Reclaiming Rebus
Rebus Station, Terra
Critch scanned the building across the street through his binoculars.
"Are they set up yet?" Birk asked at Critch's side on the warehouse roof.
"Not yet. They're running late. Lucky for them, Seda's also running late. Can't anything get done on time around here?"
"Looks like our friends in the Collective Unified Forces are right on schedule," Birk said. "Seventeen minutes after the motion sensors were triggered."
Critch glanced down to see a patrol car turn onto the street below. He scowled and looked back across the street. Still no sign of his other team.
"What do we do?" his right-hand man asked.
He read his wrist comm. No update from Seda Faulk. If Critch moved now, the stationmaster could be on his own. If Critch waited, they'd blow their chance at taking the warehouse district. He put away his binoculars, and then motioned to the team waiting behind him on the roof. "Showtime."
He heard footsteps as his team took off running across the roof to move into positions on the lower floors.
Birk lifted the portable photon cannon and rested it on the roof's edge. He took his time as he aimed at the patrol car.
Critch waited and watched in perfect stillness. Inside, his heart raced. Adrenaline was pulsing through every muscle, and he was ready to leap up at any second.
Birk fired. The beam hit the patrol car in the center. The vehicle exploded in beautiful blue and orange flames. Death to the occupants would've been instantaneous.
Critch leapt to his feet and helped Birk strap the large cannon onto his back. They ran across the roof. When they reached the door, he checked the time. They had roughly thirty-eight seconds before the gunships would arrive, and another six minutes before military vans would arrive.
Birk was first through the door, with Critch right behind him. They hustled down the stairs, all nine flights, until they reached the ground floor. The increasing sounds of loud engines rattled the windows. As a pair of gunships approached the district, Critch and Birk dove under a waterbed that had been propped up on two-by-fours.
Critch check his comm. Thirty-nine seconds. Not bad.
The gunships all but skimmed the buildings as they scanned for heat signatures. When the planes didn't fire, Critch felt himself relax ever so slightly. He knew then that his teams had all reached their positions in time, hiding under waterbeds to camouflage their body heat.
When the gunships swooped in for a second pass, cannon fire blasted upward from windows in the warehouse across the street. Critch rolled out from under the camouflage to see the first gunship explode. The second gunship lost a wing, and it spiraled into the ground, exploding upon impact. Windows shattered, and Critch shielded his face from flying glass shards.
He shook his head at the CUF's obstinate adherence to standard operating procedures. He knew gunships always flew two passes to scan for heat signatures. The CUF likely assumed insurgents would move after the first pass, that their targets would think they were then safe. What the CUF didn't assume was that torrents had studied the military's routines. The first pass gave Critch's teams time to acquire moving targets in their automated sights, and the second pass gave them the opportunity to produce an impressive fireworks display.
More gunships would come, but Critch knew the CUF kept only two ships on standby. By the time they finally got around to sending more, the vanloads of dromadiers would already be deployed and in the middle of a maelstrom.
He checked his wrist comm. Eight minutes. He tapped it to open his team's channel. "Be ready for ducks in eight."
Birk moved to the window, where two old style rifles were propped. He brushed off broken glass, picked up both weapons, and handed one to Critch.
Critch checked the gun to make sure the explosion hadn't damaged it. Satisfied, he gave Birk a nod. "Stay low. For some reason, Throttle likes that ugly mug of yours."
"Your mug is so ugly a vig would run squealing from you," Birk replied drily.
Critch grinned and turned from Birk, and jogged across the warehouse floor. The spot he'd picked earlier was now blocked by the burning tail of a gunship, and so he went a few windows down. He moved into position and waited. He checked his comm every few seconds. When it was time, he reported out, "Ducks in two. Eyes peeled."
Critch hated waiting, but so much of every battle was waiting, with short bursts of insane chaos. He felt at home in the chaos, when everything was reflexive, when he didn't have time to think or second-guess himself. It was the time after the battle he hated most, when his mind replayed snapshots, and the second-guessing began. Not that he'd ever admit to others that such thoughts crossed his mind. To the torrent army, he was scar-faced Drake Fender, fearless torrent marshal and cold-blooded killer. His unwavering drive gave them confidence. And if the torrents were to have a shot at taking Rebus Station, they needed every bit of confidence they could get.
