The concrete and carbon matrix that made up the compound’s outer hull was a dense atomic lattice. Winger kept a close eye on ANAD’s progress, noting the swarm seemed to slow as the assemblers chewed into the denser structure.
Just a few more minutes…
A ping sounded in Winger’s earpiece. At the same time, warning flags lit up his eyepiece…ANAD was nearing a void in the structure…the inner wall surface. Winger signaled the assembler swarm to slow to one-tenth propulsor power, just barely creeping forward a few dozen nanometers at a time.
“Detail…standby. Taj, you’re the point man. Once the breach is through, you go in and give us ten suppressing bursts with the HERF. That’ll stun anything alive long enough for Barnes to come through. We’ll continue that sequence…each trooper through gets suppressing fire for ten shots. It won’t take long so get your asses in there fast!”
“Got it, Skipper—“ said Deeno. She gripped the handle of her coilgun carbine even tighter. It would feel great just to get out of this hellhole of a tunnel and blast somebody.
Singh made the call everyone had been waiting for.
“Heads up…ANAD’s through…ANAD’s through—I see lights ahead.” He tweaked up his suit boost, waited impatiently for the glow to subside and kicked forward, crashing through the melted wall into a dimly lit stores room, stacked with crates and shelving.
He lit off the HERF gun and hot searing radio frequency waves reverberated through the congested space. Crates and shelves rattled and went flying.
“I’m in!” he yelled over the crewnet. “Get ANAD in here quick…get a barrier set up!”
Singh scrambled away from the hole he’d just fallen through, moving in a coordinated pattern around the darkened room. Behind him, another body crashed through the opening and thudded onto the floor.
Corporal “Mighty Mite’ Barnes leaped up and lit off her own HERF round. The thunderclap deafened both of them.
So much for covert entry, Singh thought sourly. Still, the rf rounds gave the assault team a protected bubble of space and time.
One after another, the rest of the team burst into the stores room. Captain Winger was the last to drop onto the steel matted floor. At the same moment, a shaft of light stabbed the darkness at the far end. A door swung open and a shimmering fog poured into the room…mechs!
“Swarm assault!” somebody shouted. Singh rolled onto the floor and came up with his coilgun firing, pumping magnetic loop after loop into the heart of the beast. The fog thinned in a few places under the assault, but continued enveloping the room.
Someone behind Singh lit off another HERF round, blasting everything and everyone with a thunderclap. The enemy swarm scattered from the rf shock…just long enough for Winger to get off re-config commands to ANAD.
---go to tactical two…pyridines and enzymatic knives extended…bond disrupter primed…GO ANAD…gogogogogo….
He sent the commands and scrambled forward between HERF bursts, coming up behind Singh and Barnes. The door opened wider and through the residue of the shimmering fog, they saw faces. Human, vaguely Asian faces.
Red Hammer troops! Muzzles swung into the room and the crackle of particle beams sounded. They were under fire in a confined space surrounded by a swelling swarm of enemy mechs. Bolt after bolt of particle beams lanced out, stitching a line of death across the wall.
Barnes returned fire with a volley of coilgun rounds while D’Nunzio opened up with her own beam carbine. The air sizzled and popped with rounds as the two swarms collided overhead.
Winger buried himself behind some crates, getting off an occasional volley of coilgun rounds himself. Tactically, the situation was serious, but not yet desperate. The swarms now engaging in a flickering aurora of combat overhead would tell the story. For the moment, the assault team was pinned down with only two avenues of escape: back through the tunnel or ahead through the door.
Winger gritted his teeth and switched eyepiece views to nanoscale. He closed his eyes to limit the disorientation, took a few deep breaths, noting the continuing crackle of particle beams and the hot thump of HERF rounds, then opened his eyes into ANAD’s world once again.
The grappling was both immediate and suffocating and Winger felt the enemy mech’s force close on him like a vise. It was a type of effector he’d never seen before, spiky and faceted like a soccer ball, studded with carbons.
What kind of bastard are you? he asked. He tweaked ANAD’s propulsors and sent the swarm jetting forward to engage the Red Hammer mechs.
