TEXT: BattleCorps
  DJINN OF DESPAIR
  Kevin Killiany
  Chapter Four
  
  BattleCorps
  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  Jungle, northeast of Chevalier Planetary Evalua-
  tion Base 
  Despair, Ender’s Cluster 
  Lyran Alliance 
  28 October 3057
  “Damn.”
  White powdery blotches covered the narrow strip of metal be-
  tween her hatch and the ladder. Dried residue of whatever the 
  wolf tonner had sprayed them with—poison, she was sure.
  Mindful of Caradine’s inert weight dragging her off balance, Lex 
  lowered herself back into the cockpit. She had no idea whether 
  poison meant for tonners would harm a human, but she wasn’t 
  going to take any unnecessary chances.
  Truly stupid, suicidal chances, yes; unnecessary chances, no.
  Two liters of drinking water cleansed the handholds to her satis-
  faction and she scrambled to the ladder. 
  The air stank—reminding her Despair’s corrosive soup was just 
  beyond the half-dozen vapor baffles covering the ’Mech entrance—
  but it was breathable. Just.
  Lex almost lost everything reaching for the edge of the scaf-
  fold. Caradine’s limp legs swung out as she leaned, throwing their 
  center of gravity back and out over the long drop to the concrete 
  seven meters below.
  She lunged—grabbing the ladder upright—and pulled them 
  through the tipping point by brute force. 
  Caradine’s head lolled against the nape of her neck. The oxygen 
  bottle banged into her left elbow. And the evac rig’s chest strap 
  ground Caradine’s autoloader into her chest; she could feel the 
  edge of the receiver digging into her breast bone. 
  No way I’m going to draw that fast.
  But she’d known that when she’d secured the heavy handgun 
  in her bra. What she had not anticipated was the weapon’s sharp 
  metal edges flaying her flesh as she rushed her climb down the 
  ladders.
  
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  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  Lex knew there was no way to mistake her course of action for 
  sound tactics. She’d powered her BattleMech down in a hostile 
  ’Mech hangar, then made her personal weapons inaccessible be-
  fore climbing out of her cockpit with a helpless comrade strapped 
  to her back and made her way down open scaffolding toward an 
  unknown enemy of undetermined strength who knew damn well 
  exactly where she was. 
  She was pretty sure considering any part of that to be a good 
  plan would have flunked her out of Buena.
  But her objective was to save Caradine’s life, and to do that she 
  had to get her into the infirmary. If there was any way to pull that 
  off while strapped into the command couch of her Nightsky, she 
  couldn’t see it.
  The sweet tang of coolant seeped through the rotten-egg smell 
  of whatever trace of Despair’s atmosphere was tainting the han-
  gar’s air. It tickled her nose, threatening to make her sneeze. She 
  couldn’t look over her shoulder with Caradine on her back, but 
  through the rungs of the ladder she could see crates for long range 
  missiles—some open, some sealed and neatly stacked. 
  Nothing she’d seen so far packed LRMs. That meant the enemy 
  had....
  Any one of a dozen other BattleMechs she could think of.
  Her feet hit concrete. Crouching as much as she dared, Lex 
  scurried for cover—Caradine’s weight turned her sprint into a stag-
  gering run. Except for the scrape of her running steps on unswept 
  concrete, the hangar was silent.
  Out of the open, Lex propped Caradine’s hips on the edge of an 
  equipment crate and flexed her knees. Freed of its load, the strap 
  across her chest gapped. Reaching down the front of her shirt, Lex 
  pulled Caradine’s massive automatic from her bra. She was not 
  surprised to see one edge of the slide slicked with her own blood.
  Ballistic weapon. Heavy recoil. Use both hands. She reminded 
  herself.
  She was rated a marksman with all personnel weapons. But she 
  preferred energy weapons and knew her reflexes were calibrated 
  to the recoil-free fire of lasers. She’d have no trouble with her first 
  shot, but if she wanted her second shot to be on target—or even 
  to hold on to the gun—she’d have to remember the weapon in her 
  hands would try to jump free every time she pulled the trigger.
  
