“You fucking broke my ankle!”
“No. You just have a bad sprain. Might slow you down for three or four days. I suggest you find a cave to hole up in for the night. The wildlife isn’t particularly tame in these parts.”
Kira took the RB from me and pointed it at Zulch. “Now start moving before we change our minds!”
“I have an idea,” Grannt said.
“What kind of idea?” I asked.
“A better idea than a frontal assault.”
Major Leocald Grannt, Ret. detailed his plan. It was a good one. Much better than my own half-baked plan to fly the shuttle into Vortis and start shooting. But it would take some prep work. And we’d need TenSix’s help. Big time.
“You sure you can do this?” I asked the bot.
“With your help, Jannigan Beck, yes.”
“Well, let’s get to it.”
We had to remove the navigation unit from the Mayir launch and rewire it so it would receive a remote controlling signal from Caebach’s shuttle. Then we recalibrated scanners and adjusted the bands on comm modules.
“Guys, we’re running out of time!” Kira said. She had changed out of the bright prisoner jumpsuit into Zulch’s uniform. But Grannt still wore his jumpsuit, which was several sizes too small for him.
“Two more voltaic inductors and we’re done,” I said. “Right, TenSix?”
“Three.”
While we were working on the comm and guidance systems, Grannt was hacking the launch’s power grid, routing lines to the bow of the craft. It wasn’t pretty, but it might just work.
The last thing we had to do was pre-record some outgoing messages that we’d trigger at the appropriate time. Kira did her best to mimic Zulch’s tone and speech patterns. Hopefully her impersonation would hold up. I worked to load the messages into the comm system.
“Now, guys!” Kira shouted. “We’re out of time.”
“Okay, I’m good here,” I said, as I flicked through screens on the shuttle’s datapad.
“Good here,” came TenSix’s voice from the Mayir shuttle. “Heading to you.”
“Ninety more seconds for me,” Grannt said, over the comm.
Several minutes later we were all back on Caebach’s shuttle and lifting off from the dusty plain.
“Now we see if this thing actually works,” I said.
“It will work,” TenSix said.
“We’ll see,” Grannt said.
But TenSix was right. The remote nav of the Mayir launch worked perfectly. While Grannt flew the shuttle we were on, I remotely flew the Mayir launch. Kira was glued to our nav scopes.
“What’s the range of the remote?” I asked.
“Approximately five kilometers,” TenSix said.
“We’re going to have to do this just right,” Grannt said.
I’d say we scored a solid eight out of ten.
The Mayir launch came in hot, broadcasting my prerecorded mayday messages about a messed-up coidic nanocontroller.
We had already landed the shuttle in a rocky valley, a klick and a half from Vortis, and were advancing on the facility. I was schlepping the remote from the shuttle which was still controlling the launch.
“Hang on, guys,” I said. “Almost there. I need to concentrate.”
The Vortis ground crew sounded more and more frantic as the “out of control” shuttle flew closer.
“Make sure you hit that tower,” Grannt said from over my shoulder.
“I know. I’ve already locked on to it.”
A minute later the Mayir launch careened into the central landing bay on Vortis, jackknifing into the security tower at the far end of the launch pad.
We saw the plume of black smoke from our location, like a dark gash running through an otherwise picturesque sunset.
“Go, go, go!” Kira yelled.
We grabbed our weapons and raced towards the facility. From what I could make out in the fading light, Vortis was a series of domed buildings connected by enclosed access tubes. While most of the domes stood one or two stories tall, a central core rose up towards the center of the complex, towering ten or more stories. To the west of the main complex the landing bay perched a dozen meters over the tops of the domes. That’s where all the commotion was.
Even from this distance we saw the glow of a burning fire and heard the blaring alarms and sirens. From the chatter over the comm unit we had taken from Zulch, the Mayir definitely thought that they were under attack. Squads of armored troopers converged on the area.
Part 1 of the mission accomplished.
Grannt led the way, zigzagging through the perimeter of the complex. Thankfully there were no walls or fences in this area, just the solar arrays, comm towers, and outbuildings that surrounded the maze of domed buildings and access tubes.
“There!” Grannt said, pointing to a small squat building that wasn’t much bigger than a shed. “Security hut. Looks abandoned, but let me go first.”
While Kira, TenSix, and I crouched beside a utility substation, Grannt approached the hut. He used Zulch’s key-stick to open the secure door and a moment later he signaled us to join him.
The guard station’s interior was cramped, with two cots, an equipment locker, and—most importantly—a data console.
“Put the bot to work,” Grannt said to Kira. “Plans, schematics, prisoner records—anything to help us find where they might be keeping your parents. I’ll keep watch!”
“On it!” she said, helping TenSix connect to the console.
I turned to the equipment locker—which wasn’t locked, thank Dynark—and examined its contents. Some of the guns had been removed, but there was still a Perrault 500 series pump scatterblaster in the locker—as well as several packs of electro-caltrops and a pair of shally sticks. They might come in handy.
I offered the Perrault to Grannt because he looked like a scatterblaster kind of guy. He took it without saying a word and checked the charge. It was an automatic movement that made me think that he was no stranger to this kind of weapon.
“Any luck?” I asked Kira.
“Not yet,” she said.
“Actually,” TenSix said, “I think I found something.”
Kira and I crowded around the console as TenSix navigated through the Vortis RT-status system.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Prisoner log,” he said. “I found Biella and Thastus Lark!”
“Really?” Kira asked.
“Yes. I also found Professor Griffin.”
“That’s great!” I exclaimed.
“No, it
