ATLAS 2 (ATLAS Series Book 2) (4 page)

Modern bulletproof glass didn’t shatter when armor-piercing rounds hit. All you could do was poke holes in it, if you had the right rounds. Some armor piercers wouldn’t penetrate on the first try, and merely caused a messy crater until you fired two or three times. MOTH sniper rounds always penetrated on impact of course, passing through and continuing on the same trajectory, striking any objects beyond with roughly two-thirds the original energy, which was more than enough to kill. So he’d have to make sure the target wasn’t in the line of sight when he fired.

Still, since the glass didn’t shatter, subsequent shots at different targets were made harder by the artifacts left behind on the surface. Which was why it was important that Trace made his holes in just the right place.

“Received data,” Trace responded. “Two new assholes coming right up.”

“Try not to kill the targets in the process,” I said.

“Mmm,” Trace sent. “I’m going to have to reposition. Widen my angle.”

“Do it. We don’t know when—” I broke off as the financier emerged from the room and ambled into my sights. He was all smiles, as was the privateer captain at his side. “Targets in sight. Repeat, targets in sight. Trace, we need those holes!”

“On it.”

The financier and the privateer captain were walking toward the staircase that led down from the hall. I was going to lose my target in seconds . . .

“Trace . . .” I said.

The Bengali fired his silent rounds, and three fresh holes appeared in the glass, the bullets striking the wall just inside.

I aimed through one of the bullet holes—

The financier was starting to react to the perforated glass—

I took the shot.

Direct hit.

Beside me, I heard the muffled sound of Ghost’s tranquilizer gun going off.

Both targets toppled to the floor.

The tranquilizer darts were equipped with medical sensors. I glanced at the heartbeat monitors assigned to the targets on my HUD (Heads-Up Display). Their hearts were beating, albeit slowly.

So far, so good.

“Targets tranquilized and stable!” I said over the comm, though everyone else would see the vitals on their HUDs by now.

I rested the tranquilizer gun on the copestone beside me and brought the strap of my sniper rifle down from my shoulder.

“Moe and Blackbeard are in my sights,” Trace sent. “Taking them down.”

It was only necessary to capture the two main targets alive. Anyone or anything else with a weapon was considered an enemy combatant and engageable by the ROE (Rules of Engagement).

Trace let off two quick shots with his sniper rifle. Like our weapons, his muzzle was silenced, and no one poolside yet noticed.

“Targets down,” Trace sent.

While the sound of a silenced rifle might be unnoticeable, two sentries toppling to the ground and bleeding out, on the other hand, was very noticeable.

Sure enough, I heard the high-pitched scream of a woman, and all hell broke loose.

Gunfire homed in on me from the courtyard.

I flattened myself against the stone, ducking behind the inner rim of the wall. Chips of concrete flew past my head.

“F2 taking fire from the courtyard!” I said. F2 stood for Fire Team Two. We’d gone for simple names today.

I switched my viewpoint to a nearby support drone.

The women by the pool continued screaming and running. The Skin Musicians with them did the wise thing and simply dropped.

I heard return fire from the far side of the compound, and the incoming bullets abruptly ceased. I switched back to my helmet point of view, and glanced over the rim: the remaining three combatants had fallen. Their bullet-ridden bodies lay scattered at various points along the concrete pool deck.

“F1 moving in,” Facehopper transmitted.

I glanced at my HUD map and saw four green dots approaching the palace entrance: Facehopper’s fire team was closing in to secure the targets.

A few tense moments passed. I scanned the palace windows with my sniper rifle, occasionally flicking my eyes to the HUD map to keep apprised of the situation. Trace had spotted combat robots on patrol inside the palace earlier. Passing in and out of view beyond the windows, the robots had moved in a semirandom pattern that made it impossible to predict where they would show up next.

I caught a flash of movement beyond one window, then a second flash at nearly the same time from a different window farther back. I rewound my vision feed a few seconds, repositioned it in the upper right of my HUD, and played it back at a quarter of the speed.

At that slower playback, I was able to discern exactly what had sprinted past the windows. I saw the blur of box-like shapes; light glinted off black and yellow polycarbonate skin.

