by Isaac Hooke
Listening to his own advice, Rade deployed his shield and held it behind him as he ran in a zigzag fashion. He dodged behind another large column as a second behemoth opened fire with its particle weapon. The column toppled behind him.
“Shaw, fire the Vipers at these things from orbit,” Rade ordered.
“I’ve been firing already,” Shaw said. “Concentrating the beams into a single unit. I’ve been able to drill small holes right through them as far as I can tell. But the tiny robots composing them simply reform around any damage.”
“Keep firing,” Rade said. “Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“I also have a volley of Hellfires coming in next,” Shaw said. “Though the results will probably be similarly unspectacular.”
Flashes came from behind, indicating the Hellfire impacts. Rade saw fragments erupt from the behemoths where the missiles detonated, leaving gaping holes. Those fragments were simply reabsorbed into the main body as they fell back onto the behemoths in question, and the blast holes soon refilled as fresh robots rose to the surface.
“Well this mission isn’t quite working out the way we expected, is it?” Lui said.
According to the overhead map, the Hoplites weren’t making much headway. Despite their massive size, the behemoths were able to easily maintain their distance. It didn’t help matters that the team members had to move from cover to cover, which prevented them from advancing as fast as they otherwise might have.
“What’s the plan?” Tahoe said.
“Eventually we’re going to have to make our way around to the booster rockets,” Rade said.
“What’s the point?” TJ said. “As soon as we launch, we’ll be completely exposed to their particle beam attacks. Even with evasive maneuvers, not more than a few of us will make it. As long as we stay down here, at least we have a chance of surviving.”
“Could the Argonaut pick us up directly?” Fret asked.
“Ha,” Lui said. “Just because the planet doesn’t have an atmosphere, doesn’t mean our Marauder class ship can land. It can do a low level flyby, sure, but then the Argonaut will be exposing itself to those particle beams. Besides, we’ll probably exhaust all our jumpjet fuel reaching the altitude necessary for pickup. Assuming the behemoths don’t shoot us down beforehand.”
“What about the shuttles?” Fret said. “We could leave our cockpits momentarily, and quickly transfer to the shuttles in our jumpsuits before we suffer too much heat damage.”
“That’s probably our best choice,” Rade said, taking cover behind a rocky overhang as the third behemoth fired its particle beam. The basalt beside him vanished, leaving him exposed, and he dashed forward once more. “We’d have to stay low once we boarded, hugging the terrain until we were well away from the behemoths and their particle beams.”
“Um, you’ll have to belay that,” Shaw said. “It seems the shuttles are having problems.”
“Problems, what do you mean?”
Algorithm answered. “We believe Corunna installed a time bomb virus of some kind. The controls are currently inoperative. We should have a fix in under ten minutes.”
“I’m not sure we can wait that long,” Rade said.
“What about the Skeeters at the base?” Tahoe said.
Rade glanced at the overhead map. “According to Shaw’s orbital data, a large portion of the swarm is proceeding directly there. There won’t be a Russian research station left by the time we arrive.”
“We could send forth a decoy,” Lui said. “Have a pilot give up his Hoplite, and instead share a mech with someone else. We instruct the vacated Hoplite to continue forward, while the rest of us hide behind nearby columns. Then once the enemy passes, we turn around and rush toward the booster rockets, launching when the enemy is too far away to target us.”
“That won’t be easy,” Tahoe said. “Take a look at the ground underneath them. With each step, swarms of the tiny robots flow out onto the terrain, seeping behind every column and into every crevice. Those robots rejoin the main body when one of the aft appendages passes by, allowing the behemoths to avoid losing too many of their constituent parts. We’d have to find a hiding place very far away while our decoy went forward. And that’s going to be tricky, if not impossible, with the three of them tracking us.”
“Maybe we can mount them somehow?” Manic said. “Leap onto their backs, and fire into their necks or something from close range?”
