Infinity Squad

by Shuvom Ghose

  Oakley was looking at me suspiciously.

  "I don't know what he's talking about!" I said.

  "You tried to convince me that the Benefactors were feeding you information about how and where to kill Hell-Spiders," Himenez said. "But then why would they visit the site of your biggest kill just a day afterwards, and do this?"

  Himenez tapped the still picture. The encounter bot was looking at the clone, who was frozen in the middle of a welcoming gesture, opening his arms wide and high.

  "They are making peace," Himenez said. "Why would they do that after they told you how to massacre a hundred spiders?"

  "I don't know!"

  "Looking at the records, something else happened right before you started on your incredible streak of getting more skulls than anyone had ever seen, Lieutenant," Himenez said with a smile. "You captured our only Hell-Spider prisoner."

  "No! That's not-"

  "Who has been feeding you information this entire time."

  "That's ridiculous! They can't even talk!"

  The bureaucrat settled back and crossed his arms. "Not verbally. But what if they spoke to you mind to mind? Voices in your head. Like a sort of telepathy." He smiled. "And to test that theory, I ordered two scientists to saw off the prisoner's left claw during this meeting. Slowly."

  As soon as the image was put into my head I felt it- the ragged hacksaw blades cutting through the tendons in my wrists- as if it was happening to me! Zazlu grunted under his breath. "I feel it too."

  "NO!" I yelled, drawing my sidearm. I shot Himenez in the thigh with the Colt .45 and then pointed it at Oakley. "NO ONE MOVE!"

  Butcher had her semi-auto out as well, trained on Hughes as he was reaching for his. "Don't do it!" she ordered.

  Zazlu had his pointing at Hector and Samson's heads. They stopped reaching for their knives.

  "Juan! Grimstone! Get Halon! Take out the guards and free Three-Spot, now!" I yelled into my throat mike.

  "Twenty seconds," Juan promised, and I could already hear them running.

  "Red-Stripe, take out the guards, come over the fence, we need you to carry Three-Spot home!" I yelled next, letting Oakley make of that what he may.

  The knives-on-knives voice replied in my head immediately. "We are coming."

  "I'll have YOUR fucking head up on my wall, traitor!" Oakley yelled, shaking with anger as I kept my Colt on him.

  "After he serves five consecutive life sentences breaking rocks," Himenez said from the floor, squeezing the wound in his thigh with his hands to stop the bleeding. He didn't even notice that I had missed his artery on purpose. "Along with his entire squad! Unless they surrender- right now!"

  "Not a chance," Zazlu sneered. Ann-Marie kept her gun pointed at Hughes.

  I tightened my finger on the trigger, still aiming between Oakley's eyes. "I don't care what you threaten us with. But if anyone in this room touches a radio, it's a headshot. No waking up in the tank for you."

  "Guards are down," Juan said into our ears.

  "We have reached the building," Red-Stripe said into my head.

  "Five spiders sir, they're picking Three-Spot up," Juan said a second later. "They're taking him out."

  "Take the squad and follow them," I replied. "Run!"

  "Rifles from the armory?" he asked.

  "No time. Run!"

  Hector was smiling at me. "It's not going to last, Forrest. We're going to have fun hunting you down. And then we'll see who's better, in here," he said, tapping his temple and nodding. Samson, the two Omegas, and Flores were nodding just like him. In unison.

  I should have just killed them then. But they were all soldiers in the room, half wearing buffering bands. We only could have gotten three before the rest tackled us. And I didn't want to kill everyone in the room.

  Grant was just looking at me, shocked. "What are you doing?"

  "Keep your eyes open," I hissed to him. "See if things make sense. Then you'll see what we see." That's all I had time or extra brain power to say.

  "Squad?" I called into the mike.

  "We're at the fence, going out now," Juan panted. "All accounted for."

  "Butcher, Zaz, ready... out!"

  Zazlu and Butcher ducked back through the door, guns still up. I wished I had a grenade to drop right then, but I hadn't brought one and Grant and Clark were innocents. So I shot the Master Map, sending glass shards flying everywhere and making people shield their faces as I left.

