by A. R. Knight
With the katana and a pistol, Sai went down to the Prisa’s engine room. While Eponi would wait up top with her rifle for an initial greeting, Sai would hold for an ambush. Dart up from behind and cut off anyone coming from the shuttle. If things went real sour, Sai would use his pistol to shoot the Prisa’s battery until the thing overloaded and went boom, taking both ships.
The plan died when Rovo’s greeting flew through the open hatch, taking with it Sai’s resigned worries and prompting a gleeful shout from Eponi. They both met Rovo in the middle, catching the rookie as he limped into the Prisa.
“You flew the drop shuttle?” Eponi said, minutes later as they took their spots in the drop shuttle’s cockpit, Eponi at the controls and Rovo sitting next to her.
“Strong word,” Rovo replied. The rookie had the pallor that came with heavy wounds, and if Sai thought his own breathing sounded bad, Rovo’s came like scratched sandpaper. “I told the shuttle to dock with you, and it did the rest. All I did was turn it on.”
“Well, I’ll thank you,” Sai said. “Don’t care how you made it here, just glad you did.”
“Definitely.” Eponi turned back to the console, started tapping away. “I’m sealing the drop shuttle’s clamps to the Prisa. We should be able to tow my baby back.”
“Your baby?” Rovo asked.
“You heard me,” Eponi replied. “What’s the news on the Nautilus? Did we win?”
Rovo spilled into the story, dropping one detail after another that made it clear the squaddies, so far, had not won. That they were, in fact, stuck in a long fight with an adversary they couldn’t count.
“I mean, they could be anyone.” Rovo tried lifting his hands, twitched, and settled them back onto his arm rests. “The agents are everywhere, and they’re not surrendering.”
“Aren’t the squaddies rounding them up?” Sai asked. “Bringing them to that bay?”
“Yeah, if you can round up someone you can’t see, can’t track.”
“Then we’ll have to be smarter,” Sai said. “Eponi, can you raise Aurora? We need to get our next steps.”
The call to the Nautilus comm center went short and snippy. Lamya jumped on the transmission to say Aurora had gone off on her own to bay C-17. Several other squads had been sent to the bay and hadn’t been heard from. Now, Lamya said, they were sealing off that part of the ship.
“Something’s gone wrong there, and we can’t risk more troops until we understand what,” Lamya said. “There’s still too much of this ship we don’t control to commit to one point.”
Rovo had his eyes closed, looked like he needed to nap for a thousand years. Eponi chewed her lip. Sai felt the rippling sting along his back, his hands, his legs as the salve kept the pain from biting, but didn’t numb it all. They didn’t have armor, didn’t have much for weapons, and weren’t in prime condition.
But Aurora needed help.
“We’ll look at C-17 and report back,” Sai said. “Set up your perimeter and keep cleaning out the ship.”
“Sai, I respect you, but I don’t take orders from you,” Lamya said. “If you want to save C-17, please do, but don’t expect reinforcements. I will not risk my forces to save deserters.”
“Copy that.” Sai waved for Eponi to cut the transmission, and when she did, Sai snorted. “Can’t believe she’s pulling loyalties now.”
“I can’t believe you just said we’d run into enemy territory,” Eponi shot back. “What’re you thinking?”
“That it’s what we do, Eponi.”
Sai’s statement didn’t seem to sway the pilot’s mind, but Eponi didn’t fight the call and steered the drop shuttle towards bay C-17. Eponi did, though, mandate dropping the Prisa in an empty bay first. The gentle set down took several aggravating minutes, but Sai couldn’t argue against preserving Sever’s only ship. Eponi settled the Prisa, landing struts definitely not engaged, onto the bay’s floor, wincing the whole way.
“Are you telling that ship sorry?” Rovo asked, not opening his eyes.
“I am sorry,” Eponi replied, disconnecting the hook and boosting the shuttle spaceward. “It’s my fault the Prisa took a hit.”
“You flew well,” Sai said. “We were outnumbered. It’s your fault we survived, damage or no.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t owe her an apology.”
