4

Grady and I walked across the gangway. His team wore heavier armor and carried more weapons than the recon gear they assigned me. Triple-weave carbon fiber protected my shins, forearms, and torso. Hoverboarders wore thicker helmets than what the Union thought I needed.

“You have secured comms with my team and medical sensors. I’ll know if you get hurt and how bad,” he explained as we walked.

I ignored Grady, more than a little annoyed he hadn't remembered my pregame ritual. In short, I liked to think things through without a lot of chitchat. There was too much subterfuge around this mission, not unusual in my line of work—or what had been my line of work—but fuck me running, this was ridiculous.

Something was wrong. Grady's nervousness betrayed the gravity of the situation. He wasn't just worried about a failed mission. If I didn't come back with this doctor, there would be consequences.

I needed to stop thinking of him as a friend. We hadn't operated together for a long time. People changed. Shit happened.

He kept talking and I kept ignoring him, preferring to look out at the hellhole they were about to push me through. Okay, they weren't actually going to push me. I'd jump. Hesitation was something I’d gotten over in basic training a long time ago.

Dreadmax had been a battle station before it was decommissioned and left dormant for two decades. Someone decided it wasn't a big enough failure in its original role and turned it into a prison for the worst of the worst. The problem was the overly grand design the Union hadn't been able to support at the time. They wanted a ship the size of a moon with the firepower of a few cruisers.

Fortunes were made long before the construction finished. Typical Union bureaucracy and pork-barrel politics had lined a lot of pockets.

Where did they go wrong with the design? They wanted to travel slip tunnels and dominate entire systems with one ship. It was so big, it was like a moon made of fat rings and bulky spires. But once the damn thing was nearly built, funding had gone dry. With only three-quarters of the facility built, the boys upstairs had decided it would make for a better prison than a space station.

"That's the reason we’re going to drop you instead of attempt a landing," Grady said.

“I’m sorry, what?” I hadn't been listening, so I didn't know what he was talking about. The briefing had stated they would land, and I would deploy from the ship while they set up security. I'd known that was bullshit the minute they said it.

Grady, my old friend, would push me out and see if I survived the first ten seconds in Dreadmax. Then maybe he’d follow and mop up with Sergeant Crank and the others.

Most of the superstructure was steel, the cheapest they could find. It necessarily had shielding plates and some energy fields to maintain pockets of surface environment, but I could see huge strips of rust and several towers that had collapsed in disrepair. There were observation towers rising in several places and shorter buildings two or three stories tall that looked like dormitories or warehouses.

“Looks like a trillion-ton doughnut. Barely has a hole,” I said.

“You have a way of minimizing everything. That’s half your problem,” stated Grady.

“My problem is I’m too good at sneaking into places and killing people.”

The main ring, so thick it was hard to see all at once, had streets of a sort, trenches with point-defense batteries that had been repurposed to blow the shit out of misbehaving inmates. Some of the point-defense turrets had been stripped and welded shut.

"Those used to be automated, back when there was a budget to run proper security on this place,” Grady said.

"What if they decide to mutiny and take the place over? There's a shipyard right there on the horizon," I said, pointing. The structures below passed faster and faster as we decreased altitude. Dreadmax had a central spire with the main ring spinning around it. It almost looked like a sphere, or a moon, but that was an optical illusion. Matching speed with the ring wouldn’t be hard for a good pilot and ours seemed to be one of the best.

He shook his head. "None of the ships work. They would have been better off scuttled in space. I was told by someone who knows someone who heard it from a guy that the shipyard is full of sentimental projects, ships named after people who invested enough money to get their name on the prow and demand they not be jettisoned into the void."

"They don't look that bad," I said. Moments later, we passed over the shipyard and I realized how wrong I was. If Dreadmax was in bad shape, the moored vessels were ten times worse. One actually cracked loose of its moorings and drifted away as we passed. It was like watching the bottom of the ocean and seeing a sea creature shake free of the sand.

Debris floated free where it shouldn’t have existed in the first place. There were several hangars with blast doors that looked as though they hadn’t been opened for a decade. I wondered when the last time they’d parked a super carrier in there was.

“The only important parts of Dreadmax are the power plant, gravity generators, and life support. If any one of those things goes down, it’s over for the convicts,” Grady said.

“And your doctor,” I pointed out. “I have a pretty good idea one of them is going to fail in twenty-four hours.”

Grady flushed red, indicating I’d guessed correctly.

“Nice. Thanks for holding back. That’s something you should’ve told me during the brief. Maybe when we were planning this out.”

“You didn’t plan it,” he reminded me.

“And that’s part of the problem. Briggs says I’m here because I have the experience, but that only counts for killin’, I guess. Doesn’t matter that I’ve got more experience with extractions than every single one of you. What if I ran into trouble and requested a pickup time well after the entire place goes dark? And what the fuck happens to the people down there when it does? Shouldn’t there be an evacuation mission?”

