Supremacy's Outlaw: A Space Opera Thriller Series (Insurgency Saga Book 3) by T.E. Bakutis (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📗

people do against Elena Ryke, a Truther army with a mini-nuke, and the entire effing CSD? They’re still hunting you.”

“Don’t forget Senator Tarack.”

“Right,” Emiko said. “Fuck her too.”

“This plan will require coordination on par with the most complicated jobs we’ve ever pulled, and even if we succeed, Ryke will hunt us for the rest of our lives. I despise the necessity of making you a fugitive again, but if we don’t do this, thousands of people are going to die.”

Emiko shrugged. “I’ll piss off Ryke if I have to. Maybe we can just move to Phorcys after it’s all over.” She tilted her head. “So ... what exactly is your plan?”

Jan went ahead and told her.

It surprised him when she started laughing.

Rafael Garcia was many things. A skilled lover. A talented hacker. Marginally successful at committing arson. What he was not, Rafe decided as he finished wrenching in bolt one of four in a metal support, was a mechanic. Seriously, fuck this noise.

Rafe set down the heavy wrench, rose, and wiped his sweaty brow with one arm. The soldier beside him — a tall, beefy man who communicated mainly with grunts and farts — glanced Rafe’s way as Rafe walked away from the job site. The man had tightened eighteen bolts in the time it took Rafe to tighten one, so he was probably just happy to have Rafe out of the way.

Two flights of stairs took Rafe down from the job site to the ground level of the abandoned sewage treatment plant beneath Star’s Landing. The arched biocrete ceiling was six stories above Rafe’s head, and he had to walk around or duck under an endless series of dripping pipes to make progress. The plant had been built by the first natural-born on Ceto, and after the Supremacy took Ceto over for ten years, they’d decommissioned it in favor of newer tech. No one would look for them down here.

Ill-lit weathered gantries stretched through the space overhead, and the faint sound of traffic and people on the street above was a constant, droning hum. The only illumination came from big metal work lights the True Sons had brought with them. The entire plant smelled like mildew and piss.

Rafe made it halfway across the plant before he spotted the two heavily armed soldiers standing at the entry to the northern sewage tunnel. Each kept a watchful gaze on the round tunnel beyond. Best not to bother them.

Instead, Rafe picked his way through more pipe gaps and a number of pieces of dusty, inactive machinery. He soon found an isolated spot where he could sit and rest. Rest was good for the body and soul, or so his therapist constantly reminded him.

Rafe checked the temperature on a waist-high nozzle. Perfect. He’d just sat down when a glimmer burst from a set of pipes and immobilized him.

Rafe failed to squeal and peed himself a little. He couldn’t really do anything while pinned against the waist-high canister, staring at very angry-looking, bearded, dark-skinned Advanced. Or, oddly enough, his floating head.

“Remember me?” Bharat whispered.

Rafe felt one big hand on his chest and another over his mouth, but he couldn’t see either hand. He didn’t want to die here. He didn’t want to die anywhere, but here especially, and not because a big Advanced commando in a mimetic camouflage suit had decided he was the best guy to stop and interrogate.

“I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth,” Bharat whispered, “and I’m going to ask you questions. If you scream, I will kill you. If you lie, I will hurt you. Do you understand?”

Rafe nodded as best he could.

Bharat removed his hand, or Rafe assumed he had. He couldn’t see it. He could breathe, though.

“First question,” Bharat, the floating head, said. “Do you know where Esparza set up his mini-nuke?”

Rafe tried to answer that one and failed. He had to come up with something, or Bharat was going to hurt him. Rafe really didn’t like to be hurt, so he opened his mouth to answer ... but only one confused phrase tumbled out. “Mini-nuke?”

“So you didn’t know.” Bharat scowled. “I’ll rephrase. Where is the sealed biocrete chamber Commander Graham Esparza had you and others heavily modify once you came down here?”

That Rafe understood. What he didn’t understand was the part about the mini-nuke. “Run that by me again, mate?”

Something strong seized Rafe’s arm and twisted. Rafe would have screamed had Bharat’s invisible hand not smothered his mouth. Tears flowed until Bharat untwisted Rafe’s arm, removed his hand, and repeated the question.

“Back there about forty paces,” Rafe whispered, wheezing, “two flights up. The old pump control center.” Rafe worked it all out. “But ... hold on. It’s a security scanner.”

“A security scanner in an underground sewage plant,” Bharat whispered, “with several stories of biocrete between it and the Star’s Landing capitol building, hemmed in by pipes and metal. Yes. This is the perfect place to set up a security scanner.”

Rafe wanted to protest, but he wasn’t sure how. It did sound pretty dumb when Bharat explained it like that. Yet the Commander had been very clear about why they were here. They had to protect the Armistice Day parade from the Supremacy.

This must be a trick! Bharat must be part of the Advanced infiltrators Esparza had said might try to hurt the people at the parade today. Rafe had to stop him!

Invisible Bharat pinned Rafe against the canister the moment he even thought about moving. All thoughts of heroism were devoured by Rafe’s struggle to breathe. Bharat’s disembodied head floated close, his voice a raw whisper.

“You are the reason Commander Graham Esparza was able to cut off