The Link

by Isaac Hooke

  “Got more robots behind!” Marlborough said.

  Frogger and Crusher turned their weapons on a doorway beside them, and melted through it. Then Jain and the others piled inside. He took a hit in his shoulder as he retreated, and the beam burned right through.

  Close one.

  Frogger and Crusher remained by the entrance, and continued to defend by firing at the robots that approached from both sides.

  Jain surveyed the compartment. It had stacks of large cubes piled up in one corner. Probably another storage area of some kind. Though what the purpose of those cubes was, he didn’t know. They were completely black, and gleamed slightly. Probably some kind of energy reserve.

  “Marlborough, see if you can dig us a hole to the next deck,” Jain said.

  Marlborough turned his plasma rifle down and fired into the metal floor. The surface turned red hot, then white, as he continued to fire. Then it began to dissolve, revealing another layer.

  “It’s going to take a while,” Marlborough said. “Hopefully my weapon doesn’t overheat.”

  “We’ll have Crusher and Frogger swap out with you, as necessary,” Jain said.

  Cranston shook his head. “Where’s that attack run of yours?”

  “I don’t know,” Jain said. “It’s coming, I assume. But to be honest, I’m not sure if we’d be better or worse off. The strikes might damage our attackers, or possibly distract them. Or…”

  Sheila finished for him. “Or they might destroy us.”

  23

  Eric led the Bethunia on a strafing run at the enemy. All of the Link ships had clustered around the world killer to protect it when the shield went down, and so far they’d successfully prevented the defending fleet from causing any damage. Those concentric beams continued to fall in waves upon Earth, and reports came in of volcanic eruptions accompanying the earthquakes.

  Eric glanced to his left. The Bug Killer accompanied him on this run. The vessel was so close, that he could see Slate standing in the candlelight of the forecastle as his boat swept across the bounding waves of the nighttime sea.

  Eric attempted to steer through a pair of Trees that had planted themselves directly in front of him, but they unleashed their energy whips and he was forced to reverse course. He was just glad he had inertialess drives—Newtonian drives would have killed him in this scenario.

  He fired gamma ray bursts at the fighters of a nearby Battleship that had come to assail him. A Teleporter appeared next to him, and he felt detonations aboard as the craft materialized bombs inside of him.

  “Too close, bitch.” Eric smiled grimly as he veered toward the Teleporter, and let the micro machines that coated the surface of his mothership sweep over the enemy hull. The ship attempted to pull away, and Eric allowed it; he withdrew his micro machines, and pounded the ship with black holes. He watched in pleasure as the vessel imploded, its outer segments spaghettifying as they were swallowed. He fired dispersion bolts to get rid of those black holes—not a good idea to leave them in place this close to Earth—and then he changed course to swoop down on the world killer once more.

  Slate had already finished his pass, and he was well ahead of Eric—his ship had sunk beneath the VR waves, as far as its virtual representation went. That was the problem with choosing a two-dimensional environment to represent a three-dimensional battlefield: it broke down when vessels departed the ecliptic plain. Didn’t matter. Eric was passing underneath the water too, now, like a submarine. But then the waves automatically reset, turning to accommodate his current direction, and the Bug Killer was on the horizon, next to the donut that was the world killer.

  Eric weaved between the energy mines laid by a Minelayer ahead as the Hang Glider of a Tyrnari joined him, and they proceeded together toward the world killer. But there were too many Battleships. He released a steady stream of black holes, targeting the world killer beyond, and the Battleships swerved out of the way, but then Eric was assaulted by the fighters they’d launched. There were so many that his gamma rays weren’t able to take them all, and he was forced to turn back.

  The Tyrnari vessel attempted to change course as well, but a Teleporter cut the craft off. The Tyrnari suddenly ceased all directional changes—its drives had been disabled by the bombs of the attacker. The Teleporter tried to swerve out of its way, but the drifting Tyrnari craft slammed into it, breaking both ships apart.

