Authors: Max Feinstein
The armor released from the wall when Dexter took a step back and ran a system check to make sure that everything was battle ready. To finish the ensemble he retrieved the plasma rifle from its charging station t
o the right of the uniform rack, inspected the weapon, and finally allowed it to compress into itself so he could attach it to his chest plate. Reaching down he felt his back up weapon, a pulse pistol, still holstered into its thigh mount. With all systems in the green he quietly turned around and strode out of the shelter into the breaking dawn of another long day. It was still dark outside, but a sliver of light could be seen on the distant horizon.
Around him was a beehive of activity. Soldiers from different units rushed in all directions to complete tasks assigned them by their superiors.
At the moment there were no shortages of jobs at the hastily established Strategic Assembly Base. General Brinek Stelle had set up the SAB upon resuming command of all military forces after his full recovery from the wounds sustained during the enemy’s assault of Kalka. The base was perfectly situated within Secturo Park, taking advantage of the fact that the park was in a central location compared to the military unit scattered throughout the region. As such it was a perfect gathering point with plenty of protective cover overhead for the large number of troops massing at the location.
Something inside him made Dexter looked up at the clear sky above through a thick tree canopy as well as large patches of multispectoral disruption netting that stretched across the entire assembly area. The MulSpec net was designed to disrupt most kinds of sensors, from electronic to visual, from detecting anything hidden beneath it. From above the netting took up the exact color pattern of the surrounding area and
prevented preying eyes from seeing the large makeshift base from almost all angles. It was at this moment, watching the dark cloudless sky, that Dexter detected a series of large flashes high above the planet. At first a single ball of light ignited, like the birth of a star, before extinguishing. This was followed by another and then two more similar flares in rapid succession.
Surprised by the sight, Dexter continued to scan the sky for signs of other such occurrences, but found none. He finally took his eyes off the sky and continued on his way through the labyrinth that was Secturo SAB
, wondering if anyone else witnessed the event. The SAB itself was designed in such a way that any attacking enemy was funneled through the base into specific kill zones. The zigzag like placement of building was specifically designed to maximize the base’s defensive capability. That same defensive nature, however, made navigating through the base difficult. Dexter had to wonder through various areas of the base just to get to the command center located within the center of the base.
On his way there the lieutenant passed entire squads of soldiers and engineers hurrying to finish construction of the temporary facility. They were building from the inside out in all directions expanding outward in a circular pattern as more military units arrived at the base in response to the General’s call. These men and women
laid down what seemed to be large slabs of syncrete which quickly unfolded into livable structures. The new prefab buildings were customizable so that each one could suit the needs of the occupants. Some were living quarters, while others were storage units, mess halls, armories, and even motor pools. Another one of these structures, surrounded by a group of heavily armed Military Police and a pair of Centaur IFVs, was the base’s detention center.
In recent days it had been rebuilt and
strengthened to house an entirely new type of prisoner. At the moment the center housed only one such prisoner, one that Dexter knew almost too well. It was the very enemy soldier that had tried to kill him and his men only a few days before, the same alien that he now constantly saw just before awakening. The Teddy, a nickname coined for the bear like alien warriors by a private from the 248
th
Regiment, had been under constant watch and interrogation since its capture. Military Intelligence officers had relished the chance to study one of the invaders up close, but they still had to decipher its language in order to get any real hard data locked away in the his or her brain. In the meantime they had settled for a full medical body scan of the creature in order to learn more about their physiology.
Dexter still
remembered the Teddy vividly, being helpless against the charging creature, with his arm and weapon incapacitated. The soldier would have killed him outright, without much trouble, but instead it came to a stop just a meter from him. That was when the enemy’s eyes had grown wide and every strand of fur on its massive bulk stood on end just before it went completely limp and tumbled to the ground. Its momentum carried the soldier skidding across the pavement before coming to a stop just in front of Dexter’s feet. It was at that moment that he met Major Benjamin Hofens, coming out of the darkness from a large pile of rubble behind the fallen alien with a small fire team of heavily armed infantrymen around him. The large and imposing man strode up to the creature, placed an armored boot to the alien’s back, and fired another stunner bolt into the back of its head.
He later found out that Colonel Nikita Delouraunt, the commander of
23
rd
Infantry Regiment, had perished in the initial orbital strike on Hamilton. Major Hofens had been second in command at the time and had stepped in to fill the gap left in the unit’s leadership. He had quickly organized the surviving men and women into an effective resistance force made up of small, highly mobile, fire teams. These teams of between four and six soldiers had managed to hold the enemy off for long enough for reinforcements, like Alpha Company, to reach the base and assist in the evacuation. They had fought the alien menace all across the Hamilton facility from building to building before mounting a large counter attack once Alpha commenced its own attack. It also helped that the company’s artillery destroyed half a dozen of the enemy’s walking tanks, the same ones that had probably launched the attack against Dexter’s platoon and disabled its shields.
The soft whine of a passing Centaur IFV stopped Dexter’s reminiscing
. He looked around one last time before continuing on his way through the base towards the field command center. Along the way he passed a number of other soldiers moving around the base as well as a group of them practicing their weapons skills inside a covered shooting range. Without stopping further Dexter continued on his way until reaching one of the multiple security posts scattered throughout the base. At the post were four heavily armed soldiers and automated weapons systems inside a pair of pillboxs built from thick reinforced blastdoors creating a fantastic defensive position. Making his way between the two pillboxs Dexter ended up inside the base’s medical center.
