Rikkard's Revenge: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Darkspace Renegade Book 4) Page 12

  “That’s eleven, by the way, in case you’re not counting,” said Alexis. She was then rushed from the side and hammered into the wall of a cryo-vat by the two remaining Vediovan gang members. Struggling to subdue her, the Forsaken thugs fought to press the barrels of their rifles against Alexis’ armor, attempting to shoot her at point-blank range. However, even against two men, Alexis’ augmented strength was superior. She deflected the weapons with her Bo staff, sending the bullets thudding into the cryo-vat instead. Liquid nitrogen spurted from the holes, covering the legs of one gang member and causing him to howl in pain. Alexis dropped the Bo staff and grabbed both men, spinning them around and pressing them against the flowing liquid. Both continued to screech and howl as the liquid burned their skin, but Alexis continued to hold them in place. Cad then stepped forward and swung his sword, decapitating both gang members with one mighty swing of the alien-derived blade.

  Alexis stepped back, flipped up her visor, then pressed her hands to her hips. “Those two were mine,” she said, sounding genuinely annoyed.

  Cad continued to watch the liquid nitrogen boil out from the tank and burn the two men who were now frozen to it. He already knew why Alexis was annoyed. With the last two Forsaken thugs dying at the edge of Cad’s sword, his tally had grown to thirteen, which made him the victor of Alexis’ macabre challenge.

  “I was just lending you a helping hand,” said Cad, inspecting the blade of his sword. However, other than being so cold it could burn flesh, it was undamaged. Cad grunted and returned it to its sheath.

  “That’s new,” said Alexis, pointing to the cryo-machine that Cad had stuffed the Forsaken pilot into earlier.

  “How long do you think it takes to completely freeze solid inside one of these things?” Cad said, still morbidly curious to learn the answer. He suspected that if Draga were still alive, she would know the answer.

  Alexis strolled up to the machine and launched a kick at the shoulders of the Forsaken thug. The man’s body splintered away from his head and flopped to the concrete. However, the frozen head remained stuck inside the machine, surrounded by hundreds of strawberries.

  “I’m claiming that one, by the way,” Alexis said, evidently still hacked off that Cad had taken the last two kills from her.

  “Fine, we’ll call it a draw,” Cad grunted. His watch then bleeped an incoming call and he huffed a laugh.

  “Is that who I think it is?” said Alexis. Cad turned his wrist so that Alexis could see the screen. “It’s about damn time he reared his ugly head again…” Alexis continued, plucking a frozen strawberry off the conveyer and tapping it against the side of the machine. She then blew some of the freezing vapor off the strawberry, as if she was blowing across the barrel of her smoking pistols. “As much fun as this was, I think it’s time we got back to more serious matters.”

  Cad nodded then hovered his finger over the screen. “Let’s find out what Damien Doyle has to say, shall we?”

  16

  Cad Rikkard put Damien Doyle’s call through on the visor inside his helmet, adding Alexis as an anonymous observer so that she could also watch and listen in.

  “I have been expecting an update from you, Mr. Rikkard,” said Damien Doyle, materializing on the rooftop of his Governors Island tower. “Do you have any idea what is happening right now?”

  Cad shrugged. “Let me see,” he said, stroking the bottom of his chin with his thumb. “Your planet is slowly falling into the sun, your stock prices are in the gutter, your reputation is in tatters, and the governors of all the bridge worlds are hounding you for answers. Those that aren’t in your back pocket anyway.” Cad then paused and shot Doyle a saccharin smile. “How am I doing so far?”

  Damien Doyle’s face twisted and his skin flushed a crimson red. “It would be wise not to mock me, Mr. Rikkard,” he seethed with barely restrained fury. “I am above the law. I am untouchable. And despite your boasts to the contrary, I can assure you that you are not. I hired you for your skills and discretion, but if I am exposed, then I will no longer have any need of you.”

  Cad held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Relax, I’m only messing around,” he said, doing a good impression of sounding amiable. “I already have Shelby Rand safely locked up in the back of my ship, as we speak. Unless you no longer require my services, of course?”

