VIPER One: Countervalue

  The ROI was textbook. Fired from the underside of the Tannhauser on magrails, the Manticore hit atmosphere at 05:35 local, cleared civilian traffic control VIs by 05:36, and was touching down on Theseus civil spaceport by 05:45. They had deliberately avoided landing at UNAF Theseus, in case the civilian population transpired to be as hostile as their mission risk assessment threatened.

  Vasco shrugged off his harness and walked down the metalled debarkation ramp. Outside, the warm morning air hit his face. It carried the smell of gunship exhaust. Behind him, Sev slowly backed their tactical jeep out onto the platform. He slotted his helmet into place.

  ‘All right, Bravo,’ he said, as the jeep cleared the ramp and Kgosi followed it off. ‘We’re clear.’

  ‘Roger, Captain. We’ll be on comms.’

  The MISSION TIMER in the top right corner of Vasco’s vision ticked over to 00:01.

  ‘Good hunting,’ Vasco said, giving the Manticore’s debarkation VL feed a thumbs up. The gunship pulled away from the landing platform in a blaze of engines and hot downwash, and within minutes was lost except on the most enhanced optics his Mantix HUD could afford.

  Next to him, Kgosi slotted his railgun into its back-mounted exoskeleton rack. ‘Government House is East-North-East,’ he said, and climbed onto the jeep’s flatbed. Normally there would have been a pintle-mount RRG there, but they had stowed it—for now.

  Vasco’s HUD had been pre-loaded with a fully-rendered three-dimensional map of Theseus, and the UN Governorate was highlighted with a blue chevron on his visor display. He cancelled the map and brought up a local news feed as he climbed into the passenger seat.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, scanning the latest, and swore loudly just as the jeep slid into gear.

  ‘What?’ Sev asked as they cleared the platform and mounted one of the accessways that took them into the city’s industrial sector.

  ‘Governor Yashego has announced that “Ariadne has been abandoned by the UN”,’ Vasco murmured. His heart sank. ‘There will be no evacuation… seizing their destiny… Jesus Christ, he sent the news to every IHD inbox on the planet, the mad fucker.’

  His earpiece crackled. It was Jarle.

  ‘Captain, have you seen the news?’ the sergeant asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Vasco said, bewildered. There was a brief bout of interference as the jeep’s VI communicated with the spaceport’s security perimeter, and then they were clear and into kilometres of flat industrial wasteland.

  ‘What are your orders?’

  Vasco took a deep breath. He played out the scenarios in his head. ‘No change,’ he said. ‘Play it as it comes. With luck we’ll be out of here before it really starts heating up anyway.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jarle said, and the feed terminated.

  The jeep sped on. Vasco pulled up their list of targets on his HUD: the UN Governor, Kenneth Yashego; Jennifer Brock, the Governorate’s Chief of Staff; the ranking UNAF General, Benedict Rhodes; and Zesh Sarbin, a Zhahassi Commonwealth trade delegate who, by some misfortune that wasn’t clear to Vasco, had earned a place on the Ascendancy Roster. All of them appeared as blips on his map view; three of them were in Government House, and the alien was a stone’s throw away, holed up in old UN diplomatic quarters long abandoned by the UNDM. Vasco was quietly confident that, depending on how the Minos operation went, they could clear Ariadne in under the six hour optimum deadline.

  They exited the industrial sector, the boundary of it demarcated by a four-track highway populated by the odd robotic maglev freighter, and powered on to a long, flat stretch of pre-urban buffer. The city itself was a few kilometres ahead, its dusty, sandy hab blocks and dry, cracked gardens a far cry from the lush greenery of Espa. The city was a classic predesigned Outer Ring colony; long, wide boulevards, large open squares, clearly defined business, habitation and pleasure sectors, a million miles away from the cramped and overcrowded cities of the industrialised Veigis Worlds. But the aesthetics were only as good as the efforts that went into maintaining them, and even with the fresh money funnelled in from the huge mining industries in Minos, the place looked half gone to ruin.

  Already he could see people in the streets.

  ‘Shit,’ Sev muttered, his hands automatically creeping toward the jeep controls. The thing would drive itself happily, better than most humans could, but one thing it wouldn’t do is deliberately plough into a group of humans. Sev needed to make sure that, should the need arise, it would.

