by Isaac Hooke
The pair entered the northward passage.
“And so, the intrepid pair made their way north through the alien-infested Sino Korean base,” Tahoe commented. “Their survival depends entirely on their wits, not their weapons.”
“And so it does,” Rade agreed.
4
Rade and Tahoe proceeded through the hallways. Whenever they came across sealed doors, Rade would knock and softly call for Pyro and Bender, but he never received an answer. Sometimes he blasted open a door with his plasma rifle, but usually it was to find an empty office or living quarters.
They passed the wreckages of two more combat robots. The combat rifle of one of them was chewed up to inoperability, but the other remained intact, and Tahoe took it.
Shortly after that, they came across their first human body. It was a woman, dressed in Sino Korean military fatigues. She was lying face down, with her back torn open to reveal the spine and ribs.
Rade grimaced, not looking for very long.
“Looks partially eaten,” Tahoe said.
Rade nodded. “I’m definitely starting to think it’s some bioweapon that got loose, versus an alien. Otherwise, why eat her? What are the chances it would be biocompatible?”
“Maybe it doesn’t yet realize our bodies aren’t biocompatible,” Tahoe said. “But it will figure it out soon enough, after it gets a massive case of indigestion. I suppose we’ll know when we encounter one of the aliens, and it throws up in front of us.”
“Suppose so,” Rade agreed. “Though I’m not sure how you can make light after seeing that.”
“We’ve seen a lot worse in the wars we’ve fought, my brother,” Tahoe said.
Rade and Tahoe continued through the series of hallways and doors.
“There have to be some Sino Koreans who survived,” Rade said after knocking on the latest door. “Given that most of these doors are intact.”
“Maybe so,” Tahoe said. “But if that’s the case, they’re not here.”
“Or if they are, they’re hiding,” Rade said. “Given what I saw, it’s not surprising.”
They finally came upon an alcove containing a rack filled with weapons.
“Well hello,” Tahoe said. He went to the rack, and checked the different weapons. “All plasma rifles.”
“I’ll take some of these.” Rade scooped up a couple of grenades from a box at the bottom of the rack, but realized he had nowhere to put them, without a belt or a harness. “Hm. I could duck these under my sleeves maybe.” He shoved one into the sleeve formed by his cooling and ventilation undergarment so that the area bulged outward. “Not really all that comfortable.” He returned the grenade to the box, but grabbed a spare plasma rifle and slid it over his left shoulder instead. Tahoe did the same.
They continued knocking on doors, and sometimes blasting them open, until they finally reached an intersection. To the left and right were other passageways, while directly ahead awaited an airlock. Both the inner and outer hatches were open.
Rade exchanged a nervous glance with Tahoe.
“If the airlock is intact…” Tahoe said.
“That means they brought the alien inside with them,” Rade finished.
The pair entered the airlock.
They found themselves inside a hangar bay of sorts. It was empty. No shuttles. No mechs.
“Guess it wasn’t this particular hangar bay the alien took,” Tahoe said.
While most of the bay proved empty, there was, however, a series of jumpsuit closets located on the same side as the airlock.
“Our Implants and hard points are compatible with SK jumpsuits,” Tahoe said. “For the most part.”
“Enough to serve our purposes,” Rade agreed.
He walked to the closet, and accessed the remote interface of the closest suit. To his dismay, it required a login.
“I’m getting a login,” Rade said.
“We should be able to handle this with our rootkits,” Tahoe said. “Looks like an outdated model. Start suiting up. I’ll have hacked in by the time we’re done.”
Rade shrugged, and began suiting up. He had to try a few suits before he found a size that fit, since the Korean-Chinese sizing was different. Finally, he found a suit whose female connectors matched the male hard points in his joints. However, even then the fit wasn’t perfect, and not all the hardpoints locked into place. He would just have to suffer a slightly reduced reaction time for those particular joints.
