Kill Team (Galaxy's Edge Book 3) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Indelible VI

  The Mercutio

  01

  02

  03

  04

  05

  06

  07

  08

  09

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  Epilogue

  More Galaxy's Edge

  Join the Legion

  Honor Roll

  KILL TEAM

  By Jason Anspach

  & Nick Cole

  Copyright © 2017

  by Galaxy’s Edge, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  All rights reserved. Version 1.01

  Edited by David Gatewood

  Published by Galaxy’s Edge, LLC

  Cover Art: Fabian Saravia

  Cover Design: Beaulistic Book Services

  For more information:

  Website: GalacticOutlaws.com

  Facebook: facebook.com/atgalaxysedge

  Newsletter: InTheLegion.com

  The Indelible VI

  The cockpit door of the Indelible VI swooshed open, and Leenah, the ship’s resident princess-mechanic, stepped inside. She wiped her grimy pink hands off on her coveralls and dropped herself into the navigator’s chair, next to Captain Aeson Keel.

  Ravi’s chair.

  Leenah felt a pang of regret. She missed the holographic navigator who’d disappeared while defending the life of a scared little child. Everyone did. And though he didn’t show it, she imagined Captain Keel missed Ravi most of all.

  She watched for Keel’s reaction, wondering if he would show some subtle displeasure at her being so familiar with his lost navigator’s place. That was, after all—or so Leenah presumed—the real reason Keel had banned the wobanki, Skrizz, from the cockpit, and all the hair and dander the catman left behind. But Keel had been reading when Leenah entered the cockpit, and he now seemed more preoccupied with quickly powering down and stowing his datapad than with any perceived breach of crew protocol.

  “What were you reading?” Leenah asked, careful not to leave smudges on the arms of Ravi’s chair.

  Keel shook his head. “Nothing. Just…” He hesitated, as though unsure how much he was willing to reveal. “Just remembering. Dredging up the past so I won’t forget. How’s Garret progressing?”

  Pushing aside an intense desire to follow up on what, exactly, Keel was trying not to forget, Leenah thought of how to answer him. Garret, the beanpole code slicer, had spent days pleading with or circumventing the Six’s limited AI in an attempt to “find” Ravi and reconstitute the noble hologram. Without much luck.

  Leenah felt a need to be delicate. She looked at her feet, the pink tendrils hanging from her scalp dancing across her forehead like delicate locks of hair. “Still looking. The ship’s holocores are very segmented, and making your way through it is nearly impossible. And that’s a verbatim report from a slicer who makes the impossible look routine. Ravi seems to have done some remarkable work. Garret’s not sure how long it will take him. He says a lot depends on whether Ravi left a way for his OS to be found.”

  Keel gave a lopsided grin and bounced his knuckles gently off of the ship’s dash. “Well, he didn’t exactly come with the ship, but have the kid keep looking.”

  Leenah nodded. The two sat in silence beneath the swirling blue waves of hyperspace.

  “I was thinking about Prisma,” Leenah said, lowering her voice to a whisper, as if she expected the girl to overhear. “She needs a stable life. She can’t just travel around the galaxy with a crew of… whatever we are.”

  Keel frowned. “Let’s just focus on one problem at a time.”

  The comm chimed.

  Leenah furrowed her brow. “How are you receiving while in hyperspace?”

  A look of concern flashed across Keel’s face, but only for a moment. Like a spotlight sweeping across a dark night sky. He leaned forward and tapped the comm to display. A black screen superimposed itself over the ship’s front canopy, with a simple message written in green text.

  Wraith. Return to shell. LS-33.

  P-1.

  “What does that mean?” Leenah asked. LS-33 was a legionnaire’s identification number. Keel—Wraith—had the leej armor, yes, but that sort of thing could be come by with enough credits.

  But Keel only leaned back in his seat and chewed the tip of his thumb, staring into the unfolding layers of hyperspace.

  Seven years earlier. The Mercutio, fifteen minutes after exfil from Kublar.

  01

  I don’t hang around to thank the pilot. No one claps when our drop shuttle lands on the Mercutio’s deck. Instead the shuttle’s doors burst open and Captain Devers is rushed straight to the med bay on a repulsor sled. He’s pale, most of his blood covering his armor. If you ask me, he’s dusted.

  But I’m not going to go on record with any predictions. If he pulls though, it won’t be the first time Devers lived when he should have died.

  I hop onto the deck as bots and sailors rush to get the ship out of the way. The crew, marines, and wounded are following the orders of a deck officer, moving to their appointed stations. I ignore their commands. Ignore the green arrows that light up the deck plate like a roadside cantina’s sign: this way. I hear boots hit the deck plate behind me, in spite of the ringing in my ears and the frenzied hum of repulsors.

  “Lieutenant Chhun! Wait up!”

  I turn around and see Exo, his N-4 in one hand and bucket in the other, moving to catch up. There’s a part of me that wants him with me, a sympathetic soul to stand with me as I wait in the wings of the hangar and see who else made it. Another part of me wants to tell him to get some chow and take a shower so I can be alone. But I don’t express either of these things. Instead, I stand there like a mouth-breather staring at our drop shuttle.

