Voidstalker

THE MOLE

Eternity passed before the work day finally ended. Doing the same checks and diagnostics again and again while waiting for instructions from above was mind-numbingly tedious; and the cloud of scandal and uncertainty that hung over the place didn’t help either. The project was pretty much ready, but with the company’s future in doubt, there was no point in the board of directors authorising a final test.

That was the least of Aster’s worries as she passed through the security checkpoint with everyone else. Except for a smartphone – which had to be checked in and out of storage – nothing electronic was allowed in or out of the building. Barring a power failure, smuggling the data chip out of the building would be next to impossible. Still, it was safely tucked away inside the activation key safe, so she could figure out what do with it later.

Aster joined a group of other people in the elevator back up to the station. Awkwardly, Felix was part of that group, and she tried to stand as far away from him as possible. The two spent an incredibly uncomfortable minute trying not to exchange glances; Felix started typing out a message on his smartphone whilst Aster stared intently at the wall. The hypocrisy of doing exactly what she had refused to allow him to do was almost too much to bear.

When the elevator doors finally opened, Aster all but fled the awkward space, racing to the platform and joining the tussle to get aboard the first mag-train that turned up. Only when the doors had closed and the mag-train had started moving did she start to breathe normally. After a ten minute ride to the medical centre, she could pick up the children, hail a sky-car, and they’d all be home before sundown.

Aster looked out the carriage window and took in the breath-taking scene before her. The first time she had seen it was almost a decade ago, and the shimmering forest of skyscrapers still looked like a heavenly citadel to her; a far cry from the tiny mining colony where she had grown up. But as she looked out on the man-made vista below, Aster’s sense of awe was tinged by a familiar emotion, like a bad aftertaste: resentment.

Like hundreds of other frontier colonies – not to mention the intermediate hub-worlds – her own home planet had supplied some of the ore and that went into building this city. The pay-per-tonne offered by the corporates for each ore haul was usually paltry, the better to sell it on at a profit to the manufacturers.

The whole arrangement was a racket in which the frontier worlds were bled dry to sustain the core worlds. As a consequence, most of the frontier worlds were desperately poor. Few could afford to go it alone, and many survived on financing from the same corporate parasites who fleeced them. Parasites like Jezebel Thorn.

Aster’s smartphone buzzed, informing her of a new message. She fished it out of her pocket; and her face darkened when she saw who it was from.

‘I’d need to speak with you, urgently.’ Said the message from Jezebel Thorn.

As Aster glared at the screen, a follow-up message arrived.

‘Ignoring this message would be inadvisable.’

Was that a warning or a threat? Knowing her, it was probably both.

‘I’m picking up my children from their check-up.’ Aster messaged back, then put her smartphone back in her pocket. It buzzed again almost immediately.

‘Already done. Come here first.’

Aster’s heart leapt into her mouth. Had Jezebel picked up the children from the medical centre without her permission? That seemed to be what she was saying.

‘Where’ she messaged back bluntly, not even bothering to type a question mark.

* * *

“Cover, now!” Gabriel shouted.

He took aim and fired, squeezing off a single, high-powered shot at the titanic mobility platform. A flash of blue energy covered its armoured skin as its shields activated. Unfazed by the shot, the mobility platform extended one of its arms and Gabriel dived into cover with the rest of the squad as it opened fire.

Literally opened fire. From the mouth of the nozzle mounted on its right arm spewed a stream of bright orange flames at high speed. The squad barely made it to cover as the infernal jet doused the floor and wall, leaving black scorch patterns wherever it touched.

But the flames didn’t persist, they dissipated almost as soon as the jet of flame had ceased, and the jet itself didn’t drop with gravity whilst travelling through the air. It must be a pressurised gas mixture, maybe even plasma based. If that was the case, then the fire would burn at a much higher temperature than a liquid fuel.

The mobility platform stomped towards them like a heavyweight wrestler, bringing its railgun-equipped left arm to bear, and taking aim at the cargo crates. A single, supersonic round tore through the boxes, eviscerating their contents, and leaving Bale and Doran exposed. Bale managed to scramble to cover, but Doran was thrown to one side by the blast.

The whole squad opened fire as the mobility platform advanced on Doran, who rolled onto his back and sprayed bullets on full auto at the advancing mechanical enemy. It didn’t do any good; the mobility platform’s shielding rippled and flashed with sapphire-coloured light as the hypersonic rounds were deflected to either side.

Doran was a sitting duck as the mobility platform focussed on him exclusively. He tried too late to scramble to his feet, and the mechanical walker took a swing with one of its arms, knocking him back down to the ground. He was helpless as the mobility platform raised its mechanical foot and stomped down on him.

