The Intruder Mandate: The Farthest Star from Home: a military sci-fi suspense novel

by William Cray

  Measuring the capabilities of his dominated opponents, Duran calculated the police tactical teams had gone out on Clean Sweep raids with between two and four lethal weapons per team. Duran swept the area, risking momentary exposure to locate those carrying the lethal weapons. Pulling back, a series of old style flash bang grenades crashed off pallets and metal fenders around the truck. Duran compressed himself, closing his eyes, opening his mouth and blocking his ears with his hands, kicking the closest grenade away with a free foot.

  The grenades went off very close, buckling Duran’s legs and crushing his body with overpressure. The openness of the platform stole their full potency and Duran gathered himself, shaking his head. From the ground Duran sprang back up, using the gifted balance of his cybernetics, shaking off the disorientation with wide eyes and a compression clearing yawn.

  Edging around the decon truck and its great metal orb wheels, Duran maneuvered between large containers, near the platforms edge, trying to pick up the suicide bomber as he ambled towards the vulnerable command center. A police squad tried to exit the adjacent vans, drawn to the commotion outside, their guns out.

  Duran yelled to warn them off over the warble of the barge suspension engines, but as they came outside, one group walked into a neuro disruption beam sweeping the exits, dropping them to the deck in nerveless heaps. Another group took a hail of lethal fire and retreated back into the communications center leaving two wounded comrades behind, bleeding on the platform deck. Duran took aim and killed the dominated police officer keeping the command center exit pinned down with the electrical crackle of the disruptor. Other neuro beams swept back to him in a broad scythe of energy, forcing Duran back behind the truck as energy jolted through it. Pinned again, he needed to see the bigger picture.

  Duran knelt down behind the big orb wheels and synced with his infoboard, hacking into the police data net. The positions of the units tied into the network began streaming onto his eye filament. More were tying in as it became apparent they were under attack. Tiny clusters of men were pinned in their compartments. The attackers transponders were switched off. The positions of the hostiles weren’t plotting and communications were being jammed, probably by the lifter, Duran thought. None of the friendly cops were in position to provide info on what was happening on the barge itself. Celeste had them pinned.

  The platform’s data stream was blacked out since most of the lifters had already moved ahead to escape or were engaged in rescue efforts on the damaged barges. One lifter still orbited nearby, but it was off the grid also. Dominated, Duran thought.

  A new track appeared, coming from the east. Someone was vectoring a cyclo towards the barge down a broad avenue, approaching from below, before climbing up to the platform. It roared above him, gaining altitude.

  With a mental flick, Duran hacked its data stream and everything it saw streamed onto his eye filament. The image quality was shit as packets of data skipped, but it was enough to give him a picture of the deck. Duran evaluated what was left of Celeste’s murder squad. There hadn’t been an explosion yet, so the ambler was still out there on the platform somewhere. Duran had to find him and kill him fast. Zooming in near the command van he found his target.

  Crouched near the command center, behind a stack of fuel pallets, the ambler waited. He seemed to be laboring to breath and a puddle of black liquid was pooling under his boots, running down along his leg. He crawled forward, peering around the palletized containers edge. A hostile neuro-beam held firm on the command center door, waiting for it to swing open and flash those behind it with the crippling disruptor. When the door came open, the ambler would rip the cord from his bleeding torso and rush in, killing everyone inside. Duran had to get to them, but he was cut off. Nearby motion caught his eye through the image.

  Snapping his eyes open, the image from the cyclo disappeared and his normal vision returned. One attacker had worked his way around behind a large spherical wheel of the truck, coming around the corner, rifle up swerving in Duran’s direction… less than six feet away.

  The buzz of the neuro beams swept towards him, crackling above his head. The energy pulsed through the truck, standing Duran’s hair on edge. He slid his thumb along the Mag-gun's velocity selector, increasing the projected force. Duran swung the gun towards the attacker as he came around the final edge, his rifle nosing the corner first in Duran’s direction.

