It took a few minutes to figure out. Cruz wasn’t trained for warship duty, but she certainly knew how to work the Tillos comms hub. The hardware on the Lucid was practically identical, barring a few modifications necessary to keep the array operational in a combat situation. The main comms were online and functioning at one hundred percent.
The underground bunker was heavily shielded. However, the Lucid’s comms system was powerful enough to cut straight through and when Cruz checked out the list of available receptors, she was given an insight of exactly how well-connected a fleet warship was. There was an option to force open a top-level channel to the Juniper, as well as to Fleet Admiral Duggan’s sentry – Cerys - in the New Earth Central Command Station. Aside from that were hundreds, perhaps thousands of different connection options.
Here and now, Lieutenant Maria Cruz didn’t care for any of the others. She found what she was looking for.
[Field Comms Pack – Bannerman, Nitro. Loc Tillos Base, Atlantis. Receptor: Open [More]]
She connected to it and waited for a response.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The central data array didn’t look like much to Sergeant Eric McKinney’s eyes - a big cylinder of metal that could have been anything, except it was a bit colder than most metal he was used to. There was a group of dead Vraxar around one side, killed by the substantial quantity of gauss rounds which had penetrated their flesh. These Vraxar were different to the others and didn’t look anything like a Ghast, nor indeed anything else McKinney had set eyes on.
A repeater roared somewhere close by, followed by the distinctive whump of grenade explosions deeper in the CCB complex. The enemy were beginning to rally and McKinney kept his fingers crossed their confusion would last a short while longer. The mission was so close to success.
“How’re those charges coming along, Clifton?”
The soldier darted around the base of the array pillar, planting pale blue cubes in an apparently random fashion.
“Nearly done, Sergeant.”
“Will it be enough?” asked Lieutenant Pointer.
“You better believe it’ll be enough. It’s going to bring the Colonel’s emperor-sized bed crashing down four stories and into this room. Anything on this array will be melted into something you could spread on your toast.”
“Soldier,” McKinney warned.
“Very descriptive,” said Pointer. It hadn’t taken her long to recover from the effects of captivity and she was taking an active interest in what the squad were doing. So far, she hadn’t interfered.
Captain Blake was nearby, carrying a gauss rifle one of the squad had donated. The distant expression on his face was gone and he looked alert. McKinney was relieved – he didn’t want any dead wood coming on the way back. Lieutenant Rivera already seemed like a lost cause – sullen and uncooperative, even though his own life was in danger. The man did the bare minimum and he looked remote from the events around him. Still, he was one of the Corps and he was coming with them, whatever it took.
“Can you definitely fly the ES Lucid, sir?” asked McKinney for the second time.
“If it’s online like you say, I can fly it, Sergeant. I’ll need that field comms pack to transmit my access codes before it’ll open the boarding ramps.”
“I’ll make sure Bannerman doesn’t lose it.” He was desperate to ask if Blake thought he could destroy the Vraxar ships. Blake was approachable enough, but McKinney had a respect for authority and didn’t want to pester with questions to which there might be no easy answer.
Blake saw the turmoil. “If the Lucid’s Obsidiar core is active, it’ll pack a real punch. It’s a valuable asset – as soon as we’re onboard, I might be ordered to take it elsewhere. I’m lacking a full crew as well – Commander Brady is dead and Lieutenant Rivera is relieved of duty.”
“I understand, sir,” McKinney replied, not really sure why the Space Corps would order the Lucid to withdraw.
“We’re good to go, Sergeant,” said Clifton. “These explosives are on a synchronised timer – as soon as I activate it, we’ll have five minutes to get out of here.”
“The Vraxar won’t be able to interfere with the charges?”
“No, sir. They’re like limpets these things. Once they’re stuck, they aren’t going anywhere.”
McKinney joined Captain Blake at the doorway and leaned out to listen. He couldn’t be certain, but he got the impression the intensity was building.
“Squads B and C, please report.”
