Ann Aguirre - Havoc

“Wait here,” he said to Martine. “And be ready to move when the force field flickers.”

Bracing himself, he opened the box and yanked out a handful of wires. No finesse, and the resultant shock blew him backward. He slammed into the wall and shook his head to clear it, seeing only blurry movement. He had no sense of whether Martine was safe, but his heart pounded in his ears. Tam stumbled toward the force field. If she was too slow, it could’ve hurt her. But Martine danced in triumph on the other side of the amber light, arms in the air. Then she curtailed her celebration to power the field down for him to pass through.

“I took a quick look at the ship . . . and I can’t even get inside.”

Tam smiled. “I don’t need to.”

He scrambled underneath the transport and went to work on the wiring. It didn’t take long to frag up certain functions, so that when the mercs started the vessel, all power would be immediately routed to the engines, causing an instant and critical overload. Tam wished he could be here to see the results of his handiwork. Between the grimspace drive and fuel in the tanks, the explosion should take out the whole bay.

“That’s impressive,” Martine said, as he crawled from beneath the ship.

“Thanks. Now let’s find the force-field codes, so we can activate it from the outside.”

She stretched out a hand and pulled him to his feet. “Agreed. If we cover our tracks well enough, they’ll never see this coming.”

“THISis bullshit, Vost.”

Casto was asking for a beatdown. He had been insufferable since the attack on what some monster had told him was called Queensland, and he hadn’t gotten better after they failed to acquire more Peacemakers. When the Conglomerate sealed this place up, they did so fairly tightly, and the prisoners had already stolen everything that was readily available. He’d spent hours trying to work around the corrupted overrides, but they kept changing before his limited equipment could solve the problem. Other assets offered potential acquisitions, but it would take time, and Casto had the patience of a brain-damaged kid.

“We’re getting nothing accomplished here,” his lieutenant said. “We could spend half a turn crawling over this place and not stamp out all the maggots.”

While he was an asshole, he wasn’t wrong. There were too many decks and levels, too many bolt-holes. When they’d hit Queensland, half the populace disappeared. Oh, they’d gotten a good number of them. The stink of blood and shit from dying men was ingrained on his brain, so he knew when he’d led a successful strike.

You didn’t lead it. You butchered them with a Peacemaker.

He’d been a merc long enough to recognize that there was no such thing as honor in combat. You iced your targets, and you went home. End of story. But that fight had been one-sided enough to send a pang of regret through him. Their leadership had shown enough craft and cunning to make him feel like they were worthy opponents, regardless of crimes committed. It was an odd fragging situation, to be sure.

“Here’s what I propose,” Casto went on. “You stay here with Duran and Redmond. I’ll take the rest of the men to mop up those skin-eaters. I don’t think there are more than fifty of them left. We can handle it.”

Vost shook his head. “We’re not splitting our forces. I’ll go with you.”

“With all due respect, Commander, the last time we all went out, the scum crawled up our asses and stole our shit. We need you here to guard what’s left . . . or we’ll come back to an empty command post.”

Starvation was a real danger. They’d packed enough paste for a three-month campaign, but prisoners had stolen it in the robbery, along with other critical equipment. Vost tapped a hand angrily against his thigh. Sometimes it felt like no decision was the right one.

“I don’t like it, but you have a point.”

Casto saluted. “I’ll be back as soon as I’ve wiped out the mooks.”

Once the men rolled out, Redmond strolled up. “You sure about this, boss? I wouldn’t trust him to wipe his own ass.”

“Then you should’ve taken the promotion when I offered it to you.” Vost would’ve preferred Redmond because the man was solid, but he was also lazy as shit.

The other man snorted. “Like that’ll ever happen.”

Duran glanced up from taking inventory of what was left. “By my count, we’ve got two weeks at most. We need an alternate food source.”

“There’s a Kitchen-mate in one of the abandoned zones,” Vost said. “It might still be functioning. I’ll take a run to see once the others get back.”

“Do we even want to think about what organic might be powering it?” Duran asked.

Redmond made a gagging sound. “Probably not. This is a crap gig. I don’t think I’ve been so skeeved since we did that village on Tarnus.”

That wasn’t one of his brighter memories, but being a soldier of fortune didn’t come with a guarantee that all the jobs would be good for the soul, and he had bills to pay. The thought sent a pang of worry through him so hard that his hands actually curled into fists in reaction. Can’t think about him. Eyes on the prize. It’s not going as fast as expected, granted, but we’re making headway.

With a sigh, he sent his last drone cam on patrol with orders to track Casto. It was just good strategy to make sure the patrol didn’t encounter more resistance than it could handle. Worst-case scenario, Vost might not be able to do much about it, but a commander should have complete situational awareness. As the cam skimmed through the halls, he saw about what he expected, pockets of prisoners skulking about, occasional combat between warring factions. Shit, if we wait a week, they’ll whittle each other down even more for those “pardons.” He stifled a laugh.

Then he froze in his chair. “Redmond, come look at this and tell me what you see.”

The soldier ambled over to his shoulder. “Looks like Casto’s heading for the transport bay, not the mooks.”

He shot to his feet, pure rage swamping. “That bastard’s leaving us behind.”

They had too much of a head start for Vost to catch up, so he could only watch, jaw tight, as his lieutenant powered down the force field. The mutinous fuck actually waved at the drone cam, likely knowing his commander could do fuck-all to stop this. He’d set his plans too well. Vost wheeled and slammed his armored fist through a broken vid screen.

The rest of the men boarded the ship like hell was at their heels.

Ten seconds later, the drone cam went off-line in a fizz of static as an explosion rocked the whole station. Sirens blared like it was Armageddon, a constant shriek of alarm.

“What just happened?” Duran asked. “What the fuck just happened?”

“Payback.” Shaken, Vost scrubbed a hand over his face; and then, despite himself, he began to laugh.

“Alert, the facility may be under attack. All executive personnel please proceed to shuttle pods on alpha deck. There is a hull breach in the transport area. All support systems are compromised. Main power is off-line, backup engaged. Bulkheads are now sealing decks eight through ten. Emergency repairs are required.” The station VI voice sounded eerily calm. “Maintenance supervisor, please dispatch immediate assistance.”

Jael had always found virtual intelligences creepy, which was probably an unfair bias, given his own origins. But with biological life-forms, there was always a common imperative and some kind of emotional response. The Perdition VI didn’t care if the whole station imploded, taking her and everyone else with it.