Mark went back into the Hot Birds Bar and grabbed the gigantic Vidal.
“Emergency situation,” Mark told Vidal, who was clearly startled to see the Captain after just watching him leave. “Get outside now.”
To his credit, the big man immediately followed Mark outside. When they were a few yards away from the establishment, Vidal raised his hand.
“Hold on one second people.” He then proceeded to jam two fingers down his throat and vomit up the alcohol that settled in his stomach.
“Much better, proceed,” he said, wiping his mouth.
“Can we move a bit away from this area?” Luciana asked. Mark agreed with her assessment. The sickly smell of expelled alcohol made the conversation difficult. They walked further away from the club and huddled together.
“Okay, here’s the situation first sergeant. We set up trackers on a set of illegal cargo. We have no idea what is in the packages. One of them ended up on this planet.”
“That’s easy,” the sobering first sergeant replied, “Just confiscate the police on the planet. You have military jurisdiction, pull rank and get back up.”
Mark shook his head.
“No. We don’t know if the planet’s government has been compromised. You’ll get a full briefing later, but let’s say for now, we don’t know who we can trust and who our friends are. Bringing in the government could alert the people we’re tracking and then we’d be back at square one.”
“Okay,” Vidal said, spitting out some of left over residue from his mouth, “But the pencil necks are going to find out if this is a hot operation. You’ll need some cover story for this.”
“I know,” Mark replied, “Here’s the deal. Do you know anyone who traffics in either illegal drugs or gun running?”
Vidal snorted. “Out here? Plenty of people.”
“Great. Get as many of your men assembled as you can on short notice. Vouch for me with your contacts and I’ll make some purchases that will put you in their eternal good graces.”
“Yes sir, I’m on it.” He pulled out his data pad and began making the necessary arrangements. The black market markup plus short notice meant that Mark paid a huge markup for the guns and gear, but he needed whatever he could get.
Captain Smith marshaled the Marines from their squadrons across the planet. They split up to pick up the gear. Mark’s team went to a drop to pick up the drugs. It was surprisingly uneventful. Luciana’s run went a little different.
They went into a defunct underpass, a place where railroads ran at some point, but the shifting urban sprawl made the underground line useless. You could hail a high-speed hyper loop train there if you really wanted, but it was an on demand process. The odds of anyone showing up randomly to the spot was virtually none.
The gun runner kept his supplies in a portable mobile unit that resembled a large square truck. The runner stepped out with four goons, all of them pointing automatic rifles at Luciana. Her men stepped in behind her with their handguns outstretched to meet the men. She had ten men to their five.
“I don’t know you,” the runner said. He was a young man, maybe twenty-five. He had spiked blond hair, a few metal chains dangled from his neck above his buttoned down shirt. He was maybe 165 lbs. “But I see a new face and I get nervous.”
“Put the guns down,” Luciana replied, “We have your money and we were vouched for, that’s all you should care about. We have you outnumbered and this won’t go down well if this turns into a firefight.”
“Ah,” the gunrunner replied, “The vouching could be done under duress. I don’t know that our mutual friend hasn’t been compromised. As for the other part, well, we have machine guns, you have pop guns. One of us can wipe out your entire crew in a single spray, much less all of us.”
“My people,” Luciana replied with a grin, “are far better shots than yours. If they open fire, your men won’t have time to squeeze the trigger before you’re all dead. How about this? I’ll come over to your side with the credit transfer.” She waved her data pad at him. “You verify the transaction and we both walk away alive and happy.”
He nodded her over and she walked slowly towards him, data pad up. The distance was only about ten yards, a mistake on his part, she thought. She’d have used the superior rifle distance to make him cross a region further than a pistol could accurately shoot, negated their advantage. She was always happy to take an idiotic opponent over a smart one, any day. She walked up to him and put it directly into his hands. As soon as he grasped it, she kneed him in the groin and pulled out both of her vibroblades.
The advantage of fighting against civilians is that they often didn’t understand coordinated tactics. Each of the four goons stood close to their boss. At distance, this wouldn’t be a problem. But close-range, a rifles is not a good weapon. It’s penetrative power is too immense, there’s no way to shoot someone next to you without the bullet killing your companions nearby as well. Hence the reason trench warfare used the old fixed bayonet methods.
