“You don’t really think Andara will submit to medical examination willingly do you?” Mark said.
“Oh, I have my ways,” Jon said. “When I’m done he’ll be begging to have one.”
Mark laughed and then said, “I bet he will, knowing you.”
Jon winked as he smiled.
“Sir,” an officer said. “A Eutharan patrol has found it.”
Mark jumped quickly and stepped up to the small table as he spoke, “Bring it up.”
The table came to life as a map blinked into existence. “This is her fighter,” the officer said. “Our two man teams say there’s no sign of her though.”
“You tell our teams to converge on that location and secure the fighter,” Mark said. “Have patrols start a search pattern out from that location.”
“Echo Leader,” the officer said. “You’re to secure the fighter. Back up is in route to your location. No one is to approach the wreckage.”
‘Roger that,’ Echo Leader said. ‘However, the ship is intact with visible signs of damage to the engines.’
“That’s good news,” Jon said.
“Very good news,” Mark said.
‘Command, we’re under fire from the Eutharan patrol,’ Echo Leader said over the sounds of gun fire. ‘What are your orders?’
“Tell them to return fire and hold out until back up arrives,” Mark said. Mark turned to another officer as he continued. “Get the other teams moving double time and get support fighters in the air and moving to that location. Issue a general weapons free to all groups.”
Jon shook his head in disbelief as the orders were passed along. He didn’t see Nefeit stand up and move to the back of the room. Mark was watching her out of the corner of his eye as she spoke to someone through her com unit. Mark spun and grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him. Nefeit's startled look greeted him.
“Just who do you think you're talking too?” Mark said.
Chapter 8
Crash Landing
Location: Terri’s Downed Fighter, Euthara Natural Forest
Terri slammed the ground thrusters to full as the fighter lost altitude. Blinking red lights flashed for most of the fighter’s systems. The holographic control panel blinked as power was interrupted and Terri swore.
“Sandpiper to control, I’m going down,” Terri said.
The com display flashed red showing it was offline.
“Great,” Terri said.
She reached over and bypassed the damaged engine and diverted what power was left to the other engine. The fighter started to gain altitude just as the sound of an impact filled the fighter with more alarms.
The fighter spun from the impact hard enough to slam Terri against the canopy. The impact caused her helmet to shift enough to cut her lip. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.
“Bastards!” Terri said.
The last engine started to fail as the fighter resumed its decent toward the ground.
“I have something for you,” Terri said.
She rerouted all power to the last engine and ground thrusters as she stabilized the fighter. She swung it back at the pursuing fighter and let loose with everything she had as she put one in her sights.
Two beams hit one of the Eutharan fighters and instantly turned the hull into scrap. The explosion took the last two fighters off guard and tossed them aside like rag dolls.
‘Warning weapons capacitors empty,’ the ship’s computer said.
“I know, I know,” Terri said as she hit a few buttons in the faltering display. “I need all the power to the engines.” Two circles appeared on the display and started tracking the remaining fighters.
‘Multiple locks established,’ the ship’s computer said.
“Die bastards,” Terri said.
Two missiles dropped from under her fighter and shot towards the remaining Eutharan fighters. They didn’t have time to react and turned into dual fire balls.
Terri grinned as she watched them fall towards the ground. She knew she needed to get away from the area before the fighter failed completely. She rotated the nose of the fighter around away from the wreckage and engaged the last engine to full throttle.
The fighter shook slightly as it sped away from the downed enemy fighters. It was unable to maintain its current altitude and slowly dipped towards the ground.
Terri slowed the fighter when she thought she was far enough away. She rotated the fighter over a small clearing and let it drop to the ground. It was a bit faster than she would have liked as the ground thrusters began to falter. The landing gear absorbed most of the impact but there was enough left to rattle her teeth.
Everything went dark in the cockpit as the power finally failed. Terri shook her head to clear it as the landing had momentarily disoriented her. She reached over and slapped the manual release for the canopy and pushed it open. Terri unbuckled herself and pulled her helmet off setting it down in the seat as she crawled out of the fighter.
She was greeted on the ground by a small spider bot that clicked and chirped at her.
“See what you can do,” Terri said.
It made one last warble and began inspecting the downed fighter. A light blue scanning beam sweeping over the fighter as it moved around it. The small bot stopped and plugged into the fighter through an external access point and ran a diagnostics on the ship’s systems as it made some low chirps and whistles.
“That bad?” Terri said.
The small bot turned slightly and gave a series of whistles.
“Ok,” Terri said as she laughed. “I’ll let you get back to work and leave you alone.”
Terri crouched down and opened a panel under the cockpit and pulled out her equipment. The last thing she pulled from the compartment was a long sword fashioned like a katana. It had markings on its scabbard, a history of those from the Ga’sahde that had once held the sword. The sword marked Terri’s position of authority among the Ga’sahde and was made from the strongest metal known to any race. When it was time, her legacy would be etched into the sword for all time.
