12:35 Alpha Fornacis – Deserted Research Base
The research base was a pretty common assortment of different prefabricated units. Interestingly the modules here were all void worthy. Doing the kind of work, they were doing stood to reason that extra precautions could be useful. It seemed overkill and incredibly expensive to John though.
Nothing this group was doing was legal, so protecting the locals from a new virus or bacteria wasn’t high on their list of things to do. John was struck at the dichotomy of the rooms here. The science labs were immaculate as if they were never used. But the living and general quarters? They were a bloody mess.
John attached himself to the squad his most junior sergeant was in charge of. After the third room of finding nothing and no one, the observance of coms protocol had largely gone out the window. The mood was serious but equally light. He had also attached himself to the biggest group of smartasses that were in the platoon.
“You know that he literally plays a barbarian wizard in DND and its strength is maxed out,” Lukas said.
“No one plays wizards like that,” Nathan shook his head.
“It’s quite effective. Annoying though,” David said, “One of my friends back home did that. I kinda cringed when the boss man said that.”
Arianna tapped Lukas’ shoulder and pointed down the hallway, “Why are you nerds talking and not focusing?”
“We are paying attention. They are already moving down the hall, I was covering them,” Lukas said through his thick accent, “And you played with the others too. You’re a nerd as well.”
“Cut the chatter,” Daryl said as he held his battle rifle, “Staff Sarge, how are things going on your end?”
The group continued to move down the hallway. John led the way in his broadsword class power armor. Each step clanged loudly. The fusion reactors were loud but not unbearably so, though John had some suggestions for a quieter setting during more peaceful operations. They hadn’t even come across any rats or mice. The base was well and truly abandoned.
Derek Lee then came on over the comes, “All quiet on the northern side of the base.”
Erica then replied, “Hangar Bay has some materials we need to investigate but haven’t found anything powered on. And the pair of terminals we did fire up was wiped clean.”
John then spoke up, “Expectations have been met. Dead ass quiet here. ETA on finishing our sweep of rooms is thirty-five minutes.”
The other group leaders confirmed similar time frames. The coms then went quiet, and everyone continued with their business. It was dull and not at all interesting. John’s squad continued with its irreverent conversation.
“Monks are boring though. Bard all the way,” Nathan said.
Arianna rolled her eyes, “You are all nerds.”
Lukas smiled, “Yet you haven’t told us why you play. We know you played last week with Becky and Troy.”
“Dragonkin Paladin. At least I don’t try to sex up all the NPCs like the pervert over there.”
“Ugh, paladin? Jesus no wonder why you are so law and orderly,” David laughed, “He’s up to eight STDs or venereal diseases. By the way, the best way to play is halfling rogue, or as I call master thief.”
“Yeah, tell me again why you got arrested in our last session?” Derek said, “Rooms clear, terminals are dead here too.”
“Twice, but that was because our dickhead GM rolled a pair of natural twenties on me.”
“Lieutenant, how’s the officer’s game?”
John laughed, “My character is now chaotic neutral. Makes for some interesting situations in towns. Spent all my gold, and some of the group’s gold, to make an enchanted mithril gauntlet. Then broke into a bank to steal enough money to pay back my group. Only a couple of guards died in the break-in. Just barely made it out of town to relative safety.”
“So, you think that I am worse because I’m trying to sex up some random chick in the game instead of robbing banks and killing randoms?”
Arianna nodded, “Yes, much worse. You’re just being cringe, at least with the Lieutenant his chaos has somewhat of a point.”
“No, actually there’s rarely a point to the chaos I leave in my wake,” John smiled as he walked into a room, “They stripped the damn panels in here,” John paused in the room and opened his coms across all the teams, “Have we confirmed if main power can be brought back online?”
Erica then responded to the inquiry, “The main generator, or what we believe should have been the main generator was taken with them. Same with the backup ones.”
“And the server room?”
Derek then spoke up, “Server room was just swept. Servers are present but obviously shut off.”
“I want all portable power generators brought to the server room after we’ve concluded the sweep,” John ordered, “I don’t want any more terminals fired up just in case. I don’t want a subroutine that was aborted or halted to run with whatever residual power is left in the systems.”
“Roger,” the sergeants said quickly.
Thirty minutes later the search was concluded. The crew quarters had some random personal items and clothing left behind. Several data slates were left behind, those were taken along with any other items that appeared to be of any possible benefit.
The marines all merged onto the main hangar. John directed his teams to go through the boxes, carefully. Scan first, then open them. The last thing he or the team needed was to open a boobytrapped box. John didn’t want to deal with the fallout of losing anyone in his command.
He helped Derek jerry-rig the portable generators into the main power of the base. They both looked at one another worryingly before turning them on. Janky didn’t even begin to describe the hot mess they had wired together.
John ordered Derek to turn them on. Derek initially shook his head at his Lieutenant. He couldn’t say anything, but he was legitimately worried about things going sideways quickly if they powered it on. It wasn’t until John had turned around and insisted more seriously that the power be turned on.