“Doran!” one or more squad members screamed as their squad-mate bore the full weight of a multi-tonne metal foot crushing him.

Doran’s life-signs turned red, and so did Gabriel’s vision.

Violating every possible rule of combat training, Gabriel broke cover and ran straight towards the mobility platform. Taking a running jump, Gabriel removed an explosive from his belt and leapt into the air, the exoskeletal motors in his combat armour boosting him by several feet. He primed the explosive in mid-jump and landed on the mobility platform’s back, shoving the explosive into the mechanical enemy’s shoulder joint.

A flurry of crackling energy erupted between himself and the mobility platform as their shielding interacted in a dramatic feedback loop. The resulting interaction produced mutual repulsion, sending Gabriel flying backwards in a spectacular storm of energy and light. As he hit the ground, he rolled back onto his feet in one movement.

The explosive Gabriel had used was a special anti-armour limpet mine equipped with a shield dampener. When it detonated, the shaped charge directed all of the explosive force down into the mechanical joint of the mobility platform’s right arm.

The heat and power of the detonation ate straight through the arm joint like acid through plastic, and the mobility platform’s flamethrower-equipped arm was blown clean off. It clattered to the floor like a chunk of scrap metal, leaving only a glowing orange stump and damaged, spark-spitting circuitry.

Both Gabriel’s and the mobility platform’s shields had been frazzled out by the feedback interaction and would need a minute to recover. But even though the mobility platform had lost its shields, its armour was still virtually impervious to small arms fire. Even having lost an arm, it was only marginally less dangerous.

After regaining its balance and focus, the mobility platform’s torso swivelled all the way around on its waist to face Gabriel and walked backwards in his direction. Its targeting optics singled him out, painting him with an infrared targeting laser as it lined up a shot with its railgun. In the half second before the mobility platform opened fire, Gabriel noticed something about the glass canopy protecting the pilot: it was cracked.

Gabriel dived to one side as the railgun fired, the shot just missing him as he vaulted over a set of storage crates and into cover. The railgun was a single-shot cannon with a slow rate of fire; a weapon that large could only carry a limited amount of ammunition. All Gabriel had to do was keep the mobility platform wasting its ammo until it ran out. But then the doors on the other side of the testing hall opened and a new group of enemies appeared.

Four lithe figures dressed in beige-coloured flight suits entered, using special jump-packs to soar through the air towards the squad. Gabriel paused for a brief moment to wonder just where this bizarre cult had gotten their hands on so much military hardware before being plunged straight back into the fight.

Two of the jumpers came sailing over Gabriel’s head, landing catlike on their feet and opening fire with sawn-off shotguns. The double spray of pellets battered his unshielded armour to no effect, and he quickly returned fire. To his surprise, all of his rounds hit their mark, punching straight through the faceplate and blowing apart the target’s skull. Dispensing with armour and shielding? In favour of what, being quick on their feet?

As Gabriel dispatched one of the jumpers, the other dropped its weapon and activated a device on its wrist: a portable shield generator that projected a shimmering barrier of energy in an oval shape. Even at point-blank range, it was powerful enough to deflect Gabriel’s bullets, sending them swerving off to each side.

With its personal barrier still raised, the jumper reached over its shoulder with its free hand and drew a sword from its back. A sword? An actual sword? Gabriel wanted to laugh. Instead, he charged at his skinny foe, clenching his fist to unleash his combat claws and finish off his attacker up close.

The jumper bolted forwards at the same time to meet Gabriel head on; in the same motion it activated a switch on the handle of the sword and brought the blade swinging round in an arc to meet Gabriel’s combat claws. There was a high-pitched whining sound as they connected, and the sword’s blade kept on slicing through the air.

Gabriel was stopped dead in his tracks. His combat claws were made of reinforced carbon nanotubing, the same material as his armour. But the sword had cut clean through them, leaving behind three polished stumps. What kind of weapon could do that?

The jumper didn’t miss a beat, completing the motion by spinning on its heel and trying to follow through with a stab to Gabriel’s gut. Gabriel kept enough of his wits about him to dodge the thrust and grab his attacker by the wrist. In the same motion, he kicked the jumper’s legs out from under it and snapped its wrist, catching the sword as it fell from the jumper’s grasp and severing the its arm in one stroke.

Another railgun shot narrowly missed Gabriel’s head and punched a scorching hole in the wall beside him. He rolled into cover, dropping the sword, and picking his gun up off the floor. Keeping low and rushing back around towards the main entrance, he pulled another explosive from his belt.

