Survival Strategy

by Anders Raynor

  He deployed the tent first. Its nanochip determined the ideal shape the tent should have to resist the wind. Animated by artificial intelligence, nanofilaments spread, attached themselves to the rock, and weaved into that optimal shape.

  He planted the heat generator into the ground and set it on maximum power. It extended a meter-long rod that turned bright orange as it started emitting infrared radiation. He removed Riley’s helmet and slid a pillow under hear head.

  His stomach churned as he realized the extent of her injuries. The right side of her face was covered in severe burns, a patchwork of reds and blacks. Her nostrils were burned from the inside, as if she’d inhaled fire. He wondered whether her lungs had suffered the same fate.

  No time to remove her protective suit, so he slit it with a scalpel. Then he pulled the laser syringe he’d intended to use on Mitch and thrust it into her chest. A laser beam drilled a tiny hole through which the medication was injected straight into her heart.

  He held the syringe in place for a few seconds while the hole in her chest was cauterized. Next, he needed to reanimate her. He didn’t have a defibrillator, so the next best thing was a blaster. In stun mode, it could deliver an electric shock strong enough to restart a heart.

  He drew his Wells-12, selected the lowest setting, pressed its barrel against her chest, and pulled the trigger.

  No response. He increased power and tried again. This time, her fingers twitched, but nothing else happened. He pushed the power to the max and fired one more time. Her body jerked. Electric arcs danced on her chest for a few seconds, then vanished. Her vitals on the medical scanner were still flat.

  Yet he couldn’t accept defeat. “C’mon, soldier, fight!” he shouted. “I know you can hear me.”

  A disturbing thought struck him, What if, unconsciously, she wants to die?

  “Listen to me,” he whispered to her ear. “I know how you feel. Maybe you want all this to end. No more doubts, no more pain…the easy way out. I can relate to that. But we’re fighters, you and me. We cannot quit. We don’t have that luxury.”

  No response. No reaction.

  “Don’t you dare leave me!” he yelled and pounded her chest with his fist. He fought for her life as if fighting for his own—with the energy of utter despair.

  Her heart was silent. Her skin was turning blue. The last spark of life in her was about to be extinguished.

  22

  Creator’s burden

  Adrian and the marines reached the corridor leading to the top-security lab. They’d detected an energy surge coming from the lab, and Subject Nine must have sensed it too.

  At the end of a corridor, Adrian saw two silhouettes against the cold glow of a forcefield.

  We’re too late!

  One of the silhouettes was Tenev. The other one was Subject Nine.

  The marines aimed at the hybrid, but Adrian asked them to hold their fire. The risk of hitting Tenev was too great, and the professor wasn’t trying to run. On the contrary, he stepped toward his creation, raising his eyes to meet Nine’s fiery stare. The energy surge was no accident—Tenev wanted to lure the hybrid to the lab.

  “Does he have a death wish?” Okoro asked in low voice. “Does he intend to sacrifice himself to lead the hybrid into a trap?”

  Adrian could only shake his head, having no answer to offer.

  The hybrid slowly raised his hand, and his claws moved toward Tenev’s face.

  “You have the right to kill me,” the scientist said in a hollow voice. He was speaking Galactic, the official language of the Alliance, not Taar’kuun. As Nine had downloaded the research database into his brain, he could understand this language.

  “What we did to you was…evil,” Tenev resumed. “But I hope you’ll understand our reasons. The Taar’kuun assimilated our ancestors, just like yours. Our species is fighting for survival. We knew little about your kind, and we made the same mistake as the Taar’kuun—we judged you by appearance. In that we were wrong.”

  Nine leaned toward his creator, as if he wanted to examine him more closely. His claw pointed at the professor’s chest.

  “Fa…ther?” The hybrid struggled to pronounce human words.

  Tenev nodded. “In a sense, yes. I created you, and I carry the creator’s burden. By altering your genes to stimulate your violent tendencies, my colleagues and I violated your genetic legacy. We had no right to turn you and your kind into a weapon, and we paid a high price for our lack of ethical integrity. I’m willing to correct our mistake and restore your original genome.”

