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

at the center of the rectangle in what Rafe assumed was parade rest, boots pointed slightly apart and hands clasped behind his back. The work lights glinted on his narrow, wire-rimmed glasses. He looked disappointed, and Rafe’s heart sank at that look. He hated disappointing the Commander.

Kast shoved Rafe hard as they arrived. Rafe stumbled and fell, but caught himself in the center of the rectangle. He pushed up, bracing for a punch or kick.

No strike came. Commander Graham Esparza simply watched him, frowning, glasses glinting in the light. He was waiting for something. Was he waiting for Rafe to explain?

Sure. Okay. He could try that. Rafe cleared his throat and swallowed. “So, yeah. We hid a mini-nuke in that pump control room, yeah? And we’re gonna blow it up in a few hours, when the big Armistice Day parade is walking by overhead?”

Esparza said nothing.

“Isn’t that, like ... mass murder?”

Still, Esparza stood. The man was like a statue. A scowling, glasses-wearing, really fucking intimidating statue. Rafe couldn’t even tell if Esparza was breathing.

“We can’t do this,” Rafe continued, looking around at the soldiers behind Esparza, and the soldiers on the heavy machine guns. “Right? We’re not the Supremacy.”

When he finally spoke, Esparza’s voice was soft, kind, and free of judgment. “Who told you we planned to blow up the Armistice Day parade, Rafe?”

That wasn’t the type of response Rafe expected. Those words weren’t what he expected to hear.

“Uh ...” Rafe waited, hopefully, for help.

“Did you speak to someone who works with the Advanced?”

Rafe felt a little embarrassed Esparza had figured that out so easily. “Yeah.”

“And why, Rafe, would we blow up our own people?”

Rafe felt a sudden, surging, overwhelming wash of relief. “We aren’t doing that?”

Esparza simply shook his head.

“Oh. Well, shit, mate, my bad!” Rafe sat down in the center of the rectangle and grinned. “Then that means ... I have to warn you. There’s an Advanced guy in a mimetic suit at the security scanner. He just blew up the stairs!”

“Just one?” Esparza asked.

“Yeah, he’s alone up there, but there’s ...” Rafe trailed off before he gave up Jan and his friends. Something didn’t feel right about giving up Jan and his friends.

“There’s what, Rafe?” Esparza prompted kindly. “How many Advanced infiltrators are we dealing with today?”

Rafe frowned as he evaluated the calm scowls on the soldiers behind Esparza, and the ones at the heavy machine guns, and Kast. None of those soldiers looked surprised by what he’d just said about a mini-nuke. That only made sense if they all ... oh.

All the dread and guilt Rafe felt when Bharat first told him returned. “We’re going to nuke the parade, aren’t we?”

Esparza’s head tilted, as did the heads of the soldiers on the machine guns. Something on their radios? Then Esparza rushed behind a barrier and crouched low. “Contact in the north tunnel! Kast, secure him!”

Kast’s vise grip snapped Rafe’s arms and ripped him to his feet. She dragged him over and tossed him against the biocrete barrier between her and Esparza. All eyes fixed on the large tunnel beyond the barricades. Inside, lights grew.

Kast spoke up from Esparza’s side. “One armored APC on approach, bulldozer class, with at least thirty armed bodies behind it. It’s gotta be the CSD. We can punch through that armor if we keep at it, but it’s gonna take time.”

“No, the CSD doesn’t use bulldozers anymore,” Esparza said calmly. “They’re also still in Duskdale, hunting Sabato.”

A loud, magnified voice blasted out of the tunnel, female and almost sounding ... bored. “Attention, Truthers! I shouldn’t have to introduce myself, but I will, since you’re probably too stupid to realize how much trouble you’re in. My name is Elena Ryke, and you have someone who belongs to me.”

Kast glanced at Esparza. Esparza glanced at Kast. Both glanced at Rafe, who shook his head. “Don’t look at me, mate!”

“Turn Jan Sabato and the data disc in his possession over to me now,” Ryke’s magnified, incredibly intimidating voice commanded, “or my very capable soldiers will fill you full of holes. You have five minutes to bring Sabato to me.”

“We can take these scum,” Kast growled, but then she frowned. “And why does she think we have Sabato?”

“Commander!” a soldier said. “Contact in the east tunnel!”

“What?” Kast and Esparza demanded in unison, and then the sound of multiple engines flooded the underground room.

Rafe craned his neck to look at the tunnel leading east, which he could just barely see from this angle. More lights blazed inside the tunnel, and then two bright blue APCs rolled out at high speed and screeched to a stop. The turreted guns atop each swiveled automatically to face the barricades.

“This is Lieutenant Coffman with Ceto Security Division, speaking to disavowed rebel commander Graham Esparza!” The blinking red and blue lights on each APC strobed the underground. “We know you are sheltering wanted fugitive Jan Sabato! We demand you turn him over and surrender your arms at once!”

“The fuck,” Kast whispered.

A deafening explosion sent Rafe, Kast, and Esparza diving to the biocrete. The underground chamber rumbled so violently that Rafe was certain it was going to collapse, but it didn’t. When he could, he raised his head and peeked over the barricades.

Someone had blown a massive hole in the previously solid wall. It was about ninety degrees west of the tunnel holding Elena Ryke’s bulldozer and kill squad. And as Rafe stared in disbelief, polished black Vindicator suits — powered armor used primarily by the Supremacy — leapt into the chamber alongside a towering mech that looked like a giant hunchback.

That giant hunchbacked mech, Rafe remembered, was called