Noble Conflict (2 page)

‘Sir, if I can’t open those doors for myself, I’d rather they stayed closed.’

‘Cadet Wilding, your mother was a very good friend of mine. I see you have inherited her  . . . spirit of independence.’ A trace of a smile tugged at the IndO’s lips. ‘Very well. If you’re sure that’s what you want.’

‘Yes, sir, it is.’

‘Good luck, Cadet.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

And the IndO had been as good as his word. Not once had his famous parents been mentioned in the entire time Kaspar had gone through Guardian training.

Today, gazing over the heads of the assembled crowd to the northern mountains in the distance, Kaspar could actually see the hydroponic towers of his uncle’s farm and of the neighbouring ones. The afternoon sun glinted off the tinted glass panels and the computer-controlled aluminium shutters. Uncle Jeff’s farm was only about fifteen kilometres beyond the Capital City boundaries, but it was light years away in attitude.

And now look at me, Kaspar thought with satisfaction. Nearly nineteen years old, a fully fledged Guardian – and Honour Cadet to boot.

‘No more skulking in the agric shelters at the first hint of trouble,’ he muttered.

He was ready to fight for what was right, just like his parents before him.

‘What?’ asked Janna.

‘Nothing. Sorry. Just thinking out loud.’

Only then did Kaspar notice Voss glaring at them. Both Kaspar and Janna clamped their lips shut.

What was that?

A sudden movement off to his right caught Kaspar’s eye. Nothing specific, no obvious threat – just a few casually dressed latecomers emerging from the woods and
starting across the lawns. Keeping his head straight but his eyes trained, Kaspar watched them advance. Visitors cutting through the woods wasn’t unusual. It was the fastest route from the road to the ceremonial grounds at the Academy. Taking the official route more than doubled the journey time. But somehow the pattern of their movements was wrong, simultaneously furtive and purposeful. They moved like hunting snakes.

Not good.

At the Academy, cadets were taught to trust their instincts, but Kaspar hesitated. He was on parade at a very formal occasion. He wasn’t even officially on duty yet and he certainly didn’t relish the idea of launching his military career by interrupting Brother Simon’s speech to cry wolf. Another group emerged on the other flank. Same movement, same feeling. Definitely not good. Insurgents? His mind made up, Kaspar started to move, but the decision to interrupt Brother Simon was taken out of his hands. A soft whooshing sound filled the air.

‘THERMAL GRENADE! TAKE COV—’

A colossal explosion and a licking tongue of flame erupted in front of the platform before Kaspar could finish his warning. The heat from the blast seared his face and the backs of his hands. Both ears felt like they’d been simultaneously hit by a wrecking ball.

Lucky for my eardrums that I had my mouth open, he thought fleetingly.

But hearing loss wasn’t the biggest problem right now. He and everyone around him still had an excellent chance
of being killed. Kaspar hurled himself at Brother Simon, flattening him behind the limited safety of the podium just as another grenade exploded close by.

Kaspar rolled onto his feet. ‘Janna, Dillon, with me,’ he bellowed at the other recruits, wanting them to follow him.

He knew he was shouting, but his voice sounded muffled and far away. It was like trying to hear under water. Some of the recruits were still standing on the platform looking around like tourists, not even seeking cover. Did he have to draw them a picture?

‘It’s an attack. Take cover,’ Kaspar yelled. At least he hoped it was yelling. His voice still sounded stifled.

But the warning did little good. Another thermal grenade landed near the left-hand end of the reviewing stand. The colossal boom that followed was probably heard in the Badlands. Shock waves rocketed through Kaspar’s head, their intensity threatening to split his skull open. He shook his head several times to try and clear it. Shrieks and screams resounded. But now at least some of the other recruits were getting organized. Kaspar had Janna and Dillon with him and could see on the other side of what used to be the platform that Voss was leading another group across the lawn towards the trees.

Kaspar had already stripped the ceremonial cover off his rifle and now, as he thumbed off the safety catch, he shouted to his colleagues to do the same.

‘Targets at Green-Two, by the lake.’

