by J. N. Chaney
There must be something wrong with the rear hatch, he realized. He took a quick look around and realized what it was. The ship had no power. There wasn’t a single light on anywhere. It had become a coffin.
Gunfire erupted outside. Some of it was close—probably fellow cyborgs.
“Hurry!” someone bellowed.
“Keep moving!” the pilot ordered. “One at a time, dammit! Get back!”
As the last of the fogginess faded from Warren’s mind, he figured out what had happened. The banging he’d heard when they were coming in were trees. The ship had hit something too hard to crash through. It had pitched them forward, lifted the ass end off the ground, then crashed them back to the ground. Now they were under fire.
“Line up!” ordered Warren, yanking one panicking cyborg by the back of his neck. He moved the soldier off to the side and placed him where he should be. “Stop acting like animals! Stay in line, one at a time. Then get your ass into the fight and kill some CoWs. Hooah?”
“Hooah!” several of the cyborgs replied.
Warren didn’t have to say much after that. He’d make sure the others got out, and he’d go last.
“You’re next,” said the pilot, motioning toward the opening.
“No, you are,” corrected Warren.
The pilot nodded and scrambled out of the hole. Just as Warren got his hand on the window’s frame, a huge explosion bounced him off the control panel and onto his back. The world spun, causing him a few moments of confusion. When things settled again, he realized what it was. The lander was resting on its nose, and all he could see out of the window was dirt, plants, and rocks.
Trash and bits of debris rained down on him from the aft section of the ship. Several more explosions along with gunfire erupted from outside, rattling the lander’s hull. Warren got on his hands and knees and dug into the dirt for a few seconds, but the nose of the craft was buried too far.
Another explosion rattled the lander’s hull and Warren within. He wondered if it was the tanks King had told him about. The dropship he was in was armored—able to take a lot of hits from a lot of different Commonwealth weapons, but the tanks were new. Likely, the vessel he was sheltered in had never been tested against them. Not by the Republic, anyway.
Again, Warren attempted to see through the eyes of the nearby cyborgs, and again he failed. He hadn’t realized how dependent he’d become until then. He tried to send a message to let the others know he was still alive but got no response. There was still gunfire, though. Someone was out there—still fighting.
Warren closed his eyes and centered himself, then opened them again. He needed to find a way out. With the drop shop propped up on its nose, he was nothing more than a big target. One of those tanks could accidentally shoot him, and it would be all over. Visually scanning the interior of the vessel, he noticed a panel with bright red lettering.
MANUAL OVERRIDE
Of course. He could open the panel, attach the handle he’d find inside, and crank the rear hatch open manually. If it didn’t work, he could pull a pin located inside and use his strength to force it open. It was the only way out.
More gunfire erupted from outside as Warren climbed the seats his fellow cyborgs had been in to reach the hatch. The vibration he’d been feeling decreased. The tanks were moving away, but there was still a lot of shooting.
The frame the manual override hatch was located in had been damaged—either during the crash, or when the explosion knocked the dropship into a nose-down position. Warren tried to pry it open but couldn’t get a grip on the outside edge.
Ping, ping, ping!
Three holes appeared in the belly of the craft, and three narrow beams of light reflected the dust in the air. Warren ignored it and punched the panel just hard enough to give it a bit of a bend, then he was able to get the tips of his fingers under the edge and pry it open. Once it came loose, he wrenched the handle away from where it was secured to the wall, attached it to a gear, and began turning. The rear hatch had only opened a few centimeters when more gunfire erupted just outside the vessel, and new holes started appearing in the belly of the craft. Someone was outside with a heavy machine gun and was walking the rounds from the bottom to the top. They knew there was a cyborg inside, and if he didn’t do something, they’d find him. Unless he moved. Even then, they might get lucky, but Warren risked it.
Letting go of the seat he’d been holding onto, Warren said goodbye to the ship, the planet, the entire universe. He allowed gravity to take over and fell back, submitting to the pull of the planet.
Warren crashed to the bottom. The machine gun fire stopped, and the cyborg wasted no time pressing himself as low as he could get, attempting to become as small of a target as possible. The machine gunner continued to fire, and new shafts of light stabbed into the darkness of the cabin.
More explosions rattled the ship enough to knock a cyborg nutrition bar loose from somewhere above. It fell, landing with a soft thump in the middle of Warren’s visor. He left it, preferring to remain quiet rather than remove the offending meal. There was another explosion, this one further away, and the gunfire stopped.
Warren tried sending a message to any nearby cyborgs again, but there was no response. He didn’t understand why. He was still alive, and he’d be damned if he would let the CoWs catch him laying down on the job. Quietly rising to his feet, Warren made his way across to the vessel. He couldn’t see through other cyborgs’ eyes anymore, but he could peek out the holes his enemy had made. He picked one and slowly approached, but froze when something passed in front of it. Then another. Then a third. They were just outside, whispering to one another.
Someone began climbing the outside of the ship. Warren could see how far they’d made it based on the shadows. He thought he might be able to blast them through the holes they’d made, but didn’t think his rifle could shoot through the armored hull. Even if he managed to make the perfect shot through a hole that was already there, he’d only make himself a target for the others.
