on criminals from Africa to Asia. Eight years ago, on one of their first jobs together, they'd almost grabbed the unknown Confederate terraforming scientist at Dr. Tyson's funeral in Confederate Center right from under the nose of the CIA. However, the memorial had been moved up an hour, spoiling their plans. Their failure had been followed by the successful capture of Australian General Corbyn from his bed the next year. Corbyn had been the bastard who had ordered chemical rocket attacks on New Zealand school children during the war and was now being kept in a New Mandalorian black-site prison.
Jade's team of bounty hunters, or fire team as she liked to think of them, consisted of four Kiwis, her Talpini engineer as well as herself. Each of the Kiwis had prior military service in New Zealand's Defense Forces or after the war in Clan Bacara's Navy. They called themselves "The Regulators."
Each of the Regulators wore their own mix of armor based on designs that true Mandalorians, such as Nichole Felk, had brought through the 'big jump' twenty four years ago. Felk and her original band of nine armorers had brought with them the secrets of forging beskar, or Mandalorian Iron, and had a small production line of armor pieces. The majority of armor most Kiwis and clones wore were reworked Stormtrooper pieces from the Empire, but if you had enough coin you could purchase one of Felk's pieces and be the envy of your neighborhood. The Mandalorians had sequestered a handful of clones and young Kiwi foundlings as apprentice armorers which allowed more and more of their pieces to find their way onto the New Mandalorian armor market.
Jade, herself, wore several of Felk's works, most notably her chest and back plates as well as her helmet. She had chosen black coloring which symbolized her need for justice. The suit's secondary edging was cast in silver. The color of those seeking redemption as if Jade carried the crimes of the CEN on her shoulders.
Jade was focused on keeping Thursday Island on the Beskar Golem's port side and passing into the Arafura Sea when her engineer, Bitee Cyu-Bee, standing atop the flight controls and staring out the forward cockpit, pointed excitedly. "Big fish! Can we bag some for dinner?"
Jade merely shook her head at the small Talpini's suggestion. They were on a mission and didn't need any distractions.
In the gunner's seat below and ahead of Jade, a bored Kiwi put down his Ipad and looked at the waves ahead. Several dolphins streaked through the water below them, leaping out of the waves to keep pace with the Beskar Golem. "Porpoises. Old mariner legends say they're good luck."
"Here's hoping they're right, Singh. We high enough to clear them?" Jade asked.
"By a couple of hands at least, boss." Mason Singh, the Regulator's second-in-command, judged.
"You ever see a porpoise, Bitee?" Singh asked the little alien.
"I've seen plenty of Tsaelke and Aiwha but never these type of fish. Do they fly as well?" Bitee asked the Earthlings.
"Not as far as I know." Singh answered. "I've heard they're making a comeback down here in the south after the war."
Jade simmered, "Confederates ate everything they could sink their teeth into when the Empire left. Sent out helicopters to drop bombs on whatever whales were left. They were so desperate for meat. Only reason these guys are coming back down here is they can breed safely within the New Mandalorian MEZ."
"Figures the Confeds would do something like that. If it's shitty and on Earth, you can bet the farm the CEN was behind it." Singh figured. Jade didn't think he was wrong.
"Going to climb to a hundred meters and make our run on Java once we skirt past Timor-Leste to the north."
"Copy that, ma'am." Singh activated the Beskar Golem's jammers. The CEN had moved thousands of radar systems into the southern hemisphere over the past decades. The whole mission depended on the Beskar Golem remaining invisible to the Confederacy's electronic spies.
Jade pulled the Beskar Golem up to a hundred meters. Just enough to let the afterburners out to play and not clip the top of a wave. She relished the feeling of being pressed back into her seat by the increased thrust. The horizon to the west started to glow brighter as they chased the sun.
"Watch that sunset, ma'am. We're going to need all the darkness we can get." Singh warned.
"The target is going to be at the destination for only three more hours before he moves again." She eased slightly back on the throttles. "You fret like an old woman, Mason. We'll have plenty of darkness when we arrive. It's not like his entire security team won't be equipped with night-vision goggles anyways."
"It's my job to fret. They've probably had eyes on us since we left the MEZ."
