Log of the Huricane
This is the same from the previous post, with some revision.
“Gently”, Brian murmured to himself as he watched Thunder touch nose down onto the building sized asteroid. Brian , strapped into Lightning, was supervising docking Thunder to an asteroid in a very active asteroid belt. Above their heads and all around asteroids mashed together in a slow infinite mosh pit. Brian allowed himself a second to look up at the spinning rocks, then put his mind back to his work. “Don’t think about the rocks, Swift will handle them”, Brian worried to himself
Swift darted around the asteroid belt in Rain, placing careful shots to direct asteroids away from his brothers’ delicate work. The asteroids really didn’t move fast, but each one had inertia enough to crush Thunder flat.
“Alright, get him fixed to the anchors with the explosive bolts”, Brian ordered. A dozen little repair bots of all shapes and sizes jumped to work. They carefully slid long fat bolts into matching holes in the anchor points on the asteroid, and turned them until tight. Other robots tugged thin heat shielded cables and plugged them into sockets in the heads of the fat bolts. Then they all raced to get the cables plugged into secret openings in Thunder.
A more humanoid droid backed up from the work, nodding to the other droids. Then it looked up at Brian, in his spherical glass cockpit, and gave him a thumbs’ up.
“All clear”, Brian said out loud more for Andrew, “Try it out and see if it’ll move with you”
Andrew eased the controls a little. Thunder’s Starboard engine flared up, groaning with the added mass. Slowly the coordinates on Andrew’s nav display started changing. Success! “It’s working”
“Good, George let’s go”, Brian’s fingers rattled across the controls for the droids to return. The little robots leapt and climbed about Thunder and Lightning. Each droid was trying to find its place to tuck away. A pair of long legged spider droids danced along Lightings wing to long thin flaps that opened. In one movement, the spider droids folded, fell, and fit into the open slots like old cassette tapes. A little domed robot with a dozen legs under his shell found his crater like port and locked right in. Two gargoyle looking droids jumped into space, using tiny jets at the end of their angelic wings to hang in 0g. Swift swung Rain down close and these two droids latched on. They folded their wings over themselves and fit in close to the hull until they just looked like a pair of fuel pods.
Swift looked across his board and saw that all the droids were packed up. “Alright, good. Let’s go.”
“Way ahead of you”, Brian interrupted. “Andrew, I’ll feed you your nav data” He worked Lightning up, over, and in front of the captured asteroid..
“Roger that”, Andrew throttled for a little more power toward the first waypoint.
Swift finished, “Right, keep close and watch for rogues.”
The three ships fell into formation and made their way carefully out of the asteroid belt. Not long after they’d cleared the belt the com screen came to life with a prerecorded mission briefing.
“Excellent work Hurricane” The face on the screen recited. “I know you have questions about this strange assignment, but you have done well. Let me answer your questions by giving you your next assignment. Argosy Prime is the second planet of the 6 planet system Argosy. It is the only hospitable planet, but its neighbor Argosy 3 is a candidate for colonization. The first step of this colonization project has been the establishment of large mines to generate the resources necessary. The Argosians do not trust robots. The mines are massive complexes beneath L-class bio domes. They use manual labor, usually from convicts, to guide the drills and pumps.”
“So where do we come in”, Andrew spoke back to the recording. As if they were listening, the recording responded.
“What the Argosian public does not know is that the three rival companies who run the mines all have secret laboratories in the unused mine tunnels. One of these labs, operated by the King company is about to produce a weapon ‘M’ that will destroy the entire Argosian race. Your mission is to collect a sample of this weapon so that an antidote can be developed before it escapes”
“Uh, escapes”, Swift asked his brothers over the com. A com windows of Brian’s face appeared on the canopy display, shrugging”
The mission briefing continued, “The target are small creatures called mice. You may be familiar. A similar species exists on your home planet. Like your home planet, these barbaric people use the mice as test beds for bio experiments. You need to retrieve one.”
“Escapes???” Swift asked the screen
“Now the laboratory will be under heavy guard. This race has not yet met alien life forms, but they know we are out here. They are likely to take a defensive military position of ‘shoot first’. You will use Thunder as a meteorite, hitting within range of the complex. We have calculated an exact target that will cause an atmosphere breach. Swift should then infiltrate through this breach, to the lab. Swift, please take your droids. We recommend placing Brian in Thunder, and deploying Andrew and Swift onto the meteorite with crash webbing. Andrew and Brian should then begin an assault on the Bio dome while Swift infiltrates. Andrew, Brian: You will breach the dome, and place disabling shots into the power plant.”
“Uh, what about the escaping rodents?” Swift asked the screen again. It ignored him and continued.
“We expect the initial strike to cause a partial evacuation. Andrew and Brian’s efforts should cause a complete evacuation. When the power plant goes down, a secret backup power plant will come online within minutes. Since the system has never been tested, most supervisors will fumble their procedures, offering an easy security hole.”
At this point the recording paused, as if to let the boys absorb the information. The main computer would be digesting the mission data for load out and course about now. The recording took a grim face and continued.
“Hurricane. You have permission to use lethal force. You do not have to limit political or physical damage. You may plan your own exit strategy. The objective of this mission is not to save these lives. It is to save their race. We have extrapolated all possible outcomes of any mistakes you could make. The result is the same. If you do not retrieve the mouse alive, this race will destroy itself. Good luck”
The recording blinked off. Course correction data flooded the canopy displays. Three boys sat for a moment puzzling over the mission.
“Well”, Swift started, “Guess now is your chance to unload some rage.” The brothers would know he was talking mostly to Andrew.
Brian chuckled in agreement.
“I was wondering about the new mini guns. I can’t wait to try them out.” Andrew finished with a chuckle.
“Brian, activate that warp bubble”, Swift tapped in the final commands to lock his autopilot into formation.
“Right” Brian swept the armatures and screens out of his field of view and pulled down a new custom control screen. He flipped up a retro styled button cover and pressed the comically appropriate red button beneath.
A missile dropped from Lighting’s wing and shot out in front of the Hurricane. It split into a dozen tethered shards that spiraled outward. The missile core continued forward creating a cone. Hurricane slipped right in. The shards came together behind Hurricane and as they met, the ship, asteroid and all, disappeared into space.
Lieutenant Germaine stroked his beard as he watched the meteor track across a primitive red hued holographic display. Some tech in the background was rattling off a report of projected damage.
“…1 in 50 chance that with no change in course, assuming iron core, it breaches sector 6…”
Germaine tapped a control to rotate the view. Then he zoomed and panned until he could see Argosy 5.
“When did the meteor appear on our scopes?” he asked casually. Another lieutenant across the room watched with casual disregard.
“We believe Argosy 5 masked it’s entry into the system” another sideline tech rattled off.
“I know what you’re thinking”, the other lieutenant stepped up into the light. He tapped the hologram controls to focus on Argosy 5 and the Meteor. “We should have seen it right here”, he waved a long finger through the hologram. It shimmered and distorted where his hand passed through.
“Could it be Tricourse?” Germaine asked casually.
“More likely Nergy. Tricourse doesn’t have the cloaking technology to evade our scanners”
“Nergy doesn’t have the funding for a deep space weapon like that” Germaine scratched his beard again.
“A partnership”, a tech offered. The officers should have punished the tech for being disrespectful, but at the moment the same thought was going through their heads.
A notation under the Holographic of the meteor displayed the coordinates in space and the rapidly decreasing time until impact.
A scientist dressed as a geothermal specialist led an assistant from the surface geology lab into the mine. They took a tram for miles through the darkness following a dim lane of small orange lights. A white sign appeared out of the darkness marking a service elevator. They stopped and exited the tram.
The assistant started to sweat. She knew she’d be going into the mine, but she was realizing now that escape would be impossible. If they figured out that she was a spy then she’d be dead. Still it was too late she reminded herself silently that she’d accepted this fate when she had accepted the mission, and entered the service elevator with everyone else.
“You look nervous”, the scientist remarked casually.
“Closter phobia I think” she lied
“The mine does that to people. We have something that can help if you need”, the scientist produced a tiny metallic blister from her pocket.
“I think I’ll be alright” the assistant took some much needed deep breaths, secretly celebrating the success of an on the spot cover story.
The scientist punched a big industrial button to activate the elevator. It lurched and swung causing both of them to brace against the railing. Then with a steady hum it started down into the darkness of the mine shaft.
The invisible figure standing on the elevator with them laughed inside his anti sound mask. The decoy was a natural. This should be a piece of cake.
