Extinction: The Will of the Protectors

by Jay Korza

  “Is that the primary source of life support use?” Emily looked over Stroth’s shoulder.

  “No, Captain. There are four other major areas of use. I can also extrapolate their patrol routes based on the hatches being opened, the times they open, and the sequence in which they open. I cannot promise any degree of accuracy, but it is a start.”

  “Good work, Lieutenant, but I count five areas being used, not four.” Emily pointed to a cargo bay near the center of the station.

  Stroth stopped typing in commands and turned to fully face Emily. “Ah yes, the cargo bay. The types of gases exchanged there, along with the information from the environmental scrubbers, leads me to the conclusion that farm-like animals are in that area, so I discounted it as a strategic threat to our mission.”

  “I agree that it is not a threat, if you are correct that is. However, it could be a strategic target if this battle turns into one of attrition rather than domination.” Emily smiled and patted Stroth on the shoulder. “Let’s get this information together and work on an assault plan for the command module. That should be our next target in order to stop them from hacking the system; also, we can get Schneps back.”

  Jeeves rolled forward. “If I may, Captain, I would like to take over for Lieutenant Stroth. I can process the information at a much greater rate, as well as being able to see patterns in the data that might escape a biological’s attention.”

  “Agreed. However, I don’t like the term biological. Although it is accurate, it is also divisionary and potentially harmful to unit cohesiveness.”

  “Understood, Captain.” Jeeves rolled over to Stroth’s station and took over.

  Emily took the rest of her team leaders to another terminal and pulled up a map of the station. The tactical planning session would take several hours, a bit of yelling, and some unnecessary apologies. When they were done, the plan was run by Jeeves and his data extrapolations; a few modifications were made and then the plan was set.

  “Does anyone have any questions about the overall plan or their parts in it?” Wilks looked to his team for any questions. “Good. Be ready to go in forty-three minutes. That should put their patrols in the best positions for our assault. Dismissed.”

  Forty-one minutes later, the team was assembled and ready to deploy. Emily was in the lead, Wilks a few operators back, and Daria was in the rear third of the team. The team stalked the hallways and spread out into different adjoining compartments. The warriors had knocked out most of the security systems to protect themselves; in doing so, they were also blinded and gave Emily’s team a huge advantage.

  Three guards and one patrol of two warriors were taken out without a single sound or alarm. The warriors were actively hunting the team but they were being lead on a wild-goose chase by four of the operators who created havoc in other areas of the station.

  Emily’s team neared their last point of cover and concealment and prepared to make the final assault. Bloom’s voice came over her commlink. “Ma’am, Captain Fields is requesting a channel with you.”

  Emily thought about telling Bloom to put Seth on intergalactic hold, but then realized Bloom would’ve done that on his own unless he thought the transmission was urgent. “Patch us together, Bloom.”

  “Go ahead Seth, I’m on.” Emily heard the commlink click and make the connection.

  “I know you’re about to make an end-run for the command module, but we’re en route to your location to pick up your team. We’ll be there in three hours. If you can hold out that long before making your assault, my team can assist.”

  Emily only had to mull over her decision for a half-second. “We can’t wait. Schneps is badly injured and we need to get to him. Why are you picking us up and not deploying to help secure the station? Do you have any other intel for me?”

  Seth wished Emily could wait for his team but he understood her decisions. “Yes, we found something. The short story is, an officer on our ship got sloppy and left his terminal open. Joker took the opportunity to go through as much data as he could.

  “He found out that our two missions are diversions from the Cherta. The missions obviously have real-world significance to us, but they were cover so we wouldn’t see what the Cherta were doing in Sector 493.”

  “Which is what?” Emily knew that sector was familiar to her for some reason but she couldn’t put her finger on it at the moment.

  “We don’t know exactly. The mission information we had access to was limited to what the officers on our ship needed to know. There was a reference to going back to where it began, to where they defied the will of the Protectors. We’ll keep digging through what we have but the end result is we are coming to get your team and then head to a moon that seems to be very important to the Cherta.”

  “How are you going to get them to fly you wherever you want to go?”

  “Um, it took a little convincing and a few Shirka threats, but the pilots decided to see things our way.” Emily could almost hear Seth’s grin over the commlink.

  “Thank you for the update. We have to go now. We can’t risk getting caught and losing the element of surprise.”

  “Copy that, Captain.” Seth was anxious to be with Emily again and wanted to keep listening to her voice, but he knew she had a mission to complete. “Good luck. Get our man out of there.”

  “We will. See you soon, handsome.” It wasn’t a girlish slip of the tongue; Emily wanted Seth to know, without going over the top, that she was thinking of him in that way. She tapped her commlink before Seth could reply and terminated the conversation.

  “She never calls me handsome,” Bloom quipped.

  “Using my facial recognition software and comparing millions of human faces that have been deemed attractive,” Jeeves looked to Bloom, “I can accurately predict that ninety-seven percent of human women would find Captain Fields at least ten percent more attractive than you. That could be why Captain Riley has not referred to you as ‘handsome.’”

