by Glynn James
The medical pack was old, probably centuries old, but it was high-tech. He’d opened the case a dozen times already and looked over the injectors and dispensers inside their sealed packaging. This, he knew, was valuable stuff – healing medicine far beyond anything that could be made now, probably by anyone. And they were all clearly labelled.
Ryan looked toward the facility and the dozens of holes in the fence. It was all abandoned, now that the attackers were inside. No one was there to stop him crossing the open ground and sneaking inside. Jack may need him soon, and he may need the medical pack.
Ryan checked the pack was still securely strapped to his chest, then twice checked the magazine was slotted correctly in place in the gun. He put it back in its holster and began to climb down the junk.
Overrun
Now…
FirstMan stepped out from behind the building, his rifle raised. “Drop your weapons,” he shouted. Normally only those close by would hear his voice through the helmet, but a few seconds before he had switched on the helmet’s external speakers and they were much louder than a human’s normal voice.
The three facility guards spun around, and FirstMan was sure they would have opened fire if it was not for RightHand and the dozen other Troopers moving out from behind the building, spreading out as they moved from the shadows and onto the road. It was still dark in a lot of places between the buildings, and the sun was still low on the horizon, but emergency lighting had illuminated the front of the guard duty building.
But the light levels mattered little here. These Troopers were wearing helmets, and FirstMan knew that they could not only see him and the men behind him but probably the other three dozen Junkers moving silently along the side of the building behind him.
Still they hesitated, and one glanced to the other two, looking for their reaction, but they slowly lowered their weapons to the ground and stood with their hands in the air.
FirstMan wondered if he had worked with any of these Troopers; if they had even been under his command before. They could be new, but it was unlikely. The men would have recognised his voice, he thought, and it was obvious that they would also know the armour he wore – that of an officer. But they wouldn’t know the Junkers. He had to move quickly and spread his forces across the facility. If he could do that, maybe all contact incidents would end the same way. The three guards were obviously confused at the mixed group of troopers and Junkers, but they would recognise the Arc rifles he and his men carried – firepower far superior to any of the rifles guards would carry, and reserved only for expeditions that were deemed dangerous.
These men knew they were not only outnumbered but outgunned.
“Move back into the depot and stand down,” FirstMan said, edging forward. With a flick and a wave of his hand, he indicated that RightHand and his men should secure the area, but two of them would follow him. The three guard troopers backed through the door. FirstMan glanced around and then looked at them. “This is over already for you,” he said to them. “There is no need for anyone to get hurt. Now, I’m gonna leave you in here, but we will be watching you, so you will close the door, and don’t leave until you are told you can come out.”
The Troopers looked even more confused.
“My name is Captain Ranold. You may already know me.”
All three Troopers nodded. The one standing nearest the door even saluted but then awkwardly lowered his arm.
“In there, and quickly.”
They closed the door behind them, and FirstMan, tapped the radio on his headset. “All units give me an update,” he said, as he scanned the area up the road, the buildings, and behind them. He listened to reports coming in from Junker squads as they moved through the facility. There was some gunfire coming from south of his position, but it ended quickly, and the group leader – one of his own troopers – called in to inform him that the situation had been dealt with.
He didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Dealt with’ could mean there had been deaths. He hoped it wasn’t the case. “Any injuries?” he asked and waited. There was a chorus of none and then the final group replied two injured, no fatalities either side.
FirstMan paused, then spoke again. “Good. Proceed to move through the facility. Be careful. No one’s been killed so far, and that’s the way I want it to stay. On both sides.”
Hidden Things
Now…
Lisa cringed as she heard more weapons fire from coming from across the other side of the facility. The sharp snap of assault rifles echoed between the buildings. With the hum of the generator and perimeter fence absent, the noise was strange.
She couldn’t remember a single time anyone had needed to fire a weapon inside the facility, at least not since she had arrived there. It had never been required. The workers were placid, most of the time, drained of all will to resist.
Now, the place was in chaos.
She followed Jackson and his assistant along the roadway, Hayley at her side. They both held their weapons up, scanning corners of buildings along the main road as they headed towards the admin building, but the fighting was still concentrated at the south of the facility.
The noise was spreading all along the perimeter, now, ending abruptly in places and escalating in others. How long before it spread to the whole facility? The guards could never have been prepared for this level of attack. Most of them would have been asleep when it started and slow to react.
She cursed again, wishing she’d grabbed a helmet with a communicator before she left her quarters. Not being able to hear the comms channel was frustrating.
Jackson hurried into the admin building, pushing open the sluggish doors. He didn’t stop to check for intruders, rushing along the main corridor with his assistant almost loping behind him. Instead of heading into his office, Jackson jogged a dozen yards further, to the next door, took out his key fob and jabbed it at the middle of the wall.
Lisa had never been in this room before, and that thought made her frown. She hadn’t paid any attention to it. All the other rooms around she was familiar with, and in her mind, they swallowed up all the space. But there it was, a door she had no recollection of.
A facility lock-up, she thought. It had never been opened while she was around. This was Jackson’s domain only. After speaking quietly into the panel on the wall, the door slid slowly open, and Jackson walked in.
