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  He turned back to face Governor Denmead, wishing she hadn’t joined him but impressed that she was putting herself on the front line.

  “What can you tell me, Governor? Anything about their weapons and equipment?”

  “Some of them have powered armour but not all of them,” she said.

  Atticus took that news with aplomb, “You’re certain?”

  “Captain Atticus, I shot one in the face earlier today, and it barely fazed him. And I’m not the only one who’s seen them in suits,” she admonished him.

  “Fair enough. It’s unusual for brigands to have powered armour, but I’m sure we can take care of it,” he replied.

  “They have military clones as well,” she went on as Atticus raised an eyebrow. Obtaining military grade clones was not only utterly illegal for non-government bodies but also extremely difficult. The modifications built into such clones were strictly for combat use, and even the Sol governments rarely deployed troops in such clones. Outside of a troop deployment ship, military-grade cloning bays were almost unheard of.

  “What kind of modifications have you seen? Could they be fringe planet black market clones?” he said, suggesting these were inexpert hacks that the brigands might have jury-rigged onto civilian clones.

  “Captain,” said Denmead in a tone pitched to close the argument, “I’ve been around long enough to recognise a back-alley clone. This force has full-size gliding wings for their scouts. Eight-foot-tall, heavy weapons grunts and some kind of close combat trooper that was fully mutated with natural armour, bladed arms and fangs. They are definitely, high quality, military clones,” she insisted.

  “Any idea where they’re operating from?”

  Denmead pulled a data slate from her jacket and projected an image on the concrete wall, a map of the central colonised areas of New Bristol.

  “No, not yet,” she said, tapping the slate and pinging a series of locations within 30 km of Ashton, “I haven’t had much time but these are the places I think are most likely. I’ve made a lot of assumptions of course and I’m not a military expert. Everyone in the outlying settlements is dead or here with us in Ashton, in fact. They could be using any of the outlying sites.”

  “How long have they been here?”

  “We don’t know,” Denmead said, flinching as a burst of fire echoed from a nearby street, “they attacked the most distant locations first. Atmospheric processors, automated mineral extractors, energy farms. Most elements of our terraforming infrastructure are distributed in small pockets in case of unexpected atmospheric conditions or accidents. Only larger sites that require regular attention have a team that live onsite; any others are visited on rotation. They’d probably been attacking us for days before anyone managed to survive long enough to raise the alarm.”

  “Do you have any working fab units capable of making small arms?”

  “Yes, but nothing large scale,” Denmead said.

  “We’ll take whatever you can produce. I’ll authorise you to set them making military weapons,” Atticus said. Through his HUD he sent a clearance code to the Governor that would unlock the restricted military patterns their fabricators held, along with a priority list of items to manufacture.

  “Thank you, Captain. Our weapons aren’t much use against these clones or their powered armour.”

  “Can you show me where your teams are?”

  Denmead tapped her slate again, and the projection on the wall showed a series of blue, green and red dots. Blue for citizens who had joined the militia and green for non-combatants, who were mostly hiding in buildings back from the front line.

  Great areas of red hatching showed ground already lost or where the enemy troops were known to be. She sent a data stream to Atticus, and he reviewed it on his HUD. It was basic information, but the tactical overlay could absorb it and update it once their drones started providing more accurate data.

  With the data came the colonist’s health status, streamed from their personal monitoring bracelets. It was less comprehensive than the information Atticus had on his Marines but just knowing where people were and whether they were injured - or dead - was hugely valuable.

  “It’s time to pull your people back, Governor. We’ll take over, and we don’t want your people getting caught in the crossfire,” Atticus.

  “I understand, where do you want our line? My people have children to protect,” she asked.

  “Here, here and there, is good,” Atticus said, pointing at the projection on the wall to a few buildings that would give good sight lines around the colony and allow the militia to act as a rearguard for his teams.

