Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades (9 page)

His tactical systems
couldn’t detect their enemies, and that told him all he needed to
know about the data room ahead. “The Order Knights have had months
to set up their defence here, and I bet they’ve been studying Haven
Shore from here the whole time.”

“Why didn’t you
tell us?” asked Sergeant Ouxo, one of the few Issyrians still
serving in the lower ranks.

“You rushed in before
you were ready, before you consulted me,” Remmy said, his mood
darkening further at the sight of Irinia. Her vacsuit sealed the
stumps of her legs and right arm. The evidence of shrapnel piercing
her forehead through her vacsuit was gone, except for the broken
slats of her armour overlay. The suit had resealed overtop to help
stop the bleeding as she sunk into stasis. Even if they could repair
her brain, who knew how much of her personality would be intact?
Judging from the emergency medical readout on his head's up display,
he guessed she’d have nothing but scraps of memory and her former
self left when they finished rebuilding her mind. Another soldier who
would have to start over.

“Stop criticizing and
do something!” Cathy Weir, one of the more recently recruited
regulars said to him.

“I’m stating
facts,” Remmy replied. “Get shield barriers up. That little trap
they set is nothing compared to what’ll happen when they attack.”

“The last one didn’t
attack,” replied Sergeant Ouxo. “He remained in place, defending
the computer core.”

“And we can’t
assume these Knights will behave the same way.”

“Take command,”
Lieutenant Davi said over their communicators. “Remmy, just take
command, you have the rank and experience as a Ranger.”

“I protest! I’ve
been on-“ Sergeant Ouxo started.

“I’m taking command
of this squad, as your superior officer instructed,” Remmy stated.
Being stern was easy for him while he was angry, but it made thinking
clearly difficult. “Fortify this position with three layers of
portable energy shielding, now,” he ordered, tossing his own energy
shield, a small disc the width of his palm and a centimetre thick,
into the hallway. It activated with a hum and anchored itself to the
floor, providing enough shielding for a few seconds of fire from one
of the Order Knight’s powerful rifles. “Let your personal
shielding self-repair and regenerate.”

The rest of the squad
cooperated. As the shields fell into place, Remmy closed his eyes and
tried to see the layout of the floor in his head. The mental image
was easier to manipulate, to see from more than one angle at a time.
It was easier for him to devise a strategy the well trained and well
armed Order Knights wouldn’t see coming.

“Status on the
computer core shields?” he asked Lieutenant Davi, one of his
closest friends.

“Regenerating,
they’re almost at eighty one percent,” he replied. Other people
would tell him to check his scanners himself, but Remmy was putting a
plan together, something Davi had seen before. He flinched as the
sound of high energy rounds striking the outer energy shields filled
the hall with an electric crackle.

The Order Knights were
testing them. “I’ve got a plan,” he told his Lieutenant. “I’m
going to need your team on the second level.”

“We’re ready,”
Lieutenant Davi said.

“All right, on my
count, I want your team to blast a hole through the deck exactly at
the coordinates I’m marking. Three seconds later I need them to
drop all their EMP grenades and retreat. It’s got to be timed
right.”

“It’ll get done,”
Lieutenant Davi said. “You do know that the Knight’s armour will
protect them and their gear from the blast, right?”

“I know,” Remmy
said. Another burst of weapons’ fire cut through the outer energy
shielding in the hall. There were only two more portable energy
shields between them and the devastating energy weapons carried by
the Order Knights. “All right,” he said, addressing what remained
of his squad. “You four, run down this hall, shoot through this
privacy wall, and come up here. When you see the Order Knights, throw
a pair of frag grenades each then get low. I’ll lead my team in the
other direction and we’ll do the same from a point on a
thirty-three degree angle so we don’t bomb each other.” He
highlighted the tactical map with all of his instructions, and the
squad watched as he directed them to each take a position where they
would be able to hit the Order Knights with twenty grenades at the
same time.

“Their energy shields
will absorb most of that, and it won’t do enough damage to the
computer core shielding to make a difference,” countered Sergeant
Ouxo.