With the Captain now handling ANAD, Deeno D’Nunzio knew he would need cover. In the middle of a furious volley of beam fire, she crabwalked over to the crates and, with Barnes and Singh on her flanks, set up a perimeter to shield the Skipper.
Hope to God ANAD can handle ‘em, she thought. If the Captain couldn’t fend off the enemy swarm and clear a path out of the stores room, the assault team would be pinned down and chewed to pieces. She didn’t relish the prospect of having to retreat back through the tunnel. And they’d all heard what Red Hammer did to its enemies.
Now fully engaged in nano combat, Johnny Winger massaged his wristpad controls like a pianist.
Carbenes to full deploy…I am in Auto Maneuver…enzymatic knife primed…bond disrupter primed…electron lens cooking….
He drove ANAD head-on into the melee, grappling with the nearest gang of mechs.
ANAD speared one with his bond disrupter, twisting off a pair of oxygens dangling from the mech’s backbone. There was a bright flash as the bond let go, liberating its stored energy. The mech recoiled and turned to swing a phosphate group around for shielding. It wasn’t quite fast enough.
Gotcha…you little prick! Winger exulted. His atomgrabber’s instinct said look left…look left! Out of the corner of his image, he spotted the effectors slashing into view, just in time, and twisted ANAD out of the way.
The mech’s grabbers were strong and sure but not as fast as Winger’s reflexes. A wicked ‘knife’ of hydrogen radicals sliced through ANAD’s perimeter defenses, pinching off several effectors. But Winger had seen it coming.
He quickly deployed ANAD’s hydrogen abstractor and caught the enemy mech’s knife with one of his own. The molecules collided and torqued in a great train wreck of debris. Winger severed ANAD’s damaged effector and while the enemy mech was still trapped, he tore its grappling arms off with the abstractor. The recoil sent the mech spinning off into space, colliding with other mechs, trailing molecule debris as it drifted away.
That’ll teach ‘em, Winger muttered. He turned ANAD to engage more mechs.
Bit by bit, ANAD and its replicants beat back the enemy swarm. As the flickering fog retreated, the Red Hammer troops seemed to lose heart, realizing their primary defenses were weakening. One by one, they slipped out of the room, firing behind them to cover their withdrawal.
“We got ‘em on the run!” Barnes exulted. She lay down a furious burst of beamfire sweeping the room back and forth.
Winger set ANAD to work finishing off the enemy swarm and pulled himself out of the nanoscale view. Overhead, in an otherwise darkened compartment, the fog of assembler combat flickered like heat lightning on a hot summer night.
“Secure the doors!” Winger scrambled forward, ducking below the high keening wail of the mechs and headed for the doors. Barnes cut in right behind him.
They inched the door open and peered out into a dimly lit corridor. Emergency lightning cast stark shadows on a metal grate floor. Voices and shouts echoed back at them from around a nearby corner.
Winger gathered his troops around him at the door.
“Okay…here’s the plan: we put ANAD out first…detach an element and let him recon the corridor. He’ll send back visual, infrared, any EM threats. Once we know what we’re facing, we move out.”
“Same tactics, Skipper?” asked Singh. The Indian DPS tech shouldered his HERF gun and slammed a new charge cartridg
e into the slot.
“Five rounds of HERF, both directions,” Winger described his plan, “then we move out, in pairs. I’m using ANAD to locate infrared sources and analyze them on the go. He’s programmed to alert me if any target matches the profile of a nanotrooper.”
“We need to find the control center,” D’Nunzio said. “If we can take down the control center to this hellhole, we should be able to access everything: files, controls, systems, everything.”
“Agreed,” said Winger. “If ANAD returns any data on targets with strong EM emissions, that may be our baby. Remember, we have two objectives: find any Bravo Detachment held here and get them out…and shutting down this place once and for all.”
Gibby had noticed the flickering swarm overhead was gradually dimming, throwing the stores room into darkness.
“Looks like ANAD has pretty well finished off the bastards, Skipper.”
Winger fingered his wristpad, sending new commands to the assembler horde. Unseen overhead, the swarm finished off the remnants of the Red Hammer mechs and began reconfiguring for its next mission. Moments later, ANAD had detached a small element of assemblers and formed an invisible EM lens, a nanoscale ‘antenna’ to triangulate electronic emissions. If the compound’s control center emitted anything detectable, ANAD would find it.
