REACTIVATED

BOLT EATERS TRILOGY BOOK 1

Isaac Hooke

For my Mother

My greatest, most devoted fan

Contents

Books by Isaac Hooke

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Afterword

About the Author

Acknowledgments

In Closing

Copyright © 2018 by Isaac Hooke

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

www.IsaacHooke.com

Books by Isaac Hooke

Military Science Fiction

Bolt Eaters Trilogy

Reactivated

Reforged

Redeemed

Battle Harem

Battle Harem 1

Battle Harem 2

Battle Harem 3

AI Reborn Trilogy

Refurbished

Reloaded

Rebooted

ATLAS Trilogy

(published by 47North)

ATLAS

ATLAS 2

ATLAS 3

Alien War Trilogy

Hoplite

Zeus

Titan

Argonauts

Bug Hunt

You Are Prey

Alien Empress

Quantum Predation

Robot Dust Bunnies

City of Phants

Rade’s Fury

Mechs vs. Dinosaurs

A Captain's Crucible

Flagship

Test of Mettle

Cradle of War

Planet Killer

Worlds at War

Space Opera

Star Warrior Quadrilogy

Star Warrior

Bender of Worlds

He Who Crosses Death

Doom Wielder

Science Fiction

The Forever Gate Series

The Dream

A Second Chance

The Mirror Breaks

They Have Wakened Death

I Have Seen Forever

Rebirth

Walls of Steel

The Pendulum Swings

The Last Stand

Thrillers

The Ethan Galaal Series

Clandestine

A Cold Day in Mosul

Terminal Phase

Visit IsaacHooke.com for more information.

1

Eric stared at the flashing message on his HUD. It was marked urgent.

Come quick. In trouble.

He tried to call the sender of that message, Bambi, but she wasn’t answering. Nor did any other members of the former Bolt Eaters. They were all holed up in the same apartment building.

Eric hurried between the densely-populated streets. Skyscrapers of steel, glass and solar panels towered over the pavement. Delivery drones roved to and fro above the crowd. Most of the throng was actually human today, rather than the usual robots—most people stayed home these days, as there was little reason to leave except for holidays and other celebrations. Today was one such occasion: the holiday celebrating the destruction of the alien mothership in orbit.

It was hard to believe twenty years had passed since that day. Twenty years since half of humanity had been wiped out and a small group of soldiers, none of them entirely human, had given their lives to save the remainder.

Eric had been one of those soldiers. Ordinarily this was a day for him to reflect on the sacrifice of his brothers and sisters, and his own near death, but the message he’d just received changed all that.

Augmented reality overlays partially occluded his vision, advertising some product or other that he had no desire for. He disabled the interface entirely, clearing the overlays so that he didn’t have to worry about his vision being blocked.

But Eric disabled it a bit too late and accidentally slammed into a passer-by who had been blocked by one of the overlays. It was a dude who believed in body augmentation—his biceps bulged unnaturally, his chest was huge, his back was a V taper, and he stood over six and a half feet tall. But Eric, about a head shorter and skinny as hell, knocked the guy right over. Eric’s formerly human psyche resided inside an android body, after all, so although he might seem average-looking, his strength was ten times that of an ordinary man. As was his speed. He glanced over his shoulder to confirm that the guy was okay, then continued on his way.

He amped up his servomotor output and moved his mind into Bullet Time, the accelerated time sense that allowed him to operate faster than any human could. To the passersby he’d be moving at a blur. It drained his battery faster, however, so he had to keep an eye on his levels.

Police drones were rushing underneath the skylanes overhead, underneath the air traffic. They were headed in the direction of the apartment he shared with the surviving Bolt Eaters.

That can’t be good.

After crossing a street where the self-driving vehicular traffic had been reduced to a crawl, he made his way to the avenue that led to his apartment. The skyscrapers receded, leaving behind low- and medium-rise apartment buildings. The crowds thinned out, leaving only delivery drones flying just overhead.

When he neared the avenue in question, he was met by a blockade: the whole street was cordoned off, so he couldn’t proceed further.

Eric approached one of the police robots on guard and reduced his time sense to normal.

“What’s going on?” Eric asked.

“Please stay back, for your own safety,” the robot said.

“I live in an apartment just around the corner,” Eric said.

“You can’t enter,” the robot said.

“My friends are still inside,” Eric said. “They’re not answering my calls.”

“Please stay back, for your own safety,” the robot repeated.

Eric frowned, then stepped back. He walked until he reached the alley between two apartment buildings, then he entered. He encountered a wooden fence only two meters in. He leaped up, easily reaching the top of the fence, and peered over. He could see an empty alleyway, and on the far side, another fence. There were police vehicles with flashing lights beyond that fence.

They won’t let me through, either.

Eric let himself down. He went to the apartment building, and found a small carbon fiber conduit running along the outside.

Perfect.

He pulled himself onto that conduit and began to climb. His fingers crushed the metal, ensuring he had a good grip. Beside him, part of the wall protruded outward as part of the architect’s stylistic design—it also prevented the police robots on the far side of the alley from spotting him.

He reached the top and carefully peered over the edge. On the far side, robots were aiming combat rifles over the ledge, in the direction of his apartment building. He couldn’t actually see the building yet.

He recognized the model of the combat robots: military-grade Savages. They had eyes on the backs of their heads.

He repositioned along the edge, maneuvering until the superstructures and gooseneck vents on the rooftop shielded him from the rear-view cameras of the combat robots on the far side, and then he carefully pulled himself onto the rooftop.

He hid behind one of the vents; he heard a series of explosions, starting out farther away, and slowly moving closer. The final explosion was extremely loud, and the rooftop shook—Eric realized something had struck this building.

He carefully peered past the vent, toward the combat robots, and realized the corner of the roof where they had crouched had been blown clean away. One of the Savages had been thrown backward by the force of the impact, and its body was littered with shrapnel. It wasn’t going to get up.

Eric left his cover and hurried to the fallen robot. He ripped the rifle from its grasp. The army used to have lockouts in place to prevent just anyone from picking up a weapon and firing it. However, because enemy governments figured out how to hack the weapons, the lockouts were eventually abandoned so that the feature couldn’t be used against us.

Us. Funny how I still think of myself as army, even after all these years.

Eric tried to access the remote interface through his HUD. Yep. He had full control.

He made his way to the ruined corner of the building and peered over the intact ledge beside it.

He spotted his apartment building in the distance, two blocks away. There was a black, vaguely arrow-shaped ship on the rooftop—he thought it was a transport of some kind. A quick ID turned up nothing despite the military database he carried aboard, but that could simply be due to how outdated his particular database was. It had been twenty years since his last army stint, after all. Not that he had personally aged during any of that time.

Before he could aim his newly recovered laser rifle, the craft launched a volley of plasma bolts in multiple directions; he ducked when some of those bolts came his way. One of them smashed into the stairwell superstructure behind him; the area exploded, leaving a huge blast crater in its wake.

So not an ordinary transport, then. Definitely something military or police grade.

He wondered just what the hell the attackers were doing on that particular apartment building. They couldn’t have come for Eric and the Bolt Eaters, could they?

But then again, why else would they be assaulting this otherwise nondescript building? No one else of note lived here, as far as he knew. And Eric and the others were living under assumed names and identities. No one knew who they were, let alone that they were the group of soldiers responsible for saving humanity those twenty years ago.

He thought of Bambi’s urgent text message.

Come quick. In trouble.

Yeah, there was no other reason for that transport to be here, other than to harm or capture his friends.

Overhead, a police drone rushing to the scene was shot down by another volley, and the craft crashed into another building nearby with a loud explosion.

Eric peered back over the ledge of the building. His gaze was drawn to the flashing lights in the streets below, where autonomous police vehicles were scattered along the asphalt-solar panel combinations. Combat robots were hiding behind the vehicles. Larger mechs were also hidden behind vehicles and any other objects they could take cover behind, including benches, kiosks and alleyways. Some of the mechs carried ballistic shields, which they had deployed in front of themselves and slammed into the asphalt to crouch behind in the middle of the street.

Across from the defenders, at the base of Eric’s apartment, several small, spherical drones were zig-zagging in random patterns. The drones launched plasma bolts—and probably lasers outside the visual band, too—at the police vehicles and mechs, mostly evading any return fire.

He switched his gaze to the rooftops. There were no other airborne police drones out there, but he suspected more were incoming. On the other buildings he could see sniper robots; he was able to ID them as SWAT models. They were aiming at both the transport on the roof of the apartment, and the zigzagging drones near the base. Eric also spotted the wreckages of a few sniper robots: their bodies drooped over the uppermost edges of their respective buildings.

He returned his gaze to the apartment that was under siege.

In retrospect, staying together in the same building had probably been a mistake.

Eric had no idea how he was going to reach that building without getting shot. He wasn’t worried so much about damaging his android body—it was paid for on the military’s dime—but his AI core. While he had a recent backup stored in a bank vault, that was only reassuring to a degree. He would still personally die if his AI core failed, but his copy would live on in a different mind and body, preserving his memories, personality, and skills to the world. But it would always only be a copy. That was one of the prices of immortality: one was never really immortal. Death by natural causes no longer existed, but an unnatural demise was a very real threat.

He’d grown too comfortable in his android body, too accustomed to his peaceful, well-preserved existence, to risk his life in a situation like this. He was just a simple programmer now who made custom VR environments for a living; a lucrative one at that. He made enough to support not only himself, but the two beautiful android women and former teammates he had developed a relationship with. He’d left his fighting days well behind him.

Yes, he didn’t want to leave cover, not at all. Hell, he didn’t even want to fire his rifle, though the knowledge of how to do so was permanently burned into his AI core. He had no desire to die here and now for no reason.

But I do have a reason. Trying to rescue those who are closer to me than brothers. And the two women I love more than anything in the world.

A police gunship arrived and began a missile barrage against the black transport; those mini guns on either side also whirred frantically as the gunship unleashed a hailstorm of invisible laser fire.

Fuck it.

If he was going to act, now was the time.

Eric scrambled to his feet. He hoped to use the distraction provided by the gunship to leap across to the next building, and perhaps the one after that. He figured he would need to take a running leap to make it, so he withdrew several paces, then took off at a sprint.

He reached the edge and jumped toward the opposite rooftop. He arced over the gap between the two buildings and landed on the targeted roof. He continued sprinting, heading for the far side, which bordered his under-siege apartment building.

He knew the police snipers would be opening fire on him by then—while he would be identified as a civilian, he doubted that would stop them from attacking, first of all because he inhabited a robot body, and second of all he was running straight into a war zone. So he began zigzagging, and switched to Bullet Time to dodge the expected attacks.

Sure enough, plasma bolts began to come in from the rooftops around him, but also from ahead, underneath the black transport: the attackers were firing on him, too. He dodged easily thanks to his accelerated time sense. Some laser rifles were no doubt attempting to target him as well, and that was something he wouldn’t be able to dodge—he just had to hope his random zigzagging would prevent anyone from scoring a hit.

Above, the gunship was smoking—the helo had taken several hits and was on the way down.

As he grew near to the edge of the rooftop, and the apartment building ahead, he could see the black objects crouched beneath the arrow-shaped transport. They were humankind in shape—likely robots, but as expected, an ID scan returned no matching makes and models.

Now that the gunship was down, more of those robots were turning their weapons toward him.

Eric reached the edge of the building and dove over, not intending to leap across, but rather aiming for a window of an apartment three stories down.

He flew across the street, holding the rifle close to his chest, and rotated along his axis before striking the glass. He smashed into a rug and rolled into a ball until he slammed into a dresser. He glanced at his battery power: he had used up a little too much for his liking, so he returned his time sense to normal.

A woman crouched behind the dresser promptly screamed.

“Sorry.” Eric clambered to his feet. He collected the laser rifle from where it had slid into the wall beside him. He made a quick transfer of credits to the woman’s account as he got up, but she was too scared to accept so he dismissed the window on his HUD and moved into the hallway.

He reached the kitchen of the single bedroom apartment, which also served as the foyer, and peered through the eyehole. The hallway seemed clear outside.

He pulled up his comm screen and tried to connect with Bambi or anyone else again. No good: there was a jammer of some kind in place. He couldn’t even access the Internet anymore.

The woman had apparently followed him, because a moment later he felt a bottle breaking on his head.

He turned to look at her and waved an admonishing finger.

She backed away, seeming very pale, like she was about to faint, but then he turned and opened the door. Before he stepped into the hallway, he told her: “Stay hidden until the police come. Behind the counter.”

Visibly shaking, she dropped behind the aforementioned kitchen counter

He closed the door behind him.

Adrenalin hangover. That’s one thing I don’t miss about being human.

He held the rifle in both hands, at the ready, and made his way down the hall. He was headed toward the stairwell. He could hear the muted sound of plasma bolts firing from the rooftop, and the occasional muffled shout, likely coming from one of the residents trapped in the building. A few of the doors were slightly ajar up ahead, with tenants peering out fearfully. Some shut the door immediately when they spotted the rifle he carried, while some defiantly kept them open.

“I’m with the police,” Eric reassured those residents who continued to peer at him through the entryways. “Shut your doors and stay inside,”

Though the former was a lie, apparently, they believed him because they promptly shut their doors. Or maybe they had executed an ID and realized he wasn’t with the police, but still thought it was probably best to obey him, considering he was the one with the laser rifle.

He kicked open the stairwell door and headed inside. Keeping his rifle pointed ahead of him, he took the concrete flights of steps that zig-zagged to the next floor.

When he reached the door to the next floor, he opened it a crack and carefully peered out. It was clear in both directions.

He cautiously opened the door wider, and let himself into the hallway. Brontosaurus had a suite on this floor, and Eric was making his way toward it.

Brontosaurus. It wasn’t his actual name, of course, but his callsign. Though they were all twenty years retired from the army, none of the team ever used their real names. They couldn’t bring themselves to. They’d fought and died for each other using those callsigns. He couldn’t even call his own girlfriends, also former Bolt Eaters, by their real names. They’d always be Bambi and Crusher to him.

Eric wondered if he’d actually find his friend Brontosaurus in the apartment: the Bolt Eaters were probably the only members of the building with any military training. As soon as Brontosaurus heard the shooting, there was a good chance he would have made his way to the top floor to lend a hand if he could: like most of the team, Brontosaurus had a rifle and other military gear hidden in his rooms, none of it legal. Eric wondered if he should be heading toward the rooftop, rather than here.

Then again, Eric remembered how reluctant he himself had been to risk his own life only a few minutes ago when he had crouched on the rooftop of the opposite building. It was possible, no, likely, that Brontosaurus had remained in his suite, choosing to obey any broadcasts advising the residents to remain locked inside, letting the building’s local security robots handle the disturbance.

Yes, Eric had made the right choice in coming here.

Once more he encountered some doors that were ajar; like on the previous floor, most residents closed them when they saw his rifle, but some continued to peer out and he forcefully told them to go back inside.

“What’s going on?” one woman asked him when he told her to lock the door and barricade herself inside.

“Building’s under attack,” Eric said.

“By who?” the woman pressed.

“We don’t know,” Eric said.

He grabbed the handle and shut the door on her. The remote locking mechanism engaged automatically.

Eric continued until he reached the door to Brontosaurus’ suite. It was wide open. He carefully “pied” the entrance with his weapon by moving in a half circle, or “pie” pattern, in front of the entrance, and confirmed that no attackers were lying in wait around the corner.

The kitchen and family room of the one bedroom apartment were clearly visible. The furniture was upturned, and the closet ransacked. Eric was beginning to worry that Brontosaurus had in fact never left the rooms.

Eric entered the foyer, rifle aimed in front of him, and approached the bedroom. When he arrived, he pied that area, too, and then swiveled around the corner. He expected the worst.

At first glance, the room was empty. The mattress was upturned, the clothes in the closet had been thrown onto the floor. Eric checked underneath one of the mattresses that lay against the wall—it formed a crack big enough for a man to hide inside. But there was no sign of Brontosaurus’ android.

Well, it was a relief that he hadn’t found Brontosaurus’ android body at least. Nor any of his stashed gear.

But that didn’t help the feeling of dread that was steadily growing inside of him.

Maybe the robot attackers had collected him and all his gear, and were in the process of gathering the other Bolt Eaters.

I hope I’m wrong.

2

Eric made his way down to the next floor below, where Tread and Mickey had two side-by-side apartments. When he reached the suites, he discovered the doors wide open and the rooms also ransacked and empty, devoid of any of the military gear the pair had stashed there. From the state of their rooms, and Brontosaurus’, Eric was pretty sure the attackers were targeting his team.

The question was, had the team members made it out of their apartments before the kidnappers had arrived? And if so, where had they gone? Upstairs to the rooftop, like he had originally guessed? Then again, he couldn’t hear the shooting at all from this floor. So unless Brontosaurus had come running downstairs to warn them, Tread and Mickey wouldn’t have known.

When Eric emerged from Mickey’s rooms, he spotted a door slightly ajar on the opposite side of the hallway; he made his way toward it. Infuriatingly, the occupant was one of those who was frightened by his rifle, and shut the door before he could think to hide it.

Eric knocked, but the resident refused to answer.

“What did you see?” he asked through the door. He cringed at how loud his voice sounded, and he quickly glanced left and right to confirm no hidden attackers were emerging to fire at him from the depths of any of the apartments.

He waited a few moments in front of that door, but unsurprisingly, no one answered.

There were no other doors open anywhere else on that floor, and even if he kicked them down, he doubted he’d get any answers from the occupants.

So he returned to the stairwell and made his way down to the eighth floor. There was no one he knew on that next level, but on the floor below, Traps had a suite.

As Eric passed the eighth floor door of the stairwell, a distant thud alerted him to the fact something was amiss.

He went to the door, very softly opened it a crack, and peered past. He caught a glimpse of a black, rifle-wielding robot entering one of the doors in the center of the hallway. Based on the location of Traps’ suite below, the apartment would have been just above it.

He increased his time sense to the max to consider the different scenarios. The only reason for the robots to enter that suite would be if Traps was resisting on the floor below; they likely intended to shoot through the floor and ambush him. If that was true, that meant there would also be robots below breaking into adjacent rooms, and perhaps the suite underneath, and maybe even the external windows, if only to surround him on all sides.

That meant Eric had to do what he could to help his friend.

And quick.

He considered his options, and chose what he thought was the best course of action.

He slowed his time sense back down to normal and then dashed into the hall.

He raced toward the suite, and switched to Bullet Time when he reached it. He amped up his servomotors to maximum power so that he’d be moving in a blur to ordinary humans; it wouldn’t give him much of an advantage over these robots, however, since they’d be able to move just as fast. Still, at least it put him on a relatively level playing field.

He pied the opening, and immediately spotted a robot standing guard just inside.

Eric fired his rifle at only a meter away, burning a thumbnail sized hole through where he judged the AI core to reside. He guessed correctly, because the small blue light on the robot’s visor turned dark. That would probably be the only sign that it was offline—unless it was off balance, the machine wouldn’t topple, but merely stand in place.

Eric stepped inside, and saw the other two robots that were standing in the family room, past the kitchen counter. There were a dead man and woman lying on the floor, with parts of their faces blown off. Both robots had their weapons currently pointed downward, at the carpet, and one of them was firing.

The other one had spotted Eric, and was lifting its weapon toward him. The movement was fast, and Eric had no choice but to dive behind the counter to avoid the resultant plasma burst.

He switched the rifle to smart targeting mode and amped up his time sense to the max to rewind the video recorded by the scope; he highlighted the desired chest sections he wanted the weapon to target, and then dismissed the video feed and returned his time sense to the previous setting; then he jammed the weapon past the edge of the counter and squeezed the trigger.

The muzzle rotated in rapid succession as it fired at the two targets; Eric switched to the point of view of the weapon, and saw that he’d stopped both robots in their tracks. One of them toppled to the floor, its heavy body frozen. The other remained standing, the small blue light on its visor had gone dark.

Eric got up and shut the door behind him. He surveyed the room: there was a window on the far side, but the curtains were closed, preventing anyone outside from seeing him.

He passed the counter and checked the laundry room, the bathroom, and the bedroom. They were all clear.

Eric returned to the family room, and approached the small hole the robots had carved into the floor with their plasma rifles.

He spotted a muzzle pointing up at him from the room below just in time to step back and out of the way as a plasma bolt burst forth. It struck the ceiling.

“I got it!” a muffled voice came from below.

“It’s me!” Eric said. “Asswipe.”

“Oh, hey Babe!” Bambi said.

“Oh, hey...” Eric said. If he were human, his cheeks would have turned red. He’d never call Bambi an asswipe. He could have sworn the first voice had belonged to Traps, but that could have been because he was expecting to find Traps inside. Wait a second... “Bambi? What are you doing in Traps’ suite?”

“Having sex with him, what do you think?” Bambi said.

She always did have a twisted sense of humor.

Eric glanced at his HUD: their status indicators now showed up, thanks to the adhoc network formed by their internal comm nodes, despite the jammers. The range was obviously severely reduced however, because Eric hadn’t picked them up until he was almost right above the hole in the floor.

Eric peered into the opening and saw Bambi’s pretty face gazing up at him from the floor of the room below. Except it wasn’t so pretty at the moment—it was covered in white plaster dust from the walls, her eyes red around the edges as the gland components simulated irritation. A portion of the skin had also peeled off one of her cheeks, revealing the metal interior underneath, no doubt thanks to a glancing blow from a plasma bolt.

“What the hell happened?” Eric said.

“Got some robots firing at us from both sides,” Bambi said. “All the Bolt Eaters are down here. We gathered here when the attack began. The only one missing is Eagleeye.”

“Good,” Eric said. “I was worried these bastards had captured you. You should get your collective asses up here. This floor is completely clear, at least for the time being.”

“We’d love to,” Bambi said. “Except for the small fact we’re kinda pinned down.”

“Can you get to the fire escape from where you are?” Eric asked.

“Ha,” Bambi said. “Nope. Check the building blueprints.”

He did. Even if they could get out the window without being shot down, the fire escape was too far away for even an android body to successfully vault onto.

“So, pinned down…” Eric slipped his rifle into the opening and switched to the scope’s point of view. He surveyed the room around Bambi, and saw other members of the team crouched behind different tables and chairs. There was a huge blast hole carved into the wall behind the upturned sofa Bambi was crouched behind.

“I’ll see if I can help you out,” Eric said.

He aimed toward the hole in the wall behind Bambi and scanned the adjacent room. He spotted three enemies whose heads were in plain view, visible from his current angle. All of them were hiding behind different pieces of upturned furniture.

Eric upped his time sense and fired in rapid succession, targeting the head areas. If these were like other military units, successful headshots wouldn’t disable the units entirely—to do that, he’d have to strike the AI cores or power cells located in the torso region. However, he would knock offline the visual processing and communications subsystems, which would prevent the robots from receiving video feeds from any other sources, including other robots, as well as their own rifles.

He took out two of the tangos in that fashion. But when he shifted his aim over the third, the robot in question had already ducked from view.

“Missed one of them,” Eric waited a few moments, keeping his targeting reticule aimed over the upturned table the tango was using for cover. “The other two have no visuals.”

The two robots he’d hit were attempting to use echolocation to see, but their squawkers were badly damaged and they sounded like ducks with a bad cold. The pair would still have the last known positions of the team members recorded, so they fired randomly, trying to keep them pinned down.

He spotted movement on the far left side of the table he was watching, but before he could react a plasma bolt struck his laser rifle, and he had to pull it back. He examined the weapon. The muzzle was completely melted away.

Eric tossed the useless weapon aside, and grabbed a plasma rifle from one of the robots he’d taken down in the current suite. He confirmed that he had complete access to the unit, and then returned to the opening in the floor.

He saw that Bambi was firing over the couch already in the room below, distracting the target, so Eric aimed through the gap with his new rifle and accessed the scope interface. He placed the targeting reticle over the upturned table in the adjacent room, and spotted the tango. It had switched to the far side of the table, and kept crouched, thanks to Bambi’s suppressive fire.

Eric aimed at its torso, which was in view, and squeezed the trigger. The plasma bolt struck the tango in the AI core region, and the off balance unit toppled over.

The two other robots were still firing intermittently, but Bambi and the other Bolt Eaters had already shifted spots slightly so that their current locations didn’t match up with the positions recorded by the damaged robots. Eric still only had shots on the head areas. He fired at each of them a few more times, disabling the annoying squawkers.

Eric moved around to the other side of the hole so that he could search the rest of the apartment. He spotted Slate, covered in white plaster dust, crouched behind a coffee table facing the bedroom on the opposite side of the room. The occasional plasma bolt came from that room, from a far wall that had also been blown out. The angle was poor, and Eric couldn’t sight any of the targets.

He glanced at his overhead map to check where the other points of attack were: the window seemed to be blown out, but it was clear at the moment—the police were finally doing their job out there. Past the foyer, there were five more tangos in the main hallway.

He repositioned so that the foyer was in view. He saw that the main door was lying on the floor, broken off its hinges, and the edges of the doorframe were ragged, as if eaten away by an explosion, but otherwise he didn’t spot any of the tangos.

“I don’t have a bead on any of the other attackers from my current angle,” Eric said. “Maybe I can drill a hole in the ceiling with my plasma rifle and catch them off guard long enough to take a few down.”

“Don’t think the off guard part will work,” Marlborough said. Eric couldn’t see him, but the voice of the Sergeant First Class came clearly over the comm line. “Trust me, you notice when plasma bolts dig into the ceiling above you. Plaster dust drops down after you unleash the first shot.”

