by Isaac Hooke
“What can I say, I’m a sick, perverted individual,” Bokerov said. “This is what happens when you have your mind trapped inside a machine for sixty years.”
“Great,” John said. “Something to look forward to, sixty years from now. We all become Bokerovs.”
“No,” Jason said, squeezing between two tight trees. “We won’t. We’re not like him.”
“Oh, but you are,” Bokerov said. “You’ll see.” He giggled softly.
And then a huge Girahip bull came trampling through the trees beside Jason. He switched to Bullet Time, and attempted to dodge out of the way, but the creature was moving too fast, and plowed right into him. Jason was flung to the side and smashed into a pine tree; he bounced off and used his accelerated time sense to land on his feet.
“Damn things move almost as fast as us!” Tara said.
“Not as fast as the combat robots I used to have!” Bokerov said. At the periphery of Jason’s vision, on the far side of the army, Bokerov was opening fire with several of his tanks, ripping into the Girahips that were smashing through the trees there.
“Why are you firing?” Jason said. “I didn’t give the order!” He dodged another Girahip that nearly plowed into him.
“I’m only trying to steer them away from my tanks,” Bokerov said.
“Well, it’s not working.” Jason watched as several Girahips trampled his tanks; the units held up well under the sudden compressive pressure however.
Another solid wall of Girahips came at him. They squeezed between the trees, and some even crashed right into those trees to get away from whatever was chasing them.
Jason and the others dodged the Girahips as well as they were able, but some of them were inevitably trampled, like Bokerov’s tanks.
Tara fired her grappling hook at the neck of one Girahips, and then pulled herself onto its back as it steered her away.
“Ride them, if you can!” Tara said.
Jason switched to a run, and darted south through the trees, following alongside one of the Girahips. He managed to wrap his arms around the neck, but when he tried to pull himself up, he succeeded only in yanking the Girahip toward the ground. The animal crashed, and then flung Jason away before scrambling to its feet and dashing off.
Jason was struck by another Girahip as he got up, and the creature gored his mech with the small pair of horns on its head.
Jason arose, and then Tara was at his side, shoving him out of the path of another Girahip.
“Thought you were riding them?” Jason said.
“I was,” Tara said. “But the damn thing couldn’t support my weight, and crumpled after only a short distance.”
“So much for that idea,” Jason said.
Sophie landed nearby, as did Aria. The latter deployed her ballistic shield, and used it to deflect incoming Girahips, herding them away from Jason and the other two.
He glanced at his overhead map, and confirmed where the other members of his team were located. The Girahips had separated them. Lori was the closest, at forty meters away.
And then Jason saw what was chasing the Girahips.
From the trees came a beast unlike anything that had come before. This one had the body of a cheetah, though ten times the size, and its head was that of a monitor lizard, replete with forked tongue. Oh, and it had two deadly rows of teeth framing its mouth. It wasn’t as tall as the trees, which explained why it wasn’t visible by the Explorer from afar.
“Well, that looks friendly,” Tara said.
The creature was intent on chasing the Girahip in front of it, but when it saw Aria, it immediately spun toward her, perhaps believing her easier prey.
Invisible plasma bolts fired from beside Aria, plowing into the creature, and it faltered, roaring angrily. Jason realized Lori had approached in secret, her invisibility mode active.
It leaped on Aria, and attempted to chew into her shield.
“Now we can fire!” Jason said. “At will!”
Sophie unleashed her micro machines, drilling into the attacker’s side. Aria fired her lightning bolt weapon over the tip of her shield.
Jason was about to launch his energy weapon, when Tara blocked his sight line, and stabbed the beast with her sword. The combination of their attacks felled the creature.
Another of similar size came up behind it. This one paused to swallow a nearby boulder whole, then it turned toward the party, and breathed a stream of super-heated slugs.
Aria narrowly directed her shield toward the attack in time. Some of the blows were deflected, but the rest embedded in the ballistic shield, thanks to their super-heated nature.
