by Isaac Hooke
The EM emitters were working after all, though I don’t think any of us were expecting the devices to repel the entities.
“Confirmed,” I sent. “The Phants are definitely avoiding us.”
“I can confirm it, too,” Ghost transmitted.
“Roger that,” Facehopper transmitted. “No more testing, please. Everyone stick to the path.”
And so we continued forward, staying on the course TJ had provided. Personally, I wasn’t all that eager to test out my EM emitter again anyway.
And then it was done. One moment we were surrounded by glowing blue Phants, and the next we were back in the familiar tunnel ecosystem. The alien entities remained behind. And so far there was no sign of the main horde.
We continued onward for some time. I could almost feel the weight of the countless strata of rock above me.
The tunnel sloped downward continually, remaining straight, and branching neither left nor right. If we came back this way, the climb would prove a bit of a strain on the ATLAS 5 servomotors, a stress that would be translated to our own bodies. I wasn’t looking forward to it, especially considering that we’d probably be fighting the horde for every square meter by that point. Sure, the Marines were supposed to provide a diversion every six hours or so, but who could say whether successive diversions would be as effective at drawing out the enemy? I wasn’t going to delude myself into thinking our flight would be easy.
“Cyclone,” Ghost sent directly to me. “Did I ever tell you I’m a father, like you?”
“Ghost, I’m not in the mood for small talk,” I replied. “We need to stay alert.”
The albino remained silent only a few seconds before continuing. “Got my girlfriend pregnant during training,” Ghost said. I let him talk. If it relaxed his nerves then who was I to shut him up? I could always turn the volume associated with his feed way down if I really wanted to tune him out. “She was a civvie, of course. I’m not one to mess with Navy girls, not like some mutual associates of ours who will remain unnamed. After I found out about the pregnancy, I brought my girl up to Vegas and we got married, shotgun style.
“I thought we had things all worked out. She knew all about the deployments, so I figured she could handle the time apart, understand the commitment, you know? I vid called almost every day, at least while I was Earthside. And during space deployments I sent her messages four times a week.” He paused. “But it didn’t work out between us. I don’t know why. We just couldn’t . . . mesh. The Teams changed me, consumed me, I guess. She could tell I was growing distant.
“She gave me an ultimatum one day when it was time to renew my contract. She told me I had to pick between the Teams or her and my son. I chose the Teams. My brothers. And so here I am.”
That struck me as odd because if my wife ever gave me an ultimatum, I would have chosen my family without hesitation, even if it meant deportation.
I didn’t really want to encourage Ghost to keep talking, but he had me curious so I said, “What happened to the kid?”
“He’s with his mom. I’m still married, so my family gets all the benefits of my military status, but the wife and I are unofficially separated. I try to visit the boy as much as I can. Haven’t seem him in ten months, though. He’d be four years old now.”
TJ interrupted our private conversation.
“Something odd up ahead,” he said over the squad-level comm.
Instinctively I switched to Bicentennial Man’s perspective. At first all I perceived was darkness. But as the Centurion swiveled its vision sensors from place to place, I realized Bicentennial Man stood at the edge of a wide abyss whose distant walls, floor, and ceiling were lost to the murk. Only the cave floor just below the combat robot was visible, that and the walls immediately bordering the pit.
Soon the rest of us reached the gaping hole. Only two of our ATLAS 5s could fit the limited space of the tunnel opening at once, in this case the mechs of Facehopper and Bomb. The rest of us waited in pairs behind them; it was easy enough to switch to the perspective of the forefront pilots, though the view was much the same as that of the Centurion at their feet.
“Dispatch an ASS?” Trace transmitted. “And gauge the depth?”
ASS stood for ATLAS Support System drone. Each ATLAS unit had one—they were the equivalent of HS3 scouts.
“I got this,” Facehopper sent. The shoulder of his mech opened up and an ATLAS Support System drone launched. Switching to its perspective, I watched the basketball-shaped robot plunge into the abyss. It revolved during the descent, its light cone illuminating the nearest wall with each revolution so that all I saw on the vid feed was a darkness periodically interrupted by gray.
