Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1) (57 page)

“Yeah, me too, but for the time being, let’s just focus on getting you outta there, alright?”

Link stroked his thick black whiskers and weighed the options. Hamish was alone—for now, anyway—but that could change at the drop of a hat depending on the whims of security. Then there was Lee, Danny, and hopefully Mac who, per last check, were held up in the command post. As of five minutes ago, they now had a t20-man roadblock to look forward to in the cul-de-sac—plus the dozen armed soldiers at the rear exit—and that was all assuming, of course, that they even made it that far without being captured, or worse. Then there was him, tucked away in a solo nest up here in the treeline.

If there was any hope of getting everyone out in one piece, Link knew he had to get them to one, single location before he could act… but how to do that?

Then, with a curmudgeonly grunt, he keyed his comm. “Alright, Big Dog, listen up. I hope you packed your running shoes, because I’ve got a plan.”

Hamish groaned on the other end. “Why do I sense that I’ll need a fresh pair of trousers too when this is all over?”

“Hey, I didn’t say it was a good plan,” Link admitted. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the stupidest thing to ever come out of my brain, which is saying a lot. But from where I sit, it’s all we got. Just get ready to move your
Highlander
ass when I tell you; copy?”

****

Divvying up the last of their ammo while Danny opened the hatch above, Lee pulled the pair of gas masks from his bag and handed one to Mac.

“Okay, y’all ready to do this?” he asked, unsheathing the shotgun from his back and racking in a load.

They nodded, visibly nervous, and Lee reached to disengage the emergency stop button.

“Daredevil, this is Wulver. You copy?”

Lee snatched back his hand. “Yeah, Wulver, go ahead.”

“Where are ya, lad?”

“In an elevator, probably about to die… and you?”

“I’m just outside,” said Lunley. “They’ve got a small army of guys waiting out here, so whatever ya’re about to do… don’t.”

Lee heard Danny mutter a curse behind him.

“But Link’s got a plan to get everyone out,” the Scot rushed to add.

Lee traded looks with Mac. “Okaaaaayyyy?” he hesitated. “You’ve got my attention. What’s the plan?”

“We want ya to surrender.”

“
What?
” they exclaimed in unison.

“Just listen. The entire building is on lockdown, which means they’re gonna bring the three of ya out front while they get the mass pandemonium ya’ve caused sorted out. Excellent work on that, by the way.”

“Flattery later, Hamish,” Mac frowned. “What happens when we’re outside?”

“Hello there, love,” Hamish beamed. “I can’t tell ya what a delight it is to hear your beautiful voice again.”

Crazy circumstances or not, she couldn’t help but blush. “You too, sweetie. Thanks so much for coming.”

“Oh, don’t thank me, this was all Lee’s doing. Ryan and Admiral Katahl thought he’d lost his mind, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He’s got stones befitting a bull, that one.”

Lee rolled his eyes and cut in. “Appreciate the complement, Hamish, but apparently we’ve got a whole lotta guns waitin’ for us on the other side of this door, so if we could get down to it?”

“Oh, right… sorry,” Hamish readjusted. “As I was saying…”

Chapter 30: Rain of Fire

The lift doors opened to the sight of 10 raised rifles pointed squarely at their faces, and Lee, Danny, and Mac offered no resistance as they relinquished their weapons. Interlacing his fingers behind his head, Lee took his cue to move and followed the armed escort down the hall, through the exit, and into the otherwise tranquil sunrise outside. Taking a few steps forward as ordered—the gravelly surface crunching beneath his boots—Lee watched a final canvas-topped truck skid to a dusty halt ahead, joining four others like it, plus a trio of jeeps, along a makeshift barricade at the mouth of the cul-de-sac.

“Man, I hope those two idiots know what they’re doing,” Danny muttered, inspecting the tightly clustered pattern of red dots adorning his chest.

“Wait for the signal and break for the warehouse on your right,” Lee thought, recalling Hamish’s instructions while eyeing the two-story metal building in question. It was only 20 or so yards away—well within sprinting distance—but that wasn’t the problem. The 40-plus rifles on the other side of the roadblock were.

“Where is Captain Hourne?” a helmeted soldier called from the front of the line, and Lee figured him to be the man in charge.

“Not rightly sure who you’re talkin’ about,” Lee offered. “We’re kinda not from around here.”

“Then what brings you here?” the soldier pressed.

