One of the Sub Zeros – a man with a cinderblock helmet and T-shaped visor – stepped up alongside me. Like the others, his ID tag was an ominous blur in my shib, Classified Intel blinking up when I tried to access it further. He was a ghost. A bloody wraith that existed only to complete Harmony’s most sordid tasks across the Common. ‘There must be some evidence remaining. One way or another, we’ll find it. Even if we have to tear this whole building down.’
I’m no saint, never will be. But something in his quiet, rumbling voice chilled me.
We walked down a hallway slathered in stuttering blue light from a malfunctioning adboard outside the viewport, describing some well-to-do place called Cloudstern. I’d fooled myself into thinking this’d be easy; that the biggest challenge would be protecting my brother while we wrapped the culprits up with a bow. War taught me there’s only so many times you get to make that mistake.
My armour cranked and wheezed around me as I hiked up the stairwell, loud enough to grab Saren’s attention. The Rubix and the armour-piercing rounds had screwed up the circuitry and servomechanisms big-time, and the HUD was locked in a constant spasm. Among all the elite soldiers outfitted in top-notch gear, I found myself annoyed at being the one stuck wearing damaged armour.
I’d been right, though. They had left something behind. We found the cradle, sitting like a gaping silver jaw, limb restraints popped open, gill-like grooves flickering with a sickly green. I could so easily still be strapped into it, my brains being slowly turned inside out. I saw the others keeping a careful distance from it, as if it might lunge out and grab them if they got too close.
Not Jasken. He grunted and smashed the fuse box on the side with the butt of his autorifle. The cradle’s steady hum spluttered and died out as everyone stared at him. He shrugged, propped a casual knee on the armrest and turned his skullface helmet towards us. ‘It ain’t going to bite.’
‘How long were you held here for?’ Kowalski asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, my voice hoarse, flesh tingling at the relived memory. ‘They were waiting for someone to come and interrogate me. They never said who, but they were determined to know who I was working for.’
As I could have predicted, all the servers, substrates and memory crystals had been stripped clean. Even the broken nightware casing was gone, leaving the memories of my torture and escape behind to stir my body up. With my hearing sharpened, the heavy footsteps of the Sub Zeros before me were marginally louder. But it was just an echo of my full sensory capacities on the battlefield, when my body had fired on all cylinders. Kowalski was two steps ahead, orchestrating the search. Between her instructions I heard a sound I couldn’t ignore, like the faintest scratching at the back of my skull.
Kowalski shot a glance at me. ‘We should look—’
I broke into a run and tackled her to the floor as the razornade we’d been standing on activated. A controlled explosion of slashing nanometal wires writhed like a squirming monster, catching the gunrunner behind us. He screamed as the nanoflaked edges sliced him apart, cutting through armour, skin and bone like cheese wire. A burst of red and he was smeared thick on the walls and floor, his right arm thunking near my foot with a clean-sliced, chalky bone jutting out.
We picked ourselves up as everyone backed away. Only the Sub Zeros seemed unshaken. The glinting wires settled to the ground like lifeless tentacles. ‘They knew we’d come,’ I said, thick ropes of blood dripping from the ceiling.
Jasken stooped down to poke at the razornade, ignoring everyone’s instructions to do the opposite. ‘That’s darkmarket munitions tech, military-grade. Heavy ordnance. Blade Hunters plant these on their hulls to stop hijackers,’ he said, referring to the mercenaries and pirates that roamed the lawless fringes of the Common.
‘I’m not going to ask how you know that,’ Saren muttered.
‘Doesn’t matter where the trap came from right now. What matters is there could be more,’ Kowalski said. ‘Infrared and subsonic detectors on, now. Find the rest of these.’ She laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. It was shaking, just slightly, as she offered that half smile of hers. ‘Thanks for that.’
‘Any time,’ I said. Paused. ‘Well, maybe not.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Maybe not.’
A few minutes more of searching and we struck diamond. ‘That’s it,’ I said, pointing to a doorway. ‘The door guarded by nanoflakes.’ Though the dangerous barrier in question was long gone.
‘No more mines or razornades in the area,’ Saren said, but we were too focused to listen. A grey smudge flickered past the doorframe.
Someone was still inside.
Holes exploded in the doorframe and sizzled past us, the distinct smell of ozone wafting out. We scrambled to hug the walls as whoever was inside unloaded their firepower. When it was empty and we heard the dull click, I charged forward, splintering through the weakened door to find Hausk staring at me down the sights of his particle blaster. I’m a hard guy to miss, and he recognised me in an instant.
We moved at the same time. Him throwing the empty blaster in my face, me lunging for him. He rammed me aside and punched Kuen in the neck, kicked him backwards into two more Shocktroopers. He might have even escaped, only Jasken casually thrust his leg out, killing his momentum and sending him stumbling straight into a Sub Zero’s fist. I felt the blow in my bones as Hausk was punched to the ground, his slingshiv clattering away.
‘Oops,’ said Jasken.
‘Bad, bad move,’ whispered the Sub Zero as he hauled Hausk to his feet. ‘You really shouldn’t have done that.’
Kowalski stood in front of Hausk while they restrained him with electracuffs. ‘You’ve got one chance to make your life much easier.’ I could hear her biting back her rage. ‘Talk.
