The Impossible Future: Complete set Frank Kennedy (freenovel24 .TXT) 📖

Hans and the Solomon who arrived with Oliver joined them in position to open fire. Michael pointed to the DayWatch uplifts he thought easiest to take out. A message arrived, this one certainly the demand for the Solomons to return to the roof.

Yet as Michael lined up his shot – rifle in one hand, Ingmar in the other – he realized the message was not an incoming for the uplift. He twitched and acknowledged a live stream on his amp.

No. Not now. You got to be kidding me.

He almost set it aside, but if this was Sam, maybe the last time he’d ever hear her voice …

He tapped his amp. The voice was male, unfamiliar.

“Michael Cooper, my name is Capt. Joseph Doltrice, on commissioned service to Samantha Pynn. We have been tracking your position from original coordinates provided by Ms. Pynn. Please verify you are situated in an uplift that is in a forced holding pattern above the Harrisboro Regional Sanctum.”

“You’re who …?” Michael caught himself, his head locked in an unexpected daze. Oh, babe. You are too good. “Yes. Yes, Colonel, we’re trapped here. If we land, they’ll kill us. If there’s anything you can do to help …”

“That’s why we’re here, Mr. Cooper. Hold on to what you have.”

He dared not smile. “I think the cavalry just arrived.”

A pair of golden streaks sliced the night sky beneath them, cutting between DayWatch uplifts and crashing into the roof, igniting a fireball where eight armed assassins used to stand. The concussion jolted the uplift, as it did every hovering ship.

Maya and Hans stumbled back into the hold. Michael dropped his rifle, which slid over the edge, but he held on to the hook. Alarms went off at the pilot seat, and Oliver worked to stabilize the ship. As the uplift jolted to a new angle, the open port now provided a view across the western expanse of the city. A Scramjet, perhaps a hundred meters beyond the cordon, was barely visible, its running lights off.

Michael opened a cube as Capt. Doltrice spoke again, but this time the mercenary’s message carried to every hovering vessel.

“Attention, DayWatch. I speak to you from a Class Axel Scramjet equipped with full Unification Guard armaments, including a complement of slews. We have targeted each of you and will unleash deadly force unless you retreat at once.”

“Negative,” a woman replied. “We have jurisdiction here under the edicts of the Chancellor Treaty. We are in the process of detaining unlawful insurgents. You will depart at once or …”

Michael thought it interesting she didn’t mention the incineration of the assassins. What could she do about it? The Scram hovering above, which now appeared to belong to DayWatch, would not have had the combat capability to take on the new arrival. Sound tough, maybe they’ll go away. It was the only card she could play. Made sense to Michael.

He spoke to Capt. Doltrice. “We’re in a hell of a hurry over here, Captain. Think you could show them what-for and end this shit?”

“Ms. Pynn authorized me to take whatever action deemed necessary. However, there will be consequences for killing DayWatch officers in the pursuit of their duty.”

“I understand, Captain. Look … just one of them. Maybe the rest will do the right thing. Get my speed?”

Michael didn’t have time for remorse. He already killed an officer inside the tower. Who was to say the Chancellors piloting those bite-sized uplifts weren’t as corrupt or as deserving? Besides, Sam came through for him. Least he could do was walk out of this alive.

“Get ready,” he told the others. “We’re gonna blow this town.”

The line sounded good to Michael, like something from action movies he’d seen. Just one more explosion to seal the deal …

The rockets obliterated a DayWatch vessel, whose shrapnel scattered in flaming bits across the roof. Two other vessels began to move away, albeit cautiously. The path was almost open.

“Attention, terrorist leader,” the woman’s voice blasted over Oliver’s comm. “You have superior firepower for the moment. However, we will not relinquish these insurgents. Any further action you take, you do so at your own peril. Even you cannot stand against the power of a Unification Guard Transport.”

“What is she …?”

The picture clarified itself. DayWatch never ordered them to land on the roof because they weren’t waiting for the assassins at all.

“Captain,” Michael said. “What is she talking about?”

Doltrice’s face was stern, his voice reserved.

“The UGT Desolation. She has just come into range. She’s on final approach to Harrisboro.” He hesitated, looked away as if waiting on further data. He nodded, “She’s launching attack craft. Inbound, heading our way. We have one minute before it won’t matter.”

We can’t beat the Guard. Nobody can.

67

Great Plains Metroplex

T HEY WEREN’T BLOWN OUT OF THE SKY, which rated as a small degree of success. Nonetheless, Sam and her allies were escorted to the GPM and arrested upon landing. A heavily-armed contingent of ten soldiers were deemed necessary for parading twelve unarmed civilians – half of them over sixty years old – into the Intercollectorate Presidium of the Unification Guard. To no one’s surprise, and despite their protests, they were not led to the offices of the Admiralty but rather down below, toward the cells.

Sam remembered the last time they were here, and how new Supreme Admiral Grandover warned them about the stark horror of the cells. She recalled how he took them to the gallery where the Bouchet brothers dueled to the death two years earlier and opened a holowindow to Celia Marsche, at home in Scandinavia. In retrospect, Sam wondered whether Finnegan Moss was living with her by then, if he was just out of view while she transmitted her veiled threats.

Did she really kill Finnegan? If so, Sam wondered