Gunship (2 page)

It was a perfect day. The sky was a crisp, clear blue, the kind of sky seen at the beginning of fall. A slight breeze flowed gently across the plain, pushing the tall, golden grass towards a cluster of gray-green trees that swayed in the near distance. The sound of insects humming filled the air. Nearby, a bird chirped loudly then went silent. Mother Nature seemed to signal that all was well, just another normal day. It was almost believable, too. Except for the two dark figures in the middle of the field, it looked just like a scene from some nature video on prairie dogs. Even the people could pass for normal as long as one didn’t look too close. The woman wore a mix of what would pass for modern and vintage military surplus. The man crouching in the grass next to her could’ve been her camera man in his tan BDU pants, camo t-shirt and boots. They appeared to be one with the landscape, and only their diverse array of tactical gear gave them away as much more than naturalists.

Reilly was on the job. The grass eddied in wind-driven currents around her waist as she casually surveyed the plain, one hand scrolling across a small handheld device, the other resting on the grip of a black-and-tan blaster holstered on her thigh. Beside her, barely visible in the grass, was her former platoon sergeant, Joby Ty. He sat unmoving, patiently waiting, like a mountain lion anticipating its prey. His muscled frame strained under the armor plates he wore strapped to his chest. Over the body armor, he sported a tactical harness with several magazine pouches and a largish handgun. In his hands, he held an even bigger weapon that looked like something out of a video game Reilly had played as a kid.

The team had been doing well since departing their previous life with the ISUs. Civil war had erupted and then ended, but they had been mostly unaffected, sticking to the regions of space that had jobs but not too much in the way of fighting. Their military contacts helped keep them employed, earning them enough credits to get by on. The work varied from specialty jobs to cargo transport. It wasn’t always sexy, but they had the freedom to choose the jobs they wanted, which was a big improvement over their time with the units. Now they could move about as they pleased without the government locking them down for one-way missions that had the best possibility of getting them killed. They picked the jobs, limited the risk and focused on the payoff, taking in the sights between gigs and trying to make up for lost time.

Today’s mission was a simple retrieval. Their employer had requested that they break into a compound on Vervian 813, a small, vegetated moon in the Argos solar system, to retrieve a family heirloom that his brother had interned there to spite the rest of the family. The pay was exceptionally good, with 60% up front in digital credits to their accounts, the balance to be paid upon return of the item along with a new Bofors laser turret to replace the ship’s aging laser pod launchers and rail gun. Reilly had thought the job sounded a bit too good until the credits showed up. Their employer swore that the item was of great value to the family, irreplaceable and of a religious nature. Only with its safe return would the family finally get some closure. This wasn’t the first time sentiment over some object and family strife combined into a fantastic opportunity for the crew to make some credits.

The problem was, now that they were on mission, Reilly was beginning to wonder and not for the first time if something didn’t stink about this job. She thought back to the trouble that had started almost four hours earlier when they arrived in orbit and headed for the surface.

“Coming up on Vervian 813, Captain!” Duv flipped a few switches and turned the gunship slightly as he began to descend. Reilly stepped through the hatch and onto the deck to look at their destination.

“Anything?” she asked quietly as she manipulated a touch screen on the console in front of her.

Duv turned a trained eye to his scopes and gauges, then swung back around. “Nope, I’m not picking up any emissions, so looks like low security, if any at all. Should be an easy payday!”

Reilly smiled. “Good, that’s what I like to hear. Head on in and put us down within walking range of the compound. I’ll grab Ty, and we’ll get this knocked out.”

“Maybe even in time to be back for dinner?” Duv grinned evilly as Reilly shot him a look and walked out the hatch.

“I’ll take that as a no!” he called after her.

