A yellow warning light flashed on an embedded communications panel within the central console's display. It was Neech, no doubt. Sod him. Riser ignored the call and closed his eyes, imagining the largest swarm of net-feed droids ever seen. Two hundred and fifty exquisite flying machines raced through the forest in perfect harmony.
The heavy metal music rattling through his brain gave way to a calm symphony by some old crackpot, as he tapped away at the projected keypad in front of him. He had to take several long, slow breaths before he could take control of his excitement.
When he had found that special calm place inside himself, he opened his eyes and examined the progress of the Information Cloud. The swarm was making good progress, heading towards Havers Compound.
The transmission that Riser had intercepted had been quite explicit about the destination of the Beacon Attack Force. It made his task much easier than it might otherwise have been. With his insider knowledge, he could guarantee that Mekinet News would be right on the scene when anything exciting happened.
'Exclusive! Let's go live to Havers Compound with Riser Trent commentating on a spectacular showdown between the Security Forces and the Kamari rebels!' Riser said in a mock news anchor voice.
Laughing, he clasped his hands together with joy. He could hardly wait. He tilted his chair into a more relaxing inclined pose, and selected some music featuring a string quartet. He had no idea what the music was, but the gentle strings helped him stay calm so he could focus on the task ahead.
Rather than continuing to use the consoles, he reached out and took the new sensor cap from under his desk. The cap's blue jelly lining felt like a cold fish in his hands. He slipped it over his head and plugged the jacks into the square ports on the side of the Sphynx-II controller rack.
A bio-nerve mesh integrated all the information from the net-feed droids directly into his brain, giving him the 'full immersion experience'. The net result was that while wearing the cap, Riser was empowered with extrasensory perception, not of the things in the small, cramped basement around him, but of everything in range of the speeding Information Cloud.
Riser clung to the arms of his chair. He didn't need to imagine what it was like anymore. He felt as though he was really speeding across the treetops with wind blowing through his hair. Fresh scents of the forest surrounding him. There were some not so fresh scents too - a bear taking a shit, no doubt.
His arms hung useless by his sides as immense quantities of data created a hurricane in his mind. His mouth hung open, his teeth bared in a tortured grin. He remembered now how the disclaimer on the back of the sensor cap had said something about being careful to control the flow of information, and how the cap could cause 'minor side effects' if not used under proper guidance. Apparently those side effects included migraines, fits and temporary blindness.
Riser felt the swarm tearing through the forest. Each droid acted as a seamless part of the cloud. A new world of knowledge was laid bare before him. He could sense the health of the trees, not directly, but somehow he knew that a tall tree on the left lacked density. It was almost hollow inside. A strong wind could break its trunk at any time, sending it crashing to the forest floor below. The other trees were solid and strong. He could feel them around him. He wasn't sure how he knew all this, but somehow it made perfect sense to him. It was exhilarating beyond anything he had felt before. Riser rode the wave of pleasure that pulled his thoughts in every direction. He allowed himself to sink into the virtual world of the racing net-feed droids.
The wrist controller that came with the cap was just another way to control the Information Cloud. It enabled him to imagine flying in any direction, and then flick his wrist to confirm the thought, making it into a command. It acted as a way of double-checking that a thought was intended, rather than just an accidental daydream. Riser was beginning to realise just how complex the control systems were, and yet there was also something deeply intuitive about them. Once he had used a command sequence for the first time, it felt somehow right, and it was easier to remember the next time. The manual claimed that the sensor cap included 'Assisted Learning Technology' which somehow worked alongside the brain's own natural abilities, accelerating memory formation and creating stronger neural connections, with less need for repetition.
Riser was just beginning to get to grips with the way that the sensor cap subtly merged new information into his existing memories. He felt like he already knew things that he had never directly experienced. At first it was unsettling, but after a while he began to really enjoy the experience.
