Chapter 170 – Haui’s Moon Inflitration (3)

Ceres huffed and panted as he leaned around a corner, before three stun shots whizzed past his helmet, almost nailing him right in the head.

He gave a quick glance at the three guards aiming down the corridor with their stun pistols, using a circular table as a makeshift cover. Their silhouette was all too clear via the H.T. mode. It was like Ceres had a wall-hack. “Who the fuck is this guy? Call for help!” One of the guards yelled at another.

“I can’t, something is jamming all the communications in the base!”

“Shit, we need to –“ Before the guard could finish, an energy beam blasted out and incinerated half of his face, revealing the sizzling inner cheek muscles as he crumpled to the floor.

The other two guards tried to fire back, but before they could fire they felt a sense of calm and peacefulness, reducing their reaction time. Another two energy beams burned holes through their cranium, dead on the spot.

“Four down, sixteen to go.” Ceres had full vision of the observation post, tracking every single guards movements. Many of them were trapped inside rooms, allowing Ceres to easily clear the guards out tactically.

Ceres controlled the A.I of the base now in conjunction with Tyson, who was still working on the servers to fake the data for the next seven days. [Remember Ceres, keep the head honcho alive, we need him for verification during regular check-ups from the main prison office.]

Ceres nodded, keeping his rifle at the ready as he stalked the guards through the observation post. He decided to take out the guards who were trapped outside the rooms in the corridors. Already he could see one guard trying to crack open the armoury door.

Ceres quickly moved through the base, immediately killing the guard on sight. The kills didn’t get to Ceres anymore – he had killed Chosens and dark mercenaries alike. For the guards who were facilitating things like what happened to Mr Qiu, he felt zero remorse.

“Armoury secured.” Ceres headed to the medbay, using the A.I to open the locked door, revealing a medic and two intoxicated guards inside.

Before the medic could shout, the lives of all three of them had already ended, Ceres leaving the room immediately. It was a methodical killing plan, simple and thorough.

Within minutes, he had cleared all the rooms, leaving them full of corpses with smoldering holes. Even some of the guards who tried to hide in engineering compartments could not escape his vision.

[All clear. Head honcho is still in his office.] Ceres reported in.

[Good work.] Tyson already knew how good Ceres was. He had taken down a Keeper almost alone after all. [You’re making this mission much easier for me. Grab the head honcho and drag him down to the operations center.]

Ceres made his way up to an office-like room, and he could see the observation post’s supervisor already standing, seemingly holding a gun in his hand with clear hostility. The walls all around the room were glass-wall, giving a scenic view of the asteroid with Athen dominating the view on top.

Instead of getting the A.I to open the door, Ceres gave a good frontal kick, smashing the door open and causing fragments to slam into the supervisor.

The supervisor fell over from the impacts, but not before pulling the trigger on his shotgun, the pellets fracturing the glass and causing air to leak with a roaring suction sound.

[Warning: Accidental depressurization detected.]

A nearby device in the room emitted a gaseous blob, which was immediately sucked towards the leak. However, instead of slipping out, the gaseous blob solidified immediately, plugging the hole.

Before the supervisor could recover, Ceres ran over and delivered another kick into the side of the supervisor, fracturing his ribs and causing him to scream out in pain. With another stomp of the exosuit, the supervisor’s ankle was also unceremoniously twisted unnaturally, rendering him unable to walk.

Ceres grabbed the groaning supervisor by the collar, dragging him out of the room into the corridor. “Fuckin, who paid you to break them out? Crazy Jack? Old Man?” The supervisor spat out a mouthful of blood as he winced, one arm on his fractured ribs. Every breath he took caused his ribs to expand and contract, sending a wave of pain through his body.

Ceres didn’t reply, dragging the supervisor with one hand along the corridor towards the operations center. Tyson was already there, smiling gently at the supervisor who was now plopped into a bloodied office chair.

“Just kill me and get over with it.” The supervisor spat.

“Oh no, we can’t do that, Gaul.” Tyson dragged another chair and sat down, while Ceres began strapping Gaul into the chair, rendering him unable to move. “You’re far too valuable to me.”

“You want me to tell the main prison office everything is okay, no? Fat chance, fuckhead, I ain’t doing it. Go ahead and try without me.”

