Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) (3 page)

A tall man sitting at the far end of the table stands up, raising his hand to straighten his greasy cropped grey hair.

“You took your time to get here Colonel,” General Anders says.

“Sorry I’m late Sir, an office tower took a hit from enemy mortar, as well as the Power Skytower. I stopped to evaluate the situation as quickly as I could,” I say.

I always hated being figuratively cuffed on the ear for doing something that was meant to be seen as good. Although I guess I did hold up the briefing.

I sit down on one of the chairs, parallel to other members of T.A.R. squad. I give a quick nod of acknowledgement to the others before bringing my attention back to the general.

It surprises me that the General didn’t bombard me with questions about the tower. “Don’t you want to know more about what happened out there General?”

“The tower? I’ve already been briefed quickly about the situation down there Colonel. I’ve already sent a team down to investigate.”

Well then, I guess that answers my question. He just seems calm about it all though. He almost made it seem like he doesn’t care about the death of all those people.

“Well then, let’s get started shall we? Here’s what we know so far. We think that those small crafts are just scout ships because the bulk of their fleet is still a couple cycles out. Whatever engine drives they’re using are far less advanced than ours, what takes them cycles takes us only half that time. We have had no communication of any kind with them so far, so we don’t even know who they are or what they want,” he looks around the room to make sure that everyone is still following him.

“How many of those ships are in our airspace?” Captain Ravenson asks.

“So far we’ve only counted thirteen,” the General stops talking as the top of the glass table blinks and comes to life. Revealing folders and folders of mission files, briefings, debriefings, etc…His eyes quickly skimmed through the data. He looks up from the table after only a few short seconds.

“My examination team that was sent to the building sent off a transmission before they went MIA. What we can decipher from that file is the blast residue from the building was Thopium. Now, it was either our visitors or we have just begun war with one of the countries on this planet, which shouldn’t be happening, especially under these circumstances. We also have reports of unauthorized movement inside the Power Skytower.” He takes a sip from the glass of water  beside him, “as far as we know we had evacuated everyone from the building only minutes after the other tower was hit. Now, either we didn’t get them all or we have intruders wanting to get information from the Power database.”

“Now, the four of you will be led by Colonel Woods into the building to potentially evac anyone you come across. Your primary objective is to locate the aliens and find out what they are there for and eventually neutralize them. They made their first contact with us hostile, we will treat them the same. Am I clear?” The General asks, eyeing us all down with his x-ray like vision, as if trying to burn a hole in our heads.

“Sir Yes Sir!” The four of us reply as one.

The General looks down at the table readings to check the time. He lets out a barely audible sigh. He’s one of the older military personnel on base; he’s probably old enough to have lived on Earth at some point.

“I’m not sure how you young people deal with these cycles, why can't we have good old weeks and months?”

“Still not used to the forty-two day cycle Sir?” Major Lorid asks.

He shakes his head, “I don’t think I ever will be.”

I return my attention back to the table and quickly scan through the mission details. I’ve worked with this unit before, hopefully that made the mission easier. Unlikely though.

I break the silence.

“Alright. Now, I will move in through the eastern part of the building, Captain Ravenson, you will go west. Major Lorid will go northern along with Sargent Terein. We received word that the southern entrance is blocked off, so you have nothing to worry about there. Alright, head to the barracks, get prepped and get to the building. Double time it people! Recon team moving out! Let’s knock some heads!” I bark at my unit.

 “Hoorah!” They all yell back at me.

One by one, we file from the room down the corridor and into one of the lifts.

“Armoury floorm” I say, the lift chimes in response.

“Well, that was pleasant, how long has he been in command for?” Ravenson asks.

“That’s not our concern at the moment Captain, focus on the task at hand, understood?” I say.

“Yes Sir, sorry Sir.”

“Alright, prep up with all the latest gear. We don’t know what we are walking into and what these things are capable of. We might be outgunned and outmatched, or we might be able to just pop them out of the sky like flies.”

“Looking forward to it Sir,” Sargent Terein barks out, hatred radiating from his eyes.

“Something wrong Sargent?” I ask.

“Thousands of people just died Colonel, what do you think is wrong? We don’t even know why any of this happened.”

“I know how you must be feeling, but the mission objective comes first, if we come across any of them don’t go trigger happy and don’t compromise the mission, got it?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Good, now let’s go get geared up,” I say, walking through the lift doors into one of the smaller hallways, leading my men I take the first turn to the right, into a hallway marked with AMY.1-12.

I stop in front of the door marked AMY.1, pressing my thumb against the scanner, I wait patiently for the scanner to recognize my print. I hear the hiss as the door opens.

“Wow, that’s a lot of tech,” Major Lorid says.

“What, you’ve never been in an armoury before?” I ask.

“Nope, my missions were always undercover, none of this fancy stuff.”

“Well then, this should be fun for you,” Ravenson adds.

“Gentlemen,” a voice says behind me, “I assume you are here for mission departure?”

I spin around to see a young man. Pure raven black hair flows down to his shoulders, tucked behind his ear though was a pure white stripe. The white hair really threw me off for a second. Similar to a birthmark, instead of the discoloration of the skin it was discoloration of the hair. His facial hair made him look older than he probably is; it looked like he hadn’t shaved in days either.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“I’m the one that your military has to thank for all these weapons. The name is Jayon Cofield; I’m the one that has been transportin’ all of these goods from base to base on a ‘need to’ basis.”