After she donned her armor Terri pushed the scabbard into place on her back. It clicked and hummed for a second as she placed her helmet on. Terri reached up and pushed the clear visor into place. Instantly diagnostics were run on the suit and the readings were displayed on either side on the visor.
‘Jon,’ Terri thought. ‘Jon are your there?’
A small headache flared to life as she attempted to use the nanites to communicate. Something was wrong she realized when she got no response back.
“Medical diagnostics,” Terri said.
Readings began to scroll across her visor as she picked up her rifle and cycled the power cell. Terri slung it over her shoulder and grabbed her pack off the ground. She held it over the back of her head.
“Lock pack into place,” Terri said. “Then display finding on nanites.”
Four small arms unfolded from her suit and grabbed the pack guiding it into two slides on the back of the suit. Terri let go of the pack as it slid into place on her back and a soft click announced the pack was locked into place.
Nothing in any of the scans showed a reason for the nanites to not be working correctly, they were even repairing soft tissue damage. Her lip was almost completely healed and a bruise on her hip was in the process of being repaired. They even showed they had transmitted her calls.
“List probable reasons for nanites failure to establish a communication connection,” Terri said.
At the very top of the list was the thing she feared was the cause of the failure, jamming of some kind.
Terri brought her gloved hand up and slapped the brow of her helmet. “Well duh Terri,” Terri said. “Open communications with the Atlantis priority one.”
After a second large red letters were displayed in the top middle of her visor, Communications Failure.
“Power up mode,” Terri said. The suit hummed briefly as it was activated. “Time to rock and roll.”
The bot looked up and let out a few chirps and whistles.
“Where am I going?” Terri said. “I have to move or I might get captured and we can’t have that can we?”
The bot beeped and whistled again as it made a small ‘no’ motion.
“No, I don’t want you to follow me. Do as instructed, return yourself to base on your own if you have to destroy the fighter,” Terri said. “Understand?”
The bot made a nodding motion and turned back to its work. It made a humming noise as it tended to the fighter. The small bot had been with her for a while and she had always taken the time to talk with it while she did any work on the fighter. Because of that the bot had started to develop a personality. It was something that made the crew chiefs nervous and they continually told her she needed to retire the bot and have it wiped. She had threatened them on pain of death to leave the small bot alone. She told them she had it just about trained to her liking and it was true her fighter was always well taken care of, the best in the fleet.
Pilots began to take notice and started doing the same with their bots much to the distress of the crew chiefs. However, the crew chiefs also noted a performance increase in the fighters over those who had bots that were wiped at the first sign of intelligence. It was something Terri wanted to bring to Jon’s attention. She decided that if, not when, she got out of this mess she would.
With the augments from her armor Terri covered a little over fifty miles. The suit allowed her to do what they called jump flight. The suit would allow the occupant to jump twenty feet into the air and as the operator reached the apex they would engage the jump pack. The hang time from the pack was over a minute and the arc from the initial jump would carry them about a half mile depending on the wind and current weather. The operator could do one large jump or several small jumps before the pack needed time to recharge.
This was something Terri had mastered early on when she was training on Ghost Station. She would jump from limb to limb in the trees until she was as high as she thought she would get and then do her power jump. The result was she managed to travel about one and a half miles per use. The landing stressed the suit and could cause micro fractures but, it was something she would deal with. She wanted to be as far away from the fighter as she could get.
Terri had just finished her fourth power jump as the suit flashed a warning and an alarm went off when she landed. Micro fractures were starting to form on the suit and it advised her to limit any more jumps. She muttered to herself as she started running at full speed through the forest. She was moving at almost forty miles per hour and making a lot of noise as she dodged trees and low branches.
Another alarm went off as the suit reached half power after two hours of running without stopping. “Deploy regenerative skin,” Terri said without breaking her stride. The shell of the suit shimmered as it deployed a reflective skin that absorbed sunlight. Now she just had to find some of the much needed sunlight.
Ten minutes later Terri broke through the forest line and into a small clearing. As she skidded to a sudden halt she gouged the ground and tossed dirt and rock through the air and almost half way across the clearing.
“Run continual scans for any movement,” Terri said. She spread her arms out and formed a ‘T’ with her body. “Deploy panels,” she said. Small panels slid out from her sides and arms and rotated to track the sun for maximum exposure.
‘Recharging will be complete in thirty minutes,’ the suit’s computer said.
Terri liked the older suits but the power cores could explode like a small nuclear device if they took a direct hit. These newer suits were something Brad and his people worked on and they were very efficient. The new suits were lighter, faster and had shields to protect the user, something the older suits lacked. They also had state of the art hardware and tracking systems.
