by Isaac Hooke
Soon, the target was visible in the center of the view window. Bender hadn’t been kidding about the vessel being diamond shaped, with two multi-faceted structures facing antipodal to one another, and connected to a long shaft that extended down toward the planet.
“You know, it does kind of look like a dick and balls,” Lui said. “But a better description is something like a mallet. With really sharp heads.”
“What are we going to do about oxygen?” Tahoe asked.
Rade glanced at his O2 levels. He had about ten minutes left. He’d already switched over to the final reserve. The other team members had similar levels.
“I’m not sure, Cyclone,” Rade replied. “There isn’t much we can do, but fight until the very end. Who knows, maybe these Nemesis plan to bring us oxygen, as part of our surrender agreement. If so, we’ll take it from them somehow. We’re playing it by ear here, my friend.”
Bender steered the craft toward a central point in the shaft, where two panels promptly slid aside. No, not panels… huge doors. They only looked like panels at this distance.
Dome lights on the ceiling inside illuminated a hangar of sorts. The walls were greenish, and concave, with ribbed sections passing at intervals along the floors and ceiling. They seemed organic, pulsing slightly as if to a heartbeat.
The shuttle flew inside, and Rade felt the weightlessness of space give way to gravity.
The craft jerked as Bender compensated for the sudden downward vector.
“The hell?” Rex said.
“Artificial gravity just kicked in,” Bender explained. “Don’t wet your pants, caterpillar.”
Rade deactivated his boot magnets, as they weren’t needed to keep him firmly rooted to the floor anymore.
Bender landed the shuttle amid a circular clearing at the base of the hangar. Rade felt vibrations passing up from the floor, and he decided that must be the doors sealing behind him. He switched to Taya’s point of view, where she clung to the hull outside; she was staring directly at the entrance bulkhead, and sure enough, the doors were closing. When they slammed shut, a final vibration passed up into the shuttle, and then all shaking ceased.
“All right,” Rade said. “We’ve docked. This is where things get interesting.”
16
Rade returned to the viewpoint inside his helmet, and spun to leave the cockpit.
“See that mist rushing into the chamber?” TJ said. “Is that some kind of atmosphere?”
Rade paused, and gazed past the window into the hangar beyond. He spotted the mist rushing down the curving bulkheads, from vents somewhere in the ceiling overhead.
“Has to be,” Rade said.
“I’m reading rising oxygen levels,” Taya said. “Plus, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. I believe they’re creating an oxygen environment for you.”
Rade shook his head, unable to believe his luck. “They’re going to facilitate the invasion of their own ship.”
“They’re a bit overconfident, aren’t they?” Bomb said.
“Or maybe we are,” Lui told him.
“Someone’s going to lose today, that’s certain.” Tahoe grabbed a grenade from his harness. “But it ain’t gonna be us.”
“Mechs, gather on the far side of the shuttle,” Rade transmitted. “Away from the bulkheads, and toward the entry doors.”
He heard clangs overhead as the mechs repositioned.
“How do you know the aliens won’t open the bay doors behind us and attack from that vector?” Lui asked.
“If they do, we’ll reposition,” Skullcracker said.
“That’s right, Skullcracker,” Bender said. “Crack Lui’s minuscule skull!”
“Poly want a skull cracker?” Lui asked.
“Huh?” Skullcracker said.
“Poly, that’s the name of a parrot,” Lui said. “Parrots eat crackers. I saw it in a youblube video. Never mind.”
“Let’s get outside!” Rade said. “To the mechs!”
He reached the opening, and crawled onto the hull outside. He had to activate his magnetic mounts to counter the gravity as he crawled over the mechs. The Titans, Hoplites and Brigands were crowded together on the side of the shuttle that faced the entry doors. Some of them overlapped, because there wasn’t enough room to hold them all. But if any attackers emerged from the far side of the hangar, the mechs would be shielded by the shuttle.
The other members of Alpha platoon overflowed onto the hull with him, and clambered toward their own mechs.
