by Isaac Hooke
“We’ll be surrounded by fewer enemies, for one,” Facehopper said. “Every day more of the alien survivors return to this city. They’re regrouping. We disembarked from our starships far too soon. We should have waited a few days and pummeled them with a few more nukes, first.”
“But we’ll starve to death just the same out on the plains,” Fret said. “We have what, a day of food left? And I bet your Marines have even less.”
“We have two days of food,” Luxe replied. “And our oxygen runs out at the same time.”
“There you go,” Fret said.
“But what Luxe isn’t telling you,” Facehopper said. “Is that she knows where booster rockets fell.”
Rade perked up. “Booster rockets?”
“Yes,” Luxe said. “For our lost mech platoon.”
“Wish they would have dropped boosters for our own platoon,” Manic muttered.
“They probably did,” Harlequin said. “The senior command simply neglected to tell us where before we lost contact.”
“How can we be sure these Marine booster rockets will work with our Titans?” Rade said.
“The boosters utilize the standard ATLAS interface,” Luxe answered.
Rade felt somewhat sheepish. As LPO, he should have known that.
“Yeah, I’m not convinced that taking booster rockets up into orbit is a good idea,” Fret said. “You saw how easily we were shot down on the way here.”
“That’s what evasive maneuvers are for,” Facehopper said. “We launched from a hot LZ before outside Radiance, in case you forgot.”
Rade remembered that Radiance launch only dimly, because of the injury he had taken at the time. He did recall the evasive zigzagging performed by each Titan as they flew upwards into the sky. The G forces had been... unpleasant.
“I suspect the ground-to-air fire will be a little worse this time,” Fret said.
“The other option is to stay here and die,” Facehopper said.
Fret chuckled softly. “Stay here and die. Or launch and die. Well, I guess at least in the latter, we have a fighting chance.”
“Yes,” Facehopper said. “And you know that if there’s a fighting chance, we have to take it.”
“What I’m wondering,” Lui said. “Is why y’all didn’t go directly to the booster rockets the moment you found out about them.”
“What are you trying to say?” Trace said. “That we’re cowards? That we would abandon half our platoon without even giving them a chance to rendezvous with us?”
“No it’s a valid question,” the chief said. “Lui, we elected to come to this city first to see if there was any hope of completing the mission. And to see if we could find you. But when we got here, and found ourselves faced with countless enemies, we quickly decided there was no way in hell we were completing the mission. The best choice seemed to be to return to orbit, and try to reconnect with the fleet. We decided we would wait one full day for you here, and if you didn’t arrive by then we would head for the booster site, leave the planet, and return later to search for you.”
“How much time until that full day expired?” Bender asked.
“You still had another forty-five minutes to go.”
“We cut it kind of close, didn’t we?” Manic said.
“You did.” Facehopper stood up. “All right mates, let’s help the Marines pack up these pulse platforms. I want to move in fifteen. Luxe, get your platoon ready.”
TJ abruptly raised a halting hand. “Do you hear that?”
Rade listened. He heard a soft hum coming from outside. He recognized the noise immediately:
It was the sound made by a firing laser pulse platform as its turret revolved.
The Marines leaped to their feet. The combat robots swung their heavy weapons toward the entrance. Rade and the other Titans followed their lead.
The hums increased in volume as more of the rooftop platforms opened fire.
“Told you to get rid of your infected man,” Luxe said.
Rade kept his cobra pointed at the twin doors of the entrance.
“Luxe, where are your scouts?” Facehopper asked.
“Should have already reported in.”
That hum grew to a steady, low-pitched buzz, reminding Rade of a hornet’s nest. He could hear shouts outside. And crunching in the snowpack.
A Marine sentry abruptly burst inside. Rade almost shot her.
“They’re here,” the Marine said.
thirteen
As Rade watched, the warehouse door exploded inward. The Marine sentry who had just entered vanished in a pink mist. Rade was hurtled backward by the shockwave and smashed into another Titan, bringing them both to the floor.
The pulse platforms surrounding the inside of the warehouse began firing as hornheads rushed inside. The fur upon their reptilian bodies was jet black, like the night. There were too many for the platforms to take down, and some pushed through over the bodies of their comrades.
A Marine dashed forward, yelling something on her speakers as she unleashed her heavy laser gun. She felled two hornheads. A third broke past and impaled her on its horns.
Rade had clambered to his feet by then, as had Skullcracker—the pilot of the Titan Rade had collided with.
“Skullcracker, with me,” Rade said. The two of them positioned themselves between the attackers and the remaining Marines on the right side of the warehouse. The other Titans were assailing the incoming enemy with zodiacs and cobras from their positions on the left.
“Getting kinetic in here!” Mauler said over the din.
“The way I like it,” Bomb said.
“Didn’t someone have a theory that these things never attack at night?” Mauler asked, his voice straining as he fought.
“We’re not on Radiance anymore, bro,” Lui said. “They’re not cold-blooded.”
“You think?” Tahoe injected sarcastically.
“They always attack in waves,” Facehopper said. “They send the beasts in first to soften us up, and then the robots come after with their lasers. We’re going to have to retrograde.”
