Fort Liberty, Volume Two (17 page)

Three yellow air tanks are lined up at his feet, ready to get turned into missiles when their valves are chopped through.

See armed men.

Chop the tank valve with axe.

Watch the tank rocket down the corridor.

The plan is just that stupid.

He leans out and glances down the entrance corridor. At the far end, the blast doors are wide open. A fog of tear gas is seeping in from the outer hallway, heavy and white, curling as it meets the filtered push of air through the vents.

Focus.

The scene before him shutters with mental images of the station guards getting overrun on vid, so quick, a shot to the face, to the chest, and it’s over. Men are left choking on blood, helpless.

And he can hear Niri, her voice murmuring in his head.
I know you will not abandon me. I know you will not let them kill me.

Focus.

He waits, drawing a quick breath and holding it.

C’mon. Do it. Show up, or don’t. Show up, or don’t.

The sound of coughing breaks the silence, the scuff of boots treading along polished floors, a soft clatter of equipment.

Here we go.

The Bounders appear as shadows moving through the open blast doors, dragging each other out of the gas. A few are blind, hunched over, wheezing. But some have their weapons up, already trying to sweep the entrance corridor.

He guesses there’s eight, maybe more.

They cram into the bright entrance hallway, clumsy and half-blind.

Logan clenches his teeth and glances down at the air tanks. Putting his boot on the first one tank, he rolls it through the doorway.

One… two…

He heaves the axe.

The blade chops through the valve with a hard scrape of metal.

The tank shoots forward, lifting from the floor on a hissing plume of compressed air. It impacts the wall, crushing plastic panels, then spins into the line of Bounders, smashing through two of them before lodging in a grate.

One of them starts screaming in agony.

The others duck against the wall.

Logan slips back as gunfire lights up the corridor, the spark of muzzle flashes, the deafening riot of combat. The glass doors leading to the observation deck shatter into shards. Rounds sear past him.

The large observation windows overlooking the cavern suddenly crack with bullet impacts, each round flaring inside the glass like icy crystal blooms.

“Hold your fire,” one of the Bounders calls out, catching on. “Break those windows and the cave air gets in.”

“Surprise,” Logan mutters inside his suit. “Fire down the hall, and you break the big windows. Break the big windows, and you can’t breathe because you’ve got no helmets.”

It’s a good standoff. The only problem is that he’s only got two tanks left and that’s not enough to hold them for long. They’re going to keep coming, or maybe just charge outright, and overrun him.

He grips the axe handle, grimacing at the second yellow tank at his feet.

I know you will not let them kill me.

“Put down the axe!” one of the Bounders calls down the corridor. “Stop fighting and you won’t get killed. We don’t care about you.”

Logan shakes his head and doesn’t reply.

“I’m guessing you’re the last Assaulter,” the guy says, his voice booming, confident. It even sounds like he’s smiling, bullshitting over the pleading sounds of his own wounded. “It takes Earthbound tenacity to fight when losing’s easier. Red Filter slaves haven’t got it in them but you know that. And this… it’s noble, but it’s wasted, and you know it. We’ve got a few grenades left. You’re not the only one who can hurl things from behind corners. You’re free to die the way the rest did, or just let us through. We’ve got a ship coming with everything necessary to extract us. There’s enough room on that ship for you. We could use someone with your skills. There’s nothing left for you here.”

Not going to happen.

The guy waits, listens, then switches to a different approach. “Do you even know what you’re protecting? Look out those windows, hero. You like what you see? You like what’s going on here?”

You claim to murder my team, and you want to talk ethics?

The guy does, and he keeps going. “You let us in, and you’ll get a ticket out of this. You don’t have to help. You don’t have to break your code. Just stand aside, and we’ll put a stop to all of it. You want to put a stop to it, I know you do, because it’s not exactly honorable, is it? Human experimentation? What’s next? When you start changing humans, where do you stop? Who wins? C’mon, hero, think. Who wins? Who
always
wins?”

Logan presses his lips together, trying to block the memory of Niri. He can’t do it, her soft murmurings, and her nightmares, and her gods, the dark interweaving of delusions instilled in her by those willing to do anything to achieve absolute power… The ones who always win.

He slides his gaze to the windows. The play of light now is brighter now, hot yellow greens, sparkling with intense glints of white. It strikes him as a representation of fear, or perhaps anger, and it’s a stab to the gut because he’s not fighting for this. He’s not fighting for
it
. He’s not fighting for
them
.

And if someone had told him that he’d be standing here alone, closest brothers torn away, forced to confront the end-results of Red Filter politicians and their plots, the lies and destruction.

But none of it changes anything, does it? The one thing the team managed to hammer into his thick skull is that it doesn’t matter what other people do, doesn’t matter what they threaten, and doesn’t matter what they promise, because none of it exists after the lights go out. Honor, sacrifice, standing your ground when others abandon hope… That goes on. That outlives the mundane violence of others. He took an oath to uphold the ethos of the team, and those bonds are stronger than blood, stronger than death. If the others are gone, then it’s them he’ll honor with his last breath, not this idiot.