The ASS wouldn’t need to expend much fuel to return, as the spherical drone relied upon an inverse magnetic field to counter the forces of gravity. The inverse field effect was limited to objects of precisely the drone’s size, however, and our scientists hadn’t yet figured out how to adapt the tech to larger objects such as Centurions and ATLAS mechs; jetpacks and other propulsion systems would be around for quite a few years to come.
“I’m losing the signal,” Facehopper said over the comm. “Switching to autopilot and instructing the drone to return when it reaches the bottom.”
The vid feed from the drone winked out as it drifted out of range, and the dot on my HUD map representing the object froze.
The moments ticked past.
“Wonder how deep the damn pit is?” Ghost sent.
“Already too deep,” Snakeoil returned. “If the drone had returned by now, we could probably make it. But as it stands, we go down that hole, we’re not jetting back out.”
Bomb’s mech shifted in place. “See that ledge, boss?”
I switched to Bomb’s point of view at the forefront and picked out a small ledge running along the wall that bordered the abyss. The Centurions would fit readily enough, but I wasn’t so sure about our ATLAS mechs.
“TJ,” Facehopper said over the comm. “Send Bicentennial Man forward. I want that ledge mapped.”
From Bomb’s perspective I watched the Centurion step onto the shelf bordering the pit. The robot advanced at a march; it had no problem traversing the ledge, which proved a little bit wider than human hip width.
The robot passed from signal range and returned five minutes later.
“So what do we have, TJ?” Facehopper said into the comm.
“The ledge leads to another tunnel bordering the abyss, about half a klick away,” TJ sent. “It’s massive. Probably carved by one of those super slugs.”
“Okay,” Facehopper transmitted. “Does the ledge continue past the tunnel at all?”
“No,” TJ responded. “It ends right in front. Spills into the abyss.”
“All right. That tells me everything I need to know.” His ATLAS glanced down into the pit. “Now where the bloody hell is my ASS?”
“Why, boss, need to wipe?” Bomb sent.
“Funny.”
We waited a while longer, but the drone still didn’t return.
“Guess that means we’re taking the ledge,” Ghost said over the comm.
“We’re taking the ledge,” Facehopper agreed. “TJ, have Bicentennial Man lead the way.”
Bicentennial Man advanced once more onto the rocky shelf.
“What do you think happened to the drone?” Fret said.
“Probably best not to speculate,” Facehopper transmitted. “Bomb? After you.”
Bomb approached the ledge. The mech mirrored his body language, so I could tell he was apprehensive.
The spirits keep you safe . . .
“Are you sure our mechs will fit?” Trace sent.
“No problem.” Bomb stepped onto the ledge and flattened his ATLAS 5 against the wall. He pointed his feet sideways—they barely fit the shelf. Extending his arms for balance he began to sidestep. “Se
e?”
“Feel sorry for the poor bastards who have to port the nuclear payloads across that,” I transmitted, regretting the words the instant I spoke them.
“Cyclone, Mauler, port the payloads,” Facehopper sent.
The choice of Mauler was expected since he was the newest member of the team and so of course would be given the crap jobs. And if I hadn’t opened my mouth, there was a chance Facehopper would have picked someone else. Then again he might have been planning to choose me anyway—all I can say is: it never paid to be on the bad side of your LPO.
“Thank you, Facehopper,” I sent, the sarcasm obvious in my voice.
“Myself and Ghost will go next,” Facehopper transmitted, ignoring my comment. “Then Cyclone. Fret, Trace, you come after, followed by Mauler, with TJ and Lead Foot bringing up the rear. Those of you next to the porters, watch them. Take care of them.”
I waited for the mechs of Facehopper and Ghost to step onto the ledge after Bomb, and then I scooped up one of the payloads and walked toward the abyss. I did my best not to stare overlong into the darkness below.
As a child, at night I had often explored the narrow, off-limit paths that wound through the sacred Hoodoos on my reservation. I had to carry my backpack over my head during the tighter clefts in the sandstone.
