Chapter 30 - Raid: Into the Deep

“There's messages at all the other control points, Warrant Officer.” Gunnery Sergeant Zoe-Collete Stewart voice was firm, clear, and comforting, if not just assuring. “She must have wanted to make sure you got the message.” Eric exhaled a breath he'd been holding for a solid minute. The Gunnery Sergeant had told them to hold position, after seeing the message. There had been plenty of reason to believe the Regulator was within meters of his position. Trying to run away would have provoked it into chasing him, if it had been nearby. But it was just a scare tactic. Worked like a charm too. He thought, morosely. I froze up like a raw recruit.

He distracted himself as a loud hiss became audible on his suit's acoustic sensors. He saw the Mongrels being devoured by the Haze. Their flesh pulled up from their muscles and their muscles were unraveled from their bones. The Haze invaded the chest cavities and a sickly thudding pumping echoed in the room, as the Haze began milking the blood out of their very veins.  

If the Mongrels had been alive, the process would have been much the same, but with more shrieking and howling. Eventually nothing but bullet fragments remained on the ground, everything else had been consumed.  

 “Pull back to the mounts. We're going to continue down.” Eric confirmed and brought up the rear as the two soldiers reeled in their cables and returned to the balcony pad outside the door. Three and Six got back onto their Flight Bikes in their gunner positions and Eric stepped back onto the Sergeant's flying combat car.

“Still up for this?” Sergeant Stewart asked.

“Absolutely.” Eric responded without hesitation. “This is part of the job.” Eric said and the rifle in his hands felt a lot steadier. He had reactivated the connection with his suit and the vehicle turret, so once again the massive mounted gun was pointing at whatever his rifle was aimed toward. “Besides, how'm I supposed to sleep at night with that ruining the mood?” He smiled inside his armor.

“Cheeky cuss, aren't you.” Stewart laughed. The ride to the bottom of the shaft was without trouble and the vehicles hovered in the junction chamber, flood lights sweeping across the pipes that made the three-way, right turn intersections. The pipes were four stories tall and wide, and dripping with condensation. The Haze hung like a thick fog, and the Sergeant called for a switch to Haze Penetration Optics. HPO would filter out the 'noise' the Haze projected into the optical spectrum and create a picture of what was happening.

Eric stood up and engaged several of his armor's attachments. From his back, several spheres separated and began to sweep over the circular floor of the junction. The readings came up clean. No slimes were stretching themselves flat against the floor to avoid the Haze. It was possible, and an old or lucky slime would have learned how. By stretching themselves to a single cell of thickness across an entire surface, a slime could avoid being detected by the Haze.

But only a slime could do that.

Stewart called down the rest of her forces, and the tank was the first thing down. It descended swiftly, and Eric was panning his gun across the right facing tunnel when the air buffeted around him. He didn't flinch or reel from it. The suit shrugged off the air pressure, with ease. There had been a flicker on the edge of his vision. Then, “Movement.” He saw something in the dark. “One hundred meters.” Then again. There shouldn't be any moving parts near here. A view of the schematic confirmed that. He linked to the turret and its optical package, and zoomed in on the offending movement. 

“Hold Fire.” Gunnery Sergeant Stewart ordered immediately. Eric kept his rifle, and by extension the heavy turret, aimed at the movement.  

It was large, and it swayed back and forth. Many linked sections of muscles and scales, and a gleam of something black over its normally gray and brown scales. It had a wide head and large yellow eyes, six of them. “Queen Cobra.” He announced, identifying the ten meter long and ten ton monster. “It's alive in the Haze.” He stated the apparent, “Scanning for Regulator Control.” He triggered a program, and the floating orbs congregated to arrange in a pentagon pattern, with a sixth orb between the pentagon and Eric. They projected microwave and radio radiation at the Biological weapon. A loud tone and a visual cue indicated the obvious.

“RegCon is confirmed.” Eric stated, and Gunnery Sergeant Stewart did not hesitate with her response.

“Put it down. Turrets and Rifles. Open fire!” She ordered, dictating the Tank keep its cannon quiet, for now. The cacophony of rifles and mounted guns erupted as soon as the word 'open' had been heard in their ears. Eric had squeezed the trigger for his second controlled burst when the tracers flew from his right and left, and above him, down the tunnel. The rounds tore through the flesh of the creature, shredded its muscles, and shattered its bones. It blew open its skull and Eric watched as the blood and brain matter hung in the air, as if in slow motion.

Then everything started to pull back together. The whole creature began to reassemble, only with more of the black material visible across its body. It surged forward, slithering close to the ground, then up the wall and across the ceiling in total disobedience to gravity. The inherited modifications to its belly scales sucked like squid suckers to the surface of the pipe.

“Regen!” Eric called out. Stewart clicked her tongue and lifted a hand up into the air. Eric kept firing on the charging snake, with his rifle and with the turret.

