Frontline sf-4

by Randolph Lalonde

  “Yeah, that was a mistake. I'm going to tell him next time he comes by my place. He'll probably be by to show off his new foot.”

  “And Captain?”

  “We'll see I guess, I hope I didn't do any real damage. Hopefully we can get in touch with him so Triton can pick him and his passengers up. If not that question will have to wait a long time.” Stephanie sat down and picked up her chopsticks again. “God, I'm hungry.”

  “We'll be coming out of hyperspace into some kind of mission then looping back to the rendezvous point in about ten hours. Alice hasn't posted the info yet,” Ashley said after finishing a mouthful of dim sum.

  “I like her, she's as tough as Jake and knows what she's doing.”

  “So do I, she's easy to talk to off duty too. Maybe she'd have a good bearing on what Captain's thinking, maybe she could even finish his sentence for him.”

  “Maybe. I'd still rather keep it between us though. Well, us and Price. I'm going to have to talk to him.”

  “I don't think he's told anyone, that's not like him.”

  “I know, still, I'd rather tell him it's okay he knows, just not to spread it around.”

  The pair finished eating in relative silence. They were just relaxing; Ashley slurping her lychee soda and Stephanie sipping a second cup of tea when she laughed quietly to herself. “How did we get here? I mean, you giving me advice, I'm usually the rough girl whose been through it giving you the wise word.”

  Ashley shrugged. “What comes around and all that I guess.”

  Rising

  The cold steel table beneath the side of his face was a little wet. He was about to open his eyes and stopped moving. Jake wasn't in his vacsuit, but some kind of flimsy plastic jumpsuit. There were restraints around his ankles and wrists.

  “…actual medal? I thought they just awarded those digitally now, you know, like on your file as a commendation,” said a female voice very close to his ear.

  “Nope, they're actually giving all three of them medals, blue and silver things with three spikes on them. They say they managed to organize a couple platoons worth of military bots and clear an entire island,” said a male voice just a little further off.

  He was in a small room, the chair beneath him was hard, and his wrist restraints were dangling free. All this he could tell easily without opening his eyes, without letting on that he was concious. Hell no! He thought to himself. They are not going to put me in a God damned cell, not again! I won't spend weeks running on the spot and putting up with some cocksure interrogator breathing down my neck doing God knows what to me and anyone they set me up to feel sympathy for. The rage building up in him increased his heart rate, threatened to increase his breathing, overtake the calm that made thinking at all possible. There were too many familiar things, the flimsy plastic suit, his bare feet on the hard, cold deck, even the smell of chemical disinfectant was exactly the same as he remembered from the Overlord II. The ship that held him captive in the Gai-Ian system so many years before as Jonas Valent.

  The woman used nimble fingers to feel the metal restraints around his wrists and trace the hard cords up to the other end. There were loops under the table that he was about to be fastened to. He opened one eye a crack and saw her waist, her belt where all the tools of her trade hung.

  “Hey, I think he's awake,” said her male counterpart. He was standing just behind her.

  Without a thought Jake grabbed the young woman's wrist, pulled down as hard as he could, slamming her head down against the metal table. His other hand snatched her sidearm out of its holster. The database of military hardware imprinted on him when he was first made included the VCD Standard Issue sidearm and he knew the safety was deactivated using the thumbprint of the user.

  In the next instant he pressed her thumb down on the small pad, and the efficient biometric reader was able to take her print through her thin gloves. He dragged her into his lap and shot her in the knee before pressing the gun against her temple and partially pulling the trigger. “Don't move sweetheart, I already have every reason I need to kill you,” Jake whispered into her ear through gnashed teeth.

  Her male counterpart stared at him with his sidearm drawn and pointed at him. He looked like he was barely out of his teens.

  “Look at my trigger finger, boy. I so much as twitch and she's gone.”

  “Don't move!” cried the soldier in retaliation. “Kill her and you're dead.”

  “They didn't tell you, did they? I'm a framework; blow my head off and it'll grow back. Try it, you won't get another chance.” Jake moved his feet just enough to confirm that he was bound to the chair.

  “We're treated with armour gel, you can take a shot and it won't kill her. So I can take my shot, you can take yours, she'll be fine and you'll wake up or regenerate or whatever in a cell.”

  There was no hesitation, no warning. Jake pulled the trigger. The sound of the pulse going off so close was nearly deafening, the heat from it burned his hand, but he didn't allow himself to show it. The scorched flesh was regenerating regardless.

  The young soldier was right. They didn't need helmets, whatever gel they applied to their skin was protection enough.

  “Can she take two shots?” Jake asked with a grin.

  His captive's breathing came faster, her calm was completely broken. Her eyes were widened in a panicked expression. The creak of his finger putting very slight pressure on the trigger was audible only to Jake and his hostage.

  “What do you want?” she asked quietly.

  “Release my shackles for a start.”

  “Do it, Richard.” she said, staring wide eyed at her partner.