“Don’t worry,
that’s taken care of,” he replied as the second energy shield
went down. The Knights would take the last one down even faster.

“After the grenades
go off,” Remmy said hurriedly. “We’ll rush them, burn them down
with a clip of anti-framework rounds.” He waited three seconds, and
got nothing but silence from his squad. “Your response is: ‘yes,
Sir!’”

“Yes, Sir!” the
squad replied.

“Better. We go on
three,” Remmy said. “One, two, three!”

He ran to his right,
leading the charge down a corridor towards a thin privacy wall that
flew apart like tissue paper as he fired at it. The other four were
keeping good pace. He opened a channel to Lieutenant Davi directly.
“All right, your count: three, two, one.”

As he said ‘one’
the structure shuddered and he waited as Davi counted down to his
squad dropping their EMP grenades through the holes they made in the
ceiling above the computer core at the centre of the level they were
on. After three seconds they blasted the Order Knights from behind.
By the time Remmy was in position, one had turned around completely,
the other was looking up. “Grenades!” he shouted as he launched a
pair with his rifle.

For thunderous seconds,
the central chamber of the garrison was a no-man’s-land,
fragmentation grenades ripping anything that wasn’t behind an
energy shield to shreds.

“Go! Go! Go! Burn
them down!” Remmy shouted as soon as the twenty grenades dropped on
the Order Knight’s position had detonated. His sensors saw the raw,
broken flesh of the nearest Order Knight before he did. Everything he
saw was enhanced by his head’s up display as it helped him navigate
through the smoke and debris to the enemy. He started firing as soon
as he came around a support beam. The explosive rounds carrying an
intense electromagnetic pulse ripped into the torn mess that was left
of the Order Knight as it struggled to regenerate.

“Coming down!”
Lieutenant Davi announced, marking his team’s entry point through
the holes in the ceiling on the tactical map.

They came down firing,
and the Order Knights, who were regenerating, regardless of their
severely damaged state, were torn to shreds by the firepower of both
squads. Remmy watched his tactical screen as the life signs of the
Order Knights finally faded.

“Remmy! The computer
core!” Lieutenant Davi said.

Remmy turned and leapt
towards the computer core standing in the centre of the room as the
shield surrounding it started to re-energize. His personal shield
generator popped and sparked as it clashed with what was left of the
energy field around the computer core’s main terminal. He pulled a
line from his command and control unit and connected to the main
jack. “God dammit!” he shouted as his comm reported that all the
data had been erased many, many times over. “We’ve got a
like-new, high powered computer core. Unfortunately, there’s no
trace of data on this thing. Even the lights and shield systems are
mechanical, there’s not so much as an operating system.”

“What?” Lieutenant
Davi asked. “When did they get time?”

“I’d tell you, only
there’s no deletion time stamp,” Remmy replied. He ran the Haven
Shore command flag program, officially taking possession of the five
level garrison lander and disconnected from the system. “There,
Ayan wanted to capture another lander, we got her one. It’s devoid
of intelligence, but we can use it as a home for whoever wants to
settle an island within spitting distance of Port Rush.” The deal
with the Carthans Ayan made after the Battle of Port Rush was simple:
Ayan’s forces could plant a flag on any Order of Eden bases after
they were defeated, and Haven Shore would then own that outpost, the
land for three hundred kilometres in a radius and everything on it.
Remmy read the fine print, and understood why Ayan made the deal. The
four bunkers they knew of when she signed on the dotted line were all
in key positions around the planet, and they were all serviceable
after they were taken. Rangers used three as training bases and the
fourth as a permanent outpost. They’d found another after taking
the fourth bunker, and that became a ranger outpost as well. The
bunkers came with supplies, heavy weaponry, tools, and machines to
assist in making each bunker a larger, permanent military base with
outbuildings, and fixtures that made the stations even more valuable.
What really impressed Remmy was Ayan’s awareness that the Carthans
couldn’t afford to take the bunkers themselves, or patrol the
territories after the Order of Eden forces were defeated. The
language of the contract also indicated that Ayan didn’t much care
about bonuses past the claims she would be allowed to make, even
though the Carthans offered. What she seemed interested in was
accumulating assets and impressing the British Alliance. The bunker
Remmy had just finished claiming with the Haven Shore Regulars was
the sixth and final bunker as far as they knew. The rangers were
still searching, but he doubted they’d find one. Taking the sixth
bunker made Haven Shore, under Ayan’s name, the largest owner of
the subterranean five level military installations, with the Carthans
behind with two, and an independent crime lord owning one.

