by Isaac Hooke
“That’s what I thought, too,” Grappler said. “Guess we’re more alike than we care to admit. And the real MOTHs I know all trained on the East. Present company excluded, of course.”
“We don’t need your vote of confidence,” Bender said. “More like, you need ours. And right about now I’m giving you a thumbs way down. ‘Real MOTHs train on the East.’ Bah.”
“You never told us how you got your callsign, Grappler,” Lui said.
“Ooo, do tell,” Bender said. “Can’t wait to hear this. He probably got it while wrestling his man love in the showers.”
“No, I guess I haven’t told any of you, have I?” Grappler paused. “All this talk about training... so many memories. I still have nightmares about it. You’d think my bad dreams would be from the battles I’ve fought. Instead, I wake up covered in sweat, terrified that I’ve slept through a qualification or forgotten to go to an exam, half-expecting an instructor to order me into the water for a bone-chilling sea immersion evolution. Anyway, there was a woman in my class. One of the first, back when the East Coast experimented with allowing female applicants.”
“Told you the East Teams were for women,” Bender interjected.
“Yeah,” Grappler said, unfazed. “Caylee Rail was her name. Extremely cute, even with her shaved head, but acted very butch. Thin as a stick, she was the weakest in the class. Barely made the physical entry qualifications. The other trainees pegged her as the first to fail. But she had heart. She stuck through all the hardships, pushing on through as others around her quit.
“I remember she could only do a maximum of fifty push-ups at any given time, even with her light weight. When she or the rest of the class was punished with a hundred or more push-ups, she would keep pumping them out, pausing when she lost the strength to do any more, but still holding the plank position, and after a moment she’d lower herself and do a slow-as-hell push-up, then hold it again at the top. She’d pump out those two hundred push-ups if it took her the rest of the day. She never gave up. The thought never even occurred to her.
“The instructors berated her for doing her push-ups so slowly, and sometimes told her to do another two hundred. And she would still be out there on the black asphalt of the grinder late into the night, long after the rest of us had gone to bed, finishing up her push-ups. She was an example for us all.”
“Sounds almost like you were in looove with this bitch,” Bender said.
“I most certainly was,” Grappler said. “As a sister. Just as you are my brothers. She helped get me through training. See, one day I’d decided I’d had enough. In my exhausted state of mind, I decided I wasn’t cut out for the Teams. I was going to return to the regular navy, to my job as an astrogator. My decision came when I’d experienced a triple blow. I’d made a pact with my roommate, you see. We promised to see each other through to the end. Well that morning my roommate tapped out after a grueling four-hour run inflicted by the instructors. Later that day my portage team came in last, and we were given extra sea immersion as punishment. Finally, the last straw that evening came when an instructor singled me out for no reason during another intense session of PT, telling me I was far too old for the Teams. He told me Caylee was kicking my ass. A woman. They liked to use her against us by that point, you see. He told me someone like me would only hold everyone back. That I’d be a liability, rather than an asset, to a MOTH Team. And because of my slowness, he was inflicting another two hundred push-ups on the group.
“In my fragile state of mind, doing push-ups there on the grinder while the instructors sprayed us down with high pressure water hoses, with men vomiting and soiling themselves all around me as the second hour of PT came up, his words snapped me. I took it personally. I believed him. I got up, mumbled some apology, and stumbled to the flint stone. I grabbed the gavel to tap it three times and officially quit.
“But I was distracted by a sudden assault of invective hurled by the instructors. They weren’t talking to me, I quickly realized: Caylee had gotten up. Ignoring the threats of extra PT thrown at her by the instructors, she approached and grabbed my hand. Before that moment, I had never really talked to her, but there she was, trying to save me from quitting. ‘Don’t do it,’ was all she said. And that was all she needed to say. I looked her in the eyes, saw the respect there she had for me, and knew she considered me an asset, not a liability. And I remembered what the shrinks had told us before the training began. About the relentless psychological warfare that would take place. This was all just another test for the instructors to see if they could break me.
“I let the gavel drop from my hand. Caylee and I returned to the asphalt and continued our PT. We were given extra punishment for what we had done. I purposely slowed down, matching her pace, so that when she got the inevitable extra reps for her plodding speed, I got them, too. They kept punishing us all through that night, calling us lovers and other names I can’t mention.
“I’ve never done so many pushups in my life. But I didn’t quit, and neither did she. I saw her occasionally in the days following, on the other side of the grinder, or the beach, while enduring the different evolutions. But she vanished during Trial Week. I thought she had quit in the end, and I just hadn’t noticed: you all know what Trial Week is like. I found out a few weeks later that she had actually died during Trial Week. It was a random accident. Her exhausted team was porting an ATLAS 2 mech, and they lost their footing on the wet pier. They all fell, but unfortunately for her, the heavy mech landed with most of its weight on her. Crushed the life out of her before the Weavers could get the thing off to even begin treatment.” He was silent for a moment. “She was the best of Class 1107.”
After a few moments, Lui said: “Sad story, bro. We all have them. But I actually asked you about your callsign.”
