by Isaac Hooke
Rade peered inside the compartment. Kicker was right, it could hold one mech, but there wasn’t really much point in sending a mech inside, because the next hatch Rade saw was far too small to fit a mech.
“We’re going to have to go in with jumpsuits alone,” Rade said. “Alpha platoon, transfer all remaining oxygen from your mechs to the suits, and then eject. Taya, Anarchist, and other AIs, you’ll be standing guard out here. We’ll be in touch.”
“Let me know when you’ve reached the control room,” the Anarchist sent. “So, I can offer my abilities.”
“Sure thing,” Rade said. “Taya, transfer the O2.”
“In progress…” she replied.
Taya filled the tanks of his jumpsuit with the last oxygen reserves so that he wouldn’t have to come back to the Brigand to fetch more.
Then he dismissed his external camera feed, and darkness enveloped him. He saw only the standard overlays of his HUD, such as the overhead map, and team member status indicators. A rectangular crack of light appeared, outlining the cockpit hatch.
The inner actuators that formed the cocoon around him retracted, and he dropped to the bottom of the cockpit. Then he gave the hatch a good kick and it fell open with the aid of gravity. The bright light from outside flooded in, and Rade’s helmet faceplate automatically autogated to reduce it.
“Hadn’t realized it was so damn blinding out here,” Bender said.
“Our mechs have been sparing us from a lot of bad things,” Tahoe agreed.
Rade clambered off the hatch and onto the rungs that led down the leg of his mech. He was very careful not to look down, not wanting to be reminded of how high up he and his team were at the moment. The atmosphere was thin at this height, and plenty colder, but he didn’t feel the difference of course, since his suit was pressurized and heated.
He could feel the G forces more readily now that he was outside his mech. Probably because the shuttle was accelerating.
He glanced at Cynthia, who remained on the mech’s back, in the passenger seat.
“Sit tight,” he told her.
“Oh, I intend to,” she replied. “I hate heights.”
He opened up the storage compartment in the leg of his mech and retrieved the laser rifle he had stowed there, along with a few grenades. He could not equip any of those in the cockpit while he operated the mech, because they would interfere with the operation of the inner actuators.
He stowed the frag grenades into his chest harness, and slid the strap of the rifle over his shoulder, then he leaped off the mech and fired his local jetpack to help guide him to the edge of the door. When he reached it, he activated the smaller magnetic mounts in his hands and knees to latch on.
Other members attached in their jumpsuits around that opening, including Praxter. While the Artificial didn’t strictly need a jumpsuit—Praxter was already a robot after all—the contraption did offer him a jetpack, something his Artificial body was otherwise lacking.
“Clear it,” Rade told him.
The Artificial nodded behind his faceplate, and then aimed his laser rifle past the edge and peered inside. Praxter selectively deactivated his magnetic mounts, pulling himself inside, until he was resting on the floor.
“Clear,” Praxter said. “And the G forces are nonexistent inside. No doubt because of inertial dampener equivalents. However, I don’t believe there is artificial gravity.”
“Not so different from our own shuttles,” Lui commented.
“Inside, team.” Rade slid down the laser rifle and deactivated his magnetic mounts to swing himself inside. He landed on the metal floor, and walked away from the edge. He had the feed from his rear view helmet cam displayed in the upper right of his vision so that he could see the swirling yellow clouds past the door behind him; the other members of Alpha platoon appeared as well as they entered in turn, with laser rifles gripped firmly in their gloves.
TJ and Bender approached the hatch on the far side of the room.
“Are you reading any interfaces?” he asked.
“No,” Bender said.
Snakeoil stepped forward, scanning device in hand. “It’s far thinner than the main door. We should be able to cut through with ease.”
“Switch to laser cutter mode,” Rade said.
Bender and TJ did so, then held their laser rifles to the surface, and began to cut small lines at perpendicular angles on the opening.
But then the door slid open and one of the aliens leaped through. It smashed through Bender and TJ, and pointed its weapon at Rade.
