“Then you’ve fulfilled the sole purpose of your life,” he said. Then he raised a pistol and pulled the trigger.
Kennedy about jumped out of his bed. Catching his breath, he discovered he was covered in a cold sweat. He jumped again when someone pounded on the door. “Comrade Colonel!”, A soldier outside cried. “We’ve got an urgent update for you!”
“Enter,” Kennedy replied. The guard walked in with a rifle over his shoulder. He saluted before beginning.
“Comrade, Doctor Weathers’s facility has been compromised by Tharcian subversives,” he said.
“Then he should begin destroying his research,” Kennedy replied. When the soldier shifted uncomfortably, Kennedy sighed. “That’s not what he’s done, isn’t it.” The man shook his head.
“No, his units, they’re abominations,” he said. “Irving discovered the truth of them when she went over there.” Kennedy sat up and began throwing on his crew uniform.
“Explain,” he said, as he pulled his overalls up around his arms.
“Weathers ‘site security’ aren’t guards at all,” the man said. “He’s somehow using dead tubers to control the machines, that’s why they move the way they do.” Kennedy inhaled sharply. Well, Weathers certainly doesn’t see us as people.
“What has Irving done about it?” Kennedy asked. The man shrugged.
“When she confronted him, they discovered the Tharcians, and he set the panzerter loose on the facility,” he said, then he took a breath. “And I believe Irving is trapped inside.”
Another tinhat collapsed, smoke pouring out of the holes Bartonova punched into it. A smile spread across her lips. There’s four. Ahead of her, the rest of her company fought a vicious battle in a park. Bartonova held their flank, turning her attention towards the infantry fighting vehicles the tinhat had led.
The squat, almost boat like vehicles struggled to turn around in the narrow streets, their path forward blocked by the burning tinhat. Bartonova dumped a tungsten-nickel round into the lead vehicle. The silvery slug plowed through one vehicle and into another. Both brewed up in a column of fire, and the last of their comrades dispersed smoke and reversed out of the street.
She pushed the Tiger forward, eager to turn the flank against the stubborn defenders. Leading with her machine-gun, she worked to dislodge dug-in infantry in the buildings across the street. “We’re still seven kilometers from the objective,” Fletcher said over the net. Despite her disdain for the Union traitor, Bartonova had to admit Fletcher’s ability to relay combat information with the same cadence as discussing the weather never failed to impress her.
With a quick glance at the battle net, Bartonova scowled. They were the closest ones to the city center, and still had a way to go, with only another hour until they had to break off their attack.
“We need to pick up the pace,” Bartonova said. “At this rate we-” A scream over the net cut her off. She looked over to see another panzerter on her flank explode. Then another. And another.
A building at her eleven o’clock crumbled into dust as a fatman pushed through it, strobe laser in one hand, panzerter machine gun in another. A stream of shells and pulsing lasers tore into the last vestiges of the company at her flank. Son of a bitch.
“Brave 6, you got a hard target dead ahead!” Zoro called as she unleashed suppressing fire on the heavy panzerter. To none’s surprise, the rounds only glanced off the Batman’s thick armor.
“Push on ahead!” Bartonova cried. “I’ll take care of him!” She fired her rifle, gouging a chunk out of the thick machine.
“Can we avoid it?” Fletcher asked. The fat man noticed Bartonova and opened fire.
“Unless he steps on a sewer line, he’s our problem,” Bartonova growled as she grit her teeth. The super chobam did its job absorbing the impacts and heat of the lasers, but she knew it wouldn’t hold up to a sustained assault.
She fired her rifle again. The silvery blur smashed the strobe laser to shrapnel, but it cost her as shells from the machine-gun split the barrel of her own rifle. Damn it! From a port in its leg, she drew one of the Tiger’s plasma swords. This isn’t my strong suit, but it’s what I got.
Leaning into the fire from the fatman, she wound up with the blade like a baseball bat. The undamaged armor took the impacts well enough, though a few hits got through. As minor subsystems failed, she swung on the fatman.