“I suppose you did,” Grappler said. “That’ll have to wait another day, I think. But I’ll leave you with this. It has something to do with mixed martial arts, and a certain post-graduation elective.”
The platoon marched on, heading north. No one felt like talking much, not after a story like that.
Rade thought of his own training, and the people who had quit, or died. It was certainly a traumatizing experience, and like Grappler he still had nightmares about it. But the intense evolutions did what they were meant to do: weed out the mentally weak and incompetent. Because of that training, he knew he could rely on these men beside him to come through for him no matter what happened. It was that training that had made them all brothers.
“I see something!” Bender said from his position on point. “And it ain’t good.”
eight
Rade realized a red dot had appeared on the map at the very edge of visual range, courtesy of Bender’s Implant. Red didn’t automatically signify an enemy object, but rather, ‘unidentified.’
Rade immediately switched to Bender’s point of view. Bender had zoomed in on a black, airborne object that was approaching from the northern horizon, from the direction of the nuked alien city.
“Is that one of ours?” Tahoe said.
“Don’t think so,” Bender replied. As Rade watched, Bender zoomed in further. A small, dodecahedral craft approached.
“Definitely not one of ours,” Rade said. “Everyone, drop where you are! Bury yourselves in the snow and switch to stealth mode!”
“You got it, boss,” Fret said. “But uh, isn’t it kind of obvious where we are? We have a trail that leads to our position, and then abruptly stops.”
“Would you rather stay out in the open and welcome the craft with open arms?” Rade said.
“Good point.”
“Take cover, and wait for my command to fire.” Rade watched as the mechs dove into the snow in turn. Each of them had initiated stealth mode—a low-power stand-by state that deactivated all nonessential systems but kept the weapons charged and fed energy to the hull skin, ensuring the camouflage and thermal smearing capabilities remained active.
Rade scanned the snow on the infrared band before h
e went under, wanting to gauge how effective that thermal obfuscation was. His companions were buried deep enough under the drifts that the smearing blended them in entirely.
Satisfied, Rade activated his own stealth mode and dove into the snow so that his mech sank to the bottom; momentum carried him a short ways across the tundra underneath. Lying on his back, he spreadeagled his Titan. The hull sensors told him he was buried well.
There were other more penetrative measures that could be used other than visual and thermal bands, of course, but the hull skin was designed to mimic the signature of natural granite to most EM scans. The only problem was, the definition of natural varied from planet to planet: granite might be found in abundance as part of the tundra on one world or area, and have no presence at all in another.
Though he couldn’t see the small dodecahedron through the thick veil of snow, his external microphones transmitted the muted roar of the engines to his helmet speakers as the craft passed overhead. The noise halted there above him, neither growing in volume nor receding, the engines firing continuously to maintain its present position. He guessed the craft was hovering around thirty to fifty meters above him. Had the enemy seen through their ruse already, or was the vessel merely curious about the large footprints and why they ended so abruptly?
Rade was about to order his men to burst from cover to stage the attack when the engines changed in pitch, and the volume receded.
Rade knew he could yet give the order to strike at any time, yet he held back. He decided it was safer to remain in hiding for the moment, especially considering that he didn’t know the capabilities of the craft, nor whether he and the others had been detected.
“Boss, do we attack?” Bender said.
“No,” Rade said.
Fret spoke next. “What if it’s merely putting some distance between us and itself so that it can send a couple dozen missiles our way?”
“Quiet on the comms,” Rade said.
The engine sound continued to fade; when it vanished entirely, Rade waited another several minutes, then burst from the snow. There was no sign of the craft on the far horizon.
Rade ordered the other mechs to similarly emerge from cover.
“What do you think?” Rade said.
“They know we’re here,” Tahoe said. “The only reason they didn’t attack was because they didn’t have the armaments. Could be a scout ship of some kind. It’s one of the smallest enemy craft I’ve seen...”
“What if they want to capture us?” Fret said.
“So why didn’t they?” Bender asked.
“Maybe that particular ship isn’t equipped for capture,” Fret said. “Having the necessary armaments to kill are one thing. But capture tools are a completely different game. So it’s gone back to fetch some.”
“Or it could be that they really didn’t detect us,” Manic said.
“Then why did it turn around and fly back the way it came?” Fret asked.
“I have to agree that they’re coming back,” Tahoe said. “With more troops.” On a private line to Rade he sent: “Probably shouldn’t have let them go.”
“Maybe,” Rade replied to his friend. “Then again, you’re assuming our lasers would have been able to bring them down, even at close range. If we had attacked, this snowdrift could have become our tomb. You saw what happened to those Marine companies back there...”
Rade surveyed the landscape on the local-beam LIDAR band. He spotted what looked like a snow-covered outcropping to the east: a remnant of the mountain range they had left behind.
“We’ll camp there for a little while.” He highlighted the outcropping on the overhead map. “If we’re lucky, the enemy won’t send any search parties, but if they do, at least we’ll have a relatively advantageous overwatch. If it comes to it...” He swiveled the grenade launcher into one hand and the incendiary thrower the other. “Then we fight.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer to retrace our steps and head to the mountains?” Fret said.
