Resurrection

by Jan Domagala

  IV

  Jake and the team were advancing through the city following the path Kurt and Zara had made previously, when Jake received a call from Artie.

  “Sir, the Black Knights are pulling out and are heading your way. They will be within visual range in less than ten minutes sir,” the AI informed them.

  “You know what that means then,” Torres offered with a frown.

  “Yeah, they’re pulling out,” added Vance looking to Jake for an order as to what they should do.

  “Come on Jake, what do we do?” Cooper asked; he knew they were running out of time and fast. They all knew the consequences of troops being recalled and they were standing right in the path of some of them. If they stayed to help their friends and colleagues they risked putting their own lives on the line.

  “Kurt and Zara are more than capable of looking after themselves. Whatever the Alliance has planned we won’t be able to prevent from down here and neither can we help Kurt or Zara, so we get back to the Pulsar and ride out whatever happens next,” Jake said with a frown. He knew it was the right decision but hated himself for having to make it. None of them were used to leaving anyone behind on the field of battle; it was a tenet all Special Forces lived by. To leave without Kurt and Zara, even though they knew what the two of them were capable of, still didn’t sit right with any of them.

  Jake’s order received smiles from all his team, they knew what it meant for him to issue that order and they sympathised with him. It was one of the many burdens of leadership, someone had to make the big decisions and they were just glad it hadn’t been any of them.

  Turning around quickly, they all double-timed it back to the entrance of the city. Jake gave a silent prayer that the two they had left behind would find somewhere safe to hole up until whatever was planned had finished.

  23

  I

  OMEGA HQ, RH426

  Tanya Wilde was surveying the huge wall mounted monitors in the C and C with her normal dispassionate eyes. She felt safe in the Command and Control centre since the lockdown had sealed the entire base from outside intervention. Her only worry now, and it wasn’t even a worry more of a niggle really, like an itch she couldn’t quite scratch, was the fact that Matt Hawk was still at large. It seemed that Apollo had failed once again. She didn’t know if that was due to the clone’s inability to carry out her simple orders or the resourcefulness of Matt Hawk. Another thing she still didn’t quite understand was how that other team had managed to infiltrate the base once the lockdown had been initiated. It didn’t matter now anyway; none of it mattered as she had made sure none of them would survive for more than a few moments. Apollo and a team of Rover5s had been dispatched to take care of Matt and she had initiated the wake up of another group of Rover5s to take care of this other irritant. In a few moments things would be back under control.

  As she was watching what was happening inside the base as well as the ongoing missions that her organisation was involved in, two things happened simultaneously. Firstly, she noticed that Apollo was having trouble with Matt and other members in his team. They had attacked each other; this was more than unusual, it was impossible. They were programmed against such things happening, and secondly, Ops told her of a craft arriving in close orbit.

  She checked the screen that showed the craft in question and recognised her instantly. It was the Legend, which meant that Col Sec had found them.

  She had hoped her Rover5s would have found the intruders before they had time to contact Col Sec and inform them of their whereabouts. That was obviously not the case now as they were here. Just the one ship though which she thought was odd. Given the threat level that OMEGA had proven to be she had expected an entire flotilla would be sent against them. No matter, it would make her job that much easier against only one starship. Exactly how they had homed in on the right spot was still a mystery as the base was well hidden and even the docking bay was not visible from space.

  “How do they know where to look?” she asked Ops.

  “It seems they are tracking a beacon we only just discovered that was placed outside the docking bay area,” Ops replied, it was the only explanation.

  “The team that had infiltrated the base must have placed it there upon entering and they must have followed us bringing Matt aboard,” she realised sadly.

  “Deploy a full squadron, take a ship and board the Legend. I want her under my control, that’ll teach those idiots back on Earth not to mess with me,” she shouted, her face contorting with rage.

  On the screen she saw the emerging Rover5s. She watched, her anger abating slowly as the instrument of her revenge was getting ready to deploy. Her relief was short-lived though as the Rover5s turned on each other fighting anything that moved, or so it seemed.

  Suddenly reports started to come in about similar attacks by the Rover5s on other Rover5s. Something had happened to make them attack their fellow clones.

  This was a disaster. Without the Rover5s OMEGA was powerless. They were the teeth of her organisation and if she didn’t have them she had nothing. Her whole organisation was centred on these warrior clones.

  She quickly checked the monitors where the ongoing missions were being displayed. There too the clones were beginning to revolt and attack their brothers.

  The realisation of what was happening hit her like a plasma bolt. It had been only a few short weeks ago when she had learned of her father’s involvement in a program that, if activated, could have wiped out mankind. Stupidly her father had activated this deadly program causing her to take action. She had sent Apollo to end the program and that should have been the end to it. Somehow the idiots at Col Sec had changed that program and adapted it to use against her Rover5s. Clearly then they were not as idiotic as she had originally thought.

  Sending that new batch of Rover5s against the Legend had only hastened their demise. Had she left them in the pods they might have been all right.

