Chapter 42 - Shrapnel and Silence

  Around him, the armoury was a hive of activity as the rest of the squad quickly stripped the room of accessible gear. Bulletproof vests and tactical rigs were pulled from shelves and tossed into crates. Night-vision goggles, encrypted radios, and handheld scanners followed, piling up in a chaotic jumble. Corin and Lena moved with practised efficiency, their voices clipped as they exchanged brief updates. Tarek knelt by a crate, running a quick inventory on their haul before signalling it was ready to be moved.

  Darius stood near the back of the room, his focus ostensibly on the drones lined up against the wall. The machines, sleek and predatory, sat in their quick-deploy racks, their readiness a quiet testament to the garrison’s resources. His hand rested lightly on the edge of one drone’s casing, tracing the smooth metal as his mind drifted.

  The sharp taste of bile still clung to his throat. The image of the enforcer crumpling to the ground wouldn’t leave his head—the flash of blood, the lifeless thud as the body hit the floor.

  His fingers curled into a fist against the drone’s chassis. He wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t like Lena or Corin or even Harlan, who could compartmentalise and move forward as though it was just another day in the field. The urge to vomit again clawed at him, but he pushed it down, gripping the momentary distraction the drone offered. He had a job to do—get the processor cores for Echo. Focus on that. Anything else would have to wait.

  “Darius,” Tarek called sharply, cutting through his thoughts. The other man stood a few meters away, rifle slung across his back as he gestured toward a set of heavy lockers lining the wall. “Get over here. We’ve got locked compartments.”

  He hesitated, glancing down at the drone again. Its silent presence offered no escape, and with a reluctant sigh, he turned to Tarek. “What’s in them?”

  “Guns,” Corin interjected, his voice curt as he grabbed a vest from a nearby rack and tossed it into a crate. “And grenades. We’ve got ammo and the basics, but the real firepower’s sealed up. That’s where you come in.”

  In a funny way, that almost helped. It was a reminder that he wasn’t here to fight, or kill, or hurt – he was only here so that Echo could hack into things. That didn’t make him blameless or anything, far from it, but at least he could console himself with the thought that it wasn’t his intention to hurt anyone.

  Cold comfort, perhaps, but comfort nonetheless.

  Still trying to distract himself, he spoke up as he plugged the bypass kit into the lockers and let Echo do his thing. “Is that—can we expect more fighting?”

  Corin turned toward him from where he was stacking ammunition in a storage crate. “Probably. The checkpoints are working in our favour here – most of the enforcers that would normally be assigned to the garrison are manning the roadblocks and keeping civilians off the streets because of the curfew. The jammer we set up should mean that no one here can call out for help, and you managed to disable the hard-wired internal network, right?”

  “Echo did, actually, but yeah,” Darius corrected.

  Corin waved a hand to indicate how little he cared. “Right, whatever. Point is, that’s not gonna last forever. Civilians can see the alarms going off through the windows. Won’t take long for someone to get curious, maybe call the hotline to ask if everything’s fine. Once that happens, things go south.”

  “Good to know,” Darius muttered, focusing back on the locker. The bypass kit beeped, and the lock released with a satisfying click. He pulled the door open, revealing rows of neatly stored rifles, their sleek forms gleaming under the dim light. Harlan stepped up beside him, giving a curt nod before grabbing one and tossing it to Corin.

  “Get these loaded up,” Harlan ordered, his voice tight with command. “Time’s running out.”

  Darius moved to the next locker as Lena flagged him down. “This one too,” she said, pausing to rest a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” she continued softly, “You okay?”

  Darius swallowed and looked down, the slight kindness almost enough to shatter his fragile equilibrium. “I’ll be fine,” he said, trying to convince himself most of all.

  She looked at him for a long moment. “You did well,” she said simply.

  Darius nodded faintly, not trusting his voice to respond. Lena squeezed his shoulder once, then turned back to the task at hand, hefting a rifle and tossing it into one of the crates.

  He turned his attention back to the drones. They loomed against the far wall, their predatory shapes catching the dim light. Each machine was a squat, angular mass of matte black plating, bristling with sensors and concealed weapon mounts. The quick-deploy racks held them upright, but the systems were modular enough to allow for mobility during maintenance.

  Darius crouched by the nearest one, pulling a small panel away from the base of its rack. Inside was a connector interface—standardised, thankfully, and something that could be released without specialised tools. Even better, there were several wheeled transport racks sitting against a nearby wall, designed to easily move the drones inside buildings.

  Getting the drones ready for transport was more challenging than he anticipated. The drones were heavy, their dense construction designed to withstand punishment, and while they weren’t unwieldy, they required careful handling. Surprisingly, Tarek joined him without even having to be asked, grunting slightly as he helped lift the first one onto the mobile rack. The rack itself was a flat, low-profile platform mounted on sturdy wheels, designed to carry significant weight.

  “You’ve got it?” Tarek asked, his voice clipped.

  Darius nodded, focusing on guiding the drone into place. Once it was secured, he moved to the second machine, repeating the process. By the time the drones were mounted and locked in place, the rest of the squad had stripped the armoury of weapons, ammunition, and gear, loading it into storage crates and then onto transport racks like his own.

