Specter Protocol

by Eddie R. Hicks

  The others being Nguyen and Nakamura. Nobody had been able to reach them after the shuttle they stole met its end from missile strikes. Miyuki wasn’t sure how she slid out unharmed. As she recalled, she was still in the cockpit when Serge cried out that Yoshida sent fighters after them and three got a missile lock on them—

  “Well?!”

  Yanmei’s raised voice snapped Miyuki’s head back into the game.

  “Just, uh, static from their comms,” Miyuki reported. “Other than us three, Porter, Brown, Saito, and Arakawa are left, and they’re the ones you ordered to search the perimeter.”

  “That’s half our fucking Specter team gone.” Yanmei sighed then looked at Miyuki, Serge, and then to the four Specters that spread out near the burning crash site, lurking back toward them. “We’re all that’s left.” Yanmei’s anger turned to a smile aimed at Miyuki. “Perhaps I was right to bring you along. You outlived our most experienced members. You have great potential.”

  Yanmei gave Miyuki a light stroke of her arm. It made her feel warm inside, despite the cold air brushing across her face. Miyuki was making her big brother proud. Faced with unexpected events, she outlived the strongest and brightest Specters. Nobuo’s hands from the other side were guiding her.

  Miyuki followed Yanmei and Serge to the crash site, the flaming glow brightening the black shine of her catsuit. She noticed footprints in what little snow remained thanks to the heat of the fires, stopped, and ran a quick optical scan. On Miyuki’s HUD, she saw the pattern of the footprints on the left, and to her right were the shape of the boots the Specters were using. Both images didn’t match.

  “Wait,” Miyuki said, her face still looking at the melting footprints. “These aren’t our prints.”

  Miyuki pointed at the prints. Serge and Yanmei’s gaze followed the direction of her finger.

  Serge stroked his chin. “Eh? Who are they then?”

  Miyuki’s HUD transmitted the estimated location from where the users of the footprints came from. The overlays in her vision pointed her face to the wreckage of the two dropships.

  She pointed. Yanmei’s ruby glowing eyes followed, and she grimaced. “Someone from Yoshida’s private army survived.”

  “Persistent little bastards,” Serge said.

  Yanmei moved to the dropship’s wreckage, her rifle pointed forward. “Miyuki, ghostwalk with me.”

  Miyuki nodded, shifted into her ghostwalk phase, brightening her hands with white glowing light. Her MEP gauge shrank slowly on her HUD. Yanmei did the same and faced Serge. “Serge, take cover and scan for vulnerable devices.”

  “Right.”

  He nodded in the direction Yanmei wasn’t in. Serge couldn’t see where she was. She must not have trusted him enough to know where she really was.

  Smoldering body parts littered the dropship’s wreckage, lying in a crater dug out when Serge hacked and forced the fighters to fire upon their own, then nosedive. Miyuki found nothing of interest, neither did Yanmei as she kicked over debris blocking the inside of what used to be the dropship’s cockpit. Yanmei gestured with her head to follow and led Miyuki to the primary crash site, the location of the shuttle’s remains they hijacked and escaped from.

  That too sat at the basin of a crater, mangled, and twisted. Burning trees surrounded it, and the heat of the fires grew more intense, its hot light making Miyuki forget they were in the arctic cold, operating under the cover of the night skies. They pushed in, braving the flames, with sweat dampened bodies now. It felt like the two walked into hell.

  Miyuki checked her MEP gauge; it had dropped to 70 percent. She took notice of the various chunks of sizzling debris, they should provide excellent cover should her MEP gauge hit zero, forcing her powers into the cooldown stage. Deeper in and they saw soldiers also braving the flames. They wore combat armor with the corporate logo of Yoshida prominently displayed. She gave their armor a tactical scan.

  Armor Name: Yoshida Polar Armor

  Durability: 100%

  Energy protection: Low

  Armor-Piercing protection: Medium

  Firearm protection: Medium

  Unprotected areas: Helmet has low protection against piercing rounds. The battery on the lower back can be damaged to disrupt armor’s climate control.

  Four PMC soldiers exited the fuselage, dragging behind the half-completed prototype TEK suit. They were taking back what Nobuo sought to gain.

