Asta glared at him in horror and he caught her eye. Then hurriedly turned to one of the soldiers nearer him. “Corporal Holst, you’re tasked with being the forward spear. Ms. Lynch and Mr. Polk here are your point men.”
“Now hold on jus’ a blasted second,” Drevan growled. Thompson looked at the two of them as they were pushed closer to him.
“Mr. Polk, you and Ms. Lynch have been assigned a task—”
“Last ah checked, we ain’ yer soldiers, we’re yer prisoners,” Asta spat.
“If you accomplish that task,” Thompson frowned and overspoke them, “then you will be free to leave. Once we’ve taken the labs, and only after we’ve taken the labs, we can discuss your plight in further detail. Alright. Let’s get a move on!”
Corporal Holst guided Asta and Drevan towards one of the shuttles as all the team leads went about relaying orders to the soldiers. Asta scowled. It hadn’t escaped her attention that Thompson had said, ‘If you accomplish that task’, and not, ‘when’. They boarded the shuttle and secured themselves into harnesses on seats lining the wall closest to the ramp. She figured Drevan had been right after all. Thompson and crew had no intention of letting them leave there alive. Those first few minutes… that’s when we’ll have to act. While the chaos o’combat plays out, and they’re distracted, we act.
The soldiers finished their tasks and, one-by-one, each came onboard and strapped themselves in all around Asta and Drevan. She couldn’t help a snide thought, The better ta kill us with, ah reckon… Assholes.
Doors closed and locked, engines whined, and the shuttle rattled as it lifted off. There was no window, so they couldn’t see what was happening outside, but she could hear the thudding release of the atmospheric doors and feel the rocking shift as the shuttle entered the pressurized tunnel of the thoroughfare. The heavy sounds of the nuclear-powered thrusters of the shuttle reverberated through the hulls. Sweat cascaded down Asta’s brow. It’d been twenty years since they’d last set foot in the labs. They hadn’t gone by shuttle then, but rather by train. But she’d toured the premises and remembered the bay clearly. It wasn’t huge. It was a semi-circular room with one massive door that would slide into the cliffside. Once opened, there would be a plasma field that the shuttle would have to match the polarity of as they flew through. Like moving through water. If they didn’t modulate right, the ship would be ripped apart. Of course, she doubted that would happen. They’d land right inside, see the control office to the far right, maybe a shuttle or two to the left. Hopefully none, really. It was going to be a tight enough fit with just the two military vessels. Then, they’d unload and make for the rampwell that would spiral up into laundry and sanitation. If they caught Wilson and Weiss unawares, it would just be a matter of cornering them with twenty something people.
However, Asta suspected Aidele would be waiting for them in the bay itself. Ready to make a bloody mess of things. Asta sighed. There was another sound of thudding metal and she felt the change in pressure again as the vibrating shuttle suddenly grew calm under the thin atmosphere of the surface. Then, all there was to hear was eager shifting of bodies, heavy excited breathing, her own heartbeat, and the whine of the engines.
Otherwise, there was only the clicking of soldiers checking their weapons one final time, their armor shuffling in the motions. The shuttle slowed and Asta looked to Drevan. This was it.
“Here. You’ll need these.” Asta was drawn out of her thoughts by Corporal Holst handing them one of their revolvers each. “Just what it’s loaded with. No funny business. You’ll get the other two once the mission is done. We’ll have our eyes on you.”
They took the proffered arms cautiously, “Well, guess that’s the best we ken hope fer.” Asta growled.
Holst turned away and prepared to unlock his harness as the shuttle gave another shudder under the lowering of landing struts and they met solid floor. She and Drevan unbuckled and stood up along with the rest of the troop. She hazarded a glance around. Not including the cockpit crew, there were eleven soldiers. Lieutenant Thompson and Corporal Holst among them.
Eleven more men in the other shuttle… crossfire. Be lucky to take two or three down fer they realize what’s what… She frowned. Course, wouldn’t it be better ta die wit’ yer boots on, woman? No. Don’ think that way jus’ yet. Kids’re countin’ on ya ta git outta this mess. An’ you’n Drevan gonna do it. So, git on yer game face. Doors’re openin’ wide’n the party’s jus’ gittin’ started.
