by Morgan Cole
I waved and then with a thought arced into the air. I dropped down below the level of the roofs and pushed the propulsion units in my feet and palms hard as I streaked toward the blue navigation point that Brick had laid down.
"Fly as low as possible, Jake. The fighters' radar is very capable."
I grunted, acknowledging his suggestion. The only way I could do it was the obvious one. I dropped to just above the level of the traffic on the street below me. Trucks and cars went by underneath, close enough to touch. People in the streets saw me coming and raised their phones to capture the sight. My only hope was that they'd be too slow to upload, and the military would be too slow to collate the data. I needed to be out of the city and long gone before they figured out which direction I was going.
I crossed a river, following the road over a bridge.
The city was thinning out and giving way to scrub desert. Sticking to the road had been convenient—a way to get out of the sprawl of the city and not run into any buildings while doing so. As soon as the multistory apartment buildings fell behind me, I left the road and flew directly toward the blue waypoint marker.
"The patrol is not deviating from its search pattern. I believe your escape was successful, for now. Remain low until you enter the hills ahead."
I followed his advice. It felt lucky that the ground was quite flat here, without much in the way of civilization. Small stubby cactuses and brush—no trees, no hills, and only the occasional building, small shack, or isolated house. They were usually off my path, and I didn't need to worry about them. The hills came up quickly, and I tucked myself into the gap between them.
"Brick, as much fun as that was, can we avoid any cities for the rest of the trip?" I asked.
"Yes, I've already adjusted the route. That was my mistake. I apologize Jake."
"No big deal."
I didn't know what I would've done if the fighters had spotted me. Theoretically I could have perhaps shot one down with my GN-75, but pissing off the US government any more than I already had wasn't on my bucket list.
Chapter Thirty: Flight in the Dark
I’D BEEN FLYING NORTH in the darkness following the blue navigation waypoints for twenty minutes or so, nearly hypnotized by the sensation of flight, when Brick spoke.
"Jake, I am concerned. The civilians that were present at the base, the True Believers as Marty calls them, were streaming everything during our raid. The video they've captured is now breaking news all over the planet."
"What's the problem? I don't see how that affects us."
"Almost immediately after our show above the base started, one or more parties began tracing the origins of Marty's original video, rather aggressively. Several of the control hubs I've set up for compromised systems are currently under attack."
"That was fast. The government, I guess?"
"That seems very unlikely. The scale and speed of the response are beyond what unaugmented human hackers should be capable of. The scope of attacks on my systems is growing rapidly. The attackers are now attempting to penetrate several hundred of my third-tier control hubs."
"You're the owner of the Internet now, aren't you? Can't you just squish them?"
"We come to the root of my concerns, Jake. My connection to the Internet is through the relatively low-bandwidth mobile phone towers in our area. Very soon I will not have the bandwidth to respond to all of the attacks at once. Once that point is reached, they will penetrate a control hub and—" Brick stopped talking.
"The attack has ramped up again and that point has been passed. I no longer have the bandwidth needed to fight off this attack through my current connection. I have lost ten percent of the third-tier control hubs. The attacker has identified a subset of the second-tier hubs and is now attempting to penetrate those. If they penetrate one of the first-tier hubs, they will be able to determine the general location of the outpost."
Brick's voice had changed a bit, a hint of the old Brick I'd first met creeping back in.
"Shit, what are you waiting for, Brick? Shut it down, cover your tracks."
"Acknowledged," Brick replied stiffly and fell silent.
I flew homeward, anxiously awaiting Brick's update. I didn't want to distract him from his task. Ten minutes and then twenty passed painfully slowly.
"I have good news and bad news, Jake," Brick finally said, his voice back to normal.
"Tell me."
"The good news is I have salvaged all of the highest priority raw data that had been gathered for processing. The bad news is that my first-tier hubs may not have all been properly cleansed. One of them was taken forcibly offline before the purge commands were finished executing. It is possible the outpost's location will be compromised."
"But all of the rest of them you got to before your attacker did?" I asked.
"Yes."
I let out a breath. "Alright, that sounds like a pretty good result. Maybe we'll get some Feds coming around looking for us, but maybe not. We'll just have to keep a low profile. Does the outpost have any defenses?"
"Minimal. A single shield node paired with a heavy laser turret, concealed under the soil. I believe Mattias didn't really expect to need defenses at this outpost."
I didn't imagine we'd have much use for it either, but it was good to know it was there if needed.
"Once Marty and Regar get back, inventory what we stole and get started on finishing the Redemption. We need her ready for the trip to Mercury as soon as possible."
"Of course," Brick replied.
I left it at that, confident that Brick knew what I wanted and that I didn't need to manage anything.
Chapter Thirty-One: Finishing the Redemption
THE FLIGHT BACK NORTH was long, my armor not nearly as fast as even the unfinished Redemption. The final blue dot was hovering in the air just above the cabin and I streaked in to set down gently on the packed snow just outside.
The stairway to the outpost opened automatically and closed behind me. Rather than go to the control center, I went to the hangar first.
