“While we’re on the subject, what happens when we get to the shuttle?” Kaiden asked.
“What do you mean? It’s pretty self-explanatory,” Mack stated.
“Can either of you fly it?” he reasoned. “Unless there’s an EI pilot on board, that’s something we might wanna worry about now instead of later.”
“I figured you could.” Mack shrugged. “You seem like you would know how to work any number of vehicles.”
“That’s a potentially costly assumption.” Kaiden chuckled. “I’ve flown a few ships, but nothing past basic level and certainly not in space.”
“You think we’re in space?” Mack questioned. “What makes you think that?”
“The window,” Kaiden answered and pointed a finger to his left. Lancia and Mack walked to the side of the hallway and pressed against the glass. They peered out and looked into a darkened room. A line of windows directly below the ceiling showed a darker abyss outside, and the white light of distant stars shimmered in the void. “Either that’s space or it’s a damn dark night.”
“Oh, well, that’s different. I don’t think I’ve done a mission in space yet,” Mack said cheerfully. “A new first.”
“If there is an auto-pilot feature on the ship, I can access it,” Chief interjected. “It’ll at least get us out of here.”
“Most shuttles do have one, but what about after?” Kaiden asked.
“I hear humans like praying when no other options are available,” the EI chirped.
“Aren’t you helpful—”
“Relax. As long as there is auto-pilot I can get us to wherever…as long as we have a destination and as long as we don’t get shot down,” Chief promised.
“Well, I got us a pilot, with some caveats. But we should be good,” Kaiden announced. “Let’s keep mov— Mack, get ready.”
“What is it?” the vanguard asked and grasped his hand cannon as his barriers flared.
Kaiden readied his machine gun. “A couple of stories up, I saw flickering along the glow strips like something moved past them. We have company headed our way.”
“Should we run or wait to engage?” Mack asked. His cheerful and boisterous demeanor switched quickly to a serious one as his training kicked in.
“Let’s leg it. We can cover more ground while we aren’t under fire and make it as close to the shuttle as we can. If we have to fight the rest of the way there, so be it, but it’s better to increase our chances as much as possible.”
The vanguard nodded. “All right, I’ll take point. Lancia, tell me the directions over comms.”
“A-all right,” she stammered, and her voice betrayed her lack of combat experience.
Kaiden placed a hand reassuringly on her shoulder. “We’ll be fine. You made it through the Death Match so you’ll make it through this.”
“Truth be told, I didn’t do much fighting during the test. My team and I were able to find a delegate station in the first few hours, and I spent most of my time away from the…violence.”
“Well, that’s a rather impressive feat on its own,” the ace reminded her. He gripped his weapon in both hands and held it to his chest. “Double time!”
They raced down the hall. Mack moved much faster than his size suggested he would, and Lancia provided directions. Kaiden heard the boot stomps above them. Whoever or whatever they were seemed to be closing in. The team turned into another hall which led down and away from the approaching enemy. That, at least, seemed like a small blessing.
They reached a pair of doors and Mack slammed the switch to open them. When they found four Havoc droids on the other side, Kaiden felt that God was laughing.
“Get behind me!” Mack shouted. The droids’ chain guns began to spin as the vanguard activated a large rectangular barrier. The bullets impacted the shield and ripples of energy surged across the surface.
“Can I fire through it?” Kaiden shouted.
“I have something better,” the vanguard declared. “Watch this.” He held his gauntlet up, which hummed with energy, and smashed his fist into the barrier. It hurtled forward and seemed to solidify as it moved to knock the droids back. They crashed into the far wall. “Now fire,” Mack said and readied his hand cannon.
He laid down a barrage of ballistic rounds while Kaiden fired volleys of laser fire. One of the droids tried to stand but its head exploded with a shot from Mack. “Are we good?” he asked.
The ace heard the horde behind them closing in.
“Find them.” The guttural command was followed quickly by, “Kill them!” as the enemy neared.
“It depends on your viewpoint, I guess,” Kaiden muttered. “Keep going,” he ordered and punched the console. Using Debonair, he shot the keypad as he slipped between the closing doors.
“How much farther?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. It doesn’t give a total distance, only to the next path,” Lancia clarified.
“How far to that?”
“Two hundred meters down the right hall.”
“Then we’ll take this section by section. Let’s go!” he shouted. Speaking quietly over the comms seemed pointless now.
They continued their trek although it seemed they constantly zig-zagged and made little progress. Kaiden wondered if the directions Lancia was given were corrupted or simply another part of the stupid test. They entered a hallway that now seemed to run alongside the enclosed areas.
“There,” Mack called. The ace looked through the outer windows at a hangar bay below with a shuttle parked in the middle.
The craft was surrounded by mercs.
“Seriously? Is this normal in a diplomat’s life?” he asked.
“Danger is expected, but normally, it’s an assassination attempt and more subtle. This would cause a scene.”
“You can’t cause a scene in an empty terminal,” the vanguard reasoned. “Kaiden, I have an idea.”
“What are you thinking?” he asked, “And before you try any self-sacrifice bullshit, I can already tell you that there are other options.”
