“Weapons up, safeties off.” Sally whispered to the team as they entered.
They could see the escape tunnel entrances in the floor. Now they had no power to them, the energy fields that disguised them and the gravity tube forces inside had dissipated, so all that was left were large round holes.
“Keep your distance from the holes.” Sally told them, “I’ve still got drones in the tunnels and some of them have soldiers in them. We have to assume they are hostile, so they may fire up the holes if they can see us.”
“What’s to stop them coming up at us through the holes from the tunnels?” Simon asked.
“Because they are for gravity tubes. With no power, they are just tubes, several meters deep with smooth sides. The Herassans are reptiles, but they’re not geckos. They can’t climb up the tubes.”
“They could if they had ladders.” Simon said.
“They haven’t got ladders, now shut up and keep your eyes open”
“Should we drop grenades down the holes?” Simon asked.
“Simon, just follow orders. I don’t want any explosions.”
The team moved forwards cautiously, constantly scanning the rows of seats and the doors along the side for movement. They made it to the end with no sign of activity.
“Sally held her fist up as a sign to halt. She sent a message to the team. “The door to the ante chamber is closed. Last time it was scanned by a drone, it was open. The drone through there has gone dark. It was an army spec drone, so I guess it’s been taken out. There are no locks on the door. It opens inwards towards us, so I can get it open and throw something in there before they can react. Did anyone bring concussion grenades?”
No one answered. She sent Mark a message: “There are concussion grenades in the armory on the Swift. Get two crates on board a shuttle with a self-propelled battlefield pallet and get them here quick. With the Swift so low, they can be here in a few minutes.”
“I’ve had them blinked into a lander.” he replied. “It’s starting its take off procedure now. I’ll message the Herassans on guard at the other lander, so they don’t crap themselves when it does an emergency landing next to them.”
Sally slipped her backpack off and took two flasher sticks from it, then shrugged it back on. The flashers gave off an intense white light that would overload image intensifiers with a high frequency flash rate that defeated anti-dazzle devices on all but the highest tech helmet faceplates, and the Herassans did not have the highest level of military technology.
“Keep your night sights on, I’ll throw them in on my mark, then we go in on the count of two. Mark, stand back, you’re not wearing a helmet – so how can you see anything? It’s pitch dark in here.”
“My AI does something with the optics in my phase shift armor, I can see perfectly, though the colors are a bit muted. I don’t need a helmet to give me night vision”
“OK, I’ll go in first, you follow me close behind. I’m relying on the rest of you not to fall over each other on the way in. Remember, these aren’t outcasts, they are soldiers like you and me. Well, not quite like us, and they may have chosen the wrong side, but the objective is to subdue and capture them, not kill them, so no blades, avoid shooting them and if you go hand to hand with them, only inflict non-lethal injuries. With your experience and training I know that’s going to be hard but do your best.”
Sally stood by the door, back against the wall with her left hand on the door handle and two flasher sticks, each ten centimeters long, in her right hand. She started the countdown quietly, but just loud enough for everyone to hear, “Three, two, mark!” She yanked the door open a few centimeters, threw the flashers in and slammed the door shut again.
They could all see the bright flickering white light escaping through the gaps around the door and heard voices shouting out inside the room. “One, two!” Sally called out, threw the door open and ran in with Mark close behind with Simon following him.
One soldier had pushed his helmet off and had his eyes screwed shut. As soon as the door burst open he pulled the trigger of his KE weapon and the magazine emptied harmlessly into the wall. Another knelt on the floor with his hands pressed to the faceplate of his helmet while a third stumbled backwards, dropped his weapon and held his arms out to his sides, palms upward.
Sally stepped forward and took the empty KE weapon from the soldier without the helmet, turned him round and secured his hands behind his back with a restraining tie, then gently pushed him down until he was kneeling on the floor. Simon had restrained the soldier with his arms our while Seltet, who had followed them in, crouched beside the kneeling soldier, pulled his hands away from his faceplate and carefully removed his helmet. “It’s OK,” she said, “you’ll be able see again in a minute or two, but your eyes will be uncomfortable for a little while. I’m going to have to tie your hands behind your back now.” She took his arms and secured them, then stood. “What now General?” she asked.
“You can drop the General. As part of my team you call me Sally, even on a mission. Tie their legs. I don’t think they are going anywhere, but we need to make sure. Mark, get your medi bots in here as quickly as you can. Their eyes will be OK soon but the medi bots can give them drops to stop them from stinging, and probably a sedative too. They’re clearly not used to action. If the medi bots are needed when we get further in to the Palace they’ll be closer to hand here. Talking of medi bots, what happened to the forensic medi bot in the lander?”
“When it saw how many soldiers there were outside, it realized it wouldn’t be able to get to the Palace without injuring a lot of them, so it stayed at the back of the lander. It’s still on it, at the Tefran Central Update studios.”
