by Morgan Cole
"You were right, Marty. We're ready to go. We'll do it tonight."
Marty just nodded, deep in the Interface, tweaking his designs.
"You going to be ready?" I asked after he didn't reply.
"What? Yeah, we'll be ready."
The sun had been below the horizon for hours and the non-stop party in the camps outside the base had calmed down. The True Believers waited to see if the aliens would visit that night, hoping that just this once their faith would be rewarded. We intended to do just that.
The Redemption was hovering, invisible, in the black sky over top of the base. The infiltration drones watched the patrols, who were all a bit on edge. It was no longer the relaxed, boring gig it had been. Marty sat in the pilot chair, with Regar and me in the other two. I was fully kitted up in my Assault Armor, and Regar was wearing his red armor, now completely repaired. He'd left the Tempest behind, but was wearing a stubby pistol. I had Excalibur but had left my other weapons behind. My fists and my wrecking bar were as close to non-lethal as I could get.
We had mounted the Control Blister on the belly of the Redemption, after giving it the same stealth coating the rest of the ship had. With Brick's complete control of the base's surveillance networks and my infiltration drones, we knew exactly where all the guns were.
"Disable their weapons, Brick," I ordered.
"Aye, aye, Captain," Brick replied. I sighed. Marty had been playing old pirate movies in preparation for our raid.
We couldn't see the swarm of microdrones, but we saw their effects. Soldiers cursed and slapped their hands through the air as they were engulfed in small clouds of flying insects. Unseen, the survivors landed and worked their way inside the slung rifles and holstered pistols.
Ten minutes passed before Brick spoke again. "Weapons disabled."
"Do your thing, Marty."
Despite the fact that I was sitting in a spaceship, we couldn't actually have flying saucers visit. We needed that to happen, but it just wasn't possible. The Redemption would never be mistaken for a flying saucer and we needed it to be completely unseen, anyway. Once again, Marty had found the answer for us, with Metra's help.
Most Union tech was about doing practical things. Killing Ferals. Making food and breathable air. That sort of thing. But sentients are much the same. Most of us need entertainment. The Union was no exception.
High in the air above the base, just past the fences, three invisible projectors hovered. They were fat and slow, so we'd had to roll them out of the hatch and let them make their way into position.
"Starting the show... now," Marty said, and with a flourish, pressed an invisible button on his Interface.
With a blur of motion, two lights streaked across the sky in formation. If you were looking closely enough, you could see they were saucers. The same two that had arrived late in our video. They streaked from the east to the west, from horizon to horizon, in the blink of an eye. The crowds quieted and then cheered as the light show began, every eye on the skies.
The saucers streaked back, stopping dead over the base, clearly in view of the camp. A titanic din rose from the True Believers. Cheers and screams of delight. Air horns and car horns. Fireworks popped and filled the air as all of the Believers’ dreams came true.
The soldiers in the base looked on in puzzlement and even a bit of fear. From their point of view, nothing was happening, and the Believers were going crazy for no reason. The projectors were set up to cover the camp and a bit past the fence, but no more. We couldn't have the soldiers looking in our direction, toward the saucers. They needed to be focused on the Believers and nothing else.
"Do your thing with the cameras, Brick. Take us down, Marty."
The third saucer arrived, streaking from high in the sky to stop dead between its two escorts. The massive banks of multicolored lights rotated slowly, pulsing to a hidden rhythm. Somehow, the noise from the True Believers got even louder. Groups of campers broke off and began sprinting toward the fence, or starting up their cars and driving. Patrols redeployed, moving toward the fence as their commander reacted to the situation. He didn't know what was happening, but he sure didn't like it.
The Redemption dropped straight down, and I knew Brick had spoofed all of the cameras looking in our direction. He completely owned their surveillance network, and now every camera only saw what we wanted them to see. In this case, it would see the empty desert instead of Regar and me. We leapt from the open hatch, landing in the soft sand covering the hangar door.
