by S D Tanner
Shaking his head, trying to dispel the gnawing feeling Jessica could read his mind, he said, “Alpha-Six to Yankee-Six, where’s Clone?”
“You mean Ditto. He’s watching TV. Why?”
“Get him onto the Bridge. Show him the beacons.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re flown by clones just like him.”
“Roger that.”
“Alpha-Six to Alpha-Five, sitrep.”
Alpha-Five was second-in-command for his battalion, and he knew nothing about the man other than Ash had said he was good.
“I’ve got two grunts tearing up gunners outside your room. Five more have moved out to support the squads holding the city.”
“Casualties?”
“Down a hundred or so troops. Yankee-Six is sending reserves.”
“How are we holding?”
“Getting low on ammo. Situation is not under control.” Sounding proud, Alpha-Five added, “But we’re kicking ass, sir.”
Despite another gush of Jessica’s blood landing down his chest, the sergeant’s pride made him grin. Privately, Judge had described his plan to take the cities as a FUBAR brain-fart that would result in a major proportion goat fuck. As insults went, it had been a thorough vote of no confidence. Although Judge was the kind of man who didn’t resort to saying I told you so, the same could not be said of him. Once they were back on board the Extrema and with five cities under their belt, he looked forward to making Judge eat his words. Judge might have been right, and he was fucked up beyond all reason, but sometimes the craziest plan was the best one.
Timing was everything, and he wondered if he should send Stock into the fifth city. “Alpha-Six to Yankee-Six, what’s Echo’s status?”
“We’re down to five hundred armed troops. Why?”
“Can we teleport more troops from the land-based city?”
“We could, but they’re not armed.”
Judge was listening to their radio chatter, and he didn’t sound happy. “Bravo-Six to Alpha-Six. Seriously, Tag, do you want to be double fucked by that goat?”
“The mission is to take and hold five cities not four.”
“This situation is not stable.”
One of Jessica’s legs swung down so that her toes pointed at the floor. It wouldn’t be long before robot Jessica would have her free and he could teleport her to the Extrema. “Jessica is almost free.”
“Maybe so, but we’re not.”
“If it gets too hot then Joker can evac the troops in ten minutes.”
“Steady on, Tag,” Joker said worriedly. “It took ten minutes to teleport in tidy batches, but your guys are scattered now.”
“Give me an estimate.”
He heard Joker sigh. “Me and the Jessica on each ark can take them room by room, but that’s an average of fifty to sixty teleports per city. Each one takes a minute to set up and another one to do the teleport.”
Two hours was a long time to hold position, especially if they were under attack and had limited ammunition. Grudgingly, he replied, “Ok, we’ll leave the fifth city for now.”
“Time to teleport isn’t why you should leave it alone, Tag,” Judge said sharply.
Although he was willing to argue the toss with Judge, the tubes and wires left inside Jessica’s body weren’t enough to hold her in position. The left side of her body swung free and a rain of blood splattered across his helmet and chest. Forgetting robot Jessica was still balanced on top of his shoulders, he leapt forward to catch her. Robot Jessica tumbled backward off his shoulders and hit the floor hard. Holding out his arms, ready to grab Jessica as she tore away from the wall, he barely heard the robot land. Jessica’s naked body fell onto his outstretched arms so that her hips were over one forearm and her chest rested on the other. Draped across his arms, she hung limply as if she were dead.
He gently lowered her to floor and rolled her over. The eyes that had been open were now closed and her mouth hung slackly. “Jessica.” Pulling off his glove, he then touched her cheek, finding it warm and soft. “Jessica, can you hear me?”
She moaned and her mouth worked soundlessly as if she were caught in a nightmare, which he supposed she was. “You’re safe.”
Twisting around to find robot Jessica, she was lying in the same position as she’d fallen. Her mechanical legs had bent beneath her back and her arms were spread wide on either side of her.
“Yankee-Six to Alpha-Six, Extrema has lost contact with Jessica on the other arks.”
