**Read and Enjoy! Don't forget to leave a comment.**
The steady rhythm of heavy breathing and flesh slamming into a sand-filled leather bag filled the air. Max was alone in the workout room, and he was in the center, working the heavy bag with a vengeance. Every punch was delivered with a look of concentrated fury, every kick landed with a grimace of hatred. His naked torso and arms were glistening in a sheen of sweat. Every blow on the bag caused a shower of moisture to cascade off Max's well-muscled body. He had been at Robinson's almost a week and a half and he was worried that he would be getting soft. He just hoped that the stitches would hold up.
A few more solid blows landed and Max heard the squawk of the paging system.
"Morgan to the tower. Morgan to the tower," Jen's voice said loudly. Her voice sounded tinny over the speakers, but there was an under current of fear in it, and that made Max put a little hurry into his step. He toweled off a little, put on a light cotton workout jacket and grabbed his cigarettes. He struck his lighter and inhaled the fire, savoring the taste after his hour and a half of pounding on the bag.
The cool air of the main building hit his skin like a tidal wave crushing an unsuspecting surfer. He loved it. He paused for a step and just enjoyed the feeling; it was like jumping in a lake after being in a sauna. He sighed happily and continued on his way to the control tower. He didn't bother knocking as he got there, he just walked in. Inside he saw Jen, Robinson, and the ambassador who had escorted him off the Megalodon. The seat before the radar and communication screen was empty, but the screen showed an old man in a suit sitting at a desk. Max sighed very deeply and pulled the chair out with a defeated look on his face.
"Major Morgan," the man in the suit said plainly, his face revealing no emotion.
"Sir," Morgan replied and saluted half-heartedly.
"Dispense with the attempted formality, Major. Your government needs your help."
Max took a long pull off his cigarette and nodded. He slouched in his chair and looked into the screen. "My former government, sir. I stopped being a member of your citizenry two years ago."
"Be that as it may, you still are in the Martian Military and you will do as your told this time or I will take it upon myself to give the order to destroy that little piece of rock you're on," the man said, still no emotion showing on his face. The radar screen left of the screen Max was talking at light up along the edge with at least 30 blips on the radar and alarms started sounding and lights started flashing. Robinson leaned forward and flipped a toggle switch; the alarms stopped, but the blips remained on the radar and the red lights still flashed angrily.
"Max," Robinson said calmly.
"Fine, what do you need?" Max said, clearly agitated.
"Major, we need you to go back to Earth and rescue a political prisoner. Corporal Anders is being held at the prison in Rotterdam. The charge and conviction was for piracy and we need Anders returned to us safely."
"Corporal Anders? One of yours?" Max questioned non-chalantly.
"One of ours. Until your dismissal fr. . ." the man started. Max cut him off.
"Court martial. Say it with me, sir; until my court marital from the Martian Special Forces."
"Until your dismissal from the Martian Special Forces, Anders is still under your command as well, Major."
Max nodded. "What's Anders' specialty?"
"Piloting. There isn't a ship in the system that Anders can't fly; makes you look like a grandmother driving to church on Sunday morning, Morgan," the man in the suit said. Morgan, Robinson, and Jen all raised their eyebrows simultaneously. The ambassador stood in the room as stoic as ever.
"Fine. I'll do it. What's in it for me?"
"First of all, you will return your stolen Mako. Second of all, you will receive a full pardon from the Martian government and you will be processed without any necessary appearances by yourself as having a discharge under other than honorable conditions. Third, we will drop our portion of your bounty, lowering it by 5 million. Furthermore, if you accept we will pull our ships back except for one and we will not incur further trespassing on Thomas Robinson's legally held space."
"As opposed to if I refuse and you'll blow up this rock and probably double the bounty on me if I escaped somehow."
"I have no doubt you'd escape in the Mako; that's what she's designed for and that's what we trained you to do. However, the other 50 of Thomas Robinson's employees will not be as fortunate."
"Like I said, I'll do it. Now what's this business about pulling back all but one ship?" Max asked, leaning back in the chair and taking a deep drag on his up-to-this-point neglected cigarette.
"The ship that will remain is the Twilight. She is a two-seater and she's the ship you will use for the mission. It is an experimental ship that we have 5 of, and she uses some of the modifications that you brought forward while you were still active. You will fly out alone in the Mako and a trade will take place between you and the pilot of the Twilight. When you return with the Twilight, you will drop the ship off at the base in Alva City along with Anders and then we will process the concessions that I mentioned."
"Done. When do we make the exchange?" Max asked, moving to sit up straight in the chair. Max was getting very tired of this dialog.
"One hour, Major."
"Done," Max said and flipped a toggle switch. The screen went blank.
"You realize you're going into a trap, right?" Robinson said grimly. "They're never going to let you out alive."
"That's just what my girlfriend said before I joined the Corps," Max laughed. "Besides, what do we have here, thousand to one odds? That's just getting this Corporal Anders. Then I have to get out of a military held prison and through God only knows what for defenses while avoiding the Black Dragons, the Consortium, and trying hard to not piss off the Red Dragons while I'm at it. Then I have to get back here without getting killed and drop a ship off at another military base and then get out of there." Max shrugged. "Sounds like my kind of deal," he said smiling. Max stood up and walked out the door. "The Mako ready?"
"Has been since we gassed her up when you limped back here," Robinson replied calmly. He patted himself down for his cigarettes and pulled them from the inside pocket of his coveralls. He stepped out the door after Max and lit a cigarette.
"What about the 'Don? She gonna be ready by the time I get back?" Max asked, taking the last pull of his cigarette and flicking it out into the shop toward the Megalodon.
"Maybe, I won't promise shit, Max."
"You never do. That's what I like about you, Robinson. Try to have her ready; I have a feeling I'm gonna need her before this little job is done." Robinson only nodded in reply. Max headed for the barracks so he could shower. The shower was faster than Max would have liked, but he was filled with a sort of giddy nervousness. He was excited about finally getting the military off his back, but part of him was already sadly missing the chase. Time seemed to fly by. The shower, getting dressed, getting in the Mako and the fast trip to the rendezvous seemed to take minutes to Max.
The switch went fast, too. Max tethered himself to his pod and he floated over to the Twilight and the pilot in there, some Private, Max noted, seemed awfully frightened and very relieved to get out of the Twilight. "Yup, that confirms it," Max thought. "She's got a bomb in her; probably an ELR Transponder, too. Gonna have to fix that when I get to Earth." He watched as the shuttle pilot got into his Mako. Max watched the other pilot pull in the tether, lock down the pod and blast away. He got a horrible sinking feeling that was the last time he would ever see her again.
"Get a move on, Major," sounded a voice over the speakers in the Twilight.
"Is that you, L.C. Upton?" Max said as he buckled in. He started looking around the cockpit figuring out where all the buttons and indicator lights were.
"Colonel Upton actually, Major. Move that thing, we're on a schedule here," Upton shot back agitatedly. Max buckled his harness into place and he grabbed the control sticks and put his feet on the pedals.
"Wasn't told we were on a timeframe here, Colonel," Max said and brought the ship around. The smooth handling and response of the Twilight impressed Max immediately. He also noticed something quite happily; when she was moving, she had an artificial gravity field. That had been one of his recommendations. If they had gotten that one down, he wondered what else they might have gotten figured out.
"At full speed you have 4 hours to parole Anders after reaching Earth," Upton said emotionlessly. Max's left eyebrow rose. He kicked the Twilight down and the Martian ships were only a twinkling of afterburners after a few seconds.
