by Tom Jones
Jason commented on the unique terrain, “Bloody hell, this place looks like Mars!” Arcades provided the wolf with some trivia, “The Mars rover was tested here. Some people believe they used this island to fabricate evidence of the Mars landing. I’ll let you decide who you want to believe.” Bocchino did not want to hear Arcades’ trivia, “Cut the shit. We’ve got business to do.” The fox chuckled, “Heh, you’re ready to get going, right Bobby?” The cat did not return any comment to the fox, but the group was still proceeding to Facility Zero. While they moved up, they stayed together while making sure they had a few meters of space between themselves so that one attack would not incapacitate all of them at the same time. Approaching the eastern wall of the complex, the anthros could hear the sound of the CDI aircraft trying to attack the Dreadnought. Though they could not see the Dreadnought itself as it defended against the fighters, they could definitely hear the sound of its guns and missiles that it fired.
“Pole 3, air-to-ground away,” one of the Su-33 pilots said as he deployed an AGM missile. The missile actually made it past the air defense system of the XVP-1, and it struck the side of the vehicle. The reactive armor plating on the Dreadnought detonated as the missile hit the vehicle, and the result was that the titanium alloy armor plating underneath the reactive armor was not damaged by the missile. The Flanker-D pilot still reported the missile as a successful hit as he passed the vehicle. The EW&C operator issued an update to the pilots, “Pole 3 has struck the target. There are gaps in the vehicle’s AA defense systems. Continue with the attack.” One of the Rafale M pilots flew by the damaged area, and he could see that the Dreadnought had not received significant hull damage from the missile, “This is Vent 1, the vehicle seems to be unharmed. It has reactive armor plating. Over.” The EW&C operator was amazed that eight jets had so much trouble disabling one ground vehicle, “All aircraft continue with the attack. We must sanitize the area of operations before ground forces can deploy.”
Arcades finally arrived at one of the doors on the eastern side of the building. Bocchino and Jason made it as well, and the fox knew that he did not have his Omega keycard since it was confiscated by the police after he escaped Facility One in South Dakota. The fox commented, “Alright, I was expecting this. Don’t worry, this is the same type of card reader that I’ve encountered before. I can open the top cover and bridge a contact to open it.” Before the fox could act, Bocchino reached into his pocket and removed the Level 5 keycard which he recovered from the Congo. Arcades spoke as he noticed the keycard, “Bobby, where did you get that?” The cat moved over to the card reader and replied, “I got this one when your ass got hauled away in Africa.” Bocchino scanned the keycard, but the card reader returned a beep which the fox did not hear before. The door did not open. Bocchino looked over to the fox, and Arcades replied, “That door must not be compatible with your keycard. Don’t worry, I’ve got a work-around.” Jason watched as Arcades opened one of his pockets to reveal his multi-tool, and he also saw as the cat pocketed the keycard rather than simply discarding it on the ground. The fox inserted the knife-end of the multi-tool right underneath the polymer cover protecting the inner workings of the keycard reader, and he began to work on prying the cover off. Bocchino asked the fox a question after he closed the Velcro pouch he deposited the keycard in, “When did you do that before, Kurt?” Arcades spoke when the cover popped off, “I did this when I first broke into the Foundation. They have these same keycard readers, and they’re able to be opened by bridging contact points.” Arcades looked into the wiring of the keycard reader, and he saw the contact point he bridged before to open the door. The fox placed his knife-end into the contact and successfully bridged the circuit. The reader outputted an affirmative beep, and the door quickly slid open. Bocchino watched as he now was able to see inside Facility Zero, “Fuck me…” Arcades stood aside, and he allowed his crew to enter the building. When Jason and Bocchino entered the facility after clearing the room, Arcades entered as well. Bocchino asked the fox another question, “Kurt, are you gonna have to do that every single time we need to open a door?” The fox shook his head, “If we find something which uses the correct RFID signals, then we won’t need to. I brought along something that’ll help us out.” Bocchino did not know what device Arcades had with him, but he decided that he should wait until the fox was ready to reveal it. After all, CDI could only keep the Foundation occupied for so long.
