Chapter 136 The Drop

Chapter 136 The Drop
The Command Hub was silent, save for the rhythmic beep of the life-support monitor attached to Valerius’s comatose body. The former Commander floated in the center of the room, tethered to his chair like a derelict satellite.

Our station control... is... ours... announced Vane, turning his head in the zero-gravity seat. He was like a child in a candy shop, only that the candy shop was a weapons platform that had the power to flatten a continent. I have barred the internal bulkheads. The rest of the Purist crew are stuck in the Habitation Ring. They can't get to us."

Good, Ryker said, and took off the wall to drift towards the weapons console. "Keep them locked down. We aren't here to occupy. We're here to shop."

He turned to the team. We were sun tired and bruised and battered, we floated along in the sterile white light of the Hub.

"We have a window," Ryker said. The dead-man switch that Valerius has been using to keep the station steady is working, but in the long run, the automated systems will be able to detect that he is brain-dead. Before the AI decides to wipe out the bridge we should be out of the way.

"What are we taking?" Baron grunted, and attempted to invert himself. Ozone and plastic are the smells around this place. There is no meat here."

"Everything," Ryker said. "Sato, I want the data. All the files on the Rot, all the experiments, All the unsuccessful cures. Copy the whole database.

Sato typed on a floating holographic keyboard: already running. I am also scrubbing the ICS Clean Slate procedures. I am eliminating the targeting algorithms. As we go, this station will only be a very costly flashlight.

"Vane," Ryker continued. "Find the armory. We must have weapons that will harm Berserkers. Plasma rifles. Gravity hammers. Shield generators."

"And a ride," Vane added. The elevator Ascender is slow. By removing it we shall leave the Purists at Station Zero to ambush us at the bottom.

We do not go on the elevator, Ryker said, indicating a schematic on the main screen.

HANGAR BAY 4: DROP-Ship Heavy.

"We're taking a Valkyrie."

The Looting

We moved fast.

The Aether contained treasure trove of lost technology. I was enraged to see what they had been storing and we were starving.

Anti-grav crates, regenerator units, and crates of synthetic antibiotics were filled in the Medical Bay by Sato and me.

Sato took a vial of clear blue liquid and held it up. "Nano-suppressants. This will not be a medicine to the Rot, Elara. It's a vaccine. It prevents the attachment of the infection to human DNA.

Had they not lost the Spire, I said to myself, with a storm of indignation. "They could have saved Gareth."

They did not wish to save him, said Sato, and he packed the vial into his pocket. They wanted to know what he would grow up to be.

We forced the floating crates along the passage to the Hangar.

Vane and Ryker had in the meantime made a raid on the Armory. They had the appearance of futuristic pack mules. Ryker carried two plasma rifles and a bandolier of gravity grenades on his back and carried a crate of energy cells floating behind dangling on a tether.

Baron had discovered a better thing.

He drifted out of the mess hall, with a vacuum-packed steak in his mouth.

It is not fresh," Baron mumbled round a mouthful. "But it is beef. Actual beef. Not rat. Not grey bread."

"Pack it up," Ryker ordered. "All of it. When it is eatable it goes on the ship.

We converged at Hangar Bay 4.

The blast doors were closed, but Vane hacked through them via his datapad.

HISSS-CLUNK.

The doors slid open.

Inside sat the Valkyrie.

It was a beast of a ship. Angular Matte black, rotating VTOL engines on the wings. It was as though a predatory bird squatting on the deck. It was heavily armored and meant to be able to drop in battle zones of hostilities.

That is a sexy ride, now that, Vane thought and whistled.

"Check the fuel," Ryker ordered. "Load the crates. We leave in ten."

The Descent

We buckled on the crash seats of the Valkyrie. It was an utilitarian interior of steel, grey and bare, with the wiring in naked view and the gun racks naked. It was tainted with oil and promise.

It was a pre-flight check that is complete, replied Vane, in the cockpit. "Reactor is green. Shields are at 100%. And I found the playlist."

Thumping, heavy, rhythmic bass started beating the speakers of the ship.

"Music?" Ryker enquired, and drawing up his eyebrows as he belched his harness.

Combat drop rules boss, said Vane. Won't save the world in hushpuppies.

The station AI said, "Hangar bay depressurizing, please."

The huge outer doors of the Aether were opened.

The earth turned round below us, and made no noise. It looked huge and fragile.

"Drop in three... two... one..."

Vane cut the mag-locks.

The Valkyrie dropped down the station.

During a few seconds we were in free fall. Then, Vane jettisoned the main-thrusters.

BOOM.

We had been thrown violently into our seats. The ship shot off into the atmosphere, in pursuit with fire.