“We’re holding them here,” said Evans.
“The action is picking up at our position, sir,” said Corporal Li. “These Vraxar don’t seem to have much of a survival instinct.”
“Keep shooting them.” In the grand history of motivational of speeches this was a poor example, but McKinney didn’t care. “Clifton, activate the explosives.”
“That’s done, sir.”
“There’s going to be a big blast in five minutes,” said McKinney on the open channel. “I’m leading Squad A back towards the location of Squad C. Squad B, break off when we come past and follow us. No pissing around.”
McKinney left the room first. Blake appeared keen to test himself and he followed at once, his rifle held with the easy grace of a man born to it. Pointer came after and then the rest of Squad A.
“Garcia, Elder, watch our backs.”
“On it.”
The voice of Clifton urged them on. “We need to get moving, Sergeant. Perhaps I didn’t sufficiently emphasize the size of the blast when those charges go off.”
“Sufficiently emphasise?” asked Garcia. “We’ve just left the room and you can already tell we’re not going to make it?”
“Yeah. I have this affinity with explosives. If we keep going at this speed, we’ll be incinerated.”
McKinney walked faster, unwilling to break into an outright run that might lead them into trouble. Darell Causey was ahead in the corridor, in a crouch and with his repeater aimed around the corner. As they approached he fired the weapon. It kicked in his hands and its slugs clanked out in their hundreds.
“Clear!” he shouted.
McKinney and the others sprinted past the opening and Causey stood up to follow.
Clifton spoke again, his voice tinged with excitement and edged with fear. “Sir, we need to move.”
“Why the hell didn’t you set the charges for six minutes?”
“I thought you’d prefer the certainty of a five-minute timer.”
“There’s something wrong with you, Clifton,” said Garcia.
“Hey, man, I passed my psych evaluation with flying colours.”
“Must have got the sympathy vote.”
“Do you always talk this much during the fighting?” asked Pointer, having joined the squad’s comms channel.
“It focuses the mind, ma’am,” said Garcia. “Two behind.” He fired a burst from his repeater. “Clear.”
Fearing they wouldn’t make it far enough away, McKinney increased the pace until he was jogging. The men of Squad B joined up as they ran and it was noticeable how few of the original twenty-two remained. Someone fired three quick shots from a gauss rifle – it was Captain Blake.
“Clear,” he said.
They reached the room in which Squad C was under pressure from a Vraxar counterattack coming from both the north and south. Bullets came and went, creating an irregular beat of metal on metal.
“We’re running low on grenades and repeater ammo, sir,” said Li. “Musser’s out of rockets.”
“Webb,” said McKinney, pointing to the south exit.
“Sir.”
Moments later, Webb fired a plasma rocket expertly into the room filled with broken cabinets. Shots came from the north and he dived quickly to one side to get out of the enemy’s firing arc.
“Fire another one to the north. Everyone else, throw whatever grenades you have left and fall back on my command. We’re making a run to the south.”
As soon as Webb fired anoth
er plasma rocket, the men holding the north corridor sprinted away towards the south wall of the room. There wasn’t a lot of time to act – any delay would see the soldiers trapped in a crossfire from north and south.
“I can hear something behind us,” said Garcia.
“We have to go,” said Clifton, shifting from one foot to the next.
“What the hell have you stuck to that data array?”
“The good stuff, Sergeant. It wouldn’t matter so much if we were on the surface. In tunnels, the explosive energy tends to form…”
“Enough,” McKinney tried to cut him off.
“…a powerful blast wave,” Clifton finished.
“We’d better hope we stay ahead of it.”
McKinney listened – there was little in the way of gunfire to be heard. “Move,” he ordered, sprinting away along the south corridor.
“Boom,” said Clifton.
Halfway along the corridor, McKinney found himself punched off his feet. He fell forward and a force behind threw him onwards. The blast wave passed as quickly as it came, but not before it finished throwing McKinney, the remains of his squad and the crew of the Determinant into the room of metal cabinets. The Vraxar had moved the cabinets into a defensive wall, which the squad crashed into at speed.
