Chapter 11 - Gone to Hell

 “...as it breaks down, a charged particle escapes and interacts with its environment. That's why it's so dangerous to life,” Blaize continued to Tomah. “After the bombs dropped, most of our atmospheric protections, ozone and the like, were actually stripped away as a result. The resulting sun exposure, dust cloud, and torrential weather shifts were so sudden, it actually formed a mini-Epoch. It's crazy if you look at the core samples. It's relative stability for ten's of thousands of years, and then just wild shifts every few centuries. It's especially interesting once we introduced the Adam bug. As it absorbed all the charged particles, its rampant photosynthesis released a ton of excess oxygen into the atmosphere and propagated a wave of mega-fauna and gigantic insects. A host of creatures actually rapid-evolved to adapt. It's slowed down now that generation lengths have stabilized, but it probably compressed a few hundred thousand years into a mere several thousand.”

“We have completed our collections and eliminated the heat signature. Void beetles, whole hoard of them. We have resumed our approach to the primary objective. If you disembark now, Bull team, you should hit there just as we reach the rear ingress point,” Marion's voice piped into Jim's rig, interrupting Blaize's lesson. “Are you capable of deploying Bull-seven?”

“My reserves are at full. We're ready to engage whenever you are,” Jim's response was cool. He had put his plug into stasis mode, with just his sensors running, in order to conserve his metabolic energy. He revived his core, the pillowy nanomachines squirming into life and the out-of-body experience re-engulfing his physical awareness.

“Roger that, Gold-one,” Blaize came through, “we are beginning our decent. Once we arrive, we will begin engaging the enemies right away, do not wait for confirmation, please update your status to us as we combat.”

“Acknowledged, Bull-five. We'll keep you updated. Good luck. Gold-one, out.” Marion was in full-leader mode. Her voice was finite and authoritative. It sounded very reminiscent of the Commander's in tone.

“You heard the lady,” Blaize came over. “Let's get moving. Hold the rear, Bull-seven. -Nine and I will take point. If you have ANY trouble, let us know so we can initiate an extraction. There shouldn't be any resistance until we get to the actual camp. Sweeps show this camp doesn't have any monitoring set up around it. With communications channels jammed by the Valiant since the beginning of the campaign, they should have no awareness that we have destroyed their other base, yet. This is a small trafficking point that has been mostly hidden, so they will not expect us to be aware of it. Be quick and we should be able to knock this out easily.”

“Roger that,” Tomah and Jim rang in chorus.

As they entered the cave, the path began to narrow considerably. Marching hunched and single file, all of them cranked the recoil absorption on their Achilles' Sinks to near 100%. This recovered almost all of the rebound energy such that each footfall of the gigantic machines would not shake the earth beneath them, alerting of their approach. This, however, meant that movement was slow-going as each step required a long pause for the sinks to dissipate and reabsorb the energy. After a grueling slog, the path opened up enough for them to walk three-abreast. As expected, the approach was uneventful, nary a watchman to be seen.

“Up ahead is the primary ingress point,” Blaize announced as they neared the final approach. “-Nine and I will flank either side. I will take objective-right. -Seven, I want you to hold distance and give us suppressive fire. I'd recommend getting low as there does not appear to be any cover in front of the cave mouth. We need to pull those mobile platforms away from the rear access corridor to maintain Marion and Enlil's cover.”

“Roger, Bull-five,” Tomah came over.

“Roger that,” Jim replied in kind. He removed the automatic energy rifle magnetically clipped crosswise against Vishnu's back. The mass driver carbine, similar to Marion's, it crossed would come in once they had achieved penetration across the line, but Jim knew that energy is better against organics.

As they closed the last few steps, they normalized their Achilles bias. This did a decent job of telegraphing their advance, and, as expected, the sensors showed an advance of the enemy units to fortify the entrance. Tomah removed an explosive charge from his bandoleer and lobbed it into the cave mouth. The explosion sent reverberations through the caverns, and as hoped, the mobile platforms began to pull forward toward the entrance.

“Looks like the fireworks have started, hope we're not too late to the party,” Adrian came through. “Engaging Chameleon cloaking.”

Adrian's location marker whizzed across the mini-map, his presence invisible to everyone, like a wraith blowing on the wind. With deft motion he bounded from objective point to objective point, briefly disengaging his stealth to plant his charges and then disappearing like a firefly in the darkness. Marion held position at the rear, waiting for the right time to storm through.