He heard the vans before he saw them cut through the smoky street. The CUF had sent three vans this time. Three squads of droms.
"Sitting ducks," Critch announced into his wrist comm. He took a step back from the window, settled down on a knee, and adjusted his scope on the first van coming to a stop outside.
The droms poured out of the vans, using long clear shields as protection. The shields were designed to ward off photon blasts, and could hold up against small caliber gunfire. Today would be the first time the droms on Terra would experience fire from sniper rifles.
He found his target. His finger moved to the trigger. A drom to the right of his target fell, and the others looked around, confused. The gunshot had come from Critch's side. Birk. Critch didn't fire yet. Instead, he waited until he slowly exhaled before he pulled the trigger. His target went down immediately.
He moved to his next target. By now, the remaining droms realized their shields and body armor weren't protecting them, and they ran for cover. Critch kept his breath steady and smoothly tracked his running target. He fired, and another drom fell.
By the time he'd made his third kill, there were no more easy marks. The remaining soldiers had found cover and were now returning fire. Critch reloaded. Unable to find a target, he ran through the warehouse to get a better angle. He saw Birk was taking fire, and so he rushed up to a window to find the source.
There.
Two droms were firing nonstop photon blasts from the warehouse across the street. Critch squinted and then lined up his sight on a drom's shoulder. The round would likely result in a wound rather than a kill, but if he didn't take the shot, the droms would hit Birk out of sheer quantity of blasts, rather than by skill.
He fired. The drom disappeared behind the wall. Then a barrage of return fire came in Critch's direction. He dropped to the floor, grunting when he landed hard on his rifle.
The sounds of engines drowned out the gunfire, and Critch scowled. He'd planned to have the three squads taken care of before more ships arrived. Their odds had suddenly dropped. He heard the gunships fire, and he wondered if the pilots knew if they were firing at torrents or at their own droms.
Critch was safe from heat-sensors as long the photon blasts cooked up the area around him enough to make sweat run down his face and back.
He tapped his wrist comm to make the call for backup.
Hari's visage appeared. "You ready for me?"
"It's getting hot down here," he yelled.
"On my way. I'll be there to cool things down in thirty seconds."
He disconnected, and crawled across the floor to get away from the gunfire. The droms kept firing nonstop at any target they could zero in on. The thing about photon fire was, they could fire at a building long enough to burn a hole through a wall to get to the target on the other side. He was lucky the warehouse was built with stone blocks, which meant the wall would hold longer than most.
Critch had chosen sniper rifles for this battle rather than photon guns to penetrate CUF shielding. The downside of using rifles was, they had a limited supply of ammunition on hand, which meant they had to take their time to aim. He patted his photon gun, ready to pull it out. But it was only a handgun, with a fraction of a photon rifle's energy that the droms outside were using.
Birk's cannon fired to his right, and the barrage that had been raining in Critch's direction was suddenly gone. He took a risk and looked out to see that where the two droms had been under cover was now a large hole in the warehouse wall. He stood and ran over to Birk's location.
"Thanks for drawing their fire," Birk said.
"Anytime," Critch muttered before patting the younger man on the back. His comm chimed, and he read the message. "Seda's through."
Birk nodded.
A high-pitched engine screamed as Razor's Edge dived at the CUF gunships.
"Hari's crashed the party," Critch said.
Birk blew out a breath. "About time."
Critch looked out the window as the gunships broke off from their strafing runs to go after the new threat. Razor's Edge dwarfed the two gunships, which were more agile but had far less speed and firepower.
He turned his attention back to the ground. The battle had calmed down, with only one source of active photon fire remaining.
"I want that drom alive," Critch announced through his comm.
Critch, Birk, and the two teams converged on the remaining dromadier. An explosion from behind them shook the ground. The men ducked for cover while Critch pivoted to locate the source of the blast. Billowing black smoke drew his vision upward. It appeared that Hari had taken out one gunship. The second had chosen discretion over honor and was hightailing it out of the area.
