Читать книгу The Fallen Heroine - Fabienne Gschwind - Страница 17

Gabin, for some unknown reason, had meant that we had to be in the lobby at eight o'clock, ready to go. So we all waited there in full gear and draped with weapons.

At some point Tartelette came out of the kitchen and balanced a fully packed breakfast tray past us with one hand.

"What are you standing there for? Did I somehow say something about it starting? I'm still waiting for the cave experts from Switzerland to discuss the situation," she grumbled.

"Yeah, so what are we supposed to do until that happens?" asked Gabin. Tartelette turned away and walked to the command room.

"I don't know. Stand in a corner and switch to stand-by..."

Then she disappeared into the dining room, which had been converted into a command center, where Thibault and operations officers from the ReS and military were working. They were trying to track down the hidden base of the terrorists with drones and satellite images.

In the press it was claimed that terrorists were producing trained repros in Auvergne.

A headline that naturally caused panic. The fact that our troop had almost died in the bomb trap was not mentioned anywhere.

We sat down in an upholstered group in the lobby and stacked our weapons against the old-fashioned fireplace.

But Gabin was crafty, he had loaded some ego-shooters games on the combat armor computer. The images were superimposed directly on our visors and the time flew by.

We were conducting a Viking battle among glaciers and volcanoes on Firrland when Tartelette stood before us.

"What are you doing?"

Gabin jolted up from his chair. "Strategic simulations ..." he stammered together. But that didn't seem to interest Tartelette. She plopped down on the nearest free upholstered chair.

"So it took all night, but Thibault, the stupid strategists, and the reconnaissance drones did a great job. We have located with great certainty the cave system in which this terrorist has holed up along with repros. The army is sealing off all access points... and no, we can't blow up that cave," Tartelette interjected before Emily could ask.

"Orders from the king. We need to track down this guy or these guys so he can punish them properly. The intelligence agencies want to know what they're actually up to with these repro beasts. Someone who can dress repros, so to speak, is extremely dangerous. If these people have developed it, we must prevent them from making it available to other terrorist groups. In short, we go into the cave, kill the repros and take the terrorists alive. March out in 10 minutes!"

"And that's the only access left". Tartelette pointed to a small pond at the bottom of a hill as the decacopter set us down. I looked around, searching for a cave entrance.

"Where? I don't see an entrance," I then commented.

"Under the water! Where else? Where is our cave diving expert? Aha there..." She beckoned someone to her.

I felt stupid, I could have thought of that myself. I really had to be careful not to say stupid things, and get used to the fact that I had a lot of fans watching me.

Then a second embarrassment on my part. When Tartelette attached a big coil of rope to my back, I asked irritably, "What am I supposed to do with this rope?"

"Well, that's not a rope. It's a cable, or do you think our weak radio link will make it through the earth? Today's youth ...!"

Now I really felt ridiculous. Because everything was over the airlink these days, I had completely forgotten about the old-fashioned cables. But today we were fortunately not live on the air, because finally the terrorists should not watch live what we were doing.

I was about to remark that I had never dived before, but Tamara closed my combat visor and then asked, "Do you see the sky?"

I lifted my head and looked up at the sky, which was beginning to shine in the dawn. "Beautiful," I said.

"Maybe the last time you'll see it."

She kicked me in the chest and I fell backwards into the water.

As soon as my head was under the water, I lost my bearings and floundered wildly. I wouldn't even make it to the cave entrance that way. But then Emily and Gabin were already at my side and straightened me out. In the murky water, I saw next to nothing and let the others pull me along willy-nilly as the cable uncoiled from my back. It was dark and thousands of suspended particles reflected in the beam of my helmet lamp. But then I felt a slight current and had to swim harder to fight it. The radio buzzed slightly because we were underwater: "That's the underground river flooding the cave system now. It's still several hundred meters. Then we come to the first larger chamber and the current subsides."

Our cave diver, Peter by his first name, spoke with a heavy Swiss German accent that immediately reminded me of Alsatian. I was tempted to exchange a few words with him in the dialect, but then let it go because I had enough to do not to bump into rocks.

The diver helped us squeeze through a few crevices, weapons and all. Gabin had a hard time with his broad shoulders, but the cave expert showed him with a sure hand how to squirm.

Finally we reached the chamber, which was filled with clear water, and it was dreamlike. Like one of those me- dia shows I'd seen on the venerable BBC, we were swimming among the stalactites of a flooded stalactite cave. "Careful. Don't get near the stalactites. They can break off and hit you."

