CHAPTER 39 - INFILTRATION
DATE POINT: MAY 12th, 7 A.U. (AFTER UNIFICATION)
LOCATION: SOL SYSTEM, APPROACHING ANOMALOUS STRUCTURE
LIEUTENANT PAUL KARST
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“Sixty seconds to drop window!” their pilot shouted.
Paul pulled on the last of the harnesses of his teammates, checking that they were secured in properly. He then settled into his own acceleration couch and squeezed into the uncomfortably small space with his knees crouched before he secured his own harness. He looked over at Hamilton across from him and they both shared a look of mutual suffering.
“Gonna have to see if they can do something about expanding these things for us! This is bullshit!” Hamilton shouted in mock outrage.
“The designers couldn’t have anticipated the size of your fat ass. Don’t blame them cuz you just had to get on the xeno hulk juice.” Estefani teased.
“Oh, my heart! You hear this girl? You wound me! I did this for you, girl, and you too Ariana. You know you ain’t complainin’ about my size when I’m shielding you from harm. I’m gonna remember this.” Hamilton fired back.
“Yeah, we know, an elephant never forgets after all, right?” Jenkins said with a smirk.
“Damn! Shots fired! Just wait ‘til we get back into the training ring. I’m gonna make your ass pay for that one!” Hamilton replied.
“Please don’t joke like that, it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t think my ass could handle that. You’re not being serious, right?” Jenkins backpedaled while Paul chuckled,
“Why don’t you drop trou and find out? Don’t worry, I can be real gentle when I want to be.” Hamilton pushed the advantage with savage glee.
“I’m suddenly a lot less comfortable with this situation.” Jenkins said with growing horror.
“Aww… leave the poor virgin alone. He’s just teasing you, Preston, you got him good, you should have stood your ground.” Ariana said.
“Virgin?! Hey! I’ll have you know….” Jenkins began
“Brace for acceleration, dropping in five seconds!” Their pilot interrupted him mid-sentence.
They were violently sucked back into their acceleration padding as they shot out from the belly of the Fist of the Argonauts and into space. As quickly as it started, it was over, and the sensation of micro gravity returned.
“LZ remains cold and quiet, no sign of point defense activity. Course locked in, deceleration in thirty seconds.”
“Copy that, be ready to lay down suppressing fire just in case we have a welcome party waiting for us.” Paul replied.
“You heard the lady! Stow the chatter and get your heads in the game. It seems like we have the element of surprise, but we should expect an ambush anyway.” Paul ordered.
A tense silence settled down upon them as they counted the seconds by.
“Decelerating” Their pilot reported before they were yanked forward into their harnesses for a few seconds.
“Thermals are clear, LZ appears silent. Dropping us on the upper of the two exposed decks. Team two is being dropped on the deck below us. Teams three and four are hot on our heels, so you need to move fast to clear the LZ! Deploying Rhino now. Cabin depressurized, popping the hatch!”
A heavy thump was felt as the Rhino hover tank was released from its magnetic clamp. At the same time, their harnesses were released, and the rear hatch slid open. Paul grabbed his service rifle, thumbing the release latch from its slot in the wall next to him before he grabbed his spear from its makeshift clamp next to it and clipped it to his back.
“This is Rhino HT one reporting in, all clear.”
Paul led the rush to the hatch door as the rest of his team grabbed their weapons and followed behind. He then took a deep breath and launched himself through the vacuum and swung his legs forward to land with his magnetic boots onto the deck below. He switched his visor view to thermal for a quick sweep before he switched back to enhanced night vision.
Talk to me, creepy, any signs of life out there?
I detect nothing in the vicinity… though my senses are limited… when shackled to the bonds of flesh….
Why do you phrase everything so weird? Whatever, just let me know if you sense anything. Paul thought back.
“Fan out, cover the Rhino’s flanks, and move up the corridor to make room for team three. Keep your eyes peeled for an ambush.” Pail ordered over comms, satisfied that the area was as secure as it had initially appeared, at least for the moment.
The pyramidal structure had been constructed of some form of ferromagnetic low grade iron alloy, which thankfully meant their mag boots worked, allowing them to walk somewhat normally. They had dropped through the melted out scar shot through the middle of the facility and had landed on the first relatively open corridor to have survived the blast intact enough to be navigable. Paul pulled up the internal map that the ground penetrating radar drone had made and signaled to the team to follow his lead.
