The Fuse

She grabbed the book from the ground and gave it back to the woman, apologizing. The spacedock’s transit domes were connected by large cylindrical segments about ten meters wide with large tubes at the top providing recycled and cooled air through a mesh of metal grilles. Hundreds of people squeezed their way through the almost homogenous mass. Valles Marineris has become a hotspot, providing exit points to all major planets and stations inside and near Federation space. The surge of people increased by a hundredfold and the construction of a new and bigger dock to accommodate a higher number of travelers was delayed so they were forced to keep operating above the normal limits of the facility.

The freighter Heavy Duty has just docked and is scheduled to leave for Haven within the next three hours at docking port A-23, her AI assistant released into her mind. It had found the fastest way off Mars. Haven was a fresh colony at the fringe of Federation space. It was given prime status due to its enormously diverse and vigorous wildlife, granting colonists access to level 5 technology and immunity.

Can you book a ticket? she willed.

I cannot. Only authorized members of the foundation team or certified construction workers are permitted from entering Haven’s vicinity. Each passenger has to pass through a detailed security check.

That was going to be a problem. Give me the shortest route to A-23. Avoid security if possible.

Confirmed.

She began walking at an unsuspicious but determined pace, trying not to bump into others again. The AI projected the route into her sight, the visuals perfectly meshing with the environment. After eighty meters, she left the crowded connection segment and entered the main hub of the spaceport. It was the biggest structure ever built on the surface of Mars. A three hundred meter high dome made from densified glass silicates boasting a one-kilometer wide base. It provided central access to the fifty transit domes scattered all around its circumference. These domes acted as docking ports for all kinds of civilian and military starships and Mars flyers. Looking outside the transparent structure revealed the outskirts of Mars’ deepest canyon. Any other day she would have stopped to behold the impressive sight of human ingenuity. She turned right and headed for the transport cabs.

***

Carmey would not survive this mission. When Enforce had briefed her on the imminent danger and threat to a significant portion of humanity, the generals made it clear to her that survival was not part of the mission planning. She’d accepted that and had backed up before leaving on the Flying Dawn.

It was a small ship designed to stealth against any active or passive sensor arrays the enemy was equipped with. The perfectly ellipsoid shape measured fifty meters long and twelve meters wide and high. From the outside, it looked like a pitch-black spot of nothingness. Beneath the one-meter thick protective shell, it was filled with a radiation absorbing gel that was capable of holding a week’s worth of waste heat from the slanted, hollowed-out cylinder at the ship’s center. Carmey was sitting inside the aero-certified atmospheric flyer and prepared for the infiltration of Kamon.

Give me an ETA, she willed. She’d been staying inside the flyer for the past two days while the Flying Dawn was on its way to enemy territory. The eight-meter long flyer was divided into three sections. The front made up the cockpit, a giant window reaching from edge to edge showing the blackness on the insides of the huge military-grade starship. Directly in front of it was the main interface covered in screens and operational status messages. The pilot’s crash couch was filling the rest of the front. A metal sliding door separated it from the ship’s midsection. On the left side was a little bed with straps to prevent the passenger from falling off in the event of unscheduled and uninhibited acceleration. Opposite to that, a large box housed her equipment. She had taken out the first layer of the multi-functional smartSuit and interfaced with the meshed intelligence to inspect the material’s condition. It was only one step in the detailed scrutiny of all available tools. Everything had to work without a flaw.

Three hours and fifty-four minutes, her AI assistant released.

This gave Carmey enough time for the preparations. After having finished with the condition of her suit, she grabbed one last ready-meal from the rear section and sat on her bed. The Flying Dawn had already switched from hyperspace travel to a gravity-assisted flight path manoeuver. This meant they were in-system. She ate her meal and then took a couple of minutes to enjoy the absolute silence of the flyer before gearing up and getting ready.

