by Andrew Beery
A series of sounds erupted from the other side of the door. AG didn’t need his Stark suit’s translator to know that he was hearing a choice selection of the finest Ashtoreth swear words to grace their military service. The Gator that was in the room with him got up and moved towards the door. AG pointed his cloaked hand pointer at the soldier and pulled the trigger.
The pointer fired a brief but intense pulse of laser light that ionized the air it traveled through. A much more powerful electrical charge followed that traveled down the ionized path to strike the Ashtoreth full in the chest. His body spasmed and then slowly crumpled as the Gator lost consciousness.
“That’s better,” AG said. “Let’s just lay back and take a nap.”
He pulled the soldier over to the side of the room near the door he had just come through. He did not want the other soldier seeing him when the door finally opened again. The unconscious Gator had both his hands and feet lashed together with restraints AG pulled from a storage pocket built into his Stark suit.
When he was satisfied that the unconscious Gator would not be a problem once he woke up, AG pulled his hand point out and aimed it at the door where the other soldier was continuing to make quite a racket. The swear words had escalated in volume, intensity, vulgarity and frequency. It seems the Marines had nothing on the Ashtoreth when it came to the time-honored military tradition of cursing.
AG opened the door.
“I swear, you eggless wonder of the fifth depth of hell, when I get a hold of you I’m going to…”
The Gator stopped his verbal tirade suddenly as he charged into the room. He had expected to see his compatriot sitting at his station. He wasn’t there. Turning around he saw three things simultaneously.
First he saw his partner tied up and on the ground. Then he saw the door to the room close. Finally he saw a Marine in full combat gear shimmer into existence in front of him… the marine was pointing a weapon at him.
“Hello friend,” AG said calmly. “I thought perhaps we might have a chat.”
***
Sergeant First Class Jeremy James Hammond worked his way forward slowly. He was careful to avoid the surveillance cameras. He was just about to his goal, the security office.
Ten minutes earlier, at Roc’s insistence, JJ had killed the technician. Roc correctly pointed out that they were in a replicant factory. Once the computer running the facility stopped receiving a signal from the microchip embedded near Roc’s heart, it would assume he was dead and create a new instance of himself. JJ needed to kill Roc in order to preserve Roc’s cover. It seemed bizarre, but in this strange new world death could equal life.
Before JJ killed the Ashtoreth technician, Roc had given JJ a series of override codes for many of the doors within the compound. With them, he should be able to make good his escape.
What JJ didn’t know was that everything Roc had told him was part of a carefully orchestrated plan being monitored by none other than Praefectus Niegar himself. What Praefectus Niegar didn’t appreciate was that the seemingly biddable technician he knew as Roc was in fact a member of a much larger plan that had been in operation for many hundreds of years. The lack of insight would cost the Praefectus his life… several times.
As JJ approached the sliding security panel that isolated the detention wing from the rest of the facility he wished he had access to his Stark suit. The active cloaking system would be very useful right about now. His only hope was that whoever was responsible for monitoring the security feeds was asleep on the job. He wore Roc’s technician’s robe but there was no way he was fooling anyone into believing he was a Gator. His nose was about a foot and a half too short and the wrong color.
His hand reached for the keypad where he was intending to enter the security code that Roc had made him memorize. He never got the chance. The panel slid away before he could enter the code. He tensed his legs. He would try to disarm and take down the first Gator that stepped through that door. His only hope was the critter would be alone. He doubted he could handle more than one with nothing more than his hands and good looks.
“Easy there Marine,” an unexpected but familiar voice said from just beyond the door.
“Commander Stone?” JJ asked in a bewildered tone.
“The one and only. I see you didn’t really need my help,” AG acknowledged as he dropped the cloaking field around his Stark suit.
“You bloody well took your time getting here,” JJ said with a degree of venom in his voice. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through while you’ve been doing whatever dodgy thing it was you were doing? Whatever happened to no man left behind?”
AG raised an eyebrow. Captivity was never easy. His friend had been under tremendous pressure so he was willing to make some allowances. He smiled and put out a hand to shake. “We are here now. We need to figure out a way to sneak you out. Do you know where your Stark suit is?”
JJ ignored the hand and shook his head in anger. It raged up through him. It was odd. He didn’t know where it was coming from but he was powerless to stop it.
“I’ve been captured, tortured and beaten to within an inch of my life and all you give a piss about is some damn equipment? That’s Bollocks… Sir.” This last was said with great distain.
“OK,” Stone said with a tinge of his own anger. “Let’s get you out of here and checked over by the medical staff.” He reached forward to grab JJ’s arm and pull him through the door into the surveillance office.
JJ twisted to avoid his hand. “Mind your own business. I’m sick of your half-breed interference… I got this far on my own… I’ll find my own way out.”
JJ paused and looked at the man he had once called friend. His was a look of confusion “Sir… AG… I have no idea why I said that. As far as I know you are not a half-breed… nor frankly would I give a damn if you were. I have no idea why I am angry. I should be thanking you… and yet all I feel is rage.”
