It’s strange knowing two versions of my sister, but I like it better than none. Nobody knows Gileanor is Marila from an alternative time-stream. Together, we decided it’s best that way. I visit her regularly, now she’s retired and moved to live on Oceania Prime, where she has many relatives. I’m looking forward to visiting her next summer. I hear it’s much cooler there.
Some day I will pay back Paulo for all of his help finding Marila, but that’s in the unwritten future.
Just like everything is now.
Ripplers
Something moved beyond the bunker in the crimson haze released by a drone attack. Anson linked his mind into the surveillance system, calling up multiple images and angles, seeing a weak heat signature coming from the north. A figure was on the ground, moving at 8.5 metres per second. Anson ran software to clean up the electronic fuzziness caused by the nanoparticle chaff dropped by a Rippler. The target was humanoid, 1.9 metres tall, with no visible weaponry and no active shielding. The figure was running towards the bunker’s entrance in the hard rock a quarter of a mile above Anson’s head. A survivor of the invasion? Out here?
“Weapons on,” he said. “Active scan.”
The bunker had eight drone launchers that swivelled into position on the surface. They each fired a combat drone into the red fog surrounding the bunker. Anson jumped into his command chair, taking simultaneous control over all of them. He released a spray of sixty thousand mini stealth drones. They swarmed over the bunker and flew over the intruder. They had no combat features themselves – but they improved the sensors. It was still hard to lock on to the intruder’s exact location in the electronic chaos inside the crimson haze – but Anson had a natural feel for target acquisition. Despite the haze cutting visibility down to fifty metres, he found a trace of his target sprinting over the blackened rocks and scrubland. The figure was wearing a heavy combat suit – but he could see a face through the helmet’s visor.
It was Sergeant Dawkins.
He had never expected to see her again.
One of his drones sent an audio stream on a securely-encrypted channel. “Dawkins! What the hell are you doing here?”
Dawkins did not answer him. The haze was probably interfering with her coms. Anson had been given explicit instructions to keep the bunker locked down unless he received orders from Station Delta – but he could not leave a friend out there in a combat zone. If one Rippler spotted her out in the open, she would be toast.
Dawkins was nearing the entrance hatch. She looked up at one of his drones. Anson saw her waving her arms and pointing at her helmet like there was something wrong with it. Anson wanted to let her in – but without permission from Station Delta …
“Station Delta, this is alpha-zero-two-eight-tango. I have a survivor approaching – a human soldier. No direct coms. It’s Sergeant Dawkins. Do I have permission to open the hatch, over?”
He received no reply. His link with Station Delta had been broken since yesterday’s attack, which had taken out his hard-line. He didn’t know what to do. Dawkins could have been sequestered by the enemy – injected with psych tech to control her mind – but he knew her, damn it. He knew her.
It was standard protocol to shoot any target approaching closer than 200 metres – but Anson did not fire as she reached that distance. She got nearer. She was almost at the hatch when a second sensor alarm triggered. New target. Distance 5 km. Velocity 500 metres per second. Altitude: 4000 metres. He could see a ripple on the radar, like something was coming in and out of existence. The ripple effect made getting a target lock as hard as killing a jellyfish with a bullet. It was a Rippler – a big one – a model G stingfly. He’d never seen one up close because they shielded themselves with rippling camouflage.
Outside, Dawkins reached the hatch and pressed the intercom button. Her voice crackled in his earpiece. “Anson, let me in! There’s a bogie on my tail!”
More than anything, Anson wanted to let her in. But caution was necessary. “What are you doing here, Dawkins?”
“Alpha squad were taken out, man. I’m the only survivor. You’ve got to let me in. Or I’m dead in thirty seconds. Less.”
Anson swore. He yelled at the drones. “Acquire new target. Switch to full auto when in the Rippler is in striking range. HK and pulse plasma at max.”
Dawkins was yelling in his ear. “OPEN THE HATCH!”
He could not do it from the command room. He would have to pull the lever manually from Level 1.
“Hold on!” Anson replied. “I’m coming up.”
Anson powered up his armour and grabbed a T17 assault rifle from its charger near the command centre’s exit. The weapon fired hard ammo and a plasma beam that could atomise an enemy soldier at fifty metres. He rode an elevator up fourteen floors in five seconds. It felt like being inside a rocket. The doors opened on Level 1. He sprinted up the long dark tunnel to the blast doors, positioning himself behind a block of hyper-dense crystal shielding capable of absorbing everything short of a direct nuke. As the only soldier left behind last month, Anson had the responsibility of keeping the enemy out of the bunker at any price. He had orders to destroy everything to prevent them taking over. He didn’t take his duty lightly. He knew he would probably be court-martialled for opening the hatch – even if Dawkins was not sequestered by the enemy. He pulled the lever on the wall.
“WARNING! DOORS OPENING!”
Anson heard the gears grinding as the hatch swung open, letting a shaft of bright red sunlight into the entrance tunnel. Dawkins dashed inside as Anson yanked the lever back. The hatch slammed shut, cutting off the sunlight. A split-second later, the ground shook over his head as his drones battled with the Rippler. Two drones were vaporised in an instant. The rest launched HK missiles. They struck the Rippler a glancing blow, losing a wing. The Rippler fired back a salvo of high-energy beams. Another drone exploded. The shockwave of an explosion rocked the bunker. The launchers fired another dozen drones armed with HK cannons, firing as soon as they were outside. Silver streaks arced towards the Rippler at relativistic speeds. They lit up the sky like the Fourth of July. The Rippler released a cloud of flak and disappeared from the scanners, vanishing into the upper atmosphere like it had never existed. Anson had wasted some missiles and drones – but he had scared it off. For now.
Dawkins was on her knees, pulling off her helmet. Her red hair tumbled out over her sleek black suit. There was a bruise on her left cheek and one eye had a cut below it. She grinned at him. “That was cutting it close, Anson. Good to see you alive.”
Anson pointed his weapon at her. “Put your hands up, Dawkins.”
“What? Oh – come on. It’s me!”
“I’ll believe that after I’ve scanned you.”
“You’re not serious, are you?”
“Serious as death,” he said. “Hands up. Then turn around.”
“Jeez. Okay!”
He approached her carefully. She didn’t move as he cuffed her hands behind her back. He kept his weapon trained on her all of the way to the medical bay, where there was a bio scanner. He removed the cuffs only after deactivating her armour. The power cells were completely dead when he removed them. He made her strip it off in front of him. She was just wearing a tight white T-shirt and underwear under the combat gear. She stood glaring at him. “You don’t expect me to get naked, do you?”
“You’ll have to take off the rest of your clothes, Dawkins. The scanner won’t give an accurate reading if you’re wearing anything.”