"Have those counterfeit transponder codes ready in case they paint us."
"Wilco, ma'am. I've even got one that identifies us as Malaysian Flight 370."
Jade grit her teeth. So far, on fourteen previous jobs into the CEN, the Confederacy had never spotted one of their insertions. But every month, every year, the Confederacy was getting stronger and better in their fanatical race to catch up to the Empire. One of these days an alert radar technician was going to get lucky.
Some things were worth the risk. They'd never hit such a high value target as this one. The Clans would be crawling over one another to pay his bounty if he fell into their hands.
Java was still the rainforest and mangrove covered island it had been for eons. With rice paddies and citrus fields cutting into the interior. The old Hindu-Buddhist temples and Islamic mosques that covered the country now competed with the new mega-temples of the Guardians of the Whills. The bigger cities of Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya had been laid to waste during the war but an influx of refugees from the Pacific had replaced the millions who had died. Unlike Japan and its new post-war manufacturing wealth, Indonesia had been unable to turn its new work force into a profitable boon to the country. Now, two decades after the war, eighty percent of the country still lived in refugee camps where crime and starvation were rampant. To the Confederacy they were labeled 3rd and 4th class citizens. To Jade, they were people.
The coast of Java spread out across the horizon. It showed as a dark shape separating the grayer shades of the ocean and sky. Several lights, from thousands of homes along the shore broke the darkness. Jade watched the lights of dozens of fishing boats and transports pass by underneath. She steered the Beskar Golem away from several large ports and aimed her for a dark patch of mangroves several kilometers inland.
"Team, get tactical. We're going in." Jade warned the other New Mandalorian bounty hunters.
The Beskar Golem's landing struts splashed down in a half meter of muddy water. Tree branches scraped the sides of the gunship as she settled into the swamp, Jade quickly went through the shutdown and depressurize process of the craft's sublights as her teammates powered down the rest of the ship and readied their weapons. The interior of the Beskar Golem plunged into a darkness matching the inky darkness of the wilderness surrounding them.
Jade unbuckled her crash belt and handed the controls over to the tiny Talpini. "Bitee, once we're gone activate the defense systems. Keep the power on standby."
"Will do, boss lady. I expect you fellas will be coming in hot." Bitee replied.
"You can bet on it."
Jade and Mason climbed out of their flight seats and moved to the crew cabin on the converted MI-28. There they were met by the two other Kiwi bounty hunters, Lata and Hargrave. Like Singh and Jade, they were dressed in their privately-owned versions of Mandalorian armor. The two of them had undergone training from Clone Commandos Niner and Boss and had based their armor designs after their mentors. They were all armed to the teeth with a mix of Earth and Imperial weapons.
The third man was the lone clone in their team. Barrage had been a clone commando during the Empire-Earth War as well as the legendary Clone War. For reasons that Jade hadn't figured out, the clone who should have been her grandfather's age had the youthful appearance of a college freshman. Barrage enjoyed the friendships he had made on Earth and was loyal to Clan Bly's Way to a fault.
Barrage disengaged the door locks and quietly slid the doors open. Lata and Hargrave slipped silently into the water, their weapons at the ready as they scanned left and right. The entire team held tight as they ensured they were alone. The buzz of thousands of stinging insects was the only sound that filled the mangrove.
Jade activated her helmet's HUD and linked it to the other bounty hunters. It displayed an interactive map giving their location as a large swampy area next to the rail line that ran along the northern coast. Ahead of them was a small mountain or large hill that they would have to traverse. On the other side of the hill was a large train depot, which intelligence said would only have a guard or two at this time of night. The train depot overlooked the Suryadarma Air Force Base, where their target would be doing an evening inspection of air crews as part of his good will tour of the Oceania Region.
Jade activated the thermal sensors in her helmet. As the filters changed they revealed several small animal trails along various high grounds across the swamp. Despite their helmets' ability to muffle their voices, Jade took no chances and used hand signals to order the team to move out. Lata took the lead, with Jade in the center for operational control. Singh fell into the tail-end Charlie role and provided operational security on their rear.
Jade knew how important it was to have a good man watching her back. She had had the hero of the Confederacy, Justin Mallory, watch her back once upon a time.