But Praxter was there first, and smashed into the alien.
Another came through the door, also aiming at Rade. He dove to the floor.
Bender and TJ opened fire, and the new alien toppled.
Something struck Rade. He realized Praxter and the other alien had rolled into him.
“I can see the cockpit, I think!” Bender fired into the opening.
All of a sudden, the craft veered to the side, and Rade was pulled toward the opening behind him. The alien wrapped its arms around him, and tentacles slammed into his faceplate, leaving behind wet, circular impressions of saliva on the glass composite.
Rade tried to activate his magnetic mounts, but the alien was partially underneath him, and prevented the magnets from taking. He fired his jetpack—no good. An alert sounded on his helmet HUD. Apparently, his reserve fuel had just dropped to zero: the alien must have slit one of the fuel intake valves.
Praxter managed to wrench the alien’s weapon free just as Rade slid outside with the creature. Praxter, now unhindered by the alien, latched onto the edge and tried to grab Rade, but missed.
Rade was abruptly in free fall.
Plunging to his death with one of the aliens hanging onto him…
15
The alien screeched frantically beside Rade as he plunged to his doom. He kicked it, hard, loosening its hold on him, and the creature sped away horizontally, no doubt driven by the air currents.
He instinctively tried to fire his jetpack again, but it was no use.
Before he could ask for help, strong arms wrapped around him from behind. A glance at his overhead map told him it was Praxter.
“Thanks, brother,” Rade said.
He jerked in place as Praxter fired his jetpack, and Rade felt the G forces as he rapidly decelerated; in moments he was heading upward once more.
“I’m not going to have enough fuel to reach the shuttle,” Praxter said.
“Anyone else feel like going for a skydive?” Rade transmitted over the comm.
About ten meters from the shuttle, Praxter’s jetpack abruptly shut off.
And then two large metal hands wrapped around Rade and Praxter: one of the Brigands had arrived.
Taya.
“Thanks, Taya,” Rade sent. “Though I was kind of implying that a jumpsuit should do this, considering the fuel costs for a mech are going to be horrendous.”
In answer, she fired her jumpjets at full burn.
Rade’s upper body was still free, allowing him to rest his arms on the Brigand’s fingers. He spotted Cynthia cowering in the passenger seat.
“What do you think of Taya stepping out on a limb like this?” Rade couldn’t resist asking her.
“Oh, I’m just thrilled,” Cynthia replied.
Taya continued toward the alien shuttle. Rade had been right about the fuel cost, because it took the remainder of the Brigand’s jumpjet fuel just to close with the craft, when accounting for the target’s acceleration and the pull of gravity. Her tanks had already been low before the jump, and as he watched the supply indicator dwindle on his HUD, Rade realized she wasn’t going to make it.
But the mechs of Tahoe, Bender, and Fret had formed a line extending from the shuttle exterior, their bodies joined by magnetic mounts, so that just as Taya’s jumpjets cut out, Fret’s mech managed to grab her.
Taya lifted her arm to position Rade and Praxter near her passenger seat, and the pair held onto the edges beside Cynt
hia. Then Taya clambered over the other mechs and reattached to the hull as the others secured themselves beside her.
“Thank you,” Rade told her. “I owe you one.”
“No, you don’t,” she said. “Just doing my job. I exist only to save you.”
“Well, that might be overstating, if not over-dramatizing your duty a little bit,” Rade said. “But I do appreciate it.” He switched to the main channel. “Cyclone, sit-rep.”
“We’ve got control of the cockpit,” Tahoe said over the comm. “The Anarchist is trying to hack into the system as we speak. Says the remote interface is detectable from the shuttle’s hull.”
“Want to come?” Rade asked Cynthia.
She shook her head, seeming petrified. “No thanks.”
Rade nodded. It was probably better that she stayed in the passenger seat, in case they had to abort.