“OK, maybe they’ll find a use for it while it’s there. We’ll take a moment to re-group, then we’ll continue.”
“Mark, now that you have a moment, the package for Sha is ready. Would you like to review it before I send it?”
“If I reviewed it, would I be pleased with what you have done, or might I want to make changes?”
“You would be pleased with it.”
“In that case, just send it.”
“Mark, are you with us?” Sally said.
“Yes, I was getting the VR clips and script to Sha to go out on their news channel.”
“We haven’t got time for that; we are fighting a small scale war here.”
“Winning a war is as much a battle for minds as anything else.”
“Bollocks. War is about not getting killed and defeating the enemy.”
“I agree with all that except the bollocks bit. If we can get the population on our side, Mike’s side, it puts pressure on the insurgents. If we can get more of the military to support us, the war will end more quickly. I hope that when some of the army see the clips of the planet killer in action with the first group that tried to stop us, then the weapons being disabled, they might decide not to go up against us. And when they see the few unfortunate soldiers in the first group that were accidentally injured being taken by the recovery pods up to the Swift, and the treatment they are receiving there, they might see that we are compassionate good guys. That may encourage them to change sides.”
“Yeah, and it may enrage them that powerful aliens are interfering with their domestic affairs and turn them against us!”
Mark opened a conversation channel with Sally so that no one could hear them. “Look at these three soldiers. What are they going to tell people? That we caught them with their pants down and didn’t hurt them despite the fact that one of them had just emptied a magazine at us. And now, even though they aren’t really hurt, just uncomfortable, we are getting a medi bot to treat them. Are they going to tell them that we are vicious alien monsters, or that we avoided hurting them and cared for them once we had captured them? Is that going to enrage other soldiers so they fight harder, or might they consider surrendering more easily when it looks like we are going to win anyway. These soldiers won’t fight like cornered rats like the outcasts do
.”
“Yes, I see your point. You may be right. I’m not sure what the prisoners on the Swift will think after some of them have experienced Bob throwing them through what looked to them like an airlock into empty space.”
“But he is obviously one of the People, and no-one likes them anyway. The prisoners we sent up there? We know that Touren and Bekkreshan, uncompromising and professional soldiers that they are, are also compassionate and caring people. And did you see Seltet with the soldier she dealt with? She spoke to him reassuringly and treated him gently. I have no doubt that the prisoners they put onto the Swift won’t have had a bad experience. The contrast between the treatment they got from them and the treatment the others got from Bob will have been noticed and talked about by the other prisoners. If we are lucky, far from being savage alien invaders we will be seen as the caring saviors who protected and rescued the First of the First so she could achieve her objective of making life better for all Herassans.”
“You are being very optimistic, but maybe you’ll prove to be right. As long as the Defense and Security Advisor doesn’t tell anyone what you did to him.”
“Uh, yes. Let’s hope so. Are you going to brief the team on our next move?
Chapter Eighty Six
Onwards and Upwards
Sally called the rest of the team into the antechamber to brief them.
“We exit this room into a large state room. Apart from this door, there are double doors either side. It’s used as a holding area for visitors who are going to be taken into the Great Hall while they wait to go into the antechamber to be prepared to be ushered in. there are a couple of tables with stools and a lot of big Herassan style cushions scattered around the floor. The drone that went dark was in here before it stopped functioning, so there is a good chance there are soldiers in there. The tables and cushions give plenty of cover for them to hide in and the double doors either side could give them more cover, but this side of the room is kept clear so there’s no cover for us to use. If they were outcasts we’d storm them, but that’s not going to work here. I’ve got some People’s restraint drones in there now and there are more on the way. They are locating the soldiers and on my command they will incapacitate them. We don’t need to do anything to them, we’ll release them when we’ve finished here. Now we’ve got the drones here, I’ll use them to help clear our route to Mike.”
“Can you use them to free Mike?” Seltet asked.
“No, they are no use in confined spaces. They are meant for outdoor use. They will work in here, the ceiling is four meters high and the room is twenty five meters long and fifteen meters wide. The gravity tubes are out so we’ll be using the stairs, we can use the drones to keep the stairwells clear, but they will be no use in the corridors, offices and side rooms. We’ll have to clear them by ourselves and try to avoid casualties.”
“I’ll take point.” Mark said. “I can draw their fire while you follow behind.”
“Good thinking.” Sally said. “The drones are in place, they’ve found and targeted four soldiers, I’ll deploy them as soon as we’re ready to move out. We’ll move in single file. Mark on point, then me, then Touren, Bekkreshan, Seltet, Simon, Ranesh, Orange and Kar Fen. Drones are going in now.”
Surprised shouting broke out from the state room broke out as the restraint drones were deployed but was soon silenced. Mark pushed the door to the stateroom open and led the team inside.
“Are the soldiers injured?” Seltet asked.