  BattleCorps
  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  A deep pop echoed through the hangar, followed by a ponder-
  ous rustling.
  A moment later a cloud of noxious fumes rolled over Lex. She 
  recognized the odor, though she couldn’t remember the gasses 
  involved. Like ozone on Valliore, it signified a lighting storm on 
  Despair.
  Peering over the edge of a crate, Lex eyed the vapor baffle 
  across the ’Mech entrance. The heavy panels of plastic fabric 
  shifted again, rustling, but there was no indication a BattleMech 
  was coming through.
  Dismissing the thought of facing a ’Mech with her handgun, Lex 
  focused on taking the base.
  She kept the autoloader thrust ahead as she moved from cover 
  to shadow to doorframe. Angling the gun down and out of her 
  way, she flashed a glance down the narrow hall connecting the 
  ’Mech hangar to the main dome. 
  Quick bob—one eye around the edge of the opening—then back 
  out of sight. Nothing. Two crates, litter, a sack of something—but 
  nothing that looked like a threat. 
  Shoulder to the wall, she held her breath for a long twenty count, 
  listening. No sound, except for Caradine’s ragged breathing just 
  behind her head.
  Another glance, to catch anyone trying to outsmart her. 
  Nothing. 
  Again, to catch the really clever ones. Nothing.
  No one. The hallway was empty. Which made sense. If the 
  dome dwellers were going to ambush her, they’d do it at the 
  other end of the corridor, when she was already trapped in its 
  confined space.
  Steeling her nerves, Lex moved down the short hall, keeping her 
  back—and Caradine—close to one wall.
  Oh, great.
  No one was going to ambush her. Nobody needed to. 
  The entrance to the main dome was an airlock, which made per-
  fect sense considering the inefficient baffle system protecting the 
  hangar. Once she was in the airlock, all anyone who wanted her 
  
  BattleCorps
  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  dead had to do was pump the air out. Or, if they were very patient, 
  wait for her to starve to death.
  True, it wasn’t the heavy vault type lock used to protect a DropShip 
  from the vacuum of space. But the metal bulkheads were heavy 
  enough to stand against both Caradine’s slug gun and her service 
  laser.
  If the people inside the dome wanted to stop her, she wasn’t go-
  ing anywhere.
  Unless....
  She had to shove the automatic all the way into her compres-
  sion shorts before the elastic held it firmly. But she needed her 
  hands free to pull the cover of the airlock’s cycle controls open. 
  There were no security protocols, no physical lockouts; this was 
  a commercial design that assumed anyone wanting to get to the 
  circuitry was an authorized technician doing his job. 
  Of course there was a lock-open setting on the controls them-
  selves—a setting which would allow both ends of the lock to be 
  open at the same time. There were times when the air was safe and/
  or a lot of material had to be moved through quickly when having 
  both doors open made sense. But Lex wasn’t trusting the controls.
  In twenty seconds she had the exterior door disabled. In another 
  fifteen the inner door was hard-wired to open even with the outer 
  door open.
  Anyone inside the dome could still keep them out—all they had 
  to do was spend ten seconds on the same sort of hardwire job 
  she’d done. But no one could trap them in the chamber and pump 
  the air out.
  Just in case, Lex positioned one of the crates from the hallway to 
  prevent the outer door closing completely. 
  With the TacSit as prepped as she could make it, Lex risked tak-
  ing a thirty-second breather. She crossed her forearms against 
  the wall and leaned forward—keeping Caradine’s mass centered—
  to rest her forehead against her wrists. Slow, cleansing breaths. 
  Maximize the oxygen. She had adapted to Caradine’s weight, but 
  bending over the box had almost brought her to her knees. And 
  there was no denying she was having difficulty moving quickly.
  Almost midnight. How many hours without sleep? Best not to 
  think about it.
  
