Forerunner

by Isaac Hooke

  “It’s too bad,” Sheila said. “Because they had everything else right… the defense platforms, the rift gates. Why skimp on something so important as blast doors for all your buildings?”

  “Again, the false sense of confidence imbued by Xado-Glass…” Mark said.

  “This building had blast doors,” Jain said. “It didn’t help.”

  A transport had paused above one of the mid-rise apartment buildings near the center of town. The outside was covered in sheets of segmented metal that must have deployed when the dome failed, but there were large sections dissolved into it; portions of the building underneath had also melted away, revealing cross-sections of multiple floors.

  “The transport is detecting strange gases emanating from the openings,” Xander announced. “Concentrations of nitrogen, methane, and butane. Which is completely at odds to the native carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid atmosphere.”

  “All right, we’re going to have to explore inside,” Jain said.

  “We could land the transport on the rooftop and deploy the rovers that are aboard…” Sheila said.

  “We could,” Jain agreed. “But I’d prefer to send something with a little more punch. Xander, how will our combat robots fair down there in that atmosphere?”

  “I’d give them two to three hours,” Xander said.

  “Good enough,” Jain said. “By the way, is the LIDAR still clean in orbit, and on the surface?”

  “It is,” Xander said.

  “All right, let the transports and probes continue exploring the rest of the city,” Jain said. “Meanwhile, let’s move closer... take us into high geosynchronous orbit. I want to launch our combat robots.”

  “The munchkins?” Mark said. “Oh goody. Do I get one?”

  “We can all take control of one,” Jain said. “Or two.”

  The transports and probes returned, and the fleet assumed a geosynchronous orbit above the colony. The Talos launched a transport containing twelve miniature combat robots—munchkins, as Mark called them. That seemed a good nickname for them, if a little euphemistic.

  Repeaters deployed behind the transport in the form of telemetry drones, their purpose: to string out the signal from the Talos to the building in question and prevent interference from cutting off the Space Machinists from the units.

  The transport landed. Jain switched his viewpoint to one of the munchkins, and he assumed full control, replacing the virtual environment of the bridge with the real environment of the shuttle. He still had his HUD active, which displayed an overhead map of his current position in the upper right of his display. Blue dots there indicated the other members of his unit, with darker blue dots indicating which were controlled by his fellow Mind Refurbs. Cranston was the only one who had taken control of two units. Those not controlled by the Mind Refurbs operated autonomously.

  He finally felt like a true lieutenant commander again. Well, as much as his limited memories of the experience allowed.

  Almost like being on the Teams.

  The ramp went down.

  “Deploy,” Jain said. “I want a defensive cigar formation out there.” His voice went out over their shared comm line and was not spoken into the environment in any way.

  Because of their extensive tactical databases, and the limited small unit tactics simulations he’d run with them, they knew precisely what the asked-for formation was. Well, and the autonomous units just knew, because it was their programing.

  The munchkins flooded outside.

  “Clear!” Gavin said.

  Jain proceeded down the ramp and surveyed the rooftop. The entire area was sheathed in segmented metal, thanks to the dome-breach protection. Even the shed that would have led inside the building was covered.

  “All right,” Jain said. “Let’s blast inside that shed.”

  Miniature plasma rifles fired, and bright bolts ate into the metal. In only a few moments, an opening had been carved, leading to the darkened stairs within.

  They approached. The shed towered over them, seeming like an entrance for monsters.

  Inside, stairs led down into darkness. The team activated their headlamps, illuminating a flight of ten steps that ended in a platform.

  “Traveling overwatch,” Jain said. “Gavin, Sheila, and Autos A and B with me.” Auto referred to the autonomous units. “The rest of you, you’re T1. Go down.”

  Those steps were almost as tall as each of them, and the team members were forced to hop down one at a time.

  “I feel like a bunny rabbit,” Medeia said.

  “Next time, Sheila, I think you need to build bigger robots,” Cranston commented.

