Rogue-ARC (45 page)

“I can’t do that.”

He shrugged, trying to look dispassionate and failing. “Then you die. Or she does, which is worse. You’ll never know when I’m coming for her. Want to pit your demolitions skill against mine?”

I laughed loudly. “Anytime, asshole.” Confidence is a weapon. And I knew I was better.

“Yeah? But I know where you are.”

“You didn’t for ten years. You only do now because it fit my plans.”

I felt the tingle fading, and I needed everything I could get, so I Boosted again.

He grinned. “That’s why you’re sweating and shaking, old man. Too much for you?”

Of course I was sweating. I . . .

And it hit me.

He didn’t know I had a CNS bioplant. It was never mentioned to the newcomers. It was an open secret now, but mostly mentioned in context of Blazer Assault or Combat Rescue. We were never mentioned because we didn’t exist, and as infiltrators, it was less obviously needed. That’s why I’d not had everyone implanted. In retrospect, I used mine twice on Earth and should have had it for everyone. But now . . .

I had him. It was an even better ace when he didn’t know it was coming. Except the Boost was killing me. I’d taken four shots in a row. Two was the maximum safe. Three in succession was a battlefield override for escape, and as far as I knew had never been done. Four. I could feel a burn in my muscles and tingle in my nerve endings. I was effectively oxidizing my tissues, my metabolism almost double the max I’d get in a hard workout, and I wasn’t moving at all to burn it off.

I felt another shiver of weakness. I couldn’t have that. I was at the point where doing nothing was worse than full power. Each hit weakened my wrecked metabolism.

Five.

I wondered when my heart would explode.

As long as I killed him first, or kept him from my daughter, that would be fine.

I said, “So this is all you have left? Really? A bomb and a hostage? I’m ashamed. I trained you, I expected a better class of tactics. Are you admitting that deprived of one account, cut off from your boss, faced with arrest on every civilized planet and sought by a few intel agencies, you can’t figure an intellectual escape? This is all it took to stop you?” I made a disdainful snort with slight toss of my head. That whine sounded again. It seemed familiar now.

He tried gamely to play. “How many injuries have you taken doing this? How much money? It seems you used an awful lot of resources for one man. I’m thinking I probably should have killed your girlfriend. She is, isn’t she? An unrequited passion? You had Deni. I know you had a sweat for Tyler. Attractive female troops are a weakness for you, Ken.”

It was a pretty good attempt, and it did hurt, but he was in part correct, I was highly pissed, and more worried about my daughter, so it didn’t have the effect he wanted. Still, if he wanted to talk about that, fine. I just needed an opening before I died from toxicity and overload. Just one moment.

In my ears I heard
whhiinnnne
“Testing” clearly this time, and I got it.

Implant transceiver. Silver had hacked into it. I didn’t twitch, but went ahead with my response.

“Yeah, steamy chicks make great cover. You ever figure out I’m a voyeur? Watching guys twitch at the thought of me with hot young stuff they can’t touch is rather sweet. She’s also a volunteer and really into the role, so I got to prong her and call it business. You really got the short end of the stick, so to speak. It’s a perk we don’t talk about much in the teams, but an awesome one.” I wasn’t worried about how Silver would take that; it was psyops. I did want her to figure out why I was doing it.

He believed me, and he looked pissed. I’d broken his brain and his psyche, and we were almost there. But I was dying. My brain raced, my heart galloped in syncopation, my breathing and temperature were elevated. I had a high-grade fever, Oxygen toxicity in my muscles, near drunkenness from O2 and sugar levels in the brain. I shivered and felt my extremities numbing. I had no other options myself, but he hadn’t figured that out yet.

Six.

He trembled a bit. I had him emotionally bent. He’d thrown everything he had, and I was laughing at him. He should have known me well enough to catch the act, but we were both wrung out. His gun hand started twitching in tiny, tense tremors.

A moment. I only needed a moment . . .

Silver’s voice said, “Stand by, keep stalling,” in my head. Then there was a disruption crack and things went quiet. Had she done it? I heard distant, muffled shots and a bang up above.

Silver’s voice said, “Go.”

She’d hacked it.