The blast wave travelled faster than sound and a moment after it went by, the rumbling of the explosion reverberated through the walls, building to a crescendo.
McKinney coughed as he struggled to recover – his spacesuit had protected his ears and kept him insulated against much of the shock, but he was winded. Before he could regain his feet, his eyes registered the presence of Vraxar in the room. There were seven or eight of them in one corner - he guessed they’d been taking cover there and then been stunned by the blast wave. They were big, solid bastards and they recovered quickly. The first one was already on its feet.
With a twist of his shoulder, McKinney brought his repeater to bear and held down the trigger. It fired two or three shots towards the Vraxar and then stopped. The alien soldier flinched and started to lift its hand cannon.
It took McKinney a moment to figure out what was wrong. There was a message on his HUD which he’d neglected to watch closely enough.
[Repeater Ammunition: 0%]
Into the briefest moments of silence, the sound of a plasma tube coil intruded.
“Oh shit, no,” said one of the men.
“Get down,” said Webb.
He fired the last of his rockets at the Vraxar. The room was large enough for McKinney’s brain to register the streak of movement. The rocket detonated in the far corner at ceiling height, directly above the Vraxar and twenty metres or so from the squad.
Before he knew it, McKinney found himself engulfed in fire. It came, embraced him and then dispersed within the blinking of an eye. In its wake, it left half of his visor HUD covered in critical failure alerts. The other half of his HUD no longer showed any data at all.
“We need to get out of here,” said Blake.
The comms on McKinney’s suit wasn’t working. He raised his visor. “On your feet!” he barked. “Now!”
Miraculously, no one apart from the Vraxar had died in the plasma blast. Not one of the squad was untouched by it – the material of their suits was blackened and cracked. A few of the men groaned in pain and McKinney saw breaches in the material, which allowed the plasma to char the skin beneath.
“You’re hurt,” said Blake.
McKinney looked about, before realising it was him Blake was concerned for. He felt pain and when he checked, a piece of his suit was burned away, revealing a hand-sized patch of red and weeping skin on the side of his ribcage. McKinney ordered his suit to inject him with something. He wasn’t surprised to find it was too damaged to comply.
“Damnit.”
“Here,” said Pointer.
Without ceremony, she jabbed a needle from her emergency belt pack into the burned skin. McKinney yelled out.
“Thanks,” he growled, feeling cold, numbing relief spread from the area of the injection.
The rest of the squad were on their feet and the most alert were already covering the exits from the room. Without his HUD overlay, McKinney took a moment to figure out which way to go. He remembered and urged the men onwards.
“Be prepared,” he said, pushing forward. “Squad A on point.”
“As usual,” grumbled Garcia.
Wincing as his burned flesh stretched and split, McKinney dropped his useless repeater and broke into a trot, keeping his rifle in hand. A man he recognized came alongside, no longer carrying the spent plasma launcher. With a grunt, McKinney clapped him on the shoulder.
“Thanks.”
“No problem, Sergeant.”
“Promise me you’ll never do that again?”
Webb laughed. “No promises. My grandma told me never to make them.”
The squad encountered no further resistance in the CCB complex and they entered the main comms hub area of the base. McKinney’s memory didn’t fail him and he led the others exactly the route they’d come. It seemed shorter on the way back and it wasn’t long until they reached the entrance leading to the place underneath the rubble. McKinney was out first, relieved the slabs above hadn’t settled or collapsed enough to force them to seek another way. He felt a momentary disappointment when he realised Lieutenant Cruz was no longer waiting.
“The Lieutenant must have gone to the bunker,” said Huey Roldan, pressing a hand against his wounded shoulder.
“Oh crap,” said Blake.
“Sir?”
“I just remembered something one of the Vraxar said when they took us prisoner. He told us they’ve discovered an additional area of the base which interests them.”
