by Trent Falls
“Colonel.” The radio com called out.
Dekker raised his radio to his mouth. “Go ahead, Harrison.”
Dekker looked up to the large ship flying a few hundred feet up an away from him in the blue sky.
“We’re going to stay on station up here for a while. Make sure things are settled down.” Captain Harrison’s voice noted.
“Copy that, Captain.” Dekker responded.
“Sir, we have a better fix on that emergency transponder.” Harrison’s voice added. “It’s about seven clicks northwest of your position.”
“Copy that, we’re going to venture further in. Keep an eye on us. Dekker out.”
“Colonel.” Jensen looked over from his wrist computer at his boss. “I got a telemetry callback from Bradley’s tag. He’s still alive.” Jensen noted with pleasant relief.
“Let’s get him back to the ship.” Dekker replied. He turned his rifle to see the count on his ammo. The LED noted he had three rounds remaining. Dekker ejected the magazine and pocketed it, replacing it with a full magazine from another pouch.
The others in the group checked their ammo as well. Dekker walked out past his team to lead them out through the jungle.
It was a short walk back to the site of the initial confrontation. John looked over to one of the thick trees nearby that was ripped to splinters by the rock beast. The top of the tree was still intact but broken at its trunk and on its side. The footprints of the rock creatures were deep, in some areas six to eight inches deep, and set in a running path from where they had emerged.
Dekker looked left. “Damn.” He breathed to himself. He saw Frank Jones’ body, broken and twisted in an angle that was disturbing to look at.
“Fuck, that’s Frank!” Jensen could be heard saying as he walked closer to the body to examine it.
They happened upon another body ahead. Antonio Veracruz. He was also dead; bludgeoned by a heavy fist.
The group continued on. Dekker moved past a group of shrubs to see John, terrified, keeping his rifle trained at some unseen point head.
“What is it?” Dekker asked him.
Jensen moved into the clearing. “Oh damn!” Captain Jensen snapped his weapon up to his sight.
Dekker looked ahead to see a man in a dirty grey jumpsuit standing over shaking body of Noah Bradley. The human in the grey jumpsuit seemed to be tending to Bradley for a moment, telling him something no one could hear. The unknown human then stood up to look back on Carn, Jensen, and Dekker.
They all recognized the olive skinned human. It was Lyle Ramirez. He was staring back at them… and his eyes were glowing.
Chapter 16
John Carn sat alone in the massive cargo hold of the Tequesta. Aiyana was long gone. She had flown alongside the Tequesta long enough to exchange information on the planet Isis, where they believed Julie was being held. Ana and Alex both knew it was useless to try and talk John out of a rescue attempt. Ana had also pleaded with Alex not to transport John to the planet, to let the authorities deal with getting Julie back. John wouldn’t listen. He knew, without question, that Julie stood little chance of surviving long enough for diplomacy to resolve the issue.
He needed to take things into his own hands.
Ana had turned back to EEF space to head back to Mars. The Tequesta continued on towards Isis. They had spent the last day traveling, using warp drive cautiously to fly further into Xen territory. If they were noticed the Tequesta would have little time to jump. They would likely be blasted into oblivion.
John applied a fair amount of camouflage to his face. It was like no time had passed. He applied it as he had during the war; an imperfect diagonal pattern with light patches in his eyes. He used black and dark green even though he wasn’t completely sure of the terrain. Isis was said to be yet another jungle but John couldn’t be sure where Julie was being held. He, thus, used more black than green.
Set before him was his M10. It was his trusty carbine rifle. He had taken good care of it over the years. He hoped it would take good care of him in return. He had three spare thirty round clips for the weapon. In total he had 120 rounds of ammunition for the weapon. John taped up the clips two-by-two in opposite directions, which would allow him to reload quickly. He had carefully set cut out sections of a cardboard toilet paper roll between the clips to keep them from clapping against one another once taped together.