I told myself that this trial would be just like that. Except of course I now piloted a three-tonne war machine, and a nuclear warhead replaced the backpack.
I hoisted the payload above my head, flattened Wolfhound’s steel body against the wall, and walked crabwise. My sideways-pointing feet barely squeezed onto the ledge. The upper segment of the warhead scraped the rock above me as I advanced. Carrying it like that threw off my balance slightly, but I compensated. Still, it wasn’t a walk for the weak of heart, not with that gaping black hole lurking just behind.
Ghost was in front, to my left, on the ledge, while Fret was on my right. I knew that both of them were ready to act if anything should happen to the payload or me. Just as Trace and TJ would take care of Mauler.
“Great shoulder workout, huh Cyclone?” Mauler sent me.
“Yeah,” I said between gritted teeth. Due to the load-mirroring effect induced by the actuators, it felt like I was holding up a sixty-pound rucksack. Lightweight, at least at first. But it got very heavy, very quickly.
Ahead of me, Ghost abruptly plunged from view as the rock broke away beneath him.
I turned toward him, watching the cone of light from his headlamp recede into the darkness.
“Ghost!” I said over the comm.
His light cone shone into my eyes and I blinked as Ghost jetted back into view; his mech landed on the unbroken segment of the shelf ahead. “Sorry for the scare, guys.”
I was glad he was all right but not so glad about the meter-long gap he’d left in the trail in front of me.
“You messed up the ledge,” I transmitted.
“I can’t help it if the rock won’t take our weight,” Ghost sent. “Need help getting across?”
My eyes focused on the intact portion of the shelf beyond the collapse. “No, I can make it.”
“Careful, Cyclone,” Facehopper said over the comm.
I cautiously approached the gap, wondering how stable the surrounding rock was and how close to the hole I dared go. I paused half a step from the missing segment and input a jumpjet path into my aReal to circumvent it. I programmed the autopilot to perform the actual jump as I didn’t feel confident enough to manually operate the jumpjets while porting a nuclear warhead above my head.
I held my breath and then activated the autopilot.
I jetted diagonally upwards and down again . . .
Spirits watch me, spirits guide me.
I landed on the intact side of the ledge; some of the rock broke away under my weight and shards plunged into the abyss. But otherwise the shelf held.
Behind me, Fret, Trace, Mauler, and TJ all jetted across successfully, as did Lead Foot, the Centurion bringing up our rear.
After several tense minutes of this cramped, sideways advance, Bomb finally announced: “I’m at the opening. TJ wasn’t joking when he said it was big. It’s big all right, baby. Enormous.”
Up ahead, the ATLAS 5s piloted by Facehopper and Ghost vanished one after the other, presumably into the offshoot tunnel, which I couldn’t see from here.
A few steps later the rock wall in front of me fell away, revealing a cylindrical passageway about as wide as a football field. It did indeed look like a super slug had carved it, as TJ said. I could almost imagine the slug’s surprise when it discovered, to its dismay, that the hole it had been tunneling opened out into a pit. Whether it had arrested its forward motion in time or plunged to its death I couldn’t say.
I stepped into the broad passageway, feeling relief and trepidation at the same time. Relief because I could now lower the payload and give my arms a rest. Trepidation because I didn’t want to meet whatever it was that had tunneled the passage.
The remaining mechs successively came inside behind me.
Mauler set down his own payload. “Man, my arms are killing me.”
Trace and TJ assumed portage duty of the nukes, giving Mauler and me a breather.
Though there was enough room now for all of us to walk abreast if we wanted to, the squad proceeded forward in a zigzag fashion, each member keeping ten meters behind the next mech. We weren’t really expecting any rocket attacks in there but I knew Facehopper would rather play it safe.
We marched through the downward-sloping tunnel for only seven minutes before TJ signaled us to switch to Bicentennial Man’s perspective.
