Chapter 4
I realised we were approaching the rendezvous for the rest of the crew. I opened a broad band communication channel and started scanning the ships of the party. Updating the main computers IFF system to include the ships present and all others on file as belonging to Evolution. It wouldn’t to accidentally shoot my allies due to the targeting system highlighting them in the wrong colour. As the ships computers made their digital hello’s I made mine to the pilots in the group. “I know there isn’t much time for pleasantries folks, my names Mowerman” I said giving the group my call sign “Me and Troublz go way back so I’m here to help.”
“Commando” said the pilot of the engineer. I couldn’t help but wonder whether his name came from the fact he was ex special forces or he just didn’t wear underwear. Tsaryu was the pilot of the other guard frigate an Anaconda M and Havoc piloted the Ira Deus.
We closed up into a guard formation, the guard ships taking the lead and sheltering the others in our group. Flying to the mission site we saw very little other traffic, what we did see was on the very edge of scanner range and made no move to engage us. I was thankful for the lack of attention as the last thing we needed right now was to be bogged down in a fire fight with a load of hostile Cybers or Bio-Morphs.
Very little was known about these factions, they refused to communicate with anyone except themselves and any communications that we did intercept appeared to be complete and utter garbage. There were numerous theories floating round that Cybers were in fact a splinter faction of Jericho, pilots who had taken their evolution “To the next level” and fully digitised. Operating without a body as a group of coherent electrons in a neural matrix. It was a popular theory and it attracted a lot of wannabe groupies thinking they could download themselves and live forever. Sectors on the outer fringes were littered with the husks of dead ships and flash frozen corpses. It seemed the Cybers weren’t actively recruiting, but it still did nothing to explain how there were so damn many of them. Bio-Morphs were a different story entirely, ever since the discovery of Sector 1337 and the gold rush that had ensued, with each faction determined to unearth the secrets that supposedly lay there. Bio-Morphs had been appearing in greater and greater numbers. Once secure sectors were now perilous due to the continuous attacks made by the Bio-Morphs, faction scientists had yet to discover anything about them. We couldn’t even speak with them, all attempts at communication had failed and anyone attempting to engage them in discourse generally ended up being rendered down to their component atoms.
The journey passed without incident with very little chatter from my comrades in arms. I wasn’t in a talkative mood and it seemed that the feeling was shared by the group. The navigation computer reported that we were closing in on our insertion point, I contacted the group via link to check their readiness. Everyone checked in, we were ready. Using the link I outlined the plan to the others, entrance to the facility was through a narrow canyon, which then opened out into the mining complex proper. The complex was sited on a massive asteroid at the very fringe of the sector. An old facility it had changed hands many times. A lot of the more valuable ores had been extracted decades ago, but there were still small seams of precious metals as well as huge deposits of more regular minerals. Remembering back I had even flown a few sorties here, both as a defender and an aggressor. Radiation from the asteroid itself blocked long range scans, the ships computer core was unable to get proper readings of the facility or any hostiles for that matter. The sensors on Mary were top notch, another reason behind my crusade to obtain one. What worried me was that despite Troublz activating his emergency distress beacon nothing had been heard from him since. Trying to tap into the facilities sensor grid yielded nothing, no link could be established. Either the system was down, the transmission dishes had been damaged or all data traffic was being blocked.
“Tsaryu, you’re with me, we go in guard formation, Havoc and Commando I’d like you guys just behind in our shadow. Once we have eyes on and an idea what we are dealing with, lets play this safe. Once inside the complex we should be able to get a read on Troublz. Once we have his location and status I want Commando to link with Troublz and pick him up or depending on what damage he may have taken see if you can get his bird back in the air. Havoc I want you covering our extraction route, I need you to keep the back door open. Tsaryu and I will deal with everything else drawing as much attention as we can. Any questions?” I asked.
There were none, a chorus of affirmatives echoed through the com system. The facility had to be approached via a narrow canyon, direct insertion from open space was out of the question the asteroid was large enough to qualify as a small planetoid and had accumulated a huge number of smaller rocks that orbited it as a result of the gravity. Well below normal gravity, it was still enough to create a dense field of debris that sheltered the asteroid like a cocoon. The initial corporation who had set up operations here had decided it was too much of a nightmare to plot a safe route through the debris and had instead opted for a gate system. Outside the debris field there was an entry gate which ported you to another gate inside the debris field. This also had the advantage that in the early days of galactic expansion and conquest anyone seeking to take control of the plant would only have a single entry point to come through which meant that the facility could be defended easily and at the time before “re-lifing” automated defences could be used rather than paying for expensive mercenaries.