Combat robots, as suspected.

“Facehopper,” I sent over the comm. “Combat robots are rushing toward the palace entrance.”

In reply, distant gunfire erupted from the palace.

“F1 taking fire,” Facehopper sent. “Sending in HS3 drones.” HS3 stood for Hover Squad Support System. HS3s were basically basketball-sized, jet-propelled robotic scouts. The little round bastards were tricky as hell for human snipers to target because of their jerky movements, but they were relatively easy for robot snipers to take down. Either Facehopper wanted to get some limited telemetry on the combat robots, or he wanted to distract them. Maybe both.

On the HUD map, blue dots representing the HS3s fanned outward from behind Facehopper. New dots appeared, these ones red, as the HS3s transmitted the locations of the enemy combatants to our Implants.

I couldn’t get a bead on any of the targets from where I was perched. The combat robots inside the palace had positioned themselves well, and they’d taken into account the lines of fire from the windows in addition to the foyer.

The blue dots of the HS3s abruptly blinked out, and the red dots froze. The scouts had been shot down. Like I said: easy targets for robots.

“We’re pinned!” Facehopper sent. “Three combat robots! Palace foyer. Snipers, can you take them out?”

“Negative,” Trace sent.

“I got nothing,” I said.

“Same,” echoed Ghost.

“Lui?” Facehopper sent.

“On my way,” Lui transmitted.

On the map, I saw the green dot representing Lui move away from the servant’s quarters on the far side of the palace, where he’d been lying low.

Three red dots abruptly blocked his path.

Lui paused, as if answering some challenge.

One of the red dots faded to black, indicating a terminated target, then the dot representing Lui dodged to the right, ducking within what looked like a side hallway.

“I’m pinned,” Lui transmitted.

“Dammit,” Facehopper sent. “We have to administer those antidotes or the targets will die.”

I glanced at the heartbeat monitors overlaying my vision. I hadn’t noticed during the mayhem, but the vitals associated with our two main targets had dipped.

Not good.

“I’m on it.” I dropped down from the wall, into the flora that grew along the inside of the compound, and landed beside the dead sentry whose smell I had complained of earlier. I raced toward the pool area.

The moment I hit the concrete deck I started taking fire. I dove behind one of the potted plants that bordered the pool area. Had the automated defense systems reactivated?

Shards of clay broke away from the urn that held the plant, and I crouched lower. Suppressive fire came from my platoon brothers on the wall behind me, giving me a chance to peer past the rim. That’s when I realized my attacker wasn’t part of the automated defense system at all, but rather one of the scantily clad “party” women. Crouched behind the diving board, she’d produced a powerful 9-mil, and she knew how to use it. Likely a privateer, then.

I was about to take her down. But something stopped me.

I remembered what the job counselor had told me when I first signed up: someday there might come a time when I’d have to shoot a beautiful woman to save myself or my platoon. I’d told the counselor I’d have no problem doing that. I promised him I’d be able to perform my duty without question, no matter who got in my way.

And yet now that it came to it, I hesitated.

“Rage,” Trace sent. “I can’t get a clear shot on the diving-board shooter. Can you take her out?”

“I’m going to go back for my tranq gun,” I said. “Ghost, toss it down when I get to the wall.”

“That’s a negative, Rage,” Ghost sent. His voice sounded strained. “You’ll get hit if you leave cover. The shooter’s good. She already got me in the shoulder. Use your rifle. Take her down.”

Damn it.

I aimed past the edge of the potted plant while my platoon brothers laid down covering fire. I had a partial shot—I saw the woman’s hair just beyond the diving board, outlined in red by my Implant.

Dark hair.

Now I knew what it was that prevented me from firing.

She reminded me of Shaw.

The woman I had lost in Geronimo system, eight thousand lightyears away.

“Rage!” Trace said. “Our targets are dying!”

Forget about the financier and the privateer. The two targets didn’t matter right now, nor did the mission objective. All that mattered was the life of my teammates. And every moment of hesitation on my part might cost a teammate his life.