“I’ve had enough of this.” Chel said and stepped just barely to the side, perhaps two centimeters.

He put a hand on her shoulder. It was a mistake borne of familiarity.

My daughter, the person I love more than life itself, for whom I’d go to any lengths and have, did exactly the right thing. Her arm came up almost casually, slapped over his wrist and she gripped and twisted, one foot forward and one back for balance, dropping down and aside my shooting plane.

In that moment he was off balance, eyes wide in surprise and mouth making that shape that presages a yelp as the nerves in the wrist are pinched.

His eyes met mine, and he tried to maneuver his pistol around between the two of us. It was perfect. He had just long enough, perhaps one tenth of a second, to know he was dead. In that frozen moment, he dropped the gun.

I shot him before it hit the floor. The first round went through his left eye, as Chelsea dropped and rolled clear. Second round was center of mass. Third was the right eye. Then I poured out the magazine into torso and head, because I was not taking any chances on him getting up again. His body thrashed and convulsed and bent in angles impossible for a living being, then thrummed and twitched and stopped.

There was no explosion.

I let my awareness check around for threats, and then ran forward to hug Chelsea, because she was such a good girl, a perfect daughter, who’d done just what she should have done, and I was crying.

I made it two steps and staggered down toward the floor.

CHAPTER 27

I woke in a hospital.
My entire body ached, even my eyelashes. I was stiff, as if I’d overdone it with every fiber in my body.
Yes, Ken, you did
, I thought.
You’re an old man by military standards
.

“Dad!”

It was Chelsea, with huge bags under her red eyes from drugs, fatigue hormones and worry. But her grin was all I needed. She leapt from the chair to hug me, and I tensed. That made me convulse in agony. She got the hint and stopped, settling for laying a hand on mine. I now knew what too much CNS felt like, though. It felt as if someone had beaten every muscle in my body with a gravel-covered bat. I wouldn’t be moving for days.

“I’m alive,” I said. “So are you. It’s all good.”

I passed out again, but I’ve never felt so warm and happy about it.

I wasn’t happy when I woke up. Chel wasn’t there. Naumann was. His goon stood in the corner.

“Hello,” he said.

“Yes,” I said simply.

“You did well. I’m sorry the circumstances were so tough.”

“No, you’re not, and I wish you wouldn’t say so.”

He looked a little perturbed. Only a little.

He said, “While I am less emotional than many, I don’t lack an understanding of it.”

“No, it’s just an intellectual exercise for you. One more skill you’ve cultivated to bend people to your will.”

“That’s true enough.”

“I’m done.”

“Absolutely. I do need a summary, though, for follow up.”

Yeah, the debriefing and after action was the part I always hated. Not enough to have adminwork before the mission, there had to be more afterward, while reviewing every splash of blood and spatter of guts.

He said, “You may want to know that Timurhin has decided this is not a system he cares to operate from.”

“Good, I suppose. None of his targets mattered to us either way, and most had illicit connections. I can’t say it was a bad thing overall.”

“It’s bad that we can take the blame from several directions. A crime figure living here. A rogue operator using our training.”

“So it’s done.”

“Yes. What do you plan to do after you heal?”

The conversational inquiry, so casual, seeking intel, really pissed me off.

“Naumann, I don’t like you.”

“There is no reason you should,” he said. “I am not very likeable.”

“You owe me.”

“Within reason, yes,” he agreed.

I snarled, “‘Within reason’ dogshit. You fucking owe me.” He actually twitched. And I was in a hospital bed. Damn. I thought for a moment and realized, yes, I really was that angry.

“As I know you don’t want money, what is it to be?”

The bastard. Actually, I did plan to ask about my back pay. I also knew families who deserved some help. But that was for later.

“Kimbo Randall. Mark him killed in action on Earth. Add him to the list. And apart from that Citizens’ Medal we all have, you will award the Valorous Service Medal I’m going to write up.”

“I believe I understand,” he said. Yeah, he probably did.

It was ten of our years later, but that battle on Earth had killed him as surely as it had killed the rest of us. I could despise what he’d done since then, but he’d done all his nation asked of him and more. In the end, he’d known how it had to balance, and had thrown what he had left into saving my daughter again. For all of that, he was a hero. His illness was not a crime.

