Authors: Max Feinstein
It seemed that no sooner than he hit the
covers on top of his bed that his eyes opened. The only difference was that he no longer felt tired, in fact, he felt nothing at all. Val felt as if he was in a dream when his body slowly swung out of bed. Everything around him looked the same, but felt completely different, almost unreal. He wanted to get back into bed, but his body would not follow his commands. Instead it silent rose from the bed and moved towards the door.
In the corridors there was no one around and Val knew it must be the close to midnight
SET, Standard Earth Time. Slowly he walked towards the closest gravlift that led to the engineering room and waited for the doors to part for him. Once inside his hand reached out and touched the control panel. Inside his own body Val tried to shout and fight his body, but the lift descended deeper into the planetoid nonetheless.
The doors opened once more after only a moment and Val recognized it as the corridor he always took to his work station. He didn’t have a clue what he was doing there, but as he watched through his own eyes, the body that used to be him stopped in front of the yellow restricted access door. Val’s hand pressed against the scanner and it quickly slid aside for him
.
As his figure started to punch in command at his work station, he finally understood what was happening and it terrified him completely. The job he was tasked with at the consulate was monitoring the base’s power generators and he watched his hands were completely shutting down the safety protocols built into the system. These measures were in place to prevent the overheating of the reactors and controlling power flow through the station. With them disabled the reactors would overheat in minutes and their internal monitoring systems will have no choice but to shut them down completely.
There were backup generators, of course, but as Val looked on, unable to stop what was happening, those were being disabled as well. For a second Valeri thought he heard shouting and the sound of feet running, but that dissipated quickly and the hands in front of him never ceased working. All of the sudden he saw another pair of hand reaching around him and pull him away from the computer console. His body broke free somehow and moved back towards the workstation, plugging in the last of the commands, which brought up a red flashing screen on the floating display.
Val didn’t even get a chance to finish reading the warning when pain shot through his body. The dreamlike state vanished as his entire being seized for a second
before going limp, dropping him to the ground instantly. Voices came to him in pieces, all of them muffled, as he lay on the floor with closed eyes. Finally he opened them, almost as if for the first time. The world around him was blurry and the colors all seemed wrong. He was staring at the ceiling when a young face appeared open him. A face that he recognized as that of his doctor. The man seemed to be yelled at him as two other individuals ran towards the station he had just occupied. They both seemed to be frightened as nothing they did seemed to stop the red flashing message. The last thing Valeri Frederson saw was the console shut down just before the rooms lights powered off, drowning them all in darkness.
“
Hand in Friendship
, repeat, this is the
Gallant
coming in on final approach. Requesting docking instructions.” Captain Colver Hindo called out once more into the comm.
The
Gallant
has just returned to the system from a supply run within the Fringe. After over two weeks cramped in the small transport his crew of four were ready to disembark and relax on the Consulate base. Since their reversion into the system minutes ago, however, they had been unable to contact the consulate traffic control. The weirdest thing of all was that the ship’s sensors no longer register the presence of the
Hand-in-Friendship
IFF beacon, a beacon that was never supposed to be turned off and was designed to work even without power.
“We’re on the proper vector, sir. The base should be just ahead of us.” Confirmed his second in command, Olivia Rendolf as she watched the sensor readout in front of her. “But I’m not getting any readings.”
Their ship had arrived right on schedule and in a position to catch the consulate as it completed this portion of its orbit around the star. It should have appeared on their scanners, but the only objectors in the vicinity were other asteroids.
“
Friendship
TC please respond. We come baring gifts.” The Captain tried again referring to the crates of Glashoff Whiskey he had acquired for his friends on the consulate, but his stomach turned just a little as he began to get a bad feeling about the situation.
“Olivia, plot a course to the probable location of the base and take us in closer.” Colver ordered as he leaning in on his elbows, trying to look out of the forward viewport.
