June 4th, 2263. Planet of Kuma Prime. 07:45 Aurellian Mountain Range
John quickly hid back behind the rock. The facility that they were going to inspect, or tear apart more accurately, was still staffed. Better yet, the scans of the individuals they had seen outside didn’t match anyone from the colony.
“Holy shit, how in the hell did intelligence miss this?” John said in exasperation.
“No clue sir, what do you want to do?” Erica asked.
Jerad then spoke up, “Sir, they aren’t boxing up things. Those people outside are just chilling.”
“How’s the e-war going? Do we have access to their systems yet?” John asked as he checked various displays in his HUD.
“We can open the exterior doors but getting into their systems appears to require direct access to a terminal in the station,” Jerad said.
“Do we have any stealth suits with us?” John said as he contemplated his options.
“We do, but…” Jerad said but was interrupted.
“Sir, we can’t expect to get everyone in there with a stealth suit. We’re not exactly known as being sneaky,” Derek said sarcastically.
“I wasn’t referring to y’all,” John said as he crept down the path towards their drop ships, “Erica, get the squads spread out and recon everything. If things go sideways, I want y’all ready to leap into action. Make sure the refractor fields are working for everyone before moving. I don’t want them to know what’s going on ahead of time.”
“Lieutenant, I must state the obvious,” Derek said, “You are putting yourself into a precarious position. The stealth suits have a kinetic shield but it’s off when you are invisible and when you aren't it's woefully insufficient for most power armor rifles.”
“Funny how Naval Intelligence, whose job is intelligence gathering, isn’t fucking here. We need to see these assholes work without us knowing we’re here. And to get a live feed into their database.”
“You aren’t going to be talked out of this are you, sir?” Erica asked.
“This was my specialty. Might be a little rusty at it but I’ll make do,” John said as he was jogging to the drop ship, “Spread out and await my command.”
He was fully out of sight of the base at this point and in a deep sprint. Dagger 1 had its rear pad down awaiting his arrival. There was a modified reliquary already activated and ready for him to step into place. As he did the little machine got to business removing the heavy armor plates of the Broadside power armor.
Jerad walked over to him, “Sir, I know why you are doing this, but we have no intel on what kind of defenses they may have inside. The sergeants are downplaying the potential risk to you.”
“I’m aware of the risks,” John said as his helmet was removed, “And I accept them for what it is.”
“Lieutenant, if you die…”
“I won’t be. And if I get caught then the cavalry comes in,” both of the torso coffin armor plates were removed, “Jerad, I wouldn’t be suggesting this if I wasn’t confident of pulling it off in the first place.”
The last armor plate was removed and stowed within the reliquary. John unzipped the heavy-duty sheath exposing his muscular and scarred chest as he walked by his Chief Warrant Officer. He slapped his shoulder as he headed to the open locker.
“I appreciate the concern, but this shit is old hat to me. I’m at my best when I’m being a sneaky bastard.”
“Off the record sir, there are those in the first fleet that don’t believe your fit to serve. If you lose control…”
“Then I’ll have to take my lumps as or if they come. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it now. Besides,” John slid out of the sheathe leaving in only his boxer briefs, “The mission demands I do this. You know this to be true as well.”
“All too well, but I see all of those medals on your chest and back though, sir,” Jerad said, “While the new mission parameters demand we do this you don’t have to.”
“I disagree, I do need to do this,” John said as he began putting on the stealth suit’s sheath, “I need some weapons for this kit by the way.”
Jerad shook his head knowing he wasn’t going to talk his commanding officer out of this course of action, “Suppressed pistol and knife in the cubby to your right. One of my people is getting the sub-gun and some spare magazines loaded now.”
“Chief, we have full control of the lab’s internal sensors in addition to the doors,” Corporal Park shouted out from beyond the bulkhead.
“Excellent work Corporal,” John said as he shouted back, “Transmit those commands to my suit. My VI will need those runtimes.”
“On it, Lieutenant!”
John had his helmet in his hand as he turned to face Jerad, “Don’t worry chief, I got this.”
“I know you can do this, sir. I’m worried about what you’ll do when you find out what horrors they are working on in there.”
“Stop Jerad, that’s outside of your wheelhouse.”
“With respect, sir. It isn’t. I want to see this mission through to a successful end. I don’t think that’s possible if you aren’t part of it.”
John nodded as he put on his helmet. He turned to take the pistol and holstered it and the spare magazines for it. The combat knife he attached to its sheath on his chest. Corporal Park then ran into the room with the suppressed sub-machine gun and four spare magazines and handed them to him. John locked it to his back with the spare magazines secured firmly opposite the pistol magazines.
“Godspeed, sir!” Corporal Park said.
John saluted them, turned, and ran out of the dropship. He sprinted up the path to where one team of marines was awaiting the signal. Just as they saw him John’s arm shot out and fired a monofilament fiber into the rock. As he leaped off the rockface his stealth field engaged.
