Collective Ekoes / Chapter 02 (Text)
“Target is the Administration building,” Cass said into the squad feed, pinpointing it on the map. “Local militia have engaged, my brother among them. Citizen presence confirmed, three casualties. Hostiles unknown." She turned to the fireteam on her left. "Second Team, sweep around the town to the north." Then to her right. "Third, head south. Check those towers. We don’t need surprises. First Team will scout the target.”
“Tahk tochna,” her squad barked as one, and split off with precision towards their objectives, bouncing over the uneven ground.
Cass took off at a cautious walk, her armor moving like a liquid shell around her. She opened a private channel to her second. “Thoughts?”
“A trap,” Ackles said.
“Agreed,” she replied, even though she still wasn’t sure. It didn’t feel right. It was like no eko behavior she’d ever seen before.
“They’ll know we’ve landed. They’ll know where we’re headed. I'd anticipate snipers watching for our approach.”
It did sound like the most obvious interpretation of the available data. Which was why it bothered her. It was too obvious. But who knew what crazed decisions were made by their computerized minds.
“Ekoes,” she spat, letting the word stand in for the anger and disgust they all felt about their corrupted cousins.
They reached the edge of town and took cover while the drones scanned ahead, looking for any signs of activity. Cass kept the vitals of Second and Third teams in her peripheral. She let their comms percolate in the background as she kept up with the drones and waited for an eko sniper to show itself. It was a lot, but it gave her plenty to focus on while she waited for the shooting to start.
They moved up carefully, expecting to go hot at any second, but the town was quiet. Nothing but the underlying trill of insects and the hooting calls of the long-tailed hupkins in the trees.
Cass and First Team made it to the Administration building and took up overwatch, waiting until Second and Third teams cleared their way to the other side of the rocky rise.
She’d expected resistance, but the towers were untouched, and the drone coverage was still clear. If it wasn’t for the presence of the Collective tags, she would have believed the site hadn’t been visited in years. As they approached though, she saw the vines leading up to the hall’s front entrance had been cleared.
Cass checked the map once more. The line of citizens hadn’t moved, but the six clustered dots had spread somewhat. Like they were being moved around. Maybe tortured.
The tags were pinging from the main audience chamber at the center of the building, a room with multiple entrances, a balcony, and a stage area. Plenty of hiding spots for an ambush.
Still, they had to go in.
“Second Team, converge on the audience chamber. Enter through the rear doors and secure the back of the stage. Third Team, follow and clear the upper level around to the balcony entrance. We’re going in the front. Breach on my mark.”
That was all the direction the squads needed. She didn't know any of them well, but she didn't need to. She trusted their training.
The building entrance sat at the top of a long, wide rise of steps. The big windows were dim, too dark to see inside. Her and her team would present perfect targets to anyone waiting within as they crested the landing.
Her heart thudded in her chest, slow and sturdy. The ekoes were in there, and so was her brother. Her teams were going in. Overwhelming force was the only way.
First Team crossed the courtyard, raced up the steps, and burst through the front doors into the lobby, arms raised, ready to fire, and found nothing but shadow. Silence stretched into the room. The area was small, with a glassed-in desk and two sets of closed doors leading into the audience chamber. She motioned her team to group up at the doors, two on each side of the reception desk, ready to breach.
Second and Third teams swept through the building from the rear, clearing the dim hallways. They found nothing and signaled ready when they were in position.
A shiver of sweat ran down her back. There was nowhere left for the enemy to hide. And there was nothing more dangerous than a cornered eko. In other circumstances, she might be more cautious, send in a reconnaissance bot, get a sense of the enemy positioning, but she’d already decided on a full-frontal assault. The post-action report might say it was a rash decision, made in haste out of concern for her brother rather than the best interest of the mission, but no one was ever reprimanded for kicking down doors and busting eko heads in.
Cass set a five-second counter, then gave the order to engage-at-will. She took a breath, in and out, and positioned herself three steps away from the door.
When the clock hit two seconds to zero, she lowered her shoulder, set off in a full-out sprint, and crashed straight through the wooden door. It cracked off its hinges and flew into the room ahead of her, landing with a thud in the middle of the floor. Right next to a stack of bodies.
The drones whizzed past her, and she followed them, gun-arm raised, her team at her back, sweeping for hostiles, still not quite believing what she was seeing.
Her entire squad converged on the room, boots pounding, heavy weaponry ready to unleash violent fury. But she had to stand them down.
“Hold,” she ordered as the drone targeting came back negative. The only things alive in the room were Collective citizens.
The audience chamber used to be the place where the early settlers would come together to solve problems and hash-out disputes, but now it was a slaughterhouse. Dead ekoes were scattered around the room, draped over the extraction equipment they’d brought to remove people’s personalities from their minds. They’d been blown apart, like they’d been hit by field artillery rounds.
The surviving citizens were arranged in a line on the stage. The three dead were laid out on their backs, the living blindfolded and cowering on their knees, hands secured behind them.
And standing there, in a loose group with his men–the clustered dot at the end of the exclamation point–was Abel. He was leaning against a desk, a mag-rifle in the crook of his arm, the barrel pointed casual at the ceiling, his foot propped up on the back of a dead eko, and an instantly infuriating grin on his wide, smug lips.
“Hey there little sister,” he said, his voice simmering with condescension, “glad you and the rest of the ‘professionals’ could finally join us.”
