AMP Siege (19 page)

Frig was slow on his response. "I am sorry, Sir. I had to shut down the portal. The Duke's virus is still active. I would advise the Gonta to monitor for the first signs of an intrusion and then shut their portals down as well."

The screen in the command room froze.

Commander Grita looked down at his local display. "I am afraid we have lost our connections as well, Mr. Grange. We cannot risk this station any further. I am transferring our scans to the border areas. If the Colossuns are preparing for an attack, it would be from an advance fleet."

With the changeover in searches in place, I made my way back to the
Suppressor
and into Frig's lab. He was busy sorting and collating the data that had been collected.

Frig spoke. "Sir, look at this. There is a steady stream of shuttles heading towards and leaving from the Grid. I believe they may be in the process of moving our people to the surface of that planet."

I chuckled, to which Frig responded, "What do you find funny about that, Sir?"

I replied, "Oh, it's not the transfer, that is for sure. It's that you called them our people. That's the first time I think you have referred to them that way. It's cute, that's all."

Frig sighed. "I don't know why I bother, Sir. I sometimes feel as though I am conferring with a ten-year-old who is trapped in a cyborg body."

I smiled. "OK, I will lay off the rhetoric, although, I do think it's kind of cool."

The shuttles were moving in a small but steady stream. I had no doubt that the Grid was only a month or so away from being vacant of Humans. What then? How would we protect ourselves? Running had been our last line of defense, and that was now gone. And what of my fellow Humans? Would they be allowed to live? Were they being tortured? Would I have the chance to see Ashley just one more time?

I put my hand on Frig's shoulder. "Can we scan that planet?"

Frig replied, "I don't think it is worth the risk, Sir. I am rebuilding and reconfiguring our firewall layers, but each time, they are broken through faster than the last. That last scan only lasted thirteen seconds. The virus could very well break through before I have the opportunity to shut the system down. I have isolated the lab for this exact reason. If the lab is compromised, Sir, we will have to space all of this equipment."

I looked intently at Frig's display. "What about over here? On the other side of the planet. If the virus is coming from those ships, could we gather info from the other side of the planet from them?"

Frig stared at the display for several seconds. "I can give you four seconds, Sir. If the Colossun virus takes out this lab, we will be totally reliant on the Gonta to communicate with us. If that happens, I believe we risk the Gonta fully pulling the plug on this operation. If I were them, I would be tempted to do so."

I again looked intently at Frig's display. "No, I think the Gonta are going to stick with us. Give me at least a quarter scan of that planet's surface if you can. We need more information."

Frig set the wormhole to open on the other side of the planet. Six seconds were allotted for a quarter scan before the portal would be closed. I gripped the arms of my chair and squeezed as the scan went into action. Frig jumped as the first chair handle snapped under the pressure from my bionic hand.

I spoke. "Sorry about that. These things make it too easy, and dangerous, to get carried away. What does the data tell us?"

Frig punched in a handful of commands on his console. "Hmm. It would appear that
our
people are being taken to this surface city. It doesn't have the appearance of the other cities on this planet. It leaves the impression that it has been newly constructed."

I replied, "So, a prison camp. OK. How many people does it look like it will hold?"

Frig ran a calculation. "All of them, Sir."

I stood and paced the room. "Well, that is good news at least. The Duke is planning on keeping them alive, or he would not have built that housing for them."

Frig turned his chair towards me. "That is some astute reasoning, Sir. You have these patches of brilliance that sometimes pop through all of the clutter that muddles your brain. It would seem to reason that the Duke does indeed plan on keeping the Humans around. Kudos on that spot of brilliance, Sir."

I looked at Frig. "OK, you scare me when you refer to me as brilliant, and when did you start using
kudos
? That is not a part of your normal vocabulary. That is something I would say."

Frig replied, "I decided in your absence that perhaps if I spoke more of your language, your vocabulary if you will, that you, we, would be better able to communicate."

I nodded my head in approval. "Well, kudos to you for taking the initiative after a dozen years!"

