the unsecured leisure portion of the network. The thought of being captured was still on his mind, the awareness that there were twenty seven decks beneath him and twenty two above and that he was over nine hundred meters of hallway away from the nearest escape vessel enraged him. Jake would have to fight to leave the ship, and even then the nearest craft available was unarmed, useless when trying to depart from the midst of a Battle Group. The ship he was on was called the Diplomat, and it was registered to the High Seat of the Order of Eden, Lister Hampon.
The whole situation made him burn. Jake opened a link between himself and the unsecured channel. “Don't stand between me and my freedom. If you are armed place your weapon on the deck in front of you and step away. If you are in control of a major system and I require access to your station, step back and do not interfere. If you don't follow my instructions you will be killed.” He ended the broadcast and shut down the communications system built into his command and control unit so no one could back hack his system.
One of the squad members was approaching the large hole in the upper half of the door with a grenade in his hand. Jake activated the new, radiation free cloaking systems in his vacsuit and long coat, took three long strides to the door and waited.
The squad leader activated his grenade and tossed it into the doorway. Jake was ready, caught it, leaned outside and tossed it down the hall between the feet of the six soldiers. “I warned you,” he said as he ducked behind what was left of the armoured door.
He set his sidearm to the maximum discharge rate, so it would fire enough explosive thermite to burn through half a meter of hardened hull material in less than two seconds. The weapon would only have thirty five shots per clip, but by his estimation he would miss less, and he had six more clips on him.
The grenade went off and for a few seconds half his new senses were blind. He shook his head and looked into the hallway.
Half the squad were killed by the blast, he could see all the indications of life fading away, their body heat dissipated the slowest of all. Without hesitation he stood, pulled himself out through the upper half of the doorway and strode down the hall to where he assumed the secondary lifts were, ignoring the three guards that were pulling themselves together and checking their fallen comrades.
He held his palm to the controls to the lift and tried to interface with them. As expected he was instantly aware of a security lockout. The entire section he was in was locked down. He wasn't an expert at breaking into digital security systems and that was a problem. After a moment he was able to pull up a general map of the area with emergency safety zones marked clearly. That was the best information he could find, and he spun on his heel and started running towards a security station.
Down several hallways, around several corners he rushed until his sensor package told him that there was a large group of soldiers just around the corner in a security office busied with the task of tracking him down.
To his dismay there was a slight difference in gravity and a vapour barrier conducting a small current just down the hallway. They actually have a system in place that can detect when I cross that threshold while cloaked! I've never seen anything like it, but it's so simple. The vapour leaving the nozzles at the top is measured and if it doesn't match what's being pulled in through the bottom the alarms go off. If I find my way around that, the current being measured all around that water vapour will be off enough to alert them. If I were to find a way around that the gravity plating on the other side would measure a large difference as well. It's like what we accomplished on the Overlord Two with the early version of our cloaksuits made Hampon paranoid. Seriously paranoid! That's unless all Regent Galactic ships have anti-stealth technology surrounding command centers.
He looked down the hallway, watched the security officers checking sensors at the outer perimeter and scrambling between two and three dimensional monitors to find him and tried to figure out a way to get to their systems without noticing. If they have gravity plating that's monitoring pressure in there my cloak suit isn't worth a damn, and I can sense that there are thirty eight of them inside. Big office.
Jake shrugged, drew a nanoblade hilt from its holster at the rear of his belt, set the blade to extend one meter and then drew his sidearm. The black blade appeared, a grisly triumph of nanotechnology. Turned one way it was invisible to the naked eye, comprised of millions of nanobots caught in a turning magnetic field it was only a few molecules thick and would cut through anything softer than itself. The nanobots, aside from being sharper than any cutting surface known, would all work to push through whatever they came in contact with except for Jake's vacsuit. If they came into contact with materials harder than themselves they would cut into them quickly, but there were only so many nanobots in the hilts of the weapons, once they were exhausted, the weapon needed to be reloaded. He had only used one theoretically, in simulations and if the representation of the weapon's effects were at all accurate, it would be a very effective tool of intimidation.
He tapped into the leisure network for the ship once more. It was broadcasting an alert, displaying his image on every entertainment display on the ship. It didn't matter.
He began broadcasting what he saw across the ship's entertainment systems, deactivated the cloaking systems and activated the personal shield built into his vacsuit and long coat.
He became visible as he strode down the hallway to the security office. His black face plate, crimson and black long coat and armoured vacsuit were the focus of everyone who could see the open main doors to the security office.
“That's him!” shouted a desk clerk who ran for cover.
Jake opened fire. Looking down the sight of his heavy sidearm with his mind's eye he couldn't miss as he made three head shots in quick succession, ruining the first three guards who were caught in the open, just bringing their rifles to bear.
He crossed the threshold into the security office and was immediately hit with several heavy energy rounds from his left. Energy shield absorbed the damage, spreading the electrical component of the rounds across its surface and showing some weakening from the high velocity impact of white hot particles. Without looking he swung the nanoblade blade at head level. His gaze followed a second behind the strike, just in time to see the blade pass through the center of a guard's head from ear to ear. The gel they wore to protect them from extreme thermal damage did nothing to stop the weapon.
“Helmets! He's got a blade!” Called out one soldier as he ducked behind a cubicle.
The room was filled with partitions, rows of plastic cubicles for numerous security officers. They were using them for cover, a few took quick shots at him but missed as he strode right out in the open.
Jake concentrated on his thermal spectrum of vision so he could see right through the thin partitions and picked out a target who was getting ready to stand and fire, the shape and temperature of the soldier marked him as crouching in thick armour with a long rifle. He took quick aim and fired through the thin plastic partition five times. Screams filled the room as he picked another target who was standing to fire and shot him once in the neck and once in his open mouth.
As he was struck by another energy bolt and his personal shield was reduced to ten percent power. Jake darted across the room, turned, dropped behind the main security terminal beside an unarmed officer and took sight of the soldier who had shot him. The man was ready, just waiting for him to peek out. The officer right beside him stared open eyed, in utter shock.
“Get anyone unarmed into that corner, you have three seconds.” Jacob instructed loudly, pointing towards the corner to his right.
The officer nodded and stood up only to be cut down by mistake by his own soldier.
“I tried,” Jake said to himself, taking advantage of the opportunity by raising the barrel of his sidearm up onto the desk, looking through the video sight and taking several shots at the man's grey helmet. The first shot was resisted, the two that followed it broke through.
He took an energy clip from his trench coat pocket and jacked it into his control and command unit, mentally instructing his personal energy shield to drain the device and recharge. After two seconds it was done and Jake stood up.
Two soldiers were waiting. They fired through the thin walls of the cubicles, one caught him several times with his lower powered automatic energy rifle. It didn't make a difference. Jake could plainly see who was armed and who wasn't using his new senses. He ran forward, down the center aisle and ran his sword cleanly through a cubicle and the arm of the soldier behind it.
He trained his sidearm sight on the nearest soldier and he fired several times, breaking through his armour. Taking aim at another armed man he repeated the act and when the soldier hiding just behind him started taking aim at his back Jake was ready.
