The Battle For Cyclops: A Xander Cain Novel

by P W Hillard

  “Struggled is an understatement. These mercenaries have put our lotus to shame. The overseers will not be pleased.” First sighed, the small emotional display enough to sneak past his restraints.

  “No, we won’t.” A figure had appeared in a doorway, a woman wearing a plain black jumpsuit. She had her auburn hair tied into a tight bun and silver framed spectacles rested on her nose. “Are preparations in order?”

  “Yes, overseer. The remaining dropships are readying to leave as we speak. We do have an issue on that front, however. Simply put there are too many people to evacuate. Space isn't an issue, but there aren't sufficient supplies to survive on the surface until the jump ship arrives.”

  “Overseers only then. Leave any Brothers and Sisters. Order them to fight to the last, we need to delay these mercenaries for as long as possible whilst we make our escape,” the woman said, condemning people to death with casual ease.

  “Yes, overseer.” First knew it would mean that dozens of his brethren would die. He also knew that they would give their lives gladly. The cause was everything. “Give the order,” he said, snapping the words at Sixth.

  “Excellent. Send men to destroy the pods and wipe our servers. We can’t have the enemy learning what goes on here. It’s much too soon. We can’t risk uniting the corporations against us. They aren’t weak enough yet.” The overseer sighed and adjusted her glasses. “I don’t need to remind you of the importance of our task.”

  “Of course not.” First was dedicated, the drive to complete his mission forged into his being. Deep down he knew that the desire was implanted, a change made to the man he once was against their will. It didn’t matter now; his purpose overrode whoever he might have been before the joining. “I understand our purpose more than most brothers, I am a first, after all.”

  The overseer nodded. The joining pods were unstable, their effectiveness degrading with every use. This meant that first people to use the pod were designated as leaders, the machines quickly losing the ability to transfer sufficient knowledge and experience after the first few uses. The man before her was First of Third, the first person joined in the third active pod. The overseer knew there were some quirks in the early batches, the personality overrides not quite perfected.

  “Brother, the orders have been given. What should we do?” Sixth said.

  “We do what is asked of us. We stand and we fight. I task you with getting the overseer to the launch bay. I will find my mech and engage the enemy. It would seem that fate has given me the chance to redeem myself for hades.”

  The overseer glared at First. Doctrine decreed that as the highest-ranking brother it was his job to ensure the safety of any overseers. His desire to get vengeance was indicative of his early joining.

  “Yes, Brother,” Sixth said, nodding in supplication.

  “If you encounter the enemy, keep moving. You must reach the hangar, Sixth. No matter the cost, understood?”

  “Yes, Brother.”

  “We should get going,” the overseer said, tapping her foot impatiently.

  First nodded to Sixth and watched as his brother put his hand on the overseer's shoulder and escorted them out of the room. The overseer's desire to flee was no surprise to First. After all, they weren't joined like he was. He didn’t doubt their dedication, he couldn’t even if he wanted to, but the joining was something else entirely. It was determination beyond comprehension, belief wired directly into the brain.

  He drew his sidearm, flicking off the safety and holding the weapon out before him. His mechsuit was held in the maintenance bay, at the far side of the base, beyond the storage chamber, just before the launch hanger. He would need to cross the vast warehouse where the enemy mechs were currently annihilating the last of his infantry forces. First knew the facility was lost, the enemies’ willingness to employ an orbital strike had robbed him of the bulk of his riders, the dropship reinforcements a last desperate attempt.

  Stepping out into the corridor, First caught a glimpse of Sixth and the overseer taking the left path of the junction at the end. That route led directly into the hangar, whilst First’s path to the right would take him to the maintenance bay directly adjacent. Without hesitation he broke into a jog, eagerness creeping through the controls in his psyche.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Engines screamed as the Summer breeze brought itself to a stop in mid-air, hovering in place. It had followed the glacier around until it had found a crack in the ice, a massive crevice opening up in the white face. The ship lowered itself into the frozen chasm, exploring the gap in its search for the mystery site the enemy had launched its dropships from. The crack was the perfect location, big enough to allow multiple dropships through simultaneously, whilst also being invisible from orbit, obscured from prying eyes.

