Destiny Rising - A Hard Military Space Opera Epic: The Intrepid Saga - Books 1 & 2
Page 34
“Aye, Staff Sergeant.”
“I’ve reported this to the station and local Terran Space Force. A unit is on the way to clean this mess up. As much as I hate to split up, we can’t leave all this hardware laying around. One/two, you stay here until the TSF arrives. Don’t let any station security in until our people have the scene. Provide your recordings of the event and take up your positions for return route beta; we won’t be coming back this way.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” came the course of responses.
“One/one, let’s move out.”
Their route moved into more populated and public areas, an unfortunate necessity. Tanis could see station security forces shadowing them here and there. She was also paying half attention to the web of reports, accusations, and threats that were flooding the nets. The MSF was claiming ignorance of Folsom’s actions and simultaneously accusing the TSF of assaulting its personnel. The TSF for its part was opening inquiries and launching inquests into the MSF faster than even an AI could read the orders. Someone’s head was going to roll for this and Tanis just hoped hers would still be attached by the end of the day. Sanderson was most likely going to want to take it off himself.
The public had gotten wind of what happened, and leaked security vids were already circulating the nets. It didn’t take long for people to figure out where Tanis and her entourage were going. From there speculators posted probable routes, one of them being the actual route Tanis was using. The upside was that those areas started to clear out. Some oblivious folks still wandered past, but for the most part Tanis’s group had a very clear path to the federated buildings.
“Coming up on the second projected ambush point,” Williams observed.
“What do we expect here?” Joe asked.
“Previous set were Trent’s boys. I expect we’ll get more of them, or perhaps some other STR special ops unit of some sort. Two/one and two/two are in position in the buildings I’ve lit up on your HUDs. We have a safe room in that building across the concourse there and there is a weapons dump hidden in that trash disposal across the street.”
“Not expecting much here, I see.” Cassar chuckled. Tanis wondered about him. He hardly spoke, except when he was expecting to kill someone.
The space was an open square. It was the intersection of two broad thoroughfares—a long stretch with nothing but three small vertical conduits for cover. An ambush here would be hairy. Tanis gave the signal and Jansen and Lang moved over to the left side of the corridor, while Cassar and Williams moved ahead. Murphy stayed back with Trist, Joe, and Tanis.
“You guys take me to all of the best places,” Trist said. “Why don’t we just take a car?”
“Too risky down here,” Tanis replied. “Too many things we can’t see when we’re moving that fast; that and we’re bunched up, we get attacked and we’re sitting ducks. This way we can approach each danger zone carefully and with the appropriate cover.”
“Somehow I really don’t feel covered,” Trist muttered.
Joe smiled. “But just think, you’ll have the most interesting stories to tell your children.”
“I don’t plan on children.”
“Well…then you can tell them to your cats.”
They moved slowly and carefully through the square. A few civilians had been approaching from their left, but upon seeing the Marines slowly creeping along the passage, they found another route. The hum of the station seemed to fade until all they heard was slow breathing and the sound of boots rolling across the deck.
Tanis cocked her head as they reached the middle of the area with no cover.
“Something…” She didn’t get to the next word before an invisible blade whistled toward her; only her augmented sense of smell notified her of the shifting air currents and gave her the split second she needed to take the blow on her shoulder plate and not in her neck creases.
“Stealthed attackers!” she cried out as her vision was overlaid with the ghost of the person who had nearly killed her. Other figures danced in and out of her olfactory range, like shadows slipping in and out of visibility.
“Fall back to a wall,” Williams yelled, and the Marines complied quickly, not firing, but fingers on their triggers. Tanis pushed Trist back behind her as she ducked a blow and fired a shot with her pistol, catching her attacker in the chest. There was a grunt and he hit the ground, his suit failing in that spot as blood spurted out.
“How many?” Joe asked.
“I can’t tell.” Tanis’s head swept side to side. “I think there are at least a dozen of them.”
“Fuck!” Murphy spat. “Nothing in my suit is picking them up. I can’t see a goddamn one of them! How do we take them out?”
Williams grunted as something struck him and blood sprayed out of his left wrist. He didn’t say a word, but his right arm whipped out, swinging the butt of his rifle into something that made a sickening crunch, that sound followed by a pained grunt. A second blow was followed by the sound of a body hitting the deck.
“A flesh wound,” Williams said regarding his own injury, and proceeded to randomly send out pulse blasts, hoping to catch the enemy or at least keep them pinned down.
Trist knelt down and felt for the body that Williams had dropped. She located it and extruded a probe from her left index finger. It disappeared into the cloaked form and her brow furrowed.