Gabriel’s earlier shot must have gotten through before the mobility platform’s shielding had activated. Normally for a vehicle that size, the pilot could simply look out through the glass canopy to see, but the enormous spider web-like crack left by Gabriel’s lucky shot made that impossible, forcing the pilot to rely exclusively on the optical sensor suite.

Priming the grenade, Gabriel tossed it at the mobility platform. The grenade’s arc took it straight over the target before detonating. The damage to the mobility platform’s armoured skin was minimal, but the explosive spray of shards hit the optical sensor suite, blinding the mobility platform's pilot. While the wounded mech was still reeling from the damage, Gabriel primed another high-powered shot, took aim, and fired.

A high-powered shot was a single round, flash-forged in such a way as to pierce armour, and accelerated to near-escape velocity. The mobility platform’s shielding was too weakened to block or deflect the shot as it punched straight through the damaged glass canopy, shattering it into thousands of pieces.

The mobility platform froze up completely, the death of its pilot causing it to shut down. As its systems died, the mobility platform’s mechanical legs locked their joints to prevent it from toppling over, freezing the fearsome mech into an awkward-looking pose like a half-finished sculpture missing an arm and a face.

Keeping his weapon raised, Gabriel approached the mobility platform to make sure it really had been neutralised. Through the smoke, he could see the pilot, now a piece of mangled meat with an entry wound through the chest. The rest of his flesh, including his respirator-covered face, had been sliced up beyond recognition by the storm of glass fragments.

But the evisceration of the pilot’s body was nothing compared to his state when he had been alive. Not only was the respirator mask surgically attached to his face, but his entire body was filled with wires and tubes connecting him directly to the systems he controlled. The connections were so extensive that he was literally a part of the machine he piloted.

It was grotesque.

“Colonel!” Bale’s voice came over the comm., “Doran’s alive! Barely.”

Gabriel flinched. It hadn’t even occurred to him to check on his squad.

“Ok, I’m coming over.” he replied.

Gabriel rushed over to join the rest of his squad. He saw the other two jumpers lying dead on the floor. One had been shot through the guts with gunfire, the other had a cauterised neck stump instead of a head. Viker was standing over the headless jumper, replacing his combat knife in its sheath and confiscating the dead jumper’s wrist-mounted personal barrier, whilst Cato and Bale tended to Doran.

Doran lay motionless on the floor where he had fallen as Cato ran his gauntlet over Doran’s body, the sensor suite in his palm interacting with Doran’s own armour to evaluate his condition. As he did, the results were uploaded to each squad member’s suit computers.

The results looked dire.

Doran’s armour had held against the multi-tonne weight and pressure of the giant mechanical foot, and his suit’s shielding had negated much of the crushing pressure applied. But the sheer amount of force brought to bear had still been enough to break his ribcage in numerous places. In spite of his suit’s pain suppressants, the agony of simply breathing would have caused him to pass out. Were it not for his shielding, armour, and physical enhancements, he would have been flattened like a pancake.

“He’s out cold, and his suit’s systems have been badly damaged as well,” Cato explained gravely, “if we don’t get him to a proper medical facility quickly, we’ll lose him.”

“The medical bay is on the other side of this chamber,” said Gabriel, “move!”

No one needed to be ordered twice. Cato and Bale took Doran by the arms and legs and hoisted him carefully into the air while Gabriel and Viker provided cover.

Gabriel spotted the surviving jumper take off and soar through the air towards the door through which it had come. He took a quick aim and squeezed off a shot, hitting the jumper in the back, and causing it tumble from the air, rolling head over heels across the floor.

In spite of a broken wrist and a missing arm, the jumper had still had the presence of mind to pick up its sword and stow it on its back before trying to make a break for the exit. Gabriel’s shot had damaged its jump-pack, rendering it useless; but the jumper continued to crawl with impressive determination across the floor towards safety.

Gabriel marched over to the wounded enemy and took aim, preparing to put it out of its misery, but then thought better of it. Stowing his weapon, Gabriel picked the scrawny enemy off the ground and took it prisoner, twisting its remaining arm behind its back.

“Aren’t you gonna kill that thing?” Viker asked, bewildered by the apparent mercy.

“Not yet.” Gabriel replied.

* * *

The elevator doors opened on the 201^st floor and Aster stepped out into the hallway of an opulent penthouse. The floor of the main hall had a blood red carpet – probably made from bioengineered fur – and was lined with exquisitely carved statuettes in various poses; there was even a water feature depicting two aquatic monsters intertwined in a vicious embrace. The statuettes seemed to stare at Aster as she walked passed them; perhaps they were, it would be easy enough to install micro-cameras in the eyeholes.

