by Steve Perry
* * *
Parts of the station fire had died to embers, chemical smoke and heat but no flame. Jess and Lara moved as far as they could into the mass of debris, the wreckage seeming to stretch forever. They’d found a large, jutting piece of blackened deck to stand behind, shielded from the open jungle—but it was too hot to lean against, and as the moments ticked past, Noguchi nowhere to be seen, Jess felt his energy failing. They heard animal sounds, screams, bugs and something else from somewhere not far away, but he couldn’t find the desire to care. He blinked, rubbing at his burning eyes—
—and suddenly, Lara was supporting him, holding him up, Jess fighting off a wave of vertigo and nausea.
“Jess? Are you okay?”
He let himself lean on her as much as he thought he could, smiling wearily at the look of worry on her smudged face. A couple of weeks ago, she’d been his boss, contracted Company on the H/K Max team he’d been serving time on. Hard to believe how much had changed—and he felt a sudden rush of love for her that was entirely pure, a feeling of connection that had nothing to do with sex or power or their positions in life. This woman, this person, had backed him up when things were bad, and continued to do so, because of who she was.
Me, too, Lara. As long as I’m able, you got what I have…
There weren’t enough good words to express such a depth of camaraderie—and besides, it was cornball. He shook his head, thinking that human beings surely were a messed-up bunch; it was no wonder Noguchi had opted to fly away with a bunch of aliens.
“I’ll survive,” he said, then grinned. “Then, it isn’t really up to me, is it?”
Lara grinned back, opening her mouth to reply—
—and they heard Noguchi’s voice less than a meter away, startling both of them. “Were either of you hurt?”
She stepped around the hunk of burnt deck as noiselessly as she’d approached, removing her mask as both of them shook their heads, Jess wondering again who the hell this woman was.
“I’m sorry, I ran into a Hunting group,” she said. “I led them back toward the drones, but I don’t know if they engaged; we’ll have to steer clear of both, hope for the best.” Her lightly sweating face was as calm as if she’d just told them what the weather was like.
“The Leader—one of the Hunters has a ship, maybe two kilometers that way,” Noguchi went on, pointing west. “It won’t be guarded…”
She trailed off, and Jess realized that she was studying him, her sharp gaze taking in his stance and the bruises on his face. “Will you be able to walk?”
He didn’t give her a knee-jerk response, realizing that a macho “yeah, of course,” while good for his ego, wasn’t going to help all that much if he collapsed in the jungle.
Jess took a deep breath, feeling the aches from Keene’s beating, from the run-in with the Hunter, from the station’s crash—and nodded, knowing that he could go on.
“I’m good. Not for long, maybe, but I’m still good,” he said.
Noguchi watched him a moment longer, then nodded, slipping her mask back on. “We’ll pass back by where your friend was lost, then on to the ship. Stay close to me, both of you.”
Jess and Lara exchanged a look of understanding at her words, of mutual unhappiness and a reluctant acceptance. By unspoken agreement, they hadn’t talked about the kid, about what they were going to do if they couldn’t find him, but Noguchi had just said it for them. If they couldn’t find Ellis, they’d have to leave him behind.
We’ll find him. And if we don’t, we can come back, do flybys until the sun’s up, we’re sure to see him… He held on to the thought, promising himself that they wouldn’t leave Bunda without Ellis. Or Ellis’s body.
Following Noguchi, they moved out from behind the broken deck, stepping carefully through the smoking pieces of the station, heading back toward the deeply shaded jungle. And then Jess heard something he’d heard before, in his nightmares and in the field, and felt his gut clench, felt his hopes for all of them dwindle to nothing. A monstrous shriek of animal fury, of hatred, of power and darkness, spilling out of the trees and enveloping them.
Queen.
The bug mother stepped out into the open from their left and screamed again, and at the sound of her terrible voice there was a crashing through the brush all around, hisses and trumpeting calls, her sleek children coming to join her.
