Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades

by Randolph Lalonde

  “Stop criticizing and do something!” Cathy Weir, one of the more recently recruited regulars said to him.

  “I’m stating facts,” Remmy replied. “Get shield barriers up. That little trap they set is nothing compared to what’ll happen when they attack.”

  “The last one didn’t attack,” replied Sergeant Ouxo. “He remained in place, defending the computer core.”

  “And we can’t assume these Knights will behave the same way.”

  “Take command,” Lieutenant Davi said over their communicators. “Remmy, just take command, you have the rank and experience as a Ranger.”

  “I protest! I’ve been on-“ Sergeant Ouxo started.

  “I’m taking command of this squad, as your superior officer instructed,” Remmy stated. Being stern was easy for him while he was angry, but it made thinking clearly difficult. “Fortify this position with three layers of portable energy shielding, now,” he ordered, tossing his own energy shield, a small disc the width of his palm and a centimetre thick, into the hallway. It activated with a hum and anchored itself to the floor, providing enough shielding for a few seconds of fire from one of the Order Knight’s powerful rifles. “Let your personal shielding self-repair and regenerate.”

  The rest of the squad cooperated. As the shields fell into place, Remmy closed his eyes and tried to see the layout of the floor in his head. The mental image was easier to manipulate, to see from more than one angle at a time. It was easier for him to devise a strategy the well trained and well armed Order Knights wouldn’t see coming.

  “Status on the computer core shields?” he asked Lieutenant Davi, one of his closest friends.

  “Regenerating, they’re almost at eighty one percent,” he replied. Other people would tell him to check his scanners himself, but Remmy was putting a plan together, something Davi had seen before. He flinched as the sound of high energy rounds striking the outer energy shields filled the hall with an electric crackle.

  The Order Knights were testing them. “I’ve got a plan,” he told his Lieutenant. “I’m going to need your team on the second level.”

  “We’re ready,” Lieutenant Davi said.

  “All right, on my count, I want your team to blast a hole through the deck exactly at the coordinates I’m marking. Three seconds later I need them to drop all their EMP grenades and retreat. It’s got to be timed right.”

  “It’ll get done,” Lieutenant Davi said. “You do know that the Knight’s armour will protect them and their gear from the blast, right?”

  “I know,” Remmy said. Another burst of weapons’ fire cut through the outer energy shielding in the hall. There were only two more portable energy shields between them and the devastating energy weapons carried by the Order Knights. “All right,” he said, addressing what remained of his squad. “You four, run down this hall, shoot through this privacy wall, and come up here. When you see the Order Knights, throw a pair of frag grenades each then get low. I’ll lead my team in the other direction and we’ll do the same from a point on a thirty-three degree angle so we don’t bomb each other.” He highlighted the tactical map with all of his instructions, and the squad watched as he directed them to each take a position where they would be able to hit the Order Knights with twenty grenades at the same time.

  “Their energy shields will absorb most of that, and it won’t do enough damage to the computer core shielding to make a difference,” countered Sergeant Ouxo.

  “Don’t worry, that’s taken care of,” he replied as the second energy shield went down. The Knights would take the last one down even faster.

  “After the grenades go off,” Remmy said hurriedly. “We’ll rush them, burn them down with a clip of anti-framework rounds.” He waited three seconds, and got nothing but silence from his squad. “Your response is: ‘yes, Sir!’”

  “Yes, Sir!” the squad replied.

  “Better. We go on three,” Remmy said. “One, two, three!”

  He ran to his right, leading the charge down a corridor towards a thin privacy wall that flew apart like tissue paper as he fired at it. The other four were keeping good pace. He opened a channel to Lieutenant Davi directly. “All right, your count: three, two, one.”

  As he said ‘one’ the structure shuddered and he waited as Davi counted down to his squad dropping their EMP grenades through the holes they made in the ceiling above the computer core at the centre of the level they were on. After three seconds they blasted the Order Knights from behind. By the time Remmy was in position, one had turned around completely, the other was looking up. “Grenades!” he shouted as he launched a pair with his rifle.