Blaize and Tomah had taken position flanking the cave entrance, and Jim had rolled into a prone position dead center. He was peppering the cave entrance with suppressive fire, keeping the people at bay. They had trained artillery installments along the outer rim on the entrance and were providing their own counter-fire. At interval, Jim would halt fire and Tomah and Blaize would peak around the edges and fire a few rounds themselves, attempting to neutralize the artillery installments. After a few attempts, both had eliminated the installment across from them, the left artillery for Blaize on the right, and vice versa for Tomah. With their primary obstacles neutralized, they crossed from their current position and took up cover behind pillars that flanked either side of the geofront just within the entrance. Jim saw a ledge directly inside the entrance, the pillars on either side, ramps flanking the perimeter, a great place to gain vantage with the mobile platforms against ground troops, but a perfect chest-high wall for Jim's massive core to take cover. Jim clipped his energy rifle onto his back and sprinted to the ledge with a push up and a lunge.

Once in position, Jim unclipped his mass driver and loaded a round. With Tomah and Blaize covering from the top of the ramps and Jim hiding behind the ledge, they held a half-circle-shaped bulge of an offensive line. “Where are the mobile platforms?” Jim inquired from behind his ledge as slugs from the platforms ripped through the earth above his head and slammed into the ground at a diagonal trajectory.

Marion popped out from cover and took stock of the enemy positions. The platforms were slowly advancing across the battle field as troops swarmed to the front. There were still a few artillery installations around the outer perimeter of the cavern. “They're running the center. Looks like one of them has rocket charges, so don't pin yourself. I'm going to begin my advance to your position once you get those platforms out of the way. Should be able to handle the artillery pretty easily. Careful with your pressure waves. Don't want to blow the cave early.”

With Marion holding a visual, the platforms appeared on the mini map. Jim popped up over the ledge and keyed his targeting computer onto their location, and then ducked back into cover, narrowly dodging a spate of large mass driver rounds from the artillery. Tomah and Adrian were making quick work of any trooper that wandered within energy rifle range as they disappeared into a cloud of vapor and brilliant light, not even a corpse left to bury. Jim popped out again, planted his core's elbows onto the ledge, and trained his mass driver on one of the platforms in one deft motion. When the computer blinked it's positive lock, Jim pulled the trigger and launched a round at the vehicle. The bullet slammed into the vehicle and ripped through the outer shell. The vehicle did not halt, however, and continued advance. Jim let loose another round before ducking back behind the barrier. This time, however, a satisfying “clunk” was quickly followed by an even more satisfying “boom.” The wave that followed knocked a sizable portion of the troops to the ground, the advancing shock causing destructive internal damage.

“Missile away! Jim!” Marion shouted through the intercom.

With a hurl, Jim pulled himself up over the ledge and rolled forward into the enemy ranks. The charge landed dead center in the arena that the ledge and ramps formed. The shockwave sent Jim's core stumbling forward. He recovered with a roll, but no sooner had he got to his feet, between the husk of the blown-out platform and the operational one, did a crashing noise draw his attention. The troops, much less wary than them, had collapsed the pillars behind which Tomah and Blaize were covering. Luckily they had rolled out of the way in time and were now advancing along the perimeter toward the artilleries, which were now peppering them with fire. The entry point they had stormed through, however, was now caved in.

“Looks like the front door is closed, Marion. We're sweeping the perimeter, we're gonna need to slip out the back,” Blaize's strained voice came over, the stress palpable in his tenor.

“I'm hit!” Tomah bellowed through. Jim wheeled around just as he saw Tomah fall to the ground, a mass driver from one of the artilleries having ripped through the knee actuator on his leg.

Marion pulled out from cover and stormed his location, annihilating the artillery with surgical precision as she sprinted over to assist him. With the exposure, the still-operational mobile platform began to move, fixing the barrel of it's missile launcher on both their locations.

“Now it gets fun,” the ethereal voice came through to Jim, startling him out of his reverie and snapping him into action. On reflex, Jim lunged at the platform, closing the distance in a single bounding stride, and grabbed the barrel of the tank. With a yank, it bent to a 90 degree angle.

