Star Mage Exile Page 4

  While Speidel dragged out the conversation with the guard, Atoi, Carina, and Smitz slowly opened the door on the side of the transport facing away from the guards’ office and slipped out. Bent low, they crept around the vehicle and took up positions on either side of the window, just below its sill. All three had their gazes fixed on Speidel, waiting for his signal.

  The captain raised his pulse gun, and they stood as one and fired at the plexiglas, cracking and melting the panes. Smitz drove his booted foot through the remains of the window on his side and Atoi elbowed out the rest. Carina followed them as they leapt into the room. The tall woman backed into a corner, her face pasty. The weapon she held was shaking. Clearly, she was just an ordinary guard and not one of the Dirksens’ hired goons.

  Speidel had also jumped inside. He took pity on her and fired a stunning shot. The guard slid to the floor as more appeared through the doorway at the back of the room. These men and women were professionals. They came out firing aggressively, but they weren’t suited up. Carina, Smitz and Atoi picked them off with accuracy, showing none of Speidel’s mercy.

  The mercs’ position was dangerous. They had to avoid being pinned down in the outer office, trading shots with the Dirksen thugs while the local security force made its way over. They had to force their way inside, but stepping through the door wearing no armor would be suicide.

  Still, they probably only had to wait a few more moments...

  A boom split the air and the floor shook. Klaxons sounded. Someone had succeeded in placing a diversionary explosive.

  Smitz and Atoi ran into the rear room, spraying pulses as they went. Carina and Speidel were hard on their heels. Two Dirksen hands were on their backs in the further office, their chests smoking. Speidel hit the arm of another who reached out from behind a cabinet to take a shot and Smitz finished her off. A fourth ran down the corridor leading from the room. Atoi shot him in the back.

  They sped out and into the interior of the complex. The klaxons were still blaring, the sound penetrating Carina’s skull. Another boom shook the plant. The general employees would be well-occupied at least.

  Speidel took the lead as they ran deeper into the building. They fired at anyone who approached. Most of them ran away. The mission seemed to be progressing well, but Carina began to feel a nagging doubt about what was happening.

  The captain took them down a set of stairs, along a corridor, and then downstairs once more. The sound of the klaxons grew quieter as they moved away from the busier sections of the complex.

  “Okay,” said Speidel, drawing to a stop at the top of a third set of stairs and panting. “We’re here. Lin, Atoi, don’t take too long. We can’t hold off a sustained attack.”

  Carina and Atoi were to retrieve the Sherrerr child while Speidel and Smitz protected their rear. The two women ran quietly down the stairs. Though the klaxons were fainter there, Carina guessed the noise was sufficient to cover the sound of their footsteps. They were heading for a small room—not much bigger than a closet—in the corner of a large basement at the bottom of the stairs.

  What they might expect to find, she didn’t know. She hoped that the child didn’t have a large, round-the-clock guard, but it seemed unlikely that the Dirksens would station lots of thugs right outside the kid’s door.

  At the top of the final flight of stairs, Carina and Atoi stopped. They checked their weapons, looked each other in the eye, nodded once, and bounded down the final steps, firing into the basement as they went.

  The wide, low room was full of old, dusty, broken bits and pieces of equipment, lit up by the pulse flashes from the women’s weapons. Carina couldn’t detect any returning fire. The two split up and ran for cover behind separate hulking pieces of machinery.

  Carina sat with her back to a machine and waited, listening. The room was dark, but she could see Atoi’s position from the glowing dial of her pulse gun. The faint light shining from the stairs to the next level was the only other source of illumination.

  No movement nor sound of any guards could be heard. Carina reached out and took a wild shot. No response.

  “Atoi,” she whispered into her comm. “I think the place may be empty.”

  “I was thinking that too,” came the woman’s response.

  “Let’s head round to the room where they have the kid,” Carina said.

  “You got it.”

  Carina crawled cautiously around the edge of the dark room, making her way to the door in the corner. Atoi approached it from the other direction. Carina arrived first. She reached upward, feeling for the door handle. She found it and pulled it down.