  For thunderous seconds, the central chamber of the garrison was a no-man’s-land, fragmentation grenades ripping anything that wasn’t behind an energy shield to shreds.

  “Go! Go! Go! Burn them down!” Remmy shouted as soon as the twenty grenades dropped on the Order Knight’s position had detonated. His sensors saw the raw, broken flesh of the nearest Order Knight before he did. Everything he saw was enhanced by his head’s up display as it helped him navigate through the smoke and debris to the enemy. He started firing as soon as he came around a support beam. The explosive rounds carrying an intense electromagnetic pulse ripped into the torn mess that was left of the Order Knight as it struggled to regenerate.

  “Coming down!” Lieutenant Davi announced, marking his team’s entry point through the holes in the ceiling on the tactical map.

  They came down firing, and the Order Knights, who were regenerating, regardless of their severely damaged state, were torn to shreds by the firepower of both squads. Remmy watched his tactical screen as the life signs of the Order Knights finally faded.

  “Remmy! The computer core!” Lieutenant Davi said.

  Remmy turned and leapt towards the computer core standing in the centre of the room as the shield surrounding it started to re-energize. His personal shield generator popped and sparked as it clashed with what was left of the energy field around the computer core’s main terminal. He pulled a line from his command and control unit and connected to the main jack. “God dammit!” he shouted as his comm reported that all the data had been erased many, many times over. “We’ve got a like-new, high powered computer core. Unfortunately, there’s no trace of data on this thing. Even the lights and shield systems are mechanical, there’s not so much as an operating system.”

  “What?” Lieutenant Davi asked. “When did they get time?”

  “I’d tell you, only there’s no deletion time stamp,” Remmy replied. He ran the Haven Shore command flag program, officially taking possession of the five level garrison lander and disconnected from the system. “There, Ayan wanted to capture another lander, we got her one. It’s devoid of intelligence, but we can use it as a home for whoever wants to settle an island within spitting distance of Port Rush.” The deal with the Carthans Ayan made after the Battle of Port Rush was simple: Ayan’s forces could plant a flag on any Order of Eden bases after they were defeated, and Haven Shore would then own that outpost, the land for three hundred kilometres in a radius and everything on it. Remmy read the fine print, and understood why Ayan made the deal. The four bunkers they knew of when she signed on the dotted line were all in key positions around the planet, and they were all serviceable after they were taken. Rangers used three as training bases and the fourth as a permanent outpost. They’d found another after taking the fourth bunker, and that became a ranger outpost as well. The bunkers came with supplies, heavy weaponry, tools, and machines to assist in making each bunker a larger, permanent military base with outbuildings, and fixtures that made the stations even more valuable. What really impressed Remmy was Ayan’s awareness that the Carthans couldn’t afford to take the bunkers themselves, or patrol the territories after the Order of Eden forces were defeated. The language of the contract also indicated that Ayan didn’t much care about bonuses past the claims she would be allowed to make, even though the Carthans offered. What she seemed interested in was accumulating
assets and impressing the British Alliance. The bunker Remmy had just finished claiming with the Haven Shore Regulars was the sixth and final bunker as far as they knew. The rangers were still searching, but he doubted they’d find one. Taking the sixth bunker made Haven Shore, under Ayan’s name, the largest owner of the subterranean five level military installations, with the Carthans behind with two, and an independent crime lord owning one.

  Remmy made sure his anti-artificial intelligence and antivirus software was active as Crewcast took control of the main computer and closed the connection terminal. He found the switches controlling the energy shield and deactivated it. “Nice fusion reactor chain in this thing though, I’ll say that much. This thing can keep its lights on for five or six hundred years.”

  “Here,” Lieutenant Davi said as he handed him one of the Order Knight’s rifles. “A souvenir.”