“That’s got to be the bunker. Did you learn how many troops they’ve sent?”
“They didn’t give anything else away. I got the impression it was a significant number.”
“That’s what I thought too,” said Pointer.
“There are only fifteen of us left,” said McKinney. “Our kit is damaged, we’re almost out of explosives and our repeaters are low on ammo. We can’t take on half the Vraxar assault force and expect to win.”
There was a flurry of movement to one side – it was Bannerman dropping his pack and crouching next to it. “Someone’s opened a comms channel,” he said in puzzlement. “There shouldn’t be anyone able to do that.” He opened the flap, plugged in his earphone and then looked up in excitement. “It’s the Lucid, sir!”
“How?” said Blake.
“One moment,” said Bannerman with a faraway stare of concentration. “It’s Lieutenant Cruz, sir. She’s linked to the Lucid using a diagnostic tablet and using its onboard comms to reach us. I’m getting a text-to-speak interpretation of what she’s typing.”
McKinney dropped to his haunches next to the comms pack. “What’s her status?”
Bannerman provided the details in a series of short sentences. “Lots of Vraxar. Trying to burn out ship’s core. Too many to fight.”
“How is she?”
“She says she’s fine. Holed up.”
“She isn’t fine,” said McKinney with a frown. “She was hurt.”
“She had that Larry guy with her and maybe Lieutenant Reynolds. It could be they’ve found somewhere safe,” said Bannerman.
“Are the Vraxar near the ship?” asked Blake.
“She can’t be sure. It’s her belief that many of them are in the main hangar bay area, though she’s seen others on patrol. She asks if we found the captain from the warship which crashed.”
“Happy to make her acquaintance,” said Blake. “I think I know what she’s going to ask.”
Bannerman listened intently to his earpiece and relayed the next question. “Can you activate the automatic countermeasures on the Lucid?”
Blake rubbed his chin. “I can send my codes through this field comms pack and it’ll start the fireworks. My concern is what the Vraxar warships in space will do
when the Lucid starts shooting. They might decide to destroy it before we can get onboard.”
“They have their own troops in the bunker,” said McKinney. “They’d be wiped out.”
“Would you bet on them acting with humanity, Sergeant?”
“Not for a second.”
“The bunker is massive,” said Corporal Evans. “The enemy would need thousands of troops to keep it secure. What if we fought our way to the lower levels before they realised what was up? Then you could activate the countermeasures and we could get onto the warship before the Vraxar in space were able to respond.”
“It would give us a chance to rescue Lieutenant Cruz and Keller,” said McKinney.
“What about Lieutenant Reynolds?” asked Webb.
McKinney laughed. “He can come too. Captain Blake, will the plan work?”
“In the absence of a better one, we’ll make it work.”
“Bannerman, let Lieutenant Cruz know we’re coming. Tell her to keep her head down.”
“Preferably with at least a hundred metres of metal or rock between her and the Lucid,” said Blake. “The automated defences aren’t gentle.”
It was settled. The remainder of the squad formed up and left the illusory safety of the rubble. It was a warm morning and the sun was shining.
“We’re going through the Section D entrance, sir,” said McKinney. “It’s this way.”
“What the hell is that?” asked Causey, looking upwards.
There was a large dot far above them, the only blemish in an otherwise perfect sky. The dot grew bigger and bigger, until those watching could identify a shape and features. It was an ugly spaceship, with a cuboid shape, covered in angular outcroppings which served no apparent purpose. Flat bay doors, currently closed, ran along almost its entire length.
“Lifter,” said Blake, one hand shielding his eyes. “Three klicks in length – a small one.”
“It’s too late to get the data array,” Clifton laughed. “Maybe they’ve come to recover their dead.”
Blake wasn’t so sure. “It could pick up the Determinant,” he said. “Not all of its memory banks were fried by particle beams.”
Negation Force (Obsidiar Fleet Book 1) Page 22