City of Phants (Argonauts Book 6)

by Isaac Hooke

  He switched his gaze to the street, where enemy reinforcements routinely jogged across to the bases of the buildings. He spotted a shock trooper making such a run at that very moment, and he followed it with his reticle, squeezing the trigger when he had the crosshairs over the glass dome. The alien trooper fell.

  Laser fire from the building across from him forced him to duck behind the side wall.

  A distant rumbling sound began to echo from the buildings. The rooftop shook.

  “Uh,” Fret transmitted.

  In the distance, from the direction of the shipyard, a large cranial-shaped vessel arose. Rade was reminded of a bull’s skull, minus the horns. The eye region glowed purple and green, indicating where Phants were in control aboard. Where the mouth should have been, a small pyramidal structure protruded.

  “Looks like they were trying to build one of their motherships,” Tahoe said.

  “If that’s supposed to be a mothership,” Lui said. “They only got a thousandth of the way done. It’s far too small.”

  “Either way, I’m not liking that coronal weapon mount near the base,” Tahoe said.

  “The pyramid structure?” Manic asked.

  “That’s the one,” Tahoe answered.

  “Surus was supposed to place charges on that ship!” Fret said over the comm.

  “Apparently she did,” Harlequin said. “Look at the scorch marks and dents.”

  “That’s what you get for using Tech Class III charges against IV hulls!” Manic said.

  “Remind me why we didn’t call in the big guns again?” Fret said.

  “Because we’re the only ones that can trap all those Phants?” Lui replied. “Besides, by the time the United Systems military arrived to nuke the place, that ship would have grown a lot bigger. And there would have been far more shock troops. The United Systems would be no match for what would have been waiting for them.”

  “So here we are, once again singlehandedly doing the job of the United Systems military for them,” Fret said. “The story of our lives.”

  “What’s that ship doing?” TJ said.

  The vessel proceeded directly into the dome, crashing right through. The craft floated just above the buildings, dragging some of the dome’s broken metal framework inside with it.

  The surrounding tangos used the distraction to press the attack against the Hoplites.

  Rade unleashed a burst from his cobra at an enemy unit and then ducked behind the shield as the laser fire rained in.

  The ship continued to approach the neighborhoods where Rade and the others were dug in. It moved lower now, so that it’s bottom section scraped against the rooftops, carving a trail of carnage through the intervening buildings.

  “Is it just me, or is that ship headed directly toward us?” Lui said.

  “It’s not you,” Rade said. The ship was about two blocks away now, and it towered over the nearby buildings. The pyramidal protrusion near the base abruptly flared bright white.

  “Evacuate the rooftop!” Rade yelled. He fired his jumpjets and arced skyward, aiming for the top of the adjacent building. He kept his shield directed toward the enemies below at all times. “Electron, fire at will!”

  Electron took control of his cobra and slid it past the edge of the shield to fire at the tangos lurking behind the superstructures of the target rooftop. Lui and Tahoe arced through the air just behind Rade, similarly keeping their shields held downward.

  A blinding white stream of directional plasma burst from the pyramidal structure at the base of the ship. It struck the building he and the other Hoplites had just evacuated. When the beam faded, nothing remained of the building except its foundations.

  Rade landed hard on the target rooftop a moment later. He immediately took out two enemy Centurions crouched behind different superstructures. He spun about in time to see Tahoe crash into a walker.

  A blur of metal plowed into Rade’s Hoplite from the side, and Electron toppled over.

  A walker had mounted him. Its weapons turned toward his cockpit...

  Lui’s Hoplite smashed into the walker before it could fire, dragging it off Electron. Rade rolled behind a goose neck vent and aimed at another walker—the one possessed by the Black. He fired at the AI core, and the walker shut down.

  An invisible particle beam bit into the vent, and Rade dropped as the metal superstructure sliced in half. He aimed his scope across the rooftop, searching for the source of the beam. A shock trooper had landed on the edge of the rooftop, apparently leaping up from the street below. Rade centered his reticle over the glass dome and squeezed.