I hated his actions. I respected, and loved, the man.

Then I came out of self-absorption again.

“Oh, yes. Silver gets a Meritorious Action Medal. She went far beyond materiel support, to intel and operations. And she did it while dealing with me.”

He nodded.

“I can see how that would be tough.”

I wasn’t sure if the bastard was joking. I was too tired to care.

I drifted back out, and woke muzzily a while later. Naumann was gone. He didn’t come back.

Chel was there, and looked much more relaxed and rested. That made me feel better.

“Hi, Dad,” she said, once she was sure I was awake.

“Chelsea, I can’t do anything except talk. But I need to tell you a few things now. You’re old enough. We’ll go into my background later.”

She nodded. “There’s a lot of that on the hypernodes. No names, but it has events and activities.” She looked a bit distant. Yes, one more person who had to personally wonder what kind of man I was. My daughter.

I nodded, then stopped when pain shot through me. Then I sighed. “I need to tell you what it felt like. I don’t know that I can, and you shouldn’t have to know. But you need some small measure of it to understand me.”

“I don’t need to understand you,” she said, gripping my hand until it hurt. “You’re the best father I could ever have and I know how much you love me.” She was crying now. No one could go through what we’d just gone through the day before and not feel something.

“I love you, kid,” I said. “We’ll talk about that later. I will also tell you everything about your mother, as I promised you five years ago. For now . . . I need to tell you about your godfather.”

EPILOGUE

Silver came back in.
She was recovering well. She’d certainly gone beyond Projects and fought respectably, and in envelope-pushing circumstances. Naumann had been correct in his assessment, as much as I hated to admit it. I hoped she managed to avoid further interaction with him. She deserved better.

“You’re too stubborn to die,” she said. “Was that training? Or you?” She looked raggedly tired.

“The one reinforces the other,” I said.

“Yeah. Well, they’re releasing you in a couple of days.”

“Oh. Good,” I said. I hadn’t heard. The patient never does.

“I was late,” she said. “I coordinated for the others, Naumann and I snuck up on the house, and we waited for the shooting. When you and Randall opened fire, we came down, but he was dead and we thought you were. We had to peel your daughter off and sedate her. I didn’t tell you that last,” she said.

“He didn’t shoot,” I said. Yes, I believed Chel would do that. I’d not mention it if she didn’t.

Silver said, “Yes, he did. You took two in the guts.”

I wondered on that. Was I that stoned on CNS I didn’t notice the wounds? Apparently. Or else it was anger.

“You came in?” I asked. “And Naumann? I know you got my implant transceiver working and jammed Randall’s device.”

“Yes. His prerogative as commander in chief, mine as your teammate. I’m sorry we weren’t sooner. We were busy silencing three more thugs up top and then securing other traps.” She held up her hand, which I now noticed was splinted.

“Did I really miss that many threats?”

“You did.”

“Thank you,” I said.

She said, “His bomb was a fake, though.”

What?

“It was?”

“Yes. I was terrified of detonating it, and had to analyze the arm code. There was nothing there. It wasn’t a constant circuit. I said ‘Go’ we jammed the entire spectrum, and Naumann flashed Chelsea. Then you shot him. Naumann went in first, I followed. He didn’t have a detonator at all.”

That put it in a new perspective. He really couldn’t hurt her. It was all bluff. In the end, he’d known how it had to balance, and had thrown what he had left into saving my daughter again.

He really was a hero, and I’d killed him twice.

She interrupted my musing with, “As soon as we get home, we’re taking a shower.”

“I’m pretty much sterilized here. Wait . . . ‘Home?’ ‘We?’ Let me switch gears here.”

“You idiot,” she said with a scowl. “You weren’t the only one frustrated aboard ship. I spent weeks being felt and kissed in public, and had nothing beyond the tease. I lay there faking sleep most nights. Why do you think I spent half a div taking a shower?”

I actually chuckled. “You put on a great act. I never twigged.”

“Of course not. You were thinking of yourself, and your daughter. It’s all that keeps you alive.”

“I believe so,” I said. Or else I was that narcissistic.

“You pissed me off,” she said. “I was frustrated too, and you didn’t catch it at all.”