  “Hey, I was just following the specs Jain laid out,” Sheila said. “They were designed to repel boarding parties inside the conduits of our ships, not to explore human-scale buildings on planets.”

  “They’ll work just fine for our purposes,” Jain said. “Keep going.” Though he might just have to task Sheila with creating six normal-sized combat robots at some point, meant specifically for planet-side operations. They’d have to be kept in the hangar bays with the shuttles of course, because they wouldn’t be able to fit the tight conduits that led deeper into the ship.

  Cranston, on point in T1, reached the platform. Keeping his plasma rifle pointed around the bend that led to the next flight, he slowly rotated his body, bringing the area beyond into view. This was called “pieing” in military jargon, because the shape cut by his rifle and body resembled a piece of pie when viewed from above. It also ensured that as little of his body as possible would be exposed to any enemies waiting beyond the bend.

  “It’s clear,” Cranston said.

  T2, led by Gavin, joined them, and watched the upper shed while T1 continued down the next flight.

  “Clear,” Cranston said. “Got a doorway here.”

  “Open it,” Jain said. “And take an air sample.”

  T2 hopped down to join them, and Jain watched as Cranston fired his plasma rifle at the locking mechanism and then forced the door open a crack. Higher up, it was labeled “17”—the seventeenth floor.

  Cranston peered through the opening with is rifle, both ways, and then slid the rifle over his shoulder by the strap. He produced a sensor module from a sack at his belt and shoved it past the door and into the hallway beyond.

  “What am I looking for?” Cranston said. “Concentrations of nitrogen, methane, or butane?”

  “Bingo,” Jain said.

  “I’m only detecting carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid,” Cranston said.

  “Then we take the next flight,” Jain said. He watched the door as the members of T2 hopped down the stairs; meanwhile Gavin and Sheila kept an eye on the stairs leading up.

  As soon as Cranston reached the platform and cleared the next flight, Jain took a peek through the nearby doorway himself, and confirmed that the apartment hallway was still clear. He saw only the carpeted floor and those towering walls leading away on either side, with sealed doors interrupting at regular intervals.

  “Don’t trust me?” Cranston said. “I thought you were piggybacking on my video feed...”

  “I was,” Jain said. “But I want to make sure no baddies decided to show up after you made your sweep.”

  Jain withdrew and hopped down the stairs with the others to join T1.

  The munchkins continued downward like that, taking the zig-zagging flights of stairs one team at a time, and checking each successive floor for concentrations of alien gases as they went. They left a trail of breached doors in their wake.

  After descending seven flights of stairs in that manner, Cranston reported that he’d found a small concentrating of nitrogen and butane emanating from the hallway of the tenth floor.

  “All right,” Jain said. He reviewed the recording Cranston had made a moment ago, when he had cleared the hallway through the scope of his rifle. “All the doors look like they’re closed. We’re going to have to check each door one by one and see if we can determine where the gases are
coming from.”

  Once more T1 took the lead, while T2 remained behind at the door to watch them. In T2, Auto A kept an eye on the stairs leading down, while Auto B watched the ascending flight. Meanwhile Jain and Gavin covered T1, while Sheila guarded the apartment hallway in the opposite direction.

  “The sense of scale still feels really weird,” Medeia said. “Not sure I’ll ever get used to this. The hallway feels like a cavern.”

  “Who was it that said now we know what it feels like to live life as a dog?” Mark commented.

  “That would be me,” Jain said.

  “Yeah, I know,” Mark said. “Funny how these robot brains work. As soon as you ask the question, you remember it.”

  “I hear you,” Jain said.

  Cranston held his gas sensor in hand as he advanced. The nitrogen and butane concentrations kept climbing and were soon joined by methane. T1 backtracked when the concentrations began to recede and returned to the previous doorway where the levels were higher.

  “The gases seem to be coming from in here,” Cranston said, standing in front of the door. “What do you want to do?”