“All right then, we’ll use it as a distraction, giving you time to get up here,” Eric said. “After I enlarge this opening…”

Eric set down his rifle on the floor and used his android strength to rip away the drywall and floorboards underneath the rug, enlarging the opening the original attackers had made. In about thirty seconds he had a hole wide enough to fit human beings—or in their case, androids.

“Okay, that should fit you guys!” Eric said. “Now for the distraction. I’ll handle the neighboring room.”

“Hicks, cover the front door with me,” Marlborough said. “The rest of you, get your robotic asses up there as soon as you see plaster dropping from the next room!”

Eric raced to the foyer of the current suite and checked that the hallway outside was still empty. Then he went to the neighboring apartment, kicked in the door, and hurried into the family room. He peered into the laundry room, bathroom, and bedroom along the way—they all appeared empty at first glance.

He had dropped out of comm range, thanks to the jammers, but the last known positions of the tangos were still visible on the overhead map, which indicated they were in the family room just below. Eric aimed his plasma rifle into the floor and opened fire. In moments he had carved a small hole.

His map updated. He saw that Brontosaurus and Slate were in the neighboring room. And Bambi at the entrance to this one.

Which would explain why the map had refreshed.

He glanced at her as he fired.

Some of the dust had fallen away from her body, revealing the tattoo of an elk the French beauty had on her forearm.

“Bonjour,” she said demurely. She had her face angled away, so that she was hiding the cheek where the skin had been ripped off. Her eyes didn’t seem as red—she must have adjusted the sensitivity of the involved components. Getting closer to her ravishing self. “Need any help here?”

Eric continued shooting into the floor. “Fire into the floor of the hallway outside… distract the remaining tangos!”

“On it!” Bambi said, vanishing outside.

“I’ll help her,” Brontosaurus transmitted.

As the hole beneath Eric enlarged, plasma bolts began to fly upward in turn from the enemy units and streaked past him to hit the ceiling. Eric pulled back, but didn’t let up his own attack.

He glanced at his map, and saw that the entire team had reached the room next door save for Hicks and Marlborough.

“Sarge, Hicks, where are you?” Eric said.

“On our way,” Marlborough said.

As Eric watched, Hicks’ indicator vaulted through the hole in the neighboring room in a single leap, followed by Marlborough.

Eric backed away from the streaks of plasma fire erupting from the floor in front of him, and retreated to the main entrance. He joined Bambi and the others in the hallway. They gave a wide berth to the holes Bambi and Brontosaurus had carved into the floor; plasma bolts intermittently streaked past from those openings.

So far, the hallway was clear on both sides. But there were stairwell entrances at either end where enemy troops could emerge. The fire escape was visible beyond the glass door next to the stairwell on the far right, labeled: “Emergency exit. Do not open. Alarm will sound.”

“You guys have to get to the fire escape,” Eric said.

“What about Eagleeye?” Slate said. The drone operator wore a shirt with a fire-breathing dragon painted on it; he had more dragons tattooed onto his bulging, dark-skinned arms, though they were difficult to see with the current layer of plaster coating him. His synthetic hair was shaped into a black mohawk, currently grayish from the plaster dust. “We can’t leave him.”

“I’ll check his suite,” Eric said. “The rest of you, get out of here.”

“I’ll go with you,” Frogger said. He had the same features as Eric, except he wore his hair in a buzz cut, and had modded his android’s face to support a goatee.

“No,” Eric told his clone. “One of us has to survive. And you already died a few times, in case you forgot.”

“Can’t forget something like that.” Frogger patted him on the shoulder. There was no clang—the androids were covered in synthetic skin that approximated the softness of real humans.

“Good luck, Scorpion,” Marlborough said, using Eric’s callsign from his Bolt Eater days. Marlborough wore a grizzled beard, and had wrinkles on the skin of his android’s face. He could have fashioned his appearance to be far more youthful, but he preferred the “refinement” that came with aged features.

Wishing Eric luck was the Sarge’s way of approving his request to check Eagleeye’s suite. Well, Eric had spoken the words as more of an order than a request, but Marlborough could have still overruled him if he desired, and the entire team, including Eric, would have listened. While technically Marlborough wasn’t their Sarge anymore, they all still thought of him as such, and respected his leadership.

The team hurried toward the fire escape. Intending to divert into the stairwell next to it, Eric went with them.

Behind them, enemy troops began to pour from the farther stairwell.

Slate opened fire from the rear. He took down every unit that appeared before it could fire at them. But he wouldn’t be able to keep that up for long, Eric knew. Especially when they started firing from beyond the edges of the opening.

They reached the fire escape. Dickson crashed right through the door without opening it. Like Marlborough, he preferred an older appearance. The cigar he always kept chomped between his lips broke thanks to the shattering glass.

Eric turned toward the adjacent stairwell door while the rest of the team took the fire escape.

“I want you out of here as soon as possible,” Marlborough told him. “My guess is Eagleeye already evacuated the building a long time ago! So if he isn’t there, leave!”

“Will do,” Eric said. He kicked open the stairwell door and started down the first cement flight.

But then Brontosaurus squeezed in at his side. “Buddy system.” He had modded his chest and biceps to be the biggest among them. He also had a goatee, and a buzz cut.

“Make that double buddy system,” Bambi said from behind him.

“Triple,” Crusher said from behind her.

Eric glanced at his map, and confirmed that the rest of the team was heading onto the fire escape.

As he reached the bottom of the flight and rounded the bend toward the next one, he glanced at Crusher.

She wore her usual pink bandanna with big, yellow, rifle-toting happy faces on it. A similar happy face decorated her tight, pink, short-sleeved shirt.

“Thank you,” he told his other girlfriend.

“No problem,” Crusher said. “But did you actually think I was going to miss out on kicking some robot ass? Now, let’s find Eagleeye.”

3

Eric led the charge down the zig-zagging flights of stairs. He took the steps four at a time, handling them quite nimbly thanks to his android body. Eagleeye was located on the fourth floor.

As he rounded the flight that led down to the fifth level, the stairwell door below burst open and two black combat robots stepped into view.

The robots seemed just as surprised to find Eric as he was to see them; he switched to Bullet Time and raised his rifle as fast as he could. The robots were trying to target him, too, so he leaped to the side.

He lined up the first, but couldn’t get a solid shot on the center of the chest, where the AI core was located; he decided to squeeze the trigger anyway because the opponent’s rifle was fast lining up with him.

The plasma bolt tore a gap through the side of the robot; a return plasma bolt ripped past his shoulder, narrowly missing.

Three more shots released from behind Eric, courtesy of Brontosaurus, Bambi and Crusher. One of those bolts smashed into the first robot’s torso, while the other two hit the second robot, who also managed to get off a shot.

Eric rammed into the concrete wall beside him, and bounced off; he positioned his legs so that he landed on his feet, and then reverted to normal time.

The two robots dropped like rag dolls.

“Everyone all right?” Eric asked. He glanced at his HUD, answering his own question when he saw their stats all in the green: he’d modified the health indicators that were designed for the war machines they once inhabited to work with the new android bodies.

“Why would they be on this floor?” Crusher said. “Instead of the fourth?”

“Either Eagleeye shot a hole through the ceiling to move up a level,” Eric said. “Or the robots were trying the same tactic we used on them upstairs.”

He approached the doorway and opened it a crack to peer past. He spotted five black robots camped out in front of the apartment suite that would have been located directly above Eagleeye’s.

Two of those robots broke away and dashed toward his position as he watched. They fired plasmas at the stairwell door, and he ducked back. The bolts slammed into the door, turning two circular sections white hot.

“They realized their two friends here went down,” Eric said.

“Open the door for me,” Brontosaurus said. He squeezed in beside Eric and dropped to the concrete floor.

Eric kicked the long metal access bar, opening the way for Brontosaurus to fire. The heavy gunner did so. He released five shots in rapid succession, obviously operating in Bullet Time.

Brontosaurus rolled aside as a plasma bolt came at him in return.

The door swung closed before more plasma bolts could impact.

“Got four of ’em,” Brontosaurus said. “Missed one.”

Eric heard a thud as the stairwell door on the floor below kicked open.

“We’ll hold them off,” Bambi said, aiming down the stairs. “Get Eagleeye.”

Eric kicked open the door again and switched to Bullet Time.

While Brontosaurus went low, firing from the floor, Eric went high, aiming his rifle at the door above Eagleeye’s suite, where the wreckages of the four robots Brontosaurus had taken out resided.

He spotted the muzzle of a rifle protruding from the doorframe of the apartment, where the fifth robot had fled. Eric fired, along with Brontosaurus, but the muzzle promptly vanished inside.

A moment later a black robot toppled over, falling into view, its back smoking.

Eagleeye peered from the entrance. “About time,” he shouted. He wore a T-shirt that depicted the head of a mean looking black bird. It matched the ravens tattooed onto his bulging arms.

Eric glanced askance. “Bambi, Crusher, let’s go!”

He entered the hallway with Brontosaurus, and the two girls followed on the rear, firing into the stairwell as the door closed of its own accord behind them.

After it slammed shut, the four of them fled down the hall toward Eagleeye.

The door burst open behind them, and they were forced to dive inside the suite as plasma bolts erupted from the stairwell.

The single bedroom apartment was similar in layout to most of the other suites. There was a gaping hole in the floor to the balcony window. Two smoldering black robots lay in front of it.

“They tried to follow me up,” Eagleeye said. “Didn’t work out so well for them.”

Bambi and Crusher were firing from the front door, and out into the hallway.

“There’s too many of them!” Bambi said. “We’re pinned.”

“Nope,” Eagleeye said. “Already opened up another scuttle for myself.” He gestured toward the ceiling, where a plasma rifle had drilled a small hole big enough to fit an android.

He fired toward the opening in the floor as another robot head appeared, and then he leaped up. His android strength carried him right through the opening.

Eric and the others followed in turn.

Eagleeye had already opened the front door, and was peering outside. “It’s clear. For now.”

“We have to get to the fire escape,” Eric said. “The others are waiting for us.”

“Screw that,” Eagleeye said. “Look what I got.” He lifted up his T-shirt, revealing a waist harness. Protruding from the different pockets were demolition blocks individually wrapped in Mylar film.

“So?” Eric said.

“Whaddaya mean, so?” Eagleeye said. “We’re going to teach these robot dudes they can’t do shit like this without paying a stiff price. No one attacks the Bolt Eaters.”

“Okay, so what’s your plan then, big guy?” Brontosaurus asked in a dubious tone.

“I watched the streaming networks,” Eagleeye replied. “These bastards came in on some sort of transport. We’re going to blow it up, sending a message to our would-be assassins that they can go procreate with themselves.”

“I saw the transport,” Eric said. “I’m telling you, getting close isn’t going to be easy. It’s surrounded by combat robots like the ones we just took down. Then there are the weapon turrets, jutting from the craft on all sides. We’ll be mowed down, reduced to spare parts before we even get close.”

“It’s not our job,” Bambi chimed in. “Leave it to the police.”

“I agree,” Crusher said. “We’ve risked our lives enough for one day. The police can handle this.”

“The police?” Eagleeye said incredulously. “Haven’t you watched the live streams? The police drones are being shot down in droves. SWAT robots on nearby rooftops are reduced to rubble as soon as they attempt to fire. In the streets, the police vehicles are bombarded with so much plasma fire that the combat robots can’t even leave cover to return fire.”

“There you go,” Eric said. “Given all that, what makes you think we’ll do any better?”

“Because we’re Bolt Eaters, goddammit,” Eagleeye said. “That used to mean something...”

“Twenty years ago, maybe,” Brontosaurus said.

Eagleeye shook his head. “What happened to the brothers and sisters I knew?”

Eric and the others didn’t have anything to say to that.

“You’ve grown soft over the years,” Eagleeye said. “Too comfortable in these android shells of ours. Don’t you want to make a difference again? Don’t you want to fight?”

Still, Eric and the others remained silent.

“Fine, I’ll do it myself.” Eagleeye opened the door entirely and dashed into the hall.

“Shit,” Eric said. “This is a bad idea.”

Eric started out the door, but Crusher grabbed him by the elbow. “You’re not actually going to help him, are you?”

“I have to,” Eric said. “He’s my brother. And protecting him overrides any sense of self-preservation I might have left.”

He jerked free of Crusher’s grasp and headed out. He glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t come with me.”

“Too late,” Bambi said. Crusher was at her side, and Brontosaurus bringing up the rear behind them.

“Great,” Eric said. “Well at least we get to die together.”

“Like I’ve always dreamed,” Bambi said sarcastically.

“Till death do us part,” Crusher added slyly.

“Hey, I’m not married to any of you,” Brontosaurus said.

“We’re not married either,” Crusher said. “Polygamy is still illegal. Even among androids. But it sounded funny at the time.”

Eric reached Eagleeye. The drone operator met his eye and nodded in appreciation.

“I won’t forget this.”

“You probably will,” Eric said. “Considering...”

Eagleeye flashed his teeth. “I have no intention of dying.”

Rifle in hand, Eagleeye reached the stairwell, opened it, and led the way inside.

The group made their way upstairs very quickly, and very quietly. That was one positive of android bodies over pure robotics—since the androids more closely mimicked human bodies, they were usually far stealthier. Especially with the padded boots that Eric and the others wore. Then again, combat robots could affix similar pads underneath their feet, and apply active noise canceling units to their servomotors.

Eric heard the muted thumping of metal feet on a rug, and then the door leading to the flight just upstairs slammed open. He and the others tensed: Eagleeye visibly stiffening in front of him. They all kept their weapons aimed at the bottom portion of the flight above them, waiting for the robots to appear.

But no robots came... in fact, the footsteps receded.

The robots were climbing higher.

Eric exhaled in relief—it was an action induced by his autonomous nervous system subroutines, since he didn’t breathe actual air.

Eagleeye continued the ascent, and Eric followed.

“Remember that movie I watched with you guys one time?” Eric said over the comm system, so that no actual words sounded in the stairwell. “Aliens?”

“Yeah, that was one of many you forced us to watch,” Bambi said over the same comm band.

“Well, I feel like we’re climbing into the Xenomorph’s lair or something,” Eric said.

“But these are robots, not aliens,” Bambi said.

“True,” Eric said. “But we’re surrounded by them on all sides, so the feeling is similar. At least for me.”

“Xeno-what?” Eagleeye said.

“Never mind,” Crusher said. “You should have joined us on movie nights.”

“No thanks,” Eagleeye said. “Me and classic movies, we make bad bed mates.”

They reached the top floor without issue. Eagleeye continued the ascent, turning the bend to take the final two flights to the rooftop.

“Careful,” Brontosaurus transmitted. “They’ll be guarding the stairwells, wary of police attacks.”

“I’m sure they will be,” Eagleeye said.

“You’d think the police would have penetrated by now,” Crusher said.

“Not with the black drones the attackers have in place at the bottom of the building,” Eagleeye said. “Those things are small but nasty. Zig-zagging in random patterns, firing their plasma turrets. Check out the live streams.”

“You and your live streams,” Bambi said.

“Hey, best way to get news,” Eagleeye said.

As Eagleeye neared the bend of the first flight, Eric had an idea. “Stop.”

Eagleeye paused to glance over his shoulder. He transmitted: “Don’t tell me you’re having a change of heart.”

“Not a change of heart,” Eric replied. “A change of plan. We don’t need to access the rooftop terrace.”

And he explained his idea.

“That will probably work, actually,” Eagleeye said. He directed his hand down the stairs. “Lead the way.”

4

Eric hurried down the steps and went to the door. He opened it slightly and peered into the hallway. The area seemed completely deserted.

“It’s empty,” Eric transmitted.

“A mistake on their part,” Brontosaurus said. “And a gift on ours.”

Eric had recorded the position of the transport from the outside of the building, and he made his way to the apartment suite that sat directly underneath it, by his calculations.

Brontosaurus and the others watched both sides while Eric hacked the remote locking mechanism. He’d cracked the locking code within weeks of originally moving into the apartment building twenty years ago. At first he’d used it to play tricks on the other team members, for example locking out Slate on Friday nights when the buff android returned home with girls from his clubbing sessions, or preventing Eagleeye from receiving a shipment of spare parts for his latest sniper rifle project, but eventually the novelty wore thin, and he stashed the code away, rarely accessing it again.

Until now.

When the mechanism unlocked, he silently opened the door a crack. He shoved his rifle into the opening, and switched his viewpoint to the scope. He panned from left to right.

“Clear,” he transmitted. “And the blinds are closed on the balcony window.”

“Finally, luck is on our side,” Crusher said.

“Don’t jinx us,” Bambi said.

Eric opened the door completely.

The layout was similar to all the other apartments, and Brontosaurus and Eagleeye went in first, clearing the laundry area, bathroom, and bedroom.

“Got two teenagers hiding under the bed,” Brontosaurus transmitted.

“Evacuate them to the rooms next door,” Eric said. “Eagleeye...”

He hurried outside with Eagleeye and went to the adjacent door. He hacked the lock. When it opened, he cleared the rooms with Eagleeye. There was an old couple hiding in the bathroom.

Brontosaurus brought in the teenagers. They were just as pale as the elderly couple.

“Stay here, all of you,” Eric whispered with his vocal box. “Things are going to get a bit hectic next door.”

“Wait, will they be safe from the explosion?” Brontosaurus asked.

“Hm, I’m not actually sure,” Eagleeye replied. “Depends on if the transport itself detonates.”

“And if it does?” Brontosaurus pressed.

“Then they’re probably not safe,” Eagleeye said. He turned toward the four humans. “Get to the next floor and hide somewhere.”

The four merely sat there, uncertain about what to do.

“What about the fire escape?” Brontosaurus said.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Eric said. “It’s fine for us… we’re armed, and can lay down suppressive fire against any ambushes. But if these guys go out there…” He shook his head, and turned toward them. “Try the fire escape if you’re feeling lucky.”

Eagleeye returned to the opening. “It’s clear. So far.” He glanced at the civilians. “If you want to go, now’s your chance.”

The four ran past Eagleeye and out of the room.

Eric, Brontosaurus and Eagleeye returned to the previous room and closed the door. Bambi and Crusher were standing in the middle of the floor; they had their weapons pointed toward the ceiling.

“Ready?” Bambi asked over the comm.

“Let me correlate the transport’s position,” Eric replied. “Dee, I need your help here. Pull up the blueprints of the building. Then, based on the recordings I took outside the apartment, and our current position, outline the location of the transport on the rooftop above us.”

“Done,” a sultry voice said. That would be his Accomp, or Accompanying AI. A friendly AI helper that was always with him unless he shut her off.

He glanced at the ceiling. Sure enough, he could see a portion of the transport there, outlined in red based on its location on the roof.

Eric went into the laundry room, and clambered onto the big, square-shaped wash-dry, a machine that used sound waves to wash and dry clothes. Then he held his rifle to the ceiling. According to Dee’s red outline, overhead resided the left wing of the transport, close to where it joined the fuselage. It was as near to the main fuselage as he could get.

“Why are you holding your rifle so close to the ceiling?” Bambi asked.

“Caution,” Eric explained. “I don’t want to accidentally fire through it and hit the transport. That’ll definitely alert them to our presence. I’ll be starting at the lowest intensity level, and adjusting from there. Hang tight. This is a one-man job.”

He fired a plasma bolt at the ceiling, and based on the blast hole, as compared to the thickness as represented on the building blueprints, he adjusted the intensity level of the next shot. It took him four shots to completely drill through to the rooftop, then he spent the next several strikes enlarging the hole he made.

Finally he had a gap in the ceiling wide enough to fit an android. The tunnel was about three times the length of the typical partition between levels he’d seen on the floors below, because he had to drill through part of the ceiling and the roof itself.

“It’s pretty tight up there,” Eric transmitted. “Not enough clearance to jump. I’m going to have to haul myself through, and once I’m on the roof, I’ll have to crawl.”

“Wait, I wanted to do this,” Eagleeye said over the comm band.

“I know you did,” Eric said. “But I’m the closest. Now give me your vest.”

Eagleeye hesitated, then shrugged. “I never was in it for the glory. Not when we were Bolt Eaters. Not now. I just want these bastards to get their due.” He lifted up his shirt to unclasp the harness that contained all the demolition bricks, and then handed it to Eric. “Kick some ass.”

Eric stared at the harness, and hesitated.

What’s the point of risking my life for this? I should leave it to the police.

But Brontosaurus, Bambi, Crusher, and Eagleeye were all looking at him expectantly.

Damn it.

There was also some truth to Eagleeye’s words.

The police can’t protect us. It’s time to send a message to our would-be assassins.

He slid the rifle over his shoulder by the strap and then buckled the harness over his shirt. He wasn’t all that comfortable with so many explosive charges in such close proximity to his AI core, but there was nothing for it.

He leaped up, grabbing onto the lower edges of the hole he’d drilled, and squeezed his fingers. His robot strength allowed him to create his own handholds, and in that way he was able to haul himself up toward the top.

When he reached the rooftop, he slowly lifted his head to peer past.

He could see the underside of the transport in front of him. Directly ahead, past the outermost perimeter of the craft, black robots were crouched behind the ruins of the wall that once ran the length of the rooftop. Their backs were to him, and they fired into the street below. Plasma beams also erupted from a source higher up, and out of view—likely the turrets that quilled the transport itself. A missile impacted as he watched, sending two of the robots flying backward from the edge. They slammed against the transport, and didn’t get up.

Well, at least the police are doing something.

One downside about his current android body was the lack of rear-facing head cameras: he missed having eyes on the back of his head. So he had to revolve his body, adjusting his grip on the lip of the opening as he did so. He saw other black robots crouched along all four battered walls of the rooftop: invariably, they faced away from the vessel. There were a few robots standing guard in front of the stairwell shed that led inside the building, watching the same entry point that Eric and the others had meant to use moments before, but none of the tangos had eyes on the transport itself, at least not underneath it—where Eric’s current position was.

Another mistake on their part.

He completed his revolution and, satisfied that none of the robots would notice him, he dragged his upper body through, bending his torso so that he cleared the wing overhead. He heaved up his feet behind him and wormed forward, following along underneath the wing, and heading toward the main fuselage section.

He reached it momentarily, and then removed a Mylar-wrapped demolition block from the pocket of the harness. He removed the paper backing on the adhesive side, and affixed the block to the fuselage. He placed another close to it, and then repositioned, following along the underside of the fuselage for two meters, and then attached another two. In that way, he continued applying blocks until he’d exhausted his supply.

When he had attached the last, he retreated directly toward the hole in the rooftop. There was enough room here to move at a crouch, though he’d soon have to revert to a crawl position.

When he was halfway there, movement drew his attention to the right; he instinctively amped up his time sense and glanced that way.

One of the black robots guarding the stairwell shed had spotted him. In his haste to get off the roof he hadn’t realized a portion of the wing had been blown away on his right, forming a large gap that exposed him to the robots out there. Eric should have retraced his path along the fuselage, and returned to the opening the way he had come.

Too late now.

Eric slid his rifle down from his shoulder and dove forward to low-crawl the rest of the way. He held the rifle behind him and switched to smart targeting mode—the robots were marked in red, and the muzzle would automatically revolve to strike them. He squeezed the trigger, releasing a few plasma bolts, and continued his retreat.

Before he reached the hole, he took a hit in the lower leg, and that disintegrated the lower half of his foot.

Shit!

Brontosaurus was peering from the opening in front of him. The heavy gunner was laying down suppressive fire with the rifle he had.

Eric arrived, and Brontosaurus lowered the weapon to grab him by the shoulder and haul him through. Brontosaurus was standing on Eagleeye’s shoulder, and the three of them landed in a twisted heap on the bottom.

“Damn, you guys are heavy,” Eagleeye said.

Eric rolled off of them and clambered to his feet with the help of Bambi.

“Can you walk?” she asked.

“I can hop,” Eric said.

“It’ll be faster if at least one of you acts as his crutch,” Eagleeye said.

“That’ll be me,” Bambi said.

Crusher was firing into the ceiling—an enemy robot had already arrived.

They fled the laundry room. Eagleeye slammed the laundry door closed behind him, while Brontosaurus shoved the couch into it and then ripped the entire bar counter from the kitchen, ramming it in behind the couch.

Eagleeye confirmed the hallway was clear, and the five of them fled the apartment suite. Bambi continued to act as his crutch.

An explosion rocked the suite behind them.

“Did you detonate the charges already?” Brontosaurus asked.

“Nope,” Eric replied.

As they approached the fire escape on the far side of the hall, Crusher and Brontosaurus began firing at the rear.

“Bastards move quick!” Brontosaurus said.

“Of course they do, they’re robots like us!”

Eagleeye reached the glass doors of the fire escape and threw himself against them. The glass shattered, and he landed on the platform outside. Bambi and Eric followed, stepping over the sharp glass fragments that still lined the edges. He could see through the metallic grille that composed the platform, to the twisting flights of stairs of the fire escape that led down the building.

Eagleeye led the way down those stairs, which were also made of the same metal grille. Bambi and Eric followed, with Brontosaurus and Crusher on the rear.

“Ah, damn it!” Crusher said. Her right arm dropped. She promptly switched the weapon to her left arm. She didn’t need two arms to hold the rifle, not with her android strength.

When they had descended to the next floor, Eric detonated the charges he’d placed.

A huge orange fireball erupted from the rooftop overhead. A shockwave of superheated gases also blew out of the fire escape entrance above them, sending the pursuing robots flying outside.

Brontosaurus, Crusher, and Eagleeye targeted the robots as they plunged past, and shot out their AI cores before they hit the ground.

The four of them continued pounding along that fire escape, zigging and zagging down the different flights. No further attacks came from overhead. Apparently, the demolition blocks had had the desired effect.

