4 Boarding Party.
Looking in the distance where Richard disappeared, Adriano felt slight envy for the man's performance.
"His enhanced performance is a result of muscular boosts. As a reward for successfully completing missions and achievements, you too would be eligible to undergo various augmentations and purchase better equipment." Oracle's voice, as always, came to the rescue to supplement his lacking knowledge.
"Oracle, you heard the whole conversation we had. Can you contact Ophelia Ozolins? Or tell me if she is here and fine?" Adriano asked, feeling distrustful of the machine holding a gun to his head.
It didn't matter how many amazing functions something could bring you if you couldn't trust it. An unfixable crack appeared in his relationship with the ECP and Oracle. His kidnapping wasn't entirely their fault, and the mood control could be switched off. But a remotely controlled bomb went over the limit of what could be forgiven and forgotten.
"You do not possess a sufficient clearance level to access that information." She dryly answered back.
"Let me guess. If I want to increase my clearance, I'll have to perform meritorious service?" He annoyedly sassed.
"Correct."
Rubbing his face, he groaned and got up from the grass. He looked at the base of Mount Olympus, where a stairway led to an elegant entrance.
Promising that he would find Ophelia, Adriano's resolve surged forward. "Oracle, Let's waste no more time. What's the first thing I should be doing? training course, reporting to the armory, joining a team?"
"There's no need for any of that. Command has just assigned your first mission. You are to report at Terminal H gate 67 for immediate deployment. I've already called a taxi drone." Before Adriano could ask any further questions, a white book-sized quadricopter arrived above his shoulder without making a sound.
"Sorry, what?My first mission? What's going on?" He asked without eliciting a reaction from Oracle. Despondent, he turned his attention to the small drone.
"Place your hand into the red opening on its bottom and grab hold of the handle," Oracle explained to Adriano, doubtfully judging its small size. How could this be a taxi?
"What's this thing?" He inquired, pointing at the sleek hoovering machine.
"This is your transportation vehicle. Now grab the handle."
Adriano did as told, comprehending it would be better not to argue with the unfeeling voice in his head. As soon as he grabbed the handle, he felt an invisible force seizing him back.
The quadricopter took off without wasting a moment and quickly flew in the sky. Adriano let out a gasp of surprise as he saw the ground getting farther away under him. He held to dear lord the handle, even though he probably couldn't be able to let go even if he wanted under the magnetic force.
He felt an indescribable emotion at flying a dozen meters above ground, a mix of fear and wonder.
Several more people in his situation seemed to be going in the same direction, and he recognized some of the faces from when he had first woken up. A few minutes later, he was deposited in front of the fortress entrance.
The entrance to terminal H was a simple opening in the wall shaped like a D lying on its back. Two glass panels retracted into the roof and revealed the inside, an open prism-like hall consisting of 12 floors of balconies.
Thousands of soldiers with varying degrees of equipment and mechas bustled around, heading toward vortex-like portals built into the walls. Elevators transported supplies and personnel up and down the various levels.
Adriano headed to the nearest elevator, a spartan platform with no apparent physical means of movement. As he stepped on it, it rose into the air, animated by an invisible force, and quickly went to the twelfth floor.
"This way." He moved quickly, zigzagging through the crowd. Oracle's voice guided him with a holographic needle to his destination. Sixty-seven had been written in big red letters on either side of the group of spatial vortexes. Looking through one of them, Adriano could see a metal-clad room illuminated by red lights, like the inside of a submarine.
"Oracle, what is my mission?" He finally asked, after holding back his curiosity for the whole trip.
Instead of answering, a glowing beacon appeared above a wall-mounted installation. A line of uniform-wearing soldiers like Adriano waited for their turn to retrieve metal cases from a capsule lift and then head into the portal.
They didn't look very chatty, and most had grim faces as they sneaked anxious glances at the portal. Adriano decided to bide his time quietly and not attract attention.
When Adriano's turn came, he took out his small case and headed to the portal. The small case's polished surface shone in a silvery light and weighted around 10 kilos. He couldn't find any openings or impressions he could use to open the odd egg-like object.
"Proceed through the portal. You aren't allowed weaponry on the premises of Mount Olympus."
"Pfft, what are you scared of? You can LAD someone the moment they think about pulling a trigger."
Adriano sighed and stepped into the vortex. The passage from one side to the other felt like going through a thin wall of water. On the other side, loud alarms immediately assaulted his ears, and red flashing lights in the darkness blinded him instantly.
Before he could adapt to the new environment, a gigantic man with pale skin took him by his scruff and threw him like a doll through a hatch into a coffin-sized space.
There was no light inside the new space. As soon as the hatch closed on top of him, darkness engulfed Adriano in its cold embrace.
"Mission Briefing: You are part of the boarding party. Infiltrate the enemy ship and set up a teleporter node in a secure location. Additional details will be provided as needed." Oracle quickly played a pre-recorded message and offered a little advice. "Hold to something."
"Wait, what? Please slow down. What's goi-" Before he could finish speaking, he felt the world shake and gravity pressing down hard.
As there were no windows or screens, he had no idea what was happening. He had been loaded into a one-man infiltration vessel and shot out in the void of space like a bullet toward the enemy ship.
Trapped in his tiny cell, Adriano ignored he had just been loaded into a one-man infiltration device, shot out in the void of space, and currently heading like a bullet toward the enemy ship.
Two giant spaceships faced each other at a distance, barraging each other with all sorts of weapons. A titanic multilevelled construction extending for many kilometers, the human ship used the thousands of bunkered gauss cannons covering its sloped deck to shell the foe. Missile batteries positioned underneath vomited swarms of torpedoes cometing with their blazing tails towards the enemy ship.
The alien vessel exceeded its opponent in both opulence and grace. An enormous gothic-styled cathedral fitted around a dreadnought warship body. Its spires hosted miniature suns. The blue plasma trapped in magnetic fields would be spewed like the fire of retribution at incautious infidels that dared encroach on its divine majesty.
Amongst the tens of thousands of manned and unmanned sophisticated vehicles on each side, Adriano's boarding party of drill-shaped bullets attracted the least attention but also suffered the most severe losses.
The disposable vessels had been made the cheapest possible due to their limited reusability. Without any defenses or ways to fight back, they stood no chance once someone looked their way.
And even if ignored, the debris from the surrounding battles often proved too disastrous for the lightly armored vessels. Even stray shots meant a dead-end for those courageous souls.
Of the thousands launched, slightly more than a dozen managed to make it to the ship. Small lasers activated once in range and softened the surface before the drill head pierced through and made its way deep inside the hull.
The lucky ones that managed to survive would then have to deal with hotspots of enemy activity or drilling in a sensitive spot that would explode when damaged.
Adriano had somehow survived the trip, begging Oracle to keep him semi-sedated as small debris hit his hull, rocking him around. His final destination happened to be the middle of the dreadnought-like base of the ship.
Finally, the infiltrator's vessel stopped. The front detached and led to a desolate corridor. A waft of humid air hit Adriano in the face, and if not for his empty stomach, he would have vomited straight away.
The back of his little ship sealed the way in, stopping the violent depressurization that would have killed any unprotected life form.
He trudged from the room, holding his stomach, shoulders slumped, and eyes gazing upward despondently. The humid air felt heavy in his lungs, and he could even see light fog rising from the floor.
The corridor wasn't as he imagined. Instead of squared passages, the ceiling arched softly and fused with the walls. Green murals covered the walls, and he could see a continuous light strip leading the way in the bright corridors.
"GONG." Bells chimed from the dark turns outside his view, sending chills up his back.
