Ravens of Eternity

281 Reclamation Overdue, Pt Planet UltraKeep Alpha, Sol Security Services Megacorporate System, Federal Inner Sector

The small, frigate-sized cargo transport flashed near the planet’s primary teleport beacon with little fanfare. It joined the numerous other transport cargo ships floating in the space around them, most of which were many times larger.

A grim-looking pilot and copilot pair sat in their seats on the bridge, and waited patiently while the beacon’s security fleet scanned their cargo. It only took a few scant minutes for the drones to complete their work, at which point a bored-looking security officer flashed on their comms display.

“Hauler Two-two-niner,” he said, “scans look good, and you’ve been given authorization to approach the surface. Please follow the guide lights down towards the planetary atmosphere, then continue as you will to your destination.

The pilot grunted in approval, then slowly began his approach vector towards the planet.

A few other transport cargo ships joined them during their approach, but ultimately split off towards other parts of the planet just as they entered the upper exosphere.

The copilot scanned the surface of the planet, and observed as much as she could through the live feed. The planet itself was completely covered in densely-packed massive buildings. Many weren’t just tall, but they were incredibly wide as well.

Most were surrounded by smaller supporting structures and buildings, all of which were large enough that they had multiple landing pads on their roofs.

Down below, the districts and blocks were interconnected through an expansive transit system. Fast travel tubes and highways and gravity rails dominated multiple layers of the space between every building. But, it was all set in multiple patterns.

.....

In essence, every square meter of the planet had been converted into a massive city composed mostly of cookie-cutter city blocks and districts. The same set of buildings in the same layouts, over and over. Though there were a few special-purpose blocks which differed from the majority, they were still part of the pattern – their district mirrored the districts all around them.

Whatever natural features the planet used to have, such as seas and mountains, was dried up and flattened and completely covered. Their ecological function had long since been replaced with entire districts dedicated to artificial climate control, on a planetary scale.

The Sol Security Services Megacorporation ensured that every single cycle was bright, somewhat cloudy, and had a nice, light breeze to it. They found that having such pleasant weather increased productivity. Significantly.

So they invested the best technology possible, and poured hundreds of trillions towards the standardization of corporate-mandated weather patterns across their privately-owned solar system.

As a result, all their planets looked like this.

The cargo transport lowered itself down to the roof of one of the larger buildings – one of the millions of warehouses across the planet. And certainly far from the largest. It touched down on its assigned landing pad, vented out its stale inner air, and depressurized completely.

As the rear ramp lowered and revealed the massive cargo bay inside, a team of SSS Inspectors and their scanner drones approached. They began to scan the ship inside and out and all around. And particularly the cargo they were carrying deep inside.

There were a number of antigravity platforms inside, each one with a mecha laid down and hovering inside of their fields. Among the mecha were a Tsunami, a Phantom, and a Rakshasa.

There were also large secure crates next to each mecha, also inside of the antigrav platforms. Like the others, they were filled with equipment belonging to those mecha – modules and armaments and such.

A second team ran up just as the inspection team was halfway through their work. Although a couple of them wore load-lifting exosuits, all of them operated industrial antigrav drones. They went up the ramp and began to maneuver the repossessed mecha out of the cargo bay as carefully as they could.

While they worked, the lead Inspector walked up to the pilot and copilot, who had descended down the ramp and began to people-watch off to the side.

They greeted each other perfunctorily, then transferred some documents between their datapads. They reviewed and signed the Delivery of Repossessed Goods Form 255B, as well as Acknowledgement of Receipt 9F, then finally filled out and signed the required Peer Performance Surveys AA6, CM-96, and the R-0492. All as mandatory.

It took a good five minutes to complete.

“This looks like a great batch of equipment,” said the Inspector idly. “Looks way too new – someone forget to pay their bills or something?”

“Nah, it’s those Mechageddon winners,” replied the Pilot. “Killed some people, stole some corp’s money, fled the Federation. Serious slagbrained antiFed faecus.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. I heard half of them were Refugees. I knew we shouldn’t have let ’em in.”

“Yeah, I hear ya.”

Once they were done with their paperwork, the trio continued to watch as a Warehouse Transition team eased the first mecha down to the hangar floor.

“Wonder what it’s like to sit in one of those,” asked the Inspector.

“Don’t ask me,” said the pilot. “All I know’s my cargobird. Ask some rich kid who’s still got their toys.”

Both pilot and Inspector laughed heartily at the joke.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” said the copilot, “but my DI’s telling me my carb levels are way under threshold. I’d better fill up before the company fines me. Anywhere around here sell a decent meal? Warm, preferably.”

The Inspector gave it a few seconds of thought, then nodded.

“Yeah, there’s a nice eatery a few blocks down,” he replied. “Short trip by Tube if you got the tokens.”

“Well, if you don’t need us any more, we’re gonna take a short break,” the copilot replied.

“Indulge yourselves. It’s a nice day.”

