Chapter Three

Chapter Three

September 4, 2230, Gliese 581, New Samarkand, Sogdia

Loud booms shook the area, rattling the building and windows. Not thunder, explosions.

Bright flashes erupted all over, barely obscured by the short buildings dominating the skyline. Columns of smoke drifted upward and spread out as they hit the top of the dome, forming low-hanging dark clouds.

It was a storm of death.

Agent Lau hoped someone somewhere was increasing the power to the air-handling systems. The Intelligence Directorate agent slowed as he passed a small building with an open garage. There was a blue flitter sitting inside.

Bullet holes riddled the walls. A missing chunk and the blackened ground marked recent explosions.

He jammed his hand into his pocket, nervously confirming his data rod was still inside before glancing at the flitter. Taking the vehicle might get him across town quicker, but he couldn’t risk aerial flight without getting shot down. The staccato beat of machine-gun fire shocked him into action, and he continued sprinting down the street.

The ID needed the information on his rod so the government would know the truth about the situation.

He assumed the Army garrison commanders were overwhelmed by trying to get a handle on the rebellion. What had been nothing more than angry protests and graffiti had turned into hellish urban combat so close to overnight he wasn’t sure the difference mattered.

Lau slowed as he neared an alley but didn’t enter. The last thing he wanted was to be trapped by the mercenaries hounding him. He kept close to the buildings and continued his run.

Ahead, a weeping woman knelt next to a man lying dead. Lau gritted his teeth. There was nothing he could do for her. The rebels and their pet mercs weren’t showing restraint or mercy, and if he waited around, he would not be able to help anyone.

“You need to run!” he shouted at the woman. “They’re coming. Wouldn’t he have wanted you to live?”

Lau didn’t wait for her response. He continued down the street, heart pounding, face drenched in sweat. The best thing he could do for the innocent victims in Sogdia and the other cities in the colony was to ensure the ID and the DD got this information. One had to know the enemy to fight them.

Right now, they needed to understand their enemy wasn’t who it looked like.

A flitter flew overhead, its movements wobbly. There were no military markings, but it could be a rebel.

Trying to get their attention might prove fatal.

It didn’t matter. Seconds later, a missile screamed through the air and struck the flitter, consuming it in an orange-red fireball. Chunks of the vehicle rained onto the street, and a large section plummeted, crashing into the side of a nearby building. Parts of the building cracked off and slammed into the pavement.

“No wonder the military avoids flitters,” Lau whispered as he shot a glance over his shoulder.

Had he lost his pursuers? He was sure he’d hit a couple of them, but he couldn’t tell if they’d given up or were attempting to trap him another way. The missile could have been fired from kilometers away. Aerial vehicles were easy to hit without towers or mountains.

Lau tapped his PNIU to try to connect on one of the local ID backup frequencies, but an error code flashed in his smart lenses. The bastards were still jamming him, but it was getting weaker. All he needed to do was keep moving. The rebels didn’t control the dome, much less the whole city.

It’d be a risk to transmit any information openly. The people after him were obviously a lot more than local rebels, even if the locals were helping them. Encryption might not be enough.

At least there weren’t any drones above him. He’d been worried his pursuers might use a chain of laser-comm-linked drones for surveillance, but as he’d witnessed, anything that was flying right now was getting shot down, if not by the rebels, then by the military. Nobody had eyes on anything. That would eventually be sorted out, but not in the coming minutes.

Lau briefly considered the insane idea of purposely running toward heavy gunfire. Its presence would imply both military and rebel forces. He wasn’t prepared to hand over the rod to any random soldiers he ran into, but they could protect him from his pursuers.

A couple of rifles pointed in the opposite direction and grenades tossed towards the enemy would be welcome.

A handful of rebels, a tiny percentage of the population, suddenly had an Army with heavy weapons and government-grade jammers. He let out a hysterical laugh. The external manipulation was obvious even without the intel on his rod.

Everyone had miscalculated, assuming trouble like this would only happen in a place as populated as Earth. The real threat might have always been outside of the core worlds.

His enemies weren’t demons, but they worked the same way. They found people enmeshed in rage and envy and corrupted them for their purposes. Everywhere they touched, darkness followed.

“The higher-ups have been idiots,” Lau muttered.

No,

he’d

been the idiot, along with the other local agents.

They were supposed to be keeping an eye out for this sort of thing. Their investigations had underestimated the level of smuggling going on in the colony, especially of weapons. Somehow the mercenaries had crept onto the planet without the ID noticing. Now innocent people were suffering because they’d screwed up.

That was over. It was time for ID’s ghosts to aid the remaining civilians.

A bullet whizzed by his ear and struck the wall next to him. He ducked, thus avoiding a follow-up shot, and ran forward, looking for options and not finding good ones. Two burning flitters and a hovertruck lying on its side blocked the road ahead. A couple of dead bodies lay in pools of blood next to the truck.

Scampering over the blockage would just give his hunters with an easy kill, and that assumed there wasn’t a sniper watching the intersection. The bodies didn’t look burned.

There was only one choice—not a good choice, but it might keep him breathing for a couple more minutes. He ducked through an open door to his right. A cluster of bullets struck the frame barely a blink after he’d run inside.

With so much background noise, he was having trouble hearing the gunshots and couldn’t estimate how close the shooters were. Lau drew his pistol. Too bad he didn’t have any more loaded magazines left. He had not planned to get involved in a running gunfight.

If luck was where opportunity met preparation, then bad luck was where a problem met a lack of preparation.

