by Morgan Cole
Marty jerked us around and flew us away from the potato. With a flash it impacted the surface of Mercury and threw a cloud of debris high above the rocky landscape.
Marty flew away from the impact site, dropping to the deck and weaving between the hills of rough stone carved out from either tectonic action or massive asteroid impacts like the one we had just engineered. After a moment our frantic escape was complete and we came to a stop, hovering two hundred meters above the surface.
"Alright, Boss, we're down. Now what?" Marty asked.
"Head toward the base. Keep it as low as you can and stop when we're just over the horizon. If you detect any targeting, drop in to cover. We don't know what kind of weapon emplacements they have down here, and we don't want to find out the hard way."
Marty acknowledged with a gesture, and the ship began to move again, hugging the ground.
Mercury wasn't what I had expected. When I was a kid, I thought Mercury would look like I had imagined hell to look like, without the damned souls and the demons. There'd be literal lakes and rivers of lava. The terrain below me just looked like rock. Sure, now that I was closer and studying it, maybe it had been molten once. We were on the dark side of the planet, maybe on the light side, things would be different.
A few minutes later Marty stopped the ship.
"This is as close as we can get, I think. What do you want to do, Boss?"
"I'll go in overland. I'll try to find a way in that's not covered by their security systems. If everything really turns to shit I might call you for extraction, or maybe get you to come in and do an attack run. I don't know. Be ready."
Marty swallowed, and then nodded. "You got it."
I stood up, moving to the cargo area of the Redemption. We didn't bring a lot with us since there wasn't any point. I was armed and armored, but there was something that I'd hoped not to need. I’d printed and brought it with us anyway.
Two of my Holemaker version 2.0s were embedded in a one-meter cube of impact-absorbing foam. Union packing was smart and crumbled to dust as I willed it to do so. I brushed the dust aside until I reached them. When they were exposed I pulled them free and stuck one to each armored thigh.
I had designed them specifically to be stuck there. They were rounded on one side and flat on the other. The flat part was the "front toward enemy" bit that would direct the jet of plasma when it detonated. I took comfort in knowing that even if somehow one got set off while it was still attached the blast probably wouldn't incinerate me. I didn't want to try it, but that was the idea. I'd also tuned the payload of the device and it could now be adjusted as needed from a rather anemic minimum to a very impressive maximum.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Jake's Holemaker V2, design by Jake Monde
100% Charge
Control(s) available: Detonate
╠═╦╬╧╪
With Excalibur at my hip, the drones on my back, the charges on my thighs, and the Gazer stuck to my chest, I felt prepared. Almost a little overprepared.
With a thought Redemption's forward hatch slid aside near instantly. Since both of us had been in our sealed armor the whole time, the cabin had never been pressurized. What would the point have been? I stepped forward, looking to Marty one last time before I exited.
"Wish me luck."
"Luck. Get it done. Call me if you need me.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Finding a Way In
I STEPPED OUT OF THE hatch drifting in the weaker gravity of Mercury toward the rocky soil below. With a thought I engaged my flight controls and began to fly toward the base just over the horizon. I ordered the scout drone to free itself and follow, linking its greatly enhanced sensor package with that of my armor. With luck, I would be able to detect the targeting sensors of the base's defenses before they got a lock on me.
In the end there was almost zero warning. A red alert popped up in my Interface just as I crested a rocky ridge. Without reading it or even thinking much I dove toward the ground. I reversed the gravity plates keeping me aloft. They pulled me toward Mercury as fast and hard as they could.
A barely visible cloud of flechettes flew overhead, each the size of a beer can. I slammed into the ground hard and rolled to the side as the stream of flechettes tracked me. With a burst from my boot propulsion units I got behind a towering black boulder, slumping and melted but still standing proud. The flechette stream chopped the top half of the boulder off in a spray of black rock and I rolled gracelessly backward down the hill behind me, putting more stone between me and the high-velocity projectiles.
