Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Turmoil (23 page)

"Prisoner
requested to see?" the bored clerk asked.  He was a Qualin, much younger
than the group's first point of contact.  It was probably his first assignment
and he seemed determined to get everything perfect.

"A Priman named
Krenis," Loren said patiently.

The clerk worked
away at his data pad, then nodded thoughtfully as if everything was right with
the world.  "Looks like a request was already entered on your
behalf," he said.  "The prisoner is on the way to Holding Room
Three.  There's a transpsrent armor wall between you, so you can all enter and
keep your weapons."

Loren thanked the
man, who indicated one of the glass walled rooms that fronted the wide open
common area.  From the holding room, Loren would be able to see everything, as
well as have his activities viewed by others.  He gestured to the other three,
who entered the room and sat in the provided chairs and waited for Krenis to
arrive.  Unlike the rest of the facility he
’’
d
seen so far, n the holding rooms though there were no exposed fixtures for
prisoners to rip out or make into improvised weapons.  While the other three
weren't as interested in the Priman or Loren's assurances to him that he'd be
looked after, they did want to see Velk and were happy to sit through the
courtesy call on Krenis.

A minute later, the
armored hatch on the other side of the glass opened and Krenis entered wearing
a standard gray prison jumpsuit.  He walked in a controlled and collected
manner to the desk, then sat down opposite Loren and the rest.  Audio pickups
and hidden speakers almost perfectly reproduced voices from one side of the
glass to the other, and unlike the interrogation rooms, this space felt less
harsh and clinical.

"You have kept
your promise to check in on me, I see," Krenis began. 

"We were in the
neighborhood," Loren admitted, "and I thought it would be the thing
to do."  He paused, silence hanging in the air.  The two were not friends
with lots of catching up to do, but Loren felt like he was supposed to do
something more than just see that the man was still alive.  "How's the
food here?"

Salvor readied
himself at the service entrance and looked back at the rest of his team.  The
twelve of them had a difficult task, but the odds were stacked in their favor. 
It was evening, so normal visiting hours were over.  Tana Starr had shuffled
off as many of the guards and personnel as was possible.  The Drisk prosthetics
his team wore helped them blend in; his faked ID would get him to the first
checkpoint, and as long as they could get past that and secure it before the next
guard set off any alarms, they stood a very good chance of being out of the
facility before any realistic help could arrive.

To that end, he'd
left three of his team to secure their escape route.  They sat in two hovervans
hidden in the service lot among other utility vehicles and storage units. 
There were two more empty cans parked blocks away in case they needed to
initially leave on foot.  There were multiple routes they could take back to
their safehouse, many of which led through increasingly-crowded commercial
areas with restaurants and shopping that would continue to fill up as the night
carried on.  They'd done everything they could to prepare; now it was time for
him and his brothers to free their former Commander from the ungrateful
inferior beings who had taken him from his people. 

Salvor marched
confidently down the corridor towards the Confederation military checkpoint. 
Tana Starr had managed to supply him and one other operative with convincing
enough fake ID packages to get them through the civilian portions of the
building and to the military checkpoint.  Once they arrived, though, there was
no way to bluff or lie their way through; they'd simply have to take the
checkpoint by force.

They approached the
transparent armor window in the tiny vestibule and presented themselves to the
battle-worn human female at the station.  Salvor could at least appreciate the
woman's service; she appeared to have given much for her people.  If only they
weren't so misguided, they'd be much more welcome when the end inevitably
came. 

"We're here to
see the Priman prisoner called Velk," Salvor said, trying not to look
queasy at dropping all the honorifics from the former Commander's name.  He
knew doing so would make him seem more casual and human, but it pained him.