  The Talon cracked and a round sliced through the metal skin of the dirt brown decon truck with sickening ease, penetrating the man’s thinnest layer of armor just under the armpit. His torso gashed open as the round healed over inside the mans chest, forcing its way out of the opposite side of him before exploding, tearing a hole through his ribcage as it exited, The threat crumpled, then slid off the platform edge just feet away.

  Four down, six to go.

  The superimposed cyclo camera view returned with a blink, showing him the location of the other assailants. They abandoned their effort to keep Cole and his men boxed in, instead closing in on him from three directions, weapons up. They were coming to eliminate him.

  Duran had to act fast, before they were able to overwhelm him with their numbers. One of the attackers slowed and broke their advancing phalanx as he bent down to pick up a fallen comrades assault rifle.

  Duran swung around the corner of the truck, firing a round into the palletized fuel containers for the decon sets, nearest the two approaching enemies. The hypervelocity round pierced the plaz crate, striking the fuel cells and detonated, exploding the compressed nitrogen cartridges inside with a powerful flash, knocking down four of the attackers and showering them in flames. The nearby command shack and several other cars and trucks were pelted with debris from the explosion as a police cruiser was thrust over on its side from the blast, skidding across the barge deck before slamming into one of the bolted down shacks. Two attackers began to stagger back up, rising back to their knees against the flaming wreck. Before they could recover, Duran zipped a round into one of them, but the round passed through her without detonating. She staggered and dropped but still fought to raise her weapon. Duran scaled back the velocity meter and put the next round into her skull.

  Another started limping towards cover, dragging a bad leg and with half of his body still in flames. He had revealed his position and rounds began to shatter around him again.

  Duran darted along the platforms edge behind a peppered cruiser, ducking behind it as rounds scattered behind him. He backed against the car teetering along the barge edge, seventy feet up. The violent strobe entered his mind. The pressure wave built up, driving him to his knees as images and popping lights filled his consciousness. Everything blurred.

  A change in tactics.

  He could feel Celeste reaching out to him from the tower, attempting to cloud his thoughts and reduce his killing efficiency. The images were intense but the signal was weaker. It wasn’t the overwhelming sensations of previous close contacts with her. He grabbed the cruisers shattered frame to steady him so close to the edge as the heat wave began to cloud in.

  Celeste was trying to kill him.

  His body poured adrenaline in to his bloodstream until it boiled hot with power. He felt the rush of Hexadrine flooding him. His rage flushed out the assault on his mind, drowning out the white noise. His thoughts cleared. Celeste’s machinations were gone. She couldn’t touch him.

  Duran rebounded from the mental attack, recovering much quicker than he dared hope. He rose up, ready to strike again, but his arms and legs stuttered as he pushed up, going numb as a plane of blue energy swept onto him from the right. The neuro-disruptor beam scrambled his nervous system and he crumpled to the ground.

  Twitching on the deck, his systems continued to feed him data he could no longer act on. Through twittering eyelids, he could see the boots of his attackers as they approached through the blue haze of electronic light searing down on him.

  He could see one of them, the one he had missed, raising the rifle to his shoulder, aiming th
e black weapon calmly at him, leveling it. The nanites coursing through his body couldn’t repair the damage about to be inflicted on him fast enough to save his life.

  He couldn’t even close his eyes…

  28

  Emergency Response Platform 1

  The Zone

  Elijah Cole stared back at the screen as the Prime Minister half berated him and simultaneously looked to him for salvation. Prime Minister Mikoyan began the conversation showing subtle desperation as Cole briefed him on the withdrawal from the Zone. He seemed to accept it, at first, understanding the situation much clearer than Cole had given him credit for, but the Prime Ministers’ political acumen began to recognize the price he was about to pay for the impending disaster. He had wanted options. Options to exonerate him from culpability, then to extricate him from the political fallout.