The banter continued for several minutes before we both tired of it. Our focus was returned to the new data from our quarter scan. The Duke had constructed a city to house the Humans and was transporting them from the Grid to their new habitat. The construction told of long-term housing, which meant the Duke planned on keeping our people alive. It was a good sign, which gave us more time to act. Our time, however, was limited by the approaching Durian fleet. If we were going to act, it would have to be soon.

I grabbed my AK from the locker in my quarters. It had been a long time since I had held her, and she felt good in my new hands. I had to smile at the inscription on the stock.

Point other end and pull trigger!

I grabbed a satchel of clips and made my way to Frig's lab.

Frig spoke. "Sir, is that weapon effective against the Colossuns?"

I replied, "I don't know, but I am going to find out. Have Frost and York already gone through?"

Frig nodded. "They have. They are waiting on the
Orienta
to begin the assault."

In the weeks following the discovery of the Grid, the Gonta had located a Colossun fleet that was staging on their border. Attack plans had been drawn up and a fleet assembled. The first order of business would be to set off the large portal bombs, as Frig had termed them, on the lead Colossun ships. Assault teams consisting of Gonta soldiers would then transfer through open portals into the spaces voided by the bombs.

If any ships could not be overtaken, the Gonta fleet would move in to finish the job. I was assigned to a team along with Frost and York. We would be dropping onto a Colossun command cruiser.

I spoke. "OK. Fire this thing up. Oh, and you are certain the Gonta portals are all isolated now? No chance of a nasty virus infection coming through and taking over?"

Frig replied, "I am confident. And, Sir, you are fully aware that once you go through, there is no communication coming back until your mission is complete. Capture that ship and deploy the worm program as instructed. If we are lucky, we may be able to beat the Duke at his own game."

I nodded. "And if we don't, or if the worms aren't successful?"

Frig stood. "If that is the case, we may have trouble getting you home, Sir."

I spoke. "Well, if I can take control of a Colossun ship, then maybe I'll just fly it back."

Frig replied as he pressed the button to open the portal, "Yes, good luck with that, Sir."

The Gontas had twenty-six portals running. Colossun targets had been identified, and the portal bombs had been readied. The Gonta soldiers were all business in their new battle suits. Our hybrid suits had been enhanced with a few extra Gonta features such as a double protective layer over the vital organs. Frost commented on how it made the suits look ridiculous. I countered that I would take function over form any day.

As the first wave of bombs went through, we lined up behind the rails on which we would follow. I was first in line, followed close behind by York and Frost. When the buzzer sounded, my ankles were grabbed, and a shove sent me through to the Colossun ship on the other side. Three decks had been taken out for ten meters in each direction. I fell through and landed hard on a flattened table in what had once been a lounge.

Dead Colossun bodies lined the corners of the room. I sprang to my feet and fired my blaster at the first two Colossuns that entered the room to look for survivors. York landed on her feet and Frost on my shoulders, knocking me back to the ground.

York looked over at me. "Well, come on, Sir, we have a ship to clean out!"

Before I could stand, York burst through a doorway, and blaster fire could be heard in the hallway. I raced out behind her. My reaction times were better than they had ever been, but I found my shots hitting the debris from York's first-out-of-the-blaster-tip shooting. She was half a step ahead of me as we charged down the hall. Frost ran behind, covering our backs.

Every corner brought new victims as York continued on her rampage. If ever there had been anyone born to be a Marine, it was York. Her anticipation of the enemy’s moves was uncanny.

As we rounded a new corner, two blaster bolts struck York in the chest, knocking her backwards against a far wall. Without missing a beat, she returned fire and once again charged ahead. I wondered if George had built the perfect killing machine.

Our next hallway had a door that had been locked and sealed at the far end. Without hesitation, York put herself into a full run. Just before striking the door, she fired two bolts at the hinged side. As she struck the door, it burst loose from its frame. The door flew inward in a cloud of smoke and debris. When the smoke began to clear, York was standing in the center of the room shooting at everything that moved. The room had been cleared before I could catch up.

I turned back to Frost as we continued; she was beginning to breathe heavily. "You going to be able to keep up? This is a big ship, but I think it's going to be clear in record time."

