by Mars Dorian
“I see.”
His glance stopped at the massive mischief maker in the second crest. The mobile weapon of mass destruction that tripled every pacifist’s risk for heart attacks. “Plasmyr beam laser ‘Desolator’ with drone-enhanced targeting,” the soldier said. “Basically the mother of infantry armament.”
“Good against the aggressor, right?”
“And everything around.”
Bellrog arched his deep brown eyebrows. “You use that monster in close quarters, you’ll cash in collateral. The Yuugen wouldn’t approve.”
“I think the Yuugen would approve keeping their race safe. The structure can be rebuilt. The Yuugen—I’m not so sure.”
“You’re the operating officer.”
“Keep it as a back-up, Sergeant. We all need to survive this encounter.”
“Fine by me.”
Bellrog freed the massive firearm from its crate. The soldier needed both of his exoskeleton-enhanced arms to carry the power rifle. “Ready when you are, sir.”
The two synchronized their weapon layout with their HUDs. Bellrog posed like a metallic orc with a tank wrapped around his torso. “You look scary,” Tavio said with a smile.
“Feel like it, too.”
The captain rechecked with the doctor who held her position inside the dome. “How’s the situation, Dr. Eriksun?”
“Do you want the bad or the terrible version?”
“Give it to me straight.”
“The Verge has infiltrated the cluster and is eating itself through the outer defense ring. Chikara is putting everything on lockdown and running the auto-defense protocol.” She paused. “I know you’re in charge, sir, but you don’t want to do this. This creature is relentless.”
“So are we, Doc,” Bellrog said. “Besides, this isn’t a suicide mission. We’re the very last line of defense.”
A pause crackled over the communication. Dr. Eriksun’s voice lowered by dozens of decibels. “Please be careful. Both of you.”
“Will do.”
Tavio and Bellrog took the lift back to the lower floors of the cluster and followed the illuminated markers. The soldier spearheaded the march, and the captain hunkered down behind with the dart-based FAR7 rifle ready while Dr. Eriksun relayed what she saw on the dome panels. “The Verge is inside the cluster, sir.”
“Understood.”
Tavio and his soldier set up defense at an intersection where Bellrog stationed his auto-sentries. Each autonomous turret blocked a corridor and followed the fire-at-will protocol. A force field emanated from an engraved area and shielded the middle of their section from the other side. Chikara must have been in charge of their intersection as she activated the corridor’s defenses. Bellrog straightened his legs for maximum balance and trained his scattergun. Attached to his gear pack, the massive beam rifle slumbered—for now.
Tavio kept a two meter distance and eyed the corridors converging at their intersection. He prayed the creature wouldn’t advance this far.
“Sir, movement at twelve o’clock.”
Tavio saw it and wished he didn’t. The plasto-gate of the corridor in the middle bulged inward as if some invisible force was denting it from the other side. The material bounced back and desperately tried to regain its original shape, but whatever was pushing was stronger. Much, much stronger.
The armored gate gave way and shattered. A relentless swarm of crawling bots flooded the corridor. They crept along the floor, curved walls, and ceiling. The auto-sentries unleashed their fire. Bullet hail after hail rained down on the incoming armada. The crawlers blew apart and shredded under the high velocity fire storm. The Verge spread its swarm and circumnavigated the turrets until few units managed to crawl around it. The creepers spliced the mobile unit from behind and ripped through the mount’s central processing unit. Sparks flew in all directions.
“Turrets one and three lost,” Bellrog said matter-of-factly, as though describing the diagnostics of a fusion drive.
Despite the fully-automatic fire, the turrets didn’t stand a chance against the cybernetic onslaught. The last sentries sparked and spat pieces until they drowned in the hostile flood. Three corridors succumbed to the Verge army until only the force field in the intersection separated the enemy from the men.
“Let’s hope the force field holds,” Tavio said with waning confidence. He watched the Verge crawlers pressing their bodies against the energy barrier to no avail. The force field pushed back the swarm as if to say you will not pass. An invisible petawatt F-you to the Verge as they regrouped and seemed to retreat.
