Nine - Chaos in Sterio

	It was nearly 6 months into the contract when things really began to 
pick up. I was called to Commander Williams' office in the middle of the 
night. He said it was "urgent." And when he says it's urgent, you better get
your ass in gear. "Commander," I yawned as I entered his office. "It's three 
in the friggin' morning! What can be so important?" 
	He smiled. "This," he said, typing on his computer. He turned the 
screen to me. It was a map of deep Leo territory. "We've identified their 
main base. We're going to cut your contract by half a year." 
	I raised an eyebrow. "So....what are you proposing?" 
	"This base houses the theater commanders for the Leo Rashilé campaign.
We're going to wipe them all out in one felt swoop. We're going to send a 
few men into the main facility tonight. They will try to access their 
sub-nuclear self destruct sequence and level the base." 
	I stood up. "No way sir. My men will not go on suicide missions. I 
will not allow it." 
	He chuckled. "Not your men. We're sending in Commandos. They can get 
the job done faster. I just thought you'd like to know your time is being 
cut short here." 
	I nodded. "So that'll give me and my men 6 months R & R on this 
planet, right?" 
	He shruged. "If you wish. I'm sure you'd like to get home." 
	I shook my head. "Whatever sir. I'd like to get back to bed. Is that 
all right?" 
	He nodded. "Good night."

	He approached me the next morning. "How'd last night's mission go?" I 
asked. 
	His expression was grim. "They got caught. We believe they're dead." 
	My strangely good mood deadened. "What now?" 
	"We cannot attempt another strike. They know we'll come above ground. 
The base to heavily protected and too deep in Leo territory to go by land. 
To top it all off, it's an inland base. No water." 
	I nodded. "How close can you get to the base?" 
	He shook his head. "Not close enough for you to use your cannon." He
sighed. "I've got to send the letters of bad news to their families." 
	I wasn't going to let this mishap stop my men from getting 6 months 
R & R.

	I approached the guys with the situation. "I say we go in," Mohammed 
said. 
	I shook my head. "Dumbass, if we go in like they did and trigger the 
self destruct, we die with the base." He caught on and nodded sheepishly. 
"Look," I said, taking a map out. I pointed out some locations. 
"This is the front lines." I pointed out the spot "To successfuly bombard 
the base, we need to get the Bulldog and several defensive mechs to this 
area." I pointed to an area midway between the base's location and the 
midpoint between the front lines and the base. "We need to clear nearly 2000 
KM of Leo territory for this attack to be successful. How are we going to do 
that?" 
	Byrder was examining the maps while I spoke. "Look at it this way," 
he said, pointing to four different locations. "These are bases. If they 
fall, we can gain that crucial distance. I'm sure you can be in safe 
bombardment range." 
	I looked it over. "I like that plan. I'll need your help to present 
it to the commander."

	Williams took the idea with mixed thoughts. "It is a good idea," he 
said. "But those bases you plan on taking have different strengths." We 
looked at the map. He pointed to one of the far bases. "This one has 
marvelous support versus infantry. It also doubles for semi-decent mech
defenses." He moved to the other far base. "This one has air defenses more 
than your Bulldog. It's also got a number of defense lances." He moved 
towards the second closest base to the line. "This one has some pretty high 
power weaponry that'll nuke anything that gets in it's path." He then moved 
to the fourth base. "And this one, the one I suspect you'll wanna go after 
first has the best long range mech defenses on this planet." 
	I chuckled. "What do they have? A cannon like mine?!" 
	"Several." My mood deadened. "The only way we can get rid of it is to 
nail the cannons from the inside." 
	I looked the area over. "You got an area map for the base?" The five 
maps were quickly brought up. "Let's see....Control for the cannons are 
here." I pointed to a fourth floor room. "The cannons themselves are here." 
I pointed to the first floor level, near the walls. "We should probably go 
for the control room. But for some extra insurance, perhaps we should 
destroy the cannons themselves." 
	He shook his head. "Too dangerous. You'd get spotted and killed." 
	He had a point. "So, how about this...." We spent the next three hours 
outlining the plans.

