by Isaac Hooke
Muffled voices floated to us from up ahead.
“TJ’s through,” Mauler said.
And so we continued the advance.
It was slow going. My limbs felt extremely numb by that point, thanks to the enforced rest in that cramped space. My hands and feet tingled from the lack of circulation, but there was nothing I could do but worm my way forward.
Mauler’s boots slowly receded in front of me. I would have shouted at him to slow down, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I didn’t want him to wait for me. Didn’t want him to potentially die if the insects overcame our position. I tried to increase my pace, but the tunnel was simply too tight for me. I swore I’d cut back on the gym when this was through.
Eventually the crawlspace became so narrow that I was forced to turn my head to the side, pressing my ears into the rock floor and ceiling as I squeezed onward. That position kind of eliminated the need for the lamp on my rifle, since all I saw was the dark rock in front of my face. Mauler was gone as far as I was concerned. As was the rest of the squad. It was just me, my rifle, my emitter, and the rock. And I thought the feeling of claustrophobia had been bad before . . .
I pressed on.
I told myself this wasn’t so different from training. As Facehopper had said, back then we’d done pipeline crawls under the bay to prepare us for the claustrophobic confines of ATLAS 5s. The instructors had had the ability to constrict and loosen individual segments along the pipe. Of course, we students hadn’t known that at the time. I remember getting stuck. Rade and Alejandro talked me through it, helped me remain calm. That was the key. Hyperventilate, and I could deplete all the oxygen in the conduit. Eventually I made it through when the instructors slightly enlarged the pipe around me.
Unfortunately, if I got stuck, there would be no instructors to expand this crawlspace.
I shoved the EM emitter and rifle blindly forward. I scrabbled at the rock with my fingers, snaked my body left and right, pushed against the wall with my hips. I wished I’d taken off my boots because it was proving hard to find a foothold—I couldn’t feel the rock beneath my toes.
I wormed my way forward another fifty or so centimeters like this. Fifty hard-fought centimeters.
Wooyah.
Then I got stuck.
No matter how much I shoved and pressed and wormed the rest of my body, my wide shoulders simply wouldn’t fit through the crawlspace. I don’t know how the hell TJ and the others had gotten through this area, because I sure as hell couldn’t. At least not alone.
“Mauler,” I said, striving to keep my voice as calm as possible. “Need some help here.”
No answer.
“Mauler?” I tried again. “I’m stuck, bro.”
I held my breath and listened very carefully, but I heard nothing. No sound of scraping rock. No breathing. No voices.
Not a thing.
Somehow I had fallen excessively behind.
How could it be possible? Sure, Mauler’s boots had been receding, but he would have waited for me. He would have.
Maybe I’d missed a side passage somewhere along the way and I’d crawled right past the others. It was possible.
I thought I heard a muffled voice then, but I couldn’t tell how far away it was, nor even what direction it was coming from. It didn’t help that my ears were wildly bent out of shape by the rock pressing into the cartilage on either side of my cranium. And I couldn’t actually turn my head to look.
“Mauler!” I said.
I held my breath and listened again. I must have imagined the muffled voice because there was definitely no other sound out there—unless I included the frantic beating of my heart.
I thought of the lost drones, and I wondered if whatever had taken them had downed my brothers, too.
Spirits, help me through this.
I tried retreating, tried pushing backward with my hands and hips. No good.
Now I was really starting to worry. My breath began to come in frantic gasps.
Spirits, help me!
I attempted to move forward again, more desperately. Couldn’t.
My hyperventilating became so bad that stars began to occlude my vision, but I couldn’t calm down.
I was done. No one was going to get me out. I was going to die here, deep within the rocky entrails of some moon, far away from home. I was never going to see my children again.
I forced myself to dismiss those thoughts. I had to.
What was that Winston Churchill quote Rade had told me?
Never, never, never give in. Keep going, even through hell.
I was Tahoe Eaglehide. I did not give up.
I swore I would get through this. I refused to allow my children to grow up fatherless.
I shoved and pressed and wormed.
No use.
Never give up.
An idea came to me then, in that moment of need. I don’t know if the idea originated with the spirits or the desperate well of my own consciousness, but it did come, and it gave me a sliver of hope.
I exhaled all the air I could, shrinking my ribcage ever so slightly. Then I held my breath, found a foothold with the toes of my boots, and pushed with all my strength.
I slid forward a centimeter.
The idea had worked.
But now I was lodged even worse because when I tried to inhale, my rib cage had trouble expanding. It felt like I couldn’t breathe.
You can breathe, Tahoe. You can. Your breaths are just shallower, that’s all.
My self-talk didn’t help. I was in sheer panic mode by then. I felt extremely lightheaded as my vision filled with even more stars.
Wait.
Was that a crinkling I heard behind me?
I held my breath again.
Yes, I heard it clearly, transmitted by vibrations in the rock directly to my skull and ear canals. It was the noise of countless antennae, legs, and mandibles rubbing together.
