Frontline sf-4

by Randolph Lalonde

Sounds of alarm rose up all around him. The soldiers who were sent to investigate the Sergeant crashing down the stairs cried out; “grenade!” as did the Commander in the next room and three storeys below the crowd were scattering. The chances of anyone in the assembly on the street actually getting killed were low. Someone spotted the grenades before they hit the ground, and that suited Jake's needs perfectly. If he had just left the body in the stairwell it would be seconds before someone sounded the alarm. At least with grenades going off in and around the building there was chaos, confusion.

  He sprinted up the stairs, through the room at the top and leapt out of the window on the far side, landing soundly on his feet across a narrow alley on a large second storey balcony. The guards that held the post there were already dead, and the makeshift barracks beyond the dark balcony door was quiet.

  The explosions started as he took his third running step and he jumped across the five meter span to catch the lower half of a railing one storey up. Just days before he wouldn't have even considered such a leap, but the reassurance of his new found healing abilities and his armoured vacsuit fortified him. He had seen thousands of soldiers coming down in drop ships to occupy the island and load just even more of the displaced citizens into those same dropships to be taken off world. It fortified him. The need to get through the city, find out what happened to Jason and Oz then get back to the Triton pressed him forward.

  As he hurtled through the air towards the nearest balcony those thoughts couldn't have been further from his mind, however. He pushed his arms through the air ahead of him and caught the lowest metal bar of the railing under his armpits, striking the brick and mortar chest first. It knocked the wind out of him, his vacsuit prevented him from being seriously harmed but the misstep would slow him down, and considering the hundreds, perhaps thousands of soldiers concentrated on four city blocks, that was something he couldn't afford.

  The pain faded much faster than normal and in the next second he was pulling himself up onto the balcony. The framework system must have activated when they hit me with the electromagnetic pulse bombs. I can't say I'm ungrateful, but if I ever get some face time with my own personal Geppetto I'll have some questions.

  Jake climbed up on the opposite railing and jumped before he was ready, forcing himself into making a desperate flailing grab for the railing of the next balcony just around the corner. He barely caught it and couldn't help looking down to the hard, brick paved street four storeys below before pulling himself up. I might be able to survive that kind of fall now, but it doesn't mean it wouldn't hurt like a bitch. I'll have to start making plans that don't include so much vertical movement.

  He was thankful for the vacsuit stealth features that still worked as he climbed up onto the balcony and peeked onto the rooftop. There were two sentries. Thanks to his thermal shielding and sound suppression systems they didn't hear him grappling with the railing just a moment before and they didn't see him through the walls.

  Motion detection was next to useless outdoors, it took forever to tune so every little thing didn't set it off and it didn't have close quarters to rely on for sensing disturbed air or localized shifts in gravity. Regent Galactic's soldiers didn't bother using their motion detectors, that was something he knew from experience.

  They did have eyes, however. Jake braced himself against the wall while standing precariously on an imitation marble railing and drew his sidearm. He poked the barrel just above the rooftop edge and used the video sighting system, the only part of the weapon that still worked, to watch a pair of sentries.

  He looked down to make sure no one was looking up at him and waited for the pair to turn away so he could pull himself onto the rooftop. They weren't the pacing sort, or the most vigilant as it turned out. Instead of noticing the explosions just a building over right away, they were busy talking about something. Jake could see the muscles under their jaws moving, but thanks to their thick helmets he couldn't hear what they were saying.

  Finally, they noticed the smoke rising from below and rushed to see what had happened. Jake took his opportunity and pulled himself up as quickly as he could. Before they had time to notice he was on the rooftop, running crouched, putting his sidearm away as he drew his nanoblade and activated it. The nearly invisible blade was back down to half its normal length and he had used his last cartridge.

  The sound dampening systems worked perfectly, they didn't notice him until he decapitated the first from behind. The second soldier started to run without so much as a glance backwards and Jake's next swing struck in the soft spot of his Regent Galactic standard issue armour just under the helmet. The guards were dead with a minimum of sound but the head of the second guard was rolling forward through the air, over the side of the rooftop's edge. Jake made a desperate, quick grab for it and grazed it with the tips of his fingers but it was too late. The disembodied head rolled down into the gap between the buildings.

  It would land right in the middle of the crowd of panicked West Keepers who were still in chaos thanks to the exploding grenades and he hoped that it would go unnoticed, just part of the carnage as he dropped down beside the half meter barrier along the edge of the building top.

  He heard some screaming, an increasing surge in the hysteria of a few and then someone yelled; “It came from up there!”

  Oh crap! This is going to be a busy night. He thought wearily. There was a little time and he had to use it wisely. He took the small decryption and command chip out of his pocket and flipped part of his command and control unit open. The encryption chip that had come built into the unit was a little larger, but he hoped he could get the two lined up enough for the system to adjust and incorporate the Regent Galactic technology.

  He carefully placed the new chip atop the old and closed the unit, being sensitive to any abnormal resistance. While his command and control unit started an attempt to implement the new technology he rolled over to one of the soldier's bodies and unclipped his rifle.

