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Rise of a Valkyrie
Part 1 - Prelude - Chapter 9

Part 1 - Prelude - Chapter 9

“Misian—great,” Urtiga complained. “Right where Allana Rayker is expecting to find you. This is going to be a freaking dice roll.”

Her head darted back and forth between the windows of the truck. She was sitting with Jack on the back seat of the discreetly armored vehicle, a machine gun tucked between her legs while she scanned the traffic of the freeway. They had landed at one of the less popular docks in the hopes that any surveillance operation Rayker had been running would have wound down after weeks of inactivity.

“Believe me, I would rather be anywhere else in the galaxy than here,” Jack said. “You said I had to steal the device. I don’t see what else I have to work with.”

“Murphy’s law,” Gucci announced from the driver’s seat, where a rifle rested against her leg. “It stands to reason that his only useful contact would also happen to be on the same planet where we are most likely to get in a gunfight.”

“Of course,” Jack began. “You and your ‘friends’ could probably handle the job quietly enough—”

“Out of the question,” Urtiga said.

“But why?”

“A secret organization invading a Helvetic planet to steal technology from a major corporate laboratory? That’s how we end up losing our cover and attracting attention to a truth that absolutely cannot be revealed. No, it has to be a known entity—one that can be blamed and dealt with by the powers that be.”

“My old family,” Jack said, as he felt his gut knot up.

“Once you’ve gotten away with the device, you’ll deliver it into our hands, and the Helvetic League will bring their wrath crashing down upon them. Leaving you free to walk away.”

“Happy to sacrifice others for your higher purpose, aren’t you?” he asked coldly.

Urtiga shrugged. “Nobody’s going to put a gun to their head. If they choose to walk away from your proposition, we figure something else out. If they want in, they’re accepting the consequences.”

“And you get to walk away, hands clean?”

“Until next week’s episode.”

“And how am I supposed to make all this happen? Any half-way intelligent cartel leader would dismiss this plan as suicide.”

“Because you have a bargaining chip.”

“I do?”

“Yes,” Urtiga smiled. “Your life, which Allana Rayker badly wants and will pay good money for. That gets them in the front door—access to an even bigger prize.”

Jack laughed bitterly. “Or they’ll just take the safest bet and hand me over to Rayker.”

Urtiga frowned. “I thought we were talking about your brother?”

“What, and you think genetic relation counts for anything in this galaxy?”

She watched him in silence for a moment. “Look, don’t worry about it. If they do decide to take the easy way out, we’ll come get you.”

“Wonderful.”

“We’ll stay in touch and provide you with support where we can. If your… friends get suspicious, just tell them you have a contact in VennZech; someone with an axe to grind.”

“And of course, once we somehow get near this well-guarded research complex, we’re supposed to overwhelm their security forces, neutralize the most sophisticated lockdown systems in the galaxy, and drive a two-ton alien bomb out through the front gate?”

“There’s no problem a group of competent minds can’t solve when they make an effort.”

“And when the job’s finished? The second they have the device in their possession, they will hand me over to the nearest bounty hunter.”

“I’ll come get you.”

Jack stared at her suspiciously. He hated the idea of going back, but he didn’t feel he had much of a choice.

“Tig,” Gucci called in a concerned tone, her eyes darting between the road and her rear-view mirror.

“Which one?” Urtiga span round, scanning the surrounding cars.

“That Grey SUV hanging four cars back in the left lane. He’s been keeping a very consistent distance between us, and I am not driving consistently.”

Urtiga watched the traffic carefully. “Got about two or three more—same make, same color—hanging back a few hundred yards.”

Gucci scoffed. “Yeah guys, wear uniforms. That’s how the professionals do it. Think we need to go kinetic?”

Urtiga’s expression hardened into a ferocious glare. “Don’t see any way around it.” She brought up her machine gun. “Get into the side-streets—take them out of their comfort zone.”

Gucci floored the accelerator, swerving between the lanes to avoid the surrounding vehicles. Behind them, Jack watched as the gray SUVs shot forward out of their lanes. They took an offramp into the industrial zone of the city and traffic started to thin out. As they raced across the asphalt at what Jack thought was a terrifyingly unsafe speed, their pursuers nevertheless began to close in on them.

“Guess she had someone watching every starport,” Gucci said. “Clever girl.”

She took a fast corner, blasting through a red light and swerving to avoid the lone car that had gingerly pulled out into the intersection. The SUVs followed them.

“More likely she just pays everyone on the planet as an informant,” Jack said bitterly as a heady mixture of anger and fear rolled through his mind.

“Sure you don’t want to turn him in for the reward money, Tig?” Gucci said, smirking as she slammed on the accelerator.

Flashes exploded from the chasing SUVs, and Jack ducked low as bullets bounced off the truck’s window.

“I’m not closing the door to that possibility,” Urtiga chuckled as she wound down a window. Leaning carefully against the door, she pointed her silenced weapon through the crack and squeezed the trigger.

Jack winced as the detonations struck his eardrums—not as quiet as he expected.