He finished putting on most of the suit, except for the helmet, and then turned toward Tahoe. The Navajo had similarly geared up, and when he saw Rade’s questioning glanced, his eyes defocused. “
Yep, we’re good to go,” Tahoe said. “I’m in. Let me fix yours.”
Tahoe grabbed Rade’s wrist in a gloved hand, and opened up a small panel. He plugged in a cord from his own wrist area.
“Try now,” Tahoe said.
Rade pulled up the remote interface. The login request screen was gone, and he had full access. “We’re good.”
Tahoe nodded, and withdrew the cord.
Rade sealed the panel, and then donned the helmet. Using the remote interface, he opened the faceplate. No need to waste oxygen until absolutely necessary. He double-checked the levels.
“I’m at one hundred percent O2,” Rade said. “Enough for three days.”
“Me, too,” Tahoe told him. He had put on his own helmet, but like Rade, left the visor open. “What next, Chief?”
Rade glanced at the hangar doors. “You know, I think I want to get outside this base. I’m not big on being stranded inside here while that creature is wandering around.”
“I’m all for that,” Tahoe said.
Rade went to the airlock hatch, and shut it. Locking clamps automatically activated a moment later.
Tahoe tried to hack into the bay doors, but finally gave up, and the pair closed their helmet faceplates. Rade had his suit inject the appropriate accelerant so that he’d acclimate to the pressurized environment, and then proceeded to blast his way outside with Tahoe. They emerged onto the moon-like surface. Gray rock surrounded them on all sides. In the distance, set against a permanently starry sky, was the volcano. It had ceased erupting, and the formerly bright streams of lava on its sides were now a light gray standing out against the darker backdrop.
“Where are all the support craft?” Rade asked. The sky around the volcano had been buzzing with them when they first arrived.
“There’s a few of them,” Tahoe said, nodding at the wreckages strewn next to the hardened magma lakes and streams in the distance.
“Not a good sign,” Rade said. He turned around so that the sprawling compound was spread before him. There was another hangar immediately beside this one. The doors were open, and the wreckages of Sino Korean combat robots and mechs were crowded around it.
“This is where the alien got in,” Rade said.
He picked his way across the mech wreckages, until he reached the bay doors. Inside, he saw more destroyed mechs crowded around a metal crate of sorts in the center of the bay. A crate whose lid had been torn away from the inside.
On the far end of the bay, the inner airlock was closed.
“Someone let it in,” Rade said.
“My guess is, the base AI,” Tahoe said. “Look at the claws in the hatch. The alien would have broken the seal unless the AI opened the door. It decided to let the creature inside, choosing the lesser of two evils, rather than decompressing the entire base.”
“Probably the best choice, given the circumstances.” Rade zoomed in on the portal in the hatch. He could see the inner hatch within: there were dents on it as well, supporting Tahoe’s theory.
Rade turned back toward the volcano. “Well, my friend, we have two choices. We can return to the extract site, and wait the remaining day and a half for pick up. Or we can proceed to that volcano, and gather more intel. When I was younger, and less experienced, I would have probably chosen the latter. But older, and wiser, I’m more inclined t
o the former. If only because there’s a good chance we’ll find Pyro and Bender waiting for us. And potentially my mech. Plus, we’ve already gathered enough intel, as far as I’m concerned. There’s an alien ship here. That’s all the Brass needs to know at the moment. They’re probably going to want to send in at least one or two full platoons to investigate. Not two men.”
“I agree,” Tahoe said. “I’m not big on exploring alien-infested volcanoes these days myself. The extract site it is.”
“By the way,” Rade said. “What happened to your mech?”
“The SKs took it,” Tahoe said. “What they did with it, I don’t know.”
On the way toward the site, they passed another hangar bay connected to the base; its doors were blasted open like the previous. The entrance was surrounded by the wreckages of mechs and combat robots, and within was a crate whose lid had been torn open from within, just like in the first hangar bay.
“So, there are at least two of them loose inside the base,” Tahoe said.
“Probably for the best that we left,” Rade said.
“Uh huh,” Tahoe agreed.
