Kara King & The Beyonders: The Nightwind Glyder Heist

Chapter Six:

Breach

Time to Supernova: 7h 45m

Gamlok of the Burning House

The muffled sounds of voices faded away but just in case Gamlok waited an extra three seconds. Still nothing. The Morae pressed hard against the hidden cache panel, but it didn’t budge. His patience was thin, not that there was something particular to enrage him, that’s just how Morae are. The brute punched twice throwing the panel clear off its setting. He stretched outside the crawlspace hidden underneath one of the benches in The Ersatz. He looked at the panel and where he came from halfway remembering Commander King had said something about it sliding but instead pushed the thought away. There was a job to be done. Of course, these jobs never came without complications and Gamlok heard one coming.

“Did you hear that?”

“Go check it out. Probably just a rat knocking something over. Some of these ships look like they’re coming from a garbage world.”

The guard without seniority reluctantly deviated from their hallway patrol. The massive hangar was one of many which all of the guest’s passenger vehicles or shuttles had been crammed into. His commanding officer was right, some of them did look like they came from Vantellor III or Abrassux. Another booming sound came from a much nicer well-polished cruiser however.

The superior officer saw his trainee enter into the ship logged in his sundrytech as ‘The Ersatz’. A third clang of metal came from inside the ship. The officer began to spin his comms channel on his sundrytech to the general security one when a voice came up behind him. Another troop of three guards.

“What’s going on here,” one of the new guards asked. He held himself with an air and posture of authority but he was only one rank higher than the officer who sent his trainee in.

“Pretty sure somethings not right. Just sent my trainee out there to check on a ship but he hasn’t-”

“Sent your trainee?!” The new superior officer shook his head. “Can’t believe you. You’re one of the new ones they brought on for this gig, right? I swear they’ll hire anyone.” He gestured with his riot gun to the two guards at his side, “You two. Go with this sad sack and make sure the job is good. I’ll wait here.”

The officer waited and watched them descend a ramp into the hangar bay, pass several ships, and begin to inspect the vessel of interest. There was a sound the officer couldn’t quite place. It was like one of them had tripped and knocked over some crates. The guard moved down the ramp shaking his head at the situation. “I’ve got a bad-”

A radio signal cut him off, “NG-16. You haven’t checked in at your scheduled interval. Report.”

The officer sighed and responded into his sundrytech, “Yeah. Actually, can I get some assistance in hangar five.”

*****

Gamlok stood around ten unconscious guards in the Ersatz both thankful they finally sent someone roughly his size and unconvinced that the bodies wouldn’t be found. He handcuffed the guards into a knot and flushed the keys down the Ersatz’ toilet. Surely there was a digital override but that’s why he locked their sundrytechs in a duranium crate. If anything, he would make it difficult for them to get out and at best they would be able to sell those later on a black market for a fair amount of chits or a couple of Imperium bonds.

Gamlok strode down the Ersatz’ ramp with a long case that could have carried all the instruments of a band. He wore the armor of the guards; if you could call it that. He wouldn’t. Their dark clothing was more like a fine padded set of clothes with some plating underneath. It was certainly form over function. He felt like he looked like a little boy crammed into his siblings hand-me-downs. The dark doublet was almost bursting at its gold trim.

Gamlok tuned into The Beyonder’s channel on his sundrytech, “Breach checking in. Ready for intel.”

Kara responded. “Good to hear from you. Room 1304.”

“That’s an unlucky one in your culture, right?”

Gita responded. “That’s what I said.”

“We’ll be fine. I dint believe in bad luck.”

Gamlok was pretty sure that was a lie. “On my way.”

*****

Gamlok knocked on the door. A few moments passed and Kara opened the door. Gita was behind her. Laying down on the bed.

“Took you long enough.”

“Hard to find someone in my size, okay?” The Morae pushed his way into the room with several black bags in his hand or hanging over his shoulder. He tossed a long bag on the bed near Gita, and she popped up to open it like a child on Christmas day or whatever it was the elves celebrated, he wasn’t sure. Christmas was one of the better things the humans brought to Morae after they were done fighting. After all it was a holiday where you could expect to receive gifts and for the Morae that usually meant new armaments of some kind.

Kara took her backpack and checked it.

“No worries, I double checked everything before leaving the ship. Wasn’t stopped either. Everything should be there.”

Nevertheless, Kara pulled out her shieldpack, hand cannon and lazeknife. She preferred the sword but that was less conspicuous and not a great option for this mission. The pistol was a last resort, of course. They were outlawed on ships. No one wanted to risk blowing a hole in the hull of their own vessel midflight. That was how lazeguns came about. They adapted the plasma-slag based projectile not so that it wouldn’t disintegrate in atmosphere if your missed your initial target, rather so that the heated slag, or cooled plasma, would rapidly cool down on impact. It would still burn like hell and likely kill any organic material but you could rest assured about your ship integrity if a firefight broke out.

Kara rummaged through one of the duffels Gamlok set down. She pulled out a small black box similar to the one they arrived with, the ‘gift’ for the emperor. “Zee hasn’t chimed in. He’s likely having issues. He said to bring this just in case. Mind checking on him?”

Gamlok pulled up the clock on his sundrytech. 6h 56m. Yeah, we’ve got time. Probably cutting it close with the-”

“Then its best you go now. We’ll work on getting WHR-4 while you work on Zee. You know where to be.”

“You got it commander.” Gamlok took the box and turned around through the door. He pulled up the layout of the ship on his sundrytech. He could go down to the lobby but the doors to the rest of the promenade and other accessways of the ship would still be closed. So he could either wait another, he checked his timer again, twenty minutes, or he could take some extra measures. He had the access credentials from the numerous guards he took down in their ship copied to his tech, that wasn’t an issue. The problem was that the back of house corridors weren’t listed on the black market specs of the ship they got a couple days ago.

Gamlok decided to head back to the lobby. There had to be some limited access routes from there. In the elevator, with the box in hand, Gamlok dialed into the group’s frequency.

Everything was quiet. “Breach is on the move.”

Kara responded, “Heard and understood. Don’t worry Oracle, we’ll get you there. Just got our kit drop. It’s on the docket.”

“Hey Odo-”

Canis cleared his throat on the other line.

Gamlok didn’t call him by his callsign, just grunted. “Look I need to take someone in. On my way to your location, anyone standout?”

“I’ve got two pieces I’d like off the board but only one would make sense to take to the brig.”