The rear hangar was clearing out and through a transparent bay door he could see the frenzy of activity as larger drop ships were being prepared for takeoff. A medical team emerged from a lift to his right and he waved them through as he got to his feet, watching them warily regardless.
“We're just here to help,” said one of the emergency workers with an upraised hand.
“Don't give me a reason to think otherwise and we'll all be happy,” Jake said as he strode towards his fighter. It was set down beside another vessel that didn't match the surroundings, a beat up interplanetary passenger transport.
“Vacsuit re-sealed.” said a voice in his ear. It was his command and control unit announcing that the hole that was made when he was shot in the shin was once again secure, the vacsuit material had come together to form a seal safe for space. “Good timing.” Jake said to himself as he looked the Uriel fighter over.
He climbed into the cockpit and armed the guns. The bars holding the ship in place had been extended across the four lower engine pods and he hoped the fighter would stay together as he increased power to the engines. The canopy was just starting to close and his vacsuit headpiece partially muted the screeching of the metal restraint rods as his fighter strained against them and won free.
One of the engine pods was pulled slightly out of alignment and the fighter's status screen blinked yellow several times as it recalibrated its new position with the control systems.
Without a second thought Jake guided the fighter down into the launch bay, scraping the bottom of the fighter against the deck before descending into an open elevation pit. He tried to guide the ship between two larger, more heavily armed troop carriers and managed to barely avoid a collision with the main rear hatch of one of them.
The fighter shot through the atmosphere retention field, leaving the command carrier behind. He flipped the fighter upside down and to his relief he could see Pandem. The view from where he sat was serene, and if he didn't know it was an actively contested world he would have thought that it was paradise. They were on the night side, but his visor corrected for the darkness and after a few seconds it was as though he was looking at the planet under the full light of the sun. the blue ocean was dotted with green and gold islands, white clouds drifted lazily through the atmosphere and on the larger land masses he could see the glint and gleam of great cities surrounded by green woods, like diamonds surrounded by emeralds set in gold.
He set the self destruct system on the fighter and brought up the shields just in time. Several of the anti-starfighter batteries aboard the Diplomat began firing on him, one striking the ship several times. So much for Hampon not going out of his way to kill me.
The pulse weapons were effective, too effective. His shields were down to forty three percent before he found what he was looking for.
“I promise to never question who I am, what my name should be or which personality I should put on in the morning ever again if this works,” he said to the Gods as much as to himself as he activated the ejection system.
He was launched with incredible force straight for the planet's atmosphere. He felt naked, bare as he watched the blue ocean and brown-green land beneath grow nearer. He tried to see through the bottom of his small thermally shielded pod, and couldn't. Using his new found connection to his command and control unit he checked his distance from the fighter and it's status.
Its shields were down to eleven percent and he was already over a thousand kilometres away. He watched the counter:
SHIELDS: 11%DISTANCE: 1300km
SHIELDS: 9%DISTANCE: 4200km
SHIELDS: 6%DISTANCE: 7300km
SHIELDS: 1%DISTANCE: 9800km
Then he detonated the pair of fusion reactors on the fighter. He could see the flash even though he was looking in the opposite direction, over ten thousand kilometres away and just about to enter the atmosphere. “You should have killed me when you had the chance Hampon!” Jake cried out in the near null space of the protective pod.
It had a hard, protective layer, rudimentary emergency gravity compensators and an antigravity booster for when it was time to touch down. He had made his target the foot of the mountain in Damshir. As he began to burn into the atmosphere his visor blocked the bright light. Wouldn't it just be the worst if it all ended here? If I became just another shooting star, matter burned up in the sky? He caught himself thinking. “Think positive, think positive, think positive,” he repeated to himself hurriedly as a last minute mantra.
He couldn't help but laugh to himself as he cleared the upper atmosphere and began free falling through the clear dark sky. Then his visor flashed and brought up a transmission. Where Hampon's face had once been was a black striped and brown furred nafalli. “My name is Alaka Murlen, I am one of the freedom fighters in Damshir. To my knowledge the mountain in which I am recording this message contains the last free intelligent beings on the planet. A virus has infected most of our machines and we are under siege. On behalf of the last remaining inhabitants and defenders of this world, I beg the Carthan government to send help. I expect from the military we have seen landing on this island that there must be an enemy fleet in orbit. Come prepared, come well armed and bring as many allies as you can before we and this entire solar system are lost to an enemy we have come to know as the West Keepers.”
The transmission ended. “Well, here's to the power of positive thinking,” he chuckled to himself as he watched the altimeter along the bottom of his heads up display countdown. At ten thousand feet he felt the pod adjust his course.
The dark cityscape rushed up faster and faster, and at two thousand meters the automated system, a very small computer built into the pod, announced; “primary deceleration system failure, prepare for contingency.”