  “Very well, I’ll issue the order to fall back and then I’ll retreat to our administrative backup here,” Denmead said, indicating a reserve building which also held a cluster of green dots. “It’s nothing special, but it’s got reserve power and access to most systems in case of a major problem with city hall.”

  “Roger that, Governor. Best of British to you,” Atticus said as she made her way back down from the roof.

  Chapter Three

  “Coming up on E.D.B. 2 in 100 metres, Sir,” said Corporal Goodwin.

  “A lot of smoke here, something’s wrong. Fan out, keep to cover. Goodwin, get a drone up,” ordered Lieutenant Warden. It wasn’t necessary to order his Marines to take cover, they all had more experience than he did, but it needed to be a habit. Someday, he would have brand new marines to look after, and they would need his guidance.

  Goodwin had already thrown a micro-drone, shaped like a giant dart, in as high an arc as she could. It unfurled and stabilised as its rotors activated. An icon appeared in his heads-up display to indicate there was a recon drone actively broadcasting video.

  “Section 1, advance by numbers,” Warden ordered sub-vocally, the words appearing in text on each marine’s HUD to ensure commands were received, regardless of the volume.

  “Got anything, Goodwin?” Sergeant Milton asked, not taking her eye from the sight on her carbine as she scanned the buildings ahead.

  “Not yet, Sarge. Want me to have a shufty?” Goodwin asked.

  “Get your bird out there, Goodwin. I want to know where that smoke is coming from before we get there,” Warden said.

  The tiny drone, not much larger than the hummingbird it imitated, darted forward scanning the combat zone ahead. Goodwin would be concentrating on the video feed, the infra-red and sonar information that the drone provided. Milton was tailing her close, much like a spotter looking after their sniper. If anything happened, Milton would have Goodwin down and in cover even if she was distracted by the wealth of data she was monitoring.

  They’d made two advances, one group dashing to the next available cover while another covered them, then sprinted to safety themselves, before Goodwin had an update.

  The icon blinked in Warden’s view and Goodwin’s message, , scrolled across his HUD. He ducked down behind a concrete waste bin, as the drone’s view expanded into his HUD.

  The cloning bay, technically an RMSC Emergency Deployment Bay, was a squat concrete building with a staircase running up the outside and a high-bandwidth comms array on the roof. Or at least, it had been. Now, it was little more than rubble. The bay, effectively a bunker, had lost its north wall and its roof had collapsed.

  Normally the bays were buried, hidden from hostile eyes beneath tons of soil or concrete, but build details were determined by the colonists and the local conditions. Colonies had considerable operating leeway and could make their own decisions about building deployments. It was part of the attraction of life on a frontier world.

  In Ashton, the second bay had been built in the open. The bay that Atticus and A Troop had decanted into was underground in the basement of a solar plant control room, much better protected.

  Goodwin sent the drone through the hole in the north wall, checking the damage. The message flashed across Warden’s HUD. He didn’t ask how she knew. Goodwin was a highly trained tech specialist, a
nd if she said it was a breaching charge, it was a breaching charge. So, he thought, the wall had been an entry point to the bunker?

  They’d been targeting the cloning facility, to destroy it and cripple their response capability. That suggested a level of tactical thinking that was unusual in a bandit attack. Whoever the enemy was, they were far too aggressive, too well equipped and too skilled to be treated lightly.

  He sent a direct query back to Goodwin, , then issued a command to hold position to the rest of the section. They all hunkered down, eyes scanning the surrounding buildings, searching for signs of the enemy. . The enemy was likely still nearby.

  The drone darted straight up, and Warden flinched at the sudden shift. Techs did this all the time, but he found it disorienting; there was a reason he hadn’t gone into an Intel Group. With a wide view of the area, Goodwin was able to switch to a search mode, focusing on movement, heat profiles, radiation, comms traffic and any other sign of the enemy’s location.

