The night air was artificially cool, being chilled to simulate the night on Earth. Of course the night on Luna was nearly a month long, but a century ago when the moon was first being colonized the Committee on Extraterrestrial Settlement (CES) decided it would be efficient to keep the colonists on the standard twenty four hour day. Thus the lights that normally would illuminate the lava tube Jacob called home were dimmed, the residents asleep.
The spherical mag-car jostled on the poorly paved road that adorned the ceiling of the lava tube. Jacob stared out the window below at the sleeping town. Buildings reached towards the center from every angle of the tube, like the spined throat of some ancient beast. The magnetic streets that crisscrossed the town were nearly empty, save for the occasional trolly ferrying people from closing bars to their homes.
“Five minutes out. ” the driver stated. This was the que to Jacob and his teammates to look over their gear. Jacob looked down at is Nelson-112 rifle. The weapon was a handheld gauss cannon that would fire laser guided projectiles at mach three. He made sure the safety was on, that the battery was charged, and finally that the magazine was fully loaded. Cocking the weapon he then patted himself down, feeling for his flashbangs and extra magazines. Everything was in order. With time to spare Jacob spent the remaining minutes replaying the briefing he had been given only a few hours prior.
The briefing room was long, with a screen at each end and a glass table stretched between them. The table was covered in paperwork, uncapped pens, and mugs of coffee. Around the table sat Euler team, Commander Simi at one end of the table, and the division’s chief intelligence officer, some egghead named Gregori, at the other. “Here is the primary target. ” Gregori said, referencing an image of a middle aged white woman on both screens. Her black hair was in boxer braids draped over heavily tattooed shoulders. The woman’s face was calm with a slight smirk, as if she was in an argument she was close to winning. “Denise Finton,” Gregori continued, “is head of the Luna chapter of the Church of the Forsaken Christ. On Earth this organization is quite tame. Their central tenet is the belief that roughly two hundred years ago during the Great Crisis a man, whose name is not important, was born on a small town along the Dead Sea. This mans birth was the second coming of Christ, however god abandoned his son to die on a Earth that would become the new hell. Unfortunately for the church, membership has waned in the last few decades, as quality of life and population size reach closer to their pre-Crisis levels. Upset, two months ago Ms. Finton decided she would do something to rectify this. ”
Gregori swiped to the next slide, the screens now showing a picture of a Bohr diagram. “This is helium-3, a key ingredient in sorium refining and Luna is home to the largest quarries in Federation space. The CFC has members in vulnerable positions at several of these facilities and for months they’ve been siphoning small amounts helium-3 and sorium to an apartment building in Tube five Branch two. We believe they are nearing the amount needed to construct a uncontained fusion chain reaction, i. e. a fusion bomb. ” One of the team members swore under his breath. Gregori looked around the room for the swearer, and unable to find them he huffed and returned to his lecture. “You’re goal is to neutralize the-”.
The mag-car jolted to a stop, sending Jacobs head forward and whipping his neck. “Alright! Lets go, lets go!” Commander Simi commanded. Euler team embarked from the mag-car, boots landing on the pavement, and before them was the apartment building. Like fluid the team began to move, huddling close to the entrance. Commander Simi swiped his skelton key and the apartment doors unlocked. Two by two, safeties now off, they began to work their way up the stairs to the fifth floor. On the third floor staircase the two team members taking point ran into a man carrying groceries, knocking him to the floor. As his head smacked the concrete stairs his eyes rolled back and he fell unconscious. “Euler one and three, clear a path and take biometrics! Make sure he’s not one of the targets!” Commander Simi barked. The man was promptly taken aside and the rest of Euler team continued their way upstairs. On the fifth floor the remaining team members exited the staircase and moved towards apartment five two three. Once there, Commander Simi swiped the skeleton key again, opening the apartment.
Immediately, swearing and bullets exited the open door. “Flashbangs!” Simi ordered. Jacob threw a flashbang into the room. A loud pop rang out with a burst of light. Now there was more swearing, and fewer bullets. The two pointmen rushed in, Jacob on their tails, into a room filled with smoke. Automatically Jacob’s vision switched to infrared and the room was illuminated in green and gray. He was in a room consisting of a sink with a small counter containing a hot-plate and some open cans of food, and a few mattresses arranged in a circle. In the middle of the mattresses sat a half dozen respirators, an industrial soft x-ray laser, and test tubes filled with lunar dust.
The swearing was coming from what Jacob guessed was the bathroom. Several loud pops struck the air, accompanied by bullet holes in the bathroom door. Jacob rushed to the door and with a single pull ripped it from its hinges. Inside he found a woman crouching in the bathtub, handgun drawn and pointed directly at his chest. More pops, and he found himself thrown to the ground, chest aching. He heard shouting and sat up on his elbows to see his teammates create a golf ball size hole in the womans gut. Blood and excrement was now smeared the across the bathroom wall and pooling in the bathtub adjacent the woman’s corpse. The putrid smell filled his olfactory sensors as his arms gave out and he fell back to the floor.
One of Jacob’s teammates moved to help him, saw his injuries and shouted “Euler six is down! He took a hit to his power supply!”. As his vision faded and hearing dulled, Jacob saw the metallic expressionless face of his teammate. The two lenses that served as eyes stared at him, recording the situation for future playback. “I always hate this part. ” Jacob muttered as his mind began to slip into darkness, limbs growing numb. “See you on the other side. ” his teammate said with a audible smile.
All Jacob’s senses rushed into him simultaneously. His eyes stung at the bright clinical light, body tingling with fresh sensation. The smell of undigested bile and blood was replaced with that of rubbing alcohol. He swore as his head throbbed as if it was in a hydraulic press. “Euler six disconnecting from jumpsuit. ” he heard through the painful ringing filling his ears. The back of his head felt a slight tug as the tether was removed from his skull. A technician shined a flashlight into his eyes. “Pupillary reflex is good. ” Vision clearing he saw the technician looking down at him with a warm smile. “How you feelin’ Euler six?” the technician asked. Jacob simply groaned.