  It’s shot all to hell. Black scorch marks from blaster fire and exposed circuitry decorate the hull like some sort of tribal tattoo. I’m amazed the pilots were able to bring this bird in for a landing. Maybe I should have clapped when we touched down.

  “Yo, Lieutenant…” Exo realizes I’m looking past him, and he slowly turns to take in the view of our riddled craft. His arms drop to his sides, the barrel of his rifle just inches above the deck. “How am I not dead?”

  I don’t have a good answer, so I just shrug. “Let’s see who else made it back. Maybe we can lobby the leej commander to get us back down to the planet’s surface.”

  “Sir…” Exo’s face falls. He looks tired. “They’re dead, sir. There’s no point going back down there, unless it’s to wipe out koobs.”

  “Then let’s see about doing that.”

  We move across the hangar, disregarding the “helpful” instructions of the signal bots and not giving a damn about the glares we’re getting from the naval spacemen. We aren’t far before I see a drop shuttle that took a greater beating than even ours did. It’s tangled
up in the crash netting beneath the deck. These guys came in hard. Exo and I change directions and head toward it. There might be legionnaires on board.

  Survivors.

  Brothers.

  Sure enough, I see a legionnaire, his armor showing black scorches from near misses and caked brown from the Kublar dust. He has a Specter squad insignia painted on his shoulder. I could find out who he is if I were to move close enough to read his name and serial number, but I don’t need to. His walk—full of purpose and hard as durasteel—tells me all I need to know.

  “Captain Ford!”

  Captain Ford—Wraith—turns his helmet to follow the medics carrying Devers off, then he faces me. “Lieutenant Chhun. I’m glad you made it out.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I step forward, cradling my N-4.

  Wraith looks around me at Exo. “Same goes for you, Exo.”

  Exo sniffs like he has a runny nose. “Thanks, sir.”

  “Captain Ford?” I ask, feeling a distinct trickle of sweat racing down my dirty face. “What now?”

  A fire team of Republic marines runs past us, hurriedly moving toward a waiting assault shuttle. Wraith watches them go, then takes off after them. “Always make ’em pay.”

  “Hell yeah,” Exo says. He puts on his bucket and follows Wraith, who’s already overtaking the marines.

  I take a deep breath and start running as well.

  We move toward the assault shuttle staging area. Big ships like the super-destroyer we’re on pack a ton of firepower, but these capital ships—even the relics like the Ohio-class that’s slugging it out with us—take tremendous amounts of punishment. The navy can concentrate fire, coordinate bombing runs, you name it. But we’re talking layers of durasteel, and redundant airlocks to prevent a ship-wide decompression… It takes hours of non-stop fighting by entire destroyer groups to take down a single capital-class ship. A super-destroyer could effectively make an Ohio-class cruiser non-operative for combat within six standard minutes. But to blow the thing up completely? Who knows?

  The answer? Send in the marines. They aren’t legionnaires, but they aren’t pushovers, either. Maybe they’re a little too proud for their own good, but any leej’ll take and deploy a marine squad if the opportunity is presented. They kill what you tell them to, and they won’t stop until you give the order. Usually.

  What I’m seeing is a textbook battle plan: get on board and conquer the enemy ship from the inside out—like a Corsican water worm. And while part of me wants to sleep for twelve hours straight, secure in the knowledge that no one would hold it against me, the larger part of me is ready to get on an assault shuttle and make the Mid-Core Rebels on board pay for what they did to my brothers down on Kublar.

  And they will pay.

  “Lieutenant Chhun!”

  To my surprise, Specialist Kags, the Repub Army basic that crewed our sled gun, comes running up to my side. He’s got an N-4 in one hand and fresh charge packs in the other.

  “Sir, let me come.”

  I stop and take his offering of fresh blaster fire. I nod. “KTF.”

  Kags breaks out into a smile that seems to dissolve the weariness buried in the lines of his face. “Yes, sir.”

  ***

  We reach the assault shuttle at the same time as the marine fire team. Seeing as this is a marine op, the fire team climbs on board the cylindrical shuttle without bothering to ask us for permission.

  These shuttles are glorified rockets. A pilot stationed at the rear of the craft throttles at full speed until the shuttle’s lance-like end punctures the durasteel hull of a capital ship or space station. There are cutting torches around the nose in case the craft needs a little extra boring before reaching that sweet meat inside the starship. But a good shuttle jockey knows where best to impact. Once the shuttle penetrates, the soldiers—usually marines, but also legionnaires—wait for the tech crew to verify seal integrity and pop open the craft for the marines to pour out. That last step is crucial. The last thing you want is to open your assault shuttle and realize that the vacuum of space is doing its best to pull you right outside through a minuscule crevice. Like steak getting sucked through a straw.

  Wraith peers into the packed shuttle. “Room for my team, First Sergeant?”

  The lantern-jawed hullbuster chews a wad of stim as he takes in the sight of us. “Hell, Leej, looks like you boys’ve had enough already. Even so, this bird’s full.”