  The hybrid tilted his head, probably struggling to process this information.

  “We can make you whole,” Adrian said, stepping forward.

  Nine didn’t seem startled. No doubt he’d detected Adrian’s presence.

  “You could’ve killed me, but you didn’t,” Adrian added. “You know I’m not a warrior, but a scientist, like your creator. You abducted me because you needed help. I’m sorry we had to kill your companions. They challenged us in battle, and we gave them an honorable death. You’re not like them. You can control your anger, and you’ll become a great leader to your people.”

  “My… people?” Nine growled.

  Adrian nodded, stepping closer. “That’s right. Together, we’ll free your people from Taar’kuun slavery.”

  Nine emitted a low rumbling sound and moved toward him. Adrian gestured to the marines to hold their fire. Nine’s biosuit bore traces from dozens of impacts, and Adrian wondered how many injuries the hybrid had survived. His regenerative ability was phenomenal, even for a bionic.

  Adrian didn’t go as far as extending his hand to his new ally. Breaking the ice with a Jotnar/Taar’kuun hybrid with a genetically programmed killer instinct required diplomatic skills he hadn’t yet developed.

  *****

  Jason sat back in the shelter, exhausted and lonely. Riley’s still body lay there. The wind was calling him.

  How easy it would be to just switch off the heater.

  His limbs would go numb, and hypothermia would silence the pain. Quickly and efficiently. Permanently.

  He slumped.

  Suddenly the medical scanner beeped. His head jerked up. Riley’s vital signs were returning. She opened her right eye.

  He gave her a nervous chuckle. “Oh, stars, you had me worried!”

  Her vitals were weak, but her heartbeat was regular, and she breathed normally.

  “Two life-threatening injuries in two days—you’ve won the lottery of the luckiest soldier in the universe.” Humor was Jason’s way of coping with stress. “We need a club for people with near-death experiences, or even a support group. We’d add a lot of new members from just the past few days.”

  “Your… lousy… bedside manners,” Riley wheezed.

  “Hey, remember your bedside manners, when you barged into my room at the hospital and accused me of being irresponsible?” He raised his hands. “Okay, okay, I deserved that. Now get some rest. The storm is almost over. I’ll call for evac.”

  He activated his comm and tried to contact Battlegroup Vega, but the signal wasn’t getting through. He tried Adrian’s direct channel.

  “Jason, where are you?”

  The muscles of Jason’s face relaxed as he heard this familiar voice. “I wish I could tell you I’m in the cockpit of my bird, but I’m grounded. On the surface. In a tent. Not far from Outpost Beta. Riley’s with me. Injured. Resting. Can’t reach the fleet. What’s your status?”

  Adrian summarized what had happened on Minos Station. Jason was patching up Riley’s helmet while listening to him.

  “That’s quite a story,” Jason said. “I’m sure Captain Hunt has sent a dropship to evac you, now that the storm is over. Do you mind giving us a ride?”

  The ground trembled.

  What now?

  He pointed his hand scanner at the rock beneath his feet to check structural integrity. What he saw made a cold shiver run down his spine. The rock was quaking and cracking. The whole g
lacier was sliding toward them.

  “Riley, can you move?”

  She managed to stagger to her feet, but she was in no condition to run a marathon. Even if she could, would they outrun the glacier?

  “Leave me…” she rasped. “Mission… deliver data…”

  “The hell with the mission,” he snapped, shoving her helmet into her hands. “I’m not leaving you. Thrust packs—that’s our only chance. I’ll have to pilot both packs. You just hold on to me. Can you do that?”

  He carried Riley out of the tent.

  His eyes widened in terror as he saw a wall of ice hundreds of meters high closing in on them. Chunks of ice the size of a family house crashed on the ground in an apocalyptic rumble.

  He just had time to fire thrusters as one of those chunks hurtled toward them. The chunk smashed into the rock and buried the tent under tons of ice.

  He had to control both his and Riley’s thrust packs, which was no easy task. Riley’s left arm was firmly wrapped around his chest, while her right hand held a Wells-12.