His GX9 9mm pistol was set on the deck next to his M10. John had an extra 10 round clip for the GX9 in addition to the clip already in the weapon. One hundred and forty rounds of ammunition in total – and a 6” combat knife.
John had cleaned the knife since killing Black and White with the weapon. He had sharpened it. Indeed, John had obsessed over cleaning and preparing his weapons over the last day of travel. He focused his mind on the job ahead.
Aside from Black and White, it had easily been well over ten years since he had to kill a man. It had been about twenty years since the war. Where he had once wanted to cast aside that life and forget it he desperately hoped he could remember all those skills; that his old training would click in and get him through the job that needed to be done.
What he wouldn’t give for some grenades.
“We’re coming up on the planet.” Alex’s voice came in over the ship’s speakers.
John took one of the taped pair of M10 clips. He jammed one end into the cartridge receiver and pulled the charging handle, chambering a round. He checked that the weapon was on “safe”. The other three settings on the fire selector were for semi-auto, three round burst, and full auto. John would keep the weapon on semi-automatic. He would need every round he could to survive. The other taped pair of M10 clips went into his pocket. John wished he had a proper web belt. The M10 got slung over his shoulder. John then pocketed the spare clip for the GX9. He then checked the pistol to make sure it was loaded and that a round was chambered. He checked that the pistol was on “safe” and slid it into his holster. His knife was in its sheath on his side. Again, he wished he had a proper web belt.
Ready to go, John stood up from where he was crouched on the deck and walked towards the front of the ship.
Alex was in the pilot seat. Both of Alex’s hands were set firmly on his flight yoke controls, as they were typically when he was focused completely on the ship. John walked up and set himself down in the copilot seat.
Isis was growing ahead of the ship. The sight of it made John feel uneasy. Being so far in the middle of nowhere, an approaching ship would be easy to spot. It wasn’t like slipping in with the freighter traffic of Mars. It was more like walking up on the cave of a dragon with the dragon, potentially, watching you during your entire approach.
“Scatter jammers up?” John asked, wanting to be reassured.
“Yeah, of course.” Alex breathed. He reached overhead and tapped in a series of commands into a keypad overhead. “I’m bringing up the passive scanning array. No way I’m pulsing out any radiation from the active system.”
“Hopefully it’ll be easy to spot them. It’ll suck if there’s more than one settlement on the planet.” John noted.
“I have a few ideas.” Alex replied.
The passive scanning array computer beeped several times in an even tempo as it ran through its sequence. The system’s processor flashed several times before completing the scan. The data appeared on a monitor on the console between John and Alex. There were four settlements on Isis; all noted with a wire frame indicator pointing to a different part of the planet.
“Well…” John sighed.
“I got it.” Alex slid out a touchscreen and activated a keyboard interface on its surface. Alex tapped in a series of commands, which brought up more detailed data on the four potential sites.
“This is a listening post.” Alex pointed to a site in the northern hemisphere below the arctic circle.
“Great!” John exhaled in grim disappointment.
“Don’t worry, they don’t see us.” Alex explained. “They’d be nailing u
s with focused radar if they did. Two of the other installations have a significant number of heavy machinery. A large bucket excavator and draglines.”
“A mining operation.” John noted aloud, keeping his eyes fixed on the screen.
“Wait a minute.” Alex tapped the screen. One of the sections on the map enlarged, showing some king of hardened complex and a large circular foundation of some sort in the ground. A long landing strip was about a kilometer away. “Looks like a bunker and a large runway. They let the trees grow into the safety area.”
“Not too safe if you ask me.” John observed.
“No.” Alex agreed. “But pretty useful if you want to keep the runway hidden from above. And see this?” Alex pointed to the large circular foundation. “This is the base of a large antennae, probably a big parabolic. This is probably the old listening station, I think. Whoever built it here did a poor job of planning. The new one is situated in a much better part of the planet nearer the northern pole.”
“Hardened concrete bunker. Looks to be in pretty good condition.” John noted. “I think this is it.”
