On Galaxy's Edge: Ascendance (21 page)

“That seems likely,” Talyah agreed, whilst she felt the unconscious man’s neck, searching for a pulse. She couldn’t find one. “I think we’ve lost him, Nero,” she said, looking up.

“Well, at least he made it here to warn us. Get rid of the body, Tal. I’ll find Nate.”

****

They sighted the planet as the shuttle emerged from the space-between-space, the now-familiar grey ball floating in the blackness of space looming up in front of them.

Nero looked around, seeing no other signs of life. No ships were visible, and the shuttle’s sensors weren’t picking up anything out of the ordinary. They were alone.

“So we’re not under attack yet?” Nate asked, sat in the copilot’s seat. “That’s good. What are we even expecting down there, Nero?”

“I don’t know,” Nero replied, adjusting their course to bring them to the single city on the planet. “So be prepared for anything.”

The planet rapidly filled their field of view, as the ship flew towards it. Nero brought the speed down as they entered the atmosphere, to allow the heat dissipaters to dispel the vast amounts of thermal energy that were being produced. The ship shook slightly as they descended through the atmosphere, the anti-inertial dampers doing their best to keep the vehicle steady.

He glanced at the map that was being fed to his holodisplay, in his peripheral vision. The city should be almost directly below them. Keeping the ship descending almost vertically, they soon broke out of the dark layer of clouds they had been travelling in, to see the vast sunken city of Kaza'ona stretching out before them.

Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary as Nero brought the shuttle down, to land on one of the vacant landing pads on the giant building’s roof. They got out of the shuttle, and stood there, fighting the wind to stay upright. In the distance, on another landing pad, Nero could just make out a smoking hulk of a shuttle. Otherwise, the roof was deserted. There weren’t even any security guards to come out to meet them.

They fought their way through the biting wind to one of the entrances, noting the lack of guards again. They climbed down, and into the building, emerging into a darkened corridor. Nero turned on the lighting strips integrated into his jacket.

“Shit!” Nate said, now they were out of the wind. “Something’s happened, then. Did you see that other shuttle?”

“I did,” Nero agreed, saying nothing more. He walked along the corridor, finally emerging into one of the major thoroughfares, illuminated by the giant light-well shaft that ran through the centre of the building. It was deserted.

The last time they had been here, the place hadn’t exactly been heaving, but there had been a lot of activity going on. Humans running a shop, an alien delivering something, a child running down the corridor. Now, the place just had a strange atmosphere, as if they were in a morgue, or some other place where death lingered.

“Well, shall we go and see if Heldine is still around?” Nate said, his usual jovial tone gone for the moment.

They walked through a couple of kilometres of corridor, not seeing anyone, but occasionally seeing blackened marks on walls, or the floor. Nate bent over to investigate one of the marks, and it looked very much like scorching from laser weapons. Nero had never seen weapons that could produce such a large area of scorching, though.

Finally, they came to the lab that Heldine, their contact on the planet, had worked in. Before they even entered, Nero and Nate knew what they found inside wasn’t going to be good. Outside the door was a much greater concentration of the blackened scorch marks, and the entry panel had been completely melted.

Nero slid open the unsecured door, and the scene that greeted them was one of devastation. All of the lab equipment, on the work surfaces and on the shelving units, was utterly destroyed. The floor was a sea of shattered and melted plastics. There were also three bodies lying sprawled on the floor, each with massive holes in their torsos.

“Fuck me,” Nate muttered, walking up to the nearest one, and flipping the body over onto its back. Neither of them recognised the victim, and the same held true for the other two bodies. All of them, however, had the same, slightly horrified expressions etched onto their features.

They then tried the door to Heldine’s office, at the back of the lab. Again, like the other door, the locking mechanism had been completely melted, and the door was half open. Nate slid the door the rest of the way open, and sitting in the chair behind the desk, facing the door, was Heldine. The top half of her head had been blown clean away, leaving a cauterised wound at about the level where her nose would have been.

Nate walked over to her body. “No other wounds,” he reported. “Looks like she was killed instantly. I guess whoever did this didn’t want to question her.”

