"Stop! Abort countdown!" shouted DWN-49 breathless. He stared intently at the hologram, which showed a timer ticking down further to seven seconds until it finally stopped.
﹝Process terminated﹞
"Phew! That was close." DWN-47 shouted in relief. He left the administration sphere again through the permeable membrane and waited for his comrades.
***Is this the captain's place usually? I still don't get why I could get in there. Strange…***
Only now did he notice a large panorama window on the command bridge. The gunship steered itself automatically. From the large window, DWN-49 saw the evening Haven, which shone impressively in neon colors. Broodingly he saw a district with complicated pyramid-shaped houses stacked on top of each other. On their roofs, some people were celebrating frolicsomely between pools and exotic greenery. But when they saw the Grizzly flying by, they seemed visibly irritated and pointed anxiously in its respective direction. DWN-49 watched them through the window as the grizzly slowly moved away from them. His HUD showed him on a minimap where he was.
¤ District 5 | Dedun Club
DWN-49 heard a trampling from behind him and saw JP with an oil-smeared face.
" Well done. You stopped the timer."
"What've you been doing all the time?" DWN-49 asked in surprise.
"You don't want to know. Erik is still in the engine room."
" Where are we?" DWN-49 asked the mild-mannered giant.
"This is a high-level district, here live those born with the golden spoon in their mouth," JP said.
Erik arrived at the command bridge "Or they are legacy hunters, con men, contract killers. There are people in this town who would do anything to get in. If I can give you a tip, stay away from the upper-class do-gooders. They only do themselves good in the first place."
Erik sat down at the flight console in the bridge and turned off the automatic flight mode "We're too high, we have to go down."
"Down?" asked DWN-49.
"Yep, Haven's a vertical city, the districts are stacked because our space is limited. We're too conspicuous in those snob districts. How come you were authorized to turn off the timer?"
"Actually I didn't even have to authorize myself. Maybe it was defected " DWN-49 lied, in order not to arouse any suspicion.
He kept looking out with interest. Like a giant shard in bright shine from all sides, the reflective facade of a skyscraper in the center of the city throned above all other buildings. Around the building were rotating station-like capsules with rocket engines.
DWN-49 scanned it.
¤ District 30 | The Summit
"What building is that?"
"That is the seat of the Council. The seat of power. Only this one building can rise to that height because it is not in the Orbital path. "
***Orbitals, these must be the flying capsules.***
In the lower districts, it seemed much more chaotic and dirtier than in the upper districts. But the number of people increased more and more. Towering holograms advertised products of all kinds and all kinds of vehicles whirled through the narrow alleys.
" Hard to steer, this Grizzly," said Baker with squinched eyes, visibly strained. He steered between the facades of the houses and repeatedly pushed the grizzly to its limits.
The three moved further and further away from the piled up center of Haven until they reached the edge of the city, which was bordered by a wide moss-covered masonry. The rampart had no passages and only a wide inanimate borderland covered by steppe vegetation could be seen behind it. The steppe stretched monotonously and desolately to the horizon.
DWN-49 was fascinated by the mysterious area. "What's outside of Haven?"
"Outside? The Wildlands, they've been uninhabitable by humans since the war" Sergeant Baker said.
"Are they contaminated?" DWN-49 speculated.
"One weapon more dangerous than any before was deployed and ended it all. Nano droids. It was the end of a civilization, and Haven is all that remains."
"Do you mean, there is no other city on the entire earth?" DWN-49 was shocked.
"Unfortunately not. But even if it did, there's no way out of here, the nano droids will kill anyone who attempts to leave Haven."
Just before the wall, a secluded industrial complex appeared which had the shape of a semicircle. It consisted of numerous individual halls connected to each other, lined up like a chain. In the middle, there was a large hangar into which smaller troop transporters had just landed.
"This is the Arc. Our HQ," Baker remarked.
"Our home. Here we have everything we need. It's almost like a city within a city," JP added.
A radio message was received at the command bridge through an encrypted channel.
"What is the source?" JP asked.
"Let's find out" Baker replied
He started playing it and they were listening closely. A slow and insistent voice spoke on the other end. "You are entering the airspace of a military exclusion zone. Identify yourself in advance. Otherwise, we will be forced to take countermeasures."
Baker seemed visibly stressed. JP asked him "It's no problem, you just have to announce your identification number."
Baker then became even more agitated.
"You've got it written down, didn't you?" JP followed up.
" I know, I know. It's just that I ..."
"What is it?" JP insisted.
"It's just that I forgot it this morning. There, I've said it!"
"Oh, Erik! Why on earth did it have to be today, when we're returning in a captured gunship? They won't hesitate to shoot us to pieces."
"Maybe I can convince them that we are," Sergeant Baker suggested almost desperately.
"Just don't make it worse," JP worried. "Let's just hope that Jo has a good day if they put her on the flak. You know how trigger-happy she is."
"I've never seen her having a good day in my life" Baker took away his hope.
"She must be really scary for you guys to talk about her like that" DWN-49 said.
"Scary? She is terrifying. A psycho. Mad as a hatter. You better not get in her way. A danger to the publ..."
"Alright JP, I think he gets the point" Sergeant Baker interrupted him. "After all, she's like that for a reason."
"Which reason?" DWN-49 asked.
"You better ask her yourself later. Or better don't ask her, if you want to live." Sergeant Baker responded.
A repeated message from the HMD, this time even more forceful, interrupted the conversation of the three.
Baker opened the communication channel and said, "This is Erik William Baker. Sergeant of HMD Archetype Commando." Ashamed, he added after a short pause, "And I left my identification number on the desk in my study. I think the first number was a three. Then there was a nine, wait, it could have been a seven. Or was it an eight?"
JP flailed his arms around wildly, whispering "Stop guessing, it only makes it worse."
There was no reply for a while and Baker set course for landing on the hangar of the Arc. The grizzly roared up alarmingly and sank a bit.
"Do you think they believed me?" Baker asked.
An anti-aircraft cannon with a large metal barrel pointed at the Grizzly.
"Well, it doesn't look like they believed you," said DWN-49.
Baker tried to slow down and turn the Grizzly, but the steering of the antique aircraft turned out to be more difficult than originally expected.
"I can't get this thing anywhere" Baker shouted. He kept heading for the hangar to land.
In the meantime, they saw fordity of soldiers accompanied by a tank.
"They don't usually give such a welcome, not even to Arthur," JP joked ironically.
A caution light on the control console lit up ruby red to symbolize the malfunction of the right front engine.
Sergeant Baker quickly operated all sorts of buttons and switches, but the Grizzly crashed down uncontrollably in the direction of the hangar.
"Sh**, no wonder the Moonlight Legion didn't give a damn about this thing anymore" Baker cursed.