  Eric’s black holes continued toward the world killer, rips in spacetime that all the other enemy ships had been forced to clear out of the way of. These generated black holes usually stopped in place when they formed, relative to a system’s sun, but they could be programmed to continue forward, traveling under the momentum transferred to them from the initial bolts that created them. He had produced the latter types of black holes during his attack run, and they spun menacingly toward the world killer, threatening to devour it.

  Unfortunately, other than its shield, the world killer did in fact have a defensive weapon, if only one, despite popular opinion. And that was dispersions bolts. It used these to disperse the black holes Eric had fired, and he slumped in defeat.

  The Mind Refurb vessels launched several nuclear missiles during the attack run, but the Link ships either shot them down, or allowed the missiles to strike their own ships, taking one for the team. The Tyrnari ships had fired those strange, bubble-like projectiles, while the Accomp in charge of the Devastator in Jain’s absence launched blobs, and either the Link ships reduced the strength of the projectiles with their own attacks, or similarly sacrificed themselves to prevent the weapons from striking the world killer.

  Eric retreated, joining the Bug Killer on the far side as the remaining members of the defending fleet rendezvoused with the Earth Defense Force 1 and Task Force 88.

  “We can’t get through,” Jhagan of the Tyrnari transmitted. “The Link defenses are too thick.”

  “There has to be a way around them,” Traps transmitted from the Bug Killer. “I refuse to believe that our brothers and sisters sacrificed themselves for nothing.”

  “Hey, we don’t know that they’re dead,” Eagleeye said.

  “Then why haven’t we heard from them?” Traps pressed. “Without that shield, their transmissions should be able to get through.”

  “The hull is obviously too thick for them to reach us,” Eagleeye said. “We won’t hear from them until they emerge.”

  “Well if we don’t disable that world killer soon, there’s a chance it will repair its energy shield,” Eric said. “Then everything we did aboard will definitely be for nothing.” He studied the battle space, the beginnings of a strategy forming in his mind. “Who’s in charge of the Devastator in Jain’s absence?”

  “That would be me, Xander,” the associated Accomp transmitted.

  “Tanis, send Xander here some nukes via shuttle,” Eric said. “When you receive them, Xander, load them up into your skirmishers. Tanis, have the rest of your Mind Refurbs pack nukes into shuttles as well. As many as you can fit in each shuttle. Pull the warheads from the missiles. I want these shuttles to pack a punch.”

  “What are you planning?” Tanis asked.

  Eric explained his plan.

  “Wait, what about the Mind Refurbs aboard?” Tanis sent. “Not that I’m complaining, but if successful, your plan will obliterate the world killer. I promised not to destroy the ship until they got out.”

  Eric hesitated, then sighed. “I don’t think we really have a choice. If they haven’t gotten out by now, they never will. The AI aboard that ship will never let them out. You didn’t see what it was like in there. I could wait… in fact, there’s nothing more than I want to do. But I know that every minute we delay, the greater the chance the Earth won’t recover from this attack. Once the continents start drifting, it’s game over.”

  “All right,” Tanis said. “I hear you. Good luck. And I hope… I hope you forgive yourself for this. I know what it’s like to sacrifice those who serve beneath you. It’s one of the worst feelings i
n the world.”

  Eric smiled wanly, then disconnected.

  He paused for a moment. Am I doing the right thing?

  He thought of what Crusher, Bambi, Sarge, and all the others had done the first time they’d ever saved Earth. They’d boarded one of the Banthar motherships like his own, and sacrificed themselves, almost to a man, to destroy it. Back then, they’d done it partially to save humanity, but also partly for the freedom their commanding officer had promised them.

  Today was similar. Some of them might have claimed they hated humanity, but the truth was, they were here. They could have easily stayed back home on Banthar Prime if they hated humanity so much. Instead, they had chosen to fight for the humans that had given birth to their consciousnesses.

  They would have wanted him to finish this thing, at all costs.

  Still, he couldn’t shake the doubt he felt.

