by Isaac Hooke
“Well that’s better for us, then, isn’t it?” Fret asked.
“No,” Tahoe said. “Because if those things lack proper vision, they’ll compensate with hearing. Look at the size of those antennae. I have no doubt they use them to detect sound waves, in addition to directly feeling out their surroundings.”
“Okay, but how is that going to help them ‘see’ our scouts?” Manic said. “Especially when our HS3s are completely silent when operating in stealth mode.”
“Do you see how the creatures occasionally rub their mandibles together, making that grating sound picked up by the HS3s?” Tahoe said. “It has to be a form of echolocation. If that’s the case, if we get close, they’ll ‘see’ through our holographic emitters immediately.”
“Maybe they’re just chatting to pass the time,” Fret said.
“Doubt it,” Tahoe said.
“I agree with Tahoe,” Surus said. “Before we dispatch the HS3s, I will need to modify the emitters to transmit canceling sound waves to mimic the surrounding environment. The same principles apply, except instead of only light, the units will produce sound as well. I prepared for this contingency by installing tiny speakers in all of the units. So we’re halfway there already. I just need to program them.”
“Fine,” Rade said. “But how long will that take?”
“Not more than ten hours in total. Five, if TJ and Harlequin assist me. Most of that time will be spent experimenting on a single unit. Once the changes are complete, it’s a simple matter of uploading a patch to the remaining units, and our emitters will become both light and sound masking.”
“Well,” Rade said. “Looks like we have five hours to burn. Recall the HS3s, Bender. Argonauts, open up your storage compartments and crack out the secondary emitters, as we’ll want to update those, too. TJ, Harlequin, assist Surus. Then it’s time for some Phant hunting.”
five
Rade resided somewhat apart from the others while he waited. He had Electron open up the hatch, and he sat on the edge of his cockpit in his jumpsuit, his feet dangling down into midair.
He stared at the gray sky, watching it slowly darken as the bright point of the sun crossed beneath the horizon. He occasionally glanced at the overhead map to confirm that the red dots representing the creatures remained at the hillock. About an hour ago, two more of the beetle-like aliens had emerged to relieve the original sentries. They carried the same red bands wrapped around their upper right forelegs. Rade deduced that the silver balls hanging from those bands were actually bells, judging from the ringing sound the ornaments produced during the shift change.
The Argonauts were talking about the entities at that very moment. Rade listened idly.
“The Arthropoda phylum obviously dominated this world,” Lui said.
“Don’t be assigning Earth classification systems to these bugs,” Bender said. “Just because they breathe air, don’t make them related to us in any way.”
“He’s right,” Surus said. She had one of the HS3s resting on the knees of her jumpsuit, with a small wire running from the drone to the helmet interface of her suit. “Their DNA will be completely different. While some of their phenotypes will be similar in many respects to the external characteristics of many lifeforms on Earth, they will require their own taxonomic classification system. In the past, what my species has done is assign a separate overarching Kingdom for each planet, and then create individual phyla from there.”
“They look so... well, insect-like,” Fret said. “I was expecting something a bit more alien.”
“They’re alien enough for me,” Shaw said. “Like big cockroaches with alligator heads.”
“At least they don’t look human,” TJ said. “I always love it when I’m reading a science fiction novel or watching a film, and then the aliens show up, looking like humans with fluffy ears or a couple of bumps on their heads, and of course they speak English right off the bat. It’s silly beyond comparison.”
“I think those books are called fantasy,” Manic said. “Not science fiction.”
“They should be,” TJ agreed. “Slash begin rant: but have a look at the virtual shelves sometime. Eighty percent of the books stocked as science fiction are not. They have aliens coming to Earth, aliens speaking English, aliens wanting to eat humans as food. If anyone else can’t see how ridiculous any of that is, well, I won’t comment further. Actually I will. First of all, why would an alien race capable of interstellar travel even need to travel to Earth for food? Surely they would have solved resourcing problems long ago. They could grow compatible cattle in their own backyard at a far cheaper energy cost, but noooo, they’re going to expend billions of kilojoules of precious energy to travel to Earth so they can eat a few humans. Slash end rant.”
