| |
When the shuttle docked to the great grey underbelly of the Kalashnikov, Mack immediately moved to the airlock and cycled it. Pops stood serenely behind his cyborg bodyguard, with Mindy at his left elbow.
Some of the calm confidence that seemed so effortless had eroded on the brief flight over, but the old man still appeared far less nervous than a man in his situation ought to. Mack chalked it up to the confidence of old men and the arrogance of the most powerful criminal in the system.
As the door opened, Mack looked into the docking bay of the pirate ship and found himself somewhat underwhelmed. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but a big empty old freighter was not it. The cyborg moved down the gangplank and into the ship proper where a bosun was waiting for him. The young man blanched at the sight of Mack, eyes lingering for a long time on the auto cannons attached to his arms and the bulbous ammo drums slung under each one. Mack thumped up to the terrified sailor and growled, “Permission to come aboard, chief?”
The bosun flinched, “Yes... yes, sir. Please. The Commodore is waiting for you in the conference room.”
“Lead the way,” Mack said with feigned deference.
The trio followed the bosun in silence though endless nondescript steel hallways until they finally arrived at their destination. Mack’s scanners had not picked up a single biological on their route other than the crewman and eventually the commodore himself on the other side of the door. For some reason, this was less reassuring to Mack than if there had been an army waiting for them. But he kept his calm and stepped into the sparsely furnished conference room.
Vladivostok was in the room, but he was not alone. Mack gritted his teeth behind his helmet and hoped no one noticed him stiffen.
“Good evening, Mack,” Sergei said warmly, “good to see you again.”
“Commodore,” Mack grunted, not taking his eyes off the other figure in the room, “Roper.”
The other cyborg nodded. “Mack,” it responded in its synthesized baritone.
In for a penny... Mack said to himself, and then out loud to Mindy and Pops, “Room’s clear.”
Pops stalked into the room with the casual arrogance that was his trademark. Mindy glided behind him and spared a glare for Grim Roper.
The two criminal masterminds took seats opposite each other at the simple, metal table in the center of the room. Sergei spoke first, “Coffee, Mr. Chairman?”
“Thank you, no, Commodore.” He placed a hand to his midsection, “Space travel does not agree with me these days, it seems.” Getting poisoned would be an inauspicious death for the Chairman of The Combine.
“My apologies for making you come out here, tovarisch, but I could not risk going all the way to Earth, for obvious reasons,” the pirate did not sound all that sincere.
“Think nothing of it, Sergei. I’ve got a few more trips in me yet. I’m just not so young as I once was,” Pops smiled warmly.
“None of us are,” the commodore agreed, “Now, to business. Your communique was cryptic, at best, but I am not without resources. I have some understanding of your current troubles, but I am at a loss as to how I can be of service. I will be honest and tell you that the sum you offered was more than sufficient to pique my interest, however.”
The two men then proceeded to banter around a fictitious potential project that had been fabricated for this meeting. Mack stopped paying attention and began to focus on scanning the surrounding compartments. The structure was dense and segmented, so his range was very limited. But something was bothering him.
The ship was crewed by twenty-seven persons. They had established that fact as soon as it gated in. But, where were they? Mack could scan two or three decks up and down, and six compartments to either side. This was hardly a large portion of the ship, but someone should have been in the area.
Where the hell is everybody? The mercenary wondered, and what the ever-loving fuck is Grim Roper doing here?
Mack’s sensor suite was designed for tactical considerations, not recon. Infrared was clear, but androids wouldn’t set that off unless they were running hot. Motion sensors and IFF were line-of-site and thus useless. He could crank up the audio but then he’d have to filter out the conversation in the room. He decided to give it a shot.
Roper moved slightly when Mack raised his arm to access the control panel on his left wrist. Mack made sure that Roper clearly saw that he was accessing the touchscreen and not making any offensive moves, and the machine-man behind the Pirate settled back to his typical impression of a statue. Mack made the adjustments to his helmet audio and just listened for a few minutes. He didn’t hear anything that sounded all that suspicious. The engines hummed softly, Mindy shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, and somewhere nearby a piece of electronic equipment was buzzing as if accumulated joule heating was making a wire vibrate. All were typical spaceship noses, and nothing screamed ‘ambush!’ to Mack as he waited for the hammer to fall.
Then Mack heard another wire start to vibrate in another compartment, and that was kind of strange. What the hell is going on with the electronics in this shit-box?
A third soft buzz joined the others. They were nearby, but faint. Then a fourth. Mack was not an electrician, but he was beginning to get very suspicious. That buzzing was quiet and innocuous, but it did not belong, and the timing was becoming ominous. A fifth and sixth version of the now-maddening noise chimed in, and his helmet started to get a fix on their sources. Against the inside of the black visor he wore, Mack’s HUD lit up with probable locations of the noises, and Mack’s suspicions were confirmed.
