The Greater Wall
Another HSAR Production.
“Quirksome Tide, you are entering the Solar System of Alexis Majora, currently designated restricted territory under the jurisdiction of the United Orbital States of Earth. Please depower your thrusters, submit your authentication and prepare for mandatory security scans.”
The calm, synthesised voice came in over the Quirksome Tide’s communications channel. I sighed with relief as the thrusters disengaged, and stepped into the corridor. There’d be at least a 15-minute delay for security checks before we could continue. I donned my helmet and stepped into a waiting elevator.
Magnetic boots connected with the floor as I stepped out into the hangar from a small airlock. Although this ship was fully equipped with gravity generation, in the hangar gravity was neither needed nor wanted, as it hindered manoeuvring.
And there she is, firmly held in electromag docking clamps. The Typhoon Nomad, a striker-class ship I’d lovingly had built from a custom design. She’s no featherweight, but she’s got the guns to make up for it.
Resplendent Legacy, resident AI, recognised me and opened the cockpit airlock. As the lock cycled and the inner door opened, the instrument panel lit up in broad sweeps of light, just like it always did. I sat down heavily on the pilot’s seat, and Resplendent Legacy materialised on the screen in front of me.
“Welcome back, Hunter.”
“It’s good to be back, Legacy. How’ve things been?”
“Not too bad. I’ve kept things ticking over, and the other guys aren’t bad company either.”
“Stay sharp.”
“Will do, big man.”
Legacy moved his image onto the holographic tank on my left, just above the screen showing reconnaissance data. I had acquired his (digital) services on my promotion to a commissioned officer, and he had been with me ever since. The main screen filled up with abbreviated diagnostics. Scrolling through them, all seemed well. Fuel tanks were full, weapons loadout green, frame stressing well below tolerance thresholds, engine functioning normally.
Status readouts and indicators remained green as I disengaged all of the docking clamps in a flurry of hydraulics, and nudged the throttle; enough to send us gently floating away from the wall and into the hangar proper. Gently, I used the combat drive (more precise than the mammoth main drive) to send us gliding towards the exit airlock. Although the hangar was rarely pressurised, it still had capacity for atmosphere; an occasional in-atmosphere training exercise, for example; or when undergoing major overhauls that required repairing of pressurised areas.
But, I digress. When the lock had cycled, (quickly because there wasn’t any air to lock in anyway) I pulled out from the stationary carrier to see our destination. You know, I’ve been to Alexis Major a few times, but it still takes my breath away. Alexis Major is one of the largest human settlements for several hundred light-years, and all trade routes go through AM at some point. Five truly massive rings make up the human settlement around the sun (Alexis Major) that gives the system its name. Each ring is easily twice the diameter as the Earth itself, and at least seventy-five kilometres wide. All five are lined up along one angle, with a central cylindrical core station connecting them all. All five spin slightly, both for a change of view and to slightly ease the massive power drain to generate artificial gravity on the rings. The rotation is approximately one full rotation per ten days. The whole structure glitters with signalling lights, laser communication beams, and the tiny white flares of spaceship thrusters.
Calmly, I watch as other spaceships grind to a halt for security checks as well; a whole assortment of ships from tiny in-system freighters to a massive Korakos miner and a few sleek Caster corvettes. Casters are both revered and feared, for they had ventured out into deep space long ago and had not returned unchanged. They had given up their human forms in favour of nanomolecular constructs; given up their humanity for complete mastery over the science of nanomachinery. Even now they are the only ones capable of industrial-scale nanomolecular manufacture. Their ships are black, blacker than the night of space itself, and seem only shells for the ferocious processes that go on inside. No-one has ever been invited into their systems, or even inside one of their ships for that matter. Their ships have no drive signature or radiation.
I turn my attention back to Alexis Major rings. They never cease to amaze me. Apparently they’re going to build an even bigger ring that will encompass them all, and rotate slowly around all five rings and core station. Anyway, I’m jerked back to reality by Legacy.
“Hunter? The security checks are nearly complete. We should head back, ‘cause otherwise they might go without us.”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
“Maybe I should take the wheel? You look a bit distracted.”
“Yeah, you drive. Put some music on, I want a quick nap.”
And so I re-entered the hangar, listening to gentle classical music.
The checks had gone smoothly, and we coasted into our dock on the Portsdam Ring. Rather than bother walking, I went out in the Nomad. My old friend, Templar Kordhal, was waiting for me at a small café on the Jutand Ring. We were old friends, having met on an R&R trip. The Templar Corporation was one of the more powerful supercorporations, having discovered artificial gravity from an old alien artefact. Like the Casters’ nanotech, they kept the secret to themselves, and obtained immeasurable power from every ship’s requirement of it.
Having found the café and docked at a space on its small docking yard, I went up to meet him. By pure chance, we had both been reassigned to the same place for active duty. We’d decided to meet up at Alexis Major, the last port of call for the ship that would take us to the Outer Rings.
Kordhal, as ever, was dressed immaculately in what one might almost mistake as a suit of armour from the ancient medieval times. But he was not. The gleaming metallic plating is actually a woven diamond-polymer thread. The tabard contains life-support and medical diagnostics, quite aside from being protection against most things that could possibly harm him. His white cloak is emblazoned with his personal emblem: a pair of crossed quills. His left arm and most of his right leg are prosthetics and are literally part of the amour.
Then again, I’m not too inconspicuous myself. The red gear-and-crosshairs of the HyperSpace Advancements Research emblazoned on my (again weapon-proof) greatcoat has its pros and cons, and one of the major cons is instant recognition when in uniform. We sit down, and I order drinks for two, remembering in time that Kordhal doesn’t drink alcohol (part of his “honour code”, I imagine).
“Kordhal, it’s been a while!”
“Indeed it has. The last time I saw you must have been in the Midras clashes, I think.”
“Oh yes. Been moving on up ever since. Got promoted just a few weeks ago!”
“Congratulations to you. Sergeant-major now, isn’t it?”
“Yes… I’ve been given my own command! Small squad, nine of us, but it’s a start.”
And off we went. But not, as usual, for long.
“... On a more serious note, a search party of ours lost contact around one of your research stations a few days ago; have you heard anything?”
Typical Kordhal. He’s a nice guy, but very preoccupied – and good at – his job as a Templar of Artifice. Apparently they do work with the masses on alien artefacts that turn up everywhere, and extract what science they can from them while avoiding what dangers they contain. This time, though, I think there’s more to this question than just the job. Sometimes those artefacts can be very dangerous – in fact, that’s how I met Kordhal the second time. So it wouldn’t be a routine item that he would ask me about; but I put aside the thought for later, and quickly forgot about it.
