by Glynn James
Jackson wasn’t telling her everything.
“Sir, I strongly suggest I assist with the defence,” she called.
“You will do as I command,” Jackson yelled. “You stand here and guard until I get the Trans ready.” He turned to Rogen, who was still ferrying he cases over to the Maintenance Trans. “Will you speed it up.? Come on, with those cases.”
Jackson knelt next to the large green case and flipped open the top.
“I don’t get this,” Hayley said, keeping her voice low so that only Lisa heard.
Lisa just shook her head. “Just do as he says. Then, when he’s gone, we can go and help.” She listened and heard Jackson hissing commands at Rogen. The governor must have thought she couldn’t hear them from across the bay, but she could just make out what they were saying.
“That’s it. Put all those in the Trans,” Jackson said. “I’ll be there in a moment. I just need to set this correctly so we have enough time.”
“Is that what I think it is?” Rogen asked, and Lisa noticed his voice waver.
“Yes,” said Jackson. “Shut up.”
Stand Down
Now…
FirstMan kicked aside a broken chair that lay on the floor between the two smashed doors at the entrance to the Admin block. The mechanism that opened the doors seemed to have gotten stuck in a loop, and the left door was opening and shutting, opening and shutting, slowly but constantly. The door on the right wasn’t moving, but whirring and clicking noises came from the wall next to it, and he could see a chunk of debris was stuck behind the door.
He stepped into the foyer before any of the other Troopers, but he was followed closely by RightHand. The man had barely been three feet away since they first breached the perimeter fence, and FirstMan wondered if it was RightHand’s own fears that drove him or if he was just being protective.
The building was darker, further in. The foyer itself was lit by the glare of the bright sun, but the main corridor leading from the room had no windows, and only the flickering of emergency lighting illuminated the passageway. There had been a struggle here already, that much he could see, but he also knew that none of his task force had gotten this far, so this was internal chaos rather than a defensive struggle. Had some of the inmates of the facility taken the opportunity to fight for their freedom? He had no idea. There were no bodies, and no signs of weapons fire, but there was plenty of debris. The foyer and the corridor beyond looked as though a storm had blown through it.
“All units call-in,” he said into the comms. He stood there, looking up the corridor, waiting for his team leaders to reply. The calls came in, in rapid succession, and it wasn’t all good news. Mostly the defence had fallen quickly, either stunned or surrendering, but now he listened as three different reports came back to him with fatalities. A dozen Junkers were down, three of whom were dead. Nearly twenty of the defenders were wounded, and lastly one of his own Troopers had taken a shot to the face and was in a critical state.
And we don’t have much in the way of medical support, he thought. Unless we take the rest of the facility quickly. The med bay was on the other side of the very building he stood in, and that, it seemed, was now his major priority, alongside capturing that damn pig of a governor.
Thirty yards along, a left turn and then right led them to the entrance of the main ops room. Target number one. This was where any remaining command would be, he thought, but he wondered if there was even anything left that resembled such.
He crouched low and moved to the doorway leading into the ops room. Leaning forward, he pressed the button on the wall that would open the doors. There was a satisfying hiss as the two doors shunted open, disappearing into the wall panels and filling the corridor with a blast of bright light.
“Back the hell out,” shouted a voice, and FirstMan immediately ducked lower, scanning the room for the source of the defender. He saw three – no, four – figures in the room, all behind desks that had been dragged across the floor and rearranged into a defensive barricade in the middle. Computer terminals and power cables littered the ground where they had been abandoned.
“That you, Ranold?” shouted the same voice. FirstMan recognised it this time. How could he not? Major Bryant. The man had commanded the facility security forces for years. “You got a hell of a damn nerve.”
FirstMan turned quickly back, checking the positions of his men with a glance. RightHand was behind a desk just a few yards away, but most of the troopers were crouched against the wall out in the corridor. They had line of fire on some of the room, but only he and RightHand had a view that covered the entire room, which, as with most of the Admin block, was lit only by emergency lighting. He considered the room, glancing at the rows of desks, tables and cabinets. There could be any number of Troopers in there; a dozen or more could easily be hidden under cover, yet maybe it was only the few he thought he had seen.
“This doesn’t have to get nasty,” called FirstMan. “Not if you don’t want it to go that way.”
“Damn you, Ran,” Bryant replied. “I never would have taken you for a traitor. Even when I was told you all went AWOL, I didn’t think it was clear.”
Bryant’s voice came from the back of the room, over near a set of cabinets that lined the wall. Another set of identical cabinets faced the wall. He was sure that was where Bryant was.
One concussion grenade could fix this, he thought. But what a waste of good Troopers. If he could only persuade the old man to stand down.
“Sir, if you are willing to lay down your arms, we can discuss this,” said FirstMan.
“My arms?” shouted Bryant. “You attack my goddamn facility, kill my men, and you want me to just stick my hands in the air and beg for mercy? Not on this day, or any other, soldier. You want this facility, then you’ll take it inch by damn inch, with blood.”