With the Prisa ditched and relatively safe in its bay, Eponi swung the drop shuttle towards C-17, Aurora’s last known location and the spot Deepak ordered all agents to go. Designed for surface assault transports, C-17 and its neighboring bays hollowed out rectangles in the Nautilus. The transports, made to drop a thousand troops at a go, were massive single wings. Coated with turrets, shields, and an underbelly sporting ten separate boarding ramps, the transports existed to get DefenseCorp armies into play.
“Nothing like attacking a ship way better than ours,” Eponi said. “How do we wanna do this?”
Sai’d been pondering that exact thing during the Prisa drop, and while he didn’t like his answer, it was the only one that made any sense.
“Give Rovo the controls,” Sai said. “He’s going to cover us while we hit the ground and find Aurora.”
“So I’m barely a pilot, barely a gunner, and now I get to do both?” Rovo replied as the bay drew closer. “Hurrah.”
“Step up,” Sai said. “As soon as you get us covered, I want you to run. No sticking around, because that transport could toast this boat in a hot second. Eponi and I will find Aurora and evacuate, then we’ll meet up in the next bay up.”
“Gotta say, sounds like this is going to suck,” Eponi muttered, but she stood up anyway after setting the drop shuttle on an entry vector for the bay.
“Does it ever not with this squad?” Rovo asked.
Eponi gave Rovo the pilot’s chair as the drop shuttle went into the bay. As soon as the craft cleared the magnetized shielding, Rovo opened up the sides, giving Sai and Eponi a clear view of the massacre below. Squaddies and agents littered the ground, though others were moving around, loading up the transport.
“Looks like we lost,” Sai said, looking at the black and crimson uniforms among those still standing, those now moving to target the shuttle. “Evacuate?”
“Now you wanna be smart?” Eponi said. “We have surprise, let’s use it.”
Outnumbered, outgunned, Sai and Eponi dropped from the shuttle. Sai had his katana in one hand, his pistol in the other, sending the first bolts at the agents. The enemy reached for their rifles, pulled them up, and took bolts as Rovo lit up the drop shuttle’s turrets. Swipe shooting might not work well against fighters, but in close combat? Against humans?
Sai landed amid a laser wash, dropping his pistol, raising his sword, and, feeling that adrenaline surge, went hunting.
Twenty-Eight
Changing Stakes
By now, the experimental concourse felt familiar. Gregor, leaving the lift behind Vana, stared down its long length heading towards the Nautilus bow and left a lingering heartbeat on Weapons Lab 3. Yeah, he knew this place, and no, he didn’t want to come back here ever again.
Vana seemed to feel the same way, despite bringing him here. The first words from her mouth when they left the lift were a curse, and she swept her hands back across her face, pushing her hair aside and leveling a steel look at Gregor.
“Let me do the talking,” Vana said.
As to who Vana would be talking to, they swarmed the hallway. A full squad, not far beyond Vana and Gregor, making their way down and clearing rooms as they went. Some fifteen people, including soldiers and the scientists granting them access to the rooms. Lamya and the others making good on their job to sweep the ship.
Leaving the lift in a full power armor suit served to attract all the wrong attention, with alarmed calls marking Gregor’s entry to the concourse, followed by swiveled rifles. Vana threw her hands up, and Gregor spread the power armor’s gauntlets as wide as the concourse allowed, showing he didn’t hold any weapons.
The squaddies were ju
st doing their jobs. No need to make things any harder.
“We’re securing valuable material,” Vana said when the squad leader separated herself enough to ask just what the hell Vana, dressed in her heavily armed version of the Quartermaster uniform, and a power-armored man were doing down here. “Up ahead, there’s equipment we can’t let fall into agent hands.”
“Up ahead where?”
“Weapons Lab 5,” Vana said. “I’d advise you and your squad to hang back. Let us handle this.”
“You aren’t the one giving orders in this situation,” the squad leader replied. “We’ll be right with you.”
Vana hesitated, then shrugged, “Fine. I won’t argue against the help.”