  “I hate your circuitry,” Bloom deadpanned.

  “Let’s go, boys. You can bond later,” Daria said over the commlink.

  Wilks fanned out to the left as his element reached the breach point into the command module. Wilks gave a hand signal to his explosive breachers to plant their charges on the door.

  Mitra looked at Vinci and she shook her head as she examined the door. Vinci subvocalized over the commlink to Wilks, “We don’t have enough explosives to open this door. And even if we did, the overpressure from that amount of explosives would turn our insides to jelly if we were anywhere near it to take advantage of the surprise and shock it would cause to the warriors inside.”

  Wilks nodded to her and waved her and Mitra back into his element. “Captain, the explosive breach is a no-go. We’ll have to go with Stroth’s override codes.”

  The codes would open the door without fail, but the door would open at a casual speed and the occupants of the command module would be given an extra second or two to prepare to fight. “It can’t be helped.” Emily waved Stroth forward. “Everyone prepare for plan B. I want flashbangs to be deployed through the door as soon as the opening is big enough for them to get through. Let’s get the first assault wave on those doors and ready to go. Don’t give them any more nanoseconds to get ready than you have to.”

  Stroth went to a terminal in the hallway and attached his patching module to it. He entered his emergency access codes into the computer and then navigated to the menu system he needed. Within a few short seconds, he was ready to go. When he got the thumbs-up from Vinci, who was at the door with the first assault wave, he made the final entry into his device and hit the enter key.

  On any other day during normal operations, the speed at which the doors opened would not have seemed slow in the least. But today, with battle-senses heightened, adrenaline flowing and time dilation in full effect, Daria thought the doors were excruciatingly slow. Daria had managed to get herself positioned in the middle of the initial assault wave; as the doors parted
, she tossed in her flash-bang along with four others.

  Vinci was number one and he peeled left as she entered the still-opening doors. Mitra button-hooked right and Bloom went straight ahead. Daria was number four, so she went deep with Bloom. She took two quick strides to get along his right side so she could sweep one side while he swept the other. The last two operators filled in the gaps and covered angles that the first four on entry were exposing themselves to.

  By the time Wilks made entry with the second assault wave, he knew that something was wrong. Not a single shot had been fired; no verbal commands were shouted at enemy targets. The place was empty save one man, or at least what was left of a man.

  Schneps had been placed in a torture tube and dissected alive. His limbs were removed, the flesh from his torso was missing, and most of his innards were still attached but outside of his body.

  Daria slung her weapon; she simultaneously dropped her medical pack on the floor and opened it to get to work on Schneps. Emily walked up beside her friend. “Is there anything you can do for him?”

  Daria entered her work-mode, which meant that in the next few seconds, she would check out of this reality and nothing else would exist except her and her patient. But she was still in this universe enough to answer her captain. “It’s not as bad as it looks. The torture tubes do a great job of keeping their occupants alive. Everything is sterile in there and has been removed with perfect surgical precision.

  “Skin can be regrown easily and bionic limbs can be fitted in just a few hours. Everything else is here. I just need time to gently get everything back inside him. I don’t even need to be precise about placement; the surgeons can worry about that later.”

  “Okay, get to work. We’ll keep you covered.” Emily turned to look for her gunny. “Wilks, a moment please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Wilks finished his instructions to Jockey and Mitra before he trotted over to Emily. “We’re setting up a defensive position, including some explosive trip mines at the door.”

  “Good job.” Emily nervously looked around the command module.

  “What’s wrong, Captain?”

  “You know something is wrong, right? I’m not the only one being paranoid here, am I?”

  “No, ma’am, you’re not paranoid at all. Something is definitely wrong with this scenario.”

  “Why would they leave the command module empty? This is where they have to access the data cores from. Not to mention they left their one prisoner behind.” Emily ran through scenarios in her head but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “I know this is a trap.”

  “Agreed.” Wilks also looked around, trying to figure out what the trap was. “So what do you want to do about it?”

  “For now, nothing more than we would normally do in this situation. Set up a perimeter, get our defenses in place, and be prepared to fight and hold this area.”

  Jeeves rolled up; Bloom trailed close behind. “Captain, if I may make a suggestion.”

  “Of course, please do, Jeeves.” Emily always found herself talking to Jeeves in a polite and proper tone of voice. She thought it was probably his English butler accent that encouraged that behavior from just about everyone who interacted with him.

  “You just told Gunnery Sergeant Wilks that we will do what we would normally do in this situation. I suggest we list, in order, all of the steps we are about to take to determine which one of those steps the warriors have prepared for and are expecting us to do in order for their plan to work.”

  “That’s a great idea, Jeeves. If the trap was just to get us into a confined space and then attack us from the rear, they would’ve done that by now. So they let us have the command module for a reason. They want us to do something.” Emily closed her eyes and thought back to everything they had done over the last two minutes since they made entry into the module.

  “Okay, so we make entry and clear the area. No trip mines or other traps. We find Schneps and start working on him.”