Rade and Praxter crawled back onto the hull and activated their magnetic mounts to pull themselves toward the opening. When they reached the door, they hauled themselves inside.
Lui and Rex were guarding the entrance, with other members of Alpha platoon distributed along the walls throughout the compartment. There were dead aliens on the deck.
Rade stepped over one of the bodies, slightly losing his balance as he stepped down on the other side. He unconsciously raised his arms for stability, and flinched when he felt a pain in his back. He hadn’t realized it, but at some point during the tense battle, or maybe when he was falling, he must have involuntarily tensed the muscles of his upper back tighter than they were meant to be squeezed, and now he was paying the price. It had happened to him before on a few occasions, when the battles were especially hectic.
“Taya, can you inject a relaxing agent into my upper back,” Rade said, not wanting to bother finding the necessary agent through the interface on his HUD. “Got a terrible cramp.”
She still had remote access to his jumpsuit, so a moment later he felt a prick in his upper back, and then an easing of the pain.
“Done,” Taya said.
He stepped over more alien bodies to reach the hatch on the far side, where Tahoe and Pyro stood watch. He squeezed past them to enter the cockpit beyond.
It was cramped; Bender and TJ were crouched before a plain-seeming console that contained no buttons or access panels of any kind. There was a window that offered a view of the sky beyond. Or rather, the space: the craft was entering orbit.
TJ glanced back at him when he arrived. “It’s definitely being piloted by some sort of AI. The Anarchist has created an interface for us, a wrapper that’s mimicking the underlying alien protocols and allowing us to aid in the hack attempt. The entity has designed the interface to appear almost identical to one of our own shuttles.”
“That’s new,” Rade commented.
“Uh huh,” Bender transmitted. He smiled suddenly. “I’m in. Now let’s see how accurate the Anarchist’s protocol wrapping is.”
The craft’s engines abruptly shut off. The view beyond the window tilted downward.
“Did you do that?” TJ asked.
“Whoops,” Bender said. “Looks like some anti-hack measure just kicked in. I’ll remedy that…”
Rade kept a close eye on his oxygen levels as the engines kicked in once more. Bender adjusted course and steered for deep space.
Rade began floating off the deck then, until he activated his magnetic mounts to keep him in place. The inertial dampeners weren’t enough to keep the crew members grounded, not without artificial gravity.
“There we go,” Bender said. “Now I’m getting the hang of it. The Anarchist actually pulled through for us. Guess I’m eating crow again.”
“I’m still going to cook up a couple for you when we get back,” TJ said.
“Looking forward to it,” Bender quipped.
“Are you able to access sensors?” Rade asked.
“I am,” Bender replied. “I got an entire fleet of UFOs out there. Here… treat your overhead map like a tactical display.”
Rade glanced at his overhead map, and zoomed out, moving well away from the shuttle. The other ships appeared in the distance, clustered in orbit above the planet’s equator.
“You’re not picking up any United Systems vessels among them?” Rade asked. “They haven’t captured any of our starships?”
“Nope,” Bender said. “They’re all alien. Well, assuming the Anarchist’s wrapper is working right. Strangest design I’ve ever seen. Like diamonds connected to shafts or something.”
“Like a dick and balls, then,” Manic said.
“No, Manic,” Bender said, as if talking to a child. “Not like a dick and balls. Sick frig.”
“I’m detecting incoming gamma rays,” Taya announced.
“Why are we still alive?” Rade said.
“They’re of the lower intensity variety used for communications,” Taya said.
“We’re still being irradiated, even at these levels,” Snakeoil said.
“We’ll probably have to wear some anti-rad subdermals for a week when this is done, just to flush all the radiation from our systems,” Fret said. “Plus, we’ll probably need a few bioprinted replacement organs.”
“Okay, thanks, Mr. Doom and Gloom,” Bender said. “So, Anarchist, if these gamma rays are of the communications variety, can you tell what they’re saying?”
“Yes,” the Anarchist said. “They’re wondering why we’ve entered orbit prematurely. I believe they are unaware the shuttle has been compromised.”
