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  Paul was tired, he could feel his limbs aching from the hours of fighting and his head numb from the constant beating of adrenaline surges, but he could visibly see the others slowing down and he knew they had to be in a rough spot. As he and Jason headed for the room where the tank had last been seen he knew that he’d have to be quick to avoid the chain gun, because there was no way his armor could stand up against that many bullets.

  When they came to the intersection that led to the bunk area where surveillance had said some of the Chinese had gathered, Megan and Brian split off and went inside, with the sound of multiple puffs of compressed air the only audible sign of a fight. By the time Paul and Jason were up to the next intersection the brief fight was already over.

  “Dorm clear,” Megan reported. “Caught them napping.”

  Paul smiled, knowing that being stuck in here for 8 hours had probably taken the edge off the enemy. If they moved quick, they might be able to catch most of them off guard.

  “In position,” Kip said.

  “Almost there,” Jason responded, picking up his jogging speed a bit. The tank and the main group of the troops had gathered in a food court with multiple entrances, which the 2s planned to make use of. “Eyes?”

  “Nothing in the hallways outside,” Olivia reported, monitoring the security cameras still active. “Still blind inside.”

  “Take a peek,” Paul suggested and he and Jason finally got into position.

  On the other side of the courtyard Emily slowly crept her helmet into peripheral view, without drawing a response. She held her head there for three long seconds, then just as slowly pulled back around the corner of the open doorway in the S-shaped entrance walkway.

  “Gun is pointed towards you,” she reported. “A few guards pacing, the rest are lounging around on the wings, but still armed.”

  “After you,” Jason prompted.

  Emily tagged Kip on the chest, then walked quickly forward, with him barely half a step behind her. As soon a she got inside the large room she sidestepped, heading for cover off to the left in the form of a fountain wall, hiding behind the curtain of water coming down in what looked like slow motion from a rectangular frame. Her red armor made a wrinkly blur from the other side, but no one noticed her presence at first.

  Kip headed the opposite direction, dropping to a knee as he slid down behind a low wall alongside a shallow staircase that led to a lower level eating area with dozens of tables and chairs, currently filled with several Chinese playing cards, napping, or just having a chat. One of them, seated directly across from the stairs, knocked his chair over backwards as he tried to jump to his feet, his excitement overpowering his balance in the low gravity as he reached for his rifle lying on the table in front of him.

  Kip put one stinger solidly in his chest, then started making precise twitches of his upper body, twisting his rifle a few inches here and there, firing one shot at each of the nearby men as they scrambled to respond, some not waking up in time to even see who shot them.

  Emily let the alarm spread and focus on the opposite side of the room before she stepped out from behind the side column of the waterfall and started shooting men getting to their feet from where they’d been sitting on a long bench. She ran down behind them, picking them off as they sprinted away from her, giving her easy shots before someone noticed her presence and turned around, firing wildly and almost hitting one of his own men in the process.

  The three troops sitting near or leaning on the tank jumped to their feet with the gunner hopping up into the seat behind the turret mount and grabbing the hand controls. The small treads spun on one side, pulling the front of the tiny vehicle around to bring it in line with the attackers.

  “Now!” Emily said over the comm.

  Jason ran in from the opposite doorway, his image seeming to split as Paul pulled wide and underhanded a Chinese grenade, sliding it across the floor towards the side of the tank. With Jason nailing anyone who even looked their way, which wasn’t many with all the commotion going on, Paul rhythmically chucked out three more grenades in a similar fashion, trying to slide one underneath the treads from halfway across the courtyard.

  The first one overshot, blowing up in front of the multi-barrel as it swung around to target Kip. The gunner froze, ducking down out of reflex as bits of shrapnel bounced off the light armored hull, with one clipping the man’s shoulder. Before he could get the bang out of his ears the whole room seemed to explode around him as the subsequent grenades blew out behind and underneath him, filling him with shrapnel and shredding the inner mechanisms of the tank, along with the men standing nearby.

  Paul dropped the bandoleer with two extra grenades and sprinted off to the side, thumbing on his stun stick and long jumping forward into a knot of soldiers, jabbing one on impact then swinging through several hasty arcs as he rolled to his feet over the chest of the man he’d landed on. Two seconds later he had them all knocked unconscious while the rest of the four man Archon squad systematically took down the others, most of whom never had a chance to fire a shot in response, stumbling around looking for their weapons in the confusion.

  “Room check,” Jason demanded when there were no longer any standing opponents. He and the others began running about, looking for movement and delivering a few extra shots, or in Paul’s case jabs, where needed.

  “Tank down, room secured,” Jason reported over team comm. “Anyone else need help?”

  “Just got a few stragglers to deal with,” Dan reported. “We’ll be finished in a moment.”

  “Starting room sweeps now,” Megan added. “Olivia?”

  “All visible targets are down,” she reported, “but I don’t have eyes everywhere, so be thorough.”

  Paul listened to the conversation as he kicked an assault rifle away from a downed man’s grip, making sure he wasn’t playing possum before he knelt down and pulled out a stack of temporary restraints and lashed the man’s wrists together, then moved off to the next closest one and did the same.

