ATLAS 3 (ATLAS Series Book 3)

by Isaac Hooke

  She ignored the command, staying to strike down a crab that had managed to slip by the defenders. On the vid, she bit her lip as she ripped the creature apart in a stream of gore.

  “You go, I go,” she said.

  “It’s my turn this time around, Shaw.”

  “You go, I go,” she insisted.

  I gazed at her features on the vid stream one last time. I longed to see that dimple of joy in her cheek, but there would be no smiling, no happiness, not then.

  “I was afraid you’d say that,” I sent. “I’m sorry, Shaw.”

  I ended the vid call and hit her ZEUS squarely in the chest, hard enough to knock it off the platform and into a cluster of crabs. The alien entities swarmed over her. I knew it wouldn’t be long before she fought them off. I didn’t have much time.

  “Come on, Azen!” I sent.

  “My agents are almost done,” Azen returned. “Prepare yourself.”

  “Surus, you should leave too,” I told my onboard Phant.

  “Unfortunately, I feel it is my duty to go with you and ensure that you properly complete the mission.”

  “Whatever you want.” I said it like I didn’t care, but in truth I was glad for the company. At least I wouldn’t die alone. “Never thought I’d consider a Phant heroic.”

  “And I never believed I would feel the same way about a human.”

  I didn’t get any messages of farewell. My brothers were probably too shocked to say anything, not to mention occupied. Good-byes were always the hardest thing for the brotherhood. Especially good-byes of the permanent kind. They probably fought with tears in their eyes at that very moment. Lui. Bender. Manic. All of them. Too proud to admit it. Too proud to say good-bye and risk having me hear their sobs.

  Good-bye, my brothers.

  “My agents have cleared the destination Acceptor,” Azen sent.

  I aimed my particle cannon at the bomb’s core. “Send me up.”

  “No Rade!” I heard Shaw’s voice over the comm.

  Farewell, universe.

  Before I could teleport, something hit me hard in the back of the knees and I fell.

  Shaw.

  She hit me again and I toppled entirely.

  She swung me off the Acceptor, taking my place. She must have told Azen to initiate the teleport, or perhaps Azen had only then completed my initial transport request, because in that moment her ZEUS, the bomb, and all the other debris on the Acceptor blinked from existence.

  Shaw was gone.

  “No!” I pulled myself onto the Acceptor after her. “Send me up Azen! Do it now! Before the bomb detonates!”

  I didn’t teleport.

  “Damn it, Azen!” I swung my particle cannon toward the green’s mech below. “Send me up! I will shoot you!”

  “Rade,” Azen transmitted, fending off a crab. “I can’t. If it hasn’t already detonated, the bomb is most likely blocking the destination Acceptor. The teleporter won’t respond to my commands.”

  “Find a way!” I was forced to beat aside a crab myself. “Make it respond. Get me up there!”

  I kept my particle cannon aimed at Azen, and I watched him fight. When he answered a few moments later, his voice sounded sorrowful. “Rade, I can no longer send you. I just received word: It’s done.”

  The phrase didn’t register. Not right away. “What do you mean, it’s done?”

  “There is no ship to teleport to. We have succeeded. The bomb has detonated. Bogey 2 is no more.”

  That sinking feeling I got when one of my brothers died? Well it hit me right in the gut, stronger than ever before, and I fell to my knees on the Acceptor.

  I felt suddenly claustrophobic inside that mech. I had to get out. I didn’t care if one of those crabs rushed me and tore my head off. I didn’t care about anything anymore. I just wanted out. Now.

  I forced the cockpit to iris open and I stumbled forth in my jumpsuit. My legs failed me and I collapsed onto the disc. I wanted to take my helmet off, too, but I didn’t have the strength. I did manage to open my faceplate, however, and the rank smell of alien blood and ripped entrails flooded my nostrils.

  Suited my mood.

  And so I lay there, prostrate, while the battle raged around me. The mission was won, but the surviving hordes continued to fight, as we expected them to.

