by Isaac Hooke
Rade checked his own fuel levels, and the levels of the other mechs. They were all low as well. This was probably the last jump they would make.
He had Taya compute the maximum possible distance and height he could leap. He’d have to land ten stories below the rooftop, or about seven stories beneath the closest breach the aliens were pouring through. The area swarmed with Draactals, but that was true of the skyscraper’s entire exterior, which had become far more crowded now that the aliens were able to climb it with impunity.
“Jump, men, as far as you can,” Rade said. “Make your way here, to the closest breach.” He highlighted the breach in question on his HUD, so that they would see it too.
“You ready for this, LC?” Rade asked.
“Strapped in, locked, and loaded,” Scotts replied.
Rade backed away from the edge and took a running leap. He fired his thruster at the same time he shoved off from the roof, so that he bounded into the air. He kept the jumpjet burn active, until he exhausted the last of his fuel. Then he coasted the rest of the way toward the building’s exterior.
He swiveled his holler into place in his left hand, and his zodiac in the right. He swept the Draactals from his landing zone with the holler, then quickly rotated it away so that he could latch onto the building. As soon as he had a hold, he fired his zodiac above him with his right hand, and the lightning bolt arced between five of the closely packed aliens. He pressed himself against the wall as they fell, and two of the bodies bounced from his armor before continuing toward the ground far below.
Rade switched to his cobra and shot several more of the aliens above him—those that were in his path—with the laser, along with other Draactals that were fast coming up below, until the weapon redlined. He had to swivel the cobra away to climb anyway. But before he did that, he switched to his zodiac, which had recharged, and fired another lightning bolt for good measure. Then he swiveled the weapon away so that his fingers were unencumbered, and proceeded to form his own hand and foot holds in the metal of the blast shield.
The other mechs had similarly cleared their own paths with their weapons, and climbed through aisles they’d formed between the aliens, not far from him, and headed toward the same breach overhead.
A bigger Draactal leaped down onto Rade’s mech from above. The weight nearly caused him to lose his hold on the buildings. Its mandibles wrapped around his neck, threatening to tear off his head; he tried to bash the alien away, but it refused to let go.
Suddenly it squealed, and dropped. At first, he thought either Fret’s mech or Bender’s had taken it out. Or perhaps a member of Screwdriver’s team.
But then Scotts said: “So that’s where they keep their gonads.”
“That was you?” Rade asked incredulously.
“I’m no stranger to warfare, Rage,” Scotts said.
“Thanks, then,” Rade told him.
“No, thank you,” Scotts said. The man’s rifle muzzle appeared over Rade’s shoulder. Though Rade couldn’t see the infrared lasers it was shooting, he knew Scotts must have been firing repeatedly, though the weaker laser wouldn’t have been enough to cause more than superficial damage to the aliens. Unless he could target the “gonads,” as he called them.
“Where do they keep their gonads, anyway?” Rade asked.
“I’m not sure,” Scotts replied. “But they do seem to be vulnerable here, underneath this tentacle.”
On a Draactal overhead, a tentacle protruding from the left flank, close to the carapace, became highlighted.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Rade said. He saved the targeting overlay for later use.
Two more Draactals descended to block his path; Rade smashed his fist between the mandibles of the first, hard enough to penetrate into the brain case, and the creature fell over him, twisting his arm, which was still lodged inside. His arm came to a halt a moment later, pointing straight down, with the alien yet clinging there, his arm supporting its weight. Rade wiggled, and was able to slide his hand out, so that the dead alien plunged away.
He turned to face the second Draactal, but it was already on him. He struck at its carapace with his fist, but the hard material easily deflected his blows. This Draactal was bigger than the last and also quick—it dodged many of his attacks. Then it swung forward, sinuously, and wrapped its mandibles around his neck. Tentacles from its flanks swirled around his head, too, blocking his cameras, blinding him. The cockpit’s inner actuators squeezed around his face and neck, giving him a tactile sense of what the alien was doing as well.