And yet, Gregor felt pretty damn certain Vana didn’t want the squaddies along. The squad leader sensed it too, and while her soldiers cleared aside to let them pass, Gregor’s visor painted plenty with red potential threats. Those squaddie rifles aimed, however vaguely, in his direction.
“C’mon,” Vana said as they passed by the squad. “Before they start asking the real questions.”
“Like?”
“Like who you are. Who I am. Why they’re going to die.”
Vana kept walking, the squad shuffling off after them. Gregor’s clanks overwhelmed the marching noise, but not the conversations sparking up in his wake. The suit picked up more than Gregor’s ears would have, catching muttered questions about what a suit like his was doing on the Nautilus.
“Why they’re going to die?” Gregor asked.
“You ever hear the phrase, wrong place wrong time?”
“Somewhat.”
“Apply it.” Vana stopped in front of Weapons Lab 5. “Stay ready. If I’m right, this is where everything falls apart.”
Vana relayed the same instruction to the squad, who fanned out behind them. The Weapons Lab 5 entry spread out double-wide, designed for heavier work than the small chamber that’d held Gregor’s power armor. When Vana tapped her wristlet, the door dutifully shunted aside, spilling into another gap room.
“You all wait out here,” Vana called back to the squad. “Cover the exit.”
The squad leader started a comeback, maybe a snarl saying, again, that Vana couldn’t give her orders, but the agent turned her back on the troopers and walked in. Gregor followed, willing to ignore the tiff between the two sides. The conflict didn’t involve smashing things, and Gregor had already done his diplomacy for the day with Lamya.
Besides, his visor pinged a warning about energy signatures ahead. Normally, a ping like that would mean rifles or other energy weapons were pointing Gregor’s way. With a closed door blocking any sight, blocking most of any radiating power, there must be something particularly nasty going on in there.
“Careful,” Gregor said as the first door shut behind them, separating the duo from their squaddie escort. “Something’s active on the other side.”
“I bet,” Vana hesitated next to the inner scanner. “Gregor, I need to know something.”
“What?”
“Your squad. What do you want?”
“I don’t understand?”
“What’s your goal?” Vana leaned on the wall next to the scanner. “Your commander, Aurora, talked like she had some major ideas in mind. Is that what you’re after?”
There was a time for high minded discussions about life goals, philosophy, and so on. That time was not now. Gregor had a squad to get back to, a bridge to visit on his commander’s orders.
“Open the door,” Gregor said. “Let’s finish this and go to the bridge.”
“So you don’t know what you’re looking for.”
“You heard me.”
Vana shrugged, turned to the scanner, “Your call. I find it’s easier to work with allies when I know their goals, but you do your thing.”
“I will.”
Gregor adjusted his stance, put himself square in the door’s center and balanced on his feet, ready to burst forward. The armor didn’t have any weapons beyond its big metal fists, and while that ought to be enough, Gregor would have to close to smashing distance to get any damage done.
The scanner clicked and the door slid open. Vana’s lead up made it sound like Weapons Lab 5 would be a horror chamber, like the rooms on Dynas where Felix’s viral creations disintegrated in secret.
Instead, the place shone with the pristine perfection that comes from meticulous cleaning, the kind that came not from bots following an algorithm but patient humans with careers on the line. Glittering blacks and reds coated the room, with mustard-yellow circles placed beneath what looked like empty, hanging hooks.
Well, mostly empty.
Five hooks, spaced in sets of two, hung open, each one tied to an accompanying control console. The sixth, towards the room’s middle back, held its prize. A snowflake white suit laced through with glassy metals, like power armor for a fashion party. No weapon attachments hung from its body, no big energy packs ready to turn kinetic force into booster jumps. The sort of suit an agent might design: pretty and useless in an actual battle.
Gregor’s visor pinged it, and also caught two other signatures in the room, hugging the left and right walls. Despite the warnings, Gregor focused on the more immediate middle threat.
Renard, with a burnt uniform, battered face, and holding his left wrist, leaned on the hanging suit. He looked towards Vana with an expression that said he was trying to work up some haughty triumph but just couldn’t get there. When he tried to talk, the man coughed, and some decidedly brighter red splashed onto the floor at his feet.