He grabbed one of the robot’s outstretched hands and pulled the body toward him. The smooth features were even more expressionless than before, and the eyes were wide open as if it were a doll. No longer controlled by the living version of Jessica the robot could have been a puppet, and there was no life left in it, not even a mechanical one.
“Jessica is free. Robot Jessica is gone.”
Joker’s usually relaxed tone became frustrated. “Dammit, Tag. You’re expecting me to control four arks.”
“Can you control them from the Extrema?”
“Only basic shit. You know, like set a destination, but I can’t manage four teleporters. You just cut our teleportation capacity by seventy-five percent.”
As the consequences of freeing Jessica hit home to him, Judge said sternly, “Bravo-Six to Alpha-Six, you need to pull out the troops.”
“Why?”
“Because if the aliens step up their attacks, our troops will be stuck.”
Judge was missing the point of the mission, which was to hold the cities. All that had happened was his troops couldn’t leave, not in any decent timeframe. He and Judge hadn’t agreed on the mission before they left the Extrema, and they still didn’t share the same objective. While Judge was worried about his men, he was determined to fulfill the rest of his mission. Judge might see losing teleport capacity as a problem, but he had never intended to recall his troops.
“Their orders are to hold the cities.”
Before Judge could spit some vitriolic insult at him, Ash’s voice cut through his earpiece. “Delta-Six to Alpha-Six, we have a problem.”
“Copy that, Delta-Six, go ahead.”
“We’ve got boo coo movement.”
“Make more sense than that.”
“I can’t. I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Break it down.”
“Something is coming. We can see their outlines in the room, but they’re only shadows.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know, but they’re huge.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Dead Force Down
“Delta-Six to Yankee-Six, emergency evac! All troops, emergency evac!”
“Yankee-Six to Delta-Six, get the squad leads to call in and I’ll teleport them home.”
Ash was calling for immediate teleportation, but he needed Jessica somewhere safe. “Alpha-Six to Yankee-Six, teleport Jessica first.”
“Roger that Alpha-Six.”
“Alpha-Six to Delta-Six, sitrep.”
His order was met with the sound of gunfire and panicked calls from the soldiers in Delta’s battalion.
“Pull back!”
“Shit!”
“Taking fire!”
“What the hell…!”
Stepping away from Jessica’s body, he couldn’t ignore the fact she hadn’t said a word since falling from the wall. Blood was oozing from tiny holes in her cheeks and neck. The larger tubes penetrating her torso, arms and legs had left deep and still bleeding puncture wounds. It would be up to Robert, the ship’s Medicus, to save her and he could only hope the man still remembered his oath. If Jessica died then where would that leave them? The aliens could yank the Dead Force under control by using the protocols inside the mechanical part of their brains. He felt connected to Jessica and, as his eyes scanned her brutalized body, she was more than just another piece in the puzzle to him. Jessica had managed to unravel the alien’s control, meaning she was th
e only person who knew how to beat them at their own game.
Joker teleported Jessica’s body and, if it hadn’t been for the bloody outline on the floor, no one would have known she had ever been there. “Alpha-Six to Delta-Six, sitrep.”
“Help! Help!”
It wasn’t Ash’s voice that replied to his order, but was that of a frightened soldier about to die. “Settle down, son. You’re already dead. Joker will casevac you.”
The next voice he heard wasn’t that of the soldier who had called for help or Ash. “No, no, no!”
He was standing alone in a room with a deactivated robot and the bloody print of the woman he’d risked everything to rescue. The room next to him was under attack by robot gunners, and Ash wasn’t answering his calls. Ash was most likely down, but he still didn’t know what was attacking Delta battalion.
“Alpha-Six to Yankee-Six, have you casevac’d Ash?” When Joker didn’t reply, he said, “Yankee-Six, do you copy?”
“Bravo-Six to Alpha-Six, look outside,” Judge said.
“My suite doesn’t have a window view.”
