by Isaac Hooke
He caught a glimpse of Manic, TJ, and Bender also jetting through the air, aiming for different houses beside him.
Then he collided with the building; the glass was actually intact, surprisingly, but he smashed right through it and landed on the floor inside.
The roof fell in as a robot plunged through to take him.
Rade got lucky—the robot was already in his line of fire. From where he lay on the floor, he had merely to rotate his wrist a few centimeters to the right and squeeze the trigger; the robot fell with a large hole burned into its torso.
Rade glanced at his timer.
Thirty-eight seconds remained until the lethal radiation dose.
Remaining where he was, he surveyed the hole in the rooftop, looking for any further enemies up there; the area seemed clear, at least from his current angle.
He low-crawled to the window, then peered over the rim with his blaster. He scanned the rooftops across from him and spotted another robot. He fired. The tango toppled.
He returned his attention to his Titan outside, which was still held spreadeagled by the pack robots in front of the building. With the help of the jumpsuit AI, he targeted the remaining chains in turn, firing the blaster and waiting the prerequisite recharge period each time, which was short given the relatively lower power output of the weapon. After eight quick shots, two per chain link, his mech was free.
Jerry deployed its shields in both arms as enemy laser fire came in upon the Titan from above. The mech leaped to the adjacent rooftops and began pummeling smaller robots. The mechs of Bender, TJ and Manic joined in shortly as the respective platoon members freed their own Titans.
Twenty-three seconds remained on the timer.
Rade was beginning to feel nauseous.
While the AI-manned Titans provided a distraction on the rooftops, Rade focused on the torsos of the remaining mechs. He shot out the chains that bound the hatches and freed more of his brothers.
The newly released captives emerged in their jumpsuits and joined the fray, taking cover and adding their firepower to the mix, so that soon the whole platoon was free.
As the others worked on freeing their mechs from the cover of nearby buildings, Rade concentrated on Luxe next, who was bound with the Marines near the front of the line.
Fighting the nausea, he fired two more shots on high zoom, breaking through her chain links.
Luxe rolled free of the pack robot that carried her and vanished into the shadows.
Three seconds remained.
“Jerry!” Rade said, jetting from the window. “I need to load up now!”
The Titan leaped down from the rooftop. Rade caught a glimpse of its anti-laser shields: they were riddled with bore holes.
The mech scooped up Rade in its large metal hands and shoved him into the open cockpit. The hatch sealed behind him and the inner actuators pressed into his jumpsuit.
He glanced at the countdown and watched the timer decrease from one second to zero.
Barely.
He vomited inside his helmet.
As his mech continued on autopilot, Rade wrapped his lips around the life straw protruding from the inside of his helmet rim and struggled to drink. Unfortunately, the tip of the straw was coated with vomit, and the taste nearly made him throw up again.
After a few sips of water, Rade said with a gasp: “Jerry, give Luxe the laser rifle from storage. Then continue doing what you’re doing.”
“Affirmative,” Jerry said. “Are you all right?”
“Never better.”
Rade took several more sips of water. He checked the radiation saturation levels of his subdermals: ninety-nine percent.
A red cunt hair away from a fatal dosage.
He glanced at the positions of Bender, TJ, and Manic. His companions had loaded into their own individual mechs, and their vitals remained green. He checked their subdermal saturation levels, which varied from ninety-five to ninety-eight percent.
Close one, my brothers.
Jerry reached the alleyway where Luxe had taken cover. The mech positioned its body between her and the street, and then the storage compartment opened up.
“Grab the rifle!” Rade sent her.
She fetched the rifle from Rade’s compartment and then returned to cover.
Jerry leaped onto an adjacent rooftop and beheaded a robot with a plunge of the massive shield.
On the street below, as their own timers approached zero, other platoon members quickly returned to their newly released Titans. Afterward, shields riddled with laser bores, they steered their mechs to the freed Storming Amazons and gave them rifles from their storage compartments, just as Rade had done. Not all the Marines received weapons, of course, but it was enough.
In under forty-five seconds the rest of the Marines were freed, and the remaining robots destroyed.
Rade glanced to the south. Hornheads were swarming back toward the neighborhood, with robot reinforcements in their midst. “We’ve got incoming to the south.” He was really starting to miss his weapon mounts by that point.
“I see them,” Facehopper said. “Sergeant, can your armor withstand the radiation levels inside the crater?”
“Barely,” Luxe replied. “Why?”
“I think you know why,” the chief responded. “Mates, we’re heading for the crater at the center of town.”
“Wait, what exactly are we going to do there?” Manic asked. “We’ll be even more exposed to their fire if we jump down there.”
“No we won’t,” Facehopper said. “We performed a local-beam LIDAR scan earlier and picked up several tunnels wide enough for mechs down there.”
“And let me guess,” Fret said. “You want to dive into one of these radiation-dense tunnels.”
“That’s exactly what I want to do. The hornheads won’t pursue us there. The radiation is too high.”
“What about the robots?”
“We’ll worry about them then,” Facehopper replied. “Storming Amazons, load up into the passenger seats! As usual, I want to see at least two per mech!”