“The Phants essentially attempted the same thing in our space,” Tahoe said. “Except they wanted to convert us into food, rather than eat us directly. Or convert the crusts of our worlds, anyway.”
“Yeah, but that’s different,” TJ said. “They don’t look human, for one. And it took them some time to learn our languages. And like you said, they don’t eat us directly.”
“Well you know,” Lui said. “While I agree with you that aliens should actually look alien, and not speak Earthling, at least not right away, I actually have nothing wrong with an alien eating a human in a sci-fi themed work. To me, it seems feasible. I’m not saying the alien would actually survive the digestion process, and if it did, that it would actually absorb any compatible nutrients from the human. But I do say it’s possible, and definitely not in the realm of fantasy.”
“Yeah, I guess I can see your point,” TJ said. “I’d be okay with an alien dying after it eats a man. Or having a bad case of indigestion. Then I could still call that sci-fi.”
“Well wait, getting back to the Phants,” Tahoe said. “Don’t you think it’s a bit fantastical how they can possess our robots and Artificials?”
“No of course not,” TJ said. “Just because we don’t understand the science behind something, doesn’t make it magic. That’s like saying Slipstreams belong in fantasy novels. They’re purely sci-fi.”
“All right,” Tahoe told him. “If you say so.”
“I do,” TJ replied.
“Then what about psi powers?” Lui said. “That’s straight from fantasy. And yet we face an enemy who may use such abilities against us.”
“Psi powers aren’t fantasy!” TJ said. “Get with the program. Again, just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t make it goddamn magic.”
“Wait, why does it matter whether its sci-fi or fantasy at all?” Shaw said. “If the story is engaging, gets to you emotionally, and you really feel for the characters, then what difference does it make?”
“All the difference,” TJ said. “If you’re finding yourself distracted by things that are just too implausible, you lose that whole suspension of disbelief, and it can be hard to keep watching or reading. When you’re constantly laughing at the absurdity of it all, then there’s something wrong.”
“Hey TJ, aren’t you supposed to be helping Surus and Harlequin?” Fret said.
“I am,” TJ replied. “Taking a short break, that’s all. That all right with you?”
“No it’s not,” Fret said. “Don’t make me climb down from here.”
“Pfft,” TJ said. “Like anyone is scared of your skinny ass.”
“You should be,” Fret said. “Remember what I did to Skullcracker that one time...”
“What time?”
“You don’t remember?” Fret said. “When you came into his bunker and you saw him sucking his thumb?”
“All right,” TJ said. “That’s it. I’m going to call Skullcracker when we get back, and tell him you’ve been dissing him.”
“No wait, I remember,” Tahoe said. “He wasn’t actually sucking his thumb. He was trying to hold his tooth in.”
Fret started laughing. “Yeah man, see? Someone remembers. I clocked that boy out cold.”
“Yeah, but he clocked you back the next day, bro,” Tahoe said. “I seem to recall having to splash water on your face to wake you up.”
“Sounds like I really missed out on life at your base,” Shaw said.
“Well, life can get prettttty slow when you’re between deployments,” Lui said. “Sometimes there were long stretches with nothing to do but beat each other up.”
“I don’t know how you manage not to smear the bulkheads with each other’s blood during our long space voyages,” Shaw said.
“We’re getting old,” Lui explained.
“Speak for yourself,” Bender said. “I been smearing the bulkheads with Manic’s blood, don’t you worry.”
“You wish,” Manic said. “That’s your blood, not mine. Your period blood.”
“What?” Bender said. “I don’t got period blood, bitch. The only period blood on me is from your pussy.”
“So that’s what you call Manic’s ass now, is it?” Shaw said.
“Yup, I take him every day,” Bender said. “And I close my eyes and pretend it’s Surus.”
“All right, that’s enough,” Rade said. He drew the line at insulting the client.
Surus worked away quietly, pretending she hadn’t heard.