Other appointments I had were many in number, but the most important of them (and indeed the most overdue) was to overhaul the Nomad, since it had been a long while since her last check-up, and I was pretty well off from my last job. So, I took her up to Jacob’s, another friend of mine. He isn’t too cheap, but he’s reliable and never lets you down. I remember once he worked two days solid on the Nomad after a particularly bad fight. He didn’t even come out of the yard for coffee.
My ship’s grown a bit since it was last in Jacob’s place; it’s a nerve-wracking experience steering the Nomad into the bay, even with Legacy’s help. The old man meets me in a cosy room overlooking the bay.
“You know, I’ve ain’t never built another ship like her.”
“Hey, Jacob. How’s the yard?”
“Doing good, doing good. Not so much business these days, Hunter. Glad you came to see me.”
“Glad you’re still in business, old man.”
“Yeah. Some good stuff you got there. Is that a Capricorn combat drive I see?”
“Yeah, got it after Midras. I’m looking for a minor overhaul, engine upgrades and a beefed-up weaponry system.”
“So, it’s new hardware you want, eh? I’m thinking of a Caster Lightrider for your engine. Just started selling them down the markets. We’ll need to check up on the wiring and stuff too, and all that routine stuff. How much of a budget d’you have?”
Unfortunately, I’d forgotten exactly how good he was at selling things. I left with a near-complete system overhaul, new engines, a new weapon targeting suite, and pretty much every weapon system the hull could support. And with a lot less in my bank account.
“Oh, these gatlings are way out of date. Check this baby out, just in from New Geneva, 250mm high-explosive…”
Many other meetings later, I was off to the last port of call – the Special Operations embassy on the Doverbridge Ring. Someone on their first time in (which is rare, because being SpecOps, the embassy was not open to the general public) would be amazed by the amount of hardware just in the reception. A huge screen shows constantly shifting data on ship times, movements and arrivals – and believe me, the amount of SpecOps activity going on, it was a really huge screen. Easily 40 feet. My ship left tonight at 23:35:19, which left me about an hour to kill. I went for a coffee, and boarded the Nomad ready to load her into the carrier.
“Legacy, I’m going into full combat suit now.”
“You have about three-quarters of an hour till our ship comes in, which should be plenty.”
Yes. As ever, Legacy is right. Over to the suit chamber. Combat suits are much more heavy-duty than civilian suits (as one might expect), and even with self-assembly and -diagnostics, it takes a while to suit up.
First, a multitude of thermal and supporting layers designed to support the strain of up to 400 kilos of suit, and for pressurisation and air recycling purposes. Next is the “muscle layer”, two layers of fabric that contract and expand with up to five times more power than normal human strength. Then, the main intelligent reactive ballistic and energy-absorbing piezoelectric plate armour, environmental systems, and HUD-enabled helmet linked into neural implants. On top of that, a very thin layer of newly-minted self-repairing machinery generating a prototype energy absorbing field around my person. The field drains the energy of all items that enter it, but the drain is exponentially more if the object possesses a high (i.e. lethal) amount of energy.
“Hunter? The Nameless Objection is ready for boarding. Should I acknowledge and tell them we’re on our way?”
“Yes. I’ve got a few tests to do with this suit.”
A while ago, Legacy wrote me a small, compact AI for my suit. Very nice of him, I think. I called it Crystalline Blade, as it happened to always appear as a slowly revolving crystal longsword on my HUD. Actually, since Legacy’s very smart, it’s gotten a lot larger than “compact” these last few years. I might ask Legacy to look at letting him speak, actually. The only communications methods he seems capable of doing is highlighting items on my screen and writing terse lines on a blank space I keep for him on the middle left of my HUD.
While I was otherwise occupied, Legacy brought us into contact range of the frigate. The Nameless Objection was a fairly new addition to the HyperSpace Advancements fleet, having been on its first voyage only five years ago.
“HSA Typhoon Nomad, come in, Typhoon Nomad.”
“This is the heavy bomber Typhoon Nomad, receiving.”
“This is HSA Nameless Objection. How many on board?”
“Just me. Total of one.”
“Acknowledged. Please follow designated flight path to Bay 213, Nameless Objection out.”
Legacy spoke into my ear.
“We’ve got the flight path. You want me to take over?”
“Yeah, you’re better at the precision stuff.”
Now, while Legacy piloted with almost pinpoint precision (although if I were you I wouldn’t say the ‘almost’ in Legacy’s presence), I still took the controls, because sometimes that old human sixth sense just couldn’t be beaten. And what would the fun be of piloting a ship if your AI did it all for you?
Sure enough, Legacy guided us in so accurately that the clamps didn’t have to move us at all to line up the cabin airlock. That triple-clang of hull contacts was a relief universally known to all pilots, military or otherwise. No exception for me, of course.
“Typhoon Nomad, you have been assigned to Flight Joker, slot seven. Acknowledge, Joker-seven.
“This is Joker-seven, acknowledging.”
While we have our conversation, the frigate powers up its engines. Nine colossal fusion drives provide the power until 67.5% of lightspeed, then sixteen ion drives – weaker, but with a much higher top speed – take us to the maximum cruising speed of 88.31% lightspeed.
We’re on our way. Destination: Outpost Gryphon 718-B.
It’s a long flight, about three years of shiptime; so I prepare to enter cryogenic preservative stasis. The cryo pod opens with a hiss and a billowing cloud of white mist. Legacy’s very theatrical about these things. I settle down as comfortably as possible while in full combat armour; and the knockout drugs quickly do their work.
As ever, cryosleep just feels like you’ve been knocked out. No dreams, nothing. One minute you’re gently going to sleep, and then you’re waking up. Not much in between. I dredge my mind up from the drugs while my suit boots up its HUD. Legacy speaks up while I check the systems.
“Hunter? We’ve received new orders from Central.”
The Centralised Command Hub (or Central, or Command) was the huge body of people that makes all of the decisions needed for the continued operation of HyperSpace Advancements. Orders, purchases, all aspects of the entire HyperSpace supercorporation were controlled from there. As you can imagine, it’s a big place. It took fourteen years to build and cost more than the average fleet of ships. It’s quite a place, all right.
As soon as Legacy’s sure we’re fine with the wakeup, the pod opens up and I step out. Now, first things first. Guns, knives and things that go bang. The armoury it is.
My personal rack is already there when I approach, so I unlock it and take out the tools of my trade, gleaming and honed to perfection.
The SR-90C Assault Rifle. The bread and butter of special forces, a higher model than the standard-issue rifle. A reliable, sturdy weapon for many circumstances. Smart ammunition sensors and a piezomorphic barrel means that it can utilise many different types of ammunition from the standard Gauss pellets to dart cartridges and more.