It took them thirty minutes to traverse the mangrove and another twenty to ascend the hill. They made several quick stops to ensure their security. At the peak of the hill was an abandoned pre-war cell phone tower. The base of the tower gave them a good vantage point of the valley ahead of them. They could clearly make out the railyard with several trains parked overnight. Beyond that was Suryadarma and the town of Kalijati lit up on the far side of the runways.
There was a lot of activity at the air base. Much more than Jade had expected, but she assumed it must have to do with their esteemed visitor. She pointed at the railyard and motioned for her team to move out. They were at the chain link fence protecting the railyard within five minutes. Hargrave pulled out a spray can of anti-aluminum foam. He quickly shot the green goop along a small section of the fence. Within seconds a human sized hole had dissolved in the barrier. Lata crawled through followed by Jade. The rest of the team spread out as they entered the railyard.
Jade was more focused on locating the patrolling guards than the long lines of trains filling the yard. They slipped silently behind the steel locomotives through gaps between the cars.
Jade called a halt when two guards approached. She had heard their conversation a hundred meters away. They hadn't detected the New Mandalorians hiding underneath and above one of the cars they were approaching. Their flashlights swung lazily back and forth as they seemed more focused on their conversation. Jade couldn't follow the Malay but decided that it sounded as if the pair were arguing about a local sports game. She smiled at the memory of arguments about rugby back in New Mandalore. People were the same all over the world. Too bad President Harris didn't see it that way.
Some just work for a fucked up system, Jade thought. And some just have to die, for showing up to work.
As soon as the guards got to the bounty hunters' hiding spot, she spoke quietly into her comm mike. "Take 'em."
Hargrave and Singh emerged from underneath the train car. They were like ghosts as they moved up behind the two oblivious security men. Hands went over their mouths to prevent them from screaming. They never heard the whir of the vibroblades as they sunk into their jugulars. The two bounty hunters lowered the corpses quietly to the ground and concealed them underneath the train car.
With a hypersensitivity for danger that bordered on preternatural the team moved forward again. Jade switched between several thermal filters in her helmet. From what she could detect there were still three guards relaxing in a guard shack on the western side of the railyard about a half kilometer away while the pair they had taken out were the only ones patrolling the site.
There was one train on the edge of the railyard that was parked on its own siding. Several taps and clinking noises came from inside the cars as well as a pungent odor that seeped past Jade's helmet filters. As they crawled under the car towards another fence there was so much noise that Jade assumed the car above her was filled with livestock.
Jade ignored it. Animals wouldn't stop her from grabbing a bounty. Hargrave had made another hole in the fence ahead. Lata had already passed through and was waving frantically for the rest of the team to join him.
On the far side of the fence was a small ridge that overlooked the air base. Suryadarma did not have the normal runway lights Jade had expected. Instead the entire length of the runway was lit up like the old 4th of July.
There was a large, raised platform with a massive banner of the Confederacy of Earth Nations providing a backdrop. A dozen high-ranking officers sat in front of the platform facing ranks and ranks of army troopers. There must have been thousands of them spread all along the runway. Near the rear were two dozen hovertanks. Towering over them were eight AMP 5s, the two story walkers that were poor CEN copies of Imperial AT-STs.
As they watched several spotlights turned on around the runway. Their lights shot up straight into the night sky like towering pillars. A green and red laser light show emitted from lights near the platform as the CEN planetary anthem rang out from loudspeakers spread out across the air base.
"There go my night-viewers." Barrage reported.
"Pull back and provide rear security. You're no good up here if you're blind." Jade told the clone.
"Roger, roger, Captain." Barrage slipped back among the train cars to guard against any more encroachments from security.
"Somebody film this. They're going to want to see this back in New Wellington." Jade told her teammates. Hargrave pushed a tab on his helmet which released the range finder, but instead of the aiming device it carried a small GoPro IV camera. He aimed it at the rally and started recording.
"I've got eyes on the target." Lata admitted. The Kiwi bounty hunter was staring down on the airfield through the scope of his Barrett M82.
Jade spotted the target a second later as he strode to the center of the raised stage. The thousands of Confederate ranks below the hill snapped to attention.