The cap also overlaid glowing images onto his peripheral vision, presenting context-dependent options to him as visual glyphs in the corner of his eye. Hundreds of thought commands hovered in Riser's peripheral vision, bubbling up to the surface when he needed them and automatically fading away as they became less relevant. The controller made countless complex operations seem so simple and obvious. The feeling of power was incredible.
The amber light of Neech's unanswered call blinked in the corner of Riser's mind, but he continued to ignore it. That was one symbol he was not interested in. Responding to his thought, the sensor cap reduced the size of the warning, pushing it further towards the outskirts of his mind. Neech had given him control, and Riser was going to damn well use it. He immersed himself in the swarm, letting his immediate surroundings fade away entirely.
The Information Cloud had now reached the edge of Walstone Forest. He could see ploughed fields ahead, bathed in the early morning sunshine. Riser felt the heat of the sun across his face, and he gasped for breath as his senses expanded to assimilate the vast quantities of information that flowed through him.
He had the vision of an eagle. Below, he could see morning dew hanging from scattered grass shoots and forming thin silver films across clumps of rich brown soil. A mouse scurried away into a nearby hedgerow, looking as though it half expected a net-feed droid to swoop down and snatch it from the ground. Riser chuckled to himself. He could do anything he wanted to!
With a flick of his fingers, he instructed the swarm to spread out across the area where the three Crocs were huddling beside the Wyser River. The ground ahead of them was littered with stupid crab scanners that were slowly fumbling their way towards Havers Compound. Such primitive devices were decades old. The Security Forces clearly couldn't compete with the budget of successful corporations like Mekinet News. The Crocs were a little more impressive. They hung back behind the river as though expecting trouble, but the compound looked unoccupied.
The Sphynx-II controller rack constantly enriched Riser's view of the three Crocs as more data became available. The sensor cap detected that his awareness was focussed on the Crocs, and it automatically deployed several of the net-feed droids to gather more detailed information about them. First, it overlaid his vision with what looked like multicoloured streams of bullets flowing between them. Riser quickly realised that these small coloured dots were not bullets. They were communications packets being transmitted from Croc to Croc as part of their own private network.
Symbols now hovered above each Croc, labelling them as K1, K2 and K3. Riser had no idea how the sensor cap knew their names. K1 sent green dots in bursts to K2 and K3. Each responded with bursts of dots of their own, in blue or red. The controller rack continued to seek out relevant information on his behalf. It was now overlaying the names of the pilots beside each Croc. Was it decrypting their private communication channels? Riser wasn't sure. In his mind's view he could now see hovering labels above each Croc showing K1 (Commander Nick Chambers), K2 (Major Collin Edwards), K3 (Major Rachel Henson). The labels even had small images of each pilot's face next to them. Henson was pretty! Riser chuckled to himself. Was there anything that his equipment couldn't do?
Riser turned his attention to the wide white building on the other side of the fields. The name, 'Havers Compound' hovered above it. Guiding the swarm forwards, he decided to take a closer look.
The net-feed droids swooped
low, circling the white stone buildings, analysing them from every side at once. They searched for any signs of inhabitants, but so far they had found nothing at all. If the Kamari had made Havers Compound their new HQ, then they had certainly been subtle about it.
Riser twisted his wrist with two short jerks, selecting a fan manoeuvre. The swarm obligingly spread itself outwards like a starburst, filling his mind with images in a three hundred and sixty degree arc. It was time to do what he was paid for - providing the Orange Zone with exclusive live action news.
Riser activated a live feed as he focussed on the Crocs huddling beside Wyser River. Images of the Crocs appeared instantaneously all across the Orange Zone, in homes across the continent and even way down in Shinara. Subtitles in various languages described how the Security Forces were planning a secret attack upon a suspected Kamari headquarters.
