Chapter 3

These passageways that led away from the facility most likely led to perimeter hangers that contained escape craft. These craft could be used by the Alliance marines to escape the Aladere research complex with the designs and other research downloaded from the memory cores quickly, get into escape craft such as ATCs or APCs, and flee the moon, where they would be picked up by the cruisers in orbit and jump to Earth or some other Alliance stronghold.

Zach had figured out the Alliance plan, but he wondered if he was too late to stop them from carrying it out.

Zach opened up a CS wideband channel on his mesh.

“This is Major Malor. All ground forces pull out. Break off any current engagements and pull out. Head for the landing craft. Retrieve any research you can.” He said forcefully. The line was then flooded with complaints from platoon commanders who were having success in capturing ground. They were adamantly opposed to retreating from ground they had fought bitterly to capture. Zach simply told them that they could stay, but they would end up like the dead marines on the floor.

Zach’s PCD suddenly began to beep wildly as his APC hailed him on the emergency frequency. He immediately picked it up.

“Go ahead.”

“Sir!’ the pilot’s voice was shrill, showing that he was startled. ‘I’m getting fluctuations in the facility’s reactor cores. I don’t know much about reactors, but to me it looks like they’re going critical.”

“From what you know,’ Zach asked, ‘how long do you think we have until they go off?”

“Less than ten minutes.” came the reply.

Zach hailed his ground troops again.

“This is Major Malor. We have ten minutes until the facility’s reactor cores go critical. I suggest you all get out of here as fast as you can.” The line was silent.

The soldiers around Zach began to move hurriedly passed him and out into the high-ceilinged room with the endless rows of cubicles. Zach noticed that Joseph wasn’t with them. Oh dear, he thought heavily, I hope he hasn’t tried to play hero and shut down the reactor. He checked his squad radar and sighed with relief when he saw that Joseph wasn’t near the reactor, but was instead in the cubicle room.

Zach backtracked through the winding hallways and out into the sea of cubicles. He trotted up to Joseph. “Where the heck have you been?” he yelled.

“You said to pull out, so I was doing just that.”

Zach thought he noticed something else behind that youthful face, but for the sake of time, he decided to let it slide.

“Get a move on.” Zach told Joseph.

The boy quickly ran off.

“Marines at far right!” a soldier suddenly yelled.

Zach looked and saw dozens of Alliance marines running for their lives out of a side passageway, heading for a small hallway and beyond that, to the mysterious rectangular buildings that Zach thought might contain escape craft.

“Head them off!’ Zach hollered to his troops. ‘Don’t let them escape!”

Joseph again surprised Zach when he drew two acspike grenades from his belt, activated them, and flung them at the Alliance marines. He had no idea that the kid had stolen the incendiaries from the dead soldiers.

The grenades burst in mid-air, spewing their black burning goo all over the Alliance troops. They screamed and tried to brush the black gunk off their meshes, but it only stuck to their hands, burning more of their mesh’s energy away. After a short while the troops’ meshes failed and the black gunk began to burn into their skin. Their screams gained a new intensity as they were burned to death. They crumpled and convulsed on the floor. Zach’s men began to look away. They couldn’t bear to see anyone suffer that kind of torture.

“So,’ Joseph said softly, ‘How do you guys like your own medicine?” He then chucked two more acspikes into the hallway that the marines had come from. Shouts and hollers were heard from farther down as more marines were inhibited from moving through the hallway.

Zach and his men began to move farther down the rows in the direction they had come. Suddenly Joseph ran up to Zach and grabbed his arm. Zach’s mesh blocked the blow, and Zach wondered what had made the mild-mannered boy act this way. Joseph pressed one of the makeshift buttons on his jury-rigged tactic and Zach’s mesh sputtered and fizzled out. Before he could do anything, Joseph pulled a small cord from his sleeve and plugged it into the Universal Data Transfer input on the side of Zach’s PCD gauntlet. An empty holo bar appeared in front of Joseph’s face and quickly filled up. Then Joseph stepped away from Zach and pressed another button on his tactic. Zach’s mesh regenerated.

“How, how did you do that?” Zach asked, clearly taken aback by Joseph’s actions.

“I took control of you mesh. Then I simply shut it down. I needed that scan.” Joseph replied.

“You know this is insubordination, don’t you?’ Zach said, staring at Joseph with cold eyes. ‘As a mercenary, you don’t qualify for troop benefits, such as a trail by court marshal. I could simply have you killed here and I wouldn’t lose a single night’s sleep over it.”

“True, but I could also just shut down your mesh again and shoot you. You wouldn’t be too much help for your men then, judging by the fact that you and I are the only ones here with that ground scan. They wouldn’t make it out. Oh, and before you spout military policy at me again, I will remind you that there is a ticking time bomb not far from here. I suggest we worry about this later and get out of here while we can.” Joseph said, folding his arms.

“Oh, and another thing. You won’t be able to get out of here by taking the main passageways, we’re too deep in the facility to take them and get out in time. So let’s get a move on.”

Joseph then turned around and walked away, bringing the scan up on his holo projector and began to plot the fastest way out.

“If he wants to get himself lost in the passageways, let him.” the lieutenant said. “I’m following the Major.” The men murmured in agreement.

Joseph, having figured out an escape route, began to move off, but at hearing the lieutenant, stopped and groaned.

“Come on you guys!” he yelled at them. “It took us twenty minutes to get down here; we have less than eight left. Simple math. You can’t make it out that way.”

