by Isaac Hooke
“Dickson, I want two teams,” Marlborough said. “Traveling overwatch formation. We’ll try for a jogging pace. I know some of you have damaged leg servomotors, so we might not keep it up for long.”
Dickson broke them into the requisite teams, T1 and T2. Eric was in T1, as usual. Slate was on point, Tread on drag. Eric kept five meters behind Slate, offset to the left, while the others behind him were offset different distances from the centerline. Fifty meters behind Tread, Dunnigan was on point for T2.
Eric smiled as he remembered Dunnigan’s comment the first time he’d ever been placed on point: “That’s right, the Englishman always gets the sacrificial point position.”
He scanned the horizon with his shoulder-mounted energy cannon as he jogged onward, as did the others. He kept up a constant, gentle pressure on the tail of Bambi’s crab as he dragged the unit, mindful about her earlier comment about not pulling too hard. So far, her mech seemed to be holding up well despite the faster pace. He was ready to let go if that should change.
A couple of drones moved ahead of Slate, taking the lead a hundred meters in front.
“Eagleeye, those your repair drones?” Slate asked.
“Yup,” Eagleeye replied. “I’ve diverted some of them to act as scouts. 3D-printed some cameras with my other drones and attached them to the undersides of these ones. Just as good as actual Ravens, except their comm range is more limited.”
“Nice,” Slate said.
Eric received a share request on his HUD.
Frogger would like to share the blueprints for T.A.M.E.S—The Alien Masking Emitter System with you.
“I already have it,” Eric said. “Fancy name, by the way. Tames.”
“Uh huh,” Frogger said. “Accept it. This is the latest and greatest. Refined with my most up-to-the-minute concepts and ideas.”
“Well then, I guess I have to accept, don’t I?” Eric did so, and the new blueprints appeared on his HUD. He let Dee take over while he scanned a few of them. There was definitely some new stuff there.
He dismissed the blueprints. His damaged leg servomotors were still making unusual sounds, and he noticed for the first time that his drones were just hovering alongside his mech, keeping pace, but otherwise not performing any repairs. He realized that was because he hadn’t designated a new material source since leaving the combat zone: the drones weren’t going to travel all the way back there just to gather repair elements.
Keeping up his jogging pace, Eric targeted the tentacled tank Slate dragged, and designated it as his new repair source. The drones promptly moved back and forth between Eric’s mech and the tank, stripping away ore as they renewed the repair process.
“Hey, the hell you think you’re doing, bitch?” Slate said. “This is my tank. I need it to repair my mech, and build my own emitter.”
“I performed a check,” Brontosaurus said. “We’re carrying enough spare material to repair us all, in addition to creating Frogger’s emitters.”
“All right, fine,” Slate said. “But I’ll be keeping a close eye on resource usage. If you take more than your fair share, I’m shutting your bitch ass down.”
Eric took offense at that particular wordage, especially the ‘bitch’ part, but decided not to say anything, since he was leeching off Slate’s materials, after all. The repair drones working on Bambi’s Crab, meanwhile, were grabbing their elements from the tank Brontosaurus dragged on the other side.
Almost all the other mechs had initiated repairs, and were also using the spare materials of the alien metal they carried behind them. Only Frogger, Hicks and Mickey, who apparently had taken the least damage, had begun working on the emitters. At least, that was Eric’s impression, because the drones were attaching a skeletal frame to the backs of the mechs in question. It looked like the beginnings of some sort of exoskeleton, like the kind a human might wear. He knew because he cycled through the camera feeds of the different team members in one quarter of his HUD as he jogged.
“You three pussies didn’t do much fighting, did ya?” Slate commented. He also must have been switching through the different video feeds. “Seeing as you got no repairs to make. You cowered under your shields, crying for the big muscular Slate to come rescue your sorry asses.”
“Actually, we fought harder than anyone,” Frogger said. “It’s just that we’re at such a higher skill level of combat development than you when it comes to small infantry tactics.”
