The wind gusted in the night as cars began to arrive at the Rostell household. Long, black, silent vehicles, escorted by motorcycles with roaring motors, pulled up in front of the house.
Processions of thick boots stepped onto the pavement as the motorcycle riders disembarked. Groups of leather-jacketed men strolled across the path with a swaggering step. They had scars adorning their face, buzzcuts and mohawks for hair. Sprayguns, shotguns, rifles, grenades, even a sword or two, they flourished their weapons at those nearby. Nearly forty such people were present.
Once they had scared off the few nearby pedestrians on the block, the next wave of people disembarked. The thugs by the pavement respectfully opened the car doors for them, house staff rolling a carpet from the front door to the gate. This time the main attire was an array of crisp suits, clipped to military precision. Blacks and blues were the chief colours, one solitary man in red. Ten such people emerged from their cars.
These ten men entered the house, followed by most of their attendant ruffians. Five stayed outside to watch the road. The cars drove away to park elsewhere, leaving a line of motorcycles sitting at the side of the road like leashed tigers.
The night settled into silence once more.
“Benedict’s late,” Ivan said to Kik and Nemel from his seat in the front of his van. His hat concealed the movement of his mouth. “This isn’t good.”
“Were any of those cars his?” Nemel asked. “He might have sent someone in his place.”
“No, they weren’t. I got a look at them while I was checking out his house. His car’s definitely white.”
Kik radioed Edmon. “What can you see from up there?”
“Not much. All the cars have driven off. I spotted one of the two unlucky guys, Mr Egil. He’s inside the house now. Do you have eyes on the target?”
“He hasn’t arrived,” Ivan said.
Lucas’ voice came through the handheld radio in the car. “Do you think we have to call off the op?”
Ivan thought. “Wait for a few minutes. He might show up.”
“Wait, they’re in the garden upstairs now,” Edmon said, peering through his binoculars. “They haven’t started the meeting though. They might be waiting for him.”
“Alright, you heard,” Lucas said. “We wait for a while too. Be prepared to retreat, everyone. You never know when something might go wrong.”
“There’s no need to remind us,” Nemel said. “We’re anxious enough already.”
Time dragged onwards. Lucas stomped his feet and walked around. Edmon stretched in his post to keep his muscles from cramping. The three in the car relaxed as much as they could. An advertisement balloon slowly drifted closer, high in the sky, blaring some message or news story across the city.
Finally, Edmon spoke up. “Someone just arrived.”
Peering out of the corner of his eye, Ivan spotted a white car rolling slowly down the street. He breathed out and sunk into his chair. “He must just have wanted to be fashionably late.”
Up on his vantage point, Edmon pulled his cloak and crossbow tighter
The other side of the street also moved into action. The five men outside stood up and moved over to the car. A few faces peered out from the misted glass of the greenhouse before pulling back.
As the five approached the vehicle, one hurried out in front to open the door. The other four started to line up, two on either side of the path. As the two furthest from the road stepped into position, they seemed to stumble.
The first deaths that night.
The pair collapsed almost in tandem, lying unmoving on the ground. The two lined up next to them looked down at the fallen bodies before they too fell. A faint spray of blood from their heads tainted the ground red. One collapsed on his side, the other dropping heavily to his knees before keeling over.
The final member of the welcoming committee looked around as he opened the door. He immediately realised his companions were all downed and motionless. He pulled his rifle from his back, scanning the buildings around him for the shooter as he reached for the communication device at his throat.
Before his hand could get there, it was grabbed by an armoured gauntlet. Stepping out of the car, a soldier in heavy black armour with a long cloak stood to his full height, a foot and a half above the thug. His fist closed over the man’s hand like the distended jaws of a python.
From the suit’s armoured left gauntlet, the soldier flicked out a serrated blade. He stepped in and forced the man’s torso towards the ground, his powered suit whirring as it overpowered human muscle. He plunged the knife into the back of the man’s neck, sawing through his spinal cord in a spray of gore. The team of five was finished in as many seconds.
Kik and his companions across the street stood there speechless as a second armoured soldier, equally huge, emerged from the vehicle. This one wasn’t wearing a cloak, but he was carrying an oversized assault rifle. Lucas, who couldn’t see the house from his post, spoke out. “What’s going on over there? Anyone?”
