by Isaac Hooke
“You’re passing wind?” Manic said.
TJ ignored him. “By the time we get back here, I suspect the sand will be covering up the entrance again. We’ll have to dig it out.”
The cave’s point of entry was marked on their overhead maps, and would remain so while the team journeyed out into that world. However, should their maps go down, there weren’t any natural points of interest that Rade could have used to mark the location, as the dunes were essentially indistinguishable from one another.
“Tahoe, plant your signal beacon,” Rade ordered. “Just in case.”
Tahoe knelt, grabbed the PASS device off his belt, and planted it in the sand in front of the small opening. A green light activated on the front panel.
“Good to go,” Tahoe said.
Rade nodded. While the likelihood of both their Implants and jumpsuit AIs failing and causing the team to lose their maps was next to nil, it never hurt to be prepared. Plus, placing the PASS mechanism there was something that would let Surus know his team was looking for her, if she returned before they did.
But it did mean Tahoe had to give up his Personal Alert Safety System. Rade wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with that.
I’ll just have to take extra care to watch his back.
“Let’s start toward those crystals,” Rade said. “Tahoe, take us in. I want traveling overwatch.”
Tahoe divided the squad into two fire teams: F1, with Algorithm, TJ, Manic, and himself; and F2, with Brat, Rade, Bender, and Harlequin.
Tahoe’s team led the way, thirty meters in front of Rade’s. Each member was offset from the man in front of him, forming a zigzag pattern. The external fabric of their jumpsuits changed coloration to match the sand underneath.
Rade scanned the purple dunes around him as he marched. His feet sunk to the ankles with each step, the sliding grains attempting to pull him down, seeping the energy from his stride. As Falon had promised, the gravity seemed unchanged versus that aboard the station and the ship, so that was a positive at least.
“I’ve been doing some topographical analysis of the dunes, and those crystals ahead,” Harlequin said. “The desert region surrounding those conical structures is at a lower elevation compared to the outlying dunes... forming a massive hollow. My guess is that what we are seeing is the very tip of the iceberg. Those conical structures likely once filled an entire valley that is now buried by the sand. They were probably located on a hilltop in that valley.”
“Fantastic,” Bender said. “And that helps us oh so very much.”
“I thought it would be interesting background information,” Harlequin said. “To help you realize the immensity of the civilization that was lost.”
“Uh huh,” Bender said. “And did you ever consider that maybe you’re analysis was wrong, AI? Maybe these structures are all there is? And there’s nothing buried under that sand but AI turds.”
“I see it is pointless to reason with you,” Harlequin said.
“What’s that up ahead?” Tahoe said. “Those look like bones.”
Rade zoomed in. About halfway to the crystals, several grayish objects were strewn across the sand. They indeed looked like bones. But for all the pieces, there was nothing recognizable. No skulls or rib cages, for example. It was like a dumping ground for femurs. Big ones, at that—about three times as big as a human’s.
“Whatever creature these belonged to, its impossible to tell what it looked like,” Tahoe said.
In a few moments Tahoe’s team passed the site.
When Rade’s team neared it, Bender paused to pick up one of the bones.
“Look at my boner!” Bender said, holding the large grayish piece in front of his groin. It extended an arm-length in front of him.
“Ooo Bender, you’re so big!” Manic said. “I can see you from my fire team without even zooming in!”
Bender dry humped the piece. “If only Surus could see me now!”
“I’m sure she would be mightily impressed,” Manic said. “Better watch yourself, you might break your hymen.”
“I’d give up my virginity for you!” Bender said. “Gah!” He dropped the large piece. “There are bugs in the bone!”
Rade got closer. Sure enough, he saw small, wormlike larvae crawling up and down a tiny fissure in the grayish material.
Abruptly, those larvae began to incinerate in plumes of smoke, and clumps around them fell away, the blackened bodies crimped up.
Rade glanced at Bender. The man was firing at the larvae with his laser rifle.
“Centuries of gunsmithing and laser manufacturing to design the weapon of the ages,” Harlequin said. “And he’s using it to shoot down a couple of mealworms.”
When Bender had finished shooting away the last of the larvae from the bone, he walked up to it and ground any surviving larvae into the sand.
“Take that, bitches!” Bender said. He surveyed the remaining bones, but when there weren’t any other signs of obvious infestation, he turned toward Rade, seeming very proud of himself. “There you go, boss. I’ve just protected us from any attacks coming in from the rear.”
“Um,” Manic said over the comm.
“What, bitch?” Bender said. “How do you know these bugs won’t have grown to the size of a Hoplite by the time we return? I just saved your ungrateful ass.”
“Where’s Lui and Fret to back me up when I need them?” Manic said.
“Bender, would you mind taking point, please?” Rade said. “We continue toward the cluster.”
Bender eagerly moved to the front to take point ahead of Brat.
The party trudged across the sand in silence for some time. Rade continued to survey the stark dunes, wary of ambush. He occasionally drifted his aim down to the sand itself, knowing that an attack could come from that vector as well.
Manic requested a call with Rade on a private channel.
Rade picked up. “What is it, Manic?”