  And then we ran.

  We got to the perimeter fence and saw the hole the spiders had cut through it. I looked up at the machine gun turrets to see why they weren't firing and saw the gunner slumped over from a razor claw wound. To his back. These spiders were scary.

  I saw the last of our squad and some spiders disappearing into the jungle across the Cleared Zone and we sprinted to catch up. I could just picture every soldier on base rushing to the armory to get body armor and rifles that we didn't have, and the blades on all the helicopters we couldn't hide from start to spin up. It motivated me to run a little faster.

  Zazlu matched my pace. Butcher, in her new body, no longer ran like a college soccer star. Now she ran, well, like a girl. But she kept up with us using sheer, raw willpower. Which says a lot about her willpower.

  We caught the rest of the squad a mile into the jungle.

  "So much for getting in and out the Infinity way," Butcher panted, as we ran alongside the spiders still carrying Three-Spot. I had to look; his left claw was missing, tendons just dangling.

  "You should have let me kill Hector and Samson," Zazlu said.

  "There's more brain slugs than just those two," I replied. "And as long as we didn't kill anyone, we can still make a deal. With Oakley. Or Himenez."

  "The guy you pointed the gun at? Or the guy you shot?" Butcher asked, gasping for air, falling behind. "Not... likely..."

  "Butcher, you're totally gassed. Ride Blue-Wave," I ordered, and the large spider stopped and lowered himself like a trained horse.

  "Only... until the village," she said, straddling his back.

  Riding, she beat all the rest of us back to the spider fort. The spiders carrying Three-Spot got there first, and the squad followed five minutes later. It had to have been ten miles. We didn't sprint all of it, but we didn't move slower than a fast jog until we were inside the walls. What can I say? These bodies were made to run.

  As some spiders were sealing up the entrance behind us, Red-Stripe directed others to lay Three-Spot inside his own cave and a wave of gray shells rushed over to try and stop the bleeding. You can't tourniquet something that has an exoskeleton. I offered up my personal medkit with its staunching powder and gauze, and Zazlu did the same. The gray shells took them, then pushed us out as they crowded around Three-Spot.

  The spider leader turned to me. "They are already pursuing you. Our outer scouts sense it."

  "They probably had the satellites on us before we left the Cleared Zone." My lungs hurt from running, but I said, "We should leave. If we stay, you're in danger, too."

  He looked at me. "But where else would you go?"

  And he was right.

  We broke out the crates we had stored there, giving rifles and grenades to squad members stationed evenly all around the top of the rock wall. Red-Stripe put two of his hunters with each of ours and sent twenty others to hide in the jungle as potential siege-breakers. He was learning tactics so fast. Or maybe he had known them all along.

  I did a quick circuit of the top wall, checking on each of my guys and giving them water, and they all seemed to be doing okay with the proximity to the spiders. They had already seen the hunters up close before, but I just wanted to be sure before I took my position.

  Then we heard two Heavies tromping through the jungle and I felt my guys curse in despair. Nothing I had just given them, not the rifles or grenades they had would scratch those walking suits of armored death.

  Which is why we brought out the .50 cals.

  Just like with the White Thought E
ater, when the first Heavy burst out through the treeline to show itself, Butcher and I simultaneously put an armor-piercing slug dead center in its chest. Made for going through engine blocks and then killing what's on the other side, the bullets did their job. We saw the back blow off the powered suit and important parts fly out, covered in the operator's own blood.

  The second Heavy turned to run as the first one started to topple, but Butcher and I were already swinging the sniper rifles over. The back armor was even weaker than the front.

  Clones wearing Omega and Phoenix uniforms ran to get away from the two dying, exploding machines they had been following, and my guys opened up without me even having to give the order.

  After the first few exchanges, I said into my mike, "Conserve ammo! We don't have an unlimited amount."

  From somewhere else on the rock wall, Zazlu replied, "But they do."

