The Road to Hell

Chapter 14

Tanner and the rest of the team waited in one of the hospital's waiting areas. José would be confined to a hospital bed for weeks, and that would only be the beginning of his rehabilitation; in short, he was off the mission, and very lucky to even be alive. Everyone said their goodbyes, Fisher and David went last.

Doctor Lang sat next to Tanner, fidgeting with a silver bracelet on her left wrist. Tanner could see there was something that looked like Latin inscribed in the metal, but he didn't think to ask what it meant. "You're pretty worried, eh?"

Lang stopped twisting the bracelet around her wrist and looked at him. "You're not worried?" she asked, not believing how he could be so calm after how quickly their mission turned into a fiasco.

Tanner shook his head and said, "No. We got him here fast, and you said that Dr. Whatshisface is one of the best surgeons alive. He's going to pull through. That man's a fighter."

Lang shrugged. "Yeah, José will be fine. It's just... I didn't expect us to lose someone less than three days into this."

Tanner didn't know what to say then. He couldn't agree more.

When Fisher and David came back, David had his arm around the woman's shoulders. On the surface she didn't look like she needed his support, but she didn't shrug him off, the significance of which wasn't lost on the others.

"José's being moved to the operating room right now," David told everyone. "By the end of the week, someone from the League will be here to keep an eye on him, and eventually they'll transfer him to a League facility." David's jaw clenched and his eyes grew cold. "As much as I don't like leaving him here, our mission moves forward. I want us off this planet pronto. José's duties will now fall to Fisher." David handed her Jax's data card. "I expect a report on the contents of this card in exactly three hours. We'll choose our next destination based on whatever you find, Fisher, so work fast."

Everyone except for Talon automatically saluted and said, "Yes, sir," before realizing the attention it drew from passing staff and other people in the room.

"I guess we're going to have to work on that," Farid said sheepishly.

#

Not long after catching a shuttle back to the orbital docks, Fisher paged David, Farid, and Tanner to the conference room. David was last to arrive. She started speaking as soon as David entered. "Sir, I've figured out what our next course of action should be."

David took a seat next to Farid and gestured toward the head of the room. "Please, go on."

"Jax does good work." she began. "One of the first things I took a look at was a dossier list of known Ghosts of Olympus. His list narrows down the possibles our people came up with based on all of the recorded Olympus orphans. He was also able to track some very recent movements among the high-ranking members. Until recently, they had agents spread across the systems in small cells. Their missions were mostly to infiltrate governments, militaries and other sections of the Alliance administration. Some of them formed raiding squadrons, stealing supplies and equipment they would need to fight a war."

"You said, 'until recently,'" Tanner said. "What's changed?"

"Now they've all gone quiet: completely disappeared."

"Preparing for something major," Tanner guessed.

"Unknown... except for a single cell on Futurity Gate led by none other than Liam Fitch, and Zeus's nephew, Roy Desrequins. They're accompanied by Gavin Chan, a former Leaguer. He was stationed on Nova Terra until he went rogue and led the slaughter in Sabarka. According to Jax's data all three of them are on Futurity Gate training and recruiting as a pirate group called the White Sharks."