Fourth Vector Ch. 27

Jack snapped his fingers. "I'm glad you mentioned that because that's something I wanted to ask you about. Do you think you can tell me a little more about how the bond actually works? All I know about it seems to be in bits and pieces from secondhand sources. I know that the Galician king is linked to his people through the bond but that's all I know. So it's an actual feeling that you all get?"

Vera nodded. "It is. It's unlike anything I've ever felt before and it's only the presence of the king that makes it strong. Right now, I can feel it so strongly because you're right here in front of me." Vera placed her hand back on her chest. "It's like a dull sensation right here just below the heart."

"Dull sensation?" asked Jack. "So there's no pain?"

She shook her head. "Not at all. It's hard to describe exactly what it is. I've never really felt it before until you came to Sorella. I assumed it was queasiness when we met at Daimanos' palace, mostly because I didn't know what the bond actually felt like at the time, but also because of conditions in that whore pen he used to keep us in. Distance is a huge factor in it. The further you are from Galicia and Galicians, the weaker the sense."

"All Galicians feel it uniformly?" asked Jack. "But some feel it stronger than others because of how close they are to me?"

She nodded her head. "That's right. There's a lot of texts about how the bond used to work in the old days. Kat could probably tell you more about it. She tried to tell me about it one night months ago but most of it went over my head. Basically, it's their link to you. Every Galician feels your presence inside them. They know when you are well, and they know when you're unwell too."

"Or dead, I'm guessing?" he asked.

Vera nodded. "When our great-great-great-grandparents were killed off, I'm told many ordinary Galicians became sick to their stomachs because of how weakened the bond became. It was so weak that many Galicians just assumed it was completely gone. They were wrong thankfully, but that collective memory of the bond started to fade with time. Even though the heir was alive, his distance from his people and the lack of that collective memory prevented most Galicians from knowing what the bond truly felt like."

"I'm surprised that Kat told you all about this," said Jack. "She hasn't mentioned much about it to me. Mostly in passing, but that's about it."

"I think Kat tries not to overwhelm you with all that she knows," suggested Vera. "With how researched she is on your family and the prophecy in general, I'm sure there's some things she'd rather not go into at this time."

Like my eventual death to complete the prophecy, thought Jack acidly. He didn't say those words out loud but just the thought of that was enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck.

Vera didn't notice his pause and continued speaking. "I think the bond is part of the reason you had such an adverse reaction from Lindsay and Will."

Jack shook the thoughts from his head and resumed his attention to his sister. "They did seem quite out of sorts after that meeting. Especially Lindsay."

Vera nodded. "It's likely she's felt the bond for the first time, at least consciously. Even though most Galicians regard the bond as more legend than reality at this point, we all know about it at least. It's likely you gave her quite the scare at the sudden emergence of that feeling in her chest."

"Well that explains Lindsay, but what about Will?" asked Jack. "Bond or not, he didn't seem anywhere close to accepting who I am."

That hadn't changed in the past week either. Will still refused to meet with Jack or give his story any credence. Even though Lindsay had come around and seemed to accept him for who he was, Will was more stubborn, and no progress had been made since that first initial meeting.

"I'm sure he'll come around eventually," said Vera with a simple shrug. "The evidence is hard to deny. We all feel it the same. I think Will just has to search his soul and come to an understanding on his own terms. You have to remember that this will be quite shocking for most Galicians, many who think our family has long since expired."

Jack had a moment to reflect on Vera's words before there was a knock at the door. Vera touched his shoulder as she sat up and answered it.

"Twitch, what are you doing here?" she asked, letting in Jack's deputy.

"I'm sorry for the disturbance, Vera," said Twitch before his eyes went to Jack. "This message just came in for you from Commodore Lucas. He marked it as urgent."

Jack held out his hand to read the message which was simple and brief.

ATTN: REAR ADMIRAL JACK EASTERBROOK

COMMANDING OFFICER, TASK FORCE 21

MY MEN HAVE INTERCEPTED A MESSAGE FROM CAPTAIN BARNABAS DIRECTLY TO ADMIRAL BANCROFT DETAILING YOUR CURRENT OPERATIONS.