As he reached Taya, he felt vibrations traveling up into the shuttle, and his external speakers picked up a noise like opening doors—there was enough atmosphere now to transmit sound.
He crawled toward the passenger seat, where Cynthia yet crouched, and stood up to peer over the top of the shuttle; he saw a long door opening on the far side of the hangar. The corridor beyond was big enough to fit human beings, however if the mechs wanted to enter, they’d have to crawl.
From that corridor, the smaller humanoid aliens with the laser rifles rushed inside. They were accompanied by the spider robots Rade had encountered on the surface as well.
“Into the mechs!” Rade said, ducking from view once more. “I promised we wouldn’t surrender!”
“What about our oxygen levels?” Rex asked, leaping onto his Brigand and climbing the rungs on its leg. “Should we remove our helmets? According to my scans, the air is breathable.”
“I’m not willing to remove my helmet just yet,” Rade said, stowing his laser rifle and grenades in the leg storage compartment, and then pulling himself into Taya’s cockpit. “Not when the aliens can open up these bay doors and initiate an atmospheric decompression that will explode every last alveoli in our lungs.”
“Plus, there’s always the chance of contagions,” Fret added.
“That, too,” Rade agreed.
“But we’re almost out!” Rex said.
“Hang on just a little longer,” Rade said. “You are a MOTH, trained in land, air, space, and sea. You’re good at holding your breath.”
The cockpit closed behind Rade, shutting him in darkness. The inner actuators wrapped around his jumpsuit, cocooning him in place. He switched to the external cameras, and the view of the hangar bay from Taya’s height filled his vision.
“Prepare to open fire,” Rade said.
His zodiac was already in place on his right hand, but his shield was not yet deployed. He activated it then, holding his shield arm well away from the hull of the shuttle; and the body length protection unfolded.
He stood up, leaving his knee magnets engaged so that his Brigand remained affixed to the hull. The far side of the compartment came into view, along with the aliens and spider robots deploying at the entrance. As of yet, none of them were rushing the shuttle.
The aliens screeched at him loudly. He ignored the sound and rotated his shield horizontally in front of him to protect the portion of his body that was exposed. Then he slid the muzzle of his zodiac over the edge, and aimed at the aliens and spiders.
Beside him, the other mechs of both platoons were likewise acquiring targets and shielding the exposed portions of their bodies. Some mechs peered over the top of the shuttle, others the sides.
The aliens opened fire.
“We’re taking laser impacts on the shield,” Taya said. “It’s holding.”
“Good.” Rade aligned his targeting crosshairs over a group of aliens near the entrance, and fired. The air cracked as the lightning bolt smashed into the target and arced into the five adjacent targets—two spiders, and three aliens. Other electrolasers fired across the platoon, simply frying the creatures and robots gathered at the entrance. In only a few moments, none were left, and the bodies had fallen like rag dolls to the deck.
The hatch behind the aliens was sealing.
“To the door!” Rade clambered onto the top of the shuttle, and leaped off the far side, landing on the deck with a soft thud. The greenish deck sunk slightly beneath him.
He darted
forward, and tried to jam his cobra into the door before it could close, but he was too late. He was about to attempt to rip it off its hinges when the atmosphere suddenly expelled. He felt a slight pull behind him as the air was sucked out of the compartment, and realized the enemy had opened the main bay doors. Not surprising.
“There goes our oxygen,” Kicker said.
“What a kicker, huh?” Bender said. “Makes me want to kick someone in the nards. Like Chicken Kicker!”
“Nards?”” Manic quipped. “Are we referring to the Himalayan spikenard?”
“Shut up!” Bender said.
Rade retracted a fist and slammed it into the hatch. The surface dented, but didn’t crumple entirely.
“Strong stuff,” Tahoe commented.
“Wait,” TJ said. “I’m reading a remote interface. Anarchist, is this your doing?”
“Yes,” the Anarchist said. “I’ve already set up my wrapper around the Nemesis technology. I’m routing the signal from the Nemesis gear in my cockpit, to your comm nodes.”
