He recognised the intense pain of emergency de-frosting as soon as his neurons began firing up. There were about sixty or so reasons for that to have happened, and in just a moment, he would know which one it was. He needed only to wait for the pair of bio-techs to open the lid of his pod. In the meantime, he had to bite through the pain of muscle cramps and air burning his lungs.
The conditioning he had received forced him to go through the steps for de-frosting. His name was Lucas, codename Helix. He was part of Mobile Assault and Sabotage Squad Demon the moment he had been ejected from the growth vats. Command sucked at acronyms, and all the others agreed on that. They were sent to Sigma 37-H as a guard unit and to… Well, to do something shady that regular army units couldn’t be involved in. Constantine V Rütter rules as Emperor of the Holy Garden of Hell. Or was it Constantine IV? His long-term memory was intact for the most part, but he had no idea what he was doing inside a cryo-pod.
Twelve seconds after regaining his senses, he began to notice some oddities. First of all, he was in full gear. That could spell a lot of problems if anything were damaged from the 0°K temperature inside the cryo-pod during sleep. Virgil was going to chew his ass out for this, especially after Lucas had insisted on giving the safety lecture every single time before they entered cryo-sleep.
Thirty-six seconds after waking, he realised the staff were late opening his pod. It was a major violation of regulations and could even become a capital offence if he sustained injuries in any way. Either way, the entire shift of bio-techs would be under investigation by the military police, and at least one of them was going to be vented. If not, the ordained scientists would have some very angry Demons to deal with.
Forty seconds in, he realised he was upside down inside the pod. Which meant something had happened when he had entered it. The memory loss should have been his first clue that proper procedures hadn’t been followed on entry. Forty-three seconds – his vision had cleared, and he saw that his rifle and pistol were with him. This would also mean that his specialised equipment was inside his belt as well. The only way he could avoid execution for derelict of duty would be if he could… Do what? His memory was a mess.
Forty-nine seconds had passed since Lucas had woken up from cryo-sleep. He pulled the emergency manual release of the pod’s lid. However, instead of the chromium-cobalt superalloy slab flying off the pod, the container moved sideways for a few seconds. It could mean only one thing - the cryo-pod was on its side, and something had blocked the lid. And that meant he was in serious trouble. Quickly Lucas adjusted his position and pressed, at the now unlocked cover, with both his legs. With a groan and the sound of metal grinding metal, the hinges gave.
A wave of vertigo assaulted him as Lucas saw the darkness that awaited him. The pod's yellow interior light revealed only a small area around it, but it was enough for him to notice the floor on the side of his vision. He also saw that it had turned into cracked glass, which would mean that a fusion detonation had occurred. That would explain the missing bio-techs, the memory loss and his strange position inside the pod. It also gave him a few ideas as to why he had been in full gear with all his equipment and weapon.
Lucas slammed the back of his helmet in complete disregard for all the warnings the techs had drilled into his mind. It was the only way to clear the frosting from the vents and force the damned thing to power up. On cue, the text lines began to appear on the inside of the artificial crystal protective display. To some surprise, he was bombarded by several errors and failures. The most worrying of all was the lack of connection to Command.
“Reset internal clock to 00:00:00,” Lucas noted that his voice sounded hoarse as he spoke the command to the reactive AI.
That cleared a large portion of the errors. After all, Arthur had been spot-on when he had joked that if someone had tech trouble, they just needed to reset the damned thing.
“Increase UV light enhancement by a factor of two,” with that, the darkness was pushed back, and everything received a dull violet tinge.
Lucas could see that the entire section was a complete mess. Something terrible had happened here. At least Cryogenics was deep inside the station. Otherwise, he would be breathing vacuum with how the entire facility collapsed. However, that didn’t explain the parts of bomber crafts fused into walls all around him. There were only a handful of theoretical scenarios which could cause something like this to happen, and not one was remotely positive. His training kicked in, and he scanned the room, his rifle at the ready.
“Connect to command feed Demon. Authorisation – Helix 08M34HGHSAF.”
