Three Months Later
Max
“Four hundred meters,” Blake says.
“Got it. Four hundred,” I repeat, and we keep walking side-by-side. The underground tunnel we’re in obviously hasn’t been used for years. It’s dusty, damp, and moldy, and I can’t wait until we find these bastards and get the hell out of here.
“All units are in place,” I hear a voice through the talk goo in my ear, and I nod to Blake. He heard it, too. The Sapphiran goo works incredibly well for communicating since it doesn’t require anything except that the person or people you’re communicating with have the same glob placed carefully in their ear. In Extrinsic, we use this for all of our missions because it means we can be underground or anywhere on the planet and still find our team members.
Blake and I walk quietly forward, moving silently through the darkness. This place reeks, and I’m going to be more than happy when we get out of here.
“Three hundred,” he whispers, and we continue moving. It’s been a long time in coming, but the payday is going to be worth it. We’re about to take down the most wanted smuggling group on Dreagle, and the Orchidian government is going to pay us handsomely.
That’s what happens when you steal from the King of Orchid, I think silently as I shake my head. You get a group of interplanetary badasses who hunt you down and bring you in.
These guys are not going to be happy to be taken down, but the King of Orchid is going to be fucking thrilled. He’s been searching for them for weeks: ever since they stole a precious artifact from his mother’s prized collection. Yeah, the king takes thievery pretty seriously, which is fine for me because I love a good hunt.
Blake stops walking all of a sudden and I realize there’s a dim light up ahead. We move quietly, silently, and approach the light. This is it. Weeks of training and searching has all boiled down to this moment.
Each footstep brings us closer to our goal. I reach for my gun and flick the safety off. I hear Blake do the same, and we keep moving. Our goal is just within reach, and it’s about damn time. We’ve wasted too much time searching for these losers, but each time we get close, they seem to evade us.
Not this time.
This time, they’re going down.
We step quietly as we approach the lighted area. When we get close, we see that the light is shining through a door. There’s no guard, but there’s a window on the door and we can see into a bright hallway.
We’ve found them.
This is their hideout.
Blake examines the door while I scope out the area. There don’t seem to be cameras in this part of the tunnel, which is stupid and irresponsible. It’s bullshit like this that these guys are about to be completely destroyed.
“We’re clear,” he says, and I hear the other guys confirm that they’re also in place. “On my count,” Blake says. He sets a device next to the door that will determine the pass code and let us in without keys or swipe cards. “Five, four, three, two, one,” he says, and opens the door quietly.
Throughout the tunnels, my men are entering at the same time as me and Blake. We’re going to get these bastards once and for all, and there’s going to be nowhere for them to hide.
It doesn’t take long for my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the light, and I move quietly down the hallway with Blake by my side. My best friend has always been there for me and I know today is no different. We move stealthily down one hallway and then another, but there’s no one here.
Not yet.
Our intel said this is where the Dreaglan Smugglers were hiding out. It’s a stupid name for a stupid group of assholes who steal everything from paintings to jewelry to hovercars. They’re clever, but apparently not clever enough to guard the west tunnels. My guess is that no one has bothered them here before, so their security is much more lax than it should be.
Despite the brightly lit hallways, the place seems to be rarely used. A thin layer of dust is coating the floor, and there are no recent footprints. It’s not much of a hideout, if that’s what this is, and as Blake and I move, a growing sense of dread fills me.
What are we going to find when we get these guys?
Are we going to find a treasure room?
Are we going to find bodies?
I’m not often nervous on a mission, but Blake looks sideways at me and I know he’s thinking the same thing I am: something is weird about this entire place. We round a corner and that’s when we hear the first shot of gunfire. A bullet grazes past me and I quickly dart to the side of the hall and fire. The man goes down, and Blake and I keep going.
Chances are those shots fired notified anyone hiding in here that we’re coming, but if not, there’s the first camera of the day floating in the hallway. The little robotic camera turns, as if noticing us for the first time, and I feel no regret when I shoot it. The damn thing falls to the ground.
“Cover blown,” I say. My teammates will hear it through the talk goo. “Find the jewels and shoot as needed. Keep Ulizeoa for the king.”
Ulizeoa is the one behind the smuggling operation and he’s got a penchant for the dramatic. I won’t be surprised if we find booby traps and other random surprises as we make our way to the center of the tunnels.
As far as we can tell, he took over the smuggling operation recently after the former head of the organization had an unfortunate accident. This is also when the group started escalating and taking more risks, albeit calculated ones. They shouldn’t have gone after the King of Orchid, though. That was a huge mistake: one he won’t easily forgive.
