Sirius-3
Keenan was happy to be back with his team, Mike, John and Jane. Jane had received the standard hand to hand combat training every new recruit had gotten but was not classified as a commando. He agreed to bring her because she had insisted on coming along and had proved resourceful during the last hours of the alien homeworld destruction.
They prepped her on the new Maxon 5 and brought her up to speed on their instruction units. The units didn’t replace training though, and Keenan worried about that. Controlling emotions was always a serious problem, and even the best of them went through months of field trials before they were ready, but it was the best they could do under the circumstances.
He thought about the four of them. The number was perfect. It was bad enough that they were going to land on an alien hive-world. Having a horde of humans trooping in would provide strength but they were here to infiltrate, not invade. Fortunately, the Stilleto dropping them off had the new and updated cloak installed, courtesy of the council.
Keenan had run his hands over the Stilleto’s smooth skin before the mission had started. A huge needle off a ship, it sat in WF287’s bay for nearly a week as the World Federation ship underwent retrofit. New top secret equipment had come in, together with a group of secretive engineers and workers to install the items. Keenan was curious, but every time he got near, security pushed him away. None of the workers mixed with the crew, even on their time off, and Intel was of course being its evil opposite – providing no information. “Guess I’ll figure out eventually,” he said to himself. Bored, he had gone to inspect the beauty in Bay 4, the Stilleto.
He had just heard that Mike and John had spent a night in the Brigg after trying to find out what all the hush-hush work was all about, and that surprised him. There was nothing they couldn’t ferret out, and getting caught was a first for them. Keenan had stood outside the Brigg’s locked entry, looking at them and shaking his head. They were obviously embarrassed, not because they were in the Brigg, but because they were caught.
“You mean to tell me you got nothing?” They looked sheepish, avoiding Keenan’s smile at all costs. “What did you do?”
Seeing an opportunity to put things in a better light, John replied, “You know Danielle, the food server?”
Keenan shook his head.
“Blonde, body to die for? The hot one…”
“She’s not that hot,” Mike said.
“Not tha… You’re only saying that cus she doesn’t like you.”
“We’re twins. How can she like you and not like me?”
“ANYWAY…” Keenan interrupted.
“Yeah, anyway, she owed us. And she LIKES me. So she agreed to let me take her place one day while bringing lunch to the workers. I picked a guy our size, a loner eating by himself and spiked his food. When he passed out, we carried him into a closet and Mike, you know, he took his place.”
“So, what went wrong?”
They looked sheepish. “We picked the wrong guy. He’s some smart-ass, and everyone was always asking him for instructions. Not even the engineers knew how to assemble the stuff. They looked all over for him, and a general alarm and lockdown went up as soon as he was found missing.”
“So, you were caught with nothing. I see.” Keenan laughed and walked away. He figured a stay in the Brigg would teach them to do a better job next time.
This Stilleto was something else though. He wished he had had the thing when they did the run on the first alien homeworld. It was all muscle. Massive thrusters gave her immense push, and powerful maneuvering rockets meant quick trajectory changes. True, it had less in the way of firepower for a ship her size. Having said that, she had enough, and with her maneuverability, she could run circles around anything out there and outrun any ship half her size. As a medium class fighter/bomber, she was perfectly suited for fast special ops deliveries and payload runs, and would be out of the way long before they knew what hit them.
Keenan knew it – he was in love. “Damn,” he kept repeating to himself over and over again. “Where were you when I got my first command?” he asked, and shook his head.
“Like it?” Keenan was startled by the unexpected voice.
“Like it? I think I’m about to have an orgasm.”
Captain Firewater laughed and replied, “You wouldn’t be the first, you know.”
Keenan laughed too, and took an instant liking to the Native American, now Captain of WF287.
“So when do you think I’ll have some alone time with this baby?”
“Well…” Captain Firewater said pensively. “The captain of the ship is visiting family while the retrofit is going on, so I would suppose you could have an hour or two if they’re done early.”
“What are they doing to her?”
“Oh, minor stuff. Fluid refills, maintenance. That’s it.”