Edmon recovered first. “It looks like a police raid. We have a pair in heavy combat armour, and at least two snipers nearby. The snipers are armed with laser rifles, going by the lack of blood. The main two are just strolling towards the front gate. They’ve already taken out five men.”
“We have what? Was this whole meeting a setup? For who?”
“Just shut up and watch what happens,” Nemel said, but there was someone who wasn’t listening.
“Viverne Komanda,” Ivan whispered under his breath, sitting out of his seat.
“What? Wyvern Squad?” Kik asked. “Hey! Lie back down! We’ll be seen!”
Ivan ignored him, starting to get to his feet and muttering under his breath. “Burning snow, petrol on the air, shrapnel explosions...”
Kik squeezed his arm through the partition and slapped Ivan. “Shut up and stop moving! You’re going to get us all killed.”
Ivan shook his head and , although he was still panting. He lay back on his seat and replaced the cap. “Sorry… this is just…”
“What were you muttering just then?” Kik lowered his arm.
“The Wyvern Squad? Weren’t they that unit from the Second Evenoff War?” Nemel asked.
“These can’t be the real ones,” Ivan said incredulously, “but they wear the symbol of the wyvern.”
Kik glanced at the armoured figures strolling to the front door of the estate. As Ivan said, there was a large tattoo-like drawing of a scaled creature with wings on the back of the one without a cloak. “Tell us the story later. For now, concentrate. Revenge can wait.”
Ivan breathed in and out. “I understand.”
The armoured pair sauntered down the path to the front door. Their bootprints stained the blue carpet red. Neither of them were holding weapons out, but the one without a cloak was bouncing a small orb on his palm. Walking up to the door, the one with the cloak opened it with a surprisingly gentle touch. He ducked down and peered through the doorway.
His voice, enhanced by the speakers, boomed out across the still, cool air. His baritone carried to the other side of the road. It must have been deafening inside the entryway. “Oi, chimps. We’re here for Clement Rostell. Go get him.”
A moment of stunned silence preceded a roar of indignation rose from the house as those in the front hall realised what was happening. Pulling his cloak aside, the armoured man swiftly unslung a vehicle-grade heavy machine gun. Pointing its barrel in the general direction of the thugs pulling out their weapons, he held down the trigger. He moved his aim across the room as whatever he pointed at was reduced to rubble.
Stepping back out of the doorway as the first few return shots began to pink off his chestplate, he made way for the next armoured figure, who tossed the grenade he had been holding through the door. Windows shattered as shards of shrapnel blasted outwards, followed by a cloud of obscuring smoke. Switching their vision to infrared, the two started wading inside, gunning down those who stood in their way.
Explosions.
The sound of breaking glass.
Loud noises came from the rear of the house.
Other more lightly armoured police teams hurried from the rear of the grounds and made their entries through walls and windows. Hurried firefights erupted at doorways and corridors throughout the house. They ended soon, as confused guards and ruffians ran into trained and well-prepared assault units.
Edmon watched proceedings from the scaffold, the only one able to provide any commentary.
“It seems the gunbattle has mostly died down below the third level. The remaining guards and a few gangers have the stairs barricaded and they’re holding the line for now. There’s no escape from up there, though. The outside of the building is under watch, and those snipers are still around.”
“Why don’t they just send those shock troops up?” Kik asked.
“Are you joking?” Lucas said. “That’s heavy combat armour, h-e-a-v-y. They’d break the stairs. I can’t believe they managed to fit in the car. Anyway, what’s our plan now? Our target’s not here.”
“Quiet! Something’s happening!” Edmon said. This time those in the car could see the action too.
The troops on the lawn locked shoulder-mounted grenade launchers to their armour. They fired them into the greenhouse, glass fracturing once again as the cylinders fell through the walls, trailing smoke. The space inside was completely obscured by billowing clouds, wisps trailing through the holes in the glass. A few gunshots sounded from inside as people fired at random, blasting out the occasional panel but doing little to clear out the smoke.
As the room was filled, black shapes began to land on the roof from above. The figures were abseiling down from a rope stretched into the darkness above. Kik pressed his face against the glass, blocking Nemel’s vision, but he still couldn’t see where the rope came from.
He quickly radioed Edmon. “What’s going on? Where are they coming from? I can’t see that far up.”
“They’re abseiling down from an advertisement balloon,” Edmon said. “They’re not leaving a single approach unused.”
