Quarantine (The Shadow Wars Book 7.5) (2 page)

They'd both seen their own brands of hell, and, unlike the others, they seemed more damaged by what they had endured. But Enzo was...difficult. He was rarely in a talking mood. When he wasn't sleeping or getting high, it seemed like he was systematically working his way through the female population of the ship. It seemed like a different woman was coming out of his quarters every day. Allan expected to be jealous of the man, it had been a while since he'd gotten lucky, but it didn't come. He didn't know if that was because of his budding insanity or his budding relationship with Callie. He hoped it was the second one.

Thoughts of his newfound friends reminded him of how they were gone. Trent and Drake had just finished a mission and, after asking him to join them, had taken off to a pleasure planet. Callie had gone to lead a squad of Spec Ops troops to investigate the final known Rogue Ops hideout on the list. Allan had hoped hard that it didn't turn out like the last time she did something like that. He wasn't sure where Genevieve was, or Enzo. He thought that Duncan, Greg and Colin were still onboard, but as it was, he was bad with keeping track of people nowadays.

As Allan stepped out of the dorms wing and into one of the primary access corridors, he nearly crashed into Hawkins.

“Allan! Just the man I was looking to see,” he said.

“Sir?” Allan replied.

“Something's come up, I'm assembling a team and I want you to lead them,” Hawkins replied, turning around and walking away, motioning for Allan to follow. He did, feeling a wave of cold dread sweep through him.

“Me, lead? Are you sure?” he replied, trying to keep his voice neutral.

“Yes. Everyone else is busy and this is really short notice. We caught a lucky break here,” Hawkins replied briskly, taking a quick turn.

Allan hurried to keep up. “Uh...yes, sir,” he replied.

“I have confidence in you, Allan. You can do this. You did well on Lindholm and with Matheson, this should be cake by comparison,” Hawkins said.

They stepped through a door and into a briefing room. Already, five of the seats were filled, only two of them by people Allan was familiar with. He felt the terror begin to slip away at such a familiar environment. How many times had he sat at a briefing table with his team? Dozens? A hundred? Maybe as many as two hundred times during his career. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he and Hawkins took their respective seats.

“Let's do some quick introductions,” Hawkins said.

He went around the table. Allan already knew Duncan and Colin. Duncan had a goofy grin and Colin looked as sour as ever.

The first of the three new warriors was a frowning man named Smitty. He'd pulled twenty years in the spaceborne Search & Rescue division as a medic before applying for Spec Ops. Apparently, this was to be his first mission under the vaunted branch of Special Operations. He was a bald, squat man that seemed to be made out of bulky muscle. He had a dour expression that seemed to have been carved into his face.

The second was a very tall, well-muscled black woman with straight, shoulder-length silver hair named, quite appropriately, Hunter. She had an easy smile, very white teeth and a relaxed composure that spoke of quick death. She had started out as a bounty hunter at fifteen. She stayed one for thirty years, before catching the eye of a Spec Ops Commander that decided she had to have Hunter on her team. After pushing her through a hardcore, nine month training program, Hunter came out the other side a grunt in the Spec Ops army. She'd spent ten years working her way up to a Commander rank and running her own team. She'd since passed her team onto another Commander and had taken on the job of dealing with projects deemed impossible.

The final person was a sullen, pale woman who fidgeted a lot. Her name was Fletcher. Her muscles, packed onto her skinny frame, seemed manufactured. She had short, black hair and grim blue eyes that she liked to shift around a lot. What spiked Allan's curiosity and apprehension was the fact that she was a former Rogue Ops computer tech who wanted out. She'd come to Hawkins, asking for amnesty, and he told her she could have it if she survived this upcoming mission and didn't betray them. Allan thought it was a risk.

But she reminded him of Banks.

“So, now we know each other,” Hawkins said impatiently, “we can get to business. Your mission is as follows. Two hours ago we intercepted a distress call from a Rogue Ops vessel. The information is slim, and we managed to keep the message from getting to where it needed to go, and there have been no more since then. Unfortunately, we don't know what kind of check-up schedule they might have, so we need to be quick.

