ATLAS 3 (ATLAS Series Book 3)

by Isaac Hooke

  “That didn’t work out quite the way I expected,” Facehopper sent.

  Bomb stood up. Another bout of liquid drizzled down from the ceiling on to him. We all swiveled our Gats upward, but nothing further emerged from the egg. Bomb stepped his mech out of the way, cursing over the comm.

  I kept my gaze on the ceiling, scanning the other white ovules, looking for signs of activity, but everything else seemed quiet up there.

  Facehopper struggled with the larva for a few moments, twisting and pulling at it as Bomb had done. Then he gave up. “Well, I’m open to ideas here, mates.”

  Mauler swiveled an incendiary thrower into his right arm. “What about some liquid fire?”

  “Go for it,” Facehopper sent. “Just a tiny burst, though. Try not to harm the thing.”

  “Oh, I see, now that you’re the one who’s affected, weapons are okay,” Bomb transmitted grumpily.

  “I did say just a tiny burst,” Facehopper returned.

  “Well I’ll do it, then.” Bomb shoved Mauler’s mech aside and carefully aimed his own incendiary thrower at the larva. He loosed a minute spray of jellied gasoline, which landed squarely in the middle of the creature.

  Unfortunately for the larva, the yellow slime coating its body seemed to be flammable, and the alien positively ignited upon contact with the flame.

  The creature released Facehopper with a loud squeal and landed on the cave floor. Fed by the oxygen content of the air, the flames continued to burn, and the larva convulsed, repeatedly bending and folding its body. It loosed one last terrible shriek before finally dying.

  A charred, organic mess was all that remained as the flames went out. I was reminded of a human body after a Phant was done with it.

  “Whoops,” Bomb transmitted. He backed away, raising his metal hands defensively.

  “Relax, Bomb,” Facehopper sent. “I’m not blaming you. I gave the order. What’s done is done. And you did free my mech.”

  I heard a chittering in the distance then. It made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

  “Facehopper, listen,” I transmitted.

  Facehopper remained motionless, cocking the head of his ATLAS 5. Then: “Defensive positions! Arrowhead formation!”

  We took our places.

  “TJ, send Bicentennial Man forward. And have Lead Foot guard our rear.”

  I watched the green dots of the two Centurions move to the fore and aft of our formation; the combat robots halted within signal range.

  The chittering grew louder.

  I switched to Bicentennial Man’s perspective.

  Up ahead, crabs piled out of a massive, dark hole on the far side of the cavern. Thick cords trailed behind them, linking them to an as-yet-unseen slug. Sharp spikes armored their black carapaces. Each crab had eight pairs of legs, with pincers and crushing mandibles on all sides. Through their black, semitranslucent skin I could discern hell-black hearts beating inside. The oxygen in the air bound with their blood and turned their hearts black—that was my theory, anyway, because when I’d first encountered these crabs in an oxygenless environment, their hearts had been red.

  I remembered that first time so clearly. I had been so afraid back then. Unsure of what to expect. I had worn only a jumpsuit, and for a weapon I’d carried a mere heavy gun. Even so, I had mowed down dozens of them before the Phants came and killed Big Dog.

  I still felt fear now, but it was controlled. Constrained. I could focus, think clearly. It helped that I was locked away within the cockpit of a mighty ATLAS 5.

  The horde advanced undeterred toward the combat robot, despite the fact that Bicentennial Man carried the same EM emitting technology as the rest of us.

  I guess killing a baby alien marked us as enemies regardless of whether we gave off the same EM signatures as Phants. It was probably a little obvious by then: ATLAS mechs carrying nuclear payloads into a cave system otherwise dominated by organic lifeforms?

  You would stand out, too.

  The crabs continued toward us, the mandibles on their multiple heads flexing angrily.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Rade

  The hull all around us glowed a bright red. It reflected from our faceplates, casting our features in crimson. The bogey’s coronal weapon was prepping to fire, or maybe it already had and the kickback hadn’t reached us yet. Either way, the excess plasma vent we stood inside of was about to become the blast furnace we had all dreaded. The core temperature of my suit had already jumped twenty degrees.

