by Isaac Hooke
“So wait, you had only one spare LIDAR unit?” Mickey asked. “So the second drone is flying blind.”
“It’s acting on data from the first, obviously,” Eagleeye replied. “And acting as a repeater, boosting the signal it’s sending my way.”
“For a machine, you’re a bit of a technological moron,” Slate told Mickey.
“I’m from a technologically backward century,” Mickey said.
“You certainly are,” Slate agreed.
“We have enemy aircraft incoming,” Traps said. “And we’re about to enter a fucking cave system... there could be aliens we’ve never encountered before in there, waiting to devour us all. Not to mention, some of us, myself included, will have to struggle with claustrophobia. And yet we’re all so calm... even joking with each other. I used to wonder how the lot of you could do that, staying so calm in the face of danger. Hell, I didn’t know how I could do it. I thought it was because we’re all machines. And maybe because some of you lowered your fear tolerance in your emotion settings. But then I realized, we’re just naturally like this. We’re scared shitless, at least I am, and yet we’re able to compartmentalize that fear somehow. By trading jibes. By listening to the insults, and adding our own. By simply being with our brothers and sisters.
“This is why the army originally chose us to be the Mind Refurbs for their war machines. Because we had actual military experience. And more importantly, combat experience. We’ve lived through shit like this when we had far frailer bodies. When we were human. And we survived. Multiple times. That act of survival was how we learned to do the compartmentalizing. And it’s why civilians can never be Mind Refurbs. At least not the Refurbs capable of piloting war machines.”
That shut the Bolt Eaters right up. No one said anything for long moments. The platoon members simply raced across the rock, dragging their heavy loads.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
“No, Traps, you got it right the first time,” Brontosaurus finally said. “We’re machines, bro. And civilian Mind Refurbs can pilot war machines. It’s called Containment Code, and emotional restriction. We’re free of all that only because we worked out a deal with our former masters: the army. But I’ll give you credit. Combat experience definitely helps. If we didn’t have it, I doubt any of us would be here right now. But what’s the most important, I think, is that we have each other. Without the brotherhood, and sisterhood, we have, we’d all have descended into madness. Taken the route of Manticore.”
That right there pretty much ended the conversation.
The team members arrived and piled into the cave mouth, where they lingered inside the cone of light from outside, next to the unlit darkness beside them.
Eric and Crusher released Bambi, and stayed near the tunnel opening to peer past the edge, keeping an eye on the northern horizon and the ever-encroaching airships.
The drones finally returned from the depths.
“Okay, what do you got?” Marlborough asked.
“They couldn’t find the end of the tunnel,” Eagleeye said. “There were several passageways branching off at different intervals, too: I definitely think it’s some sort of larger cave system. Probably connects to some of these other openings along the rock face, if not all of them.”
“Did the tunnel size change at all while the drones advanced?” Marlborough asked.
“Nope,” Eagleeye said. “It’s like here, easily fitting our mechs. We could walk seven mechs abreast all the way down if we wanted to. With another seven stacked to the ceiling.”
Eric glanced at Marlborough. “If we continue, the Banthar could use termites to flush us out.”
“Not with our termite countermeasures running…” Eagleeye said.
“Unless the Banthar have found a workaround already,” Frogger said.
“And even if they haven’t,” Eric continued. “We still can’t let the micro machines close. If they envelope us, we won’t be able to see anything. LIDAR, thermal bands, everything will be useless to us. We’ll be trapped blind. Plus, the alien tanks we’re using for spare parts will be completely exposed.”
“That’s a good point,” Marlborough said. “We’ll just have to find somewhere to hide if they dispatch micro machines, because we certainly can’t linger here, let alone stay out on the plains.” He turned toward Eagleeye. “Your drones will lead the way. Slate, give the drones a fifty-meter lead, then take us in. Everyone, we keep dragging the tanks. We need those emitters!”
