“You don’t tell me what to do,” Claire balked in response.
“Buy the upgrade,” Mina barked. “You should have already had it.”
Claire looked from Mina to me. “It’ll cost me all my money,” she said quietly. “Every bit of it.”
“Better than costing you your life,” I said, and there was more compassion in my voice than I expected. “Do you want to get down there and find they can see you?” I gestured at the rest of us. “Especially when they won’t see us?”
“If I die anyway, I’m going to be really pissed,” she said, shaking her head at me. Claire’s eyes went blue, and I watched as she parted with her money, grabbing an upgrade that would hopefully keep her safe.
“I’ll pretend that makes sense,” I said, rubbing my temples.
“What about the grappling package?” Claire asked. “Even if I had the money to add it on, which I don’t, you’ve already told me I’d need to be in the Alliance halls to have it put in.” She sighed. “How am I even going to get down there?”
“Same way as before.” I shrugged. “I’m going to bring you down there with me.” I looked down at the cliff. “Though, hopefully, I’ll do a better job of it this time.”
“You will,” Mina said, settling right beside me, “because you won’t be doing it on your own.”
“What?” I asked.
“That was your problem before,” she said. “You were trying to hold all of that on your shoulders. I’ll help you, carry half the weight.”
I blinked at her, pushing down a smile. “All right then. We’ll sandwich her between us.”
“Sounds good.” Mina nodded. “Let’s do this.”
I looked at the group. For better or worse, this was the team I had found myself with. I would live because of them, or I would die beside them. As strange as it might have seemed, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Annabelle,” I said, clearing my throat and turning back to the object at hand. “Initiate alpha cloaking and get me my grappling gear.”
“Affirmative,” she answered, and a bristle of energy moved through me, turning on the upgrades. I watched as Mina and the others disappeared in front of me, indicating they had turned their alpha cloaking on as well and reminding me of a command I’d forgotten. “Oh, Annabelle, send cloaking invitations to my friends here.”
“Friends?” Annabelle asked.
“The Artemis Squad,” I clarified.
“Yes, Lieutenant Ryder. I am aware of who you were speaking off. I just don’t believe I’ve ever heard you refer to anyone with that word before.”
“Right,” I answered, surprised I had used it myself. “Well, be that as it may, please do as I asked.”
“Affirmative, though I am pressed to remind you of the sheer amount of energy cloaking uses,” Annabelle said. “It is quite taxing on my server as well as your energy. You’ll have to do this quick.”
“I know that.” There was now a ticking clock hanging over my head, in addition to every other worry.
One by one, the Artemis Squad accepted my invitation. It would put us all on the same frequency and allow us to see each other even when no one or nothing else could.
“Everybody ready?” I asked, looking at Mina. She nodded and motioned for Claire to move toward me.
Claire did so without a word, climbing on my back like before. Mina pressed herself against my side, and Claire put some of her weight on her captain. It felt good, not because I couldn’t hold her, but because I knew they had my back. I wasn’t on my own, and that meant something.
“All right,” I said quickly, “let’s do this quick and clean. In and out. The Alliance ships should be here soon. We need to be ready for them with the metal in hand—”
A plasma blast slammed into the ground in front of where we were standing, turning the cliff side into a slagheap. I jumped backward from the blast while holding onto Claire as more fire shredded the cliff.
“Oh, shit, the elites coming toward us!” Claire screamed in my ear, her hand darting past us to point over the edge.
Sure enough, a few elites had broken from the circle and were rushing up the side of the cliff toward us.
I wasn’t sure if they’d seen us before we’d shielded ourselves, or if our shielding had somehow caused them to see us, but either way, our covers were blown.
Worse, it seemed like they could still see us. Goddamned worthless tech.
“Alpha shielding, my ass.”
34
Instinct kicked in as the elites rushed toward us, climbing up the hill with no more effort than it’d take to run across a flat street. It was obvious, in that moment, how superior their tech was to ours. I’d have never been able to run up a cliff with such ease. We just didn’t have the capability.
That, in addition to the facts that they outnumbered us five hundred to one, and that we had just blown the element of surprise, meant we had a tough (if not impossible) road ahead of us. What could we do though? If we failed, which seemed likely, we would die. But if we didn’t try, if we turned tail and ran away, the queen would shoot the Alliance ships out of the sky. That would make us responsible for the deaths of others. As much as I didn’t want to die, the idea of my cowardice costing someone else their life was even worse to me.
We would fight. We would likely die, but at least we would do so as Marines who could hold their heads up high.
Still, I needed to understand what was going on. “Annabelle, get me my pulse laser and tell me why the hell these elites can see us through alpha cloaking.”
The pulse laser appeared in my hand, and she responded. “They cannot, Lieutenant Ryder. Scans of their bodies and armor indicate that they are in possession of nothing that would nullify your cloaking.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Then how?”
The truth came to me like a beacon in the sea. I turned quickly, seeing that Mina, and the others had armed themselves as well and they were getting ready to launch an assault on the elites.
