35 minutes later. 21:38 Apus Minor, Warehouse District
John picked up the bag of trinkets the scientist had discovered, turned, and left them to their own designs. Truth be told, he didn’t give a damn what they would choose. If they left with him then they would be tried accordingly. But if they stayed behind, as John suspected most would, then any new discoveries they transmitted would be captured by the military.
His pace was in a full run, his suit was making so much noise in an otherwise quiet part of the facility. While there was plenty of time to escape the location, he wanted time to spare. The countdown, adjusted for the higher-than-expected power draw, was a touch over eighty-five minutes. He needed fifty-three minutes to ascend to the surface, or so he presumed under a worst-case scenario.
“Probably should stick with that assumption,” John said as he saw his path to the surface painted in his HUD.
He gently picked up the crystal-like device that was formerly the machine intelligence control matrix. Well, what John presumed was the control matrix, it could be a big paperweight at this point for all he knew. In either case, John still wanted to bring this back and have it inspected.
The run-up to the large gate was a short one. While he was in a hurry John paused and looked back at the colony. He needed to set eyes on the grandeur once last time. A deep sigh was let out.
“I doubt we’ll ever truly know what life was like here when they flourished,” John said with a morose tone, “I wonder if humanity is going doing the same evolutionary dead end that they are…”
John let the words hang for a moment. Perhaps they were, that he was living proof that this was the same end the Predecessors had. Then again perhaps humanity was young enough to get its genetics in order. They don’t know whether or not gene modification was widely done by this ancient dead race, maybe that was the real trigger.
In the end, it didn’t matter. Humanity was far from extinction. It would certainly not happen within John’s lifetime. Or his future children for that matter. While it was a fascinating philosophical question, there were other things John needed to focus on.
For starters, there was getting out of this god damned mountain. His HUD continued to display everything in augmented reality. John wondered silently if Eve thought it was funny for her choice of colors used in the arrows pointing the way home.
John slowed to a walk on the nearest portion to the colony. His jump jets should be able to get him back on the path, but caution was preferred. The last thing he needed to find out was that the jump jets could not, in fact, overcome the planet’s gravity. Once the path became a proper tunnel, he began increasing his pace.
Ten minutes was all it took to get to the first area where he’d need to crawl on his knees and hands. He gently held the crystal with one hand as he inched deliberately forward. He could hear his back plate and battle rifle scratch against the rock surface. The rockface was unable to place any lasting scratches on the armor plate.
Shortly after he was through that section and able to stand up in the tunnel. His pace returned to him, and he was finally ascending back to the surface. Comparing his current pace to Eve’s presumed and overly conservative estimate, John was already ten minutes ahead of pace.
“Eve, is there any sign or proof that any of the others successfully returned?”
“Besides a lack of vital signatures, no. None of them were wearing gear that could damage the rockface like this suit of armor. It is impossible to tell with any degree of certainty that anyone made it back.”
“Which means another one of those fantastical beasts could have gobbled them up,” John said grunting as his pauldron bumped into the wall forcing him to sidestep through a tighter area.
“That is correct. Though behavioral records of those animals do not indicate that they view humans as a source of food, nor are they cannibalistic,” Eve continued to speak, “When one of them is discovered dead, the others tend to disperse rapidly from that location.”
“So, they want nothing out of humans, nor do they see anything good about sticking around near one of their own dead. Then the attack was because it was surprised?”
“That is a logical presumption to make.”
John shrugged as he continued on the path home. There were two more tight areas and one more where he would have to crawl out. Crawling in power armor was never a fun thing to do. It was awkward as hell, doubly so for such a heavy suit of armor.
His helmet banged off a couple of low outcrops. In true slapstick comedy, his immediate reaction caused the follow-up rock strike. A string of swear words and other profanities were let loose that would make any Marine blush. John slowly shook it off and continued on his exit.
Just before the last section where he’d have to crawl, he banged his head on yet another outcropping. His reaction this time included punching the rocks that hit him with his free hand. Along with another stream of profanities. Temper tantrums in such a large suit of power armor were a truly terrifying sight to behold.
John’s patience was running thin. He wanted to be out of this damned cave. In fact, he’d settle for damn near anywhere besides the cave if he was being honest. There was no hope left behind in the colony or this cave. The faint light began to grow as he got closer and closer to the deep opening in the mountain.
Finally, he saw it, moonlight reflecting off standing water. He was a full twenty-three minutes ahead of schedule. He was almost free. He was almost safe. But in his gut, something felt off. A micro-drone was commanded to scout ahead. And then he saw it, a second landing craft near the Navy’s larger shuttle.
“Fucking hell, why are they here?”
John leaned the crystal down on the ground gently just before the opening of the cave. The bag of trinkets was gently placed down nearby. Lastly, he detached his pouch with the various things he had acquired there as well.
“Shuttle Normandy, how copy?” John asked over the comms.
“Thank fucking Christ, a friendly is here, sir,” one of the pilots explained, “No security here, after the pirates loaded the unconscious scientists onboard we forced them off the shuttle. Then theirs showed up.”
