Battleframe (The Mindwars Book 1)

by Michael Gilmour

  Unlike other forms of energy, such as electricity, tellurite based energy could be manipulated in many different ways, hence the scientific field of malleable energy. For example, tellurite energy could be transformed into physical objects and this gave Professor Steinberg’s team an idea.

  By creating battleframes out of tellurite energy, the process could be reversed and the majority of the energy recycled. The biggest limitation was the computing power used to manipulate the individual atoms to convert the tellurite energy crystals into something as complex as a battleframe. With the birth of massively parallel high speed, molecular computers, battleframe terminals, like the one Whizzbang now stood in front, were a programmer’s thoughts away from reality.

  When Whizzbang selected “Rook” from the battleframe console, in a matter of seconds the nanites that built his Raven frame began decomposing it around him and converting it back into tellurite energy. The recycled energy was then reconverted again back into a Rook battleframe by the trillions of programmable nanites embedded into the energy stream. Like in the Freehold ready room, all Whizzbang had to do was accept the miracle of the nanites and hold out his arms so that the new frame battleframe could form around him.

  Whizzbang stepped away from the battleframe console and tested the lightning gun on a block of plasteel setup in the corner for that purpose. After assuring himself that all of the specialized capabilities of the frame were functioning, he headed back to the rest of the squad. Strange that in a matter of so few hours he had come to view the other pilot’s as his squad and he as their Squad Leader.

  Turning to Acheron, Whizzbang said, “Ach, let’s setup a perimeter around the tower emplacement clamps. I’ll drop a few turrets down that will help discourage any Scourge that try to attack the new tower.”

  “CT Whizz.”

  Whizzbang pulled three specialist nanite pods from within his battleframe and tossed them on the plasteel grating next to the scanning tower locking clamps. Within a few moments, the nanites began forming the familiar shapes of three single barrelled light infantry gun emplacements. When completed they stood about two feet high on a tripod stand. The business end of the gun began swivelling back and forth to automatically scan the surrounding area for enemies.

  “Whizz, what do you want us to do?” Bosk gestured to Selfia and himself.

  “Hmmm….. Self, you can get back on the roof where you were before but this time if you’re pinned down crawl out the back and jump-jet to the rock where Bosk was previously. Bosk, you can set yourself up on the flat part of the Terrarium roof next to where I was blown off. With Ach and me on the deck and you two higher up I think that between the four of us we’ll have a clear kill zone around the tower. Any questions or thoughts?”

  “Only one” said Bosk.

  “Go on.”

  “Can you give me a little bit more warning than I gave you if a couple of Jugs get a bead on me?” Bosk said with a laugh.

  Whizzbang rolled his eyes heavenward. With mock sincerity he said, “What have you got against farming Bosk?”

  All four of them laughed nervously at the joke to relieve some of the stress before entering battle. The fact was that calling down a scanning tower was dangerous in the good times let alone when the whole planet in the midst of a Scourge invasion. They were lucky at Research Ravine, but this distance out from Freehold there would be more Scourge patrols attracted by the commotion, let alone battle-pods.

  With the plan set and all of them in position, Whizzbang linked his battleframe’s wrist-comp input to the tower’s landing platform interface. His forearm wrist-comp screen changed from red to green indicating that the necessary call down codes integrated into his battleframe had been accepted by the Concord satellite station high overhead. The weightless environment of space allowed the nanites to manufacture large sophisticated pieces of machinery such as scanning towers and diggers.

  “Stay frosty everyone. We’ve just become a Scourge magnet!” Whizzbang whispered into the comnet.

  Whizzbang quickly dropped his the nanite packet that built his one heavy turret pointing along the catwalk towards the building where Selfia was perched.

  Birds chirped happily in the trees around them and the wind gently swayed the branches while the warm tropical sun warmed the back of Whizzbang’s hand. It was such a peaceful, tranquil scene. It was like the calm before a storm, the eye of a hurricane or the sound of soldiers softly praying to their God to keep them alive.