The ramp thudded to the floor and Thompson’s voice rang out, “Go! Go! Go!”
The bay flooded with soldiers as they raced down the ramp into the hangar bay. Off to one side, Asta saw a lone shuttle. Crates and boxes littered the rest of the bay. She and Drevan took cover behind two crates expecting to be unloaded upon any moment. Yet, no shots came.
“Keep your eyes open,” Thompson ordered moving across the bay to check the office space. Apparently, they caught Aidele unaware.
Either that, or she’s done already skipped out. Jus’ leaves our predicament with Captain Henchman here.
She was pleased to see the troops spreading out and covering the walkway up to the labs complex. Thompson pulled out a small glowing monitor and four soldiers joined him, including Corporal Holst.
“They’re in sanitation waiting for us,” he smiled and turned to Asta. “You two are up. Go in there and draw their fire. We’ll back you up.”
Asta held up her hands, “Nuh uhn, sugah. If’n yer tellin’ me they’re waitin’ jus’ up the hall, that makes this corridor a shootin’ gallery. An’ we ain’ leapin’ inta it.”
Thompson glared at her. “We made a deal, Lynch.”
“No, you took us prisoner.”
“You know what’s at stake—”
She cut him off, “An’ we ain’ doin’ our kids no favors gittin’ gunned down like river rats! It’s a suicide run’n ya know it!”
“Gonna hafta agree wit’ Asta on thissun,” Drevan said meeting Thompson’s eyes.
Thompson scowled and shook his head. “Goddamnit, fine. We don’t have time for this argument. Dallas, take your team up the way, blast shields down. Smoke ‘em out.”
A group of five soldiers reached up to their helmets and drew down what looked like slate grey facemasks with slits for eyes. They brought to bear some heavy looking weapons with thick barrels and began to make their way up the ramp. Halfway up, Asta heard several thumps and hisses and then smoke was drifting down as the men above started yelling commands.
“Get down! Come quietly!”
“Watch your backs!”
“Suppressing fire! We need backup!”
The exchange of weapons fire erupted in a concert of explosions. One of the forward troops came rolling back down the ramp in a bloody heap. Thompson looked into his monitor and frowned. Asta walked a little closer and could see a projection over the device Thompson was holding. She could see that Wilson and Weiss had taken cover behind a thick metal table with no opening beneath it, effectively protecting them from the random shooting of his men. But Wilson had fired her gun driving the troops back making it impossible to enter sanitation. Smoke started to obscure the view as Dallas’ team fired another salvo of smoke-grenades. A slight grin creased Asta’s face.
“Masks on!” Thompson howled. “All troops, Go! Go! Go!”
Every soldier passed Asta and Drevan and made for the rampwell. Thompson raced up the rampwell with them as Asta looked to Drevan startled.
“They’ve got the labs bugged?”
“Or,” Drevan said, “they managed to break into the security feeds.”
“Come on. Looks like we gots our chance.”
“Let’s be quick about it. They’ve got us outnumbered ten ta one.”
“Ain’ gotta remind me o’the odds. Don’ fergit, though, there’s one angry yung’un up there slingin’ fer her life.”
“Right. Four ta one odds then…”
He smiled, she chuckled, and both of them followed the soldier
s into hell.
AIDELE POPPED UP and fired again, the resulting blast causing several men to fall back. In her hand was a kill-switch.
“Come on! Are you not going to trip it!? They’re pushing up faster now!” Durante yelled over the exchange of revolver volleys.
“You jus’ keep yer head down! Ah jus’ need ‘em a little closer!”
“Are you nuts!?”
“Gotta be raving ta be takin’ on a whole regiment, don’ ah!?” she cackled and fired once more. “Almost there!”
The soldiers shouted. “Push through! Just push through! She can’t take all of us at once!”
“Why not just dial the trigger up to full and send them straight to hell!?” Durante cried.