Aster hurried past the creepy statuettes and turned a corner into a palatial living room. The arched ceiling was covered in a single giant fresco decorated with winged Humans dancing in the clouds, seeming to move ever so slightly. Completing the setting was a replica fireplace with flickering holographic flames, and a set of plush furniture arranged around the skin of some giant animal laid out on the floor as a trophy carpet.

Madam Jezebel Thorn sat on one of the couches, waited upon by two servant androids and an antigravity platter floating next to her. The hostess herself was dressed in a snow white business suit, her black hair with blonde streaks tied into her trademark cornbraid.

Aster gasped when she saw who else was there.

“Mommy!” her four children chorused in welcome.

They dropped what they were doing and came running to greet their mother. Aster squatted down and pulled her children into a protective embrace, squeezing them close, then gave her mother-in-law a murderous glare.

“I picked them up after their medical appointment was finished.” Grandma Jezebel explained, “The poor things were exhausted; and bored.”

“We’re leaving,” Aster said with a scowl.

“I haven’t told you why you’re here, yet.” Jezebel said.

“I’m here to pick up my children,” Aster shot back, “and then to find out how you managed to convince the medical centre staff to let you pick up my children.”

“Lawrence Kane.” The mention of the name made Aster freeze up.

“As a blood relative, I’m not recognised as a threat by the medical centre androids,” Jezebel answered, “so why don’t you have a seat and we can discuss this like grown-ups.”

With profound reluctance, Aster took a seat opposite her hostess, and the children returned to their distractions. Orion, the oldest, picked up a tablet computer he had been playing with and sat down beside his grandmother while Rose and Violet returned to entertaining their younger brother Leo on the animal skin carpet.

“Would you like a drink?” Madam Jezebel asked.

“Tell me what you know about Lawrence Kane and why.”

“I’ve heard he was a colleague of yours,” Madam Jezebel replied, then added, “I’ve also heard that he wasn’t entirely loyal to his employers.”

Aster felt a wave of self-conscious dread wash over her. Was this Jezebel Thorn’s way of telling her she’d been found out?

“Although, you surely suspected as much.” Madam Jezebel added coolly.

As she spoke, she pulled out a tablet computer of her own and opened up a video file, then she placed it on the antigravity platter and gave it a tap. The platter floated silently over to Aster and landed on her lap. With trepidation, Aster picked up the tablet and pressed play, seeing an image of an office door secured with a biometric lock.

The colour drained from Aster’s face when she saw herself appear on screen, open up the biometric sensor’s panel and type in her personal override code to bypass the lock before slipping inside the office. The video then cut to a shot of her exiting Lawrence’s office.

“Water.” Madam Jezebel ordered the servant android with a snap of her fingers.

Aster was definitely thirsty. The service android returned with an ornate glass filled with water and offered it to Aster who took it and drained it to the dregs.

“What the fuck is this supposed to be?” Aster demanded.

“Do you usually talk that way around the children?” Madam Jezebel asked snidely.

The children were too engrossed in their activities to notice or care.

“Answer the question!” Aster snapped back, “What is this?”

“Something to secure your cooperation.” Madam Jezebel replied.

“With what?” Aster asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“Retrieving something,” Madam Jezebel replied, “and I think you know what it is.”

“By asking me here, you’re guilty of conspiracy to commit corporate espionage.” Aster pointed out, hoping to turn the tables.

“And by coming, you’re officially complicit,” Madam Jezebel retorted breezily, “unless, of course, the real reason – the one you’d like me to corroborate if the investigators ask – is that you simply came to pick up your children from their grandmother’s home.”

Jezebel was right. This whole setup made her look bad, even without the incriminating video. Not to mention her head was swirling with the implications of what she had just been shown: someone in her staff was on Jezebel’s payroll.

There were no surveillance cameras in the research labs, lest an outside hacker hijack the video feeds. That meant someone had to have either smuggled the camera in, or built it from scratch using materials in the lab.

“…The data chip,” Aster said hesitantly, “the blue one, that’s what you’re after.”

“Your employer, Darius Avaritio, came to me some years ago to help finance a new facility on Loki,” Madam Jezebel explained, “in return, I would get favourable stock options. Later, I found out he was deliberately undervaluing the company’s stock and thereby cheating investors, including me.”

“So you planted someone inside J.E. Co. to steal ‘your’ share of its intellectual property for your own business ventures.” Aster concluded.

“Life is so much sweeter when someone else picks up the tab,” Madam Jezebel said philosophically, “and the returns are so much higher when someone else does the hard work of research and development.”

“Do you even care that hundreds of people are probably dead?”