As Olivia acknowledge and accelerated the
Gallant
once again towards the asteroid belt a chart appeared on the viewport, overlaying the asteroid field. The ship’s navigational computer quickly plotted the expected location of the
Hand-in-Friendship
and inserted its image into this section of the field. It only took a second for the Captain and Olivia to realize that the image had been superimposed between a gap in the belt, one that had never before been present.
Captain Hindo reached over to adjust the display, causing it to slowly zoom in on that section of space. “Holy mother of god…” Colver and Olivia let out at the same time as they finally laid their eyes on three jagged chunks of asteroid that had taken the place of the one planetoid that used to be the
Hand-in-Friendship
. It didn’t take a detective to realize that those three pieces used to belong to a single structure.
“You don’t think
it was…” The Captain’s voice trailed off as the entire freighter shook violently and alarms beaconed for his attention. They were extinguished as just quickly when the entire vessel fell into darkness with all power lost. Hot coffee from the cup siting on the console beside him floated into the air. It splashed against the ceiling inside the zero gravity and went completely unnoticed as the man’s attention was more focused on the dark gray shape that now filled his entire forward viewport.
“Target down.” A
feminine voice whispered into the ears of 1
st
Lieutenant Dexter Iorns and the red icon on his heads up display became covered with an X.
Under normal conditions he would have never been able to detect the enemy spotter sitting over three hundred meters away, high up in a tree directly in front of them. The night-vision-system, NVS, made the task possible even in the pitch black moonless night. Every member of his platoon
had the system installed on their PCU-34, Powered Combat Uniform, which was in fact a thin protective exoskeleton in which the soldiers operated. Without the visual enhancements they would all be completely lost in the darkness that surrounded the thick forest they were now traversing.
It also didn’t hurt that all of them were equipped with secure trackers and had access to an extensive network of surveillance and communications systems, which Lieutenant Iorns now used to keep track of the four squads that made up his dismounted platoon. The image of all their locations appeared inside Dexter’s visor, allowing him a complete overview of his position. On the detailed map he could see the forty some men and women under his command arrayed in a sort of delta formation with two forward squads in advance and one other on each flank. There were few indicators close to the rear of the formation, however, which Dexter knew to be
the snipers he had positioned in the trees. It was one of these snipers that had dispatched one of the enemy only seconds before.
“Bravo, tighten up that formation.”
Dexter commanded as his eyes settled on that squad and noted the spacing between each of the members.
Response to his broadcast was almost instance and he watched as within seconds the entire team was back in proper formation. Now s
atisfied with his current situation and that everything was in place for the next play in this game, Lieutenant Iorns tightened his grip on the weapon in his hands and moved closer to his own squad. He had decided to stick with Charlie squad for this operation since it held the majority of his newer and less experienced soldiers. Their time together would help his determine each ones strengths and weaknesses so that he might better help prepare them.
He moved towards his men in a hunched over manner to keep a low profile and watched some of them turn towards him, acknowledging his presence. These were mostly the newer recruits and so Dex gave them a slight nod
before raising two fingers to his visor and pointing them downrange. It was the military hand sign to keep eyes front and look for the enemy. Once they turned he moved the hand back to his rifle.
Alright, let’s do this,
Dextor Iorns thought to himself. The thought was not just for his benefit, however. His helmet mounted sensors registered the brain waves and translated them into the Go command. This command was instantly sent to every soldier of Alpha Company, 1
st
Battalion, 23
rd
Infantry Regiment 2
nd
Platoon.
On that command every squad proceeded to slowly and cautiously make their way towards the designated objective of this mission. The objective was a secure woodland compound populated by an anti-government terrorist group and
defended by a hired paramilitary force. Lt. Iorns followed his squad through the dense forest and zoomed out on this visor HUD while doing so, monitoring the progress of the other teams as they quietly moved towards the large compound half a kilometer to the west. Behind each squad, however, moved a lone blip on the map. That blip was a Bison SUT, semi-autonomous utility transport, an armed walking cargo carrier that helped to support each squad by carrying extra supplies into battle as well as providing the soldiers with more heavy weapons support should the need arise.