A military group would have spread out as she approached and made sure that they had overlapping fields of fire that would prevent them from shooting each other and leave themselves covered if she made a move. But these clown were bunched up together, getting in each other’s way.
She spun and slashed off the rifle barrels, a pirouetting bladed dance of destruction. She didn’t intend to kill the gun runners, as that would lead to an investigation and possibly a trail back to her and the crew, but she did want to make sure that they took the hint not to mess with her and her crew.
Most of the goons didn’t have any real combat training, they just stood by dumbly, watching their barrels fall off as she sliced through them. Their paralysis wasn’t helped by ten charging Marines who crossed the ten meter gap in under three seconds, slamming into the gunrunners. The thunderclap sound of flesh on flesh contact at high velocities echoed in the confined underground passage.
Only of them did clearly have some combat training, as he immediately dropped his rifle, put his back against the wall to keep himself from being surrounded, and made a handgun pull from his holster. He was also kind of cute, but Luciana didn’t let that distract her from throwing a vicious shin kick into his thigh to knock him off balance. He had enough presence of mind to not attempt a full draw on the handgun and went for a hip shot at her. She raked her vibroblade across his forehead brow, drawing blood into his eyes. He didn’t attempt the blind shot, impressing Luciana with the man’s trigger guard safety, but she finished up her assault by kneeing the man in the chin.
The concussive blow knocked him out, leaving him slumped against the ground. She turned around and saw her Marines had easily subdued the other runners at close quarters and were working in teams. One Marine held a person down, the other one patted down and searched for weapons. It made her proud.
“Well”, she said, turning her gaze onto the initial gun runner. “You’re giving us a massive discount. I’m still going to pay you for the weapons, but it will be at manufacturer cost prices. I could just take them and kill you here, so be grateful I’m feeling benevolent. If you or any of your clowns had hurt one of my people, you wouldn’t be getting this generous offer. Agree?”
The man didn’t respond initially, but one of her Marines drove his knee directly into the gun runner’s kidney. He let out a very weak “Yes” sound as his response.
“And you,” she said, turning to the young man she’d kneed in the face a few moment ago, “How’d you like to work a real job?”
Mark made a few more stops, these to legitimate businesses that sold electronic surveillance equipment and rental vehicles. On board the ship, he had a vast set of passive and active scanners that made monitoring his ship and the space outside of it very easy. On the ground, however, he had nothing.
His first purchase was two dozen insect drone spies, a set of small, low-powered drones that looked like insects and could be used as an advance scouting unit. They were specifically designed to keep from registering on most tactical surveillance gear, but if someone had the money to afford high-end equipment, they would still show up. It was a tactical gamble, but the small chance of the tiny drones being spotted versus the high odds of a human being spotted made the gamble worthwhile.
His second purchase was one hundred hyperspectral video contacts powered by body heat, used to coordinate field movements similar to their combat helmets mounted sensors. They required a separate computer to operate, unlike the built-in computers that came with tactical gear, but EVE could handle any extrasensory coordination. The same was true of his Sound Detector, a sweeping 360 degree rotating device that alerted him if anyone started approaching his position.
He rounded the list of offensive gear off with a small Terahertz Radar, used to see through walls and into other objects. The device could only penetrate 200 yards, but if he was assaulting a building, that would probably be enough to get good reconnaissance information.
He next had to think about any other possible contingencies that might arise. For every offensive piece of spy gear that he had, the enemy could just as easily have. They might even have better equipment, since everything he had needed to be portable, while a defensive position could afford far larger gear that required a large power supply and mounting.
He purchased ten passive electromagnetic sensor array goggles, useful for spotting any electronic spies being used against him. He added a tactical chem-sniffer to the list, useful for detecting explosive residue, chemical warfare residue, biohazards, and a whole host of other undesirables.
He also bought several sets of webbing gear, used to hold all of the equipment on him in place while he moved about freely with his hands.
