At the mention of Tasca, there was a palpable shift in the room. The general opinion of the Tasca slave cartel and its operatives was poor amongst the mercs, who saw the professional slavers as something less than hired soldiers. Nobody said anything directly or openly, but the multitude of voices whispering to each other was obvious.
Jada’s pulse quickened. She’d not thought of her combat against Tasca operatives in a long time, and the feeling ignited her aggression. She was not the only one, as it seemed a few others in the crowd, notably Ranec, were visibly upset by this news.
One of the Tasca operatives turned in his seat to face the crowd. For an instant, he and Jada stared hard at each other before Womack’s voice cut through the room.
“Spare me your outrage, people,” spat Womack as he held his hand up, gesturing for silence. “The contract negotiated with House Indron allows for this sort of task force joint operation, so button it up and act like professionals.”
The noise in the room died down and everyone gave Womack their full attention as Marcus brought up an approximate schematic of the excavation site.
“We’re dropping a full company, by standard raiding, squat right into the excavation site. Your job will be to press a hasty attack towards the master ring, eliminate anything that gets in your way, whether it’s Helion, Gedra, or scavengers we don’t know about. The idea is to stir up the hornet’s nest and blast whatever comes out,” said Womack. The audience’s general mood seemed to improve somewhat at that. This sort of wild assault was exactly how the Dire Swords preferred to wage war. “While we keep the action going, the Tasca element will be in their own ship circling above. Once we draw out the Objective, they will capture and extract.”
Poe frowned, raised his hand, and asked, “Grotto and Helion both have been trying for a long time to get their hands on an operational alpha cyborg, and not once has anyone succeeded. They either kill enough people that they have to be put down or they self-destruct. What is going to make this op turn out any different?”
“That is a fair observation, Poe,” nodded Marcus as he spoke from beside the lectern, “However, we are positive that this is not a cyborg of the kind we faced on the tomb-worlds, but is, in fact, something new. It is highly possible that whomever, or whatever, this thing is, it could be part of a progenitor race, the makers of the Gedra. Perhaps it is simply another sort of cyborg; at this point, we don’t know.”
One of the Tasca operatives stood and faced the audience. “I would point out that, to date, the Tasca have not been included in any operations upon tomb-worlds controlled by Grotto or Helion.” He was an older man, whose weathered face had no doubt seen much of this strange and violent universe, “We are the foremost hunters in necrospace when it comes to the capture of humans, or in this, case humanoids. I believe we have a reasonable expectation of success, considering the data made available by our mutual employer.”
“This is just as much about disrupting Helion as it has ever been,” added Womack as the Tasca operative returned to his seat. “They put a vast amount of resources into this play, and whatever they found down there dealt them a serious blow. We’re here to twist the knife.”
“We will make orbit within the hour; drop coordinates and ship assignments will be uploaded to your HUD in the next few minutes.” Marcus brought the lights in the briefing room to full illumination, signaling that the briefing was concluded, “Good hunting.”
Jada thought she had done well in the briefing when faced with the Tasca operatives. Like the rest of the mercs, she had taken twenty minutes of rack time, getting just enough sleep to sharpen her senses, before going to the med bay to get her serum booster. She was calm and ready to focus on the mission, though as she walked into the launch bay where the dropships were being fueled and prepped by the deck crew, she was sorely tested once more.
Jada was the first of the Dire Swords to enter the bay. The Tasca operatives assigned to the mission, Ellis, Jean, and Najib, according to the specs that were uploaded to her HUD, were all busy putting the finishing touches on their own dropsuits. Each of them was encased in the high-end armor for which the slavers were known, and it was upon seeing that familiar sight that Jada’s adrenaline surged.
Being in the briefing with them was one thing, but actually seeing their armor and those cursed automatic pistols with the extended clips, just like the one that killed Spencer Green when she’d been with the Reapers, was more than she could bear. Jada had not felt this strongly since the battle on Gedra Prime, when she and the other salvage marines had their first re-match with Helion battle troopers since the conflict on Tetra Prime that had claimed Boss Maggie Taggart and a number of other marines.
The image of Spencer’s mangled corpse leaking crystallized blood droplets as it hung in space was vivid in her mind as Jada stomped across the launch bay. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do when she reached the men, but it wasn’t going to be pretty. She felt as if gravity was giving way, and all she could think about was the sick nausea in her guts as she recalled taking aim at the comatose Tasca victims and pulling the trigger.
“Hold it, Bright Eyes,” whispered Ranec, who suddenly appeared just to her side, his strong arm locking around her waist, stopping her momentum, “Whatever you’re seeing is over and done. Nothing you do here will change that.”
Jada stopped in her tracks as Ranec held her. For a moment, he wasn’t her lover, but Samuel Hyst giving her the order to fire and the last of whatever innocence she’d clung to was gone.
She turned with a snarl, though when met with Ranec’s deep brown eyes, the heat boiling in her brain abated somewhat. She took deep breaths that started as a gasp. After several seconds, she was able to banish the memories, dissipate the hallucinations, and return to full control of her mind and body.
“Never seen you go that deep,” stated Ranec as he slowly relaxed his grip on her and stepped back.
“Caught me by surprise is all,” said Jada. She shook her head and squared her shoulders, nodding to Ranec. “Thanks. See you aboard.”
The merc looked over his shoulder at the Tasca operative, Ellis, who was walking aggressively towards the pair. Ranec turned back to Jada and shook his head.
“Slaver filth,” he spat as he clapped Jada on the shoulder and turned to walk towards the dropship boarding ramp.
“You got something you wanna say to me, merc?” asked Ellis, who walked directly in front of Jada and looked up at her, intentionally ignoring how much larger she was. “You’ve been eyeballing me ever since the briefing, so I figure you either wanna get off or grapple. Which is it?”
“Either would leave me wanting,” scoffed Jada, unable to stop herself from lashing out with her words and yet pleased that at least it wasn’t her fists.
“This is neither the time nor place, Ellis,” snapped Najib in a distinctly Grotto accent that took Jada by surprise, given that so few Grotto citizens ever left the corporation. As he moved to intercept the man, the two of them stared daggers at each other, until Ellis looked away and stepped back from his superior.
“I don’t need a bunch of stone cold killers looking down on me for slaving is all; it ain’t like their trying to hide it,” growled Ellis with anger brimming in his voice and his fists clenched. “I got mouths to feed, same as anybody.”
“Let it go, son,” said Najib as he placed his hands on the slaver’s shoulders, holding the man’s gaze. “Prep the nets and help Jean calibrate the cage. We aren’t hunting humans this time anyway, so I don’t think these good people will suffer temptations to shoot us in the back.”