Max couldn't help but play with some of the buttons and switches. The Twilight had an auto guidance system set up to go through gates, get in lines at the toll stations, and even had specific destinations pre-programmed into it. The artificial gravity steadily increased up to Earth's 1G. The plane was constantly under the cockpit, Max noted, and it never shifted. The Twilight could turn tighter and faster than any other craft designed; until it hit a gravity well like a planet and then it was up to the toughness of the pilot to not pass out. She was armed with two missile launchers and twin 40mm Vulcan cannons. The magazines had 100,000 rounds in them at maximum capacity. Max noted that right now, all the magazines were empty. Max got so caught up in fiddling with things in his new toy; he barely realized the time that it took to get to the Mars gate. He could make out Alva City on the dark side of Mars before he realized where he was. He flipped the VOX on and rotated the station to the comm. channel that the gates operated on. Instantly noisy chatter filled the air; most of it sounded like long-haul couriers.
"This is Major Morgan of the Martian Marines, I am enroute to Earth on a military emergency. Clear the gate or I will blow it clear," Max said in a rushed voice. He brought the Twilight into a tight turning spiral and veered sharply toward the gate. The chatter on the radio picked up dramatically with the scattered expletives of truckers and commuters. The gate controllers seemed to be amazingly calm through the whole thing, directing traffic as best they could. Max was actually impressed with the efficiency that they worked. Holding true to his word, Max didn't even slow down. He hit the gate aperture at the maximum speed of the Twilight, skimming a mere 3 feet from a long chained freighter. Max hit the hyperspace of the gates and was gone.
The trip to Earth was taking about half the time it took with the Mako, but that was still fine with Max. He made sure the autopilot was locked on to Rotterdam and sent a communication through the gate system to tell them that he wasn't going through the tollbooth on the other side and that he wasn't slowing down when he was out. They were to make sure the route to Earth was clear. He was sure there wouldn't be any problems and he went to sleep.
Max awoke later, only two hours before he got to the gate at Earth. He started pulling up what information he could about Rotterdam and the prison there. The more information he got, the less happy he became.
Rotterdam had fallen into decay in the last 50 years. It had been pounded by falling rocks from the gate accident and it had turned into the slum of Europe. The prison there wasn't a prison, but it was a para-military controlled base of a group calling themselves The Fourth Reich. They sought to reunite Europe and build defenses to take out the incoming rocks before they hit the Earth, allowing them to rebuild. Unfortunately, they also wanted to establish Earth as the predominate power in the system again, which meant they wanted an all out war with Mars. It seems that they had been gathering men and weapons and ships for the last 10 years and were on the verge of taking over several of the cities in Europe. That meant that they had lots of people that were highly trained and this wouldn't be just a smash and grab run. It also meant that Anders wasn't being executed for piracy; Anders was being executed for espionage.
Max kept trying to look up information on the location of where Anders was being held and he kept coming up with blanks. His research lasted until he blasted through the Earth gate and found quite happily that it had been cleared as requested. The Twilight was on approach to the planet when the viewer screen turned itself on and a man in a uniform popped up on the screen. Max recognized him immediately as his former commanding officer, Colonel Upton.
"Morgan, there's not a lot of time here, so I'll be brief," he said and seemed to shuffle papers around on a desk.
"It's night time in Rotterdam right now. We have a way in and out of the place where Anders is being held; the laundry service. They're friendly to us and have helped us out on previous missions in Rotterdam and in other cities in Europe. Our people on the inside already have you signed up for a job. You start in 2 hours."
Max was liking this less and less all the time. He had been lied to consistently so far. He didn't have 4 hours; he had 2. Anders wasn't in some prison, Anders was in a military held building. Anders wasn't being executed for piracy; she was most likely being executed for espionage. The whole situation was spiraling rapidly out of Max's favor, and he didn't like that. He wasn't even sure anymore that he was supposed to get Anders out. Or even that there was an Anders. He was given no description, only a rank and a name.
"The landing coordinates are preset. You are going into hostile territory and you are going to encounter heavy resistance. Furthermore, the metal detectors in the facility will not allow you to carry a gun, and they have strict rules that will be explained to you when you show up for your assignment. Just show up at the Über Sauber washing service and you'll be given instructions on how to act, what to say, and where to go once inside," Colonel Upton said. When he was finished, he sat back in his chair. "Any questions, Major?"
"I don't speak German," he said plainly.
"Du sprechst nicht Deutsch? Auch, das tut mir leid," the Colonel said with a broad smile.
"Gesundheit," Max said with a scowl. "I wasn't joking."
"Neither was I. It is too bad you don't speak German. You'll have to improvise, Major. Being a marine, I suspect you know how to do that. This is Upton, out," the Colonel said and Max's viewer went blank.
"What a bunch of sanctimonious assholes," Max muttered as he started to penetrate Earth's atmosphere. The automatic guidance took over and Max just sat back and enjoyed the ride. Whoever programmed the mono-system in the Twilight did a hell of a job. It glided down into the city and parked itself on the ground floor of a multi-storied hanger. The display screen popped up with a list of directions to Über Sauber and a contact name of Heinrich. Max followed the directions and within minutes of walking through the slums, he arrived at the business. The scent of urine, death, and decay in the slums was overridden by the powerful smell of bleach from the laundry, and Max was almost glad to have that stench burn into his nose instead of the other scent oozing into his skin.
Inside, Max saw a number of people milling about, most of them trying to look busy, and almost all of them doing a very non-convincing job. The place seemed to be fairly well automated, and Max quickly surmised that while the machine was going through its cycle, there probably wasn't a whole lot of work to be done unless something went wrong with the machine itself. A few heads turned his way when he entered, most went back to minding the machines, but one man stepped forward.
"Kann Ich helfen Sie?" the man said, the words pouring out of his mouth so fast that Max barely understood what they were; not that he could translate them anyway.
"Heinrich," Max said plainly. He looked around casually, but kept his eyes sharp, continuously keeping track of the workers without really looking at them.
"Moment, bitte," the German said and wandered toward the back of the laundry. Max wasn't sure if he had just been insulted or not. He was thinking that he wasn't, but it was hard to understand the words exactly and he kept translating them into English as best he could. "Moment" seemed pretty self-explanatory, but "bitte" sounded too close to "bitch" for Max's taste. He let it slide and waited.
The first German came back with another man, standing about 6 feet tall with a good build on him. He was wiping his hands off on a towel tucked into his belt. He reminded Max more of a waiter than a laundry worker.
"Gutten Tag, mein Herr. Ich bin Heinrich," the new German said and extended his hand to shake.
"I'm Morgan," Max said clearly as he took Heinrich's hand. The Germans exchanged a quick glance at each other and looked back at Max. Max with drew his hand after a firm shake. "Du sprechst nicht Deutsch?" Heinrich said slowly and clearly. He recognized it from Upton saying it earlier, he was pretty sure that "nicht" was night and he knew that Deutsch was the German word for German.
"I don't speak German," Max said after a moment's pause. Heinrich and the first German exchanged another quick look and Heinrich motioned to the back with his head. Heinrich looked back at Max and clasped his hand to Max's shoulder.
"Do not vorry, mein Ionian freund. Ve vill tell you vhat you need zu know," Heinrich said in his thick accent. A smile crossed his face and then it quickly faded. "Aber, time ist short, zo ve must be quick. Kommen Sie mitt," Heinrich said and turned to go in the back. Max followed and they got to a small room in the back of the laundry that appeared to be a small office. There was an actual television set up with a disk reader. Max saw the first German fire it up and move a chair a few feet from the small screen.
"Bitte," he said, gesturing to Max and then to the chair.
Max sat in the chair and Heinrich shut the door behind him. The screen on the TV went to a 4-panel gray-tone with a dialing count down in the center. Max watched the 5, 4, 3, and 2 all disappear and the screen faded to black.
"Welkommen!" a voice said in a friendly manner. The word "Welcome!" came across the still-black screen in all white letters. "Das ist ein Deutsche Lection für das Aulander," the voice said. The words "This is a German lesson for the foreigner," faded into view and "Welcome!" faded out.