The single blinking amber light in Riser's mind was instantly replaced by thirty-seven red strobes. Shit! He examined the first three calls to see who was so keen to talk to him: Admiral Gail Thompson, Central Command; Sir Isaac Thurman, Chief anti terrorist officer; Ario Neech; CEO Mekinet News. Riser wondered who the other thirty-four callers might be. He knew one thing for sure; he wasn't going to be answering any of them.
As more warnings appeared, he realised that the number of urgent warning symbols had risen to one hundred and forty-eight. A thin film of sweat formed on his forehead. A belated adjustment to the broadcast attributed it to Ario Neech rather than himself. The waiting calls jumped to one hundred and seventy-three.
Riser decided that he had better get something awesome out of this story if he was going to have any hope of saving his own ass. He flicked his wrist controller up and down to engage forward injection mode. The net-feed droids turned in unison, swooping back towards Havers Compound like an angry crowd at the merchant day sales.
The Swarm
'That's not possible,' Edwards said.
Nick stared at his console, trying to believe him, or even find a way to contradict him. The read-outs made no sense at all. He stared up at the pink morning sky through the Perspex bubble above his head, and saw for himself what the read-outs could not describe. An endless stream of flying droids poured out of Walstone Forest behind them. The droids darkened the sky like a plague of locusts. Nick's mouth fell open. The other units must have been equally astonished. None of them uttered a word. The swarm gathered in a circular swirling cloud, before scattering in all directions at once.
'I don't see any weapons,' Nick said. 'They look like news droids. What the hell are they doing here? Does anybody know which network they are from?'
Rachel grunted under her breath, 'I haven't seen that chassis before, but then news droids aren't really my speciality.'
A second later, klaxons sounded in Nick's cockpit, red lights scrolling across his console in a pattern that he had only ever seen in training exercises.
'Sat strike! Scramble!'
Nobody spoke. They knew what the warnings meant as well as anyone. Central Command monitored Sat-Grid at all times. The klaxons meant that a satellite platform had targeted their current location. How the hell the Kamari had taken control of a satellite platform, and how they had managed to pinpoint the exact location of the Beacon Attack Force was a question for another time. Right now, Nick knew that he had to act, and act fast. A satellite strike took only seconds to execute.
All the Crocs lurched into alert positions automatically, leg dampeners powering up for any sudden movements. Nick hit his console in a rapid series of jabs, activating random evasive patterns, purple navigation mode, and a one hundred metre displacement. This was going to be rough, but he had no choice.
'Brace yourselves!' he said, hitting confirm. He sent the command with override mode, enforcing it on all three Crocs. There was no time to discuss his plan with the other Croc pilots.
The three Crocs linked controllers to carry out a joint manoeuvre. They formed a plan so that each personnel carrier would move one hundred metres from its current position, without any Croc arriving in the previous location of any other, and without any collisions occurring between them. Such plans could never be left to human reactions. The Crocs confirmed their orders, formed a plan, and executed it before Nick's finger left the console.
The usual smooth ride within the cockpit was replaced by a scene of utter panic. Dirty brown water sloshed over the Perspex dome above Nick's head. His whole body jolted forward, throwing him down the steep stairwell at his feet. He banged his elbow on the ladder, tumbling and clattering along the pod's interior walls until his body slammed onto the floor below.
Nick gasped for air, holding onto his bruised ribs. He cursed his own foolishness for not belting himself in before entering the command - but there hadn't been any time. If a satellite strike had hit the Croc, it wouldn't have made any difference whether he was wearing a belt or not.
No doubt somewhere on his console above, another red light would now be flashing, telling him to return to his seat. The thought would have been hilarious, if he hadn't just smacked his head on the bottom of the stairwell. A thin stream of blood trickled down the side of his face as he lay dazed on his back, holding onto his ribs, and staring at the river water flowing over the outside of the Perspex dome above. So K1 had decided to move to submerged coordinates. Nick could see the sense of it. The river water would help cool the outer chassis if the Croc was hit by a satellite strike.