	The plan was to distract the flaks so that a transport carrying the 
Jade Wolf could fly over the facility that housed the controls for the 
main facility. We'd land, find the controls, and activate the cannon self 
destruct systems. Afterwards, we'd hijack a transport and speed out of 
there. The others liked it. It sounded quick, easy, and with the option of 
testing our new infantry tactics from the sims. That was the plan. That sure 
as hell was not what happened.

	The initial drop was scheduled for that night. The transport had 
mechanical problems and would be 10 minutes late to the drop site. It gave 
us just enough time to get a discussion of out tactics. "What do we have?" I 
asked. I carried a pulse laser rifle. It's an ordinary weapon, no big whoop
to it. Byrder carried a plasma spray cannon. The plasma equivelancy of a 
flamethrower and a nasty close range weapon. Axen carried a side mounted 
chaingun. Nasty distance weapon. Been on the wrong end a couple of times.
	"Mohammed will end up being our power house," Axen said. "He's the one 
with the shoulder mounted chain gun." 
	He cocked it. "Bring it on," he chanted. 
	I chuckled. "Defense check." We were all wearing a layer of 
poly-carbonate armor and an outer shell of laser proof enamel. A quick push 
of a button on one arm and a laser energy shield formed from the small 
device that was on our arm. "Battle plan is this: No prisoners. Try to avoid 
fragging things until AFTER we activate the self destruct protocalls on the
cannons. Defense strategy is this: Byrder and I are in the front, shields up 
and firing when we can. Axen and Mohammed are in the back shooting off their 
shit." The transport suddenly jerked. 
	"And away we go!" Axen said.

	The fighting was heavy when we arrived. Most of the jets were either 
in retreat or dead. Nearly 20 jets were holding off the seemingly endless 
number of flaks. They would have to leave soon. "We're approaching the drop 
point," I said. "Let's get ready to jump." We smoothly flew towards the 
target roof. We were near it when the whole transport shook. We kept our 
balance. 
	"Damn it, what was that?" Mohammed shouted. 
	I looked outside at the wings. "How about we make our jump now?"
	Mohammed looked out with me. "It's gonna be a long walk to the door.
But we've no choice." He jumped down onto the roof. Axen and Byrder 
followed. 
	I looked around the transport. "Good thing this thing's on auto 
pilot," I said as I jumped.

	We watched in horror as the transport flew over the confines of the 
bases and crashed into the nearby grasslands. "Good God," Axen said. "We're 
in deep trouble." 
	I grabbed my radio and hit the Lupus special frequency. "This is 
Hunter," I said. "We've found the grove and are now going for the apples. 
Tell mother we'll be home shortly." God, do I hate the military codes. 
	The radio crackled. "What?" the voice on the other end said. 
	"Get out of here." The jets soon started heading for the line. I 
waived the others on. We took a few steps forward. "Halt!" a robotic voice 
called out. 
	"Oh shit," Byrder moaned. He got next to me and we set up our shields. 
Axen and Mohammed got into position. We waited for the guard droids to 
appear. They'd get blown to small bits as soon as they came out of hiding. 
	"Identify yourselves," the voice called out. 
	I looked at Byrder. "We should be blasting them now. Why haven't they 
shown themselves?" 
	He thought for a moment. "We got into position. It was kinda obeying 
them." 
	Mohammed snarled. "Show yourselves," he called out. 
	I jabed him with my free elbow. "You asshole." Mohammed's plan, 
however, did work. The guard droids were coming out of hiding. 
	"Ready?" he asked Axen. Axen nodded. They supressed fire. Droids were 
blown to bits. I joined in, adding my pulse fire to the havoc. In 5 minutes, 
our shields needed a recharge and droid parts littered the roof. 
	"So much for our surprise enterance," Byrder said. "They'll swarm here 
real fast." 
	I started for the door again. "Then let's not be here. I opened the 
door and charged town the stairs. They soon followed.

