by Isaac Hooke
“All right, we’re clear here,” Tahoe said.
“Good,” Rade said. “Attach a few explosives to your hatches, teams two and three. Let me know when you’ve done so.”
A moment later:
“Ready,” Lui transmitted.
“Ready,” Tahoe replied.
“Baby, let’s crash this wedding!” Bender transmitted.
“Detonate,” Rade said.
The charges exploded. Rade kept his cobra aimed at the hatch. The metal had blown inward, revealing another lighted passageway beyond that ran perpendicular to the hatch—essentially a T intersection.
It seemed empty.
Rade glanced at his Hoplite companions. Then he slowly approached the entrance and shoved his cobra past the rent he had blown. He checked both flanks of the T intersection in that manner, but saw no sign of any enemy units on either side. The surfaces beyond were covered in the usual repetitive hollows, and outlined by those thin, neon-blue lights. The passage was big enough to fit three Hoplites abreast, or two spiders if they drew-in their legs.
“Surus, Manic, get out there,” Rade said. “Shaw, join them. I’ll follow on drag.”
The Hoplites proceeded through the hole the explosives had torn in the hatch. Rade followed on drag.
“Where to now?” Manic asked.
“We rendezvous with teams two and three,” Rade said.
He glanced at the overhead map. That meant proceeding to the east.
The passageway curved slightly, hiding teams two and three from view at the moment. The Hoplites didn’t have to travel far before Tahoe appeared at the front of team two, followed by Lui and team three.
“We continue following this passageway,” Rade said. “For the time being. Deploy your shields, let’s form a defensive square.”
Tahoe, Bender and Lui interlocked their shields at the fore, while Harlequin, Surus and Manic did the same on drag. Rade remained in the middle with Shaw and TJ.
“I wish we could pinpoint the Phant’s position,” Tahoe said.
“We all do,” Rade said.
I wonder if Surus is lying about that?
Doubtful. She was only putting the mission at risk by doing so.
“You know,” Lui said, “if our prey arrived in one of the same pods as we did, he can’t have gone far. If we follow these passageways, we’re bound to find him eventually.”
“This is a big ship,” Rade said. “And I’d rather not resign my fate to luck. There has to be a better way.”
“Actually, there might be,” Harlequin said. “This is odd, but I’m detecting a signal ping.”
“A signal ping?” Rade asked.
“Yes, of the kind a robot or Artificial might transmit,” Harlequin said. “I believe it is a distress signal of some sort.”
“A distress signal?” Shaw asked. “Or a trap?”
“Could be either-or,” Harlequin said. “If Governor Ganye accompanied our Phant, he would have the ability to emit this signal. But as to his motive, I am not sure. Likely it is a trap, as you say. Though I should tell you, the signal is growing weaker as we speak. As if the Artificial is being drawn away from us.”
“Or we’re moving away from him,” Rade said. “Can you put up his location on the overhead map, in relation to our own?”
The dot appeared a moment later, in the blackness that composed the uncharted portion of most of the ship. As Rade watched, that dot moved inward.
“All right,” Rade said. “We continue forward until we find a side passage to take us deeper into the ship.”
They advanced through that curving, neon blue-outlined corridor. On the right-hand side they passed the hatches that teams two and three had blown, and then soon more hatches that remained intact. Those latter likely led to similar conveyor belt rooms where other pods had docked.
“Um,” Tahoe said. “Why aren’t any spiders emerging from these other compartments?”
“We did arrive near the tail end of the boarding party,” Harlequin said.
“No, Tahoe’s right,” TJ said. “There were other pods that docked after we did.”
“Keep in mind, we were involved in a firefight shortly after landing,” Rade said. “That delayed us.”
“They have to be up to something,” Manic said. “They’ve ordered their shock troops to clear these corridors. Why? I don’t know. There’s definitely enough space for their jumpers to initiate teleport attacks.”
