Operation: Snowblind: A Gamer's Universe Story

by S. R. Witt

  Heck unslung her assault rifle and took cover behind a heavy instrument cabinet.

  Skritch stood next to her drone and asked, “What do you want us to do?”

  Zotz grabbed the explosives from inside his pack. “Kill anything that comes through the door.”

  Chapter 5

  Despite its size, there wasn’t much to the array. Massive transmission crystals rose from the floor into the copper resonator silo carved at a steep angle through the mountain. Thick cables snaked away from the crystals and connected to translator panels mounted around the perimeter of the room. Zotz knew there were millions more wires behind those panels, each of them connected to a separate communications receiver.

  Rivicle Base was a relay post, picking up communications from all across the quadrant and re-transmitting them to Hongro operations as needed. If the corporation’s physical bases were its body, the communications array was its brain.

  Zotz packed wads of malleable explosives into the joints where the crystals connected to the base. The detonations would shatter the delicate structures, unleashing the potential energy they contained. Zotz’s calculations were rough, but he had no doubt the explosions would level the base and take the top of the mountain clean off. With the relay station gone, Hongro would be blind until it could build or steal another one. Bombing the place from orbit would have been much simpler, but the new plan was working out all right, Zotz thought.

  He was just placing the second detonator when all hell broke loose.

  A concussive blast took the array door off its hinges and knocked Skritch and her drone on their asses.

  Heck wasted no time pouring a burst of automatic weapons fire through the open doors, scattering the attacking guards. “Zotz! Hive! Whatever you’re doing up there, do it faster!”

  The guards returned fire, and F3L1N roared as bullets dented the armor plates on the outside of its right thigh. It scrambled to its feet and lunged into the fray, foot-long claws scything through flesh as it collided with the lead guards. Blood splashed across the floor and walls, steaming as the cold winter air surged into the array through the shattered doorway.

  Zotz looked away from the carnage, stomach rolling. He wasn’t a fighter, he was a technician. Days like today, he wished he’d stayed a miner. “Going as fast as we can, keep those guard’s off us.”

  But he knew, even as he said the words, the fight was coming. His tongue clicked nervously against the roof of his mouth and its echoes showed him there were at least 20 troopers headed their way. Nerves caused him to fumble the third detonator, and he barely caught it before it bounced off the catwalk under his feet. He plunged it into the gray mound of explosives, and clicked the priming button. One more to go.

  The sharp report of an assault rifle pricked Zotz’s hearing. Time slowed as his echolocation pinpointed the trajectory of the bullet and his wide nostrils flared to take in the stink of burning propellants.

  There was no time to duck, nowhere to take cover. The bullet was coming for him.

  Zotz’s thoughts raced to the drones still in his backpack. The bullet’s echoes were closing in, the doppler whine of its approach growing in intensity.

  Zotz knew he was too slow. He was a dead man.

  Time lurched back into motion, and a brilliant spray of sparks blinded Zotz. A high-pitched ringing filled his ears, and something hot and sticky splashed across his face.

  That’s it, he thought. They shot me. I’m dead.

  Except, he wasn’t. His vision cleared and he looked down at his feet at the punctured body of one of his drones. Its black wings fluttered weakly, and a thin trickle of oil drooled from a bullet hole in its casing.

  Zotz ducked back behind the crystals and set another explosive. That was it. They were primed and ready to go. All they had to do was get out of the area, and blow this place. He triggered his comms to relay the news to his team, when Dragora broke in.

  The dulcet tones of the ship’s voice always sounded pleasant, even when she was delivering terrible news. “I have detected an incoming Raptor-class assault shuttle. It will arrive at the base in approximately 15 minutes.”

  Zotz stared at the explosives clustered around the transmission crystals. Hive rattled around on a terminal mast above him, fiddling with the security protocols to allow transmission of the victory message.

  Heck and Skritch held the guards at bay, providing cover fire for F3L1N who was turning their enemies into a charcuterie platter.

