by Isaac Hooke
The dome was coming up fast below. With the surface-to-space defenses inactive, Rade and the others were able to drop directly on top of it without attracting incoming fire. At least until any surface robots inside detected their descent.
Thankfully, Bourbonjack and Surus would be setting into motion another distraction shortly.
Sure enough streaks slashed the sky. A moment later the smart missiles smashed through the gaps in the dome, swerving thereafter to take out various garrisons stationed across the colony. Bourbonjack had made educated guesses about those garrisons from orbit, based on telephoto image intel; Surus, acting as Falon on the ground, had been able to confirm those locations, along with others.
Debris clouds erupted from the impacts, blotting out entire neighborhoods. A moment later more explosions rocked the colony, these coming from the shipyard beside the dome as the charges Surus had set detonated, enshrouding the site in a similar cloud.
Rade and the Hoplites steered through the cracks in the dome a moment later.
“It’s time for some bug hunting, bitches,” Bender said.
With his jumpjets, Rade made some last minute course corrections to maneuver between two close-set dust clouds, and then fired his aerospike thrusters and activated the airbrakes, landing on the roof of a two-story building. He immediately took a running leap to an adjacent building and hurried to the edge, dropping down to target some tangos he had spotted during the descent.
He glanced at his overhead map. The other Hoplites were dispersed on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. Good enough.
“Fire at will,” Rade said. “Inform Bender if you spot any Phants.”
He aimed into the street, which was free of any occluding debris clouds. A mixture of five shock troops, three Centurions, and four treaders were racing across the asphalt in the direction of the closest damaged building. Rade had a shot at them from the rear.
“Electron, take control of my left-hand cobra,” Rade said. “Target the glass domes of the shock troops, starting on the left and moving in. On my mark.”
Rade launched four frag grenades in rapid succession at the Centurions and treaders, then swapped out his grenade launchers for cobra lasers and aimed at the shock trooper on the far righthand side of the procession. He centered his targeting reticle over the glass dome that topped the oversized jumpsuit, and at the tentacled head visible within. Surus promised the modifications she had made to the laser intensity levels of the Hoplites in previous missions would be sufficient to pierce the Tech Class IV domes of those jumpsuits. Hopefully, she was right.
“Now!” Rade instructed the AI.
He squeezed the trigger.
The shock trooper in his sights toppled. Rade aimed for the next one while Electron engaged the lefthand cobra, but the grenades struck then, and the surviving troops and robots immediately took cover. Some dove into an alleyway, others dodged behind street lamps and benches. Rade targeted a lagging treader as it rolled toward an abandoned vehicle and he fired. The robot ceased all movement and its turrets dropped.
Since he had kept his non-scope eye open for situational awareness purposes, Rade was able to spot the sudden motion that came immediately from his left. He glanced that way: a walker unit had leaped onto the adjacent building.
Rade deployed his ballistic shield in his left hand and swung it toward the walker just as the laser barrage came in. He aimed his remaining cobra over the rim of the shield, but was forced to pull it back as the walker continued firing.
Rade retreated from the edge at a crouch, keeping his shield in place.
And then the incoming fire simply ceased.
“Got him,” Tahoe transmitted.
A missile warning sounded. The indicator showed the attack was coming from the left. Rade launched his Trench Coat. As the anti-missile countermeasure fragments expanded outward, their homing radars activating to seek out the missiles, he thrust laterally. An explosion sent him reeling onto the street below.
Scrambling to his feet, he spotted the source of the missiles: a treader had taken up a position on the rooftop of a tall building two blocks to the south.
Several fragmentation grenades and lasers struck it momentarily as the nearby Hoplites terminated the enemy.
Not a good idea to expose yourself like that.
Speaking of which, standing there in the street, he was readily visible to the shock troops that had taken cover up ahead. Knowing they were training their weapons on him at that very moment, he sprinted hastily toward an alleyway.
Invisible beams ate through the asphalt behind him, carving a path across the street, splitting a lamppost in half and eating right through a trash bin.
Rade dove into the alleyway; his Hoplite barely fit, and the sides of the mech scraped against either flank. His anti-laser shield was useless against the particle weapons those shock troops wielded; Surus didn’t have access to the necessary Tech Class IV materials that could reinforce the Hoplite shields. Taking cover behind ordinary, everyday objects wouldn’t be of much help, either. The best option was to place multiple layers between one and the enemy, taking cover behind at least one building, or two or three if possible.
Even then Rade wouldn’t be safe, not if the enemy guessed or otherwise determined his position, and fired repeatedly, eating through the drywall and any objects lying between Rade and the weapon. That was why he moved deeper into the alleyway, tight as it was, wanting to put as much distance between himself and the street as possible, not to mention move away from his last spotted position.
He reached the other side of the alley and scanned the street and rooftops beyond for tangos. He didn’t see anything, and there was nothing airborne, either. By then, the other Hoplites would have taken down the few air drones the enemy seemed to have.
Rade emerged at a crouch and crossed to a wider alley on the opposite side. He was about to clamber to the rooftop to obtain a better view, when down the street he spotted a group of thirty robots marching toward the drop zone, escorted by five shock troops. The robots were all Centurions and walkers. Rade recognized the characteristic condensation of Phants on five of them, inhabiting walkers and combat robots alike.