“Okay, Chief, I can open this door,” TJ said. “Give me a moment.”
Rade waited, but nothing happened.
“TJ?” Rade said.
“A few more seconds,” TJ said. “I have to hack it, just like I would our own doors.”
“How is that even working?” Lui said. “Our protocols are completely different. The Anarchist can’t translate your hacking code into alien equivalents, because there are no alien equivalents.”
“That isn’t entirely true,” the Anarchist said. “I am presenting the data to TJ in a form that a human can understand. It is structured differently than United Systems programs, but TJ has adapted, and is experimenting with different code paths and vectors of penetration. I implement these different code paths of his, translating them into Nemesis code in turn, and direct the results back to him. Also, sometimes his work gives me ideas, and I follow my own coding paths, but I still feed the output to him so he has something to play with. So essentially, we are working together to hack the system.”
And then the hatch opened. A small rush of air told Rade the corridor beyond had been pressurized. It was too small to fit a mech unless it crawled, as mentioned.
Actually, it wasn’t a corridor. It ended in another hatch only a short distance in front of the first. Too small to fit the length of even a crawling mech.
“I think it’s an airlock,” Tahoe said.
“That’s exactly what it is,” Rade said. He glanced at his ever-dwindling oxygen supply. One minute left. No point in bashing through to allow the mech, not if it meant losing the oxygen that might be waiting on the other side.
He opened his cockpit and swung onto the rungs of Taya’s right leg. “It’s time to switch to jumpsuits.”
He opened the storage compartment in the leg area and retrieved the laser rifle and grenades.
“Keep a wary eye on the Anarchist and its mechs,” Rade told Taya. “Don’t let them get the jump on you.”
“I won’t,” Taya said. “And you be careful in there as well.”
Rade secured the grenades to his harness and leaped down; he was joined by the other members of the team as they exited their mechs. Cynthia landed behind him.
“Into the airlock.” Rade proceeded inside. The greenish deck seemed to yield a little with each step.
“TJ, are you hacking the next hatch?” Rade asked.
“Already started, yes,” TJ replied.
Snakeoil was first to the farther hatch, and applied his scanner to the glass-like portal. “I’m detecting a compatible environment on the other side! Twenty percent oxygen.”
Rade was relieved to hear that. “Any sign of enemies?”
“No,” Snakeoil said. “But I’m viewing the corridor at a perpendicular, so all I have is one of those pulsating bulkheads to look at directly in front of me.”
The others squeezed into the airlock behind Rade, but there was enough room to fit only half the team. “All right, those who haven’t entered the airlock, get back so we have clearance to seal the hatch. You’ll have to hold your breath until we can empty the airlock for the second group.” He waited until the aforementioned members of the team had stepped back, and then said: “TJ? How are we doing?”
“Almost…” TJ said.
The hatch shut behind him, and mist flowed into the airlock from the top and bottom.
“A compatible atmosphere is flowing inside,” Snakeoil said.
“Handy of these Nemesis, to modify their airlocks just to support us,” Tahoe said.
“Does seem a little too convenient, doesn’t it?” Rade asked.
“Is it possible they breathe our air, too?” Fret asked.
“If they breathe our air, why were they surviving in the toxic environment of the planet below?” Bender said.
“I’m not quite sure what’s going on at the moment,” Rade said. “But I won’t question it, not yet, especially if it means our survival!”
The outer hatch opened.
The corridor ended just to his left, and in front of him was the bulkhead Snakeoil had referred to earlier. To the right, the corridor proceeded just out of view. They were essentially at the tip of an “L” shaped passage. In the overhead, small glowing domes provided light, negating the need for LIDAR or other vision aids.
Rade peered past the edge, toward the right, and withdrew immediately when he spotted the aliens lying in wait.
Laser bores appeared along the edges of the airlock beside him.
Rade removed a grenade from his harness and tossed it past the edge. Another. He waited for the two explosions, then beckoned toward Fret and Manic.
