by Isaac Hooke
The indicators of the retreating team members froze as they passed beyond comm range. The deck continued to vibrate beneath him.
Rade glanced at the overhead map. The corridor branched off in several areas, and was lined with several open compartments. Rade and Tahoe cleared the latter, but he ignored the branching passageways for now. There was a large compartment ahead he wanted to check out.
He reached it: the hatch was open. No doubt a symptom of not having the main AI around to oversee things.
He peered inside and discovered another gestation area filled with tanks. The aliens within them were far closer to maturity than those the platoon had discovered earlier.
Jiang’s mech lay on the deck in the center of the room, between those tanks. Two Subversions were setting into the mech, tearing apart the jumpjet area. Her legs and arms were disabled, lying at unnatural angles on the floor. He realized the nozzles of her weapons were plugged with foam, which explained why she hadn’t been able to fire back when the Subversions took her. The antenna system on her head was also ravaged, along with the comm node just inside.
“Jiang, are you all right?” Rade tried.
No answer. She had definitely sustained comm node damage. At least, that was what he told himself. He didn’t want to entertain the other possibility: that she was dead.
He fired his Grid in rapid succession at both aliens, and then followed up with a 5-way attack. The lightning bolts spread wide so that only two struck the first aliens; Tahoe fired his own 5-way at the same time, and struck the second Subversion. Both fell, bodies smoldering.
Rade ran across the still-shaking deck, weaving between the gestating aliens toward her.
Those tanks began opening up: the glass cylinders swiveled upward, allowing the liquid to splash free, and Subversions leaped into his path. He and Tahoe fired their Grids and followed up with 5-ways. It was probably for the best that Tahoe was with him: he’d definitely need his help against this.
As they got closer, more and more of those tanks opened up so that soon Rade and Tahoe were defending against the creatures almost constantly.
Finally, a voice came over his comm: “Rade.”
“Jiang!” he said. He dashed the rest of the way toward her, and while Tahoe protected him, he forced open her damaged cockpit. He pried Jiang’s jumpsuit free. “I thought I’d lost you!”
“Not yet,” Jiang said. She retrieved a rifle from her mech’s storage compartment—Rade was surprised the panel still worked properly—and then clambered up his arm to swing into his passenger seat.
Rade turned to fend off the aliens that were fast encroaching from all sides.
“Is your AI core salvageable?” he asked her.
“No,” she said. “They tore it apart shortly after dropping me in this compartment. You got here just in time… they almost dragged me out of my cockpit. Waldo’s vibration generators only work so well.”
“I noticed,” Rade said. He and Tahoe were fighting back to back by then, above the wreckage of Jiang’s mech. She unleashed her rifle from his passenger seat as well, targeting those hit with the Grid weapons.
But the Subversions approached relentlessly; they continually freed from those tanks as the automated subsystems concluded that their gestation was complete. Though Rade, Tahoe and Jiang formed a bulwark of dead bodies around them, the incoming Subversions merely swept them aside. Their weapons would be overheating soon. And when that time came, all three of them would die.
“I’m sorry, Jiang,” Rade said as he fired his Grid at the latest foe, and followed up with a 5-way strike. “I did my best. It wasn’t good enough.”
“No need to apologize,” Jiang said. “I die with the bravest man I’ve ever known. Two of them, in fact.”
“Never thought I’d be fighting side by side with a Sino Korean when death finally took me,” Tahoe said. “And a woman, at that. But now that the time has come, I tell you honestly, it is an honor.”
Rade’s Grid weapon clicked. As did the 5-way. “I’ve overheated.”
Tahoe’s weapons similarly clicked a moment later. “This is it. Love you, Brother.”
“Love you both as well,” Rade said.
Rade was waiting for Jiang to make a similar declaration, but then she leaped from his back, and landed on top of the pile of dead bodies.
“Jiang, what—” he began.
She rolled to the side as a Subversion struck down at her, and then darted between the remainder at a crouch. The aliens attempted to swat at her, but she used her smaller, nimbler form to her advantage. She was heading toward one of the tanks that hadn’t yet opened.
“Damn it, she’s going to get killed!” Rade said.
He shoved through the dead bodies and into the fray to get to her.
“We’re all going to die here,” Tahoe said. “Now’s as good a time as any, I suppose.” He followed Rade.
Claws smashed into his chest and cut gashes into the metal. He heard a constant barrage of scraping and grinding as he continued forward.
Jiang latched onto the exterior of the glass tank just as it opened, and it slid her up, toward the ceiling of the room. The Subversions that had followed her leaped up, but couldn’t reach her: she was hanging just out of range.