“Well then, since you seem to have all the answers,’ Zach said, ‘how are we supposed to get out?”

Joseph smiled slightly. He had won.

After maximizing the holo of the scan, he pointed out where the group was, and then showed them the straight and narrow hallway that would lead to freedom. He then shut off the hologram and ran off.

“Time’s a-wasting!” He called back to Zach and his men.

A young soldier quickly shot after Joseph. One of his friends called out to him, asking what he thought he was doing.

“I don’t care who I follow! I just want to live!”

By this time, Joseph had made it into one of the hallways,

Zach and his men ran towards the hallway that Joseph had disappeared into. They went around a corner, and the hallway stretched onward before them. Joseph was already a goodly distance along it, running at full speed.

Zach had set up a timer on his tactic, and it now read 6:36 on his mesh. Adrenalin now surging through his veins, Zach hollered over his long band, which was no longer being jammed.

“Six and a half minutes people! Move it!”

Suddenly Victor’s picture appeared on Zach’s mesh.

“My company’s topside, permission to bug out.” He wore his usual scowl.

“Permission granted. Make sure anyone who gets topside gets away a fast as they can. Time’s running out.”

“Will do.” Victor’s picture fizzled out and disappeared. Zach refocused his attention to running.

After about four minutes of straight sprinting, Zach and his men had reached the mysterious rectangular building. The motion sensitive doors opened as the group neared it. As he had suspected, it was filled to the rim with escape craft: APCs, air jeeps, fighters, even a couple of the larger crab carriers.

Joseph, to their surprise wasn’t even trying to board a ship; he was just standing there, looking around.

“Joseph!’ Zach said forcefully, ‘This isn’t time to look at the inventory, just choose one and get in!”

Zach walked up to one of the APCs and pressed the small keypad that opened the loading ramp. Nothing happened. Then Joseph spoke up.

“They’re all locked. You need some sort of keycard or something to open them. I’ve been trying to crack them until you can here.”

“Is there anyway to get out of here?” A private said.

“The main door’s over there, but I think it’s locked also. You might try to blow it open with grenades.”

Several soldiers ran over to it and began to prime and plant grenades. Zach and the rest of his men followed them. Then there was a sound from the hallway.

“Oh no.” Joseph muttered.

The doors slid apart and an Eastern Alliance marine stepped into the hangar. No one but Joseph noticed him. He stopped and stared at the enemy troops in a hangar that was supposed to be secret.

“Bogie!” Joseph yelled, drawing everyone’s attention to the marine. In a flash, he had drawn his shotgun and was blasting away. The marine was too surprised to act, and just stood there as the metal pellets slammed into his mesh. He raised his weapon, failed to return fire, and stood still. When his mesh fizzled away, his body was riddled with buckshot and he fell to the floor with a groan.

The doors remained open for a second, and Joseph was able to see another marine running up the hallway. He saw Joseph and opened fire, but the round was stopped by the closing door. Joseph was now surrounded by Zach’s soldiers.

“There’s more coming!” he said.

“Do you have any more of those acspikes?” the lieutenant asked.

“Yeah, I think I have a couple more, but I was planning to keep them for my collection.” Joseph replied.

“I think we have a more important use for them.” the lieutenant said.

Joseph turned toward the two doorways that led into the hanger. From his waist he produced his two last acspike grenades. Their blasts would seal up the hallways for a while with their burning black goo. The goo would burn up after about five minutes, but that was all the time that they needed.

The nearest door to the group slid open and a marine entered. He was immediately flooded with plasma fire. As he sank to the floor, Joseph tossed an acspike into the gaping hallway. As the doors began to close, they were splattered with the grenade’s black contents.

As the second door opened up, Joseph saw a marine squad running towards them. He tossed the final grenade into the hallway and smiled as it sprayed the walls, floor and ceiling with black fire.

“Fire in the hole!” yelled one of Zach’s soldiers who had been rigging grenades to the hangar door in an attempt to blow it open. He and his accomplice sprinted away from the door and the small pile of smart shrap grenades at its base. There was a tremendous bang. When the clouds and smoke trails cleared, a six foot hole had been blown in the hangar door. Zach immediately headed for it.

“Command APC come in.” he called into his radio.

Static.

“Command APC come in.” he repeated.

More static, then: “Major Malor we pick you up loud and clear. Go ahead.”

“We need evac immediately. Home in on my position.”

“Yes sir.” came the reply.

“Double time pilot! We don’t have much time left!” Zach hollered.

“Command APC inbound sir.”

Zach, his men and Joseph emerged from the hangar and came out onto a wide hill that sloped slowly downward towards the research facility. The air was suddenly filled with the sounds of an approaching craft. Zach’s command APC dropped from the sky. The group crowded aboard and its hover jets roared as it carried its heavier-than-normal cargo away from the battlefield. All of Zach’s APC landing craft had lifted off; Zach and his group were the last to be picked up.

With the afterburners on, Zach’s APC roared away from the facility at its maximum speed. With the back ramp down, the soldiers had a front row seat as the timer on Zach’s mesh ran out and blinding light flooded from the facility’s buildings. With their darkened meshes protecting their eyes, the men looked on as a dome of harsh light grew from the buildings and rose into the air as a fiery mushroom cloud. The ramp closed before the shock wave hit, jostling the men in their seats.

Zach leaded his head back against the APC’s hull and closed his eyes.

“I’m glad that’s over.’ he said to himself, ‘I’m glad that’s over.”