Once again Luxe took her customary place in Rade’s passenger seat, along with another Marine, joining Grappler’s dead body secured there.
“Now move out, blokes!” the chief said.
“Traveling overwatch?” Rade asked.
“No time! Fire at will, Amazons!”
The mechs—and those Marines yet on foot—hurried between the buildings, jetting over debris, making their way toward the crater in a jagged line. Laser fire occasionally erupted from behind them. A foot soldier fell. Another Marine scooped her up and continued onward. Those Marines perched in the passenger seats continually fired back at the enemy.
“Do you want us to turn off our Implants?” Manic asked.
“What’s the point?” the chief replied. “They know where we are.”
“What about the nano-machine host you’re carrying?” Luxe said. “He’s a liability. We have to get rid of him!”
“My point still stands,” Facehopper answered. “The enemy already knows where we are. And I’m not convinced it was Keelhaul’s fault they found us.”
“Well I am,” Luxe said.
“I’m in charge,” the chief replied.
“Like hell you are,” she said.
“We talked about this already,” Facehopper said. “Compare the size of your battle suit to my mech. And think very hard about whether you really want to defy my authority.”
She didn’t answer; she remained perched in Rade’s passenger seat, presumably continuing to fire upon the enemy.
“You know, she might have a point,” Trace said. “If we send away Keelhaul and his mech in another direction, some of the enemy are bound to break off. Whether it will make a difference in the long haul is another story, of course.”
While it might be a good idea, Rade didn’t want to sacrifice a man simply to separate a few pursuers from the main horde.
Neither did Facehopper, apparently, because he said: �
�Keelhaul stays with us.”
“What about an empty mech?” Mauler said. “Dispatched as a diversion.”
“Still a waste,” Facehopper said. “Have a good look at the numbers behind us. Even if we split them in half, it won’t make much of a difference.”
They reached the crater and promptly dove over the edge. Another Marine on foot was shot just as she leaped, and her body bounced lifelessly from the rock face as she plunged. One of the Marines left her spot in Trace’s passenger seat to retrieve the body, and then jetted back to secure her to the seat; Trace and the other Titans continued moving the whole time.
As Manic had said, there was no immediate cover at the bottom of the crater. At least on the streets above they had the buildings and other structures. Down there, they had nothing but the glassy, blast-damaged tundra.
“This way!” the chief said.
A green rectangle appeared on the terrain ahead, highlighting the location of one of the LIDAR-scanned tunnels Facehopper had mentioned.
Rade was feeling well enough by then to take control of the Titan back from Jerry. He did so, and had only just turned toward the green rectangle when a missile warning appeared on his HUD, sourced from the lip of the crater above.
He fired his Trench Coat, as did other Titans across the platoon.
The resulting explosions sent Rade hurtling across the bottom of the crater. The Titan’s torso scraped the blast-damaged surface, denting the chest area. He was well aware that he was damaging the precious radiation armor at a time when he needed its protection most.
Hornheads were landing all around them, along with the occasional human-faced robot.
“I thought you said they wouldn’t follow us down here!” Manic said.
“Guess they don’t care about their well-being,” Facehopper replied. “They’ll all be dead within the hour.”
“And what are we supposed to do until then?” Fret said.
“To the tunnel!” the chief said. “Storm, Amazons! Storm!”
Those Marines who were still on foot—and armed—covered the retreat. The Storming Amazons secured to the passenger seats likewise fired.
Rade dove into the indicated tunnel after Bender. He found himself inside a moderately tight, circular cave, with a diameter of about five meters. The only illumination came from the headlamps of the Titans and Marines.
He plowed onward, and soon everyone was inside the tunnel, at least according to the updates on the overhead map. They hurried onward in single file through the gloom.
“Wait wait wait,” Fret said as they rounded a downward sloping bend. “There are so many reasons why this is the worst idea of the century. Especially considering that the enemy robots and hornheads might not even follow us down.”
“Oh they’ll follow us,” Luxe said.
Rade glanced at the camera feed that served as his rear view mirror, and beyond the mechs he spotted the trailing members of the rifle platoons as they hurried around the bend. The Marines paused to peer past the edge and fire their rifles—the horde members were undoubtedly pursuing.
Rade’s eyes drifted to the close ceiling as he ran.
“I wonder if we can collapse this ceiling,” Rade said.
Snakeoil spoke up. “Scans indicate several microfractures near the central portion of the ceiling. The pounding from the nukes almost collapsed it. A couple more well-placed blows in the weaker areas will certainly cause a cave-in. The only worry is a potential cascade effect: the ceiling might cave in for meters all around it.”
“If we don’t cave the ceiling, we’re going to have to fight them,” Rade said. “Sure, we’d probably be able to hold off them for quite some time, given the choke-point nature of the cave. But these tunnels are theirs, I would guess. They know where this one leads, and they know what other caves they can potentially take to cut us off. So the question boils down to, how long would it take them to circle around and come at us from behind, while we’re occupied with holding off the attackers from the other end? I don’t think we have a choice.”
