by Aer-ki Jyr
After that he began noticing more circles on the ground, possibly additional turrets that hadn’t been raised yet, but he didn’t have time to try and dig them out. When he came up to the next side street he turned right…then skidded to a halt and backtracked as he saw the mech looking at him from the other end.
David ducked into the other side of the intersection just as the first rocket slammed into the mech’s back…then after that David didn’t see anything, but on his battlemap the mech icon began to move, so he reversed his direction again and headed back into the street, just seeing the right arm of the biped disappear to the right behind the buildings.
He sprinted forward, only to have one of the hidden turrets pop up ahead of them and start shooting. His shields indicated that one of his emitters had been fried, leaving his maximum shield strength at 82%...and he knew that with a few more armor hits the rest would go out too, leaving his chewed up plates as his only defense. But the mech came first, so he ran into the oncoming fire, dodging this way and that to make some of the shots miss, then skidded to a halt right in front of the turret and fired his plasma pistol into the ‘eye’ where it had no plating and melted the firing chamber.
The next shot it tried to fire blew the whole thing up like a grenade, tossing David into the building on the right as he tried to run past. He slumped to the ground, shook his head once, then got back to his feet and sprinted on, coming up to the outer ring and poking his head around the corner where he saw the mech walking off chasing after the rocket launchers with a bit of armor damage in the back…but not enough to penetrate all the way into the interior.
David took a breath then ran after it, pulling out a Kiritas grenade and arming it in his right palm. When he got partway up to the mech he stretched out his Pefbar to see into it, confirming his suspicion that it was carrying some very thick armor plates…then the mech stopped and began to twist its torso around to target him.
“Damn it,” he said, turning hard right and ducking into the closest side street just as it fired its right arm plasma cannon.
The blast just missed his feet as he dove into cover, but his diversion got the mech’s back exposed again and three more rockets flew in, causing the mech to pause as it decided who to shoot at, eventually picking David and walking out in front of the street so it could fire down it.
As it did David backtracked and ducked underneath its legs, running out the back side before it could move and step on him. He kept jerking around, avoiding its steps and arms while getting it to turn its back again on the rocket launchers, getting the 7th rocket to come in and hit the damaged area, reducing the armor there to less than an inch of thickness.
As if in response to the mech’s inability to get at David, two quadrupeds popped out onto the outer ring and came towards them, firing their turrets with impunity, unafraid of damaging their bigger twin with leg shots.
David knew he couldn’t take them down from range with his pistol, so he tagged them with a waypoint requesting fire support, then he worked his way around until he got a clear view of the mech’s back and flipped an active grenade up towards it, telekinetically steering it into the breach.
He wedged it in as best as he could, then ducked out of the way of a backwards step by the mech’s big foot and detonated it, seeing with his Pefbar that there was still a bit left, but only a couple of millimeters, though he couldn’t measure accurately at this range. He saw enough to know he needed another, so as the quadrupeds kept melting additional divots in his armor, he activated and slung another grenade up, steering it into place.
When it blew it knocked out a tiny section of the armor, which David immediately followed up with another grenade, forcing it inside and blowing apart the innards of the mech and expanding upon the hole in the armor slightly…but it wasn’t enough, for the big machine continued to move about and fire.
Fortunately the quadrupeds got flanked a moment later, with one turning to deal with the approaching Archons and the other still tracking David, only to get forcibly knocked over with a jump kick by Rikku. Her green armored hands shot into the turret top and physically wrenched it off the machine as the one behind her got bathed in plasma fire from a side street.
The mech rotated around to shoot at Rikku, but she sprinted up and got underneath its legs along with David, who sent her a quick telepathic message. The other ranger moved to the side as the mech repositioned, then put her hands together into a makeshift step and waited for David, who ran up and put his foot in her hands.
She used all her strength to get him as much height as possible, which was just enough for him to snake a hand into the breach point. He held on and leveraged himself up into a two-handed hold, then swapped a hand for a foot and climbed up on top of the mech’s shoulder where he did a spread eagle to try and hold on as the mech shifted about.
Rikku ran off out of sight of the mech and ducked into a side street before it could fully turn around, leaving David alone to wrestle with it, now that the two quadrupeds were down.
He waited till it settled and got up to a knee…only to have it pitch forward and try to dump him off, but he got a hand on one of its edges and held on, then pulled himself back up to the peak and wedged his feet against the side of the missile box and his right forearm against the flat ‘head’ while he ducked his free left hand into his pack and pulled out another grenade. He swiped it against the activation pad on his right hand then repositioned himself as the mech jerked again, taking a brief moment of opportunity to reach down and tuck the grenade inside the hole.
David didn’t detonate it, but reached into his pack and dug out three more in sequence, having to be very careful not to get bucked off. He activated each of them and stuffed them inside, saving his last two as he slid his legs around and dropped off the back. He crunched into a ball on impact, then took off sprinting away as he thumbed the detonator button on his right hand.
