Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle (45 page)

Eric ducked inside, but didn’t find a target. He gestured and she flew up the steps to join him. She ducked into cover and interrogated her sensors. Hostile icons dotted around the building appeared on her display. It was every man for himself now by the looks of it. Good for Eric and her, bad for them. They weren’t backing each other up at all. She glanced at Eric; he waved her to the left. She advanced alone, while he disappeared down a corridor on the right. Sensors and TacNet made this an unfair contest. Yay for the good guys, she thought cynically. This was so unnecessary.

She made her way toward the first of her targets. He had gone to ground. Hiding from a viper was hard to do. If she had been a marine still, her old helmet with its sensor package might have missed him. Might. Standard Alliance gear was pretty good even without the advantages of a viper’s extra processing power. She probably wouldn’t know where he was, but she would have rotated between infra and motion sensors regardless and as soon as she opened the door she would have found him. She didn’t do either here. She simply aimed at the wall and killed the idiot. He had chosen to hug the wall beside the door, obviously expecting her to barge straight in and have the door hide him from sight. Her rifle on max settings blew a hole right through the wall and his torso. Something she had learned she could do from Eric when they fought together on Thurston. She poked her head through the wall to be sure he was dead, and then pulled back. She shook her head wishing she was killing Merki again, not her own people, and picked her next target.

She moved through her area carefully, but her sensors gave her plenty of warning when one of the raiders grew a spine and tried to flank. He was equipped with motion sensors at least. He must be. He was doing a reasonable job of circling around behind her. Of course he didn’t know that she was watching him on her own sensors and walking backwards at the same pace as she had been. When he rounded the last corner expecting to shoot her in the back, he was confronted with her rifle aimed at him. All he did was die.

She didn’t stop her movement, simply turned and kept walking. No need to check him. He didn’t have a head anymore. She returned her rifle’s power setting to a more reasonable anti-personnel level. She had forgotten to do it after blasting the hole in the wall.

As she moved through the building her attention began to drift remembering the past few years of her life. The death of her friends in the marines, meeting Eric, her recruitment testing on Luna. The first day she woke after enhancement flashed before her eyes, and Eric telling her she had nearly died. Roberto shooting her in the tunnels... first deployment on Child of Harmony... battles fought against Merkiaari... Shima going in alone to plant the tracker... the battle of Charlie Epsilon...

What the hell? She stopped where she was and looked around in bewilderment. She was in a hostile environment and she was playing memory files? How does that even happen? She shook her head at her inattention. A quicker way to get dead she couldn’t imagine.

Sensors reported...

...seeing Cragg almost dead... her fight on the roof... meeting the elders... visiting Shima... the survey mission with Varya... Shima’s vacation... waving goodbye to Shima as she boarded the shuttle with her family and friends... boarding
Hobbs
for the Kushiel mission... watching
Hobbs
burn and die... shot in the back...

Flicker, flicker, flicker, flicker...

Computer: close all incoming and outgoing ports!

The flow of memory files stopped, and Gina shook in terror. Someone had hacked her systems. They said that wasn’t possible. They promised her when she asked not even the hated Douglas Walden could do so! They lied... no they wouldn’t. They were vipers too and everyone feared being hacked, feared being a passenger in their own bodies, or simply being switched off. It was every viper’s nightmare. They told her she was safe because they believed it to be true.

“Well fuck them, they’re wrong,” she gasped.

>_ Sensors: offline.

>_ TacNet: offline.

Warning: Hostile intrusion detected. Countermeasures deployed... failed.

Computer: Block all incoming transmissions until further notice!

Acknowledged.

>_ Communications: offline.

Intrusion attempt failed. Block successful.

“Fuck me...” she whispered.

She was truly blind now. No sensors or TacNet, and no viper comm. They all relied upon her net and no network could operate without open ports for data to use. No way to warn Eric. She didn’t dare switch to helmet comm. She had no idea if she could be hacked that way. She couldn’t see how it would be possible... sonics maybe? She could mute her hearing. She did it in artillery practice, but she was blind enough already. She didn’t want to fight while deaf too.

How the hell does it happen that simple raiders have the ability to hack a viper when no one is supposed to have it? She didn’t know, but she was in trouble now. There were hostiles all through the building. She had to warn Eric, but she couldn’t leave the enemy at her back. She booted up her helmet systems, thanking God and the General that the regiment had kept them for backup purposes. They were primitive compared with her built in systems, but she had used similar things for longer than she had been a viper and was well practiced with their use.

The helmet’s HUD came online and its sensors showed her... she spun firing on full auto and yelling in surprise. The raiders fired back and she went down. Her legs riddled with pulser burns. She gritted her teeth at the pain but kept firing. Her suit was flame retardant but in no way was it a replacement for good armour. Her burned legs made her want to scream, but she made the enemy scream instead. All three of the raiders fell still shooting at her, but most missed her. Most. A single shot hit her helmet snapping her head hard back. Its nanocoat reacted instantly flashing mirror bright, trying to reflect the beam, and that saved her from a nasty burn and possibly death. Vipers were tough, but they weren’t immortal.