“No, I do not.” Madam Jezebel replied with sociopathic honesty, “Toying around with xenotech in the hopes of inventing the next trendy widget is like dismantling a fusion bomb to make a drum set. I want no part of that, and those who do are welcome to the consequences. But I do want my share of that ill-conceived investment back.”

Oblivious to the tense exchange, seven year old Orion shuffled over to his grandmother and tugged on her sleeve. Grandma Jezebel looked at the tablet computer he was holding.

“No, sweetheart,” she said helpfully, pointing to the exercises he was doing on screen, “that’s meant to be the future-continuative conjugation. You ‘will be doing’ the verb.”

“Thank you, grandma.” Orion said with a smile, his father’s luminescent green eyes shimmering under the light. Then he returned to playing with his tablet.

“It’s so nice to have intelligent grandchildren.” Grandma Jezebel beamed, making it sound as though she were taking credit for how smart they had turned out.

“I’m sure their grandfather would be proud.” Aster quipped.

Madam Jezebel’s implacably superior composure cracked. It was difficult to describe the expression she now wore on her face, but it was definitely not a calm one.

“On their mother’s side, of course.” Aster added, satisfied that her barb had worked.

“Bring me the data-chip,” Madam Jezebel instructed her daughter-in-law imperiously, “and there won’t be any problems.”

“Understood.” Aster replied as she got up to leave, “time to go, sweethearts.”

Obediently, the children gathered up their things and lined up to say goodbye to their grandmother. Grandma Jezebel’s composure returned as she kissed her grandchildren goodbye, then she snapped her fingers at one of the servant androids.

“Summon a taxi for five.” She ordered the android.

“Thank you.” Aster said with a courteous smile.

It was the least her fleekster mother-in-law owed her.

Without getting up from her seat, Madam Jezebel waved goodbye to her grandchildren. When the door had shut behind them, her smile disappeared.

“Frontier bitch.” She muttered.

* * *

Gabriel forced the captured jumper’s hand against the biometric scanner, and the door to the medical bay opened. Viker secured the room whilst Gabriel strapped his captive down to an examination bed using the patient safety restraints. Meanwhile, with immense care, Cato and Bale laid the unconscious and badly wounded Doran down on a surgical table, and a suite of robotic medical arms descended automatically from the ceiling to assess him.

He was barely alive.

“The room’s sealed.” Viker told everyone, “We’re secure in here.”

Having tied down the prisoner, Gabriel came over to join the rest of the squad.

“Doran’s suit’s taken too much damage,” Cato explained gravely, “his shields and armour saved his internal organs from being crushed, but he’s out of this fight.”

“Will he live?” Bale asked.

“The nanobots in his bloodstream should stave off the worst of the damage,” Cato explained, “but the best we can do right now is stabilise him.”

The robotic medical arms paused in their work. The holographic patient monitoring screen displayed an error message: “obstruction detected”.

“It’s his armour,” Cato explained, “We need to remove it.”

“Well, let’s do it, then!” Viker demanded.

“Only the commanding officer can do that.” Cato elaborated, looking to Gabriel.

“Well, fricking hurry up and open it–” Viker began to shout frantically.

“STAND THE FLEEK DOWN!” Gabriel barked, the volume of his voice making the rest of the squad flinch with surprise.

The squad, including Viker, stepped back as Gabriel approached the surgical table and placed the palm of his gauntlet against the cheek-plate of Doran’s helmet, establishing a peer-to-peer connection between his own suit and Doran’s.

“Override: Lieutenant Doran, disassemble suit.” Gabriel instructed Doran’s suit computer, “Victory. Sovereign. One. Seven. Zero. Seven.”

The voice command was accepted and Doran’s suit began to unlock and disassemble, the pieces unfolding and retracting like a sentient jigsaw puzzle. Only his respirator remained secured to his face. Doran’s skin, visible through the under-suit, was a mess of fresh red bruising. His head looked unharmed, but lack of consciousness and a brush with death had turned his skin ghostly pale.

The error message disappeared and the robotic medical arms resumed their work, cutting open Doran’s under-suit with an incredibly fine circular blade, and subjecting his torso to a series of microinjections, targeting the areas of most serious injury with cocktails of drugs mixed into a solution of nanobots.

“It’ll take a while to stabilise him.” Cato explained, “But we can’t be certain if he’ll make it, we need to get him back to a proper DNI facility.”

“We still have a mission to fulfil.” Gabriel reminded everyone.

“Frick the mission!” Viker exclaimed, “Ogilvy’s missing and Doran’s close to dead. The mission parameters have changed!”

“The mission parameters change when I say they change.” Gabriel shot back, shutting Viker down without raising his voice.

“Respectfully sir, they HAVE changed.” Captain Bale pointed out, attempting to defuse the building tension, “We can’t rescue Ogilvy AND look after Doran without splitting up.”

