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told its readers and watchers and listeners what they wanted to hear. And any
particular story could be heard in any particular way depending on the
channel, website, or forum.
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Fortunately for humanity, though, word of mouth still existed. There were a
lot of people throughout the outer realm of the system that had lost family to
the Triton Raids or on Kuiper Station at the hands of the
Separatists. Something like that just couldn't be kept quiet for too long and
the spin from the news could be filtered by the word-of-mouth news.
"Well, if we are dead anyway, Vince, why are we just sitting around here?" Rod
asked his long time friend and drinking buddy.
"I'm working on it Rod. I'm working on it."
"Wow. That is some story, Senator," Gail Fehrer said into the camera. "So have
you figured out what this extra signal is yet?"
"No, but I'm working on it," Senator Moore replied. The clock on his visor
showed that they were about ten minutes away from the rendezvous. He was ready
to have this little adventure behind him and his family safe and far out of
harm's way.
"How are you working on it?" the reporter asked.
"Well, my AIC has several AIs from the gambling district working the numbers
on it and she has passed the data through BIL along to the
Sienna Madira main AIC. I understand that the super AIs of the nation's
flagship are cranking away at cracking the encryption. It is only a matter of
time now." Moore was nervous about giving too much information away, but then
again, there was no transmission taking place. Abigail was watching the
reporters like a hawk and BIL promised to keep a sensor on them too.
So for now, the senator was taking in all the free press he could. After all,
his day job was as a politician.
Senator?
Yes?
The AEMs want us to update them on our position, Abigail informed him.
We tell nobody our position from here on to the evac point. We don't know how
long it will be before the
Seppy techs figure out that we are using low-level infrastructure coms for
data relay.
Understood, Senator. I'll relay the message.
Just tell them that we will be there. And then we go radio silent until
further notice.
"Boulder."
"Yes sir, Burner?" Lieutenant Jason Cordova replied to his boss over the
optical net.
"I want you, Ace in the Hole, One Night, Bama, Epoxy, and BullNutz on the
ground in eagle-mode and covering the AEMs." Burner trotted across the Martian
soil in bot-mode beside Boulder, each with two
Marines riding on their shoulders. The bot-mode mecha could hold a pace of
over eighty kilometers per hour on solid ground in one full Earth gravity. On
Mars they could better that by about twenty percent.
Of course, in fighter-mode the FM-12s could reach escape velocity of most of
the planets in the system and they were equipped for short-range space combat.
Each mission had its own speed requirements.
This particular mission required finesse not speed. Burner checked his passive
sensors systems and the active LIDAR and saw no signs of Seppy Gomers. They
had been lucky since they left the dome and had been alone as they crossed the
lower desert drop of the southern foothills of Olympus Mons. The
AICs that had linked together across the city had warned that the majority of
Seppy activity was located between the domes and moving mostly toward the main
dome. This far south seemed to be of little
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interest to them. However, one thing that bothered Burner was that the Seppies
had been jamming their sensors all day. There could be drop tanks just over
the hills and they would never know it until they were on top of them. Burner
didn't like running blind, but it beat sitting around with thumbs up your ass
and blind.
"Got it, Burner."
"Washington, I want your AEMs on the ground bouncing underneath Boulder and
company, got it?"
"Yes sir," Washington responded, eager to get on with this mission.
"Lieutenant, you keep pinging away with your QMs for any activity. Jammed or
not, we might get that encryption downloaded from the fleet at any second and
I want to know if our sensors start working,"
Burner ordered the AEM leader.
"Affirmative, Colonel." Washington switched over on his NCO channel and
touched base with Clay.
"Sergeant, you stick with Kootie. Keep the private out of trouble. However the
VIP shows up, let's get to them quick and move out quick. And keep your QMs
pinging."
"Yes sir, Lieutenant." Sergeant Clay Jackson was ready to get this mission
over with as well. It had been a losing battle since the start and he was
ready to make something positive out it.
"Okay AEMs," the second lieutenant QMed his personnel. "I know it's a lot of
fun joyriding on this here fine Marine mecha but we need to quit goldbricking
and start earning our pay." Washington pulled his
HVAR up in front of his visor and checked the weapon. He was ready to go.
"Sergeant, you and Shelly take the left flank. Kootie, you're on me. We stay
low and under the Killers."
"Oorah, sir!"
Washington pushed himself up to his feet, balancing on the barrel turret of
the shoulder-mounted forty-
millimeter cannon of the striding bot-mode FM-12. Before the running mecha's
bouncing could throw him off balance Washington did a backflip off the giant
robot and bounced to his feet on the Martian soil, bringing his left knee down
as he impacted the red soil. The immunobooster and the pain meds must have
worked well, because other than feeling a little clammy on the forehead,
Washington was a new man. He was a heartbreaker and a goddamned life taker. He
was an armored e-suit Marine!
Oorah, Lieutenant, Tammie, his AIC, added. The second lieutenant was running
on all adrenaline.
Sergeant Jackson, Corporal Shelly, and Private Kudaf followed the second
lieutenant's lead. The four
Marines bounced at more than seventy kilometers per hour in the open desert.
Running downhill helped too. The Martian soil of the mountainside consisted of
pebbles no larger than a marble embedded in red granular dust. There were
occasional outcroppings of millennia-old lava boulders but they were few and
far between. The AEMs and mecha bounced faster downhill kicking up a rooster
tail and dust trail of gray-red Martian regolith.
The rendezvous with the VIP and evac was on the south side of the mountain, a
good piece downhill from the south borough dome. It had to be more than fifty
or sixty kilometers south and east of the main dome where the senator was
coming from. Unless they could fly or had commandeered some sort of transport
it was difficult to see how they would make it to the rendezvous in time. But
the AICs had contacted each other and assured the Marines that the rendezvous
was on schedule and going to happen.
The AEMs Shelly and Kudaf leaped from Boulder's mecha in long separating arcs.
Shelly's arch landing just left of the second lieutenant and Kudaf's slightly
behind the sergeant. As the AEMs hit the ground bouncing, Boulder's FM-12
transfigured itself from a full-sprint running robot to an eagle-mode mecha.
The g-forces from the mecha transfiguration process had to be one hell of a
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ride for the mecha pilot.
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Five other of the sleek killing transfigurable fighting machines pulled into [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]