The center consisted of a single pentagonal shaped building with inward slanted outer walls and was completely opened on one of the sides pointing into a small courtyard area. Dexter walked through this opened courtyard, which had been carved out from the thick surrounding forest, and approached the opened section of the med
ical facility. Immediately upon crossing the entrance he saw patient beds along the walls where injured soldiers completed their recovery before their discharge. The enemy assault on Frontiera had provided no shortage of wounded men and women for the army medical personnel to treat. Among these soldiers were a dozen members of Dexter’s own 2
nd
Platoon, of which two were still in recovery. It was these troopers that he was here to see this morning.
Walking in the middle of the large recovery ward Dexter felt all eyes on him
as every soldier in the room acknowledged his rank. He smiled at the women and men laying or sitting on their beds and took time to make small talk with as many of them as possible. A good number of them were actually from Alpha platoon, wounded during the fierce battle at Hamilton Army Base. After a few jokes and seeing that they were all doing well, Dexter bid them farewell and continued onward until he found Sergeant Ibrami and PFC Fellerman. The Sergeant had lost a hand and sustained internal injuries during a Teddy grenade attack on his squad, but was now recovering nicely. A new hand had quickly been grown for the man and surgically attached at the base’s medical facility. Private Fellerman’s injuries were less extensive with only a pair of fractures in his right leg sustained while in unarmed combat with one of the enemy special operations soldiers.
Dexter looked down at the soldier’s uncovered leg and noted two
bluish bio-infuser patches stuck to his thigh in two separate locations. These infusers painlessly parted the skin layers beneath while slowly releasing nanites into the damaged areas. The nanites surrounded the broken sections of bone and quickly repaired the fractures, healing in a single day what would have taken the body months. Both men saw Dexter approaching and tried to stand to attention as best they could in their beds, sitting up straighter.
“Sir!” both called out in perfect unison.
“At ease gentlemen,” he said with a smile and pulled up a nearby chair to sit down beside his men, “any word from the doc?”
“Says we still have another day
, LT, but we are ready to get back into it now,” Fellerman replied with confidence before the sergeant could answer.
“Don’t worry
, we’ll all be in the thick of it once more soon enough I think. Get as much rest as you can in the meantime.”
Together they sat for a few moments just chatting
and laughing about nothing particularly important, sharing small anecdotes from each other’s lives. It was good to have a small mental break from thinking about the ongoing war and everything sinister that’s happened during the past few days. Each man tried hard to keep the thoughts of their families at bay. None of them had any idea of when or if they would ever see their loved ones again. All they knew was that for the moment all of their closest brethren were the men and women that fought by their sides.
In the midst of their conversation Dexter saw a
n Asiatic man in aqua colored fatigues emerge into the main hallway from one of the further rooms lining it. The man was of somewhat shorter stature than most within the military, but his build and demeanor left no doubt in anyone’s mind that he belonged among them. His size also made him easy to recognize and so Dexter immediately knew who this person was. It was a man he would have probably never known had it not been for his injury at the hands of the Teddys. Since that time they had both become rather good friends.
Wishing both of his men a quick recovery, Dexter stood up and walked towards Colonel Akida Dekusaw with a big smile. Along the way he passed a number of closed rooms on either side of him and couldn’t help but look into some of them through their small windows. The first seemed to a laboratory of some kind in which the walls were covered in cloning vats, each one containing body parts in various stages of completion.
These were all for transplant into wounded warriors of which one was already in surgery in the adjacent room. Looking into that next room Dexter saw a female soldier lying on medical table with an ASU-42 surgical robot hovering over her and attaching a newly grown arm to her shoulder. She had apparently sustained a number of serious battle injuries because the bot was also performing abdominal surgery on her at the same time. He wished her a speedy recovery and turned away from the door just in time to come face to face with Akida.
“Good morning sir,” Dexter said in greeting as he came to attention.
“Morning lieutenant and at easy,” the higher ranking officer ordered with a quick laugh as he studied Dexter, “how are you feeling?”
“Healed up nicely, doc, you did a great job on it, but still feels a little weird,” he answered while raising his injured hand and showing it off to the doctor, all the while knowing that wasn’t the subject of
his query.
“Give it another week. Your body should get used to the regrown neural network. You know that isn’t what I meant, though,” Akida stated in a slightly more stern tone, almost father-like to the much younger officer.
Dexter knew there was no use lying to the man since all of his mental patterns were constantly monitored during his sleep, “I’m still having those dreams, but every time there seem to be more details coming through.”
“That’s great Dexter. It means your mind is slowly recovering
and unlocking more suppressed memories of the incident. As soon as you unravel all of them your stress levels should begin to drop. Your mind should hold no more secrets from you at that point. We can always accelerate the process, if you wish,” the doctor added with a slightly grin.
“No, I think I’ll deal with it the natural way. Thank you, though. It’s good to have someone to talk to though,” Dexter said truthfully just as he noticed what time it was, “well it was great seeing you Colonel, but I have to run.”
“Roger that, you take care of yourself son,” Akida ordered the other man with a smile and a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder, “I’m here to talk anytime you need me, copy?”
“
Loud and clear, sir.” Dexter exclaimed as he cordially snapped his feet together and quickly turned on his heels before finally walking back down the corridor towards the open courtyard outside.
The base’s command center was only a short jog
through the surrounding woods from the medical building and it was instantly clear when he approached it. The inner checkpoints, some hidden among the thick tree trunks, increased as he got closer and every building surrounding it had sniper teams on the rooftops. At the same time there was a number of Panther SecBots walking around the jagged dirt roads. These automated security robots patrolled the CC’s perimeter on their six legs armed with light particle beam cannons, missiles, and an extensive senor suite, all situated within a heavily armored and shielded body. They gave him no trouble as their sensors quickly scanned him and confirmed his identity.