Argonauts 1: Bug Hunt

by Isaac Hooke

  She dialed up the strength setting to full, then grabbed two grenades from the rack and attached them to her harness. She drew the blaster from her belt, planted herself against the far bulkhead, and aimed at the sealed doorway.

  She checked the overhead map. The red dots representing the two intruders were passing this way. She waited, unsure if they would make a stop at the armory or simply continue on toward the bridge.

  “Bax, lock away the gear,” she said.

  A steel barrier rose from the floor, sealing away the storage closets.

  “What if you need more?” Bax asked.

  “Just hope I don’t.”

  She saw the molten outline of a rectangle taking shape on the entry hatch. So the Artificial had decided to make a stop at the armory after all.

  She kept the blaster aimed at the door. Her hands had begun to shake slightly. She was still breathing hard from the effort of racing down to the armory and frantically pulling on the exoskeleton.

  Come on. Come on.

  The door fell in. The robot was in full view.

  She squeezed the trigger and the robot collapsed. She had put it out of commission.

  She waited for the robed Artificial to appear. Her hands continued to shake. Her breathing came in quick gasps.

  She glanced at the overhead map. The red dot of the Artificial remained just outside.

  Growing impatient, she ripped one of the grenades from her harness and tossed it out the door. The explosion wouldn’t breach the hull, but it should cause enough damage to disable the Artificial.

  The grenade detonated. She held a hand over her face, worried about shrapnel. None came her way.

  She kept her blaster pointed at the doorway for long moments. Still, no one emerged. She looked at her map. The Artificial was still outside, apparently. Same position.

  She grabbed her last grenade and threw it harder, bouncing it off the far bulkhead.

  The explosion came.

  Before the smoke cleared, she spotted a blur of motion and squeezed the trigger.

  The fallen robot came hurtling toward her. The Artificial must have picked it up and thrown it.

  She dove to the side.

  Then the robed Artificial was on her.

  Before she knew what was happening, the blaster was ripped from her grasp.

  Synthetic fingers grabbed her wrists and with incredible strength threw her across the compartment.

  She smashed into the bulkhead near the entrance and plunged to the deck. Her wrists hurt incredibly. The exoskeleton frame had collapsed there, and the metal was digging into her skin.

  She clambered to her feet.

  From the far side of the compartment, the robed Artificial was pointing the blaster at her.

  Shaw raised her hands in surrender.

  Then the Artificial smiled widely, lowered the weapon, and it tossed the blaster to the deck behind it. Then it raised its hands, assuming a sparring stance.

  Shaw summoned all her reserves, and then she attacked.

  The Artificial lunged for her.

  Shaw side-stepped, partially activating the supermagnets in her boots to momentarily run on the bulkhead as she had practiced with Rade so often in the past, and then rammed her feet down on the attacker, connecting with the back of its head.

  The Artificial momentarily gave way before the impact, then spun around as she landed and issued three quick blows.

  Shaw blocked them in turn, and issued three of her own. “Hut hut hut!”

  She used her supermagnets to rotate her body sideways and issue a solid kick to its ribcage.

  The Artificial caught her foot and slammed her to the deck.

  The impact knocked the wind out of her, but she managed to kick with her other foot and sent the Artificial toppling backward.

  She got up and threw herself on her foe, mounting it. She issued several rapid blows to the head and neck area.

  The Artificial flung her off and rose to its feet. It came in fast, fists swinging and feet kicking.

  All that training Shaw endured in the navy, the hand-to-hand combat rating school, the endless sparring sessions with Rade and the other ex-MOTHs, she called upon all of that now as she fought for her very life. Because she knew if she lost, not only would she die, but likely Rade and everyone else left behind on that planet would, too.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  A hard blow connected with her face and everything momentarily became black. She thought she was dead.

  But then she awoke a few seconds later. Her head throbbed. Her body ached everywhere.

  The Artificial was roughly dragging her through the tight corridors, carrying a laser rifle in its free hand. She was too utterly spent to resist.

