Authors Note
This is part two of a story I am writing about clones fighting for the Federation. This story features Emily T302. More stories are planned in the same setting when this one is finished. As always I hope you enjoy the story and just a reminder that I am always open and eager to work with other people in a collaborative fashion. As a side note, I do appreciate the feedback. Please leave a review if you feel so inclined.
"Yay, we are saved!" exclaimed Kaylee as she giggled and stood up. The others quickly followed suit.
"Pest said you are the Technicians we need," A large man, but not the largest, standing in the middle of the five combat models stated flatly.
"Pest said you are the Fire Team we need," Emily returned.
"I need all of you, and you need each other," Pest interjected, taking control of the situation. "The first thing all of you need to do is head towards the main reactor room. The guard station just before the reactor room is where you can meet and greet and trade weapons. I will brief you there."
"Lead the way, Pest," Courtney said.
"It is this way, and my name is Lucas." The large man spoke before Pest could and he pointed to another member of the fire team, "Seth, take the lead; you know the way," Lucus instructed.
Seth raised his plasma rifle up and started down the corridor to the right, "Yes sir!"
The rest followed quickly after Seth as he took point. Emily noticed one of the combat models was not wearing any armor. She filed that away for the moment, determined to ask why later. She was doing something a little more important right now. As curious as she was, she knew staying alive took priority. A few turns later, they came to a large, secure reinforced door.
"Lucas, I have programmed the security system to accept your credentials. Place your chip near the sensor," Pest instructed.
Lucas stepped up to the left side of the door to a small console and swiped his left forearm across the reader. There was a beeping sound followed by several mechanical thuds and clicks. The door raised painfully slow as the clones all waited to enter some relative safety from the Cyrealians. When the door was halfway up, Seth and Paul ducked below the rising door and entered the room while sighting down their rifles. Emily heard them both shout, "Clear Lt.!" over the intercom.
At that, the rest of the combat models entered the secure room followed by the T and P model clones. The room was small and had what looked like two information desks on either side of the room. On second look, Emily saw that the curved information desks were manned by two more combat clones still standing guard. Almost as soon as they were all inside the guard on the left pulled a lever to close the door behind them.
As soon as they were all safely inside with the door now secure Lucas called out, "Report troopers. Number and name!" to the two guards.
Behind the thick transparent aluminum armor of their posts, each called out one after the other.
"CA2517, called Andy, Sir!"
"CA3855, called Brad, Sir!"
Lucas looked between the two combat models, "Are you two all that is left of the guard detail?"
"Yes, sir! The others joined the fight. Pest ordered us to stay here and man turrets in case the Bast-...um, Cyrealians made it through the first door."
Emily then noticed the large plasma cannons below the transparent aluminum. Yep, those would probably kill a Cyrealian, she thought or at least hoped.
Pest spoke to everyone over an open channel, "Andy and Brad, you are going to be joining them. You both have fatigues with you right?"
"Ma'am?" questioned Brad.
"Yes, trooper?"
"Won't we need our armor on to fight the Cyrealians?"
"Of course! But you will just sink in the mud and not be able to climb as well if you make it to the surface of Signa-4. The rescue could be quite some time as well. So for all the time you might spend not in combat, I suggest you bring a change of clothes for your upcoming safari." Pest answered.
"And we are getting ready to self destruct the ship so you will not need to guard the reactor we are rigging to blow," Lucas added. "So grab any heavy weapons you have and load your pack with some food and a water filter. We are leaving very soon. Bring any grenades you have as well!"
"Aye Sir!" They both shouted and turned to quickly collect weapons and provisions.
"Before we get ahead of ourselves, I need to split you into two teams," Pest said. "Team Alpha and Team Bravo. Alpha will consist of Emily, Stacy, Terrell, and Brad; Andre you'll take point on this team. Lucas, you will lead Bravo which will consist of Jill, Amy, Courtney, Kaylee, Seth, Paul, and Andy."
"You heard her. Two groups now. Bravo on the left side of the room and Alpha on the right." Lucas commanded spurring all the clones to follow Pest's latest order. "Andy, Brad, we don't have all day. Grab your kits and join the party."
"Yes, Sir." Responded Andy as he jogged up to Lucas and the rest of Bravo team.
"Glad to have you trooper! Now give me all of your grenades," smiled Lucas.
"Aye Sir!"