"Papieren, bitte," the voice said again. "Papers please" flashed up on the screen. It showed a little play-acting between a man in a flannel shirt and a man in what looked like a police uniform. The man in the flannel produced what looked like a passport and handed it to the officer. The scene faded to black.
"Wo bist du? Ich bin John," the voice said again. The voice was beginning to get on Max's nerves, but this was at least a little entertaining. It reminded him of the typical infomercial voice actor. The words "Who are you? I am John," flashed up on the screen. Again, there was a little play-acting between the man in the flannel and the cop. The cop asked, the man answered. Max was taking careful mental notes and trying to mouth the words.
"Was bist du machen? Ich bin hier zu arbeit," the voice said again. "What are you doing? I am here to work." flashed up on the screen. The scene was acted out, with the officer becoming more direct and threatening and the man in the flannel backing off a little. The picture faded to black.
"Ich denke du lügst. Nein, Ich bin hier zu arbeit," said the voice. The first sentence sounded very agitated, the second was very concerned. "I think you lie. No, I am here to work," flashed up on the screen, and the actors came on again, with the officer reaching for what was probably some weapon that was on the far side of his body and the man in the flannel held his hands up and shook his head.
"Stehen Sie hier, Ich geh. . ." the voice said and choked off with a strangled gurgling sound. "You stand here, I'm go. . ." flashed up on the screen. The scene showed the officer turning around after speaking and the man in the flannel choking him and breaking the officer's neck. "Sometimes the language barrier just breaks down," flashed up on the screen. Heinrich reached down and shut off the TV.
"Stay quiet und by mich und du vill be gut," Heinrich said. "I vill be goink in mit du, und I vill get du insite."
"Can we take guns in there with us?" Max asked hopefully. Heinrich shook his head.
"No metal. Even ein bullet vill trip alarm." Max rolled his eyes and took out his gun. He set it on the television and began pulling extra clips from his boots, his belt and two from the inside of his flight suit. Heinrich laughed a hearty, deep belly laugh.
"Du kommst prepared, Ionian!" Heinrich said, still chuckling. "Aber kommst, ve vill geh zu ze compound. Es ist time." Heinrich opened the door and they went to a closet a few feet from the small office. He gave Max a set of white coveralls with "Über Sauber" embroidered on the back. Heinrich got a pair of coveralls out for himself as well and he began putting them on.
"Remove dien suit, Morgan. It vill not look richtig und they vill not let uns in," Heinrich said. Max took his flight suit off and pulled the white coveralls on.
"What about boots?" Max asked, pointing to his combat boots. Heinrich looked at his feet and the feet of the first man that Max had spoken to.
"Otto, gibst er dein Steifeln," Heinrich said quickly.
"Aber. . ." Otto started
"Nein Aber. Gibst er dein Steifeln. Du mochtest haben dem wenn er est tot." Otto only nodded and took his boots off. Max put them on and laced them quickly, but he had a very bad feeling about all of this. He didn't like that they were speaking in English, albeit broken English, and then suddenly switched to German. He was positive he was walking into a trap.
"Ready to go," Max said as he stood up from tying his boots. Heinrich looked him over and nodded.
"Ve go," Heinrich said and they went out through the main laundry among huge washing machines and strings of hanging clothes that were moving through a dry somewhere in the building. They walked out an area in the back and out into a loading dock area. There was a truck waiting just through an overhead door that was already running. Max got in and they pulled out of Über Sauber and Max took very good mental notes on how to get back. He was going to have to come back for his gun and his boots before he left Earth.
The trip was only a few minutes, and Heinrich seemed to stick to twisting back roads instead of the main thoroughfares, but that was just fine with Max. It gave him more time to calm himself down and focus. Aggression and fear are emotions that will throw a plan out of balance, but if they're focused, they bring everything into light and the world becomes clear. Right now, Max was extremely angry at being played for a pawn, and at letting himself be played into a trap. He was also scared because he was walking into a military complex with no gun and an unfair home-team advantage. They knew he was coming, but Max knew one thing they didn't. Max knew he was leaving.
"Your Anders ist on ze 8th floor. I vill tell you ver to find Anders. After das, du bist on your own," Heinrich said as he backed the truck up to a loading dock. "Zu gehst zu Anders, du go left zu ze stairs. Second floor, take links und go zu ze door ab end of hall. Geh aus ze stairs zu 8th floor und Anders is at end of hall. Door code is one, three, seven, neun, one. Okay?" Max nodded and watched as Heinrich got out of the cab. Max quickly followed his lead. Heinrich went to the back of the truck and opened it. Max saw two laundry gurneys inside; Heinrich pushed one of them out to Max and pushed the other himself. Max followed the German's lead and walked right in.
There were two guards dressed in midnight blue uniforms inside the doors, and Max noticed that these guards were using HK machine guns. After being in business since well before the turn of the century, HK knew how guns should be made. They shot straight, they shot fast, and they almost never jammed. If a gunfight did start, it would be up to human error to not hit Max, and that was a fact that he was growing more and more painfully aware of.
They pushed their carts inside the main doors and Heinrich kept walking. They went through a metal detector and Heinrich passed but when Max went through, a buzzer sounded. "Here we go," thought Max. The two guards stepped forward from behind the uprights of the metal detectors.
"Armen auf," said the guard. Max guessed to put his hands on his head and wait to be patted down. He guessed wrong. "Armen auf!" said the German firmly. Max put his arms straight out this time and the guard shook his head and started patting Max down. "Geh aus und kommst züruck," the guard said. Luckily for Max he waved his arm through the metal detector and then pointed at Heinrich. Max backed the cart out and then came back through. Again, the buzzer sounded. The guard that had been ordering Max around motioned to the cart and the other guard started searching it. He didn't search long before he came up with a combat knife. Max sighed deeply.
"Was ist das?" the guard said haughtily, waving it in the air a little. The first guard moved quickly and brought Max's hands behind his back and restrained them with what felt like a zip- tie. Max just let him do it. The first guard came closer with the knife, moving it in his hand to for a firmer grip. The guard behind Max was holding him by his restrained wrists and had Max in a position that would be difficult to muscle out of. The guard with the knife rushed forward.
Max threw his chest back and smashed the back of his head into the guard's face behind him. The guard stumbled back, letting go of Max in the process, and Max was free to move around. The guard with the knife rushed forward with the knife out in front of him. Max dropped and twisted behind the metal detector. The guard jerked downward to try to slice into Max's legs but Max tripped him instead, sending him into the other guard, knife first. The blade sank into the guard's leg, clear to the hilt and he screamed painfully. Max twisted his feet between the now-screaming guard's legs and tripped him. The knife thudded loudly on the floor, and the guard's head bounced off the cement, silencing him for the time being.
The other guard seemed paralyzed for a second, debating to try to help his friend or deal with the escaping prisoner. That hesitation was all Max needed. His foot went to the side of the guard's knee, hyper extending it sideways until the guard's leg almost bent in half. Max barely rolled out of the way of the falling guard and head butted him after he hit the ground. His body went limp and Max got himself to his feet. He bent down and pulled the knife from the other guard's leg and used it to cut the plastic zip-tie holding his hands together. Max looked over to Heinrich to see him standing in a doorway, holding an HK with the barrel leveled straight at Max's chest.
"Das ist ze end, Herr Morgan," the big German said and a smile crept onto his face. Max's left eye started to twitch and then he saw something moving behind Heinrich. It was at the end of the hallway and was coming up behind him.
"Was machst du da?" came a deep voice from behind Heinrich. Max shifted the knife in his hand to throw it better if that's what it came down to. Heinrich's smile lessened but did not completely vanish.
"Ich habe der Martian. Er totst twei Brudern," Heinrich said over his shoulder, keeping his eyes locked on Max. Max's eyes quickly floated around the room, seeing how easy it would be to get a machine gun from a guard. The one that took the knife in the leg was probably going to be the easiest; the sling was just around his head and the weapon was off to his side. The other guard was just about lying on top of his gun.