The platoon got over half way to the compound before things went wrong.
The first was sniper fire on Alpha squad that immediately triggered an automated response from the soldiers. They instantly began to converge on the sniper’s location, but this in turn led them into a trap. On his display Dextor saw the explosive flashes before four members of that squad went offline, calls for medical support went out just as fast. Another incident happened seconds later as Delta squad, to the north of Alpha, reported heavy weapons fire and a single casualty. Their squad leader had them get to cover and respond in kind, while calling up their SUT for mortar support.
As he watched the situation unfold Dextor’s instincts kicked
in and deep inside he knew something was not right. If the enemy forces knew where those two squads would be, they presumably also had to be aware of Bravo’s and Charlie’s location. So why would they simply leave his two remaining teams unharnessed, allowing them to easily come to the aid of Delta and Alpha.
“Actual,
Iron Two, taking heavy fire to the north. Expecting contact with enemy to the south. Position compromised, requesting new orders, over.” Lt. Iorns relayed to his company commander as he scanned the surrounding area for anything that might be a monitoring device.
“
Iron Two, Actual, primary objective still stands. Use your discretion in dealing with the enemy. I want that compound, over.” The voice came back crystal clear through the speakers inside Dextor’s helmet.
“Roger that, Actual.
Iron two out.” Dextor paused and took one look at the men and women around him. “New plan boys and girls. Alpha, Delta extract casualties if possible and stabilize your perimeter. Bravo, Charlie, prepare for enemy contact, find cover, and look out for enemy spotters.”
As his men raced to find positions, Dex trained his eyes up on the trees surrounding them and switched his visor from night vision to thermal. He slowly scanned through the tree branches, but found nothing of interest. There was nothing warmer than the trees themselves and he was about to think that perhaps he had been wrong until another idea pushed its way into his mind.
Dextor stopped looked for anything warmer and instead concentrated in the opposite spectrum. That’s when he located an irregular looking object sitting one a high tree branch. An object that was in fact slightly cooler than the tree itself. It was a Crow class drone, specialized in reconnaissance and featured an infrared defeating coating.
Bringing his weapon to his shoulder, Dextor called up the targeting reticles on his HUD and lined them up on the drone. “Wilks, I want
Markers on grids echo and fox five.”
There was an acknowledgement click through his Tac
Link, which was the physical communications system within each soldiers suit, followed by a green icon seconds later on his visor. With everything now ready, Dextor Iorns reaffirmed his sights on the target and squeezed down on the trigger. A soft blue plasma bolt shot out of the barrel in front of him and lit up the darkness around his squad momentarily before accelerating into the forest beyond, casting light in all directions along its flight path.
Dex swore to himself almost as soon as the bolt left his rifle. He had made a rookie mistake in exposing their position by using the plasma rifle instead of having one his men dispatch the drone with a hypervelocity round. What’s done is
done, however, and there was no time to dwell on the past on a battlefield. He had learned that lesson years ago at the officer academy.
Suppressing his regretful thoughts, Dex watched as the streak of plasma impacted the recon drone dead center. It took only a millisecond for the magnetic field to collapse
after which the plasma burned right through the thin material of the drone, destroying it completely. Before the melted object even hit the ground, Lt. Iorns triggered the Markers to launch. He heard only a soft thump as two groups of mortars were magnetically ejected from the squad’s SUT, which had taken up position directly behind him. Dextor watched the shells arch into the air towards his two designated grids. On his HUD a counter quickly ran down to zero, at which point both groups of three shells went off.
There was no explosion above the treetops, only a sudden downward gust as shaped air charge
s went off in each shell. The released air pressure was designed specifically to spread a fine mist and push it down towards the ground, instead of in all directions like a normal explosion. The mist was actually a nanocompound designed to adhere to anything nonorganic and transmit a signal once attached. With fingers crossed inside his mind, Dextor’s intuition proved correct when twenty-four inorganic man-sized objects came alive on his display.