"Ok everyone I need to brief you on the plan to get to the surface of Signa-4 while causing some damage to the enemy vessel attacking us," Pest announced over the chatter that had begun between the clones in the room.
"Attention!" Everyone snapped to at Lucus's commanding voice. He waited for a beat until there was absolute silence before he added, "Pest, please continue."
"Thank you, Lucus. As I was saying, we are going to try to kill quite a few of these bastards and hopefully destroy or at least cripple their ship while making our escape to the surface of the planet we are orbiting. The best-case scenario is their ship explodes and vaporizes when the ship we are on rams into them and the reactor goes critical. Then it is a race against time. The Federation has a contingency plan in place in the event that the Cyrealian Hives decided to attack again. The contingency is referred to as Code Autumn. We sent out a message to the closest outpost at the start of the attack. Moments before we lost the bridge and detonated explosives to keep them from taking control we got confirmation from the Federation. It simply read 'Code Autumn now in effect'. Undoubtedly they sent more transmissions with instructions, however, we do not have any working comms on board that can send or receive transmissions over the distance required to reestablish contact with command."
"What does that mean for us Pest?" Lucus asked with a stern eagerness in his voice.
"It means that the calvary is coming in short," Pest answered. "There are a few Federation stations on Signa-4 and there was one orbiting space station. They put up a good fight before they fell, giving us time to prepare for battle and initiate Code Autumn. Your mission is to extract my data drive and make it to outpost #2. There is a bunker there and a long-distance transmitter to reestablish contact with the Federation. Your mission ultimately is to guide and provide intel to the Federation fleet that is at maximum warp on the way to Signa-4. They should be here within 6 hours. You have until then to upload my data drives to the transmitter so the fleet will not be heading into the first battle of the 3rd Cyrealian war blind. This time the Federation intends to win and win big instead of just surviving."
"Best news I've heard all day!" Lucas said as he turned to look at his troops standing at attention. "Right Troopers!?"
A chorus of loud Ooorahs filled the makeshift briefing room.
"Love the enthusiasm!" Pest remarked. "Alpha team, you will be placing charges and programming the reactor to overload for maximum effect. You will escape via a Jefferies tube in the back of the reactor room. Take the Jefferies tube all the way to the bottom of the ship to a cluster of 10 escape pods in the aft part of the ship between the two main impulse engines. Launch all the pods at once to confuse enemy fighters as soon as the ship rolls over. Right now the bottom of the ship is facing up and away from the planet. If you launched them early your escape would be cut short because you would slam into the underside of the Cyrealian ship. I will be directing you on how to make the reactor go critical and tell you where to place the charges later. Any questions Alpha team?"
After a few moments of silence, "Good glad we are all on the same page then," said Pest. "Bravo team! You have a fight on your hands. You will fight an entire squad size element of Cyrealian warriors heading down the main corridor of this floor to the backup mainframe. Kaylee is the only technician you have on the team. She must make it there alive. And I mean at all costs she must be protected until she can extract my data drives. After that, I need at least one P model clone remaining minimum to make it to the hanger to fly a shuttle down to station 2 on the planet. Obviously the more pilots we have the better. Any extra pilots will not be passengers on the shuttle. They will get into the few fighters we have remaining and fly escort for the shuttles and escape pods of the survivors. Bravo team will launch from the hanger bay as soon as the ship rolls also. Having all the survivors of the crew in different parts of the ship launch their escape pods in unison will help overwhelm the enemy point defenses. We are looking at all 200 pods launching, although only about 60 will have surviving crew inside. The rest will serve as decoys. Lucas, you are the only clone officer and therefore the only one authorized to keep my data drives on your person until you get the bunker at Station 2. Understand?"
"Just glad you are coming with us Pest." He answered.
"Well not exactly," Pest continued. "You will be in charge of my data drives with classified intel, ship logs, etc. I myself am going down with the ship. There is no easy way to remove a ship AI from a ship. I and the ship are one."
"Understood Ma'am," Lucas replied before asking. "Ma'am, if you are offline who will be flying the ship to ram the Cyrealians and roll the ship over so we can escape? Should I have a P model stay behind?"
All the P models perked up at the thought of being the lucky girl chosen to ram an enemy warship.