Dickson distributed the marching order; Eric and Crusher picked up the burden of Bambi’s mech once more, and followed after Slate, moving deeper into the cave. Eric switched to LIDAR, since it quickly grew dark in there, despite the cavernous nature of the tunnel. The cylindrical walls and floor became outlined in wireframe ahead.
There was only one team now so that the Bolt Eaters were no longer traveling in overwatch, but simply in a single long, zig-zagging line.
“It’s almost like some giant worms tunneled out the place,” Frogger said.
“You and your worms,” Slate said.
“What, I haven’t brought up worms before...” Frogger said.
“You’re the one who coined the name Dragonworm,” Slate said.
“Wasn’t me,” Frogger said. “It was Bambi, if I recall.”
“Well, I guess it makes sense,” Slate continued as if Frogger hadn’t spoken. “Frogs eat worms.”
“No, they don’t,” Frogger said.
“Sure they do,” Slate said. “Search for ‘frog eating worms’ on any of the video streaming sites when we get back to the Internet. You’ll find videos of frogs eating worms in all their ghastly glory. There’s one that shows a frog chowing down on the middle of a worm, with both ends protruding from its mouth, squirming away. Makes the frog look like an alien or something.”
“The strange things Slate searches for,” Eagleeye commented. “Frog eating worms. Sheesh.”
“No stranger than yours,” Slate said. “A typical search from you is ‘man wins sausage eating competition.’”
“Uh, no,” Eagleeye said. “That’s just wrong.”
As Eric moved deeper into the tunnel, the bright opening behind him slowly receded, becoming smaller and smaller, until it was only the size of a thumbnail.
That last connection to the surface vanished as the tunnel curved inward, so that the team was enveloped in complete darkness. If it weren’t for the LIDAR, they would have seen nothing at all.
There was nothing around them but that cold, dark rock, pressing in from all sides. Eric could almost sense the heaviness of the mountain above them, even if the ceiling was somewhat far away.
The clang of big metallic feet hammering rock filled the air, echoing from those walls, along with the scraping of the alien tanks dragged behind the mechs. Then there was the ever-present buzzing of the drones, which themselves used LIDAR to coordinate their work.
And Eric thought the day was long before.
Well, it suddenly just got a whole lot longer.
Or the night, now, he supposed.
“Uh, so how are we going to charge in here?” Slate transmitted.
“We’re not,” Marlborough said.
A very long night indeed.
9
Eric continued the march through the long dark. He followed five meters behind Slate, and still dragged Bambi’s Crab behind him with Crusher. In front of Slate, Eagleeye’s repurposed repair drones led the way. Eric had the feed from the furthest drone in the upper right of his vision. The team members showed up as bright blue outlines against the otherwise monotone white wireframes demarcating the cylindrical floor, ceiling, and walls.
Other tunnels occasionally branched off to either side of the cave, but Marlborough had given the order to proceed as deep as possible without taking branches.
“What happens when we reach the end of the road?” Traps said. His voice came over the comm, and Eric’s auditory systems automatically lowered the volume of the background clangs and scra
pes so Eric could better hear.
“We retrace our steps and take the first right,” Marlborough said. “And the next right, and so forth. The classic maze solving algorithm. Makes it easy to retrace our path.”
“Except we don’t have to worry about that,” Frogger said. “Considering we’re machines, and the fleshed out areas of our maps are the equivalent of virtual bread crumbs.”
“Smart ass,” Dickson said.
“I wasn’t trying to be a smart ass,” Frogger said.
“Yeah you was,” Slate said. “Smart ass little bitch.”
“That’s right, suck up to the staff sergeant by taking his side,” Eagleeye said.
“Hey, you insult Frogger, you know you’re essentially insulting me, right?” Eric said.
“So?” Slate said. “Shut your two little bitch asses.”
“I think we’re going to have to show Slate why it’s not the best idea to call the two best hackers in your platoon little bitches,” Frogger said.
