Standish

by Donald B McFarlane

  Bender was quick to issue orders once the plan was clear. A final barrage of fire towards the forces that were continuing to move towards them from the park, then a mad dash towards building seven. After laying down her shots, Standish pushed herself off the ground, turned, and started sprinting towards the structure across the open terrain that was a mix of grass and paved walkways. She could see laser fire slice through the air over her head as she ran for her life.

  69

  The Present

  Fury 161

  It took an hour of lying in the muck and rain before Standish could rise to her feet. She lay there almost motionless, getting soaked in the detritus that had piled up over the years. No one paid her any attention to her practically comatose body. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt this bad. She was thoroughly beaten down. It made her feel young again.

  70

  The Past

  Qera

  The ground surrounding the spaceport was littered with destroyed vehicles, dead operators, and hundreds of dead Coalition soldiers. Once Reyn had arrived at the spaceport, he took charge. He was outranked by Den, but everyone knew Reyn, and they knew that the only person he took orders from was Bender.

  “I want the teams that are currently on the perimeter to hold their positions, ships that are ready to jump, have them jump once they’ve cleared five hundred metres.”

  Reyn was cut off by Den, who had a very concerned look on his face. “Five hundred metres will.”

  Reyn shot a look at Den that would freeze the sun. “Don’t worry about any spacial distortions.” He looked down to the ground, then back up at the other team leaders that were gathered around him. “Everyone not on perimeter security needs to make their way to jump capable ships and get off-world as fast as possible.” Reyn checked his weapon. “I’m going to relieve the forces top-side.” He tightened his grip on his weapon. “Just get everyone to a ship and jump away.” He stepped closer to Den. His white armour now blackened by smoke and blood. “Leave a single ship for me to extract Bender and his forces.”

  Den nodded.

  “I’ll see you back in the Etelainen.” Reyn smiled, then lowered the blast shield on his white helmet. He turned and moved off to the closest stairwell, leaving those on the ground floor of the spaceport with the responsibility of finalising the evacuation.

  Reyn knew that if the operators still in Curzon had any chance of surviving, he’d have to use some of his powers, and he knew that was going to create problems for not only himself, but for Bender, and everyone close to him. Since Bender had found him as a young child, abandoned, floating in a small capsule in the middle of space, he had always done his best to keep his real self-concealed from anyone other than Bender, that mask was about to be pulled back if he wanted any of the other operators on the planet to make it off alive.

  Reaching the stairs, he made his way up the five levels to the top level, then moved over to the roof access ladder that was just inside an open door near the stairwell. Swiftly up to the roof, Reyn kept himself low and scurried over to the edge of the roof where several operators were laying down a steady state of weapons fire in an inevitably fruitless attempt to keep a growing mass of Coalition forces at bay.

  Getting down, Reyn quickly analysed the threat. The area in front of the spaceport was open all the way to the corner of the park, four-hundred metres away. In between were several groups of Coalition troops and mecha that had taken up firing. It didn’t appear that they were making much of an effort to advance, and Reyn had a good idea why. They were going to wait for the ships to start trying to take off from the space-port, then blast them out of the sky.

  Looking to his right, Reyn spotted an operator with a heavy energy cannon, a weapon with much more firepower than his assault rifle.

  “Everyone bounce!” He shouted. “Leave the cannon.” He yelled at the operator to his right. The moment the warrior in a lime green and cream coloured armour moved away, Reyn rolled over and got behind the weapon.

  Checking the system, Reyn ensured there was a charged clip in, then verified that the rest of the operators had cleared the roof. Focusing back on the Coalition forces arrayed against him, he counted one hundred and fifty soldiers, three light-mech platforms, and five mech-suits.

  Simple.

  Reyn wanted to clear out the forces that were in the field in front of the space-port before the first ship got off the ground, which was when the surface-to-air batteries hiding in the park would inevitably activate and pose severe risks to the defenceless vessels as they moved skyward.

  Knowing that he was in the clear, Reyn pushed himself to his feet, hoisted the heavy weapon up to his shoulder and prepared to fire. His figure standing up, so exposed, so vulnerable, must have looked like a perfectly presented gift to the forces in the field, and at once, every gun, cannon, blaster and rocket was aimed at Reyn and fired.

  The wall of multi-coloured laser beams and other ordinance raced through the air towards Reyn’s position. The warrior, standing tall in his all-white uniform, could feel the ambition and desire from the Coalition forces.

  The battle was about to be theirs.

  But they were fighting something they couldn’t understand. Reyn was something from somewhere unknown, and when the wall of weapons fire was ten metres away from where Reyn was standing, it dematerialised, vanished, as if it never existed. Dropped into subspace, gone from the known universe.

  What happened was too much for most of the attackers to believe or comprehend. They just opened fire again with a furious vengeance to destroy the figure atop the space-port, but that only made matters worse, and now it was Reyn’s turn to reply. The second wave of weapons fire was more of a steady stream of shots coming in, but none of them made it closer than ten metres from where Reyn was standing before vanishing.