  The door was unlocked. It swung open easily. Something was very, very wrong.

  The smaller room was also dark. Carina stood and brushed the wall next to the door until she found the light switch. As it activated, Atoi arrived.

  “What the hell?” the woman said as she saw the room. Aside from a few pieces of furniture, it was empty.

  “What is it?” Speidel said over her comm. “Report, Lin.”

  “The kid isn’t here, sir,” Carina replied. “I think we’re in the wrong room.”

  “If you’re in the small room off the basement,” said Speidel, “that’s definitely where the child should be. I’m receiving the signal from the transmitter. Are you sure you’re in the right place?”

  “Yes, sir,” Carina said. “But the whole basement is empty. Not even any guards.”

  Atoi had moved into the room. A couple of overturned chairs and a small, low table were its only furnishings. “I guess it’s possible the kid was here but they moved him when we burst into the plant.”

  “The captain’s receiving the signal from here,” said Carina. “The kid has to be around somewhere. But where?”

  Atoi was crouching down, looking at something she’d spotted on a stained part of the floor. “Aw, fuck.” She stood and backed away, the color draining from her face.

  “What?” Carina asked.

  Atoi raised a hand to her eyes and shook her head. She didn’t answer.

  Carina went over to see for herself. She picked up the object for a closer look. Her stomach lurched and her legs turned weak.

  It was a tiny chip, around the size of a baby’s fingernail. Like the floor where it was lying, the chip was stained brown. The stains were dried blood, and the chip was the Sherrerr child’s transmitter.

  Chapter Eight

  Carina forced down the bile that was rising in her throat. She’d seen plenty of blood and death in her time, but she couldn’t imagine how anyone could harm a small, innocent boy.

  As she gazed at the tiny chip in her hand, other things started to add up until finally it all made sense. The whole mission has been too easy. They should never have made it that far with their shitty weapons and no armor. “Sir, we found the boy’s transmitter. I think it was put here to lure us in. It’s a trap. The Dirksens want to capture us.”

  She waited for Speidel’s reply, but none came. Perhaps he was distracted.

  “Captain?” Nothing. “Sir?”

  A loud crunch.

  Carina turned to Atoi, her eyes wide. “We have to get back to them.”

  They flew out of the room and across the large basement, steering around the shadowy shapes of discarded machinery in the dim light from the doorway. Atoi gave a cry as she ran into a piece of equipment low down on the floor. She tumbled over it and landed on her face. Carina ran back and helped the woman to her feet. Blood was flowing from her nose and dripping off her upper lip, dark in the dim room.

  She drew her sleeve across her face and spat. “I’m okay.”

  They climbed the stairs together, slowly. Carina hadn’t heard a sound from the captain since his most recent words to her, and there had been no sounds of fighting from the next level. But then, pulse fire wasn’t noisy and she wouldn’t have expected to hear it above the continuing noise of the emergency klaxons.

  They crept around a corner in the stairwell and found themselves starin
g down the muzzles of guns.

  The two guards who were waiting for them were kitted out more like Carina would have expected from employees of the Dirksens. They were dressed in full armor and bearing gleaming new weapons of a kind she’d never seen before.

  Their order didn’t need to be verbalized. Both Carina and Atoi put down their guns in one slow, measured movement. One guard led the way while the other went around behind them. The group climbed the stairs to the corridor, where Carina was relieved to see that Speidel was still alive. She even felt a mild satisfaction that Smitz also wasn’t dead.

  He was facing the wall next to the captain. Two of the Dirksens’ thugs were holding weapons to their heads. Carina and Atoi were pushed against the wall next to them.

  “Which one of you was it?” Atoi asked between her teeth.

  “Shut up,” said a guard.

  “Which one of you held the kid down?”

  Speidel looked from Atoi to Carina, a curious expression on his face.

  The guard raised his voice. “I said, shut up.”

  “Who was it that dug it out of him?” Atoi yelled.