  Candice’s decision to dive into the icy void paid off immediately. Located in the face of the ice, nestled within the crack, a shelf had been cut into the side of the glacier. It carried on for several meters, ending in a large set of metal doors, less impressive than the ones that had defended the main entrance.

  “Looks like we’re in luck. That’s a set of hangar doors if I’ve ever seen them. And I’ve seen my fair share in my thirty-five…twenty-five, twenty-five years,” Candice said. “Get ready to, oh shit!”

  The Summer Breeze jerked suddenly to the side, Candice strafing the craft as hard as possible as the air around it became filled with a storm of deadly metal. Two cannons had unfurled from the shelf before the door, hatches sliding out of the way as they rose, opening fire on their unwanted visitor.

  “We’ve got incoming fire. One of you two want to deal with it?”

  “Deal with it?” Alexi said, bouncing around in his cabin. “Hit them with the rockets!”

  “You’ve got a big can opener for the door on you then?”

  Anya sighed. The arms locking her mech into position released her machine, the bulky mech turning around to face the door. It gripped the sides of the frame, bracing itself. “Open the doors,” she said, barking the words as she spoke. Anya wasn’t a woman prone to messing around. She had the opinion that if something needed to be done it was better to start right away. Time spent whinging is time that could have been spent completing the task.

  “Got it, doors opening now.” Candice was wrestling with the controls of the Summer Breeze, the rounds from the cannons chasing her through the air. “We’re going in hot. I hit the doors you hit the guns. And whatever might be waiting for us in there.”

  The metal doors rattled as they rose, the wind in the canyon shaking them. Anya held on tight, the sudden blast of air that filled the cabin making her suit vibrate.

  “Get this on camera! Get all of it!” Tamara said, pointing excitedly at the mercenary. The cold air rushing into the dropship was chilling her to the bone but her excitement at a unique action shot pushed the discomfort from her mind. Trevor lifted the camera that he still clutched in his hands, struggling against the straps of his chair. Mitch made a token attempt to record it with the boom mic, but the wind caused the long device to lash about uncontrollably.

  The Summer Breeze shifted, swinging around so it was directly ahead of the doorway and its guns. It was the most exposed position, but it was the only way to get a decent shot at the turrets.

  Anya aimed with her shoulder weapons, her cannon and missile launcher shifting into position. Bracing against the frame of the dropship was preventing her from using her main cannons, though that was for the best. Her ammunition on them was low, and Anya knew she would need them if they came up against more mechsuits. She could see the turrets turning as they tracked the dropship, boxes flashing around them in her vision as her suit locked onto their positions.

  “Stay clear!” Anya said, her words directed towards the camera crew. There wasn’t a risk of them moving, the winds battering them and making it clear that unbuckling the seats was a very bad idea.

  Anya opened fire. Missiles streaked from her shoulder, smoke and fury filling th
e cabin before being sucked out by the swirling air around the dropship. Her cannon rattled a constant beat as she followed up the missile barrage.

  The weapons streaked across the sky, six explosive tubes leaving white trails as they crossed the distance towards the turrets. The guns tracked the new targets, their operators trying to save them. One was struck by three missiles in quick succession, the blasts tearing it apart. The other was lucky, hitting the lead missile, the blast consuming the two behind it in the inferno. The shells that followed didn't care about the flames, punching through and crashing into the turret. It had bought itself a second longer of life, the cannon shots smashing through its armour and detonating its ammo supplies, the anti-aircraft rounds exploding like firecrackers until finally, the gun tore itself apart in a gout of flames.

