Chapter 150

The Daedalus Academy

Y: 2143 – 1 week until Southern Europe regional inter-academy first round.

Daedalus Financial Position: <5.23M> bitcreds 

<break> 

Chica peered downwards towards the blur that was the ground. She said something, but it was unintelligible.

Barran tapped his helmet and spoke over the comms, “If you want anyone to hear you use this.”

“How fast is this thing,” She shouted after donning her helmet.

The squad cried and screamed at her not to shout over comms.

“You’re fecking shouting now!” She screamed, “Don’t shout at me not to shout - you turds.”

“We’re going as fast our hull can handle,” Barran replied. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“So, you don’t know,” Dary laughed.

“It’s not important!” Barran exclaimed. “What is important is that none of you die. So - you better follow orders this time.” They simulated this mission hundreds of times and every time his squad did something different. Every squad member found new ways to not follow the plan.

“It’s boring doing it the same way every time,” Tank said and received unanimous agreement from the rest of the squad.

Barran looked down the line at his motley squad. Tank, was his nick suggested, was large and well-muscled. He looked like a typical brawler from the Southern Pacific islands. Like most of his squad Tank was older than the average cadet at the Daedalus Academy. At nineteen he had the bulk that the younger ones lacked. Chica was the only one who could match him in strength, and she was the oldest at twenty-one.

Then there was Sly, the only one of his cadets with a brain. Sly was fifteen, the average age of the first years and their resident tactician.

Barran laughed to himself. Daedalus Academy first years were not like other Academies;  they were sent on real missions where you could get shot at. 

Rodriguez and Dary were the talented athletes, much like Barran himself. The Latino was shorter, but he was fast as hell and great with all sorts of weapons. Where Dary was as confident with his mouth as he was on an obstacle course. In a few short months Dary had several girlfriends from other squads. And amazingly he kept them all happy without discovery or protestation about their fellow sister sweethearts.

That left the crazies; Zerg and Lewinski. Zerg was a modern day berserker and normally everyone would think he was insane; but, Lewinski was verifiably cuckoo and in comparison, he seemed mild.

Barran sighed. Of all the operations taking place today, he believed he had the hardest task. He had to keep this motley crew alive.

The pilot alerted him and Barran said, “Brace. We’re comin in hot.”

The VTOL was new. It was based on Svarski’s publicly available patent, utilising a few Daedalus innovations and the best component patents humanity had to offer from the IPO (International Patent Organisation). The structure and hull composites were all Kangs while Daedo had tweaked many small items as well as the propulsion system. Its primary role was to deliver a fully equipped squad of exo soldiers to a destination in a hurry, while its secondary role was to offer air support.

Even with advanced stealth tech most activities that occurred above ground were visible to Huawei’s low orbit satellite network. 

The VTOL slowed sharply but Barran’s squad, Crazy, did not feel the full g-force effect as they jumped or were flung from its undercarriage. As the craft slowed, it pointed its nose upwards which caused the cadets to fly 200m above the ground.

Somehow Sly managed to track their position and target while they hurtled through the air slowly losing altitude. “Jump jets,” he called while directional instructions appeared across their HUDs.

Zerg fired his PPC at a random building as they slowed and drifted towards the earth under controlled jumpjet deceleration.

“Target’s only!” Barran exclaimed.

“Dish,” Zerg stated indicating the building had a satellite dish on its roof. All the buildings had satellite dishes on their roof. It was the Horn of Africa and they were common.

The squad spread out as they headed to their first target. It was a lightening quick attack they had only left Daedalus base fifteen minutes ago, and they were already firing on the Huawei bunker.

“Bring it down!” Tank yelled.

Once the exit was closed, the mechs and military craft would be forced to use their secondary exit or waste time digging their way out.

“Fire in deep as you can,” Barran ordered. He didn’t want any mechs or exos escaping.

“Just how I like it,” Chica called back as she pounded the back wall in the bunker’s interior.

The enemy had opened the bunker soon after they detected the lone Daedalus craft was headed to this base. A single APC was caught in its opening by Crazy squad and it was blown apart as they spread in a haphazard arc. They continued to fire at any sign of movement.

Rodriguez flew to the opening despite the friendly fire surrounding him and launched two grenades inside the guts of the bunker. As soon as they left his launcher, he turned tail and ran.

“Woo-hoo,” he yelled.

