by GARY DARBY
Turning to Teng, he said, “Sir, I’m willing to go with this plan, but if we get in and it’s a dead end, I don’t have any other options for you other than blowing the airlock door.”
Teng pointed at several small vent sites that ran along the crest of a small nearby ridge. “What about a recon drone down one of these, could we do that from a remote monitoring site?”
“We could,” Kasum said. “However, the heat coming from the vents is registering at just over a hundred degrees Celsius. That’s right at the extreme limit for the sensor package on the drone. Probably wouldn’t go far before we’d lose the packet.”
He scratched at his head and said, “Don’t know what they’re cooking down there, but it must be pretty hot.”
Teng glanced around the room and asked, “Can anyone think of any other options?”
Silence greeted his question.
Teng ran a hand over his mouth as he considered their options and then said, “We’ll go for the dome and hope we find a way into the facility. So, LT, what’s your plan?”
Jin-Sang leaned forward and ran a finger along a dark line on the topo display. “We do a fast and low ingress to the surface.
“Once we’re on the ground, we fly down this fissure. It’s deep and wide enough for good cover and concealment. It’ll get us to within a half-klick or so of the dome.
“I’ll take a small team to the base of the structure and use a nitro-torch to cut our way through the skin. Once inside, if we find that tunnel the chief spoke about, the platoon will form up, and we head inside.”
Federov held up a hand to stop Jin-Sang. “Chief, the dome on Kronos, was it pressurized and is there any indication that this one might be?”
Nerea shook his head. “No to both, captain, and I get what you’re driving at.”
He turned to Jin-Sang to explain. “Odds are the dome isn’t pressurized, but if it is, once you cut into the outer skin, you could get an explosive decompression that would send shrapnel flying everywhere.
“Depending on the structural integrity, might even collapse the whole dome. Kinda like a needle popping an inflated balloon only this one isn’t made of thin plas-rubber.”
Jin-Sang nodded in understanding. “Unless we can find another way in, I don’t think we have much choice but we’ll take what precautions we can.”
Teng took up the conversation and asked, “Assuming we get through the dome and inside, what then?”
“Well, sir,” Jin-Sang answered, “that all depends on the mission. Are we calling this a recon mission, a raid, or a full-scale assault?”
Teng thoughtfully scratched at his chin and considered Jin-Sang’s question. “Is there an ‘all of the above’ mission in there somewhere?”
Jin-Sang laughed lightly. “Sure, we can gear up for that, too.”
“Good,” Teng replied. He stared straight at the marine lieutenant, and his voice became very firm.
“Your marines have the right to self-defense, of course, but our priority is to capture everything we can lay our hands on before we start making big holes in the décor. If this is a Faction nest, I understand that your marines are eager for some payback.
“But I want prisoners and every computer, memory shard, state of the art technology, lab and research equipment that we can get our hands on. Understood?”
Jin-Sang nodded and replied crisply, “Perfectly, sir.”
He turned to the sensor imagery and pointed at a large, bowl-like depression that sat near the pitch-black fracture that ran straight as an arrow toward the dome complex.
“Captain, if your landing craft pilots will set us down at these coordinates, we can use it to mask our jump-off into the fissure.”
After studying the image for several moments, Federov said, “Shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll launch from the planet’s backside at a shallow angle and close to the surface. That’ll let the landing boats hug the terrain. Less chance of being spotted.”
Jin-Sang’s head bobbed in response and he again pointed at the bleak landscape on the imagery. “Once we’re in the canyon, it’ll probably take us about a half hour of flight time to reach the dome. After that, who knows, maybe we’ll find the front door open and a welcome mat on the porch.”
Federov grunted and said, “If there is, watch your back.”
He leaned over to again scan the topographic map and remarked, “The landing boats will sit tight until you sound recall, or you make your way back to them. The IntrepidX will remain on station on the backside just in case you need some help.”
“Works for me, sir,” Jin-Sang replied and turned to Kasum, “Am I leaving anything out, gunny?”
“No sir,” Kasum replied. “That ‘bout covers it all.”