There was nothing else of interest in the office, so they walked back out again, sparing the bodies another glance as they left. “Why would someone do this?” Nate asked when they were out of the lab again. “What’s the motive?”

Nero thought back to what Ami had said before he’d left, but immediately dismissed it. “I don’t know, but this was professional work.” He looked around them again, noting how any bodies had been removed from the main corridors. “And who would go to the bother of all this just to get to us?”

“It’s a valid point,” Nate said. “Maybe it was retaliation against these people. Maybe their governatore slept with some woman he shouldn’t have, eh?” Nate laughed as they walked along, heading back in the direction of their shuttle.

They walked through the corridors for a time, occasionally looking at the view out into the giant shaft that shot down through the centre of the building.

“I think the pressing question for us,” Nero said after a time, “is where the hell are we going to find more qiameth now? This was the only place I know of that made it.”

“You never heard of any others?”

“Nope. These guys kept it pretty secret. I don’t even know if anyone else knew how to make it.”

Nate glanced at Nero as they walked along. “I dunno, I did hear some rumours...”

“Rumours...?”

“Yeah. I was in a bar with these guys. Well, girls, if you must know, and I managed to overhear a conversation at a nearby table. See, these guys struck me as interesting, at the time. Maybe they were another gang, or something. Anyway, I ambled over, and they were talking about little red pills, you know? I figured they were talking about our merch, but then, they mentioned some guy I hadn’t heard of as their source.”

“And when were you going to tell me about this, Nate?” Nero asked, exasperation in his voice.

“Didn’t seem relevant at the time. And I never heard it mentioned again, so it sort of slipped my mind. But it’s an avenue to look into, ain’t it?” He flashed Nero a winning smile. Nero sighed.

“Look into it when we get back. We’re going to have to act quickly here.” Nero wasn’t sure how much stock of the drug they had, but at the rate they sold it, their surplus supplies weren’t going to last very long. They needed a new supplier.

“Sure thing boss.”

****

The sky was dark as they approached the old warehouse on the outskirts of the city, and the rain was hitting the shuttle’s windscreen relentlessly. The world around them seemed abandoned and miserable, almost like Kaza'ona. But further away, light could be seen streaming out of the Scrapers, illuminating the sky above them in a multitude of colours.

Nero returned his attention to the warehouse, and the few pinpricks of light leaking out of the windows. As he flew the shuttle closer, the main doors detected the ship, and began to open. By the time the shuttle reached the factory, the doors were open wide enough to allow Nero to fly through, with a slight dip of the port side to fit the wing tips through the still-widening gap.

“What the hell...?” Nate said, glancing at Nero as the ship entered their base. A red light was strobing in the factory, and people were running about. There didn’t appear to be anything obviously wrong, though. With a sense of urgency, Nero landed the shuttle, setting it down next to the main doors, and ran towards the boarding ramp at the rear of the shuttle. As the ramp opened, the loud siren hit their ears, and the strobing light forced its way into the ship.

“Code red. Code red.” An artificial voice was playing through the warehouse speakers. “Code red.” When the ramp was down enough to allow them out, Nero and Nate ran down the ramp and jumped off the end, heading straight for the main office not far away. Inside, they found Talyah, Onon and Jerad pulling weapons off of their racks.

“What the hell is going on?” Nero demanded, instantly freezing the others in their tracks. It was Onon who answered first.

“We don’t know, Nero. The alarm just went off, in the back-up stash. We haven’t been able to contact anyone there yet.” She picked up her combat belt and strapped it on, attaching her rifle to its slot.

“This day just gets better...” Nero said. He went over to pick up some weapons for himself, choosing his favourite rifle and a selection of grenades as well. “Nate? You coming?”

“Shouldn’t someone stay and guard this place?” he asked in return. “What if this is a diversion of some sort?”

It was a good point, Nero conceded. “Alright, keep an eye on things here. Hopefully we won’t be long. And make sure you keep Sevi with you,” he added, not wanting Sevi to sneak along with them again. Nate smiled.