  Jake's arm unit blinked and the two dimensional display brought up a list of over a hundred open channels. He selected local command and muted his end so he wouldn't be heard by mistake.

  “-cornered on top of the secondary barracks building, check one four seven on grid Charlie and you'll see it.”

  “I've got it, sending three squads and raising the alarm. He'll have more trouble than he can handle,” replied another voice.

  If this works the way I think it does it'll be a long night for everyone. Jake thought to himself with a grin as he pulled a belt of variable release grenades from the nearest soldier's body.

  He pressed his thumb over the safety of his stolen rifle and it chirped negatively, indicating that the weapon's safety wasn't encoded for him. “Override using command codes,” he said aloud as he pointed his arm unit at the weapon. It chirped positively and the weapon's safety was released.

  The next few seconds were a blur as he collected all the ammunition he could find for the weapon, increased its intensity to full and ran to the opposite edge of the building and loading the grenade launcher in his new assault rifle with one of the variable release grenades. He could hear alarms just starting up, loud, horn like bleats that pierced the air loud enough for his sound dampening system to kick in.

  The building overshadowing the makeshift barracks was a dark monolith under the scant starlight. He looked up twenty or so storeys and caught sight of the dissipating heat, the structure had been on fire for days and he'd be navigating it while it was still unstable, unusable and unsafe for the Regent Galactic military. They'd start sending bots after him again, and he shuddered at the thought. That's unless I can get into that mountain somehow. Hopefully being able to hear Regent's radio chatter will help somehow.

  He backed up, took a running start and leapt through the air, aiming for a large gap in the larger building's wall made by an explosion or bombardment shell. Jake commanded his vacsuit to harden itself as much as possible while giving him just enough flexibility to roll with the f
all as he fell through the air over the street. The landing was three storeys down and he rolled with it perfectly. Half of his vacsuit flashed red, indicating that it was under extreme pressure.

  His momentum carried him straight into a desk, and it was sent spinning across the half wrecked corner office. Coming up on his feet he gave himself a moment to catch his breath before taking aim at a hastily panelled up window in the barracks across the street. It was the dead of night, lights were coming on, sirens were blaring and if he was lucky the soldiers would still be rushing to get out of bed and into their armour. He squeezed the trigger on his particle rifle, sending a long burst of white hot rounds against the thin metal sheeting they'd used to repair a broken transparesteel window and he watched the material burst apart. He set the variable release grenades loaded into the assault rifle to riot mode and fired two across the street and into the window. They exploded on impact, sending a burst of sound, energy and air in all directions. “Good morning soldiers!” he couldn't help chuckle, wishing he could see what was going on in the barracks.

  The floor shook violently and he ducked down low. Just as Jake's vision began to clear he heard the overwhelming whistling roar of the wind. All he could do was scurry further into the office, find a main brace and despite the desperate need to remain focused, he took a look over his shoulder.

  The great mountain was tearing itself apart, fading light shone through every door, window, cavernous opening and debris of every kind was coming towards him in a violent, churning wall of heated air.

  Finding one of the main building supports, he dove for it, struck it with his shoulder and rolled behind it just in time. The whole structure groaned against his back, the very metal he used for protection rocked violently and the sound of the rushing air and colliding furniture, building materials, metal, stone, and every other kind of wreckage imaginable overcame the sound suppressors in his vacsuit.

  As quickly as the storm had come it ended, and when he looked around the bare steel pillar he had used for cover it was impossible to miss the front half of an air car crushed into the floor just above, and how most of the corner of the floor he was on was gone, carried away by some massive colliding object, he imagined. What wasn't ruined in the city between the mountain and himself before the explosion was an utter waste afterwards. The weaker buildings had been reduced to rubble, the narrow streets were filled with the ruined product of a once thriving society and the chaos he'd caused to distract his enemies long enough for him to escape was forgotten as he looked to the mountainside only to see dust rising from a slide of buildings, stone, and walkway paving. Where there was once colour, living texture or any sign that people had lived in the spaces all around him there was only parched, ground down remains. He wouldn't have been able to see anything without the assistance of his visor and control unit. It visually sifted through the milling cloud of dust and debris, presenting an enhanced image to Jake.

  A glimpse at the readout on his faceplate was all the confirmation he needed. Someone detonated a low radiation fusion bomb inside the mountain, he realized with a sinking heart. Jake fell to his knees, thoughts dwelling on Oz and Jason as he ran his palms back and forth across the grit covered floor. The sheer loss of it all came into sharp focus as their faces came to mind.

  Grief didn't know the difference between his own memories and those that had been inherited. He would have to tell Laura her husband was dead, he'd have to Captain Triton alone. Jake had secretly hoped he could count on Oz's help, looking forward to meeting the tall former first officer and that was gone. All the outrage he felt at the thought of being recaptured, and the anger at what he had seen drained away. There's nothing left for me here. No one could survive that kind of destruction, even if they were fighting on the mountainside, in the tunnels below the city, the chances that they survived are next to none. I'm at least fifteen kilometres away and if I didn't have good cover I would have probably been killed. There's nothing left for me.

