“What if no one does?”
Andy sighed. “If it makes you feel any better, Darkstream provides flares we can fire off. See if that helps.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” Tessa said. “We’re kind of screwed, girl.”
The training regimen had come to a halt after their beetle was stolen, since as Tessa had remarked, Lisa would need her energy for walking across Alex’s craggy surface.
Still, she could sense that she was nowhere near the level of military prowess that would satisfy Tessa.
And I probably never will be. She didn’t even know whether she was cut out to fight in another engagement. The first one had left her depressed and feeling hollow, in a way that their present misfortune didn’t totally account for.
A whining sound began, loudly at first, but steadily growing softer.
Two minutes later, the beetle rumbled to a halt.
The trio exchanged wordless glances, then they set about gathering together the consumables they’d need to survive in the Alexandrian wilderness for as long as possible.
They left the beetle sitting alone in the blue dust, to become a relic in the middle of Alex’s barren nowhere.
Chapter 30
Oneiri
Jake made the MIMAS pilots, and not only that, he would be among the first eight to ever pilot mechs in human history. Not counting Chief Zimmerman, that was, whose death had been declassified and painted as a tragic act of heroism in service to the advancement of humanity.
For their failure to back up Omega and Alpha squads when they needed them most, Kincaid and his entire squad washed out of the program.
In fact, they were unlikely to ever see combat, though they would have other jobs with the company if they wanted—such as maintenance and repair, supply runs, collecting payment from those Darkstream leased equipment to, or whatever.
Kincaid had complained, loudly, but Jake had no time for it, and neither did Roach or anyone else in Darkstream.
It’s more than fair. If Kincaid had done what Jake had told him to, Jake might not have had to sacrifice himself in order to save Marco. It wasn’t a big deal in the sim, but they’d thought it was real, meaning Kincaid would likely be just as unreliable in real life.
They couldn’t have that. The MIMAS pilots couldn’t have it. And the people of Eresos deserved better.
After graduation from Roach’s program came several weeks of nonstop test runs with the mechs, during which Jake and the others learned the ins and outs of the mechs’ controls along with exactly what they could do.
The extent of the MIMAS mechs’ capabilities astounded even Jake, who’d assumed he’d seen it all during his years of running mech sims in lucid, where features were limited only by the game designers’ imagination.
But he’d been wrong. From the impressive arsenal of the mechs—boasting twin rotary autocannons, a heavy machine gun, rocket launchers, twin flamethrowers with nozzles projecting from the wrists, grenade launchers, and thermal lances—to the ability to use its boosters to launch from a planet’s surface and straight into low orbit, Jake was blown away by everything the mechs could do. He’d expected early models to be sort of underwhelming, but the fact that Darkstream had been working on developing them pretty much since arriving in Steele really shone through.
Flamethrowers had reentered the company’s arsenal only recently. Back in the Milky Way, they had long been banned by widely agreed upon galactic conventions, but of course, Darkstream was no longer subject to those conventions, and the flamethrower was considered an effective tool against Quatro.
Part of Jake railed against the notion of using a weapon that most of his species considered inhumane. Somehow, however, that voice has been turned down to a soft murmur. He suspected that probably had something to do with the constant anti-Quatro messaging they’d been subjected to, and although he was aware of that, it rendered the messaging no less effective.
Ash Sweeney also made the first eight mech pilots, along with Marco Gonzalez, Beth Arkanian, Tommy Tomlinson, Henrietta Jin, Richaud Lafontaine, and Gabriel Roach himself.
“We need a team name,” Roach had said, the day after graduation. “I don’t have a creative bone in my body, but if you want to brainstorm it among yourselves and come up with a half-decent one, please do, before Darkstream labels us with something extra cheesy.”
He’d stood up, then, and there’d been some more uncomfortable shifting and throat-clearing from the newly graduated mech pilots.
Looking around at them, Roach said, “You aren’t my trainees anymore. I know I put you through absolute hell these last few months, and there’s certain things you may never forgive me for. That’s fine. In fact, I think it’s as it should be. But you all met my standards. All seven of you. You all passed muster, in my eyes. I plan to maintain total authority, of course, but I never want you to forget that you belong on this team. Go into battle with pride, armed with that knowledge, and with everything you’ve learned. You earned this. You made it.”
Battle, it seemed, was coming to them. They learned about the Quatro besieging Ingress a week before they were finished getting trained in on the MIMAS mechs. The aliens were attacking any speeder that attempted to approach the city, and no speeder dared to leave. Since Ingress had Eresos’ only space elevator, and since the planet was the breadbasket of the Steele System, this was a big deal.
A week was also around how long it would take Darkstream to muster the force it deemed necessary to break the siege. So the mech pilots would finish with preparations just in time.
Jake was ready. While he remained skeptical about the way they’d been indoctrinated into hating the Quatro, the aliens were proving that indoctrination right more and more. They weren’t content to live peacefully among themselves, or to leave humanity at peace. Even though there were plenty of resources to go around, the Quatro apparently resented the humans’ presence too much. So they’d struck.
