Dade’s entire fighter, computer system included, shut down at once and became totally unresponsive. He cursed to himself and quickly began the emergency reset procedures, just as the Gemini fighter drifted around the side of a building in front of him, and began to spin up its guns. Wasp 6 tore down from the sky at the same time and unloaded a fierce barrage of blazing hell straight through the center of the Gemini fighter. The fighter exploded in midair, drifted into the side of a nearby building, and then fell to the ground in a fiery ball of debris.
Wasp 6 took up a hover just above Dade’s position, and radioed in. “You alright down there?”
Dade laughed as he attempted to hard reboot his fighter. “Yeah…thank you. Mark my position and go help the others. I have to hard reboot, I think most of this is intact…It’s a tough plane. Well…tough enough to limp home maybe.”
Wasp 6 drifted into the middle of the street and landed. “I can see your right engine from here…there’s no way that’s working again… but the rest of the wing looks fine. Does your left engine still work?”
Dade pulled the last of the computers cannon plugs from under the forward console, then shoved them back in reverse order, reactivating the computer. “Stand by…ok… Yeah the right engine is toast… But the left actually looks ok…I hope. Weapons nonresponsive, life support is giving me some warnings, and looks like the ignition circuits aren’t responding either. It’ll be a hell of a fix.”
Shields powered down his fighter, popped the canopy, and rushed over with his fighter’s bag of spare components. “No way in hell I’m going back in there alone! Let’s fix what we got to and get you back up.”
“Yeah…thanks.” Dade unclipped his flight helmet and popped his own canopy. However, he heard the rumble of large faraway naval guns and immediately turned his attention back to the sky. There had to be more fighters around, and it was going to take a few minutes, at least, to synthesize new modules. Hopefully the enemy didn’t come looking for them. “And here’s to hoping we’re the only ones around here…” He added warily.
Chapter 30 – Saw that in a movie once
One Alpha, consisting of now only James and Kabir and supported by Jon and Bag, sped along the catwalk of the space elevator’s second floor, careful to keep their heads below the solid carbon railing-barrier that ran the length of it. They were in a massive, glass domed atrium; one of four connected to the space elevator, which served as a waiting area for the thousands of passengers who transit through the facility every month. The lower floor beyond was a combination of a tranquil garden with a variety of green grass, trees, and a variety of wild flows, and a ticketing area about the size of a high school football stadium.
Although now the lush garden of plants and trees was heavily guarded by a full platoon of NSWs, diligently patrolling in near perfect sequence with each other. That worked in the team’s advantage when Kabir pointed out a Staff Door on the far side of the room carefully open, a few shrouded figures enter, and then shut silently just as a nearby patrol approached. Very curious… It had to be Sempra or at least some of his men, which no doubt would lead back to the bastard one way or another. Though with so many enemies around and so much potential for disaster, it wouldn’t be just a walk through the figurative park. James thought to himself.
Jon led the squad straight to the top of the far staircase, which would lead them down to the first floor. From there it was a straight shot behind several long planters, and then over to the target door on the opposite side. Luckily most of the NSW’s were facing toward the front entrance of the building, and should have their backs toward them. However, patrols passed by roughly every 40 seconds, so Krieger had to be fast and impeccably silent.
Jon carefully peeked through a small separation in the railing, and timed his move just as the closest patrol passed by… Ok…Now! The team descended down the staircase, almost sliding on their backs in order to keep themselves out of sight, and even more careful to keep their footing because of it. The team reached near the bottom when Jon held his fist up to halt, then carefully glanced through another crack in the barrier and monitored the nearest patrols movements right as they passed by the far side of the room.
No more time to spare! Jon motioned them forward toward the center of the room, and hid behind a planter filled with wild flowers, as the next patrol passed by. So far so good…They waited a few seconds to ensure they were clear, then carefully closed the remaining distance to the door. Jon and Bag moved behind several trashcans to provide security, as James quickly jimmied the lock open with his combat multi-tool and watchfully opened the door. James held the door for the rest of the squad, just as a lone NSW walked straight over to the planter, stopped, and began smoking a cigarette. The NSW was watching the rest of his patrol though and didn’t seem to paying close attention to his surroundings. Good, he didn’t have to die then.