  The West Keeper and Regent Galactic command frequencies reopened with a painful squawk and he fell back behind another support so he could listen to their reaction. “We've checked with command, we are to proceed into the mountain. The secure tunnels are marked on your displays with your orders,” a firm authoritative voice ordered.

  “That wasn't supposed to happen for several hours! I'm down two platoons and all our mechanized units are slag!” Dissented one enraged voice.

  “You're right, that came early but that doesn't change our mission here. All Regent Galactic forces are to proceed to their objectives.”

  “What about the West Keepers? I had four platoons in my command chain and they've just been reassigned! What's going on?”

  “Don't worry about the Order of Eden, their handlers have landed and they're taking the city. We're only after the objective inside the mountain now that the shield is down. Those are your orders, roll on them.”

  Jake shook his head and scanned the hundreds of available command channels, finally finding what he was looking for. “six five by nine oh three!” The alarmed voice crackled, there was intense gunfire in the background. “I say again, they've broken through into the basement of the old securities and trades building. Must have escaped the mountain using the subway before it blew and they're-” the channel went dead and Jake turned towards the coordinates as they appeared on the tactical map broadcast through the command chip. The visual representation on his visor showed a glowing red spot, like an ember in a sea of brick, mortar and steel ashes it showed him exactly where his friends may have survived.

  “I'm coming,” he said as he anchored a line to the floor and ran through the open air where there was once a thick reinforced wall. The hair thin line ran off the small spool anchored under the shoulder of his trench coat. It was the same one he had used to tether himself to Stephanie not two months before, and for a mid-air moment he found himself wondering what Oz would think of her, if they'd get along. The street rushed up as he turned and saw his opportunity.

  “Who was that! Your designation on this channel marks you as a Regent Galactic Lieutenant, you have no authorization, stop listening in before I report you to your Sergeant,” berated one irate voice on the channel.

  He hit the brakes on the spool and stopped suddenly, still in mid air. A second later he was swinging back towards the building. The dawn light bathed the street and ruined building side in a ruddy red as it faded, increasingly blocked by the ash and fine material that filled the air. A false night was falling as his momentum carried him towards the ground at such an angle that he could let his feet touch the ground and roll without full on colliding with the concrete.

  The release trigger retracted the spike from it's position several storeys above and the small tool was drawn back as the line spooled up. “Sorry, wrong channel,” Jake replied to the scolding voice on the other end as he switched his command and control unit to only receive information. The electromagnetic charge from the fusion bomb must have reset it to two way communication, but that simple error hadn't betrayed his intentions or identity. Jake didn't give himself a chance to catch his breath but started running as quickly as he could along side the tall, crumbling buildings lining the streets.

  “Damn right wrong channel,” a harsh female voice commented before going on. “All right, we have to make sure these people don't make it to the starport. It looks like they're fighting to maintain their position in the subway station in the lobby of the commodities building. Our priority here is to cut them off and force them into surrendering. Squads Charlie Twelve through Delta Four; form a containment perimeter. I'll take my people underground and see what we can do to block off the tunnel.”

  Jake listened to numerous commanders acknowledge her orders as he looked out for any Regent Galactic soldiers who may be on the look out for him or in his way. The tactical map showed that he was over two hundred kilometres away from the Commodities building and with signal jamming in place there was no way he could tell them that he was
coming. He searched for viable ground transportation, something that wasn't at all uncommon from what he'd seen, just expensive.

  Just as he took a quick left turn down an alleyway then into an open doorway to avoid several heavy soldier transports that gently glided down the street carrying hundreds of soldiers within their three decked green and grey hulls he spotted something. As he let the transport pass he caught his breath and rewound his view on a small sub-display in his visor and spotted it again.

  It was a magcycle, hanging half way out of a building to building transit tube only four floors up. The transparesteel tube it was hanging out of was broken wide open, but the bike looked like it was in perfect shape. He double checked his thermal and sound suppression systems then ran up the darkened metal and tile staircase. His mental, near instinctive connection with his equipment ran through its condition like an inventory list. The rifle he had stolen had plenty of ammunition, including two dozen variable release micro-grenade rounds. His wrist unit had enough reserve energy to fire and the armoured layers of his vacsuit had finally repaired itself.

  Jake moved inside the building and up the eight flights of stairs as fast as he could. He rushed down the hallway to the apartment closest to the magbike and through the open door and around the corner. The floor ended just a few centimetres in front of the door and he had to scrabble at the jamb to balance himself and not needlessly fall through the large gap and two storeys down.

  He jumped to the left, an easier leap than trying to cross the whole gap lengthwise, then walked through the ruined apartment to the window he expected he'd find the magbike dangling near. The interior of the abode looked like it had suffered through a moderately high quake. Broken dishes, upturned chairs and other awkwardly placed furniture littered the place. If the place was in any kind of order before the explosion, that order had been utterly undone, much like the rest of the city.

  The thin transparesteel bay window came into view then, it had been warped by the pressure exerted on it by the wall. Beyond the bent window was the magbike, the cover for its round rear emitter nodes had been ripped off to reveal hundreds of tiny spikes pointing in all directions to propel and stabilize the vehicle. That was the only sign of damage.