“So the internal defences are still active?”
“More than likely.”
I passed Jo the final piece of the cutter which made up a kind of frame suspended a metre above the floor. Again the three heads began to rotate on the rail clockwise sending sparks of electric-blue flame downwards.
“How long?” I asked.
“90 seconds per floor,” she replied.
Grant and Fara returned to our position dragging Sam Columbine behind them.
“Take him up to one of the pods and secure him,” I said. “We'll just have to hope he holds on long enough.”
They nodded and vanished back down the corridor the way we came. I checked my weapon and stood guard over Jo, wondering just what defences the place would throw at us.
“Poor Sam,” she said. “Do you think he'll make it?”
“Let's hope so.”
She nodded, her outline glowing in the light thrown from the cutters as they made their slow orbit. I waited for Grant and Fara to return and when they did I went back to overseeing what was happening up top.
By now the first wave of attacks had come to an end. Realising that they were facing a heavily-armed foe dug in on an elevated position, Corano's units withdrew to a safe distance to regroup. The moment they did, I ordered our team to re-arm and get ready for a fresh assault. Another pod was launched from the Hikane and with it came fresh munitions and some of the heavier weapons we'd been holding in reserve.
“Report,” I called over the comms as the disc of floor Jo had cut through dropped down. Grant and Fara moved to follow the moment we'd taken apart the cutters.
“All good here,” said Baz.
“Fine boss,” said Mozzy.
“Still rockin', sir,” said Thor.
“Systems at 55% efficiency. Still fighting though,” added Mason.
I helped Jo partially break down the cutter and when the hole was clear, Fara leapt down and began firing. Grant followed and a bitter few minutes of combat ensued as mounted turrets trained on them and drone-bots moved to engage.
“How many?” I called.
“A lot,” said Fara. “The system has called most of the units up to this level.”
“Mason – can you spare Baz?”
“Take him. I'll let you know if I need him.”
In moments Baz had arrived, loaded with grenades on his rig and a shorter carbine in his arms.
“You rang?” he joked, standing by the hole.
“Support those two,” I said. He nodded, then jumped. In seconds he was returning fire and I looked back at the security room. “There has to be a way to access the core, right?” I said to Jo.
“I guess so,” she replied. “Worth a try while we're stuck up here.”
We moved to the room that now billowed smoke from fires raging on the consoles where thermite had landed. Jo, using her suit's internal schematic system, began scanning the wreckage and looking for an access point.
“I might have something,” she said. “Move those panels there.”
I did so, gripping them with the armoured gauntlets of my suit and tearing them out of their fixings like they were made from cardboard. Jo began pulling wires and conduits, separating them as she went.
“It all runs into here,” she explained. “If I can just isolate the ones I need...”
I cycled through the cameras again, this time dwelling on Baz who was blasting apart one bot after another in the tight confines of the corridor below. There seemed to be no end to them and the debris was piling up around their feet.
“Hang on,” said Jo. “I think this-”
The entire floor went dark and my HUD switched to night-vision in a heartbeat.
“Maybe not,” she said. “Let's... try... this...”
“That's it!” cried Fara. “They've stopped.”
“What about the turret?” I asked.
“That's still looking for us. Grant – take a shot with the zappy-gun, babe!”
Hiss. Thump.
“Turret is down,” said Grant. “Can you do anything about them, Jo?”
“We need to start the cutters,” I reminded them all. “We can handle a few turrets as long as the bots are deactivated.”
Jo followed me back to the hole. She leapt down and I handed her the crates. In seconds the cutters were running again and as they burned away in the darkness, Fara approached me.
“What about seeing if we can open the doors from up there?” she suggested.
“No time,” I replied. “And even if we could, it would mean running the length of each floor over and over again to move the data. This is the quickest way.”
“Okay boss, just a suggestion.”
“It was a good one,” I said, smiling. “Thanks for bringing it to me.”
“Carter?” called Mason.
“Yeah?”
“They're back – and this time they've brought friends.”
The most intense part of the fighting now began. Baz returned to the surface just in time to face an onslaught of the best Corano could throw at us. Withdrawing all grunts to a safe distance, the next ground force consisted of enhanced humans; genetic freaks bristling with heavy weapons and armour supported by more spider-tanks and drones.
“What the hell has he been doing here?” cried Mason as both his weapon platforms glowed from the continual rain of fire being poured into their ranks. Shoulder cannons tracked drone after drone, blasting them out of the sky while Thor moved back and forth firing heavy-calibre burst-rounds into the sky and the infantry.
Mozzy was standing in a mountain of spent casings and discarded plasma cells, part of his shoulder plating blown off and his left leg damaged but still functioning. Baz hadn't yet taken a scratch but he'd long since abandoned the AP40 and was now behind an RR6 laser on a bipod, cutting through their ranks with sustained beams that threatened to detonate the cells inside it.
“HOLD THE LINE!” roared Mason as incoming fire tore at the plating of the T-105, removing one of the shoulder cannons which fell to the ground, almost landing on Mozzy's position.
