'Oh shit.'
A blue semi-transparent head appeared above the table, 'Profanity will not be tolerated. Would you —'
'Clear.'
The head disappeared.
The reporters were running along to keep up with the moving crowd. Around a hundred people marched through the streets. As the crowd reached a wide plaza, they gathered around a small raised platform. Guildmaster Gumptor climbed onto the platform and turned to face the gathered people. The reporters gathered around him, pushing and shoving as they tried to get the best angle. Gumptor's bulging eyes took them all into his wide sweeping gaze.
'Good people of Cinnamon City,' he said. 'I have come here today, not as one man, not as one Guild, but as a voice for every one of us. I have come here with a clear voice and a clear statement.'
Henry popped a chunk of synthetic trout into his mouth and chewed. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Surely Gumptor wasn't going to ask for free elections on the news feeds? Was he so desperate that he had to take such extreme measures for publicity? Nobody spoke openly against the Council Of Lords. It would be madness.
Gumptor stared straight into the camera, with his head held high and his arms behind his back, 'The Council Of Lords have governed over the Orange Zone for over seven hundred years. Our ancestors owed them a gratitude of debt for freeing us from the Iridium Wars. It's a tale we all know. It's taught in schools up and down the Orange Zone. But seven hundred years is a long, long time. The gratitude of our ancestors is buried along with their bodies. We, as modern citizens of Cinnamon City, do not share that debt. The debt was long since paid. So why is it that even today, the Council of Lords still governs Cinnamon City? Why does the Council Of Lords still dictate economic policy to the guilds? Why is it that the Council Of Lords refuses to come forward and discuss important matters when summoned? And why is it that we sit back and allow this to happen, year after year, generation after generation? The time has come for us to put a stop to this. From this day forwards, the guilds will pay no tax of food nor money to the Council Of Lords or any of its agents until free elections have been arranged.'
Henry buried his head in his hands, 'Oh my sweet aunt.'
His bag started buzzing loudly. Henry reached inside and pulled out his comms unit. It was an incoming call from Admiral Gail Thompson. Henry hovered his thumb just above the accept button. What was he going to say? Glancing around the room with a guilty expression, he tossed the comms unit back into the bag unanswered.
The Bull Rangers
The vibrations finally ended. K1 Croc shook one last time before settling down on the riverbed with a painful groan. Every part of it creaked and popped in ways that didn't sound in any way encouraging. The river had stopped boiling and now bubbled on a low simmer. It would be some time before it recovered its normal cool temperature. Nick grabbed a cloth from a small container beside his seat and wiped the blood and sweat from his face. He turned the air conditioning onto full power, but only hot air blew out of the vents, so he turned it off again.
Was that a poached trout that had just floated past? It didn't look very appetising. It was unusual to see any fish in the rivers at all. This one had been unlucky to be taking a swim in this part of the river.
Checking his console, Nick was relieved to see that the satellite strike had indeed ended. He had no doubt that the only reason his Croc had lasted so long was because it had been submerged during the attack. The cooling currents of the river had managed to suppress the temperature just enough to save him from being baked like a pie in his own personnel carrier. The shields had held, but the residual heat had been growing uncomfortably for way too long. Nick had been lucky - this time. He rubbed a hand across his face and wondered how much longer his luck could last.
The temperature in the cockpit was finally starting to drop. Nick straightened his jacket, unfastening a couple more buttons. A thin smile spread across his face. The Kamari had dictated the battle so far. Now it was time for a little payback.
Nick was the only one who knew that K1's rear pod was not a communications and navigation pod, as it was in the other two Crocs. It looked that way, certainly. That was the intention. It was described that way in the documentation and training courses, and shown as such on every schematic a person would ever see, and yet it wasn't. K1 didn't need a communications and navigation team. It had a simple virtual controller unit that combined the abilities of the other Crocs perfectly to negate the need of its own. The other Crocs didn't even know that they were providing the necessary calculations and processing. Now that K2 was down, K1 was relying on K3 only, but every system had its limits. Nick used this fact as additional justification for his decision to pull Rachel's Croc back to a safer position. If K3 was destroyed, he would lose communications and navigation too.
The Crocs had shown they could take a beating. Now it was time to return the favour. Nick sat up straight in his bucket seat and entered the command.
K1 lurched forwards, rising out of the steaming brown water, and scrambling up the hard-baked riverbank. It climbed just high enough to raise all three pods clear of the water, while retaining the rim of the riverbank between itself and the punishing proton cannons of Havers Compound.
When all the pods had sufficient ground clearance, the third pod burst open, spilling twelve Bull Rangers onto the hard, burnt riverbank below. Their short limbs pumped as they sprinted underneath the Croc's front two pods and launched themselves over the mound, tearing across the ploughed brown battlefield with malevolent purpose.
With two thick legs, and short powerful arms, the armoured droids had both the advantage of speed, and the disadvantage of balance, though it didn't seem to bother them too much. They had an unusual appearance, being taller than a man and heavier in all respects. From a distance, they could be mistaken for angry silver lizards, sprinting on their hind legs. Bull Rangers were built for power. They could move at incredible speeds.