He felt and heard a small boom from the grenades, then a much larger one as the internal detonation reached up into the missile box and triggered the missiles’ fuel loads to combust. When David swung around the closest corner and into a side street he glanced back, seeing that the mech was missing its right arm and a third of its torso…as well as standing perfectly still.
“Sweet,” Rikku commented.
“Is it dead?” David asked.
“I’d say so…and there’s no pilot. Which means someone has been driving it by remote.”
David frowned, running back out cautiously and down towards the mech that had its back to him. When he got up to it, running well wide of the direction its remaining arm was pointing, he looked inside the damage and confirmed that there was no pilot’s compartment.
“Has anyone seen or felt any Word personnel?” David asked over the all Star Force channel.
“Nothing,” Nathan said after a long period of silence. “Looks like they rabbited.”
“Someone has to be controlling these defenses, and I doubt its anything other than a local link.”
“Hold up,” Jet broke in. “There’s someone down deep. I can barely sense him.”
“I’m on my way. Everyone else keep cleaning up.”
Devin sat on the front edge of the 10-wheeled, flatbed transport as it rolled down the dark tunnel without so much as a bump to break up the monotony. Two more transports followed behind them with the rest of his assault team onboard. They’d had to fight their way through a small fortification at the tunnel entrance, disabling some 6 guards who’d been on station in the subsurface bunker that was topped off with a food processing factory.
The tunnel itself was blocked off by a small fortification with remote turrets that they’d had to fight their way through, though they and the guards didn’t provide much trouble for the Archons. Devin figured they were there to keep factory workers out should they have happened across the well-disguised entrance in one of the spare storage rooms.
The factory was in northern Russia, and Devin’s team had appropriated the t
ransports from within the tunnel itself. They’d been parked at the entrance awaiting cargo shipments, he assumed, and the Archons had taken them and the guards and started the hundreds of miles trek atop the open air transports. Other than the wind and the whine of the engines and tires, Devin could have swore they were still parked, making for a long, boring drive.
He had his legs hanging off the front and was staring out at the short stretch of tunnel ahead that the transport’s flood lights illuminated as the walls passed by wide to either side. The tunnel itself was more than wide enough to hold two of the trucks side by side, giving the driver plenty of wiggle room that he didn’t need while traveling down what felt like one very long, perfectly straight underground shaft.
But it wasn’t. Devin was following their progress on his battlemap, which was updating as they traveled. The tunnel had made several slight redirects as it passed underneath the Arctic Ocean, which meant it was cutting off line of sight transmission. They’d passed a spur a little over an hour ago, but hadn’t been able to make contact with the other tunnel team. Devin guessed this was because of the little twists in the tunnels, but if they’d gotten delayed, or somehow were ahead of them, then they might also have been out of range, for their armor’s communication systems would only travel so far.
Still, he was surprised they hadn’t bumped into each other yet, and wondered if Lio’s team might have had more trouble at their entry point than his.
Devin figured they had another couple hours to go before they hit the coordinates of the base, so he sat off the front of the transport, thinking through various scenarios they might face when they got there, when the view ahead suddenly shifted. It wasn’t much, but after such a long time with nothing to see the tiny pinprick of light caught his immediate attention.
Devin grabbed an edge beside him for leverage.
“All stop, lights off,” he ordered.
The transport’s engine wound down and the vehicle slowed, with Devin’s momentum tugging him forward as a result. He held on and inched back a bit so he didn’t fall off as the lights went out and the driver kept them off the walls using his Pefbar alone. When the lead transport finally stopped Devin hopped off two meters down to the ground and landed in a reflexive crouch, then got up and walked forward a few steps as he zoomed ahead with his helmet cam.
There was definitely something coming their way, and they weren’t registering on his battlemap…meaning they weren’t Star Force.
“Reposition the trucks to block the tunnel. Everyone else come forward and line the walls. They may not have noticed our lights yet. Get into flanking position with stingers ready. We want whoever they are alive.”
“I count at least two transports,” Pao-999 said from behind his sniper rifle. He was the only ranger amongst the group, though technically Devin was still in command since Green Team had the lead on this mission. “Probably more. They’re single file.”
“Let’s move people,” the acolyte said, running down the right side to get enough distance away from their own transports that were now repositioning sideways to cover the full width of the tunnel. If they’d seen the lights they’d stop short or try to blow through, either way the Archons needed to be further out so they could respond. If the lead vehicle rammed the parked ones, the entire convoy would back up, meaning they would already be in position to hit all the vehicles simultaneously…or chase after them should they start to turn around and flee.
Thankfully the oncoming vehicles were further away than they looked, with even the smallest amount of light traveling a great distance in the pitch black tunnel. Once Devin got where he wanted he motioned others on by him so he could be more towards the center.