"Prima! Geh für der Fürher. Ich habe ihn," the voice said. Heinrich nodded and backed through the door he was standing in. The guard would have to cross the line of fire and then Max would act. He saw the shoulder of the same blue uniform of the men at his feet and he threw the knife and dove for the gun around the guard's neck.
The knife caught the guard in the chest and sunk in a few inches. By the time Heinrich knew what was happening, he didn't have a clear shot to hit Max. With a quick roll to the ground Max picked up the guard's head by his hair, swung the gun out and dropped the guard's head. Max charged forward toward the wall along side the door. The guard with the knife in his chest slumped forward and made a sickening gurgling sound as the knife drove deeper into his lung. Max took a quick look at the wall and saw that it was plaster on the outside. He took a step back and let loose a burst with the HK in a tight arc where Heinrich should be. The HK tore chunks out of the sheet rock out of the wall went through the other side, ripping through it like tissue paper. Max waited a second and fired another burst, chewing up more of the wall. Hearing nothing from Heinrich, Max looked cautiously through one of the holes he had just blown in the wall. Heinrich was laying face down in an ever-growing pool of blood.
Max had other problems though; the HK was not silenced and there would be more guards. Lots more guards. He quickly went to the men around him and took an extra HK and all the ammunition he could find. After less than a minute, Max was ready to go. He pulled the knife from the guard in the door way and stuck in Heinrich's back just to be sure that he wasn't going to have to fight through him on the way back through. Max remembered the directions and hoped that just maybe he wasn't lied to about that. He'd have to grab a guard without seriously injuring one and ask him a few questions.
Max didn't waste any time in going to his perceived destination. He followed the directions exactly and was facing almost no opposition. That alone was worrying him more than if he was fighting off the entire army of Rotterdam. He didn't see anyone until the stairway that was mentioned in his directions to where Anders was being held. Then all hell broke loose.
Max saw two guards running down the stairs, taking defensive position in doorways and they were shouting, apparently to more Germans who were on the way. Max started shooting at a door, waiting for the bullets to chew through the steel and weaken the lock. It didn't take long and he shouldered the door in just as the Germans in the hall started firing. He was inside what looked like a utility closet, and there were chemicals everywhere. Max's eyes kept shifting between the bottles and the open door, listening for the sounds of boots coming down the hallway.
"Shit, it's all in German," hissed Max under his breath. Something caught his eye though, something that's universal to any language. There were hazardous materials signs on half of the chemicals. After a very fast search, he found one that looked to be the most flammable judging from the warning diamond numbers. Max dumped most of the contents of the plastic bottle down the floor drain in the center of the room and shook the bottle. He kept shaking it as he ducked around the corner to see where the Germans were positioned. More had joined the two that had come down the stairs, and there was a small group all bunched up. Max's head came back around the corner as their guns opened up and a torrent of lead flooded the hall.
Max shook the bottle a few seconds more and threw it out into the hallway by the small group of men near the stair well. He let lose a burst with the machine gun as and ducked back into the relative safety of the supply closet. The Germans opened up with their machine guns and there was shouting heard above the gunfire, but Max couldn't make it out. Both the guns and the voices were silenced a split second later when an explosion rocked the hall. Flames shot past the door that Max was hiding in. Max shot around the lock of the door across the hall and ran out of his room and barreled through the new door. In the instant that he was exposed in the hall, he saw that all the Germans in the hall were down, and some were on fire. Max was out of the room almost as fast as he had gotten in it and was in the hallway, looking over the guards on the ground and trying to cover the staircase in the hall as well as all of the other three door ways into the hall. One face down guard near Max began to moan softly.
Max put a boot to him and rolled him over. The German coughed and wheezed and Max saw that most of the skin on his face was either black or red. Max was seriously beginning to like the potency of the cleaning supplies of Europe. The man's eyes opened slowly and it was obvious he was in extreme pain.
"Speak English?" Max asked calmly. He pointed the HK at the guard's forehead. The guard shook his head. Max frowned. "Prisoners?" The guard only looked scared and confused in response. "Auslander?" Max asked after a short pause, thinking back to his German lesson. The guard pointed up the stairs and then to the right of the staircase. Max nodded, kicking the guard in the head and knocking him out.
He started charging up the stairs at the same time more guards started coming down. Max brought his other machine gun to bear and cut down the oncoming Germans, but he caught a bullet in his left arm and it went numb after a blinding flash of pain. Max ran up the rest of the stairs, blood running down his arm and leaving a trail of crimson dots in his wake. Here the directions changed from where Heinrich said to go. Heinrich said to take a left at the stairs. Max trusted the dying man more than the one walking him into a trap and went right. The 3 doors on either side of the hall all had security locks on them. Max let loose a burst of machine gun fire at the first door on his right and the bullets barely penetrated. Max gave the door a tremendous kick, and the door caved under his foot. His eyes lit up and for a second he forgot that he was even wounded.
The room that Max had gotten into was not a jail cell, but a munitions storage. There were dozens of handguns, a few HK's in some racks and some cardboard boxes. Max looked at the boxes very quickly and saw one that grabbed his attention; it wasn't in English, but the main word on the box was Canitri, and Max knew that they were an explosives manufacturer. He opened the box and sure enough, there were 12 gray-pink bars of extremely stable high explosive inside. Max grabbed a bar of the explosive and tucked it in his crimson stained white uniform and looked around for another box that should have contained the detonators and he was very happy to find that this one was in English. Not only that but it was from Digidet, the premiere company for making easy to use electronic detonators. They also happened to be the chief military suppliers in the system.
Max opened the box and counted 25 detonators and the master switch. The detonators were white and about the size of a match stick with a head on it the size of a pencil and half of an inch long. Max's fingers pushed on the two ends of the detonator and the number "01" appeared on the head. He turned the stick and the numbers ran all the way up to 50 before recycling back to 1. Max repeated the process with the master switch; a similar device with a body as thick as Max's pinky and a head the size of his thumb. He played with the detonators and with the master switch for another second or two before peeking back out into the hall. A three-shot burst of an HK made him duck back inside the room. He grabbed a small wad of the explosive from the box and wrapped it around the detonator. Max put the master control switch on to "01" and turned the detonator on to the same number. He stuck his hand out the door for just enough time to flick the explosive down the hall. He waited a second and a half and pushed the top of the switch down and it gave a little beep. A fraction of a second later an explosion shook the building for the second time in 5 minutes.
Max moved fast, pounding on the doors until he got to the last one on the left. Someone pounded back.
"Speak English?" Max shouted. He heard a muffled yell from the other side of the door. Max could barely hear it and couldn't' understand any of it. There was a pause and Max checked the hallway again for more Germans. It was a mess from the explosion and dust was still thick in the air from the smoke and from the pulverized sheet rock walls. Then Max heard it; 3 close poundings on the door, 3 slower harder knocks, and then 3 more fast hits. SOS in Morris code. Max fired a round into the door and he hoped whoever was on the other side backed up. He grabbed a small pinch of the grayish putty and smashed it in between the door and the door jam beside the door handle. He stuck a detonator in it and backed off a few feet down the hall. Max pushed the head in on the master control and a flash of fire and a billow of smoke erupted around the door. A second later the door flew out of the door jam and Max could make a boot out in the smoke surrounding the door. He heard coughing from inside, but it didn't sound right somehow; but his ears were ringing from the explosions and the gunfire in the small spaces.
"Corporal Anders? This is Major Morgan. Corporal?" Max shouted.
"Jesus H Christ, it's about time you got here!" rang a voice. Max must have been hearing things wrong, his hearing had to have been more damaged than he thought. A form walked out of the smoke and dust and Max realized that he wasn't hearing wrong and his ears weren't ringing nearly as bad as he thought they were. Corporal Anders, the best pilot in the Martian Special Forces, was a woman.