“Hmmm, I don’t think your wife and children would be very happy to see you dead. Won’t they be sad in their small little home in Zone 4?”

“Ho-how the fuck did you know that? You tracing me on the net? Don’t you dare do anything to them!”

“I have three of my buddies right now at your house, ready to enter. If you choose not to comply, well, I’ll have to make some changes.” Tyson grinned as he tossed a scanner to Ceres, who aimed the scanner at Gaul, holding it steady.

“No, no, no you can’t do this! They are innocent! They didn’t do anything wrong… wait, you’re bluffing. You haven’t shown me a video yet of your buddies, so you don’t actually have them there.” Gaul went from a panic into a smirk as he realized Tyson was lying right to his face.

“Oh no, you figured me out.” Tyson shrugged. “Well, that’s plan A out of the way.”

“500,000 L-Credits.”

“Sorry?”

“Give me that amount right now to my bank account and I’ll do anything for you. I’ll cover up everything easy. I’ll even show up at the main prison office and vouch everything is fine.” Gaul compromised, his buck yellow teeth showing through his grin.

“Hmm, that’s a tempting offer. How about 0 L-credits and I let you live.”

“You stupid idiot, you can’t let me die unless you want to get exposed. If I don’t check in with the main prison office in the next two hours, they are going to send an entire squad of armoured guards here to come and wipe your fucking ass.”

“Think the scanner is done” Ceres dropped the scanner, passing it back to Tyson.

“What?”

“Thanks for your help, Gaul.” Tyson pulled out an energy pistol and aimed it at Gaul’s forehead.

“Wait wai-“ Only a loud sizzle followed, with the smell of charred meat filling the air.

“Lucky I still had my helmet on,” Ceres remarked. “You got enough voice data out of that?”

“I got enough of everything. We can recreate him completely virtually, and use his body’s fingerprints to verify. We’re clear now. The Corym is going to come by in about one hour.”

Ceres nodded, sitting on another chair and checking the route. Next he needed to hit the thrusters, that was supposedly on the other side of the asteroid. It would be more than fifty kilometres away from where he was now. “Can you handle the observation post alone?”

Tyson gave a thumbs up as he worked on another monitor, fabricating even more data. “No problem. I should be able to stall them for the next six days or so until they come by checking.”

Before Ceres could respond, they suddenly received a notice on one of the monitors of the operations center. “Ship launched…?” Tyson frowned as he checked the details, while Ceres watched a passenger ship take off towards Athen from the other side of the asteroid, the blue glow of its sub light engines twinkling.

“What the… they just sent forty more guards towards New Saint. Something about an enforcer training exercise of some sorts.”

“Enforcer training exercise? Since when?”

“I don’t know, but it’s making our job a lot easier. Most likely you would only have to deal with ten or so guards. The turrets most likely are going to be automated, but I can’t hack them from here. Their data cores are pretty closed off.”

Ceres glanced towards Athen which was seen looming over the glass dome of the operations center. Has the battle for Rockhold already begun?

***

The rebellion base was in full mobilization mode, with thousands of soldiers and crew members running to and fro and equipping themselves with gear. Hundreds of automated floating platforms shifted ammunition, battery packs, and explosives, loading them up onto hovertrucks and armored hovercars.

Each and every dock was filled with activity, technicians configuring the armored hovercars with in-house composite ceramic plates with a dash of Sturore, while they built in more redundant systems to ensure the Floa wouldn’t be disabled in a single hit.

Ever since the recall of all soldiers back to the base, the hangar bay has only gotten more crowded. New soldiers that barely passed the physical tests were familiarising themselves with the various types of vehicles as well.

The VR training pods were continuously occupied, booked in non-stop sessions where each squad ran simulations of urban combat in Rockhold. With the new information collected thanks to Ceres, the Keepers and Athen Defender’s combat loadout were far more intricate and detailed, as well as their fighting style.

The squads would run VR scenarios of multiple building types in an infinite configuration, continuously pushing them to their limits.

VR was one part of the puzzle. Real life training was emulated in a empty warehouse, where makeshift rooms and buildings served as a way for the squad to bring what they learnt in VR into true muscle memory.