“Did it just eat that boulder and convert them into slugs, becoming an organic railgun?” Tara said.
“Apparently,” Aria said. “But I don’t think the thing realizes it’s only reinforcing my shield by doing that.”
“Dragon Cheetah!” Lori said. She fired her plasma bolt at the beast and it dodged to the side.
“What’s that?” Jason said.
“Their name!” Lori said. “I’m calling them Dragon Cheetahs! I named them first this time! So we use my name!’
“All right,” Jason said. Three Dragon Cheetahs barreled through the trees. “I’m not really worried about what we call them right now.” He unleashed his energy weapon at one, and the girls took down the other two. But then another Dragon Cheetah was leaping on him from the trees. It struck his armor, and those huge, sickle-shaped talons tore big gashes into his hull.
Tara came at him, and stabbed her sword into its rib cage. The Dragon Cheetah howled, and swept its claw at her, swiping her aside. Aria fired her lightning bolt weapon into the wound, and that finished the beast off.
Five more came through the trees.
The Rex Wolves burst through the foliage and intercepted. Bruiser clamped down on the neck of his target, and pinned it. The other three meanwhile scrapped, wrestling with their foes. Jason aimed at the one that was fighting Shaggy, and increased his time sense to ensure his shot didn’t miss. He fired, and the Dragon Cheetah went limp.
Lori similarly helped Runt, while Tara fired her laser at the creature that held Lackey.
“They keep coming!” Xin said from where she was fighting nearby. “This is some kind of super pack!”
“They definitely like to track in huge packs,” Jerry agreed.
“Combining might be order,” Aria said.
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Bokerov said. “Look at my Cataphracts.”
Jason rotated his Explorer feed during a break in the fighting, and spotted the Cataphracts towering over the trees to the south. Because of their height, protruding above the treetops, they served as a beacon for the Dragon Cheetahs, and they seemed to be drawing in the majority of them. The creatures swarmed about them, overwhelming their hulls. Their weapons were unable to keep up. Bokerov had resorted to shooting at them with his nearby tanks to try to get them off. The Dragon Cheetahs were repeatedly biting into the hulls, taking out big chunks of metal.
They attacked other tanks nearby, too. Sometimes they swallowed nearby rocks and boulders, and breathed those super-heated slugs in attack. And their teeth and claws could easily cut through a hull, peeling it open. Not that they’d find anything edible inside any of their units but AI cores.
“I think these Tyrnari must have trained them,” Tara said as she cut off another head.
“What do you mean?” Jason fired his energy weapon as a Dragon Cheetah came at him. The head exploded.
“There’s nothing of nutritional value inside any of our machines,” Tara said. “But that’s not stopping them from checking each and every one, as if they expect to find a juicy prize inside. If the Tyrnari have dispatched any of their Phaser mechs or equivalents out here, with organic pilots inside, that would explain the irrational behavior.”
“Maybe,” Aria said. “Or perhaps they just like to rip open anything that moves.”
“That could be it, too,” Tara admitted.
Aria had apparently called up her platoon of tanks, because eight of them arrived, and arranged in a half circle beside her to launch plasma bolts into the Dragon Cheetahs.
Beside Jason, Shaggy fought at his side. Runt stayed near Lori, and Bruiser and Lackey with Tara.
Jason was running low on power, so he scooped up the body of a dead Dragon Cheetah, and used it as a club. This had been a favorite tactic of his when dealing with bioweapons back on Earth, and it worked well enough now.
Maybe not: after bashing in the head of one of the Dragon Cheetahs, when he swung at the next one, the creature dodged the blow and snapped at the corpse, latching on. The beast tugged, hard, and managed to pull it out of his grip.
“Shit.” Jason leaped back as the Dragon Cheetah came at him, swaying its head back and forth to swing the dead corpse around like some oversized fish.