With great reluctance, Derek flipped the switch. Sparks flew but then the generators began a normal hum. John walked over to the open door and zoomed in to the server room down the hallway. Arianna noticed the blinking lights first and pointed at them. Somehow the room had power, but for how long no one knew for sure.
“Well holy shit was not expecting this to work,” John said with a noticeable amount of surprise in his voice, “Arianna, with me.”
The two jogged down the hallway and walked toward the server room. When they got there, John walked to the main terminal and connected his suit, a feat that became much more complicated than in the normal power armor. The terminal however didn’t operate in the way that John expected it to.
“Eve, scan the servers for anything.”
“Checking. Operating system and storage drives were wiped,” the VI responded inside John’s helmet, “Wipe is not complete. Some data may be recovered.”
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
“How much?”
“Unknown.”
“Scan the servers for any residual executables or portable storage drives,” John said as he looked through the general server health information that was scrolling through on his HUD.
“Rack Four, blade six has an external device connected to it.”
“Arianna, copy that?”
“Aye aye, sir. Let me look,” She walked over to the correct numbered rack and knelt down next to it, “Yeah, I see it. Are you sure you want me to pull this sir?”
“Eve, if any executables run, pull as much data as you can.”
“Understood.”
“Yank it.”
Nothing would ever go easily for him. Just as John had feared, an executable that had been loaded onto the server began its work. Eve went straight to business trying to quarantine or delay the rogue executable’s work. She was even able to locate the program and make a copy of it for inspection, possibly even to quarantine it or other similar programs in the future.
What data was able to be recovered was quickly sent to a separate partition that John had on his suit. John wasn’t able to skim it or get a sneak peek of what they were able to recover. He was too busy trying to slow down the program.
“Arianna, go to racks seven and eight, pull all the servers out that you can.”
“On it, boss!” Arianna said as she carefully scooted over to the racks.
Again, it wasn’t the simplest of tasks trying to pull out a server blade without crushing it. That would defeat the whole purpose of pulling the blades in the first place. Thankfully, she was able to successfully disconnect twelve of the blades before John started to curse. With any luck, their activities would bear some fruit upon inspection back on the carrier.
“Erica, I need a grav-lift and some boxes. We have some servers we need to transport back with us.”
There was a slight pause before Erica spoke up, “We are heading to you now.”
“Jerad, get the party buses here. We’re heading home.”
“Roger. We will be there in ten.”
“Maybe this wasn’t a total failure,” John said to no one in particular, “Arianna, get the geeks back on the ship to make backups of everything they can on those blades.”
She slowly turned to face him, “Sir, NI was pretty clear on anything we get.”
“NI didn’t send anyone on the Fargo. Fuck ‘em.”
“Ooof, wow. Uhm, yeah,” Arianna clearly sounded uncomfortable with potentially upsetting that wing of the Navy.
“Make sure your report clearly says that I gave you this order over your very clear objections,” John smiled in his helmet.
Arianna shrugged her shoulders but didn’t feel any better, “It’s your funeral, sir.”
Erica then walked in followed by Nathan and David. The two junior members of the platoon began to carefully put the server blades in a pair of cargo boxes they had repurposed. John sent Arianna to get some random things they could find in the hangar to pack in around the sides of the blades.
Fifteen minutes later the marines were in their drop ships. They were rapidly flying through the atmosphere, rising ever closer to the edge of space. The mission was over. Technically it was a failure, but this time it was expected. But they got something for the first time. John was eager to go through the data that was received, whether NI wanted him to review it or not.
17:50 CNS Fargo – Platoon 1 General Room
John was standing in front of all the marines going over their mission. While there weren’t any hostilities expected there were still things the platoon needed to do better. The sergeants had at John’s request, provided a list of suggested improvements on the flight home. That he was able to compile everything and run this meeting so quickly after an operation was both amazing and concerning to them.
“The coms chatter was a bit too loose. I played a part in it too, so this isn’t being targeted at any one person. I don’t doubt the mood and focus would have shifted but the bottom line was we were in hostile territory. I need to do better myself,” John said as he turned the animation displaying the squad movements off and turned the lights back on, “We have three days to get back to the Vigilant. Chow’s at 08:30 and then we’ll be drilling starting at 10:00 for four hours tomorrow.”
The sergeants herded the marines out of the general room. John stayed behind because it looked like General Mizrahi wanted to talk to him. John turned to face the screen when Erica left the room.
“Sirs, I’ve been able to dig into some of this data. This failure of an op turned into a small boon. It’s the first proper success we’ve had.”
The general nodded, “Do you have any idea why the wipe wasn’t completed?”
“My best guess is they half-assed their departure. They must’ve pulled the generators mid-wipe. When we removed the external storage drive it reactivated its subroutines. I have my VI examining that piece of software now,” John smiled, “The data we recovered is fragmented, but the initial glance is that we should have some recoverable data. Some rooms were immaculately clean. Others looked like it was a mad dash to get out of there. Not sure what prompted that though.”
