Deterrence expedition le.., p.12
Deterrence Expedition : Legacy Earth 3, page 12
“Dexter, punch that thing!” Lance ordered while he assessed the situation.
The giant stepped up and threw a punch at the centipede. His fist made contact with a CRACK as pieces of chitin flew in every direction as the monster coiled away before striking at him. Making contact, a deep thud reverberated through the forest as the heavy was thrown away. His blow damaged the creature but not enough to cause it to retreat.
Lance dashed at the legs. He drew back to slash at the joints. With a hiss, the beast reared up, preparing for another attack. For a split second, the first lieutenant saw what he thought was intelligence in the creature, despite Michael and Mattias hacking away at its legs making almost no progress.
Its pincers opened as it prepared to strike. Lance slid to a stop. He dug his toes in, waiting to lunge out of the way until after its attack started. As it struck at him, the young man gritted his teeth as he stared down the gigantic arthropod. Every muscle in his body tightened. His senses spiked as the world slowed in unison with a surge of adrenaline that flooded his veins.
Valdivia dashed between him and the centipede. She threw her hands out to either side as if to bar the beast from Lance. A strange pulse of peace flooded the first lieutenant as if he’d been struck by a wave.
“EMBRACE THE GODDESS!” Valdivia shouted.
That peace was swiftly overcome by terror. Everything within Lance screamed for him to turn and run. Only by his iron will did he hold his ground while Mattias and Michael staggered back but maintained their position.
The giant insect reared back, hissing and squeaking in terror before dropping to the ground and running away. Even on its feet, the back of the armored insect stood eye height with Lance. Awe filled the soldier as he watched the monster flee from nothing the soldiers did.
Dexter let out a groan as he pushed himself back to his feet. Lance pumped his hand three times, retracting his blade, while Mattias and Michael turned their attention to Valdivia. The Jarog brought her hands in front of her, her shoulders rolling forward as she backed away from them, bumping into the first lieutenant as she did.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed, a hint of nervousness in her voice.
Lance put his hands out, prepared to catch her as she jumped a little and attempted to backpedal away a little more.
“No need to apologize,” Lance said softly.
Mattias scoffed. Lance shot him a stern glare before looking back at the visibly nervous alien.
“You just saved our hides,” he added. “Although I do think we’d all like to know how.”
“Well, my people are semi aquatic,” she started off timidly while tapping her fingertips together. “We developed a form of communication before we gained the ability to speak. We can push emotions into others. Sometimes it can be whatever we choose; other times it’s usually just what we’re feeling.”
Silence fell among the other three team members. So many things fell into place for Lance as he glanced from them back to her. A smile tugged at the side of his lips.
“That’s how you got me to find you above Mars, isn’t it?” he asked, crossing his arms.
“Yes,” she replied with a nod. “I felt your presence and called out to you. I didn’t think your kind could pick up on the Emp. I’m glad I was wrong.”
Sixteen
The Emp
In a flash, Mattias’ blade was withdrawn. His rifle raised and aimed at Valdivia’s head. Fear and anger ignited within Lance like a heat flash in a pan. He stepped between his squad member and the Jarog.
“What are you doing, soldier?” Lance snapped, ensuring to keep his tone low so as to not attract more attention.
“Did you not just hear her?” Mattias asked as he tried to aim around Lance.
The first lieutenant moved with his squad mate, ensuring that he was looking directly down the barrel of Mattias’ rifle. His face tingled, every muscle twitching, expecting a round to come flying toward him at a moment’s notice. He fought his instincts to move and held his ground.
“She just admitted that her kind can push emotion!” Mattias added. “Do you have any idea how easily a person can be manipulated that way? You’ve gone to bat for her more than once, and Colonel Cadence gave her infinitely more freedom than any POW should’ve had. How do we know she wasn’t manipulating you both to get our command here and capture or kill us all?”
“I swear, I haven’t ever forced the Emp on any of you!” Valdivia replied as she held her hands up. Her voice trembled in fear.
“She has shared her emotions with us!” Lance countered. “Do you remember that joy you felt in the sphere? Or every time she’s been around and some form of happiness or peace consumed you? How do you not recognize now that you’ve felt that fear she just used to save our hides when she’s shared her emotions with us?”
“I have?” she whispered in horror. “By the goddess, I’m so sorry…”
“Don’t say another word!” Mattias snarled as he kept his rifle aim true.
Lance could hear fear entwined within the soldier’s voice. His heart raced as he tried to figure out a way to diffuse the situation that wouldn’t get someone hurt, or worse, their position given up. The first lieutenant glanced from Mattias to Dexter. The giant drew his side arm and aimed it at Valdivia as well.
Lance’s brow knitted together as he watched his large team mate move toward Mattias’ side. Why was he holding his pistol? Even in training, he was reluctant to use such a tiny weapon. His hand moved toward his own sidearm. He was quick, faster than the other two. There was no doubt in his mind he could disarm one, but he wasn’t sure he could get both.