The boulder I'd sheltered behind disintegrated into gravel and loaf-sized chunks as a torrent of flechettes reduced it to nothing. Chunks of rock bounced off my helmet and armored limbs as I rolled away. I came to a stop several meters later. The solid bulk of the ridge I'd crested moments ago was now the only thing between me and a needler cannon, which had nearly taken my life.
My scout drone was unharmed, floating in the air above me. Its stealth systems had been completely successful at hiding it from the targeting sensors of the Connahr base.
I'm such an idiot. Why didn't I just send the scout drone ahead?
I ordered the scout to pop up and get a scan of the defenses ahead. All that was visible was a single turret the size of a semi truck mounted on a small rise. If the base itself was ahead, it was invisible.
The turret's long barrel was pointed in my direction as it waited patiently for its target to reappear. The sensor data from the scout drone was showing targeting signals sweeping through the area where I had been moments before.
"Jake, I advise against sending the scout drone in any further. Those sensors will resolve it at close range, despite the current effectiveness of its stealth systems."
I grimaced as Brick wiped out that new plan. Sending the scout drone in to map out the base was out.
"Thanks, Brick."
There was no way for me to advance directly, but maybe I could find a different path. I ordered the scout to stay at the same range and circle around, looking for something useful. In the spirit of caution, one of the requirements I gave it was to keep as much cover between it and the base as it could. If one of the targeting sensors finally resolved it, my useful little drone would be erased instantly and I couldn't afford to lose it.
Marty's voice came over our connection. "You alright, Boss?"
"That was close, but yeah, all good. One of the turrets is a big needler and it almost got me. My fault, I was being stupid. I've got the scout looking for another way in."
Ten minutes later I saw something interesting on the scout’s feed: a cleft in the solid rock of Mercury's surface that looked like a split caused by an earthquake. It seemed recent. It stretched out of sight in both directions. The most interesting thing about it, for me, was that it headed in the direction of the base. It was at least twenty meters across, and deep. So deep the scout's cameras couldn't see the bottom.
Directly above the rift in the ground, not far from my stealthed scout drone, another turret sat. While roughly the same size, this one looked different with a fat, stubby barrel. The base of the turret was a large, Union-grey metal box that must have been embedded into the rock at one point, but now mostly protruded out over the rift in Mercury's surface. The turret was idle, waiting for a target, and I couldn't tell just by looking at it whether it had the depression it needed to be able to fire down into the chasm below.
"I'm seeing what looks like might be my in. Some recent earthquake damage or something. I'm gonna see if I can get into it, and stay hidden. With some luck, this will get me right into the base. Or at least close enough that I can make a hole and get through."
Marty acknowledged, and I ordered the scout drone to follow the chasm away from the base. I needed it to find me an entry point that the turret didn't have line of sight on.
I moved to my right, following the back of the ridgeline. The rock below was rough, and either runny and melted, looking like what you'd see on the slope
s of a volcano, or sharp and ragged. The color palette was a disappointing mix of light black, dark black, and grey. So much for my childhood expectations of Mercury.
Ten minutes later the scout found what I needed. A place where I could enter the deep rift without exposing myself to the turret straddling the chasm.
I floated down into the blackness, my vision Augment peeling away the darkness and showing me a sheer drop ending several hundred meters below in what looked like lava. I wasn't a geologist, so I wasn't sure if you called it lava or magma. I had always gotten those confused. I'll just call it lava.
I dropped down seventy-five or eighty meters below the surface and floated cautiously along the rift. My scout drone was floating ahead, extending my sensor coverage around corners in the twisting chasm.
Something odd was happening below me in the lava. I was imagining it, I thought. Every once in awhile, it felt like I saw movement. Was the lava bubbling? Was that something that lava did? I didn't know, I wasn't curious enough to try to find out. I had a mission.
