Desperate Measures Chapter 16

Chapter Fourteen

Erik was annoyed and had die-hard plans to

continue

being annoyed.

When a freelancer is asked to commit violence, he wants to use the best tools—the ones he’d trained with and gotten used to in a high-ops-tempo environment.

All the complaints about having to use a standard-model exo vanished when Erik strapped into the machine offered by the colonel. The concerns about his recent training felt petty and distant, like they’d come from someone else.

The exo was comfortable and familiar, like a beloved family member showing up at a reunion. The Army might not always use the latest, greatest cutting-edge machinery, but every weapon system employed by soldiers in the field was battle-tested and

reliable

.

Sometimes sacrificing features for reliability helped a soldier win a battle.

Erik grinned as he remembered that truth, thinking about his TR-7. He used the weapon both out of habit and because of its reliability. Sometimes a man could get the best of both worlds, but today he’d settle for the Army exo with a very solid grenade launcher.

All the other men and women gathered in the back of the cargo flitter waited in their exos for the drop. He didn’t know if they weren’t normally a chatty bunch, or if they didn’t feel comfortable talking in front of him and Jia.

During his time with the Knights Errant, he’d enjoyed the last-minute banter before a battle. He’d looked forward to it. If someone died in battle, he wanted his last real conversation with them to be something funny and interesting. That way, he could carry their memories with them for eternity.

The cool weight of his dog tag rested against his chest. He didn’t think about much each morning when he put it on, but it was not something he ever forgot.

It was a symbol of his promise to the men and women of his unit during those days when he wasn’t about to jump out of the back of a cargo flitter and go after the people responsible for their deaths.

The cargo flitter skimmed the treetops, flying low and fast. Erik watched course updates on his faceplate display. Their drop zone was seven klicks away from the mansion.

Emma’s dense drone swarm looked like some sort of mistake on the display. She’d broken the initial mass apart and was circling the target, her extensions weaving through the trees. They would soon rise to draw the enemy’s attention. They might have been noticed, but there was no reaction from the mansion.

Erik took a slow, deep breath and let it out. He’d said more than once that fighting was the one thing he knew he was good at.

It had defined his life.

His only major vacation from battle lasted only for the length of his trip back to Earth from Molino. He’d been fighting ever since, but his raids as a cop, even the ones working for Alina, hadn’t felt the same as being in the military.

He’d worked alongside soldiers in some, but he felt more like the contractor showing up to help them out.

Things had been different recently. The Hunter ship op and the current one sent him straight back to his Army days. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

That was why he didn’t like the tug in the back of his mind. It wasn’t the Lady. It wasn’t some strange sixth sense. That would be easy to ignore or push off.

This was something different. The feeling wiggling into the back of his thought was born of decades of experience shaped by life-or-death struggles where deadly decisions had to be made in seconds. Sometimes ignoring the illogical meant ignoring a vital detail your subconscious had noticed.

Erik established a direct channel to Colonel Adeyemi and Jia. He was in command of the mission, but these were Adeyemi’s men.

“We sure about this op, Colonel?” he asked. “Something about it is bothering me.”

“Sure?” The colonel snorted. “Hell, no. This is all heavily relying on the ID, and Koval came to me because it’s been compromised. This is textbook desperation based on half-ass intel. If it didn’t involve the conspiracy, I wouldn’t be involved.”

Erik worried about that. Vengeance could blind a man, but he didn’t believe Adeyemi would throw away the lives of the loyal soldiers who served under him.

“Is something wrong, Erik?” Jia asked.

“Something’s bothering me about all this,” Erik admitted. “The conspiracy is staggering from our hits, and they had to assume there would have been a tracker in someone like Ahmed. But they didn’t bother to do anything about it until the ID figured out where he’d been taken.”

“You think it’s a trap?” Jia concluded. She sounded more curious than worried.

