by Isaac Hooke
“All right,” I said. “This is it.”
I sent the support probe into the next tunnel to make sure no beasts were waiting to ambush us. Everything seemed clear.
“I’ll set the timer for fifteen seconds.” I input the desired countdown into the warhead. The IED (Improvised Explosive Device) was comprised of three serpent rockets bundled together, with the payload element of one serpent exposed. I’d convinced Battlehawk to reveal the necessary access passwords earlier.
With luck, the IED would teleport to the alien ship and cause some major damage. And if the IED didn’t teleport, then hopefully it would put the disc out of commission. Either way, something would be damaged. Maybe us. If the IED didn’t teleport, I wasn’t sure we’d be able to escape the blast wave in time. Explosive force was always magnified in confined spaces after all.
I activated the IED and positioned it on the disc, using the blue indicators Battlehawk overlaid onto my vision as guides. Those indicators told me exactly where the mech had stood during its own teleportation.
I pulled my arms back, but the IED didn’t vanish.
I adjusted the position slightly, jerking my hand away because I was worried I’d be teleported along with the device.
But still the IED remained.
The timer was down to eleven seconds.
“Looks like it’s not going to teleport!”
I hurried out of the small cavern and into the previous tunnel, then dropped to the floor.
Fan jammed himself under me, while Queequeg, somewhat confused, ran on. The animal paused some distance in front of me.
“Keep running, Queequeg!”
The IED detonated.
The blast wave passed over Battlehawk.
The cockpit temperature momentarily spiked, but otherwise the mech incurred no damage, at least according to the indicators on my HUD.
And just like that, it was over.
There was some dust in the air now, but it wasn’t enough to obscure my vision. My headlamp penetrated nearly as far into the dark as before, and I could discern the nearby tunnel walls almost perfectly ahead of me.
What I couldn’t see, however, was Queequeg.
“Queequeg?”
I stood, and peered both ways down the tunnel. “Queequeg?”
Still nothing. I was getting worried now.
“I’m fine, in case you care,” Fan said from below me.
I ignored him.
I was about to go looking for Queequeg when at last he appeared from down the tunnel, stepping into the light. While he seemed unharmed, he was definitely not happy, judging from the low whine he issued from his throat.
“Don’t worry, we’re almost done, boy.” I turned around. “Time to check on our handiwork.”
“Is that wise?” Fan said. “We should be running. Very fast.”
He was right. But I had to know.
I hurried back into the small cavern.
There were a few scuff marks, and some charred areas on the metal, but otherwise the disc seemed entirely undamaged.
What a waste.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“And that is the crux of it,” Fan said. “We are dealing with an alien species a thousand times more advanced than our own. Of course we do not understand their technology. You thought you could use their teleporter, did you? And then you thought you could blow that teleporter up? Ha! We are like cavemen compared with them. I do not know why I even listen to you. Da nao jin shui. You have water leaking in your brain.”
A proximity alarm sounded in my cockpit. Red dots appeared some fifteen meters ahead of where I’d placed the support probe, forward of our position. Those dots were bound together in a tight column by the confines of the tunnel.
“Time to run,” I said.
I was about to do just that, when beside me Queequeg issued a deep growl from far back in his throat.
“Easy, boy,” I said.
He continued to growl. He was staring back the way we’d come.
It was possible that crabs were approaching from behind, too, via one of the unexplored side passageways.
If so, then we were trapped.
“Battlehawk, recall the probe.”
That was the funny thing about animals. They had this sixth, danger sense. Humanity had the same intuition buried deep inside, but our intellect blinded us to it. Whenever we had a bad feeling about something, we ignored it, rationalized it away, compartmentalized it to the furthest recesses of the mind, when, more often than not, we were right to have that feeling.
Queequeg had issued a warning, and I wasn’t about to ignore it. I was inside an ATLAS mech, but I didn’t feel safe.
The support probe arrived, and I immediately sent it down the retreat tunnel, where Queequeg still gazed. The red dots from the forward tunnel had frozen now that the probe was no longer there to update the enemy targets. The closest dot was twenty meters away when it last updated.
I instructed Battlehawk to unlock the storage compartment.
“Fan, go to the storage compartment and take your rifle. Grab any other weapons you find there. Including the grenades.”
He did as instructed. “What is happening?”
I heard a distant chittering sound then, amplified by the internal speakers in my cockpit. I couldn’t place the direction of the noise.
Beside me, Queequeg had stopped growling. He remained stock-still, with his head held high, his ears cocked, and his mane erect.
The hybear was readying himself for a pitched battle.
“You hear it?” Fan said.
“I do.”
On my HUD map, the support probe reported more red dots arrayed in a column, these ones covering our retreat vector.
Queequeg was right: we were indeed trapped.
The chittering sound grew louder.