“Uh huh,” Slate said. “Keep telling yourselves that.”
The team jogged on.
Slate gazed toward the plains to the north, where the craft they’d escaped from had fled. Eric often looked that way as well, worried that reinforcements would be arriving at any time.
“So, two airships got away,” Slate said.
“With our luck, Manticore was in one of those that fled,” Eagleeye commented.
“Well, that’s good,” Slate said. “Because I want to look him in the eye cameras when I stab my alien blades clean through his chest assembly.”
“Kinda pissed at him, are you?” Mickey said.
“Just a little,” Slate said.
“I want to kick him in the nards myself,” Crusher said.
“I want to cut off those nards as you call them…” Bambi said.
“You really like to dismember genitals, don’t you Bambi girl?” Slate said. “What is this, some kind of fetish of yours? Maybe we should be calling you Ball Snipper. Goes right along with Crusher’s full alias.”
“Hey, I got a trademark on the term Ball Crusher,” Crusher said.
“I’m sure you do,” Slate said. “Just as I got a trademark on Biggest Dick Of Them All.”
“Certainly suits you,” Crusher said.
“That didn’t quite come out the way I intended…” Slate said.
“So Sarge, I know you want to head to the mountains, because you hope to find cover there,” Traps interrupted. “But after that, what then? Like Mickey said, with our maps messed up like this, we have no idea how we’re going to get back.”
“When we’ve built the emitters, we’ll head southwest,” Marlborough said. “With luck, we’ll hit the forest. Otherwise, we’ll keep searching until our previous map data lines up with the surrounding terrain, and we spot recognizable landmarks.”
“I just thought of something,” Mickey said. “Now that the Banthar know where the rift site is, what’s to stop them from sending an invasion force through when Arnold creates the next one?”
“Nothing,” Marlborough said. “And in fact, the Banthar are probably going to do just that. Arnold will close it when he realizes what’s happening, of course. That also means he might not be opening the rift going forward.”
“What are you saying, we’re going to be trapped here?” Dunnigan asked.
“I sincerely hope not,” Crusher added.
“Let me clarify… Arnold won’t open the rift unless he has a reason,” Marlborough said. “That means, he’ll be preparing an invasion force of his own. Or at least reinforcements, to search for us.”
“You think he’ll send our clones?” Eric asked.
“I’m not sure,” Marlborough replied. “He’ll have no idea whether we’re still trying to complete the mission and return. For all he knows, we’re still out here. Maybe he’ll even open the rift one more time, at the end of the three-week window he promised us. To give us a final chance to return before he recreates us from clones.”
“Honestly,” Bambi said. “If he does create clones, and sends them through before the three weeks are up, I won’t mind, especially if those clones end up saving us.”
“I will,” Slate said. “Shit. I don’t need a clone of myself running around.”
“I can agree with that!” Eagleeye said. “One Slate is enough!”
“Har,” Slate said. “I don’t want no Eagleeye clones getting in my hair, either.”
“You don’t have hair, bro,” Eagleeye said. “You got a bald pussy.”
“Wha
t?” Slate said. “Don’t you be calling my head a pussy!”
“Well it is,” Eagleeye said. “You and Hicks—”
In front of Eric, Slate slammed the tentacle of the tank he was hauling to the ground, and he spun around. Eric, still jogging, nearly ran into him. Eric and Crusher swerved to the side, rounding the tank as they carried Bambi, and continued forward, taking point.
“At ease, Slate,” Marlborough said. “Resume the march.”
“But that little bitch—”
“If I have to tell you to resume the march one more time...” Marlborough’s voice trailed off threateningly.
Slate sighed.
Eric glanced at his rear view camera, past Brontosaurus who was jogging five meters behind him, and spotted Slate. His mech turned around, picked up the tentacle, and began dragging the alien tank once more. He resumed his place in the march behind Brontosaurus.
“You’re going to pay for that comment later,” Slate muttered.
“I’m sure I will,” Eagleeye said.