“Teams one and two deployed, pulling out now. Teams three and four are inbound.” Their gunship pilot reported before they flew back out to find a safe landing spot against the exterior wall of the facility.
“Team one, this is gunship three on approach, are we clear to deploy?”
“Gunship three, LZ is clear.” Paul replied.
“Copy that, decelerating for final approach now.”
The pitch-black stealth angled gunship arrived moments later through the massive hole in the outer wall and slowed to a stop in front of them.
“Deploying Rhino and falling back. Just give the word and we will be ready to pick you up.”
“Roger that. Stay safe out there. We’re gonna try and turn the lights on, so make sure you land out of sight of any exterior turrets.” Paul said.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be well hidden. Already got a spot picked out on the rocky underbelly.”
Out of the back of the gunship, five marines in Paladin suits landed against the deck and escorted HT three up to Paul’s group. Gunship three turned and slid silently through space and out of their view.
“Team two, report.” Paul said.
“We have team four deployed alongside ourselves and are ready to pursue our objectives.” Lance said.
“Good, team three is with us. First things first, we need to power up the facility. We’ll head towards the heat anomaly up top. Report anything abnormal or potentially useful along the way, and keep checking in.” Paul ordered, probably unnecessarily, as Lance knew the plan as well as he did, but it felt good to order the man around anyway.
“Yes, Sir…. Moving out.” Lance replied with extra emphasis on the honorific. Paul smirked. Got him.
“All right, let’s get this show on the road. Team three, watch our six, Hamilton, take point.”
“Yes sir! Just one question… Which way are we going?”
They sat at a crossroads, with two possible pathways ahead. One wider path led directly into the heart of the facility and a large blast door. The other was slightly smaller and seemed to coil around the outer edge of the facility just inside the exterior wall and seemed to lead to a large room inside the capstone area of the pyramid.
“I’ve been thinking, there’s a good chance that the inner parts of this facility are still pressurized. That means blowing out that huge blast door will release a metric fuck ton of air right into our faces. Breathable air is the most valuable resource around out here, so I don’t want to waste it any more than I want to get blown out into space. The choice is clear, we take the long route up to the upper room.” Paul replied.
“Won’t opening that blast door there also release a bunch of air out too?” Jenkins asked.
“Probably, but there’s a series of blast doors that have closed all along the outer pathway that we can power up and use as makeshift airlocks. We’ll lose a lot less air going that way. It’s the better choice.” Paul said, confidently.
“Sounds good to me. Just one problem, however, how are you planning on opening that door when there’s no power? I can use the main gun to blow it open, or you can cut into it with our plasma torch but then it will cease to work as an airlock.” HT one’s pilot chimed in.
“Glad you asked! We’ll use the Paladin suit mobile recharge cells to power the doors. Now, where’s our engineer?" Paul asked as he walked over and opened an access hatch on the back of HT one and removed a pair of graphene capacitor stack power cells. He then floated them over to the door with his TK.
“That would be me sir. Technical Sergeant Gardner at your service. I’ve got my kit right here.” A rather short woman with a mousey voice said as she slung her rifle and walked up to the door holding a duffel bag.
“Excellent, get to work then, Jenkins and Hamilton will cover you.”
“Shit, didn’t even think of this. They use completely different access screw types, some kind of three prong screwdriver. Fuck it, I’ll just cut the panel door off.” She then grabbed a rotary tool and affixed a cutting wheel and got to work. In a master display of efficiency, she had the panel open in less than a minute.
“The design architecture seems pretty universal, at least in a way I should be able to trace the wires and figure it out. I’ll need a few minutes though.”
“You’ve got it.” Paul said. “Team one, how are you faring?”
“We found an alternate route into the main chamber; it looks like the whole level is depressurized. There’s a section of inner wall melted away by that plasma torpedo. It’s pretty high up the wall, though, we are working to assess if we can enlarge it safely enough to fit the Rhino through.” Lance replied.
“Hang tight, I’m going to redeploy a Patriot suit to assist.” Paul then switched channels over. “Patriot one I’m redeploying you to support team two, please confirm. Patriot two maintain position with the gunships for now, you are to continue to protect our line of retreat.”
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“On my life, sir. Locust out.” Patriot two’s pilot, Lieutenant Brandon “Locust” Herrera replied.
“Ghost reporting, I’m all over it.” Alex replied.