Admiral Mehmed Akfar was the Supreme Commander of Earth's military during the later stages of the Empire-Earth War. His strategy had led to the great siege at Las Vegas and the very raid that had sent Jade to her fateful mission aboard the Ares. After the war he had led President Harris's brutal crackdowns on dissidents across the globe. He was wanted in New Mandalore for being the commander of the submarine and rocket units that had rained so much destruction down on New Zealand. Officially retired, no one ever really slipped away in the Confederacy of Earth Nations. Akfar held a permanent seat on the CEN's Joint Chiefs of Staff at their headquarters in Confederate Center.
The Confederate Admiral faced his gathered troops and let silence fall across the air base like a cold wind. When he spoke his voice reverberated from a dozen speakers mounted atop the dozens of hangars along the tarmac. Jade activated her own camera.
"Twenty years ago, when I was entrusted with the position of Confederate Secretary of Defense and therewith the leadership of our world's military, I took upon myself the bitter duty of fighting off a dedicated and lengthy attack from the 2nd Galactic Empire. The internal disorder which they created among the people of Earth offered the conditions necessary to reorganize the army and also made it possible for us to create our loyal Legions. Today I shall bring this whole matter to a close by making the following few declarations about how the Confederacy of Earth Nations will move forward from here.
First:The restoration of Earth's equality of rights was an event that concerned Earth alone. It was not the occasion of taking anything from anybody or causing any suffering to anybody. All of today's suffering has been put upon us by off-worlders. It is a suffering that will be paid back tenfold.
Second: I now state here that, in accordance with the restoration of equality of rights, Our Confederate Senate shall divest all railways, airlines, naval shipping and the National Banks of the forms under which they have hitherto functioned and shall place them absolutely under the sovereign control of the President of the Confederacy of Earth Nations.
Third: The Senate hereby declares that the section of the Mercury Accords which deprived our world of the rights that it solely owned before the arrival of the Empire and degraded it to the level of an inferior people found its natural liquidation in virtue of the restoration of equality of status with our encroaching rival.
Fourth: Above all, we solemnly withdraw the CEN's signature from that declaration which was extracted under duress from a weak moment, acting against its better judgment, namely the declaration that Earth was responsible at any level for the war.
Soldiers of the Confederate Army: The vindication of the honor of the Earth people, which was expressed outwardly in the restoration of universal military service, the creation of a new Space Force, the reconstruction of the Army and the reoccupation of the United Kingdom, Alaska, China and California by our troops, was the boldest task that I ever had to face and the most difficult to accomplish.
Today I must humbly thank Providence and President Harris, whose grace has enabled me, who was once an unknown sailor before the War, to bring to a successful issue the struggle for the restoration of our honor and rights as a planet.
I regret to say that it was not possible to carry through all the necessary measures by way of negotiation. But at the same time it must be remembered that the honor of a people cannot be bartered away; it can only be taken away. And if it cannot be bartered away it cannot be restored through barter; it must simply be taken back.
That our President carried out the measures which were necessary for this purpose without consulting our former enemies in each case, and even without informing them, was due to his conviction that the way in which he chose to act would make it easier for the other side to accept our decisions, for they would have had to accept them in any case. I should like to add here that, at all this has now been accomplished, the so-called period of surprises has come to an end.
As a world which is now on an equal juridical footing with all the other worlds, Earth is more conscious than ever that she has a Sol System task before her, which is to collaborate loyally in getting rid of those problems in our own solar system that are the cause of anxiety to ourselves.
Sol for Earthlings only!" The Admiral finished with the Confederate slogan which had gained popularity in the past few years. Jade cringed as the tens of thousands of troops roared their approval.
"No wonder there's so many Confeds this close to New Mandalore. If he's talking like that we need to get this info back to New Wellington." Jade told her team.
"Fuck that, Jade." Singh argued. "Lata can take him with a head shot now or we can grab him when he leaves with his convoy."
"This was never a wet job. No clan is paying for assassinations. And look at all those vehicles next to that platform. He's got a security escort of several hundred veteran soldiers along with him." Jade pointed out.
"They look like they're loaded for bear too." Lata added. "I don't know if I even brought enough slugs or tibanna for all of them."