The steady rhythm of heavy breathing and flesh slamming into a sand-filled leather bag filled the air. Max was alone in the workout room, and he was in the center, working the heavy bag with a vengeance. Every punch was delivered with a look of concentrated fury, every kick landed with a grimace of hatred. His naked torso and arms were glistening in a sheen of sweat. Every blow on the bag caused a shower of moisture to cascade off Max's well-muscled body. He had been at Robinson's almost a week and a half and he was worried that he would be getting soft. He just hoped that the stitches would hold up.
A few more solid blows landed and Max heard the squawk of the paging system.
"Morgan to the tower. Morgan to the tower," Jen's voice said loudly. Her voice sounded tinny over the speakers, but there was an under current of fear in it, and that made Max put a little hurry into his step. He toweled off a little, put on a light cotton workout jacket and grabbed his cigarettes. He struck his lighter and inhaled the fire, savoring the taste after his hour and a half of pounding on the bag.
The cool air of the main building hit his skin like a tidal wave crushing an unsuspecting surfer. He loved it. He paused for a step and just enjoyed the feeling; it was like jumping in a lake after being in a sauna. He sighed happily and continued on his way to the control tower. He didn't bother knocking as he got there, he just walked in. Inside he saw Jen, Robinson, and the ambassador who had escorted him off the Megalodon. The seat before the radar and communication screen was empty, but the screen showed an old man in a suit sitting at a desk. Max sighed very deeply and pulled the chair out with a defeated look on his face.
"Major Morgan," the man in the suit said plainly, his face revealing no emotion.
"Sir," Morgan replied and saluted half-heartedly.
"Dispense with the attempted formality, Major. Your government needs your help."
Max took a long pull off his cigarette and nodded. He slouched in his chair and looked into the screen. "My former government, sir. I stopped being a member of your citizenry two years ago."
"Be that as it may, you still are in the Martian Military and you will do as your told this time or I will take it upon myself to give the order to destroy that little piece of rock you're on," the man said, still no emotion showing on his face. The radar screen left of the screen Max was talking at light up along the edge with at least 30 blips on the radar and alarms started sounding and lights started flashing. Robinson leaned forward and flipped a toggle switch; the alarms stopped, but the blips remained on the radar and the red lights still flashed angrily.
"Max," Robinson said calmly.
"Fine, what do you need?" Max said, clearly agitated.
"Major, we need you to go back to Earth and rescue a political prisoner. Corporal Anders is being held at the prison in Rotterdam. The charge and conviction was for piracy and we need Anders returned to us safely."
"Corporal Anders? One of yours?" Max questioned non-chalantly.
"One of ours. Until your dismissal fr. . ." the man started. Max cut him off.
"Court martial. Say it with me, sir; until my court marital from the Martian Special Forces."
"Until your dismissal from the Martian Special Forces, Anders is still under your command as well, Major."
Max nodded. "What's Anders' specialty?"
"Piloting. There isn't a ship in the system that Anders can't fly; makes you look like a grandmother driving to church on Sunday morning, Morgan," the man in the suit said. Morgan, Robinson, and Jen all raised their eyebrows simultaneously. The ambassador stood in the room as stoic as ever.
"Fine. I'll do it. What's in it for me?"
"First of all, you will return your stolen Mako. Second of all, you will receive a full pardon from the Martian government and you will be processed without any necessary appearances by yourself as having a discharge under other than honorable conditions. Third, we will drop our portion of your bounty, lowering it by 5 million. Furthermore, if you accept we will pull our ships back except for one and we will not incur further trespassing on Thomas Robinson's legally held space."
"As opposed to if I refuse and you'll blow up this rock and probably double the bounty on me if I escaped somehow."
"I have no doubt you'd escape in the Mako; that's what she's designed for and that's what we trained you to do. However, the other 50 of Thomas Robinson's employees will not be as fortunate."
"Like I said, I'll do it. Now what's this business about pulling back all but one ship?" Max asked, leaning back in the chair and taking a deep drag on his up-to-this-point neglected cigarette.
"The ship that will remain is the Twilight. She is a two-seater and she's the ship you will use for the mission. It is an experimental ship that we have 5 of, and she uses some of the modifications that you brought forward while you were still active. You will fly out alone in the Mako and a trade will take place between you and the pilot of the Twilight. When you return with the Twilight, you will drop the ship off at the base in Alva City along with Anders and then we will process the concessions that I mentioned."
"Done. When do we make the exchange?" Max asked, moving to sit up straight in the chair. Max was getting very tired of this dialog.
"One hour, Major."
"Done," Max said and flipped a toggle switch. The screen went blank.
"You realize you're going into a trap, right?" Robinson said grimly. "They're never going to let you out alive."
"That's just what my girlfriend said before I joined the Corps," Max laughed. "Besides, what do we have here, thousand to one odds? That's just getting this Corporal Anders. Then I have to get out of a military held prison and through God only knows what for defenses while avoiding the Black Dragons, the Consortium, and trying hard to not piss off the Red Dragons while I'm at it. Then I have to get back here without getting killed and drop a ship off at another military base and then get out of there." Max shrugged. "Sounds like my kind of deal," he said smiling. Max stood up and walked out the door. "The Mako ready?"
"Has been since we gassed her up when you limped back here," Robinson replied calmly. He patted himself down for his cigarettes and pulled them from the inside pocket of his coveralls. He stepped out the door after Max and lit a cigarette.
"What about the 'Don? She gonna be ready by the time I get back?" Max asked, taking the last pull of his cigarette and flicking it out into the shop toward the Megalodon.
"Maybe, I won't promise shit, Max."
"You never do. That's what I like about you, Robinson. Try to have her ready; I have a feeling I'm gonna need her before this little job is done." Robinson only nodded in reply. Max headed for the barracks so he could shower. The shower was faster than Max would have liked, but he was filled with a sort of giddy nervousness. He was excited about finally getting the military off his back, but part of him was already sadly missing the chase. Time seemed to fly by. The shower, getting dressed, getting in the Mako and the fast trip to the rendezvous seemed to take minutes to Max.
The switch went fast, too. Max tethered himself to his pod and he floated over to the Twilight and the pilot in there, some Private, Max noted, seemed awfully frightened and very relieved to get out of the Twilight. "Yup, that confirms it," Max thought. "She's got a bomb in her; probably an ELR Transponder, too. Gonna have to fix that when I get to Earth." He watched as the shuttle pilot got into his Mako. Max watched the other pilot pull in the tether, lock down the pod and blast away. He got a horrible sinking feeling that was the last time he would ever see her again.
"Get a move on, Major," sounded a voice over the speakers in the Twilight.
"Is that you, L.C. Upton?" Max said as he buckled in. He started looking around the cockpit figuring out where all the buttons and indicator lights were.
"Colonel Upton actually, Major. Move that thing, we're on a schedule here," Upton shot back agitatedly. Max buckled his harness into place and he grabbed the control sticks and put his feet on the pedals.
"Wasn't told we were on a timeframe here, Colonel," Max said and brought the ship around. The smooth handling and response of the Twilight impressed Max immediately. He also noticed something quite happily; when she was moving, she had an artificial gravity field. That had been one of his recommendations. If they had gotten that one down, he wondered what else they might have gotten figured out.
"At full speed you have 4 hours to parole Anders after reaching Earth," Upton said emotionlessly. Max's left eyebrow rose. He kicked the Twilight down and the Martian ships were only a twinkling of afterburners after a few seconds.