There was still nothing on the scanners as we approached the entry gate, Tsaryu and I entered first, emerging on the other side we could see evidence of recent fighting. Automated defences were destroyed, sensor arrays turned to nothing more than scrap metal. Gouge marks on the canyon walls from lasers and other weapons. There was nothing to be seen so I signalled the others to gate in. We formed up into guard formation and proceeded through the canyon, as we proceeded through the canyon the sensors started to pick up Troublz beacon. It was faint and on an obscure frequency, I messaged Commando to see if he was getting the same reading.
“Confirmed, that’s Troublz beacon” said Commando
I asked why he was using such an obscure frequency, Commando explained that since things had escalated with Cybers and Bio-Morph attacks and The Cartel becoming bolder all the time, they had a backup emergency broadcast system that was tied solely into Evolutions network and protected by quantum encryption. It would take several planets worth of AIs running constantly for about 73 centuries to break it. That’s why after the initial signal had gone out, we hadn’t heard anything. Commando also explained that if the situation was that bad the signal couldn’t be traced back to its origin point. The corporation had spent a fortune on the system and it looked to be worth it. Most corporations tended to lease their offices, coms and data links. Depending on which faction they were involved with, the facilities available to private corporations were prodigious. Everything however was tied straight into the main AI cores that help run each faction. Evolution obviously had a healthy paranoia about security leaks, which were common. It was ridiculously easy to hack through most private companies generic firewalls, my nano-link could manage most things on its own, backed up by the main core of Mary I could easily access all sorts of information. Yet another bonus to having the implant and besides it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you. Commando sent over the decryption protocols and also assigned me an external contractor account which would give me access to their secure communications as well as limited access to the company computer core. Once granted permission I could have hacked their network within seconds, whilst performing another task like juggling eggs in zero G. Don’t try it, its enormously difficult to do, the mess is unbelievable and it takes weeks to get the smell of sulphur and rotten eggs out of the atmospheric systems. It wasn’t one of my better ideas but it did make Tara laugh, which happens less than Haley’s comet being visible from Terra. Also it was very bad form to hack peoples systems when you had just met them. I put some tracers programs into primary mode through my nano-link to skim through the data I had available to me via my contractor account. There wasn’t much of interest, the usual chain emails, pictures of pilots most recent conquests that sort of thing. A few items piqued my interest but I didn’t have time to review them now so I tagged them for later.
We had just cleared the canyon as sensors started registering targets, we had snipers, rocketeers and a plethora of other enemies arrayed against us. Using my link I brought the weapons systems online charging the magnetic coils for the coil mortars. I switched my tactical display for complete target information and asked the target management system to start prioritising threats and marking them for the rest of the team. In combat is where the nano-link excelled, instead of having to review target data on monitors or via holo projection built into a flight helmet, then designate each target in turn whilst trying to fly and keep track of the battle, the link was able to take all the targeting information from the sensors and take over weapons control for me, allowing me to solely focus on flying. It also allowed me to view the camera and drone feeds from my allies as well, giving me a much greater perception of the battlefield. I could simultaneously absorb ground data, radar, hys-radar, atmospheric analysis, if there was a sensor feed then via Mary’s computer core I was able to literally download the information directly into my brain. It is an epic experience, making you feel like a god by your expanded awareness and your ability to view things through a multitude of spectrums at the same time. With a regular ship it enabled you simulate a command view in your mind to keep track of a battlefield due to the limited sensor capacity of most ships. However backed by Mary’s impressive array of sensors and processing power you could almost hear the stars singing if you tuned yourself to the right spectrum. I hadn’t fully realised before that any of this was possible, it seemed that Mary wasn’t maxed out at all and had more surprises in store. At the same time it was also an incredibly humbling experience, when away from the stream the human body just felt so frail and blinded by the lack of senses, sight that could only see in the visible spectrum, ears that could only hear a very limited range in a spectrum so large you could virtually hear the sound of the universe. I felt startled I had never fully considered that this may be how those Jericho pilots flew without even touching a control. My fingers felt sweaty and clumsy, the delay it took my body to respond to my brain issuing a command and then my muscles responding. It felt like I was wasting an eternity of time on something that could be done so much faster, as fast as the speed of thought, backed up by the supercomputer that was Mary’s main core.
Nice work! I love the constant links to the Star Conflict universe