	We dove around the first shadowy corner we could. "Now what?" Mohammed 
growled. 
	I shook my head. "I don't know," I said, grabbing my head. Then it 
clicked in. "Wait." I removed my glove. I turned the radar screen on. It 
gave me a floorplan and location of everything. 
	"Where to?" Byrder asked. I watched the blips moving towards our 
location. 
	"In there." I pointed to a nearby supply closet. We crammed in and 
watched the screen. As soon as we were clear, we left and snuck around some 
more. 
	"We should head directly for the control room," Axen said. "That way 
we can nail the controls and get the fuck outta here." The others looked at 
me. I was watching my hand. 
	"Axen, what is your chaingun set up for?" 
	Axen opened a panel on the gun. "Force and metal ammo." Metal is the 
equivelant to bullets. Force is quick blasts of air. The blasts of air, 
supposedly, move at speeds of 70 KPH. It is more expensive to get the 
special device that works the process, but it saves a lot on ammunition. The 
blasts, however, are less effective against metal wearing or made targets 
than against flesh and blood. That is the only downside.
	I looked up at Axen. "Is that it?" He nodded. I looked at my radar 
again. "Take a left next crossroad. Second set of double doors on the right 
side." They didn't argue with me. "What about you Mohammed?" I asked. 
	"Force and energy," he said. Energy used a mix of plasma and laser 
fire in rapid blasts. Effective versus everything, so he was set. 
	"On my mark, we run down the corridor and into those double doors." 
We inched closer to the cross road. "Mark," I cried. We took a quick left 
and darted down the hall. No resistance, so it was a safe trip to the 
doors. "Byrder, raise your shield." He did so. I followed in suit. "We bust 
through the door and fry whoever is there. Ready?" Byrder nodded. We bashed 
the door down and found weapons galore. However, the arms were accompanied 
by several dozen troops, most likely arming themselves to go and hunt us 
down. They looked at us. We looked at them. Blinks were exchanged. Byrder 
had the right mind to access his spray cannon and fry a number of the troops 
in front of us. That put us all back into the spirit. Mohammed and Axen 
quickly decimated the remaining troops.

	We tore through the armory. "Find that card," I said. We were looking 
for an access card. It looked like a flat computer chip, about 3 inches in
length, that would fit into one of the slots of any of our weapons. The 
weapons that we had limited what we could use. 
	"Found it!" Axen said. We rushed over. There were several cards. They 
were as big as we expected. "There are two energy cards and three plasma 
cards. How are we going to divide this up?" I took one plasma card and gave 
it to Mohammed. "Use that in yours," I said. He opened a small hatch on the 
bottom of his shoulder mount and slipped the card in. He closed the hatch 
and pushed a button. The chaingun whirred, beeped, and finally accepted the 
card. I gave a plasma and energy card to Axen. "These are yours." He 
installed them quickly. I handed the last energy card to Byrder. "It's an 
upgrade. Makes ya more deadly." He took it and looked at it. He found an 
access port in the back of the small cannon and put the card in. The cannon 
lights lit up. I found the access port on the top of my rifle (it looked 
like an old AK-47 assault rifle) and put in the last plasma card. A green 
button lit up. I looked up. "Is there anything else?" 
	Axen showed me one more card. "This. "It's not a familiar make. I 
don't think our boys have anything like this." I took the card and looked it 
over. I removed the plasma card and gave it to Byrder. 
	"Hold this. Find a second rifle like this. If this thing explodes, 
I'm gonna need a new one." He did as he was told. I took a deep breath and 
put the card in.
	The rifle beeped and buzzed. "Card unknown," it said. "Analyzing." A 
few minutes passed. "Card identified. New weapon denomination. Freeze. 
Setting up new matrix. This may take a little while. You can still use any 
other weapon types you have already." I looked to Byrder, who gave me the 
plasma card. 
	"Go for it," he said. I pushed a button close to the port. The 
freeze card was swallowed up so I could put the plasma card in. "Plasma 
accessed," the rifle reported. The green button lit up again. "Let's go,"I 
said.

