Equilibrium of Terror: Part 2

by Eddie R. Hicks

  “On route to new colony we founded on Rasi,” Gengei said. “We must warn them—”

  “Hold up.”

  Additional footage played to their surprise. The transport was secretly refueled and departed the Explorer. It was suspected by everyone that Nodevar killed General Hilemei sometime afterward. The transport with Nodevar at the helm accelerated toward Proxima Centauri and was picked up by another Radiance ship part way through the trek. It was then brought to Foicanta in which unconscious humans were placed aboard then dragged into cryo. Time passes and everyone saw the humans aboard get handed off to people of Radiance origin, most likely the Celestial Order. The injured female assassin was removed from her cryotube as well and medics attended to her injuries.

  The process of humans being loaded aboard repeated, until Nodevar boarded the transport one day and docked with the Abyssal Hammer. Months later he was revived and he returned to the controls to pilot the transport back to Lejorania Sanctum.

  “The missing humans . . .” Rana said.

  “I found a list of saved coordinates within its database as well,” one of the Sword’s ship board psionics reported.

  The projection shifted into an image of Foicanta’s surface in the sun baked light side region of the world. A mountainous range was visible with several circles hovering above it. It was places of interest to the Celestial Order, but the question was what?

  “Those coordinates,” Gomez said, glaring at the map. “That puts them deep inside those mountains. A base?”

  “It is possible,” Gengei said as he shifted his face toward the front of the bridge and ordered the helmsman to move the Sword over that region of the planet. “We will be performing a detailed scan of that area with both ship sensors combined with psionic readings.”

  The bridge carried out his command and attended their stations while the psionic team combined their thoughts together and touched the surface with their minds. The reports of their discovery appeared on an enormous 3D projection of the mountain range. It was so big it encompassed all the equipment and flooring of the bridge. It was as if they were all floating in the skies of Foicanta gazing down at the desert and mountains like birds in the sky.

  “There’s a monorail that leads into a complex here,” Gengei said as he pointed toward the desert south of the mountains. The hologram zoomed in showing the path of the monorail. “Abandoned mines as I recall, or so they want us to think.

  “Jefe, looks familiar?” Rana said, pointing to a small abandoned EDF garrison in the distance.

  “That’s where we got jumped years ago,” Gomez said. “And now there might be an order base just a few miles away.”

  “We probably stepped onto their turf, that’s why they attacked us.”

  “We lost some good people that day,” he said as the hologram moved toward an aerial view of the mountains. “Let’s remind them why you don’t fuck with the human race.”

  Skies above Celestial Order Mountain base, Foicanta, Proxima Centauri system

  No time was wasted when the decision to raid the mountain base was made. Multiple transports carrying an alliance of EDF personnel and Radiance rangers burned through the skies and surrounded the suspected mountainous range. The transports carrying rangers moved in first, dropping their assault teams upon a small entrance near the summit of the mountains. As discovered with the scans from orbit, these led into small tunnels that served as hidden entrances.

  The transports carrying EDF personnel moved in afterward following the path of the monorail that led toward a platform that masqueraded as an entrance to an abandoned mining complex. Rana’s tactical visor activated as it synced up with their magnetic rifle. She looked out of the opened transport doors waiting for the tension to grow as the red dwarf’s light shined down on the region through the cloudless skies.

  Everyone was on edge as there was no psionic support. As detailed as the scans from orbit were, the Sword couldn’t get a clear idea as to how deep the tunnels went. A blind teleport might result in them inside the rock face. Getting a stable foothold in the area then calling for psionic support was the game plan. Assuming they didn’t get shot down first as the EDF transports came under heavy surface to air weapons fire as they neared the monorail platform.

  “Hang on!” Gomez yelled as the transport began to swerve left to right to avoid losing more shield power than it already had.

  “They ain’t gonna make this easy!” Rana shouted as she pointed toward several order rangers down below shooting upward toward them.

