them right where they wanted you, Captain,” Sandy replied. Dee ignored the comment. The sergeant was well known for untimely puns and clichés that were poor attempts at humor. This one was certainly par for the course.
“Alright, DeathRay is almost to the rendezvous location and we are a good minute away,” Dee said. “Keep eyes out for those things and move, balls out. Let’s go.” Dee nodded to the older and more experienced enlisted Marine. She knew her father had somehow managed to get her assigned to her squad to watch over her. Sandy had pulled Dee out of some bad scrapes several different times. Dee had come to accept and appreciate her parents’ concern.
The resistance down the rest of the hallway was just as bad. Everything seemed to move from every direction. As Dee’s team joined together and met down the corridor it was a nonstop firefight. Finally, they reached DeathRay’s team.
“Those things are all over!” Dee shouted.
“Everybody, go safemode on your suits now!” DeathRay ordered. Dee complied as quickly as possible. She could see that as soon as all the suits showed safemode status in her DTM display that DeathRay had an ace in his sleeve.
Navy Captain Boland pulled a small spherical object from his suit and depressed a single red button on it. He tossed it ten meters or so down the hallway past Dee’s team and a second later a wave of blueish-white light washed over them. When the light passed over the electromagnetic pulse zapped the robots and fried every circuit within fifty meters. Dee’s suit started to reboot.
“Where’d you get that?” Dee asked him.
“That was one of three experimental devices your father’s AIC came up with to fight these things. I only have two more left,” DeathRay explained. He attached one to her suit’s harness. “Your team left before they were finished.”
“That clever little computer,” Dee said. “Wonder how she knew we’d need one of those?”
“When it comes to your father and his AIC, I gave up wondering a long time ago,” DeathRay replied.
“Right. Moving on.” Dee’s sensors came back online and she scanned for movement. Nothing was moving but them. “That way. About fifty meters.”
The corridor opened into a large hangar bay with a single launchway and opening on one end. Dee could see the asteroid field glinting in the faint red sunlight of the uninhabited system outside. Copernicus had created so many of these completely uninhabited hideouts that Dee was losing count as to how many they had retaken. Nobody seemed quite sure why the bases had been constructed, but General Moore’s expedition continued to find them and take them from the bots.
In the middle of the hangar bay was a single vehicle of some sort with hundreds of robot creatures swarming around it welding, soldering, wiring, and constructing various parts of the craft. Dee was certain it wasn’t mecha but it did look like a spacecraft.
“DeathRay? What’d you make of that?”
“Dunno. Probably the reason we’re here.” DeathRay replied. Dee was afraid he was going to say that. Dee had her recon team but DeathRay, a Navy captain, was an O-6 and he was in charge of the overall program. The program her father and mother set in place to mop up the aftermath of Copernicus.
“Orders?” Dee looked at DeathRay.
Chapter 2
November 3, 2406 AD
27 Light-years from the Sol System
Thursday, 11:15 AM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time
It wasn’t so much a planet as a planetoid; maybe a dwarf planet, as some people would have called it. It was a lot like the Kuiper Belt object that had been the setting for one of the major battles against the Martian separatist movement. Whatever you wanted to call it, General Alexander Moore didn’t like it.
From the bridge of his newly renovated, and somewhat questionably acquired battle fortress, he peered through the view screen at what looked to be like a playground for disaster. A funhouse filled with every
“Alright, DeathRay is almost to the rendezvous location and we are a good minute away,” Dee said. “Keep eyes out for those things and move, balls out. Let’s go.” Dee nodded to the older and more experienced enlisted Marine. She knew her father had somehow managed to get her assigned to her squad to watch over her. Sandy had pulled Dee out of some bad scrapes several different times. Dee had come to accept and appreciate her parents’ concern.
The resistance down the rest of the hallway was just as bad. Everything seemed to move from every direction. As Dee’s team joined together and met down the corridor it was a nonstop firefight. Finally, they reached DeathRay’s team.
“Those things are all over!” Dee shouted.
“Everybody, go safemode on your suits now!” DeathRay ordered. Dee complied as quickly as possible. She could see that as soon as all the suits showed safemode status in her DTM display that DeathRay had an ace in his sleeve.
Navy Captain Boland pulled a small spherical object from his suit and depressed a single red button on it. He tossed it ten meters or so down the hallway past Dee’s team and a second later a wave of blueish-white light washed over them. When the light passed over the electromagnetic pulse zapped the robots and fried every circuit within fifty meters. Dee’s suit started to reboot.
“Where’d you get that?” Dee asked him.
“That was one of three experimental devices your father’s AIC came up with to fight these things. I only have two more left,” DeathRay explained. He attached one to her suit’s harness. “Your team left before they were finished.”
“That clever little computer,” Dee said. “Wonder how she knew we’d need one of those?”
“When it comes to your father and his AIC, I gave up wondering a long time ago,” DeathRay replied.
“Right. Moving on.” Dee’s sensors came back online and she scanned for movement. Nothing was moving but them. “That way. About fifty meters.”
The corridor opened into a large hangar bay with a single launchway and opening on one end. Dee could see the asteroid field glinting in the faint red sunlight of the uninhabited system outside. Copernicus had created so many of these completely uninhabited hideouts that Dee was losing count as to how many they had retaken. Nobody seemed quite sure why the bases had been constructed, but General Moore’s expedition continued to find them and take them from the bots.
In the middle of the hangar bay was a single vehicle of some sort with hundreds of robot creatures swarming around it welding, soldering, wiring, and constructing various parts of the craft. Dee was certain it wasn’t mecha but it did look like a spacecraft.
“DeathRay? What’d you make of that?”
“Dunno. Probably the reason we’re here.” DeathRay replied. Dee was afraid he was going to say that. Dee had her recon team but DeathRay, a Navy captain, was an O-6 and he was in charge of the overall program. The program her father and mother set in place to mop up the aftermath of Copernicus.
“Orders?” Dee looked at DeathRay.
Chapter 2
November 3, 2406 AD
27 Light-years from the Sol System
Thursday, 11:15 AM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time
It wasn’t so much a planet as a planetoid; maybe a dwarf planet, as some people would have called it. It was a lot like the Kuiper Belt object that had been the setting for one of the major battles against the Martian separatist movement. Whatever you wanted to call it, General Alexander Moore didn’t like it.
From the bridge of his newly renovated, and somewhat questionably acquired battle fortress, he peered through the view screen at what looked to be like a playground for disaster. A funhouse filled with every
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