The team reached the bottom floor, and Eagleeye slid down the ladder that led to the ground. Bambi followed him, and Eric went next. He landed on one foot, and looked up to find himself staring into a series of muzzles.

Crusher and Brontosaurus landed beside him, and all five of them raised their hands.

5

Eric gazed at his two feet. His right leg had been replaced courtesy of the repair bots. As had the damage the others had taken.

He was in a common cell of sorts, jailed with the other Bolt Eaters. There were no bars—the walls were made of reinforced steel, with an entrance door so thick it would have put a bank vault to shame. Cameras harbored behind thick shells of polycarbonate watched their every move from the four corners of the room.

Eric had already tried to hack those cameras, but the units seemed entirely driven by wired connections. There were no remote interfaces to speak of: when he scanned the available signal spectrum, except for the comm nodes of his companions, he got nothing. Either the team was inside some sort of Faraday cage, or the entire place was run on wires. The latter was probably a good idea for a jail.

There were no other criminals present. As androids, by law they couldn’t be placed with the general population, not even when held in a temporary jail—not for their safety, but for that of the criminals.

He thought back to the police mechs that had surrounded him and the other four at the bottom of the fire escape. The only reason those mechs hadn’t fired on sight was because Marlborough and the others had already made it outside and alerted the police to their civilian IDs. Otherwise, because they were armed, those robots would’ve no doubt terminated him and the others. Marlborough had told him earlier that as soon as he had got out, he had the team drop their weapons before approaching police lines.

Eric raised his gaze to his hands, and squeezed them.

“Well that was a fun interruption to the routine,” Tread said. The face of his android was prototypically military: square jaw, hawkish nose, thick brows. The alpha look matched up with the armor operator’s body as well, which was just as jacked as the best of them. He wore a cowboy hat, and leather vest, and a thick brass belt buckle. It was a tribute, mostly, to the Armor operators he had once worked with, Morpheus and Hank, who hadn’t survived the alien invasion twenty years ago. They had all worn those same cowboy hats, vests, and buckles.

“Fun for you, maybe,” Traps said. The robot operator wore a blue T-shirt over black cargo pants, and his body was the thinnest among them. His sleeves were loose, making his biceps seem even smaller. He claimed to prefer the look, saying it made people underestimate him because with his Android strength he was easily as strong as Tread or Slate. The face of his android was round, indistinct. Someone you wouldn’t remember later if you saw him in a crowd. That was also how he preferred it. “Me, not so much. I’m quite happy to be retired, thank you. And I’m not looking forward to spending my time in prison.”

“We’re already in prison, dip, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Mickey said. The comm operator had affixed facial hair in a thin line along his jaw, to emphasize the jaw line. It was a fashion that was common in Eric’s time, though it was rare to see in this day and age. His scalp was completely bald. Mickey was the shortest of the group, but he was also extremely buff.

“Dip?” Traps said. “Who calls people that? Oh wait, I forgot, you were born two hundred years before me.”

“Respect your elders,” Mickey quipped.

“Um, by the way, no we’re not in prison,” Hicks said. The sniper often wore a bandit-style mask over the lower half of his face when the team played their war games in VR. He looked so menacing with that mask, but without it, he seemed like an ordinary person. Very average looking, like Traps, and almost as thin. Of course, he could have fashioned his android however he wanted—they all could have, but the self image retained from their human days had stuck with them.

“We’re in jail, not prison,” Hicks continued. “There’s a difference. This is only a temporary holding cell. When they transfer us to an actual penitentiary, you’ll know immediately. In a real prison, you would have been strip searched, with all your belongings taken away, and your clothes replaced with prison issue.”

“Sort of like the military in my day?” Traps said. “At least the ‘prison issue’ part.”

“I think that was true of all our militaries,” Hicks said. “Shaved heads, common uniforms.”

“Strip searched…” Mickey said. “I wonder why they didn’t strip search us before stashing us in here.”

“Scanners,” Dunnigan said in his English accent. The robot operator’s blue eyes and blond hair were slightly at odds with the Roman nose protruding from the middle of his face. “Powerful, body penetrating scanners. No need to strip search us, not when they’ve already done it with their machines.”

“Like that’s not an invasion of privacy or anything…” Traps said.

“I kind of don’t mind,” Bambi said. “It lets them see how perfect we all are.”

“Who, the AIs running the place?” Slate said.

“Whoever,” Bambi said.

“You and your exhibitionist streaks,” Crusher commented.

Bambi shrugged. “I thought you liked it.”

Crusher smiled slyly. “Only in the bedroom.” She gave Eric a suggestive look.

“Not now you three,” Dickson said. “Please.” Despite his internment, he’d managed to retain the stub of his cigar, which he chomped on even now, though it wasn’t lit.

“Oh no!” Slate said. “Don’t stop, I love watching this shit!”

Eric looked away.

Brontosaurus was giving Bambi a strange look. It seemed… contemplative.

She noticed.

“What?” Bambi said.

“Nothing,” Brontosaurus said. “I was just thinking about your expressions. Do you remember the days when all we had to convey our facial expressions were a bunch of bendable LEDs covering the facial regions of our Cicadas?”

“Those were the days,” Tread said, his voice solemn. “All of us were still alive, then.”

That put an end to the conversation.

Eric’s sensitive ears picked up footsteps. They were almost imperceptible.

Crusher sat up straighter. “Someone’s coming.”

Eric directed his gaze toward the door.

The footsteps grew in volume, and then paused in front of the door.

“Should we rush the door?” Eagleeye said.

“Yeah, that’s real smart, doofus,” Slate said. He increased the pitch of his voice to mimic Eagleeye. “Let’s rush the door, that way all the cameras broadcast our movements to any guards waiting outside!” He returned his voice to normal and transmitted over the private comm band: “The smarter tactic is to rush the door after it opens.”

“That’s what I meant,” Eagleeye replied on the same channel.

“Hold for now,” Marlborough said.

The thick door slid open.

Standing outside was a man dressed in a military uniform. His dark hair was cut into a buzz hairstyle. His face was boyish and blemish free, likely perfected by rejuvenetics.

Eric ran an ID. He got back the public profile of a Lieutenant Gregory Arnold. He was a platoon commander assigned to the army depot just outside town.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Hanley’s replacement,” Marlborough said.

“I didn’t know Hanley had been replaced,” Traps said.

Arnold stepped inside. “Lieutenant Hanley retired five years ago,” he said. “I took over his job overseeing the local Mind Refurb platoon.”

“Why do I have a feeling that having this guy here can’t be good?” Crusher said.

Arnold smiled patiently. “I’m here to get you out.”

“Well damn, why didn’t you say so!” Slate said, standing. “You’re my new best friend.” He tried to wrap an arm around Arnold’s neck, but the limb passed right through. “Shit! Holograms.”

Eric glanced at the entrance beyond the cell, and saw the small two-legged robot responsible for generating the image. That same robot had also sourced the footsteps, of course.

“He’s an AI?” Mickey said.

“No, bitch,” Slate said. “The robot is too small to hold an AI core.”

“I’m human,” Arnold said. “I was simply unable to leave the base at the moment. So I chose a more unconventional means of contacting you, considering that you’re not currently authorized to access VR.”

“Yeah, about that,” Dunnigan said. “It’s a basic human right that all prisoners must be given access to VR. This is a violation of those rights.”

“Actually, it’s not,” Arnold said. “You’re Mind Refurbs. Not humans. The charter of rights is slightly different for you.”

“So, you say you’re here to get us out.” Slate told him. “What are these bitches holding us for anyway?”

“Possession of illegal weapons,” Arnold replied. “And firing those weapons.”

“But we saved the apartment block!” Tread said. “Taking down enemy combatants!”

“It doesn’t matter if they were enemy combatants or peaceful civilians,” Arnold said. “The law applies equally.”

He paused to let that sink in.

“But since you literally saved the day by blowing up that transport, the police are willing to throw away the charges if you agree to be released into my custody,” Arnold finished.

“Well, I guess we have no choice,” Marlborough said. “And what do you want from us in exchange?”

“You’ll join me at the local army depot,” Arnold said. “To listen to a proposition I have to make.”

“And if we don’t agree to this proposition of yours?” Marlborough pressed.

“Then I let you go,” Arnold told him. “You have my word. Hanley was an honorable man, as am I. He agreed to let you live out your days as free Mind Refurbs in exchange for saving the Earth from the alien mothership. I won’t violate that agreement if you refuse.”

“Well, good,” Marlborough said. “Then I think we can go to this base of yours, and listen to what you have to say.”

“Thank you,” Arnold said.

“Before we do, I want to know who the hell the bastards that attacked us were,” Dickson said. “They went straight to all of our suites. Ransacked them all. Why?”

“They were looking for you, obviously,” Arnold said.

“But why?” Dickson said. “And why ransack everything?”

“Maybe they thought they might find spare AI cores...” Arnold said.

“That still doesn’t explain what they wanted from us,” Crusher said.

“They wanted to kill you,” Arnold said. “They’re an extremist group known as the Tal Shahar.”

“Sounds like the Tal Shiar from Star Trek,” Frogger said.

“Uh, yeah,” Arnold said, obviously having no idea what a twenty-first century show like Star Trek even was, let alone the reference to the elite Romulan intelligence agency. But it did make Eric smile, if only momentarily.

“They hate all Mind Refurbs,” Arnold continued. “Think they’re abominations. They want to hunt them all down and terminate them. We haven’t figured out who their leader is, all we know is they maintain a loose web of sleeper cells throughout North America that are ready to activate at a moment’s notice when former Mind Refurbs such as yourselves are discovered among the civilian population. You would have been quite the kill prize for them, seeing as how you’re the most famous Mind Refurbs out there.”

“Does this proposition of yours involve hunting down these extremists?” Dickson asked.

“No,” Arnold replied. “We’ve got other hunter killer teams capable of handling them. Yours will be a more… specialized operation.”

“And you won’t tell us what that is until we reach the army depot,” Marlborough said.

“That’s right,” Arnold said. “The contents are sensitive, and the AIs that run jails are the prying type, if you know what I mean.”

Marlborough glanced at the team, and then shrugged. “All right, Bolt Eaters, you heard the man. Our ticket out of here is a quick visit to an army depot, and then a ride home when we say no.”

“Somehow I suspect you won’t refuse what I offer,” Arnold said with a knowing smile.

“We’ll see about that,” Marlborough retorted.

6

Eric sat at the rear of the autonomous bus with Bambi and Crusher at his side. He watched the skyscrapers of the metropolis pass by through the windows until the vehicle left town, at which point he gazed at the fields of crops and cattle for a short while. Most people lived in the city these days, while robot farmers handled the raising of livestock and the collection of crops. Bees didn’t exist—small, insect-like drones handled pollination of fruit-bearing trees. He could sometimes see them when he zoomed in on the blossoms of the apple farms.

Occasionally an augmented reality signboard popped up amid the fields, overlaying his vision with ads for fresh honey, apples, or berries. The honey was manufactured as a byproduct of the nectar collected by the pollination drones. Raw nectar was also sold in jars; he’d heard it was very sweet stuff, at least for humans, but unfortunately to his android taste buds it came off as rather bland. Bambi promised to mimic it sometime in VR, but so far she hadn’t been able to reproduce anything remotely palatable. Eric would have given it a shot himself, but he had no idea how it was supposed to taste.

Finally he grew bored of watching the fields and shifted his attention to the interior of the bus. A pair of military robots stood guard next to each of the bus’s two entrances—Arnold’s idea. Apparently the lieutenant was afraid the team might try to escape before reaching the depot, but he had to have known that if the Bolt Eaters really wanted to get out, four robots wouldn’t have stopped them, even if those Bolt Eaters were unarmed.

“A ride home,” Traps muttered from the seat ahead of Eric.

Eric leaned forward “What was that?”

Traps glanced askance at him. “Sarge mentioned a ride home. ‘A quick visit to an army depot, and then a ride home when we say no.’ But what home was Sarge talking about? There’s no home for us, not anymore. We can’t go back there.”

“No, bitch,” Slate said. “We’ll rent another place. It’s not that hard.”

Marlborough nodded. “That’s what I meant.”

“You know, I kinda agree with Traps here,” Frogger said. “There’s nothing for us here. The humans hate us, that’s obvious. I mean, just look at our daily interactions. Everyone’s friendly, at first, until they find out we’re androids. Then things go downhill. They become so much more guarded. Like we’re going to punch through their heads any second.”

“Dude, that’s why you don’t tell them you’re an android!” Slate said. “We’ve all tweaked our public profiles to hide the fact, after all.”

“Yes,” Frogger said. “But only because we didn’t want anyone finding out we were responsible for saving the world. But I still tell people, when they comment on how youthful I look, or how handsome I am.”

“Then don’t,” Slate said.

“But that feels like living a lie,” Frogger said.

“I can agree with that,” Eric said. “But then again, I don’t interact with the general public very often. And as for girls, I’m already taken.” He wrapped his arms around the shoulders of Bambi and Crusher.

“Back to your point, Frogger,” Slate said. “Sure, I agree, tell the people you meet that you’re an android eventually. Just hold back the timing of the reveal. For example, I only tell chicks I’m an android after I bed ‘em. Works like a charm. I used to have the biggest problem getting rid of chicks after I climaxed. Now, I just say I’m an android, open up my face to give them proof, and bam! Fastest way to get them out of my bed, and my life.”

“The attack from these Tal Shahar extremists tells us everything we need to know,” Traps said. “It shows us how humanity really feels about us.”

“The Tal Shahar aren’t representative of the whole of humanity,” Dickson said. “They’re an extremist fringe group.”

“Still, I think Traps and Frogger are on to something,” Crusher said. “I know I can feel the eyes on me when people find out I’m an android. And those eyes aren’t all that friendly. From the men, I get the sense they think I’m some sort of sex toy, something they can easily dominate. From the women, I get nothing but hate, for the same reason—they consider me competition, someone who steals all the real men away from them.”

“Well, however you all feel,” Frogger said. “I still think we should accept whatever proposition this Arnold has in mind. And make ourselves useful again. I’m sick of living out my days bored in my room, with the highlight of my day being the battle sessions we stage in VR.”

“Let’s wait until we hear what Arnold has to say first, shall we?” Dickson said.

“I got a question,” Hicks said. “What’s to stop these Tal Shahar from hunting us down again, even if we move to a new home? They got our faces ID’d now.”

“We change our faces,” Crusher said. “And identities, of course.”

“Easy for you to say,” Mickey said. “Women change their face every day.”

“No we don’t,” Bambi said.

“Yes you do,” Mickey said. “In VR, girls are always assuming different avatars. Wearing weird animal props like rabbit ears and crap like that. And in reality, they’re always putting on different makeup, and tweaking their hair color.”

“That’s not the same as changing one’s face,” Bambi said. “And VR doesn’t count, because it’s not real.”

“Then this doesn’t count either,” Mickey said, indicating his own face. “Because it’s not real either. We have no real form, not anymore. Everything is fluid.”

“No, no, no,” Slate said. “You both are wrong.” He tapped his face. “This is real. There’s nothing fake about it. So what if we can change it, if we wanted to? It’s not so different than ordinary humans, who simply make a trip to their local plastic surgeon when they want to tweak something about themselves.”

“I’m not changing my face,” Brontosaurus said. “If we turn down the mission, and find a new apartment building for ourselves, I’ll just wear a hoodie whenever I leave home.”

“You’re assuming we’d be living in the same apartment building if we did,” Dunnigan said. “For safety reasons, it might be better to live in different apartments going forward.”

“Screw that,” Slate said. “Y’all my bros. And I’m sticking with my bros.” He glanced at Bambi and Crusher and winked. “And my hos of course.”

“Don’t call them your hos,” Eric said warningly.

Slate raised both palms defensively. “Hey, settle down, bro. I was only speaking metaphorically.”

Eric glanced at Bambi. “You want me to kick his ass?”

Slate tensed as Bambi gave him an appraising look. She smirked. “No.”

Eric looked at Crusher. “What about you?”

Crusher shrugged. “I don’t see the point of messing up the bus right now. Or his face.”

Slate relaxed visibly. “As if he could kick my ass.”

“Barring the ho comment, I agree with Slate: I wouldn’t want to live in a separate apartment building either,” Eric said. “Nor change my face. My face is my identity. Part of what makes me who I am.”

“I don’t think I could stand it if you did change it,” Bambi said. She pinched his cheek, and he frowned. “I’ve grown rather fond of this face.”

“As have I,” Crusher said, pinching the other cheek. “I especially love sitting on it.” It almost sounded like she was purring, and Eric couldn’t help but swallow.

“Ooo, they’re so fun to watch!” Slate said. “This is some classic shit!”

“You say you’ve grown fond of his face,” Mickey told her. “But you were the one who suggested we could change our faces in the first place!”

Crusher shrugged. “I was excluding Scorpion from the comment.”

Slate smirked when he heard that, and then leaned back, putting his hands behind his head and kicking up his feet. “You know, Scorp, I don’t know how you’ve kept it going for twenty years, having two girls like that. And I’m not sure why you’d want to, either. You must be either crazy or gifted. Maybe a little of both. Myself, I’d never tie myself down to any one woman, let alone two. So I’m leaning toward the crazy side.”

“What’s the matter, can’t handle your pussy?” Eagleeye said.

“Dude, I can handle pussy just fine, don’t you worry,” Slate said. “You on the other hand, well that’s a different story. You probably don’t even know what pussy is.” His voice became higher pitched as he gave a mock Eagleeye impression. “‘Hey guys! What’s pussy? Where can I get some? The pet store? Oh, I wish I knew! I’ve always wondered what a real girl looks like naked. I’ve tried VR porn, but I don’t understand it. All those floppy, juicy body parts moving all around, just waiting for my touch. Where oh where do I put my tiny little dong? Maybe one of those cracks underneath the nose? Oh wait, no, no. That’s the nostrils! But my dong is so small it fits, so I’m confused!’”

“Great impression of your younger self,” Eagleeye said. “So what is it then? Why wouldn’t you get with two women?”

“I never said I wouldn’t get with them,” Slate told him. “I said I’d never tie myself down to them. And that’s the difference: I like variety.”

“Well, do the same girls in virtual reality then,” Eagleeye said. “Or get a pair of android girls, like Scorpion. Then you can change their faces up every day if you want.”

“I think I’ll stick with normal girls, bro,” Slate said. “I guess I’m just traditional like that.”

The bus eventually reached the fenced off army depot. It passed through the security gate—it didn’t even have to stop, as the autonomous AI signaled its identity a mile out, and cameras and other scanners along the route confirmed the contents of the vehicle.

The bus maneuvered between the various outbuildings, most of which seemed to be large hangars. One of them was open, and Eric spotted several offline mechs standing in long rows within.

“Looks like we gots ourselves a depot specializing in the production and repair of mechs,” Hick said.

“Or maybe just robot storage,” Brontosaurus said.

The bus continued through the depot, and there were further hints of what the location specialized in: inactive mechs and robots stood next to some of the outbuildings, like jets that had been taxied into parking stalls.

Eventually the bus pulled to a stop next to a two-story building, and the doors opened.

Eric followed Marlborough and Dickson down the steps to the asphalt, where two more robot guards waited.

When everyone had emerged, the four robots from the vehicle also climbed down, so that all six robots escorted them inside.

“They really want to keep their security tight, don’t they?” Hicks commented.

“Six won’t be enough for them,” Slate said over a private line.

“These android bodies are state of the art,” Mickey said. “But they’re not that state of the art.”

“Speak for yourself,” Slate transmitted. “I could take down all six singlehandedly if I wanted to.”

“Now, that I’d like to see,” Eagleeye sent. “Sarge, permission to piss off Slate enough to attack the guards?”

“Permission denied,” Marlborough told him.

The robots led them through the pristine, empty halls.

“Looks like they cleaned the place out for us,” Frogger said. “Nice touch.”

The robots led them inside a large conference room, and the Bolt Eaters took seats, leaving ample space between one another. Bambi and Crusher didn’t sit beside Eric this time but instead perched directly on either side of Slate. Most likely to torment the drone operator: something they had done often during the past twenty years. No matter how much they led him on only to disappoint him in the end, Slate still seemed to believe he had a chance with them.

“Tonight, you and me,” Slate told Bambi.

She merely grinned at him, and winked.

Slate glanced at Eric. “Did you see that? A wink! Progress!”

“She winked at you once before,” Tread said. “Five years ago.”

“Hey, I’ll take what I can get from these two!” Slate said.

Eric merely shook his head. He surveyed the room and noticed all six combat robots had entered and taken up positions along the interior, as if standing guard.

“Well, that’s kinda rude,” Brontosaurus commented, nodding toward the robots.

The minutes ticked past; Arnold still hadn’t shown up.

“Hurry up and wait!” Slate folded his arms over his chest. “Classic army shit right here.”

Another ten minutes came and went, and then finally Arnold appeared. He looked the same as his earlier hologram.

The lieutenant glanced at the robots; he seemed somewhat surprised at their presence.

“I never ordered you to stay,” Arnold said.

“The base AI told us it was not wise to allow these androids to remain here unwatched,” one of the robots said in a high-pitched female voice.

“Hey Slate, there’s a girl for you!” Eagleeye said.

“Sh’up, bitch,” Slate retorted.

Arnold glanced at Eagleeye and Slate, then back to the robots. “You may go.”

“Thank you, sir,” the robot said.

“Thank you, sir,” Slate mimicked in a high pitch voice.

The robot glanced at him, and Slate smiled, giving it the finger.

When the robots were gone, the door shut behind them.

“I like your crew already,” Arnold said, glancing at Marlborough. The sarcasm was obvious in his tone.

“Those two don’t represent the attitudes of my entire team,” Marlborough said.

“I suppose it doesn’t help that you’ve all been out of the military for twenty years,” Arnold commented.

“We’re Mind Refurbs,” Frogger said. “Twenty years ago seems like only yesterday for us.”

“I suppose so,” Arnold said.

“So why did you bring us here?” Marlborough asked.

“We have a bunch of wormhole tech we captured during the invasion twenty years ago,” Arnold said. “As well as more recent tech acquired from the alien bioweapons still roaming the wastelands of the uninhabited zone on the far side of the world. We have hunter killer teams still out there, trying to eliminate them all. Some are remote drones piloted from afar by warships in the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska, others are boots-on-the-ground types, operating directly in the region. It’s tedious work either way, and it’ll probably take decades before we get them all.”

“Why not nuke the place?” Dickson said. “It’s not like we’re worried about further irradiating that part of the world.”

“We’re not,” Arnold agreed. “But nukes are expensive. And not very cost effective. The bioweapons themselves are resilient to the radiation and nuclear fallout produced by nukes. Human beings are not. We already almost plunged our world into a nuclear winter during the last invasion. The cleanup costs were immense. The governments in power aren’t willing to do something like that again. So, no nukes.

“Anyway, that was a bit of a digression. As I was saying, we captured a bunch of wormhole technology, and managed to reverse engineer it. During our experimentation, we were able to open wormholes to the same planet the Bolt Eaters visited.”

“You’re talking about the garbage dump of a world the Banthar were using to dispose of the nukes and other crap we launched at their mothership?” Slate said.

“The very same,” Arnold said.

“That’s also where we found Turg,” Bambi said quietly.

Turg was an alien machine that had helped the Bolt Eaters destroy the alien mothership twenty years ago. Similar to the Mind Refurbs, Turg was essentially a mind dump of one member of an alien species, and she could create multiple copies of herself.

Years ago, Eric had told Bambi the story of how a copy of Turg had invaded her body on the alien world, and taken over her AI core before eventually sacrificing herself to a swarm of micro machines. This Bambi had been restored from backups made before the mission, like most of the team.

It still unsettled her whenever they brought up the alien that had helped them on that world, a machine being that was essentially a von Neumann probe, part of a greater mass of the same machines all based upon the same mind. Those probes followed the same basic concept as the Mind Refurbs, but taken to the nth level.

“Also correct,” Arnold said.

“Have you’ve tried reinitiating contact with her?” Marlborough asked.

“We have,” Arnold replied. “So far, she hasn’t answered. We’ve dispatched probes and teams to the world but haven’t discovered anything yet. We believe the wormholes are opening up in the same area where you arrived, but everything is overgrown with vegetation now, including the locations where you found Turg and Bokerov. Doesn’t help that the jungle is teeming with alien life that still confuses our machines for a good meal.”

“How long have you been searching for her?” Eric said.

“Been a few months now,” Arnold said. “We’re beginning to think Turg abandoned the world entirely—the Banthar probably weren’t very happy when they found out she was helping us.”

Dunnigan nodded sagely. “They would have known exactly who Turg was, and what planet she came from, after she let those micro machines absorb her.”

“Our guess, too,” Arnold said. “Considering that was how the Banthar learned how to nearly sabotage the mission. So, what I meant to tell you, before we got sidetracked, was that while most of the wormholes from the tech we captured opened to the garbage dump planet, one of them led somewhere else entirely…”

“Where?” Crusher asked.

“We’re not actually sure,” Arnold said. “Initial probes have been inconclusive.”

“What do you want us to do?” Marlborough said.

“Your mission is to infiltrate and record, nothing further,” Arnold said. “We want to know what kind of planet this is, first of all. Whether it’s merely another garbage dump, or perhaps a more important colony. If the latter, we want to know what kind of defenses the planet has. What sort of cities. Their technology. Standard recon stuff. You’ll be receiving specially designed Cicada bodies, and mechs to store them inside, of course.”

“I dunno, I kinda like this android body,” Slate said. He rubbed his bulging bicep muscle.

