“Since I probably won’t see you again, I guess this is farewell. I’d wish you luck, but I feel like your definition of that wouldn’t end well for me,” said Zentas.
“And I’d like to hope that we do see each other again. I’d enjoy that a lot.” Say one thing for someone planning to kill you: you didn’t have to be nice to him anymore.
I launched my mission twelve minutes after confirmation of the first ’vert attacks. After situating my three missile launchers in a clearing about five kilometers away from my planned battle area, I landed with my first twelve bots in a large clearing about three hundred meters from Dome 19B. The dense jungle obscured the dome from my location, but I’d looked at it from every angle during reconnaissance. It was considered a mid-sized facility, at about ninety meters in diameter and thirty-one meters high at its apex.
My line of sight ended about thirty meters away at the edge of the clearing, made worse by the water slicking off my faceplate. Sunset in the jungle meant low light, so I toggled my viewscreen to infrared assist, giving me a composite picture of the world that approximated dusk in an environment with less vegetation. I used infrared with my FL-207 scouts as well and relied on their AI to give me a count of the ’verts they found. The composite estimate came in at right around two thousand. That clearly pushed me past my decision criteria for how to engage. I’d have to use the missiles to have any chance.
Since I’d lost the argument for more time, I had about ninety seconds to get everything set. I sent orders to the twelve Mark XIs, spreading them into a skirmish line along the back of the clearing, pushing far enough to each flank to cover the front area of the dome. I didn’t intend to stop the primates. I couldn’t. The ’verts were coming fast, and the bots could only shoot so many. Instead, I wanted to put up a wall of bullets in front of the dome and push the ’verts out to each side, let them flow past the dome. Once past it, I didn’t think Zentas could get them to come back, and there weren’t any other occupied facilities within five kilometers. I assumed most of his transmitters would focus on driving the pack toward us. Was pack the right word? What did you call a group of alien primates?
No time for that.
One of the FL-207s tracked the main body of the ’verts, feeding me real-time information. I peeled the other three off to look deeper, to search for a second wave. I hoped there wasn’t one, but I had to be sure. It also gave me an excuse to use the FL-207s for the secret part of my plan. Nobody hit the kill switch on them, so I could assume they hadn’t picked up on my intentions yet. The rain stopped. Thank the Mother for small blessings.
I held the second transport aircraft containing ten more Mark XIs in a circular pattern about a minute out. I wanted to assess the initial contact before I committed them. The military would see it on radar, but it identified as a transport for one of Caliber’s subcontractors, so they wouldn’t react. I had two options programmed: I could air-drop the bots right in front of the dome to make a final stand, or I could drop them behind the first wave of ’verts. Zentas had pushed back on that, but I won that argument. We didn’t know how the primates would react when the shooting started. Perhaps they’d run, but just as likely they’d attack. If that happened, I wanted the option to attack them from the other direction. Confusion and chaos were my friends. If I got the animals disoriented and moving in a bunch of different directions, it bought me time. More important, it bought Oxendine time. If I could hold out long enough, she’d eventually get her troops into the fight. It might not save me, but it might save a lot of other people.
I pulled a set of preprogrammed targets out of a save file in my helmet and prepped them for the missile launchers. This was where it got tricky. I’d planned a lot of moving parts, making it almost impossible to track all of them at once, figuring if I struggled to track it, so would someone watching me. With things set, I started moving through the jungle, back toward the dome.
Zentas’s voice sounded in my ear. “Carl. Where are you going?”
“I’m getting out of the line of fire. The only way this works is if I’m alive and controlling the battle. It wouldn’t do for me to get killed in the first wave.” As I suspected, he was watching me. Good. Watch the shiny object and pay no attention to the sleight of hand. While I spoke, I had one of the FL-207s use its sonar sensor to do a quick search through the low-frequency band. Risky, but I did it quickly—on and off in under three seconds. I hoped nobody noticed, or, if they did, they didn’t understand what they saw. It fed me the hit I needed. A single set of coordinates, and then another. Two transmitters.
“You running away wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Did you think I was going to lead the charge? I’m getting behind the giant fucking robots.”
Mercifully, Zentas shut up. I kept moving, pulling a second set of coordinates from a file as I walked. I readied them beside the first, doing a quick rotation of the lines of targets I’d preprogrammed to line them up with the two hits from the FL-207. I had two data points, and that made a line. A quick mental calculation showed the points as five-hundred meters apart, which confirmed what I’d learned about the range of the transmitters back at Caliber before I got captured. I assumed that the transmitters were deployed in straight lines. That was the most unimaginative, basic way to do it, and the easiest. They’d need line after line—a grid—turning them on as the primates passed to keep the ’verts moving.
I was about to see what happened when part of that grid failed.
If someone didn’t stop me.
The coordinates showed right there on my heads-up, which others could see, but they were just columns of numbers. It would take work to translate them to a map, and only someone intimate with my thinking would immediately jump to the correct conclusion. I didn’t intend to give them that much time.