“Bender, I got five Phants at my position,” Rade said.
“I’ll be right there,” Bender said.
The moments ticked past as the enemies closed. And then Rade spotted a blur of motion on the rooftops across the street as Bender steered his Hoplite to the area. Tahoe’s mech accompanied him, guarding his flank.
The street level robots and shock troops spotted Bender and began opening fire, forcing him and Tahoe to dig in.
Rade drew the attention of the enemy by releasing two quick frags. He ducked behind the building when he was done, and the edge of the building dissolved as the particle beams came in.
He retreated farther into the alleyway and switched to Bender’s point of view on the rooftop. The cockpit hatch fell open. Bender emerged from Juggernaut and swung into the passenger seat while the Hoplite continued operating under AI control; the mech remained crouched near the rooftop edge.
Bender aimed his arcing stun rifle at the group of robots in the street below and fired. The plasma channel struck one of the possessed robots and deflected; the plasma arced into four more distinct beams that sought out the remaining Phant-controlled units.
The struck robots collapsed. The Phants would remain down for the next thirty minutes, at least according to Surus, who had tested the weapon on herself.
“Sweet doggy!” Bender said, ducking from view along with Juggernaut as particle beams ate into the building. “This is my kind of weapon!”
“I got three Phants over here,” TJ said.
“Be right there!” Bender replied.
Rade returned to his own viewpoint, and on the overhead map he watched the blue dots of Bender and Tahoe retreat from the rooftop.
“Bugs bugs bugs!” Bender sang. “Phants Phants Phants!”
Rade moved forward and aimed pa
st the building edge once more; all of the remaining tangos were still concentrating on Bender’s previous position, obviously considering him a bigger threat than Rade.
Smiling, Rade centered his crosshairs over the glass dome of a shock trooper, and fired at the reptilian face underneath.
SURUS JOGGED THROUGH the damaged city streets. Though she was currently in a male Artificial body, she still thought of herself as a she; inhabiting a female body for such a long period of time would have that effect on one’s gender identity, especially considering that humans only had two sexes.
This portion of the colony had borne the brunt of the missile attacks. In place of buildings were large blast craters. Fragments of rebar and concrete had fanned out into some portions of the street. Dispersing debris clouds were everywhere.
Ahead, eight Centurions and one walker approached at a run.
As the party approached, Surus commanded: “You there, join the battle immediately.” She pointed toward the south, where smaller explosions occasionally went off, indicating missile strikes and grenade detonations.
The robots hurried past, sprinting even faster.
She wondered how long the ruse would last. Other Phants were bound to realize her treachery sooner rather than later, which made her rapid arrival to her current destination all the more important.
Surus increased her pace, and soon neared the dark debris cloud that surrounded the neighborhood ahead. The stadium within that cloud harbored the Acceptor. Bourbonjack was supposed to have targeted the far edge of the building, with the intention of leaving the teleporter undamaged. She would see how accurate his shots had proven shortly, she supposed.
Surus entered the cloud and switched to echolocation. The stadium’s wireframe outline appeared in front of her. The right side had collapsed entirely, though three quarters of the structure remained standing.
She could have picked her way over that debris, but entering via the main entrance would be faster.
She saw the outline of two shock troops yet on duty in front of that entrance. They towered over Surus in her current form, and were almost the same height as Hoplites. They were aware of her as well, with their Tech Class IV tech allowing them to easily penetrate the debris cloud.
“Give me your weapon,” she sent one of the guards over the common band as she approached. She spoke the guttural servitude language.
The guard handed over his long, swordlike weapon without hesitation.
Surus held the large weapon easily with the strength provided by her robotic body, and pretended to examine it for a few moments. The big trigger would not activate at her touch, unfortunately, since it contained biometric circuitry that limited operation to the alien jumpsuits.
She tossed the weapon to the ground in front of the guard. When the confused shock trooper knelt to retrieve it, she withdrew her blaster and released two quick shots, first targeting the standing guard, then the kneeling one. They both collapsed with holes burned into their glass domes. That blaster was a weapon the Artificial had on its person when Surus possessed the body. While Surus had been able to improve the intensity of the cobra lasers found aboard the Hoplites, the smaller blasters and rifles the humans wielded had eluded her thus far. But Falon had been busy, it seemed.
Surus entered the structure.
She passed through the cloudy entry hall and took a side door. She found herself in a long corridor untouched by the debris cloud; it branched off into locker rooms and offices. She hurried through the passageway and in moments emerged into the stadium proper.
The dark cloud that lingered within the open field was beginning to clear by then. She dismissed the echolocation display and continued forward. As she neared the Acceptor, she discerned several large walker units gathered in a circle around it. None of them appeared to be possessed by Phants. Even so, she’d never be able to take them all down, not without taking several devastating hits herself.
But she didn’t have to.
We’re all one big happy family.
Unless I’ve been discovered.
Trying to appear as calm as possible, she walked purposefully past the walkers to stand in the middle of the Acceptor. By doing so, she blocked it, preventing anyone on the other side from teleporting across to this world.