  A sea of data and strange imagery swam in front of Warden’s eyes for a few seconds before the chaotic colours, and dozens of icons went back to the live feed again. This time, a building to the east of the bay was highlighted, a tall, thin structure, five storeys high, with large panes of glass held in place by a web of foamcrete. Cheap, lightweight and easily constructed, it was unquestionably office space.

  All heads in the section had swivelled toward it, and the Marines had begun to reposition themselves without his having to give an order.

  Goodwin and Milton caught up with him, using the building on the corner of the crossroads as cover until they could join Warden behind his waste bin on the pavement. “Numbers?” he asked quietly. The Lance-Corporal shook her head; she didn’t know.

  He pondered their options. This felt like a raiding group. They could hear gunfire in the distance, but these troops were here to target valuable assets. If they were a military force from another colonial government, they’d be highly trained specialists, just like his Marines. He was confident of his team’s abilities, but no-one was immune to a sniper round, and they didn’t have any heavy weaponry, let alone powered armour. It wasn’t part of the emergency deployment package for a colony this size.

  B Troop weren’t going to be joining them anytime soon; it would take days to grow more clones, even if they could hold the remaining bay. The civilian bay would be a poor alternative, with less advanced bodies and even less equipment.

  If he charged in without more information, he could very well lose all his Marines. On the other hand, if they sent the drone in, they might reveal themselves to an otherwise oblivious enemy and lose the advantage of surprise.

  What was the enemy’s plan? The team that had taken down the bunker had been quick, discreet and efficient. Warden’s Section was probably being watched, but they hadn’t been engaged, so maybe the enemy had targets and orders to avoid conflict. If that were the case, they’d be going for something else of high value, probably the remaining cloning bay or a power facility. Every building contributed to the energy grid but taking out a sizeable generation plant would impact their production of clones and equipment.

  Warden shook his head. The decision was easy.

  “Goodwin, get me a view inside. I want numbers, locations and armament.” He signalled everyone else to be ready to lay down heavy fire. It wouldn’t be subtle, but if Goodwin could get locations, they could tear through that building even with their basic carbines.

  The drone was diving now, swooping toward a balcony on the top floor. It settled on a narrow upper pane and began to cut through the glass with its laser. It was inside the building in seconds, flitting through the offices and confirming the floor was empty in under a minute. It did an abrupt flip that made Warden’s stomach lurch and rolled to the atrium that plunged through the building.

  Righting itself, it zipped into the offices on the fourth floor, angling for the corner that faced Warden’s position. Six figures lit up ahead, and their locations popped on the HUDs of the Marines. Warden saw a glimpse of powered armour before one of the figures turned and raised a small hand weapon. There was a flash, and the feed went black. His HUD automatically went back to the default view, the drone’s icon gained a red cross to show it was disabled.

  “Son of a bitch!” Goodwin cried out, “Lieutenant, permission to engage?”

  “Granted, Lance-Corporal,” he said, turning to face the building in a crouch and bringing his carbine to bear. The icons on his HUD showing the last known location of each enemy.

  Goodwin answered the destruction of her equipment with a two-pronged approach. First, the defunct drone detonated with an almighty noise and a light bright enough to blind. Secondly, she brought her carbine to bear and with a triple popping noise and a panning motion, expertly fired three grenades through windows on the fourth, third and second floors, one above the other.

  The detonations were nigh on simultaneous, a staccato cacophony that could be felt as a bass rumble in their chest. It was accompanied by bursts of fire from the entire section. Goodwin had already thrown another drone and Warden could hear her cursing the enemy under her breath and vowing revenge.

  It came quickly. As the clouds of dust billowed out and the drone’s data reached their HUDs, the Marines could see the softly glowing outlines of four figures, on the ground floor. Two more were outlined in blue, lying prone in the rubble.

  As soon as the drone pinged the enemy powered armour units, Warden’s section opened fire. Each marine firing bursts with expert precision into the dust cloud, guided by the drone’s sensors. They were rewarded with the distinctive metallic pings of bullets striking powered armour.