“Not happening,” Urtiga said as she pulled back inside. “They’ve got bulletproof windows too.”

Gucci hit the brakes and span the wheel, pushing them through a dizzyingly tight turn into a construction park. Jack fought to keep his head as the car was thrown around with abandon. They swerved through yards and warehouses, sailing past steel girders by inches as the grey SUVs raced to catch up with them. Gucci cursed as their vehicle oversteered, losing traction and speed. She slammed the accelerator again and as they shot through a chain-link gate, an SUV appeared out of nowhere, smashing into the side door.

The truck span round and flipped, bouncing across concrete paving like a toy. It came to rest on its side as Jack smacked his head against the window.

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He came to, feeling as drunk as if he had just downed a bottle of whiskey. Dimly recognizing the sensation of being pulled, he found himself sitting upright against the underside of the wreck. Consciousness began to return with an agonizing headache, and it brought with it the cacophony of a gunfight.

A rapid series of snaps erupted nearby, and Jack looked around to see Gucci perched on a pile of concrete column segments. She fired and ducked back down, moving to another position where she took careful aim, then fired again.

Jack sensed heaviness in his lap and looked down to see a pistol had been placed there. Grabbing the weapon, he crawled to the edge of the truck, peeking out to try to figure out what was happening. He caught sight of Urtiga, racing towards one of the grey SUVs. As she disappeared from view, she fired a short burst of rounds at a target and a male voice screamed.

Jack kept watching until a bullet slammed into the metal by his head, and he heard several loud snaps as more rounds passed through the air. He ducked back from the carnage and watched in horrified fascination as another burst tore up the dirt inches away from his hand.

“Keep your head down!” Gucci called to him.

He did as he was told, curling up behind the protection of the wreck while he waited for the shooting to stop. Every so often, a bullet hit part of the truck with a loud bang, and he winced at the noise. He wondered how many mercenaries were at Rayker’s disposal to send after him, and how much the strange women that protected him could handle.

Peeking out as far as he dared, he saw one of the men moving around a wall on the opposite side of the truck to Urtiga. He kept moving, and Jack’s heart thumped faster as he saw that the soldier was getting closer and closer to a place where he would be able to shoot him.

Holding his pistol ready, he waited. The man approached carefully, dashing from cover to cover. He didn’t seem very cautious, and Jack suspected that the mercenaries probably didn’t consider him a threat—a conclusion he would generally have agreed with.

He peeked out again and nearly received a bullet for his trouble. The soldier had spotted him and decided to take full advantage of the golden opportunity he thought he had seized. He sprinted from cover, moving quickly towards the van.

Gucci spotted him and whirled around—but too slowly. Jack leaned out, jerking the trigger as fast as he could as he tried to keep the sights aligned on the violently bucking pistol. When the trigger went click, he lowered the weapon. A flood of relief washed through him when he saw the crumpled body on the ground.

“Nice shot, guy!” Gucci called from somewhere nearby, before more gunshots rang out.

Jack stared at the dead soldier. He had just killed someone for the first time in his life. It wasn’t that he felt sorry for the man. After all, he had been expecting to get a paycheck to murder someone who had never done anything to him. But Jack felt horror at how easy it had been to take someone’s life, followed by a curious sense of calmness. Was that really all there was to it? He thought there ought to have been more meaning to the act and then wondered if he was a psychopath when he realized that he didn’t actually care.

He certainly had the genes for it, after all.

Then he grew hot with anger. All this was Rayker’s fault. And it was his fault, too. She was the ruthless, ambitious psychopath at the heart of so much destruction. Like a fool, he had helped her, and why? Because his brother was a scumbag gangster? But he could have done anything in the galaxy after he ran away, and instead he had sought out an easier version of the same life.

And maybe it would all end today, with a group of hired thugs shooting him dead.

When he looked around, he saw Gucci get shot. She had been leaning out to line up another target, and the bullet hit her in the shoulder. Jack saw the back of her jacket jerk out while a splash of blood fountained into the air. She screamed. He watched as she scrambled off the column segments and got as close to the truck as the cover would allow. For a moment, Jack thought she was talking to herself until he realized she was probably communicating with Urtiga via a discreet radio.

“Hey Jack!” she called to him. “I need you to crawl up to the back of the truck, get it open and get an aid kit from inside, okay?”

Jack nodded hesitantly. He would have to expose himself to gunfire while he did that, but he didn’t feel that he had a choice—after all, he was doing nothing, while two complete strangers were risking their lives to protect him.

The idea that he might be anything like his brother revolted him. He had to move.

Keeping as much of his body behind the back wheels of the truck as he could, he reached his arm out and around, finding the lever that opened the trunk. When it popped open, he scambled inside the overturned compartment. As he did so, the glass of the rear windshield shattered, and more bullets thumped against the roof—somebody had obviously seen him.

He hunted around for the aid kit as he wondered how well rated the vehicle’s armor protection was. Once he found what he needed, he moved like lightning to get back to safety, as cracks filled the air around his head. He held up the kit for Gucci to see and felt shame that his arms were shaking from the adrenaline.