“Gatling guns in hand, Battlehawk.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rade
Dangling from the office building high above the street, I watched as Tahoe wrenched the knife from his utility belt. He planned to cut the cord that bound his body to the glass container. His jetpack was no longer operational. Once he severed his lifeline, he would plunge fourteen stories to the asphalt, colliding multiple times on the way down with the black substance that caked the lower half of the building.
He would die.
I wasn’t going to let him sacrifice himself for me.
I’d stop him.
Like I should have stopped Alejandro.
“Don’t you dare cut that cord, Tahoe,” I said as the bullets came in from the building across from us. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I won’t be able to lift the container on my own anyway. Subtracting eighty kilos from something that weighs half a tonne isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference. Do you understand me? Tahoe, put the knife away.”
Tahoe hesitated, his knife a fingerbreadth from the cord. Blood dripped from the gunshot wound in his other hand, oozing from the tiny perforation in his glove. Bullets slammed into the glass windows of the office building around him, threatening to inflict more such wounds.
“Tahoe! Sheath the knife! If you cut that cord, I’m cutting mine too. To hell with the mission—I’m going to let the package drop, and I’m going to jet down and rescue you. So if you want to mess everything up, go ahead and slice the rope.”
Tahoe looked up, and I saw the agony of indecision on his face. Finally he cursed in Navajo and withdrew the blade.
“Then what do we do?” he said.
It was hard to think with bullets smashing into the building on all sides. One shot created a circular hole in the glass window right beside my head.
I crouched lower on the ledge.
A marksman could use those glass impacts to home in on me. It’s what I woul
d have been doing.
I’d probably be hit any second now.
“This is what we’ll do,” I said, ignoring the vertigo as I gazed down at Tahoe from the dizzying heights. “I’m going to step off, fire my jets, and lower you to the next ledge. Once you’re in place I’ll land beside you. Then we’ll reel in the package together.”
Tahoe shook his head. “Bad idea! We’ll be exposed the whole time!” Glass shards continued to explode around him. “And what will you do after that? Carry me to the top?”
I couldn’t do it on my own and he knew it. Without his jetpack helping out, I’d never get enough acceleration to make the roof. The load was just too heavy.
I ducked as the glass window cratered beside me. “Bender and Hijak are coming! They’ll help!” Though so far, there was no sign of either of them.
Tahoe shook his head. “We don’t have time to wait for them. I have a better plan.”
He sheathed the knife and then, ignoring the wound in his hand, he climbed the cord unsteadily, crimping the loose segments in his gloves as he went. When he had clambered a meter upward, he began pounding the glass with the glove of his strength-enhanced free hand. The first three blows spidered and cratered the surface, while the fourth shattered it entirely.
Clearing the leftover glass shards from the frame with his boots, he thrust his feet inside, ostensibly standing on the floor. He grabbed the inside of the window frame with his free hand, releasing his hold on the crimped cord and hauling himself inside.
Nicely done, Tahoe, I thought. But now what?
I’d have to go inside with him.
I dropped from the ledge, using a few bursts of my jetpack to slow my descent. Below me, I saw Tahoe’s cord vanish within, and I knew he was reeling it in. For a second I thought he would manage to maneuver the entire container inside, but then the cord slackened and the container descended past the broken window. He hadn’t been able to grab the handholds.
When I neared the shattered window, I thrusted inside with my jets and landed prostrate on the floor beside Tahoe.
I fought against the drag of the glass container, which was transmitted through the cord clamped to my waist. I couldn’t get a grip on the floor—too many loose shards of glass covered the area.
I slid backward . . .
Tahoe caught me, and the two of us slid toward the opening together.
My mind had blanked. It was one of those times in battle when the stress of it all simply overwhelmed me. I was like a zombie, and I just stared at the gap behind us, where the window had shattered from floor to ceiling, and I watched our cords inexorably slide over the edge, drawing us to our doom.
I was vaguely aware as bullets ricocheted from the rug around us.
“Rade!”
Tahoe’s sharp tone brought me back.
I fired my jetpack. The engine strained, carrying the two of us inside in ragged spurts.
Behind us, the edge of the container abruptly snagged on the opening, and I couldn’t advance farther. At this point, I was just wasting fuel.
I braced myself against a nearby office desk, and deactivated my jetpack.
The desk pivoted under the combined weight of my jumpsuit and the container, and I was pulled toward the gaping hole in the window once more, towing the desk along with me.
Tahoe and I hauled on our cords, trying in vain to draw the container inside. We succeeded only in dragging ourselves closer to the window.
The gunfire continued around us.
A bullet struck the edge of my cord, and it frayed slightly.
Tahoe glanced at me urgently. “Hang on!”
He unlatched the cord from his belt and, straining under the weight, passed it to me. I was pulled even harder toward the window.
Tahoe dove toward the opening. He braced his lower body against an adjacent metal beam, and then plunged his torso outside. He was trying to grab the glass container, and physically haul it inside.