“Based on the information, we only managed to piece together a little bit of data. The vessel is some kind of research ship. It's called the
Stygian
. It's in the middle of nowhere. The distress call didn't give away any clues about the nature of the actual distress, except that it's serious. What we need to do is get on that ship and pull out whatever data we can. We're still piecing together data from Matheson and the mainframe Genevieve copied, but anything would help. Now, everyone, there's no question here: Allan is in charge.”

Hawkins stopped speaking for a moment, his gaze sweeping the table. There were no changes in expression, no comments, and Hawkins stared at Allan.

“Any questions?” he asked.

There were none.

Hawkins smiled grimly. “Good, then. There's a speed ship that we've been racing to meet. They can get you to the
Stygian
in three hours. All your gear will be transferred to the ship when we link up in ten minutes, so I suggest you grab whatever you might need from your quarters and then report to airlock six.”

Everyone stood up and filed out of the room.

Chapter 02

–
In Transit
–

Allan was the last one out for a reason.

He watched the others file out and drift away, then turned to Hawkins, who was still sitting at his place at the head of the table. Allan reached out and hit the close button. The door slipped shut almost without a sound.

“Something else, Allan?” Hawkins asked after a moment of chilled silence passed between them.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked finally.

“Yes, Allan,” Hawkins replied. He stood up, but then hesitated, and turned back to face him. “Allan, let me tell you something. The others on this little assignment, they've all had it rough, earned their scars, paid their dues to be here. You all have. But what you did, what you put up with on Lindholm...the others respect you for that. More than they do each other.”

“Are you sure?” Allan replied after thinking about it for a second.

“Yes. I've been in the military business for a long, long time now. Over a century. I grabbed the rifle and put on the armor when I was eighteen years old. I learned how to read people like a book. It took a while, but it's a skill you've got to pick up when your nine-to-five involves people that want to kill you. So you can assume I'm not just talking out of my ass.”

Allan stared at Hawkins a moment longer, trying to measure the man's words, then nodded. He turned and left the room. He was still thinking about Hawkins' little speech, wondering if the aged warrior had read
him
right, when he ran into Greg.

“Hey, Allan, what's happening? I saw Duncan and Colin headed for an airlock,” he said.

“We've got a mission. Some Rogue Ops ship. You?” Allan replied.

“We're finally done with Matheson, I guess. Hawkins is getting ready to have him transferred to a GA facility. He wants me to be on the security detail to make sure he gets there,” Greg replied.

“Oh.” They both lingered there for a moment. “Uh...how's things with Eve?”

Greg laughed. “Um...interesting,” he said. “She's...something else. It's a little weird for...reasons that...I don't really want to go into.”

“Oh...how's the new arm coming?”

“Great!” Greg said, raising it and making a fist. He was wearing a black-and-silver jumpsuit, but the hands that came out of the sleeves were both made of flesh. Allan had to give it to those surgeons, it really did look like the hand the man was born with.

“That's good...well, I probably should get going or Hawkins is going to have my ass. This is a bit of a timed mission,” Allan replied.

“All right. Good luck.”

Allan turned and walked away. He still felt like he needed to relearn how to have something as simple as a conversation. After spending several moments navigating the chromium corridors of the
Atonement
, he found airlock six, where the rest of the crew was already heading into the airlock. He shuffled in behind them.

“What took you?” Duncan asked, trying and mostly failing at twisting around and staring back at Allan with a stupid grin on his face.

Allan tried on a smile. “I had to ask Hawkins if I was really going to have to put up with you for a whole other mission.”

Duncan laughed. “Yeah, but what you
should
have asked is if Colin's anti-bitch pills had been shipped in yet.”

“Stick it up your ass, kid,” Colin replied.

“You guys are a barrel of laughs,” Smitty muttered.

“I think you and Colin are going to get along just fine,” Duncan replied.

