“All right, it’s stompin’ time!” Rictan Seven said.
“Whoop whoop!” Magnum cheered.
“Stow the chatter, but keep the enthusiasm, Rictans,” Ethan said.
With the odds being what they were on the surface, enthusiasm was the only advantage they had.
* * *
Atton was eating breakfast with Valari Thardris and Ethan when the holoscreen in Valari’s living room went suddenly blank. That screen had been relaying a news feed from an upper cities’ network, but now the feed was gone. A few moments later a Null producer appeared, looking bewildered. He assured everyone that they were working on the problem, all the while insisting that nothing like this had ever happened before. The producer blamed an equipment failure for the interruption, but Atton knew better.
Omnius had been speaking to him just a second ago, reassuring him that he and Ceyla would be together again soon, and that this farce he’d been forced to participate in with Valari would come to an end. Now the voice in his head was gone, leaving him to wonder what had just happened.
Omnius? Atton tried.
No answer.
He looked up to find Ethan still eating, oblivious to the situation, but Valari’s face was drawn and her turquoise eyes were wide with shock.
“Something’s happened,” she said.
Ethan looked up. “What?”
Valari sent him a blank look, and then recovered with a smile and nodded to the holoscreen. “The network must be down. Excuse me, please,” Valari said. “I need to check on something.”
Atton watched her leave the table.
“What was that about?” Ethan asked.
Atton met his father’s gaze. “No idea. Something to do with the Resistance, maybe?”
Ethan nodded and went back to his food. “Must be,” he said, sounding disinterested. The only thing he cared about these days was getting his family back, and Valari had promised to help him do that—hence his presence at breakfast. Valari was playing a long-term game of sympathy and support.
It all made Atton sick to his stomach. He wanted to expose Valari now, but he had to wait for Omnius’s timing. He couldn’t afford to jeopardize his future with Ceyla. He stood up from the table. “I’m going to see what’s going on,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Atton hurried to Valari’s office. He found her there pounding keys on a holographic keypad before a blank holoscreen.
“Stupid thing!” Valari growled.
Atton came up behind her and read the connection error on the screen. The Omninet was down.
“You think it could be a rebel attack?” Atton asked.
“Don’t be absurd! Whatever this is, Omnius is still in control. We’ll find out what’s happening soon enough, but until then, I suggest we go back to eating breakfast.”
Valari brushed by him on her way out, but Atton lingered a moment longer, his eyes on the holoscreen and the error message blinking there. It read:
Connection Failure.
Host Unavailable.
“Atton? Are you coming?”
He nodded and turned away from the screen. “We should send someone to investigate,” he said on his way out.
“The junctions will be offline,” Valari whispered. “By the time someone can physically travel to the uppers and see what’s going on, the system will be restored already. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
“What’s nothing to worry about?” Ethan asked as they drew near.
Valari smiled and sat down beside him. “Just a communications error,” she said.
Ethan accepted that with a furrowed brow. “I see…”
Again, Atton was tempted to say something, but he stopped himself. Patience. He had to show Omnius he could be loyal even when he wasn’t being watched.
Maybe that’s what this was—a test. It has to be, he decided. Omnius never lost control.
* * *
The Rictans landed in unison beside Drop Ship One. Ethan cracked open his cockpit. Air hissed out as the canopy rose. He fumbled with his harness to release the buckles, then jumped out of the cockpit onto the port wing, and from there to the ground.
He raced up to the rear boarding ramp of the drop ship with the rest of the Rictans close behind. Atta stood there waiting for them, already suited up in a Zephyr, directing Gors and humans as they disembarked.
“General!” Ethan called out as he approached.
Atta turned to him, her expression inscrutable behind the glowing blue faceplate of her helmet.
“What happened up there?” she demanded, her voice booming out through her Zephyr’s external speakers.
Ethan skidded to a stop with the rest of the Rictans.
“Happened?” Magnum echoed.
“We lost a drop ship,” Atta said. “You almost frekked up the entire operation.”
