Starship's Mage 2 Hand of Mars (21 page)

There was something lately about small men being utterly terrifying.

Amiri held onto the straps holding her into the gunship with white fingers as they tore over the treetops with a meter or so to spare. Brute clearly knew the
exact
capabilities of the aircraft he flew, and he brought them in towards the Bastille at a speed and margin that put Royal Martian Marine Corps assault pilots she’d known to shame.

The other four gunships followed behind at a more sedate pace, leaving it to Brute and Amiri to test - and hopefully disable - the Nouveaux Versailles Bastille’s defenses.

“We’re clearing the forest in about thirty seconds,” the pilot informed her. “There’s only about twenty kay of plains before the Bastille and we’re running at full power, not stealth - we’ll be challenged before we’re fifteen kay out and the systems will fire at ten.”

That didn’t take much translating. Amiri slotted the data key Damien had given her into the aircraft’s communication system and accessed the files. A few keystrokes later, and she was looking up as they passed out from over the forest and into the plains near the city of Nouveau Versailles.

A light blinked to life on the console - an incoming communication.

“Unidentified aircraft, this is Nouveaux Versailles Bastille,” a male voice announced in a bored tone. “You appear to be on course for our facility. Please either identify yourself or change course as you are about to enter a no-fly zone that will be enforced with lethal force.”

Amiri smiled coldly and hit the transmit key. Seconds passed.

“Unidentified aircraft, this is the Bastille,” the voice said again, now starting to sound less bored. “I repeat, you are entering a no-fly zone enforced by automated anti-aircraft weaponry. Identify yourself or break off.”

“Did they get the transmission?” Brute asked, his voice concerned.

She checked the system. A blinking icon informed her she’d received a text-only message from the system.

“We’re in and their security system is down,” she told him. “I don’t know how long till he,” she gestured at the speaker, “realizes that.”

“What the hell are you
doing
?” the voice demanded. “I cannot stand down the system; if you do not identify yourself in the next thirty seconds, the guns
will
fire!”

“Wish me luck,” Brute told Amiri, his hands on the controls as white as hers. “This could be very, very messy.”

They crossed the ten kilometer mark and none of the threat indicators lit up. Amiri held her breath until they hit five kilometers and Brute began slowing the aircraft.

“Your wonder boy delivered,” the pilot said, his voice surprised. “I’ll call in the rest of the squadron - you want to talk to cranky voice?”

Amiri nodded and pulled up the communication system.

“Bastille, this is the Freedom Wing,” she told them calmly. “We are now in control of your defenses. Surrender now, and no-one will be harmed.”

The channel was silent, and Brute slowed the gunship to a halt, rotating it over the main courtyard and looking for defenders. No-one reacted for a moment, and Amiri saw the icons of the other four gunships appear on Brute’s screen.

“You’re insane,” the Bastille controller finally replied. “You’ll never get away with this!”

“That’s tomorrow’s problem,” Amiri told him sweetly. “We’re here for our people. Any of yours who get in the way die. Your call.”

She killed the channel and turned to Brute.

“Take us down,” she ordered.

#

At some point, Vaughn was sure, the woman in charge of the emergency command center was going to work up the nerve to tell her planet’s leader to get
out
of the center’s main operating theater. Depending on what was going on at that moment in time, he might even listen to her.

Until she did, however, this was the best place to keep an eye on the events rapidly sweeping Ardennes. Allarain had been their biggest - if most mixed - success, but operations were being carried out across the planet.

So far, most successes had been minor. Given time, however, he was sure they’d find another loose thread that would lead them to either the Wing - or perhaps even more importantly, to Montgomery. The last thing Vaughn needed was someone with
authority
to counter his tale of what had happened.

The various techs and officers were quiet, trying carefully
not
to attract the Mage-Governor’s attention. When one of them started tapping keys with a concerned face, their muttering caught his ear.

“What is it, son?” Vaughn asked, the surprise of his arrival causing the young man to swallow his gum and choke.

A glass of water and a chance to regain his equilibrium later, the officer - a lanky blond youth barely old enough for his Lieutenant’s bars, checked his screens again then looked up at the Governor.

“The Nouveaux Versailles Bastille has gone off the air,” he admitted aloud.

“That’s not possible,” the Colonel commanding the center objected. The woman had clearly seen Vaughn descend on her staff officer and rushed over to either save his ass or throw him under the bus - the Governor wasn’t sure which.

“Why not?” Vaughn asked quietly. “We’ve over thirty Freedom Wing terrorists locked up there. If there’s anywhere the rebels would try and attack, it would be that Bastille. It
should
be suicide,” he agreed, “but they may still manage to disable the communications.”

“The Bastilles aren’t radio stations that can just ‘go off the air’,” the Colonel replied, a strained patience in her voice that Vaughn noted for later. “They’re the highest security prisons on the planet. They have hard lines and dedicated communication satellites; there is no way for them to be jammed or cut off.”

“I’d agree with you ma’am,” the Lieutenant told her, with a panicked glance at Vaughn. “Except that we’re getting
no
communication from them. I’ve tested the channels - the satellite and cable are still intact. There’s just… nothing
coming
from the Bastille.”

“Get me satellite overhead,” Vaughn demanded. “If we have a dedicated coms satellite, please tell me it has a fucking camera?”

“It should, sir,” the junior officer told him, busying himself with his console as Vaughn turned a wary eye on the Colonel.

“What do we have as a rapid reaction force?” he demanded.