  If the situation wasn’t dire enough, a red dot lit on his HUD. In the distance, he made out a Taar’kuun gunship racing on an intercept course.

  “Frag it!” he shouted. “I can’t gain altitude, or the bugs’ll blow us out of the sky. Hold on, it’s gonna be quite a ride!”

  They barreled downward, almost brushing the rocks. The glacier was gaining speed. Blocks of ice were smashing on the ground all around them in deadly white explosions.

  The trails of two missiles flashed in the dark sky. Jason maneuvered into a crevice. Two blasts lit the night as the missiles hit its edge.

  “Comms are back,” Riley wheezed. “Sending…data…”

  Jason couldn’t help but admire her unfaltering dedication. Even at the edge of death, she cared only about her mission—delivering the research data to the fleet.

  “Request evac and fighter support,” he told her. He was too busy dodging chunks of ice that rained down on them to deal with anything else.

  A red icon blinked on his HUD, alerting him that his thrust pack was running out of fuel. He set course on a mountain peak, hoping it would provide shelter. To reach it, they needed to cross a swath of open terrain.

  “The gunship’s gonna lock on us,” he said to Riley. “You’ll have to shoot the missiles in flight. Can you do that?”

  “Roger.”

  He fired the thrusters at full throttle toward the peak. They rocketed above an icy plateau, leaving the glacier behind. As Jason had expected, the gunship fired two missiles. Riley’s blaster boomed twice.

  Flash—bang. Flash—bang. The missiles were history.

  But Riley kept on firing. Blazing trails crisscrossed the sky as the gunship unleashed its plasma autocannon.

  Jason’s thrust pack jolted, hit by a bolt. Now only Riley’s pack was operational, and it struggled to keep them both in the air. They were losing altitude.

  We’re not gonna make it, he realized, glancing at the peak, so close yet out of reach.

  “Let go off me, or we’re both dead,” he told Riley.

  But the grasp of her arm around his chest remained firm.

  “Let go, dammit!” he yelled.

  The rattle of the blasters stopped, the gunship disappeared, and darkness returned.

  Riley looked Jason in the eye. “We both die. Or we both live. Together.”

  23

  Our greatest strength

  Minos Station quaked. Adrian realized that something dramatic was happening, a disaster of seismic proportions.

  “Evacuate the facility,” Lieutenant Okoro ordered. “Everyone to the hangar!”

  “Did any of your brethren survive?” Adrian asked Nine while they ran side by side through a vast corridor.

  “Jotnar alone,” the hybrid replied. “Jotnar brothers and sisters journey beyond the gray veil. You free Jotnar frozen brothers.”

  “Sorry, no time for that,” Adrian wheezed, short of breath. “Must evac ASAP.”

  They reached the hangar together with the surviving marines and rushed to the nearest transport craft. The station was rocking as if caught in a storm on high seas and battered by giant waves. The growl of the glacier outside was apocalyptic.

  Tenev, Mortensen, Okoro and her marines jumped into the craft. Once Adrian was inside, he turned to Nine. “C’mon, get in, what are you waiting for?”

  “We can’t take that thing with us,” Okoro objected. “What if it goes berserk again?”

  “He won’t, I promise,” Tenev shouted in response. “I found a solution. Trust me.”

  Nine hesitated, but finally hopped into the craft. The ground was tilting at an increasingly steep angle. The craft took off and dashed through the open hangar doors, just in time, because a few seconds later the station disappeared under the ice.

  As they rose over the tumult, the distant sun dawned on the horizon, revealing an apocalyptic scene. The whole glacier was on the move. Beneath the craft, chunks of ice the size of skyscrapers slid against one another, cracked, crumbled, and tumbled down.

  Tenev sat next to Nine and was about to thrust a transdermal syringe into the hybrid’s neck. Nine recoiled from the syringe and gave out a low growl. The marines pointed their rifles at him, finger poised on the trigger.

  “Calm down, everyone,” Tenev said. “It’s a medication, it’ll help you, Nine.”

  The hybrid’s orange eyes squinted at the syringe, but he didn’t resist as Tenev administered the treatment.