  Ten minutes later they had all the captives secured and their weapons picked up and emptied of ammunition, which they piled in one of the trash cans for safe keeping. They checked the dead bodies, then pulled them off to the side to be dealt with later. Kip and Jason stayed put to watch the prisoners while Paul and Emily went back out to help the others sweep rooms, finding a few more nappers and disposing of them quick enough. Once section 4 was secure, they began hauling the prisoners over to the nearest elevator and sent them up to the 5s for safe keeping.

  After all was said and done, everyone pulled back up to the top levels, save for a pair of 5s stationed at both tram stations. Half of them immediately went on rest period while the others milled about on watch as Paul took Olivia’s place in the control room and reported their progress to Sara, who was playing coordinator at the time, as well as arranging for another dropship to be sent to pick up the civilians that were on their way back from an auxiliary sight with two of the 5s that had been stuck outside the spaceport when the Chinese reinforcements came in. The others had already returned and joined the group, but Will and Andre had stayed to protect the survivors in case there were Chinese troops roaming around the sector sites, of which a few had been spotted.

  Most of those sites had yet to be secured, but Paul, Jason, and Kerrie had all decided it would be futile to go after them now given their current fatigue and lack of ammunition, so they decided to hold position and rest up until their reinforcements got to Luna, then they could finish up here and move on to the next combat zone.

  Paul was through three hours of his sleep shift when the second generation Archons arrived via dropship, along with a host of supplies, including replacement armor custom designed for the trailblazers to replace their damaged pieces. They’d had the spares already made up and sitting in Atlantis, but hadn’t elected to bring them along initially, not realizing that they’d need them.

  They’d learned quite a bit over the last two days, and had requested auxiliar
y supplies early on, including shields and sniper rifles, two things that they hadn’t thought would be required fighting indoors against a handful of men, but the Chinese numbers and armament had changed the game, so now it was time for the trailblazers to do what they did best…adapt.

  Jason woke him up as the dropship was landing so that he could be there when they came through. Paul almost punched him, but when his mind finally woke up he realized he did want to be there to get things moving even though his body was screaming for more sleep.

  He waved Jason off, then groggily slid his bare legs off the bunk he’d been snuggled up in. His armor was lying in pieces on the bunk next to him, leaving him wearing nothing but what looked like a very skimpy swimming suit, skin tight so as not to get bunched up underneath the armor.

  At the foot of his bunk was a neat pile of casual clothes, apparently deposited there while he slept. He took one look at his armor and decided to not put it back on.

  Five minutes later he walked into the docking ring dressed in the light green computer tech uniform as the umbilical to the dropship opened up and a stream of armor-clad reinforcements marched into the spaceport.

  “Why aren’t you sleeping?” Kerrie asked, walking up behind him in full armor with her helmet off.

  “Parts of me still are,” he said, taking a deep breath.

  “You’re not going to do us much good sleepwalking,” she pointed out.

  “I’m heading back to bed after I get a sitrep.”

  The first of the newly arrived Archons stopped short of Paul and five other trailblazers that were waiting for them on the docking ring and pulled her helmet off. “Gamma team reporting as ordered.”

  Jason took a step forward and looked them over as they came out of the walkway one at a time. Gamma team was a composite team made up of adepts from different classes that had banded together to try and beat the trailblazer teams in their regular combat challenges…none of which had ever succeeded. The better of the teams had been given Greek alphabet designators and the privilege of trying their hand against the legends, while the rest of the newbs were too outmatched to be worth the trailblazers’ training time.

  Ariel-375 was their unofficial leader, while some of the members were rotated out occasionally as they tried different combinations in an attempt to gain an advantage, but she had always been there, providing some stability to the team. Like Jason, she had focused her elective training on hand to hand combat, and all around he’d confided in Paul that she was one of the more capable, yet unimaginative fighters.

  “Just the ten of you?” Jason asked.

  “No, there’s a team of Knights and some support personnel, along with half the supplies in the armory. What have you guys been up against?”

  “A lot of prepared, but dumb enemies,” Jason explained. “They’ve got numerical superiority and heavy weaponry, including explosives to take down security doors. This group even had a chain gun mini-tank that caused some problems. We’ve got the spaceport cleaned out, but the rest of the sites in this sector need swept and secured. We also need a proper guard on the prisoners until we can get them shipped off to who knows where.”

  “I hope you brought a lot of stingers with you?” Paul asked.

  “Boxes full,” Ariel confirmed.

  “We ran out,” Jason explained. “Part of the reason why it took us so long to secure this facility.”

  The level 3 adept nodded. “Where do you want us?”

  “Come with me,” Kerrie said. “The Knights are Jason’s.”

  Ariel nodded and led gamma team off following in Kerrie’s wake, headed for the secondary tram terminal that would take them out to the auxiliary sites. Behind them, still coming out of the umbilical, was a long line of techs and security officers, finally followed by a group of 7 foot tall, white armored giants.