  Before Jain could answer, the door suddenly broke apart at the bottom. Among the fragments was a dark blur that trampled Cranston.

  Jain upped his time sense so that reality slowed around him.

  The blur was a creature of some kind. It looked like a cross between a dog and some grotesque flower. It had a dog’s body, but it looked like someone had taken the head and literally peeled it open into petals made of blood-soaked bands of muscle.

  Those bands contracted, momentarily sealing, but when they opened up again, spurts of green liquid traveled in all directions. Most of T1 was able to dodge the liquid—they were running at a similar accelerated timebase as Jain. Medeia, however, was too close, and the liquid struck the side of her chest assembly.

  It was acid: smoke began to billow immediately from the contacted area.

  Some of the acid leaked down onto the wreckage of Cranston and his body similarly smoked.

  Three more of the creatures leaped out after the first, landing beside it.

  Jain amped his time sense even higher.

  “Well the shit just hit the fan,” Gavin said. “I always wondered what it was like to be a SEAL.”

  “Green Berets are where it’s at,” Mark said.

  “No SEAL or Green Beret has ever faced something like this,” Medeia commented.

  “Cranston, you all right?” Jain said.

  “Nope,” Cranston replied. “My main unit is offline. I’ve switched over entirely to Auto C, my second unit.”

  That was another member of T1.

  “Ripped Heads,” Mark said. “That’s what I’m calling these things.”

  The new creatures began to seal their banded heads as if getting ready to unleash spurts of acid like their brethren.

  “Enough talk,” Jain said. “It’s time to fight.”

  18

  “Open fire,” Jain said, still operating in his accelerated time sense.

  Both teams unleashed their plasma weapons. The four Ripped Heads dropped underneath the barrage.

  “All right, check the room,” Jain said.

  Cranston, now operating Auto C, stepped over the wreckage of his previous body, and through the rip in the door. He entered the apartment high. Mark joined him, going low. They scanned the foyer and area beyond with their rifles. Green gas formed a thin layer of mist above the floor.

  “Clear.” Cranston advanced. The green mist swirled around Cranston’s waist. “If I had a nose, I suspect this place would reek.”

  “What’s producing that gas?” Sheila asked.

  “It’s got to be the creatures,” Medeia replied. “A byproduct of their respiration process.”

  Auto D remained at the entrance to the apartment complex, covering their rear, and also acting as a repeater so that the signal flow from T1 to T2 remained uninterrupted.

  The foyer gave way to a kitchen; a counter separated it from the rest of the apartment. Cranston walked past that counter, surveying the couches and other furniture of the family room beyond. There was a human skeleton lying on the floor in the middle of the room, with a smaller skeleton beside it, maybe a cat or dog. Both were covered with green, hanging strings—the remains of their bodily tissues.

  “See that?” Cranston asked.

  “The dead guy?” Sheila asked.

  “No,” Cranston said.

  “What then?” Jain observed Cranston’s feed keenly, but wasn’t sure what the Mind Refurb was referring to.

  Cranston leaped onto a couch that was set against the wall, and then climbed onto the backrest portion. He ran the scope of his rifle across the wallpaper, which was pocked with small egg-like protrusions. They emitted green vapors, which flowed down over the couch and to the floor.

  “Here’s our source,” Cranston said. “It’s not the creatures after all.”

  “We gots ourselves some rotten eggs,” Mark said.

  “Look how the plaster is cracked around them,” Medeia said. “It’s almost like they broke through from the inside.”

  A section of the wall was broken away on the far side of the couch. Cranston went to it and peered inside. There was a tunnel within, leading downward beyond the couch. Cranston shone his headlamp inside but couldn’t penetrate very deep in the darkness.

  “You know, we could probably fit in there,” Mark said.

  “Uh, no thanks,” Cranston said. “Claustrophobic environments aren’t my thing.”

  “Drop a demolition charge down there?” Mark asked.