  Yanmei spoke into her radio. “Saito, you guys still alive?”

  “We are and nearing your position,” Saito’s voice replied.

  Yanmei winced, watching as the PMCs dragged the prototype TEK suit. “Yoshida’s taking it back.”

  Saito replied. “Perhaps we should kindly remind them who they are dealing with.”

  A grin stretched on Yanmei’s face. “Yes, let’s.”

  Yanmei issued orders to the team: Take up positions around the crater of the crash site, and aim down at the middle of the burning circular hole in the ground with the shuttle’s wreckage as armored PMCs continued pulling the prototype TEK suit, leaving marks below in its wake.

  Miyuki found a spot to herself behind a fallen tree at the crater’s lip. It gave her a chance to cease ghostwalking, diming the white glow of her hands, and allow her body’s ability to absorb fresh MEP. Her gauge slowly rose back to 100 percent. After that, she peered over the top of her cover and synced her YARX 76 assault rifle’s scope with her HUD.

  Looking through the scope, she saw the prototype the four PMCs were dragging. She gave it a quick scan and reported its status over the radio. “The prototype looks good,” Miyuki said. “It will need some repairs, but it’s still worth taking.”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Yanmei voiced, and approached the PMC soldiers oblivious to the ghosts standing near the edge of the crater, watching. “Everyone, are you in position?”

  Porter, Brown, Saito, and Arakawa gave their reply. “Roger.”

  “Matsuoka?”

  Miyuki nodded and held her aim steady. The back of the head of the soldier she targeted covered half her view. She reported in. “Roger.”

  “Smith?”

  “Still got their command key codes,” Serge said over the radio from wherever he had taken cover. “Gonna upload some malware into their guns and use it to shut ‘em down. But that’ll buy you five seconds before they power them back on.”

  Five seconds. Miyuki didn’t like that number, at all. It’d take her five seconds of continuous fire to spend her magazine, and that’s with full ammo, which she didn’t have. She missed the plasma rifle. It still had a complete charge before the crash forced her to leave it aboard the doomed shuttle. Lucky for her, the two Specters that didn’t make it out of the shuttle had left one of their assault rifles on the ground.

  The head of her target was one of many heads that needed to be in her reticle’s sight before she pulled the trigger. Miyuki couldn’t afford to hit her targets anywhere else, even body shots might require a lot of bullets to down a target, giving the distance and grade of the PMCs armor.

  “On my mark,” Yanmei vocalized.

  Miyuki took a deep breath. The target’s head was still in her view. Her finger rested on the rifle’s cold trigger.

  “Mark!”

  She pulled the trigger. Her battle-focused mind couldn’t sense the arctic winds blowing across her face, scattering her black bobbed hair in the mist of the rushing snow.

  And the Specter made their ghostly strike. Multiple weapons blazed adding light to the darkened crater already glowing with flames. Miyuki’s first target spun around with gore ejecting through a hole in his forehead. He hit the ground before the blast of red mist did. She found her second target amongst the ambush. Her targeting reticle hovered above his chest. She pulled the trigger; the rifle’s vibration shook her hands. The target staggered, screamed, but remained standing. How? She thought and continued holding the trigger. Nothing happened. The ammo counter screen read zero.

  “Kuso!” she cu
rsed.

  The violence went on. Panicking PMCs lifted their weapons about, searching for ghostwalking targets that didn’t want to be seen. And Miyuki’s weapon was the only one not contributing. Retreat for cover, it was all the PMCs could do at that point, hunkering down behind the shuttle’s wreckage, peeking up to make futile attempts at shooting the unseen Specter team. The PMCs that survived the opening assault found the mangled entrance to the burning wreck and vanished within its protective cover. Now neither side could see one another.

  The silence fell. She heard only the cracking of flames and howls of the icy arctic winds blowing through the burning trees.

  Yanmei spoke over the radio. “Finish them.”