Amazed, we crossed the cave and unerringly Peter led us to an exit. His head burst through the water and Tartelette also emerged, her zapper ready and she surveyed the cave. Conveniently, the temperature in the cave was 12 degrees, so all warm-blooded animals would be immediately detected by the heat detectors. Finally, these things were useful for something, because outside the heat cameras had never been of any use to us until now.

"Whew, we're in the right place," Emily commented as we emerged, the repro smell hanging heavy in the air. It took us almost half an hour to set up all the specialized equipment. We even had a couple of minicopters with us that would fly down the cave passages completely autonomously and warn us if they saw any animals.

"Stun drones would be exceedingly handy," Gabin commented like a pro.

These small drones attach themselves to the neck of any creature they find and can paralyze animals as well as humans with electricity for several hours. They were banned in France because they often killed bystanders and were therefore only useful in uninhabited areas.

Tartelette had the receiving station attached to the cable.

"Okay guys, we're in position. Prepare the offensive." The idea was that the Army and other ReS units would periodically strafe the other cave passages and infiltrate them with remotely controlled combat robots, so it would look like the attack was coming from the outside while we looked around in here. We were only a good 200 meters from the other cave where the terrorists were believed to be. Peter, who had explored the cave system, said it was passable, but very narrow in places.

The diver hurried to get away and we strapped on our last weapons.

Via radio cable, we were able to consult with other cave experts who helped us find our way because they could follow everything through our helmet cameras.

It was on hands and knees through the tunnels for quite a while.

But then the heat sensors beeped and we took up position in the cramped tunnel.

"Bats! Repro bats, a whole swarm!" shouted Emily, and then chaos broke loose.

Less than an hour after the mission began, the first person was already seriously injured:

To stop the reprogrammed bats, we detonated an HAN grenade, actually a crappy idea to do that in a cave. Gabin didn't manage to take cover in time. His leg armor didn't hold up to the plasma storm. With a nearly charred left leg, we brought him back.

It was amazing that the tunnel had held. The force of the explosion could have collapsed everything. But you have to get lucky sometimes.

"Okay, people retreat. There's no point in us crawling through corridors here and messing with Repro in the confines. I said from the beginning that this was a stupid idea! Let the army shoot down the repros with combat robots and their oversized tanks and arrest the terrorists. Thibault call it all off!”

"Captain Arlette, this is royal Vice President Guisan! You have orders to arrest these terrorists. So act accordingly. Or the king will charge you with insubordination! The entrance of the cave is too small and soldiers in armor can't get through!"

Even this threat left Tamara cold. She shrugged and confirmed the order.

She turned off the radio and looked at us coldly, "If we don't follow the King's orders, our families are as good as dead...believe me!"

So we had no choice then to return. I had a queasy feeling that the king was going to knowingly send Tamara to her death and we were going to be with her….

It was pitch black in the cave. We only use the infrared headlights so as not to give ourselves away. Because all the animals would have to attack blindly, since they didn't have sonar ... except for the bats....

Tartelette installed another radio station to keep us in contact with Thibault.

The mission was nerve-wracking. I will summarize it as we were just struggling through dark narrow corridors for most of the time. The fear of perishing here accompanied me - either by zombies, by a rock fall or by a nuclear bomb. Only when I gave myself Adalin did I feel better again.

I thought agaain of the order from the vice president or even from the king. The king had far-reaching powers, he could just point at us and have us locked up, or our families. In my history book I had read that there was a short period in Europe in the 20 and 21 century when not even presidents could lock someone up because everyone was protected by law. How nice it must have been to have lived then.

We struggled on and now waded along another underground stream.

But the speleologists were reliable and always described to us exactly the course of the passage. In two sections we had to take off all our combat gear to squeeze through crevices or tunnels half-filled with water. This was extremely dangerous and Tartelette was truly not amused. A crash course in cave crawling would have been helpful. Because we repeatedly lacked the technique to squeeze through narrow passages and so we lost an incredible amount of time. But at least no bigger reptiles would get through to us.

And we also had plenty of time. The deadline to bombard the whole region with nuclear bombs was lifted. The ministers had agreed not to bomb the whole region if animals were released. Instead, the satellites with the nuclear guns had been directed for a surgically precise intervention. Only exactly the cave system would be wiped out, along with hills and a few kilometers of forest around it.

Since nothing else was happening, radio contact was accordingly sparse until a new speleologist arrived at the command station who knew this cave particularly well. He had been flown in from Denmark. His name was Markus and he was very talkative.

"And when you come out of the passage now, you will find yourself in a five-meter-high, 20-meter-wide grotto. As you can see, the section of the cave where stalactites grow now begins. That's because earlier there was an impermeable layer of clay over the cave ceiling."