FirstMan smiled. The man had always been stubborn. “No, sir, no begging required. No one is being killed. If you will simply stand down, you will be detained, unharmed, until we can organise transport to take you back to the Inner Zone. We already have—”
But he didn’t get to finish the sentence. The initiative was lost before he could react.
“Fire!” shouted Bryant, and FirstMan saw movement from several corners. Three other Troopers broke cover, along with Bryant, to fire a volley through the room and into the corridor. FirstMan heard a thud as one of his men hit the deck, but he didn’t have time to check on him. He raised his rifle and started firing, and with that, the guns behind him in the corridor followed.
A flash of heat shot past his face, and he felt it even through the visor. Bryant and the others inside the room were firing live, and his men would still be firing to stun. Both would damage the room and the equipment within, but only the live shots could kill. He ducked back, then leaned out to aim and fire. Then he did it again. The third time he saw one of the defenders fall, and he heard another go down at the same time. He still couldn’t get a bead on Bryant; the man was in near full cover behind the cabinets.
A flash of blue shot up the corridor, and FirstMan heard another of the defenders go down.
“Just Bryant left,” snapped a voice in his ear. “But he’s in there thick.” It was RightHand, talking through the comms. The noise in the room was deafening, even if only one man was left defending it. His own Troopers continued to blaze shots all over the room, sending furniture flying, computer screens crashing to the floor, and wall panels collapsed in.
For moment, he met RightHand’s eyes, lowered his rifle and signalled the group to rush the room. RightHand nodded back and signalled to the men behind them, his gloved fingers indicating three seconds, then two, the one, then go.
The blasts from the corner intensified as they rushed in. RightHand went to his right, ducking behind a row of desks that hadn’t already collapsed, still firing into the back of the room. FirstMan went straight forward, then bore left along the back of the cabinets. A burn of heat singed his left side, and he realised that fir
ing live, Bryant could fire even through the cabinets, not just round them. Stun shots had no such ability.
He rushed forward, leaned around the corner, and heard a grunt as Bryant fell back from a surge of shots coming from the row of desks where RightHand and another trooper were firing.
Then he saw the major, slumped back against a cabinet, stunned but not out cold. The man was still pointing his weapon towards the desks. FirstMan lunged forward, getting just feet from the major, and aimed his weapon at the man’s face.
“Stand down, Major,” he shouted.
For a moment, the major stopped firing and looked surprised to see FirstMan so close. He thought the major was going to surrender, and the weapon lowered just a few inches, but then Bryant grimaced and spat at him as he pulled the trigger again, unleashing a volley of fire that clattered against the back wall.
FirstMan fired.
It was over. The major slumped back, unconscious. FirstMan glanced around. The room was completely trashed. Barely anything would be recoverable. Three other bodies lay unconscious on the floor along the back of the room, all of them armoured but wearing rookie insignias.
It seemed the major had been caught unprepared for the fight.
“Sir, we have a problem,” called one of the Troopers. The man was kneeling hunched over a figure at the other end of the room.
Damn, he thought. I just lost another one of my men. His stomach churned as he wondered who. Every one of them was worth a hundred others, each having followed him out into the Junklands, giving up their lives in the military, and each having fought at his side numerous times.
He walked over and crouched by the prone figure.
It was then that he realised that the injured man was not just any of his men, but RightHand.
“Waylan….no,” his whispered as he sank to his knees. He looked at the wound in the centre of his friend’s chest, and then into the man’s cold, lifeless eyes. There was nothing that could be done.
RightHand was already dead.
“Sir, Team 4, here.” A crackling voice spoke in his ear. “We have a visual on Jackson heading into the SubTrans building, repeat, we have a visual on Jackson moving into the SubTrans building. Three other targets accompanying, two are Troopers. Over.”
FirstMan sighed, still unable to grasp what had happened. This was not how it was meant to be. He and RightHand had plans. Waylan had been the one driving most of this. The man had ideas for everything. Now he was gone.
“Sir, this is Team 4, please respond. Over.”
FirstMan stood up, his head still lowered, and pressed the comms button on the side of his helmet. “First, here. All teams converge on the SubTrans building. First there goes for the shot. Disable Jackson. Disable all targets.” Then he paused for a moment, looking back at his dead friend. “Use ultimate force if necessary. Over.”
Hunted
Now…
Jack dived behind a wall a dozen meters from the first residential block, his eyes stinging with sweat that hadn’t been brought on by just the heat of the sun that now blazed down onto the facility. Behind him, the fragments from the corner of the concrete building rained down and scattered across the ground, blasted away by the Arc rifles of the two Troopers that he had nearly run into.
He’d had barely a second or two to react, his instinct to hold fire, to try and get them to lower their weapons. Now, as he buried his head and tried to stay low behind the wall, he wished he’d just fired. At least he had the decency to have the weapon set to stun. They certainly didn’t.