“Cowards,” Bellrog said, but Tavio knew the menace lingered. A predatory organism like the Verge wouldn’t give in and withdraw.
Unfortunately, he was right. Instead of trying to break through the shield, the Verge units drilled through the walls of the corridors and moved into the holes. The horde of crawlers disappeared into the new wall opening until the corridors became idle with an eerie silence.
59
The seconds punched like invisible fists. Tavio realized the Verge was circumnavigating the shields by having its units dig through the walls.
Crzzzzzzzz.
The first creepers drilled through the inner hulls and poured onto the ground of the intersection behind the force field.
“Here they come,” Bellrog said and fed the first wave of crawlers with a wide angle pellet blast. The cybernetic bodies burst apart as the soldier kept on pumping. Tavio aimed his FAR7 rifle, chose automatic fire, and squeezed the trigger. The darts pierced the first lines of the armada as it broke through the intersection’s walls. Thanks to the help of the aim-assist, Tavio’s targeting remained steady, even during auto-fire. Every time his rifle tended to nose up because of the recoil, the auto-adjust counteracted the force with its built-in stabilizer.
The corridors erupted in fire.
But even with the combined fire power, the two humans posed no match against the Verge. The hive kept on throwing more and more units at them.
“We have to fall back, sir.”
“You’re right.”
Bellrog stomped backwards to the corridor where he and the captain had arrived from. His gloved finger pushed the trigger and released bouncer pellets which ricochetted off the walls until they impacted the life form. The more creatures he pulverized, the more ferocious the life form seemed to react.
In between the permanent fire, Dr. Eriksun’s welcoming voice resonated. “Retreat to the evac chamber, sir. I’m giving you the updates.”
The way markers changed direction within the corridor and curved toward an adjacent section. Bellrog unlocked the cylinder-shaped EMP grenade and rolled it over the infested floor in front of him. An invisible shockwave swallowed the fierce cybernetic creatures and rendered dozens of them useless. The second wave washed over their metallic comrades and pressed on.
“Scattergun’s not enough, sir. I need heavy ordnance.”
Drastic times demanded drastic measures.
“Do it,” the captain said.
Bellrog threw the scattergun at the creatures and detonated it. The built-in self-destruction mode was created to avoid letting the weapon fall into enemy hands, but it worked wonders against the armada. At least five creepers shredded upon contact.
Bellrog snapped the Plasmyr beam laser from the back of his armored exosuit and activated the monstrosity. He used a microdrone as a mobile scope. The unit floated two meters above ground, calculated the optimal firing trajectory, and fed the data back to the rifle’s central processing unit, which relayed the information to Bellrog’s HUD. The ground-pounder nudged the trigger and discharged a high density beam that swallowed the waves of crawlers. Wall plates, ground panels, and creatures melted under the invisible petawatt laser beam. Particles floated into the air and visualized the ray as it tore through the enemy ranks. Tavio lost himself in the mass melting and hoped for victory. But the Verge was something else. Something so primal in its tenacity, it would keep on advancing until the very
last unit. The crawlers adapted to the situation; the swarm split up and avoided Bellrog’s beam by increasing the distance to each other.
“I don’t like this one bit,” Bellrog shouted.
The beam laser’s diagnostics flickered a warning that the unit was overheating and the battery was about to reach critical levels. Bellrog stopped nudging the trigger and caught up with the captain. They cranked the servo-mechanics of their exosuits and followed the escape route that Dr. Eriksun had transferred from the dome command. Dozens of meters up ahead, Tavio felt fear brushing his emotions yet again. A surge of Verge crawlers had found a way around. Worse, the units who initially retreated followed up from behind.
Coming at you from all angles, he thought.
Bellrog grunted. “Suckers must have split their forces while we were busy slicing through their front waves.”
