Authors: Tony Gonzales
“Fuck you, Mordu.
Just tell me I’m getting what I paid for.”
“You’re getting the best that money can buy and some intangibles that no amount of money can buy.”
“Intangibles?
Don’t get philosophical—”
“I selected people that aren’t in it for the money,” Mordu said.
“For this crew, the mission is personal.
They’re willing to give their lives for it.
Only someone like our mutual friend can align people as different as you and I.”
“Different?
We’re exactly the same, whether you admit it or not.”
“People like you set the stage for a bastard like Heth to rise to power.
We have nothing in common whatsoever.”
“And people like you followed the blood straight to riches beyond your wildest dreams.”
“Because cunts like you always have some inconvenience or other that needs a bullet to solve.”
“You’re an evil man, Mordu.”
“I’m not saying I wasn’t.
But I’ve changed.
You haven’t.”
The transmission went dark.
26
PLACID REGION—BEYT CONSTELLATION
MLW
MORSE
EN ROUTE TO MORDU’S LEGION HQ STATION
“Gable,” a familiar voice said.
“Is that you?”
She felt the familiar rush of vertigo as the nightmare suddenly ended.
Painful memories pressed against her consciousness: She had been dreaming of Sister Marth, of bone-jarring explosions, of excruciating pain and senseless deaths, and of the lunacy of dying alongside a toy soldier.…
“Wow, it really is,” the voice said.
“You’re safe now.”
The sense of recognition confused her, and suddenly she remembered another familiar face, one she cared about deeply, pointing a gun directly at her.
“Vince!”
she gasped, opening her eyes.
“Shhh … easy does it,” Jonas said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s Jonas.”
Blinking several times, Gable was having difficulty reconciling who was in front of her.
“You’re on a ship called the
Morse,
” Jonas said.
“We pulled you off Pike’s Landing.”
Visibly distressed, she began shaking her head and then winced in pain.
His was not the face she wanted to see.
“You’re going to be fine,” Jonas said.
“Just a little while longer before the pain eases.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
she asked.
“Internal injuries,” Jonas said.
“You’re lucky to be alive.
Not many live through orbital strikes that close.”
He let out a deep breath.
“I can’t even tell you how good it is to see you,” he said.
“I mean, what are the odds…?”
Gable let her head collapse back onto the pillow.
“I need to speak with the ship’s captain,” she said.
“Now.”
Jonas paused.
“That’s me,” he said.
She turned away from him.
Her hands had been cleaned—though some telltale silt from Core Freedom remained lodged in her fingernails.
The room smelled sterile, like a proper medical ward should.
It was a stark change from the persistent filth of Pike’s Landing—or the foulness of the air on the last ship she shared with Jonas.
Soreness racked her chest and abdomen.
A chill ran up her spine as she recalled the horrors of her final moments at Core Freedom.
Gable whispered Scripture to find strength:
“No seas, nor valley so treacherous to cross, with you by my side and faith in my heart…”
“I’m sorry?”
Jonas asked, leaning in.
She reached toward her chest to touch Sister Marth’s pendant, and gasped when it wasn’t there.
“Where is it?”
she demanded.
“My pendant!”
“Easy,” Jonas winced.
“It’s right here.
We had to remove it to do tests.”
She looked to her right, and there it was, coiled on a bedside dresser.
The toy soldier was next to it as well.
“Jonas, listen to me,” she said.
“Vince was down there.
On Pike’s Landing.”
“Gable, try and rest for a bit—”
“Don’t patronize me,” she growled.
It still didn’t take much for him to bring out the worst in her.
“I know what I saw.”
Jonas gave her a thoughtful look.
She was surprised that he didn’t snap back.
His eyes were patient and showed sympathy.
He was older now; creases were present in the corners of his eyes.
“Alright,” he said.
“How do you know it was him?”
“Because I just know!”
she said.
“He was a soldier fighting for the Amarr.
He was going to kill me, except … we recognized one another.
He spared me because of my faith.”
Narrowing his eyes, he opened his mouth to say something, then reconsidered.
“We just pulled you out of a combat zone,” he said.
“Your mind needs time to heal.”
“Jonas, I’m telling you—”
“Shhh … Gable, listen,” Jonas interrupted.
“I’m not saying I
don’t
believe you.
It’s just that this has unbelievable implications, and I need you to be absolutely sure before we do anything to—”
“There’s nothing we can do,” she said.
“He’s dead.”
Jonas stood straight up.
“Please just rest,” he said.
“He was shot,” Gable said, eyes filling with tears.
“Some … deranged mercenary just executed him.
We connected again, before he died.
Vince found faith, like I did, and God gave us the miracle of finding each other—”
“What did he look like,” Jonas interrupted.
“The merc?”
“He gave me this toy,” she said, motioning toward the dresser.
“And his face—”
“Mack is standing right here,” Jonas said.
“He hasn’t left your side.”
Gable felt guilt sink into her as the battered warrior stepped into view, still wearing his combat equipment and a field dressing holding his crippled cybernetic arm in place.
Despite the frozen grin on his face, his eyes were full of sadness.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Thank you for everything.
For saving my life, God, how many times today…?”
Mack’s bottom lip began quivering.
“Your praying friend lives,” he said.
Gable and Jonas stared as he wiped a tear away.
“Close to you, I see,” Mack continued.
“Not same man he was … not anymore.”
“Mack,” Jonas said, walking to the nearest console.
“What did he look like?”
“Immortiaño dránon,” the mercenary mumbled in his ancient Mannar language.