  Not all her clones were affected though, it seemed only the Rover5s had been targeted which meant whatever had been done was extremely specific in its parameters. Her other staff, the other clones, were unaffected which meant there was still a way out for her. If her army of warriors were now useless she had to escape. Not only would Col Sec be after her but her customers too. She had taken money from them for the use of the Rover5s and now they were useless which meant they would want recompense or worse, revenge.

  Her escape shuttle had been prepped ready for a fast evacuation. She would use it to leave and once away from this place figure out what to do, where to go, somewhere she would be safe.

  Taking what she would need she left the C and C and headed for her shuttle. She would have to act fast if she wanted to get away before anyone could stop her.

  As she was about to leave the room a huge explosion rocked the entire base.

  The Legend had breached the base’s defences and her time had almost run out.

  II

  The Red Team and Matt Hawk carefully made their way through the labyrinthine depths of the underground base all the time heading for the C and C where they expected to find Tanya Wilde. On their way they witnessed the results of Hacker’s work in uploading the Hades Code to the Rover5’s NIs. Bodies literally littered the floor on every level of the base.

  “I must admit Hacker you did good work,” Matt commented as he stepped around a group of dead clones that had fought a bloody battle in a hallway leading to the elevators where they needed to go. “When Sinclair had told me that I would have back up, I never expected this,” he added as he reached forward over a dead body to access the control panel of the elevator. None of them used their NIs to access any of the tech in the base just in case it had been infected by the Hades Code which, in its original form, was just a computer code that could be transferred from computer to computer. This had been the danger, once an NI had uploaded the code the self-seeking portion of the code would search for nearby NIs and upload itself thus infecting the receiver. Although Hacker ha
d told them he had isolated that part of the programming and deleted it from the new code, they were still taking no chances.

  “Sinclair didn’t know,” Hacker told him matter-of-factly.

  Guardian intervened when he saw Matt’s expression of anger, saying, “And if he had known he wouldn’t have authorised its use for the very same reasons you’re now thinking. Our remit though is to come up with alternative solutions to normal procedures; to challenge everyday thinking and give an alternative solution.”

  Matt wheeled on the large soldier, his face turning red with fury, “You idiots you could’ve caused the very thing you set out to prevent with your lateral thinking,” he growled.

  “But we didn’t, did we?” Hellcat said forcing herself between the two huge men. She pushed Matt away and glared at him, “It worked didn’t it, we stopped them and we saved your ass in doing so. You should be grateful,” she shouted with more venom that any of her companions had witnessed in the short time they had known her.

  Matt looked down on the smaller firebrand and took a deep breath. “Yes, you’re right, I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Good, now let’s go get that bitch who started this whole thing off shall we?” Guardian said offering his hand to the agent. Matt took the offered hand and clasped it tightly in agreement.

  “Good, now that’s what I’m talking about,” Cowboy shouted as they entered the elevator.

  As the doors closed a huge explosion shook the cage they were in. The occupants fell against each other as they tried to keep their balance.

  “Here comes the cavalry,” Guardian said with a smile.

  III

  Colonel Anton De Boer led ‘C’ Platoon across the arid landscape from the Legend, which had docked in close orbit around the dry husk of the planet RH426.

  The Legend had fired a brace of Hellfire missiles at the exact spot where the beacon was situated. The explosion ripped open the docking bay doors leaving the interior open to the vacuum of space. Anything that wasn’t fastened to the ground was pushed out through the gaping hole due to the pressure being released.

  They had evacuated the ship and used their mobility units to travel down to the airless planet’s surface once the area was clear of all the debris from inside the docking bay.

  The Legend remained on standby ready to fire upon any craft that tried to vacate the area without the proper authority.

  De Boer was the type of leader who led from the front along with his men. He would never ask one of his men to do something he was not prepared, or had already done himself. They entered the docking bay and quickly made their way through the huge expanse to the rear where the huge floor elevator was.

  There was no sign of life anywhere down there.

  ‘C’ Platoon filled the platform leaving a few remaining to follow once they had arrived on the upper level.

  “Okay people, be ready, we don’t know what we’ll find when we get up there, but this is the only way to get there. I want a perimeter guard ready to fire on any hostile, four to each side. The rest will act as backup. The moment the upper level is secure we bring the rest of our men up. Is everyone ready?” De Boer’s words travelled to every soldier in the platoon through the silence of the vast expanse of the docking bay.

  With his troops in place on the perimeter of the platform, he stood in the centre as they accessed the controls and the platform began to rise. It rose through a sealed off section that acted as an air lock between the docking bay and the next level.

  As they got closer to the edge of the upper level De Boer could feel the tension rise among his men, but he gave them credit for not deviating from their orders. They had been trained well and had stuck to their orders and what protocols were used in situations like these.

  No sign of any hostiles were seen by any of Marines and one of them on each side of the platform said, “Clear.”