“Then splitting up is exactly what we’ll do,” Gabriel replied with steel in his voice, “This is still an IRS op., which means we still have to investigate the nature of the xenotech being studied here and find out how J.E. Co. acquired it in the first place. If you would prefer to abandon the mission, so be it.”

“You want to go alone, sir?” Cato asked, his tone reflecting the squad’s incredulity.

“Going alone is the whole point of a voidstalker.” Gabriel replied coldly.

The squad was silent.

“Are we that much of a burden to you?” Viker asked, a note of anger creeping into his voice, “or did the DNI assign us to you as cannon fodder for this suicide mission?”

“If you were mere cannon fodder to me, I would have left Doran to die and Ogilvy to his fate.” Gabriel replied truthfully.

The squad was silent again.

“Tell me when Doran’s condition improves, and see what you can find in the computer systems,” Gabriel instructed the squad, “I need to have a word with our prisoner.”

“Computers are Doran’s field.” Bale said doubtfully.

“Then learn fast,” Gabriel ordered him, “we need as much intelligence as we can get, and right now the best place to find it is the computers.”

Gabriel turned away and headed over to the captive. Besides the skin-tight flight suit, the jumper’s entire head was contained inside a bulbous helmet with a reflective black visor. Its right arm had been cleanly severed at the elbow joint, and yet it made no attempt to struggle or break free. It didn’t even show any signs of being in pain.

Gabriel reached under the jumper’s helmet, feeling under the rim for a release switch. There was no switch that he could find, or any other means of removing the helmet, but he still needed to take off or cut through the jumper’s helmet to speak to him.

Before making a run for it, the jumper had retrieved his sword, giving Gabriel an idea. The sword’s sheath was actually a magnetic plate on a strap slung over the back of the jumper’s suit, strong enough to hold the sword in place, but weak enough to allow the wielder to draw the sword by simply pulling.

Drawing the sword and placing the tip on the ground, Gabriel found that it came up to his hip, with the handle alone accounting for a quarter of the length. At the base of the handle was a little switch, and Gabriel flicked it with his thumb, causing the blade to shimmer.

With immense care, Gabriel placed the blade under the jumper’s helmet, and pressed against the chin. The blade sliced cleanly through the material, giving off only a faint whining sound with no smoke and no signs of heat or plasma scouring. The sword was almost certainly based on xenotechnology; in fact, it might even be an actual piece of xenotech. Once Gabriel had sliced clean through the jumper’s helmet, he discarded the faceplate on the ground.

What he saw underneath disgusted him.

The jumper’s androgynous face bore the marks of extensive cybernetic modification to the point that ‘he’ was barely recognisable as Human. His skin was a normal colour, but there were glowing signs of circuitry just visible underneath. His cybernetic eyes turned to regard Gabriel, and the corners of his lips curled into a grotesque smile.

“You took off my arm.” The jumper rasped in an electronically enhanced voice.

“You took off my combat claws.” Gabriel replied through his helmet speakers.

“And now you want to know the truth about this place.” The jumper surmised with a leering grin, “Otherwise you would have killed me on the spot.”

“How long has this facility been experimenting with xenotechnology?” Gabriel asked, deactivating the sword and laying it to one side.

“Five years.” The prisoner replied.

“How long has J.E. Co. been smuggling xenotech and from where?” Gabriel asked.

“They didn’t smuggle anything in,” the prisoner answered, “it was already here.”

“What does that mean?” Gabriel asked with narrowed eyes.

“It means exactly that,” the prisoner explained, “the Temple was already here. This facility was built specifically to learn its secrets.”

“What is the temple?”

The prisoner’s eyes lit up, literally. A blue glow from inside his pupils illuminated the circuitry inside his bionic eyes.

“You have to see it for yourselves.”

“I asked you a question,” Gabriel warned, drawing his knife, “What is the temple?”

“No amount of pain will cause me to give you a different answer,” the prisoner replied, “Besides, I am volunteering all of this information to you.”

“I’ll ask you one last time.” Said Gabriel menacingly, flicking the hilt-switch to flash-heat the blade of his knife, “what is the nature of the temple?”

“It is far beyond the ability of mere Humans to comprehend, even I am not worthy to be enlightened with most of its secrets,” the prisoner replied, unmoved by Gabriel’s threats, “but it is alien in origin. You have to see it for yourselves to appreciate its glory.”

The prisoner's words and expression were filled with sincere awe. This was not a rational POW resisting interrogation, this was a fanatic who did not care to save himself and practically dared Gabriel to venture into the ‘temple’.

