“And when you're gone?”
“Not yet, lioness. Not until the cub set to replace me is ready.”
“All right kid, time to put your big girl pants on.” Sergeant Corvin said to his cousin.
“Don't rush me, Rob. This isn't exactly standard army kit. Give a girl a minute to get cozy.” Latisha spat back.
Marco came back up the ramp, nodding to the newly shuffled command staff for the Devil Hunters. “Sorry, lioness. No time for cozy. We're struts up as soon as Captain Morreau drops some supplies for us on the back of that ramp. Put your shoulders against the frame and step back. Lock it up, lancer.”
“Do I need to take off my armor first?” Latisha asked.
“Negative. It's designed to work with your armor.”
She did as she was told, holding her arms out to the side for balance. Her heel clicked against the ridge at the bottom of the locker. “Nothing's happening.”
Marco took her helmet from her head. “You won't need this.”
He pushed on her chest, tripping her into the locker against the frame. The Hoplite helmet slammed onto her head, eliciting muffled cursing underneath. A series of snapping sounds heralded the frame locking into place. She stepped from its crypt like some undead thing from the vids, crawling from a grave. The helmet's visor came to life, displaying a set of golden eyes beyond the darkened lens. The struts slapped into her trooper armor, securing into the hard plates. The ends of the arm rods extended a web of gears and slats that covered her hands.
A dread call from those same creepy vids pushed their way through the helmet's external speakers. “Designation, lancer. Corvin, Latisha A. Sergeant, fourth squad, Strategic Action Platoon, call sign, Devil Hunters. Launching Battle-Net.”
Latisha swerved left and right, suddenly awash in a sea of information flooding her HUD. IFF markers swam in a sea of blue dots dancing around her vision. Retinal tracking software, designed to work hands free, ticked off several routines in the helmet, activating various defensive postures in the suit. Latisha was forced to dance into several combat stances while the platoon had a laugh at her expense.
“Cybernetic interface detected. Upgrade required,” the interface called out.
Marco rushed in front of her. “Do you have any cyberware?”
“I do. I was born deaf. The implants allowed me to hear until I was old enough to get corrective surgery.”
“Whatever you do, do not approve the upgrade,” Marco warned.
“Marco!” Ares shouted.
“I know. I need you to shut down that routine!” Marco raced to get her helmet off. “That's for people who already have cyber-locks for Ultra-Frames. It allows them to use the higher level features of the armor. I need you to track your eyes over to the decline button hovering in your HUD.”
Latisha turned her head to give Marco access to the latches behind her helmet. “What happens if I accept.”
“The frame will pull you back into the docking pod and attempt to perform a firmware upgrade. Since you don't actually have a cyber-lock, it'll install one straight into your neck! We have everything loaded except the sedatives. You'd be going into the pod conscious and feel everything.”
Ares reappeared behind him. “Marco! She's hovering her eye over that routine.”
“I know! Latisha, don't do it! Listen, you have the armor locked. I can't pull the helmet unless you remove the combat locks.”
Her cousin slapped on her back plate. “Hey! This isn't like back home when you had to beat me on the ball court because we said a girl couldn't do it. Unlock the armor!”
Marco looked to Brand. “Get ready to hold her on this side of the locker, just in case.”
“Got it.”
Lieutenant Marlan joined the group, “Sergeant Corvin, I am ordering you to disengage the combat locks! Do it now!”
There was a whoosh of air being vented from the helmet as the latches came free. Marco pulled it from her head, breathing a sigh of relief as he watched the golden eyes fade into the black screen of the visor.
“Teesh! What were you thinking?” Rob asked.
“Everyone was yelling at me like when we were kids. 'Never gonna happen, skirt!' 'Ain't no girl gonna ever rifle up.' You ever see what a person in an ultra-frame can do? Makes those suits you're wearing seem like sitting at the kids table. Sure, I thought about it, but I wasn't going to do it. Still, all of you yelling at me made it hard to track my eyes to the right place. We don't have stuff like this in the regular army.”
