by Jake Bible
“What about your mech?” Giga asked.
“Leave it here,” Roar said, regarding the sensor array that had whiffs of smoke coming off of it. “Let that xeno gunk run its course. We’ll come back for it.”
“Hopefully, it’ll still be functional,” Giga said.
“I’ll ride on your shoulder if it isn’t,” Roar said.
“I don’t think you want to be that exposed,” Giga said.
“I know I don’t want to be that exposed, but not much choice right now,” Roar said and pointed. “Come on. Head that way. The drop zone is just through those trees. Or what used to be trees.”
“Yeah, I can see it through the hole you punched in the jungle,” Giga said and laughed. She switched to comms. “Wall?”
“Yeah?”
“Follow us. Turn your external mics and loudspeaker on so you can talk to Roar.”
“Got it.” There was a loud squelch of noise then Wall’s voice boomed, “Hey, Roar.”
“Turn it down, dude,” Giga said.
“Sorry,” Wall replied. “How’s that?”
“Better.”
“Hey, Wall,” Roar said. “Nice moves.”
“Thanks,” Wall said. “It’s nice to have something big enough that it actually puts up a fight when I grapple with it.”
“I think you’re the only one happy about that, Wall,” Roar said.
“Probably,” Wall said as he followed behind Giga and into the drop zone.
7.
The drop ship hit the ground in a mass of flame and dust. Before it had even fully settled the rear ramp was down and Schroeder was barking orders, pointing this way and that with one hand while she held her rifle to her hip in the other.
“We will secure this LZ!” Schroeder barked. “I want it tight as a Martian Baptist’s sphincter! Am I understood?”
“Yes, Sarge!” the SpecCom team shouted as they raced from the drop ship, half of them with rifles up and sprinting towards the perimeter of the clearing while the other half started unloading gear on hover lifts and rollers.
“Good to see you rip roaring ready to go, Schroeder,” Chomps said as she walked her mech back to the center of the LZ and the drop ship that was still cycling its thrusters. “You planning on going somewhere right away?”
“I am planning on taking this bird back up with my squad and doing some flyovers at the drop zone where you lost a mech,” Schroeder said.
“I’ve already got three mechs in that area,” Chomps said. “They just tangled with a few xenos and kicked some alien ass. I think they’ve got the drop zone under control.”
“One of those mechs is compromised while the other two are too close to the ground to get any perspective on the area,” Schroeder said. “I’ve been on plenty a jungle planet like this one. The density of the flora is gonna mean your sensors aren’t worth shit. I want eyes on the area and some data from broad scans.”
“Not gonna argue with you if you’re all gung-ho about it,” Chomps said. “I appreciate the assist.”
“That’s my job,” Schroeder said. “Got a second drop ship coming down with Norris’ team. He’ll add to the numbers and make sure nothing sneaks up on us while his drop ship heads back up and brings the rest of the Combat Logistics crew down. We are setting up and I will be damned to Hell and back if I let these xenos scare us off this LZ. You see the stats on this planet?”
“Um, yeah, I saw them,” Chomps replied. “We all saw them.”
“No, you did not,” Schroeder said. “You saw what the Dorso saw and you saw what the Jethro saw. I saw what my drop ship saw in real time during the drop.”
“You were reading atmospheric stats while dropping?” Chomps asked. “That makes me queasy just thinking about it.”
“Atmospheric, geologic, oceanographic,” Schroeder replied. “I was streaming it all on my helmet display. Needed to know what my people were really in for. Orbital scans are one thing, but it gets real on the ground. I only deal with real.”
“I know you do,” Chomps said. “So, what’d you find?”
“Goddamn paradise,” Schroeder said. “Eden exists and it’s called Hrouska, Chomps. If I wasn’t a religious person, I’d say that God started life out here first then kicked us off this planet when we got naughty. I doubt that Earth was ever this great.”
“That’s some motivation to get the planet under control and have the Jethro call back to SBE for reinforcements,” Chomps said.
“Oh, I’ll have this planet under control, don’t you worry,” Schroeder said.