He scanned the grounds through the telescopic sights
and immediately saw a man crouching in the middle of the lawn, reloading a grenade launcher. Kaspar took careful aim, inhaled sharply, held his breath and squeezed the trigger. There was a powerful crack and a brilliant blue bolt shot out of the gun, striking the man in the chest, dropping him twitching to the ground. Hitting actual people was far more dramatic than when using the simulators. Far more satisfying too. One down. Kaspar swept the sights across the lawn, looking for more targets. He caught sight of another running past the memorial and tracked him with the rifle scope.

‘Wait for it,’ he told himself. ‘Don’t fire too soon. Wait for the full charge to build.’

The ‘max charge’ tone sounded in his headset and he immediately fired. The running man was instantaneously bathed in a blue glow; his legs folded beneath him and he violently somersaulted into a heap. Another one out for the count. Off to his right, Kaspar saw Janna and Dillon bring down a couple more. He could hear the fizzing crack of more firing from the other flank too. Kaspar took out another Insurgent who was running in an erratic pattern hoping it would make him harder to take down. It didn’t. Voss and his group had forced what was left of the attackers back towards the edge of the woods. Now that the explosions had stopped, Kaspar snatched a glance at his watch.

Three minutes? He couldn’t believe it. All this had happened in only three minutes? Kaspar turned to peruse
the injured around him. The walking, sitting and lying wounded surrounded him. The occasional groan, moan and anguished cry split the otherwise stunned silence. With his hearing returning, he looked around again, more slowly this time. Though there were a number of injured, he couldn’t actually see any prone bodies that weren’t moving. Could it be that, by the grace of some divine power or pure luck, no one had been killed? If so, then it was certainly no thanks to the terrorists. And to attack here, at the Academy, when the place was swarming with Guardians, was a new level of bold and stupid combined.

Fury, hot and devouring, flared within Kaspar. The full import of what had happened hit him now that the adrenalin coursing through his body was beginning to subside. The ones who had done this were nothing more than low-life, cowardly scumbags. Kaspar’s grip on his rifle tightened as he found himself wishing that it could do more than merely stun.

But his job wasn’t over yet. Nor would it be over until the last of the Insurgents had been hunted down. The Insurgents were a small but deadly force of terrorists made up of the fighting elite from those living in the Badlands –
the Crusaders
. The number of Insurgents who had based themselves among the Alliance population, within the pockets of Crusaders allowed to live in Capital City, were limited. Less than one hundred, according to the last official estimates. But they believed in making their presence felt, to say the least. Another look around and
Kaspar made himself a promise. He wouldn’t rest until every last one of them had been rounded up and held accountable for their actions. He owed it to his mum if nothing else.

This was turning out to be one hell of a first day.

On the other side of the building, a black-clad figure crouched down between the trees, waiting. Once he saw the Guardians running round to reinforce the efforts of their colleagues – the diversion working as planned – he slipped out of the shadows and darted for the back of the main building, heading towards the Admin annexe. More skilful than the assailants at the main building, he reached the security fence unseen, dug into the small rucksack on his back to remove a thick but narrow rolled-up mat, which he threw over the razor-wire, and nimbly hauled himself up and over. Each step, each movement, betrayed expert precision as he made no sound. Now inside the secure compound, he used the available cover to approach the Admin building. Unholstering a climber’s dart-gun, he fired a steel piton into the frame of a third-storey window. It pierced the window frame with a dull
thwack
. He rapidly climbed the spider-wire attached to the piton, his skill barely causing it to sway more than a few centimetres in any direction. At the second-floor window, he began to disarm the electronic window lock.

Two Guardians came running round the corner of the
building, about twenty metres from where he was hanging. He froze, holding on with one hand and pointing a pistol fitted with a silencer with the other. But good quality spider-wire was nearly invisible and neither Guardian looked up as they ran by.

He swung his legs through the now-open window and dropped lightly onto the floor of the caretaker’s storeroom. So far, the intelligence he’d been given had been spot on. He opened the door quietly, but as expected the building was deserted. Through the door, turn ninety degrees right, fifteen metres true, ninety degrees left, second door, fire stairs, two flights up to the footbridge that led to the main Admin building. Two Guardians manned the footbridge as he had anticipated, but they were deep in conversation and he slipped past them without incident. Then down six flights of stairs to sub-basement B – the computer core. A deep breath later, he input an eight-digit code on the keypad by the door. The door slid open with a hiss. A blast of ice-cold air rushed out to meet him. His stance alert, his gun drawn, he took a quick look around but the place appeared empty. He entered the cavernous room that housed the local data hub. Steadying himself, he took another strong, deep breath. So far, so good.