  Several volleys of plasma missiles launched from their transport’s weapon ports. The chained explosions sent the order loyal rangers fleeing as massive flaming explosions enveloped the platform. Magnetic rifle fire from the group ceased shortly afterward. For how long was anyone’s guess, but it was long enough for the transports to rapidly land and allow members from EDF-2, 3 and 7 depart and storm past the flames and partially vaporized remains of order rangers.

  Their deadly assault had guided them past the entrance while their rifles cut down the scattered and disorganized order members. Some of them where still flaying about, engulfed in flames from the barrage of missiles fired earlier. Additional order members arrived to support their failed entrance defense teams, but it wasn’t enough. Rana could see some teams stop and backtrack, mostly recalled to deal with the rangers from the Sword that were now entering the mountains. The order was faced with battle on two fronts. A battle they couldn’t win.

  The three EDF teams pushed and pushed further in, gunning down anyone that wasn’t friendly, anyone that aimed a weapon in their general direction. MRF from their protect suits only aided in their push and allowed them to somewhat circumvent the higher gravitation pull of Foicanta. Some EDF members quickly ran along the sides of the walls to get behind crates other rangers used as cover. Plasma grenades put an end to them as the parkour like wall-running humans continued.

  “Gengei we’re moving inside,” Gomez transmitted as he and Rana laid down suppressive fire toward three order loyal rangers. “Have your psionics keep track of our signal so they know where to port in.”

  “Understood,” Gengei’s voice said. “Three of my ranger teams have found smaller caves and have encountered heavy resistance.”

  “Send me their location we’ll help them out.” A small holo map manifested across their HUDs on their tactical visors. Flashing dots represented the signals of the Sword’s rangers in need of assistance. “Colonel, permission to assist the rangers?”

  “Do it, we’ll push in further with EDF-3,” Irons said.

  “Alright,” Gomez said to EDF-2 “Let’s give ‘em hand!”

  Gomez and Rana led the charge into a central promenade of the order’s base along with Stepanovich and Cooper. Their shields were still reasonably high and therefore could afford to take a few shots before having to duck for cover. They pushed onward running and gunning, before they took a slight detour into a hallway on the right. EDF-7 covered their charge and ensured none of the surviving order rangers stepped foot into the hallway they entered. The four ran through the halls and followed the signal Gengei transmitted to them. Rana looked back from time to time to ensure nobody was following them, they were in the clear. For now.

  The hallways came to an end as they arrived at the location where the pinned down rangers were. It was a newly tunneled out cave by the looks, no lights, installed flooring or ceiling panels like the rest of the base. Probably some sort of expansion the order was working for their hidden base.

  Idle construction equipment provided cover for Rana while idle tunnel boring devices scattered about gave the rest of her comrades a place to duck behind and hide as they assessed the situation. The rangers that needed assistance were under attack by not just a small group of order rangers, but Hashmedai warriors and guardians as well.

  “That’s an odd mix,” Cooper said.

  “Guardians first, while their backs are turned,” Gomez whispered to them. “Farhadi you got the good shit
?” Rana held a plasma grenade in her hands, and grinned toward Gomez, he grinned back. “Damn girl, you know what to do.”

  Gomez’s fingers counted down, while everyone else held onto their rifles. Five, four, three, two, one.

  Rana primed and held her grenade. Her visor’s HUD provided a superimposed overlay that and informed her where the grenade was expected to land and explode. It was in sync with her hand that held it and automatically accounted for the gravity of the planet. She tossed the device and was forced to use more strength than she would have normally used on Earth to make it spiral toward the feet of the guardians.

  The grenade crashed into the ground making enough noise for the Hashmedai to turn and see it rolling toward them. Some ran, not that it would help them, the blast went off seconds later. The lower body of the guardians was incinerated instantly as all four EDF-2 members sprung up from their cover and held the trigger of the rifles, and didn’t release their finger from it until the rocky tunnels were painted with the blood and brains and Hashmedai and order rangers.