	We found the staircase and started down: mistake number one. There 
were a mess of guards coming up our way. Byrder and I accessed our shields 
and fired upon them. They returned fire. "Mohammed, Axen," I shouted. "Test 
your new weapons out!" Axen pushed a yellow button on the control pannel on 
the chaingun and fired. Little bolts of energy fired from each hole in the 
gun. The guards started to fall. 
	"Shit!" I heard one cry. "Energy weapons! I had no clue Lupus had 
enough!" He started to say something else, but Mohammed quickly cut him off. 
	"Go tell Commander Verios," another said before he died. 
	"Retreat!" a third cried. The guards started down the stairs. Mohammed 
and Axen weren't going to let them get away that easily. Eventually, we 
continued down the stairs, treading blood and dead bodies as we did.

	"It appears we're at the outer offices and control rooms," I said. We 
were watching my hand. I pointed to the center of the map. "I think that's 
the control room we need to get to." I dragged my finger towards a closer 
control room. "That's their LRCR."
	"How do you know?" Axen asked.
	"I remember the maps Williams let me see. That's what that room is.
We nail that and they can only communicate within the base." There was a 
general agreement in the battle plan. We'd nail the Long Range 
Communications Relays and cut them off from the rest of Leo. Then, we'd head 
to the cannon control relays (APCCR), activate the self destruct sequence, 
and then start down for the transports. Only problem was the first target 
was on the other side of the building. We'd have to nail the LRCR first so 
they couldn't get a warning out to the rest of their people. But, as we 
would soon find out, it was going to be fairly difficult.

	We stepped out of our hiding place and just about ran into a patrol. A 
firefight soon errupted, with us taking victory. The shields would need a 
recharge soon, so another sustained fight like that would nix them. For our 
own safety, we shut them down. "We're going to have to find a better way to 
do this," Mohammed said. We found another shadowy area, and decided to take
another rest. We were a quarter of the way there. 
	"But how?" Byrder asked. "We cannot go around galavanting through this 
base and blowing the hell out of everything we see." We all looked at him. 
"Well, not yet!" Byrder is out infantry mission strategist. He could easily 
whip up a plan of action. 
	"But what happens next?" I asked. 
	"We find a way t' blend in," he said. We waited there for a small 
patrol, about four people, to show up. Eventually, they did. And, as one of 
the only shreds of luck we'd have that night, they stopped right in front of 
us. 
	"What do you know about these intruders?" one of the panthers of the 
	group asked another. 
	"Three wolves, one hawk," the second said. "They're supposedly 
mercenaries, so we're up for a good fight." That's when we took action. 
I tapped one of the guards on the shoulder. He looked at me. I knocked him 
out. Mohammed, Axen, and Byrder nailed the other three in the back of the
head. Minutes later, they were tied up in a broom closet and we had their 
uniforms and IDs. 
	"Shall we?" I asked. Mohammed cocked his head. 
	"Yup," he said. We strutted down the hall, past several patrols.

	Finally, we reached the LRCR. "How to do this?" Byrder asked. "We can 
manually disable it and put a firewall up, or just plain blow the hell out 
of the whole fuckin' array." 
	Mohammed laughed. "Dumb question," he said. 
	"Yeah," Axen added. "Hackers can easily skate around the firewall. But 
if we totaly fry the array, they can't shortcut themselves around that." 
	I nodded. "Let's trash it," I said. I looked down at the rifle. The 
relays were still being configured for the new weapon. Slowly, we opened the 
door.