We still didn't know the proper way to get into this hangar, so we were going to do it the quick and dirty way.
"Regar, if you would?"
He nodded, and pulled a loop of cable from his belt. It was thick, black, and segmented, each segment more than two inches thick. He laid it down on the sand, forming a circle three feet wide. He stepped back quickly, and I did the same.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Breaching Ring V3, designed by Kiril
╠═╦╬╧╪
Making sure I was clear, he triggered the device.
There was a blinding flare of light as the entire ring got too bright to look at. Each segment of the ring became a miniature sun. The sand underneath turned liquid and burned off before it could be seen. The thick steel of the hangar door lasted no longer. With a clang the orphaned circle of steel fell free, opening a hole into darkness. The blinding light of the ring disappeared as it followed. The whole process took less than a second.
"Ferals, I told Kiril that was too much for this job," Regar said and jumped in after it. I followed.
Regar deactivated the ring before it could dig itself too deeply into the bedrock underneath the concrete. It had fallen and simply continued to burn through. We didn't know what was underneath us, so that was a good call.
We were standing on a long, shallow ramp underneath the overhead doors. Sand trickled in from the hole we had made, piling up on the scarred floor beneath the hole. Lights hung from the ceiling, leading down the ramp and into the hangar.
I ran down the ramp, looking around and trying to spot the controls that would open the massive doors above us. Theoretically, we may have been able to unload the hangar through the small hole we'd made, but that wasn't the plan. These doors needed to be open in order to empty out all the material quickly enough. Before base security personnel noticed that we were there, and that we were robbing them blind.
The hangar was pretty much as it looked on the video cameras. A large, high-ceilinged space filled with shelves. The overhead lights did a very poor job of illumination, and I had to assume that it was because people didn't come down here that often. If something was in here it was probably important once, but wasn't any longer.
Regar was right behind me and clanked down after me.
"Jake, go find the materials. I'll find the controls."
"All right, I'll call if I need you," I said.
I had a vague idea of where the materials were. They were in a corner. At least, that's what it looked like on the cameras. Despite Brick's total mastery of the base’s internal security system, not every camera was marked on a floor plan. For this area, we didn't even have a floor plan. That was why we had to come in through the hangar doors, rather than through the other access point we were all sure was here somewhere.
I ran toward the back of the hangar, scanning around me. Tall, dusty shelves full of wooden crates and blue plastic boxes made the hangar into a maze of corridors. I spotted simple steel doors with glowing red exit signs on the sides of the hangar as I ran toward the back. As we suspected, there were indeed other ways to get in here. We'd committed to our plan, however, and there was no going back.
"Jake, you'd better move. I'm hearing that reinforcements were dispatched from a nearby base to assist. A couple of Ospreys full of Marines that will be here in ten. Their guns will work," Marty said.
"Shit," I cursed.
The back-left corner of the hangar held our treasure. A massive pile of scrap metal and odd shapes. Mixed i
n were several blue plastic crates full of smaller pieces.
"I found the stuff. Checking it out now," I reported.
We had given some thought to how we were going to get our loot out of the hangar. It wasn't like we could just put it into our pockets, or carry it out piece by piece. We needed the doors open before we could do anything. But before we did anything, we needed to make sure that we weren’t just stealing a bunch of junk.
I activated my Engineering vision mode, and swept my eyes over the pile in front of me. Some of the pieces lit up, exposing Union components in amongst the scrap. A large number of them were empty. If they were Union material, they were unmodified.
I picked up the first piece of scrap on top, and looked it over. Using my salvage interface, I quickly encompassed the whole thing.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Salvage: Unknown materials
Cost: 177 Nanite Clusters
╠═╦╬╧╪
"Holy crap," I said. "The Interface is telling me it doesn't know what this material is."
"All of it is unknown?" Regar asked.
"No, not all of it," I replied. Abusing the salvage UI more, I scanned the pile. The Interface labeled quite a few pieces of Union material.