The pod split down the center and Jake was released into the open air. He felt naked, helpless, and was near panic as he looked between his legs to see buildings and streets rushing up towards him. The sound of the air whistling by was louder than anything and he tried not to stare at the altimeter display on his visor as a thought occurred to him; I don't think I heard the emergency systems hook the emergency parachute onto my vacsuit. “ Oh fu-”
He was interrupted and jarred from head to toe violently as a parachute launched from his back and was caught by the air. The ground was still approaching faster than anyone would have liked, but he was slowing. The mountain with its step like face came into view. There were places there that were utterly destroyed by heavy shelling. The building faces set into the side looked hollow, dead as the looked down the side. The ones from the middle and top still had lights on, most of them were mostly intact. Light in front of the facades was distorted, as though by a protective shield.
He was still slowing, and finally there was no more time to slow down as he struck a transit tube suspended between two buildings, cartwheeled awkwardly through the air and hit the street hip first. The streets were filled with pocked and bullet ridden machines and corpses laying out in the open.
The thin material of the parachute covered him and after a minute he rolled over, found his way out from under the material and ran for the nearest broken, abandoned building as the rain started to fall.
Communications
Compared to the tall transmission towers and broad dishes pointed up at the sky that hung overhead like massive upside down umbrellas, the entrance to the underground communications management bunker was a tiny feature. There was a small landing area for personal craft in front, but other than that they were in the middle of the sugar cane field, the tall green stalks stretched out as far as the eye could see.
In the light of day the dishes were just transparent enough to permit light to pass through, and the nearest shadow was Damshir Spaceport, several kilometres away. “I'm amazed that growing sugar like this is much more economical than using a mass production materializer,” Ayan remarked as they settled in at the edge of the landing field. There were two personnel carriers made for carrying several people apiec
e. The driver's side door to one had been ripped off, the single occupant long dead.
There were a few other personal carriers, and only one armoured law enforcement transport. “Naturally grown sugar is a delicacy, most of the residents here can't afford it,” Jason replied as they all quietly observed the clearing for signs of movement.
“That police craft could be useful,” Minh pointed out. “Looks like it's got a couple guns too.”
“Pretty obvious. It might get us somewhere fast, but if anything on the ground wants to shoot it down it could be more trouble than it's worth,” Oz replied.
“Let's make it part of our escape plan, just in case.”
“Okay, if we find the andies that are responsible for it and can take them out, then we'll consider it. From what Alaka says they're linked to all their gear somehow and the signal jamming doesn't effect them.”
“I wonder how they managed that?” Jason asked himself more than anyone in particular. “Everything but a few encrypted military bands are jammed.”
“They've got a lot of toys here that we've never seen before. Speaking of which, I don't see any guards out front,” Ayan said. “Let's split into pairs and circle.”
“Good idea,” Oz said as he and Jason stepped onto the edge of the gravel landing area and they started walking the edge to the right.
Ayan and Minh started in the other direction. “Alone at last,” Minh teased as they made their way around slowly, watching carefully for any stationary guardians. It was eerie, robotic combatants could remain perfectly motionless, had infinite patience and hold ready infinitely. It was like looking for deadly shadows. “Did you mange to pry any info about what they're protecting in that mountain vault of theirs?” he continued.
“Nope, and I tried. It looked like Roman wanted to tell me at one point too, but he kept it to himself. I did catch one thing though; he's not from here. I heard some of his men talking and he arrived just a couple weeks before the virus. They said he was part of internal police security. I don't think he's just a Sergeant.”
“I could see that, he seems more military than anything. I'm surprised he and Alaka let us take this objective on so quickly, it's like Roman wanted us out of the mountain.”
“Alaka didn't seem so glad to see us go. I think he was happy to have our help holding the tunnels. Not that he needed our help with strategy on that front, but then, he was hunting rim weasels for a living before all this started,” Ayan chuckled lightly. “Who'd have thought that would be the perfect training for tunnel fighting?”
“Explains why he knows his way around so well. Rim weasels get everywhere, I've even heard that they can squeeze through a hole only a centimetre wide.”
“We found a couple on a bounder when I was serving on my first deep space tour.”
“One of those old short range shuttles? That had to make for a fun cleanup.”
“Yeah, I spent a week with the rest of the juniors cleaning out that thing, I barely saw outside it. The weasels ate half the wiring insulation in the whole craft, I swear.”
“Sometimes I miss those old ships with all the wiring tucked away behind panels, the fuzzy and carpeted surfaces everywhere. It's more like being in a living room.”
“They're a pain in the ass to get anything fixed in though. Strange that Rim weasels won't go near the carpet but they'll chew on anything else. Makes you wonder if there's something dodgy about whatever the pads are made of.”
“Never thought of it like that, huh.” Minh said pensively.
They quieted down and focused as they came around the rear of the bunker, their sensor suites outlined distinct shapes for them in the darkness of night. The metal double doors were only slightly smaller than the front entrance, and these had a short set of stairs going down to them. The outline showing where Minh, still invisible to the naked eye, signalled for Ayan to stop. His head was turned towards the entrance, so Ayan carefully looked everywhere else. “What is it?” she asked quietly even though their vacsuits stopped all sound from escaping.
“Two andies down those stairs. They're exactly the same temperature as their surroundings so thermal missed them completely.”
