Heavy Weapons (Grendel Uprising Book 3) Page 3

  An altered orbit was another good candidate for the alarming sounds coming from support beams, floors, ceilings, and walls. This wasn’t a weather satellite or communications nexus. The Grendel station was a city in space, or had been. Now it was more of a military base with civilian support personnel. From time to time, the orbit needed to be corrected to avoid falling into the planet’s gravitational well.

  Cindy waited for the next bone-rattling vibration. It came with a fraction of the earlier intensity. Her attitude regarding divine acts, or random bullshit, was markedly muted. A senseless death would put an end to all her worries. She didn’t seek death, but she knew it was coming. Why couldn't it come because a station manager cut corners and bought cheap parts or because an engineer who was addicted to Chronic quit doing his job years ago? Or maybe it was a hardworking, earnest engineer who just made a mistake and doomed everyone to a fiery death as the station plummeted toward the surface.

  “I am really ready to be planetside,” she said.

  Kate 80999 swung her feet from the bottom bunk and stood up. “I thought you were awake. Lights,” she said. “I said lights! What the hell is wrong with this bucket of bolts?”

  “It’s old.” Cindy climbed down and stretched until all the ghosts of her injuries were placated.

  “Paul tiptoed in from the men’s billet and asked if you were awake. Said he wanted to talk to you,” Kate said.

  “He always wants to talk to me.”

  Kate laughed as she stepped into the sonic shower. “I thought you liked that.”

  “I’m tired. Boys are a lot of work.” Cindy waited her turn to get clean, ignoring the other women who slept in bunk-beds lining the walls. The room wasn't a proper barracks, but it was big.

  Another thing she hated about ships and space stations were the showers. A sonic cleansing probably did a better job than soap and water, but she never felt clean or refreshed. While inside getting the treatment, it didn’t seem loud. It was only when she stepped out that her ears were ringing. With all the advances in technology, she thought someone should design a better option.

  She stepped out to find the room empty. Kate and all the other women noncoms and soldiers were gone, even those who had been sound asleep moments before.

  “What the hell?” She threw on her clothing and buttoned the top half of the uni-suit as she walked into the hallway with untied boots. She ducked into the men’s billet.

  Empty.

  Cursing, she knelt and tied her boots, and ran to the equipment locker, finding that her password still didn’t open the weapons compartment. With one hand, she grabbed one of the ballistic safety vests and a helmet and ran for the main corridor. She found the common room empty, games of pool abandoned, televisions still on, and cards splayed across a table.

  “What the hell did you do, Paul?” She went onto the faux street and the poorly adjusted, glaring “day sky” dome. She shielded her eyes with one hand and rushed to the lines of soldiers facing off.

  There was good news and bad news. Paul was leading the FALD Reavers and Keifer 90543 was leading the SALD soldiers. Keifer was a friend of Jon Black whom she trusted, despite his devil-may-care reputation. She’d dated him after her dramatic falling out with Black. Cindy couldn’t decide which part of that equation was good, so she admitted it was probably all bad.

  “Paul!” she shouted as she strode forward, vest tugged over her head and helmet in one hand.

  He didn’t turn away from Keifer and the other soldiers. If the man saw her, he acted like he didn’t.

  “What the hell is going on here? Half of you were asleep five minutes ago. Is this really important enough to drag everyone out for a royal pissing contest?”

  “These jackwagons are going around saying Lieutenant Aefel is a traitor and marked for death,” Paul said.

  Cindy clenched her teeth and studied Paul as the giant glared at SALD soldiers he would crush as soon as the fight tipped off. She turned abruptly and crossed the space between the two groups, stopping in front of Sergeant Keifer.

  “Is that true? Have you been running down our boss?”

  “It’s true, Cindy. Doesn’t mean I like it. My men are taking this almost as hard as yours,” Keifer said.

  “I doubt that,” Cindy said.

