Oganno laughed as she came jumping out of the mech. “Dear girl, you just saved us all.”
She ran up to Kale and hugged him. Kale was taken aback. He returned her hug and she took a step back.
“I know my name,” she shouted excitedly, “I remember now. My name is Deespa.”
“You picked a hell of a time to remember. One of them has Ayia.”
Deespa’s face changed immediately. She turned and ran to the Midnight Oil, punching in the codes to open it.
“I thought….how did you get those codes,” Kale shouted as he chased after her. He stopped at the doorway and looked back at Oganno. “I am really sorry about this.”
“No. I am sorry,” Oganno replied. Kale knew the loss here was more than just lost equipment. It was men, friends; a loss too priceless to describe. There was going to be hell to pay. Kale ducked into the ship but then ducked back out.
“Also, I’m keeping the girl,” he said.
“The girl has a name now,” Oganno said back to him, waving him off.
Kale nodded and went back in and the hatch slid shut.
3124 – Alioth, Devil’s Den, Sector 24G, Inside of the Crusader ship Invictus
Cruxe was no stranger to violence or warfare in any sense. He was no soldier but being his father’s son granted him a front row seat to criminal action. He was in a few gunfights and had killed a few men. But as he sat on the chair, surrounded by men who just barely made it on board the ship, he was having a difficult time keeping his racing heart out of his throat. Not a single one of his men, men who had proved their worth and had pledged their loyalty to him, even above his father, had survived the carnage in the underground base. What had seemed like an easy attack turned into a slaughter of the kind he had never witnessed.
Several men lay about on the floor of the ship, most in complete exhaustion. The fully armored soldiers ran at full speed back to the ship when it became apparent the mech and its pilot were more than they could deal with. They had attacked the base in complete silence and the surprise was perfect. They had hacked the control tower before they were spotted and opened the main hangar doors without sounding an alarm. They came there with nearly forty men, eight of which were Cruxes men. Twelve men remained, including Cruxe and the crazy eyed Samuel, who sat on a chair on the far side of the large ship’s own small hangar, gently rocking back and forth. From that distance, Cruxe could barely make out what he was saying, but whatever it was he was repeating it.
They were speeding away as close to the surface as they could to avoid radar and nav sat detection and would break into orbit on the other side of the planet. What they would do after that, Cruxe had no idea. The ship was right there, and he had stood next to Ayia for a brief moment. But that moment had turned into a hell. Cruxe looked at Samuel and then sat himself on the floor next to one of the armored crusaders.
“How? I’ve never seen a mech move like that?” he thought out loud.
“I saw Dominion super soldiers once, with war mechs. They were in formation with other soldiers. They moved around like tanks, slow. I didn’t think they could move that fast. And that one, it was just a mining tech,” the soldier replied.
Samuel started laughing. Cruxe turned to look at him. The large man was covered in blood, his white robe torn to shreds. He stood up and began walking over to them.
“That machine was moved by God.”
Cruxe turned away to avoid having anyone see him rolling his eyes.
“Only a divine being could bring such a machine to life in that fashion.”
“It’s a mining mech, it’s piloted by people,” Cruxe pointed out, keeping his gaze away from Samuel.
“This one was piloted by God,” the missionary began, crouching down, putting a hand on the crusader’s shoulder, “We were witnesses to his might. We gazed upon his face and we’re found not worthy. God was near and we failed to perceive it.”
He stood back up and walked over to a small panel on the ships wall. He punched a button and the ships pilot’s face appeared on the screen.
“Sir?”
“Bring the council online. Let them know what has happened here. Advise them we need the 2nd Recon Fleet on standby. I will give them a destination soon. And pilot, let them know. We have found God and he is near.”
3124 – Alioth, Devil’s Den, just outside main hangar.
Fangix landed his ship just outside of the research base’s main hangar doors. His small ship carried a very potent light bending device that could run for a few hours to a few days under the right conditions to maintain a near perfect camouflage. His first plan was to infiltrate the base once he determined the night and day patterns and then sneak in one of the nights. He would then fly the Midnight Oil out if he could, or at the very least place a very potent tracker on it.
That plan was quickly spoiled when his own sensors picked up the large Corvette approaching the base. His systems picked up the jamming and hacking signals. Thankfully none of them targeted at him, so he was able to remain hidden. He quickly ID the ship and it belonged the Church of God is Near, an extremely large religious group with ties to many planets in the Commonwealth and the Dominion as well as many independents. They were a very powerful group, influential, if not a bit political at times. Fangix abhorred them and was aghast at their presence here. From their jamming and hacking, it was apparent their visit here was not a pleasant one. Fangix quickly suited up in his pressure suit. He exited the ship and waited by the huge hangar doors to open. The planet’s surface was jagged, knife like. walked among the rocks carefully to avoid destroying his own suit. When the hangar doors opened, he had no problem slipping into the hangar as the large ship came in. He was surprised there was no one in the hangar at all, not that he thought he would be detected. He did have to monitor everything because he needed to know why a crusader ship was here and how it affected his mission. Above everything, he was beginning to worry that what had initially seemed like a simple mission was quickly escalating to something beyond even his control.