“C’mon Hamish, where are you?” Lee thought, darting his eyes from building to building before responding. “Here on business, sir. We’re supposed to meet up with a client of ours—a fella named Hefner,” he added with a sarcastic stare back into the hillside, hopeful that his man was still there to hear it. “I guess we must’ve veered a little off course somewhere, because we ended up here. Sorry about all the fuss, but I can assure you it was an honest mistake.”

The soldier’s expression turned sardonic. “Just out of curiosity, stranger, do all smugglers come armed with standard issue Auran hardware where you’re from?”

“Ya know, that stuff ain’t even ours?” Lee laughed off the question. “We salvaged it a while back from a derelict ASC supply shuttle we happened across in the Raylon system. One can never be too careful in our line of work, and we figured it might come in handy in a dust-up some time.”

“Commander Vaughn!” the soldier’s radio crackled. “This is Miller on two.”

“Go ahead, Corporal.”

“We just found Captain Hourne’s body up here in the brig. He’s dead, sir, along with nine of our guys.”

Vaughn’s right hand jerked from the radio mic back to the grip of his rifle. “
Ready!
”

The loud clacking of armed weapons rang out like a thousand roulette wheels spinning to black, and Lee’s stomach jumped into his throat.

“
Aim!
”

“
Greetings, fishes!”
a voice boomed from on high, and Lee looked up to see Hamish standing tall atop the warehouse’s balcony—the sun at his back, the Harbinger gleaming in his hands—sporting a pearly-white, ear-to-ear grin that now held the undivided attention of the two platoons below. “
Welcome to ma wee little barrel!
”

Every truck, vehicle, and hard surface on the ground ignited in sparks as the massive weapon spun to life, raining a relentless spray of railgunned hellfire down on its screaming prey below, who scrambled feverishly for any semblance of cover they could find.

Seizing on the opening, Lee threw a hard elbow into the nose of the distracted guard behind him, dropping him to the ground while Mac made short work of the one holding her. Launching into an all-out sprint for the warehouse, Lee watched from the corner of his eye as, in a single, fluid blur, Danny disabled the pair of guards on his right, whirled a foot to the head of a third on his left, and whipped around to head-butt a fourth before leaping into a sprint of his own.

Bolting through the entrance just ahead of Mac, who ducked for cover—Hamish still thundering away from on high—Lee spun on his heels to see Danny, now in full stride through the fiery chaos of the courtyard, wince hard in agony before face-planting into the gravel.

“
Danny!
” Mac shrieked.

“
Hamish!
” Lee screamed. “
Cover fire! Five o’clock, low! NOW!
”

Racing back into the open, amid the panicked shouts of orders and the dancing spikes of dirt from whizzing bullets around him, Lee grabbed Danny by the arm and dragged him to safety inside.

“
Block the entrance and get up against the wall!
” Hamish yelled, dashing down the catwalk through the rat-tat-tapping of ricochets, while Mac slammed the door shut with the butt of her gun.

“Oh my god, Danny!” she yelped again, seeing him stagger to his feet, his right shoulder stained in red.

“It’s alright, I’ll be fine,” he offered. “I’m no medic, but I’m pretty sure it went straight through.”

“
Where’s Link?
” Lee shouted, tipping a stack of crates into the door as a fresh volley of gunfire pelted the building’s exterior, showering them in a jagged mist of window glass and debris.

“
So do we actually have an exit strategy here or what?
” Mac snarled under the shield of her arm.

The ferocious roar of an all-too-familiar engine revved through screams and weaponsfire in the distance, and recalling Lunley’s advice to back up, Lee dove for the corner as the mighty Sand Tiger careened through the building’s rear wall and skidded to a halt before him.

“Move your ass, Miss Daisy, I don’t have all day!” Link called from the driver’s side.

Sliding into the passenger seat beside him, Lee pulled up a digital map of their location on the dashboard computer console, while Mac helped Danny into the back, ripping up an extra shirt and pressing it to his shoulder to stop the bleeding.

“
Go, Lincoln!
” Hamish yelled from the back seat, setting the self-destruct sequence on the Harbinger’s control assembly before throwing it to the ground and closing the side hatch to seal them in.

“Everybody hang on,” Link warned, grabbing hold of the shifter. “This is gonna be a little bumpy.”