“You'd fink we were stealin' the crown jewels or somefink the way they're comin' at us, sir,” said Thor, flattening a squad who had managed to scale the side of the plateau with the flat of one giant hand. “Rude, it is. Very rude.”
“Feel free to tell them that,” said Baz. “I don't think they've quite got the message yet.”
Beneath this carnage, we continued to cut through floor after floor, encountering only turrets and the occasional brave worker who attempted to stop us with small firearms. The time between cuts had decreased as we got quicker and quicker at dismantling, dropping and rebuilding between floors until, with only two left, one of the cutters exploded sending molten shards in all directions.
“Shit!” cried Jo. “Shit shit shit! We need the other crate.”
“Where is it?” I asked.
“Back up top. The last thing I expected was a blowout.”
“I'll go,” said Fara. “I need to reload.”
“Bring some back, okay?” said Grant. “I'm almost out too.”
She nodded and, standing under the series of holes above her, fired her jet-pack and launched upwards in a risky manoeuvrer. My fear was unfounded however as she made a perfect landing on the top floor and vanished back up to the surface.
The other two cutters continued to rotate but their performance was obviously slower and far less efficient.
“Typical,” snapped Jo. “Had to happen now, right? So close to the vault.”
“Shit happens,” said Grant. “Ask Baz's mum.”
We all laughed then and the momentary humour eased the tension. I switched to Fara's HUD and saw she was on her way back already, dragging the crate behind her. When she reached the hole she lowered it over the edge and allowed it to fall in a perfect drop. I was ready at the bottom and I caught it effortlessly.
“Let's get this thing going,” I said. I expected Fara to drop down too but suddenly there was
firing directly above the hole and when I looked up she'd gone.
“Tango's in the perimeter!” she cried over the comms. “Baz – where the hell are you?”
“What's going on?” asked Grant. “What's happening?”
“Go!” I said and with that, she followed Fara's path up the shaft and vanished out of sight. More firing and I tried to shut it out from my mind. Jo was already unpacking the replacement cutter and I helped her fit it in place.
“Talk to me, Mason. What's the situation?” I called.
“Baz is down. Grant and Fara are holding back a squad that managed to get the drop on him. It's under control.”
I looked at his vitals. He was in the amber levels.
“Does anyone have eyes on him?” I asked.
“He's alive,” said Fara. “He's still fighting.”
“What's his injury?”
“I LOST MY FUCKING LEG YOU PRICK!” screamed Baz over the comms, momentarily drowning out everyone else. “WHERE THE FUCK IS MY LEG???”
30
“Last one,” said Jo as the glowing disc of floor dropped with a clang to the level below. “Then the vault.”
We dismantled the cutters and prepared to drop. With my weapon raised I leapt down, followed by Jo but on this floor, no turret turned to aim at us. In fact, the entire décor was completely different and looked unfinished.
“Did we make a mistake?” she asked as we looked about us.
“I don't think so,” I replied and walked a little further along, sweeping my weapon back and forth. The corridor was empty and there were no side doors, no other entrances or intersections to be seen. In utter darkness, the entire place looked deserted, like no one had ever been down there.
“Shall we carry on?” she asked.
“I guess so,” I said and couldn't shake the strange feeling I was getting. Something felt wrong but I couldn't place it. “Let's get them going – I want to have a look around.”
We assembled the cutters and set them off, aware now that the sounds of battle above had been reduced to distant thuds, like thunder somewhere far off. Only the constant feed from the comms kept us involved in what was going on.
As the blue light flickered up and down the corridor, Jo and I set off walking until we reached a dead end. Then, coming back on ourselves and passing the rig, we checked out the other side. There was a single door on the right and I tried the handle.
“Locked,” I said. I raised my foot and kicked it in. The lock splintered apart and the door swung inwards. Somewhere far off a light came on. The chamber it illuminated was massive, perhaps a mirror size of the vault below, but the most startling thing was what it contained.
“Well that explains a whole lot,” said Jo. “That's how he was able to do it.”
“Yeah,” I grinned. “I guess it's not expensive if you build the things yourself.”
Wall to wall in every direction were birthing chambers for synthetic humanoids, the same ones that had been hunting us since Sargon City. There had to be thousands of them, all in the final stages of manufacture. Control units and programming centres ran the length of the production facility and several figures were already seated in the activation chairs. Corano had been the source all along, the mysterious producer of these artificial killers-for-hire and now here we were, about to blow the place to hell.
“I like a bargain,” she said. “Two-for-one.”
Behind us, we heard the floor drop with a sound similar to a gong being rung. Maybe it was a gong, signalling that phase four of the plan was about to begin.
We dropped into the vault, in awe of the sheer volume of data we found there. Even after the endless racks of Madam Sill's armoury I was stunned by the scope of Corano's operation, the effort that had to have gone into such a cache of information used to blackmail any and everyone he wished. It was hard not to feel a kind of moral superiority in destroying it once and for all.
“Wow,” said Jo. “Who'd have thought so much was down here? And why the hell hasn't he used it to take over the galaxy or something?”
