Jikse, Bravo rally Point
As she glided quickly towards the ground, Diana looked around for some place to land. Unfortunately, only large trees and dense foliage were directly beneath her – none of which would offer anything close to a soft landing. She closed her eyes as she began to break through the upper branches of the trees. After surviving a dive from orbit, supersonic speeds, an EMP pulse, and ripping her helmet off at high altitude, it would be just her luck that some random branch would manage to poke an eye out.
Dropping below the tree line as she flew towards the ground, the parachute suddenly got caught on a thick branch. Diana cried out in pain as she was jerked to a stop, the straps digging into her shoulders. She hung for several moments, waiting to fall to the ground.
After realizing the branch wasn’t going to break, she opened her eyes to find herself dangling eight meters above the ground. It was quite a drop, but her enhanced musculature and bone structure would help take the impact. With no other options, she pressed the release on her parachute and fell towards the ground like a rock.
Growing up in orbit of Mars and then on Bellona, both of which were artificial environments, the only plants she had ever seen had been foodstuffs and ordered in neat rows. The bush around her were wild though, and so was the ground they grew on. As she hit the uneven terrain, Diana’s ankle rolled out under her and she collapsed onto the ground.
Laying on the ground for a moment, only one word came to mind.
“Fuck!”
Diana carefully got to her feet, wincing from the shooting pains in her ankle. Glancing at her Link to check her position, she found she had landed almost directly on target at Bravo point. Her encrypted beacon and communication systems had been fried though. She wouldn’t be able to communicate with the Canada if it came back, although that wasn’t likely to happen any time soon anyway. She would have to wait for someone else to show up. A quick diagnostic check found several other Link systems not functioning as well, fried by the EMP, although it wasn’t completely useless.
Growling in frustration, Diana grabbed at one of the trees next to her and lifted herself up off the ground with one hand, trying to keep the weight off of her injured foot. After resting a few moments, she climbed up the rest of the tree, her good foot braced against the trunk, jumping higher as she pulled herself up among the branches. She climbed up into the foliage until she was hidden from view. It was a basic tactic – she wouldn’t be hidden from any scans – but it was better than simply standing on the ground.
Leaning against the trunk of the tree, Diana looked down, examining what was left of the HALO suit she wore. The front panels had taken the brunt of the exposure like they were designed to and they were scorched black. Otherwise it appeared mostly undamaged. The artificial muscle lattice that had helped to hold her in place during the fall was still operating for the most part, although it appeared the leg control circuitry had also been damaged by the EMP. Other small systems which had been less protected were also gone; all of the personal media on her Link was gone, although the main operating system was still working, as were the tactical data systems inside the suit.
That was good news. She called it up and found that the tactical data from the Canada had been streaming to her beacon’s black box. It had continued up until the ship had performed a tachyon FTL jump out of the system where it then went dead. If they had made an FTL jump, then they had survived. Diana allowed herself a small smile. The data also included tracking for her companions up until the EMP flash.
Looking at the tracking information, Diana winced. Everyone else had drifted towards the east, most likely not compensating for the strong crosswinds in the upper atmosphere. Even if they had corrected after the EMP burst they would still be hours away.
Sighing, Diana went back to the task at hand dealing with her armor. The atmospheric regulation systems had been taken out by the EMP as well, so she was already hot as hell in the forest. She disengaged the outer, ablative tile layer of her suit, stood up on the branch of the tree she had been resting on, and shucked the hot things over the tree branch next to her. That would help a bit with the temperature.
out a small ration and bit into it, closing her eyes. She slowly began to process everything as she rested.
The Ace had worked, meaning the Empire would now be looking for a way to negate that particular advantage. It would be foolish to assume the enemy flagship had been destroyed. As devastating as the Canada’s attack had been, the engines of the massive kilometer-long ship were likely still operational, meaning they had most likely performed a jump to avoid the nuke.
The ship would be back, no doubt. There was no way they would have missed the shuttle careening back into the atmosphere; even primitive detection systems from two hundred years ago would have picked that up.
All of this combined with the fact that the Canada wasn’t coming back meant that they were going to have to hide, and the best place to do so would be back in that alien cesspool of a city. Attempting to survive in the wilderness of an unknown alien planet was fraught with too many dangers.
Continuing to calculate her options and think about possible future scenarios, Diana only registered that she was exhausted and falling asleep a moment before she slipped off into her dreams.