The droids were not illegal - not yet anyway, but they did lack finesse, so the saying went. Once unleashed, they had only one purpose, to destroy their target. There was no way to recall them.
Normally, to release three Bull Rangers would be seen as unpleasant. Nick released his full complement of twelve. His console showed their progress as they sprinted across the ploughed fields towards Havers Compound. The proton cannons were not slow to notice their arrival. A barrage of hostile fire swam amongst them. The Bull Rangers applied various evasive manoeuvres, redoubling their speed. Two were knocked flat, battered by crossfire from multiple proton cannons, but the others weaved through the hostile fire, homing in on their targets.
Nick checked his console and felt immense relief when he saw that Rachel had indeed fallen back to the coordinates he had given her. He never doubted her abilities, but he did doubt that she would listen to him as a person, and in the current circumstances that could be fatal for both of them. She was trying to hail him, no doubt wanting to know just what the hell he was doing, but for the moment he didn't accept her call. He had to stay focussed.
Ten golden streaks on Nick's console indicated the progress of the remaining Bull Rangers. They had already covered half the distance to the compound. Their claw-like feet crunched the burnt remains of Crab scanners into the blackened soil as they accelerated close to Mach-1.
Bull Rangers were the fastest 'walking' attack rangers ever made. They could reach Mach-4 on a level surface, but on this uneven field, they were likely to stay around Mach-1. They also needed that added mobility to avoid the proton cannon blasts that followed their continuous dodging manoeuvres. Some blasts were purposely aimed in front of the Bull Rangers, making craters in their path, but the droids leapt easily across the craters before charging onwards.
What happened next would be a first for Commander Nick Chambers. He knew from special weapons training that Bull Rangers carried a unique carrier signal that was supposed to sync up with an enemy's force fields. The compound would no doubt have a matter deflection shield erec
ted, a simple shield that could vapourise any solid objects that came into contact with it. It was used to repel simple weapons such as missiles and attack vehicles. Nothing could pass through it, except energy weapons, and those would be absorbed by powerful magnetic fields erected around key installations.
The Bull Rangers had ionic fields around them. When they came within range of the compound's force fields, they were able to merge with them, allowing the droids to pass straight through, as though they were part of the Kamari army. It was a feature that was normally used to combine the force fields of multiple autonomous moving platforms, but in this case it was used to trick enemy installations into believing that the Bull Rangers were allied units that should be assimilated into their own matter deflection shields. It was, of course, possible to use encryption codes to validate new members of the shield grid... but Nick was definitely hoping that the Kamari had not thought that was necessary.
Where finesse failed, a Bull Ranger would use its kinetic energy to cause 'physical impact damage' - it would simply butt the compound walls with its bulbous head. Nick watched his console with interest. His orders were irrevocable. He would have to live with the consequences whatever happened. Gail Thompson already hated him. The Beacon Attack Force had taken a beating before it had even reached Havers Compound. Nick didn't see how things could possibly get any worse.
K1 would be exposed to the compound's proton cannons if it rose above the edge of the steep riverbank, but Nick couldn't hide in Wyser River all day. He had to turn this battle around. He was hoping the flying news droids wouldn't give away his current position to the satellite platforms again. He was hoping the Kamari wouldn't know how to use the satellite platforms to put down random attack patterns to guess where the Crocs might have moved to, and he was hoping that Rachel would still be alive if he ever survived long enough to see her again. Nick was only too aware that such a mountain of hopes could easily form his own funeral pyre.
Golden lines danced back and forth across his console, weaving ever more manically as the Bull Rangers drew closer and closer to Havers Compound. One Ranger went down from a direct hit, and then another. Nick was down to eight, but he knew that each Bull Ranger was a force to be reckoned with. Eight would be trouble enough for the Kamari to deal with.
The first Ranger penetrated Havers Compound's outer shield, and swept straight through a multilayer hybrid deflector dish, smashing it into a thousand pieces. It hit the proton cannon directly behind the deflector, just as the cannon fired for the final time. At such close range, the explosion took out ten percent of the compound in a massive white flash, throwing debris high into the air. A cloud of deep black smoke rose from the compound's shattered walls. That wasn't supposed to happen, but Nick would take all the luck he could get. Six seconds later, he heard the accompanying boom from the compound, two kilometres away.
Flames rose high into the smoke-filled sky and ash fell like rain upon the destruction below as the other Bull Rangers pounded into Havers Compound's unprotected walls. Black impact craters scarred the front of the compound, and smoke partially obscured what was left of the several damaged sections of its walls. The occasional explosion was the only indication that intense fighting had broken out inside.
The Bull Rangers had penetrated the compound walls and were now inside, blasting energy weapons in all directions, with little regard for life or limb. They had their orders. They would pursue them to the end.
Net-feed Droids
Rachel examined the status reports on her console. It was clear that her Croc was too badly damaged to take part in any further combat. It was a miracle that it hadn't shut down altogether. Eleven crew sat in the various compartments behind her, trying to communicate with Central Command using their heavily damaged instruments. They scanned for hostile fire, and managed the burnt out systems as best they could. Four crew had died during the satellite strikes. The smell of burnt flesh still lingered in the stale air, despite the best efforts of the overloaded ventilation systems.