A surreptitious click of his comm warned Mindy and Roland that something was coming. Each clicked back twice to confirm. Then Mack keyed his targeting reticle on Roper, knowing he would be the biggest threat, and applied a command macro that would begin putting flechettes into him as soon as it triggered. Modi, mounted to the left arm of his Kano, would then track Roper no matter what the rest of the armature was doing.
This would leave its twin, Magni to handle anything else that reared its head. There was the risk of killing Vlad with ricochets in that plan, but Mack was willing to chance it. Experience had taught Mack that Grim Roper was far too dangerous to play games with, and Roland and Mindy would just have to understand.
There were eleven buzzes now, and Mack could still hear them after he turned the audio down. Now came the tricky part.
Mack interrupted the conversation of the two older men at the table, “Time to go, Mr. Chairman.”
Vlad looked up, confused and irritated. Mindy moved forward on quick feet, but not so fast as to spook the towering steel bodyguard, and gently took Pops by the arm.
The pirate scowled harder, “What seems to be the problem?”
Pops tilted his head at the Commodore and smiled through his response, “It seems your ambush is about to start, Sergei. I do hope you have good luck with that.” He turned to Mindy, “So very exciting!”
Vladivostok grimaced, “Fine then. Have it your way,” and with that he disappeared behind his looming metal bodyguard.
And then all hell broke loose.
The walls of the room grew spikes as the now-familiar obsidian daggers of the assassin ‘droids began carving wide gaps into thin metal. The blades threw sparks and dripped liquid metal as whatever technology made them so lethal parted the steel bulkheads like so much wrapping paper. Mack recognized the buzzing now as his sensors matched the hum to the blades.
He catalogued that intel for later and focused on putting fire from Magni into the emerging ‘bots. The underslung motors whined and the barrels became a spinning blur as the weapon belched fire and metal in an incandescent torrent of flame and destruction. ‘Droids began staggering and slumping like string-less marionettes in the face of this relentless barrage. He did not start shooting at Roper yet as Roper had not moved. If Vlad’s bodyguard wanted to sit this one out for whatever reason, that was fine with Mack. He did not, however, release the macro that kept Modi centred on that grey metal chest.
“Get him out of here!” Mack called to Mindy, who was sending controlled bursts of bead fire into emerging androids.
“Make a fucking door, dipshit!” she called back, “It’s locked!”
“Shit! Cover me!” He responded. Without waiting for her to confirm, he backed closer to the door and mule-kicked it as hard as his chassis would allow.
Section hatches on a space vessel were usually well-reinforced, but the conference room door was just a door. Mack’s kick buckled it off its glides and left it hanging askew in the frame.
“Good enough!” Mindy called and whipped Pops over to the gap and shoved him through. She disappeared after the old man and Mack turned back to the task at hand.
Magni had been tracking and dropping androids on its own while Mack handled the egress issue, and Modi pointed at Roper with unfailing tenacity. Roper, for his part, seemed content to simply stand immobile and shield the Commodore from all the shrapnel and gunfire.
There was quite a bit of both. The ‘droids were simply outclassed by the armature. Mack was keeping the weapon’s cyclic rate low to preserve ammunition, but the cannons were dropping the dark blue machines as fast as they appeared through the holes in the walls. The only real threat was the blades they wielded, since they appeared capable of penetrating even thick armor.
They’d have to get close for that, Mack figured. His scanners and auto cannons were preventing that from happening. But the androids were coming more slowly now as well.
“Heads up, Mindy. Looks like they’re breaking off of me,” he grunted into the comm, “Expect company.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’re movin’!” He heard the frustration in her voice. Pops was obviously slowing her down, “Going to need more time!”
“I’ll try to get their attention,” Mack called back. Magni was winding down to four or five round bursts as the waves of androids slowed to a trickle. Vladivostok was still cowering behind his bodyguard, which had apparently done an admirable job of keeping the old pirate unscathed. Sergei, strangely, seemed to be rather peeved with the big merc all the same.
“What’s the deal, Roper?” Mack asked, “Not coming out to play?”
“Executive protection,” the toneless voice called back, “Not a combat contract.”
Mack laughed. Grim Roper was legendarily literal.
“Fucking hell!" Vlad screamed, “It is now, you metal fool!”
“As you say, sir,” Roper replied, “but if I engage Mack at this time in this location, you are likely to be wounded or killed in the resulting action.”
“Works for me!” Mack interrupted and opened up with both cannons on Grim Roper. The Twins had a maximum cyclic rate of 4,000 rounds per minute. Mack had selected armor-piercing flechette rounds specifically because he had anticipated battling androids. If he needed to, Mack could bring down low-flying aircraft or carve up armored vehicles with his guns.