Diana was startled into wakefulness as a deep, bass-like whirr dominated her hearing. She had been out like a light, and hadn’t woken until whatever was producing the sound was hovering directly over her. Cursing, she made sure all of her suit’s systems were powered down, save for the thermal retention systems which would hopefully camouflage her to any IR scan. Although the system was designed to help retain heat in colder environments, it should do the same now and erase most of her heat signature. The fact that she was missing her helmet meant that her head would still show up, but hopefully the scanner would think it was some large animal. There was nothing else she could do about it now, anyway.
The thrumming base grew louder, to the point where Diana wanted to reach up and cover her ears. It was crawling into her skull like some sort of vicious insect. The source of the noise suddenly came into view; a large, grey-black vessel, which was unmistakably from the alien flagship she had seen in the data logs that the Canada had managed to transmit before it had left. Smaller, of course, but it still possessed a sinuous and animal-like flow, and once again it was devoid of even the slightest scratch.
The sound of gunfire – human gunfire – suddenly rang out through the night air.
Startled, Diana turned towards the sound just in time to see Young, Minerva, and Bruno tumble out of the underbrush. They looked completely worn out, the artificial muscle layer of their suits steaming as they vented excess heat, and even so they were all out of breath.
Turning, Bruno laid down another burst of fire from his rifle. The bullets tore through the undergrowth at whatever was chasing them. Compressed plasma energy bolts answered his attack, and even as he turned to continue running a bolt struck him in the leg, and another sailed past him and struck Young in the back of his helmet.
The three untested soldiers stared in horror as their commander collapsed. The entire back portion of his helmet was gone, as was most of his head; what was left of his brain was exposed to the elements as it slowly bubbled.
Diana had been about to jump down from her perch and join them in their flight, but she now froze, her limbs locked in place she stared at what unfolded.
Minerva and Bruno both hesitated for a moment too long. They knew just as well as Diana that he was dead, and that under combat conditions there was nothing more they could do but survive. Untested, though, they didn’t follow protocol. They paused.
The Empire’s troops stormed out of the underbrush where the three had just emerged, and quickly surrounded the two remaining Human officers on the ground, guns still raised.
Bruno raised his weapon for a half moment as if to fire again, but grimacing at the number of alien troops and guns in front of him, dropped it. Minerva followed suit, dropping the small handgun she had out and slowly reaching up to her shoulder to unstrap the sniper rifle.
Bruno moved until he was back to back with Minerva, his large frame blocking her from the view of most of the imposing men around them, all of whom still had their weapons raised and were shouting in the alien language. Concentrating on her companions, Diana didn’t translate what they were saying directly, but the intent was well enough communicated.
Surrender.
Humanity had no standard doctrine for surrender to the aliens. Their treatment of prisoners was an unknown, and their terms were unknown. However, considering that they had mercilessly wiped all life off a single planet in the blink of an eye, the bet was that a military prisoner would simply be used for information and then discarded.
Diana remained perfectly still, watching with bated breath. Hesitantly, she raised her rifle, setting the barrel to her shoulder like she had a thousand times before, and carefully lined up the sights. She had an easy shot on at least half of the aliens. Easier than most of her training. Picking off at least three of them before they had time to react would be simple; her enhanced reflexes would have made it laughable.
Still, after the three or so shots that were guaranteed to hit, she would be pinpointed, and given the number of guns remaining she would at the very least be severely injured, if not killed, in the barrage.
Logically, her most advantageous action was to remain still. Stay hidden, avoid discovery, and survive. Wait for extraction, perhaps even claim she had no idea what happened to the rest of her team.
For the first time in her life, Diana was truly and utterly conflicted. The genetic enhancements had made everything in her life easy. When she had started military training, the other children in her squadron were working to run the five mile track, while she was doing it without losing her breath. When she had to learn the physics and mathematics of planetary ballistic combat, all she had to do was read the text once, and she aced the test. She was proficient with every weapon Humanity had on hand. The only field where she was still lacking was ship-to-ship combat. Even so, as a mere graduate, she had nearly bested commanders who had decades of experience. Everything had been easy.
Here, though, the logical choice was simple and effective. One that any military commander would endorse. Hide and fight another day.
The half of Diana that was still Human, and not some amalgamation of genetic perfection, balked at the idea. The very thought of remaining silent and allowing people she called friends to be captured was terrible. Consequences be damned. Logical analysis of the situation be damned. Her own life be damned!
She was afraid. For the first time in her life, the logical choice wasn’t the right one. The right choice was to get herself killed! Her hands, still holding the rifle aloft, began to shake, disturbing the perfect shot she had lined up. Lowering the rifle, she told herself she would re-aquire the target in a moment.
