Iron Five

by Seon O. Stronghold

  “…Manny I need to hitch a ride on a ship to Keden, are there any leaving today?”

  I keep looking at Maria but she turns away. The humanoid face on the Holo blinks and runs through the data. His shockingly green eyes no longer move but shimmer and flash with millions of files and bits and pieces of information. The speed at which Manny processes is unbelievable, not because of how fast he gets the job done, this is the norm with computers nowadays, but because I have never actually seen the info physically moving with my own eyes.

  “The Anon…” A holographic image of a massive deep space barge appears “…leaves for Keden in two days, outside of this, there are no ships heading to that region.”

  I join the conversation “Are there any ships heading out of this system that we can hitch…”

  “He won’t respond to you Captain…” Maria cuts me off with a smile and then a frown “…And now that I think of it, even if you do get to Keden, you won’t have your gear. How do you expect to be of any use there?”

  I did actually think of this, ever since the reality of not getting to our ship had hit me.

  “We’re resourceful, we’ll get it done.”

  “No…you’re foolish and not thinking straight, and will get yourselves killed…”

  She turns back to the image floating nearby

  “…Manny, we need to get to Adula and fast. But we must leave this system undetected.”

  “Adula..? Adula is…only a jump away from Keden. Something like, four hundred lights…but what’s on Adula? It’s a mud planet, we can’t land there…we’ll never get off.”

  Maria stares into me in a way that makes my words seem foolish “Adula is a mud planet yes, but it is also home to a base we once used…”

  “The Galactic Nine..?”

  “There are ships there and Mecha that can get the job done.”

  “How do you know that the Syndicate hasn’t scrapped it all by now?”

  “Because the underground stretches far beyond Rouna, and needs every foothold it can get, besides, you want to read those Dees, right? Then Adula is the place.”

  I don’t have to think about this for long. We need to get off this planet and we’ll be doing it without our gear or our ship.

  “Okay let’s do it.”

  She turns back to the Holo “Manny what do you have?”

  “The Jamavin is set to depart Mayreau for Adula in five hours…”

  An industrial class ship replaces the Barge on the holoscreen now.

  “What’s its eta?”

  “…Seven hours to Adula.”

  A seven hour jump and then at least seven more before we get off Adula…we’ll be on Keden in twenty hours…hopefully, a little more than forty eight hours before Earthfront forces…that’s good enough for me…as good as it’s going to get anyways. I nod my approval and Maria gives the computer the command.

  A few months before Iron Five’s deployment on Keden

  MIND GAMES

  Year: 878 TE

  System: Sol

  Planet: Earth

  Location: New York City, United Northern Alliance

  Carlos Andrews walked into an upper class restaurant in downtown Manhattan. At seventy floors up, the view through the glass wall was mind blowing. Sky scrapers of silvery Everglass rose majestically from hundreds of rows of unseen streets, and copper colored transport hubs floated on thin air, filtering steady streams of traffic at varying altitudes.

  Subdued music and soft chatter filled the room. A woman in a fitted, flowing azure dress approached and led him across the thick carpeted floor to a booth where a broad man in an exquisitely tailored suit sat alone.

  “Terrier...Welcome...Sit.” The man’s voice was strong and brutish

  “Thank you Sir.”

  Across from them, at a table for four, three men appeared deep in conversation, but Carlos knew a bodyguard when he saw one. Sleek and stylish, they could have easily been passed over for high-level lawyers or traders, but the eyes...the eyes never lied. A soldier was a soldier regardless of his dress code and it was always the eyes that gave him away.

  “We think the mole might be implementing something big...and soon...”

  The big man stuffed his mouth with a forkful of meat before continuing “Your friend, you say that you are certain about him?”

  “Huski is loyal to Earthfront, I’ll bet my life on it.”

  “Then it must be one of the others.”

  “They are all good men sir and I still don’t think this is right…”

  “I understand your loyalty to your team. I understand how difficult it is to even imagine one of them in this light. But facts are facts and all evidence points to Iron Five. We know it’s not you, and you swear for Gant, but you can’t, to this day, be absolutely sure about the others.”

  Carlos was silent and the man continued.

  “Look, if your team is innocent, then there’s nothing to worry about after they’ve been investigated. But if not...”

  There was no way around it. Iron Five was under surveillance and there was nothing Carlos could do about it. Regarding this mole however, that wasn’t the case. He had long decided to find the person responsible for his team’s scrutiny and expose them by any means necessary, and if he was lucky, by the time the rest of the guys found out, they’d be more than willing to forgive him for not giving them a heads-up.

  “...get to Kona immediately...” The big man was still talking “...and await further instructions. Your next Earthfront op will re-deploy you on Keden. I have arranged for your team’s arrival there within the month. With patience and a little luck, we should prove Iron Five’s innocence, root out this traitor and put an end to this madness.”

  “Yessir...” Carlos replied

  He had been forbidden to talk to his team about the matter and with the threat of disbandment, court-martials, and jail time hanging over their heads; he thought it best to follow orders...for now.

  A slight wave of the older man’s gold ringed fingers told him that he had been dismissed, and without further ado, he left the room.