Reilly kept walking as she pulled on her chest plates and tactical rig. Her former gunnery sergeant and longtime mentor, Forlan Chang, had been on one of his rare superstitious kicks again. She shifted the harness, tightening it down as an uneasy feeling swept over her. Chang was a hell of a fighter and had taught her everything she knew from her days as a new lieutenant. He wasn’t one to back down easily, but every now and again he would go off. After listening to him spout a bunch of prophetic bullshit followed by dire predictions of some kind of dark cloud hanging over this mission, Reilly had finally threatened to tie him to the bulkhead as their new hood ornament if he didn’t shut up. He had gotten surly and retreated to the mess, slamming around the kitchen gear, mumbling to himself about dark days, which told all of them that dinner was likely to be less than mediocre, if it materialized at all. Chang loved to cook, but when he was in a mood, the chow and the crew suffered. Reilly shook off her unease and was punching in the code to release a rifle when the ship gave a sudden violent lurch, tossing her between the walls in the corridor.

“What the hell was that?” Joby Ty was staggering up the hall as the ship stabilized again. Reilly shook her head as they headed for the bridge.

Duv hollered back to her as he heard the footsteps coming up the metal stairs. “Restraint field, Captain! It almost had us for a second there, except I got a prox alarm at the last minute telling me to pull up. No warning at all…pretty strange…I’ve never seen one like this before…”

Duv pointed at the three-dimensional hologram of the restraint field’s spiked dome that appeared to hover over the dash next to him. Below the dome was an accurate map of the surface, showing the moon’s rugged terrain.

Reilly flicked the image with her finger, and it spun slightly as the computer coughed up details on the restraint field. Duv whistled softly as the computer indicated that a full-system lockdown would have occurred if their ship had entered into the field’s engagement zone. Duvall “Duv” Jackson had also been in Reilly’s unit and was one of the best pilots she had ever met. Only his quick reaction to the security warning had prevented the bird from being captured and held tight to the moon’s surface, making them easy prey for salvage crews or other dangers.

Reilly shoved the uneasy feeling back again and pointed out one of the nearby canyon areas that appeared to be clear. Duv nodded as he guided the gunship over and gently set it down. The crew began their system checks automatically before Reilly could say anything. She smiled briefly as Ty disappeared down the hall to do an integrity check while Duv pulled up the systems network operations center to run a scan. Five years out of the military, but everyone was still in synch with their training. Reilly leaned in to look over Duv’s shoulder as the scan finished. Even with his quick reaction, several of the primary systems had been tweaked and would need to have components replaced before they would be able to get space-borne again.

Duv grimaced and then cursed, punching the comms button. “Skeeter, I could use a hand up here with this piece of…” He trailed into a string of curses as he clicked off the mic, grabbed a well-used coffee mug with the slogan “To Hell with Gravity” imprinted on the side, and filled it to the brim with the thick, dark brew before slamming the coffee maker back into its slot.

“How long, Duv?” Reilly asked, calculating the amount of time they had already spent on the surface.

“At least a couple hours—we got lucky, but we didn’t get off completely free. Skeeter will get ’er up and running again.” Duv took a swig from his mug and pulled out a tool bag and some parts from a small side compartment.

A few minutes later, Duv’s fourteen-year-old prodigy of a son, Skeeter, was scrambling around the ship working his magic to test out repairs while his father cursed in the background, handing him parts and downing cup after cup of black coffee like a fiend. Reilly paced impatiently, jamming the comms button to on when Ty called in his report. She could hear the echo of his digitized voice bouncing around the cargo hold, causing feedback on the mic. Just another thing she needed to get fixed when they finished this mission. Ty’s frustration came through loud and clear.

“That must have been a hell of a field, Cap. Looks like it killed all the modulators in the heavy blasters. I checked every one, and they’re all dead. We’re going to have to go old school on this mission.”

Reilly cursed. This was bad news. If they had the misfortune to come up against any advanced machines during the mission, they’d lack the ability phase shift their fire. This meant the machines would be able to adapt their shields and defenses to the team’s weapons after only a few shots. Then their weapons would be useless. She held the mic for a moment and glanced down the corridor to see Chang briefly flit across the hall. The uneasy feeling came back, but she stubbornly shook it off.

“Ty, grab a backup weapon and some grenades, then get Maude ready.”