As one, they raised their weapons—and heard and saw a band of giants glide out of the dark to their right, armored and masked, Noguchi’s Hunters. Most held bladed staffs and all stood as warriors, silent and faceless, watching the trio of humans and giving nothing away.
For a beat, nothing moved. It was just enough time for Jess to take aim, and then everything exploded at once.
* * *
Brrrp-BOOM, Lara felt the burner heave up in her hands, the shot hitting a drone in front of the queen, the blast echoed by Jess and then Noguchi as they fired—
—oh fuck what a mess—
—and they were falling back, Lara firing again, swinging the weapon over to the charging Hunters, the bugs shrieking, Noguchi screaming words she couldn’t hear. Noguchi’s alien soldiers had flown into the group of drones, stabbing and howling, at least two of them firing burners of their own.
Lara stumbled, firing, hitting another of the bugs as it threw itself in front of its queen, dozens of drones pouring out of the jungle like a plague, surrounding their mother and lunging for both the Hunters and their own tiny group.
Noguchi spun and fired, fired, the strobing explosions of her burner taking out bug and Hunter alike. Jess shouted something and a blast from a Hunter’s weapon blew past Lara close enough for her to feel its heat, deck shrapnel slapping at her lower back from the explosion. Lara swung her burner, found the warrior, and watched its masked head fly apart, the huge body hesitating headless in the air before crumpling—
—and another Hunter was scooping up the burner, firing it in their direction as a drone flew at him, clawing him to the ground, its grinning skull jaws tearing into his hidden flesh.
The queen continued her bursts of screams, all but hidden by a mass of her minions, bugs jumping into battle as more came out of the dark, running at the Hunters, the Hunters dancing and cutting like samurai—and both alien groups slowly, steadily, gaining ground on the three humans.
Lara didn’t think about it; couldn’t, aiming and firing and aiming again, the bugs blasted into acid-splash as the Hunters dodged and fought and somehow managed not to die—
—CLICK CLICK CLICK—
—and Lara heard Noguchi’s weapon go dry, even over the screams and explosions, the sound as chilling and terrible as the queen’s fury. Lara stepped forward, jabbing her burner at Noguchi as the woman dropped the dead one, taking hers—
—and in the half second that Noguchi wasn’t firing, the tide of the slaughter drew closer. Lara fumbled for her handgun, not enough, they’ll all go dry, we’re dead.
They continued to back away but there was no denying that it was a matter of minutes, seconds before they were overrun. To turn and flee was certain death, by burner or by bug, and Lara found a Hunter’s masked face and fired, the bam bam bam of the semi adding a tempo to the bloody battle, firing because it was that or give up—
—and suddenly, so suddenly that Lara didn’t understand for a moment what was happening, Hunters and drones alike began to collapse, the sound of rapid fire dull thunder to her ringing ears. There was a stuttering light washing across the falling bodies, across all of them. It was the muzzle flash of a pulse rifle, M41 or ’56, and Lara’s uncomprehending gaze followed the flashing bursts to their source, to their right and behind—
—and saw Max. Standing in the midst of the ocean of debris, small fires licking at the suit’s giant legs, bright tongues against the matte orange of its armored body.
Max took a step toward them, still firing, one mighty, quad-tread foot crunching down through a layer of broken station, its left arm sending a constant stream of arm
or-piercing death into the fray.
“Ellis,” she whispered, the sound lost in the rain of bullets and the queen’s screaming retreat, her brood swarming around her like a living veil. The Hunters, too, melted back into the jungle, leaving their fallen behind, the crush of bodies smoking from the wash of drone blood.
Max continued to fire and Lara felt Jess’s hand on her arm, pulling at her, dragging her back behind their shield of docking where Noguchi stood, her calm finally broken; she’d removed her mask and stared wide-eyed at the monster robot that had stepped into the alien war, not understanding.
They’d found their friend. They’d found Ellis, and Noguchi didn’t know yet what the interface meant for the man inside, but Lara felt a wrenching sadness sweep over her. Ellis was with Max again.