He poured all that firepower into the space between himself and Grim Roper. Less than eight yards separated the two cyborgs, and the air itself in that intervening space exploded into a cacophony of fire and fragmented metal. The roar of the Twins at full rip was like an earthquake, and flaming projectiles coursing from those thundering armaments flowed like volcanic fire. Mack lost sight of both Vladivostok and Roper as flame and smoke obscured his vision, and his targeting optics spun frantically as they attempted to reacquire the objective.
Mack was already moving, so Roper’s answering salvo of EM clamps missed him by a few inches. The tiny unguided munitions would interrupt control signals from Mack’s brain to his armature if he let them attach and burrow, so avoiding them was a high priority.
Fucker was prepared, Mack griped, at least my reputation precedes me.
Mack’s optics used the flight path of the clamps to reacquire Roper through the smoke and Modi burped up another rope of flaming orange destruction. The spray of flaming metal death forced Roper to dive through one of the holes in the wall made by the androids. His size smashed the hole even wider, but the bulkhead itself seemed to offer no resistance to the powerful mercenary.
He’s trying to lead me away from Vlad, Mack thought. This suited the gun-toting cyborg perfectly. Vlad was not Mack’s target, he was Roland's. Mack was just trying to cause enough carnage to buy Mindy time to extract the Chairman. He shut the cannons down long enough to toss a heavy grenade thought the hole after Roper. Then he darted back out through the door, finishing the job of destroying it he had started earlier with his kick.
Mack had selected an anti-materiel grenade, with a yield several times more powerful than the standard anti-personnel version. The resulting blast collapsed the walls of the hallway inward and shook the entire ship. He did not believe he had damaged Roper with it, but then again, he wasn’t really trying to. Roper was somewhere on the other side of the walls trying to flank him, and Mack decided to toss grenades through doorways just to push him away. This would accomplish two things:
Keep Roper off of him, and damage ship systems. If Vlad the Impaler was anything like other captains, he would defend his ship obsessively. Mack hoped to pull all the ships defenders his way and thus keep Mindy’s path clear.
A steel-encased foot blasted another door open and Mack found himself staring into what looked like a rec room. Another grenade was deposited here and Mack moved on without waiting for the explosion. When it came, the pirate ship shook down to the deck plates and an alarm began to sound in a baleful two-note scream.
Sounds like I got something important that time.
He kept running down the hall, scanning furiously for Roper’s return. He knew it was coming, and that his opponent would time his assault with mechanical perfection. As Mack rounded a corner and was preparing another grenade, the dark grey machine burst from a doorway and arced a solid beam of blinding green energy toward him. Not fast enough to evade, Mack simply turned his heaviest armor into the blast and dived backward. Modi and Magni roared their rebuttals and Mack was rewarded with the sight of yellow sparks and the audible crackle of shrapnel signalling a hit on the hurtling machine. He tossed another grenade after the fleeing cyborg, fully assured that it would not hit but happy to be blasting the hell out of the pirate ship either way.
He used that detonation to scramble back and assess the damage he had sustained. His chest armor had been burned almost completely though in a track that traced from his navel to his right pectoral. The edges of the crease still hissed and glowed red with residual heat. Smoke wafted from the burned polymer and a charred-metal stench mingled with the aroma of ionized air.
Multiple treaties expressly forbid the use of beam weapons for anything other than ship-to-ship combat, as they were as dangerous to the wielder and anyone in the vicinity as they were to the target. Just possessing a beam weapon of that kind of wattage was enough to land Roper in a penal colony for decades. Deploying one against another registered merc would get his standing revoked permanently. Roper was violating his charter and needlessly endangering everyone he was near.
What the fuck is that psycho doing? The man known only as “Mack” felt his rage beginning to bubble over.
Mack had a long and unhappy history with his temper. Simultaneously his greatest asset and his heaviest burden, it was a puerile, indiscriminate fury that came from the blackest places in his past. It felt like a thing alive; a pure and radiant beast that writhed inside him always begging to be indulged. Secretly, he liked it, because that horrible blackness inside rewarded the mercenary whenever he let it out. But it also made him do horrible things and he didn’t know how to make it stop.
That is the reason Mack craved war and why he was so good at it. When he let his rage slip its reigns in combat, Mack never had to feel sorry for what it made him do. He’d rather not have the anger at all, because the joy of it shamed him. But if it must be his to bear, then he would bear it in battle where it could be put to good use.
He hauled himself to his feet and grabbed his last two grenades. He tossed them through another two doors at random and the resulting double blast buckled the deck, dropping the floor out from underneath him and sending half of the crew section sliding down on tilting floors into the deck below.
His auditory sensors, now attuned to the sound, began to pick up the tell-tale hum of the assassin ‘droids as he gathered himself.
Well, I seem to have the Commodore’s full attention. Hopefully Mindy can get clear, now.
Mack wasn’t going anywhere. Grim Roper had made Mack very angry, and that was just fine with him.