But everything up until then had been the easy part.

The attack had worked brilliantly to divert the Guardians. And he had made it into the core and set off no alarms. But now that would change. As soon as he accessed the network, he knew he would be detected and they would come for him.

So be it.

He would have enough time.

He sat at the operator’s console and began to search, his hands moving rapidly as he flicked through data screen after data screen.

The last attacker outside was now desperately trying to escape back behind the curtain of trees. He zigzagged while firing blindly behind him. Kaspar dropped to one knee, took aim at the terrorist’s back and squeezed the trigger. As he did so another bolt of electricity lanced out from slightly behind him, to his left. Both bolts hit their target. The fleeing man was sent sprawling into a flower bed. Kaspar looked around for the source of the second shot and saw Voss breaking out an unsanctioned second weapon, both hands now loaded. The commander ran over, still scanning for any remaining enemies.

‘Nice shot, kid. What’s your name again?’

‘Wilding, sir,’ replied Kaspar. ‘Kaspar Wilding.’

Voss looked at the man twitching in the flowers. ‘Double stunned. He is going to feel real rough when he wakes up.’ He laughed. ‘Serves him right. Bastard.’

Kaspar nodded his agreement, feeling not the least bit sorry for the terrorist. He steadied himself to look around again. Moans and weeping still filled the air. He pressed his thumb and index finger together in an effort to try and bank down his feelings. If he lost it now, who would that
help? As silence slowly descended, an ear-splitting siren went off.

‘Better late than never,’ he said drily. The alarm had certainly taken its time in going off.

‘Damn it!’ Voss spat. ‘That isn’t the general alarm. This was just a diversion. Someone has breached the computer core!’ He started running towards the Admin building. ‘Come on, Wilding,’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘Or d’you think you’ve done enough for one day?’

Kaspar sprinted to catch up. They arrived at the same time as eight or nine other Guardians, including Dillon and Janna, who charged up the steps to the main entrance.

‘You two.’ Voss pointed at Dillon and Janna. ‘Secure the rest of the building. The rest of you head down to the computer core and don’t let anyone slip past you or you’ll answer to me.’

Kaspar went to follow, but Voss caught his arm.

‘Not that way,’ he said, dragging Kaspar away from the entrance. ‘I have a better idea.’

Voss tore off, leading the way to a series of four backup air-conditioning vents around one side of the building, each of which measured at least two metres in diameter. He keyed the transmit switch on the CommLink located at his throat.

‘229 Voss to Maintenance. Shut down the power on vent 9H.’

‘I can’t, sir. It’s against regul—’ That was as far as the duty engineer was allowed to get.

‘
This is Commander Voss. Kill the power on vent niner hotel. NOW
.’

If the engineer still had doubts, he kept them to himself. With a loud clunk, the fan blades of the vent began to slow down.

‘What do they want with the computer core?’ asked Kaspar as they waited for the fan to stop. ‘Can they get access to our defence systems through there?’

‘No,’ replied Voss. ‘As soon as the alarm goes off, all comms are severed. No data is going in or coming out of there now.’

‘How about via CommLink or a radio? Can the assailant transmit what he finds to Insurgents elsewhere?’

‘No, that place is shielded against all EM radiation,’ replied Voss as he started to unscrew the access panel with his Guardian utility knife. ‘It doesn’t matter what he does. He’s caught like a rat in a trap.’

‘Maybe they don’t know they can’t transmit from there?’ said Kaspar.

‘Oh, they know all right. I’d put money on it,’ Voss replied. ‘All of our data nodes are shielded against electromagnetic radiation, so why would they think this one will be different?’

‘So it’s just sabotage?’

‘That won’t do them any good either. All the data is duplicated and all the computers have multiple, multi-site backups. The stupid sods can’t achieve anything except minor nuisance value.’ Voss lifted the access panel and started to squeeze into the narrow air-conditioning duct.
‘Leads down to the core,’ he explained. ‘Hope you ain’t claustrophobic?’