by Randal Sloan
“That’s got it,” she told them. “I’m going to go get into my armor. The rest of you get loaded up with your equipment and arms. I want each of you in basic armor and camouflage. Everyone needs to bring at a minimum a laser pistol. Galen, I suggest you bring a laser rifle.”
Seeing the look on Gabo’s face she went on, “Not you, Gabo,” she added with a smile, “wouldn’t want you accidentally shooting me.”
Gabo just shrugged his shoulders, giving her a hurt look. But he didn’t argue with her statement.
Jarra slipped into the hold, quickly opening up the crate containing her armor. Connecting to the armor’s onboard AI using her implants, she instructed the armor to open up and then carefully stepped into it. She brought the system up, walking it through the initialization sequence and closing it back up with her inside. In moments, she was ready, exiting the hold to join her comrades, who couldn’t resist looking at her with curiosity.
Sara pinged her with a private message. “You’re definitely going to be explaining this to your team. No way should you own that and no way should you know how to use it.”
Jarra sent back a simple, “Ok,” not able to bring herself to say anything more for fear of just how hard it was going to be when she did tell them. Jarra dared not go there right now; despite the closeness of the team, she still feared they would reject her once they knew all that she had by necessity had to keep hidden from them,
Jarra left the full stealth mode turned off, explaining to her team, “I’m leaving the armor in normal mode until we reach our perimeter point, so that you guys can see me. Once I engage it, you won’t be able to see me, even though you know I’m there, potentially causing risk to you.”
Jarra led the group out of the ship, smiling as Galen locked the door. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she had indeed figured out a way around the physical lock. It did require a set of high-end implants and an AI several steps above the standard AI. Jarra had both of those. Plus, she did have to be inside the first time to pull it off, despite her threat when she first met Galen, but that was necessary. She knew their enemies would never have the resources to do it. But she kept her mouth shut as it gave Galen pleasure to be in charge of it.
They stopped again when they reached the edge of the cave, looking back once more at their ship which was now almost impossible to see, even knowing it was there. Galen, ever the navigator, took over the lead as they began the trek to the plant site. He led them along the bottom of a ravine, using the combination of the terrain and the native plants growing there to hide them. The group went silently, everything communicated with hand signals. When the ravine faded out, they moved even more carefully, using the ground cover to the fullest. They all knew they had only one chance to do this and each was determined to pull it off.
Finally, after what was really only minutes but seemed like hours to the group, they reached the perimeter surrounding the plant, quickly erecting a camouflage tent tucked into an overhanging section of the ridge that more or less paralleled the plant perimeter. Using the same rugged ridge as cover, Gabo set up his sensors to scan the plant, once again relying on passive only sensors to do most of the work. It helped that the plant was noisy, as Gabo put it, having been quickly assembled with little concern for whether or not signals were masked from prying eyes and ears. In all likelihood, the ones in charge assumed no one was there to listen, normally a valid assumption and they would normally have been safe, even if they intended evil.
#
In a few minutes, Gabo had a 3D VR view built up of the plant to display to Jarra and the others. “It’s definitely obvious from my scans that this plant was not built with the intention of hiding secrets. But with the remote location, building the plant here doesn’t make a lot of sense commercially if it wasn’t at least expected to do something a little shady, like maybe making illegal counterfeit copies or something.
“If I had to guess, I would say whoever built the plant wasn’t aware of the intent to build these specific drones, but someone realized the plant could be used for their own purposes. It’s ideal for their task and, mostly based on the remote location, I’m guessing they didn’t think anyone would ever trace the drones here or find a way to clandestinely investigate.
“There’s not enough evidence based on the technology I’m able to see from here to determine if there’s a connection with what’s here now to the companies involved in the original consortium. We have no way to know one way or the other right now. We’ll need to examine a drone directly to know more.”
“Which means we still have to go with my original plan to try to capture one of the drones,” Jarra said. “I never had any doubt that it would come to that. Where do we stand on your ability to take control of one of them, Sara?”
“I think I can do it, but I’ll need a remote channel sliced out of your AI. Gabo, can you hide the signal that’ll let me do that in all the ‘noise’ in the plant?”
“Yeah, that should be easy. I wasn’t kidding about that. I could probably hide a dozen or more signals in the chaos out there.”
Jarra liked the way this was going. “Make it just a fraction off the frequency of the drones if you can and I can use a simple frequency adjust when I transmit to the drones.”
“Give me a moment and I’ll have it set up.”
Jarra stayed quiet, letting the two work out the details. In the meantime, she looked over the 3D view of the plant. She highlighted the path in red that Galen suggested she use to get into the area. “This is the path Galen worked up for me to use to get into the facility. I don’t expect it to work all the way in, but it’s how I’ll start. Gabo, I need you to monitor my progress using the link you set up for Sara to communicate with my AI. Yell if you spot anything that you believe will be an issue. I expect to run into a sensor trap at some point and will have to adjust my path. Same as with Sara, use the hidden signal to contact me.
