by Isaac Hooke
The other Argonauts rapidly appeared in the laundry room behind him, as did the two civilians. Unit A was conspicuously absent.
“The Centurion?” Rade asked.
“Didn’t make it,” Surus said.
Rade felt a pang of remorse. That was the last of the away team robots. They had been self-aware, sentient AIs, and had died under his watch: essentially brothers who had given their lives for the good of the team. He had made backups of the AI cores on the ship before leaving for the mission, but that didn’t make what happened any easier. Reviving AIs came with its own set of problems, as evidenced by Harlequin, who kept waiting to prove he was as brave as his predecessor.
“Let’s move!” Rade advanced to the foyer of the apartment and opened the door. A motion sensor activated the overhead lights as he checked either flank. The common area hallway was empty, for now. Some of the apartment doors were bashed-in from earlier incursions, but most were intact and locked.
“They’re coming down our hole!” Bender said from the drag position, near the laundry room.
“Just like you do Manic’s?” Fret quipped.
Bender didn’t answer. Rade glanced back and saw Bender was busy firing into the laundry room with Lui. That none of the spiders teleported inside confirmed the theory Tahoe had that the aliens needed a relatively wide, clear space in order to materialize. The apartment suite with all its furniture prevented that, but this hallway, though cramped, might just give the creatures the room they needed.
Have to be quick.
“Retreat!” Rade raced into the hallway.
nineteen
Rade had gone maybe ten paces in the direction of the stairwell when the large glass window at the far end of the hall shattered. A spider dove inside, uncurling its long legs and lowering its turret.
Rade fired his plasma rifle; more beams erupted from behind him, joining his own, and the creature staggered and collapsed. Overkill.
Rade continued forward, but had gone only a pace before another alien crawled over the corpse from outside the window.
Rade shot it down; another spider appeared a moment later, this time materializing past the two bodies.
“Guess we’re not going that way!” Rade fired again, and then kicked in the door beside him to enter the apartment suite beyond. The other Argonauts followed him inside. The light fixtures activated upon entry, illuminating a bachelor suite. There were three rooms: a common room, bathroom, and laundry room.
Bender and Tahoe were the last to enter. They were firing in both directions, taking down the bugs approaching from the front and rear. Bender slammed the door shut behind him.
Rade and the others didn’t bother to place any furniture to block the door.
“Shaw, Surus, drill a hole to the next floor!” Rade ordered. “The rest of you, defend!”
As Shaw and Surus moved into place, the Argonauts assumed defensive positions behind the various chairs, counters, couches and coffee tables. Fret and Lui guarded the rear windows, while the others watched the front door.
Rade glanced at his overhead map. Harlequin was still alive, and had holed up inside another building nearby.
“Harlequin, do you read?” Rade tried. He kept his scope aimed at the closed door in front of him. The aliens should have attacked by now, but strangely, had not.
“Yes, but I’m occupied at the moment,” Harlequin replied.
“We’ll try to get to you when we can,” Rade said.
“That might prove... difficult,” Harlequin returned.
“Got our retreat ready,” Shaw announced.
“Bender, Manic,” Rade said. “Get down there and clear the suite below.”
If the aliens had attacked the front door, Rade would have been ordering everyone to go down that hole. But that the bugs had not told him they were up to something, and he decided caution was the best course of action at the moment.
Bender and Manic dropped into the plasma hole drilled into the floor.
“Fret, where are my Hoplites?” Rade said.
Once they touched down, the AIs aboard the mechs would guide them to their human pilots. Any resistance along the way would be handled with extreme prejudice.
“Bax says they’re coming,” Fret replied.
“Give me a location,” Rade pressed.
“Uh, Bax says they’re still dropping,” Fret said.
“Shit.” Rade stared at the door. The aliens still hadn’t attacked.
“What are they up to?” Tahoe said.
“Got the suite cleared,” Manic said. “The front door was intact. I checked the peep hole... the aliens are swarming the hallways already.”
“All right, I want the two of you to drill another hole through to the next suite below,” Rade said. “Ensure it’s not lined up with the existing bore: let’s make it a little harder for the aliens to follow us. Everyone else, start heading down to the next suite.”
As the others began leaping down, Rade remembered the two Units he had left behind with the shuttles.
“Units G and H,” Rade transmitted. “Do you read?”
No answer.
“Units G and H?” He tried again.
“It appears our companions have been lost,” Surus said. “Likely they were incarcerated after surrendering the shuttles. According to the map, the prison—Marakdom—is located within the northernmost dome. The security camera network reports that dome is teeming with just as many aliens as this one. Likely the two units have been terminated.”
Surus leaped down, leaving Shaw and Rade in the room.
Just then large circular patterns appeared in the walls on either side as the constituent material disintegrated. Those circular fragments shot inwards as spiders barreled through. Half of the lights went out.
“Retreat!” Rade leaped onto Shaw, pulling her into the pit with him.
They crashed into the well-lit suite below. Rade realized another gap had been torn into the rightmost wall here, and also through the front door. The aliens had anticipated their tactic.
A spider leaped onto Surus, pinning her.