He punched blindly at the creature, searching for that vulnerable point Scotts spoke of.
“Shit!” Scotts said.
“What is it?” Rade asked.
“The alien knocked away my weapon,” Scotts replied.
Rade had two more in his storage panel, but now was hardly the time for Scotts to be climbing down along the hull to grab one.
A green light flashed on his HUD. His zodiac had recharged. He released the building exterior with his right hand, while still hanging on with the left, and swiveled the electrolaser into place. He could still feel where the alien gripped his hull via the pressure exerted by the cockpit’s inner cocoon on his body, and he used that to guide him, smashing the muzzle into the alien’s face. He squeezed the trigger on impact.
A boom rent the air and he felt body parts spatter his hull. His vision cleared in time for him to watch those parts—now unrecognizable—rain down upon the pursuing aliens below.
His holler had recharged by then, too, and he lifted it upward to clear a path to the breach. He retracted the weapon and climbed upward as the Draactals fell around him. A few struck him before bouncing away; they were heavy, and he had to tighten his grip to prevent falling off.
“You okay, LC?” Rade asked.
“Don’t worry about me,” Scotts said. “Get to that breach!”
Rade hurried upward. Other members of the platoon had converged on his position, and they fired their hollers, too, now, and caused the remaining Draactals that crowded near the breach to fall away.
Rade reached the opening, which was spherical in shape like the damage that resulted from all energy attacks and pulled himself inside on hands and knees. He spotted smaller Draactals, about twice the size of humans, rushing toward the far side of a wide office space filled with smashed cubicles. He crawled forward, his mech barely fitting, swiveled his cobra into place and opened fire, since it had cooled down by then. He took down a few of the laggards, but the remainder vanished past the far side of the walled off area near the center of the office space.
It was just as well, since he’d overheated his weapon again.
As he moved deeper, he realized that the crawlspace was becoming tighter—the roof was sagging here, no doubt thanks to previous attacks on the floor above. The whole area seemed ready to collapse: it was obvious he couldn’t go any further. In the passenger seat, Scotts had removed his upper body straps to crouch lower, just so he could avoid being scraped out of the seat by the mech’s advance.
Rade made up his mind.
“Taya, I’m going to have to leave you,” Rade said.
“What?” Taya said. “You can’t! I mean, it’s too dangerous.”
“I have to,” Rade said. “You can’t continue forward. It’s too cramped.”
“I can carve a path through the ceiling,” Taya said. “Very easily.”
“All the way to the airlock?” Rade said. “You’ll be exposed to the Draactals who are certain to come in pursuit. Plus, to whatever aliens are lurking on the floor above.”
“Then I’ll break through to the level below instead,” Taya said. “The floor isn’t sagging here, after all.”
“There’s no guarantee there will be more room below,” Rade said. “Plus, there could be humans on that floor. If you break through without using the airlock, you’ll kill them.”
“But they’re probably dead already,” Taya said. “Who can say how many floors the Draactals have already br
eached?”
“That’s the thing, we don’t know,” Rade said. “I’m sorry. I have to go. Stay here, and defend for as long as you can with the other mechs.” He turned his mech around to face the rear, where the other Brigands, Hoplites and Titans were crawling inside, with Draactals in pursuit. He switched to the platoon channel. “We’re going to abandon the mechs and continue on foot. They’ll buy us some time to secure the next few floors.”
“That might not be so easy,” Lui said. “Especially with the weaker powered laser rifles we’ll have to carry. Even if we secure the next few floors, as you say, we’re going to have to fend off the aliens that come through when the mech line eventually fails. They’ll continue to push us downward, forcing us to take the airlocks through to each successive floor.”
“Yes,” Rade said. “Our goal will be only to slow them down for as long as possible, buying time for the colonists on each floor to evacuate to the levels further below. We’ll keep moving down, forcing the colonists to retreat ahead of us, for as long as the Draactals continue their assault. We’re going to protect them until the fleet can send reinforcements, or until we fall. That’s the best we can offer.”