Tartelette opened her combat visor and a cloud of steam escaped from the opening, she looked at me and grimaced. I also opened my visor briefly to let the moisture out. The problem was that our special underwear had gotten wet when we were underwater without our gear. To keep us from going into hypothermia, the combat suit heated us up vigorously. This created so much steam that massive droplets settled on the combat visor despite the anti-fog protection.

"And if you look to the right, you'll see a column three meters high and 56 centimeters wide at the thickest point. That was formed when a stalagmite and a stalactite grew together a good 30 million years ago. Be careful not to touch it, though, because it's still growing."

"Let's do it," Tartelette said, climbing over a slippery rock.

"You'll find the entrance to the Bellafont Tunnel at the northeast end of the grotto just beyond the beautiful rock formation in the shape of a waterfall. The white crystals are not calcite, as one might think, but another modification of the crystal structure of calcium carbonate, namely aragonite."

"We're already in the tunnel," Emily said in a weak voice.

"Oh, yes, so the Bellafont Tunnel was discovered during the 2034 expedition. The sonar images I had taken ten years ago suggest that there is a truly majestic crevice running under the tunnel. Around 20 meters deep, 10 meters wide and 100 meters long, and, as you can judge from the sonar reflections, with an underground lake. Unfortunately, this grotto is completely closed off and we haven't been able to find a way in yet..."

"Freeze!" yelled Thibault into the microphone. Reflexively, we picked up our weapons and pressed against the tunnel walls.

"Wait."

We did not move and waited. Snatches of conversation drifted to us, but no one seemed to be talking directly into the microphone.

"Okay pay attention. One of the spycopters made it through the main entrance without being shot down it's in the chamber in front of you. There is a large heat source there. Hold on tight. This is a cage filled with repro rats."

"I have no idea what the terrorists wanted with so many rats or bats, but if they had emptied such a cage in a city, you would have to flat-bomb everything there!" cursed Tamara.

Rats were the horror. Even reprogrammed rats multiplied, and if a city was infested with them, there was virtually no way to save it anymore. Therefore, sewer systems were regularly treated with poison and with sewer killer units. If terrorists used something like that as a weapon, they could force any country to do anything. This simply could not be allowed to happen!

Thibault suddenly gasped for air:

"... oops! Shame, the spycopter activated something. I think the cage has been opened. Get your HAN grenades ready. You guys are about to get your asses kicked!"

Emily took action and loaded the grenade launcher. A black avalanche of rat burst into our corridor.

"No grenades, the ceiling is too thin!" suddenly screeched the cave-expert on the radio.

"Never mind, Emily shoot! I'd rather die in a plasma cloud than be mauled by Repro rats!" cursed Tamara rather emotionlessly.

That was probably the end of it. Either the plasma cloud or being killed by a collapsing cave ceiling or eaten up by rats.

It thundered so loudly that I was stunned.

I felt my remaining armor melting. Then, a strange feeling of free fall.

Then, a heavy thud.

Cold water seeping through the suit.

The beeping as the helmet reported all sorts of error messages. A kind of paste automatically enveloped my face. I gagged as liquid entered my lungs. I drowned. But it was not water that was entering my lungs!

My chest rose and fell spasmodically, but somehow I did not suffocate. I was getting oxygen!

Even though I was breathing water!

Soon it dawned on me what was going on. I had never been able to practice it until then: In case the visor broke and you got underwater, there was a liquid-breathing system hidden in the suit collar.

This involved spraying a fast-hardening gel over the mouth and nose and introducing the oxygen-saturated liquid.

The system was sophisticated and the half liter of fluid now in my lungs would provide enough oxygen for about an hour. The gel prevented me from unconsciously trying to cough it back up.

It was a strange feeling not to breathe, but to get air. Still, my chest moved up and down automatically to circulate the fluid, which absorbed carbon dioxide and provided oxygen. Then I oriented myself. My visor was cracked, but it showed the position of the others. Quickly, I had to help them.

But that was not necessary. Helping hands grabbed me and dragged me out from under the boulder and up to the surface.

It took us a full hour to lick our wounds and see what was left of the equipment.

Tamara just said: "We are so damn lucky today...we must have used up our entire year's allotment."

Emily's helmet was intact and she described the situation to Thibault as the rest of us were out of radio.

Otherwise, all the armor had melted, just like the manual said it would, in order to absorb the heat and protect us. Everyone bore burns, but not too severe ones, as the wet underwear and the fall into the cold water had saved us from worse. As weapons we still had two somewhat deformed machetes, both hatchets from Tartelette, a couple of grenades, a Pox9, an Ex10 and half-empty zappers.