“Request permission to activate Implants and comms!” Rade fired his electrolaser into a hornhead at point blank range, and then shouted over the resulting thunder: “They know where we are already anyway!”
“Permission granted,” the chief replied. “Do it, mates!”
Rade activated his Implant with the mental command. The blue dots of Rade’s companions began to repopulate the overhead map as Marines and MOTHs alike reactivated their own embedded devices.
He bashed aside another hornhead and fired his cobra into the maw of the next.
“Storming Amazons, I want as many of you to load up into our passenger seats as you can,” Facehopper said. “Two to a mech at least.”
The hull sensors alerted Rade when two Marines jetted onto his rear seat.
“There’s someone here already,” a woman transmitted. The Implant identified her as Luxe herself.
“He’s dead,” Rade said.
“Fantastic,” Luxe said. “Mind if we roll him off to make room for the living?”
“He stays,” Rade said. “You’ll just have to make do.”
“This way!” Facehopper said. A waypoint appeared on the overhead map representing the inside of the warehouse. “Damn, but it’s bloody good to have my Implant again.”
Rade and Skullcracker covered the retreat of the Titans as the others made their way toward the far side of the warehouse, where the waypoint was located. They also covered the Centurions and those Marines who hadn’t boarded any mechs.
He stepped backward slowly as he fought, occasionally glancing at the floor behind him via his rear camera—one of his nightmares was crushing some hapless Marine he didn’t see. Sensors were supposed to warn him before such an occurrence happened, but he preferred not to rely on them overmuch.
He heard an explosion; it came from the far side of the warehouse behind him.
He launched a grenade into t
he latest knot of hornheads that had shoved past the pulse platforms, and then activated his aft camera to see what had happened.
The rear exit of the warehouse had blown inward and more hornheads were racing inside from that vector.
He returned his attention to the front.
A long, green, starfish-like organ abruptly wrapped around his right forearm, redirecting the aim of his electrolaser. He tracked the proboscis to the snout of a hornhead two meters to his right.
Rade fired the cobra of his free hand into the organ, severing it before it could emit acid. He followed up by taking two steps forward and bashing his fist into the hornhead while unleashing the fully charged zodiac.
The already wounded creature was torn in half down the middle.
Two hornheads jumped on him, attempting to pull him down.
Tahoe and Skullcracker wrenched the beasts off of him, threw them to the ground, and slowly crushed their heads beneath their feet as they beat off more of the incoming beasts. Those bodies squirmed wildly underneath them, and the spiked tail of one of them tripped Rade.
“Damn it.” He got up, grabbed that tail halfway between the tip and the base, and swung it like a whip at the next two hornheads that presented themselves.
The pulse platforms began to fail as the hornheads overwhelmed the positions.
“Retreat!” Facehopper called over the comm.
Rade took that as his cue to hurry. He launched two more grenades, and as the body parts of the incoming creatures rained down satisfactorily, he turned around and sprinted. Tahoe and Skullcracker joined him.
He glanced at his overhead map. The remaining members of the platoon were clustered near the rear entrance, where they were smashing their way outside through a large swarm of red dots. Another group of red dots lurked beyond them, in the street outside—on the rooftops apparently. It could only be the second wave Facehopper had alluded to.
When Rade reached the others, he fought back to back with them: the Titans formed the outer layer of a nested defensive circle, the Centurions the middle layer, and The Storming Amazons who were still on foot, the center.
After a few moments the group had forced its way outside. The snowpack teemed with dead hornheads; more continually rushed in to replace the fallen.
“Shields in hand!” Facehopper said.
Rade activated his leftmost shield to protect the body of his Titan from any lasers and other ballistics, at the cost of not being able to use the cobra of that arm.
“Why aren’t the robot tangos taking part?” Lui said.
“Maybe they don’t want to harm their brethren?” TJ said. “We’ve seen similar behavior before.”
As he fought, Rade glanced at one of the rooftops, and in the dim light saw that enemy robots were indeed perched there. And like Lui said, they weren’t firing.
“Chief, suggest we jet onto a nearby roof,” Rade said over a private line.
“Not yet,” Facehopper replied. “We’ll be in full view of those robots if we do.”
“But we have our shields...” Rade bashed aside a hornhead, broke off a long proboscis that had wrapped around his neck, and fired his electrolaser.
“We do,” Facehopper agreed. “But what’s to stop them from concentrating their fire on one of us? At this range, combined lasers will easily pass through a shield and into a cockpit. If the robot tangos won’t fire because of the bioengineered hordes surrounding us, then we use them as our shields!”
Apparently some of the Marines and Centurions in the center of the defensive formation had begun firing at the robots on the rooftops, because those red dots were beginning to wink out. Above the din, he heard the distant explosion of a grenade behind him, and two more of those rooftop dots winked out. But there were still a lot of them. At least thirty.
If they really wanted to kill us, Rade thought. They’d shoot right through their kin, combining their shots like Facehopper said.
But then again, if there was anything resembling a brotherhood among the aliens, they wouldn’t dare do such a thing. A MOTH would never sacrifice another MOTH simply to kill an enemy. Unless it meant saving the lives of other brothers. Which was why the alien behavior was so puzzling. Robots and hornheads were dying; it made some sense to sacrifice a few hornheads to spare the rest.