He next had to worry about anyone directly targeting him, so he added an Electronic Support Measures system to the list. If it was a laser-guided sniper, it gave him a second of warning. If it was a laser-guided missile, well, his odds weren’t great in any case if that happened.
He also picked up a dozen memory-metal lock picks with internal imaging/ultrasound radars and contact mikes. The lock picks would take a snapshot of the lock, then reconfigure themselves until they matched the lock. This avoided triggering any potential anti-lock measures. These were only for military or police use, so Mark had to give his thumbprint for authorization.
His next stop was to get vehicles. He decided that for himself, he would get a black dynamic van, and he added a programmable display, gps display with 3d navigation, infrared surveillance camera, tactical personal computer, laser targeting system, cell radio, biometric locks, and crash webs. His favorite part though was the automatic camouflage system that allowed the vehicle to blend into any location and actively dispersed any attempts at radar or sonic identification.
The kicker was for his ground crew, four tactical wheeled ATVs with life support, 3d navigation, personal computer, cell radio, biometric locks, three workstation terminals, auxiliary solar panels, independent electric motors for each self-inflating wheel set, and the ability for limited operations in water. It could also take a full rocket blast and not be fazed, the part that would probably impress the marines more than the esoteric benefits of the massive vehicles.
Luciana met him at the vehicle fleet warehouse, each of her Marines casually holding duffel bags stocked full of weapons.
“Did you maybe go a little overboard?” he asked her when he saw each of the heavy bags being thrown into the back of the ATVs.
“Couldn’t help myself,” she said, “They were practically a steal at the price we got them.”
The coordinated navigation system allowed them to leave separately and take different routes to get to their objective, useful if they were being tailed. His own vehicle felt like a soccer mom van after seeing the ten-person carrier monster ATVs leave the station, but he needed the van for all of the surveillance equipment. He only took one Marine with him, PFC Christopher Preuss, a tightly muscled young man known as the FNG, or Fucking New Guy, aboard his crew.
Without his cybernetic enhancement, Mark wouldn’t be able to operate all of the gear. Someone who wasn’t green would probably pick up on that, but privates learned quickly to keep their heads down and their mouths shut when they were around higher rank, and that’s what Mark needed. The vehicle drove itself along the route that Mark programmed into it, but it still had manual controls if he needed to take over for any reason. He sat in the front while Mark sat in the back with the gear.
“Your job is pretty simple Private,” he told Christopher. “The computer should handle all of the requests for information, but the bugs have to be manually placed. Stay here and position them remotely while I set up all of the other sensor equipment. Get in the front seat and keep everything running so if I have to make a hot exfiltration, we’re not left sitting idle while getting shot at.”
“Understood sir,” Christoper replied.
The rendezvous point was in an isolated industrial area, far away from the main shuttle areas. The Marines were all spaced out in a four corners arrangement, about a quarter mile away from the area where they were getting the ping for the cargo container. The idea was to have them close enough that they could chase if any vehicle attempted to escape, or if he got spotted and needed some immediate backup.
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Mark’s vehicle was only two hundred yards away from the source, hoping that the vehicle’s stealth capabilities would keep them off the map. He didn’t like not having a weapon on him, but the amount of equipment he took with him already weighed him down too much, and he didn’t want to get into a firefight. He was a space jockey after all, the Marines were the ones who did the fighting.
He exited out the van after sweeping the area for any surveillance equipment. Not finding any, he moved from shadow to shadow, getting a good look at the target. The warehouse was a few thousand square feet and four stories high, it looked like it might be a place for manufacturing ship parts. He did see his first sign that something was not entirely right about the area, as two guards patrolled on top of the roof. There may be more up there, but trying to scope out a rooftop from the ground level was a losing proposition.
He started the surveillance operation by putting the sonar detector on the ground. The last thing he wanted was someone walking up to him while he was busy spying on the warehouse. Then he snapped his sensor array goggles up to his face to see if there were any electronic surveillance equipment being pointed at him. He did spot a set of sonic pads forming a fifty foot parameter around the outer area, meaning anyone who stepped near there would instantly alert everyone inside. Thermal and infrared cameras also patrolled the area, some mounted stationary at the most likely entry points while others swiveled to provide cover for anyone approaching.
