by Isaac Hooke
Eric glanced at his overhead map, which was sheathed in the black fog of war that came with unmapped areas. A small tunnel penetrated the darkness of that map—the path the Cicadas had taken through the airship interior so far.
“Set the transmission range of your comm node to max.” Eric did that as he spoke, but the positions of the other Bolt Eaters didn’t show up.
“Got nothing,” Brontosaurus said.
“Same,” Crusher said. “The walls are interfering with our signals.”
“They’ll show up eventually…” Brontosaurus said. “When we’re close.”
“Assuming we can get close.” Dunnigan fired off another shot behind him.
From around the bend ahead more of those small, armed spheres appeared in their path. The gyroscoped muzzles targeted Eric.
He switched to Bullet Time and flattened himself against the wall as the spheres released nets.
“Must be part of the airship’s anti-boarding defenses.” Brontosaurus fired several shots from his heavy lasers.
Eric unleashed his own laser twice, taking down two, while Crusher and Dunnigan got the rest of them.
He reverted to normal time. His power was down to twenty percent.
“How are we doing on power levels?” Eric asked.
“Down to thirty percent here,” Brontosaurus said.
“Fifteen,” Crusher said.
“Eighteen,” Dunnigan said.
“I’m at twenty,” Eric said. “Conserve power. Fire only when necessary.”
“Yeah, we get that,” Dunnigan said. “You’re not the Sarge.”
“But he might as well be,” Brontosaurus answered.
“That’s right, you Yanks like to stick together, don’t ya?” Dunnigan said.
“You’re a Yank, too, need I remind you,” Brontosaurus said.
“Only because these bloody alien sods destroyed my country,” Dunnigan said.
They hurried forward. Eric spotted what looked like an iris-shaped scuttle in the deck; he noticed it because of the way the metal swirls stood out from the surrounding areas of the floor. There was another swirl directly above.
Eric adjusted the map to get an idea of his position relative to their entry point.
“Okay, we’re about two hundred meters inside the ship relative to where we entered,” Eric said. “Given the dimensions of the ship as recorded from outside, and the location where the mechs were tractored in, I’d say we have a better chance of finding the team if we head down.”
“I agree,” Crusher said.
They aimed their weapons at the scuttle, and opened fire, filling it with holes. When they had created a satisfactory amount, Eric knelt, and shoved his arm into one of the bigger holes. The deck was only about the thickness of his forearm, so he was able to reach past, bending his elbow so that his laser weapon had a view of the floor below. He switched to the viewpoint of its scope, keeping his main vision active in the upper right of his HUD.
Dunnigan did the same behind him, sliding his arm into a big hole blown through the scuttle, and pointing his weapon in the opposite direction. While Brontosaurus and Crusher watched their backs, Eric and Dunnigan surveyed their respective sides of the corridor.
Eric rotated his muzzle, scanning from left to right. “Keep an eye on the ceiling. Watch for the signs of hidden defense turrets. It would appear as a very faint rectangular outline.”
“Don’t see any,” Dunnigan said.
“Neither do I,” Eric said. He surveyed the bulkheads on either side, the floor, and then the ceiling one last time. “Seems clear on my end.”
“And mine,” Dunnigan said.
“Great.” Brontosaurus leaped onto the scuttle and broke through it with his weight. Eric still had his arm inside a large hole in that scuttle, and he felt the pull as the encircling metal shifted and yanked down hard, but then the pressure ceded as it abruptly broke away.
Brontosaurus hit the deck and Crusher landed behind him a moment later, facing in the other direction.
“Yup, it’s clear,” Crusher said.
Eric clambered to his feet and leaped down with Dunnigan. He took the lead, heading toward where he thought the mechs were imprisoned. The passageways were big here—big enough to fit mechs in single file, or four Cicadas abreast.
“At least there are no breach seals,” Crusher commented.
“The hell’s a breach seal?” Dunnigan said.