Rade and the others fired into the bugs that attacked from the three directions: the ceiling, the foyer, and the wall.
When his latest target was down, Rade spun his weapon toward Surus, intending to aid her, but before he could fire the spider evaporated completely. It left behind a plume of smoke as if it had been utterly incinerated.
A green mist floated forward angrily.
Surus, in her natural form.
Unlike some other species the Argonauts had faced in the past, these bugs obviously hadn’t yet developed any technology that could protect them from the raw touch of a Phant, which was deadly to all organic life.
Emilia Bounty, the host, stood up, and joined the others in the attack.
“Good to have you with us again, Ms. Bounty,” Rade said.
“I never left you,” Ms. Bounty replied.
The Green floated between the Argonauts, disintegrating the dead spiders in its path. As the others repelled the aliens attacking from the openings at the foyer and ceiling, Surus floated into the adjacent room and began terminating the bugs gathered there.
“Well that’s handy,” Manic said.
“Sexy as hell, is what it is!” Bender said. “Surus baby, if you can hear this, I want you now more than ever! Once you’re back inside Emilia, we’re going to have some fun. A threesome, baby. Ooo yeah!”
“She’s clearing a path!” Lui said.
“Argonauts, follow Surus!” Rade said. He was still firing at the hole in the ceiling, which had grown larger as other spiders unleashed their turrets at it. Tahoe was covering the front door.
Rade and Tahoe retreated on drag, following the others. Batindo and Kato once more remained in the middle, protected by the Argonauts.
One of the creatures shoved through the wall of dead spiders near the front door and leaped at Rade.
He activated a lateral burst from his jetpack, trying to get ou
t of the way, but the alien caught his boot, either in its mandible or its forelimb, he wasn’t sure which, and he was carried forward with it. The pair smashed through the window on the far wall and hurtled outside, plummeting toward the pavement.
Apparently the creature was one of those equipped with teleportation, because before impacting the ground, time ground to a halt, and Rade’s field of view shifted in color, the night becoming a dark blue. It was like he resided in some alternate reality set above the real one. He could see the dark blue smears of buildings and other organic life around him, frozen in time. Only he and the spider were moving, slowly carried forward along a diagonal trajectory toward some distant target the creature had selected.
In stark contrast to their surroundings, the two of them appeared as bright blue outlines, with a slightly darker cerulean shade contained within those silhouettes: it was like he and the alien had been reduced to pure energy.
His HUD had disappeared. There was no overhead map. No vitals area that showed him the health status of his teammates.
He attempted to pull up the Implant’s menu, but it refused to activate.
Rade tried to flex his arm to bring the rifle toward the creature, but could not. He attempted to bend his legs. No good. Curl his fingers. Nope. He was frozen like everything around him.
The spider that gripped him seemed unable to move as well, its long legs stuck in the same pose it had during the fall.
The pair were carried inexorably forward by unknown forces, momentary companions on this interdimensional ride.
Their twin energies approached the street, heading toward a clear area between the dark smears of other spiders scattered across the asphalt. By their facing, it was obvious the spiders were heading toward the apartment to intercept the other Argonauts.
And then, just like that, Rade and the spider snapped back into existence, appearing upon the clearing in the road. The overhead map and other HUD overlays returned.
Rade switched on his night vision, pointed his rifle at the limb that held him, and fired, disintegrating the appendage at the tip. His captor jerked, releasing him immediately.
Rade jetted upward to get a better shot. The turrets secured to the creature’s abdomen swiveled toward him.
Rade fired his rifle at the turrets, and jetted laterally slightly at the same time. He issued countering thrust and swung back behind the turrets, landing on the hairy abdomen just beyond the field of fire of the weapons. He considered terminating the creature right there, but then realized that the spiders in the street around him had begun slowing down, apparently realizing what one of their friends had caught.
He cocked his head. His current position afforded him an interesting opportunity...
Rade flung his backside against the shared base of the turrets and activated his magnetic mounts. He wasn’t certain if the material was magnetic, but when he felt the pull, he knew he was held fast. The creature’s hairs bristled against his suit in outrage.
“Rade, you all right?” Shaw sent.
“Sort of,” Rade replied.
The creature was going berserk underneath him, trying to get him off. He aimed his rifle at the other spiders in the street around him and started picking them off. He focused on those closest, some of which leaped toward him as if intending to tear him off their friend. The bucking spider actually hindered the efforts of its brethren, because its constant movements prevented them from effectively targeting Rade.
Motion to the right alerted him of a spider vaulting into the air there; he shot the creature in time, but the spider struck him with a lifeless limb as it flew past and nearly succeeded in ripping him away. The hairs on its leg tore across the fabric of his jumpsuit but failed to penetrate.
Turrets belonging to other members of the swarm were turning toward the bucking spider he rode, and it soon became apparent they were going to terminate it, if only to get Rade.