The pair entered, moving to the right. Manic went high, Fret low. They fired their laser rifles in rapid succession.
Then Manic announced: “Clear!”
Rade and the others dashed inside.
“Spoke too soon!” Manic said.
Rade and the others dropped, taking cover behind the bodies of the aliens, and the spider robots that littered the passage.
“TJ, recycle that airlock!” Rade said.
The hatch closed, and Rade felt a follow-up vibration that told him the inner door had opened, allowing the rest of the team access to the airlock. He glanced at his overhead map and was relieved to see the rest of the team piling inside.
Rade checked his external jumpsuit sensors, wanting to confirm that an oxygen environment indeed existed here.
It did.
Relieved, Rade said: “Open up your faceplates!”
He was about to activate the manual release on his faceplate, when Fret spoke.
“What about contagions!” Fret said. “We could inhale some alien virus, or their spores! Creatures could grow inside us, and burst from our chests!”
“It’s either that, or die now,” Rade said, glancing at his oxygen levels. They had just reached zero. “I’ll take a few extra minutes over immediate death.”
“If there are alien spores in the air, they’re not showing up on any scans,” Snakeoil said, scanner in hand where he lay in cover on the floor.
Rade opened up his faceplate and inhaled deeply. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring in the recycled air. It was spoiled by the smell of burnt flesh and wires.
Cynthia was crouched just behind him, and she, too, removed her helmet. She was panting as if she’d run a marathon.
“Didn’t realize just how low my oxygen levels had gotten,” she said. “When it says zero, and you don’t feel any different, you begin to wonder if the reading is wrong. And then you begin to gasp.”
It was interesting, hearing her voice echo from his Implant, and his ears, at the same time, as it was transmitted both over the comm, and the air.
The outer hatch opened.
“Covering fire!” Rade said. He peered past the top of the spider robot he was crouched behind, and unleashed several blasts at the alien targets in the distance. They were peering past a bend in the corridor, and promptly ducked from
view as Rade and the others engaged.
The other members of the team piled inside and dove to the floor. Their faceplates opened, and they gasped for air.
“I thought I was going to black out,” Rex said.
“Little pussy!” Bender said. “How the hell did you graduate BSD/M! You’re not a MOTH, you’re a maggot!”
“You sound like the instructors,” Rex said.
“I sound like your worst nightmare!” Bender said. “Suck it up!”
Bender ducked as a laser bored through the alien that served as his hide; it emerged right next to Bender’s head. Outraged, he aimed his rifle over the top and released a volley of shots.
Manic and Fret threw some grenades, and took out the aliens that were dug in past the bend. Then they rushed forward to that bend, and slowly peered past the edge.
“Clear!” Manic said. “But they’ve closed a breach seal of some kind.”
Rade rushed to the edge, and gazed past. A short distance in front of him, a metal door had sealed, blocking all progress forward.
“Going to have to switch to laser cutter mode,” Rade said. “Snakeoil, Lui, this one’s yours.”
Snakeoil and Lui rushed forward, and switched their rifles to the appropriate mode, and began cutting through.
“Anarchist, do you still read us?” Rade tried. He glanced at his overhead map; he could still see the dots of the mechs he’d left in the hangar bay, but that was misleading, because those dots would still indicate the last known position of the mechs even if he lost signal.
“Yes,” the voice of the Anarchist was distorted, no doubt thanks to the bulkheads. “But signal strength is weak.”
Rade nodded. “Rex, Fret, stay here. You’ll act as repeaters to ensure our signal to the Anarchist doesn’t degrade further.”
“Great, I get to act as a repeater now,” Fret said. “This is what I always dreamed of when I signed up for the military.”
“Glad I could fulfill your dreams,” Rade said.
Snakeoil and Lui withdrew their weapons when they had created a man-sized red rectangle in the door. They left only a small section at the corner in place.
“Get back!” Rade ordered.
The team retreated past the bend while Snakeoil and Lui kicked in the cutout they’d made, breaking the corner section. Then they ducked behind the edges.