The lead Centurion stood on the edge of a wide vault, one of the biggest natural underground caverns I’d seen yet. The rock was relatively nondescript, lacking crystalline structures of any kind. There weren’t even any stalactites or stalagmites.
However, on the ceiling resided . . . things . . . far worse than any stalactites, at least to me: long, oval, white shapes glued to the rock by the hundreds. They covered nearly every free space. I was reminded of maggot eggs on the hide of a dead animal.
“Place gives me the willies,” Bomb said over the comm.
“If ever there was a time to turn back, this is it,” Fret transmitted. “Those things look like eggs.”
“Then that’s a good thing,” Facehopper sent.
“How is that a good thing, boss?” Fret asked.
“If those are eggs, we could be close to our secondary objective. The Queen.”
“You think the Queen laid those?” Bomb sent.
“You have to admit, it’s a possibility,” Facehopper replied. “Assuming those are, in fact, eggs.”
“What kind of Queen lays eggs on the ceiling? Got a vagina on her head or something?”
We rendezvoused with Bicentennial Man and Facehopper had TJ send the combat robot forward. Bicentennial Man stepped underneath the ovules and marched to the outermost extremities of our network repeaters, and there the robot halted.
It seemed safe, so the rest of us proceeded into the egg chamber, sticking to our zigzag formation.
I gazed up at those white ovules suspiciously. The objects were a good ten meters away. They didn’t move, didn’t glow, but merely sat there, almost like deposits of some kind. Maybe they weren’t eggs but rather excretions of some sort.
“I’m detecting lifeforms within the ovules,” TJ sent.
Okay, so they were eggs.
“The readings match those of the silkworm slugs we encountered earlier,” TJ continued. “I don’t think our Queen Bitch laid them, though, because given her estimated size and the size of some of the superslugs we’ve seen, these eggs would have to be a lot bigger. As in, ten times bigger.”
“So what laid them, then?” Mauler said over the comm.
“Dunno,” TJ sent. “Maybe other sil
kworm slugs. Maybe Bomb.”
“Har har,” Bomb returned.
A stream of yellow slime suddenly drizzled down onto Bomb’s mech. One of the ovules had cracked open directly overhead.
Bomb paused to wipe the slime away, looking up. “Goddamn—”
The same ovule burst entirely and a black mass spewed free.
Bomb reacted too late and the dark mass plunged into his mech, sending him to the cave floor.
Half of us trained our Gatlings on other ovules in the ceiling while the other half closed on Bomb as he attempted to wrench the alien object from his mech.
I was part of the latter group and I got a close-up view of the thing that had fallen on to his ATLAS.
It appeared to be a man-sized larva of some sort, reminding me of a smaller version of the silkworm slugs. Its black body was covered in thick yellow slime.
“Get it off me!” Bomb yanked at the larva but succeeded only in stretching the thing. Hundreds of tiny suckers lined the underside of its body, and these had fastened firmly to Bomb’s chest piece.
Other than a spike in heart rate, Bomb’s vitals seemed fine, as did his mech.
“Let go of me, bitch! I’m not your momma!” Bomb violently twisted and pried, but the larva stretched like rubber and refused to let go.
“Calm down, Bomb,” Facehopper sent.
Bomb released the larva and it slapped against his chest piece with a sickening smack. It remained motionless thereafter save for the slight, repeated expansion and contraction of its thorax region, which seemed to denote breathing.
Bomb swiveled a Gatling into his arm. “I said let go, bitch.” He touched the tip of the barrel to the larva.
“Bomb!” Facehopper sent. “Hold!”
Trace was positioned on the left flank of Bomb, and was potentially in the line of fire of that Gatling. He quickly maneuvered his mech out of the way.
“Bomb!” Facehopper repeated. “Stand down!”
Bomb remained still, keeping the Gatling pointed at the larva. Finally he withdrew the weapon. “Yes boss.”
“I’ll try to get it off you.” Facehopper took a step forward and reached toward the thing. The moment his steel fingers touched the larva, the creature released Bomb and wrapped itself around the arm of Facehopper’s mech instead.