“Casualties were light, all things considered,” Ethan said.
“We could have lost the Eclipser!” Atta roared.
“But we didn’t…”
Atta turned away. “Instead we lost my mother.”
Ethan froze. “Destra?”
“She was the pilot.”
“Atta, I’m so sorry…” He took a quick step toward her.
She held up an armored hand. “Save it, Ortane. Zephyrs are inside. Watch traffic on your way up.”
Ethan hesitated just a second before bounding up the ramp. The Rictans’ footsteps echoed with his as they kept pace behind him. Gor and Human soldiers alike marched out in a steady stream from rows of upright docking stations inside the drop ship. Ethan eyed the Gors warily. Their shiny black armor and glowing red visors made them look menacing.
At the back of the troop bay, Ethan came to a locker room that he recognized from his training on Origin. He opened the door with a wave of his hand, revealing an entire armory with walls full of weapons, armor, and spare Zephyrs. The Rictans hurried over to the latter and suited up.
Once armored, they cherry-picked a few weapons and pieces of equipment from the available supplies. Magnum chose a pair of oversized plasma pistols; Carnage strapped on some binary explosives that wouldn’t get him killed with a stray shot; and Blades picked out a Zephyr-sized medkit. Then Hop gave Ethan an idea about his call sign by selecting a gravpack. Thinking about the vertical nature of Avilon, Ethan selected a second gravpack for himself.
There came a heavy whump, followed by a ground-shaking roar that rattled the weapons and equipment on the walls.
“What was that?” Ethan asked.
“Our cue to leave,” Magnum answered.
Ethan’s comm crackled with Atta’s voice. “Hurry it up in there! We just punched a hole. It’s time to burrow!”
“Yes, ma’am—move out, Rictans!” Magnum said, taking charge of the unit now that they were on the ground.
They raced back out and down the loading ramp. They were the last ones to leave the drop ship. Atta stood waiting for them with both her arms raised and gauntlet-mounted ripper cannons tracking faint shadows across the sky.
Ethan’s aural sensors picked up and amplified the distant roar of Nova fighters, and the comparatively quieter buzz of Omnius’s drones. Lasers crisscrossed the sky in steady streams. As Ethan watched, a bright flash tore open one of the clouds, and a fiery rain of debris came crashing out.
Atta turned to see Ethan gawking. “What are you waiting for?” she snapped.
“Shrapnel, get a move on!” Magnum called over the squad’s comms channel.
He turned to see the Rictans already seeking cover, racing up to the base of the nearest skyscraper.
Ethan ran after them, servos and motorized joints whirring as he went. The Rictans tore up great chunks of grass and dirt in their wake, leaving a trail that wasn’t hard to follow. He imagined drones following that same trail later, but he supposed they weren’t exactly going for stealth with this assault. Looking up, Ethan saw the Rictans highlighted bright green on his HUD. Farther out hundreds of Gors and Humans milled around the
base of the nearest skyscraper, showing on the HUD as a darker green than his own squad.
As Ethan drew near, he saw a gaping, ragged hole burned into one of the rooftops. The First Battalion was already jumping down inside that hole. A group of Zephyrs came out of cover carrying a heavy-looking piece of castcrete rubble between them. They passed the rubble carefully down through the hole in the rooftop, while a dozen more Zephyrs stood guard. That piece of rubble was the Eclipser, but where was the capsule containing the nanites?
“Get under cover, Shrapnel!” Magnum roared.
Ethan ran and hid at the base of the skyscraper. He joined the Rictans in keeping a lookout while the rest of the battalion jumped down.
“Where’s the bomb?” Ethan asked.
“Must have carried it down already,” Magnum replied.
“I didn’t see it,” Ethan replied.
“Let me ask the general…”
Ethan’s comms crackled with Atta’s reply a moment later. “I supervised ours being loaded from the Liberator, but once we got dirtside and cracked open the crate, it was full of oxygen tanks. Same story from the other generals. The bombs didn’t come down with us.”
