04:02 The National Institute for Technological Advancement – Outside Central Command
Several volleys of plasma fire rang out from a pair of locations. The automated defenses, which John had correctly presumed were present, activated but they themselves were targeted. Besides irritating the power armor’s shielding systems, the defenses did no actual damage to the suits.
Attacks like this occurred in dozens of places. Coordinating the attack took a little while longer than expected, which was adding to how far behind it was. The amount of resistance experienced was not even across the vast expanse of the campus. That resulted in several platoons taking more than expected losses, which then caused Command to shift and adjust the plan accordingly.
Overall, they had suffered far fewer casualties than was expected, so the number of Marines and SpecFor personnel assaulting the main base was notably higher, but they were missing four full platoons from the attack. Though the most dangerous and deadly step was ahead of them.
“CHARGE!” Commanding Cunningham shouted as the large metal door fell itself.
John activated the kinetic shield on his powered fist and ran into action. He had the Gatling cannon spinning for immediate use when hostiles appeared. The SpecFor soldiers were surprised when the hulking form of John sped past them and reached the downward-sloping ramp first. In some respects, John reaching the finish line first was a boon to the less armored soldiers for it was John who the enemy would shoot at first.
And shoot at him they did. But as quickly as they fired and fell back into defensive positions, John quickly jumped forward and slid down the ramp. The initial volley of enemy rounds flew harmlessly over him, destined to land somewhere on the campus. The moment John began sliding down the cargo ramp he aimed the Gatling cannon and began spewing out a ferocious amount of high explosive return fire.
The frontmost rank of enemies was cut down immediately along with their barriers. More reinforcements came from the rear but then the squads at the top of the ramp began firing. The addition of enemies in power armor running at the Marines was the note that started the chaotic counterattack that Dr. Norman had ordered.
“Heavies, concentrate…” John said as he continued to spew out rounds but was unable to finish his sentence.
The Mercantilist Union power armor was much sleeker and form-fitting than the bulkier variants the Confederacy used. That didn’t mean they were any less deadly. The first SpecFor soldier that reached the ramp engaged the enemies first.
Unfortunately for him, the skill of his opponents significantly outweighed his. One pulled out a pair of hypersonic daggers and the other a long katana-like blade. In but a blink of an eye the nameless operator lost an arm, was stabbed multiple times in the chest, and had his head cleaved off of his body.
Another pair went after John, who was not only ready for them but much quicker on the take and reacted instantly. The individual with the pair of daggers died due to a surprising diet of hundreds of high-explosive rounds. The enemy behind him didn’t seem to be phased in the slightest and charged at John.
What the enemy wasn’t expecting was for John to hop forward and lean down while punching forward with his oversized right fist. Whatever shielding the Mercantilist suits possessed was fried in an instant. The chest plate, abdominal plate, codpiece, and the top portion of the right thigh plate were annihilated. Every bone from the chest down to the hip was violently broken or shattered. Shards of bones lacerated nearly all of the organs. Whatever attack the man had in him ended with a single punch.
John stepped to his left and turned to face the first two attackers. The one with the katana took one step forward before leaping in the air at John. In response, John activated his plasma blast gun and fired two volleys at the man. The first was able to fry the shields and impact the chest plate but only managed to char the surface. The second shot seared through the plate and seared the poor bastard’s chest.
As he stepped aside to avoid the now ballistic trajectory of the dead soldier the remaining one took a micro-lance blast to the chest. The suit’s shields gave way instantly and half of the man disappeared in the resulting blast. John was barely eight feet away from the explosion and was not expecting that attack at all. The blast wave sent John slamming into the wall some twenty feet behind him and nearer the main floor of the warehouse.
“Fucking hell,” John said as he stood up and began firing the Gatling cannon, “Be careful with those damn things.”
Vanessa and Paul ran down the ramp and joined John in the fighting. The combined firepower of the trio was more than enough to cut through any defenders wearing power armor. That allowed the rest of the platoon to follow suit, dig in, and hammered the defenders mercilessly.