  It was then that the far off whine of four battle-pods intruded in the tranquil Terrarium scene. The noise normally generated fear in Scourge enemies, but in the case of Whizzbang’s squad each of them were veterans and at home in the confusion and terror of battle. While the birds fled with the wind, his squad calmly and patiently waited. They knew the drill and they had survived innumerable skirmishes with battle-pods before. More importantly, despite their short time together, they had confidence in each other and their Squad Leader. Where he would go, they would follow, even if that meant into the enigmatic Barrier itself. Therefore, they waited for the hurricane to arrive in force and the storm to bring them into their own form of tranquillity, battle.

  It was at this critical time that Whizzbang felt another wave of vertigo wash over him. It was if the world suddenly compressed and then expanded to its correct dimensions.

  “Hey guys did you feel something strange just then?” he squawked over the local comnet.

  His question went unanswered as three of the four battle-pods thudded violently into the ground below Acheron and him. Fine dirt and small rocks created a grey mist as they sprayed into the air. The fourth slammed with a metallic crunch into the wide southern hi-tensile plasteel stairway leading up to the tower. With a wrench of screaming plasteel, the stairway buckled under the strain that shook the tower platform to its core. Standing next to the clamps, Whizzbang and Acheron staggered back and forth like drunks until the platform stopped swaying. With a hiss and a billow of smoke, the battle-pods established a subspace connection to their base and Scourge began materialising in a shower of sparks at five points per battle-pod.

  “Oh frap, there’s so many of them!” cried Selfia into the comnet.

  “It’ll just mean we can’t miss,” Whizzbang said reassuringly. “Pick your targets carefully everyone.”

  Selfia quickly assessed where the largest concentration of rapidly forming figures and launched her deployable mine into their midst and yelled across the comnet, “Deployable mine away.”

  Whizzbang and Bosk had their grenade launchers at the ready so they could hit as many of the Scourge as possible in the shortest amount of time.

  Many people mistakenly assume that battle-pods actually contain the Scourge warriors. This is not the case. Similar to a radio receiver, a battle-pod provides a subspace teleportation bridge between a Scourge base and where they land. Concord scientists have surmised that within the Barrier, launchers must exist that fire battle-pods to any location on the planet. Due to the Barrier’s effect on human physiology, this only remains a theory

  Just as the first group of Scourge were nearly materialized from within their flashing hazy mauve storm Whizzbang issued the order, “Launch!”

  Three sets of grenades simultaneously soared into the air and a second set quickly followed. The huge concussive force of the first three tellurite infused grenades ripped through the Scourge ranks. Laying on the roof, Selfia’s sniper visor automatically shielded her eyes from the flashes by flicking to its maximum setting. All she could now see were the outlines of materialising Scourge falling to the ground dead and those that remained standing after the first round of grenades quickly falling to the second.

  Selfia triggered her deployable mine and was rewarded with the screams of still more wounded and dying. Smoke and the sounds of slaughter filled the air but still more shapes continued to form up until the grenade launchers ran out of ammunition.

  “OK squad, here we go. Now the fun begins!” yelled Whizzbang through his
comnet over the sounds of the explosions.

  The turrets surrounding the scanning tower hummed into life and happily chirped their deadly contents at the materialising Scourge on the stairs leading up to the scanning tower emplacement. Over the comnet Whizzbang heard his heavy turret upgrade itself from a single to a double barrelled weapon as the built in artificial intelligence analysed the enemy actions and instructed the nano-machines to add the new capability. The Concord only recently developed smart weapons like the heavy turret and they often made the difference between winning and losing an engagement.

  In a crackle of energy, Whizzbang fired his lightning gun at a Scourge Engineer running up the stairs and enveloped it in a field of high voltage electricity that paralysed and stopped its heart. Arching its back in agony the Engineer opened its mouth in a silent scream and collapsed dead with a clang onto the metallic stair grating.

  Acheron, with his usual lack of finesse, turned his light min-gun onto the battle-pod on the stairs until it exploded and vanished into oblivion. Bosk picked off one enemy after another while Selfia reciprocated from her perch at the opposite side of the kill-zone.

