by M. D. Cooper
The AI chirped happily.
Adira accessed her rack table’s interface, and her mech legs and gun-arm descended from the ceiling. No longer needing human help to attach her limbs was one of the greatest gifts her R&D teams had given the mechs. It had returned a piece of their independence. Granted, it still took a while to make the connections just right, but it still felt liberating.
She breathed out a sigh as she tilted her rack bed into the upright position and settled her weight onto her battle legs. Adira believed she could faintly feel the emotions coming from her little tagalong, and Arni seemed to like that response.
As the colonel checked to make sure all her systems were green, she was also checking herself in the small mirror that her stateroom provided. After running her fingers through her ebony hair, she sighed again and checked the time and the status of her command staff—she had thirty minutes before their final briefing. Time to get her game face on.
The corridors were mostly empty as Adira walked slower than usual to the meeting. The isolation left her with plenty of time to think. Instead of mentally making changes to their assault plan, she was thinking about how far she had come from when she was a spoiled, politician’s daughter back on Kallas. Before the war had made its way into her life. Before her limbs were taken, before her sister was murdered.
The further she walked down this never-ending path of death and destruction, the more abstract the memories became. Who was that person that she had been? Was she slowly losing her soul? Becoming the demon that she showed her enemies in battle?
Would she ever forgive herself for sending Captain Fell and his Vanguard in a last-ditch effort to save the Hope from capture? He and his spec-ops troops were the elite warriors that had once protected the Genevian leadership, and Fell had saved Adira more times than she could count; she had returned the favor in kind. The past few years, they had been performing a tentative dance of words around what Adira hoped was a mutual attraction. His absence had created a void in her chest that felt as real as any physical wound.
Her darkening thoughts were interrupted by her arrival at the door to the meeting room. She mentally shook her head and straightened herself up to her full height. She would never want to appear weak or downtrodden in front of her mechs and soldiers.
With a mental swipe, she opened the door and entered the same briefing space that they had used before the rescue operation. Now there were at least ten additional soldiers and a few mechs. A blue holographic ball represented one of the specialty mechs that couldn’t physically fit into the space.
The Beowulf had arrived, bringing the rest of her small fighting force together.
The former Genevian carrier had once been a deployment platform for troop dropships. Due to the war, and later the rebellion efforts of Adira’s Demons, there were only twenty-four dropships remaining. The two-thousand-meter vessel was far from empty, though; the rest of the mechs and remaining mech R&D group members were housed onboard. There were also six hundred and twenty-five refugees from their flight from Kallas, and the infantry complement of three hundred and twenty-five hard-charging infantry grunts made an effective fighting force when taking on small stations and even large ships.
Unfortunately the Ramstein base was neither small or lightly defended. The base was often called a ‘moon base’, despite its lack of celestial parent. It was really a very large G-type asteroid, at approximately six hundred kilometers in diameter. The placement of its orbit and its location on the fringe of the Caulter system made it a great place to hide a military base and stash political prisoners.
The holotable was displaying the spherical gray mass in a gentle rotation. The original creators had drilled deep toward the core of the asteroid, and utilized the mass of the nearly dwarf-planet-sized rock to keep it safe from both attacks and debris. There were, however, four large domes, each almost two kilometers across that illustrated the desire for the residents to not feel claustrophobic. Large docking bays were located on either side of the asteroid, but the one on the opposite side of the main habitat was primarily for military repair and resupply. They only connected to the other side of the asteroid by a narrow grav train.
Adira and the other leaders had been planning an attack on this base since their comrades had been captured one month prior.
The Hope had been a Genevian hospital ship during the war. In the years since, it had continued to provide healthcare to the resistance and also give shelter to refugees from destroyed outposts and stations that had sided with the resistance. The most vulnerable and innocent had been aboard the ship when it was taken by the Niets, and Adira shuddered to think about how they would have been treated. She tried not to think about whether or not Captain Fell and his Vanguard strike force had survived the battle to take the Hope.
Pushing down a feeling of longing before it could bubble up, she doubled her resolve.
Looking around the table, Adira identified Corporal Turk and his girlfriend Private Simone. Both were of average height and build, and could pass for a native in just about any system they crossed. Their unlikely journey to becoming spies had started only a year before, when they’d infiltrated a Nietzschean supply base, posing as dockworkers. They currently looked a little nervous, knowing that this mission leaned heavily on what they had been able to learn about the base.
“OK, team, let’s get started.” The talking died down quickly at Adira’s firm voice, and she continued a little quieter. “First, I am sorry to report that we lost one of our own, taking down the frigate. Sergeant Nuen lost her life shielding her fireteam from a blistering counterattack. We mechs might be mostly metal, but Nuen showed all heart yesterday.”
There were murmurs of agreement from around the table. The RR mech was well-liked and respected within their mixed group of mechs and soldiers.
Corporal Kadiz raised his hand slightly to indicate that he had more to add. Receiving a nod from Adira, he cleared his throat, and she could tell that the sergeant’s loss had been a personal one to him as well.