“Good. Um, don’t let the other captain…”
Captain Firewater laughed. “You kidding? He named her after his wife, you know. After she died and he received the command, he pulled strings to name it the S.S. Cristina. If he found out you took his girl on a date, he’d be dancing the death dance on your head.”
Sure enough, it was true. Captain Sallecker (Junior) was indeed furious. Keenan couldn’t keep it out of his mind. He had taken Jane along for the ride, and Mike and John, having been sprung from the Brigg, had joined them for the sortie with two Rapiers, fast in their own right. Setting their weapons to ‘Training Mode,’ they had started off at the usual four points of a three dimensional triangle (with one empty spot filled in by the Tactical Digital Trainer), and Keenan, knowing he had the disadvantage, immediately fired out of the mix and did a wide lower loop.
Mike and John dutifully followed because they had nothing else to do, and although they could turn tighter, they weren’t nearly as fast, so they each fired one ‘electronic’ missile at Keenan as he blew past.
Keenan had done the standard maneuver for missile avoidance, tight turn, and near the missile intersection point, invert and pull in the other direction. That’s when he took out the Tactical Trainer. John and Mike were ready for it, with Mike leading Keenan in case Keenan didn’t turn, and John following behind in case he did.
Keenan had inverted his ship for the tight opposite turn but didn’t follow through, and was happy to see Mike too far ahead in their assumption to do anything. Jane laughed as Keenan cut the engines, rotated his ship 180 degrees, and engaged the thrusters as much as the two could take it. The Stilleto’s mass was huge and Keenan could hear it groaning in vibration, but this wasn’t the usual vibration that came from war-weary rattling buckets. She was new and eager, and her groaning was pure pleasure. Within seconds, the throttle was pegged and the ship had jumped ahead and behind Mike. John’s eyes bugged wide as he saw the Stilleto fire past him before he had time to react. The electronic missiles had hopelessly lost their target and were now classified by Tactical as inactive. Keenan picked the closer of the two as his target, and flew into the sun before attacking.
“Jesus he’s fast,” Mike said.
“Where the hell is he?”
“Behind, I think. See him on Tactical, but don’t have visual.”
“Yeah, he’s gonna try sliding up our ass as we sit here blind, me thinks,” Mike replied.
“OK boss, what do you have up your sleeve?” John asked Keenan.
Keenan had slipped in below their flight path, wanting to attack from the bottom. Humans had been in space for hundreds of years, and yet they still had to fight the natural urge to see everything in two dimensions. He knew that although Mike and John were exceptional, their thoughts regularly drifted to a two dimensional plane when under stress.
Mike had turned in his direction and was squinting as he looked into the sun. Keenan knew he would hesitate if he didn’t have visual confirmation, because training runs allowed three shots maximum per ship. He didn’t attack, but punched the throttles again, knowing Mike would be expecting an attack instead.
John had inverted and come in high, wanting to be near Mike as was usual wingman custom. Just as Keenan passed Mike, John had been arriving, and neither expected Keenan to punch through as he was doing. Keenan went by Mike too fast for Mike to fire, but in the excitement he wasted a shot anyway. He cut the engines and locked both visual and Electronic Target on John, who had also been caught off guard, and as he flew past on momentum, he rotated the Stilleto to keep sights on John and neatly plucked him with an electronic salvo. Jane clapped in approval.
“Just like all the tricky women I know,” was all John said as he disengaged, his Dead-In-Water symbol displayed on all the screens. He leaned back and watched the action.
Mike had flipped and followed as Keenan had passed by, and Keenan had guessed he would do as much. He had neatly turned once he passed John’s now DIW Rapier and set himself up with the Rapier directly between him and John. He knew he was a much bigger ship, but because he was so far behind, his profile was much smaller. All Mike saw was a Stilleto disappear as the John’s ‘Friendly’ green triangle superimposed on Keenan’s red ‘Enemy’ triangle. Keenan being behind John meant that the Green would take prominence.
“Where’d you go?” Mike said.