Several of the troops standing on the roof swiftly cut and smashed a hole into the roof of the garden. Flipping helmet visors down, they jumped down into the cloud, armed with sub machine guns. All their positions were lost from view.
A minute or two later, as the seconds ticked by, a hole was smashed in one of the windows. As the gas poured out, more holes were smashed, and the room began to clear.
Edmon was first to speak once again. “It’s over,” he said. “The police crushed them.” From his perch, he could see a dirtied garden. Dead men lay in pools of their own blood, their throat slit from behind before they knew there was someone behind them. Potted plants were knocked over, their soil drinking the blood that stained the ground. Among the corpses lay a solitary attacker, taken out by a stray shot in the confusion.
“What happens now?” Lucas asked again over the radio. “There’s no target for us to kill. Could Benedict have started this? The police did come using his car.”
“Before you make any assumptions,” Edmon said, “look at the car out the front.”
Gazing over at Benedict’s car, Kik saw a man escorted out with his hands cuffed behind his back. He was wearing a torn and bloodied robe with the sleeves ripped off. He had a line of dried blood streaking his face and his exposed arms were bruised, a few burn marks marring his skin in vivid red.
The black-armoured policeman who dragged him out of the car began to pull him towards the building. At the same time, several other suited men in various states of consciousness were pulled out of the front door.
“Pass me some binoculars,” Ivan said to Kik and Nemel. Kik gave the ones he had been using to Ivan through the slot, leaving the night vision on.
Bringing the binoculars up to his eyes, Ivan peered through them at the front garden. “That’s our man,” he said. “He’s hurt pretty badly but I can recognize him.”
Nemel radioed Lucas and Edmon while Kik took his binoculars back. “That’s our target.”
“Finally,” Lucas said.
They all sat there in relief until Edmon spoke. “It’s not over yet. At this rate he’s just going to be driven away and not drink the poison.”
“That makes it hard for us,” Kik said. “Should we just let the police take him? He’ll be out of the way.”
“Do you want to explain that to Erstine?” Lucas asked.
“No. But neither do I want to be killed.”
“Alright. I say we watch and wait for now,” Lucas told them. “Prepare to leave at a moment’s notice.”
“If you say so.”
On the lawn, police officers held down Clement Rostell as he coughed and spluttered. Six of the meeting’s attendees had been killed inside. Now he, the other four visitors, and Benedict, had been led outside like livestock. They lay and sat there, bathed in the bright lights emitted by the policemen’s helmets.
A policeman walked up to his prone form, a wyvern engraved on his breast. He had the badge of a Captain on his shoulderpad. The policeman crouched down and lifted Clement’s face up, grinning from beneath his half face helmet.
“Ah, how the mighty fall,” he said. “You thought yourself untouchable, didn’t you. But you ran out of time and you never realised. The gangs don’t rule Elaris anymore, they haven’t for the past thirty years. That’s our job now.”
Clement spat on his narrow visor. “Don’t belittle me, you fake Wyvern. How does it feel to live while hiding behind a name that isn’t yours? At least what I have...”
The policeman headbutted Clement, leaving behind a bloody nose and a pair of red lines across Clement’s face where the edge of the vision slit had struck. “Try to keep civil, if you can. We’ll get answers out of you just like we did your friend.” He gestured towards Benedict, who lay nearby. He wasn’t moving at all except for the rise and fall of his chest. He couldn’t be unconscious either as his eyes were open.
“You broke him.”
“Everyone breaks in the end.”
“There’s always a first.” Clement’s voice was proud but his eyes flickered away.
“We’ll see.”
Other soldiers dragged the four other survivors of the assault into Clement’s view. The only fully conscious one was Preston, who was manhandled over in his red suit. They forced him to his knees and the person behind him held the barrel of a pistol to his head.
“What do you know?” His questioner’s voice was a whisper, slipping from between his teeth like the tongue of a snake.
“I’m not answering anything until I see my lawyer.”
“It’s going to be a little hard to speak if your brain is leaking through your mouth,” the soldier said.
“Go ahead, send me on. I’ll be fancy in red at the gates of judgement.”
“Maybe next time you want to act cool, wear brown pants with your suit,” the guard said as he pulled the trigger. “You’ll avoid stains better that way.” The stench of refuse filled the air as Preston’s bowels emptied in death.