"If it's unknown, that means it's not Union material, but it's also not normal material. That's how the Interface labels Artifacts or advanced materials that aren't made with Union techniques," Regar said.
The blue plastic boxes full of tiny scrap pieces were a mix of Union metals, unknown material, and tier 2 and 3 exotics. Jackpot.
"Found a bunch of exotics here. Lots of unknowns too." I asked.
"Better take it all," Regar said.
"Fine by me," I replied.
"Found the controls. Hangar doors are opening now," Regar said.
That was followed by a flurry of more gunshots, fully automatic rifle fire echoing through the vast space.
"Stars, that's loud. Jake, there is a security force here. They came through one of the side doors. They're shooting at me. It's irritating."
I knew that Regar's armor was completely impervious to the 5.56mm rounds that the security forces had, but we couldn't just ignore them while we robbed them. Our lack of non-lethal weapons came back to bite us once again.
"I'm on my way. Disable them, but try not to kill them," I replied.
I turned and ran toward Regar and the ongoing sound of gunfire. They were really hosing him down—the fully automatic rifle fire had to be deafening in this enclosed space for those without ear protection. I almost pitied the guards.
The first squad of four I found crouched behind a row of large crates. They were unloading on Regar, who I couldn't see. Brass cascaded down around them as they fired. I was annoyed that our weapon disabling bugs hadn't gotten to everyone.
What I had to do was dangerous. I could kill these men without even meaning to. That was one of the big problems of being a superhero, or at least someone with superhero-level strength. What did you do when you had to fight normal humans? Even being gentle, I might accidentally kill one.
I reached out a massive gauntleted hand, pulling the far-left soldier back from the crate he had been leaning on. He squealed in surprise, attempting to bring his rifle around. I plucked it from his grasp, tossing it behind me. He tried to squirm free and I slapped him as gently as I could with my left hand. He lost consciousness and went limp in my grasp. I dropped him, just in time to prevent his three buddies filling him full of bullets. They saw me and panicked, turning their fire on me. The muzzle flashes would have been blinding, but the display inside my helmet dimmed them, making them just more information. The un-silenced report of the rifles would've been painful, but that was filtered as well. Simply more information.
I stepped forward, moving faster than a human should be able to. Each of my hands grabbed a rifle and jerked it free. I heard crunching as trigger fingers broke, but the rifles were mine. I flung them over my shoulders and stepped forward. The soldiers recoiled but weren't fast enough. Like clinking two beer glasses together, I gently slammed the soldier's heads together. Again, I could only hope that I hadn't been too rough. Their eyes rolled back and they slumped to the ground. I stepped over them toward the fourth member of the squad.
Terror filled his eyes. With a strangled cry he flung away his useless rifle and turned to run. I caught him in a few long steps and plucked him off his feet with one hand. His uniform tore and he fell to the ground, hard. The breath rushed out of the young soldier. He wheezed, looking up at me with wide eyes.
"Soldier, stay down. If you get back up, I might have to hurt you, and I don't want to do that."
He nodded, not speaking. His helmet had fallen off, and he really was young. Eighteen or nineteen at the most. His name tag and rank insignia said he was Private Ramirez. He had dark brown eyes, and near-nonexistent brown hair. His olive skin was looking a little sallow, and I hoped he wasn't hurt too badly. I had no way of knowing, unfortunately. We'd simply have to get our loot and get out of here so that he could call in the medics for his friends and himself.
With that thought in mind, I reached down and took the radio from his belt and crushed it in my armored fingers.
"Don't try to call for help, either. We're going to take what we need and get out of here. No need for any of you guys to get hurt. Okay, Private?"
He nodded again, watching the pieces of his radio sprinkle to the ground.
"Are you one of the aliens?" he asked.
I laughed. "No, but my buddy is. Stay down; we've got work to do."
