by Isaac Hooke
ten
The party marched west across the snow-covered plains, as Rade ordered.
“How are you holding up?” Tahoe transmitted to him over a private line at one point.
“I’m holding,” Rade replied.
“You know,” Tahoe said. “The place I rent near the base has a crazy big yard. A lot of green grass, and these pine trees like you wouldn’t believe, their branches just spreading across the property. Anyway, quite a few robins nest nearby. I usually don’t see them very much, except during a storm. That’s right, in the pouring rain, without fail the robins are out there in full force braving the downpour, hunting for worms driven up by the excess groundwater.
“My point is, you have to be willing to get wet if you want to eat. We all knew what we were in for when we signed up for this. We all knew that we or any of our brothers could die at any time. It comes with the job. We’ve come to terms with it. We expect it, even, though we like to tell ourselves we’re elite because of our training, as if that makes us invulnerable. As if it will somehow bar the cold fingers of death from ever reaching us. No amount of intense training can stave off bad luck, pure and simple. None of us blame you for what happened to Grappler. So don’t blame yourself.”
Rade chuckled. “If only it were so easy. A few words can’t magically turn a wrong into a right. Grappler was my responsibility. I feel I failed him somehow.”
“We all failed him,” Tahoe said quietly.
And then Rade suddenly remembered what it was like before he had become LPO. He remembered feeling responsible for the death of any of his brothers. Everyone felt that way. It was wrong of him to assume he was alone in his guilt, that his blame was somehow magnified merely because he was LPO.
Tahoe’s right. I can’t blame myself for bad luck. Nothing we can do but soldier on through it.
WHEN RADE JUDGED that the party had traveled far enough to the west, he turned his Titans north. Finally, after four hours, they neared the perimeter of the nuked alien city.
Though there was currently no snowstorm and thus visibility was high, Rade hadn’t seen the city yet. However he knew it lay just ahead, because according to the overhead map the outskirts awaited in the valley beyond the next rise. But Rade still had his doubts about the accuracy of that map—or rather, his position as portrayed on it—despite the many correlating topography scans they’d performed while passing the mountain range to the south.
He was following Manic and Lui up the rise. The pair reached the top in turn and simply stood there, motionless in their mechs, gazing down at whatever sight awaited before them.
When Rade reached the summit, he knew immediately that the map coordinates were correct: below the land fell away and in the expansive valley before him slumbered the remains of the city.
He swept his gaze across the snow-covered remains, his eyes drawn to the tall crystalline structures that protruded from the drifts and formed a vague donut shape around the blast crater at the center. Though badly damaged, enough of those structures were intact to hint at the wondrous city that once was. The architecture seemed unlike anything he had ever seen. Snow-capped dodecahedrons, of multiple crystalline hues and sizes, dominated the skyline, but other large geometrical shapes were present as well: cones, rectangles, spheres, cubes. It was the kind of city a deranged mathematician might design, or maybe someone new to 3D printing.
None of those geometric buildings were perfect—chunks were missing on all of them, and the dodecahedral blocks that seemed to compose them jutted up from the surrounding drifts like chunks of meat floating in a white stew. Cones ended in abrupt fingers. Rectangles had become irregular pyramids. Large, snow-covered rubble mounds replaced entire city blocks.
Through it all there were few jagged edges—most of the structures looked like they had partially melted, with large globules of crystal frozen along the sides like solidified wax. The wind had blown the snowdrifts away from the bases of some buildings, revealing thick accumulations of those globules shining like glass.
Rade’s gaze reached the center of the city, that donut hole where the devastation proved complete. Nothing remained standing—there weren’t even any signs that buildings had even existed in those areas. Instead, multiple craters, broad and deep, marred the tundra. The bottoms were sheathed in snow, and the side walls were slanted cliffs of black glass.
Those craters had swallowed roughly seventy percent of the city. Near the northern horizon, Rade could see the valley carved by the digger nukes that had been dropped by the UC in an attempt to eliminate the underground tunnel that connected this city to the next one farther north.
The broken remnants of a geodesic dome that had apparently once enclosed the city curtained the outskirts in places. The glass panels of the intact sections were pentagonal, reminding him of the similarly-shaped tiles that coated the enemy ships. All of those panels showed signs of heat damage, with melted, solidified smears dripping down onto the lower sections.
Rade saw no signs of life anywhere, on any of the EM bands. That wasn’t entirely unexpected: any living thing in the city during the attack would have been incinerated when the nukes dropped. He was expecting to spot at least a few UC troops, however. Perhaps even a forward operating base. Or maybe a couple of enemy units that had returned to the city in the aftermath. But there was absolutely nothing down there.
He zoomed in on the location where he was supposed to rendezvous with the chief, but the spot was obscured by some of the broken structures.
“Any sign of the distress signal that was supposed to be coming from the place?” Rade said.
“Nope,” Fret replied.
“I’m going to try a general broadcast,” Rade said. “Full signal. Assume a defensive formation.”
Rade and the others spread out along the rise and buried themselves in the snow.
“Facehopper, do you read?” Rade attempted.
Nothing.