  “Eventually,” Jain said.

  Cranston stepped back and returned his gaze to the egg-like protrusions.

  “What about these?” Cranston said. “Permission to terminate?”

  “I want the rest of the team to clear the room first,” Jain said. “You stay there and watch the wall, and that breach.”

  While the other members of T1 continued to fan out, Cranston stayed on the couch near the wall, keeping an eye on the eggs.

  Other team members searched underneath the couches and bed, sifted through the closets and laundry, but they found no more of the Ripped Heads. They did find similar breaches in the walls however, similar to the one above the couch. They all tunneled away downward, deeper into the building. And the alien gas vented from all of them.

  “The Ripped Heads probably have a network of warrens running throughout the entire building,” Medeia said.

  T1 rejoined Cranston at the wall.

  “So, can we shoot the eggs?” Cranston asked. “And drop some charges into the tunnels?”

  “Negative,” Jain said. “I don’t want to risk stirring up the proverbial hornets’ nest. At least not while we’ve got units in here. We can deal more effective damage from orbit anyway.”

  “We could get some of Cranston’s micro machines down here to do some exploring,” Medeia said. “Send them into the tunnels, see where they lead.”

  “We already know it’s going to be some alien nest,” Mark said. “If we’re going to blow it up anyway, then who gives a crap what it looks like? We already know these aliens are aggressors. It’s not like we’re going to initiate first contact with them, especially if these things are just their bioweapons.”

  “Let’s go,” Jain said.

  Cranston walked up to one of the breaches in the wall and produced a demolition brick. He held it toward the gap.

  “Can I drop just one inside?” Cranston said. “Pretty please.”

  “No,” Jain said.

  Cranston sighed, and returned the brick to his combat harness.

  Without warning, an alien stuck its banded maw through the breach and wrapped around Cranston’s torso. It crunched down hard, snapping him almost entirely in half before withdrawing into the hole, dragging Cranston’s broken and folded form with it.

  “Damn it!” Cranston said. His voice came from Auto D at the entrance. “Again!”

  The oth
er munchkins in the room rushed the opening and opened fire into the breach with their plasma rifles.

  “Leave him!” Jain said. “Get out of there!”

  The munchkins retreated across the room. Above the couch, the cracks around the “eggs” in the wall began to enlarge; those eggs shifted slightly, seeming to push outward with every moment.

  Mark aimed his plasma rifle at that wall as he retreated and opened fire at the eggs. Cranston, from his new position by the doorway, also unleashed plasma bolts at the wall.

  The eggs exploded upon impact, but then the wall broke away entirely and a large alien shape burst forth. It was a huge Ripped Head, its back a carapace sheathed with those “eggs;” vapors oozed from small holes on top of each and every one of them.

  It lashed out with a long tongue that wrapped around Mark, pinning his arms to his sides.

  “Ahhhhhh!” Mark said as the creature drew him in.

  Medeia fired frantically at the creature, but beside her another Ripped Head emerged from a tunnel, and she was forced to dodge it. Moving in a blur, she shot it down, only to face another Ripped Head: they were flooding into the room from all the breaches in the walls around the team.

  “Get— out— now!” Jain said.

  Medeia and Cranston fled.

  “Well, that was fun,” Auto B turned toward Jain. Mark had taken over.

  The remnants of T1 emerged from the apartment.

  Jain and the other members of T2 opened fire as the aliens dashed outside in pursuit. Some of the Ripped Heads slid across the floor, their momentum slamming them into the opposite wall before they recovered and continued the chase,

  Jain shot the creature in the lead, but it managed to let loose a stream of acid that got Medeia squarely in the back. It must have struck her power coupler, or battery, because she slowed down with every step, her servomotors slowly running out of power.

  Cranston turned to help her, but another Ripped Head toppled Medeia. It tore off her head just as T2 shot it down.

  Beside Jain, Auto A’s status changed: Medeia had taken control.