by Isaac Hooke
The pulse platforms were updated with the same patch, taking away the enemy’s ability to stage surprise attacks inside the defensive perimeter. Rade watched as enemy Centurion clones were mowed down during one such breach attempt.
Rade had Sky take over during a quiet moment so that he could take a half hour nap. He fell asleep instantly, but was awakened ten minutes later when a troop of mechanical egg layers staged an attack. He helped fend them off, and resolved to take a nap again only when he was relieved. To that end, he had his suit inject the necessary stimulants in hourly doses.
Finally, at the twelve hour mark, a battalion arrived to relieve them.
“Defend the relief battalion!” Facehopper sent.
Once the relief battalion was in place, Rade and the others retreated through the damaged streets. The mechs were no longer shiny, their surfaces covered in dents and perforations, and coated in dust and blood. Several Zeus units limped. Manic’s was missing the right forearm, while Bomb’s had no left arm at all. The armored carriers fared little better, with hulls partially caved in, and treads barely intact on some units.
They arrived at the newly minted forward operating base. 3D-printed walls surrounded the perimeter. The printing drones were still at work, adding layers to those walls to make them thicker and higher. In front of it, electrified razor wire had been laid in long, deadly coils that had to be moved aside to allow the battalion entry.
Inside, lining the inner perimeter, Rade saw rapid-fire pulse platforms positioned at strategically-placed embrasures in the wall. One of the platforms abruptly began to fire frantically at some unseen foe outside; Centurions swarmed to the top of the wall there to repel the intruders. Mechs joined in as well. Rade resisted the urge to assist them. Good thing, too, because in moments the attack was over and the defending Centurions and mechs dispersed.
“If you ask me,” Bender said. “We should have raised the goddamn FOB first, rather than charging in all gung-ho.”
“Hindsight is always richer than foresight,” Facehopper said. “Intel and tech pointed to a city clear of foes. Not much you can do when that intel proves wrong.”
“Yeah, well there’s also proper military doctrine and protocol,” Bender said. “I can’t believe you’re defending them.”
“Someone has to,” Bomb said. “If the chief don’t do it, who will?”
Alpha and Bravo made their way to the shared stowage hangar both platoons had been assigned. They dismounted their mechs, but continued to wear their jumpsuits despite the breathable atmosphere on the terraformed world, for fear of a biohazard type attack.
They traversed the small village of containerized housing units, pausing at the “head” or toilet container to take one last dump inside their suits before emptying the contents into the communal latrine.
“I’m kind of glad they’re making us keep our suits,” Bender said while waiting for the auto-sanitization robot to clean his waste release valve. “Definitely don’t need to smell this place.”
“Sure sure, you’re probably wishing you could crack open your helmet and take a big long whiff,” Manic said. “The smell of all that shit in one place is like a perfumed paradise for you.”
“If I wasn’t so exhausted, I’d beat the living crap out of you,” Bender told him.
“Go ahead and try,” Manic said. “You see that black, runny stuff in the latrine hole? You’re going to be covered in it shortly.”
Bender snarled behind his faceplate and seemed about ready to fight, but then he glanced at the latrine and apparently changed his mind—he marched from the unit without another word.
The two MOTH platoons departed the head and eventually found the eight rectangular containers assigned to them. Rade, Tahoe, Lui and Manic wordlessly marched over to their assigned unit. They entered the airlock in pairs, as it fit only two at a time.
Inside the airlock, Rade waited for the sonic decontamination system to wipe down the outside of his jumpsuit, and when the inner door opened he stamped across the linoleum floor, took a bunk and undressed. He inhaled the recycled air of the unit, sitting on his bunk for a long moment. He replenished the suit’s oxygen tank with the provided canister in case he needed to get up in a hurry, and then he shut his jumpsuit away in the storage locker.
He stood over the floor drain in the corner to swab his body with a wet sponge dipped in bottled water; it was too bad that showering in the hydro-recycle containers of the head wasn’t possible while the biohazard warning was in place.
He dried off, turned up the unit’s air conditioning, and then plopped down on his bunk. The others hadn’t bothered to sponge off and were already fast asleep.
He drank the rest of his water bottle and set the empty container down on the floor beside his bed in case he needed to piss in the middle of the night—getting up to relieve himself in the drain would be too much of a hassle in his current state.
Rade didn’t bother to inject a counter to the stimulant he had taken earlier. He simply closed his eyes, and in moments he joined the others in sweet repose.
ten
As the first order of business the next day, Rade had a word with the technician in charge of repairs.
“We’re booked throughout the day,” the technician said over the comm. According to Rade’s Implant, his name was Owen Weasley. “Can’t guarantee we’ll get to your mechs before seventeen hundred.”
“We could be deployed by then,” Rade said. “We need those mechs fixed by eleven at the latest.”
“No can do.”
“Don’t you have any robot techs you can spare to do the job?” Rade asked.
“All my techs are robots,” Weasley returned. “And like I said, they’re already booked all day.”
“What if I could lend you some of my men to help out with repairs,” Rade said.
“Unless they’re the size of small children, they’ll be useless to me,” the technician replied.