  Skullcracker was still trapped, his leg swallowed by the three hull pipes. Bender, Manic, and Chief Bourbonjack yanked at his arm assemblies, but despite the team’s strength-enhanced exoskeletons, they couldn’t free him.

  “Breacher!” Chief transmitted.

  Snakeoil rushed forward. He held the tip of the plasma cutter to one of the glowing pipes that gripped Skullcracker. The instant Snakeoil activated the cutter, the pipe uncoiled, releasing Skullcracker as if afraid of the highly focused energy beam.

  Snakeoil shot the Chief a confused expression, and then returned his attention to the task at hand. He reactivated the cutter and the other pipes that clutched Skullcracker yielded before the energy beam even touched them.

  Skullcracker’s leg was free—Bender, Manic, and the Chief were finally able to hoist him from the hull.

  Snakeoil stepped back and the pipes gradually moved back into place.

  I quickly surveyed the brightening area around us and wondered if another section would open up and swallow anyone else. My eyes were drawn back to Skullcracker. Blood misted in pulses from multiple breaches in his suit below the knee. His vitals dipped. The skin and muscle of his leg would expand outward to plug the tears in the suit, which was good, because it saved his life in that moment, but also bad in the long run because it sucked the blood from his body.

  “I want his leg patched and his suit sealed!” the Chief bellowed over the comm. “And Snakeoil, cut us that opening! We need to get inside, now!”

  Under the light of the glowing hull, Bender and Manic hurriedly retrieved patches from Skullcracker’s suit-rep kit and sealed the multiple tears below the knee region of his jumpsuit. Bender used a SealWrap funnel to secure his glove to the fabric, and with the surgical laser embedded in the hand assembly, he enlarged one tear so that he could directly apply skin seals to the tissue underneath.

  Meanwhile Snakeoil worked on the hull with his plasma cutter. Just like before, whenever he brought the high-energy tip to the surface, the nearby pipes reflexively folded away, like living entities trying to avoid pain. It didn’t make much sense to me; these glowing pipes produced superheated plasma, and yet they seemed afraid of a simple energy cutter? Perhaps it was part of some self-defense mechanism to avoid damage from external particles or weapons.

  Whatever the case, Snakeoil was able to bore a passage through the half-meter-thick hull merely by swinging the cutter in a wide, ever-deepening circle. At the bottom of the shaft he was making, the beginnings of a dark hole leading to the inside appeared; there was no explosive decompression, which meant the inner chamber had no atmosphere.

  When Snakeoil deactivated the plasma cutter, the edges of the hole slowly contracted as if to reseal the gap. It was an evil-looking orifice if I ever saw one, those pitch-black insides surrounded by a shrinking, red-white rim.

  “Breached, Chief!” Snakeoil said.

  Around me, the hull was becoming blindingly bright, with the heat inside my jumpsuit bordering on the unbearable.

  “Lui, go!” the Chief said.

  Lui dove through the gap. The moment he passed inside, he slid upward and out of view as if caught by the current of some rushing river—or a gravity field that ran at right angles to the hull.

  I tried to access Lui’s aReal, wanting to switch to his viewpoint, but I couldn’t initiate a connection through the interference c
aused by the hull.

  The hole had shrunk considerably. Snakeoil knelt, circling the cutter around the perimeter to widen the gap once more.

  Meanwhile, Bender and Manic finished with Skullcracker. Using the injection slots on Skullcracker’s gloves, Bender gave him a final painkiller and pick-me-up cocktail, allowing Skullcracker to rise unsteadily.

  Chief Bourbonjack gestured for Manic and Bender to leap into the gap. They did so.

  Snakeoil rewidened the hole again, compensating for the ever-shrinking rim.

  Around us, the area was quickly becoming an oven.

  The Chief turned toward Skullcracker. “Inside!”

  Skullcracker gritted his teeth and took a tentative, limping step forward.

  “Too slow!” The Chief wrapped his arms around Skullcracker and dove into the opening with him. “Follow—” the Chief transmitted to the rest of us before he was cut off.