***

This was going to become quite complicated. Carmey sat on a bench in the waiting area in front of transit dome A-23. She’d gotten there unnoticed but the final corridor was guarded by two armed Federation officers. They checked everyone getting in. They would immediately notify the authorities would she walk past. She knew they were already looking for her and the spaceport would be a likely first guess. There wasn’t much time. She had never thought she would be in this situation. How on earth could she have survived it? The mission went disastrously wrong. She’d been ratted out but still managed to escape. Carmey isolated her AI assistant from the local net and looked around the vicinity to find a way into the only way out.

***

It had begun. A squadron of Enforcer warships had jumped out of hyperspace, confronting the local forces. The point of engagement turned out to be three light-hours out from Kamon, which was within planned tolerances. It allowed the Flying Dawn to fly by the planet without getting caught. The highly elliptical path the navigation computer chose for the approach placed the ship just above the planet’s upper atmosphere, close enough for the flyer to take Carmey down to the surface. Within a hundredth of a second the underside of the Flying Dawn opened and spat out the heated gel and flyer. The gel would vaporize inside the nitrogen concentrated atmosphere without leaving any trace while the flyer extruded triangular wings on both sides to stabilize reentry until the nearGrav drive came online. Carmey was already suited up and checked the mission profile one more time. Current airspeed was exceeding 25,000 kilometers per hour and dropping. Once the drive had kicked in, the speed instantly dropped to near local sonic speed. The wings retracted and the hull turned white with flecks of gray to match the growing layer of thick clouds. The drop off point has put them over the ocean, 200 kilometers near the west coast of the planet’s sole continent. Protected by the clouds, the flyer glided downwards, aiming for the giant mountainside that was separating the land mass from the sea.

“Any interesting readings?” Carmey asked the flyer’s operating intelligence.

“As predicted by the tactical analysis team, their sensor coverage is fragmentary on this side of the mountains. Optical scans revealed two standard radar listening posts that can easily be fooled by the flyer’s wave absorbing sub hull layer.”

“Show me the target.”

The ship projected a hologram on the inside of the front window showing a pyramid-shaped green structure that extended far below the surface. It was built inside a clearing of a heavily forested valley east of the mountain’s highest peak. Carmey analyzed the detailed images and finalized the strategic procedure.

Carmey’s transponder signal was nearing the location of the pyramid. The suit’s telemetry showed nominal operation, stealth efficiency was hovering at ninety percent when the connection dropped. The flyer increased its spatial awareness by booting up subspace sensor arrays attached to the outer hull. The minutely disturbed spacetime fabric revealed a dozen moving objects within a radius of one eighty kilometers. They were positioning themselves in a circle around Carmey’s position. Another two dozen objects appeared and were walking toward the flyer. They fitted the structural shape and weight of combat droids. An EM pulse struck the flyer, blinding and disabling all but the most basic optical imagery telescopes. The immediate vicinity was covered in snow, the treelines to the east and west showed an impervious wall of overgrown plants and roots. From the north, small animals jumped about, running away from emergent danger. The flyer jump-started the nearGrav drive and shot straight up the sky to a height of about five kilometers where the EM pulse was losing its impact on the sensors. It scanned around and found Carmey who just activated her suit’s self-destruct sequence that was to be used in an inescapable situation. The flyer opened up a strong subspace channel to the planet’s moon that would reflect off the surface for the Flying Dawn’s passive sensors to receive. It sent out the entirety of its data core and exploded in a giant burst of superheated particles.

***

Carmey took off the green hyperMesh overall and walked towards a group of colonists ready to leave for Haven. She carefully positioned herself at the front of the crowd to be the first to enter the starship that was currently being loaded with fresh supplies for the colony that wasn’t quite self-sufficient yet. The passenger airlock was minutes away from being opened. She was going to make it. Out there, she could start over. She would have to alter her appearance and work her way up but she would be free. For the first time in days, Carmey felt excited for what’s to come. Finally, the airlock started hissing. The metal-supported carbon fiber pressure doors slid open and the real Carmey walked out.