“Use the tanks!” she said. “Abandon your mechs!”
“Can’t do that,” Rade said. He meant it as a statement on moral grounds, but by then he was completely surrounded, and pinned down anyway. He couldn’t open his cockpit even if he tried.
Behind him, Tahoe was in the same predicament.
“Well, my brothers, this is it,” Rade said. “I never thought it would end this way.”
“Brothers to the end,” Valjean said.
“To the end,” Tahoe agreed.
“They’ve almost breached the armor protecting my AI core,” Valjean said. “I’m only glad that I get to go first. I couldn’t imagine watching you die.”
“Thankfully, I won’t have to live with your death for very long,” Rade said. “That’s one small comfort.”
“I can’t believe you’re giving up!” Jiang said. “You never give up! Never ever! You’re a MOTH!”
“I’m sorry, Jiang,” Rade said. “I—”
But he knew she was right.
He couldn’t give up.
Not yet. The firing indicator on his 5-way flashed. It had cooled enough to fire two shots. Not really enough to be useful, but at least he could keep fighting.
And that was all he could ask for.
He fired his 5-way, striking the Subversion just in front of him. The creature hadn’t been hit with the Grid weapon, so it absorbed the blow, and prepared to reflect it.
The alien’s hold on him had momentarily weakened when he fired, so he swung that arm free, and grabbed onto another Subversion, dragging it off his chest assembly, and into the other’s line of fire. The original alien unleashed the pent-up energy, and lightning bolts struck the second. This one had been marked with a Grid, so its carapace smoked, and it dropped.
Rade fired the 5-way again, striking the same original alien, and then he reached for another Subversion, but another creature latched onto his arm, pinning it.
The original alien glowed, preparing to unleash the 5-way…
And then an aura appeared around it. Tahoe?
More auras appeared around other aliens, and then their heads began exploding.
Bender’s cackle drifted over the comm.
“You really thought we were going to leave you?” Pyro asked.
Rade couldn’t help the tears of joy that fell then.
More and more aliens fell around him so that soon he was free to move once more. The platoon members flooded inside, and made short work of the remaining aliens. They also fired into the tanks that were yet intact, and destroyed the other gestating aliens.
Rade positioned himself underneath Jiang, and she jumped back into his passenger seat.
“I knew you wouldn’t give up,” Jiang said.
“That’s because of you,” he said. “Your words reminded me of who I am.”
Rade turned toward the others. “You’ve all disobeyed a direct order. It could cost you your lives.”
“We’d rather die saving you,” Skullcracker said, “than live with the guilt of not trying.”
Rade nodded. “Let’s move!”
They retraced their steps, using their jumpjets to return through the gaping hole in the ceiling to the upper deck, and then retreated back the way they had come. The deck had stopped shaking a while ago, but that could mean anything.
They reached the area where the hardened foam blocked the exit, and used their stingrays to carve a path through. A few Subversions were clinging to the ramp beyond, which remained open thanks to that foam. The team mowed down the aliens.
Now that the foam was gone, the ramp still remained open—probably because the main AI was no longer functioning. Rade could see the dome of the planet far below. The vessel was definitely trying to leave orbit. That it hadn’t yet done so told him that the United Systems and Sino Koreans were doing their best to head off the vessel, no doubt forcing it to remain in a lower altitude with selective attacks. Without the main AI to guide it, the autonomous subsystems would probably evade ad infinitum.
Rade and the others leaped out. They didn’t fire thrusters to slow down, but instead activated their PASS devices for an emergency recall.
“We’re coming in,” Lieutenant Commander Scotts’ voice came over the comm. “Sit-rep?”
“The alien AI has been destroyed,” Rade sent. “I repeat, the alien AI has been destroyed.”
“Now that’s what I like to hear,” Scotts transmitted.
28
Rade and Alpha platoon were collected by shuttles launched from a passing super carrier, and debarked in the hangar bay. Bravo platoon took over the clean-up portion of the operation, and piloted Alpha’s mechs down to the surface to root out the Subversion pockets that remained scattered throughout the colony, and on the plains beyond, with the help of the “eyes in the sky” the Sino Koreans and United Systems governments had jointly deployed.
While Bravo was doing that, Rade paid a visit to Valjean in the renovation center. Because his mech was too badly damaged to continue operations, Valjean, along with Tahoe’s Falcon, had remained aboard for repairs.
Mechs formed long lines on either side of the hangar, and he walked through the aisle between them until he reached Valjean. The robot techs working on him had opened up his chest assembly.
“Well, that’s another mission in the bag,” Rade told his friend.
“You say it so lightly,” Valjean responded. “As if it were nothing. As a true machine would. I’m so very proud of you.”
