ATLAS 2 (ATLAS Series Book 2)

by Isaac Hooke

  “No,” Fan said. It was his turn to snicker. “The ATLAS mech is the lion, and you, my dear, are Androcles.”

  Well, that was a rather disturbing thought.

  We headed toward the layered rock that bordered this section of the Main Rift. I could see a series of defiles eroded into the rock. The map on my HUD indicated the promised ATLAS 5 was just ahead.

  “Would you like to see one of the aliens?” Fan said.

  “What? No. I’ve seen enough of them to last a lifetime.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Even the bipedal ones?”

  That got my attention. “What are you talking about?”

  “You did not know? So much for the great knowledge and prowess of the UC Navy. Yes, there are humanoids among the demons. Not human, but alien. Follow me, it is but a short way. Follow.”

  He turned down a smaller defile eroded into the canyon wall.

  I hesitated, suspecting a trap. The position of the mech on my map was clearly indicated in the neighboring defile, not this one.

  I pointed my rifle at him. “If you try anything—”

  He glanced askance and raised his arms. “There will be no trying of anything . . .”

  I followed him into the defile. Not for the first time I wondered if this planet had ever had an Earth-like weather system, one that could’ve sent floodwaters rushing down the surface to carve out this valley and its network of gorges.

  Queequeg’s body language changed when he entered the defile. His ears flattened, and his long tail curled tightly over his back—the posture a hybear assumed when preparing to fight.

  After a few moments I spotted a gray jumpsuit lying spreadeagled on the ground ahead. I thought the suit belonged to an SK at first, but as I got closer, I realized the jumpsuit was far too large to house an ordinary human being.

  Queequeg froze, growling deep in his throat. I rested a hand on his head, and in his tense state, the animal snapped at me. If I hadn’t withdrawn my hand in time he would’ve given me a good suit puncture.

  I didn’t blame him for being distracted and high-strung.

  I felt that way too.

  “Fan. Stand against the wall over there, where I can see you.”

  Fan bowed. “As you wish.” He moved to the edge of the defile.

  I approached the motionless jumpsuit, while Queequeg and Fan stayed back. My heart beat faster with each step.

  Relax, Shaw. It’s obviously dead.

  But I couldn’t relax.

  The jumpsuit lay prostrate, but I couldn’t tell if I was looking at the front or the back, or if it was even intended to have a front or back. I’d never seen a jumpsuit design like this before. It was all gray tubes and spheres and servomotors. Three legs. Seven arms—four in front, three in back. Well, I don’t know if you could exactly call those arms, tentacles might be a better word. I saw no elbow joints or fingers of any kind, just long tubes that ended in stumps. From the way the material crinkled in the middle, I thought the appendages might be able to grasp things in a manner similar to an elephant’s trunk.

  I knelt, and gazed warily at the translucent dome that capped the jumpsuit. It seemed completely intact, and without a scratch anywhere on it. I leaned forward slowly, peering over the rim bit by bit, half expecting some small, skittering alien to burst forth at any moment and attach itself to my face.

  And then I was staring fully into the dome, right down into the suit. Inside was . . .

  Absolutely nothing.

  I sat back on my haunches.

  “It’s empty,” I said, unsure whether to feel disappointed or elated.

  “It is,” Fan agreed.

  “You could’ve told me that in the first place.”

  “I could have, yes. But why spoil the surprise?” He smiled widely.

  I shook my head, standing. “Idiot.” I brushed bits of shale away from my knees, then I gave the empty suit a good kick. The torso shifted slightly before slumping back into place.

  “I found it a few months ago, just like this,” Fan said, glancing upward. “Perhaps the humanoid fell from the cliff top and died in the fall. Or perhaps it exhausted the necessary gaseous or liquid atmospheric elements necessary for its survival.”

  “Or it died of radiation poisoning.” I stared at the empty dome, considering the possibilities. So many ways to die out here . . .