“Sorry, Teesh. Just glad you don't have a giant hole in your neck.” Rob said.
Latisha reached for the helmet from Marco. “At least then it'd match the one in your head.”
The tension in the bay gave way to laughter. Marco handed her the helmet, slapping it in the center of her chest plate. “Ares took the crazier systems off line so you and the squad could get used to the Battle-Net. No one here is going to challenge you because you're a woman. You don't have to prove you belong here. Don't do something so crazy again.”
Latisha put her lid back on, staring around the bay as the lancers watched her. “I can't promise anything, sir. As the squad leader, does that mean I have command authority over the squad's armor?”
“It does. Why?”
“Because I need to be mobile. Disengage safety and training protocols, spin armor to combat configuration.”
“What are you doing?” Marco roared.
“My job!”
She crouched slightly, giving the impression of a runner on a set of starting blocks. In the depths of the armor, something resembling the noise of a turbine spinning to max RPMs sounded throughout the bay.
“Initiating combat configuration, activating magnetic control measures,” the armor's system called out over external speakers.
Her rifle jumped from its place against a cargo box, locking onto the back plate of the frame. The lance and shield held in the locker tumbled through the air straight for her. She spun to catch both, dropping back into her runner’s stance to resemble the way Marco had covered behind his shield with the lance leading the way. The weapon extended, protruding far past the shield like a declaration of war.
“Latisha!” Rob yelled, gesturing for the lancers to back away.
“Target identified. You are cleared for combat operations. Strike forward, Lancer.”
Pushing against her runner's stance, she catapulted from the bay. At the bottom of the ramp, she vaulted into the air, elongating her body to sail over the incoming work detail from Echo Company. Flying past them at a speed many of them couldn't even track, she tucked her body, rolling back into her shield-forward stance at the end of the move. While the computer assisted combat controllers in her suit made the jump look effortless, it failed to calculate the stability of the loose dirt and stone outside the craft. She careened into a stack of boxes amid the stunned expressions of workers on the landing pad.
“Twin hells!” Latisha cursed. Looping her display into the Battle-Net, she pushed her feed to the lancers.
“Whoah!” Beth called out in astonishment.
A hologram flashed into the cargo bay from the projection port on Lance Sergeant D'Marco's helmet, displaying the Promise of Dawn, with the lancers inside showing as green dots and the work detail, blue. Just outside, near one of the landing struts, was a red dot. None of the veteran lancers needed instruction for what needed to happen next. Slamming their lids back in place, the platoon poured out from the ship.
Latisha was a hair faster, sprinting to the front of the vehicle. She slid sideways to a halt, keeping the same combat posture she'd seen Marco use. Her weapon flared to life, a corona of brilliant golden fire wrapped in arcs of electricity. “Elysian Lancers! Raise your hands above your head and turn around slowly!”
It was a kid. She was no more than fifteen years old, wrapped in the heavy robes worn by the locals to protect themselves from the sun. She raised her arms, showing a detonator in one of her hands. Her eyes radiated anger toward the fore
ign soldier under a tinge of fear trapped in her brow. “You think this is over? You didn't win! Sorkabi will come to retake the city!”
Marco moved to lock shields with Latisha, his spear coming to life beside hers. Ares followed. Re-skinned into his combat form, he locked shields with his brother, his own spear adding to the forest of points aiming at the teenage saboteur. A rumbling thud shook the ground as Ajax landed beside them from the top of the ship. His shield locked to Latisha's, giving him room to use the destructive Pulse Hammer. A power-field flashed into being around the weapon, making it appear surrounded by a shimmering rain storm frozen in mid-fall. The lancers formed behind the wall of shields, assembling into asymmetrical formations to make the best use of the space.
“Lancers!” Marco called out.
As one, part of the platoon fell to a kneeling unsupported shooting posture, slamming their leg armor into the ground, their rifles rising into the pit of their shoulder plates. The ones behind, stepped back, doing the same. Their coordinated movement had the effect of a drum line ending in a combined shout.
