by Isaac Hooke
Rade swung his rifle around in time to spot the blurs of motion falling from the branches overhead. Winged pterosaurs swooped past, colliding with several of the mechs. One of them struck Electron; the mech was sent reeling into a tree and Rade, because he had opened his strap, rolled free. He quickly activated his jetpack and returned to the passenger seat as Electron righted itself. Rade strapped himself in this time.
“Keep going!” Rade said. He aimed his rifle at the pterosaurs, trying to follow them as they swooped back up into the trees. One of them had snatched up Fret. Rade aimed at that particular winged reptile, but Fret dropped free a moment later when he fired his laser rifle at point blank range, and he jetted back to the party in his jumpsuit.
“More airborne tangos!” Lui said.
Rade opened his securing straps once more and swung his torso around to bring his rifle to bear. He tried to target the next wave, but they moved too fast.
However Electron and the other AIs were ready this time, and they sidestepped, bashing the creatures aside.
Unfortunately, more of the winged reptiles began dropping down from all sides, and soon the Hoplites were constantly bashing the airborne tangos while the human passengers struggled to fire their laser rifles at the things.
“Why the hell are they bothering us, when they left the herbivores alone!” Fret said.
“Dunno!” Bender said. “Maybe they’re enamored with your sexy ass!”
Meanwhile, the massive herd of T-Rexes was rapidly closing with the party.
And time was quickly running out if the team wanted to disengage the safeties...
twenty
Rade made a choice.
“We only have a few more minutes to disable the safeties,” Rade said. “Surus, Bender, you’re with me. We’ll dismount our Hoplites, grab the holographic emitters from storage, and proceed on foot, invisible to the carnivores. The rest of you, activate your emitters as well, but remain here, invisible, with the mechs. Hoplites and men, stand your ground. Delay these dinosaurs while the three of us get away. Give us a five minute head start, then continue as fast as you can to the engineering section. The three of us will stop the engine’s safety mechanism from kicking in and wait for you. But don’t take too long, because we still have to make our way to the lifepods, reenter the atmosphere, and land. And we’ll only have about half an hour to do so. We’ll stay in contact for as long as we can. Surus, Bender, go!” He spoke his next words to his mech’s AI: “Fight well, Electron.”
“I always do,” Electron said.
Rade climbed down the rungs on the torso to the leg region as Electron drove away the next winged reptile attack. He opened up the storage compartment and removed the bulky holographic emitter from its rack. Electron leaped to the side suddenly, tearing Rade away, along with the emitter.
Rade landed next to a tree, underneath some foliage.
One of the winged reptiles spotted him. It landed on the ground nearby and waddled toward him.
Rade clambered to his feet and dodged behind the tree.
The emitter was like a metal knapsack. Rade hastily threw it over the harness of his jumpsuit and snapped it into place across his chest. It automatically drew power from the suit, and the remote interface icon appeared on his HUD. Rade accessed it and activated the emitter. Instantly he vanished from the visual spectrum.
The winged reptile darted around the tree trunk, and seemed both confused and disappointed to find nothing there. It turned around to return to the fighting when a sizzle of smoke erupted from its right eye, and it dropped dead to the ground.
Rade lowered his rifle and proceeded through the trees, following the ruined glass tunnel. He could see Surus and Bender ahead of him, visible thanks to the blue outline of their jumpsuits as transmitted by their Implants. The noise cancelers built into the emitters blocked most of the sounds the three made as they trampled the undergrowth.
The trio moved at a gait just below a run. Any faster and the occlusion calculators in the holographic emitters would suffer from a buildup of computation errors, causing the jumpsuits to flash into existence every few paces—the underlying camouflage of the jumpsuits would still be active of course, but the movements would draw the eye. The noise-masking would intermittently fail at high speeds as well, making running a bad idea.
Rade glanced at his overhead map.