Aidele grimaced keeping the firing up. “If’n ah do that, it’ll tear away half the labs complex! Talk about nuts! It’ll kill ‘em, all right! But it’ll take us wit’ ‘em! Ya lookin’ ta die that bad!?”
“On second thought, keep up the good work!” He patted her back as she fired again. Now there was a cluster of soldiers racing into the room.
“Somebody move this damn thing so we all can push forward!” a soldier yelled from halfway down the corridor ramp.
“Close enough,” Aidele grunted and pushed the switch.
A massive explosion rang out causing her and Durante to fall backwards onto their butts and out of their crouched positions. The men filing in got blasted off their feet and screams of panic and pain filled the air. Durante leapt to his feet and knelt beside Aidele.
“I thought you said it would just trigger the emergency airlock!?”
Aidele pushed back up into a crouch, her eyes wide, and picked up her revolver where it had been blown from her hand. “Ah… I don’t think that was us!”
“What!? But the charging cradle blew, didn’t it!?”
The building rocked and tremors reverberated through the walls, bits and pieces of ceiling falling inward. Aidele looked to Durante.
“That explosion came from below. From the foundations…”
“What? But, how?”
“Somebody detonated an explosive device. One large enough to bring down the whole complex!”
“Say fucking what!?”
Another explosion echoed out. But they had another, more pressing matter to contend with. The soldiers who’d managed to make it into the room were getting back to their feet.
SHOCKWAVES RATTLED THE foundation of the labs as Thompson shouted commands. The walls, reinforced with Nibirian steel, were visibly trembling. And soldiers were screaming in fear.
“One of the charges must have blown!” Thompson howled. “We need to retrieve that vehicle now! What the bloody hell is that!?”
He pointed at a crushed mound of sparking debris as his Explosives Specialist hurried in front of several injured soldiers leaning against a wall. Body parts and blood were running down the rampwell behind them. Before them, an emergency airlock door had fallen shut crushing three men in the process, severing arms and legs.
“The panel’s blown! That,” the specialist knelt by the airlock door cutting them off from their colleagues on the other side who sounded to be engaged in a massive firefight, “that looks like some sort of charging station!”
Thompson snarled, “To the waverider! They must have rigged it up before we landed! That had to have blown the charges we set at the foundation! We’re dealing with a cascading blowback!”
“Then we have to retreat, sir! The foundation’s been compromised and it’ll take too long to retract the emergency airlock!”
“Blow the framework!”
“But, sir!”
“Blow it now!” Thompson looked to the eight soldiers still standing. If he was correct in his estimation of the carnage, they had lost seven in the initial blast with three more seriously wounded on the ground. “You soldiers, fall back to the back of the rampwell! We’ll charge in once the door’s destroyed!”
“What about our men on the other side!? They’ll be caught in the blast!” the specialist called after him.
Thompson turned and pointed, “Look at the steel! Nibirian! Take the frame out!”
The specialist frowned, “Yes, sir!”
The group fell back down the corridor to the base of the docking bay as the ES rigged explosives around the doorframe. Thompson saw Polk and Lynch trying to maintain their balance as bits and pieces of the ceiling fell around them.
“What the hell was that!?” Lynch cried out.
Thompson gestured back into the hangar bay. “Get to the shuttles! We’ll be back shortly!”
He turned back and waited, never noticing the knowing look Asta shared with Drevan. Didn’t see them raising their own weapons. He and his men were too focused on the task at hand. Nobody paid any heed to the fact that their two indentured help were now taking up flanking positions behind them as well.
THE SOLDIER CRAWLED through the scattered detritus towards his colleague who was still holding a radio. It had all gone FUBAR and he knew, just knew, he wasn’t getting out of there alive. The charge that had blown, had gone off while still being mounted into the electrical systems (doing so made these particular explosives much easier to remote detonate). Their mission had been to set the charges to bring down the labs from the foundation. They were in the sub floors of the lab complexes. So, no damage would occur to the malls or railways further below if mounted right, but the tall buildings rising high above and beyond the plasma shields would collapse in on their foundations. There was a good chance part of the Crags would come with them. Then a power surge had occurred at just the wrong moment as they were securing the very last charge (they should have already had them all done before the mission even began but they’d been running behind and Thompson gave the order to proceed regardless. Now, there was that aching wish that they’d waited).