“We were giving the Niets hell, up and down the bulkheads. We had been pushing them back steadily when we were caught in a bad spot.” The Corporal had started quietly, but now his voice hardened. “We suddenly took two wounded in the point position, when the Niets finally realized that they needed to pull out the big guns to stop us.”
Smiles and nods around the table, as they all had experience with fighting crews who were more worried about holing their hulls than stopping the heavily armored Demons.
“The sarge had realized our whole fireteam was exposed in a long hallway. She jumped over us, giving them hell from both barrels. Those bastards had already set up the heavies, and she stood in front of a railgun shot and electron beam to shield us,” the corporal finished with a shuddering breath.
There had been little of her body to recover, but her fellow mechs and soldiers had carried her remains out, despite the risk involved.
Adira gave him another reassuring nod. “We all mourn her loss and celebrate the courage she showed in protecting her troops. She will be remembered,” she promised while making eye contact with her gathered leadership.
“I wish I could say that she is the only one who will be lost in this fight, but we all know the odds that we are facing. Thanks to Turk and Simone, we know that the Hope’s crew and hospital staff are still being held in the temporary brig, one-point-five kilometers from the docks. The Niets weren’t prepared to house another twenty-six hundred refugees, and that is playing in our favor. The converted cafeteria and storage bays have been set up with cots and curtains. The Niets are doing a good job of keeping them sealed within those areas, and any attempts at escape have been met with lethal force.”
Looking at the faces surrounding the table, she saw many growing grim or angry. Only Major Bella was grinning slightly.
“What’s on your mind, Majo
r?” Adira asked her.
“Pardon me, Colonel, but I think the Niets did too much planning on how to keep these folks in. With the way the entrances and exits were created, they have very little space to set up any type of fortified defense against an incursion from the outside.”
The major had enlarged the section in question, and there did seem to be inward facing positions; the Niets didn’t appear to have considered that anyone would be crazy enough to invade the base.
“Indeed. That is something we are going to take advantage of. The portion of our forces heading for retrieval will attempt to suppress the Niet guards with a little shock and awe. Isn’t that right, Prentis?” Adira was looking at the blue holographic ball that hovered across the table.
“We are looking forward to sinking our talons into those weak-willed fools. The Nietzscheans will pay for their transgressions” the mech’s voice thundered.
Grins lit up faces all around the table.
Adira held up a hand to slow the whispers and chuckles. “That’s right, Demons. We are emptying the Aerie for this mission. The Nietzscheans aren’t going to be ready for what we have now. So let’s get to it. We have an attack to finish planning and troops to prepare.”
* * * * *
The Ramstein base had thirty-two smaller docks for all sorts of smaller fleet vessels, cargo haulers and maintenance drones. There was one huge dock that had the ability to house two capital ships at one time. Overseer Machem was busy berating his least favorite dock supervisor, when suddenly, the collision klaxons started wailing.
Spinning around, he looked toward the dock, expecting to have to scream about some shuttle coming in too hot.
“Stupid space jockeys, always trying to impress someone,” he muttered before his jaw dropped open.
The blood drained from his face. There were over a dozen troop dropships already passing through the grav shields and spreading out across the vast dock floor. His underling took a step away, as Machem might have lost some control of his bowels, as the creatures lifted off from the tops of the dropships.
With an ear-splitting roar, a mythical beast only seen in vids launched from the roof of the lead dropship. Riding on its back was a metal demon with glowing green eyes and blackened horns.
The Gates of Hell have opened!, was the last thought that entered his mind before the dragon’s mouth opened, and he was engulfed in a blast from an electron beam.
* * * * *
Adira’s view from Prentis’s back allowed her to see her dragon’s effect on the Nietzschean troops. The modified SkyScreams had five-meter wings, with an array of mini missiles and beam weapons attached. As Prentis’s mate Maggie landed on a group of fleeing Niets and mantled over her prey, a flurry of those small missiles raced after another group that was trying to escape in a dock vehicle. She and Prentis roared their shared delight at the destruction, the mind merge with the dragon-mech software fully immersing them in the bloodlust of the hunt.
Knowing that she had to keep them on mission, she checked the battle net to make sure the other six dragon mechs and their riders were ready to push forward. All showed green.
She Linked with Prentis.
In response, Prentis launched forward, toward the large concourse that ran to the main base. His eyrie of comrades swooped in from either side. They had modified grip points to allow their SMI mechs to secure their legs and hand along its back. In addition, there was a Link-controlled maglock point that they could lay their GNR against, which would give them an even more secure grip on the violently maneuvering mech.
Checking her rear view, Adira saw that Kim, Stasia, Minx, and their partner dragons were following closely behind. Jem, Locke, and Trina were in a reverse diamond formation in the rear, with Trina actually locked in backward so she could effectively engage any rear threats.
That woman is nuts, Adira thought to herself.