“Why has there been so little resistance?” Gabriel continued his interrogation.

“Has the challenge been insufficient to satiate your lust for battle?” the prisoner asked.

Gabriel’s already thin patience wore out, and he decided to test just how indifferent to physical agony the captive really was.

He took the prisoner’s remaining hand – pausing briefly to note how baby-sized it was – then he pressed the flash-heated blade of his knife against the wrist, slicing clean through the flesh and cauterising the wound in one go. The prisoner inhaled calmly then exhaled with relief, as though he were relaxing in a hot-tub instead of having his hand amputated.

“Pain sensation has been dulled to the point of triviality,” the prisoner explained with a grotesque smile on his face, “the flesh’s loss is the spirit’s gain. It is of no consequence to those of us who have been enlightened.”

Gabriel had performed countless field interrogations on subjects who resisted the pain as best they could before finally breaking. But he had never encountered a subject who seemed to actually enjoy it, let alone someone who calmly spouted pseudo-spiritualist nonsense to explain why they didn’t mind the pain.

“You’ve been trying to lure us deeper into this place ever since we arrived.” Gabriel pressed, deactivating his combat knife and returning it to its sheath, “I want to know why.”

“I have already given you the answer to your question, DNI,” the prisoner responded, “We want you to see the glory of the Temple for yourselves.”

“Where is the entrance to the ‘temple’?” Gabriel asked.

“At the far end of the laboratories you will find an elevator that will take you down to the Temple entrance.” the prisoner replied obligingly, “the access code is 52133. No need to take my hand for biometric clearance.”

The prisoner’s imperviousness to torture meant that he didn’t have to give away anything. He was volunteering this information – whether freely or as part of a larger plan – to goad Gabriel into leading his squad into an obvious trap. Worst of all, Gabriel had no choice but to take the bait being offered because the mission objective was inside the trap.

Furthermore, given what they now knew about this enemy, Ogilvy was almost certainly dead or worse. The squad had been banking on his armour to keep him alive and safe, but their crazed enemy had technology that could cut through even the toughest materials. Judging by the enhancements given to the mobility platform pilot and the jumpers, it was almost certain that something similar had been done to Ogilvy.

In any case, the prisoner was of no further use.

“Now that you have no further use for me,” the prisoner said, pre-empting Gabriel’s thoughts, “you probably plan to kill me.”

“Do you fear death?” Gabriel asked with an undertone of menace.

“No,” the prisoner answered confidently, “at worst, I will be brought back with steel to replace the flesh you cut away, and at best, I will leave this material world completely.”

Gabriel drew his gun.

“No need for that.” the prisoner said.

Suddenly, his head snapped back violently and the cybernetic light in his eyes faded to black as he passed away. The prisoner lay limp and lifeless in his restraints, like a partially amputated crash dummy.

Gabriel didn’t trust this enemy to stay dead; he set his weapon to a low-powered single shot and fired, aiming between the chin and the Adam’s apple. The bullet travelled through the roof of the mouth and into the deceased target’s brain, spattering the back wall with blood, brain matter, and bits of neurocircuitry.

Gabriel returned to the squad.

“We have good news and strange news,” Bale told Gabriel as he approached.

“Same here,” Gabriel replied, “you first.”

“The good news is that there’s a way to get Doran out of here without backtracking all the way back to the loading bay.” Cato said, tapping a few keys on an interface panel.

An entire section of the wall opened up, revealing an entry point into an automated cargo conveyor system, complete with empty storage boxes for transporting medical samples and equipment. There was even an unused casket for transporting corpses.

“This entire facility is serviced by an automated logistical transport system,” Cato explained, “supplies are brought in, and packages are sent out. That automated freight hauler we encountered earlier is part of the same system.”

“So if we put Doran in one of these caskets, we can send him to safety?” Gabriel asked.

“Exactly,” Cato answered, “I can adjust the life support systems in his suit for the trip. His transponder should also make sure the DNI picks him up.”

“Good, get ready to move him.” Gabriel ordered.

Cato nodded and started preparing Doran for medical transport.

“What about the strange news?” Gabriel asked.

“I searched through the computers and…” Bale ventured to explain, “…found spyware; sophisticated spyware, too, embedded in a hidden boot file called ‘Dani’.”

“I guess Doran was right.” Gabriel replied, “Still, it’s not that surprising; corporate espionage in the tech sector is common enough.”

“That’s not all,” Bale continued, “the timestamps date back nearly five years.”

“A mole in deep cover for five years?” Gabriel said, “Now that is impressive.”

“I thought we’d just ruled out the presence of a mole?” Viker asked.

“The research labs run on an airtight computer system,” Bale explained, “Like I said earlier, someone with access to the labs had to have personally installed the spyware.”