“Every person in that place was already sentenced to death at least once,” Grady said.

“Like me. How cheery,” I remarked.

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“You’re not the one about to be pushed out of an airlock. I mean, I’ll jump on my own. Anyone pushing me is gonna have broken fingers, but you know what I’m saying.”

“Believe it or not, a lot of people are counting on you. Lives are at stake,” he said.

“Sure. I’ll bring back your doctor, or scientist, or whatever he is. You can take that to the bank.”

“Just stick to the plan,” he retorted. “We don’t need any of your hotshot cowboy shit. Step one foot off the planned route and you’re dead along with the principal.”

“What the actual fuck, Grady? No plan ever works like that. The second I’m down, ten things will go wrong. If I’d planned this mission, there would have been allowances made for random shit.”

“Like I said, you didn’t—”

“Stop reminding me,” I interrupted.

“You brought it up.”

“Grady, why aren’t you doing this mission with your team? Doesn’t spec ops do search and rescue?”

He didn’t respond, which was in itself an answer.

Grady’s team wasn’t expendable. More importantly, it wasn’t the only team on this mission. They had already sent at least one group of unstoppable badasses. Who were probably dead. Or worse. Whatever that might be.

“Are you going to swoop in once I find him? Steal my glory? Leave me there on the ultimate death row?”

“I’m running your extraction team.”

“But you’re not the only spec ops unit on this operation,” I said, pointedly. “You’re just the only one I’m allowed to know about.”

He adjusted his gear and checked his team as he answered me, a good way to avoid eye contact. “Stop breaking my balls, Hal.”

“What fun would that be?” I slugged him in the shoulder. “We’re friends, right?”

“Sure, Hal.”

“Then, as a friend, would you mind shutting the fuck up and letting me get my head straight? If you’re going to lie and hold shit back, I want to focus on what I need to do to survive this.”

“You’re a real son-of-a-bitch.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.” I took out one of Briggs’ cigars, a lighter I lifted from another officer, and nursed it to life.

“Where’d you get that?” he asked, mouth slightly agape.

“Don’t worry about it.”

* * *

The dropship trembled as we passed through the atmosphere shield. Turbines twisted downward to keep us from crashing into Dreadmax. We were over a landing field bordered by one of the mechanical trenches.

"That's damn close, Andrews!” Grady shouted.

"Not my fault. The power must be running low for the shield to be so close to the surface. Might be better to just land and fly along this crap," Lieutenant Andrews said, a good-natured lilt in the tone of his voice.

"Not an option," said Grady, struggling to be heard over the noise.

"Roger that. We'll talk again when I slam into one of these watchtowers," muttered Andrews in response.

I heard everything they said. "I'm ready. I'll go now."

"Negative, Hal. You have thirty seconds before optimal deployment."

Leaning toward the hellhole, I took a breath and fell forward. A static line attached to my back immediately pulled the ripcord on my grav-chute. It took about twenty seconds to glide down.

Static garbled the sound of Grady's voice in my ear piece. "That was reckless. Don't fuck up now. I'm tired of cleaning up your messes."

The second my feet touched metal, I released from my gravity-parachute and sprinted toward the nearest cover. The backup guys watching me were probably losing their minds that I didn’t pack up my chute, but why would I waste time on that?

The dropship turbines tilted backward again and my ride sped away. It didn’t feel like they were coming back for me. Ever.

"Well, at least there's atmosphere. More than I expected really."

"There are better ways to test atmosphere than to deploy a parachute," X-37 said. Unlike Grady's garbled radio voice, X-37 sounded like part of me.

"Where am I, X?"

"You are one hundred meters from trench one forty-two. Would you like a more exact measurement, including centimeters and elevation?"

"Maybe later. Can I get down a level? I’d prefer to travel beneath the surface in case there is atmosphere lost through the degrading shields."

Several seconds passed, which was an unusual time lag for X-37. “I have quarantined the BMSP CIM for the duration of this mission. As to your question, traveling beneath the surface of Dreadmax is not part of your mission plan. Can you advise a reason to deviate?"

"Because deviation is fun. And I've already gone off the plan. We jumped early in case you didn't notice."

"This was noted. Can you explain?"

"Can you keep a secret?"

“Of course, but while the CIM is quarantined, I am unable to determine how much data it will gather passively. It will sync up with the mainframe on the UFS Thunder the moment we return.”

This was interesting because I assumed the CIM would need to get all the way back to the Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison before spilling the digital beans.

"I don't trust Grady."

"Analysis shows this to be an appropriate precaution. I will look for access to the below deck area.”

“What is it, X? You seem hesitant,” I said suspiciously.

“My analysis suggests that there is a reason no mention of below decks was considered in the briefing.”

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