  Surus was compelled to protect me as crabs spilled onto the disc.

  I hardly noticed. Like I said, I didn’t care anymore.

  Shaw.

  I’d lost her again.

  For good this time.

  She wasn’t coming back.

  I just wanted to die.

  How could the story end this way? How could it?

  Around me the sounds of battle diminished as the world seemed to fall away.

  Shaw. My Shaw.

  Why did everyone I cared for always have to die?

  And why did it always have to be my fault?

  I was vaguely aware as another ZEUS mounted the Acceptor beside me, striding past Surus.

  I purposely didn’t glance at the newcomer. It was one of my brothers, of course. Coming to comfort me. Maybe the Chief.

  I hoped whoever it was went away soon.

  I didn’t want anyone’s pity.

  Not then.

  Pity. The thought made me snarl.

  I hated all of them.

  Brothers? These were no brothers to me.

  How could they let Shaw die?

  No brother of mine would have allowed that.

  Worst of all, how could I have allowed it?

  “I’m sorry, Rade,” a woman’s voice came over my helmet speakers.

  It was impossible.

  Startled, I looked up and found myself gazing into the cyclopean vision sensor of the newcomer, whose mech had knelt beside me. I couldn’t believe the label my HUD displayed above that golden head.

  “Shaw?”

  “Yes,” Shaw said.

  Immense joy filled me. I wanted to reach out and hug her. I wanted to dance with her ZEUS and kiss it. I wanted to take her away from all this blood and death, and hold her and never let go.

  But then I realized something, and my joy faded.

  “If it wasn’t you, then who—” In the heat of the moment, I hadn’t actually noticed the callsign of the mech that had replaced mine.

  Using my aReal, I quickly scanned the row of names assigned to the vitals of my squad mates.

  “Where’s Hijak?” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Tahoe

  Trapped there on the surface of that doomed moon, making our last stand in the ruins of the spaceport, I heard a voice at the back of my mind.

  A voice of hope.

  I dismissed it and continued firing over the rim of the blast crater at the Centurions as they breached the terminal. There was no hope, not then, nor any way out. I would die with my brothers.

  The voice came back, stronger this time.

  Never give up, Tahoe. Never never never.

  I realized the voice didn’t belong to me, but to Alejandro.

  Motion drew my eyes away from the terminal and I saw something unexpected in the distance.

  A white buffalo stood amid the ruins. It lifted its head to gaze at me.

  I met its blue eyes. I had never seen an animal of such beauty in all my life. I was reminded immediately of Alejandro as I remembered him in my near death experience. It was him. It had to be. He was trying to give me a message of some kind. Trying to tell me something.

  Never give up, Tahoe.

  I told myself I wasn’t giving up. That I was going down in a blaze of glory with my brothers.

  Yet a part of me knew it was a lie. I was giving up in a way, by believing there was nothing I could do to get out of this, and by choosing to die fig
hting when instead I should have chosen to fight dying.

  But what could I do? This was the end. Bogey 1 would soon impact the moon. There was no way out.

  Never give up, Tahoe.

  Alejandro was right. I had to at least try to find a way out. All of us did. Because we weren’t trying, right then. We were just sitting there, resigned to our fate, waiting for death to take us.

  There had to be at least one craft still working among the many hangars. Something the refugees had overlooked.

  I knew we were tired. Wounded. Exhausted. Suffering from radiation sickness.

  But we could not give up.

  I blinked. The white buffalo was gone. In its place remained the broken fuselage of the “Juneyao Spacelines” craft.

  Alejandro wouldn’t have chosen that spot randomly. But why appear there, in front of a vessel damaged beyond all repair?

  Wait a moment. Perhaps we didn’t need an entire spaceliner . . .

  “What about a lifeboat?” I said as the gunfire ricocheted from the asphalt around me.

  “What are you mumbling about, Cyclone?” Bomb said.

  “A lifeboat!” I shouted. “We can use a lifeboat to get out of here!”

