Neptune's Massif (23 page)

"Twelve. Eleven antimatter and one gravimetric." Roan narrowed his eyes. "Why?"

"If the
Adonis
does make a move; I want you to blow it to hell," Tomiakin ordered.

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C
ombat Theater 'Astra'

Argyris Mining Facility

Planet Aerie, (Gas Giant)

New Talos System, Carnius Sector

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M
ajor Jana Cromwell just finished reviewing the plan with her team. The hardest part was going to get the charges placed on the hull without being detected. They couldn't use the Raptor, as the radiation from the planet would over charge the armor and give away their position. They would have to land on the station and tie into the power systems so they could bleed of the excess energy. While the
Cherokee
discharged and did its thing against the computers, the team would be walking the hull to place the charges. The radiation would cook them a little while they were on the hull, but this needed to be done, and they would do it.

"Major, I think I might have found a better way to get the charges where we need them," Samuel said. "I made a query of the tech base from Phoenix base and got a few hits. There is a very small missile originally designed for use underwater that we could easily adapt for this purpose."

"How so? The guidance system would be detected by the cruiser," Jana replied.

Samuel shook his head. "The original design uses sonar and a low-power form of lidar to scan the terrain around it. Like I said, I think we can adapt it for our use here. The lidar guidance laser would be lost in the background radiation of the planet, and the directional thrusters use compressed seawater for maneuvering. We could build it to use hydrogen instead, since we are literally awash with the stuff here. If we upgrade the on-board memory with the mapping data and converted the thrusters, we could easily place the needed charges in about a third of the time."

"Time is an issue here; if you are certain it'll do the job, do it, otherwise we need to get moving," Jana said.

Samuel nodded and turned around to the replicator. It took about ten seconds before he lifted five tiny missiles out. Each one no bigger than a foot in length and about two inches thick. They had no guidance fins since they weren't needed here. Samuel sat them on the table. "Touch the missile, then touch the place on the map you want it to go. Once we get this batch programmed, we can toss them out the hatch and they'll go," the android explained.

Jana nodded. "Marty, once we get this batch done, go toss them out, please. We should have the next batch ready about the time you get back."

"I'm on it Major. This was a good idea, I wasn't looking forward to getting cooked out there," the big American Indian replied.

"Too bad this isn't the hardest part," the ship's gunnery officer, Mary Ward, replied. "The real fun doesn't start until we get inside this pig."

Jana nodded. "Let's just hope none of these assholes are in their armor and all we'll need to do is comfort a few civilians until the medics get here. How is the attack on the computers going?" She asked the AI.

"There was no attack, Major. None of the computer systems involved in this mission even had a firewall. I simply took control of them, and that was that." Samuel replied.

"How many computer systems are we talking about? The colonel only thought there would be the station and the cruiser," Jana asked.

"Each of the freighters as well. While none of them had ever had an AI, they did have smart systems. In order to dump their atmospheres, I need to have control of them so I took it," Samuel explained. "With your permission, Major, I won't depressurize the empty ships. I'll simply seal them up and isolate them. That way, once the objective is attained, they can assist in replacing the station atmosphere as quickly as possible."

Jana nodded. "That'd be great, Samuel. Okay kids that's the last of the charges, let's get moving; the fleet is waiting on us."

The entire team, minus Samuel, suited up and would be participating in the mission. Samuel would remain to protect the ship and control the computer systems involved in the mission.

The team entered the station through a maintenance airlock near the ship and made their way into the occupied area. They slowly approached the occupied area and when they got close, Samuel stopped them.

"Hold there, Major," Samuel called. "Let me seal the area and blow the charges. We'll use the corridor you are in as an airlock."

"Understood, let the control know when you blow the charges," Jana reminded the AI. "You have my order to proceed with detonating the charges."

"Understood, Major. Section sealed. Blowing charges... now!" Samuel replied. "Atmosphere at eighty percent and dropping..." there was a short pause, "Sixty percent." And another pause, "Forty percent."

The AI called out the dropping pressure until he reached zero. "Negative atmosphere in all unsealed areas. The only remaining life signs I am detecting are in the sealed areas, Major. The fleet is now moving in system. Medical ETA is twenty minutes."

"Raise emergency force fields and get the repair drones moving. Do not reestablish the atmosphere in the station for at least ten minutes," Jana ordered.

"By waiting that long, I cannot be certain to have full atmosphere restored before the medical shuttles get here, Major," Samuel replied.

"I understand, Samuel. Focus on the landing bay where the shuttles will arrive and as straight a path as you can from here to that bay. The rest of the station can wait," Jana ordered.

"Orders understood, Major. I can have that ready in time," Samuel replied.

"Okay, now the real fun starts. Open the door and let us in please," Jana asked and raised her pulse rifle to the ready position.

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T
he Argyris mining facility held a nominal crew of roughly five thousand people comprised of the staff, miners and their families. Jana knew going in that there were only thirty one hundred life signs remaining and that some of those would be rebels. It was a very intense, nerve-wracking hour that followed the team's entry. There were a few obvious guards and those were taken out quickly. The difficult part was rebels using people and children as shields. It didn't help them that much, but they did still try.

Between the rebels fighting back and the people they simply killed outright, one rebel grabbed his weapon and just opened fire on anything that moved, which were mostly panicked hostages trying to run away. They lost another two hundred and ten people. According to the sensors, once the fighting stopped and the area cleared of all hostile forces, there were two thousand, seven hundred and eighty-four survivors.

All of them were injured in some way, as well as being underfed and dehydrated. None of the station administration staff had survived, as they had been the first killed when the rebels arrived and took over. The other roughly two thousand people had died at the hands of the occupying troops.