Through the Perspex bubble of her command module, Rachel looked out across the river to where Nick's Croc sat half submerged, like a sleeping frog. It had climbed out of the river earlier, and unloaded those strange running lizard droids, but now it had slipped back down the riverbank, presumably to avoid being attacked by the fierce proton cannons that still crackled and blazed across the battlefield.
The Bull Rangers had been a surprise to Rachel. She wondered why Nick hadn't told her about them before. The droids' had been much faster than anything she had seen before, and she had been surprised at the level of destruction they had caused. Nick had only released them a few minutes ago and already Havers Compound was leaking plumes of smoke from several large holes in its outer walls. Flames were spreading like wildfire.
Nick's Croc looked even more damaged than her own. She guessed that his shields must be running on reserves too. The normally dull metallic grey chassis was now more black than grey, and in some places it had even turned blue where the metal had been heated and distorted so badly. The reinforced Perspex body compartments were now opaque like cataracts, and riddled with tiny cracks. It was a miracle that they had not shattered completely.
Nick's busy form was just visible within the command module. He sat amongst the bright lights and control panels, trying to coordinate the battle. Most of the cockpit's Perspex hood was opaque on Nick's Croc, and she was too far away to see his face clearly, but he looked tired to her eyes, and something about the way he moved made her think that he might also be injured.
Rachel brushed a hand through her hair. Her intuition had been running on overdrive lately but there was no way she could know about his health problems from this far away. An image flashed across her mind of Nick banging his head on the ladder leading to his cockpit. She dismissed the thought, unable to say where it had come from. She was letting her imagination get the better of her. Nick was sitting in his bucket seat so obviously he hadn't fallen down any stairs.
Rachel wondered why the Kamari had stopped their satellite strikes. She didn't think any of the Crocs would be able to survive another direct hit. She felt nauseous, breathing in the fumes from the ventilation systems, but the feeling was tinged with an anxiety that wasn't normally part of her character. She considered hailing Nick again, just to hear his voice. She wanted to check if he was okay, but she knew he would be busy coordinating the attack. She would leave him to get on with rescuing what was left of their combat operation for now.
She had never seen things fall apart so quickly. None of them had expected the Kamari to have access to Central Command's own satellite platforms. Their security systems must not have been as strong as they had thought. It was a mistake that would cost them all in the end.
Adjusting her position in the cockpit's uncomfortable bucket seat, Rachel gazed out through the damaged Perspex bubble at the pale blue sky above. The flying droids were circling overhead like bad omens. They were net-feed droids, she knew that much. Several of the news networks had bought similar systems, but most were basic, clumsy looking devices. These droids looked expensive. They were beyond the budgets of the smaller news networks. Rachel had a bad feeling that she might already know who they belonged to, but she wanted to make sure that she wasn't jumping to any false conclusions.
Entering a series of commands into her console, she set up a tracking program that followed the progress of each net-feed droid, plotting its path on her console's small display. Once she was happy with the result, she refined the program, selecting one small group of five net-feed droids that were travelling in close formation. They moved in a cyclic, oval orbit between the Crocs and Havers Compound. Their path had a regular pattern that she could use to predict the droids' positions at any given time.
She wouldn't be able to strike the net-feed droids with the Croc's proton cannons. The cannons were too powerful. They would blow the news droids into a thousand pieces and she needed to keep them intact. Instead, she selected one of the Croc's a
utomatic side guns that could fire rapid bursts of simple projectile munitions. She locked the gun's targeting system onto the predicted paths of the net-feed droids and waited for the droids to swing around on their next lap across the open fields in front of her. She noticed that some of the news droids were dodging the Kamari proton cannons, so as a precaution, she instructed the side gun's targeting system to use munitions with a wide dispersal pattern. It would be more difficult for the droids to avoid.
Ten-seconds later, the five net-feed droids drew closer as they approached on their regular orbit. Rachel watched a close up view on her console as the side gun opened fire, spraying the sky with a wide burst of solid projectiles. Three of the droids successfully fled the attack. The other two were not so lucky. Several holes appeared across their outer shells. One rolled sideways, speeding off at an odd angle, leaving a trail of sparks and smoke across the sky. The other tumbled out of control, bouncing across the ground before coming to halt a hundred metres away. The news droid lay wobbling on the ground as sparks travelled across its shattered outer shell and fluid leaked onto the ground around it.
'Perfect,' Rachel said, staring at the fallen droid through the Perspex bubble of her cockpit.
It wasn't that far away, but she knew Nick wouldn't be unhappy if she left the relative safety of her Croc to inspect it on foot. He had always been overprotective of her, even though there wasn't any need to be.
She thought about her other options. Most of the Crab scanners had already made it across the fields. The ones that had been successful were now too far away to be of any use to her, but many hadn't made it that far. A lot of them had been washed away down the river, and some had been stranded on their backs after tumbling over rocks or large chunks of uneven soil. One or two had managed to get back to their feet after some time. They were now standing motionless, unsure of what to do.
Information Cloud: Science fiction and fantasy series (Tales of Cinnamon City Book 1) Page 10
