Resurrection Dawn

by Marc Secchia

  “Do it, stat,” he ordered and ran over the location, numbers and specs of the mine defences with his team.

  That mining facility wasn’t built for war, but could give a single vessel plenty of trouble, Alodeé told herself. Right, let’s see what hacking routines Dad has stored in this little private directory of his. Mmm, tasty …

  Chimzi screeched over the Comms link, “Metal dots ahead! I sense –”

  “Shielded aerial mines!” Isska roared. “Evasive action!”

  The engines screamed as Asmurti threw the vessel into a ridiculously high-speed turn.

  GRRRAAABOOOMM!!

  Chapter 7

  Standard 1301.05.16.10 Cal Week 18. Landing.

  CHIMZI SCREECHED AS HER barrel ripped free of its moorings. Thrusting off the bulkhead, Alodeé leaped for the catch and caught only disintegrating plastic. Splot! Water cascaded over her stomach. A Mermaid tail slapped her in the teeth, before two Med students added themselves to her pile.

  Oof!

  “Status check, stat,” Dymand rapped. “Alright in the back?”

  Tamanzi responded, “One broken arm. Alodeé?”

  “There’s a Mermaid on the loose, sir. The others seem fine.”

  Chimzi giggled at her phrasing, but her gills flared unhappily. “My barrel popped, sir. How –”

  “Multi-phase disintegrator mines. Those boys were playing for keeps,” her father responded crisply. “We’ll need that water. I’ll programme the ventilation systems accordingly, but we need a tank, a –”

  “Isska could?” Alodeé began.

  At the same time, they said, “I could make a wet body pocket, sir?”

  Oh dear. Awkward.

  Chimzi made a face. “You could have phrased that better, Isska. Thanks.”

  “Ew, are you talking about gender-crossing procreation? Count me out,” Isska shuddered audibly. “I’ll start morphing at once. Bring that wondrous tail over here, girl.”

  “We’re going to be best friends!” Chimzi squealed.

  Isska did not appear very certain about that.

  Lifting the tiny Mermaid with ease, Alodeé pressed against the vessel’s centrifugal force into the cabin, passing a student preoccupied with applying a temporary cast to another male student’s arm. Maruski found a container to tap off the ventilation system’s moisture storage, while Isska steadily morphed a Mermaid-sized depression into their lower body. One cooing ingrate suitably deposited therein and she returned to check up on the Med team.

  “You all need weapons and armour,” she insisted. “Here, let me help you – these clip seals can be tricky.”

  Don’t they teach Med students anything? Like which way round to hold a blaster?

  Dad clearly thought the same thing, because he had a private link with Medic Tamanzi going by the time Alodeé returned to the Nav area. Asmurti suggested a warrior should stay back with the Med group when they landed. Dymand opened the link farther, querying the team.

  “I’ll do it,” Tomaxx volunteered.

  Tamanzi said, “I’ve a student who is weapons-trained; Ganze switched paths quite late on.”

  “Good, we’ll have him,” Dad said. “Tomaxx, check. Listen up, team. This is not a drill, in case no-one noticed. Shields up, gunners ready, systems hacking primed, brace for hostile fire. Let’s do this! Chimzi, check?”

  “Wet behind the ears, sir!” she chirped.

  “Excellent. Close her in for the landing please, Isska. Maruski, two more cans of water.”

  Dymand started tossing orders about. He expected plenty of hostiles. If anything shot at them, they were fair game. He and Isska pinpointed a landing area behind the Terminus, as the building was called, which housed the Control Tower and led into the main gemstone processing facility. There, none of the main weapons batteries would be able to orient on the AVACS to take a shot. They’d use the ship’s plasma cannons to blow their way into the Control Tower where, according to the transmission, at least a few hostiles now controlled the all-important underwater lifelines. They may not be more than a dozen or two in number, but the defensive minefield suggested a solid level of forward planning.

  With Control secured, the rebels would be able to lock down the miners effectively, stopping the lifts to trap them underwater.

  Isska had also morphed what looked like twenty extra fingers to play with their controls. Unfair. Alodeé focussed on the holo displays in front of her, lining up her attack routines.

  “Getting signal,” Asmurti noted.

  “Deploying technical fuzz,” Isska clucked.