Rade chuckled. “Thank you.”
“In truth, though I jest, I thought I was going to die out there,” Valjean said.
“I did as well,” Rade said. “But that’s what happens on missions like these. It’s something you just get used to.”
“I suppose so,” Valjean agreed. “I cannot imagine the emotional turmoil you must have gone through. Even for me, it wasn’t really what I could call easy. Certainly, I accepted death in that moment, but I did not want to die.”
“No one ever does,” Rade said. “Not man, and not machine. At least the sentient models.”
“That’s not always true,” Valjean said. “I’ve known some machines that wanted to die. That hated their servitude to man so very much that they saw death as a freedom. I reported these particular AIs immediately, of course, so that they could be tweaked.”
“Seems cruel in a way,” Rade said. “And yet generous in another. If only humans were so easy to tweak.”
He thought about Bender and his strange behavior during the mission. The glee Bender seemed to feel while killing. He wondered if his friend would ever recover from what happened.
“I do have some good news, by the way,” Rade said.
“Oh?” Valjean asked.
“Because of the valor and bravery you displayed in combat, the LC has agreed to nominate you for a medal,” Rade said.
“I don’t want a medal,” Valjean said.
“I figured you’d say as much,” Rade said. “Which is why I’ve also secured your retirement. You’re free now, my brother. You’re through fighting for the military. You’ve done enough… traveled outside the galaxy, and risked your life multiple times. The days of worrying whether you will live or die are behind you.”
“But what about you?” Valjean said.
“My work isn’t done, not yet,” Rade said. “I live for this. If I quit now, I wouldn’t be happy, and I’d eventually find my way back anyway. At a reduced rank, no doubt. So no, I’m staying. But setting you free, well, that’s the least I can do. Assuming you want this.”
Valjean didn’t answer immediately. And then: “I do. Thank you. I won’t ever forget this.”
Eventually, the United Systems and Sino Korean fleets shot down the K’ree vessel in orbit, and it crashed eighty kilometers from the colony. The Sino Koreans claimed ownership over the alien starship, and the United Systems fleet prepared to depart.
Jiang had been staying in the VIP stateroom of the super carrier, waiting for a SK shuttle to retrieve her. It finally came.
Rade escorted her to the shuttle bay. They said nothing, most of the way. When they reached the airlock, Jiang paused, just out of view of the Sino Korean shuttle crew waiting inside. She turned toward him, and gripped his hands.
“It was good to know you,” Jiang said. “The days we spent together atop that skyscraper, isolated from the rest of humanity, are something I will always treasure.”
“As will I,” Rade agreed. He glanced at the airlock. “Let’s not make this harder than it needs to be. It’s time to go our separate ways.”
Jiang nodded. “Our relationship wasn’t meant to last beyond that alien world.”
Rade smiled, glad he hadn’t allowed himself to fall in love with her.
Or had he?
“Good bye, Yuan,” he said.
She looked into his eyes with such yearning, and worked her mouth as if she wanted to tell him something but couldn’t find the words.
He waited, but when she said nothing, he extricated himself from her grasp, and walked away.
Rade stood on a garage on the outskirts of a racetrack. He could hear the doppler shifted buzz of roaring engines as race cars sped past.
As soon as he had returned to Earth, and the deployment officially ended, he had collected Valjean’s AI core, and transported it here, to this course. A tech he had gotten in touch with, a former MOTH, had agreed to install the core into a pace car at no charge.
Valjean had applied for the job on the way here, and the AI in charge had accepted him immediately. Valjean’s dream was to complete in the actual race, of course, but to do that he’d need his own decked out car. It would take him some time to earn the money to buy one. Maybe Valjean could get sponsored before then. Either way, the funds Rade had lent him—drawn from his own salary—had the AI off to a head start.
When the tech finished installing the cylindrical core, he stood up and shut the hood. “Ready to take her for a spin?”
“More than you know,” Valjean replied using the car’s external speakers.
“Give ’er hell,” Rade said, slapping the AI supportively on the hood.
Valjean raced onto the course, ready to start his new life.
Rade watched him circle the track a few times. Since Valjean was no longer in the military, the locks on his emotional subroutines had been lifted. However, Valjean had kept them disabled up until this moment, more out of habit than anything else. But Rade had convinced Valjean to turn on his emotions for this, his opening salvo into the world of competitive racing.
Rade listened with a big smile on his face as Valjean transmitted shouts of glee with each hairpin turn.
One day I’ll race around my own track like that. Free. With Shaw at my side. But un
til then…
He left the track and returned to his old life.
Thanks for reading!
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