They took out a hit team of at least ten guys with a pair of effing handguns. And they took prisoners. You believe that?”
For some reason, Mallory thought about what Parvi had said last night about Mosasa.
Wahid laughed. “The best qualified candidates who applied for a dipshit babysitting mission. You see anything in his ad that would appeal to ninety percent of the mercs on this rock? How many hardcore bastards you think apply for security detail on a scientific expedition?”
“Point taken.” Mallory paused as his stomach unexpectedly tried to slam through his diaphragm as the aircar took a sudden dive under a pedestrian bridge. When their flight leveled, he asked Wahid, “So why’d you apply for this dipshit babysitting mission?”
“No offense, Fitz, but that’s none of your fucking business.”
Wahid took a chaotic route leaving Proudhon, weaving loops around and between buildings, and shadowing random cargo haulers both above and below. He also passed though three parking garages. His path was probably proof against anyone following, short of some tracking device on the vehicle itself.
Wahid explained that the latter wasn’t really a problem since he had stolen the aircar less than an hour ago. Mallory decided he had already been on Bakunin too long when he realized that the admission didn’t surprise him.
They shot out of the city, parallel to the mountains, and before Wahid dropped the aircar near the surface, Mallory could catch sight of Mosasa Salvage. It wasn’t hard to miss, with ranks of aircraft stretching across the desert in all directions. It was even easier to pick out now, with a column of smoke rising from the midst of the aviation graveyard.
“Something’s burning.” Mallory said as the aircar fell in its asymptotic dive to the desert floor.
“A couple of missiles took out the hangar,” Wahid said.
Wahid let that sink in as he flew the speeding aircar over the black desert sand at speeds that would have been suicidal within the congested airspace over Proudhon. They shot away from both Proudhon and Mosasa Salvage at this point. The white central towers of the city were tiny in the distance behind them, the pillar of smoke above Mosasa’s business now almost invisible against the morning clouds.
If someone—probably Caliphate agents—had targeted the hangar itself, that meant they had very good inside information.
“What about Mosasa? Is there still a mission?”
“Yeah, there is. Apparently, Mosasa had some information that the Caliphate was interested in what he was doing. He managed to relocate before someone targeted the hangar.”
Mallory had been expecting something from the Caliphate since he had arrived on this planet. Wahid’s news was almost a relief, the other shoe finally dropping. But beyond the attacks, something didn’t sit right with Mallory. Unlike Staff Sergeant Fitzpatrick, Father Francis Xavier Mallory had retired a full colonel in the Proxima Expeditionary Forces of the Occisis Marines. Colonel Mallory had as much or more command experience than he had on the ground, and because he’d been in the PEF, he had a
It also meant he thought Wahid’s story made little sense. An enemy with enough intel to target the warehouse had enough intel to keep a watch on the target. It wouldn’t require much investment; just a spotter in the mountains or in one of the high buildings in Proudhon could keep unobstructed visual contact. And for all the technology you could use to obscure various mechanical sensors, Mallory knew no way anyone could hide a tach- ship launch from a trained human eyeball. The distortion of any visual camouflage would be detectable by someone who expected to see it, and any spotters would be expecting it.
Mallory didn’t believe that their attackers were incompetent, and it didn’t seem likely that they had the extraordinarily bad timing to have hit Mosasa after he left with the tach-ship . . .
But Mosasa was an AI.