The heavy unit attempted to spring back, but wasn’t agile enough. Bartonova’s baled came through the machine-gun’s magazine and receiver. Immediately, unspent round ignited, shattering Bartonova’s blade and obscuring his vision.
Just as she drew her spare sword, a shadow in the smoke caught her attention. She caught the blow from the fatman just in time. Neither machine was particularly agile. Bartonova put herself into the mindset of a chess player.
Though they lacked grace, each blow of the Batman’s sword axe connected with a terrifying force. Sparks and static showered their surroundings as their weapons connected. She winced as her sword cut through a parking deck on its way to take the Batman’s knees.
I need to finish this quick. She managed a glancing blow on her opponent’s shoulder. He connected with her leg. Also a glancing blow.
She wound up again. Her opponent braced himself to cath her blow. As he deftly guided her blade away from her body, she swung her shoulder into his torso. The inertia of the heavy machines colliding offline her left arm entirely, but it sent the fat man sprawling into the parking deck behind it.
He flailed like a turtle turned over. With a predatory smile, she moved to finish her trapped opponent.
“All units fall back!” The Regimental commander said over the command net. “We’ve missed our objective’s window, we’ll try again at 1900 hours tomorrow.” Bartonova growled as she plodded away. Tomorrow, I’ll get five.
“Wrong door!” Mo shouted as he darted through another hallway, Holtslander and Rosetti hot on his heels. Two Union guards fired on them with handguns, though they were the least of Mo’s worries.
Somewhere in this God forsaken lab was a frightened First Nation girl. Of course, she’d be a lot easier to find if it weren’t for the guards. And the psychotic panzerter pilots that had smashed the elevators away from the main lab area. Suddenly their remaining exits flowed through the panzerter sized sections.
But that’s a problem for future Mo. He ducked and button hooked the corner, unleashing his rifle on the guards. They dove for cover, and he doubted he’d hit anything. Still, he laid down suppressing fire as Rosetti fought to open the next door.
“We’re good,” she cried before rushing through. Mo groaned as Holtslander also rushed into the next room, tossing something down the hallway. A grenade.
“Oh, shit!” Mo cried as he ducked behind the entryway and into the next room. An explosion followed by dust from the ceiling told him the grenade likely solved the guard problem. As he sucked in a few more breaths, he began taking in his new surroundings.
Tubes lined the farthest wall. Inside each tube, a body floated in a lime colored fluid. On closer inspection, Mo guessed they all looked about teenage in appearance, although they were all severely atrophied. Several possessed enlarged foreheads.
Rosetti threw up her hands in disgust. “Great, don’t tell me they put this poor girl in a tube and did some kind of horrible experiment,” she said. Mo paced the tubes.
“No, I don’t think she’s in here,” Mo said. “None of these look like First Nationals.” She’s not here. “Yeah that’s what I said.” Mo looked at Rosetti and then at Holtslander. The drop trooper glanced over his shoulder while pulling security on the entrance.
“Mother fucker I didn’t say shit!” he said as he gasped for breath. Rosetti shook her head.
“Me neither,” she said. She’s in a dark room. You can still get to her. Mo whipped his rifle around.
“Someone’s here,” he said. “Come on, show yourself.” Something bubbled in a tank behind him. He turned around just in time to watc
h the boy inside the tank open his eyes. Slowly, he lowered his rifle. “Have you been talking to me?”
I have. Yep, the boy in the tank was defiantly talking to him.
“Do you think you can take us to her?” Mo asked. Rosetti began walking towards him.
“Are you talking to him?” she whispered, but Mo ignored her.
I can. Mo nodded.
“Good, you’re coming with us,” he said. Rosetti gasped, and the boy looked alarmed. Before anyone could protest, Mo smashed into the front of the tank with his rifle. The liquid gushed out onto the floor, filling Mo’s nostrils with a medicinal stench. The boy lay on the floor of the tube gasping for breath and it occurred to Mo that his lungs probably never had to be used before.