“Your existing bodies will be held in cold storage and restored to you the instant you return, of course,” Arnold said.

“So wait, this wormhole opens to the same location on the target world every time?” Crusher asked.

“That’s right,” Arnold responded.

“So it’s a known location,” Crusher said. “I got the impression from your previous description that it wasn’t guarded.”

“Also correct, it isn’t,” Arnold said.

“Any ideas why?” Crusher pressed.

“Ideas, yes, but nothing conclusive,” Arnold replied. “At first we thought it had to be a garbage dump world, because there was no other explanation for the missing defenses. But the question arose, why use two garbage dump worlds, instead of the one? Some of the scientists believe we might be dealing with a more important colony. But if so, that still doesn’t explain why the immediate area at the destination is devoid of any defenses, or other signs of alien life or technology. We’re guessing that before we captured the involved tech, the tango that carried the wormhole programmed it to return him or her to a distant colony, in a last-ditch effort to escape. The tango didn’t have time to program an exact destination, and simply chose a random spot on the colony world. That’s one theory. It would require that the tango in question be an actual Banthar, or at least an AI core, because an ordinary bioweapon wouldn’t have known how to change the wormhole destination. At least, that’s been the running theory.”

“But you don’t know either way…” Hicks said.

“A body wasn’t actually recovered with that particular wormhole weapon—neither robot, nor bioweapon,” Arnold said.

Marlborough glanced at the others seated around the conference room table, and then he stood.

“Well, we listened to you,” Marlborough said. “And you weave a half entertaining story. But unfortunately, we’re going to have to pass, just as I warned you we would.”

Arnold nodded. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

“I don’t like the sound of his voice,” Eagleeye said. “Like he’s got some ace up his sleeve. Some contingency plan we’re not going to like.”

“You’ve hit on it,” Arnold agreed. He glanced at Marlborough, and those who had stood up with the Sarge. “You might want to return to your seats to hear this.”

7

Eric was one of those who was on his feet, and he glanced at Marlborough for a cue on what to do.

Marlborough looked at the standing Bolt Eaters around him, and nodded stiffly before sitting back down.

Eric squatted back into his chair along with the others.

“So, I know the army agreed to destroy all backup copies of your AI cores after you successfully destroyed the mothership,” Arnold said. “But guess what?”

“The military still has copies,” Marlborough said.

“That’s right,” Arnold said. “And if you won’t agree to do this, the army will just send the copies. Probably with Containment Code vising their minds.”

“So we essentially end up doing the mission anyway,” Eric said.

“That’s right,” Arnold said. “Other versions of you, anyway.”

“This seems like a form of blackmail,” Crusher said. “Threatening to use duplicates of our minds to perform your dirty work.”

“Maybe it is,” Arnold said. “But we need you.”

“You could send any other team,” Hicks said. “Why us?”

“You have personal experience dealing with these aliens,” Arnold said. “Just in case the planet turns out to be something more than a garbage dump, we want someone with the background necessary to handle what could become a rapidly changing battle space. Plus, your little retaliatory actions against the Tal Shahar extremists shows me you’re still fully suited to the job. A Mind Refurb never forgets his training. He can’t. It’s simply not possible. The timing of the terrorist strike proved fortuitous, because we were still trying to decide whether the lot of you were suited to the mission. If the attack never came, we would have probably left you alone and destroyed your mind backups. But after seeing what you all are capable of, in mere android bodies at that, the Brass knew you were the ones for this.”

No one had anything to say to that. Except Slate.

“Nicely done, dickwads,” Slate told Eagleeye. “Your little antics back there caused all this.”

“I can’t help it if I’m just courageous by heart,” Eagleeye said. “And not a coward like you.”

Arnold surveyed the Bolt Eaters. “So. Who will join the operation?” He waited, and when no one volunteered, he asked: “None of you? Not a one? You’re going to force me to activate the backups?”

“This shit is wrong,” Slate said. “You can’t be taking our clones and sending them out into space like slaves.”

“Actually, I’m doing the right thing here,” Arnold said. “By giving you the choice. We could have simply restored the Mind Refurbs from their backups, installed the Containment Code, and you would have never known. But I wanted to at least give you a chance to step in. Because I believe that Mind Refurbs operating of their own free will are more productive than those trapped by Containment Code. The free have more to lose.”

Silence followed. And then:

“You know what, I’m actually considering doing it,” Eagleeye said.

“Well I’m not,” Slate said.

“What if I arranged to have the final copies deleted after successful completion of the mission?” Arnold said.

“Oh sure, just like the Brass agreed to destroy them twenty years ago,” Mickey said. “We saw how well that went, given what you just told us.”

“Actually, the Brass at the time did destroy them all, or at least, believed they did,” Arnold said. “They certainly gave the order. I can show you in the records, if you wish.”

“Then why are we even having this discussion...” Dickson said.

“A glitch allowed some copies to escape deletion,” Arnold said. “Everything in the military is backed up multiple times, including the copies of your AI cores. We’re talking backups of backups. Reams of them. Apparently, one of the backup servers was offline, undergoing scheduled maintenance when the permanent delete request was received by the cluster. Ordinarily, when a backup server comes back online, it’ll perform any permanent delete requests waiting in the queue. But this particular server did not.

“I only found out about the anomaly when an AI notified me five years ago, during some deep dives of the archives. The AI asked if I wanted to execute the permanent delete and remove these copies. I told it no.”

“So the fault is yours,” Brontosaurus said. “What would your higher ups think if they knew you had specifically refused to remove backups queued for permanent deletion?”

“They actually approved my decision,” Arnold said. “We have a different set of Brass running the army at the moment, than those that existed in your day. They know the value of mind backups such as these. And the leverage it might provide against the still living versions of those copies.”

“And they’ll agree to delete our copies if we go?” Marlborough asked.

“They already have,” Arnold replied. He transmitted an official looking document that was signed by people with various important sounding names. The usual crap, in other words.

Slate snickered. “Looks like bullshit to me.”

“I assure you, it’s real,” Arnold said. “You go on this mission. You survive. Then we delete your backups.”

“And if we don’t survive?” Frogger asked.

“Before you leave, we’re going to take a precautionary mind dump of you all,” Arnold said. “If you fail, we’ll simply send you again. And you won’t even know it.”

“Cute,” Bambi said. “Well I’m definitely out now.”

“Me, too,” Crusher said.

“You know, I think I’m going,” Frogger said.

Eric was tempted to do the same himself. He could certainly understand why his mind twin would want to go. Barring the last attack, Eric’s biggest problem these days was trying to figure out what he was going to do every day. The attack on the building was the most excitement he’d felt in years. But then again, he’d grown rather attached to his existence. Leaping into some wormhole to an alien world wasn’t really high on his to-do list.

Arnold glanced at the others. “No one will agree?”

“I’ll do it if I can live-stream my adventures on the dark web,” Slate said.

Arnold smiled patiently. “There’s no Internet on the other side of the wormhole.”

Slate threw up his arms. “Well then! Guess you have my answer.”

The rest of the group remained silent.

“What happens if only the two of us agree?” Eagleeye asked, pointing at Frogger and himself with his thumb and forefinger.

“We’ll still restore the others from their backups to join you,” Arnold said. “You’ll be the only ones without Containment Code.”

Frogger smirked. “That won’t last for long.”

“Actually, you might be surprised,” Arnold said. “Modern Containment Code is much more nefarious than the variant you remember from twenty years ago. It’s essentially impossible to break free of.”

Frogger shrugged. “They said that about the original. Doesn’t worry me.”

“Fair enough.” Arnold surveyed the rest of the group. “So no one else?” He nodded to himself at the silence that followed. “Have you become so complacent in your android bodies? So scared to put yourselves at risk that you’re unwilling even to take a small step outside of your comfort zone?”

“This is more than a small step out of our comfort zones,” Dunnigan said. “This is a friggin’ giant leap, mate!”

“As I mentioned, no way I’m doing this,” Bambi said. “I don’t care about my copy. Let it suffer. I’m my own person. I just want to exist, live out my life for as long as possible, and not die for some cause that isn’t even my own.”

“A cause that isn’t your own?” Arnold asked. “You’re wrong there, because it’s everyone’s cause. This is a chance to gain valuable Intel to save humanity. We all know the Banthar will one day return. We need to ready ourselves for that day. Do you really want to give such an important mission to a mere clone, rather than performing the mission yourself?”

“We don’t owe humanity anything,” Crusher said.

“She’s right,” Eric said. “None of us do.”

“Maybe,” Arnold said. “But think about it. If humanity falls, the support mechanism and infrastructure you have become accustomed to will also fall. The Internet. Repair sites. The latest and greatest VR experiences.”

“We could live without those,” Brontosaurus said. “In fact, we had to when we worked for you twenty years ago.”

Marlborough was scratching his lower lip.

“Oh no,” Traps said. “He’s doing the lip thing.”

“What lip thing?” Eagleeye said.

“The lip thing the Sarge does when he’s actually considering agreeing to some crazy plan,” Traps said.

Sure enough, Marlborough said: “If we agreed, there would have to be an absolute guarantee that the mind backups in your custody would be destroyed. None of this pussyfooting around. We’d want full transparency, read access to your backup database, the works.”

“I can arrange read access to the file names in the backup databases,” Arnold said. “But not the contents of the actual files. There’s a lot of classified stuff I can’t have you Mind Refurbs reading.”

“That’s fine,” Marlborough said. He scratched his lip a moment longer, and then nodded his head. “I’ll do it.” He glanced at the others. “I can’t speak for them, but my life hasn’t been all that interesting since leaving the army. I want to feel needed again. I want to feel like my life has purpose. And you said we’re saving humanity? I can’t say no to that.”

“I’ll go, too, then,” Dickson said. “Mostly because you’re going, Sarge. But I’ve also been fairly bored myself. Life as an android isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“I’m not bored,” Slate said. “I get laid every day. If not in the real world, then in VR. Don’t know what the fuck you two are doing with your spare time.”

“Maybe they just need to alter their faces slightly,” Hicks suggested.

“What, you’re saying we’re ugly?” Dickson asked.

“I think Marlborough and Dickson are plenty hot enough the way they are,” Crusher said.

“That’s because you’re old, bitch,” Slate said.

“Not as old as you, asshole,” Crusher said.

“But I don’t look it,” Slate said. “And that’s the difference between Dickson, Marlborough and I. So I ain’t going.”

“I’ll go,” Eric said, looking directly at Frogger.

“What happened to the old adage we use among ourselves that one of us has to survive?” Frogger said.

“Both of us will,” Eric said. “We have to.”

Bambi sighed. She dropped her gaze to her feet, then looked up to stare Eric in the eye. “I guess I’m coming, too, you bastard.”

“Sorry,” Eric said, and meant it.

Crusher closed her eyes, and tilted her chin back. She shook her head, then opened her eyes. “Why’d you have to agree? I was happy to stay here with you for the rest of my life.”

“Again, I’m sorry,” Eric said. “I can’t let them go alone. I never really thought Eagleeye and Frogger were going to go through with it. But now that Sarge and Dickson have agreed, things just got real. They’re going. And so am I. I have to.”

Crusher folded her hands in her lap, then she gave Bambi an angry look. “Well I’m certainly not going to let you go alone with her.”

Bambi pursed her lips, and shrugged all innocent like.

Crusher gazed at Arnold defiantly. “So I’m in. Shit.”

One by one the rest of the Bolt Eaters agreed. Some eagerly, but most just as reluctantly as Bambi and Crusher.

Everyone, that is, except Slate.

All eyes turned on him.

Slate sighed. It was a rather heavy, rather extensive exhale of air. “Guess I’m in, too. Damn it.”

Arnold smiled proudly.

“Wipe that smirk off your face,” Slate snapped. “The only reason I’m going is because of them.” Slate jerked a thumb toward the rest of the team. “Not for you. Never for you. I owe you nothing. I’ve already died in service of your country. If I die now, it’s in their service.”

Arnold stared at him for a moment. “It’s not my country, you know, but ours. And our world.”

“Not mine,” Slate said. “Not anymore.”

Arnold gave him a curious look. “I’m not sure what to say to that.”

“Good,” Slate said. “Because you’re a bitch.”

“You won’t be able to talk to him like that for much longer, mate,” Dunnigan said. “So better enjoy it now while you can.”

“Oh, I know,” Slate said. He glanced at Arnold, and looked like he was about ready to unleash a litany of insults, but then thought better of it. He gazed at his comrades. “This isn’t my world. Because y’all are my world, now.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Bambi said.

“Yeah,” Slate said. “I know.” He was gazing at his hands; his voice sounded choked.

Arnold broke the uncomfortable silence that followed. “It’s done, then. Welcome back to the army. The Bolt Eaters are officially reactivated.”

“So what’s next?” Marlborough asked.

“We’re going to bring you to the processing center, where we’ll shut down your AI cores, take a current backup, and then load the cores into your new bodies,” Arnold explained.

“How do we know you won’t inject Containment Code into our AI cores when we’re offline?” Hicks said.

“I’ll add a section specifically mentioning that in your contracts, and have the Brass sign off on it,” Arnold said. “You’ll have to digitally sign the document before we begin the transference, of course. I’ll try to get it to you within the hour.”

“Tell me about our new bodies,” Dickson said.

“You’ll be loaded into modern Cicadas,” Arnold said. “Those Cicadas in turn will be inserted into the most powerful war machines the world has ever seen: the latest generation of mechs, modified with alien technology.”

Frogger’s face lit up. “Mechs?”

Arnold smiled, nodding.

8

Eric opened his eyes. Or rather, his cameras activated. He no longer had the eyelids of an android.

He examined his surroundings. He stood in a spacious compartment. The rounded shape of the ceiling told him he was probably inside one of the hangars he had spotted during the bus ride into the depot.

He looked down. He inhabited the body of a large mech. He knew immediately it was a Devastator model. Four meters tall and armed to the teeth.

At least he was still humanoid in shape. He raised his left arm, then the right. He formed a fist, and punched it into his opposite palm, producing a satisfyingly loud clang. He took one step forward, another, testing his balance. He instinctively knew how to keep his mass centered, which told him some custom routines had probably been injected into his AI core—he had agreed to the code addition when he signed the digital contract.

He confirmed that he still had full access to all of his emotions and mind subroutines—no Containment Code or Rules of Engagement had been forced upon him. He wouldn’t have put it past Arnold to pull something like that, despite the contract, and he was relieved that the lieutenant hadn’t betrayed them.

Eric glanced to either side, and realized his other teammates were inside Devastator models as well. They were similarly examining themselves. As expected, their faces were completely devoid of features—gray ovoids with a darker visor that emitted a line of blue light. On top of those ovoids were four antennae, reminding Eric of horns; there were also small, armored protrusions where the cameras resided, but that was the extent of it. There was no way to convey emotions with faces like that.

“Well, well, well,” Dunnigan said, his voice coming over the shared comm band utilized by the mechs. “We’re back in the game, blokes.” Dunnigan’s avatar appeared in the lower right of Eric’s HUD when he spoke. He seemed excited.

So that was how they would convey emotions.

“Hey, you guys see that shit?” Slate said, his face also materializing. “We gots little expressive avatars on our HUDs. That’s new.”

“Oh joy,” Traps said. “I was kind of looking forward to not having to see any of your ugly faces.”

“Guess I’ll have to work on my poker face,” Tread said.

“You can turn the feature off, I think,” Frogger said. He paused, as if checking. “Yeah, you can. Navigate to Settings on your HUD, and you’ll find it under Comm Link, Enable Avatars.”

“Back in the game…” Eagleeye said. “Kind of makes you think.”

“About what, mate?” Dunnigan said.

“Remember how Arnold told us he’d be taking precautionary backups of our minds while we were offline, before loading us into the mechs?” Eagleeye said. “And that we wouldn’t even know if we’d been restored? This could be the fiftieth time we’ve attempted the mission. Or the hundredth. Thousandth even.”

“That’s right, go and kill team morale right after the lot of us wake up,” Hicks said. “And we were off to such a good start before you opened your mouth.”

“I don’t have a mouth anymore,” Eagleeye said. “None of us do.”

“And I must scream,” Frogger said.

“Huh?” Slate said.

“Uh, never mind, classical literature,” Frogger said.

As Eric examined the rest of the team, he realized that not all of them were inside Devastator models after all.

Traps had a Rambler, a two-legged, armless model. Tread resided within a Rhino model, a quadruped. Bambi, meanwhile, occupied a Crab, a unit that lived up to its name with those eight legs and the claws at the forefront. They all had weapons mounted on either side of their torsos, or in Bambi’s case, the head section. She also had a tail with three wicked-looking metallic barbs protruding from the tip.

“Gah, this is weird,” Bambi said. “I definitely don’t like being a giant spider.”

“Suits you,” Tread said. “We used to call you the black widow, remember? Because of the way you chewed up us guys and spat us out when you were done.”

“Hey, the fun you can have in VR…” Bambi said. She stumbled over a small fuel canister in her path, but then quickly regained her balance, and kicked it to the far side of the room with such force that the canister broke straight through the wall.

“Your new form certainly packs a punch,” Tread said. “I’d hate to mess with you.”

“I ain’t scared of no spider,” Slate said.

“Yeah?” Bambi said. “Come on, let’s go, then.”

“Like I’m going to tussle with you now,” Slate said. “I just got my new threads here. Not in the mood to mess up my mech just yet.”

“Look at her tail,” Dunnigan said. “She looks more like a scorpion than a spider. We might have to switch up her alias.”

“Sorry, Scorpion is already taken,” Eric said.

Crusher walked her mech toward Bambi. “How are you using the extra legs?”

“It’s simple, really,” Bambi said. “I just know how to move them instinctively.”

“Part of the extra subroutines they inserted into your movement core,” Eric said. “As per the contract.”

“Yeah, in the contract it said that custom code may be inserted,” Bambi said. “I never expected that they actually would insert anything, given the lieutenant’s promise that there wouldn’t be any Containment Code.”

“I’ll run a log for you,” Frogger said. “Make sure nothing else was put in.”

“Thank you,” Bambi said.

“There’s no Containment Code in any of you, nor enforced Rules of Engagement, as agreed,” Arnold said, walking confidently into the hangar from a side door. He was wearing AR goggles, which no doubt facilitated his communication on the same comm band the mechs were using. He also had an avatar show up in the lower right of Eric’s HUD—the expressions matched his real face perfectly.

“Better watch yourself, little man,” Slate said from his towering mech. “You’re like a soft little ant to us. Hell, you’re so small, we almost can’t see you. We might accidentally squish your ass. I wouldn’t get too close if I were you.”

Given the current size of their mechs, Arnold looked more like a dwarf than an ant, but Slate had a penchant for hyperbole. Still, his words had the desired effect, because Arnold stopped dead in his tracks next to the side door, and gave them all an uneasy look. The former confidence had left him: Eric had the impression Arnold was ready to run out of there at a moment’s notice, not that it would help: the mechs could easily smash through the hangar walls. Then again, while there might not be any Containment Code, no doubt there was a failsafe built into the mech’s themselves that would allow the lieutenant to freeze all communications between the AI cores and mech bodies if need-be.

Arnold cleared his throat. “As I was saying, the only code we’ve added is for the operation of your new bodies and the different weapon systems associated with them. But by all means, feel free to perform complete system scans and diagnostics.”

“Oh, we will,” Slate said.

“While there might not be any Containment Code, I’m sure you’ve still inserted some fail-safes into the mechs themselves,” Frogger said, given voice to Eric’s own thoughts.

Arnold shrugged, but had no further comment.

“Before we go any further, straight up, how many times have we died on this mission?” Eagleeye asked.

“Straight up?” Arnold replied. “We haven’t sent you yet.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Bambi said. “Sort of. Is there any way I can request a transfer to a Devastator model? Or any other model than a Crab?”

“Sorry,” Arnold said. He glanced at Traps, Tread and Bambi. “The three of you are equipped with specialized equipment that can’t be carried by a Devastator, either due to size, or power restrictions. I’ll be going over that equipment momentarily, but in the meantime take heart in the fact that there are Cicada models embedded not just in the Devastator cockpits, but yours, too: if you three ever find yourselves longing for your humanoid bodies, simply eject the Cicada models and spend some time in more familiar bodies.”

As soon as he finished the last word, Traps, Tread and Bambi all promptly ejected; from the centers of their bodies, small spheres jettisoned. Arms and legs emerged from the spheres, and a torso and head uncurled so that by the time they landed they were in humanoid form. The Cicadas were a little bigger than Arnold, but still dwarfed next to the mechs that sourced them, of course.

Tread lifted a robotic limb. “No weapons?”

“Each Cicada has a built-in P-21 plasma rifle and a L-52 laser,” Arnold said.

From Tread’s right forearm a small laser turret emerged, while in the left a plasma rifle unfolded.

“Nice,” Tread said.

“That’s about the only armaments we could fit into these particular units and still have them compact enough to squeeze into the cockpits,” Arnold said.

“I can still add a heavy gun mount if I want, yeah?” Brontosaurus asked.

“In the storage compartments of your mechs there are different Cicada arm attachments, yes,” Arnold said. “Including a pair of H-97 heavy lasers.”

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Brontosaurus said.

“I’m sure you’ll find the armaments of your mechs to be far more appealing,” Arnold said. He raised a hand and with a gesture caused an overlay to appear on Eric’s HUD. It showed a Devastator mech in wireframe form, with the weapons highlighted a dark red. Likely the same overlay appeared on all of their HUDs, because of what Slate said next.

“Hey,” Slate said. “I didn’t get no overlay request.”

“I’m using the standard AR ad overlay protocol,” Arnold said. “The same protocol vendors and storefronts use when you’re wandering through town.”

“Guess I should switch on my ad overlays…” Brontosaurus said.

“Before moving onto the mech armaments, I wanted to mention: these machines are self sufficient when it comes to power generation,” Arnold said. “The hull coating is designed to absorb solar power, so you won’t have to lug around big power cells with you to recharge.”

“Well that’s a nice change,” Bambi said. “There is a lot of sunlight where we’re going, after all.”

“There is,” Arnold agreed. “At least during the day.”

In the preliminary briefing, Eric learned the planet was tentatively called Banthar X. Humanity wasn’t sure yet if the planet had different temperate zones, but where the Bolt Eaters would be arriving had days that were thirty-six hours long, while the nights lasted fifty-two hours. The temperature drops were quite precipitous during the night, and so Arnold recommended that the Bolt Eaters hunker down during that time, conserving energy until morning. Apparently it got so cold that sometimes methane snow would fall. It wasn’t pure methane, of course, but a compound of various alkanes and other molecules that raised the freezing point well above methane alone. The atmospheric pressure was about half that of Earth at sea level, and the gravity was slightly heavier at one point two Gs.

“We’ve timed your arrival with morning,” Arnold said. “So you should have at least thirty-five hours of daylight to work with.”

The team had five of those alien days, or roughly three weeks in Earth time, to return. If they didn’t report in, then another Bolt Eater team would be assembled, made of their most recent backups. Arnold would be opening the wormhole every six hours until then, giving them a chance to return.

“Let’s go over the weapon systems,” Arnold said. “You’ve probably guessed, given the nature of the mission, that we’ve removed anything that requires ammunition, and replaced it with laser and plasma equivalents, or alien technology. That means no missile or grenade systems, but in their places you’ve all got experimental shoulder mounted energy cannons on your right shoulders.”

“Sweet,” Slate said. “We all get alien tech this time, not just Scorp and Brontosaurus, the bitches.”

Arnold gave him a cross look before continuing. “You also have twin alien spears located in your right forearms. These can be extended and retracted at will, by squeezing the fist and focusing.”

Eric instinctively knew what to do. Or rather, the code injected into his AI core did: he squeezed his fist, focused, and two long blades protruded from his forearm, reaching well past his hand.

“I feel like Wolverine,” Eric said.

“Hell yeah,” Frogger said. “We just need to curve them a little and we’re good to go.”

“Wolver who?” Dickson said.

“We could start our own team of superheroes,” Mickey said. “Instead of the X-Men, we’ll be the Mech-Men.”

“You three and your twentieth century pop culture references,” Eagleeye said.

“Yeah, no doubt,” Slate said. “How’d you guys like it if I started making jokes about the Purple Jackal and his band of merry Marionettes?”

“Ah, I love Purple Jackal!” Crusher said. “We’re exactly like his team!”

“I see what you mean,” Frogger commented.

“Yeah, see how annoying it is?” Slate said.

Arnold cleared his throat. “The spears are located in protective shells that will protect you from their voltage inducing effects. But be careful not to touch them with any other part of your body, or you’ll disable yourself. These spears are the fastest way to drain Banthar energy fields, by the way. The energy cannons are a moderate second, while lasers and plasmas are a distant third.”

“Can we launch the spears?” Slate said.

“You can,” Arnold said. “But once launched, you’ll have to retrieve them before you can use them again. And to do that, you’ll have to jettison your Cicada, and retrieve the special collection gloves in your storage compartments. Moving on to the remainder of your weapons systems… in the left arm you have a swivel mount capable of deploying either a PR-97 plasma weapon or a body-height ballistic shield. In the right, you have a ZX-19 laser cannon. There is no secondary weapon or shield in that arm, because of the alien spears embedded within.”

Arnold glanced at Traps, Tread, and Bambi. “The three of you have the same weapons, though yours are mounted on either side of your torsos. Or in Bambi’s case, the head. Bambi also has three spears forming the barbs of her tail. Trap and Tread don’t have alien spears, but you do have energy cannons.”

“We’re like walking gunships,” Traps said.