  “We'll both be put out of the service,” he countered as he looked down the sight of his sidearm at Jacob. He was nervous, shaky.

  “Do it, he'll kill us if you don't.”

  “Listen to the girl.” Jacob confirmed ominously.

  He brought up a small interactive holographic control using the back of his glove. It showed a perfect depiction of the room and as he touched the representations of the shackles around Jake's ankles, they snapped open and he pulled himself free.

  “Now, my things. Where are they?”

  “It doesn't matter, they're locking down the entire section.”

  “Where are they?” Jake persisted.

  “Two compartments up from the interview room,” answered his hostage.

  Jake pulled a grenade free from his captive's vest and tossed it against the transparent steel mirror to his left. Before anyone could say anything he did the same with another.

  “No!” shouted the guard training his weapon on Jake as he ran for the door.

  Jake stood, hauling his captive with him, putting her between the grenades and himself. He jumped towards the door with reckless abandon, hurling himself in the direction of the other guard.

  The grenades went off as the door opened, blasting him and the guards out into the corridor and surprising the four standing outside.

  Jake rolled to his feet, the ringing in his ears fading fast and grabbed the nearest guard by the collar. He wasn't interested in more hostages, his trigger finger started working and didn't stop until that fresh guard from the hallway was falling to the ground.

  He shot another several times in the face before he was fired upon. The rifle blast caught him in the back of his thigh and he fell to the ground turning so he landed on his back, half strewn across a corpse.

  He could already feel the strange itch and burn as his framework body worked to repair the damage done as he brought his captured sidearm up firing at the soldiers who had their rifles unslung, ready to gun him down.

  His energy blasts filled the air as one of the guards succeeded in shooting him in the stomach. His framework body was drawing on all the excess energy in the air, using it to recharge itself as it repaired wounds. The pain was incredible, but Jake could only focus on one thing; fighting his way free.

  The last soldier died with an expression of disbelief on his ruined
face.

  The only one left alive was the soldier he'd taken hostage. She had taken shrapnel, one of her arms was barely hanging on, and her face was an open wound, but she breathed, she sputtered.

  Jake's thigh was still healing, the wounds in his stomach were nearly unbearable, but he managed to roll over towards her and pull her emergency medical nanobot canister free from her vest and inject it into her neck. “You'll live, I'm sorry it had to happen the way it did,” he said, looking into her one good eye. “I've been in a prison like this before, and I'll tear everything to pieces and kill everyone who gets in my way before I spend another minute inside.”

  The nanobots were already at work, she had stopped bleeding and her breathing was becoming more regular. His own healing process was going just as well. His leg was repaired and the pain in his torso had been muted. It was still there, but his body was blocking most of the pain as the injuries were under repair.

  He stood up, looked down and hoped that it looked a lot worse than it was. The flimsy jumpsuit they'd put on him was burned away from his ribs to his pelvis, and there were three slowly closing holes surrounded by deep burns there. They were healing so quickly that the difference was visible from one second to the next.

  Jake took in his surroundings. Dark metal polished decks, light grey walls and a two and a half meter tall ceiling clearance were the most notable features of the corridor. There was one door to his left and many to his right. Hurriedly he removed four grenades from a guard and ran a couple of doors down.

  Looking back at the surviving soldier he could see many of her wounds were closed, her face had been mostly mended and she was staring at him. “This door leads to the equipment room?” he asked her.

  She didn't answer.

  He slowly brought up his stolen weapon, taking aim at her head.

  “Yes,” she managed to whisper.

  Jake attached the grenades he'd stolen to the door, set all the timers to five seconds and ran back to the four corpses surrounding the woman. He rolled into place beside her and pulled a corpse into place to shield them from the force of the explosion.

  He barely had time to pull another body into place before the grenades went off.

  Again, his ears rang, his skin stung from the heat, but it all diminished quickly. When he rolled the bodies off he was satisfied that he and his former captive had been protected. The wounds in his stomach were healed and he had a feeling that his body was fully charged. That was all, a feeling. It was a new instinctive knowledge, like feeling hungry or full. He had the sensation that his framework skeleton had all the energy it needed and realized that since he could remember the feeling had been there, had gone unnoticed because it never changed.

  With such grievous injuries to repair and such a great absorption of energy underway, the status of his cybernetic components were changing quickly, drastically, so it only made sense to him that that feeling would reflect it. Still, it was something new, an affirmation of how he was made, of his physical nature that was new, strange.

  There was another feeling, something was changing in his hands, and after a moment he realized he could feel the status of the sidearm he was holding. It was charged to eighty six percent and had an active sighting eye.

  Rolling to his feet he tried to see through that eye and realized that he was looking down the sight of the weapon at the same time as he saw the world through his own eyes. The electronic sighting eye wasn't as clear, it didn't feel as natural, but after he shook his head, caught his balance, he quickly became accustomed. There's a digital interface in my palms. I don't understand half the data I'm sensing, but the visual and status readouts are as plain as day. The electromagnetic pulse bombs or healing process must have activated them. I wonder what else I have stuffed inside that I don't know about?