He thought of something that might appeal to the man. “Did I mention they were Zeus units?”
“Zeus?” That piqued the technician’s interest. “Never seen Zeus units before.”
“They’re the new model IIs,” Rade said. “Helium-cooled servomotors. Electronic actuators. Thermal-smearing camouflage skin.” An engineer’s dream.
The technician hesitated, then said: “Sorry. Can’t bump you just like that. I’ve already made promises to the captains and majors of other companies. I can’t go back on my word to them. There’s this code the Marines follow, even us engineers. And you know what that code is? Honor.”
Rade sighed. He glanced at the bunks to ensure that Tahoe, Manic and Lui were still asleep. “All right. I’ll give you half a month’s pay.”
“I ain’t telling you how much I make,” the technician said.
“I was talking about my own pay,” Rade said.
“How much do you make?” Weasley asked.
Rade transmitted the amount.
“Sheesh,” Weasley said. “That much? I’m in the wrong business, apparently.”
“What we do is slightly more dangerous than what you do.”
“Except what I do requires far more knowledge,” the technician argued.
“Does it?” Rade said. “The knowledge of babysitting repair machines, maybe.”
Weasley didn’t answer right away. Then: “You’ll give me half?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Done. But I want it up front.”
“I’ll give you a quarter now,” Rade said. “And the rest if you’re done repairing all our mechs by eleven. If you miss the deadline, you’re not getting any more. I want them in factory shape, too, by the way.”
“Factory shape?” The technician whistled. “That’s going to take some extra time. I’m going to have to bump at least two other companies to have your mechs ready by eleven. I—”
“I’m not going to give you a microcoin more,” Rade said. “If that’s where you’re going...”
Weasley he
sitated, and then: “How do I know you’ll keep your word?”
Rade was taken aback. “I’m a MOTH, you idiot.”
“And that’s supposed to mean something to me? As I said, I’m a Marine technician.”
Rade was about to chew him out but he supposed the man didn’t know any better. The elite units of every service always thought that their men were the best, and their training the hardest. Weasley would have no idea what MOTH honor really meant.
Rade clenched his teeth instead and said: “I’ll keep my word.” He transmitted the agreed-upon initial amount.
“All right, fine,” the technician said. “I’ll have your mechs repaired by eleven.”
Rade tapped out without saying anything more.
“Always sacrificing yourself for the sake of the platoon, huh?” It was Tahoe.
Rade turned toward him. “Thought you were still asleep.” He glanced at Manic and Lui, both of whom were sitting up in their bunks, also wide awake.
Tahoe cracked a grin. “We’re good actors.”
“Liars, you mean,” Rade said.
“What’s the diff?” Manic leaped down from the top bunk. “So, what’s the plan for the day?”
“The usual. PT. Then breakfast. Then PT again. Lunch. Some more PT. Dinner. ‘You time.’ Then sleep. And at any point during all of that, we could be called into battle.”
“Sounds like fun,” Lui said. “Are you going to lead us in PT?”
“Of course,” Rade said. He originally intended to conduct the sessions virtually over Implant with the other members of Alpha Platoon distributed throughout the housing units, but there wasn’t enough room for proper physical training in the cramped containers. So instead he sent a message to the platoon instructing them to suit up and meet outside.
When the whole platoon had gathered outside, Rade led them in PT.
“Turn down your suit strength enhancements to zero, people,” Rade said. “I want you to lift your own body weight, plus the weight of your suit.”
“You’re a cruel taskmaster, boss,” Grappler said.
“Drop!” Rade said. He fell to the ground and assumed the plank position. “Pump ‘em out! Give me fifty! One! Two! Three!”
By the time Rade reached twenty, he was breathing hard. Those suits weren’t light. He was tempted to activate the exoskeleton to boost his strength, but that would be cheating. As LPO, he had access to the jumpsuit diagnostic information of all the men who served under him, but he didn’t have to check on any of them. He knew no one would cheat. It wasn’t in their nature. MOTHs liked things hard.
“You know, this seems like a waste of oxygen,” Manic complained, panting.
Most MOTHs, anyway.
“Any oxygen breathed by you is wasted,” Bender said. He sounded completely at ease, and not tired at all. It was probably an act, judging from the heart rate reading displayed for Bender on Rade’s HUD, which was about the same as everyone else in the platoon.
“No, think about it,” Manic said. “Our suits have limited oxygen supplies. We should be preserving it for those times when we really need it. Like when we’re sent out into the city.”
“If we use up our oxygen tanks, we’ll just pick up new ones, bitch,” Bender said. “Have you seen the stockpiles? We got enough to last at least a week, if not more. Plus a fresh supply ship arrived just this morning. So I think we got enough.”
Because they were talking so much, Bender and Manic were the last to finish their pushups, and the two barely pumped out their last five. Manic barely beat him to it.
“Whose the bitch now?” Manic gasped.
Bender merely grunted in reply.
Rade switched to abs exercises, lying on his back and executing scissor kicks. He stopped three minutes in, when his entire midsection felt like it was on fire. He alternated a few more times between push-ups and abs, and after fifteen minutes of that he had everyone stand up and shake out their muscles.