  “Thank you, First Sergeant,” Wraith says, looking back at the three of us. “Thing of it is, we may be all that’s left of Victory Company, and the scumsacks on that cruiser are the ones responsible. So no, we haven’t had enough. Is there any way you can help me?”

  This is one of the things I appreciate about Wraith. A lot of officers—especially points—throw their rank around as if it were a golden pass to get whatever they want. I can’t tell you the number of rear-echelon basics who made the mistake of thinking it was a good idea to pull rank on the legionnaires keeping them alive on some firebase at galaxy’s edge. “You and your men help load this cargo sled, Sergeant!” It’s a mistake they don’t make twice.

  The first sergeant lets out a contemplative groan, almost a sigh. He tugs on his chin and looks to the back of his sled. “Tell you what, Leej. We got a nose load of scanners and scrubbers for the tech crew to use once we pop that can open and dust everything inside. What say we forget to load it and let you boys squeeze in?”

  Wraith nods and turns his attention to us. “How ’bout it?”

  I crack a smile. “Always make ’em pay, sir.”

  The marines lug the cases of sensor equipment and air scrubbers to the shuttle’s ramp while First Sergeant keeps the pilot occupied. Once our nook is carved out, we board, walking single file like we’re attempting to find our seat in a crowded holotheater.

  “Hold up, Basic.” I see a marine lift a halting hand as Kags attempts to board just behind Exo. “This is as far as you’re going.”

  Kags hesitates.

  “He’s with us,” I say. “He needs to see this fight to the finish, too.”

  It’s enough. The marine lets Kags on board, and soon he’s strapping into the jump seat next to me.

  First Sergeant gets off the comm. “Welcome aboard, Basic.”

  “Thanks,” Kags answers. “Don’t call me Basic, though.”

  The marines laugh. “Ain’t our fault you signed up for Rep-Army!”

  The ramp closes and the lights dim. I feel the ship lift off the ground, the repulsors gently swaying us as we’re positioned against the magnetic accelerator launcher. You read that right. It isn’t enough for these little bad boy shuttles to fly into enemy capital ships at full throttle. They also get a Gaussian head start. If it weren’t for interior velocity dampers, everyone inside would end up one big sheet of goo at the back of the sled.

  Pleasant.

  “Ready for go…” the pilot announces over the comm, his voice cool.

  “Tuck your chin,” I instruct Kags. He does.

  “Go!” the pilot shouts.

  We take off at a snapping speed, enough that even with the artificial stabilizers whining to keep up, I can feel my guts moving to one side of my body.

  I have no idea whether the Preyhunters are targeting us, or if we’re moving too fast. Modern starfighters like the Republic’s complement of tri-fighters have sophisticated enough sensors to take down ultra-high-speed crafts with predictive targeting and pulsar missiles or AI-fired blaster cannons. You’d have to ask a flyboy if a Preyhunter has that sort of smarts. I’m hoping they don’t.

  The pilot’s voice comes over the comm once more. Smooth and in control. Pilots are so cocky. “All right, marines. Strap yourselves in and tighten down. We’re breaking this nut open in thirty.”

  The marines cross their arms and assume crash positioning. Sure, they’re strapped in, but slamming into the side of a capital ship at this speed—even in a shuttle designed for the very thing—is a jarring experience. You don’t want to get caught wit
h your chin up or your appendages loose. The most common injuries in assault shuttle training are broken arms and noses from some hullbuster who forgets to tuck in.

  The pilot counts down from ten, so calm that I might ask Wraith if they’re related. Of course, I know the pilot is so tightly packed in the cockpit with heightened velocity dampers, absorption bubble shield, shock absorbers, and impact repulsors that the impending impact won’t feel any worse than his speeder bumper getting tapped by an errant repulsor cart in a grocery store parking lot.

  We hang on.

  “… zero.”

  Almost to the word, we hear a tremendous boom, accompanied by the shearing and scraping of impervisteel giving away around the nose of our maniacal speed rocket. We come to a halt. The marines keep their eyes on First Sergeant, waiting for the command to disembark.

  “All right,” the pilot announces from the comm. “We’ve breached target deck on bridge level. Standby for verification of seal integrity.”

  The cabin is silent, save for the metallic clink of blaster rifles against kit.

  “Seal confirmed. Sensors reading life support go… no hostiles on scope.”

  “All right, marines!” First Sergeant shouts. “You heard Johnny Ace! Lock ’em, load ’em, and get ready to chew ’em up!”

  The nose of the shuttle opens like the beak of a sea strangler. We remain strapped in, with blaster rifles aimed at the opening maw. This is because until those doors open, we really have no idea what our entry point is. If we went through a ceiling, we could be looking straight down at the deck; if we angled low, we may have to climb. And gravity stabilization will go away as soon as the cabin fully decompresses.

  The shuttle opens, and I don’t feel any pull. The pilot brought us in at the perfect angle. Marines begin to unstrap and jump out, landing on the deck after a short drop. They sweep out, dropping to knee and belly and securing the area from any potential hostiles. But they’re unopposed and in complete command of the landing site.