Next up, a rifle. The MR-144 is one of the most balanced weapons of any rifle I’ve ever shouldered. A plasma weapon, firing molten slugs of metal through an electric grid for a beam of superheated metallic particles. Semi-automatic or burst-fire, aided by a tactical smart-scope of variable magnification. A versatile grenade launcher sits under the main barrel.
A sidearm next, I think. A heavy Jackal .552 magnum has been my trusty pistol for a while now. The heavy, high-explosive slugs have never let me down.
Last but not least, my sword. Doesn’t sound too high-tech, does it? Well, it’s not standard issue, but it’s very effective. Plasma runs along the blade, creating a white-hot edge to cut with. Very useful when there’s no room to use a gun, most veterans will tell you. A two-handed blade of death and destruction.
Oh yes, and last but not least, a good old combat knife. 182 millimetres of diamond-tipped, tungsten-coated carbon-fibre blade, also with plasma-edged cutting capabilities.
I’m just about feeling a lot better with some real weaponry on me, when Legacy speaks to me.
“Command has sent us finalised orders, Hunter.
“Mmmm… yeah? What is it?”
“We’re leaving this ride with the November squad and investigating a distress call. It’s something big this time, Hunter. Command is spooked. We’re being accompanied by two other SpecOps strike teams, Urban 267th and Mantis 809th. They’ve already sent in 30 men – the 103rd and 912th infantry.”
“Wow, that is big. What do we get?”
“We get whatever we can carry, but Command advises close quarters combat gear, and anticipates corridor fighting. This really is big, Hunter. Command wants us there on the double; the Objection is already decelerating and will soon be at deployment speed. The Objection will stay in orbit and provide fire support for us.
“Roger that, Legacy. Tell the guys to load up and roll.”
In the hangar, the Nomad is resting securely in the clamps. I’m too preoccupied to listen to the airlock cycling as I begin the pre-mission checklist:
Main circuit assembly at green 50 Celsius: check.
Engine assembly running green, temperature and parts: check.
Tanks holding green for reading and pressure normal: check.
Weapon systems reading green for the complete loadout: check.
Hull integrity normal: check.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see the stacks of equipment and computing power wink and flash as Resplendent Legacy runs his own, much more detailed checklist. Not an easy job, running a ship. He does it well.
“Hunter, November squad is outside, full combat suits and equipment. And the sensors of the Objection have alerted me to -”
“Not the time, Legacy.”
I step outside and consider the team. There were nine of us, including me, suited up and ready to roll. I considered them for a moment, and then said:
“Gentlemen, we’ve been sent in to finish what those idiotic scientists down there have started. We’re leaving this ship, men, and engaging with unknown hostiles. If and when we meet those cowardly sons of bitches down there, we will rip their heads off with our guns, and then we will throw them in the gutter! Am I right, squad?”
“SIR, YES SIR!”
“Damn right I am. Suit up and move out! I want you ready to drop in five!”
Each man in the team has his own OIP – orbital insertion pod. It’s basically a chunk of metal designed to take the heat of atmospheric entry and the subsequent freefalling impact into the target. At the moment, they’re just being finished loading into the drop bay of the Nomad. We enter through the troop bay door at the back, and stick our weapons and equipment into them. I have a brief discussion with my second-in-command, Corporal Roger Gray. He goes under the callsign of Two.
“Roger.”
“Yes, sir?”
“We’re going to be dropping straight into the main hangar bay, punching through the roof. I want the men to come out ready and clear the area. At the same time, Urban squad is dropping into the main entrance hall, and Mantis squad is going through the secondary hangar. I want you to brief them on the way down.”
“Will do, sir. Anything else?”
“Nothing. I’m going up to the flight deck to take us in, and then I’ll check myself in and drop with you.”
“Yessir. Two out.”
I wandered up to the deck. Legacy was there, waiting. As always. I sit down in the chair.
“The Objection has green-lighted us for exit when we’re ready.”
“Okay, we’ll enter the atmosphere hard and fast, go into low orbit and drop. You circle back up and take the entry slower and stay above us for extraction.”
“Okay, sounds good. Are we going to meet any hostiles in the airspace?”
“I don’t know. Central has nothing for us. I’m not sure whether they actually don’t know anything, or they don’t want to tell us. It’s standard stuff, anyway. Enter, kill hostiles, grab the black-box recorder from the computer centre, any secondary objectives they tell us while we’re there, and then, extract.”
“Nothing new there. Shall we leave?”
“Yes. Close troop bay door, open the hangar drop access and release the clamps.”
The troop door closed with a click and whirr of locks. The hangar door opened silently – sound doesn’t travel through vacuum – but I could still feel the slight jar of the door against the frame. The clamps disengaged with three quick snaps, and there was a sickening falling feeling as we were grabbed by the gravity of Gryphon.
I pull out the controls and open the throttle, sending us rocketing down towards the ground.
“November squad, this is the captain speaking. Welcome aboard the Typhoon Nomad at the beginning of this mission, and we hope you have a safe journey. Meanwhile, however, buckle up!”
“Seven to captain. Do you have any complimentary drinks?”
“Seven, we regret to inform you that we will not be serving drinks until after the mission. Meanwhile, however, we do ask that you fold up your tray tables and return your seats to the upright position.”
“Nine here, any place for a smoke?”
“Unfortunately, this is a non-smoking flight, and smoke detectors have been installed for your safety. Please observe as well the seatbelt sign next to the no-smoking sign – for your safety, we ask that when it is illuminated that you return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts.”
Legacy fleetingly replaced standard mission displays with no-smoking and seatbelt signs.
I allowed myself a brief chuckle.
The cockpit window shows a glorious panorama of the ground below; sea and sky rendered in beautiful colours. However, now isn’t the time. I shutter the windshield and brought up the forward camera views on the screen, to protect the carbonfibre-plate window. It’s not designed for atmospheric entry, tough though it is.
We’re into the upper atmosphere now, and the first beginnings of air resistance are showing in the slight resistance of the Nomad against my control. I clear my throat.
“Extend fins. Engine to atmospheric. Deploy flaps.”
The aerofoils for manoeuvring and braking in atmosphere were normally retracted, but now they moved silently to their fully extended positions. Flight displays flicker to new configurations, showing me that the flaps have extended without errors and that they are fully functional. The muted roar of the engine changes pitch subtly – the normal engine mode can’t work in air, so internal workings are rearranged and streamlined for a gaseous environment.
Much better. We’re fully into the upper atmosphere now, and a dull red glow enfolds the view from the hull cameras, making it harder to see. I’m a bit annoyed about that, and so I send a quick message via the implant in my brain to the software.
# Apply visual filter 21197 to current visual field.
> Affirmative. Anti-atmospheric glow filter now enabled.