The blue dots of the Argonauts behind him were surrounded by the red indicators of the pterosaurs; the swarm of dots representing the T-Rex herd arrived momentarily, further entrenching the team. Rade could only imagine what the fighting must be like back there. The team members had retreated into the trees, where they could better defend at least. And while the men would be hidden from view once they equipped the holographic emitters, still some of the Argonauts could die back there.
Rade put that thought out of his mind.
I have a world to save.
Rade, Bender and Surus continued forward, oblivious to the eyes and ears of the surrounding wildlife. Utahraptors crouched behind trees, watching the fighting from afar, waiting to dine on whatever carcasses or easy prey were left behind by the T-Rexes and pterosaurs. If any of the nearby dinosaurs had watched carefully, they would have spotted the footsteps in the moss, or the bending of foliage as the invisible trio passed. In fact, one Utahraptor’s head shot toward Rade when he broke off a branch close to where the carnosaur was hiding. Rade momentarily froze; the dinosaur looked around, searching for the source of the disturbance, but quickly concluded that it was nothing and returned its attention to the fighting.
Rade took another step, disturbing a big centipede; the large insect wriggled right in front of the Utahraptor. The predator immediately pounced on it and in seconds the squirming, multi-legged worm was in its mouth: the carnosaur chomped it down in two quick bites.
Rade quickly moved on. He routinely glanced at the overhead map as he ran, eager for updates on the fight, but the dots froze as he reached the extreme range of the adhoc network formed by the comm nodes.
“We just lost communication with our brothers,” Bender said.
“I know,” Rade said.
“It’s just you and I, and Surus now,” Bender said. “As it was meant to be. Threesome time!”
The trio reached the edge of a large swamp at least a kilometer wide. It must have been a temporary marsh or floodplain, because the canopy remained relatively unbroken above, with tall tree trunks protruding from the water’s surface.
The broken glass fragments ended at the edge, with a partially intact portion of the tunnel emerging on the far side. A huge log provided a limited path across the clouded waters, ending near the middle of the marsh.
“We take the log,” Rade said over the comm. “And when we reach the middle, we jet the rest of the way across.”
Several nasty looking alligators basked on the shoreline, though there was little light that penetrated through the dense canopy above. They were about five times as big as modern alligators, and easily dwarfed Rade and his two companions.
“The crocs look docile enough...” Bender said as they picked their way between the gators.
“Not to me,” Surus said.
“Nice crocs!” Bender mocked the oblivious creatures as he snuck past them. “That’s a good croc.”
Some of the reptiles lay with their mouths open, and smaller, cat-sized dinos slinked within the massive jaws, picking away meat that had lodged between the teeth.
“Anyone interested in some live floss?” Bender quipped.
Bender took the lead, jetting onto the log. Rade followed him and hurried across with Surus just behind.
Insects flitted to and fro above the swamp on either side. They looked like big mosquitoes. Larger dragonflies occasionally swooped past, ripping the mosquitoes out of the sky with their long legs. Those dragonflies in turn were eaten by birds.
“When life feels like a video game...” Bender said. “Though I admit I was expecting the dragonflies to be bigger.”
The power output of the jumpsuits didn’t allow for LIDAR that was strong enough to penetrate very deep into the murky liquid, but it did allow Rade to spot various smaller salamander-shaped dinosaurs swimming about close to the surface.
Though the gently-sloping log was relatively wide, the moss-covered surface proved slippery in areas, and it took all of Rade’s concentration not to lose his balance and fall off.
As the trio neared the log’s terminus, where the surface descended into the water, Bender lost his balance. He slipped, striking the log before falling into the swamp. The noise cancellers weren’t able to mask the sound entirely, and Rade heard the splash clearly.
But Rade had no time to consider the consequences, because the resulting vibration passed through the log and caused him to lose his own balance and plunge over the edge as well. He fired his jetpack too late, and found himself surfacing from the dark liquid a moment later. The jetpack was able to withstand flood conditions, of course, and he quickly pulled himself back onto the log with a few rapid spurts.
