by Isaac Hooke
Rade flung his shield behind his body to protect himself and his passenger, and then he sprinted toward the central Quonset. Around him, sand flew up as lasers from the airborne attacker’s strafing run impacted the dunes.
Rade entered the structure, and as the ship flew over he dove behind a crate and tilted his shield horizontally, holding it above him. The Quonset offered little protection: overhead, holes were burned clean through the ceiling as the ship completed its flyby.
The other Hoplites were crouched similarly nearby, and had taken cover behind miscellaneous crates and other objects, their shields held flat.
A moment of quiet ensued after the craft passed.
“You think he’s going to make another run?” Manic said.
“No,” TJ said. He gestured with the large metal arm of his Hoplite toward the glass container he had set down. “Doesn’t want to harm his Queen.”
“Then why make the attack run in the first place?” Fret said.
And then, near the far wall, the ceiling of the structure collapsed and a large object slammed into the floor; debris from the nearby equipment flew through the air like shrapnel.
Rade swung his shield toward the crash to protect himself. As the debris struck shields, equipment and mechs, for a moment it sounded like it was hailing. Hard. Then everything was quiet.
Rade gazed over the rim of his shield to study the crash. He spotted a prong-shaped nose section that was a twin to the craft in the other Quonset.
“Looks like we found our missing ship,” Lui quipped.
Between those two prongs, a large door slid upward, revealing the internal hangar bay. The deck was sloped to the side, because of the angle of the crash. Similar to the other ship, an ovule shuttle resided inside. But there was something else packed within the hanger that drew all of Rade’s attention. A malevolent creation that sent chills crawling up his spine.
Just as humans designed their battle suits in their own image, so too had the Xaranth, evidently, because the mech that stepped forward was basically a giant robot gatorbeetle, about twice the size of the usual warrior caste member. Its three segmented body parts—head, thorax, and abdomen—were covered in overlapping metal scales that shifted and flowed with every movement. Robotic antennae twisted to and fro. Iron mandibles clanged together. Prehensile limbs opened and closed. The six legs resounded with each step.
But none of that concerned Rade overmuch. What really disturbed him were the oh, six or so minigun-style weapons mounted on either side of the thorax. It was like a gunship on legs.
It pulled itself out of the hangar opening on its six legs, a tarantula withdrawing from its hole, giving those miniguns the room to dangle free.
The head swiveled toward Rade’s mech, the many eyes glowing a bright red. The miniguns instantly matched the orientation, every weapon aiming at Rade.
“Down!” Rade said.
He ducked behind one of the large spherical objects that Ms. Bounty claimed stored the history and culture of the Xaranth, and he slammed his shield down in front of him, placing it between himself and the sphere so that his Hoplite had two layers of protection from the miniguns.
Several holes instantly appeared in the exposed upper portion of the shield, where it climbed past the sphere, caused by extremely powerful bolts of plasma tearing through the ballistic material. Rade glanced at the feed from his rear camera and saw those plasma beams create similar holes in whatever they struck, up to and including the opposite wall.
“Our shields aren’t worth zip against this tech!” Bender said.
Rade aimed his cobra past the edge of the shield as the next attack came in, not to target the enemy, but to covertly study the sphere: he confirmed that the beams striking the Tech Class IV object didn’t penetrate.
“Get behind the spheres if you can!” Rade sent. “The plasma bolts don’t seem to harm them.”
He turned his bore-riddled shield sideways, trying to place as much of it behind the sphere as possible, and lay flat as the plasma barrage continued.
He glanced at Nemesis: Shaw’s mech had taken cover behind another sphere nearby. Beyond, he saw TJ crouched past a stack of more spheres, the glass container on the floor behind him. Within that container, the black liquid surged about the extents of the metal disk excitedly, as if sensing its liberation.
“Take care of that container, TJ,” Rade sent. “We don’t need another Black on the loose in here.”
Rade’s attention was drawn back to Nemesis. He saw Ms. Bounty in the passenger seat, slowly lifting her stun rifle upward. She herself remained crouched—she had likely piped the feed from the weapon’s scope to her vision.
