by Isaac Hooke
“Faster, people!” the Chief said.
Without warning the entire corridor shook as if from some impact. Twenty meters ahead of our point man, Snakeoil, the pedway ceiling collapsed.
We were forced to halt.
As the dust cleared, I saw Centurions pile down onto the rubble through a gap torn in ceiling. They blocked our path. Gunfire came at us from both in front and behind.
We immediately flattened ourselves against the walls and floor. I returned Tung to Giger, and sandwiched the two civilians between Lui and myself so that the pair were protected on both sides.
Even so, it probably didn’t matter. Not anymore.
Given the number of enemies I’d seen on the surface, I knew there was no way out.
This was our last stand.
I aimed through my scope and fired.
The bullets came in mercilessly. There was really nowhere to take cover, not in that corridor. All we could do was lie as low as possible and hope the enemy missed.
They didn’t.
I gritted my teeth as I took a bullet in the calf. The suit absorbed much of the force, but that didn’t prevent the projectile from passing clean through.
I ignored the burning pain and fought on.
Blood spurted at intervals down the line as my brothers were intermittently struck. But everyone kept firing. Sure, some of us would pause after taking a particularly nasty shot, but no matter how bad we got it we kept giving it back. You’d think seeing one of our brothers receive a blow would be demoralizing, but instead it had the opposite effect. When a stricken brother came roaring back, firing for all he was worth, it boosted the rest of us right up.
That was what it meant to be more than a man, right there, right then.
This is what it was to be a MOTH.
I glanced at the vitals of my brothers on my HUD. None had died, yet, though there was a lot of red intruding on life bars that ideally should have been green.
A few well-placed grenades, or some rockets fired directly into our midst, would be all it would take to end it. But until then we would hold on, fighting to the bitter conclusion.
And then, incredibly, the attack let up.
No more shots came in from either side.
I couldn’t believe it.
Had we gotten them all?
I searched my scope, trying to find more enemy targets, but other than the fallen bodies of bullet-riddled Centurions, and the liquid Phants oozing from them, I spotted nothing in the murk.
Had we actually won?
“So we meet again,” came Fan’s voice in the dark.
Ah.
Fan. Well, at least I knew who was leading the enemy, then. This was our alien general. It had to be.
I scanned both flanks, intending to put a bullet in Fan’s forehead, but I couldn’t see the man in either darkened corridor. Some of our headlamps had shattered in the gunfight, which further reduced the visibility.
“Show yourself,” Chief Bourbonjack said. He was of a like mind as me, I was sure.
I waited for Fan’s head to appear in the murk, my finger ready on the trigger.
“I am not so careless of my host’s life,” Fan answered, still unseen.
“What do you want?” the Chief said.
“I extend an offer of great mercy. I will spare the lives of your squad.”
Chief Bourbonjack’s expression darkened. “In exchange for what?”
“You, great Chief.”
“Don’t do it, Chief,” I said, voice low. “You’re a high-value target to the enemy. The knowledge stored in your embedded ID is invaluable. Fan may spare our lives now, but he’ll use us to break you, torturing and killing us while you watch. You’ve taken the counter-interrogation course. You know that to break a CO the interrogator always uses his own men against him. The enemy understands this about us, too, by now, I’m sure.”
The Chief nodded slowly, though he still seemed hesitant.
“What is your answer?” Fan’s voice came, sounding strident in the quiet of the tunnel.
The Chief pursed his lips. “Here I come!” He freed a grenade from his belt and tossed it down the corridor.
The grenade detonated. I felt the blast wave even here, thanks to the cramped nature of the passage.
“An unfortunate decision,” Fan said some moments later.
I peered through my scope the whole time, waiting for a target to present itself, expecting grenades or rockets to come raging in on us at any second. That, or for the roof to come down over our heads.
None of that happened.
“What are you waiting for, Fan?” Chief Bourbonjack mocked. “Lost the stomach for the fight?”