He then used his chemsniffer, a small handheld device that you placed near the ground to pick up scents nearby. As soon as he put it near the ground, it sent out an immediate alert he didn’t like. Chemical and explosive ordinance detected. Chemical ordinance believed to be accelerants, used for quickly starting and spreading a fire. Explosive ordinance identified as c4.
“EVE,” he thought, “Send out a notification to all Marine units that we have chemical and explosive elements inside. Also alert them to the sensor equipment. Breaching the building is a last resort. With explosives inside, they might wipe out the whole team.”
Part of the reason Mark didn’t want anyone with him on his recon mission was he could communicate via EVE without talking, which would be hard to explain to anyone next to him.
He used the terahertz radar next, sweeping the rooftops and working his way down. The range was decidedly more limited than the marketing advertised, but that could be the result of reinforced walls. The roof had four people on patrol, with what looked like sniper rifles in their hands. They were fortunately not very diligent, a common problem in every military patrol that’s ever existed. Guard work is boring work.
“Okay Chris,” he thought, “deploy five of the bugs on the roof to track the location of the rooftop snipers. See how often they check in, and put one near any entrance someone might use. We want to see if the same guards stay there or if there’s a changing of the guard.”
Typical military tactics were to change the guard in regular intervals, so as to keep fresh eyes on the watch and prevent people from falling asleep while on duty. If they were really lucky, this would be amateur hour. The guards would be playing music and they wouldn’t check in regularly. Unfortunately, Mark didn’t think that these guys were amateurs. Still, he could always hope.
“Marine units, advance forward. Leave a reserve squad in case they attempt an escape at your exfil point, but do not engage.”
His tactical contact showed his teams moving out, silenced weapons at the ready. EVE overlay a 3d map in his contact to show everyone’s location. He normally couldn’t keep track of all the data going through him, but with EVE acting as an information buffer, he absorbed all the information naturally.
Chris put the bugs on the guards, crawling up the rooftop slowly and then onto the guards legs when they weren’t looking. Securely fastened, Mark gave his next order.
“Get the bugs inside the warehouse. I can’t see too far inside, but there is a guard station at the main entrance. Try seeing if there are any openings in the windows. If not, use the top floor entrance. They’re almost certainly sweeping for any activity through the main door.”
Chris followed the order and Mark remembered why he hated doing stakeouts during his days as a police officer. They were incredibly boring. You waited around for hours to see one person walk into a building or do anything. But he was the only person who could run a stealth mission like this, so he bided his time, waiting for the bug to try all of the top level windows and work its way around. It finally found a microscopic hole in one of the windows and went inside.
The windows had pressure and laser sensors on them, so a stealth run through them wasn’t really possible. The inside of the warehouse had several of the containers Mark had dropped off at the main point, but only one was actively pinging him. Either something had happened to the computer systems of those crates, or there were a lot more of these things running around than Mark realized.
A dozen armed men surrounded the room, and one of them opened up one of the pods. The crate unsealed and a young woman lay inside. She was in a cryogenic freezing pod, used to transport human colonists to new Worlds. It kept them from using the limited resources available a space carrier. The cryogenic freezer dethawed her, removing her from her temporary stasis. As soon as she came to, she was quickly dragged out and the armed men shouted at her. Mark couldn’t hear what they were saying, as the bugs didn’t have audio capability, but it didn’t look like it was anything good.
They pushed her to the back, and started running the same system checks on the other containers. Then, Mark’s Electronic Support Measures hanging on his webbing let out a quick warning. Mark dropped flat on the ground immediately, as a laser blast blew out a chunk of wall near where his head had been. One of the bugs snapped out, then the other three on the roof followed. Mark’s dream of dealing with amateurs died at that moment. They’d been made.
“All teams, move up and engage. They have laser sniper rifles, be cautious!”
Mark low crawled his way across the ground as more superheated blasts took out his cover. One of them blew out the wall directly in front of him, leaving him to scramble backwards away from the blast. Figuring it was time to give up the pretense, he hauled ass towards his vehicle. Then, he abruptly switched directions as another laser blast went off near him. His vehicle couldn’t absorb a direct blast the way the Marines vehicles could, which meant running back to his vehicle would just get himself and Chris killed.