“Should we make the call?” the lieutenant asked. Germaine was in charge, it was his decision. He scratched his beard.
“Yes” he said at last “But I think we should play dumb. Evacuate sector 6 early. Claim system malfunction. Send a couple security teams down there in full suits. I think we can pull this whole thing off quietly.”
“But there is humiliation in announcing it? We could get military support if they think the other companies are trying to invade” the Lieutenant offered his input.
“I think the humiliation will be worse when our enemies discover that they spent all that money for nothing, and I don’t think we’ll need military assistance. Anything that survives that impact is already going to be pretty shaken”
“True” the lieutenant turned to face the rest of the control room. “Communications officer, relay a message to the news media announcing the meteor. Spin it as a catastrophe. Inflate some loss numbers or whatever.” \
Germaine nodded approval. It was good.
The comm. Officer whirled around and started typing out the press release.
Nearly an hour since they’d stepped onto the elevator it came to a sudden halt. The assistant silently thanked the gods for the interruption to the scientist’s impromptu lecture on the effects of rapid acceleration on viral structures. Here, there was a door in the side of the shaft, and a single dim light. They exited through this door and down a steep stair. Suddenly they were looking at a section of a particle accelerator. The accelerator corridor extended off forever in each direction.
“This way” the scientist led on. She picked up her lecture exactly where she’d left off, and the assistant could only nod and listen.
They followed a tunnel that branched off from the accelerator. The entire way was gentle sloping ramps turning at tiny landings. They made what seemed like the hundredth turn, only to end at a very plain steel door.
“Now, I’ve brought you down here because I felt you had a genuine passion for our work. This is the opportunity of a lifetime; I want to warn you not to blow it”
“I won’t” the assistant lied again.
“Good” The scientist turned and opened the door. She led the assistant through and shut the steel door tight. “Because this is where you will live for the next 12 months”
Before the assistant, and the invisible man behind her, was a small reception desk with a security officer. To the left, above a hallway, was a sign that said “dormitories”. To the right was another hallway with a sign labeled “Offices”. The assistant’s fears were true, there would be no escape.
The scientist led the assistant and their unknown stalker down the office hall. They passed through 3 security checkpoints, one armed with automated guns, and entered into the laboratory cavern a thousand meters across. Its floor was littered with various laboratory work spaces. High above the lighting was the glass ceiling of a bio dome. The assistant spotted cryogenic tanks, machine shops, giant presses, an aquarium large enough for a small whale, and there, on the far side, was what looked like a giant pet shop from hell. Yes, that’s where the target would be. All she had to do was steal a mouse. No problem. What she didn’t know was the invisible man was already on his way there.
“Are we there yet?” Andrew joked over the comm.
“no”, Brian said.
“are we there yet?” Swift joked over the comm.
“No”, Brian said.
“are we there yet?” Andrew joked over the comm.
“I already told you, no”, Brian sounded annoyed.
Swift stood on the asteroid strapped into crash webbing against the outer hull of Thunder. On the other side, Andrew was in nearly the same pose. Tight body personal energy shields shimmered green where the webbing held them. Inertial dampers built into the shielding units would absorb the impact. It’s just a space thing. Everything space worthy has got inertial dampers. You’d get crushed without them.
Swift wore the gargoyle droids on either side of his tiny survival pack like a comic book rocket pack. Even the droids little sensory antennae, which poked from the very tip of the pods, fit the look. Swift was completely blacked out with paint so that even without optical camouflage he disappeared into shadows. An optical camouflage unit was built into his shield module, but just in case he wanted to be blacked.
Andrew was strapped between two mini guns so massive it looked as if even he couldn’t even hold one. The guns were pintle mounted to a massive ammo pack, making him a walking arsenal. Backed by Thunders massive plasma cannons he’d be unstoppable.
“So are we there yet” Swift asked. Brian just growled over the com.
“Sir, the meteor is due to strike in 15 minutes. The surface is already broadcasting the event. I’ve taken the liberty to provide edited real time footage”, the communications officer reported. Germaine scratched his beard as he watched the red star out his window. The other lieutenant handed him a pair of binoculars. With them the red dot looked like a fiery comet.
“Projected damage” he asked absently.
“98% chance that it breaches sector 6. Atmospheric loss will be minor. No casualties expected”
“Send a team of idiots into sector 6. I want some good real casualty pictures.”
“Eye sir”
The other lieutenant grinned wide. “Germaine, my friend, you can be quite the evil bastard.
The invisible man slipped easily past the guards and into the mouse room. He skimmed quickly through cage labels for all the running experiments. Down to “M”. Just “M”. 5 mice lounged about the cage. Silently he opened the cage and slipped each mouse into a waiting pocket. That was as easy as picking flowers. He closed the cage and slipped away. Soon he would be following some unknowing scientist back to the surface.
Then the ground shook.
As the dust was settling, Swift heard klaxons. They’d crashed 50 feet into the ground, and exactly as the mission briefing had said, Swift was facing an open corridor where armed soldiers stood in full suits waiting.
“Shit.”
Swift brought up his rifle and grasped for the release to the crash webbing. The release jammed.
“Shit.”
The soldiers immediately figured out the scene and raised their weapons.
“Halt, drop your weapon”, the guards called out.
Andrew stepped around the bulk of Thunder and opened up with the miniguns. The soldiers exploded under the force of the rounds ripping through their suits. Their contents sprayed the walls, leaving not even boots where the soldiers had been standing.
“Thanks”
“No problem”
Swift popped his webbing and dashed off down the corridor.
Andrew turned around and watched as the fat bolts exploded. Thunder popped up, transformed and somersaulted to standing with guns ready.
“Let’s do this”, Brian cackled.
The scientist and the assistant nearly fell over when the ground shook.
“Probably some blasting” the scientist was saying. It didn’t make sense since the lab would have extremely delicate equipment, but the assistant pretended it did.
“Let me go check something. Stay here.” The scientist dashed off. Perfect!
The assistant waited until no one would notice and headed, directly toward the animals.
Thunder stomped up out of the crater, and the news crew on hand shit them selves. The last thing their camera caught was a meter wide ball of burning green plasma before it struck them. The plasma incinerated their suits, their flesh, and everything.
In the control room Germaine looked in shock at the transmission replay. The other lieutenant had traded his casual stance for raw panic. “That ain’t Kings”
Guided by a tiny outline map in the upper right hand corner of his helmet display, Swift ripped open the metal cover to a narrow service tunnel. In the dim glow of his helmet lights electrical conduits and heavy pipes ran along the wall into the darkness. Swift ran.
Two light military assault vehicles raced around the side of the dome. The troops onboard hadn’t even been briefed properly. They knew there was a threat and that they were to neutralize it. They raced as fast as the vehicles could go, hopping that the threat was bunk.
The two vehicles rounded a bend in the service road and suddenly the threat came into view. Crossing the rocky planet surface was a giant metal beast running on two bulky legs, and a large man with larger guns. The gunner of the first vehicle swore as he sighted down the long barrel of his mounted rail gun. The vehicles screeched to a halt and troops poured out to grab cover in the landscape.
The first vehicle got a shot off. It glanced off the beast with a green shimmer. Then the giant metal beast turned. It pointed its giant fist and a ball of horrible green was suddenly upon them. It splashed liquid heat, destroying everything.
In the control room Germaine signed evacuation orders.
Following his map, Swift stopped in the dark. To his left there was no wall, only darkness. He looked down into a dark shaft. Somewhere down there was a dim light. Out in the shaft a cable of some kind creaked. Swift could just barely make out the reflection of his helmet lights on the cable. “Must be an elevator.” Without hesitation, Swift leapt out into the darkness. His gloved hand caught the cable. The two droids on his back fanned out their wings so their little blue jets could slow his fall.
“Tank on the right. Let him target me”, Brian spoke absent mindedly while he worked the controls. In Andrews hands Thunder was a powerful beast capable of punching through outer hulls. In Brian’s hands it became just a new office for the same job of managing the battlefield. The mecha walked on autopilot as Brian meticulously tracked and plotted for individual targets.
Andrew, on the other hand, had a pair of the biggest guns ever given to man, and he was grinning like an idiot with the power of a god. In his helmet he heard Brian and saw the waypoints and outlined targets. As soon as a soldier would emerge, they’d disappear in a spray of gore. The mini guns thundered and Andrew thought of the mine workers in horrible conditions deep below. Those mine workers who would rather die than lift another stone. People, no matter what race, that were suffering chronic pains, and blunt psychological abuse. Mine workers like Andrew used to be. Andrew grinned wide and the mini guns just kept spinning.