“Then why are you here? If your job is only to transport this gear, why haven’t you left?” Sargent Terein asks.

“Well, I’m the one that the General assigned to show you the entire collection of fancy new tech we just received. You see, after transportin’ all of it around for years, travelin’ from place to place, you tend to pick up a few things about your cargo.”

“Well, enlighten us then.”

“Alright, the latest assault armour we have over here is called s.m.a.r.t armour. I know it might seem kinda cheesy. It stands for Sophisticated Manned Armoured Receptacle Technology. Very handy in a tight spot, it’s designed to repel knives, heat, cold. It’s basically a second skin if you will. If you are lucky it might even absorb some of the energy from the Thopium rounds you use in your weapons. The armour plating is made of Graphite, hardest stuff there is out there, well, at least on this planet. The stuff is strong, but very light. Another great addition about this armour is that it’s assisted. You can maneuver in it like a normal human would when it’s offline, if it’s online though that’s a whole other story. You can run and fight faster, jump higher, well; you get the point, it basically enhances all of your normal abilities.”

I eye the body suit, looking at it with awe.

He picks up a long barreled gun, “over here we have a compact Sniper Rifle. Light weight, up to three thousand meters, anything past that and the energy either dissipates or it loses its accuracy, most likely both though.”

“Got any close range weapons?” Ravenson asks.

“Why yes we do, we got the P-thirty-one right here, yet again, light, compact, has the range of seventy five meters, mainly used for close range though. Very accurate and very deadly, if you like hand guns this is the one I would recommend. Also, I forgot to mention, if you like knives there is a custom built short notched blade in the left gauntlet of the s.m.a.r.t armour, all you have to do to unsheathe it is to snap your wrist back. The blade itself is about fifteen centimeters long.”

He went on for several minutes describing the different software that uploaded itself into the HUD, along with the difference to the actual physical aspect of the armour.

“Oh, and one last thing, make sure you grab one of the assault rifles, that one will make your teeth rattle like crazy. Enjoy gentlemen, and I wish you good luck on your mission,” he says, turning around and walking back out through the door.

“Alright, let's suit up,” I say, picking up one of the sniper rifles to test how heavy it is; just looking at it makes me think how much damage it could do, a huge childish grin splitting across my face.

****

It didn’t take too long to suit up and grab as much gear as would be needed to complete the mission.

I hear my breathing reverberate through the inside of my helmet; it must have been fresh off the assembly line seeing as the inside still has the ‘new helmet smell’ that soldiers tend to love. They had grown to realize that it was a good smell; it meant the helmet was new, and less likely to fail on you in the middle of battle from excessive use.

Some helmets lasted years -at least from the previous helmet models- and other lasted only minutes depending on the amount of damage it would receive and where. I saw a person once get hit just seconds after he jumped off the gunship. A high impact round shattered the front of his helmet, passing right through. Blood was everywhere. That was only a few short years ago, back when the scientists hadn’t quite perfected Thopium technology. That one image will be saved in my head for years and years to come.

 “Everyone move out!” I bark through the helmet comm system.

We exit the armoury one by one and head down the hallway back to the lift. I can feel the continuous thumping of my unsteady heart, I always get nervous before the start of every mission, not knowing what was going to happen or if it would be my last mission.

We all pile back into the lift, this time with difficulty seeing as there are four completely geared up soldiers, all trying to fit into a small cubicle.

“Dropship pad,” Sargent Terein says.

The lift chimes again, I feel as the repulsors beneath my feet fire up and start to accelerate.

The lift doors open, revealing an enormous well-lit bay, with a low cut ceiling, large sleek matte black ships that were big enough to hold a dozen soldiers filled up the cavernous room.

“Well, would you look at that; I’ve never seen that model before, what are those?” Sargent Lorid asks.

“Not sure, doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it can get us to the LZ,” Ravenson says. He does have a good point, as long as a ship is able to get you from A to B then it's always irrelevant what the make and model is.

“Alright people, let's get on with this,” I say, jumping into the ship that's waiting for us.

I twist around and watch everyone jump in behind me. The all too familiar adrenaline rush spreads through my system as we take off.

The ship glides through the bay and through the blast doors that are wide open. We blast into the outside world; it feels great to be flying again. Even though we are cooped up in a metal can it felt good to be in the wide open space of the sky.

Day 7: Cycle 1: Period 1: Year 2397

Flying always has its ups and its downs. You’re completely free, able to travel the stars to your heart’s content, now; that’s the good part. The bad part’s that something can go wrong while you’re doing that. Either you could be stuck in atmosphere or the cold vacuum of space and be completely helpless.

“Mavrik eh?” Ravenson says.

The muffled noises of the outside world are barely audible because of the internal wireless communications system built into the helmet, “ta lot better than Thomas. Your name has a bit of mystery to it, mine’s just boring.”

I’ve worked with the unit before, just Lorid and Terein though; Ravenson was the newest member of the team. The last mission that we’d been deployed on hadn’t gone so well, we ended up losing a good soldier and a good friend.

“Well, why don’t we change it then?” I reply, even under the helmet I can tell that Ravenson had a look of puzzlement on his face, “what about T-Rave? Sounds catchy, doesn’t it?”

“Hmm, I don’t know, what about T-Man?”

“Oh please, that just makes you sound like you’re trying to sell something illegal. I’d just go with T-Rave,” I urge.

“Alright, T-Rave it is.”