Captain Dar stepped forward and held out the tablet, which the foreman took and began to read intently. Sura knew from their briefing that to make the deal appear legitimate, Captain Dar had pooled every last scrap of liquid assets from the crew, including the ship’s emergency reserve account. In order to appear like real buyers, they had to have the money to make good on the pitch. The foreman’s eyes widened slightly as he looked over the account, and Sura could see his shoulders relax slightly. It was a small fortune, and after a steep discount, the Rig truly could afford to purchase the existing haul of ink-rock now stored in the compound’s silos. The Rig could fill its hold to the brim and then bring the ink-rock to market in a matter of days. The mining operation gained in convenience and lowered risk exposure more than what they lost in the discount, and the Rig did not have to contest the claim or set up their own operation. That was why the plan was going to work because it was perfectly plausible.
“Well, Captain, it looks like your money is where your mouth is,” nodded the foreman, who then spoke into the comm-piece affixed to his chest after nodding at his men, each of them visibly relaxing. “Meechum, this is Kat, get your boys on the drill to pull a core sample. I’m bringing some guests down, got a buyer and his geo-specialist to sample the juice.”
The foreman turned and gestured for the trio to follow him, and while the other individuals on the platform returned to their various jobs, Sura was not surprised that the two men with shotguns fell in behind them.
Braden went after the foreman, walking down the stairwell in the middle of the structure that would take them towards the central drilling platform, with Dar behind him and Sura at the end. The unspoken truth was that if the price of the ink-rock bottomed out while the Rig was in transit, then they’d be broke and on the drift, having bet everything on the single run. Sura half-hoped that the captain would change his mind, and that they’d actually go for it. Nobody had to die in that scenario, and no lines would be crossed.
Dar cast a glance at Sura, and she could see that he was strongly considering it, the struggle plain on his face. To anyone else, he’d have simply appeared uncomfortable in the gritty gale of the winds that continued to buffet the structure, but Sura knew the man well and had learned to read the more subtle clues in his demeanor.
The captain was deeply conflicted, and she knew he was on the verge of just pushing ahead with the deal. He had a transmitter that could be keyed, and despite the atmospherics, it was a direct link to Narek’s squad. He could call them off at any moment, and the Rig could take its chances with the exchange desk.
Sura gave the captain the slightest of nods, and his shoulders visibly relaxed. They’d make the buy. Dar slowly reached for his transmitter, and then a sudden gust of wind forced him to grab the railing to keep himself steady.
As the group began to exit the stairwell onto the drilling platform Dar’s transmitter activated, and though Sura could not hear what was said, she knew that there was no going back. Perhaps it had already been too late before the captain changed his mind, or perhaps not, and she wondered if such questions would haunt Dar after this, assuming they survived.
The foreman inclined his head as his own comms rig began filling with traffic. The foreman’s eyes snapped up to Dar and then drifted up to the men behind Sura. She half-turned her face and looked over her shoulder just in time to see the two guards putting their hands to their ears in the way that people often did when one ear had a comms piece and the other did not. One of them looked down at her and reached for his shotgun. She shook her head gently, hoping he would stop as her own hand drew the long coat back so that she could go for the revolver.
A single round had impacted against the front windshield of the vehicle, and though it did not penetrate, the crater it made in the glass right in front of Corin’s face revealed the skill of the shooter. Corin cranked the wheel instinctively and for a moment the rover veered dangerously hard to the left, though in an instant the merc corrected and the rover plowed forward undeterred. Two more shots pounded into the plexiglass, leaving spiderweb cracks in their wake across the right flank. Samuel hadn’t seen where the secondary shots had come from, but as Garn opened up the marine followed his cone of fire to the jagged outcroppings of stone and dirt on their right.
The trees on this world were gnarled and twisted things, snaking horizontally like tentacles instead of growing tall and proud as one might expect. It made Samuel miss Longstride for a tiny moment, with its cloud cover and thick forests covering the rolling hills, untouched by the machinations of industry or agriculture.
Garn’s fusillade tore through stone and tree alike, sending up bursts of splinter and rock shard as the weapon belched forth a stunning number of bullets. They were small caliber rounds but packed a significant amount of power, and Garn’s ammunition drum contained over two hundred of them. As Samuel kept his eye on the tracer rounds he saw a bloom of red mist appear as Garn’s weapon chewed its way across the rocky treeline, and then a second bloom just as the rover sped out of the ambush zone.
“High gear, Corin, and floor it!” ordered Narek as the rover burst out of the valley and began speeding across the half mile of open ground between them and the base of the mining compound.
“Captain, we’ve been made!” spat Narek into his comm-bead, though the only reason Samuel heard it was that Narek was shouting, the actual traffic going through a different channel which appeared to be just for the merc and the captain. “We’re coming in hot so keep your head down!”
“Wait, Dar is in the compound?” asked Samuel as Corin turned the wheel left and then right again so that he could jink out of the way of several boulders and a few of the odd horizontal trees that had managed to force their roots through the hard packed ground in spite of the heavy winds that made the rover buck and pitch.
“Roger, he’s working an angle with their management,” nodded Narek as the rover drew close enough to the compound that Samuel could see staffers scurrying about the structure, some of them appearing to flee while others looked to be preparing to defend against the oncoming mercs. “Something about minimizing collateral damage. Don’t worry, he’s got your lady with him, the talk is she’s good at watching his back.”
Something tugged at Samuel’s heart, and he found himself seeing red. The marine rose up in his seat, ready to slam the stock of his rifle into Narek’s leering face. The former battle trooper was baiting him, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that, but the matter-of-fact way in which the man had spoken halted Samuel. The marine moved back into his seat, under full cover of the armored sides, and not a moment too soon as several shots pinged against the rover.
The man with the shotgun did not stop, and Sura exploded into action, her body already tightly coiled in anticipation. Sura surged upwards, clearing the three steps between her and the man as her combo pistol cleared leather with a speed and precision born from relentless training. The shotgun was swinging towards her, though before the man could get it leveled at her, Sura’s left hand slammed, open palmed, into the action of the weapon. Sura used the combined force of her blow and her forward momentum to pin the shotgun against the man’s waist, activating the quick-release bayonet affixed to the bottom of her revolver.
The housewife turned freelance prospector had become a gunfighter years ago, though she was still finding new ways to appreciate the wicked particulars of the combo revolver. It had arrived on Samuel’s hip when he’d returned from the trade war, and at first, she had thought it was a trophy. It was only later that she discovered its sentimental value and the rugged functionality that made it such a storied prize.