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-Plum

34 – Don’t Even Breathe

“Ready?” Burton asked, watching Hector approach the shuttle. When he nodded, Burton said, “It’ll just be you, me, and your two boys.”

Hector looked past him and saw Demon and Orin through the open side door, sitting in jump seats. It was the shuttle they’d kitted out for cargo, not passengers. “I can go alone,” he said.

“Fuck that.” Burton snorted, shaking his head. “Even if you do most of the killing, we’ll want more feet on the ground.”

“We are killing, though, right? This isn’t some kind of cat-and-mouse bullshit?” Hector was feeling the need for payback—if not for what happened to Flint and the dead doctor, then for the people he cared about. “How’s Kristy?”

“We’re going in hard,” Burton replied. “Once we know where to go, that is.” He nodded toward the technicians still scouring the blue van. “Gladia made that clear. As for Kristy, I haven’t heard.” He frowned. “Haven’t heard shit other than to get a response team ready—people I’m sure aren’t compromised.” He held up a finger. “Sparling’s on comms. Hang on.”

After several seconds, during which Burton grunted and nodded, the big man said, “We’ve got a location—just waiting on a bit more intel.”

“What kind?” Hector asked.

“Sparling’s got an agent at the comm relay, and he just sent a drone back with his report. He thinks these guys were hired help.” Burton nodded toward the van.

“As in contractors?”

“Right.”

The words tickled their way through Hector’s mind, and he ran them down to likely conclusions. “If they were trying to take Flint, then someone’s either here, or coming here to pick him up.”

Burton grunted, nodding.

Hector looked toward the house. There were still a lot of people milling about, including a couple of Sparling’s fighters. He wondered if they were annoyed they were being held back. Or maybe they’re glad. A thought occurred to him, and he asked Burton, “How’d they take Flint out? What was in the autoinjector?”

“A tailored aura phage targeted to his nanites. I think they gave it to the cook while he was shopping.”

“So that’s confirmation—they were targeting Flint.” Hector frowned, wondering how they’d gotten enough info to build a custom phage that would replicate inside Flint’s nanites and eat his aura. They had to have had a sample of his tissue. Would blood be enough?

//Not my area of expertise, but I believe so as long as some of his nanites were in it. Hector, this is eerily similar to the attack that was reportedly unleashed during the Conti massacre.//

Dirty Royals playing dirty Royal tricks. Aloud, he asked, “We looking at a Ventress enemy or another House?”

Burton looked at him sharply and then shrugged. “Above my paygrade.” Again, he held up a finger, and then he nodded. “We’re off. Get in.” Even as he spoke, the shuttle’s engines began to whine as they spun to life.

Hector leaped through the door, glanced at Orin and Demon, and then sat down in an empty jump seat. Burton came in and touched the controls for the door, sealing them inside with a much more subdued hum of the engines. He sat down, and Hector could see from his expression that he was subvocalizing—communicating through his AI with someone.

Probably Sparling.

//We’ll be out of local comm range soon, and the ranch is still jammed from outside comms.//

True.

Hector looked at Demon. The lithe fighter wore armor like Orin’s, but he carried a sleek flechette rifle—pretty much the opposite type of weapon. Both men wore several knives of varying types, and they both looked ready to fight. “Hoping we’ll see some action?”

Orin immediately grunted in the affirmative, but Demon looked at Hector impassively, and said, “If it will help protect our people.”

Nodding, Hector turned to Burton, watching as the hulking man finished his silent conversation.

The big man ran a finger over his mustache and said, “Looks like a shuttle came into McRae about an hour after Flint’s SUV was hit. It was broadcasting generic identifiers, but Sparling’s people traced its origin and went back through its flight history. It came out of Port Aurelian, and Sparling’s people believe it belongs to House Tacitus.”

Hector felt his pulse quicken, but his face remained impassive. Tacitus was the parent house of Tacitianus—the family of the Magistrate he’d killed out in Redwick Station. This can’t be related…can it? “Are they—”

“Enemies of Ventress?” Burton shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Lady Ventress. All I know is we’ve been given a green light to eliminate everyone associated with that shuttle. My bosses think they were coming to pick up Flint and take him for devil-knows-what.”

Hector nodded.

Burton looked at Orin and Demon. “Ever jumped before?”

Orin’s eyes went wide beneath his helmet’s visor—currently transparent. “Hell no, boss.”

Demon shook his head.

“Nothing to it. Just put this on, and pull the cord when I tell you to. The AI will do the rest.” While he spoke, Burton stood and opened a cargo compartment near the shuttle door, taking out chute packs and tossing them to the men.

Hector took his and shrugged it on far more easily than the other men with their bulky armor. An icon flashed on his AUI, and he acknowledged it, allowing Burton to set up a team comm channel. The burly man’s voice came through immediately. “Comms check.”