“How do you want to do this?” Alex looked over at John.
“Come in from the southwest trailing these mountains.” John used his left hand to mimic an incoming aircraft, passing it over the mountain chain on the screen. “It’ll be our best bet. If we move…” John checked the local timeframe of the map, then the instrumentation in the flight deck of the Tequesta, “…now I can drop into the jungle at the outskirts of the mountain chain here. Come in at nightfall. I can be at that camp inside of a day.”
“A day? You think you can cover that distance in a day?” Alex asked with some surprise.
“Yeah.” John answered. “I’ll have to. Besides, coming in any closer is too risky. How long do you think you can stay out here undetected?”
“I can land on the north pole of the second satellite.” Alex replied. “There’s no traffic so if I can set down quietly I can stay up there as long as you need.”
“Three days?” John pressed.
“Yeah, I think so. From the second satellite I’ll have an unobstructed line of sight on the planet. I can sit back and listen for your locator beacon.”
“Yeah, hopefully they’re not broad scanning. Once I pop that beacon the whole planet will know where I’m at.” John observed. “You can bet that listening station up north will hear it.”
“If you’re lucky you might have a few minutes.” Alex noted.
“I hope. How fast do you think you can get down and pick us up?”
“Fast enough.” Alex looked over at John.
John looked back over at Alex. Alex grinned back broadly, cutting the tension of the moment for a few seconds.
“Yeah.” John chuckled. “Let’s fucking hope so.”
Alex tapped the screen again, bringing up the coordinates of the proposed landing zone. He then developed a flight plan, using a re-entry profile that was as surreptitious as possible.
“You got a way I can print this map out?” John asked.
“Yeah.” Alex tapped his touchscreen.
A small printer behind John began whirring. John turned in his chair to pull the sheet off the printer. The map was poor quality color; an ordinary 8 ½” x 11” sheet of paper. It was plain and not laminated.
“Damn, this kind of sucks!” John noted aloud as he looked at the paper.
“Be happy you have that.” Alex replied. “I only keep that here to print out parts lists for the local runners when I need maintenance.”
John sighed, examining the paper. He folded the sheet up and put it in his black shirt pocket.
“Alright.” Alex let out a deep exhale. “You ready to do this?”
John too let out a deep breath and shook his head to stretch away his tension; as if it was a game and the opening buzzer was about to go off.
“Ready as I’ll ever get.” John stated coolly.
“Okay then.” Alex tapped in a series of commands on his touchscreen. He then slid the screen back down under the console ahead of him and grabbed the fight yoke. “Strap yourself in. We’re heading in.”
The Tequesta banked up slowly under Alex’s control. The ship then reoriented so that the top of the Tequesta was facing the equator of the planet. The Tequesta slowly accelerated. Alex kept his eyes ahead, shifting them briefly now and then towards the screen.
Over the span of thirty seconds the Tequesta had built up speed to the point of reaching 25 km per second. Alex had his jammers active at a low setting. With any hope, they would remain hidden until getting out of the detection field of the northern listening station. Once up to the speed he wanted to target, Alex cut his engines off, allowing the forward inertia of his vessel to carry him towards the growing planet.
It took about twenty minutes for the Tequesta to get into a low orbit of the planet. A quarter of an orbit around the planed put the listening station beyond the curvature of Isis’ horizon. The Tequesta was still descending, however. The atmosphere of the planet was uncomfortably close by the time Alex could restart his main thrusters. The engines pulsed back to life, glowing white hot as the white and light blue space transport rotated once again along its z-axis. With the Tequesta’s heat shield underside turned toward the planet, Alex pushed his flight yoke forward. The Tequesta nosed down and flew towards the blue white atmospheric barrier ahead.
Isis, like many life supporting planets, reminded John of Earth. Earth was so far away. The reentry profile also reminded John of his early days of spaceflight training and his first combat drops.