No answer.
I kept scanning the forward flank along with the Chief, Snakeoil, and Lui, while the others watched our rear.
No targets were sighted on either side.
Had the enemy truly gone, or were they merely ratcheting up the tension?
The Chief signaled Snakeoil to scout ahead.
I watched our intrepid Tennesseean sneak forward, doing his best to mask a limp. The rest of us remained very still. We all knew Snakeoil risked his life by doing this.
He approached the cave-in, picking his way across the fallen slabs of concrete and twisted rebar. When he was close enough, he directed his heavy gun toward the ceiling and scanned the gaping hole. He took a sudden step forward, ostensibly peering past some upper corner, and then he climbed onto one of the slabs for a better view.
Snakeoil moved the barrel of his heavy gun to and fro, making a complete three sixty as he searched the opening. Then he stepped down and glanced toward the rest of us.
“It’s clear,” he said over the comm. The disbelief was evident in his voice.
When Snakeoil returned, the Chief instructed Skullcracker to scout our rear in turn.
I watched the tattooed man limp into the murk behind us. Another of my brothers, bravely risking his life for the rest of us.
I returned my attention to the fore, along with Lui and Snakeoil. We had to guard our front flank.
The tense moments passed.
I spotted nothing through my scope. I had the zoom cranked way down because of the close quarters.
I kept my other eye open, and saw Tung trembling on the floor beside me; Giger rubbed his shoulder soothingly. The kid still wore his aReal, thankfully.
“You guys all right?” I whispered.
Giger nodded slowly.
A drop of condensation dripped from the ceiling. The “plink” of its impact echoed from the walls and floor.
Skullcracker was taking a long time. Too long.
The sound of concrete grating against concrete erupted from the forward flank, followed by a loud thud. I swiveled my aim downward. Dust rose from the floor.
“Just a loose slab,” I said.
Bender shifted behind me. “Where in the hell is he?”
“Skullcracker,” the Chief sent over the comm. “Do you read? Skullcracker, get your ass back here.”
Only static came back.
“Goddammit,” the Chief said. “Snakeoil, you—”
The Chief paused as distant footfalls echoed down the corridor. They seemed to be coming from the rear.
I pulled up the view from Bender’s aReal and shrunk it, placing it in the upper left of my vision so that I could still guard our front flank. From his viewpoint, I saw a headlamp emerge in the distance behind us. It bobbed up and down as if belonging to some damaged combat robot.
Bender zoomed in.
It was Skullcracker.
“The way back is clear all the way to the bend,” Skullcracker sent through the static.
“What the hell took so long?” the Chief said when he arrived.
“Sorry,” Skullcracker replied, limping.
“I blacked out.”
“Let’s see the back of your head,” I told him, worried that the Phants had installed one of those cybernetic grafts they used to take over people.
Skullcracker narrowed his eyes, but then shrugged. He removed his helmet and turned around.
There was no metal graft.
“On your feet, people,” Chief Bourbonjack said.
I unlinked Bender’s viewpoint from my aReal and clambered upright. My calf wound was starting to seriously hurt; I blamed it on adrenaline hangover.
Others slowly rose around me.
“I don’t get it,” Lui said. “Why pull out now? They had us.”
“Maybe your ugly face scared them off,” Bender said.
“Yeah, or your shot-up face,” Snakeoil said. “You look like crap, bro.”
Bender was missing an ear, and half his face was slick with blood, but he grinned through it. “Makes me more attainable to the ladies.”
Manic seemed to be having trouble getting up. He made it as far as one knee before collapsing. His vitals flatlined.
“Manic!” I hurried over to him and lowered my medbag. Bender joined me, and together we did a rough job of patching him up. Both of his lungs had collapsed but we managed to stabilize one of them. Not the best meatball surgery I’d ever done, but he’d last a little while anyway.