"Authorization,
please," the woman said as she pointed to a recessed spot on the counter
in front of the armor.  Salvor dutifully placed a data chip in the recessed pad
and watched as the woman reached into the tray and picked it up.  A second
later, he triggered the device.  Simultaneously, a quick puff of a potent
knockout gas left the device, sending the woman to the ground in an
unceremonious heap, while the device also emitted a localized electromagnetic
pulse just large enough to affect the room they were in.  While most
military-grade devices were hardened against such attacks, the Primans still
had a few tricks up their collective sleeves and had chosen now to reveal one
of them.  What this crew didn't know was that Priman capital ships were also
about to debut the technology using their adapted Talaran torpedo designs.

Salvor's accomplice
quickly dashed to the hatch and started manually pushing it open, the
electronic locking mechanisms having been fried by the EMP.  Seconds later
Salvor heard a commotion in the outer room, followed by the door opening, and
the remaining seven of his operatives came streaming in.  They'd managed to get
a duffel bag through the less-effective screening before the military
checkpoint, and now it had paid off.  One of Salvor's operatives handed out the
weapons; two compact repeating blasters plus handguns for the rest, all of
Drisk design in keeping with their cover.   

Salvor hefted one of
the weapons, appreciating the balance and heft of the pistol.  A Drisk design
whose military designation was SSK, the civilian version was called SDF
Compact.  The Drisk were skilled weapons designers; the Confederation needed to
remain sidelined to prevent their obvious ingenuity with weapons of war from
interfering with his people's mission.

He walked past the
unconscious human and without any emotion shot her once in the middle of the
chest.  It was unfortunate to have to kill another warrior in such a fashion,
but the mission came before personal ideals and he couldn
’
t afford the loose end bhind
them.

"Take
point," Salvor said quickly to the operative closest to the hatch to the
inner passages of the facility.  "Shoot only when you have to; stealth is
key unless there is no alternative."

The Priman soldier
nodded resolutely, then proceeded at a brisk walk down the corridor with the
rest in tow.  He held his weapon in a two handed grip similar to what the local
humans seemed to favor, a move encouraged by the balance of the weapon.

Soon enough, they
were at the hatch that lead into what Tana had described as a large reception
area.  She'd provided detailed information, even the most common locations for
the pair of Marines to be monitoring.  All of Salvor's operatives stacked on
the door, four on each side, with Salvor a step behind so as not to get in the
way.  These eight had drilled the entry for a week straight, and he didn't want
to wreck their timing.

The one with his
hand on the manual release turned to look at Salvor and nodded once, indicating
readiness.  With one measured breath, slowly inhaled and exhaled, Salvor was
ready.  He nodded and raised his weapon.

"So you're
telling me the Primans introduced this part of the galaxy to grilled Moliar
ribs?" Loren asked with some amazement. 

"The Moliar was
merely modified by us to become a food animal," Krenis continued,
"but the process of marinating and then glazing it with sauce while
cooking was our contribution to preparing it properly." 

Loren realized
Krenis looked proud of himself, and well he should.  It was one of his own
favorite meals, and when properly prepared- a day-long process- it was one of
the divine joys of the mortal plane of existence.  At least, that's how Loren explained
it to people.

He was about to ask
Krenis for recipes when a commotion caught the corner of his eye.  Behind the
soundproofed glass, he hear nothing, but what he saw made his heart stop and
sent a shiver up his spine.  Nine Drisk, all armed with powerful weapons, came
boiling through the hatch from the outer vestibule.  In precision movements,
they darted to both sides of the doorframe and all covered their own sectors of
the large reception area, engaging anyone that moved.  It wasn't a chaotic shootout;
it was a low-blast-count elimination.  Only a handful of blaster bolts were
fired.  The Marines received half a dozen each before they'd turned to engage. 
The Qualin who Loren had talked to upon entering fell in a heap at his desk, as
did several others around the room.  The Drisk then started leapfrogging
through the space, covering each other while a few at a time moved.  They were
halfway through the lobby before they noticed Loren and Krenis in the holding
cell; Web, Merritt and Cory were all sitting back against the wall with the
door in it and weren't seen. 

