Crusade For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 2) (41 page)

When Major Forlani said in their meeting she was bringing the best combat soldiers in the Legion, Julianna thought it was a slight over-exaggeration, despite her cousin.  Even in training they looked very good, but not quite what the Major promised.  Julianna only now understood what the Major meant.  She felt slightly sorry for any guards who tried to put up a fight on the other side of that door.

A sudden noise reverberated through the bay and Julianna spun round.  The first shuttle was making its way through the energy field.  The noise of its massive engines echoed throughout the bay.  This was one of the two Scarab class assault shuttles Shadow Company brought with them.  The sleek shape bristled with weaponry.  Julianna could easily imagine all of those turrets turning and locking on to targets as it descended into a hot landing zone.  Today none of them were active.  They did not have the trained personnel to pilot it and man the guns.  The pilot flew passenger liners across Blaze until a couple of months ago.  He touched it down more gently than would seem possible for something of its size.

Such was their Alliance.  It didn’t matter.  The pilot believed in the cause and when they had the time, the pilots of Shadow Company could train everyone the Rebellion needed.

The shuttle’s forward ramps lowered.  Men and women in armour identical to her own spilled out.  Squad leaders hustled their people into some semblance of order.  Sergeant Major Bickerstaff broke away from his own team and jogged over.

With command of an over-sized company in the newly formed military wing of the Rebellion, the Sergeant Major should have been promoted to a Captain at the very least.  The members of Shadow Company insisted on keeping their own original ranks, even when a Private was in command of a full platoon.  Julianna asked Chao about it and he gave her a long and convoluted answer.  When she had pressed him on it, it boiled down to one simple fact.  The Company wanted to make sure Major Carter was going to actually join the Rebellion, before they fully committed.  For them it was important, symbolically, to keep their ranks until she made that decision. 

A team of men and women made their way out of the back of the armoured fighters.  These wore civilian enviro suits denoting the technicians and engineers.  Half took off at a run towards the control room and the other half headed over to Julianna.  Evidently Bickerstaff was as good as his word and the techs already knew what they needed to do.

Walking out to meet them, Julianna held out her hand.  The tech in the lead took it and smiled through her visor.

“Any luck?”

“Nothing, yet,” Julianna replied, shaking her head.  “We’ve got about a third of the way in.  Who knows what’s in there.”

“OK, thanks.  We’ll keep looking.  I’m hoping we can get the controls back together first though.”

“So do I.  Have you heard anything from the other bays?  Have they got the same problem?”

The woman nodded.  “Yeah, Wings one and three are fine, two’s in a worst state than this one, but they‘ve found an umbilical, and four went a completely different route and took out the airshield.”

“Shit!”  Julianna’s eyebrows rose in surprise.  “That’s not good.”

The engineer shrugged.  “It’s not too bad.  Don’t get me wrong, it would have been easier if they hadn’t done it, but all it will do is slow us down and suck more air out of this place each time we launch the shuttles.”

Grinning back at the woman’s attitude, Julianna patted her on the shoulder.  “I’ll leave you to it.  Good luck.”

“You too, try and get back alive.”

“We’ll do our best.”  She turned to her fighters, who were showing the other tech’s how far they had gotten in the search, while she was talking.  “Time to do what they’re paying us for,” she called and waved them over.

“Wait a second.  No one said we were getting paid.”  Troll said as she jogged over from the control room with Barney.

“It’s an expression.  How did you get on?”

The taller woman shrugged.  “Not good, but the experts are in there now.  Hopefully they’ll be able to do something.”

“Alright, at least you did what you could.  Come on.”  Julianna led her team over to the motionless forms of Bickerstaff’s Bravo team.  “Where do you want us, Corp?” she asked Ulrich.

He pointed to one side.  “Over there will be fine until the Sergeant Major can get that lot organised.”  A nod of his armoured head indicated the one hundred and fifteen Militia soldiers, made up of Rebel Fighters and Enforcers, who came out of the shuttle.  “It shouldn’t be long and then things are going to get exciting.  They’ve been setting up barricades on the other side of that door since before we arrived.”

