As close to the suspect corridor as he dares, Thompson throws his fist up again and takes a knee. Beckert and Argo hunker down behind him without a sound. The Gun duck walks toward the intersection with deliberate steps, every sinew taut. His mind focuses to a needle point, and he reaches out with his senses: a shoed foot slides over the floor plates, something hinged squeaks as it is turned, whispers pass and are urgently hushed.
Thompson hand-signals Argo for a grenade. The Brick palms an appropriate charge from his waist and underhands it to his leader. In one fluid motion, Thompson cups it silently from the air, activates it, and hurls it into the dimmer corridor.
Barks and loud shouts roll from the corridor before a deep bass POOMP silences them. The lights momentarily fail and flicker before relighting.
Looking down the sights of his weapon, Thompson rushes ahead and rounds the corner. He leaps over a hastily erected barricade, triggering kill shots into all four prone heat sources.
“Clear!” Thompson radios. Argo and Beckert round the corner and vault over the barricade. While Thompson dashes ahead, Beckert and Argo quick-search the bodies.
Beckert rolls a soldier over and rips a bandolier from its chest with four apple-sized spheres. He throws the bandolier over his head.
Argo picks up a tripod-mounted weapon, knocked over by the blast. Just below the gun mount, there is a hinge which allows the weapon to pitch and yaw. It squeaks with the motion.
“Lieutenant.”
Argo turns to see Beckert holding another strap of spherical devices.
“You’ll like these,” the Geek says, offering the bandolier. “Big boom.”
Argo takes the strap and dons it, barely able to get his arm and head through the loop.
“Enemy sighted,” Thompson radios from out of sight. “Committing.”
The sound of rifle pangs and mixed ordinance reverberate down the long hall.
“Go!” Argo orders, and Beckert sprints toward the sounds of combat. Argo yanks the battery pack from the tripod mounted weapon, hurls it back the way they came, and chases after Beckert.
The Geek pauses at the next intersection. Holes are scorched into the white walls on the left with small wisps of flame. Large notches are burned out of the corner on the right. Argo storms up behind the Geek.
“Gun, what’s your position?”
The radio blares with crackling hisses, weapon fire, and labored breath.
“Two hundred meters ahead, then right. Stay low, and watch our line of retreat.”
Argo pops his head past the corner quickly. Soldiers in angular armor lie flat on their backs, tails sprawled to one side. He slaps Beckert on the back, and the Geek runs behind his pistols to the next intersection. Checking over his shoulder, the Brick jogs after his comrade.
Beckert kneels at the corner. Smoke rolls in from the right like a demon’s exhalation. Bullets and beams spray across the intersection, ricocheting and scoring the once-polished walls. A sizzling hiss zips through the smoke, followed by another, and delayed explosions rumble in the distance. Around the corner, a weapon chugs with high-output shots.
Argo peeks around the corner and sees Thompson squatting behind a smoking barricade. Both of the Gun’s hands grip a tripod mounted weapon, triggering continuously into a vast and smoky bay. Small rockets, bullets, and beams plunge into the barricade, scooting it backwards with each hit.
A bullet tangs against the Brick’s helmet, jolting him back, and an instant later the corner burns with multiple impacts. A rocket streaks through the new notch, missing Argo by centimeters, and ricochets off the wall behind him. It spirals down the hallway, ticking loudly with each bounce before exploding at the next intersection.
“Right behind you, Gun,” Argo radios. A bright flash, a sharp crack, and a burst of sparks explodes from Thompson’s position. The chugging shots cease.
Dense smoke billows through the intersection, and the sounds of combat fade.
“Gun!” Argo calls. He leans forward, starting a dash.
Thompson groans into his radio. “Brick, continue through intersection, take point.”
The Brick stops short and straightens, relieved to hear Thompson’s voice.
“Aye, si…”
“Brick!” Beckert yells.
Shots from across the intersection batter Argo, knocking him off balance. Beckert aims his weapons at the attackers and strafes with a heavy burst.
Argo rights himself, following Beckert’s muzzle flashes to a pair of falling soldiers. Thin blue arms reach out from an open door and haul the fallen soldiers out of the hallway.
Argo’s teeth grind as he leaps across the intersection. Shots radiate from the closing doorway, sizzling into his thick armor. He brings his cannon to bear and triggers a devastating blast. The door crumples like foil, and the room belches a great thunderclap of superheated air. Smoke and fragments burst through the ragged doorway with seismic vibration.
Orange spots on Argo’s armor, marking each hit, fade to red and dissipate across the surface. The Brick leans forward, daring anything else to present itself.
“Gun, way is clear. Geek, provide cover.”
“Aye, sir,” Beckert radios. Keeping one pistol trained down Thompson’s corridor, he crosses the intersection and snatches a sphere from his bandolier. Holding the sphere in his palm, he taps the top with his thumb and traces a quarter circle counter clockwise.