  The Specter team leaped into the burning crater, weapons aimed forward, feet moving with careful and silent steps, and ruby glowing eyes seeking and scanning for surviving PMCs while they laughed at the bloody bodies littering the ground. Miyuki joined them last, tossing aside her weapon, now devoid of ammo. She looked at the first target she killed, and his weapon on the ground. According to her HUD, he still had a full magazine. She crept through the hellish terrain, her senses telling her to be on edge for a PMC that might be playing dead. There were at least six bodies that could have been playing that role. She felt her heart leap up a bunch of times after approaching her first kill. Her HUD projected data from her optical scanner over her eyesight. The target was dead, but she didn’t trust it.

  “Smith, anything more you can do?” Yanmei’s voice spoke again on the radio.

  “Give it a sec, my tablet’s overheating,” the Australian’s voice replied. “Taking out those aircraft required a lot of processing power.”

  Miyuki kneeled before her first kill and looked at his rifle. His hands were still holding it. She grabbed and pulled it and half her mind told her the hands still gripped onto it were about to take it back. It was a terrifying feeling. She held the newly acquired rifle then stood up while her cyberware scanned it, and relayed tactical data to her HUD.

  Weapon Name: Jaguar PT56

  Damage: Medium

  Clip size: 40

  Rate of Fire: High

  Range: Medium

  Type: Assault Rifle

  It had a greater ammo capacity and rate of fire than the YARX 76. Miyuki had the strongest weapon of the team. She grinned and aimed the heavy rifle forward as her cyberware enhanced arms and hands gave her the freedom to aim it as if it weighed nothing. She searched his body for spare magazines, three were found. Keeping them in her possession forced her HUD to update her ammo counter, it read: 40/120.

  She went back through the hellfire crater, rejoining the team who stood still near the entrance to the wreckage of the shuttle. They were waiting for the cooldown period to end. Then it did. The Specters resumed their ghostwalk and entered the transport. None of the PMCs heard or saw them enter, they only saw the horror of their team members’ heads explode, and the gory insides splatter about. The Specters systematically took them out one by one.

  Nobody moved after that. The ghostwalking Specters ended their phase, becoming visible once again. Yanmei gave the all-clear, and they were free to disperse, much to Miyuki’s surprise. She needed to get free of the flames, get back to where her cover was, and the nice comforting cold winds.

  Climbing out from the small crater, Miyuki heard movement in the distance. Someone survived their assault. She pointed her weapon forward, scanning the horizon left to right, and right to left. She saw nothing, but her ears, however, heard it all. Footsteps stepping in the snow beyond, slowly.

  Miyuki radioed it in. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered. “Two… maybe three targets.”

  “We’ll finish up here and get the prototype,” Yanmei radioed back. “Matsuoka, check it out.”

  “Roger.” And Miyuki was gone, rushing forward and seeking the fleeing Yoshida PMCs.

  So she assumed.

  Gunfire echoed. Miyuki stopped to check her soundings. She was safe, and nobody was shooting at her. She proceeded further, searching for the fleeing targets near the woods.

  “Got some stragglers here!” Yanmei’s voice on the radio yelled.

  “Left side! Left side!” That sounded like Brown.

  Miyuki ghostwalked through the woods, hoping the choice to leave her team behind was a safe one.

  “Tablet should be good,” Serge’s voice said. “Want me to hit ‘em again?”

  “Please,” Yanmei transmitted. “They are just blind firing now.”

  “Uploading malware into their weapons, standby.”

  She found them. Two men sneaking about, employing the darkness and trees as their cover. They wore long parka coats and spoke English using accents that weren’t Australian or New Zealand. One target moved behind a tree. Miyuki inched closer, keeping a close eye on her MEP gauge, 87 percent. She had this.

  “Oh hello,” Serge transmitted. “Got some train tracks close by.”

  “Send me the navi-point,” Yanmei replied. “We’ll push to it once we’re done here.”

  She was closer now, close enough to place her targeting reticle over the hooded head of one target.

  “And… their weapons are down.”

  Miyuki pulled the trigger.

  The weapon didn’t fire.

  She pulled again, and again, nothing. Was it the ammo? She checked the rifle’s ammo counter while reaching for a spare magazine. The screen was black. And then she saw nobody, and her HUD went blank too as it disconnected from the weapon. She un-synced the HUD from the weapon while giving it a second glance and realized the error she made. It was a rifle once held by a Yoshida PMC, one of several Yoshida rifles Serge just hacked to disable the remaining soldiers, not realizing Miyuki had taken one.

