The Firing Line

Prologue-2

Turning to look over his shoulder, Jack felt his mouth tighten. “You sure you want to be here for this?” he asked. “You didn’t ask for a pack of fugitives to show up on your doorstep. I think you’ve done enough.”

It surprised him when she chuckled. Somehow, the question had turned her scowl into a smile. “Happy to help,” she said. “Someone’s got to tell you if they do try to trace the call.”

The inner chamber was almost pitch black, but Jack could sense the contours of every wall. There was a small lump in the floor. That seemed to be as good a place as any. He took position.

A few taps at his multi-tool initiated the call, and then a hologram rippled into existence. Jack found himself looking at a man of average height who gave off a young Manny Jacinto vibe. “Lieutenant Sinosa?” he said.

The other man looked over his shoulder as if checking to see if anyone was coming up behind him and then returned his attention to Jack. “Agent Hunter,” he said. “Thanks for meeting with me.”

“What’s this about?”

“I want to join you.”

Jack felt creases lining his brow. “You want to be a fugitive,” he said, stepping forward. “Forgive me, but I’m gonna need a show of good faith before we discuss any formal arrangements.”

Lieutenant Sinosa shut his eyes, trembling, and then nodded as if he had expected exactly that. “I know,” he said. “And I can do it. I work security at Fort Obram. We have over one hundred fifty detainees here and more arriving every day.”

“So, what are you planning?”

“I’m going to free them.”

Crossing his arms, Jack c****d his head and answered the man with a raised eyebrow. “Well,” he said. “That would be impressive.”

“I can do it.”

“And we can help you.”

“Sir?”

Turning away from the hologram, Jack clasped his hands behind his back and paced to the cave wall. “My team attacks Fort Zadrak,” he began. “If we make enough of a fuss, they’ll start bringing in reinforcements from other bases. That should give you a chance to free the prisoners at Fort Obram.”

He couldn’t sense the hologram – it wasn’t solid – but the apprehension in Sinosa’s voice was unmistakable. “Be careful, sir,” the man said. “We received a new shipment of security drones yesterday. I couldn’t get much of a look at them, but they’re not like any I’ve seen before.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Jack said. “We’ll be in touch.”

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust when the hologram vanished, but he could see the outline of Sun waiting for him in the tunnel. “You know you can’t give him the Gate address for Project Resilient, right?” she asked. “For all we know, those ‘prisoners’ he intends to free are actually a team of commandos coming to wipe us out.”

“That’s why he won’t be coming to Project Resilient.”

“Then where will you be sending them?”

Jack shrugged, then grinned as he looked around the cave. “Right here seems good enough,” he said. “We find an area big enough to hold a SlipGate, and we use that to bring the people through.”

“And then…How do we know these prisoners are who they say they are?”

“Good thing I have a telepath on staff,” Jack replied. “Those we can verify come back with us. If anyone turns out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing…”

“Yes?”

“Stun ’em,” Jack said. “Leave ’em here.”

Day 9

A hologram floated in a room with red-stone walls, a top-down image of several blocky buildings surrounded by a forest of conifers. A road slithered past in front of the base, and behind it, a river followed a parallel course.

Jack stood over the hologram with a hand over his mouth, murmuring to himself. “This should work,” he said, pacing around the image. “Probably our best candidate, all things considered.”

Cassi stood on the other side of the floating map, scowling as she inspected it. “Pretty heavily fortified,” she muttered. “But I guess they all are now that they know we’re coming.”

They were interrupted by the hiss of the door opening, and then Sun came in with a strawberry tart on a small plate. “Figured you could use a snack,” she said, handing it to Cassi. “You went rushing out of the mess hall when the doofus here called you.”

“Hey!” Jack protested.

Rounding on him with fists on her hips, Sun showed him a toothy grin. “The poor woman’s been through enough, don’t you think?” she asked. “You could at least let her finish her dinner before you drag her down here to see your latest cockamamie scheme.”

“I didn’t know she was eating!”

Cassi blushed and then cleared her throat quite audibly. “I, um…” she stammered. “I thought the kitchen was all out of these.”

“It was,” Sun confessed. “Brinden is a friend of mine. I asked him to make more.”

Taking a bite, Cassi shut her eyes and then moaned with satisfaction as she chewed. Did she notice the way Sun kept smiling at her? “Thank you,” she murmured. “I thought I was gonna go to bed hungry.”

“You will if you let Doofus order you around,” Sun muttered, but it was an absent comment. Her attention was focused on the hologram. “I thought you told Lieutenant Sinosa that you were going to attack Fort Zadrak. This is a map of Aerin Heights.”

“And if Sinosa is a mole,” Jack replied. “Then Fort Zadrak will have a whole lot of security officers waiting for us when we come through the Gate. Compartmentalization of information: it’s the only way to win a guerilla war.”

“And how do you know so much about guerilla warfare?”

