Chapter VII
Lord Boris
Dmitri wakes up still inside the gunship. He had been asleep, allowing the auto pilot to guide the lumbering airship to make its way steadily south. He had been woken up by Vernon’s voice coming over the intercom.
“You have almost arrived Jones, prepare to disembark.” Vernon’s voice said, Dmitri now inside the cargo hold looked around at the sparse interior, a voice came out from the darkness causing Dmitri to do a double take on the spot.
“Good evening Commander Jones.” The voice said, coming from a nearby black spot. Dmitri hovered his hand over his gun.
“Vernon. What is that?” Dmitri said, looking around the gunship.
“This is your crew, Jones… What are you scared.” Vernon’s voice said in a mocking tone. Dmitri spun around to the still active intercom system.
“Shut up.” Dmitri said as he turned back around to see eight thin robots come out of the darkness.
“Master Wolfrick has seen fit to give eight prototype A.I. systems, all are controlled from the screen on your wrist.” Vernon’s voice said. Dmitri looked and observed the armour around his wrist bend in on itself to reveal a green screen. The gunship landed and the side door opened, allowing a very strong wind in. Dmitri walked out and looked around before heading back inside the gunship.
“Vernon, are you sure this is the place?” Dmitri asked into the intercom system.
“No sir, this isn’t where you’re heading, but this is the closest we can get you without being detected.” Vernon said. Dmitri activates the device on his wrist and the eight bots move up behind him. As the sound of Vernon’s voice continues to come through. “Your target is eight-hundred meters south of your present location and… And four kilometres below.” Vernon finishes. Dmitri looks around and sighs deeply.
“We’re on top of a mountain aren’t we?” Dmitri asked thinking to himself ‘What the hell did I just sign up for.’
“Yes.” Vernon said, there was no mockery in his tone now, but a sense of serious that the young soldier had never heard before.
“Well, that explains the wind speeds, how am I supposed to get down to ground level anyways.” Dmitri asked.
“Well, you won’t be able to use the suits flying aspect. Winds are too strong for that.” Vernon said.
“So I guess I’m abseiling.” Dmitri said, he wasn’t confident about this, he had never really got the hang of it.
“Yes but only for the first three-hundred meters. And then after that…” Vernon’s voice trailed off, but Dmitri knew what the plan was for after the ropes were all exhausted.
“Your telling me, we have to climb down, with no ropes, in the dark. Great, perfect, fan-fucking-tastic.” Dmitri said, only the last part in his head. “What are my odds.” He asked, not sure whether he wanted to know them or not.
“Your odds of surviving. Well truth be told we don’t know. As this has never been done before.” Vernon said slightly sheepishly.
“So I’m your guinea pig on this little experiment.” Dmitri said looking around the gunship silently. “Well… I guess there are worse ways to go.” Dmitri said before turning to his motley crew who had all come into his field of vision, waiting silently on his command. “Let’s move out.” Dmitri said, he exits the gunship, and places a small beacon down next to it before turning around to see the bots exiting the vehicle. ‘My own private army.’ Dmitri thought as the nine of them move out towards the south, towards the nearby ridge line that was visible just ahead.
As the nine reach the edge of the ridge line, Dmitri looks down into the dark abyss. A sheer cliff face, with only the tiny rooftops of the fortress visible below.
“Well your right Vernon, the winds are too strong for jetpacks.” Dmitri said over the intercom system inside his helmet. “What do we know about the defences?” Dmitri asked.
“We don’t know much. All of our surveillance drones have been shot down or blown miles of course.” Vernon said before continuing. “We guess about fifty anti-aircraft guns, along with two-hundred sniper towers and about seventy-five machine gun entrenchments. Almost all however are facing away from you towards the south. Vernon finished trying to add an air of confidence at the end that didn’t entirely come across.
“Well it’s something I suppose. What about the north side.” Dmitri asked taking another look down the cliff face and could vaguely make out large metal box’s at random points along the decent.
“There are regular drone patrols along random points of the mountain side. But these shouldn’t be a problem as they only detect heat as far as our limited intel tells us and your suit stops it you emitting it.” Vernon said, when he continued his tone had changed. “The problem will be the electro mines attached at random points along your path of decent. Because if you do it will not only deactivate your suit. It will alert Boris to your location and the mission will be over.” Vernon said with all seriousness.
“Alright.” Dmitri said truly feeling like a Guinea pig now. “Where’s my way in?” He asked looking down again.
“There should be a small outcrop in the rock about two kilo-metres below you which leads to the mineshaft’s, that’s your in.” Vernon said, Dmitri looked down but couldn’t see anything in the dark, but attached a metal stake into the ground and launched the attached rope down the cliff face. ‘Here goes nothing.’ He thought before beginning to abseil down the bots on the other hand just begin to climb down with ease not using the ropes or any climbing gear as far as Dmitri could see.