“You know, boss, I sometimes wish I had what you have,” Manic said.
“What do you mean?” Rade said, continuing his survey of the terrain.
“Just that, I never get to see my kid,” Manic replied. “What Bender said earlier is pretty much true. I send monthly child support payments to the mother of my child, who is living with another man. The closest I get to seeing my son is whatever she decides to share on her public InterGalNet profile.”
“There’s got to be some law requiring her to let you see the kid, hasn’t there?” Rade said. “I know it can depend on district, but—”
“Oh sure,” Manic said. “I’m allowed to see him.”
“Well great,” Rade said. “Get her to bring him to a nearby station sometime when you’re on liberty.”
“About that...” Manic said. “Unfortunately, she never leaves Earth. And you know how often we get down there. As in: usually never.”
Rade zoomed in on a suspicious object he saw in the distance. Turned out to be just another dune. “Are you asking for a leave of absence or something?”
“Not at all,” Manic said. “I don’t think I could stand it. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if ever we’re in Earth’s neighborhood, I would surely appreciate it if we could stop by our old homeworld. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to being a surrogate uncle slash big brother to Alex and Sil. I want to do my part to help you raise them right.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that,” Rade said. “I think.”
“What do you mean, you think?” Manic asked.
“I’m a bit leery, I admit,” Rade replied.
“What, not sure what kind of a role model Uncle Manic will be for the little ones?” Manic asked.
“That about sums it up,” Rade said.
“Boss, come on,” Manic said. “You know me. I’m going to be an awesome role model.”
“Uh huh,” Rade said. “You and Bender can teach the twins how to fight each other.”
“Of course!” Manic said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“I was joking,” Rade said.
“Oh,” Manic said.
“Anyway, I’d like to concentrate, so if there’s nothing else?” Rade said.
“No, that was it,” Manic said.
“Good.” Rade disconnected.
He couldn’t help but shake his head.
Manic has had all this downtime between planets to talk to me, and he has to go and bring up something like that during a mission.
Rade chalked it up to nerves. Manic was no doubt experiencing the familiar fear that plagued them all during outings such as these: the fear of not returning, and of dying lightyears away from home.
Rade felt that fear himself, but he dismissed it. He had to. Instead, he focused his attention on the bleak landscape before him, and scanned the dunes.
“Just picked up something on drag,” Harlequin said.
“Something?” Rade asked.
“Yes,” Harlequin said. “We’ve got incoming tangos.”
thirteen
Rade saw the eight red dots appear on his overhead map.
“Um, those look big,” TJ said. “Tell me again why we didn’t bring Hoplites?”
“Because we’re idiots?” Bender said.
“Speak for yourself,” Manic said. “I’m—”
“Down!” Rade spun around and dropped to the sand. Lying prostrate, he aimed his rifle at a cloud of dust in the distance.
He saw eight spheres rolling across the plains toward his team. The objects were covered in scales, evoking a sense of the reptilian.
“Lizard balls!” Bender said.
“Argonauts, dig in!” Rade said. “Fire at will!”
“Bugidty bugidty bugs,” Bender sang as he opened fire. “Gonna kill me some lizard balls!”
The fire teams unleashed their laser rifles. In moments two of the spheres dropped out, simply tumbling to one side and remaining motionless. The remaining spheres continued to roll toward them.
Rade fired frantically, concentrating on a single target. He hit the reptilian scales, but didn’t seem to cause any damage.
“Resilient bitches,” Bender said. “Come on, die!”
“You got to hit them between the scales,” Tahoe said. “You see where they overlap, that’s where you target!”
Rade zoomed in. It was a tricky shot, considering the constant revolutions. He called on the AI of his jumpsuit to aid him, and squeezed the trigger.
He was sure he had made the shot, but the sphere he targeted continued to roll in.
“Didn’t work,” Bender said.
The creatures came to a halt roughly ten meters from the party and those balls unfolded into large, salamander-like creatures, towering over the Argonauts. Four birdlike feet protruded from their bodies, with nasty looking talons on the tips. Their heads were long, dinosaur-like, the maws lined with serrated teeth obviously used for ripping flesh from bones. There were no obvious eyes. But he did hear a high-pitched chirping emanating from the creatures.
“Aww, they’re just big, misunderstood birdies!” Bender said, firing away.
“They’re using echolocation!” Rade transmitted.
One of the giant salamanders spat a green liquid at him. He rolled away just in time. Beside him, where the liquid touched, the sand dissolved.
Rade aimed his targeting reticle into the creature’s wide open mouth and squeezed the trigger. The alien dropped dead.
“Wait ‘til they open their mouths!” Rade said. “And fire down their throats!”
The other aliens sprayed more acid from their maws, but the other Argonauts in fire team two were ready, having learned from Rade’s experience, and they leaped aside.
Three more creatures fell in short order as the other Argonauts took them down, leaving only two of the aliens.
“Cover me!” Bender dashed forward.
“Bender, no!” Rade said.
A salamander moved toward Bender, obviously intending to snatch him in its maw, but Rade fired, drawing its attention away.
Bender leaped up, using the strength enhancement of his suit to land on the thing’s back. It roared in outrage, and tried to buck him off.
