by Isaac Hooke
Warning indicators flashed on the HUD. Rade had taken severe damage to his cockpit, and a key servomotor in his left arm was only partially functional. It looked like he had sustained more of a direct impact than the glancing blow he had originally believed.
That massive head was turning toward him, bringing its particle beam to bear.
And then behind the behemoth the Dragonfly emerged from a mid-rise building.
“Come on...” Rade said.
He scrambled to his feet and hurried toward another building to take cover from the expected beam.
But the strike never came in. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw that the massive head had diverted course, moving with unexpected speed to intercept the Dragonfly. It struck the fuselage hard, and the craft pinwheeled away, sending the robots that had managed to cling to the surface spinning into the air.
Rade watched in disappointment as it arced over several of the buildings, finally slamming into a skyscraper three blocks away before vanishing inside, leaving a gaping hole surrounded by a waterfall of fragmented glass.
Nothing is ever easy.
thirty
Algorithm, do you read?” Rade tried.
According to the overhead map, the shuttle, and the telemetry drone attached to it, had embedded within the center of the building.
“I’m here,” Algorithm replied. “However, the Dragonfly is out of action. A few micro robots managed to cling to the fuselage, but I’ve eliminated them with my blaster. Those that I was able to find, anyway—much of the nose is buried in debris. I’m deactivating the magnetic mounts to remove the telemetry drone as we speak, and I’ll try to drag it closer to the rent I’ve torn in the building, for retrieval.”
The other Hoplites were still firing from the various hides they had secured throughout the neighborhood.
“Regroup at that skyscraper!” Rade said. “We’re collecting the telemetry drone!”
Rade retreated from the behemoth, ducking behind a ring of buildings, and then hurried east along the street, taking a circuitous route to the skyscraper. On the overhead map he watched the blue dots of his companions similarly make their way east.
The red dots composing the behemoth were also moving in that direction, as if the giant was intent on thoroughly destroying the shuttle as well. But it looked like the Hoplites would beat the lumbering entity.
Rade reached the base of the skyscraper with Harlequin and Tahoe. He leaped upward and activated his jumpjets to increase the range of the jump. He grabbed onto the corner of the building, then braced his legs against a concrete ledge and vaulted upward again, once more using his jumpjets. In that manner he proceeded up the building, ascending toward the gash the shuttle had carved into the skyscraper.
When he reached the appropriate level, Rade swung his body sideways and jetted away from the edge, toward the hole.
Rade spotted Algorithm inside. The combat robot was dragging the telemetry drone toward the opening via a makeshift harness and a series of carbon fiber cords it had wrapped around the large object.
“I’ll handle it from here,” Rade said, bending over to slide inside the cramped space on the stomach of his mech. The servomotor in his left arm groaned in complaint, fighting against the reduced power output caused by the damage it had taken, but he managed to latch onto the drone. Algorithm hastily removed the harness as Rade pulled the drone toward the opening.
Rade passed the telemetry craft to Harlequin’s mech, which waited outside, clinging to the exterior next to Tahoe’s Hoplite.
Harlequin released the building, as did Tahoe, and together they plunged back toward the street.
Rade extricated himself from the confines of the building, and glanced across the city toward the behemoth. From his current height, he readily spotted the approaching behemoth. The turret on its head was directed toward the skyscraper.
Rade frantically reached back inside the building and grabbed Algorithm, then he leaped from the opening.
The particle beam tore into the building above him, cutting it in two. The upper half toppled, the frame of glass and steel plunging directly toward him as he descended.
Rade jetted to the side and out of the path of the debris. He landed on the asphalt, then held Algorithm over his shoulder. The Centurion clambered from his large hand and into the passenger seat without further instruction.
“Secure!” Algorithm said.
Rade turned toward Tahoe and Harlequin, who had landed their mechs nearby. Harlequin’s Hoplite carried the telemetry drone overhead in both arms.
“Is the antenna still functional?” Rade asked.
“It is,” Surus answered. “I’m able to fully modulate the quantum Slipstream interference.”
“Then we carry in the telemetry drone manually!” Rade said. “Surus, transmit the necessary targeting information to our mechs, so we know where we have to place that drone.”
Green indicators overlaid both his vision and overhead map, showing precisely where the drone had to be deployed behind the neck of the incoming behemoth in order for the Slipstream interference to override the command and control core.
“Bender, Manic,” Rade sent. “Stay close to Harlequin! Protect him! Tahoe, Surus, take the lead, twenty-five meters ahead. Fret, TJ, you have the left side, twenty-five meters out. I’ll take the right with Lui.”
The Hoplites assumed their places in the formation.
“Proceed!” Rade sent.
The group raced forward to intercept the behemoth, weaving between the intact buildings of the neighborhood.
“We’ve got contact!” Tahoe said after rounding a bend. “New tangos... walker robots of some kind! We have to take cover!”
Rade reached the edge of the building bordering the adjacent street and he dropped, aiming past at the new red dots that appeared closer at hand, ahead of the behemoth.