Magnum commed back, “You think Therius had a change of heart?”
“More likely someone snitched on us, and he decided to keep the bombs in orbit with him.”
“Frek,” Ethan growled. “Then we can’t stop him from using them.”
“No,” Atta replied.
“We need to warn the fleet,” Ethan said.
“And tell them what? That Therius has nanites on board and he’s planning to destroy Avilon?”
“That sounds about right.”
“According to you, Captain Hale already knows. Therius is aboard her ship. If anyone can do something to stop him, it’s her. We’re going to have to trust that she’s got a plan of her own.”
“But—”
“If we don’t secure this planet and get its people on our side, then this whole discussion is pointless. We need to focus on our job right now. Besides, Therius didn’t come all this way just to kill everyone. We don’t know that he actually plans to use those bombs. And we don’t even know for sure that they actually contain nanites. The whole plot could be a bluff.”
Ethan grimaced. “And if it’s not?”
“Then we’d better hope Therius is right about there being an afterlife. Now cut the chatter, Rictans, and get down that hole! We have a planet to conquer.”
Ethan felt despair worming inside his gut, making him feel dizzy and sick. He raced out after his squad and jumped down, following the trail of destruction that the First Battalion had left in their wake—shattered doors, broken walls, and more holes in the floor. The building they were in appeared to be some type of data center, with a myriad of rooms full of row upon row of glowing blue towers.
“Where are we?” Ethan breathed.
“Inside one of the omni-nodes,” Magnum replied. “We’re heading for the nerve center so we can broadcast our message to the people of Avilon.”
Ethan heard weapons’ fire up ahead, and Magnum said, “It’s show-time, Rictans!”
They came to a broken wall and took cover to either side of the opening. Ethan peeked around the corner to see a room full of smoke. Lasers flashed red and purple through the gloom, and golden tracer fire stuttered out from ripper cannons. A laser bolt screeched into the wall, shattering bactcrete just a few inches from Ethan’s face. He ducked back and used sensors to pinpoint the enemy instead. A seething red mass of enemy contacts streamed into the room from the other side, and green friendlies were shown pinned down behind cover.
Magnum gave a hand signal for them to break cover and flank the enemy. Before Ethan had a chance to take a breath, the Rictans raced out of cover with ripper cannons blazing. Ethan followed, looking for a clear line of fire between friendlies, while The Rictans fired straight through the intervening data towers, turning petabytes of data to shredded ruins. Red outlines began shuddering on his HUD as the Rictans’ fire reached them.
Ethan heard a sudden clank, followed by a screech of laser fire. He felt a wash of heat on his right side and whirled around to find himself face to face with a drone. He raised both arms to fire, and the drone smacked him in the chest with an open palm. He went flying into a nearby wall, ripper cannons blazing a second too late and tearing ragged holes in the ceiling.
The drone clanked up to him while he was still struggling to get up. He took aim, and then someone burst through the hole in the wall where they’d come in. Energy blades flashed, and the drone fell in three pieces, the severed ends glowing bright orange while its red cyclopean eye went dark.
Ethan’s rescuer turned out to be Atta. Her HUD outline was gold, rather than green, marking her as a general. She held out a hand to help him up, and yanked him to his feet. He took in a scene of utter destruction. Flames crackled as flammables burned. Smoke clogged the air. Twitching pieces of drones littered the floor, their wires sparking. A few downed Zephyrs and at least twenty Gors glowed pink on the HUD, while others with red cross symbols crouched beside them, giving aid.
“We’ve got company coming up behind us!” Atta called out over the comms. She crunched through the debris, and Ethan followed her over to one of the brighter green HUD outlines. Ethan saw from the text floating above the Zephyr’s head that it was Magnum.
“How many?” Magnum asked.
“A few hundred for now, and those are just the ones we’ve spotted on the surface. Our air support has them pinned down, but at least half made it through.”
“I thought Omnius wouldn’t be able to rally a defense while we’re jamming him?” Ethan said.