Swift landed silently on a ledge beneath a single industrial light fixture. He opened a heavy steel door and found a particle accelerator.
“Nice”
Sprinting easily, he passed ring after ring of giant magnets. Everything was eerie quiet. The only sound was his toes pulling at the concrete.
The tank fired. As fast as the shell appeared to Brian as a target, his counter fire shot it out of the air. The result was a huge cloud of smoke and powdered debris.
“Use the smoke screen”, Brian ordered. The tank couldn’t target through dust like that, but Brian could. He turned to face the tank, and lined up his biggest solid round gun.
‘Thooomp’
The biggest, heaviest shell in the hurricane arsenal slid almost slowly out of the barrel. Slow enough that an observer would have wondered why tt was painted black, with a big white grin on it.
Andrew knew the sound of that gun. He let off the triggers and looked up to see his hand painted shell. This was going to be a big boom. Andrew planted his feet and leaned toward the target.
Boom.
The tank disappeared in a cloud of mushroomed shrapnel. The cloud jumped high in the air, hung then fell in a shockwave of dust and debris. Andrew and Thunder both raised an arm to shield themselves from it.
The shockwave rattled the dome causing an eerie resonance hum. Dust and debris showered Andrew and Thunder. For a brief second there was silence. Brian broke it.
“Duck”
Both boys started laughing maniacally. There might have been tanks behind the target but when the dust cleared it looked like splashes of hot metal, blocking the service road.
Swift entered a stairwell and ran down two flights. There in the wall, cleverly disguised was another service hatch. Swifts droids jumped down and cut the door very cleanly off its hinges. Then they jumped back up into place on Swifts backpack.
“Nice work”, he whispered as he ducked into the narrow tunnel. He pulled the door shut behind him and again he was in darkness. The map said 30 feet, the straight down. If Swift hadn’t had a light, he’d have missed it. The tunnel very suddenly turned straight down.
“Nice and easy now”, Swift whispered to the droids as he lowered himself into the hole. He could hold the walls on either side, so climbing was possible. As soon as he was down in the hole, preparing to freefall with the aid of the droids, he spotted the ladder. It was recessed into the wall under the service tunnel.
“Who designed this crap?” He asked the droids rhetorically. They shrugged. It is very rare in the galaxy to find a droid who shrugs. It’s just not a thing for an AI to do. Most droids don’t understand humor. Swift allowed himself to chuckle. Down the hole he went.
On the far side of the dome shuttles were loading as fast as they could. Sure the facility had been built with an evacuation plan. It looked great on paper. The truth was they never meant to evacuate. It was all lies to entertain soft hearted politicians. Germaine laughed to himself watching the shuttles on his various monitors. The other lieutenant looked up from the tactical forecast on the hologram display.
“Now is hardly the time for laughter. That tank was supposed to be unstoppable.”
Germaine scratched his beard, looking over a replay of the shell striking the tanks forward armor. The shell embedded itself neatly into the hull, causing the 4 inch thick armor to ripple like pond water. Then the screen went yellow, orange, and then red. When the dust settled there was no tank. Just a crater, and two badly damaged tanks behind.
“Germaine, what are we going to do?” The lieutenant asked. All the stress and panic was plain in his features.
“Look, we’ve lost. This is clearly alien. It is clearly more powerful than us, and there is nothing we can do. Send your troops to slow it down, and we’ll evacuate. At the very least we have this data” Germaine gestured at the monitors. “We can let the boys on Prime scratch their heads.
“What about the…” The lieutenant gestured at the floor.
Germaine showed no fear for what the technicians around him did or did not know. “The workers will be a loss. Blame the Aliens. You and I will stay until the end. If the aliens get far enough down, we will activate the self destruct, burying the lab. The scientists will be fine for a few weeks. We can dig them out during the government funded cleanup.”
The lieutenant looked horrified. His left hand casually dialed for the headcount of the entire facility, including the top secret staff. He glanced at the numbers and then up at Germaine. “You can’t be serious”
Germaine gave a firm nod.
“Permission to step out, sir”, the Lieutenant was thinking of a stiff drink.
“Granted” Germaine watched the younger lieutenant turn and race out. “This is war” Germaine absently told a nearby technician. The technician nodded while maintaining focus on his work.
Following an elaborate maze of dark service tunnels Swift dropped through a vent onto the steel grating of a catwalk high above an underground bio dome. The map indicated the target to be an area of small cages directly below him. Looking down, Swift could see a girl entering the cage area.
The assistant flashed her badge at a security guard and spun a story about retrieving an animal for some doctor whose name she’d picked up off a door nameplate in a hallway. The security guard didn’t hesitate to let her stroll through.
“M”, she whispered to herself as she faced the mouse cages. Hundreds of mice crowded to the front of their cages to watch her. Mice are curious creatures. She remembered her grandmother telling her long ago that they are opportunists and that they could be used to predict horrible events. She glanced over the hundred beady little eyes watching her every move.
“M”, she repeated following the column with her finger.
“Bingo”, she stopped at the label, and realized it was the only empty cage. All the mice started squeaking.
“That can’t be good”, she glanced around. Maybe they were being exorcized or tested or something.
A gargoyle droid with a sensor tipped finger on the glass started relaying the sounds he could hear over the comm. Swifts embedded translator picked up a hundred tiny voices all saying the same thing: ‘they disappeared’
The girl looked very confused. She turned back to the guards.
“Has anyone been in to remove mice today?”
“Uh, no ma’am”, the guard looked over a clip board. He flipped up the page, and his face lit up. “The vet was in yesterday evening. Sometimes they separate out sick mice. You know, so the other’s don’t get infected” he was trying to flirt, but the assistant didn’t have time.
“Thank you, where do they put them”, she gestured. The guard walked over to the cages and picked out one at the bottom with a handwritten label.
“Looks like only one: ‘M’”
“That’s it, I’ll take him”, she jumped in to remove the sleeping mouse from the cage. She hastily dropped him into a carrier, nabbed a packet of mouse food and wheeled to leave.
“Whoa, no need to rush”, the guard tried to buy himself some time.
“The doctor is angry already”, she lied easily, and dashed off.
The droid pointed at the girl running through the maze of laboratory spaces.
“Are you sure” swift asked the droid. It put its hands no its servo hips in offense and nodded.
“Ok, just making sure”, Swift held his hands up. He gestured at his back, and the droids leapt up into place.
“Give me a boost” he said as he jumped over the railing toward the dome. The droids flared their wings and little jets. Swift landed on the dome surface, right into a hard sprint.
The assistant ducked around a corner, where she thought she’d disappear. She removed the mouse from its carrier and tucked it into a secret pocket in the hem of her lab coat. Then she straightened herself and made for the exit.
Swift dove into a dark service shaft. The updated map showed the 90 degree right and then a vent down.
The guards at the first security door didn’t bat an eye at the assistant. The guards at the second door question her.
“I forgot my purse in the Restroom earlier today” she told them.
“Oh, no problem”, the guards smiled. That’s the amazing truth of it. Security goes to hell when you use a pretty girl to smuggle past men.
As the door closed, she rounded a corner and smacked headfirst into a man in black leather.
“Excuse me” The man said. Something didn’t look right about him.
“I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry”
“I’ll say”, the man laughed. She pushed passed him, but in the back of her brain something didn’t seem right. She pushed into the nearest rest room to validate her story. Instinctively she started washing her hands. She thought she looked worried in the mirror. “They can’t see that”, she told herself. The face of the man haunted her thoughts. Something wasn’t right. The bone structure was off. Maybe the eyes weren’t right. ‘He just didn’t look natural. Like he was an alien.’ She rinsed her hands quickly.
“That’s crazy” she said out loud as she a towel. There wasn’t one. The restroom was out. ‘Why was he in a space suit like that this deep down?’ She grabbed the hem of her lab coat to dry her hands and the mouse pocket was missing. The entire corner, pocket and all, had been cut right off the coat.
One of the gargoyle droids was standing on the ground right behind where the woman had been standing. It held a white pouch of cloth that looked suspiciously like the corner of a labcoat. He handed it up to Swift, who zipped it open, identified the mouse, and zipped it shut.
“That was easy”, he remarked to the droids. The Droid made a light mechanical laugh. The other droid, clinging to the ceiling, floated down and joined the laughter.
“Alright, let’s go”, Swift gestured at his pack. The droids leapt right up and into position. Then Swift turned and strolled down the hall.