“Nice trick. My motion sensors didn't pick them up either, they must be on standby.”
“Think they'd see through our cloaksuits?” Minh asked quietly.
“No way, you'd need some kind of field or pressure sensors and that's pretty much impossible to tune properly in this atmosphere.”
“That's reassuring.”
Ayan's vacsuit highlighted Oz and Jason coming around from the other side of the landing area a hundred meters away, they were moving very slowly. Her visor display indicated that they were in proper line of sight and she could communicate with them again using the laser link. “Do you two see the androids down there?”
“Yup, just spotted them. I'm thinking I'll launch a shaped charge at the door while everyone else opens fire on the andies. We're going to have to dump half a clip into those two to take them out.”
“Are they seriously that well armoured?” Ayan asked.
“Someone didn't do their homework,” Minh teased.
“I was busy designing the Needle, remember?”
“She's not the only one, I was working on the broadcast system the whole time,” Jason interjected. “I could use a quick brief on 'em.”
“Right,” Oz started, taking command of the conversation. “They're an android with sixteen processing centers, so even though they look like humans there's actually no central brain. You can knock their head off they'll still see perfectly fine thanks to secondary and tertiary sensors.”
“Wow, sounds expensive,” Minh commented.
“Effective, more like. We seriously have to slag these buggers to do any good.”
“All right, we'll go as soon as we see you launch your shaped charge,” Ayan responded.
They watched as Oz marked the targets; Ayan and Minh would fire at the one on the left while Jason would fire on the one to the right. If they didn't come running out they would launch explosive charges from their rifles after the shaped charge went off. Their visors marked a projectile for a split second as it sped through the air to the double doors half under the cover of the stairs. It was marked red and blinking with a counter overhead as it attached itself to the doors.
Ayan and Minh opened fire, sending sub-sonic explosive rounds across the distance, peppering their android target and filling the air with a tattoo of small explosions. Jason's rounds hit home as well, and as Oz joined in their target sprinted at an incredible speed, firing its rifle back in a sweeping arc of pulse rounds.
One of the shots struck Oz, interrupting his cloaking systems and the android slung his rifle as he leapt through the air, striking him in the shoulder as he tried to dodge out of the way. In the next instant the android stood and swung his arms outstretched, feeling for his invisible prey. His hand landed on Oz's arm. With one jerk Oz was pulled towards the machine, who, with deadly force and precision began hammering his fist into his target.
Oz tried to aim his rifle at his assailant, but being pulled off balance he couldn't get a shot so he let the weapon fall as he tried to pull free from the machine's iron grip.
Jason took careful aim at the android but he spun around, dragging Oz into his line of fire. “I can't get a shot!”
“He's going to bust through my armour if this keeps up!” Oz said as he drew his nanoblade. “Get clear, going melee!” The first swing of his meter long blade half severed the android's neck and thousands of nanobots from the black sword remained behind to work at the softer systems inside the machine.
With a final great effort, Oz was hauled completely off his feet and thrown down onto the gravel so hard that he heard the hardened layers of his vacsuit crack. He rolled onto his back and swung at the android's midsection, cutting into the armoured stomach just enough to leave nanobots behind. The stress of striking the android's hardened surfaces was enough to almost completely deplete the bl
ade and he deactivated it as he drew his sidearm, set it to full automatic and opened fire peppering the android with explosive thermite rounds.
Jason, having a clear shot at long last, followed suit and opened fire with his assault rifle and between the pair and the work of the nanobots, the android fell face first into the gravel.
Ayan and Minh, who had an easier time with their target, ran to join Oz and Jason.
“My cloaksuit's done for now. It'll take half an hour to regenerate,” Oz reported as he got to his feet.
“Any injuries?” Minh asked.
“Shoulder, hairline fracture on a couple of ribs and upper arm but the suit hit me with a dose of active biogel that'll take care of it in a minute.”
“Gotta love that stuff, anaesthetic and concentrated healing accelerators all in one, wish we had that on the First Light.” Minh commented as he double checked Oz's status on his command unit. The tall Officer was known for exaggerating his wellness.
“I don't think anyone has that stuff, it was in one of the Special Projects crates Doc Anderson dropped off,” Ayan said as she started moving towards the bunker. “We have to move.”
Oz picked up his rifle and checked its condition as he took his position behind Minh and ahead of Jason. “Well, looks like I'm just one big distraction. I was wondering who would get the honour.”
“Better you than me,” Minh sang quietly.
“I see thermals from five inside. What's the plan?” Ayan asked.
“I'll move in slowly, as though I'm alone while you three move in well ahead, take them by surprise,” Oz said.
“Good plan, head in quick,” Ayan confirmed as she started running.
Oz stood up straight and took several pot shots around the entrance, over Ayan, Minh's and Jason's heads as they quickly closed the distance between them and the bunker. His sensor suite confirmed that they were taking cover inside the bunker, getting ready for him to try and enter on his own. He kept a steady, confident stride while looking down the sight of his rifle and taking the occasional shot at the nearest defender. He had no hope of hitting the man, but gave him good reason to remain behind his crate.
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