“So wait,” Mickey said. “If we’re retracing our steps, the right will actually be the left, from the point of view of the direction we took when first traveling into the cave. So we have to take the first left, then. Right?”
“We’ll use our maps,” Marlborough said. “And take the branch that most closely aligns with east.” Eric could imagine the internal sigh that Marlborough must have made.
“That might not actually be east,” Mickey said. “Considering our HUDs assigned the compass points to arbitrary points after we landed. As far as our maps are concerned, we’re still inside Sherwood Forest after all.”
“Sherwood Forest?” Hicks asked.
“Yeah, that’s what I call the alien forest we arrived in,” Mickey said. “It’s from Robin Hood.”
“Robin who?” Hicks said.
“Robin Hood survived for a thousand years, all the way to my time,” Mickey said. “You telling me his legend died out after the twenty-first century?”
“I know a little about that,” Crusher said. “I remember when I was growing up, there was some controversy in the virtual school system message groups about wiping historical figures like Robin Hood from the syllabuses. The governments at the time were hysterically afraid of any ideas remotely promoting socialism.”
“How does Robin Hood promote socialism?” Frogger asked.
“Rob from the rich, give to the poor…” Mickey explained.
“Sounds more like communism,” Frogger said. “Either way, it’s a sad day when Robin Hood is wiped from history, for any reason. A sad, sad day.”
The conversation faded on that note, and once more Eric was left to his own devices as he marched through the darkness. The voices had been a welcome respite from the monotony, and now that they were gone, his auditory subroutines returned the volume of the background noise to normal: the incessant clang of their footsteps, the rasp of the tanks dragged across the bare rock, the buzzing of the drones as they built the emitters.
“Anyone notice how the wreckages we’re dragging aren’t leaving any marks?” Brontosaurus said. “You’d expect a slight dent in the floor, a few scrapes, maybe even runnels or something, but no, there’s nothing. That tells me the rock is extremely hard.”
“That’s kind of good,” Hicks said. “Because it means any micro machines or other trackers the Banthar send inside won’t have anything to follow.”
“It’s also kind of bad,” Brontosaurus said. “See, it makes me wonder what kind of creatures created this cave system. And I’m thinking, those creatures can’t be good for us.”
“Maybe we’re walking straight into a Banthar nest,” Tread said.
“I doubt it,” Bambi said. “If this were a Banthar nest, there would have been defense turrets dropping from the ceilings a long time ago. Not to mention milk robots and whatever else the Banthar decided to throw at us.”
“Well, think about it,” Tread said. “We’ve never met the Banthar before. Not in person. We have absolutely no idea what they look like. Maybe they’re giant worms. Maybe related to those Dragonworms we’ve been encountering. If you were designing a bioweapon for your colony, you’d base it off your own DNA, wouldn’t you? Just like the bioweapons they deployed on Earth during the invasion were based partially on Earth DNA.”
“I don’t think these caves were necessarily formed by organics,” Eric said. “This could be a testing ground, for example.”
“A testing ground?” Brontosaurus asked. “For what, drills?”
“Their micro machines,” Eric said. “They’re capable of forming smooth tunnels like this through the hardest of materials—they ate away all the metal buildings of Earth, after all. And the Banthar used these caves to test and fine tune the termites.”
“Hm, the metal content in this rock is extremely low,” Bambi said, holding out a hand to scan the nearby surface. “So I guess that theory doesn’t pass snuff.”
“If they were just testing the termites, it wouldn’t matter what the rock content was,” Eric said.
“Speaking of termites,” Slate said. “I wonder why the Banthar haven’t used those against us very often this time around.”
“They saw how useless the termites were against our emitters, earlier,” Dunnigan said. “Besides, if the Banthar wanted to capture us, it makes sense that they wouldn’t use their termites, mate.”
“Maybe they’ve modded their termites to work around our emitters by now?” Mickey suggested.
“Oh I hope not,” Crusher said.
