In the Pits

Jordan was walking into a trap.

He had been sent into the caverns to uproot a particularly nasty cult: the Aum Shinrikyo, which had established a presence underground. They'd been ignored for decades, even after they successfully launched a deadly nerve gas attack, but when reliable intelligence reports suggested that they had developed a nuclear bomb, the government finally decided to act. They sent their best into the tunnels: Three power-armoured elites, extensively trained in stealth, unarmed combat, and marksmanship, and equipped with the best gear that the military possessed. Their mission: to find the bomb and activate it in the Aum Shinrikyo tunnels, neutralizing two threats at once.

The cultists were surprisingly well-armed, but they were no match for Jordan and his squadmates; their weapons fire bounced off power armour, and their communications (especially as the team penetrated deeper into the tunnels) were too poor to allow them to concentrate enough troops at any location to stop Jordan's squad before they were already past. After five hours of erratic fighting and searching, the elites found the bomb. Their tech expert, Yoshina, armed the bomb, set a timer and a few nasty traps for anyone who tried to tamper with it, and then the team left for the surface. Opposition had been relatively light on the way back up - it appeared that the cultists saw little purpose in attacking when the damage had been done, and some of their hired guns might have already started defecting. Now, though, Ryozo had noticed unusual vibration readings in his HUD; quickly confirmed by Jordan and Yoshina. Enemies were coming from all sides - and in numbers.

Jordan turned as he saw a flicker in the corner of his eye. Ambush begun appeared on top of his vision, and so Jordan was unsurprised as three quadrupedal, steel-plated biomods shot out of the tunnel mouth at high speed. The air around him filled with gunfire, quickly muffled by Jordan's armour compensating for the noise, as Jordan and his squadmates tore loose with every weapon in their considerable arsensal. Jordan himself was armed with two heavy chainguns (one mounted to each forearm), a chest-mounted rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and a silenced pistol; that last currently lying on the ground, as it lacked the power to even dent the biomods' armour. Jordan was driven backward several steps by his chainguns' recoil, forced back-to-back with his two squadmates.

Inhumanly accurate, his shots found the tiny seams between the biomods' armour plates, blasting them apart and ripping through their internal organs. The first of the biomods fell within moments under the punishment of Jordans' guns; the other two charged, knowing that their only chance was in melee. Jordan flicked the central switch in his helmet with his chin, and with a deep chunk, his RPG launcher fired, blasting another of the biomods back and stunning it for a split second, long enough for his chainguns to fix on its stationary, vulnerable seams and finish the job.

Two seconds had passed since the ambush began; enough time for the surviving biomod to cross the fifteen meters initially separating it from Jordan. Jordan threw up his right arm just in time to cushion the blow from the biomod's impact, which nonetheless drove him to his knees. With a sound like a whip cracking, Jordan's left arm shot out to throttle the biomod; but it met him with its own equally quickly. For a moment their eyes met. Each was a product of the pinnacle of human technology; the biomod a testament to genetic engineering and transhuman surgery, and Jordan himself encased in armour with strength, speed, and durability surpassing anything that came before.

Then, with an earthshaking roar (deafening even with the noise filtering Jordan's helmet provided), everything went dark. The biomod scurried off swiftly; seizing his chance to escape, as (Jordan noted) all of his comrades were dead. All of Jordan's electronics had gone offline: the radio that allowed him to communicate with his squadmates, the night-vision that let him see easily in the dimly-lit tunnels, and the servomotors that amplified his movements and made the suit feel as light as casual wear. Quietly, Ryozo asked, "You too?" Yoshina and Jordan replied, equally quietly, "Yes." Someone had tampered with the bomb; they'd managed to get past Yoshina's first safeguard, an electric shock, and had stumbled into her second: a trigger that detonated the nuke. Nothing else could explain the concussion a moment ago, or the electromagnetic pulse that had penetrated the thick EMP shielding around all of the team's electronics.

After a minute's pause - using hand signals not practiced since training camp to avoid being heard - the three elites started walking again, in what they could only hope was the right direction, lacking access to their onboard mini-maps. Twice, they encountered fleeing cultists, now moving faster than the encumbered team. The Aum Shinrikyo fled readily when Jordan opened fire on them, but most survived to cause problems for the forces guarding the known exits - or to escape through one that the military missed.

Throughout the fights, Jordan felt that he was being watched, and signaled such to Yoshina and Ryozo. Moments later, Jordan was smashed to the ground, pinned by a biomod who was ripping at Jordan's shoulder joint with incredible speed and strength, undeterred by the chaingun fire from Jordan's squadmates. With a terrible screech, the joint in Jordan's armour came apart, and the biomod had already begun to reach in (presumably to tear out Jordan's throat) when he was knocked back by a blast that left Jordan's ears ringing. One of Jordan's squadmates had managed to manually fire an RPG. The biomod looked at the three of them for a moment, then vanished in the tunnel beyond. Presumably, it didn't like its chances without the advantage of surprise, even with their electronics clearly disabled.

Yoshina and Ryozo helped Jordan to his feet with no little difficulty. The grenade had left his ears ringing, and he suspected that there was shrapnel in the wound - not to mention possible internal injuries from the explosion. Clumsily, he signaled Up first. The other two nodded, their helmets making it impossible to tell any expression. They walked up the sloping tunnel, two looking forward, the other looking back, keeping a careful watch.

A half-hour later, they found a familiar area - in pitch darkness, near to the surface enough to be fortified and unlit, it was nonetheless recognizable for the wooden support beams spaced three meters apart - a contrast to the better finished inner tunnels. Jordan found himself frequently stepping on corpses as he walked. He tried not to notice. They were close to the exit now.

A voice came from the darkness - impossible to tell where. "I would like to talk with you, as civilized people do." It spoke the language perfectly. "If I attack you now, maybe you will die, maybe I will die. Someone will get injured, whatever happens, and that will make no-one happy. I was hired to assist the Aum Shinrikyo, along with my siblings, but they have clearly lost now. I am not stupid. I do not wish to die. If you will agree to provide me with protection, once you leave the tunnels, I will not attack you. Just lower your weapons, and I will approach to talk about details."

After a pause, Yoshina shouted out, "Agreed." The team pointed their chainguns toward the floor and waited. Jordan knew that unregistered biomods were illegal - standing orders were to kill any found, to discourage their spreading use. They were, after all, easier to clone and cheaper to maintain than power-armoured warriors, and nearly as effective - and thus a destabilizing force, if their proliferation continued. But perhaps this mercenary biomod didn't know of the standing orders - or perhaps he thought that something could be worked out.

Then, as Yoshina and Ryoko fell backwards together and the biomod smashed Jordan, lifting his chainguns all too slowly, back to the ground, Jordan realized: Perhaps not.

But, even as the surface patrol, securing the tunnels now that the better part of the Aum Shinrikyo's forces were annihilated by the nuclear blast and the collapses that followed, tore the biomod apart with computer-aimed chaingun fire, Jordan felt a twinge of pity.