God's Dogs
Chapter 42

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

Thomas Jefferson

Pax was at the main space port. His task was to track who was fleeing the planet. When he arrived, not long after the planetary assault began, he inserted a worm into the space port’s computer that gathered the passenger manifests for all those who left the planet in the last 48 hours. That data was transmitted to a data cube in the marine flyer he used to get to the space port.

Once the data collection was in place, he attached trackers to the space shuttles that took passengers to the ships in space.

All this was for the purpose of establishing a chain of evidence. Marshals liked it, or that was what McIntyre told them, and the Marshal’s office would take over when they were done. The plan was to be able to prove a person was on planet, then left the planet aboard a certain space craft. River, meanwhile, would establish who was at the fortress hotel by hacking into that computer. So even if the records were erased or the flight logs changed, which they assumed would be the case, they could verify a person’s location and movement.

Pax enjoyed this uncomplicated, basic police work. Quinn interrupted it, though.

“Pax, get to the mountain fortress. Moss and River are there. I’m en route. Lockhart is in an underground bunker.”

“On my way,” Pax replied and hurried to the marine flyer.

The marine crew off-loaded the data collection machine, securing it in a maintenance shed. It would continue its job until they retrieved it. Then the marine pilot took them to the fortress.

The pilot reported after they were airborne, “Air traffic for that space is no unauthorized aircraft below 5,000 feet for a twenty mile radius around the fortress.”

“I guess I’ll be jumping then.”

“Yes, sir. The gear is in the starboard locker. The weapon’s locker is on the port side.”

Pax outfitted himself with the winged, anti-grav back pack, secured a close quarter battle rifle with a blaster barrel atop a grenade launcher, and gave himself a combat load of ammunition and grenades.

When they got close, the pilot angled into the prevailing wind, and Pax jumped.

Quinn executed a similar maneuver a half hour later. As he neared the hotel, he could see there were few guards, and he figured those few were newbies or those left here for their incompetence. The real troops were deployed, but some veterans would be in the bunker.

Quinn guided himself to the shadow between the hotel and an adjacent building and gently landed. Then he checked in.

“This is Quinn. I’m outside the hotel.”

Moss answered, “The bunker is sealed tight. We haven’t found a way in.”

“Acknowledged.”

Quinn angled his approach toward two patrolling guards outside the hotel. He stunned one as he landed, and disarmed the other a moment later. Then he switched off his camo.

“Why don’t we bring your friend over to the wall and prop him up,” Quinn directed the remaining soldier in a conversational tone. “He’ll be more comfortable that way.”

“Yes, sir,” the young man gritted out.

After the soldier did so, Quinn went on, “We have credible intel the maniacs you work for are going to blow critical infrastructure targets when the League ships arrive. Bridges, dams, fusion power plants, that kind of thing.”

“They wouldn’t do that.”

“They will do that and blame it on the League. They want a civil war.”

The young man began breathing heavily. Moss continued, “They will destroy your home, your planet, in order to get what they want.”

“You’re lying. You have to be lying.”

“I wish I was, son, but the people who took over here are escaped war criminals from the Empire. All they want is revenge because they lost the war.”

“You’re a Coyote, aren’t you?”

“Yes. We’ve been tracking these war criminals for a while.”

“I always thought of you as the good guys, like super-heroes in the vids.”

“Then you know I’m not lying.”

“Yeah. Probably. But I’ve got a duty.”

Quinn infused his next words with power. He drew in the energy from the Nature, Spirit, and Void realms and added his command voice to what he said, “You’ve got a duty alright. A duty to refuse unlawful orders, a duty to arrest war criminals. You swore an oath to protect the citizens of this world. That’s your duty, private.”

“Okay. Okay. What do you need?”

“We need to get into the underground bunker.”

The cowed soldier led Quinn to the hidden main air vent, which was one of the stops on the private’s patrol route. Pax and River cleared the sensors and booby traps, and they roped down. Moss and Quinn headed to the secondary entrance to the bunker a block away. They gave the private a comm unit and had him watch the main hotel exit.

“Don’t engage them,” Quinn told him. “Just stick with them if they come out.”

After the private trotted off, Moss said, “He’s still pretty conflicted.”

“I know. Hopefully, he won’t get himself killed.”

River and Pax worked past the giant fan and made it to the junction where smaller ducts circulated air throughout the bunker. River burned a hole in the duct they were standing on to see where they were. It was some kind of maintenance room that had to do with heating or cooling the incoming air.

They dropped into the room, switched on their suit camo, and exited to a wide passageway. They heard voices to the left and headed toward the sound.

