by Isaac Hooke
“Manticore is coming with us,” Marlborough said. “Eric, Frogger, I want you to see if you can find a way to restore the Containment Code. It seems that not all of us can handle being free.”
“I knew this was going to happen,” Brontosaurus said. “I knew we’d have trouble dealing with emotions.”
“In the meantime, we’ve already loitered here long enough,” Marlborough said. “We move out. Manticore, I want you to open up a counseling session with your Accomp immediately. Run it via background cycles. Get yourself sorted out.”
“I’ll do my best, Sarge,” Manticore said.
“No, not your best,” Marlborough said. “Get yourself sorted.”
“I will,” the heavy gunner said.
“I’ll make sure he does,” Crusher said. “Or I’ll crush his balls.”
“Sweet of you,” Manticore said.
“I always was a sweetie,” Crusher said.
They had only gone maybe ten meters before Mickey spoke up.
“Hey, got some news,” Mickey said.
“What do you have?” Marlborough said, slowing to walk beside the comm officer, who was mounted on the back of Massacre.
“Well, I finally got a response from the micro machine,” Mickey said. “I was using my LIDAR unit to beam photons into it, but I figured I needed to try a higher energy variant, so I added in a focusing mirror from one of the MX-22 laser rifles, upping the energy of photons from the LIDAR. I kept varying the frequency, until finally the latest caused the unit to send out a signal. I think I’ve finally hit on their comm band.”
“They communicate with high energy photons?” Eagleeye said.
“They must,” Mickey said.
“What direction did the emission travel?” Marlborough asked.
“Every direction,” Mickey said. “Three hundred sixty degrees. The frequency was just below the gamma.”
“So basically, you irradiated us,” Bambi said.
“There wasn’t enough to cause any harm,” Mickey said. “Obviously.”
Eric heard a strange warbling roar.
“Uh, guys,” Manticore said. “You might want to look to the east. Above the mountain.”
Eric looked up and to the east. He understood what had produced that warbling roar: it was a sonic boom, distorted by the mountainside.
A large vessel had come into view. It was shaped like a flat, silver diamond. An alien transport.
“Good job,” Slate said. “You just called in the cavalry.”
The craft hovered overhead. From the tip of the diamond, a black cloud emerged. It quickly became apparent that the cloud was a swarm of termites, because it swerved down toward the platoon.
The micro machines stopped venting from the transport, and the craft departed to the east without bothering to watch the outcome.
As if the outcome was already predetermined: that the Bolt Eaters would lose.
Eric stared at the vast incoming cloud above him, and he couldn’t help the sinking feeling that took hold inside of him then, because he realized the aliens were probably right.
12
Eric immediately began charging his energy cannon. He pointed it up at the cloud, and prepared to fire.
“Forward!” Marlborough said. “We retreat... can’t let those termites touch the mechs! The rest of you, electrify your hulls! And fire on the move!”
Eric led the way forward, with Slaughter and Massacre just behind his mech. The Cicadas and support robots followed.
He emerged from the valley and headed west, away from the swarm. He twisted his torso so his upper body was facing the incoming micro machines, and instructed Dee to take over the feet to ensure he didn’t trip while his attention was turned skyward.
The termites were closing with the Bolt Eaters. For every meter covered by the Cicadas, the swarm covered one point five. Eric pulled ahead slightly from the main platoon, along with the other Ravagers, since the mechs were capable of faster speeds.
The canon was blindingly bright by that point, and his shoulder region had started to smoke from the heat, so he decided to fire the weapon. He aimed the HUD crosshairs at the heart of the swarm, and released.
To his surprise, the swarm parted as the thick energy beam came in. Some of the slower micro machines were caught in the path of the deadly beam, but the rest had formed a donut shape, allowing the energy to pass by without harming them.
“They didn’t do that with the electrolasers,” Dunnigan said.
“No, they didn’t,” Eric said. “My guess is they’re already programmed to respond to these beams, since the tech was designed by the same aliens after all. They never encountered electrolasers before.”
