Armageddon's Pall
Page 12
A pinch at Blazer’s arm gave him a quick energy boost; the vitamin infusion band had been his only sustenance since he’d begun the mission. That reminded him to check the reverse osmosis system as it processed the contents of his “relief bag” into drinkable water. That the Planet Slicer was on the move was a good thing, much longer and they would have had to abort. An extraction with the Gorvian ship in-system could prove more dangerous than their insertion, and that required them to ride inside an exploding ship.
A few pulses later and Blazer felt the familiar pull of gravity wash over him. He prepared to power up as the chunk of hull plating his lifeless mech clung to slowly began its fall towards the Planet Slicer. The pull of gravity grew with each passing moment, but Blazer had to resist the urge to power up. He focused on passive meters which had been built into the bulkhead ahead of him. The radiation and magnetic field meters rose with each passing centipulse. Once the magnetic field meter had registered a strong enough field to disguise low energy emissions, Blazer powered up his passive sensor arrays.
A display inside his helmet winked to life in response. A map of the Planet Slicer’s defensive network filled the display. A field of wireframe mushrooms emerged before his eyes and he tracked the tiny dot that was his MeG-CE as it dropped to the surface. Sweat stung his drying eyes, but he refused to blink. Blink and you’re dead. He passed below the mushroom’s engagement envelope fifteen-hundred metra over the surface and punched the emergency activation stud beside him.
Blazer’s world entered a comforting darkness for a moment as the direct neurointerface system activated. It was just like the simulations back at the academy. The darkness allowed him a moment to focus and suppress his emotions. He cast aside all thoughts of his personal cares and responsibilities, focusing his attention on the mission and nothing else. From this point until the mission ended, or he died, the rest of the universe might as well not exist.
When the view through the mech’s optics coalesced, he found himself in an alien body. The cold metallic skin of the MeG-CE was unyielding and slow to move, but with each passing cent the muscle fibers and booster servos warmed, making the movements faster and more fluid. As the suit dropped before a thousand metra it began moving less like a robot and more like a heavy armor ACHES. The Confederation engineers had done a thorough job refurbishing and upgrading the antique unit.
Blazer wasted no time and broke free of his hiding place. He scanned the sky and spotted several of the others in the distance. They had likewise ditched their hiding places. It was odd to see them all so uniform, the hominid robots bearing no customization or indication of who piloted them beyond the weak micomm IFF. To see both Arion and Gokhead at the same height and body type would have troubled him if he hadn’t focused himself on the mission. Instead, the sleek, jet black forms served to calm and focus him more. The enemy couldn’t exploit any perceived physical weaknesses if they couldn’t see them.
Blazer turned his attention back to the Planet Slicer below and fired his plasma thrusters to slow his descent. Thruster stalks extended from his back and ports opened in his limbs to stabilize his fall, lest any movement throw him off course. He focused on his landing. With the Planet Slicer still accelerating, he had to do his best to match speed with it. At his dwindling altitude, that would be impossible.
Blazer bit at his lip as he continued to fire his thrusters, passing into the forest of defense towers. He steered around the towers, burning through his fuel faster than he would have liked, but he had no choice. To land at too high a speed, or collide with one of the towers meant certain death. Closing within a hundred metra of the surface, he flipped about. The metal skin of the ship was a blur as he approached. Having little choice, he reached forward until his ‘fingers’ scraped along the surface.
Sparks flew as he fought to find purchase. His hands bounced away and he flung them back. Again, they sparked, the deck appearing to get warmer until he realized why; the thrusters in his feet. This gave Blazer an idea. Twisting his legs about the maximum the suit would allow, he gave one last, hard burn of his foot thruster before extending his hands forward again. The softened metal yielded and Blazer gain a hold of it. The welded sheets peeled back like dying skin before Blazer jerked to a halt.
He panted for a moment and then looked up. He had peeled over a hundred metra of hull away from the Planet Slicer. A heat warning echoed into his ears. Looking down he saw that while he had deactivated the thrusters in his feet, they were still hot enough to damage the hull. Blazer began moving towards the nearest stationary beacon from his team, the maglocks in the feet of his mech keeping him secured to the deck.
At the end of twin furrows the width of a mech’s hands Blazer found Arion. A quick scan around showed that everyone had damaged the deck of the Planet Slicer when they’d landed; not that they’d had much choice. Blazer helped Arion as he fought against the tether attached to his suit. Looking up, he spotted the object at the other end, a Gribbet class exo-atmospheric shuttle.
