The Link

by Isaac Hooke

  Eric tracked it with his plasma rifle and fired. The impact caused a pleasant explosion, and the remains of the creature floated away into space.

  Two more came and he fired at them, too. When he took them down, he scanned his scope to the left and right, and realized similar creatures were attacking the group on all sides, and the team members were struggling to keep up with the attacks.

  “Some kind of space-adapted bioweapons,” Bambi said.

  “Bronto…” Eric said.

  By then Brontosaurus and Crusher were lying flat on the hull, holding their rifles into the hole they’d carved with their weapons.

  “Almost there,” Brontosaurus said.

  As some of the bioweapon blobs got close, they began reaching behind them with their long tentacles, and launched heavy globs of micro machines at the party. The creatures riddled their hard android bodies like rocks; sparks flashed across their bodies as the electrified hulls repelled the tiny robots, but it wasn’t necessary, as the micro machines were too damaged to do anything after impacts like that.

  Eric continued firing at the dense mass of bioweapons, exploding them as fast as he was able. He glanced around him, and saw that the creatures were closing in on all sides, forming a thick wall.

  His weapon clicked. Overheated. “Damn it.”

  Tentacles flailed toward him, attempting to wrap around his body. He dodged them, and activated the bayonet extension—the blade flicked forth, and when the next tentacle came at him, he dodged it and sliced it right off.

  “Through!” Brontosaurus said.

  “Go, go, go!” Eric said.

  There hadn’t been an explosive decompression. That meant there was no atmosphere inside. Not that it mattered.

  Behind him, the boarding party piled into the hole. Eric glanced at his overhead map; the blue dots representing his team members left the hull one by one as they pulled themselves inside.

  Bayonet moving in a defensive blur, Eric stood his ground, waiting until all those dots had vacated the hull; when everyone was inside, he turned around and dove into the opening.

  He gripped the inner walls and pulled himself deeper. He had difficultly gripping the flat surface with his rifle hand, courtesy of the weapon he held,

  He neared the bottom, which opened out into a corridor lit with a dark blue light. He wrapped his fingers around the edge of that opening, but before he could pull himself through, a tentacle wrapped around his leg.

  He was yanked upward.

  Eric spun around, swinging his rifle upward, and aimed it between his feet. He fired at the tentacle, and the plasma beam severed the appendage. Black blood sprayed the walls, and his face.

  “Shit!”

  More tentacles reached down from the ceiling.

  He fired frantically, spraying his face with that blood. With his feet, he found purchase, and kicked off, plunging downward.

  He passed through the opening into the dark blue corridor and artificial gravity took hold. His head slammed into the deck, followed by the rest of his body. The impact would have probably broken his neck if he were human.

  Tentacles burst from the opening above him, and he rolled out of the way.

  CLANG.

  “Hey, hun,” Crusher said.

  A powerful hand reached down, grabbed him by the wrist, and pulled him to his feet. Crusher.

  She aimed her rifle past his head and fired. Black blood sprayed the back of his head, and her face.

  She pulled him away from the opening, and then he turned around.

  The tentacles were shoved through the hole in the overhead behind them, and squirmed about as they felt at the air and bulkheads around them.

  But they couldn’t reach any of the boarding party members, who had moved further down the hallway on either side. The team was split roughly in half on either side of the appendages.

  He glanced at Crusher. “Must be nice to have a weapon that hasn’t overheated.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve been firing it in controlled bursts. Unlike you. You panicked, dear.”

  He smiled grimly. “No. I didn’t. Every one of my shots hit home. I did some killing, baby girl.”

  “Okay, baby boy,” she said.

  Frogger prodded those tentacles from the other side of the opening, and the appendages all flicked his way. He giggled.

  “Don’t play with fire…” Sarge said.

  Eric accessed the blueprints of the vessel and overlaid them with his overhead map. “Okay, you guys are going to have to join us on this side,” he told Frogger. “We’re going this way.” He gestured behind himself with his thumb.