  Snakeoil made the hole extra large for Hijak and me, circling the plasma cutter three times around the border of the gap to make room for the payload we gripped.

  “Go!” Snakeoil transmitted, stepping back.

  The hole was just wide enough to fit the warhead—we porters would have to carry it through in single file. Hijak and I positioned ourselves accordingly.

  By now the surface was so blinding that the brightness filters in my helmet had kicked in. Those filters didn’t stop the heat, unfortunately, and sweat streamed down my cheeks and ribs in profusion. My flushed face throbbed in sync with every sluggish heartbeat.

  Hijak went first, leaping into the shrinking hole. His weight, and the weight of the payload, dragged me forward.

  When the payload was halfway through the gap, the device abruptly jerked sideways, drawn by the horizontal artificial gravity field within, and I was literally yanked inside after it.

  The blinding glow was replaced with darkness as I plunged through. I felt the G forces of the gravitational field immediately; it took a moment of disorientation before I realized I was falling.

  “Autopilot: stabilize and break fall!” I said into my helmet.

  The brightness filters in my faceplate deactivated; light from my headlamp reflected from a bulkhead right in front of me, replacing the darkness with the blur of my descent.

  The G forces abruptly shifted as the other end of the payload pivoted outward and away from the bulkhead. Hijak’s jetpacks were firing to slow his fall.

  “Autopilot—”

  My autopilot finally took control and the gyroscopic stabilizers fired, swinging my body around and reorienting my feet toward the deck below. I had to switch hands on the payload handle because otherwise the motion would have wrenched my arm from its socket.

  The vertical jets on my suit engaged, rapidly slowing my descent. The flow rate increased to equalize my end of the warhead with Hijak’s.

  The Chief and Skullcracker moved out of the way below and in seconds we hit, rather hard. The payload was ripped out of our grasps and smashed into the deck.

  Without warning Snakeoil landed on top of the warhead, making me jump.

  I glanced up. Far above, the red-bordered hole Snakeoil had cut into the ceiling gave off the only light, and in seconds it spiraled shut. Before it sealed entirely, a bright cloud of plasma vented into the compartment.

  My squad brothers and I instinctively dropped.

  I ducked my head, covering my helmet with my hands.

  Nothing happened. I glanced up. The cloud had dissipated before reaching us.

  Above, the red-bordered hole was gone and there remained only darkness.

  The temperature within my jumpsuit was quickly normalizing.

  We’d successfully breached the alien vessel.

  I stood up. The cone of light from my headlamp didn’t penetrate far into the darkness. I saw only the latticed bulkhead beside me, which silently undulated, and the deck immediately below, whose convoluted pipes formed a static gangway of sorts that we could actually stand on without our boots getting snagged.

  “Gravity is 1.05 G,” Snakeoil sent over the comm. “Not sure why these aliens would generate an internal gravity field and then not bother with an atmosphere to go with it.”

  “If they really conquered hundreds of other species,” Lui transmitted, “there’s no way they could provide a common atmosphere for all of them. But one common thing they could provide was gravity.”

  “They’d have to pick those species capable of surviving 1.05 G,” Snakeoil sent.

  “They would,” Lui agreed. “Maybe it’s a common gravitational level associated with life galaxywide.”

  “Save the speculation for the postmission debriefing,” Chief Bourbonjack transmitted. “Skullcracker, how’s the leg?”

  “I can walk,” Skullcracker sent back.

  “Good. Because you’re going to be on your feet for quite some time.” The Chief turned toward Snakeoil. “How far to the Observer Mind’s energy signature?”

  The Observer Mind sent out periodic EM pulses, or pings, that could be traced. The signal source was indistinct outside the vessel, and vaguely pointed to the central region of the Skull Ship. But now that we were inside we should have a far more accurate reading.

  I glanced at my HUD map. The unexplored region of the ship ahead of us was shown as a large black mass. Far inside that mass a blue waypoint flashed, indicating the latest calculated position of the Observer Mind.