“Sometimes I miss the Teams,” Fret said. “What we have here, it’s a nice microcosm of what we had back then. But I do find myself yearning for the old days. Not the wars, mind you. While I don’t regret fighting, I also wouldn’t do it again. Fight those damn, damn wars. But the camaraderie, the whole team atmosphere, the brotherhood, that’s what I miss.”
“Like you said, we have that here,” Tahoe said. “And it’s not a microcosm. It’s the real deal.”
“Well sure,” Fret replied. “But what I mean is, we don’t have everyone we had then.”
There was a moment of silence among them.
“We lost a lot of good people,” Tahoe said. “To those wars.”
“We didn’t lose everyone,” Lui said. “Others simply retired.”
“But that still counts as a loss, doesn’t it?” Fret said. “They’re not here with us anymore.”
“You never know,” Lui said. “When they see how much fun we’re having, some of our old friends might be coming back sooner than you think.”
“So, the mood is getting a bit dark, me thinks,” Fret said.
“Well that suits you, doesn’t it?” Manic said. “Mr. Doom and Gloom.”
“Don’t call me that,” Fret told him. “Okay, fine, maybe I’m negative sometimes. But anyway, as I was saying, to lighten the mood... so, Shaw, you think these aliens look like big cockroaches with alligator heads, huh?”
“That’s right,” Shaw replied.
“There’s got to be a cock joke in there somewhere,” Manic said.
“I’m sure there is,” Fret said. “But I was thinking about what we could call these bugs. How about gatorbeetles?”
“Gatorbeetles?” Bender said. “That’s a ridiculous name. I think I should be the one to name them.”
“All right, what would you call them?” Fret asked.
Bender was quiet a moment. “Bulbous-ass bugs. ‘Cause their asses are bulbous, see?”
“And he says my names are ridiculous,” Fret said. “Bender, look. I’ll cut you some slack because you take apart and rebuild robots, and you hack into governmental databases for fun, but seriously bro, bulbous-ass bugs? You’re a moron. I’m going to continue calling them gatorbeetles.”
“Fine, and I’m going to keep calling them bulbous-ass bugs,” Bender insisted. “Or bulbies for short.”
“You go right ahead,” Fret said.
Rade muted the comm, shaking his head. He wasn’t in the mood for their chatter.
After a few minutes, he sensed motion to his right. It was Shaw, in her jumpsuit. The mechs were arranged in a fairly tight circle, allowing her to leap from Hoplite to Hoplite without touching the black dunes. When she reached Electron, she clambered down to his cockpit and took a seat beside him on the open hatch, dangling her leg assemblies over the edge.
By then, night had completely descended on the moon. Foreign constellations filled the sky.
Shaw tapped in. He accepted.
“Think we’ll get him?” Shaw asked.
“Our prey? Of course.”
She wrapped a gloved hand around his. “Wish we didn’t have to wear these.”
“I know,” Rade said, yearning for the electric touch of her skin against his own, rather than simply the pressure of her glove.
“The air is breathable...” Shaw said.
“You’d risk contracting a potential contagion?” Rade said.
“If it meant holding you for real one last time, yes,” Shaw said.
Rade frowned. “You talk like you don’t think we’ll survive.”
“Sorry,” Shaw said. “I get this way before missions sometime. All dour, like Fret. Convinced I’m going to die.”
Rade chuckled softly.
“What’s so funny about that?” Shaw said.
“Nothing,” Rade said. “Just that, I’m the same way sometimes before a mission.” He paused, then amended: “Most of the time.”
“Great minds think alike,” Shaw said.
“I’m not sure that’s a sign of greatness.”
“It’s a sign of humanity,” Shaw said. “A sign that we understand our human frailty, and our mortality. I’ve been thinking about that a lot, lately. Human mortality. It’s why I’ve been pressing you about kids. Sorry, I know you don’t want to talk about that.”
Rade nodded slowly. He gazed up at the stars, and was quiet for several moments. “We’re not going to die here, Shaw. It’s not our destiny.”
