by John Graham
“I doubt the same trick will work twice!” Captain Bale shouted.
“Agreed!” Gabriel shouted in response, “Ready the support turret!”
“You want us to try shooting them down?!” Viker asked incredulously, toggling the turret’s fire-control system.
“Not yet!” Gabriel replied, “Wait for the right moment!”
The canyon was starting to grow narrower and straighter. The Wolverine had to count more and more on sheer speed as it weaved in between the rock piles within the confined halfpipe of a riverbed. The patrol drones closed in like a pair of hunting hornets, staying just above the top of the canyon as they chased their prey into a kill zone.
“Prime the turret!” Gabriel ordered.
“Primed!” Viker said as he highlighted the red icons, “hostile targets designated!”
The drones were flying at too high an angle for the turret to hit…yet.
“Keep the turret locked forward!” Gabriel added, “I have an idea!”
The canyon wasn’t just getting narrower and straighter, it was also sloping downwards. The drones were about to lose their quarry, so one of them swooped down into the narrow gorge, where there was just enough space for it to fly through with room to manoeuvre. As the drone closed in from behind, it readied its missiles.
“It’s got line-of-sight!” Viker said, panicking, “the ECM won’t save us this time!”
“Brake, now!” Gabriel barked.
Viker slammed the brakes, causing the Wolverine to decelerate violently. The drone overshot its target before it could open fire, bringing it into the turret’s crosshairs.
The turret released a deadly spray of armour-piercing rounds into the drone’s vulnerable rear, puncturing its armour and mangling its engines and internal systems. The damage inflicted caused it to falter like a wounded bird before careening to the ground, the impact igniting its weapons and releasing a dramatic flurry of flames and debris.
“Three down!” Viker yelled triumphantly as the squad celebrated.
“There’s still one more drone out there.” Gabriel reminded everyone soberly.
“Right.” Viker stopped his premature celebrations and hit the accelerator again.
Sure enough, just as the Wolverine was picking up speed, the fourth patrol drone swooped down in front of them, unleashing a barrage of missiles.
“Woah!” Viker yelled in a panic and slammed the switch for the anti-gravity plating.
The anti-gravity plating was meant for safe landing on a planet’s surface, not aerial acrobatics, but the trick worked. Aided by forward momentum, the Wolverine was lifted clear off the ground, causing the incoming barrage of missiles to undershoot the Wolverine and saving it from certain destruction.
The Wolverine’s wheels hit the ground rolling as it shot forwards to escape.
“Nice one, Viker!” Ogilvy shouted.
“Thank me when we’re in the clear!” Viker shouted back as he swerved to avoid the wreckage of the third downed drone.
“These AI drones keep learning from every tactic we use!” Gabriel shouted, “We’ll need to get into cover of some kind!”
“The objective isn’t far from here!” Viker replied, noting the path on the map.
“Then that’s where we’re going!”
There was precious little room to zig and zag in the tiny gorge, but the upside was that the remaining patrol drone had to pull up to avoid getting squeezed between the rock walls. It would have to catch its target out in the open again.
Eventually, the narrow pathway took a leftward turn and widened out. The Wolverine emerged into a vast impact crater, resembling an amphitheatre-like basin whose surface sloped down into what looked like a sinkhole at the centre. Viker steered clear of the sinkhole and circled around the outer edge of the basin as fast as he could.
“The facility’s entrance is on the other side of this basin.” Viker said as he navigated around the edge of the basin, “but it’ll be a dead-end once we get there.”
The patrol drone reappeared above and swooped down low towards the Wolverine, firing its laser turret and leaving a blackened trail as the beam chased its target. Viker brought the Wolverine back around and drove through a gap in the rocks towards the research base, exiting the basin with the drone in hot pursuit. Up ahead at the base of a sheer cliff-face was a man-made structure: a vehicle ramp leading up to a set of loading bay doors. It was the entrance to the facility. Like Viker had said, it was also a dead-end.
“Last stand!” Viker shouted, switching the turret’s fire control system to AI control.
Just shy of the doors, Viker brought the Wolverine swerving around just as the patrol drone opened fire with its laser turret. The laser beam boiled away part of the Wolverine’s ablative armour coating as its turret swivelled round and returned fire.
The drone’s armour couldn’t withstand the blizzard of bullets, and it burst into flames as it came tumbling from the sky, bouncing along the ground like a burning bowling ball before smashing straight through the loading bay doors. A huge tongue of flame spewed out from the entrance as the flaming wreckage of the downed drone ignited whatever was being stored inside the loading bay, reducing it to smoke and burning debris.
The squad watched the images in silence. They were all glad to be alive, but they hadn’t intended to actually demolish the front door.
“At least we don’t have to knock.” Gabriel quipped wryly.
* * *
Viker drove the Wolverine up the vehicle ramp, through the flames and smoke, and into the loading bay itself, then he brought the vehicle around before bringing it to a complete halt and killed the engine. The squad secured their helmets, checked their weapons, and made sure their armour was sealed; then Gabriel moved to the vehicle’s rear and hit the release button. The rear-door unfolded into a boarding ramp and the squad poured out of the vehicle with their weapons raised, fanning out to secure the area.
