Atlas

by Isaac Hooke

  I was the best sprinter in the platoon, and I started to pull away from Alejandro and Tahoe.

  "We're not going to make it," Alejandro said over the comm.

  I immediately checked my speed. I wasn't going to leave them behind. "We are going to make it."

  But he was right. That mist was just moving too fast. Maybe if we still had our Implants, and our jetpacks, and could tap into the full speed of our suits. But not now.

  "I never told you how I fixed my rebreather during Moonwalking Qualifications, when I had my hands bound, did I?" Alejandro said.

  I glanced over my shoulder. "Alejandro. I need you to focus!"

  "I did it by dislocating my shoulder," Alejandro continued. "And breaking one of my arms. When I passed the qualification, the instructors sent me straight to the Weavers. Some Houdini I was."

  "Alejandro..." The MDV was only about a hundred meters away now.

  "I guess there's not going to be any Weavers this time around, though, is there?"

  "What are you doing!" Tahoe said.

  I glanced over my shoulder.

  Alejandro had decided to stop.

  To stop.

  I halted, turning back. "We can make it, Alejandro!"

  "Time for Houdini's last trick." Alejandro smiled wanly, then he ran diagonally away, drawing the purple mist from me and Tahoe.

  The Phant easily overtook him.

  Alejandro's last words were filled with static. "Told you I'd pay you back."

  And then he was gone.

  Alejandro.

  The man who had raised me like a brother.

  The man who had joined the MOTHs, and come to war, for me.

  Had just died.

  For me.

  Incinerated.

  Burned to a crisp.

  8,000 lightyears from home.

  Tahoe sprinted to my side, wrapping his hand around my upper arm. "Rade! Let's go!"

  The Phant accelerated towards us.

  I blinked away the tears and forced myself on.

  I was crying openly, hardly seeing anything in front of me. A stream of gatling bullets shot past me from the MDV. Maybe directed at the Phant. Maybe trying to slow it down.

  I don't know.

  I ran.

  My body was functioning on autopilot, but my mind was done.

  Alejandro Alejandro Alejandro.

  I joined the MOTHs because I wanted to see if I had what it took.

  But I didn't. No.

  Alejandro had what it took. Not me.

  Never me.

  Giant, multi-headed crabs tried to intercept us from the side.

  I made no move to dodge them.

  I just ran on.

  I had no fight left in me.

  I was vaguely aware as the gatling mowed them down.

  "Rage! Cyclone!" Lieutenant Commander Braggs sent over the comm line. "That purple bastard is right behind you! Hurry it on up! Don't let his death be for nothing!"

  That snapped me out of it.

  I was definitely not going to let his death be for nothing.

  Never.

  I wrapped my arm tightly around Tahoe's, and poured everything I had into my legs, sprinting for all I was worth.

  I ran harder than I ever had.

  Harder even than training.

  I was going to put out. More than put out.

  That's for damn sure.

  I wasn't a quitter.

  Alejandro had died saving me.

  I would never forget that.

  But I couldn't mourn now.

  My platoon was waiting for me.

  I wouldn't see anyone else get hurt for me.

  We neared the MDV.

  Skullcracker had remained outside with the Lieutenant Commander, and they both used M60s from the MDV's stores to pick off the smaller crabs that had sneaked past the gatling fire. Skullcracker and Braggs retreated onto the craft mere seconds before Tahoe and I got there, and the MDV started lifting off.

  Tahoe and I leaped onto the ascending ramp, and hurried in as it closed behind us.

  I didn't look back. Didn't know how close the purple Phant had come to reaching us.

  Didn't want to know.

  In a daze, I went to my designated drop spot, and Tahoe went to his. The clamps automatically folded around my shoulders and waist. The fit was a bit loose, because I didn't have the jetpack strapped on anymore.

  Across from me were the empty spots where Alejandro and Big Dog would have clamped-in. The emptiness was like two gaping holes in my heart.

  Two of my brothers, the best of us, were gone.

