by D. P. Oberon
Buckingarra, Yoriko, and Peng slid down the mound and slammed into the ground. They stood, and for a moment all of them were silent.
Saradi wanted to go back up. But the mission beckoned. Were these the decisions Bheem had made? She found herself taking a step back up the slippery mound. The last image of Chengmedu was imprinted on her retina. “Cut the hero bullshit,” he’d told her.
Apparently his advice didn’t cover his own actions.
“Bravo Two Zero, status,” Saradi said, trying to keep her voice cool and calm. She needed to hear her squad talk.
“Green, Squad Leader,” said Peng. His armor consisted of massive gray streaks that stretched from head to toe.
“Green,” said Yoriko. “CoNBAT feed updating. I’ve sent the recon-drones ahead.” She paused as she knelt there. She’d set the visibility on her helmet to clear so Saradi could see right into her eyes. “Sara, they knew we were coming.”
Saradi didn’t hear Buckingarra’s reply for she already turned and started to trudge toward their primary objective, the bunker.
“On me,” she called. “Keep it steady. Yoriko, I want intense scans of all surroundings.”
“Bravo Two Six, status? Chengmedu?” Saradi said, stopping. Turning one last time to stare. Only the faintest hiss of static replied on the group channel. The grief welled inside of her. She turned it to ice. Later, much later when all this was over she would let it crash against her and drown in it. But now, Bheemasena beckoned. He had to be up ahead. What if he isn’t? A voice said in her head. She squashed that voice ruthlessly.
Chapter 35 – Trapped
The members of Bravo Two Zero stopped for a moment as they reached the end of the junkyard and looked out over the open plains of snow. The recon-drones had already updated their CoNBAT with new indications of the enemy’s presence around the perimeter of the mine. Yoriko’s words kept replaying in Saradi’s mind as the huge white space beckoned them forward. The enemy knew they were coming.
Now an almost paralyzing fear took hold of Saradi. If she walked out there would a MistReaver emerge from the snow and tear her to shreds?
Even with the recon-drones updating CoNBAT with their locations and a report of all their weapons, something didn’t feel right.
“Yoriko, did you reach Trisdale? Has he assumed position?” Saradi asked.
“I’m finding it difficult to contact him.” Yoriko frowned up at the sky. “Could be a dragonfly transport up there. Makes sense; they had to deliver the MistReaver and now CoNBAT has picked out eight triants at the entrance of the mine.”
A dragonfly could block communications, Saradi thought. Eight triants, a destroyed MistReaver … what else lurked out there? Saradi found herself chewing on her tongue as if it were gum and stopped.
Her AI zoomed in on the target bunker. It lay at the lip of the mine, just before the mine opened into a deep crater within the earth.
“Why does Trisdale get to cozy up in a bunker while we are outside?” Saradi didn’t realize she’d spoken on the squad channel until Buckingarra replied.
“He was dropped with the bunker. I don’t think it’s an easy job. He could’ve been attacked as well.”
“On me. We’re going to make a run for it. It’s two kloms. Put all your weapons in auto-mount position,” she ordered her squad.
Saradi lead the run. Her LR4 swivelled on top of her shoulder mount tracking anything that the recon-drones detected. Her display showed neutral — the only flare of color came from the yellow highlighted bunker.
It all made sense now, all those weeks of training in the snow. Here they were repeating the same thing. The familiar stomp of the snow under Saradi’s feet. The cold not even a bother, just something that registered in the dimmest part of her mind.
Buckingarra brought up the rear with his greater array of firepower. Peng behind him and then Yoriko, then Saradi.
The two story bunker reared up ahead, seeming to beckon them. Made entirely out of ironridge it looked like a rust infested boulder with a white mound of snow on its roof and all around below the perimeter.
“Sara, enemy alert,” Yoriko’s voice spoke into the voxcom.
Saradi had been so intent on their destination that she hadn’t seen the red dots on her display falling from the sky. What the heck? She looked up.
Yoriko had been right.
A dragonfly transport burst through the cloud layer. For a moment Saradi thought it would open fire but it didn’t. Its belly slid open and spewed out red triants.
“Get to the bunker, now!” Saradi screamed. According to her display the bunker was only five hundred meters. She wouldn’t get her squad in another useless gun fight.
