by S. R. Witt
“This isn’t open for discussion,” Heck barked. “Throd, you’re staying with Dragora to keep an eye on things. Keep the engines running in case we have to come back in a hurry. Hive, Skritch, you’re with me. We’ll have to risk taking the Manta up to join Zotz. No time to make the climb; cross your fingers we don’t get picked up by the defense grid.”
Dragora join the conversation for the first time. Her smooth, mellifluous voice announced, “I concur with Hive. There is almost no chance of success in a frontal assault.”
Heck growled, fed up with the dissent. “I’m willing to listen to your opinions, but this is not a democracy. Your objections are duly noted, but understand that we are going in. The networks will eat this up if we pull it off, and the orbital colonies will throw money at us hand over fist. It’s the right thing to do, but it’s the profitable thing to do, too. And we need the money.”
Zotz was glad Heck had taken his side, but he knew it put them all at risk. He crossed his fingers and offered up a quick prayer to the chthonic gods of his forefathers. “If you’re coming, better make it quick. Storm’s on the way.”
Chapter 3
The corporation that ran the mining operation caught wind of the bounty offered on their site. They called in a Spec Ops Team known to be extremely ruthless and deadly.
“Commander, there’s a storm coming in. Looks pretty bad, too,” the Spec Ops pilot relayed.
“Where are those Operators! I swear if they get in before we arrive, you’re all going to be looking for a new assignment, that is if you even survive the Corporation’s punishment. I don’t care if it’s a Class 5 blizzard, we go down hard and fast and destroy those Metal Rats.” The Commander pounded the display next to his pilot and sulked back to his command chair.
“No good, worthless, pieces of trash! Heck and Hive are going down, tonight!” The Commander scratched his unshaved chin as he considered where the enemy might be hiding.
“Look under the trash and down the alleys, they are rats after all.” The Commander touched the scar on his cheek, a grim reminder of the last time he and Heck crossed paths. This time, it would be her face that ended up with a scar. Then he would cut her head off for marring his once glorious face.
Turbulence and high winds tossed the assault ship to and fro like an old schooner caught in a massive storm on the high seas. Ratchet, the pilot, had once taken a trip on the ocean of a backwater world. The storm kicked up and he lost his lunch that day. After that, he swore to stay in the skies where it was much calmer.
Today, he wondered about that choice.
“Ratchet, steady the ship before we all lose our dinner. This storm isn’t nearly as bad as the one we went through on Shedena 7 last year. Come on, get your game on, boy!” The gravelly voice of the Spec Ops Commander howled.
“Yes, sir! But this ship isn’t built for this type of weather. The winds are stirring up ionized particles from the mines, and they’re causing instability in our engines.” The Pilot glanced at his instruments and then back to his display where he could see the howling winds throwing whirling patterns of snow that shifted and moved faster than he could follow.
The team was in a heavily armored transport shuttle loaded with heat-seeking missiles, light torpedoes that could put a hole in a dam, and phaser banks that could shoot most shuttles out of the sky with just a few good hits.
It was not, however, designed for flying into the eye of a storm.
Just as he was looking for a path through the storm, lightning struck close to their ship and he was momentarily blinded from the bright light of the purple rods.
The Commander rubbed his eyes and squinted at his control panel. “How far away was that lightning strike?”
Before Ratchet could respond, a blast of turbulence forced the transport down closer to the mountains. The terrain funneled the wind into the valleys between the peaks, and the fierce weather flung the transport ship toward those valleys like a kid riding a toboggan down a steep slope.
“Ratchet, get us back up above the storm for now. It won’t do us any good to crash. The one good thing is that the rats can’t land in this weather either.” The Commander looked closer at the telemetry he was receiving from the weather station on the planet.
“Skin, have you located their ship yet? They can’t be too far away.” Skin was the ship’s metal head, and he also worked as the team’s Navigator and Science Specialist. He got his nickname from his disconcerting use of synthetic skin to cover up cybernetic hunks of metal grafted onto his body. The stuff was always peeling off, like a robot snake shedding its skin, and it got everywhere.
