by Isaac Hooke
He rotated the cobras into either hand but before he could fire an alien dove into him. In seconds he was completely pinned; all he could hear was the scraping of claws and mandibles against his outer hull as the aliens strove to get at the good stuff inside. The metal moaned from the weight it had to bear.
“Bender...”
“I’m pinned too, little buddy,” Bender replied. “We’re just sardines in a tin can at this point. And it’s mealtime.”
Rade struggled against the weight above him, but he couldn’t move his assailants. From that terrible sound of teeth gouging into metal, he was certain his cockpit was about to be pierced at any moment.
nine
Smith,” Rade said. “Tell me you have something up your sleeve we can use here...”
“I don’t have sleeves, Rage,” Smith replied.
“Damn it,” Rade said. “I mean something in reserve.”
“I don’t have anything in reserve.”
Rade flexed his jaw in frustration. “Well some ideas, then!”
“I don’t have any ideas.”
“Useless AIs.” Rade shook his head.
The alien bodies above him abruptly exploded.
Trace and Tahoe had arrived.
Rade leaped to his feet and waded through the dead to free Bender. “Form up, back to back!”
Trace and Tahoe rendezvoused with them, and the four of them formed the rod and spokes of a fighting wheel.
“Long time no see, boss,” Trace said. “Did you miss me for the long time we were parted?”
“Trace, man.” Rade let off a few shots from his infrared laser, then beat off the next opponent using his hand as a club. “Your arrival is a much wanted whiff of fresh air.”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if you slept next to him in the berth.” Bender bashed in a hammerhead’s proboscis. “And I’m not talking FAN, either.” Feet. Ass. Nuts. “This guy gives new meaning to the phrase noxious fumes. I swear, he’s sneaking Bangladeshi food back there. Smells the same going out as going in.”
“Hey, Bangladeshi food smells good!” Trace chopped down with his shield, severing the lower limbs of an attacker. “And I eat the same fooking gruel as everybody else.”
“Maybe that’s the problem then,” Bender said. “We got to wean you off the Western food, and put you back on your native diet.”
Tahoe threw a frag. “You do that to him, bro, I have a feeling you’re going to make the problem worse.”
Trace blocked a blow, and accidentally elbowed Bender’s mech in the chest.
“Hey, watch it,” Bender said. “You sister fooker you.” He had assumed Trace’s accent for the latter bit.
Rade deployed the shield in his left arm, and continued to utilize his right arm alternately as a club and a laser. That close to the enemy, he was fully aware of the stature of these hammerheads. On all fours, they only reached to his chest area, but when they stood on their hind legs they were slightly taller than the Hoplites, and able to bite down on them from above with their sharp proboscises.
“You okay back there Lieutenant?” Rade asked.
In answer he heard the high-pitched keen of her blaster, and one of those hammerheads exploded nearby.
A wall of dead alien bodies was forming around them.
“Let’s retreat a few paces, people,” Rade said. “I don’t want to get hemmed in by these bodies. Tahoe, start moving. Stop after five meters.”
The four backed away as a group, wading through the dead.
Something crashed into the ground nearby, taking out a long swath of the creatures. At the end of the fresh ditch carved into the alien soil, Rade spotted a smoking wreckage. Rade realized it was the remains of one of the Raptors.
The other Hoplites began to arrive, one by one, easing off the pressure. Soon the entire platoon was present, and the mechs formed a bridgehead, making their stand out there on the plains. Rade glanced at the vital signs summarized on his HUD. So far, no one had sustained any life-threatening injuries.
Chief Facehopper’s voice came over the general line.
“I want us to begin a controlled retreat toward the rock formation!” Facehopper said. “We move backward as a single cohesive unit.”
The group slowly edged backward. They fought in a nested, twin-circle formation. Twelve mechs covered the outer circle, shields facing outward, free arms used as clubs, lasers, or grenade launchers. The remaining four resided in the center, aiming past the defenders, lobbing grenades or firing lasers to ensure that no one in the outer ranks was ever overwhelmed. Those on the rear outer edge pressed against the enemy with their shields; the retreat was slow, laborious.