COMMODORE STANHOPE LUCAS

COMMANDING OFFICER, QUILLER'S COVE NAVAL BASE

Jack read the message again and growled out loud. To anyone else, this dispatch would have looked incomplete. To Jack though, it answered the question that he'd mostly guessed at since they left Sorella. It hadn't taken Lucas' men very long to find out who was leaking information back to the Admiralty, and now Jack had confirmation of his prime suspect.

Barnabas was the mole in his force.

"What is it, Jack?" asked Vera, seeing the look on his face.

"One of the officers in my command had been sending reports to my superior officer about my actions within the task force," said Jack as he crumpled the dispatch. "I had my suspicions on who it was and this just confirmed it for me."

Vera's mouth fell open. "Who would do such a thing?"

"Someone who was put in my task force deliberately to keep an eye on me," said Jack before he turned to look at Twitch. "I want you to send a message to Lucas. Have his men keep intercepting the messages from Barnabas and prevent them from being sent through. Not a single one goes to the Admiralty."

Twitch repeated it back to him before giving a salute and leaving to go back to theDestiny.

"What are you going to do about this Barnabas man now, Jack?" asked Vera.

"That's a good question," said Jack. How exactly could he get rid of Barnabas? Dismissing him might only replace him with another one of Bancroft's spies, or possibly alert Bancroft that Jack knew what he was up to. He would have to do something more subtle.

One way or another, Barnabas was going to get what was coming to him.

*****

"It looks pretty quiet down there, Trev. I can't see any movement."

Trevor didn't reply to his second-in-command, Gavin Gower. He was too busy looking on his own, using his eyes to scan the little town of Amboy. The town was nestled deep in the valley, with mountains on either side, meaning it was incredibly difficult to approach the town from any more than two directions at once.

His men occupied the northern end of the area, hiding on the side of the mountain that tucked into the valley of the town. It was a natural hiding place, and Tyroleans were as much at home in the mountains as they were any place else.

The object of their observation was the Javan marine camp that stood near the end of town. The camp itself was fenced off from the rest of the town but it also incorporated a house in the northwestern corner of the camp as part of that defensive structure. The house was the one that had become the makeshift prison, and it was in there that Owen Bach was being held. Because of the house's position, it also meant it would be the first obstacle they would come to once they swept down the mountain.

"I don't see shit down there either," said Trevor once he stopped scanning. It was quiet for this time of night, well past midnight when most of the town was asleep. Even if they weren't fast asleep, they'd be inside their homes thanks to the curfew so that meant that only Movement members would chance the risk of being found outside.

"Just those few sentries and those gun nests," said Gavin. "I think the boys can take those pretty easily."

"They're going to have to," agreed Trevor. "We don't have as many numbers right now as I would like so we're going to need to move quickly and efficiently."

Gavin nodded but said nothing. He didn't need to. The number of men gathered tonight was disappointing to say the least. It didn't take a genius to figure out why. Many of them were scared. They feared the reaction from the Javans but they also knew the marines would be a tougher foe than the soldiers they'd dispatched weeks ago.

Trevor couldn't say he blamed them but more numbers would have been useful tonight. Even though that platoon down there was only forty men max, Trevor also knew that marines regularly faced such odds and won.

He looked back at the men pressed against the mountainside. Many of them now gripped their rifles so tightly that their knuckles turned white. Some of them prayed to a higher power or wrote a last letter to a girlfriend or a mother.

Trevor knew that even if they did their job right tonight, some of them wouldn't live to see morning.

The biggest obstacle that they would face was keeping the element of surprise. Many of their rifles were NT-11s, and only a handful of them held the much newer NT-12, but both rifles still made a tremendous racket when fired that the marines would know what was going on once they got off their first shots.

For that reason, Trevor wanted their plan to be foolproof so they could minimize casualties. He pulled a small lighter out from his pocket and held it just above a small, hand-drawn map of the town.

"We're going to split up into two forces," said Trevor as he pointed out the camp to Gavin. "I want you to take half the men and attack the perimeter of the camp. Make sure the sentries and the gun nests are taken out on that first volley. If they are allowed to start firing, they'll be able to hold you off until the rest of the marines can wake up and get in position."

