Con-Red: Recourse Read online

  “Sir, they just hit the entire TLaR network. We registered five direct impacts, but one system is still online. That relay is half blocked by debris, however,” reported the Colonel as he leaned closer to one of the large displays.

  “Well, that didn’t take them long, did it?” sighed General Stelle as more aspects of his defensive preparations deteriorated. “Did you get the message out to all forces?”

  “Roger that sir, CON Red-Charlie was the first message we got out.”

  Another shudder ran through the facility and kicked up the dust that had collected on the CCT. General Stelle shook his head and blinked quickly as some of it attacked his eyes. He ran his hand through his shortly cut hair at the same time and wiped away any debris particles that might have coated his scalp. As he opened his lacrimating eyes and focused once more on the holographic image in front of him, Brinek instantly realized that something was very wrong with the picture and took a double take. He was sure that no more than seconds ago there had been many more units on the map than there were now. This was confirmed when his neural implant read his thoughts and called up previous unit locations, marking them with representative icons, which featured every units designation and statistics. These units had seemed to simply vanish from the planet’s surface.

  “General, we just registered multiple surface impacts and detonations along the entire perimeter, both length and width. We lost contact with the 48th, 12th, 335th, and the 572nd. Half of the remaining units reporting mass casualties from ten to fifty percent. We got hit hard sir, very hard.” Stated Colonel Lakler as he got direct updates from the communications station.

  “They knew just where to hit us and how to do it right,” the General acknowledged in a surprisingly calm voice as he studied the map in front of him closer.

  “Sir, we also lost contact with Colonel Slaige’s team.”

  The map rotated and changed as he instructed, focusing on the area that had received the greatest amount of punishment. It was also the area that had contained the highest concentration of military might. The bombardment seemed to have cleared a fairly defined path through the security line leading straight to the base itself. This realization hit the general like a driver to the head.

  “Colonel, deploy all remaining reserves to Sector Alpha! Lock this base down and prepare for an assault.” Even as the last words of this command left his mouth an alarm sounded throughout the base and his two body guards instantly unbound their weapons, holding them at the ready while facing the large blastdoors that separated the Command Room from the rest of the base.

  “We got reports of enemy soldiers inside the perimeter, sir! The 85th found what look like orbital drop pods less than four hundred meters from base entrance.”

  “They used to the bombardment as a cover for the drop pods. Well at least we know they aren’t stupid,” General Stelle took a moment to admire their tactical sense just as another shockwave passed through the base, closer this time than the one before it, knocking loose some syncrete from one of the walls.

  “New detonations along the perimeter and flanks, sir. I believe they are trying to slow down the flow of reinforcements from the other sectors,” Colonel Lakler relayed as he read the unfolding situation before them.

  Whoever these hostiles were, thought Brinek, they knew exactly what they were doing and how to do it. They were going after leadership targets quickly and with full force in order to disorient the rest of the military forces on the planet, making it harder for them to put together a cohesive defensive strategy. The enemy had already disabled most of their communications network and would soon take down this base. Being an optimist all his life, it was hard for the general to admit this failure, but it stemmed from reality. He simply did not have the resources present to stop this very attack. The enemy had surprised the hell out of everyone and he had to give them credit for that.

  The General took a deep breath and turned to look at Gustauf, who had the same feeling as Brinek. “Colonel Lalker, dump all the information we have obtained into the Couriers and dispatch them to Tesa.”

  “Hostile forces have entered the base! Repeat, hostile forces are inside the base!” shouted the soldier manning the communications station. “Sensors are tracking them spreading out all over, but the majority is converging on this location. They are moving quickly and appear to be breaking through all checkpoints.”

  Brinek keyed in the security cams on his CCT and took a step back as the image appeared. It was of one of the large hallways stretching throughout the base. At the bottom edge of the feed was a group of four armed soldiers crouching behind a pair of Tactical Shields, which were designed to stop incoming projectile and laser fire while at the same time allowing soldiers behind them to fire through special slots. They were made from almost completely transparent metallic alloys and surrounding by a small forcefield to stop laser weapons.

  Just then, at the top of the screen a door exploded from the side of a wall and slammed into the wall opposite it. Through this forced opening jumped what seemed like an orange mass of armor and beast. Whatever it was bounced off the opposite wall on four legs almost like the armored door had done, before accelerated towards the soldiers standing at their post in the hallway behind their shields. Behind the creature more enemy soldiers appeared, all running through the door on four legs with their heads, or what he assumed to be their heads, pointed down. Laser and projectile fire seemed to splash and impact all around the first creature, but it was hard to notice if any damage was actually done because the thing kept on coming in almost a blur, a testament to their speed.