Emma’s drones formed a complete circle about four kilometers out from the target. They were waiting for the cargo flitter to move closer before charging. Erik doubted the enemy could fail to notice that many drones that close. Playing dumb and innocent might make sense for the occasional flyby, but an entire squadron of drones meant an attack. The plan partially required the enemy to focus on those drones, too.

Was he worrying too much?

Colonel Adeyemi grunted in frustration. “I’ve been wondering the same thing, but the conspiracy also couldn’t be sure we wouldn’t blow the hell out of the place from the sky. It’s in the middle of nowhere, which makes it a lot easier to be loud without explaining things away. Alina might believe in old-school honor, but not everyone in the ID does.”

“I know,” Erik replied. “That’s what’s bothering me. It’s not worth it to weave some elaborate trap to take down a couple of squads or some agents. They would have to really want to take the risk. I don’t care how much they’ve prepped things, there’s always a chance they’ve left evidence behind that we can use, and any crumb that gets us closer to them means we can throw more forces at them.”

Jia let out a rueful chuckle. “I can think of one thing the enemy wants. Something that would be worth a scheme to kill a handful of people.”

“Alien artifacts?” Erik guessed.

“No. If Ahmed knew about that kind of thing, Alina would have told us, and I think the colonel’s right. There’s a good chance that some people in the ID would be more than willing to risk losing him rather than let the conspiracy get a line on any more artifacts.”

Erik could understand. They’d taken a tremendous personal risk to stop the Hunter ship. Everybody aboard the

Argo

and

Bifröst

could have been killed by their nested jump trick.

He’d made the call, and he stood by it. He didn’t know if he could judge others if they made the same call, but at least he’d been willing to put his skin on the line.

The cargo flitter’s positional indicator got closer to the mansion. They didn’t have much time left for an abort. They’d gone over squad assignments right after loading up. Everyone was prepped and ready to go, but they’d discussed emergency exfil under jamming conditions, not aborting the whole op.

“If not artifacts, then what?” Erik demanded.

“Us,” Jia suggested. “You and me, the big reoccurring factor involved in a lot of these plans. Alina already said the ID is watching our backs, which means the conspiracy will have trouble coming at us directly without risking leaving a trail. But a nice, juicy trap with nice, juicy bait?”

Erik’s jaw tightened. Sometimes a unit had to move into a dangerous ambush location for the overall goals of the operation. People engaged in the fine art of killing other people could rarely make it risk-free.

“That’s a guess,” Colonel Adeyemi complained. “People make mistakes. The ID does, and Lord knows the military does. If the conspiracy was flawless, they wouldn’t have taken any losses.”

If they scrubbed the mission, they might not be able to get an off-the-books military team like this together again for some time. Colonel Adeyemi had taken a lot of risks to help Erik and Jia, including using his clout to discourage the military from trying to recover Emma. Every time he did anything, there was a risk.

They couldn’t quit because of a bad feeling. There was no way they’d win against the conspiracy that way, and if it came down to it, Erik was more than willing to hold the line while the squad retreated.

Erik transmitted to the entire squad. “Listen up. I have reason to believe we might be coming in hot despite our distraction and our distant drop zone. Emma’s drones will help, but I want every man and woman ready to shoot before we’re on the ground.” He turned the exo toward the bay door. “We’ve got three minutes before Emma initiates the distraction and then two minutes before the drop. Try to not pee yourself, and remember, a good soldier doesn’t die for their cause.”

“What do they do, then?” asked a soldier.

“It’s like General Patton said. They make the other son of a bitch die for theirs.”

The soldiers chuckled. Erik couldn’t see their faces behind their helmets and faceplates, but he had a feed of their vitals. Mild elevation in some, nothing out of the ordinary. Everyone was ready to fight, for Colonel Adeyemi, for the UTC, for themselves. The information was motivation, nothing more.

Erik regulated his breathing and waited for the seconds to tick by. He’d command this raid the way he’d lived his life: first one in, last one out.