“You nuts, bitch?” Bender said. “We land on their backs, the robot dust bunnies are going to swarm all over us and swallow us up. Didn’t you see what they did to the exploration vehicle back in the cave? They touched it, and it was toast.”
“There’s another option,” Rade swerved sideways to avoid another launched particle beam.
“We’re listening,” Lui said.
“If we continue to head north...” Rade said.
“You’re not planning what I think you’re planning, are you?” Tahoe said.
“The temperate zone only extends a few more kilometers,” Rade said. “Beyond that, the lava oceans begin.”
“Yes, he’s planning what I’m thinking,” Tahoe said.
“The boss intends to take us into the day side of this planet?” Harlequin asked.
“You got it,” Tahoe said.
“That would be a mistake,” Harlequin said. “Our mechs aren’t designed to operate in such extreme environments. On the day side, the Hoplites will last perhaps five minutes. Shortly thereafter, critical systems will begin to fail: servomotors will overheat, camera lenses melt, boards short-circuit. In another five minutes the hull itself will start to melt. And if we attempt to leave our cockpits at any time, we’ll die, our jumpsuits catching fire and burning away within moments of exposure.”
“Yes,” Rade said. “But if we have trouble out there, you can only imagine how much trouble our enemy will have.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” Lui said.
“We have some heat armor,” Rade said. He dodged behind a pillar another behemoth fired. “But I haven’t seen any indication that these robots do.”
“Actually we have seen indications,” Lui said. “Look at how well the robots have held up to the heat of the temperate zone.”
“While that’s true,” Rade began. A crag in front of him collapsed as it took a particle beam blow, and he used his jumpjets to skirt over it before he continued. “I still don’t believe the minimal amount of armor they have will be enough to protect them from the day side.”
“Well, their ship certainly survived,” TJ said.
“Yes, but that ship was heavily armored,” Rade said. “We’re talking several meters Surus had to seep through. Isn’t that right, Surus?”
“It took me eight meters to pass through the propellant nozzle and into the interior of the ship, yes,” Surus said.
“There you go,” Rade said.
“Okay,” Lui began. “But keep in mind how readily these robots seem able to assume new forms. When the heat rises, maybe the swarm will simply rearrange to form the equivalent of a heavily-armored outer layer, protecting its main body.”
“Well, either way, you can’t tell me something as massive as that can swim?” Rade said.
“You never know, they might transform themselves into a hundred boats or something,” Tahoe said.
“And we ourselves can’t swim...” Lui said. “These Hoplites aren’t like the transforming hydrodynamic Titans Surus lent us during the alien empress mission.”
“No, they’re not,” Rade said, dodging the latest particle beam attack. “But I’m hoping we won’t have to swim. According to the map produced by Shaw in orbit, several small islands reside near the shoreline. It’s essentially an archipelago out there. Perfect for our needs.”
“Assuming our jumpjets last long enough to carry us between those islands,” TJ said.
“Hey, I have an idea,” Fret said. “We could make our way to the Dragonflies instead? And hope the two combat robots have the shuttles
up and running by the time we arrive?”
“Algorithm, what’s your status?” Rade said.
“Err,” Algorithm said. “I may have underestimated the difficulty of removing this virus. We’re still working on it. Estimated extraction time is now thirty minutes.”
“There’s your answer, Fret,” Rade said. “I’ve made up my mind. We proceed forward, to the day side!”
thirteen
Rade and the others continued toward the day side, dodging the enemy attacks. The temperature steadily rose, climbing from the original one hundred and seventy degrees to two fifty and rising. Ahead, the edges of the blue and white binary suns ascended the horizon; the surface there glowed a bright orange. The photochromatic filters in Rade’s display had already activated, reducing the amount of blinding light that reached his eyes.
As they approached, the orange swath on the horizon grew to what seemed a lake, and then an ocean. The Hoplites were about four hundred meters away from the leading edge. The temperature had reached five hundred degrees, and included the combined heat from the sun and that radiated from the obsidian below.