The process was repeated once more, with Harron, the next most conscious. Clement just tuned it out. He was already resigned to his own death the moment he was surrounded, his men killed. Everything else was just prolonging the end. After Harron was finished off, the captain called for them to stop.
“Don’t bother with the others. He’s not responding, for the moment. Instead, bring the dogs from the shed.”
As the men walked off, Clement turned pale. “How did you hear about that?”
“I told you, Mr Rostell. Everybody breaks. Once they do they tell us every little thing they know. Keep your secrets close in future.”
Rostell turned and glared at Benedict’s still figure. He swore to kill the man, assuming he got the chance.
The men returned with Clement’s pride and joy. Julius, Nereid, Elephas, Shine and Raptor. They had cost him as much as all his houses combined, but it had been worth it. They were unique. Intelligent. Alive. His children. As the five mechanical hounds were laid in front of him, Clement cried out.
“No! Don’t touch them! I’ll tell you anything! Anything! Just leave them be!”
“Oh dear, Mr Rostell. How could we trust you so easily? How about this. Let’s have a test. I’ll ask you a question. You answer. If you answer right, nothing happens. If you try to mislead us, a puppy breaks. You get to choose.” The captain gestured to one of the snipers who had just emerged from the base of the skyscraper opposite. He set his laser rifle to cutting mode and levelled it with Raptor’s back.
“Now, first question. Let’s start nice and easy. What is your name?”
“Clement Arthur Donis Rostell.”
“Good, good. How many men do you have working for you?”
“I have fifty men and women who work around my house.”
The captain gestured at the sniper to fire his rifle.
“Wait! Wait. I don’t know the exact number of others, but you can find out. There are detailed documents in a safe on the third level, beneath the sprinkler system in the garden. Ferris used to look after it. The passcode is 252221.”
“Who is Ferris?”
“My steward. He’s dead.”
“Very well. We’ll see how truthful you’ve been.” The captain nodded to one of his men who rushed upstairs to confirm Clement’s story.
He soon returned with a case full of data wafers. “He told the truth about the safe, sir. I’ll take a squad and get this data back to someone who can make sense of it.”
“Go ahead, sergeant,” the captain said, then turned to the sniper. “Alright, cut through that beast’s head.”
Clement screamed until he was hoarse. “What did I do wrong? Why? Why?”
“You told us where the data was. But you didn’t tell us that it would be in data wafers. You withheld information.”
“No! I’ll tell you! I’ll do it right!” He dragged himself across the floor and clutched at the captain’s legs.
The captain kicked him away, his eyes turned down in judgement. “Tut-tut. You made the mistake so you pay the price. You’ll tell us everything next time, won’t you?”
Holding down on his trigger, the sniper slowly burnt his way through the metal of the hound’s neck. The hardened carapace was burned through first, then the delicate electronics, motors and wiring inside. The hound’s jaw spasmed and its eyes lit up and died again as wires were connected and severed in unintended combinations. Power erratically ran throughout, burning out diodes and causing catastrophic damage. Finally, a glowing hole was bored through the bottom as the laser reached all the way through. Clement didn’t notice the tears on his face as the life of one of his companions faded away.
As the soldier began to widen the hole, Clement realised that his other four children were right in front of him. They had been deactivated but if he could remember the voice command to turn them on…
Suddenly Clement smiled. The captain, looking down at him, was puzzled for a second, before turning to some soldiers. “Somebody grab him,” he said. “Something’s wrong.”
As the soldiers hoisted Clement up, he laughed out to the sky and cried out a word.
“Something’s happening,” Edmon radioed in as the man on the lawn was pulled to his feet by the soldiers. “Maybe the interrogation is ending.”
“I don’t know what’s going through their heads, showing this to everyone in the buildings nearby,” Nemel said. “It’s ridiculous.”
“They’d be making a statement,” Edmon said. “They want people to know what they’re capable of.” He zoomed his binoculars in. “What is going on down there…”
The four guard dogs sprang to life. Besides the damaged Raptor, who spasmed and jerked, its motor controls cut and redirected, they rushed in on their targets. Nereid sprang on the sniper, who had stopped cutting through Raptor long enough to look around in puzzlement. Its mechanical jaws tore through his throat, rotating blades in its mouth going to work.