  Brinek noted that all of the hostiles seemed to have what looked like a small cannon attached to their backs. Just then the camera feed broke into a static for a few seconds. When the display cleared, two of the soldiers behind their barrier were on the ground, dead or dying. A flash filled the screen as something exploded and the first creature was thrown back against one of the walls with a deep crater in its underside. There was no time to celebrate the minor victory as the rest of the enemy force was upon the checkpoints. They didn’t even slow down as they crashed head first into the barriers and knocked them back as if they were made of foil. The remaining soldiers were thrown into the walls with the same force and trampled over as they got in the way.

  He shook his head a little and let the camera feeds cycle again watching the image change one room or corridor after another. The base was a massive underground construction, but the base’s Restricted Artificial Intelligence showed only the areas in which enemy troops had been detected or were expected to come through. The first few images were corridors and rooms blocked off by soldiers, but the rest were scenes of battle and defeat. One image was a string of feeds following a squads retreat from one room or corridor to another. They were losing men along the way, but none of them broke, conducting themselves with extreme professionalism in what was a losing battle. He couldn’t be more proud of his soldiers than he was at that moment. Brinek also couldn’t be sadder at this moment. These men and women were all like his kids and he was like a father to them. He had raised all of them since they had been eighteen year old kids on their first deployment. The thoughts were quickly shut out of his mind. He would think about them all later, but not at this moment.

  Another image quickly replaced the last just as one of the enemy soldiers landed in the midst of another group of security personal, slamming into one with its head, sending the man or woman flying before spinning around to smash the others against both corridor walls. Some of the other images only showed groups of the hostiles running through empty dark hallways as they made their way towards the Command Room.

  “They are here sir….” One of the soldiers remarked and trailed off nervousness in her voice just before the last camera feed switched on just outside the Number 1 Blastdoor.

  The image showed what seemed like a platoon sized group of hostiles mulling around on the other side of the massive door protecting the Command Room. Under their
limbs were the bodies of a dozen dead soldiers that had been tasked with guarding the blastdoor. Whatever these things were, they seemed to be very anxious, or at least it looked that way to the general. He really had no idea what kind of emotions of mannerisms these creatures had since they were not where new human. What he did recognize, however, was that they were splitting into two groups on the other side of the entrance and making a path for something big.

  “Tilt that cam up. What are they doing at the other end?” Instructed General Stelle as he looked up from his CCT towards the large blastdoor across the room.

  The blastdoor was made from some of the densest and most resistant alloys in production, allowing it to withstand assaults from almost all ground weapons known to mankind. It was designed for the purpose of giving those inside the containment room just enough time for help to arise and alleviate the situation, but not as an indefinite protector. There was also nothing human about these aliens and it stood to reason that their technology, weapon and otherwise, wouldn’t be either. This made the general wonder what sort of weapon they would use to breach the blastdoor.

  Brinek looked down at the display and waited for the camera to move into position. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his two protectors moving themselves between the blastdoor and him. Just then the camera locked into position in time to see what looked like a missile propel itself from a launcher. His head bolted up to look at the blastdoor, while his body braced for the impact that would surely happen.

  There was no detonation, however. As he looked at the slab of alloy separating him from the enemy horde outside, his eyes grew with surprise as a shimmering object appeared in the middle of the Command Room and dropped to the ground. The general opened his mouth to speak when an ear splitting high pitch shriek filled the room, causing his eyes to shut quickly and his hands to reflexively cover his eyes. None of this helped, however, as the sound intensified, making him drop to the ground in agony. The pain stopped him from making any conscious decisions. As he rolled on the ground all he could think of was for the pain to stop and for all this to be over.

  General Brinek Stelle never saw the explosion that destroyed the blastdoor. Nor did he witness the large chucks of alloy shatter and accelerate in all directions, shredding through anything that got in their way like shrapnel from a fragmentation grenade. All the general noticed was being picked up off the ground as the pressure wave spread throughout the room. There was a moment of weightlessness before him body slammed into something hard and immobile. As he fell back to the ground the general realized only one thing before the darkness surrounded him, the pain was over.

  II

  December 22, 2486 S.E.D

  Telfor, Frontiera

  Helaron Plateau

  The light was almost blinding, forming a radiating halo around everything as he tried to squint and shield his eyes. It wasn’t just the light either, the noise coming from all directions was deafening to his ears. He couldn’t make out anything of what was being said around him, but he knew it was the sound of people conversing in a crowded enclosed space. Where he was, was not at all apparent to him at the moment, but somehow it all felt strangely familiar to him, as if he had witnessed all of this before.

  A certain something brushed pasted him from behind and caused him to turn his head in that direction. He couldn’t make out what it was, however, only that it was a dark shape and that is seemed to tower over him before receding into the distance. Whatever the shape was, it neither seemed to pause or look around, acting as if he was not important enough to acknowledge. The shape was not alone, he saw as more and more of them appeared all around him, pushing their way towards destinations unknown. They were all around him, but none seemed to notice him standing there. It was almost like he was invisible to the world. That realization seemed to bring anger into his mind. The anger in turn allowed him to realize other emotions that he was feeling inside, emotions that had been hidden all this time.