"Shouldn't be any problem there," replied Gavin. "The men are hungry for blood."

"They'll get it tonight," said Trevor. "My group is going to assault the house. We're going to have the same problem as you, in that we'll have to take out the sentries in front of it as well as that nest that's on the second floor that sweeps the whole front of the house. Since the backyard sits inside the rest of the camp, if we can clear that, we'll have a direct entrance into their flank."

"That's assuming you don't get bogged down in the house," said Gavin. "You picked the harder assignment for yourself, Trev. No way do I want to go close quarters at night with marines."

Trevor cracked a smile. "It's all right. I'm going to let Reese lead the way. I think he'd be able to clear the house by himself if we let him."

Both men looked over to where Reese Bach was sitting against the ground. If he'd heard them speaking about him, Reese didn't acknowledge it. His gaze was fixed on the house, knowing that his brother was being held somewhere inside.

I'd hate to be the man that gets in the way of Reese getting to his brother tonight, thought Trevor.

"All right, Trevor, this plan looks as good as it's going to get," said Gavin. "Ready to get into position?"

Trevor nodded. "Let's move."

Moving two hundred men in the dark while staying quiet was a hard enough task as it was. Every time someone coughed or cracked a branch with their feet, Trevor flinched. Any sharp-eared marine could discover their force at any second and wipe out their chance of surprise.

It took the better part of half an hour for the forces to get into position. All of them were lucky in the regard that they'd only have to trudge through a backyard of open ground before approaching the front of the camp and the front of the house. Even better for all of them was that their coverage points were still well within the range for the NT-11.

Trevor and four of his men hid behind a low-lying wall that butted up against DJ Poole's rickety house. With only the aid of the moon, he was able to rest his rifle against the stone on top of the wall and zero in on the machine nest on the second floor of the house. He knew somebody was up there now even though he couldn't see them, as every few minutes or so, the barrel of the gun would sweep out over the yard as it scanned for threats.

"Are we all in place?" asked Trevor to the other men, each of whom had picked a target to silence.

"Good here," said Bowen Flint.

"Let's grease these fuckers," growled Reese Bach.

Trevor brought his signal to his lips and blew three times. The sound of an owl went out through the night. It was answered by Gavin and his men a few houses down as they centered on the rest of the camp. Gavin's reply signaled they were in place as well. Everyone now waited on Trevor's signal to kick it off.

"Here goes nothing," said Trevor as he blew into it another three times.

Before he had scarcely got the signal out, the sounds of gunfire exploded into the night air. The Javan sentries never had a chance against Tyrolean marksmanship. Their bodies crumpled to the ground effortlessly, and the gun nest on the second floor stayed quiet for the first few minutes of the battle, a sure signal to Trevor that his shot had hit the mark.

With the several sentries around the house already dead and the nest silenced, Trevor gave the signal to his men. As one, they all rushed forward to the house before splitting off into their phase two positions which would see about a third of the men rush inside the house to liberate those fellow townsmen still alive while the other two-thirds would attempt to rush at the flanks of the house. A small guard would watch the front of the house, just in case any marine had the poor fortune of being away from the camp once the fighting kicked off.

Trevor and his men had just crossed the front of the house and pressed against the front shutters when the nest on the second floor started to open up again, a sure sign that there were still marines waiting for them inside the house.

"All right, let's clear out room by room," he said to the few men behind him. "We know there's gunfire on the second floor so do this by the book!"

With that, the front door was opened and the first man rushed inside, followed by the second. They turned immediately once inside (one going to the right while the other went left) only to be followed by Trevor to clear any threats coming against the center. The house wasn't a large one, but it had a staircase that was part of the wall that led to the second floor. Without any light, it was impossible to tell what was up there, so Trevor fired a few precautionary shots into the darkness before setting up and waiting for the rest of the men.

It only took about a hundred heartbeats to clear the first floor, and Trevor's force had found one marine that had hid himself in the house's kitchen. He managed to kill Jed Ulpers before being subdued but the first floor was cleared in no time.