'Sat Strike - Sat Strike - Sat Strike,' the calm voice of his console intoned from somewhere far above his head. It sounded as though it might have been announcing that breakfast was ready. The voice was supposed to inspire calm amongst the crew during emergencies, but Nick knew what satellite strike meant, and he felt far from calm. Each of the Croc's previous positions had just been hit with a Gigawatt maser cannon from an orbiting satellite platform under the control of the Kamari. It was never a good thing. There was no way to shoot back. Nick's only option was to get the hell out of the way, and hope that the satellite platform lost track of his position before it could fire again.
Scrambling to his feet on shaky legs, Nick propelled himself back up the stairwell. His foot slipped a couple of times on the metal ladder before he managed to find a rung. He leapt up, grabbing the handrail and yanking himself up into the command module above. He almost fell back down the ladder as he spun around and slumped back into the bucket seat that he had been thrown out of moments before.
Wiping a smear of blood from above his eye, he strapped himself in tight to avoid disgracing himself any further. He had only been out of his seat for eight seconds, according to the warning on his console. Fast reactions had always been one of his strong points.
'K2 report damage,' Nick said.
There was no reply. Five red lights flashed on his console but he couldn't attend to them yet.
'K3 report damage.'
Nick rubbed his stiff jaw, listening for any sign of a response. He realised that he must have smacked his face on the way down the ladder, even before he hit his head on the deck below. He would have to be more careful. He had lost his gum too, and part of a tooth with it. The gum had lost its taste anyway.
Nick tried to see the other Crocs through the Perspex dome that wrapped around him. He turned his head from side to side but all he could see was the swirling brown water of the river outside. Examining the alerts on his console, he saw that K3 was illuminated in orange. Nick stared at it with an unsettling feeling running down the length of his spine. He tapped the image of K3 with a bloodstained finger.
A calm monotone voice reported the status, 'K3 autonomous damage report. Pod one 47% damage, pod two 83% damage, pod three destroyed.'
The orange symbol stopped blinking, then flashed back on again, indicating an update. Nick hesitated, and then tapped the symbol again.
'K3 auton...'
The symbol blinked out and did not return.
'Contact lost. Shields up.'
Nick felt the cockpit vibrate under a sud
den impact. The Croc's hull groaned under immense strain. The river's brown water bubbled, evaporating away from the outer Perspex as it turned opaque and blistered under the intense heat. The cockpit shook and the ventilation fans whined in high-pitched torment. It was getting hot, fast. Nick felt sweat forming on his cheeks. He wondered if his hair was going to catch fire. He ducked as low as he could in his command seat, fighting an increasing urge to fling himself back down the stairwell at his feet.
The Fortress
Riser floated with the Information Cloud above Havers Compound. He felt its structure transform suddenly beneath him. The apparently empty buildings took on a new life as some kind of light bending force was released, revealing the true structure of the compound. The whole place was a fortress with uncountable weapons embedded in its walls.
Proton cannons opened fire immediately, destroying one of the RS6 personnel carriers as it sat motionless beside Wyser River with smoke rising from its back end. The morning haze vanished under a blinding white light.
Holy shit! It was a satellite strike, and Riser was broadcasting it live! Neech was going to kiss his ass after this.
A series of alerts flashed up inside his mind, providing live feedback of events. After some confusion, he realised that the Kamari's proton cannons were tearing straight through his net-feed droids! The Kamari didn't care about news droids. They were just firing at the Security Forces, but if the net-feed droids got in the way they would be vapourised.
Riser gritted his teeth. Diagrams flashed through his mind. Thirty-six droids had been vapourised. They had no armour. They were not designed to withstand satellite strikes or proton cannon fire. Such powerful weapons would vapourise them on the spot whether they were armoured or not. Riser wiggled his fingers through the wrist controller, granting the swarm self-preservation rights.
Information Cloud: Science fiction and fantasy series (Tales of Cinnamon City Book 1) Page 8