  Remmy’s head's up display told him the weapon weighed fourteen kilos, heavy enough for the synthetic muscles of his suit to engage in his arms, torso, shoulders, and legs so he could hold it properly. “Yeah, I’ll use it to power a house on the cliff side, or a small ship. This thing’s got a miniature fusion chamber with enough fuel to run for eight years.”

  “Don’t de-weaponize it too soon. I’m going to want you along for every op after this.”

  “This is the last garrison,” Remmy said. “It’s Ranger security and logistics for me after this.”

  “Not forever. We’ll be taking the fight to them before long.”

  “Oh, great,” Remmy said, rolling his eyes. “More time away from the sandy beaches of Haven Shore, I can’t wait.”

  “Seriously,” Lieutenant Davi said. “These last few missions, your tactics have been spot on. I’m impressed.”

  Compliments from Davi were rare, especially for Remmy. “Thanks. You should say something to Liam Grady though. It never occurred to me to treat tactical situations like a three dimensional puzzle until I started meditating with his group. Not having challenges like this is going to make peace time mind-meltingly boring.” He checked Crewcast for any messages that may have accumulated while he was busy and cocked his head. “Nevermind telling Liam anything,”

  “Why? What’s up?” Davi asked.

  “He just dumped a pile of emotional baggage on Ayan and checked out.”

  “What? Checked out?”

  “Yup, told her ‘hey, sorry for being a creepy old letch, shoulda been there for ya, guess it’s time to leave, thanks for the memories.’”

  “Well, at least we’ve got good news for her,” Davi said. “You send the message to Ranger Command, we’ll start processing the site.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Dinner

  The dense jungle reminded Alice of that first day of training. They didn’t tell the ranger applicants much about the service, only to show up as the day began on Tamber. They were transported to a small, featureless peninsula where shuttles from the Sunspire, Triton, and Haven Shore were already present. There were some signs of construction, but no indication that any major undertaking was underway.

  Orientation took place on the edge of a large, open field. There were over three hundred ranger trainees on her first morning. Hover trucks and shuttles dropped them off an hour before Commander Carl Anderson, or Doctor Anderson as some people from the First Light and Triton still called him, addressed them all. He was all smiles, didn’t say much that Alice would remember through the rest of her training, and he kept his welcome short.

  “Here’s where we start,” he said at the end of his speech. Everyone’s vacsuits were minimized in size so the women wore one-piece exercise suits, and the men were reduced to shorts. All their vacsuit functions were deactivated, including any communications or computing devices, physical protection, assistance, or other tools. “Rangers can survive anywhere they can find air and water. They can get where they’re going on their own two feet, and this week you’re going to prove it to yourselves.” There were murmurs and complaints all around Alice, and she hoped no one would point out that she was an enhanced framework.

  They didn’t have time before the next part of their challenge appeared in the field below. A cloaking shield dissipated to reveal an obstacle course that even Alice found daunting. There were wall climbs, monkey bars over pits, rappelling walls, reverse thirty degree scaling walls, a crawling tube maze with drop chutes and at least half an hour worth of other hellish challenges. Everything was surrounded by, or built over mud that looked cold, even from a distance.

  “We’ll prove this can be done without a vacsuit right now,” Commander Anderson said, pointing to a square metal hut by the starting line. To Alice’s amazement, Oz, Minh-Chu, Ayan along with a few other commanders stepped out onto the starting line. Before Alice could come to believe what she was seeing, the group of seven ran for the course. They tackled it as a team, helping each other when they had to. Ayan was only a few centimetres taller than Alice, so that was who she watched. She needed help with a couple of obstacles that were more easily conquered by the taller members of the course challengers, but got ahead of people in the tube maze, was the first to the bottom on the descending wall, and helped guide lines on the repelling challenge. Ayan was in better shape than Alice expected, but she surprised everyone when she missed a step on the balance beam and fell into an electrically charged net.