Atta turned. “Drones are not brainless. They’re dependent on Omnius, but they’re still capable of organizing to a certain degree.”
“We’d better hurry then,” Magnum said.
“Where’s the Eclipser?” Atta asked.
Magnum jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “A few rooms back, sitting in a corner with some other debris.”
“Better move it up. I’m leaving your squad in charge of its defense while we look for the control center in this place.”
Magnum motioned to Rockhead and Blades. They left and returned a few moments later carrying the chunk of castcrete Ethan had seen earlier. That confirmed it was the Eclipser.
The ceiling shook with a muffled boom, and chunks of bactcrete rained down, thunking off their armor.
Atta peered up through a hole above her head and nearly got a face full of pulse lasers for her trouble. She and the Rictans scattered as the ceiling came alive with lancing beams of light.
“They’re coming down on top of us!” Atta roared.
Ethan hunkered down behind an overturned tower of databanks. He peeked over the top to see drones dropping down from the ceiling like spiders, their optics glowing crimson in the gloom. Gors raced at them, lavender-hued pulse lasers flashing. The drones fired back, but the Gors kept going. They closed to hand-to-hand combat with the drones and produced scythe-shaped energy blades. Ethan raised one arm and aimed at the nearest drone, but he couldn’t get a clear shot. He thought about jumping into the fray with his own energy blades, but more drones dropped down by the second, crowding the room, and the Gors who’d gone hand-to-hand with them were being picked off fast.
Lasers crackled out with intermittent flashes of light. Zephyrs fired back from points of cover, ripper cannons flashing gold through the drifting clouds of dust and smoke. Energy blades sizzled.
It was utter chaos. Ethan heard Magnum call out for them to retreat further into the building. Ethan couldn’t even see the Rictans through all of the commotion. He was cut off and pinned down, but so far none of the drones had noticed him.
Clank-clank. Clank-clank-clank!
Ethan saw a flicker of movement on his right peripheral display. Then to his left. Red optics cast crimson beams of light through the smoky room. Ethan saw those beams sweep across the floor to either side of him.
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His heart pounded in his chest and his breath reverberated inside his helmet. Ethan glanced at his sensor display. There were no friendly contacts around him. He saw a few retreating further into the building, chased by swarms of drones. He was alone with these four drones. They had to have detected him by now.
Clank-clank-clank-clank!
They were rushing him!
Ethan steeled himself, watching the enemy approach on his HUD, red outlines growing larger by the second. He raised his arms above his head, and waited, counting down the seconds.
Clank-clank-clank-clank!
He could feel the floor shuddering with their footfalls. One was coming straight at him, the other three flanking to the sides. Ethan waited another half a second, and then he flexed his hands into fists, extending his energy blades with a sizzle of activating shields. He jumped up out of cover at the same moment as the drone in front of him sprang over his cover. He lashed out as the drone sailed toward him, and it fell apart, gushing green coolant.
The other three rounded the overturned data tower, forearms sweeping up to fire. Ethan lunged toward the greater threat, the pair of drones to his left. He slashed across the barrels of their pulse lasers before they could shoot, and then he bisected them both with an uppercut. They clattered to the ground. He whirled around, looking for the third drone, just in time to be blinded by a crimson beam of laser fire shrieking out from the third and final drone. The laser bolt glanced off his chest, burning his armor to a molten ruin and searing his skin with a nauseating sizzle.
Opening his fists to retract his energy blades, Ethan activating ripper cannons instead and fired back at the drone. Twin streams of golden tracer fire roared out from his gauntlets, the impacts jumping the drone’s aim so that lasers flashed all around him, but never hit. The sound of shells plinking off the drone’s armor was deafening. Ethan rushed the drone, keeping up a steady stream of fire as he ran. When he came within an arm’s length, he extended energy blades and slashed, cutting the drone in two molten orange-glowing halves.
Ethan stood over the enemy gasping for air, his chest burning like it was on fire. He glanced down at his chest and felt abruptly sick. Blackened char stared back at him.
Armageddon Page 31