“Haven’t you ever served on a navy boat?” Crusher said. “Breach seals lined the passageways, and they close when the ship operates under Condition Zebra, which is the state of greatest subdivision and tightness, meaning that if there is a breach somewhere, it won’t effect the atmospheric integrity of the rest of the ship.”
“Why would an airship need something like that, unless it operated at high altitudes?” Brontosaurus said.
“Bingo,” Crusher said. “My point exactly.”
“That sealed hatch back there might count as a breach seal,” Dunnigan said.
“The scuttle?” Crusher said. “Not really. It’s there more so that the crew members don’t fall through the deck when running errands nearby.”
As Eric advanced, a large section of his map abruptly filled out, revealing a compartment and the corridor leading to it. Located approximately fifty meters ahead, the green dots of the remaining Bolt Eaters flashed inside the compartment in question.
“Sarge!” Eric said. “Do you read?”
“Scorp,” Marlborough transmitted. “Can’t… lucky… waiting.”
“You’re distorting,” Eric said. “We’re on our way.”
Eric approached at a run.
From around the bend ahead, several… entities stepped forward, and blocked their path. They were made of crystals, and appeared vaguely humanoid.
Eric and the others opened fire, but their weapons were completely useless against the crystalline forms.
“Didn’t we encounter these things on Earth?” Crusher said. “You know, the milk robots? When they touched our Savages, the crystals spread over their bodies, and essentially converted them into more crystal servants? The same happened when they touched human beings.”
“Probably the very same entities,” Eric said.
“Guess we don’t want to be touching them,” Brontosaurus commented as the milk robots approached.
“Makes you wonder why they haven’t used them against the other Bolt Eaters, yet,” Dunnigan said.
“Manticore told us he was bringing us to the Essential,” Brontosaurus said, backing away. “Whatever that is. Maybe letting these entities control us was off limits.”
“Where are some energy weapons when you need them?” Eric said, also retreating. The alien energy weapons were the only way to affect those entities, if only temporarily—the weapons would blacken their outer surfaces, causing the crystalline humanoids to freeze in place, at least until they broke free.
“We have to go around!” Eric said. He turned back, and retreated.
Armed spheres fell from the gaping hole in the scuttle the team had left behind, and the Cicadas shot down the tangos and proceeded onward.
Eric reached a crossroad-style bend; he shoved his weapon past the right side, while Brontosaurus took the left, and they confirmed it was clear. Eric took the right branch, and then another right. He used the map to gauge his position along the way, and to ensure he was heading toward the compartment holding the Bolt Eaters.
They encountered another defense turret that dropped from the overhead, and once more were forced to take cover behind a bend; they fired into the ceiling that surrounded the energy field employed by the turret, and took it down.
Eric was down to seven percent power by then.
They proceeded forward, and rounded the bend that led to the compartment they were looking for.
It, too, was blocked off by crystalline entities several meters in front of them.
“Fuck it,” Eric said. “Target the bulkhead.”
He aimed
at the bulkhead beside him and opened fire. The others joined in.
When there was enough damage, Brontosaurus hurled himself at the weakened bulkhead.
Wanting to get away form the incoming milk robots, Eric joined him; he aimed high, while Brontosaurus went low.
Crusher and Dunnigan shoved past, going high and low in the opposite direction.
According to the overhead map, the mechs were here, in this cavernous compartment.
Eric glanced at the different locations as portrayed by that map, and in place of mechs, found only vaguely humanoid crystalline shapes, towering above them.
“I guess letting milk robots take them wasn’t off limits after all,” Dunnigan commented.
4
Eric stared at the crystallized mechs, unsure of what to do. He wondered if the former Bolt Eaters would attack them.
He noticed then, incongruously, that the alien spears protruded naked from the forearms of those mechs that had deployed the Wolverine-style weapons. Only the bases of the blades were enveloped, as if the crystals were afraid to touch the remainder. Or couldn’t, for some reason.