  *******

  Carlos stepped onto a sky-deck outside the fancy restaurant and beyond a metal handrail, that separated life from death, a parking assistant brought his Dragonfly to rest against the edge of the open waiting area. With a few quick steps, he slid into the driver’s seat and let the gull-winged door seal shut. Then in the blink of an eye, the sleek aircar fell away from the building and blended seamlessly into a flowing river of traffic below.

  Miles of sky lanes crisscrossed the city and millions of people sped to and fro in them. The Dragonfly’s navigation system kept it moving in sync with the tide and after fifteen minutes, Carlos ascended an off ramp, invisible to the human eye but clearly indicated on the cockpit windscreen, and continued his climb toward a monstrous disk that capped one of New York’s busiest spaceports.

  Within minutes, he was parked and walking through a vast, bustling terminal where the sounds of technology and endless multitudes filled the air with an overwhelming, never ending hum. But implants made it possible to control the sound bombarding his ears by merely desiring it, just as his Dees provided information in the form of holographic images at the speed of thought. Everyone had them in a variety of models, but unlike the average civilian, Carlos’ implants were military issued.

  Fifteen minutes later, he exited a lift that brought him to a private hangar on one of the highest levels of the complex and boarded an automated transport cart. The robot ferried its passenger to a ship a half a mile across the cavernous Eversteel room where rows of starships and other spacecraft slept peacefully in their slots. These belonged to New York’s most influential families and corporate heads; billion credit technology that none but the crème de la crème could afford.

  Once aboard his ship, the Vanon; An Earthman Industries, Liberty Class vessel, prized by many for their easy space to surface capabilities, Carlos initiated the computer’s start up sequence
and opened its digital communications module.

  “La Guardia Space Command...Captain Andrews of Starship Vanon requesting departure from A-Deck to Vacuum.”

  A flawless female voice responded “Captain Andrews of Starship Vanon, you are cleared for departure. Link up and go auto.”

  “Copy clearance and link up...going auto.”

  The spaceport’s auto guidance system took control of Carlos’s ship and the dull-grey, hundred ton, forward wing machine lifted effortlessly from the floor.

  “Starship Vanon, you have guidance on link, window to Karis is open and rocket to station is a go. Please confirm.”

  “Vanon copies rocket to Karis.”

  Over the lively city and into the clouds, the Vanon shot skyward until the Earth hung beneath it like a beautiful marble and the floating city that was the Space Station Karis rushed into view. Carlos let the autopilot take him toward it but he would not be docking there.

  “Starship Vanon...” his com came alive “...Karis Command has you on guidance...state intensions.”

  “Karis Command…Vanon requests clearance for flyby to Triton.”

  Five seconds passed

  “Vanon, you have guidance for hyper light to Triton. Set course and sync up.”

  Carlos activated his navigation module, punched in the co-ordinates for Neptune’s most popular moon, and then the Vanon disappeared from Earth’s orbit. Three hours later, he came out of the warp stream fifty thousand kilometers from Triton. Below and off to his right, the stunningly blue gas giant that was Neptune dominated the blackness of space but with a few quick adjustments, he took manual control of the ship and changed course to Proteus.

  The Vanon approached the irregular moon and came to rest on a landing pad beside one of its many massive craters. Here, he would wait at Kona, a decommissioned Earthfront military storage base until he received his orders.

  CHAPTER 10 - ADULA

  The Jamavin is an impressively large vessel, measuring roughly three thousand feet long by five hundred feet high and eight hundred feet wide. Emptied of its cargo on Mayreau; one of the Starports in Rouna’s System, it is now headed to Adula for another pickup. Its cargo…? Billion-Credit stones and minerals and whatever else that has been churned and extracted by the miners.

  The rumble of its fifteen colossal engines fills the cabin with a constant hum and the scents of oil and grease hang ever present in the air. It is my first time on an Industrial ship and I hope to God that it will be my last. Greasy pipes, running in many directions, line the glossy white metal walls around us. A few very small windows and compartments, housing wires and whatnot, make up the rest of the space as dim white lights along the roof flicker. Above and in front of us is a long-dead Holo-screen unit; a relic of older times. This is one of the very few ships left that run on both Sol Technology, and Oiled Mechanics, which means that the Jamavin must be over three hundred years old. It’s Amazing…Of all the Industrial ships in the galaxy to choose from for my first flight, I had to end up on a clunker.

  Maria had lived up to her promise. After leaving her underground lair and the psychopathic looking Manny behind, we ditched the Airvan and traveled by speedboat to an old-world looking Spire group called Richmond. With its closely packed, colorful brick and limestone houses, bakeries and market squares, it wasn’t difficult to blend into and move unnoticed though the fishing town; just another group of tourists taking in the scenery.

  Once in Richmond, Maria led us through a maze of sidewalks and alleys to an almost hidden pub, tucked away in one of the many back streets. There we met her contact who, even though a bit suspicious, knew well enough that our presence there was none of his business and so, helped us along our way. I must say, I am impressed by Maria; Akita definitely lost a good one. But that was a little over nine hours ago, and now we are here, safely tucked away in a small passenger compartment behind the cockpit of this ship and approaching Adula.