The alien insects had finally caught up with me.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rade
I viewed the hospital rooftop via Hijak’s vid feed. Though the signal was extremely weak, with rampant pixelization and frame freezing, I realized immediately that he wasn’t exaggerating about our situation: crabs, slugs, and combat robots were sprawled across the landscape as far as I could see.
I spun toward Lui. “Get everyone up and ready, then meet me on the rooftop as soon as you can.”
“Got it,” Lui said.
Chief Bourbonjack jumped out of bed without any prodding. He started pulling on the lower assembly of his jumpsuit and winced as he bent over. A blood spot appeared in the center of the white bandage around his gut, but he continued suiting up.
I turned to go, but paused, realizing I wasn’t in command anymore. I waited for the Chief to contravene my orders.
He glanced at me as he finished securing the lower assembly of his suit. “What the hell are you waiting for? Get your ass up there! We’ll be right behind you.”
“Famous last words,” I said.
When I reached the rooftop, the shelling had already begun.
“Sitrep,” I sent to Hijak and Manic, hurrying toward Black Widow. My unmanned ATLAS 5 returned fire from behind a superstructure.
“The Equestrians have entered firing range,” Hijak sent. “We tried laying down a suppressive line of serpents, but there are too many units. Enemy Trench Coats instantly bring down our rockets. For the most part all we can do is take cover.”
I reached Black Widow and leaped inside.
Ballistic shield in hand, I made a quick circumnavigation of the perimeter with the mech. The onboard AI alerted me to incoming shells, overlaying yellow circles on the rooftop to indicate the impact and fragmentation zones I should avoid. When my ATLAS 5 was three-fourths of the way around the building, one of those
yellow circles appeared right on top of Black Widow, and I narrowly maneuvered the mech away as the rooftop exploded beside it.
The enemy ranks stretched several city blocks in every direction. The closest rooftops already shimmered with combat robots and their gunfire. Like Hijak had said earlier, there really was no way we’d be jetting out of here, not with only two jumps each. One or two of us might make it out if we pooled the fuel. Then again, since none of the adjacent rooftops were clear, sending someone out there would be the same as throwing a larva onto the center of a riled-up anthill—basically a death sentence.
The hospital was only four stories tall and enemy Centurions in the forefront were already attaining the rooftop: they climbed the black substance, caking the first three stories, and then jetted the final distance to the top.
I held off the combat robots with the other two ATLAS 5s piloted by Manic and Hijak. We backed away from the edges, firing controlled Gatling bursts. Liquid Phants spilled onto the rooftop in droves from the disabled metal bodies. The shelling continued, and we were constantly evading the calculated impact zones overlaid onto the rooftop via our HUDs.
Black Widow’s ammunition was almost out.
“We won’t be able to hold them off much longer,” Manic sent.
I tried to reach Chief Bourbonjack: “Chief, you should probably stay where you are. We’re going to be evacuating the rooftop real quick here.”
I got static in return, which told me that the Chief had already left the ward and was probably in the stairwell at this moment.
Sure enough, seconds later Chief Bourbonjack and the rest of the squad burst onto the rooftop.
Giger stayed back, huddling in the stairwell, hugging Tung close. The kid wore his aReal visor once more. Good. Giger was taking his guardian role seriously—Tung didn’t need to see this.
“What the frick is going on here!” the Chief sent.
“We have to get off the roof, Chief,” I returned.
Crabs began leaping onto the rooftop alongside the Centurions, and the shelling momentarily let up. The Equestrians didn’t want to harm their brethren, apparently.
The crabs came in on us from every side and our ATLAS mechs were hard-pressed to hold them off. The small arms fire from the other squad members helped, but to be honest, I wished my brothers had remained inside. They had only just finished getting patched up and now were going to get hurt all over again.
An enemy ATLAS 5 jetted over the edge of the building and landed in our midst; I and the other two mech pilots concentrated Gatling fire on the thing and we broke through its ballistic shield, taking the mech down.
“Squad, fall back to the stairwell!” Chief Bourbonjack sent.
Those of us in ATLAS mechs provided cover for the rest of the squad. As the three of us neared the stairwell:
“Everyone, inside!” the Chief sent.
“What about the mechs?” Hijak transmitted.
“Leave ’em,” the Chief replied.
A shell struck the rightmost edge of the rooftop and debris launched through the air. I batted away pieces of concrete with my ballistic shield.
“And the nuke?” Manic sent.
“Forget it!” the Chief returned.
“Why not set it to blow?” Hijak suggested.
“We’d never escape the blast radius,” the Chief sent. “Plus we’re not authorized to nuke the city. Not when there might be refugees out there. Now get your asses in here, ATLAS operators! Disable the goddamn mechs on your way out.”
I mowed down a wave of incoming crabs and turned my weapons toward a group of Centurions.
Both of my Gatlings clicked at the same time.
Out of ammo.
I switched to serpent rockets and fired at the robots. Then I released the rest of the serpents in rapid succession into the horde on the street beyond.
“Black Widow, cockpit open,” I said as the resultant explosions rocked the rooftop.