As he entered the hangar, Fangix ducked behind some cover along some equipment nearest the side of the doors he had entered. This was clearly the main hangar, able to accommodate the largest of the ships possible at this base. From his experience, those ships were usually brining supplies, food and passengers. As he watched the large Corvette come to a complete halt on the hangar floor, three hatches opened up and landing decks slid out from the hatches to the floor. Men in what appeared to be armor covered in white robes began descending out of the ship in files. Crusaders, the armed portion of the church, were rarely made public, but were well known throughout the galaxy. Most of these men were veterans from wars on either side, having thrown away whatever allegiances they had in search of this god of theirs. They were armed lightly with simple ballistic rifles of various kinds. They were expecting light resistance. Mixed in the armored men were several assorted other men, clearly not in the regular mix of the crusaders. Fangix counted just over thirty men.
He easily recognized Samuel Easton among them. He was at the top of the craziest of them all when it came to this group.
They formed three groups and then began spanning out from hangar and disappearing down hallways. It wasn’t long before he heard the familiar sound of gunfire echoing into the hangar. Three guards remained behind at the ship, and if they were smart, a pilot was sitting in the cabin just waiting for the word.
Fangix needed to get to that ship. He could have easily taken the three guards out and had debated it for a second, but he had to plant the tracker on the ship without risking his presence known in any way. If they returned to a few dead guards, they would most likely scan the ship before departing. As he scanned the hangar for any path to getting to the ship unnoticed, Fangix continued to hear gunfire. It was when the gunfire stopped that he took notice. He spied a small walkway over the hangar. If he could get up there, in the darkness of the hangar, he might be able to lower himself onto the ship and find a place to put the tra
cker.
A small screen came to life on his tablet and he waved his hand over it. He had some basic plans for the facility, but he needed clear measurements to make sure his plans lined up. A quick laser beam pointed at every wall of the hangar gave him those measurements and the base’s floor plan took 3d shape on the screen. He began studying it to find the pathway to the walkway about the ship.
The gunfire was silent for a few minutes already. Fangix realized that the crusaders had achieved their goal of either eliminating or bringing the facility under their control. He had just traced a path through the facility when he heard and felt a crash, somewhere deeper inside the facility. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and he heard the sound of what appeared to be a static discharge. No other human in this facility would have felt or heard that, but he was a noble human. He saw the three guards turn and look in the direction of the crash. Gunfire cracked and echoed down that hallway and Fangix could pick up the guards calling into their wrist coms asking for a status.
There was no reply. Only static.
The gunfire began nearing. The three guards found spots near their own ship and took cover. Fangix waved his hand, powering down his tablet, and ducked down into the hall way that would lead to the top of the hangar. As he ran down the hallway, he came across the main control room for the hangar he came in through. Two men lay dead in chairs while a vision of metal and fire played over on the screens in the room. Fangix could barely make out the action on the video feeds, but he clearly saw a crusader being gunned down.
Something changed. Again, Fangix was being rushed. He ran into the control room, located the nearest dataport, took out a small cone shape device the size of his thumb, and stuck it into the port. It swiveled into place and then flattened onto the port. The device would feed information from the base into his tablet and while it would likely be found, they would have to destroy it to remove it. At that point he expected to be long gone. First he had to tab the crusader ship and then find the Midnight Oil. He hoped the chaos would allow him to do both things.
He lifted his right wrist up, tapped a small button on a wrist pad and a small screen showed the number seventy. He tapped a second button and Fangix vanished from sight. He looked back down at the screen and saw the number turn from seventy to sixty-nine and fifty nine. He had an ultra tech light bender. It was an incredibly expensive and power hog phase powered device guaranteed to keep him invisible, but it had a very limited time. He recalled the path from the hangar to the upper walkway from memory, and ran out of the control room.
He took a small staircase to an upper level and found the hatch that led to the walkway over the hangar. This walkway was used for maintenance on the ships and could be lowered mechanically to different heights. He wouldn’t need it to move, he just needed to get over the ship. He crawled through the small hatch and heard the gunfire intensifying and getting closer. He heard men screaming and the unmistakable sound of a scream halting at death. He dashed across the walkway when he noticed a few other far smaller ships in the hangar, towards the back. One immediately jumped out to him, it was a Scythe Mark M ship, just like the one tagged out of Alioth and that was on the tug descending into Devil’s Den. The coincidence was too much. He would now have to tag both ships because there were clearly many players in the game that he knew nothing about.
Just at the middle point of the walkway Fangix was right above the large corvette. It was about one hundred feet long with forward and rear batteries with gravity rail guns. They were devastating space borne weapons if there were any. The pilot’s cabin was right in the middle on the top, and Fangix could see the pilot through the windshield. He reached into his pocket and drew out his filament strand. It was a polycarbonate weave that could easily support up to five hundred pounds, but was the width of a mouse tail. He tied off one side to the edge of the walkway hand bars and tugged at it to test it. Feeling sure he picked himself over the edge and looked down. In the distance there was a pause in the gunfire, but he could hear shouts and it was moving his way. The researchers must have had security after all.