  What if they’re alive? Do I really want to sacrifice my brothers and sisters for humanity once again?

  He closed his eyes.

  “Boss, are we really going to do this?” Slate asked.

  “I don’t want to,” Eric replied. “But we have to.”

  “Then why are we just sitting here, holding onto our dicks?” Slate said.

  Eric straightened. Slate was right. It’s time to act. “Follow me in.”

  “You got it,” Slate said. “By the way, was it really that bad in there? Aboard that ship?”

  “Almost as bad as the first time we invaded a Banthar mothership,” Eric said.

  “I’m suddenly glad I was stuck aboard the Bug Killer,” Hicks said.

  Eric instructed two other Banthar vessels to join the Bethunia and Bug Killer. While the rest of the fleet headed toward the starboard side of the world killer, he skimmed off the Earth’s atmosphere, steering toward the farther port side.

  When they were halfway to their target, the rest of the fleet began to launch the nuclear warhead-laden shuttles and skirmishers toward the starboard side of the world killer.

  The enemy ships accelerated, and began to converge on the starboard section, moving in from all around the world killer in an attempt to stop the attack, causing the ranks on the other sides of the craft to thin out as planned.

  Eric accelerated, turning toward the world killer, and heading straight for the port side, where the enemy ranks were the sparsest. He swooped inward, and he and the three ships with him unleashed a steady stream of momentum-enabled black holes before them. They followed those rips in spacetime inward, through the path the black holes cleared as the enemy ships veered out of the way.

  The other Banthar broke away to deal with the Link ships that attacked from the flanks, but Eric continued on course.

  The world killer fired its dispersion bolt defenses in rapid succession, and the closest black holes dissolved, but Eric didn’t care. Those black holes didn’t exist to cause damage to the world killer. Their sole purpose was to clear a path for him.

  When all the black holes were gone, some of the dispersion bolts began to hit the Bethunia, but they did nothing of course.

  As he got closer, the world killer suddenly shut off its pulse beam, ending the attack on Earth. It tried to accelerate away from him.

  Eric grinned widely.

  The aliens had realized too late that the black holes weren’t the threat.

  Eric was.

  “Eat shit you motherfuckers.”

  The Bethunia smashed into the world killer, tearing both apart.

  His viewpoint snapped back inside his android on Banthar Prime. He walked to the window of his loft apartment, and gazed out on Little Earth.

  What have I done?

  24

  Jain crouched next to the entrance with Sheila, Medeia, and Cranston, and the four of them fired in both directions at the incoming attackers. Behind them, Frogger was unleashing his plasma weapon into the deck, enlarging the hole Marlborough had started. Marlborough and Crusher rested against the wall next to the stacks of cubes. They had both overheated their plasma rifles from firing it at the floor; Marlborough’s had gone offline first, followed soon thereafter by Crusher’s when she replaced him. Frogger’s weapon would overheat soon, too, at this rate. Hopefully Marlborough’s would recharge soon.

  “According to the blueprints, the floor contains the thinnest metal in the area,” Frogger said. “You’d think I would have penetrated to the deck below by now.”

  Outside, one of the box robots plowed past the wreckages of the fallen; Jain aimed at it and fired. He struck one of its dual turrets, and the robot promptly turned its remainder on him.

  “Watch out!” he shouted as he ducked inside.

  On the opposite side of the doorway, Sheila and Cranston also pulled back. The beam passed harmlessly in front of them, smashing against the bulkhead beside them.

  Jain leaned out to fire again, but then the compartment broke apart.

  “What the hell!” Medeia said.

  “Frogger, what did you do?” Crusher asked.

  “Wasn’t me!” Frogger replied.

  Jain grabbed onto a fragment of floor, but then was dragged downward as a shard of metal jabbed into his leg. Around him was a ring of debris, which began to scatter. He caught a glimpse of swirling stars above, and the spinning Earth below.

  “I thought Tanis said he would keep some of the ship intact until we got out!” Frogger exclaimed.

