“He’ll be there,” Victor said, as if saying it would make it true. With the system locked down, he had no way to gather intelligence on Marsh’s whereabouts beforehand. The entire plan hinged on the hope that the last three years of the war hadn’t changed the man’s habits.
It was a big risk, but the intended reward was a quick and decisive end to the war.
It took four and a half hours for the raiding force to reach Mohawk while battles raged at the four jump points leading into the Mohawk system.
When Mohawk was just a light second away, missiles rose from the surface and arched toward the Alliance warships.
“Destroyer screen, time to do your work,” Harlan Quill said.
The eight destroyers, all modified to carry a double load of countermissiles and extra electronic countermeasures, moved ahead of the rest of the fleet in a tight wedge.
Once in position one thousand kilometers ahead, the destroyers glowed across the electromagnetic spectrum.
The incoming missiles, which had once been moving with phalanxlike precision, became as disorganized as dust caught in a gust of wind, chasing after false contacts or blinded by laser dazzlers.
Fewer than half kept on target, and, when those were just a minute from impact, the destroyers blossomed as they fired their countermissiles in an immense volley that was augmented by countermissile fire from the rest of the fleet.
Missile impacted missile and, just as they were supposed to do, the destroyers blew a hole clear through Mohawk’s defensive missiles.
“The way is clear. Frigates, dive down to the surface. All other ships, form up with the
Waynesburg
,” said Harlan Quill.
“Time to pay King Marsh a visit,” said Victor, getting up from his seat.
Fara leaned around the seat, worry etched on her pale face. “You be careful down there, Captain.”
“We’re not in the careful business, but I’ll keep my head down,” Victor said.
She smiled and said, “Good enough.” She then returned to piloting the
Alex
. “We reach the drop zone in ten minutes. You better hurry, Captain.”
Victor nodded and said, “The ship is yours, Fara.” He then departed the bridge.
Going down one deck and all the way to the back of the pressure hull, Victor arrived in the rear cargo airlock, where Gaz and his boarding specialists waited.
They all wore the same high-end gray-black combat suits Victor did. Being Holace Quill’s personal go-to man meant he had access to the best military equipment Mustang had to offer.
Every suit had a light exoskeleton to give the wearer extrastrength to carry the heavy ceramic plates covering them. Only the most powerful of small arms could do any harm.
Including Gaz, Victor had a full squad of twelve men and women. Like the rest of Victor’s crew, most of them were former Mustang military, looking to earn a lot more money serving their world. The others were former military from one Alliance world or another.
They were all professionals, and it was a wonder a former pit fighter with no formal military training like Gaz could lead them. He just seemed to have a knack for getting fighters to follow him.
“You look pensive, Gaz,” Victor said.
“I was made on Mohawk. Bred in a tank to be the toughest, meanest fucker possible so I could win prizes for my owner.”
Victor studied Gaz for a moment; the ugly tattooed man had never talked about his past before. “I take it that’s where your metal fists and spiked teeth come from.”
Gaz smiled his horrific grin. “The fists, yeah. The teeth I filed myself. They never stop growin’, you see.”
“Well, hell of a way to come home,” Victor said.
“Yeah. But considerin’ I spent thirty years of my life fighting for the pleasure of those fuckers, I think dropping from the sky to kill their king rather fits.”
“Thirty years?” Victor said. “How old are you, Gaz?”
Gaz chuckled. “When I broke from my cage and killed my owner, King Marsh was known as Prince Marsh and weighed less than half what he does now.”
Victor did some math in his head and came up with a number that suggested Gaz was about the same age as his late father. “Huh, wow.”
“Yeah, I look good for my age. The perks of being engineered,” Gaz said.
“Five minutes to drop,” Fara said over the intercom.
“No more time for chitchat, Cap. It’s time to put on your rig. Would be embarrassing to come all this way only to have you go
splat
on the ground,” Gaz said.
Victor nodded. “Good point.” He walked over to it near the bulkhead. The combination AG generator and thruster pack was designed for the kind of high-speed, high-risk insertions Victor was about to do.
Bolted to the sides were an assault rifle and ammo pack.
Victor had done such insertions before, in the months training for this particular mission, but even now his heart fluttered as he stood before it. Something about dropping from suborbital altitudes never sat right with him.
“Having second thoughts, Captain?” Gaz asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Victor said, turning around to attach the back of his suit into the rig. “But I'm still going down with you.”
“Good. We’ll need that luck of yours,” Gaz said. The pit fighter inspected Victor’s rig and then rapped twice on his helmet. “You’re secure, Cap. Time to go skydivin’.”
Victor held out a hand for Gaz to help him stand up with the awkward bulk of the rig.
“One minute to drop. Get ready,” Fara said.
After making sure everyone’s suits were sealed, Victor hit the button on the control panel to depressurize the cargo hold, filling the chamber with silence as he emptied it of air. After that, Gaz opened the ramp, revealing the dark curve of Mohawk’s surface. The lights of the planet’s capital glowed against its dark side.
The ground team formed into two lines, Victor at the head of one, Gaz the other. Victor knelt down into a sprinter’s posture and gathered up the courage he’d need to jump from a perfectly good starship onto a planet full of people waiting to kill him.
Fara’s voice echoed through his suit speakers. “Drop in three…two…one…go!”
Victor gritted his teeth and sprinted down the ramp, launching himself into the empty sky, one hundred thousand meters above the surface.
Then the altimeter on his HUD ticked down as Mohawk’s gravity took hold of him and pulled him toward the surface.
