V.I.P.E.R. by V. H. Balaban

Author:V. H. Balaban [V. H. Balaban]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: V. H. Balaban
Published: 2024-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter eighteen

Kaia moved her arms and shoulders, feeling the smooth motion of her armoured joints. The anger still burned inside her, distracting her and forcing her to repeat her checks. Finally satisfied that everything fit, she turned her attention to the built-in terminal.

“Jax, run a diagnostics,” she asked the ship’s VI. Then she used her implant to bring up the optical display so that she could watch the results. She still couldn’t get over the ease of this process; all she had was a simple implant. What must have the Ancestral Empire been like with biometric interfaces and full-fledged artificial intelligence? She could imagine a person sitting there, not moving, and controlling a whole corvette just with their interface. The Imperium still had a long way to go before they could reach that kind of technology.

“All subsystems check out, Commander. I found slightly higher power usage in the exoskeleton’s left leg. I have flagged this for maintenance,” the VI reported.

“Thanks, Jax.”

With her suit checked out, Kaia made her way towards the armoury. There, Gijnat’Hav handed her a pistol, which she holstered, plus a carbine and a couple of extra charge packs that she put into her ammo pouch.

She had finished reviewing the carbine’s self-checkout results when Erosin called down from the command deck. “Ma’am, we are five minutes out. Still no signs of activity on the docks.”

“Good. Let me know if anything changes.” Kaia joined the rest of the team in the airlock and raised her hand, showing five digits. “Five minutes out. Able takes breach.”

The operators nodded. Then, in the pre-mission tradition, Megn bowed her head, made a sacred circle over her chest, and offered the litany of combat. “Immortal Emperor, guide our hands so that our aim is true. Cover us in your cloak so that the enemy may not see us. And should we succumb to darkness, embrace us with your light.”

“The Emperor protects,” Kaia said with reverence. Around her, the rest of the operators repeated the phrase or made their own signs of respect.

A reverberation passed through the deck, and the light above the airlock turned green. Gijnat’Hav held out his hand and counted down. When he reached zero, he pressed the release button. The hatch hissed open and Able Team flowed out.

Kaia followed to the airlock hatch and stayed alert for any threats. The all-clear came a few seconds later and Kaia led Baker Team out into the docking bay and down the cradle catwalk. The artificial sky shimmered in a sign of a working atmospheric field generator. Even though the Assured’s sniffers said there was air, Kaia kept their helmets on. She didn’t trust these ancient fields. She had heard too many stories of unmaintained generators failing and letting all the air escape. That, and the fact that she fully expected to enter combat and didn’t feel like taking shrapnel to the head.

Stacked crates lined the dock, organized into groups waiting to be loaded onto transports or brought into the colony for storage. From

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.