“Wait!” I yelled. We hadn’t blown our cover yet, but we were about to. “They’re not shooting at us.”
I glanced back at the elites who had led us here and realized what had happened. The bugs below had seen them. Not us. It was a good thing we’d cloaked ourselves when we did because if we’d been visible for even a few more seconds, we’d be dead.
The elites who were, for lack of a better term, on our side for the moment, were also armed.
For whatever reason, these bugs didn’t like the use of photon cannons or plasma guns. They preferred to rock it out old school with spears, swords, knives, and daggers. Real medieval shit.
Whatever the reason for that, I was more than okay with it. It would keep them from attacking until they got close enough for hand to hand combat. That was good because it meant we were less likely to get hit by friendly fire.
Better, since the elites coming up the cliff couldn’t see us, not only would that give us enough time to move by them unseen, but it also worked to create a hole in the surrounding army. We almost couldn’t have asked for a better diversion.
Mina saw what was going on and motioned for her girls to get back into place, with Jill at her far side and Claire climbing back up onto us as we made our way toward the edge of the cliff again. The elites below had stopped firing, presumably to avoid hitting their allies now scaling the cliff. Perfect.
“This is it,” I said. “No turning back.”
“Just the way we like it,” Mina answered.
I stifled a grin. Like was a strong word for the unyielding fear and adrenaline rush that came with going into a battle you weren’t supposed to live through.
God, I needed a session on a therapist’s couch.
Pushing all of that aside, I looked over at Jill, then Mina, then Claire on my back, and nodded.
We all pushed forward, moving down the vertical straight line that was the cliff.
Claire’s weight still pushed on me, but it wasn’t nearly as bad wi
th Mina sharing it. I took a deep breath as we slid, moving faster than Jill.
Because of our combined weight, and probably also because we were more skilled at things like this, we reached the attacking elites before Jill did. We were on track to slide right into them. Luckily, our cloaking upgrades also kept our communication silent from the outside world. So, when Mina yelled for me to pivot left it went unheard by the insects as they roared past us.
Unfortunately, as I pivoted, Claire’s weight shifted on my back, pushing me forward. I stumbled and, for a moment, thought about what it would be like to fall. With both Claire and Mina connected to me, they’d fall too. None of us would survive the crash on the rock and sand floor that still loomed too far down.
Our deaths would leave Jill all alone as she slid down the rock all by herself. In short, if I didn’t pull my sorry ass back upright, I was going to kill every one of us.
I grunted hard as I threw my weight back, regaining my balance through sheer force of effort.
“Jesus!” Claire shouted and held tighter onto my neck as though that was going to help something.
“I got it,” I said, my calves burning as I stood straighter. My legs were on fire as we slid down the wall to the ground below. I needed to think through the pain though. It was the only way we were going to make it.
We hit with a nearly inaudible thud as our gear reduced our speed enough to keep us from becoming smashed tin cans full of goop on the floor. Not wasting time, Claire, Mina, and I hurriedly detached from each other while waiting for Jill to descend.
She was still a fair bit up the cliff, so I looked back at the ring of elites surrounding the valley. The hole made by the two who had scaled the cliff was still there to some extent, though the bugs on either side had flanked out to cover the affected space. Still, the line was loose enough for us to be able to find our way through if we were careful and a little bit lucky.
Jill slammed against the ground harder than even the three of us combined did. Her face was a mess of hurt and strain. This had been more difficult than she imagined it would be. In truth, most things were for a Marine. She stumbled to her knees, and I rushed over to help her up, thankful all of this went unseen by the elites just feet away from us. Guess the alpha shielding was worth a damn after all.
“Get up. We need to move,” I said. I looked all around. The elites wouldn’t be gone long. All they wanted to do was beat back the stragglers on their property line. I doubted the elites who brought us here would put up much of a fight before they retreated, if they hadn’t done so already.
Either way, they damned sure weren’t going to die to keep us safe. That meant the wall would be back up to snuff sooner rather than later, and if we didn’t get through it before then, we’d have to create another diversion and put ourselves at risk all over again.
Jill didn’t seem to mind the forward nature of my command though. She grabbed my extended hand and stood.
“Annabelle, grappling package off.” My feet went back to normal, and I gripped my pulse laser tighter. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to use this but, given where we were and what we were stepping into, it was definitely better for me to have it at the ready, even if I was pretty sure the beams would still bounce off the elites’ armor. “Scan the area and get me the safest and most direct path to the heart of the city.” I motioned for the squad to follow me as we crossed toward the break in the wall. “When you have it, deliver it to the Artemis Squad,” I finished.
“Affirmative, Lieutenant Ryder,” she said.
As the pathway appeared before me, I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled through the space between bugs. Since I was bigger, the girls didn’t need to follow my path. They lithely scooted through other gaps in the line.
By the time I made it through, Jill was offering me a helping hand up.
“Thanks,” I whispered. It was strange. I knew the bugs wouldn’t have been able to hear me regardless of how loud I spoke. Still, there was something about their proximity that made me want to do everything gingerly, including speak.
“You’re welcome,” Jill said, her cheeks flushing slightly.