“Like I said,” Bender piped up. “The bitches are afraid of us. Bugs are running away to cower under the teats of their mommies and suck their buggy thumbs. They’re—” Bender cut off in mid-sentence. He halted, bringing the whole squad to a stop. “The hell is that?”
Rade switched to Bender’s camera feed and saw that some kind of device had come into view around the bend up ahead. It was just sitting there, as if it had been purposely deposited on the deck. It contained a long metal tube on top of a box connected to treads.
“Looks like a cannon,” Tahoe offered.
“Keep behind your shields!” Rade said.
In front of him, Tahoe’s Hoplite disappeared. Completely vanished, as if struck by some disintegration device.
“Tahoe!” Rade said.
Lui was gone in the next instant.
“Drop!” Rade said.
“Ah, fuck,” Bender said.
He too disappeared.
Rade had dropped to the deck, and was holding his shield at an angle in front of him to shield his body. He was filled with a sudden overwhelming terror.
His friends were dying before his eyes. He knew this day would come. He always did. He prayed it wouldn’t.
But it had come.
He had led his teammates to their deaths.
twenty-three
Return fire!” Rade said.
He aimed his cobra at the tube. Beside him TJ vanished next.
Rade squeezed the trigger. He struck the thing, but the malevolent object remained intact.
“Shaw, get behind me! Shaw!”
She disappeared.
It was a nightmare come true. He was watching all of his brothers die, along with the woman he loved more than life itself.
Without warning a mech abruptly leaped over his own to shield him.
It was Harlequin.
“Harlequin, no!” Rade said. The tears were streaming down his face.
“Run, boss,” Harlequin said.
Harlequin’s mech was struck by the invisible beam and it, too, vanished.
“Retreat!” Rade said.
He scrambled to his feet, firing his jumpjets. His whole team was almost gone. The device slid forward, advancing in pursuit.
Manic leaped past Rade. “Go!”
“Manic, you’ll—”
But then he was gone, too.
It was only Surus and Rade, now.
He pumped his feet. If he died, too, it meant all his friends had given their lives for nothing. He told himself the same words he had offered Kato when the Kenyan’s fiancée had died. Those words somehow seemed empty, now.
Without Shaw, what’s the point...
The thought faded away, and his survival instinct took over. He ran for all he was worth, hot on the tail of Surus. In his rear view mirror, he saw the metal object round the bend, its treads a blur as it overcame the pair...
And then the passageway turned blue.
He had returned to that alternate reality set above the one where humans normally resided. The bulkheads, deck and overhead had become dark smears of unreality, as had Surus’ Hoplite, Sprint. Meanwhile Rade and his mech were blue silhouettes around cerulean-shaded bodies. So that object was a quantum weapon of some kind.
The other lost Hoplites were there behind him, floating in place near the spots they had fallen, their pilots visible through the translucent blue hulls. All of them reduced to pure energy.
Not dead then, after all. Merely trapped in limbo.
He counted seven of them, one each for Manic, Bender, Lui, T
J, Tahoe, Harlequin, and Shaw. He couldn’t tell them apart.
His HUD was gone, and he had no Implant menus. He couldn’t open his mouth, so he couldn’t talk. Nor could he move any of his limbs.
Unlike his last visit to this dimension, time in the actual universe had not completely slowed to a crawl. Surus’ Hoplite still moved, fleeing, and the metal cannon pursued, though the speed of each was about twenty percent of what it should have been. The liquid form of Surus was obvious inside the dark smear of the Hoplite, a brighter green coloration that showed through the hull near the cockpit region, inside the AI core of Ms. Bounty within.
He saw a series of circles travel outward from the quantum weapon, forming a hollow cylinder of sorts. The circles were colored the same blue as Rade’s energy outline. The foremost circle struck Swift, and the remainder piled up behind them, slamming into the hull. Rade expected to see the Hoplite drawn into the blue universe like the others, but it remained a smear, insubstantial, still firmly rooted in the original reality.