The shops and restaurants that lined either side of the concourse were rapidly closing security doors as her group of roaring mechs blasted by at one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour. The few small patrols of armed base security met with a quick end from either Prentis’s miniguns or Adira’s GNR. Their team was tasked with retrieving the smaller group of prisoners, which included many of the small children. The bulk of the troops from the Trenton and the Beowulf would push to the main refugee holding area, but a small reserve force was maintaining control of the landing zone. Adira’s anxiety increased as she thought about what the Niets would do to the children if her group took too long.
Almost as if he could feel her need, Prentis accelerated to an even faster pace. Adira tightened her grip and hoped her mech fireteam would be able to keep the pace.
Just hold on, kids. The Demons are coming to help you…and only my group of kids would take comfort in that, she imagined with a grin.
* * * * *
The adults were pretending to organize a game to give Lee a chance to worm onto the Niets’ network. The crew of the Hope and their families were being held in a converted cafeteria. The Nietzscheans had correctly assumed that the adults would be easier to control if children were also at risk.
They hadn’t confiscated all of the children’s handheld tablets however.
At fifteen years old, Lee was pretty advanced among his peers with network infiltration—something that the resistance movement was open to teaching their children. The fact that he looked like he was only twelve helped in this situation, as he huddled against the wall behind a shield of frolicking children and watchful adults.
The past few days, Lee had been making access attempts from multiple access points and even cleaning drone networks. This morning, he had lucked out in cracking the protocol on the fire suppression system…. Something that the Niets had probably overlooked when it came to upgrading net security.
There aren’t even NSAIs on the network!
His excitement grew as he was able to backdoor into the general infonet of the Ramstein base. He gave Captain Fell a small thumbs-up and received a nod in return. Burying his face back into his tablet, he started the process of trying to find a map of the base and anything else that could help them identify a way to escape.
Less than an hour later, his small gasp had the captain and the other adults turning to check on him. Lee tried to steady his voice to contain his excitement. “They are here! Adira is coming for us,” he said with an ear-splitting grin.
Fell took a knee next to him, his massive frame still towering above the small teenager. “For us or for the larger group of prisoners? We are off the beaten path, from what we could tell from our arrival.”
Lee was already shaking his head. “No, Captain, you don’t understand. There are reports of dragons flying down the concourse, the way we came in! There are also calls for reinforcements at the main brig, and the capital ship dock has fallen to, I quote, ‘demons from the core itself’. They are coming for all of us. And based on the chatter, they will be here any second!”
Not questioning the young man further, Fell jumped to his feet and yelled out in his booming voice, “Plan C! Tables out.”
Within seconds, the children were corralled into a small circle, and several of the old dining tables were flipped on their sides, creating meager shields to protect them. The adults stood protectively in front of them and waited for any Niets to come through the door. They were well known for killing hostages rather than losing them, but the crew of the Hope was going to do their best to keep the kids alive till help arrived.
Instead of the sound of guards opening their door, there was a series of booms and then a deafening roar. The dampeners that had prevented them from using their Links lifted. In that moment, they heard the demonic voice of their leader echoing through the door.
“STAND CLEAR OF THE DOOR. TEN SECONDS!”
The sounds of cheering were h
eard across the open space. The adults near the door sprinted toward the barricades, and just as they cleared the tables, the four-meter-wide doors blew open.
Through the gap, the metallic horned head of a dragon mech peered inside.
“All clear,” it rumbled. “The hatchlings are safe.”
As its head disappeared, a tall SMI-3 walked through the entrance to the cheers of the children and adults alike. Removing her helmet, the smile on Adira’s face was one of relief. Captain Fell was already walking toward her and her eyes were locked on his.
To the shock and delight of the watching crowd, which included the freshly arrived Kim and Stasia, Adira and Fell wrapped each other in an embrace and kissed long and deep. A fresh cheer and some clapping caused them to break apart, and a slight pink showed on their colonel’s cheeks.
* * * * *
Adira was slightly embarrassed at how thoroughly her emotions had taken over, but until she had seen Captain Fell safe and alive, she hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed him. He had been her rock to lean on as she learned her way in leadership. His broad shoulders had helped take on the load when she didn’t feel like she could continue on. Every loss of life, every defeat in battle, Fell had been the face she’d sought out when the battle had finished. So despite her uncharacteristic show of affection, it wasn’t easy to wipe the grin off her face.
Taking a deep breath, she turned to face the missing crew that they had been working so hard to save.
“Listen up, crew! This is more of a smash and grab operation. We caught them sleeping, but we have to get out quick before reinforcements arrive. We brought some weapons cases, so spread out the rifles and grenades evenly. Children in the middle. A dragon mech will be in front and behind them to act as shields. The rest of Second Platoon, with Sergeant Vargas and Lieutenant Barrow, should be inbound with some stolen ground vehicles, but we will meet them on the way. The longer we stay, the more likely we are to hit armored troops. Let’s move, people!”