25
There were fourteen drones and a single queen, nine unidentified life-forms and three humans. Max calculated the distance between all of them and chose pulse over fire, Ellis struggling to translate the difference in the glowing green forms. Max had been designed to find an implant signal in the designated—
—Teape he was the designated—
—life-form and cut out firing before extermination could occur, destroying everything in its single-minded path to the beacon. These humans had no implants, and Max’s mind had no signal urging it on. It was up to Ellis to manipulate the program, and his influence wasn’t constant, his consciousness unstable; there was distant pain, distant understanding of body, radical fluctuations in awareness. Max did not know what these things meant, and it was all Ellis could do to hold on.
Max fired, sweeping in a contained pattern across the twenty-four alien objects that clustered in front of its sensors, closest at 17.3 meters, secondary liquid expulsion maximum two meters—
—acid spray at its worst, can’t let it reach the three forms because—
Because Ellis realized that this was what had been designated, what he had wanted at some prior instance, these are Lara and Jess and. He pushed into the realm of sensory feed, his mind reaching for the stats and commands, finding them easily. Getting them to Max was harder, Ellis’s elastic, human thoughts complicating the process.
Separate objects at 7. 7.3 8.4 active/cease.
Max continued to fire, the direction correlated, and Ellis was pleased—until a wave of dark slid through him, temporarily removing him from the whole. After some indeterminate time, he was with Max again. With Max’s help, he estimated the loss of awareness to be no more than two seconds and no less than one.
Body mind is reacting, must not fight it but stay here, stay with Max. Max wouldn’t work without him but he knew that he was being drained, that some vital part of Ellis was being used up. This was unavoidable, he accepted it—but he couldn’t let the loss stop them from their purpose, and he didn’t know how long he could go on.
The area had been cleared of all but the three objects he’d activated the cutoff for; Max continued to fire into the lines of the jungle, its sensors finding the forms of four figures previously identified as the not-drones—
—like that one on the deck, they’re hiding, watching, preparing. Badguys.
Max accepted the identification. It sent thirty-two more rounds through the walls of shifting green, three of the badguys falling, the fourth retreating out of sensory range. Max discontinued its strike, waiting, not prepared to move without some input from Ellis.
One of the humans approached. Ellis struggled to the surface, wanting to be there for the interaction, needing to be; Max would not respond.
ellis, ellis are you
He pushed harder, the pain sharpening, becoming unpleasant. He pushed anyway, knowing that he recognized the voice, the cool and soothing voice that he had known many times before. He heard her, and heard the others speaking at the same time behind her, their voices softer. Max sorted through each vocal pattern and fed Ellis all three simultaneously, Ellis working through them as quickly as he could.
“Ellis? Brian? Can you speak? It’s Lara, it’s Katherine Lara—”
Lara!
“Your friend is inside a robot?” Small female, unknown.
“Not a robot. That’s a MAX, Mobile Assault Exo-Warrior.” Stupid kid, I can’t believe he’d do this to himself. Jess, angry and worried, faded out like a wave in the abyss.
Lara, Ellis said or thought, he knew he should say more but couldn’t find the strength. The darkness tried to take over again, but he held on, Lara was speaking and he wanted very much to tell her that he was okay, that it wasn’t a mistake.
we’re going to help you don’t worry it’s okay, brian, we’ll get you out of there now
No. She didn’t understand.
With a supreme force of will, Ellis found his voice. It was as distant and meaningless as his body, but he bent it to his will, meaning to make them understand. Max didn’t understand, but Ellis had discovered that Max didn’t necessarily need to understand everything.
“If you—survive you need me no argument Lara, Jess.”
The trio of shapes held still, silent, and Ellis wasn’t sure if they’d heard him, even as Max told him that his voice had registered in an audible range. It was Jess who spoke finally, and Ellis knew that he was trying not to cry. Max knew that the object was 1.1 meters distant.
“Okay, kid. This is Machiko Noguchi, she’s a friend now. We’re going to follow her to a ship and go home, so just hang on for a while, okay? We’re going home.”