“Stand aside,” the guy says. “If you don’t, you’re just going to die. And for what? For Red Filter profit? For Martian ambition? It reaches too high, hero, and you know it. What’s in this for you? What’s left?”

Honor.

Logan nods, repeating the thought because his hands are shaking, mind frozen up. He focuses on the next tank.

Run, Niri. Survive. You’re not them. You’re not it. You’re not this. Live to remember who you are, who we are.

Sucking a quick breath, he heaves the axe.

 

Something happened, but the memory of it is vague.

It’s no real surprise because it’s happened more than once over the years, a blackout, a dazed moment spent sucking air through his teeth, wondering where the fuck he is. What decade, what planet, what battle? Is it gun chatter or drone speak, or the chime of a two-tone alarm?

He winces, pain ripping down his back, the skin of his shoulder wet from… something.

“---because you’re not dead,” a voice threads through the comm. “Your armor is locked in life support stasis, and the guards are coming to help, but you got to try. You’ve got no protection, and it’ll take your voice to reboot in battle mode. Don’t pretend you can’t either because it takes more than a bomb, and a modest drop to hurt a monster like you, so I need you to come to and----”

Petra. Incoherent.

He tries to find some pause to interject, but she keeps going, and the words slip of reach.

“We both know it,” she says it with force, as if she can push her will through the comms if she tries hard enough. “You’re hurting, maybe, but I’ve seen your scars, and you’ve seen mine, and I know it takes more than this to put you down. Men like you get up. Don’t you tell me you can’t, because your boy’s in trouble, that medic of yours. He’s pinned, and the guards are coming, but it’ll take time, so you got to get up. You got to---”

He can hear the words break, reaching the point at which it overcomes her. These aren’t the words she wants to say. There’s a pause, a thinning of static, and he can hear her take a breath, emotion ringing from her voice when she speaks. “Jared, I---”

“Reboot tactical,” he says, hoarse, his mouth cold and dry. The suit’s computer comes out of life support dormancy, filling the visor with glowing streams of data. The view is fragmented, system information scrolling through shards of visor damage. “Locate rifle.”

“Rifle location unknown.”

“Locate pistol.”

“Pistol location unknown.”

“Diagnose limited movement.”

“Systems are online. Movement is obstructed.”

“Display obstruction.”

The visor opens a glowing holo window. His armor appears in blue. Several lines---snapped elevator cables----are pulled tight around his suit. One of his arms is bound to his chest plate, with the other trapped underneath him. A thick metal braid has wrapped itself around his neck.

“Jared?” Petra asks.

“Comms off,” he commands, knowing that others might be tapped in, and she’s unschooled in why he needs silence.

Shifting, he frees one hand and slides his tactical knife from its sheath.

The blade has a slivered monomolecular edge, making it sharp enough to slice through armor when enough force is applied.

He pushes it through the cables, hearing cold tendrils of metal snap away. His arm is free. He drags the line down from his neck and cuts it.

Assault rifles are still chattering.

Logan. Niri.

Men like you get up.

His body protests it, muscles screaming as he grabs onto one of the tunnel supports and heaves himself up in the darkness, multiple warnings indicated in his suit visor. Shortness of breath. Weakness. None of it matters.

He tightens his grip on the knife handle.

And just like that, nothing hurts.

 

Someone catches it in the chest.

Howling. Screaming.

He blocks it.

Fall back.

No time.

He charges the landing and hurtles the railing, catching his boot on the metal. He drops, crashing onto a desk below, then the floor.

The Bounders don’t waste time. He hears them coming, chasing the him to the railing, and firing down into the pool of workstations. Everything shreds, pieces of desks and chairs flinging into the air.

Nothing to do but ball up tight.

He yells through his teeth, covering his head, and thrashing back under the cover of a plastic desk. He’s waiting for it. Any second.. the round that’s going to rip through his skull, his chest, the instant he goes from scared to lifeless. There is no thought, only terror.

“Cease fire!” the lead guy calls out.

The shooting stops with a few extra rounds fired in honor of ‘fuck you’.

A moment drops into silence, and he hears nothing but his own rasp of breathing. He’s shaking hard, the plastic suit liner chittering at his neck.

“Might as well come out,” the Bounder CO says. “We can introduce ourselves, talk this over like men. Maybe you heard of me Earthbound. Kazak? Old Moscow? Wanted by your masters at Rhys Corp for several years now.”

No, Logan thinks.
Never heard of you.

“We’re all connected,” Kazak offers. “You know me through Petra. You remember Petra? I’m sure you do. Hard woman to forget. Face like an angel, only she’s been a whore since she was a kid. Daughter of a famous willow house girl, and managed to put more men in their graves than any Red Filter pirate before her. Did you know that?”

Logan didn’t, and doesn’t care.

“Too bad no one told your CO, right?” the Bounder snorts. “If he knew the kind of woman she is… you think he would have let us in here? Gave it all up for that? Niri’s no different, hero. She may look innocent, but she’s carrying the destruction of everything we know inside her. You gonna give up the human race for that? Tell me where she is, and you go free.”