Nanotroopers Episode 3: Deeno and Mighty Mite
and UNIFORCE didn't want things to blow up…not just yet, anyway.
The job would have to be black and quick. And UNSAC would have to be kept in the dark about the whole affair.
Winger and Sergeant Gibbs would be nominally in the driver's seat, controlling aspects of swarm operation, while Deeno D’Nunzio ran the intel side, studying the 'take' and directing where to go next. The biggest question now was: what kind of nanomech defenses did Lions Rock have this time? Could ANAD breach them or slip through? They'd soon find out.
The final briefing was done on the liftjet's flight up to Shih Ho Mountain. Lions Rock itself was an ancient Han Dynasty castle, a gabled and turreted monstrosity perched on a sheer rock precipice overlooking the walled maze of old Kowloon City. With a swooping roof of glazed tile, the castle perched on its ledge like a bird of prey, built on and into the mountain. Two hundred meters below, the city of walls and dark alleys seethed with noise and life, oblivious to the winged shadows above.
"What about defenses, Lieutenant?" Corporal Colleen Barnes--'Mighty Mite' to the rest of ANAD Detachment--interjected a question. "Scavengers, sentries, lookouts…any current intel on the environment?" Barnes would be SDC2 for the operation.
"Intel's sparse," Deeno admitted. "Defender mechs are circulating throughout the neighborhood--we know that much from their heat signature. Pretty much like the guard dog leukocytes UNIFORCE uses in its biowar nets. Same capabilities…they can grind an intruder to pulp in less than a minute. Beyond that, no specific threats known."
"Which means we keep ANAD's eyes and sensors open all the time," Winger said.
"How long have we got?" Gibby asked. He would be IC2 for the operation, backstopping Winger himself on ANAD's interface controls.
"Maybe an hour. Not long enough. We've got our work cut out for us. CINCQUANT wants us out before a fight develops. We're just going in to look around."
"And pick their pockets," Gibby added.
"Piece of cake," said Mighty Mite. The rest of the Detachment chimed in their agreement. They were a tight unit, 1st Nano, and Winger wanted to keep it that way.
"Let's review the basic plan," Winger said. He took a quick peek at the outside video. The lifter had circled north of the harbor and was descending now, lights out, coming about for a covert veetol approach from the mainland. Ahead, Hong Kong harbor shone through light haze like a dazzling necklace of light, draped over the darkened shoulders and humps of the limestone cliffs.
Winger had SOFIE, the tactical AI, put up a timeline on everybody's crewnet eyepiece. "We'll do an airborne launch, after we sanitize the area, and then put the lifter down on top of the mountain."
"Full 'D', Lieutenant?" asked Sheila Reaves.
Winger nodded. "We're at Threat Con Red now. Full-D is authorized. Superfly, decoys, the works."
"Got it." Reaves made a few notes. Full-D was Detachment slang for maximum countermeasures suite--the whole ballgame: HERF radio-frequency guns, mag weapons, coil-gun bots with full rounds, plus their usual mission gear. Superfly would help too…it was damned hard to do anything now without the micro-entomopters sending back imagery from beyond the front lines. Reaves made a mental note to check out the camou-fog generator. The nanomech dispenser hadn't worked right in the last sim and 1st Nano had taken casualties meeting its objectives. The Lieutenant had taken a sizeable chunk out of her ass for that.
Winger stepped through the mission timeline, moment by moment. "We'll be at the objective at 0100 hours local time. I've already had SOFIE download schematics to the crewnet. You can access any time after the briefing. Buddha, you have the latest on defenses?"
Corporal An Nguyen pressed a key on his wristpad. Instantly, everyone's eyepiece was filled with details. "This place is a fortress." He called up a layout of the complex and SOFIE ported it to all eyepiece viewers. "Red Hammer's got their own form of Superfly, just hordes of little micro-air vehicles buzzing around the mountain and streets below, sniffing out unwelcome visitors like us. And that's just the first layer. Tactically, as Lieutenant Winger has already indicated, our best approach is from above, down the northeast face of Shih Ho Mountain--" he let SOFIE highlight a path toward the top of the escarpment.
"After ANAD's launched, we'll do a minimum rep…just enough to give us some mass. When Mighty Mite has the landing zone cleared, we fastcable down to the top of Shih Ho and secure a perimeter for our little camp there."
"Hypersuits?" asked Deeno D’Nunzio.