“Armor up, front and center!” Stewart called out. Eric felt the car strafe to the left, as he kept his rifle fixed on the snake so the turret would know where to unload the rounds. The rifle rounds were mostly an annoyance to the creature at this point. The black material across its body was ignoring much of the damage and only the heavy turret rounds, or the flight bikes rotary gun rounds, were causing it to jerk to the side to avoid their tracers. “Load Smelter Rounds!” She called out, and Eric gave a twitch to increase his suit's temperature regulation. “Fire when ready!”

It was about to get hot in here.

“Loaded!” One of the tank crew called out. The Queen Cobra coiled its body and endured the round that struck it as its eyes fixed on Gunnery Sergeant Stewart's car.  

“Locked!” The Tank's gunner called out. No, those eyes were fixed on me. Eric realized, as it sprung like a massive coiled spring. Then the gunner yelled. “ON THE WAY!” The thunder of a Main Battle Tank will always shake your bones and rattle your ears, its just a matter of how long until you're back to normal. With the Dragonscale armor, the ringing would fade in seconds, as would the glare from the fireball that knocked the Queen Cobra off her trajectory.

The initial mass of the round stopped the beast in midair, then in a sliver of a second, a shaped charge exploded molten metal into the beast. A heartbeat after that, there was an explosion as a chemical charge at the back of round expanded and sprayed an inflammable compound onto the Queen Cobra's flesh.

It hit the ground, hissing in pain, before it brought its massive head up and sprayed a vicious spray of green in the vague direction of the tank. It didn't hit the tank or any of the vehicles around it, but the hissing of the Queen Cobra was joined by a chemical hiss as the venom reacted with the air.

Eric aimed for that exposed flesh, that soft gray-black mottled skin of the inside of the mouth. He fired until the chime in his ear told him the gun was empty. The blood flowed from its mouth as it reeled, and Eric reloaded, setting the turret to continue to fire on the target as he did.

The Cobra was faltering as its head blew apart again. Eric chambered the first round as he sighted something in the center of the head spray. It was black, which made it utterly indistinguishable in the visual spectrum, but with the optical scans that were still running, the Control Seed stuck out like a big glowing icon that said: “Shoot the Weak Spot for Massive Damage.”  

A single pull of the trigger sent three high velocity rounds from his rifle, and ten from the turret. They all hit the same half meter space on the sphere, and tore it apart. The body of the Queen Cobra went limp and started to fall. The black slime slid off and lurched down the tunnel the massive snake had come charging out from.

The Haze began consuming the corpse before it hit the ground. As soon as the Regulator's 'resin' liquefied and left the body, it was no longer exempt from the Haze's gluttony. Eric sent the sphere's ahead to chase the liquid resin. If it was returning to the Regulator; the Task Force, Captain Rachel in particular, needed to know where to deploy. If it was heading to a nearby active Control Seed, Stewart's Squad needed to know, right at that moment.

“Hawk, Tiger, and Keeper Squads, form up.” Stewart ordered, “We follow the Tracers.” As she said this, more flight bikes joined the first two, as well as four hover trucks modified for combat. Their lift generators were armored. Their chassis designed to keep the user safe from attacks from below, as much as the sides and above. Each also carried six troops in the back, some operating the special equipment each of 'Tiger' squads vehicles carried.

Two of the vehicles carried heavy cannons on par with what Stewart's ride carried, but had a dedicated gunner rather than linking to a suit over wireless communication. One had a communication and sensor suite on it. It gravitated toward the center of the formation, behind Stewart's ride, and had two soldiers operating its channels. With that nearby, Eric's control over his Tracers would be boosted. He saw an icon indicating the array was already communicating with his suit and expanding his equipment's operating radius. The last Tiger Truck had a weapon on it that made Eric's eyes widen in equal parts caution and delight. How did that get cleared for in City use? He wondered. And what paperwork do I need to file to get one for myself? His helmet hid his grin. 

“All others, make this junction ours. Nothing gets out, but what I say.” She ordered and Eric felt the acceleration as the speedometer went past 60 kph in two seconds, and held there as the flock of hovercraft flew along the trail being left by the Regulator's resin.  

“Command to all Teams,” The Colonel's voice was clear in Eric's ear. “Multiple Teams have encountered hostile 'residents' with Regulator Control Cores implanted in them. Destroy them, and pursue their resin trails, either to the Primary Target, or to potential distractions for our own Angel, when she moves in on the Target.”

Eric smiled in his helmet at Sergeant Stewart. She was already on the hunt. The group charged forward, and Eric saw his Tracers following the slime, deeper into the sealed sector. He brought up the AO map and saw the various groups spreading out from their entry points. The Groups that had been held up by sealed points had been redirected and were on standby to follow up the initial teams. Captain Rachel, however, was absent from the map.  

She was keeping herself off the grid until she knew where to strike.

The orbs suddenly stopped as they hovered in a circle in front of a drop off. Eric narrowed his eyes, and ordered the Tracers to hold position, as the forward group slowed down. According to the records reviewed during the planning meeting, the area up ahead had caved in because of a sinkhole last year. The actual cause of the sinkhole was still an unknown, the geology should have been solid here.

