Cities of the Future

[PurpleXVI]

"Good man," said the guard Knocko was talking to, "Hold here for a moment and I'll see if we've got any riot shields in the armory. Failing that I'll blast the hinges off a door somewhere and weld on a handle, we got training in that at the Academy at Tau Ceti, improvising things for emergencies." Then he charged off. While they waited for him to return, the other guard took up a position near the door in case their opponent decided to attack them first.

 

A couple of minutes passed and then he returned, carrying one see-through riotshield and a large metal door that had obviously been improvised as one. After passing out the weapons, they all got ready. Knocko got the door, since he was the only one large enough to effectively carry it, Travis got the shield and the others took cover behind them. The countdown went from 3 to 0, and then the inventive guard activated the hand-scanner.

 

The moment the doors started to open, several bullets buried themselves in the upper half of Knocko's shield. If he hadn't been carrying it, his skull would likely have been thoroughly ventilated.

 

Most of the space in the room was taken up by a large, central pillar, connected to the scanner array and carrying raw data. It was surrounded by access ports and screens. The room seemed bigger than it actually was since it extended over ten yards upwards. Their opponent had tried to block off the door with desks, and while they didn't restrict entry they still made it very difficult.

 

Before Knocko could kick away enough of the barricade to get through and fire, the soldier relocated, hiding somewhere behind the pillar. An exchange of glances and hand signals conveyed their strategy. Knocko would go left, Travis would go right, and each of them would bring along one of the guards. A quick pincer-attack so he couldn't escape.

 

Again a countdown, and then they charged.

 

But there was nothing on the other side of the pillar, the two groups almost shot each other as they were the first things they saw. Then gunfire rang through the air again, a group of bullets cut down the guard hiding behind Travis, instantly killing him and practically taking off his head. Looking in the direction of the shots, they saw that their opponent had tried to climb up the pillar and was now, hanging by one hand from an outcropping, feverishly trying to unjam his rifle.

 

Rather than give him a chance to, the three survivors raised their weapons and fired. One clip of pistol ammo, one clip of rifle ammo and two shotgun slugs later, the corpse fell to the floor. The only half-way recognizeable parts were the left arm, the left leg and the chest.

 

"I'll..... I'll call a medic," said the surviving guard, looking at the gore, "Uh, check that he hasn't planted any devices." Then he ran out of the room, they could clearly hear him vomiting from some distance away.

[Captain Andy]

Pansy.

 

Travis thought to himself as he looked at the bloody mass on the floor. He didn't feel so squeemish about it, seeing as he'd seen things just as bad online.

 

While the other guard was off puking, Travis wondered if he should take this chance to get the information they came for. He didn't know if he'd have another chance. He went over to Knocko and decided to see what he htought.

 

"Well, we're here, should we go ahead and get the data we came for?" Travis said in a low voice. "I don't know how much time we'll have to ourselves here."

[Stampede]

Gun wounds never phased Knocko much, unlike needles and the thought of having another baby.

 

"Got it...get to it, I'll take your lead and watch your back...I'll do my best to buy us some time if anybody starts asking stupid questions."

[PurpleXVI]

What followed was a nerve-wracking ten minutes as Travis forced his way into the computer system and downloaded every shred of data he could about what the scanning array had picked up in the last couple of weeks. Nobody seemed about to charge in and ask them what they were doing as he did it, though.

 

Knocko looked over his shoulder, once, and being the only one of them who knew anything about astrophysics, he could make a bit of sense of the raw data. As far as he knew, the data was saying that something big was headed in-system, a bunch of objects with a lot of mass, either a fleet, a swarm of meteors or something else.

 

Unfortunately, just as Travis grabbed the last piece of data, it became clear that he had screwed up. When he had logged into the system, everything had looked simple, it had seemed like there was no security at all. But unfortunately it seemed like that was only a front, a decoy for hackers to bungle into. And Travis had bungled right into it.

 

Klaxons went off and red alarm lights started blinking all over the place while a generic electronic voice started screaming about intruders.

 

The guard who had been outside, vomiting, charged into the room, weapon at the ready, "What's happening?!" He asked, visibly still shaken, "Are there more renegades around?"

[Stampede]

Knocko supressed a frustrated and anxious yelp.

 

"I think so! Quick, help me secure the room!"

 

 

He quickly turned to Travis, eyes wide and shrugged.

[PurpleXVI]

"Sure about that?" The guard asked Knocko, sounding unsure, "I mean, if there are more renegades, do we really want to be trapped in here?" He seemed to calm down a bit, "I'm going to check with the guys upstairs and see what's going on, I mean, shouldn't at least that medic have been down here a while ago?"

 

Before either of them could stop him, he got out his communicator and turned it on. His brow furrowed in frustration as he seemed to be trying to get it to work, "What the hell?" He looked at Knocko again, "The damn thing isn't working, communications must be screwed.... I think we should get up there, something really isn't right."

[PurpleXVI]

Then a nuclear barrage reduced the entire planet to radioactive dust, ending the story.

 

 

 

The end.