The robots did nothing.
Like Surus had done with Ms. Bounty, Falon had modified the AI core of its host to maintain a record of its memories when the Phant was not in possession of the unit. That had proven useful, since it allowed Surus to extract the new linkage codes without having to resort to interrogating Falon.
With those codes, she had access to the underlying Acceptor interface. She immediately changed the codes, choosing an obscure combination known only to her.
She smiled. The Phants on this planet had just lost access to the Acceptor.
She realized one of the walker robots was addressing her.
“Do you require assistance, sir?” the robot asked. “Sir?”
When she didn’t answer, the walker aimed its turrets down on her from where it stood beyond the edge of the Acceptor. Other walkers began to follow its lead.
Ignoring the robots, Surus set a new destination, then engaged the teleportation interface.
The walkers, and the rest of the stadium, vanished.
twenty-seven
Rade, Tahoe and Lui were pinned on the rooftop of one of the larger buildings in the area: a four-story apartment building. They crouched behind different superstructures: Rade behind a water tank, Tahoe next to the stairwell shed, Lui behind a goose neck exhaust vent. On the roofs of the buildings around them, enemy Centurions, treaders and walkers similarly lurked in cover. There had been a couple of shock troops among the tangos as well, but Rade and company had quickly terminated those units—but not before many of the superstructures on the roof around them were cut in half.
Right now, the biggest threats were from the entrenched walkers and treaders. The Centurions could be dangerous, too; a few well-placed shots from a laser rifle could bore through a cockpit, especially if the combat robots combined their beams.
The three Hoplites had exhausted their supply of fragmentation grenades some time ago, and relied solely on cobra lasers to defend. Unfortunately, tangos continued to crowd the nearby rooftops, replacing any units Rade or the others shot down. Sometimes those tangos leaped onto the rooftop itself, forcing close range fighting. The wreckages of two treaders and a walker littered the edge of the roof, remnants of previous such skirmishes.
The other squad of Hoplites were pinned down in small groups on different buildings, similarly surrounded. Bender was trapped with one of those groups, and as such, he had stopped firing the arcing stun weapon. The Phants had quickly realized their Hoplite opponents only had a single weapon of that kind, and they avoided Bender’s group. Instead, they joined the robots assaulting the other teams; there was a Black in possession of a walker crouched on the rooftop across from Rade’s trio, for example.
“Bourbonjack,” Rade sent, piggybacking on the still intact InterGalNet the city utilized. “I’m sending the coordinates of a couple of opponents pinning us down. Hopefully you can spare a surgical airstrike soon.”
He sent the coordinates of the rooftop harboring the Black, since that particular building had the greatest concentration of tangos at the moment. A missile attack wouldn’t eliminate the Phant of course, but the strike would knock it out of action for a while, at least until the alien found its next host. And the many other tangos with it would be reduced to so much raw metal.
“Bit occupied at the moment,” Bourbonjack said. “And our Hellfires are running a bit on the low side. I’m afraid you’re on your own for the time being.”
Rade was beginning to regret not transferring the Raptor over from the Argonaut. He remembered what Bourbonjack had said when Rade asked if the mercenary chief had a similar craft in his arsenal.
“What?” Bourbonjack had replied. “As if I can afford an expensive military-grade a
ir support drone like that. I’m not rich like you.”
Three blurs of motion arced over the building edge. Walker units.
One landed right beside Rade’s Hoplite. There was no time to train his weapons on the thing. He rolled his mech toward the leg area as those turrets opened fire.
He struck the walker, and then twisted, toppling it to the rooftop. Lasers and frags from the other walkers were firing around him as Lui and Tahoe defended.
Rade maneuvered himself on top of the walker and wrapped his fingers around the twin laser turret extensions. He bent their tubes into a hook, disabling the weapons.
He realized that purple condensation covered the torso region of his opponent. The Phant was flowing outward, toward Rade’s mech, attempting to penetrate. It froze when it felt the anti-Phant EM waves emitting from the Hoplite, and retreated back into the walker.
You think they would have figured it out by now...
Rade opened fire with his cobras into the walker’s AI core.
Since the Phant knew the machine was about to cease operating, it ejected frag grenades from other launch tubes Rade hadn’t gotten to yet, near the laser turrets; the bombs rebounded from Rade’s hull, landing on the rooftop.
“Frags!” Rade spun away, firing his jumpjets. The explosions rocked that section of the rooftop, and he was sent hurtling into the stairwell shed. He slid to the roof surface below, landing beside Tahoe.
“You all right, boss?” Tahoe said.
“Never better.” Rade sat upright, keeping hidden behind the shed, and quickly scanned the rooftop for the other two mechs, but Tahoe and Lui had already reduced them to wreckages.
Staying low, Rade crept toward the side wall that fringed the rooftop, and deployed his shield to safely observe the streets and rooftops on that flank through his scope. Most of the dust clouds from the previous airstrike had settled by then, leaving the ravaged buildings completely visible. He saw robot shapes crouched behind the different superstructures. Mostly inconsequential body parts were visible: a partial forearm, the edge of a turret.