  The pinned down rangers from the Sword exited from their cover and joined in the fun. Rana’s visor displayed the results of the battle: Zero hostile targets detected.

  The four moved toward the rangers, some of them were injured and in need of assistance. Rana stopped part way there as she felt the ground tremble. Seconds later it happened again, each time was more violent than the last. Tiny rocks from the ceiling of the cave fell along with plumes of dust.

  “What the hell?” Rana said.

  “Gengei that tremor didn’t feel right, any idea what’s going?” Gomez transmitted. There was however no response. “Captain Gengei?”

  Ten seconds later Gengei's voice came in, and it was one of a frantic captain. “We are under attack!”

  Boom.

  The caves rumbled again, Rana nearly lost her balance with the last impact. Gomez and Stepanovich moved forward to assist the rangers. Rana was about to do the same until she saw Cooper kneel to examine the rock face he stood on. Rana stepped over to him to see what got his attention.

  “What’s up?” she asked him.

  “Oh shit . . .” he said slowly getting to his feet.

  Rana looked down at what he was looking at; the ground was cracking and crumbling quickly. Neither of the two had a chance to say or do anything more, the rocky ground below them gave away, sending their bodies tumbling down into a deep clearing below.

  Rana couldn’t see what exactly was going on, just that her HUD reported her shields took massive drops in power as she hit every single piece of the rock face on her tumble down. Her MRF kicked in seconds later, but it was too late, gravity did its job, she and Cooper slowly slammed into another newly tunneled out hallway amongst crashing boulders.

  Rana shields were at three percent as a result of the fall. Fan-fucking-tastic.

  “Damn it, you guys okay?” Gomez transmitted to them.

  Rana rose and along with Cooper, she brushed the cloud of dust away from her face as she began search for her rifle. “We’re fine,” she said. She looked up and saw several stray boulders quickly fall down the hole and pivoted away to avoid getting crushed. “Keep going we’ll manage!”

  There were too many rocks falling for them to jump jet back up, the random tremors weren’t helping the situation. Gomez and Stepanovich jumping down wouldn’t be much help either, they’d be trapped like them. She and Cooper had to move on and try to regroup. The two retrieved their rifles from the rubble and proceeded through the only viable path for them in the tunnel.

  The lightless caves were illuminated with their night vision mode through their tactical visors. The tunnels eventually came to an end, leading them into a small room. It was outfitted with metal walls, floors and ceiling, a small elevator was off to the right side, while several computers were linked up with to a group of cryostasis pods.

  The two hunkered down as their night vision automatically shut down, the room had bright lights equal to that of standard Radiance levels. Several people inside the room were frantically trying to back up data from the computers as an Aryile female psionic teleported in and out of the room, taking personnel, equipment and cryostasis tubes with her. Rana glanced at the glass casing of the tubes, many of them had humans inside, and others . . . had strange creatures inside them, creatures she never seen before. If she didn’t know any better, they might have at one point been human.

  Wait, Rana thought as she looked at the woman closer. It was Veinea. Nodevar stepped out of the elevator. He and Veinea were the last of the personnel inside the room, Rana held onto her rifle hard and looked at Cooper. His eyes were zeroed in on Veinea and Nodevar, she was going to need his assistance in the take down she was plotting in her head.

  Nodevar pushed the final cryostasis tube toward Veinea, it had the Hashmedai female assassin inside they saw on the projection. Veinea vanished along with the cryostasis tube, seconds before Rana was about to deliver some human justice. Fuck!

  Nodevar remained; Veinea must be coming back for him. Rana and Cooper waited, and waited. This time, EDF would be dishing out the ambush and the order would be on the receiving end of it wondering what the fuck happened. Blue light flashed, Veinea rematerialized. It was the cue the two were waiting for.

  Rana and Cooper rose from their hiding place, their rifles pointed forwarded and fired after they both hurled two plasma grenades inside.

  Veinea quickly reacted by erecting a psionic barrier.

  But it wasn’t enough. The two were caught off guard.