“JFDI, Tag.”
Walking to the wall furthest from the room next to his, he ran his hand in a circle until a gap appeared. Opening one door after the next, every room was empty, and he quickly cut across the city knowing that eventually he would find an exterior wall.
“Alpha-Six to Papa-Six, sitrep.”
“Papa-Six to Alpha-Six, the beacons broke off their attack,” Hawk replied, but he sounded worried.
It meant Clone, or Ditto as Joker had renamed him, must have called off his clones, which should have made Hawk happy. “That’s good, right?”
“Umm, it was.”
Judge had told him to find a window and now Hawk was being coy. Something was happening outside the cities, but no one was telling him what it was. “Why isn’t anyone talking to me?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what’s happening.”
He was continuing to open doors, walking through each gap and not bothering to close it. If anything was following him, then they’d know exactly where he was, but he didn’t care. Where minutes earlier he’d been confident the fight was all but his, now his brain was nagging him. Pride comes before a fall and he’d been stupid enough to believe the enemy had lost.
“Alpha-Six to Yankee-Six, what do you see?”
“Busy, Tag. I’m pulling Delta out and they’re scattered,” Joker replied, and he could almost hear the sweat in his voice.
“Look at their cams, Joker.”
“Tag…”
Copying Judge’s words, he said sharply, “JFDI!”
Suspecting he was in the eye of a storm that was about to catch up with him, the last door opened to blue skies, only they weren’t empty. The panoramic view almost took his breath away. Above him, the soft, fluffy clouds were slowly drifting by, and below was a crumbling land-based city with the rest of his troops. It was what lay in between that made him take a sharp breath. The city Delta had assured him was clear floated barely two miles from his own. It should have been a tall white structure with a curved base and it still was, except now it had a bad case of fleas, and they were jumping out of the city as if they were starving.
The silver bodies winked at him as they turned in the sun, proving they were not fleas. Beacons were moving toward them, but they appeared slow and clumsy compared to the speed of the silver bullets. Hundreds of the tiny ships were flying across the skies, turning abruptly left and right, up and down, traveling along a flight path only they seemed to know.
“Alpha-Six to Yankee-Six, what do you see?”
“Dead soldiers,” Joker replied.
Trying not to sigh, he said, “We’re already dead.”
“We can be deader. The cams from Delta battalion are showing robots or aliens inside massive exoskeletons, I can’t tell which. They’re armed with something that nukes us. If they get you then you’re dead, Tag. Believe me, you’d have to be poured into a pod.”
He was about to ask how many mechs were attacking them, but then he realized the numbers were staring him in the face. Hundreds of tiny ships were streaking across the skies in front of him, leaving a trail of what looked like white smoke that he suspected was really condensation.
“Can we shoot them?” He asked.
“Not that I saw on the cams.”
“Where’s Jessica?”
“Robert has her.”
Maybe he should order his troops to retreat, but where would they go? If they pulled back now and ended up on land perhaps he could regroup, but without the production city, all he had was an unarmed army. Judge was right that soldiers were rough with their gear, meaning the armor wouldn’t last without replacement parts. Joker was the only one who could handle the teleports, and he couldn’t get every trooper out, so any soldier left behind was guaranteed to die for real. Should he save what he could and leave the rest? No man left behind was the mantra he both spoke and believed in. Turning his back on any of his troops wasn’t something he was prepared to do, which meant he could save Jessica and no one else.
“Joker, stop teleporting. Take the Extrema to the dark side. Save Jessica.”
“No fucking way, Tag!”
One of Hawk’s beacons fired a missile at the small, bullet-shaped vessel, earning it a stream of return laser or particle beam fire for its trouble. The beacon became a starburst of metal fragments that suspended in the air like an exploded firework. All that was left of the beacon was shrapnel that, when caught by gravity, fluttered to Earth like metal rain. Joker wasn’t wrong when he’d said they would have to be poured into pods, and that was assuming they could hoover up the remains.