Max couldn't help but play with some of the buttons and switches. The Twilight had an auto guidance system set up to go through gates, get in lines at the toll stations, and even had specific destinations pre-programmed into it. The artificial gravity steadily increased up to Earth's 1G. The plane was constantly under the cockpit, Max noted, and it never shifted. The Twilight could turn tighter and faster than any other craft designed; until it hit a gravity well like a planet and then it was up to the toughness of the pilot to not pass out. She was armed with two missile launchers and twin 40mm Vulcan cannons. The magazines had 100,000 rounds in them at maximum capacity. Max noted that right now, all the magazines were empty. Max got so caught up in fiddling with things in his new toy; he barely realized the time that it took to get to the Mars gate. He could make out Alva City on the dark side of Mars before he realized where he was. He flipped the VOX on and rotated the station to the comm. channel that the gates operated on. Instantly noisy chatter filled the air; most of it sounded like long-haul couriers.
"This is Major Morgan of the Martian Marines, I am enroute to Earth on a military emergency. Clear the gate or I will blow it clear," Max said in a rushed voice. He brought the Twilight into a tight turning spiral and veered sharply toward the gate. The chatter on the radio picked up dramatically with the scattered expletives of truckers and commuters. The gate controllers seemed to be amazingly calm through the whole thing, directing traffic as best they could. Max was actually impressed with the efficiency that they worked. Holding true to his word, Max didn't even slow down. He hit the gate aperture at the maximum speed of the Twilight, skimming a mere 3 feet from a long chained freighter. Max hit the hyperspace of the gates and was gone.
The trip to Earth was taking about half the time it took with the Mako, but that was still fine with Max. He made sure the autopilot was locked on to Rotterdam and sent a communication through the gate system to tell them that he wasn't going through the tollbooth on the other side and that he wasn't slowing down when he was out. They were to make sure the route to Earth was clear. He was sure there wouldn't be any problems and he went to sleep.
Max awoke later, only two hours before he got to the gate at Earth. He started pulling up what information he could about Rotterdam and the prison there. The more information he got, the less happy he became.
Rotterdam had fallen into decay in the last 50 years. It had been pounded by falling rocks from the gate accident and it had turned into the slum of Europe. The prison there wasn't a prison, but it was a para-military controlled base of a group calling themselves The Fourth Reich. They sought to reunite Europe and build defenses to take out the incoming rocks before they hit the Earth, allowing them to rebuild. Unfortunately, they also wanted to establish Earth as the predominate power in the system again, which meant they wanted an all out war with Mars. It seems that they had been gathering men and weapons and ships for the last 10 years and were on the verge of taking over several of the cities in Europe. That meant that they had lots of people that were highly trained and this wouldn't be just a smash and grab run. It also meant that Anders wasn't being executed for piracy; Anders was being executed for espionage.
Max kept trying to look up information on the location of where Anders was being held and he kept coming up with blanks. His research lasted until he blasted through the Earth gate and found quite happily that it had been cleared as requested. The Twilight was on approach to the planet when the viewer screen turned itself on and a man in a uniform popped up on the screen. Max recognized him immediately as his former commanding officer, Colonel Upton.
"Morgan, there's not a lot of time here, so I'll be brief," he said and seemed to shuffle papers around on a desk.
"It's night time in Rotterdam right now. We have a way in and out of the place where Anders is being held; the laundry service. They're friendly to us and have helped us out on previous missions in Rotterdam and in other cities in Europe. Our people on the inside already have you signed up for a job. You start in 2 hours."
Max was liking this less and less all the time. He had been lied to consistently so far. He didn't have 4 hours; he had 2. Anders wasn't in some prison, Anders was in a military held building. Anders wasn't being executed for piracy; she was most likely being executed for espionage. The whole situation was spiraling rapidly out of Max's favor, and he didn't like that. He wasn't even sure anymore that he was supposed to get Anders out. Or even that there was an Anders. He was given no description, only a rank and a name.
"The landing coordinates are preset. You are going into hostile territory and you are going to encounter heavy resistance. Furthermore, the metal detectors in the facility will not allow you to carry a gun, and they have strict rules that will be explained to you when you show up for your assignment. Just show up at the Über Sauber washing service and you'll be given instructions on how to act, what to say, and where to go once inside," Colonel Upton said. When he was finished, he sat back in his chair. "Any questions, Major?"
"I don't speak German," he said plainly.
"Du sprechst nicht Deutsch? Auch, das tut mir leid," the Colonel said with a broad smile.
"Gesundheit," Max said with a scowl. "I wasn't joking."
"Neither was I. It is too bad you don't speak German. You'll have to improvise, Major. Being a marine, I suspect you know how to do that. This is Upton, out," the Colonel said and Max's viewer went blank.
"What a bunch of sanctimonious assholes," Max muttered as he started to penetrate Earth's atmosphere. The automatic guidance took over and Max just sat back and enjoyed the ride. Whoever programmed the mono-system in the Twilight did a hell of a job. It glided down into the city and parked itself on the ground floor of a multi-storied hanger. The display screen popped up with a list of directions to Über Sauber and a contact name of Heinrich. Max followed the directions and within minutes of walking through the slums, he arrived at the business. The scent of urine, death, and decay in the slums was overridden by the powerful smell of bleach from the laundry, and Max was almost glad to have that stench burn into his nose instead of the other scent oozing into his skin.
Inside, Max saw a number of people milling about, most of them trying to look busy, and almost all of them doing a very non-convincing job. The place seemed to be fairly well automated, and Max quickly surmised that while the machine was going through its cycle, there probably wasn't a whole lot of work to be done unless something went wrong with the machine itself. A few heads turned his way when he entered, most went back to minding the machines, but one man stepped forward.
"Kann Ich helfen Sie?" the man said, the words pouring out of his mouth so fast that Max barely understood what they were; not that he could translate them anyway.
"Heinrich," Max said plainly. He looked around casually, but kept his eyes sharp, continuously keeping track of the workers without really looking at them.
"Moment, bitte," the German said and wandered toward the back of the laundry. Max wasn't sure if he had just been insulted or not. He was thinking that he wasn't, but it was hard to understand the words exactly and he kept translating them into English as best he could. "Moment" seemed pretty self-explanatory, but "bitte" sounded too close to "bitch" for Max's taste. He let it slide and waited.
The first German came back with another man, standing about 6 feet tall with a good build on him. He was wiping his hands off on a towel tucked into his belt. He reminded Max more of a waiter than a laundry worker.
"Gutten Tag, mein Herr. Ich bin Heinrich," the new German said and extended his hand to shake.
"I'm Morgan," Max said clearly as he took Heinrich's hand. The Germans exchanged a quick glance at each other and looked back at Max. Max with drew his hand after a firm shake. "Du sprechst nicht Deutsch?" Heinrich said slowly and clearly. He recognized it from Upton saying it earlier, he was pretty sure that "nicht" was night and he knew that Deutsch was the German word for German.
"I don't speak German," Max said after a moment's pause. Heinrich and the first German exchanged another quick look and Heinrich motioned to the back with his head. Heinrich looked back at Max and clasped his hand to Max's shoulder.
"Do not vorry, mein Ionian freund. Ve vill tell you vhat you need zu know," Heinrich said in his thick accent. A smile crossed his face and then it quickly faded. "Aber, time ist short, zo ve must be quick. Kommen Sie mitt," Heinrich said and turned to go in the back. Max followed and they got to a small room in the back of the laundry that appeared to be a small office. There was an actual television set up with a disk reader. Max saw the first German fire it up and move a chair a few feet from the small screen.
"Bitte," he said, gesturing to Max and then to the chair.
Max sat in the chair and Heinrich shut the door behind him. The screen on the TV went to a 4-panel gray-tone with a dialing count down in the center. Max watched the 5, 4, 3, and 2 all disappear and the screen faded to black.
"Welkommen!" a voice said in a friendly manner. The word "Welcome!" came across the still-black screen in all white letters. "Das ist ein Deutsche Lection für das Aulander," the voice said. The words "This is a German lesson for the foreigner," faded into view and "Welcome!" faded out.