Instead, Diana lowered her rifle completely, hating herself even as she did so.
She tried desperately to move her legs, but they remained frozen in fear of her own death or capture.
An Imperial soldier, a woman, stepped forward from the mass of soldiers and, apparently unconcerned, holstered her plasma weapon on her back.
“Surrender, Human!” she shouted in a stunted accent. “Down. Ground!”
Minerva and Bruno glanced at one another and then at the woman.
“Angriff?” Bruno asked as he slowly moved his hand back towards Minerva.
“Angriff,” Minerva confirmed, speaking in German as well, although with much more proficiency.
The alien woman looked confused for a moment. Whatever device she had that might have translated the words was plainly not picking up what the two had just said.
Bruno moved, his arm a blur as he pulled the single grenade he had off of his belt. For a moment Diana thought he was moving quickly enough that he might actually be able to remove the pin.
Several dark blue pulses of energy hit Bruno directly in the chest, and he collapsed to the ground. An errant blast clipped Minerva and she too collapsed.
For a moment the clearing in the woods was silent. Diana hadn’t taken a breath in nearly three minutes and she was beginning to feel the effects of the oxygen deprivation, but she didn’t dare take a breath.
The woman shouted something, and the troops quickly moved forward and collected the bodies of the three. The massive transport that had been hovering above them slowly descended onto the ground, crushing trees and underbrush beneath it.
Diana watched as her friends and the corpse of her commander were pulled onto the ship. She watched still as the gigantic ramp to the ship closed and the ship slowly ascended back up into the air.
Diana remained frozen for a full minute, then leaned over on her perch and retched, emptying her stomach.
She was a coward. She should have tried to save them.
Again she retched, and completely unconcerned with her own well-being, rolled off of the branch. The armor and her own physically enhanced body protected her even as she began to sob.
She was abandoned, her friends were dead, and she was a coward.
She was supposed to be perfect. Her Mother had designed her to be perfect, and up until this moment she had been. Now she faced a terrifying realization.
She was still human.
As night began to fall over the planet, Diana slowly began to pull herself together.
Crying, vomiting, and in general just feeling miserable about her current predicament would not help her. Sitting and waiting for rescue was out of the question; the Canada would not likely be coming back any time soon.
Her best chance at survival was to acquire an alien ship and attempt to rendezvous with the Canada. How she was going to find it, Diana had no idea – the Canada had no set flight path except for a tachyon jump back to Bellona when they finished in Empire space.
Locking onto that signal was the only guarantee she would make it back, in the meantime though she would be able to complete the mission objective even if she wasn’t on the Canada.
Acquire information about the Alien culture and any technology that Humanity might find useful. The guidelines for what was acceptable to meet those objectives had been purposefully left vague, politics were after all still in play.
Pushing herself up from the cold ground and away from the bile ejected from her stomach Diana got her bearings on the direction of the decaying city, which was actually fairly easy. The noise and light were being projected up into the sky to such a degree that someone would have to be blind and completely deaf to not find it.
Nodding to herself Diana set out through the underbrush of the forest moving towards the light of the city. The Bravo point had been chosen to be isolated enough but still within easy access distance, although even for her it took the better part of an hour at a fast trot to make it to the decaying wall that surrounded the city.
“What the hell happened to you?” asked a man leaning against a crumbling portion of the wall, some sort of device in his hand that contained what looked like smoke. A drug of some sort, Diana had seen plenty of men like him while she had shadowed her mother as a child. His face was also a vibrant green and his eye were dilated almost too completely black. If Diana had to guess those attributes were not part of what classified him at the B level.
“And what’s with the weird clothes?” he peering down at the armor and attachment points for the thermal tiles.
Diana smiled, “Lost a bet.”
The stoned man looked at her for a moment and then nodding to her took another hit of whatever it was in the device.
Stepping past him and into the city Diana strode forwards with a false sense of purpose, she stuck out enough as it was and while that had been advantageous to distinguish herself while investigating the city and she had backup doing so now was deadly.
The first thing she had to do was ditch the Human garments, and then find a way to make a reliable amount or find a way to hijack a ship. From the vibe the city gave off she had no doubt that crossing the wrong individuals would end in death, so learning the power structure of the city would be important as well.
So focused on what she should do next Diana almost didn’t notice the aliens behind her or why they were so familiar. It took her a moment and she had to dredge backwards through her memories to when she was a child. They were pickpockets, and judging by the looks they were giving her she was their next mark.