“Hurry, go,” Saradi said, stopping to let Yoriko, Peng, and Buckingarra pass. She was the fastest runner in her group.
The triants hit the snow in puffs of white. They scuttled on their three legs. Even in the distance, the single rotating sniper barrels on their torsos caught the moonlight.
A zinging sound filled the air and blue streaks shot toward them. Saradi kept running. Moving targets were harder to hit. Ahead, a blue beam hit Peng and he fell to the ground.
“Go, I’ll get Peng,” Saradi shouted as Yoriko bent to pick him up. Buckingarra kept running.
“EngTech, up,” Saradi said, grabbing onto Peng. “Our armor can take a hit.” Their armor could take a hit but the force still travelled through.
“Two hundred meters,” Yoriko shouted.
Peng’s armor looked charred but was otherwise in good condition. It must have been the force of the hit that stunned him. Could it be that bad? The triants landed over a klom away from them. What scared her was the accuracy of the shot.
“One hundred meters,” Yoriko shouted.
The air now zinged with the blue projectiles from the triant’s sniper. So many pinged around them that it sounded like hail. Each shot seemed to miss Saradi’s face by mere inches.
Peng began to pick up pace. Buckingarra stopped at one hundred meters and returned fire. Yoriko ran towards the door of the bunker, and slammed to her knees in front of it. Her hands scrambled against the interface.
“Open the fucking door!” Saradi shouted.
“I’m trying but it’s not responding,” Yoriko said.
“Peng, use Ganmi. Open the damn door,” Saradi said, dumping Peng unceremoniously to the ground. But he didn’t have to tell Ganmi anything.
The robot melted out of her camouflage and her hands began to dance over the lock mechanism. It was impossible to blast open an AAEDEF bunker with the firepower they had. Not even a MistReaver could do that.
Saradi turned and joined Buckingarra in firing at the enemy. She felt naked in spite of her armor.
The triants drew dangerously close. Their firing pattern changed from the sniper rails to their large single flak shotgun. Fiery flashes spread out all around them.
“Get back,” Saradi shouted to Buckingarra. He didn’t need much encouragement, already turning about and heading for the bunker.
Saradi followed him. Peng stood up and the bunker door slowly trundled open. He squeezed under it, Yoriko after, Buckingarra next, Ganmi, and by then the door stood open fully and Saradi ran in.
The sniper rail punched right into Saradi’s lower spine. She hurtled forward as if an aero-train had slammed into her. She barely registered Warrant Officer Trisdale’s astonished expression before she slammed into him.
Chapter 36 – Countdown
Saradi hissed as the ice cold feeling of medi-bots charged through her veins. The dark quickly receded and she pushed out her hands; someone grabbed her under her arm and helped her up.
“Thanks,” she whispered hoarsely to Warrant Officer Trisdale. He stared at her, stone-faced, as she reached for her back. She winced at the tender spot. And though her hardshell had helped, a scorch mark stared back at her.
“Anantadevi your squad is thirty minutes late. Report.” Trisdale stood with his arms crossed.
Saradi said, “Sir
, we reached the LZ, and then on the way from the LZ to the intercept point where we would meet Bravo Two Six, a MistReaver mech attacked us. It was hiding, Sir.”
“It took out the entire fucking Bravo Two Six squad. Four bloody super-marines,” Buckingarra said, shaking his head.
“Sir,” Yoriko said. “As for your voxcalls. Between here and the mech junkyard there is a dragonfly and that probably messed up with the comms. It also ejected a group of triants at us.”
“This is war; this is what we have to deal with,” Trisdale said. He nodded at Buckingarra. “We must honor Bravo Two Six’s sacrifice.”
Yoriko said, “Sir, it is very suspicious. I recommend we proceed with extreme caution and consider aborting.”
“No!” Saradi and Warrant Officer Trisdale said simultaneously. They eyed one another in annoyance.
“Ueno, we will finish this mission. This mission is bigger than all of us. That iordite is for seed-ships that will help spread the human seed to the galaxy. While I’m sorry for our losses, they don’t change anything. We proceed. With haste.”