  Not to be outdone, Candice fired, the rocket launcher beneath the nose of the Summer Breeze swivelled to face the sealed door. She sighed as she fired a full salvo, yet more of the rockets she had bought from her own pocket tearing through the sky. She had ripple fired them, adjusting the launcher so that the rockets spread out. They slammed into the door one after the other, crashing into it in multiple places, the metal buckling and bending.

  The door held despite the onslaught. Damaged and weakened, scorch marks and dents across its surface, but still in place.

  “Hold on!” Candice said the controls of the Summer Breeze gripped tight.

  The dropship turned to its side, tilting so that its roof was pointing towards the door. Anya’s mech put its feet against the frame of the doorway, mechanical limbs struggle to stop it from falling through.

  “What the hell are you doing!” Warnings flashed in Anya's vision, her mech losing the battle against its weight.

  “Ever seen a battering ram?”

  The Summer Breeze thundered into the metal door, its engines firing at full as it crashed against the portal. The damaged doorway gave way, the collision with the heavy aircraft too much for it. It tore away from the frame, bending inwards as the dropship forces its way through.

  Candice acted quickly, the Summer Breeze giving everything it could to right itself and come to a stop.

  “Go, go, go!” she shouted into the radio as bullets bounced off the glass of the cockpit.

  Anya released her grip and leapt from the dropship, her suit landing with a clang against the floor of the hanger. To her left was a dropship, one with its rear engines in parts in the floor next to it. Above her was a gantry running around the edge of the room, one that held several teams of infantry taking up position to fire.

  Alexi followed, firing his lasers as he jumped down, melting gashes into the gantry. He snapped off a shot with his cannon, blowing one of the corners of the walkway into scrap.

  “This is amazing!” Tamara said. “Keep filming!”

  “Get them out of here!” Anya allowed herself a short burst from her right arm-mounted cannon, the targeted section of walkway and the infantry cowering on it vanishing in moments.

  “No can do, sugar. There's a murmur in the back left engine. I wouldn't want to head to orbit until it's checked out and honestly, the stuff in this hangar is perfect to get the work done.” Candice let the dropship touch gently to the floor of the hangar, landing gears groaning as it did. Bullets continued to bounce off its hull, the infantry firing simply because they had no other weapons to threaten it with. All the missile teams had been killed by the mercenaries’ rapid assault. “Don’t’ worry, I’ll keep them safe. Anyone comes in here I’ll give them an old fashioned Hestian greeting.”

  “Iced tea and debutant balls?” Alexi said, trying to place his mech between the remaining infantry and the dropship as its doors closed again.

  Candice reached beneath her pilot's seat and pulled, a loud snapping noise announcing that a set of clips had come undone. She removed a heavy black pump-action shotgun and cocked it once. “I was thinking more old fashioned than that. Think shotgun weddings.”

  ***

  Xander strode forward, following the corridor as it crept deeper into the facility. He held his rifle tight to his shoulder, expecting to face resistance around every corner. So far, he had been lucky, not encountering any enemy forces. From the signs on the walls, he was in a storage area. Paperclips and pens were hardly worth defending.

  “The scale of this facility is impressive,” Matthias said. The AI was seeming a lot chirpier now he wasn’t trying to hold Xander’s suit together along with his brain. “There had to have been specialist equipment employed in its construction.”

  “Yeah. It's not a normal thing, to build below the surface like this. I'm going to assume that it being inside a glacier made it easier.” Xander was sweating. Despite its presence within a thousand-kilometre wide block of ice, the hallways of the base were warm, and his winter gear was making it intolerable. Xander had heard of people building houses from ice on some colder worlds, apparently, it made for surprisingly well-insulated homes.

  “Oh, I would imagine the contrary? I can’t believe standard digging equipment is designed to handle ice. Hmm, I wonder…”

  “You wonder what? Come on, share.” Xander had reached a junction. On the wall was a sign, one that told him that reactor control was to the left, whilst the pod chambers were to the right. “What the hell are pod chambers?”

  “I have no idea. I suppose we should find out.”