  He tried to filter out the emotions as if they were not his own, as if they were being pushed down inside him for reasons he did not yet understand. Once the emotional dam ruptured, however, he could not stop them from enveloping him. There was the initial anger, which then brought forth sadness and longing. Confusion followed these at first, but then instantly combined with pain and tremendous loss. It was from these that memories began to emerge. Memories that had been locked away deep inside. Memories that had shaped his entire life and had helped create the person he had become. These were memories of his past, but this was the present, wasn’t it?

  The hazy corona of the world around him began to fade and soften in proportion to his increased awareness of where he was. It was still difficult to observe everything directly in front of him, but everything else on either side of him slowly came into focus. He finally saw that the towering shapes moving around him were different people. Some were just walking around alone talking on their communicators or reading off their wrist-mounted netcom units. Still others in the crowd were in more of a hurry and pushed their way through with their families as carts full of luggage floated behind them. He followed some of these people with his eyes to their destinations and saw them getting into long lines that in turn lead to a large entrance-way set into a curved transparent wall, beyond which rested a large blue and white vessel.

  Everything started to come back to him quicker from the moment he recognized this curved barrier and the dozens of space shuttles sitting on designated landing pads on the other side of that transteel wall. This place was the Sheltonek Departure Terminal. He hadn’t set foot into the terminal since over thirty years ago and that had been the first and last time he had ever done so. That day had been the worst day of his life and only now did he realize that he was in the process of reliving it. The thought of going through it again caused his heart to race. Panic threatened to almost overtake him. He wanted this to stop and quickly closed his eyes to make it go away.

  This isn’t real. It’s just a dream. Snap out of it! He shouted within his mind as his breathe quickened, willing himself to wake up from the coming nightmare. When his eyes opened, however, nothing had changed. He was still standing in the very same place he had been from the start.

  “Everything is going to be just fine Dunny. Trust me,” a familiar voice said to him from directly in front. Just the sound of that voice caused Duntan Slaige’s heart to skip a beat and tears to swell in his eyes.

  It was then that the bright aura in front of him completely faded and a middle aged man leaned down towards him with a big smile on his warm face. He reached over and ran his hand through Duntan’s long sandy hair and kneeled down on one knee in front of him. Duntan could feel the man’s big hand cradle the back of his head as he gazed down towards him with kind sparkling eyes.

  “Dad…” Duntan managed to get out slowly while emotions swelling inside him like a rising tide as he recognized the father he had not seen since youth.

  “Don’t you worry Dunny boy, everything will be alright,” he began to say in that ever soft, but semi-deep voice.

  “Hunny come on, we have to hurry. You know how much I hate to be late. Duntan is a big boy, he’ll be just fine at his uncle’s,” Duntan heard in another quickly distinct voice, one of his mother, call out to them. He finally noticed her standing there slightly behind his father. These were the very same words she had spoken on that fateful day, but his father didn’t acknowledge her.

  “I’m proud of the man you have become Dunny and all that you have accomplished. I always knew you would make something of yourself and help those in need,” his father continued with the same warm smile on his face. These were words never spoken to him before. “We have to go, but just know that we love you son, with all our hearts. You were always our world and we will never forget you.”

  “You can’t…please dad,” Duntan finally said as his father started to get up. Begging him, “you… you wont come back. You’ll both die.... Stay…please…stay with me.”

 
The man paused and leaned back down towards Duntan, putting his hand on the boy’s heart and looked him in the eyes, “I know son, but you have to let us go. It’s just destiny. You can’t stop it and nor should you. For our sake and for yours as well, you have to let us go.”

  With that he leaned all the way in to hug Duntan tightly and whispered into his ear, “there are people counting on you Dunny and you can’t let them down. You have to do your job and help them. I believe in you, always. Goodbye son…I love you.”

  Duntan tried to hug his father tighter in order to prevent him from going, letting the tears flow freely for the first time in his life, but the man dissipated in his arms, leaving him standing there alone in the large spaceport terminal. Duntan moved his hand through the air in front of him, hoping to feel the last remains of his father, and saw how small and young his hands looked. He studied them carefully for only a moment before looking back towards the curved barrier in front of him. All of the shuttles had disappeared except for one.

  As he watched the craft slowly lifted off the ground and pulled back away from the walkway that connected to the terminal. It only took seconds for the ship to accelerate into the air and Duntan knew what was to happen next. Even with his sad knowledge, however, he finally realized that he was not crying. He was surprisingly calm as his eyes followed the shuttle’s ascent. It only took a minute for the ship to reach the proper altitude and Duntan watched with wide open eyes as it blossomed in a brilliant explosion, shattering pieces in all directions.