  Facehopper shot me a look. “He’s right. All the major spaceliners come standard with emergency lifeboats.”

  “Yeah, but without booster rockets a lifeboat is useless,” TJ said, not looking from his gun sights. “It’ll never reach escape velocity.”

  I glanced at the damaged hangars around us; in seconds I spotted what I was looking for. “Lifeboats have the same booster interface as shuttles, don’t they?”

  TJ finally looked my way. His brow was furrowed. “They do.”

  I nodded toward the hangar bay I’d picked out. One wall was blasted clear away, revealing a stack of booster rockets and the robotic loading arm beside them.

  “TJ, with Cyclone!” Facehopper said above the gunfire. “Get us a lifeboat!”

  “Follow me,” I told TJ. “I know exactly where to find one.” I blinked away a wave of pain and dizziness as I stood.

  While the rest of the squad covered us, TJ and I raced across the tarmac to the broken fuselage of the Juneyao spaceliner.

  The two of us emerged from the wreckage moments later, housed within the cockpit of a lifeboat.

  Thank you, Alejandro.

  “Get the squad first,” I told TJ, who piloted.

  “I plan to.”

  We skimmed across the runway; as the lifeboat approached the squad, gunfire drilled into the metallic bulkheads with loud raps. A crater appeared in the glass window.

  “Fuckers,” TJ said.

  He landed the craft near the squad and opened the side airlock. Yes, an airlock, rather than the typical ramp you’d find on a military drop craft. We were flying in a civilian vessel now, with a pressurized interior—it was assumed the occupants wouldn’t be wearing jumpsuits. Even so, there were two emergency suits in a closet situated beside the airlock. Probably not strength-enhanced. And I didn’t see any jetpacks. Nor proper utility belts.

  I went to the open airlock and knelt to issue covering fire while my six remaining brothers hurried inside. Gunfire ricocheted from the hull beside me but I let the enemy have it.

  Ghost, helping Trace, was hit yet again. Blood gushed from his upper thigh but he didn’t falter as he carried Trace inside.

  Once everyone was aboard, TJ gunned the throttle, leaving the airlock open. The craft roared across the runway, weaving between the bones of the other crafts in our way. A missile slammed into a broken fuselage beside us, barely missing the lifeboat.

  In moments we were out of range of the attackers.

  About thirty seconds later we reached the booster rocket hangar and TJ landed the lifeboat inside.

  Fret and I leaped from the airlock. I went to the stack of booster rockets and confirmed that the top two were full, and then I joined Fret beside the robotic loading arm bolted into the ground nearby. The arm still had power, courtesy of the onboard magnesium-ion batteries, and the trickiest part was figuring out how to engage it. Fret and I were able to decipher the Korean-Chinese symbology between us, and the robot arm set to work.

  The loading process was automated so the two of us returned to the lifeboat.

  Once inside, we waited impatiently with the rest of the squad, but before the boosters were fully attached the gunfire from the Centurions resumed.

  TJ began sealing the inner and outer doors of the airlock.

  “Keep it open!” the injured Ghost said with surprising vehemence. “We have to protect the boosters!” He still bled from his nose and eyes.

  TJ cut the power to the airlock, leaving the hatches half open.

  Blue undergarments soaked red with blood, Ghost and Trace assumed sniping positions on either side of the inner airlock, and began firing into the Centurions, buying us precious time. I waited for a missile to come in, but one never did: Ghost and Trace must have taken out any enemy rocketeers before they could fire.

  “Boosters attached,” the lifeboat’s male AI announced.

  TJ lifted the craft, spun it around, and throttled forward. The bulky lifeboat burst from the hangar, knocking over several Centurions.

  TJ shut the airlock as he zigzagged the vessel between the broken spacecraft on the runway.

  There was no separation between the cockpit and passenger areas of the lifeboat, allowing everyone aboard to see through the main window. I stared through the glass at the Skull Ship ahead. It devoured the entire horizon, and I knew it would strike the moon momentarily.

