Repercussions
Page 28
“Oo-rah!” they chorused.
Vargas was monitoring external feeds and scan as the shuttle settled with a smooth thump on the deck of the bay. When the docking clamps engaged, he turned and gave Adira a curt nod.
“Alright, Demons, keep it tight!” Adira’s monstrous helmet growled out.
Within seconds of the words leaving her mouth, the rear hatch opened with a thud. Adira’s troops streamed into the bay, weapons swiveling to cover all angles. The mostly empty cargo bay was long and narrow and barely had room for the assault shuttle to dock. The nose of the shuttle faced toward the bow of the ship. One cargo door and three regular sized personnel hatches were on the starboard side of the shuttle. No Niets were waiting for them, and they all felt slightly better about the Tempest’s ability to hide them from the enemy.
Squads one and two had updated ship maps on their HUDs, courtesy of the Tempest’s AI. They set out to clear the ship of any stragglers, starting at the hatch and moving to the rear of the bay. The mech fireteam, supplemented by Adira and Vargas, was making a direct run for the cargo bay that held the Niet boarding party. Squad three split, with Lieutenant Barrow and fireteam one and two moving to secure the Niet shuttles, while fireteam three settled in to guard their exit.
* * * * *
Adira could feel her heart rate steadily increasing as she approached the occupied bay. With a quick mental command, three tiny drones ejected from the launcher on her back and raced ahead of the group.
So far, the ship’s AI had given them perfect intel. ‘Trust but verify’ was an age-old adage that Adira felt was necessary when dealing with outside intel. The drone feeds were sending back data that layered perfectly with the ship’s map. Adira couldn’t help but smile inside her helmet as she thought about how deeply the Niets had underestimated the AI’s willingness to help a second party of boarders.
Her team progressed steadily to the target, clearing corners and checking overhead spaces for surprises. No one was blind to the possibility of ambushes or traps, and Adira felt a sense of satisfaction, watching her team move with fluid, deadly efficiency.
Thirty yards short of the cargo bay, Adira saw Vargas’s hand shoot up to call a halt.
Adira smiled inside her helmet. No one ever appreciated a Genevian mech’s idea of a wake-up call.
Kim and Stasia, both SMI-2s, were on point and had both their GNRs and JE-78 multifunction rifles covering the entrance. Duke, the only male in this group besides Vargas, swiveled his tube launcher off his back and aimed it toward the bay. The FR-2 recon mech loved delivering their R&D department’s newest experiments.
Kim chuckled over the combat net.
The latest version of the launcher had a three-stage mechanism. Three projectiles would exit the tube approximately two seconds apart. The first would be a flash bang, the second, a data collection cylinder that would map heat signatures. The final projectile was an airburst foam deployment round. Though they were still working the bugs out of the system, it frequently demonstrated seventy-five-percent accuracy, hitting the mapped heat signatures with an expanding foam pellet. If they were lucky, it would obscure a helmet, or lock an arm in place.
Between the flash bang and the foam, the enemy was usually plenty disoriented when Adira’s team arrived seconds later. Vargas gave the ‘engage’ signal over the combat net, and Duke crouched down to get a good angle on the bay. With three quiet thumps, the launcher delivered its payload. The team had blacked out their visors upon launch, but started running forward at the same time. Their vision cleared automatically after the flash was registered.
Kim and Stasia peeled hard to the left and right upon entry, with Duke and another SMI-2, Minx, taking similar routes, clearing the fatal funnel that the corridor provided. Almost immediately, pulse blasts from the enemies’ positions told them that the foam hadn’t been as effective as they had hoped. The presence of the AI frames also caused the mech team to quickly adjust their fire to only precision shots.
When Vargas and Adira cleared the door, she heard him swear as they both took in the battlefield at a glance. The realization dawned on here that they’d end up killing the hostages if this turned into a prolonged firefight. She let out a frustrated scream at the sight of the prisoners, which, due to the Demons’ voice modulators, projected as a guttural roar.
Adira ground out as she prepared to take a straight line toward the nearest crates.
Lowering her head, she charged forward in a quick sprint before launching herself toward the high bay ceiling.
