Chapter 12
Wayne stood in front of the captured Titan.
The pilot had ended up being the Lieutenant Governor of the city. He’d been dispatched to go to a nearby city and request reinforcements.
That was the extent of everything he’d said so far, despite the Blood of Dashi taking him to task in an interrogation.
After hearing what Wendy did in interrogations she seemed ridiculously merciful compared to what the Dashi had started in with. It’d caused Wayne to walk away quite quickly.
“My Perfect Lord, what’re you doing?” asked Cara, coming up to his side. She sounded nervous and bothered at the same time.
“Waiting for Dagger. Something the matter, Warrior?” Wayne asked, looking to Cara.
Barbie’s Faoladh was lingering over him. Either of the large Walker’s legs were was on his sides. She was quite literally acting the part of a body guard at the moment and guard.
“Just… no, nothings the matter,” Cara replied, sighed, and looked up at the Titan. “You just had an odd look on your face. It made me nervous or worried for you. I’m your Handfast.”
“Legal common law wife,” said Wayne, shifting the conversation. “You never did explain it to me. You said you would.”
“I-I… I got scared. Nervous. I wasn’t sure how to tell you that I was forcibly naming myself in a legal way,” answered Cara with small shake of her head. “You accepted it and I just let it go. I let it go hoping I’d never have to explain it, I suppose.”
“It’s fine. Dahl put the contract down he said,” explained Wayne and idly ran his fingers along the stubble of his jaw. “He reminded me you need to give us heirs for both your Warrior House, and mine.”
“I will. I will most certainly do that,” confirmed Cara with a great deal of firmness to her words. Firmness that hadn’t existed not so long ago. “I will eagerly bear heirs for both.”
“Fancy that, my sheathe got filled so often I’ll probably doing the same,” Barbie drawled over her speakers. “I really should’ve gotten to the doctor sooner. Frickin’ oops I guess.”
Wayne blinked, physically pulled his head back, and had to deeply consider what Barbie had just said. That wasn’t something he had expected to hear from her.
“I know, right? Really didn’t expect that one,” confessed Barbie, followed by a groan. “All I can hope is Josie already got a critical hit by you and you cored her.
“Because if I’m suddenly first, they’re going to make me hide in a closet until another kid is born and we can play math games with birth dates.
“And if I’m being honest, how the hell did you critical hit me anyways? I’ve been told up and down that I’m almost at the bare minimum of fertile and might as well be infertile.
“The hell, Lord Cavalier? Just give me a one and done? Damnit.”
Blinking again, Wayne really didn’t know how to process that.
Then realized it was Barbie panic spouting again.
She was on a hostile planet, playing guard dog, with anyone possibly aiming at him, while they were away from home, attacking a city.
That was just the external threats.
When you included internal, like the fact that she might be pregnant, ahead of the eventual Queen, in a combat role, and expected to pilot a Walker while possibly pregnant, it only made things worse.
“How sure are you?” Cara asked, peering up at Barbie’s cockpit.
“Missed my timing,” answered Barbie. “Could be a false though and just stress but I don’t… normally miss the timing. Ever. So maybe a month in.
“He literally cored me on the trip here I guess. Hell. It’s not even funny how unlucky I am sometimes.
“Get an easy VIP mission, get shot down. Though the Lord Cavalier did find me. Then I end up stuck there on that planet and… well, then I found the Lord Cavlier and he got me off planet. Then I got transitioned out of my team because of the mission and… and the Lord Cavalier took my transfer.
“Actually, I guess if you look at it, it’s lucky every time I just end up near the Lord Cavalier. Coring me or not.”
“He did not core me,” stated Cara, sounding somewhat odd using the euphemism. “It is unfortunate. You may give me your bad luck as you called it.”
“Keeping it. Realized it’s not bad luck,” Barbie grumbled. “He even pulled my hair nicely when I asked him to while he stuffed my sheathe. Was rather fun.”
“Dagger?” Wayne asked, wanting to be done with the topic change.
“I’ve got a great deal of information. I’m sorting through it for relevant parts,” answered Arsenic from his phone. “It’s a great deal of blagged spisht though. There’s three layers.