“Things not going quite as you planned, Renard?” Vana said, striding into the room.
“Careful,” Gregor warned. “There are others in here.”
“Your friend’s right,” Renard said, recovering enough to rasp out a sentence. “The plan may have needed some adjusting, Vana, because some people aren’t smart enough to realize when they’ve lost, but we are still in control.”
Vana, apparently not caring about Gregor’s warning, went straight for Renard. She didn’t raise the rifle, but strode in with all the confidence of someone who owned the room and everything in it. Gregor hung back, near the door, where nobody could get behind him. More worrisome were the visor’s energy readings, which said there ought to be things on his left and right, but his eyes saw nothing near those walls.
No, not quite nothing. Gregor squinted, looking to his right, while Vana and Renard dipped into a quieter discussion. Along the black wall, a crimson line running right through its middle, the white light cast from the illuminating rows along the ceiling, bent here and there. As if being run through a filter, splashing at odd angles along the wall behind. The slightest shadows ran through the red.
So far as technology went, Gregor and Sever and DefenseCorp had played with stealth and light-bending tech before. The finicky things usually required all kinds of crazy power to keep up the illusion, and were awfully fragile. A single scratch or laser burn collapsed the show, rendering the suit’s prime advantage useless early in a firefight.
Which is why they’d been largely dumped as expensive, useless gadgets. If Vana had herself all worked up over a new stealth suit, then she’d missed out on the idea’s history.
“Gregor,” Vana said, turning from Renard and looking his way. “Mind coming in a little further?”
“Why?”
“Because Renard seems to think he’s found a winning formula, and I want you to prove him wrong.”
“I am not a toy,” Gregor said.
“No,” Renard responded, “not a toy, but invaluable proof. Vana tells me you are part of Sever squad, and I can’t say I’m surprised to see yet another one of you sticking a knife into my side. Here, now, you have a chance to push it all the way through. Bring an end to my attempts.”
Gregor didn’t move. The energy signatures did. They both shifted closer, moving around the walls and towards his doorway spanning power armor stance.
“See, Vana?” Renard said. “He
lix was only one part of our work. One branch on our tree. This, this here? This is the trunk, the roots, and the leaves.”
Vana, rifle dangling, folded her arms and looked Gregor’s way, “You talk an awful lot, Renard. I prefer show to tell.”
“Then watch.”
Gregor paid half attention to the words. Focusing on the energy pings, Gregor waited till they closed within a few meters, then shifted his weight to his right foot. The power armor obeyed, its bulk crackling to life as Gregor’s own movement, his spiking heart rate, switched the armor into its active combat mode. Gregor might not have a rifle, might not have a hammer, but the fists would do just fine.
With his right fist swinging in high and his left coming in low, Gregor’s jumping attack caught the invisible enemy by surprise. Whomever sat inside the suit apparently thought they were safe, because Gregor’s metal mitts struck home, bashing in and bending their target, the hit throwing the enemy back. Gregor couldn’t see the impact, but he heard the squishy metal strike the room’s right side wall, followed by a thud as his target fell to the floor.
Whirling, Gregor sent a kinetically charged kick back towards the second ping, creeping up from behind. This one played it smarter, dancing back away from the lethal metal foot. Gregor caught the light shifts as the suit stayed away. A mistake, letting Gregor settle back in. Now the invisible things had lost their numbers advantage.
And with the visor, that invisibility didn’t do much anyway.
“I’m not impressed, Renard,” Vana said.
“Don’t fault the machine for the pilot’s error,” Renard countered.
“Then perhaps you need better pilots.”
Gregor closed with the remaining invisible suit. The combat rush flowed through him, keeping his eyes tuned into that energy signature, his arms and legs feeling out his larger power armor, its limits and its abilities. The suit moved slower than Gregor’s old one, its bigger plates weighing on Gregor’s natural limbs, but the monster had been designed with fluid motion in mind, rapidly shifting momentum from one part to another, so that once Gregor started moving, he didn’t stop easily.