  “Grenades!” ordered Warden and a flurry of ordnance arced across the open space, detonating directly on or near the blue outlines as the drone skipped back to avoid the blasts.

  The final grenade detonated at the roof of the building, still hanging precariously above the vacant space below it. It collapsed with a resounding crash, directly on top of the enemy position. Warden glanced to his left and saw a smug grin on Milton’s face. He nodded in approval and turned to Goodwin. “Survivors?” he asked.

  She jabbed at her drone interface a few times and shook her head, “Can’t say for certain, Sir but no signs of life.”

  “Take a breather folks, let’s see if any of those bastards get up,” Warden cast over the comms.

  “No movement, no energy signatures, Sir,” Goodwin announced a minute later.

  “Let’s move in then,” Warden said as he ordered the advance via the section’s HUDs.

  They moved across the open ground, weapons trained on the pile of rubble that was all that remained of the corner of the building. The explosions had strewn debris all over the street, and everything within fifty metres was covered in dust and grime from the shattered structure.

  Goodwin’s drone shot straight up, climbing to two hundred metres before it began to follow a spiral holding pattern, scanning a much broader area for signs of life, enemy or ally.

  Warden pulled a pocket open on the neck of his jacket and slid an air filter up from it to cover his mouth and nose. It wasn’t capable of protecting him from an active weapons attack, but it was ideal for sandstorms or billowing clouds of concrete dust and particulates. Most of the section followed suit; their HUDs already protected their eyes.

  Something clanked against his boot, and he looked down at the prone armoured trooper, he stepped back and brought his weapon to bear. Milton moved up beside him and reached down to pull back a sheet of wall fibre, which covered the apparent corpse. No response. “Do you recognise this armour pattern, Sergeant?”

  “No, Sir, never seen anything like it. It’s thin. Delicate,” she said as she knelt beside the corpse and rolled it over. The chest was buckled in, probably from the direct force of one of the grenades. Still, Warden would have expected it to have torn the trooper limb from limb if it had hit directly. Even powered armour wasn’t invuln
erable to a close-range detonation.

  The head was crumpled too, not quite flat but damaged enough to give the owner a fatal headache. There were no markings on the suit that he recognised, in fact, no markings at all. It was a dull grey with a strangely shimmering surface.

  Milton grabbed it by the joint at the neck and hauled the body upright. She turned to him with a puzzled look, “It’s light. I mean, remarkably light, Sir. Russian-made, maybe? Or American?”

  Warden nodded toward it, “Look at that.” The suit had changed colour as she lifted it from the dust-covered rubble. “Some sort of chameleon coating.”

  “That’s a new one on me. I’d keep it quiet if I’d developed that too. No wonder they got so far into the city without anyone noticing. I bet we wouldn’t have even found them without the drone,” Milton said.

  “Ultra-light power armour designed for stealth by an unknown power,” he mused, shaking his head “no way bandits get hold of gear like this. Could be an actual covert action by a Sol government,” Warden speculated.

  “I bloody well hope not, Sir. Why would anyone even want this rock, it’s not even halfway terraformed yet. It’ll be, what, twenty or thirty years before this shit-hole starts to look habitable to normal people,” she said.

  “Maybe there are resources on New Bristol our teams didn’t find. What’s the alternative? That some underworld group managed to build an entirely new type of power armour? Maybe they attacked a top-secret lab that some government put on a remote asteroid base?” Warden scoffed.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t say I had a better explanation, I just don’t see any Sol government sending a strike force here. It’s a huge risk for not very much reward. Well over a century since the last intra-Sol war and this would risk another,” Milton shrugged.

  Warden nodded thoughtfully and sent a comm request to Captain Atticus.

  “Lieutenant?” came the terse response.

  “Sir, Bravo Bay has been destroyed. We encountered an enemy infiltration unit in some kind of light; stealth powered armour. They’d breached the bunker, set charges and looked to be heading toward Bay Alpha; we slotted them,” Warden reported.