“That doesn’t mean there was an agent here for five whole years,” Viker responded sceptically, “Someone could have planted the spyware and left it to transmit on its own.”

“An airtight computer network, by definition, is totally disconnected from any other network,” Gabriel pointed out, “it couldn’t have transmitted anything.”

“In which case,” Bale continued, “the mole would have had to periodically download the spyware’s latest observations, then smuggle the data out somehow.”

“The automated logistics system can take cargo to and from the landing pad without anyone having to physically inspect it.” Cato suggested, still preparing Doran for transport.

“Which means that the mole must have known how to use the logistics network.” Gabriel concluded, “Any clues on who the mole was?”

“The spyware would never reveal the identity of the person who planted it,” Bale replied.

“Anybody on the staff roster who looks suspicious?” Gabriel suggested, “Someone with a name that includes ‘Dani’ in it, maybe?”

“There’s three Daniels, one Danielle, and a Dr Penelope Daniels.” Bale answered as he searched through the records, “Other than that, nobody.”

“What about ‘Lawrence Kane’?” Viker asked.

The squad turned around to see Viker examining a set of hatches on the wall. They were mortuary alcoves for storing corpses; only one of them had a name.

“‘Dr Lawrence Kane’.” Bale read from the staff roster, “‘Project Liaison Officer from Jupiter Engineering Co.’s headquarters in Asgard City’. Every time he visited this facility, he made at least one trip to the medical bay for some kind of blood disorder. The records say he had to send regular blood samples back to some lab on Asgard.”

“And probably slipped a data chip full of stolen research into the blood samples.” Cato speculated, “Then used the facility’s own system to smuggle the samples out.”

“Do we know what happened to Dr Kane?” Gabriel asked.

“It just says ‘status: deceased’.” Bale answered inconclusively, “No information on how or when. Is he even in there?”

Viker pulled open the mortuary hatch and the tray extended automatically, releasing a cloud of refrigerated vapour into the air.

Sure enough, there was a body inside. It was a man’s corpse, with skin that was a pale shade of blue. He was still wearing clothing, and he had a holographic ID tag still attached to his chest. Viker tapped the ID tag and it lit up with a name: ‘Dr Lawrence Kane’.

“Mystery solved.” Said Viker, pushing the tray back in and shutting the hatch, “Partly.”

“So, what did you get out of the prisoner?” Bale asked, changing the subject.

“The elevator down to the ‘temple’ is at the other end of the facility, and the access code is 52133.” Gabriel replied, “no biometric lock, apparently.”

“He gave it up just like that?” Viker asked incredulously.

“I sliced his hand clean off and he practically orgasmed as a result.” Gabriel answered, “He wanted us to go down there.”

“Doran’s ready,” Cato announced, “and his suit has a week’s worth of oxygen.”

The empty casket was brought out by the conveyor system and elevated to the right position, and Doran – his suit now reassembled – was carefully placed inside. Once the casket was sealed, internal padding filled with special memory gel expanded to fill the leftover space to minimise shocks to the valuable cargo.

Cato then used the system to file an off-world transport request for the package. Once approved by the system, the sealed casket was plucked from its stand by a set of robotic arms and taken inside where it disappeared into the guts of the logistics network.

“Which would look worse on our reports,” Cato wondered as the wall panel resealed itself, “putting Doran in a coffin to save his life, or losing him in the mail?”

Bale and Viker chuckled, and even Gabriel couldn’t help but crack a smile, until he remembered to deauthorise Doran’s ID from the squad’s comm. system.

“We still have a mission to complete,” Gabriel reminded the squad, “let’s move out!”

“The ‘Dani’ spyware copied and stored virtually every single file on the system,” said Bale, “including a map of this ‘temple’. So we won’t get lost in the lion’s den.”

“Do we even know what this ‘temple’ is?” Cato asked.

“We’ll find out once we get there.” Gabriel replied.

“You might want to take that thing’s sword, just in case.” Viker recommended, “Masterminds know what other fricking monsters they have waiting for us.”

Gabriel nodded, and walked back over to the semi-Human corpse he had been interrogating. He took the magnetic plate that stored the jumper’s sword and slung it over his own shoulder, the strap tightening of its own accord. Then he retrieved the jumper’s sword, checked that the cutting field was switched off, and returned it to the magnetic sheath.

Perhaps Viker’s earlier outburst was right, and Red-eye really had assigned him a squad of operators for cannon fodder. With no backup and no way of contacting the DNI for support, their odds of survival weren’t exceptional.

And Viker’s use of the phrase ‘suicide mission’ was more accurate than he knew.