Week Seventeen

Above the Arctic Circle, in the chill, swirling winds over the mysterious island of Svalbard, the Atomic Knight met the Rocket Reds.

The moment his destination came into view, they encircled him, blocking his path.

“You are in violation of Russian airspace.” Came the amplified voice over the sound of the wind. The words were automatically translated by his armor into English. “By order of the Steel Wolf, your life is forfeit.”

Simultaneously wrist-launched missiles cork-screwed at him from all directions.

“Merlin, shields!” Gardner Grayle yelled. But his A.I. was way ahead of him. Explosions blossomed all around him, but he was unscathed, though buffeted by the concussions.

{Absorbtion Field at 97.9%} Merlin reported. {Attackers identified as top-secret decommissioned Soviet military project, codenamed: Rocket Red. Recommend Offensive Sequence: Tsunami}

“Sounds good to me,” Grayle raised his arms, and from his palms came wave after wave of a concentrated, tightly focused electro-magnetic pulse. The first Rocket Red was hit full in the breastplate, and was sent flying back through the air, arcing towards the earth, all of his systems suddenly dead. Grayle used both his arms, concentric circles of ever widening power emitting from his palms, distorting the snow-filled air. The Rocket Reds got off a few more wild shots, but in seconds, they were all dropping out of the sky, useless hunks of scrap-metal, splashing down in the frigid waters of the Arctic Ocean.

The Atomic Knight continued on his quest, making for the island far below.

{Kommand D installation located. Feeding coordinates onto your VR display now…}

In the hollowed base of the mountain, the Challengers regrouped. The cavern was below ground, and thus best insulated against assault--- but none of them wanted to test that against Orion. Klaxon alarms were still sounding, and while the others sprinted towards the drill-fronted four-wheeled Mole, Prof. Haley detoured for a control console built-in to the rock-face.

“Prof, c’mon!” Ace waved to him, throwing open the hatch.

“We need the coordinates!” Prof called over his shoulder. “We could dig ourselves to the center of the Earth and miss the thing by inches and never know it---.” His voice railed off, and his face drained of color. “We’ve got more company!”

The monitor screens showed the perimeter of Challenger Mountain. None of them were expecting to see a war-zone! Auto-defenses had kicked in, but a full-fledged siege seemed to be underway. Armored tanks had rolled effortlessly over the chain-link fences, and were engaged with defensive drones. Radar picked up a flight of stealth-copters coming in fast, and on the ground, soldiers in battle-suits were following the tanks, weapons blazing.

“H.I.V.E. troops.” Ace’s jaw tightened considerably. He, Red and Rocky had joined Prof by the monitors. “Those are their elite fighters. They want in pretty bad.”

“The downside to popularity.” Red mused, ruefully.

“Alright, new plan.” Prof told them, thinking quickly. “Ace and Rocky, you take the Mole and bring back that Darkstone! I’m uploading the coordinates to the Mole’s navboard now---.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Ace balked. “We’re not leaving you and Red behind…?”

“Someone’s gotta hold the fort ‘til you make it back.” Red picked up on the plan instantly, an anticipatory grin widening across his face. “Besides, I have a feeling this thing is gonna get much worse before it gets any better!”

Rocky put a hand on Ace’s shoulder; he wore a resigned expression. “He’s right, Ace. It won’t do us any good if we get the thing and have no place to bring it back to.”

“We still don’t know what the hell we need to do with it anyway!” Ace exclaimed.

“Something else I’ll need to be working on.” Prof agreed, not taking his eyes from his work station.

With poor humor, Ace conceded, and with a grimace, took off with Rocky for the Mole.

As the earth-digging transport fired-up, it’s diamond-tipped drill starting to spin, Red returned from a nearby weapons locker, bristling with armament, and grinning at Prof’s grim expression. “Ah well,” He flicked off the safety on a plasma rifle, and it began humming with power. “We always knew we were living on borrowed time…”