< [00:01:10] ERROR: SERVER_ID OUT OF REACH >
It wasn’t the response Lucas had hoped for. And despite his training, he could feel the first signs of panic setting in. Lucas knew it was because his short-term memory was shot to hell and back, but understanding the reason didn’t change a thing.
“Display squad status.”
< [00:01:17] ERROR: SERVER CONNECTION REQUIRED >
He should have expected as much. But he had to try something. If the server was down, either the enemy had taken the command centre or the relay for this section was out of commission. And judging by the damage he was seeing, it was most likely the latter. There was a heat spike to his right, and a small bright dot began to form on a pile of rubble.
“Assess spectrum, show only 70% or above possibilities.”
< [00:01:22] SCANNING… >
< [00:01:25] COMPLETE: BORING LASER >
< [00:01:26] THEORETICAL: HUMAN DESIGN – 74% MATCH >
< [00:01:26] THEORETICAL: MILITARY – 39% MATCH >
“Open feed channel 1TX through 9LL,” Lucas ordered as he ducked behind the pod.
Quickly he ejected the magazines of his Ripper Mk 7 assault rifle. The main horizontal mag-clip was almost empty, with only four super-dense iridium slugs with a tungsten head still inside it. Lucas felt one more clip on his belt with his hand, giving him forty-nine shots total, not enough for a prolonged fight but enough to make a break for it.
Next, he examined the box magazine attached just below the weapon’s main barrel. It was as depleted as the Gauss one. He could only count the violet glow of two bullets. In general, most army personnel favoured the plasma rounds, but they were all negatively charged ones. In contrast, squad Demon preferred the experimental, positively charged caesium plasma ones. That stuff could and would eat through most armour types. It also meant Lucas could only find more in the armoury.
< [00:01:28] FEED CHANNEL: USER_RANGE_ID OPEN >
< [00:01:28] WARNING: FEED_ID UNSECURED >
“Puppeteer, this is Helix. Come in, Puppeteer.” Lucas said while ensuring that his weapon was operational.
Judging by the colour of the boring laser, he had about forty seconds before whoever was on the other side came in. A plan was forming in his head, despite the mess it was inside his skull. A plan that became useless as Lucas caught a glimpse that one of the many cables dangling around the doorway was marked as the one for the primary communications array. No wonder he couldn’t reach anyone. At least three levels above him had collapsed for that thing to be anywhere near Cryogenics.
“Switch to short-burst radiofrequency comms,” Lucas made his only possible command for the AI.
< [00:01:35] SBR_COMMS: ACTIVE >
“This is Helix. I am trapped in section 01-… Or wherever Cryogenics is currently.” Only static answered his call. “Come on, Preacher. I know you can hear me, you damned ball of lard!”
Quickly Lucas reached inside the stimulant pack attached to his hip and pulled one of the two flashbangs he kept hidden inside. Each of them was just large enough to fit in his palm, cylindric in shape and with a press-trigger on the top, they weren’t part of the standard equipment for a combat medic, but Julius had been kind enough to lend them to him.
“Hornet, can you hear me? I know you are nearby.” Lucas was certain the man was close. After all, the assault trooper was assigned as his shadow.
Again, he had only the static answer to him. Lucas understood very well that he was in a bad situation. Low on ammo, unable to reach his squad and with an unknown number of enemies trying to reach him. Well, they could be friendlies, but Lucas wasn’t willing to trust his luck. The moment the boring laser touched the dangling cluster of cables, any luck he had evaporated as a long line of warnings scrolled through his HUD display. What was left of the emergency lights flared and bathed the room in a disturbing blood-red hue.
“Deactivate UV enhancement,” Lucas spoke before the brightness blinded him, trying to keep his voice calm.
< [00:02:09] WARNING: COMM_ARAY_ALPHA DOWN >
< [00:02:09] WARNING: BIO_SCRUBBERS DISCONNECTED >
< [00:02:10] WARNING: STATIC DEFENCES DISCONNECTED >
< [00:02:10] WARNING: EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN >
< [00:02:10] WARNING: BLAST DOORS UNRESPONSIVE >
At least it was not all bad. Thanks to this, Lucas now knew that the command centre was operational and the connection problem was on his side. Most likely, some circuit was damaged due to the frost build-up during his stay in the cryo-pod. He had time for one last gambit, and Lucas hoped that this one would pay out before things turned very ugly.