He was freefalling down the sheer cliff face. But as he approached a rocky outcropping below the braking device engaged and slowed his descent to survivable speeds. He cut the cable when he was mere feet above the outcropping below him. It was an eight-foot jump down and a light jog to the facility.
“Sir, recommend you avoid the main hangar bay. It has additional scanners in it that the north and southwest entries don’t have,” Erica said over coms.
Private David Olsen then spoke up, “Recommend you take the west entrance, sir. There aren’t any guards there. The people that are there are dozens of yards in front of the ramp to it.”
“Roger,” John said as he was running towards his new target, “ETA is one minute.”
John slowed down and picked rocky areas to step on. It was less likely that anyone would catch him. Though there wasn’t anyone looking in his general direction he was still being careful. With each step, he slowed down a bit and each was purposeful. John was in stalking mode, and the rust from lack of use was getting kicked off each step.
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Moments later he got to the edge station. John reached up and pulled himself over the guardrails and onto the platform. He crept towards the door. His movement was very slow, there didn’t appear to be any scanners, but John would rather be safe than sorry.
He stopped when he was an arm's length from the external terminal, “At the door, holding a moment.”
John placed his hand over the terminal. Eve’s avatar flashed in his HUD and then disappeared for a moment. Reams of text scrolled through the right corner of his hub. His VI was attempting to make a hard connection to the lab’s system.
“Connection created. I do not have unfettered access to the system, nor can I unlock all doors. I do have access to most of the base cameras and scanners.”
“Display the schematics, and share it with the squads,” John said to the team, “Do we have access to their servers?”
Jerad then spoke over the coms, “We’re scanning and copying everything from the servers as I speak.”
“Based on the security observed, I believe it is possible to get full control of the servers with a direct connection to them,” Eve said to John.
“Going to target the server room first, then I will reconnoiter the rest of the base,” John said to his squad, “Jerad, monitor the situation and if you can get access to the rest of the cameras please help with callouts.”
“We do not have access yet but are working on it,” Jerad said.
“Repositioning my squad, we’re inside a minute run to the main hangar. Will be out of sight as well,” Erica said.
The door opened and John slipped in. There were three scientists sitting at a round table. None paid any attention to the door that seemingly opened and closed at random. John slowly walked along the wall but was focused on them.
The conversation was about genotypes and nucleotides. One of them did mention that their testing would move more quickly with live specimens. John paused and made a note of who was speaking.
“Look, I’m just saying if we had a specimen, we could…”
“No, we don’t need to do any live tests,” the youngest-looking scientist said, “Besides, the work we’re doing is theoretical, we’re not even charged with proving anything.”
“That’s true, but we could, and should, in my opinion, prove that our theories work too. Why have another team do the work we’re theorizing?” the initial scientist said.
“Because we’re not monsters. Do you know what some of these vaccines we created would do to a person?”
“Bad things. For now, it’s a moot argument since we’re not even close to proving it,” the supposed manager or leader of the trio said, “If we get far enough in our studies then we may be able to recruit a subject at the colony.”
“Recruit, or do you mean kidnap? I’ve heard…”
“As I said, it’s a moot point unless we achieve success in our digital trials.”
John began moving once more and headed to the server room. He got to an intersection and leaned against the inside wall and peaked down the hallway. It was clear, he rounded the corner and was steadily making his way to the server room. If the marker on his HUD was correct, he needed to hang a right at the next intersection, and it’d be the first door on his right.
“Lieutenant, we have view access to the cameras but cannot control them,” Jerad said, “One of our drones caught four employees of the lap in the forest two kilometers south of here.”
John paused, “Darryl, take your team and subdue them. Jerad, make sure their communication devices are jammed before we take them into custody. No killing unless fired upon.”
John continued prowling the facility. He once more peaked down the hallway. There was movement on the far end but none in the section by the server room. Just as he rounded the former Jerad spoke up on the coms.
“One individual is in the server room, unsure who or what they are doing.”
Eve then spoke, “John, someone is logged into the server with full rights.”
“Say no more,” John responded to his VI.
He quickly walked down the hall and opened the door. It was closed quickly behind him. But the technician inside the room saw that and spoke up.
“Jimmy, is that you again? For Christ’s sake, I told you to stop fucking around here,” the technician said from the corner of a room while rooting around in a server.
John quickly looked around the room to find a blunt object of some sort to use as an improvised club. To his dismay he found nothing. He did pick up a spare keyboard button and walked nearer the servers. He tossed the button on the ground and then walked down the row of servers where the technician wasn’t working on.
“Jimmy, what fucking games are…” the technician stood up and looked around the room, “What the hell. I’ve been stuck in this damned room too long. I’m…”
Before he was able to finish his sentence John walked up behind him and put him into a sleeper hold. The technician was caught completely unawares, and the ineffectual flaying of his arms did nothing to improve his situation.
