by Isaac Hooke
She leaned toward him, ever so slightly. She glanced at his lips. He couldn’t help letting his eyes drop to her own mouth.
Don’t do it, a voice said at the back of his mind. Leave her alone. Let her marry this Romero dude.
But he ignored the voice. He wanted her too badly. His emotions overruled logic, and at last he gave in to everything he had been feeling since he saw her. He smashed his mouth against hers and kissed her frantically, as if he would never do so again.
In fact, he probably wouldn’t.
But he didn’t care.
“I think I shall be deactivating my forward-facing external camera for the time being,” Nicholas announced.
But Rade hardly heard.
He continued kissing Shaw, and she returned his touch desperately, as if she, too, desired him just as badly, despite her earlier words. Their bodies couldn’t hide the sheer lust they still felt for one another.
She feverishly lifted the upper half of her fatigues as she kissed him, breaking away only long enough to slide the top off her body. Then she locked lips with him again, and removed her bra.
Rade pulled away. “Help me take off this suit.”
With her help, he removed the arm assemblies, but then paused before working on the chest. “We can’t have sex here, behind enemy lines. Do you really want to be caught by SKs, butt-naked, in the middle of the act?”
“Don’t care.” She pulled open his chest assembly, and the pieces fell down on either side of him.
In short order, the two were lying naked on the grass. Rade was on top of her, thrusting into her sleek, toned body. How he got to that moment he didn’t really know. The memory was a blur, his vision filled with the red heat of lust. He pounded away inside of her, and it felt so good.
Her small breasts jiggled sensually above that flat stomach, and he scooped one up… it felt so soft in his rough, callused hand. He played with the nipple and she moaned.
He leaned forward to kiss her passionately. He thrust harder, and she broke away to bite her lower lip. She gazed into his eyes, a mixture of pleasure, pain, and mischief glinting there. She shifted to suckle the hard point in his shoulder, and strangely, that turned him on.
She arched her back suddenly, and slid her hands down his ribs. Rade climaxed, and slammed himself inside her one final time. His body shuddered, convulsing in time to hers, and then he collapsed, rolling off of her.
They lay there for a time, panting, feeling the warmth emanating from each other’s sides. Though the air was warm, Rade’s upper body felt cold as the sweat from their lovemaking evaporated.
He sighed contentedly as Shaw snuggled against him.
“So, what now?” she said. “What’s next for us?”
“Nothing,” he said. “This was just a small moment of respite, from the terrible situation we’re in.”
“But I thought you loved me,” she said.
“I do,” he told her. He looked into her eyes. “I mean that sincerely. But nothing has changed. We’re still trapped behind enemy lines.”
“And when we get out of this?” she pressed.
“We’ll both go home, back to our respective ratings,” he said. “And things will go back to the way they were between us. We’ll stay in touch via video message. And talk about our next meet up, which will never come.”
“How can things go back after what you just admitted?” she said. “Because I love you, too, Rade. I always have. I never loved Romero, I realize that now. I only told myself that, because I wanted to forget you. But now, obviously I can’t go through with the wedding. This ring.” She glanced at her hand. “I’ll have to give it back to him.”
Rade folded her fingers together, forming a fist so that she wouldn’t try to remove the ring. “Just marry him. I meant what I said before. Be happy.”
“But I won’t be happy marrying him, I realize that,” she said. “I only ever wanted you. I understand now that I was partially doing it because I wanted to make you jealous.”
“Shaw, I don’t know what to say,” he said. “If you’re willing to quit the navy, and join me in New Coronado, then yes, this might work. And if not…”
She looked into his eyes with such pained longing that Rade couldn’t hold her gaze for very long. Finally, she slumped against him, and wept softly.
That was his answer.
She wasn’t willing to quit the navy.
Too bad. For a moment he had entertained hope that this might be the day that changed their lives.
