G232 made the word “rampaging” sound like it was some dreadful societal faux pas instead of the pell-mell swath of destruction that now lay across the city in the HK-PP’s wake.
The giant mech smashed into a ceremonial arch that stretched over the avenue. A commemorative architectural structure from days gone by. It crumbled like an old cookie and the HK-PP continued on. Ahead lay the tower. Its target.
The little bot checked the charge on the main gun and scanned for a new target. Something big. Something that would really go KA-BOOOOOM!
“Make an impression,” Captain Rechs had ordered.
48
Within General Sheehan’s command center, the primary focus was now the rogue war machine rampaging into the operational zone. Command and staff officers were looking bewildered and flummoxed as they tried to explain who had taken a premier fighting vehicle from the pool and decided to take matters into their own hands.
No one had an answer, but the consensus was that some enlisted punk who’d had enough of the Soshies had gone joyriding. Or maybe it was a leej who had waited long enough and wasn’t about to let another of his buddies get decapitated.
All comm with the war machine was being blocked by spam-jam algos, and attempts by the nerds in electronic warfare to hack their way into the vehicle’s systems and take control had failed.
Captain Hess, who’d been out roaming the line and trying to figure out some way to go hunting for Tyrus Rechs, surfaced through the mass confusion enveloping the TOC.
“This is what I warned your chief of staff about, General!” Hess screamed. “Most likely it’s Rechs that’s commandeered that planet-pounder. If not him, then someone working for him. And while you all are chasing it down, he’s freed up to do some real damage to Republic assets!”
That stopped everyone.
Hess had the general’s attention. As well as the rest of the command staff. To them, he was a legionnaire. To the general, he was a spook from Nether Ops. And both general and command staff were listening accordingly.
Funny how sinners become saints when people get desperate enough, thought Hess in one corner of his mind.
“I can stop him and give your marines enough time to take advantage of this chaos,” Hess said. “Perhaps identify the location and hit it to secure our personnel.”
The general studied the twisted and scarred figure of Captain Hess. He looked capable despite the old injuries and missing eye that he for some unknown reason had decided not to repair. Things were turning into a mess. That was clear enough.
“Make it happen, Captain.” The general turned to his adjutant. “Colonel Styles, get this man what he needs and shut down the planet-pounder before it can cause more damage.”
Ten minutes later, Captain Hess was kitted up in the Legion armor Nether Ops had once provided him, aboard a gunship-configured SLIC lifting off over the marine-held docks, flying above the edge of the vast sprawl of the tired old city.
49
Three floors up, Rechs entered the public areas of the building. It was two minutes’ work to identify a target using the armor’s sensor scan. Rechs moved swiftly through a shadowy atrium that had once held some sort of hanging garden display. Now the giant off-world ferns were nothing more than dead skeletons and the dirty floor below was littered with dry trash and dead leaves. One of the pros was watching the central well from a balcony two stories above.
Bio-sensors indicated that many of the rooms held groups of people. All of them huddled or unmoving. But alive. Prisoners, presumably. Most likely citizens the Soshies wanted to keep out of the way. Or perhaps they were being held hostage to bargain for petty ransoms.
There was also a third option…
But that was none of Rechs’s business. The huddled masses were none of his concern. He was here for the legionnaire and the marine. That was all.
And they would be held up higher. Closer to the top of the building.
And yet, as he passed the doors behind which clustered what he presumed were civilian prisoners, Rechs felt a nagging sense of responsibility. He decided he needed to at least verify his theory that the people in the rooms were captives held against their will.
Moving down an unlit hall lined with old apartments, he tested one of the doors by waving his gauntlet over the access panel. Normal tech would have either opened the door or announced a ringtone that someone was visiting. Neither happened. Instead all Rechs got was the panel turning red and a ghostly hologram asking him for a passkey.
Locked from the outside.
Rechs debated what to do. They were safer trapped in there if the rescue turned into a firefight. But leaving them in the hands of terrorists looking to make a point could make them the next sacrificial victim once Rechs had deprived the Soshies of the leej and the marine.
He checked the panel. He could hack it from here, but not without burning up a lot of time. He needed to find the central security panel.
But first he needed to find out what was going on.
He moved toward a balcony that sat off of a grand room, the sort that looked to be the epicenter of parties long ago. His sensors indicated that a sentry was standing on a similar balcony directly above him. Rechs dropped his tac bag, set down his blaster, and engaged the armor’s stealth systems. Then he stepped to the edge of the balcony and began to climb to the next one up using the powered armor to dig himself a grip.
Like a trap eel, Rechs lunged upward, grabbed the sentry by his carrying harness, and yanked him over the railing. At the same moment, with all his might, he added to the man’s momentum by yanking him down onto the balcony below. The sound of his neck breaking as he
