Syndicate Wars_Empire Rising

by George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  Ms. Bishop nodded. “It may matter, it may not, but we can help you find your way back.”

  “And in return?”

  “You have to fulfill what you originally set out to do. You have to make sure the aliens are defeated.” At this, Ms. Bishop swept her hands out. “For God’s sakes, you have to make sure none of this ever happened.”

  8

  Take Down

  Cody, Quinn, and the others from this crazy time loop moved out from Shiloh under cover of darkness. They were headed south, down toward Denver. Cody remembered from his time on the command ship that the Potentate, in the days before Quinn and the others were captured, had sent teams down to search for the temporal totems.

  One of these operations would be occurring in the next twenty-four hours, which would give them the perfect opportunity to steal a glider.

  They drove over the broken highways and beyond the still-smoldering wreckage left by the alien invasion. The blacktop was littered with charred cars and the burned bodies of the fallen. They swerved past refugees and terrified townspeople and soldiers with thousand-yard stares. There was nothing that could be done for these people, not immediately at least.

  But if things went as planned, Cody hoped that the tide would eventually be turned.

  They took up positions in what was left of the northern part of Denver and waited, lying hidden between the ruined shell of a bombed out office building. The air was tanged with the odor of death and Cody had to fight off the urge to vomit. They sat quietly, slumbering, and then a sound built overhead, the telltale metallic shriek made by the alien arc gliders as they were readying to descend. Everyone concealed themselves and watched the glider hover and then lower to the ground.

  A ramp on the back of the glider opened, and a half-dozen Syndicate soldiers appeared, dashing into what was left of an apartment building. Cody motioned to Quinn who nodded. The aliens had only left two soldiers behind to stand guard.

  Cody removed his EMP weapon, the small gun he’d constructed back at the particle collider lab, from his rucksack. He huddled with Quinn and the others for several seconds, discussing the plan. He turned and waited for the alien guards to move on the other side of the glider and then he fired his weapon which flashed silently just the once.

  The lights on the exterior of the glider went dark and Cody knew that meant the glider would be inoperable for a few minutes, maybe more. Just enough time for the Marines to strike and disable the guards.

  Quinn and Hayden led the Marines out of hiding and stalked along the shadows in the dark, being careful not to act too soon, for fear they’d draw the other soldiers back to the ship. Once they were in close, Hayden slipped up behind one of the guards and grabbed him around the throat. He was able to wrench the guard’s helmet off and choke him, letting the alien’s body drop to the ground. Cody had told Quinn about the aliens, had detailed the areas where they were vulnerable. Quinn pounced on the other guard, expertly driving a knife into the soft area that Cody said existed where the guard’s armor met a battle helmet, instantly killing the alien.

  Once Hayden signaled that the coast was clear, the rest of the Marines ran out into the open in a direct line for the glider. Cody turned in horror to see several hidden alien soldiers he hadn’t noticed. Before he could warn the others, the soldiers commenced firing. He watched a Marine take an energized round from an alien gun in the stomach. The blast whipsawed the Marine back as Quinn and the others returned fire.

  Their gunfire lit up the side of the building as Syndicate soldiers appeared from out of the entrance, preparing to counterattack. They were in danger of being wiped out before even taking the first step on Cody’s mission. Another Marine rocketed backwards, hit midstride by a blast from an alien weapon.

  Cody signaled for everyone to enter the glider and they did. He rushed inside and began flipping switches, working to reroute power to the machine, to overcome the impact of his EMP weapon. His experiences back in the other loop were invaluable and soon he had the glider humming to life. He lifted back on the controls as the Syndicate soldiers continued to fire on the vessel.

  He maneuvered the glider up and off the ground and aimed it directly at the building. Without a second thought, he unleashed the power of the glider’s primary weapon, a rail gun that collapsed the building in a flash of light, making the structure look like it had been hit by twenty wrecking balls. Cheers went up from the others and he looked back to Quinn smiling, nodding.

  With the threat eliminated, he spared a moment to glance back at Samantha, wondering what his Quinn, back in the other time loop, would do if she were here, seeing her little girl alive and well.

  He was amused to see that most of marines were caught up in the awe of being inside of a Syndicate ship for the first time. The thought gave Cody a chuckle, since in his timeline, they’d all been aboard Syndicate ships for the majority of the war. Samantha, however, ignored everything as if it was just another vehicle and had run straight into her mother’s arms.

  “Everything’s fine,” Quinn said. “You’re safe now.”

  “Safe?” Samantha said. “I’m fine. I was just worried about you.”

  Quinn smiled. It was the first time Cody had seen her smile in this timeline. And it brought warmth to his heart. He knew it was going to be hard to ignite the spark they’d shared before. After all, they’d gone through harrowing experiences together in the past. Now, there was hardly time for personal affections. Only survival.

  “Let’s get through the atmosphere,” Cody said to Quinn. “We need to act fast before they lock this glider out of the security protocols.”

  She nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  In a way, they were lucky that the Syndicate soldiers had attacked back down on the ground. If Cody was right, all of the aliens had been killed so there was no one to report the stolen glider right away. At the same time, the window of opportunity to pull Cody’s hat trick off was small, and he wasn’t even sure if it was going to work. In theory, it was a sure thing, but on the quantum level, anything could go wrong.