“It’s too far to throw—you need to run across.”

“Are you insane?” he yelled.

“Sprint flat out—you’ll make it.”

Jack tried desperately to control his breathing, conscious that if he began hyperventilating, he would be useless to the wounded woman. He tried not to picture his own body being riddled with bullet holes, and tensed himself to run.

He leaped out from the trunk, legs pounding the dirt as hard as his untrained muscles could manage, and his mind went blank. For a moment there was nothing but the blood pounding in his ears, and the slowly closing snaps of bullets passing in his wake. When he reached the pile of concrete, he collapsed into the dirt, panting heavily.

“Good job, man. Appreciate it. Think you could help me with this?” Gucci asked as she propped open the kit with her one good arm.

“Uh… I don’t know…”

“Get my jacket off and tear the shirt open,” she said as she turned over. Her breathing was shallow, and she gasped whenever she moved. Jack did as she said, and fought to keep his lunch down when he saw the gaping hole—flesh and muscle ripped open as blood poured out onto his hands.

“Apply pressure for a moment,” she instructed. Jack heard sprinting nearby, and a man panting. There was another hail of bullets, and a body collapsed in a heap near the concrete pile.

“Pack this gauze in—all of it.” She passed him the tennis ball sized clump of dressing. Then she talked him through the process of wrapping the bandage around her neck.

Jack breathed a sigh of relief when she sat back up, pale and blood-smeared, but in good spirits.

“Great, thanks for the help. You can hang out here for a moment while you calm down.” She smiled. “You look worse than I probably do.”

“I-I’m just… so sorry that I got you shot,” he stammered.

“Don’t freak out about it… my job isn’t exactly safe at the best of times. Shit happens. Pass me that water, will you?”

He did so, and watched in concern as she drank her fill. Then his expression turned to horror when she reached for her rifle.

“Can’t let Urtiga have all the fun, you know?” she said with a wink, then hauled herself back up onto the pile of columns.

She let her bad arm hang loose while she propped the weapon against the concrete, continuing to aim and fire.

Jack could only sit and wait, preparing bandages from the kit in case he needed them again.

Eventually the gunfire died down, petering out with the occasional sporadic burst, and Urtiga rejoined them. Jack saw her looking around as she walked over, a ferocious expression on her face that softened when she reached them.

“They’re backing off,” she explained. “But we need to get the hell out of here.”

Gucci looked up. “There’s got to be a drone or a satellite up there.”

“Let’s get to that steelworks over there.” Urtiga pointed to an enormous multi-building complex. “We can hang out until the cops show up. Then we’ll slip away with the inevitable bystanders.”

“Don’t you think she’ll have paid off the police?” Jack asked.

“Sure, but this plant has an owner, and he won’t be happy about them delaying too long. Besides, these guys are not going to want to follow us into a confined space after the ass-kicking we just gave them. You two get moving—I’ll clean out the truck.”

Once they had found themselves a cubby hole deep inside the maze of halls and workshops, they settled in for the wait. Jack was relieved to see that Gucci seemed to be in good shape—not declining as he thought she would be with such a severe injury.

“How’s the pain?” he asked with concern, but she waved him off.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s not a big deal.”

“How can it not be a big deal? I could fit my fist in that hole.”

“Oh God.” Gucci sighed and dropped her head.

Urtiga quickly turned away, but Jack caught the flicker of the smirk she tried to hide. He watched them both in confusion. When Urtiga turned back she was poker faced, while Gucci fixed her with a glare.

“There are some questions,” she said sharply, as she turned back to Jack, “that you do not need answers to.”

He said nothing.

“It actually worked out pretty well,” she said to Urtiga. “When I went down, they started breaking cover to maneuver on you. Then, when I got back up, they were easy pickings.”

Urtiga laughed. “Lessons learned: getting shot to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. I love it.” She winked at Jack’s appalled expression. “Gucci likes to get shot.”

The wounded woman chuckled. “It’s a bad habit—I see bullets flying around and I just want to try and catch them with my face.”

Jack wiped away tears. “I feel awful that this is happening. I’ve placed you in danger because… because I couldn’t get a grip on my life.”

Gucci smiled warmly at him. “Do you want to hear a secret from high-tech alien land?”

“O-okay.”

“Time travel doesn’t exist. All that time and energy you spend thinking about yesterday is wasted, and you’ll never get it back. Take it as life experience and start thinking about tomorrow.”

“That’s… easier said than done,” he sighed.

“As with everything in life, it takes practice.”

“Here, take this.” Urtiga handed him a phone. “It’ll let us stay in touch—untraceable, by the way. Uh… please don’t lose it, because it’ll be pretty well essential to any plan you want to put together. Also, they’ll take it out of my salary.”

“When you’re done saving the world,” Gucci added, “You’ll need it to ask me out on a date.”

Jack blushed, then smiled stupidly. “In that case, I will definitely not lose it.”