  “Any airlocks along the way?” Dickson asked.

  “Nope,” Eric said. “Nor breach seals. There’s no atmosphere throughout, so that will make things a little easier on our end. And any bioweapons we meet will have to be void tolerant, like these things.”

  Frogger and the others trapped on the other side fired their laser and plasma weapons, cutting away most of the tentacles. Then they raced past underneath.

  A moment later, fresh tentacles descended and felt along the bulkheads and empty air anew. Micro machines began to drop inside; they traveled menacingly toward the group.

  “Let’s go,” Eric said, rifle in hand.

  And so they proceeded deeper into the ship, their way lit by the dim blue glow that emanated from those bulkheads.

  13

  Jason stood on the edge of the plank and stared at the half dome of the Earth that filled the stars below.

  “This sucks,” Lori said. “I hate heights.”

  “It has to be done,” Jason said.

  His feet were weighed down with booster rockets the humans had sent his way, which helped keep him attached to the surface of the plank. With a sigh, he leaped.

  The booster rockets took over, and the ship quickly moved away above him as he decelerated. He would have felt dizzy if he were human, and perhaps the G forces would have even knocked him unconscious, but with his mind embedded in the AI core of a Vulture mech, he experienced only a sense of detached worry.

  On the overhead map, he saw the dots of the War Forgers descend as they exited the Tyrnari vessel the same way he did. The clones followed after them, John and his War Forger 2s, Jones and his War Forger 3s, Jerry and the 5s, Julian and the 6s.

  The heat shield deployed as Jason hit the Kármán line. The shield was essentially a series of reflective balloons that inflated underneath him. Because of the angle the booster rockets were taking him in on, he bounced slightly when he hit that line.

  “This is actually kind of fun,” Sophie said. “It reminds me of surfing.”

  “Yeah, that’s all you used to do all day, right?” Tara said. “Posing on your surfboard for your social media followers, while daddy paid the bills.”

  “Actually, I was quite the influencer in my day,” Sophie said. “And made most of my own income from sponsorships.”

  “Am I supposed to be impressed?” Tara said. “That you lived a fake life for cash?”

  “It wasn’t fake…” Sophie said. “I always streamed what I happened to be doing at the moment. In fact… I’m streaming this jump right now, actually.”

  “You would,” Tara said.

  “Yes,” Sophie said. “I have a hundred million viewers.”

  “Nice,” Tara said. “I bet your realtime comment feed is full of sexist comments like ‘show us your tits bitch!’”

  “Actually, they’re surprisingly polite,” Sophie said. “I’m a machine. I look like a torso slammed onto the thorax of a spider. I don’t have any tits to show them.”

  “Yeah, but I just tapped into your live stream,” Tara said. “You’re broadcasting your avatar in the lower left corner, cheater. So you look human to them. And there are a ton of insulting comments in there, if you pay attention.”

  “Oh,” Sophie said. “I’ve got my Accomp filtering them out. Only positive comments for me!”

  “That’s a skewed view of the world!” Ta
ra said.

  “Can we get some quiet on the comm?” Jason said as the flames of reentry subsided. Silence ensued. “Thanks. Oh, and Sophie?”

  “Yes?” she said, her voice thickly sweet.

  “Stop live streaming,” Jason said. “Last thing we need is the enemy logging onto your stream and using it to pinpoint our positions.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s stopped.”

  The booster rockets steered the team over New Hampshire.

  “I’m detecting anti-aircraft fire of some sort,” Z said. For once her voice was dead serious.

  “Evasive maneuvers!” Jason said.

  He had no control over the booster rockets, but they began to issue alternative thrusts that caused him to zig-zag.

  Plasma beams streamed past on either side of him, barely missing him.

  On the overhead map, the other War Forgers and their clones zig-zagged as well, as the sky lit up with beams around them.