“Still no sign of your mech,” Rade said. “Maybe the Sino Koreans took it back to the colony?”
“Maybe so.” Tahoe was surveying the wreckages strewn about the opening. “Actually…”
Tahoe stepped forward, and knelt next to a pile of mechs. He pointed out the United Systems stamp on the upper arm of a mech buried underneath another. “Help me with this.”
Rade went to him, and boosted the power output to his jumpsuit servomotors to help him slide the Sino Korean mech aside.
Tahoe’s mech lay exposed underneath. A huge gaping hole had been torn through the armor above its AI core. The edges were smooth, and had bored down into the core itself. That meant the mech was irreparably damaged.
“Looks like damage from a plasma bolt,” Rade said. “The Sino Koreans shot him?”
Tahoe nodded. “In the confusion that followed the alien’s emergence. Either accidentally, or purposely, when Hatchet tried to get away.” Tahoe shook his head behind his faceplate. “Why did they have to hit the AI core?”
“I’m sorry, my friend,” Rade said.
Tahoe sighed. “He had a backup.”
“Restoring an AI from a backup is never the same, though,” Rade said. “Come on, let’s go. We can’t linger here.”
They resumed their march, giving the base a wide berth as they crossed the bleak, rocky landscape beneath the stars.
After a short while, Rade told his friend: “I feel your pain. Hatchet served under me, too. I feel partially responsible.”
Tahoe smiled sadly. “I try to tell myself it’s just some lowly machine. That he’s replaceable. And yet, why do I feel an emptiness in my heart?”
“Because they’re not lowly machines,” Rade said. “If these wars we’ve fought have taught us anything, it’s that. I’m just worried that someday, I’ll forget their sacrifice. That I’ll relegate them to the realm of machines again.”
“It wouldn’t take much,” Tahoe agreed. “The military only has to delete a few more emotional subroutines to make them seem even less human than they are, and we’ll lose our ability to bond with them. But right now, man, it hurts.”
Sadly, Rade was convinced that someday, the military would do just that. The Brass couldn’t be all that pleased that men were bonding with their machines. Then again, such bonds did help the Brass preserve the military’s investment in said machines, which could cost upwards of a trillion digicoins, and that was really the only argument the proponents had to maintain what little emotions were present in the mechs.
The pair walked on in silence.
They took care to scan the different horizons, searching for attackers. It would be difficult to spot any SKs out there, given the stealth technology their units were equipped with, but conversely, with the smaller profiles afforded by the blending jumpsuits Rade and Tahoe wore, versus mechs, they would also be equally difficult to spot, especially without LIDAR.
The gravity on this moon was about ninety percent of Earth’s, which did lend each step a slight bounce. Rade and Tahoe used it to their advantage, and they made good time toward the target site.
They did travel close to an area where a fresh stream of lava had earlier flowed, courtesy of the most recent eruption. The magma there was mostly solidified by now, and it contained several large footsteps. They consisted of a base circle about the size of a human head, with three long, equally spaced talons in front, and two shorter talons in back.
“Those footsteps don’t look like anything we’re familiar with…” Tahoe said. “And I’ve run a correlation search with my Implant, on all the species stored in my embedded ID database—classified and declassified. No match, either.”
“I have a match actually, from memory,” Rade said. “Some of the dents in my cell door looked like this.”
“So then more of those aliens are on the loose,” Tahoe said.
Rade followed the footprints to their source: the volcano. It looked more like an ordinary mountain at the moment, since it wasn’t erupting at present.
Then Rade turned in the opposite direction. The tracks continued across the magma, ending when they reached the solid, older igneous rock next to it. In the distance beyond the footprints, Rade could see the subtle, shiny curves of the main colony’s geodesic domes.
“Looks like they’re headed toward the colony?” Tahoe said.
“Seems that way,” Rade said.
“Should we try to help?” Tahoe asked.
Rade frowned. “You saw what they did to those mechs. I don’t think we’ll be able to make much of a difference.”