The individual mechs took turns between the inner and outer formations, because staying too long in those outer ranks, swinging one’s arm as a weapon and forcing the enemy back with one’s shield, proved tiring. Rade was tempted to allow Smith to assume control of the mech on more than one occasion, though he knew staying in the outer rank for a prolonged period would only increase the probability his Hoplite would suffer an unlucky blow.
“Any chance we can get some new Raptors to replace the ones we lost?” Bender asked hopefully. “And maybe a gunship or two? Or an Equestrian?”
“Any luck, Snakeoil?” Facehopper’s voice came in answer.
The communicator responded a moment later. “I’m still not getting anything, even though I’ve piggybacked with the comm node in the commander’s Dragonfly. Maybe the repeaters in orbit have been shot down, and the fleet has moved to the far side of the planet.”
“What are you saying,” Grappler transmitted. “We can’t communicate with the Rhodes?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Snakeoil answered. “Nor any other ship in orbit.”
“What if the fleet hasn’t moved to the far side of the planet?” Fret transmitted. “What if the fleet has been destroyed?”
“Fret,” Facehopper said. “Positivity, my friend. Morale.”
“Forget morale,” Fret said. “I’m a realist, here.”
“Got an answer,” Snakeoil announced, gruffly. “Support won’t be coming any time soon. Comm officer tells me they’re ‘occupied’ at the moment.”
“Cast your eyes skyward,” Skullcracker sent. He was currently in the middle circle. “To these coords.”
Rade accepted the coordinates Skullcracker transmitted to the platoon, and then he momentarily transferred control over to Smith. He zoomed in on the blue sky and saw white flashes but not much more. He resumed control of the Hoplite and fended off the next wave of claws.
“The fleet is under attack,” Chief Facehopper said flatly.
“A big-time attack,” Bender agreed. “They’ve been ambushed, just like us.”
“Guess that rules out the cavalry,” Manic said.
Rade gazed toward the distant jungle. The black ranks of the enemy spread away from the group, reaching all the way across the plains to the eaves of those alien trees. There was no end in sight. Best of all, the focal point of the horde was the platoon: there was now no doubt that their emergence from the jungle was a coordinated attack.
“They just keep coming,” Keelhaul transmitted.
“They do indeed,” Rade muttered.
“I’m out of frags and electromagnetics,” Tahoe sent.
“Me too,” Bender said.
“My cobra’s beginning to overheat,” Lui transmitted. “I’m going to have to retract my shield if I want to stay in this battle.”
Rade had similar warnings on his HUD. One particular flashing message caught his eye:
Frag inventory low.
Rade was abruptly pulled from his place in the circle by a hammerhead that had evaded his notice. It threw him against a pile of dead bodies. Others surged forward, cutting him off from the platoon. Before he could clamber to his feet a particularly large specimen approached. It stood on its hind legs, and was roughly a meter taller than the rest. Rade thought it must be a lead unit of some kind, because the other al
iens backed away to let it pass.
The creature cornered Rade against the pile of dead bodies, and the guttural, rumbling growls it made could best be described as that of an angry lion, though deeper, and amplified tenfold.
It opened is mouth and roared loudly. A thread of slime connected those long, razor-sharp upper fangs to the lower teeth.
Rade slammed his fist upward as he stood, catching the beast under its proboscis, and the entire head snapped backward. It staggered away, and Rade attempted to fire the laser in his right hand. Unfortunately the weapon chose that moment to overheat. There was no time to rotate the grenade launcher into place, nor to retract the shield on his left hand: the creature had already recovered, and it was running at him.
His cockpit reverberated under the force of the impact, and he was taken off his feet.
An instant later he found himself lying on the ground, with claws raking his metallic torso. He wrestled the creature, unsuccessfully trying to get on top.