	There were two technicians. They were idle, playing some cardgame on 
their screen. There were guards there, protecting the very delicate 
machinery. They looked at us. "What are you doing here?" one demanded. We 
hesitated. 
	"You're needed upstairs," Axen said. "They raided the armory. Stole a 
number of weapon cards." 
	The guards looked at each other, than at us. "What'd they steal?"  
	"Dunno," he lied. 
	They nodded. "You watch over everything here." They stormed out of the 
room. They left us with the technicians. I smiled and lowered my rifle to 
the first technician's head. His brains soon littered the screen infront of 
him. The other technician heard the shot. Byrder quickly silenced him. With 
an evil grin, Mohammed aimed his gun at the main array. 
	"Wait," Byrder said. He pushed one of the bodies to the side, wiped 
the screen clean with his sleeve and started to type. "Ditch the ID cards 
and the fancy duds." We complied. He started typing away. "Here's what I'm 
looking for." I looked and read the message there. 
	"Level 1 security alert," I read. "Four unknown intruders. Easily 
handled." 
	He looked at me. "The rest of Leo thinks the base is safe. And as long 
as this stays down, they won't worry. I'm going to send them a decoy." He 
started typing some more. I read the message aloud as he wrote it. 
	"Intruders neutralized. Damaged relays for communications. Will be 
blacked out for a month and a half. Will check in then." 
	Byrder sent the message. "It's done." I smiled, pointed my rifle at 
the screen, and pulled the trigger. The screen exploded. 
	"Axen, Mohammed," I said, backing up. They quickly wasted the 
equipment. "Let's go. They'll be back once they find out they weren't 
needed."

	The APCCR was a two minute walk from the former LRCR. As I suspected, 
it was on heavy guard. We could see the yellow flashing lights, signifying 
yellow alert. "What to do?" Mohammed asked. "We can't just barge in there. 
We'll get shattered." 
	I looked at my shield. "The shields are at 100%." 
	"Crash," Byrder said. "Got those grenades?" I handed him one. He 
quietly opened the window. I stopped him. 
	"That'll destroy the controls. Not yet." 
	He nodded. "So what do we do?"
	"Axen, Mohammed, on either side opposite the door. When they start 
pouring out, waste 'em. Byrder, other side of the door. You're gonna need to 
protect that side in case they send reinforcements that way." They got into 
position. I readied my rifle and aimed at the guard closest to the window. I 
pulled the trigger and shot him in the back of the neck. I quickly ran for 
my position, opposite Byrder. "Activate shields." He did.
	"What the fuck was that?" we could hear from inside. 
	"Shit," a second voice said. "They nailed Budow!" 
	"It's the intruders," a third, powerful voice said. "Get them!" 
	We waited. "Yes Commander Verios," a large number of people said. The 
doors opened and troops started to flood out. 
	"Fire!" I cried. My order, however, was a little late; Axen and 
Mohammed were already flooding the doorway with blood and energy. Quickly, 
they converted nearly 200 troops to corpses. We must have wasted at least
a legion and a half before it stopped. 
	"Is it over?" Axen asked. 
	"Byrder, shield," I said. We got into position, shielding our front. 
Slowly, we made our way in, trudging through the pools of blood.

	The relays were huge. It'd take a good 15 minutes for Byrder to find 
the destruct systems and to access them. But that wasn't my biggest concern. 
"You think Verios chickened out?" Axen asked. 
	I shook my head. "He's a commander. Chickening out for him is an 
instand death sentence dealt from his Second." 
	There was a grim chuckle. "You are so right sir," Verios said. We 
turned towards his voice. There he stood, 6' 11" of lion. Pure muscle. He 
had a vest, probably poly-carbonate and laser/plasma proof. In one hand, he 
carried a nasty looking assault rifle. At his side, he had a standard 
officer issue handgun. "You've done well. But you're not going to live long 
enough to collect on it." He cocked the rifle and aimed at me. 
	"Shit!" I cried. "It's double barrel!" He fired. 
	I was thrown back. The shield lost 5% power. "Dodge!" Verios fired 
again. The others dodged. I pushed the red button and fired at him. He 
jerked back a little. 
	"That tickled," he mocked. He aimed at me and fired again. I rolled 
to the side. I pushed the green button and returend fire. Same results. 
	"Shit!" I cried. "No good! Ax, Death, energy and force!" Axen and 
Mohammed aimed from their hiding spots and fired. The energy blasts bounced, 
literally, off his vest. The force, on the other hand, had only minimal 
effect. Verios growled. "You'll pay for that worm," he said. He aimed at 
Axen and fired. The blast missed, thank god.