When they approached a room at the end of the passageway, Pax subvocalized, “You go right. I’ll go left. We listen for a while and then stun all of them.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The hall opened to a large command room. The drop-down blast door for the room was retracted, and they eased into the room.

Consoles lined the plascrete walls, and operators sat at each console. Officers directed operations behind them. Screens over the consoles showed the action from many parts of the planet. In the center of the room were the leaders: two generals, four colonels, and two civilians — one of whom was Andrew Lockhart.

River stared at him and waited for an emotional response. There was none. Instead, as she studied the thin body and pinched face of her torturer, she began to feel pity. Before her was a pitiful excuse for a man that only knew how to make himself feel good by tearing down his betters. He had proven, though, that he was really good at it.

After a short while, Lockhart asked no one in particular, “Their ships will be here tomorrow. Are you sure everything is set?”

“I saw to it personally,” one of the generals replied.

“Good,” Lockhart said. Then he let out a long breath. “We still don’t know what kind of damage that damn Woods caused.”

One of the colonels offered, “General Woods is in custody and still undergoing interrogation. We don’t think he gave the Coyote that interrogated him much information.”

“And the pilots?”

“We had to execute them. They knew too much.”

“Execute Woods when you’re done with him.”

“Of course, sir.”

“What happened to the Coyote that hijacked the flyer?”

“We assume he did a recon and left.”

Lockhart grimaced at that assumption but there wasn’t anything to say.

They turned their attention to the screens above the consoles. It was evident the assault had stalled. The artillery barrages couldn’t break through the compound shields, and the return fire flared against their own shields.

The marine detachments were better trained and better armed than the militia units Lockhart could muster.

Stalemate.

The other general noted, “They adapted their shields somehow.”

“Damn Coyotes,” Lockhart muttered.

Becky said, [Pax is ready. And 3, 2, 1, fire.]

They both used their pistols to stun the room’s occupants. It took them five seconds to stun the lot.

River jumped on the nearest console, slid in a hacking stick, and got to work. Her first task was to close the blast door to seal them away from any guards.

She accomplished that as the alert siren began blaring. Someone had time to hit the alarm.

“Looks like there’s a bunch of guards down here,” River reported on the squad channel. “I’m opening the back door and leaving the front door locked.”

“Quinn,” Pax said as he checked the monitors. “We’re in the control room and it’s locked down. We got Lockhart. There’s about twenty guards to deal with.”

“The alert siren is blowing out here,” Quinn replied. “I think we will join you. Lock the door once we’re inside.”

River nodded and watched the screen. Once Moss and Quinn were in, she locked down the back door.

Then she said, “I’ll find the command codes for the charges they set up around the planet.”

“And the locations,” Pax added.

“Yep. What will you be doing?”

“Truss up these guys and join the party out there.”

Moss and Quinn were already engaged. They didn’t use stunners this time. Instead, they led with grenades and followed the explosions into the disoriented, wounded, or dead soldiers.

The following guards retreated, set up barricades, and deployed riot shields. That stopped Quinn and Moss for the moment.

“Pax,” Quinn called. “We’ve got them all bunched up in front of us.”

“The control room is up the corridor you're in, and at the end of a connecting corridor. I'm leaving now, and I’ll be there momentarily.”

“Momentarily?” Moss reacted. “Who says ‘momentarily’ in a fire fight?”

“The highly educated and articulate among us.”

“Meaning you, I imagine.”

“Meaning me,” Pax grinned. “Okay. I’m in position behind them.”

Pax launched grenades to land between the barricade and the soldiers. Then he fired his blaster on the soldiers nearest him.

Max told him, [Go prone.]

Quinn and Moss advanced, firing at waist and head high. It was over quickly.

Once they secured the firearms, Pax and Moss began tending to the wounded. Quinn headed for the command center. River retracted the blast door to let him in.

“What have you got?” he asked River as he entered.

“I think everything,” she answered. “And I just sent out a notice to the field generals that we cut off the snake’s head. I also let them know where the charges are so they can disarm them. That went out as a general broadcast, so everybody knows the story.”

“Good job,” Quinn said. “All we have to do now is get out of here alive.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said and turned to face him. “I asked Murphy to come rescue us.”

Quinn chuckled. Then he surveyed the unconscious prisoners. “That’s Lockhart?”

“Yep.”

“How are you doing?”

“All I felt was pity, Quinn. I’ll have to check with Rosalind to see if that’s normal.”

“Yeah. You’d think you would have a stronger reaction.”

“Maybe he’s not worthy of one.”

“Well, that’s profound.”

She grinned. “I’ve been working on it.”

“Being profound?”

“Yeah. And mysterious.”

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