  Cad’s brazen but convincing lie changed Doyle’s entire complexion in the space of a second.

  “You have Rand on your ship right now?” Doyle said, sounding doubtful, but also encouraged.

  Cad nodded. “It turns out that you weren’t the only one to have a private planet,” he said, losing his earlier more flippant tone and addressing Doyle with the emotionally-detached sincerity the magnate was used to. “We found her base, killed its crew, and captured her.”

  “You must bring her to me at once,” said Doyle. If he was trying to hide his excitement, he was failing miserably, Cad thought. “Rand is the way out of this mess. Not only can she fix the problems that her infernal technology created, but when she’s finished, I can hang the whole damn thing around her neck too. She’ll spend the rest of her life in some orbital gulag, and then we can all get back to normal. You included.”

  “I require an appropriate level of compensation, considering my significant losses,” said Cad, doing the expected level of negotiating, despite not caring for or needing any more of Doyle’s money. “I don’t give a damn what you do with Shelby Rand. I just want paying.”

  Doyle’s eyes sharpened. Any talk of negotiations over money always brought the cold, calculating businessman back to the surface. However, this time, Damien Doyle was in no mood to barter. “If you have Rand, then you will get whatever you want or need. You know I am good for it.”

  Cad sighed, pretending to contemplate the offer for a period of time that Doyle would consider appropriate. He didn’t want to seem overly keen. “Very well, we’ll bring her to you shortly. I have some business to finish first.”

  This seemed to anger Doyle. “Time is of the essence, Mr. Rikkard. Whatever other business you have can wait. I expect your prompt arrival at my Governors Island tower.”

  Doyle then cut the transmission, and Cad flipped up his visor before meeting Alexis’ curious eyes.

  “Just as you planned…” said Alexis, holstering her pistols and recovering her Bo staff from the feet of the frozen gang members. “Once we’re done with Doyle, we can take care of Knight and Wulfrun.”

  Cad nodded, but then had a thought. “We’ll need to bring someone with us, to pretend to be Rand. We can cover their head with a hood. By the time Doyle realizes the deception, it will be too late. For him anyway.”

  Alexis looked at the bodies on the concrete floor of the factory and shrugged. “I’m afraid we’ve already put these ones on ice. Bits of them anyway…”

  As Alexis was speaking, Cad saw a group of CSF Enforcers moving toward them. The leader, a middle-aged woman, who Cad recognized as the officer who had hired him, approached Cad and ordered the rest of her squad to continue on. Alexis glanced at Cad and flashed her eyes at him, a mischievous smile curling her lips.

  “They told me your reputation was well earned, Mr. Rikkard,” the woman said, having to shout just to make herself heard over the racket of the machinery. “But you’ve outdone yourself here. You’ve done the Consortium a great service today.”

  While the officer was talking, Alexis had walked up and down the nearby rows, peering along the entire length of the factory, with her visor still lowered. She returned as the woman finished talking, drawing a confused scowl from the CSF commander.

  “I only care about getting paid,” said Cad, glancing across to Alexis, who had now flipped up her visor.

  “We’re clear; the others have moved out already,” said Alexis, which only made the officer’s scowl deepen. “And she’s about the right size. I think she’ll do nicely.”

  “Well, you’ll get what’s owed, I can assure you of that,” the commander said, suddenl
y appearing anxious and eager to leave. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to catch up with the rest of my squads. There are still a dozen or so Forsaken gang members resisting in sector seven.”

  The woman made to leave, but Cad held out his arm to bar her progress. “Just one moment, commander. I do have a question, if you’ll indulge me?”

  “Go on,” the woman said, hesitantly.

  “How old are you?” asked Cad, shooting her his most charming smile. “I mean, you look very young to be a regional commander of the CSF.”

  The woman brushed her hair behind her ears and smiled. Cad’s flattery had done the trick. “That’s nice of you to say,” the commander said, blushing slightly. “But I’m actually fifty-two.”