There was a manual override hatch on the outside of the ship, Warren knew. A second later, he heard someone open the hatch and the rattle of the handle as they lined it up with the gear. If they wanted to come in, he wouldn’t stop them. Slowly, Warren reached over his shoulder and disconnected the rifle from the magnetic mount on the back of his armor. Come right in. Make yourself at home. Oh, and would you hold this bullet for me? No, not with your hand—with your head.
Lifting the rifle to his shoulder, Warren waited. So long as they didn’t toss a grenade down before they took a peek, no problem. Likely, the Commonwealth soldier wanted to capture whatever was inside, so destroying it would only be a last resort. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but it seemed right. All he needed now was a target.
The door had opened wide enough to allow two cyborgs to exit at the same time. All he needed now was for his enemy to poke his head over the edge. Warren would end him, leap from the ship, and take as many others out before they shot him up. The door opened another centimeter, then stopped. He was ready. All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to go.
An armored hand appeared. It was a tempting target, but Warren wanted a dead opponent, not an injured one. The hand disappeared as whoever on the other side did something and whispered to others. The hand reappeared, and Warren thought about shooting it again. Any second now.
The head that appeared from over the edge of the hatch looked familiar. Warren was already applying pressure to the trigger but managed to force himself to stop before his weapon fired. It wasn’t a Commonwealth helmet, unless they’d adopted the cyborg design.
“Whoa there,” a woman’s voice said. No, not just a woman’s voice—Rigby’s voice. “Easy there, let’s not shoot friendlies, okay?”
21
Warren took Rigby’s offered hand and climbed out of the wreck of the dropship. The pilot had either missed his intended landing site, had been forced away from it, or had changed his mind. Rather than landing in a bog, the ship was
standing nose-up in a dense forest. There was smoke in the air—not a lot but enough to see. The sky was blue, the leaves of the trees were broad, and low shrubs hugged the ground. Intermingled among them were cyborgs, all facing outward in a defensive perimeter.
Rigby motioned for him to follow and dropped lightly to the ground. When he landed next to her he noticed the bottom of the dropship was scorched in several places. They were always burned after coming through atmosphere, but the marks he saw were different. The three-meter-wide crater and the soil splattered against the nearby trees and bushes explained the difference. It must’ve been the blast that knocked the craft onto its nose. A few centimeters higher, and he might’ve bought the farm.
“Comms are down,” whispered Rigby. “Nobody knows why. Where to?”
First thing they needed to do was get away from the downed craft. It might contain something the Commonwealth would find valuable, but he doubted it. Plus, there was no time to try to burn or otherwise destroy the dropship. They needed to get away from it. Downed vessels attracted attention, and even though there were at least a dozen enemy soldiers dead on the ground, it didn’t mean there wouldn’t be more on the way.
Warren waited for the correction to appear on his HUD as to exactly how many bodies there were. It didn’t happen. His HUD remained eerily silent on the matter. It was the first time it didn’t come up with an answer to a mental question. Something was seriously wrong—not that he minded the absence of constant interruptions to his thought process—but it wasn’t normal.
Rigby was still watching him. This was his platoon now, and until he found and linked up with others, this was all he had. They needed orders—a direction to go—but the forest was too thick to get his bearings. Nothing he saw appeared to coincide with the map King had provided. In that case, any direction was correct.
Accessing his knowledge modules, Warren found one containing instructions on what to do if comms ever went down. Likely, nobody in the Republic thought any cyborg would ever have to blow the dust off this information. Within the module were code lists, the semaphore alphabet, and a variety of hand and arm signal sets, including the one he was most familiar with.
He motioned for Rigby to get close. “Since comms are down, we’re going to use US Army hand and arm signals. Pass it on. Let me know when everyone’s on the same page.
Rigby nodded, then, staying low, hurried to the nearest cyborg and whispered to him. She made her way around the defensive perimeter, and when she reached the first soldier, took a knee and nodded.
Returning her nod, Warren signaled for his platoon to assume a defensive wedge formation and head out. It became almost immediately apparent, though, that something was wrong. Nobody knew which position was theirs, because neither squads nor fireteams had been assigned.
Warren pointed to three random cyborgs and signaled they were his squad leaders. Poulton, Rigby, and Maler quickly assigned their subordinate leaders, and a minute later, they were finally able to move. They did so quickly, not quite at a run, but not walking. They needed to gain distance from the crash site before reinforcements arrived or someone opened up with artillery or mortar fire. Air units were a possibility as well, and none of them were equipped with anti-air weaponry. The Stingers were supposed to take care of that problem, but he hadn’t seen any since emerging from the ship.
Once they were a few kilometers away, Warren signaled for everyone to halt while he took a look at the map, then his surroundings. He knew where they were. The hills matched the ones in his HUD, and though the creek in the map appeared to have water running in it, if it was the same one they’d stopped near, it was currently dry. There was also a large, unfamiliar animal track pressed into the moist soil near the stream bed’s center.