The assistant panicked. She ran from the restroom and right into the chest of the same man.
Swift looked down at the bewildered girl.
The assistant stared a second, and then turned to yell. “Security! Security! There’s a spy!” When she turned back the man was gone.
“Where’d he go?” She stood there stupidly. Two guards ran around the corner, guns in hand.
Swift, invisible, smiled from behind them. He walked away.
At the dome wall Andrew and Brian were forced to stop and think. Andrew fired a few rounds into it to test, but his caliber was too small for the job. Brian, skimming materials data from the scanners, decided that plasma would be a bad idea. He dialed for the repair droids.
A dozen little droids of all shapes and sized appeared form every nook and fold of Thunders hull. They ran eagerly to the glass wall, each mentally taking responsibility for part of the project: ‘make a door’.
“This could take a second”, Brian said, turning Thunder to cover the left. Andrew turned to cover the right.
“What the hell is going on”, a tiny squeak from within Swifts pockets was talking to itself.
Swift looked at the droids who looked at him with equal confusion.
“Damn those Agosians. What have they done to me now?” the squeaking continued. Swift opened the pocket to look down at the mouse. The mouse looked back up at him. Beady eyes, trying to look as innocent as possible.
“Shut up, and sit tight”, Swift told the mouse. It froze.
“You can understand me?”
“Yes, shut up”
“None of these monkeys understand us.”
“Shut up.
“How can you understand me?”
Swift zipped the pocket shut. No one said anything about intelligent mice. No one said anything about other spies. No one said anything about…
“Escaped”, Swift opened the pocket and looked back at the mouse. “How many mice were in your cage”
“Uh, 6 including me”
“Where’d they go”
“An invisible man took them”
“an invisible man”
“Well the cage opened exactly like when the monkeys open it. The other mice said they felt a hand around them. We believe it was an invisible man”
“You believe”
“Me and the other mice”
“Your intelligent?”
“You’re the monkey talking to me”
Swift zipped the pocket shut again. Now it all made sense. They couldn’t have arrived before the escaped mouse, because before the mouse escaped, there was no need for Hurricane. Swift unzipped the pocket again.
“Look, mouse, I’m not an Argosian”
“Yeah, you don’t smell like one”
“I’m a mercenary. I was sent here to retrieve you”
“You have me”
Swift zipped the pocket shut. Who knew conversations with mice were more frustrating than trying to kill mice?
The Droids signaled all clear. 3 full squads of soldiers were entrenched and ready on the other side. A pair of tanks sat a half click inside the dome, already locked on. The droids found their sockets and locked back in.
“Ready”, Andrew asked. Brian brought Thunder’s massive cannons to bear, ready on the trigger. For once, he was looking down the sites himself instead of letting Thunder auto target.
Andrew put a boot against the glass and gave it a good shove. It wobbled. He pushed again. It wobbled more. Andrew Aimed a cannon at the top of the door and fired right as he pushed again. The 2 foot slab of glass fell out of the dome wall and slammed into the dirt inside. Andrew dodged aside as a thousand machine guns opened up on Thunder.
Thunder’s shields shimmered green, and Brian pulled the trigger. Horrible green plasma paved through the soldiers and splashed against the tanks. Andrew stepped into the scattering ranks and opened up.
Swift rocketed up through the elevator shaft. The map seemed to indicate that it would be better to go to the top of the shaft.
“Where are we going?” Swifts translator could just barely make out the tiny squeaks.
“Space” Swift paused for a second. “Into the dark sky”
“I’ve never seen the dark sky”
“You’ll get to see plenty of it”
“Momma taught about it. Said it was big and We were small.”
“You are small”
“But you came from the big sky for me”
“Yeah”, Swift thought he saw a reflection above him.
“Then I’m pretty big.”
Swift slowed and grabbed onto a beam. Above him it looked like there was a service hatch, probably leading outside.
Andrew and Brian mowed down bunkered troops easily. This primitive race didn’t have anything that could penetrate the tight energy shielding. Thunders inertial dampers absorbed the bulk of the heavy munitions. They were actually starting to get bored.
“Brian, I think it’s time to unload the other big shell. Where’s that power plant, and where is Swift?” Andrew was standing in the cover of Thunder while droids fit a fresh munitions cartridge into his pack.
“I don’t know about Swift, but that building over on the far side with all the glass domes should be the power plant”
“Can you hit it from here?”
“Yeah, but I can’t guarantee”
“Well fire a plasma round ahead of it and let’s ‘GTFO’” The droids locked Andrews mini guns and gave him the thumbs up. With a grin Andrew jumped out from cover to lay down more fire.
“I guess” Brian did the quick math on firing the shell behind the slower moving plasma.
“Just do it. I’m getting sick of this rock”
The green confirmation numbers crossed Brian’s display. It was feasible. “Alright” Brian said. He worked Thunder into a braced right hand shooting stance. The heavy cannon aimed from his shoulder mount. The plasma aimed from the barrel in his knuckle housing.
‘Thummmmm’
The plasma blasts absorb sound as they travel, like a void of silence, but they leave the solid guide rings on the barrel humming after every shot.
1.524 long seconds later Andrew looked up to see the heavy cannon fire.
“Thoomp”
The horrible green plasma blast lit up the entire inside surface of the dome, inciting fear in the remaining troops. It splashed into the concrete and glass of the power plant, but made very little actual penetration. Just as the concrete was fizzling, the heavy shell hit. It actually buried itself into the concrete as if the concrete was soft and spongy like cake. Then the ‘cake’ splattered the inside surface of that entire half of the dome. Gooey liquid concrete, still glowing green, dripped from the high surface.
“What the bloody hell did you two do!” Swift exclaimed over the comm. Andrew and Brian just started laughing. Their laughter was punctuated by the secondary explosion. Building sized chunk of concrete and reactor bits shot straight up and bounced off the bio dome ceiling. The entire dome resonated so loud that Brian covered his ears inside of Thunder.
“NOW YOU DONE IT!”, Swift yelled over the comm. Brian tracked a signature flying toward them under invisibility.
“WHAT I CAN”T HEAR YOU? I’M KINDA DEAF!” Andrew yelled back. Brian turned down his comm. speaker, and focused some cover fire for the invisible dot.
“WHAT WAS THAT?” Swift Yelled, more for fun.
Brian tapped in for text display across his brother’s helmets, “let’s get out of here”
“ROGER THAT” Andrew yelled back.
Germaine pulled himself back up and looked around the dark command center. “Where are the backups!” he yelled. No good, the techs were pretty badly shaken up. Some were vomiting. A few didn’t get up. Germaine stumbled over to the body of the other lieutenant, who’d been knocked unconscious. He ripped the Lieutenants key from around his neck and made for a panel on the back wall.
“No” a helpless nauseous technician gurgled pathetically at him. He kicked the tech and kept going.
Germaine put his fist through the glass over the panel, and flipped up the power switches. He jammed both keys into their respective holes and turned, in unison.
“45 seconds should do it”, he mumbled, thinking of the time it would take him to reach the private escape pod in his office. He wanted to keep the time short enough to get the aliens, but long enough for his escape. He punched in the numbers and hit confirm.
Swift deactivated his invisibility just as he reached Thunder. Sprinting he led the boys back toward the hole they’d cut to get in.
Germaine grasped both keys in unison and completed the turn. Then he pulled them out. One button left. At the bottom of the panel he broke the cover off two buttons. One was red, for cancel. That was his last chance. The other was green for go. Germaine mashed the green button without hesitation.
He turned to run down the short hall to his office, and realized he was screwed. He could see straight down the hall and it wasn’t there. The ceiling had caved in.
Outside of the dome, troops actually ran when they saw Thunder. Brian activated the fists and scooped Swift and Andrew up. At a full sprint Thunder leapt into the air. The massive thrusters on his back lit, and suddenly they were getting close to the speed of sound.
Behind them the dome filled with fire.
The Huricane made it out of the system so fast that scientists from Argosy Prime couldn’t track it. A government funded clean up crew found a laboratory of dead mice. These included a project ‘Em’. Those workers went home to their families with no idea that they were sick. 6 months later the population was reduced to a few randomly immune cases and a group of colonists on the far side of Argosy 4. 6 months after that, there was a seemingly impossible reactor fail, the colonists opened their arms to a diplomatic party of aliens who handed them the result of 200 years spent studying the reciting of a mouse, lovingly called ‘M’ who’d watched and listened over one and a half years while the Argosians engineered their own doom.
