System Harbinger : Legacy Earth 5, page 27
“Skit,” Ingrid muttered.
“Vad ar fel?” Lance asked the blond.
“Du pratta Svanks?” she questioned.
Lance nodded.
“The Reeves blew our airlock. Nari pulled away; she’s looking for another place to dock,” Illume explained.
“No need, we’re docked not far from here,” Lance said, pointing up the corridor. “You can evac with us and we’ll switch out at the Gladius.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” Ingrid shrugged.
They retreated to the airlock. Climbing in, Stephanie sealed it, opened into their dropship. Illume and Ingrid were the first two through. Mattias was next with Dexter and Stephanie gliding through next. The captain was the last to climb through.
Shutting and locking the ship, he slammed his fist on the hull twice. Several low clicks rattled the ground below Lance. They moved away from the station. Rolling onto his stomach, the captain pushed himself off the ground and stood up.
“How’re we looking?” Lance asked.
“The Veles tucked tail and ran so fast, I’m surprised their ships didn’t break apart,” the pilot called back. “The other ship had a hull malfunction. They’ve got a breach. Whoever was inside, likely not among the living.”
“Unlikely,” Illume called up. “The ship is a formality, just a mode of transportation. Our bodies can withstand the vacuum of space.”
He tilted his head to one side again. As he did, the other TATlev ship straightened out.
“Where’s your carrier?” Ingrid asked.
“It’s more of a corvette,” Dexter corrected.
“Just tell her to follow us,” Lance replied. “Get us to the Gladius.”
“Yes, sir,” the pilot replied. “Scanners are showing no pursuing craft.”
“There wouldn’t be,” Illume replied. “The Veles came with an entire armada; only two managed to dock.”
Lance looked at Mattias, who lay back in his seat, holding his wound. The captain approached and knelt next to his squad mate, inspecting the sealant. Nothing seeped out. He looked at his sniper.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I’m pretty sure I’m having an acute pneumothorax,” Mattias said through labored breathing.
“We’ll get you to the doc and get you patched up,” Lance said, taking a seat next to his friend. “How are your vitals looking?”
“Not great but stable,” Mattias replied.
“We can treat him,” Ingrid exclaimed, instinctively grabbing her hammer.
“Nope, no, I’m good. I think I’ll leave it to those with physical, fleshy bodies, if you don’t mind,” Mattias huffed.
“So be it,” Ingrid replied, sitting down.
“Gladius, this is away craft one. We’ve got some company. Move away craft two, clear,” the pilot ordered. “And get a medical team. We have an injury.”
“Moving away craft two, ETA sixty seconds,” one of the hangar attendants replied.
Clearing the debris field, they docked into the Gladius. Illume’s ship flew into the other side. The dropship left behind hung between them both. Helping Mattias up, Lance made sure his teammate was stable on his feet. As he escorted Mattias out, a medical team rushed to his side with a hover chair. Sitting him in, they escorted the injured soldier into the elevator.
Lance turned to see Ingrid emerge from their ship while Stephanie grilled Illume about their mobile platforms, abilities, and why technology as advanced as them weren’t commonly used. The soldier dodged her questions as best he could.
“Steph!” Lance snipped. “Not everyone has to spill their tech guts to you.”
“Sorry, sir!” the engineer said, jogging out of the craft.
Illume emerged. Lance offered the soldier his hand. Both men shook before breaking off.
“I’m assuming you won’t be coming back with us?” Lance asked.
Illume shook his head.
“We still need to find the conduit,” he replied. “We’ll be sure to re-establish contact with command. It may take some time, but I’ve got reports, if you could forward them to your father, I think he’ll need to see them.”
He tapped his wrist against Lance’s multi-tool. A ping of encrypted data appeared on his multi-tool.
“I take it I can’t view this?” Lance asked.
“Only your father has the description cypher,” Illume replied. “I’m sure with your clearance he’ll share with you what he thinks you’ll need to know.”
“You sure you don’t want to stick around? We can repair your ship before you head out,” Lance offered.
“Thank you for the offer, but we don’t have time to waste,” Illume countered. “Thank you for being a distraction, by the way. Your fight in the mainframe diverted an entire platoon meant for me.”
“Anything I can do to help?” Lance smirked. “Knowing there’s still a following, are you planning on making any more installments?”
Illume turned and walked toward his ship. Stepping inside, he turned back and shrugged.
“I wouldn’t have thought so… but now, you never know,” Illume said as the doors shut behind him.
THIRTY-FOUR
BIGGER THINGS
Their dropship fell from the Gladius and shot into space before the hangar doors shut. Lance shook his head in disbelief as he turned toward Stephanie and Dexter. A line of crew members formed around the weapons locker, returning their choice of defensive equipment. When they stepped into the elevator, a revving hum of engines filled the ship.
“Anyone want to venture a guess as to how Irene outclassed two of us?” Lance asked as he looked at Stephanie.
“You guys got beat by Irene?” Dexter snickered.
“It’s not as cut and dry as it seemed,” Stephanie said as she looked at her multi-tool. “I’ve never seen shielding like that, so when she got close and was distracted, I put Marty to work.”