Chunks of the ceiling fell all around him. Fires raged violently along the walls. It wouldn’t be long before the foundation completely collapsed. The guys at the top would have just minutes to get out. He reached his fallen colleague and stretched out a bloody hand for the radio. It crackled as he turned it on and raised his voice to make himself heard over the cacophony howling around him.
“Thompson! Thompson!”
“…kerman! Ackerman! What …ned!?”
“If you can make this out, get out! Get out, now! One of the charges went off! There was a power surge and it ignited one of the devices! The whole place is coming down! You have maybe three or four minutes! Tops!”
“…ear you! Roger! Can y… out… erselves!?”
“Everyone’s dead, sir! There’s no way I—”
A massive section of ceiling fell on top of him. Fire burned and engulfed the place where he had just been mere moments before.
ANOTHER THUNDEROUS EXPLOSION rocked the building and Aidele felt the building swaying harder.
“If we don’t get out of here now, we’re not going to live long enough to—” Durante started to say.
An explosion came from down the corridor behind the three men still keeping them pinned behind the laundry table.
“Aw, fuck it!” Aidele dialed the disc on her left Iron up to three and popped up to fire into the table the men were taking cover behind. Two of them saw her, opened fire, but missed widely thanks to another tremor. She didn’t miss, though, and hit the table in the center. The metal collapsed inward sending the men flying backwards into the wall of shelving behind them. Aidele dropped back down.
“Fuck!” She hung around the left corner firing once more towards the corridor. Only two of the men had managed to enter the room and ducked behind the now tattered table as her shot passed them and erupted into the hangar bay corridor. The soldiers there fell over each other rolling back down several feet. She fired again trying to convince them to retreat further.
“Aidele! We have to get out now! The building is coming down and your airlock trap didn’t work!” Durante howled, his hands covering his head.
“They’ll only follow us
into the garage!” she fired again. “Better a last stand than kilt on the run!”
“Says you!”
Aidele was furious, but not at Durante. She knew he was right. She was furious at herself for allowing this to happen in the first place. Knew that they should’ve made a beeline to Aquila Mons and forgotten about the prototype. Taken a chance the Union would never discover it. Now, they were surely dead and the Union knew exactly where the gravitic core was. Somehow. An aching feeling told her they had figured it out by some sort of spying that she hadn’t accounted for. Did the labs have a security system? Did they have some means of observing them through walls? It was too late to know for certain, and that knowledge pissed her off even more.
If’n this is gonna be mah last stand, so be it! Ah’m taking these fucktards out with me!
She leaped out of cover dialing her right revolver to three as well and brought both Irons to bare. All was slow-motion as the soldiers reacted. The two in the room couldn’t act fast enough as she shot both simultaneously, their chests rupturing through their backs and splattering the shattered shelves with their lungs and ribs. More soldiers poured in and she shifted her aim to the leadman bringing his automatic to bare and howling a screaming battle cry. She shot him in the head, his helmet flying off in the motion. In a daze, he collapsed to the floor but wasn’t dead. Aidele aimed back to the corridor as more soldiers surged upwards.
This is it…
Then the strangest thing happened. The men coming up were fired upon. From behind them. They turned back to face this new threat, but few lived longer than that turn.
Did somebody switch sides?
The building shook again and Aidele turned quickly to see Durante hesitantly standing up.
“What the…?”
“Come on! Now’s our chance!” She grabbed him by the elbow and shoved him forward.
They raced out of the room and down past the labs and towards the waverider. Fortunately, the garage had yet to see any major damage. Aidele leapt into the driver’s seat as Durante scrambled into the back. He pushed the duffle-bag and backpack they’d stored a little further into the cubbies and buckled up.
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