  Cad looked at Alexis, who just shrugged then clocked the commander over the head with her armored fist. She crumbled to the concrete, knocked out cold.

  “That’s a little younger than Rand, but I guess you’ll do,” Cad said, resting his hand on the pommel of his sword. “Let’s get her on the ship and head out before anyone notices she’s gone.”

  17

  Cad Rikkard maneuvered his fighter toward the floodlit roof level of Damien Doyle’s Governors Island tower in New York. He was approaching at little more than a crawl, under close escort from two CSF fighters. These vessels had shadowed his approach for the last two hundred kilometers, weapons locked on the whole time. If this wasn’t enough, two missile batteries on top of Doyle’s tower had also targeted Cad’s ship. Cautious was not the word to describe Damien Doyle’s behavior, Cad thought, lowering the fighter onto the landing pad. The tycoon had always maintained tight security, especially around his soon-to-be doomed estate on Vesta, but these current measures were far in excess of anything Cad had experienced before. However, he realized that the stepped-up security wasn’t just a response to the seriousness of the tycoon’s current situation. It also hinted at what Doyle had planned for the remains of the Blackfire Squadron, once Cad had given the magnate what he wanted.

  Cad was disappointed, though not surprised, that the multi-trillionaire would telegraph his murderous intentions quite so obviously, but he was also content to play along with Doyle’s game. If his plan worked, he wouldn’t need the fighter, or even his Black Prince sword, to dispatch the self-proclaimed “untouchable” leader of the Consortium. He only needed to get himself Alexis and Doyle in a room, together with the magnate’s ever-present personal protection bot. Then Doyle would discover just how untouchable he really was.

  Alexis Black waved and blew a kiss to the departing CSF escort fighter pilots through the cockpit glass. Then she and Cad both surveyed their new rooftop location. As usual for Damien Doyle, the structure was a towering symbol of his wealth and power. It rose over fifteen hundred meters above the New York skyline, with the topmost floors dedicated to Doyle’s personal offices and living spaces. The roof level alone was bigger than most provincial parks.

  Cad shut down the engines and lowered the rear ramp. A squad of a dozen CSF enforcers in black combat gear had already surrounded the ship. They were all sporting compact SMGs and holding them like they were prepared to use them. Cad noted their unique mahogany-red tactical vests and berets. These were both symbols that they were part of Doyle’s elite enforcer squad, Crimson Lynx. Their presence was a complication, though if all went as planned, it would merely end up as an inconvenience. However, Crimson Lynx would have to wait, Cad told himself. First was the matter of dealing with Damien Doyle.

  “Do you have the device ready?” said Cad, walking down the rear ramp with Alexis at his side. She was leading the hooded bound and gagged CSF commander by the arm. At some point, the deception would become obvious, but by the time Damien Doyle realized that their prisoner wasn’t actually the genius scientist, Dr. Shelby Rand, it would be too late.

  “Of course,” replied Alexis, though there was something about the way she said it and the look in her eyes that suggested she was up to something. Cad frowned and looked her over, trying to work out where she’d concealed the bot-hacking device that Falken had engineered.

  “So where is it, then?” asked Cad, finally giving up.

  “You’ll see…” said Alexis, flashing her eyes mysteriously at him.

  Cad grunted and let the matter drop. He wasn’t currently in the mood for games, but so long as Alexis had it with her, he didn’t care where it was. Though, considering her current close-fitting outfit, it was a puzzle that was driving him slightly mad. As instructed by Doyle’s “people” before they had arrived at Earth, both were wearing their regular jet-black tactical clothing instead of their combat armor, and both were also unarmed. Cad felt uncomfortable without the Black Prince sword at his side, despite the fact that his uniform had been tailor-made to fit him perfectly. Alexis’ uniform was similarly custom, made to her own unique style and tastes, and she wore it with confidence and élan. The turning heads and sharpened eyes of the elite enforcers was as much to do with her beguiling swagger as their orders to watch the notorious Blackfire Squadron like hawks.