Jin-Sang then said to Teng, “Sir, do you want to monitor communications from the bridge or do you want me to have a private link to you?”
Teng quickly said, “A private link will be useful since I’m coming with you.”
Staring at Teng with raised eyebrows, Jin-Sang firmly said, “Sir, with all due respect, I can’t play nursemaid on this critical a mission, and besides, a mech suit isn’t something you can just jump in and think you can work the first time out.”
Teng gave the young marine a tolerant smile. “I understand your concern, but what makes you think I can’t work a mech suit?”
“Well,” Jin-Sang stammered, “I assumed that as a civilian, you—”
Teng held up a quick hand to stop him. “When you ran the mech suit obstacle course on Ceres for the first time, did your instructors hop up your go juice without your knowledge?
“And consequently, did you find yourself in low orbit around Ceres after you tried to boost over Hamlin’s Crater?”
Jin-Sang’s mouth sagged open. Teng gave him a rueful smile and said, “I had to sing the Marine Battle Hymn ten times before someone came and got me. What did you have to do to get down?”
“Had to recite the manual at arms,” Jin-Sang groused. “I lost count of how many times.”
Staring at each other, both men hesitated and then laughed aloud at the shared memory.
Jin-Sang held up a hand in acceptance and said, “Sir, I’ll grant you that you know your way around a mech suit, but I still can’t play nursemaid. If you’re going to be part of the team, you’ll have to hold your own.”
Teng nodded in response. “Fair enough, lieutenant.”
Gunnery Sergeant Kasum spoke up and asked, “Sir, may I ask how a civilian came to be proficient with a mech suit?”
Teng’s expression became impassive, and he said, “Let’s just say that, at the time, a mech suit was the best option for survival for where I was going and what I was going to do.”
He turned to Federov. “And now, captain, if you’ll be so kind as to plot out a course to get us within launch range, it’s time to send in the marines.”
Two hours later, Teng sat with his back against the landing craft bulkhead. His breathing sounded raspy in his ears, but that was normal inside an armored battlesuit.
During the quick, short ride down to the planet, he and the marines had checked and rechecked their suits.
Sealed against the hard vacuum of space, each suit would become a tiny warship and using the suit’s biofeedback properties, each marine would become a mech warrior able to unleash a ferocious and lethal attack.
Through his earpiece, Teng heard, “Marine recon, this is lead craft, we’re on final approach, stand by for debarkation.”
Teng felt a rumbling through his suit as the vessel decelerated and then a slight swaying as the landing craft settled to the ground.
Over his comms, Teng heard Jin-Sang call out, “All squad leaders, disembark and prepare for recon flight.”
The landing craft’s rear doors swung open, and Teng shuffled out alongside the two squads of marines the little vessel carried. Once out, his display showed ghostly images of the platoon’s remaining marines filing from the two other landers.
With long, suit-assisted str
ides Teng loped to where Jin-Sang stood on the lip of a deep, black crevasse. The lieutenant turned to three suited figures standing nearby and ordered, “Everyone’s grounded, gunny, move out.”
“Roger,” Kasum replied and turned to flick a hand to his two companions. All three figures began running and flung themselves over the crevice’s edge.
A second later came a spike of soft light from the ignition of their booster packs that shone on the canyon walls.
Teng tracked their thrusters’ glow inside the gorge until Jin-Sang spoke over the platoon’s communications net. “Sang’s Stalkers, listen up. Flight mode once you clear the drop-off. Set your plot to my beacon and keep up. By squads, follow me.”
With that, Jin-Sang turned and threw himself off the chasm’s brink. A second later, his booster pack ignited and he jetted up the canyon. “Marines,” Teng muttered, “can’t they just do a simple vertical lift-off?”
He took several steps to stand at the precipice. “Compu,” he ordered, “go to flight mode on my order. Set gyros to horizontal stable and safety point at five meters. Lock on to Sang One beacon, match velocity, and follow. Acknowledge.”
