Snippet #2241669

The Foundry- B6
Three weeks before the Salient's arrival in the Arcturus System

The command center was the first thing to be found on Basement Six. It was a hub of information- all of the computer banks were housed nearby and all intel gathered from anyone in the field came directly there. The room was circular, and it had computer monitors covering the half of the room facing the entrance. There were ten terminals lining the outside, one set back from those in the center of the room where Arthur McNare sat, and a short distance from the entrance was a semicircular desk where the Lord of Liberty stood when it was time to give orders. The room was suffused in a dull blue glow and filled with the hum of machinery loud enough to drown out any small sounds. There were five doors, two leading to stairwells that led to other parts of Basement Six, two leading to hallways, and one to an elevator shaft, which was the main entrance to the floor.

The elevator doors slid open to admit The Lord of Liberty and his four wraiths with a long tone. They walked in and took their usual positions in the command center, footsteps making heavy thuds as quarter-ton men stepped across steel plating. Not one of the ten men sitting at terminals in a semicircle looked up at their entrance. The Lord of Liberty arrived exactly on schedule, and had a known disdain for people who shirked their duties in the slightest. McNare began to rattle off significant developments and intel that had been gathered since the Lord's last visit.

The improvements he had requested for B10 were being implemented, Thirty six new recruits had arrived and were beginning training, a series of all-quiets from a number of posts about the surface, reports of the FSPC movements, and the men were in place. All was going according to plan.

The Lord of Liberty placed his hands on the desk and looked out at the wall of monitors. With everything going according to plan, it was time to begin the raid. Without any command from him, much of the wall switched over to a large field map containing marks of all his men, a layout of the Federation complex they were to attack (provided by a man on the inside), and some other details in smaller print like weather conditions, time, et cetera.
His men had the complex surrounded, but the majority of the force was ready to swarm in through the main gate. Primitive perhaps, but when storming a fortress primitive tactics were sometimes necessary.

The complex was large and roughly square shaped. It stood in the desert on a concrete foundation they had built. To keep the dunes from swallowing them, the walls contained giant fans for blowing the piles of sand away. As such, the area immediately around the complex was flat, but the dunes rose again when out of the fans' range. It was upon these dunes that the insurgents waited, poised to fire their scorpion stingers into the building from all angles.

The Lord of Liberty gave the command to begin- as one all the stingers soared, leaving sickly green trails of toxic smoke behind them as they flew. Up to the main gate drove a stolen tank, the federation logo spray painted over with the logo of Libertas Mundi. The tank fired a shot and the gates caved in on themselves. After the gates were down, vans drove in carrying insurgent strike teams. They leapt from the vehicles and took their separate paths through the halls, shooting down anyone in their way. It was at this time that the Lord of Liberty began to give orders. With the building schematics laid out before him, he commanded the teams in their battles. The teams took prescribed routes through the halls, sweeping for defenders. Whenever knots of defenders came to block the normal path of the sweep, the Lord of Liberty had his men take out walls or floors or ceilings, crushing the enemy or removing their strategic advantage. Within twelve minutes, the facility was captured and swept for resistance. Then it was time to visit the labs, to take or destroy the research inside.

An officer's voice came over the loudspeaker. "I've entered the labs... There appear to be holding cells here for large specimens." A pause. "This one almost... looks... human." There was a dim sound of vomiting, though not from the speaker. "Almost." There was a sound of a keyboard, then data began to come up on the monitors. "Looks like this was another immortality research station."

The Lord of Liberty gave another order. "Kill the poor wretches, then overload the generator. We have everything we need."

"Yes, my Lord," came the officer's answer.

The Lord of Liberty cut communications. The mission was over.
It was the third raid this week... Things were heating up. The FSPC was growing more cautious. More of the soldiers were being outfitted with airtight suits to prevent the horrible effects of Venom. And wherever possible, more men were being placed to defend. They held all of the world's cities, and propaganda was high to recruit more soldiers from every last crevasse. They were almost on the border of hiring mercenaries. Despite their efforts, it had grown impossible to keep things under wraps. Word always seemed to leak out about the raids, in no small part due to the insurgency itself. The FSPC was beginning to stop hiding their movements from the people- there was no point to it anymore. Everything they did was watched, and managed to find its way out anyway. Tanks rode through the streets and soldiers made themselves conspicuous, showing power if they could. Because they had begun to ignore secrecy, their movements had sped up and their actions had grown more bold. New Sidney was on its way to war, and nobody could deny it any longer. They could not deny it and not look foolish, anyway.
In addition to the public propaganda for joining the FSPC, the voice of Libertas Mundi was also growing louder. On one side of the street there could be posters for the army, while on the other posters for the insurgency. Insurgency posters were torn down and graffiti whitewashed as soon as a soldier saw them, but they appeared. Public tensions, and insurgent power, were growing.

The Lord of Liberty turned to go. As he walked away from the desk, McNare spoke up. "A word, my Lord?" The Lord stopped, and turned to face him.
"Speak."
"It's about... The weapon," he said, a touch of nervousness creeping into his voice. He glanced behind him and up at where the generator was located. Where the weapon was housed.
"How is development going?"
McNare shook his head. "Whoever wrote the original coding must have been some kind of deity. Or at least some of those super geniuses with asbergers. I bet Durant would crap himself if he saw it. We can barely read the stuff, let alone repurpose it. We're trying, but... It's madness. With as many weeks as we've been working, we've barely made a dent."
"And? That was your report last time." Durant? Why was that familiar?
"I know my lord... It's just... I am harboring doubts. Right now, you are the only being in the known universe with this power... Are you sure you want to put it into such hands as mankind?" Normally such doubts would have resulted in immediate termination. The Lord of Liberty had no use for such doubts. But... People in his upper echelons were difficult to replace. They earn a bit of leeway in discussion, for no ruler can have absolutely no advisors. Arthur McNare was his longest standing ally- more than eight years in service. Everyone the Lord of Liberty worked with beforehand was gone now- he could not allow people who knew his face to continue on. All men have their breaking points, and he could not risk them breaking to the Federation's interrogators.
"Arthur... You are not the first man to bear this weight, nor will you be the last. But as all men who bear the fates of countless brave, noble souls, you must press on to the future. We need to have this edge. Just remember that in the end, the result is better than the alternative."
McNare looked down at his lap. "It will change the face of war. We will live in infamy for the ruin we bring."
"So it shall be. Can you finish the task you have been assigned?"
"Yes, my Lord."
"Then see that it is done. And remember time is running short. The war will begin in earnest soon enough." With that, the Lord of Liberty retired to his chambers at the top of B6.