“The CNS Auckland visited the planet last year, roughly at the time we suspect they abandoned the facility,” Colonel Isaac Perentz said.
John nodded, “A moment, sirs,” and then turned to pull up the sensor records of the Auckland, “Fuck. Three transport ships left the surface without filing flight plans. The ships made an emergency jump into slip space before they were able to contact them. The crew had chalked it up to settlers being settlers.”
“NI isn’t happy that you accessed the server,” Admiral Nelson.
“NI or Commander Murphy? Because while NI and I have had our differences I doubt very much LeCroix would overlook this data,” John said with a grin.
“Commander Murphy is insistent on accompanying the next mission,” General Mizrahi said with a smile.
“Did you tell her tough shit? She isn’t cleared for combat ops. Even in a situation like this,” John shook his head, “Plus, if she was so damned worried about intel why didn’t she come with on this one?”
Isaac smiled, “I told her if she wants to be onsite during the initial sweep, she needs to get cleared in power armor usage first, then Marine ops after that. She wasn’t happy that you were cleared.”
“That’s the difference between a desk jockey and field agent I suppose. Has Titan had any luck with the data on the servers we collected?”
“Too early to tell. The servers are already en route to Titan, correct?” General Mizrahi asked.
“They are, sir. A corvette, what was it, the CNS Alexandria I believe, picked up the spoils from us after we got back to the Fargo,” John smiled, “The information I have found at least hints at a large number of commercial transport vessels to inspect.”
“Agreed, the team on Titan is already looking more deeply into who’s paying for all of this.”
John shook his head, “Shell corporations most likely. Now we have to hope they were lazy and used the same ones over and over.”
“Never hope for an incompetent enemy son, be better, smarter, and stronger than them,” General Mizrahi said sternly, “Get some rest. You deserve it.”
John saluted then headed back to his quarters. Sleep is what he should be doing. But that wasn’t what he would do. The data they had needed to be reviewed. He didn’t trust the NI team on the Vigilant. Hell, he didn’t really trust the group on Titan, but at least they seemed to be actively trying. This was the first positive thing that has happened for this task force, and he was eager to see if it could lead to more.
April 25th, 2263. 08:35 CNS Fargo – Mess Hall
John not only looked tired, but he felt tired as well. That was on him though, being up for more than forty-eight hours does that to people. He had spent all evening going through the data Eve had been able to pull from the servers. Work on defragmenting and reconstructing the digital copies of the servers was beyond him. Several different VIs were working in tandem to reconstruct the server array. But they were still hours away from anything.
He shoveled in eggs and French toast as he stared at the data slate. Nothing and no one around him mattered. Just the food and data. That is until the Chief Warrant Officer for their platoon sat across from him.
“Morning, sir,” Jerad said, “Hate to be blunt, but you look like hell.”
John set the data slate on the table and looked up, “Been busy with the post-op stuff.”
“I see that except the op was over two days ago. Sir, I am duty bound to tell you that you should willingly go visit the doc to be cleared.”
John sighed, “Or I can go back to my room and get some sleep.”
“Yes, provided you allow me to lock your terminals and data slates from use for ten hours.”
“You’re a slave driver.”
“I’d rather our leader and arguably most important asset didn’t overwork himself into death. That might be a career ender for me.”
“Oh, so you are doing this for selfish reasons,” John grinned, “Now that is something I definitely understand.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far, sir.”
John leaned back and smiled, “Drew the short straw?”
Jerad nodded, “Sir, doesn’t this mission feel like there’s more going on?”
John grunted and then ate a piece of bacon, “That’s because there is. Thing is, right now that pesky thing called ‘need-to-know’ is applied. Trust me when I say this, we want to find this group and end them.”
“Our mission was to capture them for trial, sir.”
“Sure, it is…” John let his sentence hang for a moment, “We need more intel to go after him. Right now, the Mercs are hosting him.”
“Wait, what he’s doing would be considered an act of war.”
John nodded, “I doubt very much they have given him full remit to do with as he pleases. These bases he has on our frontier are done purposefully. Get the genetic data and testing he wants to do outside of the Mercantilist Union jurisdiction while still providing some use to them. Probably in R&D or something like that.”
“I didn’t think this op was going to be going that deep.”
John finished the last bite of food, “We haven’t even dropped into the rabbit hole yet Jerad. We haven’t found it yet.”
“How are we going to get them on our side?”
John shrugged as he stood up, “Hell if I know. That’s either a problem for future John or someone else. Haven’t had time to work that plan out yet.”
Jerad grinned, “No ideas on it?”
John slid his tray through the return slot, “Never said I didn’t have them. Just don’t know how I’d pull any off at this point. I’ll be a good boy and get some rest. I don’t want to be medically told to do something again.”
John headed back to his quarters and stripped down to his boxers. He crawled under the covers and moments later he was drifting off to sleep. Four and a half hours later, technically more than enough to fully refresh him for a couple more days, he woke up to alarms blaring.
The covers were tossed off of him and he instantly began dressing, “Fucking hell, not again.”