  Finally, ready to reply in kind, Reyn let rip with the giant cannon, sending well-aimed, fireballs of flaming green particles cutting through the air. He first targeted the mech platform and mech suits. The weapons fire causing massive damage all around. Reyn made sure to deliver enough shots on each target to destroy the units, not merely damaging them, exhausting the power cell in the weapon.

  Dropping the empty cannon, Reyn picked up his personal weapon and took aim, squeezing off fifty shots in rapid succession, resulting in fifty holes bored through the heads of fifty infantry. It was all over in less than a minute. Slapping in a fresh clip, Reyn slaughtered another fifty, then repeated the reload, and killed the remaining exposed infantry.

  With the ground threat to the building stopped, at least momentarily, Reyn dropped to one knee and caught his breath. Stopping the incoming fire had sapped his powers, and he needed to rest before his unique skills were called upon again.

  Not that far from the space-port, Bender and the survivors from his team had made entry into building Seven as they tried to make their way to the roof for extraction.

  The intelligence on the series of massive structures that were placed around the sides of the park between the three government sectors has been sketchy before mission launch, so when Standish walked through the double sliding doors at the main entrance, she wasn’t sure what to expect. The buildings were massive, thousands of square metres covering ten levels, and running fifteen kilometres in length.

  Standish quickly sized up the lobby, which was fifteen metres deep and ten wide; made of a grey coloured, heavily textured, concrete. A simple stand was just inside the entrance with maps and other information displayed on a digital panel, but other than that, the lobby was virtually free of features. Standish pushed past the sign into the middle of the lobby and dropped to one knee, setting up security and waited for instructions.

  It didn’t take long for Bender to call her back to the data terminal.

  “We need safe passage to the roof, preferably on the side of the building away from the park.” He pointed at the terminal. “Get in and give us a route.”

  Standish nodded, flipped up her blast shield
and stepped towards the screen.

  “Set security on the entrance!” Bender shouted, organising the remainder of his meagre forces.

  Standish looked at the screen, tapping it once. The device came to life, immediately displaying a map of Curzon that zoomed into the building before offering a menu of several options to choose from such as building directory, facilities, building living quarters, and the interior map. Standish tapped the map and brought up a two-dimensional image of the ten-story building. The picture showed scant details on each level above their current location.

  Examining the image, she could tell that the ground floor was dedicated to food services, entertainment and relaxation facilities for the thousands of civilians that lived and worked in the building. The ground through third floors was devoted to offices of various bureaucracies that serviced the Pohjois, while the top seven levels all served as living quarters. From what she could tell, two mono-rails ran the length of the structure on levels two and level eight.

  Lifts were spread out throughout the length of the massive building, and while not all serviced every floor, ten of the lifts that were spread out evenly along the length of the building did, including one just metres from where they were standing.

  “Bender.”

  The senior operator walked over, flipped up his blast shield and looked where Standish is pointing.

  “We can get to the top level using one of these two lift banks. Our best bet is to go up to level two and take the mono-rail the length of the building, put some distance between us and the park, then take the lift up to the top of the building.”

  Bender scanned the image, then looked at Standish. “Take point. Get us top-side.”

  Standish nodded, flipped down her blast shield, tightening her grip on her weapon.

  “On me!” Standish shouted, using her helmets speaker. No point in faffing around with the comms system.

  Moving across the vast lobby of the massive concrete building, Standish made her way to the bank of lifts that were twenty metres inside the entrance and tapped a sizeable blue call button. She took up a position in the middle of the bank and trained her weapon on one of the closed lift doors. The rest of the operators around her did the same, waiting for one of the doors to open.

  “Security, hold where you are.” Bender ordered the operators at the front of the building guarding the entrance while the rest of the team waited for the lifts.

  After a few moments of frustrated waiting, a single lift gave off a light ping, then opened slowly. As Standish shifted her position to get a clear line of sight on the elevator, a massive explosion rocked the front of the building, sending debris, glass, concrete, flying into the lobby, as well as forcing the operators there into the fetal position as the blast wave violently impacted upon their armour.

  “Lift!” One of the operators shouted over the din of the blast, and charged into the open conveyance, swiftly followed up by more operators.

  “Level two!” Standish shouted to the armour-clad operators as the doors slammed shut, there wasn’t enough room for everyone in the single lift, and she had other concerns now, shifting her rifle towards the door, she moved up to the closest operator who had been near the entrance, and dragged them back to the lift bank.

  Jumping over to the call button, Standish gently tapped the blue switch and then took up a kneeling position next to the wall, her weapon pointing towards the smoke and dust-covered front entrance of the building. Her helmet’s optical suite was able to see through it without difficulty.

