Reactivated (Bolt Eaters Trilogy Book 1)

by Isaac Hooke

  “Can you meet me in VR, alone this time?” Bambi said. “I want to talk to you in private, without Crusher present.”

  “Talk to me here,” Eric said. “My power levels are getting really low. I don’t want to waste any processing power on a full-blown VR instance.”

  Bambi pouted, then sighed. “All right. I want out.”

  “Out of what?” Eric said.

  “Our relationship,” Bambi said.

  Eric frowned. “Twenty years, and you want out now, of all times? When we’re being hunted down by aliens?”

  “Having my life at risk has taught me a few things. Namely, what’s important in life.” Bambi folded her arms in front of her breasts. “I can’t share you with her anymore. I’ve come to realize that. I’ve lived through twenty years of this. You expect me to endure a lifetime more? I can’t do it.”

  Eric stared at her, at a loss for words. He couldn’t believe he was hearing this.

  And then she grinned widely. “Just kidding!”

  Eric slouched. “Damn it, woman, don’t do that to me.”

  Bambi shrugged. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

  Eric felt his virtual brow furrow. “For what?”

  “For not dying out there,” Bambi said.

  “Oh,” Eric said. “No problem. Though it was easier said than done.”

  “Oh, I know,” Bambi said. “No thanks in large part to me. I was with you in T1, after all.”

  “Ah,” Eric said, understanding. “That’s what this is about. You’re here to score some brownie points with me, that it?”

  “Uh huh,” Bambi said. “Who’s your favorite now? Come on, you know it’s me.”

  Eric smiled patiently. “You know I don’t pick favorites.”

  “Oh, but you do,” Bambi said. “You just don’t tell us, usually. But we can tell, by whoever you give the most attention to in bed.”

  Eric was very careful about dividing his attention when he was with the two of them, for that very reason. Women had very keen noses when it came to reading people.

  “I love you both equally,” Eric said.

  “Yes, yes, you’re always declaring your undying Love with a capital L for us,” Bambi said. “But you do alternate in favorites. Crusher has been your favorite lately. I think it’s my turn, now. Especially considering how hard I fought for you back there.”

  Eric sighed. “All right, I’ll see what I can do. Are we done?”

  “Not yet,” Bambi said. “I also want...”

  “Bambi, can’t this wait until we get back?” Eric asked.

  She sighed. “No. I just want you to promise me that you won’t take any unnecessary risks out there.”

  “Okay,” Eric said. “Okay.” He nodded. “I’ll do my best. No risks.”

  “You say that now,” Bambi said. “But out of all of us, you’re the one always taking the lead. Back when we were bombing the Tal Shahar on Earth, you were the one who went out onto the rooftop to set the charges, for example.”

  “I know,” Eric said. “That’s just my nature.”

  “Your bravery is why we love you so much,” Bambi said. “And yet at the same time, why we hate you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Eric said. “Now unless there was anything else you wanted...?”

  She shook her head. “No. Have a good night.” She blew him a kiss.

  Eric returned it and disconnected.

  He sighed.

  Relationship management. I’ll never get used to it.

  He waited a few moments, expecting Crusher to call him next, as usually seemed to happen whenever Bambi paid him a visit to express her “concerns.” Thankfully the line remained silent. That was good, because he wasn’t sure he would have been able to deal with her alone at the moment.

  “Dee, revert me to normal time when its morning, or Marlborough asks us to break camp, or we’re attacked,” Eric said. “Whichever comes first.”

  “You got it,” Dee said. Her avatar blew him a kiss.

  “And don’t do that,” Eric said.

  She pouted. “I thought you liked it?”

  “Only when Bambi and Crusher do it,” Eric said.

  He slowed his time sense to the minimum once more.

  Only a few seconds passed before he received an alert and automatically reverted to normal time again.

  “What now?” Eric snapped.

  “Morning has arrived,” Dee announced.

  “Oh,” Eric said, feeling guilty for snapping at her.

  I guess I just wanted some quiet time for myself.

