Authors: Tony Gonzales
Jacus tried to say something and was slapped anyway.
“Hurry up!”
LaCroix shouted.
“Stop being an asshole!”
Bergen pleaded.
“Give him a chance to breathe!”
“Bergen, you are such a pussy sometimes, you know that?”
LaCroix growled.
Jacus was wondering if the corpses he’d just incinerated were once this man’s close friends.
“Go sit in the cruiser while I do some real police work.”
“I figured you’d say that,” Bergen sighed, pulling a vowrtech out from under his coat and pointing it directly at LaCroix.
“Oh, please,” the detective snarled.
“Put that thing away before I shove it up your ass.”
“Yeah, you’d like that,” Bergen said, pumping the compact rifle once.
“Regards from Savant, Detective.”
The vowrtech’s ominous report made Jacus flinch as a magnetically-focused air blast slammed into the detective at more than 670 meters per second, throwing him backward as if he’d been crushed in the stomach by a swinging I beam.
He tumbled over several times, coming to rest directly underneath the incriminating shuttle.
“Sorry you got dinged up,” Bergen said, strolling past Jacus.
“But he was one of the guys we couldn’t buy off.”
Jacus struggled to get up on one knee as Bergen primed the vowrtech again.
Detective LaCroix was moaning, his internal organs pulped by the compact overpressure wave.
“It’s too bad, really,” he said, placing the barrel over his forehead.
“I liked your style.”
The blast forced the detective’s brains out of his eyes, ears, and nose in a sickening gush.
Bergen sighed.
“Things are out of hand between us and the Feds,” he said, stepping away from the mess.
“Damn shame.
We have deep roots here in Placid.
We operate in every colony in the region.
Unfortunately for you, Roden Shipyards has become too much of a good thing.
You’re a big brand now, and the Feds know you’re dirty.
That’s a problem for us.”
Concentrate,
Jacus told himself.
Block out the extraneous data; focus on getting to the next step.
“They’re going to come … looking for him,” Jacus breathed.
“Your vowrtech…”
“Oh, this baby’s unregistered,” Bergen said, tapping the weapon like a pet.
All legal firearms in the Federation were designed to broadcast a notification to a local police log that tracked whenever the weapon discharged.
But Serpentis certainly had the technical expertise to disable it.
“They won’t start looking for at least a half hour,” Bergen said.
“Which means we need to leave.”
“What about … him,” Jacus muttered.
“Not my problem,” Bergen said.
“You killed him.
See?”
Tucking the weapon under one arm, he began pulling on the skin of his left hand; a small strip peeled away.
A smooth black polymer was underneath.
Bergen’s arm was cybernetic.
“This stuff leaves
your
prints on everything I touch,” he said.
“The Feds won’t find anything about me.
You, on the other hand … well, what happens from here depends on how reasonable you are.”
“Why?”
Jacus stammered.
The pain in his lungs was unbearable.
“Because it’s time to go, and we mean it,” Bergen said.
Jacus stood gingerly.
“But the shop…”
“Placid isn’t frontier real estate anymore,” Bergen said.
“The Feds are fortifying here, so it’s time for us to go underground.
If we don’t shut you down, they will, and we’re not going to let that happen.”
Think,
Jacus told himself
.
Find the available options.
Run interference to buy time.
“I want to speak with Savant.”
“He wants to speak with you as well,” Bergen said.
“He’s looking forward to it.
I think you’ll get moved up.
But Roden Shipyards is done.
And so we’re clear that’s final, you”—he set the vowrtech on the floor near the remains of Detective LaCroix—“are now a cop killer.
Public enemy number one.”
“What about you?”
Jacus asked, suddenly aware that Bergen was still standing beneath the Regatta.
“Oh, I’m disappearing along with you,” he said with a laugh.
“They’ll think you abducted me, tough guy.
Look, you’re pissed, but get over it.
We both did our parts.
The organization is pleased.
Time to get paid, promoted, and party our asses off.”
An epiphany struck Jacus just as Bergen took a stride forward.
Bergen was part cybernetic; his mechanical arm had killed Detective LaCroix.
There were memory chips in the hardware that recorded mechanical actions; this was standard engineering troubleshooting protocol by the manufacturer and legally required.
He couldn’t be sure that Serpentis had disabled it—unless they were building the parts themselves, it was impossible to know—although it could be erased after the fact.
That meant all the evidence needed to clear his name was probably still buried in the arm of this monster.
“I had to remove the entire cabin from that thing,” Jacus said, looking up.
“What happened in there?”
Bergen looked up as well; Jacus slipped a hand into his own pocket.
His fingers found the datapad inside.
“Don’t know; won’t ask,” Bergen said.
“But they figured you could make the problem go away.”
“Yeah,” Jacus said, pulling the device out.
He needed to see what he was doing.
“I’m just going to check something—”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Bergen said, picking up a step.
“Put that thing down.”
“Why?”
Jacus asked, typing quickly.
“Just making sure everything’s cleaned up before we go—”
Bergen pulled out his police firearm.
“Put it the fuck down!”
he ordered, breaking into a sprint.
“Fine with me,” Jacus said, pressing the final key.
The magnetic latches keeping the shuttle suspended overhead abruptly turned off; the safeties on the backup clamps supporting them also released.