Tahoe hesitated. Then nodded. “You’re the chief.”
Rade and Tahoe continued forward.
“So, Aniidastehdo is pregnant,” Tahoe sent suddenly.
“Congratulations, brother,” Rade said. “I just wish I heard the news under better circumstances.”
“So do I,” Tahoe said. “I forgot to tell you before the mission. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” Rade said. “Boy or girl?”
“Boy,” Tahoe said. “My daughter is going to name him Alejandro, in honor of him. I told him all about our best friend, you see.”
Rade felt a sudden swell of tears, and he couldn’t answer.
“Are you okay with that?” Tahoe pressed.
Rade took a moment to compose himself. He bit down on his lower lip, hard enough to draw blood, and the pain helped draw him out of the sudden pang of grief for his fallen comrade.
“That’s a great name,” Rade said, a little more gruffly than he intended. “For a great child. I’m definitely okay. Hell, I’ll probably name one of my own children Alejandro.”
Tahoe was quiet for a time.
“You know, a part of me still kind of feels like life is passing me by,” Tahoe said. “That I’m going to miss the key milestones in my grandson’s life, just as I missed all of Aniidastehdo’s: when she walked for the first time, spoke her first words, entered school, had her first boyfriend, graduated, you know, all of it. And yet, another part of me has come to terms with this. That my job will never allow me to live like ordinary men. Because I’m more than that. A least, that’s what I tell myself. Though you want to know something? While I’ve thought of quitting, I can’t bring myself to do so. It feels wrong somehow, to suddenly start being there for my grandson, when I was never there for Aniidastehdo. I know she’d resent it if I did… she’d wonder why I never showed her the same attention. Why I never quit for her. And so here I stay, fighting at your side, where I belong.”
“We all have to come to terms with what we’re giving up by staying in the Teams, brother,” Rade said, thinking of Shaw.
“If you ever quit the Teams, I’m going to follow you, wherever you go,” Tahoe said. “The brotherhood we’ve formed here, it transcends the MOTHs. I’m sure I speak for most of the others as well in this. Where you go, we go. This
team won’t be the same without you.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, my friend,” Tahoe said. “But if I were ever to quit, you’d be the one next in line to lead the team. You’d take over as chief.”
Tahoe smiled, shaking his head behind his faceplate. “Actually, I wouldn’t. I told you, I’d quit. And I’d continue to fight at your side. I’d go with you to the gates of hell, brother. Beyond, even.”
“You have already,” Rade said, feeling moisture in his eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything else, and instead looked away, concentrating on the path ahead.
Finally, about three klicks out from the extract site, the indicators for Pyro and Bender appeared on the overhead map ahead.
“You guys made it,” Rade sent.
“Good to hear from you, Chief,” Pyro said. “Bender and I only just decided we’d waited for you long enough, and set out to find you.”
“I wanted to leave earlier,” Bender said. “But chickenshit here insisted on staying.”
“I’m glad you stayed behind,” Rade said. “Because you’d probably be dead now if you had come. Have you seen Valjean?”
“We left him to watch the extract site,” Bender said. “In case either of you fools returned.”
“Good, we’ll turn back when we reach you,” Rade said.
Rade and Tahoe rendezvoused with Pyro and Bender shortly. Their mechs had environment blending active, so they would have been almost invisible were it not for the fact their Falcons were outlined in blue, courtesy of the “friendly” status their comm nodes transmitted.
Using those outlines, Rade and Tahoe clambered into the passenger seats of Bender and Pyro respectively. Then the four of them continued toward the extract site.
5
Rade told Pyro and Bender about the alien attack on the base, the starship he had seen, and the footprints heading toward the colony.
“Woowee!” Bender said. “Sounds like we’ve gots ourselves stuck in the middle of a full-blown alien invasion. An accidental one at that! Stupid bitches gone digging where they shouldn’t have and unleashed their very own alienageddon! This is going to be fun to watch! Let’s kick back in our lawn chairs next to the colony and bring out the popcorn!”