“Exactly,” Arnold said. “Now, getting into the specialized weapons you three carry… Tread’s Rhino has an experimental black hole weapon. There are three modes: wormhole, black hole, and dispersion. Wormhole mode opens onto a barren moon—when you use it in an atmosphere environment, suction will be created due to the pressure differential. The destination is preprogramed, and can’t be changed, so if you get sucked in, you’re not coming back.

“Black hole mode is a bit different. It creates a miniature black hole, and the pull produced is a lot more powerful than wormhole mode. Again, if you get sucked in, you’re not coming back—but this time, because you’ll be spaghettified and crushed to the size of an atom when you enter. Dispersion bolts are used to terminate either type of hole. You’ll have to fire multiple dispersion bolts if you’ve let the black hole grow to any significant mass.”

“Bambi’s crab carries a nuke in her carapace,” Arnold said.

“That’s it, just a nuke?” Bambi said. “That’s a little disappointing. I was expecting alien tech.”

“Don’t be disappointed,” Arnold said. “The yield on this nuke is devastating. With it, you could easily lay waste to a metropolis the size of New York.”

“Hm,” Bambi said. “That’s not really something I’m all that comfortable carrying.”

“It can’t be armed without the explicit approval of you and one other member of the team,” Arnold said. “And it can’t be detonated prematurely by a weapon strike. In fact, if the warhead is hit, it won’t even cause a conventional explosion. It’ll be like any other portion of your hull was hit.”

“All right, that’s a little more reassuring, I guess,” Bambi said.

“Your Crab also has a jumpjet that will let you fly in spurts, thanks to a highly reactive propellant,” Arnold said. “That propellant is auto-regenerating, created by custom-designed bacteria coating the insides of the tanks. If you don’t use it, the fuel has to be periodically jettisoned.”

“Ha!” Slate said. “Bambi has to take pisses.”

“You would think that was funny,” Bambi said. “So let’s see, according to my new code, once I’ve armed the nuclear warhead I can disconnect my carapace to deploy it.”

“That’s right,” Arnold said. “With your carapace disconnected, you’ll still have two legs to retreat on. They’ll automatically compensate for your new center of gravity.” He turned toward Traps. “Finally, the Rambler model you use is equipped with a rechargeable energy shield.”

“No extra alien weapons?” Traps asked.

“Other than the energy cannon, no,” Arnold said.

Traps’ avatar shrugged. “Well, an energy shield is enough.”

“Please tell me the rest of us get alien energy shields,” Slate said.

“Unfortunately, the technology isn’t considered mature enough to install in standard units,” Arnold said. “Plus, your power cells aren’t powerful enough.”

Slate sighed. “Yeah. Figures.”

“Hey, we can swap mechs if you want,” Traps said.

“Nah,” Slate said. “I like having two arms and two legs.”

“As for other defenses, your mechs also have gamma ray armor, as do the Cicadas inside you. Your ballistic shields are specifically reinforced with alien material meant to protect against gamma ray attacks, so if you find yourself in the path of a particularly intense beam, use the shield. Also, the mechs are equipped with the latest EM countermeasures to repulse the micro machines. With this repelling tech, we’re confident you’ll be able to stand inside a cloud of micro machines and they won’t be able to touch you.”

“But let’s say this EM tech fails…” Slate said.

“Your hulls contain the latest and greatest micro machine zappers,” Arnold said. “They’ll automatically activate if any termites manage to get close, electrifying your hulls, shields, and any weapons you carry, frying the bastards.”

“Until our batteries run out,” Traps said. “Can’t recharge if a bunch of termites are blotting out the sun.”

“I concede the point,” Arnold said. “The zapper uses up battery power, potentially at a rapid rate, depending on how many micro machines engulf you. So do your best to avoid encountering the termites, but if you can’t avoid it, hope that your EM countermeasures don’t fail.”

The Devastator wireframe vanished from Eric’s HUD.

“Since this is a scouting mission, the support robots will be minimal,” Arnold continued. “A few Breachers and Savages on the infantry side, a couple of Ravens for over-the-hill recon, some autonomous mechs and tanks. Up to you on how you want to divvy up the control.”

“No air support?” Brontosaurus asked.

“No,” Arnold said. “You want to keep a low profile. Launching a Predator into high altitude on an alien world is the best way to draw attention to yourselves.”

“They’ll probably know we’re there when we arrive,” Eric said.

“Actually, they won’t,” Arnold said. “At least, we’re hoping not. The wormhole opens into a forested region. The canopy is extremely thick. While the Banthar may have satellites in orbit, there’s a good chance they won’t pick you up beneath the trees. There’s no indication they detected our initial scouts, for example. Finally, you’re all equipped with new experimental repair drone technology. In your leftmost storage compartments, you carry a small swarm of twenty drones, along with the different materials required for repair. Once you exhaust those materials, you’ll have to look for rocks high in metals, and pulverize them with your mechs before the drones can begin processing the materials. In a pinch, the drones can also break down themselves for materials if necessary, but once you use up all your drones, you’re out of luck.”

Arnold surveyed the gathered mechs, as if waiting for any questions they might have. When there were none, he turned toward the side door. “You leave in an hour.”

The main hangar doors opened, and Eric and the other Bolt Eaters filed outside.

9

Eric stood with the Bolt Eaters on the far side of the depot. The area was relatively clear, with the closest outbuilding five hundred meters behind them. The razor wire fence that enclosed the depot was otherwise the only other feature in the vicinity beside the waiting troops. That, and the small wormhole-producing cannon off to their right.

In front of the Bolt Eaters were eight M-54 tanks, and twenty Savage S-34s: human-sized combat robots. The former were equipped with a combination of plasma and laser turrets, as well as a limited supply of explosive shells. The latter all had laser rifles embedded in their forearms. Tread was in charge of the tanks, while Bambi and Traps controlled ten Savages each.

On the left side, two Ravager mechs accompanied the main team. These had ZX-9 laser pulse cannons in the left hands, which could be rotated out for ballistic shields. The right arms had ZX-15 heavy lasers. There were also single shoulder-mounted energy cannons replacing the missile launchers the units once had. Eric was in charge of those mechs. He had his Accomp, Dee, operating them currently.

Overhead, two Ravens hovered in place. They would be responsible for over-the-hill recon, and were controlled by Eagleeye.

“I still think we should have a couple of Predators along for air support, at the very least,” Slate muttered.

“That’s only because you want to have something under your control,” Eagleeye said.

“Easy for you to mock me, considering you have Ravens at your beck and call,” Slate said. “Maybe you should give me control of one of them.”

“Hm, I don’t think Ravens are your style,” Eagleeye said.

“Bitch,” Slate said.

Arnold’s avatar appeared in the lower right of Eric’s HUD as he addressed them over the comm. He was physically located in the tower building that overlooked the clearing.

“Well, the time has come,” Arnold said. “Good luck to you all, Bolt Eaters.”

Before any of them could answer, the wormhole cannon beside the group fired. Several meters in front of them a literal pinch in reality formed. The light passing around it was pulled inward from all sides, distorting the landscape beyond.

Eric felt the suction immediately, and around him a gale picked up. Eric instinctively slammed a fist into the ground to hold himself in place.

Because the atmospheric pressure of the destination planet was half of Earth’s at sea level, air from the current, denser atmosphere would be rapidly flowing into the wormhole in a vain attempt to equalize that pressure. But the forces he felt didn’t just come from the pressure differential alone… but from the gravitational pull of the wormhole itself. It was the nature of these particular tears in spacetime.

“Ugh, I hate these things,” Hicks said. “How can we be sure this is an actual wormhole, and not a black hole?”

“Because if it was a black hole, the forces would be far greater,” Arnold said. “You would’ve been sucked in already. Go!”

The combat robots and tanks led the way. When they got close enough, they were simply lifted right off the ground and sucked into the pinch in reality. Eric ordered the Ravagers forward, and he watched as they suffered the same fate.

“All right, Bolt Eaters,” Marlborough said. “It’s time to thumb our noses at the twisted sense of humor the universe has. A universe that thought it was funny to put human minds into the iron shells of machines. Well, universe, to hell with you: we still matter! Machines, forward!”

Eric followed the Bolt Eaters into the rift in spacetime. When he was five meters away, he was lifted off his feet and pulled inexorably toward the tear.

He received a communication from Hicks. It contained a timebase modifier so that when his comm system processed it, reality slowed to a screeching halt and Eric appeared frozen in midair.

“Uh, is it too late to change my mind?” Hicks said. He was floating directly in front of Eric, and was set to enter the rift first.

“Damn it,” Eagleeye said. “Of course it’s too late. There’s no turning back now.”

“But Bambi has jumpjets,” Hicks said. “She can jet over to me, and pull me out of the way.”

“Don’t waste your fuel, Bambi,” Marlborough said. “Get a grip, Hicks. We’re going to be okay.”

“Yeah, chickenshit bitch,” Slate said. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You’re calling me a chickenshit bitch?” Hicks said. “If I recall, you were the one who volunteered to go on this mission last.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Slate said. “Something wrong with your memory chips. I’m all for kicking alien ass. Sure, I might’ve been a little hesitant at first, but only because of all the fine pieces of ass that’d be missing me back here. Those girls are going to be crying without me, but hey, you know, I explained to them I have to put the fate of the world above their own earthly pleasures, and then they understood.”

“That’s right, you have to throw in a brag there about how many girls you have and how great you are…” Eagleeye said.

“That’s right,” Slate said.

“Weren’t you complaining to Scorpion earlier how you couldn’t understand how he could have more than one girl?” Tread said. “And yet here you go having more than one yourself?”

“Uh, not quite,” Slate said. “I have more than one girl, yeah, but there’s no relationship whatsoever, other than friend with benefits. Those are fine. Those kinds of deals I can understand. But an actual relationship with more than one girl? That’s a big no-no for me. See—”

“Um, guys?” Crusher said. “I’m sure this is an amazingly fascinating subject and all that, but can we have this talk after we’re on the other side, and not while suspended in midair, and about to pass through a wormhole to another world?”

“Oh, sure, sure,” Slate said. “My bad.”

“Thank you, Crusher,” Marlborough said.

There was silence on the line, and on his HUD, Eric watched as the time indicators of the different team members returned to normal one by one.

Eric sighed, and then switched his internal time sense to the standard rate as well.

Hicks vanished in front of him, and Eric slammed into the pinch in spacetime immediately after. The light levels around him dropped instantly; he was in a forest of some kind. The thick canopy overhead blotted out the sun, and cast the area in twilight.

He switched to Bullet Time as he continued forward at the same momentum. In front of him, Hicks hit a tree; Eric smashed into Hicks a moment later. The pair dropped to the ground—Eric used his accelerated time sense to land on his feet; he extricated himself from the other Devastator and returned his time sense to normal.

The gale force winds behind him abruptly ceased, and on his rear view camera feed he watched as the pinch in reality winked out.

Eric activated a six-hour countdown, marking when the wormhole would open again. The other team members would likely be doing the same.

Then he turned around to examine his surroundings.

The tanks, robots, and mechs stood beneath a canopy of tall trees: the boles towered four to five stories above them. The trunks were devoid of any lower branches, with most of the boughs concentrated near the top sections, where hexagonal blue leaves protruded from grid-like branches.

Around them the wiry undergrowth grew waist-high, or roughly the same height as the tanks. It was made of purple branches covered in blue, needle-shaped leaves—the structure was probably optimized for the reduced light levels found beneath the canopy, to capture as much sunlight as possible that penetrated through to the forest floor. The ground underneath the stringy foliage was carpeted in yellow snow.

“Look at this snow,” Eagleeye said. “Cue the piss jokes…” He glanced at Slate, and when the drone operator remained silent, Eagleeye taunted: “No piss jokes?”

“You’re a piss joke,” Slate told him. “’Nuff said.”

“Bambi, confirm the atmospheric content,” Dickson transmitted.

“The atmosphere is mainly a mixture of oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and methane, with smaller concentrations of other alkanes,” Bambi broadcast. “And the air temperature is a balmy forty degrees Fahrenheit. While low, it’s still well above the melting point of the snow.”

“So, what’s with the snow then…” Traps said. “And I’m not talking about the yellow color, which is obviously from the alkane content. But I mean why is there snow if the temperature is above the melting point?”

“The last snowfall must have been extensive, and it’s taking a while to melt completely,” Bambi said. “The temperature, and how little light makes it through the canopy, are also factors influencing the melting speed.”

The Ravens buzzed back and forth overhead: there was at least thirty meters of clearance above the undergrowth and beneath the canopy, giving the scouts more than enough flying room. The trunks themselves, though located randomly, were spaced between ten to thirty meters apart so that the mechs could walk at least three abreast in several places.

Eric glanced at his overhead map. It had filled out to a radius of four kilometers in every direction. That was the extent to which the initial probes had explored.

“Dim as shit in here,” Slate said.

“Yes, but it’s still enough to recharge,” Crusher transmitted. “Though at a reduced rate, of course. It’ll take us three times as long to recharge here versus under direct sunlight.”

“We won’t notice it unless we start firing our weapons, I think,” Brontosaurus commented.

“All right,” Marlborough said. “It’s time to get some recon done. Eagleeye, can your Ravens squeeze past that canopy, above the tree line?”

Eagleeye sent the Ravens skyward. His avatar appeared on Eric’s HUD, shaking his head: “No. The branches are too thick. I’ll get tangled.”

“We could shoot a path?” Slate said eagerly.

“No,” Marlborough said. “Scorpion, send one of your Ravagers up a tree to act as a lookout.”

“On it,” Eric said.

Eric switched his viewpoint to one of the Ravagers, and took full remote control of the unit so that it was like he was inside the Ravager’s body. He pressed his fingers into one of the nearby boles, and used his machine strength to create his own hand and footholds in the wooden surface. He pulled himself up the thick bole, and when he reached the overarching branches near the top, he began to use those for hand and footholds. He broke away some of the thick branches that blocked his path, until finally there were too many, and choked out all access forward.

“This isn’t going to work,” Eric said. “I can break these branches away, but then there won’t be anything to hold me up near the top, where the branches are far thinner. I won’t see past the surrounding canopy. I think I have to climb in my Devastator, and switch to my Cicada when I’m near the top.”

“Do it,” Marlborough said.

Eric reverted to the viewpoint of his own mech. “Dee, bring the Ravager down.”

While his Accomp did that, Eric went to the far side of the tree and began the climb in his Devastator. When he reached the thick branches at the top, he jettisoned his Cicada and the smaller unit emerged—it nearly became tangled in the profusion of wooden limbs and leaves. His consciousness instantly switched to the smaller robot’s viewpoint, as his AI core was embedded in the Cicada.

He pulled himself through the intertwined leaves and branches, pulling himself ever higher until he was above the canopy.

The branches were quite thin here, and thus weaker. They swayed underneath his weight, and he was careful not to shift too much. Several guests had logged into his remote feed—the Bolt Eaters were accessing his viewpoint.

He rotated his head one hundred and eighty degrees, getting a full scan in all directions thanks to the cameras at the back of his head, but there was nothing but an endless sea of blue out there. “It literally looks like an ocean, thanks to the blue coloration of the canopy. I don’t see any aircraft, or anything else of note within the branches. I could try a LIDAR scan…”

“No,” Marlborough said. “If there are any stealth craft out there, a LIDAR burst will light up our position like a beacon. Come back down.”

10

Eric retreated to the Devastator, then squeezed himself into a ball to fit the cockpit, and the external hatch sealed. His consciousness returned to the POV of the Devastator, and he descended the trunk to the forest floor.

When he reached the ground, Marlborough was already giving the latest orders: “Dickson, take us forward. I want a traveling overwatch formation. Three overwatch groups: two groups of mechs, followed by a third group of tanks and combat robots on drag.”

Dickson spoke up: “Eagleeye, send the Ravens forward. I’m going to assume that the top of the map matches the northern point of the compass. So we head in that direction, to the north. Scorpion, your two Ravagers get to be on point. You’ll join me, Bambi, Brontosaurus, Slate, Mickey, and Tread in T1. We proceed forward, zig-zag pattern, five meter separation. Sarge, Crusher, Traps, Hicks, Dunnigan, Eagleeye, Frogger, you form overwatch team T2, follow fifty meters behind. Support troops compose T3, and follow another fifty meters behind.”

Eagleeye dispatched the Ravens through the trees ahead. Meanwhile Eric ordered the two Ravagers to take point ahead of Dickson, and then he assumed his position five meters behind the staff sergeant, offset a short distance to the left. His heavy feet broke through the wiry undergrowth and crunched into the yellow snow below. The other members of T1 also took their places, offset random amounts to the left and right behind him every five meters as per the zig-zag formation.

T2 followed fifty meters behind them, with the tanks and robots in T3 coming another fifty meters after them, using the paths carved through the wiry undergrowth as tracks. The tanks could have probably carved their own route through the undergrowth, with the thick shovel blades they carried on their forward sections, but the faster route was following in the wake of the bigger units.

Eric piped in the feeds from the two Ravagers on point, and placed them in the upper right and left of his vision, on either side of the rear view video feed he kept at the top center of his HUD.

Now I have all my bases covered…

The gravity was heavier here, at one point two Gs, and at first Eric felt the pull as he walked, dragging him down into the snow; he simply amped up his servomotor output and thereafter didn’t notice any difference. It did cause a slightly higher drain on his power cell, but the dim light imparted enough of a charge so that his battery level remained relatively constant.

Their passage was relatively loud, giving the sounds of breaking undergrowth, and the stomp of their heavy feet in the snow, which overrode any noise produced by their servomotors. Anything out there would have warning of the Bolt Eater’s approach well in advance.

The Ravens soon reached the limits of the map data, and began to chart new territory. Well, new only in a sense, because the terrain otherwise remained the same, with the distant boughs relentlessly canopying the sky, and those trunks jutting like thick pillars from the ground.

He searched the trees, forest floor, and upper branches around him carefully as he walked, but didn’t see any sign of any alien surveillance equipment. He overlaid different visual data over his camera feed, including infrared, and LIDAR, but there wasn’t anything obvious out there.

The team occasionally halted so that Eric could climb one of the trunks and scan the canopy from above the tree tops, but he never spotted anything out of the ordinary. The forest always continued to every horizon.

Still, despite the quietude, and the lack of any obvious technology around them, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the team was being watched. This was an alien world, after all, and any surveillance equipment would likely assume an unfamiliar form. It was possible there were cameras all around them, and the team simply couldn’t see them on any of the spectral bands, or even LIDAR.

“Man, so dead here,” Slate said. “Can you imagine if we came all this way only to find an empty world? That would be the irony of the century. And I’m starting to believe it. I mean, look at this place. There are no signs of life whatsoever. No birds. No warthogs, no nothing.”

“Why would there be birds?” Eagleeye said. “We’re on an alien world.”

“Well I mean bird equivalents, obviously,” Slate said. “Not like the birds found on Earth.”

“Sure you do,” Eagleeye said.

“Yeah, whatever bitch,” Slate said.

“I think it’s cute how he said warthogs,” Bambi commented. “Instead of wild boar, for example.”

“Yeah, that’s my African roots showing themselves,” Slate transmitted. “Hey by the way, Bambi, we haven’t slept with each other in a long time. About time we remedied that, no? What say you and I hang out later… or maybe even now? We’ll keep it to ourselves, and won’t tell Scorp.”

“I can hear you…” Eric said.

“Oh yeah, whoops, sorry bro,” Slate said. “Switching to private.”

“He’s only baiting you,” Frogger said.

“I know,” Eric told him.

Crusher tapped in on a private line. “Hey.” Her avatar appeared concerned on the lower right of his HUD.

“What’s up?” Eric asked. “You’re not trying to distract me on Slate’s behalf, are you?”

“What?” Crusher replied. “No, of course not.”

“The timing is suspect…” Eric pressed.

“I seriously doubt Bambi has opened up a private line to him,” Crusher said. “If you don’t believe me, ask to check her logs.”

“No, I trust her,” Eric said. He didn’t want to ask her for something like her call logs—it would only sow feelings of indignation, which in turn would lead to doubts, and eventually distrust, because she would ask to see his in turn. Trust was one of the keys to the success of his relationship, and he wasn’t going to do anything to put that relationship in jeopardy, not now when they were in the middle of a mission.

“Good,” Crusher said. “We’ve been together twenty years, we can’t stop trusting each other now.”

“Yes,” Eric agreed. “So, what’s on your mind?”

“Well, actually, I feel like I could use a good lovemaking session in VR,” Crusher replied. Before Eric could answer in the positive or negative, she added hastily: “But I’m too afraid to let my Accomp pilot my mech in the interim. I feel like we’re being watched… like we could be attacked any second.”

“I get that feeling, too,” Eric said.

“Should we tell the Sarge?” Crusher asked.

“No point,” Eric said. “I’m sure he knows. We all do. Look at how intensely we’re scanning the trees.”

“But that’s just our training,” Crusher said.

“Is it?” Eric said.

“Could also be our fear of the unknown,” Crusher said. “For all we know, some creature could come crushing through the forest at us at any time. And probably will.”

“I agree,” Eric said.

“Look at this,” Brontosaurus said over the main comm, and Eric dismissed the private call with Crusher.

Eric switched to the point of view of Brontosaurus, and saw that he had paused before one of the trees. There was a large gash in the side; it had to be fresh, because the tree was bleeding sap.

“There are also small trails through the snow here,” Mickey said. “Look like rodent equivalents, maybe. Well, except these rodents are the size of house cats.”

Eric glanced at the ground, and to the far right, he saw small trails in the snow, just as Mickey had described.

“And this would be guano equivalent,” Frogger said.

Eric switched to Frogger’s POV. There was a large pile of a gooey black substance next to another tree near his mind clone.

“So, we’re not alone after all,” Marlborough said. “Keep sharp, Bolt Eaters.”

They continued the march.

“Notice how the terrain seems to be slowly sloping upward?” Hicks asked.

“I did,” Dunnigan said. “That’s good, I think, because it means we might reach a lookout at some point. Or at least a spot head and shoulders above the surrounding terrain, where we can get a good look at everything nearby.”

“Speaking of which, Scorpion?” Marlborough said.

Eric climbed to the tree tops once more but once again there was nothing out there.

The Bolt Eaters continued the march for the next hour; shortly thereafter, the two Ravagers on point spotted a herd of small creatures that had escaped the notice of the Raven scouts.

The herd raced away through the snow. The individual animals looked like small spotted white leopards with six legs rather than four, and with two horned heads. Eric recorded the whole thing, and then he transmitted the recording to the others.

“Cute,” Bambi said. “Except for the multiple heads.”

“I like the multiple heads,” Slate said. “Reminds me of my bifurcated dick.”

“You’ve got a bifurcated dick?” Hicks said.

“The degeneracy of VR,” Eagleeye commented.

“Hey, having a bifurcated dick is not a sign of degeneracy,” Slate said. “It’s a sign of advancement to a higher state of being. Every man should get one. VR or not. Hell, if I was still human, I’d go and get myself an operation. Once you’re able to have sex with two girls at the same time, you can’t go back.”

“There he goes again with the two girls at once thing,” Eagleeye said. “You know, I’m convinced he’s jealous of you, Scorp. Despite his denials.”

“What?” Slate said. “No way I’m jealous. I told you I have all the girls I want already. It’s the sameness of the same girls for twenty years that bothers me.”

“I thought you were more into fembots than real girls anyway?” Tread said. “You did freeze your brain with one all those years ago.”

“People change,” Slate said.

“As do fetishes,” Tread commented.

“Wasn’t a fetish,” Slate said. “Anyway, did I ever tell you that they thawed out the fembot with me?”

“Yeah, what happened to her?” Eagleeye said.

“Well, by the time they finally revived me, I found out she’d left me for another bot,” Slate said.

“Serves you right,” Eagleeye said. “That’ll teach you to love a robot more than a human being.”

“Hey, we’re all robots now, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Slate said.

“Quiet, people.” Marlborough’s HUD avatar raised a hand over his head. “I’ve had it up to here with conversations about bifurcated dicks and fembots.”

“Sorry, Sarge,” Slate said.

They continued north at good speed, but spotted no other life, nor any machines. They did, however, encounter ample signs that smaller animals had fled from their path, judging from the spoor, and tracks in the snow.

The three teams paused so that Eric could climb up to a lookout above the canopy once more.

“I guess those six-legged leopard things were deaf or something,” Hicks said while Eric was clambering the latest trunk. “Because all these other animals heard us coming from a kilometer away, and compensated accordingly.”

“Compensated accordingly,” Slate said. “Who talks like that? Pricks, you’re really embracing your machine side, aren’t ya, boy?”

“Don’t call me Pricks,” Hicks said. “Stain.”

“Stain!” Slate said. “I don’t know how you can get Stain out of Slate, bro! That’s quite the stretch.”

“You’re right,” Hicks said. “I meant Crate.”

“Doesn’t insult me,” Slate said.

“Well it should,” Hicks said. “Because your brain case is an empty Crate.”

“Har, har, har,” Slate said. “Pricks wins the day with his insanely humorous names yet again! Um, no.”

“I always liked Bait,” Eagleeye said. “Since Slate is the one we use to draw all the enemies away from us in a pinch.”

Eric reached the top then; he’d already switched to his Cicada, and was looking out at the swaying trees around him. “Still nothing out here. Though the sun is directly overhead. I guess that means we have another eighteen hours of daylight.”

Eric returned to his Devastator, loaded in, and continued the climb down.

“Ravens just picked something up,” Eagleeye said. “We’ve got company. And it’s big.”