  As he came within two kilometers of the target, the booster rockets fired an abrupt downward burst and Jason dove toward the forest below. He crashed through the branches in a din of cracking wood, and hit the ground hard. Soil sprayed around him as he carved a long blast trail into the dirt. The screech of rocks and branches grinding against his hull rang in his simulated hearing.

  He came to a halt.

  Silence ensued.

  Jason pulled himself to his feet, servomotors complaining loudly. The trees were tall, but he was taller: when he stood at his full height, his head rose just above the treetops, allowing him to peer out across the broad forest around him. He felt a little like a man buried in sand up to his neck. Well, if sand were green.

  He glanced at his overhead map. “We’re two klicks out from the target.”

  “That’s as close as we can approach from above the treetops,” Z said. “Any closer, and the risk of destruction climbs past seventy percent. Already our risk was in the low thirties, even at this range.”

  He watched as the blue dots representing the other team members landed in the forest around him.

  “We’ve landed,” Jason sent Admiral Tanis. He had a direct line with the admiral in orbit, thanks to the geosynchronous satellites overhead.

  “I can see that,” Tanis replied. “The aliens have cleared the area around their construction site, cutting away the forest. No doubt to prevent any surprise ground attacks. You’re going to be under heavy artillery fire when you reach the edge of the forest. I have air support standing by. And we have our own artillery units ready to fire to the north of your position. Just give the word.”

  “I thought the bombers already tried a few runs, but couldn’t get through the shield,” Jason said.

  “Yes,” Tanis said. “Which is why we’re relying on you to lower the force field.”

  “We’ll get it done.” Somehow. Jason switched comm bands to address the others: “War Forgers, muster on my position.”

  It took the War Forgers and their clones twenty minutes to reach him from their scattered locations across the forest.

  “John, Jones, lead your clones toward the target from the northwest,” Jason said when everyone had arrived. He illustrated the route on the shared map via a dashed line. “Jerry, Julian, I want yours to come in from the southwest. I’ll head due east with my group… I want us all to reach the edge of the forest at the same time.”

  “I’m looking forward to fucking shit up,” Tara said. She must have swept her sword outward then, because three trees collapsed beside her.

  “So crude,” Iris said.

  “Never claimed to be classy,” Tara told the Middle Eastern Mind Refurb.

  “War Forger clones, spread out!” Jason said.

  The designated groups stepped into the forest and followed the routes he had drawn on the overhead map, with John and Jones leading their clones in a looping pattern that would bring them in from the northwest of the construction site, while Jerry and Julian headed away to the southwest to come in from the opposite direction.

  Jason meanwhile led the original War Forgers directly west into the forest with him. He crouched, ducking his head beneath the treetops. The others who also poked above the trees did the same. Sophie and Iris didn’t have to bother, as their mechs were already below the treetops thanks to their more insectile natures.

  Maeran’s three orbiting drones occasionally crashed into surrounding branches, and their powerful rotors ripped the wood straight away.

  Jason glanced at Xin and Aria, who as usual stayed together. They were involved in a private conversation according to the channel stats on his HUD, but otherwise he wouldn’t have known it from the way they kept an eye on the forest around them. Those two had turned against him once, a long time ago, but that was because he’d made an error in judgment: he’d wanted to ally with an alien race against humanity. He thought if he made that same decision today, and joined the aliens, they probably wouldn’t have balked. Not after what humanity had done to them over the years.

  He remembered the conversation he had had with the team and their clones in VR earlier to discuss the mission.

  “Look, if any of you want to stay behind, I’ll understand,” Jason had said. “Humanity has treated us mostly bad, despite everything we’ve done for them. If you want to turn your back on them now, I won’t fault you for it.”

  Aria straightened as if affronted. “We’re not here for humanity. We’re here for you.” Her voice caught as she said the latter words.

  Jason stared at her, not sure what to say, and worried his own voice would break if he opened his mouth.