In fact, there wasn’t much of an area left to secure. After smashing through the doors, the drone had kept on going until it hit the back wall, flinging flaming fragments at high speed in all directions; shredding most of the cargo modules stored there. Dozens of small fires blazed around the area, diminished slightly by the thin air and automated sprinklers, and an emergency klaxon could be heard blaring in the background. Any threat that might have been waiting for them hadn’t survived the drone’s spectacular entrance.
Doran walked over to the burnt-out frame of the patrol drone to examine it. Its outer skin was riddled with pockmarks from the Wolverine’s turret, but the frame itself had been blown open by the crash, exposing the damaged electronics inside which flickered and sparked from the residual power.
Doran gave the downed drone a vindictive kick.
“Pretty crappy armour.” He sneered over the comm.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Ogilvy remarked.
“Hey, I’m not complaining,” Doran replied indifferently, “I’m just saying you’d think these rich corporates could afford to equip their drones with proper shielding.”
“Evidently, they didn’t expect their targets to shoot back.” Gabriel said.
“Um, speaking of shielding,” Viker interjected with a note of concern, “the Wolverine’s defences took some damage back in the canyons.”
“How much damage?” Captain Bale asked.
“To the vehicle itself, none.” Viker clarified as he scanned the Wolverine’s exterior, “but about 40% of the thermal ablative paint is gone. If we have to run that hawk-and-rat race again, it’ll be a lot harder getting back in one piece.”
“But the shields are ok, right?” Asked Cato, concerned.
“They are, but they’re only good against bullets and shrapnel,” Viker responded, “Against lasers, particles beams or plasma, not so much.”
“One problem at a time,” Gabriel said, “Someone find us a way down.”
“Found it!” Doran said, accessing the door panel for a personnel elevator. �
�This elevator leads straight down to the main lobby.”
“Pretty obvious place for an ambush.” Ogilvy pointed out.
“Well if you prefer, we can always take the cargo elevator down,” Doran explained, “if you don’t mind getting lost in the guts of the supply network.”
“Personnel elevator it is, then.” Ogilvy conceded
“I’ve set the Wolverine’s turret to auto-defend,” Viker informed the squad, “it’ll gun down anything that comes back up this way; except for us, of course.”
“Good,” said Gabriel, “everyone, move out.”
The squad filed into the elevator and waited as the doors sealed shut behind them automatically. A set of nozzles released a fine spray, filling the space with a translucent white cloud of anti-hazard chemicals which circulated around the enclosed space for a minute before being sucked out again by the nozzles. Once the decontamination process was complete, the elevator began to slide downwards on a diagonal rail into the depths below.
“Remember,” Gabriel reminded the squad, “this is an IRS op. Investigate the facility, retrieve any useful data, and scrub any threats. Survivors are potential intelligence assets, but ultimately expendable.”
“Understood.” The squad chorused.
“What do you think we’ll find down there, colonel?” Cato asked.
“If I knew, we wouldn’t be heading there in the first place,” Gabriel replied before adding gravely, “but usually these sorts of ops are glorified police raids. Teams of regular agents storm the place, cuff everybody, and seize anything of interest. If the DNI is sending us in, it’s because everybody’s already dead.”
“How much resistance is there usually?”
“Well, no one wants to be arraigned on xenotech possession charges.” Gabriel replied, “That’s a reasonable incentive to shoot back. But like I said, if we’re being sent in, whatever experiments they were conducting must have gotten them killed. Any survivors will gladly take a prison cell in exchange for safety.”
“Well if they are stupid enough to shoot at us, we’ll kill them first!” Ogilvy said.
“Damn right!” Doran added his own bravado.
The squad’s morale was high heading down towards what could be certain death. High morale was a good thing, technically. But listening to their bravado made something click in Gabriel’s mind: the real reason he was uncomfortable leading a squad.
Their camaraderie, their banter, their bonds of friendship; it mattered at least as much to them as the mission itself, if not more. Furthermore, all of them undoubtedly assumed that he felt the same level of commitment to the unit as they did.
He didn’t. A voidstalker was a lone wolf, there was no room for bonds of comradeship. If Gabriel were forced to choose between the squad and the mission…
He would leave them all to die.
THE FACILITY
Eventually, the DNI agents completed their search, departing as quickly as they had come. No arrests were made, no equipment was seized, no areas were cordoned off, and no court summons were issued. They simply finished what they were doing and left. Once they were gone, all the staff were summoned to the breakroom for a meeting with the chief legal officer.
J.E. Co.’s chief legal officer was a tall, slim woman, seemingly devoid of emotion or the capacity to overreact; the virtual opposite of the short, stout, irascible man who chaired the company. Aster disliked her intensely. Apart from her cool and stilted attitude, she looked like Jezebel Thorn without the smile, right down to the black-and-gold hair colouring.
“Let me begin by assuming that each and every one of you adhered unwaveringly to your employment contracts, and especially to the nondisclosure clauses stipulated therein.” She began, the force of her implied threat smothered by her dull tone and legalistic phrasing, “and let me finish by reminding you that as long as you fulfil your obligations to the company, the company will fulfil its obligations to you.”
