by M. D. Cooper
Finally, a challenge!
* * * * *
“Got them! Finally!” Chief Ona cried out from her station. “Last one of those counterscan disruptors is toast.”
Heather watched the satellite view clear up, and zoomed in on Chase’s position, knowing that if he got smashed, Rika would be very displeased.
Instead of seeing his group retreating from the approaching battalion, Heather let out a gasp of surprise to see the five mechs—each a few hundred meters from one another—chasing the fleeing remnants of the Nietzschean battalion south, back toward the spaceport.
“Well I’ll be,” Heather muttered. “Chase finally figured out how to be a mech.”
“Ma’am?” Ona asked.
“Nevermind. Hit those final artillery emplacements that are targeting civilians. I’ll get Second Platoon’s Skyscreams to mop up the remains of that battalion. “
While she did that, Heather put the overhead view of Chase’s fight with the pair of Goon-Mechs on the central holo, a grin forming on her lips as she watched him leap atop one and drive his lightwand through the central housing, exposing the Nietzschean pilot within.
The enemy attempted to knock him down with its kinetic slugthrower, firing the thing wildly as it flailed against the mech on its back, but Chase was well anchored, and grabbed the barrel, aiming it at the other ‘mech’ and tearing one of its limbs free with friendly fire.
Garth was cheering, and Ona was grinning, even while she keyed in the final commands to strike the last of the Nietzschean surface artillery.
“Good day to be a Marauder, isn’t it?” Heather asked her bridge crew.
“The best, ma’am,” Ona replied as she let loose another barrage from the Fury Lance’s railguns.
BRING IT HOME
STELLAR DATE: 10.12.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: The MacWood Building, Memphis, Kansas
REGION: Blue Ridge System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
It had taken Rika and Leslie over twenty minutes to make it to the high-rise that Nietzschean Command was holed up in. The edifice stood over two kilometers high, housing over five hundred levels, any of which could hold their quarry.
The exterior appeared to be windowless; just the smooth, shifting, marble-like sheath. The only apparent entrance was the main doors at the front, but Rika and Leslie both knew that there would be a back entrance, as well as the underground maglev tunnel that ran to the tower.
The pair had discussed using the maglev at one point, but had decided that those tunnels were only a step up from the sewers. Neither wanted to be trapped underground with hundreds of Niets overhead.
Colonel Borden and his ISF Helljumpers were a kilometer further north, stalling another battalion of reinforcements, and the two women decided to use the distraction and approach the building at ground level.
Following Leslie’s location pings, Rika slipped around the side of the MacWood Building, carefully avoiding a squad of Niets who were setting up a crew-served railgun and grav shields on the street. Once at the back of the structure, the two Marauders found a set of large bay doors for the building’s loading dock. Though they were open, they were guarded by a platoon of the enemy who were well entrenched.
However, their preparedness didn’t involve high-energy active scan, and the two stealthed women carefully edged past the guards at the loading bay entrance, and into a broad space filled with cargo trucks, four empty heavy Goon-Mech frames, and two heavy rail batteries, both aimed at the opened doors.
The question was rhetorical, and no one responded.
Rika selected her two mechs, then crept through the bay until she reached them, and deployed the breach nano.
The AI’s mental tone carried a note of humor, and Rika laughed in response.
Once the GM’s internal NSAIs were breached, the two infiltrators moved to a service elevator in the back of the bay.
Rika shrugged.
As she spoke, the lift arrived and the doors opened. Rika and Leslie were partially obscured by the mech frames and haulers in the bay; with any luck, no one would look too carefully at the service elevator, and wonder why it had come down and opened its doors.
The elevator car’s doors began to close, then a voice called out. “Hey! Hold that lift!”
Rika froze and pressed herself against the wall, knowing Leslie would do the same. She was tempted to reach over and mash the ‘door close’ button, but a figure burst into the elevator before she could.
“Huh…” the uniformed man said as he glanced about the empty car. “Stupid Genevian tech. Always fritzing.”
He turned to the control panel, and entered his desired floor as the doors closed. Once his floor, ‘239’, lit up on the display, the man—a corporal, by his insignia—turned to face the door. He’d just let out a long breath and widened his stance, when he turned his head back to the display.
“Floor five-oh-one, too?” he muttered, approaching the panel. “Shouldn’t be able to go right up—oh, good. It’s going to stop at four-ninety for inspection.”
Rika sent an affirmation.
A snort almost escaped Rika’s lips.
The Nietzschean corporal walked off the lift, and once the doors closed, Leslie quickly keyed in a stop at floor four-eighty-five.
Leslie sent her an image of rolling eyes…just the eyes.
Rika estimated where Leslie was standing and gave her a light punch in the shoulder for ‘tin-head’. e fight back to the Niets. We’re actually doing it.>
Rika stood in silence for a moment as the lift began to rise. Finally, she said, <’What you do to the least of these, you do to me’.>
Leslie didn’t reply right off.
The lift slowed to a stop at floor four-eighty-five, and the doors slid open to reveal an empty hall. Rika stepped out first and unslung her AC9CR.