The SpecFor platoon was not as coordinated and suffered three casualties in the initial counterattack. Aside from some new scratches and shielding arrays recharging John and his marines were largely unscathed. John took note of those losses and was surprised at how his platoon, not the SpecFor one, was so much better coordinated.
As the gunfire died down and they took stock of what happened Erica spoke out, “They looked rusty.”
John shook his head, “That wasn’t rust. That was a result of shitty practice and a lack of experience.”
“Sir, hostiles are falling back using the primary corridor there and the second one there,” Paul said.
“Vanessa, connect with that terminal and try to get a schematic of some sort of this building,” John said as he moved among the squad, “Everyone else, stay at alert. We are outnumbered bigly.”
John looked back at their unwelcome guests as they cautiously took up position on the opposite side of the ramp. Four of their members were pulling the dead back to the top of the ramp. One of them appeared to be seriously wounded as well. They were likely down a squad.
“Commander,” John radioed over as he gestured to the two tunnels, “Hostiles retreated down these corridors. Suggest we each take one.”
“Do you have any maps of the base?” Commander Cunningham asked.
“Working on that now, sir,” John turned to look at Vanessa, “Status?”
“Sending what I’ve been able to pull. They’ve segmented the networks so it’s difficult to get data on other areas. That means there are lots of blind spots.”
“We’ll have to grind forward. I’m sharing this with the operation as a whole, we’ll need to coordinate amongst everyone in the assault to get a proper map of the base produced,” John said.”
“Very well, let us both go down the main corridor,” Commander Cunningham pointed ahead as three of the SpecFor soldiers rejoined the group.
“Sir, there isn’t enough space for everyone here to go down a singular location. It also opens us up to attacks from the rear and sides. We need to split apart; we also have no idea where their central server core is.”
“If we are together…”
John interrupted the Commander in a clear breach of protocol, “All it takes is one heavy weapon like that micro-lance that one of your guys shot near me to cause a handful of us to die. We can’t spread apart as we like. We can cover more ground, and importantly may be able to secure the server core, which should be in the outer ring of this building if our intel is accurate.”
Commander Cunningham set his armed gauntlets on his hips as he stared at the ground for a moment. To John, this was an easy decision to make, but he also knew the Commander was trying to be the hero. His proposal wasn’t good enough.
“If we find the core, we’ll call y’all to it, and only y’all so that you can secure the room. Commander, I don’t give two shits about glory. I want to see this place of horrors shut down for good.”
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“Very well, we’ll head down here. I want your coms person to keep an open channel with mine.”
John turned and pointed at Darryl, “Make that happen.”
“Good hunting Lieutenant.”
John nodded before turning and leading his platoon into the unknown. He noted an interesting difference in the platoons. Commander Cunningham commanded him to move out but kept himself towards the rear of his squad. John couldn’t help but wonder how loyal his troops were, or how committed they were to whatever orders they received from Cunningham.
04:22 The National Institute for Technological Advancement – Secondary Computer Node
Each terminal they had passed was inspected. More and more of their section of the building came into focus. A small computer node was located. John had conveniently neglected to inform the Commander of this find. Something he’d do if they found the main core if only to inspect and possibly sabotage it first.
On a private channel to his sergeants, John asked, “I’d like confirmation the anti-shutdown program is installed and active on everyone except the newbies?”
“Active here,” Derek said, “But I didn’t get the impression that the SpecFor fucks were willing to commit fratricide.”
“They kind of came off as uncoordinated and out of practice. Almost like they’ve never run a combat op before,” Darryl added, “That was some sloppy shit.”
“This whole situation stinks, sir,” Erica said as she sidestepped across an intersection, “For what reason would they have to do that?”