James slowly raised his weapon in anticipation of being spotted, and carefully shut the door as he entered. The hostiles hadn’t seem to have noticed them at all… it was either a miracle or those NSW’s were really that terrible at their job. James was happy with either or at this point.
The team moved down the empty, white walled staff hallway in a quick sweeping motion until they came across, surprise, another service elevator. Why was everything painted the same bland shitty white? It’s not like they didn’t have other paint colors on Mars. James had just painted his damn apartment right before he’d come back to the unit! Whatever. James sighed loudly and stared as if he wanted the inanimate elevator to feel awkward. “Another elevator, I’m so fucking happy… After this week I fucking hate elevators. I hope I never have to ride another damn elevator for the rest of ever…”
Jon looked over to the elevator control panel and flashed James a mocking smile. “It’s stopped on sub-level 4…nice long elevator ride down.” Then reached over to hit the elevator call button but was stopped by Bag, who gently nudged his shoulder. “Jon, wait!”
Jon turned to him with an almost pissed off expression, but remained silent as Bag continued. “Don’t announce that were coming down. Let’s repel down the shaft and just pry the doors open.”
James smiled, finally a change of pace! He strongly voiced his agreement. “Yes! I like it, let’s change it up for once!”
Jon thought about it for half a second then shrugged. “Fuck it. Sure.” Then immediately took out his long strand of parachute line and hooked it to his belt it for repelling. Bag nodded over to James as he likewise got his gear ready. “James, could you pry that door open, please?”
CAN he pry that door open? Yes. Was that a serious question? James smiled, and together with Kabir, pried the lift open and kept it in place by jamming his rifle in-between both doors. As soon as the door was secured, Bag out of nowhere rushed straight into the shaft, jumped, and grabbed ahold of the hanging set of its cables in the center with a death grip as it reverberated from the sudden movement. Bag quickly grabbed his locking clamp and snapped it down onto the greasy cable, tested its hold with a strong tug, and then slowly let go of the cables and placed all of his weight on the clamp and the parachute cord. It seemed to be holding.
Jon walked up to the edge of the shaft and tossed his locking clamp straight to Bag, who connected it right away. Jon likewise jumped and was safely caught by his repelling cord, followed by Kabir, and finally James who had the trickiest part of dislodging his weapon first and having the doors slam a few inches from his face as he stood on the tiny ledge on the inner side.
The four gently lowered themselves down floor by floor, until they landed softly on the top of the elevator itself. The team immediately released their safety cords, unlocked and opened the roof access hatch, and dropped themselves in quietly, one at a time. James right away hit the button to open the elevator doors, prompting the team to begin their sweep and clear into the small, mildly furnished lobby beyond.
All around them was a panoramic view of the space elevators fusion reactor complex, which was not
only the source of power for the elevator, but also for a large portion of the city as well. The lobby was on an elevated platform in the dead center of the facility, and likewise in the center of an X section of Olympic sized pools of clear-blue coolant. In-between the X were giant floor to ceiling fusion towers, eight in total, wrapped in heavy alloy heat shielding. Directly across the pool of coolant was the primary control booth, elevated up on the second floor with a catwalk that ran the entire perimeter of the complex, which connected on either side of the lobby where the team now stood. The room was dark, dry, and hummed deeply with the sound of massive voltages of electricity.
Kabir had moved closed to the glass in order to search for anything out of the ordinary, just as a volley of automatic fire tore through the glass lobby and forced the team to drop low and take cover behind anything and everything in proximity. Though it didn’t take long for the gun fire to stop, and Sempra’s arrogant voice to come over the loud speakers of the facility itself. “Ah, there you are! I didn’t hear you come in! I’m actually glad you decided to follow me here. It saves me the trouble of having to hunt you down later…”
No one uttered a word, as Bag very carefully glanced through a bullet hole that had ripped into the couch he was hiding behind. He instantaneously spotted Sempra and his team of four others, all carefully hidden next to a recently opened fusion reactor tower. The tower illuminated their suits of futuristic mesh armor and face masks in an orange glow…but the glow was offset by a small glass tube with a drop of vibrantly glowing, pulsing purple… Liquid? Liquid wasn’t really a good word, it was more like some kind of matter… Actually Bag couldn’t tell what the hell that was.