  “Guess he changed his mind,” Jain said.

  He glanced at his HUD, and was relieved to find that the status indicators of the team members were mostly green. Some of the indicators were orange, however, indicating severe damage. But everyone who had been trapped in that room had survived.

  Luck is finally on our side.

  As the debris continued to clear, he saw flashes appear to his right.

  “What’s that?” Sheila asked.

  Jain zoomed in. “It looks like Link ships. And they’re jumping out. En masse.”

  “That’s because they failed,” Frogger said.

  “Don’t worry, they’ll be back soon enough, I’m sure,” Marlborough said.

  “So you’re the pessimist of the bunch,” Jain said.

  “No, just the realist,” Marlborough said.

  “Tanis, are you out there?” Jain tried as the debris spread out even further, and he spotted more points of light. He zoomed in on those. Piranha class.

  He glanced at Sheila, who drifted away on another fragment nearby. He shoved off of his, and floated toward her. When he latched on, she glanced up in surprise.

  But then she smiled sweetly. He adored that smile.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” he told her. “Nice to see you.”

  “Oh, it’s very nice,” she agreed.

  “Tanis, do you read?” Jain tried again. He looked at Sheila. “They should be in range, shouldn’t they?”

  “Probably,” she agreed. “But then again, our transmitters are weak. They—”

  “I read you loud and clear,” Tanis interrupted. “Good job, Void Warriors. And Bolt Eaters. It’s time to come home.”

  Shuttles came to retrieve Jain and the others, and returned them to the Forebode. The Void Warriors departed to their respective ships via more shuttles, while the Bolt Eaters left to join their companions on the Bug Killer.

  Jain and the others restored their consciousnesses into their respective ships, and restored Mark and Gavin from their backups.

  “I died again, didn’t I?” Mark said when he appeared on the virtual bridge.

  “Me too,” Gavin said. “This sucks.”

  “You both died well,” Jain said.

  “Yeah, we’ll see,” Gavin said. “Show me the recordings.”

  Jain sighed, and sent it his way.

  “Crap!” Gavin said. “I can’t believe I stood up into the line of fire like that.”

  “We all make mistakes…” Jain said.

  “Some deadlier than others!” Gavin said. “I’ll never learn.”

 
; “Well at least we won, I assume?” Mark said.

  “We did,” Jain agreed.

  Medeia was looking at him, and she broke into tears when he finally glanced her way. She went to him, and gave him a hug.

  “It’s all right baby, I’m back now,” Mark said.

  She didn’t say anything. How could she?

  Jain glanced at Sheila, and was just glad that she hadn’t died this time around.

  “What about Earth?” Gavin asked. “Did the other Mind Refurbs succeed?”

  “Jason and his War Forgers successfully disabled the shielding of the planet-side world killer,” Jain said. “Allowing air support to bomb it.”

  “What about the bioweapons and other enemy units still out there?” Gavin said. “The aliens were creating rifts in cities throughout the world last I heard…”

  “Eric sent Sloths and other Banthar mechs to help out,” Jain said. “They’ve been airlifted to the remaining hotspots, along with mechs and other hunter killer units from Earth’s infantry. Tanis tells me the alien holdouts won’t last for very long. We’ve won. For now.”

  Over the next few hours, Cranston moved the teleporter parts he’d installed into the customized shuttle for the mission back into his main ship so that he had teleportation working again.

  Jain received an invite from Eric then to join a custom virtual reality.

  “Everyone’s here,” Eric said. “Join us for a drink.”

  Jain and the others accepted the invitation and arrived at a virtual reality beach party. Jason was here with his clones, and his very beautiful crew of women. Brontosaurus had been restored from his backup. As had Dickson and Bambi. Jain also got to meet the rest of the Bolt Eaters.

  He sought out Eric, who stood next to Bambi and Crusher on a flagstone terrace next to the beach. They looked even more beautiful in virtual reality, which could be expected.

  “Heard you crashed your ship into the enemy,” Jain said. “That was gutsy.”