Infiltrator
Sotec in the Scina System
26 days left
Jolo bent the latch from the inside of the supply drone and pushed on the door with his feet, his back to the hull of the thin tube of a ship, his body sore and aching after the nine hour trip. The broken hatch had to look like a faulty lock mechanism, he thought, pausing for a moment to rest. When the little drone had gone nose down and seated itself into the landing coupler atop the Titan, it almost felt like being on solid ground again, but then he could feel the slow, undulating movement of the harvester as it made its way across the ice below.
Once again he pushed as hard as he could, his whole body starting to shake. Then suddenly the hatch flew open, the door landing with a crash on the deck below, and the everything inside, mostly packages of dried protein substitute, and one half-synth in a skin suit, spilled out in a pile under the drone. It was a two meter drop and for a split second Jolo felt the cold rain cutting in at an angle, knew that it was dark outside. But then his head hit metal and he blacked out.
He awoke to the sound of two girls talking. At first he thought it was another dream. The voice was Jaylen, the girl on the gunboat, the one with blond hair, the one he had to find. Did find, he remembered. He thought to call to her, to tell her he was here. He missed her. And then the words his father said came to him, “Hide. Don’t use the gun.” His face was cold and wet. He opened his eyes and stared into the darkness. There were no stars, just little tiny glints of rain, each drop reflecting a light from the other side of the deck.
“Another faulty hatch,” one girl said.
“I’m not going down for this one,” the other girl said.
And then it all came back to Jolo. The voices had to be close, maybe ten meters or so off. His right hand was touching the Colt. Don’t use the gun, he thought. If I take these two out then they’ll be missed and I’ll lose my advantage. Maybe I’ve already lost it, he thought, laying on a pile of wet, brown protein. But then he remembered: he was wearing Merthon’s special suit.
When Jolo had gone to Merthon’s lab three days earlier, he thought it was a joke. “It’s on the table there,” the tall Vellosian had said, casually gesturing with his long, graceful fingers. But there was nothing on the old wooden table. “Look again,” said the frog. Jolo looked again and noticed something strange, an undulation, a slight variance in the wood grain. Merthon laughed and picked something up off the table that wasn’t really there, or was it? Once it was in Merthon’s hands Jolo could see it, sort of. Merthon handed it to him and he could feel it, but his eyes found nothing to focus on. It was like he was looking at the shadow of something, but the real thing casting the shadow was gone.
“Is it invisible cloth?” said Jolo, wondering if the question sounded as stupid as he felt saying it.
“No, you fool,” said Merthon, laughing. “That tech is beyond even me. This cloth simply blends with its background. It matches colors, patterns and can mimic even textured surfaces.”
Jolo put the skin-tight suit on, pulled up the hood and stood next to the blue tanks. He looked down at his legs and it was like he was looking through them. He touched his thigh with his hands to break the illusion, but then even his hands looked like blue tank water.
“The suit has a series of tiny fuel cells. You can use the power to warm your body, but try not to use it. That burns your power supply. Once the power runs out, you go from stealth infiltrator to a fool in tights. The suit will hold the last blended image when the power goes out. I wanted to have it go black, but didn’t get around to it. Time constraints.”
“It’s awful thin,” said Jolo, pulling at the elastic material.
“Yes, but it’s made to stop energy blades used by the BG.” Merthon grabbed something off a shelf, held it in front of Jolo, and out popped a small red energy blade. He put the suit over Jolo’s arm then came down with the knife, just hard enough to draw blood, but instead of the hot blade cutting into his skin, he just felt a slight push.
“Again, lose power and you lose the blade armor. And it won’t stop a kinetic energy weapon like your old pistol.”
By then Marco had come into the lab. “And remember,” his father said. “Your instinct is to fight, to use the gun, to attack. You’ve got to use a different tactic this time: Stealth. It’s best if they are not hunting for you.”
Jolo fought the urge to go for the gun and to relieve himself of the threat standing a few meters off. The Jaylens were fast and he’d seen them wield their deadly red energy blades. But he remained still.
“Those rock tossing dogs will die without the brown