“Continue the retreat!” Facehopper said. “I’ll get him!”
Rade finally managed to mount the alien, pinning its slithering torso between both legs while pummeling the head with his fists. One of the watching beasts struck out at him, knocking him from his opponent.
“You don’t want to play fair, then?” Rade said. “Fine.”
He launched a smoke grenade and activated his jumpjets as confusion enveloped the alien ranks. Floating above them, Rade switched to frags and fired into the smoke, aiming at the spot where he had last seen the big hammerhead. A moment later body parts erupted into the air.
“Good bye,” Rade said.
He spotted Facehopper below; the chief was halfway between the platoon and Rade’s location.
“I’m up here, Facehopper!” Intending to clear some of the creatures from Facehopper, he tried to fire another frag but the launcher did nothing. A message flashed on his HUD.
Frag inventory zero.
Facehopper abruptly thrust into the air. He shook off the creatures that clung to him, then jetted again, joining Rade.
“Let’s get back to the others.”
The pair jetted past the smoke and landed beside the rest of the platoon. Rade found himself on the foremost edge of the circle, pushing toward the rock formations.
“Why don’t we just jumpjet over all these bastards?” Manic asked.
“Can’t,” Facehopper returned. “Not enough fuel, for one. And secondly, didn’t you see how many of them grabbed on to me? We’ll waste even more fuel trying to get them off.”
“Launch a bunch of smoke grenades like Rade did, then,” Manic persisted.
“We still won’t have enough fuel to clear them all,” Facehopper said. “Not yet, anyway.”
And so they continued on foot.
Half an hour passed like that, with Rade alternating between the inner and outer circles in the formation. It seemed an eternity.
And then finally, when he was on the foremost edge, the pressure before Rade abruptly ceded.
“We’ve broken through!” Chief Facehopper said. “Pick up the pace, people!”
Rade slowly increased his pace as the ranks on the leading edge thinned, and soon he and the others were able to retreat at a jog.
Up ahead, he could see the shoulders of the rock formations, about two hundred meters away. There, the sixteen combat robots had assumed a wedge shape, and were firing their plasma rifles into the incoming aliens, picking them off one by one, doing their best to keep the route clear before the Hoplites. HS3s swerved back and forth among them, unsure of what to do.
“Bender, get those robots climbing the rocks,” Facehopper said. “The Centurions won’t last a minute against these things in close combat!”
“Roger that,” Bender said.
The robots retreated, running up the rock shoulder, but they continued to fire. When the Centurions reached a steep cliff face they began scaling the heights, using their individual jumpjets to lessen the required effort, and unleashing their AR-51’s into the enemy below when they could.
The mech platoon surmounted the moderately sloped shoulder but soon found themselves backed against the cliff face.
“Cyclone, Mauler, Skullcracker, Grappler, Snakeoil, you’re with me,” Rade said. “The rest of you, continue up the face while we cover you. Use your jumpjets. When you get to about twenty meters high, grab onto the wall and issue suppressing fire so that we can follow you.”
He knew the chief was okay with his orders, because otherwise Facehopper would have countered them.
While Rade and the others kept the swarm at bay, the other mechs fired their jumpjets in rapid succession, quickly attaining the prerequisite height. They latched onto the cliff face there and began firing down into the enemy.
“Rage, you’re good to go!” Chief Facehopper said.
Rade swapped out a smoke grenade and launched it a few meters in front of him. “Let’s go, people! Leapfrog time!”
He fired his jumpjets. Tahoe and the other four joined him in the air, and together they proceeded upward, floating alongside the wall. Rade retracted his shield in preparation for latching onto the rock, and he fired his jumpjets three more times in succession until he had leapfrogged the other ten mechs attached to the rock. When he was ten meters above them, he grabbed onto the rock with his thick fingers.
“Secure!” he announced.
The other five with him echoed the word. They formed a line of mechs thirty meters from the ground. Located above them by another thirty meters, the combat robots continued to climb.