“You made it,” Marlborough transmitted over the comm.
“Sarge!” Eric said. He ran toward Marlborough’s indicator on his map, and found the sergeant encased in translucent crystal. He was hesitant to get too close, worried that the sergeant might try to touch him, and encase him in the material, too.
“It’s me,” Marlborough said. “These crystals are constraining us, no more. I’m not sure if they’re operating in some different mode, or whether the milk robots actually intended to convert us entirely when they touched us one by one before you arrived. Frogger thinks the EM emitters are what saved us. You know, the countermeasures we all have installed to repel micro machines.”
“That’s right,” Frogger transmitted. “The emitters are obviously having a repel effect on these crystals, too, preventing them from penetrating our hulls, restricting them to the outer layers. We could probably break free of them, if we weren’t still bound by nets from the Dragonworms.”
“But Manticore said the ‘Essential’ wanted us,” Eric told his mind clone. “Wouldn’t that rule out any conversion process?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Frogger said. “Depends on what this so-called Essential actually is. If it’s some kind of crystal organism, like these things, then maybe it would still be able to access our neural processes, even after our minds became infected.”
“Where is Manticore by the way?” Brontosaurs asked.
“Stayed behind on the forest floor with the other support units,” Dickson said. “One of the remaining airships probably picked up him and the alien tanks.”
“So... if the emitters are protecting you, we should be able to break away the crystals for you, since we have similar EM countermeasures installed in our Cicadas, right?” Crusher asked.
“No,” Frogger replied. “I think if you touch the crystals, they’ll just reproduce until they cover your whole body. You’ll be trapped like us. If you really want to break them off, I suggest you grab some of the alien spears.”
“That’ll be hard without collection gloves...” Eric said. They needed special gloves to handle the alien spears, otherwise severe voltages would travel through the devices and into their robot bodies, disabling them.
“Can any of you launch your spears?” Brontosaurus asked.
“Negative,” Marlborough replied. “The bases are encased, and the spears won’t fire.”
“We’ll just make our own gloves,” Crusher said, her avatar shrugging. “The gloves are just insulators, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Eric said. He surveyed the compartment, searching for something that might serve as an insulator. “But there’s nothing here you can use. At least nothing obvious...”
She walked up to one of the encased mechs—Bambi’s, judging from the shape—and touched the crystal with her hands.
“Wait!” Eric said, taking a step toward her.
Crusher removed her hands, but it was too late: the translucent material had already begun to form over her palms and fingers.
“What are you doing?” Eric shouted over the comm.
Crusher’s avatar shrugged on his HUD. “You’ll get me out again.” She had switched to Bullet Time before sending that, and Eric’s timebase had synced automatically, thanks to her transmission.
Crusher leaped toward Bambi’s pronged tail, which hung down from the mech, and latched onto one of the three spears that protruded from the crystal. The coating on her hands protected her from the spear’s effects.
“Bambi, fire the spear, please,” Crusher said. “Hopefully, with my added weight, it will be enough to break free.”
A moment later the spear indeed tore away, and Crusher dropped, still holding it. She landed and tossed the spear into the air for a moment. She grabbed it again, this time by the haft, so that the pointed end faced Bambi.
As the crystal spread down Crusher’s arms, she got to work.
She moved underneath Bambi’s carapace area, stabbing the spear upward in rapid succession and forming deep cracks in the surface. Chunks began to fall away entirely. Electrical bolts spread outward from the impact sites, and soon sparks were playing all across the surface.
“How are you doing in there?” Crusher asked. The crystal had spread to the torso of her Cicada by then, and the portion on her arms had thickened, slowing down her servomotors there. “Is the electricity harming you?”
“No,” Bambi said. “It seems limited to the crystals...”
“Good. The trick is not to drive the blade so far that it contacts your hull underneath…” Crusher stabbed the spear into the joint of one of Bambi’s eight legs, and broke away a huge section of crystal, while causing a fresh wave of sparks to cascade across the translucent material covering the remainder of her body. As far as Eric could tell, none of those sparks touched Bambi’s main hull.