Despite Bergen’s cybernetic capabilities, he lacked the speed needed to clear the fifteen-thousand-kilogram craft as it crashed down upon him.
Now Jacus really was a cop killer.
His staff would begin arriving within the hour.
Working as fast as the pain would allow, Jacus pulled himself into an MTAC to begin cutting through the wreck to get what he needed.
Once Bergen’s corpse and the vowrtech that murdered Detective LaCroix were secured, Jacus welded the street-level entrances of the hangar and adjacent warehouses shut from the inside.
A sleek new Duvolle Labs “Brigantine” Model dropship that belonged to a “premium client” was awaiting pickup later that day.
Jacus planned to be gone long before its owner arrived to claim it.
As the craft cleared the retractable dome, Jacus caught a glimpse of the Federation police cruiser parked in the street below.
Roden Shipyards will go on,
he thought, engaging the Brigantine’s powerful thrusters, grimacing in pain as the craft lurched forward.
The taste of blood in his mouth made him all the more determined.
HEIMATAR REGION—HED CONSTELLATION
AMAMAKE SYSTEM—PLANET II: PIKE’S LANDING
CORE FREEDOM COLONY
SOVEREIGNTY: CONTESTED
Present Day
The stealthy drone tumbled out into space and disappeared in a blink, reappearing a few seconds later above Pike’s Landing and settling into a polar orbit.
The reddish green surface below reflected across its wide camera lens, broadcasting the imagery several AU’s away to an intelligence analyst aboard the Federation Navy supercarrier GFS
Essex.
It was immediately apparent that something ominous had just happened there.
The analyst focused on the remnants of the
Doystoyov,
whose destruction left a one-thousand-square-kilometer debris field scattered on the surface.
It was an environmental catastrophe; several reactors of the former dreadnought had partially detonated, leaving a radioactive nightmare below.
There were no colonists in the area, but the strong atmospheric currents of the planet would eventually circulate trace amounts of fallout back to Core Freedom.
Long, black scars etched across the landscape marked where the largest fragments had impacted; all that remained of a vessel that was once nearly four kilometers in length were scraps of charred, twisted metal.
But it was more than enough to identify what kind of ship it was.
And as Core Freedom itself passed beneath the drone’s lenses, the imagery confirmed what the analyst had suspected all along.
The Federation warships dispatched by President Roden were too late: The Amarr Empire had taken the colony.
And, judging from the number of troops and equipment scattered throughout the grounds, they had managed to do so with a surprisingly small force.
That didn’t add up to the analyst at all.
But he reported the facts as they were.
ESSENCE REGION—VIERES CONSTELLATION
THE LADISTIER SYSTEM—PLANET IV, MOON 4: RÉNEALT
PRESIDENTIAL BUREAU STATION
SOVEREIGNTY OF THE GALLENTE FEDERATION
“How interesting,” President Roden remarked, eyeing up the members of his cabinet as drone-reconnaissance imagery hung in the air before them.
Admiral Elijah Freeman, the commander of the Federation task force dispatched to Pike’s Landing, was presenting their findings from his command aboard the GFS
Essex.
“The analysts think this happened less than an hour ago,” he said.
“There’s no debris field in space.
Planetary defenses probably shot it down, but not before it dropped surface troops.”
“What’s the typical siege configuration for a Revelations dreadnought?”
President Roden asked.
“One division at most,” the Admiral answered.
“Less if there are mechanized battalions aboard.”
“In your estimation, should that have been enough to take the colony?”
President Roden asked.
“Not at all, sir,” the Admiral said.
“The Valklears were thinned out, maybe had a mechanized brigade or two left, but were dug in and fortified.
You’d have to be at division strength or greater to take them in a frontal assault.”
“So then the question we’re all dying to know is why they were willing to sacrifice a dreadnought and thousands of troops to hot-drop a tiny force into the colony,” Ariel mused.
“The simplest explanation is they believed that would be enough to take it,” President Roden said, clasping his fingers together.
“Sir, one thing about this data,” Admiral Freeman said.
“It’s important everyone here understands that the asymmetry is most evident with key installations inside the colony perimeter.
The bulk of forces from both sides were deployed to the southwest, near the elevator terminus and primary entrance to Core Freedom.
The Valklears lost about six crucial facilities, all fortified, in less than twenty minutes.
And the thing is, the data is telling us that small two- to four-man fire teams took them.”
“How is that possible?”
President Roden asked.
“I don’t know,” Admiral Freeman said.
“It doesn’t make any sense.
The Valklears are some of the best troops in the cluster, and they were defending hardened, fixed positions.
There is no way Imperial forces could take them all so quickly.
You would need at least a platoon or two to secure any
one
of those installations in such short order, let alone all six.
No combination of tactics, physical or technical, could accomplish what those fire teams just did.
It’s impossible.”
Admiral Ranchel snorted.
“Have you made contact with them?”
he asked.
“No, sir,” Admiral Freeman said.
“They haven’t detected our recon drone, either.”
“What are those?”
Jacus asked, moving the pointer over the odd-shaped vehicles scattered across the colony.
“Those are the mystery trucks,” Admiral Freeman answered.
“Intel says their design resembles HAZMAT transports.
Except these are armored and placed within speeder distance of every installation that was taken.”