  But now, it was apparent to the Prime Minister that a clean break from the situation was impossible, and the ramifications of ‘Clean Sweep’ may very well end his political career. Now the tide was turning and he was beginning the inevitable process of assigning blame that would at least shield him from the worst of the criticism. The Mayor of New Meridian would maximize this crisis to catapult himself into the Prime Minister’s seat, he said. In his anger, Mikoyan was beginning to toss his underlings into the path of the train in order to slow its inevitable momentum before turning his ire on those above him as well.

  “That cocksucker Cannis. This is his doing all along. He will come down to Mars itself to answer for this.” Mikoyan raged. “When this is over, I want you to arrest that spy Duran. We will try him and he will hang from the highest precipice on Olympus Mons. What Cannis has ordered is illegal, a violation of the Articles of Abdication. The Commonwealth Parliament will have to back us. Regia will guarantee that.”

  Cole countered, growing weary of the political bluster of his boss as time ran against them. “What if there is an Intruder Prime Minister? Commonwealth Military officials confirmed this apparatus on the Stratospire. Without Duran I don’t have the resources to deal with this kind of threat even if I knew about it from day one.”

  Cole respected the Prime Minister, but now was not the time for political calculation. The Prime Minister needed to issue the order. Get everyone in New Meridian into his or her shelters and as deep into the trench as possible. Finally the Prime Minister assented, resignation entering his eyes as his heavy face sagged under reality. “Do what you must,” he said. “Of course we will take care of the people of Mars first. That is my responsibility, and I pass the authority to do what needs to be done to you. I will declare the state of emergency planet wide.”

  “Thank you Prime Minister.”

  Cole turned to his communication director. “Give the order. Get everyone into the trench and in shelters as far below the surface as possible.”

  The communication corporal at the console turned to Cole. “What do we tell them?”

  The snap of gunfire halted Cole’s response in mid sentence. He turned to the door in the direction of the sound. Glancing back to the operator, he said, “Just do it.”

  He turned to his command staff. “Operations…what’s happening?”

  Two men staggered into the isolation room, blood smeared inside their clear radiations suits from leaking wounds, dragging a third motionless man. Cole rushed the few steps to them, pushing through others who weren’t rendering aid, bellowing in his deepest baritone, “What happened?”

  One of the attending Territorial Guard officers kneeled down and began first aid, pushing a transponder on his chest to summon any nearby M-Teks. Cole leaned into the most coherent of the three wounded officers. His nametag read Milus.

  “Who did this Constable Milus?” Cole asked, raising the wounded officer’s head off the floor panel.

  Milus looked up through the pain, his heavy brown eyes becoming hazy with shock, “Lister…” he slurred.

  Several more explosions, followed by a series of gunshots reverberated through the command center walls. Cole looked over at the Guardsman, who shook his head and turned his attention to the other wounded. Cole released Milus's hand, stepping back. He stood there for an instant looking down at Milus. His people started to go to work on the other down Constables.

  Cole pulled his side arm, shocking the others in the room. Two nearby officers took his lead and drew weapons. Cole stepped tenderly over the three wounded Constables. One of them had been hit with a neuro-disruptor. It was a miracle he had been dragged into the van and out of the line of fire.

  Cole stepped over him, moving to the front ready to storm out. One of his men with a tactical vest and arm shield, pulled him aside, taking the lead at the door. He looked back at Cole, who gave him the go sign, putting his weapon in both hands, releasing the safety. The isolation door opened and the lead cop pushed out. A blue buzz of energy swept across him, causing the officers leading side, to droop. His motor control failed, lowering his shield as he crumbled to the ground. Before he hit the deck three rounds slammed into him, jarring him back into Cole’s hands in a spray of blood.