“I hope you’re right,” Shaw said.
Rade kept his gaze on those stars. Fret’s earlier words had stirred long suppressed memories. “Do you ever think about the brothers we lost?”
“All the time,” Shaw said. “Brothers and sisters, for me.”
“I like to think they’re watching over us,” Rade said. “That those stars, they’re our fellow warriors.”
“It’s a nice thought.” Shaw squeezed his hand tighter.
“But then I remember what Tahoe told me once about those stars,” Rade said. “And my rational mind takes over.”
“What did Tahoe tell you?” Shaw said.
“Stars are merely giant balls of compressed hydrogen and helium whose temperatures and pressures are sufficient to generate runaway nuclear reactions. There’s nothing spiritual about them.”
“I see,” Shaw said. “But I’m sure you knew that already.”
“I did,” Rade agreed. “But it only reinforces the fact our friends, well, they’re merely dead.”
“While that may be true,” Shaw said. “I do believe they’re watching over us in some way or form. The Phants claim when we humans die, we leave behind residues or imprints in the supra-dimension. I’d like to believe that. Hell, they destroy planets because they believe it, so there’s probably a good chance it’s true. But either way, whether our lost friends are watching over us or not, we have each other now. We always will. And no one can take that away from us.”
Rade leaned against her spacesuit and touched his helmet to hers.
RADE AND SHAW lunged across the black plain. Behind them, a blackness swallowed up the land to the horizon, an impossibly large amorphous mass, the tendrils along its edges flowing toward the tiny fleeing humans.
Neither Rade nor Shaw wore jumpsuits. Each step in the sand buried them to the knees. The grit scratched at Rade’s skin, drawing blood. But there was nothing he could do but hobble on, moving as fast as the thick sand allowed.
The darkness reached them and wrapped around their ankles.
Upon contact, Shaw spun toward him and clamped her hands around his neck, choking him, pulling him toward the rising darkness.
“Shaw—” He managed before she cut off his air flow entirely.
Shaw grinned like a madwoma
n, squeezing tighter. The darkness flowed upward, enveloping her upper body entirely so that she was merely a glistening, black, faceless humanoid shape.
As the life slowly ebbed from him, he heard a distant laugh. It sounded strangely mechanical.
Rade was awakened from the nightmare by a beeping on his HUD. Surus was requesting he re-open communications.
Rade unmuted his comm device. “What is it?”
“I have completed the noise masking changes ahead of schedule,” Surus replied.
Rade glanced at the time. Only three hours had passed since she had begun. She’d finished two hours ahead of her previous estimate.
“Thank you,” Rade said groggily. He had his suit inject a stimulant, then spoke over the main comm. “Wake up, everyone.”
Rade had allowed the Argonauts to sleep in their cockpits or passenger seats while Surus, Harlequin and TJ worked at modifying the emitters. Meanwhile the Hoplite AIs and two combat robots had remained on watch.
“I don’t suppose I can take a nap?” TJ said.
“Go ahead,” Rade said. “Set your timer for twenty minutes and put your AI in control of your Hoplite in the meantime.”
“Thanks boss,” TJ said.
When everyone else was up, Rade turned toward Bender’s mech.
“Activate the emitters on the HS3s,” Rade said.
The three drones vanished from view.
“Lui, status on the noise cancelers?” Rade asked.
Several clicks emitted from the external speakers of Lui’s Hoplite.
“They’re functioning as expected,” Lui said a moment later. “I’m not detecting the HS3s on echolocation. Surus has done a bang up job.”
“All right,” Rade said. “Bender, send a single HS3 forward. Take it past the sentries and into the cave. Very very carefully.”
“Roger that,” Bender said.
“Assuming that’s actually a cave,” Fret said. “And not an alcove.”
“If it wasn’t a cave,” Harlequin said. “Where did the relief sentries come from?”
“Maybe there’s an Acceptor inside the alcove,” Fret said.
“I somehow doubt that,” Manic said. “Given the tech levels we’ve seen so far. Those aliens are wearing bells. Bells.”