“To any members of the UC drop teams,” Rade tried again. “This is LPO Rage of Alpha Platoon, MOTH Team Seven. We are here to render assistance.”
Still no answer. He half expected an attack to come, maybe in the form of a missile, but the city remained dead quiet below, as did the plains behind them.
Rade split the squad into two fire teams and initiated bounding overwatch. The first Titan fire team burrowed into the snow while the second deployed ballistic shields and advanced, wading through the drifts in a zigzag pattern. When the second fire team reached one hundred meters out, they dove into the snow, replaced shields with weapons, and allowed the first fire team to leapfrog them.
In that manner they made their way down the rise and into the valley. It wasn’t as efficient as the single-file formation through the snow, but it was safer. The mechs were running in silent mode, but even so the crunch of each footfall in the drifts seemed loud to Rade’s ears. When they reached the city, the structures would further muffle the sounds, and obfuscate the direction to any listeners.
Halfway down the valley, night came to the planet. It made no difference on the thermal spectrum, but visible light was reduced to about fifteen percent of previous levels. It probably should have been closer to zero with that overcast sky, but a subtle glow emanated from the crystalline buildings ahead, and the dim illumination reflected from the snow. The different colors invoked a kind of amusement park atmosphere, and Rade had to remind himself that they were stepping into a war zone, not a funhouse. He didn’t allow any of his men to activate the headlamps of their Titans.
“Jerry, how are we doing on radiation levels?” Rade asked the AI of his Titan.
“I’m detecting external readings of 2.0 mSv per minute,” Jerry returned. “Or four times the previous levels. Though that is still within acceptable parameters of the armor.”
“Let me know if that changes.”
Eventually the two fire teams passed through the remains of the enclosing geodesic dome and entered the ruined city proper. Up close, those intact, glowing stru
ctures literally towered above them, reaching into the sky. Even in his Titan Rade felt small. Once again he felt that the mech had been misnamed.
We’re not Titans. We’re ants.
He thought of the creature from the methane lake and the giant robot from the plains, and the memories only reinforced the feeling.
As he advanced, he realized the sides of the structures that faced the blast crater did not glow, and were invariably colored black. The sight helped ground him, and reminded him, along with the broken dodecahedral blocks, that the enemy was not invincible.
Rade continued to employ bounding overwatch in the murk, and the two fire teams crossed the untouched snow, alternately taking cover in whatever was available to them: the alleyway formed by two structures, or behind a collapsed wall, or inside the snowdrifts themselves.
They came upon the wreckage of a small dodecahedral craft at one point, smoldering beside one of the structures it had evidently crashed into.
“I wonder if that’s the same craft we saw out on the plains?” Manic said.
“It very well could be,” Rade replied.
They continued onward.
Tahoe was in charge of the lead fire team. A few streets past the crashed ship, Tahoe abruptly stopped his team twenty meters after leaving cover.
“What is it?” Rade sent.
“There’s a path here between the buildings,” Tahoe said. “And not just any path. The snowdrifts have been pressed right down, as if an army came this way.”
Tahoe and his team sheltered beside the path, allowing Rade and the second fire team to approach. It was true. A veritable road had been pressed into the drifts. The center was compressed into snowpack four meters wide, while at the edges individual footprints could be seen: some could have belonged to Centurions, others mechs and larger entities, but Rade couldn’t say for certain whether it was members of the UC who had created the trail, or the enemy, or a mix of the two. Definitely a whole lot of troops had passed that way, if not an army like Tahoe had said.
The path wound between the structures to the north, vanishing around a curve. To the south, the trail led to the outskirts of the city, where it climbed the rim of the valley before also vanishing from view.
Rade was reluctant to take the snowpack route; one of the core tenets drilled into him from his training was stealth. So instead he ordered his men to turn onto a side street between the structures, where the snow drifts were still unblemished, and continued toward the target coordinates.
It turned out that the snowpack trail mirrored their route, and the two fire teams had to occasionally alter their course to avoid coming too close to it. Soon avoiding it became difficult: the trail had expanded, with the snowpack extending into the streets beyond. The expansions weren’t as densely packed or as thick as the main route, and many discernible footsteps lined the edges.
The road less traveled.
The only way to truly avoid the expanding path was to retreat the way they had come, loop back, and approach from the side. Something that Rade was unwilling to do, considering that they were so close to the rendezvous point. So he continued.
And then the squad arrived at the dead bodies.
eleven
Rade realized something was wrong when Bender, the point man in his fire team, abruptly halted. Bender’s Titan stood beside a large lump that protruded from the snowpack in the dim light.
“What now?” Rade said.
“Boss, better look at this,” Bender replied.
Fearing the worst, Rade switched to Bender’s viewpoint. He was relieved when that lump proved to be not a Titan from Alpha Platoon, but one of the “hornheads,” readily identifiable by the three horns protruding from its face and the bony frill behind its neck.
Bender rotated his head so that Rade was looking forward: he saw more of the furry bodies scattering the route all along the snowpack. None of the corpses were buried in snow, Rade noted. Which meant they had died after the last blizzard. All of them showed signs of physical trauma—some lay in pools of blood, others were maimed, others had their heads twisted at obscene angles.