  He’d had time to setup the glider, rig explosives in case anything went wrong, and even take a few minutes to close his eyes and stop himself from screaming, “What the fuck?!” over and over. Sometimes, in times like this, that was necessary.

  Getting past the Syndicate gunships in space proved less difficult than Cody had imagined. He was expecting to have to block transmissions from the soldiers they’d stolen the glider from, but now that they were no longer a problem, all that was necessary was making sure the security codes were up to date—a task that took the entire trip up through Earth’s atmosphere, and up to the front line of the Syndicate Armada, that stood poised and waiting.

  The security checks were automatic, so Cody let the ship do the work at this point. Once they got the go-ahead to continue into Syndicate territory, he turned to Quinn and gave her a look like they should talk about the next part of the plan in private.

  The two of them snuck off the bridge and into a side corridor. Quinn took up a guarded posture with arms crossed as Cody began.

  “What comes next isn’t going to be pleasant,” Cody said. “But you need to know that I’m doing it to protect you and Samantha.”

  “You really are like a dog with a bone,” Quinn said.

  “We were together,” Cody said. “You and me. In another time, in another loop.”

  “You and me?” Quinn said, incredulous.

  “You said I wasn’t like other guys.”

  “I’ll say,” Quinn replied with a smirk.

  “Well, there’s a reason why I’m doing this. It’s to give the person I love, a chance at a better life, whether I’m in it or not.”

  Quinn looked touched by this. She reached out a hand and laid it on Cody’s wrist. “I can’t make any guarantees, Cody. All I know is what’s happening right now.”

  “That’s fair, but I still had a relationship with my Quinn, and I’m doing this for her.”

  Quin
n blanched at his words. Considering their lack of shared experience this time around, it was the best he could expect.

  “As long as you don’t have any expectations, that’s fair,” Quinn said.

  “Roger Dodger,” Cody said. “But you still need to know what I’m about to do.”

  “Go for it.”

  “It’s as dangerous for us as I hope it will be for the Syndicate ships. The resistance has begun to spread and link up with what’s left of the military. They’ve even taken control of most of the Earth’s nuclear silos, and they’re looking for a signal that the Syndicate’s missile defenses have been shut down.”

  “How?” Quinn asked.

  Cody smiled. “I knew what was going to happen.”

  “Right, because … you came back?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I wasn’t lying.”

  She took this in, a look of recognition on her face. Cody could tell that Quinn believed him now. “So … you gave them the ability to detect when the missile defense is malfunctioning. You told them to look for it.”

  “Yep,” Cody said. “Like I said, I planned ahead. I sent out messages before I left my lab. And when the resistance receives a signal from us they’re going to flood the sky with next-gen ballistic missiles that are capable of hitting the Syndicate armada.”

  “Ballistic as in … nuclear?”

  Cody’s face clouded. “It’s the only way, Quinn.”

  “But what – won’t there be … fallout?” Cody looked down. “There’s no choice at this point. If we’re lucky, none of the missiles will hit the Earth. Everything should be contained in space, but it’s like you said before … no guarantees.”

  “Okay, I get it, but why do I need to know this?”

  “Because we’re on a Syndicate ship,” Cody said.

  “And you’re planning on avoiding the nukes, how?”“That’s what I need you for,” Cody said. “I’m not going to pull off some magical hacking trick like I said to the others. There isn’t one. But what we do have to work with is the central control node for the missile defense system. It’s on the command ship, and I’ve rigged our glider with explosives so it’s gonna go boom once we’re inside the command ship.”

  “Um, you skipped something,” Quinn said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The part about how we avoid certain death.”

  He smiled, nervous as hell. “We fight our way across the landing dock after we arrive. We can use my old codes, which won’t have changed in this timeline, to get into the Mech Bay, the place where they keep their mechs, their mechanized fighting machines. And then we load up inside the Mech Bay and fight our way out of the ship and into space,” Cody said, without taking a breath.

  “Do you hear the words you’re speaking?” Quinn asked.

  “I do.”

  “Do you know how insane all of this sounds?”

  “Yep. Pretty crazy.”

  “But it’s doable,” he replied.

  “So why are we keeping this a secret?” Quinn asked.

  “Because I don’t have time to argue with Hayden. He’ll want to fight directly, not just carry out a mission to escape while the ballistic missiles do the fighting for him. All we need to do is destroy the control node for the aliens’ missile defense system with the explosives in the glider. Once that happens, they’ll be blinded. They won’t be able to pick up the trajectories of the incoming nukes.”

  “So you’re just going to tell everyone else once we dock?” Quinn asked.

  “Yup,” Cody said. “But I need to know you’re with me.”

  Quinn hesitated, biting her lip. Then she nodded. “Okay, I’m down.” She smashed a fist into her palm. “One blow. End the invasion.”

  The glider coasted in the last stretch of its trip and into the hangar bay of the command ship. As soon as they touched down, Hayden armed himself and got ready to lead the Marines into battle, the Marines admiring the armor and weapons stacked inside the glider.