Michael’s multi-tool lit up. Lance’s heart sank. He clenched his jaw as he prepared his suit’s adrenaline shot to give him the edge. Dexter was the greatest physical threat, but he needed to stop Mattias first. The engineer would be easy enough to knock out. He took several deep breaths, every muscle in his body tightened as he readied himself to take on his team.
BZTTZTZZTTZZDZZD!
Sparks flew from Mattias’ weapon, causing Lance to squint through the blinding flashes of his night vision. He stepped back instinctively as Dexter spun, grabbed Mattias by his breast plate, and in one fluid motion, picked him up then slammed him into the ground.
The sparking weapon bounced out of Mattias’ hand. Michael ran over to it, picked it up, and held it against his multi-tool. It quickly returned to a stable state. Lance approached the pinned soldier who didn’t dare fight against the giant that held him down.
“What, in the name of all that’s holy, do you think you’re doing, soldier?” Lance asked. “You just drew a weapon on your superior officer and endangered an already risky mission!”
He kept his voice low while his tone was sharp enough to cut steel. Fear filled Mattias’ eyes as he looked up at Lance pleadingly. He shook his head while holding up his hands in surrender.
“Check his neck,” Dexter suggested.
“I’m not Veles!” Mattias snapped, insulted at the insinuation.
Lance turned the U.V. projectors of his multi-tool on and waved it over the soldier’s neck. The nature of the Veles mark made it possible to see through clothes and armor. The first lieutenant didn’t know how, but a company that could create a two-part bio-sonic explosive set to a delay was capable of almost anything in his books.
He scanned over the left side, then the right. No mark of the Veles appeared on Mattias. Lance turned off his multi-tools projector and stepped back. He placed a weary hand on his pistol as he turned his right side away from his squad mate.
“Let him up,” Lance ordered.
Dexter removed his hand from Mattias’ chest and stood up. He summoned the knuckles from his gauntlet as a precaution.
“Give me a reason I shouldn’t have you arrested and taken back to the ship right now?” Lance asked, his hand ready to move at a moment’s notice.
“Because you’re going to need all the help you can get on this mission,” Mattias replied.
A hand slipped into Lance’s. He jumped slightly, his nerves primed for action. Glancing back, he saw Valdivia. She gently yet forcefully pulled his hand away from his weapon as she stepped beside him.
“Mattias is just scared,” Valdivia said. “I can feel his fear. I don’t blame him for his reaction. Not everyone is as understanding as you, or as obedient as Dex and Michael.”
Valdivia turned her attention to Mattias; she bowed slightly, almost as if to show respect and as an apology.
“I’m not trying to control you or your leaders. Being trapped in this suit has prevented me from developing the nuances of the gift given by the Emp herself,” Valdivia explained. “I have to wield it like a hammer, which is why all of you were affected and not just the insect.”
Mattias opened his mouth to speak. Lance caught his eye and shook his head, indicating that the soldier shouldn’t say a word. Mattias kept silent.
“Give me a chance to prove myself. I swear to you I’d never do anything to jeopardize his safety,” Valdivia said as she motioned back toward Lance. “Or yours. If I’m wrong, there’s a weak point in my armor three inches to the right of my spine. Even if the blow doesn’t kill me, the resulting infection will.”
“There, now that you know her armor’s weakness, are you good to continue the mission?” Lance asked, a hint of sarcasm in his voice as frustration bubbled up within him like an angry cauldron.
“A litt—” Mattias started.
“That was rhetorical!” Lance interrupted in a pointed tone. “Now get back into formation and keep moving. If you so much as have a thought that could derail this mission any further than you’ve already done, I will have you stripped of your rank, court-martialed, and dishonorably discharged for pulling a weapon on a senior officer. Do I make myself clear?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Mattias replied with a fraction of his usual gusto.
“Michael, give him his weapon back,” Lance ordered, the fire in his belly slowly subsiding.
“I will momentarily,” Michael replied. “I’m still undoing the system’s hack. If he fires the weapon in its current state, the heat sync could blow.”
Lance marched over to Michael, grabbed the HRG out of his hands, and handed it back to Mattias.
“Then you’d better not shoot this weapon,” he warned. “Hrafn, form up and keep moving.”
Without another word, Lance turned his attention back to the path his HUD laid out for him. They were only a few hundred yards away from the base. He continued through the forest, moving as quickly and quietly as he could. Behind him, Michael spoke with Valdivia. To keep them externally silent, he used their suits’ radio, which connected to everyone.
“What is the Emp?” Michael asked.
“She’s the goddess of emotion,” Valdivia replied. “She’s the one who brought the first forms of communication to my people, allowing us to rise from the ocean of our world and into the sea of stars above.”
“That’s fascinating!” Michael muttered. “And what do you call this form of communication?”
Valdivia paused before giggling lightly.
“Well, these translators don’t have a word for it,” she said after a moment's pause “But ironically enough, your human language does. It’s… emPATHy.”
Her voice shifted as she said the word empathy. It was softer, gentler; it had a kindness to it that the translators couldn’t convey. Lance paused. He looked back to see that Dexter changed formation to be right behind Mattias while Val and Michael moved side by side.