Tavio pushed his back against the soldier’s gear, and Bellrog vice versa. The ground-pounder activated his laser again but the warning burned red. Tavio swallowed and fed a new cylinder-shaped mag into his steaming flechette rifle. He fired into the corridor up ahead while Bellrog plugged another EMP grenade on his side of the pathway. More crawlers crashed, and yet, more kept advancing. Tavio realized that moment marked the end—the Verge would flood the corridor from both ends and wipe out everything in its way. Fear should have strangled Tavio’s body, but the adrenaline burned through the blood like a nitro-boost and pounded his heart like an automatic sledgehammer.
“Two decades ago, we would have faced each other instead of our backs.”
“Sign of the times,” Bellrog said. “There are worse ways to die than with a Terran captain.”
It almost sounded like a compliment. Tavio felt a kinship reminiscent of the old days. Side by side, bullet for bullet. Brother in arms. Was this the end of their journey?
Tavio hadn’t accomplished his goal. He couldn’t go out like that, but the reality darkened. The cybernetic creatures closed up on both ends. The unstoppable force met the immovable objects.
Aim, fire, forget.
Tavio threw out his last mag. Bellrog counted down the distance on his motion scanner and voiced the results. “Eleven meters. Nine meters. Seven and a half.”
Every announcement sounded like the last heartbeat. Tavio thought of his brother, back on Earth, dreading through class. What a shame he couldn’t see him again.
Quintan. Don’t forget about me.
60
When the creatures crawled toward Bellrog’s knees, he kicked them off with his massive boot. It was hopeless, but seeing the soldier fight until his last breath inspired hope. Tavio kept on firing into the alien swarm and squeezed harder with every aim.
“Despite our differences, it was an honor fighting alongside you, Sergeant.”
“Drop the feels and keep shooting.”
Bellrog, the Martian iceberg. Ever in soldier mode, never complaining. Tavio nodded and emptied his last mag of high-velocity darts. But then something strange happened: instead of overrunning the two humans, the crawlers circled around the duo.
“What’s going on?”
Tavio couldn’t explain the Verge’s reaction. Bewilderment stretched across his face. The streams of swarms flooded along the walls and ignored the humans. Except for one unit; the creeper erected from the swarm, climbed toward the center of the corridor’s walls, and geared its cybernetic head at the duo.
Lurking, rotating, scanning.
The behemoth from Mars frowned. “Sir?”
Tavio was still spellbound, but he caught himself quickly. “It’s… analyzing us. I think.”
The optical sensors of the single unit whirled around its sockets. The unit broke its visual scan and returned to its armada advancing through the corridor.
“Beam laser ready again,” Bellrog said. “Your call.”
The swarm had already passed them and flooded farther into the corridor system. Tavio had no time to recover. “If we don’t stop them, they’ll invade the core.”
And kill Eriksun, Hōshi, Chikara and the rest of the Yuugen population.
He couldn’t allow it to happen.
Bellrog didn’t need another invitation. He repositioned the Plasmyr Desolator and used his exo-enhanced arms as tripods to stabilize the aim. He targeted the swarm from behind and released another ultra-frequency beam that vaporized the onslaught. The particles in the corridor reflected off the light and made the beam visible—like a ray shining through the cracks of a dusty shack.
Tavio stood next to him and watched as the creatures were pulverized under the permanent targeting. It sounded surreal, but the captain felt as if he was stabbing them in the back. For some reason beyond his grasp, the Verge chose to let him and Bellrog live, and it paid for that ‘mistake’ by getting blown up. But was the lifeform capable of empathy? Unlike the Yuugen, the Verge carried no discernible human features.
Bellrog marched forward but kept his aiming steady. The remnants of the Verge vanished. Around the corner, security droids took out the surviving units of the swarm and wiped out their angular bodies. The soldier released his finger and ceased fire. For the first time since the assault, he deeply breathed.
Tavio felt the urge to wipe the perspiration away from his forehead when he remembered that he still wore his atmogear. The suit felt like second skin at that stage.
“Can’t believe it,” Tavio said as he fell to his armored knees and exhaled the stress. Dr. Eriksun appeared around the corner and maneuvered through the piles of Verge crawler bodies.