  A surge of anger filled me, and I rounded on Fan. “Are there any other aliens or alien objects around here I should know about? Don’t hold stuff like this back, you hear me? If you want to live, you have to keep me in the loop. I’m the one in the military. I’m the one with the training and survival skills to see us through this. You’re a mere civilian. Comprenez-vous?”

  Fan lifted his hands nervously, but when he spoke, he seemed slightly affronted. “This mere civilian has survived fifteen Stanmonths quite well without you, Shaw Chopra of the UC Navy. But I am not holding back. This is the only alien I have seen, other than the Yaoguai and the Mara of course. I promise you. I did not say anything about it before because I assumed you had seen one.”

  I kept the rifle trained on him a moment longer, then lowered it. “All right. I believe you. Now let’s get out of here, if you don’t mind?”

  I kept glancing back at the jumpsuit as Fan led me out of the defile. It made me nervous, and I was just glad when we reached the opening and left the alien behind.

  We walked along the edge of the valley, beneath the towering cliff of black rock, toward the next defile, where the ATLAS 5 awaited. It was still some distance away, but my nerves were starting to act up again.

  I was glad when Fan spoke.

  “Do you think we will ever see Earth again?” he said.

  I sighed, wishing he’d chosen a different topic.

  “We will.” I didn’t look at him, didn’t want him to see the lie in my eyes.

  “You do not sound too convinced.”

  I couldn’t hide the lie from my voice, could I? I decided not to say anything further.

  “Tell me, Shaw Chopra,” Fan said. “You must have taken a Gate to come here. Was it the same Gate we built? Or did the UC build its own? Either way, it is obvious you came here in secret, because my people would never willingly share this place with you.”

  “Good guess,” I said. “We built our own Gate in secret.”

  “Ah, so that means we have two Gates leading back.”

  “No,” I said. “Your SK friends dismantled theirs when they left.”

  “Oh.” He seemed perplexed. “But the UC Gate is still intact, yes? The road home is still open to us?”

  I wanted to tell him the truth, but I couldn’t. “Yup. The UC Gate is still there.”

  If he knew there was no hope for us, no way we’d ever leave this star system, he might just give up right there. I still needed him, for a while anyway, either to make me another oxygen extractor, or to give me his own. It was a selfish reason for lying to him, but it had to be done. Because I wasn’t going to give up, even if there was no obvious way home. I’d find one, someday. I’d sworn I would.

  He was all smiles. “That is excellent news! All we have to do is find a ship. A shuttle with stasis pods will do. You have one, I assume? Unless you made some sort of jumpsuit drop to arrive here?”

  “I had a shuttle,” I said, unable to keep the regret from my voice.

  Fan studied me. “Had? What happened to it? Any chance we could repair it?”

  I felt I was revealing too much, and was treading in dangerous waters. Well, might as well tell him the rest. It wouldn’t reveal that I’d destroyed the return Gate. “The AI decided to land while I was in stasis. Wasn’t a soft touchdown: sheared the left wing right off.”

  Fan exhaled in disappointment, and his breath fogged the lower portion of his face mask. “A bit too much damage for even my superior repair abilitie
s. Without the parts, or a 3D printer, there is nothing we can do. Why would you let the AI land?”

  “Wasn’t my choice. As I said, the AI landed while I was in stasis.”

  Fan cocked his head in commiseration. “There is an old saying where I am from: Never let the autopilot land the airplane.”

  I smiled wistfully. “Wish we had that saying.”

  Fan compressed his lips. “And I wish more of my people heeded its warning.” He paused, as if hesitant to tell me more. Then: “I lost a daughter in a spaceline crash. The AI malfunctioned during reentry.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yes. She was . . . the light of my life. My everything. But, that is not fair to the rest of my family. I have a wife and four other daughters. A family of women. One woman is a handful, but a family of them? Unmanageable!” He smiled sadly. “My oldest was named Lìxúe. It meant ‘Beautiful Snow.’ We called her that because her complexion was perfect, not a single blemish. It was smooth white, like snow. And she had such long, silky black hair. She was seventeen when she died. She was returning to Earth after a lunar beauty pageant.