The sound of engines cut through the bay again, announcing the arrival of the second shuttle.  Julianna turned to watch it come through the energy shield and land next to the Scarab.  It had the same footprint as the Scarab, but resembled a flying box with engines.  It was a standard cargo shuttle, often seen in and around any space port in the Pantheon.  They were the workhorse of freight transport, flying continuously for thousands of hours, both dirtside to orbit and across the system.  This one was empty bar the crew.  Its role in the mission was to help ferry the prisoners out to the Wandering Pony.

When the noise died down, Julianna turned back to Corporal Ulrich to continue their conversation.  “How bad?”

“Not the worst I’ve seen, but nor is it going to be a walk in the park.  They had five fully built lines of defence set up before they started taking out the sensors and cameras.  Now, who knows?  It’s certainly going to be bloody, I can guarantee that.”

“Surely they don’t have anything that can breach our armour, though?” she asked.

His massive shoulders rose and fell in a shrug exaggerated by his armour.  “You know as much as I do.  Your spy told us they only have Mag pistols and Pulse rifles, but in our game you never plan with the belief your intelligence is one hundred percent accurate.  If this was my facility, I’d have some heavy weapons tucked away for a rainy day.  The most logical place for them would be right through that door.”

“That has to be a worry.”

He shrugged again.  “It’s why they pay us the good money, or at least they used to.”  His helmet didn’t have a visor, so she couldn’t see his face, but the frown in his voice came through clearly.

“We’ll all have to work out how to get paid.”  Julianna said lightly.

“Stick with us and we’ll make sure it’s worth all our time and necks,” Troll butted in.  “With that big old armour, we could do some very high end scores.”

“Heh, I can’t see the Major allowing us to do that,” Ulrich pointed out.

“You’d be surprised.  She led our Crew to some pretty profitable scores.  Oh, oh,” she pointed towards the shuttle.  “It looks like it’s about to get serious.”

The Sergeant Major was striding over with the rest of First Platoon and four platoons of the Alliance Militia.  That was what they had begun calling the combined force of Rebel Fighters and Enforcers.  The remaining two platoons were setting up defensive positions around the shuttles.

“Change of plan, people.  The Guv is back in business and she’s given us new orders.”

“The Guv?” Julianna asked herself quietly in confusion.  Her com was on her team’s net and she hadn’t realised until Troll answered her.

“That’ll be Carter.  Things are about to get interesting for the guards on the other side of that door, trust me.”

***

Unbuckling her armour from her arm, Valerie set it down on the table.  She readjusted its length and strapped it back on.  With it secure, she rolled her arm and flexed the elbow and wrist a couple of times.

“That’s better.”

“For you maybe,” Briseis said from nearby.  “I have always been proud of my height and now it has become my downfall.”

“I think downfall is a bit harsh, uncomfortable would probably be closer.”  Valerie replied.  She and the three Spartans were all dressed in armour they scrounged from the dead or captured guards.  For Valerie it wasn’t a problem.  She was of average height for a woman.  One of the female guards they had taken alive was a similar size.  It wasn’t the perfect fit of her personal armour sitting in her Tea Chest, wherever that was right now, but it was close enough to do the job.

For Briseis and the other Spartans it was a different matter.  With their height, only one of the female guards came close and her chest plate was unusable, due the hole Valerie’s Pulse rifle burned through it.  They had to make do with armour taken from the male guards.  No matter how well made, all armour came in two categories, male and female.  The two sides of the human species were built differently and that never changed.

The four of them took the first pick of armour and weapons.  Valerie made sure of that and no one argued.  They needed the best fighters to have the best equipment available.  Now they and four other women in cobbled-together armour, were in positions covering the blast door sealing the lift shaft. To make sure everyone knew what side they were on, should the guards try and retake this level, all of them wore a bright yellow arm band made from the torn off sleeve of their prison jumpsuit.