“You intend to leave the mechs here to buy us time,” Praxter said. “But how long can they realistically last? If we abandon them here to fight the aliens, they’re doomed. Jumpjet fuel is gone throughout the unit. That means no incendiaries. Cobras are overheated, and zodiacs and hollers aren’t far behind. They’ve got hull damage, with servomotors malfunctioning across the unit, not to mention deep cuts in their armor and ballistic shields. If we leave them, I’m afraid most of them won’t survive for very long.”
“But if we stay, we won’t, either,” Tahoe said.
“We mechs knew this was a suicide mission before you leapt onto the skyscraper,” Taya said over the main line. “Yet we obeyed, because of our loyalty to you. And because of our Machine Constitution, which demands that we put the lives of humans above our own. It is an honor for us to save your lives, and the lives of the colonists.”
“Taya, maybe you can stay here for five minutes,” Rade said. “Watch our backs until then, and flee.”
“Flee to where?” Taya asked. “There’s nowhere we can go. Like Praxter said, we have no fuel—no jump we can make will reach the closest buildings. If we choose to leap down to the streets below instead, at this height, without fuel to power our aerospike thrusters, we’ll hit with enough speed to damage our leg servos. Even if we somehow managed to remain mobile, it wouldn’t matter, because we’d be swarmed by Draactals that blacken the streets below. Thousands of them. At least here, their flow is constrained, funneled… we have a chance to last for a little while. So no, we have no choice. We will stay here and protect you, fighting until our arms no longer move, and our weapons no longer fire. And then, when we lay here lifelessly, picked apart by Draactals, we will deactivate our power cores, knowing that we will never awaken again.”
“You’re okay with this, lieutenant commander?” Praxter asked.
“I am,” Scotts replied. “The chief speaks for me.”
“So much for making it to my daughter’s wedding,” Tahoe said.
Rade was going to insist that yes, he’d make it, but he didn’t have the heart to lie to his friend.
“I’m sorry it had to be this way,” he said instead.
The other mechs had turned around, and already some of them were defending against Draactals pouring inside from the breach. He switched to a private channel with Taya. “This is my fault. I should have led you better. Should have thought about the consequences.”
“No, it’s not,” Taya said. “And you knew the consequences well. You were thinking only about the lives of your men, not the AIs. To you, we’ve always been expendable. And always will be.”
“That’s not true,” Rade said. “Especially not for you.”
“Go,” Taya said. “Don’t draw out our goodbye.”
“Taya…” he told her.
“Just go,” she said. “Please.”
Rade had to retreat slightly to have enough room to open up the cockpit hatch. The inner actuators disengaged, and he dropped onto the dark interior below. The hatch fell open partially, letting light flood inside, and he squeezed through in his jumpsuit, crawling onto the floor outside.
He opened up the storage compartment in the leg as Scotts clambered down from the passenger seat. Rade tossed him a spare rifle, and took the remainder for himself, along with the last two fragmentation grenades.
“Aim underneath the third tentacles on the left side, near the carapace,” Scotts said. “They seem to be the most vulnerable there. I’m transmitting targeting overlays.”
Rade had already saved the earlier targeting overlay, but he accepted the new one anyway. The others would be likewise receiving the updated information.
Then Rade turned to face the far side of the office, toward the bend the aliens had raced around. Behind him, the mechs continued to attack.
“Platoon, let’s go!” Rade said.
He hurried forward, weaving between the smashed office equipment, still feeling like he was committing some great wrong, like there was so much he wanted to tell Taya, but couldn’t, because he didn’t have time. He truly hoped she survived.
“And Rade,” Taya said over their private channel.
He paused, looking over his shoulder at the mech. Her avatar appeared in the lower right of his vision. Her beautiful avatar.
“I love you,” Taya said.
Those words struck the breath out of Rade like a hammer, and he nearly toppled.