“But you don’t know that,” Fret said. “What if this tunnel doesn’t lead anywhere? Man, what a shitty time to be stranded without HS3 scouts. We could be sealing ourselves into our own tomb.”
“Then we’ll dig ourselves out.” Facehopper’s mech glanced at the Marines who were still firing past the bend and holding the rear. “Luxe, can your Amazons stand these rad levels or not?”
“Barely,” Luxe answered. “We’re close to a fatal dose. If it gets any worse...”
“It should only get better here on out,” the chief said. “As we move away from the blast radius.” He paused. Then: “All right. Bender? Stay here and collapse the cave. The rest of you, proceed! That includes you, Storming Amazons!”
Rade and the others hurriedly traversed the tunnel, moving away from the bend.
“You’ll have to move quickly when the cascade reaction begins,” Snakeoil instructed Bender. “You’ll only have maybe a second before the falling rocks swallow you. I’d suggest programming your AI with instructions to fire the jumpjets automatically when the debris flow reaches critical levels.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Bender said. Behind them, he began pounding his large metal fists into the ceiling.
Rade heard the thuds from thirty meters away. He hoped Facehopper hadn’t ordered him to his death.
Good luck, brother.
Those thuds were soon replaced by an all-consuming rumble, and in moments dust completely obscured the view.
Rade was forced to switch to the thermal band.
The floor curved upward unexpectedly, and Rade tripped.
“Watch the ascent,” Trace sent too late.
“Bender, did you make it?” Facehopper asked.
Rade scrambled to his feet and glanced at the overhead map. Bender’s dot had moved inward since the collapse, however currently it remained motionless. His vitals were still green, however.
“Bender?” the chief tried again.
No answer.
“Shit. TJ, you’re going to have to go back and look for him.”
“I’m all right,” Bender said. “Had some rocks pinning my leg, but I’m free now and right behind you.”
His dot was moving again.
“How’s the collapse?” Facehopper asked.
“Complete,” Bender replied. “They’ll be digging for a while if they want to get to us from the other side.”
“I’m sure they won’t bother,” Facehopper said. “They’ll try to head us off at one of the exits. Move, people. Best speed.”
The platoon continued the advance. After trending upward for a few minutes, the tunnel sloped downward once again. Rade kept the thermal feed active as the headlamps couldn’t yet penetrate the thick dust.
“You’re assuming that this tunnel actually has an exit,” Fret said. “But what if it doesn’t? What if it opens up into some underground alien base? And you thought we were screwed before...”
“It’ll lead to the surface,” Rade said.
“Also better hope it doesn’t become so narrow we have to exit our mechs,” Fret said. “Because we all know what a death sentence that will be.”
“Negativity, bro...” Rade said.
“Is he always like this?” Luxe asked.
“Unfortunately.”
“I don’t allow morale leeching of any kind in my platoons,” Luxe said.
“We have different management styles, obviously,” the chief said.
The combined mech/rifle platoons soon moved beyond the range of the dust and Rade was able to switch to the visual spectrum once again.
The group continued onward. At any branches, Facehopper always chose the direction that would lead them farther from the city and closer to the booster rocket locations that Sergeant Luxe had shared with them. According to the map, those boosters were located roughly three kilometers to the east of the drop site.
The tunnel curved downward for two hours and then sloped up once
again.
After another hour, they finally surfaced.
The chief sent three mechs through the opening first to form a defensive perimeter, but there were no enemies waiting for them on the snow-covered plains beyond.
The others cautiously emerged and took up similar defensive positions in the snow, forming a nested cigar shape. It was still night. The city was ten kilometers behind them according to the map. After a quick search to confirm that nothing was hiding in the nearby drifts, the group proceeded toward the booster rocket site.
“So we pulled through unscathed after all,” Manic said. “You were all worried for nothing, Fret.”
“Not for nothing,” Fret said. “We got lucky. The cave could have easily become too narrow for us to proceed, or it could have ended in an impassible section. Like Snakeoil said, that ceiling was on the verge of collapse in several places, no thanks to the UC’s nukes.”
“You’re right, of course,” Facehopper said. “But we can’t dwell on the past, nor our luck. We survived, and that’s all that matters for the present moment. We have to keep looking forward. And continue doing so until we’ve left this frozen hell far behind.”
sixteen
The combined platoons continued advancing across the plains under the alien night. For stealth reasons they had deactivated their helmet lamps, and relied solely on thermal vision.
The snowdrifts proved too deep for the Marines who remained on foot, and they had to crawl up onto the heads and shoulders of the mechs, or crowd into the passenger seats. Some even hung onto the rungs that climbed the legs and cockpit areas.
Rade himself was carrying four Marines at the moment, and despite the extra weight he noticed no difference whatsoever in the performance of his Titan. The wonders of electromechanics.
The mechs moved in a single-file line across the deep drifts. Facehopper had split the Titans into two squads, traveling overwatch formation, with the second squad lagging fifty meters behind the first, well within thermal range in those clear weather conditions. Though of course, because of the single file line they employed to save electromechanical energy, only the point man in the second squad could actually overwatch the first squad; the others saw only the thermal outline of the Titan directly in from of them.