“No, just restrained and gagged. They’ll be fine.” Sally replied. “Mark, where are the stun grenades?”
“The pallet is in the Great Hall. I told it to stop there until we’re ready for it.”
“OK, bring it in and we’ll all load up.”
A crash and splintering sound came from the antechamber as it smashed through the closed door, then, the pallet being a bit wider than the door from the antechamber to the stateroom, came through the doorway bringing the doorframe with it.
“It couldn’t have told us it wouldn’t fit through the doorway?” Sally asked Mark.
“It’s a battlefield pallet. It doesn’t have an AI controlling it. It just goes where it’s told.”
Sally shook her head. The People’s smart equipment was programmed differently to the army hardware. “Everybody load up with stun grenades. They are our weapon of choice for clearing rooms. What are you grinning at Touren?”
“I was thinking of the first time you used them, on Orn. Do you remember?”
“Let’s focus on the mission we’re on now, which, in case any of you have forgotten, is to rescue Mike.”
“There are some grenade belts in the second crate.” Mark said. “They’re easier to get them from a belt than your backpack if you’re in a hurry.”
While the team loaded up with the grenades, Mark told his AI to take control of the pallet, which still had over half a crate of grenades, and keep it a discreet distance behind them.
As soon as they were all ready, Sally gathered them round for a briefing. “We’ve got surveillance drones covering the entire route to Mike’s office. There is an ambush set up in the corridor leading to Mike’s offices. The stairs and all the other corridors are clear. The drones can’t see into the closed side rooms and offices of course, so we don’t know if they have any hostile soldiers in them preparing to ambush us. They are expecting us and have had plenty of time to prepare. The stairs open into a landing about twenty meters square. Corridors lead off to the left and right, straight ahead as you come up the stairs is the corridor leading to Mike’s office. The First Advisor’s office is on the left, with two meeting rooms on the right. The entrance to Mike’s office is at the end of the corridor. We will stop on the second flight of stairs below the eye-line of the soldiers in the ambush and launch two stun grenades at them. Mark, I’ve seen your throwing skills and there’s a good chance you would drop your grenade on the stairs, so Simon, you’ll move up and we’ll throw the grenades at the ambush. As soon as they’ve detonated, Mark and I will lead, followed by Simon and Seltet to subdue the hostiles in the ambush. Orange, you cover the corridor on the left, Kar Fen, take the one on the right. Remember, the objective is to capture, not kill the hostiles, so be ready with stun grenades and ties. The door to the First Advisors office is open, drones have confirmed it is empty. Touren, clear the first meeting room, Ranesh, you take the second. They aren’t very big so one stun grenade will pacify any occupants; all you should need to do is restrain them with ties. Bekkreshan, stay at the top of the stairs and be ready to support anyone who needs it. Everyone clear?”
Sally paused to allow time for everyone to consider their roles, all she heard was a chorus of grunts of assent. “Any questions?”
“What do we do next when the corridor is secured?” Mark asked.
“We’ll regroup and assess the situation when we get there. We don’t know how the Colonel will react to us getting there, but it’s a fair bet she’ll want to negotiate an escape using Mike as collateral.”
“Should we just let her go as long as she leaves Mike?” Mark asked.
“She won’t leave without her. She will want her as a shield. We’ve got to find some way to restrain her without hurting her.”
“I’ve had an idea.” Mark said. “I’ll just check something with my AI.”
“Kate, the trick that Bob pulled on the Colonel when he met her with Orange. Is there any reason why I couldn’t physically disable the Colonel? We can just walk into Mike’s office and walk out with her.” Mark asked his AI.
“Yes Mark, there is a reason why you can’t. The People’s use of technology protocols explicitly forbid the commandeering of other races embedded technology in a manner than could cause pain, injury or distress.”
“It can’t be forbidden. Bob did it.”
“Bob is the leader of the Tolen. One of the reasons the Tolen are shunned by most of the People is that they breach many of the Peoples customs and protocols.”
“If they
can get away with it, why can’t I.”
“The Tolen ‘get away with it’ as you put it because they can act with impunity. There are no sanctions that can be taken against them. You, on the other hand, could and probably would be subject to a sanction that I doubt you would want to consider. You could have your status as Friend of the People revoked, which would mean losing the use of the Swift, your embedded weapons, your phase shift protection, all the other embedded People’s technology and me. Is that a price worth paying?
“Uh, no. But just a minute, you said I would lose you, but you told me that once AI hardware was embedded, it couldn’t be removed, and that you were stuck with me forever, no matter what happened?”
“It is true of all other civilizations with less capable technology, I allowed you to think it was true of People’s technology as the belief that the hardware and I couldn’t be removed helped you accept my presence. Did you really think the People couldn’t do something as trivial as removing an embedded AI from your brain without damaging you?”
First of the First Page 45