“Blood is flooding his left and right lungs,” I told the Chief. “We have to get him back to the Weavers. He won’t live past the hour.”
“I could use a session with the Weavers myself.” Hijak approached with a noticeable limp; blood oozed from several punctures in his jumpsuit.
I patched the wounds on Hijak that were bleeding the most—bullets had severed main arteries in his leg and arm—and then I hooked him up to a plasma volume expander IV.
As I worked, the Chief said, “Rage and Bender will give everyone a quick exam. Once that’s done, we’re going to head back to the hospital.”
Snakeoil shook his head. “We’re going in circles. You know the enemy probably set a trap for us there, right?”
Chief Bourbonjack gave Snakeoil a grim look, but didn’t answer.
Bender and I performed quick medical evaluations on everyone and repaired the more urgent wounds. Only the two civilians remained entirely unharmed. I told Giger to make sure the kid kept wearing his aReal.
“Don’t worry, I have no intention of letting him take it off,” Giger said.
Lui was Manic’s crutch on the way back, while Bender helped Hijak along. Everyone else walked on his own two feet, though there were more than a few limps among our numbers.
We returned, battered and broken, to the fork in the pedway corridor. I kept waiting for the inevitable ambush. The whole situation screamed “ruse” to me. This was a tactic we ourselves had employed to great success in the past: pretend to abandon an entrenched opponent, then come back and take them later while their defenses were down.
Snakeoil, on point, paused at the bend.
I ignored the burning pain in my calf and joined him. Bringing my rifle scope to my eye, I peered past the edge and scanned both flanks.
“Nothing,” I said. “Even the Phants are gone.”
“Odd,” Snakeoil said.
Odd indeed.
We continued back the way we had come, passing the fallen bodies of some Centurions. No Phants seeped out of them.
“None of this makes any sense,” Lui said. “They had us.”
“Stay alert, people,” Chief Bourbonjack said. “Let me know if you see anything out of the ordinary. And I mean anything.”
We stepped through the pedway exit, our boots crunching on the shattered glass beside it. We crossed the hospital sublevel and then took the stairs back up to intensive care. We encountered absolutely no resistance along the way.
In the ward we gave Manic and Hijak to the Weavers first, and then the rest of us, myself included, removed portions of our jumpsuits and lay down on the beds to have treatment done. Only the uninjured Giger and Tung were excluded; the two of them sat in one corner and exchanged quiet words. Bender left his helmet by the door and set the aReal to act as a motion sensor.
Skullcracker and Snakeoil were the first on their feet; the Chief ordered the two of them to scout the rooftop. They left immediately and their positions froze on my HUD.
“Why would Fan offer to trade our lives for yours, Chief, and then when you refuse he lets us all go?” I asked the Chief while a Weaver removed the bullet from my calf muscle. “Like Lui said, he had us beat.”
Not wearing his helmet, Chief Bourbonjack lay on the bed beside me. Another Weaver was doing something to his neck, where a bullet had nicked him. “No idea, Rage. Though I have a feeling it was some last-ditch gambit on Fan’s part.”
The Weaver finished up on my calf and I lay on the bed a moment longer, dwelling on the mystery of the enemy’s retreat. The upper body of my jumpsuit was still in place, so I activated my MRE nozzle and took a sip.
I got up, reluctantly, feeling groggy. I pulled on the lower assembly of my jumpsuit. We were still in the heart of enemy territory, after all, and duty demanded that I remain prepared. Once dressed, I decided to personally watch the door.
As I moved to take up a guard position, the locations of Skullcracker and Snakeoil abruptly updated on my HUD: the markers placed them directly above us, on the rooftop, where the signal was just strong enough to claw its way down.
“You see them, Chief?” I said.
“I do.” Chief Bourbonjack had just replaced his helmet—the Weaver was finished working on him. He tried the comm. “Skullcracker and Snakeoil, sitrep. Over.”