With a satisfactory smile hidden behind his visor Dextor was about to order a swift preemptive attack against the now visible enemy soldiers, when his entire TacNet went offline.
The Tactical Battlefield Network allowed different military units for various branches to talk to one another and pass information between themselves within on a battlefield or across an entire theater of war. It was comprised of vehicle relays, groundside network nodes, as well as aerial systems and orbital satellites all linked together to provide each soldier with as much information as they needed to accomplish any given mission at any time of the day and in all weather conditions. Working symbiotically with the TacNet was the TacLink system, which was a smaller unit based communication system that linked each individual soldier to one another in a highly secured mostly closed loop system. The Link was designed to increase a unit’s proficiency and ability to conduct war.
The loss of his communications and remote sensor feeds came a
s a quick shock to the Lieutenant. One second he was looking down at a satellite feed of the enemy position and the next it was completely blank, with a “no signal” logo. The Army tactical network was the core of effective unit operations and as such had been designed to resist all known forms of jamming. Reliance and confidence in the network was so great that most regular units had even stopped training without it. Even Dextor, an officer, had experienced only a short week long training session on the command of a unit without TacNet access.
Dextor’s heart rate quickened as he lost control of himself for a moment. His eyes ran over his visor display, while a diagnostic program was called up by his thoughts. This was the first time
that such an occurrence had taken place while he was in command and for what seemed like forever he felt helpless. Lt. Iorns watched his entire squad turn to look at each other and back towards him, a confirmation that they too had been denied the use of the TacNet. Could it be that this was another of the General’s surprises? Dextor thought to himself as he tried to pull himself together.
“Actual, Gladiator two, over.” He called out on his
TacLink just to check, but was greeted with only silence.
He let out a curse, wishing that he had equipped his men with laser datalinks before the op, but command had never informed him that there
was a possibility of a network blackout. This was not the time for blame and thinking about what could have been, he told himself. It was his duty was a platoon leader to carry out his orders and make sure that everyone under his command did the same. Challenges were always going to present themselves, that was the nature of war, and they would all have to simply play with the hand dealt to them.
First, Dextor knew he had to consult with Sergeant Emerson. She had been with the Army almost as long as he had been alive, making her a lot more knowledgeable about situations such as this. Lt. Iorns swallowed his pride and ran over towards the sergeant
, who was kneeling behind a large tree, conversing with some of the other men. Most likely trying to keep them calm and focused in such a tense situation.
He reached out and touched her shoulder. “Sergeant Emerson, what’s your assessment?”
“Complete blackout sir.” The sergeant said through her external speaker without turning around, watching the forest beyond cautiously. “The men are holding it together, though. First time they have been through a total TacNet collapse. General Stelle up to his tricks again, sir?”
“Same feeling here, Sergeant. What do you recommend we do about it?”
“Send out a couple runners to the other squads to relay orders. I suggest we have them fall back to this position. Easier to issue commands to all that way, without the TacNet at least.” She replied without missing a beat, her training and experience guiding her actions.
Dextor nodded slowly, seeing the logic behind that course of action. “Agreed, Sergeant. Make it happen. I want an orderly withdrawal to this location. In the meantime, we’re going after the enemy. We got their location locked before the Net went down. Let’s hope they are in the same boat as us.”
“Roger that, sir.” Sergeant Emerson said with a hint of uneasiness in her voice before she moved away to find two runners.
Dex settled into a crouch with one knee on the ground to wait for the sergeant’s return when he picked up the sound of someone running towards him. Without his sensors he had no way of knowing if it was friend or foe. He quickly turned his head to look in the sound’s direction and tightened up his grip on weapon. The caution was premature, however, as his
NVS picked up the friendly marker lines on the soldier’s chest and helmet. As the soldier ground to a halt beside him, Dextor eyed the name tag attached to this person’s armored Combat Uniform. His suit’s internal computer automatically called up the soldier’s profile and displayed a picture of the man on his visor.