"Vests and helmets only. We need speed and flexibility. We'll use camou-fog, let ANAD set up a screen to keep the 'flies' and mechs away. With luck, the camou will make us look like part of the mountain."
"I wonder how long that'll last?" Reaves muttered.
"Till you feel about a trillion mouths chewing on your ass, girl," said Mighty Mite Barnes.
They all leaned over as the lifter pilot swung them sharply toward the black hulk of Shih Ho Mountain. Ahead, in the video, Winger could see the dim outlines of the castle, crouching like a black vulture on top of the rock.
"Here's what we're going to do," Winger told them. He tapped buttons on his wristpad. Instantly, the crewnet beeped and dragged down a tactical map of Lions Rock and the top of the mountain, flashing with symbols in everybody's eyepiece. "See the cursor? I've put it on a service entrance…halfway down the front face. That's our way in. DPS?"
Reaves was scanning the crewbay's sensor bank. "I'm on it, sir. Just as expected…flies and mechs all over the place. Camou-fog generator already enabled. They're swarming…not random, and I'm getting EM pulses…they know someone's here…just not exactly where yet." She looked up. "We're good to go anytime, Lieutenant."
"We'll have company pretty soon if we don't move out. Okay…same assault plan we simmed. Sergeant Gibbs, launch ANAD. Minimum rep. I want a perimeter guard around the unit while we get our gear set up on top of the mountain."
"Launching ANAD." Gibby was already setting up the interface controls. There was a subtle whoosh from the tubes, as the tiny swarm discharged into the air over the mountaintop. "What kind of config, sir?"
"Full engagement. The works."
The fastcabling ingress came off without incident. Even as the lifter settled onto the rocky escarpment beside them, 1st Nano was already setting out their gear, sighting in their weapons, dragging equipment to cover positions, while the faint keening hum of the camou-fog mechs swarmed less than ten meters overhead. Even from the lifter cockpit, the outlines of the recon camp were only faintly visible, shimmering in a dark washed-out smear of light, blending in more and more with the shadowy crags and recesses of the mountaintop.
Below the cloak, the Detachment grimly set to work.
Ingress of the main swarm at the service entrance took less than a minute. Probing ahead for ANAD, Reaves and Nguyen ran a horde of Superflies down the mountainside for a last minute recon. Once the coast was clear, Gibby went to work, forming up the assembler group for quick and covert entrance through the door seals.
"No sign of any mechs," he muttered, as Winger hovered over his shoulders. "DPS must have given them something to chase." Seconds later, the first imagery fluttered into coherence on the viewer. Winger took a feed for his own eyepiece; he wanted to be able to move about the encampment as the situation dictated. "Seals are intact…just plain old garden variety polymer stuff. Big daddy molecules. I can squeeze through in a heartbeat, Lieutenant."
"Do it," Winger commanded. He swallowed hard, knowing full well they were in serious Indian country now.
Gibby did it. The assembler swarm dispersed and passed through the door seals like a faint breeze. Odd, he thought, that Red Hammer wouldn't secure such an entrance with a mech barrier of some kind. Maybe they aren't expecting company from this side. In less than five minutes, the entire formation was inside.
Winger checked his nanotroops' deployment all around him. Reaves and Nguyen were manning the HERF and mag
guns, positioned at the perimeter of the camou field, ready to fry anything that popped up. Gibby was at the IC panel, piloting elements of the ANAD horde. Mighty Mite and Deeno were managing the camou generator itself. They needed the cover to last long enough to grab a few mechs inside Lions Rock and get some quick intelligence on Red Hammer operations.
"We're in," Gibby exulted. "Forming up visual lens--"
Winger let his eyepiece highlight the path ahead. Hundreds of meters below them, a portion of the ANAD swarm formed itself into a rudimentary lens, snagging stray photons and other EM from the cave, fashioning a crude, sparkly sort of image. Winger studied the view, overlaid with SOFIE's schematic, trying to make some sense of where they were.
SOFIE laid in a red dotted line. Winger agreed. "That way, Gibby…move out! Squad order!"
The formation of autonomous nanoscale assemblers eased forward through darkened chambers, sliding past air molecules big as beach balls, pushed by picowatt propulsors, down and further down a spiraling path into the mountain.
In seconds, they came to a stone staircase hewn out of the rock walls.
"Main ingress route, looks like," Gibby muttered. He was monitoring ANAD status from his wristpad, ready to toggle to a new config at a moment's notice.
"Same as the schematic…" Winger said. "SOFIE's right on target, so far."
According to the