“Right here,” Keenan replied. He knew he didn’t have much time, knowing any change in Mike’s course meant that he would become visible again. He punched the throttles and told Jane to hang on. She saw John’s DIW ship grow large as they approached it at full throttle. Jane’s eyes bugged out as she looked at the obvious collision just about to happen, but at the last second Keenan shifted just enough to avoid it, cut throttle and turned to fire on the surprised Mike who had still been looking for the invisible Stilleto and had seen the red triangle suddenly jump out from behind the green one. One quick salvo and Mike was DIW.
“I think I just wet my pants,” Jane said.
“Yeah, me too,” John replied.
“Didn’t know I was gonna fight pussies,” was all Keenan said in reply.
“KEENAN, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!” came a thundering voice over the intercom.
Keenan laughed, easily recognizing Sallecker’s voice. “Sir, the duty officer informed me that he was a little worried about vibration…”
“Bullshit!” Sallecker yelled. “Get your ass over here now!”
Jane looked at Keenan and laughed with him as they turned their ship back to WF287.
***
He smiled as he thought about it, but now here they were orbiting the new alien homeworld in the cloaked Stilleto. WF287 was hidden in a crevasse on the outermost planet, the work with the cloaking device not yet completed. After having spent 6 days on intensive mental training, Keenan was extremely tired and he knew the others felt the same way. This was his hardest mission yet, and nothing like the usual missions he was used to.
They were to drop onto the planet from the low flying, cloaked Stilleto, and find an object. No matter how hard Keenan tried, he couldn’t remember what it was he was supposed to look for. The mission objectives had been implanted into the deep recesses of their sub-conscious and he was told the information would come at the right time.
Once they had been released from the training facility deep inside Base Arctica, Keenan and his crew had stood naked in front of each other, looking at the external modifications done to them while in deep hypnotic sleep.
“Damn, you’re ugly,” Jane said.
“Which one? Me or John?”
“You’re twins, stupid. Both of you.”
John and Mike looked Jane up and down, noting the complete absence of hair, the new skin covering the BAst connector port under her left armpit, and the white complexion they had been given. John raised her arm and looked at the skin covering the port closely. “They did a great job here. Can’t even tell it’s there. Should have asked for a boob jo…”
“Cut it out!” Keenan growled as he stared at a smirking John.
“Thanks Cap, But I can take care of myself,” Jane said as she ignored John. “He must not get much.”
Mike had bypassed the whole quip and asked, “Guess we have to cut the skin to stock up on meds? Or is there some other way?”
We’re already stocked up,” Keenan said, “And the new software has been loaded wirelessly into the BAst memory. We shouldn’t need to cut anything until we’ve completed our mission.”
The remainder was left unsaid by all four. Somehow, without consciously knowing the mission parameters, they knew it likely wasn’t survivable.
***
The Stilleto dropped out of orbit, carefully avoiding the space junk that had started to plague the ants’ new homeworld.
Entering slowly as to avoid leaving a trail of superheated air, the Stilleto worked its way to the target coordinates and started a crisscrossing pattern over the alien surface. Captain Sallecker watched the viewscreen with Keenan, quietly deploring the significant damage the ants had already inflicted to the planet as they consumed its resources.
“What exactly are we looking for again?” Sallecker asked for the second time.
Keenan had guessed that Sallecker didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t know, but it was the truth. Keenan really didn’t know and would only know once he saw it.
“Honestly Captain, I don’t know. Everything has been programmed into my subconscious. I’ll recognize it when I see it.”
Sallecker stood quietly as the ground sped by beneath them at just below Mach 1, which was considerably higher a speed due to the thinner atmosphere. Major points of interest had been picked out in LPO, but now they had to inspect them close up, with minimal sensors.
Six hours later, all points of interest had been identified except for the last one, now coming up on screen. Its relevance seemed minor and so it was left to last, but Keenan’s subconscious hadn’t picked on anything yet, so it appeared that this was the only hope.
Tactical displayed an extremely large, obviously artificial mound of earth, and they had all guessed it to be the tailings from the usual below-ground hive.