Frost replied, "You don't have to worry about me, Sir. I'll let you know when I've had enough. Just keep pushing forward; this mopping up is the easy part."

When we reached the end of deck five, we came to a stairwell that was heavily defended. Blaster fire impacted the stairwell wall immediately after York popped her head up.

I spoke as she dropped herself back down. "What did you see up there?"

York replied, "We aren't going through that. There are at least two barricades and a dozen fighters up there. And they are setting up a more powerful blaster, from the looks of it."

I pointed back down the hall. "OK, so we go back this way and look for another way up."

York shook her head. "I have a better idea, Sir."

York counted off paces back down the hall.

Frost spoke. "I've seen that look before, Sir. Get ready for another wild ride!"

York stepped into a side room and looked up at the ceiling. Three ion bolts had it glowing red before York sprang from her feet and slammed the ceiling with her shoulder. The ceiling buckled, but held. Three more blasts and another hard leap had York bursting through to the next floor.

I spoke as I looked up through the hole and winced at the blaster fire. "That's just wrong. How is anyone supposed to defend against that?"

Frost laughed. "You might as well get up there, Chief. Otherwise she will just run away from us!"

Before I jumped, I looked back at Frost. "How are you going to get up there?"

Frost again laughed. "Don't worry about me, Sir. I'm taking the stairs!"

By the time I had made it through the hole and into the hall, York was halfway down it in pursuit of fleeing Colossuns. Frost checked each room to the side as she worked her way up the hall.

Frost spoke as she reached me as I checked a room. "Kind of sucks being on cleanup duty, doesn't it?"

I replied as I moved to the next room, "I guess we are going to have to get used to it. This seems to be working far better than I expected. And the sad thing for the Colossuns is that she will not get tired."

Frost cleared a room and responded, "I'll have to admit, once she started showing me the specs on that chassis she is now sporting, I got a little jealous. But you know me, Sir, I'm a lover, not a fighter. All that cyborg stuff... it's just not my bag."

I chuckled as I moved back into the hallway. "Well, you just need to convince yourself that cleaning rooms makes you happy, because I see that in our future for the rest of this ship."

As York turned a corner, a loud
thwump
could be heard as an ion bolt from a larger cannon impacted her center suit. She was thrown hard into the corner hallway wall, where she left a deep impression in the surrounding metal. She fell forward onto her face shield as the next round blasted the wall where she had been. I dove forward, grabbed her arm, and pulled her back around the corner.

I fired a blaster bolt around the corner and then turned back as Frost rolled York over onto her back. "Yorkie? You still with us?"

York blinked twice and then offered a slow and somewhat garbled response. "Whoa, that was, that was a rush."

Frost smiled. "Just give her a minute to reset, Sir. I think she came through that OK."

York spoke as she attempted to sit up. "Sorry, Sir. That was a bit like getting hit by a heavy shovel in the face. Give me a sec and I'll be back out there."

I replied, "How about this. You and Frost can clean rooms for a few until you are back to 100 percent. I'll take point."

Frost looked on with a scowl, but she knew it was by far the best plan.

I peeked around the hall end and pulled my head back just before another powerful bolt impacted the corner wall. "I think I'm going to have to use York's tactics. I'll be going through a couple walls. Just try to keep pace with me."

I stepped into a side room and sent three bolts of ion charge into the wall. When it glowed red hot, I put down my shoulder and charged ahead. My impact did not break through, nor did it go as planned. The concussion of my brain slapping against the inside of my skull, and from my internal organs impacting my ribs, sent me sprawling back on the room’s floor and writhing in pain and confusion.

As the fog of the event began to clear, York was standing over me. "You best leave this kind of work for the big girl, Sir."

With that, York fired three bolts and charged headlong into and through the sparking metal wall.

Frost reached down a hand. "Looks like you are back on cleanup, Chief. But I have to hand it to both of you, Sir."

As Frost pulled me to my feet, I replied, "Why is that?"

Frost laughed. "The entertainment value you both add is priceless, Sir. And I bet it will be equally priceless on the replays. I have been recording every bit of this!"