Sometime later, after following the wavy pattern of the rift in the earth, my drone warned me that the next turn was dangerous. I looked through its sensors, and saw that when I rounded the corner I would be able to see the turret and presumably it would be able to see me. It still wasn't clear from the design whether it could shoot at me down here at the bottom, but I didn't want to find out the hard way.
I studied it carefully. Could I drop all the way to the bottom, just above the lava, and make my way underneath it? Would it notice?
About half or maybe even more of the turret's bulk was jutting out over open space where the rift in Mercury had opened up. It was my bad luck. If the Earthquake—or Mercuryquake—had been a little more severe, the turret would have ended up in the lava and I would have had a clear path to the base. At least past this ring of defenses. For all I knew there were more rings than this. I hoped there weren't.
I was hovering in place, racking my brain. Then I had a thought.
I ordered my scout drone back, getting it to hover directly in front of me. It was a tiny, flattened lozenge barely as wide as my armored palm. It was dense, crammed full of sensors, power, and propulsion. That and its stealth were all it needed. It had gecko pads on the bottom for safely attaching itself to surfaces when it wasn't in use, or for when it needed to dock on me.
This one was my design, improved greatly from the stock Union Common Knowledge Set design, and I'd pushed the limits hard. Everything was only as powerful as it needed to be, in order to make room for other things. I pulled free the Holemaker V2 on my left thigh and held it in my hand. By itself it was quite a lot bigger than the scout drone. It wasn't light, either, being mostly energy storage, which was dense and heavy. My plan wasn't feeling that great.
With a thought I ordered the scout drone to alight on the curved portion of the Holemaker. It moved and landed lightly, nestling in the curve meant for my thick, armored thigh.
I then ordered it to engage its gecko pad and try to lift the Holemaker out of my hand.
It floated up, slowly, and I laughed. "Yeah! We're in business."
"What's that?" Marty asked.
"Nothing, I've got a plan to get past this turret. It's stupid, but it just might work."
"Your best plans always are," Marty replied.
I was pretty certain that I couldn't just let the drone carry the Holemaker over to the turret. Without the stealth field intact, the turret would immediately target and erase it. I didn't know what that weapon was, but it would be certainly enough to deal with my little drone. Instead, it was time to improvise.
I ordered the drone to detach and took the Holemaker back, holding it in my left hand. I was on the right side of the chasm, and if I went forward, my left side would be exposed to enemy fire. That wasn't ideal since I was right-handed. I'd have to make it work. Somewhere in the Union database, or in the third-party market, there must be a skill implant for ambidexterity. I wanted it then.
I quickly gave the scout drone the plan and ordered it to go. It was in position seventy-five meters under the turret less than a second later.
Hefting the Holemaker in my left hand, I tried to get a feel for the weight of it. I knew my new body and strength pretty well, but with the powered armor assist, it was always possible that I could overcompensate. I spent a lot of time in the armor, but I was nervous.
With a thought, I floated out to the left, exposing my left side just enough to throw the Holemaker as hard as I could toward the turret.
The stubby barrel immediately swiveled as a sensor locked onto me. It turned out it definitely had enough depression to aim at me down near the bottom.
It ignored the flying Holemaker and was on me in less than a quarter of a second. I reversed course as fast as I could. Propulsion units in my hands flared and slammed me into the side of the chasm.
A bright blue bolt of superheated plasma the size of a fifty-five-gallon drum incinerated a large chunk of my cover and the very edge clipped my left arm. The arm turned bright orange in the HUD and I hissed in pain as the flesh of my left arm cooked.
I flew backward as fast as I could and another bolt appeared slightly to the right of the first one, boring through the rock effortlessly and missing again. If I'd stayed still, that would've been it for me.
I flipped over and went to full power as I dodged down the shaft in the other direction. Another two bolts flew overhead, as the turret aggressively shot at me. I ducked behind a huge, thick wall of black rock and that slowed the next bolt. It bored through the stone and narrowly missed me again but was no longer the bright, blazing blue of the previous shots.