Thompson’s rifle pangs twice in his retreat. Random shots zip and dart through the smoke. The Gun keeps low, the shots passing harmlessly over his head.
When Thompson rounds the corner, Beckert taps the top of the sphere twice. It whirs and buzzes like a furious insect. Standing up, the Geek hurls the device into the smoky bay and runs for his life.
Beckert’s feet roll swiftly over the polished deck plates in an urgent rhythm. Thompson’s hunched shoulders sway ahead of him, the Gun’s helmet almost scraping the curved ceiling. Beckert spins mid-stride and runs backwards, pistols aimed toward the pocked and scorched intersection.
How long did I set the timer?
The corridor lurches violently, polished plating and fixtures bursting from their mounts. The light sconces go dark and do not re-light.
“Geek,” Thompson calls, “what’s on the wireless?”
Beckert glances at the list of active frequencies in his goggles. “High message density, Major. They’re very excited.”
“Any networks you can access?”
“I’ve been trying, sir,” the Geek adds apologetically. “I’m having trouble concentrating…hard to think…”
“Probable contact ahead,” Argo whispers. The team slows to a quiet glide step, and approaches a darkened intersection. Stray beams of light spill in from the right. Urgent voices pass back and forth, and there is a faint electric beep.
Argo pads ahead, taking a bulb from his waist. He mashes the stem button three times and bounces it around the corner.
Horrified shouts and screams are crushed to silence by the fierce detonation.
The Brick steps into the broad intersection like a moveable wall, covering his teammates as they sprint by. Through the smoke and settling debris, he sees lines of bodies stretched out beneath blotchy white sheets, lining each side of the wide corridor. At the end, heavy doors hang loosely on their hinges, partially open. Beyond are the smoldering hulks of crashed transports.
This bay is bigger than it looked.
There is a small flash from the bay and a large caliber bullet slams dead center of his breastplate. The Brick staggers back from the impact, just keeping his feet, and runs after his team. Behind him, weapon fire pours from the bay like the onset of a hailstorm.
“Brick moving, covering rear.”
“Geek,” Thompson calls, “find us a diagram, map, directory, something, that’ll show us where to go.”
“Understood, Major.” Beckert pushes through the hammers and gongs in his disjointed mind. Argo’s neurochemical cocktail has given him good sensory control, reflexes,
and automated response. But higher thinking is a frenzied chaos. Random thoughts scatter across his frontal lobe, mixing with memories of unrelated events as if a thousand movies were cut and spliced together then run simultaneously.
Confused by the Geek’s misfiring neurons, Beckert’s HDI remains idle, stubbornly displaying a command prompt. The young man, protected on each side by Thompson and Argo, labors to blank his mind of the cluttered thoughts.
HDI, initialize, he thinks as clearly as he can. His goggles flash once. Boot commands scroll in a blur.
Calibrate neural interface.
His goggles flash myriad patterns, shapes, and colors. The HDI reads feedback from his eyes and synaptic responses.
<53% signal to noise.>
With the sensitivity reduced, Beckert finds the HDI is no longer overwhelmed by interference from his chaotic, fluttering mind, but he has to mentally shout his thoughts to operate.
DISCOVER NETWORKS, he think/yells. Two hundred distinct access points list in his goggles. Hack software pries open one gateway and locks out other users. With effort, a piece of his consciousness barges into the system, discovering, mapping, and searching the greater structures. Most nodes are in high alert, with formidable security hampering access to vital areas. A general information node is unlocked, however, and Beckert unfurls a three dimensional map in his mind. The team’s location highlights in blue.
“I have a map, Major.”
“Good! Get us to the nearest flight deck!”
Faster than Thompson ordered it, Beckert has the closest flight deck selected. The route auto-plots, and he transmits the data to his teammates’ visors.
In Thompson’s view, the map overlaps his visual sightlines perfectly, adding light blue edges to the corridors’ contours. A red line forms on the floor, indicating the path. Having a destination makes his strides longer, more confident.
The team emerges from the darkened halls, following a long, unbranching corridor. Stark light shrinks their pupils. The emptiness of the corridor leaves Thompson wary and unsettled—this hallway is quiet, making the hiss of ventilation seem noisy.
All three heads swivel, searching every panel, seam, and fixture for what must surely be an ambush to come. Far down the hall, a dark gray door seals the end of the passage. He turns in time to watch the end of the corridor behind them seal with an identical door. The Gun purses his lips and nods at the most elementary of traps.
Argo, recognizing his necessity, puts a hand on Thompson’s shoulder and moves past him.
“Stand back, get down,” the Brick warns, thumbing his cannon’s output to maximum. He jogs ahead and plants the weapon at the center of the corridor, aimed at the gray barrier. He sets a switch, squeezes the trigger, and runs back toward his comrades at top speed. At the last moment, he dives to the floor. Sliding on his chest, he drags a hand, spins around, and waits for the capacitor whine to reach its peak. At the last moment, the team looks down at the floor and wraps their arms around their heads.
