“Negative, soldier. What I know is that this is a top-priority in our efforts to repel the invaders.”
The words made Duggan feel even worse than he already did, like he was personally stabbing each of these soldiers in the back. Giving his approval for the Last Stand project was far and away the hardest thing he’d ever done and it wasn’t about to get any easier.
Lieutenant Richards was evidently satisfied and he called for the airlifts. There were four in this bank, with plenty of room inside for fifteen soldiers, Duggan and finally, Lieutenant Paz. The lift ascended in silence, with not a single one of the men or women inside moving or speaking. The door opened and they gathered at the top in a room identical to the one below.
“Move out, people,” said Richards.
He set off at once, choosing one of the three exit corridors, which led through a series of secure blast proof doors, up a single flight of steps and eventually into the reception area of the central administration building for the Tucson base. It was deserted here, though the lights were on and each console was fully operational. Several sets of clear doors led outside, where the base lighting did its best to fool the eye into thinking it was daytime.
Richards didn’t pause and he set off across the reflective marble-tiled floor, his feet producing a crisp sound on the surface. The other members of the squad spread out in loose formation and followed, keeping Duggan and Paz close to the centre.
The Vraxar had landed a short time ago and it was important for the squad to reach Facility LT3 before the enemy could sweep through the base. In truth, Duggan could only guess at what the aliens planned and how they would achieve it. The main sensor array had detected the incoming dropship and after that it was down to guesswork.
“I’ll be glad if they settle for the OSF,” Duggan muttered.
“What else is there for them here?” asked Paz.
“Two unfinished warships.”
“Which are in the opposite direction.”
“I don’t need reassurance, Lieutenant. Whatever comes, we’ll deal with it – if we hide in the bunker we’re failing everyone in the Confederation.”
“Just a shame for the people on New Earth,” she whispered.
“Not everyone is lucky enough to have a say in the method of their death. If I thought there was another way…”
“I’m not judgemental, sir, and I know what it costs you to do this.”
“Have you been talking to my wife again?”
“I’ve worked with you long enough to know how you think.”
The squad approached the exit doors. They had a reflective outer coating to stop people staring in, so there was no danger an enemy sniper could pick them off while they remained inside. Richards motioned everyone to a stop and then he advanced in a crouching run with his rifle in hand, lowing his visor with the other. He stopped behind one of the doors and spent a few seconds checking the street outside.
“Clear,” he said.
Richards opened the door and the soldiers hurried outside. A flight of wide, stone steps led to the parking lot in front of the building. A pavement went to the left and right. The main street was a hundred metres away, directly across the parking area. A few birds, their body clocks tricked into thinking it was morning or evening, trilled from the rooftops. Otherwise, this usually-busy area of the Tucson base was empty, with the personnel presumably following procedure and keeping low in the below-ground bunkers built for just such an emergency.
On any other day, the familiarity of these surroundings would have blinded Duggan’s eyes to the details. Now he found himself seeing little things he couldn’t remember – two well-tended trees next to the Space Corps flag at the bottom of the steps, a manhole cover on the pavement. Even the squat research building opposite – a place he knew well - seemed oddly unfamiliar.
Not everything was normal. Thick smoke billowed into the air in numerous dense plumes which drifted upwards, their source hidden by the intact structures clustered around the central admin building. The air was cloying and it stank of burning polymers. It caught Duggan in the throat and he coughed. It was tempting to lower his visor and take in the clean air from the suit. He resisted and after a few intakes of the filthy, soot-ridden air, his lungs gave up complaining and he could breathe more easily.
There were fifteen or twenty pool vehicles in the lot, which would have cut the journey time by eighty percent, whilst also significantly increasing the risk factor. The plan was to go on foot and though a few pairs of eyes lingered on a lightly-armoured transport vehicle, no one suggested they give it a try.
This first part of the journey meant crossing the parking lot, which left the squad exposed to anything watching from space. They set off at a run and Duggan felt the muscles in his legs stretching before they even reached the road. The others held back in order to keep pace with him and the thought of it made him angry. He tried harder, only to find he lacked the suppleness necessary to run faster.
The squad reached the far side of the lot without being hit by a space-launched missile. Duggan was panting hard as they spilled through the front double-doors of the research facility. The reception was a smaller, less grand version of that in the main admin building and Duggan hardly noticed it as he followed the soldier in front – a Rank 1 Trooper called Ellena McGraw.
“The rear entrance is through here,” said Richards in a loud voice. He crashed through a pair of swinging doors painted in blue and the others followed.
Duggan was a regular visitor to each of the six research buildings on the base and he could visualise the route in his head. A sign overhead said 1 – Propulsion Ignition 2 – Guidance.
There was a long, straight corridor on the far side of the door. To his disbelief, Duggan saw people working in the offices. A man wearing spectacles and carrying a pile of folders pressed himself to the side wall when he saw the group approach.
“What the hell are you playing at?” Duggan shouted as he ran past. “The damned Vraxar have attacked!”
He didn’t wait to find out if his words were effective and he doubted the researcher had any idea who it was berating him. Some things were more important than the micromanagement of his staff and Duggan left the overzealous workers to whatever they were doing.