“Immortiaño dránon.”
An old photo of the
Retford
crew appeared on the screen.
“Is the man you shot in there?”
Jonas asked.
“Yes,” Mack said, pointing at the man standing to the left of the frame.
It was Vince as he looked several years ago, poised with the rest of the former
Retford
crew.
“I show you,” Mack continued.
“Not dead.
Immortal.
Panther-gun camera have proof.”
The mercenary turned, his head hung low, and began walking out.
Gable was stunned.
“Wait,” she asked.
“What language were you speaking?
What did that mean?”
“Old tongue,” Mack said, turning his scarred side toward her.
“Mannar lore.
Mean ‘god eater’ in your words.”
“Why call him that?”
“He proof god not real,” he said, leaving the room.
PURE BLIND REGION—MDM8-J CONSTELLATION
SYSTEM 5ZXX-K—PLANET V, MOON 17
MORDU’S LEGION HQ STATION
Big as she was, the transport was unremarkable to look at—a towering, elongated metallic gray box looming over a cargo loading deck on the station.
She was a standard Crane-class blockade runner perched in dry dock, its moorings reaching out to the main docking hub to take on passengers and equipment.
Smaller craft and drones buzzed around the twelve-thousand-tonne vessel, making repairs in some cases and in others intentionally adding wear and tear to disguise its real purpose.
The transport was being painted in Lai Dai mega-corporation colors, marked up to look exactly like the ship it was going to replace.
MTACs marched containers along the airtight moorings into the craft’s hold, each one marked with innocuous handling warnings such as
FRAGILE
or
KEEP UPRIGHT
.
These were consistent with the forged shipping manifest, which stated they contained perishable goods and supplies destined for a startup Ishukone colony on the planet Myoklar.
On separate freight moorings above the ship, cranes lowered industrial components, such as fusion generators, habitat modules, and terrestrial construction equipment, into carefully marked spots in the cargo bay.
Not listed on the manifest was the platoon of elite Mordu’s Legion commandos accompanying the three hundred civilians and engineers aboard.
Nor was it noted that a cache of firearms and “area suppression weapons”—including a tactical nuclear device—was on board as well.
For months, Mordu spent part of each day considering everything that could go wrong with this crucial mission.
And now, seeing all the crates being loaded onto the ship, it finally hit home that there was one vital component remaining that he had neglected entirely.
He found his son near the ship, supervising the logistics operation and making sure everything was in order.
Several mercenaries he recognized were with him; they smiled at Mordu as he approached, and then stepped away.
Arian Mordu looked over his shoulder, then went back to his datapad.
“Now isn’t a good time,” he said.
“To be honest,” Mordu said, “I’m not sure why I came down.”
“Not to say anything inspirational,” Arian said.
He was taller than Mordu, with much broader shoulders.
Wearing his hair long and unkempt, he was dressed as a nondescript civilian machine operator, just like his cover required.
“Nice outfit,” Mordu said.
“It suits you.”
The transport would reach the Tsukuras system in several hours.
After docking at the Perkone Factory station, its cargo would be off-loaded by Ishukone longshore contractors and transferred to a fleet of heavy dropships for surface delivery.
“Yeah?”
Arian asked, without looking.
“More like what you wish I was doing?”
The mercenaries would mingle among the civilians traveling with the equipment.
Officially, they were there to support a new colony on a world coveted for its bountiful seas and lush jungles.
Few of the travelers knew each other, this being a typical Caldari mega-corporate operation where only the most qualified individuals won the lucrative work contracts.
“Did you see the latest weather forecast?”
Mordu asked.
Heavy thunderstorms were expected to blanket the colony site the next evening.
During the mayhem of off-loading dropships, with personnel making their way to hastily assembled living spaces, Arian and his team would have no problem disappearing into the jungle and beginning the long trek south to the target area.
No one would know they were gone, or better yet, that they were ever there to begin with.
“Yep,” Arian said, setting his datapad down onto some crates.
“Couldn’t ask for better cover.”
The target site where Heth and the CPD were meeting was a private villa owned by the CEO of Echelon Entertainment.
More of a vanity project to host private parties for the State’s larger-than-life stars and starlets, it was located right in the center of a dormant volcano crater some six kilometers in diameter, which was filled with azure-blue water as much as sixty meters deep in some spots.
The crater’s rim rose from the shoreline some thirty meters above the water, covered with vegetation and trees.
The villa itself was a spectacular mansion, complete with a small spaceport and all the amenities of a paradise resort.
It was the ideal summit location for the secretive Heth—isolated, secure, and unknown.
“True,” Mordu said to Arian.
“You’ve made the necessary provisions, then?”
Using vehicles to reach the villa from the colony was out of the question.
They were too easy to track, ruined the element of surprise, and could easily kill the mission before it began.
“Just makes the hike a little damp, is all,” Arian answered, squaring up to Mordu in almost menacing fashion.
“Is there a specific question you’d like to ask me?”
His team would have to backpack some eighty kilometers to reach the site.
They estimated the trek would take at least twenty hours of uninterrupted hiking through thick jungles and hilly terrain.
That was ambitious considering the amount of weight they were carrying, which included provisions to keep their energy up, lots of stealth tech, and firepower.
“Are you sure you have everything you need?”
Mordu asked.
“And that you’re not taking anything you don’t?”
They had trained relentlessly for this.
The physical conditioning, combined with drug cocktails to hasten their recovery time and inoculations to protect against the myriad of poisonous flora and insects of Myoklar’s ecosystem, prepared every man for what lay ahead.