The elevator stopped at med bay. Stepping out, Lance walked toward the doors and looked through. Doctors removed Mattias’ breastplate. Still conscious, one team sliced a small hole in his side and shoved a tube in. The sniper gripped the side of the bed, gritting his teeth while a mask was placed over his face by a second team.
Within seconds, Mattias was passed out. The second team turned their attention to the stab wound in his chest. Human doctors barked orders and instructions to their non-human assistants. One of the medical professionals monitoring the patient with his data pad made his way over to Lance.
“How’s he looking?” Lance asked, crossing his arms, a hint of concern tugging at the back of his mind.
“How long ago was the injury sustained?” the doctor asked.
“Two… three hours maybe,” Lance replied.
“In that case, he’s doing extremely well. His suit’s triage treatment stopped the bleeding enough to prevent him from drowning. The knife that sliced through him missed his suprascapular artery, which on withdraw could’ve ripped that open and he’d be in a lot more trouble now. Whatever did that had to be one of the sharpest things in existence. He’s experiencing a hemopneumothorax, we’re draining the blood from his chest now, which will allow his lung to re-inflate.”
“Okay, but is he going to pull through?” Dexter asked.
“Mortality rates for an unenhanced human with this kind of injury is less than three percent,” the doctor replied. “I bet you he’s up and running before we hit our first stop.”
“Thanks, doc,” Lance said with a nod, relief washing over him.
As he stepped back, the doors slid shut. Turning around, he looked at Stephanie.
“What’d Marty find?” he asked as they returned to the elevator.
“Whatever she was using was stolen from the Reeves. It had AI signatures all over it. Likely something experimental, which could explain why none of the others had it,” Stephanie said. “As for how she kicked our butts, Marty picked up on electrical signals coursing through her that are in line with a Class C CRISPR shot.”
“I’m a little lost,” Dexter mumbled.
“They use nano-bots to disperse the enhancement enzymes,” Lance said before turning toward the giant. “You got that shot, remember?”
“So did I,” Stephanie added. “Baseline is faster and stronger than the other two classes.”
The elevator doors opened. Justin stood in front of the command center to greet them.
“We managed to get a set of trackers on the Veles ship’s hulls,” the pilot said. “If we keep our distance, we can follow them and figure out where they’re going.”
“And if we don’t follow them?” Lance asked, stepping onto the bridge.
“Worst-case scenario, we have a two-day delay on their locations,” Justin replied. “At least that’s according to Drentlaw, who went into way too much detail on how those trackers can be used to map the galaxy.”
“Thank you for the update. Right now, just get us away from this system and keep an eye on the Reeves. I want to know if they’re following us,” Lance ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
Justin jogged back to the cockpit. He kicked the co-pilot out of his seat and climbed back in before maneuvering them away from the neutron star.
“Are you telling me the Veles now have access to our CRISPR technology?” Lance asked, heading toward security.
“It wouldn’t be that hard to self-discover, to be honest,” the engineer replied. “But the readings I’m looking at are what have me worried. They’re conducting her body’s electrical signals. It’s almost instantaneous and it encompasses almost every cell.”
Through the security doors, several officers worked on inspecting weapons, they paused for a moment and looked at Hrafn squad. Dexter walked over and placed the plasma weapon down as well as his heavy gun. Stephanie put her rifle and shotgun on the table.
“And yours?” they asked, looking at Lance.
“I got my butt kicked. Every weapon I brought was either bent, broken, or blown up, but at least I came back in one piece!” he exclaimed before walking toward the communication center. “How is that different from the ones you and Dexter got?”
“Ours reinforce our nervous system, that’s it,” Stephanie replied. “It’s not in our muscle, bone, fatty tissue…”
“Hey, I don’t have fatty tissue,” Dexter interjected.
“You may not, but other people do,” Stephanie countered. “Irene’s looks like its in almost every muscle and bone cell in her body.”
“You got all that off of Marty?” Lance asked.
“I told you, I upgraded him!”
Approaching the communication relay, Lance selected to connect to his father’s multi-tool. As the connection attempted to take place, he looked back at Stephanie.
“How much information did you get on that station?”
“Enough to build a very large dossier.”
“Lance, good to see you,” Leon’s voice cut through the communicator. “You look a little worse for wear.”
“It’s been an interesting mission,” he replied as he turned to face the hologram of his father. “I wanted to let you know we found your specialty squad and they weren’t alone.”
“Were they still active?”
“And very effective,” Lance replied. “It appears they went offline because they found something of galactic importance, and they didn’t want to risk being tracked. Now that the Veles know they’re in play, communication will be re-established.”
“The Veles?” Leon asked. He looked around quickly as his image started to jostle.
“Yes, sir. They’d conducted a full-on assault on the Reeve station, enough to completely wipe out their fighter platforms,” Lance explained. “Irene was there with a Project Ibex 2.0 too…”
“Lance, don’t speak about the Veles on even these QEC channels,” Leon ordered. “I’m starting to think that they’ve found a way to listen in. Get back to the Manifest Destiny and debrief me in person.”