  ‘Should we warn the Governor’s office?’ Kgosi asked over the closed channel.

  ‘Not yet,’ Vasco said, not taking his eyes off the street ahead. It was preposterously called “Independence Boulevard”. ‘They’re enough of a flight risk as it is. Government House is the safest place for them at the moment; I don’t want to give them an excuse to try and run. Yashego just made himself a planetfull of enemies.’

  ‘Fuckin’ A,’ Kgosi muttered.

  ‘I don’t like the look of this,’ Sev said, scanning the crowds ahead. Despite the early hour, there were already hundreds of people in the boulevard, and aside from a few drones tigered in black and yellow circling overhead, there wasn’t a police cruiser in sight.

  ‘Override it,’ Vasco said, and Sev took control from the jeep’s VI. He gripped the control column with gauntleted hands.

  ‘They’ve seen us,’ Kgosi said as some of the stragglers at the rear turned and saw the jeep.

  ‘Go round,’ Vasco said, pointing to the left. The boulevard was a hundred metres across, and ran for a few kilometres up a shallow hill before ending at the gated UN Governorate compound.

  The jeep was hit by an interdiction order from the nearest police drone.

  ‘This is the Theseus Metropolitan Police Department,’ the electronic voice announced. ‘Identify yourselves.’

  Vasco didn’t even say anything, just transmitted his warrant of executive authority from EFFECT.

  ‘Ah, shit, here we go,’ Sev muttered. He pulled the jeep to the left as improvised missiles started to clatter against the chassis—bottles, decorative stones, litter. One white pebble bounced off Vasco’s chest plate.

  ‘Shall I get on the—’

  ‘No, K, just let it hit,’ Vasco interrupted. Mantix or no, if they started hosing the crowd with slugs from the RRG they’d be mobbed and torn apart. He’d seen footage of it happening on other worlds.

  Sev brought the jeep swerving back and forth. The crowd was clearly co-ordinating via their IHDs, as people at the eastern end of the boulevard were running across the road to head them off.

  ‘Sir—’

  ‘Keep up the speed,’ Vasco said, ‘no—stop easing off, keep the speed up.’

  ‘Shit,’ Sev hissed as a length of wood clattered off the windshield.

  ‘Clear the way!’ Vasco roared over his Mantix speaker. He opened a channel to the TMPD drone. ‘Get these people out of our way or you’re going to have blood on your hands,’ he snapped. Every police force in the UN had civil compliance subroutines that allowed them to jack into a civilian’s IHD and do unpleasant things to them, but by law they could only be deployed by a human operator.

  ‘Awaiting authorisation,’ the drone’s VI replied.

  ‘Put me through to your controller!’ Vasco snapped.

  ‘Human controller unavailable at this time.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ Kgosi snapped. ‘Captain, let me just put a few in the air, just to scare them off.’

  ‘Just wait—watch!’

  The jeep’s airless tires screeched against the road as Sev swerved around a pair of civilians. Screams filled the air.

  ‘Keep the speed up!’ Vasco shouted. He unlocked his railgun. The UN compound was less than a klick away.

  ‘Captain! Sir!’ Kgosi shouted. ‘Look!’

  But Vasco could see. Mobs had formed three-deep around the walls of Government House.

  ‘Running out of road,’ Sev said, his voice strained.

  ‘Shit.’ They couldn??
?t open the gates, the mob would storm the building. That meant they would have to abandon the jeep. ‘Sev, get us right up to the wall. Read marker.’ He broadcast where Sev was to stop, on the west-facing wall to the left of the gate. ‘K, get that RRG and take it with us. We’ll leave the jeep and climb the walls.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘We’ve no choice.’ He opened an encrypted link to Government House. With his credentials, he was given access to the House VI. ‘This is Captain Adrian Vasco, EFFECT. We are on a priority one mission to safely evacuate key UN personnel from Theseus. We will be climbing over the west-facing wall ten metres to the north of the gate. Disable your trespass countermeasures for me and my team only, understood?’

  ‘One moment, please, Captain.’

  Vasco sighed angrily. They had tens of seconds. ‘Clear the way!’ he shouted again. It had no effect. The crowd was closing around them, and Sev was forced to slow the jeep. He activated its shock plates.

