Part 2

"We did it!" one burly Perovanian gloated, stepping out of the APC.

"Of course we did," a F'Vali said acidly. "Did you have any doubts?"

"Stop that, you two," a Khatran put in. "We have the suit, and that's where we stand right now. I'll go look for the commander, and have him set his hackers on it."

"So do we just leave the thing inside the APC?" the F'Vali asked.

"Ah...... unfortunately, yes. The power cell for the lifting arms is nearly depleted. Unless you want to carry it....."

The vulpine hurriedly shook his head. "No, it's okay. But it'll be secure here?"

"Of course. Only Apocalypse members can enter this portion of the base, and they all have strict orders from the Triad to leave this part well alone. No one'll come in..... on pain of deletion."

"That's clear enough." The Perovanian grimaced. "I hope the hackers crack the codes soon. Then we can finally crush those Users once and for all!"

"Don't get your enthusiasm get in the way of the mission," the Khatran cautioned. "For now, let's go get something to eat."

The trio left, discussing something about sandwiches and the interesting ingredients used to make them.

Therefore, none of them saw a shadow detach itself from the top of the APC and land lightly on the floor.

The shadow looked both ways warily. When no threats were immediate in coming, the shadow relaxed. "Flash, decloak," it said.

Susan waited until the keytool gave a signal that she had decloaked fully. Then she carefully opened the door of the APC.

The Darkling sat in there, looking like a giant malevolent crab. It didn't seem to be damaged, and Susan was sure that the renegades didn't want to destroy it prematurely, accidentally or not.

Which gave her some time to retrieve the suit from these murdering bastards.

Susan had nearly died of shock when she saw the logo painted on the side of the APC. The Apocalypse. The same group of terrorists who had murdered her parents, her village, and probably a lot more besides.

Then, after she got over her surprise, it was all she could do to prevent herself from killing the trio who had stolen the Darkling with her own bare hands.

Now, however, Susan was stumped. If she was found out, it would be certain death. But if she could somehow gain some more firepower......

Susan's eyes slowly rested on the Darkling. Then she shook her head. No, that was out of the question. Besides, she couldn't even get in.

Just then, she heard voices in the corridor outside. Quickly, she cloaked herself again, just as two F'Vali hackers came in.

"I dunno why we got so little time to crack the damn code," one of them grumbled.

"The Triad's impatient," the other suggested.

"Well, they should know that being impatient won't help them one bit if they try to rush us," the first averred. "If anything, it'll hinder them."

"We'll make more mistakes if we're hurried," the second one agreed. "Never mind, here's the suit."

The first one nodded to his companion. "Shall we start?"

The second one shrugged. "Okay." They unpacked their laptops, and hooked them up.

In the darkness, Susan grinned ferally. Then she settled down to wait.

"You've found Susan?" Kathy said, just as surprised.

"Yup." Nick rattled off coordinates. "Small system, almost deserted. It's out of the way, so nobody bothers checking it out."

"Which makes it perfect for the Apocalypse's hideout!" Kathy exclaimed. "Good work, Nick!"

Sarah entered the room. "Prime Jennings is in a stable condition," she reported. "He gave us his full support, but we're only allowed to use two squads at most. He wants this whole thing kept under wraps."

"Politics strikes again," Nick muttered. "In any case, we don't need two teams. All we need is a personnel carrier. Kathy, find the others, and have them meet me in the hanger in five minutes. Sarah, you go see if you can get a personnel carrier."

"Wait! Wait! Hold on!" Kathy held up her hands. "Aren't we going to discuss a plan?"

"We'll do that when we get to the part where we really need one. Now go!"

"Good, 'cos I just finished at this end," the first hacker replied. "In fact, one last command and..... there. We're now granted full access to Darkling."

When there was no answer, the hacker looked up. "Joe? You there?"

The abandoned laptop, screen still glowing, provided no clue.

The hacker stood up, looking very worried. "Joe? If this's a joke, it's not MMMFFF!!"

The hacker struggled for a while, before Susan hit him on the head hard. He slumped into unconsciousness, beside his friend.