Gingerly, he lifted the kid out of the tube and wrapped him in his field jacket. “Mo, what are you doing?” Rosetti asked and now Holtslander was looking.
“You what the hell?” he asked. Mo looked up at the other two.
“He knows wear Winona is,” he said. “Isn’t that right?” The boy was still wheezing, but he nodded. She’s in a cell, not far from here. Now they all heard him and stared in shock. You must hurry, though.
“Why?” Rosetti asked. Because more guards are coming. With that, Holtslander hauled the kid onto his back and they took off.
“What’s your name kid?” He asked as he ran down another hall. I’m not old enough to get one. Your friends are coming up. They turned into a T-intersection and ran into Wesser and a handful of others.
“This way!” Mo cried, leading them down the hall nobody came from. The cells are a small section, pass two more halls than taking a right.
“What are you doing with that kid?” Wesser asked between breaths. “And where did you find him?” Holtslander glanced over his shoulder.
“He knows where the girl is,” he said as he rounded the last corner. “His name is Hans, by the way.” Mo rolled his eyes at what he was surly the first name the drop trooper thought of. It was. Mo actually chuckled and noticed Hans smiling as they stopped at the door. He told them.
20
“What do you mean he’s deteriorating?” Starnes asked. Inside the regeneration tank, multiple doctors and nurses checked Marshall Hausnerr’s condition and did their best to stabilize him. The doctor Starnes spoke toehold up his hands almost apologetically.
“We believe it’s his age,” he said. “As advanced as our treatments are, he’s still a sixty-seven-year-old man with a traumatic brain injury. These things are dicey at best.” Starnes took a deep breath. The doctor had a point, but with the traitor or traitors in their ranks still unknown, he didn’t quite trust it.
“I want a full audit of this place,” Starnes said. “They’ll stay out of your way, but we need to be certain that nothing shady is happening.” He motioned to the regeneration tank. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to know all the parameters of his tank are as they should be.”
Shaking his head, he led Starnes over to the main interface. As soon as he opens up the overview, he squinted, then growled.
“This isn’t right,” he said. “These parameters are off, that’s not what we set them too.” Starnes looked over the man’s shoulder to see a new set of adjustments suddenly change over to something else. Just Like MAYHEM.
“Is this a closed system?” he asked. The doctor nodded.
“Every unit is a closed, independent system,” he said. “All the better to prevent an outside hack or a virus from spreading.” Starnes took a step back.
“This systems kaput,” he pointed at the Marshall. “Quick, put him in a different tank, and give me and that man your security tapes. I want to know who interacted with this machine since he’s been here.”
He took a step back, watching the nurses gingerly transfer the Marshall from tank to tank. As they put him on life support between tanks, Starnes looked over the old unit while Jon pulled up security footage on a data pad.
“It’ll take too long to manually search this,” Jon said as he bug through his long black hair. He removed a long black braid from under his hair and inserted it into the pad. “Don’t worry, this isn’t virus. If anything, that’s the last thing I want.”
“Speaking of virus,” Starnes said. “This entire unit needs to be stripped down and destroyed. None of its hardware needs to be repurposed lest he virus escapes to wider systems.” He glanced over at Jon.
The man held the data-as in his hand, the odd braid sitting in a data port. “It’s a direct line to a neural implant,” he said. “Uses my subconscious as a processor and keeps an up-to-date database on my person at all times.” He paused. “Here.”
Starnes walked over to Jon as he set down the datapad for all of them to see. The monsters picked up in the wee hours of the night. A single man in a doctor’s uniform wearing an eye patch.
“I’ve seen this man,” Starnes said. “He was at the Tiger test range. The Marshall wanted to go thank him because he thought he was a wounded veteran from the last war.”
Jon shook his head. “He’s a Union agent,” he said. “And I recognize him. He led the team that took Winona Johnson from her room in the middle of the night.” Starnes raised an eyebrow at the last name of a prominent First Nation family, but focused back on the security footage. The man in the footage lifted his eyepatch at the retinal scanner. The door chimed and let him through.