  They quickly filed off the platform with the Marines who had formed the perimeter guard continuing to watch in every direction to ensure the safety of the platoon.

  “Right, send it back down for the rest of the men,” De Boer ordered. At the top and now the platform was on its way back down they could take the helmets off their environment suits. De Boer was the first. He had already checked the atmosphere via his on-board computer built into the suit and it was fine to breathe.

  He turned to the Marine to his left and said, “Check out the bio signs for this whole place. I want to know how many there are and what their locations are.”

  “On it sir,” replied the Marine.

  De Boer accessed a comm. channel and said, “Guardian, do you have eyes on Hawk yet?”

  “Yes we do Colonel, but we’re not yet ready to leave because Tanya Wilde is still at large. Matt won’t leave until he’s sure she’s either captured or dead,” Guardian replied.

  “Okay, resistance here is at a minimum, we’ll hold this position and proceed to the C and C. Meet us there when you have completed your mission,” De Boer said. Although they hadn’t seen many signs of the Rover5s he was aware they could be waiting around the next corner.

  “Sir, if there’s supposed to be an army of those clones in here I can’t see any sign of them,” the Marine who had been tasked to locate the bio signs of everyone in the base informed him.

  The Colonel turned to look at him with a confused frown. He leaned in closer to better hear him and asked, “I’m sorry, what?”

  “The only bio signs I can locate in this whole base are a few in the C and C, our boys and that’s it sir. They’re pretty scattered around this place, which is huge but I can’t locate any of the Rover5s.”

  “Did you access the base’s computer to use the interior sensors?” De Boer asked contemplating the next course of action.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Right we need to get to the C and C fast. I want everything we can get from their computer. I want all their records of business transactions and the locations of other cloning facilities and anything else you can find. I want it cleaned out,” De Boer said angrily. Something was not quite right about this place and he was determined to find out what it was.

  IV

  Tanya reached the secret location of her private shuttle after running as if the hounds of hell were chasing her. She had this shuttle placed close to the roof of the base and only a select few of her personnel knew of its existence. It was the same shuttle that Apollo had flown to attack the base on Tarsus II at the time she had learned of the existence of the Hades Code and what her idiot father had done with it. It was a sleek new design that her developers in MaxCorp had been working on and as this was the prototype it would not show up on the Confederation’s database. It was more than just a shuttle; it had the attack capability of a fighter too as was demonstrated on Tarsus II when Apollo used it to destroy the base.

  When she arrived at the secret hangar she was sweating heavily and she paused to catch her breath by leaning on the wall. She looked at the craft and wondered what others saw when they looked with pride on a craft such as this. To her it was simply a tool she could use to perform a task, in this case to escape the clutches of the Confederation forces. Was her indifference something that was lacking in her personality or had it been bred out of her when her father created her as his new and improved daughter?

  It was something she could ponder at some other time, for now she had to leave.

  “Leaving without me?” a voice said from behind her. She turned to see Apollo standing, arms folded across his broad chest as he leant nonchalantly against the wall.

  “What are you doing here?” Tanya snarled at him. She was angry at his failure and it showed. “You were supposed to kill that agent,” she said.

  “I had him in my sights but the backup team arrived just in time. I barely got away with my own life. They somehow turned all the other Rover5s against each other. They attacked their brothers and then me,” Apollo explained with a confused frown as he pushed himself off the wall. “If you’re thinking of leaving
then I’d better fly that craft, you have no idea how it handles,” he added walking past her to the hatch.

  Tanya decided to say nothing. She allowed him to enter before her and as she followed him inside she thought there was time for her to think of a suitable punishment for Apollo during the journey ahead.

  Once she was inside the craft she sat behind the pilot’s chair as Apollo took control of the craft. He accessed the engines through his NI. The craft was controlled by an onboard computer, which would react to his thoughts once he linked to it via his NI.

  The hangar doors above the shuttle opened to a command he operated from the computer and as the engines increased the thrust required to achieve lift off he piloted it through.

  Tanya gave a command through her NI to the base’s computer, a command that was deeply embedded in the core structure of the software. It was something that she never thought would be needed but was glad of it now.

  As the craft rose through the doors and into space she smiled as she pictured the look of surprise on the faces of the Marines who had breached the base. They were in for a bit of a shock and she wished she could be around just to see the look on their faces when they realised she had just killed them all. That was not possible though, not if she wanted to get away with her skin intact. She just had time to get clear before her little surprise would eradicate the base and everyone inside from living memory.

  V

  Guardian turned to Matt with a smile and said, “We have clearance to find Tanya. We have little time though as once the Colonel reaches the C and C and has got everything he wants from the main computer he won’t want to hang around.”

  “Right all we have to do now then is find the bitch,” agreed Matt; he had a look on his face that told Guardian that this had become personal between him and Tanya. He turned to Hacker to see if they could speed up the process. He said, “See if you can locate her by tying into the internal sensors.”