“Scan for any active connection. Filter out personal servers and force connection under protocol S4ATS-37.”
< [00:02:27] SCANNING… >
< [00:02:27] SERVER_MFS37H_ST2 FOUND >
< [00:02:27] CONNECTING… >
< [00:02:32] ERROR: CONNECTION REJECTED BY SERVER >
< [00:02:32] FORCING CONNECTION >
< [00:02:32] CONNECTING… >
< [00:02:41] ERROR: CONNECTION REJECTED BY SERVER >
< [00:02:41] ERROR: SERVER_MFS37H_ST2 DISCONNECTED >
< [00:02:41] FILING REPORT TO MILITARY COMMAND >
< [00:02:41] ERROR: SERVER CONNECTION REQUIRED >
< [00:02:42] FILING REPORT TO MILITARY COMMAND >
< [00:02:42] ERROR: SERVER CONNECTION REQUIRED >
So much for miracles, he dismissed the request before the display could be filled with more error messages.
“Hide time stamp and switch on ATL.”
< ERROR: A.T.L. SET_UP REQUIRED >
“Damn it! I don’t have time for this,” Lucas cursed, forgetting that the assistant targeting link was reset as almost all of his AI’s functions were.
And he didn’t have the time to go through every step to have them operational again because the boring laser dug right into what had to be a depleted power cell from one of the fused craft. The resulting explosion wasn’t enough to make him duck for cover behind the cryo-pod. However, it was large enough to clear the entryway from all the debris blocking it, which meant that the motion sensor in his helmet came to life, indicating movement in the darkness. It would be a few more seconds before what was left of the debris settled, and it became safe to go through. But if Lucas had picked them up, they had also picked him up.
“Manual targeting it is… Man, I really should have taken Tess’s offer,” Lucas scoffed, knowing there were other reasons for the best marksman in their group to have invited him to one of the secluded practising ranges at night.
It wasn’t that Lucas was a bad shot, he was good enough to be above what was required for the regular assault troopers, but he was the worst among his squad mates. His training had a different focus; bio-treatments, electronic repairs, chem synthesis, triage, cybernetic maintenance, and the list went on. That’s why Julius was his shadow on every deployment as of late.
Lucas primed the flashbang and threw it through the doorway the moment the cloud of dust and smoke settled. He sprinted after it and stopped at the frame, taking cover and disconnecting his helmet’s video and sound functions. Even so, he felt the blast. A small smile formed on his lips as he remembered Samuel’s favourite quote.
“Demons never wait. They strike first. That’s why we should fear them.”
Too bad that every time he spoke with Lucifer, the man went into a sermon glorifying the teachings of the Church of the Third Hell. Every single time. Lucas had honestly liked the concept. It fit their squad perfectly. Too bad he could never be one of the faithful. Right now, he was willing to listen to another sermon just to have Lucifer’s Siege-breaker pattern flamer by his side. However, wishful thinking wouldn’t help him out. Instead, Lucas took a deep breath and stepped into the opening. The butt of his weapon pressed into his shoulder, and his finger on the trigger.
----------------------------------------
“Zoë! What the fuck did you guys do! The entire board lit like a fireworks expo! I have twenty different warnings triggered in your area! Biological, chemical, radioactive, nanite, bloody genetic… It’s like the bloody end of the world there!” Felix’s panicked voice boomed over the feed, almost deafening her. Before she could ask for an explanation, the comms operator cursed in every known dialect. “Commodore Neverok triggered Article 17! The use of lethal force has been authorised.”
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“Felix, what’s going on?” Zoë managed to ask in between the man’s constant chatter.
“Damned if I know! It’s all in that damned imperial language! I’ll need at least an hour to translate it all!” A terse response came from the other end of the feed. “Oh, fuck me sideways….”
“Control, come in. Control? Felix!” Kurtz yelled over Dr Werner, who was bombarding her with questions.
