The training scenario generator was ready to give them a session. Caden activated it, then flipped his link over into VR mode.
The universe flickered out and reopened in another place created by the TSG. Thick jungle plants surrounded them, rods of green pointing straight upwards. The entire scene was in twilight. Caden immediately felt his feet settle into a mossy mixture of dead plant material and dirt. His limbs were heavy. The air was moist.
“I thought it was a night setup,” Siobhan said over her link.
“It is what it is,” Caden said. He knew sometimes their parameters could be changed as a way of keeping them on their toes. Telisa insisted on leaving an element of the unknown in most of their training. He looked up. The light source was a huge moon hanging in the sky. He pointed at it. Siobhan nodded.
They stood quietly for a moment, weapons in hand. Their links received mission information. Caden absorbed the mission summary:
Survive 20 minutes until help arrives. Stay together and be above the jungle canopy by the end for aerial extraction.
Caden checked his visual feeds. Two attendants floated through the twilight jungle within fifteen meters of their position. The plants were green, resembling Terran ferns, though they grew straight up. Caden pushed one experimentally with his boot. It was a stiff green rod, rising in defiance of the high gravity. The fern rod leaned, then fell over. It took down two other plants when it fell in a chain reaction.
“These plants are crazy. They fall like dominos,” he said.
“But look at that. When they fall near the base of another one, it braces itself with the fallen ones.” Caden looked. Siobhan had found a standing plant that had fused itself right onto other plant stems.
One of the attendants reported a disturbance. It picked up mechanical noise coming through the trees. Then one of the attendants dropped off. The other reported laser fire.
“Withdraw,” Caden said. He moved away from the oncoming sounds. He glanced behind him. Siobhan dropped a sphere and followed.
“I left them a surprise,” she said.
Caden transmitted a nonverbal acknowledgement code through his link.
The plants were so stiff they slowed him down. Though he could topple them, each one remained an obstacle as it collapsed. Caden started to dodge them. When he grazed one, the tiny branches popped off with a sound like breaking glass. The sound made Caden think they might be sharp like glass, too, so he told his Veer suit to glove up his hands.
They ran through the jungle. Caden dodged, jumped, and ducked continuously through the tough high gravity plants. He slipped around an especially thick trunk, then leaped over a pool of deep green muck. Caden came up on something he could not identify and slowed.
A fat, many-legged creature rotated in surprise at their arrival. It was smaller than Caden and covered in mud. The thing shot a stream of liquid at them. Caden hoped it was water. Caden’s weapon came into line but he did not shoot. The squat, hippo-pig creature did not look dangerous.
Kaboom!
The first detonation sounded behind them. The initial sharp blast dampened down to a sound like a cathedral shattering as hundreds of the glassy plants broke. The grenade’s detonation message reported: one mechanical, ninety five percent kill confidence. Caden looked at the largest trees nearby. Their trunks were massive, the size of a house, though they did not rise as far as those on Earth.
The creature flattened its bulk toward the ground. In its new position it looked like a pile of mud. Caden supposed it had been shocked by the noise of the explosion. They passed it and left it behind.
“We’ll choose one and start to climb at the last minute,” he suggested.
“I can’t see far. That would be relying on luck.”
“Yes.”
“This one is nice and tall, looks easy to climb. Maybe we can circle back?”
“Good idea,” he sent.
But more complicated. Still, I think I can time it since we know when we need to be ready for the pickup. Although the TSG may well cause that to go wrong and see how we handle it.
They ran around the candidate tree, heading away and using it for cover. Caden’s legs felt heavy. His muscles burned. The heavy lateral movement was as bad as his increased weight.
Siobhan must be hurting big time. No matter how much she trains, she’s built for lower gravity than Earth, and the simulation knows it.
Kaboom!
“That was my last one,” Siobhan said between gasps of air. Caden slowed. He slipped a grenade out of his pack and held it back to her.
“Got it! Go! Go!” she urged over the link, though he saw her body wobbling.
Their other attendant went offline. He felt blind on the battlefield. The only thing Caden knew was there had to be more attackers out there. As they moved through the forest, Caden thought about their pickup. The trees looked easy to climb, though the gravity would make it more difficult.
“The trees are massive. They could take a grenade. We can save the last grenade for the base of the tree,” he said.
“Okay,” Siobhan transmitted. “As long as we’re not in direct line of sight with the grenade. Some of these stiff shards will fly like knives.” She would not have been able to say it out loud, Caden thought, because he could hear her gasping for air. It was nice to be able to talk through their links so they could concentrate on breathing rapidly.
Caden led them around in a large circle toward their right. He hoped the enemy was not numerous and advancing across a broad front. If they were, the circle back tactic could prove disastrous.
Fzzzzzzzt.
Leaves ignited around them.
“They’re faster than us!” Siobhan said. “I’m heating up!”
“Behind this tree!” Caden said. They were at another huge tree. Caden zig zagged around three glass ferns to the side of the trunk, then clambered around it.