Inside the hangar things were happening. The printing and manipulation arms, gigantic versions of the scaled-down ones in Pax's Manufactors, were busy. Every one of them was employed bringing the Redemption to fruition.
In one corner Regar stood, staring intently at the metal cylinder we'd found in the hangar as he turned it over in his hands. Next to him was a much smaller pile of scrap metal than we'd stuffed into the Redemption hours earlier, and a stack of the plastic boxes that had held the exotics, now emptied out. He didn't look up as I approached him.
"Regar."
He smiled as he saw me. "Jake, welcome back."
"It looks like we got what we needed. I'm glad we didn't do all of that for nothing."
"Yes, it seems so. Truly, I did not pay much attention to the discussion. I was too busy studying these Artifacts we recovered. They are fascinating."
Brick interjected. "The materials were enough to finish the basic design of the Redemption. A full suite of propulsion and generation systems, a single particle beam turret, navigational hazard shield, and scout sensor package."
"How do you know that's an Artifact? It looks like—I don't know—a pipe or tank or something?"
"If it were a tank, it would have an inlet, or an outlet. This is a sealed unit. Also, I'm seeing what looks like power and data inputs here, here, and here," Regar said, pointing to three spaces on the exterior of the cylinder. To my eye, they were just blank grey metal. I switched on my Engineering visualization mode, and it failed to show me any Union components.
"I don't see anything."
"Your Augment doesn't have what you need to be able to see it. Artifacts will not be using Union components, obviously. While their base principles might be the same, if you are using the Union Engineering vision Augment, it doesn't care about other forms of technology. For instance your Augment is useless for your own Earth technology, is it not?" Regar asked.
"Yes, it is. I had to build
a tool to be able to modify our tech. It was kind of a pain in the ass."
"Hah, that it was, I'm sure. The Ahrimani are godlike in their intelligence. While the system and the Union components they've given us changed everything after the war, for the better, they suffer competition very poorly."
"What are you seeing there? And how are you seeing it?" I asked.
Regar tapped the side of his head, near his right eye. "A fellow Seeker designed a vision Augment for us. It allows us to at least partially analyze alien technology. Some things are common, like the need for power or data input. Our friend Martlin was an Ahrimani, a brilliant engineer. His implant lets us see some of what we need to from Artifacts, so that we may use them, or at least understand what they are. This device has controls, and power needs. The power and control inputs are plainly visible to me. With some work, we can interface to it and see if it will reveal its secrets to us."
"That's really cool, Regar. Any chance I can get the Augment blueprint from you? I wouldn't mind that kind of functionality."
"Of course. We Seekers do not hoard secrets. Our very purpose is the discovery and free dissemination of information."
"Information wants to be free?" I asked.
He looked at me, surprise on his face. "Why, yes. It does. It surprises me to hear you quote one of the tenets of the Seekers back to me."
"It's also a tenet of Earth's hackers, or it used to be anyway."
"I would like to learn more about this order, Jake. What do they hack?"
I was about to launch into an explanation when Brick interrupted us.
"Jake, the outpost sensors registered an active sensor pulse. Signature unknown, not Union standard."
"Non-Union? A Feral signature? Elder AI?" Regar demanded.
"Unknown. It is not in my database of known signatures."
"What does that mean, a sensor pulse? Someone's looking for us?" I asked.
"No," Regar said. "That means someone's found us."
Chapter Thirty-Two: Defending the Base
"WHAT?"
"This outpost of Matty's has no stealth systems that I've seen. Without that, whoever sent that pulse knows you're here," Regar said.
"The First is correct, Jake. With the strength of the pulse this outpost will have registered on their sensors."
"Shit. That's not good," I replied. "Get Marty back here. We might have company sometime soon. Get those defenses ready, Brick."
"With your permission, Jake, I'll take these Artifacts through the gate to Pax for safekeeping. I will return to help defend this outpost and ask Kiril to accompany me."
"Thanks, Regar."
Regar snatched up the other Artifact and dashed out of the hangar.
I looked at the Redemption and grimaced. The light shipyard's arms were still working away.
"How long until she's done, Brick?"
"Thirty-two minutes."
Marty pelted into the hangar a moment later at a dead run. He was wearing a basic Union pressure suit with the helmet retracted and clattered to a stop in front of me.
"I'm here! What's going on?"
"Good. Get ready to fly the Redemption out of here in a hurry, if needed."
"What? She's not ready!"
"I know. Do what you can."
Marty scrambled up the ramp and sat in the pilot's chair, hands flying over invisible interfaces as he took in Redemption's unfinished state.
"Brick, reprioritize the construction to speed up departure if you can."
"Yes, Jake."
I looked around the hangar. Brick had taken the Union materials from the pile of scrap and all that was left were the “unknown” pieces, a much smaller pile.
"Multiple sensor pulses detected, stronger than before," Brick reported.
"Shit."
I reached out with my Drone Control Augment, through the open gate and into Pax. I activated three drones, two armed with particle beams and a scout drone, and ordered them to me. I felt them acknowledge the order. They'd be with me in seconds.
"I'm going to go outside. How long until Redemption is ready to go, Brick?"