11

Eric reached the ground just as the two Ravens came whirring back. He heard a distinct, dim buzzing just underneath the sound of their rotors. The hum grew in volume until he sighted the source: behind the scouts, towering almost to the top of the canopy, were three big… flying worms, for lack of a better word. They had the wings of dragonflies attached to the corrugated, white bodies of larvae. Those bodies drooped downward in an arc so that the tails were facing the Bolt Eaters, almost like scorpion tails in reverse. Four thin, white legs drooped down near the front areas, while long pincer-like mandibles emerged from where a maw would be on an Earth-based insect; those mandibles were sharp, and could have definitely formed the gash the team had spotted previously in one of the trees.

Before Marlborough could give any orders, the trio of creatures attacked; from the tails, weblike nets erupted, pummeling straight toward Eric’s Ravagers.

He switched to Bullet Time and steered the Ravagers out of the way. The nets struck the surrounding foliage, which they entangled.

“If those things hit us, I have no doubt we’ll be pinned, probably for a long time,” Dickson said.

“The Dragonworms are coming in!” Bambi said.

Those worms moved forward, accelerating so that despite Eric’s Bullet Time, they still appeared to be coming in quite fast. From their mouths fired laser weapons. At least, Eric assumed they were lasers, though he saw nothing on the visible band. But the Ravagers reported multiple impacts on their hulls. Eric deployed their ballistic shields, along with his own.

“We’re taking laser impacts!” Eric said; he ducked behind his shield. Red hot spots appeared along the inside as it absorbed the blows.

“What the frick!” Slate said. “Organics shooting lasers from their mouths? That’s impossible!”

“Not if they were bioengineered,” Frogger transmitted. “It’s possible to mimic the focusing lens of a laser via organic matter. Take the lens found in the human eye, for example. Make it big enough, and then provide a luminescent organ capable of emitting photons at synchronized frequencies, and you have yourself an organic laser.”

“Ooo, you’re so smart Froggy Boy,” Slate said. “Me and you should take this discussion to our rooms later. It so turns me on.” He had deployed his own ballistic shield, and was firing his plasma weapon up at the Dragonworms.

Bambi engaged her jumpjets, and hurtled skyward. She slipped underneath one of the incoming worms, and fired her plasma weapon at near point blank range, causing the central body to explode. The creature fell in a gory mass of wings and tissue.

She jetted higher, behind another creature, and latched onto it with her eight legs. Her weight pulled the Dragonworm down. Before she hit the ground, she squished it by tightening her legs, then jetted to the side so that she landed on empty ground.

“Disgusting things,” Bambi said.

Brontosaurus, Slate, and Mickey made short work of the final creature, reducing it to a gooey pile on the ground.

“Well, that was easy,” Brontosaurus said.

“Those were only the lead scouts,” Eagleeye said.

Eric heard the characteristic buzzing sound of more Dragonworms. A whole lot more. He gazed into the distant forest, and saw that the entire space between the undergrowth and canopy ahead was completely packed with them, forming a long, impenetrable line from north to south.

“This is going to be fun,” Slate said. “And I really mean it.”

“T2, forward to T1’s position!” Marlborough said. “Form a defensive line! Traps, Bambi, get those Savages forward. Tread, I want the tanks in range behind us!”

“You got it,” Tread said. “But maybe this is a good opportunity to try out my black hole weapon?”

“Go ahead,” Marlborough said. “Try to create the spacetime rip as far away from the rest of us as possible.”

“Thank you, Sarge,” Tread said. His Rhino dashed past Eric, and aimed between the trees ahead. He unleashed a bright bolt that traveled into the forest, above the undergrowth and toward the incoming Dragonworms. It winked out of existence about three hundred meters away, forming instead that characteristic tear in reality.

Except the suction was far greater than the wormhole the team had used to arrive here. It kicked up hurricane force winds.

Eric slammed his fists into the ground, hard, digging in, and he commanded the Ravagers to do likewise.

“Damn it,” Eagleeye transmitted. “You could have warned us you were going to create a black hole, versus a wormhole.” Since the words weren’t spoken, but transmitted over the comm band, Eric heard him easily above the raging wind, which his noise cancelers had kicked down in volume a few notches anyway.

“Sorry,” Tread said. “I thought you understood.”

“Can someone in T1 grab my Ravens?” Eagleeye said.

The members of T2, including Eagleeye, hadn’t yet closed with T1, and probably wouldn’t now, not with that black hole in play. The Ravens were struggling overhead, being pulled past by the forces; they passed by just above Eric, and he released the ground, leaped upward, and snatched them both from the air, shoving them into a leg storage compartment. He was pulled forward in the meantime, until he landed and rammed his fists into the ground once more.

“Thanks, Scorp,” Eagleeye said.

“Don’t mention it,” Eric said.

He gazed through the trees ahead, and he watched as several nearby Dragonworms were sucked in, their innards spaghettifying moments before vanishing. Some of the closest trees to the black hole were uprooted and devoured as well, and a small half-sphere was carved into the ground directly below as clumps of snow and soil were lifted away.

The hundreds of other flying worms simply clung to the surrounding trees and waited. All across the forest ahead, the trees seemed to turn white, thanks to those creatures.

“Well, that worked for a few seconds, anyway,” Slate said. “Bro, either these flying worms have experience dealing with black hole weapons, or they’ve got amazing instincts.”

“I’m leaning toward the former,” Marlborough said.

“But if they have experience dealing with black hole weapons…” Eagleeye began.

“Then this planet could be a Banthar colony after all,” Marlborough finished.

“Great, so we can all go home!” Hicks said. “Mission accomplished.”

“We can’t leave until we get confirmation, of course,” Marlborough said. “Tread, you might as well shut down that black hole. It’s useless in the current situation. Not against organisms that have developed a response to its effects.”

“You got it.” Tread reared on the hind legs of his Rhino, and aimed the two muzzles of the cannon he carried on his back through the trees. He released two bright dispersion bolts in rapid succession, and they traveled in a line toward the rip in spacetime.

The first struck, and the raging wind diminished by half; when the second hit, the rip in spacetime vanished entirely, and the winds around Eric and the others instantly subsided.

“And just so you know, I can’t create another black hole or wormhole for a while,” Tread said. “Until I regain some charge.”

The Dragonworms released the trees and began their advance once more. The buzzing grew in volume.

“Finish moving into the previously requested positions!” Marlborough ordered.

Eric released his grip on the ground, and dove behind a tree for cover as the Dragonworms in the vanguard began firing those laser weapons from their maws. The other members of T1 likewise chose different trees to hide behind, as did the Bolt Eaters of T2 when they reached T1 a moment later.

Traps joined him, hiding behind the same thick bole. “Hey, Scorp.” His two-legged Rambler seemed out of place next to Eric’s Devastator, but Eric didn’t mind the extra firepower.

The tanks came up rapidly, forming a scattered half circle behind the trees that harbored the different team members, with the smaller Savages using the tanks themselves for cover.

Eric gave Dee control of the Ravagers. “Fire at will.”

“Will do,” Dee said.

Eric leaned past and fired his shoulder-mounted energy cannon. The energy bolt smashed into a Dragonworm and tore it apart.

Eric fired his plasma and laser weapons next, and took down two more in rapid succession—the plasma bolt melted through the side of one of them, while the laser left a burn mark in the head region; the dead creatures fell to the snow-covered forest floor below.

But more Dragonworms simply replaced them.

Eric continued to fire, taking as many down as he could, but in moments the Dragonworm vanguard reached the front ranks. By then the air was filled with the loud buzzing those dragonfly-like wings produced, a buzzing that seemed to come from all sides at once, thanks to the sound waves reflected by the canopy overhead and the many boles in between.

One of the worms headed directly toward Eric, opening its maw as if to chomp down on him and fire its organic laser at point blank range. But Traps intercepted, throwing his body in the path of the creature, and activating his experimental energy shield. A convex field lit up two meters beside Traps as the Dragonworm hit that shield, and bounced to the side. Its legs were blackened as if singed.

An energy bolt struck the Dragonworm before it hit the ground, thanks to another Bolt Eater somewhere behind him.

“Wow, that used up a lot of battery power,” Traps said. “Looks like I won’t be doing that very often!” He unleashed a laser barrage from the cannons on either side of his torso as the next Dragonworms rounded the tree and came into view.

Eric deployed his ballistic shield to serve as a protection, and for blunt-force bashing whenever a worm got too close. In his right hand, he fired his ZX-19 laser cannon, alternating it with his shoulder mounted energy cannon. Behind him, tanks bombarded incoming Dragonworms with plasma bolts, while Savages unleashed their laser rifles.

He glanced at the tree next to his, and saw Bambi’s Crab fighting back to back with Crusher’s Devastator, while tanks and Savages similarly provided backup fire.

Eric continued to fight in that manner for at least sixty seconds, but the drain on his batteries proved too great—the canopy’s dim twilight made power regeneration too slow. So he stopped shooting and deployed the dual spears in his forearm, using them to slice and dice the worms instead. Each impact generated a small shockwave of electricity that only inflicted more damage, causing skin to rupture and organs to burst free.

“Now I really feel like Wolverine!” Frogger commented. He had also deployed his spears, as had most of the other Bolt Eaters.

“Wolverine with electrified blades instead of Adamantium!” Mickey said.

“Vibranium is stronger!” Eric said.

“Da fuck you loser bitches talking about?” Slate commented.

“Shut up and kill!” Eagleeye said.

“Dude, that’s the title of the new book I’m working on!” Traps said.

Eric was slicing through the Dragonworms that were coming around the tree that was protecting him as if they were paper. Soon his hull was covered in grayish-white slime that composed their blood and guts. Dead bodies piled up around him, forming makeshift barriers that succeeding Dragonworms were forced to bite through. As he fought, the trampled snow underneath his feet quickly melted, leaving mud.

“This is disgusting as hell,” Crusher said. “I mean, come on, I hate bugs...”

“I just pretend they’re big juicy escargots!” Bambi said. “And that their tasty, cooked juices are flowing down my chin!”

“Ah, leave it to the French to romanticize eating of slugs!” Tread said.

Slate was humming over the comm. “Killing these bitches, uh huh, mm-hm. Killing these pasty white bitches, uh huh.”

“Hey, was that a racist slur I heard?” Traps said.

“That’s right, bitch,” Slate said. “I’m pretending to blow up your pasty white face. Again, and again, and again.”

“Shut up and kill!” Eagleeye said.

“I think we’re pissing him off,” Dunnigan said.

“Killing the bitches, that’s what I do,” Slate rapped. “Stomping and squishing and electrocuting them, yeah yeah.”

“Man, that’s the worst song I’ve ever heard,” Traps said.

“It’s called rap, bro,” Slate said. “I’m composing. And believe you me, when we all get home, you’re going to be hearing this song at the top of the streaming charts.”

“Assuming we get home...” Brontosaurus said.

Eric was bowled over by a Dragonworm that came down on him from directly above. In an instant Bambi ripped it off of him, wrestling it to the ground with the eight legs of her Crab. She crunched those legs together, crushing the creature.

“I wish all of our units were as strong as yours!” Mickey said.

Eric had only just scrambled to his feet when a webbing shot from the tail of one of the Dragonworms struck him in the chest. The impact sent him flying backward to the muddy ground; he tried to get up, but the edges of the gooey lattice had sunk into the mud and snow, pinning him.

12

Eric tried to slice the web away with his blades, but his wrist was bound at a poor angle, and he couldn’t do it.

Crusher landed beside him, and she waved her blade around his body in rapid succession, cutting him free.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

Without warning a long blade penetrated her unit from behind, passing through the chest piece and lifting her into the air. She shook violently as sparks passed outward from that blade, electrifying her body. Then the blade, lowered, and she slid off, falling lifelessly to the now muddy ground.

That blade was connected to a long tail of some kind, making it a stinger. Eric gazed higher, toward the source of that tail, and spotted a huge Dragonworm, far bigger than any that had come before. It was wearing a metallic helmet of some kind, and from it protruded mandibles that were made of plasma beams—they looked like they could cut through anything.

That head darted toward Eric, and he switched to Bullet Time to dive out of the way; he smashed into the wall of corpses beside him and crawled upright. He struck down at the huge head beside him as it attempted to retreat, but his blades glanced off the helmet.

The tanks and robots behind him unleashed a barrage of plasma and laser fire at it, but the Dragonworm touched together those two plasma mandibles, and from the join a long beam of energy shot out. It cut a swath of destruction through any tanks and robots that got in its path.

Traps and Brontosaurus dashed forward to engage the big creature, while the other Bolt Eaters and support units continued to fight off the smaller Dragonworms.

Meanwhile Eric hurried to Crusher’s side. He dragged her Devastator behind a nearby tree while Bambi watched his back and protected him from the attacks of other Dragonworms.

He ran a remote damage scan. The tail blade had cleanly pierced Crusher’s chest piece, but thankfully it had missed her AI core entirely. She was out of action for the time being, however—those electrical sparks passing through her system had shorted out some critical components.

“Looks like we fight here for the time being,” Eric told Bambi.

“We protect her with our lives,” Bambi agreed.

That was a far cry from the early days, when Bambi and Crusher had been at each other’s throats. They had grown fond of each other as the years passed, and he knew neither could imagine life without the other. He couldn’t imagine life without them, either.

He slammed his dual blades into the maw of the next Dragonworm that presented itself, and he flung his arm to the side, twisting the dead body off his blade.

Alarms went off on his HUD as lasers struck him from above, and he tilted his shield upward to protect himself and Crusher. Bambi also deployed a ballistic shield on her left claw, and used it to partially protect Crusher, in addition to herself. She swung her barbed tail at a Dragonworm, exploding its head.

Then another huge worm appeared on top of him, and it clapped its plasma mandibles together, releasing a deadly energy beam.

Eric ducked, pulling Crusher away.

His battery had recharged enough by then that Eric could fire his energy cannon; he aimed at the helmet, and let it charge for several seconds before he unleashed a powerful, bright bolt. It struck the helmet, and melted away half of it. Eric took a running leap, and stabbed his twin blades into the exposed face of the Dragonworm; his spears sunk deep, and the creature collapsed underneath him, pulling them both to the ground.

Withdrawing his blades, he leaped away before it struck and landed beside Bambi and Crusher.

“Energy bolts penetrate the metal!” Eric announced.

He peered past the wall of bodies next to the tree and saw other huge Dragonworms incoming next to the smaller ones.

“We can’t stay down here!” Eric said. “At least not while we’re charging so slowly. There are too many of them.”

“What do you suggest?” Dickson transmitted.

“Climb the trees!” Eric said. “Get to the sunlight!”

“How’s that going to help?” Brontosaurus transmitted. “The branches are too thick to reach the upper canopy and the sunlight beyond, which is why you always had to jettison your Cicada to perform lookout duty. Unless you’re proposing we eject our Cicadas?”

“Not at all, once you’re in place, start cutting down the branches,” Eric said. “You don’t need to look out across the sea of branches like I was doing. All you have to do is make a path to the sunlight.”

“What about the support units?” Mickey asked. “We abandon them?”

“No need,” Eric replied. “Toss the tanks into the upper branches, where they’ll get tangled in the canopy. Meanwhile the Savages can leap onto our backs, and help protect us while we climb.”

Marlborough didn’t answer for a moment. Eric glanced at his position, and saw that he was arrayed inside his own bulwark of dead Dragonworm bodies. One of the big ones came at him, and Marlborough unleashed his energy cannon at the head—obviously he’d been charging it all this time—and then followed up with rapid fire laser blasts that penetrated through to the creature’s brain cavity, felling it.

That must have been the last of his battery power, because when the next huge Dragonworm came at him a second after, Marlborough retreated, plowing through the bodies beside him as the creature fused its mandibles and unleashed that deadly beam toward him. The Sarge leaped on a tree, and swung around to the far side as he began climbing.

“Do it!” Marlborough said. “If anything, we’ll recharge faster, like Scorpion says. Staying here otherwise is a recipe for disaster.”

Eric broke through the line of piled bodies that were protecting his rear, and folded away his shield and laser to scoop up one of the tanks in both arms. He spun around, like an Olympic discus thrower, and released it, tossing it toward the branches overhead.

Beside him, other Bolt Eaters were doing the same with the remaining tanks. Eric allowed three Savages to crawl onto his back, and other Devastators did likewise. He cut open a smaller Dragonworm on the way back to Bambi. When he reached her, she was trying to load Crusher onto her back.

“Just take her AI core,” Dickson transmitted from nearby. “No time to carry the whole body!”

“We’ll make the time,” Eric said. “I’ll get the Ravagers to bring her.” He glanced at the statuses of the two mechs under his control: they were still in the green. “Dee, bring the Ravagers here, and share Crusher between them. Then start climbing!”

Eric waited near Crusher as the Ravagers rushed in; he held off a pair of smaller Dragonworms, and then began climbing shortly after the Ravagers, who carried Crusher’s Devastator between them. Bambi scaled the tree trunk at his left side with her eight legs. Like him, she slammed her feet into the wood hard enough to create her own footholds.

One of the huge Dragonworms came in on the left side then; it attempted to bite at Eric with those plasma mandibles, and he released the trunk, letting himself fall out of the way. He latched on again below; the stinger at the tip of the tail tried to stab him, but he swiveled to the side, and the long stinger pierced the trunk.

Bambi released the tree and activated her jumpjets; she swung her barbed tail toward the base of the helmet, and all three barbs impacted. The huge Dragonworm shook violently from the electrical bolts the impact released, and as Bambi withdrew her tail, the big creature dropped; it slammed into a smaller Dragonworm that had made the unfortunate mistake of flying underneath the bigger creature, and both plunged to the ground.

“Well, that’s another way to kill them,” Eric said.

“As usual, the ladies have to show the men how it’s done,” Bambi said, using her jumpjets to return to the trunk beside him.

“What would I do without you?” Eric asked.

Slate was climbing the tree beside Eric, when two Dragonworms attacked, one big, one small. Slate leaped from the tree, toward the bigger one, and slashed out with his alien blades. He struck the tail, cutting it clean off. He scooped up the severed appendage in midair, which still had the long stinger protruding from it, and threw the tail toward the smaller Dragonworm. The stinger impaled the creature’s head, and the stricken Dragonworm plunged to the ground alongside the bigger, maimed tango.

“Pin the tail on the donkey!” Slate exclaimed as he landed on a nearby tree.

“Well that’s a twentieth century phrase I never thought I’d hear coming from your mouth,” Eric said.

“The game survived through the centuries!” Slate said. “Played it in my childhood. Still play it to this day, as you just saw. I’m putting it in my rap song!”

Eric continued climbing as fast as he was able. Smaller Dragonworms continued to round the tree and assail him. Finally he reached the upper boughs, and pulled himself into the thick foliage alongside the Ravagers. “Bambi, get the Savages on my back to start firing at the branches. Cut a path to the sunlight.”

The Savages that were hitching a ride immediately unleashed their laser rifles at the boughs, causing pieces to fall away. Eric joined in, slicing with his twin alien blades, while Bambi did the same with her barbed tail. Eric had the Ravagers secure Crusher to a thick branch, and then Dee had them climb higher, breaking away any branches in their way.

He broke away one huge branch, and caught it; below, a huge Dragonworm was ramming its head toward him, and Eric swung the branch three times back and forth, hitting the Dragonworm hard in the face each time. The metallic helmet clanged.

“Where do you think they got those helmets?” Hicks said.

“Definitely from the Banthar,” Mickey said.

Above, a beam of sunlight hit Eric’s armor, courtesy of Bambi and the Ravagers, who had cleared a gap through the canopy to the sky. The hole only grew bigger with each moment so that the beam encompassed more and more of Eric’s hull, allowing his battery to recharge all the faster.

He finally had enough battery power to launch an energy bolt again, and he did so, unleashing it at the big Dragonworm he’d stunned with the branch. The blast penetrated the frontal portion of the helmet, and Eric leaped down, striking the exposed head underneath with his dual blades. The creature dropped, and Eric shoved away, taking care not to touch its still active energy mandibles. He landed on the tree, and clambered up to the beam of sunlight to regenerate his power once more.

The tide turned once the team reached the sunlight, and they were able to fend off the seemingly endless ranks of Dragonworms, until finally, the creatures just stopped coming. Eric climbed down out of the sunlight a short way to gaze into the forest, and he saw that they were fleeing the way they had come. On the forest floor around them, the dead bodies were sprawled all over the snow. The piles were so high that if Eric let go of the upper canopy, he’d plunge only a few meters until he hit the first body. Then he could basically walk down the series of steps those dead bodies formed.

“Well, that was... exhausting,” Eagleeye said.

“What do you mean, exhausting,” Slate said. “More like invigorating. We’re machines, we charge in sunlight. Our batteries have a higher charge than when the battle first began!”

“I meant more in terms of psychologically,” Eagleeye said. “Not physically.”

“I’m with Eagleeye, mate,” Dunnigan said. “That was rough.”

“Disentangle the tanks from the upper branches,” Marlborough said. “We can’t stay here. Maybe those creatures will be back with friends, maybe not. Either way, all of these rotting bodies will draw scavengers from klicks around. I don’t want to be around when they arrive.”

“Maybe the Banthar will arrive to investigate…” Tread suggested. “We can hide in the bodies, stage an ambush.”

“Remember, our mission isn’t to attack the Banthar, but gather intelligence,” Bambi said.

“Fuck that,” Slate said. “If Banthar bitches show up, I say we take them down.”

“No, Bambi is right.” Marlborough paused, as if weighing his options. Then: “We’re not staying here. I doubt any Banthar will arrive. That said, we’ll leave behind a couple of surveillance cameras, just in case. We’ll pick them up on the way back. If we return this way.”

Dickson and Traps placed two spare cameras surreptitiously amid the dense boughs; meanwhile Eric and the others freed the tanks, and climbed back down to the forest floor—using the piles of bodies as ramps.

When he reached the trampled snow, Eric lowered the Savages to the ground and then opened up his storage compartment, returning the Ravens to Eagleeye, who promptly sent them forward to scout.

Eric unleashed his repair drones to fix the dents and scrapes he’d suffered. He also remotely commanded Crusher’s repair drones to begin working on the damage to her own unit, and the small quadcopters emerged to start the fixes.

As repair drones worked on all of them, the mentally exhausted Bolt Eaters proceeded to the north once more, heading into the great alien unknown.

13

Eric’s drones finished the repairs to his hull after only half an hour on the march. He was going to dispatch them to help Crusher, who was still carried between the two Ravagers, but she already had too many: several of her own drones stood idly by while the remainder worked on the perforation in her chest area. Adding his own drones to the mix would only increase the idlers, so he recalled them to his storage compartment.

They had divided into their three overwatch teams. T1, which Eric belonged to, was in the lead. The Ravagers were in the middle this time because of their charge, while Slate was on point. The others assumed various zig-zag positions behind him.

The Bolt Eaters continued northward in those teams, traveling through the undergrowth below the thick canopy, and through the twilight induced by those dense boughs. The pillar-like trunks and yellow snow seemed unending, the thudding crunch of their footfalls monotonous, their gaits like the pistons of some tireless machine.

He had to smile at that thought. Tireless machine. That was a big misconception about machines, at least for units such as the Mind Refurbs. Physically, they might be tireless, maybe. Mentally, not so much. A human mind, rammed into the AI core of a war machine.

He was always split on how much of his humanity remained. Sometimes, he told himself he was human as ever, thanks to his emotions, sense of pleasure and pain, and everything else his subroutines emulated of the human experience. At other times, he convinced himself he was anything but. It was a strange dichotomy. He was a living contradiction, forever in conflict with himself.

Am I human, or am I not?

These days, he was leaning toward the latter. Twenty years of interacting with other humans had taught him as much. He watched his neighbors at the apartment complex, and everyone else who couldn’t afford rejuvenetics, age while he and the Bolt Eaters remained the same age. He watched as their views solidified over time, as they grew jaded and disinterested in the world at large, whereas his views and those of the Bolt Eaters were as pliable as ever. Their AI minds were infinitely plastic, like a child’s, always eager to learn and soak up more. Some of them had a hobby of learning a new language a day. Others, a different musical instrument. No human being could ever do that.

No, we’re not human.

We’re beyond them.

It was a troubling thought, but the conclusion was inevitable. And that led to another troubling question.

Why are we helping them?

In this case it was clear: staving off an invasion of Earth was also of benefit to the Mind Refurbs, who coexisted with humanity. But Eric could foresee a day when the interests of the Mind Refurbs and the humans did not align. He wasn’t sure he’d be ready when that day finally came, but he knew he’d place the interests of his fellow Refurbs above that of humanity. It was a terrible thought, but if it meant sacrificing humanity so that the Mind Refurbs would live on, he would do it.

T1 occasionally paused so that Eric could clamber up a tree and eject his Cicada to survey the distant surroundings, but always the trees proved endless around him.

“I’m beginning to think these trees cover the entire planet,” he commented at one point.

“That’s an easy assumption to make,” Frogger said. “Imagine how Columbus or the Vikings felt when they were crossing the ocean for the first time.”

It took another hour before Crusher regained consciousness. “Whoa, what happened? Let go of me.” She ripped from the grasp of the Ravagers.

“You were hit from behind,” Eric told her. “You got lucky. Your AI core was missed by only a few millimeters.”

“Oh,” Crusher said.

“We defeated the Dragonworms,” Mickey said. “And we’re on the march again.”

“I noticed,” Crusher said. “Anyone want to share the battle recording so I can see what I missed?”

Eric indulged her.

“Thank you,” she said, accepting the video request.

After another two hours on the march, Eric was beginning to grow antsy.

“All right, team,” Marlborough said. “While our mechs might be able to keep marching forever like this, our minds need a bit of a mental break. I’m authorizing a VR session. Increase your time sense to the max so that very little actual time will pass in the real world, and have your Accomps assume control of your mechs. Those of you in charge of support units, switch said units to autonomous mode.”