The red glow vanishes, corrected by software manipulation. The heating problem, however, does not.
The flight computer starts beeping to alert me that our velocity is too high. With another message via implant, I silence it. This happens every insertion, I tell you. We’re meant to be going in at an un-survivable speed – that’s why there’s fourteen inches of metal in those drop pods. You’d think the computer would have learned to shut up by now. I finish typing in commands to the console.
“Okay, Legacy. I’m going to prep for drop – fire retro-thrusters and deploy parachutes in thirty seconds.”
“Roger that.”
Inside the bay, my men are getting ready. Pre-mission stuff: your choice of knuckle-cracking, gun-polishing or both. I nod to them and they get into position, buckling the restraining harnesses. I stow my weapons in their slots and do the same. The black lid settles into place with a single click. A slight hiss escapes as the airtight seal is locked shut.
The mission clock reads 00:00:00. It’s time to drop.
The Nomad deploys the parachutes, and the drop pods are thrown out of their bays and into free-fall.
I always get a little bit nervous at the start of the jump, because for structural reasons, there are no windows inside the OIP. The only thing I would know about the drop being successful would be when the lid cracked open. Deep breaths, that’s it.
The OIP knocks me unconscious with knockout gas and locks me tight into the seat, to prevent injuries from the savage deceleration. See, this planet has about the same gravity as the Earth (about 1.1G), so the OIP will rip into the ground at its terminal velocity of 5881km/h. 5881km/h’s worth of deceleration will happen in less than a hundredth of a second, which wouldn’t necessarily be survivable without some assistance. To put it in some context, I’ve never seen anything withstand a hit from an OIP. I remember once Gray dropped on one of those “indestructible” safes. It might as well have been a metal pancake.
A brief moment of blackout there. Sorry. Everything seems to have gone all right – landed on an empty space. It’s pretty dark here – obviously main power’s offline. Here and there shadowy silhouettes of docked ships loom out of the darkness, and stacks of supply crates dot the floor. I climb out of the pod and look around. Nearby, I can make out the slow rise of smoke from three other pods. I wait a moment, and my HUD boots up. Must have been a problem with the system on impact – it’s been a bit testy over the last few ops. Pale-green displays blossom across my field of vision. Similarly, green dots drop into place over the pods, marking them as belonging to N04, N09 and N02. Four, Nine and Two. Good thing Two’s here. There’s no one else you’d ever want to cover your back. The system finishes booting up. Blade’s symbol rotates slowly in the corner of my view. My forearms vanish, wiped by the active-camouflage light-refraction of the suit. Of course, it’s not a perfect camouflage, but it’s much better than nothing. The processors in my suit are very fast, but there’s still a tiny delay between the sensors seeing something and the plate responding. The tiny delay results in a shimmering patch of air where I am – it generally looks like a man-shaped patch of heat haze.
Okay, the pods are here, but where are the people? First things first, though. Back to the pod, grab my guns and ammo. Some supplies, too. Two bricks of one-day rations, three canisters of water and a first-aid kit.
Radio to team communications frequency.
“November-one to November team. Sound off.”
On the team status panel, the lights on each team member switch to green.
Nearby, Two hauled himself up out of the pod. Four and Nine are already moving out, securing the perimeter.
“Okay, let’s do this by the book. Split to three-man fireteams around me, Five and Nine. You know the drill. Two, Three; you’re with me.”
I highlighted three routes on the mission map.
“Alpha and Beta fireteams will move along these routes. Alpha will take the main corridor through warehouse one and freight bay one, and Beta will go through freight bay two and go via the kitchens and mess hall. Alpha will go for the primary objective in the computer centre, and beta goes after the package in lab four. Charlie moves to the extraction point on the medivac pad and covers our backs. Got that?”
A chorus of green lights flicker on my HUD.
Radio to tactical communications frequency.
“This is November to Urban and Mantis, request status report?”
“This is Mantis; we have deployed and are moving out.”
“This is Urban; we’re having a bit of trouble – having to cut our way out of the secondary hangar. We’ll cover the exit route to Medical.”
“103rd and 912th Infantry – come in, please.”
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
“Repeat, this is Special Operations Recovery Team November-four-eight-one, calling the 103rd and 912th Army Infantry divisions. Come in.”
One could suddenly hear a complete absence of anybody replying.
Hmm… comms must be down. Then again, with the place on emergency power only, communications arrays must be down too. Probably only emergency transmitters are left. We’ll have to do this the hard way, then.
“Okay, move out.”
Moving quickly, nine flickering, shimmering forms exit the hangar. We split up, three teams moving off in different directions. I motion to the others.
“Two, take point. Three, cover our six.”
Check the load on my assault rifle, full magazine and a round in the chamber. I kick the fire selector from ‘safe’ to ‘full automatic’. There’s no sign of movement in the corridors, only the dim floor-level emergency lighting showing everything in soft pastel colours.
Moving quickly, we pass rows and rows of neatly machine-ordered cargo pallets and supply crates. I groan inside. This is a tactician’s nightmare. The long rows and columns leave lines of fire way too open, while the cargo pallets allow a potential hostile to move quickly and unseen.
A flash of amber on Three’s status light. She’s thinking the same thing. I flash the green for all-clear. Again, amber from Three. I break communications silence. No-one flashes two ambers without good reason on a mission.
“What is it, Three?”
“Sir, saw something behind us.”
“Did you get a picture?”
“No, sir. I tried, but the picture came out screwed up. It looked more like a flash of movement than something moving.”
“Okay. We’ll keep going. Double-time, now. Safeties off.”
We were at the main door of Warehouse One when we got movement on motion detectors. Fourteen distinct shapes. I motioned to Two. He nods slightly and dives out, followed quickly by me and Kris. I roll and come up on one knee with my weapon raised facing a rather unexpected adversary.
A stunned soldier in the black-and-grey of Infantry stares back at me. Time seems to slow down, as neural enhancements engage and kick the neurochemistry of my brain into high gear with artificial adrenalin and reaction-enhancers. I even have time to glance at his rank insignia – the triple stripes of a Sergeant, grade two. I’m only just senior to him.
“Don’t shoot! Friendly forces!” He shouts, a little unnecessarily. We’ve lowered our weapons already.
I flash green for all-clear, just as my suit finishes handshake protocols with his suit, and status lights, rank badges and general information drops down all over my field of view, indicating the Sergeant (Grade II) John Taylin and the 13 others of the 912th Infantry Field Section. I quickly drop my active camouflage – it’s considered bad manners to have active camo engaged while speaking, as it is a little bit intimidating to talk to a patch of air.
“Sergeant-Major Mikhael Hunter, currently commanding Special Operations November 481 Squad.”
