by Isaac Hooke
Behind them, explosions racked the air.
Some of the aliens attempted to leap away, but Rade lost sight of them as fragments of the buildings filled the air.
In moments the sounds ceased, and several craters were left behind along the four corners of the upper central region of the skyscraper.
But the building remained standing.
“I thought you said it was going to fall,” Rade told the AI.
“Yes, but I did say, in theory,” Valjean told him. “I never specifically guaranteed that it would fall. Or when.”
When…
Rade heard a rumbling sound. Looking back, he saw that the damaged portion of the building had given way, with the intact section above crunching down into the failing sections below. Those aliens near the edges of the failing area were caught up in that mass of twisting and flailing metal, pulled into the giant meat grinder. Except this type of meat probably couldn’t be ground.
A cloud of dust arose from the street as the lower section of the skyscraper accordioned. The intact top section, along with all the aliens holding onto it, was lost to the huge, growing debris cloud below. Judging by the raging sound Rade still heard, which reminded him of a freight train passing just in front of him, the remaining portions of the building were being ground up.
“There, we just showed the Sino Koreans how you beat them,” Pyro said.
“Hopefully they’ll take the lesson to heart,” Rade agreed.
“But they’re probably still alive,” Tahoe said.
“Yes, but useless at the moment,” Rade said. “And for the foreseeable future. Encased in a ruin of rebar, metal, and glass.”
He glanced at the dome above, and saw that the aliens had moved on from the holes his team had shot into the glass, and repositioned themselves directly above his current building. They were breaking through that glass as he watched.
“Time to relocate!” Rade said.
He dashed to the edge of the building and leaped off. He fired his jumpjets, giving himself a boost to the next closest building.
When he landed, he looked up, and saw that more of the aliens were scrambling across the outside of the geodesic dome to place themselves above his new location.
“Incoming to the north,” Tahoe said.
Rade glanced over his shoulder, to the northern streets Tahoe had pointed out. They were steeped in Slicers. The creatures moved between the buildings, though some also crawled along the lower surfaces of the skyscrapers, as they made their way toward the position of Rade and the others.
“That’s not good,” Pyro said.
“Actually, it is,” Rade said. “It’s perfect. We’ve done what we came to do. Now we just have to hope that these aliens keep following us. If we can draw them away from the colony, we can give the trapped inhabitants time to evacuate. Or at the very least give their defense forces some time to regroup, and plan a counter for when the aliens return.”
“Most likely the latter,” Tahoe said. “Considering that it will take some time for military reinforcements—and evac vessels—to reach the colony.”
“Most likely,” Rade agreed. He ran to the edge of the rooftop and vaulted off. Pyro and Bender followed behind him.
The trio continued jumping from building to building toward the outskirts of the city. They moved from skyscrapers, to high rises, mid rises, and eventually low-rise buildings. Rade paused occasionally to allow the aliens to catch up, wanting to make sure they didn’t lose sight of him and his team. He and the others didn’t have to wait long.
Rade sometimes spotted SK combat robots perched in the upper windows of different buildings along the way, but they did nothing to interfere. In fact, as soon as he spotted them, often the robots retreated from view, or activated environment blending—they understood what Rade and the others were doing, and didn’t want to distract the aliens in any way.
Finally, he reached the buildings that bordered the geodesic dome, and he and his companions leaped onto a portion of the large concrete ring that served as the base. The glass was intact here, so they fired their stingrays at point blank range and charged through as the glass melted in front of them. Then they leaped down onto the ground below, and continued onto the rocky plains.
He headed south, following along the rim of the colony, when aliens rounded the bend, blocking their path ahead. He turned around, but more aliens appeared from the northern bend of the colony; others also emerged through the breach in the geodesic dome Rade and his men had just created.
He was forced to veer directly away from the colony, toward the dormant volcano.
“Is it the best idea to return to that mountain?” Pyro asked. “I thought you said the aliens came from there.”
“Hell yeah, I’m all for going to that mountain!” Bender said. “I want to steal some tech from that alien starship.”
“I’m not actually planning on entering the mountain,” Rade said. “While the plains are free of alien activity, we’ll continue this way. But otherwise, if we reach the mountain, I plan to steer around it.”
Rade glanced at his rearview camera feed. The aliens were continuing to flow out of the geodesic dome and onto the plains. All of them chased after Rade and his team.
“You know, something’s off here,” Tahoe said.
“What to do you mean?” Rade asked.
“Why are they chasing us?” Tahoe said. “When there are hundreds of other mechs hidden in that city. Not to mention people holed up behind those blast doors. What’s so special about us?”
“Maybe they’re just pissed off that we buried a whole shitload of their brethren,” Bender said.
“Actually, it could be something as simple as the fact I have no environment blending,” Rade said. “Maybe it drives these particular creatures wild whenever they see a moving target. Maybe it activates instincts they can’t repress, no matter how intelligent or cunning they are. Just like lions always chase anything that runs. They can’t help it—it’s reflex. But if you stroll calmly through a wilderness park full of the animals, the lions will merely stare at you indifferently.”
“That’s a pretty big jump, going from lions to aliens,” Tahoe said. “Just as big as the jump from lions to humans.”