“Understood, leave it to me.”
As he walked out into the daylight the HUD dimmed to prevent damage to his eyes. Not one to take any chances, he had drawn his battle rifle, which was scratched and scarred. John called out to them.
“That isn’t your shuttle, I suggest you board yours and get out of dodge,” John’s booming and commanding voice startled the pirates.
Two of the pirates were fucking around with the rear landing leg of the oversized Confederate shuttle. Not surprisingly its forward ramp was retracted. John could make out the pirates gesturing at him from their cockpit, the thumbs-up sign was clearly visible.
“Captain Taylor, how copy?” John spoke into the military’s security channel.
“Read you loud and clear. Mission successful. We’ve got some marines heading your way, ETA is twelve minutes.”
“Roger that,” John smiled as he continued closing the distance, “In ten minutes friendly marines are going to be back here. If they get here, I assure you that this is the last planet you ever see.”
John leveled his rifle at the nearest pirate. As he did so his thumb flicked off the safety button. It was now time to see if the pirates were really willing to fuck-around-and-find-out. He was relatively confident that they wanted no part in this fight, but stranger things had happened to him in the past.
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“We want to know where our comrades are,” one of the pirates shouted.
“One got bitten and killed by a bear-owl thing, another tried to kill me and got put down, and the third one tried to get me to kill him. He was mourning his loved one in whatever the fuck we discovered. He won’t be coming back,” John looked over at the two pirates that he ordered out of the expedition, “I told you two to bug out and yet you still are here. Death is all that awaits you on this planet.”
“We told them, but they are our ride home,” one of the pair said with a noticeable amount of indifference.
John took aim and pulled the trigger. A warning shot flew not more than a couple of millimeters away from the head of one of the pirates below the Confederate shuttle. The rifle was retrained on the target.
“I’m not missing the second shot. I’m giving y’all a chance to survive and you’re shitting all over my graciousness,” John growled out the statement, “You’ve received a second chance, I strongly suggest you don’t waste it.”
“We are going to get our men out of here,” one of them walked forward towards John.
John responded by aiming his rifle at the pirate. His finger was not only on the trigger, but it was applying force to it. The trigger sear on his battle rifle had been highly polished, it felt crisp. He only needed to exert a bit more pressure for the hammer to fly.
“Five…” John began counting down.
“Now look here, we want our people back, then we’ll…”
“Four…”
Another pirate from the rear shouted out, “Listen up fuckstick, we aren’t leaving until we are good and ready.”
“Three…”
The lead pirate’s eyes grew a bit. They may have misjudged the situation. Thoughts began racing in the man’s mind. None of which were good considering he had under three seconds to make a decision. Panic began to set in when he swore that he could see the next round that was in the chamber of the huge rifle.
“Look…” the pirate stammered.
“Two…”
Now the eyes properly bulged. The brutish man in the power armor was not messing around. The shuttle’s autocannons were the only thing that could do any damage to him, but they were fixed in place. They were effectively useless in this scenario. There was one, and only one, outcome that resulted in no further deaths.
“Load up boys, we’re getting out of here,” the pirate pointed at John, “You are going to be held accountable for the loss of life.”
“Neither you nor your boss has sufficiently sized fangs to make me account for a single goddamned thing,” John kept his gun trained on the pirate.
As the lead pirate began moving to the shuttlecraft, so too did the other pirates. John moved back slightly but kept the rifle trained on one pirate. When the leader escaped up the ramp, he shifted targets. This repeated until the pirate shuttle’s ramp retracted.
At that point, John walked under the Confederate shuttle. He didn’t want the pirates to get crafty and tried to get a shot off of him. The shuttles autocannon was likely large enough caliber to hurt, possibly even kill, him. Dying at this point of the mission would be such a terrific waste.
Once the pirate shuttle was a spec in the distance John walked back to the opening and gathered his spoils. He quickly came back to the shuttle. The gear was stowed away quickly, and securely. John pulled off his helmet and shouted up to the pirates.
“How long does it take to get this thing in the air?” John transferred some of Eve’s runtimes to a terminal near him.
The countdown timer had been adjusted once more. They had less than fifteen minutes before the power would run out. Panic was now setting in; they were far too close to this mountain.
“Couple minutes…”
“POWER UP AND GET US AIRBORNE!”
The urgency and even panic in John’s voice left no room for doubt. Both pilots immediately got working on the startup procedure. John walked to the rear and got himself locked into his armor restraints.
“Marine shuttle do not approach beta site. I repeat, do not approach the beta site. A massive landslide is minutes away.”
Another pilot came in on the channel, “Copy that Normandy, we will raise altitude and watch from a safe distance.”
John shouted back at the pilots, “Haste gentlemen, get us off the fucking ground.”
Immediately after John said that the first of three engines fired up. Moments later the second did. The shuttle’s fusion core was running at full tilt. He could hear the pilots talk between themselves as they were working through their start-up checklist. Finally, the third engine fired up.