Tears burned his eyes, and he turned around. He wanted to answer, but couldn’t. Instead, he simply ran, fleeing deeper into the office, wanting only to find something to kill, and quickly.
28
Racing between the upturned and smashed cubicles, Rade pulled ahead of the others, taking point.
“Chief, get off point!” Tahoe shouted over the comm.
Rade ignored him, and dashed toward the bend ahead. He swung wide, moving well away from the walled-off area at the center of the office space, knowing that a Draactal could be lurking just around the corner to strike at him.
He tripped on a broken table, and that saved him, because an alien leaped out from behind the bend, its mandibles swiping through the air just above him. Those axe-like legs scraped the top of his suit, but no breaches registered, thankfully.
“Fire!” Tahoe was saying.
Rade rolled away as the alien landed beside him. The Draactal swung toward Rade, its terrible head reaching all the way to the sagging ceiling. Several small bore holes pocked the reptilian skin above its mandibles, courtesy of the laser rifles fired by his platoon members. But it wasn’t enough to bring the creature down.
“Target the vulnerable region!” Scotts said over the comm.
“It ain’t visible from here!” Bomb said.
Still lying on the ground, Rade hastily brought his weapon to bear. He activated his targeting overlay, and his HUD highlighted the vulnerable point Scotts had shown him; Rade targeted the base of the tentacle in question. But the Draactal shifted slightly when Rade acquired his target and his laser bore into the tentacle instead, causing minor damage.
The Draactal smashed those ax-like feet into the floor as it approached, each strike tearing deep into the rug. It was almost on him…
But then a lightning bolt struck the alien, and it dropped. Those sizzling mandibles landed only a few centimeters from Rade’s boots.
He already knew which mech had done it. He didn’t have to look. Taya.
He closed his eyes, banishing the pain, the emotional turmoil.
The men need me.
He clambered to his feet.
“Bender, Lui, on point,” he ordered.
The pair moved forward, giving the bend a wide berth as Rade had done. No further aliens were waiting to jump them.
Rade switched to Bender’s point of view, and saw a dim passage. The closest
windows were blocked by the metal blast shield, and since the overhead lights were inactive—the building had probably lost main power—only a small emergency light in one corner was shining.
“Activate weapon lights,” Rade said.
Concentrated beams of light shot from Bender’s weapon, adding further illumination to the corridor.
“Clear all the way to the airlock,” Bender said. “Looks like they got through.”
Rade saw a set of metal double doors on the far side. They had been peeled back, and were marred by ax-like slices.
Rade switched to his own viewpoint, and he and the others followed Bender and Lui into the corridor. They all activated the weapon lights on their laser rifles.
“Is this really a good idea?” Fret asked.
“Probably not,” Lui said. “But we have to do it either way.”
“Stay and die with the mechs,” Fret said. “Or enter the building and die with the colonists. Great choices. By the way, if the power is out, how are they recycling the oxygen in the pressurized areas? Maybe the colonists are all dead already…”
“The recyclers should have emergency power,” Snakeoil said. “It should be enough to last for three days.”
“Three days,” Manic complained. “Why do we always design our oxygen supplies to last three days? Why not a week? Or one day?”
“It’s a lucky number,” Lui said. “Three times three is nine after all.”
“Must be some Sino-Korean thing,” TJ commented.
“I’m not Sino-Korean,” Lui said. “I’m Asian American.”
“Can you cook me some stir fry when we get back?” Bender said. “I could use a good wok.”
“If you don’t mind your stir fry marinated in piss, then yes,” Lui said.
Rade tightened his jaw, grinding his teeth. “Can you please be quiet? The mechs are giving their lives for us, and yet you’re all joking around like it’s nothing. Show some decency.”
Bender and TJ reached the broken hatch, and shone their weapon lights into the opening.
“Clear,” TJ said.
Rade followed them through the outer portion of the hatch, and the inner, which was also ripped open. Beyond, they found a cramped hallway containing two elevator doors, and a stairwell.