Eventually, the tech was knocked out. John laid the man down carefully and zip-tied the man’s arms and legs. He then turned around and looked over the server that he was working on. He placed his hand over an external device that was plugged into it.
“Eve, is this a key to the servers?”
“It is, I am copying and modifying the sub-routines to obey me. I will disable its remote access controls.”
“Lieutenant, thanks to that we have full control over the cameras and doors. You will have unfettered access to the facility now.”
“Jerad, are there any hidden rooms like in the last base? Or rooms that require a unique set of access to enter?”
“There are two rooms. A chemical room, which is here,” Jerad highlighted the room for John, “The other only three people have access too. The lead scientist, an attaché of some sort, and an assistant to the scientist.”
“That’s the special room. How’s the server copy going?”
“Fully copied. There’s a scheduled data dump to a remote server in fifteen minutes.”
John stood up and leaned against a server rack, “When that happens try to pull anything and everything you can get from it.”
“Got eyes on our targets. Their coms are already disabled, will disable them when they get closer.”
“Remember, non-lethal for now,” John said.
“John, there is an open communication to the National Institute for Technological Advancement, do you wish to view it?” Eve said.
“Yes,” John said quickly, “And lock the server room doors for everyone.”
A screen then appeared in his HUD. The video of both individuals in the call was displayed. John didn’t recognize either one of them, though the one at the institute appears to be a senior manager given their attitude. John rolled his eyes at the man’s pompous and demanding attitude.
“Several of the scientists here are beginning to talk, in hushed tones, about human experimentation,” the attaché said worryingly, “I do not think this should be green-lit Dr. Prachyl. What of the issues in the other bases? It’s one thing to talk about it, it’s an entirely different story to approve it.”
Dr. Prachyl shook his head, “The official request I received from Dr. Jafri has been approved. George, I don’t understand why you are so worried about this. You are safe and it is highly unlikely those oafish marines will find you.”
“Sir, I didn’t know you had approved that. Please rethink that,” Dr. George Patel said in a worried tone, “Oafish as they may be, they’ve hit two live sites. One of which was well along the research path if our intel is correct.”
“It is, but the rewards more than justify the risks. How many Confed ships have stopped by this planet in the past month while you all were working?”
“Dozens. But all it takes is one.”
“You are more likely to score a date with that supermodel on that poster behind you than the soldiers finding out about this place. Besides, in eight to ten weeks you’ll be back home.”
“I was sent here to oversee the technical side of things. I’m not even a geneticist, you know that my focus is on mechanical engineering. I am not at all comfortable with human experimentation, especially the non-consenting kind.”
“George, George, George. I keep forgetting you are so young and new to this role. This organization is all about improving weapons. Humans are in fact, a weapon and we are working towards honing that edge. Perhaps the most dangerous and terrifying of them all.”
George stood up, “I signed up with you all to build weapons and do R&D. I did not sign up for this,” George’s hands were waving about uncontrollably, “Bullshit. This is utter nonsense. What will happen if the oafs, as you put it, discover all of this? What then?”
John, more so Eve than him technically, had successfully put the external sensors in a loop. The windows in all labs were activated, causing them to be more like a television playing a loop of a video rather than being a transparent pane.
George spoke again breaking John out of his focus, “I really don’t know about this, sir. Anyways, all data has successfully been transferred. I’m going to go for a walk to clear my head.”
Dr. Prachyl smiled, “You are doing good work son. In time you’ll get used to working for this organization. When you get back, we’ll have a chat.”
The screen went blank. John then looked up at a screen to the side of the server rack he was standing in front of. True to his word, George was already out of his office and heading to the nearest exit. John tracked him until he left the base.
“Squads, sending an image of a Merc attaché, non-lethal only on him. If he gets near you take him down.”
“Lieutenant, contrary to that conversation,” Jerad said, “We were all listening in by the way. Live experimentation is already being conducted, though I think only the lead scientist and his assistant on the base are the ones guilty of that.”
John nodded his head, “That’s what I was suspecting. It doesn’t seem to be common knowledge amongst scientists that human experimentation will begin or has been approved. What is disturbing though is that more of them seem to want that than not.”
“We’ve already identified those people based on their writings, sir,” Jerad said, “We can leverage that.”
Erica then spoke up, “Target is heading to the forest.”
Lukas then spoke up, “Have eyes on him. Sergeant Anderson, he’s heading away from the rest of the squad.”
“Incapacitate him, do not kill him,” Darryl said, “We are hauling these four back to the party bus. Three klicks out.”
“Lukas, take him out and then back to the dropship,” John said, “I’m going deeper into this place of horrors. All other teams hold your positions but maintain observations.”