Chapter 7
The team was nearly assembled when Jason made his way into the Zoo. His meeting with Gunny Orion ran longer than expected—one he’d originally scheduled for the previous afternoon.
The assault team assembled in front of the ten-foot-wide portal to HAB 12. Everyone, including Jason, was outfitted with a new custom-designed camouflaged combat suit. Orion and Ricket had been busy most of the previous evening on sub-Deck 4B at the large, building-sized phase-synthesizer unit. They’d designed the new suits with a combination of solid and flex armor made from composite materials derived from various alternate planes of existence.
“Who are we missing?” Jason asked, as he approached the group. Everyone came to attention, including Billy, a soggy unlit cigar protruding from his lips.
“A few more stragglers,” Billy humorously replied.
“As you were,” Jason said. Billy went back to inspecting his team of four SEALs. Petty Officer Rizzo nodded towards Jason and smiled.
“Good to see you’re on the team, Rizzo. If anyone knows how to fight Serapins, you do.”
“Yes, sir—looking forward to it.”
Team members were looking out through the portal window. The baron desert landscape looked uninviting, harsh. A small wind cyclone of dust and small rocks twirled across the sand. Seeing Lieutenant Morgan on the team was no surprise. Not one of Jason’s favorite people, but a competent SEAL just the same. It was the person standing next to him who was a surprise. Dira was laughing at something Morgan had said and responded by punching his shoulder. But then, it made sense she’d be on the team. They’d need a medic. Ricket, wearing his own small customized combat suit, had his back to everyone and was busy typing something into a keypad at the wall—no doubt in the process of trying to jail-break its security protocols. From what Jason understood, habitats had a range of security levels from one to ten. Some, like HAB 4, where Raja the elephant lived, were security level one. The most dangerous, like HAB 12, were not supposed to be accessible at all—by anyone—and held the highest security level of ten. Ricket continued inputting information at the virtual keypad. He was getting a beep beep response from the portal interface. Not a positive sign. Jason had come to realize that if Ricket couldn’t bypass the security protocols, no one could. Then the floor began to shake.
Everyone stopped and turned towards the opposite end of the corridor. A procession of ten seven-foot-tall rhino warriors approached. Each was a thousand pounds of muscle beneath thick grey hide, with legs and arms like tree trunks, and bodies strong and ripped without an ounce of fat. Built more hulk-like than human, and with the heads of rhinoceroses—horns and all—the ten beasts moved forward with heavy grace and determination. They carried the rhino warrior weapons of choice: a heavy hammer in one hand and an energy weapon strapped onto the wrist of their other arm.
The beasts halted in unison several paces in front of Jason. His friend, Traveler, battle worn and missing an ear, stood before him. Then, to Jason’s surprise, they saluted him. He returned their salute and brought his attention back to Ricket.
Beep beep. Access still denied—but he wasn’t giving up.
Orion was positioning a hover cart, stacked high with equipment, over to the center of the group. Billy rushed to help her and was rewarded with a glare—a glare that spoke volumes: don’t you even come near me. Obviously, they’d yet to clear up their tiff. Jason only hoped it wouldn’t interfere with the mission.
“Listen up, everybody,” Gunny Orion announced, while holding up a new kind of rifle. “This is a multi-gun. Do not try to reload it—as long as you are aboard The Lilly, or within the confines of HAB 12, it utilizes the JIT munitions. They’re automatically phase-shifted to the weapon’s micro port.” Orion pointed to a round expanded casing at the mid-section of the rifle. “This weapon interfaces with your HUD. Review your menu settings, folks. Three separate plasma bolt configurations, four separate mini-rail gun configurations, two separate micro- missiles with integrated tracking capabilities … Get to know your weapon. There’s also radical changes made to the helmet and HUD systems, as well as to your battle suit configurations. We’ll be reviewing these changes once we get going.”
“Dad!” Jason turned to see Mollie running down the corridor.
“Hey, kiddo.” He gave his daughter a hug. Nan, back to wearing her spacer’s jumpsuit, was close behind. Jason noticed Nan and Dira exchanging cordial nods, but something was going on there.
“Mollie wanted to say goodbye before you headed out,” she said. Jason saw Nan had applied lipstick and makeup to her bruised face and was smiling. A good sign.
Nan said, “We’re staying aboard The Lilly this time. I can continue working and communicate via FDL linkups to the outpost. And the safest place for Mollie, if that alien fleet arrives, will be here on board, don’t you think?”
“I do, and she feels more at home here than anywhere else right now,” Jason said, liking the direction their talk was going. “Do me a favor, though—when you check in with the outpost, see how my father’s doing, okay? I’m leaving one of the shuttles behind for him. If things go badly, he’ll be able to move underground until we get back. I mentioned this to him, but he may need reminding.”
“I’ll tell him, I promise. One more thing, and I hope you’ll agree to it. While I’m on board, I’d like to go through that procedure, you know—to be nanotized and have that NanoCom thing installed in my head? I never remember what hand signals to use on those damn DeckPorts and it would be nice to be able to keep in contact with Mollie. I’d just feel safer considering what we’ve been through. Can you authorize that before you go?”
Jason smiled and brought up his virtual tablet. “With both Dira and Ricket being gone, you’ll need to work out the schedule with the remaining medical staff. I’ve gone ahead and authorized the procedure. Also, remember that communications into HAB 12 will be spotty at best.” Jason closed down his tablet and looked up to see that Nan was worried looking. “You okay?”
“Watch yourself out there, Jason. If what I’ve heard is true, you’ll be—you’ll all be in constant danger.”
“We’ll be fine. And I’m hoping that things here onboard, while in FTL, will be fairly non-eventful. It’ll take a few days for the ship to reach the rendezvous point, so maybe you can use that time to relax a bit, hang out with Mollie, even have some fun.”
“I’d like that.” She gave Jason a hug and a kiss on the lips, and stood back. Jason got another hug from Mollie; they stood back and watched as Jason and the rest prepared to enter HAB 12.
Impatient, Jason glanced at his HUD’s mission countdown timer:
Dys: 06 Hrs: 13 Mins: 22
They’d already burned too much time getting started. There was too much at stake. The last time the Craing had sent warships to Earth, they’d been lucky. Few knew how close the Earth had come to being totally annihilated. With this new threat, these three Caldarium warships—the Emperor’s Guard—Earth again might very well be at the precipice of destruction. Truth was, nothing was more important than this mission, not The Lilly, not even his own family.
Beep beep beep. Three beeps instead of two. Ricket turned and nodded toward Jason. “We’re in; we have sixty seconds before the portal closes, sir,” Ricket said.
Jason turned to his team. “Let’s move out, everyone.”