The desk continued to pivot, crushing a garbage can in its path.
Gunfire sprayed the air above me, battering the metal sides of the desk.
I tugged on the cords, keeping my eyes fixed on the frayed section, which held for the time being. I activated my jetpack, moving backward slightly, wanting to aid Tahoe.
Abruptly I felt the weight shift.
Tahoe’s torso reemerged, and I realized he’d managed to grip the container.
He backed away from the window, grunting, slipping on broken glass. I tugged harder on the cords, and applied my jetpack.
I saw a sudden spurt of blood erupt from Tahoe, and I knew he’d just been shot. Again.
He didn’t waver. He kept on pulling.
I didn’t dare let up on the cords, not at this critical juncture. Instead I did what I could to help him, straining against the weight, reeling in the cords bit by bit.
Finally we had the container completely inside, settled squarely on the floor.
I rushed forward and grabbed a free handhold, and together Tahoe and I dragged the container away from the opening, using the container’s bulletproof glass as a shield.
The shots from outside hadn’t ceased. In fact, machine gun fire now joined it.
Impact craters appeared on the far surface of the container, but so far none of the bullets penetrated.
We dragged the container behind the desk. It was only half-protected there, because bullets continued to pound the container’s upper half.
We hauled another desk in front of it, and with our combined strength, Tahoe and I managed to hoist the second desk on top of the first, successfully shielding the precious cargo.
When it was done, we plunked down behind the container. We needed a moment to gather our strength.
“You okay?” I said.
He grunted some noncommittal response. In training I often asked him the same thing, sort of mockingly, whenever he breathed harder than me.
I wasn’t mocking him now though.
The gunfire waned, erupting in sporadic bursts.
“Chief, we’re inside the building,” I said over the comm. “Chief?”
Static.
I regarded Tahoe. He had his suitrep kit open on his knee, and he was sprinkling topical hemostatic powder, commonly known as Mister Clot, into the fresh puncture in the mid-ulna region of his suit’s forearm.
“You look like shit, bro,” I said, panting slightly.
Tahoe gave me a strained chuckle. “Does that turn you on?” He mimicked my ragged breathing, though I could tell his good humor was forced. He’d been shot twice, after all. “You know, it’s a good thing they shoot us in training. Otherwise I don’t think I could take this crap.”
“You’ve been shot since training. Back on Pontus, if I recall. In the shoulder.”
“Don’t remind me of that pompous place,” Tahoe said, breathless.
“Pontus.”
“Same difference.” He closed his eyes, wincing as the last of the powder flowed from his palm and into the suit puncture. “Never get . . . used to it. Even though the suit absorbs some of the impact, when you’re hit, it’s not pleasant. My wife’s going to kill me when she finds out.”
“She will.” I studied his arm assembly. “That powder won’t last. Your wounds are going to break open as soon as we start moving. We have to apply the skin seals.”
“It’s good enough for now,” Tahoe insisted, closing the suitrep kit.
“Show me.”
He held up his arm. His punctured glove had dripped blood earlier, but the flow seemed to have stopped. And no blood leaked from the forearm wound either. Maybe he was holding his arm at just the right angle though, so that the blood oozed down the inside of his suit rather than out the perforations.
I checked his vitals on my aReal. His diastolic and systolic pressures seemed stable.
&n
bsp; Still, that could change at any moment.
I reached for his suitrep kit. “Gotta patch you up, bro.”
He intercepted my hand, and returned the kit to his left cargo pocket. “No time. You’ll have to shed my glove and arm assembly. Use up minutes we don’t have. We’re exposed here. The enemy could launch rockets at any time. You know that. Or maybe they’re sending combat robots up the stairwells as we speak. We have to get to the platoon. Check your HUD. They’re still on the roof. Probably pinned. They need us. The powder is doing its job. You can patch me up later. Let’s go.”
Against my better judgment, I acceded.
I took in our surroundings. The floor of the office building was basically an open space filled with cubicles, desks, and cabinets. It was lit by emergency lights.
The SKs had provided us with interior blueprints of all the buildings in Shangde City before we landed, and the map of this floor was visible on my HUD at this very moment, centered around my position.
I zoomed out on the map, and spotted the elevator and stairwell.
“Chief, we’re making our way to the stairwell,” I said over the comm.
The Chief didn’t answer.
Tahoe had thought the platoon was pinned on the roof, but it was also possible our brothers weren’t even there anymore. We’d lost contact, which meant the green dots representing their positions were outdated. Chief Bourbonjack had dispatched Bender and Hijak to help us, for example, but according to the HUD map they were still up on the rooftop with the rest of the platoon.
“Ready?” I asked Tahoe.
In answer, he took his cord from me and reattached it to his belt.
A rocket-propelled grenade passed through the window and detonated on the far side of the stacked desks.
“Go, go, go!”
I grabbed my handhold, Tahoe gripped his, and we hefted the glass container between us.