“Rah!”
Marco raised his visor so she could see his eye. “Sorkabi is dead. Don't throw your life away for a man who, in reality, saw you as just another bullet to shoot at the galaxy.”
“Liar!”
The girl tossed the detonator toward the firing line, running at them in a final act of defiance against the foreign invaders. Several lancers put stun bolts into her, knocking her to the ground without injury. The detonator hung in the air, suspended, slowly tumbling like a puppet on a remaining string after the rest had been cut.
“Marco, do you have it?” Brand yelled from his place in the platoon.
“Not me.”
The marshal nudged his apprentice, “Is that you?”
“Not me, either.” Beth said, shrugging her shoulders. “That's a dead man's switch. Release the trigger and the vest blows. She probably figured we'd think that hers was the only bomb and not check the landing gear.”
Ares broke formation, taking hold of the device. He sifted through the girl's robes, making several snapping gestures under the thick cloth. Yanking an explosive-laden suicide vest free, he tossed it to the ground. Moving into the landing gear well, he then went to work on the much larger device she'd placed under the ship.
Marco leaned into Latisha, placing his hand on her shoulder. The newly minted lancer stared toward Ares, waves of force radiating from her. “It's safe. You can let go now.”
Her weapon extinguished, both shield and lance clattering to the ground before Latisha Corvin's world faded to black.
Seventeen
HALIKOS MOON – PLANET CAMULON – CORE WORLDS ALLIANCE
“I know I said I was in for twenty, but that was before they went into overtime,” said the burly trooper enclosed in environmental armor. He checked that the hatches in the hall were secured, gradually making his way toward the end. In front of the wide double blast doors was a puddle with water droplets scattered around it.
“Hey, Nokka. I have to call you back. Got something I have to call into Control.” He knelt down, using his rifle as a crutch to get him closer to the floor. It was definitely water. His helmet sensors told him so. That was one of the perks of working for Koda Corporation, access to some of the best gear around. Thermal vision had nothing, and the moisture on the floor was at room temperature. Since the water outside was cold in the extreme, this had been here for a while. “Control this is Lawson.”
“Lawson-771, go for Control.”
“You have anything on sensors or cams for sub-dock two?” Lawson stood, backing up from the blast doors to one of the secured hatches he'd checked earlier. They were all recessed in the wall which could provide cover should he take fire from down the hall. It was probably wildlife. That had happened on occasion, but he'd never seen something get through the blast doors. “Kinda reminds me of that squid looking thing that crawled onto the dock and wouldn't leave. What are those called, again?”
“Nothing on sensors, Lawson. As for what they're called, your guess is as good as mine.”
A shiver traced its way up Lawson's spine. He'd served for years with Talia, AKA Control, in a mercenary unit called the Tears of Yggdrasil. If there was anyone on this wet rock that knew what they called it, she would. “Hey Control, Nokka said I still owe him twenty on that murderball match we went in on, even though it went into overtime. What's your opinion?”
The radio clicked, fielding a lot of background noise, as though people in the control center were all trying to get a word in. “Sorry Jim, I'm super distracted. We just had some sort of feedback hit the center. Systems are going haywire and when they came up, it said we had a meteor shower that none of the satellites had seen come in. Oh, and tell Nokka that in murderball, overtime doesn't pay.”
Now that was the Talia he knew, and not some pro slicer who'd hacked her voice. He'd been paranoid ever since leaving the Tears. The last mission they ran together had been a wood chipper, shredding an entire company in under a week. They were lucky to get out alive. Better to be ready when you see a shadow versus unprepared when the monster casting them comes calling.
“Roger that, Control. Hey can you pop the seal on sub-dock-two? I got a strange puddle here in the hall outside the doors and I want to make sure nothing got in.”
“How would it have gotten by the doors?” Talia asked.
Lawson shrugged despite having no one there to appreciate the motion. “Dunno, maybe something got into one of the cooling flows?”