Once everything began to get back under control, Jana sighed and knew that she would have to stay at the station until another authority could be spared to take over here. She simply couldn't, in good conscious leave the station in the current social situation. She was tempted to leave a couple of times to assist in the battle, but these people really needed her, her team, and the three shuttle loads of medical and mental health people.

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C
ombat Theater 'Astra'

Raptor
Damocles

House Boden Lunar Facilities

New Talos System, Carnius Sector

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“D
ealer, this is Joker Three. We are in position.”  Cindy knew from listening to the comm traffic that Raptor
Hephaestus
, call sign Joker Five, was already in position and waiting on the other moon. She also knew that other teams had been sent to the four orbital fortresses, but had yet to report in.

“We copy Joker Three. Joker Five?”

“Five here.” Major Corvis of the Raptor
Hephaestus
answered.

“You and Joker Three are ‘go fish’. Queen’s Bishop to Queen's Knight’s three.”

The battle code, worked out by the operations section for this operation, told Cindy to begin her attack on the moon base she had been assigned. It also told her that ‘Queen’s Bishop’, in this case,
Star Dancer
, was moving into position between the two moons. The other ships had already been deployed around the system to handle any other surprises the rebels might have.

“Joker Three, copy.” She answered, then switched to the intercom. “Okay people, we’re inbound. Get ready. ETA to drop point; three-zero seconds.”

For this mission, Lissa would be alone aboard
Damocles
and would set down two kilometers away from the command center. After setting down, she would set the automatic defenses and begin her own assault against the base computer system.

Cindy and Shannon would hike to a maintenance hatch near the missile command center, while Jerry and Sasha disabled the small hanger facility. The two groups were to wait for Lissa to gain control of the base computer system before breeching the base.

Lissa reached her landing point, activated the automatic defenses and then leaned back in her chair. Closing her eyes, she pulled her consciousness into her core nestled in the heart of the
Damocles’
main computer system. There she simply entered the moon base facility main computer and took control.

The computer system was quite a bit larger than Lissa had expected. She discovered that the computer was also responsible for the military prison thirty kilometers away across the airless surface. She also discovered that the two facilities where connected by an underground, high speed tram, so workers and maintenance personnel could safely move between the two. This increased size took her a few extra minutes to gain control of. The computer fought back, but not much. She was an AI after all, and the base computer system wasn’t.

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S
everal kilometers away, a guard that had been alerted to watch for anything unusual near the base, noticed that part of a hill that had always been on the scanners was missing. He isolated then zoomed in on it. He discovered it was a strange distortion of some kind. He didn’t know if this was the ‘unusual’ he had been told to look for, but he didn’t want to take the chance and get stuffed out an airlock. Commander Tiel had been a vicious bastard before he was convicted of killing his own squad. The guard had seen firsthand evidence that the man hadn’t changed at all.

“Commander, this is post four. I have something strange on the scanner over near the base,” the guard said over the comm.

“Post four, do you think you can be a bit more specific? ‘Strange’ doesn’t help me very much,” came the terse reply.

“Well, not really, Sir. It’s showing up as a distortion on one of the hill tops. It wasn’t there a minute ago,” the guard replied. "You told me to report anything unusual and this qualifies."

“We see it down here now. We’ll send a team out to check it out. Good work, post four. Keep an eye on it; if there is any movement around it, let us know,” Tiel replied and closed the channel

“Yes Sir! Asshole-Sir,” the guard mumbled and continued his watch.

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“A
dmiral Tomiakin, this is Commander Tiel at the missile base. We've detected something near the base. I’ve sent a team to investigate.”

The military leader of the rebels looked confused for a moment. “Hmm, What would they be doing setting on the surface? They have no ground troops. Wait a minute! I bet it’s a Raptor! Have you seen any movement?”

“No Sir, as far as we can tell, it’s just sitting there. No movement yet. What’s a Raptor?”

“Never mind that now, it’s imperative you blow that thing up as fast as you can.”

“Yes Sir. I’ll relay that to the team I’ve sent. I’d use a missile, but unfortunately, it’s sitting right on top of the tunnel.”

“Actually that’s good, because a missile launch could be detected. We don’t want them to know we are aware that they are here yet."

Commander Tiel frowned, “What about our pilots? Should we at least put them on standby?”

“Yes, get them to their ready rooms. If the Raptor team hasn’t moved yet, then the rest of their forces are still moving in.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Tomiakin out.”

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L
issa gained control of the computer system just as the alert signal was sent out to the base. She acknowledged the signal as if she were the computer. However inside the base, no such alert was given. Lissa also discovered the truth about the facilities.

Lissa called Cindy, “Joker Three-One to Joker Three Actual, abort mission and return. We are compromised.”

“Fuck me! What’s your status, three-one?”

“I have a lunar crawler advancing on my position from the direction of the prison. However, the computer system was issued an order to bring the base to full alert. It seems to me that someone should be calling back to verify the order. I am currently searching the base records to see who is supposed to be on duty so I can imitate them. I also found out that there are no civilians or standard Talosian military personnel on that base.”

“So the question becomes, where did they take the people from this base?” Cindy asked.

“The base is under the control of military prisoners from the prison. All regular personnel have been taken to the prison and locked up. In fact, there are only prisoners in the base at present.”

The pause told Lissa that her commander was thinking.

“Fuck me.” Cindy said again. “You better tell Dealer that they know we’re here. We’re on our way back. Can you handle that crawler?”

Lissa chuckled, “No problem, its computer controlled and still seventeen kilometers away. They will have an equipment malfunction in a few more kilometers. It should be a long walk back to the prison.”

“Good, three-three and three-four, did you copy that?” Cindy asked.

“Da, we are also on our way back,” Sasha replied.