“Don’t let the last one turn around,” he said, stretching out his Pefbar as wide as it would go so he could see the two Archons on either side of him, but just barely. There he waited, watching the lights growing larger, as if a train was coming their way, then the buzz of their fat tires rotating rapidly reached their position and caused a spike of adrenaline in Devin after so many boring hours of waiting.
“Here…kitty, kitty, kitty,” he whispered as he pulled out his stinger rifle and flattened himself up against the wall, ready to pounce.
5
Devin saw the first transport whip by him a few seconds before he heard it slam on the brakes and skid to a halt just short of the roadblock. The one behind it rear-ended the first, with the others doing the same and stacking them all up as some in the rear started moving sideways and angling for the walls to avoid the pileup as they too slammed on their brakes.
Several of the Archons jumped to avoid the transports, but they came back up a moment later peppering the tops with stingers from the floor or climbing up on top and taking it to the passengers at pointblank range. Devin jumped up onboard the one that nearly smashed him into the wall and unloaded on the 20-30 people onboard, most of whom had fallen over from the sudden stop.
Most didn’t have weapons, with him targeting the few that did first, then hammering those who were closest second, running through his rifle’s clip in under 30 seconds. With his transport secured he pulled out his stinger pistol and looked around in the scattering of flood lights, using both his Pefbar and Ikrid to search for targets…but the others had done their work well and none of The Word passengers were still conscious.
“Front and back…any stragglers?”
“Negative, none got through.”
“None off the back. All are down.”
“Ok, let’s do a head count and get these transports turned around. Stack ‘em up on top,” Devin said, dropping down to the tunnel floor to retrieve the few that had fallen off the side, one of which had a bloody head from the fall.
Devin pulled off an armored glove and pressed his fingers against the side of the man’s head, hacking into his nervous system despite the stun energy fogging up the connection, and confirmed that he was still alive, but he was bleeding considerably from the gash on his forehead and what was probably a broken nose.
The Archon reached into his pack and pulled out a small med kit, placing a healing patch on his head and sealing it in place over the split skin while leaving the nose to clot up on its own. He reached an arm underneath the man’s abdomen and lifted him up over his shoulder, passing him up to Rinan-10339 who was on top of the transport and lining up the unconscious prisoners.
“Devin, got something here you might want to see,” Pao said over the comm.
Devin checked his battlemap and found the ranger’s position further up the line of transports near the blockade point. “On my way.”
He headed up the staggered line, zigzagging between the flat-topped transports until he got to the second in line and climbed up on top. There he found about half the bodies lined up in neat rows with Pao leaning over one with his right hand visible outside his armor as he examined one of them. In his other hand he held a small container that he tossed up to Devin as he approached.
“These look familiar?”
Devin pulled the lid off and looked inside.
“Kill pills,” he confirmed.
“This guy had them on him, but he’s still alive. His head’s murky, but I think he’s one of their leaders.”
“Let me,” Devin said, kneeling down and taking the ranger’s place. Even though he outranked him overall, his Ikrid skills weren’t on par with Green Team’s, given the amount of experience they’d had. In fact, he wasn’t sure anyone else was, trailblazers included.
He pulled off his glove again and pressed his fingertips against the man’s head, finding the stun-induced haze that Pao had referenced, but he was able to dig a bit deeper than the ranger, pulling up some recent memories along with an identity.
“Bingo,” he said, throwing a glance at Pao. “Mr. Primarch himself.”
“Really?”
“Drill team must have spooked them,” Devin said, rolling the man over and getting a good look at his face. He was ‘middle aged’ with a few streaks of grey i
n his otherwise black hair, and far more fit than the Master David had brought in…though that wasn’t saying much, given that both men clearly weren’t anywhere near to achieving self-sufficiency.
“Where do you want to take them?”
“Nearest Star Force facility is the ship attached to the drill site. We’ll get him out there and decide what to do with the rest of them after we meet up with the others.”
“I’ll take point,” Pao offered, heading up to the back of The Word convoy as the last transports began moving side to side as they tried to turn around in the tunnel.
Devin looked on his battlemap and found one of the other acolytes, opening a secure comm channel to him.
“Kander, get over here. I’ve got your date for the rest of the mission.”
David ran across the city, having to stop only once to help down one of the last quadrupeds roaming about, and got over to the quarter opposite from their entrance where Jet was, scanning the surrounding buildings with his psionics, finding no one inside as Rikku had said. When he got near to Jet he focused his energy fields down into the ground, finding that the buildings went down beneath the floor multiple levels, but the single mind he detected was deeper still.
“He’s really down there,” David commented when he caught up to Jet as he was working his way through one of the buildings’ interior hallways.
“There’s a cross tunnel down there,” Jet said as he passed his fellow Archon. “It’s above him, but I think it might be the way down.”
“I see it,” David said, using his Pefbar to chart out its zigzaggy course beneath them, noticing that it was headed across the street into another building before it stretched out of his range. He followed a step behind Jet down the hall and out of the building, crossing the now quiet street into the neighboring blocky structure.