I wish LJ didn't screw up my formatting so bad.
“Gently”, Brian murmured to himself as he watched Thunder touch nose down onto the building sized asteroid. Brian , strapped into Lightning, was supervising docking Thunder to an asteroid in a very active asteroid belt. Above their heads and all around asteroids mashed together in a slow infinite mosh pit. Brian allowed himself a second to look up at the spinning rocks, then put his mind back to his work. “Don’t think about the rocks, Swift will handle them”, Brian worried to himself
Swift darted around the asteroid belt in Rain, placing careful shots to direct asteroids away from his brothers’ delicate work. The asteroids really didn’t move fast, but each one had inertia enough to crush Thunder flat.
“Alright, get him fixed to the anchors with the explosive bolts”, Brian ordered. A dozen little repair bots of all shapes and sizes jumped to work. They carefully slid long fat bolts into matching holes in the anchor points on the asteroid, and turned them until tight. Other robots tugged thin heat shielded cables and plugged them into sockets in the heads of the fat bolts. Then they all raced to get the cables plugged into secret openings in Thunder.
A more humanoid droid backed up from the work, nodding to the other droids. Then it looked up at Brian, in his spherical glass cockpit, and gave him a thumbs’ up.
“All clear”, Brian said out loud more for Andrew, “Try it out and see if it’ll move with you”
Andrew eased the controls a little. Thunder’s Starboard engine flared up, groaning with the added mass. Slowly the coordinates on Andrew’s nav display started changing. Success! “It’s working”
“Good, George let’s go”, Brian’s fingers rattled across the controls for the droids to return. The little robots leapt and climbed about Thunder and Lightning. Each droid was trying to find its place to tuck away. A pair of long legged spider droids danced along Lightings wing to long thin flaps that opened. In one movement, the spider droids folded, fell, and fit into the open slots like old cassette tapes. A little domed robot with a dozen legs under his shell found his crater like port and locked right in. Two gargoyle looking droids jumped into space, using tiny jets at the end of their angelic wings to hang in 0g. Swift swung Rain down close and these two droids latched on. They folded their wings over themselves and fit in close to the hull until they just looked like a pair of fuel pods.
Swift looked across his board and saw that all the droids were packed up. “Alright, good. Let’s go.”
“Way ahead of you”, Brian interrupted. “Andrew, I’ll feed you your nav data” He worked Lightning up, over, and in front of the captured asteroid..
“Roger that”, Andrew throttled for a little more power toward the first waypoint.
Swift finished, “Right, keep close and watch for rogues.”
The three ships fell into formation and made their way carefully out of the asteroid belt. Not long after they’d cleared the belt the com screen came to life with a prerecorded mission briefing.
“Excellent work Hurricane” The face on the screen recited. “I know you have questions about this strange assignment, but you have done well. Let me answer your questions by giving you your next assignment. Argosy Prime is the second planet of the 6 planet system Argosy. It is the only hospitable planet, but its neighbor Argosy 3 is a candidate for colonization. The first step of this colonization project has been the establishment of large mines to generate the resources necessary. The Argosians do not trust robots. The mines are massive complexes beneath L-class bio domes. They use manual labor, usually from convicts, to guide the drills and pumps.”
“So where do we come in”, Andrew spoke back to the recording. As if they were listening, the recording responded.
“What the Argosian public does not know is that the three rival companies who run the mines all have secret laboratories in the unused mine tunnels. One of these labs, operated by the King company is about to produce a weapon ‘M’ that will destroy the entire Argosian race. Your mission is to collect a sample of this weapon so that an antidote can be developed before it escapes”
“Uh, escapes”, Swift asked his brothers over the com. A com windows of Brian’s face appeared on the canopy display, shrugging”
The mission briefing continued, “The target are small creatures called mice. You may be familiar. A similar species exists on your home planet. Like your home planet, these barbaric people use the mice as test beds for bio experiments. You need to retrieve one.”
“Escapes???” Swift asked the screen
“Now the laboratory will be under heavy guard. This race has not yet met alien life forms, but they know we are out here. They are likely to take a defensive military position of ‘shoot first’. You will use Thunder as a meteorite, hitting within range of the complex. We have calculated an exact target that will cause an atmosphere breach. Swift should then infiltrate through this breach, to the lab. Swift, please take your droids. We recommend placing Brian in Thunder, and deploying Andrew and Swift onto the meteorite with crash webbing. Andrew and Brian should then begin an assault on the Bio dome while Swift infiltrates. Andrew, Brian: You will breach the dome, and place disabling shots into the power plant.”
“Uh, what about the escaping rodents?” Swift asked the screen again. It ignored him and continued.
“We expect the initial strike to cause a partial evacuation. Andrew and Brian’s efforts should cause a complete evacuation. When the power plant goes down, a secret backup power plant will come online within minutes. Since the system has never been tested, most supervisors will fumble their procedures, offering an easy security hole.”
At this point the recording paused, as if to let the boys absorb the information. The main computer would be digesting the mission data for load out and course about now. The recording took a grim face and continued.
“Hurricane. You have permission to use lethal force. You do not have to limit political or physical damage. You may plan your own exit strategy. The objective of this mission is not to save these lives. It is to save their race. We have extrapolated all possible outcomes of any mistakes you could make. The result is the same. If you do not retrieve the mouse alive, this race will destroy itself. Good luck”
The recording blinked off. Course correction data flooded the canopy displays. Three boys sat for a moment puzzling over the mission.
“Well”, Swift started, “Guess now is your chance to unload some rage.” The brothers would know he was talking mostly to Andrew.
Brian chuckled in agreement.
“I was wondering about the new mini guns. I can’t wait to try them out.” Andrew finished with a chuckle.
“Brian, activate that warp bubble”, Swift tapped in the final commands to lock his autopilot into formation.
“Right” Brian swept the armatures and screens out of his field of view and pulled down a new custom control screen. He flipped up a retro styled button cover and pressed the comically appropriate red button beneath.
A missile dropped from Lighting’s wing and shot out in front of the Hurricane. It split into a dozen tethered shards that spiraled outward. The missile core continued forward creating a cone. Hurricane slipped right in. The shards came together behind Hurricane and as they met, the ship, asteroid and all, disappeared into space.
Lieutenant Germaine stroked his beard as he watched the meteor track across a primitive red hued holographic display. Some tech in the background was rattling off a report of projected damage.
“…1 in 50 chance that with no change in course, assuming iron core, it breaches sector 6…”
Germaine tapped a control to rotate the view. Then he zoomed and panned until he could see Argosy 5.
“When did the meteor appear on our scopes?” he asked casually. Another lieutenant across the room watched with casual disregard.
“We believe Argosy 5 masked it’s entry into the system” another sideline tech rattled off.
“I know what you’re thinking”, the other lieutenant stepped up into the light. He tapped the hologram controls to focus on Argosy 5 and the Meteor. “We should have seen it right here”, he waved a long finger through the hologram. It shimmered and distorted where his hand passed through.
“Could it be Tricourse?” Germaine asked casually.
“More likely Nergy. Tricourse doesn’t have the cloaking technology to evade our scanners”
“Nergy doesn’t have the funding for a deep space weapon like that” Germaine scratched his beard again.
“A partnership”, a tech offered. The officers should have punished the tech for being disrespectful, but at the moment the same thought was going through their heads.
A notation under the Holographic of the meteor displayed the coordinates in space and the rapidly decreasing time until impact.
A scientist dressed as a geothermal specialist led an assistant from the surface geology lab into the mine. They took a tram for miles through the darkness following a dim lane of small orange lights. A white sign appeared out of the darkness marking a service elevator. They stopped and exited the tram.
The assistant started to sweat. She knew she’d be going into the mine, but she was realizing now that escape would be impossible. If they figured out that she was a spy then she’d be dead. Still it was too late she reminded herself silently that she’d accepted this fate when she had accepted the mission, and entered the service elevator with everyone else.
“You look nervous”, the scientist remarked casually.
“Closter phobia I think” she lied
“The mine does that to people. We have something that can help if you need”, the scientist produced a tiny metallic blister from her pocket.
“I think I’ll be alright” the assistant took some much needed deep breaths, secretly celebrating the success of an on the spot cover story.
The scientist punched a big industrial button to activate the elevator. It lurched and swung causing both of them to brace against the railing. Then with a steady hum it started down into the darkness of the mine shaft.
The invisible figure standing on the elevator with them laughed inside his anti sound mask. The decoy was a natural. This should be a piece of cake.