  Fifty metres away from her position was a firing-line of armoured infantry mixed with several mech-suits, supported by another gun-platform. The force had more than enough firepower to wipe-out Standish and her team, but luckily, only the armoured infantry could fit inside the building's entrance, making the playing field level when they eventually launched their assault.

  When the second lift arrived, the remaining operators charged in and quickly tapped the button, sending them up one level. They might have been out of the firing line from the hostiles on the ground, but they were still a long way from getting off the surface.

  “Why didn’t we take the stairs?” Someone asked out loud, just as the lift doors were opening onto another concrete heavy level with a large atrium that stretched three levels upwards.

  The first team that had reached the second level had set security and had already called the mono-rail car, which was sitting ideally by, waiting for them to board.

  “Bender, there is only room for part of the team.” Clar reported, his white armour almost spotless.

  Bender nodded, then looked at Standish. “How’s the shoulder?” He asked.

  “I’m good to go.” She replied.

  “Clar, take the first run, set security on the far side.” Bender ordered.

  Clar pointed at the operators closest to the transport and ordered them into the conveyance. Clar got in last, and quickly sent the mono-rail car on its way, down the straight rail that would carry it all the way to the rear of the massive structure, some fifteen kilometres away.

  AO SKY

  Reyn surveyed the field in front of the space-port. Nothing was moving without the assistance of the light breeze that was gently gusting across the open grassy area. He had killed everything in sight, but now a much more difficult task awaited him. Checking his rifle, he confirmed that it was depleted, and without any extra clips, he set it down on the roof and calmly walked to the rear of the structure. Taking up a position where he could overlook the large landing area, he could see ships loaded with the surviving operators from both AO Sky and AO Throne making their departure.

  Flipping up his blast shield, Reyn looked towards the sky and tried to relax, even if it was just for the briefest of moments. He knew that he needed to calm himself down for the task ahead, and the bright blue skies over the city helped him do just that.

  When the first ship pulled up, Reyn could sense that the action was about to pick-up. Turning his back on the airfield, he looked across the roof of the space-port towards the park and waited for the inevitable. For an inexplicable reason, the Coalition hadn’t achieved air-superiority over the capital, which made no sense. Reyn knew they had enough ships and planetary defence systems in orbit to ensure that anything getting off the surface would be captured or destroyed before being able to flee.

  The Coalition defenders wouldn’t expect the Alliance forces to jump inside the planet’s atmosphere. It was common knowledge what damage that could do to the planet and the fabric of the universe, but that was the only chance the operators aboard the ships had to get off-world. It was a risk worth taking.

  As the first ship cleared the ground and started gaining altitude, Reyn readied himself for his two tasks. The first was to make sure no surface-to-air missiles blew the vessels out of the sky, the second was to make sure that any damage done by a jump didn’t cause a chain reaction that would not only destroy the space-port but the whole city and possibly the planet. That was the risk when a ship jumped just five-hundred metres from the surface of a world, and several ships were about to jump out.

  Using his rear-facing camera, Reyn watched the first ship clear the top of the space-port building, and start to move up and southwards, away from the centre of the city. It was a modern-looking ship, and while it wasn’t the largest of ships available to steal, it looked large enough to make the jump back to the Etelainen.

  The Coalition didn’t hesitate to act once they had a clear line of sight on the climbing ship from their positions inside the park. A pair of missiles were launched towards the vessel, quickly accelerating towards the ship at close to three-thousand-five-hundred kilometres per hour, giving Reyn just fractions of a second to react, but he didn’t require real-time to put his plan into action.

  Among his many talents, which he rarely deployed, was the ability to slow his understanding of the real-world timeline, almost accelerating his mind in the same way a juicer-pack would, albeit naturally, and more efficient.
The ability allowed Reyn to watch the missiles streak over his head towards the ship as if they were moving at a leisurely pace. All that Reyn had to do was focus his mind on the pair of missiles, then will their destruction.

  The mental telepathy that Reyn immitted sent a neural shockwave towards the missiles, which first stopped them in mid-air, before crushing them into tiny balls. The explosives compacted so rapidly they didn’t have time to detonate as they were rendered inoperable.

  Once the first two missiles had been destroyed, the Coalition forces must have suspected that there was a powerful psychic among those at the space-port. As far as they knew, only a Jin-Mona from the Maz Fine Cluster possessed the ability to perform such sorcery and power, and they reacted just as Reyn expected, with a full barrage of missiles, but against the space-port instead of the ships taking off behind it.

  He had anticipated that the second volley would be intense, but he hadn’t expected it to be focused on him. No matter, he thought to himself. It was just accelerating the end.

  When the twenty missiles came into view, Reyn could tell that they were all on different trajectories, smart weapons trying to outmanoeuvre him. It didn’t matter what the tactical plan was for the Coalition. One missile or twenty. It was all the same to Reyn, just more mentally taxing, and just as he was about to focus his energies on the approaching weapons, the first ship off the ground suddenly jumped away, and at an altitude of only three-hundred metres, creating a massive spatial distortion.