“I ain’t gonna kill myself with this. It’s way too painful when I get out of the pod,” Mack assured him, his voice eager yet ragged from their sprint. “Besides, why do something like that when I can do something cool.”
“Out of curiosity, is this a proven method or are you winging it?” Kaiden asked. “Not that I have room to talk, but this doesn’t seem like the time to try to do something you saw in a vid once.”
“Trust me, this’ll be good,” he promised. “It probably won’t take them all out, but it’ll damn sure even the odds.”
“What have you got?”
“You have shock grenades too, right?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Let me have them.”
Kaiden handed his container of shocks to Mack. “Do you still have yours? Are you gonna toss them all out?”
“That might work on the grunts and the lightly armored bastards, but it won’t work on the heavies. I’m gonna give them some juice.”
Kaiden cocked his head questioningly as Lancia pointed and shouted, “There’s the elevator.”
They stopped, and Kaiden eyed it warily. “That’s basically boxing ourselves up and asking them to shoot us.”
“We don’t need to go down that way anyhow,” Mack said, as he held up Kaiden’s container of shock grenades in one hand and his own in the other. “Do me a couple of favors, would ya?”
“What do you need?”
“Take my gun and fire when I tell you to.” He primed his shock gauntlet. “Hey, Buddy. Overcharge my barrier, I’m gonna nova!”
“What…what do I press?” Lancia asked.
“Huh? Oh, no, Buddy is my EI. But don’t worry, we can be buddies too.”
“You’re going to nova? Doesn’t that drain the rest of your barrier? You’ll be exposed,” Kaiden pointed out.
“Pshh, come on, man. I still have heavy armor here,” he bellowed. “Besides, this’ll be worth it.”
; Kaiden eyed him skeptically but took the hand cannon from the vanguard’s holster. “Godspeed, you crazy bastard.”
“You should check if you two are related sometime.” Chief snickered. “But I see what he’s doing. This’ll be a show.”
“Do you wanna fill me in? I have a crisis of faith here,” the ace muttered.
“Well, he’s about to take a leap of one. Watch, this’ll be good.”
Kaiden sighed as he heard a ding. Mack had punched the elevator button and the doors opened. “What are you doing?”
“Shoot out the back of the elevator,” the vanguard demanded.
“What?”
“Shoot! Did you forget how?”
He grimaced, aimed, and fired a ballistic round. The rear shattered, and the lights dimmed. The large group of mercs below uttered surprised cries at the loud whirr as the elevator shut down.
“All right, you focus on getting her to the shuttle,” Mack said. “When that’s done, you can join the fun!” With that, he raced into the elevator and leapt through the new opening. The vanguard hurtled into the middle of the mercs. Some were caught by surprise while others fired on him. Many of the shots struck home but were useless against his super-powered barrier.
With another battle cry, he activated the two containers, threw them on the ground, and slammed his shock gauntlet on the floor as he landed. His barrier erupted and caught most of the mercs around him in a field as the grenades went off. Electricity flashed around the field, sparked, and sizzled through the mercs caught within. One or two were only tossed back, but the rest caught the brunt of the shock. Their barriers collapsed, and they convulsed and writhed on the ground from the streaks of electricity empowered by the barrier field.
“Damn, that was impressive.” Kaiden whistled. “Come on. Let’s get you in that shuttle. I don’t want to miss this.”
“How do we get down?” she asked.
“That armor of yours has absorbers, right?” Kaiden inquired. She nodded. “Then jump.” He led by example and flung himself through the hole and down the three stories. He turned and looked up, waiting for her to follow. “Land with your feet slightly apart,” he shouted as she jumped.
“What did you— Ah!” She yelped as her body tumbled. Kaiden sighed but chuckled, held his arms out, and caught her before she hit the ground. “That’s another way of getting down,” he joked.
“Oh, hell no! Sit your ass down. Be humble,” Mack hollered. He tackled a heavy to the ground and landed hammer blows to his face as a merc grunt stood and aimed at him.
Kaiden aimed quickly with the hand cannon and fired. The blast opened his chest and knocked him away. “Heavy armor doesn’t mean you can get careless,” he shouted and received an unintelligible response from the vanguard.
“Go ahead and help him. I’ll get on the shuttle and start it up,” Lancia said. “See if you can find a way to open the bay doors.”
“Gotcha.” He nodded. “We’ll be on board in a few minutes.”
Mack now grappled with another heavy who clutched his chain gun and fired wildly into the air. Kaiden ejected the blade in his gauntlet as he approached a merc who struggled on the floor. He pressed the trigger to heat the blade before he swiped it along the man’s neck. A few steps took him to Mack, and he hastily kicked the merc’s legs out from under him. The combatant dropped his gun as he skidded back a few feet.
“Let’s see how you like it,” Mack growled. He snatched up the already wound chain gun and fired at his adversary, then swept it in a wide arc. The remaining mercs fell beneath the fusillade.
“You certainly have flair.” Kaiden tossed him his pistol as the vanguard threw the chain gun to the ground.
“Grit and grind baby!” Mack hollered. “You know, we never got that drink after the test. We need to follow up on that.”
“We don’t need an excuse for that.” The ace nodded. “I guess I know what I’ll do with my first free time.”