  He probably shouldn’t have slowed his time sense quite so dramatically.

  Too late now.

  He sighed mentally.

  Time to get back to work.

  He activated his external cameras and took control of his Devastator.

  He was lying down, gazing at the canopy overhead. The pillars that formed the tree trunks thrust into the air around him, holding up the distant boughs. A green twilight had settled on everything so that he could see again, which told him it was indeed morning, maybe a half hour after dawn, judging from the light levels. Droplets of liquid hexane rained down from the canopy, imparting the illusion that he was traveling upward, toward those boughs. It was strangely relaxing.

  But that tranquility didn’t last for long, because he made the mistake of glancing at his overhead map. A sense of panic took hold when he realized the green dots of the other Bolt Eaters and their support troops were gone. Also, there was no chatter over the comm, and his external mics weren’t picking up any sounds, either.

  Fearing the worst, he bolted upright, and was relieved when he saw the other Bolt Eaters stirring, with some slowly standing from their lying positions around him. Still, his mics recorded no sound, and his map remained empty. Strange...

  He realized his auditory system had shut down sometime during the night to conserve power. As had his mapping subroutine, and comm nodes. He reactivated both.

  “Well that was a bit too quick for my tastes,” Slate said. “Tell me I wasn’t the only one who sped up time?”

  “You weren’t the only one,” Hicks said.

  “I didn’t,” Brontosaurus said. “That was one long night, I tell you. I kept worrying that my power levels would drop too low to support consciousness, and I kept expecting to black out. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I spotted the first rays of sunlight at the edges of the forest.”

  Eric glanced toward the forest edge, at the entry point the team had used, and saw that the drifts were melting, their edges highlighted in blue and gold beneath the rays of the sun. Also, a gentle rain was falling onto the plains, instead of snow: the temperature had already risen above freezing. The droplets leaking down from the boughs directly overhead were a combination of snowmelt and rain.

  “Sarge, did Frogger tell you about his plan to mimic the emissions of the Sloth units yet?” Eric asked.

  “He just did over a private line,” Marlborough said. “You get half the credit for the design, according to him.”

  “So what do you say?” Eric said. “Should we implement it?”

  “I’m leaning towards no,” Marlborough said. “Now that it’s daylight, I don’t want to waste time digging for bedrock.”

  “But it could be only a few meters down,” Eric said. He tried to dig at the ground with his working arm, first removing the yellow snow, and then attacking the black soil underneath, but he had difficulty, because the surface was still frozen.

  Crusher joined him, pounding at the ground with her thick metal hands. “It’s still too frozen. Maybe we should try later when it melts?”

  “Humph,” Bambi said. “Too frozen for the likes of you, maybe. But not I.” She dug at the ground with the eight legs of her Crab, clearing the snow, and quickly produced a sizable hole beneath it.

  “Now those are what I call some powerful legs,” Slate said. “That’s my kind of woman.”

  “I also don’t want to waste time pulveri
zing and processing any bedrock we find,” Marlborough said. “By the time we have emitters ready, another full day might pass. We could be off this planet by then.”

  “It won’t take a day,” Frogger said. “Once we have the rock pulverized, we can print up the necessary emitters in about an hour each, so fourteen hours total for all of us.”

  “There’s a wee problem with your plan,” Dunnigan said. “As a former geological engineer, I can tell you that sometimes bedrock rests hundreds of meters below the surface. Sure, there’s a chance you’ll find superficial deposits, and they could be quite thick, but there’s also a chance you won’t. And when you do finally reach some rocks, they might not have the metal content you’re looking for. In short, your plan is bollocks.”

  “There you go,” Marlborough said.

  “We could use the tanks for raw materials...” Frogger said.

  “I’m unwilling to sacrifice my tanks for a plan that might not work,” Marlborough said. “I’m sorry. Look, creating emitters was a nice thought, but it’s not something we can entertain at the moment. Bambi, get out of that hole. It’s time to head home. We’ve wasted enough time here.”

