Outriders (40 page)

All in a few heartbeats.

And then all was still. A yawning quiet swallowed her, heavy with presence. And in that silence, she lost her sense of time, space, belonging. Piper wanted to call out, but was too frightened of what might answer.

She
felt
like she was still awake, conscious. But when she stretched out her hands, she could feel nothing around her. Had she passed out? Was she dreaming all of this?

Then, the lights came up, and Piper felt her weight again, fell hard against the deck. She pushed herself up to her elbows, bewildered to discover she was now three feet closer to the door, and facing a different direction than she’d expected.

And at the door stood a figure. One she’d never seen before. Like a man, but with no face at all; the marbled texture of his body swirled and shifted, distorted, as if he were made of smoke. Terrifying.

Piper scrambled backwards, back into the compartment, into the corner.

The figure stepped in, following.

“Maria Reyes?” it said. Its voice was thin, processed; simulated. Piper just stared, unable to respond. It entered the room fully, strode to her, crouched in front of her with fluid grace. When it was level with her, a thin vertical line appeared through the center of its faceless shell. The faceplate was separating, retracting. She leaned her head back, into the bulkhead, afraid of what might come out.

But behind the plate was a visor, and behind the visor, a face.

“María Reyes?” it said again. Not it. He. Piper nodded her head slowly. “María, can you tell me the name of your father?”

A strange question, asked with gentleness. “My… my father?”

“Yes,” the man said. “Your father’s name?”

His face looked Korean, but his accent had the edge distinct to the United States.

“Basilio,” Piper answered. “Why?”

The face behind the visor smiled.

“Just making sure we’ve got the right girl,” he said. “It’s OK, you’re safe now, María. We’re here to take you home.”

“
P
RECIOUS CARGO IS SECURE
,” Lincoln reported. “Sahil, how we looking?”

“All clear,” Sahil answered over local comms. “These two ain’t gonna bother nobody now.”

“You good to check the VIP?”

“Yeah.”

Sahil appeared in the door, secured his own weapon, and placed two others on the deck inside the compartment.

“María,” Lincoln said to the girl, in front of him. He kept his voice low, his words calm, measured. “My friend here is a medic. He’s just going to give you a quick onceover, and then we’ll get you out of here, OK?”

The girl nodded. She still had a wild-eyed look; a caged animal wary of its liberators. Undoubtedly she was disoriented by the sudden change in her circumstances, and the method by which her freedom was secured. It would take some time before she’d trust them. But hopefully she wasn’t going to be the type to give them trouble.

Sahil knelt next to her, opened his faceplate, smiled at her.

“Ms Reyes,” he said, holding out his hands, open towards her. “Can we get those cuffs off ya?”

He was close enough to take her arms, but instead he waited for her to make the first move, to present her wrists to him. She did so, cautiously. Sahil cut the bonds with a surgeon’s care.

“How ya feelin’, Ms Reyes?” Sahil asked. “Sustain any injuries while you been here?”

The girl blinked at him, dazed.

“Any persistent pain?” he asked. She slowly shook her head.

“I’m gonna keep an eye on the passageway and check in,” Lincoln said to him, over internal comms. “You good here?”

“Yeah.”

Lincoln stood and went back over to the door, while Sahil walked María through a series of questions, probing for any health concerns before they got her up and moving. He double-checked the passageway, saw that Sahil had already moved the bodies of the two hostiles. If they hadn’t been armed, they might still be alive. Lincoln hated that part of the job, necessary as it was. Seemed like Sahil might have had similar feelings. He had laid the two with care along the right side of the passageway, positioned them with an obvious respect for the dead. No longer the enemy. Without their weapons, they were just people again.

“Alpha, clear,” Lincoln said on the team channel, then waited. If the others were still busy working, he didn’t want to do any more than notify them of his team’s status for the moment.

A few moments later, Thumper replied, “Bravo, clear.”

“Roger that, Bravo,” Lincoln said. “Precious cargo is secure. We’ve got two hostiles, KIA, no friendly casualties. Status?”

“Power and G restored,” Thumper said. The adrenaline was still apparent in her voice and breathing, even though her words were calm and steady. “Obviously. Bay is secure. Control room is secure. We have five enemy, KIA; one enemy capture, wounded. With your two, all hostiles accounted for. No friendly casualties.”