“To make sure the truth doesn’t get out. We’re all expendable,” John said before spooling up his cannon and cutting down some defenders that made the unfortunate decision to turn down the hall, “Make sure to keep an open line with the other Marines, if they turn on us, we need a united front. The others will need to know to defend themselves.”
“Already on it, sir,” Darryl said.
Vanessa spoke up on the platoon-wide channel, “Sir, we’ve got what the schematic says is a computer node on our left.”
John responded, “I want in that room. Take up defensive positions. I don’t want any interruptions.”
The platoon rushed forward. Arianne and Paul began to work on getting the door opened. John stood behind them observing their handiwork. He was also scanning the coms and checking into the status of the other platoons.
“We got lucky where we entered. They were massing defenses on the north and western sides,” John said to his sergeants, “Heavy resistance was encountered on the far side of this building.”
“Any reason for that?” Erica asked.
“Seems like a lot of storage and labs were located there.”
“CONTACT,” Vanessa shouted, “That doesn’t look human.”
John stepped into the intersection and looked at the shambling figure. The oddly proportioned figure stood a little taller than a normal human. But its arms almost reached the floor. It was also incredibly thin. Its skin was covered in a dark purple goo of some sort. A trail of it was left behind where it walked. They made no sound save for a squishing sound when their limbs touched the ground.
The reaction John took was a surprise to no one present. He raised his powered fist and engaged the plasma blast gun. It spooled up and fired off a single shot of ultra-hot plasma. The figure crumpled over and ceased moving. But as that happened more creatures of that nature appeared.
“Cut them down,” John said before walking over to the door.
Arianne stood up and pushed the door’s console, “Open sesame!”
John tapped her shoulder pad with the Gatling cannon before stepping inside. He moved his fist near a connection port. Eve handled the rest and guided the cable into place. Her first directive was to uncover a base-wide schematic. That wasn’t accessible from here, but they did get directions to where the central core likely was.
Gunfire outside seemed to escalate outside, “Eve, can you tap into any research records to find out what the fuck those things were?”
“Checking now. Security on this node is substantially stronger than it was on the quantum servers.”
“Sir, we have one corridor where they aren’t coming from,” Erica said.
“Understood, trying to find out what in the fuck those things are,” John said, “How’s ammo?”
“Squads are down about a quarter. Still strung on that point,” Derek said between bursts of fire.
Eve then responded, “Specifics on those creatures couldn’t be drawn out, but available research records suggest they are clones linked to one another.”
John nodded before ordering Eve to detach from the node, “Commander Cunningham, we found a computer node. We weren’t able to access any records from the base itself, but we are getting boxed in by goo monsters.”
There was a moment of silence before the Commander responded, “What precisely is a goo monster?”
John stepped into the intersection once more and looked down the hallway, “Those purple-ish things. They die pretty easily but I have no idea what that shit that covers them is. Don’t really want to find out. We’re getting boxed in here. Only one hallway doesn’t have them, which is running perpendicular to your location. We’ve got a route to get back on a parallel to y’all.”
“Understood.”
Just then the shambling monsters surged forward in one of the hallways. The forward group of Marines began falling back. Lance Corporal Sean Gunderson stumbled over some clutter on the floor. He sprung over on his back and began firing at the things as he scrambled back to his feet.
One of the things jumped at him and grabbed his leg. Sean stopped in his tracks. The gooey substance began to spread over his armor. A weak cry came over the coms before it changed to a liquid sounding gibberish.
“Eve, kill that suit now,” John said as he pushed a pair of Marines out of the way.
Sean’s vitals began to fluctuate and then began to display values that made no sense. A palpable sense of worry washed over the squads but that was kept in check by the amount of gunfire at the inhuman monsters. Then, despite the suit being powered off, it turned to face the marines.
John wasted no time in reacting to that. He raised his fist and fired his plasma blast gun at the being that was formerly Sean Gunderson. The plasma struck its chest, burned through the ooze sliced right through the breastplate. It wailed weekly one last time before falling to the floor with a thud.