  “Sir,” Harrison said, his helmet still on. Five others walked up and stood in a semi-circle around the Archons, looking down at them waiting for orders. All carried stun swords attached to their equipment belts.

  “You two, go with Randy,” Jason said, pointing. “You, head to the tram station and relieve Brian. Level 8. You and you, go with Megan. You’re going to be playing wardens until we’re ready to assault the next sector.”

  He received nods of confirmation and the five Knights left with the pair of Archons, leaving Jason, Paul, and Harrison behind.

  “And me?” the Knight asked.

  Jason glanced at Paul.

  “This sector was an assault zone for the Chinese. After we clean up here we’re moving on one of their lease-zones, which they took by surprise in the initial attack. We know they got here through the trams, but we’re not sure how they first arrived on the planet, or what they’ll have waiting for us. We assume most, if not all of our people there have already been killed, but there may be survivors or captives. Point being, they’re not going to make this easy on us and they’ve had the benefit of receiving reports from their forces here on how we’ve been countering them, with that tank as evidence that they may have armaments in reserve that we haven’t encountered yet.”

  “They brought a tank?” Harrison asked.

  “Miniature version with a chain gun,” Jason explained.

  “We don’t know what we’re going to come up against, or how we’re going to go about it. We’re the assault. We’re going to be the ones doing the fighting, you, the Knights, and the other Archons are our backup. You only move when we tell you to move, you shoot when we tell you to shoot, and you don’t go off on your own volition. You keep it tight and on mission, which we’ll update enroute. Understand?”

  “You don’t want it to turn into a free for all,” he surmised.

  “No,” Paul emphasized.

  Harrison nodded. “We’re here to help, if that means standing off to the side and keeping score we will, but understand that we’re ready to dive into the thick of it the moment you say so.”

  “Good man,” Jason said, clapping the taller fighter on the elbow. “I’ve got some security camera footage I want you to study, glean what you can about the enemy before you run into them face to face. You good?” he asked Paul.

  “Who’s handling the supplies?”

  “I’ll get Ivan on it. Your armor replacements will be ready when you wake up.”

  Paul nodded. “I want to check the status of the other teams, then I’m heading back to bed.”

  “I can do that,” Jason insisted. “Go sleep.”

  Paul almost argued the point, but his fatigue stopped him short. “Fine. Let me know if any fleet reports come in. If there’s trouble wake me up no matter what.”

  “Deal, now get going. We need you and Emily fresh when we move.”

  Paul waved sarcastically then headed back down to the bunkroom, noticing Emily’s prone form on another of the bunks, sound asleep. He resisted the urge to make a loud noise to wake her, because he knew she needed the sleep as bad as he did, but he didn’t like how deep they were falling unconscious. Normally they were light sleepers and he wondered if Emily was aware of him returning or really was as out of it as she looked.

  He let her be and crawled back into his bunk, losing connection with the world around him the few seconds after his head hit the pillow.

  9

  March 17, 2060

  “Five minutes,” Jason said, monitoring their progress from the control station in the tram as it sped through the underground rail line to the sector 508 spaceport. He and Paul were alone in the transport, having spent the past 5 hours sitting patiently while the rest of the 2s, the 5s, and the Knights transferred over ahead of them via dropships to the target sector’s auxiliary facilities. If all was going as planned, they would have spent the past 3 hours assaulting those sites and traveling through the secondary tram lines all throughout the sector, recapturing those facilities and daring the Chinese in the spaceport to come out after them.

  Unlike the spaceport, the work sites didn’t have lockdown capability, meaning no securit
y doors or locks on external hatches. Only the central spaceports were configured to have a ‘castle’ mode, given that the primary tram lines only connected there, making the rest of each sector’s facility a closed circuit network. According to the earlier reports from the assaults that had begun in 5 of the 7 Chinese-leased sectors, the auxiliary sites had varying levels of troops, depending on what their function was, but overall weren’t as heavily defended as the spaceports, which the Chinese had dug in on ever since capturing them in the first wave of the invasion.

  Given that the 2s and 5s had captured their last sector late, they had the benefit of intelligence from the other teams, transmitted back via the comm systems in the captured auxiliary sites. Early reports indicated that the tram system terminals in the spaceports were defended by fixed gun emplacements and other heavy weaponry. The 4s had actually been repelled when they first attempted to attack through the tram terminal, forced to retreat back to their point of origin and resend in their forces via dropship to the auxiliary sites.

  The other teams, after hearing this, began devising different methods of attack to counter the heavier defenses, some going after the auxiliary sites first and attempting to come in through the back door secondary tram terminals, which were also heavily defended, while others had taken dropships to the spaceport itself and tried to get in through exterior airlocks and even the surface equipment bay, but no matter how they went about it they still had to contend with closed security doors at every entrance, which either had to be cut through or taken apart via explosives.

  The 7s had elected to try a brute force approach through the primary tram, and had dispatched their augmented assault team about an hour before Paul and Jason left, heading off in the same manner, but with a different plan entirely.