  The trooper fell.

  More robots and troops continued to mount the building, some emerging from the stairwell shed, others vaulting up from the street below. Meanwhile, the ship had ceased its advance, and was pivoting toward the new building, obviously preparing to fire its coronal weapon at Rade and the others again.

  The Black was oozing from the fallen walker, heading toward the edge of the roof, apparently afraid of the weapon. While Rade didn’t think it would kill the alien, getting hit by that would probably be uncomfortable to the Phant, at the very least.

  Before Rade could give the order to evacuate the rooftop, he heard a strange chittering sound. It arose above the din of battle, coming from the direction of the stadium. He risked a glance that way and spotted a strange sight:

  Dragons from the Taenia world were flapping their wings and tearing across the rooftops.

  twenty-eight

  Rade stared at the dragons for several moments. His gaze was drawn to the streets in front of them, where several large salamander lizards were stampeding, acting as a lure to the dragons. Ahead of the pack, he saw the bait for the salamanders themselves: several hundred of the smaller Taenia with the buffalo bodies and the clam-shaped heads raced across the asphalt—Bender’s buffaclams. Noctua was at their ultimate forefront, shrilling wildly as she weaved back and forth to avoid the incoming fire of the enemy robots.

  “Kill them!” Noctua shrieked. “Kill the minions of your ancient enemies!” From then on, the only sounds the robot owl made were a series of extremely loud chirps and warbles.

  That command wasn’t supposed to include Rade and his Hoplites, but he doubted Noctua had any fine-grained control over the creatures. The Argonauts would have to be very careful around the new arrivals.

  The dragons quickly lost interest in pursuing the salamanders and the Taenia, and instead turned toward the ship that towered into the sky. They chittered loudly as they flew, as if enraged. Rade wasn’t sure why they were drawn to the vessel. Its movements were slow and lumbering, and nothing like the usual food sources that normally attracted the flying reptiles. Maybe it was the glows in the upper hollows that did it, giving off the impression of giant eyes. Or perhaps it was some sort of latent genetic memory, a hatred for their Phant conquerors that had been passed down through the generations, so that merely seeing those skull-shaped ships evoked a base revulsion that caused them to instantly attack.

  As their large forms drew near, they breathed acid at the vessel, and the hull melted in places. Several of the reptiles repeatedly rammed into the craft as well, and succeeded in dragging the ship off course.

  Meanwhile, buffaclams stampeded over any robots that were unfortunate enough to wander into their paths. They also leaped onto the rooftops as the combat robots fired down at them, and plowed into them, sending robot body parts flying in all directions.

  The large salamander aliens didn’t take well to the laser and particle beams spraying down on them either, and they abandoned their pursuit of the buffaclams to leap instead onto the rooftops, spewing acid over walkers and Centurions, and crunching down on treaders and shock troopers, breaking them in two between their maws. Some of the dragons swooped onto the roofs as well to similarly engage the robots.

  With the attention of the robot army and shock troops fixated firmly on the new aliens, Rade and the other groups of Hoplites were able to break free from
their entrenched positions and relocate away from the fighting.

  When Rade was two streets away he took another rooftop hide and began to pick off opponents via his maximum zoom setting. He let Electron take control of his left hand cobra, and together they chipped away at the enemy.

  “Never thought I’d see the day,” Bender said. “But we’re fighting alongside bugs! Bugs! Incredible.”

  “We’re not exactly fighting alongside them...” Fret said.

  “Yeah, we are,” Bender said. “Quit ruining my moments! Manic, follow me!”

  “Why do I feel like this is going to be a bad idea?” Manic said, but he set off after Bender.

  Rade wasn’t entirely certain what Bender planned, but it probably involved the arcing weapon. “Argonauts, cover them.”

  He glanced at the overhead map, searching for Surus’ signal. There it was, several blocks away in the stadium district.

  “Surus?” Rade asked.

