Lee bounded off and the quick footsteps behind him told him Flaps followed close by.
This was insane.
Different planet, same scenario—unknown goons chasing them . . . and this time across the rubble of several ruined buildings. He wasn’t sure this mission could get any more bizarre until he saw the stricken atmosphere-scraper crash into another, about two kilometers away. The poor wretches in that building. He was unable to look away from the spectacle as he ran. Five minutes later, the structure’s supports snapped four floors below and the upper portion of the structure impacted a neighboring one.
****
Slap!
“Aaron!”
He caught her hand as she was about to strike again. His jaw hurt. How many times had she hit him? And more importantly—how hard?
“What now?” he asked.
“You lost consciousness for a few seconds and something strange is happening to the building. The constant vibration is getting worse. We’re in the section that hit the other one. But we’re high above it. There’s no way to get down to the ‘surface’ of the other one.”
“We need to leave now.” He felt a slight breeze blowing through his hair. He ruffled the dust out of it.
“Leave and go where? We can’t go down and we can’t get out!”
“We can go down. Through that opening on the far side and down into the structure we crashed into. We get inside there and we make our way down from that building. It’s only taken impact damage, whereas this one was directly targeted. We have to hurry, the way this place is groaning I have a feeling this marvel of engineering is going to be a dust ball soon.”
“When you hit the surface roll,” he said. “Roll well or just accept you’re going to break something serious.”
“Really? That’s hardly a unique incentive!”
“I know,” Aaron said. “But it’s the only one I could think of at the moment. Just don’t hold anything back is what I meant. It’s all or nothing.”
He grabbed his belt from the pillar, adjusted it and clasped it around his waist.
“See you over there.”
He slid as far down the sloping remains of the lounge floor as he dared, and then leaped off, hit the surface of the other building and rolled. Bruising his poor elbows, knees and everything else until he stopped tumbling twenty feet from where he hit. He just lay there willing the pain to subside. Rachael hit the surface with a grunt and her roll stopped just short of him.
He hadn’t intended to move just yet, but another tumbling body landed and rolled along the surface, but unlike them the body expertly recovered. Before he got a good look at the surprise jumper, a secondary explosion went off and destabilized the building and it sloped sending him and Rachael careening to the edge.
The unknown interloper reached and grabbed Aaron’s hand and he grabbed Rachael. The brute’s grip was powerful. He pulled Aaron and Rachael’s weight together and closer to safety. Another explosion rocked the building, this building might soon be rubble too, but at least the surface straightened to a more stable angle.
Their rescuer had perfect features and flawless skin.
As Aaron and Rachael lay on their backs and gasped, the features of their rescuer became more apparent. Rachael yelped.
“Aaron, he’s an Imperial!”
Aaron leaped to his feet, excruciating pain be damned, and rushed the suspected Imperial who started to say something. But Aaron slammed into the Imperialist before the words could escape his lips.
The man took the brunt of Aaron’s rush and held him under the arms, raised him up and threw him to the ground.
Aaron barely put his hands in front of him as the ground rushed up to smash his face. He rolled and attempted a sweep kick, but the man kicked his foot away.
It was useless, he was too broken to do anything. His arms and legs just wouldn’t respond with the speed he was accustomed. Evidently, he’d broken something important.
Rachael charged in with a flurry of blows, which the man deflected, he then elbowed her in the throat and she went down. After all this to be beaten by an Imperial agent on the “new” rooftop of a broken building . . . on his home-world.
How unfitting.
His assassin bent and stared directly at him.
“Aaron Rayne, I’m not your enemy! They have deceived—”
A heavy pulse blast ripped into the man’s back. He stumbled over Aaron and breathed “Quintus Scipio,” before he turned and fell backwards off the ledge. Two figures dressed in ordinary civilian clothing emerged from an emergency stairwell. A stairwell, which probably had never been used during the life of this building, but now might lead them safely down to the surface.
Not his enemy? Obviously, the agent was confused.
Quintus Scipio, was that his name? Was it someone else’s? Was it a code? He peered over the ledge, but didn’t see anything. His new rescuers called out to him.
“Commander Rayne, are you all right, sir?”
He was too tired to do anything. Even speaking was a massive effort.
“I’m alive,” he wheezed and slumped on the ceramic surface.
The pulse-pistol-wielding figure stood over him, seemingly assessing his injuries. “I’m Ben James, USSI. We’ve been shadowing you since your arrival. We spotted our friend here shortly after you two arrived. He was good we have to give him that. He remained elusive right up until your arrival. I’m guessing your sudden arrival forced him to reveal himself.”
Aaron squinted up at the man. “You used us as bait?”
“Indeed,” Ben James replied.
“Why would an Imperial agent save my life?” He thought it best he omit the man’s dying whisper. They may have seen the agent catch him but they didn’t know what he said. Maybe the agent was just messing with his mind, but he wasn’t about to trust anyone.
“It’s likely the Imperials wanted you alive, be grateful we were nearby.”
He strained his neck to see where Rachael lay. A dark skinned man, clad in a tight, dark jump suit knelt by her side fiddling with something.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Throat injury, she took a sharp blow to the trachea. The medic will give her something to reduce the swelling and she’ll be able to speak in a few minutes,” Ben said.
“Great! Thank you for your assistance, just tell me what’s going on, give me some medical assistance and we’ll be on our way.”
The spy shook his head slowly.
“No, Commander. Your mission is over.”
****
An unknown actor entering the scene at a fortuitous moment. That was Ben James. There was only one option in this instance. Play dumb.
“What mission?” Aaron asked.
“Commander, you can relax protocol. We are aware of the assignment authorized by Supreme Commander Shepherd,” Ben said.
Another man—another operative—knelt by him with a med-kit and scanned him.
“Shepherd’s plan was ingenious,” James continued. “An elusive network of operatives. This,” he waved his hand around indicating the smoldering buildings, “is their handy work. Your mission was to stop a threat to the USS. You just believed you were doing it in a very particular way, but in fact your whole mission was shadowed each step of the way up to this point by Imperial operatives and we shadowed them.”
Aaron sat up and shook his head. Either he’d hit his head really hard, or this fellow was speaking gibberish.
“All of these shenanigans to level a few buildings?” he said.
“Not just a few buildings, Commander, an orbital shipyard was destroyed as well.”
“Terrible as that may be, it still doesn’t accomplish much,” Aaron said.
“It doesn’t accomplish anything at all now. Since our entire operation exposed them. The Imperials and rogue United Fleet operatives used stolen United Fleet ordnance to execute this attack. With the separatist issue, and a likely referendum on whether to remain part of the USS looming, the fallout from the attack on Atlas would push the referendum sooner. The Border Worlds would no longer endure internal wrangling over whether to remain with the United Systems. A declaration of independence would make them a neutral party in any future conflict between the USS and the Empire.