  Keifer shrugged. “Aefel is arrogant and insufferably lucky, but it isn’t just his Reavers that admire him. My heart dropped when I read the bulletin.”

  Cindy didn’t know what to say, so she clenched her jaw, breathed through her nostrils, and stared.

  “His mission wasn’t complicated.” Keifer spread his hands, talking low, but not low enough for true privacy. “Whatever he did or didn’t do is going to be clear as day to Command. The mission was monitored around the clock.”

  “Aefel is no traitor,” Cindy said.

  Keifer looked grim but didn’t respond.

  “Tell your fucking SALDs to shut their fucking mouths.” Cindy knew she was making a mistake. She couldn’t disrespect Keifer in full view of his troops and expect him to back down.

  “Damn it, Cind. Do we have to do this?”

  “Yep.” She punched him in the face and soldiers on both sides of the line charged forward. It was about that time she realized how badly outnumbered her side was.

  Keifer was big, strong, and athletic as a gymnast. She thought she could take him because he wasn’t mean enough to fight like she did.

  He took the punch with a grunt, even as he swept aside her next attack, two arms against her one.

  She slammed her forehead into his face, grabbed his shoulders with her arms, and drove her knee into his groin. He twisted to avoid the strike but seemed hurt as he staggered back.

  Another SALD soldier tackled her from her left side and she went down hard.

  She caught a glimpse of Paul throwing SALDs and even a couple of CMPs this way and that.

  “How’d that feel, Keifer?” she yelled, not expecting an answer.

  The man who had driven her down tried to pin her arms. She twisted free, causing one of his punches to glance off her left cheek instead of knocking her unconscious.

  Someone popped a tear gas canister.

  She continued to fight, but the experience was even more miserable.

  Paul shouldered his way through the melee, blowing snot from the tear gas and coughing like a wounded bull. “So much for staying out of trouble until after your meeting with the general.”

  Yeah, she thought. Perfect.

  5

  A GENERAL & AN INFORMANT

  GRENDEL 0473829: ORBITAL STATION

  MISSION CLOCK: 00:00:00

  REAVERS left the service in one of two ways — getting blown to bits or resigning in a state of such untempered rage that the ensuing conversation resulted in a court martial before resignation was granted.

  “Paul, shut your mouth,” Cindy said as she stormed into General Friday “Nuclear” Jones’ office, legally known as Friday 59434. Her friend probably thought she could take the heat. How he managed to get her before she did was still a mystery to her. Last she knew, Paul didn’t know how to obtain a meeting this far outside the chain of command, unless he had just fought his way into the office.

  Which was possible, she realized.

  “Good to see you, Sergeant.” Friday ignored the extremely pissed off mountain of muscle standing at attention near his desk. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the guards that had followed Cindy inside.

  “Sir! Permission to descend to the surface of Grendel 0473829!” Paul said.

  Cindy moved between Paul and the general’s desk with some difficulty. He was big, the desk was tall, and there wasn’t really enough room for her to stand between them with dignity. She bumped Paul with her butt and he took a tiny step back before resuming his attitude of attention.

  She snapped a salute.

  Friday returned it.

  “You don’t remember my name, do you, General Friday?”

  “71019. Do you want me to draw up your d
ischarge papers as well?”

  “Sir, my unit has been under a lot of stress. I am sure there is a simple resolution to this problem.”

  “Other than returning to your quarters as ordered and awaiting further instruction?” Friday asked. “Or should I hand you the controls of the entire operation?”

  He didn’t seem as though he was being a hard-ass. Two years ago, Cindy had served on a committee headed by General Friday “Nuclear” Jones. All in all, it had been a good experience. She had learned things about the service that surprised her and Friday had proved to be a soldier’s general, despite his aristocratic background and looks.

  Cindy exhaled and waited until she was calm. “Sir, we have problems with other units spreading rumors about our lieutenant.” She held his gaze, although the throbbing in her swollen eye made her want to look away guiltily.