“Sir, there’s too much interference from the ion storm. If we can get above it, I might have a better chance at finding that ship.”
“Ratchet, you heard the man. Get us above the fracking storm!”
The ship moved slowly upward and out of the worst of the storm. Elsewhere on the bridge, the newest addition to their team did lose his lunch when the ship leaned 45 degrees to port during their ascent.
Heck and Hive had both made many enemies over the past few years. Some were even members of the Corporations who ran most of the quadrant they worked in. But there was always a job to do and she was one of the best Operators in the business. Her status and reliability had kept her alive despite the damage she’d done, but the rope she’d been given had just run out.
The current order for the Spec Ops team was to seek and destroy any and all aggressors against the Hongru operations at Rivicle Base.
Commander Gorgen was the first to volunteer when he discovered who the target was. The money was beyond good, but he would have done it for free if it gave him the chance to disfigure and painfully kill the insignificant female Operator who’d dared cut his face. No one knifed him and lived to tell the tale.
He’d wreck that abomination of an Awakened drone that followed her around, too. Hive was the only reason she’d survived their last encounter. The damned thing loved killing more than the Commander did. He lost three good soldiers that day.
Gorgen wondered if there was a way to obtain that robot and have it reprogrammed to follow his orders. That would be an even better way to seek vengeance.
The Commander was shaken out of his thoughts when Ratchet reported their current situation. “Sir, we are now above the storm, mostly. Still no sign of their ship. Maybe they haven’t arrived yet?” Ratchet was one of the more hopeful members of his crew.
Gorgen knew better than to have hope. It always crushed your heart like a nutcracker.
Chapter 4
Zotz’s drones returned just as the Manta crested the mountaintop and disgorged the rest of the Metal Rats. The drones made it back just in time, because the storm winds had grown so strong any further flying was out of the question for the lightweight drones. He snatched the fluttering, bat-like machines out of the air and stowed them in his backpack before the wind could sweep them away.
The Manta’s engines died and it sank to the snow where its rounded contours and low profile would blend into the mountainside. A sensor sweep would assume the small transport was just another rock, and ignore it. If the Operators hadn’t triggered the bases defenses on the way up, they might just survive this.
Heck, Hive, Skritch, and the massive cat-like drone, F3L1N, scrambled out of the Manta’s rear hatch and scurried across the snowy dome of the mountain’s peak to join Zotz at its edge. Heck clapped Zotz on the shoulder and leaned in close to his left ear, “Sorry you had to make that climb. If I’d known how this was going to shake out, you could’ve taken your chances in the Manta with us.”
Zotz shivered against the biting cold winds. “I wish we could take it down there,” he said pointing at Rivicle Base. “Perimeter defenses would chew it to pieces, unfortunately.”
Heck linked the Operators’ AR data displays and pointed a cybernetic index finger at her left ear.
Zotz nodded, and they switched to scrambled comms on the off-chance someone might hear them talking and tip o
ff their enemies to their plan. Better safe than sorry. ”I had the drones scan as much of the base as they could while you were in transit. They couldn’t get close to the communications array, but here’s what they did see.”
A three-dimensional model appeared in the center of the augmented reality display shared by the Operators. Pairs of red dots appeared scattered through the base, moving in complex routes. “The guards are carrying standard Hongro kits. No heavy weapons, no combat bots. If I had to guess, the patrols are coordinated by an AI for maximum coverage and FOV overlap. Sneaking past them’ll be tough, but as long as we don’t raise an alarm I think we can do this.”
The blowing snow slithered across Hive’s carapace as his optics clicked and extended toward Rivicle Base. “Can your drones carry explosives to the overhang above the array?”