“We can’t make any distance,” Siobhan said. Her face showed pain, though Caden could not tell if she had been burned. He accessed her Veer suit interface with his link. The suit reported it had almost absorbed its limit of energy in the rear torso panel. Another laser strike there would destroy the back of the suit and cook her alive.
“Your suit is overloaded. Run on ahead. I’ll delay them here.”
“Or I could turn to face them on the fresh side,” Siobhan said, but they both knew the whole suit also had a shared energy reservoir that could only take so much. Part of the suit’s defense was simple physical armor, and part of it was a webwork that could transfer and absorb electromagnetic energy.
“Go,” he said.
Siobhan staggered on as Caden hugged the tree. He brought up his weapon. It was set for a mechanical target profile. He drew his spare laser pistol and armed it, too.
Some chance they’ll come around the other side of the tree.
Caden tucked himself next to a ridge in the tree leading down to a large root. It gave him some cover from the back side just in case. Movement against his side caused him to start. The skin of the tree moved.
“The trees move,” Caden blurted. He stayed calm. If the tree ate things that nestled among its roots, he was probably already toast.
“What?”
A machine ran out in front of him. It looked like a typical light combat machine: vaguely man shaped, metallic skin, holding a weapon usable by human soldiers.
Caden launched two rounds with his main weapon. He gave it a shot from his laser pistol as well. The machine went down in a burst of smoke.
“I’m okay,” Caden clarified. “Just FYI the trees can move. Slowly. Or at least their skin undulates.”
“Uh, great. Are we going to be able to climb it?”
“We’ll make it. Smart ropes can do most of the work, if it comes to that.”
Caden ran ten paces away from the tree after Siobhan and dove behind a log. He watched from a quarter meter of open space beneath it. Another machine ran out, making good time. It opened fire at the same time as Caden. Some un
seen force ripped the laser pistol from his hand. Caden finished shooting his other weapon. His hand felt numb. Blood splattered across a nearby green plant like a bizarre decoration. Caden did not even bother counting his remaining fingers, he just turned and ran to find Siobhan.
“I hear fire,” she transmitted from up ahead.
“I got two, I think. Running for you as fast as I can,” he sent.
“Okay, I’m heading back around. I know the tree,” Siobhan said.
Caden found her in the forest. He tried to move quickly and silently, but it was impossible.
It doesn’t matter. The machines can hear us easily even if we were quiet.
Caden fell in behind Siobhan. She slowed to take a position beside him for a moment. He could hear her ragged breathing.
“Give me the last grenade. I’ll buy you some time,” she said.
“No, stick with me!”
“It’ll take some time for the smart rope to crawl up. You can get started, then I’ll just rush right up.”
“In high gravity? Sucking wind like that?”
“The rope can help,” she said.
Caden checked his link map. They still had fifty meters to go. He turned and fired ten rounds into the forest blind. Given their target settings for mech, he might get lucky, or at least cause the pursuers to pause just before the PIT members arrived at the tree. It was a desperate measure. Mechanical combatants might be set for fearless aggression or they might hang back to preserve themselves.
Their course brought them back to the tree they had decided on for extraction. No fire came at their heels. Caden brought out a smart rope and sent it climbing. It slid up like a snake, weaving back and forth against the ridged surface. The gray skin of the tree moved in response, but it did not impede the progress of the rope.
Here’s hoping we’re nothing more than a brief irritation to a harmless life form.
They leaped up and started to climb. As soon as Caden made it to the first branching, he checked on Siobhan’s progress in the heavy gravity.
Instead of following him, Siobhan shuffled back down the rope.
“Their lasers can still kill us up here,” she said. “We’ll die. I’ll misdirect.”
“Get back up! Maybe the pick up vehicle is armed! We can hide behind the trunk,” he said, but Siobhan had already armed the last grenade at the base of the tree and started to run around it.
“I’ll come up the other side,” she said. “Get in the vehicle and move the smart rope to the other side for me.”
“We could have dropped the grenade just the same,” Caden said, ordering the rope to crawl to the opposite side. He heard the sounds of an aircraft approaching. He looked for it but it was not above them. Most extraction craft were very quiet; he decided this atmosphere must be carrying the sound better than he was used to.
High gravity, denser air? Or just different composition?
“This way they’ll think we skirted around the tree, just like the last few times,” she said. “They’re tracking us.”
“Tracking by what method?” he said. “If it’s accurate then they know exactly what you’re doing.”
A VTOL braked above to come to a hover above him. Missiles launched from two pods hanging from its underside.
Fooom. Kablam!
The explosion lit up the foliage below. The crashing sound of the brittle stems echoed through the forest again as smoke rose into the sky.
That’ll start some dominos falling.
Fzzzzzzzt.
Caden’s arm heated up from a near miss. He recoiled behind the trunk, moving away from where he guessed the fire might be coming from. His Veer suit circulated the heat from his arm, causing his whole body to warm up. Hot air escaped from his suit to be replaced with cool air from his surroundings. He started to sweat, which the suit used to dump more heat.
Caden smelled smoke. He realized the tree was on fire.
All the easier for our pickup to see us.
“Exhale,” someone transmitted. Caden exhaled.