  Quinn was shocked to see how much material was stored inside the vessel, and Cody told her it was because he’d planned it all out before. He knew generally what his plan would be and made sure that every glider in the Syndicate inventory had extra stores of weapons and armor that had been reconfigured to circumvent the alien implants. He smiled at his own resourcefulness. He’d thought of almost everything. Quinn took Cody’s hand and led him toward Hayden.

  “Cody has something he needs to tell you first,” Quinn said.

  Hayden looked to Cody. Back at Quinn. “What’s going on?”

  “We can’t use the glider for support and we can’t come out guns blazing,” Cody said. “We need to sneak off in Syndicate armor and get away from the glider so they don’t know it was compromised.”

  “Why would we do that? This is the closest we’ve gotten to delivering them a blow to the heart of their armada.”

  “And we’re going to do that, but not in the way you think.”

  “This better be good,” Hayden said.

  “The ship is set to explode and destroy the missile defense control node that’s just above the Hangar Bay,” Cody said. “But we need enough time to get to the Mech Bay and escape inside the mechs, the alien fighting machines.”

  “Why in the hell would we do that?” Hayden asked.

  “Because the mechs will keep us alive in space, and they’re small enough that the nukes the resistance is about to send up won’t hit us.”

  “So let me get this straight. We’re going to let someone else do the fighting for us while we just escape?”

  “When you put it like that, it sounds less than ideal,” Cody said. “But we will be the reason the nukes can hit the Syndicate ships, and my goal wasn’t just to destroy the Syndicate. It’s also to save Quinn and Samantha.”

  Hayden glared at Quinn. “You knew about this?”

  She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows.

  Hayden held Cody’s look. “You sure this is gonna work?”

  “Probably,” Cody said.

  “Can the mechs fire in space?”

  “Yes, but we won’t need them to. The nukes should do the job.”

  “I don’t like it,” Hayden said.

  “Hence, not telling you earlier, but it’s the only way,” Cody said.

  “Especially the part about wearing Syndicate gear.”

  “If we follow my plan, we win,” Cody said, holding his breath.

  Hayden looked to Quinn who nodded. “It’s the only way.”

  Hayden nodded. “Alright. Done deal. Let’s do this thing.” He turned to the others. “Time to play dress up, Devil Dogs!”

  The loading bay hatch to the arc glider descended, and Hayden peered out first. The coast was clear. He waved his hand for everyone else to follow. One at a time, the Marines rushed out of the glider and past him in the reconfigured, blood-red Syndicate armor.

  They crossed the Hangar Bay with Hayden keeping watch over passing sentries as the others scurried to the other side of the bay.

  Hayden was the last to make his way across the open area. Cody turned to see him being confronted by an alien guard. Cody waited on baited breath, praying that Hayden didn’t reveal their position. The Syndicate guard raised his hands, evidently questioning Hayden who paused, and then punched the alien guard in the helmet. Cody grimaced. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The jig was up. They were going to have to run like hell because—

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  Weapons fire rang out. Cody looked to his right to see several alien guards gesturing at Hayden who was shooting at them. Shit!

  Quinn dropped to her knees and opened fire as Hayden ran toward them. Cody scanned the open area. Already, five Syndicate sentries were rushing toward them. They could take them out easily, but that would delay them from getting to the Mech Bay. “Hurry up, Cody,” Quinn shouted. “More are coming.”

  “You don’t think I know that,” Cody said. “Just one more minute.”

  Cody dashed ahead to a control
panel that controlled the exit doors.

  He worked desperately at the touchscreen keypad that controlled the hatch to leave the Hangar Bay. Connecting some wires, disconnecting others beneath the keypad panel, while entering a code into the lock. A long beat, as he waited. This had to work, or they were all dead.

  A click, and then the hatch slid open. The Marines rushed through, everyone except Quinn, who stayed back for an extra few seconds. She laid down a field of suppressive fire, before following the others, everyone slipping past the hatch door just as it was about to close on her.

  “Don’t do that again, please,” Cody said.

  “A simple thank you would do,” Quinn said.

  “Thank you,” Cody said. “Now come on. We need to get to the Mech Bay before they figure out what we’re doing.”

  They hurtled forward down the corridor, Cody guiding by memory. “Should be up ahead,” he said, as they were about to round a corner.

  But around the corner, a squad of sentries met them head on. The Syndicate rifles unleashed on them, but the rounds from their guns flew wide. Everyone pulled back around the corner and took cover.

  “Is there another way?” Quinn asked.

  “No,” Cody said. “That corridor leads directly to the Mech Bay. The only other way would be to go back the way we came and circle around the ship. That’s not an option.”

  Quinn grimaced and double checked her fusion rifle. Everything was good to go. Then Cody marched up and took the rifle from her.

  “Hey,” Quinn said. “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure we win this fight,” Cody answered, initiating the self-destruct on her rifle. He flung the rifle around the corner into the oncoming alien squad.

  The explosion rocked the deck beneath them. Cody stumbled, but no debris or shrapnel reached them.

  Hayden was the first to take a look. He rushed out ready to tear into the sentries, but then lowered his weapon.