At that point, it became clear that most of the living inhabitants of the house were the seized members of the townsfolk themselves. Most of them were in wretched condition despite the marines' arrival in Amboy not quite a week ago. All of them were filthy, and the smell in the house was almost overwhelming for those inside it. Those townsfolk that had been seized were tied to anything the Javans could find, making movement nearly impossible without help.

As most of his men struggled to free their friends and relatives, Trevor had to remind them there were still Javans upstairs.

"Come on, there will be time for this later," said Trevor, grabbing Buck Morten and putting his rifle back in his hands. "We have to clear the second floor!"

It took a minute or two before they were rounded up to complete the task on hand but soon the work to clear the rest of the house began in earnest. From above them, Trevor could tell the nest was no longer firing although he knew that man wouldn't be dead. He was probably just getting the best vantage point he could to hold off the rest of the Tyroleans as they rushed the second floor.

"Keep your eyes open! There's at least one Javan up there. Cover me and let's move!"

Trevor led the rush upstairs while the rest of the men followed in his wake. He'd no sooner put the first step on the second floor when he heard the shot. It flew by him as he leaped from the staircase to the open room on the other side of the hall, but based on the trajectory of the shot, he now knew exactly where the marine had set up his position.

"End of the hallway, bring pressure on him!" Trevor yelled to the rest of his men.

The next person behind Trevor wasn't so lucky. Terry Bruce took a shot directly to the hip which brought him down right at the second floor landing and made it harder for the rest of the men to get up. While they tried to get around Terry's body, Trevor reached around the corner and peppered the position with his rifle. Seeing as Reese was the one that was behind Terry, he was able to do the same thing once it became his turn to come up next.

The shooting at them stopped promptly, allowing the rest of the men to get up to the second floor, where work began to clear the rooms. There were only four rooms up there in all, and they were cleared out one by one. Trevor saw the remnants of their shooter, lying dead at the end of the hallway while his blood pooled underneath him. It was either one of his or one of Reese's shots that did him in, but Trevor gave him another shot in the chest to make sure the job was done.

With both floors now cleared, it was time to clear out the cellar. Reese was the one that led the way down to the small door not far from the kitchen, yanking it open and rushing down without any coverage.

"Reese, stay still, you stupid fuck," yelled Trevor, hoping there weren't any Javans waiting for them at the bottom. Reese didn't listen but thankfully, Trevor didn't hear any sounds of gunfire from the bottom of the house.

When he got down there, he found something worse.

The majority of the seized townspeople were down here, and most of them were in worse shape than the people upstairs. Many of them were shackled to chairs or posts that held up the house and they showed signs of terrible beatings. Trevor lost count of how many swollen eyes, lips, and jaws he saw, scarcely recognizing some of them because of the abuse.

The worst part about all of this was that these were people he'd known forever. Many of them he'd grown up with, gone to school with, fought a war with, or lived beside. To see them in such shape only fueled his anger, and all of the men set about releasing the victims.

The first person that Trevor came across was Molly Wilder, a woman so old that her hair had been gray when Trevor was just a kid. She was one of the oldest members of the town, and even now she barely clung to life. Her face was bruised and she couldn't stand.

"Trevor Downing, is that you?" whispered Molly as tears filled her eyes.

"It's me, Mrs. Wilder," replied Trevor. "Don't worry now. We're going to set you free."

Trevor found his anger rising. No one would have mistaken Molly Wilder for a member of the Movement. She was too old for such nonsense, and she wasn't a threat to anyone let alone the Javans. This behavior on their part was inexcusable, and Trevor had to wonder even with proper care if she would live out the rest of the night.

The worst sight that evening came once Trevor heard a sorrowful howl on the other side of the cellar. He spared a brief glance and then a much longer one when he saw who the howl had come from.

Reese Bach had sunk to his knees after he'd freed his brother, Owen, from some kind of archaic torture device. Trevor could tell even from this side of the cellar that Owen was dead, his lifeless eyes and limp body the main giveaways. As upset as he felt about Owen, it was nothing for the feeling he felt for Reese as he cradled his dead brother's body and wailed in agony.