Her team’s suppressive fire had the Niets hunkering down behind the crates, so only the two armored troops directly beneath her saw Adira completing her leap. It was the last thing they saw, as one took a GNR ballistic round to the helmet and the other received a six-round burst from her JE78 in the neck, almost separating their head from their torso.
The two Niets to the left were pivoting to engage Adira, but before they could, the crate they were hiding behind slammed into them, courtesy of a shoulder-check by Vargas. Faster than they could recover from their sprawl across the floor, Vargas had unleashed a barrage of kinetic rounds. Adira’s three-sixty vision had already clocked the two Niets to her right, and she pivoted and let loose a burst from her electron beam, cutting their armor to shreds.
In the brief seconds that it took Adira and Vargas to smash into the center of the Niets’ defense, the other mechs had advanced in a blinding sprint. As Nietzschean troops glanced toward the breach, Kim and Stasia reached speed and then dropped to their knees, sliding around the crates on the left and right flanks. Their low height and speed confused the enemy, and they blasted the backs of the Niets as they slid past, demonic-sounding laughter echoing across the cargo bay.
Duke and Minx had been slowly strafing toward opposite sides while maintaining suppressive fire. They knew better than to get caught in friendly crossfire, and trusted Kim and Stasia to avoid engaging their platoon sergeant and the colonel. Within twenty seconds of the first round being fired, reports of
Adira had one of her three-toed feet firmly planted in the Nietzschean commander’s chestplate. Biofoam and suit mechanicals were attempting to staunch the bleeding from his amputated right arm, the remains of which was laying next to him, still holding a rifle. After Adira removed the Niet’s helmet, Vargas could hear a whimper, as the colonel flexed her leg, and a pop was heard from the enemy’s chestpiece.
“Pass me the access codes to your frigate and the Ramstein base,” her suit growled in a truly horrific voice. “Failure to do so will mean I play with your worthless corpse until you finally agree.” There was a brief pause before she continued, “So by all means, stall. There are things I would love to do to you before your heart gives out.”
Adira’s human-shaped hand slid a long dagger from behind her back. She chuckled softly, which caused the Nietzschean commander to pale even more. With trembling lips, he quickly started shaking his head. “No no no! I’ll give you the codes. Just let me live!” he begged, and a sob tore out of his throat.
Adira’s horned beast of a head was already shaking in denial. “You misunderstand, you cockroach. You are bargaining for how quickly you will get to die. If you make me angry, it will be a long, long time until I give your soul peace. Decide!” She leaned forward, causing another pop from the armor, and her bladed hand moved toward
his left eye.
Three minutes later, the screaming had ended. Adira rounded the corner of the crates and saw that the AI frames had been freed and were gathered around their fallen comrade.
She glanced over at Vargas.
Vargas pointed at the group of AIs.
Adira was thinking quickly and checking her combat net.
There was a brief silence before Corporal Glau replied.
Turning to the huddled group of AIs, Adira removed her helmet before she approached. Brushing her hair behind her ears was out of the question, since her hand was covered in Nietzschean blood. She instead attempted to toss it out of her face as she crouched down next to the green and black AI that was giving orders to the other two AIs that were frantically working on their downed comrade.
“Hey, there, I’m Colonel Adira of the Trenton. We need to evac you and your crew ASAP. Your ship is crippled, and the Nietzschean response is going to be brutal when the rest of their patrol vessels arrive.” She paused to give the AI a chance to reply.
When the AI, which appeared feminine, didn’t respond, she laid a hand gently on its shoulder.
“Did you hear me? We have to evacuate soon. Are you in charge here? Or do I need to speak with someone else?”
At that, the green AI paused and looked quickly at Adira, then started to look away, but rapidly spun back to fully face her.
“You are an AI-capable mech, aren’t you? I know the Genevians had that capability. Do you have an AI already, or are you freed up?” she asked in a rapid-fire manner.
Adira’s eyebrows rose in surprise. She was equipped with the ability to match with an AI in her current form, but she was surprised that others would know of this. Genevian forces had developed the later gen SMIs to have that ability, but rarely implemented it. Adira noted that she needed to find out more about what these AIs knew about fighting mechs.
