"Whoa, what are those?" Marty asked.
"Microdrones, clearly. They seem unusual, though. What have you done to them? And how are you controlling so many?" Metra asked.
"Microdrones, yes," Kiril replied. "These are in the form of Earth's small, flying insects. Brick is able to control more than sixty-five thousand of the drones with the Control Blister Jake and I have built."
The cloud of insect-like microdrones reached the weapons and began to disperse, landing on the steel, plastic, and wood of the various weapons. They crawled over the weapons until they found either a muzzle or an open breech, and disappeared inside.
"Now the drones will get as close to the firing pin as they can before deploying their payload. This is a miniaturized version of a device I invented. It will use the material of the weapon and a Nanite Cluster to hold the firing pin in place, and disable the weapon."
"Will the soldiers not simply destroy the pests before they can accomplish their mission?" Regar asked.
"That's why we're going to deploy thousands of them," I said. "We'll have far more than we need to disable every weapon."
There weren't any drones left in the air, and a minute later Brick spoke. "All weapons disabled."
"Thanks, Brick. Let's test that," I said.
My friends followed me over to the other side of the hangar. I picked up the first M4 I reached and pulled back the charging handle to chamber a round. Pointing at the far wall, I squeezed the trigger. Nothing. Not even a click.
I dropped the useless rifle and picked up a 9mm pistol. It was the same, not even a click when trying to fire it. The firing pin was locked in place, welded to the surrounding structure with the pistol's own metal. All of the guns were like that.
"A great success," Regar said, examining the bolt action rifle in his hands with curiosity.
"Yes, it looks like we're good to go," I replied.
"We will be," Marty said. "Brick and I will have the provocation ready in a few more hours. We can start tonight."
The ticking clock was always on my mind. If the Connahr field failed completely any time soon, Earth was boned. The sooner we got the Redemption completed and got to Mercury, the better.
"Let's do it."
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Storming the Base
MARTY'S PLAN WAS A masterpiece. His being so deeply steeped in the culture of the True Believers really paid off when it came time for him to hoax them.
The video was uploaded to Ted's account, and then mirrored everywhere by a carefully chosen group of True Believers, before the "government" could take it down. The Internet was forever.
It went viral instantly, with a few loud voices shouting that it was clearly fake—some kind of viral marketing for a movie. Then the other shoes dropped.
Ted and Mary were missing, not showing up to their jobs the next day. Their families were on camera asking for information about where they'd gone. I wondered how that was working so well, and Marty told me he'd taken some of the cash and the gold out of my bags and given it to Ted and Mary to play along. Cash is king, after all.
About ten hours into the viral shitstorm, the civilian and then military radar recordings leaked onto the net. Each recording showed the first saucer moving impossibly quickly from orbit to disappear directly above the unnamed base, followed by another two in formation following the same path slightly later. The timings and direction of the arrivals backed up the video perfectly.
It wasn't even twelve hours before the first RVs began to arrive on the land outside the base's perimeter. By that time things were going into high gear.
The military had released a statement that declared this was complete fiction. They confirmed the radar contacts, but denied that there were UFOs visiting any of their bases. They also denied that they had Mary and Ted in custody. This was of course derided as the government attempting to suppress the truth.
Just over a day after the video's release, thousands of True Believers were camped out near the base, hoping for a glimpse of the visiting aliens. The news showed the camps to be more like a festival than anything, with plenty of drum circles, drugs, and alcohol. It looked like a good time. Congress announced the formation of an investigative committee into the aliens.
"You were right, Marty. We're ready to go. We'll do it tonight."
Marty just nodded, deep in the Interface, tweaking his designs.
"You going to be ready?" I asked after he didn't reply.
"What? Yeah, we'll be ready."
The sun had been below the horizon for hours and the non-stop party in the camps outside the base had calmed down. The True Believers waited to see if the aliens would visit that night, hoping that just this once their faith would be rewarded. We intended to do just that.
The Redemption was hovering, invisible, in the black sky over top of the base. The infiltration drones watched the patrols, who were all a bit on edge. It was no longer the relaxed, boring gig it had been. Marty sat in the pilot chair, with Regar and me in the other two. I was fully kitted up in my Assault Armor, and Regar was wearing his red armor, now completely repaired. He'd left the Tempest behind, but was wearing a stubby pistol. I had Excalibur but had left my other weapons behind. My fists and my wrecking bar were as close to non-lethal as I could get.
We had mounted the Control Blister on the belly of the Redemption, after giving it the same stealth coating the rest of the ship had. With Brick's complete control of the base's surveillance networks and my infiltration drones, we knew exactly where all the guns were.
"Disable their weapons, Brick," I ordered.
"Aye, aye, Captain," Brick replied. I sighed. Marty had been playing old pirate movies in preparation for our raid.
We couldn't see the