  All of it seemed so pointless, now. Between the incoming attack ship and the weather, the Operators were cut off from Dragora. The starship wasn’t built for atmospheric dog fights, and the Raptor would destroy it before it could land.

  Zotz sagged against the railing surrounding the crystals and clutched his head in his hands.

  Chapter 6

  A display light on the HUD flashed red, and a klaxon wailed on the bridge. The Commander already had a headache from the clusterfrack of an assignment, but this new input ratcheted it up from annoying to migraine level. The Commander rubbed his temples. “Someone, for the love of gold, kill that infernal screeching!”

  He decided, then and there, that the pay from this assignment was going toward micro-surgery to remove the pain receivers in his brain associated with migraines. Why he hadn’t done it already, he didn’t know. It was probably his vain conceit over not wanting a scar on his head. Too late now.

  Skin added to the mounting pressure with a report from Rivicle Base. “Commander, the base is reporting an incursion by unknown entities. One guard dead, multiple wounded and…wait, correction, multiple fatalities.”

  “What a universal mound of…” The Commander was cut off before he could finish his diatribe.

  “Sir! I have them! They used a small transport to reach the base. They’re inside the communications array, now, and Hongro guards have them pinned. We can finish this if we get down there now.” Ratchet rubbed his hands together and licked his lips as he considered what he was going to do with the bounty from this catch. A few of his systems could use an upgrade. Plus, he wanted to try out the newest pleasure center just one quadrant over. He heard they have the latest version of Virtual Reality games which include killing your least favorite Operators!

  Even if Heck died on this planet, he still wanted to kill her again, just for making them take this ride through the storm. He had to swallow the acid that begged to come up just before they made it to the upper atmosphere. There was no way he was going to blow chunks in front of everyone. Not when he was the pilot responsible for their flight from hell.

  “Ratchet, can you navigate a passage through this storm and land us at the entrance to the base? I don’t want anyone else killing my prey before I can enjoy the torture she deserves. Before she dies, I want her to see me powering down her bot and telling her how he’ll wake up serving me. Then I want to slowly, and methodically cut off her ugly, half-human face. Let her know what it feels like, if she can even feel anything after all the metal they put in her.” The Commander leered as he thought about his revenge.

  Ratchet and Skin worked together to plot a course that would give them the likeliest chance of making it to the ground in one piece. Everyone on the transport was resigned to grabbing their inflight barf bags as they knew it was going to be more than just a bumpy ride down.

  There was one tiny opening in the storm that would get them down without tearing apart the ship, so Ratchet went for it. He eased the vessel into the gap, feathering the controls with a skill earned through years of hard experience. If anyone was watching, they would have thought it a metal bird instead of an interstellar assault vessel. Once they made it into the storm, the ship bounced around like a puck in one of those ancient Earth video games.

  Skin complained about getting whiplash and the Commander just grunted his unease. The rest of the crew held tight to whatever was next to them as the storm unleashed its fury on the Raptor.

  “How much longer do we have to endure your choppy flying, Rat
chet?” The Commander’s knuckles turned white with the intensity of his grip on his chair.

  “Not…much…longer. Ten…minutes?” Ratchet hissed between his clenched jaws.

  Chapter 7

  Heck snatched another magazine from her combat harness and snapped it into the assault rifle. She was running short of ammunition, and the guards were piling up outside the door. Even Skritch’s big drone couldn’t hold them all back, and the white enamel covering its body had chipped away to reveal ugly scabs of naked metal.

  Skritch zeroed in on a guard who’d slipped past F3L1N’s claws, and fired a single shot through the bug-like lens covering his right eye. “They’re breaking through!”

  Heck took out another guard, and barked up at Zotz and Hive, “Give me some good news.”

  Zotz called down, “Charges are set, but we need an exit plan.”

  Hive’s voice broke through the comms. “The security software is regenerating as fast as I can tear it down. The defense grid is tied into this area, and there are at least ten nodes repairing the damage as fast as I can hack through it.”