Lava waves lapped the distant shoreline. Rade saw small islands of superheated rock floating within the lava ocean. Those islands were perfect for his needs, since most could readily hold the Hoplites, but were far too small to contain the behemoths. At the very least, the giants would have to change form to pursue them, and likely lose their particle weapons.
Unfortunately, there was a small problem. In a hundred meters, the random line of basalt columns ended entirely, leaving only a flat plain between the edge of the columns and the start of the lava ocean three hundred meters away.
“Uh,” Lui said. “We’re going to be exposed once we reach that beach.”
“We’ll be exposed when we reach the islands anyway,” Fret said.
“You’ll notice that the enemy particle beams only fire once every fifty-five seconds or so,” Harlequin said. “Perhaps we can use that to our advantage.”
“A recharge interval?” Rade said.
“I believe so,” Harlequin replied.
“All right, we proceed to the edge,” Rade said. “Then we bait the enemy into firing their particle beams. Then we make a run for the islands during the recharge interval.”
“And when the fifty-five seconds come around again?” Tahoe said.
“Then we use our jumpjets and evade as best we can,” Rade said. “We draw them out into the lava. Force them to change forms.”
As the Hoplites approached the last of those basalt columns, grayish matter began to fall from the skies like a thick dust.
“It’s almost like I’m visiting my cousins in Alaska!” Manic said. “We got snow. And a cozy lava ocean...”
“That’s not snow, that’s rock,” Tahoe said. “Silicate rain caused by the condensation of the vaporized rock spewed into the air by the oceans.”
“Sexy,” Manic said.
“Now you can tell all your friends you’ve witnessed rock rain, bitches,” Bender said.
“Another item I can check off my bucket list!” Manic said.
“Didn’t know you had it on there,” Fret said.
“Neither did I,” Manic retorted.
Another particle beam came in, vaporizing the basalt just behind Rade.
Fifty-five seconds until that one recharges. Just need to trigger the other two, now.
Rade reached the edge of the beach and took cover behind one of the last basalt pillars. The other Hoplites did the same with structures nearby. The beach rock glowed a brownish red from the heat. In the sky, the binary suns had risen a quarter way above the horizon.
The temperature was six hundred degrees.
Rade noticed that the hull of his mech was starting to change color as well. At first he thought it was because the camouflage skin was matching the beach below, but then he realized that the red was slightly deeper in hue than the rock surface, because the hull was glowing from the extreme heat.
“The hull has reached the Draper point,” Electron said. “Recommend turning back at the first opportunity.” The Draper point defined the temperature at which all solid objects visibly glowed as a result of blackbody radiation.
“Not yet,” Rade said.
“It’s going to get hotter yet, boys and girls!” Bender said. “Just the way I like it.”
“We have about five minutes until components begin to fail,” Harlequin said. “Though of course, there’s always a chance something could malfunction before then. And as I mentioned, our hulls will begin to melt five minutes after that.”
“You know that lead melts at five hundred degrees, right?” Lui said.
“Good thing our hulls aren’t made of lead, then,” TJ said.
“And lead doesn’t have the cooling systems we do,” Tahoe said.
“Cooling systems that are working overtime,” Lui said. “And when they fail, that’s it.”
Rade peered past the cover of the pillar, and gazed at the approaching behemoths.
“Ah, damn it!” Tahoe said. “We’re sinking into the rock! It’s like molten mud or something!”
Rade realized that Tahoe was correct. “Don’t stand in the same place for too long!”
He slowly walked backward, his feet sinking slightly into the surface with each step.
“Come on, we have to trigger the remaining two behemoths,” Rade said.
He left cover, running toward the next closest pillar. Tahoe and Bender joined him. His metal feet continued to sink slightly, and it made the going sluggish.
The two behemoths that hadn’t fired yet did so in that moment; Rade swerved to the left, reaching the column he had in mind. Behind him, a small crater was left in his wake. He checked the vitals on his HUD to confirm that everyone else had made it.
