by Isaac Hooke
With my helmet aReal, I zoomed in on each of them in turn. Both enemy units had their backs toward me, and were concentrating on Hopper.
I fired off a quick burst of my jumpjets, carrying myself and the small rock toward the closer opponent.
The enemy mech confidently fired three missiles at Hopper.
I didn’t wait to see how Hopper reacted; I only hoped my ATLAS wouldn’t accidentally shoot me while it responded to the threat.
I fired my jets at full burn, fast approaching the enemy mech from behind. I still ported the rock—I was just another mineral body as far as the external sensors of the target were concerned.
I kept my course centered on the enemy as rocks flitted past. Some hit me, and though a few of the impacts were sizable, none of them perforated my jumpsuit. One of the pebble-sized objects managed to make a big chip in my faceplate, however.
I closed with the target and released the rock—
With a final burst of thrust, I landed on the enemy mech’s jetpack.
Though the jumpjets of ATLAS 6s were twice the size of the previous models, the fuel lines threading between the tanks and jets, like the older ATLAS 5, were readily accessible and unarmored. I used my favorite tactic, and severed the main line.
Jet fuel spurted out, boiling and desublimating at the same time, forming a cloud of fine, frozen crystals, similar to mist.
I sheathed my utility knife and pulled myself up into the seating area above the jetpacks, behind the head. I sat in the leftmost seat (the ATLAS 6s had two passenger seats, unlike the single seat of the ATLAS 5s). I’d seen the mech fire its Trench Coat earlier, so I knew no electro-defense mechanisms were installed.
Even so, before I could strap myself in, the enemy ATLAS 6 launched into a series of evasive maneuvers, and nearly shook me off.
I grasped the seat buckle for dear life. Behind the mech, a stream of fuel crystals formed a spiraling trail.
The ATLAS couldn’t get me, not while I hung there, but the other enemy obviously could—I just hoped Hopper kept the second ATLAS engaged.
The mech’s jets abruptly cut off.
Out of fuel.
I felt the hull shudder beneath me.
I turned around in time to see a jumpsuit-clad SK thrust himself toward me from the open cockpit.
He held a pistol.
I released the seat belt and activated my lateral jets, full burn—
And spiraled at high speed around the entire mech—
Coming at the surprised SK from the opposite side in under half a second.
Before he could react, I plunged my knife into the rib region of his jumpsuit.
My momentum carried the two of us away from the mech. Without fuel, the abandoned ATLAS 6 receded behind us, unable to bring its Gatlings to bear.
As the stars spiraled past at a dizzying speed, I bashed the 9-mil from the SK’s grasp. The pistol spun away.
I started to withdraw the knife I’d plunged into the SK’s jumpsuit, but he forcibly wrapped his hands around my gloves, keeping the weapon embedded. He didn’t want to lose suit integrity—his jumpsuit had obviously sealed around the blade. If I removed the knife, I’d probably create a gap big enough to depressurize the entire suit.
I was starting to feel nauseous from all the rotating, and I fired some gyroscopic stabilizers. But the SK activated his own jumpjets, messing up my equalization attempts.
I strove once more to remove the knife, but I couldn’t budge the weapon, not with his gloves wrapped around mine. I tried twisting the blade. No good. Our jumpsuits gave us equal strength, and he countered my every attempt.
I stared into my foe’s helmet and saw the fearless, emotionless visage of a man who didn’t care if he lived or died.
He was definitely controlled by a Phant.
I managed to pry one hand free from his grasp and I lifted my glove toward his helmet, hoping to open his locking assembly.
He took advantage of my slackened hold to kick me in the chest.
I lost my grip on the knife and drifted away from him.
The SK withdrew a second pistol from his belt.
Wonderful.
I jetted in reverse, activating my lateral thrusters at random intervals so that I moved in an unpredictable, three-dimensional spiral. Just like I was taught.
The ballistics alarm triggered inside my helmet.
“Hopper, pick me up!” I sent my mech.