Time slowed down for Mark, and he recognized it as EVE putting his body into overdrive. He knew he’d pay a price for this in a minute, but for right now, slowing down time gave him a precious few seconds to see where the laser rifles were pointing and move out of the way as the snipers tried to get their lead timing down with his movements. He knew that he probably looked like a marionette getting blown in the wind they way he jerked about in the street, but that beat the alternative of having a smoldering hole through his body. The Electronic Support kept uselessly informing him that he was about to be shot. He was well aware.
A bright flash went off above the roof, sending out white phosphorous light above the snipers. A full materiel release infrared illuminating round was used by soldiers to either paint the battlefield with light, or to mess up targeting sensors. The snipers quit shooting at him as they quickly lost their ability to see. The next thing Mark heard was the “whoomping” sound of a series of grenade launchers being shot at the rooftop. With no visible cover, the snipers couldn’t do anything but attempt to jump off the roof. Only one commando braved that idea, the other three went up in red mists as the frag grenades shredded them with fire and shrapnel.
Mark was relieved that the ordeal was over, just as the familiar migraine and nosebleed hit him, but then the front door to the complex opened up and the two guards charged out, shooting regular carbine lasers at him.
“Give me a fucking break!” he thought, as he turned around again and this time headed towards his escape vehicle. The snipers on the roof could get a shot off at the van, but foot soldiers would have a much harder time navigating through the area. Two hundred yards isn’t a long distance, but when the oxygen cost of juking sniper rounds whiel carrying forty pounds of equipment strapped on while operating at superhuman levels took its toll.
Mark made a wheezing run at the back of the van as rapid laser fire chased him down the street. EVE helpfully opened up the back door automatically as he dove in.
“Fucking drive kid!” he yelled, as he pulled himself in the rest of the way into the van. The doors were still open as the two men rounded to where the van was exiting. If he didn’t take those two out, they would hose down the van. Time slowed down again as Mark grabbed the nearest rifle and sat up to return fire. His combat contact zoomed in over the rifle as he aimed down the sights, and let loose a three round burst towards the center mass of his first attacker. The sudden jerks the man made were barely noticed as Mark switched over to the other man, who aimed his rifle up directly at Mark. Mark squeezed the trigger a few milliseconds before the attacker, causing his attacker’s aim to jerk up over the van and shoot into the sky.
Before Mark could celebrate his achievements, he fell back into unconsciousness.
Luciana charged down the street with her Marines, seeing laser shots blasting off the roof. Right where he tactical contacts told her Mark was.
“Light up the roof and follow up with grenades!” she shouted into her comms, sprinting even harder. Her team did exactly that, illuminating the sky like a pyrotechnic display. She knew better than to look up at the blast. If she was in tactical gear, it would automatically dampen her vision or hearing to keep her from sensory overload damage, but the tactical contacts were far more limited in their use.
Almost as soon as the fireworks above ended, two of her people pumped their grenade undercarriages and shot their grenades onto the roof. One hero valiantly jumped off the roof, but a four story jump meant he’d be crushed limbs on the ground. Maybe they could interrogate him later.
She finally saw the back shuttle bay entrance to the warehouse. Normally, they’d use C4 charges to blow through a door, but they didn’t have any. She could shoot a grenade at it, but that would be iffy at best as an undirected blast dispersed too much energy to effectively knock out a reinforced door.
“I need to get into the back shuttle doors, now!”
“Understood Ma’am,” Vidal’s deep voice went over the comms, “Door knocker incoming.”
He tore up the back roads in a beeline towards the back shuttle entrance. She desperately hoped he was paying attention to his tactical information about troop location. She didn’t want to have to resurrect Marines that died with treadmarks on them.
Vidal sat in the driver seat, barreling forward. The automatic driving system wouldn’t do anything that could potentially injure the personnel onboard, so he had to drive it himself. He slammed the massive vehicle right through the bay door. A mixture of cement exploding as well as steel twisting and shearing echoed through the night. Luciana saw laser shots going off in the front of the building, but she couldn’t make it there quickly enough to help out.