“Oh my—what carnage.”
The doctor sounded actually worried. She halted in front of the two men and kept a cool distance. A second of awkwardness followed, but then Eriksun dropped military etiquette and hugged the men. Atmogear clank against atmogear.
The captain wrapped his arms around her. “Still in one piece.”
He flicked a glance at Bellrog, who gave him two thumbs up. “The Sergeant’s as steady as a rock.”
Cheering echoed through the doctor’s voice. “Isn’t he always?”
It was a rare moment of jubilation. Tavio felt transported back to his Alliance scout days where strangers became friends amidst the gravest of challenges. “I don’t want to destroy your confidence, but this isn’t over yet,” the captain said to his crew.
Tavio flexed a tired smile but stopped when he glanced over the rubble of Verge shells. The empty vessels littered the corridors like a tidal wave of cyber-trash. Geometric holes opened up on the corridor walls and released bots that topped the rubble and started carrying it away.
Few minutes had passed since the invasion, and already the Yuugen were repairing their base. This race must have been used to getting attacked.
“Where’s Chikara?” Tavio asked the doctor.
“Still in the dome, I believe. Why?”
“It’s time to plan the countermeasure.”
61
Tavio couldn’t believe it. Chikara still resided inside the dome’s core terminal, hooked to the system like a junkie craving her Burrn. The defense entity seemed oblivious to the captain and had the display wrapped around her slim body. It almost appeared as if the machine was sucking her dry.
Tavio observed the view screen panels on the inside of the dome which still showed the Verge spawner cruising through the void as if nothing had happened. The giant vessel floated around the exoplanet’s orbit like the monument of doom and despair. Another shower of shivers washed down Tavio’s limbs. “Have you defeated it?”
“No.”
“I mean the ground units.”
“The first wave, yes. Many more will come. Once the Verge starts, it never stops.”
Tavio swallowed hard. His oxygen tasted foul but the HUD didn’t show any malfunction. Fear corroded his taste.
Another wave?
They had barely survived a single one. The second would wipe out the rest of the cluster and everyone inside. And unlike the Yuugen, this new race didn’t possess an ounce of morals. It was an
unrelenting killing machine, except for that strange moment when the crawlers had ignored him and Bellrog. Was it a mistake? An error in the system?
Variables.
“What do you plan to do, Chikara?”
“The Yuugen rebuild the cluster for another defense while evacuating the perimeter.”
“Evacuating?”
“The Yuugen will leave this planet and flee.”
It seemed unlike the defense entity to pack up and leave.
“You’ve been hiding before, haven’t you?”
It suddenly dawned on him. E405 wasn’t the Yuugen’s home planet. It was a hiding spot from the Verge. “How many planets have you inhabited?”
Chikara lifted her elfin head from the terminal and turned her deep, leaf-shaped eyes to him. “It is not the human’s problem. Yuugen take care of their problems. The Verge is a Yuugen problem.”
“If that lifeform finds out about the solar system, it will be our problem.”
“The last one we’ll ever have,” Bellrog said.
The tension had never left the conversation, but Tavio was tired of drowning in the cesspool of interstellar problems. The longer he stayed on exoplanet E405, the worse the situation became. But given the fiery nature of Chikara, he wanted to approach from a different angle.
“While we were retreating in the corridors and returning fire, the Verge crawlers caught up with us.” He paused as he relived the terror. “But instead of flooding our bodies, they curved around… as if there were worried about hurting us.”
It sounded ludicrous coming out of his mouth, but Chikara didn’t react. She continued to stay linked into the terminal. Tavio concentrated on her cosmic dark eyes but couldn’t gauge her reaction. She still behaved in alien ways, so he enforced his bewilderment. “Do you know why the Verge ignored us?”
“The Verge does not know about the human race. Thus, it does not know how to deal with it.”
Tavio could swear the mighty soldier next to him twitched. Bellrog kept the thought to himself, but Tavio intended to ask him about it later.