The airlock finished cycling. The crew shuffled their way through it and into the next airlock, which was already open for them. They were greeted by a single man in a black-and-silver jumpsuit on the other side. He had a crew cut and a severe expression that said he was all business. He waited until they had all come into the room.

“Come with me,” he said, then turned and walked out of the room.

Allan and the crew followed him into a short corridor. Metallic clanging noises followed them as the speed ship disengaged from the
Atonement
. They traversed the narrow length of corridor and the crewman led them through an anonymous door. By now, Allan imagined the ship had dropped into hyperspace and was shrieking towards its intended target. The room they were brought to was a well-stocked armory.

How many times had Allan seen one of these?

Lately, a well-stocked armory didn't seemed to mean quite as much as it used to. The crewman stepped aside, allowing them to shuffle in.

“Suits, gear and weapons are all here. You'll get a ten minute warning before we leave hyperspace. You've got three hours.”

With that little speech delivered, he turned and left the room. Everyone watched him go, then returned their gazes to the shelves, cases and crates of guns, ammo and gear. They dispersed throughout the room, each of them picking up various guns and inspecting them. Allan moved over to a gun rack that had a nasty looking, long-barreled black double-barreled shotgun on it. He picked it up and looked it over. Hefting it in his grasp, he stuck the stock into his shoulder and practiced aiming against the wall, staring down the sights.

The bore was wide enough that it seemed like it would do some serious damage. Allan nodded gently to himself, satisfied with the weapon. After attaching a shoulder strap to it, he loaded both barrels and shoved a couple dozen shells into his various pockets. Next, he grabbed the mandatory sidearm, holstered it and filled up on magazines and a few grenades for good measure. He turned and watched the others.

Hunter was talking with Duncan, checking out a long-barreled rifle while holding up her end of the conversation. They both seemed happy. Colin was talking quietly with Smitty, neither man looking at the other, both of them at a workbench, field-stripping pistols. They both seemed oddly happy in their own way, even if they were utterly miserable. Allan supposed that being miserable with someone else equally as miserable was kind of like happiness tuned to a different frequency. Fletcher inspected a pistol in the corner and looked very sad and put-upon. Allan considered talking to her, but couldn't think of anything worth saying.

In the end, he walked out of the armory and headed for the bridge. He was having deja vu as he stepped through the doorway. The last mission had been a lot like this. He really hoped that history wouldn't repeat itself. He looked around the bridge. There was just the pilot, manning the controls silently. The windows ahead of him were shuttered against the intense powers of hyperspace. Allan slowly approached the pilot, coming to stand behind him.

For a long moment, neither said a word.

“You want something?” the pilot asked finally.

“Is everything going smoothly?” Allan replied.

“Yes. We're on schedule.”

“You'll let me know if anything comes up?”

“Yes.”

“All right.”

Allan turned and retreated from the bridge. He spent a long moment considering what to do with his hours of waiting.

Finally, he decided to go against the grain of his natural instinct to simply hide himself away and instead actually talk to the others.

* * * * *

He found Smitty in the infirmary.

The combat medic was standing before a long row of smoothly polished, glaringly white plastic counters. Every surface was covered in all manner of medical equipment and supplies. His hands moved constantly, sorting through everything, transferring supplies, bits of polished metal and a variety of syringes to half a dozen open medical kits. Allan simply stood there and watched for a few moments, witnessing the kits slowly begin to fill with very tightly packed supplies. Smitty worked ceaselessly and silently.

“Can I help you, boss?” he asked without looking up, finally breaking the silence.

“I was just hoping to get to know you a little better, before the mission,” Allan replied, coming a little closer but still keeping a respectful distance. Smitty seemed like the kind of man who had a wide personal bubble.

“I wouldn't bother if I were you,” he said, and Allan realized he had a slight accent. After a second he had it placed: his voice carried remnants of the old British accent. “I'm afraid I'm a bit boring,” he added, still not looking up.

“So bore me,” Allan replied.