“A flash eye under the patch,” Starnes mused. “Probably with some tech to beat retinal scanners.” Jon looked over at Starnes.
“You don’t have secondary security measures for this block?” he asked.
“The retinal scanner is secondary security,” he said. “Remember we’re beneath the Citadel, there are already multiple layers of internal security, this was just to filter people who had no business coming down here.” Jon sighed.
“Your physical security seems… lacking,” he said.
“Tell me about it,” Starnes replied as he looked over the footage. He noticed the man in the footage remove the eyepatch entirely as he stuffed it in his pocket. He paced about the room, made some small talk with the nurses and attendants before heading to the tanks. He looked at a few and nodded before he got to the Marshall.
Subtlely, he slipped something into a port, made a few adjustments, nodded, and then moved on to the next tank. He never slipped anything else into any of the other tanks. Starnes grit his teeth.
“Find this man,” he said. “Find this man now.”
Reiter gazed up in awe at the Lowe. Despite the addition of spaced super chobam sections to the torso, hips, and lower legs, the Lowe maintained a toned, cut look. Sleek despite the bulk. According to the engineer’s, she’d see a thirty-five percent increase in speed on top of a twenty percent increase in durability.
Her firepower had also seen a dramatic increase. The .50 cals in the head had been increased from a single pair to quad mounts. To the side of each shoulder sat a different heavy weapon. Behind the right sat a short-barreled version of the Lowe’s original railgun, although this new version boated a much higher rate of fire. Speaking of high rates of fire, a super chobam “half shield” on the right arm mounted twin 50 mm magnetic cannons while stashed in side panels in both legs were short sword versions of the tesla sword, with a full-size one stored in the new backpack.
As he stared at the MLRS launcher behind the left shoulder, He shook his head. The upgrade fifties just seem extra. He glanced over at the Panther and Panzerter Kannone, both undergoing hasty repairs thanks to the Lowe team. We’ll hand off the Panther to Smith. The extra pilot from Early can take his old Panzerter. Miraculously, the Lowe team had coughed up enough spare parts to repair the Panther’s arms while the Panzerter Kannone received a software update to its fire control system and a new magnetic rifle.
Curiously, the Lowe and now the Panther as well possessed several thrusters, mainly at the hips, mid-back beneath the backpack dock, and the backs of the shins. As French, one of the lead engineers, walked past with a datapad, Reiter stoppe
d him.
“Are those nozzles thrusters?” he asked. French nodded.
“It was actually a feature we intended to include in the early stages of development,” he said. “But Wallachia Defense felt they were frivolous on a machine that would never see space combat, that being said they use ion wind, so they’re not dependent on fuel, but they can’t be used while firing any of the magnetic weapons or it will disrupt the flow of current.”
Reiter raised an eyebrow. “So the Lowe can jump around now?” he asked.
“Yeah,” French replied. “Although it’s more like leap tall buildings in a single bound, it’s got incredible mobility thanks to those.” He jammed an accusatory finger at Reiter. “As in enough to leap out of the way of an artillery barrage you call on yourself!”
With a sheepish grin, Reiter raised his hands. “Hey, at least you guys know you nailed pilot safety,” he said before pointing up at the Lowe. “Is that a new blend of thermal dampener?”
“Yes actually,” French replied. “You have no idea how hard it was to find a composition that maintained its performance while not having an adverse reaction to the super chobam.”
“All impressive work,” Reiter said. “You guys turned a history teacher into an ace, that means something.” French shook his head.
“That’s all you,” he said. “You’ve made this unit sing in a way the other fifteen Lowe pilots haven’t quite done.” Reiter looked at the other machines undergoing field repairs.
“I will sat your emergency refurbishment in three days is damn impressive,” he said. “I honestly didn’t expect it back in time for this mission.”
French nodded and tabbed through his pad. “It almost wasn’t, we’d already planned for these upgrades since we heard your people jury-rigged whatever parts they could find. We had people working round the clock to get it back out.” He shot Reiter a stern look. “So don’t trash it this time.”
Enemy Front Page 19