Julius and Shine jumped at one of the two heavy armoured shock troopers, the one with the rifle. He held off Julius’ assault with the bulk of his rifle while Shine attempted to tear through the joints in his armour. He kicked backwards at the machine, but it evaded his angered attempts.
Elephas freed itself from the small crowd around the captain and disappeared into the darkness. It started to chase down soldiers around the fringes of the house. A few spotted its reflective body and fired at it, but their bullets only left small dents in its armoured carapace.
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From up on the scaffolding, Edmon watched the chaos and spinning lights down below with glee.
“I have my chance. I’m taking the shot,” he said. Peering down the scope of his crossbow, he found their target lying still on the ground. Muttering calculations in his head, he loaded a plain bolt into his bow and adjusted its elevation. The first shot would be for ranging, the second one would be for the kill.
Firing his crossbow, he peered down into the darkness with his binoculars. Gazing over the lawn between him and his target, he spotted the bolt embedded in the grass just a few metres short.
Flipping a switch on the back, the crossbow whirred as it cranked itself back again. He loaded a second bolt in and took aim, lifting the crossbow just a few degrees up.
The bolt sunk into Benedict’s leg. It pierced through his thigh, the head pushing at the skin on his other side. The pain roused him, and he cried out, clutching the wound. Few people paid him any attention though, given the other noise in the garden. Weapons discharges and the cries of the injured rose from across the grounds. The hounds had disabled or killed five policemen already and were starting to engage other soldiers as they emerged from the house.
Edmon folded up the crossbow and climbed back inside the building. He gazed out the window at the lawn as he replaced his gear into his bag. Once he was done he radioed the others.
“I’m going to need a lift as soon as possible.”
“Get him?” Ivan asked him, sitting up and starting up the van.
“In a second. The explosive bolt is about to go off.”
An small spray of blood rose up from the lawn as Benedict Odell’s lower torso disintegrated. The captain noticed the explosion, pointing his pistol at the buildings around in an attempt to spot the sniper. He was interrupted by one of the dogs knocking him over with a bite to his leg. The jaws didn’t pierce the armour but they deformed it, pushing broken shards of rigid, bulletproof material into his legs.
“There you go,” Edmon said. “The target’s dead now.”
“Mission complete, or as close as it’s going to get,” Lucas said. “Ivan, pick everyone up. We need to get out of here before that assault team get their situation sorted. I’ll meet you on the southwest corner of my block.” He put his assault rifle back in the case and began to jog down the alleyway towards the rendezvous.
They picked Edmon up in the alley beneath the building, managing to squeeze the car through. He dropped his equipment on the floor before slamming the doors shut behind him. “One of them almost spotted me. We got lucky. Let’s get out of here, quickly.”
Driving over to Lucas, he was much more composed. He hadn’t actually seen any of the action, which was probably the reason for his calmness. He climbed in the back and threw his case on the top of the bags. Edmon hurried to shut the door behind him.
They were at last sealed into the van and drove away from the scene. They all breathed a sigh of relief.
“Is this how it usually is?” Kik asked as they sped away from the site. “It feels like that was all dumb luck that saved us.”
The four self-proclaimed assassins looked at each other. Lucas turned to Kik. “No. Sometimes we get really lucky.”
Ivan drove them south in an attempt to distract pursuit. He turned east once they were on the edge of the industrial zone. The road here was double the usual width, a main route through the city. They were around two hours’ drive away from the spaceport, but the detour added an extra twenty minutes onto that. Traffic was neither light nor heavy, with all but the most dedicated workers out of work already but many already off the roads and home.
They passed beneath a series of hanging bridges connecting two block-sized skyscrapers. Looking out the side window, Ivan swore in annoyance.
“Tear my entrails out and nail them to an oak tree!”
He turned right as soon as he had an opportunity. They were still over an hour away from the spaceport.
“What’s going on?” Lucas asked, leaning forward from the back seat.
“We were spotted leaving the scene,” Ivan said. “Someone must have taken a picture from the balloon. The photo of our vehicle is out on the police announcement.”
“We need to get rid of this groundcar as soon as possible,” Nemel said.
“That’s why I’m moving into the industrial zone. It should be empty at this time of night. We can ditch it there.”
Just a few blocks south and the area was deserted. Lights shone from buildings around but nobody was on the road or the streets.