“The first layer is just what’s available by the government. That’s exactly what we expect. Though there’s a lot of money flowing through that doesn’t match back.
“That money is what led me to the second layer, which is government but… also not. This feels like an intelligence layer and a lot of black-book type of things. It’s interesting, but also not entirely useful to us or you. They seem more like a secret organization anything.
“This layer was absolutely behind the attacks, pushing the Pureblood, the attempt on your life, pressing on certain pressure points to cause things to happen. This is asolutely who the Pureblood is after and wants.”
“But?” Wayne prompted.
“But it’s this third layer that’s very interesting,” Arsenic continued, sounding somewhat distracted. “It seems to be very prominent, and very aggressive, in how it dealt with everyone and everything else.
“It was also detailed. Very detailed. If I wasn’t who I was, I likely would’ve never found it, let alone break in. That and this Titan we’ve plugged into and using the quadruped Walker as a secondary. That really let me break into the defensive systems for the city, then leverage all the computers to do the rest of the work.”
“What?” asked Cara. “You make it sound like there’s… a… uhm. What is the word.”
“Syndicate? Mob? Mafia? Secret organization?” Barbie suggested.
“The last one. Secret organization,” Arsenic murmured, sounding very distracted. “It’s very all over the place. What is strange to me is I would swear that many of the things I’m finding are Confed related. Or adjacent.
“As well as other Bloods. This is a strange web that spans the whole of humanity.”
“That’s a lot more than the Pureblood thought,” Wayne capped off.
“Yes. Much more. I’m still looking. I will provide more later. Nothing on the Walkers yet,” Arsenic continued. “Oh, and I am sending it all to Herald. She’s very good at working through these things.”
Wayne scratched at his head, clicked his tongue, then started walking toward the communications officer.
It seemed he needed to update the Pureblood with the worst possible news.
Everything he feared was true.
And it was worse, too.
An organization that was operating beyond what the Pureblood had even caught.
***
“Lord Hesh,” stated one of the commanders under him. “We’ve been in contact with the other cities. They are resisting, of course. They deny the evidence you’ve provided and claim it’s all lies.”
“Yes, Lord Hesh, they’re stating the Pureblood is doing this all for the sake of taking their planet,” added another commander. “They’ve denied everything and they’re massing their forces.”
Looking to the two men, Wayne noted the government building they were in right now was undamaged, though there were signs of many people leaving in a hurry.
Wayne rubbed at his jaw and chin with one hand and looked at the holographic map between them. All the current positions of everything was laid out on it.
From the vanguard that landed to take the city to the primary force that was still landing in the areas around it. It was all displayed and categorized.
Mostly because of Arsenic and Wendy, unfortunately.
The ‘command team’ the Pureblood had given him weren’t exactly suited for this work.
It wasn’t that they were incompetent, or that they weren’t skilled, but they’d never done the organizational side it seemed. As if perhaps the war had gutted the officer corpse of the Blood of Dashi so deeply, it’d take them a long while to train up a new one.
“Well, just follow through with the outline I already put in place,” Wayne answered and waved a hand at the board. Given the lack of an actually officer corps he wasn’t about to try and give them complicated orders. No elaborate movements or anything more than the most basic of directions. “Are the elements moving?”
“Yes, Warrior Hesh,” answered the first commander again. He was younger than the other, but both were older than Wayne. The man looked to be in his forties. “All elements are moving the moment they make planet-fall. Your orders are being carried out.
“I’m sorry the Pureblood ordered you to remain behind after your initial success. Your taking of the Titan was truly wondrous.”
Wayne smiled with one side of his mouth at that and just kept his gaze to the map.
Their thinking that it was sad he wouldn’t be on the front line was once more, part of the problem.
“My perfect Lord, I need a word,” Arsenic stated through his phone in his pocket. She was ever there given how often he had to have her translate Dashi.
Nodding his head he moved away from the map and toward a side room. He’d noted it earlier as a meeting room and that it was out of the way.
Entering it he closed the door behind himself and took a seat.
Leaning back in it he closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I found something. Something that doesn’t belong,” Arsenic murmured quietly. “At first I thought it was a government bunker. A holdout location or defense center. Something like a panic room.