“Eventually we’ll have to face them,” Rade said. “If we want to rendezvous with the chief. Besides, if they have air dominance, which seems to be the case, they’ll easily outrun us on this terrain.”
“Where’s a blizzard when you need one?” Manic muttered.
Rade turned toward the rock formation. “Jumpjets, people. Leave no trace of your flight to that outcropping. When you touch down, bury yourself in the snow where you land, in these positions.” He laid out a cigar shape for the platoon members to assume.
“My jumpjet fuel is getting kind of low,” Keelhaul said.
“It’s low across the board,” Rade agreed. “We’ll make it. Let’s go.”
Rade jetted across the plains and landed near the top of the wide, snowy outcrop, and buried himself using the surrounding drifts. He left one camera slightly uncovered on the top of his Titan so that he had a perpetual view of the land to the north. The thermal leakage from it would be minimal, especially in stealth mode. His brothers assumed their designated positions, and similarly buried themselves in the snow atop the outcropping. Tahoe, Grappler and Bender also left their cameras unobscured so that they could act as lookouts to the south, east and west. The rest buried themselves completely.
The platoon members waited. There was absolute silence on the comms. No external sounds came to the microphones embedded in his hull.
In stealth mode, no background connections were maintained between the different comm nodes or Implants—there was no video or realtime location sharing. If someone spoke, a low-power signal would transmit, then cut out the instant the involved soldier finished.
He zoomed in and unlinked the camera from his head movements so that he could rotate the view from the left to right, allowing him to scan the horizon.
Twenty long minutes passed.
He was just starting to think that no one was coming.
And then a lone enemy arrived.
Rade heard and felt it long before he saw it. Subtle vibrations passed through the rock and into his mech underneath him. A very soft thud echoed from his speakers. He increased the volume, unsure he had actually heard anything but random background signal noise; the thud recurred. There was definitely something out there.
He zoomed in and out, moved the camera left and right, but saw nothing. He cycled between the video feeds of Tahoe, Grappler and Bender, momentarily increasing the signal bandwidth shared between them. Still nothing. He quickly disconnected, returning to stealth mode.
The heavy thudding and its accompanying vibrations continued in the background, slowly growing in intensity. It seemed like the ponderous footfalls of some giant. He increased the magnification and continued his left-right-left sweep of the horizon. He passed a hitherto unseen black object and hastily re-centered the view upon it. A black shape stained the horizon.
It was unlike anything Rade had ever seen before. The size estimates put the thing on the level of a small apartment building. A huge robotic body stood upon four powerful metal legs. A long, elephant-like trunk—or neck—extended from the body several lengths in front, capped by what looked like an electrolaser of some kind, judging from the mirrors and the funnel shape around the turret. The robot had a long, massive tail to counterbalance the weight, and at its tip was what appeared to be a swivel-mounted laser turret. Additional missile batteries and pulse cannons of some kind were attached to either side of the main body, so that it looked a little like a fully-armed gunship when viewed from the front.
It moved at a lumbering pace. Only one foot ever left the ground at a time. It was how he imagined a dinosaur must have walked. He began to think that the mechs he and his men piloted were misnamed. The real Titan was that robot.
As it closed, those footfalls grew in volume until each step literally sounded like thunder and the ground shook as if in an earthquake. Loose snow trickled down from the ledges of the outcropping, and for a while Rade feared that the white covering would slough from the outcropping entirely and reveal their posi
tions.
The robot was so near by that point, Rade could hear the whir of the servomotors in those massive legs, driving the up and down motion of each foot. So far it ignored the outcropping, moving instead toward the disturbed snow the mechs had left in their wake on the plains. Rade swiveled his external camera, following the advance.
When the giant reached the edge of those footprints, which seemed so tiny in comparison to the robot, it paused. Its long trunk, or its neck—Rade wasn’t sure just what that was—extended over the area, the electrolaser tip almost seeming to sniff the snow.
He watched with his heart in his throat. The robot was only fifty meters away, and that close its large size was all too apparent. Though his adrenals pumped him full of epinephrine, he wasn’t certain it would be enough. They hadn’t been able to salvage much food and water from the drop site, and the strict rationing had reduced his mind and body to a weakened state. He needed to be at his strongest. His most alert. He instructed his jumpsuit to inject a stimulant and in moments the sound of his heart grew louder in his ears, faster.
I’m ready, he mentally told that robot. Come on, bitch. Come on.
With the stimulant pulsing through his veins, enhancing his senses, he found it hard to restrain his warrior instincts. He wanted to give the order to attack. Their mission was, after all, to exterminate creatures and robots like these. Still, those wicked armaments protruding from its flanks gave him pause. He decided for the sake of his men that this was an encounter best avoided. A job for bombers, not mechs. But if it came to it, they would fight.
All of a sudden the robot’s head turned toward the rock outcropping, as if it had heard a sound or something else to pique its interest.
Rade hadn’t heard a thing, of course. He found himself holding his breath, and he wondered what could have attracted its attention.
That trunk, or whatever it was, slowly moved in the direction of the outcropping, while the body remained stationary.
And then it twisted slightly, as if cocking its head.