“Careful,” Rade said. “We don’t want to lose that weapon.”
“I won’t lose it,” Ms. Bounty replied. She edged the weapon higher past the sphere and then squeezed the trigger.
The electrolaser bolt shot into the enemy mech and Ms. Bounty quickly retracted the weapon. All that happened was those incoming plasma beams concentrated on the sphere that shielded her and Shaw.
“As I feared, the stun rifle isn’t working,” Ms. Bounty said.
“Naw, really?” Bender said.
“We’re going to have to force the Phant out, or expose it somehow,” Ms. Bounty continued.
“Where would it be housed?” Rade asked.
“In the AI core,” Ms. Bounty said. “It should be in the central area underneath the thorax.”
Those plasma miniguns kept firing, soon moving on from the hiding place of Shaw and Ms. Bounty to chew through everything between the alien mech and the cowering Hoplites. Only the spheres remained intact.
“These Xaranth sure designed their storage archives to last,” Manic commented.
“Too bad they forgot the password!” Fret said.
The assault continued for several moments, only to let up just like that. Rade knew because the blue streams of light ceased to fly past overhead.
“It appears even alien tech suffers from overheating,” Tahoe said.
“Either that, or he thinks he killed us all already,” Shaw said.
“Aim past the hides,” Rade said. “Scopes only. Don’t risk putting your mechs in the sight lines of those plasma beams.”
Rade slowly directed the cobra in his right arm past the edge of the sphere. When it was clear, he switched to the viewpoint of the scope and steered the reticle toward the crashed ship. The robot gatorbeetle was still aboard, lurking in the hangar bay. It appeared to be scanning the Quonset with its head, searching for targets.
Rade aimed his cobra directly at one of those eyes and squeezed the trigger.
The robot’s head snapped upward in surprise, smashing into the internal hangar’s overhead. A moment later several boxlike panels unfolded from the four sides of the head, thorax and abdomen, enveloping those areas in a protective layer. The weapons were mostly still exposed, however, and those minigun turrets all steered toward Rade’s position; he quickly pulled his cobra behind the cover of the sphere.
Several plasma beams shot past beside him.
He heard a crash.
“The target just leaped down from the ship,” Manic said. “It’s coming directly toward your position, boss.”
“Guess it didn’t like me shooting it in the eye,” Rade commented dryly. He glanced at the overhead map. One or more of them had the target in sight, because the red dot representing the enemy was updating. It was indeed headed toward him.
More plasma beams came in, but then shifted a few meters to Rade’s right: Shaw’s position.
“You fired at it?” Rade asked her.
“How did you guess?” she replied. “Don’t think I penetrated that new visor it lowered over its head, though.”
“We can use this,” Rade said. “If we can draw away its attention so easily... Lui, how difficult would it be for me to barrel through the wall or roof of this structure?”
“Judging from the materials analysis, not difficult at all, especially if you�
��re running at full speed,” Lui replied.
“What about if I used my jumpjets?” Rade asked.
“It would have to be full burn,” Lui said.
“You’re sure I’d be able to break through?” Rade said.
“Not really,” Lui replied.
“At least you’re honest,” Rade said. “Tahoe, Lui, you’re the farthest from me. Aim your scopes at the robot. When I count to three, fire. Let me know when you’re ready.”
“Ready,” Tahoe said.
“Ready,” Lui echoed.
“Manic, watch your head,” Rade told his passenger.
“Something tells me I’m not going to like this,” Manic replied.
“One,” Rade said.
“Two.”
“Three.”
His friends fired, and as those plasma beams swung to their position, Rade stood up, held his shield overhead, and activated Electron’s jumpjets at full burn. He burst through the roof of the Quonset and into the air outside.
He jetted forward immediately, knowing that the robot would target his previous trajectory. Sure enough, plasma beams seared through the air behind him.
He altered course and thrust down toward the source of those beams. Ahead, he could see the aft portion of the ship poking out from the Quonset.