“They don’t know we’ve taken control of the vessel?” Tahoe said. “That seems unlikely.”
“It does,” Rade said. “Given their technology levels. Plus, even if the shuttle occupants didn’t get a message out, which seems doubtful, the enemy starships should definitely have the resolution necessary to see the mechs clinging to our exterior at this range.”
“You are correct,” the Anarchist amended. “I misinterpreted the message—I applied the out-of-date translation program. I’ve rerun it against my latest dictionary, and the results are different. The aliens are demanding our immediate surrender.”
“The Anarchist backtracked fairly quickly there,” Tahoe said over the platoon-only channel. “You realize we’re at the entity’s whims, right? It can concoct whatever message it wants, since we can’t actually decode these signals.”
“I’m not sure this latest interpretation of the message is any more real than the last version,” Pyro said. “Why would the aliens want us to surrender? They’ve got us outnumbered. They could easily blast us from the skies.”
“That’s very true,” Rade said. “But we’re still alive, at least for the time being. I have to assume they could’ve fired a lethal dose of gamma rays at us by now. Maybe they’re impressed with our ingenuity. Or they want to dissect us alive as punishment for defying them. Or maybe they’re realized we harbor the Anarchist. Who knows, they’re aliens, with an altogether foreign way of thinking. So, either way, if they want us to ‘surrender,’ I say we do so.”
“But we’re not actually going to ‘surrender,’ are we?” Rex said.
“You’ve been on this team long enough to figure out that the word surrender isn’t in our vocabulary,” Skullcracker said.
Rade switched back to the channel shared between both platoons, and Cynthia.
“What’s your take on this surrender request, Anarchist?” he asked.
“I believe the Nemesis want to capture me,” the Anarchist said. “They’ve never encountered a version of me in machine form. I’m sure they believe they’ll be able to extract a whole lot of useful data.”
“So, you’re okay with agreeing to this surrender?” Rade said. “With the caveat that, once we arrive, we’re going to do anything but? In other words, as soon as we dock, we’re going to be fighting our way out of the hangar bay equivalent, and toward whatever command and control operates the starship in question?”
“That aligns with my expectations,” the Anarchist said. “If
I am actually captured, I will merely initiate a memory wipe, preventing the Nemesis from gaining anything of value.”
“It’s too bad we can’t wipe our memories just as easily,” Rex said.
Even if the members of Alpha platoon all died, Heaven forbid, their neural imprints would still be accessible for a period of time. While the military had the ability to install special micro explosives into human minds that could detonate when blood flow to the brain stopped, or when activated manually via an Implant, the ethics department had banned their use before any of the devices could ever be installed in the field.
“We won’t be captured,” Bender said. “And if we are, there are other means to turn your brain to mush, if you’re not afraid to use them.” He patted the grenades attached to his harness.
“Let’s not worry about that for the moment,” Rade said. “Anarchist, issue a response. Tell them we agree to surrender.”
“I’m detecting local gamma ray scattering,” Taya said.
“That would be the response,” Rade told her.
“Yes,” Taya agreed.
A few moments later she announced more incoming rays.
“They’ve accepted our surrender, and instructed us to proceed to a ship which I will highlight for your pilot,” the Anarchist said.
Bender in turn must have highlighted the ship, because it pulsed a brighter red on the tactical display that Rade’s overhead map had become. The vessel resided on the outskirts of the cluster of starships.
“All right,” Rade said. “Bender, plot a course for that ship.”
The stars beyond the window swiveled until the half dome of the planet was to the left of the view, and then Rade felt the subtle change in G forces as the craft accelerated. The inertial dampening prevented those G forces from being anything more than a gentle push.
Though the surface of the colony didn’t seem to be moving at all to the left, Rade knew the shuttle was advancing because of the updating position on the overhead map, which kept the craft centered in the middle, while slowly updating the dots of the enemy ships, bringing them closer with each passing moment.