"The Clan demands we gather secrets and bring them back to protect New Mandalore." Jade said.
"But that fucker is worth at least three or four million creds. Hell even the Empire would bid on that scum." Singh continued.
"Spying takes precedents over bounties." Jade turned her head and stared down her fellow bounty hunter.
"We could snatch him when he's taking off. Pull a Bane maneuver with his plane like in that old Batman movie." Singh wouldn't give up.
"New Mandalore comes first." Jade said.
"Guys?" Singh looked for allies.
"It is the way." Lata told him, packing up his sniper rifle.
"It is the way." Hargrave backed Jade.
"Let's move out." Jade ordered.
"Fine." Singh grudgingly conceded, seeing as he was the only one for staying and attempting, what appeared to Jade, a suicide mission.
The four bounty hunters started to slither backwards away from the back of the ridge. They stayed low on their bellies to avoid detection, though their armor did hide them from the thermal cameras that ringed the air base. They took no chances that a wandering guard might stumble upon them.
They reached the nearest line of train cars within minutes. Something slapped the inside of the nearest car. Barrage emerged from the other side and held up a hand to get Jade's attention.
"Barrage, we are pulling out." Jade told the clone.
"Ma'am, there's something you've got to see."
"Make it quick."
"Over here." He led the team to the other side of the train car. Jade could hear a lot of shuffling inside the transport. Barrage reached a bar attached to the side and slid it open to reveal a rectangle hole cut about a meter up along the side of the car. The inside was pitch black.
Jade leaned closer and peered into the car. Suddenly a pair of eyes were staring back at her.
She jumped back and raised her blaster to her shoulder. These cars were full of people, not livestock! She put the sites right in the middle of those eyes and demanded, "Who's in there?"
"Ya lahwy! They sold us to the Empire." Someone shouted from inside the car. It was followed by dozens of shrieks and thumps from inside the car. It sounded as if someone was trying to scratch their way out.
"Hold up, keep it down. We're not the fuckin' Empire." Singh whispered into the hole.
"Who are you? You're not government soldiers." The voice on the other side replied.
"We're Mandos." Jade told them. There was a flurry of surprised conversations inside the car resulting from her proclamation. She turned to Barrage. "How did you find them?"
"These cars were lighting up my therms. I thought it was those sheep creatures you Kiwis like so much. They're pretty cute so I thought I'd take a peep. Turned out it was a bunch of Confed Fourthers." The clone reported.
Prisoner class, Jade realized. The reason she left the Confederacy in the first place. The CEN used hundreds of millions of its own people as heavy labor for its various mega-work projects in their insane desire to equal the Empire one day. That need to catch their galactic rival drove them into such depraved depths of evil that even the devil wouldn't purchase the soul of President Harris.
Jade leaned up against the breach in the side of the train. "Where are they taking you?"
An older man answered for the imprisoned group. "We heard they were taking us to Kediri."
Jade tensed. Kediri Heavy Metals mine had the same reputation Nal Kessel had in the Empire, but with a body count that put most plagues to shame. Located on the other side of Java, it was one of the largest manufacturing centers for the Confederate's attempt to replicate Imperial durasteel armor for their knock-off walkers and starships.
"We gotta get these people out of there." Hargrave suggested. Jade felt the same.
"These guys could be rapists and murderers for all we know." Singh argued. "There's got to be a reason they ended up here."
"You can end up a Fourther for nearly anything." Lata whispered. "These guys could be jaywalkers or forgot to pay their taxes."
"Boss, we've got a mission to think of. Those guards could start another patrol any minute." Singh reminded everyone.
"A few minutes ago you wanted to stay and try a grab on Akfar." Hargrave argued.
"Situation changed. Got to think about the exfil." Singh said.
Jade was closest to the hole and looked inside. As she did so she turned on her helmet light to shine within, cupping it with her hand so the light didn't give them away to the security men at the guard post. Her light illuminated several faces before falling on one young teenager who didn't appear old enough to have even started high school yet. His clothes hung limply on his frame and it appeared as if he hadn't eaten in quite some time.
Jade asked the old man, "What is he in here for?"