“Listen, guys. I know you’ve heard the rumors about this armor. Believe it or not, the rumors are mostly correct, but the armor is actually even more powerful than that. I’ll be fine. Make sure you take care of yourselves; we need to all get out of here safely. Be prepared to leave in a hurry if we need to.”
#
Infiltration of the perimeter of the plant was relatively easy. Jarra made sure she was at a safe distance from her team and then she engaged the full cloak. Galen had been looking right at her when she simply disappeared. If he hadn’t been expecting it, he would have been freaked out. It was still pretty crazy to see it, or not to see it, as it was.
As Jarra began her trek into the plant, she thought back to the first time she’d worn her armor. The younger version of her had grown up idolizing the Imperial Marines. She got it in her head she was going to be one and studied them for months. She worked on her uncle for weeks to get her a set of the armor and she thought he finally agreed just to shut her up. His acquiescence had come with one requirement. She had to fast track through the Imperial Marine equivalent of boot camp and pass the armor training course before she would be able to wear it. He insisted the training was necessary before she would understand how to wear the armor responsibly. To the younger Jarra, in a world tinted by her rose-colored glasses, his warnings of the difficulty of the course were easily ignored and the whole thing seemed like a dream come true.
Now, looking back, Jarra believed her uncle had expected the difficulty of the training would dissuade her from her goals, knowing just how difficult that particular Imperial Marine training course was. Instead, Jarra took it as a challenge and somehow managed to prosper, despite it being the most difficult challenge she had ever faced. In the process, she had grown up a lot. The first day of training had quickly shown her that the idolized version of the marines she’d seen in vids was a far cry from the real world.
In the process of completing that course, she had realized that she did want to do something to make a difference, just not in the Marines, although she definitely wouldn’t be followin
g in her father’s footsteps. What he did was important for the Empire, but not the way she could do it.
But Jarra had persevered in her commitment to her uncle, and it had been worth it the first time she put on her armor. The feeling she got from that was a lot like that first time in her stolen fighter. That feeling never completely went away even though it had been hammered out of her to the extent possible in her training. They realized that the most critical problem for a marine wearing that armor was the feeling of strength and invincibility the armor gave the wearer, causing them to make stupid mistakes that would get him or her killed. Instead of accepting their full doctrine, however, Jarra and the ones that really understood had ingrained the elements of that caution into their every move out of respect to the need and not fear. That enabled them to make split second decisions necessary to succeed beyond the others.
Jarra had graduated in the top one percent of her class, something that had surprised and pleased her uncle beyond his own expectations, but that had been the beginning of the end of status quo with her father. Jarra really believed if she could make enough of a difference out here, she could return to her father with that proof of her career choice. That and time should be enough, she hoped. It didn’t hurt that she now had her uncle on her side.
As Jarra jumped over the perimeter fence, she used her suit’s anti-grav abilities to bring her down to a soft and silent landing exactly on the spot plotted by Galen. Again her thoughts strayed as she wondered once more about the Imperial Marines in that bar. If she thought it would do any good, she would have words with her uncle, but he could be as stubborn as the rest of her family. But now, with the mission as critical as she believed it was, the possibility of a stealthed Imperial ship just out there at the edge of the system was an extremely good thing. She knew beyond almost all doubt that they were there. She also knew in her gut that this mission was important beyond the minor irritation of a few drones and they would have to do whatever it took to stop them, including calling for reinforcements at the appropriate time.
All of this went through her head as she navigated the path laid out by her teammates, her suit and implants managing most of the work without even conscious thought on her part. Instead, her brain worked at the edges of her perception, looking for those things that didn’t belong. Which is why as she neared her first destination, she came to a complete halt. Jarra waited patiently as the AI controlling the sensor trap in front of her evaluated the information it had received and decided it was a random fluctuation and not important. Using that fractional channel Gabo and Sara had set up, she sent a query back for a reroute around the trap. It took Galen a minute, finally routing her carefully between the trap she had found and another he was able to identify based on the patterns of the one in front of her. So after the small delay, Jarra continued on.
As Jarra reached the first destination, she knew at first glance what her analysis of the information her suit obtained from its scans told her in detail. These are not the drones that you’re looking for.
Jarra couldn’t help but smile. Hah! That sounds like something from a vid I saw one time. She resumed her trek, moving slower now that she knew traps were indeed set up. She wasn’t worried about physical danger to herself at the moment, but their ability to complete their mission successfully was critically tied in to her remaining undetected.
Even with all her care, Jarra barely detected the next pitfall, telling her she was getting warmer in her quest. Using the ability of the suit to freeze instantly to immobility, she waited. This time she had to wait even longer than before, but finally her suit’s AI told her that the AI controlling the trap had cleared the fault. Still she waited, giving the controller AI time for the event to work itself down into its history log. That was one of the fallacies of an AI-managed defense. They forgot much too quickly. To the AI, which looked at the problem much too logically, it was no longer considered important. After all, to the AI the probability of something being there after those long minutes was too low for it to worry about. To the contrary, a human being would have minutes later remembered the event and factored it into his decision process, probably at least raising his level of alertness. After waiting those long moments, she moved on even more carefully, finding and avoiding the second trap her gut told her was nearby.