Regar had taken care of his half of the security response team. It had been another four guys coming from the opposite direction. They had somehow missed me on the cameras, or had just thought to take out the most obvious target—the massive warrior in bright red armor. Their attack had been pretty good, except for the fact that they couldn't hurt him at all. They were laid out around him, and he looked up as I approached. Nearby, the ramp sloped up showing me the open sky of the desert. I couldn't see Redemption, but that wasn't surprising. Marty would be hovering right overhead, stealth engaged.
"Let's get this stuff and get out of here, Jake."
I could only agree. The Redemption wasn't large, but we were pretty sure that we could take everything in that pile, if only just barely. There was a small cargo hold, and more room in the cockpit itself. The problem, of course, was getting there. For this, we had made a new toy.
I ran up the ramp, looking around. The area was still clear, the ruckus at the fence occupying most of the base's soldiers. Marty opened the hatch on the bottom of Redemption and disrupted the chameleon effect, making its dark silhouette visible. I saw him inside the ship, holding up a metal box the size of a laser printer. Underhanded, he tossed it to me. It clunked into my arms, lighter than it looked.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Floating Cargo Sled, designed by Jake Monde
When you've got to steal a bunch of really heavy stuff, you might use this sled.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Making sure it had enough room, I stepped back and triggered the deploy command. Rods telescoped out on all four corners of the box, extending a few feet in each direction. They then curved up smoothly to make a lip. Between each of the rods was closely spaced wire netting, thin and grey. I had hoped for some kind of force field way to do this, but couldn't find anything in the Union Common Knowledge Set, or in the components list, that would let me do it. I was almost certain that I could, but was unable to find what I needed before time ran out. In any case, low-tech was fine. The box had a small power source, and a grav plate. It would automatically neutralize the weight of anything we loaded into it, up to a point. We could load up the big rectangular net with everything we could find, and then push it along up the ramp and into the Redemption.
"Those Ospreys are still coming, Jake. Brick's doing his best to keep you guys invisible, but if some of those soldiers look over here, they'll see us. Or at least see that the doors are open,"
Marty said.
"Yeah, working as fast as I can. Let's go, Regar."
The two of us ran back down the ramp, me in front and him behind. Our sled wasn't motorized, it was literally just a floating cart. We had to maneuver it, and luckily we had made it not too big. It fit down the aisles, if only just barely. We rushed to the back of the warehouse, stopping in front of the pile.
"That's Artifact material alright. Once we get it back to the outpost I might be able to determine what civilization it came from, if a Seeker has ever seen it before. Advanced material like that has a fairly identifiable signature. Anyway, let's load it up," Regar said.
The crates went on first, and then we spent a few minutes grabbing larger pieces of metal and two odd shapes from the pile. One was a featureless cylinder, more like a capsule with one end rounded. The other was a thick rod with three spherical bulges, one on each end and one in the center.
"These might be something good. They don't look like any weapons I've ever seen, but you never know," Regar said.
Then the sled was loaded. It was fuller than I had thought it was going to be—stacks of metal precariously balanced.
"Marty, we're coming back. How's the distraction going?"
"The guards have arrested most of them. Even without guns, they're still soldiers. My peeps are no match for these guys."
That meant that our distraction didn't have much longer to go. I wanted to get this stuff in the Redemption and get out of there before they noticed us. Sure, they'd hardly be likely to miss the unconscious soldiers, the stolen materials, and the giant hole in their hanger doors, but I didn't want them to notice it while we were actually there.
Regar and I raced down the aisles, pushing the heavily laden cart as fast as we could. We had to stop once when one of our unstable piles collapsed and several pieces fell off onto the concrete floor with a series of loud bangs and clangs. We jammed the metal bits back in, and continued. Even with the cart essentially hovering, we still had to move the mass of the materials. If it weren't for the fact that we were both extremely strong, I don't think that we could have done it. Normal humans couldn't have. We would've needed a truck to pull that thing.