Another shock came when the mech team was shown classified footage of the Quatro using guns to fire on Ingress’ defenders, as well as on civilian speeders. Before, there’d only been jumbled rumors to that effect, but actually watching it happen, watching how the Quatro seemed to operate the guns without even touching them…it was unsettling, to say the least.
The day before they deployed, during one of a long string of tactical meetings, Ash suggested a team name.
“How about Oneiri?” she said. “Since we’re going with the whole Greek mythology thing, with MIMAS…the Oneiri were gods that ruled over dreams and nightmares. It’s especially fitting, considering the way we interface with—”
“It does fit,” Gabe said. “And no one’s come up with anything better. I’m good with it. Any objections?”
No one objected, so Oneiri Team it was.
And the following day, Oneiri would find out what it was really made of.
Chapter 31
Taken
With their limited oxygen, Andy only inflated the central area of their habitat, and all three of them spent the night in there, attempting to sleep on the cramped, air-filled seats.
Before they’d entered, he’d sent one of their ten flares into the sky. They’d all watched as the red beacon rose up, sparkling beautifully against Alex’s darkening sky. Then it extinguished, and Lisa sighed.
They got up before dawn the next day—they tried to spend as little time inside the habitat as possible, to maximize their walking time.
It was laughable to think they could get anywhere near the space station. Laughable to think anyone would notice them, little specks that they were amidst the vast alien wilderness.
Andy sent up another flare as they got underway, and this time, no one bothered to watch it.
Eighteen years didn’t seem long enough to get to spend in the universe. Sure, she knew some babies died during birth—pretty rare, these days, but it did happen.
Still, she felt like she’d gotten just a small taste of life, and now it was about to be sna
tched away, in what would probably be one of the most excruciating ways possible. Starvation or suffocation.
Take your pick.
The sun still hadn’t risen, and Alex was freezing. Her HUD told her the air around her was very, very cold: thirty degrees Celsius below zero. They’d set their suits to the minimum requirements for survival, and Lisa’s breath came out as fog.
“See that?” Andy said.
“What?”
“Something moved, on that ridge over there, to our left.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Lisa saw Tessa unlimbering her pistols from their holsters. She followed the example, unslinging her assault rifle and holding it at the ready.
“Look to our right,” the older woman said. “About two o’clock. Don’t be obvious about it.”
Lisa did. A dark shape stood against the sky, atop a second ridge. At first, she’d assumed their assailants from Habitat 2 had returned to finish the job, but that thought evaporated as quickly as it had taken shape.
This thing, it…it looked like a monster.
A powerful force seized her from behind, separating her gun from her hands at the same time. Amazed, she watched the SL-17 hover in midair, attached to nothing.
Then, whatever gripped her slowly turned her around, and she saw that nothing actually held her, either. An invisible force manipulated her, just as it did her rifle.
There was something standing behind her, however, and it was very visible. It was a quadruped, and it wore a sleek, form-fitting blue pressure suit.
Through its faceplate, its species was undeniable, though it made about as much sense as the force that held her.
This was a Quatro.
Quatro weren’t supposed to be on Alex.
With that thought, everything went dark.
Chapter 32
Subterranean Ship
When Lisa woke, she was still being transported by the bizarre, unseen force, the toes of her boots scraping along the rocky ground.
Dim light came from a single incandescent strip that ran along the ceiling of what seemed to be a rocky underground tunnel.
The bluish hue of the poorly illuminated tunnel walls told her she was still on Alex, which didn’t surprise her. Then again, after getting hoisted along by an unseen power, she wasn’t sure she’d have been surprised by discovering she’d left the planet, either.
An oppressive sense of helplessness set in, and she began to breathe rapidly, black spots swimming in front of her eyes.
You’re okay, she told herself. You’re not hurt. You’re okay. But she couldn’t unclench her jaw.
Ahead, the backside of a pressure suit-clad Quatro filled most of her vision, but when the tunnel curved, Lisa glimpsed Tessa ahead of it, suspended in the air in a similar manner, her boots dragging on the tunnel floor.
Those boots moved, attempting to scrabble for purchase, but with the futility of a titmouse attempting to defend itself against a lion.
“Tessa,” Lisa subvocalized.
“That’s ma’am, to you,” Tessa said.
When an implant user subvocalized, his or her voice was rendered in a neutral tone, though it usually came pretty close to how the speaker actually sounded. Even despite the supposed neutrality, Lisa knew that Tessa had meant her words to come across as clipped.
“Ma’am. Have they hurt you?”
“No. You?”
“I’m fine. Where’s Andy?”
“He’s being carried by the beast ahead of me.”
A sigh escaped Lisa’s lips, which she realized the subvocalization probably would have transmitted.
“That’s good,” she said, glad her tone would come across as somewhat disinterested to Tessa. “Have you ever heard of Quatro being on Alex before?”
“No. Never. It’s as bizarre to me as the way they’re managing to heave us along this tunnel like helpless babes. These aren’t just any Quatro, apparently. They’re mystical, magical Quatro.”
“Somehow, I doubt that’s an improvement.”