“Yes, but we have no idea how advanced these particular aliens are,” Rade said. “They have some intelligence, as we’ve seen, but whether they have the ability to think and reason like human beings remains to be seen. I suspect they’re more akin to a hunter caste among the aliens. Or perhaps something more on the level of a bioweapon. They hunt in packs, that much is clear, and I’m telling you, Cyclone, when animals hunt together like that, the herd instinct is strong. If they see a bunch of their brethren running in one direction, they’re more likely than not to run the same way. So, I’m not all that surprised they’re chasing us. And honestly, I just hope they keep coming. That way it feels like I’m doing something to help the colonists.”
The three Falcons continued racing away from the aliens.
As earlier, the top speed of the creatures was a little slower than that of the mechs, allowing Rade and the others to gradually pull ahead of the pursuers.
He kept an eye on them, and decided that as long as they continued to pursue, he’d allow that distance to grow between them. But the moment they started turning back, he’d turn the team around to goad them into chasing against.
But he didn’t have to. The aliens followed the team all the way to the inactive volcano. However, by that point, the creatures had fallen so far behind that they looked like a black line on the horizon, a few shades darker than the gray rock beneath them. Admittedly, Rade couldn’t tell how many of them had kept up the pursuit at that point; there was probably a good chance a portion of the herd had broken away to return to the colony. Still, enough aliens pursued to make it worthwhile to continue drawing them away.
“All right, let’s slow down to let them catch up a bit,” Rade said. “Quarter speed. And it’s time to make a right. I wan
t to head around this mountain.”
Rade and the others slowed to a quarter speed.
As they made their way around the volcano, Valjean spoke. “I’m reading a distress signal from inside the mountain. It’s Sino Korean.”
“Does it contain a message?” Rade asked.
In answer, a Korean-Chinese voice came over the air. Female. The translator kicked in. “This is Corporal Yuan Jiang. I’m trapped with my lance corporal inside Huoshan Base. We need immediate assistance. I repeat, we need immediate assistance.”
“Do we help them?” Tahoe asked.
Rade hesitated. Directly to his left, he could see the military compound he had broken out of earlier. Closer to the mountain, there was another compound made up of a series of outbuildings. It was built around a large tunnel in the shoulder of the volcano. The outbuildings, and the tunnel, were surrounded by a chain link fence topped by razor wire.
Rade glanced over his shoulder at the aliens in the distance. “If we enter the mountain now, how much time do we have before our pursuers reach the entrance?”
“Assuming they follow us inside, we’ll have three minutes, thirty-two seconds,” Valjean said.
“Three minutes, thirty seconds,” Rade said. “All right. I guess we’re going inside the mountain after all. We have three minutes to retrieve the two Sino Koreans and get out.”
8
Rade and the other two Falcons plowed through the chain link fence and wended their way through the outbuildings toward the cave entrance. The wreckages of defense turrets and mechs lined the way.
When he reached the opening in the side of the mountain, Rade ordered: “Pyro, stay here. Make sure the pursuers don’t suddenly find hidden reserves of energy deep within themselves… last thing we need is for them to surge forward at high speed and block off the entrance before we can get out.”
“Roger that,” Pyro said, taking up a guard position near the entrance. He aimed his stingray out into the compound and the plains beyond.
“You might have to run inside to get a connection to the rest of us,” Rade continued, ducking as he headed into the tunnel. “Depending on how much interference this cave brings to the table. Valjean, I want you to announce how much time we have left, every thirty seconds.”
“As you wish,” Valjean said.
The tunnel was relatively cramped, only able to fit the mechs in single file.
Rade spotted a series of small, metal disks embedded in the wall.
“Repeaters,” Tahoe commented.
That would explain how the distress signal reached the team from inside.
“Bender, I don’t suppose you can hack into these repeaters,” Rade said. “And piggyback on their connection?”
“Shit, Chief, you kidding?” Bender said. “Task like this is a joke. Sino Korean repeaters are riddled with so many back doors it’s not even funny.”
Rade continued forward; Pyro’s status indicator abruptly froze, which meant he had passed out of range. A moment later it came up again.
“And that’s one set of repeaters successfully hacked,” Bender announced.
The tunnel ended in an area that appeared to have once held a door, but the remnants of it lay in a twisted pile in the cavern beyond. Rade and Bender stepped their mechs into that cavern.
Only a few of the floodlights Rade had seen here earlier remained active: the rest had been trampled. The surviving lights revealed an area that had been utterly razed. The bodies of combat robots, mechs and human technicians were intermingled upon the floor between the smashed crates and pallets that had once littered the area. The white suits of the technicians were covered in blood where the teeth and claws of the aliens had penetrated. The can-shaped passageway that led away from one side of the partially buried starship was torn open in several places. The only thing that remained untouched was the starship itself, a cold slab of stone set malevolently against the side of the tomb that was the cave.
On top of that vessel, near where the saucer shape curved inward at the center, were three Slicers. They leaped up in turn, clawing at a stalactite-style overhang above the ship where two figures in Sino Korean jumpsuits clung. Their suits didn’t have environment blending, or at least the blending wasn’t currently active, so he could see them plainly as they huddled near the top of the stalactite.