He saw the smaller, mech-sized robots that Tahoe mentioned. They looked like walker units, with two long legs situated underneath a boxlike torso from which a single turret protruded. Rade couldn’t see any actual beams fired from those turrets, and deduced that they were lasers. He saw several crisscrossing seams in the hulls, indicating where the micro robots had joined together to create the larger forms.
Rade glanced at the incoming behemoth behind those walkers; the giant robot fired its particle beam down at the Hoplites in that moment; Fret and TJ had assumed a position on the rooftop across the street, but they were forced to abandon it as the beam came in, dropping to the asphalt below as they fled.
“Electron, keep an eye on that behemoth,” Rade told his local AI. “If that particle beam bears down on us, move!”
“Understood,” Electron replied.
Remaining in cover behind the building edge, Rade switched to the viewpoint of his scope, and centered the targeting reticle of his cobra at one of the distant walkers. He squeezed the trigger; he was certain he had impacted, but the robot didn’t even respond. It was like Rade hadn’t even hit the thing. Likely the micro robots composing the walker had already repositioned to repair the damage he might have caused.
Rade would have switched to his grenade launcher, but the range was too far.
He ducked behind the building as several of those walkers turned their turrets toward him, and he swung his shield into place for protection.
Abruptly Electron took control of the unit, racing him away from the building as a particle beam from the behemoth came in.
Rade jetted upward, landing on a nearby rooftop that afforded him a view of the street, and crouched behind a superstructure. Lui landed not far from him. After confirming that the behemoth’s attention was no longer focused on him, Rade inched his way forward, and aimed past the rooftop rim and into the street.
The walkers were still approaching. Rade fired again, but his laser still seemed to cause no damage.
Well this isn’t going to work.
“There’s too many of them!” Lui said.
From a building up a
head, Bender abruptly dropped down into the street, smashing into one of the enemy units. The walker broke into its constituent micro robots, which fanned across the asphalt—they were inactive thanks to the interference antennae installed on the Hoplite.
“Cover Bender!” Rade said.
Bender held his shield toward the remaining walkers and frantically moved from robot to robot, plowing into them one at a time, causing them to dissolve in turn.
The behemoth had moved forward over the past few moments, and was nearly on top of Bender’s mech.
Bender made a mistake then, and turned toward the behemoth. One of its limbs was coming crashing down toward him.
“Bender, watch the limb!” Rade said.
It smashed into the Hoplite, burying Juggernaut.
Bender’s blue dot vanished from the overhead map.
“No,” Rade said.
The man was gone.
Gone!
No time to mourn.
Rade glanced at the street in front of the behemoth. There were only two walkers left.
“Bender has cleared the way!” Rade sent. “Proceed!”
Tahoe and Surus hurried forward, as did Harlequin and Manic. Rade, Lui, Fret and TJ bounded along on either side of them, jetting from rooftop to rooftop.
The remaining Argonauts rapidly closed with the behemoth. Its massive body occluded the particle beam from view, preventing the giant robot from firing it at them. Instead, more walker units began to materialize from the loose array of micro robots forming the behemoth’s lower limbs.
The Argonauts unleashed grenades now that they were in range, and the impacts brought down the walkers. Temporarily, anyway—new ones continually formed.
Tahoe, Surus, Manic and Harlequin jetted onto a nearby building, then fired their jumpjets again to thrust even higher, passing near the head of the behemoth. They fired grenades at the particle beam turret.
Rade, Lui, Fret and TJ leaped off of their current buildings and joined the others, thrusting past the head, and firing their grenades to distract the robot.
The behemoth rotated its neck frantically, trying to protect its particle beam weapon from the attack.
Good, let it think the particle beam is our target.
Harlequin and Manic thrust behind the neck. Harlequin must have directed the antenna of the telemetry drone downward, probably with Surus’ guidance, because a moment later a debilitating shockwave passed outward from the base of the neck, running along the micro robots composing the unit. When it reached the extremities, the giant began to disassemble, collapsing into a pile of disabled robots. The walker units that had formed up along the street around it similarly collapsed.
“My sensors are detecting what I believe are the AI cores,” Surus said.
She dove Sprint into that pile, vanishing. She emerged a moment later, jetting skyward and sending up a spray of disabled micro robots before landing on the street. She held two man-sized cylindrical objects in either hand of the mech. One was surrounded by green condensation, the other purple.
The AI cores responsible for the operation of the giant robot, no doubt. Rade’s hunch had been correct, then.
Sprint’s cockpit hatch fell open, and Surus, wearing her jumpsuit, swung down to the storage compartment in the mech’s leg and grabbed the stun rifle. The two Phants were beginning to ooze out toward the ground by that point, but when she fired at each in turn, the liquid forms snapped back inside, retreating into the cores Sprint still held.
“Mission complete,” Surus said.
“Shaw,” Rade transmitted. “Send down the second shuttle.” They had stored the Phant trap inside earlier, a glass container that would hold the alien entities without requiring Surus to repeatedly fire her stun rifle at them.
“What about Bender?” Manic said.
Rade was already hurrying toward the crumpled limb that had stomped on Bender’s mech. The others soon joined him, and they began digging into the inactive micro robots.
“Found something,” Fret said.
He produced a body from the mass of robots. The skin was charred black so that Rade couldn’t tell if it was Bender or not.