AG smiled. Something was definitely wrong with his friend, but at least this was a step in the right direction.
“A lot has happened and the Creator only knows what they have done to you. Our top priority is to get you out of here right now.”
AG pulled the pack off his back and removed a metallic folded cloth. He handed it to Sergeant Hammond. JJ unfolded what he recognized was a specialized active camo poncho. It had cloaking emitters embedded in the fabric. It wasn’t nearly as effective as the cloak field on a Stark suit but if he held perfectly still it would be almost impossible to see him.
AG handed JJ a small two way comm unit that fit in his ear. With the poncho on, the two marines headed out. AG, with his cloak reengaged, led the way. He would move a few dozen yards using his superior camouflage. Once he confirmed the way was clear, he would signal to JJ to come forward. The process would repeat with JJ freezing in place until signaled.
Chapter 17: Army of One…
Praefectus Niegar awoke in his private bio-generation chamber adjacent to his quarters. He was confused. He had been entering the prisoner’s cell. He had just unlatched the door and was preparing to execute the prisoner. He remembered the anticipation of joy as he was about to take his revenge… and now he was here. Had the human somehow managed to kill him? It didn’t seem possible. Yet the fact that he was here meant that he had, in fact, died.
The small radio-packet transmitter connected to his cerebral cortex should have transmitted live engram updates to the central computer. Those updates were only ever a fraction of a second delayed. If the human had attacked him then he should have remembered it.
No, either the computer failed to record and/or restore the last several moments of his previous life or… and he wasn’t sure he liked this idea… or someone else had attacked and killed him just prior to his entering the prisoner’s cell.
He checked the chronometer. Only a few hours had gone by. He toggled the communications link on his desk. Immediately the replicant that was serving as his administrative aid came online.
“P
raefectus, how may I serve you?”
“I’ve been killed by an unknown assailant. It occurred less than three hours ago near alpha detention center. Get a forensic team down there immediately. Assemble two additional teams. Send one to reconnoiter the area surrounding the exterior of this complex. Send the other to search inside corner to corner. Put us on high alert. We have an infiltrator or a traitor in our midst… I want them found and stopped.”
“At once Praefectus!”
***
JJ moved slowly. To be honest his leg hurt fiercely. The shattered bone had knit thanks to his nanites but the fact that it was crooked put an unusual strain on his hip joint. This in turn caused him to adjust his gait. The result was everything from his feet… to his legs... to his hip… to his back… hurt.
It had taken him several hours to make it across the massive room that housed bio-generator, after bio-generator. If he had to guess, there must be well in excess of a thousand replication chambers in this one room… and he had no reason to suspect this was the only room. The facility was designed to create an army from scratch… literally overnight.
The weapon that Roc had given him was warm in his hand. An alarm had sounded a few minutes before. The result was a sudden abundance of Gators in his immediate vicinity. It was almost like wacka-a-mole. As fast as he could shoot a Gator… another Gator would appear.
He didn’t know how much of a charge he had left in his gun. It wasn’t designed like anything a human would build. It was big, by human standards, because Gator’s hands were big. Did that mean it carried a larger charge? He had already fired it a couple dozen times. There couldn’t be much left in the tank. He didn’t have a spare power pack and, to be honest, he would not have known how to replace it if he had.
Another group of Ashtoreth soldiers attempted to rush him. It was obvious at this point the word had gotten out that a human was in this section. The only good news was he was a much better shot, even with an unfamiliar weapon, than the Gators were. It seemed their training involved a lot of rushing in to overwhelm an opponent… rather than precision firefights. Had he been in a different environment their strategy might have worked... but because of the cramped conditions with all the bio-generators in the area, he was holding his own. At least until his weapon ran out of juice.
No sooner had the thought occurred to him then things began to go tits up. His weapon began to misfire. Every third or fourth attempt it would actually discharge. Of course this made his aim that much worse. The Gators got to within ten feet of him this time. One of the buggers actually managed to hit his arm with a glancing shot.
His left arm now felt like someone had used it to light a campfire. He could see where his uniform was sticking to the burnt flesh and every time he moved the fabric would pull against the wound. Surprisingly it did not slow him down that much. It was just one more pain among many. His weapon running low on energy was a real concern however.
He threw it at the last of his assailants and tried to take the Gator’s weapon. It discharged… killing the Gator that was holding it. JJ was just lifting the weapon free when a second Gator stepped in and hit him in the head with the butt of his rifle-like weapon.
JJ dropped to his knees stunned. The Gator barked something at him but his translator failed to catch it. He placed his hands behind his head. He was pretty sure this was it. He would finally make it to the canning factory on Marine City. Three additional Gators walked up to him and joined the one who had clopped him on the head. Their weapons pointed directly at his face.