Diana had to hide her grin, they were amateurs certainly. She had done it back on the Station in orbit of Mars, where it had been a little more difficult considering that there was zero-g to contend with. Still she didn’t feel like dealing with them at the moment.
With a sigh Diana ducked into the first shop on her right that looked like it had clothing, it was a dingy place and appeared almost empty. The clerk, a woman with small completely black eyes and only four fingers on each hand looked up as she entered.
“Hello,” said the woman somewhat warily.
Diana nodded, “hello.”
The two looked at one another for a moment and then with a huff the woman turned back to her Link and continued to tap away at it.
Looking around the store Diana noticed that everything was covered in a thin layer of dust almost like everything hadn’t been touched in months. Still it would do for now.
Going to the nearest mismatched rack of clothing Diana rifled through it. Their hadn’t been any predominant fashion out on the street, although everyone had been dressed in a utilitarian manner. Picking a dark grey jacket off of the rack and what could only be described as cargo pants to match Diana took the clothing to the counter and the woman.
Taking the mass of clothes in hand Diana went and set it all down on the counter.
“How much for all this?”
The Clerk looked up at her again surprised, and then glanced down at the clothes.
“120 credits I guess.”
Diana knew something was off, but at the moment she didn’t care.
Pulling out her Link Diana was about to hand it to the woman when the door to the shop banged open, a man with dark red skin, darker than anything she had seen on the Dorvakian’s as well as a mat of dirty black hair stumbled forward and collapsed on the ground.
“[Hal]!” the woman behind the counter shot forward waving he hand at the door Diana heard a heavy lock move into place. Diana heard a hum as well and glancing at the window of the shop she saw a faint shimmer that had to be from some low powered shield.
“Sorry, it went bad.”
The man rolled over onto his back and Diana spotted a green stain on his shirt, the woman gasped and put her hands to it pressing down like one would on a wound. Which was exactly what the man had, a huge slash across his front that was bleeding green.
“I thought he was trustworthy!” said the woman.
“So did I.” growled [Hal] and he winced clutching at his chest.
“You need a doctor!”
The bleeding man shook his head, “I do that and He finds out I was injured. I’m already on probation, he’s goanna be mad enough the deal went bad. If he hears I’m out of commission for a while he’s going to.” The man swallowed and shook his head grimacing.
Diana weighed her options, this was a little quick considering everything but it was also an opportunity.
“I have something that might help,” said Diana speaking up.
The two aliens froze, and the man slowly turned his head to look at her.
“Who the hell are you? A customer?”
The woman chuckled, “Our what, third customer?” she asked.
The man nodded, and wincing put his head down on the floor.
Leaving the clothes on the counter Diana walked over and reaching into the pocket on her right thigh extracted one of the three remaining nano-machine injections. Carefully she weighed it in her hand, the man whose face was turning a lighter shade of red every moment looked up at her with one eyes while the woman examined her with a little more scrutiny.
“What is that?” asked the woman eyeing it.
“Expensive,” growled Diana.
The woman’s eyes narrowed, “then what’s it going to cost us?”
“Those clothes and a pointer of where to get a job.”
Before the woman could respond Diana placed the vial on the man’s chest directly on top of the wound and pressed the plunger injecting the tiny robots into the man.
He groaned and his hand flew to his chest, and let out a shout.
“What the hell did you do!” shouted the woman, a small pistol was suddenly in her hand produced from where Diana wasn’t sure she had moved so quickly that even with her enhanced reflexes she hadn’t been able to see it.
“Fixed him, look.” Reaching down Diana grabbed at his shirt and pulled it to the side. It was still slick with greenish blood but unbroken red skin was now the only feature of the man’s chest. The skin had been easy, but fixing the internal damage would be a little more difficult for the nano-machines especially with the alien anatomy.
The woman blinked and slowly lowered her pistol.
“What the hell was that?” she breathed.
“So we square on what that cost?” asked Diana.
Absentmindedly the woman nodded, and [Hal] slowly sat up and groaned.
“It’s going to take a little while for the internal stuff to be fixed. A few hours at most,” said Diana.
Getting to her feet the woman went over to the counter and grabbing the pile of clothes, “Put those on, if you want to find a job you can start by not looking like someone who was caught in a firefight.”
“I was.”
The woman considered her for a moment, “Well you look like you lost.”
Diana smiled slightly, “I’m still here aren’t I?”
The woman snorted and tossed the clothes to Diana.
“For now.”
END ACT ONE