  The robed Artificial reached a hatch and tossed her legs to the side, and then concentrated on using the rifle to cut through the door. Shaw tried to rise on one elbow but felt extremely dizzy. She noticed a pool of blood underneath her where her face had lain on the ground. She touched her features, searching for the source, and felt a sharp pain when she touched her cheek. The bone was shattered, she thought. The notion saddened her. Rade had always said she had the cutest cheeks. The cutest dimples.

  The breached door fell inward and the Artificial dragged her inside. She realized she was in sickbay.

  The Artificial lifted her onto one of the tables and began to rip her exoskeleton away. Sometimes the metal fragments of the broken exoskeleton tore into her flesh, and she flinched at the pain. Finally, when the suit was completely removed, the Artificial secured her to the table using the provided straps.

  It wheeled one of the Weavers to her. The surgical robot pressed a needle into her arm and mercifully she lost consciousness.

  twenty

  Still standing in front of the pedway shed, Rade glanced at Ms. Bounty, then to the robots carrying the empty glass container. He remembered what Ms. Bounty had told him earlier: “Our target escaped...”

  “Why have our ships left orbit?” Rade said, fighting back a growing anger.

  “It has to be the work of my target,” Ms. Bounty said.

  “Zoltan?” Rade asked.

  “That is what the colonists call the Artificial, yes,” Ms. Bounty replied. “He’s not on the planet anymore.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We are linked in a way, him and I,” Ms. Bounty said. “When in the same city, I can sense his presence, and get an idea of his general location. I’m not receiving anything at all at the moment. He had to have gone into orbit. It’s possible he may have ventured into the desert beyond, but I highly doubt that.”

  “Would this Artificial have the means to take over a ship such as the Argonaut?” Rade said, a sinking feeling gripping his stomach.

  “Absolutely,” Ms. Bounty said.

  Rade pressed his lips together. Hard. “All right, Argonauts. Listen up. We need to make our way back to the starting terminal at the best possible speed. Shaw is in danger. Traveling overwatch. Three fire teams. Now fucking move!”

  Tahoe divvied up the men, placing the HS3s and robots in the lead, and dispersing the Amytis team members among Rade’s men. The teams hugged the buildings as they advanced.

  Rade kept an eye on the sky, leery of the Perdix drones. If that swarm came at them, in their current condition the team members wouldn’t put up much of a fight. In fact, without the laser shields of the Hoplites, his team would probably fall to the very first wave. It was a good thing the swarm didn’t have enough propellant to stay airborne indefinitely, because all the machines would have had to do was hover near the top of the dome and keep an eye out for movement below.

  “Lead HS3 is picking up a bioweapon,” Bender said.

  Rade saw the red dot appear on his display. It was slowly moving perpendicular to their course.

  “Give it a wide berth,” Rade said.

  The team circumnavigated the area containing the lumbering creature, and then proceeded once more toward the designated terminal located at
the rim of the colony.

  Soon they had left behind the tall minarets and sand-colored buildings of the Persian section for the low-slung, mansard-roofed structures of the Sino-Korean.

  “This is odd,” TJ announced. “I’m not reading the shuttle on my overhead map. Nor any of the booster rockets. But we should be well within range by now.”

  “Must be some interference,” Manic said.

  “I hope so,” Tahoe said. “For all our sakes.”

  About two blocks from the target Bender spoke.

  “Okay, we have a problem,” Bender said. “The HS3s are reporting Perdix drones perched on top of the buildings lining the path to the terminal.”

  Rade glanced at his overhead map and spotted twenty-one red dots representing the drones, spread out across the mansard-roofed structures.

  “They’re lying in ambush for us,” Tahoe said. “Probably lurking on rooftops all along the perimeter, waiting for us to make a run for the hangars so that they can mow us down.”

  “I’ll send two robots to draw them off,” Ms. Bounty said.

  “You’ll lose them...” Rade said.

  “I know,” she replied.