Pest answered, "Oh I am sure they would be eager too, however, the human interface controls were taken out when we detonated the charges in the bridge. There is no way for them to pilot the ship. I will have a pre-programmed flight plan encoded on a chip and ready to upload. Kaylee will activate that flight plan on a timer after she extracts my data drive. Kaylee all you have to do is remove the chip before extracting me. I will tell you which one when you get there. Then after you hand my data drive to Lucas insert that chip back into the slot you pulled it from. A window will appear on the screen. Set the flight plan to begin on autopilot 2 minutes and 30 seconds. That should be just enough time to surprise the Cyrealians in the hanger and get to your ships, yet not overstay your welcome."
"That isn't much time but we can manage," said Lucas in a slow solemn voice.
Pest took a moment before adding, "Bravo team when you get to the hanger there are a few crew members and pilots I have tucked away at the other end of the hanger. Don't let your team get too excited and shoot them by accident. They are bringing provisions and equipment to fix the comms array at the station. They will be taking two shuttles and 12 fighters. Commander Hrothgar is with them. He is the highest-ranking survivor and your superior officer. Turn my data drives over to him when you meet him at the station. Things will be a little bit too frantic in the hanger for a handover."
"Glad he made it Pest. He is a good officer. How did he survive when the bridge was taken by the Cyrealians?"
"He was in a shuttle returning from the planet when the battle started. He never made it to the bridge. He directed the battle at the front of the ship after landing in the forward service hanger while under fire. He then saw to it that we had 60 pods filled with survivors instead of zero."
"Oooh fucking Rah!"
"Indeed."
"Ok does anyone have any questions before I start barking orders?" Lucas asked in a loud, crisp voice.
"Sir, why am I going to the reactor and not fighting to the mainframe?" Asked the largest of the clones in advanced heavy armor hefting a heavy plasma repeater.
"Terrell, it is because if the Cyrealians get to the reactor after we leave, you and Brad are the only ones with armor. You two must defend the Techs." Lucas answered. "Andre, Pest probably ordered you to stay with Alpha since you are a scout without armor. We are going head to head with Cyrealians in close quarters. Also, it will be the best chance Alpha has of making it to the station through the jungle. You have been on Signa-4 and know what it is like down there."
"I figured as much Sir!" Andre answered.
"Isn't our pod going to Station 2 also?" asked Stacy.
"Escape pods are designed to get you in the general area. They are not meant for precisely hitting a landing pad. Besides 200 being launched and 60 or more with crew heading for one landing pad, it would get crowded in a hurry. The landing pad is for shuttles and fighters only. They can easily move into the hanger." Lucas paused to look around, "Anybody have anything else?"
The room was quiet as the clones all looked around at each other.
"Bravo needs all heavy weapons and grenades. Terrell, you keep your heavy repeater. Andre, did she just give you a sniper rifle?" Lucas asked pointing to him and the one-armed technician next to him.
"Yes sir. And I just learned her name is Stacy," Andre responded.
"Glad to see you have a girlfriend, Andre," Lucas smiled.
Emily looked at Stacy as she saw her blush. Of course she would. Andre was hella good looking. The others might be too, but they all had armor on and you couldn't even see their faces. Andre just had on a T-shirt and combat pants with a load-bearing vest holding a few essentials. He also had a small backpack, no doubt full of things he would need to lead them around in the jungles of Signa-4. Hey, this might not turn out to be such a bad time, after all, Emily thought. Oh yeah, Stacy is his girlfriend now. Well not really, they did just exchange names and Lucas was joking. Emily decided that she would find time to talk to him later.
"Alright, it looks like we have three plasma projectors. Seth, Paul, Andy! You each get one!" Lucas commanded. "How many charges do we have?"
Amy responded, "Jill and I each brought 5 each so there is a total of 50 shots between us with our 10 plasma charges."
"There were two more for this one in the locker," Brad quickly added as he handed his projector and ammo to Andy.
"Good, then you each get 4 reloads. Pest told me there was a crate of grenades here in this locker." Lucas said as he walked to a large double door locker. "Ah found them. P models over here. What are your names by the way?" He turned to see the three Pilots standing at attention in front of him and read their names aloud. "Courtney, Amy, and Jill. Nice to meet you; I am 1st Lt. Lucas." He smiled as he set down the crate in front of them. "There are 30 grenades here in the crate so you each get 10. Keep as many as you can on your belt. You are going to be going through these kinda quickly. Also, you will need to keep up the fire rate from your rifles. Don't bother conserving ammo. Most likely you won't live long enough to use it later. If you do make it to the station on Signa-4 you can pick up more ammo there. So don't hold back. And one more thing. I need you three to defend...who was it?" He looked over at Kaylee and read her name printed just above her left breast on her Vacc suit. "Yes, Kaylee. Our tech. You are to keep her alive at all personal cost understand?"