“Sir, they knew we were coming. How are we going to evade them? They have triants outside this bunker and surrounding the entrance to the mine,” Yoriko said.
Trisdale growled, showing the sharpness of his teeth. “I’ll show you.”
They jumped as a resounding banging sound came from outside. Trisdale looked at the door and frowned. He called up a holo-display and what it showed made Saradi’s bowels quiver.
Two MistReaver mechs pounded against the shell of the bunker. Triants swarmed their feet, looking like agitated insects. The mechs stopped pounding on the bunker with their huge hands and the clanging inside the bunker stopped.
“This bunker is impervious,” Trisdale said, swallowing.
But just as he said it a drill-mech grew from a dot on the horizon to full size. Triants sat on the drill-mech. Its huge, cone-shaped drill the width of an entire aero-bus.
“Sir, I think they’ve found a way,” Saradi said, swallowing.
The bunker stank of shit, piss, and of things left wet for too long. Wasn’t this supposed to be a new bunker? And just as she had the thought, Trisdale answered.
“This bunker was put in place twelve weeks ago to be used by Bravo Zero Alpha and by Bravo One Alpha. They encountered a similar situation to what we have here.”
“Sir, weren’t you supposed to come down in a new bunker?” Yoriko asked.
Trisdale shook his head. “No.”
Saradi and Yoriko shared a look. The Japanese woman’s forehead creased with concentration. Saradi was sure the original mission parameters said Trisdale would be coming down in his own bunker.
The entire bunker now reverberated with the sound of the mech drilling into it. Peng caught Saradi’s gaze and mouthed Five minutes. It felt like Saradi’s head was in a rattling bucket with somebody drilling just outside of it.
They had five minutes before the enemy punctured through the bunker. Great, things just kept getting better for them.
The four of them followed Trisdale down a spiral, corrugated magmite stairwell that clinked with each step.
Buckingarra’s helmet hissed as he pulled it off.
“GunTech, leave your helmet on,” Saradi said.
“What’s the point? We’re in a bunker,” Buckingarra said.
“That’s an order,” Saradi said.
Buckingarra shook his head and pulled the helmet back on. Trisdale appeared not to notice or he didn’t care. He didn’t have his helmet on.
They went down into a garage that held AAEDEF vehicles. There were razor-tanks, mechs, and octocopters.
“This here was the passageway that Bravo One Alpha and Bravo Zero Alpha took to the mine,” Trisdale said.
Saradi’s interest peaked as they reached the bottom of the stairs. The floor held colored lines that went up and down and across. Three ten meter wide cylindrical fuel cell tanks were strapped horizontally to the walls. They would power the bunker. Ceradon6 explosives were scattered in a pile over the containers. That caught Saradi’s attention. What the heck? Who had done that?
“Is that a drill-mech?” Peng said, walking into the dark.
Saradi’s visor auto-adjusted and picked out the area with night-vision. The odd clarity of the display showed a drill-mech slumped across the garage. Its cylindrical body pitted with dark marks where explosives had taken their toll. Half of the drill head slagged against the ground.
Trisdale knelt at the nose of the drill-mech. He called out to Peng. “EngTech can you get your engineer-bot to cut around this steelcrete covering?”
A large steelcrete slab that looked to have been torn out from the mines — it had an organic vague circular shape about it — that held a slight sheen of silver.
“Right away, Sir,” said Peng, moving away from his investigation of the small drill-mech and heading towards Trisdale.
“Ganmi, we’ll need to use your turbo-torch.” Peng turned to Saradi. “Squad Leader, this will drain Ganmi’s power.”
“It needs to be done,” Trisdale said before Saradi could respond. Peng looked at her, a question written on his face, and she nodded.
Ganmi’s cube form shifted and eight smaller cube-shaped appendages floated above the covering. They flared to life with flame. It was so bright that Saradi’s visor tinted itself several shades darker and Trisdale cursed, averting his gaze.
Ganmi hovered there like a robot from the deeps, looking nefarious with the only light coming from her torches. Her red eyes scanned the ground in a fine net. The stench of the steelcrete filled the garage.
Peng looked back up nervously. “They’ll be here in three minutes.”
Trisdale nodded at Ganmi. “This is the passageway that Bravo One Alpha and Bravo Zero Alpha took to get to the mine.”