“I’m not,” Chomps replied before a chime went off in her comms. “Hold on. Giga is calling in.” Chomps switched channels. “Giga? What’s the sitrep?”
“We’ve been all over this drop zone,” Giga said. “The xenos are for sure sentient. They stripped the drop ship here of all of its essential gear. No reason to do that unless they are gonna try to figure out how it works. But the fact they are smart enough to tell the difference between useful components and hunks of metal tells me we are not going to like what they may be bringing if they attack en masse again like they did against the Dorso’s teams.”
“Any sign of the escape pod?”
“No.”
“And Shock?”
“No sign of him topside, Chomps.”
“Topside? What does that mean?” Chomps asked. She looked down and saw Schroeder smiling and frowned. “Giga? What does topside mean?”
“It means we found a hole,” Giga said. “A deep hole. Really deep hole. Too deep to scan properly, but it’s big enough for a mech to fall down through. I’m gonna take a look.”
“No, you are not,” Chomps ordered. “You are going to wait for that drop zone to be secured first. You hear me? The last thing I need is to lose another mech.”
“Two mechs,” Giga said. “Roar’s is out of commission at the moment.”
“Even more reason to stay put until we have things in hand,” Chomps said.
“Dammit, Chomps,” Giga said. “It’s Shock down there.”
“Sounds like what you need are tunnel rats,” Schroeder interrupted.
“Is that Schroeder? You down here already?” Giga asked.
“We are,” Schroeder replied.
“Then, yeah, that’s exactly what we need,” Giga said. “Tunnel rats.”
“Sit tight,” Schroeder said. “I got the people for you. On our way.”
The comms cut off and Schroeder smiled up at Chomps.
“Looks like I get to scan over the ground and under the ground today,” Schroeder said. She let out a loud whistle. “Coda! Lopp! Gershon! On me!”
Two men and a woman came running to the drop ship.
“You all want to get dirty?” Schroeder asked.
“Yes, Sarge!” the three soldiers replied.
***
The tunnel split into three possible directions and Shock sighed.
“Son of a butch…”
He tried to scan the different directions but nothing other than empty readings came back to him before the static started again.
“Well, yeah, sure, stands to reason there’d be more than only one way,” Shock mumbled. “Because that would be too goddamn easy.”
He’d been walking for he didn’t know how long and he was pretty much ready to plop down on his metal ass and call it quits like a petulant toddler. But he wasn’t a petulant toddler, he was a mech pilot. Although some of the Jethro’s crew might have argued they were one and the same at times. Especially when it came to Gore. Shock chuckled.
He kept walking, taking the center tunnel for ease of navigation and retreat. Shock wasn’t stupid. He knew he was more than likely walking into the heart of enemy territory. Retreat was a very real possibility. Where exactly he’d retreat to was a whole other thing. But, he’d figure that out if he needed to.
The tunnel grew smaller, narrowing slightly at the sides as he continued. There were no more branches, only the single tunnel, for what had to be close to a couple of kilometers. Shock’s
halogens cast long, dark shadows from the imperfections in the tunnel’s walls. Rocks that stuck out became slithering snakes of huge proportions, divots in the dirt became endless maws that were there to swallow him whole. Although, he knew that was ridiculous.
“Hold on,” he mumbled as his vision swam. “There’s something going on.”
He checked his cockpit’s readings and realized that the oxygen levels were rising considerably. The processors in his mech should have filtered and mixed the air properly, but they weren’t. Shock kept moving, feeling the over-oxygenation of his body start to take hold. Oxygen toxicity was not a pleasant way to go and that thought was punctuated by a slow throb in his head that grew to a stabbing pain.
“Shit,” he mumbled. “Shit, shit, shit.”
He stopped his mech and disengaged the cradle so he could move easier. It was a struggle, but he managed to shift about the cockpit enough until he found the issue.
The hatch was damaged. There was a good twelve-centimeter gash in what should have been a nearly unbreakable seal. If he didn’t patch that, then his mech wouldn’t be able to filter out the excess oxygen and he’d die. He had maybe an hour, most likely a lot less.
