he knows exactly what that looks like. For a moment, it takes his breath, and he crouches down on his ankles, hands between his knees, and bows his head, waiting for it to clear.
Not a comms malfunction, not simply the wrong moment…
It’s visceral. Someone attacked her, ruthlessly, violently, when he didn’t have eyes on her, when he was somewhere else, doing something else. And now he’s stuck here, knife twisting in his gut, blind and unable to help.
Where are you? Why didn’t you tell me you were heading out into the open? Why didn’t you call me when you knew they were coming?
Because they were jamming her signal.
It sparks anger, too hot, too close to rage. “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry, brother,” Wyatt says, close enough, but still keeping a respectful distance. “She’s gotta be alive though.”
Voss considers it, focusing his gaze across the dark length of the hangar, as if he can see into the storm beyond the blast doors. “Maybe.”
“She’s worth more alive.”
“Unless it’s a message.”
“Wellll---” Wyatt rubs one hand over his shaved head, pressing his fingers against the back of his neck in thought. “Doesn’t take a big transport ship retrofitted with rockets to make a message out of one woman. For that, they could have snatched her anywhere. It’s not like she’s…”
“Yeah.”
“They knew to jam the locator we put on her, and then they intercepted her with three air transports, modified to accommodate weaponry---now pretty much heavy attack ships. That’s…”
Voss waits, but he knows what’s coming.
“There’s a bigger plan,” Wyatt finishes. “And the timing…”
“Niri.”
“Yeah, this bullshit.”
Voss lets out frustrated breath. “Indoctrination.”
“Indoctrination,” Wyatt repeats, as if it denotes a crime. “Whatever the hell that is. It’s what our mystery enemy is desperate to prevent, right? Those guys who keep attacking us? The guys who have already proven they would do anything to stop us? We laid low at Fort Liberty for a while, so maybe there was no opportunity, but now the moment is here, and it’s been rush rush rush since we got the green light. President Wexler wanted Niri here before the storm hit. The doc wanted her on the elevator the second we landed.”
“They knew something.”
“Of course, they did,” Wyatt insists. “Those encrypted SAT images? Someone tried to hide those, and I doubt it was Wexler. It’s the enemy, someone in his administration. Someone within their circle is helping the subversives, and they know that. They just don’t know who it is. They knew something was up, so they sent us out early, but they’re still being played from the inside. This is a trap, and Petra is their hostage. Only reason to take her like this is to get to you. Two hundred cred says they’re heading straight for us, and she’s going to come streaming in on vid any minute, roughed up, and begging us not to shoot them down because she’s on one of those gunships.”
Voss grimaces. Checkmate.
It makes sense, and it feels probable, a play like this… It’s the hit he wasn’t expecting, leaving him with only two options: compromise BIOSTAT in an attempt to get Petra back, or follow protocol and scatter those transports across red sand on their approach, killing everyone onboard.
He tries not to think of her inside the transport, and does anyway, whatever they’ve done to her, whatever they’re doing…
It’s not a hard decision though maybe it should’ve been.
He nods, draws a breath. “It’s not a suicide run. If they’re coming here, they can’t just talk their way into the hangar, detonate a bomb, kill us all, and stop the program. The facility itself is too far underground, under rock. They’d have to land here, and fight all the way down to get to Niri.”
“Via one elevator,” Wyatt adds, always in sync. “Then another, with a heavily armed monitoring station sitting in between.”
“We put BIOSTAT in
Not a comms malfunction, not simply the wrong moment…
It’s visceral. Someone attacked her, ruthlessly, violently, when he didn’t have eyes on her, when he was somewhere else, doing something else. And now he’s stuck here, knife twisting in his gut, blind and unable to help.
Where are you? Why didn’t you tell me you were heading out into the open? Why didn’t you call me when you knew they were coming?
Because they were jamming her signal.
It sparks anger, too hot, too close to rage. “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry, brother,” Wyatt says, close enough, but still keeping a respectful distance. “She’s gotta be alive though.”
Voss considers it, focusing his gaze across the dark length of the hangar, as if he can see into the storm beyond the blast doors. “Maybe.”
“She’s worth more alive.”
“Unless it’s a message.”
“Wellll---” Wyatt rubs one hand over his shaved head, pressing his fingers against the back of his neck in thought. “Doesn’t take a big transport ship retrofitted with rockets to make a message out of one woman. For that, they could have snatched her anywhere. It’s not like she’s…”
“Yeah.”
“They knew to jam the locator we put on her, and then they intercepted her with three air transports, modified to accommodate weaponry---now pretty much heavy attack ships. That’s…”
Voss waits, but he knows what’s coming.
“There’s a bigger plan,” Wyatt finishes. “And the timing…”
“Niri.”
“Yeah, this bullshit.”
Voss lets out frustrated breath. “Indoctrination.”
“Indoctrination,” Wyatt repeats, as if it denotes a crime. “Whatever the hell that is. It’s what our mystery enemy is desperate to prevent, right? Those guys who keep attacking us? The guys who have already proven they would do anything to stop us? We laid low at Fort Liberty for a while, so maybe there was no opportunity, but now the moment is here, and it’s been rush rush rush since we got the green light. President Wexler wanted Niri here before the storm hit. The doc wanted her on the elevator the second we landed.”
“They knew something.”
“Of course, they did,” Wyatt insists. “Those encrypted SAT images? Someone tried to hide those, and I doubt it was Wexler. It’s the enemy, someone in his administration. Someone within their circle is helping the subversives, and they know that. They just don’t know who it is. They knew something was up, so they sent us out early, but they’re still being played from the inside. This is a trap, and Petra is their hostage. Only reason to take her like this is to get to you. Two hundred cred says they’re heading straight for us, and she’s going to come streaming in on vid any minute, roughed up, and begging us not to shoot them down because she’s on one of those gunships.”
Voss grimaces. Checkmate.
It makes sense, and it feels probable, a play like this… It’s the hit he wasn’t expecting, leaving him with only two options: compromise BIOSTAT in an attempt to get Petra back, or follow protocol and scatter those transports across red sand on their approach, killing everyone onboard.
He tries not to think of her inside the transport, and does anyway, whatever they’ve done to her, whatever they’re doing…
It’s not a hard decision though maybe it should’ve been.
He nods, draws a breath. “It’s not a suicide run. If they’re coming here, they can’t just talk their way into the hangar, detonate a bomb, kill us all, and stop the program. The facility itself is too far underground, under rock. They’d have to land here, and fight all the way down to get to Niri.”
“Via one elevator,” Wyatt adds, always in sync. “Then another, with a heavily armed monitoring station sitting in between.”
“We put BIOSTAT in
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