  “I’m here,” Surus said.

  “I hope you have a way to return these aliens when we’re done,” Rade said.

  “The small Taenia, yes,” Surus said. “On my command, Noctua will order them to retreat to the Acceptor, and she’ll open a continuous teleportation stream above the device to send them back.”

  “What about the big ones?” Rade asked.

  “Hopefully, we can get them to pursue the Taenia again,” Surus said. “Those who do not return, well, we will simply have to terminate them. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think there will be many left after this is done.”

  Indeed, Rade saw salamanders and dragons dropping continually among the buildings in his sights. But they usually killed at least ten robots and shock troopers for every one of their own that went down.

  Rade considered how Surus had teleported the creatures here so quickly. When planning the mission, she had mentioned that this particular Acceptor had a special mode that created a wormhole in perpetuity above the device, at least until Surus collapsed it, allowing creatures to enter simply by passing through an imaginary sphere above the device whose radius was quite a bit larger than the flat disk of the Acceptor itself. Only a few of those particular wormhole-capable Acceptors had ever been constructed, and like the time travel Acceptors, their making had been lost over the millennia, and the remainder were extremely valuable among the Phants. It had to be paired with a matching Acceptor to initiate the continuous wormhole feature, which the Taenia world happened to have. Otherwise, it behaved like an ordinary Acceptor, transporting contents that existed only on the disk itself.

  There wouldn’t have been enough room in the cave on the alien world to use the device the way she had; Surus had obviously moved the matching Acceptor onto the surface before luring the Taenia and the other aliens.

  Rade glanced at the skull ship that still floated above the buildings. The coronal weapon fired every two minutes, sending plasma bursts into the rooftops, wiping out entire swaths of aliens.

  The Hoplites were forgotten.

  For now.

  As he returned his attention to the ongoing battle, whose front line had collapsed to one street away, Rade spotted Bender’s mech on a building right across from the main fighting. Manic’s Hoplite was at his side.

  “Keep covering Bender and Manic!” Rade said.

  The two moved from rooftop to rooftop, never staying in one place, expending their jumpjet fuel as if it would never run out. Riding the passenger seat while Juggernaut controlled the Hoplite, Bender employed his arcing weapon judiciously, judging from the humming that came over the comm, and the arcs of electricity that Rade witnessed darting between the rooftops.

  Two dragons swooped down at them and nearly struck the pair with that acid spit.

  “Tahoe, target the dragon on the right!” Rade transmitted. Meanwhile, he aimed at the dragon on the left, and fired his cobra into the maw. In moments, both dragons plunged down into the street, dead.

  “Bender, Manic, get back here,” Rade said. “Let the aliens and robots fight it out. We’ll round up the Phants later.”

  Rade expected complaints, but both Hoplites immediately obeyed. Rade supposed he owed the unquestioning obedience to the fact that Bender was still in the passenger seat, with Juggernaut’s AI in control of the actual mech.

  Letting the aliens and robots duke it out was a good idea in theory. But given how much damage that coronal weapon was inflicting on them, Rade didn’t think the Taenia would last much longer. The Hoplites would be forced to enter the fray very soon now. And they’d have to face that coronal weapon once more.

  “Would you look at that,” Lui said. “Their acid is eating right through the Tech Class IV hull.”

  Rade gazed at the cranial ship. He saw that as the dragons continued to bombard the vessel in waves, their acid spit had begun to carve a deep pit in the western side of the hull. Rade zoomed in.

  “You’re right,” Rade said. “I can see a passageway inside. It’ll fit our Hoplites. Whoever wants to go on a joyride inside an alien ship, follow me! Bender, your participation is not optional.”

  Rade fired his jumpjets and arced over the buildings, steering himself above the battle. The other nine Hoplites followed. Rade was worried for a moment that the mechs of Manic and Bender wouldn’t have enough fuel to make it, given how much they had expended already, but he checked their stats on his HUD and confirmed that yes, they had enough. He also saw that Bender had returned to his cockpit for the time being. Probably a good idea.

