Disarming

Crimson.

The color of blood.

The color of the sunset.

Red blood, crimson sun, blood spilt.

Hunter had spilled a great deal of blood since coming to G.A.S. The once problematic foster child was long gone, replaced now by the fierce warrior of Gudersnipe Assassin’s School.

Assassination, in the traditional form, wasn’t the main occupation taught at Gudersnipe. ‘Assassination’ by Gudersnipes definition included the actual extermination of people, as well as industrial and political espionage, character assassination, and lots of sabotage. “Go assassinate that munitions plant”, for example, was a common assignment. In a sense, the school had started with the traditional definition for assassinate (To inhume) and broadened it to include just about everything it’s students did.

The school was organized like a military, it had a long yet surprisingly simple chain of command. At the bottom, students were paired off. Your partner, your wingman, your roommate, and your best friend. Four pairs made up one squad of eight students. Your squad, your dorm mates, and the team you went into battle with, one team of eight.

Twelve squads of eight together made up one Fist. Ninety-six students, but usually simply thought of as twelve squads. A score plus one of Fists made up one Sword, over two thousand students. Five Swords was a Battalion, ten Battalions created a Battle Division, ten Battle Divisions comprised a Fleet Division, and one hundred fifty Fleet Divisions equaled one Fleet.

Each Fleet had two rotations, the fighting rotation and the learning rotation. There were only one hundred and fifty Fleet Divisions in the field at a time, but each Fleet had enough students for twice that.

The school had four Fleets: North, South, East, and West. Hunter belonged to the West Fleet, and had been rapidly rising through its ranks. They’d only received their mobile suits a few months ago, and he already commanded a Fist.

His squad was good, the best bunch he’d ever had the honor of knowing. There had been some disagreements early on, back when everyone still thought they had something to prove; but after sharing so much combat the eight young people had forged a bound deeper than words could express.

Hunter’s wingman was a guy named Jason. He came from a completely different world than Hunter, in a lot more ways than one. Back in his homeland Jason had been a prince, while Hunter had been a foster child. It had been awkward at first, but now they trusted one another with their lives.

The other team of guys were Kendrick and Rian. Kendrick was an odd one; he was absolutely brilliant and could do anything he put his hand to, so long as he could finish it before being distracted. Rian was completely opposite; he had focus like a laser beam.

The school meant a new start for everyone. Once Hunter realized his past no longer hindered him, he had been free to soar. He no longer even feared failure, if he fell the school would catch him and he could get back up.

Gudersnipe was an equal opportunity school, and when they said equal they didn’t kid around. The division was straight down the center, all the way to the squad level. Hunter’s squad consisted of four men and four women.

People often called J’nall the squad’s female version of Hunter. She was head strong, fearless, and a skilled fighter. Her partner, Cindle, or Cindy, was much less of a leader than Hunter or J’nall, but still a force to be reckoned with. When J’nall and Cindy went on assignments it was J’nall who always blazed the trail, while Cindy covered her six.

Carra and Robin had their own interesting repertoire built up. They were both somewhat quiet, but they suited each other perfectly. Unlike J’nall and Cindy or Hunter and Jason, there wasn’t a clear leader and follower between them. They simply worked together with a deep understanding of one another. At times, Hunter was sure they could read each other’s minds.

And like everyone else in the group, Hunter wouldn’t hesitate to go into battle with either of them watching his back.

He had Kendrick on his six now, and he felt confident.

Hunter slammed another mobile suit with his big metal knife, careful not to hit the nuclear core. They’d been warned that the Kimitz used nuclear reactors in their mobile suits, which made fighting them a bigger risk than any intended weapon.

They’d been cautious, no beam sabers or guns this time. He and his team had fought the entire battle with what few metal weapons their Gunjins carried, a feet in mobile suits to say the least. It seemed to be over now, but he could never be sure.

The COM blinked on with a signal from Carra and Jason over by the Command Center they’d been sent to capture.

“Hunter we got a big problem!” Carra yelled.

“What is it?” Hunter asked calmly, not wanting to add to the terror in her voice.

“Turns out this base has a major ordinance dump,” Carra explained. “Theirs thirty four Crucible missiles rigged for simultaneous detonation, along with literally nine million tons of ordinance.”

“Jeez!” Hunter yelled back. “Nuclear weapons? Are these people crazy or just morons? Lets get the hell out of here!”

“It ain’t that simple,” Carra shook her head. “The projected blast area is bigger than this whole continent!”

Hunter set his jaw as he considered the implications. A blast that big would kill everyone on the continent, and anyone who survived would die from the nuclear winter. If that bomb went off—it would mean the end to this planet.