“Me too. Though, we’ll probably end up just as dead.”
A comforting thought. “Did you pass out, too?”
“No. I gather you did, since you weren’t answering me, earlier. Must have been from shock. If it was something they did to you, they’d have done it to me, too.”
Their situation was doubly bizarre. As Lisa remembered an ancient author once writing, any sufficiently advanced technology was almost always indistinguishable from magic.
Of course, that was providing this unseen force was due to a technological advancement the Quatro had made, and not…something else.
What seemed even more mystical—and certainly not the exciting, fun ‘mystical’ of old fantasy novels—was how the hell the Quatro were here in the first place.
“The Quatro are supposed to be primitive. Aren’t they?”
“That’s what we’ve always assumed,” Tessa said. “The ones on Eresos have never shown any sign of using even basic technology. The first Darkstream combatants that encountered them classified them as just highly advanced predators, with cognition on the level of dolphins. And look how the dolphin ended up.”
Lisa vaguely remembered that losing the dolphins had been looked on as a great tragedy, and that it had also heralded the ultimate destruction of Earth.
Most people who’d come to Steele with Darkstream considered that sacrifice more or less worth it. Earth had been the price paid for humanity’s mighty corporations to expand into the stars.
She took the fact that she was thinking about dolphins right now to mean she would do anything to distract herself from how terrifying it felt, to be this helpless.
The tunnel ended in what turned out to be an airlock installed right into the rock. It opened, and the Quatro brought them inside. Once the airlock finished oxygenating, it admitted them into what looked a lot like the interior of a spaceship.
Not any human spaceship, though. It was huge, for one—huge enough to accommodate the Quatro, who were larger than the largest horses of Old Earth. And whereas most ships built by the UHF and Darkstream had an austere, gunmetal aesthetic, vibrant colors filled this one. Yellow, red, green, blue, purple—the royal purple of Quatro—they all swirled together, or fit together in elaborate geometric patterns.
Even the floor provided a canvas for the art, and Lisa was calmed slightly by the fact that these Quatro, whatever their true nature, were capable of producing such beauty.
She soon came to suspect, however, that the art was not meant to impress them, or indeed meant for them at all.
The ship seemed fairly old, actually, and in a general state of disrepair, with intermittent flaky patches amidst the artwork, as well as worrying cracks in the bulkhead.
A hatch slid open at the Quatro’s approach, squealing with age, and Lisa and her companions were deposited inside a chamber that was huge by human standards.
The same invisible force held them in place until the Quatro withdrew and the hatch closed, leaving no discernible avenue of escape. Only then did the force release them.
Their HUDs told them the air was breathable, and so the trio removed their helmets and took in their surroundings while they attempted to shake the blue dust of Alex out of every pocket, fold, and crevice of their pressure suits and persons.
“The furniture looks like it would be comfortable, if we were Quatro,” Andy said.
It was true. Couch-like pieces lined the wall, except they curved into peaks and troughs, like waves—but waves designed to accommodate a quadruped at rest.
The trio performed a frenetic search of the room, but escape appeared totally out of the question. There was a grated vent near the ceiling, but Lisa had to get on Andy’s shoulders to reach it, and it was firmly sealed. The hatch remained as impenetrable as before, and an ear pressed to its cold surface yielded no sound.
At the rear of the chamber, an enormous, hanging chair lined with a fine mesh turned out to be surprisingly accommodating, and Lisa climbed up into it,
letting her back rest against the net of small, flexible wires.
She glanced at Tessa, suddenly wary that the white-haired woman was about to make her get up again, to begin a prolonged round of strenuous PT.
But even Tessa seemed dejected—too dejected to read, apparently, since she didn’t seem to be doing anything with her implant, even though she’d taken advantage of every other spare moment since leaving Habitat 2 to read one of the thousands of books she had loaded onto the device.
Eventually, Lisa’s eyes drifted closed. She floated away from her bizarre circumstances for a time, and nightmares soon took their place.
Chapter 33
Drop
The space elevator only made one run a day—down during the night, up during the day—and so it was built big; a wide, circular disk with dark-orange walls that bulged outward and a gunmetal ceiling that hung well over the mechs’ heads.
The elevator climbed up a carbon nanotubes composite ribbon by way of a robotic lifter at its center. The ribbon looked way too thin to Jake, but nevertheless it had done the job of transporting the elevator up and down for the decade and a half since Darkstream had built it, along with the free-electron laser system located inside the depot at the elevator’s bottom.
The ribbon was anchored by the depot in Ingress’ center, and Valhalla Station, in its geosynchronous orbit, provided the elevator’s counterweight.
Normally, the elevator went both ways packed full of cargo, stopping for a set period on either end, which was based on Darkstream’s calculation of how long loading and offloading should take.
Tonight, its only cargo was one of Darkstream’s reserve battalions. This one called itself the Force Multipliers, though Jake wasn’t sure who had come up with that somewhat hokey name. It fit, he supposed—despite being a reserve force, they did have access to some of Darkstream’s best training, hardware, and personnel. They were under the command of Commander Benjamin Clifford.
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