	We weren't in a good positon. He had us outgunned and out armored. We 
pulled back to regroup and started to discuss things. "What do we do now?" 
Mohammed asked. "Our weapons are doing jack to that mother fucker." 
	"Knife him," Axen said, drawing his blade. "He's immune to fire, but 
not to close range combat." 
	I took the liberty of slapping Axen upside the head. "Asshole, he's a 
god damn lion. Best fighters out there." I looked at my rifle. A blue button 
was flashing. "The freeze matrix is almost set up. Keep him busy for 5 more 
minutes." They nodded. Great. Five more mintues until we could waste the 
bastard. His rifle, however, had other plans. He fired in three second 
intervals, virtually cascading hell onto us. 
	"Hunter!" Byrder cried four minutes later. "We can't take this!" I 
looked at the rifle. The button was flashing faster. 
	"Another minute!" 
	"You won't have another minute," Verios said, aiming at me. I barely 
got the shield up in time. I was instantly knocked back and hit the wall. 
	"Ow." The light suddenly stopped flashing. It now emited a soft blue 
glow. I pushed it. 
	"Now worm," Verios said, aiming at me again. "You die." 
	I got to one knee. "Try your luck!" He fired. I leapt away, barely 
missing death, aimed, and fired. A blue beam shot from the barrel and hit 
Verios. He was instantly turned into an ice cube. I walked up to him, saw 
the tortured look on his face, and smiled. "Stay frosty."
	Byrder quickly went for the controls. "Accessing controls," he 
reported as he typed. "Accessed. Going to self-destruct control panel. Damn 
it!" He slammed the desk. "It's locked. Password required." 
	I looked at him. "Try everything you can think of." 
	He shook his head. "Don't have my password device on me. Can't do it
without running the risk of us gettin' killed."
	"Here," Axen said, handing him a small, dome shaped device.
	"Where'd you get this?"
	"The armory, where else?" Byrder shook his head and put the device on
the keyboard. He turned it on and it went through everything: dates, names, 
places, weapons, random typing, even book titles. "It's not working!"
	I shook my head. "Gotta do it manually?" 
	"Wait," Mohammed said. He was busy rummaging through Verios' junk. 
"I found this." He handed me a disaster of a paper. It looked to be from the 
time of the humans. 
	"What about it?" 
	He pointed to a circled line. "Try that." 
	"Why not?" I said. "We've tried everything else." I turned to Byrder. 
"Type in this for a password Byrder. 'Oops, I did it again!' " 
	He shrugged and typed. "Shit," he said. "It worked." I looked at the 
sheet, then rushed over. It did work. 
	"Activate it. Security lockout level 15." 
	"Why level 15?"
	"Verios was a level 10. Nobody goes above the commander of a base. And 
he looked to be a level 10." I looked at Verios the iceman and laughed. 
"He ain't gonna do jack about it either." 
	He typed rapidly. "We need something to complete the link," he said, 
pointing at a hole in the side of the control pannel. I removed my finger 
tip and pluged in. A timer appeared in the corner of the radar screen. I 
pushed a button. The big relay in front of us started to pulsate. 
	"Warning," it said in a very loud way. "20 minutes until partical 
accelerator cannon detonation." We all turned pale. It'd be a big fight to 
the bottom.

	We quickly evacuated the room and started towards the far side. The 
far side of the base was where the transports were parked. That's what we 
needed to get to. However, the damn warning systems alerted everyone and 
everything in the facility that we had just set the self destruct sequence 
for the cannons. They'd be up on our asses real quickly, and we had less 
than 20 minutes to evacuate the fourth floor before the relays blew up, thus 
vaporizing the fourth floor.