  A moment later two of her robots were dashing through the street at a full run. They activated their jetpacks, leaping onto the rooftops. Rade watched from the point of view of one of the HS3s, which was hovering close to the top of a nearby building, and he saw the Perdix drones thrust into the air. The two robots swerved to the side, leaping down into the adjacent street.

  Rade glanced at his overhead map. Eighteen red dots pursued, leaving only three behind.

  Rade gave silent thanks to the AIs that were giving their lives for the rest of them; he waited until the retreating drones were about three streets away, and then gave his next order:

  “Bender, Lui, Manic, take out the remaining drones.”

  The indicated men leaped onto the nearest rooftop, dropped, and low-crawled to the edge. A moment later the remaining three red dots vanished.

  According to the overhead map, that act caused a dozen of the eighteen drones to turn back: their onboard AIs realized the robots were acting as a diversion. New red dots also appeared from the western and eastern sides as more drones came to investigate.

  “Go go go!” Rade said.

  The party dashed forward, some of them hugging the buildings on the left side of the street, others, the right. Ms. Bounty shared the burden of porting the glass container with her remaining robot.

  Rade held his rifle toward the rooftops opposite him, and linked the servomotors in his jumpsuit arm to his local AI. The AI took control of the arm, and compensated for his movements to keep the scope aimed above the mansards. As soon as drones came within view, the weapon would automatically open fire. He withdrew the blaster from his belt with the other hand, and programmed that arm the same way. The others in the party were doing the same with their own rifles and blasters, so that everyone ran with their arms outstretched.

  The robots on point were about twenty meters from the hangar when the first drones arrived. As the units overtopped the buildings, weapons opened fire across the team, bringing the Perdix attackers down.

  “We’ve reached the terminal,” Unit C said.

  One by one the team members emerged into the street that ran along the outer rim of the dome, and was adjacent to the terminal. They crossed in zigzag patterns to the designated building.

  Rade emerged. He spread his arms out to either side, so that he had a weapon covering each approach. He had set his AI to assume control of his mad dash, and it randomly swerved left and right while increasing and decreasing his speed to avoid the invisible laser fire from the incoming drones. He glanced to the left, and saw the malevolent metal forms of the drones in the sky. In the street below, one of the bioweapons was quickly bearing down on them.

  Rade barreled through the glass doors of the terminal. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw the remainder of the party enter behind him. Tiny laser bores began to riddle the glass.

  Halfway across the terminal, the glass shattered entirely at the entrance as the armored bioweapon broke inside.

  The party reached the designated hangar and everyone hurried into the bay. Rade disabled AI control of his jumpsuit and paused by the hatch, waiting for Tahoe who was on drag, and as soon as his friend was in, Rade entered and with Tahoe’s help shut the large exit hatch behind him.

  “TJ, lock this door,” Rade said.

  “On it,” the hacker replied.

  Rade turned toward the landing platform.

  The Dragonfly was gone. And beside it, the Amytis shuttle was a pile of rubble, no doubt a victim of the Dragonfly’s weaponry. As before, there were no other craft in the hangar. Units A and B weren’t there, either, probably still trapped in the pedway. The Hoplites were absent as well—the blast shields at the lab hadn’t opened after all.

  Rade didn’t care about the incredible expense of losing the mechs and robots by that point. All he cared about was reaching Shaw.

  The floor shook. Behind him, protrusions appeared in the metal of the hatch as the bioweapon bashed at it, attempting to break in.

  “All right,” Rade said. “Fret, I need the location of the closest abandoned shuttle or evacuation craft.”

  “I’m sending out a ping now,” Fret said. “Without repeaters, I have no guarantee it will travel very far.” He paused. “Mmm, all the nearby hangars are empty.”

  “Anything beyond?” Rade said.

  “Wait,” Fret said.

  The hatch continued to cave.

  “Fret...” Rade pressed.

  “Found something,” Fret said. “A Model 3C in a different terminal along the rim of the dome, about five blocks away.”

  “Forward the comm ID to TJ so he can begin his hack attempts,” Rade said.