For a few seconds the barrage of fire ceased, and he heard boots on the ground, heading across from their position to his. They were coming in, probably presuming they’d already hit him. He rolled over several times, covering himself in dirt and dust, but managed to end up a dozen yards along the wall, well away from where he had been, and only just in time. The first of the two Troopers jumped right over the wall, firing as he went, but thankfully aiming at the spot where Jack had been hiding a few seconds before. The second, maybe a more cautious Trooper, went around the other way, aiming and firing toward the corner of the building.
They realised their mistake before Jack could use the advantage. He raised his weapon and fired, but both Troopers dived for cover before he could hit either of them.
I’m screwed, he thought. Totally screwed. He ran once more, this time heading for the other corner of the building, just a few yards away. These guys were a much better shot than he was. They were well trained and used to their weapons. Apart from a few hours’ training with one of FirstMan’s Troopers, Jack had little experience with assault rifles. A machete? Sure. But guns? No. Few Outer Zone wanderers ever owned such things, unless they were scavs, and those folks weren’t sharing what they managed to get hold of.
Should have spent more time practicing with the damn thing, like FirstMan suggested, shouldn’t you? he thought. Knowing how to flip firing modes and shoot a piece of junk thirty yards away was one thing. Hitting a moving target that was trying to blow your face off? That was entirely different. He wondered, for only the slightest of moments, how many Junkers were dead.
But he didn’t get to think for very long. He felt the heat rush by as he made the corner, almost falling flat on his face. He stumbled, glancing round for more cover, and spotted a large metal container further along the alleyway between the buildings. He started running.
Boots thudded on the ground behind him. Damn, they’re persistent, he thought. He’d hoped that if he ran they might just let him go, maybe stay at whatever post they were supposed to be at, but these two weren’t leaving him alone.
Another rush of heat blasted by as he ducked behind the container. He looked around, his thoughts shifting between standing and fighting and just keeping on running. He couldn’t stop. They were firing live rounds, and there were two of them. He knew this was it. He’d never take both out. He ran on, keeping to the wall along the side of the alleyway, hoping that the container would cover him for enough time to make the next junction.
It was twenty yards, then ten. Jack found himself unconsciously switching the rifle from stun to live, but he switched back again as he reached the corner. Then, just as he was about to round the corner, a blast hit the ground next to his right foot. He stumbled and rolled forward, thankfully around the corner, but still onto his face. The rifle once more fell from his grip as he reached out, trying to avoid smashing his skull on the concrete ground.
He reached for the weapon but wasn’t quick enough. The two Troopers appeared around the corner, both rifles aimed directly at him. Jack tried to raise his hands, to show he was surrendering, but both Troopers aimed right at him.
“Drop them,” came a voice from nearby. The two Troopers spun to their right, turning their rifles in the direction of the sound.
Now, Jack thought. Use this. Quickly. He forced his hand to reach quickly for the weapon, pushing the shock and fear that was bubbling in his gut aside.
But as he raised the weapon he saw that the two Troopers were lowering theirs. Jack frowned, raised the rifle, but instead of firing, he watched as half a dozen other armed Troopers – FirstMan’s men – walked out of cover. A dozen Junkers followed behind them, and Jack could see that most of these now carried rifles or handguns.
There were several sharp cracks, and the two Troopers jerked and fell to the ground, stunned.
Jack stood up, one hand raised, and was relieved when the lead Trooper lifted his visor to show a grinning, bearded face.
It was Hyde, the Tech Trooper that had given Jack the chip to swallow.
“Damn, it’s good to see you,” Hyde said, patting Jack on the shoulder. “We were worried you might get taken out before we could overrun the place.”
Jack nodded. “Me too. Look, I need to make sure that my friends here are ok. Did you hit the bunk houses yet? The ones for the carrier crews?”
Hyde grinned. “Already taken care of, my friend. We secured the whole area already, with no resistance.
” He tapped the side of his helmet, turning away from Jack. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Acknowledged and on our way.”
“What’s going on?” asked Jack “What do you want me to do now?”
Hyde turned back to face Jack “End game time. Come on. Stick with us, and grab one of those helmets so you can get on comms. The governor has been spotted heading for the SubTrans. We gotta make sure he doesn’t get out of here.”
Deactivated Dream
Now…
Ryan crouched behind the wall as a trio of Troopers ran by. He closed his eyes for a moment, willing himself to slow his breathing, just as Jack had taught him, and hoped his cover was enough.
It was. The Troopers were too pre-occupied with the chaos all around them. In the alleyways and the buildings across this whole side of the facility gunfire and shouting echoed, and the three Troopers rushed towards a building nearby and ran inside. Gunfire followed.
That was his moment, and he took it, kicking away from the wall and racing across the dirt road as fast as he could, one hand gripping tightly to the medical pack on his chest, the other holding the small handgun. He ducked into an alleyway and made his way along the darker side where the sun cast a shadow over a third of the tiny path.
At the end of the alleyway he found himself in a small clearing between the large concrete buildings. Several more alleyways led away from the clearing, giving him half a dozen options of which direction to head in, but he noticed them second to the thing that was parked in the middle of the clearing.