“Shit! Someone’s trying to hack into the mainframe!” King screamed over the feed before addressing someone inside HQ. “Disconnect it! Use the hard link. Not that cable! The other one!”
Realising that she wouldn’t be getting any more info from Control, Zoë barked at the shaking scientist. “What are you people doing in there?”
“Nothing… Clearing debris with a laser bore.” As soon as Virginia spoke, an explosion rocked the area.
Taking hold of the gun at her hip, she motioned for the members of Team 3 to take positions by the door where the archaeologists were doing their excavation. She was glad Camilo and Yori had linked with her and assumed positions according to the standard five-man deployment. Steeling herself, she motioned for them to advance into the chamber containing the bore. She felt her hand tremble as she kept her aim at the dark opening in front of her. The fact she had been authorised to use the Gauss pistol was enough to tell her that shit had hit the fan. This was her first real combat situation, and her system was flooded with adrenalin and enriched oxygen from her implants.
“You got to breathe, girl,” Zoë heard Lemental’s confident voice behind her. “The first dose release can be overwhelming.”
The man had taken the position behind her because she was the only rookie on the team. A few deep breaths and her heart rate slowed down, and her mind cleared. With that, she became more aware of her surroundings. Thin wisps of smoke and dust drifted around her, and she could hear the crunch of burned polymer alloys under her boots. Fist-sized chunks of steel were scattered haphazardly everywhere, with some being actually embedded into the walls and ceiling, and in between them groaned and moaned a trio of eggheads. Unlike their fourth comrade, who occupied three different places simultaneously, they would survive. And after getting cybernetic replacements for missing fingers and eyes, they might even be back exploring the station within a month or so.
“Get them out of here.” Zoë gave the command with a trembling voice, and everyone save for Lemental began dragging the injured techs out of the chamber. She then turned to the veteran and muttered a quiet “Thank you”, unwilling to openly show she had almost lost her cool.
“A bit early for that, but…” A small metallic cylinder bounced off the floor, interrupting Peter’s words. “Shit! Grenade!” He roared at the top of his lungs and dived to the side.
Zoë was slow to react, trying to process the word. It was the most common mistake a rooky could make. The cylinder exploded in a ball of light as the girl foolishly stared into it. She was glad she had worn her lucky jacket - it had been a flash grenade. But it also meant she was blind, deaf and completely disorientated for the next minute… Wrong! Damn it, girl, that’s about civilians. She cursed herself as her cerebral implants triggered and released a large dose of drugs to counter the grenade’s effects.
“Remember your training!” Zoë chastised herself. “Roll to the side, count to ten and blink a few times to clear your vision. The hearing can wait. Panic, and you will die.” The words of her instructor at the Academy rolled off her tongue as she did exactly that.
Her vision returned just in time to see Hunter’s head explode in a cloud of red mist. The man had died so fast that his body kept the pistol aimed for a couple of seconds before sliding limply to the ground. A man wearing strange combat armour darted through the dark gaping frame leading to the newly opened part of the section. It was similar to hers but more metallic and thicker. It was dark bronze in colour and was complemented by a helmet with an artificial crystal faceplate. Her eyes stopped for a moment on the strange symbol painted in dark red on the left side of his chest. It resembled two circles, with the outer one akin to a simplistic rendition of a cog. There was something written in the frame they formed that she couldn’t read, and a large cross was nested at the centre.
As quickly as they had taken in this new figure, Zoë’s eyes fell on the large combat rifle in the man’s hands. It was levelled at her. Without thinking, she jumped forward, seeking the cover of the boring machine the eggheads had used. It was the only thing sturdy enough near her. Twice as thick as her body and covered by reinforced steel plates, at least it looked like it could take a shot or two… She hoped because the Second Officer recognised a Ripper pattern assault rifle when she saw one. The bloody thing was an unholy abomination of Gauss and plasma technology, which used solid and energy projectiles to destroy anything, or in this case, anyone it was aimed at.
The ground where she stood a moment ago exploded, and three small craters dotted the dense concrete floor. She felt her blood freeze once she noticed that the slugs their enemy used had nearly pierced the half-meter slab separating them from the lower. With the corner of her eye, she saw Peter’s pistol flash silver, accompanied by the boom of the iridium bullet shot from it. The projectile caught the strange man in the shoulder. It dented the armour plate and clearly destroyed the paint, but for all that, the accelerated slug only managed to force the man to take a step back to keep his balance.