  Harlan stood by the door, rifle in hand, carefully making sure the corridor outside was clear of enforcers. He glanced back briefly. “Everybody ready?” he asked, receiving nods in return.

  Without further ado, Harlan slipped out the door, rifle held at the ready. Corin was pushing the other transport rack, while Lena and Tarek bracketed him, equally ready to defend against anything coming their way.

  Darius wiped his hands on his trousers, straightened, and followed as the group began to move out, pushing the rack with the drones ahead of him.

  The hallways were eerily quiet as they made their way toward the internal parking garage. The alarms still blared faintly in the distance, but no enforcers appeared to challenge them. The silence pressed heavily on Darius, each footstep echoing in his ears. He glanced around at the others. They were alert but calm, their movements measured and purposeful. Only the faint tension in their shoulders betrayed the strain of the situation.

  It didn’t take long for the lack of resistance to start to get to him.

  “Is this normal?” he finally asked, unable to help himself. “Surely there were more than, what, seven or eight enforcers in this whole place?”

  Harlan glanced at him from the front of their little convoy, expression unreadable. “Not all. There’ll be more. Most of them are probably holed up in secure areas, waiting. They’re not fanatics, Kallan. They’re just people doing a job. Why risk running into danger when they can wait for reinforcements to arrive?”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  That… didn’t make him feel any better. Oh, sure, it made sense, but if anything, it made the weight of his actions heavier. It was a reminder that these weren’t soldiers committed to a cause—they were people caught in the same system he was, trying to survive. And now, some of them wouldn’t make it home.

  He swallowed hard and nodded again, forcing himself to push the thoughts aside. There would be time for those thoughts later.

  Hopefully.

  With the corridors clear of enforcers, it didn’t take them long to arrive at the internal parking garage. While the carpark outside was for public and personal vehicles, this internal space catered to the more… military vehicles.

  Concrete walls rose to the ceiling, broken only by support columns and ventilation grates. Rows of overhead lights cast a cold, sterile glow over the parked vehicles. Most were standard patrol transports—functional, utilitarian, and entirely unremarkable. But near the far wall, a pair of armoured vehicles stood out.

  Each was a hulking behemoth of matte black metal, their angular designs bristling with mounted weapons and reinforced plating. Darius could see the allure in them; they were tanks in all but name, and it was clear from the way Corin and Tarek eyed them that they were thinking the same thing.

  “Now those,” Corin said, his voice low and almost reverent, “would make one hell of a getaway ride.”

  “Too easy to track,” Harlan snapped, cutting off the thought before it could gain traction. He didn’t even glance at the vehicles as he moved further into the garage, rifle at the ready. “We’re not here to steal trophies. Stick to the plan.”

  Corin sighed, giving the armoured vehicles one last longing look before turning back to the transport racks. The rest of the group followed Harlan’s lead, moving quickly to position their haul near the central loading area.

  Darius pushed his rack of drones into place, the wheels squeaking faintly against the concrete floor. As he secured the rack, Harlan fiddled with a small external comm device, specifically tuned to use frequencies the jammer didn’t cover. The range was terrible, of course, and the bandwidth couldn’t even support speech, but as a discrete signalling device it did the job very well.

  Unfortunately, the other cell – and Darius really needed to think up a name for them besides ‘other cell’ – didn’t have a way to respond to the signal, as transmitting out of a jammer zone was easier than transmitting into one. Darius wasn’t entirely sure how it worked, but then again he didn’t need to.

  Thankfully, it didn’t take long for them to arrive, pulling up quietly just outside the garage doors in a pair of nondescript transport vans, the kind that blended in everywhere. The vehicles were plain but sturdy, designed for utility rather than aesthetics. As they came to a stop, the side doors slid open to reveal the rest of the team. They were outfitted in similar gear to Harlan’s group, down to the masks and tactical rigs.

  Harlan approached their leader, a wiry woman whose mask didn’t quite hide her sharp, assessing eyes. She carried herself with a precision that contrasted with the rest of her team, her clipped tone cutting through the tension.

  Oddly enough, Darius didn’t recognise the woman from the planning meeting he’d been taken along to. Was she too paranoid to go herself, or were there other reasons?

  “Status?” she asked, glancing at the gear Harlan’s team had prepped.

  “Smooth sailing so far,” Harlan replied, gesturing to the crates and drones. “Minimal resistance. Jammers and the curfew are doing their jobs. Just had a couple of enforcers on guard duty, nothing we couldn’t handle.”

  The woman nodded briskly. “Good. Let’s not push our luck. Start loading.”

  As the teams converged, the loading process began in earnest. Crates were hefted onto the vans with the kind of hurried efficiency that came from knowing time was against them. Darius and Tarek worked on securing the drones onto one of the transport racks, their combined effort making short work of the heavy machines. Corin and Lena moved crates while exchanging quick, clipped instructions with the newcomers.