“We aren’t going to give them a PK19!” Hunter replied. “Give me the coordinates, I’m on my way!”

“Its in a bunker half a K from your position!” Carra said. “But the bunker is sealed and the bombs are going off in—”

Hunter was already moving.

“Kendrick!” he signaled for his partner over the COM. “I need a little backup!”

“Got it!”

Hunter reached the bunker in a few strides followed quickly by Kendrick, and started hammering at the steel re-enforced concrete. He slammed at it over and over again, then pulled out his knife and jammed it at the wall. The weapon broke off and landed in the ground a few dozen yards away.

Kendrick came up behind him, didn’t hesitate and punched the wall with the powerful steam cannon arms of his Okki-Mech. It did more damage than Hunter’s efforts, but was still not nearly enough to break the shielding.

“Kendrick—” Hunter started.

“Got it!” Kendrick yelled. “BREAKING POINT!”

Both arms of Kendrick’s suit pulled back and the mighty pistons of the steam cannons charged.

He punched the wall with one fist, gave the force of the blow a chance to resonate through structure, then followed up with the other.

As the force of the second hit lined up with the first and perfectly matched the walls internal harmonics, he fired both steam cannons. The resulting blow ferociously tore through the bunker and opened a wide gaping hole.

As soon as the smoke had cleared Hunter left his mobile suit and dove through the gap.

He landed on a catwalk about thirty feet down at a run and raced towards the center. The high ceiling of the bunker was about fifty feet in the center, but was dome shaped and only about twenty from the ground level. The catwalk was ten feet below ground level, and another sixty above the bunker floor.

He figured it was sixty feet based on the fact that the tail sections of a crucible missile were around thirty feet high and were just poking out of the pile of ordinance boxes packed around the seventy-five foot high weapons.

The series of catwalks wound like a spider web through the circular room. Hunter could see through low arches under the ground level more rooms full of crates of explosives. Only the room he was in had any nukes, but that hardly made a difference. Thirty-four nuclear missiles, multi warhead no less. It meant he was surrounded by about a hundred and sixty deadly nuclear devices.

Each nose cone had ten cables coming out of it that all led spider web fashion along the catwalks towards the center. He stopped to examine one and found the onboard detonation circuits had been bypassed and the cables were hard wired to the detonators.

He followed the line to a wide platform in the very center with a four-legged wooden table on which sat a large drum and a small clock with a glowing liquid crystal display. Kendrick wasn’t far behind him, and after determining from the clock that they had about five minutes left they began to examine the assembly.

The drum turned out to be a giant capacitor of sorts, the power source to detonate the nukes. It was a fairly simple technology, the cell would normally be part of a beam cannon or some energy weapon. Hook the cell up to a slow charge, then use a small charge from another source to open up the gateway and let the mass of stored energy out. In this case there was no trickle charger and the other power came from the alarm clock, but there was an added key to the setup.

In order to hold the charge in the first place the cell needed a steady power supply. Not much, a simple nine-volt battery could do it for a while, but it had to have a wire. Which meant one line to set it off and a second to keep it from draining prematurely. Usually the rule was black and red.

Hunter dug in his pockets and emptied them onto the table. He was getting to be known for always having his pockets full of tools and parts; he’d once repaired a fatal error in his gunjin with what he’d had on him.

He sifted through and found a small fillips screwdriver and a pair of shielded pliers. The alarm clock was bolted to a metal plate, which was attached to the cell by a number of screws. Frantically the two began to work to release it.

“That’s the last one,” said Kendrick. “Now lets—”

A ricocheting gunshot started them both and they looked up to see a man wearing an Imperial Army uniform and pointing a gun at them. He was young, not more than twenty years old, and he looked scared.

“Stop! Both of you!” he panted. “Get away from that detonator!”

Hunter and Kendrick carefully put their tools and down and circled the table on either side to face him.

“Now think for a second what your doing here kid,” said Hunter calmly. “This bombs going off real soon and you don’t want to be here—”

“Shut up!” the man yelled. Hunter noticed that the bars on his uniform denoted him as an officer. War made young leaders, especially a war against Gudersnipe.

“Look kid, if we don’t disarm this thing we’re all gonna die!” Hunter yelled. “And not just us, I mean everyone! And everyone includes you!”

“For the glory of the Empire I would gladly lay down my life,” the officer smiled. “I will defend this bomb with my last breath! Shooting you would mean little to me.”

Hunter glanced at the timer and then back at the officer.

“Ever killed anyone before?” Hunter asked. “I mean face to face, none of this coward bombing with long range missiles shit?”

“Of course I’ve killed before!” the officer said hesitantly.

“I mean really?” Hunter pressed. “Face to face, just like this? Ever shot someone who was totally unarmed?”