Star Force: Origin Series Box Set (37-40)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “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 transports 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 lift
ed 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 in 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.

  But it didn’t stop there. It continued on out beneath another building, and another, and another until it eventually wrapped back around on itself, leading them in a big circle.

  “Did I miss an entrance somewhere?” Jet asked as they stopped near to where they began.

  “Wait a second,” David said, holding still and stretching out his Pefbar as far as it would go and condensing it down into a spotlight to better examine the tunnel. In his mind’s eye he could only ‘see’ a small column, like a flashlight beam, and ran it along the piece of tunnel beneath them. They weren’t far from the source of the mind, which was considerably lower than the tunnel, meaning that if there was a connection below it would probably be near here.

  “There,” David said, spotting a tiny connective shaft…or rather a tiny piece of it before his Pefbar range fizzled out. “A downspout.”

  “Where?”

  “Below the tunnel.”

  “Ah…how do we get to the tunnel?”

  “One thing at a time,” David said, walking off to follow the tunnel again…this time staying directly over top of it so maximize his limited psionic range, meaning he had to go into a lot of dead end rooms and keep constantly backtracking in order to scan every meter of it from as close as he could get.

  It took him three buildings and a few hundred meters away from the source of the mind before he found a small deviation in the tunnel…a side shaft, less than a third of the tunnel’s width.

  “Can you see that?” David asked Jet, stopping directly over top of the junction.

  “What am I looking for?” the Archon asked, concentrating.

  “A tiny connection on the left. It’s hazy even for me.”

  Jet dropped down to all fours and pushed his head as close as he could get to the floor. “Maybe a little. My Pefbar is junk at that range. I can only see big objects.”

  “Mine’s not much better, but we need to follow that shaft. Go across to the next building and as deep as you can get. See if you can pick it up. I’ll try to find where it goes under here. If it takes a turn I’ll redirect you.”

  “On it,” Jet said, jogging off as David moved into the next room and focused hard again to mentally chart out the next few meters of the side shaft. When he got to the wall he had to backtrack and work his way around to the opposite room and pick up the trail there. After that he didn’t have to go far before the shaft made an abrupt turn to the left and interconnected with an equally tiny vertical shaft.

  “Jet, never mind. Get back over here,” he said, ducking out of the room he was in and crossing over to another where the shaft came up…but when he got inside there was no visible entrance, just a ghostly ladder shaft behind what appeared to be a solid wall.

  David walked up to it, getting a better resolution with his Pefbar the closer he got, and saw a faint line in the wall moving off from it. He followed the line, which he guessed was a wire, keeping his head less than a meter away so he wouldn’t lose it, and followed it around the corner and into a set of wall shelves just as Jet came in.

  David pointed towards the spot on the wall, but kept his eyes on the wire until it finally stopped. He pulled a box off of the shelf in front of it and spotted a small shiny circle on the wall behind it. He touched it, with no response, then he removed his glove and did so again…also with no effect.

  “Hold contact,” Jet suggested, and David put his thumb back on it. After a couple of seconds the wall segment broke apart on a nearly invisible seam and pushed out into the room in two halves, splitting down the midline.

  “Well now,” Jet said, seeing the ladder at the back of the tiny closet.

  “Rikku, I think we’ve found our rat hole. What’s your status?” David said as he followed Jet over to the ladder and placed a waypoint on the battlemap to mark its location for the others.

  “City is clean as far as we can tell. Still got a lot of buildings to check, but psionics are coming up clear save for your guy.”

  “Any booby traps?”

  “No, but we haven’t been able to find the controls to open the other two doors either. The computers appear to have been wiped and if there’s a manual release we haven’t found it yet.”

  “I have a feeling Mr. Wizard might have the key. Get back to you in a bit.”

  “Copy.”

  “No door keys,” David told Jet as he grabbed hold of the ladder rungs and followed the Archon down. “The other teams ar
e going to have to fight their way in unless our dude is controlling the defenses.”

  “My credits say he is,” Jet said as he stooped down to crawl into the side shaft that was barely a meter tall. “I’ll bet this guy stayed behind to run the turrets and mechs while the others bolted. I just hope he isn’t sitting on a self-destruct.”

  “You read my mind,” David agreed, getting down on all fours and crawling in after Jet. Now that he was down level with the tunnel his Pefbar was giving him a lot more detail, and he could see ahead that the tunnel they’d been chasing was full height as opposed to the shaft they were crawling through.

  When they got to the junction there was no door or grate blocking them, just a pitch black tunnel that they stepped out into, using their armor lights and Pefbar to see their way.

  “You see anything else down here?” Jet asked as they began walking off down the half of the tunnel that headed towards their Word mind.

  “Nothing,” David said as a panel fell shut over the shaft they’d just crawled out of with a loud clank.

  “Oh shit,” Jet said as a number of tiny vents opened up at intervals down the hallway releasing more toxic gas.

  “Move,” David prompted, with both Archons running towards their target as their filter locks kicked in. They got a few dozen meters before another panel pulled out of the wall in front of them and cut off the tunnel ahead.

  “It’s shallow,” Jet said, seeing the panel’s width in his Pefbar before he walked up to it and kicked hard, putting a sizeable dent in it.

  “Can you sense him from here?”

  “Yes,” Jet said, kicking it in again.

  “Fornax range?”

  Jet paused, measuring the distance. “Pulse range I think. Want me to keep him occupied?”