“But the cannon would have to relay targeting information for them to respond in time,” Frogger said. “Maybe when you squeeze the trigger, it transmits the positional space of the crosshairs on their comm band.”
“That would make sense,” Eric said.
“Here’s wishing we had the damn Jupiters with us still,” Slate said.
During that time, the rest of the team had been firing their lasers non-stop at the swarm, causing impacted micro machines to rain to the ground. But there were too many of them to make much of a difference.
Eric switched to his laser cannons, too, now, given that the energy weapon was useless against them.
“Bronto, you got any news on the wormhole cannon?” Eric asked the heavy gunner, who was still attached to Slaughter.
“That’s a negative,” Brontosaurus said.
“Maybe try firing one of those wormhole dispersion bolts at them,” Eric said.
Brontosaurus did so.
The bolt traveled upward, but this time the micro machines ignored it entirely. The bolt passed right through them all, causing no effect whatsoever.
“Well, that’s not going to work,” Slate said.
“What if we made a shell,” Frogger said on the run. The cloud was still slowly gaining.
“What are you saying, fool?” Slate asked.
“We surround the mechs with Cicadas and support robots,” Hicks said. “Forming a shield with our bodies.”
“Won’t work,” Frogger said. “As soon as we touch the mechs, we’ll ground our units, and the electricity will flow straight into the earth.”
“What if we didn’t touch the mechs?” Hicks said.
“Still won’t work,” Frogger said. “They’ll get through the nooks and crannies we leave... between the crooks of our elbows, backs of the knees, and so forth.”
“Maybe we can interlock arms?” Crusher said. “And share our power supplies to electrify all of our hulls? Then we stand here, and hold them off, drawing them away from Scorpion and the other two.”
“There’s still too many of them,” Dickson said. “We’ll be covered in the termites. They’ll suck our batteries dry.”
And then gunfire erupted from the opening to the valley.
“It’s the Kurds!” Mickey said.
“The hell they doing?” Slate said. “Morons are going to get themselves killed!”
Sure enough, half the swarm diverted to deal with the armed Kurds.
“Damn it,” Marlborough said. “Exactly what I didn’t want. They were supposed to stay holed up in that cave. Safe. And now they’ve doomed themselves.”
And then a bolt exploded from the double-barreled cannon. It dissipated one hundred meters behind and above the party. A wormhole appeared, pinching reality, and immediately Eric felt the suction. The wind picked up, gusting past him.
“Found it!” Brontosaurus said.
“Bronto bro!” Slate said. “You da man. I could kiss you, my pretty lifesaver!”
Eric swiveled his ZX-15 out of the way, formed a claw with his hand, and slammed it into the ground, making a handhold for himself so he wouldn’t be sucked away. He instructed the other mechs to do the same. Meanwhile, Mickey and Brontosaurus were magnetically attached to Massacre and Slaughter respectively, so they weren’t pulled away.
The other Cicadas and support troops similarly punched the ground, and planted themselves in place.
The wormhole had materialized high enough so it didn’t draw rocks away from the ground directly below, and no crater appeared this time.
Eric looked at the distant valley entrance, and saw that the Kurds had wrapped their arms around whatever rocks they could find. One man was being dragged across the ground, his feet in the air, and he scrabbled with his fingers, until he finally found purchase and arrested his withdrawal.
The swarm was affected, too. But not quite the way Eric had been expecting.
The individual micro machines were able to generate enough power to counter the drag. It must have been a tremendous expenditure of energy on their part, but the cloud was managing to slowly pull away. The closer swarm very slowly circled the tear in reality, and began making their way to the stopped platoon. Meanwhile the farther cloud was continuing toward the Kurds at a crawl.
“I don’t believe this shit,” Slate said. “The bitches are able to resist a black hole? I hate aliens!”
“I’ll remedy that,” Eric said.
He let his energy launcher charge for five seconds, and then he aimed the crosshairs over the tear in reality. He fired.