The Dreadnought fired its laser again, and the beam struck the cockpit of another Su-33. The pilot was killed by the intense energy output of the laser, and the plane began losing altitude as there was now nobody piloting the craft. The EW&C operator watched as the aircraft trailed off course, but he did not know the pilot was deceased, “Pole 4, your altitude is too low, pull up.” With no response from the pilot of the Flanker-D, the EW&C operator sent another transmission, “Pole 4, what is your status? Over.” The radar blip soon disappeared from the operator’s screen, so the operator alerted the squadron of the Flanker-D’s loss, “Pole 4 has crashed. We have lost two Flankers already. Continue attacking the vehicle.” As the four Rafale Ms coordinated an attack on the Dreadnought, the squadrons of F/A-18Fs and F-35Cs started approaching the operations area. The Super Hornets broke off to engage the Dreadnought while the Lightning IIs raised their altitude to attempt a different tactic to damage the XVP-1.
The Dreadnought locked onto the attacking aircraft via radar guidance, and it fired several missiles. Since the Super Hornets and Lightning IIs had reduced radar cross sections, the targeting system could only target the Flanker-Ds and Rafale Ms. One Rafale M pilot spoke as his aircraft alerted him to the missile, “This is Vent 4, the vehicle has fired SAMs. Commencing evasive action.” The pilot pulled the stick to the right and then pulled it towards himself. The Rafale M rolled into a right turn, and the pilot increased the throttle and deployed the air brakes. The combination of thrust and drag led to a turn which produced a high amount of g-force on the pilot. The pilot started breathing heavily as the g-force pushed against his body, and he also looked into the rear-view mirror to see that the missile was still coming. The pilot began flying upwards, and he started the engine’s afterburners to produce more thrust. He looked back again, and the missile was now coming dangerously close to hitting the aircraft. The pilot deployed chaff, and he pulled the stick towards himself again as he pulled even more g-force. The missile collided with the chaff, and it exploded in mid-air. The EW&C operative noticed the missile was now gone from the radar before it made contact with the Rafale M, “Vent 4 has evaded a missile.” The pilot’s aircraft now began descending at a rapid rate, but he launched two air-to-ground missiles before he had to pull up to avoid a crash, “This is Vent 4, AGMs deployed.” The Dreadnought took both missiles directly in its reactive armor since the CIWS was not able to shoot them down in time. With more of the reactive armor damaged, the Dreadnought began to drive around to make itself harder to hit by the aircraft.
It was not long before the crew encountered the blue-tiered anthros. Bocchino raised his ARX-160, flipped the safety off, and he immediately shot the MJ12 anthro on sight. The anthro took three rounds to the chest and one to the head before collapsing. Arcades saw that the rest of the anthros in the room did not fire back at them, for they only watched their comrade fall. After Bocchino was able to kill four MJ12 anthros, Arcades placed his hand on the top of the cat’s rifle and pushed it downwards, “Bobby, hold your fire!” The remaining rounds in the magazine fired and ricocheted off of the ground before impacting a wall. Jason held his weapon up the entire time, but he did not fire any rounds. Bocchino became slightly agitated by the fox’s actions, “Kurt, what the fuck are you doing?” Arcades pointed towards the MJ12 anthros who continued as if nothing extraordinary occurred, “They’re not firing back at us!” Bocchino did not understand the fox’s point, “They’ve got fucking guns, and they’re in the damn Foundation! what are you doing?”
Jason spoke next, “It’s like they don’t even kn
ow what they’re supposed to do about us.” Arcades recognized the way the anthros looked, “I’ve seen anthros like this before. I ran into one of them at the first facility we took down.” Bocchino did not know what Arcades was talking about, “What’s so special about them, huh?” Arcades said, “I don’t think they’ve been told to attack us.” Jason was mildly surprised, “Say what?” Arcades began approaching the fallen anthros, “Remember those anthros we got from the train? You had to explicitly tell them to do anything. Remember? These guys have been trained by the Foundation in the same way.” Bocchino looked at the MJ12 anthros walking past with XMP-1s in hand, “Wait, does that mean --” Arcades spoke when the cat stopped, “They must’ve been told to attack humans. After all, CDI employs only humans, right?” Jason looked at the anthros as they ignored the three even after Bocchino killed four of them, “That’s so weird.” The fox sat down next to one of the deceased anthros, and he looked for pockets which might hold a keycard. The only pockets on the anthro were the magazine pouches for the XMP-1 since the anthros were covered by black form-fitting bodysuits. The fox finally looked at the hands of the anthro, and he saw that the XMP-1 had a unique piece of equipment he had not seen on other XMP-1s.