“Looks like Alpha passed this way,” Bender said grimly.
Rade switched back to his own point of view and glanced at his HUD.
“According to the map, the rendezvous point is just ahead, past the screen of buildings,” Rade said. “Lead the way.”
As the fire teams proceeded, the dead bodies became denser, filling the streets. Damaged humanoid robots, of a new type Rade had never seen before, joined the corpses. The golden-hued metal bodies vaguely reminded him of Centurions with those cylindrical limbs and round joints, but the faces... the faces were what got him. They were meticulously crafted to mimic a human being’s, down to the skin color. Seeing those incongruous faces tacked onto the robotic heads caused a chill to shoot down Rade’s spine. It was downright creepy, if not macabre. And while each one of the visages had different features, the Sino-Korean traits they shared were unmistakable. With a shudder, Rade wondered if he was looking at the alien endgame—the final result after the nano-machines completely converted a human being.
When the fire teams emerged from the screen of buildings it was to discover bodies piled up everywhere. Facehopper had evidently made some sort of stand there, with his back to one of the broad craters the nukes had vaporized into the tundra at the city center.
“Radiation levels have increased fourfold to 8.0 mSv per minute,” Jerry intoned. “The armor is no longer effective. The drip-feeds from your anti-rad subdermals are protecting your bodies, for now.”
“Bender, check it,” Rade said.
Bender waded and shoved his way forward through the piles of alien dead. Most of the corpses reached up to his chest area, though some were stacked to twice the height of his Titan.
Finally he reached the edge of the crater. According to the map, Bender had aligned his Titan with the rendezvous point.
“Nothing here.”
“What about in the crater?” Rade asked.
Bender peered over the edge.
Rade switched to his viewpoint but saw only more bioengineered bodies down there, half-buried in the snow.
Bender turned away. “Nope. You know my ass is getting fried by radiation out here, right?”
“Get back.”
“Don’t know why the chief would pick such an irradiated spot to meet,” Fret said.
“My guess is,” Rade said. “He didn’t know. One thing fleet neglected to do was give us a radiation map of the area.”
“Probably because they knew we wouldn’t go on the mission if we knew how bad it really was down here.”
“Oh we knew it was bad,” Bender said, returning to the screen of buildings. “We dropped forty nukes on the place. How could we not know?”
“Not looking forward to the bone marrow and microvilli transplants,” Tahoe said.
“The radiation isn’t that bad,” Rade said.
“No,” Tahoe agreed. “Though if we stay here too long, it will be.”
“I thought I just detected a ping,” Fret said. “It was very weak.”
“Can you pinpoint it?” Rade said.
Fret didn’t reply.
“Fret?”
“I’m waiting for the damn thing to repeat,” Fret said. “They must have set the interval really high.”
Fret waded out into the bodies. He had one hand extended in front of him, and he swept it to and fro as he advanced.
“See, Bender?” Manic taunted. “Fret isn’t afraid of the radiation.”
“Yeah,” Bender replied. “He never was too bright.”
Fret closed with the edge of the crater and proceeded alongside it.
“The interference from the radiation isn’t helping,” Fret said.
“Maybe don’t walk so close to the edge, bro,” Bender said.
“Probably a good idea.” Fret moved away from the crater, back into the heaped bodies.
He paused, then fished through the neare
st pile, bringing out one of the dead so that it lay on top. He fired his cobra into the hornhead, slicing open its innards.
“Didn’t know you were hungry,” Bender commented.
“Don’t think we could digest that even if we wanted to,” Lui said.
“Not like you, huh Lui?” Manic said. “We all know your foodie stomach is a machine.”
“You know what the definition of a foodie is, right?” Lui said. “I’d never eat that shit.”
Fret plunged his hand into the incision and produced a small cylindrical transmitter. “Good hiding place.”
“Is there a message or not?” Rade asked.
“There is,” Fret replied. “Polyphasic encryption again. I think my private key will work. One second.”
A moment later Facehopper’s voice came over the comm. “As you might have guessed, we had a bit of trouble here. Least of all from the radiation. We had to move. Meet us here, instead.”
A location transfer request appeared on Rade’s HUD.
“I’ve already scanned it for viruses,” Fret said.
“Kind of you,” Rade said. Though entirely unnecessary. Sometimes he wondered if he’d ever get used to the overprotection and pampering that came with being an LPO.
Rade accepted the request and a new flashing beacon appeared on the map, about five kilometers to the west, though still within the city limits according to the map.
Rade dispatched the waypoint to their Implants.
“Are we sure that message was authentic?” Manic asked.
“The keys matched up,” Fret said. “Has to be authentic.”
“It could have been recorded under duress,” Manic said. “For all we know, the chief is now an alien host.”
“Obviously we’re going to have to take every precaution as we continue,” Rade said. “Be vigilant now more than ever, people. We are on an alien homeworld, after all. In the heart of one of their cities. Sure, we nuked it, but apparently that’s only pissed them off more than anything else.” He surveyed his Titans. His brave, loyal brothers. Then he nodded to himself. “Move out. Bounding overwatch. Same fire team designations. Bender, lead the way.”