She clicked off as Ty’s “Roger that” faded away and grabbed her gear. Duv gave her a surly wave and turned back to his work while Skeeter disappeared under part of the raised flooring, hauling a bunch of wires along with him. She walked down the hall and then jogged the stairs from the catwalk down to the floor where Ty waited with the Tactical Off-Road Retrieval Rover, or TORR, its motor grumbling loudly in the mostly empty bay. Chang had dubbed the four-person, heavily armed, high-speed tactical vehicle “Maude,” although no one really knew why. The name had stuck. Maude had saved their asses on more than a few occasions, and the vehicle was almost like family now.

Reilly nodded to Ty as he climbed up to man the rear turret gun. She turned the vehicle tightly and headed down the ramp into the dusty canyon. The unexpected restraint field, the damages to the ship and the weapons—it was enough to set them all on edge.

Reilly watched their surroundings for any sign of danger while the vehicle holo-display projected the fastest route to the compound. The lack of activity only made her more wary. One thing was certain, when things went wrong early on a mission, they tended to keep going wrong until they ended with unusually bad results. The sensor suite on the vehicle was going haywire, creating a field of static and causing random energy spikes on the system. The TORR grumbled to a halt as Reilly pulled up to the edge of an open field area.

“I’m getting some strange readings. It could be from that restraint field, but everything is too jacked up to tell for certain. Let’s leave Maude here. We can take the handheld and check it out on foot first.”

She turned the TORR off and Ty jumped down from the turret, landing next to her, as she began to wade out into the field of tall grass. Her handheld was picking up an electrical emission that was different from the natural noise of the moon. Patiently, she watched as the device scrolled through threat profiles for restraint fields and security systems, attempting to match the signal to a known entity. She continued to walk forward, her rifle slung, while Ty cautiously took in the landscape around them. Halfway across the field, she paused. The signal was stronger here. Ty took a knee next to her, his height just enough for him to peer above the top of the grass around them. Reilly looked up, scanning out across the ocean of vegetation, looking for signs of trouble. She stood stock still as the device gave a quick beep, affirming the identity of the signal. The grass continued to ebb and flow in waves around her, waist high, like a sea of gold in the afternoon sunlight.

There. As the wind blew, there was just the slightest deviation along the right edge of the field. The pattern sought to mimic the wind, but the movements were too precise and stood out to her trained eye. She flipped open the screen in her left hand again, queued up the pattern analysis program, and smiled grimly as it confirmed what she already knew. Ty still crouched, head and gun low, unmoving.

The machines had already targeted them, so silence and stealth no longer mattered. “Three on the way, heading in from two o’clock, all class threes, and if there’s more I can’t see them through this damn interference.” Vervian had strange magnetic patterning due to the surrounding rock layers in the hills that played hell on electronics.

Ty grimaced. “Well, isn’t this just turning into the most fraggin’ awesome job ever.” He punched the button on the side of his rifle, which whined to life as the blaster cells charged up.

“Hmmmm.” Reilly calmly pulled her blaster and thumbed off the safety. “I seem to remember a mission not too long ago that a certain someone told me was the ‘golden ticket,’ the one that was going to keep us in credits until we were a hundred…you remember that mission?” She kept her eyes on the handheld as the dots moved closer.

Ty muttered something under his breath that sounded like “Never lets it go…” and pointed his blaster out and left.

Reilly waded a few steps forward, watching the three lines snake towards them in the grass. “I seem to remember getting shot four times, rolling down the side of a mountain, and having to hide out for two days with no water in some dark hole filled with bat guano. After which we had to hike miles to find the landing zone because someone told the crew to take shore leave without my permission. Oh yeah, and then when we got there, we had to fight off a bunch of locals who were salvaging parts from my ship.” She gestured in the direction of the approaching threat as Ty turned in response.

Ty moved slowly, still slightly crouched, a twinge of annoyance in his voice. “How was I supposed to know that we were being set up? We’d done a bunch of deals with Father Darcy and he never crossed us before! He was a priest—ain’t they supposed to be trustable like?”

Reilly rolled her eyes. “He was a smuggler and in with the Aman Brothers Crew…and he was a Catholic! He can kill five folks before lunch and drop some credits to atone for his sins!” She quickly stowed the handheld in her tac-gear and brought her blaster up.