“Damn it, that’s boron nitride plating,” Zoë cursed as the realisation came to her. “We can’t do shit against that guy without proper fermium slugs or high-calibre gear!” She shouted.
“Shut it, Kurtz and fire!” Camilo barked at her from around the corner and emphasised his command with a couple of shots. “We have to keep the bastard pinned! Control is sending reinforcements!”
She saw Lemetal unfasten a concussion grenade from his belt and prepare to throw it. A plasma round from the enemy liquified the appendage without detonating the ordinance. The veteran dropped to the ground, screaming in agony. Zoë fired blindly from behind her cover, fighting the fear that had grabbed her heart and mind. Shouts and curses were coming from the people in the next room and the commands through the feed link, adding to the chaos.
“Dr Werner!” Quickly, Zoë tapped the micro-control console on her wrist to force a channel to the leading egghead. “How do I discharge the laser?”
“What?! Who is this?” The doctor’s voice sounded distorted, but it might have been due to the panic that was setting in.
“Shoot, big laser. How?” Zoë couldn’t help giving a terse and overly rude answer. “Now, doctor!”
A round hit one of the tripod’s legs, breaking it in half. The bulky machine lost its balance and twisted while falling. It was another small glimpse of luck because now she could use the console without stepping from her cover. Well, as long as the others managed to keep the enemy busy, which was at best measured in seconds.
“Give her the damned command line!” She heard Yori snap at the doctor over the feed.
This time the poor doctor was faster to comply. Not because of the guard’s words but because the thin polymer bullet containing super-heated plasma missed Yori’s head and found the wall next to it. It had undoubtedly impacted somewhere near Virginia because she heard the doctor scream, and seeing a plasma charge burn through a frame designed for punishment was far from a calming experience. Zoë, however, was not willing to waste the moment. Hoping that her fingers would be able to type fast enough, she dropped her pistol and began the input.
Only two more letters were left when she felt one of the barrels of the Ripper press against the top of her head. This poor turn of events led to two things. First, she saw Camilo slowly back away, dragging Peter with him and keeping his gun trained at the enemy. The second one felt more personal to Zoë. Her cornea implant flashed a warning, informing her that a feed channel connection had failed to be established. Since anyone who might want to talk to her would have access to the necessary security protocols, it meant that the enemy had just attempted communication. At the same time, the implant focused on the two small discs left behind by Lemetal and, most of all, on the small yellow light that blinked on them.
“Oh… shit…” Zoë managed to mutter before the arc emitter discharged its hundred-and-fifty-kilowatt battery.
----------------------------------------
The combat medic had to give his opponents some credit. Most of them had taken cover and thus had avoided the major effects of the flashbang. There was a total of four potential threats he could see in the small decontamination chamber attached to Cryogenics. And only one was visibly stunned and trying her best to move. However, Lucas was more interested to know who they were and why they wore a poor imitation of his Predator armour.
As a medic, he immediately picked up on the skin discolouration of the men and the irritated areas on the side of the third man’s jaw – failing combat implants. The one on his left had a tattoo of the Converts of Armageddon over his right eye, while the larger one at the back had the subdermal implants of a Cathran ganger. The Church of the Third Hell had a strict shoot-on-sight policy regarding the religious anarchists. And Command would never allow a crime syndicate member near a restricted facility unless stored in a dozen examination jars. On top of that, the older man to his right had the neck scars of a Hellion pirate. It made no sense at all to him why those three would work together… Unless…
His eyes darted back to the woman squirming on the floor. He had missed it. The black carbon jacket with white shoulder pads and white lines running along the sleeves. As he had thought, she was a Black Confessor. Which made the men her psi-locked slaves, but what was she doing here?
“Stand down! I’m friendly!” He barked before things could go out of hand.