20
Rade dressed back in the jumpsuit in case he needed to leave in a hurry. Likewise, Shaw donned her fatigues. Rade set his helmet down beside him, and made a pillow out of the grass. Shaw slept with her arm wrapped around his waist, which he barely felt because of the jumpsuit.
Nicolas remained on watch while they slept. Rade awoke in the middle of the night. Shaw’s breathing was slow and regular beside him—she was still under.
He slid out from underneath her, and stood up. She remained asleep. That told him she was used to sleeping with a partner; a person who slept solo, like himself, would have awoken instantly at the disturbance. Either that, or she was dead tired.
He told himself it was the latter so that he wouldn’t get too pissed at this Romero fellow, who she wasn’t marrying anymore anyway.
Rade took a sip of water from the hydration straw that protruded from the neck assembly of his suit, and then made his way through the foliage in the darkness to Nicolas, who was silhouetted in the night on Rade’s HUD. The trusty Jupiter was still standing guard.
“Anything out there?” Rade asked via his Implant.
“No,” Nicolas said. “But you do realize our chances of making it to the border are slim?”
“Of course,” Rade said. “But we have to try.”
“And so we do,” Nicolas agreed. “Our biggest problem is the trail we’re leaving. Even if we move at the slowest possible pace, my feet will still leave impressions in the soil.”
“What we really need is a path covered by that particular species of moss that seems common in this jungle,” Rade said. Whenever the Jupiter stepped on said moss, the resilient plant would always bounce right back, the depression that formed lasting only for a moment as the moss puffed back up to its former size, just as if nothing had stepped on it in the first place. It was great for hiding footsteps.
“But that still leaves the inevitable branches that we end up breaking,” Nicolas said. “My frame is too big and bulky to avoid them all, not in a jungle with as thick foliage as this.”
“I suppose not,” Rade said. “I’m not sure what the answer is.”
“I have an answer,” Nicolas said. “You must abandon me.”
“No,” Rade said immediately. “I did that last time I was in this country. I refuse to do it again.”
“It’s the only way,” Nicolas told him. “You stay here, climbing the tree, while I continue forward. You reposition, using your jetpack, and then return to the ground three or four hundred meters away, and continue on your way. There will be no path leading to your new position. You can continue unhindered, and if you’re worried about leaving a trail even with your jumpsuit, then take to the trees now and then with your jetpack to further obfuscate your passage.
“Meanwhile, the SKs will track me. I can’t take to the trees to reposition like you—well I can, but there’s no point, because my bulk will carve an obvious trail either way. So eventually they will find me. My only regret is that when they do, I won’t be able to engage the Cyanide Protocol. The cobra laser is too weak to penetrate the armor covering my AI core, at least before the Sino Koreans stop me. And without the stingray, there’s no other way to destroy my neural network.”
“I’m not abandoning you, so that’s a moot point anyway,” Rade said. “Do you understand?”
He thought that Nicolas was going to contest him, but then the AI responded: “Yes.”
“Good.” Rade reached out in the darkness and gently patte
d Nicolas in the leg with his glove. “We need to stick together, you and I. We’re stronger united.”
“I suppose so,” Nicolas said.
Rade stretched, then decided he would try to go back to sleep once more. He returned to Shaw, and lay down beside her. He closed his eyes, and unsurprisingly, fell asleep immediately. His last thought before he went under, was:
Man, this might be the biggest thing I’ll miss about being a MOTH: how easy it is to fall asleep.
He awoke a few hours later with the dawn. Something was amiss.
He sat up quickly and realized what it was.
Nicolas had gone.
The bastard ran off after all.
Shaw was still fast asleep beside him. Rade tied his helmet to his utility belt and retrieved his nearby laser rifle to search the periphery of the camp while Shaw slept. When he couldn’t find any outgoing footsteps, he searched the upper branches instead, looking for signs Nicolas had utilized jumpjets to move to another area. But the upper boughs seemed intact, too.
