Emergency Shelter 613
Gavit couldn’t believe how exhausted he was feeling after leaving the planning session. He’d come out of dogfights during the Gorvian conflict less mentally fatigued. As he approached the secluded shelter, he looked about to make sure that no one had seen him. Once sure that he’d remain unseen, he keyed it open. To no surprise, the lights within were already on. The shelter was no longer spartan. Instead, a larger, more made-up bed dominated the space, along with other amenities to make the place homier.
Tris was inside as well, practicing lines in the back corner with a virtual avatar of one of her co-stars. This shelter had become a hideaway for them both. In this place they could escape from their regular lives and relax, truly be themselves. Tris was violating the first rule however: no work in the shelter. It wasn’t the first time he’d found her that way. She used to revel in being able to escape the insanity of her acting career. For the past tridec, as she was preparing for a new role, she’d been practicing lines almost every time he arrived.
“Again?” Gavit asked. “I thought we had rules Tris?”
She ignored him as she continued to recite lines. Gavit couldn’t stand it. While her celebrity was attractive, this place was supposed to be their respite. He’d never expected the relationship to have lasted this long, especially after the studio had cancelled the movie she’d been shooting when he’d rescued her.
Instead, with the war heating up and reports of deep Galactic Federation incursions, they’d insisted that she stay and produce her next several aboard the station. Thanks to special effects and the variety of environments aboard and in nearby systems, they could fly in crews and other co-stars as necessary. It allowed what should have been a brief fling to grow into something more. Despite that, they were only guaranteed time together between her projects. Her schedule proved to be more erratic than even his mission timelines.
He closed the hatch and approached her. This was unacceptable. As he neared, he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. The feeling was wrong. Instead of the frumpy sweat suit he saw her wearing, he felt only bare flesh.
Tris giggled and the holographic avatar shut down, as did the holographic clothes she’d been wearing, revealing nothing beneath. “Gotcha!” she replied and jumped into his arms. This was just a new game to her. Gavit didn’t care and led her back to the bed, kissing her the whole way.
UCSB Date: 1005.118
Flight Deck, Drop Ship CS-7-011, Fotan System
Gavit could practically feel Chris hovering over his shoulder again. The wait was interminable as the meteoroid cloud they’d inserted themselves into slowly closed on the planet. She’d done so on the last mission too, as well as at least half of their simulations. He thought back to what she’d said during the last mission, what was it? Oh yeah. “Remind me to kill my travel agent. Violently.”
Chris scoffed and laid a hand on Gavit’s shoulder. “Last I checked they call that murder. But I’d put down half an annura’s pay to see you try and take on Tadeh Qudas.”
Gavit chuckled and shook his head. “Even I’m not that stupid. But you have to admit Chris that this place is no garden spot.” He pointed to the grey world below: it made the planet they’d retrieved Tris and her movie crew from look lush by comparison. At least the asteroid field around that world had remained somewhat stable.
This world looked as pockmarked as an airless moon. Even now, flashes of light marked where fresh meteor impacts had remodelled the landscape. The navigational maps had revealed that the planet’s orbit crossed through at least six large meteoroid clouds as it ventured around the local star. The whole system looked like it had given up half-way through its formation process. “I can’t believe that planet is even old enough to support life.”
Chris steadied herself as the dropship bumped into a meteoroid, the sound reverberating through the hull. “Want me to get Rudjick up here? He’ll talk your ear off about how mining in systems like this is extremely cost effective.”
“Is that what chased you up here?”
“It wasn’t your ‘charming’ disposition, that’s for sure,” she replied. Gavit did his best not to look at her to reveal his smile. “As for making that liveable, I can see the atmosphere generators from here,” she continued, pointing to a mountain on the horizon belching out a giant plume of clouds. “Look at how the lights are clustered.” Scattered irregular rings of light huddled around diffuse glowing pits all around the surface. “Probably camps around all the strip mines.”
Gavit highlighted a blue box around a volcano on his display. “Just the one scattered set of lights near the prison.”
“Probably mined it dry decades ago. I’m almost surprised they don’t force the prisoners to mine for them.”
“Easier to use bots and slaves. They don’t resist as much.” The fact that the Geffers would enslave any sentient being had never sat right with him. There was a small light of hope however that it wasn’t their own people. “What’s the status on Gokhead’s jamming bugs?”
“Deployment was clean with the last set of rocks to deorbit. Que Dee has control of the outer security feed, but the main system is on a separate weave.”
“Network - Terrans call it a network. But I get it. On-site required.”
“If you two gabbers are done,” the WSO called from the front of the flight deck. “I’m showing positive acceleration towards the surface. The planet has us. I make it twenty pulses until atmospheric interface.”
Gavit nodded and turned back to Chris. “You heard him – time to get everyone ready to get to work.”
Chris nodded, then gave Gavit’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll head down and let everyone know.”