The corridor branched and they took the left turning. Richards stopped at a pair of alloy-framed metal doors, to which he had no access. Duggan knew what was necessary and he planted his hand on the access panel. The doors slid aside, revealing the archive section of the building.
“In,” said Richards, waving the squad through.
The archive room had a high ceiling and many rows of shelves and metal cabinets. This was the place where the researchers dumped their rough hand-drawn sketches or pages of equations relating to projects signed off as complete. The air was carefully regulated and there was a smell of new paper and ink.
They left the archive room. More corridors followed and Duggan was reminded how large this building was. It was a good thing, since each step brought them closer to their destination as well as keeping them hidden from the enemy above.
Their chosen exit was a single door, which led onto another main street. Once again, Richards held them up and he peered outside. Smoke drifted through the opening.
“Hear that?” Richards asked.
The sound was far away but clear – a cling-cling-cling coming from elsewhere on the base. There were deeper, thumping sounds interwoven.
“Heavy barrels,” said Sergeant Karen Demarco. She snapped her fingers, which was something of a feat in a spacesuit. “The OSF wall guns.”
Richards nodded, “And the roof emplacements as well, if I’m right.”
“Let’s hope it’s enough to keep the enemy looking elsewhere,” said Demarco. “What’s out there?”
“It’s like we guessed. Most of the buildings outside have been struck in the bombardment. There’s rubble and smoke. It might give us an advantage if we don’t choke to death first.”
�
��Time for the visors, Lieutenant?” asked McGraw.
Richards was uncertain and he chewed his lip. “Yes, pull your visors down,” he said. “Just don’t wander out of sight.”
Even without their comms, the visors could replicate a human voice and they had earpieces that meant they could pick up sounds easily enough. Given how much everything relied on clear and easy communication, everyone found it hard when they were gone. Duggan smiled inwardly as he remembered how much money the Space Corps poured into making everything robust. Yet here they were, cut off by the Vraxar and having to rely on being in range of each other’s voices. He dropped his visor into place and the cool, filtered air tasted sweeter than anything he could remember.
A tiny number in one corner of his HUD gave the oxygen percentage in the surrounding air: 19%. Duggan swore inwardly.
“Come on,” he urged.
The squad left the research building and emerged cautiously onto the street outside. At once, Duggan was struck by the change. The smoke was thick and clung to the ground, making objects indistinct. A few inexplicably abandoned base vehicles were empty on the street, one of them crushed by a slab of concrete. Duggan looked upwards, to find the building opposite was intact. Wherever the rubble had come from it wasn’t here.
A few hundred metres to the east – where their destination lay – there was far greater devastation. The walls of the buildings had collapsed, leaving piles of steel and concrete on what was left of the road. One building on the left, unrecognizable from its original form, was almost completely gone, leaving only a single wall leaning outwards at an angle over the road. Through it all, the smoke billowed and Duggan could make out the flickering orange of dying fires in the ruins.
“Keep to the walls,” said Richards, his voice given a metallic edge by the visor speaker.
They remained on the left side of the street, keeping a few paces between each squad member. The other side of the street had suffered the greatest damage and there were many large sections of toppled wall which would have presented unwanted obstacles. As well as concrete, dust and grit, there was plenty of glass underfoot. It crunched and scraped beneath their feet and Duggan was grateful it had been designed to shatter into blunt cubes, rather than break into vicious shards. He kept a careful watch for Space Corps personnel. If there was anyone alive here, they weren’t showing their faces.
The street opened out into what had once been informally known as the Lover’s Plaza. The name was a joke – the plaza had originally been little more than a flat square of concrete with a few seats, roads on four sides and surrounded by buildings so drab and unromantic that Duggan had been tempted to have them torn down every time he came through. The Vraxar battleship had stolen that pleasure away from him and the whole area was a ruin.
“They must have dropped a hundred missiles on this place alone,” said Richards, hunkering behind an overturned gravity car.
The others waited nearby, hiding in whatever cover they could find. Duggan and Paz were a few metres from Richards, crouched at the side of a mostly-intact flight of steps which led into the husk of an accommodation block. The sound of the OSF guns was louder here and they echoed through the streets, making it difficult to pinpoint their direction.
“It’s more open than I remember it,” said Demarco. She leaned around the car, trying to find any trace of the Vraxar. “No movement,” she said.
“We’ve got to make this quick,” said Richards. “I’d hoped to cut through the barracks, but it looks like that option is denied us. We’re going to make a run for the eastern exit road – it’s clogged with rubble, so there’ll be some climbing to do. Does anyone have a problem with that?”
Duggan knew he was the focus of the question and Richards was trying to be diplomatic. “I’ve got no problems, Lieutenant.”
“The east road takes us as close to the OSF as we’re going to get on this mission. Once we’re past, it’s only a few hundred metres until we reach the entrance to Facility LT3.”
The squad knew the way and they gathered themselves. Their faces were covered by the visors and their expressions were hidden. Even so, Duggan knew how to read soldiers. These held no fear and they were impatient to get on with the mission. It was a commendable attitude and one instilled in training.