I glanced at the HUD map. Hopper wasn’t far.
I couldn’t see or hear the 9-mil bullets, but I knew they were out there because of the muzzle flashes. Hidden, silent bullets sliced through the void, ready to perforate my suit and kill me. All it would take was one lucky shot.
“Hopper!”
I kept up the evasive maneuvers, trying to jet in the general direction of my mech. Then I felt a strong burning sensation in the back of my shoulder.
The SK had finally shot me.
The skin and muscle of my rear deltoid would be sucked outward because of the pressure differential, and would partially close the small perforation in my jumpsuit. The coagulating blood from the injury itself would complete the seal. At least, that’s how it was supposed to work.
I felt the throbbing pain, and did my best to ignore it, reminding myself that I had experienced far worse at the hands of the Keeper.
My mech neared, moving erratically. Long threads of Gatling fire from the other enemy ATLAS forced Hopper to constantly evade. A single strike from one of those threads to my jumpsuit would mean instant death.
“Hopper, attacker on my six,” I sent as my mech grew near. “Defend.”
A stream of Gatling fire erupted from Hopper, silently slicing into the void behind me.
On my HUD map, the red dot indicating the SK behind me turned dark.
“Hopper, steady,” I transmitted.
Hopper ceased the evasive maneuvers and headed straight toward me.
I positioned myself between Hopper and the remaining mech so that I was shielded from the enemy Gatlings. Hopper faced away from me, shooting at the pursuing mech.
I jetted toward Hopper at maximum thrust. Small rocks pummeled my suit.
“Hopper, reposition for dock.”
Hopper ceased firing and swiveled around.
The mech’s cockpit unlatched. There was no gravity to complete the opening out here, so Hopper used a metallic hand to yank the hatch the rest of the way down.
I dove inside.
I flinched in pain as the inner cocoon wrapped around me and pressed into my injured shoulder.
When Hopper’s vision feed kicked in, I found myself staring at the SK I’d just escaped from. His jumpsuit spun lifelessly, ten meters away, and the blue mist of a Phant vented from his neck.
The sound of Gatling bullets hitting Hopper’s right arm drew me back to the situation at hand, and I jetted my mech hard to the left.
Turning around, I realized the enemy ATLAS 6 held a Gatling in one hand and an energy ax in the other. That told me it had run out of serpents.
Good. So we were on relatively even footing now.
I double-checked my own serpent missile inventory. Yep. Empty.
I swiveled the wootz shield into my left hand and brought the energy ax into my right.
I held the shield toward the enemy. The wootz worked wonders against the Gatling gun, easily deflecting those bullets. I saw slight dents appear on the backside. Not invincible, then, but definitely better than ordinary ballistic shields.
I landed on a large boulder and dug in, waiting for my foe.
The dents stopped appearing on the back of the shield and I knew the enemy mech had ceased firing. Maybe it had exhausted its ammunition.
I tentatively peered past the rim of the shield.
The enemy ATLAS 6 had replaced its Gat with a
shield of its own. It was coming toward me at ramming speed, and had lifted its blade far back, poised to strike.
I timed my moment precisely, smoothly jetting upward, bringing my ax down in a decapitating blow.
The enemy ATLAS managed to raise its shield in time, blocking my blade.
It immediately thrusted toward me, ramming its shield into my body, sending me spinning away.
I pummeled through a cluster of smaller rocks, then stabilized myself.
The enemy ATLAS 6 jetted toward me—
I moved aside—
We swept past each other, like medieval jousters in space, exchanging glancing blows. The impact jolted my wounded shoulder, and I winced in pain.
I turned about, and accelerated to meet the mech full-on this time—
We collided, shield on shield.
I kept accelerating, as did my opponent, and neither of us made any headway. I couldn’t reach around with my ax; the shield was too wide.
I eased off on the thrust and tilted my shield to the left, letting the enemy ATLAS 6 roll past.
We could go on like this for hours. I needed a way to win. Now.