“Sergeant John Taylin, commanding the Alpha Company of the 912th Infantry.”
Behind the polarised steel-gray faceplate, I smile slightly.
# Radio to Officer-commanding channel only.
“Did you get the radio message I sent earlier?”
“Nope, but I hear you now. How far to the objective?”
I was a little startled at that, and was quickly angry at myself for being so. Regular infantry had few of the HUD and neural implants that I had, and they certainly didn’t have access to the blueprints and map overlay that was shimmering in my helmet.
“Around 750 metres, Sergeant. We go through freight bay one.”
“Sergeant-Major, do you know why there’s no-one here? I thought that we’d have picked up some survivors by now. What happened?”
Oh, great. He’s green*. Mind you, I thought it was odd that a twelve-man force is moving around together. So many men together are far too much for efficient corridor combat. That’s why we split up into three-man teams.
“Look, son, this is a SpecOps mission. I don’t know, you don’t know, most likely even my mission handler doesn’t know. With these kinds of things, it’s better not to know. I know it’s hard to not wonder, but there will be no good that’ll come of it if you worry, and you’ll probably regret knowing it, if you ever ask. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now, focus on the mission.”
Re-engaging active camo, the three SpecOps members move off with the gray-suited infantry. I didn’t tell the newbie, but I also had this instinctive bad feeling about the mission – oh, how right I was.
However, we arrive at the central mainframe without much happening. Strangely enough, both Beta and Gamma reported flashes of movement, which neither team could capture on film.
Two spools out a fibre-optic line to the mainframe and starts disconnecting the black box memory from the supercomputer. It’s going to take a while. The black box containment system is designed to withstand anything up to and including direct hit from a missile, so removing it from the armour that surrounds it takes a little bit of time.
Just a few moments later though, I’m gathering my thoughts together when lights all over the mainframe flash red, and the main screen boots up. I look up at Two, who shrugs helplessly. On the main screen, a fuzzy picture appears, often broken up by static and white noise. A woman wearing a white lab coat stained with blood leans into view. Her eyes are wide, pupils dilated. She looks like she’s going into shock. Blade pulls a high-resolution image of her irises and identifies her as a scientist working at the outpost.
“They came from the gate – the wall! We didn’t know what we were doing, we set them free! We thought – no, you don’t need to know that.”
She takes a deep breath, calming herself. In the background are sounds of gunfire. Semi-automatic pistols punctuate the rapid rattling of sub-machine guns.
“My name is Eliza Demenchev. I am – was – a specialist in biomagnetic field wave patterns – not that that matters to me now. My team is dead, we – we found something in this system – an anomalous reading about this planet. We sent ships down, checked it was habitable. It was, as you can no doubt feel. Its gravity, because of its reduced mass, was almost exactly Earth’s – off only by a tenth of a G. Air, similarly, was pretty comparable. Breathable, although some rather high levels of sulphur had to be removed by chemical processing. We settled down and began our research. Early years yielded very little, but we persevered. All samples taken of the planet seemed to be relatively normal – that is, there was no reason to suspect the planet was made of something different than normal matter. It took us just over three years to make the breakthrough – by accident. On a routine resupply, a drone carrying solid hydrogen and oxygen reactor fuel went out of control during a severe snowstorm near this outpost. It crashed against the side of the largest mountain in these parts – the mountain’s just visible from here, on a clear day.”
At this point, Blade flashed twice on an aerial photo of the area, a 10km-square picture captured by the Nomad as it descended from orbit. A section of the mountain was clearly visible.
“The explosion from the reactor fuel punched a hole in the mountain, and exposed a large, smooth plane of metal beneath that was barely even scratched by the explosion. Of course, we sent a team up there with excavation tools…”
Eliza – whoever she was – was cut off by another explosion elsewhere in the facility. Blade flashed twice again, this time on the tactical map. Echolocation and sound wave analysis indicated the explosion was in around the same direction and distance as Medical.
# Radio to team communications only.
“Fireteam Beta, come in, Fireteam Beta. Report in, Five.”
“This is Fireteam Beta. We heard an explosion, over.”
“Confirm that. Team Charlie, What happened?”
“Why ask me, sir? The explosion was in your direction.”
“My echolocation shows it as near the lab complexes.”
“Negative, sir. Sounded distant from here.”
“Okay, corporal. Do you have the package?”
“Negative, sir. Lab four has a type-seven heavy-duty airlock, two of. Forcing the codes is taking time.”
“Forget hacking it, go with explosives. We’re getting out of here; I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”
“Yes sir.”
I turned back to the scene. The lights were flickering – the backup generators wouldn’t hold up much longer. The screen was blank. Two had finished extracting the black box recorder. It was a cube of matte black material, exactly five centimetres by five centimetres, and bearing the HSAR logo in red on one of the faces. Another of the faces of the cube had a slight square indent where it was plugged in when active. Two clipped it to his belt with a magnetic clamp.
I motioned for the men to move off.
# Radio to tactical communications.
“This is November to all other groups. We have the primary objective. Repeat, November Team has secured the primary objective and is proceeding to the extraction point.”
Silence.
“This is November to all other groups. Do you copy, over?
I was starting to get worried when a weak signal from Mantis crackles over the airwaves, heavily laced with static.
“Mantis has... with November Beta… objective… proceeding to rendezvous…”
That was all that I got.
# Radio to team communications frequency.
“This is Alpha calling Beta and Charlie. Come in, over.”
“This is Charlie. We haven’t heard from Beta. Urban has secured the landing zone.”
“Beta squad, report. Beta squad, we need a situation report.”
Again, the message that came from them was washed over with static. Trying to work out what was said was very difficult; out of the corner of my eye I saw Blade spinning frantically, trying to clear up the signal as much as he could. Even so, the message went along the lines of:
“Have… Mantis… out of… in the lab… objective.”
“Sergeant-Major? This isn’t good, is it?”
“Sergeant, let’s get out of here. Medical is a few minutes away. There’ll be time to talk when we get home. Focus on the present.”
# Radio to private frequency three.
“Legacy? This is Hunter. We have the primary objective and Mantis has the secondary. Request extraction, ASAP.”
“Legacy to Hunter. I’ll call down the birds. ETA seven minutes.”
“Roger that. Hunter out.”
PA system on.
“Alright, let’s move!”
It wasn’t long before we were double-timing down the secondary main corridor to the medical hangar. In times of emergency, escape pods capable of reaching orbit are mounted in most main corridors, and in designated areas around the base, but there are always at least three pods in the medical bay for the evacuation of the wounded. There are also three landing pads for emergency evacuation of critically wounded casualties – the twenty-first century name for the “medivac” still remained.