Bender had already crawled onto the log beside him.
“Damn it,” Bender said. “That hurt.”
Rade saw that Surus had acted faster than he did, because she was safely descending from where she had jetted upward to escape the vibration.
Rade heard splashes coming from the shoreline behind him, and he realized that all of the alligators had vanished into the marsh. No doubt the disturbances caused by he and Bender had attracted them. Rade heard more sloshing coming from up ahead, and he knew previously unnoticed alligators had entered the waters from the far shore as well.
“I should warn you,” Surus said. “I didn’t design the emitters to be waterproof.”
“Now you tell us!” Bender said.
Rade scrambled to his feet; he noticed Bender’s jumpsuit was flashing into and out of existence. Rade glanced down and realized his own jumpsuit was doing the same. In moments the winking ceased and the two became permanently visible.
“Uh,” Bender said. “We’re in deep doo-doo now, boss.”
twenty-one
We cross now, via jetpacks!” Rade said. “Surus, take the lead! Bender and I will draw off any pursuers if we have to.”
Surus jetted forward high above the swamp, and Rade and Bender followed.
Rade occasionally had to apply ventral and dorsal thrust to avoid the branches that protruded from nearby boles. In the swamp below, the LIDAR band gave him glimpses of the approaching gators as they passed through the clouded waters, their white, wireframe outlines sliding into and out of view.
Several of the beasts surfaced, allowing their eyes to scan the swamp for their prey.
Without warning an alligator emerged, leaping upward to snap at Rade. He frantically jetted upward, narrowly avoiding the deadly jaws. He did crash into and break away a large branch, which he threw down at the descending gator.
“The water has to be shallow,” Bender said. “No way the bitches could leap that high otherwise.”
“Bender, fly at my height,” Rade said.
Bender joined him. The two repeatedly crashed into small branches from the trees, but at least they were out of reach of the alligators.
Ahead, Surus landed and began racing away through the foliage, following the glass tube that had emerged from the swamp. Rade and Bender touched down on the far shore shortly thereafter and raced after her.
The conduit quickly became rubble as they proceeded further, and Rade spotted the wreckages of downed Elder transport craft. Small Velociraptors were dining on the slain occupants: Elder who no longer glowed.
Rade heard crashing in the undergrowth behind him: several of the giant alligators had slithered ashore and were pursuing.
“Damn gators are fast!” Bender said.
“If they’re anything like modern alligators, they’ll soon lose interest,” Surus said. “They don’t stray far from their feeding grounds.”
Rade continued to run, barreling over the undergrowth and logs and any other obstacles that got in his way. He disturbed a nest of small mammals—opossums, he thought—and the small creatures scattered. His Implant labeled them as Didelphodons.
Rade glanced over his shoulder. Only one of the alligators diverted to chase the mammals while the remainder didn’t let up the main pursuit. They seemed to be gaining on the party. “Guess they’re not like modern alligators!”
“Do we stay and fight?” Bender asked. “Delay them for Surus?”
“We can’t,” Rade said. “That means death. Keep running. Use your jetpack to boost your speed.”
Rade began selectively activating his jetpack so that he bounded forward with each step. Bender copied him, as did Surus, who kept her twenty meter lead.
A towering T-Rex appeared ahead, blocking the way. Three others were behind it. Apparently some members of the T-Rex herd had already looped around to outflank the Hoplites. Or perhaps they had never joined the main herd in the first place. Either way, they were obviously delighted to find these unexpected treats racing their way.
“I got this,” Surus said.
She faded into existence as she deactivated the emitters. A green glow appeared on the gloves of her jumpsuit, and she jetted directly at the closest T-Rex. When she touched it, the dinosaur winked out of existence with a loud poof. She swerved left, right, and then left again, incinerating the remaining three carnosaurs in turn.
The glow on the gloves receded as the alien returned to her host.