“Acknowledged,” the compu’s disembodied voice returned. “Flight mode in standby, gyros at horizontal stable, safety point is five meters, heading and velocity set to Sang One beacon.”
Around him, other marines were flinging themselves off the edge, their open-body swan dives ending abruptly when their thrusters kicked in and they shot up the canyon.
Teng took a deep breath, threw himself off the cliff, and commanded, “Compu! Flight mode!”
As if someone had picked him up and flung him forward, Teng’s suit thrusters roared to life and he flashed up the canyon.
Once he reached cruise speed, the micro-vertical and -horizontal thrusters placed him in a straight posture and the “white noise” of his booster pack lowered in volume.
The nearby marines showed up as tiny green dots on his faceplate display and his onboard side-looking radar showed the canyon’s jagged sides in full 3D panorama.
He took a sip of water from his mouth tube to slake a parched mouth after satisfying himself that the compu had Jin-Sang’s beacon locked in and was keeping him at a safe distance from both crevice wall and other flyers.
He had heard that some marines took naps when their mech suits were on autopilot, but he wasn’t one of those. Though they were flying at a slow speed because of the cramped quarters, Teng preferred keeping his eye on the flight’s every detail.
Besides, how could anyone take a siesta when the suit was adjusting altitude and pitch, going up and down and rolling from side to side whenever the heading changed?
The closer the recon unit flew to their target, the narrower the canyon became. On his navigational display, Teng could see they were closing in on the dome location, but he was beginning to worry that the three forward marines hadn’t found a suitable rendezvous site.
His concerns were eased when Jin-Sang said over the communicator, “All Stalkers, gunny has a set-down point three kilometers distant. The marker beacon is set to dash-dash.
“Squad leaders, bring your squads in by chalk sequence. Once down go to mech-recon mode. Acknowledge.”
Quickly, the six squad leaders answered Sang and began issuing their own instructions to their teams. Teng heard a click in his earpiece and over the private link between him and Sang, he heard, “Mr. Rhee, you catch my last transmission?”
“Roger,” Teng replied, “three klicks. Beacon is already blinking on my scope.”
“Gunny says we’re about five hundred meters below our target,” Sang replied, “and that there is a narrow branch crevasse through the lava field that heads in the general direction we need to go.”
“Excellent,” Teng replied. “I’m coming up on the beacon.”
“Roger,” Sang replied, “see you on the ground.”
Teng slowed his airspeed and made precise attitude adjustments to his suit’s flying posture. Like little fireflies, his display scope showed the marines gliding down to land within meters of the marker beacon.
He used his suit’s tiny thrusters to slow down even more so that he didn’t crowd the marines just ahead of him.
Soft starlight allowed his eyes to pick up some ground features, but since this was a blackout operation, Teng had to rely on his terrain radar to guide him safely to the ground.
“Compu,” he said, “set velocity to three meters per second, come to one-six degrees off the beacon.”
The computer made the flight adjustments, leaving Teng to monitor the remaining marines around him. After skirting through fifty kilometers of twisting, convoluted lava canyon without mishap, the last thing they needed would be a midair collision over the landing pad.
“Compu,” Teng ordered, “set power to landing mode, one-half meter per second, stay at one-six degrees off beacon.”
Teng felt his knees bend up as the compu put the suit into landing mode. The suit’s thrusters lowered in volume, and the uneven terrain of their landing spot rose to meet him.
He felt a slight jar when his feet hit the ground and then a quick muted whining as his thrusters shut down.
“Compu,” Teng ordered, “go to mech-recon mode.”
Teng quickly went through the drill to ensure that after powered flight, his suit was operating normally in ground mode.
He flexed his arms and legs, swiveled his torso and head, shrugged his shoulders, and lifted his feet to ensure that the suit was responding to his biofeedback commands.
As the marines rapidly formed up on their squad leaders, Teng strode over to where two suited figures stood near a black cleft in the rock.
One figure turned and said, “Everyone’s down, Mr. Rhee, and since no fireworks have gone off, I’d say we haven’t been spotted.”