  “A long way, Chief,” Snakeoil said. “Roughly two days, at an optimistic pace of six miles an hour.”

  The Chief nodded slowly. “Not so different from our external readings, is it?”

  “The pings are coming from nearly the exact same position the scientists triangulated,” Snakeoil agreed.

  “I guess I was hoping we’d prove the scientists wrong.” The Chief frowned. “Two days.”

  We’d all been briefed and knew what to expect. We’d entered a ship that was a quarter the size of the Tau Ceti II moons. Of course it was going to take quite some time to navigate to our destination, even in powered suits. We were lucky it was only two days, especially with the injuries Skullcracker had sustained—without the strength-enhancement provided by his jumpsuit, he probably would have had to stay behind.

  “Well, nothing for it,” the Chief continued. “Settle in everyone. We’ve got a helluva long walk through enemy territory ahead of us. Spread out. I don’t need to remind any of you what will happen to us if we’re discovered and our EM emitters don’t fool the enemy. Snakeoil, let me know if the Observer Mind signal source spikes again.”

  Snakeoil nodded. “Will do. So far I’m only getting the pings.”

  The squad spread out and proceeded forward, with Snakeoil assuming the role of point man and Skullcracker the drag man. Skullcracker didn’t bother to hide his limp—it wasn’t worth the effort to preserve his pride.

  Manic and Bender joined me and Hijak on the payload, helping us carry the object, which felt drastically heavier under the artificial gravity. We agreed to switch out with other members of the squad every half hour.

  We moved away from the undulating bulkhead, making our way deeper into the chamber. The pipes soon vanished into the murk behind us: Though our headlamps lit the way, the darkness pressed in around us and we couldn’t see more than five meters in any direction. It was like we existed in some limbo world between the living and the dead, with no objects to interrupt the black monotony. And though we marched forward, the murk never changed. We were trapped on an island of our own making amid a sea of darkness. Through it all, only the deck remained constant beneath us.

  Snakeoil interrupted the march. “I’m reading another spike in Observer Mind activity.”

  The Chief nodded. “The fleet is making them fire the coronal weapon again.”

  “No klaxon,” Lui observed. He stood a few paces ahead of me. “No sign of any crewmembe
rs mobilizing or locking down. They don’t appear too concerned about the fleet attack, do they?”

  “Presumably they would have switched to combat readiness earlier,” the Chief sent. “But I get your point. Keep in mind that we’ve only infiltrated the farthest extremities of the ship so far. We’ve barely pierced the skin of the alien apple, so to speak. The key word being alien.”

  Eventually a bulkhead emerged from the murk and we followed it until the pipes composing the surface opened into a narrow corridor that fit roughly five men abreast. The overhead of this passage was an ample fourteen meters from the deck. The warhead fit easily. Hell, even an ATLAS 5 would have fit. Too bad Brass hadn’t approved the use of mechs for our squad.

  On my aReal, the new section slowly filled out on the map as we advanced.

  I noticed a soft slithering sound in the background, like multiple snakes rubbing against one another. Only after a moment did I realize the noise came from the undulating pipes in the bulkheads.

  “Snakeoil, are you sure there’s no atmosphere?” I said. It took an atmosphere to carry sound.

  Snakeoil waved a glove back and forth. “You’re right. I’m detecting a trace atmosphere of methane and water in this section. In fact, the atmospheric pressure is rising the farther inward we advance. Apparently the aliens designed the ship with a layer of void padding the regions just inside the hull, though I have no idea why. Maybe it supports the overall structure in some way.”

  “I can see one reason why they’d do it,” Lui sent. “If there was a hull breach, a void layer would prevent explosive decompression. And it eliminates the need to lock down the ship or seal the hatches and scuttles between compartments. Something that will only make our job easier. And you all saw how easily the hull opens up. They probably capture enemy ships that way. Without the void layer, opening like that wouldn’t be possible.”

  “Still,” Snakeoil transmitted, “that leaves the question of how they’re creating the void layer. It’s not done with gravity because the gravitational field has been constant since we entered.”