  BattleCorps
  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  Four breaths. Then she straightened. 
  Working the automatic free of her waist band, she released the 
  safety—the lever shifting beneath her thumb with a solid click. 
  Then she checked to confirm she’d released the safety and not the 
  magazine. Tired.
  Now or never. She chose the center of the doorway—field of fire 
  and mobility taking precedence over the minimal cover the edges 
  would offer.
  Reaching out with her left hand, she swatted the inner door re-
  lease. The lock mechanism clanked, then electric servos whined, 
  fighting inertia and the weight of the door.
  Lex gripped the pistol in both hands, extending her arms in a 
  level isosceles triangle. Combat stance.
  The whine of the servos rose an octave, but nothing moved. She 
  had long enough to wonder whether the inner door was jammed 
  before something in the floor gave with a grinding pop. The dou-
  ble doors snapped apart, scraping in their tracks.
  Nick!
  A muscular thug held Nick’s left forearm—held him up, the slen-
  der scientist was sagging. A woman stood behind Nick and to the 
  right, the collar of his shirt twisted in her left fist. Lex noticed the 
  woman as tall—her sharp features visible over Nick’s shoulder—
  before the gun registered. Her right hand held a service laser, its 
  muzzle shoved against Nick’s ear.
  Nick didn’t seem to notice the grip or the weapon. The one perfect 
  eye that was open stared glassily—apparently not even recogniz-
  ing Lex. The other eye was swollen shut and his nose seemed 
  bent. Dried blood smeared across his lips and jaw confirmed it 
  was probably broken. His shirt was torn, his hair matted with what 
  looked like more blood.
  Nick and his two captors filled the doorway, but didn’t quite 
  block her view of the room beyond. There were three, maybe four 
  more people—including a scholarly man she recognized from the 
  vid of the “native village.” 
  “There’s really nothing you can do,” Doctor Chevalier—the sup-
  posedly dead leader of the Despair mission—said mildly. “Except 
  put the gun down and surrender.”
  
  BattleCorps
  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  Left hand wrapped around right. Push out with the right arm, pull 
  back with the left. No tremble. No shake.
  Rock steady, Lex held the gun’s muzzle up slightly, over Nick’s 
  head. Ready to move in any direction. The others in the room had 
  guns, she saw, but none raised. They expected the threat against 
  Nick to hold her.
  “Chevalier, I have wounded here,” she said, clipping her words 
  off sharply. Nick’s eye cleared at the sound of her voice, seemed 
  to see her. “Render medical assistance and I’ll testify to that effect 
  at your trial.”
  No one actually laughed.
  “A hostage blocking your field of fire; a wounded comrade 
  strapped to your back,” Chevalier shrugged. “You are hardly in a 
  position to negotiate.”
  “I’m not negotiating,” Lex answered, packing her words with de-
  termination.
  The woman in front of her was a killer. Lex could see it in her 
  eyes, the way she held the gun on Nick. She’d boil his brains with-
  out a second thought.
  And Lex had never fired a weapon at another human being in her 
  life. The memory of nausea sweeping over her at the death of the 
  Crockett pilot brought bile boiling to the back of her throat.
  The woman’s eyes narrowed, a ghost of a smile touching her lips.
  She knows.
  The woman nodded a fraction, as though answering Lex’s 
  thought. A killer knew a killer, and this pirate clearly knew Lex 
  wasn’t one.
  Almost casually, the muzzle of the laser swung away from Nick’s 
  ear; arced toward Lex....
  Thunder.
  The automatic bucked in her hands, forcing her arms up and 
  back, blocking her view. Bitter smoke.
  Lex brought her arms down fast, leveling the gun dead ahead. 
  Her field of fire cleared as Nick and the goon holding him fell to her 
  right—both jumping to get out of her way. 
  
  BattleCorps
  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  Chevalier stood transfixed, his face dead pale where it wasn’t 
  covered with sprayed blood. Beside him another goon stood fro-
  zen, his laser carbine still cradled in blood-spattered arms.
  Blood and globs of—
  There was a clatter as another woman dropped her weapon. 
  The last man stopped mid-motion—his hand half way to his 
  holstered pistol—staring at into the muzzle of the automatic. He 
  raised his hands. 
  The bloody goon next to Chevalier unfroze enough to follow suit, 
  but took the time to lay his gun gently on the floor before turning 
  his open palms toward her.
  Only then did Lex risk a glance at the woman she’d killed.
  Images of bodies flung through the air by bullets’ impacts were 
  holovid melodrama. The woman with the laser—the woman she’d 
  killed—had simply folded to the ground, her legs bent awkwardly 
  behind.
  But....
  The human brain is gelatinous liquid held in place by sacks of flex-
  ible tissue. When the two-hundred grain slug of copper-jacketed 
  lead smashed through her sinus cavities into her cranial chamber 
  at over a thousand meters per second, the hydrostatic shock had 
  churned the delicate structures to fragments and—as the exiting 
  bullet shattered the back of her skull—sprayed her liquefied brains 
  and blood over half the room.
  The fallen woman’s head, deformed around its ruined skull, 
  looked like an empty rubber mask.
  Lex almost threw up.
  No one twitched.
  They didn’t see her move, Lex realized, swallowing her bile. I 
  said I don’t negotiate, then I blew her brains out. They think I just 
  killed her as a warning.
  “How many more in the dome?” she demanded.
  “About half a dozen,” Chevalier answered.
  Lex focused her gun on his forehead.
  