They moved out, Richards once again on point. He went faster than before, obviously concerned about staying out in the open for too long. Duggan started flagging at once.
“You need to boost,” said Richards, looking over his shoulder. “Now.”
Duggan knew there was no room for misplaced pride on this mission. He instructed his suit to give him a shot of battlefield adrenaline. A series of microneedles jabbed into various parts of his body, each of them hitting a nerve. He grimaced and then felt the powerful drugs thundering into his body. The adrenaline wasn’t meant for people classed as elderly, owing to the effects it had on the heart and brain. Duggan didn’t care – he rode the wave and his feet ran faster.
A few of the buildings around the plaza burned brightly, whilst others smouldered. The smoke was thicker than before and it added an otherworldly feeling to the sprint. Shapes sprang from the gloom and the sound of footsteps receded, leaving Duggan with the strange impression he was alone in his own dream, or that his version of reality had somehow branched off, taking him to a place separate from everyone else.
The sensor in his visor adjusted slowly to the billowing clouds of smoke and for one moment, it granted him a perfect view of the exit street, only eighty metres away. Somehow, he’d got ahead of most of the squad and, over his shoulder, he saw them trying hard to catch up.
Nearly there.
Without a logical reason for it, Duggan was struck by a sudden, absolute certainty. He looked to the heavens, trying to spot the missile he knew was coming.
“Get down!” he shouted, throwing himself to the ground. The plaza was a mess of rubble, but there was nothing which would protect them from a plasma warhead.
The others were trained to respond and they followed Duggan’s lead, hurling themselves towards whatever cover they could find.
The missile came, the speed of its flight leaving the sound of its passage far in its wake. Duggan thought he got a sense of it – a blur coming from directly overhead, approaching with incredible, inescapable velocity. The explosion came, ripping apart buildings and throwing countless tonnes of plasma-blackened concrete and metal high into the sky. The sound rumbled on and then it faded, leaving behind the sound of stones clattering down.
Duggan lifted himself from the ground, wondering why he was still alive. He saw. The Vraxar missile had landed a few hundred metres away, somewhere out of sight. Whatever they’d been aiming for, it wasn’t the squad.
There’s time for that to change, he thought.
Lieutenant Richards was already on his feet, pulling the squad medic Rex Copeland up by his arm. “Move!” he bellowed.
With the impetus of those who’d experienced a recent scrape with death, they ran. Another missile landed before they’d covered more than a few paces. Duggan twisted in his stride, craning to see what the Vraxar were aiming at. It was no use – smoke and the ruins of the Tucson base impeded his sight. As he scrambled over the pile of rubble blocking the eastern exit road, Duggan realised the OSF chainguns had stopped. Far from being reassured, he felt their silence was a sign of the Vraxar’s progress within the base.
The squad grouped up and continued on.
Chapter Eleven
Lieutenant Eric McKinney dashed through the interior of the Obsidiar Storage Facility, a few of his men close behind. The passages were mostly clear, with the guards already at their posts in the fortified areas within the building. Overhead, the ceiling miniguns whined softly on their motors as they turned ominously to track McKinney and the others. Every thirty metres, the men were required to pass one of the heavy security doors. The routine was similar – stop, press the access pad, wait for the door to open, continue through. It was necessary and frus
trating in equal measures.
Not everyone within the facility was where they should be.
“Get to your damn post!” McKinney roared at one man, who was dawdling along without a rifle.
It was tempting to pause for the split second required to throttle the man. Instead, McKinney knocked the soldier to one side as he went by and settled for flexing his augmented arm while he thought about the fully-warranted strangulation.
He did stop briefly, at the smaller security station. A man whose name he couldn’t recall was watching the bank of screens, while a group of others shifted nervously.
“What’s the latest?” asked McKinney bluntly.
“Small arms, sir. They wound up one of those mobile chainguns for a few seconds and then they stopped. Why haven’t they come?”
“They’ll come, don’t you worry.”
“Is it true Sergeant Woods is going to be in charge?”
News within the OSF travelled faster than a fleet warship at maximum lightspeed. McKinney wasn’t in the slightest bit surprised they knew.
“Yes. I’ve been given other orders.”
“You’re leaving the facility?” pressed the man.
“I have to.”
The soldier asked other questions which McKinney had no intention of answering. He exited the security monitoring room, leaving the occupants to discuss the rumours amongst themselves.
The ground-level warehouse area was protected by numerous doors and the men slowed again. Each door required an access code, which it fired off to the OSF processing unit for confirmation. Any area where Obsidiar was handled required high-level approval. Fortunately, McKinney was already approved, but each confirmation took a few seconds to come back.
“Everything’s running slowly,” he muttered, rapping an access panel with his knuckles.
“How is the timer?” asked Sergeant Li. “I make it ten minutes.”
“I’ve got eleven,” said Bannerman.
“So much for precision instruments,” said Li, tapping the side of his visor.
Earth's Fury (Obsidiar Fleet Book 4) Page 11