< ERROR: EXTERNAL_SPEAKERS FAILURE >
They couldn’t hear him. This was really bad. His suit didn’t have any of the proper imperial markings and only sported a generic medic insignia on his chest. On top of that, he wasn’t connected to Command, and they couldn’t see his authentication code. Lucas had to remove his helmet if he was to communicate with the Confessor, and as he was about to lower his rifle, a magnetically accelerated bullet passed by his head.
Without thinking, Lucas shifted his aim to the slave nearest to him and pulled the trigger. The wretch’s head exploded in a mist of organic matter as the tungsten head of his bullet detonated at nearly supersonic speed. Lucas caught movement with the corner of his eye and fired again. Lucky for her and him, the Confessor moved in the other direction he had thought she would. Unlike the psi-locked slaves, killing her would mean he would face condemnation. The slug burst into the floor while the girl jumped behind the boring laser. An odd choice of cover because he just needed to take out one of the tripod’s legs, and she would be caught right in the open.
A round from the pirate caught him in the shoulder and threw Lucas’ aim off. The low-calibre slug was a complete waste against the Predator suit. At the end of the day, Lucas would only have a slight bruise, but given enough hits, one was bound to find a weak spot and do real damage. However, this introduced a new variable in the already complex situation. They were using weapons meant for vessel capture. Strong enough to deal with the crew while inflicting minimal damage to the valuable infrastructure of a void ship.
The Confessor and the ganger exchanged something, most likely an attack command, since the large man fired several shots at him. It was all said in a dialect Lucas hadn’t heard before but one that sounded very close to Gethian techno-speak. This, in turn, raised too many questions in itself, questions he didn’t have the time for, but nonetheless, he logged the conversation. The chances that a small human enclave had eluted imperial rule for so long were infinitely slim but greater than zero. While he pondered the ramifications of such an occurrence, the pirate had reached for a grenade and was going to make Lucas’ day even worse.
“Aim, take a deep breath and fire,” Tess was fond of telling Lucas. He recalled Discharge’s voice clearly in his mind.
“But a slug will detonate the explosive.”
His finger pressed the switch at the barrel of his rifle, and a plasma bullet was fed into the chamber instead of a supper-solid. Both appendage and grenade were turned into liquid as the beryllium polymer glass bullet casing shattered, igniting into caesium plasma on impact. As the man fell screaming to the ground, the Confessor fired at Lucas, but her aim was way off-target for him to even consider her a danger. Which was odd; Black Confessors were renowned for being crack shots.
Quickly he put a slug through the tripod and fired his last plasma round at the door leading out of the decontamination chamber. The motion tracker informed him of movement from that direction, and the shouts made it obvious that more potential threats lurked there. He could only hope that the plasma round would deter whoever was there from storming his position. Even someone as uncaring as Rage would think twice before doing something this suicidal.
Lucas returned his eyes to the Confessor and began to wonder if she was the worst person ever to wear the black and white. She was trying to fire up the boring laser as if that would do something meaningful. It was a stationary weapon at best, not to mention that it was tilted on one side, so there was no chance of actually hitting him. Besides, the focus lenses had obviously shattered after detonating the empty power cell. She would have better luck assaulting him with a laser pointer.
It took him two steps to reach her position and nudge her with the barrel of his rifle. In a way, Lucas was proud of himself. Now he could boast to the others that he had captured a Black Confessor. No matter how incompetent, a Confessor was a Confessor. Arthur would be pestering him for that story for at least a month. Although, Virgil wouldn’t be that happy about this. In just over a minute, Lucas had broken almost all agreements and treaties between the Empire and the Kōng Cathedral. Although technically not bound to follow those rules, the Demons had to pretend at least to follow them.
< NOTICE: SECURE FEED CHANNEL_RL1Z DETECTED >
“Surrender. You are my prisoner, Confessor,” Lucas half-laughed as he saw the message and blink-clicked the connection. He expected Preacher to scream over the feed at him for ruining a joint-training exercise or something like that.
< ERROR: CHANNEL_RL1Z SIGNATURE REJECTED >
“Unfortunate. It seems we’ll have to talk face to face,” Lucas could feel his anger building.