The tunnel was now filled in and we would have to blast our way out with a few remaining grenades.

But our chatterbox cave explorer Markus did a great job explaining perfectly how, where and with what strength we should use the grenades. It was our great good fortune that this speleologist worked professionally as a tunnel engineer. He had been picked up straight from the new Norway-Denmark connection to assist us here.

More than four hours later, we were barely twenty meters from the aforementioned central chamber where the terrorist was supposedly located. After the hullabaloo we had made, everyone inside must have known that we were on our way and from which direction we would come.

"No sophisticated tactics, we're going to storm in and zap everything. Emily take my zapper, I'll use the Pox to shoot down the animals. I really can't imagine there are many left, though."

I hoped so, too. First, none of us had any reasonable armor left to stop any repro. Emily was walking around in nothing but her underpants because the armor on her legs had completely melted away, rendering her useless. But even barefoot and with a burned lower leg, she didn't complain once. After all, she was the only one who still had radio communication with Thibault and a working helmet.

My suit, while covering most of my body parts, was as loose as a poorly tied plate armor.

Tartelette's leg armor was still intact. Her torso was naked, even her sports bra was only scraps, which she had stripped off with aplomb. With another woman and under different circumstances, I would have found the sight of such a small, firm bosom highly exciting. But here, with my honored commander, it had the same erotic appeal as if I had seen my mother naked. Instead, I looked enviously at her steeled body. Like a Greek marble statue, muscles stood out in good proportion. I sighed with envy.

Tamara rushed forward. I was too exhausted to do anything but follow Tartelette's orders - she knew what to do. I was convinced she would get us out of here alive.

The fight was short and fierce. When he saw us, the terrorist opened cages with animals. Tartelette shot and decapitated a bear and a tiger before they even came to attack. Then she sort of threw herself into the chamber as bait, and immediately two more predators rushed at her. We zapped them before they reached her - and immediately decapitated them. Had they been Repros at all? But we did not get to think. The terrorist rushed at us, wearing a blood-soaked plastic dress and slurring something in a language unknown to me. Unfortunately, our speech computers were not very good, but apparently he said. "There are hundreds of us. We are everywhere and the world will have to bow to our rule. We will KILL kings and nobles and free the world." He brandished a ReS machete - Tamara tried to grab him. But he simply slipped out of her grasp. Then he threw himself at Emily, who could barely walk with her badly raped lower legs and was sitting on the ground. Tamara took her explosive pistol and shot the man apart. In a few weeks at the ReS I had already seen several people killed and I felt nothing. Thank Adalin!

We looked around. I had seen cages like this in zoo transports. Otherwise there were only two tables in the hall. Some food and drink. No equipment, no tools, no electronics, nothing that reminded me of a workshop where they took repros and implanted electrodes in their bodies. "Tamara, take my helmet, Thibault and the others want to see something too." Emily handed her helmet with the camera to Tamara who was about to film.

Suddenly, Thibaul's panicked voice rang out. "Damn it, the idiots have launched the nuclear missiles! Run!"

I didn't think any further and helped Emily up.

"Are they nuts, now that we've spent a whole day scrambling through caves to secure all the evidence!" Tartelette was stunned.

"Tamara, shut up. And run for your life. There are three minutes left."

We took Emiliy between us and dragged her through the cave passage. It was quite wide, enough for a small vehicle to enter and to transport the boxes we have seen. That seemed to surprise Tamara, too: "Didn't the Vice President say that the corridor is so narrow that soldiers in robot gear can't get through? It's not like those things are that wide."

Although we were running erratically, Tamara could still speak normally. We saw the exit and could already hear how the military hurriedly started their return flight. Decacopter noise blared towards us. I panicked that everyone was leaving without us. There were only 20 seconds left!

Our commander even seemed to blossom. "Finally, an exciting mission, huh?"

We got reinforcements. Two jetcopter pilots ran toward us. They took Emily and lifted her in the copter.

We threw ourselves through the open door.

The jet took off, even though I was still hanging halfway out. Hands grabbed me and hoisted me up.

A soldier rammed the door shut.

"Lay flat, I'm accelerating 3 - 2 - 1 - 0."

The pilot accelerated with everything the jetcopter could give. But we couldn't get away fast enough. I was already almost fainting from the acceleration and as if through a fog, I heard, "Impact!" and saw the bright flash of the small hydrogen bomb. That wiped out everything from the cave.