They had drilled this scenario hundreds of times, but reality surprised Barran. The explosion from anti-matter grenades was insane when compared to other ordnance its size. The shock wave knocked them all on their arse, despite being prepared for it, and shortly after the bunker sunk into itself with a sullen woof.

The sound of the explosion dwarfed the crumbling structure, although the ground shook for several seconds indicating the collapse was ongoing.

“Move. Stage two,” Barran ordered.

The squad split into two with four heading north while the remaining four headed west. Barran was with one group and Sly the other. It did not take long before an army of bots began chasing the two groups. At which time they swung towards each other providing cover fire for each other. 

The main base for Huawei’s African operations surrounded them. Although it was predominately a corporate centre, it was not short of security. However, they had effectively closed its main artery when it came to a response. It would take minutes before their mechs would reach their position from alternate exits. A weakness which was identified and was now being exploited.

For months Daedalus had been suffering probes and outright attacks from Huawei. The Dakar incident was still fresh in everyone’s mind.

Barran’s crazy squad’s attack was their first direct offensive against Huawei and it had been planned down to the fraction of a second. During mission simulations his squad repeatedly went off script and this time was no exception. The excitement of live fire against real enemies got the better off, not one, but his entire squad.

Not only did they fire at the drones they took pot shots at everything in sight. Railguns, PPCs and Launchers spouted ordnance as if it were unlimited.

“Focus on the drones!” Barran ordered. Their armour was good, and they had shielding but that did not mean they could allow the combat drones to launch missiles at them with impunity.

Zerg retorted, “We got em covered boss.” Then he shot at someone looking at them from a window.

<break>

Lieutenant Colonel Shin had been in the Huawei Military for eleven years and before that he graduated from their Academy with honours. He stood behind the base commander, Major General Li,  who had been part of the military establishment for decades. The base commander had a vicious temper at the best of times a trait which was only surpassed by his paranoia.

As Major General Li shouted a vein pulsed on his forehead, “Who is responsible for this?”

“Sir, we need to focus on repulsing the attack,” Shin replied carefully.

The base commander fumed, “If we know what they’re after and who let them in, then we are better able to cut them and their collaborators off.”

Shin resisted the urge to disagree because it never had a productive outcome with the base commander. “Sir, the surveillance team is tracking all communications now. We will find any collaborators soon. I have contacted the base network for aid and alerted them of a possible attack.”

The base commander hissed. “You make us appear fools! Alert them of a possible attack but make it clear we have this under control. I can only see eight infiltrators.” 

The command room had several operators on surveillance, security and communication duties. One interrupted the pair, “Sir we are being jammed.”

“Use the hardline,” the base commander continued to rage at all his staff.

“Sir, the hardline is cut,” the operator replied and literally ducked down after making the statement.

Shin queried, “If the hardline was cut we would know the location. Its inherent countermeasures would inform us of that at least.”

The operator said, “Sir, it was cut moments ago and there is no data in the register in regards to location.”

Shin scratched his head in thought.

Base Commander Li shouted, “It is a collaborator I know it! We will investigate the hardline later. Smash them with every drone we have until our exo soldiers arrive. Time?”

“Exos are inbound from access point two and four; thirty-three seconds Sir,” Another operator responded.

The older generation military were not brought up with cybernetics, let alone raising their own AIs from a young age. They relied upon specialist soldiers and AI to manage military operations. Lieutenant Colonel Shin was one such soldier, let alone the Major General who mistrusted AI and refused to use them personally.

The base commander watched as drones beset the Daedalus squad. A look of horror overtook his countenance when they not only dispatched the drones with ease but were causing damage across his base. The civilians would be furious that he failed to protect them.

He stormed across to a window armed with a pair of optical enhancers with range-finder. He wanted to watch the enemy’s movement with his own two eyes. As he stood at the winder a particle projection bolt was fired directly at him. He dived despite the transparent barrier surviving the blow.

“How did they know?” He shouted his paranoia hitting a crescendo. He looked accusingly at Shin. “Shin, you are relieved of duty. Escort yourself to the brig and if I find out you disobeyed, it will only confirm my suspicions.” 

Shin looked at his commanding officer in disbelief. Opened his mouth to argue and thought better of it. His shoulders slumped and resignation and he left the room.

“Operator,” Li said harshly, “Follow his movements. Notify security and guide them to him. I hope he falls for my little trap.” Li smiled to himself. He then turned to another operator, “Where are our exos? And the mechs! I’ve had enough of this.”