The cannon glows with an eerie violet aura and discharges a devastating stream. Superheated air explodes in a tremendous thunder clap, rattling the operators against the deck and washing them in a punishing shockwave.
Argo lifts his head first and studies the end of the corridor. Dense webs of frayed cords slump from the walls and ceiling. Hissing jets of vapor gush from shattered air and liquid ducts. Yet amid the haze and arcing sparks, the barrier remains defiant. Its only injury is a half meter spot near the floor blushing dull red and fading back to gray.
“Huh,” he says, propping himself on his elbows. “Good door.” He sucks on one of his canines as he considers other options.
“Maybe the walls aren’t as strong,” Thompson suggests. Argo turns to the Gun, his gloomy expression brightening. The men rise in unison and hurry toward the fuming end of the corridor, Argo snatching up his cannon on the way. Together, they dig into the blasted walls, ripping out layers of insulation, wire bundles, bracing, piping.
While the larger operators attack the wall, Beckert kneels in contemplation. In stillness, a subtle tone reaches his ringing ears, high-pitched, almost inaudible. The more he focuses on it, the easier it is to distinguish; and Beckert realizes he is not hearing the tone as much as he is feeling it: stray vibrations, electromagnetism, flows of immense power.
“Major! Lieutenant!” The Geek calls rising to his feet. He turns to the left and presses his hands against the smooth, polished wall.
Thompson and Argo halt their demolition.
“What have you got?” Thompson yells down the hall.
Beckert looks up and down the unremarkable wall, sensing the treasure behind it.
“Processing Node!”
Argo jogs toward the Geek, excited.
“Are you certain?”
Beckert nods emphatically, tuned in to the ultrasonic orchestra of switching relays.
“All RIGHT!” Argo growls and slams his fist into the white metallic tiles, splitting them at the seams. He sets his cannon down and pries the wall open. Beckert steps back, careful to stay clear of Argo’s massive swings and rips.
Thompson jogs up to the new site of destruction, his eyes darting between the gray barriers anxiously. Every second they are stalled in the corridor means more time for the enemy to reinforce the exits, more time to surround, to trap, to overwhelm.
Argo digs like a bear through a rotten log, his massive paws scraping deeper until they strike solid framing. His hands curl to battering rams and pound the frame, nudging it, denting it with each hit.
Thompson shifts from one foot to another, expecting the barriers to rise at any moment with an army behind each one. He raises his rifle at the torn open wall.
“Stand back.”
Argo steps away, surprised to see Thompson ready to fire. He ducks aside and the rifle flashes repeatedly, melting into the rigid structures.
“Careful, Major,” Beckert warns meekly, censoring himself. He cringes with each rifle flash, knowing the node is taking the hits.
Thompson burns a dotted and dashed archway into the interior framing and lowers his weapon. Taking the cue, Argo steps up to the arch and peers through one of the pencil thin holes.
“I see light.” The big man takes the sacks from his shoulder and passes them off to Thompson. Swinging his arms, he retreats to the opposite side of the corridor and breathes heavily. The furnace within him stokes to full fury, his muscles fully fueled. He bellows with channeled rage and lunges at the arch. Dropping his shoulder, he slams into the wall, ripping a small section apart. He backs away, roars, and drives himself into the tortured metal like a kamikaze.
The metallic inner wall unzips completely, retreating into the room beyond. Argo’s momentum carries him into a low beam face first, and he drops flat onto his back.
Beckert darts through the gap, pistols raised, and scans the ten-meter-high room. The symmetrical floor, walls, and ceiling are planted with cube shaped processors. The cubes stand to Beckert’s chest, and he moves between them gracefully. He bathes in the hum and flow of data all around him, smiling behind his faceplate. After a quick sweep, he finds the room is free of the enemy.
“Clear!” he shouts.
Argo shakes his head and picks himself up from the deck. All around him, the warm cubes glow in his visor. Two of the cubes sizzle, leaking hot, runny oil from pencil-thin holes.
Thompson backs through the ragged archway and keeps watch on the gray barriers.
“You ok, Brick?” he says over his shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah, fine.” The big man taps Thompson on the shoulder. Thompson slides aside and the Brick retrieves his cannon from the corridor. Argo slides past his tall comrade again and surveys the ro
om of glowing cubes. He wedges his way toward the center of the room where Beckert stands. The Geek hunches over a shuttered terminal, trying to open it. Argo takes the shutter by the locked handle and rips it open like he was pulling a shade.
“Thanks,” Beckert says.
“Brick!” Thompson calls, “Find us an exit. We’re not staying.”
“Aye, sir.” The big man moves past Beckert to the wall and feels his way around it.
Beckert activates a flip-out data panel from the terminal and the display illuminates. “This is worth it, Major, I assure you!”
Black Hawks From a Blue Sun Page 28