He smiled. He tried to think of a good taunt to ensure one or more of them would fire their weapon. He thought perhaps he would engage them in a conversation that involved their parentage but then he remembered that he really knew nothing about how Gators were raised. He remembered hearing once that they came from eggs… perhaps he could impugn the nature of the egg they hatched from… except these Gators were almost assuredly replicants and didn’t hatch from eggs. Perhaps he could speculate as to the mating habits of their King… except again, anything he said, might actually be considered a compliment. It was sad, he thought, that to truly insult a person you really needed to know them first. The universe was not always fair.
He was still contemplating the best way to approach taunting his captors when something rather peculiar happened. The first of the four simply collapsed. As the other three watched the first Gator try to imitate a door mat, suddenly a second Gator collapsed. Frankly, JJ didn’t know what to make of it.
A third Gator suddenly went flying. It was as if someone had physically tossed the Ashtoreth across the room. Sergeant Hammond only knew of one group of people with stealth technology who were strong enough to do that. Somehow Admiral Cat Kimbridge and the Marines had found him.
He used the distraction of a flying Gator to turn and grab the weapon from the last Ashtoreth soldier. The Gator attempted to pull his weapon back. JJ quickly reversed his pull and turned it into a massive push that caused the butt of the rifle to crack against the skull of said Gator with the combined force of both Gator and man. The result was an unconscious Gator.
“Good to see you marine,” a familiar female voice said out of thin air.
***
Cat entered the computer center behind a technician. The technician thought he was entering the room alone. A quick glance about the room showed Cat they were indeed the only ones in it. The room was big for a computer facility. There were displays that ran the entire length of the largest wall as well as equipment racks and network cabling dominating two of the other walls. By human standards the computer array was massive… something on the order of what might have been seen in the mid twenty-first century on earth.
Cat knew the Ashtoreth had never adopted AI technology and so this was a conventional computer which meant it would be literal without any of the intuition that an AI brought to the table. This was good because she had a plan that would depend on that lack of insight.
Once the door swished shut behind them, Cat reached an invisible hand over to touch the back of the technician’s head. She sent an electrical pulse through her nanite infused fingers. The Ashtoreth never knew what hit him. He was unconscious in a fraction of a second. Cat secured him with graphite ties that she carried with her for just such a purpose.
Cat studied the control panel for a few minutes. She was thankful that her Heshe encounter unit was able to translate what she was seeing on the fly. Her eyes might see an Ashtoreth term on the screen but in her mind’s eye she saw the English equivalent. Eventually she found the library panel for stored Ashtoreth engrams. She scrolled through the list until she found the engram she was interested in. She copied the engram into a buffer.
As she had scanned through the list she saw one engram she had not expected to see. She immediately deleted it. She then took the buffered copy of her target engram and overwrote every copy of the various combat engrams with this one individual.
From this point forward the replicant farm would produce nothing but copies of Praefectus Niegar. Each one would believe they had the sole right to rule. Each one would attempt to take control. Each one would fragment the remaining soldiers. It would become an army of ‘ones’.
She was about to leave the room when an alarm started to sound. She quickly scanned the wall that had the multitude of displays. She found the one she was looking for. A status report for the entire complex. It seemed somebody else besides she and AG were throwing spanners in the works. Orders started scrolling by the screen. Several of these concerned her. She tried to override them but without the correct codes she was powerless to do so.
She opened her commlink to Marine City. “WhimPy, warn the marine contingent that they are arriving in a hot LZ. The bad guys know they are coming.”
“They are landing in ten minutes. I will advise them of the change in status,” the Heshe AI responded. “Is there anything else?”
Cat thought for a moment before answering. “Tell the Med Bay to get ready. I
suspect they will have some serious traffic coming through in the not too distant future. Cat Out.”
As she finished her conversation with WhimPy, another alert flashed up on the screen. Apparently an intruder had been located. She adjusted one of the internal cameras to focus on the area in question. A human was fighting off a large contingent of Ashtoreth soldiers. She didn’t need to zoom in to know that this was their lost sergeant. Cat checked his location and then headed out at a distance-eating trot.
***
AG signaled JJ to wait. Someone had really stirred up the local Gator population. An alarm had sounded and suddenly there were Gators everywhere! With his Stark suit he had no problem moving about, but the more limited camo that JJ was using was proving to be more problematic. Several times a Gator had come within a foot or two of stepping on the sergeant. If they had, the gig would have been up because JJ was effectively camouflaged only so long as he remained motionless.
When the way seem to be clear AG signaled the sergeant forward. JJ started to move. He was about half way to AG’s position when an Ashtoreth soldier came back the way he had come. Sergeant Hammond’s poncho was about two seconds behind in calculating the pattern it needed to display in order to hide its occupant. This meant JJ appeared as an amorphous blob moving across the floor. Gators are not particular in what they choose to fire on. One amorphous moving blob is as good as the next.
Fortunately the first shot went wide. JJ shot back. His shot accomplished two things. The first was to take down his attacker. The second was to put a four inch hold in his camo system that would no longer respond to its environment. As the poncho’s systems fried, the poncho shimmered silver and ceased to function. Rather than bad camouflage, he now had none.