Max requested data. Ellis explained that there was to be movement, the sound of words outside becoming sounds, Ellis moving back again so that Max could be strong for all of them.
* * *
Noguchi was glad that Lara and Jess agreed to their friend’s decision, whether or not it was wisest for his health. The queen had escaped the Shell, she’d seen the link of chain still hanging from her ebony headdress, and knew now that she’d been a fool to believe that a simple crash could kill the bug mother.
And does she recognize me as the Hunters did? As the being who trapped her? No one knew enough about the species to say what a queen could or couldn’t do, but she was surely smart enough. And if the queen actually understood who she was, it meant Noguchi was marked by two alien species as enemy, which meant that having the MAX with them bolstered their chances from none to slim.
And if I wasn’t here at all, what would the chances be then?
Lara stood next to the MAX, looking up into the squared face of the suit, the smoking glow from the station fire softening the robot’s sharp angles. It was easily three, three and a half meters tall and a meter across at its widest, humanoid, the numbers 09 in scuffed white on its thickly plated torso. It looked like a bodybuilder made from giant metal blocks, indestructible—but the look on Lara’s face suggested that the man inside was anything but.
“The suit’s constructed to interface with a surgical implant,” Jess said softly. He’d hung back, standing with Noguchi near the crushed deck where they’d found cover. “Ellis doesn’t have one. He went into Max back on that station, saved our lives, but it almost killed him.”
Jess shook his head, a mix of sadness and respect in his deep, exhausted voice. “We should have known. Lara and I, we thought he was just sick, recovering, you know? But it seems like he got it in his head that this was all he could do to help.”
Noguchi nodded slowly, feeling some small connection to Ellis, thinking that bravery and stupidity were often closely linked. Like me, coming here, so fired up to break with the Hunters and avenge my honor that I didn’t even consider what my presence could mean to these people. At least Ellis had only risked himself; she’d risked all of them.
Noguchi walked toward Lara and “Max,” Jess following. They needed to talk. When they were all together, she took a deep breath and dived in.
“The Hunters want my head,” she said. “If they haven’t already called off their Hunt to search for me, they’re doing it now. The good thing is, they have rules, and I’ve been with them long enough
to have some idea of what they are—but the queen doesn’t, and she may want me even worse than they do. I think if we split up, meet at the transport—”
Lara cut her off, frowning sharply. “No. We stick together.”
“They don’t want you,” Noguchi said patiently. “And you’ve got—Ellis to help you get to the ship. Two klicks west, that’s the last signal reading—one of you has pilot training, right?”
Lara nodded. “Yes, but I don’t—”
“The controls are intuitive,” Noguchi said. “Except you push on the collective to gain altitude, and pull back to descend. I can’t explain the navigational system, but you’ll be able to get a safe distance away if I don’t make it.”
“No offense, but that’s bullshit,” Jess said angrily. “We’re not splitting up, okay? You risked your life to get here, to get to us—”
“—and you’re willing to risk yours to return the favor?” Noguchi snapped.
Jess and Lara were both silent for a beat, Ellis-Max standing mute and unmoving, only the hissing pops of the ebbing fire to be heard—and then Jess grinned, a tired, sweet smile.
“Well, yeah. Pretty much,” he said, and Lara nodded.
Noguchi wanted to protest, but realized that they’d decided—and that in their position, she would do the same. The realization didn’t lessen the feelings of warmth and gratitude that filled her; whatever happened, she knew now that she’d made the right choice.
My own kind.
“Let’s go, then,” she said, slipping on her mask and turning away, relieved that she could cover her face. She wasn’t ashamed of her tears, but now wasn’t the time for emotion; if these good people meant to stay with her, they were going to have to be ready for anything.
* * *
They moved into the wooded jungle, Noguchi in the lead, Ellis bringing up the rear. Jess stumbled along behind Lara, aching and bone weary, but with enough determination to hold himself together. Finding Ellis—or Ellis finding them—had provided Jess with another reason to keep going; he owed Ellis, and the kid had put his life on the line to help them. Again.