  The guard fired, and Atoi screamed as a thread of light shot from the weapon and made contact with her back. She fell to the ground, writhing and jerking in agony. The guard kept his finger on the trigger, seeming to enjoy the spectacle. When he finally stopped firing, Atoi lay motionless, barely conscious and covered in sweat. Next to her was the captain’s comm, which had been ground to pieces.

  “We have orders to try to deliver you all alive,” the guard said to her, “but the Dirksens won’t mind if we slip up once or twice along the way. I was just playing with you then. Don’t make me use the lethal setting.”

  He nodded at another couple of guards, and they hauled Atoi to her feet and pushed her against the wall once more. She swayed and staggered as she struggled to stand upright, gripping the wall with both hands.

  The Dirksen thugs seemed to be waiting for something. From the corner of her eye, Carina saw the one who had tortured Atoi murmuring into his helmet mic.

  Tense seconds ticked past. Carina wondered what the new weapons were that the Dirksens had. Pulse guns fired bolts of concentrated energy that burned the target or, at a lower setting, shocked him into temporary unconsciousness. The Dirksen guns seemed to emit a continuous flow of power that kept the victim in constant pain. Perhaps the lethal setting would stop the heart. She wondered what range the weapons had.

  The men and women guarding the mercs were growing agitated and throwing glances from side to side along the corridor. Something was up. One of the women jabbed Carina in the back, and she gasped as the hard metal muzzle drove into her spine, causing a sharp jab of pain.

  “Move,” the woman said, jerking her gun to the right.

  The other mercs were being pushed in the same direction. It seemed a good time to stage an escape attempt. Once the Dirksen thugs had secured them somewhere, getting away would be a lot harder. But Carina couldn’t see how any of them could make a move without being immediately shot with one of the torture weapons.

  The klaxons had finally stopped, and the lower levels of the plant were quiet as they went along. Carina was at the end of the line. A muzzle was thrust into her again, hitting her kidney. She bit back a yell.

  “Faster,” said the guard.

  Carina imagined what she would do to the woman if she got a chance.

  A whompf of detonation came from the corridor up ahead, the explosion deafening her. Cracks appeared in the ceiling and walls. Carina swung her elbow upward into the guard’s helmet, toppling the woman. She snatched her weapon from her and fired. The thread of intense light shot out, but the woman only jerked in pain. Her armor seemed to absorb some of the energy.

  The guard snatched at the muzzle and tried to stand. Carina pushed the weapon against the woman’s chest and fired again. That time, the guard’s body spasmed and was still.

  “Fire against their armor,” Carina shouted, her ears still ringing from the explosion.

  An agonizing flame shot through her, but was cut off abruptly. She turned to see Smitz grinning and pulling his weapon away from the helmet of a falling Dirksen guard.

  Three of the mercs who had planted the diversionary explosives came running down the corridor, shooting. Carina ran at a Dirksen thug who was about to return fire. She thrust her weapon against his back and pressed the trigger.

  Speidel and Atoi were struggling with their captors. The captain screamed. His guard had shot him in the eye. He fell, clutching his face. Brown ran up and body-slammed the guard, at the same time relieving him of his firearm.

  “Press it up against his chest,” shouted Carina.

  The third Dirksen thug died.

  Carina was wondering if they should try to take the fourth alive when Atoi killed him. It was the one who had tortured her.

  Brown was helping Speidel to his feet. The captain’s face was a ruined, blackened mess, but he was alive. The staff sergeant pointed down the corridor, in the opposite direction to the area of the explosion, and the mercs began to run.

  Carina’s hearing was gradually returning.

  “There’s a hole in the fence north-north-west, where the chimney exploded,” Brown said. “If we get split up, make for it and head back to town. We’ll meet at the back of the hostel. We leave for the shuttle at 0600.”

  He didn’t say it, but the implication was clear. Anyone who didn’t make it to the rendezvous point in time would be left behind.

  Chapter Nine

  Things were turning ugly aboard Duchess. The five mercs who had set the explosives had encountered Dirksen guards roaming the complex, and neither Carver nor Lee had survived. Brown, Halliday, and Jackson had fared better and headed to find out what had happened to their captain after they heard the fateful crunch of his comm.