“Perfect, I’m tying you into team two’s comms.” Paul said before switching back to the channel for team two. “Ghost, when you link up with team two, use your spy drone to get a look into the large open chamber, then your TK field to give team two a lift into the room. See if you can help widen that opening through the wall for the Rhino while you’re at it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Paul then turned back to check on Tech Sergeant Gardner.
“How’s it coming along Sergeant?”
“Just… about… done…. Okay, I’m applying a twist on connector now just in case this isn’t the wire we need. It should be. Anyway, moment of truth time. Fingers crossed?”
Paul moved up to the door and raised his rifle, then motioned Jenkins and Hamilton to line up on either side of the door in preparation.
“Sure, crossed over the trigger. Hit it.”
Right as Paul finished speaking, she flipped a switch she had wired into the circuit and the door slid open. A huge figure charged right at Paul who began frantically pulling the trigger as a rush of dusty air blasted past everyone. The first few shots were audible until the air in the corridor emptied itself into the void. The huge figure was jerked backwards as it was filled with round after round of 185 grain armor penetrating 7.62 x 51 NATO rounds. Paul realized after expending half his magazine that the body was cold.
“Hold your fire! We’re shooting a corpse. HT one, get me a spotlight would you?”
Paul walked up to it and spun it around so he could inspect it in the light coming from the turret of the Rhino tank behind him.
“What… the fuck is that thing?”
It was tall, like a standard Nephaeli’im giant foot soldier, nearly twice the height of an ordinary human. It also had two arms and two legs, with a torso and a head, but that was where the resemblance stopped. It’s body was badly degraded with scaled and leathery skin, and it had webbing between its fingers and sharp claws at the end of each digit. It’s neck was long and flexible, and its head was much more like a short snouted crocodile, but with long whiskers and a pair of antlers extending backwards from its forehead. Most disturbing of all, there was not one, but four of these heads protruding from its thickly muscled upper torso.
“I have no flaming idea what the hell that is, but with those fangs and claws along with that muscle tone imply they’re clearly dangerous. We’re taking this back with us for study.” Paul replied before he pushed it’s floating form towards team three.
“All right, you lot, you’re on babysitting duty. Keep this corpse safe, don’t let it float off into the void or I will be very upset. This thing needs to be brought back intact to Doctor Silvar’Esh for study.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea LT? What if it’s not dead, like it’s just hibernating or something?”
“Relax you ninny, even if that were true, we just pumped it full of lead and exposed it to the void. That thing is dead. We are the ones heading further into the facility. If anyone is at risk of fighting one of them its us.” Paul said.
“Team two, be advised we just encountered a dead xenoform, approximately Nephaeli’im sized with clawed appendages and four lizard like heads. Either the facility owners here were playing fast and loose with genetics or there is a new alien race we need to be aware of. Sending pictures to you and back to the ships.” Paul said, after switching his comms over.
“Copy that team one, we will be careful. Ghost is sending his spy drone in through the hole we have while we start cutting to open the wall up some more. We’ll keep you posted on what we find.”
“Good. We are proceeding into the outer corridor now.” Paul replied before he turned to the rest of his squad.
“All right, Hamilton, grab an ammo can and another capacitor cell for us would you? Gardner, go ahead and rig up that next door for us the same as the last one. Team one, reload and then follow me.” Paul hit his magazine release and started loading fresh cartridges to replace those he had fired before he slapped it back into the mag well of his rifle.
Everyone moved forward into the cavernous hallway. Paul beckoned HT one forward.
“Team three, go ahead and close the outer blast door.” Paul said, a few moments later one of them arrived and flipped the switch, causing the door to slam shut behind them. “Comms check, can you hear me team three?”
“Loud and clear with minimal interference.”
“Good. I’ll check in periodically until we get too much interference. Keep in touch with teams two and four.”
“Yes, sir!”
“All right, line up on the next blast door. Gardner are you done over there?”
“Just about…. Done!”
“Flip the switch. It’s go time people, cover your angles and be ready for anything.”
Paul advanced through the moment the blast door opened. They emerged into oppressive darkness, which was cut through by their helmet lights, rifle lights, and HT one’s light bar. The tension lowered slightly as there seemed to be nothing but dead silence as the air equalized. Paul motioned his team forward in a wedge before they lined up on the corner ahead.
Any signs of life out there, creepy?
Nothing but dust and shadows… the thickness of the steel walls… occludes my senses… I will warn you if danger draws near.