“Let’s move out—“ Winger ordered.
Singh swung the door open and pumped out five rounds from his HERF gun…first left, then to the right.
The corridor went dark and shook with the reverberating thunderclap.
“GO!” Winger yelled.
Singh punched out into the corridor, with Barnes right behind him. They ducked and veered left, hitting the floor in a roll, while the ANAD swarm swelled out into the hall and tuned itself to probe for electronic emissions.
Two by two, the rest of the assault team poured out into the corridor, periodically deafened by the searing hot pulses from the rf weapons.
Winger ducked out with the last group and linked in with ANAD as he scrambled forward. He followed right behind Gibby as they made their way along the corridor, trying to keep his balance while he plunged into the nanoscale world. His eyepiece view of the corridor dissolved into a driving sleet storm of every imaginable shape and color…the world of careening atoms and molecules.
Then he stumbled and bumped into Gibby’s backside.
“Here…Skipper…let me help you along.” It was Gibby’s voice. Winger felt the CC2’s arms haul him upright again. “Just hang on to me.”
Already, ANAD’s electromagnetic ‘antenna’ was focusing on a strong source, bearing two five five degrees. The photon bucket that the assemblers had formed now channeled what it had detected back to Winger, who saw the effects as strobing pulses of light, like distant lightning on the horizon…the stronger the flash, the stronger the detected signal. Winger blinked in amazement at the light show and quickly homed in on the source.
“That way,” he pointed, clinging to Gibby’s belt. “Strong emissions that way.”
Gibby hoisted up his coilgun carbine and scrambled off down the corridor, with Winger clinging to his belt.
Just to be safe, Winger changed ANAD’s config again, leaving a small element to direct photons. The rest of the force configured for assault, priming all effectors, flowing over and ahead of the rescue force as they crept toward the control center.
Two left turns later, they came to a heavy shielded compartment hatch, at one end of a side hall.
Winger scanned ANAD’s take, just to be sure. “This has to be it…photon cascade everywhere, a regular gusher of EM.”
Gibby checked everyone’s position. Barnes and D’Nunzio were to the left, Singh and he to the right.
“HERF is charging…” he muttered.
“Lock and load,” said Barnes. She cradled her coilgun, ready to let fly when the door was breached.
Winger set ANAD to work on the heavy door, rapidly disassembling its massive lock system. An intense orange glow engulfed them, as the assembler horde tore into the hatch.
At least there’s no nanoshield or barrier here ,he thought. At least, not yet. When the door was breached, though ANAD would have to be ready.
“Standby---“ Winger said. The orange glow flickered and pulsated, then began dying away. Checking his eyepiece, Winger saw ANAD’s status lights all drop into the green. “Okay…we’re ready here…no detectable nano signatures around the door, beyond ANAD.”
“MOB canisters ready, Skipper,” said Mighty Mite Barnes. She lifted a small cylinder from her utility belt and slammed it into the dispenser.
“When we finally breach…” Winger was outlining the tactical plan, “…lay down three HERF rounds for stun effect. Then MOB anything that moves…I’ll slave ANAD to MOB control for the first few minutes. That’ll leave us free for other threats. Anyone takes fire, you’re authorized to return fire…coilguns, beamers and kinetic rounds if you have to.” Winger’s eyes met the others. “We’ve got to be smart about what we shoot at.”
“What about our rear?” Singh asked. “It’s odd we haven’t run into any more resistance than we have.”
“Yeah,” said Deeno D’Nunzio. “Where’d all those Red Hammer troops go anyway?”
“Unknown,” Winger admitted. The very same thought had occurred to him. “Just to be safe, I’ve detached an element of ANAD for perimeter defense.” Even as he spoke, the troopers could hear the faint buzz that indicated nanobotic activity nearby. “Okay…let’s do it.”
On a count of three, Gibby kicked in the heavy door. The hatch swung open and clanged against a bulkhead.