  “Agreed.” Xander knew that trying to take the reactor room was pointless. A base of this size would be using neutrite reactors like a starship or a mechsuit. Powerful, temperamental, but totally safe. If the enemy shut them down or overloaded them, they would only be denying themselves power. “So, that thing you were wondering, what was it?”

  “Oh, yes. I was wondering if the ice is important, besides just hiding the base. Perhaps the planet and its climate are what they came here for, to begin with?”

  Xander just nodded, sure the AI could understand the motion as it surged through the nerves of his brain. Matthias had a point. Xander mulled it over as he walked, then suddenly came to a stop. He had heard footsteps, one's that weren't his own. He was stood halfway down a corridor, totally exposed, so dropped to one knee. It didn't matter who came around that corner, Xander had to shoot first.

  He squeezed the trigger, firing a short burst as the owner of the footsteps walked into the corridor. The rounds hit them in the centre of their chest, blood exploding spurting outwards as they slumped against the wall, the body leaving a smear as it slid down the wall. The person was different from the standard Black Rose goons. They appeared to Xander to be a normal human, lacking the extensive wetware the pale-skinned warriors had. The person, a man in his late forties, was wearing a black jumpsuit and had a sidearm holstered to their hip. From the way the body was wearing it, Xander could tell it was alien to them.

  “What the hell is this?” Xander said, creeping forward in a crouch, aware his gunshots were bound to attract attention. “Think this is another pirate?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. Would they not have been used as fodder like Mikal’s people?”

  “Good point. This can’t be one of the prisoners, can’t imagine you would arm them and let them wander around your base, so what, not all of Black Rose are those weird bald guys?” Xander realised he was using the AI as a sounding board. He had reached the body, checking both directions of the corridor quickly before delving into their pockets.

  “What are you doing? Robbery? I thought better of you, Xander,” Matthias said.

  “No, not robbery.” Xander felt something in the body’s pocket. He pulled it out, producing a keycard. “Acquisition of resources. Looks like we have a key for…something, I guess. He was coming from the left, same direction as the pod chambers according to this sign.” That same sign had bullet holes in it where the rounds had travelled through the body.

  “It would seem so.”

  “Right, well, we carry on then,” Xander said.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Xander tapped th
e key card to the reader, the light swapping from red to green. A loud click followed as the lock holding the door sealed released itself. He put a hand tentatively onto the handle, his rifle held ready in the other. Xander took a deep breath, pushed down on the handle, and barged into the room

  It wasn’t what he had expected. In truth Xander didn’t know what to expect, the signage directing him to the pod chamber hadn't given away much. The room Xander found himself in was longer than it was wide, a thin strip that carried on ahead of him in a straight line. On the left-hand side of him was a row of strange glass tubes, each cradled by a complex array of mechanical arms and wires. The tubes were leaning towards the wall at a forty-five-degree angle, wisps of steam escaping from a vent near the bottom. Xander assumed these must be the much-anticipated pods.

  To his right was a collection of scared-looking people. Four in total, three of them were wearing the same black jumpsuits as the man Xander had shot in the corridor. The fourth was wearing body armour, his pale skin marking him as one of the strangely altered members of Black Rose. They had been furiously tapping away at computers that ran along the right wall as Xander had entered.

  He opened fire, sending a burst of bullets flying down the length of the room. There was a loud thud as they struck the armoured man in the centre of his chest, knocking him to the ground.

  “Don’t!” Xander shouted as a woman with short blonde hair reached for her sidearm. “That wouldn’t be very smart. You don’t strike me as soldiers.”

  “You won’t survive getting out of here mercenary,” the woman said, her tone dripping with bile. “Our soldiers will cut you down before you get a chance. There’s nothing for you here but death.”

  “Oh, I don't know, I've been doing pretty well so far. In fact, from the desperation of your men, I bet that you're down to your last few. Things not going as planned?”

  “Things are going exactly as we planned them.”

  “They’re stalling,” Matthias said. “There’s something running on the computer to her right.”