“Should we make the call?” the lieutenant asked. Germaine was in charge, it was his decision. He scratched his beard.
“Yes” he said at last “But I think we should play dumb. Evacuate sector 6 early. Claim system malfunction. Send a couple security teams down there in full suits. I think we can pull this whole thing off quietly.”
“But there is humiliation in announcing it? We could get military support if they think the other companies are trying to invade” the Lieutenant offered his input.
“I think the humiliation will be worse when our enemies discover that they spent all that money for nothing, and I don’t think we’ll need military assistance. Anything that survives that impact is already going to be pretty shaken”
“True” the lieutenant turned to face the rest of the control room. “Communications officer, relay a message to the news media announcing the meteor. Spin it as a catastrophe. Inflate some loss numbers or whatever.” \
Germaine nodded approval. It was good.
The comm. Officer whirled around and started typing out the press release.
Nearly an hour since they’d stepped onto the elevator it came to a sudden halt. The assistant silently thanked the gods for the interruption to the scientist’s impromptu lecture on the effects of rapid acceleration on viral structures. Here, there was a door in the side of the shaft, and a single dim light. They exited through this door and down a steep stair. Suddenly they were looking at a section of a particle accelerator. The accelerator corridor extended off forever in each direction.
“This way” the scientist led on. She picked up her lecture exactly where she’d left off, and the assistant could only nod and listen.
They followed a tunnel that branched off from the accelerator. The entire way was gentle sloping ramps turning at tiny landings. They made what seemed like the hundredth turn, only to end at a very plain steel door.
“Now, I’ve brought you down here because I felt you had a genuine passion for our work. This is the opportunity of a lifetime; I want to warn you not to blow it”
“I won’t” the assistant lied again.
“Good” The scientist turned and opened the door. She led the assistant through and shut the steel door tight. “Because this is where you will live for the next 12 months”
Before the assistant, and the invisible man behind her, was a small reception desk with a security officer. To the left, above a hallway, was a sign that said “dormitories”. To the right was another hallway with a sign labeled “Offices”. The assistant’s fears were true, there would be no escape.
The scientist led the assistant and their unknown stalker down the office hall. They passed through 3 security checkpoints, one armed with automated guns, and entered into the laboratory cavern a thousand meters across. Its floor was littered with various laboratory work spaces. High above the lighting was the glass ceiling of a bio dome. The assistant spotted cryogenic tanks, machine shops, giant presses, an aquarium large enough for a small whale, and there, on the far side, was what looked like a giant pet shop from hell. Yes, that’s where the target would be. All she had to do was steal a mouse. No problem. What she didn’t know was the invisible man was already on his way there.
“Are we there yet?” Andrew joked over the comm.
“no”, Brian said.
“are we there yet?” Swift joked over the comm.
“No”, Brian said.
“are we there yet?” Andrew joked over the comm.
“I already told you, no”, Brian sounded annoyed.
Swift stood on the asteroid strapped into crash webbing against the outer hull of Thunder. On the other side, Andrew was in nearly the same pose. Tight body personal energy shields shimmered green where the webbing held them. Inertial dampers built into the shielding units would absorb the impact. It’s just a space thing. Everything space worthy has got inertial dampers. You’d get crushed without them.
Swift wore the gargoyle droids on either side of his tiny survival pack like a comic book rocket pack. Even the droids little sensory antennae, which poked from the very tip of the pods, fit the look. Swift was completely blacked out with paint so that even without optical camouflage he disappeared into shadows. An optical camouflage unit was built into his shield module, but just in case he wanted to be blacked.
Andrew was strapped between two mini guns so massive it looked as if even he couldn’t even hold one. The guns were pintle mounted to a massive ammo pack, making him a walking arsenal. Backed by Thunders massive plasma cannons he’d be unstoppable.
“So are we there yet” Swift asked. Brian just growled over the com.
“Sir, the meteor is due to strike in 15 minutes. The surface is already broadcasting the event. I’ve taken the liberty to provide edited real time footage”, the communications officer reported. Germaine scratched his beard as he watched the red star out his window. The other lieutenant handed him a pair of binoculars. With them the red dot looked like a fiery comet.
“Projected damage” he asked absently.
“98% chance that it breaches sector 6. Atmospheric loss will be minor. No casualties expected”
“Send a team of idiots into sector 6. I want some good real casualty pictures.”
“Eye sir”
The other lieutenant grinned wide. “Germaine, my friend, you can be quite the evil bastard.
The invisible man slipped easily past the guards and into the mouse room. He skimmed quickly through cage labels for all the running experiments. Down to “M”. Just “M”. 5 mice lounged about the cage. Silently he opened the cage and slipped each mouse into a waiting pocket. That was as easy as picking flowers. He closed the cage and slipped away. Soon he would be following some unknowing scientist back to the surface.
Then the ground shook.
As the dust was settling, Swift heard klaxons. They’d crashed 50 feet into the ground, and exactly as the mission briefing had said, Swift was facing an open corridor where armed soldiers stood in full suits waiting.
“Shit.”
Swift brought up his rifle and grasped for the release to the crash webbing. The release jammed.
“Shit.”
The soldiers immediately figured out the scene and raised their weapons.
“Halt, drop your weapon”, the guards called out.
Andrew stepped around the bulk of Thunder and opened up with the miniguns. The soldiers exploded under the force of the rounds ripping through their suits. Their contents sprayed the walls, leaving not even boots where the soldiers had been standing.
“Thanks”
“No problem”
Swift popped his webbing and dashed off down the corridor.
Andrew turned around and watched as the fat bolts exploded. Thunder popped up, transformed and somersaulted to standing with guns ready.
“Let’s do this”, Brian cackled.
The scientist and the assistant nearly fell over when the ground shook.
“Probably some blasting” the scientist was saying. It didn’t make sense since the lab would have extremely delicate equipment, but the assistant pretended it did.
“Let me go check something. Stay here.” The scientist dashed off. Perfect!
The assistant waited until no one would notice and headed, directly toward the animals.
Thunder stomped up out of the crater, and the news crew on hand shit them selves. The last thing their camera caught was a meter wide ball of burning green plasma before it struck them. The plasma incinerated their suits, their flesh, and everything.
In the control room Germaine looked in shock at the transmission replay. The other lieutenant had traded his casual stance for raw panic. “That ain’t Kings”
Guided by a tiny outline map in the upper right hand corner of his helmet display, Swift ripped open the metal cover to a narrow service tunnel. In the dim glow of his helmet lights electrical conduits and heavy pipes ran along the wall into the darkness. Swift ran.
Two light military assault vehicles raced around the side of the dome. The troops onboard hadn’t even been briefed properly. They knew there was a threat and that they were to neutralize it. They raced as fast as the vehicles could go, hopping that the threat was bunk.
The two vehicles rounded a bend in the service road and suddenly the threat came into view. Crossing the rocky planet surface was a giant metal beast running on two bulky legs, and a large man with larger guns. The gunner of the first vehicle swore as he sighted down the long barrel of his mounted rail gun. The vehicles screeched to a halt and troops poured out to grab cover in the landscape.
The first vehicle got a shot off. It glanced off the beast with a green shimmer. Then the giant metal beast turned. It pointed its giant fist and a ball of horrible green was suddenly upon them. It splashed liquid heat, destroying everything.
In the control room Germaine signed evacuation orders.
Following his map, Swift stopped in the dark. To his left there was no wall, only darkness. He looked down into a dark shaft. Somewhere down there was a dim light. Out in the shaft a cable of some kind creaked. Swift could just barely make out the reflection of his helmet lights on the cable. “Must be an elevator.” Without hesitation, Swift leapt out into the darkness. His gloved hand caught the cable. The two droids on his back fanned out their wings so their little blue jets could slow his fall.
“Tank on the right. Let him target me”, Brian spoke absent mindedly while he worked the controls. In Andrews hands Thunder was a powerful beast capable of punching through outer hulls. In Brian’s hands it became just a new office for the same job of managing the battlefield. The mecha walked on autopilot as Brian meticulously tracked and plotted for individual targets.
Andrew, on the other hand, had a pair of the biggest guns ever given to man, and he was grinning like an idiot with the power of a god. In his helmet he heard Brian and saw the waypoints and outlined targets. As soon as a soldier would emerge, they’d disappear in a spray of gore. The mini guns thundered and Andrew thought of the mine workers in horrible conditions deep below. Those mine workers who would rather die than lift another stone. People, no matter what race, that were suffering chronic pains, and blunt psychological abuse. Mine workers like Andrew used to be. Andrew grinned wide and the mini guns just kept spinning.