Arcades inspected the grip and trigger group of the XMP-1, and he could tell that there was something on this specific model which was not on the one he had previously seen. The fox lifted the hand of the deceased anthro with his gloved hand, and he looked at the palm. The palm of the anthro had a sensor on it which seemed to interface with the XMP-1. Arcades had an idea, so he removed an RFID copier from one of his pouches. Bocchino asked the fox, “What’s that?” Arcades answered, “It’s the thing I brought. It can copy RFID signals and send them as if we cloned ourselves a keycard. These XMP-1s seem to also be activated by the RFID receptors on these anthros’ hands, so I’m going to clone the signal and see if it can open the doors for us.” The fox placed his device directly over the anthro’s hand, and he watched as the binary information from the RFID device appeared on the screen of his device. Arcades copied the information to the device, and he removed a blank keycard from his pocket. The fox then wrote the information he had copied directly to the keycard, and he stood himself up when he was finished with the task.
Jason looked at the blank keycard, “Did you just clone a keycard?” The fox nodded, “I sure did. We can use this keycard as if it’s any regular keycard.” The fox placed the RFID copier back into a pouch on his battle belt, and he placed his cloned keycard into a more convenient pocket he would be able to access quickly. Bocchino looked at the deceased anthros, and he watched as none of the MJ12 anthros even stopped to render any kind of assistance to their fallen, “They’re just gonna leave ‘em here?” Arcades nodded as he looked at the passing anthros, “Seems that way. They probably weren’t told to do anything about them. Just like they weren’t told to shoot us.” Jason shook his head, “They can’t make their own decisions?” Arcades replied, “Doesn’t look like it. It works for us because they won’t impede us. Less people we have to deal with. Let’s ignore them and keep going. May God have mercy on their poor souls. I feel sorry for these anthros.”
Bocchino spotted a keycard door, “Can you try it out on this one?” The fox looked over to what the cat was drawing attention to. The crew walked over to the door while many MJ12 anthros passed by, and Arcades removed his keycard to swipe it. The fox swiped the keycard, and the door beeped before successfully opening. Bocchino raised his eyebrows in surprise, for he was not expecting the keycard to actually work, “Damn… Alright, well… How about we get goin’?” Arcades nodded and entered the next room while still holding his Salient GRY. Jason watched the anthros that walked down the same path they were taking, and he could not help but feel weirded out by the fact they were not targeting Arcades and his crew. He did not know how anthros could have their freedom entirely stripped from them even though they were carrying weapons. He thought back to when Bocchino killed four of them and how they just stood there to accept their deaths. The wolf then remembered the treatment he and Arcades received when they were taken to Facility One, but he could not figure out what the Foundation could do to a person to cause such behavior. It made Jason even more glad that Arcades was able to get both of them out of Facility One. He could not imagine sharing the same fate as the MJ12 anthros.
“This is Vent 3, I’m going down!” The pilot of one of the Rafale Ms shouted into the radio as his plane was struck by an surface-to-air missile. The vertical stabilizer detached from the aircraft, and the engines exploded once all of the fuel ignited. The resulting explosion was large enough to kill the pilot and send pieces of the aircraft flying in multiple directions. The XVP-1, still firing at the attacking aircraft, was able to engage multiple aircraft at once due to the fact the Dreadnought had multiple turrets and weapon systems on each side to engage the enemies. As the three surviving Rafale Ms evaded the fire from the CIWS, the two remaining Su-33s tried to flank the vehicle to launch a few missiles. The Super Hornets also flew nearby, and they were planning on assisting the Flanker-Ds with their attack. The F-35Cs were attempting to divebomb the XVP-1, but they aborted their attack since the Dreadnought began firing surface-to-air missiles at the aircraft.