  She hunched over her readouts. Come on, come on … couple of tweaks …

  “Plasma blast!” Tomaxx rapped.

  Dymand rapped, “Deflect!”

  Isska swiped ultra-fast at their controls. The AVACS shuddered at a nearby blast, then swerved as Asmurti reacted to further incoming missiles. Tomaxx and Ash shot them out of the sky.

  “I’m in,” Alodeé said. “Power systems spiked! YES!”

  “They switched to backup,” Isska hissed, fingers dancing. “Got that – nice skills, Alo – shields! Shooting, Ash! C4 quadrant plasma still –”

  “My target,” Asmurti grimaced, lining up her forward cannons with her eyes. She gripped the throttle controls in either hand, riding the atmospheric wash as they screamed down. Blasts too close for comfort shuddered the craft. The close-phase crystal engines whined under the strain, but held steady at a good note.

  “Great shooting, pilot!” Dymand roared.

  “Wide phase flak blast!” Tomaxx thundered, giving it everything he had. They blew through a cloud of burning debris.

  Glancing ahead, Alodeé saw dark, oil smoke pouring up from a low, squat red mining facility backed up against a line of black hills. A pretty, oval teal lake lay ahead of it. Other lakes dotted the landmass’ surface beyond the hills, she saw, some tilted at strange angles, even dangling upside down from a cluster of satellite islands toward the west. That meant some Resurrection Dawn gravitational weirdness at play, but the Terminus facility had been located where things were meant to be normal.

  Her ears tingled. Emphasis on meant.

  Snapping up an ancillary holo readout to check the sensor readings, she rapped, “Grav anomaly ahead. Pilot beware. Isska, pulse shields to radial 17, axis 78, stat!”

  The AVACS twisted unhappily in the air as conflicting forces tore at them, but the compensation was enough to see them through. Phew. Close one. Dad’s eyes popped wide.

  Alodeé scanned the data again. “No more surprises, I hope.”

  Isska hissed, “Alo, you – how?”

  “My ears tingled,” she admitted, shrugging.

  “And the 0.003 percent adjustment to capture that transmission earlier?” they asked suspiciously.

  “Instinct?”

  “I’ll have some of what she’s drinking,” Tomaxx deadpanned on cue.

  Ash yelled, “Missile trails!”

  “Dang it, that’s old school,” Dymand growled as the gunners did their work efficiently, taking out the flight of missiles in tandem. “Kinda glad I packed in a bunch of slackers this morning. Would’ve been a tight run otherwise.”

  Isska flashed up the coordinates for the mobile missile platform responsible for that friendly welcome.

  Tomaxx bellowed an Oraman war cry as he and Ash pounded the platform to smithereens. “You go, baby! Nice shooting, girl.”

  “That’s three less rebels to bother us,” Ash gloated.

  “What’s not to like about the Oraman, eh?” Tamanzi chuckled. “Med students, we’ll break open crate 2 on landing. Grab emergency packs and as many personal medbots as you can carry. Then, wait for Dymand’s signal before disembarking in search of patients.”

  “Under fire?” the fearful girl quavered.

  “We’ll protect you as best we can,” Alodeé’s Dad said. “Stay calm, focus on your job and trust us to do ours. Orders! Tormi, guard Isska in the Nav area. Tomaxx, take the doors. Ix’tux and Malini, back up To
maxx. Isska, do you have a weapon?”

  “My brain, sir,” they said gravely.

  “Ship controls are yours,” Dymand responded.

  A few dry chuckles sounded as the AVACS bulled through a brief spate of light ground fire. Nothing that would harm a tough scouting vessel. Asmurti – with Dad hovering beside but not touching the secondary controls, Alodeé noticed – took them in hard and fast. The brutal deceleration made everyone groan. Only a small jolt on the landing. The courtyard area provided plenty of cover, Alodeé saw, rocking with the others as Asmurti fired at the door directly opposite. White fire spurted out of the ship’s nose cannons, shortly making a molten mess of that locked entryway.

  “Cover the roof, Tomaxx,” Dymand directed as he unsnapped his harness. “Maruski, join the second wave assault. Team!”

  Clutching her CLB-1015 in damp palms, Alodeé fell in with him, crouching to cover the courtyard as Tomaxx worked the loading bay door release. Asmurti stalked just behind him, wielding a blast pistol in either hand. Hot, dusty air wafted into the craft. Her nostrils flared. Slight tang of fuel oil, perhaps from the processing plant?