I jetted backward, swiveling both the shield and the ax out of my hands so that I appeared weaponless.
I held up my empty palms, as if indicating surrender. I winced, because the movement aggravated the gunshot wound in my shoulder, and my whole deltoid region throbbed anew.
As anticipated, the enemy ATLAS 6 jetted toward me.
I hadn’t expected mercy.
Nor was I going to give it.
My opponent hoisted the energy ax far back as it approached—
And sliced horizontally toward my cockpit—
I accelerated upward and forward, swinging my entire body up so that my hips and legs were higher than my head.
The enemy’s blade tore through empty space—
I moved over my opponent in a parabolic arc—
I passed the enemy’s shield, reached down, wrapped my hand around its head, pulled myself in, and jabbed my fingers into the visual sensors.
I felt the glass give beneath Hopper’s unrelenting strength.
The enemy mech swung its ax upward, and before I could counter, it sliced Hopper’s arm off below the elbow.
I jetted backward, the stump of my arm sparking. I watched my severed appendage and all its swappable weapon loadouts, including the energy ax, drift end over end into space.
Of course, my real arm was safe inside the cockpit.
The enemy pilot, now blinded, spun his ATLAS 6 wildly, randomly cutting at the air with the ax.
I loaded a Gatling gun into my left hand and aimed at the chest piece. I fired, striking the armor. The blinded, panicking pilot activated his thrust at full burn, in a random direction that just so happened to hurtle his mech toward the planet.
The pilot didn’t have to be blind. All he had to do was swivel one of the Gats back in hand, and transfer the scope vid feed to his cockpit. That was the first thing I would have done. But I was a skilled mech pilot, and for me the ATLAS was an extension of my own body. This “pilot” likely had a completely different occupation before today. The Phant that possessed him probably had the necessary knowledge buried somewhere inside it, yet actually putting that knowledge to use during the pulse-pounding heat of battle was a completely different story. If the Phant hadn’t internalized that knowledge to the point where it could act without thinking, then the information was useless. Assuming of course that the consciousness of a Phant was even remotely similar to a human being’s, though I suspected that when integrated with a human host, they behaved closer to us than anything else.
I fired off some subsequent shots for good measure, and the enemy pilot applied more thrust. If he kept that up, he’d find himself in a decaying orbit around the gas giant. Without booster rockets, he’d never get out again.
I followed the enemy mech for a ways, waiting for the pilot to eject. Ready to gun him down.
“Warning: approaching inescapable gravity well,” Hopper’s AI intoned.
The enemy pilot didn’t eject.
His mech passed the point of no return.
I pulled up before I, too, became irrevocably trapped in the massive gravity well.
It was done.
I unleashed several long bursts of thrust, returning to the higher, safer orbit of the ring belt. Then I made my way toward Lana and Hijak. I was running low on jumpjet fuel at this point, and used my thrust sparingly.
Now that the life-or-death dance of battle had ended, the pain in my shoulder returned full-bore. I shrugged it off. There was no atmosphere present in the cockpit, and I really should have repaired my suit to reduce the swelling in my shoulder, but there wasn’t time.
My friends needed me.
According to my HUD map, Hijak still faced one enemy opponent, in a battle just as desperate as mine had been. His dot was bright green and zigzagging. Lana had taken out her own single opponent, but her dot was darker, stationary.
I pulled up her vitals. They were fluctuating.
“Lana, do you copy? Lana?”
No answer.
I considered making a beeline toward her but decided against it.
I had to help Hijak, if I could.
Lana would just have to wait.
I hadn’t been sure whose life I’d choose to save when the time came.
But I was sure now.
My platoon brother had top priority.
“I’m coming, Hijak,” I said.
When I was halfway to Hijak’s position, the red dot representing his target abruptly winked out.
“Hijak, you all right? I’m almost there.”
“Bit late, Rage,” he said, his voice coming in a painful wheeze. “Nothing to see here. Better . . . better check on Lana.”