This craft, like the three others they’d brought along, was essential to their plan. The MeG-CEs couldn’t carry passengers, but the Gribbets could. Equipped with extra radiation shielding they were to be their means of escape. Blazer helped Arion pull the craft in, Gokhead joining them. As the craft fell below the tops of the defense tower the powerful de-grav generators built into their long aft-mounted landing legs sprang to life. The line jerked in response, threatening to dislodge the three. Undeterred, they wrangled the shuttle in close enough so that Gokhead could grab hold of the amphibian-looking craft and pull it down to the surface.
Landing signals crept into Blazer’s vision and he looked out across the deck. The minimally-controlled landings had spread the team out; some were now dozens of kilometra away from his position. It was by no means the kind of precision insertion they’d practiced at the academy; few of the tactics they’d learned there appeared effective against the Gorvians. Blazer looked at his fire team, and detached the massive rifle from the back of his MeG-CE.
A navigational ‘beacon’ lit Blazer’s HUD, indicating the airlock they had to make their way to.
Bridge, Planet Slicer
Gondral sat in quiet contemplation as the bridge crew kept the ship on course towards the furthest of As’Tril’s jump points. It would take them a full cycle to reach, but they’d expected that. Their ability to manipulate a jump point wasn’t without problems. After passing through the jump point could collapse altogether. The surge of energy often proved more than it could withstand. The inner system As’Tril jump point hadn’t closed, but had shrunken to such a degree that no amount of energy the Planet Slicer could generate would enlarge it enough to allow passage.
A movement at the station of the sensor operator and a nervous twitch that even Gondish could feel from halfway across the ship garnered Gondral’s attention. “Is there something wrong sensor chief?”
“No Lord of All. I just detected some strange energy readings as we passed by the debris of the Dondick ship.”
“Such as?”
“De-grav generator and thrusters firing. It’s possible that they might have left some of their shuttles on standby during the attack. Proximity systems must have caused them to activate their drives to avoid crashes.”
“Was there any damage to the ship?” Gondral asked with increasing interest.
“There appears to be some minor damage to the outer hull due to impacts, pulling up camera feeds now.”
Gondral turned towards the holographic projection as it sprang to life. The angle was from one of the defensive spires dotting the hull. The optics design looked up t
owards engageable attackers, not down towards the hull. Despite that, the bottom of the image revealed several long gashes in the hull. Whatever had made them wasn’t visible however. Gondral eyed the scene and spotted moving shadows in the distance.
Gondral focused on the affected area and felt the minds of several Gorvian technicians. Concern radiated from all of them; concern and a focus to reach and repair the damage. That brought a smile to Gondral’s wide mouth. It is good to see that some of my Gorvians have such initiative. Gondral turned towards the Ship Lord. “Award the repair crew that reaches that damage first. They have shown great motivation.”
“It will be done Lord of All,” the Ship Lord replied.
Gondral turned to fas aide as the holographic screen deactivated before the crew came into clear view. “Will we face this problem of the jump points in every system we attack, Old Mind?”
The withered old Gorvian extracted morself from the shadows but kept out of Gondral’s eye line. “Lord of All. Our scientists are doing their best to correct the issue. But for now, it is best that we only attack systems with multiple jump points large enough to be made passable.”
Gondral considered that. Their former masters, the great and powerful Tre-Tian, had left them many wondrous gifts, but little information on how to use them. “It’s just another test from the masters. Soon we will surpass even those that gave us our noble purpose.”
“As it should be Lord of All. As it has been with all the gifts you returned to us. Gifts that made this wondrous ship of yours possible.”
“True, Old Mind. Were you not so valuable to me in your current form I would honor you with a consumption.”
The elder Gorvian bowed in respect, but backed away half a step. Few other than Gondral would have noticed, but Gondral meant what fae had said. The advisor was of too much use to waste on Gondral’s most favored dish. The thought of food awoke Gondral’s stomach however and fae leapt to fas feet, shaking the bridge. “Ship Lord, I shall retire to my quarters. Inform me when we’ve reached the jump point.”
Block Q-98, Planet Slicer
Blazer held his position as Arion and Zithe moved ahead to check the cross passage. The round passageways kept Blazer on alert in a way he’d never expected. Ever since they’d left the airlock he had yet to see a hard edge or corner; the passageways were all circular in cross-section. It was almost the antithesis of the Mercy’s organic textured interior, making even that ship’s pristine medical bays seem dirty by comparison. The pristine, beyond clinical white sheen looked like no feet had ever touched it, so much so that it unsettled the nerves.
Both Arion and Zithe raised their left hands to signal that the way was clear and motioned the others forward, their giant rifles ever at the ready. Rudjick took up position alongside his old friend, and for the first time, the elf could look his squad mate in the ‘eye.’