* * *
Reaching the floor of the main bay, Chis flexed her hand and looked back up to the flight deck. Memories stirred deep inside as she looked towards the opening above. A mix of all the time she’d spent with Gavit, from her woefully inaccurate first impressions to pangs of, what, jealousy? She couldn’t believe that. Gavit was a comrade and an idiot man-child. He’d spent his time chasing that vacuous holovid starlet when he wasn’t bedding anything that said yes. Quartering in the apartment next to him and Matt this last annura however had made her realize however that he was not as shallow or as promiscuous as she’d once thought. Still, his sexual arrogance remained a source of constant irritation.
She shook it off. She had to focus on the mission now. She took one last look at the flight deck. She knew it had to just kill Gavit to watch others fly the dropship instead of him. He was a pilot, not a liaison. It had to be a humbling experience for him, teaching him how the rest of the team had always felt during an insertion. Then she considered that it might be worse for him. Down in the cargo hold they had no idea of the goings on outside. He had a backseat view, and for a pilot with his skills, it must have killed him a little each time.
The floor rocked beneath her and she skidded towards one of the nearby passenger seats fitted to the deck. Rows of them filled each bay to accommodate the number of prisoners they were expecting to free. Above the pallets of seats, litters hung from the overhead racks for any injured. She leapt into the empty jump seat between Blazer and Dosher. The big Tomeris made even Arion look small and left Chris feeling like a little girl sitting next to him.
Blazer grunted as the dropship shifted again, the inner ear the only indication that the ship had begun to tumble. “What’s going on up there?”
“We should be making atmospheric interface any pulse now,” Chris replied.
“Attention passengers, this is your Sled-pilot talking,” Gavit announced over the intercom. “Our shield meteoroid has been impacted by a smaller rogue and has set us tumbling. Please hold on. We have also begun atmospheric interface. Thermal ablative armor is holding but we remain powered down to avoid detection. Shielding rock has begun to break up per plan as well.”
Chris hated this part of the mission. Coming in unpowered attached to a larger meteoroid with a pack of ZKEPs
strapped to its surface would leave them vulnerable. Once they dropped below a set altitude and enough of the rock had burned away, they would separate. But they couldn’t risk powering up until beneath the local sensor shroud. The next few pulses would prove harrowing.
Despite pumping all their waste heat into the ZKEP pack, the bay began to heat up to an uncomfortable degree. Chris grabbed her helmet from the rack beneath her seat and pulled it on, then cycled up her ACHES’ life support system to keep her cool. Others around her followed suit. The tumbling began to slow as the gravity increased. The buffeting worsened, the chunks of rock they were attached to breaking away to impact the dropship.
Everyone remained stoic as the ship rocked around them. Even Rudjick kept tight-lipped when the deck at his feet thumped. This wasn’t a mission for levity. The seriousness of the location and number of prisoners they were likely to find had stilled every tongue. The ride worsened, reminding Chris of driving down a washboard road. The pings of material against the hull increased to a cacophony. Chris resisted the urge to grip her armrest and looked back up at the flight deck. This was getting ugly.
“Stand by,” Gavit called. “Grapples, releasing.”
Chris didn’t think it possible, but they seemed to speed up in that instant. Freed of the rock and despite being lighter, their aerodynamic profile allowed the dropship to slice through the air as it nosed over. The freefall pulled her into her harness before gravity reined her in.
The altimeter in her ACHES began to count down. She focused on it in wide-eyed anticipation. The numbers scrolled past. She braced as they dropped below five thousand metra. The pilot should begin their pull-out soon, the sensor net cutting out at 1500 metra above the surface. They passed that milestone; nothing happened. She jerked to look up, felt the g-forces crush her into her seat before the acceleration compensators kicked in. The load lessened and she gasped for air before she checked their altitude. They were less than fifty metra from the ground beneath them. The air rushing past the skin screamed at this velocity, occasionally punctuated by the disturbing sound of a treetop grazing their belly.
Blazer turned towards Gokhead. Chris looked as well.
Bichard perked up and reached for his harness in response.
Blazer nodded and turned towards the flight deck. The dropship banked through a turn, pressing all of them back into their seats. “We are cleared for entry. Status?”
Gavit took a moment to reply. “We are approaching the drop zone, chief!”
Already unharnessed and standing more sure-footed than she ever thought possible, the dropship’s loadmaster stood beside the shock gel tubes as they began to emerge out of the deck. “Preparing drop tubes now sir.”
Chris didn’t care what Blazer thought. She loved shock gel insertions. It was such a rush to get shot out of the bottom of the dropship into the open air before slamming into the green mass on the ground. The fact that you could miss was just part of the excitement. Death would come in an instant. An image of fire and screaming flitted into her eyes. She shook her head to dispel it.