Finally, Jarra reached the warehouse that she was now convinced was the storage area for the drones. Later, if they were able, they would look for the specific part of the plant that actually built the things, but information was the intent of her current probe. She stopped at the door and waited for Sara to hack the controls to open it. She could have done it herself, but Sara did it much faster, saving her time that might be critical later.
Then came the moment of truth. Jarra stepped into the warehouse and took a look around. She couldn’t believe what she saw before her.
#
Drones, drones, drones. That was what Jarra saw. Many more than she expected to see. Thousands more than she expected to see. Catching a sharp breath, Jarra directed Sara to begin the initial stages of making a connection to one of the drones. Despite the ramifications of what she saw, it only made their mission even more important. They had to get a sample they could take back to their ship. While she waited, Jarra moved about the edges of the warehouse, planting the explosives that every Recon Marine carried but seldom got to use. She loved to watch things go boom. If this one went off like she expected, tomorrow the planet would have a new crater, a really big one, and she wouldn’t have to worry about where the drones were made.
Finally, Sara sent her a tiny little ping. She was ready. Carefully selecting a drone slightly off from the others, she let Sara do her thing. Sara for her part was having fun, even though she knew this was serious. First she set up a standard connection to the drone. Using the frequency shifter, she began to send her commands to the drone. She even set the amplitude and the delay to match the distance to the control tower used to communicate to the drones. Everything had to be perfect and she made it so. Finally she sent the drone the command to prepare itself for transport, although the drone AI tried to argue that point with her. It insisted it had to be ready for the big launch in twenty hours. Sara explained that it was to receive a minor upgrade to one of its systems based on feedback from others and it would be back in time.
The drone AI started to argue one more time, but its logic matrix warned it that if it continued to cause problems, it might well be considered defective and shut down completely. With no further argument, the drone shut down. Quickly grabbing the drone, Jarra wrapped it into a cloaking bag she carried within her suit, and carefully retraced her steps.
Arriving safely back at the ridge, Jarra deactivated her cloak. Quickly, she assisted the others in removing all traces of their occupation of the area. Retracing their steps just as carefully as before, finally they reached their ship, the team breathing a sigh of relief when they were all safely within its fold without anyone being detected. It looked like the hard part of their mission was successfully completed.
Little did they know!
#
Jarra placed the drone in a force field in the quarantine area. She locked the ship down tightly and had everyone take a rest break. In a few minutes, they would begin their analysis. She didn’t have a good feeling about that.
While they waited, Jarra explained to her team how she wanted them to go about taking the drone apart. Everything had to be done remotely within the force field. They knew the amount of force the drones could expel in a self-destruct and they dared not risk the ship to such an explosion. Just to be sure, she upped the force field to the max. They didn’t need the additional power for the moment and it didn’t hurt to be careful, just in case the drone had a more powerful self-destruct than they expected.
Sara explained their time limit to the team as she turned on a countdown timer on the ship’s main screen. “Based on the information I obtained in my discussions with the drone before it shut down, we now have les
s than nineteen hours to do our analysis. There is some kind of mass launch for the drones at the end of that countdown.”
Jarra looked at her team. “That’s a hard deadline then, team. I have every intention of preventing that mass drone launch. As soon as I saw how many we were talking about, I planted extensive explosives in that warehouse. I intend to blow those explosives before the time limit is exceeded. It’s very important that we stop the launch of that many drones.”
Galen raised an eyebrow. “If time is that critical, why don’t you just blow the charges now? We could then take our time in the examination.”
Jarra gave him a grim smile. “The amount of explosives I left behind is enough to destroy the entire plant and more so. Quite possibly it would bring the mountain behind us down on our hiding place. I will take no chances with those drones being released.”
It was Gabo’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You carry explosives that powerful in your suit?”
“Yes,” she told him simply. But she went on with a smile, “Who said I deployed all the explosives I had? No, I only used a portion of what I had available.” Jarra looked around at their shock. “Marines like to make things go boom. I might have caught that disease while training with them.”
The eyes of the team had grown wider the more she talked.
Sara just couldn’t let it go. “You are definitely going to be explaining some things to us soon,” she told her. “No way should you have been able to do all that you have obviously done before coming to us. You’re no older than the rest of us.”
“Not in age, but I’ve seen a lot, guys. I’m sorry, I promise I’ll come clean with you later, but we have a time critical mission to complete. We need to carefully disassemble this drone, making sure we don’t trip any self-destruct mechanism or memory wipe protections. Then we have to build an interface to the drone CPU with all the connections mimicked so that it doesn’t know it’s disconnected. Finally, we will interrogate the drone’s AI to obtain as much information as we can.