"Excellent," she said, grinning maniacally. She quickly opened the hatch to the cockpit of the mechanized suit. What should have been an impenetrable hatch cover to all unauthorized personnel flipped open easily, and Susan climbed in.

Inside the cockpit, Susan switched on the internal lighting. The controls were very surprising.

"Now who said playing games wasn't good!" she almost shouted, but stopped herself in time. Indeed, the control stick was just like the joysticks of games found in the Supercomputer's arcades. And the other switches were easy to figure out, having been clearly labeled in English.

"I don't even need a manual," she said to herself. She could take control of this mechanized suit, and annihilate those renegades once and for all-

"Welcome to Darkling Interface Systems," a female voice suddenly said. "Please state your name and format."

Susan jumped in her seat, and panicked. Was she supposed to give a code? Was this the security system that Ril had talked about, and the two hackers failed to disable? Susan wasn't sure, but she could at least try to find out.

"Susan Gwyndel," she forced herself to say as calmly as possible. "My format is Guardian."

A screen lit up. On it, the words "Name: Susan Gwyndel" appeared above "Format: Guardian".

"Are you a new user to this system?" the female voice continued pleasantly.

Susan winced at the 'user' reference, but decided to go for the truth. "Yes."

"Do you wish to be registered as an authorized user?"

Was it as easy as this? "Yes."

"You will find a neurohelmet in the cockpit. Please put it on."

Susan wasn't too keen on this. She had heard horror stories of neurohelmets shorting out, and turning their wearers into vegetables. And if popular knowledge was any guide, the hackers were likely to have had tampered with the security system so much, they totally bollixed it up. Even so.....

Susan picked up the neurohelmet lying on the floor, and put it on her head.

Almost immediately she felt a tingle run through her spine. The screen in front of her changed to a display of waveforms, which Susan vaguely recognized as her own brainwaves.

"Thank you for using Darkling Interface Systems," the female voice said. "Internal security systems are back online. Your access codes will shortly be shown to you."

The screen once again cleared, and words filled it. Susan read through them quickly: Power-up, Zeus and Prometheus. Anti-gravity maneuvering, Hermes. Attack mode, Apollo. Power-down, Cronus. Susan already believed that the codes were thought up by an ancient history buff.

Susan cleared her throat. "Darkling, power-up, codewords Zeus and Prometheus."

"I'm sorry," the voice said, unapologetically. "Systems malfunction detected. Unable to power-up fully unless malfunction is repaired."

Susan felt a sinking feeling. So the hackers had bollixed up the systems. On a wild guess, Susan said, "Identify malfunction."

"Malfunction in weapons systems. Repair needed: direct EMP pulse."

Susan groaned. An electro-magnetic pulse was usually an annoyance at best, and disaster at worst. Even so, some keytools had the capability to generate one. And Susan's was not one of them.

The only thing to do now would be to wait until Nick and the rest of Alpha group arrived.......

Wait a minute. Wasn't that sound there gunfire? Coming from outside?

"Flash," Susan said, "scanner."

There was no doubt about it: there appeared to be a pitched battle just outside the renegade base. Or inside, if the base was bigger than she estimated it to be.

Susan almost laughed in relief. Any moment now.....

Nick made a disgusted sound. "They're throwing everything but old shoes at us here. God knows how they got so much firepower." He snapped off another shot. "But at least their aim is terrible."

Peter grimaced. "We should've called for backup."

"No need. The smaller the group, the better the chances for infiltration."

"Nick," Nar said wearily, "infiltration happens when they don't know you're coming. It's a bit too late for that now."

"Maybe not..... Kathy, get Ril and Crysta to provide covering fire. Peter, you go there too. Nar, Kavi, Sarah and I will try to get in. See that door over there?"

"You think it's unlocked?" Kavi asked dubiously.

"Should be... judging from the way it's hanging ajar."

"You don't have to be sarcastic."

"Okay, on three. One... two.... three! Go!"

The four of them ran for the door. Blaster fire stiched their path, but miraculously none of them hit. Nick flung open the door, dragged the others inside, and slammed the door shut.

"Remind me," Nar panted, "NEVER to go along with one of your ideas again."

"It got us in, didn't it?" Nick said facetiously.

"Not for long," Sarah murmured. A quartet of renegades had formed up a firing line. "I think we're about to get kicked out."