A flash of red came from a half-shuttered window, almost too quick to see. Blade raised my shoulder-mounted laser sight/rangefinder and blipped back a short burst of light. Urban Squad’s designated marksman’s friend-or-foe tag dropped into place for a moment, signalling that he’s there.
“All clear. Alpha Fireteam has reached rendezvous point A.”
“Roger that, Alpha. Who’re your friends?”
“912th Infantry. They got dropped here first. We have secured the primary objective. Beta has likewise secured the objective and met up with Mantis.”
“Is there a situation, sir?”
“Suspected ECM attempt to sabotage our communications frequencies. Despite automatic ECCM frequency-hopping, communications were almost inaudible.”
On the tactical communications frequency, Urban’s leader cut in.
“Urban has secured the perimeter – the 103rd is nowhere to be seen.”
“Did we get a successful landing confirmation from them?”
“Negative, November. There is one other thing to report: all but five escape capsules were recorded ejected, and with full personnel complements. Two did not fire and three had only eight occupants as opposed to the full nine.”
“Roger, Urban.”
Radio to private frequency three.
“Legacy, I need a status report.”
“I’m coming in hypersonic, but the Mantis and Urban birds are behind. They’ll be here in five. My ETA is two minutes. The dropships that the infantry came in on are on their way too.”
“Roger that, prep for immediate departure. We have discovered anomalies.”
“Hunter, we have a new secondary objective. The old secondary objective is now to be considered a primary objective: Command says that it is critical that we obtain that DNA package. The new secondary objective is to investigate the outpost on the side of the mountain that the scientist told us about – Command is currently very interested in the video feed from your team’s helmets. Make sure you see everything there is to see.”
“Roger that, and send an acknowledgement signal for the update.”
This was bad news. Now, I’d trust Steven and his team to get out of most scrapes I could name, but the ones that I couldn’t name were the ones that bothered me. If it could present problems to eleven of humanity’s best soldiers, it must be a pretty good problem indeed. Beta should have been here before us – even accounting for a large and heavy package (which the objective was not), they should have been here three minutes ago. And Steven has always been a stickler for timing.
And the frequency jamming was very, very high-tech, if it could penetrate our comprehensive pre-emptive jamming systems. Certainly nothing like this would ever be in the hands of any non-HSA affiliated organisation, and it was unlikely that it would be installed on a research base. That kind of jamming capability was military standard at least, if not black-ops standard.
My eyes flick quickly and decisively over the soldiers of the 912th Infantry, judging their worth in a firefight. Though their commanding officer was inexperienced, glances at the soldiers themselves gave me some reassurance. They were assured and confident, handling their weapons fluently.
On-screen, Legacy’s status changed from “In flight” to “Landing”. Three airlocks engaged and signalled on their screens: “Typhoon Nomad – Military Craft – Normal Trimix – Ready for boarding”. The two interlocking segments of each door slid into the ceiling and floor. Shortly after, the Nomad’s sonic boom rumbled through the hangar, and the familiar shape of the Nomad is lowered into view.
Radio to tactical communications frequency.
“Okay, Charlie team, get yourselves strapped in and ready for flight. Alpha team is next, but keep covering the area. We’re not leaving without Steven and his gang. Keep on your toes in case we get a situation.”
Radio to team communications frequency.
“Teams, hold the perimeter. Your extraction will be here in two minutes.”
“Affirmative.”
“Roger that, Sergeant-Major.”
Finally, Steven’s voice crackles over the comm. It’s still heavy with static, but it’s there.
“Leaving without us, are we?”
“Oh no. Why would we do that? You have a reservation, right?”
“Okay, fun time over. Get ready to move out, fast. We’re being pursued. We’ll be there in two minutes.”
“Are we expecting Mantis?”
“Only two of them.”
Suddenly I’m concerned. Usually Steven is very calm and breezy, but this time he sounded strained.
“Urban, new info. Beta squad is heading in, expected in two minutes. They’re talking hostile pursuit – pull your men back to the bay and prepare for a hot extraction.”
“Roger that.”
With double sonic booms, Urban and Mantis’ ships dropped into the hangar simultaneously.
“Okay, Sergeant Taylin, get your men aboard Mantis’ ship, now.”
“But our ship is still incoming, we still – “
“Now! We have hostiles incoming, and we don’t have the time.”
“But what about Mantis?”
“Taken heavy casualties. Get on board now!”
“Urban, board your men immediately. Me and Alpha fireteam will hold the hangar.”
“Roger that.”
Ranks of men file into their ships. It’s been eighty-five seconds since Steven radioed.
“Kris, open the main doors. Set forty seconds before automatic closure.”
Radio to frequency three.
“Legacy, disconnect the airlocks and lower the cargo door. Give me remote fire control of rocket pods twelve and thirteen; and the rear-facing 40.”
The two other ships were already disconnecting. The scene looked oddly cinematic – three ghostly figures backed by three spaceships. Directly behind me light spilled from the open door of the Nomad.
To save time, instead of using the VTOL jets to go up the way they came, the ships could just fire the main thrusters and go out through the opening bay doors. In my peripheral vision, I noted with quiet satisfaction that the both of the rear-facing rocket launchers and the forty-millimetre autocannon were now under my remote control.
Steven came over the radio again. His voice was noticeably clearer.
“We’re into Medical. Approaching the hangar.”
“Roger that, Steven. We’ve got your back covered. The cargo door’s open on the Nomad; just make yourselves at home.”
Five figures came running into view. The figures clearly resolved themselves into five soldiers, sprinting for the protection of the ships; outlined in blue by the HUD. One was carrying a case.
They were past the main doors. I gave them an extra heartbeat or two, and gave Blade the order to fire. Four rockets spiralled out of the launchers, impacting solidly on the doorframe.
Clouds of debris were blown into the air. Blade overlaid a composite thermal and echolocation map. The door was gone, but motion sensors flagged three possible shapes. The shapes were hazy through EM echolocation, as if they had no solid shape.
“Urban, Sergeant Taylin – what are you doing? Take off now! Emergency take-off procedures!”
Team Urban’s leader came up over the com channel strangely distorted and echoing.
“Negative. Main engines are down due to interference. Secondary engines firing now.”
White bars flickered into existence, heat haze blurring the air.
Three cursed over the comm. I ignored it. Seven, Eight, Nine and the two Mantis operatives were still running, and shadowy flickers of movement showed inside the settling dust cloud. The shapes were approaching.
“Alpha fireteam – covering fire!”
I raised my rifle and felt the trigger, firm beneath my finger. Mentally I gave the subvocalisation for “safety off” – subvocalisation is a method used by the suit computer to interpret orders. It’s basically talking without saying anything – as if you’re just thinking the words.