Unless the enemy had specific orders to capture the humans.
A Marine was dragged from Skullcracker’s passenger seat when one of the hornhead’s impaled her, and before Skullcracker could shoot it down, the hornhead severed her body into two halves.
So much for the capture theory. Though perhaps the enemy tangos had instructions more akin to: “capture as many of the humans as possible, and kill a few for sport along the way.”
Rade felt something latch onto his right forearm once again. As that arm was drawn away by the external force of whatever had grabbed him, he rammed the upper edge of his shield into the neck of his current foe, half severing it.
He glanced at his arm. He had assumed another starfish-like proboscis had wrapped around him. Except that was no proboscis, but a black chain. It was secured to his arm by thick pincers.
He slammed the bottom edge of his shield down on it, attempting to sever the cord. His shield struck the snowpack, driving the chain into the slushy surface; the force of the blow resounded up into his arm. But a moment later he was dragged forward. The chain remained intact.
He followed its source to a nearby rooftop, where several humanoid robots crouched—the ones with the Sino-Korean faces. They held strange, harpoon-like weapons. Another robot launched one as he watched: a chain erupted toward Rade, tipped by pincers.
Rade shot up his shield in time, deflecting the blow.
A blur of motion crossed his vision. A second chain had fired from an adjacent rooftop, and its pincers had wrapped squarely around the forearm of his shield arm. Now both chains were pulling him away from the defensive circle.
“Guys...” Rade sent.
He wrenched at those chains, trying to arrest his motion, but his feet slowly slid along the snowpack. He saw that the robots had attached the harpoons to winch-like mechanisms, which were reeling him in. Those devices were too heavy for him to move, apparently, at least by pulling on the chains.
He retracted his shield and tried to point his weapons up at the things, but the clamps that secured the chains limited the range of motion of his mounts, and though he fired repeatedly, his aim was off just enough to miss the winches every time.
The hornheads used his incapacitation to redouble their attack. Rade kicked at them with his feet, putting his mixed martial arts training to use. Roundhouse kick. Front sweep kick. The Titan didn’t have the full range of motion as his actual human legs of course, but it was enough.
Then one of the hornheads plowed into him, tripping him so that the chains dragged him sideways across the snowpack. He tried to stand, but the hornheads pinned him.
“Luxe, a little help here...” Rade said.
Laser fire from behind took down the hornheads.
Luxe leaped onto the shoulder of his mech and ran down the arm. She aimed a blaster at the chain.
Before she could fire, another blur shot forward; pincers wrapped around her waist. She screamed, squirming as a chain reeled her onto a nearby rooftop. The other Marine with Rade tried to jet back in the direction of the defensive circle, but she too was similarly snagged.
Rade started to clamber to his feet, intending to kick away the next round of hornheads, but he tripped as the chains pulled him forward especially hard.
“Chief, in some trouble here,” he transmitted.
“We all are!” Facehopper replied.
Rade realized that chains were slashing through the air all around him as robots from the surrounding rooftops continually fired them.
He activated his jumpjets and whipped upward in an arc.
Humanoid robots leaped out of the way as he slammed into the roof panels. More chains came in, these ones clamping around his l
egs. One of those pincers struck him in the side, and the robot that shot it dove in, circling his body once. Rade tried to kick the robot, but his legs were being pulled taut. He heard metallic thuds coming from the cockpit region of the hull, and realized the robot was wrapping a chain around his midsection.
“Jerry, open up the cockpit,” Rade said urgently.
“The hatch is not responding,” the AI replied. “It appears to be blocked.”
Well, probably not a good idea to go out there anyway, given the rad levels.
Rade struggled further, but was soon held prostrate and spread-eagled one meter above the surface of the roof. He fired his jumpjets again, but he merely bobbed up and down like a fly caught in a spider’s web.
He tried activating the Lighter, but electrifying the hull had no effect on the chains, nor the robotic winches that held them—the flexible links were apparently non-conductive. He was out of shoulder-mounted missiles, and he couldn’t bring his grenade launcher or other weapons to bear. He fired a few times and downed one off-guard robot, but as mentioned, because of the way his mounts were restrained, he couldn’t bring the targeting reticles over the winches that held him.
Three hornheads came forward. Positioning themselves outside of his line of fire, they attempted to physically remove the weapon mounts attached to his arms and shoulders. Though his Hellfire launchers were empty, one of the hornheads twisted the associated shoulder mounting precariously to the side. Rade activated his Lighter, and electrified that creature and the other two touching his mech. The hornheads fell away.
He heard an explosion from a nearby rooftop, followed by an unearthly squealing, and knew his brothers were still fighting out there even if they were restrained like him.
Three more hornheads approached him and struggled once more with his mounts. One of them incautiously stepped in front of his electrolaser, and Rade obliged the creature by unleashing a lightning bolt squarely into its midsection. The thing fell away, smoking. The others gave up a moment later.
“Not so easy to rip away the weapons of a Titan, is it bitches?” Bender transmitted.