He began lowering himself down to the ship. With him virtually invisible and the filament strand nearly invisible as well, he got down to the ship without being detected. He landed gently on the top of the ship, just ten feet from where the pilot was sitting in the bubble of the pilot’s cabin. The pilot looked up, looking in his direction and Fangix froze in place, but the pilot turned around just as quickly. Fangix dropped down and pulled out the tracker from a pocket on his leg. He placed it down against a small fold in the ship’s hull where it would be a while before it was seen. He watched and waited for the pilot to be looking away. As soon as he was looking away again, Fangix flipped a small switch on the tracker and a flash of light fused the tracker to the ship. The pilot spun around again, came up to the window looking out but then put his hand to his ear, spun around and sat in his seat. Fangix felt the trace vibration of the Hausen reactor powering up. They were getting ready to leave.
As the strand began pulling him back up to the walkway, Fangix saw a rush of men come out of the hallway the gunfire had echoed out of just moments ago. Ten or so men in white armor and robes rushed past under the ship. They had lost many men. As he reached the top of the walkway, he spun around when he saw the Scythe rising up in the hangar and come just past him. He quickly took out a tracker, depressed the switch and then flipped it, turning the timer on. He dropped the tracker onto the smaller ship as it passed underneath him. He watched and counted down from five. He saw a white flash, indicating it had fused to the ship.
Glancing down at his wrist, he saw fifty one minutes left. He had to find the Midnight Oil and make a decision of what to do. He had hoped to infiltrate the base and instead witnessed some kind of attack. If the base didn’t have its own security, which it appeared it did, then certainly some of this area’s security forces would be called and he wanted to be gone by then. He ran to the far side of the walkway, searching through the schematics of the base being fed to his wrist by the bug he had placed in the main hangar’s control room. As he opened the small hatch, he saw the larger corvette begin to rise in the hangar and move slowly out of it. Directly underneath him, he heard the telltale sound of heavy metal stepping into the hangar as a mining mech, an older model, came into the hangar, shooting green plasma at the crusader ship. Each bolt ate off small pieces of the large vessel. The mech dashed across the hangar floor and tried jumping up to hang on to the corvette but missed.
The sight surprised Fangix. He had never seen a mech move in that fashion. The researchers must have had a prototype. He recorded the mech for a few moments, information he would feed back to Coran after the mission, and then ducked in through the hatch into a narrow crawlspace. He closed the hatch behind him and traced the schematics one more time. There were two more hangars, smaller hangars with their own access. The Midnight Oil was likely in one of them. He calculated the time it would take to reach both of them at twenty to thirty minutes. There were now forty nine minutes left on his light bender. He tapped another screen and saw that the tracker he had placed on the Midnight Oil just after the tug had landed on Devil’s Den was still there. He could still track them.
It was time to regroup and find out what was going on. He took one last look at the schematics and found a few smaller exits from the base, memorized the path to the closest one, shut the wrist pad off, and began walking.
3124 - Alioth, Devil's Den
Alex liked good plans. His military training and countless campaigns engrained in him a sense of order, scheduling, and planning. As a strong man for the Corinthian Consortium, his success rate was so high, he believed, because of his meticulous planning and foresight. That’s not to say that sometimes missions went different than he planned. Alex was a very resourceful man, but deep down, these chaotic situations left him uneasy, and prone to repeated mistakes. He felt like he blundered into just one of these moments.
His small ship sped up into orbit,
burning precious fuel. There was very little time to lament now, and the Consortium would be footing the bill for this. He also knew that he would have to replace his ship as it would have been IDed. He changed the ID to another one of his aliases, but he knew that he was just buying time. He liked the ship, but logic dictated that he would have to get something completely different, at least for some time. Getting back to Mars would be impossible. He would never make it through undetected in Sol.
Back in the seat behind his, Ayia lay strapped in, heavily sedated. His mission to eliminate her was changed dramatically just two days earlier, when the end seemed so near. He descended into Devil’s Den in the same tug as the Midnight Oil and followed the ship to a research base. It hadn’t taken him a very long time to find the suppliers of the small facility and falsify IDs for himself. He would land on the base, deliver is “supplies”, find the girl and eliminate her. He even worked with a small group of criminals on Devil’s Den that would stage an attack on the base to distract his escape. And then everything changed. He sent a message to his group of thugs when he received a coded message from the Consortium. They needed the girl alive.
He took on plenty of missions where he needed the party alive. But the message stressed urgency. As cryptically as possible, the message said that they needed her alive to draw out a memory lock. Alex knew what he was dealing with and what would happen to her. Without any more details, he guessed the Consortium must have come across memory encrypted data belonging to Ayia’s father. It was part of whatever secret he held against them. This kind of encryption relied on specific brain waves to unlock it. It was virtually uncrackable. Generally, the person who had the brain waves would be probed relentlessly until his brain produced the specific wave. Without that person, next of kin could be used if there was a similar pattern. It didn’t always work, but it was their best chance.
The Emperor's Daughter (Sentinel Series Book 1) Page 23