MagTech Suit Up

Moon Over Jupiter

  TOC

  The clock was ticking on the mission, they had destroyed two of the three enemy bases in the Mars Region and soon someone would want to check out why they were not responding to communications. They had to take out the other base before that happened. The last base was on Mars an abandoned manufacturing facility. It was a large facility with its own spaceport and several domes. As they set course for the planet they started laying out the plan. They also took the time to eat, they had been expending a lot of energy and needed to recharge. The teams were all grouped around in the common area of the ship, talking, eating and decompressing before they started another battle. They had come together as a unit and the forge of battle had made them strong. They would only get better at it from this point on. Training could only give them so much they needed this experience to show them how much they could do as a team. Jully and Derick were getting a lot of experience as well. The team had not planned on going to so many bases when they launched from Earth, the Javelins were brought along just as a precaution, but now they had used them on the different attacks and they were going to use them again.

  The leadership was grouped around one of the tables in the common area of the ship. They were looking at the surveillance images of the next base. Well, Michael said, I think it is safe to say we are functioning very well as a unit and that robot tactics are proving themselves very well today. “Yeah, so far we have kept the enemy completely off balance during our attacks. By the time they figure out where the attack is coming from it is too late, they are already receiving fire from an overwhelming force.”, the Team Commander said. As expected, our tactics seem to be working, I think we should do the same thing with this next base, David said.

  The only problem is they are so spread out on this base that it will be hard to get them to group together, Megan said. Yeah, we may have to do the same thing we did at the beginning of the Titan battle, and drop robots in on these small groups and take them out before we hit the main group over here, Michael said, pointing out the targets on the live surveillance images. Where will we stage from, the Bravo Squad Leader asked? I am thinking we will land with the Javelins over here and launch the initial attack as soon as we land, then make our way into the main dome and finish off the main group, the Team Commander said, pointing out an area just outside the main Dome. “Yeah, we can designate the targets now and when we touch down I will execute the first wave. Then when we are in position we can hit them with the main force”, David said.

  They would land and Bravo Squad would setup a defensive perimeter around the landing zone. The rest of the team would execute the first wave and then they would advance on the main dome. The beauty of the system was that each team member could setup there attack for the target they were responsible for, and then turn over the execution command to the designated mission commander. Their interface would launch the preprogramed attack as soon as the execute command was given. The individual team member would coordinate the attack on the targets that they were responsible for and make adjustments where needed, to achieve the task assigned to them. It allowed for a perfectly synchronized attack including a liberal use of explosives and other diversionary tactics. The combination of which had proven so effective again and again.

  They also decided to put land mines and booby-traps all the way around the main group and in the corridors between the domes. Just in case some of the main group tried to investigate the noise from the phase one attack. They didn’t think they would, since they also planned a large explosion right in the middle of the largest cluster of troops in the main group. They would be so confused from that, they may not even notice the other noise. Then they would have robots drop in on the other side of the dome and start firing in on the main group. The teams would enter the Dome from the LZ side and mop up the remainder of the enemy. The RT team was all about shock and awe, by the time the enemy knew they were in a fight they had already lost it. That was the essence of their success.

  The term shock and awe had been used quite a lot throughout the history of warfare, sometimes it was not as awe inspiring as the generals and battle planners had hoped. This method of warfare however, was the epitome of the term, to be able to materialize troops that were completely cloaked anywhere on the battlefield with absolutely no advanced warning was a spectacular leap forward. Add to that the ability to deploy obstacles and anti-personnel devices that were also cloaked anywhere on the battlefield as well, improved the overall efficiency of the system. The icing on the cake was the fact that all of it could be staged ahead of time and deployed as needed, and synchronized to a fraction of a second.

  It was no wonder they had such an advantage over the enemy. They had perfected the interface while battling that same enemy, in a battle of overwhelming odds stacked against them, they developed new ways to use the technology. Then they had been able to incorporate lessons learned as they went along, and then even more so later with input from experts. It helped that all the right people came together at the right time, to help mold the system into what it became. David’s initial inspiration awaked the possibilities that others were able to build on as they watched the prototype unfold. The end result was a combination of the knowledge of seasoned veterans, and knowledgeable developers coming together to make intuitive leaps that advanced the technology and improved the tactics employed to use it to its fullest potential.