The EW&C operator spoke to the NH90s who were waiting in a holding pattern over the carrier longer than they should have been waiting, “Heliborne assault unit, commence your sortie now.” One of the NH90 pilots was concerned for the safety of the operatives onboard, “Control, the area has not been sanitized yet. Over.” The EW&C operator replied to the pilot, “Copy. We are aware of the situation. Proceed with the sortie.” The NH90 pilot sighed before replying to the operator, “Roger, Control. Proceeding with the mission. Out.” The four NH90s soon moved from their holding pattern and began flying towards the direction of Facility Zero. Some of the men aboard heard the radio chatter from the pilot and began looking out the windows to see smoke rising from the combat site. Tracer rounds were visible as they shot upwards at the attacking aircraft, and some of the aircraft deployed chaff and flares to avoid incoming infrared-guided missiles. Smoke from missiles and flares filled the sky as the battle continued longer than anticipated. At the current rate, the jets would have no more armament to spend on the building itself since they had to use all of it to damage the Dreadnought. Even with some of the jets already halfway depleted their weapons bays, they still did not cause considerable damage to the Dreadnought, and the vehicle was still running strong.
The Dreadnought’s laser aimed upwards after it recharged enough, and it aimed at one of the F-35Cs. The laser focused on the Lightning II before firing its laser directly into the starboard air intake. The laser quickly burned the intake, and the heat traveled through into the engine as the aircraft yawed to avoid an incoming attack. However, the pilot’s efforts were in vain since the single-engine on board the aircraft exploded. The pilot felt the engine explode, but he did not see, hear, or feel the laser itself impact his aircraft, “This is Door 2, my engine is disabled!” The pilot was flying directly at the Dreadnought, so he decided that he should use his own aircraft as a weapon. The pilot fired all of his armament at the XVP-1, and as soon as he did so, he pulled the ejection handle and was quickly shot out of the canopy. The crippled F-35C barreled into the XVP-1, and it collided directly into the compartment carrying the laser weapon before it exploded. The laser weapon system of the Dreadnought was disabled as the jet fighter exploded.
The ejector seat finished propelling the pilot from the aircraft, and the pilot’s parachute automatically deployed after a set amount of time. The pilot felt the cold air and smelled smoke in the air as he looked down to see the Dreadnought drive away from the F-35C’s point of impact. However, the vehicle was unable to escape the fire caused by the jet fuel since the Lightning II collided directly into the left side of the Dreadnought. Luckily for the pilot, he was able to eject and not be killed by the explosion of the aircraft. Unfortunately for the pilot, the CIWS turret looked direc
tly at the parachuting pilot before unleashing a barrage of gunfire. The pilot, now riddled with bullets, floated lifelessly to the ground. One of the passing Super Hornets witnessed this killing, “This is Roof 1, they’re shooting at parachuting pilots. Don’t eject in range of their CIWS. Over.” One of the Su-33 pilots acknowledged the transmission, for it was broadcast on all channels, “Copy.” The CIWS did not stop firing until the pilot’s parachute was also unable to build drag to slow his descent. The remains of the dead human pilot fell to the ground and impacted the rough ground.
The only squadron which still had four planes, the Roof squadron, dispersed as they attacked the Dreadnought from multiple angles. The Super Hornets were only carrying two air-to-air missiles, but they still had air-to-ground missiles on the remaining hardpoints. The missiles successfully impacted the Dreadnought, and the reactive armor was becoming more and more worn out. The Dreadnought drove towards Facility Zero since the MJ12 anthros piloting the machine had been ordered to specifically protect the facility from attacking humans. With the Dreadnought still on fire from the F-35C’s crash, the fire had effectively disabled the laser weapon system on the roof. The Dreadnought locked onto one of the Rafale Ms and fired a radar-guided missile. The missile flew towards the aircraft, and the pilot deployed chaff as a countermeasure. However, the chaff did not impact with the missile, and the missile impacted the aircraft as it was still climbing. The engines exploded, and the pilot was caught in the explosion before he could report his status, “This is Vent 4, I’ve been -- Agh!” The aircraft exploded, and it quickly began to plummet back down to Earth. Due to the aircraft’s location when it was struck, the destroyed Rafale M landed directly on top of Facility Zero. The roof in the affected location collapsed, and it crushed a few MJ12 anthros standing directly in the affected area.