Terri watch the power gauge climb past the half way mark. It would be safe to deploy the repair mites for the suit. This was something that Mike had managed to do with Brad’s help. They were very small repair bots that worked on the same principle as their larger cousins. They used resources in the surrounding environment to do minor repairs to the suits. You had to watch where you deployed them as they could weaken floors or cause breeches in a ship’s hull if too many were used or the damage to the suit was massive.
Brad had deployed special repair stations on all the ships and Mike had built in special software to help reduce breeches and such. But, they could still be over ridden by the user if they wished. It was something Terri wanted added as there might be times you wanted to go through a floor or cause a breech. It would still trigger an alert on the bridge and as a fail-safe the captain could stop a user from overriding the fail safes in the suit.
“Deploy mites,” Terri said.
The skin of the suit rippled as thousands of mites began working on the fractures. Terri shivered as though they were crawling over her skin. Watching them work always creeped her out. The way they moved over the skin of the suit and preformed their work made her have visions of ants crawling all over her body.
The mites had just finished their work as the suit hit full power and retracted the absorption skin. Terri rotated her head and did some mini stretches as she took a step forward. That’s when something hit her left shoulder and exploded slamming her face first into the ground as she slid across the ground. Alarms filled her ears as she shook her head and slammed both her fists into the ground in anger.
“What the hell?” Terri said as she rolled over and jumped up into a crouch.
Standing behind her were four Eutharan Marines in battle armor; one of them was lowering what looked like a bazooka. The suit wasn’t recognizing the figures almost as if they were illusions. It was then that Terri realized they were special ops and had masking harnesses on.
“Terri Hunter, surrender now,” one of the marines said. “We have you out numbered and more are on the way.”
Terri reached back and pulled her sword from its scabbard as she spoke, “That’s Princess Hunter and you had better have a lot more in the forest ready to step out.”
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” the marine said. “We don’t wish to harm you. Our orders are to bring you in alive for your trial.”
“Trial?” Terri said. “What a joke. You shot me down over our air space and now you invade our land to try to take me prisoner? You jam my communications and hunt me like an outlaw and you want me to surrender to four of you?”
“Pretty much,” the marine said.
“You must have some big balls,” Terri said. “Where do you keep them? Balls that big wouldn’t fit in that suit.”
“Like I said we can do this the easy way or the hard,” the marine said. “The choice is yours to make.”
“Like I said,” Terri said as she began to run at the four marines. “You had better have an army ready to step out of the forest if you want to take me down.”
Before the four marines could act Terri was in their midst her sword flashing as she struck at the closest marine. The other three dodged back as Terri’s sword found a soft spot in the armor of the one she had engaged. He groaned as the sword ripped through the armor and into his flesh beneath.
Terri let go of the sword and dropped her upper body down level with the ground as one of the marines swung at her from behind. As his arm passed over where her head had been a second ago she reached up and grabbed it. Terri gave it a slight twist and hard pull as she flipped him over and into the wounded marine. Even through the armor the muffled pop of bone breaking could be heard. The marines muffled scream filled his suit and drifted into Terri’s ears.
Terri grabbed the sword and pulled it from the downed marine, who gave a grunt as he passed out. Terri turned to see the last tw
o marines circling her as they tried to gauge her and decide how best to delay her or take her down.
“What is it with you guys?” Terri said. She snapped the sword and flung the blood on the blade off on to the ground and then in a fluid motion sheathed it. “Always attacking people from behind?”
“All is fair in war,” the marine who had spoken before said.
“Oh, are we at war now?” Terri asked a little sarcastically. “I didn’t know that. I guess that changes things a little.”
“War might be a bit much,” the marine said. “How about battle or in a fight?”
“So, which is it war, battle or fight?” Terri said. “I need to know because I don’t leave people alive in war. This means these two I have disabled need to die and then both of you. If we are in a battle same rule applies as battles usually lead up to a war and your attack on me will probably piss my brother off and it will be war. If we’re just fighting then no need to kill as there will be no hard feelings when I pound you both into the ground.”
“Fight,” the other marine said.
“Yeah, fight,” the marine said that had the broken arm. He had stood back up and joined the small circle.
The marine who had been speaking to Terri nodded as he spoke, “Yeah fight.”
“Second guessing if you can take me?” Terri said.
“No, stalling,” the marine said.
Six more marines stepped from the forest as he finished. Terri grinned as she gave them a quick glance over. “So, what you’re saying is I’m going to get a work out?” Terri said.
“More like worked over,” the marine said.
“Excellent!” Terri said. “I haven’t broken a sweat in a while. So, why don’t you boys just bring it.”
The six new marines joined the three circling Terri. One of them had the emblem of the Eutharan medical service on his right shoulder. Terri pointed at him as she spoke, “You assist the downed marine. He is losing blood and will die soon if not tended.” Terri pointed at the marine with the broken arm. “He needs his arm set as it’s broken and possibly dislocated.”
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