This command and the earlier comment about not living long enough to use more ammo drew a breath of excitement from the three gathered P models. Courtney saluted and said, "Yes Sir!" As she and the other two clones of her model smiled. Jill and Amy quickly saluted as well and said, "Yes Sir!" in unison.
Lucas returned their salute and smiled at them before walking away, leaving them to gather their grenades. He turned to look at the three of them over his shoulder and admire their shapely forms.
Pest crackled in his ear "You seem to like their model."
Speaking low in his helmet on a private channel to Pest, he answered, "They are very versatile, useful, and eager. Not bad to look at either."
"Yet your model seems to prefer the T clones for relationships."
"They are unaltered and the most human. I could say the most like me, but really I am the most like them. Besides what anyone does with the Ps could hardly be called a relationship," he said while smirking behind his visor.
Emily took a moment to look in her backpack again. She pulled out two packs of condensed food. The label said that they were enough for 72 hours each. Mmm 6 days of rations, she thought. Next she saw two metal water bottles that seemed full and a water filter. Guess there will be plenty of water to filter in the jungle. And then she saw some clothes. Woah I didn't think about packing a change of clothes. Good thing Pest had this go bag ready. She quickly pulled out a set of khaki shorts and a black tank top with a built-in sports bra, and two pairs of underwear. Well, it is a good thing I won't have to run around in the hot jungle wearing a spacesuit!
"OK, everyone. Finish checking your gear. Alpha go to the security door leading to the reactor. Bravo form up at the door you came in."
Emily looked over to see Kaylee excitedly holding up her new shorts and tank top with a smile. Kaylee looked over and met eyes with Emily and giggled before stuffing her jungle explorer outfit back into her pack. Emily turned back to putting her own gear in order and closed up her backpack. She joined the rest of the Alpha team standing next to the reactor entrance.
"I cannot open both doors at the same time for obvious safety reasons," Pest spoke up. "We don't want a Cyrealian sprinting from the outside to the reactor. That is why the security room exists. To keep unauthorized people, or things, out. Alpha you are going into the reactor first before Bravo leaves to fight their way to the mainframe. If anyone has any satchel charges now is the time to give them all to Emily. She is the only one who needs any."
Courtney and Jill walked over and gave their charges to Emily. Courtney looked at Emily and said, "Good luck girl! See you planetside in no time." Then she slapped her on the butt and walked back to Bravo team.
"OK, here we go," Pest said as she opened the door to the reactor. Brad and Terrell were in first followed closely by Andre. Stacy and Emily entered last before the door lowered behind them. With a heavy metal clunk, the door closed and locked.
"Stacy go to the main console," Pest instructed. "You cannot actually do anything until I am shut down in the mainframe by Bravo. My programming will not let the reactor go critical. You have to do it manually."
"OK Pest, but how will I know what to do?" Stacy answered.
"I will instruct you via private comm channel so you know what to do when the time comes." With that Stacy walked out on a gantry way in the middle of the room in silence to everyone else, with Pest talking to her in her 'space-earplugs'.
"Andre, Brad, Terrell, guard the door. The ladies have work to do," Pest said. This made Emily smile. "OK, Emily. Time to go to work. Your job is simple but important. If you do it right you may get credit for killing the first enemy battleship in the 3rd Cyrealian war! If I had hands I would clap for you." Pest remarked.
"Gee thanks Pest!" giggled Emily. "What do you want me to do?"
"Ok as you can see there are really two main reactors in this reactor room. You will place a charge on each of them and set the timer for 4 minutes. Pick a combat clone to help you start the timers simultaneously. When I go offline you will each hit the button to start the timer for your respective charge. Then you will both make your escape. Right now you need to program the charges then place them. Then go find a helper."
"Excellent; something that I know how to do! I assume you want me to look at these reactors and decide where the charges would do the most damage."
"You are correct."
"You are not telling me because you have a plan but not the knowledge of how a reactor works?"
"Also correct. I am a ship combat AI. I have many abilities but in-depth knowledge of how to generate power is not in my programming. The Federation is relying on you now and has been relying on you for 75 years. Time to show everyone that our faith in you is not misplaced."
Emily, smiling, turned to look over the reactors and decide how she was going to cause the biggest explosion she had ever seen!