  The periodic shocks were enough to inflict incredible discomfort, something Alice would discover for herself later, but the pulses were not so intense that they immobilized people completely. Minh-Chu waited for Ayan at the other side, and cheered her on as she got on all fours and climbed while getting jolted. Commander Worsch, from the Sunspire, almost fell on top of Ayan as he lost his balance on the beam. He was almost twice Ayan’s size, but was equally affected by the shocks. It took them several minutes to climb the net and continue the course.

  At the end, all the senior officers who participated finished, and stood in front of the trainees exhausted but all smiles. Ayan seemed especially pleased with herself.

  “Now it’s your turn,” Commander Anderson said. “Complete this and you’ll continue on to the next phase of training. Good luck.”

  Alice breezed through most of the physical ranger training, and enjoyed the team building more than anything, even though she soon discovered she had a lot to learn. It was the intelligence assessment, tactical study, and problem solving part of the training that really challenged her. Alice could get through it, but the real problem was sitting still for hours in the middle of her day while she interacted with all the mental training material. Whereas many recruits wanted to tap out and walk off during physical challenges, she found herself gripped by the temptation to wash out in the midst of processing intelligence data. She knew she could always return to the Warlord, and help finish work on the ship, but it was a fleeting urge.

  Passing the intelligence and problem solving portions of her training was a point of pride. It also prepared her for the real world, giving her the tools to assess a situation before she rushed in, and the patience to review intelligence data so she knew what was going on.

  As she moved between giant trees and jungle foliage, Alice was grateful for the miserable week of jungle training all rangers had to undergo. Even with the help of her mapping systems and constant feedback on where she ought to be going, Alice was constantly on the verge of becoming lost. It was situations like that that brought her physical and mental training together.

  A fierce roar called her attention from her map to her immediate surroundings. She looked up in time to see a jungle cat lunging down from above. Its head was as wide as her shoulders and it was furious, batting her into a thick bramble tangle.

  Her vacsuit protected her. Alice was more startled than injured. She drew her sidearm and struggled to turn towards her attacker. The thick undergrowth she was tangled with had her partially restrained. All the strength augmentation in the universe wouldn’t help her if she was off balance. As she struggled to reorient herself, the b
ig cat clawed her out of her bondage, flinging her into the middle of the small clearing.

  Her sidearm was left behind, and she couldn’t help but be momentarily stunned as the cat leapt atop her, pinning her with a giant paw. Its massive jaws descended and it savagely tried to bite her head off, a pursuit that failed thanks to her light armour, but it was terrifying nonetheless. It took several seconds of gnawing for her to remember that she had a stun field that was made for crowd suppression and self defence. With a thought, she activated it, and the massive jungle cat twitched, grunted, then fell limp atop her.

  It took several moments for her to work her way free from beneath the beast while taking care not to injure it. “Okay, that stays out of the report,” she muttered as she found her sidearm and shoved it into her holster.

  Small mewling sounds caught her attention, and she quickly discovered what the cat was defending, or trying to feed. A quick look around revealed that the foliage was flattened mostly around the hollow trunk of an old fallen tree. Claw marks on the nearest standing trunks indicated that she was looking at a type of cat that typically moved up into the lower branches and waited for prey to pass underneath. Her display listed several instances of pickers getting jumped by the cats, each saved by their vacsuit. Alice scanned her attacker and nodded to herself. “You’ll be up and about in about nine minutes.”

  Her map told her she had to head past the fallen log, and she couldn’t help but stop and peek inside before moving on. Three kittens about Alice’s size with similar grey and black fur paid her little attention, but the fourth seemed intrigued. It sat up on its hind-paws and looked directly at her, its nose sniffing the air between them. Alice suppressed the urge to reach out and pet the fur ball. “This isn’t the kind of exploration I expected when I joined the Rangers.”