The cockpit fell open. I pulled the 9-mil from my belt and aimed it into the small crack between the hatch and the hull, where the mech’s brain case was temporarily exposed. I fired, disabling the AI of the ATLAS so that no Phant could ever possess it, not that they would have been able to do much with the nearly weaponless mech anyway.
I leaped onto the roof as Black Widow crumpled behind me. I felt a shred of remorse because there was a school of thought that believed advanced AIs were sentient. Still, there wasn’t really anything else I could have done. Better to destroy the mech than allow it to fall into enemy hands.
The belt-whip hiss of incoming bullets filled the air around me. Manic and Hijak had already disabled their mechs and were ahead of me: I dove into the stairwell after them.
Behind me, four enemy ATLAS 5s landed on the rooftop at the same time, trailed by several Centurions.
I slammed the stairwell door closed and raced down the stairs as threads of Gatling fire tore over my head, easily perforating the steel door.
The three of us continued downward, zigzagging between each flight until we joined up with the rest of the squad; the stairwell rocked from the explosions of rockets above us.
Giger moved the slowest because he didn’t have a jumpsuit and refused to allow anyone else to carry Tung. He hugged the kid close, acting as a human shield, fulfilling his role of custodian to a tee.
I could have sprinted past him, like Hijak and Manic had, but I refused. I made it my personal duty to see the SK refugees through this. We needed a properly trained drag man to bring up the rear anyway.
Enemy Centurions fired down into the rectangular gap that ran through the center of the stairwell, forcing our squad to keep close to the walls.
“Snakeoil!” the Chief said during the descent. “Pull up the hospital schematics. Find us a way out!”
Snakeoil answered a moment later. “Looks like the lower levels are linked to the underground pedway system. That should take us all the way to the downtown core.”
“Good! Overlay the route and send it to the rest of us!”
We passed the exit to the ground floor and continued down toward the basement levels. The Centurion gunfire in the stairwell had ceased by then, though I could still hear the echo of metallic feet somewhere above: it was hard to discern through the more immediate din of our own footfalls.
As Giger and I fell farther and farther behind on the stairs, I realized something had to change.
“Give me the kid,” I told Giger firmly.
“No!” Giger said.
“I have a strength-enhanced jumpsuit. You don’t.”
Giger seemed insulted. “I can handle him.”
“I know I appointed you his guardian, Giger, but if you don’t give me the kid, at least for now, all three of us are going to die. We’re moving too slow.”
Giger hesitated, then finally relented and handed the child over.
I held Tung the same way Giger had, close to my chest, trying to shield him with my body. The kid remained immersed in his aReal the whole time.
I continued downward; Giger kept up much easier now that he didn’t have the extra burden of the child to handle. Still, he was visibly winded, and obviously struggled to match the speed of my jumpsuit.
Giger and I caught up to Manic as we passed the “sublevel two” exit.
Manic glanced over his shoulder at me. “There you guys are!”
At the exit to “sublevel three,” the flights of stairs ended and one by one my squad members burst through the door. Skullcracker waited at the bottom, and when the last of us were through he took up the drag position.
Most of the emergency lights were offline here, while those still intact flickered intermittently. As such, we relied on our headlamps more than anything else, which gave the basement hallway a gloomy, subterranean feel.
In moments the squad reached the glass entrance to
the pedway system and we hurried through in single file. Skullcracker was the last to enter.
Shots sprayed the glass behind him.
Since the pedway ran perpendicular to the previous passage, Skullcracker was able to readily duck from the line of fire.
“Are you good?” I asked him.
“Move!” came his reply.
We had advanced maybe fifty meters into the pedway before a pond of glowing blue Phants blocked the way.
Snakeoil, our point man, started to slow.
“Don’t stop!” Chief Bourbonjack said.
Snakeoil raced into the blue Phants. The liquid entities immediately parted, flowing up the walls on either side so that the floor was clear. It was a relief our emitters still worked.
The rest of the squad followed. I kept Giger close—he didn’t possess an EM emitter, so the only protection he had was his proximity to the rest of us. The liquid entities glowed hypnotically upon the walls beside me.
“Don’t look at them for too long,” I told Giger, though I found it hard to obey my own advice.
In about thirty meters we emerged from the Phant-steeped walls.
Looking behind, I saw the glowing liquid flow back down to converge on the floor beyond Skullcracker.
I spotted movement past the pond: the pursuing Centurions had reached the far side of the Phants and splashed right over them.
Sporadic gunfire erupted from the combat robots in the forefront.
Skullcracker was hit in the upper arm.
Manic lobbed a grenade; Skullcracker fired his heavy gun.
“Rage, get those civilians closer to the middle of the line,” Manic said.
I wholeheartedly complied. My brothers let Giger and me pass, so that in moments Skullcracker, Manic, Hijak, and Lui stood between the pursuers and the two of us.
“Keep moving!” Chief Bourbonjack said.
And so we continued forward. Those in the rear of the squad were constantly turning back to fire at the Centurions, who harried us relentlessly.
We reached a fork and took the rightmost passage. The gunfire ebbed as we passed from the line of fire. The cessation didn’t last long. As soon as the Centurions rounded the bend, the salvos resumed.