“Alpha copies all. Sahil’s checking the VIP over. We’ll move her topside when he’s done, link up with you in control.”

“Yeah, roger that. See you in a few.”

Sahil completed his evaluation of the girl, gave the OK to move her. They escorted her out of the room, into the passageway, and she followed along without any resistance. But when she passed by the second hostile, the woman, she stopped abruptly.

“Why did you do that?” she said. Her voice trembled. “Oh, why did you do
that
?”

Lincoln looked back over his shoulder to see her standing with her hands pressed to her mouth, tears already forming in her eyes. She was staring down at the body of the woman.

“No… no, why would you do that?” she said.

Sahil gently took her arm and led her on, past the bodies in the passageway. The girl allowed him to pull her away, but she kept her body angled so she could keep her eyes on the two unmoving figures left behind, until they took her up through the hatch and out of view. Once they’d reached the upper deck, María went quiet and nearly limp. When they reached the control room, Sahil took her off to a quiet corner to talk with her and keep her under his watchful eye. Though Lincoln had only been involved in a handful of hostage rescues in his day, he knew that an acute stress reaction could have unpredictable and sometimes dangerous consequences. Sahil’s concern for the girl’s health was undoubtedly genuine, but his first priority was his team. If María took a bad turn, Sahil was on hand to control it.

Wright met Lincoln near the entrance and gave him a quick rundown of the events that had unfolded since the team split; the short, violent encounter with the two men in the bay, the more prolonged assault on the control room. There was a gouge in her suit, near where the left shoulder component merged with the neck.

“That giving you any trouble?” he asked, pointing to the damage.

“Nah, round deflected, probably won’t be more than a bruise.”

“Probably?”

“I’m fine,” she said, and then jerked a thumb back towards the front of the control room. “But these guys wouldn’t let it go easy.”

Near the front, a man was seated on the deck with his back against the bulkhead, Mike standing guard over him. Wright handed Lincoln a weapon; a short personal defense weapon. It was high grade and well maintained, well used, and familiar to him. Disturbingly familiar.

“This is UAF issue?” he asked, looking up at Wright. She still had her faceplate closed, so he couldn’t read her expression, but she shrugged one shoulder. He looked at the weapon again. Whether it was issued or stolen, there was no doubt it was authentic to the UAF Navy. The model was favored amongst UAF Special Naval Warfare units, especially boarding teams. A combination of on-weapon sensors combined with smart munition capabilities to enable engagement of soft and armored targets, without fear of errant shots accidentally penetrating the hull. Not that those teams typically had many errant shots.

Lincoln’s own team was running similar weapon platforms.

“You talk to him yet?” Lincoln asked.

“Some, but not much. Figured you’d want to handle it.”

“Yeah, all right.” He handed the weapon back, and then walked over to the man. As he got closer, he saw the man had multiple wounds; treatment had been hasty, improvised. Mike stepped forward to meet Lincoln.

“He’s hit pretty good,” Mike said, his voice lowered. “Won’t let us plug him up though.”

Lincoln nodded. He secured his weapon and then crouched in front of the sole survivor. For a long moment, they just looked at each other. Enemies. Brothers.

“I’ve got a trained medic over there,” Lincoln said. “Will you allow us to provide you with aid?”

The man shook his head. “Not much he can do for me,” he said, his voice calm, steady, though Lincoln could hear the effort it took to keep it that way. His breathing was already shallow.

“Fight’s over,” Lincoln said. “You don’t have to die here.”

“I’m a corpsman,” the man said. “I know what’s going on with me. And I’m telling you, there’s not much your man can do for me now.”

“You got a name, Doc?”

The man smiled grimly at that. “You can call me Vector.”

“Well, Vector. You feel up to explaining why you were holding that girl hostage?”

Vector’s smile gradually faded to a neutral expression.

“We know what you’ve been up to,” Lincoln said. “We know everything. And we’re shutting it all down. All of it. You lost.”

The wounded man gave a languid blink, unimpressed, unmoved.

“We know the whole story,” Lincoln lied. “I’m just curious as to why a UAF Naval Special Warfare corpsman would let himself get tangled up in all of it.”