“Nothing like PT to work up an appetite,” Bomb commented.
“We’re not done yet,” Rade said. “We’re going to make a few laps around the base, first.”
Bomb’s face screwed up behind his faceplate, and he glanced around uncertainly.
Rade smiled, perhaps a little cruelly. “I know what you’re going to say. There isn’t enough room to jog around the base. But I had the chief architect send me a copy of the blueprints, along with a suggested route. I’m sending it to you now. There is definitely room. It’s going to be a tight fit in places, but it’s doable. We’re going to jog close to the perimeter walls mostly, coming in a few times when the building units get in the way. Let’s go. Manic, lead us in the cadence song.”
Marines and technicians made way for the crazy MOTHs jogging around the base in jumpsuits. Except they weren’t the only crazy people, it turned out. Rade saw one other troop of Marines jogging along a slightly different route in their exoskeletons, and the members of Bravo platoon soon joined in as well.
During the jog, Rade received a private tap in request from Harlequin, and he accepted.
“Hello boss.” The Artificial wasn’t breathing hard at all, of course. Jogging was nothing to a robot, and the act of respiration occurred mainly to make the unit appear more lifelike.
“What is it?” Rade said, doing his best not to sound winded.
“Were you happy with my performance in the previous engagement?”
“Certainly...” Rade said.
“That is good news.”
Rade frowned. “Is there something you want to say, Harlequin? If so, please say it so I can get on with my jog. I’m having trouble listening to the cadence.” That was true, but he also had a graphical indicator syncing him to the rhythm of the platoon—not that the Artificial needed to know that.
“Yes.” Harlequin answered. “Well. I was hoping I would be eligible for a callsign now. Seeing as how I singlehandedly rescued Cyclone and his fire team from the robots that had pinned them down.”
“Ah.” Rade sighed. If Harlequin was human, Rade would have definitely granted him a callsign for his heroics. What Harlequin had been through, and what he had done, not just for the current engagement, but the last... well, he had definitely proven his worth. Yet Rade had the rest of the platoon to contend with. Most of them still resented the fact that a lowly machine had been allowed into the venerated ranks of the MOTH brotherhood. If Rade granted Harlequin a callsign, the very act would belittle all that specialized training he and his brothers had undergone, training that the robot had received instantly courtesy of algorithms stored in a microchip. There was a reason that applicants to the MOTH program were required to have existing Implants removed: the instructors wanted pure, raw humanity to put to the test. And once that humanity survived the test, showing that it had the mental fortitude to succeed, that it had heart, only then would the molding process begin. Harlequin had entered the program already molded. The Artificial had passed all the qualifications, but no one really knew if it truly had heart. Could an AI even possess that quality of the human spirit?
“I’ll talk to the chief about it,” Rade sent.
“Thank you,” Harlequin replied, then disconnected.
Rade decided to tap in the chief at that very moment. Better to get the uncomfortable conversation over with, rather than putting it off and worrying about it all day.
“LPO,” Facehopper said over the comm.
“Harlequin is asking for a callsign,” Rade said.
“You think he deserves one?”
“He does,” Rade said.
“Well go ahead and give him one,” the chief said. “The assignment of the callsign has always been the domain of the LPO.”
Rade was a little surprised that Facehopper hadn’t tried to talk him out of it. In fact, he was hoping for that very thing, for the sake of his conscience.
“Chief,” Rade said slowly. “If I give him one, it’s only going to stir resentment among the platoon. He’s an Artificial. A machine shoved down the
collective throat of our brotherhood. His very presence goes against everything we stand for. I can’t see myself granting him the honor of a callsign.”
“It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind,” Facehopper replied. “As I said, it’s up to you what you want to do.”
“What would you do in my position?”
“I’d probably give him one,” the chief said. “Harlequin has earned our respect by now. He’s proven himself in the crucible of combat, risked his very existence to bring some of us out of harm’s way. He’s one of our brothers now, whether the others like it or not. It’s about time we started to show him respect, however grudgingly.”
“I think the platoon will certainly start to show him respect, Chief,” Rade said. “But by giving him a callsign now, when he’s only just earning that respect, I’ll only be doing Harlequin a disfavor. Ratcheting up the resentment, chipping away all the goodwill he’s gained. I’ll be sending him back to square one.”
“Rage, it’s up to you.” Facehopper sounded slightly exasperated.
“Thanks, Chief. Rage out.” He disconnected and continued the jog.
By the third lap around the base, Rade had made up his mind. He would hold off for the moment. Only when Harlequin did something truly stupendous, perhaps saving the lives of the entire platoon, would Rade give the robot a callsign. Until then, he would just have to manage. Besides, “Harlequin” in and of itself was a kind of callsign. The Artificial had originally shown up with a different name, and Rade had promptly changed it.
After the last lap, Rade led them in an all-out sprint to the mess hall airlock. Inside, Rade clipped his helmet to his utility belt, along with his unwieldy gloves, and after filling up his tray he picked out a table. He set the helmet down beside him and began to eat.
Harlequin was the first to join him, seeing as how the Artificial didn’t have to eat.