I struggled to keep up with Frost, as my guts felt like I had swallowed a live, angry Borak whole. There was no letup in York, and the final decks of the
Modis Mar
were finished off in short order. The three dozen Gonta soldiers who had followed us in arrived on the bridge, three minutes after the fighting was over. Each of them was breathing heavy breath. Captain Meecha was among them.

Meecha spoke. "What just happened here, Mr. Grange? Every Colossun we came across was already dead."

I pointed to York. "We used our secret weapon, that's what. York here practically took this whole ship by herself."

After making that statement, I once again had the eerie feeling that we were somehow being manipulated by the Duke. I wanted to believe it was because of York's new abilities, but a nagging voice in the back of my head said otherwise.

I spoke. "Frost, get that worm loaded into the ship's systems. We probably only have a few minutes before we go back and then get sent onto another ship. If they figure out this ship has been compromised, they are likely to blow it up with us still on here."

Meecha stepped forward. "Mr. Grange, we were not briefed; what does this worm do?"

Frost replied as she connected a universal connection device to an input port, "The worm seeks out the Duke's virus and attaches itself to it. We couldn't figure out how to kill it off, so we latch onto it and clean up as we go. If it works properly, there will only be one system affected at a time. If we can then isolate that system and pull the hardware, the virus is done."

Meecha nodded. "Ingenious, Miss Frost. Thank you for the explanation."

Once the worm was in the system, we had to wait for it to clean the virus from all points but the active one. We could not use our comms until the comm system on the ship had been cleaned and shut down. Several minutes passed before Frost gave the go-ahead.

I pressed the comm button on my arm pad. "This is Grange. The
Modis Mar
has been neutralized. We are ready to move on."

Only a few seconds passed before a meter-wide wormhole opened on the bridge and a roller-covered rail was shoved through. Several minutes later, we were sliding into a newly formed cavity on another cruiser. This time York was the first through. After a brief period of fighting by her side, I was resigned to the fact that she was more than capable of clearing decks on her own. If anything, I was slowing her down.

After the second cruiser had been taken and neutralized, I had Meecha and his men reassigned to another team. They had done nothing but chase us from one end of the ship to another, only catching up to us once the job had been done. They were of better use elsewhere.

The fighting on the other ships, especially the battleships, was slow going. The Gontas were pouring soldiers through the portals in a continuous stream until it was evident that the ship in question would be taken. At that point the portal was opened on a new ship and a new team sent through.

After two days of fighting, the remaining Colossun ships began to turn and run. More than 400 had fallen to our portal assault tactic before the remaining 355 had fled. When the Gonta fleet arrived, there were no Colossun-manned ships remaining. It was a great day for the Gontas, as it was the first time victory could be claimed in a battle with the Colossuns.

The captured Colossun ships were flown into Gonta space to be disassembled and studied. Whatever system was left running with the Duke's virus was pulled from the captured structure and destroyed. For the Gonta, they had gained a more efficient environmental controls system along with a slightly more powerful ion cannon, all without risking any of their own ships.

During the encounter, estimates placed the number of Colossuns killed at nearly ten thousand. Two hundred seventy-six Gonta had perished, along with one Human. The crew of a Colossun destroyer had managed to set off their self-destruct when they realized they could no longer defend their ship. Sergeant Juan Valdez would no longer be bringing a morning cup of coffee to my office on the
Suppressor
.

With the imminent threat to the Gontas now gone, our efforts were turned to finding a way to rescue the Humans and to recover the Grid. With the two now separated, it was a task that had become exponentially more difficult.

We had the exact location of the Human prisoners, and I was toying with the thought of opening a portal to try to sneak Ashley out.

I spoke to Frig and George. "I know, it wouldn't be fair. But she has information on the Duke and what happened when he took control. It would be either her or Dr. Touchstone that has that knowledge. Her knowledge would be along the lines of tactical intel. Jon is brilliant, but I don't think he collects data with that in mind."

Frig replied, "Don, you do not have to feel guilty about it. Ashley is the logical choice to bring back, if we are able to find her."