The ground vibrated beneath me, providing warning before I even heard the ’verts. A few seconds after came violent crashing, the sound of branches breaking. I picked up my pace toward the dome and simultaneously sent both sets of coordinates to my missile launchers and fired them. Each weapon system had sixteen munitions, and I was burning half of that on the first volley. That done, I pulled up the video feed from the center bot. I didn’t have to watch—their programming directed them to destroy a single type of target, and they’d do that automatically and as efficiently as they could—but I wanted information. I wanted to see. I had ten more bots to drop.
The first ’verts broke from the jungle into the clear, then went down in a volley of high-velocity, large-caliber bullets. Dying primates tumbled over one another, some blown backward, some staggering forward before falling. The distinctive sound of the heavy guns echoed until inhuman screams drowned it out.
Then the missiles hit.
Even from two hundred meters away, the impacts shook me. My helmet dampened the outside noise to protect my hearing, and the clearing disappeared from my video screen in a gout of dirt and dust and flying metal. I stumbled. Trying to watch video and run through a jungle at the same time wasn’t easy.
Time stood still as I waited for the field of view to clear. More missile impacts in the distance announced my other purpose, which started a mental timer in my head. It wouldn’t take long for someone to notice that I’d targeted twelve missiles—half of my volley—against suspected transmitter positions. I’d tried to hit three rows of them, four in each row. If successful, I’d have opened a huge gap that would allow the ’verts to retreat.
The dirt cleared, and the edge of the jungle came into view through the dust. Nothing moved. As my helmet returned my normal hearing . . . silence. I stood there for several seconds.
It had worked.
The closer missile barrage had arrested the momentum of the ’vert pack. If I’d gotten the transmitters, maybe they’d head back the other direction.
A screech—hundreds of screeches, joined together in one symphony of pissed-off primate—echoed through the jungle. They’d fallen back, but not far. The bots scanned for targets but
didn’t fire. Crashing in the jungle . . . it took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t getting farther away. They weren’t retreating.
The crashing came closer.
The bots turned as the ’verts swarmed in from the sides. Whether simple survival instinct or something else, the ’verts now avoided the clearing and ran and leaped in and around the bots on the flanks.
I ran too.
I tripped as I worked to toggle the video off so I could focus on the ground around me, catching myself just before my faceplate hit the dirt. I struggled back to my feet and kept going. My own survival instinct warned me my time was about up. Someone had their finger on a button that would pop an explosive in my helmet at any second. Zentas wouldn’t tolerate my running away. I didn’t have a choice. Running back toward the killer bots and the screaming, pissed-off primates would end me just as surely.
I needed more time. I had one last move to make, and I couldn’t make it without my helmet. I forced myself to calm down. Hurrying would cause mistakes. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. I triggered the drop point for the second set of bots right at the edge of the dome. Hopefully I’d make it to them before the ’verts got me. I could make my last stand there.
Then I did the smartest and stupidest thing I could do: I flipped the safety switch on my helmet and popped it off in one move.
The acrid smell of smoke and burning flesh hit me, almost making me gag. I tossed my helmet and started running for the dome but spared a glance back when it popped and started smoking. Too late, asshole. As I expected, they’d implanted a micro-explosive in it. Just enough to kill me. In about three seconds I’d learn whether they had a backup in the suit. I didn’t have time to remove it. The ’verts wouldn’t wait.
Losing my helmet had two major drawbacks. One, I’d now exposed myself to the hostile environment again and had about twelve hours to live, most of which would be spent in agony as different microbes and bacteria destroyed my body from the inside out. The more immediate concern, however, was that I no longer had any control over the battle. Now it was just me, running through the jungle, trying not to die. And I couldn’t see. The lights in my helmet had gorked my night vision and it was getting close to dark under the jungle canopy.
It started raining again.
It was oddly freeing. Not the rain . . . the lack of control. I wanted to be in control, but now that I couldn’t do anything, it felt good. I put one foot in front of the other and picked my way through the undergrowth. Shots still rang out behind me—at least some of the bots were still fighting. Closer, though, came the sounds of branches breaking and vegetation crunching, punctuated by intermittent screeches. Cool water ran down my face and neck, starting to soak my undergarments from the inside.
I broke into the open, almost stumbling again, then catching myself. They’d cleared the vegetation around the dome, and a few lights inside lit it for me in the approaching twilight. Unfortunately, I had sixty meters to go and no entrance in sight, even if I got there. And no more jungle to provide cover from whatever came from behind me.
A ship whooshed overhead, and I glanced up. That would be my bots, coming to save me. I didn’t have to get inside the dome. I just had to get behind the giant killing machines.
A golden-orange flash blinded me, followed about two seconds later by a bone-jarring explosion. I hit the ground by instinct, purple spots in my eyes. The loamy scent of wet dirt filled my nose, and it took me a second or so to process what happened.
My bot ship had exploded.
Shit.
Of course it exploded. When he lost contact with me, Zentas destroyed it. I hadn’t even thought about self-destruct devices in the transport. Stupid. A second later a two-ship of military jets screamed overhead. Maybe Zentas hadn’t killed his own ship after all. That fit my luck if Oxendine’s assets showed up just in time to splash my only hope for survival.