“Is that him?” Lui asked.
“The public profile isn’t responding,” Fret said. “Probably because it’s been eaten away. But who else could it be?”
“No,” Manic said. His Hoplite dropped to its knees.
Rade felt like dropping too.
“Where’s his mech?” Tahoe asked.
“Obviously his antenna failed,” Fret said. “And the bots dissolved his Hoplite. They got him. I can’t believe it.”
“Why does he looked burned?” Tahoe said.
“A fire in his cockpit, caused by the micro bots?” Lui said. The sadness was obvious in his voice.
Rade sat down, shellshocked. He stared into space.
“Rade, are you all right?” Shaw sent.
“I just—” Rade said. “I just need a moment.”
He reviewed the battle in his mind, trying to figure out what he had done wrong. There were many things. Too many.
Rade heard a crunching behind him. One of the Hoplites was approaching, its large feet crushing the micro robots below.
The footsteps paused.
A familiar voice came over the comm: “Da fuck all you bitches looking at?”
Rade turned around in surprise. It was Bender, aboard Juggernaut. The mech was beat up and dented all over, but otherwise intact.
“Bender!” Manic rose, and raced over to him. “You’re all right!”
“No shit, bitch. Quit hopping around like a crazed jackrabbit, you’re giving me the willies.”
“Then who’s this?” Fret beckoned toward the dead body cradled in his large metallic hand.
“Hell if I know,” Bender said.
“I’ve completed a preliminary scan,” Harlequin said. “It appears to be an Artificial. I believe it was either the host used by Alton, or Corunna. Or what was left of that host after atmospheric entry.”
“Good of you to tell me that now,” Fret tossed the body aside in disgust.
“What happened to you, brother?” TJ said. “You disappeared off all of our maps when that thing stepped on you.”
Rade glanced at his overhead map. Bender’s blue dot was back, of course.
“I landed on a manhole cover,” Bender said. “It and the surrounding pavement collapsed under me. Couldn’t take the weight of all that crap bearing down on me, I ‘spose. I fell into the goddamn sewer.”
“That could certainly cut him off from communications,” Lui said. “Depending on the materials composing the walls of the sewer.”
“He’s gone and covered himself in feces,” Fret said. “As usual.”
“Whoa,” Manic said. “No wonder he reeks. And he hasn’t even taken off his undergarments yet.”
“It was like sewage evolution back in bootcamp down there,” Bender said. “Not something I recommend.”
“This has nothing to do with bootcamp,” Fret said. “Your ass is merely opening up in anticipation at the prospect of Manic’s touch.”
“Yeah skinny bitch, that’s right,” Bender said.
“Good to have you back, Bender.” Rade surveyed the ruins of the surrounding buildings. “Well, looks like we’ve got a bit of a search and rescue operation to perform here. Lui, Tahoe, escort Surus to the incoming shuttle, and ensure the two Phants are contained aboard. The rest of you, let’s make our way to the colony’s downtown. It’s time to start digging out survivors.”
thirty-one
The colony’s search and rescue robots joined the Hoplites and helped scour through the collapsed buildings for survivors. Other residents began to trickle in from the countryside, and joined in the efforts. By nightfall Rade and his companions had helped rescue twelve people buried in the rubble. Rade and the others continued working through the night, but only rescued one other person.
In the morning, the Russian governor thanked Rade and the Argonauts f
or their help, and told him that his teams would take over from there. Rade knew the likelihood of finding anyone else still alive was extremely low by that point, so he returned to the booster rockets with his team and they launched into orbit.
The Argonaut made its way toward the closest star to deposit the two Phants into their permanent prison in the core of the sun. The ship had no missiles to use for the act, so Surus used the 3D printers to come up with a suitable substitute, siphoning off some of the Argonaut’s propellant to act as fuel. Brat had succeeded in melting down the swarm of deactivated micro robots still aboard, which provided the raw materials for the printer. The leftover matter was used by the repair drones to provide a temporary plug for the hull breaches, which would hopefully last until the next dry dock. Once the Argonaut was within range of the star, the plan was to load the Phant trap inside the substitute missile, and then lob it into the corona.
Rade found himself spending much of his time in the sickbay gazing at the twins. Neither had awakened, yet. The Weavers had already performed some of the surgical operations needed to deal with the pre-term complications, and so far the babies were healthy.
Rade still couldn’t believe he was a father. He had helped create these tiny beings, and now it was his responsibility to raise them to become good people. He wasn’t sure he was up to the task. How could any parent be?
Shaw usually joined him, thankfully, reminding him that the burden wouldn’t be his alone. He didn’t think he would have been able to do it, without her.
One evening, about two days out from the star, shortly after Rade and Shaw arrived in the sickbay, Surus joined them. Her hair was tucked into a ponytail, like Shaw’s, and she wore similar fatigues, though hers were more figure-accentuating. One might almost think they were related, were it not for Shaw’s olive skin versus Surus’ pale features.
“How are the twins?” Surus asked.
“Good,” Shaw replied.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Surus said. “New life, and how it begins, always fascinates me. And my kind in general. We are so long lived, we barely remember our own entrance into this universe.”