Hari wagged her wings as she flew over the warehouse district before disappearing into the distance.
The rest of Critch's first team caught up with him and Birk on the ground floor. They crossed the street as a single unit, moving quickly yet warily toward the second team, who had their rifles leveled on a drom kneeling before them.
Critch stepped up to the soldier. He was young, likely on his first tour. He bore normal white skin, meaning he could've been from Alluvia or any colony.
"Where are you from?" Critch demanded.
The man pursed his lips and didn't speak.
"Alluvian. I thought so. Well, it's your lucky day, citizen. You get to live."
The man's eyes darted to Critch in surprise.
Critch nodded. "You are to report to your superiors that the warehouse district has been reclaimed by Terrans. Only colonists are free to pass through here."
"Is—is that all?" the man asked.
"You want more?" Critch countered. "Okay. Tell them that for every colonist they kill on Terra, we'll kill two citizens."
The drom's eyes grew wide.
Critch motioned for the man to stand. "You'd better get up and hustle back to your commander before I change my mind."
The drom came shakily to his feet. He kept his hands behind his head and his eyes focused on Critch as he backed away slowly. After he'd gone several feet, he turned and started running down the street.
Birk chuckled. "I never get tired of seeing a citizen piss his pants."
Critch continued to watch the soldier until he disappeared around the corner.
"This was a big day. We're one neighborhood closer to the docks," Nat said off to Critch's right.
"We could lose it tomorrow if we're not careful." Critch looked to the sky. "Let's get under cover. I don't trust the CUF to be smart enough to know when they've sent in enough young folks to die for one day."
He knew the CUF could bomb these buildings, but they were still trying to portray themselves as the defenders rather than the aggressors. Bombed-out buildings tended to look bad on the news. The Collective still controlled the media, but more and more reporters were reporting the truth, causing contradictory stories and confusion as to what was accurate.
Thanks to conflicting news stories and Seda's proclamations, the CUF was losing face in the public eye, which meant they may be forced to go further to regain control. He suspected the CUF was only weeks, if not days, away from starting bombing runs.
Critch left one team at the warehouse district to collect weapons and set up a lookout station. He took his second team back to their headquarters at Seda Faulk's hidden retreat.
Seda stood by the hangar door when they arrived. The stationmaster grinned. "Now, that was some diversion. I could see the battle from orbit. Needless to say, we broke orbit and made it here without a single eye on us."
"You're lucky you weren't later. The party was almost over before you arrived."
"But, it wasn't." Seda nodded in the direction of where the battle had taken place. "How'd it go?"
"We have the warehouse district," Critch said.
"Casualties?"
Critch shook his head. "None. First time for that. I think they're running low on experienced droms on Terra."
Seda sobered. "They'll send down more. They aren't willing to give up Rebus Station, not with the juice plants here. Speaking of which, did you know Parliament is trying to push through an act to claim all Faulk Industries holdings? They said that since I'm an enemy of the state, all my business holdings should become property of the Collective."
Critch narrowed his gaze. "If they go after your businesses, they'd have every juice plant on Terra."
Seda chuckled. "Oh, they can try."
Critch then noticed Jeyde Sixx in the hangar, looking the worse for wear. He frowned when the usually social thief kept walking without acknowledging the group. "I take it the trip wasn't a total success."
"No. Every trail Sixx followed led to a contradictory trail. As for what I learned..." He got a faraway look before turning a hard gaze upon Critch. "Mason killed Mariner. He has full control of the Founders, at least what's left of them."
Critch's lips parted. Mason—the alias Gabriel Heid used within the secret organization—killed as smoothly as a glass of Terran whiskey. Mason had played a hand in the creation of the blight, which had killed thousands, though the death Critch took most personally was that of Demes, the youngest member of Critch's crew.
"I'm sorry," Critch said. "I know she was your wife."
Seda seemed surprised Critch knew, but he shook it off. "That doesn't matter right now. What matters is that I learned Mason didn't just execute her; he tortured her for information, no doubt, information specifically about me."
"How much do you think she told him?"
Seda grimaced. "Everything."