“Good,” Hector replied. Demon and Orin copied him, both reporting that the comms were “good.”

“You guys should secure a perimeter. Let me infiltrate,” Hector said, eyeing Burton’s face for a reaction. It was clear that Burton saw himself as in charge of the operation, and Hector hadn’t worked with him in that sort of capacity. Would he be offended by the suggestion?

The big man just grunted and nodded. “I was going to suggest that. Sending a data package with the facility blueprint… Sent.”

Evie updated Hector’s map with the outline of a large garage or hangar structure. “We know anything about the occupants?” Hector asked.

Burton made an affirmative grunt. “It’s a local agricultural drone company, but according to the synth Lemon brought back with her, a crew moved in recently and commandeered the place. No idea if they have hostages or what.”

Hector nodded. “Plus whoever came in on the Tacitus shuttle.”

“Considering the way Lemon eliminated the cleaners at the SUV, that will be the only potential risk to us. If Tacitus sent someone capable of handling Flint…” Burton let his words trail off, shrugging.

“Right. Let me get a good look inside before you guys show your faces.”

“Not that I’m afraid,” Burton replied, “but I agree caution is the wise choice.”

Hector didn’t think his words were bluster; he’d fought with Burton enough to know he was at least as tough as Flint. “You’ll direct these two?” He nodded toward Demon and Orin.

“Yeah, and…” Burton paused and, with a grunt, reached around behind him to lift a long-barreled rifle out of another cargo compartment. “I’ll drop any drones they send up.”

Hector nodded.

A yellow light flashed on his AUI, and a new timer appeared: 90.00 seconds.

“Almost time to jump,” Burton said. “Just let the chute AIs do the flying, boys.” He moved over to the shuttle door, and as he punched in the override to open it in flight, he added, “We’re only a thousand meters up.”

Hector had noticed that the engines had grown quiet, and he knew they were gliding over the target location. Everything was happening fast, but that was the way he was used to operating. Secretly, he hoped the resistance would be more intense than they expected. He wanted a good fight, and he didn’t think some local contractors were going to be up to the task.

When he stood next to the open door, letting the wind pour over him, Burton handed him a pair of goggles and a black bracelet—like a watchband without the watch. “That’s a local jammer. Sync it to your AI. We’re after intel, but we’re also here to send a message: mess with Sparling or the people on his ranch, and we’ll mess with you.”

Hector nodded, pulling the goggles on, and then equipping the jammer on his right wrist. “Understood.” The yellow light was blinking faster and faster on his AUI, and the timer said he had thirty seconds.

“You head straight in. We’ll watch for runners and move in when you tell us to.”

“Right.”

“Sure you don’t want a gun?”

Hector grinned, shaking his head. “What for?”

Burton snorted. “I see you’ve still got Sparling’s knife.”

Hector nodded. “Might use it…might not.”

“Ten,” Burton said, looking past Hector to Orin and Demon. “Just stay loose, and bend your knees when you come down.”

“Right,” Orin grunted. “Uh, good luck, boss.”

Hector threw him a thumbs-up.

“Five,” Burton growled, grabbing the material of Hector’s form-fitting black shirt as though he’d toss him out when he got to zero. “Four…three…two…” Hector jumped, and Burton called after him, “One, zero, asshole!”

Hector soared through the evening sky, exhilarated by the rush of the wind and the feeling of flight. Evie flashed big, red letters across his AUI: PULL CORD. Hector shook his head. The chute’s AI would deploy it at the last minute. He wanted to get to the ground quickly, and Evie was being too cautious. His AUI highlighted the target building. It was large enough that one side boasted three airplane—or shuttle—hangar doors, and it looked like it was solid plasteel with a concrete foundation.

Hector tilted his body, using it to carve the air and guide him toward the center of the roof. His chute pack beeped, and then the low-altitude parachute deployed, jerking his shoulders as it caught the wind and changing his trajectory. Hector focused on his desired landing area and said, “Evie, bring me there.”

//Communicating with the chute’s AI.//

Hector heard the actuating straps hum, and then he banked, gliding rapidly toward the roof. There were lots of little lights around the building, but not on the roof. Half a dozen antennae flashed with red strobes, but they didn’t illuminate much. Hector gripped the quick-release tabs on his chute, ready to shed the silken sail as soon as he was within a meter of the roof’s surface.

Just like all the events unfolding that evening, the roof came up fast. Hector might have missed his opportunity, but he had a lot of air-deployment experience, and his perception was primed. He stripped the chute off and fell to the roof like a cat, using his joints to absorb the impact and running for several steps before sliding to a stop near a bulky air-processing unit. He crouched there, and listened.