“See, this is perfect,” Ivan said. “Now we just need somewhere where nobody will spot it for a day and we’ll be long gone before it’s found.”
Driving for a short distance, Ivan spotted an underground carpark just off the street. Pulling in, he paid for two days of parking. They left the car in the shade of a pillar towards the back. Everyone climbed out and they walked through the pedestrian entrance.
Lucas checked the map on his datapad. “We should head north. If we can get back onto the main road, we can get an air taxi to bring us to the spaceport.”
Edmon smiled and stretched. “We got away. There’s no way they can find us now.”
Ivan was a bit more concerned. “We got away, but did we complete the mission properly? They know we targeted Benedict, after all.”
“But nobody knows who we are,” Lucas said. “This can’t be traced back to Erstine, just as he wanted.”
After fifteen minutes of walking, Lucas was breathing hard.
“Come on, hurry up,” Kik said. “This isn’t even a hill and we’re just walking. What were you like on Lanos?”
Ivan grinned. “He just sat around all day complaining that he wasn’t built for the heat. He tried to get us to strap an exoskeleton on him.”
They chuckled at the image. Kik relaxed and realised that he had been tensed up for all of the past day. “Let’s just get off this planet. I want to feel a ship around me again.”
As they neared the road they had turned off before, sirens blared as a squadron of ten heavily armoured transport vehicles turned the road towards them. Six-wheeled, multiple access points, and with the edge of the doors at almost head-height, they were built to take a beating and keep driving.
The first nine raced past, while the last one slowed to a stop as it parked beside them. A side door opened and two policemen in riot gear, with batons and shields, came to the exit. Kik flinched, but somehow the others managed to remain calm.
“You there!” the leading trooper called as he jumped out and walked over. The other let down a ladder and climbed down more sedately.
“What are you doing in a curfew zone at this time of the night?”
“Sorry, officer. We were just leaving the district.”
“Yes, I can see that. But what were you doing here in the first place?”
Nemel stepped in. “You see, we had just reached the main road, trying to catch an air taxi. Then Ossel here,” she gestured towards Kik, “dropped his heirloom and it was blown away. We had to run over here to get it.”
“What heirloom is this?”
Kik started for a second before pulling out his father’s bone trinket. He slipped the loop from around his neck and handed it to the riot trooper.
Looking at it quickly, the trooper returned the charm and frowned. “Who did you say you were? Can I see your papers?”
Lucas nodded and handed over their identification. The first policeman was about to take them before his companion interceded and quickly looked through them.
“These are all in order,” he said. “I advise you get out of the area as quickly as possible. You don’t want to be caught out on the streets during curfew.” He grinned and winked. “It would be a shame to get arrested less than a block away from the edge of the district.”
As the second trooper dragged the first back to the van, a growl sounded in his face. “Take this seriously, Johnson. This is a curfewed zone…”
“Come on, Sergeant. They had a kid with them, and look at all that baggage they’re carrying. They’re clearly just a group trying to get away from the riots. Remember, we have bigger things to deal with today.”
The five breathed a sigh of relief as the door to the armoured vehicle slid shut and it began to roll away. “That was a close one,” Edmon remarked. “If he had looked through our bags…” He glanced at the crossbow he was carrying and the case in Lucas’ arms.
“Just be glad that he didn’t,” Lucas said, hoisting the case onto his shoulder again.
The air taxi ride to the spaceport was a calm one. The air sat still over the city. Silence reigned inside the cabin, as everyone digested the events of the day.
Looking out the window to the south, Kik saw a flickering red glow on the horizon. “Is something going on over there?” he asked the group. “It’s all lit up.” He pulled out his handheld binoculars to get a closer look.
Ivan was the only other person able to look that way from a window. Peering in the same direction, he shaded his eyes against the bright lights of the cabin. “That’s one big fire.”
Bringing the binoculars up to his eyes, Kik saw flames dancing above the rooftops in the distance. Rising and falling, they spread rapidly, covering entire blocks with ferocious heat. However the flames were being fought, it wasn’t helping, because they spread to cover a larger area with every passing minute.
With nothing he could do from his seat but watch, the fires spread and consumed much of the south of the city. They were still burning strongly as the taxi landed at the airport.
The trip through the airport was quick and easy. They got back to the ship with no fuss at all. It had been moved to a completely different hangar. Kik wasn’t sure how he felt about that, although the paintwork was no more damaged than it had been when they landed. It was a standard grey, blackened in some spots from the reentry.