She had barely entered the room, glancing around and seeing only a few shelves with metal lock boxes stacked on them, when Jackson barked his command. “Officers, take that green box and these two cases.” Jackson thrust two compact, metal cases toward Hayley, who looked puzzled. The young officer lowered her weapon, then let it drop to her side so that she could hold both cases. Lisa reached down and picked up the green box, finding it surprisingly heavy. She too was now rendered ineffective, but with a hand still free she was not letting her rifle go.
Governor Jackson grabbed two more cases and shoved them into Rogen’s hands, then picked up another case, this one black and equally heavy-looking. Then he was moving again, hurrying out of the room and heading along the main corridor toward the other end of the building.
“Follow me, quickly,” he said, leaving the door wide open. Hayley opened her mouth to say something, but Lisa shook her head and followed the two men.
“What’s so important in these that we need to move them, sir?” Lisa asked. “Surely they are more secure in the lockup.”
Jackson only turned only briefly, and he looked irritated. “Facility data. Important document storage devices. It’s not your concern,” he said. “But I must take them away from the facility, lest they fall into the wrong hands.”
Jackson stopped at the double doors at the far end of the admin building and turned to Lisa and Hayley.
“You two go first. Make sure there is no one out there. We need to get to the SubTrans as soon as possible.”
Party with Insanity
Now…
Jack stepped through the broken doo
rway, carefully avoiding the large shards of glass scattered across the ground. It was nearly dawn, and the glare of the sun was just creeping its way up from the horizon. It was still quite dark along the road, where the buildings cast long shadows, but he knew that would change very quickly.
Jack had seen the sun rise many times across the wasteland, and he knew that within the next half an hour, maybe even just twenty minutes, it would go from a dim dawn to blazing bright. But while it was still half-light, he would have to tread carefully. He glanced in both directions, wondering which way to go – and which way the two crazies could’ve gone. But then he heard a shout from nearby.
He hurried left, along the front of the building, gripping the gun tightly, and glanced around the corner. One body lay in the dirt half-way along the alleyway that ran next to the detention block, and there was a struggle going on further down.
That was all he picked up at a first glance before he ducked back out of sight. He took a deep breath and slowly leaned out again, gun raised, ready to fire. At the far end of the alley, one of the crazies stood up. A second Trooper lay motionless at his feet, and Jack realised that the insane prisoner had such a small grasp of his situation that he had used a live firearm to beat the Troopers into unconsciousness rather than fire upon them, and it must have happened quickly, because both Troopers were armed and Jack had not heard any nearby gunfire.
But there was gunfire coming from somewhere, a distant rattle that he thought must be coming from the perimeter.
The invasion had most definitely started.
He lifted his handgun, judged the distance of forty feet, and, without a second thought, fired the gun. The handgun hissed in his hand and the escaped prisoner was thrown from his feet, the blast hitting him directly between the shoulders before he could even sense that Jack was there. The man crumpled, falling forward and rolling onto his side. Jack hurried along the side of the building and slowed as he approached the body. The man had fallen face down, and Jack could see a dark blast mark on his back. There was a moment of guilt, but Jack noted the two bodies of the very dead Troopers and shrugged it off.
The man would have killed more if he had been left to carry on, Jack thought, as he turned and headed back towards the nearest Trooper. He now knew which setting meant stun, and he switched the handgun power off. He shoved it into his belt and reached down, grabbing the assault rifle that lay discarded in the dust. This one he had seen used more recently. An Arc rifle, he thought was the name. FirstMan and his men carried them, and one of them had even taken the time so show Jack how to ready and fire one. He quickly set the weapon to a short-range stun – not trusting his aim enough long distance – and hurried back to the main road.
Now what? he thought. You must think quickly. move fast. Either you make a guess or you hope the other crazy makes himself known. But there was no sound nearby; no more fighting to alert him other than what was going on in the distance, near the perimeter fence.
I need to alert Tyler and the others – let them know that this isn’t a fight they need to involve themselves in.
That decided, he took off, jogging along the road in the direction of the scavenger block, aiming the assault rifle in front of him and checking every alley as he passed each building.
He was just rounding the corner at the junction before the road led down to the residential area when something glimmered in the sunlight to his right, moving fast. Then, before he could judge that it was a reflection on the window of the opposite building, he was sprawled on the floor, rolling, dropping the assault rifle, his brain barely managing to register the flash of orange overalls as something large collided with him. He shook his head and pushed himself up onto his arms, his senses reeling. The figure rushed towards him again. Somehow the attacker had missed him the first time, delivering a glancing blow rather than a full-on body-slam.
It was the second prisoner, Jack realised, and he had come from above. The crazy must of jumped from the roof of a building. Why had he been up there? Jack didn’t know, but the man had dived on him from above, as he attempted to do so a second time, right then. Jack rolled and kicked out a foot in the direction of the orange blur, one last attempt at defending himself, one learned from the pits, many years before. Leg straight, foot flat. The man’s chest hammered into Jack’s heel, and Jack felt a sharp pain run all the way up his side. The man’s own body weight propelled him forward, reeling over the top as Jack rolled away.