  He dismissed the stats overlay and focused on avoiding the dragons. He kept his shield pointed toward the ground, covering his body against any opportunistic attacks the ground robots might launch. He just hoped no remaining shock troops targeted him or the Hoplites.

  “I’m transmitting a map of the ship,” Surus said over the comm from her position on the surface. “Courtesy of Falon’s memories. I’ve highlighted the Observer Mind chamber in orange. Destroy that, and you destroy the ship.”

  Rade accepted the map data request and transmitted it to the others.

  A dragon dove straight toward him, spitting acid.

  Rade jetted to the side, avoiding the acid, and fired his cobra at the alien. It dropped immediately, crashing into a rooftop and smashing a walker in the process.

  Ahead, the vessel filled Rade’s vision, blotting out the sky. The latticework of metal that composed the hull was scarred and melted in several places. Rade aimed for the gaping hole he had spotted from the surface, and landed inside the melted edges, careful not to touch the corroded area, not wanting any of that acid on his mech. He hurried forward, making room for the other Hoplites to land behind him. There was no resistance so far. And no repair swarms of any kind, either—that metal lattice was supposed to be self healing. At least in the larger motherships.

  The tubes that composed the living bulkheads and overhead around him writhed and twisted. The undulating pipes on the deck formed a raised walkway, with a small ditch on either side. Sometimes those pipes formed gaps that could trip a human in a jumpsuit, but they were essentially crevices to the mechs, and would have no effect on the broad metal feet.

  Rade glanced at the overhead map, which was already filled out, courtesy of Surus’ data. The orange highlight was near the center of the ship.

  “Forward!” Rade ordered his Hoplites. They could fit only in single file in that corridor, so Rade led the way into the quickly darkening passage, as he had been the first to enter. He switched to LIDAR burst mode when it became impossible to see, and a wireframe representation of his surroundings overlaid the darkness.

  As he marched forward, he spotted a sword-like rifle protruding from around a bend ahead.

  “Incoming!” he said, and dropped.

  Ignoring the slightly undulating deck beneath him, he aimed his cobra at the weapon and squeezed the trigger. A portion of the rifle fell away, and the hand that held it drew back. He kept his scope aimed at the corner, but the shock trooper didn’t appear.

  He
glanced at the status feeds of his men. The particle beam hadn’t penetrated any of their hulls, though Tahoe’s mech had a servomotor malfunctioning in the left arm that had been working only moments before.

  “TJ, clear it,” Rade ordered.

  TJ was just behind Rade, and he clambered his mech to its feet, stepped over Rade’s Hoplite, and proceeded to the bend. He fired his cobra past it, and announced: “Clear. The weaponless bastard was just hiding out, hoping I wouldn’t find him, apparently. “

  Rade and the others passed by the lifeless body, and continued deeper into the ship.

  More shock troops occasionally intercepted them, firing from beyond bends or around corners, but Rade and the others dug in and took them down. Phants of different colors tried to intercept them at times as well, but were forced aside by the EM emitters in the Hoplites. During such appearances, Bender usually popped open his cockpit, retrieved the arcing stun rifle from the storage compartment in Juggernaut’s leg, and giggled while firing the arcing stun weapon into the Phants.

  They entered the side passageway that led to the Observer Mind and proceeded forward without resistance. Rade was on point by then, once again.

  “We’re on the final leg now,” Tahoe said.

  “Don’t jinx it,” Lui said.

  “I can see the opening ahead!” Rade said. He saw a circular entrance that led away into darkness.

  As the party grew near, the opening squeezed shut in a ringlike motion, like a sphincter.

  “Damn,” Lui said. “That did seem a little too easy.”

  “Fire cobras at the seal!” Rade said. “Synchronize your weapons to my own.”

  Rade rotated cobras into either arm, then dropped. Behind him, his men adjusted their posture by crouching or kneeling so that all of their weapons had a clear line of sight to the seal.