Swift landed silently on a ledge beneath a single industrial light fixture. He opened a heavy steel door and found a particle accelerator.
“Nice”
Sprinting easily, he passed ring after ring of giant magnets. Everything was eerie quiet. The only sound was his toes pulling at the concrete.
The tank fired. As fast as the shell appeared to Brian as a target, his counter fire shot it out of the air. The result was a huge cloud of smoke and powdered debris.
“Use the smoke screen”, Brian ordered. The tank couldn’t target through dust like that, but Brian could. He turned to face the tank, and lined up his biggest solid round gun.
‘Thooomp’
The biggest, heaviest shell in the hurricane arsenal slid almost slowly out of the barrel. Slow enough that an observer would have wondered why tt was painted black, with a big white grin on it.
Andrew knew the sound of that gun. He let off the triggers and looked up to see his hand painted shell. This was going to be a big boom. Andrew planted his feet and leaned toward the target.
Boom.
The tank disappeared in a cloud of mushroomed shrapnel. The cloud jumped high in the air, hung then fell in a shockwave of dust and debris. Andrew and Thunder both raised an arm to shield themselves from it.
The shockwave rattled the dome causing an eerie resonance hum. Dust and debris showered Andrew and Thunder. For a brief second there was silence. Brian broke it.
“Duck”
Both boys started laughing maniacally. There might have been tanks behind the target but when the dust cleared it looked like splashes of hot metal, blocking the service road.
Swift entered a stairwell and ran down two flights. There in the wall, cleverly disguised was another service hatch. Swifts droids jumped down and cut the door very cleanly off its hinges. Then they jumped back up into place on Swifts backpack.
“Nice work”, he whispered as he ducked into the narrow tunnel. He pulled the door shut behind him and again he was in darkness. The map said 30 feet, the straight down. If Swift hadn’t had a light, he’d have missed it. The tunnel very suddenly turned straight down.
“Nice and easy now”, Swift whispered to the droids as he lowered himself into the hole. He could hold the walls on either side, so climbing was possible. As soon as he was down in the hole, preparing to freefall with the aid of the droids, he spotted the ladder. It was recessed into the wall under the service tunnel.
“Who designed this crap?” He asked the droids rhetorically. They shrugged. It is very rare in the galaxy to find a droid who shrugs. It’s just not a thing for an AI to do. Most droids don’t understand humor. Swift allowed himself to chuckle. Down the hole he went.
On the far side of the dome shuttles were loading as fast as they could. Sure the facility had been built with an evacuation plan. It looked great on paper. The truth was they never meant to evacuate. It was all lies to entertain soft hearted politicians. Germaine laughed to himself watching the shuttles on his various monitors. The other lieutenant looked up from the tactical forecast on the hologram display.
“Now is hardly the time for laughter. That tank was supposed to be unstoppable.”
Germaine scratched his beard, looking over a replay of the shell striking the tanks forward armor. The shell embedded itself neatly into the hull, causing the 4 inch thick armor to ripple like pond water. Then the screen went yellow, orange, and then red. When the dust settled there was no tank. Just a crater, and two badly damaged tanks behind.
“Germaine, what are we going to do?” The lieutenant asked. All the stress and panic was plain in his features.
“Look, we’ve lost. This is clearly alien. It is clearly more powerful than us, and there is nothing we can do. Send your troops to slow it down, and we’ll evacuate. At the very least we have this data” Germaine gestured at the monitors. “We can let the boys on Prime scratch their heads.
“What about the…” The lieutenant gestured at the floor.
Germaine showed no fear for what the technicians around him did or did not know. “The workers will be a loss. Blame the Aliens. You and I will stay until the end. If the aliens get far enough down, we will activate the self destruct, burying the lab. The scientists will be fine for a few weeks. We can dig them out during the government funded cleanup.”
The lieutenant looked horrified. His left hand casually dialed for the headcount of the entire facility, including the top secret staff. He glanced at the numbers and then up at Germaine. “You can’t be serious”
Germaine gave a firm nod.
“Permission to step out, sir”, the Lieutenant was thinking of a stiff drink.
“Granted” Germaine watched the younger lieutenant turn and race out. “This is war” Germaine absently told a nearby technician. The technician nodded while maintaining focus on his work.
Following an elaborate maze of dark service tunnels Swift dropped through a vent onto the steel grating of a catwalk high above an underground bio dome. The map indicated the target to be an area of small cages directly below him. Looking down, Swift could see a girl entering the cage area.
The assistant flashed her badge at a security guard and spun a story about retrieving an animal for some doctor whose name she’d picked up off a door nameplate in a hallway. The security guard didn’t hesitate to let her stroll through.
“M”, she whispered to herself as she faced the mouse cages. Hundreds of mice crowded to the front of their cages to watch her. Mice are curious creatures. She remembered her grandmother telling her long ago that they are opportunists and that they could be used to predict horrible events. She glanced over the hundred beady little eyes watching her every move.
“M”, she repeated following the column with her finger.
“Bingo”, she stopped at the label, and realized it was the only empty cage. All the mice started squeaking.
“That can’t be good”, she glanced around. Maybe they were being exorcized or tested or something.
A gargoyle droid with a sensor tipped finger on the glass started relaying the sounds he could hear over the comm. Swifts embedded translator picked up a hundred tiny voices all saying the same thing: ‘they disappeared’
The girl looked very confused. She turned back to the guards.
“Has anyone been in to remove mice today?”
“Uh, no ma’am”, the guard looked over a clip board. He flipped up the page, and his face lit up. “The vet was in yesterday evening. Sometimes they separate out sick mice. You know, so the other’s don’t get infected” he was trying to flirt, but the assistant didn’t have time.
“Thank you, where do they put them”, she gestured. The guard walked over to the cages and picked out one at the bottom with a handwritten label.
“Looks like only one: ‘M’”
“That’s it, I’ll take him”, she jumped in to remove the sleeping mouse from the cage. She hastily dropped him into a carrier, nabbed a packet of mouse food and wheeled to leave.
“Whoa, no need to rush”, the guard tried to buy himself some time.
“The doctor is angry already”, she lied easily, and dashed off.
The droid pointed at the girl running through the maze of laboratory spaces.
“Are you sure” swift asked the droid. It put its hands no its servo hips in offense and nodded.
“Ok, just making sure”, Swift held his hands up. He gestured at his back, and the droids leapt up into place.
“Give me a boost” he said as he jumped over the railing toward the dome. The droids flared their wings and little jets. Swift landed on the dome surface, right into a hard sprint.
The assistant ducked around a corner, where she thought she’d disappear. She removed the mouse from its carrier and tucked it into a secret pocket in the hem of her lab coat. Then she straightened herself and made for the exit.
Swift dove into a dark service shaft. The updated map showed the 90 degree right and then a vent down.
The guards at the first security door didn’t bat an eye at the assistant. The guards at the second door question her.
“I forgot my purse in the Restroom earlier today” she told them.
“Oh, no problem”, the guards smiled. That’s the amazing truth of it. Security goes to hell when you use a pretty girl to smuggle past men.
As the door closed, she rounded a corner and smacked headfirst into a man in black leather.
“Excuse me” The man said. Something didn’t look right about him.
“I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry”
“I’ll say”, the man laughed. She pushed passed him, but in the back of her brain something didn’t seem right. She pushed into the nearest rest room to validate her story. Instinctively she started washing her hands. She thought she looked worried in the mirror. “They can’t see that”, she told herself. The face of the man haunted her thoughts. Something wasn’t right. The bone structure was off. Maybe the eyes weren’t right. ‘He just didn’t look natural. Like he was an alien.’ She rinsed her hands quickly.
“That’s crazy” she said out loud as she a towel. There wasn’t one. The restroom was out. ‘Why was he in a space suit like that this deep down?’ She grabbed the hem of her lab coat to dry her hands and the mouse pocket was missing. The entire corner, pocket and all, had been cut right off the coat.
One of the gargoyle droids was standing on the ground right behind where the woman had been standing. It held a white pouch of cloth that looked suspiciously like the corner of a labcoat. He handed it up to Swift, who zipped it open, identified the mouse, and zipped it shut.
“That was easy”, he remarked to the droids. The Droid made a light mechanical laugh. The other droid, clinging to the ceiling, floated down and joined the laughter.
“Alright, let’s go”, Swift gestured at his pack. The droids leapt right up and into position. Then Swift turned and strolled down the hall.