Remmy made sure his
anti-artificial intelligence and antivirus software was active as
Crewcast took control of the main computer and closed the connection
terminal. He found the switches controlling the energy shield and
deactivated it. “Nice fusion reactor chain in this thing though,
I’ll say that much. This thing can keep its lights on for five or
six hundred years.”

“Here,” Lieutenant
Davi said as he handed him one of the Order Knight’s rifles. “A
souvenir.”

Remmy’s head's up
display told him the weapon weighed fourteen kilos, heavy enough for
the synthetic muscles of his suit to engage in his arms, torso,
shoulders, and legs so he could hold it properly. “Yeah, I’ll use
it to power a house on the cliff side, or a small ship. This thing’s
got a miniature fusion chamber with enough fuel to run for eight
years.”

“Don’t de-weaponize
it too soon. I’m going to want you along for every op after this.”

“This is the last
garrison,” Remmy said. “It’s Ranger security and logistics for
me after this.”

“Not forever. We’ll
be taking the fight to them before long.”

“Oh, great,” Remmy
said, rolling his eyes. “More time away from the sandy beaches of
Haven Shore, I can’t wait.”

“Seriously,”
Lieutenant Davi said. “These last few missions, your tactics have
been spot on. I’m impressed.”

Compliments from Davi
were rare, especially for Remmy. “Thanks. You should say something
to Liam Grady though. It never occurred to me to treat tactical
situations like a three dimensional puzzle until I started meditating
with his group. Not having challenges like this is going to make
peace time mind-meltingly boring.” He checked Crewcast for any
messages that may have accumulated while he was busy and cocked his
head. “Nevermind telling Liam anything,”

“Why? What’s up?”
Davi asked.

“He just dumped a
pile of emotional baggage on Ayan and checked out.”

“What? Checked out?”

“Yup, told her ‘hey,
sorry for being a creepy old letch, shoulda been there for ya, guess
it’s time to leave, thanks for the memories.’”

“Well, at least we’ve
got good news for her,” Davi said. “You send the message to
Ranger Command, we’ll start processing the site.”

Dinner

The dense jungle
reminded Alice of that first day of training. They didn’t tell the
ranger applicants much about the service, only to show up as the day
began on Tamber. They were transported to a small, featureless
peninsula where shuttles from the Sunspire, Triton, and Haven Shore
were already present. There were some signs of construction, but no
indication that any major undertaking was underway.

Orientation took place
on the edge of a large, open field. There were over three hundred
ranger trainees on her first morning. Hover trucks and shuttles
dropped them off an hour before Commander Carl Anderson, or Doctor
Anderson as some people from the First Light and Triton still called
him, addressed them all. He was all smiles, didn’t say much that
Alice would remember through the rest of her training, and he kept
his welcome short.

“Here’s where we
start,” he said at the end of his speech. Everyone’s vacsuits
were minimized in size so the women wore one-piece exercise suits,
and the men were reduced to shorts. All their vacsuit functions were
deactivated, including any communications or computing devices,
physical protection, assistance, or other tools. “Rangers can
survive anywhere they can find air and water. They can get where
they’re going on their own two feet, and this week you’re going
to prove it to yourselves.” There were murmurs and complaints all
around Alice, and she hoped no one would point out that she was an
enhanced framework.

They didn’t have time
before the next part of their challenge appeared in the field below.
A cloaking shield dissipated to reveal an obstacle course that even
Alice found daunting. There were wall climbs, monkey bars over pits,
rappelling walls, reverse thirty degree scaling walls, a crawling
tube maze with drop chutes and at least half an hour worth of other
hellish challenges. Everything was surrounded by, or built over mud
that looked cold, even from a distance.