“How? How, how, how?” he said then giggled then moaned as the giggle sent shockwaves of pain through his skull followed by a wave of nausea so intense he thought he was going to spew right that second.
But he held it.
“Okay, fix this,” he grunted and grabbed a hunk of the cradle.
Shock tried to rip it off, but it wouldn’t tear. So he used what he had at hand, or mouth, and began to gnaw at the tendril until he was able to get a good chunk off. It tasted like sweaty gym socks and stinky cheese coated in grease. Shock had no idea what the cradle was made of and he made a mental note not to ever ask. He jammed the piece of cradle into the crack.
Exhausted from his ordeal, he rested back against the rest of the cradle until his vision began to clear. His lungs hurt, his belly was still upset, and his head throbbed, but the air he took in felt better and better with each breath.
When he thought he had the strength to continue, he crawled back into the cradle and let it envelop him. The damaged tendril, while shorter than before, repaired itself as he knew it would. He’d been in enough fights on too many planets, not mention a couple falls off of cliffs that he shouldn’t have survived, that he knew what the cradle was capable of.
“Alright,” he said and smiled. “Time to keep on keeping on.”
He started the mech forward then stopped.
He wasn’t alone.
“Shit,” he said as two xenos faced him.
They were big suckers, almost as big as the mech. And they were armed.
Each of the xenos held a general infantry carbine, probably armed with explosive rounds. Mechs didn’t like explosive rounds. They tended to explode parts of the machine that were needed.
“Howdy,” Shock said as he dove at the xenos, tucking and rolling over his right shoulder so he could use his momentum to plant his left elbow into the maw of the xeno on the right.
Carbine fire lit up the tunnel then the explosive rounds began tearing chunks out of the wall and ceiling as the xenos struggled to figure out how to control the weapons. Shock didn’t give them much of an opportunity to experiment.
He came up out of his roll, having smashed his elbow into one xeno, and leapt at the other xeno, twisting its carbine-wielding tentacle in the direction of the xeno he’d just attacked. Explosive rounds tore into the xeno, ripping bits and pieces apart here and there. But Shock knew that wasn’t going to take the thing down; he only used it as a distraction.
Shock smacked his right hip and pulled out a massive shock wand, activated it then, using his other hand to shove the xeno’s mouth wide open, he jammed the wand down the alien’s gullet. Before he yanked his arm free, he made a series of twists on the shock wand’s main body.
Shock shoved the xeno away from him and into the other one then twisted his mech around and dove to the ground as the shock wand overloaded. The xeno lit up from the inside like a Chinese lantern, something Shock had always liked playing with on New Years as a kid. Except instead of sending a beautifully painted paper frame up into the sky, the wand vaporized the xeno’s insides, sending a mass of black gunk spraying across the walls, the ceiling, and the other xeno.
“Too bad I don’t have another one,” Shock said as he got to his feet and leapt at the next best thing.
He snagged the dropped carbine, a tiny thing in the mech’s massive hands, and pinched the magazine just enough to crack a couple of the rounds inside. Then he threw it at the other xeno, turned, and ran his ass off the way he came. The carbine exploded, the xeno screeched, Shock kept running.
Then the air around him erupted into chaos as explosive rounds started going off everywhere. Shock took a brief second to check his rear vids and wanted to piss his jumpsuit.
Eight armed xenos were on his tail and he wasn’t running fast enough to lose them.
“SON OF A BUTCH!” he shouted as he poured every ounce of energy he could into the mech’s legs.
8.
“Deep hole,” Schroeder said as she stood at the lip and looked down. “Loose dirt. Soft. Yeah, no way a mech is climbing back up that.”
“That’s why we haven’t gone down yet,” Giga said.
“I could lower you down with the drop ship,” Schroeder said and smiled. “Use a winch and cable system. But, where would the fun be in that? None for me, I can say that for sure, right squad?”
“Hooyah!” the three SpecCom soldiers cried out as they secured cables to their battle armor and switched on the mini-halogens on their helmets.