The Hoplite stopped. Apparently Surus realized her mech had been struck. The green liquid of the Phant flowed slowly downward at crawl, eventually emerging from the toe region of the jumpsuit; it moved outward through the containing metal of the mech, away from the EM emitter aboard the Hoplite, and then began trickling down onto the floor. A pool eventually formed underneath the Hoplite, until the Phant had completely evacuated Ms. Bounty and the mech.
The quantum weapon fired the blue concentric circles again, and the rays struck Swift once more.
That time the Hoplite became a bright neon outline, joining the others in the blue dimension.
Rade realized that Surus’ presence had somehow stopped the mech from entering this reality. Why it had chosen to abandon the Hoplite, Rade didn’t know.
The cannon retreated, its work apparently done. The green liquid of Surus meanwhile remained in the middle of the deck, motionless.
Though Rade couldn’t move his individual limbs, he realized something else that was different from the last time he had entered this dimension: if he tried very hard to twist his torso, though he wouldn’t actually rotate his upper body, he found that he could revolve in place. Likewise, if he focused on an area with his eyes, his immobile body slowly drifted toward it. In that manner, he could move about. The others soon discovered this locomotion technique as well, and they gathered.
Rade spotted another object in the distance, beyond the translucent smears of the bulkheads. This object glowed purple, and was located several compartments away. It shone with the same intensity as Surus in that dimension.
It had to be their prey.
The puddle that was Surus flowed toward Rade, pausing beside him to form what appeared to be a flat hand extending a finger. And he understood that Surus wanted him to touch it.
Rade slowly floated himself toward the Green, positioning the foot of his Hoplite near Surus. He knew the mech wouldn’t be incinerated, as it wasn’t organic, so he touched the metal to the Phant.
Nothing happened.
And then, just like that, he snapped back into ordinary reality. He exhaled in relief. He thought of the Phant he had seen. If it was that easy to return to this universe, then that quantum weapon might be a gift, not a curse.
Rade spun around and ran toward the retreating cannon. It swiveled around to face him, and he halted, waiting for the strike that must come.
He didn’t see the weapon fire, but he knew it had because a second later he was back in the blue dimension.
He swiveled his incorporeal form toward Surus and the energy signatures of the other Hoplites. They had gathered around Surus, and seemed ready to touch the Green, but then the Phant retreated from them when Rade approached.
The other Argonauts turned their incorporeal bodies to face him, obviously trying to figure out what he wanted. Rade swiveled toward the purple glow in the distance. Rade focused on the bulkhead directly in front of him and his insubstantial body and mech floated forward, passing right through. That should be enough for the Argonauts to understand.
He paused after traveling a short distance and revolved slightly to look back. The other Argonauts were indeed following, as was Surus, seeping into the bulkhead after them. Rade realized that while Surus couldn’t see the Phant, apparently she could see, or at least sense, the Hoplites.
They entered a compartment that was filled with the dark smears of aliens. Rade ignored them, his body passing right through most of their impressions, and focused on his target, the Purple that had gotten them all into this mess.
Small, slithering white worms came into view. They were translucent, ugly things with sucker-like mandibles. They were obviously of this dimension, because they wrapped their bodies around the energy representations of the Hoplites, attaching their suckers to the hulls. Some passed straight through the mechs to envelop the occupants as well. Rade had one wrap around his torso, placing its sucker squarely on his shoulder. The world around him dimmed slightly, confirming that the things were definitely leeching off their energy. There was nothing to do but continue.
As the group closed with the target Phant, more and more of those worms accumulated, until soon the bodies of both Hoplites and pilots were covered entirely by the things. Rade had one covering his face, but since it was translucent, he could still see.
Rade reached the compartment containing the purple glow. He still wasn’t sure if it was actually a Phant, because it floated in midair, formed into the shape of a ball. It resided between two smears that looked like walls of some kind. A dark humanoidal shape resided next to it, also contained by walls.
There were other smears near the entrance to the room. Bug guards.