He would have missed the arc-mine if the Confessor hadn’t spoken up. That was a good trick on the part of the psi-locked slaves, or rather the girl pulling their strings. Too bad she had tried to save them. Getting attached to her pawns was a rarity in her calling. Lucas caught the girl by the collar of her jacket and placed her as a shield in front of him.
“Magnetise the outer layer,” he ordered the AI.
< CAUTION: PREDATOR IS MAGNETISED >
The discharged high-voltage arc lightning danced around him with a couple of the deadly tongues finding the girl. Lucas hadn’t thought it possible that her suit was not magnetised to deflect the electronic weapon. Its sole function was to disable rogue drones and civilians with heavy cybernetic augmentations. Damn it, even the various planetary Censors had reactive countermeasures integrated into their suits. Things became complicated as the Confessor began to convulse, and orange foam gathered at her mouth. Her implants were failing or going haywire. His training and field experience told him she had at least one extra reinforced adrenal gland and an irisin-melatonin injector inside her liver. Add to that the damage done to her heart from the electro-shock of the arc-mine, and she had about ten minutes before she expired.
To make matters worse, the psi-locked slaves began to open fire. Lucas had to admit he had been wrong. She wasn’t the one they were locked to. There must have been a senior Confessor around the corner, which would make her some sort of a fresh convert or an acolyte. But that made even less sense. If there was one, they would’ve sent a video capture of him to Command and would’ve been ordered to stand down by now. Either way, she would make a valuable source of information. His mind made up, Lucas sprinted back through the newly created doorway, slamming his second flashbang inside the rubble, which was the frame, and dove into the darkness of section 01-20. All the while, his other hand was wrapped tightly around the Confessor’s waist.
Lucas sprinted for another two-hundred meters through the ruins of Cryogenics, jumping over broken and overturned pods. He smiled as he saw that his destination, although damaged, was usable. The express cadaver elevator leading to surgical theatre C was where it was supposed to be and in a surprisingly good state at that. Its door might have been missing, and the cage might have been twisted inside the shaft, but there was access to the lower level.
He mag-locked his rifle on his back and dove into the gap leading to what was supposed to be a nasty drop. Lucas coiled his arm around the thick power cable dangling from the cart and used it to decrease his speed. Once his boots touched the floor at the bottom, he placed two shots from the Gauss pistol at his hip in the breaks of the cage, forcing it to slide half a meter down, effectively closing the gap he had used.
Which was pointless, he realised, as Lucas turned to look at the surgical theatre. The entire place was one big pile of rubble, ashes and liquified metal. He wished only once to be able to work on one of his patients in a proper medical facility. He dropped the Black Confessor on the floor and knelt next to her. Without wasting more time, Lucas removed a single-use injector needle from the compartment in his forearm and jammed it into her throat. The nanite inhibitors within the solution would deal with the excess adrenalin her reinforced gland was producing. Using his combat knife, the medic stripped the chest guard of her protective suit and cut through the jumpsuit beneath it. The fingers of his right hand stopped over her heart while those of his left reached for the artery in her neck.
Lucas increased the sensitivity of the sensors of the fingertips of each glove and smiled when he sensed the echo. An additional ventricle, just as he thought, it would make dealing with the cardiac arrest so much easier. But before that, he had to disable the implant in her liver. And if Lucas were a good doctor and followed the teachings of all the medical textbooks and manuals, he would be cutting her up and locating the analogue off switch.
However, Lucas wasn’t a good doctor. He was a bloody vat-grown combat medic. He took out a needle containing a hefty dose of enriched acetaminophen and jammed it between her lower left ribs. With her liver implant short-circuited and no more high doses of adrenalin rampaging through her system, her heart could finally stop its seizure. And with a small dose of a standard combat cocktail, he had it beating again. Although it would take a day before all three ventricles of her heart stopped beating erratically and synchronised, she would live. The Confessor would still need to go to a proper medical facility and most likely would need surgery to fix all the damage he had just done, but his action bought her an extra three to five days of life.
“Analyse log entry 001 and begin language decryption. Start mnemonic integration of result as soon as the previous task is done,” Lucas instructed the AI and began the slow process of calibrating all the working functions of his Predator suit.
----------------------------------------