“Hell yeah.” Kaiden froze as a narrow trace of blue glowed on the big man’s armor.
“Mack, get back!” he shouted. He shoved the vanguard aside as a bullet skimmed past and drilled into the floor.
“Sharpshooter!” Mack hollered. “They got kinetic rounds.”
“It looks like the other guys caught up,” he responded as several mercs appeared in the hallway above. “We need to open the bay doors.”
“Then do it,” Mack shouted and fired at the oncoming group.
“Chief, can you find the console and access it?”
“I’m already on it. It’s a good thing you put some points into it. Otherwise, this might have been a pickle,” Chief stated. “You two get on the shuttle. I’ll take care of the backwash.”
“Mack, get to the shuttle,” Kaiden ordered.
“Let’s get out of here,” the vanguard agreed and shot a few more rounds at their pursuers as he backed up to the entrance of the shuttle. The bay doors opened as the soldiers scrambled aboard.
The craft rattled as the mercs continued to fire on them. The ace hurried to the front. “Did you get this thing prepped?”
“It’s ready. I can begin take off,” Lancia said and primed the engines. Beeps and clicks sounded around the cockpit.
“Does this thing have auto-pilot?” Kaiden asked.
“It does, but I can’t seem to access it.”
“That won’t be a problem. Chief, are you almost done? We need a pilot.”
“I’m ready. Let’s get going,” he declared and appeared in the console screen. “You might wanna hold on. I turned the hangar’s barrier off.”
“Which means wha— Ah!” Kaiden shouted as he tumbled when the shuttle launched into space.
“Let’s kick this pig,” Chief cried. The thrusters activated and they rocketed forward. The ace scrambled to his feet. An image displayed on one of the screens of the mercs sucked out into space as the team left the terminal station behind.
Chapter Seven
Outside the Animus
“Would you care to repeat that?” Professor Alexander Laurie asked, his focus on the four screens, each of which showed the face of a member of the Academy board.
“We wanted to know if you are willing to cooperate with the World Council. They request access to the Academy’s index and archives. We have provided what we can, but they seem to have a particular interest in your projects and knowledge.” The response came from Victoria Molyneux. Laurie glanced at the far-left screen. Her dark blond hair had been pulled into a bun and her eyes were soft and appealing, seemingly in an effort to coax him into giving his approval.
It wasn’t working, not even to calm him down.
“Ah, I see. My apologies for the confusion. Let me make it up to the lot of you by giving you a quick and simple response. No,” Laurie stated flatly. He released the railing of the platform he stood on to turn and leave when another member of the board spoke.
“Come now, Laurie. This is a chance to build a better bridge with the council and earn their respect and admiration,” a man with neatly groomed short hair and a thin white mustache admonished.
Laurie looked over his shoulder, reluctant to give them his full attention. “Along with access to their considerable coffers, Vincent?”
“I would see that as a pleasant outcome,” he replied, “You say that with such a hostile tone, Laurie. You certainly don’t seem to balk at the offers and expenses of the board on your behalf.”
“Do you mean the ones that I’m contractually obliged to receive? The ones that are the major reason for me being here in the first place instead of running my company? Well, that and the opportunity to work on some truly great projects to test my skills and problems that would require every bit of knowledge and talent I had. And, of course, to lead a group of other exceptional technicians and engineers. Yes, these were all noble and exciting promises but have come to mean less and less over the years, particularly the last year. You’ve merely had me keep the Animus up to date and work on menial assignments. I’ve
had to find my own interesting projects.”
“Is that why you are being so difficult? Spite?” Vincent asked, and his eyes narrowed in annoyance.
“I can be very petulant when things don’t go my way—being one of the greatest minds on and outside this planet allows me that. But in this case, no. I usually drown my frustrations with you in a pool of red wine or white if I’ve smothered my issues in fine meats as well. It’s more difficult to complain when enjoying the advantages of your work, you see,” Laurie explained. He looked casually at the screen on his wrist, more to show his indifference to the board rather than for any specific purpose. “But no, I’m uncooperative for the simple reason that I don’t want to cooperate. The council has shown no interest in my work since the original creation of the Animus. I find their sudden change of heart rather offensive. If they want to work with a Laurie, their contracts with my father should suffice. He will still work on that ‘Icarus’ station for a couple more years.”
“You really do have a way of making things all about you, Alexander,” the aged and gruff Oswald Whitchurch replied. “Although I must say that I always get a kick out of your little rants—when I’m not specifically on the end of them, that is.”
“You’re usually the most agreeable of your colleagues, Oswald, at least without the commander present,” Laurie confessed and finally turned to face them. “You’ve also been rather quiet for most of our little chat, so tell me your opinion of this mess.”
“Hmph, very well,” Oswald agreed. “I value this Academy’s independence above almost everything else. I can understand the…appeal of extending olive branches to the council, but I don’t like setting a precedent that we are willing to do things for them. We have created something wholly unique and powerful with the Ark Academy program, something so appealing that I have heard rumbles that the council will attempt to create their own in the near future, one that will be under their thumb.”
Animus series Boxed Set Page 97