Ann Aguirre - Havoc

“Apparently, he’s better at it.”

This didn’t sound like a top-notch squad to Tam, but evidently their boss agreed. A thump sounded, as if he’d hit someone to shut the man up. “Stow it, both of you. We have to call this in.”

“I’m glad that’s your job.” That was the merc who cheated at cards.

A new voice spoke. “Wait, do you see anything? Vost will want to know which way the mooks went. Scan the area for life signs.”

Tam tensed. He hadn’t counted on the mercs being this smart or cautious. The machine beeped.

“Shit, he’s still alive . Let’s get him back to the medibot.”

The others must be out of range.

Relief left him limp as care for their wounded mate drove the mercs forward, forgetting their initial caution. They were close enough that he could smell them—hints of sweat and gun oil—when a loud clang resonated as his team dropped the boom. The massive girder swung from the level above, suspended on tension wires, and it swept through the mercs like they were made of marzipan. Tam held still, feeling the breeze of the thing as it flew over him.

One merc sailed over the side and screamed all the way down. The others were luckier; they fell backward, but a couple of rifles went bouncing down. Dammit. The armor might be all right, but those weapons might be broken. But maybe Ike can fix them. Tam bounded to his feet and raced for the other side of the bridge. The mercs were already recovering, firing wildly, but before they refined their aim, Jael and Dred unloaded. They laid down cover fire, so he made it to where Ali and Brahm were waiting in case this turned into a hand-to-hand fight.

“You make good bait,” Ali said.

Tam shook his head. “I was hoping we’d kill more of them outright.”

Brahm spread his clawed hands in an open gesture. “I’m happy with one. And the others are hurting. The beam cracked their crunchy coating.”

“That is good news,” Tam said as they moved to meet up with the others. “Maybe we can take some more of them, now that we’ve softened them up.”

He crouched, taking cover from the barrage of laser fire coming in hard on his six.

“They’re not following,” Ali reported.

“Vost’s reaming their ass,” Jael said, coming around the corner. Nobody asked how he could hear the conversation; they just listened as he repeated what was being said on the other side of the bridge.

“It’s not over yet,” Dred muttered. “We still have to beat them to the bottom and retrieve the gear.”

VOSTwas nearly dozing from staring so long at the drone cams when his comm crackled. “Commander, it’s a soup sandwich out here. I’m a man down.”

He froze, then counted to ten, but it didn’t staunch the rage throbbing in his head. Anytime a unit encountered the convicts—and he wasn’t personally in charge—it immediately went to shit. This was the most chaotic op he’d ever run. Too much space, too few grunts, and the inmates they had locked up in here were not just murderers and madmen. They’re fragging smart, smarter than these idiots.

“What happened?”

Delta leader went over the scenario concisely, but it didn’t do anything for Vost’s blood pressure. “You actually fell for the injured-ally trick?”

“We scanned to see if it was an ambush,” the other man protested. “There were no life signs apart from the man on the bridge. In our armor.”

“They stole some of our gear, genius. And the scanner has a range of forty-five meters. It’s a tool, not meant to replace independent thought.”

“Orders, sir? They killed Higgins. Or least, he fell and is presumed dead.”

“Get your ass to the bottom and get his body. Before those scavengers strip him of armor and weapons. I guess it hadn’t occurred to you that’s the plan?”

“We’re pretty beat-up, sir. Trevino’s armor has a fracture across the chest, and a bunch of us have broken ribs. That thing hit us fragging hard.”

He swallowed a curse. It wasn’t his imagination. The men were losing their will to run around this massive station, chasing rats into holes where they disappeared, only to be blown up the next time they turned around. This is the kind of mission that could cost you everything, he thought. But for reasons deeper and greater than pride, he couldn’t withdraw.

“My unit’s en route. Get back to base camp and put the medibot on those injuries. I need you up to speed as soon as possible. And stop losing your equipment, assholes. There’s a limit to what we have for replacements.”

“Copy that, sir.”

They shouldn’t be able to kill us. We’re better prepared and battle-tested.

In a normal engagement, his men destroyed the enemy, but Vost knew a pang of unease. Most of their jobs were easy, unexpected strikes on the unsuspecting. Maybe he didn’t have an accurate picture of the unit’s capabilities. They’d never been tested in a situation like this one. The enemy kept surprising him, time and again, and not in good ways. Problem was, they fought like clever animals, not trained soldiers. Now he thought he had their measure. My mistake; I judged them by what Mr. Suit and Tie said. Won’t happen again.

He stomped into the server room, where his men were bunked down with thermal blankets and polymer bedding. Vost slammed a palm against the wall, and shouted, “Wakey, wakey, it’s time to do some business.”

They were dumb enough to protest, and he wished he had time to work on company discipline, but he had a mess to clean up first. Plus, he reminded himself it was impossible to expect military-grade performance from a bunch of self-taught fighters who had never served. They were mercs, not soldiers. The difference might cost him this station.

Not happening. He shoved the thought down with ferocious determination. The men sobered up fast when he said, “Higgins is DOA. We’re on a body-retrieving run.”

“We can’t let those animals eat him,” a merc named Frankel said.

That was actually the least of Vost’s worries. The cannibals died without much trouble. It was that other nest, the one he couldn’t scout with drone cams, spearheading the attacks that cost him men and equipment. But if it made the rest feel more willing to work, he could pretend this was a mercy mission and not damage control.

So he ran with that assumption, painting a gruesome picture. “We’re racing these convicts to the repair bay. If they get there first, they take Higgins, use him as a trophy, cook him, and put his head on a spike. Are we gonna let that happen?”

“No, sir!” his men shouted.

It would be better if all his squad leaders had the ability to keep their men on task or the judgment to be wary. While he wouldn’t have shot the man on the bridge on sight, he would’ve called for a medibot and sent it in to wake the soldier up, then he’d have demanded name and call number before letting him off the ground. Any deviation would’ve resulted in a laser blast. Still, it was too late to change the outcome. Now he had to make sure those Mary-forsaken mooks didn’t benefit from this.

“What’s our strategy?” Frankel asked.

“That’s need to know, but if things work the way I’ve planned, we’ll beat them there by a wide margin, giving us time to lay a trap of our own. How do you feel about payback?”

“That’s my second favorite kind of pay, sir!” That came from Kinsey, a bit of a smart-ass, but he kept the men laughing during the rough patches, so Vost didn’t curb him.

“Moving out, double time!” He set a grueling pace toward the cargo lifts.

Vost had been tinkering with them for a while, but parts had been stolen, and it took time to locate replacements on this wreck of a station. Plus, there were security protocols to override. If he could use station defenses, things would be a lot easier, but something had gone wrong with the subroutines, and the codes his employers had given him no longer worked. The inmates had stripped so many parts from the mainframe that the defenses that were still functional were running off pocket nodes, each with random overrides, changing every sixty seconds. While he worked on the control panel, his men paced and talked shit behind him. They didn’t need to remind him that every moment’s delay could cost them a critical victory, but luckily, he didn’t choke under pressure. Twenty minutes later, the doors slid open, and cheers rang out.