  Everyone had their heads bowed around me. I saw the shoulders of Chief Bourbonjack bobbing up and down, and I knew he was bawling. Tahoe couldn't meet my eye. He was just clenching and unclenching his fists.

  This was the worst feeling I'd ever had in my life.

  The worst.

  Alejandro had found me on the streets, raised me, taught me how to defend myself, taught me what honor, courage and commitment meant long before the Navy ever had. He had taught me compassion. Humility.

  And now he was gone.

  I just wanted to kill all those Phants. Screw honor, courage and commitment. Screw compassion and humility.

  I wanted to nuke the planet from orbit.

  I wanted to make the system's sun go nova.

  I wanted to wipe this whole quadrant from the map.

  It was only when I felt the sudden turbulence that I got out of the malevolence that was brewing in my head.

  The MDV tossed back and forth, bouncing and jostling everyone. I was repeatedly slammed against the restraining clamps. I liked it. Suited my raging mood.

  "Mordecai, what's going on up front?" Chief Bourbonjack bellowed.

  "Just the usual bit of turbulence in the polar mesosphere, sir," Mordecai said. "Nothing I can't handle."

  "Then handle it!"

  "How are the comms?" Manic asked Snakeoil.

  Snakeoil looked up. His eyes were red. "Still static. The InterPlaNet, it's completely down."

  "We gotta get through to the ship sometime, don't we?" Manic said.

  "You're assuming it's still there."

  "It's still there," I said angrily. "I refuse to believe that Alejandro sacrificed himself just so that we'd die in the end, stranded here."

  Besides, Shaw was on the ship.

  Shaw.

  I couldn't lose her too.

  It would kill me.

  The MDV cleared the atmosphere. Looking through the portal across from me, it was a relief to see the triangular shape of the Royal Fortune. The juryrigged privateer seemed undamaged as far as I could tell, its navigation lights flashing in calm counterpoint to the turmoil I felt inside.

  I heard Snakeoil gasp beside me. Had he received some message from the ship?

  I noticed he was looking in the opposite direction, toward the rear portal of the MDV.

  "What in the hell..." Manic said.

  I followed both their gazes.

  Remember that monolithic shape I'd seen emerging from the roiling clouds on the surface? The one I thought might be some kind of ship?

  Well, now that I was in space, and above those clouds, I realized that what I had seen planet-side was just the tip of the iceberg. A very, very big iceberg. Calling that starship out there "big" was a vast understatement—the vessel was about an eighth the size of the planet itself.

  No ship was that big.

  It was impossible.

  The behemoth of a starship was vaguely cranial-shaped, with three hollow areas on the front giving the disturbing impression of a black, elongated skull. Not human. Maybe bull, or cow. There was a slight purple glow in the two upper hollows of the massive cranium where the eyes would have been. There wasn't a mouth or teeth or anything like that, but rather some kind of pyramidal protuberance.

  The part of the ship I had seen while planet-side would have been the chin of that skull. Black clouds still roiled about that chin, near the surface, maybe bec
ause of the ship's sudden entry into the atmosphere. Or maybe the clouds were particles thrown up from some kind of impact with the planet's crust.

  The ship's surface seemed to be covered in markings of some kind, but when I zoomed in to the maximum extent of the lens in my facemask I realized I was wrong. There were no markings: the ship was comprised of metallic lattices overlaid one atop the other, ten thousand layers deep, giving the impression of a solid surface when viewed from afar. The best part? Inside that three-dimensional lattice were entire areas of glowing blue or purple.

  Phants.

  "At least we know why the SKs got the hell out in such a hurry," Trace said. "Someone else already owns this gas station."

  "I've reached the Fortune!" Snakeoil announced. He shared his connection on the platoon line. "Black Cadillac this is Golden Arrow. Request permission to dock immediately."

  "Permission granted, Golden Arrow," a female voice calmly intoned. Wasn't Shaw. "Be advised that we are initiating deorbital pre-burn. ETA to escape velocity approximately thirty seconds. It's going to be a hot dock. Good luck."