  All was going to plan as the four fighters extracted their toll on the enemy below and that was when something strange happened. Honed reflexes from countless encounters with the enemy was all that saved Whizzbang from the enemy sniper. He caught the glow of the sniper barrel out of the corner of his eye and immediately dove for cover behind one of the massive scanning tower clamps. Rather than cutting him in half the ruby red beam nicked his upper arm, burning through his battleframe and into his still smouldering skin.

  “Oh frap!” squeezed past Whizzbang’s lips just as he saw Bosk puncture the sniper in the side of the head with his Charge rifle beam. The nanomeds in his battleframe kicked in to deal with the wound just as they sorted out all of his other injuries over the years. Despite the pain killing nanomeds, his arm still felt like it was on fire.

  Whizzbang stood to his feet and thought to himself, “Come on meds, get a move on!”

  Chapter 16

  A Scourge Fist

  As Acheron put the final battle-pod out of commission, Whizzbang said over the diminishing sounds of battle, “Guys, watch out. That sniper wasn’t from one of battle-pods. It had to be a scout from a roving band of Scourge zeroing in on our position.”

  “CT Whizz.” Bosk answered.

  “Selfia, get higher now,” Whizzbang ordered.

  Whizzbang watched as Selfia jump-jetted up to the huge boulder above her previous position.

  “See anything Self?” Whizzbang asked.

  Selfia yelled across the comnet, “Guys, we’ve got company and a lot of it! Look to the north-east and arriving in, maybe, two minutes.”

  “Oh frap! I’m in the wrong frame,” Whizzbang said to himself as he sprinted down to the battleframe console and keyed in to select his Raven. Unusually, his arm where the sniper had nicked him was still hurting. “Come on meds, do your stuff and get me back together!” he thought.

  While Whizzbang was charging off to change his battleframe, Bosk shimmied along one of the twisted Terrarium girders and laid prone along to get a steadier shot at the incoming enemy.

  The sound of descending thrusters on full burn thundered from on high as the scanning tower plummeted towards its landing clamps. The deafening roar of the main under-jet blanketed the area while the higher pitched whine of the four manoeuvring jets auto-aligning the base of the tower with the huge docking clamps.

  As Whizzbang keyed in the codes at the battleframe console for his Raven, he heard Selfia’s rifle begin its deadly song in counterpoint to Bosk’s high-pitched zing. It took all of sixty seconds to change frames and have him standing on the platform next to Acheron.

  “Situation?” he asked.

  “Both Self and Bosk are trading shots with a few Scourge Snipers. It seems that the majority of the enemy is using the covering fire so they can move forward. Whizz, I’ve never seen the Scourge behave like this before.”

  “I agree, something’s changing and it’s not in our favour. Let’s see if I can alter the odds a little before the close quarters fighting starts.”

  Whizzbang knelt down on one knee and balanced the barrel of his Charge rifle on the railing that surrounded the tower platform. Sighting a Scourge Sniper in the cross-hairs he press the trigger but this time rather than the typical explosion of purple flesh the Scourge Sniper took the shot in the chest and then ducked behind a boulder.

  “Self, Bosk we’ve got to hit them in the head. It looks like these frapping Scourge are tougher than we’re used to.” Whizzbang said over the comnet.

  Normally, such a statement would be met with bewilderment as hitting a moving target perfectly in the head each and every time was nearly impossible but Selfia and Bosk simply replied, “CT Whizz”.

  A sudden spray of sparks danced like chaotic fireworks at the end of the girder where Bosk was perched as a ruby red sniper beam struck the steel and instantly vaporised a fair chunk of it. Bosk ducked his head and began inching his way back towards the intact side of Terrarium building.

  “Don’t worry Bosk, I’ve got ‘em,” Selfia said as she gently squeezed her trigger. The three-inch slug of depleted tellurite leapt from her rifle barrel and sped across the space towards the Scourge Sniper’s head.

  “Thanks Self,” Bosk said as he inched his way back into position.