“Yes, I do have an open AI interface. Why?” Glancing down at the wounded AI, she was starting to get an uneasy feeling in her gut.
“Arni took rounds meant for me, and primary and backup systems have been compromised on her mobile platform. But we only have one transport node left, and we still have Ivan, our ship’s AI, to evacuate. Can you let Arni tag along with you while we get out of here?”
The pleading in her voice was intense, and the other two AIs had stopped working and also turned to look at Adira.
Adira momentarily froze. It’s not that she had never considered an AI companion—she did have the port, after all. It was just that this problem was a mental grenade thrown into a rapidly evolving tactical situation.
Looking down at the wounded AI, and then at the anxious AI faces that surrounded her, she tamped down any doubts that were rising to the surface. She needed to act decisively and move on with the operation.
“Yes, I can take it...um, her with me. But then we need to move with a purpose. We have another battle to get to.” The relief emanating from AIs was palpable. “So what do we need to do to transfer her over?”
Minutes later, the abdominal AI port on Adira’s torso was open, and Emma was placing Arni’s central pod into place. With a click, the port closed, and Adira’s HUD gave a prompt asking if she was ready for integration. Taking a deep breath, she gave her confirmation. A moment later, a presence seemed to swell in her awareness.
Adira gave Emma a thumbs-up and told Vargas to move out, back toward the shuttle, before replying to the voice in her head.
She paused to decide how much to share with her unknown hitchhiker.
With a sigh, she continued.
The voice in her head was quiet as Adira watched the corridor for Kim and Stasia. They, along with the other mobile AIs, were securing the node-bound AIs and Ivan. A few seconds later, they came jogging up the hall with nodes in their arms.
As the assault shuttle moved out of the bay to intercept the Trenton, she pulled up a detailed look at the second combat net. Major Bella and Master Sergeant Jagger were well underway in the taking of the Niet frigate, but were meeting with a lot of resistance, as it was full of Nietzschean forces. Major Bella was in a protracted battle toward the bridge, while engineering had just fallen to Adira’s Demons. The brig was proving to be a harder target than they had expected, since it was located next to the troop berthing area in this vessel.
While quickly filtering through the data, Adira felt her tagalong AI reviewing it as well.
Adira couldn’t help but grin.
* * * * *
The Nietzschean brig supervisor was trying to rally his guards. They had just been pushed back to yet another fallback position.
“Keep it together, men! They are flesh and blood just like you and me. You just need to lay down suppressive fire. We can hold them back until we get reinforcements!”
Truth was, the horrifying visage of the red-eyed monsters was making his hands shake. What sane soldiers would decorate themselves in such a way? The sounds that had accompanied their blitzkrieg through the last three bulkheads had more than one of his guards backing up in retreat. The enemy’s fearless advance and withering barrage of kinetic rounds had just about taken the will to fight from his men.
He moved to stand and address the soldiers under his command; he wanted to counterattack to slow the advance of these demons that had come out of nowhere in the black. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, a neat hole appeared in his forehead, while the rear of his skull blasted across the bulkhead behind him.
Before anyone could react, there was a thump-thump-thump from the corridor, and then the rest of the guard force was blinded before being cut down, many already incapacitated by something they couldn’t see.
* * * * *
bat, the way she was talking. After a brief pause, she continued.
* * * * *
Adira breathed a sigh of relief and felt her shoulders relax slightly. Stage one was complete. Now they just had to do a quick, hard burn for Ramstein. It was time to bring in her heavy hitters.
GATES OF HELL
STELLAR DATE: 09.29.8949
LOCATION: Former Nietzschean Empire Destroyer, Trenton
REGION: Caulter System, Nietzschean Empire (Former Genevian Space)
Adira found herself slowly waking on her inclined rack, to an unusual feeling pressing at the edge of her consciousness. The five hours of sleep had barely been enough to mentally refresh her. However, the feelings of humor emanating from the unfamiliar presence sharing her body were enough to pull her into total wakefulness.
Maybe this was avoidance behavior for an AI. She’d had so few interactions with AIs, and the military AIs that the Genevians had utilized always came across as stuffy and uptight.