Iris landed at his side, and her six legged mech began vibrating the ground. She lashed out with her energy whips, cutting deep gashes into the corpse, but not enough to cut through it. She lowered the intensity of the weapons, and wrapped the whips around the corpse, and then yanked, ripping the body away from the Dragon Cheetah.
It had apparently downed a boulder at some point, because it unleashed a stream of super-heated slugs at Jason and Iris.
Maeran landed beside them, and sent her drones in front of the attack. They formed a triangular shape, and the energy beam shared between them deflected the slugs; when the blast ended, she amped up the power output so that the energy beams became cutting, and then launched her drones toward the Dragon Cheetah.
The big creature dodged to the side; Maeran spat that gooey substance from her mouth, and caught one of the Dragon Cheetah’s feet. In struggled to break free as the drones swooped in, but could not; a moment later the drones had separated its head from its body.
Three more Dragon Cheetahs came crashing through the trees.
Shaggy intercepted one, rolling to the ground with it.
Cheyanne dove down from above, slicing off the heads of the other two creatures with her swords.
Then she darted upward, and weaved in and out between the other attacks, striking surgically as she did so.
Two Dragon Cheetahs leaped upward, each grabbing onto one of Cheyanne’s legs with their jaws. They bit down hard, and it looked like they were going to tear the legs right off. Cheyanne fell because of the added weight, but before she hit the ground, she activated her shockwave weapon, and the energy wave struck the creatures, sending them flying backward with blood oozing from their orifices. Cheyanne took flight once more, those dragonfly-like wings a blur.
“Get back!” Iris anchored her six legs, and began pounding the ground with the thicker bottom portions. She was able to direct the vibrations forward, away from Jason and the others, and destabilized the ground underneath the incoming Dragon Cheetahs, sending them off balance. That made them easy prey for Sophie’s micro machines, and Cheyanne’s swords.
The bodies of the dead Dragon Cheetahs piled up, and finally the attackers broke. One of those in the back saw what was happening, and raised his head to issue a resounding, well, screech was the best way to describe it. In moments, the entire herd had turned back and was retreating through the trees so that just as fast as the attack had begun, it ended.
Iris ceased her vibrating attack.
Jason surveyed the felled trees, and countless corpses around him. He checked his overhead map, and ran a quick inventory on the surviving units.
All of the War Forgers and their clones had survived, albeit with several damaged parts. Bokerov had lost five tanks, and three artillery units. All of his Cataphracts had survived.
“Deploy the repair drones,” Jason said. “Let’s fix what we can. Use the fallen tanks and artillery units for spare parts if you need them.”
Jason’s drones deployed, and began repairing the gashes in his chest.
Aria walked up to one of the corpses.
“Look at this,” she said, turning the body over with a kick. The torso was split right open, giving Jason a grotesque view of its chest cavity. “They all have two sets of lungs, like our Rex Wolves. I’m guessing this world was terraformed at one point, to create the bioweapons the empire demands of its member systems. As was almost done to Earth.”
“Well, looks like they’re biologically compatible with the mutated bioweapons from our own world,” Xin said, nodding at the Rex Wolves, who were feasting on one dead Dragon Cheetah each.
“We’ll see,” Lori said. “If they throw up a few minutes from now, we’ll know for sure.”
But the Rex Wolves didn’t throw up.
“A world that has been terraformed to create bioweapons,” Jason said. He shook his head. “The Banthar invaded sixty years ago because they wanted to turn Earth into a breeding ground for bioweapons. But the Tyrnari already beat them to this world, it looks like.”
“It could be the equivalent of an intergalactic arms race, as different alien races vie for favor in this empire of theirs,” Cheyanne said. “Destroying as many worlds as they can to create the bioweapons for the empire’s wars.”
“Interesting idea,” Xin said.
Aria’s avatar appeared, nodding. “This world had to have been invaded at some point. There’s no other way to explain the compatible atmosphere our own mutants are experiencing, nor the apparent tissue digestibility.”
Iris picked up one of the bodies in her four hands, and a yellow mist emerged from gills in its side.