Annabelle’s path into the city showed an almost direct line to a rounded room in the center, save for two turns. There was a right at what looked like a gate, and a left a few feet away from the entrance of the rounded room at what appeared to be an energy wall of some kind.
“Everybody got that?” I asked when Annabelle informed me the path had been delivered to the others. They nodded, and we hustled into the city.
I had never really been in an Acburian city when I wasn’t running for my life or actively trying to blow up buildings. As far as I knew, no one had. I was glad my suit was recording all of this. Who knew what sort of valuable information we might gather.
Also of note, unlike the language spoken by the queen who sent us here and her people, these bugs spoke an Acburian tongue common enough for Annabelle to be able to decipher it. I heard two bugs talk about the trespassers at the landlines, saying that the ‘false queen Anya must be getting desperate.’
I made a note of the name of the queen who sent us here, thankful our suits were back on and recording all of this. She might have stopped our suits from gathering intel when we were in her lair, but she either didn’t take into consideration what her rival would say or didn’t care. Admittedly, part of me thought it might be the second one. She’d seemed that kind of arrogant.
Taking a quick right at the locked gate, I saw another set of bugs speaking of a hatching day celebration set for next week. It was a common, almost human conversation, and I tried to ignore it. I couldn’t allow myself to think of them as common, as human. It wouldn’t help me do what I needed to do. They all needed to be monsters. True or false, thinking of them that way was the only way I could do my job.
As we neared the left I needed to take, I saw the rounded room. It was bigger than I’d imagined, given what it looked like on the map. The roof looked different too. It was comprised almost entirely of energy, which was strange because the rest of the buildings had solid roofs.
Looking at it was a problem too because as I made the turn, I saw the energy wall jutted out much further than expected. I pulled myself to the right quickly, feeling the heat of the energy on my face.
“Be careful,” I said to the squad behind me. “The turn is drastic. Be careful, or you’ll slam right into—”
I heard a yelp behind me, and my heart dropped.
Spinning around, I looked back and saw Mina and Claire standing there.
Where was Jill?
Mina was just starting to turn around as I pushed past them and rushed back around the corner.
Jill was on the ground, messy purple hair and open unseeing eyes. She was on her back, having slammed into the wall and caught the worst of it.
“Annabelle,” I said. “Run diagnostic scan.”
“On it,” she answered. “Her suit is starting resuscitation procedures.”
“Resuscitation?” I asked, my eyes narrowing. “That means her heart has stopped.”
“Affirmative,” Annabelle answered.
“Which means that, for the moment, she’s dead.” I swallowed hard. “Which means that—”
A pair of bugs rounded the corner casually. They looked up at me and, God help me, they saw her.
Jill was dead, and that meant her cloaking was as well.
My jaw tightened in horror. “Oh no.”
35
My throat tightened as I went over my options. Jill was dead. Her heart had stopped beating, which meant her cloaking was gone, leaving her a sitting (or lying) duck for the bugs who had just found her.
Protocol dictated that the suit was to immediately send all the intelligence the wearer had collected to the Alliance Halls. Though the suit was sending a standard issue defibrillator into action, the Alliance was hardnosed about the intel.
Information was the most valuable of all assets, more valuable than even the metal. The Alliance
would be even keener to get this information, seeing as how they knew nothing about this city or this moon in general. There was little mystery as to why the cloaking protecting Jill had vanished so quickly. All the suit’s energy (aside from that running the defibrillator) was being used up to get the information Jill had compiled to our Alliance overlords in the blink of an eye.
That left me with a few options. Either I did what protocol dictated and left Jill to the bugs and her undoubtedly horrible fate at their hands, or I could say the hell with the protocol and fight.
That had its own sort of issues though. While it was true that going ape shit on these bugs and beating them back from Jill’s body wouldn’t afford them the ability to see me, there was no guarantee that it would give the defibrillator enough time to work, if it was going to work at all.
More bugs would come. I knew that like I knew my middle name. Which was Clarence, though I’d have rather been skinned alive and laid next to Jill on the ground than admit it.
A loud screech emitted from one of the bugs, a sound Annabelle deciphered as a distress signal. It was all happening, happening right now. In seconds, it would be too late. I wouldn’t be able to act at all. I needed to make a move, to either protect Jill for long enough to hopefully bring her back to life, or to leave her on her own and head to the round room, sitting just steps away.
“Mark,” I heard Mina behind me, her voice worried but still solvent enough for me to know she hadn’t caught sight of Jill on the ground yet. That changed quickly. “God in Heaven!” she shrieked as she took in all that had happened. “She’s dead?”
“No,” I answered quickly, though it was a lie. “Her defibrillator is charging. Annabelle, what’s the percentage chance of her coming back?”
“Forty-six percent,” Annabelle answered.
I blinked, looking at Mina defeated. She glared at me expectantly.
“Almost half,” I said, realizing that she’d be able to ask her own suit if she thought I was lying to her.
Doomed Space Marine: A Space Adventure (Bug Wars Book 1) Page 21