“All the project data was secured to an off-site server before the DNI raid,” Dr Felix Kessler reassured everyone, “they won’t have found anything by searching the computers here, and it’s subject to corporate privilege, anyway.”
“Good.” Said the legal officer.
“Like that would matter to the spooks,” somebody snorted cynically, “just like the phrases ‘due process’ and ‘probable cause’.”
“Corporate privilege means that such data is deemed inadmissible as evidence during litigation proceedings unless specifically requested through the process of legitimate legal discovery.” The legal officer explained dryly, “A raid by the intelligence services does not constitute legitimate legal discovery.”
The scientists stared at her blankly.
“That means even if the DNI somehow got hold of the data, it cannot be used against you in a court of law.” The legal officer translated.
“Has there been any information from the board?” Aster asked.
“Regarding what, specifically?” the legal officer asked.
“Instructions, guidance, advice, anything to show some leadership or direction?” Aster clarified, frustrated by the stonewalling and that annoyingly blank look.
“The board is still assessing the company’s position regarding the DNI raid,” the legal officer replied, “once that assessment is complete, new instructions will be provided.”
“What about the Loki facility?” someone shouted from near the back, “we heard that something happened up there, is that true?”
“That’s a confidential matter.” was the blunt response.
“But we’ve all heard rumours that–”
“Nothing happened at the facility on Loki about which any of you need to be concerned,” the legal officer said in a sharply dismissive tone, “New information and guidance will be communicated to you as and when it becomes available via the company intranet. Until then, go about your day as normal.”
With that perfunctory statement, J.E. Co.’s chief legal officer abruptly departed before the heckling could begin in earnest, leaving the assembled staff standing in confused silence. Apart from a vague and veiled threat about not betraying the company, they still had no idea what was going on or what to do next.
“As project-lead, I say we continue our simulations.” Aster announced, breaking the awkward silence, “No live testing until the board says otherwise.”
“I heard a rumour that the DNI arrested Chairman Darius.” Someone declared.
“There’s no proof of that,” Aster responded, “and rumours won’t help the situation.”
“But that’s how these things start,” someone else cut in, “first the executives are arrested or skip town, then the company gets raided–”
“I don’t know if anything at all has happened to the chairman and neither do you.” Aster shut him down, “right now, the most we can do is go about the rest of the day.”
“All the DNI agents wanted to know about Lawrence Kane.” One of the engineers spoke up, “But I didn’t see them search his office.”
“They did search his office,” somebody else called out, “I saw them go in. Maybe they were looking for something Dr Kane might have gotten hold of?”
“It doesn’t matter what they were here for,” Aster interjected, “what matters is that nobody is in trouble. And I’d like to keep it that way.”
“What about the Loki facility?” another engineer asked.
“What about it?” Aster pursed her lips at the question.
“She wouldn’t tell us what happened up there.”
“And what makes you think I would know?” Aster demanded impatiently.
“Well, it’s just that we heard there was a big accident–”
“Maybe the board doesn’t yet know what happened,” Aster cut him off, “and besides, there are more urgent things for us to worry about right now.”
“But if something happened over there,” the scientist went on, “then shouldn’t we–”
“Shouldn’t we do what, exactly?!�
� Aster exclaimed, her voice rising to shouting level, “rent out a shuttle and head over there to investigate ourselves?”
“But those are our friends and colleagues over there; your friends and colleagues!”
“For whom nothing can be done!” Aster shouted, her patience evaporating, “In case you’ve already forgotten, the DNI were here raiding our offices; so if something did happen on Loki, everyone over there is either dead or under arrest.”
Everyone fell silent. Aster had said openly and bluntly what they were all thinking, and it sounded a lot harsher coming from her mouth than from the chief legal officer.
“That’s not me being cold or heartless,” Aster continued resolutely, “that’s a cold, hard fact that you all need to accept. Flailing around in anguish helps no one, and the less we involve ourselves in whatever the fuck may have happened over there, the better.”
More silence. But this time, people were nodding in reluctant agreement. As worried as they were about their colleagues on Loki, nobody wanted to be slapped with a criminal complicity charge. It didn’t matter how uninvolved they actually were; the Directorate of Naval Intelligence took a dim view of ignorance and those who pled it.
“If there’s nothing else, it’s time to get back to work.” Aster concluded, “Rerun your simulations and diagnostics, and report back to me before the end of the day.”
* * *
The elevator took the squad a quarter of a kilometre below the moon’s surface before finally trundling to a halt. The heavy blast door unlocked, sliding open and causing a rush of air to flow into the partially depressurised space. Gabriel and the squad stepped out, weapons primed and ready to shoot on sight.
There was no lighting or power, leaving the room pitch black; but through the visual enhancement filters in their helmets the squad could see that they were in an atrium. Aside from pristine rows of leather seating and an unattended front desk, there was nothing else to see. More importantly, nobody jumped out to ambush them.
“No environmental hazards detected.” Ogilvy said through the comm., using his wrist-top computer to adjust his suit’s hazmat module, “Radiation levels are normal too.”