  A dull boom echoed through the hall and F3L1N fell back, shaking its blackened head. A lucky shot had stuck a grenade under its chin, and the explosion temporarily scrambled it senses. Bursts of automatic weapons fire pushed the big drone back inside the array with the rest of the outfit.

  The guards took advantage of the drone’s moment of weakness, and surged into the gap.

  Desperate to keep them at bay, Heck unloaded on the interlopers. Her ferocious attack and deadly accuracy triggered a scoring run, and she grinned as the messages scrolled through the corner of her AR display.

  ..::||//UMBRA COMBAT RATING MESSAGE BEGIN

  HEAD SHOT! 50 points

  DOUBLE KILL! 100 points, x2 multiplier

  TRIPLE KILL! 300 points, x 3 multiplier

  MULTIKILL! 500 points, x5 multiplier

  M-M-M-MAAAAAAYHEM! 1000 points! .

  .::||\UMBRA COMBAT RATING MESSAGE END

  Her score ratcheted up as one guard after another collapsed under the hail of fire, but Heck knew it wouldn’t be enough. There were more guards coming than she had bullets left, and her score wouldn’t matter if she didn’t get the hell out of the base.

  Skritch’s gun clicked empty and she howled in frustration. With a berserk roar, she threw herself over the low cabinet she’d been using as cover and bared her cybernetic claws.

  Heck shouted over the din of battle, too irritated to waste time with comms. “Zotz, find us a way out that isn’t the front door. Hive, I don’t care what you have to do, get the security software down and send the victory message. Now.”

  Skritch landed amongst guards, and they responded to her presence by breaking into pairs and orbiting her with eerie precision. They fired at her in controlled, careful bursts that she dodged and sidestepped with savage grace.

  Her cybernetic tail lashed out at the nearest guard, sweeping his legs from beneath him.

  He fell into the guard next to him, who squeezed off a wild shot that punched through the thigh of the guard across from him.

  A bullet grazed Skritch’s left arm, opening an ugly wound that drizzled blood like red rain on to the white tiles underfoot. She roared in response, and flung herself at the shooter.

  Another round sliced across the outside of Skritch’s calf, but didn’t slow her in the slightest. She slammed into her attacker and dragged him to the ground. Her claws flashed, reflecting the lightning storm raging outside, and buried themselves in the guard’s chest.

  Heck looked overhead and was surprised to see Zotz climbing the maintenance ladder that ran up alongside the transmission crystals.

  But she was even more surprised when she saw Hive.

  The Awakened drone had disassembled itself into a cadre of awkward-looking bits and pieces. A section she recognized as part of the drone’s lower leg had sprouted legs of its own and latched onto one of the array’s computer nodes. His remaining hand detached as well, and clung to the back of a monitor like a metal spider. He was everywhere at once, bits of him plugged into each of the array’s computers.

  His voice crackled through the comms. “Do not look at me. This is embarrassing. It was the only way I could deal with multiple nodes at the same time.”

  Heck averted her eyes and slapped another magazine into her rifle. Skritch had driven the guards back long enough to get F3L1N back on its feet, and the two of them were holding the door. “How’s that escape route coming?”

  Zotz’s voice broke through the channel, shaky and wavering. “I found one, but you’re not going to like it.”

  A tingle of fear blossomed at the base of Heck’s spine. “I don’t have to like it, it just has to work. Hive?”

  The drone’s voice echoed through the channel, seeming to come from multiple transmission points. “I’m in.”

  Heck ducked back into cover. She needed to think. “Okay, I think I’ve got it figured out. Dragora, listen up. Here’s the plan…”

  Chapter 8

  Dragora’s melodious voice repeated Heck’s orders, and then added, “Please be aware if your plan fails, I will be destroyed.”

  Thanks for the reminder, ship. Heck thought to herself.

  She knew the plan was potential suicide for their starship, but she also knew it was the only way for any of them to get out of Rivicle Base in one piece. As the outfit’s leader, Heck took her responsibilities to heart. She hadn’t hesitated to cross Cinder, her former employer, and the rest of his crew when they turned on her, but Heck’s loyalty ran bone deep to those who stood by her. “It’s going to work. It has to.”