“Jim!” was the last thing he heard Marion say as the platform operators, unaware of the bent barrel from their covered vantage points attempted to fire a charge. “Attempt” being the key operating term, as the missile ran down the barrel. It detonated upon slamming into the bent end of the barrel, the shockwave ripping through its armor and causing the internal energy sources and the other remaining missiles inside the tank to cascade into exploding onto itself, just as happened on their previous mission. The resulting pressure wave, so powerful it was visible to the naked eye, ripped even farther out and sent a tremor through the cavern, igniting one of the demolition charges Adrian had planted earlier. The pillar vaporized into a rain of sand as a stream of gigantic boulders plummeted down into a pile on-top of Jim.

The chasm heaved and lurched as Marion reached Tomah. She scooped an arm under Heimdall and helped limp him toward the cavern. Blaize had finished clearing his artillery and was making a B-line to Jim's location. “You have to hurry, Tiger-three. We don't have much time. Bull-five, recover Jim fast! We have to get out of here, this cave's integrity is massively compromised with that pillar down,” Marion sounded frantic.

“Look out!” Tomah bellowed through the intercom. “Bug!”

Marion, Blaize, and Adrian stopped dead in their tracks as a beetle twice the size of their cores rushed into the cavern, destroying part of the entry to accommodate it's massive size. Its oily black carapace emitting the same inky, light-absorbing, aura as the smaller beetles, but wrote large. Tomah, with his free hand, pulled his energy rifle to his shoulder and began blasting at the creature, to no effect, however. The abyssal miasma surrounding it seemed to drink the energy blasts in, a puff of smoke-like vapor coiling into the shroud with every hit.

Marion and Blaize took note and began hammering on the insect with their mass drivers. The super-heated chunks of metal made a satisfying, squishy crunch with every land, but it did not seem to deter the massive thing. “Looks like this is what the platforms were for,” Tomah mused. “They were probably to afraid to even explore where that tunnel led.

One round seemed to gain purchase, hitting something vital, as the beetle reared onto it's back legs and screeched an unearthly howl. It failed to cripple the bug, however, as it slammed back down, a tremulous ripple shivering through the geofront. “We've gotta take this thing out or it'll take this whole damned thing down on top of us!” Marion yelled. “Tiger-three, what's your ETA?”

“I just planted the last charge, Gold-one, Let's bring this place down on top of this sucker's head,” Adrian announced as he disengaged his Chameleon cloth and began hammering on the beetle with his mass pistols, reloading a new clip of ammunition at least twice. Progress, however, was heavily stalled. The bug refused to move into the main theater, blocking their path and preventing their exit. “We're pinned down!” Adrian came over.

“I told you this would be fun,” the voice piped into Jim's head. His core was pinned down. He could hear what was going on around him via the intercom.

“Guys!” he yelled. “I'm OK! Don't forget me! Get me out from under here! I can help!” Jim frantically transmitted to no response.

“I'll get you out of here, don't worry,” the voice sent icy chills up Jim's spine.

Jim's screen went black. His mini-maps, HUD, information controls, everything. Just black and silence. At length a command prompt invoked and a bunch of scripts began to invoke. It was in a language couldn't read. It looked vaguely like Old-World characters remembered from history class. Molly could read that, Jim thought. After a bunch of several hundred lines of foreign-language code streamed by, Jim heard a whirring sound coming from his core. Jim's screens returned, the his visual sensors unable to see anything but the rocks under which he was buried.

“Stand up,” the voice ordered him.

“I'm buried in rock. How do you expect me to do that?” Jim said out loud. He wasn't sure if the voice could hear him.

“I said stand up!” the voice boomed, so loud it shook Jim's head.

Jim, startled by the angry and authoritative voice, instinctively tried to stand up. The whirring sound reached a deafening pitch. With ease Jim felt Vishnu rise against the stones under which he was buried. The debris shot upward like an explosion, a stream of rocks riding a rippling wave vertically and crashing back to the earth like a fountain.

“Approach the beast,” the disembodied voice said to Jim.

The world seemed to stand still to he walked toward the creature. The rocks appeared to be suspended in mid air, Adrian a few lengths away from him, planted on knee, barraging the beetle. Marion had Simo's arm underneath Heimdall, as they limped their way closer to the exit, trying to get behind the beetle, both with their weapons in their good arms planted to their own shoulders, firing wantonly. Enlil was frozen mid-air as he dove sideways pistols blazing, himself also attempting to get behind the creature. As Jim walked forward, the world holding still, a bright hot light began to glow in front of him. He was moving so fast, it seemed, that he was collapsing the air in front of him and forming a self-igniting pressure wave. The space shimmered white-hot in front of him as he eventually stood directly in underneath the beetle, locked in a rear-up. Him swung his hands up from his side as quickly as he could, a white-hot pressure wave building around them, and pushed them out in front of his body, flat palms toward the beetle's undercarriage.