Fucking fantastic bit of use you are.
A burst of static caused Paul to jump.
“Team one, team four reports they have made entry into the large room. There are more than a hundred drones in charging cradles of unknown make ringing the outer edge. There’s some kinds of large machines throughout the inside that appear to be a steel plant. They are making their way into the center towards a thermal hotspot in the deck below.”
“Thank you for the report, Henry will be happy to hear it.”
”Hell yeah! We’re back in the game! We can fix the ship now!” Jenkins shouted.
”This is good news, but you need to stay focused. We have still haven’t fully taken the facility until we have swept it clear and found a way to power it on.” Ariana said, pouring cold water all over his enthusiasm while taking the words right from Paul’s mouth.
“Oh. Right.”
“Keep the chatter to a minimum please. Hamilton, take point we still need to clear this corridor.” Paul said.
Hamilton nodded, pushed himself off from the wall to make space and then pied the corner with a sweep of his rifle and lights. Paul and the rest of the team followed swiftly after him, repeating the maneuver several times as they wound their way upwards. Finally, after clearing another set of double blast doors around a door set into the wall they decided to leave for the moment, and multiple tense minutes of travel, they arrived at a dead end at the top of the winding hallway.
A set of massive doors sat in front of them that were covered in intricate warning labels. A dozen thick steel bars were driven into sockets across the split in the center of the double doors. An uncontrollable wave of foreboding permeated Paul’s very being as he analyzed them.
“That’s a hell of a locking mechanism. What’s with the warning labels? Quarantine zone? Bio-genetic specimens lab? That sounds like exactly the kind of place we should keep locked. Those doors are trying to keep us out for a reason.” Jenkins said, backing up slowly.
“No, I really hate to say this, but I think you’re wrong. Those doors aren’t meant to keep us out as much as they’re meant to keep whatever is in there locked inside." Estefani replied in a small, scared voice.
“That’s a comforting fucking thought. Think that’s where our four headed lizard friend came from?” Hamilton asked.
“Probably. Tell you what though, I’ve never been so glad to have a tank with us.” Ariana said, slapping the side skirt armor of the Rhino.
“That’s what I’m here for! Thankfully these aliens build everything so large. Just be sure to keep em off me and give me clear firing lanes, and I’ll make bloody chunks out of whatever xeno freakshow you want me to.” HK one replied cheerfully.
“Hey, uh, before we pop this door open maybe we should call in for backup. This sounds like the kinda place where the more firepower we have at our disposal, the better. The only thing better than having a Rhino for fire support is having both a Rhino and a Patriot, right?” Tech Sergeant Gardner asked with a slight edge of panic to her voice that she was trying mightily to hide.
“Agreed. There is no kill like overkill after all. No harm in stacking the deck in our favor.” Paul said before switching channels. “Team three, come in. Can you hear me?” Paul called out.
Nothing but static came back as a reply.
“Team three, do you copy?”
“Nothing, there’s nothing but static. Too many layers of steel blocking the signal. Gardner, open the door then run back to signal range and call for backup.”
Alright creepy, what are we looking at?
Dozens of lifeforms dreaming… very little cognitive functioning…. some are more massive than most… I sense little more than basic biological functions… perhaps they are in a form of stasis?
Fucking lovely. Thanks for the warning.
“Gardner. Get this door open.” Paul reiterated.
“Right! On it, sir!” She seemed to snap out of her fugue and rushed over to the panel beside the door.
“Lieutenant, this door still has power. Working on rerouting the controls to bypass the security on the locking mechanism.”
“Fucking wonderful, I can’t decide if this sounds like a good or a bad thing that the crazy genetics lab still has power. That doesn’t sound like a disaster waiting to happen.” Jenkins said with a scoff.
“Here’s a food for thought, wouldn’t you rather the security measures keeping the monsters in stasis be powered? Let’s just stay focused, stick together, and keep each other safe. There’s no question here that opening this door is dangerous, but we need to clear this place out no matter what we do. It’s far wiser for us as soldiers to walk in prepared to defend each other than to wait for these things to spill out and remain a threat to the techs and noncombatants that will follow behind us to begin working in this facility.” Paul said, staring straight at Jenkins through their faceplates.
After a long moment of holding the gaze, Jenkin’s shoulders dropped, and he seemed to sigh.
“Aw… fuck it, you’re right.”