Highlighted by icons on his HUD were Gaz’s people falling around him, along with the 350 Mustanger soldiers dropped by the other frigates.
Below, another icon marked his landing zone, the courtyard of King Marsh’s royal palace, showing Victor’s range to his target and estimated time until his boots hit the ground.
Victor’s velocity climbed up the Mach scale as the planet rose to meet him but then decreased when he hit the thicker lower atmosphere.
After several minutes, his descent speed fell under the speed of sound.
The lights below resolved into grids of city blocks as Victor’s ballistic arc carried him toward the royal palace.
At one thousand meters’ altitude, the rig’s AG generator came to life, and its braking thrusters fired, forcing Victor’s stomach to his feet by the sudden deceleration.
His velocity dropped, but the ground below him still rushed up at an alarming rate. Just as every instinct in Victor screamed he was about to crash into the ground, the thrusters flared with gut-wrenching acceleration until his feet landed gently on the green turf of the palace courtyard.
His training kicked in before he had time to feel relieved. He hit the release on his rig, dropping it to the ground. He then grabbed his assault rifle and ammo pack off the rig and ran for the nearest piece of cover, a stone planter filled with flowers.
“This is Captain Blackhand. I’m on the ground!” he announced over the radio. “Gaz, you make it?”
“Yeah, I’m good, and so are my people,” Gaz said as he raced to Victor’s side, followed by much of his team as they took cover.
Victor nodded to him and then leaned around the planter to take a look around. Flared descent thrusters glowed in the night sky as the last few Mustanger soldiers landed while others scurried for cover. But, other than that, everything seemed rather quiet.
Why isn’t anyone shooting?
Victor thought. Then muzzle flashes appeared from seemingly every window of the palace.
He ducked behind the planter as bullets shredded the flowers above him. “Ah, there we go.”
“What?” Gaz asked.
Victor waved his hand. “Nothing. Please feel free to shoot back.”
Gaz smiled. “With pleasure,” he said, hefting a frightening recoilless rotary cannon to his shoulder. The four barrels spun and then fire poured from both ends.
Victor shouldered his comparatively dainty assault rifle and leaned around to fire, adding to the fusillade of bullets directed at the Mohawker palace guards.
The gunfire from the guards seemed to only grow more intense, and soon bullets rained down all around the grounds, ripping up turf and shattering sculptures.
Victor opened his direct channel to the
Waynesburg
. “Got a lot of fire coming in from the palace. We could use a little air support here.”
“I’m directing the
Alexander
and
Sandstorm
your way. Start marking things you want them to make dead,” Harland Quill said.
“You got it,” Victor said, using his helmet’s laser range finder to mark the locations where the heaviest fire came from.
Moments later, explosions ripped into the palace where Victor had laid his marks, and a drastic reduction in gunfire was directed his way.
“Let’s move up!” Gaz said, breaking cover to run toward the nearest gaping hole in the palace, still carrying the recoilless autocannon on his shoulder.
Victor followed, running up beside Gaz as he set up his weapon.
“Clear!” he announced, looking behind him to make sure no one was standing behind the gun before he pulled the trigger and fired a burst into the interior of the palace. After the burst was completed, Gaz waved his people forward. “Move up, fuckers!”
When they took up positions ahead, Gaz dropped his autocannon and produced an assault rifle. He then looked to Victor. “We’re in. Now what?”
“Now we find out where Marsh is,” Victor said. He pointed to a computer terminal. “Cover me.”
Gaz nodded.
Victor got up and ran toward the terminal. A guard who somehow survived the airstrike jumped out from behind a corner to shoot at him, but Gaz killed him with an automatic burst to the chest.
Victor reached the terminal to see if it was working. It was. He pulled out a device Cormac had made and plugged it into the terminal’s dataport. Instantly it connected the palace’s computer network to Cormac’s station in the
Alex
’s engineering compartment.
Cormac’s voice buzzed inside Victor’s helmet. “Ah, I see you found an active terminal.”
“Can you find where Marsh is hiding?” asked Victor.
“Let me see…. It does appear Marsh is in the palace. But I can’t find out where. There are a number of separate bunkers below the palace where he would likely be hiding,” Cormac said.
“Mark them and give their locations to the Mustanger ground teams,” Victor said.
“Done,” Cormac said.
“Hey, Cap,” Gaz said. “One of those bunkers is right beneath us.”
Victor checked his HUD’s map, now updated with Cormac’s intel. Gaz was right: four bunkers were buried under the palace, including one just under his feet.
He turned to Gaz, “Want to check that out?”
“I sure fuckin’ do, Cap,” Gaz said.
Victor looked over his map and then pointed down the hallway. “Second door to the left leads to a stairwell.”
“Got it,” Gaz said. He waved to his boarding specialists. “Follow me, fuckers. Time to go bust a bunker.”
Victor fell in with Gaz’s team, letting the pit fighter take point.
When they reach the stairwell, Gaz leaned over the railing and then jerked back as a burst of gunfire flew past his head and perforated the ceiling.
“Well, someone’s down there.” Gaz tossed a grenade over the railing.
The grenade exploded with a thunderclap that would have sent Victor’s ears ringing if not for the protection of his helmet. As black smoke rose, Gaz said, “Go, go, go!” and charged down the stairwell.
Victor followed, and saw Gaz and his men gun down the few stunned survivors at the bottom. But then a hail of gunfire came from the hallway leading to the bunker, catching two of Gaz’s men. Their biometrics flatlined in Victor’s HUD as everyone else took what cover they could.
“I got a feeling this is the right place,” Gaz said, leaning around the corner to fire his assault rifle in a long burst.