He looked around.

The building appeared to be an abandoned office. There were no lights on. Darkness hung over the back of the room, except where patches of illumination made it in through windows or holes in the walls. There were no bodies, but he saw at least one trail of blood, and there were probably more hidden in the shadows. Desks and chairs were scattered around, some damaged.

A step forward knocked shell casings away.

Lau ran toward the darkest corner and ducked behind an overturned desk, steadying his pistol on top. If he couldn’t outrun his pursuers, he’d make a stand and fight until he was out of ammo. After a moment of thought, he lowered his pistol and crawled on his side toward the edge of the desk, then pointed it around the edge. He slowed his breathing and waited, but he couldn’t do anything for his heart as shouts and the thud of boots on pavement grew closer.

His change in position brought him face to face with a small stuffed smiling Leem toy next to an overturned box. The toy’s hand was raised in a friendly gesture. Its bulbous black eyes were cute, and it wore a yellow sash that read

I come in peace

in Mandarin.

Lau shifted the box and found a porcelain Zitark figurine, this one wearing a red robe and a crown. He had no idea what they were supposed to represent.

Zitarks didn’t wear robes or crowns.

“Hey, government dog,” someone shouted from outside. “Why don’t you come out and chat with us?”

Lau narrowed his eyes. That sounded less like his earlier merc pursuers and more like rebels. He’d accept the small bit of luck. He had a better chance of handling the rebels and surviving.

One concern lingered, though. The rebels lacked the training and equipment of the mercenaries and their true masters. Why would the mercs leave it to the rebels to capture him? When he’d fled, the mercenaries had made it clear they knew he was a ghost and he’d stolen information they didn’t want anyone getting their hands on.

He could turn himself in to the rebels and explain they needed to see what was on the rod, but that might accomplish nothing. Most insurrections involved at least

some

outside funding and aid. They weren’t going to care what a government agent had to say about the people helping them.

A shadow cut across the open doorway. They’d arrived.

“He’s supposed to have a data rod on him,” a rebel outside explained. “Remember your orders. Kill the bastard and take the rod.”

“What if we damage the rod?” someone else asked.

“They can’t bitch at us about what happens in combat. Besides, if we don’t hurry up, the reinforcements will have all the fun.”

It was exactly what he’d been worrying about. There wasn’t much time, and he couldn’t guarantee he’d survive both the rebels and their reinforcements. His first step would be eliminating his enemies.

Lau held his breath and waited. If the rebels were smart, they’d find a back way in and flank him, but they didn’t know his exact position. That reinforcements were expected suggested a small number of men, fewer than the merc squad that had been following him earlier.

A rebel in a tac vest rushed into the building, yelling and waving his rifle around like an idiot. Lau didn’t fire. Taking one man down wasn’t enough.

The rebel stopped yelling and swept the area more cautiously, a frown on his face. He crept forward and two other men entered, all three spreading out.

“Somebody should have guarded the back,” a rebel complained.

“We’re fine,” another replied. “I bet he’s hiding in here somewhere.”

Lau grabbed the Zitark in a robe, rolled onto his side, and counted to four before throwing it as parallel to the floor as he could manage. The figurine traveled a decent distance before striking a desk.

The rebels spun toward the noise, their faces tense. They continued forward step by careful step but did not fire.

“Come out now,” a rebel taunted. “There’s no reason to make this hard on yourself.”

Lau waited for them to move forward a couple more meters before popping around the edge of the fallen desk. Three quick headshots, three dead rebels. They collapsed to the floor without a scream or a shot. He let out a sigh of relief.

Something large passed in front of the door. He couldn’t tell what it was from his position, but it was big enough to darken the entryway. With a sigh, he pulled the data rod out of his pocket and placed it in the box near the Leem toy, then turned the box on its side. If there was nothing outside, he could come back for it, but his instincts told him otherwise.

Lau tapped his PNIU and smiled. He had a weak signal. There was a decent chance he could get a transmission off. The ID could back-trace his position, but the jamming would make it less precise.

All’s well that’s Roswell

, he sent.

“ID ghost,” boomed an amplified voice from outside. “We know you’re in there. If you come out right away, you can ride this war out as a POW. We don’t care if you’re a spy. We can be civilized. If you’re thinking about going out the back, we have snipers covering all exits. In short, you’re trapped.”

Lau stood and headed toward the door, gun in hand. Rebel, mercenary, other—he didn’t care at this point. The local rebellion had turned into a bloodbath. It was time to reduce the enemy forces.

A sharp bark of laughter escaped his lips when he stepped out of the building. A large gray hovertank floated in front, its main cannon angled to deliver death through the doorway.

“Talk about overkill.” Lau tossed his weapon away and raised his arms. “All this for one ghost?”

“I take it you killed the three men who reported your position?”

Lau nodded. “It was them or me.”

“So they don’t have the rod? And don’t say you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“No, they don’t.” Lau grinned. “I stashed it about a half-klick back. Want me to prove it?”

He slowly lowered his arms and pulled out the pockets of his jacket and pants before doing a full turn like he was in some sort of twisted post-apocalyptic modeling session.

“You misunderstand, ghost,” the tank commander replied. “It’s not important that we find it, only that no one else gets it.”

The barrel lifted and swung to the side. With a deafening roar, the tank fired. The round smashed into the wall, blowing it to pieces. The explosion knocked Lau over. His head slammed into the pavement and he blinked, trying to maintain consciousness. Three more shots followed before the barrel was trained on him again. He let the darkness take him before they fired.