Rika wondered about that statement. Though Leslie often portrayed a carefree exterior, and rarely spoke of her past, there was a deepness to the woman. Something borne of a past that Rika suspected was troubled long before the Nietzschean war broke out.
Neither spoke further as they traversed the level, heading toward the stairwell on the far side. Since the other staircase was a secondary access route, it was less likely that it would be patrolled by humans, and the ISF tech would allow the two women to slip past any automated sensors the Niets would have deployed.
Several of the rooms they passed contained Nietzschean officers and chiefs of varying rank clustered around holotanks and planning tables. Few were in the halls, and those were easily avoided.
Every one of them looked worried.
Good.
When Rika and Leslie reached the secondary staircase, Niki bid them halt while she deployed nanoprobes, checking for additional security.
Rika slipped in first. Though Leslie was the better scout, if they hit significant opposition, they were going to want a mech’s heavier guns at the fore.
The stairs were steel, and Rika stepped lightly to avoid any sound. Though the ISF’s stealth tech would dampen the noise, she didn’t want to take risks when they were this close to their prey.
After two minutes, they reached the four hundred and ninetieth floor, and Rika saw a bored looking guard standing next to the door. There didn’t appear to be any active scanning systems present, so Rika stepped right past him and moved onto the next flight.
The moment her right foot met the third step, she felt the slightest amount of give.
Behind her, the guard’s head snapped up, and he muttered a curse before unslinging his rifle and moving toward Rika’s position.
Leslie said, and a moment later, the man’s head twisted at an unnatural angle, a sickening crunch filling the stairwell.
Rika waited for Niki to give a green-light on the rest of the stairs, and then proceeded to climb them as quickly as possible. Chances were that even if Niki managed to hijack the dead guard’s Link before someone came to check the stairwell out, a visual inspection would still have been ordered.
At least it’d better. If I were running security here, and no one checked an alarm while the city was under attack, heads would roll.
She’d just climbed past the four hundred and ninety fifth floor when Niki signaled that she’d sent the all-clear. The message came a moment before the sound of a rifle firing from below.
Rika wanted to admonish Leslie further for her blasé attitude, but knew that the scout was just trying to help Rika stay focused on the objective: take out the Nietzschean leadership, and force the rest of the enemy to surrender and cease the slaughter of civilians.
There was no guarantee it would work, but even if it was only partially effective in getting some of the Nietzschean field commanders to stand down, it would be worthwhile.
With her objectives firmly in mind, Rika kept moving as quickly and as silently up the stairs as she could. When she rounded the landing below the five hundredth floor, she could see a security arch at the top of the next flight.
The sound of weapons fire came from below, and Rika shook her head.
Two guards were stationed on either side of the door that stood beyond the security arch. The stairwell ended at level five hundred—which meant access to the top floor was somewhere beyond the pair of Niets guarding the door.
To her surprise, the projectiles didn’t penetrate either guard’s faceshield. She toggled the GNR to fire an electron beam, getting a shot off at the guard on the right—burning a hole clear through his head—before the other Nietzschean had recovered and opened fire on her.
The machine began to wail as it detected her motion.
She came down next to the remaining enemy, and activated the lightwand built into her left wrist. The Nietzschean didn’t have time to react, and his head fell from his shoulders half a second later.
Rika kicked open the door and strode into the hallway beyond, firing her GNR at a pair of lightly armored Nietzscheans rushing toward her.
The weapon was still on its electron beam setting, and the shots burned holes clear through the torsos of the two lightly armored soldiers.
Rika barely spared them a second glance as she dashed down the corridor, angling toward the center of the level, where she suspected the stairs to the top floor would be.
All around her were the tr
appings of luxury. Some of it looked to have been there since before the Nietzscheans took up residence in the building, but other items—mostly the art and a few pieces of furniture—didn’t fit the overall décor, and Rika suspected they were the spoils of war and later corruption.
Behind her, the report of Leslie’s rifle sounded again, followed by the dull thud of her mines detonating.
Rounding a corner, she caught sight of a foyer with a broad staircase that swept up to the next floor, splitting at the halfway mark and curving to either side.
At the base of the stairs were two heavy mech frames, their four-meter-tall bulk almost more than could fit in the space. They were flanked by soldiers who were clustered around crew-served railguns, and protected by grav shields.
Rika’s stealth effectiveness read at ninety-five percent, and she judged that as good enough to move into the open area at the staircase’s base.
All of the Niets—twenty-seven, counting the pair inside the mech frames—were on alert, heads swiveling as they watched the room and the approaches—including the one Rika was easing through. She knew this to be the point where they were most likely to detect her, and was almost clear, when one of the soldiers cocked his head, and then fired a round directly at her.
The bullet ricocheted off her body, causing no harm. But in the following moment, all hell broke loose.
Rika leapt into the air as rail-fired slugs streaked through the space where her body had been seconds before. Her left hand fired rail shots from her AC9CR rifle while she sprayed ballistic rounds from her GNR at the nearest Niets.
The moment her feet touched the floor, she ceased firing and flung herself to the right, narrowly avoiding a spray of slugs from one of the Goon-Mech’s chainguns.