A flurry of blasts
pummeled the glass on Loren's side of the interview room, shattering the glass
and sending a shower of pieces of the tempered material all over Loren and the
room.  He dropped to the ground and rolled to the forward wall where the glass
viewports had just been shot out.  If they were going to come for him, they'd
have to walk right up to the wall and take a peek; he wasn't going to cower at
the back wall and make it easy for them to see him.

The two Drisk
cautiously trotted up to the viewport and held their weapons out in front,
slowly crossing the threshold into the space.  Krenis just stood there on his
side of the glass, transfixed by the scene in front of him.  He saw Cory and
Merritt simply waiting in their defilade position, the enemy's view of them
obstructed by the wall they were approaching.  Cory and Merritt saw the gun
barrels of the two Drisk attackers poke through the shattered glass and start
pointing down towards Loren, and that was when they took their shots.  The two
Confed officers each put double taps into the chests of the attackers, who fell
back to the ground.  Web bolted out of the door and into the corridor, SSK
drawn, then held his position while Cory and Merritt joined him.  By the time
Loren had gotten up and followed them, Merritt had checked on the two Drisk and
declared them KIA.

They all turned
their attention to the rest of the attackers, who had disappeared down one of
the prisoner blocks. 

"Oh 
damn," Loren muttered.  Everyone turned to look at him.  "Guess who's
down that wing?"

"Is it a Priman
Representative whose name rhymes with shmelk?" asked Web.

"Yes,"
replied Loren grimly.  He quickly glanced around the space, taking stock of his
surroundings.  The reception area was eerily quiet; no alarms were blaring,
there was no stomping of boots that indicated reinforcements were on the way. 
"I don't think anyone knows what's going on here," he started, and
received knowing glances from everyone.  It was up to them. 

"Ok," he
said, starting to pick up steam and speak faster as too many ideas tried to
make their way out at once.  "We need to set off some sort of alarm.  We
also need to block those people from leaving with Velk."

"There's only
one way out of here unless they have a pallet load of explosives," said
Web confidently.  "And since they came in this way, I doubt they plan to
leave through a hole in the wall.  We can back up and defend the checkpoint
where we came in.  We use the hallway as a kill box just like the woman said,
and we set off her alarm."  Left unsaid was the fact that if she hadn't
been able to trigger it, it probably meant she was out of the picture.

"Let's do it
before they get back," Loren agreed.  "Element of surprise and all
that."  He turned to head out of the reception area, then stopped to pick
up the two assault rifles by the dead Marines.  "We'll put these to good
use for you," he said softly to the soldiers.

"Web,"
Loren called out, and tossed one to the younger pilot.  Web checked the charge
and, like Loren, holstered in own SSK, which went into standby and remained
ready to fire.  Loren grabbed the spare magazines and power cells and they all
took off for the checkpoint at a dead run.    

The charged down the
hallway and Merritt ran into the small armored office where the woman who'd let
them in lie on the ground.  Merritt did a double take, though.  She'd taken a
blaster round right in the chest, and her uniform was blackened and burned
away, showing scarred, red and blistered skin underneath.  However, she was
still breathing in shallow, quick breaths. 

"She's
alive!" Merritt yelled to Cory, who ran to join him.  They gave her a
quick once-over and figured she probably didn't have any neck or head
injuries.  It was safer to move her than leave her where she was, considering
the impending gunfire.

"It's the
nanites," Loren said as he peered through the door frame at Merritt and
Cory's efforts. 

"But they're
for her leg," Cory countered.

Web, having learned
a little bit about nanites from Halley lately, chimed in.  "Even if
they're in there to keep her leg attached, they'll still have basic medical
programming.  She probably has an implant to keep them suppressed, otherwise
they'd use up all her spare calories and fat to keep repairing every cut and
scrape she got, never mind cell damage from aging.  But she has to live with
these, so she's on a high calorie diet anyway and since they're already inside,
they'd kick in to save her life."