“Did they both fire?” Rade said.
“They did,” Surus said.
Since the first behemoth had fired about fifteen seconds ago, that left forty seconds before the robots could unleash the particle beam again.
“Let’s go!” Rade said. “To the ocean!”
Rade broke from cover and raced across the beach toward the orange waves.
“Can’t believe I’m doing this,” Fret said.
“Hey, it’s for the bucket list, remember,” Manic said. “Now you can tell your grandchildren you surfed a lava ocean.”
“Don’t think we’re doing any surfing here, bro,” Lui said.
“Let alone any surviving!” Fret added.
The brownish red surface became a dark red as Rade ran. Electron’s feet began to sink deeper... Rade was beginning to think this was a mistake.
Can’t turn back now...
“Use your jumpjets!” Rade said. He released short bursts as he sprinted, lifting free of the surface each time.
The surface turned a bright red, and then he reached the edge; Rade jetted across the large swath of orange lava below, and used up much of his jumpjet fuel.
As he came down toward the red island, he concluded that the ballistic shields would hold up a lot better than the feet of the mechs.
“Deploy your shields!” Rade said. “Land on them!”
He held the shield underneath him like a sled as he landed on the red island, and laid his body flat on its surface. He continued applying jumpjets bursts to propel himself forward.
“Guess we’re surfing after all!” Manic said.
“Or bodyboarding at least,” Lui said.
“Semantics,” Manic said.
According to Rade’s HUD, the temperate had risen to nine hundred degrees.
Electron abruptly fired lateral thrust, shifting the Hoplite’s motion to the left.
“Wha—” Rade began.
And then he saw the large chunk that had vanished from the ground behind and to his right. Electron had steered him from a particle beam impact.
In fifteen seconds two more particle beams came in, and the Hoplites narrowly avoided both of them as they bodyboarded across th
e rock.
Rade glanced at his rear view feed as he crossed the island, and he saw the first behemoth reach the lava ocean. It walked right in, and as he watched the thing vanished beneath the surface entirely. It emerged a moment later, obviously struggling to clamber out, its exterior seeming to lose cohesion and melt as it did so. It vanished beneath the lava ocean before it reached shore.
“Score!” Bender said. “Scratch one unicorn bitch!”
The other two behemoths started to turn around, attempting to retreat from the deadly shoreline. But then they, too, began to falter and lose cohesion, reverting back to their swarm state as the constituent robots fell apart. The swarm members rushed away across the glowing rock, trying to flee the heat, but those black masses soon began to become stuck in the red rock, sinking slightly. Those in the rear clambered over the bodies of those that were lodged, only to become stuck themselves. The enemy was done.
“Around!” Rade said. “Turn around! Go back, Argonauts!”
Rade applied lateral thrust so that he was accelerating across the island and toward the shore. He just hoped it wasn’t too late.
Manic led the way. Rade and the others continued to fire their jumpjets, steering their Hoplites over the red rock on their shields. The mechs were glowing white hot by that point.
Rade reached the island’s edge and fired his jumpjets to take him into the air. He watched his jumpjet fuel drop precariously on his HUD as he jetted across the lava ocean, and quickly realized he wasn’t going to have enough to make it. But if he saved the rest of his fuel, and used it to help bodyboard across...
“Don’t have enough fuel,” Rade said. “I’m going to have to surf the lava. Wish me luck.”
Rade landed in the thick of the ocean, firing his aft thrust to carry him forward. He caught an orange wave and rode it. The shield held.
This might actually work.
He saw other Argonauts doing the same behind him. He glanced at their fuel levels on his HUD. All of those Hoplites that rode the ocean also had dangerously low fuel levels. Good: they weren’t doing this because they thought it was fun, but because they had to. Even so, he wouldn’t have put it past any of them to ride the lava waves merely for the novelty factor, dangerous as it was.