As Dmitri and his eight companions moves slowly through the cave system he comes across a heavy steel door sticking out from the rock face. Dmitri turns around and looks at the his robots
“Well, this is it, I guess.” Said Dmitri as one of the bots steps forward and begins to take a blow torch to the doors frame. as the crew wait calmly for the door to give in.
“We're through.” The BOT said
“Let's move.” Dmitri said gesturing with his hand to move forward and the Bots followed his orders moving into the tunnel ahead of him. As they move out through the broken down door they see a cavern full of people digging down about fifty meters into the ground.
“What the hell?.” Dmitri said gaping at the scene in front of him. As the miners continue to dig smoke starts to jet out of the tunnels as people run out burning up. Then after a few seconds a person start to yell for the miners to get back to work.
As the minors start to really panic seeing what remained of their companions skin burn to a crisp. A tall, slim man with long white hair, equally long beard and wearing robes as white as his hair. Lord Boris walked into the cavern looking around briefly, before walking towards the man Dmitri could only guess was the foreman of whatever this operation was, judging by the look on the foreman’s face, he was as equally terrified at the elderly man as all the others were, as Boris brought his seven foot staff with a red diamond on the top towards the poor sods face and spoke with him in an undertone. The man nodded an bellowed at his crew to continue the work.
Dmitri begins assembles his sniper as quietly as possible, hoping to the gods that no-one could hear him, but as he finishes, he was thankful that he had been undetected. There had been a moment when his hand had slipped of the rock, and he had found himself flat on his face, he was sure that the sound of him falling would have alerted the people bellow him, but fortunately at that exact moment there had been a small explosion inside one of the tunnels that had masked the sound of him swearing. He had thought that Boris had looked up in his general direction, but he guessed that the elderly man had not raised the alarm, he had not been noticed. As he once again looked out from his hiding spot, he sees that his target is still standing in the same place, Dmitri smiles to himself, thinking that this was too easy and then aims it at Boris.
“I've got you, you son of a bitch.” Dmitri said whilst smirking and fires the gun, but as the bullet makes its way towards the targets head, Boris spins around and brings his staff up faster than a man half his age. The bullet hits the diamond on top of the staff and splits in half and hitting the two people behind Boris. As the whole Cavern starts to panic. Boris simply looks right at the small gap where Dmitri and his robots are, smirking all the while.
“Up there.” Boris said with no sense of urgency as if the fact that he had almost been shot was a matter of little concern to him. And Dmitri realised that he had not been as lucky as he thought he had been.
“Shit, we've got to go.” Dmitri said quickly holstering the gun but, the nine of them run back towards the small outcrop, but as they continue to run through the tunnel, the rocky ceiling starts to collapse in on itself. A large falling rock crushes four of his BOT’s, whilst a second crushes another one. Until eventually they reach the outcrop and Dmitri grabs hold of a small finger hold in the mountainside as sirens start to go off from below him. He was about to start climbing when he looks down at his three remaining companions.
“We will hold them off.” A BOT said nodding at Dmitri.
“What?!” Dmitri said already starting to heave himself up, but stopping momentarily at the BOT’s last words. It felt odd, as he felt something like sadness at the thought of leaving these machines behind.
“We will delay the enemy for as long as possible.” A second BOT said sounding almost glum realising its current fate.
“It has been an honour to serve with you sir.” The third said, and as Dmitri begins to climb up the mountain, the three Bots walk back into the cave with guns in their hands. It didn’t take long for the sounds of the BOT’s last sounds to come out of the cave. But Dmitri had bigger problems now, he had only managed to gain about fifty feet, and he was starting to come under fire.
He was not navigating the chosen path that he had descended down, instead attempting to ascend the shortest possible way, even if it meant that he would run the risky of getting too close to the electro mines. Thinking that it would be a more painless death for him to fall to the ground after the mines deactivated his suit, than to be blasted off the side of the mountain after being hit by the artillery shells that were now coming ever more frequently.
Dmitri could here the strong humming coming from the mines, but he didn’t care, and as he passed, he felt his grip become weaker. But he didn’t care, so long as he didn’t directly touch them, his suit would not deactivate.
It was about half way up that he started to have problems, the guns had fallen silent with him guessing that he had climbed out of their range. Dmitri paused for a moment thinking, he was a long way of the safe route up the mountain now, having gone as the crow flies in order to avoid being blown to pieces. But now that he was safe, he thought that he should at least try to get back to the assigned route up. And so, he moved slightly to left, hoping to get to safety, but whether he had been deafened by the sound of the guns, or he had just become so used to them that he hadn’t heard the loud hum to left. Dmitri never knew, but what he immediately realised was there was a small bang as he place his hand on the circler mine. There was a pause just long enough for Dmitri to realise his mistake, then he felt his grip begin to fail as his suit deactivated.