  A 'hot dock' was one of the trickiest maneuvers for a pilot to pull off. He had to land the craft in a relatively small hole on a relatively small target whose speed and direction changed constantly. It was like trying to toss a coin into the back-end of a tiny origami boat that was racing downstream through rapids. The computers on both crafts swapped telemetry data and were supposed to calculate the best possible course, but I doubted Mordecai would be relying on the autopilot for this one. He wasn't that kind of pilot.

  We hit fast and hard: I heard the screech of metal-on-metal as the MDV scraped the overhead of the hangar bay. The black void of space was replaced by metallic bulkheads, and I felt the Gs as Mordecai activated multiple thrusters, trying to get us into the Royal Fortune's inertial frame of reference.

  The MDV smashed into the deck. We were bumped and jostled in our clamps.

  The grappling hooks activated and attempted to dig into the deck.

  The rightmost one took.

  The leftmost didn't.

  I was thrown to the left and heard more obscene screeching as the MDV swung like a pendulum and smashed into the bulkhead on the far side of the hangar.

  The vessel finally came to a halt.

  "Christ," TJ said. "Nice driving, Mordecai. Next time I feel like practicing a helo dunk I know who to look up."

  No one bothered to wait for the bay to repressurize. We hurried outside into the artificial gravity and decamped in the airlock. When the bioscans declared us free of contaminants, we entered the ship.

  Outside the hatch we took off our helmets and met with a security detail. The officer-in-charge led the Lieutenant Commander and the Chief away—presumably to the bridge—while the rest of us were escorted to the berthing area. Bulkhead seals had to be opened and closed to let us pass, because the ship was operating under high alert. The security man told us we were lucky the Captain hadn't just left us in the airlock.

  At the berthing quarters, I went to the desk and put on the aReal glasses, since my Implant was still out. I logged into my account and pinged Shaw. I wasn't blocked anymore. Good.

  Rade! she sent in subvocal mode. I was so worried. I'm sorry about before. Listen, we can talk later, I'm—

  I cut her off. "Just give me a feed to the bridge. Cochlear and retinal."

  And so she did. I piped it onto the viewscreen on the far wall for my platoon mates. They all deserved to know what Alejandro and Big Dog had died for.

  "You're just in time," Captain Drake said.

  Shaw glanced back: Lieutenant Commander Braggs and Chief Bourbonjack had entered.

  "Sit-rep?" Lieutenant Commander Braggs said. Situation Report. I was surprised he was being so calm about it. Myself, I would have used a slightly different turn of phrase involving the F-word.

  "A moment, Commander," the Captain said.

  Shaw glanced at the main viewscreen and at the cranial-shaped black ship that ate up the stars. Her eyes dropped to the complex network of astrogation controls as she did her job babysitting the navigational AI.

  "That's right," the Captain said. "Nice and easy, astrogator."

  "Nice and easy, sir," Shaw said.

  The planet, and the cranial ship, slowly receded as the Royal Fortune backed away.

  "Just where in the hell did that thing come from?" Lieutenant Commander Braggs said. Not as calm as he let on, then.

  "My words exactly," Captain Drake said. "It just materialized out of nowhere, about forty minutes after you entered the mineshaft. One moment there was nothing but empty space in front of us, and the next thing we know this Skull Ship appears right on top of the planet. Nearly choked on my coffee when I saw it."

  "They came in on a Slipstream?" the Lieutenant Commander said. I was certain he had been bawling beside me in the MDV along with the Chief, but you wouldn't know it now from his confident manner or the authority in his voice. That was why he was the Lieutenant Commander, I guess, and I was not. I was barely keeping it together as it was.

  "We haven't detected the signature of a Slipstream, no," Captain Drake said. "Of course, we haven't picked up much of anything. Our Skull friend is sending out massive amounts of electromagnetic interference. The working theory is that these guys possess stealth capabilities far in advance of anything we've ever seen. They're not SK, that's for sure."

  "Then what are they?"

  "You tell me, Commander. You were down there. What did you see?"

  "What did I see?" Braggs was quiet a moment. "Hell, Captain. I saw hell."

  The planet and the cranial starship above it continued to recede.