  Setting a small explosion in one part of the corridor provided the distraction to give the mercs the edge they needed to turn the tables on the Dirksen thugs. After escaping over what remained of the fence, the surviving mercs had eventually made it to the shuttle and returned to their ship.

  That was where the shitshow really started.

  Carina had always known that Sasha Tarsalan was a nasty bitch, but she’d never witnessed the level of fury the woman unleashed on the mercs who had failed their second mission in a row.

  The heavily bejeweled woman ranted and raged at the six mercs, spittle flying from her mouth. Speidel was in the sick bay, where the ship’s doctor was removing what remained of his ocular implant. Carina and the others stood to attention, facing the full brunt of Tarsalan’s fury in silence.

  ‘Incompetent’ and ‘inept’ were among the nicer words she used to describe them. According to her assessment, they were also ‘moronic grunts,’ who were a ‘waste of oxygen’ and had ‘brought the company to ruin with their pathetic efforts.’

  After a while, as Tarsalan explained how ‘real’ soldiers would have behaved like professionals and done the ‘simple job’ they were asked to do, Carina tuned the woman out. She watched her gesticulations, red face, and bloodshot eyes but paid little attention to what she was saying. Tarsalan’s hair was piled into a tower on her head, and as Carina watched, the tower began to slip and hang at an angle. She wondered if, and when, it would fall down entirely.

  The patience and stoicism Nai Nai had taught her from a young age meant it wasn’t difficult for her to bear Tarsalan’s dishonest, unfair ferocity. The other mercs, however, were not so well-equipped. Though none moved nor spoke, their growing rage was almost palpable.

  Predictably, Smitz was the first to snap. He didn’t say a word, however. He strode over to the woman and stood glaring down at her, his hands in fists at his sides and his broad, heavily muscled back tense.

  Tarsalan’s words dried up, and she seemed to suddenly realize that she’d spent the last ten minutes insulting and berating six professional killers, and that she was alone with them. She swallowed and looked up at Smitz. Her p
reviously puce face paled, but she said tersely, “What do you think you’re—”

  Perhaps if she’d apologized, Smitz might have mastered his rage. Even if she’d said nothing at all, there was a chance he would have calmed down and stopped himself from doing something stupid. Though he was undisciplined and often offensive, Smitz had spent so long skirting the line of report-worthy behavior that he knew exactly where it lay.

  As it was, Tarsalan’s continued arrogant attitude made the man snap. He grabbed her throat, lifted her with one arm, and slammed her against the wall, where she hung, wriggling. The company owner’s eyes protruded from their sockets and her mouth was forced open by the pressure of Smitz’s hand on her neck. Her tongue waggled wildly but not a sound nor breath left her mouth.

  She plucked uselessly at Smitz’s fingers while her feet kicked and jerked, suspended several centimeters above the floor.

  Carina and the other mercs enjoyed the spectacle for a few moments until, halfheartedly, they tried to make Smitz release his hold. Staff Sergeant Brown gave him an order to drop Tarsalan immediately, and the others tried to open his fingers and pull him away from her.

  With apparently great reluctance, Brown finally fired at Smitz and stunned him. As he collapsed, Tarsalan fell to the floor too. She was unconscious but still alive. The marks of Smitz’s fingers on her neck were already showing.

  “Good one, Smitz,” spat Halliday. “Now we’re out of a job for sure.”

  “We were out of a job anyway,” said Atoi. “If he hadn’t done it, I would have soon enough. He only did what we all wanted to do.”

  Jackson agreed. “I would’ve punched her, though. Probably more than once.”

  “Quit it,” said Brown. “Lin, help me get her to sick bay. This son-of-a-bitch goes to the brig. You understand, Atoi? Halliday? Jackson?”

  The three nodded glumly. Transporting Smitz to the brig would be no mean feat, whether he was unconscious or awake.

  After notifying the doctor they were on their way, Brown and Carina managed to carry Tarsalan to the sick bay between them. She had begun to regain consciousness by the time they arrived. The two of them lifted her by her shoulders and legs and put her on a bed.