So far, the aliens hadn’t noticed Rade and the other Falcons—while the mechs might have been rather noisy in their entrance, the aliens were making a racket themselves, growling as they loudly attacked the rock.
When one of the SKs slipped, dropping a half meter before obtaining a secure hold on the rock once more, the aliens redoubled their efforts, fervently raking the bottom portion of the stalactite as if trying to break it away to get at the juicy morsels that hung there. Then again, Rade doubted the aliens actually intended to eat the pair—killing the humans was likely only for sport.
“Two minutes thirty seconds,” Valjean announced.
Rade’s gaze drifted to the ceiling of the cavern, specifically the eastern portion. As a special operator, he was trained to remember details at a glance—being able to recall enemy locations, as well as strategic points of interest after only a short glimpse, often meant the difference between life or death in the heat of battle, or when entering an ambush situation.
And this time, on his initial once-over of the cave, he had noticed several fissures crisscrossing the eastern portion of the ceiling. He studied those fissures more intently.
“That looks unstable,” Rade told Valjean. “What are the chances we could cave it with a few well-placed charges?”
“Fairly good,” Valjean said. “I’ve already computed the charge placements for optimal collapse, based on the fissure pattern.”
Several green dots overlaid his vision, highlighting the potential placements on the ceiling.
“Bender, Tahoe, grab the necessary charges from the storage compartments,” Rade ordered. “Very quietly. Then climb the ceiling in your jumpsuits, and plant the charges.”
“Two minutes,” Valjean said.
Bender’s cockpit hatch clicked open: he caught it by the inner handle, and slowly lowered it the rest of the way to mute the sound. Bender maneuvered onto the leg area of his mech, opened the storage compartment, and retrieved the necessary charges.
Tahoe meanwhile climbed down Rade’s own mech from the passenger seat and likewise grabbed demolition bricks from the storage compartment.
Once that was done, the pair leaped down and quietly made their way across the dead bodies and robot wreckages littering the floor.
“One minute thirty seconds,” Valjean said.
“Come on guys,” Rade said.
“We’re in place,” Tahoe said.
Tahoe and Bender activated their jetpacks—the noise was muted, thanks to the noise cancelers built into the packs, and activated the magnetic mounts in their jumpsuits to attach to the ceiling. The AIs in their jumpsuits varied the strength of those magnets in realtime, allowing Bender and Tahoe to maneuver by simply crawling over the surface. They spread out, and began placing the charges.
Rade watched the seconds pass by on the digital of his HUD.
One of the Sino Koreans slipped again; the other had bridged the gap between them, and was able to grab the falling person by the wrist. Unsurprisingly, the aliens below kicked up a frenzy, leaping wildly at the stalactite, driven on by bloodlust.
“One minute,” Valjean said.
“We’re done,” Tahoe said.
“Now we just need a distraction,” Rade said.
“I’ll do it,” Bender said.
He let go of the ceiling and dropped the twelve meters to the ground, firing his jetpack to cushion his fall.
“Hey, bitches!” Bender said via his loudspeakers once he’d landed. He’d jacked up the volume so that his voice echoed throughout the cavern.
The three aliens that were assaulting the stalactite on the far side of the room froze.
“That’s right,
I’m talking to you,” Bender said. “Come get me, you ass-sniffing, turd-swallowing, maggot-growing alien freaks!”
The wild trio instantly leaped off the starship and swerved toward him.
“Nice insult.” Overhead, Tahoe was quickly crawling across the ceiling, moving away from the charges, and back toward where Rade waited with the other mech.
“Thank you. It was rather deep, if I do say so myself.” Bender backed away, moving toward the far eastern side of the cavern.
“Bender, when the ceiling collapses, you’re going to be right in its path…” Rade said.
“I know,” Bender said. “If I die, then I die.”
The three aliens reached the blast zone; Bender waited a moment, letting them travel well beneath the charges, and then he activated his jetpack. As he swooped over their heads, Bender remotely detonated the charges.
The aliens leaped up, trying to claw him out of the air, but he jetted from side to side, and narrowly avoided them. Behind and above him, the roof came crashing down.
A cloud of dust filled the air, swallowing Bender.
“Gah!” Bender sent.
Rade glanced at his overhead map, and saw that Bender was no longer flying from the collapse, but seemed frozen in place.
“Bender, what’s wrong?” Rade asked.
“I couldn’t see, and crashed into something,” Bender said. “Some kind of tent or something. I’m tangled up. Going to take me a few moments to cut myself free here.”
“Thirty seconds,” Valjean said.
“I’ll go back for him,” Tahoe said, and he dropped down from the ceiling and entered the cloud of dust.
Rade glanced at the two women on the stalactite, and beckoned with one hand of his mech. “Hurry! More aliens are coming!” His external speakers translated the words into Sino Korean.
The two Sino Koreans clambered down the stalactite, and leaped down onto the top portion of the ship below. They didn’t have jetpacks, but their strength enhanced exoskeletons allowed them to land without hurting themselves.
“Twenty seconds,” Valjean said.