But it wasn't. As they looked out at the stretch of empty space, that went down more than two hundred meters into the dark. Above, yellow lights indicated the crisscrossing superstructure that kept the layer of the city above from caving in. That wasn't a concern. The massive, cavernous, hole in the ground, and the unusually thick Haze lingering there, was.

The Tracers were panning back and forth, scanning into the massive wound in the dark. Around the edges, he could see other massive pipes leading to this area. “Too thick for my sensors.” Eric commented, “But the Regulator particles are recent here. She was here, range of twenty to twelve hours.” He did the calculation in his head, but a few seconds later, his guess was confirmed by the Tiger Truck with the Sensor package.  It moved up to the front, and as it did, one of the soldiers called out.

“Lights, Left Pipe 80 meters.” Everyone braced their rifles, but only a few aimed their sights in that direction. Plenty kept their weapons trained at the darkness, or covering their rear. At this point, they only had the void and the pipe they came in through. Eric kept his rifle and the turret on the Darkness below, but his helmet gave him a view of what one of the riflemen could see. It was another squad, with more hover vehicles.

“Keeper Leader, this is Dancer Leader,” A man's voice came over a near space channel. “What have you got over there, Beastie?” The man's voice was friendly, a peer to Stewart, from the way he talked to her and called her by a call sign. Eric looked into the mist as he felt something. It was a trembling, but it wasn't from the hover car, or any air pressure. What the Hell?

“Dancer Lead, Keeper Lead,” Stewart's voice replied. “A big hole, Regulator particles, a lot of Haze, Disco-Dandy.” She stated. “You chase some sludge here?”

“Affirmative. Popped a Bullfrog not long after we landed.” Disco said back.

“Queen Cobra,” Stewart said back, upping Disco's kill. “The Target sure has had time to pick her appetizers.”  

“Sorry, Beastie, I can't see the appeal of burnt snake.” Disco Dandy sighed.

“Who said I burnt it?” Stewart said, coyly. Eric smiled. I wonder if she taught Belle how to cook? He thought. Then, again, a trembling. It felt stronger now. Did noone else hear that? He looked around. The troops had taken up to aiming down into the hole, scanning over the near walls, or keeping an eye behind them.

“It's you. I know how you cook.” Disco said with a sagely tone to his voice. Eric couldn't restrain a laugh and shook his head. “This a party line?” Disco asked, curious. Eric noticed a very small 'transmitting; closed channel' icon on his HUD and looked at Stewart, her posture was inscrutable, but he imagined a smile on her face inside that helmet.

“Warrant Officer Wyre, riding shotgun, Technician, and turret for the Gunnery Sergeant.” He said on the channel.

“Staff Sergeant Felix Harding.” The voice replied. “Disco Leader.” He added his group's designation. “You're the target's 'One', I'm guessing.”

“It wants me to be.” Eric said. “What gave me away?”

“Beastie's particular about who rides with her.” There was a hint of non-professionalism to his tone, but Eric didn't knock it. Things were tense and keeping everyone ready was what mattered. “What's your take on this?”

“If she's not down there, something worth the firepower we brought in is.” Eric assessed. The scanners had been sweeping and pushing out hard penetrating waves during the entire conversation, and they were only just getting the first readings back, from inside the Haze. “I'd advise waiting for more back up than just our tracking parties.”

“Not eager to fly into the soup, Sir?” Disco asked. Eric laughed, then felt the tremble even stronger than before.  

“No.” He gripped his rifle tighter, then aimed across the way, toward Disco's unit, but at the wall above the pipe Disco's group was scanning from. “OZ taught me to be wary of any open space with low visibility.” He linked into the turret and started cycling through the spectrum. “Something's coming.” He said.  Then his visual panned over something. The camera went from a dull gray of the metal to a mass of phosphorus green, a visual translation of readings into visible color. “CONTACT! WALL! ABOVE DISCO!” He zoomed out and realized just how big the thing was. It had been attached to the wall, near the surface, and slowly been creeping downwards.  

It was longer than the Queen Cobra, and more massive than Borough Beasts' tank. Its body was invisible to the human eye and as the sensor package pivoted upwards, the system identified what it was and filled in a visualization over the solid green silhouette.  It clung to the wall with massive claws, and armored body ran from a mouth filled with steel sharp teeth down to a tail that was like a massive mace. Eric saw it open its eyes and the bright red visible and imposed over the artificial image. By whatever Grace there was left in the world, it didn't have any wings. 

“DRAKE!” Eric called out. His gun and the turret aimed at the penultimate danger lurking beneath the city streets.  

“FIRE!” Stewart roared. “DISCO! FALL BACK!” She called. Eric noticed the lights fading as the units swiftly reversed. Then the entire pipe was hidden behind a wall of radioactive fire. When it faded, the pipe's roof had melted down into the bottom, and the Drake reared back its head, and its roar filled the massive chasm.  

Suddenly, on cue, there was a hideous thunk, and Eric turned his head over his shoulder to see a massive metal airlock falling shut behind them, between them and a junction that would have given them room to retreat. Black slime spread from the edges and sealed the airlock shut. It also formed words in the center. These were more clearly written, and more recently.

AVENGE MY WOUNDS, MY ONE.



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