As they climbed the ladder back into the ship, Kik turned to the others. “How come they didn’t check us as we were leaving? I mean, they checked us when we were arriving. And this time we’re carrying weapons aboard the ship with us. Did you bribe someone?”
“They don’t give a rat’s ass about what we take off planet,” Edmon said. “Why would they care if we’re not near them when we use it? Shouldn’t you know this? You’ve been around the sector, haven’t you?”
Kik scratched his head. “I mostly stayed aboard the ship on lawful worlds like this one. My father told me they were too boring to worry about.” A cloud passed across his face at the mention of his father but it didn’t stay for long.
They all changed back into their spacesuits, Kik getting comfortable once again. He moved all his gear around, keeping the essentials with him. Feeling a lump in one of the pockets, he decide to ask Nemel about something.
“Do you know what this is?” Kik tossed the faceted gem from his pocket to Nemel. She caught it, fumbling slightly with the unfamiliar gloves. Holding it up to the light, she peered through it.
“Well, I’m a biologist, not a geologist, but it looks like a diamond to me.”
“Do you have any idea what might make it valuable?”
“Well, if it really is a diamond…” she held up her thumb, comparing the size of its tip to the stone. “With this size, it should be at least a hundred thousand credits.” She looked again. “Actually, it could be less. Do you have any information about diamonds in your glasses?”
Kik nodded. “I’ll bring it up.”
“Look for information about impurities. It’s tinted yellow, that might mean it’s not a perfect diamond.”
Opening his glasses, Kik read the file, quickly summarising.
“Impurities can have varying effects on the price of a diamond. Perfect diamonds are clear. Yellow diamonds are less valuable, rare colorations such as pink and red are more cherished.” He nodded. “So it’s not worth as much as you first thought. Any idea of what might raise the price beyond the expected?”
Nemel shrugged. “I think it comes down to any personal value it has. If it represents something to somebody they might pay handsomely for it.”
Kik smiled in gratitude. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Where’d you get… No, never mind. It’s not my business.” Nemel watched his pocket curiously as he stowed the diamond and sealed it again, heading to the bridge for the final launch.
Their ship was moved to the end of a long tunnel by the mechanical arms holding it in place. A series of clicks surrounded around them and the ship lurched slightly as they were lowered into position.
A soothing mechanical voice came across the ship comms. It was much smoother than the grating, unjointed tones of the public address system on Lanos. “It is the captain’s responsibility to ensure all crew and passengers are strapped in for launch. Launch shall begin in one minute after auxiliary boosters are attached. I hope you enjoyed your visit to Elaris.”
“Alright, time to buckle up,” Kik said over the ship comms. “We’re heading home. Sit down, strap in and prepare for a rough ride. Fold out the bench in the wall of your room, it’s approved for liftoff.” Thinking about it, he realised he didn’t get motion sick when on spaceships, only smaller planes. He grinned, wondering how they were going to get into orbit this time.
Clunks sounded on the bottom of the ship as engines and fuel tanks were connected. The navigation computers were fed a trajectory from launch control, prompting Kik to accept.
Once he had chosen their route and finished buckling in, the ship accelerated forwards, slamming Kik back into his seat. It was propelled by some sort of electromagnetic force to great speeds, shooting out of the top of the tunnel. They climbed swiftly away from the mountain spaceport, their first stage rockets firing and leaving a trail of smoke behind them.
As their initial fuel levels started to run low, a second fuel canister was fired up to them by railgun. Their engine picked up the package in mid-flight. It ejected the previous canister and let it drift slowly downwards via parachute. The second-stage rockets carried them further into space, towards the path of a giant orbital station. It was marked with the twin leaves of the Conglomerate navy.
A tether hung down from the base of the station. As they rose and the station drew close overhead, it trailed down from above and locked to the hull of the ship. The engine stopped firing and fell away towards the ground below, a parachute blossoming as it descended.
As the station passed by at an incredible speed, the tether pulled the ship in its wake. Swinging in a wide arc upwards, the ship was dragged to orbital velocity. Once they were secure in the wake of the station, the tether fell away and control of the ship returned to Kik.
“Alright,” he said over the comms. “We’ve achieved orbit. It’s time to get out of the system.”