In an instant, the world seemed to resume speed. The pressure wave of Jim's motion rocketed forward. The conical burst and two pulses from Jim's hands propagated forward along their lines of motion. Faster than the eye, or any of their cameras, could detect, the bug exploded, the massive heat incinerating any bits before they could fly away. All that remained was Vishnu, standing in a crater of rent earth, hands aloft, shrouded in inky black smoke.

“What the fuck just happened!?” Adrian yelled into the intercom. “Is that Jim?”

“I don't know,” Jim replied. “One minute I was buried in stone, the next thing I know I'm standing up and under that thing and then it just exploded. What happened?”

“I don't know but we don't have time,” the cavern began to shake and rumble as bits of boulders started raining down from the ceiling as Blaize spoke. “We have to blow this thing NOW, before the whole thing caves in on us.”

“Yeah, that's all well and good,” Tomah said as they all made their way out the back entrance, “but what I want to know what the hell just happened. “One minute we're about to get stomped out by that thing, and the next there's a fucking geyser of rubble and that beetle is nothing more than a flash of light and smoke.”

“I can't tell you what happened either, Tomah,” Jim came through autonomically, his brain still trying to catch up. He shook his head, despite his computer, to try and knock his head back into place, causing Vishnu to follow in kind.

“Even your core does that,” Adrian came over. “That head thing.”

“Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out what happened,” Jim replied as they ran down the corridor single-file.

“We don't have time to figure out. We'll talk about it when we get top-side. I'm blowing this place, now. Brace yourself guys.” No sooner had Blaize finished talking than did a loud boom and rumble propagate through the cave floor. A “whoosh” of dust blasted through the tunnel they were walking as the cavern around them continued to rumble and quake. “Objective destroyed. We should be able to resume communication with the Valiant shortly.”

“Uh-oh,” Adrian chimed in. “Looks like we gotta find a new way out.” Just ahead of them, the path had collapsed in, blocking their entrance to where Blaize and Marion had abseiled down. “Long-wave says that's solid blocked all the way across. No blasting our way out. We need a new escape route.”

“We should be able to reestablish contact with the Valiant very shortly. Combat always seems to knock the long-range communication radio signals out of phase,” Blaize chirped over. “Few more seconds.”

“Gold one?” Standish's voice came through after a few moments. “Status report? We saw the collapse. Pretty spectacular. Radar shows you're not at the extraction point.”

“We're blocked in. Ran in to some trouble and some really stupid terrorists. Jim saved us back Bull-five and -seven, cover eight and four. Let's take this nice and slow. No more contingencies. Bull-seven, how's the knee?”

“I should be able to limp it along, gotta go slow, though,” Tomah replied.

“Roger that,” they all confirmed in chorus. Enlil started off, light on his hoof-like feet. Simo and Vishnu set off next, mass drivers butted against their shoulders, pointed off on diagonals as they there, though. Is there another way out?” Marion sounded much more relaxed now that contact with the Valiant was restored.

“Two birds, one stone. My lucky day” Standish snarked. “Gonna need you to go back to the cistern. There's a tunnel in the antechamber the water was dumped into. It connects to a larger reservoir that has exposure to the surface. Have fun guys, enjoy your swim! Valiant out.”

New mission data pushed from the Valiant populated into their HUDs. The route took them back along the path next to the river, through the cistern, and into the antechamber where a long underwater tunnel took them to a large subterranean reservoir. From the looks, there was a skylight big enough for them to climb out of. “This will be fun,” Marion eventually said once all of the info finished updating. “Tiger-three, you'll be out in front running recon. Bull-nine and I will cover ten and two, advanced behind Blaize. Adrian and Tomah fell in step behind, walking backward as they trained their energy rifles to the rear diagonals. Progress was paced but quick. They arrived at the cistern with no complications. Blaize and Marion finally got a good look into the antechamber as they all gazed down. The drop was a hundred or so feet from where they stood. There was no erosive damage to the wall implying that the water burst through and didn't trickle. At the bottom of the drop was a pool of water. Clear enough to see to the bottom, it was difficult to judge exactly how deep it might be.