“Try to break free,” Crusher ordered.
“I’m still tied up by the Dragonworm silk, remember?” Bambi said.
“I don’t think you’ll need to move very much... wiggle a bit…” Crusher stabbed another leg, sending up a fresh round of electrical sparks.
“The milk robots are here,” Dunnigan said. “You might want to hurry up a wee bit. With an emphasis on the wee.”
Eric turned around, and saw five of the crystalline robots entering.
“Do all Englishmen talk as funny as you, bro?” Slate said.
“No, I’m a unique bumblebee, mate,” Dunnigan said.
“Bumblebees are extinct,” Traps commented.
“Exactly,” Dunnigan quipped.
Crusher continued stabbing and sending out fresh rounds of electrical bolts, and crystal was breaking away all over Bambi’s body. Bambi shifted her Crab unit, bending forward as far as she was able, given the Dragonworm bindings on her body, and finally all of the crystals fell away, hitting the ground and shattering.
Crusher stepped back and gestured toward Bambi. “She’s all yours.” By then the crystals had spread across the entire surface of Crusher’s body, and she was rapidly slowing down. Eric hoped the EM emitters in the Cicadas were strong enough to prevent the crystals from invading her body and AI core.
Eric glanced at the five robots. Brontosaurus and Dunnigan were firing at the crystalline entities, but their shots did no damage. Nonetheless, they continued shooting as they backed away.
Crusher stepped toward the robots, struggling against the crystals that contained her, but at last her servomotors gave out.
“Damn, fighting these crystals has drained almost all my power,” Crusher said. “I’ve switched to reserves. Sorry, boys, can’t move anymore. Wish I could help. Good luck.”
Not wanting to waste his power cell, Eric switched his time sense closer to normal, and hurried to Bambi. “Dunnigan, join me.”
Eric amped up his time sense again, aware of the battery drain, and aimed his weapon at the webbing that wrapped
Bambi’s body. He fired at the individual threads, concentrating on those segments that ensnared her joints.
Dunnigan raced to his side, and together they snipped away threads one by one. It wasn’t fast enough for Eric’s liking. Behind him, the milk robots were continuing to force Brontosaurus backward.
“Brontosaurus, we need your help!” Eric said.
Brontosaurus arrived a moment later, and joined in with his heavy lasers, and their progress improved.
“Try to break free,” Eric told Bambi.
She shifted, straining her Crab against the binds, her servomotors whirring loudly. She froze again. “No good.”
Between shots, Eric kept an eye on the milk robots via his rear view camera. He watched as they closed with the Cicadas, until they were only a meter away.
“Bambi...”
She strained again, but once again could not break free. “It’s no use.”
Eric grabbed onto Bambi’s leg. “Help me!”
Brontosaurus and Dunnigan joined in, and the three of them hauled her to the far side of the room. Eric glanced at his power levels. The exertion had brought him down to five percent, but it had brought the trio time to work on Bambi.
The three of them fired several times, snipping away the threads, and this time when Bambi shifted, she began to break free. In moments she had pulled all of her limbs from the Dragonworm webbing.
Bambi let out a war cry and rushed the five robots, promptly stabbing them in turn with the spears on her barbed tail. Electrical sparks passed up and down the surfaces of the stricken robots, and they shook in place for several moments until finally breaking apart.
Bambi returned to Crusher, who remained frozen in place by the translucent substance. The spear protruded from her hand: only the base was covered in crystals.
Bambi gently stabbed her prongs into Crusher’s chest, which wasn’t encased in crystals as thick as those imprisoning the mechs. Electricity sparked across the surface of the crystal.
“How you feeling, Babe?” Bambi asked her.
Crusher didn’t answer.
“Hm,” Bambi said.
“Did you penetrate her armor with the spears?” Eric asked.