  Once they neared the planet the Ship took up a position above the Dome in the orbit of Mars and they launched the Javelins, the Ship targeted all the cloaked ships in the area and jammed communications around the Domes and on the ships. The teams touched down on the designated landing zone. Within a few minutes the first robots were dropping in to start phase one. It was almost unfair the advantage that each squad member of Red Team had over the enemy. With up to twenty robots at their command each with all the powers of one Gamma Agent, and designed with far better shields and the ability to see through the cloaking the Gamma Agents would try to use, it was almost like shooting fish in a barrow. One would almost take pity on them if they had not been using similar tactics on innocent civilians and those that did not have telekinetic powers for years. Let alone what they had done to people that had just discovered their gifts and suddenly were under attack from a fully trained Gamma Agent. It really put their mission into perspective.

  Shortly after touchdown Bravo Squad deployed and setup the perimeter. Once the perimeter was secure, phase one started. A distraction bomb would go off in the middle of each small group of the enemy, and robots would drop in and start firing on the group, in teams of five or ten depending on the size of the group. Since the enemy had no idea they were under attack until the bomb went off they did not have shields raised. Therefore, the bomb and all the shrapnel would do significant damage to them and leave them dazed while the robots started firing on them. Also because the attack was setup to happen at the same time there was no worries of targets being alerted by the other attacks.

  Phase one went off as planned, all of the small groups that were not in the main dome were taken out. A split second later a large bomb went off in the middle of a large group in the main dome. Judging from the surveillance it must have been their command center. Those that survived were milling about trying to figure out what happened. Eight distraction bombs went off on the far side of the dome in the midst of the group and eight robot teams of ten dropped in and started firing on the remaining troops. Some turned and tried to fight others scrambled for cover, others tried to run away from the source of the first bomb, and ended up in the minefields. The attack achieved its goal to create chaos and mask the arrival of the true attack force.

  Two other teams of robots were in the dome, they were guarding the airlock that the attack team was coming into the dome through. Their distraction bombs had been augmented by three larger explosive charges on that side of the kill zone, so no one was trying to go that way. The team breached
the air lock and entered the dome. Alpha Squad and Red One deployed to their designated locations, when they were setup they started taking out the remainder of the enemy troops. Within a few minutes it was over. They started sweeping the base for intel, and dispatching any enemy survivors, there were none so they made sure they could not be read and got ready to move out. Just as the teams were boarding the Javelins to return to the ship, Ship took out the ships in the spaceport and the one that was in orbit. The authorities were just starting to close in on the broken pieces of the ship in orbit as Ship was leaving Mars orbit and heading for Jupiter, they still had one more base to take out before they returned to the one on Earth.

  With the command center and the reactor destroyed the authorities would not find anything to tell them what had happened to the ship. Of course Ship had downloaded all the intel from the ships before it destroyed them. It was troubling to say the least, all of these bases were staging areas for an attack planned for the defense grid of Earth. Even more troubling there didn’t seem to be an objective beyond destroying several bases. An attack like that would not do anything but draw the Earth defenses to fill the void and keep the grid intact. That being said it must be a diversion from the Gamma Faction’s true target. Ship knew there was no more intel to be gained from the Jupiter base. It was hoping by destroying their attack force it would force the enemy to reveal their true target. It was playing a game of chess with a dangerously formidable adversary.

  The attack on Saturn Region was a bold opening move, one that they had not expected Delta Faction and the Planetary Alliance to be able to counter so effectively. In truth they would not have been able to change the outcome of that plan, if not for David and his friends. Ship was more sure than ever that David was the threat that Gamma Faction had feared, enough so that they were willing to destroy an entire region just to stop it. If it wasn’t for the pre-cog powers of Grand Master Godfrey they would not have known to go looking for him. The part of Ship that was Master Godfrey was having trouble seeing the enemies next move, he was sure that the landscape of the future was changing too quickly to be sure of anything, everything was in a state of flux due to David’s influence on present events.