  “Don’t launch yet, TJ,” Facehopper said. “Not until we’re out of range of the enemy serpents.”

  TJ continued thrusting forward. The ride smoothed out as we left behind most of the debris.

  Beside the airlock, Ghost and Trace lay back, closing their eyes. For a second I thought they might die—I wished I had an aReal to check their vitals.

  Ignoring my own injuries, I unbuckled myself and helped each of them into a free seat. Both of my brothers left trails of blood in their wake. Not good.

  I began opening up the floor panels—I wanted to find a medkit before we launched.

  “That’s good enough, TJ,” Facehopper said. “Prepare to launch.”

  I glanced toward the cockpit. The lifeboat cleared the far end of the runway and continued on into the unpaved land beyond.

  “TJ?”

  The pilot ignored Facehopper and kept applying thrust. TJ stared mindlessly at the all-consuming Skull Ship ahead of us.

  “TJ!” Facehopper said.

  “Sorry.” TJ shook his head like he was snapping out of some kind of trance. The radiation poisoning was affecting him, obviously. He brought the lifeboat to a halt.

  “Cyclone.” Facehopper turned toward me. “Get yourself buckled in. You can scavenge for a medkit later.”

  I gave him a defiant look but then reluctantly slid the floor panels closed. I stood, blinking away a fresh wave of dizziness, and buckled myself in as ordered. I shifted uncomfortably, unable to find a position that didn’t aggravate the gunshot wound and insect bites in my butt.

  “What about the city’s automated air defenses?” Mauler said.

  “The nukes dropped on Shangde last week took care of those,” Facehopper said.

  “We hope,” Bomb said.

  “We hope,” Facehopper agreed.

  Because if those reprogrammed air defenses remained active, we’d be shot down before getting anywhere near orbit.

  TJ repositioned the lifeboat for launch, pointing the cockpit toward the heavens. Then he waited for Facehopper to give the command.

  “Gun it,” Facehopper said.

  TJ activated the booster rockets.

  We were slammed into our seat backs by the G forces. A fresh outpouring of blood flowed
from my nostrils and I blinked as my headache intensified. All of my wounds throbbed painfully in time to my heartbeat.

  Through a side portal I watched as we ripped through the radioactive black cloud that sheathed the city, leaving it far behind.

  No air defenses fired.

  Beyond the edges of the cloud I saw the Skull Ship. A wave of debris erupted from the ship then, and I realized the impossibly large vessel had finally slammed into the moon’s surface.

  As our lifeboat rose higher and higher, the scene below became increasingly surreal.

  The Skull Ship crumpled against the surface as the flying debris consumed the bogey. The ground itself seemed to recede as if the impact had shoved it forcibly away, but then the surface rebounded and, without any further warning, the entire moon broke apart.

  Large shards of rock and metal rose skyward, pursuing our mad flight.

  Not something I saw every day.

  Not something I hoped to ever see again.

  In moments, the booster rockets cut out and weightlessness took over. There was no artificial grav, not on these crafts.

  I wiped the blood from my beneath my nostrils. The sanguine fluid flowed and lingered around my finger because of the surface tension.

  I couldn’t remember the nausea associated with weightlessness ever being this bad. I had to swallow at least four times before the urge to vomit passed.

  “No sign of the pickup shuttle,” TJ said. “Looks like we’re on our own.”

  I glanced down through the side portal. While the momentum continued to carry us away from the calamity below, those grinding fragments of rock and metal seemed to be gaining on us.

  I heard some odd clicks coming from the left side of the hull.

  “Bit of a problem here,” TJ said. “We must have taken damage to the left booster rocket before launch. It won’t break away.”

  “What’s that mean for us, exactly?” Facehopper said.

  “The lifeboat’s left and rear thrusters are blocked by the booster, and won’t engage. We can’t move without them. If someone doesn’t spacewalk out there and disconnect the booster manually, the incoming fragments are going to smash right into us. We’ll be torn apart.”