Walking to the back of the ship as the autopilot calculated a course out of the system, Kik found all the others holding back vomit. “Why were we going up and backwards…” Lucas managed to get out. “That shouldn’t be normal for…”
Kik clapped his hands. “Since we have a little time, Ivan, how about you tell us a story? You owe us a tale about a certain Wyvern squad.”
Ivan nodded shakily. “Sure. It’s not a pretty one, but it’s what happens.”
Everyone sat down, concentrating on something to help them deal with their nausea.
“So,” Ivan began from his spot, crouched on the floor. “First of all you should know that I grew up on Evenoff. I was the son of a moderately rich landowner. Our territory specialised in furs. We imported and grew creatures in the hundreds for their skin.”
He rubbed the corners of his eyes. “Back then our only neighbour within three jumps was a planet called Trant-I. Their planet’s primary export was technology. They were a research world, far more developed than us. But one day they ran into a problem. They were low on manpower. Educated families have fewer children. So they decided to take ours.”
“What happened there?” Nemel asked, leaning forward in her seat.
“It started out harmless at first. Trant companies would come recruiting on our planet, asking for volunteers. Quite a few people accepted. Work was scarce sometimes. We had heard tales of prosperity. Then we found it was all a lie.”
He gazed into each person’s eyes in turn, ensuring he saw the right emotions there. Satisfied, he continued. “The people taken away to work on Trant were basically slaves. They were given no rights as citizens. Our government protested, locked down borders and attempted to retrieve our stolen citizens, by force if necessary.”
“I bet that didn’t turn out well,” Lucas said.
“No. The Trantians decided that if they were to have our manpower all they needed to do was conquer us. They invaded shortly, but at the start of the conflict their high command neglected to specify they wanted prisoners. It was a slaughter. Our cities were bombed from orbit. They deployed combat drones against us. Combat drones. We did what we could, but it wasn’t enough.”
“So what about after that?” Kik asked.
“What could we do? We fought back however we could think of. Our soldiers hid among the people they were trying to enslave. They snuck aboard enemy ships and brought the fight to their world. My father was one of the main ringleaders.” He hung his head. “What a mistake that was. It made us a target. Wyvern squad was dispatched one day to bait him out. They already had a name for brutality. They proved it justified. Our family house was mostly untouched by the war so far, isolated and in the mountains as we were. Within three days everybody living there was dead. Our lands were a barren ruin.”
“That sort of thing would be...” Lucas’ face was downcast. “What happened then?”
“Interplanetary forces came in and stopped the whole thing. They deemed it ‘unproductive’. Ended the war where it was and left the survivors to pick up the pieces. My father and a few other leaders on each side were tried for war crimes. All were found guilty. He’s still serving a life sentence aboard some terraforming colony in the middle of nowhere.”
They sat still for a second. “Well, that explains why you hate Wyvern Squad,” Kik said. “But how come so many people have heard of them? I mean, Nemel, you knew who they were.”
Ivan’s expression darkened. “They made a children’s show about them. ‘Wyvern Squad, the Heroes of Justice. Fly in on wings of fire to save the day.’ They forgot to mention the genocide.”
Lucas tilted his head. “Usually history is that way. The winners write the history texts. In this case, it certainly sounds like Trant won.”
Ivan sat down and leaned back, resting his palms on the floor. “That they did. As much as I may hate them, I have to admit that we lost. With the increased military presence in the aftermath of the war, nothing should happen for the next hundred years, but maybe next time we’ll be the victors. I just hope I’ll be around to see it happen.”
They sat for a few minutes on the floor before Kik was called back to the bridge by the navigational computer. Their heading had been achieved, their bow pointing towards Lanos, many light years away. Checking that all their fuel gauges and the ship status was secure, Kik began the launch sequence. The ship accelerated and the void cannon fired, opening a wormhole that the ship dove through.
As the pins and needles and faint droning music of the jump overtook him, Kik had a thought.
“We just killed a man. It feels like... emptiness.”
He didn’t consider the potential consequences of Benedict’s death.
The abandoned rental car was discovered in a garage a few days later. The police connected the dots and with a bit of digging found the man who it had been hired to. His name was discovered to be a false identity, but they did find the craft he had recently left the system on.
Unable to pursue criminals outside their jurisdiction, all they could do was mark down names and wait for a chance.