He applied more forward motion before he struck, wanting to come in directly overtop the giant robot, as indicated by the red dot on his overhead map. He just hoped that dot represented its latest position. The ping time seemed recent enough...
When he was in place, he spun his body around to reorient himself, then jetted downward at full strength, tearing another hole through the roof of the Quonset.
He landed directly on the thing’s back.
twenty-three
The robot clanged its two mandibles together in outrage, and then swung its head from side to side, attempting to throw Rade off. He allowed Electron to slide onto the rightmost weapon mounts. He folded away the shield in his left arm and wrapped both his hands around the base of those exposed mounts; he set his cobra lasers to auto-fire at point blank range as he pulled at those weapons. One of the miniguns bent away from the base and he concentrated his attention on it.
“Manic how you doing back there?” Rade asked.
“Just peachy,” the passenger replied.
The robot attempted to swivel those weapons toward him, but he resided beyond the range of motion. It fired off all of its plasma beams anyway, hoping to hit Rade, but only struck random objects nearby.
The mech’s antennae bent backwards, the sharp tips attempting to bore Rade, but he dodged them, continually working away at the minigun.
Finally he tore it completely away; Rade tossed the useless weapon aside and focused on the second minigun.
The enraged robot leaped skyward, smashing Rade into the rooftop.
“Manic?” Rade asked.
“I’m okay,” Manic replied.
Rade wrenched the weapon to the left, hard. It tore free more easily than the last one.
The gatorbeetle lashed out with its antennae once more, and Rade swung to the left and right. The robot leaped sideways, crashing into one of the nearby spheres. Rade felt the jarring blow that time.
“I’m fine,” Manic said, preempting his question.
“Warning,” a voice in his cockpit said. It wasn’t the inactive AI, but some subsystem. “Hull has caved in section 3C, near the cockpit. Actuator damage.”
“What do those actuators control?” Rade said.
“The left foot,” the automated system replied.
Rade attempted to move his left foot. The ankle responded sluggishly. That would give him a limp, he knew. Well, it didn’t really matter.
He concentrated on ripping away the next minigun.
Tahoe’s Hoplite rushed forward, carrying a sphere as a shield.
The giant turned its attention on Tahoe and unleashed its plasma beams, aiming for the feet of Tahoe’s mech. Tahoe was forced to drop, lowering the sphere.
Rade ripped the third weapon mount away. He gripped the base of the fourth.
Another, larger sphere rolled forward through the debris, pushed by Shaw. The robot concentrated on her, but those plasma beams couldn’t penetrate the object that protected her.
The alien robot decided to leap over the sphere: its upper body grazed the roof, along with Rade’s Hoplite. The robot aimed its surviving plasma guns down at Shaw as it flew past, but she dodged to the side and activated her jumpjets, shooting upward. She slammed into the right flank of the giant robot, opposite Rade, and pulled herself up onto the hull, behind the miniguns on that side. She wrapped her hands around the base of the closest weapon and began wrenching it away while auto-firing her cobras.
Those mandibles clanged even louder, and the robot gatorbeetle flung its body against a large crate nearby, attempting to scrape Nemesis off. Shaw’s mech hung on tightly.
Tahoe and Bender leaped their Hoplites onto the flailing robot a moment later.
“Die bitch die!” Bender pounded away at the shielded hull of the head segment.
Between the four of them they managed to wrest away the rest of the miniguns, disarming the mechanical gatorbeetle despite the incessant bucking, antennae attacks, and the occasional body slams into the surrounding debris.
“I think I’ve spotted a vulnerability in its armor,” Lui said. “Underneath the body there’s a gap between the head and thorax. My cobras aren’t doing much, but a few well-placed grenades might prove extremely uncomfortable to our friend.”
Rade was about to swing underneath the body to have a look when all of a sudden the robot sprinted forward through the debris.
“It’s spotted the Phant trap!” Fret said.