“Captain, sensors are erratic. The mound appears to not be a mound at all,” Lt. Dionne on Targeting said.
“Explain.”
“Well, Sir, based on what I’m seeing, they’re masking something. To all LPO sensors, it is an obvious mound, but now that we’re close, my density and mass readings are far too low. It’s obvious that it is hollow, probably a camouflage for something. I’m picking up electronic spikes, the type of signal to expect to see in a low level forcefield. They are concealing whatever is underneath, so sensors are blind unless you want me to go full spectrum.”
Keenan’s mind reeled for a split second as a flood of information was instantly released.
“Captain, This is what we came for. We will drop immediately. Please leave us six kilometers from the site and wait for our call-back signal in a safe place. Comm to Drop Team. We drop in Five!”
Keenan scrambled out of the bridge at an adrenaline-fueled run, leaving Sallecker with a bagful of unanswered questions. He was happy to finally see some action, and this was it. John, Jane and Mike were already waiting by the drop door by the time he got there.
“You guys sleep in your suit?” Keenan asked, knowing it took a good three minutes to get in it and power systems up. Mike, his face visible because the blastplate was up, smiled and said, “Yeah…was bored. You know.”
“Me too,” John said, laughing.
“Figured I’d join them, ‘cept now I gotta pee,” Jane added.
The other two laughed, while Keenan shook his head as he got in. Deep down inside, he was happy to see his team eager for battle, and hoped they would get lucky again and survive.
“In position, Captain Keenan,” Sallecker said from the bridge.
They were hovering about 200 meters up, the Stilleto’s cloak activated. Keenan knew Maxon 5’s were made from an epoxy mixed with carbon-crystanium powder. The combination trapped sensor signals as they bounced around in the atomic structure, and this made them near invisible to sensors, a definite step up from the Maxon 4’s. The only thing that wasn’t coated were the micro missiles, but they sat inside individual launchers with only their noses poking out. They were worth the slight risk of exposure. Their click-shift heads allowed for adjustments for the different types of targets – biological, metallic, heat sensing and so on.
Jane jumped first, upping Keenan and ticking him off. “Damn you Angel!” Keenan yelled, but it was too late and she was already out of range. Keenan was second, followed by Mike and John.
To see drop suits land from any free-fall was pure magic. If they had free-fallen from space, the heat would convert to energy and excess energy would dissipate as lightning, impressing the hell out of anyone watching the action. If the suits went supersonic under thruster power, the dense moisture barrier forming around the nose of this human missile was a sight not easily forgotten.
As it was, Keenan wanted the opposite, hoping no one would see them or their landing. Each 350 kilo suit landing with a solid thud and the subsequent cloud of dust.
“Think they saw us?” Jane asked.
“We’ll know in a second. In any case, follow your orders,” Keenan replied as the four split up, each one taking a different approach.
“I would if I knew them,” Mike said, mirroring everyone else’s thoughts.
Keenan knew they would never be able to approach the camouflaged base with their suits but he had picked up nothing new from his subconscious, so he continued running. He hated having to rely on this kind of trust. He trusted his team, his commander and even Captain Sallecker. He liked Nan’mtek, but he didn’t trust her, and whatever orders he was given came from her and her bunch, including the orders locked away in his head.
Just as he crested a hill, he slowed down and looked cautiously over the edge.
“Six human signs and forty ant signs surround the Base in our field of vision,” his suit comp said, as red blinking rectangles signifying organic enemies showed up on his internal display, and their horizontal or perpendicular position told him whether they were prone like an ant or erect like a human. Bio signs and distance were also displayed near each one.
As he watched, new orders popped into his mind, distracting him momentarily.
He immediately reacted by opening his suit and removing his clothing.
“Stay here, stealth mode. Any sign of trouble, follow your programming. Cut CBAssist link.”
“Copy. Powering down, stealth mode, CBAssist link terminated.”
Keenan started walking towards the humans, three kilometers away. He cleared his mind and started the exercises that would help him survive this mission, and hoped his teammates would all be okay.