  The cold night air licked at Cad’s face, causing a chill to run down his spine. He had grown more used to the climate-controlled power armor than he realized, and not only for its offensive and defensive capabilities. Cad had to remind himself that without it, he was vulnerable.

  “Wait there, sir,” said one of the enforcers, stepping out in front of Cad and thrusting an open palm toward his chest. “We just have to check that you’re not carrying any weapons.”

  Cad regarded the man for a moment, sizing him up. He was older than Cad and wore his scars proudly on his face and exposed arms. And though his uniform bore no identifiable symbols of rank, Cad guessed he was the squad’s sergeant.

  “Raise your arms,” the man continued in a gruff, soldierly manner, after Cad failed to immediately acknowledge him. Then, with forced politeness, the sergeant added, “If you wouldn’t mind… sir…”

  The enforcer’s tone had remained professional throughout, though the façade of civility was paper thin. Cad could tell that the enforcer was secretly hoping he would resist. He could see it in the man’s eyes, as he’d seen similar looks in the eyes of many other mercenaries and soldiers in the past. Some mercs just liked to hurt people for the fun of it, and this man was one of them.

  “Go ahead,” replied Cad, raising his arms out to the side.

  The sergeant nodded to another enforcer, who then patted Cad down before moving on to Alexis and hesitating.

  “Go on, don’t be shy…” said Alexis, gracefully raising her arms, as if moving into second position in ballet.

  The enforcer patted her down, noticeably more quickly and hesitantly than he had done with Cad, then moved on to the hooded prisoner. Cad’s prisoner flinched and trembled with each touch, mumbled sobs emanating from under the hood. The sergeant scowled at Alexis, who merely shot him a wink in reply, before the enforcer extended his arm to the stairwell behind them.

  “If you’ll come with me, sir and madam,” said the sergeant, waiting for Cad and Alexis to take the lead, then following a few steps behind.

  The stairwell led to a grand hall, reminiscent of one of the many such halls in Doyle’s Vestan estate. It was lined with marble statues of people Cad didn’t recognize, and overall, he considered it to be an extraordinary waste of space.

  “Just up ahead and to your right, sir,” said the sergeant, maintaining his polite, if slightly passive-aggressive tone. “The large double doors.”

  Cad glanced back at the enforcer as he walked, and smiled at him. “You Crimson Lynx guys get to see much action a mile up on a New York rooftop?” he said, passing the time by trying to goad the sergeant into revealing his true colors. “It must be really tough, fighting off all those high-flying pigeons. No wonder you need all that fancy red armor. Wouldn’t want to get pecked, would we?”

  The sergeant’s square jaw clenched. The man was trying hard not to take the bait, but Cad knew that ego and pride would mean the sergeant couldn’t resist
.

  “I’ve seen more real action than a fake soldier like you ever has,” the enforcer grunted. Then he nodded in the direction of Alexis, who was quietly listening in while still leading the prisoner. “Though your girlfriend looks like she’s seen plenty of action, if you know what I mean…” the sergeant added, smirking back at Cad before reluctantly adding, “…sir.”

  Cad returned the fake smile, enjoying how easy it had been to rile the man. Then he glanced over at Alexis. The look in her eyes told Cad all he needed to know about her intentions toward the enforcer, when the appropriate time came.

  They reached the towering set of floor-to-ceiling double doors at the end of the hall. Cad thought it looked like the entrance to a grand ballroom or some other similarly pompous and pointless space. The sergeant knocked then stepped to the side.

  “I see that Doyle saves all the really important jobs for you,” said Cad, adjusting his smile so that it was more of a smirk, which he hoped would anger the man even more.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” the sergeant replied darkly and with obvious relish. Cad snorted a laugh and glanced at Alexis again, who merely rolled her eyes. The enforcer may as well have just handed them a note saying, “Hello, my squad is only here to kill you.”

  One half of the huge doors opened, and Cad was met with the featureless metal expression of Damien Doyle’s personal protection bot. He again glanced at Alexis, who flashed her eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly. However, it was enough to let Cad know that the hacking device had been activated.