Signaling for Rigby to join him, he waited for her, and when she arrived, indicated he wanted her to check out the track. Rigby crept low to the ground and inspected the print carefully, then she pressed a finger into it, apparently testing how dense the soil had been compacted. When she returned, she held up both hands to say she had no clue. Whatever it was, they’d eventually find it. Such was the Corps way.
Warren was frustrated by not having any kind of comms at all. It left him feeling alone, isolated. He tried sending a message to a cyborg from first squad barely ten meters ahead of him, but the man didn’t respond. A system check didn’t reveal any trouble. A problem for later. Now that they knew where they were, it was time to choose a destination.
The map had dozens of points of interest marked on it. Several were nearby towns. There was supposed to be a river a few kilometers away, but it may or may not have any water in it. If the scale was right, it was a big one, so it might be difficult to cross without getting swept downstream. Besides that, there was nothing. No indication of where Second Corps was holed up, probably as a security measure if a cyborg was captured. He didn’t suspect any of them would talk. Nor did he think there was any kind of torture their enemy could perform which could have extracted the information, either. Then again, the Commonwealth of Worlds had been full of surprises recently.
Rigby was watching him. He couldn’t see her face, so it was impossible to tell what she might be thinking. Probably that he needed to get out of whatever funk he was currently in and get them moving. Warren inspected the map again and selected a location of roughly equal distance between two of the towns. It would require them to cross what might be a hazardous river, but if they could find cover, its location halfway up a tall hill would be a good location to observe both towns. With any luck, it would also help them find the rest of their Corps, link up with them, and come up with a plan to either kick the Commonwealth off the planet or bury them there.
Indicating the direction he wanted them to travel, Warren took his position in the center. The formation was a little tight, so he motioned for them to spread out. If they ran into a rocket tank, grouping together would only make their enemy’s job easier. Maybe it wouldn’t have been as big of a deal before, but now their lives were permanently at risk. No more ignoring radioactivity warnings. No more reckless charges against entrenched enemies. Now they had to be smart.
The forest began to thin as they traveled, so Warren indicated he wanted the platoon to spread out even more. The ones who’d noticed the signal relayed it to those who hadn’t. Maybe it was the knowledge modules they’d all loaded, or maybe it was the experience of working together. Either way, their formation was clean and crisp. Everyone was where they needed to be, and as Warren observed them from his position directly center, he couldn’t help but feel a measure of confidence return. First Corps still had the advantage. Maybe their ability to instantly communicate, see through each other’s eyes, and know where everyone else was had been stripped from them, but they had knowledge their enemy was unaware of.
What he didn’t know was how he was going to find the rest of First Corps and thought it might be time to consider the fact he may never find them. He hadn’t seen any other crash sites, either. There’d been smoke, but that could’ve come from the explosions he’d heard. It could’ve been caused by the Ruthless crashing into the ground at several times the speed of sound, too. That’s what was bothering him the most. He knew a lot, thanks to the knowledge modules he’d loaded from the war computer, but he didn’t even know what was around the next bend or over the next hill. He didn’t know where Lukov or Hendrose were, or if either was even alive. He knew where Rigby was, but not what happened to the Stinger she’d been flying. He felt like he was blind, wandering through a room of rattlesnakes.
A cyborg in first squad directly ahead signaled a stop, then danger. The next message passed was a hand to the ear. There was something to listen to. Warren amplified his hearing and waited, as did everyone else. It took a few seconds for him to detect it. The sound seemed far away. He heard footsteps on stone, then the rush of water and rhythmic splashing. There were people somewhere up ahead, but they were still about ten kilometers from the nearest town, so he wasn’t sure what to
make of it.
He decided to avoid contact for now and signaled for first squad to guide the rest around the source of the noise. Everyone repeated the signal, and they continued creeping through the woods but stopped only a few minutes later. They saw the danger signal again. This time, though, it came back from the platoon leader. Someone in first squad thought there was something Warren needed to see, so he hurried forward, staying low.
Warren saw it before he figured out who had signaled for him to come forward. At first, he thought it might be some kind of religious totem, but that wasn’t quite right. The thing was suspended at the top of a ten-meter pole—the trunk of a tree with all the branches and bark removed. It wasn’t until Warren zoomed his vision in that he recognized what it was: a cyborg. Most of one, anyway. The head had been removed, as had most of the internal components and nearly all the skin. Afterward, someone had nailed it to a tree, both hands straight above its head—a single spike going through both. They’d also done the same with the feet.
Unlike a typical corpse that would slowly decay until it eventually fell to the ground, cyborgs contained very little biological matter. Just a brain and spinal cord. The rest was a collection of various metals, alloys, and polymers. The tree would decay and fall down before that body did.
There was no way to tell how long it had been up there, but based on the amount of dust and bird shit, he’d have to say at least a couple of weeks. Whoever that cyborg body used to belong to, he’d probably died during the initial landing on the planet.
The soldier who’d asked for him made his way back to Warren. “So, does that mean they think we’re gods?” he whispered.