  It is impossible to read what will happen with David, so many threads converge on him but around him it is a blur. His friends and family are intertwined with him and are equally blurry. The only good thing is that Gamma Faction’s pre-cogs must be having an even harder time reading the signs, because unlike us they are not entwined in the friend circle of his life. Just as all we see when we look to them and the Masters of the Gamma Faction is the darkness that entwines them, they must only see the light that entwines him and those closest to him. Luckily that also includes us so they are not aware of our involvement. They must sense a familiar presence but it will not make sense to them because they think we are dead.

  In this, it is our greatest weapon against them. If they could see him or us they would do everything in their power to destroy him and us. Even now I can feel them slithering around the edges of the light trying to breakthrough and find the source of the threat. There is a darkness there, cold and ancient, only when the first Gamma Factionists broke away from us did I feel that darkness, it has grown stronger since then. Ship was pulled away from its inner thoughts as it approached the Jupiter Region. One of the sleeper cells in the Mars Region was trying to contact the base they had just destroyed on the planet, they were concerned since the news of a unidentified ship being destroyed in orbit was starting to spread. They had not raised an alarm yet but they would start getting suspicious soon. Time was running out, they needed to act fast.

  The team had to take out the Jupiter base before that happened. The base was on the moon of Ganymede one of the few terraform operations to actually show success in a relatively short period of time, by using large thermal generators the ice on the surface of a significant portion of the moon had melted to form oceans and an almost breathable atmosphere. The thermal generators and melting ice increased the thickness of the atmosphere allowing cloud cover to retain the heat. It was still too cold on the surface for human life, but you could actually live comfortably under the greenhouse domes and in the towers that rose up above the domes in its largest city. The base was on the outskirts of that city in the warehouse district. The city had one of the largest spaceports and populations outside Earth. They were going to need to use the transports to get to the base from the spaceport after they landed.

  Surveillance found an empty port that they could use so the Ship docked and they made their way to the warehouse district. Part of Bravo team remained behind to secure the dock and make sure their escape route remained open. They had laid out a plan and were ready once they arrive at the warehouse to put it in motion. They entered the building and proceeded to take out the sentries and command center. Unlike the other bases there was no buildup of troops. What they did find though was a bunch of tanks filled with clones of various ages. Cloning had been outlawed in the Planetary Alliance, Ship ran facial recognition on the different clones there were three different people that they had cloned. They all had been Grand Master level Gamma Agents. It seemed Gamma was supplementing their ranks with clones. They set explosives and as soon as they were back on the Ship they blew up the clones and the facility. Now that they had naturalized the threat they set a course for home. There were two cloaked ships in the spaceport so Ship downloaded their intel and upon its suggestion they left them intact, Ship informed them that now that the bases had been destroyed Gamma Faction would have to change their plans.

  The two ships would have to report to someone and they could set a drone to find out who. They agreed that it was important to find out the larger plan. Ship started analyzing the intel it downloaded from the two ships. They had learned a lot from the bases and now they knew that Gamma Faction was cloning gifted people to increase their ranks. It explained why they seemed to have so many agents. Even with the clones they still seemed to be relying heavily on mercenaries. That meant that they defiantly had another objective that required more gifted agents. The Gamma Faction was up to something they just had to find out what it was. For now they would return to the home base and wait for them to make the next move. The teams got some rest while the ship headed for Earth. In preparation for the mission criteria of the teams, they had converted one of the storage bays they had been using for robots into an open bay bunk area, it allowed the team members to get some sleep without taking away from the staterooms the more senior members of the team used.