The assistant panicked. She ran from the restroom and right into the chest of the same man.
Swift looked down at the bewildered girl.
The assistant stared a second, and then turned to yell. “Security! Security! There’s a spy!” When she turned back the man was gone.
“Where’d he go?” She stood there stupidly. Two guards ran around the corner, guns in hand.
Swift, invisible, smiled from behind them. He walked away.
At the dome wall Andrew and Brian were forced to stop and think. Andrew fired a few rounds into it to test, but his caliber was too small for the job. Brian, skimming materials data from the scanners, decided that plasma would be a bad idea. He dialed for the repair droids.
A dozen little droids of all shapes and sized appeared form every nook and fold of Thunders hull. They ran eagerly to the glass wall, each mentally taking responsibility for part of the project: ‘make a door’.
“This could take a second”, Brian said, turning Thunder to cover the left. Andrew turned to cover the right.
“What the hell is going on”, a tiny squeak from within Swifts pockets was talking to itself.
Swift looked at the droids who looked at him with equal confusion.
“Damn those Agosians. What have they done to me now?” the squeaking continued. Swift opened the pocket to look down at the mouse. The mouse looked back up at him. Beady eyes, trying to look as innocent as possible.
“Shut up, and sit tight”, Swift told the mouse. It froze.
“You can understand me?”
“Yes, shut up”
“None of these monkeys understand us.”
“Shut up.
“How can you understand me?”
Swift zipped the pocket shut. No one said anything about intelligent mice. No one said anything about other spies. No one said anything about…
“Escaped”, Swift opened the pocket and looked back at the mouse. “How many mice were in your cage”
“Uh, 6 including me”
“Where’d they go”
“An invisible man took them”
“an invisible man”
“Well the cage opened exactly like when the monkeys open it. The other mice said they felt a hand around them. We believe it was an invisible man”
“You believe”
“Me and the other mice”
“Your intelligent?”
“You’re the monkey talking to me”
Swift zipped the pocket shut again. Now it all made sense. They couldn’t have arrived before the escaped mouse, because before the mouse escaped, there was no need for Hurricane. Swift unzipped the pocket again.
“Look, mouse, I’m not an Argosian”
“Yeah, you don’t smell like one”
“I’m a mercenary. I was sent here to retrieve you”
“You have me”
Swift zipped the pocket shut. Who knew conversations with mice were more frustrating than trying to kill mice?
The Droids signaled all clear. 3 full squads of soldiers were entrenched and ready on the other side. A pair of tanks sat a half click inside the dome, already locked on. The droids found their sockets and locked back in.
“Ready”, Andrew asked. Brian brought Thunder’s massive cannons to bear, ready on the trigger. For once, he was looking down the sites himself instead of letting Thunder auto target.
Andrew put a boot against the glass and gave it a good shove. It wobbled. He pushed again. It wobbled more. Andrew Aimed a cannon at the top of the door and fired right as he pushed again. The 2 foot slab of glass fell out of the dome wall and slammed into the dirt inside. Andrew dodged aside as a thousand machine guns opened up on Thunder.
Thunder’s shields shimmered green, and Brian pulled the trigger. Horrible green plasma paved through the soldiers and splashed against the tanks. Andrew stepped into the scattering ranks and opened up.
Swift rocketed up through the elevator shaft. The map seemed to indicate that it would be better to go to the top of the shaft.
“Where are we going?” Swifts translator could just barely make out the tiny squeaks.
“Space” Swift paused for a second. “Into the dark sky”
“I’ve never seen the dark sky”
“You’ll get to see plenty of it”
“Momma taught about it. Said it was big and We were small.”
“You are small”
“But you came from the big sky for me”
“Yeah”, Swift thought he saw a reflection above him.
“Then I’m pretty big.”
Swift slowed and grabbed onto a beam. Above him it looked like there was a service hatch, probably leading outside.
Andrew and Brian mowed down bunkered troops easily. This primitive race didn’t have anything that could penetrate the tight energy shielding. Thunders inertial dampers absorbed the bulk of the heavy munitions. They were actually starting to get bored.
“Brian, I think it’s time to unload the other big shell. Where’s that power plant, and where is Swift?” Andrew was standing in the cover of Thunder while droids fit a fresh munitions cartridge into his pack.
“I don’t know about Swift, but that building over on the far side with all the glass domes should be the power plant”
“Can you hit it from here?”
“Yeah, but I can’t guarantee”
“Well fire a plasma round ahead of it and let’s ‘GTFO’” The droids locked Andrews mini guns and gave him the thumbs up. With a grin Andrew jumped out from cover to lay down more fire.
“I guess” Brian did the quick math on firing the shell behind the slower moving plasma.
“Just do it. I’m getting sick of this rock”
The green confirmation numbers crossed Brian’s display. It was feasible. “Alright” Brian said. He worked Thunder into a braced right hand shooting stance. The heavy cannon aimed from his shoulder mount. The plasma aimed from the barrel in his knuckle housing.
‘Thummmmm’
The plasma blasts absorb sound as they travel, like a void of silence, but they leave the solid guide rings on the barrel humming after every shot.
1.524 long seconds later Andrew looked up to see the heavy cannon fire.
“Thoomp”
The horrible green plasma blast lit up the entire inside surface of the dome, inciting fear in the remaining troops. It splashed into the concrete and glass of the power plant, but made very little actual penetration. Just as the concrete was fizzling, the heavy shell hit. It actually buried itself into the concrete as if the concrete was soft and spongy like cake. Then the ‘cake’ splattered the inside surface of that entire half of the dome. Gooey liquid concrete, still glowing green, dripped from the high surface.
“What the bloody hell did you two do!” Swift exclaimed over the comm. Andrew and Brian just started laughing. Their laughter was punctuated by the secondary explosion. Building sized chunk of concrete and reactor bits shot straight up and bounced off the bio dome ceiling. The entire dome resonated so loud that Brian covered his ears inside of Thunder.
“NOW YOU DONE IT!”, Swift yelled over the comm. Brian tracked a signature flying toward them under invisibility.
“WHAT I CAN”T HEAR YOU? I’M KINDA DEAF!” Andrew yelled back. Brian turned down his comm. speaker, and focused some cover fire for the invisible dot.
“WHAT WAS THAT?” Swift Yelled, more for fun.
Brian tapped in for text display across his brother’s helmets, “let’s get out of here”
“ROGER THAT” Andrew yelled back.
Germaine pulled himself back up and looked around the dark command center. “Where are the backups!” he yelled. No good, the techs were pretty badly shaken up. Some were vomiting. A few didn’t get up. Germaine stumbled over to the body of the other lieutenant, who’d been knocked unconscious. He ripped the Lieutenants key from around his neck and made for a panel on the back wall.
“No” a helpless nauseous technician gurgled pathetically at him. He kicked the tech and kept going.
Germaine put his fist through the glass over the panel, and flipped up the power switches. He jammed both keys into their respective holes and turned, in unison.
“45 seconds should do it”, he mumbled, thinking of the time it would take him to reach the private escape pod in his office. He wanted to keep the time short enough to get the aliens, but long enough for his escape. He punched in the numbers and hit confirm.
Swift deactivated his invisibility just as he reached Thunder. Sprinting he led the boys back toward the hole they’d cut to get in.
Germaine grasped both keys in unison and completed the turn. Then he pulled them out. One button left. At the bottom of the panel he broke the cover off two buttons. One was red, for cancel. That was his last chance. The other was green for go. Germaine mashed the green button without hesitation.
He turned to run down the short hall to his office, and realized he was screwed. He could see straight down the hall and it wasn’t there. The ceiling had caved in.
Outside of the dome, troops actually ran when they saw Thunder. Brian activated the fists and scooped Swift and Andrew up. At a full sprint Thunder leapt into the air. The massive thrusters on his back lit, and suddenly they were getting close to the speed of sound.
Behind them the dome filled with fire.
The Huricane made it out of the system so fast that scientists from Argosy Prime couldn’t track it. A government funded clean up crew found a laboratory of dead mice. These included a project ‘Em’. Those workers went home to their families with no idea that they were sick. 6 months later the population was reduced to a few randomly immune cases and a group of colonists on the far side of Argosy 4. 6 months after that, there was a seemingly impossible reactor fail, the colonists opened their arms to a diplomatic party of aliens who handed them the result of 200 years spent studying the reciting of a mouse, lovingly called ‘M’ who’d watched and listened over one and a half years while the Argosians engineered their own doom.
I wish LJ didn't screw up my formatting so bad.