The thick energy beam struck the wormhole, and it enlarged, forming a marble of pure blackness.
The pull increased. As did the wind.
The swarm was no longer able to move away from the wormhole, and instead remained fixed in place.
“That’s the way,” Marlborough said. “Again!”
Eric let the energy launcher charge until smoke began to stream from his shoulder toward the wormhole. Then he fired.
The wormhole enlarged once again, becoming a bowling ball of infinite darkness. No light could escape that tear.
Nor could the micro machines. They were drawn rapidly into the wormhole, vanishing in thick clusters.
Eric felt the pull increase drastically; gale force winds gusted past as all the air in the area was sucked inward. He had to punch his other hand into the ground because he was worried the surface would break away underneath him.
The other mechs and robots faced similar problems, and they all punched their free hands, and sometimes feet, into the ground.
“Holy shit!” Traps said.
Eric glanced at the Kurds. They were having just as much trouble. Some of them had tied their hands to rocks with ropes, while others struggled to hang on with both hands. Two men succumbed to the pull as he watched, and were drawn upward and into the hole.
The micro machines had all been consumed by that point.
“Okay, Bronto, shut it down,” Marlborough said.
“Gladly,” Brontosaurus said.
From Slaughter, a dispersion bolt erupted.
Except when it struck the wormhole, another tear in reality appeared in front of it.
The pull increased further.
“Uh,” Slate said.
“Whoops,” Brontosaurus said. “Wrong ganglia.”
“Now I know what it feels like to be hit by a tornado!” Hicks said.
Brontosaurus launched another bolt from the wormhole weapon, and the smaller rent in reality vanished, reducing the pull. He fired again, hitting the larger tear, and it shrunk slightly.
“Hm,” Brontosaurus said. “Guess it takes a bit to shrink them, when you’ve let them grow too big.”
Brontosaurus fired the dispersion bolt again, and again, slowly causing the sphere to grow smaller each time, until finally it winked out entirely.
The wind subsided, and Eric fell to the ground, along with the other mechs. He searched the ground, and the sky, for signs of the micro machines, but none had survived. The only termite with them was the one trapped within the containment field carried on Massacre’s back.
“Well, that was entertaining,” Eric said.
“Thank you for your help,” Marlborough transmitted in Arabic. “Please return to the cave now.”
“You’re welcome,” Al-Khayr said over the comm. “Our debt to you is repaid.”
The distant Kurdish troops vanished into the valley.
“I didn’t know they owed us a debt,” Slate said. “Feels like it was wasted, here.”
“Do you know what you’ve done, you two?” Marlborough said.
“Uh, created humanity’s first wormhole?” Brontosaurus said.
“I’m talking about you and Mickey,” Marlborough told the heavy gunner. “The two of you have found a way to save our planet.”
Eric and the others moved east rapidly under the molten sun, traveling as fast as their servomotors were capable now that they had abandoned the humans. The strain on those magnetic motors was audible, and the lower joints of his mech whirred in complaint. It wasn’t his top cruising speed, however: the Ravagers could travel faster than the Cicadas and support robots, but since there weren’t enough mechs to carry everyone, the overall progress of the platoon was limited by the maximum cruising speed of the Cicadas. The Cicadas could surmount their cruising speed of course, but pushing above that was recommended only for short bursts because of the risk of burning out a servomotor.
Eric’s sensors told him it was hot out there, but of course he felt only a fraction of the heat. Breaking out of his Containment Code hadn’t damaged his ability to set his heat sensitivity levels, so he kept it at a comfortable sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, when in reality his HUD status indicator reported the hull temperature in the one hundred twenties. Though around the knee areas the temperature was far higher, thanks to the heat produced by the straining servos. Cooling units helped push that heat downward to the foot area, reducing their upper body thermal footprint, but it didn’t help all that much in the day, nor at their present speed. Then again, because the land around them literally radiated heat during the daytime, they were essentially invisible on the thermal band. And thanks to their stealth skin, they blended in on the visual. That left them vulnerable only to detection systems like echolocation and LIDAR.