Zotz rotated the map to an isometric view so the rest of the team could see the carved out portion of the mountain and the defense banks studding the base. He didn’t like the Awakened drone suggesting he hadn’t thought his plan through before calling the rest of the team. “No, they can’t get that close. The automated defense systems are spaced to provide overlapping coverage against airborne incursions. The drones can get to the perimeter wall, because they’re small enough to slip through the external grid, but the sensor mesh is much finer inside the base.”
Hive’s servos whirred as he crouched down to survey their descent. “If you allow me to Awaken them, they would be able to navigate the defense shell and finish this mission without our assistance. It would be very efficient.”
Zotz ignored the drone’s suggestion for the hundredth time. If Heck trusted Hive, Zotz wasn’t going to raise a stink about his attitude, but he refused to have his tools turned into smart-assed metal monsters who thought they were smarter than everyone else. One homicidal bucket of bolts was enough for this outfit.
“The drones can’t get through the defensive layer, but they can create a distraction for us. I’ll send them to the far side of the base while we take the route I’ve highlighted on you AR displays down the mountain to the overhang. My drones will skirt the grid under the shelter of the perimeter wall, which will also keep them from getting swept away by the storm. Once we’re in position, the drones will pop up over the wall here, here, and here, which should get the base’s attention while we rappel down and move on the communications array. The flyers are fast and small, so the guards’ investigation shouldn’t find them, and the base will think it’s a false reading due to the storm. That will keep them from raising the alarm, and we’ll be inside the array before they figure out something’s wrong.”
Hive’s metallic hand brushed against Zotz’s pack. “There is a 72% chance one or more of your drones will be destroyed. This seems like an extravagant sacrifice. Perhaps if you served as the distraction and I guided the drones—“
Zotz whirled around and banged a fist off Hive’s chest. “We’re not having this discussion again. The drones are tools, they don’t have lives to sacrifice.”
Hive’s mandibles spread wide to reveal his speaker, and a burst of static crackled from its grill.
Heck cut him off before he could launch into another tirade about the rights of the Awakened and mankind’s tyranny over machines. “What’s the extraction plan?”
“Once the array’s down, the base will be blind. Dragora can pick us up without worrying about air defenses.”
Heck brushed ice and snow from her forehead with the back of her flesh-and-blood hand. “This weather’s going to make that tricky, but I think she can do it. Let’s roll.”
Grateful for Heck’s backing, Zotz trudged down the side of the mountain. His echolocation picked out the safest path, and kept the rest of the Operators from tumbling on icy patches or stepping into deep snow drifts masquerading as solid ground. It was a treacherous descent, but it was far safer than Zotz’s climb up the mountain. Even F3L1N, Skritch’s massive assault drone, was able to follow the path down without much trouble.
Before they reached the overhang, Zotz paused and opened his pack. The drones creeped out and dropped to the snow. He gave them their orders through the AR interface and hoped the storm winds wouldn’t blow the drones away and ruin their plans.
The drones scurried across the ice toward their target. They wouldn’t go airborne until they were near the shelter of the perimeter wall, which Zotz hoped would reduce the chances of losing them to the weather.
Skritch leaned against F3L1N, seeking shelter from the savage wind. The big drone curled its cat-like body around her, and she curled her arms around her armored torso in a tight hug. “The networks don’t like our chances with this new plan. They keep moving the odds; you want any side bets on this, boss?”
Zotz pulled up the game panel and frowned at what he saw. Operators did dangerous, violent work for the highest bidder, but it wasn’t as simple as mercenary contracts. Assignments were funneled to the networks, and their game masters translated the jobs into scenarios with objectives, bonuses, and point values. The points earned on missions could be converted into cash, equipment upgrades, and other perks. Operators were given levels and ratings based on their points earned, and their unique skills.
The networks earned their money back from subscribers. Everything operators did while in a scenario was recorded by their implants and beamed back to the networks for consumption by the subs. Locations and other critical details were obscured by censor filters, and there were hundreds of Operators beaming footage at any given moment, so it couldn’t be used to disrupt an operation. The most dangerous and sensitive scenarios were held on a time delay, but the majority were broadcast live, just as they happened.