Spinning the tires into a howling frenzy before releasing the clutch, Link’s knuckles went white on the wheel as the Tiger slammed through the front wall of the warehouse, sending dozens of soldiers dodging to safety amid a shrapnel-like cloud of rocky dust and gravel.

“Hamish, we’ve got company!” Link alerted, seeing a trio of armored trucks escape the warehouse blast to fall in line behind them. “You’re on the 50!”

“It’s not a 50, it’s—”

“
THE BIG-ASS GUN ON TOP OF THE TRUCK, HAMISH! THE ONE THAT GOES BIG, LOUD BOOM WHEN YOU PULL THE TRIGGER! Get your giant, bald-headed ass up to it and SHOOT IT AT THE BAD GUYS!!”

Pulling back the overhead hatch, Hamish slid his upper body up through the Sand Tiger’s roof to assume control of the weapons turret at the back of the vehicle. Then, yanking back on its massive iron slide, he chambered his first barrage of return fire and took aim.

“Based on this, the fastest way outta here is to take this road directly through the compound, past the airfield, and back into the jungle,” Lee observed, hanging on for dear life as the Tiger blazed through a hairpin turn into an adjacent alleyway. “From there, it’s a straight shot due north back to the ship. Hamish, just hang on and keep them off us,” he said through the comm. “We’re about a minute out from the fence!”

“Aye, but tell Link to take it a little easier on the corners!” Hamish called back, filling Lee’s ear with the whipping wind and gunfire outside. “He nearly threw me into a sodding wall back there!”

Just then, the radio in Danny’s vest began to chatter. “Myrick-Alpha, this is the Alystierian Destroyer Sylus,” a voice identified. “Do you read? We are currently in orbit, requesting permission to land. Please advise.”

“
Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it!
” Link erupted, giving a hard jerk of his wheel to send a flanking truck head-on into a bunker.

“Stand by, Sylus, we have a situation down here,” another voice responded. “An ASC strike team has infiltrated the base and is currently at large. Be on the lookout for a Newbern class cargo ship breaking atmo at any time. The use of lethal force is authorized.”

“What kind of firepower do we have on the ship you guys came in on?” Mac asked, ripping off a fresh strip of cloth for Danny’s blood-soaked shoulder.

Feeling her clamp down on the wound, he grimaced.

“
A rock and a frickin’ slingshot, that’s what we got!
” Link wailed back. Then, spotting a lone footsoldier ahead—his rifle already raised—Link gave a snarling hard right of the wheel and stood on the gas as an abrupt
ka-funk
rumbled beneath the tires. “
TAKE YOUR POTSHOT AT ME NOW, JERK-OFF!”

Steepling his hands to his chin, Lee thought hard for options, while his annoyed driver jabbered on in the seat next to him.

“This is just fantastic!” Link muttered. “I could be at home right now, sitting buck-naked on my $5,000 leather couch, halfway through a case of Pabst and watching
Porky’s
in high-def on my 65-inch flat screen, but
noooooo!
I’ve gotta be out here, getting shot at by a bunch of trigger-happy fascist pricks in gray pajamas, trying to save the friggin’ galaxy! This is just
so
awesome! I’m
so
happy to be here right now!”

“Hamish, how many of those hangars did you manage to take out in the depot blast?” Lee asked, staring ahead at the rapidly approaching plume of black smoke.

“Two of the three, but I didn’t have time for the one at the end of the tarmac,” Hamish explained, pulling the pin on a grenade and lofting it through the shattered windshield of an oncoming truck, which tumbled in a fireballing wreckage down the dirt road behind them.

“Alright, Link, we’re making a pit stop,” Lee told him.

“What?” Link asked in bewilderment. “What on earth for?”

“I’m gonna run interference while you guys prep for the jump to hyperspace,” Lee said, reaching for a gun-filled duffel behind his seat and locking eyes with Mac, whose sour expression suggested she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“There is no way you’re doing this,” she declared. “No way.”

“This ain’t up for debate, Mac. Once you guys break orbit, I’ll draw the Destroyer’s fire long enough for you to make the jump.”

“The hell you are, Lee!” she persisted, her voice rising. “You don’t even know how to fly an Alystierian ship!”

“I’ll be fine,” he tried to reassure her. “Alystierian tech was derived from the same stuff as Auran tech, so I oughta be able to figure it out.”

“You could be left behind,” Mac concluded, her voice trailing off to a near-whisper this time.