Blazer resisted the urge to shake his head and approached Zithe; the MeG-CE making a close approximation of the Lycan’s hunting stance.
Zithe shook his head, but motioned to the sensor-packed face of his mech.
Blazer turned to Arion, his MeG-CE more statue-like and rigid in pose.
His voice drained of emotion, Arion replied.
Blazer turned to Gokhead.
Gokhead looked from side to side before examining a location placard on the wall, the alien writing indecipherable to Blazer.
Blazer didn’t like the sound of that. It would leave them a continent-sized area to search.
Blazer was glad that Gokhead hadn’t reminded everyone that the Gorvian word for prison also meant zoo, and kitchen. Blazer’s sensors revealed a myriad of power conduits running inside the walls; some of them had to be communications lines that led to a terminal.
Zithe lunged ahead towards a door and keyed it open. The round opening split and rotated into the ceiling and floor, revealing an empty room beyond with a set of bunks and several computer terminals.
Gokhead needed no further motivation and rushed up to one of the terminals. The rest of the team filed in behind him, taking up defensive fire positions. Gokhead’s MeG-CE went rigid in front of the terminal, looking almost like it had dropped into standby mode but Blazer knew better. His Drashig squad mate had established a wireless connection to the terminal through a macomm in his suit.
Blazer agreed, and they’d discussed that in the mission planning, but had decided against it.
Chris held up a hand, a hold signal flashing through the micomm link.
To their credit, the MeG-CE’s movements were almost silent, the buffers and baffles in the joint quieting the electronics. Blazer could have sworn that they wore their standard ACHES as the squad trained their weapons on the door, they were so quiet. Chris motioned them to lower their weapons and reattached the rifle to the back of her unit. She extended a wide blade from her right forearm, drawing the arm back into a neck-level striking position.
The door slid open a moment later and a fatigued Gorvian all but stumbled into the darkened chamber. The Gorvian wasn’t expecting them as it looked up, the team still hiding in the shadows. The Gorvian still hesitated for a moment and reached for the nearby light controls. Chris grabbed the outstretched hand and the Gorvian turned to find the molecule thin edge of Chris’ blade staring back. It had no time to react before Chris struck, stabbing the blade forward through the creature’s doughy neck. A simple sideways motion separated the head and it fell to the deck, but the Gorvian wasn’t out of the fight.
The Gorvian reached out and took hold of Chris. It began pushing inwards, crushing the mech. Chris struggled against the beast’s grip before Zithe attacked. He extended his own monomolecular blade and slashed it across the Gorvian’s back. The massive hump there split open like an overripe melon and the brain spilled out onto the deck; the brainstem snapping under the strain. The Gorvian dropped to the deck, falling onto the disgorged brain, the brain tail twitching before the mass pulverized it.
Rudjick scurried out of the shadows to drag the corpse into the room as Chris closed the door, her left arm developing a slight whine.
Detention Block 3
Zithe remained stock stil
l as he stood beside the hatch into the detention area. A hair-thin microcam cable connected him to the door seal, the microcam on the other end being able to slide through the tiniest of gaps. He raised his right hand a moment later and extended three fingers before motioning Chris and Matt forward. He remained still for a moment while he retracted the microcam, better that than leaving the Gorvians any tech they could use against them later. The rest of the squad moved in behind the trio, setting up a defensive perimeter as their top shots gathered around the door in storming positions.
Blazer couldn’t help but admire Zithe’s professionalism. Even though their micomm link was all but incapable of being snooped on, he’d used their proven hand signals wherever possible. The fact that the Gorvians had somehow seen through the Confederation’s most proven stealth tech had left doubts as to the security of any emissions they might produce. Zithe motioned to the door; indicating to Matt and Chris which targets they were to attack. Both nodded in response. They took up flanking positions beside the door aiming their rifles at their targets’ thermal signatures. Zithe kept his own weapon at the ready and triggered the door wirelessly.
The door retracted into the ceiling and floor; all three opened fire. Zithe drilled two rounds into the chest of his target as Matt leaned in and released a single high-powered blast into his, detonating its head and brain. Chris then fired a short burst, drilling a round through her objective’s head as it fell back.
Zithe leapt through the door, sweeping the room with his rifle, and signaled the rest of his fire team forward. Matt and Chris’ targets lay on the deck, old electrical impulses still causing their limbs to twitch as they lay in growing puddles of grey-green blood. His own mark remained at large however. A puddle marked where it had fallen to the deck; nothing more, not even a blood trail. He stopped for a moment; slid to his left to make his way around the small alcove wall. The heat of their recent blasts interfered with his thermal cameras.