Skullcracker’s voice came back, but proved unintelligible over the static.
“Say again, Skullcracker,” the Chief sent.
“Seem to be—” Static. “Overwhelming firepower.” Static. “Indeterminable source.” Static.
The Chief and I exchanged a worried glance. That didn’t sound good.
“Skullcracker, you’re cutting in and out,” the Chief returned.
“Rage,” Skullcracker sent. “You better—” Static. “Up here.”
“Come again?” I said into the comm.
“Get up here, Rage,” Skullcracker transmitted.
I was confused. “Only me?”
“The Chief, too.”
“What exactly is going on up there?” the Chief said.
The line returned static.
Countless doomsday scenarios ran through my mind as the two of us took those stairs. Foremost was the notion that Skullcracker and Snakeoil had been captured, and that the Chief and I were walking headfirst into some trap.
Which is why, when we reached the top of the stairs, I went out onto the rooftop first, rifle at the ready, while the Chief stayed behind, waiting for my “all clear.”
The first thing I saw was the nuclear payload. The device remained precisely where we had left it, untouched. So the invaders didn’t care for our inferior warhead technology. That suited me just fine.
Snakeoil stood not far from the payload; he was positioned near the edge of the rooftop, and seemed to be staring into the streets.
I cast my eyes about, looking for Skullcracker. I didn’t see him, though various superstructures blocked my view of other areas of the rooftop from here. According to the HUD, he stood on the eastern side of the building. There was a blue dot beside him. One of our ATLAS mechs?
So far, this didn’t seem like a trap. But looks could be deceiving, as I well knew.
“Snakeoil,” I said.
He didn’t answer. Didn’t turn around. But he did beckon urgently with one hand, as if to say: “Come here. Now.”
I warily approached, keeping an eye on the nearby superstructures.
But then my gaze was inextricably drawn forward.
Beyond Snak
eoil, plumes of smoke rose from the city. Molten shapes plunged through the sky, leaving behind wide, smoky trails. It was consistent with the debris pattern of a vessel that had broken apart in orbit. Bogey 2 was still ever-present on the far horizon, and my first instinct was that one of our own starships had crashed.
I prayed it wasn’t the Gerald R. Ford.
The sonic boom from those distant airborne fragments reached my ears then, sounding like incredibly loud firecrackers. I instinctively ducked.
Snakeoil didn’t move.
I forced myself to his side. When I reached the rooftop edge, I stared open-mouthed at the sight below.
“Chief, better get out here,” I sent.
A vessel of some kind had indeed crashed, judging from the flattened buildings and metallic debris. Whether that craft was of alien or human make, I could not say. I had a tendency to believe it was alien, given the new developments unfolding below. I almost couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. It was so unreal, so bizarre.
The enemy was in full retreat. Waves of some kind of mech I had never seen before swept through the enemy hordes, destroying all crabs, slugs, and robots in sight. Made of mirrorlike, white gold, these mechs were humanoid in form, with two arms, two legs, and a single head, though the burnished bodies were stretched and elongated to an alien degree. The head was an oblong, as were the shoulders; the arms and legs were long and lithe, without the bulges of servomotors, hydraulic joints, and the like. They were about as tall as ATLAS 6s, coming in at around twenty-five meters. On their backs were small protuberances, ostensibly jetpacks—though when these golden mechs jetted from building to building, I didn’t see any of the usual signs of fuel expulsion. In their arms they wielded particle weapons, and it was these with which they routed the enemy so efficiently, disintegrating their opponents in broad sweeps.
Nothing the horde threw at them seemed to harm the golden beings. Claws bounced off chest pieces. Mandibles broke against gold arms. Gatling gunfire deflected easily, and not even rockets could dent those burnished hulls.
“I didn’t know the UC had tech like this,” I said, bewildered.
“We don’t,” the Chief said, coming up beside me. “Those aren’t ours.”
I felt my brow furrow. “SK, then?”