“Alpha-Six to Papa-Six, who was that?”
Hawk’s voice sounded flattened by grief. “Flak.”
Joker spoke through his earpiece, seemingly angry and desperate at the same time. “I’m not following that order, Tag.”
Whatever was inside the tiny vessels, it was powerful enough to wipe out Ash’s battalion, making him wonder if they were the Interfectors Lolo had told them about. Grunt had stomped across the Bridge miming something large and lethal, as a warning that they had yet to meet their real enemy. He couldn’t win a war until he knew what he was fighting. Stepping onto the edge of the cavity inside the city, he willed one of the bullet-shaped ships to see him. When a small silver vessel headed in his direction, he didn’t move or even flinch. Curiosity killed the cat for a reason, and nothing in him wanted to shy away from the fight.
What little remained of Hawk’s flight squad spun on the spot, driving forward at the incoming vessel. “Alpha-Six to Papa-Six, call off your birds.”
“If it fires, Tag, then you’re a dead man.”
“I’m already dead, Hawk. Call off the attack.”
He wanted whatever it was to land so he could see the whites of its eyes, assuming it had any. Searching every part of his brain, including the bit that wasn’t really his, he couldn’t find any reason to stand down. If he ran away now he would never be free and neither would Earth. Standing his ground might kill him, but he couldn’t lose what he didn’t have.
“Tag, take cover!” Judge shouted.
“No can do, amigo.”
“Stop it, Tag. You can’t win.”
“Then I’ll go down fighting.”
Silence greeted his words until Judge spoke again, this time in a way that reminded him why they were more than just comrades in arms. “We’ve got your six.”
The bullet-shaped vessel skidded onto the platform he was standing on, bringing with it a burning stench and the screech of laboring metal. It was only twenty feet from him and he waited to see what would emerge. What had started as a howl of grinding steel turned into a mechanical whine. The ship was ten feet by six feet and shaped like a coffin. At first it appeared seamless and windowless, but thick chunky legs emerged from t
he hull. Unfolding from the middle, it stood upright and matching arms with round ends twisted from the frame. The whirring sound only stopped once a square head pushed out from shoulders that hadn’t been there seconds earlier. A face, if it could be called one, stared down at him, lit up with what he took to be two red eyes.
“Alpha-Six to Yankee-Six, are you getting this?”
“I see it.”
Raising his gun, confident it would have no effect, he opened fire, but his bullets didn’t even touch the mech. Ricocheting off what he assumed was a shield, they spat back at him like return fire. The giant eight-foot tall body was surrounded by a shield.
“It has the same tailor Grunt does,” Joker said, but he didn’t sound impressed.
“It’s an Interfector,” Judge added.
His visitor was still studying him as if he was something peculiar rather than a threat. Joker’s voice sounded in his earpiece. “I think he’s filming you.”
“Why?”
“You’re not dead yet.”
The Interfector wasn’t the only curious cat, and he walked toward it expecting to hit the shield. When he was three feet away, he reached out a fist and knocked on its metal chest. Where the bullets had failed, his arm had passed through the shield as if it wasn’t there.
Joker was still watching through the cam on his helmet. “Slow moving objects can penetrate this shield as well.”
Still tapping the metal body, he asked, “Anyone in there?”
It had been a cheeky maneuver and not one that was lost on the oversized metal toy. One chunky metal paw swiped at him, hitting him so hard that he hurled across the floor and crashed into the wall. The mech raised a hand the size of basketball and pointed it at him. A glowing blue light appeared first on his leg and then moved to his chest. It was about to fire the laser-style weapon he’d witnessed take out a beacon. Still on his ass, he scrambled along the wall trying to reach the gap, but the blue dot was chasing him. He kicked against the floor, sliding until he felt emptiness behind him. Giving a final hard kick, his heel slipped and he fell backward until he was on his back supported by his elbows. If the laser so much as touched him, it would be the end of his undead life.