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  Chapter 2 Assault

  They stood on a ledge high above the valley in which the refinery sheltered and watched in silence as Bryson unpacked a portable fabricator. He sealed up the entrance to the cave with an impenetrable polymer that morphed to match the colour and texture of the rock around it. Moments later they were left staring at a blank rock face.

  “I guess we’re not coming back then.” Harvey said to Bryn.

  “No and were taking the quick way down, deploy your grapples and maintain radio silence till you’re in position.” he interjected before Bryn could reply.

  One by one they fired their grapples into the ledge and checked their stress gauges to ensure it would hold them as they repelled down a sheer cliff face coated in ice. It was a bumpy ride, but aside from being buffeted by a howling wind they all made it to the bottom in one piece. It was slower going than he would have liked, wading through the fresh snow as it settled and drifted on the compacted snowfield beneath them. Finally the refinery superstructure loomed up out of the barren wastes before them and they split up into their preassigned teams. He carefully circled round the dark mass of metal that towered over them to the front of the main building. Once they were in position he signalled both of them to drop in the snow and wait. Carefully unstrapping his rifle from his back and readying it he gestured to Bryn and Harvey to do the same.

  The rifles bio-filter confirmed a positive match with his DNA and interfaced its sighting systems with his HUD as he began scanning the complex for potential targets. All the time he had one eye on his comms filter waiting for confirmation the others were in position. Bryson was the first to report in, having taken a vantage point on a ridge higher up the valley that enabled him to over-look the entire site, quickly followed by the rest. He acknowledged them all with a single word once they were in place.

  “Go.”

  He listened as Carol injected the dummy message warning of an eminent systems failure into the refineries comm traffic and watched as the two sentries standing between him and the main entrance crumpled into the snow. Then a massive explosion of plasma and sparks erupted from the comm tower and the refinery fell silent. Anyone monitoring transmissions would assume a systems wide comms failure, at least initially, buying them valuable time before reinforcements were alerted. Not as long as he would have liked, with a gold channel encryption filter running, but perhaps they'd get lucky and find out what it was hiding.

  He tapped the shoulders of the two men either side of him and gestured with his hand. They leapt to their feet in unison and raced towards where the sentries lay. The automated defence systems hadn’t come to life yet. It seemed even those inside the refinery had been fooled into thinking the communications tower was a victim of equipment failure as well. They dropped and covered him as he yanked the glove off the right hand of the corpse nearest him and checked the key crystal embedded in the palm of it was intact. The main doors were less than twenty-five meters away.

  Suddenly a klaxon sounded and the automated defences came to life, yellow beams of energy erupting from turrets along the perimeter.

  “Time to move boys.” he gestured towards doors.

  Their suits cloaking field kept them hidden from the thermal imagers, but the movement sensors couldn’t be completely fooled and their weapons fire gave the gun turrets something to fire back at. The key was to keep moving. The air burned and hummed around them as they got closer to the doors. Orange tracer flashed over their heads as Bryson’s team laid down covering fire and a turret explode high above them as their portable plasma cannon found its mark again. His HUD showed all teams engaged as they threw themselves against the perimeter wall and into the blind spot under the outer defences.

  “Time for a special delivery.”

  He cranked up his rifle to its maximum firing rate and pressed the palm of the glove he’d retrieved against the entry panel. As the double doors slid back he rolled across the entrance coming a halt on one knee in front of the rapidly widening gap between the doors. He squeezed his trigger spraying deadly bolts of energy into the large loading yard beyond, cutting down several troopers, before continue his roll to far side of the opening. As the other two lobbed a mix of high explosive and fragmentation grenades inside, ripping apart anything that got in the way. The ground juddered under their feet and the outer doors ground to halt at about three quarters their regulation opening width.

  “Looks like we've got our foot in the door, now to see what's inside.”

  Crouching low they dashed through the opening and zigzagged through the carnage darting from cover to cover. Suddenly a massive bolt of blue energy erupted off to their left sending debris into the air, showering them with sparks and then another to their right. The ground began to rumble under their feet.

  “Two heavy plasma cannons and a tank. Nice. Lay down some covering fire while I mark them.”

  They obliged by letting off a hail of rounds in the general direction of the plasma cannons. While he poked his rifle over the top of wrecked loader they were sheltering behind and used its sight to draw a bead on the tank before transmitting the co-ordinates back to Bryson on the ridge.