“Did you see that mist coming out of the gills?” Iris said. “They’re contributing to the atmospheric contents. Just like typical Earth bioweapons.”
“When my War Forgers were taking down some of those large, rectangular airships back on Earth, we discovered bioweapons that were similar to these,” Julian said. “They escaped the wreckages of the airships, and swarmed onto the plains, running away.”
“So if the Tyrnari invaders are successful, this is the future of Earth we’re looking at here,” Jason said.
“And it’s certainly not pretty,” Aria added.
6
Jason returned to VR while waiting for the repair drones to fix the damage to his army. Several tanks had damaged treads as a consequence of bearing the crushing weight of the bioweapons that had stomped over them, and as such the army was immobile until further notice. He considered simply dragging those tanks along via other units, but decided their advance would be faster if they concentrated on repairing the treads, first. He put Z in charge of his mech, and she promised to notify him if there was anything amiss in the real world.
He’d created a duplicate of his VR environment, and activated the copy in a separate partition, because he wasn’t in the mood for talking with any of the girls tonight.
He was jogging on the path around the lake, and he planned to do a climb afterwards. Maybe he’d get in some skiing after that—he’d developed a liking for the sport, ever since Lori had introduced him to it. He’d gotten good quickly: gotta love being a machine.
He sighed, just enjoying everything about his life. Sure, he was trapped on an alien world, probably hundreds of light years away from Earth, but he had such a rich inner world, courtesy of VR. Where else could he have a whole mountain trail to himself for jogging purposes, except here? Or an entire gaggle of beautiful women begging to sleep with him?
Well, they weren’t exactly begging at the moment, but hey, part of that was his own doing. And not just because he had partitioned his VR.
Two girls were mad at him. A third would be as well when she found out what he’d done. So far, only one girl was truly constant, someone he could rely upon without fail to accept him, despite all his faults and mistakes. Why couldn’t they all be like Lori?
I really have to take some proper time to manage my harem, if I want this to work.
He received a call from Tara.
He hesitated to answer it, at first. He had hoped to put off the discussion he needed to have with her, but he decided he mig
ht as well get it over with. She’d hate his guts when he was done, and it would be sad that he would never be able to hold her in his arms again, but he supposed he could always construct a virtual reality simulacrum in her image if he really wanted to.
He accepted. “Hey,” he said, voice only.
“Hey back,” Tara said. “Can I get an invite to your VR partition? Unless you’re occupied.”
The way she said the last word told him she was suggesting he might be with another woman.
“No, I’m not occupied,” Jason said. He paused his run, and took a moment to catch his breath. It didn’t take long—he just reset his simulated cardiopulmonary system.
He gave her an invite and Tara appeared in front of him on the trail.
She wore her diaphanous white dress today, open all the way down the middle to her belly button, revealing the sides of her breasts. Her hair was in a long pony-tail that reached to the small of her back. She wore a lei of flowers, as per her Hawaiian heritage. Well, Polynesian to be exact. She also had a flower in her hair today, which only added to her beauty.
“I sometimes forget how easy on the eyes you are,” Jason said.
She smiled, seeming slightly sad. “You tell that to all the girls, don’t you?”
“Not at all,” Jason said. “I’ve only ever said those words to you.”
“Ah,” Tara told him. “So then you admit you’ve said variants to the others, calling them beautiful, just not in so many words.”
Jason sighed. “I suppose so.”
“I’m not so special anymore, am I?” Tara said. “I liked it when it was just me and Lori who were sharing your bed. When the two of us were all you knew in the sexual department.”
“You’re still special,” Jason said.
“No, I’m just a fuck,” Tara said.
“That’s not true,” Jason said. “Don’t even talk like that.”
She shrugged. “Well, it’s what I wanted in the beginning anyway, if you recall. I promised you we wouldn’t have to have a relationship. That it would be just for fun. Well I got my wish, I suppose. Ever heard the saying, careful what you wish for? I should have been very careful, yes.”