“Well, here goes nothing.” With that, Blaize jumped down into the water below with a thunderous splash. The liquid engulfed him completely. “Water is really deep. Have to turn on vision assist down here, too. Having a hard time getting enough light.”

With a leap, one after another, they all jumped into the water and resumed formation. With vision assist, a suite of sonar, lidar, radar, and infrared/UV sensors, the dank blackness became somewhat navigable. The rock walls and silty bottom became ghostly black-and-white. With depth perception a foregone sacrifice when using vision assist, a shadowy blue grid was laid over the terrain to help highlight any inconsistent features such as pot holes or ledges. They slowly and methodically followed the orange line running along the ground on their HUD that had become their new mission line.

“How is everyone? Status update,” Marion came through. “Push an update to my HUD.”

“Looking good here, Gold-one,” Blaize replied first. “Metabolic reserves look good, kinetic energy stores look good. All life support systems are green.”

“Same here,” Adrian piped up.

“As I,” Tomah confirmed. “Internal repair on the knee joint is progressing. I am now only limited to about 60% capacity, now.”

“I'm doing Ok, here,” Jim came over. “I'm pretty beat up right now, though. Computer's saying my metabolic rates are low and I'm inclined to believe them. I'm starving and my muscles are aching. I should make it topside, but only just.”

“Alright, we'll keep it moving, then. Let's roll, guys.” Adrian began leading at point again as they moved out. The antechamber was tall and cylindrical, but not very wide across in diameter. It didn't take them long to get to the underwater tube. “Not tall enough for us to stand vertically. Engage your anti-field generators, we're gonna swim. It's only a few miles, should go by quickly.” With a round of “affirmatives,” the team engaged the anti-field generators that would counter-act the effects of gravity on them. As the generators slurped kinetic reserves, they all made haste as they began to swim through the tunnel. “Still gonna be tight guys. Not sure if you'll have enough room to paddle. We should probably stretch out formation and use thrusters.”

“I'll go first,” Tomah came through. “Better to have a heavy in front.” Tomah leaned forward and engaged his thrusters. His shoulders barely fit through the tunnel, as the blue geomagnetic thrusters on the bottom of his feet began to spark blue. Traditional thruster kits like ionic drive and jet propulsion were also available, but it was much easier to surf the electromagnetic field enveloping the planet.

After a short time, Adrian, Jim, Marion, and Blaize followed in order. The tube was mostly straight, save for a few deviations. Occasionally they would need to dodge around a pillar here and there, but the trip was mostly uneventful.

“I like you,” the voice came over as they traveled.

“What?” Jim said into the intercom.

“I didn't say anything,” Marion replied.

“Oh, sorry. Thought I heard someone,” Jim sheepishly responded.

“You did. Just not them,” the response almost like a whisper, tickling Jim's ears. “I hope you liked the show.”

“Who are you?” Jim questioned to himself, leaving the intercom off.

“I am called many names, but to you I am known as Vishnu. I am the supreme being, successor of Indra, Preserver of the Universe. I have been imbued into this creation of humanity to defend them from the demons of their world,” the breathy voice wafted into Jim's ear. “Your mind is pure and your body strong. I have allowed you to be my weapon. Do not betray me.”

“What does that mean?” Jim inquired, again to himself.

“In time you shall know all,” The voice cooed as it trailed off.

“We're here,” Marion came over. The reservoir was, more accurately, a massive underground lake. At the very top, a few hundred feet up, was a large opening through which the sun shone weakly.

“I can see pretty clearly without vision assist,” Tomah announced. “What do your scanners say, Adrian?”

“Looks good, it's a bit of a jungle up top, but we should be able to fit through the opening and reconnoiter with the Valiant. Lead the way,” Adrian's voice sounded ragged.

“Roger that, Adrian, heading up,” Tomah said as he began to ascend vertically through the pool.

At length, they all ascended the depth. The top was less an opening and more the surface of a small pond. A waterfall fell off a low-slung cliff into it. Around it was dense jungle, a small hole in the canopy overhead allowing the mid-evening to creep in through a massive dust cloud caused by the collapsed ground. A small speck, the Valiant, could be seen descending on their position to collect them.