  “At least let me print up one of the emitters on the go,” Frogger said. “Using the elements we have stored for repairs.”

  “Again, because there’s no guarantee it will work, I’m unwilling to use up our spare repair materials,” Marlborough said. “Especially now that I know there’s little chance of replenishing those elements. At least while we’re in this forest.” He turned toward his staff sergeant. “Dickson, organize the Bolt Eaters into the usual teams. We charge our batteries, and then head south, taking a direct path to the area we mapped previously.”

  Dickson organized the Bolt Eaters and support units into the three traveling overwatch teams, and T1, with Eric in it, was the first to charge at the forest edge, while T2 and T3 stood guard deeper inside. The teams could have charged while on the march via the lower light available beneath the canopy, but Marlborough wanted to get their batteries topped up as quickly as possible.

  The three teams subsequently alternated positions, so that when all units were fully charged, T1 led the way south into the forest.

  “So much for convincing him to construct the emitters,” Frogger commented to Eric on a private line.

  “Sarge is right, it’s better that we head south now,” Eric said. “The Banthar will be all over this area now that the snowstorm is gone.”

  “I just wish we could have kept trekking all night,” Frogger said. “We would have been out of here by now.”

  “We all wish that,” Eric said. “The limits of power cells...”

  “Someone’s got to invent a portable nuclear reactor,” Frogger said. “And solve that problem.”

  “Hey, if anyone can do it, you can,” Eric said.

  “Hm, nuclear physics was never my specialty,” Frogger said. “But then again, I’m a machine now. And can master any discipline in a day.”

  “Go for it,” Eric said.

  “I’ll think about it after we get back,” Frogger told him. “What’s the point of inventing a portable nuclear reactor out here, after all, if we don’t have the tools to build it, and I end up dying before we get home?”

  The teams marched on through the undergrowth, which still reached to the waists of their mechs, and the tops of the tanks. Yellow snow that had fallen through the canopy had gathered on some of the branches in clumps.

  “Those look like piss-colored flowers,” Slate commented.

  “Maybe you should wear one of them in your hair,” Eagleeye said.

  “Shut up, bitch,” Slate said. “Before I turn your face into a piss-colored flower.”

  “That’s kind of hard, considering his face is made of metal,” Mickey said.

  “Oh yeah?” Slate said. “Just watch me.”

  “At ease, soldiers,” Marlborough said. “Tensions are high. That can be expected, considering our situation. But right now we have to pull together. Stay focused. There’s only one enemy here. Don’t go and create imaginary enemies among yourselves.”

  “Sorry, Sarge,” Slate said.

  The eaves of the forest occasionally came into view, as did a few Hugger herds that were devouring the periphery and forcing the tree line inward; Marlborough had the team move inward to stay well inside as necessary.

  During the advance, drops continued to rain down from the canopy as the snow gathered on top melted and mixed with the rainwater. Sometimes the droplets fell relatively close together, forming sheets of rain that splashed down onto the passing mechs. Now and then the snowmelt flowed down the actual trunks in miniature waterfalls, and carved circular trenches into the snow piled around the bases of the involved trees.

  Now that Eric had energy to spare, he fully charged his repair drones—which were sitting at only twenty-five percent power in their storage bay—and then released them while he walked. They got to work repairing his shield arm, which still dangled useless at his side. Other Bolt Eaters similarly released their own drones to service their particular units. A few of the tanks released repair swarms as well—Eric hadn’t even been aware that those tanks carried drones.

  In about an hour his arm was fixed, and he ordered the drones to move on to repairing the holes in his ballistic shield. None of the team members had any of the alien elements those shields were made of, so the drones filled the gaps with the simple Earth metals he had in his storage bay. The repaired areas of the shield would be the weakest points, but it would have to do.

  By the time the drones finished, he’d exhausted his supply of spare materials. He’d have to borrow materials going forward. Either that, or dismantle the drones for spare parts.