The four of them dived for cover as the renegades opened fire. Kavi fired once, but his shot was somehow dissipated harmlessly before it hit its target.

"Energy shields," Nar grunted. "This's not good."

"No problem," Sarah said. "An good EMP pulse should short them out."

"Right," Nick said. "Anyone's keytool equipped with an EMP pulse generation capability?"

"Right here," Kavi said. "Zip, EMP pulse, full power!"

"Kavi, no!" Nar shouted, but it was too late. The EMP pulse shorted out the renegade's shields, but it also blasted the four Guardians in all directions, and, in Nick's case, out of the door.

"Oh crap...." Nick muttered, as he landed painfully in the middle of the firefight. He knew that sooner or later, one of the renegades wold decide to take a pot shot at him....

That pot shot never came.

Nick slowly became aware of a very loud thumping sound. He looked up.

And up.

The Darkling armour was standing there, all fifteen feet of it. It swiveled it torso around, and faced the renegades coming up from behind it. The renegades, seeing the mechanized behemoth, decided to do the smart thing.

They ran away, to a large cluster of waiting APC's. The Darkling armour watched them go, impassively.

When the last of the APC's were gone, the Darkling turned back to the members of Alpha group. A voice, amplified to Olympian volume, boomed, "Took you long enough."

"Meant to give you a call, Susan," Nick said dryly. "But we got real distracted."

Ril, meanwhile, was eyeing the Darkling armour. "How the hell did you get in there?" she asked.

"Had the help of two hackers. They're out cold right now. You can go arrest them if you want."

There was suddenly the thin whine of a portal opening. Alpha group whirled around to face it, as did the Darkling, all tired but determined to fight whatever reinforcements the renegades might have called.

But instead of yielding several tanks and renegades, it spat forth a lone APC, filled with Guardians.

Prime Jennings stepped out. "Looks like we were a little late," he admitted.

"Yes, sir," Susan said.

Prime Jennings looked up. "I see you retrieved the Darkling Armour. And judging from the fact that you're inside the armour, I'd say you had access to the codes."

"Yes, sir."

"Remember this, Cadet Gwyndel: You had never seen the codes. You had never entered the armour. And you had never piloted the thing."

The Darkling armour seemed to stand at attention. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Dismissed."

Susan smiled. "Like it's been electrified. I think that neurohelmet shorted out or something."

"I don't think so. The technicians over at Crasus reinstated the security systems, and found nothing wrong. Except for one thing."

"Oh? What?"

"They found that they couldn't erase the authorization that the armour gave you. So, like it or not, you're one of the five people in the entire Net who can pilot the Darkling."

"The idea holds possibilities."

Ril cleared her throat. This was going to be rather sensitive. "So you're going to get that thing the first chance you have, and use it against the Apocalypse?"

Susan looked at Ril. "You really want to know?"

"Yes, I do."

Susan looked out of the window. "No, I'm not," she finally said. "It's funny, but I don't really want to use the Darkling for revenge anymore."

"Why not?"

"It's funny, but I just lost the will to do so when I put on the neurohelmet. It's as if the Darkling went into my mind and shorted out that part of my brain or something."

Ril nodded. "I was wondering why you just stood there when the renegades escaped."

Susan shrugged. "I can't explain it, but...."

"Actually, I can."

"Really?"

"It's the Darkling armour. Interestingly, built in the neurohelmet interface systems is a very innovative program."

"Which is?"

"A code of ethics."

Susan stared at her for a moment, then laughed. "I should've known. I guess I have the Darkling to thank for that I didn't do anything regrettable that day."

"It's certainly food for thought. The most powerful weapons system existing, and it can prevent itself from being used."

Susan grinned. "I suppose there's a lesson to be learnt in that."

"I guess so too. People may make weapons, but the weapons may not want to be used......"

Just then, Peter entered the room. "Sorry to interrupt," he said, "but if you don't hurry, you're going to be late for Professor Grant's class."

Susan grimaced. "I thought that one of the privileges of being in Alpha group is that you don't have to attend classes you don't like."

"Tough," Ril commented. "Now come on, let's go."

"If you say so."