The boulder I'd sheltered behind disintegrated into gravel and loaf-sized chunks as a torrent of flechettes reduced it to nothing. Chunks of rock bounced off my helmet and armored limbs as I rolled away. I came to a stop several meters later. The solid bulk of the ridge I'd crested moments ago was now the only thing between me and a needler cannon, which had nearly taken my life.
My scout drone was unharmed, floating in the air above me. Its stealth systems had been completely successful at hiding it from the targeting sensors of the Connahr base.
I'm such an idiot. Why didn't I just send the scout drone ahead?
I ordered the scout to pop up and get a scan of the defenses ahead. All that was visible was a single turret the size of a semi truck mounted on a small rise. If the base itself was ahead, it was invisible.
The turret's long barrel was pointed in my direction as it waited patiently for its target to reappear. The sensor data from the scout drone was showing targeting signals sweeping through the area where I had been moments before.
"Jake, I advise against sending the scout drone in any further. Those sensors will resolve it at close range, despite the current effectiveness of its stealth systems."
I grimaced as Brick wiped out that new plan. Sending the scout drone in to map out the base was out.
"Thanks, Brick."
There was no way for me to advance directly, but maybe I could find a different path. I ordered the scout to stay at the same range and circle around, looking for something useful. In the spirit of caution, one of the requirements I gave it was to keep as much cover between it and the base as it could. If one of the targeting sensors finally resolved it, my useful little drone would be erased instantly and I couldn't afford to lose it.
Marty's voice came over our connection. "You alright, Boss?"
"That was close, but yeah, all good. One of the turrets is a big needler and it almost got me. My fault, I was being stupid. I've got the scout looking for another way in."
Ten minutes later I saw something interesting on the scout’s feed: a cleft in the solid rock of Mercury's surface that looked like a split caused by an earthquake. It seemed recent. It stretched out of sight in both directions. The most interesting thing about it, for me, was that it headed in the direction of the base. It was at least twenty meters across, and deep. So deep the scout's cameras couldn't see the bottom.
Directly above the rift in the ground, not far from my stealthed scout drone, another turret sat. While roughly the same size, this one looked different with a fat, stubby barrel. The base of the turret was a large, Union-grey metal box that must have been embedded into the rock at one point, but now mostly protruded out over the rift in Mercury's surface. The turret was idle, waiting for a target, and I couldn't tell just by looking at it whether it had the depression it needed to be able to fire down into the chasm below.
"I'm seeing what looks like might be my in. Some recent earthquake damage or something. I'm gonna see if I can get into it, and stay hidden. With some luck, this will get me right into the base. Or at least close enough that I can make a hole and get through."
Marty acknowledged, and I ordered the scout drone to follow the chasm away from the base. I needed it to find me an entry point that the turret didn't have line of sight on.
I moved to my right, following the back of the ridgeline. The rock below was rough, and either runny and melted, looking like what you'd see on the slopes of a volcano, or sharp and ragged. The color palette was a disappointing mix of light black, dark black, and grey. So much for my childhood expectations of Mercury.
Ten minutes later the scout found what I needed. A place where I could enter the deep rift without exposing myself to the turret straddling the chasm.
I floated down into the blackness, my vision Augment peeling away the darkness and showing me a sheer drop ending several hundred meters below in what looked like lava. I wasn't a geologist, so I wasn't sure if you called it lava or magma. I had always gotten those confused. I'll just call it lava.
I dropped down seventy-five or eighty meters below the surface and floated cautiously along the rift. My scout drone was floating ahead, extending my sensor coverage around corners in the twisting chasm.
Something odd was happening below me in the lava. I was imagining it, I thought. Every once in awhile, it felt like I saw movement. Was the lava bubbling? Was that something that lava did? I didn't know, I wasn't curious enough to try to find out. I had a mission.
Sometime later, after following the wavy pattern of the rift in the earth, my drone warned me that the next turn was dangerous. I looked through its sensors, and saw that when I rounded the corner I would be able to see the turret and presumably it would be able to see me. It still wasn't clear from the design whether it could shoot at me down here at the bottom, but I didn't want to find out the hard way.
I studied it carefully. Could I drop all the way to the bottom, just above the lava, and make my way underneath it? Would it notice?
About half or maybe even more of the turret's bulk was jutting out over open space where the rift in Mercury had opened up. It was my bad luck. If the Earthquake—or Mercuryquake—had been a little more severe, the turret would have ended up in the lava and I would have had a clear path to the