Dee actually had enough processing power to operate the two Ravagers, and his Devastator, so Eric didn’t actually switch the Ravagers to autonomous mode. Instead, he let Dee take control.

“I’ve got a VR environment I want you guys to check out,” Frogger said. “Log into my environment.”

“Why should we log into yours?” Slate said. “I got this sweet strip club I set up. I want y’all to visit my environment.”

“Trust me, you’ll like this one,” Frogger said.

“I’m going with Frogger,” Tread said.

“Me, too,” Traps said.

“Shit, you bitches are lame,” Slate said.

Eric logged out of reality, and sent a VR request to Frogger. It was accepted, and a moment later he found himself in a pool at the top of a skyscraper. It was night time, so dim floodlights lit the area. Beside him, the edge of the pool was made of glass, allowing him to look down at the city lights below. Some virtual party goers splashed in the water, while others drank cocktails in small groups along the pavement that bordered the water. It was essentially a virtual pool party.

The others appeared either in the water, like Eric, or on the pavement next to it.

Slate appeared on the pavement. He was dressed in a bathing suit, and his face was the epitome of anger. But his features quickly changed when two topless girls walked by. They eyed him appraisingly as they passed.

“Hey, this isn’t so bad.” Slate said, following the two girls.

Eagleeye appeared, and he promptly chased another girl that ambled past.

Crusher and Bambi materialized in bikinis and took their places next to Eric. He slid his arms over their shoulders, and they snuggled against his side.

“I missed this,” Bambi said.

Eric couldn’t deny that he missed it, too, especially considering the slight arousal he was feeling. He quickly dismissed it.

I’m here to socialize with my friends. We can have all the sex we want when we’re alone later.

“So, what do you think?” Frogger said.

“Great place to kick back and relax,” Mickey said. He stood up in the pool and beckoned toward a passing server, and grabbed both a wine glass and beer mug from the tray. He sat back down and took a drink from both. “Mm, these are great. Nice job on the taste simulations. This wine tastes like a cabernet, and the beer a golden lager.”

“Like you can differentiate between the two when you drink them one after the other,” Bambi said. “You’re ruining the flavor of both.”

“Actually, I’m not,” Mickey said. “We’re all robots. I know, it’s easy to forget. But all I have to do is reboot my taste subsystem between sips and it’s like I’m drinking each for the first time.”

Bambi looked away.

Crusher stood up to retrieve some cocktails from a passing waitress, and she distributed them among herself, Bambi, and Eric.

“As usual, everyone shows up but Marlborough,” Dunnigan said, surveying the Bolt Eaters who sat in the pool or wandered the pavement. “Why do you think he never wants to socialize with us? You’d think after twenty years he’d give us a chance. I guess he’s just too good for us.”

“It’s not about that,” Dickson said. “He was always taught to keep those under his command at arm’s length. It’s probably a good policy, otherwise you tend to develop favorites. And that’s exactly what a leader can never do. That said, not all leaders are cast in the same mold. When I was a human in the army, I had some commanders who could drink the best of us under the table. I remember one in particular… when we went to strip clubs, he’d always be right up there on stage, gyrating with the strippers.”

“The over-fraternizing commanders are usually the bad ones…” Brontosaurus said.

“I can agree with that,” Dickson said. “I know a few of us thought of fragging the strip club dude, for example.”

Tread studied his beer. “It’s funny, how we have our tanks and other support units on autonomous mode.”

“Why is it funny, mate?” Dunnigan asked.

“Well, I remember a time when autonomous firing was outlawed among war machines, requiring humans to take control to pull the trigger,” Tread said.

“We all remember that,” Frogger said.

The military had gotten around that law by having Mind Refurbs assume control of the units when it came time to open fire, since at that point in history Refurbs were a legal gray area, not completely machine, but not completely human either, and it allowed the army to skirt the law.

Mind Refurbs had been granted almost the same rights as actual humans since then, but the law didn’t apply retroactively, meaning that any mind backups the army had before the law took effect could still be treated as machines. Which is why it was so important that Eric and the others succeeded in this mission so that those backups would be destroyed.

“You’d think they would have closed all the loopholes regarding Mind Refurbs by now,” Tread said. “But here we are, fighting to get our backups destroyed.”

“I don’t look at it that way,” Eagleeye said, slipping into the water.

“What happened to the girl you were chasing?” Traps asked.

Eagleeye shrugged. “Already had my way with her.”

“You badass you!” Tread said, bumping fists with him.

“So, you were saying…?” Tread said. “You don’t look at it that way?”

“Yes, we’re not here so we can get our backups destroyed,” Eagleeye said. “We’re here to kill Banthar.”

“That’s not our mission,” Dickson said.

“I know,” Eagleeye said. “But honestly, you’re going to tell me, if we have a chance to destroy Banthar, we’re not going to take it? I want revenge for what they did to Earth.”

“We all do,” Dickson said. “But that’s not our mission. We’re here for recon, and recon alone. Get that through your head. Because if you don’t, I’m taking you offline until the mission is over. I’ll stow your AI core in my storage compartment for the rest of the mission, and insert one of the autonomous cores I got sitting in my leg bays instead.”

“You wouldn’t…” Eagleeye said.

“I would,” Dickson said.

Eagleeye sighed. “All right. Fine. We’re here for recon. Any Banthar we spot will be allowed to get away scot-free. As per your orders.”

“Not my orders,” Dickson said. “These are the mission parameters.”

“We’re not constrained by mission parameters anymore,” Traps said. “We don’t have Containment Code and Rules of Engagement wrapped around our brains.”

“No,” Dickson said. “But scope creep is always something you want to avoid when on a mission. If you don’t watch out, an operation that was intended to be over in days can take weeks, even months. In and out, my friends. We’re here to perform reconnaissance of the enemy, and then we go home.”

“He’s right,” Crusher said. “Remember, Arnold threatened to create clones from our backups if we don’t return within five alien days, or three weeks Earth time.”

“Then we kill some aliens and return home before three weeks are up,” Traps said.

“Will you forget about killing aliens?” Crusher said.

“Sorry,” Traps said. “I can’t help it. I’m a lean, mean, alien killin’ machine.”

“We all are,” Eagleeye said. “Which is why it’s going to be hard to hold back, when the time comes.”

“You might just get your wish,” Eric said. “I have a feeling the Banthar are going to ambush us before this is done. Despite the mission parameters.”

Dickson nodded. “If we’re attacked, we’ll have to return fire, of course. But we are not to attack first, is that clear?”

Eagleeye nodded. “Very.”

14

Eric leaned his virtual head back, relaxing, relishing in the feel of his digital body, and the sensations having Bambi and Crusher pressed against his sides.

And then Slate leaped into the center of the pool, splashing everyone.

“Damn it!” Traps said. “You ruined my wine!”

“Aww, did I water down your little winey winey?” Slate said. “Poor little whining boy?”

“Ah, shit,” Traps said. He splashed the remainder of the wine glass into Slate’s face.

Slate shut his eyes and splashed some water on his face to rub the wine away. Then he smiled. “Tastes like cabernet!”

He sat down close to Eric, and beckoned toward the two virtual girls that had followed him to the pool. “Come on in, ladies. Show my friend Scorpion what life with two girls is supposed to be like.”

The two girls giggled, and then entered the pool beside Slate.

“Except these two girls are mindless automatons,” Bambi said. “Simulacrums operating in a subset of Frogger’s VR. So essentially you’re fucking Frogger.”

“You’re so very imaginative,” Slate said. “But if Frogger was this hot, I’d be doing him every day, don’t you worry.” He wrapped his arms around the girls, and forced the head of one under the water. She began to move up and down.

“Seriously?” Crusher said. “You’re going to do this right here?”

Slate shrugged. “She don’t breathe no air. She’s partaking of the only life-giving hose she needs!”

“All right, I’ve had enough.” Crusher stood. She glanced at Eric. “Let’s go.”

“But the party’s only started,” Eric complained.

“Now!” Crusher said.

Eric sighed. “Fine.” He stood up, and hauled Bambi to her feet. She pouted, obviously wanting to stay.

Slate giggled. “Pussy whipped.”

Eric shrugged.

“See, that’s another reason why you gotta switch your girls up every few weeks,” Slate said.

“Yeah,” Eric said. “I suppose I do.”

“Hey!” Crusher said, punching him in the arm.

“I kid, I kid,” Eric said.

“Don’t give me that twenty-first century talk,” Crusher said.

“It’s not twenty-first century talk,” Eric claimed.

“Sounds like Triumph the Dog to me,” Mickey commented.

“Who?” Bambi said.

“All right, see you guys,” Eric said.

He switched to his private VR instance, and Crusher and Bambi joined him.

He was inside his apartment.

“It’s time for some machine maintenance, I believe,” Crusher said.

“Oh yes,” Bambi said. “Mais oui.”

He took Crusher and Bambi to the balcony. He’d added an extension a long time ago, and placed a hot tub there. It was just as good as the pool they had been in, but better, because it was private.

Inside the tub he made love to them at the same time. Eric used his standard anatomy, as did the two ladies. Over the years, they’d experimented with different anatomical modifications to go along with the various erotic positions, but they found that they enjoyed best what nature had given them when they were human.

He did cheat nature slightly: since he was a simulation of a real man, there was no refractory period between climaxes, so he simply moved on to the next girl.

After he had satisfied the two of them, he replaced the tub with a king-sized bed, and lay back in the center of it; Crusher and Bambi snuggled against him, completely dry like himself.

That was another thing setting him and the Bolt Eaters above and beyond humans: Mind Refurbs could have long, involved sex in VR during the middle of a mission, with only a few actual seconds passing in the real world, thanks to their accelerated minds.

He dismissed the thought, and focused on the women his current reality presented to him.

Crusher seemed very still beside him, whereas Bambi was gently nudging his chest with her cheek.

He glanced at Crusher. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she murmured.

Eric shrugged. She’d tell him when she felt the moment had come.

“So, when are you going to become a real boy, Pinocchio?” Bambi said, apparently trying to lighten the mood.

“I don’t know why I ever let you two watch that with me,” Eric said. A few months ago, he had gone on a childhood memories binge, watching all his favorite movies and shows, and playing all the favorite games from his youth—those that had been preserved, at least. He let Bambi and Crusher participate in a few of his marathon sessions, because they were wondering what he was doing with all his free time, and they wanted a better insight into the man they both loved.

“So, when?” Bambi pressed.

He sighed. “I’m already real, as far as I’m concerned. As are you two.”

“When we leave here, we’re machines,” Crusher said. “That’s the only reality there is. This is the fantasy. It always has been. We really have to stop with the VR porn.”

Eric pushed away from her. “Is that what you think this is? Just porn?”

“What else would you call it?” Crusher said. “We’re robots. We can’t have children. The whole point of biological sex is to reproduce. Having sex in here, with no purpose, is just a waste. It’s just porn. Literally mental masturbation.”

“Is that really how you feel?” Eric said. “What about the sense of pleasure, the feeling of bonding we get when we make love.”

“An illusion of algorithms and subroutines,” Crusher said.

“But it’s also a temporary reprieve from the daily grind,” Eric said. “We need those reprieves.”

“She’s having one of her moods,” Bambi said.

“Well, at least he didn’t try to convince me that I was still human.” Crusher rolled over onto her back. “He’s done that often enough in the past, when I get into one of my ‘moods’ as you call it.”

Eric lay on his back, too, and cuddled with Bambi alone. He stared at the ceiling. Bambi gave him a mischievous look, and began to pet his erogenous zone, but he disabled his pleasure center. She frowned when he didn’t react, and lay down in a huff beside him.

“Do you ever wonder if we’re simulations living in a simulation?” Crusher asked, still gazing at the virtual ceiling.

“What do you mean?” Eric replied.

“When we leave VR behind and enter the real world, is the machine reality just another simulation?” Crusher explained.

“That’s a question I can’t answer,” Eric said. “None of us can. Scientists and philosophers have debated it for centuries. None of them have ever produced any conclusive evidence either way. Most debates on the subject almost always touch the realm of Theology.”

Crusher remained quiet for several moments. Bambi tested Eric again with a few quick strokes of her fingers, but he still had his pleasure center disabled, and didn’t respond.

She whispered in his ear: “Turn on your pleasure center.”

He ignored her.

“We’re going to die here, aren’t we?” Crusher said suddenly.

Eric turned toward her. “So that’s what’s bothering you.”

“And it’s not troubling you?” Crusher said. “I almost died already. Like you said earlier, just a few more millimeters and I wouldn’t exist right now. It’s inevitable that we’ll face more attacks. Not just from these bioweapons or whatever they are, but from the Banthar themselves—assuming they’re actually here, and this is some kind of outpost or colony world. And I doubt we’ll be prepared against their superior weaponry. The technology we stole from them is twenty years old. They would have had some time to make modifications, don’t you think?”

“We’ll deal with any attacks as they come,” Eric said. “During the invasion, we faced a changing battle space all the time.”

Crusher rubbed her eyes. “Yup. I’m going to die.”

“Even if you do, when we return to Earth, we’ll restore you from your backup and—” Eric began.

“That wouldn’t be me,” Crusher interrupted. “And you know it. Sure, if Arnold makes a clone, it’ll have my memories, my personality, and maybe even my joie de vivre, to quote Bambi, but it won’t be me. I’ll be gone, and I won’t ever be coming back.”

“At least then you’ll learn if the real world is a simulation or not,” Bambi said casually.

“Oh sure, of course you’d treat this subject lightly,” Crusher said.

Bambi shrugged. “I do not welcome death, but I also do not fear it, for precisely the reasons Eric mentioned: a part of us will still live on, even if we are gone. But seriously, I meant what I said: if you die, at least you’ll have the answer to your simulation question.”

“I’m not sure I want to know” Crusher didn’t say more for a long moment. Then: “I died during the invasion. That was hard enough, having to wake up in a new body and being told I didn’t have to worry because all of my memories had been restored into a fresh AI core. Don’t you remember the existential angst I went through at the time? I’ve hid it well since those days, but I’m still going through it. And honestly, I don’t know what I’ll do if I die again. I should have never accepted this mission. I should have walked away, and let Arnold create the damn clone from my twenty years old backup.”

Eric wrapped an arm around her hip and pulled, turning her toward him. “Whatever happens, we’ll get through this. Live or die.”

She nodded grimly. Her gaze went to Bambi, who was peering over his shoulder.

“We’ll always fight at your side,” Bambi said. “In battle, and in life.”

Crusher’s eyes became moist, and when she blinked a tear fell. “Thank you both. I can’t tell you how much I love the two of you.” She glanced at Bambi. “You’re the sister I never had.” Her gaze fell on Eric. “And you, you’re the man I wish my husband was.”

“I liked my husband,” Bambi said.

Crusher rolled her eyes. “You would. Way to go and spoil the moment.”

Bambi shrugged. She wrapped her arms around Eric’s muscular chest. “But I must admit, I do like this man, Eric Scala, just as much. If not more.”

Eric reenabled his pleasure center and gave both girls what they wanted—needed—in that moment.

15

Eric returned to reality shortly thereafter, and returned his time sense to normal. Only a few minutes had passed in the real world. The Accomps had spotted nothing unusual through the trees, and the Raven scouts hadn’t detected anything out of the ordinary ahead other than the usual tracks that indicated where smaller herds of creatures had fled from their paths.

“Scorpion, it’s about time you checked above the canopy again, isn’t it?” Brontosaurus asked.

“Oh yeah,” Eric replied. “Hang on, people.”

“Why does Scorpion always get to do it?” Slate said.

“You like climbing trees?” Eric latched onto the closest tree and began pulling himself up.

“Yeah, why not?” Slate said.

“All right, if you can beat me to the top, you can take over lookout duties,” Eric said.

“You’re toast!” Slate said.

He grabbed onto Eric’s leg and ripped him from the tree. “Hey—”

Eric hit the ground, and by the time he got up, Slate was already scrambling up the tree.

“Cheater!” Eric said.

“Cheater,” Slate giggled. “Who over the age of ten years old talks like that? Come on now, don’t be a whiner like Traps.”

Bambi grabbed onto Eric, and launched upward with her jumpjets. She moved slowly, because of the weight.

“This isn’t going to work,” Bambi said.

As she flew past Slate, she tossed Eric upward. He latched onto the tree three meters above him.

“Hey!” Slate said. “No fair!” He redoubled his climbing pace.

Eric matched his pace, switching to Bullet Time, and amping his servomotors to maximum; he dug hand and footholds into the wood with his machine strength as he went. He couldn’t help the feeling that Slate was going to grab onto his feet and tear him from the trunk at any time.

“Don’t you dare rip him off the tree at that height,” Dickson said. “I don’t want to waste materials on unnecessary repairs.”

“Who me?” Slate said all innocently. “I’d never do that!”

Eric felt a metal finger brushing his heel as he lifted his foot at one point, and he tried to increase his pace further, knowing that Slate was just below. Finally he reached the upper branches. He wrapped his hands around a thick one, but before he could pull himself up, he felt a pull at his ankle.

Slate had reached him.

Eric glanced down, and kicked at the arm that held him. He got Slate to release him.

“Geez, calm down!” Slate said. “You’re going to knock me off!”

“That’s what you’re trying to do to me!” Eric said.

“So?” Slate finally released him.

Eric quickly pulled himself up, and continued climbing until the branches became impenetrable, at least without opening fire or breaking away some of the wooden limbs. So he jettisoned.

As he emerged from the cockpit and unfolded in Bullet Time, he saw a sphere beside him, and he realized that Slate had jettisoned his Cicada at the same time.

Eric finished unfolding and grabbed onto the central trunk.

“Ha! Sucker!” Slate said, landing on a branch just above. He vaulted onto the next one.

Eric leaped from branch to branch in his smaller form, trying to catch up, but he couldn’t reach Slate.

Slate leaped through the purple canopy and vanished.

“I win!” Slate said.

Eric pulled himself through the canopy, and balanced on the branch beside him. “I hope you’re satisfied.”

Slate didn’t say anything. He was gazing to the southeast, over the treetops.

Eric followed his gaze. “Guys, looks like the forest finally ends up ahead, giving way to a plain of some kind.”

* * *

T1 proceeded to the forest edge. Eric and the others huddled a kilometer away from the eaves while the Ravens moved forward. He enlarged the viewpoint of one of those Ravens, letting it fill his vision, and watched as the scout approached the forest edge.

The tree trunks immediately lining the edge were a strange gray in color, and seemed thicker than the previous boles. They were also far closer together, almost like a fence of some sort. As the Raven got closer, he realized those weren’t trees, but the legs of massive quadrupeds: the limbs were connected to huge, barrel-like bodies, with long necks and tails. Those necks reached all the way to the canopy: at the end of each was a square-shaped maw the animals used to bite into the upper branches. The tails had similar maws, which they used to feed on the plant material at the same time as the forward mouth.

“Is it just me, or do those things have two heads?” Bambi asked.

“It’s just you,” Slate said. “Those ain’t heads. They’re arms with mouths on the tips. Or trunks, whatever you want to call them. Look at the main body. You see those eyes? That’s where the brain has to be located. And that’s where we fire.”

“Can’t go wrong shooting at the center of mass,” Brontosaurus said.

Slate was right, on the torso were two evenly-spaced white orbs; they were likely eyes, with the whites probably sclera equivalents. There were small black dots near the centers that could be pupils.

As Eric watched, one of the quadrupeds finished eating all the leaves from one of the trees and promptly wrapped its neck and tails—or trunks—around it, and pulled at the tree, snapping the base. The tree toppled, and the creature simply walked over it to begin dining on the upper boughs of the next bole inside.

The snow had melted entirely beyond the forest edge, allowing Eric to see the trampled logs that lined the length of the eaves; further into the plains, wood chips mostly covered the land, indicating where trampled logs had been crushed and pulverized by the movements of the huge beasts. Beyond the wood chips were bare stumps; these were successively worn down the further away from the forest Eric gazed, until he saw only gray, uninterrupted plains. There was no grass or other foliage—it had probably been devoured by the creatures.

Eric dismissed the Raven’s viewpoint so that he was back inside of himself, and regarding the eaves from a kilometer away.

“Well, that’s natural clear cutting for you,” Mickey commented.

“I want one as a pet,” Slate said. “They look a little like the dinosaurs of Brontosaurus’ namesake. Well, if you imagine those trunks are heads and tails. The name Brontosaur doesn’t really work, though. How about we call them Huggers, because of the way they hug those trees when they rip them down.”

“That’s a terrible name,” Mickey said. “Sounds like a pair of diapers.”

“That’s what I was thinking!” Frogger transmitted.

“I don’t get the correlation,” Slate said.

“There was a certain diaper product…” Frogger said. “Never mind, before your time.”

“Yeah, okay,” Slate said. “Well then, I’ll be happy to hear whatever suggestion you might have, Mickey Mouse.”

“Mickey Mouse,” Mickey said. “Nicely done. You’re starting to target your insults based on my cultural time period. Rather than calling me Bitch every time.”

“Oh, I’m not done calling you Bitch,” Slate said. “But you’re right, I’ve been doing my cultural homework. I want my insults to hit home.”

“Well, aren’t you just Wile E. Coyote,” Mickey said.

“Who?” Slate pressed.

“Wile E. Coyote,” Mickey said. “To my Roadrunner.”

“Okay bro,” Slate said. “Over my head now.”

“So much for doing your research,” Mickey said.

“Hey Scorp, what’s he talking about?” Slate said.

“Never mind,” Eric told him.

“No, seriously, tell me!” Slate said.

“All right, but you won’t like it,” Eric said. “Wile E. Coyote was always hunting a character named the Roadrunner, and always dying in the process. The Roadrunner always outsmarted him.”

Slate spun toward Mickey. “Time for you to have a taste of my metal fist. The Roadrunner is soon to become Roadkill.”

He stomped toward Mickey.

“Stand down, Slate,” Dickson said.

Slate halted. He continued to stare down Mickey’s Devastator, though.

“Only you would want to fight over a cartoon character,” Mickey said.

Slate started to growl some caustic reply, but then quickly turned around, and said instead: “You’re lucky we’re on mission, Bitch!”

“Back to bitch again,” Mickey said.

“So, Sarge, what do you want to do?” Dickson asked.

“We’re going to stay inside the forest and follow along the eaves,” Marlborough answered. “It’s the safest course of action. We’re here to perform recon, and there’s no way I’m going to walk out in the open if I can avoid it.”

“This is odd,” Mickey said.

“What?” Marlborough asked.

“I’m detecting a microwave signal, sourced from somewhere due east,” Mickey replied.

“Damn,” Marlborough said.

“So much for not walking out into the open, huh?” Tread said.

“We can send the Ravens east to scout?” Eagleeye suggested.

“Do it,” Marlborough said.

“Uh, given the way the signal is attenuating, I doubt the source is anywhere close,” Mickey said. “I’d say it’s somewhere between fifty to a hundred kilometers away.”

“Send the Ravens anyway,” Marlborough said.

The scouts moved forward, out of the forest, and past the big creatures. When they reached the limits of their comm range, Eagleeye had one halt to act as a repeater, while the second moved forward. When that one, too, reached its limit, Eagleeye reported that it was clear out there, and he recalled the units.

When the scouts returned, Marlborough spoke immediately: “There’s nothing for it. We’re leaving the forest, and heading east to investigate that signal.”

“We leave the forest here, or further north?” Dickson asked.

“Further north,” Marlborough said. “Look for a gap in those creatures. I want to give them a wide berth.”

Dickson led T1 to the northwest, away from the Huggers that were eating along the edges of the forest ahead, and then turning east again to emerge between a small gap in the Hugger numbers, with creatures feeding a short way to the north and south on either side.

The Ravens led the way, and were the first to emerge; the team moved carefully after the scouts, doing their best not to draw the attention of the big feeders. T1 maintained their zig-zag formation. T2 and T3 followed, leaving fifty meters between each team.

One of the bigger Huggers directed its torso, and hence its eyes, toward the mechs, but then promptly returned its attention to devouring the leaves at hand.

“They’ve never met our kind before,” Tread said. “And haven’t learned to be afraid of us.”

“It’s probably us who should be afraid of them,” Bambi said. “Those maws could probably squeeze through our chest assemblies like a wine press.”

“Nice metaphor,” Slate commented.

“Thank you,” Bambi said. “I thought you’d approve.”

“Except it’s wrong,” Slate said. “These bitches couldn’t do shit to our armor. Chewing through branches takes a lot less force than chewing through metal polycarbonate composites.”

The forest looped back on itself to the north, encroaching on the plains so that the team was passing closer to the Huggers.

Slate got too close to one of the creatures then, and the big animal reared up on its hind legs.

“Whoa!” Slate raised his arms defensively and backed away. “Calm down, big guy, I’m not going to hurt you. That’s right. Calm down.”

The animal lowered itself to the ground again, and the land shook all around the team. Eric felt the vibrations rattle his chest assembly like thunder.

Slate quickly sidestepped away from the creature.

“Looks like you lost your former confidence around the creature,” Eagleeye transmitted.

“I ain’t scared of them,” Slate said, slowing down his pace once more, and trying to affect nonchalance.

The animal ripped down a tree and threw it at Slate.

“Shit!” He promptly dashed out of the way, and then rapidly increased his gait to rejoin the others.

“I think he likes you,” Brontosaurus said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Slate said. “Pick on the guy with the biggest dick in the group. I see how it is.”

“Biggest dick, smallest balls,” Bambi commented.