The other salamander vaulted toward the first and opened its maw.
“Oh shit!” Bender dove to the side and fell off the creature.
The second salamander slammed its jaw into the back of the first, which apparently pissed that one off, because they began fighting each other, roaring in outrage. The first had streams of acid sizzling down its back where the second’s maw had touched, plus several gore marks.
“Nicely done,” Manic said.
Rade and the others fired at the distracted creatures, aiming for the mouths. In short order the creatures collapsed, thudding dead onto the sand.
Bender moved between the bodies and fired several shots into each of the heads.
“Bro, I think they’re dead,” Manic sent.
“Final head shots,” Bender said. “You’ll be thanking me later, when they don’t sneak up on you and spit acid up your ass from behind.”
“Kind of like what you like to do?” Manic taunted.
“Got some more incoming tangos,” Algorithm said from fire team one, which remained thirty meters behind the second team. “These ones coming from the direction of the city. They’re airborne. Judging from their current trajectory, I don’t think they’ve noticed us yet.”
“Aircraft?” Rade said. “Or organics?”
“The latter, I think,” Algorithm said.
“Stay low, and keep your head down!” Rade said. “Don’t let them see you! And Bender, get away from those bodies!”
Bender hurried across the sand and dropped beside Rade.
“If they’re using echolocation like these things, it won’t matter if we stay low,” Tahoe said. “We’ll readily stand out on the dunes. Especially from above.”
“Good point,” Rade said. “Bury yourselves!”
Rade lay on his back and worked rapidly to cover himself with sand. Because of Bender’s proximity beside him, he also shoved sand Bender’s way, helping to conceal him, and Bender did the same for him.
Soon, Rade was completely buried. He left his rifle scope partially covered, and pointed toward the dead salamanders, as presumably those would be the first things detected by the incoming bogeys.
Rade heard what sounded like a loud flapping.
And then something landed beside one of the dead salamanders. He saw what looked like two giant chicken feet.
He slowly rotated his rifle scope upward.
A large reptilian creature had landed, and was folding its wings onto its back like some gargantuan bird. Its short tail seemed feathered, just like a bird, but the rest of the body was covered in scales.
“Pterodactyl!” Bender transmitted. “I call dibs!”
“Sh!” Rade said.
Another flying reptile landed, and a third. Like the salamanders, none of them had any obvious eyes. And they also emitted loud, repeated chirps, very much like bats. The sounds varied rapidly, trilling constantly up and down, with several clicks in between. No doubt Rade was only able to hear a portion of the frequencies with his human ears.
He watched as they opened their mouths and sprayed acid onto the corpses; the salamander bodies began to melt.
“Predigestion,” Harlequin said.
The lizards tore into the melting bodies with their razor sharp teeth, biting away larger chunks and devouring the meat.
“Not pterodactyls after all, but acid-breathing dragons!” Bender said. “Can I kill them, boss? Can I?”
“No,” Rade said. “Now quiet!”
It took only twenty minutes for the flying lizards to tear away most of the meat from those salamanders. And then they licked the bones. Hooks in their tongues helped scrape off the remaining meat, and acid loosened them; in moments the remnants were picked clean. The three lizards took flight once more, and headed in the direction of the crystal cones. They left behind the collection of femur-like bones.
“Well, at least we know where those other bones came from now,” TJ said.
Rade zoomed in on the dragons, and watched them descend upon the cones in the distance before vanishing.
“Hmm,” Tahoe said. “Something tells me that heading toward those crystals probably isn’t the best idea.”
“Probably not,” Rade said. “But where else should we go? Those structures are the only lead we have so far.”
“We’ll probably find her dead body,” TJ said. “At least, Ms. Bounty’s. Surus would never die from an attack by these creatures.”
“I could use a bit of Surus’ invulnerability right about now,” Bender said.
“Really?” Manic said. “Judging from your action’s back there, I wasn’t sure if you already had invulnerability. Or at least believe you did.”
“It’s called bravery,” Bender said. “And you thought my balls were small, huh?”
“Don’t confuse stupidity with bravery,” TJ commented.
Rade didn’t say anything, but he agreed with TJ.
Bender kept quiet. He and TJ were good friends, and those words were no doubt some tough love coming from TJ. Rade hoped the point had struck home, and that Bender wouldn’t take the same risk he had back there again any time soon.
“All right, let’s continue,” Rade said. “We’re going to move at a crouch from here on in. And a low crawl once we reach the city proper. Hell, I almost want to start crawling right now, except I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“We could, though,” Manic said. “It doesn’t look that far...”
“It’ll take us the whole day to low crawl all the way to those cones, bitch,” Bender said.
“So?” Manic said. “I remember low crawling for far longer during sniper training. There was that one qualification... do you remember? Spending three day’s crossing a sniper’s field.”
“That was different,” Tahoe said. “We knew the field was being actively observed through scopes. That doesn’t apply here.”
“How do you know?” Manic said. “Maybe the echolocation those dragons use is finer-grained than we think.”
“We crouch, for now,” Rade said. “And drop as soon as we detect motion, or I say otherwise.”