Suddenly Caden flew upward. He grunted under the acceleration. Alien leaves and branches sliced by his face at high speed. The aircraft had launched a snatch-cable, which had hit him and pulled with little warning.
“Just you?” asked the voice.
“One more, side of the tree on a smart rope,” Caden rattled off.
“I spotted her,” someone said. “Bring me five meters north.”
“Do we have her?” another voice asked.
“She’s having trouble making it up. That branch is in the way.”
“Can we clear it?”
“Negative.”
“Wait?”
“No, she’s down. She’s down. Take us out.”
Caden swore.
The simulation ended. Caden opened his eyes back in his quarters. Siobhan lay in his sleep web next to him. Caden felt a little sick.
She died to save me... like Arakaki.
His mood was shot. Siobhan opened her eyes.
“Don’t do that again,” Caden said. “I want to take a break.”
Siobhan embraced him. She was smart enough to know what had bothered him. She did not bring out his own words against him: It’s the only thing we can do to prevent it from happening to us.
“Later, then,” she said gently. She left his quarters.
Caden decided to sleep. When he woke up, the strange mood would be gone. Siobhan was great when he needed some space. None of his other girlfriends would have done that. She was special. He did not want her to die.
Chapter 3
A bright flash erupted across Jason’s vision.
Kablam!
Dust and debris flew, obscuring his view of the street below. The smoke moved away in the breeze, revealing a huge smoldering hole in the street. Somewhere nearby, people were screaming.
“Yep, it’s got this exit covered,” Jason summarized. He fell back from the rail of the balcony and planted his back against the building.
“Okay, come back in, we’ll try to get to him from in here,” Imanol transmitted back.
Jason darted into the factory. He could see in his link that Imanol waited across the empty hallway. Then his tactical went out.
“Imanol?” he asked. There was no answer.
Shiny has disabled our links. And next...
One of Jason’s attendants hurled into the room. Jason told his weapon to target it as he threw his head to the side. The sphere struck his shoulder.
His Veer suit absorbed most of the impact, though it hurt. The sphere rolled up his chest and found his neck. Pain arced through his body. Jason dropped and lost consciousness.
When he came to, Imanol stood above him. Jason tasted blood.
I bit my tongue again. Damn little shockers.
“Get up!” barked Imanol.
“Where is he?” Jason asked groggily. He saw some shards of metal on the floor he assumed were the remains of one or more of the attendants. He felt pins and needles across his entire body. His chest throbbed, causing Jason to imagine a damaged heart muscle.
“The floor above us, I think,” Imanol said. He stared up at the ceiling. Jason assumed he was trying to line up his link view with what he could see with his eyes.
“The stairs are to the right,” Jason said as he stood up. He got himself upright only to fall back against a wall.
“The right is blocked! The battle sphere blew away the entire stairwell!”
“Flank it?”
“It has no flank,” Imanol said. “It’s radially symmetrical, maybe even spherically symmetrical.”
“Then let’s get under him and attack from below.”
“How? I don’t see—”
“We can use a grenade to blow a hole in the floor. Hopefully right underneath him.”
“You propose we attack a creature that evolved in subterranean environments and can sense us through floors by tunneling underneath it. I’m sure this’ll go well,” Imanol said, but he started to move.
<
br /> “Well they were technically subvovokan environments,” Jason said.
“Blood and souls man!”
Jason smiled through the haze of pain as they ran back through a hall and into the factory. His consciousness felt like he was floating away from his body. The pain became a distant ache.
I don’t know what Momma Veer just popped into my bloodstream, but it’s helping.
People cowered between storage shelves and under fabrication machines. Other forms stood still or walked calmly through it all. Those were the android bodies, waiting for their users to link back in, or walking back to the repository to await a new host. Jason glimpsed at a woman sheltering beneath a desk.
That’s what you get for coming into the factory incarnate, Jason thought. You should have just remotrolled an android from home.
Jason knew what it was like: the occasional urge to actually leave the house, feel the real wind and sun on your face, or chat with friends incarnate. The chance to do something in the real world every now and then just for the hell of it. Remind yourself that there was one real world out there, at least according to the non-simulationists. Today, these people were paying for that decision.
Imanol came skidding to a halt. He pointed. “How about this?”
Jason took a look. A fabrication machine fed into an adjacent lift. The ceiling had a large trap door to allow source materials or products to be moved up to the next floor.
“Yah, good.”
They ran onto the platform.
“It’s not letting me—” Jason started, then the platform started to rise.
“Wow, you hacked it fast.”
“Cilreth maintains a kit for us to use on low security targets,” Imanol said.
She’s a super valuable member of the team. I want someone to say that about me someday. Jason realized the drugs were making his attention wander. He tried to force focus. Instead he just chuckled.
“You’re high as a TRB,” Imanol realized aloud.
Jason laughed some more.
Tachyon receiver bases are very high, indeed.
It took six seconds to come up to the next floor, but it felt like forever. Jason felt sure Shiny would be able to detect them rising, either with his mass sense or by their footsteps. As a creature that talked with leg tapping, he might be sensitive to the vibrations in the floor.
Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins Page 2