Already Ghost had been shot in the shoulder, probably because of my inaction.

Who else would have to suffer, maybe die, because I was too afraid to shoot a beautiful woman?

I took the shot.

The woman slumped, her temple hitting the concrete, her arm splaying out beside her. Blood poured from an unseen head wound onto the deck.

I hunched.

I felt like an executioner.

A murderer.

I wanted to give up right there.

I’d killed a woman.

For no reason.

Wait. I was being too hard on myself. She
was
shooting at me and my platoon mates. That was reason enough.

No one tries to kill my platoon brothers.

No one.

I got up.

If I didn’t get to our main targets and administer the antidotes, the woman’s death would be for nothing.

I reached the back door and flattened myself against the wall beside it. Ghost remained in overwatch position, but Trace and Tahoe joined me to take up positions on the opposite side of the door. The holographic projections from their helmets made them look like SKs, and if it weren’t for the green outlines around their bodies and the labels provided by my HUD, I might have shot them.

“I don’t think our disguises are keeping the bullets away,” Trace commented, subvocally.

“As long as the surveillance cams record privateers kidnapping privateers, we’re fine,” I returned, maybe a bit too forcefully.

Trace’s holographic face gave me a considering look. “She wasn’t a civvie, Rage.”

“I know.”

“You had to shoot her,” Trace pressed. “It was either her or us.”

“I know.” The irritation was obvious in my subvocalization. I don’t think Trace realized I was more angry at myself than him, though. “Now, are you ready?”

“Go for it,” Trace sent. “ROE say we’re good. None of the civvies came this way. They all fled the compound.”

“What about the financier’s girlfriend?”

Trace shrugged. “Either she fled, or she’s still in there. It’s not going to change the ROE. If she shoots at us, we shoot back. If she doesn’t, she lives.”

“Yeah, unless we mistake her for an enemy,” I said, sarcastically.

Well, there was no time to argue about ROE now. The main targets were dying in there. I just hoped whatever we did here today didn’t come back to haunt us later.

I waved my hand over the motion sensor and the door slid open.

I made a last glance at the HUD map to confirm no friendly units resided in the room beyond, then I cooked a grenade.

“Frag out,” I said over the platoon-level comm, and threw the grenade into the room.

The explosive detonated.

Keeping crouched, Trace and I entered the room. I positioned myself to the left of the entrance, against the wall, while Trace took the right. I went high, Trace low.

I scanned the room from left to right. I fired a few preventive shots at a cabinet in the hall beyond, in case any enemy combatants had taken cover behind it.

“What you got?” Trace sent in response to my gunfire.

“
Nada
,” I answered. “Tahoe, left.”

“Coming in left!” Tahoe plowed inside and positioned himself against the wall behind me, and began scanning the room.

“Making a circuit!” Trace said.

I waited for Trace to complete his circuit of the room. The Bengali moved quickly past the outgoing doorways, ducking from furniture piece to furniture piece. In a moment he was back at the entrance.

“Clear!” he said.

I nodded, and marked the room as clear on the map.

“Tahoe and I will administer the antidote to the targets upstairs,” I told Trace. “Make your way to the foyer and see if you can help Facehopper.”

Funny how small microdecisions can lead to big disasters. Looking back, I realized I should have kept Trace with us. But when you’re riding the adrenaline high of the moment, it can be tough to see the bigger picture.

Trace nodded, then hurried toward the westside doorway, which would eventually take him to the foyer, as per my instructions. I could hear the distant, steady exchange of gunfire coming from that direction.

Tahoe and I cleared the next room in much the same manner, and then carefully proceeded up the ornate spiral staircase on the far side. We kept our rifles trained on the balcony above. It seemed free of combatants, at least from down here. Ordinarily I would’ve launched a preemptive grenade just in case, but I couldn’t do that because our main targets were unconscious up there.

Luck was on my side that day, because when we were about halfway up those stairs I spotted a rifle muzzle slinking between the upper banisters.

“Down!” I said.

Tahoe and I dropped where we were. A grenade bounced down the steps.

Tahoe and I looked at each other, then we activated our jetpacks in full horizontal reverse.