“I’m not that,” Vector said. “Not anymore.”

“Yeah? You got a story about how you lost your way?”

“Wasn’t me that lost it.”

Lincoln waited, kept his eyes locked on the other man’s. Dying men usually had a habit of telling their secrets. But not this one. He seemed content to sit there and bleed.

“I’m not going to force medical on you,” Lincoln said. “But the instant you pass out, my man’s going to patch you up. We’re going to take you in, and a lot of people are going to ask you questions, for a long time. That’s going to happen either way. Might as well let us get you patched now.”

Vector remained impassive.

“All right,” Lincoln said. There was a lot more work to be done, and there’d be time later to deal with the man. “I’ll talk with you later then.”

Lincoln stood and turned around.

“My people… any of the others make it?” the man asked quietly. And though the man’s voice was steady, Lincoln could hear the weight in the question, the burden. It had been his team, then. He was the man in charge.

Lincoln turned back, looked Vector in the eye, shook his head. Vector dropped his gaze to his bound hands. Lincoln lingered, waiting to see if there was any more to be said. He remembered that turmoil all too well; the guilt for having put his people in harm’s way, and for having survived. Vector didn’t appear to have anything further to say, though. Lincoln started to move away.

“You’re not gonna stop her,” Vector said.

Maybe this was the moment after all. Lincoln looked at him casually, trying to seem as if he didn’t really care what Vector had to say. “Yeah? Who’s that?”

“The woman,” Vector said, with curious emphasis on the words. He didn’t look up at Lincoln when he spoke. “Just letting you know. No matter how backed up and cornered you think you got her, she’ll find a way.”

“We’ll see.”

Lincoln went to join Thumper by one of the control consoles, and Mike returned to stand guard over their wounded adversary.

“What’s the word?” he asked, through internal comms. No reason to let the other guy hear what they had to say. She had her faceplate open, her weapon secured, and was already at work on the console.

“We must have caught them on the tail end of things,” she said. “I’m guessing they were about to clear out.”

“What makes you think that?”

She pointed to a section of the navigational display.

“Headed towards Mars,” she said. “Under AI. And they had a runabout prepped in the bay when we came through.”

“Can you get us stopped?”

“Looking into it, but I’m not feeling optimistic. It’s not your typical autopilot. There’s some kind of weird bypass in here. Like, a physical one. Something they put on the ship.”

Lincoln looked at the navigational display. If the ship held course, it was going to take them right into Martian territory. About six hours of travel time. And Lincoln assumed whatever it was going to do when it got there probably wasn’t nice.

“And there’s other weirdness in here too. Multiple manifests, looks like. It was the
Yoo Ling 4
when we were inbound, cargo hauler. I didn’t see a lot of cargo coming in, though. And checking it now, it’s broadcasting as
Pride of Europa
. Civilian cruiser, fifty-seven passengers.”

“I don’t recall meeting any of them on the way in, either.”

“No, sir. There may be more. Manifests, I mean. But there’s a lot of encryption going on here.”

“All right,” he said. “I’m going to go take a look around, see what else I can find. Keep working this end of it, grab everything you can. If you get any hits that might tell us what they’ve been doing out here, let me know immediately.”

“Roger that,” Thumper said.

“Wright,” Lincoln said, turning back towards the entrance. “I’m trading you Sahil for Mike.”

“All right,” she answered.

“Mike, you’re with me. Let’s go see what else they’ve done to this tub.”

“You got it,” Mike said. Wright took charge of their captive, and Mike followed Lincoln out.

According to all the reconnaissance they had done, every person aboard the ship was accounted for. That didn’t keep them from having their weapons out and ready while they moved down the passageways, checking each deck. It had never hurt Lincoln to expect surprises. They focused their first efforts on the middle decks. Lincoln and Sahil had inserted on the underside of the ship, and, with the exception of the trip up to drop the girl off in the control room, had confined themselves to the lower decks. Those decks had been very utilitarian; no frills, main focus on function. The middle decks were a step up, almost to something like a mid-tier pleasure cruiser. A long-distance passenger transport, maybe not for the rich, but at least for the aspirational. The compartments were largely the same in layout; small staterooms, with room for a comfortable two, or a very cozy four. Apart from the furnishings, though, they were all empty.