Thirty minutes later, and Nero, Talyah, Onon, Jerad, and a few others, were getting out of the shuttle a couple of streets away from their stash of drugs and supplies. They made their way through a couple of alleys to find the building, not seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary, but keeping their weapons out all the same.

The building itself was a small, run-down place, surrounded by years of refuse and neglect. Along the front was a facade that wouldn’t attract any notice, complete with a metal door that looked about to fall off its hinges. That was an illusion, however, since Nero had installed a particularly solid door, which should have withstood a significant amount of force. The melted locking mechanism at the bottom of the door suggested that it couldn’t withstand concentrated laser fire, however.

Nero slowed, and the others behind him slowed as well. He carefully approached the door, always keeping an eye on their surroundings, and saw that it was still partially open. He gestured for the others to move forward with him, and slowly pushed the door open a little further. No sounds came from within, and no movement, either. He pushed the door open a little more, enough to be able to squeeze in. Still nothing.

With a last glance around, he slipped into the darkened interior of the building. It took a moment for his eyes to adapt, but his holodisplay was already highlighting items of potential interest. Then he heard a faint sound come up from the basement. He held up his hand, and those behind him froze. Then the sound came again, slightly louder. It sounded like the faint whine of a laser weapon being fired.

He glanced at Talyah, directly behind him. She’d heard it too. He moved forward a little more, more careful than ever, until he reached the top of the stairs that led downwards. Before he could begin to descend, though, he heard a faint voice, growing louder.

“--done here?” it was saying.

“Yes, lieutenant,” another voice responded. Nero backed up from the stairs, moving to find better cover, heart beating a little harder. The voices continued.

“Very good. Torch it, and we shall move on.”

“Lieutenant.” The footsteps were nearly at the top of the stairs now, but Nero and his team had moved into an adjacent room, out of sight of the stairs. Onon glanced at Nero, as if to say ‘why aren’t we attacking’, but the way the people were talking worried Nero. He didn’t know of any organisation on the planet that had lieutenants.

“Ensign?” The lieutenant addressed the other man. “Did you leave the door open when we arrived?”

“No, lieutenant.”

“I thought not. We have visitors. Find them.” Nero glanced angrily behind him, at whoever didn’t think to close the door behind them. It was too late for that now, though. He held up three fingers to the rest of his team, and counted down, signalling for them to move.

They rushed out of the room, into the main hall, to see two men stood there. Each was tall, well over six feet, and clad from head to foot in dark grey armour. On their heads were sinister full-face helmets, with strange camera set ups that glowed faintly blue, and protruding rebreather units. Aegis agents.

Nero almost stopped then and there, when he saw the horrifying figures standing there, but he managed to recover himself, and fired at the nearest man. Nothing happened. The laser beam left his weapon, and hit the man in the chest, but he continued to stand there, as if Nero had just thrown a drink at him. Then a strange sound came out of his voice unit. It took Nero a moment to realise the man was laughing.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” he said, once he had stopped laughing, his voice a haunting rasp coming from behind the helmet. Nero just stood there, lost for what to do. He’d never come across material that could so easily withstand the fire from his laser rifle.

The armoured man then gestured at the other man, who pulled a massive laser rifle from its attachment at his waist. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Nero watched as he aimed the weapon at Jerad, and watched as he pulled the trigger. He saw a bright white beam of pure energy leave the end of the weapon, and watched as Jerad’s head disappeared. It didn’t just have a hole in it; it just disappeared. It was there one moment, and an instant later, it had been vaporised. Jerad’s body crumpled, landing on the floor in a strange heap.

Nero looked back at the armoured man, knowing this was a futile fight. “Run!” he shouted, hearing the others obey his command behind him. He continued facing the two Aegis agents for a moment longer, giving the others time to flee out of the door. Neither of the men made a move to stop them, instead just standing there watching, like two demonic statues.

“We shall meet again, Nero. We plan on having some fun with you,” came the rasping voice of the lieutenant, as Nero began backing towards the door. He turned, and ran out of the door as fast as he could, his augmented legs giving him a huge extra burst of speed.