At the very top of the hangar bay was a catwalk, where Ardan and Sierra was standing and overseeing the movement. “Sir, just got an update. The enforcers are recalling some units stationed in the outer zones back to Zone 1.” Sierra reported.

“Remind me what’s the total Athen Enforcer strength again?” Ardan asked.

“Sir, estimates from A.S puts them at about 560,000 enforcers currently, though I’m not sure all of them are going to be attacking Rockhold. Half of them should be support staff of some form, so their combatants would be about 200,000 in total. They should be attacking in waves to maintain operational cohesion, so their initial force might be 50,000 to a 100,000

“Our strength now?”

“49,560 members, not including the main force that we just sent off to Dreyfus Peaks.”

“Hmm, we’ll have to count on the other rebel cell groups to back us up then. Make sure Dark Exterior is sending a few divisions over, they have more than enough.”

Ardan’s cell group was one of the smaller ones – the total number of rebellion members numbered more than three million. The main issue though was that not all of them were trained, and the standard exosuit was not up to par with the Athen Defenders. Even Dark Exterior, which had a hundred and forty divisions, did not have enough exosuits to arm the entire force.

Ardan had to rely on the fact that they were to act like a sort of elite force, which was why he put more of his budget into equipment than recruiting. The fight against the Keepers at the research lab had shown him just how useless basic combat armour was.

“It doesn’t look very optimistic, if I’m being honest.” Sierra noted. “The chances of us winning is less than twenty percent according to the A.I simulations.”

“You’ve been with me long enough to know that every real battle never goes like the simulations.” Ardan smiled slightly under his ‘White Fang’ mask. “We’re not planning to win the battle anyway, the objective is to stall long enough for them to get Haui’s Moon back down. With the boost in numbers, we’ll be able to swing the tide of the battle back. Even if it take months.”

Sierra nodded. Even if it was not explicitly stated, almost all the rebellion members knew that that if they only wanted to win they would have never joined the rebellion. They were fighting for more than that.

A holographic figure of Bonfire appeared in front of the ‘White Fang’.

[Attention all rebel cell groups – priority one alert. Major gangs have begun their insurgent campaign key locations in Rockhold, cornering the Queen’s Guards. The enforcers are most likely going to intervene in Rockhold after using the situation to manipulate media support from New Saint.]

[Once the enforcers intervene in Rockhold, Dark Exterior is to occupy as many zones as possible in the outer zones to divert the enforcers response to Rockhold. Dark Exterior will also sabotage the three newly created military contractors to destabilize their supply chain. Fresh Foods will lock down the agricultural zones immediately as long as possible to cut off the food supply to New Saint. Sliver Ring will sabotage the spaceport and damage the automated lifter system. Central Command will have specialized groups striking at Zone 1.]

[White Fang, your job is to act as an elite force to counter the Keepers if they appear and inflict as much damage as possible onto the Athen Enforcers. Stall the enforcers in Rockhold itself as long as possible.]

Ardan nodded, the plan being simple. Wait for the enforcers to enter Rockhold, before striking at key locations and swarming the ministries and administration in one fell swoop. If that didn’t work, the cutoff in supply of food from the agricultural zones and trade from the spaceport would cripple the city for a good long while, throwing it into chaos.

Millions of citizens would be affected, but Ardan had long lost any sense of morality regarding the inners. To him, as long as the city was ruled by the Five Families and occupied by those who voted for them, it was a tumour to be excised.

“Sierra, bring out everything from vault. Ammunition, stockpiles, equipment. Remove the limit on contribution points for Victorious Revolt exosuit upgrades.”

“Everything…? Felicia is not going to be happy about that.”

“Everything, I want to have the best chance out there on the battlefield. This will be the biggest fight of the rebellion so far, and we’re the first strike, so let’s go with a big bang. Felicia can cry about it later.” Ardan knew he had to pit his force against the Keepers, of which he did not have a clear idea of how many there were.

Based on what they learnt from the captured 2ndGeneration Keepers, fighting the exosuit drones would be as though they were fighting an A.I. controlled squad with perfect communication that cannot be interrupted. They needed every advantage and every bit of combat power they could squeeze out.

Soldiers scurried all over the armouries and hangar bays, grabbing their loadout and outfitting their exosuits. Some of the heavier exosuits were assisted by exosuit repairers, docking mounted cannons onto their shoulders.

