by William Cray
Rory is below me somewhere, she said to herself.
She met the Major over a decade ago as they crossed paths during an assignment on Tabitha. Her unit had been sent to replace Captain Duran and his team during an Advise and Assistance mission to a scientific onclave operating close to a group of anti-Imperial colonists. Her technical sergeant had taken ill, and she had orders to hold Captain Duran’s tech for the tour as a replacement. That turned out to be Eric Hansen.
She remembered the epic pissing contest with Duran. He wasn’t leaving Axe behind with some newly minted officer who was barely out of her teens. She had orders, but Duran didn’t give an inch.
Axe had been the one to step in, and kept the situation from blowing up. She remembered the hulking Captain come up to her just before boarding the transport out. Duran had calmed down by then but he was still an intimidating bastard. He pointed to Axe and said, “That is the finest Warrant Officer in the Empire, Lieutenant. Lean on him if you need too. Show him you are worthy of being his leader.”
Then he left.
But just a month into the assignment, Duran returned. They met him at the landing field with the transport’s engines still running. He walked off the loading ramp and told Axe, “There’s trouble on Earth. We have to go.” Anne remembered Duran pointing directly at her and saying. “You’re coming with us Lieutenant. Grab your things.”
She fought with Duran, Chief Hansen and the rest of the guys at San Juan just a few weeks later. They had stayed together for all that time since. Even through San Juan, the Vendetta and now Shogun, she still felt there were unresolved issues between her and the Major. Something’s they never talked about and wouldn’t unless she was the one to say something. Well maybe that will change after this, she thought.
The sensor swarm pinged ahead as Anne neared the altitude of the maintenance ring. With a command she popped her Tri-Lum plates, which tumbled into the night. She tucked her arms in and dove back into the interior of the bottom half of the Stratospire’s skin, slipping between the tethers.
Like an acrobat she folded her body and pivoted gracefully into a feet first decent, her arms extended like wings. The stray particle shower of light danced above her head, only a kilometer away from her objective now.
She fired her thrusters and she began to slow as she approached the same altitude as the maintenance ring. The flames danced away as the heat and friction bled off in the cold interior.
A red threat spike shot across her display as she watched the altimeter. Her probes had picked something up. With a mental command, she set her suit master-mode to CQB, readying the suit for combat.
Anne cursed inside the suit. Anyone looking up can see me coming.
She picked up her scanning.
A dull roar built up inside her helmet. She tried to shake it off, but the feeling crept up on her in slow flood. She bit down hard on her lower lip, feeling teeth cut into flesh and the salt of blood on her tongue. A flood of emotions stuck her like a flash of heat and tears streamed down her face.
It was the Intruder. The effect descended on her like a fog.
Slowing to a hover, Anne Braiselle pivoted on her axis, towards the series of doors lining the spires interior, each leading to other elevator compartments for passengers or light cargo. The central climber was still kilometers below her, but her sensor constellation stopped transmitting much sooner than she expected. The main elevator could be on its way up.
On command, her suit ejected an IR flare, which fell into the pit. The invisible energy illuminated the cavern with a green glow on her sensors as it fell. She focused on it as it fell, trying to regain her equilibrium, until it burned out somewhere below her. Her mind started to clear. She was inside the field of effect. The attack was still there, but she was out of reach. Like standing on a breaker as rough waves crashed all around her.
A red arc burst onto her display. Anne whirled around.
Rippling like a series of hammer blows, explosive strips of anti-projectile panels along her torso erupted with a crack. She glimpsed the flame of the warhead before her defensive systems sliced it apart, detonating just meters away from her and showering the shaft walls with a spray of metal fragments.
Her electronics flickered out and it jolted the breath out of her lungs as she hit the wall of the Stratospire. She could feel herself starting to tumble, the explosion knocking her off the pillar of thrust holding her level.
She popped off a flare from a shoulder mount, but it fell away. The cylinder dropped through the tunnel, its tiny hovering rockets misaligned to the Martian gravity as it spouted off a confusing flash of energy and chaff.
The threat receiver spiked again. Someone was trying to lock onto her for another shot. Vulnerable and under attack, she shut off the thruster and plunged into the darkness, skipping along the interior of the structure as bullets crashed into the spot where she was just hovering.
Anne’s enhanced systems injected adrenaline and a mad concoction of stimulants into her bloodstream, attempting to drive her body back into control against the Intruder attack as someone above sprayed the depths with small arms fire while she fell. With a jerk of rigid machine efficiency, the suit rotated in flight, centering the red axis into a cone displayed to her front. Anne felt the magazine on her chest mounted Mag-gun rifle rotate in response to the cues on the suit, priming to counter the threat. Through the haze of mental attack she released the rifle to her hands and oriented it through the spiraling fall. The suit requested authority.
With a blinding ripple, the Mag-rifle pulsed, launching precious hunter-killer ammunition into the red threat cone like angry wasps, ending in a series of eruptions in the vicinity of an open hatch. She righted her decent, watching the falling numbers on the altimeter slow. She fought through the Intruder attack, focusing on survival. Her body shot a cold infusion of liquid steel into her bloodstream as she slipped back into herself and the suit responded.