“Good,” Teng replied to Jin-Sang. “Is this the crevasse you were talking about?”
“Yes,” Jin-Sang answered. “My two point men have already gone up. Gunny, and I were just waiting for you.”
“All right, let’s do this,” Teng responded.
Over his command net, Jin-Sang ordered, “All Stalker squads, this is Sang, follow me. Squad two, you have our six.”
With that, he turned and entered the crevice’s inky darkness, followed by Teng. The powered mech suit made easy work of the jumbled mass of lava hummocks and rills, though the channel cut a tortuous route over the barren and rugged landscape.
After several minutes of clambering through the ravine, Teng heard through his communicator, “Lieutenant, this is Budo.”
“Go ahead,” Jin-Sang replied.
“We have a visual on our target.”
“Roger,” Jin-Sang answered. “Stay put. All squads hold in place. The advance team is going forward.”
Jin-Sang turned and motioned for Teng to follow him. Together they squeezed their way through the narrowing passage until they came around a rounded protrusion and saw a suited figure squatting down behind a jagged mound.
Jin-Sang said, “Budo, Jorsh, behind you.”
The squatting figure turned and lowered his laser sniper rifle. Another suited figure materialized out of deep shadow to their right. Teng and Jin-Sang slipped up next to the hunched-over figure.
Jin-Sang sank to one knee and said, “Report.”
“The dome is to our front at about fifty meters,” Budo replied. “I’ve scoped it with topo-NODS and IR. Nothing hot shows up, so can’t tell if they’ve got any warning sensors in place. Don’t see anything moving so they might not have drone guards in place, either.”
Jin-Sang nodded at Teng and together they raised their heads over the rough edge of a small lava mound. The large dome, with its multiple triangular segments, came into view.
Scrutinizing the rounded base and the crisscrossing archwork that formed the structural frame, Teng muttered to Jin-Sang, “Seems quiet enough.”
“Yeah, quiet,” Jin-Sang replied gruffly. “So why does that make me so nervous?”
He clicked over to his other communications channel and said, “Gunny, bring the platoon up to this spot. We’ll go forward with the torch. On my signal, we go in.”
“Roger that,” Kasum replied and turned to make his way back down the crevice.
“Jorsh,” Jin-Sang said, “as soon as we hit the dome, light the torch up. Remember, just a pinprick first. If you see any sign of escaping gas, beat feet out of there. But if it’s vacuum on the other side, then make us a big hole.”
“Got it, sir,” Jorsh replied.
“Good. Budo, Mr. Rhee, in case bad guys show up, let’s spread out and cover Jorsh.”
Teng pulled his short-barreled laser rifle from his torso holster and flipped the firing sight to wide-angle scope. Jin-Sang glanced around and asked, “Everyone set?”
After quick assents all around, he ordered, “Move out.”
The four sprang up and bounded across the barren landscape. Teng held his weapon at the ready, watching his moving target indicator to see if anything else moved.
Within seconds, they reached the dome’s nylo-prene skin. Teng hunched down behind an up thrust of lava and scanned the darkened landscape.
In his earpiece, he heard Jorsh call out, “Torch going hot, either go to dark visor or don’t look this way.”
Seconds later, the area lighted up, as if someone had trained a spotlight on the group. Teng kept his head turned away from the light to not overload his optical nerve and experience momentary blindness.
Tense seconds slipped by until Teng heard Jorsh through his helmet communicator. “Lieutenant, I’m through, we’re good; it’s not pressurized.”
“Slice it up,” Jin-Sang ordered and then said, “Gunny, status?”
“Almost there,” Kasum responded, “‘bout two minutes out.”
“Good, bring them up to the dome; we’re going in.”
“WILCO,” Kasum replied.
Teng felt a slap on his shoulder and turned to see Jin-Sang motioning for him to follow. With quick strides over the gritty landscape, he followed the marine lieutenant through the jagged opening into the dome’s pitch-black interior.
Teng flipped his helmet lights on and surveyed his surroundings. Curved antenna arrays, along with numerous large metallic-looking containers sat near the dome’s middle.