  "I look forward to your debriefing," the Captain said. "Bring us about, astrogator. Plot a course for the Gate. Emergency speed."

  "Aye aye, sir." Shaw made the requested changes to the ship's course and acceleration.

  "They've made no aggressive maneuvers?" Lieutenant Commander Braggs said.

  "That's the thing." From the sound of it Captain Drake was nervously thrumming the handrest of his chair. "All this time, the ship has just been sitting there, driving its keel into the planet's crust like we don't even exist. Hasn't paid us the slightest bit of attention."

  "They were damn well paying attention to us down there I can tell you that," Lieutenant Commander Braggs said. "Any answer to comm attempts?"

  "No." Captain Drake sounded weary. "Either they can't acknowledge our communications or they won't."

  The planet and the ship were gone from the forward viewscreen now, leaving only stars.

  Shaw spoke. "Speed one-third and rising, Captain. G Dampeners are still at 100%."

  "Good," the Captain said.

  "The enemy ship is making no attempt to pursue," someone behind Shaw said. "And I'm still not reading any weapons signatures."

  "That doesn't mean a thing," Captain Drake said. "Who's to say their weapons aren't equipped with the same stealth tech as their ship? We could have ten enemy torpedoes on our six at this moment and we wouldn't even know it. No, ladies and gentlemen, I won't believe we're out of the woods, not yet. Not until we've passed through the Gate and blown it to hell behind us. So get yourselves buckled in, because when we cut to standard speed in a few hours, we still have forty days to the Gate, with that Skull ship watching us the entire way. Anything can happen in those forty days. And I mean anything."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I spent a day in the Convalescence Ward, recovering from shrapnel wounds and radiation exposure alongside my platoon mates. Doctor Banye installed subdermal implants in all of us, which would drip-feed the necessary substances to treat the radiation poisoning in our bodies over the next few weeks—a treatment commonly known as "the juice."

  While we were in the ward, Navy techs took a look at our Implants. Nothing seemed to be wrong with the devices, and since the survivors of Bravo Platoon had experienced the same issues on their drop, the techs were at a loss to explain the malfunction. Snakeoil s
uspected the Slipstream communication device we found in the tunnel had something to do with it. Personally, I thought the Phants were to blame. After all, the Implants had backdoors that allowed the military to send audio and video directly into our brains during briefings and other important events, so it seemed plausible, to me anyway, that the Phants had found a way to exploit that.

  Whatever the cause, the techs explained that the garbage effect was amplified because of the wireless adhoc network shared between Implants. Each device sent out garbage updates representing the location of enemy targets, and accepted these updates from other Implants. This garbage data propagated in a sort of feedback loop, causing upwards of one billion updates per second, inflicting massive bandwidth bottlenecks platoon-wide. The garbage updates were also sent to the secondary Heads-Up-Display systems in the helmets, which tried to interpret that data to display the outlines and dots of a billion enemies that didn't exist. The HUD processors couldn't handle such a massive influx of data, resulting in the overheating of a key component and the termination of our secondary HUDs. As usual, this was a problem slated to be fixed in a future generation of helmet.

  As for our Implants, nothing had overheated there (if it had, we would be dead), and all it took was a simple reboot and our brain devices were good as new.

  I mentioned the survivors of Bravo Platoon. Yes, there were two of them. They had returned while we were planet-side, and recovered in the ward with us. Their callsigns were Kasper and Pyro.

  Those two had quite the story to tell. Wasn't a good one.

  Bravo Platoon had gone down the shaft, and taken the far right passageway at the five-way fork. They ended up in a cavern filled with hundreds of blue Phants that were just floating there, apparently hibernating. Their Chief sent the Centurions through first, and when the robots made it across without issue, he ordered the rest of the platoon forward in traveling overwatch formation. Squad one reached the far side of the room and then squad two began to cross.

  At that point, the roomful of Phants woke up.

  It was a massacre.

  Most of Bravo platoon died in the first ten seconds.

  Kasper and Pyro, part of squad two, survived only because they were closest to the exit.