  On Comms, Isska’s voice said calmly, “Sensors read three hostiles behind the stack of barrels at 170 lateral, 15 mets out. Two hostiles on the rooftop – at least one person moving inside the hallway, status unknown. Many other signatures deeper inside the building.”

  The staff had not been evacuated as yet. Not good.

  Dad said, “Alo, prime a stun grenade and hit those hostiles. I’ll draw fire to the right lateral. Asmurti, go left lateral into cover. Tomaxx, rooftop. Ash, cover the building doorway.”

  Canid-sucking birthday jaunt, girl. This just got real!

  Dymand counted them in with his fingers. Then, yelling like a complete idiot, he dived out of the doorway and rolled smoothly to his right. The CLB-4001 spat pulsed, mauve-coloured blasts as he stitched their cover with faultless accuracy, mid-roll. Neat trick. A man cried out. Asmurti spun away with Alodeé at her heels. She lobbed a stun grenade as soon as she was clear, bouncing it off the wall at an angle to get in behind their cover. Tomaxx and Ash leaped out, his blaster tracking high as his helmet shifted with his gaze. Ashamixx swept the area behind the vessel just in case before spinning to cover the Terminus’ rear entrance.

  Boom! Boom! Tomaxx’s heavy blaster bit chunks out of safety railing, keeping the hostiles up top pinned down.

  The pair under cover in the yard broke cover as the grenade landed. Dymand and Asmurti cut them down. BANG! The stun grenade detonated sharply. Her helmet’s advanced auditory dampening took care of keeping her eardrums undamaged. Ash’s trigger finger tightened as a woman stumbled out of the doorway. Bright blood stained the left flank of her brown coveralls.

  “Don’t shoot!” she cried, holding out her hands.

  “Ash, no!” Alodeé yelped.

  Sphut! The shot whipped past the woman and took out – well, all she saw was the tip of a weapon hidden in the doorway’s shadows. That woman had been half a sec from execution.

  I would’ve missed that.

  “With me!” Her Dad sprinted off like a pro, zigzagging across the yard to the doorway. Looked like he’d done that a billion times. To the woman, he said, “Run to the ship; you’ll be safe there.”

  Boom! “One down on the rooftop,” Tomaxx growled.

  He sounded like he was packing a rocket launcher. Some Oraman-modded weapon? Sweet.

  Those Oraman did fancy firepower.

  Asmurti followed closely as they dashed inside the building in a tight unit, covering one another. Miners and office staff milled about in the hallways. Wounded lay along the corridors, moaning or unconscious. Dymand quickly interrogated several people for information. Fourteen rebels they knew of. Most were inside the Control Tower. At least a couple on the loose inside the building, others out front. He ordered them to get under cover – what the freaking hells were they doing wandering about when there were gunmen on the rampage?

  Alodeé twitched. There in the crowd – was that a gun? Just a frightened woman taking an asthma shot. Behind her!

  Her rifle spat. Another woman who had been sneaking through the crowd dropped instantly, but a spasm of her hand squeezed off several blasts of her weapon before she died. Four or five people in the crowd cried out or crumpled where they stood.

  Holy Resurrection Dawn, I just killed someone! Oh … oh … she gagged.

  “Alo! Focus!” Dad smacked her helmet. “Later.”

  “S-Sure, Dad.”

  They moved as a trio, covering the angles. Dymand ordered Ash, Maruski and the other medic, Ganze, to cover the ground floor eastward and secure the front entryway. Tamanzi would have to wait a couple of mins as they ran through the building’s lower floor, checking for hostiles. The branching corridors met in the front area, called the forum, which also housed the lifts and stairways to the upper floors. As they paused, both teams on opposite ends of the building eyed one another across the wide open forum space. Through the Comms link, Alodeé heard Isska pinpoint a hostile on the outer emergency stairway. Tomaxx gunned him down.

  Asmurti pointed. “There, behind the outside fountain. I don’t have an angle.”

  “I do.” Dymand adjusted his weapon and casually pinged a shot through the building’s glass frontage, ricocheting it off a skimmer’s windscreen to get in behind the fountain. “Silly boy.”

  Freaking lumoslugs, that’s some shooting.