  “I don’t know,” TJ said. “3Cs can be tricky. You’re not reading any others out there?”

  “I told you, without repeaters...” Fret paused. “Okay, I picked up a couple of 4As, and a 5B. Plus some evacuation craft. IV-3s. The 3C is still the closest.”

  “Mmm,” TJ said. “All right. The 3C is the best bet, then.”

  “Set the waypoint, Fret,” Rade said.

  The waypoint appeared on the overhead map.

  “Wait, what are you going to do?” Tahoe said, staring at the growing protrusions in the hatch. “We can’t really go back in there, you know that right?”

  Rade gazed toward the hangar doors that led to the desert outside. “We don’t have to.”

  twenty-one

  Rade instructed TJ to access the hangar interface and send a signal mimicking a shuttle’s exit request.

  The hangar doors promptly opened.

  The HS3s flew outside. The area was clear.

  “Out!” Rade said.

  The team members rushed toward the hangar doors and leaped outside in turn.

  Rade dashed to the edge and vaulted over, firing a quick burst from his jetpack to cushion his fall to the sand two meters below. He landed at a run and continued on toward the target. The thick red sand swallowed him to the ankles, forcing him to slow right down. The team followed the outer contour of the base of the colony, staying close to the metal wall. Behind them, the hangar doors sealed shut. Rade doubted it would hold back the bioweapon for long.

  “By the way, looks like the booster rockets are gone,” Manic said. “Our Zoltan friend was quite thorough in his destruction of our property.”

  Rade had his local AI take over the run and then he glanced to the east, zooming in on the different booster rocket sites. All that remained of each of them were piles of charred metal. He canceled the zoom and took control of his suit once more.

  About fifty meters from the target hangar doors, Tahoe announced from the drag position: “The bioweapon just broke out of the hangar. A bunch of drones came with it.”

  “Hurry!” Rade said.

  The first Centurion reached the hangar. TJ once more mimicked a shuttle
request and the doors opened. The team members began jetting the two meters into the hangar.

  “Gah!” Tahoe said before he landed.

  He was the last one in.

  “Shut the door!” Rade rushed to his friend, who was limping. “Where were you hit?”

  “Lower calf,” Tahoe said.

  Rade retrieved the suitrep kit from Tahoe’s cargo pocket. As blood misted from the tiny holes in his calf area, Rade applied one patch to the entry region on the suit, and another to the exit. Tahoe’s skin had no doubt swelled outward to seal the gaps and maintain suit pressure.

  “TJ, where’s our shuttle!” Rade said, helping Tahoe toward the Model 3C; it looked like a tiny United Systems corvette class starship with those rear wings and slim nose. The other members of the team had formed a defensive circle around the craft.

  “Almost got it,” TJ said.

  The bay doors began to buckle behind him: the bioweapon had arrived. Bore holes appeared in the metal as the drones opened fire.

  “Hurry!” Rade said.

  More protrusions appeared in the hangar doors in the shape of the bioweapon’s armored head. A small gap had formed in the center where the two doors met.

  “It’s ours!” TJ said.

  The down ramp lowered.

  “Load up!” Rade said. “Harlequin, you take the cockpit. TJ, transfer control to him.”

  In moments all members of the combined team had taken their seats in the cabin and clamped in.

  “The doors won’t open,” Harlequin said. “The bioweapon has damaged them too much.”

  “Get ready to punch it, Harlequin,” Rade said. “Arm all external weapons. TJ, give me access to the nose camera.”

  That access arrived, and Rade switched to the camera’s perspective. The doors seemed on the verge of breaking.

  The left door finally caved and the bioweapon stuffed its blunt head inside.

  “Now!” Rade said.

  The shuttle accelerated, ramming into the head, sending the creature hurtling backward as the shuttle burst through the weakened doors. The external turrets of the craft opened fire as the Model 3C swept out over the desert, and its lasers took down at least four Perdix drones. The remaining regrouped and pursued.