“I don't know,” I said, unpacking the sniffer unit from the box. “That's a question that's going to give me sleepless nights. The synths. The data. The precious metals. None of this makes sense right now. Maybe it never will.”
“Do you think it ties in with the fleet turning back from pursuing him all those years ago?” I shrugged.
“Right now I just don't know.”
The unit went to work on a terminal nearby which it was designed to power independently and locate the data we needed. On Jo's HUD would be a location icon, telling us where to start.
“This way,” she said and off we went down one of the long, dark aisles. Soon we were pulling tray after tray of data blocks, hard copy and tablets and stuffing them into bags we'd brought with us. These were then moved towards the shaft we'd made, ready to be zip-wired back to the surface.
“How's it going down there?” said Mason. “It's getting warm up here.”
“Almost done,” I said. “I'm going to start bringing up the bags shortly.”
“I'll go,” said Jo. “You get the rest of it and I'll assemble the zip-line.
“Okay,” I replied. “Be careful.”
Then she was gone, climbing up the holes one at a time using short bursts from her pack.
“Can you spare someone to watch Jo?” I asked.
“Grant here – I'm outside the vault door, I have eyes-on.”
I sighed, feeling exhausted beyond anything I'd felt for a long time, maybe not since Mars. Alone in the vault, I felt the oppressive weight of all that data around me and as I dragged the last of the bags towards the shaft I saw one item flashing inside, highlighted by my HUD. Then I remembered – I'd programmed the sniffer to find the exact data block that mentioned Angel's involvement. That had to be it. I drew it out from the bag, not wanting to risk losing it and was about to stuff it into a compartment inside my armour when a thought compelled me to upload it and see. What if it wasn't what Aleksei could use? I had to be sure before we blew the place up that we got exactly what we needed to set her free.
I disconnected my audio feed from the network for a moment and played the data block directly into my HUD. It was a surveillance recording taken from somewhere onboard a ship, a conference room perhaps, and in view was a man in casual military fatigues and someone who I recognised immediately as Bourmont.
“I thought you said you were fine with all this, sir?” said the soldier, stood with his hands firmly behind his back as Bourmont paced up and down the room.
“I am, I am,” said the General. “But you've yet to offer any assurance that the pilot will keep her mouth shut.”
“That's her job, sir.”
“Really? You don't think that half the bloody soldiers in this war are stone-cold patriots of Earth? Do you think that if they hear I'm about to hand vital details of the campaign over to the Martians that they'll understand the bigger picture?”
“Maybe if you weren't so underhanded you'd-”
“Don't bullshit me,” he snapped back. “Are you that simple or did you study the subject in depth?”
More pacing. Bourmont came back into view and eyeballed the soldier.
“Angel. That right?”
“Yes sir,” he replied.
“And you're sure she'll keep her mouth shut?”
“If you asked her directly you'd find that keeping her father alive is far more important than winning in Noctis.”
“Her father?”
“He's a Martian, sir. Fighting for the other side. He just so happens to be stationed at Noctis. Sir.”
“You mean she knows?”
“She... suspects. She won't be any trouble. Sir. You have my word on that.”
The image faded and the recording came to an end. For a moment I couldn't move.
She suspects.
That's what he'd said. Angel had had her suspicions about those missions all along but hadn't said anything. To spare her fat
her. A Martian. I didn't really care where he came from but thousands of Earth Government soldiers, her brothers and sisters, had died in that failed assault. And she'd suspected?
I regained some composure and opened up the secure compartment in my armour, dropping the data block inside it. Then I remembered to reactivate my network audio and Jo was calling to me.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I'm ready for the bags now.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Be with you in a minute.”
By now the fighting had reached the walls of the factory and if we didn't get off the planet soon we'd be overrun. As the bags were ferried to the mouth of the vault on the ground floor, Mason called in the drone.
“Two minutes,” he told me. “Though maybe we don't have that long.”
No sooner had he spoken than there was a deafening explosion that came from somewhere deep within the T-105. Mason found himself ejected backwards, slamming into Thor as the entire War Suit went up in flames. Mozzy ran to the western wall to avoid being crushed under the weapon platforms as they fell from the thing and crashed into the ground.
“Here we go,” he cried as more mechanised units appeared in the openings in the wall. “End-game boys and girls!”
The thermo-nuke was armed and situated in the centre of the vault. I set the timer myself, giving us 10 minutes to be off the rock the moment the drone made it back to the ship. Then, after we'd used the zip-line to carry some of the wealth to the surface, I rode it straight back up and met Jo at the top.
“Ready to get out of here?” I asked.
“You're damn right I am,” she said.
We came out into the middle of the firefight, seeing automated machines swarming at us from all directions. Gunfire poured into them but still they came, clambering over their fallen comrades with the cold regard of man-made automatons.
“Deploy the turrets!” cried Mason who began punching the big red buttons on each of the pods. Our last-stand pieces emerged from recesses in the structures and instantly began firing bursts of bright green plasma into the drones. Anyone standing near the pods did the same and soon the air was thick with more firepower than I'd ever seen in such a confined space.
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