“Don't take any chances, kid. Remember that run on Onin?”
“Trying to forget it.”
“All right, Lawson, doors on sub-dock two are open,” Talia said.
The two, thirty centimeter thick doors slid open with a hiss, the arctic chill from the water turning to steam as the two atmospheres met. The sub-dock was just wide enough for one of the miniature submersibles that Koda used for travel between their underwater facilities on the moon. He saw nothing moving on the well-lit platform, which was empty of any vehicles.
“You got me on camera?” Lawson asked. “I'm moving forward to check the flow ports.”
Talia sounded worried. “Hey bud, maybe you should hold back until I can send a backup team there, just in case.”
“Don't worry about it. Probably nothing. Besides, if you roll Nokka out of his fuzzy slippers to come help me and it turns out to be nothing, I'll never hear the end of it.”Lawson moved to the end of the dock, careful not to lean over the edges just in case one of the larger animals had been checking for a meal. Halikos was a frigid moon with small land masses covered in ice. The atmosphere was inhospitable to humans and most sentients in the CORAL, making it the perfect research facility for Koda. They could keep all their secrets away from prying eyes in the frozen oceans beneath layers of ice. The moon was not without its own life. Volcanic activity across the oceanic floor kept the depths warm, spawning all sorts of creatures accustomed to a life submerged. The company had even done research on a native amphibious whale to test it for signs of intelligence after an encounter with one of the research centers.
Looking at the flow ports that used sea water to cool the facility's processes, everything looked in order. He activated his wrist mounted cell-com, ensuring the pipes were working normally with no loss of pressure. If a sea creature had gotten in and chewed its way from the pipes to the floor, the readings wouldn't be this stable. “Strange. I can't see anything that would cause that puddle. Hey Control, anyone on shift before me on the cameras dumping a water bottle or something?”
“No one, but that bit about overtime on the murderball match is gold. Things would've gone bad if I had to pull that one out of my very over-clocked cortex.”
Lawson spun, looking into an exact copy of himself. Training gave way to action, raising his rifle toward his doppelganger. Lawson-2 caught the barrel on the rise, yanking it from the original's grip in a tight arc, dropping his gait into a leg sweep. The sentry struck
the deck plate hard, bouncing enough that his feet slapped against the water.
“You know, you really should have waited for backup,” Lawson-2 said, pointing the rifle at the other man's visor.
“They'll know it's not me!”
“I doubt they care.”
Lawson-2 circled his hand in the air, a common signal for, “let's get moving.” Two tentacles slipped from the water to latch onto the doomed guard's ankles. He flipped over onto his belly, slapping his hands across the grated deck. His legs were fully submerged when his progress off the dock halted. A tendril shot from beneath the structure, slapping across the man's fingers. With a yelp, his hands came free, releasing him to plummet out of sight with barely a splash.
A pair mechanical sets of hands gripped the dock, hauling the massive infantry bots they belonged to onto the surface. One of the two leveled a hand-held Vortex rotary cannon toward the hallway. “Passage secure. Morpheus, where do we stand on security?”
“I could've told you the passage was secure. I secured it. Why did we need you to come up here for that?” Lawson-2 asked, sounding hurt that no one acknowledged his contribution.
Smaller robotic forms pressed their way out of the water, the Vortex gunner moving forward to give the new bots the room they needed to move past. Internal communications flared to life, playing across each member of the team.
“I am in the network,” said the cultured, digital voice. “We have floor plans, in addition to access for all hatches level two and below. Level three and four security tiers are by special access only. We will have to procure someone with that access to proceed.”
“Romeo, help me up.” Madame Tarot said, reaching up for Lawson-2 to pull her heavily armored form out of the water. The Dreadmarr warrior stepped onto the dock, switching to another part of her communications array. “Morpheus, excellent work. Is your position secure?”
“It is, Madame. I am on the outside of the central pylon, patched into a com tower.”
The Sentinel: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Hunter's Moon Book 3) Page 21