Hallik’s ship appeared in space near the planet and began its covert scans. They knew where the eiraxin vessel had landed thanks to the tracker, but he wanted to ensure no surprises were waiting for his crew.
“All clear,” Joris said after a bit. “Should I take us down?”
Hallik glanced at his arm readout to make sure all of his team had checked in. They were green across the board.
“Do it, but keep their ship targeted. If it so much as tries to power up, shoot it down.” He didn’t want to turn this mission into a chase if they were noticed.
The stealth systems aboard Hallik’s ship were good, but nothing was perfect.
Joris nodded and worked the controls. The craft pitched over and dove into the planet’s upper atmosphere.
The dissidents might miss the trail of superheated air as they approached, but the sonic booms would be a clear indication to them that they had company. They were halfway to the surface when the cameras picked up people running from the small bunker toward the ship on the display. He noted with annoyance that they were all carrying weapons.
“Hit it,” Hallik said coldly.
The energy cannon spat out two shots. The first struck the enemy ship near the rear, and the other toward the front, where the cockpit was situated. Fire shot out of both holes, indicating the strikes had hit their intended targets, rendering the shuttle useless. The people on the ground quickly reversed direction and ran for the safety of their bunker.
Some fired their energy weapons into the air, but only one came close to hitting his ship.
That alone was enough to tell Hallik that these people weren’t trained soldiers. If they were, they would have known an attack such as that would be pointless. All they did was drain their charge packs.
Joris levelled the ship out and circled the small clearing before extending the landing struts and setting down near the other vessel.
Unlike the eiraxins, who had parked their ship with the ramp facing toward the bunker for easy access, Joris had parked theirs with the cannon facing the entrance.
Hallik unbelted himself and grabbed his own energy weapon. “If you have to use the cannons, try to make sure we’re not in the path. I would prefer not to be cooked alive.”
The shalis man chittered in amusement as Hallik hurried out of the bridge.
By the time he reached the rear ramp, the rest of his team were already on the ground, with their weapons facing the closed bunker doors.
“Fen, and Gark, take some sleds and recon the area. I don’t want to find out later that these dissidents had a secret exit.”
The two amuni men nodded before lowering their weapons and hurrying back into the ship. A moment later, they returned, hovering off on the sleds. It didn’t take long before their silhouettes vanished into the thin forest that hid the bunker and small clearing.
The transportation devices were expensive to operate because only Xalos-brand power cores could provide the needed output for such compact gravitics, but Hallik never regretted the cost. Being able to outrun any ground-based quarry was simply too valuable to ignore.
He gave Fen and Gark time to scout. When they didn’t report finding any other exits, he finally activated his suit’s vocal enhancer.
“Eiraxins, you are violating Article Three of the Astryx Codex. Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up, and you will be spared.”
Hallik waited, but there was no response. He hadn’t expected one, but he was required by Astryx law to provide the opportunity.
“Joris, open it up.”
The energy cannon belched out one shot, and Hallik felt the heat, even through his suit.
The bunker doors stood no chance. The bolt of energy passed through the door and struck something hard a few feet inside, exploding and blowing the thin metal doors outward from the blast.
Hallik stepped behind the landing strut he was using as cover as one of the twisted metal doors flew past the ship. The other hung limply on the single hinge still attached to the bunker. “They weren’t even armored?” he asked in surprise.
“Joris, seal the ship. The rest of you move up.”
As the hatch closed, the five mercenaries moved toward the smoke-filled entrance.
Hallik’s helmet sensors tried to filter out the smoke, but the eiraxins must have mixed some sensor-disrupting compound into the concrete. It was giving his helmet computer fits.
He would have to bring that up when he reported the mission’s completion. Article Four strictly forbade the eiraxins from developing weapons or defenses that might inhibit scanners. Thankfully, once he reported the discovery, it would be some bureaucrat’s job to deal with whatever mess came after.
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The group reached the entrance, but their lights barely penetrated the thick haze, which seemed disinclined to settle anytime soon.
Hallik grunted in annoyance before reaching up with one of his lower limbs and plucking a concussion grenade off his belt. “Clear the entrance!” he yelled, before arming the small device and tossing it into the room.
He raced to one side a moment before the grenade went off. The blast forced most of the stale, smoky air from the room, where it finally dissipated in the light breeze.
Now that they could see, he spotted a problem. The bunker was only about six meters deep and empty. It was no wonder the single energy cannon shot had blown the doors off.
“Watch the door,” Hallik said before moving back outside and around the bunker.
The outside of the bunker was easily forty meters long, so where were the eiraxins?
He could try blowing through the back wall to see if there was more beyond that, but he doubted there would be. A hidden concrete door would have fractured from the energy blast. The hole left behind in the back wall was nearly half a meter deep, and it was solid concrete.
“Search the room. There’s gotta be another exit.”
It didn’t take them long to find the hatch in the floor. It was hidden under the dust and haze left behind. So really, it was his own fault for ordering the strike. The doors would have been easy to pry open with simple tools, but he hadn’t wanted to risk his people in case the dissidents were waiting beyond.