  And that was the issue, wasn't it?

  We got to see the "rolling waves of clones" strategy in full effect. We played it smart, took cover and only fired when we had a good shot. They fired at will, ran across long stretches of the Cleared Zone without fear and always pressed, pressed, pressed.

  We killed about ten of them in a viscous, unending firefight, but then we heard helicopters landing in the trees behind their lines and suddenly there were just as many as they had started with. And now they were closer.

  Before gunpowder, most "great battles" of history only lasted tens of minutes, because it's only physically possible to swing a sword at kill-or-be-kill speeds for so long before the body gives out. And even most firefights in the gunpowder era were long stretches of boredom, punctuated by short intense moments of terror. Because humans can only stay keyed up for so long. This was different.

  It was never-ending. They just kept pressing and pressing. We killed one behind a rock and another would jump forward to take his place. We heard another helicopter drop off its troops and then try to circle over to see if it could strafe us. A .50 cal bullet from Ann-Marie's rifle through the floorboard, through the co-pilot's seat, and out the top of the cockpit convinced the pilot to turn around. But then we heard two more Heavies rumbling through the jungle at us. They were firing automatic mortars indirectly, the shrapnel ziiiip-ing and tink-ing off the rocks as we ducked for our lives. Grimstone got hit in the leg and Harper dove over to use what Steve had taught him.

  But then the bullets were hitting closer, we had to keep down all the time. Clones were at the base of the wall now. Soon we'd be fighting them hand-to-hand on the parapet. The spiders could help then, but eventually we'd have to reload. Or sleep. Or just rest for one damned second.

  "Sir..." Ann-Marie's warned, holding her sniper rifle close as she tried to squeeze behind a rock that was too small to hide her. Bullets were flaking off parts of the rock on all sides.

  "Over here too!" Zazlu called. He and Juan were barely holding back five Phoenixes as they tried to storm up the wall.

  I threw grenades, my last two, to relieve the pressure on Ann-Marie then turned and sniped one of the men storming Zazlu. Another helicopter was landing.

  Something had to be done.

  I jumped off the parapet and slid to the floor of the village. "Zazlu, hold them back for ten more minutes!" I yelled, then looked over at Red-Stripe. He was under a rock ledge to keep out of the shrapnel, sitting in his calm yoga pose and sharpening his razor claw. "Ten minutes, then use the siege breakers to take them from behind!" I told him.

  "More will just come," the spider said. "The siege breakers will be trapped between."

  "I'm about to solve that!" I yelled back. "Ten minutes and then attack!"

  “Ten minutes is a long time in these conditions,” Zaz said, popping up to fire at attackers from behind rocks.

  “Zaz, I’m sorry! I know I haven’t listened and led you into some tight spots but just give me-“

  “Ten minutes. We’ve got it.”

  Of course. We were in the field.

  “Don’t be late,” he added, peeking up to fire again.

  “I won’t.” I knew exactly how long it would take, because I had run the distance many, many times.

  I put the barrel of my Colt against my chest, aiming at my heart. I hated this part.

  I woke up in a tank of water, gasping. The water was colder than before. Maybe because the room was so much larger.

  I looked around at the new resurrection hall. Thirty rows deep, soldiers were walking up randomly in tank after tank, and Doctor Murphy was frazzled trying to keep up, running from one to the next. And two BlackShirts were patrolling the room, shotguns at the ready.

  She trotted towards me as fast as she could manage in her low heels. "Key Phrase?" she blurted out when she was still five feet away.

  "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

  She reached my tank, flipping pages on her datapad then looked up, confused. "Captain Flores? But I just saw you walk by the hall a minute-"

  I grabbed her wrist as the BlackShirts started to take an interest in us. "I really don't have much time. And it's been a rough day, Doc."

  I tried to say the word exactly as I always said it to her, from when we had first met to our last encounter in the closet. Doctor Shannon Murphy looked her stunning, one-in-a-million green eyes right into my factory issue ones, and then she knew.

  I saw her swallow as the BlackShirts approached, their fingers on the triggers.

