(Ceti Alpha 5, Secret Imperial Research Facility, Codename: Botany Bay)
Ceti Alpha was a rather worthless system, all told. The first four of the inner planets were lifeless husks of rock, without even any heavy metals to make them worth mining. There were two gas giants with a bit of stellar debris hanging around them further out, but there wasn’t enough reason to set up gas mining ships around Ceti Alpha 7 and 8 when there were no colonies in this system. Ceti Alpha 6 had blown up during the early years of hyperdrive research, when some damn fool accidentally turned an experimental drive on while on the planet’s surface, and somehow caused chain reaction that tore the planet apart, and caused the spatial rifts that made FTL travel impossible inside the system.
Before that, Ceti Alpha 5 had been a lush planet, easily supporting life. A real Earth type, with a thriving colony. But the explosion of Ceti Alpha 6 had shifted 5’s orbit, and the result was devastating to the climate. What had been a perfect example of an agricultural world had become a desert planet overnight (in geological terms). Where life had flourished, there was now a nearly lifeless ball of sand, the only indigenous lifeform remaining that was worth noting being a type of worm that burrowed into a victim’s brain through the ear as a larvae, leaving them ‘suggestible’ as they were slowly killed by the growing creature.
Mostly lifeless, at any rate.
They had reviewed what information they could about the base while in hyperspace. When they had dropped out of hyperspace on the edge of the system, they had transmitted codes as an imperial freighter on a supply run. Would those codes be accepted? Or had someone changed them between now and whenever the information they’d gathered been collected? So far, there weren’t signs of battle fleets dropping into the system, so I was hoping that we were OK, for now.
“Carissa, do you have the location of their FTL array?”
“Yes, Captain. And I’ve trickle charged the main guns, so they shouldn’t know what’s about to hit them. Active stealth systems might not work completely, but the hull’s composition and the paint still have some effect on their sensors. Their shields are not up.”
“Fire. I don’t want any uninvited guests coming to my party.”
The Raven unleashed her twin cannons, and where before there was a fully functional FTL communications array, there was now molten slag, completely nonfunctional except as a light show on the desert surface. The shields came up, but too late. The assault shuttle was already inside their perimeter, having ghosted in while the Raven was on the other side of the planet from the base. Everyone always looks up when you’re expecting an assault from space. No one ever thinks about someone being foolish enough to attack you from the ground in a space assault.
Blasting our way into the docking bay, the assault shuttle landed, with its guns covering the hangar doors, in case anyone tried to box us in, or we needed to beat a hasty retreat. The Raven was flying as stealthily as one could under the circumstances, with Carissa and Shearah aboard to keep things going. Neither one of them were really ‘combat’ types, so while I made sure they had decent skill levels in weapons, I kept them out of full assault situations like we were doing here.
I led the way out of the shuttle, with Sheila, Cali, Jaynie, and Raven behind me in a diamond formation, with Sheila in the center. She was turning into a good shot, but I was fairly certain her sister would find some creative way to kill me if I got her killed, so she got a bit of protection there. As we moved, Raven worked on hacking her way into the base computers.
Whoever was in charge of base security was smart, at least when it came to IT. There was a ‘public’ net, for announcements (“Intruder Alert” was the hot item on today’s playlist) and other public communications. There was a basic map available, but it didn’t show security emplacements, access nodes, or anything beyond the names of various labs and the project leader for each lab. Anything that was actually useful was on secure local nets.
Fortunately, the scant intel mentioned who we were looking for. Checking the data, Raven soon highlighted the lab where our target, a Dr. K. N. Singh, was stationed, and displayed the shortest route to the lab on our HUDs. This was just at the time we ran into the first hastily thrown together security checkpoint.
It was a simple affair, really. Just a few guards ducked behind the edge of a hatch, aiming their weapons at us. What was new was the type of weapon they were firing. I hadn’t seen a gun shooting those crackling blue bolts of electricity before in game, but I was fairly certain they were hazardous to my health. Fortunately, these guys seemed to be dressed in only basic uniforms with armored vests. Good enough when dealing with pirates or grabby freighters, since the idea was that they just needed to hold out until the fleet got there, but not good enough for us.
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“Jaynie, you’re up!”
“Got it, boss!” I could tell she was grinning, even though I couldn’t see her face through the helmet of the spec ops armor we were wearing. She always did love playing with her toys, but some toys were best shared with others. So it was in that spirit of sharing that she sent one of her toys down the hallway. A moment later, the grenade went off, and the checkpoint was cleared.
This was a secret research station, on a dead world, in a worthless system. The entire staff was only a couple hundred people, of which only 20 or so were security. When taking that into account, we just wiped out a fifth of their defenses with a grenade. Unfortunately, those deaths took up a bit of time, which allowed the remaining guards to remotely lock down the labs and have more established guard posts put up in front of main control and the engineering spaces. That was fine, though, we didn’t need to get into all the labs, just one.
On a whim, I picked up the gun the opposition was using, and was surprised by its stats.