  The forest edges intruded less and less as the day progressed, and the drifts that Eric spotted along the periphery seemed smaller each time.

  They only encountered one group of alien inhabitants along the way. One of Eagleeye’s Ravens, traveling ahead and to the far right of the party, spotted a group of Dragonworms asleep within the forest. They reposed next to the partially eaten bodies of two freshly killed Huggers. Marlborough instructed the team to give those dragonfly-winged larvae a wide berth, and they passed the creatures without incident.

  “Wonder why they didn’t notice our passage this time…” Hicks said.

  “It’s obvious,” Tread said. “Didn’t you see the two Huggers they ate? You forget what it’s like to be an organic… you eat a meat buffet like that, you’re going straight to dream land.”

  The team continued the advance.

  “That snow sure is melting fast,” Hicks commented when the distant eaves came into view once more. It had been three hours since the last time the eaves had encroached on their position.

  “The lower pressure and alkane content give it a lower sublimation point than Earth snow,” Eagleeye explained.

  “Okay, I guess I can believe that,” Hicks said. “But how come the snow here in the forest isn’t vanishing as fast?”

  “It’s not exposed to direct sunlight,” Eagleeye said. “So it’s not heating up to the sublimation point as fast. Plus, the rain is helping melt the drifts outside.”

  “The guy has an answer for everything,” Hicks said. “If I had my connection to the cloud, I’d check, but I guess for now I’ll have to believe you.”

  “Got what look like alien search units, or scouts,” Eagleeye said. “Coming in from the plains. They’re spreading out.”

  “Take cover, now!” Marlborough said. “Eagleeye, hide those Ravens!”

  21

  Eric ducked beneath the thick undergrowth that grew next to a bole, and let the fernlike branches engulf him. Thanks to the protective cover of those ferns, there wasn’t much snow underneath, but mostly mud.

  Around him, the other Bolt Eaters had similarly vanished from view. One might think it would be hard to hide a war machine of that size, but in a rainforest like this, it was surprisingly easy to blend in. Slate, for example,
repositioned inside the thick lianas that hung down from the upper branches of one particular tree, lianas spaced so close together that they essentially formed a three-hundred and sixty-degree drape around the trunk. Bambi, who had the biggest mech out of all of them, at least in terms of breadth, hid her crab inside a root-framed hollow beneath one of the trunks. Eric was reminded of a tarantula descending into its den, with the way she lowered her carapace inside, and then drew her eight legs within. Creepy as hell.

  The tanks and combat robots similarly took cover, with one tank squeezing inside a hollowed out log; a few Savages followed it, carrying undergrowth they had torn away from the surrounding foliage, and deposited it just inside the opening to hide their positions.

  Now that Eric was settled, he requested access to the Raven’s video feed, intending to review the sighted tangos, but a moment later the connection went offline.

  “The Ravens just went black,” Mickey said.

  “I hid them in the upper canopy and turned off the comms,” Eagleeye said. “Full stealth mode.”

  “Damn, I wanted to see what these scouts look like,” Slate said.

  “I’ve seen them,” Marlborough said. “They don’t look like much, but I have no doubt if we’re sighted, reinforcements waiting on the plains will bring a whole lot more firepower down on us. The rest of you shut down your comms, too. Switch to stealth mode. Exit that mode and resume comms only if attacked.”

  Eric shut down his comm node immediately and lay back against the tree; he lowered his ballistic shield over himself and then powered down, leaving only essential systems running, including his cameras. He positioned his shield so that only the very top of his head, where the camera systems resided, was visible. Because of the way heat dispersion worked in the Devastator models, that portion of his mech wouldn’t be visible as a heat source on any thermal scans. It also allowed him to observe his surroundings, and react to any threats.

  The snowmelt dripped down from above, landing on the big fern that sheltered him. It wasn’t really a fern, of course, but the network of branches that spread outward from the alien plant’s core was so thick that it essentially formed fronds. The actual leaves on those branches were tiny blue needles, but again, they grew in such profusion that he couldn’t see past them.