Anne maneuvered herself back the to center of the maw on a pillar of thrust, which ate at her reserves. She looked up as the altimeter began to climb.
Like a spider on invisible strands, she landed on the service walkway adjacent to the access doors. The doors were shattered with impact points. She felt the hum of the Assault Talon reconfiguring based on information from her sensors and she brought it up with one hand.
Her HK rounds had found the mark. The doorframe leading into the main service corridor was bloodied and she found the remains of two men in police tactical gear at the base of the entrance. A broken rocket launcher lay next to one of them. With powerful servo’s, she ripped open the hatch from its locks, tossing it like an empty plate into the depths.
The narrow corridor inside was a storm of electromagnetic waves and sparkling jammers. The hall filled with smoke and thermal blooms from burning flares.
Instinctively she triggered off an anti-personnel grenade into the noise, which ricocheted into the fury, exploding in a flash. The grenade would maim anything waiting in the corridor unless they retreated back along the circular corridor. She stalked forward, knowing that any opponents would also be blinded by the smoke and confusion. When she came into contact with them it would be a sudden, grappling moment in the dark.
She stowed the rifle and long black vermiform trench knifes edged out of her forearms like fangs.
Like a juggernaut she charged down the corridor, rushing through the confusion, bayonets flashing in the dark like whirling blades. Her swift footfalls, banged against the floor paneling like a thundering herd of steel bulls. A shower of explosions crashed in front of her, as she squeezed off another grenade. The grenades exploded with dull whumps, scouring the corridor with debris and shrapnel that pinged against her impervious skin. The enemy returned fire blindly.
She charged forward into the hail of gunfire in a relentless charge, knives flashing in the dark like a churning meat grinder in a slaughterhouse full of cattle. She felt the leading edge of her blade scrape and slice into something as she bore
into it. In the confusion she saw the terrified eyes of a man inside the blue tactical armor looking up at her.
Lieutenant Morse heard it coming, crashing towards them in the smoke like a mythical iron golem. Panicked and alone he pitched his last series of grenades into the hallway. Gaffney, his last surviving teammate of TacUnit Zero Four, jumped back in a blind panic, spraying gunfire over his head into the gray mist, towards the rumbling monster.
The beast had to be stopped.
It was a terrorist, there to bring down the tower and destroy the city below by severing the link between Phobos and New Meridian along the spires mid point. If they didn’t stop it, the Stratospire’s lower segment would tumble to the surface and scar the planet like a runaway whipcord. He had to stop it.
In desperation, he strapped a demolition charge to the wall as a last resort. As he prepared the last demo pack, a flash gleamed through the smoke. He heard Gaffney scream. Morse raised his service weapon. A shape rumbled towards him and he squeezed the trigger. Gaffney’s body jerked as Morse mistakenly snapped rounds into him. Gaffney hit the floor in a heap just as another grenade bounced off the wall ahead of him and exploded, showering the hallway with hot fragments. He saw the flashing knives at the last second.
Morse, clawed forward through his own blood after the beast had rushed past him, smearing a path across the floor. He knew he was ruined. Dying. With one attached arm and his face pealed back like an orange, he crawled forward. His own tactical suit recognized the fatal damage and flooded his body with painkillers in its futile attempt to buy him more precious seconds of life. His left arm was severed, a dark shape lying limp like a floundered Quee. It was severed by a crisp slice of mechanical precision, releasing the bone and flesh from his torso. He bled out onto the floor plates, combining the blood of his limb with the blood being pumped out by his fast beating heart.
The shield had saved his life long enough to make one more effort. His arm was gone, but he struggled towards it. The disconnected hand lay on the floor behind him. Its dead fingers reaching back for him, as he clawed toward it.
With the clamp of boots approaching from behind, he outstretched with his one good hand, the flesh sliced from his face flapped over his good eye. His breathing mask kept the rest of his face in place. Morse felt the mesh of his uniform shirtsleeve through the blinding sting of his sliced skin. The feeling in his fingers faded as he reached his severed arm. He closed his fist around it and gathered it close to him. He hugged his lost arm against his body.
Morse heard the thump of steps behind him. He pried back the limp and foreign fingers that were once his own, reaching for the device still in its lukewarm clutch. He pressed the device into his good hand with a fading grip. Now in position, he rolled his hacked body over onto his back.
He faced the beast, a black shape moving towards him through the haze of smoke. The monster glided towards him with a grace that he hadn’t noticed when it was charging at him. It came on like a blooded angel, long knives extended from her hands.
As blood flowed out of his brain, the last cloud of the Intruder faded from his mind, loosening its hold. He squeezed down on the switch.
33
Mars Orbital Tower
Main Security Entrance
Near Habitation Dome 11
Duran drew up close to the gate, not trusting the scene in front of him. The base of the Stratospire was ahead, rising out of the domed top, the edge of Phobos visible in the sky. At this level, it was intimidating, even compared to the great Emperor-class displacement clippers. The distant Martian blow had dropped off and the raging haze of dust had settled in a bulwark of gravel and sand at the base of the tower dome, like looking into the cross section of a child’s ant farm.