The two then split off and headed to one of the many open gravity lifts off to the side. As they descended, they watched as huge cargo gravity lifts rose up and down the center. Each one usually had huge mecha laid out on antigrav platforms, just like the ones they dropped off.

The building itself was a few dozen stories, each roughly 30 meters high. And although the entire middle of the building was hollow all the way to the bottom, the floors that surrounded it had mecha lined up in secure stations all around. The mecha themselves were bound down and sealed into the stations themselves via massive magnetic locks.

The walls were lined with them, one after another. They stood solemnly in their stations, along with their crated equipment and collection of dust.

Most of the floors were already full, and so were relatively dark and had little activity. The few that still had space had multitudes of people and equipment and repossessed goods going into them.

Halfway down, both the pilot and copilot glanced up, then at each other before they nodded. Then, they leapt off the gravity lift and onto one of the shadowy floors with little trouble. They rolled on their shoulders, then dashed towards the shadows as quickly and quietly as they could.

Once there, they took off their SSS overalls and tossed them aside. Underneath their disguise clothing were skin tight, dark gray stealth suits. Freya and Lucifer shifted back to their normal forms, and the suits adjusted along with their bodies.

The two only began moving after they powered on their suits through their DI’s. Although it didn’t make them invisible, it certainly helped mask their individual signatures – temperature, noise, energy levels, and so on.

As the many sensors and patrol drones scanned and searched, none “saw” either of them. Not that the two even tempted being discovered – they still crept along the shadows and avoided the direct gaze of any given sensor cluster as best they could.

The two skirted the edges of the floor all the way around to the other side. They ducked and dashed into various corners and shadows as they moved towards their destination – an administrator’s booth.

Both stopped a few dozen meters away from it, and observed from behind a cluster of unmanned exosuits. The booth itself stretched all the way from floor to ceiling, but only the bottom 3 meters was an actual room. And thanks to the huge transparent viewing windows, and those inside had a great view of the entire floor in front of them.

Not that they even looked.

An administrator tapped away at a monitor, while a couple members of his security detail sat nearby. The two looked relatively bored, even though they were playing some sort of holographic card game.

Freya pulled out a cottonball drone from a secure pocket, then released it from her grasp. It floated up, scanned the area around them, then sped towards the booth itself.

It flew into the open booth doorway as low to the ground as it possibly could and snuck around the floor while the guards and administrator were busy up above. It wove around between their feet as it headed towards the center station.

There, it went into a small cubby and hid among the equipment and datapads leaning inside of it. Then, from its hiding spot, zapped one of the active terminals attached to the wall opposite.

No-one even noticed its screen blink off and on.

After a few moments, the rest of the screens in the admin booth blinked off and then on. Which caused the administrator to groan in frustration.

“That’s the fifth time this week!” he said. “It reset again right when I was in the middle of my report! Grr! Now I gotta do it all over again!”

The two security guys stifled their chuckles at the administrator’s bad luck, and did their best to keep playing their game. They found his outbursts utterly hilarious.

Then again, anything would be entertaining at a job like theirs.

None of them were the wiser, as Raijin’s Truesight Engine coursed through the booth’s circuits. It took over the floor’s intelligences with little difficulty, then easily handed over controls to Raijin herself.

The girl connected through her drone, scoured the floor’s databank, and reviewed the manifest. Once she found what she was looking for, she sent the data immediately to Freya and Lucifer.

–

Raijin: I have located your Varulv.

Raijin: It should be roughly across the floor from you.

Raijin: Station 27-V.

Raijin: I will unlock its restraints in roughly fifteen seconds.

Lucifer: Can you do something about all this security?

Lucifer: Makes me nervous.

Raijin: The floor’s security sensors will be ours in seven seconds.

Raijin: Then you can do whatever you wish.

Lucifer: What, like have a stroll?

Lucifer: Or a snack?

Raijin: If you truly wish, yes.

Raijin: There are vending machines on the other side of the booth.

Raijin: And also halfway along the eastern wall.

Raijin: However, I suggest you use your time more wisely.

–

Lucifer and Freya grinned at each other, and nodded in agreement as to what they were to do next. They counted down ten seconds, then charged the admin booth at top speed.

They barged into the relatively small room and took all three inside completely by surprise. The two guards literally jumped in their seats with utter fright, while the administrator stood frozen in shock.

Freya sped around the first guard, flanked the second, then performed a spinning hook kick that struck the both of them across their heads. The two were thrown out of their seats from the force of her blow – one slammed into an adjoining wall while the other ended up splayed out over their table.

Lucifer rushed up towards the administrator with a firm knife hand, and chopped at the admin’s neck. But ze stopped short the very moment that the administrator’s knees went weak. The man’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, then toppled unceremoniously into a heap on the floor.

Lucifer sighed deeply, then put hir fists on hir hips.

“Can you believe the nerve?!” ze said incredulously. “I was so looking forward to that!”

.....