She rolled out of the plasma, but it was instinct and not really necessary. The raider was dead and his finger finally relaxed on the trigger. The weapon fell silent. Her HUD was flickering, damage to the helmet and partially burned visor accounted for that. It was still working though, and the raider’s red icons faded as she watched. Her sector was clear according to sensors. These three had been the last. Eric’s icon was coming her way at a run it looked like. He must think her badly damaged and was coming to her rescue again! With her out of all contact, it was all he could think... oh crap, no it wasn’t. When she ordered her processor to block all transmissions, she had inadvertently blocked her viper IFF too. Eric would have seen her icon fade from his sensors just as she had done after killing the raiders. He thought she was dead. Worse probably. A viper’s beacon was designed to keep going even after death to aid recovery of bodies. He must think her utterly destroyed. She would never live it down. Twice in one mission? No way would this stay just between them. It was too good a story. She wondered what she could bribe him with.

>_ Diagnostics: Legs 90%. Environmental health warning. Atmosphere toxic. Lung capacity degraded. Lung capacity 93%. Unit fit for duty.

>_ IMS: Repairs in progress.

She struggled to her feet to meet Eric. He ran around the corner and stopped as she marched up to him. She raised her burnt visor. Her suit integrity was already compromised so it hardly mattered. Eric opened his visor as well and coughed as he breathed the junk this planet laughingly called an atmosphere. He looked stunned to find her alive.

“I was hacked!” she yelled at him, her stress and fear coming out as anger. “What the fuck, Eric! You promised that can’t happen!”

He blinked in surprise. “I promised? I don’t remember that. Doesn’t matter. We can’t be hacked.”

“We bloody can, I was! I asked Doctor Patel when they switched everything on. He said no one can hack us. Not even Douglas Walden!”

“Calm down, we can’t be hacked.”

“Goddamnit will you listen to me! I. Was. Hacked!”

Eric just stared silently at her. He was doing that thing of his again, the going away thing. Something else was watching her out of his eyes now and she didn’t like it. She jabbed him hard in the chest with her fist and he came back blinking in surprise. His eyes widened.

“You too?”

Eric nodded.

“Close all ports and block incoming transmissions!”

“Doing it now. Done. I saw my family and... never mind. You’re right. We can be hacked.”

Gina nodded. “Yeah. How does a scraggly arsed bunch of raiders learn how to do that?”

“It wasn’t them. This is someone else.”

“How do you know?”

“I finished mine before coming here, and I’m guessing yours are all dead too.”

She glanced at the bodies beyond him. Eric and she were the only living people in the building. She turned in a circle and something caught her eye high up on the ceiling. A glass dome with a red activity light blinking slowly. She slapped a hand against Eric’s chest and directed him to look up.

“Not someone, Eric, some
thing
. I think we’ve found Sebastian.”

“We need to collect Liz and her people. She’ll want to meet him.”

Gina nodded. “Yeah, and I want to talk to him when she does. The bastard nearly got me killed.”

Haverington, Kushiel.

Leon watched the two suited figures emerge from the treasury building bitterly and knew his one chance was gone. Over. Done. He had lost the last toss of the dice. His ship was theirs now, his crew dead. The poachers had won, and he had nothing but his life left to him. It was more than Haliwell and the others had, but he didn’t feel grateful.

He had nearly done it. Nearly dug himself out of the hole he had fallen into. If he hadn’t let Haliwell talk him into busting open the vaults below the treasury they could have been on their way outsystem now with billions in bearer bonds and gilts. They were snugged away in the cargo hold right now! But no, he had let his greed infect him with stupidity. What did a few million credits in gold and platinum wafers mean when he had billions already? Damn him for a fool!

When the attack came upon them, he had been trying his override codes on the airlock controls. As captain his codes should have opened it, but they hadn’t worked. As the ship owner, he had a master unlock code as well, and would have tried it as a last resort. Applying it was a desperation move because it unlocked the entire ship all at once, including the ship’s computers. With unsecured computers, Haliwell could have jacked the ship right out from under him. He couldn’t risk that, so would have needed to reprogram every lock and security measure with new codes afterward. He didn’t get the chance to try it. The grenades slaughtered the crew around him and their attacker charged in and butt-stroked him. When he awoke amidst the corpses the ship had already been lost.

He watched the poachers approach and wanted to kill them for stealing his ship and one last chance at a life, but he couldn’t fly the ship alone. It wasn’t possible. He needed at least a handful of people to crew the ship in engineering while he conned the helm. There was no way less than five could crew the
Gift
. He would try to bargain a share of the bonds for his life, but he knew he would get nothing. He would be lucky if they let him live considering their actions to date. They were far better killers than Haliwell had ever been.

He looked at his pistol and dropped it before stepping into the open with his hands up, but he didn’t get the chance to bargain for passage to the nearest port. The pulser blast took him in the chest, and he died staring wide-eyed at a beautiful clear blue sky.

The figure wearing the damaged suit and burned helmet holstered the pistol stepping over the corpse, and continued toward the ship without looking back.

Aboard Blood Drinker, Kiar System

Beep!

Valjoth gnashed his fangs at the interruption. Usk was at the hatch. “I’ll rip him apart,” he panted.

Beep!

“Stay,” Zeng Kylar said pulling him down and holding him there with ease. She was a formidably sized female and very strong. Most were, but she took it to extremes. She was a head taller than the others, and that made her bigger than any male in the host including him. “Grrrrr,” she growled and pinned him down.

Valjoth grunted as her full weight descended upon him. He bit her shoulder. “By the blood,” he groaned in pleasure. “You had better get off me.”

“Or what?” she growled grinding herself against him.

He lapped the blood flowing from his bite. “Or... never mind,” he said and heaved with all his might. Kylar toppled with a crash and Valjoth pounced on top. “Ha!”