  Dragora responded, “Initiating lift off. Coordinates confirmed and course plotted. Going dark.”

  Heck crossed her fingers. She was out of communication with the ship now, and if anything changed she had no way to reach Dragora. A total comms blackout was the only way the starship could approach the base without being detected, and even that might not be enough. If the defense grid got even a whiff before it was time, Dragora was dead and the rest of the outfit would follow her into the grave a few minutes later.

  Lose the negative thinking, bitch, Heck chastised herself.

  “Time to fly, Skritch,” she ordered and lay down cover fire to allow the young woman to withdraw safely. F3L1N covered her retreat, as well, by the expedient course of action of smashing two guards together hard enough to shatter their skulls.

  Skritch scampered past Heck and bolted onto the maintenance ladder. Nimble as the cat she resembled, the Operator flew up the ladder without looking back.

  Heck followed, slapping her rifle into her mag harness and pulling herself up with her cybernetic arm. Just looking at the top of the ladder made her dizzy, and thinking about the high energy crystals immediately to her left added to her panic. Any slip, would be rewarded with a crippling fall or vaporization when the crystals discharged into her flesh.

  She stopped level with the first of Hive’s parts. “Tell me you’ve got your part handled?”

  “It is difficult. I am through the security barriers, but the operating system and defense matrix is too complex for my programming.”

  Heck cursed and put her metal hand on the piece of the drone closest to her. “Then stop trying to program it. Get inside and turn that fucker out.”

  She was out of time to coax the Awakened drone into action. He’d either get the job done, or they were all dead. Time would tell.

  She reached the top of the maintenance ladder and arched her back to squeeze around the transmission crystals. There was a black hole at the top of the shaft, an opening that allowed the transmissions to reach the satellites in geosynchronous orbit overhead. It also made a handy escape route.

  Zotz grabbed at Heck’s arm and helped her onto the top of the silo. Snow whipped around them, and lightning lit up the peaks to their left and right. “Hell of a day,” Zotz quipped. “Is this going to work?”

  Hive’s voice reached them through the com
ms. “It is not. I need time, and these guards will not give it to me.”

  Zotz peered over the edge of the opening. The guards had flanked F3L1N, but they were ignoring the big cat to fire at the more dangerous problem. They were either going to get lucky and kill Hive, or very unlucky and one of their bullets would puncture the transmission crystals and unleash their potential energy. Either way was terrible news for the outfit.

  Heck’s cybernetic lower teeth caught the flesh of her upper lip. “There’s nothing we can do. I can’t stop bullets.”

  Zotz felt sick to his stomach. They’d come so far, and now they were going to die? No.

  He had a plan, too, but it might end up killing him. “Let me try something.”

  Before Heck could stop him, the technician pulled himself onto the ladder and slid down the first ten rungs.

  He reached over his shoulder, opened his backpack, and the last of his drones crawled out of it and took flight. “Sorry, little buddies, this is going to hurt.”

  The small drones buzzed down the maintenance shaft, and linked legs. Their wings fluttered, then stabilized. The drones formed a metal umbrella, a shield to keep the guards’ fire off Hive. “This won’t hold long, Hive.”

  The drone responded, and there was a note in his voice that could be mistaken for relief. “That is all I need, just a few moments.”

  Zotz’s eyes grew wide as he watched Hive’s head crawl down the inside of the maintenance silo. Braided tentacles slithered from Hive’s mouth and wound themselves into one of the array’s nodes.

  Static erupted from the comms channel, and Hive’s voice broke through in scattered snippets. “Friend or foe… Telemetry disrupted… Signal loss… Stabilizing…”

  At the top of the silo, Heck watched as the Raptor screamed in toward the base. But her eyes were on the defense perimeter. The Fury batteries swiveled in tight circles, searching for a target. She crossed her fingers, and prayed her plan would work.