"He painted some anti-CEN graffiti on a wall as a dare with his friends." The old man replied.
"What about you?"
"I was a doctor. A 2nd class citizen. I performed an operation on the mistress of a 1st class general in the legions. She died on the operating table, though bacta would have saved her. I didn't have any. The general put me here."
"Jesus Christ." Jade muttered. "How can you guys live with this caste system bullshit?"
"The government believes it sorts the weak from the strong. So that we will be ready for the next time we show off with the Empire."
"What about the rest of you people?" Jade asked.
"From what I have learned, some of us are religious dissidents, a mixture of Christians, Muslims and Hindus who couldn't or wouldn't keep their mouths shut. Some conspiracy theorists. Others are petty thieves and con-men who committed fraud with fake licenses or ration cards. Others are political dissidents of various stripes. Some conservatives, a few socialists, a couple liberal intellectuals." The old man said.
"Nothing that warrants Kediri."
"Allah forbid, no." The old man agreed.
"Let's get them out." Jade ordered. She counted twenty-three cars in total. The bounty hunter realized they would need to be as stealthy as possible and move quickly before the next patrol.
"Boss, the job." Singh attempted to remind her of her duty to the clan. Some things were even bigger than clan loyalty.
"Get them open." Jade snapped.
Lata, Hargrave and Barrage spread out along the line of cars. They went to work silently cutting through the locks on each of the train car doors. There was the screech of metal as iron doors slid open followed by the thuds of hundreds of prisoners jumping to the ground.
"Fan out. Make your way over this hill and hide in the swamp. There are several towns along the coast to the north of us." Jade told the prisoners as she helped them climb to the ground.
It was getting louder and louder as more prisoners started roaming freely through the yard. Fences jingled as they climbed their way over the tops and ran up the hill.
The Mandalorians had opened and emptied seven cars and were working on an eighth when all hell broke loose. With activating clicks that sounded eerily similar to gunshots, massive arc lights came to life all around the railyard. The lights lit up the hill side revealing hundreds of prisoners running up the slope to the idle formations of troops at the air field below.
Several whistles and alarms sounded out, followed by the staccato rhythm of a distant machine gun. The flash from its muzzle revealed its location at the top of a guard tower adjacent to the rail yard gate. Prisoners screamed as bullets tore into them. Dozens fell along the hill while their compatriots fled all around them.
A snap rang out from behind Jade that silenced the machine gun. She turned and saw Lata staring through the scope on his sniper rifle. The sniper turned slightly and started taking out the bright lights one by one, pitching the rail yard back into darkness.
"We gotta get out of here, Boss." Singh shouted over the firing. Jade could hear the approach of several helicopters and vehicles racing in their direction from the air field.
"But the other cars! There has got to be a least a thousand prisoners here." Hargrave argued.
"Nothing we can do for them now." Jade grimaced at the decision to abandon those in need. "It's us or them. On me, team."
Hargrave popped the door on the eighth car releasing more prisoners to act as distractions. The bounty hunters moved as one as they ran for the fence along the hill.
Singh stopped and fired several rounds that dropped an approaching guard mid-step. The man's body face planted into the ground with a wet smack.
"Bitee, do you hear me?" Jade shouted into her comlink.
"Here, Jade. The whole hill just lit up. Do I hear slug-fire?" The Talpini answered.
"Lift off. We need immediate evac. We are making our way to the top of the hill." Jade ordered.
"On it!" Bitee radioed.
The heavily armored Mandos ran past the fleeing prisoners slowed by malnourishment and the dark. An explosion erupted to their left sending several of the escapees into the air.
"Grenade?" Singh asked.
"Fuck that. That was a mortar." Hargrave announced. Those troops at the air field below were on the ball. They had seen the commotion above them inside the rail yard and had quickly reacted. When Jade gave a look over her shoulder she could see hundreds of fire teams moving up the hill behind advancing AMP 5s who were indiscriminately spraying the hillside with their chin cannons.
"C'mon, get the lead out unless you boys want to see Kediri yourselves." Jade warned them. The Mandos charged up the hill. Some of the quicker prisoners had already arrived before them and were swarming over the top towards the perceived safety of the swamp below.