I jumped to my feet and started running again. I didn’t think the jets would have clearance to attack the primates, but they might. My dying as collateral damage would be sweet irony to some historian down the road. If the fast-movers did start unleashing ordnance, every meter I could put between myself and their targets would help.
I had about thirty meters to reach the dome when I sensed the ’verts behind me. I stopped and turned. The dome didn’t matter. Being so close with no way to enter was like being on a saltwater ocean and needing a drink.
I could barely pick out the ’verts in the low light, their dark green skin and fur blending into the background. I detected them by motion, my eye drawn to movement. I spotted three, then a fourth. For some reason they hesitated at the edge of the cleared area. Maybe they’d learned their lesson from when the last clearing turned into a killing field. They didn’t know that I couldn’t repeat that here. I didn’t have any bots, and I no longer had control of the missiles. Not that I could use them this close, even if I did.
A series of explosions rumbled behind them—bombs from the jets, if I had to guess—but much too far away to affect me.
One of the primates screeched, and they charged.
Shit.
What had been four became ten, then more. I couldn’t count. I couldn’t move. My brain told me to do something. Anything. Maybe curl into the fetal position and hope they ignored me. But I couldn’t force my body to act. For all that I’d thought about death in the past, in that moment I didn’t want to die. Maybe my therapist would call that a breakthrough. Guess I’d never know.
The first ’vert reached me and swung a massive hand in a looping arc. I dropped to the ground, almost fast enough to get under the blow, but not quite. The heavy punch glanced off my upper back, driving me down into the dirt. The pain didn’t register, though it probably would once the adrenaline left my system. I curled into a ball, thinking in that split second that if I took a submissive posture, maybe it wouldn’t hit me again.
A series of small explosions lit the night around me, leaving spots in my vision. The beast let out a horrific screech, then went silent, shaking the ground as it fell. More ’verts cried out around me. More explosions. It took me a moment to place the sound: the thin popping of explosive bullets delivered by Bitches. I tried to dig myself into the dirt. Someone—a group of someones—was firing from behind me, and I didn’t want to get caught in the fire as they lit up the primates.
Something loomed over me, just a shadow, silhouetted by the faint light coming from the dome, and for a second I thought another ’vert had come for me.
“How’s it going, sir?”
Mac.
I couldn’t speak. My brain spun, trying to figure out how he got there. He was on a ship, long gone from the system. Except he wasn’t. Or I was hallucinating. The speaker from his helmet might have altered the voice. Maybe it just sounded like him.
“Mac?” I asked, finally.
“Come on, sir. Let’s get you to a medic.” Mac. He reached a powerful hand down and I took it, allowing him to pull me to my feet.
“How?”
He led me back the way he’d come, toward the edge of the dome and away from the rapidly dwindling fight. “Those two women you have on the team? Ganos and the captain . . . turns out, they’re pretty smart.”
“They’re still here too?” I asked.
“Of course. No way I’d be here without them. They did all the work. I just came along with a pile of grunts.”
“But you left the planet.”
“Ganos faked that. And before you ask, the captain convinced the general to send a mission out here. Told her exactly what to watch for. Now, can we get you to a medic?”
“We need to stop Zentas. He’s at—”
“He’s at a secret base, we know. The captain is on the team going to take down the facility and capture him. One of the drones we had from that kit of goodies you received picked you up outside.”
“What are the fucking odds of that?”
“Pretty good. The captain had them looking.”
“Wow. She
did good.”
“No lie, sir. You probably need to watch out for your job with that one around.”
“I’m safe. I’m retired, remember?” I laughed, and it turned into a cough.
“Okay, sir. Medic. Now.”
That was the best plan I’d heard all day.
Chapter Thirty-One
The rehab from environmental exposure didn’t hurt any less the second time, though given the alternative, I didn’t complain. Soldiers guarded the outer door of the containment rooms in the hospital—I chose to think of them as a protection detail, not jailers, but in reality, that wasn’t settled yet. I’d been under duress, but I’d still killed a bunch of ’verts—one more entry on my résumé for the war-criminal hall of fame—and helped Zentas and his crew do a bunch of other illegal stuff. And I hadn’t exactly been an angel even before he’d captured me. Add to it the conflicting jurisdictions of the government and the military, and a lot had to get sorted out before a decision came on my freedom. The guards did let people visit, though, as long as they came in one at a time. That worked for me. My conversations would be monitored, but I had things I wanted to discuss with people individually, and the situation at least gave the illusion of that.
Mac waited with me, of course. Mother help whoever thought they’d stop him from doing that. He’d brought in a chair and set up camp just outside my bubble. Nobody would get to me without going through him. Even when he had to step out when people visited, he didn’t go far.
“What are you going to do now that the mission’s over?” I asked him.
“Don’t know, sir. I’ve got enough time in to retire. I’d never really considered hanging it up before, but now? Maybe. Not sure where I’d go, though.”
“There’s a lot of land available on Ridia.”
“What would I do there? I’m not cut out to be a farmer.”
“Work for me. I’ve pissed off some powerful people. I doubt they’re going to leave me alone just because I call it quits and go home.” Selfishly, I wanted somebody near me that I knew. Someone I could trust.
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