For those live events, the networks used incoming biometric feeds and viewer responses to tweak the scenarios. In this case, they’d shifted the odds of success from 85% to an abysmal 23%. Zotz didn’t like that, at all. “They know something we don’t. I expected a drop to 50 or 60, but they’ve cut our chances by two thirds.”
Heck shut him down before Zotz could spin into a paranoid panic. “It’s just media bullshit. This plan is more dangerous than the orbital bombardment, sure. But they’re using the odds to freak out the viewers and keep them glued to their feed. We’ve got this. Keep it together.”
Zotz took a deep breath. Even filtered through his survival suit’s heating elements, the air was still cold enough to sting his sensitive nose and burn the tips of his ears, but the pain helped him to focus. “We might as well take advantage of their pessimism, then. Put 100 points on the side that we’ll get all the bonuses.”
Heck grinned, and Zotz tried not to shudder. The outfit’s leader had a young woman’s flesh-and-blood face from her top lip up, but below that was an immobile, skull-like metal casing. The effect was unnerving, and reminded Zotz of just how dangerous this life could be.
The drones signaled that they were in position, and the Operators moved to the lip of the overhang. A pair of guards shuffled below them, shifting from foot to foot in a vain attempt to keep warm. Lightning crashed off the mountain peak to their left, boiling away snow and sending chunks of steaming rock sailing through the air like falling stars.
The drones took advantage of the blinding flash and popped over the top of the perimeter. They were too small to register as an assault, but they were big enough to trip the sensors and force the guards to investigate just to be on the safe side. Zotz watched the pair below them trot off, and triggered his comms unit, “Time to go.”
F3L1N backed up to the lip of the overhang and dug its claws into the stone. Skritch fastened the rappelling gear around its hips, clipped the rope to her harness, and dropped over the edge without a sound. The rest of them followed suit, dropping to the plateau in seconds. When Zotz, the last of the Operators to go over the edge, hit the ground, F3L1N jumped the ten meters down to join them.
Skritch raked her metal claws along the drone’s massive jaw, and whispered, “Who’s my good boy?”
Zotz shook his head and
led the group into the mountain. He’d never understand why some people insisted on personalizing their drones.
His machines kept up the good work, flickering in and out of the defense grid’s awareness, keeping the guards on their toes and away from the interior of the base.
Skritch’s sensors twitched on the top of her head, and her cybernetic tail whipped from side to side. Her voice crackled over the comms, static kicking up around every consonant. “I’m getting heavy transmissions, dead ahead.”
The Operators picked up the pace, eager to finish the mission and get out. Heck’s voice rattled in the back of Zotz’s head, “You have the bonus message?”
“Affirmative,” Zotz confirmed. “We just need to plug the package in and it’ll broadcast to secure…”
A guard stepped into the tunnel ahead of them, eyes wide with shock and surprise. Her weapon hung from a strap over her shoulder, and she was reaching for it when F3L1N went on the attack.
The drone launched itself like a heat-seeking missile. It crossed the distance to the guard in a silver flash, slamming into her with bone crushing force.
“Don’t kill…” Zotz warned, but he was too late.
F3L1N’s massive jaw closed over the guard’s head with the wet crunch of a melon dropped from a great height.
The white lights mounted in the ceiling of the tunnel dimmed, then glared red. A warning klaxon sounded.
“Dead-man switch,” Zotz barked through the comms and ran toward the array’s doors. “The alarms triggered because the guard’s vitals flat-lined.”
Hive reached the doors before Zotz, and wrenched them open to admit the rest of the Operators.
The two drones threw their weight against the door once they’d all entered, smashing it closed.
Heck jabbed a finger at the humming array core. “Zotz, plant explosives. Hive, crack the system so we can play the message.”
