And then he was gone.
39
“We’ll do the last one in a few hours. Just after dark. Then we drop the tower.”
The captured marine knew the speaker as Mean Eyes.
The Guild knew him as Loth Kador, bounty hunter. Professional. And currently listed on the Guild’s status board as “GR”: Gone Rogue. Next to that status was the modifier, “FKC”: Find, Kill, or Capture. In that order of priority.
Because the perks of being a Bronze Guild member came with certain obligations. And when you failed to meet those obligations, you invited trouble on yourself.
Loth Kador had other names. But what’s a name? Multiple identities are the way of bounty hunters and other scum, as far as the galaxy is concerned.
The team he’d assembled to run the HVT capture for the Soshies had just received their final brief. In the next few hours, they’d execute the last legionnaire, release the stream, and destroy the rundown, once top-of-the-mark luxury residence tower in the best neighborhood of the Heights on Detron.
According to his contacts with those who served Mr. Zauro, the man behind all these riot and resistance shenanigans, the media would soon be fed stories that the Legion had executed payback and killed an entire building full of detained Soshies. As soon as Loth had blown up those pitiful wannabes who had been traveling with his team.
Blaming the Legion and the marines would make what was coming next much more digestible for the ever-hungry masses and media begging to be deceived. They’d bought the fake stories of marines and Legion elements firing on peaceful protesters on day one, without anyone even having to provide evidence. All they’d needed was some idiot kid studying theater whose girlfriend did the makeup, and they came away with a narrative many in the galaxy were only too willing to believe.
Because it was what they were told.
They’d especially believe anything they were told about the universal boogeymen known as the Legion. The heartbreakers and lifetakers who had kicked in doors and decimated freedom fighters on a ton of worlds since the end of the Savage Wars. The galaxy needed to change, and before that could happen, the Legion needed to go.
And this… this was but one step along the way to making that happen. An important step, a big step, but in the end just one step. There would be other Detrons. Other places to make the case that legionnaires were an anachronistic entity too militarized for the current state of the peace-seeking galaxy. Or worse, dangerous tyrants lying in wait to execute Article Nineteen, which desperately needed to be removed from the Republic’s constitution… and would be, if not for the fact that attempting to do so would initiate an immediate Article Nineteen.
Or that’s what the play was supposed to make the dumb and the deceived conclude.
Loth really didn’t care. He was a pro. Getting paid was all that mattered. If you wanted some dark stuff done and had the credits, well, then he’d like to do it for you. Lots of people would. The edge of the galaxy was filled with such people. That’s why there was a Legion.
It was a vicious cycle. Until it wasn’t.
Kill the leej, det the building, get out of Dodgistan. He ran through his orders from on high once more. Finish up here and pull a new trick on another world in six months if Mr. Zauro was willing to pay again. And it seemed the old mummy was. He had endless credits to burn for his quixotic quest which either involved destroying the Republic, or just the Legion. Loth could never really be sure which one the old lizard wanted more.
Either way… Loth got paid.
That was all that mattered.
“What about the marine?” asked one of Loth’s lieutenants.
“Leave her secured inside the building when we drop it. It’ll add to the outrage. Maybe the marines’ll get pissed too and do something stupid.”
Zauro might give him a bonus if that happened.
Someone made a joke about crayons. And how they ought to feed her some as a last meal. Forcefully.
No one laughed. Things were tense. A lot of money was on the line and this needed to come off just right.
Kill the legionnaire for the streams. Det the building with the Soshies inside to frame the leejes—which needed to happen before those knuckle-dragging war chiefs decided to actually do something about it. And make sure to be off-world in the freighter rigged for stealth before anyone could tie Loth and his team to the carnage.
Close timing.
And maybe, if it wasn’t today, one of these little incidents that were slowly making Loth rich would kick off the big bonfire Zauro prophesied the galaxy would have to endure. Purification through flame, paving the way for things to be remade. But this time better—with Zauro and his associates in charge.
Loth sometimes wondered who those associates were. And then reminded himself he probably didn’t want to know.
And anyway, by the time all that went down, he’d be retired and living like a king.
40
Captain Hess was already interfacing with General Sheehan’s staff. The bogus orders he’d contrived from Nether Ops, virtually uncheckable due to the obscure and arcane nature of the organization, didn’t need to pass much scrutiny. They were accepted as truth clean and incapable of infection. Nether Ops had always been good for getting things to work smoothly for its operatives. And the bevy of orders from fictional brass who appeared the real deal to anyone who bothered to look were a godsend when it came to mixing with other military types.
Hess had requested intel the moment they gave him access to the ops center inside the Green Zone. Intel specifically concerning one Tyrus Rechs, known fugitive.
General Sheehan’s chief of staff didn’t like Hess. Unlike most of the rank and file, his rank had brought him into contact with the reality that was Nether Ops. But that wasn’t the only reason he disliked Hess. He didn’t like the man’s air of assumed superiority.