  Shortly before entering the Earth area the senior team members got together to discuss the plan of attack for the Earth Gamma base. It was located in a remote area of Montana in what used to be the united states, before the Alliance of Planets consolidated the Earth Government. Even though the population of Earth was well over one hundred billion, there were still some areas that were somewhat remote and less populated. This part of the world was one of them, though remote was relative at that population density. Mega cities the size of small countries made up most of the population of Earth. They converged on the location and landed a short distance away. The drones indicated this base was more of a safe house location with a training facility attached to the grounds. They used the transports to approach the base and then took up positions around it, to coordinate the attack from. It was a bit strange attacking a Gamma facility on Earth, but the tactics were the same, they breached the defenses and took out all of the Gamma operatives then sweep the base for intel. The resistance was minimal especially for the force they had brought to the base, the battle was over within a few minutes. They finished up and returned to the ship, on the transports, leaving the enemy base on fire. One advantage to using their combat methods on Earth was the oxygen rich environment helped destroy the evidence that much quicker. There was no trace of them shortly after they were boarding the ship.

  They returned to their base, as usual they w
ould have to debrief with the High Council but at least they had all gotten some rest before they got back. While they were traveling back Ship discovered an interesting bit of intel. One of the ships that they had left at the Saturn base had been to a planetoid way out beyond the edge of the solar system. Ship sent a drone to investigate the area. There was a huge armada of ships and the entire planet was covered by one giant base. They didn’t even bother cloaking the ships and some of them were as large as the carriers the Planetary Alliance used. Ship realized it had found their home base and it was worse than it could have imagined, there was no way even with the advantage they had found with their new warfare methods they could destroy that base or even get in close enough to do it. Even with the help of the Alliance they may not be able to win. The only hope was to draw the ships away from the base and systematically destroy them in smaller groups. Ship put its drones to work gathering intel to determine what the plan was for the armada. A buildup that large had to have a reason. Even Gamma Faction could not afford to build that many ships without a clear goal.

  It would worry about a plan to destroy the ships after it had the intel. Of course the other problem was going to be how to let David and the Council know about the base without divulging its secret surveillance program. They had to come up with some more advanced tactics that would give them a chance against such a large threat. Ship decided it would talk with Joan and see what her opinion was, and how best to proceed.

  Ship reached out to Joan as soon as they arrived in orbit over Earth. Joan, we have a problem, Ship said as it reached out to her. Oh, what is the problem Ship, she responded? I have finally found the Enemy Home Base, and it is far worse than we thought. Ship sent the surveillance images to her mind. Oh my God, she said, is that a planet wide base surrounded by all those ships she asked? How will we ever be able to fight that, she said rhetorically. I do not know, but we better do something because they are gearing up for something and it can’t be good.

  Yes, I agree we are going to have to tell David and the High Council, she said. I agree we have to tell David and his team but I am not sure of the High Council, Ship said, this news may scare them into inaction. David and his team, on the other hand will be more likely to just find a solution to the problem. Yes, you are right, she admitted, the Council are Politian’s and they don’t always make the best problem solvers. We will have to bring David in on it and he can help us decide who else needs to know from there. Agreed, are you well enough to attend a meeting in person or should I create a virtual meeting and bring you in, Ship asked? I think a virtual meeting would be best, she responded. While ship thought of a way to break the news to David he checked on his status and wait until he was alone.

  Ship decided to let David drop off his gear before contacting him. Shortly after they had landed and everyone had returned to their living quarters, Ship reached out to David. David I have something to discuss with you, do you have time, Ship asked. Yes, Ship what is it, David responded. I uncovered some intel and sent a drone to investigate, and have found something you must see, Ship said, as it pushed the images into David’s head. Is that what I think it is, David asked, afraid of the answer. Yes, I believe that is the Enemy Home Base, Ship said, confirming the worst thing David could imagine. There are so many ships and that base is huge, David said. Yes, it is daunting to think Gamma Faction could have such power at their command, Ship agreed. Where is it located at, David asked? A diagram of the solar system and beyond appeared in David’s head. That would explain how they could build up so much and not be detected, David said. Yes, it would seem they have gone beyond the alliance’s influence and escaped everyone’s notice, Ship confirmed. Does the Council know, David asked? No, and I don’t know if they are ready to see it yet, I wanted to give you and the team a chance to come up with some options first. Well, we better get the team together I guess, David said, not looking forward to breaking the news to them.