"Entering re-entry interface!" Vane yelled over the roar. "It's gonna get hot!"

Beyond the portals, space was transformed to the orange plasma burning in the black. There was a terrible shaking of the ship.

"Shields holding!" Sato shouted, checking the engineering desk.

We crashed through the ionosphere. The red clouds of the under world were seen to replace the orange fire.

Vane, "Targeting Station Zero," said. "ETA: Two minutes."

What do you think on the ground? Ryker asked.

Vane called up the tactical feed.

"Not good. Jaxon is pinned down. The Immortals have broken the dike in Sector B. They are forcing the refugees to the airlock.

They are flushing them, Ryker said, and growled. The instructions of Valerius must have been to purge the station in case Command went dead.

Then we light it, boys, said Baron, and charge it into them with as much of a heavy plasma gun as I have got hold of.

The Arrival

On the horizon in the dark mountains was station zero, a white point.

We landed low and fast across the glacier screaming at Mach 2.

"Vane, hot drop!" Ryker ordered. "Open the rear ramp!"

"We're doing 400 knots!" Vane shouted.

"Do it!"

The rear ramp hissed open. The cargo bay was roaring with the wind, which was cold and loud.

The courtyard of Station Zero was a battle yard below us. The refugees were crowded together behind upside down crates. Silver-armored Immortals were making progress with their bursts of energy weapons.

"Baron! With me!" Ryker yelled.

He stood up. He didn't have a parachute. He possessed the Grav-Chute--a Purist gadget which we had stolen.

Ryker and Baron ran to the head of the ramp.

They jumped.

A thousand feet they crashed like stones. Their chutes burst then, fifty feet up in the air, and the blue pulses of antigravity checked them immediately.

THUD.

They fell smack in the middle between the Immortals and the refugees.

Ryker didn't hesitate. He lifted the confiscated Plasma Rifle.

PEW-PEW-PEW.

Flashing flashes of human power ripped the lines of Immortals. The mercury armor which had been resistant to our old firearms fused like wax in the heat of the high-tech fire.

"Reinforcements!" Jaxon screamed, and caught sight of Ryker landing. "The King is back!"

"Push them back!" Ryker shouted, and threw the rifle aside that was growing hot, and reached his Star-Metal sword.

Baron landed beside him. He fired the heavy cannon.

BOOM.

The shot struck a square in the Immortal in the chest and vaporized him.

The Valkyrie flew around overhead. Vane cocked the nose gun of the ship.

BRRRRRRT.

An explosive volley eated through the pavement and caused the Immortals to fly.

"Landing sequence!" Vane yelled.

The Valkyrie was hovering, its propellers churning a snow and debris blizzard. It landed in the middle of the plaza, and trampled a Purist turret down with its landing gear.

The ramp lowered fully.

"Get on the ship!" I screamed and ran through the ramp. "Everyone! Move!"

The refugees did not have to be informed twice. They dashed out of cover, and ran towards the black ship.

"Cover fire!" Ryker ordered.

He held his ground, and avoided plasma bolts with his sword, a vortex of flame and steel cutting through him.

The Immortals knew that they were outmatched. Their Commander was gone. Their position was infiltrated. And now a war-ship was coming on their lawn.

They faltered.

"They're retreating!" Jaxon yelled.

"Let them go!" Ryker shouted. "We have what we came for!"

The final refugee was scrambling on to the Valkyrie.

Ryker and Baron supported the ramp, and fired till the door started closing.

"Vane! Get us out of here!" Ryker commanded.

The Valkyrie roared. We took off and Station Zero was left behind.

We were not making a run away this time. We were departing with a cargo hold that was brimming with food, medicine and weapons. We were going on a vessel capable of crossing the continent in hours.

And up into the clouds we flew safe.

Ryker went across the cargo area. He surveyed the cartons of stores. He stared at the refugees who were gazing at the interior of the spaceship with awe.

He sank into one of the seats beside me.

We did it, he mumbled, sweeping his forehead.

A fleet now we have, I said, smiling wearily. Fleet: a ship is a fleet, or something.

"It's a start," Ryker said.

He took out a data drive, which Sato had given him--the one in his pocket. The cure. The history. The truth.

"We have the tools," Ryker said. And now we only want somewhere to spend them.

"Where?" I asked. "The Spire is gone. The North is Karn's."

Ryker examined the electronic map on the bulkhead. He indicated a place on the East. A location considered as being contaminated and viable according to the Purist charts.

"The Old Capital," Ryker said. "The Iron City."

"That's a ruin," Baron grunted. "A ghost town."

It is a fortress, my dear Ryker corrected. And it is large enough that we all can fit.

He looked at the team.

"We take the city. We build a new home. And then... we recover the world.