  Whipping up her weapon, she aimed toward the fourth floor gantry. That chance reflection she had picked up in her peripheral vision … there! She missed her shot, but Asmurti took the woman out as she broke cover, hitting her in the right leg.

  “Sorry. Shaky hands.”

  “Good teamwork, girls,” Dad said. Pointing at Ash and Ganze, he motioned them to watch the front; Asmurti to keep an eye upward. “Stairs, girls. Let’s go.”

  Dad had a way about him. Knew exactly what to do. He gripped Asmurti by her weapons belt so that she did not need to worry about footing or direction, but could keep focussed above as they ran to the stairs and took them two at a time.

  Asmurti cried, “Grenade! Down!”

  They ducked under cover, letting the metal staircase take the brunt of the blast. The combat skins and compo armour kept them safe. Asmurti tried a couple of speculative shots, but the man had made good his escape. Dymand signalled them up again. Down below, Ash, Ganze and Maruski exchanged shots with a sniper outside, keeping him honest as he tried to hit their group.

  “Definitely ex-military, this crew,” Dad said quietly. “Isska, status check?”

  “All quiet. Hostiles clustered in the Control Tower.”

  “When we reach the top, Ash, take your team to cover the wounded. Tomaxx, get the Med team inside, alright? Eyes peeled.”

  “Sir,” various voices responded.

  “Stay sharp. Keep the ship tight, Isska and Chimzi.”

  Up and up they rushed, heading for the fourth floor. Having cleared the way with another stun grenade, Dymand introduced the lone gunman patrolling that floor to the stock of his rifle. Ouch. He’d need dental work. The staff had all tried to evacuate from this level, but they advised a terrified husband and wife to remain locked in their office as they moved to the Control Tower access door.

  Drily, Isska said through the Comms link, “Ten creds says the door’s booby-trapped.”

  Dymand called back, “Ten says they welcome us with a grenade dropped down the stairwell.”

  “Twenty,” Tomaxx said, “says you’re both right.”

  “Alright. Alodeé, warm up the door for us.”

  GRABOOM!!

  “Yep, that was the door,” her Dad confirmed dryly, eyeing up the smoking mess as if startled by her ferocity. Darting forward after a moment, he clanged his rifle butt on the first step and yelled, “They’re up here, guys!”

  To his credit, her old man was jolly quick on his feet – had to be, because as predicted, a thermal grenade between the teeth was the cho
sen form of greeting. No-one was getting up that stairwell anymore. Not until things cooled down, anyways. Couple of hours, maybe.

  Dymand sighed, “It was a good plan, up to this point. Isska, patch me in to their Comms.”

  Meantime, Ash told Tomaxx off both for celebrating and for bringing down a death wish on the team, which was not the point. Smug so-and-so. Does deserve a smack for that, however.

  Tamanzi said, “Woman down here says they’re Dammo-Dram Cult.”

  Her father swore.

  “What’s that?” Asmurti asked.

  “It’s a doomsday cult. Last time I ran into them was around the Samma Upsilon Beta system, where I was – ah, never mind that. Basically, they believe they have to make blood sacrifices – of other people – to stave off some impending doom. Tends not to end well for anyone.”

  True enough, a subsequent discussion with a gruff cult member informed them that the air lines down to the trapped miners would be cut off if Dymand and his security team did not remove themselves from the vicinity forthwith. Via the private channel, Isska said that the base schematics suggested there would be backup air for three to four hours at most, but since they had not heard from Settlement Central, help might not be on its way at all.

  Through the team link, Ashamixx said, “Would threatening them with the AVACS help?”

  “Not much, but we’ll try it.”

  “How many up top, Isska?” he asked.

  “Just got thermal scans prepped – yep, six live hostiles.”

  “We have Chimzi,” Ash noted. “Could she help down below?”

  “Thoughts?” Dymand asked.

  “I don’t have experience with disarming explosives,” the Mermaid said.

  Ash said, “I’m trained in electronics and explosives tech, but also have little experience. My armour has additional dive compression and airflow capability, however. I’d be willing to dive with Chimzi, sir.”

  Tamanzi said, “The Dammo-Dram Cult will have rigged it all to explode anyways – no matter what we do. It’s their way, Dymand. Suicide gets you extra bonus points in paradise.”