There’s a pause and then Surber says, reluctantly, “Yes, sir.”
Yes. Sir.
I look at Winters expectantly. This isn’t the sort of situation where you actually have to ask the question. The question is assumed. Because it’s so big there’s nothing else you can talk about.
Winters knows this too. He nods at me once and says, “I’m Arkaddy Nilo.”
“Twarg dung,” scoffs Easy. “Ain’t no way you’re Big Nee.”
The kid shrugs as if to say it doesn’t matter what Elias Aguilar thinks about who he is. He’s still standing there. Still Big Nee.
I’ve never seen our boss in person. But evidently, Lana has.
“He’s not lying,” she says. “I got wind of who I’d be working for before taking this job. I looked him up.”
I look from Lana to Nilo. “So you’re the boss. And you want us to take out this objective.”
“Need is more like it,” Nilo says.
“Well, Alpha Team needs us, too. Nobody else is going to come for them. What’s the objective?”
“Communications room,” answers Nilo. “One that can’t be used or everything done so far is undone.”
“Fine. I’ll clear the room and you can stay with me to make sure it gets done right. Everybody else moves to support Alpha Team.”
Nilo looks at the room. I don’t know if he game planned how this would all work out. If he figured we’d all just fall in line or what. Hell, I don’t know myself what the right thing to do is. I’m torn between not leaving Alpha Team to get killed and doing what I was hired to do. Splitting up my team seems like the only way to do both.
“Good,” Nilo says. “That’s fine.”
I’m a bit taken aback by how quickly he agrees. Maybe he’s not bluffing about how important knocking out this last objective is. Which means, I’m probably not ever going to get another opportunity like this.
“Okay,” I say. “And you also clear my team’s debts and double our salaries. Paid in advance.”
Nilo is watching me, like he’s maybe waiting to see if I’m done. I begin to second-guess what I just did in two directions, unsure if I should have asked for more or if I made a terrible mistake.
The room is dead quiet now except for the sounds of weapons fire. My team keeps looking from Nilo and me to the temple, but no zhee are coming. I’m fairly sure that what donks are left inside this building are having it out with Alpha Team or waiting for us in the commo room.
A slight smile comes to Nilo’s lips. “Done.”
“Holy sket,” Easy murmurs.
I nod at the boss. The kid. And then I move to the objective door, fishing out a slicer box to prep for breach.
“Lash, move to relieve Alpha Team. Let Hopper know you’re coming.”
“On it, Carter.”
The big man takes point and leads Easy and Lana out of the room.
I look up at Nilo, half expecting him to be fuming. I just cost him a lot of credits. Well, a lot of credits for a guy like me.
The kid sees me looking. “Well played, Carter. There was a reason why I chose your team to work with, you know.”
I don’t know what to say about that.
16
The slicer box winks its green light at me and we’re ready to open this door. The only problem is, I have no idea what to expect on the other side.
Nilo has his helmet back on and is stacked on the opposite side of the door, waiting for it to hiss open so he can go through the clearing exercises. He probably spent a lot of credits learning how to do it to Legion standards, so I don’t want to keep him from making use of it for too long. But there are some things I need to know first. Things that would have been covered in a proper planning session, if this outfit ever bothered with them.
“We’re ready, Nilo. Who is waiting for us on the other side?”
“Possibly zhee. Possibly no one. The idea was to get in and neutralize the comm room before they had a chance to let the zhee running things from Subiyook know who was attacking them. It’s critical they don’t know it’s us.”
I grab a fragger from my rig. “You toss one in too. Then we take the room.”
Nilo hesitates.
“Is there something we need to recover in there? A reason we can’t use these?”
“No. I don’t think so. Maybe, but…”
I frown. “I’m gonna throw these in unless you tell me I can’t.”
“Do it.”
“Ooah.”
Nilo sounds like he smiles when he says, “KTF, right?”
“Don’t push it,” I say.
The door quietly slides open and the two of us toss in our fraggers and pop back out of the threshold, hugging the wall as the grenades do their dual-detonation and each send a pair of tight, concentric blasts of shrapnel into the room.
I turn the corner and move smoothly into the room, my nostrils filling with an acrid mixture of burning circuitry, ozone, and donk musk. Nilo is right behind me.
The room is small. Just a polished table for holoprojections in the middle and a far wall taken up by a complex comm array. Some of the shrapnel from the grenades has left holes in the holoscreens, which are relaying a recording of fighting elsewhere in the compound. Thin tendrils of smoke wisp up from a ruined console—like one of the fraggers landed on it before blowing up. Something full of wires pops and sends a shower of sparks down on top of the mane of an old-looking donk in pristine white robes—the room’s only survivor.
The old donk ignores the electronic embers choking out in his silver-streaked mane. There’s a workstation between him and me, and I can tell he’s kneeling, his head and shoulders just at the console level. The donk is randomly pressing buttons on the console and braying in his zhee language—like he knows what the comm station is for but