"Sensors, shield, and the minimal required set of propulsion units will be ready in four minutes. The particle beam turret is already fully installed."
"Get everything important out of here and into Pax. If we lose this base, let's make it not hurt as much."
"Yes, Jake," Brick acknowledged.
Looking around one last time I ran for the exit. My drones joined me before I got there, taking up formation in the corridor around me.
I reached the surface in time to see the first visitor arrive overhead.
One moment the sky was empty, wispy grey clouds blocking out swathes of the brilliant stars of the Milky Way. The next moment it was there, and it was only the augmented sensors I had from my link with the scout drone that told me it hadn't just teleported there. Instead it had simply moved so fast through the air it might as well have. It stopped dead in the air above the treeline to the south, completely silent. A flying saucer.
Roughly two hundred feet across, the silvery-metal disk rotated slowly. A large dome topped the dish, and a smaller one about half its size was on the bottom. It was eerily like the saucers we'd faked for our distraction at the military base. So much so that I suspected I was being faked out, but my scout drone's sensors were telling me that something was really there, unlike our projections. Brick confirmed it.
"Unknown vessel in proximity. Shields activated, deploying turret. Awaiting command to open fire."
I ordered my drones to fan out and unstuck the Gazer. The familiar weight felt great in my hands. I heard the crunch of displaced snow and the snap of breaking branches in the young trees off to my right. My scout drone automatically tagged the outpost's turret as it rose out of the ground.
The saucer and I had a staring contest for a few long seconds and I was just about to try to initiate some kind of communication with it when things kicked off. Three more of them appeared all around the cabin in the same abrupt way, seeming to teleport in from nowhere.
Bright white light swelled around all four of the saucers' lower domes. Each of those amorphous clouds of light flew off and splashed against the ground, dissipating and leaving behind four armed and armored figures. They were the size of children, with silver-grey skin and oversized heads with immense black eyes. Strangely, they were wearing what looked like modern armored tactical rigs festooned with magazines and held black M4 rifles.
I looked at them in awe. Despite my recent experiences, seeing in real life the flying saucers and aliens from so many movies and books took my breath away. How much of the conspiracy theories were real? Were the lizard people going to be showing up next? I smiled and opened my mouth to call out a greeting, or a question. Then the Greys raised their rifles, and that was enough for me.
"Brick, open fire!"
Trees exploded to my right as a solid blue beam of laser light scythed through the concealing woods to hit the first saucer dead center. A square, translucent yellow field of energy popped into existence directly in the beam's path, shimmering and crackling under the stress.
I didn't have time to see any more of that as the Little Grey Men began filling the air with noise and bullets. Fully automatic weapons fire sleeted into my armor, making a terrible racket. For a second I was bemused, thinking this might be a replay of my fight with the soldiers at the black site. Except it wasn't—my HUD was flashing warnings at me. Every impact was doing a tiny bit of damage to the armor.
Without thinking I ducked into the only cover available, the wooden cabin above the outpost. The stream of bullets followed me, each one tearing a large chunk out of the sturdy wooden walls. The wood-burning stove rang like an abused bell as multiple rounds penetrated the wall and ricocheted off the black metal.
My scout drone had tagged everything with threat markers, including the saucers in the sky. Three of them had left, disappearing as suddenly as they had appeared. The remaining saucer was moving
rapidly around the sky while Brick tried to hold the beam on it long enough to penetrate whatever odd shield it was using.
My drones were doing their part, but under heavy fire as well. I saw one threat marker go out, and then another as they each got a kill.
Now it was my turn. The squads were keeping up their fire, attempting to fully suppress me while they moved up. That wasn't going to work.
A squad of four had been marked in direct line of sight of the front door—now only a large, rough hole in the front of the cabin—so I leaned out and hosed them down with the Gazer. Bullets pinged off my helmet, but I ignored them for the moment and zeroed in on the easiest target.
A smaller version of the square shield protecting the saucer above popped up in front of the unfortunate Grey. Under the onslaught of the particle beam it immediately began to waver and just before it shattered, the sheltering alien stopped firing and dove behind his nearest squad mate. I held the trigger down and tracked him. A new shield appeared, but crumpled just as quickly. The beam punched through the tactical rig like it wasn't there and speared through the chest of the alien. I raked the beam to the side, cutting it and the one that had hid behind into pieces.
I ducked back into my rapidly disintegrating cover, my helmet's damage indicator having gone a light orange/dark yellow from repeated impacts. The cabin wasn't providing much cover anymore. I needed to move.
The tactical situation wasn't great. Four of the attackers were down, my drones were running low on charge, and I was pinned down. Where the hell were Regar and Kiril? I couldn't see a good place to move to, but my decision was made for me.
The air filled with a deafening bass sound, like a foghorn turned up to a million. My HUD flashed an indicator telling me that it was filtering the sound and protecting me, but I could still feel it in my bones. Anyone without hearing protection would have been screwed, I was pretty sure.
Dust fell from the ceiling of the cabin above me, shaken loose by the noise. It felt like it went on forever but it was really less than two seconds. I was watching through the scout's external view as it hovered unnoticed in the air above the battle when the saucer finally stopped playing around.