"Papieren, bitte," the voice said again. "Papers please" flashed up on the screen. It showed a little play-acting between a man in a flannel shirt and a man in what looked like a police uniform. The man in the flannel produced what looked like a passport and handed it to the officer. The scene faded to black.
"Wo bist du? Ich bin John," the voice said again. The voice was beginning to get on Max's nerves, but this was at least a little entertaining. It reminded him of the typical infomercial voice actor. The words "Who are you? I am John," flashed up on the screen. Again, there was a little play-acting between the man in the flannel and the cop. The cop asked, the man answered. Max was taking careful mental notes and trying to mouth the words.
"Was bist du machen? Ich bin hier zu arbeit," the voice said again. "What are you doing? I am here to work." flashed up on the screen. The scene was acted out, with the officer becoming more direct and threatening and the man in the flannel backing off a little. The picture faded to black.
"Ich denke du lügst. Nein, Ich bin hier zu arbeit," said the voice. The first sentence sounded very agitated, the second was very concerned. "I think you lie. No, I am here to work," flashed up on the screen, and the actors came on again, with the officer reaching for what was probably some weapon that was on the far side of his body and the man in the flannel held his hands up and shook his head.
"Stehen Sie hier, Ich geh. . ." the voice said and choked off with a strangled gurgling sound. "You stand here, I'm go. . ." flashed up on the screen. The scene showed the officer turning around after speaking and the man in the flannel choking him and breaking the officer's neck. "Sometimes the language barrier just breaks down," flashed up on the screen. Heinrich reached down and shut off the TV.
"Stay quiet und by mich und du vill be gut," Heinrich said. "I vill be goink in mit du, und I vill get du insite."
"Can we take guns in there with us?" Max asked hopefully. Heinrich shook his head.
"No metal. Even ein bullet vill trip alarm." Max rolled his eyes and took out his gun. He set it on the television and began pulling extra clips from his boots, his belt and two from the inside of his flight suit. Heinrich laughed a hearty, deep belly laugh.
"Du kommst prepared, Ionian!" Heinrich said, still chuckling. "Aber kommst, ve vill geh zu ze compound. Es ist time." Heinrich opened the door and they went to a closet a few feet from the small office. He gave Max a set of white coveralls with "Über Sauber" embroidered on the back. Heinrich got a pair of coveralls out for himself as well and he began putting them on.
"Remove dien suit, Morgan. It vill not look richtig und they vill not let uns in," Heinrich said. Max took his flight suit off and pulled the white coveralls on.
"What about boots?" Max asked, pointing to his combat boots. Heinrich looked at his feet and the feet of the first man that Max had spoken to.
"Otto, gibst er dein Steifeln," Heinrich said quickly.
"Aber. . ." Otto started
"Nein Aber. Gibst er dein Steifeln. Du mochtest haben dem wenn er est tot." Otto only nodded and took his boots off. Max put them on and laced them quickly, but he had a very bad feeling about all of this. He didn't like that they were speaking in English, albeit broken English, and then suddenly switched to German. He was positive he was walking into a trap.
"Ready to go," Max said as he stood up from tying his boots. Heinrich looked him over and nodded.
"Ve go," Heinrich said and they went out through the main laundry among huge washing machines and strings of hanging clothes that were moving through a dry somewhere in the building. They walked out an area in the back and out into a loading dock area. There was a truck waiting just through an overhead door that was already running. Max got in and they pulled out of Über Sauber and Max took very good mental notes on how to get back. He was going to have to come back for his gun and his boots before he left Earth.
The trip was only a few minutes, and Heinrich seemed to stick to twisting back roads instead of the main thoroughfares, but that was just fine with Max. It gave him more time to calm himself down and focus. Aggression and fear are emotions that will throw a plan out of balance, but if they're focused, they bring everything into light and the world becomes clear. Right now, Max was extremely angry at being played for a pawn, and at letting himself be played into a trap. He was also scared because he was walking into a military complex with no gun and an unfair home-team advantage. They knew he was coming, but Max knew one thing they didn't. Max knew he was leaving.
"Your Anders ist on ze 8th floor. I vill tell you ver to find Anders. After das, du bist on your own," Heinrich said as he backed the truck up to a loading dock. "Zu gehst zu Anders, du go left zu ze stairs. Second floor, take links und go zu ze door ab end of hall. Geh aus ze stairs zu 8th floor und Anders is at end of hall. Door code is one, three, seven, neun, one. Okay?" Max nodded and watched as Heinrich got out of the cab. Max quickly followed his lead. Heinrich went to the back of the truck and opened it. Max saw two laundry gurneys inside; Heinrich pushed one of them out to Max and pushed the other himself. Max followed the German's lead and walked right in.
There were two guards dressed in midnight blue uniforms inside the doors, and Max noticed that these guards were using HK machine guns. After being in business since well before the turn of the century, HK knew how guns should be made. They shot straight, they shot fast, and they almost never jammed. If a gunfight did start, it would be up to human error to not hit Max, and that was a fact that he was growing more and more painfully aware of.
They pushed their carts inside the main doors and Heinrich kept walking. They went through a metal detector and Heinrich passed but when Max went through, a buzzer sounded. "Here we go," thought Max. The two guards stepped forward from behind the uprights of the metal detectors.
"Armen auf," said the guard. Max guessed to put his hands on his head and wait to be patted down. He guessed wrong. "Armen auf!" said the German firmly. Max put his arms straight out this time and the guard shook his head and started patting Max down. "Geh aus und kommst züruck," the guard said. Luckily for Max he waved his arm through the metal detector and then pointed at Heinrich. Max backed the cart out and then came back through. Again, the buzzer sounded. The guard that had been ordering Max around motioned to the cart and the other guard started searching it. He didn't search long before he came up with a combat knife. Max sighed deeply.
"Was ist das?" the guard said haughtily, waving it in the air a little. The first guard moved quickly and brought Max's hands behind his back and restrained them with what felt like a zip- tie. Max just let him do it. The first guard came closer with the knife, moving it in his hand to for a firmer grip. The guard behind Max was holding him by his restrained wrists and had Max in a position that would be difficult to muscle out of. The guard with the knife rushed forward.
Max threw his chest back and smashed the back of his head into the guard's face behind him. The guard stumbled back, letting go of Max in the process, and Max was free to move around. The guard with the knife rushed forward with the knife out in front of him. Max dropped and twisted behind the metal detector. The guard jerked downward to try to slice into Max's legs but Max tripped him instead, sending him into the other guard, knife first. The blade sank into the guard's leg, clear to the hilt and he screamed painfully. Max twisted his feet between the now-screaming guard's legs and tripped him. The knife thudded loudly on the floor, and the guard's head bounced off the cement, silencing him for the time being.
The other guard seemed paralyzed for a second, debating to try to help his friend or deal with the escaping prisoner. That hesitation was all Max needed. His foot went to the side of the guard's knee, hyper extending it sideways until the guard's leg almost bent in half. Max barely rolled out of the way of the falling guard and head butted him after he hit the ground. His body went limp and Max got himself to his feet. He bent down and pulled the knife from the other guard's leg and used it to cut the plastic zip-tie holding his hands together. Max looked over to Heinrich to see him standing in a doorway, holding an HK with the barrel leveled straight at Max's chest.
"Das ist ze end, Herr Morgan," the big German said and a smile crept onto his face. Max's left eye started to twitch and then he saw something moving behind Heinrich. It was at the end of the hallway and was coming up behind him.
"Was machst du da?" came a deep voice from behind Heinrich. Max shifted the knife in his hand to throw it better if that's what it came down to. Heinrich's smile lessened but did not completely vanish.
"Ich habe der Martian. Er totst twei Brudern," Heinrich said over his shoulder, keeping his eyes locked on Max. Max's eyes quickly floated around the room, seeing how easy it would be to get a machine gun from a guard. The one that took the knife in the leg was probably going to be the easiest; the sling was just around his head and the weapon was off to his side. The other guard was just about lying on top of his gun.