  “There was a report, I think. Quite a brawl. Was that about Aefel? Don’t answer that. I don’t need to be involved in platoon and squad level rivalries. I would mention that, as a general rule, the SALD doesn’t have discipline problems. You two are already so far out of the chain of command, your bosses should be in the brig with you.”

  “They are a bunch of pussies,” Paul said.

  General Friday looked from Paul to Cindy.

  “They’re pussies,” Cindy said. “What I need to know is what’s being done about Aefel?”

  “I think what you meant to ask is what’s being done to help Aefel,” Friday said.

  “Yes, sir. I can’t believe he’s a traitor.”

  “What if I sent you down there to take him out?” Friday asked.

  “Send me down. I’ll take care of it.”

  General Friday gave her a cold look. “You either think that I’m stupid or you’re more heartless than the traitor Seccon.”

  “General, the only way to know for certain is to send me to the surface.”

  “I suppose you want the rest of Aefel’s platoon as well.” General Friday didn’t move. “What would they do if I asked for Aefel’s proof of death?”

  “General, may I request leave and a pass to go planetside? I am going ship crazy,” Cindy said.

  Friday stood, then moved around the desk.

  Shorter than she was, the general looked like a child next to Paul. Jaw locked, his confidence never wavered. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back on his desk.

  Paul open his mouth to speak. Cindy hammer fisted him in the solar plexus, earning a grunt.

  “Why do they call me General “Nuclear” Friday?” the general asked.

  Cindy understood she was in trouble. “Because you never go nuclear. You always stay calm, even during a hot fight.”

  “Even when my troops embarrass the hell out of me in front of the other division leaders,” Friday said. “Why should I give you a vacation pass to the planet when all my peers think I should lock you up?”

  “We don’t want to go on vacation; we want to go on a mission to help Aefel,” Paul said.

  “Shut up, Paul,” Cindy said.

  “I like you, sergeant. You showed real promise during that committee. I thought you retained your soldier’s sense when others were maneuvering for political gain and promotions,” Friday said. “That doesn’t mean I work for you, understand.”

  Cindy wanted to punch herself in the face. This meeting had been a bad idea. She was pondering the depth of her folly when he handed her a sealed note.

  “Don’t open that until you are out of my office. I don’t want to know what it says.” Friday stood, walked to face his better-than-average window simulator, and clasped his hands behind his back. “Dismissed, sergeant. Take your tank with you.”

  She hesitated, annoyed the moment she allowed the stunning reversal of fortune to kill her momentum. In a gunfight, a slip like that got people killed. Of course, this wasn’t her normal battlefield.

  “Paul, let’s move,” she said.

  They strode from the command suite. She kept her eyes forward, realizing that Paul glared at everyone who dared notice them.

  “What are you looking at, pencil neck?” he said.

  Making him shut up wasn’t worth the effort, and to be honest, he probably needed to vent some frustration. Her thought went to the note in her shirt pocket and what it could mean. Written notes were uncommon. Those with a seal that even the general didn’t want to break were mythical.

  Unless he read it and re-sealed it, which was the most likely scenario.

  She strode along one of the station main concourses and stood under a hooded lamp that flickered. Other pedestrians ignored the spot. Those who chose to look at her reading habits quickly moved on after Paul growled low in his throat.

  Finished, she folded the note and put it back in her pocket.

  “Love letter from the general?” Paul asked, half joking.

  She gave him a sarcastic smile. “Not from the general or any general. Whoever wrote it claims to have information on Aefel’s situation. We’ll pick up Kate or anyone else not locked up in the brig or at sick call and check it out.”

  Paul’s excitement almost made her feel better.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said.

  She called Kate and met her just outside the military personnel section of the station. The mysterious informant had selected a boring apartment complex deep within the civilian area. Most of it was abandoned. She didn’t like the look of the true civilians she saw during their hike along poorly lit causeways between buildings and streets on the station’s “surface.”