On my HUD, I saw the green dot representing his mech proceed toward Lana. We were about equidistant from her now, and would reach her at roughly the same time.
“Tell me you’re okay, Hijak.” I glanced at his vitals on my HUD. They seemed weak, but not critical.
“I took . . . a few good hits.” Hijak sounded groggy. “I’ll live. You?”
“Got it good in the shoulder, but otherwise I’m fine.” I checked Lana’s vitals again. She was alive. Barely.
I loosed a long, desperate burst of thrust, but I was already close to the maximum momentum I could attain out here. “Did you see what happened to Lana?”
“She ate four rockets.”
That meant she probably had more than a few shrapnel wounds. And maybe she’d lost suit pressure.
Not good. Not good at all.
“It’s my fault,” I sent. I felt overwhelmed by guilt.
“It’s no one’s fault, Rage. We did our best. We were outnumbered five to three. It’s lucky she lasted as long as she did.”
I know his words were only meant to help me, but they didn’t. “I should’ve ordered the mechs to come with us, back in the hangar bay.”
“And I should have reminded you,” Hijak sent.
We found her mech, Ox, floating lifelessly amid the rocks. There were dents all along the outer hull, with sections fused together or melted away entirely. Ox’s left leg was missing, and its right arm was bent far back, almost torn off.
I opened my cockpit and left Hopper, closing the distance to Ox in my jumpsuit.
I grabbed her mech, and pulled myself around to the front.
“Lana,” I transmitted. “If you can read me, open your cockpit. Lana?”
I knocked on the hull with my glove.
“Lana, I’m going to need you to—”
Her cockpit unlatched, and opened a crack.
“I’m coming in, Lana. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Without gravity, the unlocked hatch
didn’t fall open on its own. However, no matter how hard I struggled with it, I couldn’t pry the hatch open—the edges were too dented.
“Hijak, a little help here, bro.”
Hijak came over in his mech. He put one knee on Ox’s hip, gripped the hatch with his hand, and pulled.
He tore the metal right off. “Whoops.”
I went inside the cockpit.
The cocoon had released Lana, and she floated lifelessly within. She had multiple pieces of shrapnel embedded in her suit. Her faceplate was cracked, but intact. She still had internal suit pressure, as far as I could tell.
“Lana?” I held her in my arms, so that she wouldn’t float off into space.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Rade Galaal.”
“Tell me where it hurts.”
“Everywhere.”
“You’re going to make it,” I told her.
She smiled wanly. “Liar.”
“Please, Lana, hang in there. We need you. You have important knowledge of the enemy. You can’t die.”
Her smile faded, and her eyes became distant. “You don’t need me alive. All you need is my embedded ID. Everything . . . everything you need to know is in there. My password is ‘soaring eagle 9000-2.’ ”
Those words tore me up inside. “We do need you alive. You’re going to live, goddammit. I don’t care about your embedded ID. To hell with it. I care about you. We’re going to get through this, Lana. We’re going to make it. You can’t die, not after everything you’ve been through. You’re a survivor. No one endures what you’ve endured, only to die now. It doesn’t make sense. The universe won’t allow it. Your will is too strong.”
“A pleasant thought,” she said. “If entirely untrue.”
“I’m going to remove some of the shrapnel, all right? Then attach some SealWraps, and see if I can close your major wounds. Which one hurts the most?”
“They all hurt,” she said.
I reached into the left cargo pocket of my jumpsuit, and retrieved my suitrep kit.
“No,” Lana said, shoving my hand away. “It’s too late.”
“Lana—”
“Please.” She gazed imploringly into my helmet. “Let me die in peace. Without false hope. Don’t say I’m going to live, when you know I won’t. Don’t say you can help me, when you know you can’t. I want to die, remembering all I loved about this life, rather than dismissing those thoughts because of some false hope that I might awaken from the coming eternal sleep.” She placed her gloved fingers around mine and squeezed. “Don’t grieve. Remember me in the deepest, darkest hours, when you think you can’t go on. Remember me in the storm.”