Blake and I keep moving together silently. Our eyes scan the space constantly, looking for anything suspicious, strange, or unexpected. Damn, I hope this mission is over fast.
It’s not that I mind my job. I don’t. I love being a part of Extrinsic. It’s just that there’s something strange about this entire ordeal and I don’t know what it is. I can’t put my finger on what it is about this place that makes me feel so uncomfortable.
“Incoming,” Blake says, looking at the communications unit on his wrist. Unlike the talk goo, this isn’t for speaking with our teammates. The communications unit tracks other things, like the distance to our destination and whether any weapons have been fired in our nearby vicinity. The only thing these units can’t do is track body heat signatures, which is unfortunate because it would make this mission much, much easier.
My own communications unit flashes and I see there’s been another weapon discharged nearby. We round a corner and start shooting immediately. Blake and I are both great shots, and we take the targets down instantly.
“Three down,” I say to the talk goo, and I hear the shots of my fellow teammates.
“Four down over here,” Falcon comes through loud and clear.
“We got two,” Edgar’s voice comes next.
“Why the hell are there so many?” Blake shakes his head. “I thought we were looking at a small time smuggling ring that pissed off the wrong person.”
“Apparently not,” I growl. Our intel was wrong, and it pisses me the fuck off. How are we supposed to be ready if we don’t have all of the information we need? We were supposed to come across four, maybe five guys. Not nine.
Blake and I keep going. We move through one door, and then another. We take down four more guys, and then we find him.
Finally.
Holed up in a tiny room at the center of the tunnels, Ulizeoa seems more than a little surprised we made it through all of his men. He’s sitting in a room surrounded by stolen goods, which is more than a little stupid. How this asshole managed to escape arrest, prison, and general murder, I have no idea.
“You aren’t taking me,” he says coolly, but his skin is damp with sweat and his eyes are wide, betraying his true emotions.
“On the contrary,” Blake says. “We’ll be taking you immediately, and we’ll be taking you alive.”
“You’ve made quite a few enemies in your time, Ulizeoa,” I add. “And the king of Orchid is not the forgiving type.”
Ulizeoa looks surprised for just a fraction of a second, and then a smug, self-satisfied look crosses his face, like he knows something we don’t know.
“If you take me, innocent people will die,” he says.
“What innocent people?” Blake asks, but I think the man is bluffing. At this point, he’s trapped. The rest of our team will be here in a matter of seconds, and it’ll be far too easy to transport him back to Orchid for punishment.
I don’t know what the king has in store for him. Rex only recently took the throne, and he seems to be a strange mixture of ferocity and compassion. He’s firm and strict, but gentle when he needs to be. He’s the perfect master, yet something tells me he’s not going to be lenient with this man, this thief.
Something tells me he’s not going to be patient this time around.
“No, I don’t think I’ll be telling you that,” Ulizeoa shakes his head. “Not until I know you’re going to release me.”
“Never gonna happen, asshole.”
“Then the girl is going to die. You won’t be able to get to her: not without me. She’ll perish, die. She’ll starve to death and there won’t be anything you can do about it.”
Blake and I exchange looks, and I know we’re both wondering the same thing. What girl? There was nothing in our intel about a prisoner, but at this point, I shouldn’t be surprised. There seems to be more that we don’t know than things we do know.
It also doesn’t escape my notice that Ulizeoa first said innocent people but then said there was just one girl. I’m guessing he’s feeling cornered, and he knows he’s running out of options. He’s blurring his lies and truths now.
“Fuck you,” I tell him. We don’t have time for games today. Ulizeoa could be lying or not, but I’m sure if he’s got a prisoner around here, we’ll find her. I pull out my pepperao cuffs and motion for Ulizeoa to turn around.
“You’re making a terrible mistake,” he spits, but he does as I command.
“Doubt it,” I slap the cuffs on him and as they snap in place, they begin to irritate his skin. Pepperao cuffs are a highly debated item. Some people say they’re inhumane. If Ulizeoa does have someone locked up in his underground fortress, though, I think he’s the one who is the animal, and he deserves whatever’s coming to him.
A couple members of my team burst into the room then.
“Fucking dragons,” Edgar shakes his head when he sees just how much treasure there is in this room. “This guy stole all of this stuff? How? He’s not even that smart!”
“Smarter than you, dumbass,” Ulizeoa mutters under his breath.
“Let’s get him back to the ship,” I say, motioning for my guys to haul him out of the room, but Edgar shakes his head.
“There’s something you need to see first.”