This time, he had no choice. The ship couldn’t angle its cannon to hit the hatch. He had his people bring two powerful electromagnets from the ship and connect them to the hatch, as well as some quickly installed ceiling anchors.
Four men pulled on the rope, but other than a slight groan of metal, the hatch refused to budge.
A plasma cutter was brought next. It made short work of the locking bolts holding the hatch in place. Once it was free, his people quickly raised it. Before the shouting eiraxin dissident could get his weapon up, Hallik lobbed the grenade into the hole.
His people dropped the heavy metal cover the moment the weapon passed into the opening. There was a dull thump that lifted the lid slightly and let smoke out, but that was that.
Once the hatch was removed a second time, they were greeted by a mess. The room wasn’t big, and there weren’t any other doors or tunnels leading off of it. All of the eiraxins had piled into the space for safety, but the grenade had done its work.
Hallik just shook his head in disgust. “Idiots. They could have surrendered and received a few years in a labor camp; instead, they pulled this bullshit.”
“Nobody ever said dissidents were smart,” one of his men commented.
Hallik grunted and radioed for Fen and Gark to return. They confirmed the order, and he turned to the others inside the bunker. “Someone get down there and collect DNA samples so we can prove we got them all.”
***
“Didn’t want to go quietly, eh?” the bruth woman behind the Bounty Association counter said as she read over his report quickly before digitally stamping it.
“Nope,” Hallik confirmed.
“Well, if you're looking for more work, got a few escaped prisoners. Doesn’t pay well, though.”
“Nah, got another job from one of my contacts. Possible privateer.”
“Well, good luck and stay safe, Hallik.”
“You too, Shalee.”
The bruth woman smiled. Hallik knew some species found them to be adorable, but they gave him the creeps. Maybe because they reminded him of a voracious little six-limbed critters from his home world called a drop bear. The damn things would fall from higher up in trees to land on you, then they would dig in with their claws and teeth and refuse to let go as they fed.
His older brother lost an arm to one once, before someone was able to pull the damn thing off.
Modern medicine was able to reattach the limb and remove the physical scars, but his brother never went near trees again after that, which is difficult when you’re an arboreal species that sleeps in them. His parents had to buy a special sleep pole for his brother after he recovered, and he moved to an orbital habitat to get away from the surface as soon as he came of age.
Hallik collected his payment and headed back toward the docking arm where his ship was. He really hoped Sha’la’s mission paid well, because he barely made any profit on this one after expending two grenades and having one of the used Xalos power cores fail halfway back to the ship.
Fen was okay after the crash, but the sled and power core were a total loss. He knew he should have replaced that core earlier, but it wasn’t like they came up for sale very often. That’s why he was more than happy to take Sha’la’s offer. Even if the mission was a bust, he would at least get a new power core out of the deal. It kind of made him hope she was wrong.
It didn’t take him long to return to his ship. When he entered the bridge, he found Gark asleep in the command seat.
Hallik shook his head. He couldn’t understand how his fellow amuni could sleep without clasping a tree or a sleep rod. It just proved that there were exceptions to every rule. He didn’t wake the man. While he required the bridge to always be staffed, it wasn’t like he required the person staffing it to be alert while they were docked at a friendly station.
He moved past his snoring associate and brought up the tracker. It hadn’t moved in a few days, so he was certain the target had reached its destination. “What the hell is way out there?” he asked quietly before shaking his head.
Hallik would find out soon enough.
***
The ship appeared in the dark of space, and Hallik listened to the coils whine in complaint. He had never taken a job so far out. It had taken fifteen jumps and a full week just to reach the distant location. The phase coils, including the backup ones, would need to be serviced after they returned to civilized space.
“Another expense,” he grumbled under his breath.
Joris turned to him. “Did you say something, sir?”
“Just complaining. Can you bring up the passives? Let’s see what’s out here and if it was worth the effort.”
A picture of local space soon appeared on the screen, and it was clear that it wasn’t empty.
Hallik whistled. “Damn, how big is that station?”
“Larger than the shipyards at Omerion Prime,” Joris replied in confusion. “Why would anyone build such a large station in the middle of nowhere?”
Hallik remembered those yards clearly because he had commissioned the vessel they were on from that very location.
“Scan for weapons,” he said.
Joris tilted his head in confusion as the readings came back. “The scanner is picking up weapons, but it says there are only void cannons and some launch tubes.”
“Void cannons?” Hallik chuckled. “Who the hell still uses void cannons?” The weapons had become obsolete hundreds of years ago after shielding technology rendered them impotent.
“Perhaps the station is a lost derelict,” Joris provided.
“Hmm, perhaps. Have they noticed us?”
“It doesn’t appear so, which also lends more weight to the station being old. A newer station could have detected our weapon scan.”
“Alright, get us closer. I want to get a better look at this relic and get a bio scan. And yes, I know we can’t really hide that, but I would rather alert the station to our presence than walk in and find out the place is full of criminals.”
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