Smitty chuckled grimly. “All right, fair enough. I grew on a mining colony, on an asteroid. A big one. Really nasty place for a kid. I passed the time for the first twenty five years by working out and learning about medicine. Don't know why, it always interested me. I ended up becoming an unofficial medic for the colony when a tunnel collapsed and I happened to be nearby. Everyone kind of panicked and there were no real medics nearby, so I kind of started doling out orders. I was seventeen. I ended up saving something like twenty miners who would have otherwise died. I wanted to leave when I was eighteen but my parents and the community kind of guilted me into staying until I was twenty five. Then I left.”

“Where'd you go?” Allan asked.

Smitty finished loading one of the medical kits that Allan was sure he'd be passing out to each of them for the mission and snapped it shut. “I'd had a lot of time to look around and see where my talents might be put to use best. I choose Search & Rescue, because I wanted to not be tied down to a single place anymore. I suppose that, in retrospect, you're tied to your ship, but at least it moved around a lot. Unfortunately, I was delayed for another three years. I'd taken some online courses and I gained a lot of experience in the field, but, of course, they want it done
their
way. I at least blasted through a five-year degree in three years, then took the first assignment in S and R I could find.”

“What made you want to join Spec Ops?”

Smitty sighed and finished with a second medical kit. “I guess I felt I could be doing more. Search & Rescue is tough, but I was doing good work.” He hesitated for a moment. “Maybe it wasn't that I could be doing more. Maybe it was just that I was bored and I wanted more of a challenge.”

Allan snorted. “If this mission is anything like the rest of the shit we've gone through, you're going to up to your neck 'challenge'.”

Smitty chuckled grimly and kept on packing. They talked a little bit more, but it seemed as if Allan had pulled everything out of the man that he was going to. He decided to leave him to it, turned and headed out of the infirmary.

* * * * *

Fletcher was tucked away in the mess hall, staring gloomily into a steaming cup of coffee. Allan almost didn't bother talking to her, since he doubted she had much of anything to say to him and, to be honest, he found it difficult to reconcile the fact that she had worked with Dark Ops after they'd become Rogue Ops. But then he quickly reminded himself that he had killed an entire planet and didn't have any room to judge.

So, instead of leaving, he sat down across from her at one of only two tables in the mess hall. She glanced up gloomily.

“Hi,” Allan said.

“Hey,” Fletcher mumbled. She looked back down at her coffee.

“What was your cell working on?” Allan asked suddenly. He hadn't meant for the question to pop out like that, he'd wanted to dither around some more with light chat or something like it, but there it was, nonetheless.

“We were making a bomb,” Fletcher said after a moment. “We found some Cyr tech on a new world and they were trying to find a way to weaponize it. We'd been out there for months and it was getting boring. I was one of the techs they'd employed to run down generic problems in the database. Maybe two months into the project, the tone started to change. It was...little things, I'm not sure how to adequately describe it, really. But people started acting differently, those up top, and things were getting more and more restricted.

“Finally, a paranoid friend of mine forced his way into their databanks and had a look around. He found out they were no longer reporting into the Galactic Alliance
and
that they were talking with other cells, which was extremely illegal and against protocol. Obviously something had gone very wrong. He came to me with this...then he disappeared. They said he'd been transferred. As luck would have it, some personnel rotations were just around the corner. I stowed away on one of the ships and the second we hit port, I disappeared into the crowd and went to the GA. After getting sent through the shuffle, I finally ended up here,” she explained.

Allan was slowly becoming more relaxed as she talked. He became less paranoid about a betrayal from her. She seemed honest enough, and miserable enough. For a moment, he was confused about her being here. Why send a low-ranking, glorified comp-tech on a mission like this? Then it clicked. He remember Hawkins complaining about how the GA didn't feel like giving them the resources he felt were necessary and having to gather up table scraps. A Rogue Ops tech wouldn't go anywhere but prison outside of this mission.

“Be honest, is this going to get me killed?” Fletcher asked suddenly, looking up at him. There was fear in her eyes.

“I don't know,” Allan replied after considering it. “This might be a total dud, a milk run, the most unpleasant thing we run into being a bunch of dead bodies...or it could be insanely dangerous. I've put up with both over the past month.”