Operator eleven replied, “Exos are engaging, but the enemy is retreating Sir. The mechs are still 106 seconds out.”

“Air?” Shin asked in frustration.

“Sir all of our air craft are on mission or disabled in their hangars,” operator nine replied.

“Bring the exos up on the large screen,” Li ordered.

As he watched, his face turned bright red with anger. “How are they moving so quickly!”

No one replied. He had sent Shin away and the operators would only reply to direct questions regarding their assignments. “Answer operator eleven!”

“Sir, they are able to move quickly on mag roads, it’s a feature of their exos. We saw this in Dakar,” Operator Eleven replied dutifully.

Major General Li watch in horror as his own exo soldiers were easily outpaced. The enemy was able to move backwards quicker than his solders could move forwards. The range and projectile velocity of their railguns was decimating his soldiers.

“Form an envelope to protect the base. Do not pursue,” He ordered. He surveyed the damage. Six soldiers and seventy-two drones were incapacitated. His air and mechs had not fired a shot. The hardline was down and traditional comms were jammed. 

After a minute the enemy had not attempted another attack and now his perimeter was strengthened with the first arrivals of mechs who had used all their power reserves to move into position quickly.

“Re-establish comms operator seven or face the consequences of failure,” He seethed. The base commander paced as he thought.

“Comms open Sir,” Operator Seven replied after a minute.

“Alert all bases we have been attacked but were able to fend off the Daedalus Military. Damage was minimal but they need to be on high alert. Send them details of the VTOL they used,” Li said.

“Yes, Sir. Transmitting all data,” Operator Seven replied.

“ALL!? Just send what I ordered you grunt,” Li yelled.

“All relevant data Sir. My apologies.”

Li reviewed an early damage report. “How is this possible?” He whispered to himself. The squad of eight exos damaged twenty buildings and collapsed two. Casualties were climbing.

Li considered sending his mechs to the Daedalus base for a moment before deciding he needed them for protection. “I want all two pairs of eyes on every inch between here and the Eye.” He ordered his team of operators. The Eye is what they referred to as the Daedalus base. Hardly smart setting up your secret base at a geological anomaly that was visible from space.

“Check for data breaches. I am sure there were here for a reason. Contact all civilian managers and have them check for data breaches also,” after issuing the orders Major General Li stormed off to the brig determined to find out if Shin was a collaborator.

<break>

The mag-train sped through its low-pressure tube. Since the Dakar incident Daedalus had been extending its underground network well past the west coast and deep into the Atlantic ocean. A few kilometres off the coast it breached the ocean floor to traverse across it instead of underground. Although the pressure outside the tube mounted as the ocean depth increased the pressure inside was stable just above that of a perfect vacuum. The lower friction level allowed the mag-train to travel at ultra-high speed. The main limiting factor were the forces a human body could withstand and even these were increased by the exos that Daedalus wore.

The tube ended at what was an underwater base two kilometres below the surface. The entire 1500km trip was forty minutes. 

Axel-Zero’s eyes widened in amazement at the underwater base. She had seen the tables showing materials consumed and some plans but to step foot inside was truly amazing.

“We built this in two months?” She asked Daedo in awe.

“Less,” he said. “The bots are efficient even at these depths.”

Axel-Zero nodded. Daedo was understating the value of the bots that he, Kang and Ikaros had designed. They were not built to a cost but to their highest standards and available technology. The two ancient AIs that Myrmidon recruited, Dex and AEMO, controlled all the construction bots to a level that humans were incapable. They could work thousands of bots in coordination like a hive of insects.

She looked at the structure, a myriad of hexagonal shapes joined together to make domes, where each dome enveloped another. There were three domes in all which suggested to Axel-Zero the more pressure the more domes that were required.

The base was large enough to house hundreds of people and equipment and the tube which provided their high speed transport was also capable of supply air and water.

“Are we reliant on the tube?” She asked Daedo.

He shook his head, “No. This base is almost self sufficient and soon will be.” 

A crowd gathered round Daedo as only a two of them had been here before. He continued, “Strategically any above ground operations are visible for the world to see. But here…” He swept a hand encompassing the entire base. “No orbital scanner humans possess can penetrate more than 200m below sea level and approximately 50m below ground depending on the sediment profile.”

“They cannot track us,” Vannier said in agreement and her smile conveyed her pleasure. “We have word from Barran’s squad. Mission accomplished with no casualties.”

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as if the news was unexpected.

“Now it’s our turn,” Daedo said.