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  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  “Eight,” he amended. “Another guard, six techs, and the cook. He 
  cleans up, too. Maintenance.”
  Chevalier realized he was babbling and shut up.
  “Unbuckle your gun belt and let it fall,” Lex said belatedly to the 
  guard who still had a pistol at his hip. “Everyone slide your weap-
  ons this way. With your foot. Slowly.”
  The thug who had been holding Nick—who was still on the floor 
  next to Nick—was unarmed.
  “You. Over there.”
  The man scrambled across the floor to join the others, not get-
  ting to his feet until he reached Chevalier. Then he stood using a 
  table to pull himself up, turning his open palms toward her.
  Too many open hands.
  “Hands behind your heads,” she ordered. “Lace your fingers.”
  Lex took a deep breath, the strap of the evac harness digging 
  into her chest. She had a half dozen assort weapons with which 
  to protect Nick and Caradine while containing five prisoners and 
  subduing eight other hostiles currently at large.
  She wished she hadn’t disabled the airlock—it would have made 
  a perfect holding cell.
  “Brig?” she asked.
  Blank stares. Then:
  “There’s a secure storeroom,” the woman who’d dropped her la-
  ser said. “Near the garage.”
  Which meant on the opposite side of the dome. On the other 
  side of the eight hostiles still at large. Lex dismissed the notion.
  “Infirmary?”
  “Next door.”
  Which made sense. Most accidents needing medical attention 
  probably happened around heavy equipment like the ’Mechs. 
  More to the point, to get Caradine into the infirmary she was 
  going to get her out of the evac rig. Which was a problem. The 
  designers of the evacuation harness had done an excellent job, 
  
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  Djinn of Despair • Page 10
  but they’d never anticipated having to get out of the thing while 
  holding a room full of hostiles at gun point.
  “Can you stand?” she asked Nick.
  “Yeah.”
  Nick’s voice was shaky. A quick glance confirmed he looked 
  shaky. Bracing against the wall, he climbed to his feet. He was un-
  naturally pale—shock, she thought. Then she realized he had the 
  same frightened look as the others. 
  Maybe he’d sensed the pirate’s laser moving from his ear, maybe 
  he hadn’t. Either way, having a woman’s brains blown out within 
  centimeters of his head had clearly rattled him. 
  Only it was more than that, Lex realized. Nick would never have— 
  They would never have shared what they had if Nick had thought 
  she was someone who blasted people’s brains out in cold blood. 
  Truth was, he was right—despite the evidence, she wasn’t. But 
  she wasn’t going to reassure him in front of hostiles. Even with 
  the gun, four of the five would take them both in a heartbeat if they 
  didn’t believe she was a stone killer. 
  She’d find out later if Nick had it in him to trust her.
  “I take it you went to investigate the village.”
  “Took about four hundred viewings, but I realized something was 
  wrong,” Nick confirmed. “Went looking. Found the place just in 
  time to get caught by this crew.”
  A jangling bell echoed through the corridors beyond the airlock room.
  “The garage door,” Chevalier answered before Lex asked. “We 
  have trucks. The others must be making a break.”
  Making a break instead of attacking her? Chevalier had said only 
  one of the others was a guard, which presumably meant the oth-
  ers were unarmed. And they could not have known she was alone. 
  Either way, the hostiles not under her gun were vacating, which 
  meant they had somewhere to vacate to—not a real surprise. She 
  wished she had some idea how far away their help might be and 
  when to expect them back.
  She tabled pointless speculation, focusing on her immediate 
  problem: Stuck ten meters from the infirmary with no way to help 
  Caradine.
  
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  Djinn of Despair • Page 11
  “Keep Chevalier,” Nick said suddenly. “He’s enough hostage. Let 
  the others go. That’s better than trying to keep a gun on all of 
  them the whole time.”
  For a moment Lex was impressed with his ability to read her 
  mind. Then it occurred to her that everyone in the room under-
  stood the tactical situation. 
  Nick’s idea made sense—prisoners were a liability. But she didn’t 
  want anyone with accurate intel on just how vulnerable they were 
  reporting to the enemy.
  “We’ll keep Chevalier,” she agreed. “But the rest are going into 
  that storeroom.”
  
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