  Whizzbang peered through his scope just in time to see the glow of a Scourge Sniper gun barrel signalling an imminent shot. “Down Ach!” he yelled as he grabbed his friends arm to drag him to the deck. The shot was wide but not by much and the energy was dissipated as it struck the outer shielding of the scanning tower without much effect.

  “Guys, they’re nearly here,” Acheron yelled over the gunfire as he clambered back to his feet and heaved his light mini-gun into position.

  Laying prone on the deck Whizzbang sighted the Sniper that had just taken a shot at him. The scorch mark on its chest told him that he had shot this one earlier. Taking a number of long slow breaths, he pressed the firing stud and the blue beam cleanly punctured the Sniper’s head.

  “Are all the Snipes accounted for?” Whizzbang asked.

  “All done” answered Selfia.

  “We’ve got about twenty seconds to deal with the rest of them or at least soften them up for Acheron,” Whizzbang said just as gunfire began pinging around his position.

  The three Concord snipers played their deadly symphony of zing and bang across the dozen elite Scourge coming up the hill. Juggernauts, Shock troopers, Slayers, Engineers all fell, and the few that remained were cut-down in the crescendo of Acheron’s mini-gun. After the ungodly and terrifying music had stopped echoing off the surrounding hills an eerie silence beset the four Concord pilots as they surveyed the carnage that their symphony had wrought.

  Arms were ripped from sockets, heads splayed open, torsos missing legs and small wounds in the chest belied the fact that the Scourge no longer had a back. Whizzbang, Selfia and Bosk were stunned at the carnage that they had inflicted on the enemy. There were no groans from wounded coming from the field in front of them as each enemy was dead.

  “Well, that was kind of…,” Bosk trailed off.

  Over the comnet came the sounds of Selfia uncontrollably retching as the impact of the last few minutes hit her. Acheron kicked in his jets and soared up to comfort his wife on the rock high above.

  Whizzbang pulled out his earpiece to give Acheron and Selfia some privacy. He glanced up at Bosk straddling the girder and noticed that he had done the same. Suddenly the world seemed to compress and then expand as he experienced the same strange sense of vertigo that he felt just before the battle. He lost his balance and fell to the deck with a metallic clunk next to the tower.

  “What was that?” Whizzbang exclaimed as he slowly regained his feet. Looking over at his friend, he saw Bosk giving the girder a bear hug and that his eyes were squeezed shut. “Did you feel that?” he yelled over
to Bosk.

  “What in the frap was that? Is it finished?” Bosk replied with a strained voice.

  “I have no idea. I experienced the same thing…”

  “…just before the battle?” Bosk finished Whizzbang’s sentence.

  Whizzbang nodded and said with a concerned voice, “Something’s happening and we need to find out what it is.”

  Acheron and Selfia jump jetted down to the plasteel tower deck next to Whizzbang just as Bosk kicked in his jets and glided across from the Terrarium roof.

  Looking across at Whizzbang and Bosk Acheron asked, “What’s going on with you two?”

  Resting a hand on Selfia’s shoulder Whizzbang asked, “Self, you OK?”

  Selfia gave a weak smile, “I’ll be OK Whizz, thanks for asking.”

  “Not a problem,” Whizzbang replied compassionately before turning to Acheron. “Bosk and I were just talking about it. There’s something really strange happening.”

  “I felt like I was being squeezed through a tube of toothpaste and then spurted out into the basin,” Bosk said as he mimicked squirting toothpaste.

  Whizzbang said, “We’ll have to sort that toothpaste issue later. Now that the tower is up and running we need to find out how bad it is out there and see if Concord command is still in one piece. If they are, it would be good to find out whether anyone else has experienced what we all just felt.”

  Whizzbang thumbed his wrist-comp to tap directly into the wider comnet and displayed a map of Alpha Three with the current state of affairs. As well as Freehold, Research Ravine and the Terrarium it was clear that there were aggressive counter attacks going on all over the map with the Scourge slowly being pushed back. Central Command, Belver’s Pass and even Fisherman’s Bend were already back under Concord control.

  Peering over Whizzbang’s shoulder Bosk let out a slow whistle and said, “Now that’s more like it. It looks like we’re sending them back into the Barrier.”