  Ship pulled David, Michael, Gordon, Megan, Alex, Joan, and Emma into a virtual meeting. Hi guys, David said, as they all appeared in the meeting room. Has something happened, Megan asked? Yes, and no, David said, we have some new intel to discuss and it is not going to be good. Everyone looked to the virtual holograph screen in the middle of the room as the surveillance images filled the room. Holly crap, Emma said, summing up the general shock everyone was having. So that is the Enemy Home Base then, Michael said, that is going to be a problem. One thing I think we should consider, Ship said, is to try to take out the ships in small numbers if possible. Maybe we could stand a chance if we could take some of them out before we tried to attack the whole base, Ship continued. I agree, Michael said, but we have to find a way to draw them out. What if we attack a few of them and waited for them to send a distress message and waited for the others to investigate, Gordon said.

  Yes, but we have to find a place far enough away from the other ships that they would want to defend the first ships but not close enough that they would send them all at once, David said. “Also we only have Ship to attack them with, and that is going to put us at a disadvantage. Ship’s offensive capabilities are impressive, but it is only one ship, no offence”, Michael said. None taken, I agree, I would have a hard time taking out that many ships alone, Ship said. If we are going to stand a chance we need more ships with offensive weapons, David said. They continued on for a bit more discussing the problem, but finally the meeting broke up and they returned to what they had been doing, with a lot to think about. This news put a damper on the good spirits they had been in after the successful mission.

  A few hours later Megan found David in the break room of what was now their headquarters. Thinking about the Enemy Base, she asked. Yeah, we are going to have a hard time with this one, he said. Just getting through those ships will be impossible, let alone the base its self, he continued. Yes, but you will find a way, she said, sitting down next to him on the couch. How can you be so sure, he said. Because you always do, I have faith in you, she said, putting her hand on his knee lightly, searching for a sign that it was ok. Hoping he would not pull away.

  He looked into her eyes, the eyes that he found so alluring, and said why? She returned his gaze almost getting lost in the beauty, the richness of color in his eyes, and said, because I care about you, and because you are smart, and talented and… She was cut off as he leaned in and kissed her, she forgot everything she was saying, and returned the kiss passionately.

  Their mouths found each other and as if meant to be, they drank from the urgency of the moment, needing the contact and feeling the electric force of their touch. Drawing them in, a force so strong they could not fight it, pulling them together. She had wanted this from the time they had first met, and she was going to enjoy every moment of it. After what seemed like a life time they broke the kiss, and she leaned against him. I have wanted this for so long, she said. Me too he said, as he brought his arm around her and held her close to him. They both enjoyed the felling of closeness, and wished for it to never end. This moment had been building up for some time and the stress of all that they had gone through, was making it even more pronounced.

  They may have stayed that way for some time had Ship not seen Emma coming down the corridor toward the break room and jammed the door long enough that the noise caused them to jump apart on the couch. So you really think we should keep this news from the Council, Megan said, regaining her composure and covering their proximity with the allusion of shop talk. Ah, yes I do, David said, the color draining from his face as his mind caught up to what she was trying to do. Oh, hey guys, Emma said as she approached them, didn’t think anyone else was in here, stupid door was stuck. Yeah, we were just talking about the enemy base, David said, not sure why he was embarrassed to have Emma catch them kissing. But intuitively knowing it was not how he wanted her to find out about them. If there was a them, he suddenly wasn’t sure, and also not sure how he felt about that.

/>   They completed each other so well when they fought together on the practice field or in real combat, it was like they were two halves of the same coin. Emma could never be like that with him, but she was a friend he had since as long as he could remember. When they were working on a technical problem together it was the same way, they flowed together working off each other pushing each other to find new solutions. Being close to Megan like they just were, made him realize that Emma had feelings for him, and he wasn’t sure if he had feeling for her too. He needed time to think, to decide how he wanted to proceed.

  Ship knew that eventually Emma would have to find out if Megan and David decided to continue with what they had started. However, if she caught them like they were, it would break her heart, and it didn’t want that to happen. From everything the combined wisdom of the masters and the vast stores of information available to it from the data web could provide, teenage love was very volatile, and a dangerous thing, which was best approached with caution. Besides Emma had become a close friend to Ship and it didn’t want to see her hurt.