  He ran to the door he tried to blast open and saw that the top half had been roughly torn through by the concussive force. Jake hurriedly squeezed through the space and began searching through the hundred or so lockers within. They were marked with eight digit numbers and after randomly opening several he noticed that the number 44381-582 was etched into the sleeve of his tattered jumpsuit.

  After a moment of searching he found the locker with the corresponding digits. His things were neatly set inside, each article separated into vacuum sealed plastic bags. The bag holding his sidearm had black and yellow markings across it, his vacsuit was folded at the bottom of the locker with his long coat, and his articles were sealed up all separately.

  The first thing he did was unwrap a set of four focusable proximity mines. Morons should keep munitions stored separately, every green to the bone security newbie knows that. He took one, ran the few steps to the door, planted it on the outside pointed across the corridor and armed it.

  He hurriedly dressed in his new armoured vacsuit, long coat, gun belt, and was half way finished loading up with the equipment and ammunition that had been removed from his long coat and sorted when he heard footsteps outside. He ducked and crouched down low, bringing his headpiece and visor into place just in time for the directionally focused mine to explode into the hallway.

  Whoever had stepped in its way or was within its hundred and ten degree blast radius would be obliterated. The force behind the explosion had dented what was left of the metal of the door inward, but he was barely effected by the explosion.

  He stood up and hurriedly replaced the rest of the equipment and small tools in the pockets of his long coat then took his favourite sidearm in his right hand and closed his eyes. Jake made a concious effort to connect with the sighting systems built into the scarred and worn weapon and could see through its eye a moment later. It was a higher quality than the weapon provided to the guards, and showed him a much better colour picture that had enough depth to be translated into holographic data if he liked. The sight once displayed an image on his visor, but having a direct connection was so much better.

  His concentration turned to the sensors in his vacsuit. Motion, gravity, air density, environmental, thermal, video, audio, and energy field sensor data flooded his mind for a moment. It was all there at once. Like opening his eyes for the first time, learning to see, comprehending new shapes and information it was all too much.

  Jake withdrew and tried to focus on the new senses one at a time. It happened much more easily, much faster than he had anticipated. The motion sense came first, a combination of air pressure, sonic and thermal senses, it told him that around the corner there was a fresh squad of six soldiers tentatively moving forward.

  The gravity sensors told him their mass indicated they were all humans with no high density implants. The energy fields that surrounded them indicated where they each kept a pair of energy clips, how much ammunition each of their weapons were loaded with and that they were all communicating through a radio signal that looped through the ship's comm systems. It all came with perfect clarity, and when he opened his eyes the new senses weren't just seen or felt, they were a part of his awareness.

  He tapped into the ship's communications systems effortlessly, using the open connection he sensed through the unsecured leisure portion of the network. The thought of being captured was still on his mind, the awareness that there were twenty seven decks beneath him and twenty two above and that he was over nine hundred meters of hallway away from the nearest escape vessel enraged him. Jake would have to fight to leave the ship, and even then the nearest craft available was unarmed, useless when trying to depart from the midst of a Battle Group. The ship he was on was called the Diplomat, and it was registered to the High Seat of the Order of Eden, Lister Hampon.

  The whole situation made him burn. Jake opened a link between himself and the unsecured channel. “Don't stand between me and my freedom. If you are armed place your weapon on the deck in front of you and step away. If you are in control of a major system and I require access to your station, step back and do not interfere. If you don't follow my instructions you will be killed.” He ended the broadcast and shut
down the communications system built into his command and control unit so no one could back hack his system.

  One of the squad members was approaching the large hole in the upper half of the door with a grenade in his hand. Jake activated the new, radiation free cloaking systems in his vacsuit and long coat, took three long strides to the door and waited.

  The squad leader activated his grenade and tossed it into the doorway. Jake was ready, caught it, leaned outside and tossed it down the hall between the feet of the six soldiers. “I warned you,” he said as he ducked behind what was left of the armoured door.

  He set his sidearm to the maximum discharge rate, so it would fire enough explosive thermite to burn through half a meter of hardened hull material in less than two seconds. The weapon would only have thirty five shots per clip, but by his estimation he would miss less, and he had six more clips on him.

  The grenade went off and for a few seconds half his new senses were blind. He shook his head and looked into the hallway.

  Half the squad were killed by the blast, he could see all the indications of life fading away, their body heat dissipated the slowest of all. Without hesitation he stood, pulled himself out through the upper half of the doorway and strode down the hall to where he assumed the secondary lifts were, ignoring the three guards that were pulling themselves together and checking their fallen comrades.

  He held his palm to the controls to the lift and tried to interface with them. As expected he was instantly aware of a security lockout. The entire section he was in was locked down. He wasn't an expert at breaking into digital security systems and that was a problem. After a moment he was able to pull up a general map of the area with emergency safety zones marked clearly. That was the best information he could find, and he spun on his heel and started running towards a security station.