Moments later they began hovering slowly. They were only a few feet off the ground. As the wings began to move forward into flight configuration their momentum sent them forward and up. Once the wings were fully locked into place they rocketed forward into the sky at an uncomfortable rate of climb.
They effectively buzzed the southwest corner of the mountain. External camera feeds were all trained on the mountain. Everything was fine and dandy with the mountain. Until it wasn’t.
A huge chunk of the mountain fell into itself, causing a massive rock and earthslide. The shuttle was then struck with a blast of air pulling it down towards the mountain. Thankfully the pilots compensated for that unexpected turbulence brilliantly. The shuttle continued climbing away ahead of the growing dust cloud below.
“Whew,” John said to the pilots, “Cuttin’ that one close boys.”
“That was sketchy as all hell, sir,” the co-pilot said, “We’re on a full burn back to the primary research facility.”
“Alert the local colony to avoid this area until the dust cloud settles.”
“Will do.”
John took a deep breath and sighed. He had survived and cheated death. But the specter had lied to him. There was no opportunity to recover, no futuristic tech that cured his deep wound. Were they wrong? Or had he missed an opportunity? John shrugged as he thought more deeply on the matter, for now, the important part was that he was alive.
23:58 Apus Minor Research Facility 2Z01-A
John quickly stowed away his broadsword power armor when the shuttle landed at the research base. He was pleasantly surprised that the shuttle’s head had a small shower in it. His body odor reminded him of a rank and very wet dog, to simply say that it was an unpleasant smell was a gross understatement. This, unfortunately, was a common thing for anyone wearing a suit of armor for any extended period of time.
He found a spare pair of boxer briefs in his suit’s locker. He was stretching into a combat garment now. As he did so he was looking around the transport compartment for armor plates. It was unlikely anyone was capable of doing any harm to him but given the circumstances, he wanted to be prepared.
“Captain, Naval Intelligence reinforcements arrived in orbit moments ago. Two shuttles are coming down to retire us,” one of the pilots stepped out of the cockpit to tell John.
“Thank you. I’ll get Captain Taylor to prep his men for immediate departure. I want to get back to our ship ASAP.”
The pilot nodded and headed back into the cockpit. It was time once again to prep the ship for departure. Though this time the departure was likely going to be much less exciting or dangerous.
John was locking his final armor plate into place as he was walking down the ramp. A pair of Marines met him at the foot of it. They saluted quickly.
“Sir, the base is locked down. No injuries occurred during the takeover. The security team was very compliant,” the sergeant said, “We’ve discovered plenty of shady activities surrounding the people of this base.”
“The Alliance scientists have been kept apart from our citizens?” John asked.
“Yes sir. They are not a happy bunch. We’ve also finished full scans of everyone. In that group was an intelligent agent. They got a little roughed up when they tried to start shit.”
John grinned as he continued to walk toward the facility, “I presume y’all knocked him out before he could kill himself?”
“Sure did. Lost a couple of fake teeth in the process,” the other marine said, “Poor bastard. He’s been kept in an isolation cell under complete observation.”
They entered the base. It was eerily quiet apart from the noise the doors made. That was usually not a good sign. Too much quiet also bothered John in general. But despite his feelings on the matter the trio continued to walk through the facility. As they got closer to the heart of the building voices could be heard in the distance.
When they rounded the last turn in a corridor John was able to see several of the scientists in line at the chow hall. He immediately walked toward the line and immediately skipped to the front. A short while later three heaping plates of food were on a tray on a bench in front of him.
Captain Taylor smirked as he leaned against a pillar a few feet away, “Built up a bit of an appetite, Lieutenant?”
John nodded, “Yes, by the way, I won the bet.”
“Good thing I lost. What’d you see down there?”
“Wonders? Humanity defiling something substantial?” John paused a moment before shoveling more food into his mouth.
“Mission accomplished then?”
“Sure looks like it at this point. The Navy is going to keep everything that was sent back here, and the Alliance assholes will go to jail for a long, long time. The collaborators will suffer too.”
Bart grinned, “That’s what I call a win-win.”
“What’s the ETA on our replacements?”
“I’ve got the first shift already packing our shit up and heading back to the smaller shuttle. I’m hoping to bounce quickly once NI gets here. Inside thirty minutes is my guess.”
John nodded, “Good, I want to get back to the Waukesha as quickly as possible. I worry that more bullshit is going to get lobbed our way.”
“Wouldn’t be a normal mission if it weren’t.”
John laughed at the sarcastic comment, “You’ve been hanging around me too much Captain.”
“Guilty as charged,” Bart laughed as he walked over a slapped John’s shoulder pauldron, “At least you make things interesting. Us Marines respect that.”
“I’m sure Fleet Command would prefer a boring end rather than a dramatic crescendo.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Bart laughed as he walked off to parts unknown.
John let out a deep belly laugh. He took a drink of milk before digging back into one of his plates of food. He was hungry, it had been a day. He was alive to fight another day too, one worry put to bed. Now there was a sense of urgency to get back to the Waukesha. The pirates were still in the system, and he didn’t know how they would react to the loss of three crewmembers.