“Plus, Chomps doesn’t want to lose you down there,” Schroeder said. “You could get stuck or lost or have a claustrophobia attack and curl up into a tiny mech ball while you cry and wait to be rescued.”
“Having fun?” Giga asked.
“Lots,” Schroeder said. “Just pissed I don’t get to go down myself. Gotta boss these chickenshits around so they don’t start slacking.”
Schroeder received more than a few middle fingers from the soldiers that were busy setting up a defensive perimeter around the destroyed drop zone. Some soldiers pounded large poles into the ground then activated them, creating a fence of pure energy that encircled everything. Other soldiers were bolting and welding scaffolding that could be used as watchtowers. Even more soldiers were digging trenches and securing artillery bases.
“Who has the LZ?” Giga asked.
“Norris and Gailey’s teams,” Schroeder said. “Halva will be down soon with Morisaki any minute now.”
“Morisaki will whip that LZ into shape,” Giga said. “I’ve never met a LZ CO that can do what he can do.”
“He is the best,” Schroeder said. “Never play him in poker.”
“He’s that good?” Giga asked. “I’d heard the opposite.”
“No, he is awful,” Schroeder said. “Makes the game boring as shit.”
“Ha! I’ll remember that,” Giga said. “What about Hawker?”
“Hawker is a great poker player,” Schroeder said.
“No. When is Hawker coming here?”
“Oh, right. She’ll be on her way as soon as another drop ship is unloaded and can go back for her,” Schroeder said, pointing at the vehicle that was emitting steam from its exhaust vents while soldiers unloaded crate after crate down the rear ramp. “Hey! You sad sacks about done?”
More middle fingers then a, “Done, Sarge!”
“Han Lu?” Schroeder asked as she activated her comms.
“What?” Drop Ship Pilot Corporal Han Lu replied over the comms.
“Get back to the LZ ASAP and bring me Hawker,” Schroeder ordered. “We have a mech down and I want it up and ready so we can go secure one of the other drop zones. Got it?”
“Waiting for everyone to get out of the way,” Han Lu replied.
“Screw that,” Schroeder said. “Take off and they’ll
get the hint.”
The only response was a high-pitched whine from the drop ship and the scrambling of SpecCom soldiers as they hurried to get away from the spray of fire and dirt that was about to be unleashed on them.
“It’s your subtlety that amazes me,” Giga said and laughed.
“I know, right?” Schroeder replied then snapped her fingers and pointed at the hole. “Coda! Lopp! Gershon! Get your asses in that hole!”
“Yes, Sarge!” they replied.
They jumped over the edge and were instantly lost from sight.
“Good soldiers, those three,” Schroeder said to Giga. “Best tunnel rats I’ve ever had. If they can’t find our missing mech, then that mech can’t be found.”
“I hope you’re right,” Giga said as she crouched as close as she dared to the hole’s opening. Bits of dirt and rocks fell inside and she took a quick scoot back. “Is there going to be an issue with comms?”
“No,” Schroeder stated. “They’ll plant relays as they go.”
She pulled a tablet from her belt and swiped at the screen, bringing up an almost blank slate that had three green blips flashing on it.
“The relays will also map every square meter down there as they move,” Schroeder said. “This isn’t our first subterranean rodeo, Giga.”
“I know,” Giga said. “But it’s been a while since we’ve lost a mech.”
“It’s been a while since you’ve had a challenge,” Schroeder said. “It’s good for ya.”
“That’s what Wall thinks,” Giga said.
“What was that?” Wall asked over the comms.
“You eavesdropping?” Giga asked.
“I’m bored,” Wall said. “I’m standing guard while Roar works on her mech. She’s not a very good mechanic.”
A tiny voice could be heard yelling, “Hey!”
“Wall? Did you leave your loudspeaker on when you said that?” Giga asked.
“Yep,” Wall replied. “Roar is throwing shit at me. Hey! Knock it off, Roar! You might need those parts!”
“Tell her to chill out,” Giga said. “Hawker is on the way.”
“Chill out! Hawker is on the way!”