Two, Three and I opened up simultaneously, the sharp report of assault rifles blending with the rapid clack-clack-clack of Two’s heavy machine gun. The automatic aiming systems couldn’t get a lock on any of the mysterious shapes – it just kept sliding off the targets, so I disabled the automatic lock-on and aimed manually. The autocannon fired blazing shells of tracer into the dust, strafing the hangar in front of us.
The five soldiers sprinted past, and I flashed a green status light, followed by two yellow lights – disengage from the enemy. We backed towards the open cargo door, firing as we went. Kris turned and ran into the Nomad. Likewise, Two disengaged and ran in. I turned and fired a last burst at the hidden enemy still shrouded by dust, and backflipped into the cargo bay that rose to meet me.
I ran up to the flight deck. Ahead, the hangar doors were already closing. If they closed, we’d never get out.
“This is going to be a close one!”
The two ships had already started towards the exit and made it out fairly easily, the doors being rather slow to close. For us, it was going to be a much closer call. Legacy fired every engine we had, from the ramjets to the manoeuvring drive and even the interplanetary fusion drive. The fusion drive wasn’t meant to be fired in atmosphere; the impact was immense and tested the stress tolerances on the ship to the extreme. I was knocked backwards into the pilot’s seat, which groaned under the impact of four hundred kilos of combat suit.
We were already travelling at half the speed of sound when we approached the exit, and I watched the doors move inexorably closer and closer. Blade did the calculations; based on the current speed of the doors, our acceleration and the size of the ship, we would not make it through the doors. And I would not accept that.
I tapped commands into the console, deploying a forward rocket launcher. I scrolled down an extensive list of ammunition, and chose a Destroyer high-explosive rocket. The launcher deemed itself ready, and I fired it at the right side of the doors, where the guiding rail aligned the two sections of giant blast door together. The rocket launched with a dull impact and the characteristic double-whoosh of the Destroyer series. The rocket ran almost lazily to the target; guided by laser sighting systems - buckled ten metres of blast-door railing. The top section ran into the damaged section with a scream and shout of tortured metal – it was nearly half a tonne of blast door with all associated momentum versus a misaligned section of thirty-centimetre thick alloy. I wasn’t sure what won, but it definitely slowed the closure a bit.
We shot out of the hangar with a vapour cone starting to form, and behind us the doors slammed shut with surprising finality. I reached behind me for my rifle, which had locked itself magnetically to the seat back. Carefully, I check the rifle over. The LED display showed 112 bullets left in the chamber, all status lights green. I pull out the nearly-empty magazine, slide in a new one and cycle the bolt. The bullet from the chamber clinks on the floor. Distracted, I look at it and ponder how –
Legacy’s voice screams over team communications – “Get down! We’re under fire!”
I have enough time to blink and reach forward before Legacy throws us into the reverse barrel-roll coupled with a corkscrew vertical twist and tail slide. Around us the sky is suddenly filled with rockets and explosive anti-aircraft shells, of which I have a brief glimpse of before Legacy slams the blast-proof shutters closed.
I scream over the rolling thunder of cannonfire reaching us from below.
“Return fire! Get shields up and point-defence lasers hot!”
“Hunter! It’s the base defences!”
“I don’t care! It’s shooting at us! Disable the enemy!”
The automated self-defence mechanisms roll out of their armoured housings, electronic countermeasures broadcasting waffle on targeting frequencies, decoys firing compressed blasts of superheated air to confuse heat-seekers, automated lasers targeting and destroying missiles as they come streaking up at us. Our own military-grade Flicker anti-defense missiles streak away, flipping back and forth in space and time to avoid detection and premature detonation. The aging base defence mechanism is no match for our SpecOps equipment. We fly on, Urban and Taylin’s ships both sides of us in a V-formation. As I watched, Team Urban’s ship exploded into flames.
“This is Urban; we’re hit on the portside engine! Going down!”
“Holy smokes! What happened to our point-defence?”
“Negative, Hunter. Those are high-powered Gauss rounds – even if we managed to get a shot in, the kinetic energy is what counts.”
“Urban is going down! Mayday, mayday! Hit by hostile enemy fire! This is Urban Team to Nameless Objection – request immediate extraction! We’re fifteen by four–”
Whatever they wanted to say was lost as the Gauss gun fired again, ripping clean through the dropship in a rolling thunder of orange fire.
“Get me a survivability estimate.”
“Nothing worth staying under fire for. Less than five percent – complete obliteration. No pods.”
“Let’s not hang around then. Change hull config to hypersonic and light the scramjets.”
With smooth efficiency, the Nomad reshaped herself. Whirring motors shifted control surfaces and armour to more aerodynamic arrangements. With a roar, the scramjets ignited and shoved us humans into our seats, and the Nomad past Mach 6. It wasn’t long before we were out of range of those Gauss cannons. ETA to arrival, three minutes.
“Beta, what happened back there?”
“We don’t really know, sir. The Mantis guys secured the perimeter while we tried to hack the door, but as we were entering, their signals just dropped. No radio signal and no shout from them apart from a short shout that we heard. We were going back to check on them when the other Mantis soldiers shut the airlocks on us and told us to run while they held them off. We didn’t ask questions, we just ran for it.”
“Did you hear anything afterwards?”
“We thought we heard some gunfire as we were running – it was definitely gunfire, and it sounded a lot like standard-issue rifles and sidearms. It was hard to tell whether it was just them, or if they were being attacked by other soldiers. Their telemetry didn’t resume after the signal dropout.”
I was going to ask some more questions but was interrupted by Legacy, who announced:
“Let’s drop!”
Legacy loaded another set of drop pods into the bay, and we dropped while still in supersonic flight. Cherry-red horizontal trails lit up where our pods had slammed into buildings and landscape. I shook my head to clear the ringing in my ears; even the suit ear protection hadn’t been able to negate the sound of my pod smashing through metal at Mach 4.
“November! Sound off!”
“We’re all here, Hunter. Securing a perimeter.”
“Taylin, you there?”
No reply.
“Sergeant Taylin, please give a status report.”
Still nothing.
“Okay, team, Taylin is out of comms. We’ll have to assume the worst and –”
Standard status reports on my HUD shifted aside to full combat readiness and situation maps as November-Eight interrupted me. Status indicated his heartbeat was soaring and that he was firing his assault rifle on full automatic, sustained fire. Adrenalin levels were through the roof, and even the suit-injected noradrenalin wasn’t bringing him down. Background noise filtering made him sound oddly panicked, and the roar of his assault rifle was filtered out.
“Sir, I have a situation. I’ve got hostiles converging on all sides at high speed. I need assistance. Repeat, I -”
“Eight, stand by. Who’s Eight’s backup? Go, go, go!”
