God for indoor plumbing.” A loud pop filled the air and a bottom plate just in front of his seat flipped outward so he could push himself out through the bottom of the ship.
“We really were supposed to land upside down?” Jason said in astonishment.
“That explains why the exit hatches are set up in the bottom of the craft,” Oz agreed as he pulled his own handle. “Didn't make much sense before but I was afraid to ask.”
“It was the only way. The transparesteel we scrounged up was the strongest metal on this thing, so we had to make it the impact side,” Ayan explained.
“Sort of counter intuitive.” Minh said as he helped Oz out of the craft. The gravity from the inertial dampeners still pointed to the bottom of the vehicle, so it was easy for them to get through the bottom hatch to the waist, but then the gravity from the planet had hold of them, trying to push the majority of their bodies back inside.
After Oz finished extracting himself from the craft he moved on to help Jason, whose legs were fully out of the ship's egress hatch. Minh helped Ayan and when they were all out, they pulled the plate of metal on the back of the ship away, revealing the packs each of them were to carry along with long coats for all but Ayan, who preferred her longer poncho. All their extra clothing was made with a higher density than their vacsuits, providing extra armour while sharing the same capabilities.
“You know, I've never worn the finished version of a cloaksuit before,” Ayan mentioned.
“I have, they're amazing. They don't do much for us in this field unless we stay between the rows though,” Jason commented as he finished putting his long coat on over his slim, long equipment pack. He checked his sidearm and the nanoblade they'd have to use instead if they wanted to remain undetectable.
“When did you get to wear one?” Oz asked as he secured his heavy rifle across his chest.
“On a couple little runs for Fleet Intelligence, maybe once the Triton gets here I'll fill you in and bust open a couple Freeground secrets.”
“What blew when we hit by the way?” Asked Minh.
“One of the inertial dampeners, I expected at least one of the four I installed to go,” Ayan answered nonchalantly.
“How many redundant dampeners did we have?”
“One, we needed at least three to come down without a scratch.”
“Well, looking at what's left of the ship, anyone might think that there were no survivors,” Oz said, looking at the beat up hull. One of the afterburners had been ripped off, left behind in the field somewhere along the scar they had made on the rows of sugar cane. The other looked like a torn and crushed up box of metal, half torn from the main body of the ship. The vessel itself was dented in several places where the transparesteel joined the main body.
“It's almost too bad we have to use it as a trap,” Ayan said as she activated her cloaksuit. She disappeared from sight completely, even her footfalls were silent and invisible, covered and wiped away by compensation systems built into her boots.
Everyone else followed her example, the display in their vacsuit visors made up for the darkness of night and showed an outline of each of the cloaksuit users. They would no longer communicate audibly, instead their messages would be sent via millisecond laser pulses outside of the normally visible spectrum of light. Secrecy and stealth still demanded that they keep such traffic down to an absolute minimum, especially since a great number, if not the majority of their opponents were machines that could see more of the colour spectrum than an average human.
Oz took up point as they heard a machine start in the distance and rustle the sugar cane stalks. They made their way at a slow jog down one of the rows leading to the broadcast center in the middle of the field. It was marked clearly by several focusing dishes and burst transmitters, all pointed at the stars like wide white concave eyes surrounded by long antennae like multicoloured rods.
Behind them several objects were making their way to their ship and once they had put a kilometre between them and the craft, Oz slowed to a stop. When he turned around his targeting system outlined a large machine and several smaller ones. Two were identified as automated security, one was some kind of technical assistant and there were several small maintenance bots.
“What do you think the big one is?” he heard Minh ask over their point to point network.
“Some kind of harvester,” Ayan answered. “They had them on the Freeground colony, or at least something that kinda looked like it.”
“Will the charges take it out?” Oz asked.
“Just barely, unless there's some solid fuel left in the afterburner. I'm blowing it,” Ayan said as she pointed her index finger at the hull of the ship.
As soon as her signal was received the Needle exploded, filling the air with concussive sound, lighting up the field and the sky with blue and yellow light and sending a wave through the green rows of sugar cane.
“Guess there was some fuel left,” Minh chuckled.
Oz scanned the ground for movement for several seconds and paid close attention to the sensors in his suit just in case there was some energy left in one of the robots that had gone to investigate the crash. “We got 'em, time to move on.”
A Bug In The Works
“We've cut off the feed sir, but anyone looking at the entertainment systems aboard saw the first two minutes and nineteen seconds of the assault,” said the wide eyed internal data management officer.
The command chair on the bridge of the Diplomat was always a source of irritation for Hampon. It was far too large, his feet didn't touch the deck, and people stared when he wasn't looking. He didn't take the opportunity to command in person often, but when he heard that Jacob Valance had gotten free he dropped everything and headed straight for the command chair.
“Why did it take so long?”
“His interface, it was different somehow. It looked a bit like a direct neural connection to the ship.”
“Where is he now?”
“He just cut through a security door using one of our own plasma torches,” the officer reported, looking up and meeting his eye for the first time in days. She had been serving on the circular bridge for months, and managed to suppress the smile he knew she had every time she saw him.
“How did he get a high powered plasma torch?”
“One of our maintenance staff surrendered it when the escapee threatened his life. We have the maintenance worker in custody now.”
“Because taking him into custody will solve all our problems,” Hampon muttered. He brought up the holographic list of damage and casualties incurred as Jake made his way though the command carrier. The sheer magnitude of it was staggering; the man was equipped to wage a one man war and Lister knew that a good part of that was thanks to the years of experience he had in the field as a bounty hunter and equipment from the Triton. “We only have ourselves to blame,” he sighed as he established a link to his best security officer. “Captain Fornier, have four teams of your best men go on a hunt for Jake Valance. You are to force him off the ship and kill anyone you find with him. Make sure that there is no doubt in his mind that you're trying to kill him, use live rounds and every measure you'd normally use to neutralize a dangerous escapee. The faster this is accomplished the better. We have over two hundred fifty thousand new initiates aboard, he must not be allowed to spook them or we will have a nightmarish mess to clean up. Or rather, you will be left to clean it up. Do you understand?”
The Captain saluted, her steel blue eyes were steady and devoid of emotion as she acknowledged him. “I'll lead a team myself. You do realize that there is a high chance of fatality using live rounds.”
“Yes, thank you for reminding me,” He rolled his eyes and glowered at the Captain, an expression he was sure would have more weight if he didn't look like he was ten years old. “If you kill him by mistake I'll dock your staff one week's pay. You have two hours, then I'll have to put some kind of escalated measure into place and you will be fired.”
Here's hoping we can keep track of him once he lands on Pandem. Hampon thought to himself as he cut the transmission and turned his attention back to the most important thing on his mission screens. The preparation for
