"I'd never actually flown before, not even as a passenger," Marty said. "I didn’t have any reason to fly in real life. I've flown all sorts of vehicles in video games. Planes, helicopters, spaceships, you name it."
"Shit, man, this is a hell of a way to pop your cherry."
Marty only nodded, not taking his eyes off the Earth below us. I had to admit it was pretty hypnotizing. If I hadn't spent that time flying around like a superhero on Hephaseta, I was sure I would have been more consumed with the experience. As it was, I was just worrying about the upcoming mission.
It felt really strange to be thinking about a mission. I wasn't a soldier. Not that long before I'd been a cubicle monkey working with software.
Now I'm going to scout a military base before we raid it.
The raid was the part that was worrying me. Do you know how many non-lethal weapons are in the Union catalog, that work on humans? Zero. Not a single one. No phaser beams that I could set on stun. Nothing. The Union wasn't big on non-lethality. You never needed to stun Ferals. If you did need to, you could probably be a lot less gentle than you would need to be on a human.
Baseline humans were delicate creatures. It was far too easy to accidentally kill with a "non-lethal" weapon. Some years ago Earth weapon manufacturers had even started calling them "less than lethal" in some obvious CYA lawyer bullshit.
I had Metra working on a solution, but I suspected she wasn't giving it her full attention. She was still pretty fixated on getting her ship working so she could clear out the satellite stations and reclaim them. I couldn't blame her. If I were in her shoes I'd probably feel the same way.
"Hey Jake," Marty said.
"Yeah, man, what's up?"
"I feel like I haven't thanked you enough."
"For what?"
"For all of this. You saved my life. You basically made me immortal and jacked. Hell, I'm flying a fricking spaceship right now. Thank you, man."
"Don't thank me yet. I've also basically enlisted you into a war."
"Pfft. I told you, man, I'm basically a god of war. I've just never had the chance before. I won't let you down."
To be fair, Marty was looking a lot more the part than when I first met him. Both of us were wearing combat clothing that I had designed. When activated it would soak up light, allowing us to hide in deep shadow. It was the best I could do for personal stealth, since anything else required way too much energy and equipment for one person to practically carry around. Since the uniforms were made of Union fabrics they were fairly bulletproof and self-repairing as well. Both of us were wearing 9mm pistols at our sides.
In the back of Redemption I had parked my Krigar Assault Armor and placed the GN-75 and two Gazers on a wall-mounted rack. If we needed to use any of that, things would have gone completely pear shaped, and I hoped it would all remain unused.
"Don't worry, Kratos, you'll get your chance to fight. We all will, I think."
The green country below us became more and more brown as we got into southern Idaho and then into Nevada.
"We're getting close," Marty said. "I'll orbit a mile out."
Marty dropped lower, closing in on the blue dot. I studied what we could see. It was exactly as the satellite photos had shown us. A small airstrip, a group of administration buildings, and a lot of nothing. All of it surrounded by tall fences and guarded by lots of men with guns.
I gave an order and three of the infiltration drones popped off the rack and flew out the front hatch. Without some kind of specialized deployment system for the drones we'd just decided to crack the hatch as little as we needed to and hope for the best. The lights were off in the cockpit and the hatch was open for less than a second, so I wasn't too worried. If anyone saw anything, they'd probably just write it off as their imagination or a camera glitch.
The drones spread out and flew silently toward the base as we slowly orbited. Threat markers began appearing as they flew over the base. Back on the station, Brick was analyzing the data as it came in.
Labels with summarized data began to appear on my Interface, overlaying the base in the distance. Each label was a patrol, or a guard checkpoint, or a building. It didn't look good.
There were ten patrols, and most of them were four men each. Two of the patrols had dogs. Those patrols covered the area between the fences. All of the men were armed with automatic rifles, and every soldier was outfitted with an earpiece radio.
There were towers near the access road and they were manned as well, but I wasn't too worried about those. Towers didn't wander around and show up when it was least convenient like patrols. The soldiers up in the towers had their automatic rifles, but there was also one guy in each tower with a scoped rifle.
Cameras were everywhere. The drones picked up other sensors in the dirt all around the base's perimeter, although it wasn't clear what they were for.
Two three-story buildings were living quarters. Simple one- and two-bedroom apartments without kitchens. It wasn't much but was still more luxurious than I'd expected. I had envisioned bunk beds and drill sergeants.
What we didn't see at all was the hangar the two men had talked about. There was a hangar near the airstrip that would fit a few small planes, but it was completely open to the outside, and completely empty.
"Maybe you're right, Marty. Maybe it's all underground," I mused.
"With your permission, Jake, I will direct a drone to infiltrate an administration building."
"Go for it," I replied. I lost one of my three drones as Brick assumed control.
The drone flitted down to