The detail of the atmosphere grew sharper ahead of the flight deck windows. The curve of the planet took up more of their field of vision ahead. The horizon grew dim as they flew on towards the terminator into morning. The Tequesta slowly began buffeting from flying into the slowly thickening atmosphere. The hint of reentry flame against the ionosphere flared up around the squared off nose of the Tequesta a few feet in front of the forward windows.
John saw the flames and became a bit nervous. “Can they see us ripping through the ionosphere?”
“I don’t think so.” Alex replied, his hazel eyes fixed forward and focused on flying the ship. “And if they could they’d be hard pressed to find us once we’re inside the atmosphere.”
Another jostle rocked the vessel, then one a bit sharper. They rocketed down from the morning through dawn and backwards into the dark of night. The dark clouds below flashed over at several points briefly. They were flying into a big thunderstorm.
“Damn.” John cursed seeing the nasty nighttime storm ahead.
“No, no. It’s perfect.” Alex assured him.
“Man, can you even see where the fuck you’re going?” John winced briefly.
It was getting very dark ahead.
“Don’t worry.” Alex pointed to a small screen below his HUD showing the field of vision ahead in infra red. “I got a good flight plan together.”
“Flight plan?!?” John smirked. “When have you been to this planet? The Xen give you maps?”
The Tequesta shook violently for a moment. John could feel the ship drop a few hundred feet in turbulence. He felt himself in freefall for a second or so before the ship regained hold of the air. Rain streaked in thin lines on the windows.
“We should be coming through this soon. Relax.” Alex assured him.
“Listen,” John was interrupted by another jolt of turbulence, “if you can give me three days that’s great. Hopefully I won’t need that long. If you don’t detect my beacon in three days I want you to get the hell out of here and head back to Earth.”
“It isn’t coming to that, John.” Alex assured him. “Get Jules back and get out of there as fast as you can.”
The Tequesta finally broke free of the storm. The surrounding sky was still ominously dark. John looked out beyond the port side window of the flight deck. The storm stretched on for hundreds of miles, out past the horizon. The mountain chain Alex was to follow was already below them
on the right.
“We’re about ten minutes out.” Alex noted.
John stood up from the copilot seat to leave the flight deck. Alex grabbed John’s arm to stop him. John looked down on Alex, whom he could barely recall being one of the Norn.
“Good luck.” Alex noted to John sincerely.
“Yeah, thanks.” John nodded.
Alex returned his attention to flying the ship. John continued on from between the pilot and copilot seat out the rear opening of the flight deck. He continued on down the narrow corridor out into the large cargo hold of the Tequesta. The rows of fluorescent lights above appeared crisper somehow with the dark outside the small exterior porthole windows set intermittently along the side walls.
A sudden jostle of turbulence nearly dropped John off his feet.
“Shit!” he exclaimed, reaching out to the nearest bulkhead in panic for support. In a second the turbulence was gone. A few of the fluorescent light rods above flickered briefly.
John walked to where he had left his M10 carbine and picked the weapon up. He pulled the weapon’s sling over his shoulder. He took yet another deep breath. It was like the war all over again, only this time he was going in alone. He had never gone on an op by himself during the war. He would also be going without body armor, night vision, pocket recon drones, rations, binoculars, or an EEF carrier or satellite overhead in geosynchronous orbit feeding him valuable information. He didn’t even have decent recon or intelligence of the stronghold.
John did remember his wrist com. It was fairly low powered. He wouldn’t be able to speak to Alex after the Tequesta dropped him off. Alex would be much too far away sitting on Isis’ moon. He did raise the com to his mouth to give it a check.
“Check, check. You hear me up there?” John spoke aloud.
“Loud and clear.” Alex’s voice came back over the wrist com’s speaker.
“Okay, I’m going to be going radio silent after I drop.” John responded.
“Understood. Only a few minutes to the insertion zone.” Alex’s voice called back. “Stand by the ramp. I’ll give you the heads up when we’re over the coordinates.”