	As we rounded the second corner we came across, wouldn't you know it, 
the same guards we chased out of the communications room. "Hey!" one of them 
cried. "It's the intruders." They opened fire. We raised our shields and 
returned fire. They dove for cover. 
	"What the fuck!" Axen growled. 
	"It's gonna get much worse," I said. "We're in the middle of git 
central." 
	Byrder looked over to my radar. "He's right. Our best bet is to fuck 
these assholes and go for the nearest staircase." 
	Mohammed blew one away. "Then that's what we do." I suddenly felt a 
heavy....thud (best way I can describe it)....on my shoulder. I turned 
around. 
	"Shit. They're coming from behind!" I aimed and fired. It was still on 
freeze, so the hall was coated in ice. The approaching troops slipped and 
fell. 
	"Now what?" Axen asked. I aimed at the troops at our front and fired. 
The blast created an ice wall in the hallway. They were sealed in. 
	"10 minutes," the warning systems reported. 
	"Let's roll," I said. We moved to the staircase.

	"Wait for it," I said, watching my hand. The countdown was down to 5 
minutes. There was a heavy guard outside the door. "Wait for it." Byrder 
eyed the door viciously. "Now!" He primed a grenade and rolled it out the 
door. We quickly shut it and dove for cover. "What'd you prime it for?"
	There was a sudden explosion, which knocked the door off it's hinges. 
The door flew towards the down stairs, blocking it. "15 second," he replied. 
	I shook my head. "Remind me never to let you get a grenade again." We 
pressed on.

	By this time, our boots had a thick layer of dried blood on it. It was 
about to get much thicker. "I had no clue we were in the barracks area!" I 
cried as I fired my gun from around a corner.  "This thing just gives us a 
floor plan, not a god damn guide book." 
	Axen fired on the soldiers, taking a good chunk out before he had to 
hide again. "Big fuckin' deal," he growled. 
	Mohammed took his turn. "What now? They got us pinned." I readied my 
rifle and fired the freeze beam at the ground. It created a small, perfectly 
round circle of ice in the floor. 
	"Nope," I said, turning my gun upward. "Not like the movies." I iced a 
few Leos before we inched forward. It was right about then I got an idea. 
"Axen, open your keycard ports." He did as he was told. I removed the freeze 
card in my rifle and switched it with his energy card. The chaingun would 
take 5 minutes to configure the new matrix for the weapon. In the meantime, 
I had an energy weapon. I took the opportunity and fried a number of 
soldiers. I looked down at my hand. "Shit. Brace youselves." The countdown 
read 30 seconds. I watched as it slowly clicked down to 0. 
	"Self destruct initialized," the warning system called out. There was 
a low hum, which got louder and louder. Our unit grabbed onto whatever they 
could, while the Leos stared at the ceiling. Suddenly, the whole building 
jolted. We stayed on out feet, but the Leo soldiers fell on their asses. 
Mohammed and Axen quickly neutralized them. 
	"That was just the first relay going," Byrder said. "We've got 30 
seconds until the next." Verios was most likely dead. Didn't matter. We ran 
for the next safe point and braced for the second explosion. We got to the 
closest staircase by the third explosion, and down to the first landing on 
the fourth. "We've got 30 seconds until the final, super big explosion. Then 
the cannons will self destruct soon after." 
	I looked down the staircase. "No way in hell we're gonna die here."
I charged down the stairs. The fifth explosion finally did go off. We were 
all thrown to the wall at the bottom of the stairs. 
	"Let's get out," Byrder said. "Now!" We went out the door, not knowing 
where to.