I soared upward while hidden behind the rock, hoping to confuse its target prediction. It worked, as the next bolt was far below me. I switched to my scout drone's sensors. It labored under the weight of the Holemaker, pushing upward as fast as it could. With a final combined effort on propulsion unit and grav plate, it clicked the plasma charge into place on the grey stone just underneath the turret. The turret wasn't able to shoot at it, but that wouldn't matter in a moment. Not waiting for the scout to dislodge, I swiped the charge to maximum and remotely triggered the Holemaker.
The remaining rock underneath the turret evaporated as the directed wave of plasma eliminated it from existence. A volume of stone the size of a rich man's house disappeared, turning to vapor. The plasma savaged the tier 3 armored shell of the turret but failed to destroy it. The turret fell into the chasm as all of its remaining structure disappeared. I ordered the scout to eject the spent shell of the Holemaker and evade as best as it could. I was relieved when it was fast enough to scoot out from beneath the falling, glowing mass of the turret as it plummeted down into the rift.
Not being able to resist, I eased out of cover to watch the turret's doom directly.
The barrel of the turret swung wildly as it caromed off the rock walls, the immense mass of the defensive emplacement breaking large chunks of rock free on impact. They fell with it toward the lava below, and the rock and the turret landed together, coating the black, rocky walls of the rift with glowing lava. That's when things got a bit weird.
I was a little disappointed when the turret didn't start to melt as it sunk under the lava. Movies had lied to me again. In reality, the lava just wasn't hot enough to melt tier 3 metal.
Despite slowly sinking into the river of lava, the turret still was very much trying to kill me. Once it had stopped falling, the turret tracked me smoothly, the barrel pointing at me. I was already moving, pushing the propulsion units in my palms to as hard as they could to dodge back into cover. I slammed hard into the wall, as a plasma bolt the size of a garbage can tore through the space I’d occupied less than a heartbeat before.
I boosted toward the top of the rift, changing my altitude. I knew from experience that the turret had a pattern it would follow to try to nail me while I was behind cover. No follow-up shot came, and I switched my senses to that of the scout drone, which hovered
nearby keeping an eye on the turret for me.
Something had jolted the turret off target. It could no longer depress its barrel enough to point it at me. The surface of the lava around it shook, molten stone rippling. A moment later the surface exploded, spraying lava in all directions as black worms—shining and smooth faceted creatures looking like they were made out of pure obsidian—breached the lava. Enormous mouths gaped open, filled with black, triangular teeth glowing with heat. Three of the worms immediately began attacking the turret, their teeth throwing sparks off the hard tier 3 armor. The turret swiveled and fired at one of the worms, the plasma shearing through the creature's shining black body. The worm was wounded but not outright killed. It was enraged, as part of the black surface of its body disappeared, leaving a divot. It lunged forward and seized the barrel in its jaws, wrenching with stupendous force. The massive block of metal shook in the lava.
"Marty, are you seeing this?" I asked.
"Hell yeah, I am. Lava worms, who would've known?"
Whatever they were, they were doing my job for me. I didn't have to worry about the turret anymore.
I eased back out from cover and tried to force the Interface to identify the creatures attacking the turret. Nothing happened. They weren't Union tech or Feral. As unlikely as it seemed, they must have been part of the natural biome of Mercury. Either that, or something alien.
I ordered my scout drone to flash ahead and resume its duty of keeping me safe from any more surprises. I flew into the center of the ravine and throttled up, flying over the scene with the lava worms and the turret. Unlike my drone, I wasn't stealthy. One of the worms saw me and lifted its head to track me as I flew by overhead.
The worm detached itself from the struggle between the two other worms and slowly sinking turret. With a surge it leapt free of the lava, its enormous body breaching entirely, the leap seeming effortless as it soared high over the struggle and dove neatly into the lava on the other side. The surface rippled, showing no hint that such an enormous creature had just disappeared beneath.