  “She was so shy, she would have never entered on her own. But we goaded and convinced her. We helped her practice, too, for the posing, and the onstage interview. So it was our fault, really. Mine.” His chin quivered beneath his face mask. “I deserve this punishment. I deserve to be marooned on this hell for the rest of my days. That is why I know I will survive the radiation poisoning. I am meant to suffer. I deserve it. I hope for it.”

  I didn’t know what to say. To be honest, I just wanted him to stop.

  “I remember watching the pseudo-live feed of her performance as it streamed from the moon. She was spectacular. Never again would I witness such a beauty as she. Never again. She was just glowing. All the training and drilling we did with her paid off. She performed the poses perfectly. Her pageant catwalk was impeccable. She wore the different outfits like a queen. Even the swimsuit, can you imagine? A queen in a swimsuit! For the onstage interview, she was asked the question, ‘How can we solve the war over Geronium in Mongolia?’ She won the pageant because of her answer. Do you want to know what that answer was?”

  “Just stop it, okay?” I said.

  “What?” He seemed genuinely stunned. And hurt.

  “Look, I don’t want to know anything about you or your dead daughter.” I know it was cold, but it had to be said. “I don’t want to get attached to you. Keep the conversation light.”

  “Why?” Fan was blinking rapidly. “So it will be easier to kill me?”

  I shot him a look. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “You know as well as I do how harsh and deadly this environment is. Humanity wasn’t meant to live here. Either of us could die at any moment. All it takes is a puncture or gash in our suits, something too big to patch, and we’re gone. Look at our boots. Yours have just as much tape as mine. They’re not going to last forever. What happens when we run out of tape?

  “The number of ways to die out here is endless. Don’t even get me talking about the hybears, and the alien beasts. But as I told you before, I’m military, and I’m trained for scenarios like this. Sort of. Anyway, I’m the one most likely to survive, got it? I don’t care if you’ve lasted out here fifteen Stanmonths. You’ve already admitted you’ve exhausted your anti-rad medication. You think you’re meant to live, and to suffer? I have news for you: you could die any day. So I’d rather not get attached. And besides, you’re basically my enemy. Your men shot up some good friends of mine on this world. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. The only reason I’m with you, for now, is because I need you. Is that understood?”

  He didn’t reply. I hated speaking so coldly, but everything I said was true. He might not have been responsible for the men who fired at Rade and his platoon, but he likely had similar orders. I had to be careful around Fan. Still, he had lowered his rifle when we first met. I had to give him credit for that. But it could have been a ruse. Maybe he had intended to reach my shuttle, then shoot me when we got there. And now that I’d revealed I didn’t even have a working shuttle, maybe I was of no use to him anymore, and he might kill me the first chance he got. He might be lying about being a civilian, too.

  Yes, I had to be very careful around this man.

  “I said, is that—”

  He raised a hand. “Yes, yes. I understand.”

  “Good. Now let’s move.”

  He remained still.

  “What is it now?” I said. My patience was wearing thin. And I was normally a patient person. I had to be, given my situation these past eight months.

  “My daughter’s answer was, if we want to solve the war in Mongolia, we should get to know the people of the UC. We should invite their citizens to billet with our own in a cultural exchange. The war will end if we work together, side by side, toward the common goal of peace.”

  It was a good answer, I had to admit. But I forced myself not to care. We were as far away from Mongolia and the social issues of Earth as we could get. “The two of us, working here and now, will have no affect on the relations of our countries back home.”

  “But it is a start, you have to admit,” Fan said. “Even if we are working together for all the wrong reasons. Because we face a common enemy.”

  “That sounds like the right reason, to me.”

  “As I said, it is a start.” He pointed toward a defile cut into the rock face five meters ahead. “Your mech is in there.”