He realized the mech must have backtracked the way they had come.
Shaw was rubbing her eyes by then, and sat up. “Where’s your mech?”
“Gone. Come on.” He pulled her to her feet.
“I’m hungry,” Shaw said.
Rade grabbed the feed tube connected to the inside of his neck assembly, and swiveled it around so that it was facing her.
She looked at it. “Um.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “It’s spaghetti al’astice.”
“Lobster pasta?” she said. “In a straw. M’m, m’m. My favorite.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
She leaned forward and, placing her head close to his own, took a tentative sip. From her body language, he thought she felt awkward about placing her head so close to his own, which seemed strange, considering she just slept with him the night before. Maybe she was already experiencing buyer’s remorse.
She grimaced, and pulled away.
“That didn’t taste anything like spaghetti,” she told him. “It was all ass-tice, as your friend Bender might say.”
“You get used to it,” he said. “Let’s go.”
He retreated, following the footsteps the mech had enlarged while retracing its path.
“Why are we going south again?” she asked.
“I’m looking for the new trail Nicolas made…” he replied.
They traveled for at least ten minutes, finding no sign yet that the mech had turned away. Some of the footsteps continued to be larger than ordinary, the edges forming slightly higher crescents where the mech’s feet had misaligned.
Then he saw it: a series of broken branches and footprints leading away at an angle from the current path. Nicolas had torn away a lot of branches, and his footprints were deep, indicating he had moved at a run. Rade was surprised he hadn’t awakened in the middle of the night from the sheer racket alone. Then again, he had traveled quite a good distance to the south.
Obviously, Nicolas intended this new trail to stand out from the previous, perhaps in the hopes of drawing the enemy away from the existing trail so that Rade wouldn’t be captured while he slept. Still, it was a bad move: the enemy would’ve likely searched both branches.
What were you thinking, Nicolas?
Then he saw the tripwire Nicolas had placed. A thin wire running from one side of the trail, to the other, and connected to demolition blocks on either side, no doubt set to detonate when triggered.
Shaw stepped forward, as if to check out the new path through the trees, but Rade thrust a hand in front of her and nodded toward the tripwire she’d nearly stepped on.
“Oh,” she said.
He wondered how the AI could have disobeyed him like this. But then Rade realized he hadn’t explicitly ordered the mech to remain behind. He had only said, “I’m not abandoning you, do you understand?”
To which the AI had replied, “yes.”
Nicolas had understood his words, but that didn’t mean the mech intended to remain.
Rade shook his head. “Nicolas could be hours ahead by now.”
“Good,” Shaw said. “He’ll lead the SKs well away from us. Let’s continue north. We’ll leave a far less conspicuous path without the mech.”
She turned to go, but he hesitated.
“Rade?” she asked.
“I can’t bring myself to do it,” he said. “I swore I wouldn’t abandon a mech again, and I won’t.”
“He’s just an AI,” Shaw said.
Rade smiled sadly. “You haven’t worked as closely with them as I have. Some are all too human. Perhaps even more so than we are, in some ways. No, leaving Nicolas behind would be tantamount to leaving Tahoe. I can’t do it. Especially when it’s not warranted.”
“Nicolas seemed to think it was warranted…” Shaw said. “He’s programmed to protect human life above his own.”
“He is,” Rade agreed. “But sometimes that programming gives them errors in judgment. This is one of those times.”
“What about me?” Shaw said. “Is my life not more important than this mech’s?”
“I— Shaw…” He shook his head. “Yours is the most important of them all.”
“Then leave him,” she said. “And let’s continue north.”
Once more Rade was torn.
But no, he had already made up his mind. “I want you to understand: I’ll protect you with my own life, Shaw. I’ll protect you with everything I have. But I won’t abandon him. I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes, bowing her head, then she gave him a quick hug. “Sorry, I didn’t know how important he was to you. We won’t abandon him. Let’s do this, then.”