Rade glanced forward. The robot giant was indeed headed straight toward the stack of spheres that harbored TJ; from the current angle, TJ’s Hoplite—and the glass container behind it—were partially visible. The charge was obviously an attempt to break that container and release the Queen.
“Shift your weight to this side!” Rade told the other three Hoplites that clung to the robot. “Pull it off balance!”
Tahoe, Shaw and Bender used their jumpjets to reposition, crashing down onto the robot beside Rade and yanking hard on its armor while firing their jets again. All they succeeded in doing was bending the head and thorax to one side, like pulling on the reins of a wild horse. It continued plowing straight toward the container.
TJ wrapped his arms around the glass container and at the last moment jetted upward at full burn, crashing through the ceiling.
The robot gatorbeetle leaped up after him; its mandibles caught the Hoplite’s ankle and dragged the mech down. All five Hoplites and the robot came crashing to the floor at the same time in a blur of limbs and flailing antennae. TJ landed on top, cradling the glass container in the arms of his mech. The trap was undamaged. So far.
As the robot started to get up, Rade squeezed between two of the legs and swung underneath the body; he spotted the gap Lui mentioned between the individual plates coating the head and thorax. Rade shoved his grenade launcher into that space and fired the rest of his frags. He swung back on top and out of the way.
The grenades exploded a moment later. The mechanical giant was knocked backward from the blow, momentarily revealing its underside: the armor had peeled back to form a wicked hole.
“Unit A,” Rade said. “Get some charges in that rupture!”
The Centurion swung down from Bender’s Hoplite and retrieved the charges from Juggernaut’s storage compartment. Then it leaped onto the still recovering giant and clambered between its legs to the smoking gap. In a blur, the Centurion attached the four explosives. Then it swung back up and loaded into Bender’s passenger seat.
“Charges in place!” Unit A said.
“Detonate!” Rade commanded.
The resulting explosion lifted the robot a full meter into the air. It came crashing down, rolling onto its side. The Hoplites scrambled ou
t of the way.
The rupture in the armor had grown even wider. Underneath, Rade could see the original hull. The forward portion of the thorax was badly damaged. Farther back, near the center of the thorax, the hull had buckled. The AI core would be somewhere near there, at least going by what Ms. Bounty had said earlier.
“Sync your righthand cobras with mine!” Rade said. “Ms. Bounty, mark the thing’s AI core.”
The sync indicators on his HUD turned green: all six righthand cobras throughout the squad would fire on the same target at once, as determined by Rade’s reticle.
Ms. Bounty’s highlight appeared a moment later, slightly offset from the buckled section in the middle of the thorax.
The giant robot was beginning to stir by then. Rade quickly took aim at the highlight and squeezed the trigger. All six cobras fired simultaneously, boring into the hull. A plume of smoke erupted from the fresh bore hole, and the robot gatorbeetle promptly collapsed.
Outside the fresh puncture, black liquid condensed all along the surface.
“Ms. Bounty, quickly,” Rade said.
Nemesis came forward. In the passenger seat, Ms. Bounty stood up and aimed her stun rifle at the liquid.
The giant rolled sideways unexpectedly, clipping Shaw’s mech with two legs and knocking it over. Those limbs pinned Nemesis and Ms. Bounty underneath.
Shaw broke free, but Ms. Bounty remained caught firmly by one of the prehensile forelimbs. The rifle was pinned to her chest.
“Shaw, get her out!” Rade said.
Shaw grabbed one of those armored forelimbs, but seemed to have trouble getting a grip. “It’s coated in some kind of oil. This will take a sec.”
“Shoot the base away,” Rade said.
“It’s not working,” Shaw replied.
By then the Phant had seeped onto the floor. For a moment Rade was worried that it would try to possess Ms. Bounty, but it quickly retreated instead, wending its way toward the crashed ship.
“Damn it.” Rade fired his cobra at the Phant but it had no effect.
He limped toward Nemesis and Ms. Bounty and wrapped his arms around the other forelimb. As Shaw had said, it was slick with something, and his big fingers kept sliding along the surface every time he pulled.