“The more I look at it, the more I inspect it, the more I dig at the edges, the less I think it is. This is no government level panic room but something else all together, disguised as a government panic room.
“I’ve seen no signals going in or out once I got into the system. It just went dark and hasn’t been active at all.
“It isn’t on the power grid either. No piping going to or from it. I can’t find anything about it on any maps, diagrams, or layouts.
“In every way it’s been made to look like it doesn’t exist on anything official. Doesn’t exist, was never there, nothing to see.”
“Alright,” Wayne muttered, his eyes closed, thinking. If they were going to such lengths to keep it hidden, then it meant he really wanted to get into it. That maybe this was part of what the Pureblood had been afraid of. “And how did you find it at all then?”
“A few things. Photos with tags for locations that don’t make sense. Pings from devices that originated in a location that isn’t on a map,” Arsenic answered as if she were almost bored. “On top of that, all those pings were scrubbed from databases, but the handshakes were left behind. I suppose someone who wasn’t trained to be paranoid could write those off as ghosts or errors but that’s just not me.
“Though some of it was also me just looking at where signals, waves, and data was lost or ended. There’s a void there that’s just weird.
“Either it’s a heavy mineral deposit or a hidden base. Given the other bits I’ve found… hidden base.”
“Alright, then what’s up, Dagger?” Wayne asked instead of asking more questions about what she found. He’d just take her word at it for now. “You wouldn’t be bringing this up unless you needed something or hit a wall.”
“Both, actually. I found a line that I could attack through. Once I do though, they’d know,” answered Arsenic. “So once I did that, we’re on a timer to breach the location and take it. If they realize I’ve taken the digital side of the facility, all they’d have to do is make the system closed and then I wouldn’t be able to act any further.”
“Got it,” Wayne grunted out, grinned, and pressed a hand over his eyes. “You know where it is, you likely know the entry point, you want me to launch an attack on it with some Blood of Dashi doing the break-in, and you want to hit the digital side of it right before they enter.”
“Yes. But it can’t be the Dashi,” countered Arsenic with what sounded suspiciously like a sigh. “I am not convinced that those who are around you, or in the vanguard, are not part of whatever this is.
“There’s been a number of communications that have made me nervous. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to determine or truly pull anything suspect out, but it makes me nervous.
“Nervous to the point that I’ve been watching all communications as a whole. The security the Pureblood has put around you speaks to his own concern about the Dashi as well.”
Wayne couldn’t argue that point. The Pureblood had put a number of his own guards around Wayne. People the Pureblood trusted beyond a shadow of a doubt.
That didn’t really line up with him thinking that there weren’t problems in his own organization.
“Alright,” Wayne mumbled, already understanding what Arsenic was asking. “You want me to head in there personally or something? Maybe just Warrior?”
“You and Warrior,” Arsenic confirmed. “Lance can remain here and manage the leadership and campaign. The two of you should be more than enough in the way of firepower to overcome whatever defense are there.
“This is an underground internal facility. It’s entry point is only large enough for freight I believe. You and Warrior will need to enter with nothing larger than a Scout class.”
Wayne put his hand down and opened his eyes. He blinked a few times as he considered what Arsenic was saying.
It’s going to be like the very first time I took a Walker mission. Moving through hallways and rooms as Patchwork. I had to really squeeze through a few things to make that happen.
Patchwork wasn’t a Scout size but I get the idea from that experience.
“How big are we talking. Like… a light Combat or truly Scout sized?” Wayne asked.
“Scout. Something like an Interrogator, or a Police,” suggested Arsenic. “Both of those are available in the security forces in the armory here. I’ve already ordered them prepped and ready for bodyguard duty.
“Machine guns, laser weapons, and a pod of short-range missiles. They’re being outfitted right now. I was going to offer them to you as guard units or for you to enter with.”
Wayne snorted at that, then smiled a bit grimly.
Piloting everything under the sun.
From exo-suits to Dreadnoughts.
Though I haven’t actually gotten into a Titan yet.
I wonder what Tink would do with an actual Titan.
“Ship that stupid Titan off to Armorer for me, Dagger,” Wayne ordered and got up.
“Already did,” replied Arsenic. “The dropship landed an hour ago and it’s already en route to Mirkil space. I hired a Dashi that was willing to do it for the right price.”