  ********

  The Jamavin shakes as we pass through atmosphere and enter the Mud planet’s airspace. On my right, through a little oval window, the clear and bright blue Adulan sky is dazzling. The ship jolts again and I look down. Thick grey clouds, miles beneath us in every direction, span as far as can be seen and below them, all is mud; one very giant ball of perpetually shifting muck and rain and because of this, life cannot exist here without the proper facilities or equipment.

  Known for their massively high yield of precious stones, minerals and rare deposits, mud planets are few and far between. Miners from all over the galaxy travel to these worlds under the protection and banners of major corporations that are a part of the Super Credit Industry. It is quite fitting really, now I think of it…that a Galactic-Nine secret military facility would be placed here. I just never had a reason to think about it.

  “Maria..?”

  She is sitting in the aisle seat to my left and her eyes meet mine

  “Where exactly is this base?”

  What I’ve seen through the tiny window next to me ever since entering the thick cloud cover, is nothing more than a mud ocean and heavy rains that limit visibility to less than a quarter mile.

  She raises her voice over the rumble of the ship “It’s beneath the docks where we’re headed. We’ll have to be careful when we land though, the last thing we need are suspicious miners asking too many questions.”

  I nod my understanding and return to the bleak world outside. What has become of Mirana? Is she alive? Where is Terri? Is he happy?

  The Jamavin slows to a crawl and the outline of what looks like a mountain range comes into view. The sight is unreal. What might have been soil-covered ridges and valleys thousands of years ago, are now bare rock and monumental boulders all wedged together.

  “We’re here. Stick to me and don’t talk to anybody.”

  Acknowledging her with nods and grunts, we have no choice but to do as she says. The reality of our situation has fully sunken in and if there is nothing on Adula, then we are properly screwed.

  The Starship banks and turns as we fly over a huge Eversteel complex that floats above the deep mire by way of Magnatech. The power it generates to stay afloat must be enormous. The mining docks and facilities slide closer and closer and with wicked jolts and rumbles, the ship touches down; shocking me physically and mentally until the immense shakings and noises cease, and after a few minutes, die out entirely. Maria unbuckles her harness. I stand as the rest of the team unclick from their seats, and follow her through the constricted corridor. Looking back at the cockpit, the pilots are nowhere to be seen.

  Walking is uncomfortable and trying not to get chaffed is becoming no less difficult than when I first put on this flight suit. It’s bulky and rough, both inside and out but it’s all we’ve got for now. We were given them when we boarded and by the look and smell of mine, it has been used way too many times and not cleaned nearly as much. But I’ll manage.

  The smell of oil and grease is even stronger here in the confinement of the passage and were it not for the periodical blasts of recycled air overhead, my lungs would be in need of serious cleaning. But we keep walking, down some narrow stairs now and through a sliding door to the cargo hold. As we enter I survey the scene. There is nothing here but a few crates in a corner, strapped to the not so shine floor; a monstrous room of nothing.

  “When we leave the ship, speak to no one. You follow me and do exactly as I say…” Maria looks toward Akita and then back at me “…are we clear?”

  I speak before Akita does “…let’s just get this done.”

  This back and forth between them is wearing my patience thin. Twice during our trip here I had to break up their heated arguments. The hiss of shifting hydraulics fills the air as the lights above and ahead of us go from green to red. I pull my helmet over my head and let the auto-clasp seal it to my suit. All sound temporarily disappears and there is a split second of not being able to breathe. But then the suit’s air filters kick in and what was greasy and oily scente
d is now clean and fresh. Sound comes to me again but just a little better than muffled. Then the large cargo doors pop out and slide upward and as Maria moves forward, so do I.

  ********

  The team and I follow our guide across the Eversteel deck of the floating docks. There’s barely anyone around and the few we have seen seemed unaware of our existence. The air on this world is very dense but breathable; however, the muck is all around us microscopically. The thickness of this, it is said, is enough to clog a human’s lungs to the point of death within minutes, so I enjoy my filtered air and continue in Maria’s wake.

  Across the large platform and toward two, three story structures, I absorb the sights and my conclusion is, that this planet is what hell would be if it were made of mud. The rain slams into us like sheets of iron droplets. I imagine being pelted with this water without a suit; it would definitely be a memorable experience, if I survived to have the memory that is. Finally, I have a reason to appreciate this smelly suit. Its bulk and coarseness has its purpose.

  We continue against the sheet rain as the thick, roiling muck beneath us swells and dips like any ocean on Earth. It is a sight I would in no way soon forget. The mountains we had passed only a few minutes ago are now mostly shrouded by low hanging, thick black clouds and the rain is getting worse.

  How in the Galaxy can it get worse?

  Between the two, three story buildings now, we walk on, and what looks like a construction MAV, sits abandoned beside a row of old iron crates. One of its legs are missing, a pitiful sight; as though it had beating heart, sitting maimed and helpless.

  We round a corner and approach a doorway of a third building. Maria motions for Bull to open the dense door and after he turns the locking mechanism with powerful arms, we all trail her inside. In an instant the room illuminates with the glare of red lights, projected from about a dozen or so bulbs in the ceiling.