There was a crack as the man hit the ground, and a gasp of breath. Then Jack was up on his feet, reaching for the assault rifle, but the weapon was yards away. He grabbed the handgun, still stuffed into his belt, but then slowed as he lifted it. The man wasn’t moving.
Jack edged forward, switching the gun back on and flipping the mode switch to what he now knew was stun, his heart thumping in his chest as the weapon charged and then blinked to life.
He fired, hitting the prone figure in the side. The body jerked, reacting to the surge of energy, but then lay still.
Jack moved slowly forward, still not totally convinced the crazy was out cold. He rounded the body and shivered as he realised why the man wasn’t moving. Somehow, after Jack had kicked the man during his dive attack, the inmate must have landed badly, and his neck had broken. Jack sighed and lowered the handgun.
Well, that’s those two dealt with, he thought. Not quite what you had in mind, but over, nonetheless.
He grabbed the assault rifle, glanced back once at the body in the middle of the road, and started off again in the direction of the residential blocks.
A Case of the Unknown
Now…
The SubTrans building was the northernmost structure in the facility, and it was large enough that it could be seen, perched in its raised position, from nearly any place within the perimeter. It seemed miles away to Lisa as they jogged along the road towards it. The fighting hadn’t reached this end of the facility yet. Everything was still concentrated on the south and the east side, though Lisa thought that it had moved away from the perimeter and deeper into the maze of buildings.
Whoever was assaulting the facility was winning, she thought as they made their way toward the turning before the road reached the SubTrans building. Lisa tried to judge from the noise just how far the uprising, or whatever it was, had spread, and she wished again that she had grabbed a helmet with a communicator, so that she could talk to the other positions and get some idea of how bad the situation was. Soon, she thought. I can drop Jackson off at the SubTrans and then turn back, try to help.
There was an armoury directly across from the SubTrans. It was only a small one, a safe cache underneath the guard outpost that overlooked the entrance. She could get a communicator from there. There should even be guards there; maybe they would be able to update her, fill her in on whatever was going on.
But as they rounded the corner which led toward the sloped entrance of the SubTrans building, she saw that the outpost was empty, abandoned. The door was wide open.
Dammit, she thought. They seriously ran from their post? No, maybe not. Maybe the guards had done what she wanted to do and headed straight for the conflict. Not everybody was trying to run away from the battle. At least the guards must have headed towards the trouble.
“Quickly,” Jackson shouted as he jogged up the slope towards the arch, but instead of going into the office next to the entrance, Jackson carried straight on, hurrying into the terminal building. Lisa and Hayley gave each other confused glances.
What was he doing? she wondered. There would be no Trans in the station. They only came when new deliveries or new recruits were being sent. But Jackson hurried into the building anyway and then out onto the single platform. He took a sharp right, jabbing light switches as he went, until he reached the end of the platform where an archway opened out into the maintenance bay.
Lisa had never been into this part of the SubTrans building. She frowned, realising she had never been back since the day she’d arrived. What could be b
ack here that was so important?
She followed Jackson through the maintenance bay and all the way to the end of the platform, where it disappeared through a closed off doorway. Somewhere else beyond the maintenance bay? Other than the large closed gates, only a single door led through to whatever lay beyond.
Jackson jabbed at the security pad on the wall next to the door and cursed impatiently until the door hissed open. He didn’t hesitate after it opened, stepping through into the darkened room.
“Quickly,” he said as the lights began to flicker on in the room. “Bring me the cases.”
Lisa and Hayley put the cases they had been carrying next to the two Jackson had placed on the floor.
“You two guard the entrance to the platform,” he commanded. “And make sure nobody comes in. I must get the Maintenance Trans ready so we can leave.” The large man then scuttled towards a control panel on the other side of the room, barking commands at his assistant, who rushed over to pick up two of the cases.
Leave? Lisa thought, and she frowned again. The track that came into the SubTrans appeared to end in this room, and there, parked next to the railing that marked the end of the line, was the smallest Trans she had ever seen. It was barely bigger than the driver’s cab on most Trans, though it bore a small operating platform at the front with what appeared to be a cluster of cameras and mechanical arms pointing down towards the track.
“Sir, surely we need to go and help?” she asked. “Surely we don’t want to leave? We can stop whatever is happening and secure the facility again.”
“Not this time,” Jackson shouted as he reached the panel of controls. “I saw them on the cameras. There’s hundreds of them. They’ve taken the perimeter fence down. How they managed it, I don’t know, but it’s completely out, along with the drone defences and the turrets. This is an invasion, and they are well armed, and we have lost most of our defences.”
Lisa glanced at Hayley, then to the SubTrans entrance and then the dark tunnel that loomed at the other end of the platform. They were leaving? Abandoning the whole facility? She couldn’t believe Jackson was so spooked that he was running so quickly. There was something wrong with all this, something he wasn’t telling them. The man was panicking. If this was just an attack by some Junkers, losing the outer defences was bad, but they had over a hundred Troopers inside the facility. They could take it all back. The attack could be repelled. She knew it could.