  ‘Stay back!’ Kgosi shouted. People viewed them, their UN-branded armour and their military jeep, with suspicion and hatred. But they dared not close, not yet. The jeep existed in a bubble ten metres wide.

  ‘Captain: you have not been authorised to access Governorate grounds. Please be advised that trespass countermeasures will remain in full effect. Thank you.’ The VI terminated the feed.

  ‘Motherfucker!’ Kgosi shouted so Vasco didn’t have to.

  ‘Keep moving,’ Vasco murmured to Sev. The crowd was getting closer. There were only three of them, and hundreds of angry Theseans. They were so enraged they were practically foaming at the mouths.

  ‘OK,’ Vasco said. ‘Prepare to go full refrac. We’ll have to infiltrate.’

  ‘Infiltrate our own government?’ Sev asked.

  ‘You heard me. Park up there, leave the shock plates activated so we’re not followed. Don’t kill the guards unless you have to.’

  ‘No way are we going to make it to the wall,’ Kgosi said.

  He was right. They had run out of road, the crowd was too thick. Sev stopped the jeep. Someone darted forward, thumped the chassis, and crumpled to the floor, a dark circle of urine spreading across their crotch. The crowd reached fever pitch. More missiles clattered ineffectually against armour that could withstand metal flying at hundreds of metres per second.

  ‘All right,’ Vasco said as calmly as he could. ‘We’ll ditch here. I’ll put warning shots in the air, then we’ll make our way at speed to the wall on refrac. Got the RRG, K?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Kgosi replied.

  ‘Ready both?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Let’s do it. On me.’

  Vasco held his railgun up and fired off a salvo into the air. The crowd collapsed to the floor like they’d been hit by a shockwave, screaming and covering their heads. Some ran. If there had been more people there would have been a real risk of a lethal stampede. Overhead, police drones closed in.

  The three of them activated their refraction shielding and disappeared from view. Then Vasco broke into a run, making a beeline for the wall, avoiding arms and legs and heads where he could, though occasionally stamping on an outstretched limb. He felt bones crunch under his exoskeleton, and saw terrified, bewildered faces ahead of him. But the crowd was already reforming, searching for them, closing on the jeep, heedless of its countermeasures.

  They reached the wall where a brief gap had appeared in the crowd. It was five metres high, solid concrete. For any other Governor’s compound it would be ludicrous and unnecessary; out here on Ariadne, Vasco suspected they had good reason for it. Using a combination of exoskeleton and spider-silk and diamond paracord, Vasco surmounted it easily. Their Mantix electronic warfare suites were so advanced that the Governorate VI didn’t register them at all.

  ‘I’m over,’ Vasco said, landing on the grass on the other side, his exoskeleton and nanogel shock dissipater layer taking the impact.

  ‘Heads up,’ Sev said from on top of the wall, and dropped the jeep’s RRG down, which Vasco caught. Sev and Kgosi then followed him over on to the grass. Vasco’s resonance mapper made the wall in front of him transparent, and he ordered the jeep to start driving away, back towards the spaceport. It was chased by a mob of manic civilians.

  They had landed in a courtyard of well-watered grass, palms and rectangular planters of local, seasonal flowers. Fifty metres away, the ornate façade of UN Government House reared into the sky, four floors of fluted pillars, intricately carved masonry, and large arched windows. The UN standard had been conspicuously removed from the flagpole atop the building, and only the Ariadnian flag flew, snapping in the morning breeze.

  ‘I’ve got Yashego, Brock and Rhodes all still inside,’ Vasco said.

  ‘Targets confirmed,’ Sev said. ‘How do you want to do this, Captain?’

  Vasco looked around. There were two security guards with railguns standing nervously in the courtyard. The impotent baying of the crowd emanating from the other side of the wall was enough to make even a hardened veteran anxious. According to scans, they were the only armed personnel on site.

  ‘Let’s move inside before we de-frac,’ Vasco decided, once his sensors had finished their diagnostic of the compound guards’ weapons. ‘These guys are packing SIRs, and I don’t want to have to kill them.’

  ‘Roger.’

  Vasco checked the compound one last time for any lingering trespass countermeasures their electronic warfare suites couldn’t handle. There were none.

  ‘All right. Inside.’