Sempra held the matter above his head. “You’re actually right on time to see this ‘conflict’ of yours come full circle…”
Jon shouted out in irritation. “Fuck off, Sempra!”
Sempra laughed as he inserted the glass tube of purple into the reactor and closed the shielding down around it. “In a moment Jon… Now, with the dark matter in place…” Sempra typed into his wrist coms, causing the facility to begin flashing red hazard lights, as the reactor alarm began to sound in its male robotic voice. “Warning! Warning! Energy output exceeding maximum safe parameters! Stage One Emergency purge in progress.”
Jon shouted out in even greater rage. “WHAT THE FUCK?!”
“Enjoy the last few moments of your pathetic nation’s existence!” Sempra’s team fired a controlled volley into the lobby, forcing the Krieger to drop and cover, as the hostiles disappeared from sight into a nearby escape hatch. Bag was staring off into thought as the computer voice returned. “Warning! Emergency venting malfunction! Reactor temperatures approaching critical levels!”
Jon turned toward Bag with a look of both fury and concern. “Why disable Hydra only to overload a reactor? What the fuck?! I mean WHAT THE FUCK!”
James grabbed Kabir and pulled him to his feet. “We don’t have time for this! We have to stop this now!”
Bag pulled his focus back to the present and then jumped to his feet. “Yeah! …Control booth, now!”
The team rushed headlong down the long catwalk to the opposite side of the facility, and into the control booth, which evidently had been completely thrashed by an explosive. James grabbed a handful of broken components out from a destroyed workstation and cursed. “Fucking fucks! This guy is such a fucking loser!”
The computer voice continued. “Warning! Emergency venting malfunction! Reactor temperatures approaching critical levels!”
Bag grunted and fidgeted around anxiously. Sempra saw to it that they couldn’t fix this from down here, there was no doubt of that. So… Emergency venting? Yeah… “Damn… ok! James, take all of the explosive charges and head up to the roof! Find the exhaust ports… There should be…eight from the number of reactors down here. Blow those fucking vents open! Other than that I don’t have any ideas.” He shrugged helplessly.
Jon raised a brow at Bag as he started to walk back toward the door. “Yeah, and just where the fuck are you going?” He grumbled.
“After Sempra…” Bag rushed down the catwalk, and slid down the ladder without another word. Jon cursed under his breath and rushed after him. “GOD DAMNIT, BAG!”
***
James and Kabir dashed out of the reactor service elevator, down the staff hallway they had entered from, and up a fire escape a few halls away. They scaled floor after floor from the base level all the way up to a locked rooftop door on the 6th floor, not stopping for even a moment on the way there. The two panted heavily as they caught their breath, but James right away took out a thermite charge and shaped it onto the door lock.
Kabir took in several deep breaths. “You know… When they advertised this job…I didn’t think…it was going to be running through basement after basement trying to stop the world from blowing itself up…”
James took in a deep breath and slightly laughed. “Hah…yeah… and I didn’t think I’d have to deal with my country trying to destroy itself… Welcome to Krieger…were the ‘suck’ sucks just a little bit more… Fire in the hole!” The two turned their heads away as the charge detonated in a burst of smoke and swung the door wide open.