Blazer unsnapped his own harness. “Copy that. Preparing to deploy.” Blazer sealed his helmet and snatched his PMD-1003 from the rack beside his seat.
Command Tower, C&C Internment Facility
The sky was alight with fireballs as Commander Decko looked out across the landscape. Flashes of purple lit the sky above his head as the facility’s shields batted away smaller meteorites. The shields of the atmosphere generator in the distance shone under the near constant barrage. It was a spectacular, if troubling, sight. For six rotations of this miserable world, the meteor storm had assaulted them, tearing apart the valley below as it rained valuable minerals upon it. Those same minerals all but blinded their sensors, and left them vulnerable. Despite that, he dared not send his troops outside the protective barrier. He had to rely on their new security suite, but would send out patrols in the morning to assess the damage and any possible incursion.
“Impressive isn’t it, sir?” a guard asked as he reached the tower top.
“Probably one of the most extreme meteor showers I’ve ever been witness to.”
“Gets crazier every year too.”
Commander Decko looked at the man. While he couldn’t remember his name at the moment, his hard features and slightly ashen skin marked him as a local. It seemed that the longer anyone lived on this world the greyer their skin became. Some of the locals looked like they might not even be human anymore. “How do the locals cope?”
“We build underground for the most part. If you live close enough you can tunnel straight into the mine. My family always kept to the outer rings though. That way we could have a surface entrance and an armored porch. My little brother, I think he’s seen daylight once in the last year.”
“Better that than getting flattened by falling rocks, eh?”
“Exactly. Heard a big one hit a few minutes ago. Sorry I missed it.”
The commander motioned to the volcano wall behind them. “It backlit the whole mountain. Was quite the sight.”
“Maybe we’ll get another one tonight. But isn’t it getting late sir?”
Commander Decko checked his watch. It was. “Yes, have a good night. Report anything and keep alert. I have a feeling.”
“Yes sir. Good night sir.”
Lava Tube Entrance, Mount Malitani
The dropship was out of sight before the shock gel had even evaporated. Chris pulled up Gavit’s micomm beacon and tracked their ride home as it dove into a nearby canal towards one of the abandoned open-pit mines. Once there, it would land deep in the core of the conical hole in the ground. Beneath the ground-based sensors and with a visual camouflage net to hide it from detection by satellites, it would wait for their signal for extraction.
Beside her, Zithe uncoiled from his evaporating shock gel and scampered towards the opening to the lava tube. Matt was hot on his heels. Chris signalled Rudjick and Dosher to rally on the pair and provide fire support if necessary. Blazer and Arion’s teams fanned out around the entrance as Chris and hers took up position around Bichard. She watched her WSO pull out two small canisters from his pack and throw them into the opening.
Hundreds of tiny insect-like drones exploded from the canisters and flitted into the tunnel. Accessing Bichard’s link, Chris watched a virtual map of the tunnels form before her eyes. The network of tunnels was massive and elaborate. The widest tunnels, the ones they’d need to traverse, especially with any injured, led almost directly to the caldera. Tiny red lights began to light up in the 3-D virtual maps: security cameras and sensors.
Gokhead twitched and looked back at the tunnel. Several of the red points lit up in green.
Gokhead replied.
A larger bright green light appeared deeper into the tunnel. Chris grimaced at the sight. It would take them a hect, if not more, to reach that as a group. There was no way any security guard would be fooled by a looping signal for that long. She spotted several smaller tributary tunnels on the m
ap. Most appeared minimally monitored, if at all. No surprise, they were barely large enough for a person to crawl through. She looked over at Rudjick.
Rudjick rocked his head back and forth in response for a moment.
She agreed. Without her armor she might be able to fit as well. A look at Gokhead told her that, while it would be much tighter, he could too.
UCSB Date: 1005.119
Lava Vent, Mount Malitani, Fotan System
Gaining access to the computer system had taken longer than anticipated. The crawl through the smaller lava tubes and cracks had proved grueling to Chris, Rudjick, and Gokhead. Once they’d reached the desired control node however it was all up to Gokhead and Que Dee to patch in and override the system.
The pair set the video and sensor data looping back from several planetary rotations earlier. It was then a small matter to add in a subroutine to add in the type of glitches seen during an impact. Data from the drone feed would command the node on when to act accordingly. Once that was in place the team met back up and made the long trek up the lava tube with their utility drones in tow.
What they found at the opening of the lava tube into the caldera was not at all what they’d expected. Worse, it was the sight they had only the flimsiest of contingencies for. Intelligence had described only a small gap between the wall of the caldera and the prison complex’s outer wall. Moreover, it had stated that the volcano was extinct and that the lowest level of the panopticon rested on the floor of the cold magma chamber. Expansion of the prison was to proceed downwards, with the prisoners digging out the next level beside construction bots. To say that intelligence was even half right would be generous.
Hell's Razer Page 9