  The locals had been here a long time and didn’t look right. They stared from shadows with eyes that rarely blinked.

  “I wonder what these folks think of us,” Kate said.

  Cindy shrugged. The station natives gave her the creeps, but she had other things on her mind. “Paul, I will go on alone, just like the contact demanded.”

  “No way, Cind,” Paul said.

  “Listen, I will order you to stay back if I have to.”

  Paul looked at Kate, then back to Cindy. “That’s why we brought her. She’s supposed to make me stay here.”

  “Exactly,” Cindy said. “You got this, Kate.”

  “Can’t say I like it, but I got it,” the woman said.

  Cindy moved before either of them could argue.

  Her contact was exactly where the note described, a fortune teller’s booth at the edge of an abandoned carnival. The shell of an amusement park still had visitors. None of the rides worked, but the price was right. Deeper in the park were food vendors and musicians. A gang of local teenagers approached and watched Cindy as she ducked into the fortune teller’s booth.

  “Humans sit Humanum,” the fortune teller said.

  Cindy bent forward to peer through the dirty screen dividing the table. An old woman’s voice matched the silhouette, but she realized both could be faked. Whoever it was, she seemed to be waiting for a response. The phrase was a challenge, a password of sorts.

  “I don’t know the response. You sent for me, not the other way around,” Cindy said.

  “Hmmm,” the woman said, shifting in her seat.

  Cindy remained standing, even though it caused her to hunch down a bit in the tent-like room.

  “I do not know which side you are on, but the message I pass to you is not mine, so it doesn’t matter to me,” the old woman said.

  “Is that your real voice?” Cindy asked, instantly annoyed with her own impatience. All she had to do was piss this person off and the only lead she had on Aefel’s dark situation would vanish.

  “No, it is not, Reaver. Observant of you, and irrelevant,” the woman said. “In reality, I am a big strapping lad like the tank you brought with you. Or maybe I’m a twin to the woman you left to babysit him.”

  Cindy looked for exits, not to escape, but where the fake old woman might flee.

  “This information will only be presented once and you must act quickly,” the fortune teller said. “The New Galactic Order will rule wh
ere the Earth Systems Commonwealth once held sway, and they will see to Aefel’s death one way or another. The Secret Society of Zero Brigade continues to defy them but will fail. Do not ask the Emperor’s Strongarms for help, because they will only serve one man, be he living or dead.”

  Cindy repeated the information quickly, not wanting to forget it as questions burst into her head. “Who is the New Galactic Order and what do they have against Aefel?”

  The old woman chuckled. “Didn’t you expect chaos when Emperor Dan Uburt-Wesson was assassinated? Stop asking questions and be thankful there are not thousands of factions grasping for power.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  A moment passed before the woman pushed something across the table with a plastic rod, careful not to reveal her actual hand. “Take this coin. If you land on the winning side, I will call a favor with the one it matches.”

  Cindy asked several questions before she realized the fortune teller was gone, if she had ever been there before. She swept aside the curtain, expecting to see holographic projectors and a robotic hand. On the other side of the booth was only a curtain wall recently disturbed.

  She found Paul and Kate right where she left them. Neither spoke. She concentrated on remembering what she had learned and what to make of it.

  “We need to get out of here,” Paul said. “Kate and I saw several CMP patrols and at least two unfriendly looking tactical units. I wish I had my armor and weapons.”

  Cindy nodded, noticing Paul’s limp and Kate’s splinted index finger for the first time.

  “We’re a long way from home, unarmed, and banged up,” she said. “What could go wrong?”

  “The mess hall could be closed when we get there,” Paul said.

  6

  THE STRONGARMS

  GRENDEL 0473829: ORBITAL STATION

  MISSION CLOCK: 00:00:00

  “DON’T look back,” Kate said.

  Cindy had no intention of checking the corridor-like street behind them. Darkness slid between the light poles. This part of the station exuded odors of grinding gears and oil.