“Stop taunting him,” Marlborough said. “That’s an order.”
“Sorry, Sarge,” Eagleeye said. “The mission is getting to me.”
“It’s getting to all of us,” Marlborough said. “We’re potentially trapped here on an alien world, surrounded by aliens trying to capture us for spare parts. Doesn’t really get much worse than this. Slate, return to point position. I’m not liking having three mechs exposed in front like that.”
“You got it.” Slate increased his speed, and sped past Eric and Crusher to resume point.
8
Eric continued to scan the horizons on either side as he jogged, but he spotted no incoming forces. He also took care to study the mountain range ahead, which could be a prime ambush spot. He had Dee take over his mech, and zoomed in to study the different rock faces, searching for signs of hidden turrets.
For repairs, his drones continued to melt materials away from Slate’s tank in front, while Bambi and Crusher utilized the processed metals from Brontosaurus’ haul just behind to effect their own repairs.
When the platoon was halfway to the mountains thirty minutes later, Eric and the other members of the Bolt Eaters had to halt so that the drones could open up his servomotors and finish the repairs. After another half hour, the drones had completely fixed his servomotors and sealed them up again; they’d also repaired the remaining damage to his mech, including the holes in his ballistic shield, so he instructed the multifunction repair swarm to begin 3D-printing the emitters based on the updated blueprints Frogger had sent him. The small flying robots began to create that exoskeleton he had seen before on Frogger, Hicks and Mickey.
The platoon resumed its former pace, and in another hour they reached the mountain range, this without encountering any ambushes along the way. Eric continued to search those distant heights, afraid of an attack at any moment. But none came.
“Now what?” Hicks asked.
“We have to search for some sort of shelter,” Frogger replied. “A cave, or series of caves preferably. Barring that, a defile to a hidden valley. Maybe a gorge.”
“Sarge?” Hicks pressed.
“What Frogger said,” Marlborough commented.
As they made their way along the shoulder of those mountains, Eric couldn’t shake the sudden sensation that the team was being watched. It was his old human instincts, some extraneous subroutines that he should have probably stamped out a long time ago. Because as far as he could tell, there was no one, and nothing, out there.
The buzzing drones continued to build the emitters on their backs.
“I got a bad feeling about this place,” Dunnigan said.
“You have a bad feeling about everything,” Slate said. “Shit, when you pull down your pants, you got a bad feeling. Especially when you look at your dick, or lack thereof.”
“You nailed it, mate, as always,” Dunnigan said.
“Thank you,” Slate said. “Finally, someone who gets me.”
“I was being sarcastic,” Dunnigan clarified.
Slate’s avatar folded his bulging arms over his chest. “And I was just about to invite you to join my rapper band...”
“Rapper’s don’t have bands,” Trap said. “They license tunes and rap to them.”
“Not me, I gots a live band,” Slate said. “Or I used to.”
“When is it going to register, you’re never going to be a rapper again?” Eagleeye said.
“Oh, I will,” Slate said. “When this is done, I’m going to be the first famous Mind Refurb rapper. You’ll see!”
“And here I thought none of us sought the limelight,” Dunnigan said. “We saved Earth not because we wanted to be famous, but because it was our job.”
“More like because we were forced to,” Crusher said. “Though in the end, I suppose we did the right thing.”
“But achieving fame through rapping is different than fame through valor,” Slate said. “Which of course I’m not advocating for. And none of us should ever do. Killing things, and losing brothers and sisters, that’s never something to be famous for.”
“Okay, good,” Dunnigan said. “That’s more what I was expecting.”
“Of course, when I blow up Eagleeye, it’ll be during a live stream for one of my rap videos,” Slate said.
“Why do I bother even talking to you guys?” Eagleeye said.
“Because we’re a ton of fun?” Slate said. “Because it makes you feel cool hanging out with us?”
“More like because I have no choice!” Eagleeye said.
They marched on for some time, scanning the north-south trending mountains beside them, and continuing to keep an eye on the horizons.