  "Captain Stacy Flores, TacOps, I confirm your identity," she said, forcing the quivers out of her voice as she raised the barcode burner to my heart. "This may sting a little bit."

  I could have kissed her.

  I put on the fatigues, boots and buffering band that were waiting beside my tank and ran out of the resurrection room even as five more clones were walking up. Maybe I could have pulled the wires out of a few before the BlackShirts got me. But unarmed, without grenades, I couldn't have taken out an entire res room that size. Much less four.

  I burst out a side door and started running for the farms.

  "We're only going to get one shot," I told the farmers lying on the crest of the hill. "So make it count."

  Tornier was there, and seven other older men who had seen action somewhere in their past and knew how to calm their nerves. But we also had about ten kids, maybe eighteen, who had first fired their .308 hunting rifles on the one day we had trained them. The kids' rifle tips were shaking like paintbrushes.

  I was in the middle of the line next to Tornier, looking down the iron sights of the rifle they had lent me, a rifle I had stolen to give to them in the first place, at the two idling troop helicopters 200 yards away. The door to the hangar opened and ten cloned soldiers started jogging toward the helos.

  Two hundred yards isn't impossibly far. Revolutionary marksmen with smoothbore muskets would get kills from that distance regularly. If they had years of hunting experience. And could get over the mind-numbing adrenaline of firing at another human who may fire back. And had been trained. For more than a day.

  "All together now," I said in the most reassuring voice I could manage. "We're going to do it all together. Inhale. Exhale. Two, one, fire."

  All nineteen of our rifles cracked at the same moment and eight out of ten clones fell. I jumped to my feet and fired four times to bring down the other two as they ran for cover.

  "Charge!" I yelled, sprinting down the hill.

  No one followed.

  I heard Tornier spit and say, "Aw hell." Then he yelled, "Tully, with me! The rest of you stay!"

  The three of us ran towards the flight line. I slowed to let them get closer.

  "You don't get to say 'Charge!'," Tornier yelled, running next to me. "Only I get to say 'Charge!' to my boys."

  "Sorry!"

  "Some of us have to live on this planet after all this is over, you know," he said, and right there, in those thirty seconds it took us to close distance to the wounded clones lying on the ground, was the first time I really thought about it.

  What was m
y plan for afterwards? After all this?

  We knocked away the rifles of the Omegas and Phoenixes too wounded to use them and shot the hands of the ones still reaching for theirs. But we didn't kill them. That would defeat the point.

  I blindfolded and tied the soldiers up with some of Tornier's duct tape and then hopped into the two auto-piloted choppers and hit the GO button to send them on their way, empty. That would tie them up for fifteen minutes, too.

  I reached for my throat mike. "Zazlu, it's set! Atta-"

  Shit. I wasn't on the same implant channel as the squad anymore. And it would be a fun task to try and get a base tech to put me on it.

  "Tornier, I suggest taking your guys back to the farms. If anyone else comes I don't want your involvement known. Like you said, you have to live here after this." He nodded, and I caught him before he and Tully started jogging back to the ridge. "Oh, and no matter what happens, try and seek out a large Hell-Spider with a bright red stripe across his face. Just thinking about him for ten minutes will be enough. He's one of the friendlies. If you offer him some sheep, I think you and he will have a lot to talk about."

  Tornier gave me a strange glance, then he and Tully raced back to their group. A few seconds later I heard the sound of four-wheelers driving away.

  I loaded up on grenades from the wounded guys and then took up position behind them to get anyone else coming out the door.

  As I waited for ten seconds, then twenty, then thirty, I wondered. At the spider village, we had seen Omegas and Phoenixes and even a few Immortals, but not Hector or Samson. What were the head Immortals doing this whole time?

  And then I got my answer, as a human-piloted helicopter circled to land with four Immortals hanging out the sides of it. They started firing on me even as they made their final approach, because I wasn't hard to spot. I was the guy standing next to ten tied up, bleeding soldiers, using them for cover.