  Wilks turned to Bloom. “Get to Doc and stop her from working on Schneps. Scan him for traps, explosives, or trip wires. See if Jeeves can talk to the torture tube to check for software traps set to go off at a predesignated stimulus.”

  “Copy that. Let’s go, buddy.” Bloom was already halfway to Daria before Jeeves caught up.

  “Good call.” Emily continued to go through her checklist of things to do in this situation that might be the precursor of the trap they were most assuredly in. “We start to work on our wounded. We prepare a medical evac plan. We set up perimeter and automated defenses. We scan the database to assess the warriors’ level of intrusion into the system. We…”

  Emily was about to continue when she saw Stroth jack in to one of the command terminals. “We scan the database…” she whispered before yelling, “Stroth! No! Stand down, right now!”

  Stroth had finished plugging into the terminal but he had yet to enter his command override codes. “What is it, Captain?” He was genuinely startled by Emily’s outburst.

  “That’s the trap. They wanted us in here so Stroth would access the command terminal and enter his override code. They either want you to enter the code so they can skim it from the terminal or they plan to assault us after it’s been entered so the system is open and waiting for them.” Emily now stood next to Stroth, with Wilks beside her.

  Stroth unplugged his device from the terminal. “If that was their plan, now what? They are undoubtedly watching from a remote viewer and know that their plan has failed. They will be assaulting us at any moment.”

  Wilks tapped his commlink to open a channel to the rest of the team, including the operators who created diversions in other parts of the station. “This is a recall order for any operators outside of the command module; return to this position immediately. Everyone who is here and not currently working on a given task, set up defensive positions in the command module; try to build some cover out of non-essential equipment.”

  Major Telfer, who led the diversions in the station, replied first. “I have received and understand your orders. I, however, require clarification before I execute them.”

  Wilks really needed Daria to work on pulling the galaxy-sized stick out of Telfer’s ass. “Go ahead, Major.”

  “I have plotted several routes back to your position. The shortest route will take my team through at least one warrior patrol, possibly two. The route with no opposition is also the longest and most time-consuming; it will take an additional ten to fifteen minutes for us to reach you. Which is preferable to you?”

  Wilks could appreciate her question. So far her team had won every engagement on her diversion mission, but that didn’t mean they would continue to do so. If she took the faster route, her team might not make it to the module or her engagement could take longer than expected and have essentially the same results for Wilks’ team as if they hadn’t shown up at all. Or, she could take longer to get there but at least she could guarantee her arrival and support.

  “Take the longer route, Major.” The decision wasn’t a hard one for Wilks to make. “In fact, if the warriors haven’t engaged us by the time you get close, take up a position away from the command module that will allow you to assault them from the rear while they are focused on us. I’ll leave the details of where up to you.”

  “Copy.” Telfer cut the commlink.

  “She’s always warm, fuzzy, and cute, isn’t she?” Emily teased.

  “Yeah, just like a Shirka cub that hasn’t eaten in a few days.” Wilks scoffed.

  “I bet she’s a completely different person when she’s not on a mission or in a situation where she’s representing her government and military. She might be a lot softer than you think.”

  “I don’t really care as long as she keeps performing the way she has been.”

  “I don’t believe that for one second.” Emily prodded. “If you want my advice, stop being so damn pleasant with her.”

  “I don’t know where you’re going with this, Captain.” Wilks t
ried not to look flustered.

  “You’re not treating her like a chick you’re trying to pick up at the bar, but you’re still treating her too nicely. You’re trying to be familiar with her like you are with Daria and me. She’s all business in the field and you’re being too friendly. Be professionally polite but lean towards being a little curt with her. When this is all over and she’s at a point where she feels she can decompress and be herself, you’re going to have a fun night.” Emily winked playfully before adding, “Now, Gunny, finish prepping our defenses while I go check on Doc and Schneps.”

  “Aye, aye ma’am.” Wilks had to double his focus to get back on track before he set out to finish up his prep work. He didn’t see Telfer showing any interest in him but he also knew that women knew each other better than men ever would. Fun night, huh? He allowed himself a quick smile before he got his game face back on. Time to get to work.

  Emily stepped up to Daria. “How’s he doing, Doc?”

  “If we make it out of here, he’ll live.” Daria had set up a combat field sterilizer and moved her hands and surgical instruments in and out of the field.

  The combat field sterilizer set up a small force field that was twelve inches square. When anything passed through the field, it was sterilized and ready for use. Surgical suites would set this field up around an entire patient, but in combat, a corpsman performing minor surgeries only needed a small field to pass their hands through, along with some equipment.

  Daria kept her focus on her patient as she spoke. “Jeeves, talk to the torture tube and tell it to adjust the fluid drip. Slow it down to ten milliliters per kilogram per hour. Schneps’ blood pressure is fine and I don’t want to overload him with fluid.”

  “Of course, Chief Petty Officer.” Jeeves diverted one-millionth of his processing power to Daria’s request while he continued to play out war game scenarios centered on their current engagement.

  “Do you need anything else, Captain?” Daria did a good job of not abusing her close relationship with her commanding officer, but she was still a corpsman with a complicated patient and she needed her space.