“Keep your shoulders back, your eyes forward and steel yourself for what is to come. We are the soldiers of the front lines, and we will use our strength to clear this room. We have the best tanks, guns, and gear we can access but never forget the most important weapon we have is our minds. It doesn’t matter what horrors lie in wait because we will challenge them together. We are ready, you are ready, now don’t you dare doubt yourself again.”
Paul turned to Gardner. “Everyone, get in position behind Hamilton and me. Are you ready to open the door?” She nodded. “Perfect, as soon as you open it, fall back, and call in the cavalry.”
“Okay, just finishing this last bypass of the lock controls and…. Done.”
The door began to rumble as the sound of scraping iron filled the air as the locks slid out of their housings. The doors then swung slowly inwards with a puff of stale air as red emergency lighting showed through the crack. Gardner took one look over her shoulder and then hustled off down the corridor. Paul shouldered his rifle, motioned to Hamilton, and together they pushed forward into the room.
All around them were dozens and dozens of gigantic tanks filled with green liquid bathed eerily in the red light. All manner of strange creatures lay suspended in them, including multiple other specimens of the four headed lizard hybrids. In the very rear part of the room there was a titanic glass enclosure with a small ball of pitch black darkness suspended in its center that seemed to pulsate and shoot off sparks of energy.
“Stay back for the moment while we assess the situation. It looks like this area is on minimal power. There’s probably some kind of backup generator or capacitor charge that’s running this room. It would explain why the rest of the facility is powered down; they’ve probably programmed the power system to preserve this room until the very end.” Paul said, thinking through the implications.
“That explains the source of the heat anomaly we saw, then. It’s centered right underneath us now. Looks like their scientists were either scared of them breaching containment, or these are far too valuable to them to lose even in the worst case scenario. So how do we determine which possibility is the truth?” Hamilton replied.
”We may not be able to answer that yet For now. keep focused and keep looking for clues.” Paul studied one of the subjects in a tank. It was an ugly beast, humanoid with a canine head, covered in sores and tumors all over its torso. In places like its arms and legs there were muscles or bones exposed through open wounds in the skin. In the tank behind it there was another specimen just like it, yet it was perfect and whole instead.
“I think I found where our lizardman came from. Looks like he escaped. Broke right through the glass, you can see the claw marks. The console to its side has a warning that says stasis containment failure.” Hamilton said from his position several rows over.
“Good work, there seems like at least a third of these specimens are failed experiments. There must be dozens of intact, viable specimens in here. This will be one hell of a dangerous fight if they all get loose at once. We need to find a way to purge them while they’re weak and in stasis.” Paul said. Almost as soon as he had finished, speakers embedded in the ceiling crackled and blared aloud.
“WORMHOLE POWER UPLINK RE-ESTABLISHED. REBOOTING OPERATING SYSTEM…
WARNING! HULL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED.
WARNING! INTRUDERS DETECTED IN MANUFACTURING BAY.
ACTIVATING AUTOMATED DRONE DEFENSES.
WARNING! INTRUDERS DETECTED IN BIO-GENETICS LAB.
BIO-GENETIC SPECIMEN RELEASE APPROVED.
FEEDING POWER TO TEMPORAL COFFIN CAPACITORS.
BIO-GENETIC LAB GUARDIAN TEMPORAL COFFIN RELEASE APPROVED.
FACILITY ADMINISTRATOR TEMPORAL COFFIN RELEASE APPROVED.
EMERGENCY AID BEACON ACTIVATED”
All around them consoles activated and fluid began to drain from the tanks as their inhabitants began to shake and move as they revived slowly.
You are in extreme danger…. Almost half appear to be reviving… and will be ready to fight… prepare yourself!
No shit Sherlock!!
THREAT DETECTED: NEPHAELI’IM -ANIMAL HYBRID, QUANTITY: FORTY SEVEN, THREAT LEVEL: DEADLY, RETREAT RECOMMENDED FIGHT OR FLIGHT DETECTED; COMBAT HORMONE PRODUCTION RELEASE APPROVED
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
“Fall back to the doorway! Form a defensive line and cover your angles! HT one fire at will! Clear a path for Hamilton!” Paul yelled as he raised his rifle and began to fire into the closest tanks while falling back.
All around him glass enclosures slid open as monsters of all types began to stumble out, looking at him with hunger in their eyes. With growing horror, he realized he was completely surrounded. Paul roared as he charged while pulling the trigger.