"Where is that little elf?" Singh growled.
As if he were waiting for an invitation, Bitee chose that moment to make his entrance. The Beskar Golem screamed as it descended towards the waiting bounty hunters. "I'm right here, you walking tree." Bitee called out over the group comm network.
"Everyone get on board." Jade shouted.
The team didn't need to be told twice. They leapt aboard along with five quick prisoners. Jade noticed the teenager she had spotted in the train car was among them. Well I hope he likes living in New Mandalore better than the CEN from now on, Jade thought.
She had much bigger problems than dealing with her extra passengers. She and Singh raced forward to the controls. Bitee was already taking off again when she got there. As they made for altitude Jade could see the AMP 5s try to swing their guns high enough to hit the Beskar Golem. Streams of tracer rounds streaked past just underneath the craft as she banked the gunship away to the north.
"Everyone buckle in." Jade shouted over her shoulder. "We're not out of this yet."
The Beskar Golem quickly crossed the shoreline and headed out over the Java Sea. Bitee pointed at the sensor monitor excitedly. Every missile battery from the Makassar Strait to the Flores Sea was locking in on to them.
"Singh, see what you can do to jam them."
"On it, boss. But the Confeds are a lot better at cutting through our jamming than they were ten years ago." Singh replied.
They're learning from their mistakes, Jade thought. Imperial signals washed out everything the Earth had when they showed up before the war. The CEN wasn't going to let that happen twice and had sicced their Ministry of Information on the problem. All to the chagrin of New Mandalore and the peril of six bounty hunters high above the Java Sea.
"Just do what you can." Jade said.
"I'm tracking several pairs of F-55s launching from Iswahyudi Air Base and there is an Australian AWAC tracking us from the Indian Ocean." Bitee reported.
Jade cut the afterburners and throttled the sublights. She could see a storm brewing ahead somewhere over Bali and wanted to beat the CEN interceptors to it. The Beskar Golem started to vibrate as the engines were pushed to their max against the slipstream.
"Missile launches from Sulawesi and Timor. I count ten ground-to-air rockets. Probably those new Patriot Xs we've heard about."
"Roger that." Jade gritted through her teeth as she focused on her flying. Her eyes darted between the radar screen and the storm ahead.
"Six more just launched from Bali. Forty-five seconds to impact." Singh reported.
"Bitee, warm up the Nest."
"Copy that, Jade." The Talpani flipped the cover off their counter-measures box and powered up a series of switches. A red light on the box turned from red to blue. "It's ready."
"How far are those missiles?"
"Twenty-five seconds on the ones to the north and about, shit, ten on the ones from Bali."
"Bitee drop the Nest."
There was a small shudder as a pod dropped away from the Beskar Golem. At a hundred meters its front end opened up to reveal several dozen tubes housing dozens of its cargo.
The Nest was home to a larger version of the Whistling Birds durasteel darts that fit into the vambraces of many Mandalorians' armor. Each of the tracking darts flared out in a blue cloudy streak from their housing Nest and sought out an approaching missile.
The first one made impact with a missile that was only five hundred meters behind the racing Beskar Golem sending a shockwave that shook the gunship like a chew toy being grabbed by a pit bull.
Almost in unison every missile was intercepted by the New Mandalorian defense system. Debris from the explosions rained down across the Java Sea.
"Those fighters are turning back." Bitee reported. "Sky is clear again."
Jade pulled the gunship up above the storm and plotted a course back to the Maritime Exclusion Zone. "It is now."
They were out at least several million credits for a missed bounty and had picked up a few unwanted stragglers along the way. The foundlings would have to be processed and put into some clan system somewhere in New Mandalore, but that was their problem, Jade decided.
"I don't know about you, boys, but how about we pick a bounty that doesn't have an entire army protecting him next time." Jade commed her crew.
"I hear that, boss." Sing agreed.
"Any mission you can walk away from . . ." Hargrave let his statement hang in the air. The CEN won this one, and after what they had seen on those trains on Java, that left a bad taste in her mouth.
She tried to reassure her crew that they had suffered a loss but weren't beaten. "We'll get back out there guys. That is the way."
The team all echoed her together. "That is the way."
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