The spider must have realized this, because it began teleporting frantically, trying to get away from the others. Rade was brought into that blue dimension repeatedly. Apparently time wasn’t frozen entirely in that realm, because he could see the laser beams fired from the turrets of the other spiders, collections of photons that slowly advanced through the air as if bogged down by some viscid substance. The other bugs were apparently opening fire haphazardly, because they were hitting each other in the crossfire. Rade watched those slow-motion beams eat into more than one unsuspecting alien.
The jumper continued its sporadic teleportations, crossing the avenue, materializing on a rooftop, then appearing on an adjacent street. It carried Rade far from the main swarm, finally arriving at the base of a high rise. The bug teleported repeatedly, slowly making its way up the exterior in short jumps, suggesting that the range was limited, at least for that particular jumper. After five jumps it finally attained the top of the building.
When it materialized in the center of the flat roof, Rade released the spider and leaped down. In its panic, apparently the bug hadn’t noticed that Rade had let go, because it dematerialized a moment later, vanishing from the rooftop. Rade wondered when it would finally realize he was gone.
He glanced at the overhead map. Thanks to the still active InterGalNet, and the lack of jamming, he remained connected to his platoon despite the distance he had traveled, and he could see their blue dots on the map several streets away. They were surrounded by a swarm of red. The team’s vitals were still in the green, incredibly.
“Guys,” Rade sent. “I made it to a rooftop of some kind. Do you see me on the map?”
“We see you,” Shaw said. “Our Hoplites have arrived, by the way. We’re coming for you.”
Finally.
That explained the green vitals across the board. He accessed the armor conditions of the mechs, and displayed those alongside the vitals. A few Hoplites had yellow indicators, indicating some damage, but so far all of them remained operational.
“I’m gonna give these bugs multiple blow jobs for you, boss,” Bender said. “And I don’t mean the sexual kind.”
“Yeah you do, Pussywillow,” Manic said.
“Harlequin?” Rade said.
“I’ve got my Hoplite, too,” Harlequin said.
Rade was relived. He felt personally responsible for the Artificial. Rade had been the one who reinstated him from the backup. The AI stored in that core had been only five years old at the time of the backup. It had been a couple of years since then, so essentially, Harlequin was basically a child, at least in terms of memories. A kid with the neural network and fully-developed personality of an adult.
“Fighting these bugs is a whole lot easier in mechs,” Lui said. “Their weapons seem to be variants of wide-beam lasers—the turrets fire several lasers at once, forming a spot area about the size of a fist. When they concentrate their fire among ten or so units, they’re able to disintegrate larger unarmored sections at the same time. Since our shields are anti-laser, and actually provide protection against such attacks, we’re faring quite well. The shields won’t hold up forever, of course. But they should get us to the booster rockets on the plains outside.”
“By the way, Bax reports that the entire atmosphere of the planet has been completely vacuumed away into space,” Fret said. “I don’t know who these aliens are, but I suggest we don’t let them get any closer to human space, if we can.”
“Not sure we’ll be able to make much difference with our lone ship,” Rade said. “But we’ll certainly alert the United Systems government to what’s going on here.”
“Apparently, Bax already has,” Fret replied.
“Uh, boss?” Tahoe said. “You better watch your six.”
“Just his six?” Bender said. “Dude, the boss has got to watch all friggin’ hands of the clock!”
Rade glanced at his map. Red dots approached the tower from every side as the security cameras picked up bugs scurrying toward his position. Apparently alien scouts had spotted Rade during his joyride, and had alerted the swarm.<
br />
Things were very quickly going to get hot up there.
twenty
Rade rushed to the southern edge of the building, where the vanguard of incoming enemies was closest, and aimed his scope down over the low rim. He activated the proximity sensor on his helmet to alert him if any aliens materialized on the rooftop anywhere behind him. He also kept the video feed from his aft camera active in the upper middle area of his HUD: the “rear view mirror.”
The glow bars embedded in the framework of the geodesic dome unexpectedly flared to daylight levels and his night vision autogated to reduce the brightness. He dismissed the infrared channel, returning to ordinary vision.
“TJ, are you messing with the dome’s day-night cycle?” Rade sent. “It’s not even close to the designated morning.”
“Not me,” TJ transmitted. “It’s obviously malfunctioning.”
Well, the cover of darkness apparently hadn’t helped Rade anyway. He targeted the incoming vanguard and opened fire on the lead bugs, bringing them down in turn.
The aliens reached the base of the building and surrounded it. Some began to climb. Others teleported, disappearing and reappearing further up the exterior surface. None teleported directly onto the rooftop, at least not immediately, confirming that all jumpers were limited to a relatively short range.
Rade fired as fast as he could, hitting bugs in the heads or abdomens, causing them to release the building and plunge to their deaths. He was keeping the southern exterior relative bug free, but he knew the creatures would simply be concentrating on the remaining three walls, so he abandoned that position for the eastern side.
As expected, the bugs had attained a foothold, having climbed or teleported a quarter of the way to the top. After clearing that section, he moved on to the next, and the next, repeating the process. He concentrated first on those bugs that were the obvious jumpers, and then picked off the rest.
By the time he returned to the southern edge, the closest aliens were only six floors below him. The rim he used for cover began to dissolve in places as the incoming lasers struck.