“Oh, my god! Help me! This is Eight, I need – aargh! Help me! God, help – ”
“Who’s nearest to Eight? Form up, and get to his position!”
“There’s too many! Oh my god, oh my god!”
N08’s bio signs flatlined. He was dead.
“November-six, me and Four are moving in to Eight’s position. Three’s supporting.”
“Roger that. Everyone else, converge on that position. Cover the angles, guys. What the hell happened?”
I pulled out my equipment from the pod and headed off.
“Four, what’s the news on Eight?”
“Nothing yet, sir. We’re checking for hostiles. No motion on the cameras. We’re moving in. Hold on, did you see that, Six?”
“Roger, Four. Looked humanoid for a moment, there.”
“Did you get a camera lock?”
“Nothing. Looks like interference glitched out my cams.”
“There’s some weird shit going on here, sir. No sign of Eight. A load of bullet casings are here, sir. He had one of those big mags in; must’ve emptied it.”
“Judging by the racket he made, that sounds about right. Are you sure he’s not there?”
“Yep, no sign of him. Hold on – here’s something.”
It was his 90C rifle, lying in a corner. This was bad news. Aside from the pretty much hard-wired instinct never to let go of your weapon so long as you were alive, SpecOps armour had special electromagnetic clamps in the palm of the gauntlet so that you would never lose your gun – unless something took it away from you. And that was certainly the most disturbing explanation.
“Not good, soldiers. Forget threes then. We’ll go in fours; ransack the place and get the hell out of here. The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can all go home. Clear?”
All greens.
“Let’s get rolling then. Form up in numerical fours, same as our threes.”
Our fourth member was Glyph, N-04. A quiet and unassuming person, he excelled at marksmanship. He was not, however, the type of marksman who donned a camouflage suit and sniped from several miles away. He liked a challenge. On the run, firing from the hip, under fire; the more challenges he faced, the more he enjoyed his work.
My kind of guy, for sure.
“Okay. Move out. Team One – that’s me – will head due north. Team Two – with Five – will head south-west. Maintain comm silence in all cases; after two hours we will regroup back here; in Storage 5. Understand?”
More greens.
We departed from our fellows, moving quickly and cautiously. I authorise full battle-readiness. My team flicks on infra-red laser dot-sights, auto-calibration and smart sensors bracketing the dot-sights on our heads-up-displays and showing target range, elevation and weapon accuracy rating. Vision-assistance systems activate, boosting and averaging light to remove shadows and enhance visibility. Powered exoskeletal motors amplify the power behind our movements, reducing the effort required to move a 400-kilo suit at combat run to the energy requirement of a light jog. Neural enhancers and implants place our mindsets at the very knife-edge of awareness and modifies blood chemistry to keep blood in the brain at all costs. Personal shields fill the air with a barely detectable haze, counteracted by the carefully-tuned reverse-hazing of our active camouflage. The HUD section for my 90C shows a round in the chamber, manual safety off and the ammunition loaded is standard 9mm Gauss pellet. The underslung barrel is loaded with 17.5-gauge shotgun shells, but no round is in the chamber. My rifle shows high-penetration plasma charges in the main barrel and 90mm high-explosive grenades in the underslung launcher. My knife is in its rapid-deployment holster in my left bracer. Adrenalin+ is being circulated in our bloodstream by a hormonal-psychological control system in our suits, raising our awareness of our surroundings and suffusing our muscles with oxygen and energy. Blade confirms complete autonomous control over the exosystems, that he/it would be able continue fighting even the occupant of the suit – me – was incapacitated or killed.
I holstered the large 90C rifle and pulled my sidearm out its hip holster, feeling the simulated heaviness of the gun in my palm. I racked the slide to put one of the huge explosive-tipped tungsten penetrators in the chamber.
We soon came up to our first obstacle: an emergency bulkhead. The black text and images flash-printed on the alloy of the door indicated that the door had been activated as part of an area-effective lockdown, on the basis of severe biological hazard. We approached the door, and deep-penetration radar, EM-band scanning, passive and active sonar detected nothing. Blade offered me an 84.2% that there was no hostile on the other side of the bulkhead before I even broke the 25-metre boundary.
I holstered the pistol with my left hand and drew the 144 rifle with my right. I fired one-handed from the hip. Blade steadied my hand slightly with the exosystems, but my aim was pretty much perfect. The plasma round punches through the electrical locking mechanism, tripping the “sweet spot”. It ground open. I peered into the darkness for movement.
There! I almost ripped the humanoid figure in half before Blade placed the information that it was a corpse in my short-term memory. It slumped to the floor in front of us. Joint articulation was as expected for a human/humanoid body.
The team moved for better fields of fire and I approached the body. A thermal sighting laser (Four’s) appeared on the corpse’s head. Two focused a flashlight on the body. It was identifiably human, wearing a high-visibility biohazard suit that appeared to have patches of blood on it.
“All teams, this is Team One. We’ve found a corpse, looks like staff. He’s wearing a biohazard suit and has evidence of injury or death by gunfire. Switch shields to kinetic-energy deflection, boot up the Tesla coils, load biological ammo and go to sealed closed-cycle suit systems.”
Greens again, but I do subtly notice the absence of Eight’s light. Five replies on the line.
“Yep, we’ve found one too. Not suited-up, but he’s holding an empty pistol, standard-issue sidearm. Signs of a violent death. A two-way battle, perhaps?”
“Right. Grab the gun and stow it; keep moving. Stay sharp and watch the sensors.”
I raised my rifle, motioned to the team and carried on. I made it three steps before several things happened at once. There was a flash of movement on the sensors that I saw out of the corner of my eye. Blade overrode my control over the suit and sent me into a full-length dive, and something landed where I had been seconds earlier. I turned the dive into a roll, keeping the gun close, and came up out of it fully ready to start shooting. I saw nothing, because by that time the flicker of movement had jumped up and was plummeting towards me.
I reacted instinctively, throwing my mind straight into the flow and ebb of our networked neural implants. Blade was a calming, blue presence here, who was keeping everything stable and running. I contacted the other three guys – “Engaging the enemy!” at the speed of thought, told them I was going hand-to-hand, and left them. The entire episode took less than forty milliseconds.
The heavy impact of the form landed heavily on my shoulders. I was knocked to my knees as its weight transmitted through my shield but I shrugged it off, triggering the shield’s Tesla coil while throwing him left. I rolled to the right, stowing my rifle, drawing my knife out and slashing with the plasma-edged blade. Two, Three and Four were firing at the shape, blue trails of superheated air belying where the bullets had gone, but we were moving too fast and too randomly for my fellow soldiers to help me.
Now working on Reclaimer Canon Fiction #3 (May be called Array).