“… not much,” she admitted. “Most of the Scorpions are tied up in the global sweep for the terrorists. We could leverage Army units, but…”

“I’d rather not have the Army in one of the Bastilles,” Vaughn agreed, considering.

“I’ve got visual on Versailles Bastille, sir, ma’am,” the Lieutenant interjected. Without asking for further instruction, he threw the satellite image up on the screen where his two superiors could see.

Two helicopter gunships, their forms vague and blurry as their mottled gray color closely matched the concrete below them, orbited the central courtyard. Three
more
were on the ground. It was hard to tell at the level of detail on the image, but it looked like they were unloading people.

“That’s not
possible
,” the Colonel objected. “The anti-air would have shot down anyone trying to assault the facility!”

“It has
happened
, Colonel,” Vaughn told her sharply. He turned back to the junior officer. “What is your name, son?”

“Lieutenant Romain Duval, sir,” the youth replied.

“Well,
Captain
Duval, get me Generals Montoya and Zu on the line on the double,” Vaughn ordered the freshly promoted officer. Proving his worth almost immediately, Duval promptly grabbed the nearest three techs and began placing calls.

Vaughn turned back to the Colonel in charge of the center.

“My aversion to Army units is weakening, Colonel,” he admitted. “But please tell me we have something else.”

“We have a battalion running air and ground security on the Central District itself,” she told him, consulting her personal computer as she spoke. “If we strip them down to the exterior barricades - leave the RTA to regular security guards and a few patrols, we should be able to load two companies - four hundred men - into transports in the next half an hour.”

Vaughn considered. He didn’t
like
leaving the Central District vulnerable - while he’d organized the only actual attack to hit there himself, there was a risk the attack had emboldened groups that didn’t realize that.

The alternative was to watch the only prisoners they’d taken be whisked out of his highest security prison like it was a
daycare
.

“Do it,” he ordered, then turned to Captain Duval. “Do you have them?”

“Both General Zu and General Montoya are on the line and waiting in your office, sir,” the young man replied.

“Thank you, Captain.”

#

Amiri transferred the link to the Bastille’s systems to her personal computer and dropped out of the back of the gunship. The Wing had provided her with a set of body armor, and no-one had yet tried to take the battle laser back.

Landing in the middle of the courtyard, she waved Brute back into the air as she ducked over to the short platoon of troopers the Wing had sent along.

“Keep an eye on us from above,” she told the pilot. “We’re not
trying
to be sneaky, so it’s not a question of
if
help is coming, you get me?”

“I got you,” Brute replied. “Good luck!”

Turning to the troops around here, Amiri gave them a wintry smile.

“Looks like the Scorpions are keeping their heads down,” she said loudly. “Unfortunately for them, we need the command center - I can apparently shut down their guns more easily than I can get cell numbers!”

That got a chuckle from the rebels, though it was also completely true. The codes Montgomery had provided had allowed her to assume direct control of the Bastille’s weapons systems and shut down their communications, but it didn’t actually give her access to the Bastille’s internal databases.

At least some of the rebels knew the rough layout of the facility, though, and the assault team quickly sorted themselves out into order as they charged deeper into the massive concrete fortress.

The first few floors passed with no resistance. Amiri spotted the hatches and rails of layer upon layer of automated defenses that would have killed them all in the first few steps, but the codes Montgomery had given her had shut everything down.

Two floors down, they ran into a heavy security gate. The automated turrets on either side were slumped in uselessness, but the heavy steel barricade itself remained in place.

“Should we blast it?” one of the troopers, carrying a similar laser to Amiri’s own, asked.

“Give me a moment,” she replied. There was a keypad next to the door. She crossed to it and checked it against her personal computer. The data key Montgomery had given her hummed softly for less than a second and then threw up an eight digit code.

Waving for the rebels to take up positions, she punched in the code. The lights on the pad flashed several times, then the door slowly ground upwards.

The Scorpions on the other side had clearly been expecting a more violent breach. It took them a moment to process the door opening from behind their impromptu barricade - a moment the rebels took full advantage of to grab whatever cover they could.

Amiri pressed herself against the wall next to the keypad, taking cover against the disabled turret as a fusillade of bullets passed her in both directions.

Then the distinctive ‘hiss-
crack
‘ of a weapons grade laser hitting skin and vaporizing chunks of flesh interrupted the gunfire, followed almost immediately by the rapid coughing sound of an automatic grenade launcher.

Six explosions later, the gunfire from inside the hatch ceased. It took a moment more for the rebels to stop shooting - their trigger discipline was better than she’d expected, but still worse than real soldiers or even the bounty hunters she’d worked with before.

Two of the Freedom Wing rebels were wounded. Stepping through the hatchway, Amiri counted six… possibly seven, it was hard to be sure, Scorpions. The prison guards had carried light weapons and no body armor, versus the heavy weapons and combat body armor the Freedom Wing had equipped their people with.

It hadn’t been a fair fight.

“This way, we’re still four floors up from the command center,” the rebel leading the way said grimly.

“How many guards are there?” Amiri asked, falling into step beside him.

“Not many,” he told her. “When the ASPF” - Ardennes System Police Force, the star system level police force that the Scorpions tended to walk all over now - “ran the Bastilles, we had twenty people in each. They couldn’t add many more without turning cells into barracks.”

“Let’s hope they didn’t,” she replied, glancing back at the two soldiers they were leaving behind with one of their pair of medics. “I don’t know if we can handle being outnumbered.”