  Frustration clouded her thoughts and muddled her judgment. An error message flashed over her MEP gauge, her ghostwalk had failed. She lost focus. She was also standing out in the open, no need to hide when you were invisible. Were invisible. She wasn’t anymore. And the two men she was stalking panicked and pointed fingers at her. One man dove from the tree he was behind. Turns out she was pursuing three targets, not two.

  And that third target carried a sniper rifle. And shot her down.

  Thirty-Nine

  Ray

  “Is it dead?”

  Theo asked an excellent question.

  Ray lowered the smoking sniper rifle, freeing his hands to enhance the zoom feature of his smart glasses. The Specter he shot was gone, ran back up the path she likely used to find the three. He saw four vulnerable icons in the distance, moving away.

  “Cyberware’s still active,” Ray said. “That’s all I know. So, she’s probably alive.”

  “She?” Bashiir asked.

  “That Specter was a woman, young one too,” Ray said. “Must have been inexperienced.”

  Theo stood at his side, joining Ray’s view of the opened path in the woods ahead. “You spooked her good, malaka.”

  “I didn’t,” Ray said with hesitation. “Honestly, I didn’t see her cyberware until now. Something else distracted her, and she became visible—”

  A clatter of bangs echoed in the skies. Automatic rifles had roared nearby. The gunfire came from the hellish location of the crash site.

  “Like that?” Bashiir said.

  Ray, Bashiir, and Theo ran through the snow, continuing their trek to the crater of the crash. He felt the air temperatures rise with every meter crossed. Below in the snow were red lines crossing over footprints that weren’t there’s. The amount of red snow increased the closer they got. The Specter he shot was losing blood at an increasing rate.

  At the edge of the crater, past dozens of trees blasted over on their sides, the three stood with weapons drawn, and sharp eyes examining the burning crater for threats. Ray saw nothing, and the silence of Bashiir and Theo suggested they were in the same position. They missed the gun battle.

  The losers of the fight littered the hellish landscape with their blood gushing bodies next to smoldering wreckag
e. His glasses turned up no new vulnerable icons other than equipment the dead had on them. Somewhere in the pit was the shuttle they came seeking. And the fleeing Specter evading Ray’s detection.

  Ray leaped into the crater. Theo put his hands out as if he was trying to grab Ray. “Malaka!”

  “I think I wounded her,” Ray said as the heat from the flames made him regret wearing the coat, gloves, and boots. “Can’t be that much of a threat now.”

  “What if she’s not?” Theo said from behind. “Yo, malaka, it might be an ambush!”

  Ray scanned the site again via his glasses. Its lenses showed no vulnerable targets, just the vulnerable icons on the dead. Ray turned back looking at Bashiir and Theo. “We’re safe for now. The Specters aren’t here.”

  He waved for them to join him. After three seconds of hesitation, Bashiir leaped down into the flaming hell.

  Theo’s eyes shot open wide. “Oh fuck, Bashiir not you too.”

  “Ray is our key for survival right now,” Bashiir said on his way down.

  Ray chuckled. “Yeah, no pressure guys.”

  Theo stood alone, and it didn’t look like he enjoyed it. “Fucking hell,” he grumbled and joined the search in the crater.

  They spread out and rummaged through the twisted wreckage, stepping over or past dead bodies, dropped guns and bullets, and burning pieces of what used to be aircraft. It was hard to tell the difference between the fighters that crashed, and the shuttle they came looking for. Theo thought he found it and called the two over. Turned out to be the remains of a dropship.

  They found nothing of value other than spare ammo dropped from the soldiers, Yoshida PMCs according to their armor. It gave Ray some peace of mind knowing they were better prepared for another fight thanks to the extra ammo collected. Then he remembered the extra ammo didn’t keep the soldiers alive. He grimaced and continued rummaging. Ray was determined to find the prototype TEK suit stolen from the base, the reason the love of his life, Arianna, risked everything to get the blueprints of it back to the Alliance, and then into Ray’s head when she was compromised.