  I stared at the narrow gorge, this ominous crack of darkness in the valley wall.

  So it was time to face death.

  I’d enter that defile, and either I’d never return, or I’d come out piloting an ATLAS mech.

  I wanted to turn back. I wanted to flee. But I couldn’t. Every moment was precious. My oxygen reserves were running out. Live or die, I had to go in.

  “Right, then,” I told him. “Wish me luck.”

  He did no such thing.

  I approached the entrance. This defile appeared way tighter than the last one. The flashing dot on my HUD map promised that the mech awaited around a bend some twenty meters inside.

  “Queequeg, stay,” I said. “Watch him.”

  I steeled myself, and then, rifle at the ready, I entered the defile.

  Queequeg followed me.

  I turned on the animal. “I said stay!”

  Queequeg sat down and whined softly.

  I advanced cautiously into the gloom. I heard soft footfalls behind me, and glanced back.

  Queequeg had resumed his accompaniment.

  I almost got mad at him but I realized there was no point. Nothing I could say or do would make him remain behind.

  He wasn’t going to let me face death alone.

  That was loyalty for you. Something you couldn’t buy. Something you had to earn.

  In the Navy, I had taken loyalty for granted, because the people I had served with, the people I had trained with, were all innately loyal. It was the nature of the service. We had shared something with each other that we’d shared with no one else. That we could not share with anyone else. Living together. Training together. Fighting together. You couldn’t get more intimate than that. And it was that intimacy, that sense of sisterhood and brotherhood, of belonging to something bigger than yourself, that bred loyalty in the Navy.

  Just as the experiences Queequeg and I had shared bred loyalty. I’d saved his life on more than a few occasions, and he’d saved mine. I didn’t take for granted the loyalty he showed me, not at all. I had earned every iota of it. As he had earned mine.

  Good old Queequeg. Loyal to the end.

  The farther we traveled into the tight defile, the darker it became, the high black walls denying the sunlight.

  Queequeg started to chatter and low nervously be
side me.

  “Quiet, Queequeg,” I hissed.

  For once, the hybear obeyed without question.

  I reached the bend indicated on my map. I saw telltale scuff marks on either rock face, which could have been made by something large and mechanical as it squeezed past the tight turn. Whether or not an ATLAS mech had made them was another story, however.

  The flashing waypoint on my map beckoned to me.

  Well, here goes.

  I held my rifle at the ready. My index finger trembled uncontrollably against the outer edge of the trigger guard.

  Slowly, warily, I stepped around the bend.

  Nothing shot at me.

  I crept forward. Around me, the defile widened slightly.

  After only three paces I froze.

  Fan had told the truth after all.

  Ahead, thirty meters away, an ATLAS 5 loomed in the dim light.

  The mech stood roughly three times the height of an ordinary man, a giant robot soldier with arms, legs, and a pinched head. Its outer surface was hued differing shades of black to match its surroundings. The black panther spray painted onto the chest piece stood out almost in relief. Numerous dents and scratches covered the metal.

  I realized the ATLAS 5 wasn’t active because the vision sensors on its forehead were dark. Maybe it was in some sort of standby mode. That, or the reactor core had failed.

  Or perhaps it was just possessed.

  I took another tentative step, vaguely wondering if it was a good idea to keep my rifle aimed at the steel giant. Especially when that rifle was of SK make.

  Step by slow step I approached, leaving the safety of the bend behind me. I was risking everything by doing this. I should’ve stayed back and thrown a rock or something.

  I was about to retreat and do just that, but my motion must have triggered a wake-up signal because a yellow glow abruptly flooded the ATLAS 5’s vision sensors.

  The mech swiveled its twin Gatling guns straight toward me and opened fire.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Rade

  I fell asleep (or blacked out) shortly before Bender’s mech docked with the Gerald R. Ford, and when I came to, I was on a bed in the Convalescence Ward. I heard the beep, beep of multiple wireless EKGs from other beds around me.