Ganmi’s hands finished their burning and now she gripped at the edges of the cover. Her arms strained. Saradi thought she heard something click and snap, and then then engineer-bot lifted the heavy cover. She threw it to the side and let it go; it fell with an audible clang. Then she collapsed on the floor.
“Ganmi!” Peng said going after her. “Are you okay?”
“Actuator five broke,” Ganmi said. Peng rubbed the top of her chassis.
Ganmi unveiled a hole at least five meters wide that stared down into the depths of blackness. Right in the middle of the bunker’s garage the smooth steelcrete floor shredded outwards like something burst from beneath the ground and through into bunker.
“The previous squad drilled from underneath using this drill-mech?” Saradi said.
Saradi edged the hole staring down. Had Bheem gone down this? Buckingarra stayed well away from the cavernous opening and Saradi was reminded of Selection, when they’d had to go through the caves. He’d better not act up now, she thought. I’ll knock him over the head and throw him in.
Where’s Yoriko, Saradi asked herself. The humming around the entire bunker grew louder.
Peng said, “They’ll break through in two minutes.” He had accessed the bunker’s external cameras. It showed the huge drill-mech boring through the bunker. I thought these things were meant to be indestructible. Their drill heads must be made out of iordite.
“Give me one minute,” said Trisdale, moving to where his large hardshell lay against the cylindrical tanks.
Saradi found the Japanese woman kneeling on the ground near the drill-mech.
SOHIC armor lay on the floor, cracked in half. Saradi’s heart beat sped up. Was it Bheem’s armor?
Yoriko pointed at the edges of the huge basement garage. “Somebody attacked the squads here, Sara.” Her recon-drones flitted about the garage, tracking things. The news hit Saradi like a punch to the face.
Yoriko told her she’d come to trace the steps her daughter, Michiko had taken, and now she was here and analyzing what had gone on.
“One minute,” Peng said over their squad channel.
Yoriko mumbled to herself. Another armored suit lay o
n the ground about ten meters away from them. It looked like the drill-mech had come out of the hole and then a skirmish had ensued. But it didn’t make sense. Surely the squad had been aware of the drill-mech? Waiting for it? Why had the mission details been hidden from them?
Yoriko got up and staggered towards the next armored suit. She collapsed to her knees and a wail escaped her lips. Saradi followed Yoriko and stared over her shoulder.
Yoriko’s gene-ID scan revealed the owner of the suit: Michiko Toyoda, Yoriko’s daughter.
Michiko’s face stared out in horror through the slammed visor. Black marks showed on her lips and face. Her entire face had a blue sheen to it. The cold in the bunker must have kept her body from rotting.
“Michi, my little Michi,” Yoriko wailed, as she knelt there. Her hands reached for Michiko’s helmet and she flinched. She tried to take the helmet off but it wouldn’t come free.
“Yoriko, it might be stuck,” Saradi said, bending down to help her, but they couldn’t move the helmet.
“Thirty seconds, let’s get prepped,” Peng said. “Saradi, have you seen Trisdale?”
Saradi’s heart shrivelled as Yoriko bent over and gently placed a kiss on Michiko’s helmet. Yoriko collapsed over the body, crying.
Saradi reached for Yoriko and at first Yoriko complied moving toward Saradi, but then she shook her head.
“No!” Yoriko screamed. “No.”
“CommsTech, listen. We need to leave now,” Saradi said in her best commanding voice, hating herself all the while.
Yoriko resisted but Saradi grabbed at her. The woman struggled.
“Sara, somebody needs to get Trisdale,” Peng said. He turned and shouted, “Trisdale, we need to leave now!”
The drilling stopped and they all looked up at the sudden silence. Peng strode toward Saradi and Buckingarra said, “I’m gonna get Trisdale.”
Peng stopped as he stared down at a dead body. A holo-tablet floating in front of him displayed the body’s identification. Ganmi materialized above him, making crooning sounds.
Behind them fire sounded. Saradi turned just in time to see a triant burst through the stairwell. Its two hands shaped like scimitars and its three sharp legs scuttled over the ground. Its center torso consisted of a sniper barrel circling a flak cannon.