Randy clutched his multi-terminal, staring at an old photo of him and his mother. “Don’t worry, Ma, your boy is coming to save you. I’m pretty strong now, can’t wait for you to see how good I am.” He smiled to himself before sliding the multi-terminal into the right pocket of his uniformed pants, before checking his exosuit.

A hand patted his shoulder gently. “Hey, buddy. We’re going to win this. Don’t forget ‘Dumpling’ is counting on us, whatever mission he’s doing. If we survive this, next round at the mess hall’s on me.” Don grinned.

Randy nodded, though there was a hidden sinking feeling in the both of them that they might not come out of this battle unscathed.

***

Dozens of energy beams and rockets flew over the barricades in the middle of the street, exploding into the buildings and stores nearby. Dead bodies lay in scattered flesh chunks across the sidewalk, mannequins from boutique shops riddle with gaping sizzling holes, collapsed neon signs with exosuits huddling behind, using it as a temporary cover as it flickered between life and death.

Saater grimaced as he panted behind a smoldering wreck of a downed Queen’s Guard hovercar. “Julia, we’re pinned down on Sector 9, any chance of backup?”

[Negative, the major gangs are hitting our branches all over the city. I can’t afford to redirect forces to you.]

“Fuck!” Saater cursed, gripping his energy rifle tightly. He peeked over the hovercar, only to be greeted with five energy shots and a hailstorm of bullets which rocked the hovercar.

“Dammit, thirty of them, one cyborg right out in the middle.”

“The great old Saater, always strutting around like you own the place. Well I’m about to own this place now!” A haughty cyborg cackled as he walked out in the open, carrying a minigun that was obviously donated from the enforcers.

Saater slapped the shoulder of the Queen’s Guard soldier next to him. “Switch to visuals, I’m going in.” He grabbed a flashbang from his waist in his left hand, while hoisting his energy rifle on his right.

Without another word, Saater activated his jamming electronics, leaping out of the hovercar with an acrobatic spin.

“Idiot, your Mirage Gunner won’t work against me at close rang-“ The cyborg smirked before a brilliant white light blinded his electronic eyeballs, shorting them temporarily as he shrieked. With a quick three tap burst, Saater dispatched the cyborg easily, before running forward under fire and grabbing the minigun.

Saater tossed the minigun back to his squad members, it clattering on the ground. Dancing across the street while firing back at the other gangsters who were in cover, Saater moved professionally, accurately taking out multiple targets with rapid shots.

The dazzling lights coupled with the glow of the burning wrecks made it hard to see anything than shadows, and the gangsters couldn’t rely on any of their inbuilt electronic sensors either.

Soon, the minigun roared to life, a Queen’s Guard member mounting it on the hovercar and blasting away down the street.

The neon sign that a few of the gangsters were hiding behind crumpled easily under the bullets, with some ripping through the guts and waist, shredding them into unrecognizable pieces.

A few more explosions occurred as some of their exosuits caught on fire or had their power source hit directly, igniting into a brilliant green flame as they tried to roll and put it out.

The firefight was over in the next three minutes, with Saater leaning against a wall and panting heavily. This was the fifth firefight he had been in since the major gangs started fighting, about a week ago.

It’s been a continuous guerrilla war across the entire city, with multiple close quarter firefights. Saater had already lost half of his original platoon, forced to leave their bodies behind. But even he knew that the fight was only just beginning.

None of the big players from either of the major gangs had showed up yet. No doubt they were keeping their trump card hidden, while they let the cannon fodder fight it out and weaken the Queen’s Guard.

A large klaxon blared throughout the city, as five hovercars flew directly at the Queen’s Tower through the sky. The Queen’s Tower had not been fully repaired yet, it’s sides still burnt from the previous attack as well as featuring multiple gaping holes.

Before they could reach it however, multiple particle beam turrets from the middle of the tower accurately sniped them, blasting through their weak energy shields and knocking them right out of the sky. The Queen had made sure no enemy hovercar or projectile could blow up the Queen’s Tower from the air without having sufficient countermeasures.

The particle turret immediately turned to face the ground and provided artillery support, following the called out targets of squads on the ground.

“Sector 9 clear for now, where next?” Saater spoke in between pants. He knew other squads had it worse than him, and he needed to help them.