D’Nunzio burst in first and immediately lit off the HERF gun, followed by Barnes. Hot, rolling waves of sound energy deafened the room.
The control deck was roughly semi-circular, concentric rows of consoles arranged in a broad U around a curving wall of monitors.
At the precise moment the door was forced and HERF rounds pumped inside, the sparse control room shift consisted of a handful of technicians and a squad of troops…the same troops who had fired on them from the stores room door. As D’Nunzio lit off her HERF gun, she dropped to the deck and came up ready to fire. The beam weapons of the Red Hammer defenders returned fire in unison, but the rf pulse killed their aim. The first rounds went wild overhead, stitching a seam of death across the ceiling. Hot metal and duramide shards rained down on them.
“I got ‘em!” yelled Barnes, from somewhere off to the right. The SDC2 let fly a burst from her coilgun carbine. The spray of mag energy rounds lanced out and one loop caught a Red Hammer defender flush in the face. His head came apart in an explosive puff of flesh, blood and bone, peppering the nearby consoles and a trio of technicians cowering nearby.
Beam fire streaked back and forth across the control deck for a few moments. Deeno lit off another HERF round, to cover Gibby and Winger as they rushed into the room. Momentarily stunned, a pair of Red Hammer troops caught a volley of flechettes in their chests; Gibby had flung off a flock of microbots into the air and the ‘bots had discharged their full loads at the targets. The enemy defenders crumpled in a thick spray of blood as their torsos were shredded by the hypersonic needles.
After the first fusillade had died off, Barnes discharged her MOB canister. A faint mist issued into the air and in seconds, the three nearest crouching technicians were immobilized, struggling and clawing at the barrier bots as the net tightened and inexorably forced them to the floor.
“Secure the room!” Winger yelled. He went to the MOB’ed trio to see that they were well pinioned. Singh slid over too, shouldering his coilgun.
“Make sure they’re nice and comfy, Taj.”
“Roger that, Skipper.” Singh laid down another layer of Mobility Obstruction Barrier bots just to be sure.
Winger was about to begin puzzling out the control systems in front of him when an alert sounded in his mask earphone. It was ANAD. He linked in to the acoustic feed f
rom the master assembler…and instantly, his blood ran cold.
A large swarm was gathering in the corridor, moving rapidly on their position.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he muttered. Over the crewnet, he sounded the alarm. “Mass swarm…enemy bots right behind us. Make sure this room’s secure…” he was furiously tapping out commands on his wristpad as he peeled off orders. “…Barnes—get that door shut now. That’ll buy us a few minutes. Gibby…get the weapons away from those troops. We may need them. And Taj, make sure the civilians are out of the way…I’m reconfigging ANAD now.”
The Quantum Corps troopers buzzed about the room, carrying out the Captain’s orders. The monitor screens in front flickered with scenes from around the complex, inside and out, including a slow-motion view of another landslide along the flanks of Kurabantu seamount.
But no one had time to look.
Winger reconfigged ANAD to confront the approaching enemy swarm: pyridines to assault state one, bond disrupters primed, radicals and carbene grabbers extended and locked…he toggled the rep switch, telling ANAD to replicate like mad, build mass in a hurry for the coming onslaught.
Moments later, they knew the Red Hammer mechs were upon them. A piercing shriek tore through the air as the mechs chewed into the massive door. The heat of atomic disassembly grew intense enough to blur the inner surface of the door, like hot pavement on a summer day.
“I’m sending ANAD forward…engaging now,” Winger said. Propulsors up to ninety percent. He sent the commands…and waited nervously.
All about the control room, every eye was on the door.
The collision was like a distant explosion at night…you could see the light but the sound was muted. The shriek increased to a fierce whine, and a glowing ball of light emerged from the top of the door, which now resembled a melting heap of metal.
“Slam ‘em, ANAD!” came Deeno’s voice over the whine. “Slam ‘em to hell and back!”
Johnny Winger linked in and tried to make sense of the chaos that erupted in his mask eyepiece. He was a lone voyager in a driving blizzard, buffeted by gale force winds and fierce gusts of stinging sleet…molecules of air and metal torn and whipped by the fury of nanomech hell. He focused on what the ANAD master was doing.