  Cole grabbed him by his harness, yanking him back inside, kicking the door shut as he dragged the officer back into the room. Rounds pelted the doorframe, some punching through, leaving round shoots of daylight. The wounded officer was shot badly, one round through his neck, blood sprouting through his fingers as Cole looked into his eyes, wide with shock and fear. Cole lowered him into the arms of other officers, who moved forward to render aid to the mortally wounded cop. Cole cursed in frustration.

  This is becoming a battlefield.

  He turned to the command console as other officers took positions around the nearest exit, drawing their weapons and looking scared shitless. The operator at the console stared at the bloody pool on the floor as his fellow law enforcement officer lay dieing there, moaning as he tired to mouth his final words, red bubbles foaming out of his mouth in his death throes. Cole jolted the operator back to her duties. “Show me the barge deck Corporal.”

  The operator faced him, eyes open wide, mouth agape in shock. She manipulated the console for a minute, trying to shake off the fog then said, “Nothing sir. No one on the deck is on the net. Everyone is offline.”

  “What about the lifter? Milus said something about a lifter?”

  “PF three-one-three sir, it just dropped off a team on the deck but it’s off the net also.”

  “Crashed?”

  “No sir. Just off the net. I’ve got nothing broadcasting from our deck. It’s a black hole out there.” Another explosion rocked the barge, shaking the command center though the walls in a violent thump as a shower of shrapnel cut through the thin walls. No one was injured, but the staff held on to their consoles and looked up at the holes punched through.

  “Where is the nearest cyclo?” Cole barked.

  “Six blocks.” The operator exclaimed, steadying herself against the lurch.

  “Get it overhead. I need imagery.”

  The operator moved the cyclo’s command template in front of her and began manipulating the controls. “Moving sir. Should I call for reinforcements?”

  Cole watched the situation on the other displays. Barge Two was on fire, with New Meridian City Police Chief Tolbert reportedly dead on its deck. Barge Three and Four were pulling back from the city center, towards the locks at the eastern edge of the Dome, farthest away from him. Barge Five was closest, just twenty blocks west. Twenty-five lifters were inside Hab-11 and could be overhead in just minutes. Six tactical teams had dropped off the net and everything around the Stratospire had gone blank. Looking at the map with his troopers positions overlaid, he could see the radius of lost signals and communication black outs spanning out from the Stratospire. Barge One was at its very edge, and every second it kept moving away from the radius of the Intruders reach.

  “No.” Cole said. “Tell everyone to get away from us. Continue to withdraw as planned.”

  Claire Nyuen came up behind him, her hands and neat gray sui
t smeared in the blood of his officers. “Duran was out there.” She said to him as another set of pops and gunfire erupted in a fulisade.

  Cole nodded. “That’s why we’re still hearing gunfire.”

  The operator at the console interrupted. “I just lost the cyclo.”

  “What?”

  “I lost control.” The operator maneuvered the control node, but the image from the figure eight shaped reconnaissance drone stayed steady, coming into a hover over the barge. “Its not following instructions.”

  Cole watched as the drone maneuvered its sensors around the platform deck, moving on its own as the operator tried to regain control with frustrated stokes on the console. The millimeter wave radar image zoomed and oscillated back and forth, picking out blue uniformed figures maneuvering under the drone. The deck was on fire in several places with overturned cruisers and burning pallets scattered around the platform surface. The view passed over several bodies laying in contorted poses near the command center and scattered around the deck.

  The camera angle brought the command center into the center of the view. There were men standing guard outside, aiming their weapons at the entrance where his men had just been shot. The three hostiles guarding the entrance suddenly turned and began moving away, towards the direction of the hovering drone. The image changed spectrums several times before settling on a crouched figure in a tactical uniform, behind a stack of crates near the command center entrance. The figure was bent over, obviously in pain and possibly wounded. The other attackers ignored him, so to Cole, that meant he was one of them. He was about ten feet from the command center’s entrance. The front of the man’s radiation suit was open with one hand clenched on his exposed chest. Occasionally he peered above the crates, watching the entrance.