	We had nearly stormed into the second level of the vehicle bay. It was 
in chaos. People were on the floor, most likely due to the explosions. We 
slipped into the shadows, looking over the railing just slightly. "Okay," I 
said in a whisper. "What do we hijack?" 
	Axen pointed at the transport with the full arsenal sitting on it's top. 
"That," he said. 
	Byrder shook his head and pointed at the sleak looking one. 
	"That," he retorted. I looked over the transports. 
	"That one," Mohammed said, pointing. I looked. It had a light weapons 
array perched on top and a porthole for someone to look out and fire from. 
	"You're a sadist, Mohammed, but it's probably fast and we have a way 
to defend ourselves. That is the one we'll take. Ready?" 
	My response was a plasma blast from somewhere. It missed. We wanted to
avoid a firefight, so we all hopped the railing. We landed on top of a 
couple of guards, who smashed their heads on the floor. We raced to the 
transport, but met up with a heavy guard. A firefight ensued.
	"Byrder," I said between shots. "How long until the cannons go AWOL?" 
	He looked at his watch. "Less than ten minutes. You obviously..." He 
fired. "...didn't read the owners manual." 
	Axen's eyes suddenly lit up. "What's this blue button?" 
	I chuckled. "Freeze cannon's set up. Enjoy." He smiled manically and 
pulled the trigger. The results were unexpected. His turrets lit up, icing 
everything in it's path: personel, walls, weapons, even small parts of MY 
armor. I quickly removed the card and undid the switch. "You use the energy 
from now on," I said, re-inserting the freeze card into my rifle. We 
advanced towards the tanks, hoping to remove a few. 
	"Wait," Byrder said. "Go to the transport." We didn't argue with him. 
We slowly inched backwards to the transport. He picked the lock and opened 
the door. "Get ready to get in," he said, watching his timepiece. We waited 
patiently. "NOW!" We piled in and shut the door. As soon as we locked it, 
there was an humongous explosion. The ground shook for a good five minutes. 
Byrder dove for the controls. I sat down next to him. "We're gone!" The 
transport started up and we sped to the open door. We cleared it quickly. 
Mohammed started for the hatch. 
	"Not yet," I told him. "Wait until we clear the gate." He growled. 
Axen took the weapons array control panel. 
	"I've got lock on a guard tower." 
	"Take it out!" The array on top fired, blasting, but not destroying, 
the top of one tower. We cleared the gates. "Go Mohammed." He threw the 
hatch open and popped out. There was fire. He soon pulled back in. 
	"No good. They've got all sorts of goodies firing on us."
	I started to fiddle with the controls. I switched our radar ID tag 
(what appears under the blip on a radar screen) and took my radio. "Lupus,
this is Hunter. We've taken out the control room and the base's commander. 
We need backup. Tag is 'JW45.' Urgent." I looked to Byrder and chuckled. "It 
always gets them to come quicker." Byrder nodded. Suddenly, the transport 
jolted. Mohammed opened the hatch again and looked out. He took a few shots, 
and came back in. 
	"They've got mechs coming this way," he snarled.
	I turned back to my radio. "Require mech support. Repeat, they're 
attacking with mechs." 
	Byrder started to swerve. "Axen," he said. "Fire those weapons." Axen 
did. 
	"It's not working!" Suddenly, the ground in front of us exploded, 
leaving a crater. We were going fast, so we had split seconds to turn. It 
wasn't a big surprise when we ended up nose first in the ditch. "Fuck!" I 
cried. I turned to the radio. "We are now immobilized. We can't take much 
damage. Emergency. Require backup now." 
	The transport shook. "Fuckin' hell," Mohammed said. He opened the back 
door and fired. Axen joined him. Byrder and I were fiercely working the 
controls, trying to get us out of here. We weren't successful. 
	"Damn it," I said for the um-teenth time in the last five minutes. 
"We're screwed." I pushed one more button. The transport shook. Mohammed and
Axen were forced inside. 
	"What the hell did you do?" Axen shouted. A small drill appeared in 
the front end of the transport. 
	"We musta snagged an underground transport." The drill dug in and we 
were soon safely underground.