He carefully stepped over the tripwire one foot at a time, and Shaw mimicked him. Then they turned into the new trail that Nicolas had carved into the jungle, and proceeded forward at a slow jog. They weren’t too fussed about clipping off new branches or otherwise further marking the trail—they were worried more about making noise and tripping.
“It’s too bad that your navy fatigues aren’t equipped with environment blending technology,” Rade told her at one point.
She shrugged. “I can environment blend well enough. Like this.”
And she leaped behind a nearby tree, vanishing.
“Effective,” Rade said with a laugh.
Rade and Shaw continued forward for several hours without incidence. They talked little, exchanging only perfunctory comments, such as “watch the low branches,” or “don’t trip on the depression.”
Soon, Rade began to hear the crunch of heavy footfalls.
“We’ve almost found him,” Shaw said
“Slow down,” Rade said. “It might not be Nicolas.”
“If it’s not Nicolas, then who could it be?” Shaw asked.
Rade didn’t answer, instead proceeding forward; he kept his laser rifle in hand, held at the ready. They came upon a branch in the trail, and Rade realized that a search party of enemy mechs had happened upon Nicolas’ path, and had turned to follow it. Likely there were HS3 equivalents leading the way, and perhaps trailing the SKs. He and Shaw had to proceed with extreme caution.
The pair continued forward, and then heard a commotion. It sounded like plasma fire smashing into trees, and perhaps metal, interspersed with the familiar squawking sound of echolocation.
Rade exchanged a nervous glance with Shaw, and then the pair darted forward.
He witnessed a flurry of motion and sound on the trail ahead as branches broke and trees toppled. He pulled Shaw behind a nearby trunk, then proceeded forward more slowly until he had a view of the clearing that had been carved out of the jungle ahead. He zoomed in.
Though Rade’s comm node was dialed way down, Nicolas had his own transmitting at full strength, which allowed Rade to see the hidden Sino Korean units as red silhouettes. Nicolas was surrounded by four SK bipedal mechs, as well as several smaller combat robots and HS3 equivalents. Two of the combat robots were holding Nicolas down with their ballistic
shields, pressing the Jupiter into a pair of fallen trees. The other two were firing their plasma cannons at close range, at his shoulder joints. In moments, they had ripped away the Jupiter’s arms—and his weapons. They concentrated on his jumpjets next. At that point, Nicolas stopped emitting the squawking noise, and the echolocation silhouettes dropped from Rade’s vision, hiding most of the robots. One mech and two combat robots had damaged armor, with their environment-blending skin pixelating and giving away their positions, but the others were essentially invisible.
Grabbing him by the stumps of his shoulders, the enemy units forced their prisoner to his feet, and turned Nicolas around. They began marching him back the way they had come.
Rade’s war machine, and friend, had been captured.
21
Rade watched as the mechs, combat robots and airborne scouts led Nicolas away. Well, he could only see the three of them with damaged skin, and Nicolas himself, who continued to transmit his own position so that he appeared as a blue silhouette on Rade’s vision. The Jupiter’s environmental blending hull was also damaged in places, and the pixelated regions also helped reveal him.
“I’m sorry,” Shaw transmitted.
Rade shook his head. “Don’t be. Because I’m not giving up yet.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Shaw told him. She looked at her hands. “I won’t fight you on this. I know once you’ve made up your mind, how stubborn you can be.”
“Good,” Rade said. He paused. “Maybe you shouldn’t come with me.”
She laughed, then quickly covered her mouth, worried that the enemy might have overheard. But none of the retreating robots turned back to intercept.
“Where else can I go?” Shaw said. “I can’t stay here. And I’m not going to march north alone.”
“But you were stranded on an alien planet by yourself before,” Rade said. “I know you could cross the border alone if you wanted to.”
“Yes, but just as you’re not leaving your AI, I’m not leaving you,” Shaw said.