“Got what looks like a cave ahead,” Eagleeye finally announced.
Eric switched to the viewpoint of the lead drone. Sure enough, there was a towering cave in front of it, capable of easily fitting more than a few mechs. The entrance was circular, and from what he could see inside, the walls were completely smooth, and cylindrical.
As the rest of the team approached that cave, Eagleeye said: “Got more caves up ahead. In fact, the whole mountain range here is pocked with them.”
Eric glanced at the drone viewpoint and watched as the camera rotated, highlighting the tunnels leading away into darkness all along the shoulder of the mountain, and the rock face above. The entrances all seemed about the same size, large, towering, circular things.
“They’re all so big, and round,” Hicks said.
“That’s what she said,” Slate quipped.
“Huh?” Dunnigan said.
“Some lame dick joke, I think,” Eagleeye explained.
“What do you think made them?” Mickey said.
“If I had to guess, I’d say something organic,” Frogger said. “Something big.”
“They’ve got to be part of some extensive cave system,” Brontosaurus commented.
“That’s perfect for our needs,” Dickson said.
Traps appeared on the HUD. He was rubbing his chin with the crook between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t like it. Not at all.”
“Neither do I,” Marlborough said. “But we don’t have any other choice. Look at the northern horizon.”
Eric glanced at his rear view video feed, and zoomed in. He spotted small white dots. A lot of them.
“Looks like airships,” Eagleeye said. “Fifty of them.”
“Do you think they’ve spotted us?” Dickson asked.
“They’re heading toward these caves,” Eagleeye said. “So make your own judgment.”
“Eagleeye, send your drones into the closest cave,” Marlborough said. “Have them move as deep as possible for five minutes, ignoring any branching tunnels. Then instruct them to turn around and report their findings. The rest of you, increase speed. Running pace!”
Eric shifted from a jog to a run. As the others ramped up their speed as well, Eagleeye sent his drones into the cave as requested.
The shoulder of the mount
ain was particularly rocky here, and it made advancement hard: Bambi’s Crab jarred about behind Eric as the mech struck different protruding rocks.
There was a wide, flat rock in front of him, one that would give a particularly nasty jolt to the mech if struck, and Eric tried to swerve around it by pulling the tail he gripped to the right, but Crusher had a different idea, and instead steered the hind leg she held to the left: the result was that the two opposing forces canceled each other out, and the mech continued forward.
Directly into the rock.
Eric heard the load bang, and felt the tail pull slightly in his grip as the Crab bounced upward.
“Hey!” Bambi said.
Eric glanced at his rear view feed. Bambi, in her Cicada, had nearly been thrown off the carapace, and she had grabbed onto one of the forelegs before dragging herself back on.
“Watch the rocks!” Bambi said.
“Sorry,” Crusher said.
Eric merely grunted.
“The drones just passed beyond comm range,” Eagleeye announced.
“Speaking of your fancy ass drones,” Slate said. “I thought you printed cameras, only. Thermals and night vision aren’t going to get you very far in there.”
“The lead has LIDAR, too,” Eagleeye said.
“LIDAR?” Slate said. “Impressive. But where the hell did you find the time to print up a LIDAR unit? Let alone the materials. Some specialized shit in LIDAR...”
“I actually had a spare in my storage compartment,” Eagleeye said. “Unlike the rest of you, I’m always thinking ahead, when it comes to the spare parts we might need.”
“How do you know I don’t have a LIDAR in my pants, too?” Slate said.
“Why does that sound like you’re trying to pick up Eagleeye?” Bambi said.
“Er, bad choice of words,” Slate said.
“Hey Eagleeye,” Crusher said, playing on Slate’s mistake. “Slate has a LIDAR in his pants waiting just for you.”
“Sweet,” Eagleeye said. “I can’t wait to feel up your LIDAR unit, Slate.”
“Bitch, the only LIDAR unit you’re touching is the one I’m going to rip from your head,” Slate said.