“Uh, they’re still coming,” Bender said from below.
Rade glanced down. Underneath the remaining mechs, the creatures were using their claws to scale the heights. They moved fast, but their lack of jumpjets gave the Hoplites a distinct advantage.
“Keep climbing, people,” Facehopper said. “Try to conserve your jumpjet fuel, if you can.”
The Hoplites scaled the rock face. Whenever someone lost their grip on the wall, they utilized their jumpjets as a safety net, sending themselves upward in a long spurt.
Rade and the others paused occasionally to shoot down at the climbing aliens. He restricted his firing to cobras, as he wanted to conserve the last of his electromagnetic grenades. He found that if he shot his infrared laser at the rockface, he could sometimes cause a section to break away, bringing down two or three of the creatures at the same time. The falling hammerheads would trigger a cascade as they smashed into any aliens underneath them, creating a small avalanche of bodies.
“Eyes east!” Mauler shouted.
Fearing an attack, Rade glanced eastward, where a brightness drew his gaze. He saw what looked like a meteorite burning up in the atmosphere. He zoomed in at maximum level, and could make out the vague outline of what looked like a UC starship.
“That can’t be one of our ships?” Bomb said.
“I think that’s exactly what it is,” Fret replied. “I’m picking up a faint distress signal from it. Definitely UC.”
“Do we know who it is?” Rade asked.
“No,” Fret said. “But its design is similar to the Rhodes.”
“But if that’s the Rhodes...” Grappler began.
No one finished his sentence. No one needed to. Because if the Rhodes was sinking, that meant their lieutenant commander was either dead or on his way down to the planet in a lifepod.
“Your orders, sir?” Chief Facehopper said over the line.
Commander Parnell was quiet for a time. “We continue our mission. That’s all we can do. And we hope to hell the fleet survives, because if they go, we go. Climb, people! For all you’re worth! Climb!”
Rade and the others continued to pause now and again to fire at the pursuers. Rade noticed that the clambering aliens appeared to be growing weary below, and some of them began to fall off the cliff without anyone even firing at them: either they had missed a hold, or their exhausted limbs had lost the strength to carry their weight. Without the luxury o
f jetpacks, there was nothing to protect them from plunging to their doom.
“I think they’re giving up,” Manic said.
Rade glanced farther down the cliff. A wave of vertigo came, but he ignored it. At the bottom, only a few were continuing up the wall; many of the aliens milled about uncertainly, obviously not wanting to commit to the climb. Some seemed to be retreating through the incoming swarm. He glanced at the plain beyond. The horde had finally reached its terminus, with the black masses gathered in a half circle around the cliff; a circle that only reached a quarter of the way across the plains behind them.
“Keep climbing, people,” Facehopper said.
Rade continued to scale the rock. He lost his grip, and then activated his jumpjets to thrust five meters higher before attempting to latch onto the wall again. He couldn’t find a hold—the rock kept breaking away. Suppressing a panic, he thrusted higher, and finally found purchase three meters up.
He glanced down toward the base. Again he felt the vertigo and suppressed it. He noticed that the aliens were now indeed retreating. The half circle was moving away from the cliff, and no others were committing to the climb. Those aliens that yet scaled the wall were slowly dropping away, either from weariness, or because they were shot down by the Hoplites.
“They’re going back to the jungle,” Rade said. He could feel the palpable relief in the air.
“Keep climbing,” Facehopper replied.
“We really need to capture some of them for study at some point,” Harlequin said. “NAVCENT will want specimens.”
“Right now, all I’m concerned about is getting the lot of you back alive,” Chief Facehopper said.
“I’ll have to concur with that,” Commander Parnell said. “The capture of an alien creature is right at the bottom of the objective ladder. Especially considering that the fate of the fleet is currently up in the air.”
“The Centurions have found a cave,” Bender announced a short while later. “About fifty meters above and to our right. I’m sending the coordinates.”