"Prima! Geh für der Fürher. Ich habe ihn," the voice said. Heinrich nodded and backed through the door he was standing in. The guard would have to cross the line of fire and then Max would act. He saw the shoulder of the same blue uniform of the men at his feet and he threw the knife and dove for the gun around the guard's neck.
The knife caught the guard in the chest and sunk in a few inches. By the time Heinrich knew what was happening, he didn't have a clear shot to hit Max. With a quick roll to the ground Max picked up the guard's head by his hair, swung the gun out and dropped the guard's head. Max charged forward toward the wall along side the door. The guard with the knife in his chest slumped forward and made a sickening gurgling sound as the knife drove deeper into his lung. Max took a quick look at the wall and saw that it was plaster on the outside. He took a step back and let loose a burst with the HK in a tight arc where Heinrich should be. The HK tore chunks out of the sheet rock out of the wall went through the other side, ripping through it like tissue paper. Max waited a second and fired another burst, chewing up more of the wall. Hearing nothing from Heinrich, Max looked cautiously through one of the holes he had just blown in the wall. Heinrich was laying face down in an ever-growing pool of blood.
Max had other problems though; the HK was not silenced and there would be more guards. Lots more guards. He quickly went to the men around him and took an extra HK and all the ammunition he could find. After less than a minute, Max was ready to go. He pulled the knife from the guard in the door way and stuck in Heinrich's back just to be sure that he wasn't going to have to fight through him on the way back through. Max remembered the directions and hoped that just maybe he wasn't lied to about that. He'd have to grab a guard without seriously injuring one and ask him a few questions.
Max didn't waste any time in going to his perceived destination. He followed the directions exactly and was facing almost no opposition. That alone was worrying him more than if he was fighting off the entire army of Rotterdam. He didn't see anyone until the stairway that was mentioned in his directions to where Anders was being held. Then all hell broke loose.
Max saw two guards running down the stairs, taking defensive position in doorways and they were shouting, apparently to more Germans who were on the way. Max started shooting at a door, waiting for the bullets to chew through the steel and weaken the lock. It didn't take long and he shouldered the door in just as the Germans in the hall started firing. He was inside what looked like a utility closet, and there were chemicals everywhere. Max's eyes kept shifting between the bottles and the open door, listening for the sounds of boots coming down the hallway.
"Shit, it's all in German," hissed Max under his breath. Something caught his eye though, something that's universal to any language. There were hazardous materials signs on half of the chemicals. After a very fast search, he found one that looked to be the most flammable judging from the warning diamond numbers. Max dumped most of the contents of the plastic bottle down the floor drain in the center of the room and shook the bottle. He kept shaking it as he ducked around the corner to see where the Germans were positioned. More had joined the two that had come down the stairs, and there was a small group all bunched up. Max's head came back around the corner as their guns opened up and a torrent of lead flooded the hall.
Max shook the bottle a few seconds more and threw it out into the hallway by the small group of men near the stair well. He let lose a burst with the machine gun as and ducked back into the relative safety of the supply closet. The Germans opened up with their machine guns and there was shouting heard above the gunfire, but Max couldn't make it out. Both the guns and the voices were silenced a split second later when an explosion rocked the hall. Flames shot past the door that Max was hiding in. Max shot around the lock of the door across the hall and ran out of his room and barreled through the new door. In the instant that he was exposed in the hall, he saw that all the Germans in the hall were down, and some were on fire. Max was out of the room almost as fast as he had gotten in it and was in the hallway, looking over the guards on the ground and trying to cover the staircase in the hall as well as all of the other three door ways into the hall. One face down guard near Max began to moan softly.
Max put a boot to him and rolled him over. The German coughed and wheezed and Max saw that most of the skin on his face was either black or red. Max was seriously beginning to like the potency of the cleaning supplies of Europe. The man's eyes opened slowly and it was obvious he was in extreme pain.
"Speak English?" Max asked calmly. He pointed the HK at the guard's forehead. The guard shook his head. Max frowned. "Prisoners?" The guard only looked scared and confused in response. "Auslander?" Max asked after a short pause, thinking back to his German lesson. The guard pointed up the stairs and then to the right of the staircase. Max nodded, kicking the guard in the head and knocking him out.
He started charging up the stairs at the same time more guards started coming down. Max brought his other machine gun to bear and cut down the oncoming Germans, but he caught a bullet in his left arm and it went numb after a blinding flash of pain. Max ran up the rest of the stairs, blood running down his arm and leaving a trail of crimson dots in his wake. Here the directions changed from where Heinrich said to go. Heinrich said to take a left at the stairs. Max trusted the dying man more than the one walking him into a trap and went right. The 3 doors on either side of the hall all had security locks on them. Max let loose a burst of machine gun fire at the first door on his right and the bullets barely penetrated. Max gave the door a tremendous kick, and the door caved under his foot. His eyes lit up and for a second he forgot that he was even wounded.
The room that Max had gotten into was not a jail cell, but a munitions storage. There were dozens of handguns, a few HK's in some racks and some cardboard boxes. Max looked at the boxes very quickly and saw one that grabbed his attention; it wasn't in English, but the main word on the box was Canitri, and Max knew that they were an explosives manufacturer. He opened the box and sure enough, there were 12 gray-pink bars of extremely stable high explosive inside. Max grabbed a bar of the explosive and tucked it in his crimson stained white uniform and looked around for another box that should have contained the detonators and he was very happy to find that this one was in English. Not only that but it was from Digidet, the premiere company for making easy to use electronic detonators. They also happened to be the chief military suppliers in the system.
Max opened the box and counted 25 detonators and the master switch. The detonators were white and about the size of a match stick with a head on it the size of a pencil and half of an inch long. Max's fingers pushed on the two ends of the detonator and the number "01" appeared on the head. He turned the stick and the numbers ran all the way up to 50 before recycling back to 1. Max repeated the process with the master switch; a similar device with a body as thick as Max's pinky and a head the size of his thumb. He played with the detonators and with the master switch for another second or two before peeking back out into the hall. A three-shot burst of an HK made him duck back inside the room. He grabbed a small wad of the explosive from the box and wrapped it around the detonator. Max put the master control switch on to "01" and turned the detonator on to the same number. He stuck his hand out the door for just enough time to flick the explosive down the hall. He waited a second and a half and pushed the top of the switch down and it gave a little beep. A fraction of a second later an explosion shook the building for the second time in 5 minutes.
Max moved fast, pounding on the doors until he got to the last one on the left. Someone pounded back.
"Speak English?" Max shouted. He heard a muffled yell from the other side of the door. Max could barely hear it and couldn't' understand any of it. There was a pause and Max checked the hallway again for more Germans. It was a mess from the explosion and dust was still thick in the air from the smoke and from the pulverized sheet rock walls. Then Max heard it; 3 close poundings on the door, 3 slower harder knocks, and then 3 more fast hits. SOS in Morris code. Max fired a round into the door and he hoped whoever was on the other side backed up. He grabbed a small pinch of the grayish putty and smashed it in between the door and the door jam beside the door handle. He stuck a detonator in it and backed off a few feet down the hall. Max pushed the head in on the master control and a flash of fire and a billow of smoke erupted around the door. A second later the door flew out of the door jam and Max could make a boot out in the smoke surrounding the door. He heard coughing from inside, but it didn't sound right somehow; but his ears were ringing from the explosions and the gunfire in the small spaces.
"Corporal Anders? This is Major Morgan. Corporal?" Max shouted.
"Jesus H Christ, it's about time you got here!" rang a voice. Max must have been hearing things wrong, his hearing had to have been more damaged than he thought. A form walked out of the smoke and dust and Max realized that he wasn't hearing wrong and his ears weren't ringing nearly as bad as he thought they were. Corporal Anders, the best pilot in the Martian Special Forces, was a woman.