Nodding his head, Wayne wasn’t surprised. That sounded about right for the people around him. They knew what he’d want before he wanted it, and worked to make it happen.
“Have you notified Warrior and Lance yet?” he asked as he left the meeting room. He suspected she already did.
“Yes. They are now aware of the situation change. Lance isn’t happy about being left behind but responded in the affirmative,” Arsenic replied.
“Then tell me where to go,” Wayne said and left the meeting room. “And notify the Pureblood’s guards he sent with me. I want them to come with me if only to make sure the exit stays clear of intruders. Because while you don’t trust the Dashi, I have to at least trust those who were sent by Dahl.
“If I don’t, I’m leaving my back wide open for whoever wants to park an anti-Walker tank outside this ‘hidden facility’.”
***
Staring at the inlaid rust covered, dirty, and dented door, Wayne shook his head.
When they’d walked along the train tracks, he’d been somewhat doubtful. That maybe this was all an elaborate goose chase.
Arsenic had led Wayne and Cara out of the city, along old rail road tracks, straight into a mountain.
Those rail road tracks had the appearance of long rusted out and unable to be used. The very foundation of his doubts.
Blown away when Arsenic asked him to actually step on one, which hadn’t accomplished anything other than rubbing paint off that was the color of rust.
Steps had been taken to disguise the tracks to look old and unused.
Perhaps it really had been old and unused at some point in the past. A point that allowed the tracks to exist and be ignored without being investigated deeply.
The door it led to after the tracks went into a tunnel that plunged into a mountain was the final nail in the coffin for his doubts.
“Dagger, how do you expect our perfect Lord to get through this?” Cara asked as she pushed at the door with one of her Walker’s hands.
She was in a Police Walker. It was all machine-guns and a melee weapon. Speed and hitting things from up close. Removing what Arsenic had already loaded up on it.
Wayne had taken the Interrogator that Arsenic had mentioned. He’d liked the way she’d outfitted it, though he’d added a flame thrower.
“I do not expect him to go through it. I will open it once we’re ready,” Arsenic elaborated. “Because once we begin, we must finish. We cannot stop. We cannot linger. I will breach, take, and hold. I will be your vanguard but I will likely only be able to hold for a time.”
“I look forward to this,” Sidra stated.
With Arsenic doing so much cyber-security work, Wayne had ended up using Sidra almost exclusively as his AI partner. To the point that he’d been training and practicing with her to get to the same efficiency he had with Arsenic.
“Ugh,” groaned Arsenic. Then huffed. “Alright. I will begin. Please prepare yourselves.”
“You know, I did a mission like this in my early days,” Wayne mused, turning his Walker to look at Cara. The Light Walker felt almost as easy to use as an exo-suit. “Had to go into an abandoned facility, clear out a bunch of rodents of unusual size.”
“Really? That’s interesting. It was in Patchwork?” asked Cara.
“It was. Where I got my first onboard AI,” admitted Wayne. “Gave me all the overlays.”
“You’re fortunate it wasn’t a base or system AI. I’m not sure how that would’ve gone,” Arsenic mused. “Those are much more complex and sturdy than something like I or the HUD. We call it HUD, by the way. That AI you ate first. Sidra and I prod at it from time to time but it just gives out information.
“And… doors open. Proceed to the mission, I will be partially silent as I battle their response.”
The heavy steel doors began cranking inward. Sliding smoothly and silently on hinges that were well maintained. Only proving that the exterior of the door was well and truly once more camouflage of a sort.
There were no light’s beyond the door and the flashlights from the Walker’s illuminated a long tunnel.
“With my Perfect Lord at my side,” hissed Cara and then started forward ahead of him, the beams of light projected from her Walker shifting left and right.
“Shift to NV,” Wayne ordered and turned off his flashlights and pulled down his night vision goggles.
It was a bit of a tight fit just to get his hands to his head given the abnormal layout of Scout Walker but he managed it.
Wayne had taken the night visiont goggles from the armory after remembering how his first mission could’ve gone without light. Flashlights would be problematic if they encountered enemies and give their position away.
Cara’s beams winked out.
The infiltration began.