Biting his lip, Jack felt his eyebrows rising. “Not sure I do,” he admitted. “But I’m good at analyzing systems and finding their weak points. Just part of my general hatred of order and stability.”

“So, you’re gonna attack Aerin Heights?”

“It’s the ideal target for this mission,” Jack explained. “Your intel on the facility has two SlipGate Chambers: one on the east side of the main building and one on the west side. We don’t know which one they’ll use to bring us in, but it doesn’t matter. If we take and hold one Gate, they’ll use the other to start bringing in reinforcements. Sinosa will have an opportunity to make his move.”

Cassi was chewing the last of her dessert as she studied the map. “I still say that we should try to free the prisoners,” she insisted. “Why pass up the opportunity?”

Clenching his teeth with a hiss, Jack shook his head. “Can’t,” he said. “I hear you, Cass, but we’re talking about over two hundred prisoners and only one Gate. That kind of bottleneck would leave us at the mercy of their security team.”

He made his way around the hologram with his hands in his pockets, heaving out a breath. “This is a simple hit and run,” he went on. “We show up, make enough noise to put them on high alert and then get the hell outta there.”

“Yeah…”

“Which reminds me,” Jack said. “Will the program work?”

With a quick spin on her heel, Sun put herself right in front of him. She looked up into his eyes and then nodded once. “Agent Loranai’s software is quite ingenious,” she said. “I will have to modify it to display Lieutenant Sinosa’s physical parameters instead of Grecken Slade’s, but it should fool them.”

“Good,” Jack said. “Then the plan is simple. We send a hologram of me modified to look like Sinosa. If the security codes that he gave us are valid, they should open their SlipGate. If not, we’ll abort.”

“Let’s do it,” Cassi said.

Day 11

The SlipGate bubble arrived in a large room with white walls, and to Jack’s relief, there was only one blurry figure in green on the other side of the console. “Get ready,” he told the others.

The whole team was here: Harry and Corovin, Arin and Cassi. And Larani too. Everyone except Keli. She had been sent to the rendezvous site to scan the prisoners that Sinosa brought in from Fort Obram.

Pedro and Novol were present as well along with several former prisoners whom they insisted were ready for combat. Jack didn’t know any of their names. He would have to remedy that situation later. Their job was to hold the Gate Room while the strike team made trouble.

The bubble popped.

The man behind the console – a skinny guy in his early twenties – looked up and gasped when he saw that Leyria’s most notorious terrorist was now standing twenty feet away from him. “Intruder aler-”

Drawing his pistol with inhuman speed, Jack pointed right at the young fool. He fired once, releasing a single bullet that struck the man’s unprotected chest and delivered a powerful jolt of electricity.

The Gate officer spasmed several times, dancing backward until he hit the wall, and then his body fell to the floor with a thump. “Nice to meet you too,” Jack said. “Come on, gang. Let’s go wake the neighbours.”

He was out the door in an instant with Corovin hot on his heels. Cassi was right behind him and then Arin. Harry and Larani stayed behind so that the Gate Team would have two enhanced individuals for support.

The corridors had gray walls, but Jack noted the thick, purple stripe at waist-level. Purple meant they were on the west side of the building. Which meant the mess hall was just around the corner.

Cassi and Arin turned right, rushing off down the hallway together. Those two had been thick as thieves lately. He wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that. Maybe they had found some common ground.

Jack went left, and Corovin followed.

The other man was a slow, lumbering tank, his every step producing a whirring sound. Even with mechanized armour, human limbs could only move so quickly, and it wasn’t long before Corovin fell behind. “We should stay together!” he called out.

Racing through the corridor at top speed, Jack gritted his teeth and shook his head. “Negative!” he barked. “Stay here! Hold the Gate! I got this!”

He went around a corner on his right into another hallway that was pretty much identical to the one he had left behind. It was completely empty except for two men in green uniforms who both reached for their sidearms.

He stunned them both before either man could draw his pistol and then pressed on, deeper into the building. After passing an intersection, he came to a set of double doors on his right.

Working the handle, he kicked one open and stepped into a large room shaped like a trapezoid with the wall behind him longer than the one ahead. The ends of gray, plastic tables were pressed against the slate wall to his left, each one jutting out at an oblique angle.

On his right, a serving counter was operated by several robots that seemed to be built into the ceiling. The air was hot and dry and threaded with the scent of some kind of marinated meat.

There were about half a dozen people still seated at the tables, base personnel who were finishing up a late lunch. Every last one of them was in a green uniform, and so far as he could see, none wore body armour.

As if to announce his presence, the alarms started blaring and red lights on the wall began to flash. A dark-skinned man with his back to the door twisted around and cursed when he saw who had come to pay them a visit.

A blonde woman on the far side of the room was out of her seat in a heartbeat, reaching for her gun.

Jack leaped, flipping through the air and landing on the nearest table. He extended his hand and fired once.