  His job done, Tenev leaned toward Adrian sitting next to him and said, “I developed a cocktail of proteins that’ll stabilize his retrocontrol loops. It’s a temporary solution, until we find a way to fully restore his Jotnar genome.”

  “That’s what you’ve been working on in the top-security lab?” Adrian asked.

  Tenev nodded. “Yes. I needed to find a way to tamper the hybrid’s violent tendencies. I wasn’t even aware of your presence in Minos Station, as the lab was completely cut off from the rest of the facility.”

  The dropship shook as it entered the upper layers of atmosphere. The storm was over, but the wind was still strong at high altitude.

  “We must pick up Commanders Lance and Blaze,” Adrian shouted to Okoro.

  “Negative, doctor,” she replied. “Getting you safely to the Remembrance is priority. Lance and Blaze are probably dead.”

  “…have established contact with Captain Hunt,” the tex shouted over the roar of the wind. He’d been wounded by one of the hybrids, but survived.

  “Request evac for Commanders Lance and Blaze,” Adrian told him. “I’m sending their last known coordinates.” He turned to Okoro again and added, “If anyone can survive that icy hell, it’s Lance and Blaze.”

  *****

  Riley and Jason rocketed above a plateau toward the mountain peak. They were losing altitude, and the glacier was gaining ground on them.

  “For the last time, Riley, let go of me!” Jason yelled.

  Her thrust pack was running out of fuel, and the peak was still half a klick away. She knew their chances of making it together were slim. Yet she held him tight.

  “You’re as stubborn as Hunt,” he snapped.

  “I am,” she replied. “And also as resourceful.”

  The thrusters died out, and they glided straight toward the mountain’s face. That vertical wall of rock wore a mass of snow like a hat. She fired a grappling hook into the wall’s upper edge.

  “You’re crazy!” Jason shouted, though there was more excitement than reproach in his tone.

  “A compliment,” Riley said. “Coming from you.”

  The grappling hook stuck firmly to the rock thanks to its molecular adhesive layer. The rope connecting it to Riley’s arm was made of extremely strong nanofibers that could stretch for hundreds of meters. Now they were contracting, bringing Riley and Jason closer to the top.

  Jason unstrapped his damaged thrust pack and let it fall into the void to reduce their weight. “We’re still to
o heavy. We’ll smash against the wall!”

  “Watch and learn,” Riley replied. “It’s all in the wrist.”

  Her implants calculated the optimal trajectory, and she pulled on the rope to make it contract faster. Now they were gaining altitude.

  “Dammit, Riley, it’s working!”

  “Shut up and brace for impact.”

  They flew above the rocks and slammed into the fresh snow brought by the storm.

  Riley felt as if she’d been run over by a truck. Even her military-grade implants struggled to keep her alive after everything she’d been through on that planet.

  It was good to feel solid ground under her feet. She stood up and dragged Jason out of the snow pile. The adrenaline junkie was laughing. Her first impulse was to kick him, but she smiled instead. His laugh was so contagious.

  “Oh, what a fraggin’ job,” he said between two gulps of air. “But I wouldn’t change it for anything in the universe.”

  “You’re done?” she asked him less sternly than she intended. “We’re not out the asteroids yet.”

  His face suddenly grew serious. “The gunship. It didn’t crash, so where did it go?”

  “I shot it several times and damaged it. I saw smoke coming from its thruster.”

  “But it didn’t crash, and it still has its flagellar rotors, right?”

  As in response to those words, the dark silhouette of the Biozi craft appeared against the brightening sky, evoking a giant wingless insect. The flagellar rotors that kept it in the air were so thin they were invisible to the naked eye.

  Riley and Jason ducked behind a rock outcrop as bright lines lit the mountain. Plasma bolts cracked against the ice around them. Riley fired her Wells-12 in maximum penetration mode and hit one of the blasters.

  An explosion shook the mountain, then another. The gunship was firing anti-personnel missiles.

  “Commander Lance to Remembrance, request orbital strike on our position.”

  “Whatta you doing?” an alarmed Jason asked. “It’s suicide! Request Rapiers instead!”

  “They won’t get here in time,” Riley replied. “That bird must be shot down now.”