  Rana and Cooper were victorious.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Crimson Arrow, Debris field, Morutrin system

  The Morutrin system was littered with not only a sizeable asteroid belt, but several debris fields full of chunks of melted, burnt metal and wreckage of ships during the days when the Hashmedai battled for control of this system against the old Linl republic and later the Radiance Union, after the Linl became the fifth member.

  Salvagers were known to raid the hulks of some of the ghost ships adrift in the many debris fields, especially the ones closet to the asteroid belt. A unique food chain of sort was established as control of the system by all sides was lost. Lyonria artifacts were known to be buried inside a few asteroids, prime targets for researchers to study them, and prime targets for pirates that would attack and raid their ships. Salvagers would then show up to not only loot junked warships for spare parts but would look out for research ships adrift, taking anything of value the pirates left behind. Thus allowing for larger pirate groups to attack the salvagers, taking anything of value they might be holding in their stores.

  This is of course under the assumption there were no Radiance or Imperial ships in the area as neither side liked pirates and salvagers, and wouldn’t hesitate to attack them should they come near transports and cargo haulers from either side. The debris field within the asteroid belt became a hot spot for pirate and salvager activity after Noylarlie’s escape in the Crimson Arrow from the system nearly thirty years ago. Her psionic powers hurled a massive asteroid into a Radiance cruiser. The ship was a loss to Radiance, but a large section of its hull remained intact including its bridge, supplies and some of its weapons.

  Salvagers rose to the challenge of looting it, while pirates swooped in and preyed on ships that weren’t fast enough to escape them. The Crimson Arrow was once again back in the sector, this time Noylarlie’s sister was at the helm, and this time she was here to stalk a target, rather than escape from one.

  Phylarlie cut the engines of the Crimson Arrow as she made it land on an obscure asteroid. Once the landing was complete she spun around to face Danyal, whose gaze was fixed on the data pad he held in his hands, reading its contents. “Put that away, we’re here,” she said to him.

  Danyal’s head jerked up, startled by Phylarlie’s call toward him. “Yo! I might be on to something here.” Danyal turned the data pad around so that the screen faced Phylarlie. There were pictures of—


  No wait. It can’t be.

  She removed her seat belt and pushed on the side dash board, flinging her body closer toward him. As she got near she yanked the data pad out from his hands and looked at what was being displayed on the screen. “Is that?”

  “The wraith? Yes, it is.” There was no doubt about it; it was a picture of a cryotube with wraith inside, on the screen of his data pad. “According to this, Rana encountered them eight years ago. So if you don’t mind I’d like to keep reading through these files, maybe I’ll find something I can pass on to that Aryile.”

  Phylarlie examined the data pad itself, and took notice of the damage done to it, burn marks, light scratch marks and dents were on its screen. It had been through a lot over the years. “Where did you get that data pad and its contents?” she asked as she handed it back to him.

  “Like I said, Rana is the daughter a good friend of mine,” Danyal said. “I’ve been trying to find her since I left Earth. I put out an ad on the knowledge network and some psionic showed up and sold me this.”

  Interesting, but we have a task to finish here, she thought then directed Danyal’s attention to a hologram depicting sensor scans of the region. She zoomed the holographic projection on their target, the pirate ship they had been chasing for the last day or two, it was floating idle.

  “Well, hello,” Danyal said, looking at the flickering blue and white image. “Now how do we get aboard without getting sawed in half with bullets?”

  “I can’t move the Crimson Arrow further, or we’ll risk getting detected.”

  “So?”

  “So . . .” Phylarlie entered the rear cabin of the Crimson Arrow and gestured to Danyal to follow her. “Let’s go for walk,” she said in a flirty voice.

  She ventured further into the darkened cabin away from the light shining through the windshield of the cockpit. Only her red-orange eyes, glowing in the darkness and the faint lights from wall mounted computer terminals could be seen. Phylarlie reached into a storage compartment where she pulled out two space suits, and tossed one through the weightless area toward Danyal as he entered.