“Geez, I could cook an egg on my knees right about now, ” Slate complained.
“I still think this plan isn’t going to work,” Hicks said. “The storm is too big.”
“It has to work,” Marlborough said. “Humanity has no other option.”
“Yeah, assuming we can actually find a way to reach the storm in time,” Hicks said. “We’re kind of trapped in the middle of nowhere right now. What if we find nothing to the east? What if there’s no alien command and control base anywhere here? And even if there is, what makes you think we’ll be able to use any equipment we find? Not everything will be as easy to repurpose as those two cannons. Hell, I’m surprised we were able to control them at all.”
“Yeah, me too,” Slate said. “These aliens must be stupid as hell if they’re going to leave advanced tech lying around for the taking on their own bioweapons. At least program in a self-destruct mechanism or something.”
“Maybe they couldn’t be bothered,” Bambi said. “Maybe, in their hubris, they thought we ‘primitives’ would never figure out how to take control of the things.”
"Or maybe they just feel really bad about exterminating us,” Eagleeye said. “Could be that they want to give us at least a small chance of fighting back. You know, that way they feel good before hitting the extinction button."
“Yeah, give all the excuses you want, they’s pretty stupid,” Slate said.
“They’s?” Eagleeye said. “Nice grammar. Are you sure they are the stupid ones, and not you?”
“Yeah, you wanna go bitch?” Slate said. “Right now. Show me what you got.”
“We’re on mission,” Eagleeye said.
“I knew you was a pussy,” Slate said.
“I wouldn’t say the aliens are exactly stupid,” Eric said. “But more like arrogant, as Bambi said.”
She looked at him, and her LEDs seemed to smile. Crusher, meanwhile, wore a scowl on her LEDs.
“Think about it,” Eric said. “They
never thought we’d put up any sort of a fight. They didn’t bother to consider that we might forcibly take their weapons from them. Or that we’d even have the ability to do so. They thought we would be a thorn in their side, nothing more. And until we can actually reach the swarm, that’s exactly what we’ll remain.”
“You know, it might be faster if we use that captured termite to call home again,” Slate said. “Get them to send in one of those transport vessels. And then we can jump on it or something.”
“If you’ll recall, it was a bit too high to ‘jump’ on,” Dickson said. “Even for a mech. Let’s not push our luck. We proceed east, and if we don’t find an alien base we think we can assault, we continue until we hit Iran. That’s the best we can do for now.”
“Then we’re going to Iran,” Slate said. “Because when we find an alien base, I doubt we’ll be able to assault it.”
“Better pick up the pace, then,” Dickson said.
13
The Bolt Eaters continued at their fastest speed, moving at a blur across the rocky terrain. Occasionally the mountains trended hard south before coming north again, and for the sake of speed, Marlborough chose to travel across the bare desert formed between the two ranges. Doing so caused the Bolt Eaters to leave long plumes of dust in the air behind them. Eric was a little worried the dust would draw attackers, and like the others, he constantly scanned the rocky plains for roving bands of bioweapons. It was always with relief that the team returned to the mountains.
Brontosaurus remained mounted to Slaughter on drag, and he continued to experiment with the wormhole cannon while on the run.
“Okay, just be warned people, I’m going to be creating a few wormholes here, so don’t freak out or anything,” Brontosaurus said.
“I want you to keep well away from the rest of the platoon,” Marlborough said. “As in, a minimum of four hundred meters distance from the drag man.”
“You got it, boss,” Brontosaurus said from the back of Slaughter.
Eric gave control of Slaughter over to Brontosaurus, and the heavy gunner moved the mech to the requested range and began his experiments. Unfortunately, even four hundred meters wasn’t enough to escape the effects of the wormhole, and when Brontosaurus created one, the rest of the team had to dig in so they weren’t dragged back.