Dix shouted, “WHAT THE FUCK?”
“He was dead,” John said calmly.
The platoon continued to attack the shambling enemies. Most of the fire was relegated to energy or plasma-based weaponry so as to conserve ammunition. But that was merely slowing the advance, not stopping it. That was painfully obvious as they crept closer and closer to the platoon.
“We can’t do this for ever and ever,” John said as he fired off several more blasts.
Eve then reminded John of the warnings she was displaying in his HUD, “The fusion reactors have no available plasma for the weapon system. It’ll take five minutes to recharge.”
“Plasma cannons are taking longer to recharge, sir,” Derrick shouted.
“Eve, what would happen if I fired that?” John asked.
“Unknown, presumably the damage would be significant but there isn’t enough available data to confirm that. Additionally, that weapon can only be fired once every fifteen to twenty minutes.”
John then activated the other weapon he built into his fist. The negative-psychic energies gathered in it for several seconds before it was fully charged. Several of the Marines noticed the weapon and its sickeningly black and slow projectile. All who looked at it felt a chill creep up their backs.
“What in the fuck?” Vanessa said as she saw John activate this new weapon, “That was…”
He didn’t respond as he focused on the results of the psychic weapon striking one of the shambling creatures. It didn’t do any damage at first glance. But the thing stopped in its tracks and screamed out in horrifying pain. Then the others followed suit seconds later. Moments later all of the monsters were frozen in place screaming. The monster that was struck with the attack then began to spit out more of the purple ooze before falling to the ground motionless. One by one the rest of the monsters did the same.
John walked down the corridor and leaned down near one of the monsters. Eve was running a spectrographic scan of the ooze. Her preliminary results were confusing at best. They scrolled through quickly on his HUD.
“They created a physical psychic medium,” John said quietly, “Fucking hell. That could forcibly make a non-psychic psychic, but the cost was a loss of self.”
“It seems that was not the true intent of the research but was by accident. These clones were injected with a gene therapy that had entirely unexpected results. Anyone they touched, or rather infected, with their excretion, could be converted into whatever it was they turned into. Effectively adding to their hivemind. It caused the malformed skeletal structure. That liquid was the psychic medium that bound them together into a single hivemind,” Eve paused for a moment, “The psychic weapon of yours struck every one of them due to how they linked themselves together.”
John whispered to himself as he stared at the ooze patch, “And that is why we cannot let this man live. Is that ooze dangerous now?”
“It is calcifying now. It appears to be inert.”
He then stood up and shouted, “We need to double-time it. Kill anything that isn’t Confederate. Darryl, lead the way.”
Vanessa then stepped out of the way and in front of John, “Sir, what was that?”
John placed a hand on her pauldron, “The less you know the better, Corporal.”
“Sir, that was clearly not a standard issue. If that could help…”
“If this weapon of mine was usable by anyone else, then all available souls would be equipped with it. It’s a piece unique, workable by only me. Which, given our location, is about as unfortunate as it gets,” John pointed over Vanessa’s shoulder, “Let’s get a move on.”
Vanessa nodded and jogged down the corridor. John followed a step behind her. The platoon was twitchy. No negligent discharges occurred, but tensions were high. They may not have known their new brother for long but losing him wore on them.
“Lieutenant, we are rerouting due to heavy resistance,” Commander Cunningham said to their open channel, “Casualties on our end have been sustained but no further losses sustained. We’re hoping to attack the contacts from the rear. What is your location?”
“We’re in Level B1 Section 36A currently but heading towards Section 49B. The ooze monsters have been dealt with. We are moving to a room that we’ve been unable to identify. It’s possible it’s a server room, though the small size of the room suggests it’s not the primary one. We’ve lost one soldier and expended more ammunition than expected.”
“Contact me when you reach that room. It’s going to be some time before we’re able to reach that location.”
“Understood. Happy hunting,” John said to the Commander before he switched to his platoon, “Double time it, I want to get into that room.”