Neural Disruptor Rifle
Type
Assault Rifle
Rank
Rare
Damage
Special
Damage Type
Special
This weapon is classified as an assault rifle due to its build and firing style, but is a single shot weapon firing bolts of charged psy-plasma. An experimental weapon designed for nonlethal takedowns, the neural disruptor has not been cleared for field use, due to the unfortunate tendency to sometimes burn out a victim’s central cortex instead of simply paralyzing them. This weapon is defended by energy armor and Sp. Def. Targets with low Sp. Def. have an increased risk of cortex burnout when shot by this weapon.
Neural Disruptor – On hit, paralyzes living target for a duration of (10 – CON/10) minutes. Targets have a (25 – Sp.Def./10) percent chance of having their central cortex burned out upon impact, rendering them brain dead.
Safety Lock – Keyed to implants or biometrics. (LOCKED)
10 shot clips (2000 PP to reload)
OK, so this thing was choice, but I could definitely see the downsides. If you didn’t have a Sp. Def. of at least 250, you were risking getting seriously fucked by this ‘nonlethal’ weapon. But it made sense that the main weapon of security at a black research site would be something like this. After all, prisoners can be interrogated to find out who sent them, and then used as ‘test subjects’.
Of course, now the guns were mine. Wouldn’t be able to use them in most situations, but here? They’d do nicely, once we got them unlocked. Raven knew me so well, I didn’t even have to ask before she was already going into the guns and disabling the safety locks, so we could use them. Later, we’d work out a way for us to use them safely, even when in armor, without getting implants that could ID us. Right now, we had a job to do.
We moved quickly through the relatively small base, until we came to Dr. Singh’s lab. We covered Raven while she hacked the door. The lockdown protocols were brute force implements, but Raven had skills. Getting through the door was easy for her.
Inside were several people dressed in typical science uniforms (i.e. lab coats), but they didn’t look like normal scientists. For one thing, they were all incredibly attractive, like Greek god/goddess attractive. And they appeared to be centered around one man, in the middle of this group of seven, like he was their leader. When that leader spoke, it was with the rich, arrogant tone of a man who was used to giving orders, and having those orders obeyed.
“You have come at a most opportune time. We were just in need of new test subjects. KNEEL and strip off that armor!”
That ‘kneel’ hit my mind like someone threw a brick at my head. I grit my teeth, and managed to stay up, but only myself and Raven managed it. Cali was already trying to get at the seals of her helmet, though she was fighting it, making the movements jerky and clumsy.
The man did not seem amused that some of us had fought off his compulsion, and said, “YEILD before the superior intellect of one engineered from the womb for greatness!” Again, a brick hit my mind, and this time it was more like a sustained pressure than a blunt impact, but a Sp. Def. of over 300 wasn’t just for show.
Managing to keep my feet, I pointed the neural disruptor at the man, and fired. Instantly, the pressure was gone, and while the others shakily got to their feet, Raven and I shot the rest of the researchers before the shock at seeing their leader fall to the ground like a sack of potatoes wore off.
“What the fucking hell was that?” Cali sounded shaken, and I didn’t blame her.
Sheila was breathing heavily as she answered, “Mental Psy. Powerful, too. That was nasty as hell.”
I shook my head, and said over suit comms, “Jaynie, Cali, Sheila. Secure the prisoners, and make sure they are bound, gagged, and blindfolded. Don’t give them anything to work on. All communication by comms, nothing verbal to give them something to target with. Don’t make it easy on them. If that leader starts doing anything, shoot him again. Raven, I need you to dive the local net, and get research notes on the Deus Strain. I’ll guard the door.”
My team were professionals by this point, and Raven was an AI, so the encryption on the local computers was nothing she couldn’t handle. Before long, we had the files we wanted and I had the canister containing the Legion Virus samples in hand. Destroying nanites is a tricky business, but I knew of something that would do it: a fusion reactor. Fortunately, there just so happened to be one here at the base, just begging for me to dump the nanites in. Oh, and blowing the reactor would be a good way to destroy the base, too.
With our new Neural Disruptors in hand, we shot first, asked questions later as we moved through the base, taking down another twelve guards who were between us and the reactor room. Raven had confirmed the intel, and so I knew we only had four more guards to deal with. The rest of the team kept the doors covered while I sent the nanites into the fuel slot for the reactor, and Raven set the thing to go critical, and erased all the safety protocols. Now we were on the clock. We had ten minutes to get out or we were dead.
Running through the halls, I stretched out with my mental Psy, using that Scan power I’d had to give us some warning, which was good, since I just barely managed to slide under the bolts of energy coming my way when I turned the corner and the last four guards were set up in front of the shuttle bay, intent on giving us a bad day.
The tables and ballistic shields they used as cover did absolutely nothing to stop Jaynie’s grenades from flying over their heads and bouncing off the wall to explode at their feet. The effect of two grenades going off in a metal hallway with lightly armored personnel can be politely called ‘chunky salsa’. Brutal, but effective. Fortunately, it was not my mess to clean up.
We ran into the shuttle bay, and got on board the assault shuttle, without even bothering to look at the remains of the defenders. Two minutes after we lifted off to join the Raven in space, the lab was consumed by a brief artificial sun that quickly burned itself out as the reactor blew. I just hoped the other teams were as successful as we were.