In the background, he heard Burton directing Demon and Orin, but he filtered that, focusing on the sounds of the machinery and, more importantly, trying to discern if they’d triggered any sort of alarm. He didn’t hear anything, so he pulled his goggles off and dropped them there. Then, he padded over to a large skylight—fifty or so dust-covered plastiglass panes. He fell to his belly and inched his eyes over the nearest pane.

It was too dusty to see through, so he rubbed a gloved finger back and forth, clearing a peephole in the grime. He was at one end of the extensive building, and the view from that skylight gave him a beautiful view of the entire structure. Most of it was occupied by drone servicing equipment, including lifts for large, commercial drones that were used for spraying crops.

There was a small single-seat aircraft at the center of the hangar, but on the far end, a sleek, black, hook-nosed shuttle sat. It was definitely not an airplane—Hector could tell by the bulk of its engines and the heat shielding material on its hull. “Eyes on the bird,” he whispered.

Burton’s voice was a rumble in his ear. “Any personnel?”

“Standby.”

Hector continued to scan the building. On the near end, almost directly beneath him, he saw an open kitchen area, and a long, debris-strewn table. He’d almost missed them because they were behind his position, but there were three men standing there near some vending machines, and it looked like they were chatting. One of them was smoking a chem-stick with a bright green ember. He switched to subvocalizations and said, Three near me. Look like locals. Still scanning.

He shifted his gaze from near to far, focusing on the shuttle and the deep shadows around it. The rear cargo ramp was open, and if he were a betting man, he’d say the people who’d flown in on the bird were still inside it—it was probably a damn sight more comfortable than the dirty hangar. He said as much into the comm channel.

“Can you question the locals?”

Hector looked down again, focusing on the three men. They were wearing coveralls, and each was armed with a shoulder-slung SMG, but they slouched lazily as they chatted, and one of them was significantly overweight. They won’t be a problem.

Hector remembered the intel from the synth—that these men had taken over the legitimate operations of the facility—and he searched the hangar for a clue as to where the original workers might be. On the back wall, opposite the hangar doors, he saw a row of small offices built out of plasteel panels. There were four, and each had a closed door and pulled blinds. I’m betting the workers are locked up in the back offices. If they’re not dead.

“So are you going to question the local operators?” Burton asked again.

Yeah. Standby. Hector focused on the concrete floor beside the vending machines, opposite the side where the three men were standing. Confident in his destination, he pushed some aura into Ghost Leap. He couldn’t control the glowing crimson rip in reality that swallowed him, but it was only there for a brief flash before it deposited him at his destination.

Even so, the red light must have flared in the dim interior of the warehouse, because Hector heard the men exclaim. One of them said, “What the fuck was that?”

“An alarm?” answered another.

Hector heard their steps as they shuffled around the machines to look for the source of the red flash. Their investigation came up empty, though; he’d already pushed some aura into Veil Stalker and had slipped out of the physical world before the men had taken their first steps. Hector lurked in the veil, watching and listening.

The veil was a strange place—it was like an echo of the physical world where human-made constructions existed as dark, and sometimes distorted, copies. The vending machines were strange as seen through the veil. They still glowed, but in shades of white and blue, and the words and lettering on them and on the products they contained were garbled and impossible for Hector to read.

The men were similarly strange—lurching shadows, with glowing eyes—and when they spoke, their words had a haunted, distant sound that came too slowly or, randomly, too quickly, sped up to a high-pitched squeak.

“Nothing,” said the largest of the men.

“Maybe the machine shorted,” said another, and his chem-stick flared, an emerald star in the twilight of the veil.

The third man grunted and stuffed his hands in his pockets as he turned to look into the depths of the hangar. “Something those assholes did?”

“Quiet, Tupper. We’re in enough trouble.”

“Not our fault the boys fucked up.”

“Our fault we didn’t notice. Our fault we didn’t tell them bigshots to hang back,” the big one replied.

Tupper wanted to argue. “Not part of our job!”

“He’s got a point,” said the third man. “Besides, they might still show. Who knows what happened?”

Tupper was still looking away, and there were a good two meters between him and the other two men. Their positioning made Hector’s decision for him: he’d question Tupper. Jammer, Evie.

//Active—as soon as you emerge, I mean.//

Hector moved through the veil, positioned himself perfectly, and then he cut the flow of aura to his Veil Stalker ability. At the same time, he pushed aura through another pathway, and his Aura Blade flared to life. In the blink of an eye, his mirrored crimson blade flashed. The two nearest men grasped their throats, gurgling as their blood fled between their fingers.

Hector stepped between them and placed a firm hand over Tupper’s mouth as he put the tip of his Aura Blade a centimeter from his right eye. “Don’t move. Don’t even breathe,” he hissed as the other two men collapsed.