“Dexter, you and Mattias fan left fifteen meters; we’re getting close,” Lance said. “Michael, you go right by ten. Maintain radio silence until the base is in sight then use encrypted channel seven.”
“Yes, sir!” all three men said before fanning out to Lance’s left and right.
“Val, you’re with me,” the first lieutenant said as he waved her over.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to jeopardize by speaking on comms,” she said as she waved apologetically at him.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Lance replied as they continued to press forward. “It sounds fascinating, and I wouldn’t mind learning more about it. But right now, we’ve got a Galio base a hundred meters in front of us and it’s standard operating procedure to fan out on approach.”
Valdivia gave him her version of a thumbs-up. She crouched as they pressed forward, throwing herself full tilt into the covert approach. A fallen tree barred their path. Its spikes made it impossible to safely climb over. It didn’t help that what looked like ants the size of his forearm made their way up and down the dead trunk.
Both redirected, walking around the tree and avoiding the ants. On Discover, Lance saw what the small ones were capable of back on Earth. These ones could make a meal out of him if provoked. Once they put a safe distance between themselves and the fallen tree, they moved back to their normal path.
Reaching the edge of the woods, Lance knelt. The moonless night sky would’ve made their traversal impossible without their technology. Below them was a crater from a meteor impact from eons ago. Trees still grew down the rocky face of the parabola, except for at its center.
A large base, several hundred meters wide and across, sat at the bottom of the crater. They used low-frequency light as to not stand out against their dark surroundings. A fifteen-foot metal fence surrounded the base with patrols who walked it on every side.
Smaller buildings were scattered around the base’s outer edge. In the center sat a structure, larger than the rest and the only one with bars on the window. It sported a silvery dome on the top. Valdivia pointed at it.
“That, that right there will have the data we need,” she said before pausing and letting out a groan.
“What is it?” Lance asked.
“Look at the markings under the easterly barred windows,” Valdivia said, motioning toward them.
Lance followed her motion. He could see the markings, but they were too far away from his ocular translators to pick up anything.
“What’s it say?” he asked.
“Experimental prisoner wing,” she replied. “It’s a Galian warning to stay away from the windows; whatever’s there is dangerous.”
“Which means we probably should take a look at it,” Dexter’s voice crackled through the encrypted channel.
“Yep,” Lance said with a sigh.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Michael chimed in before asking, “SOP?”
“Affirmative, we observe for an hour then move in,” Lance replied.
“SOP?” Valdivia asked.
“Standard Operating Procedure,” Lance replied.
She nodded as a deep humming filled the air. It vibrated Lance’s armor, causing him to drop to a knee and scan the area. From above him, three massive insects darted out of the forest. They zipped from here to there. They sported long, thin, armored, segmented bodies with massive compound eyes at one end positioned over massive pincers. Their legs dangled under them while four wings beat so quickly, they’d be invisible to the average human.
Their wingspan spread nearly six feet in length to help support their nearly four-foot-long bodies. Lance grimaced at the giant insect as Valdivia stood, her helmet moving in time with them as she observed the creatures.
“I hate this planet,” Lance muttered to himself as he shook his head.
Seventeen
Infiltration
The other team members converged on Lance’s position as he studied the base below and developed a plan. All three crouched around him and Valdivia. The first lieutenant’s mind played through a thousand different scenarios, like a game of mental chess. If they moved one way, how would the Galio react? If they moved another, would they be able to remain unseen? After several moments, he worked a path that just might work.
“Val, are you able to push them at all?” he asked, pointing to several of the guards.
“Like I said earlier, I’m not refined,” she explained. “I’m a hammer, not a scalpel. I try and push one, and every Galio within thirty feet will feel it and the alarm will be raised.”
“Okay, Mattias, Dexter, you’ll escort Michael to the antenna where he’ll hack in and piggyback their signals so we can hear what they’re planning,” Lance explained. “Valdivia and I will infiltrate the east side of the building and work our way to any station with the data we’re looking for.”
Michael grabbed Marty off his leg and handed it to Valdivia. She took the robot and brought it close to her chest.
“He’s got software uploaded in him that is coded on Galio technology, from what information we have,” Michael explained. “It’s not perfect, so it may take a while, but he’ll get the job done. Just double-tap the top once you have him in position and he should be able to open locked doors and start the download.”
“Copy that,” Lance said, giving a thumbs-up. “If they have an alarm system, hack into it and be prepared to activate it on the far side of the base to lessen our resistance during exfil should we be discovered.”
“That shouldn’t be an issue,” Michael noted.
Lance turned his attention from the electric engineer to Dexter and Mattias. He could tell Mattias was holding his tongue, clearly wanting to protest but fighting the urge. With a wave of his hand, the first lieutenant started his descent into the crater.
Valdivia moved behind him. She stayed within arm’s reach of the soldier as the other three spread out and made their way down the rocks as silently as a whisper. Lance kept a close eye on the patrolling guards. Any time they approached their side of the wall, he’d stop and duck behind a boulder or move behind a tree.
