“Hector-Alpha on final,” said Long over the comm channel. “Ten seconds.”
“Socotra-Two on final,” Sikander confirmed, changing course one last time. He kept up the best speed he could manage safely, now passing by the looming cargo cranes that lined the dock. At the last instant he switched on the landing lights to get one good look at the supposedly empty stretch of parking lot where he intended to set down. Just past the building, he caught the flashing lights of Hector’s shuttle, touching down close by the Cygnan freighter. Sublieutenant Larkin and her party were responsible for securing Oristani Caravan.
The lot looked clear, so he quickly flared out, reduced power, and thumped his landing skids down on the concrete. “Touchdown!” he called out to the others on board.
Darvesh and the guards in the back threw open their sliding doors and bailed out of the flyer; Captain Zakur popped his own door and followed. Sikander paused for a moment to cut the flyer’s engine and power it down, then unbuckled and scrambled out of his seat. Darvesh waited for him with the last mag carbine; Sikander checked it quickly as the Gadirans hurried to the warehouse door. While Hector’s landing party stormed the freighter, Sikander’s small team had the job of seizing the warehouse and detaining anybody they found.
Sikander expected the Gadiran soldiers with him to burst through the door and storm the building, but they surprised him. Gathering by the warehouse door, they quietly tried the handle. It opened easily, and the four Royal Guards slipped inside. Darvesh and Sikander followed after them. Large cargo containers filled the warehouse interior, dimly lit by flickering overhead lights. The big containers formed narrow alleyways in the huge structure, providing the team with plenty of cover as they moved deeper. Open space in the center of the warehouse provided parking for ground transports with flatbed trailers, which could pull in to load or unload containers. At the moment, several transports were parked there with engines idling. A traversing crane mounted on rails suspended from the ceiling positioned a container onto the bed of one of the transports; Sikander heard the echoing calls of men shouting at one another, the high-pitched warning beep of the crane as it moved, and the low rumbling purr of the transports’ engines.
A man appeared at the head of the alley between containers. The fellow wore a jumpsuit and a hard hat, and looked like an ordinary port worker … except for the automag pistol slung over his shoulder. He wasn’t looking in their direction, and seemed to be involved in directing the crane’s movement.
Zakur glanced back at his soldiers and signaled with his hands. Two of the guards peeled off to slip down another gap between the cargo units. The captain waited fifteen seconds, then moved forward and broke into the open. “Freeze!” he shouted at the men working in the warehouse. “This is the sultan’s guard!” He continued in Jadeed-Arabi that Sikander couldn’t follow, but the intent seemed clear. Zakur covered the first man in sight with his carbine, and the fellow slowly raised his hands. The other soldiers pounced, finding targets of their own.
Sikander and Darvesh followed Zakur into the open. Darvesh covered someone to his right, so Sikander swung his carbine to the left, and found two very surprised-looking Gadirans staring back at him. It looked like close to a dozen smugglers in the room, but they’d been caught off-guard. For a long moment, no one moved or said anything. Zakur growled out a set of instructions and nodded at one of the workers; Sikander understood that they had been told to lay down their arms, slowly.
The man Zakur menaced scowled fiercely. He was a heavyset fellow, perhaps fifty years of age, with a thick gray-streaked beard. Glaring at the guard captain, he carefully unslung his weapon and started to lay it down. Then, from outside, a sudden burst of mag-weapon reports and the staccato popping of conventional gunfire broke out. A comm unit on one worker’s belt crackled aloud, carrying a rapid stream of Jadeed-Arabi—a warning or a call for help, Sikander guessed.
The insurgents in the warehouse panicked. The man in the blue hard hat suddenly raised his weapon at Zakur, but the Royal Guard captain did not hesitate. His mag carbine whined twice, hurling its lethal darts through the center of the older man’s chest. The fellow staggered back and collapsed, but in the blink of an eye, gunshots and screams filled the air. Insurgents lunged for their weapons or dove for cover; the outnumbered Royal Guards opened up on anyone holding a weapon.
Both of Sikander’s targets went for their guns at the same time. He hesitated for a critical instant, not sure who to shoot, before he slewed his barrel to one side and drilled a mag-carbine round just under the chin of the one on the left. The back of the man’s neck exploded in blood and bone; he crumpled nervelessly to the floor. The other man shot wildly in Sikander’s direction, and Sikander ducked back around the corner of the cargo unit. Slugs thudded into the container’s metal side, adding the clatter of their impact to the bedlam of the scene.
“Take some alive!” Zakur shouted in Standard Anglic for the benefit of the Aquilans. “We need intelligence!” Then the Gadiran captain cursed and spun to the ground, knocked off his feet by a slug that struck him in the shin.
Sikander crouched low, and quickly popped back around the corner of his cargo unit. The second man he’d been covering continued to spray bullets around the room while sidestepping toward the massive shape of the nearest ground transport, evidently moving toward cover. Sikander quickly sighted on him and pulled the trigger; the mag carbine jumped against his shoulder. He meant to knock the man down with a couple of shots in the legs, but instead he caught the fellow with a short burst right through the front pockets of his trousers, riddling his hip and pelvis. The insurgent collapsed, screaming in pain; Sikander hurried over to kick the man’s weapon away from him, then turned to look for another target.
Darvesh calmly shot down an insurgent who paused to switch magazines, then turned and crippled another with shots through knee and shoulder. Sikander fired a burst in the general direction of another fellow targeting Darvesh’s back; he missed, but the man ducked out of sight, and a moment later one of the other Royal Guards lobbed a stun grenade almost on top of the insurgent. The blast shook the warehouse and hurled the unfortunate rebel a good three meters in the air.
The fire slackened, replaced by the angry shouts of Zakur’s men and the moaning of the wounded. Sikander moved cautiously around the parked transports, looking for anyone who might be trying to keep out of sight. Then, the heavy transport beside him roared to life and surged forward.
“Sir! Look out!” Darvesh shouted from across the warehouse.
Sikander threw himself out of the transport’s path. He hit the floor hard and rolled, his mag carbine clattering across the floor, but he caught one good look at the cab as the vehicle passed. To his surprise, the driver was fair-skinned, lean, with sandy-colored hair and light eyes. I’ve seen that man before!
Mag-weapon shots erupted as Darvesh and the Gadiran Royal Guards opened fire, riddling the cab and motor compartment with shot after shot, but they failed to stop the massive transport. The driver plowed through the closed loading doors with a spectacular crash, hurling them into the parking lot beyond, and drove off into the night.