He looked back along the gate path into the dome. Smashed vehicles and carts were piled into a makeshift barricade. The crash gates were deployed from below the street, creating a wall of metal teeth guarding the entrance. The area denial defenses of neuro-beams and electro-barriers were active and glowing. Duran’s network of spy systems and sensors ferreted out their transmitters and kill-zones. But the post looked abandoned. The network was designed to be defended by men and machines behind automated fields and systems, but he could see or detect no one at their posts, just the residue of a battle that probably occurred at the outset of the Intruder devices activation. It left behind a zone of dead security guards and police, strewn across the entrance in the haphazard nature of sudden combat. Those still useful to the Intruder would be inside. They would be waiting, preparing chokepoints and kill-zones.
Celeste’s presence was everywhere. The alpha waves crested all around him, blocking any directional cues he could use, so he kept pushing forward. He knew she was still searching for him, but his own abilities to lock out a mental intrusion had grown in strength. Even the mind control device could no longer penetrate his focus. But more than that, he felt stronger, more alive. In the last hours he had been able to ferret out Intruder ambushes by concentrating his focus on his seen and unseen surroundings. On one occasion he felt the terror of a dying man’s last thoughts. In those last moments he felt the man’s confusion and fear. The man pleaded to be saved. As he realized he wouldn’t survive, Duran felt the mans love for his wife and children. The he was gone. A painful emptiness was all that was left of him. Was that the Intruder gift, he wondered? Was that the intoxicating drug that drew in Celeste to the Intruder's power?
Two flashes high in the night sky reminded him that the secondary protocol wouldn’t wait for him to sort everything out. He had to keep moving.
Checking the area one more time, he inventoried the remains of his gear. He took out his last thirty round magazine and slapped it into Axe's Talon. The Intruder zombies had soaked up much of his ammo and explosives, returning little damage in reply, but draining him of valuable resources. Each sharp engagement reduced his technological edge further, until he would be throwing rocks at defenders. His advanced body armor shock fields were reduced and he each impact stung more and more. The last one grazing his trapezoid had brought a stream of tears in pain, along with a bloody scar gouged into the surface flesh. His body handled the pain well, and prioritized the actions of his nano-medics to minimize loss of function, but overall, each step forward cost his body capability, and each engagement chewed into his effectiveness. Combined with the persistent radiation poisoning of the Zone and the previous damage suffered over the last days, his effectiveness was grinding down as his body nanites rushed from one crisis to the next, building up the stressors on his enhanced biology. He was saturated with adrenaline and now the crash was coming. The machine was wearing out the flesh. A pervasive nausea from radiation and the ingestion of his last remaining bio-gel packs made each step forward and an exercise in bile control. He felt like retching, but the bile of failure was worse than any stench coughed up through his wrecked body. If the end came as a contest of wills and rock throwing, well, if it came to rock throwing, he could throw very hard.
The magazine snapped into place and spun the first round into the chamber. Duran edged around the corner, weapon up, he stalked through the chalky remains of burned vehicles and bodies, shanked by flechettes and scorched with beam weapons. Avoiding auto defense concentrations he maneuvered through the gaps, utilizing the sophisticated electronic countermeasures of his architecture and the genetic bull strength granted him by the Imperial surgeon’s knife. His first rate military grade hacking systems easily fooled the outdated sensors and scanners of the tower’s defensive network. The defenses would adapt and he couldn’t use those algorithms again on this network, but it let him move through the gaps. It was foolish to leave the defenses unmanned. Another mistake Celeste and the Intruder would pay for.
The enormous glass and duridium entrance to the Stratospire complex was a cascade of shattered edges, frosting the foyer in prisms of broken glass. Duran passed through the dead Imperial gardens and administrative facades without contact. The fa
cilities security offices would be underground. He expected it to be heavily defended, but from there he could gain control of the tower, at least temporarily.
Duran called up the schematics on his infoboard. He looked for a path down to the offices without using the service elevators. He scrolled the schematics on his eye filament until he found the emergency stairwell.
The security office was less than ten flights down in the tower’s Admin and Control wing. The service elevators were locked but it would be suicide to take them anyway. As he headed down the stairs, he could hear the rumble of counterweights below him. The Stratospire’s main lift elevators were moving.
Duran traversed the stairwell without running into any opposition. He broke the code lock to the security level and followed the wide hallway to the security office. Duran switched to his night vision system on Hansen’s Mag-gun, illuminating the dark path forward on his filament eye. Duran moved along the halls edge to the security office, peering through the glass enclosure.
The security office was crescent shaped, full of banks of terminals and large screen displays. He couldn’t sense the presence of anyone inside. Celeste’s influence permeated the area, even through all the dirt and steel. The room looked unguarded.
On a lark, he waved his hand across the motion sensor near the door and it opened in a rush of filtered air. Caught off guard by the unlocked doors, Duran abruptly stepped through as they began to close automatically. He scanned the room with his weapon until he found the illumination controls. He moved towards the panel, panning his gun across the room.