“Their suits are like yours.” She glanced up at Tanis, who was doing her best to put holes in the shapes she could see flitting in and out of her vision. “They’re one of the latest revisions, but it looks like we’re in luck, they’re based off the fashion silsuits that are all the rage back in Callisto. That’s a poor choice in base technology.” She grinned and extruded another probe, this one into another location on the fallen form.
“One of the neat features of the latest silsuits is that they can download new designs and when they’re in demo mode can even have the designs loaded without user interaction.”
“I think I know where you’re going with this.” Joe grunted as his armor absorbed a blow from an invisible blade. “What’s the ETA?”
“Minute or two.”
Tanis put a slug in the attacker that had hit Joe. “Go faster. Jansen and Lang are taking a beating over there.”
“Working on it.” Trist’s brow furrowed.
Across the square, Lang went down and Jansen let out a primal scream, rapidly sending pulses out where she hoped there was someone to hit. At that same moment two/one and two/two showed up and took in what looked like a scene of absolute madness. Marines were firing at nothing and yet seemed to be taking casualties.
“Got it!” Trist cried out. She removed her probes from the dead body on the deck and grinned triumphantly. “Wait for it…”
And then it happened. Several human outlines flickered in and out of visibility across the square before the suits reset and every attacker became fully visible. Trist had chosen a bright red covered in bulls eyes for the attacker’s new look.
“See them OK?” she asked.
“Plenty OK.” Tanis grinned and in less time than it took to say the words, every attacker was down.
Joe looked at Tanis and coughed back a laugh.
“Uh, Trist? Major Tanis is looking a little red around the collar.”
Trist looked up at Tanis to see red showing at the edges of her armor where the stealth suit showed.
“Oops, passing Angela the info to fix it.”
Tanis had an unreadable look on her face for a moment and then smiled at Trist. “Good work, that could have been messy.”
/> Williams was already halfway across the square to check on Lang. Tanis raced after as the two new fireteams secured the area and the attackers.
She arrived as the sergeant knelt beside the fallen Marine; Jansen looked on, her eyes misting.
“Cut halfway through his neck…armor went into stasis, but I don’t know…he lost a lot of blood, it may have been too late.”
“He’ll make it,” Williams grunted. “But he’ll get a nice bit of R&R time while they put all his tendons and arteries back in place.”
He rose, calling for the leader of two/one. “Corporal Salas! Lang is your number one priority. Two/two can stay here; you take Lang to TSF med facility AR13, it’s only a thousand miles from here. Get him there safe.”
“Aye, Staff Sergeant.” Salas nodded and gestured for two of his Marines to unfold a field stretcher for Lang. Within moments they were trotting down the cross corridor to the nearest maglev.
Tanis looked at Jansen. “You good, Marine?”
The corporal’s eyes had cleared up, a steely determination having set in. “Sir, yes, sir.”
“Glad to hear it.” Tanis smiled. “OK team, we need to recharge, reammo, and head out. Cassar, breach that ammo dump and pass out power packs and slugs.”
“Aye, sir.” Cassar nodded and went to work. Two minutes later they had left the plaza, Lance Corporal Olsen having been left to fend off the MSF unit that had arrived and was trying to take control of the situation. Having heard what happened at the last run-in between the two forces, the MSF weren’t eager to get in a fight with the Marines. Two/three was on its way to back them up before everyone dispersed to cover the beta return route.
The escort only had a quarter mile more of corridor to pass through and then they took a tubelift up to the highest level of the ring. Like many of the planetary rings, the upper level on Mars 1 was effectively an open eco-space. The landscape was filled with rivers and lakes and grass and trees. Hovering above them, almost as though it was suspended between the arching arms of the ring, was the planet of Mars.
Spread out across the terrain were various buildings, mostly museums and cultural centers. While the crush of humanity was mostly in the lower levels, this upper area was designed with aesthetics as the primary consideration. No other artificial habitat in the Sol system had even half as much parkland as Mars 1. Off in the distance was the low hill that housed most of the higher SolGov courts on Mars. It was a towering edifice of white marble that gleamed brilliantly in the reflected sunlight.
“That just looks effing cool,” Perez said. “Gotta record this on full sensory.”
“Stay frosty, people,” Williams said. “You can gawk on your own time.”
“Besides, even you can’t jerk off to a sens recording of a planet.” Cassar grinned at Perez.
“Like the Staff Sergeant said. We don’t have any more marked positions that we’re expecting to be ambushed at. But that doesn’t mean we’re in the clear.” Tanis gestured for Jansen to take the lead.
They trotted along in silence, the way before them virtually clear of locals for a time, but as they neared the federal buildings they moved into more populated areas until they were just a small island in a sea of foot traffic. The judiciary loomed ahead of them and minutes later they were moving up the steps toward the main lobby.