The blue dimension had darkened by a large amount by then. Rade sensed himself losing cohesion in this reality. He wouldn’t last much longer.
He waited as the outlines of the other Hoplites arrived. Finally, Surus seeped inside as well. Once more the green extended a portion of itself toward Rade, as if expecting him to touch it.
Rade extended the foot of his mech, obliging.
The real world snapped back into view.
Rade landed with a thud on the deck. He fired his cobra twice in rapid succession, and the bugs guarding the entrance hatch slumped to the floor.
A klaxon sounded.
Rade ignored it, glancing at his arms and legs. He had almost expected some of those worms to hitch a ride back to this reality with him. He was glad they hadn’t.
Still, the whole episode left him feeling exhausted.
“Electron, inject a stimulant please,” Rade said.
The Hoplite obliged and Rade perked up immediately.
He turned toward the glowing purple sphere. It was inside a glass container of some kind. He was reminded of the Phant trap Surus had come up with, though it was lacking the circular disks on the floor and ceiling that Surus’ version contained. That definitely had to be a Phant in there.
In a similar glass tank beside it lurked Governor Ganye, the Artificial. He stood near the center of the container, his arms crossed over his chest. He seemed unimpressed with Rade.
The other mechs momentarily reappeared in turn around the green puddle that was Surus on the deck.
“Well, shit,” Bender said. “That was a trip.”
“Except for those damn worms!” Tahoe said.
“Yeah, they gave me the heebie-jeebies,” Bender admitted.
Sprint materialized last, and the green Phant on the floor flowed into the leg region of the Hoplite.
When the Green had completely seeped inside, Rade said: “Surus, are you back with us yet?”
“I am here,” Surus replied over the comm via the host, Emilia Bounty.
“What the hell were those worms?” Tahoe asked.
“My kind is familiar with them,” Surus said. “They feed upon the energy signatures produced by organics such as yourselves. The Phants consider them parasites, because when Phants conquer a world and destroy its populace, t
hese things arrive in droves, interfering with the geronium production. We have developed special technology to repel them. Unfortunately, I do not have any of that with me. If you had allowed them to seep your energy for much longer, you would have been too weak to return to this reality, and would have eventually faded from existence entirely.”
“I’m just glad we were able to get back as it was,” Shaw said. “I thought I was losing myself in there.”
“We all did,” Rade said.
“Lookie here,” Manic’s mech approached the Purple locked away within the glass container. “It seems our Phant has been betrayed by his alien allies.”
“Maybe he pissed them off,” Lui said. “Phants are good at doing that.”
“Whatever the case, he’s ours now,” Surus said. Sprint’s cockpit opened and Surus leaped down. She opened the storage compartment in the leg of her mech and retrieved the stun rifle.
She closed the panel and pointed at the governor. “Get him.”
As the klaxon continued to sound in the background, Sprint dashed forward, smashing its fists into the container that held Ganye. The Artificial governor dropped to his knees, cowering with his hands over his head.
When Sprint broke through, the Hoplite grabbed Ganye, pulled him out like a ragdoll, and dropped him to the deck in front of the second tank. Sprint placed one leg down on his buttocks region, pinning him.
“Wait, I’m innocent,” Ganye said.
“Shut it!” Bender shoved his cobra into Ganye’s face.
Keeping Ganye pinned, Sprint attacked the second tank, punching it the same as it had done the first. As soon as the Hoplite broke through, containment failed and the Phant inside splashed to the floor. The Purple seemed intent on fleeing, because it immediately began to seep down through the glass.
Surus fired her stun rifle and instantly all of the purple liquid bubbled back to the surface. The substance remained in place for several moments, seeming stunned, and then once more began to vanish into the glass.
Surus fired again, bubbling the liquid to the surface once more.
When it began to recover, it seemed that the Phant finally got the hint, because it began to seep drunkenly toward Ganye.
“No, don’t let it possess me again,” Ganye said. “Please.”