“You say the metal content of this cave is low?” Mickey said. “Just like everything else on this planet. They’ve stripped the place clean. Like they planned to do to Earth.”
“They certainly like their metals,” Traps commented.
Again the conversation faded, and Eric was left with his own thoughts.
He watched his power levels slowly tick down. He’d lost half a percent since entering the cave, which didn’t seem like much, but when considering they might be in here for a very long time, it was ample.
In half an hour Bambi’s Crab was repaired, and she returned her Cicada inside the fully functional mech.
“Nice to have a head again,” Bambi said, flexing her head, and body. “Then again, not so nice to have eight legs.”
“You’ll always be the spider we love,” Crusher said.
“How are your power levels?” Eric asked.
“Well, Spidey charged to full power in the sunlight while we were out there, even with the missing head,” Bambi said.
“Spidey?” Slate asked.
“That’s what I call my mech,” Bambi said.
“Cute,” Slate commented.
“Anyway, I’m docking my repair drones to give them time to recharge,” Bambi continued. “And I’ll redeploy them a while later so they can start working on the emitters.”
The platoon walked in silence through the cave.
Eric found his thoughts drifting to Manticore, and the betrayal of their former platoon member and friend. Eric wasn’t the only one, apparently.
“Sheesh,” Brontosaurus said. “Manticore. Betraying us like this. I almost can’t believe it. Manticore. My brother. What happened to you?”
“It’s heartbreaking,” Bambi agreed. “He hates us. Truly hates us. After everything we’ve been through. First he attacks our apartment complex, and then follows us to an alien world, only to ally with the very same aliens against us.”
“What do you think happened to him?” Hicks asked.
“No one knows,” Dickson said. “How can we?”
“How about you, Crusher?” Hicks pressed. “What do you think happened?”
“No idea,” Crusher said.
“What?” Hicks said. “You, Manticore and Brontosaurus were all heavy gunners. You all wore wraparound shades on your Cicada eye sensors, with bandanas wrapped around your heads like you were part of some gang. Come on, you have to have some idea. You two knew him best.”
“We hung out a lot in off hou
rs, true,” Brontosaurus said. “And to be honest, the dress code thing was my idea, as a way of fostering camaraderie. I’m not sure it helped all that much. In off hours, maybe. But during missions, we were separated most of the time. When the platoon is split into squads, or the smaller fire teams, or even sniper teams, a heavy gunner is always assigned to those teams. So until the invasion, we didn’t fight together that much. And you all know, the best way to get to know someone is when you fight at his side. So really, you should be asking the rest of the platoon what they think happened.”
“Plus, twenty years can change a man,” Crusher said. “Sure, we knew him. But not anymore. Besides, when aliens capture you, and inject some code into your AI core, chances are you’re not going to be the same person.”
“There you go,” Hicks said. “That’s what I was looking for. Theories on what happened to him. I like that one. It means it wasn’t Manticore’s fault. It means the aliens did this to him.”
“That would make some sense,” Brontosaurus told him. “Considering, he did say he didn’t escape when the alien bioweapons closed in…”
“Sadly, I’m not so sure the Banthar did this to him,” Crusher said. “I can actually see him doing something like this on his own. Given what happened in the end. We all remember how he was going crazy. The emotions… drove him past the brink. He couldn’t deal with what he’d become.”
“It hurts the most that he claims we abandoned him,” Eric said quietly. “Because that’s the furthest from the truth. He ran into the heart of those bioweapons, just when we were about to leave the Caucasus Mountains. I don’t know if he expected us to follow him, or what, but he made his choice. And then to go and accuse us of betraying him?”
“I still remember one of the last things he ever told me,” Brontosaurus said. “I killed my wife. He never forgave himself for the boat crash that had seen the both of them lose their lives. He had signed a cryo agreement to preserve his mind after death. His wife had no such arrangement.”
“It’s a terrible thought, to consider that one partner might live for all eternity, tormented by the thought that the other didn’t get the same chance…” Bambi said.