Vidal backed up from the wreckage. Technically, he should have returned back to his original post to wait for escapees or to capture any hostile reinforcements, but the wide grin on his face told her that he wasn’t going to sit out the action.
She lobbed in a flash bang after the wreck, and checked the feed from the remaining bug for the location of the hostiles. It wasn’t as easy to coordinate the movements she needed to make with where the bug was located, but it gave her some idea of how to move forward.
She had ten Marines coming up on her rear. Before she could give them any orders, the bug picked up something she hadn’t expected to see. One of the guards pressed a button in his jacket, and all of the containers exploded, then flared with thermite flames. They killed all of the cargo. She wondered why they had a death trap installed in each of the cargo containers, but couldn’t spare a thought for that as she motioned for her Marines to follow her inside.
The guards inside were still disoriented, but recovering. They quickly moved inside and shot the first four guards who were nearest the flash bang.
“1SG Vidal, move forward with your vehicle and provide us with cover as we take out the rest of the hostiles,” she ordered into her comm.
Vidal slowly moved the vehicle forward, providing her and her Marines with bullet and laser proof protection as the guards tried shooting around them. But they were no match for a coordinated Marine squadron, as they moved around the vehicles and used suppressing fire to hold down the guards while they moved forward. One of the guards lost his nerve and ran out into the open to avoid the flanking maneuver, and ate three controlled bursts to his midsection for his trouble.
The squad maneuvered them behind a single pillar, and then sliced the pie until their bullets pulverized the cowering bodies of the guards. Bullets from both sides of the turkey shoot slammed through the five remaining men.
She looked around and spotted a small woman in the corner, huddled up into a tiny ball. She started to walk over towards her when a movement near the front entrance caught her eye. The sniper that jumped off the roof had his side arm out, crawling on one hand with bones jutting out of his legs. He had to be bleeding out quickly, but he was determined to kill the one remaining hostage in the room. His eyes met Luciana’s and she gave a short shake of her head. He pulled himself up on one hand quickly, squeezing off a shot at the prone woman. Luciana raised her rifle and popped him directly through the top of his skull, sending his body crashing to the floor.
She looked over to where the woman lay and saw blood. Luciana ran to the downed woman as quickly as possible, checking her for wounds. Fortunately, she’d only been shot in the arm, and the fear must have made her not feel the impact of the bullet.
Luciana quickly ran to the ATV vehicle now sitting in the middle of the warehouse and yanked out the emergency medical kit. She put the injected the quickstop biogauze directly into the wound and watched it seal up. She wanted to get answers from the woman about what was going on, but didn’t think that she’d be coherent for a while.
“1SG, get this woman into the vehicle, empty out the weapons, and exfiltrate the area. The local law enforcement is probably on the way here. Everyone else, get those weapons unloaded.”
She went to look inside the crates. Whatever had been inside was so thoroughly disintegrated that there was nothing left. No identifying remains of any person trapped inside there. She shuddered at the thought of a death from which there was no resurrection.
Captain Thomas had guessed there would be two things they’d find, either chemicals or weapons. If it was chemicals, they’d confiscate them and plant drugs. Weapons and they’d confiscate them and plant their own, running their own independent investigation without local interference or knowledge. But transported humans wasn’t something she expected to see. She couldn’t figure out what for either. But the warehouse made a better place to plant guns than drugs, so her people planted the weapons and left.
She had no idea what had happened to Captain Thomas during the fracas.
“Sierra report in,” she said over the comms, the codename for the van that Mark ran.
“Captain, this is Private Preuss reporting in. The other Captain is down, bleeding pretty heavily from the nose. No signs of visible injuries to him however, a miracle all things considered.”
“Private, pull up his eyelids and see if they’re blood red.”
“Roger that, hang on. There’s some blood in them, but the iris still appears to be mostly white.”
Luciana let out a sigh of relief. He wasn’t wounded the same way he was aboard the ship, but his use of that cyber tech seemed to be a mixed blessing.
“Take him back to ship and bring him to the medics. I’ll stay here and wait for the locals. Out.”