  Sweat beaded on Darius’s brow as he helped guide one of the drones up the makeshift ramp into the first van. It was a tight fit, the drone’s angular frame barely clearing the doorway. Tarek grunted as he steadied the machine, his muscles straining against the weight. “Careful,” he muttered. “Last thing we need is this thing falling over.”

  The second van was loaded with ammunition and weapons, the crates stacking neatly against the walls. Corin checked the inventory one last time before signalling to Lena. “That’s everything. Ready to move.”

  The leader of the other cell nodded, giving a sharp whistle to her team. “Let’s go.”

  Just as the vans’ doors slammed shut, the sound of an approaching vehicle echoed through the parking garage. Heads snapped up in unison, the tense silence broken by the squeal of tyres and the low rumble of an engine.

  This late at night? With the curfew in place?

  There was only one thing it could be.

  Harlan swore viciously. “Patrol!” he barked a moment later, hurling himself into the driver’s seat of the second van.

  The tension snapped like a cord under pressure. The Freeholders scrambled to action, their movements swift and sharp. Corin and Tarek dove for the first van, Lena yanking Darius by the arm toward the second. Crates were shoved aside as they piled in, the remaining members of the other cell clambering into the cramped space.

  The vans roared to life, their engines sputtering in the echoing confines of the parking garage. Tires squealed as they lurched forward, heading for the compound’s exit. The dimly lit corridor leading to the gate stretched out before them, its silence fractured by the alarms still wailing faintly in the distance.

  Ahead, the patrol vehicle rounded the corner into the entrance gate, its headlights cutting through the dimly lit garage. The patrol vehicle’s driver slammed on the brakes, skidding to a halt and blocking the exit. The Freeholders’ vans screeched to a stop just short of collision.

  There was a sudden awkward pause, the Imperial enforcer staring through his windshield at the Freeholders in their vans. They looked more confused than alarmed, though that was changing fast as one of them obviously reached for a comm device. Darius’s stomach dropped as he watched the patrol officer frown, pressing the device to his ear before jerking it away in frustration. They’d just realised the comms were jammed.

  Harlan didn’t wait for them to figure things out. “Hold on!” he shouted, slamming the van into gear and flooring the accelerator.

  The van surged forward with a roar, slamming into the patrol vehicle. The metallic crunch of impact reverberated through the van as the smaller Imperial vehicle lurched to the side, its front axle twisting under the force.

  “Go, go, go!” Harlan barked, wrenching the wheel to correct their path.

  Behind them, the other van peeled off in a different direction, its driver swerving through the garage’s narrow lanes. Despite the sudden change in circumstances, there was actually a plan in place for this eventuality. Not much of one, maybe, but anything was better than nothing.

  In this case, the plan boiled down to ‘run for the hills, and hide wherever possible’. The only reason it really even qualified as a plan in the first place was because they were supposed to split up and head in opposite directions, so at least there was some level of actual planning in the plan.

  Lena twisted in her seat, rifle in hand, peering out the shattered rear window. “They’re following us!” she shouted, her voice barely audible over the chaos. The patrol vehicle, its front crushed but still mobile, had taken up pursuit, its tyres screeching against the concrete.

  The drones behind Darius slid slightly on their rack, the wheels straining to keep traction as the van careened around the corner. Bullets pinged off the van’s rear panels, the sharp clangs making Darius flinch. He pressed himself against the armoured drones, the dense machines acting as makeshift shields. One round struck the wall inches from his head, punching a hole through the thin metal.

  “Faster!” Lena urged, leaning out of the shattered rear window. Her rifle barked, the muzzle flash illuminating her determined expression. She fired a tight burst, forcing the pursuing enforcers to swerve and lose ground momentarily.

  Harlan pushed the van harder, the engine growling under the strain. The gap widened, but the relative safety was short-lived. Without warning, another, heavier Imperial vehicle cut across their path ahead.

  Lena’s eyes widened. “Where did—the jammer,” she realised a moment later.

  It was obvious in hindsight – in fleeing from the garrison, they had obviously left the area covered by the jammer, meaning the patrol chasing them would have been able to call ahead. The vehicle in front of them was probably scrambled from a nearby checkpoint. It was probably only the first of many, and Darius knew that as time passed, their pursuit would only grow.

  A more immediate problem was the roof-mounted turret on the armoured beast in front of them.

  “Oh no,” Darius muttered, his stomach twisting as the turret swivelled toward them.

  The first grenade fired with a hollow thump, arcing toward the van. Harlan yanked the wheel hard to the left, the grenade detonating just behind them in a fiery burst. Shrapnel clattered against the van’s hull, leaving scratches but no penetrations. A second round followed, landing closer. The shockwave rocked the van, causing Lena to grab the frame to steady herself.

  Harlan gritted his teeth, weaving erratically to make the van a harder target. Another grenade detonated near the rear, the explosion tearing the van’s back doors open. The doors flapped wildly, exposing Darius and the precious cargo of drones to the open air.

  “Hold on!” Lena shouted, trying to brace the doors, but the next grenade hit closer. The explosion rattled the entire vehicle, sending shrapnel tearing into the rear compartment. The sharp hiss of metal on metal was deafening.

  Pain ripped through his side as fragments tore into him.

  Then, nothing.