  “To hell with humanity,” Xin agreed. “We’re all here for you. We fight, and perhaps die, only because of you. Remember that.”

  “None of you are going to die today,” Jason said. I swear it.

  If anyone would die today, it was going to be him.

  “If this is your idea of a pep talk, or a rousing speech before battle, you’re not very good at it,” John said.

  Jason smiled. “No. I was never really good at giving speeches. Especially before a fight. But I want you all to know, I won’t forget this. Nor will humanity. Record everything. Don’t stream, just record. And when this is done, we’ll broadcast it to all the streaming sites nationwide. What you do here today will never be forgotten. The humans will finally recognize us for the heroes we are.”

  “I don’t want to be recognized as a hero,” Cheyanne said. “I just want to be left alone.”

  “We all do,” Jason agreed. “And this is the way.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Tara said. “I hope we’re not dying for nothing.”

  “No one is dying today,” he repeated.

  Those latter words echoed through his mind as the War Forgers made their way through the forest. He wasn’t sure he could keep that promise, especially if he ended up sacrificing himself in the coming battle.

  Though the large trees hid the War Forgers from view, the din of their passage was obvious. Breaking branches. Clanging limbs. Thudding feet. When mechs as tall as apartment buildings made their way through a forest, their passage would be noticed regardless of whether they were seen or not. The rumble produced by their passage alone was probably felt by animals for kilometers away.

  “We should combine,” Lori said impatiently over the comm. “We’d move so much faster through these trees.”

  “I wouldn’t suggest it,” Cheyanne said. “We combine, we’ll stick out from these trees, make an easy target. Don’t you remember the anti-aircraft fire?”

  “Yeah, good point,” Lori said. She paused. “Did they try nukes yet?”

  “Huh?” Tara said.

  “Nukes,” Lori said. “Did the defenders of Earth try nukes against the shield?”

  “No, obviously,” Tara told her. “If they tried nukes, this forest wouldn’t be here.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Lori said. “Good point. But why not? They should have tried nukes.”

  “Weren’t you listening?” Aria said. “W
e just talked about how attacks will only make the shield stronger.”

  “I heard that,” Lori said. “But I thought nukes might be different.”

  “They tried nukes against the world killer in orbit,” Xin said. “Didn’t work there…”

  “Yes, but that was in orbit,” Lori insisted. “This is here.”

  “Well, I can understand why the humans wouldn’t want to drop a nuke here,” Aria said. “Considering that Concord, the capital, isn’t all that far away from here.”

  Though there were no nukes, there were certainly a lot of blast craters that the team had to navigate past along the way. Upturned trees, their roots exposed, littered the perimeter of those dark pits.

  The craters grew in profusion as the team neared the edge of the forest, telling Jason that the Earth bombers had bombarded the shit out of this place already. To no avail.

  He glanced at his map, and adjusted his pace so that he’d arrive at the perimeter of the forest at the same time as the War Forger clones. The tree line quickly thinned out, thanks to all the blast craters. He kept low, weaving between the fallen trees as he made his way forward.

  “This is the perimeter of the forest,” Sophie said. “Past here, there essentially is no forest.”

  Jason ducked behind the next tree, and then peered past the edge. She was right. The trees were so sparse ahead that he could already see the construction site. Airborne drones buzzed back and forth, building a torus-shaped object similar to the world killer he’d seen in space. At least, he assumed it was a torus, given the curvature, though he couldn’t see its middle from here.

  He could also clearly see the shield generator inside. Or rather, generators. Eric had described what he expected them to look like.

  “Keep an eye out for black, rectangular objects with glowing blue spheres on top,” the Mind Refurb had told him.

  Jason spotted two of those, one on the east side of the torus, and another on the south. There were probably two more on the north and west sides.

  He’d watched footage from the last invasion, when humanity had created their own energy shields to protect Yellowstone Park from a devastating attack launched by the Mimics. There had been hundreds of shield generators in that case. But humanity was using older technology.