“That’s my girl!” Bender said. “Wait a sec, why weren’t you doing that shit all this time? Like back there on those plains?”
“I wouldn’t want to deprive you boys of all your fun,” Surus replied.
“Damn it,” Bender said. “If you didn’t have such a fine ass, I’d knock you up. Er, I mean knock you out. Well, I’d knock you up, too...”
“I was actually about to help back there,” Surus said. “But then Rade gave the order to abandon the mechs. And if you want the truth, communications, or the lack thereof, is one of the main reasons I haven’t been doing this more often—since I can’t speak with the rest of you when I revert to Phant form, I consider incineration a last resort.”
She reactivated the holographic emitter, vanishing from the visual band, replaced by the blue outline only the Argonauts could see.
“Maybe we should send Surus back to clean up the twenty alligators pursuing us,” Bender said.
Rade glanced at the countdown in the lower right of his HUD.
“No time,” Rade said. “Every second counts now. We have five minutes to disable the engine safeties.”
With the extra speed boost the jetpacks were able to lend to their step, the trio slowly pulled ahead of the alligators.
“I’ve reached the membrane!” Surus announced. “Unfortunately, it’s going to take me a minute to authorize our passage. Bright One was supposed to ease our passage through these airlocks, but he missed this one it seems.”
“All right,” Rade said. “Bender, jet up into the trees. Time for some target practice.”
Rade fired his jetpack and headed upward, steering toward a large bole. He landed in the upper branches and then aimed down at the alligators that quickly crowded around the base. The gators were ramming into the tree, trying to knock Rade from the branches. More of them had gathered around another trunk nearby, where Bender had taken up residence in the canopy. All of the attention was on the two of them, as Surus remained hidden on the visual light band.
Rade aimed at the alligators. Targeting an eye, he squeezed the trigger. Like the T-Rexes, either the laser intensity wasn’t enough to penetrate far enough into the brain, or the brain was too big for the tiny beam to cause a killing blow, because while the gator turned away, writhing in pain, it didn’t die, and a moment later rejoined the attack with renewed vigor. Plasma and gore oozed sickly from the closed eyelid.
Rade shot out the alligator’s second eye; once more it went into a dance of pain, and after a moment began blindly fumbling about, moving away from the tree.
“Whoops!” Bender said. “That’s one less croc to deal with!”
Rade and Bender continued to fire, and soon the alligators realized this was a battle they weren’t going to win. All it took was a few of them to retreat, causing an all out rout as the remainder stampeded off.
“That’s right, bitches!” Bender said. “You don’t mess with the Argonauts!”
Rade glanced at his overhead map, hoping that the Hoplites had moved within signal range by then, but the blue dots of the others were still stuck out there in the rainforest, frozen and not updating.
Come on, guys.
“I’m through,” Surus said. “Let’s go!”
Rade jetted down, landing outside the jagged edges of the glass tube that was still intact around the airlock. The selective membrane—a black, shimmering bulkhead—was visible at the far end of the tube. That same bulkhead extended left, right, and directly upward, marking the end of this portion of the environmental compartment. It didn’t shimmer like the area inside the glass tube, though.
Surus’ blue outline stood waiting in front of the membrane, and she passed beyond as Rade and Bender approached. Rade grabbed the PASS device from his utility belt and dropped it on the ground. The signal from the Personal Alert Safety System was his way of letting the team know he had safely reached this portion of the compartment.
He stepped through with Bender and emerged in a passage whose walls were made of a gray-green metal. Long, horizontal blue lights were embedded in the bulkheads, providing illumination.
“Good job,” Rade said.
“Thank you,” Surus said. She had disabled her holographic emitter, and showed up once more on the visible band. “Though unfortunately, now the dinosaurs will be able to pass through as well.”
Bender glanced back. “Good thing there was no one on our tail.”
“But the same won’t be true of the other Hoplites,” Surus said. “Who will no doubt be coming in ‘hot,’ as you call it.”