They passed through security and the guards didn’t look too happy to be allowing armed Marines into the courthouse. At the entrance to the courtroom, Tanis signaled the Marines to wait outside and handed Williams her pulse rifle.
Tanis checked the time and smiled. “We’re actually going to be right on time.”
“Well, we did plan for some interruptions,” Joe said. “You pretty much nailed how long they’d be.”
“To be honest, I expected them to be longer,” Tanis replied. “That was really too easy. I can’t believe Trent didn’t put in an appearance. I don’t think he’ll attack after the testimonies have been entered; what would be the point in that?”
She nodded to Trist and they turned and entered the court.
“What would be the point indeed,” said a voice from the judge’s seat, which was facing away from them. Tanis and Trist approached as the chair turned. Sitting in it was Trent, a rather unflattering smile on his face.
“It’s good to see you again Tanis, Trist. I really am sorry that it will be the last time.”
With those words, the doors slammed shut behind them and heavily armored troops spilled out of the judge’s antechamber while more lined the balconies above them.
“It would seem that I finally have you where I want you, you meddling bitch,” Trent spat, “now pass over your sidearm and we’ll get started.”
FINAL STAND
STELLAR DATE: 3227284 / 11.27.4123 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Mars 1 Ring (MIR)
REGION: Mars Protectorate, Sol Space Federation
Tanis took a long moment to consider the odds. At least twenty-five men surrounded her and Trist—ten on the balconies and fifteen down on the floor below. Angela and Sue were desperately trying to get control of the door’s mechanism and release it, but it seemed to be in some sort of lockdown. Small sparks in the air hinted at a full battle of nanoprobes occurring all around them.
Tanis grunted and tossed her weapon onto the ground a few paces away. Trent signaled one of his men to pick it up, removing any chance of a dash and grab.
“I have to admit,”—Trent clasped his hands with what appeared to be genuine glee—“I really didn’t expect you to be quite this easy to catch.”
“Not sure how seventh time’s the charm is easy,” Tanis replied. “From where I stand you have a pretty poor batting average.”
“Yet in the end, I still win.” Trent’s voice turned dark and menacing. “You have no idea what it has cost me, personally and professionally, to bring you to heel. With you out of the way we’ll finally be able to stop the Intrepid.”
“Why?” Trist asked. “Is she the only decent Micky in the TSF? No one else can tell guards to guard and politicians to fuck off? I thought skill like that was something the military had in spades.”
“They may.” Trent’s smile looked sour. “But they don’t seem to be assigning them to take care of the Intrepid. It really will be nice to be done with this job; it’s taken years off my life.”
“I have to ask,” Tanis said. “You’re pretty implicated here. What’s your endgame?”
“We’ve got an exit plan. We may not all make it, but the pay is high enough to make up for the risk.”
Several of the armed and armored figures chuckled. “Way more than enough,” one said.
Sue replied after a moment’s pause.
The exchange only took seconds, but it gave Tanis an idea which made a hope of this not being her last day begin to glimmer.
“Nothing to say, Major Richards?” Trent asked. “No recital of how I’ll never get away, how I should surrender?”
“Well of course you’re not going to get away,” Tanis replied. “I’ve never failed to take down a target yet. Don’t see why I should start with you.” She nonchalantly took her gloves off as she spoke, hoping that the casual behavior would be ignored.
“Don’t you think that’s a bit optimistic?” Trent asked. “Even if we don’t get out of here, you’re going to die. That’s a given.”
Tanis looked around her at the armored soldiers. Laying eyes on each one so that the beam would be calibrated, while half-focused on the countdown Angela placed on her HUD.
“You gonna have your goons do it or are you going to do it yourself?”
Trent stood and walked around the bench, facing Tanis and Trist directly. “Don’t worry, I’m not afraid to kill you myself.” He pulled a pistol from his belt and aimed it at Tanis.
“Well that’s good,” she said with a grin, “because you’re going to have to.”
She timed her statement with the proton beams and smiled as each mercenary seemed to jerk slightly and freeze. Muffled grunts and curses could be heard as they tried to move their powered armor, but each limb was locked solid.
“Glad that actually worked,” Trist said.
“Me too, would have taken a lot more than silbio to glue us back together if it hadn’t.”
“What the…what did you do?” Trent asked, gesturing with his weapon.
“I fried the neural net their armor uses.”
“How is that possible? The RVI is supposed to be unhackable!”
“Advice to live by.” Trist glanced at Tanis. “Maybe he’s been having so much trouble taking you out because he can’t deal with reality that well.” She looked back at Trent. “Not only is it possible, it just happened.”