They rushed onto the black carbon rooftop, and were wholly awed by the sheer devastation that lay before them. In the sky only a handful of Navy ships remained, the Aries had disappeared altogether, and those that were still fighting were severely damaged and relying on the most basic and almost useless projectile ordnance they had. The rest of the fleet lay scattered about the city streets, jammed into the sides of now burning buildings, and one was even…
“Oh no… TAKE COVER!” James and Kabir rushed back into the stairwell as a flaming Navy frigate came crashing into the far side of the space elevator, shaking the entire facility as the ship exploded into an even larger fire ball. The two were knocked off their feet by the impact and fell painfully down several flights of stairs, while a suffocating cloud of smoke and dust poured into the staircase. The two quickly helped each other back up, shook off the aches and pains, and jogged back up to the rooftop. No time to spare.
The ship was now almost fully embedded into the roof of the facility, and the suffocating smoke and fumes stung their eyes and their lungs. James and Kabir coughed heavily as they pulled up their armor’s attached dust masks and secured them to their faces. James handed Kabir a satchel with a good half of the explosives and pointed over to the opposite way, as he himself began to carefully search the other portion of the roof. “Split up, let’s get this done!”
Though it was difficult to see farther than a few yards through the dust, James easily spotted the orange glowing metal of the car sized vent with his thermal visor. The metal of the vent had begun to hiss from the intense heat, and it was tough to even stand near it for too long. He rigged two charges of explosive bricks to a simple detonator, took cover behind an Air Conditioning unit a few feet away, and tossed the explosives right into the center of the vent. As soon as he saw them land, he hit the detonator and watched as a massive blast of ashes and liquid metal particles spewed straight up toward the sky, and blanketed the entire area with almost unbearably hot air.
James dodged the falling debris as his lungs ached and eyes began to water from the sudden outburst of heat. Another explosion on the opposite side of the roof drew his attention. A similar cloud of ash and metal rained up into the sky, confirming the Kabir had also found his mark. Good! James rushed to the next vent which was only a few feet away, just as a large ghostly figure cut silently through the smoke and dust a few yards above him.
He took cover behind a nearby air handler, and watched as the completely transparent figure gently parted the smoke around it, and for a brief moment the hushed, whining sound of a quantum engine was audible. A stealth ship? That sure wasn’t a friendly… James warily followed the figure over to the far edge of the roof, and watched as it took up a position right above a mostly empty landing pad. Though as soon as it had stopped, all trace of
it vanished. Hmm…
Another explosion rumbled behind him as Kabir had opened his second vent. James took note of the suspicious figures position, and then rushed back to the job at hand.
***
Bag pulled the pin on a frag grenade and sent it soaring through the air toward a group of NSW’s, who had secured the T intersection of the hallway a few yards in front. The grenade bounced once against the back wall before an NSW attempted to toss it back, however it exploded in his hand and showered the entire enemy squad in deadly shards of metal. Jon rushed out from his cover and emptied half a clip into the bodies of the NSW’s, as the surviving few tried to recover.
Jon and Bag simply followed the sound of gunfire and the trail of death and destruction left behind from Sempra and his men. Hallway after hallway of battle scars and dead NSW’s was as good a waypoint as a virtual navigation marker. The two were meeting little to no resistance in their pursuit, which thankfully meant most of the NSWs were after Sempra and largely didn’t know of or didn’t care about Jon and Bag. That needed to stay that way.
Bag keyed his radio and sighed as the static returned. “All Krieger units, this is Bag! If you can hear me we are in pursuit of Sempra and are headed to the eastern landing pad of the space elevator… We need back up immediately! Over!” The radio had nothing but static, which prompted a silent curse of frustration.
Jon shrugged at him and rounded the next ‘T’ intersection, but immediately began taking fire from the opposite side. Jon dove down and rolled close to the corner, grabbed two smoke grenades from his vest, and threw them down the hall toward the NSWs. Bag and Jon blind fired through the smoke until it had thickened enough for them to leave, then continued forward until they came to the blast doors of a landing pad. They were closing in!
Bag took cover against a wall and kept his vision to the rear, as Jon began to quickly type onto the control panel to work the blast doors. An NSW leaned out from down the corridor and fired several poorly aimed rounds down at Bag, who immediately returned fire cursed, “Bring it, you poorly trained morons!”
Krieger Platoon Page 44