“Yes, sir,” Lance replied before his father’s image cut out.
Worry swirled within the soldier. He replayed the conversation in his mind. A look of fear had overtaken the lieutenant general’s features. Connecting his multi-tool to Justin’s, Lance shifted his weight to his right.
“Get us back to the Alcazar as quickly as you can!” he ordered.
“What about the…” Justin started.
“They don’t matter right now. What’s important is getting back!”
“Setting course to Alcazar station,” the pilot replied as the connection was cut.
“Did you notice that?” Dexter asked, pointing at where Leon’s image was.
“What?” Stephanie asked.
“Was it me, or did he look scared?”
“It wasn’t you,” Lance replied. “Something has him rattled in regard to the Veles, and I’m willing to bet just about anything that it’s Council Member Carnegie. Stephanie, any way you can compress the Reeve dossier on the side?”
“Marty’s been doing it since we set foot on the station,” she replied.
“Good, I need you to do a deep dive on Andrew Carnegie the twelfth, find any amount of dirt you can on the man. If he’s so much as had a dirty thought, I want to know about it,” Lance ordered.
“I’ll have to put upgrading the multi-tool weapons on the back burner, but I’ll get to it right away,” she said as she exited the room.
“What do you want me to do, boss?” Dexter asked, concern filling the giant’s face.
“Right now, get checked out by any doctor not working on Mattias,” Lance replied. “I want to make sure you didn’t exacerbate any of your injuries.”
“I barely got hit, sir, I’m fine,” he countered.
“I don’t care; you could think you’re fine now, but one of those bullets could’ve hit you just right and you could have a slow leak in your lung from a dislodged rib you can’t feel,” Lance explained. “Now go get checked out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dexter turned and left the room as well. Lance looked at the communication system. He stepped toward it and placed his hand on the control panel. Holding it in place, his multi-tool synced with the system, allowing him to use it for all his contacts.
Lance selected to connect with Amber. After several seconds of her not picking up, the line cut off. He took a deep breath and tried again. This time, she connected. Mid-yawn, she pulled sheets up over her chest as she sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“Is that you, Lance?” she asked, her voice groggy.
“It is, and I need a favor.”
“Of course, anything for you,” she replied as the lights in her quarters turned on. “What’s up?”
“Chadavia had some pretty series injuries. We’re headed back now, and when we get there, I need you to look at him.”
“Don’t you have a Jarog physician on your ship that can look at him? If he’s hurt that badly, waiting will only make treatment harder.”
“The Jarog doctor did look at him. She couldn’t do anything for him except stabilize him. He needs someone with your unique look on things.”
Amber’s brow furrowed. She adjusted herself on the bed before running her fingers through her hair.
“It’s not a physical injury, is it?” she asked rhetorically.
“No,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Apparently, the Jarog can have some kind of feedback if they try to push an emotion into one another at the same time. It doesn’t happen often, but apparently, it’s big time no good. The issue is I think when he tried to push on the creature, it was able to mirror the ability and essentially caused Chadavia to push into his own mind.”
“What could’ve possibly done that?”
“A dragon.”
“A dragon?” Amber asked in disbelief. Lance nodded. “You’re lying. What really did it?”
Lance looked at his bracer. He pulled up the suit’s combat videos. Scrubbing through the images, he stopped when they were back on Boron. Clipping the portions that showed their fight with the dragon, he messaged them to the doctor.
“Check your inbox,” he said.
Amber swiped at the air, shaking her head in disbelief. Her smile quickly faded as the roar played on over the communication.
“Oh… okay, so those exist now,” she muttered as she zoned out for several seconds. Turning her focus back to Lance, Amber shrugged. “Processing that those are actual things aside, why me? Why not take him to the embassy, or the SOAT medical facilities. They’ll be better equipped to handle his situation. I’m a human doctor, after all.”
“SOATs in his condition apparently have a history of being dismissed from service,” Lance said as he took a step back, desperation clawing its way into the soldier. “We all know how that goes, dismissed from service and because you’re no longer of use, they take their sweet time dealing with your ailment until it’s to late to help. Amber, I’m asking you as a friend, can you treat him under the table without the Alcazar finding out?”
“We’ll have to take him to Sol space. Anywhere else, and it’ll hit the Alcazar radar. Do you think you can get him there?” she asked.
“I’ll get him to you,” Lance replied with a nod.
“Okay, then I’d better get reading. See you in a few days.”
Amber started getting up as communications were cut off. Lance turned around to see Valdivia standing in the doorway. Her arms crossed as she looked the soldier up and down.
“Your armor looks bad,” she said, a hint of worry in her tone. “I saw what happened to Mattias. Are you okay?”
“That was rough,” Lance said with a nod as he stepped toward her. “But we accomplished our mission and we all made it back in one piece. How’d Chadavia do?”
“It would’ve been worse if not for Kolar,” Valdivia replied with a nod. “Chadavia spiraled and he was able to distract and talk him down and actually get him to focus long enough to return to quarters.”
“How bad is it?”