Hanna could not give them visual or even verbal communications.  The only contact with the outside was through the text messages.  Hanna was being deliberately obtuse about who was coming up that shaft.

Valerie suspected it was the Crew.  It was the only thing that made any sense for Hanna to try and hide from her.  Whoever it was, they were due to arrive any minute.  Hanna gave them all the other details she could.  She told them the timings and route the rescue team were taking to get to them, along with a brief outline of the number of Rebel Fighters and Enforcers assaulting the Rock.  It was an impressive figure and Valerie knew she owed all the Crew for this.

It was obvious there was a lot going on, far more than she knew.  Valerie had a lot of questions for Hanna and the others.  Not least among them, why the Rebels expended this much resources on freeing everyone from the Rock?  She told Quin it would be an excellent recruiting ground, but she hadn’t expected this much of a response, this quickly.  They moved so fast, there had been no time for Todd to go on his bi-monthly leave and get an update.  Something wasn’t right and Valerie didn’t like it.

The sound of running feet caused all but the Spartans to turn around.

“Eyes front!”  Valerie snapped and the four prisoners jolted back round.  Ingrid came running up.

“Quin says thirty seconds,” the woman gasped and Valerie turned back to the lifts.

“That means any moment now,” she warned everyone.  “Fingers off those triggers.”  They waited and the seconds ticked by until the doors were wrenched open without warning.  “Hold your fire!”  Valerie commanded, though she could barely believe her eyes.  Hanging in the lift shaft on antigrav, his big armoured hands holding the door open, was the last thing she expected to see.  “Button?”

“Yes, Major,” the man answered through his external speakers as he pulled himself in and shutdown his grav-belt.  The weight of his armour settled onto the metal floor with an audible clank.  “Good job this door isn’t as strong as the ones surrounding the crew wing.  Alpha fire team is right behind me.  We could do with some room.”

Questions piled up in Valerie’s mind, but the immediate situation required action first.  “You heard him,” she told everyone and waved them back.  “Give them some space to get out of the shaft.”

“Are they the legendary Devils?”  Cheimon asked.

“Not just Devils, they’re Shadows,” Valerie replied.  “My old Company.”

Wester followed Button in and then a Lieutenant Valerie didn’t know.  Richings and Guggenheim were right behind.  The Lieutenant turned to the team.

“Richings, secure the entrance with Wester, Button and Guggenheim,” he turned back to Valerie.  “Major, it’s an honour.  I’m Lieutenant Michio Saito.  Is there some place we can talk?”

His visor was down so Valerie couldn’t see his face.  She knew exactly where it was in his suit and held her gaze on his as she answered.

“Briseis, stay here and back them up with the rest,” she waved to a room off to one side the armoured Devils could fit into.  “This way, Lieutenant.  You too, Button.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Button replied.

Lieutenant Saito went first, followed by Button.  Valerie shut the door behind her, took off her helmet and shook her hair out.  The two Devils raised their visors and Valerie asked the first in a long queue of questions.

“What in hades are you doing here, Button?”

“Major.  If I may-” the Lieutenant started to say.

“No, you may not, Lieutenant,” Valerie cut him off.  “I know who you are, Lieutenant.  I put you on the list as a recruit for the Company.  I‘ve never met you so I’m going to talk to Private Button.  Keep quiet until I get to you.”

His eyes widened at her tone, but she didn’t care.  Right now she wanted answers from someone she knew, without a doubt, she could trust.  “Yes, Ma’am,” he replied tightly.

“Well, Private?” she asked.

“I thought it was obvious,” Button  answered with a shrug of his armoured shoulders.  “We’re here to rescue you.”

“Don’t be flippant with me, Private,” she growled back, her eyes hard.

His armoured form straightened as he snapped to attention.  “No, Ma’am.”