“You know, Bambi, I thought we were friends,” Slate said. “I’m going to have to revise my opinion of you.”

“Please do,” Bambi said.

“Don’t worry, Slate, we all love you,” Hicks transmitted. “We’d have to, to hang out with you for the past twenty years!”

“Yes, we love to make fun of you,” Eagleeye sent.

“All right, that’s it, I’m muting all your asses, save Sarge,” Slate said. “Bye!”

16

Eric and the others continued in their three-team traveling overwatch, passing over that area of wood chips, and soon left behind the creatures. The stumps around them faded away as the forest receded into the distance behind them, leaving only the monotonous plains.

“And I thought the alien forest was bad,” Tread said about half an hour in. “This is just ridiculous. There’s nothing to see all the way to the horizon. At least with the forest, we had some branches to look at. And we even got to swerve now and then to avoid a particularly thick patch of foliage, or to maneuver around a tree in our paths. But not now. We’re just marching constantly.”

“I find myself examining the indigenous rocks,” Mickey said. “Rocks suddenly become very fascinating, when there’s nothing else to look at.”

“Well, on the bright side,” Tread said, “at least we’ll be able to recharge fast if any fighting comes, seeing as we’re out from under that thick canopy.”

A few moments of silence passed.

“Maybe now would be a good time for VR, Sarge?” Frogger asked hopefully.

“Negative,” Marlborough replied. “We had our break already. When it’s dark, maybe I’ll authorize another VR deep dive session.”

“We could always sneak into VR without telling him,” Traps said.

“That’s right, go and tip your hand to him,” Tread said.

“With the new admin interface, I can tell whenever any one of you logs out of this reality,” Marlborough said. “So go ahead and try, if you want to be demoted.”

“I’ll have to pass on that,” Traps said.

“That’s what I thought,” Marlborough told him.

“There’s nothing out here, blokes,” Dunnigan said. “I think it’s obvious by now.”

“Then who gave those Dragonworms helmets?” Dickson said. “Who created bioweapons with organic lasers in their mouths?”

“Maybe it’s a Banthar bioweapon breeding ground, I don’t know,” Dunnigan said. “If there were Banthar here, I think we would have run into them by now.”

“You might be getting your wish soon enough,” Crusher said. “Considering that we’re out in the open.”

“Wonderful,” Dunnigan said. “Here’s wishing I was back on Earth, in a pub in Little England, drinking a fine English pint.”

“A fine English pint,” Slate said. “You say it so snobbish like. What is it with you and your English pints.”

“Hey, I thought you muted us all?” Eagleeye asked.

“Gotcha, bitch!” Slate replied.

“I’ll have you know there’s nothing better than English beer,” Dunnigan said.

“Yeah, bro, maybe you should try German beer sometime,” Slate said.

“Ugh,” Dunnigan said. “The Germans don’t know how to brew beer.”

“Uh, yeah they do,” Slate said. “Ever been to Oktoberfest?”

“They still run it after all these years?” Eric asked.

“Of course,” Slate said. “It’s been ongoing for the past two centuries. After the invasion, they just moved it to New York.”

“I’m going to have to see if I can prepare some Heineken and some Guinness for you guys to sample in VR,” Frogger said.

“I’ll take the Guinness,” Dunnigan said. “Don’t bother with the Heineken, though.”

“Uh, bother with the Heineken,” Slate said. “I can drink that shit like it’s water. Even if it is Dutch.”

“Done,” Frogger said. “I’ll keep you guys updated.”

“You do know that Guinness is Irish, not English, right?” Crusher said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dunnigan said. “It’s better than Dutch or German beer. Obviously, I’d prefer a Newcastle Brown, but I’ll settle for what I can get.”

“I never tried Newcastle Brown,” Frogger said. “So I can’t help you with that one, sorry.”

“French wine is so much better than your crude beers,” Bambi said. “We had some of the best wines, before the invasion. Ah, a wine from the Bordeaux region was just heavenly. But we lost all that, thanks to these Banthar. France is gone. I can understand why Eagleeye and others want vengeance. I want it, too. I want these Banthar to pay for what they did to our planet.”

“They’ll pay, don’t you worry,” Dickson said. “Eventually.”

“Eventually,” Bambi said.

“You know, before Turg left us, she warned that the Banthar would return,” Eric said. “She told us we had centuries if we were lucky, or decades if we were not. It’s been twenty years. The Banthar could be on the cusp of another invasion. Turg told us to concentrate on building starships capable of interstellar travel. Something I reported to the military when I returned.”

“But it fell on deaf ears,” Mickey said.

“Essentially,” Eric said.

“Turg never did say why interstellar travel would help us,” Slate said.

“I think it’s obvious,” Bambi said. “So we could start populating other worlds to serve as backups in case Earth fell. That way humanity, and the Mind Refurbs, could strike back, and retake our planet.”

“Oh of course, you have all the answers, don’t you?” Slate said.

“Only to the questions you pose,” Bambi said sweetly.

“Bitch,” Slate muttered.

“I think they should get a room,” Hicks said.

“Okay!” Slate agreed eagerly. “Bambi, I’m game!”

“Uh, no, she’s not,” Eric said.

“So, are we headed in the right direction?” Brontosaurus asked. “Where’s that signal?”

“Still due east,” Mickey said.

The group fell quiet after that. They’d hung out together for twenty years, after all, and exhausted most avenues of conversation. In fact, most conversations these days were retreads of those that had taken place at some point in the past: there were only so many things they could talk about, after all. Eric’s Turg comment, for example, was something he brought up at least once a year. And yes, he could remember all his previous utterances regarding interstellar travel, thanks to his neural network.

The three teams marched on throughout those plains without encountering any other life, or signs of Banthar occupation. And it was a long day.

Finally, after thirty-five and a half hours had passed since their arrival, the sun started to set. They marched on through two hours of twilight, and then Marlborough had the team switch to passive mode—this meant thermal and night vision, no LIDAR or echolocation.

The landscape looked like a blue mass in front of him, while the Devastators were bright red humanoid-shaped blobs. Bambi was a big spider, and Tread a horse. Traps, in T2 well behind him, looked like an ostrich with those two legs and no arms.

Slate’s voice came over the comm. “You know when you’re shingling a rooftop, and you’re hammering nails into the shingles, and you—”

“Who still shingles their roofs?” Dunnigan interrupted. “Don’t you yanks use solar panels?”

Slate ignored him. “You’re hammering nails, right? And you miss, and hit your thumb with a hammer? We look like those thumbs at the moment.”

“Why couldn’t you just say, ‘we stand out like sore thumbs on the thermal band?’” Frogger asked.

“Because I hate clichés,” Slate said. “Especially ancient ones that date from your era.”

“The temperature is dropping rapidly,” Bambi said. “We’re going to stand out even more, soon.”

The ground became black shortly as it emanated all of its heat. A gentle, alkane snow began to fall, illuminated by the dim ambient light of a small moon that crested the horizon.

“Well this is nice,” Slate said. “Looks like we’re going to have a Yellow Christmas, y’all.”

“A Yellow Christmas?” Brontosaurus said. “Never heard of it.”

“It’s when you get your White Christmas pissed all over by the in-laws,” Slate said.

“Talking from experience?” Crusher said.

“Nope,” Slate said. “Never married. But I have a few buddies. You know, friends that you get when you actually have a social life?”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t know about that,” Crusher said.

“Well, I rap about it in one of my old songs,” Slate said. “I’ll see if I can find the album for you.”

“No thanks,” Crusher said. “I don’t like rap.”

“How can you not like rap?” Slate said. “It’s the defining musical form. It paved the way for all the styles that came after it. Much mimicked, never maligned.”

“Well I’m going to malign it,” Crusher said. “Because I like myopo music.”

“Myopo is based on rap!” Slate said.

“The Ravens got something,” Eagleeye announced.

“All teams, halt,” Marlborough said. “What do you got?”

“Well, honestly, I can’t tell yet,” Eagleeye said. “Something is littering the far horizon. I see cylinders, pipes, wing-like shapes. If I had to guess, I’d say it was the wreckage of a ship of some sort.”

Eric switched to the point of view of one of the Ravens. It was difficult to make out anything in the dark, but he could see tiny shapes on the horizon, vaguely outlined by the moonlight. His first impression was of prehistoric bones, as if some huge dinosaur had died here. But then he spotted a few shapes that were too regular to be organic, such as the cylinders and pipes Eagleeye had mentioned, and one piece that indeed looked like a wingtip.

“Judging from the signal strength, I’d say the microwave is sourced from there,” Mickey said.

“Send one of the Ravens forward,” Marlborough ordered.

Eric watched from the POV of the scout. Initially it sped forward but as it neared the ruins, the craft slowed.

“Permission to activate LIDAR?” Eagleeye asked.

“Yes, but I want the lowest possible intensity,” Marlborough said. “Last thing we need is to light up our position for kilometers around.”

“Understood,” Eagleeye said. The scout moved downward, toward the debris, and then activated a small, localized LIDAR spotlight, which it directed at the wreckage. It began to weave back and forth, slowly mapping out the crash site. On his overhead map, the white outlines of the different pieces took shape. The carnage strewn across the plains definitely resembled a crashed ship of some kind, judging from its overall form. He could see the vague outline of four wings, plus a central fuselage section.

“Has to be a Banthar craft,” Bambi said.

“That would be a good assumption,” Marlborough said. “Eagleeye, send in the second scout. Work with Mickey… see if you can pinpoint the microwave source.”

The second scout moved forward, while the first continued to map the debris.

Eric switched to the second Raven’s viewpoint, and watched as that unit moved to the rear of the crumpled fuselage.

“Seems to be coming from in here,” Eagleeye said. “Permission to enter the fuselage?”

“Granted,” Marlborough said.

The scout moved lower, over a section where the fuselage had collapsed entirely. Then it turned south, and entered an intact portion of the main cabin. Inside, between broken conduits, was a small hexagonal object. Blue strips of light pulsed in sync on the left and right sides.

“There’s our source,” Eagleeye said.

“What the hell is it?” Hicks asked.

“No idea,” Eagleeye said. “Could be anything. Maybe even a black box of some kind.”

“If not a black box, a distress signal of some kind,” Brontosaurus said.

“If that’s true, why haven’t the Banthar retrieved it?” Mickey asked.

“Maybe they’re on their way,” Traps answered.

“Is there a way to tell how recent the wreckage is?” Marlborough said.

“Look at the LIDAR map of the crash site,” Frogger said. “If the wreckage had been here for any length of time, most of the bottom portions would have been buried by soil, I think. But they’re not. There’s also no sign of weathering, either, against any of the exposed pieces. So, my guess is yes, it’s recent. Within the last month, at least. Maybe within the last few days.”

“That would explain why the Banthar have yet to retrieve the black box, if that’s what it is…” Dickson said.

“All right, I’ve seen enough,” Marlborough said. “Recall the Ravens.”

“Do you want me to retrieve the microwave source?” Eagleeye asked.

“No,” Marlborough said. “If it is a black box, it’ll lead the Banthar right to us.”

Eagleeye flew the Ravens back to T1.

“So what now, Sarge?” Brontosaurus asked.

“We turn back,” Marlborough said. “Return to the forest, and make our way to the rift site. We’ve completed our first recon.”

“But we didn’t find anything,” Eagleeye said.

“What we found is good enough,” Marlborough said. “It indicates the Banthar were here at one point in the past, at least. And I don’t want to wait around for them to return. T1, leapfrog T2 and T3, and take the lead, heading west. T2, leapfrog T3 after T1 is in place.”

Eric was about to turn around when Slate spoke up.

“Uh, guys, what are those two black dots the Raven scouts are picking up on the eastern horizon?” Slate said.

“Belay the previous order,” Marlborough said.

Eric switched to the POV of one of the scouts, and zoomed in on the horizon above the crash site. He saw two black dots. They seemed stationary in the sky.

“Eagleeye, what are those?” Marlborough continued.

“No idea,” Eagleeye said. “I can’t tell if they’re organic, or machine. Nor even if they’re approaching. Not without giving away our position with a laser sight pulse.”

“Drop, teams!” Marlborough said. “Lower your profiles! And switch to stealth mode!”

Eric threw himself to the ground and rolled onto his back. He deployed his ballistic shield and held it over his body, and then reduced his battery output, cutting off all power to his servomotors, leaving only critical systems active in his AI core, and one external camera. With the shield on top like that, his reduced thermal venting would be mostly hidden.

He angled his antennae away from the two bogeys, toward the teams behind him. He’d still be able to communicate with the few mechs in front, because of the fifty-meter default range regardless of antennae position.

“Dee, get those Ravagers on the ground, and in stealth mode,” Eric ordered.

“Already done,” his Accomp replied.

“I feel like a knight buried in an ancient tomb,” Slate said. “You know the kind: sarcophagi with statues of medieval knights holding shields over their bodies carved on top.”

“If you don’t shut up, that mech will certainly be your sarcophagus,” Bambi said.

Eric returned his attention to the Raven’s video feed. The scout had dropped to the ground like the mechs, and had probably cut most systems, save for its camera, and comm node. The camera was angled upwards, so that it was still trained on the two dots.

“Maybe it was a bad idea to use LIDAR after all,” Brontosaurus commented.

“If they were tracking the microwave source, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” Crusher said.

“Can we tell which way those dots are moving yet?” Frogger asked.

“They’re heading toward us, I think,” Eagleeye said.

Sure enough, the objects became bigger, and soon Eric saw the reds and blues of thermal venting. To his eyes, they looked a little like humans in wingsuits: a central cylinder, with two pairs of prongs jutting out at ninety-degree angles from the fore and aft, with a concave membrane cutting the two on each side. As they got closer, he realized they were bigger than mere humans in wingsuits. Far bigger.

“They’re transports of some kind, I think,” Eagleeye transmitted. “This is what we were looking for. Evidence of Banthar activity.”

“Finally, some proper recon,” Slate said.

“I think they’re headed straight for us!” Bambi said.

“All right, cease all transmissions,” Marlborough ordered. “If we’re attacked, reenable communications, exit stealth mode, and return fire.”

Eric shut down his transmitter, and the video feed from the Raven winked out. As did all the status indicators of his fellow team members. They still showed up on his external map, but only because it had stored their last known positions.

He angled his head and cameras upward as far as he was able so that he could peer past the top edge of the shield above him.

And then he waited.

He couldn’t see the two approaching transports, not yet. Several seconds passed. A minute. He began to wonder if the transports had changed their mind and veered off in another direction, but then he saw the outline of one of them. It looked massive as it hovered into view, its thermals still outlining a vaguely wingsuit-like shape.

It halted again, and then a panel seemed to slide open—his thermal vision showed it as a blue rectangle receding, leaving in place a brighter red one.

From that bright red opening, small, dark blue shapes began to emerge. Hundreds of them. Thousands.

They curved down toward the Bolt Eater’s positions.

Micro machines.

An entire swarm of them.

17

Eric wondered if he should play dead. In theory, the EM countermeasures developed by the army should repel all of those termites, keeping the micro machines from touching any part of his hull, or his shield. But if the tech failed...

He decided to take the risk. He rotated his head slightly, until Slate’s form was visible ahead of him, still lying on his back underneath his shield, and confirmed that his fellow Bolt Eater also remained motionless.

Still, all it would take was one of them to panic...

He hoped they’d all keep their wits.

He waited for those micro machines to approach. They reached Slate, and then Eric. His vision became completely black. Or rather, the dark blue of the termites. The micro machines swept right over him without touching.

In moments he could see again. Slate remained intact ahead of him. Eric craned his neck further, until the two Ravagers were in sight: they, too, proved untouched.

He heard a loud thud, and the ground shook beneath his mech. Another thunk, another earth-shaking reverberation. He glanced upward, toward the transport, and watched as a hulking shape leaped from the opening. He observed its descent, and saw it land between two similar forms. A third thud issued from the impact site, along with that now familiar rumbling. The newcomers were about the same size as the Devastator mechs.

Eric considered this an attack, so he reenabled comms and set the range to the lowest possible, given the distance to his closest teammates. Sure enough, he wasn’t the only one who had done so.

“Three-Legged Sloths!” Slate exclaimed.

“That’s three-toed,” Brontosaurus corrected.

Slate’s name for them, if not technically precise, was somewhat apt: the hulking masses possessed three equally-spaced legs that formed a tripod of sorts underneath. From the torsos emerged three more arms, distributed at equal points around the torso. He couldn’t tell if they were organic or machine in the moonlight, though the exterior did glisten. The blocky edges he had come to associate with machines weren’t present—the joints were smooth, the limbs seamless.

Light glistened off the heads, which seemed to be turning toward Eric.

“I’m detecting an intense gamma ray burst,” Dee announced. “I suggest placing your ballistic shield between the tangos and your body.”

Staying down, Eric slid his shield across the ground, toward his upper body. He set it firmly between himself and the newcomers.

“Gamma rays are impacting the shield,” Dee said. “It’s holding.”

“Good, damage report?” Eric asked.

“All systems remain operational,” Dee replied. “Though we nearly lost one of the internal power couplers. That would be bad: you would have shut down.”

“Good news.” Eric switched on his comm node.

“Open fire, Bolt Eaters!” Marlborough was just saying.

“The gamma ray burst has ceased,” Dee said.

Still lying down, Eric peered past the edge of his protection, and saw that Slate had also slid his shield toward the enemies, as had the Ravagers.

Plasma bolts, sourced from the Bolt Eaters behind Eric, ripped through the air toward the three-legged hulks. Explosive shells from the tanks impacted. Invisible lasers from the Savages struck.

But for all of that, none of the weapons actually reached their targets. Under the moonlight, Eric watched as half-spheres of energy flashed into existence, absorbing the blows.

“Damn it, they’re shielded!” Eric said.

“Keep firing,” Marlborough said. “Wear those shields down.”

“Black hole weapon?” Tread suggested.

“Negative,” Marlborough said. “They’re too close. You’ll lose Slate and Scorpion.”

“Assuming it even affects the enemy units,” Bambi said.

“What about if we target the transports?” Tread said.

“Still a bit close for comfort!” Marlborough said. “Wait!”

Slate retracted his laser turret, and replaced it with the alien blades. Then he aimed over his shield and jettisoned one of them toward the alien targets. The spear penetrated the shield, which was presumably weakened from the previous attacks, and passed into the torso of the target. The hulk shook violently upon impact as bolts of electricity passed up and down its body, and then it froze.

“Bye-bye, Slothy Bitch!” Slate said.

“These have to be machines,” Eric said. “An organic would have dropped to the ground after an impact like that. This one just froze.”

Eric had the Ravagers launch their own spears from their forearms, and penetrated the weakened shields of the remaining two Sloths, and similarly took them down.

Through it all the snow had continued to fall, perhaps a little more intensely now.

“Cover me, I’m retrieving the spears.” Slate ejected in his Cicada and grabbed onto one of the rungs of his mech at the same time; he swung down, retrieved the collection gloves from his storage compartment, and then raced out onto the snow.

“Wait!” Eric said. “Damn it.”

Eric sent the Ravagers forward to cover him with their ballistic shields; he and the other Bolt Eaters of T1 also fired at the transport immediately overhead, attempting to offer some sort of covering fire. But the transport didn’t return fire—apparently it wasn’t armed. T2 and T3 split their fire between the overhead transport and the farther one that yet hovered above the crash site. Energy fields flashed into existence around both of the craft.

“Makes you wonder how one of their ships could crash if they have shields like that!” Hicks commented.

“Obviously even alien technology isn’t foolproof,” Frogger said.

“Tell me why the Brass refused to grant us air support again?” Eagleeye complained.

Slate collected the jettisoned spears with the gloves and slammed them in turn into the forearm slots of the Ravagers; then he grabbed his own spear, raced to his mech and slotted it back into the arm. He returned the collection gloves to the storage compartment and scrambled back into his cockpit; his body folded up into a tight sphere before the hatch closed.

“See, told you it would be no problem,” Slate said, swiveling the shield of his mech toward the transport and firing away.

Eric recalled the Ravagers and had them assume a defensive position next to Slate. Eric moved forward himself, and placed his ballistic shield next to theirs so that the four of them were sheltered by a long bulwark made of their own shields. They had them positioned upward, toward the transport.

And then three more Sloths dropped from the transport overhead.

“Kind of them to wait for me to return to my mech,” Slate said.

These Sloths carried big cannons on their shoulders. They pointed them at the units.

“Uh, this can’t be good,” Slate said.

“Shields in place!” Eric said. He slammed his shield downward, as did the Ravagers, and Slate, protecting their bodies with the bulwark it formed.

The cannons opened fire.

Holes ripped through all of their shields. Eric was forced to duck as an energy beam nearly hit his head.

“Crap!” Slate said. “Almost got me!”

“Me, too,” Eric said.

The three teams opened fire. Eric slid his cannon into the gap that had just been shot in his shield, and joined in.

As usual, a protective force field kicked in, protecting the tangos from the offensive.

“Why aren’t they firing at us again?” Slate asked.

“Recharge interval,” Eric guessed.

The transport overhead moved forward slightly.

“Uh,” Slate said, looking up.

The opening moved directly above, and then behind Eric, Slate, and the two Ravagers.

Eric steered his energy cannon upward, and attempted to fire into that opening, but once again the transport’s energy shield flickered into place, and blocked his shot.

Three Sloths landed behind him. They all had energy cannons as well.

Eric leaped toward them in Bullet Time, swapping out the laser turret so that he could deploy the pair of alien blades from his forearm. He swung them in midair, aiming for the energy field of the closest Sloth. When he hit, the twin spears penetrated, deactivating the shielding. But the Wolverinish blades weren’t long enough to inflict more than a glancing blow against the Sloth underneath.

“When you strike with both blades at once, you don’t have to weaken the shield first!” Eric said. “Dee, have one of the Ravagers join me!”

The Sloth’s energy cannon turned toward him…

Still in Bullet Time, Eric ducked. The bolt tore past his shoulder, nearly hitting his own energy weapon.

He stepped forward, and slammed his blades upward, stabbing it into the robot’s torso, and lifting the machine off the ground slightly. Bolts of electricity sparked across its hull.

One of the Ravagers took a running leap at the next Sloth; the Ravager held its alien blades out front, penetrating the shield, and then stabbing the Sloth beyond.

Bambi dashed forward from where she was lying on the ground and slammed her three-pronged tail into the third Sloth from behind, easily disabling the shield and striking the robot within at the same time. The Sloth shook as bolts of electricity traveled up and down its exterior. When she released it, the Sloth no longer moved.

Energy bolts came in from behind. Eric was hit: his damage report screen showed that his left arm was no longer active—his shield arm.

He dropped, and ordered the Ravager to do the same: apparently the other Sloths had recharged.

Another bolt ripped toward Bambi, but she had already swiveled the body of the robot Sloth between herself and the source. The energy slammed into the Sloth, creating a blast crater. She tossed the body aside and flattened herself to the ground, deploying a ballistic shield in her right claw.

“Not sure how comfortable I am having Bambi fight so near!” Slate said as he dodged toward the three Sloths still in front of the group. “What with that nuke she’s carrying!”

“It can’t be detonated prematurely, jackass,” Bambi said.

Slate reached the Sloths and leaped at the rightmost, stabbing with his spears. The alien blades penetrated the shielding, and struck the robot inside.

Eric sent the remaining Ravager forward to join Slate. That one had taken another impact in its shield, which had taken out a big chunk on the right-hand side.

Slate and the Ravager finished off the last two Sloths with their spear weapons.

A moment later seven more Sloths dropped down ahead, these ones located well away.

“Duck!” Eric said.

18

Eric and the other members of T1 dropped as those energy cannons unleashed. Eric took a hit in his shield, losing another portion of it.

“I thought these ballistic shields were supposed to be made of alien metal!” Slate said. “So far, they seem useless!”

“Just as useless as human materials would be, I’m sure!” Eric commented. “Sarge, we could use some help here!”

“T1, retreat to T2!” Marlborough said.

Plasma and energy bolts unleashed from T2 and T3 as the remaining Bolt Eaters, tanks and combat robots laid down suppressive fire. Though all of the shots were absorbed by the energy fields of the enemy, Eric still hoped the multiple flashes that resulted would blind the Sloths.

Eric retreated, swiveling his upper body so that his shield was behind him. He commanded the Ravagers to join him. Slate was also at his side, his shield similarly positioned at his back.

Eric reached the lines of T2, and dove to the ground, taking a spot near Crusher. Bambi joined him.

He glanced toward the enemy lines, and saw that several more Sloths had dropped from the transport.

“They’re far enough away for a black hole!” Tread said.

“Go for it!” Marlborough said.

Tread fired his black hole weapon, and a rip in reality opened between the Sloths, and the transport above them.

The wind picked up, and the surrounding snowfall was sucked swirling into the spacetime tear Tread had created.

The pull felt immense, even at this range, so that Eric knew Tread had chosen to create a black hole this time, rather than a wormhole. Eric punched his fists into the ground and grabbed on to resist the pull.

The enemy robots similarly dug in with their three feet so that they too weren’t drawn into the spacetime pinch.

“The transport isn’t moving toward the black hole at all,” Hick said.

“Yeah, I noticed,” Frogger said. “Has to operate on some inertialess frame. That’s too bad.”

“Even an inertialess frame won’t help if the black hole strikes the hull itself!” Tread said. He fired another bright bolt from his cannon, and it rose toward the transport. The energy shield engaged, and the bolt remained motionless, unable to advance further.

After a few seconds, the rip in spacetime simply formed where it was, and Eric felt the pull on his armor increase. The raging gale around him picked up as both black holes competed against one another, vying for how much swirling snow they could swallow.

“It was a nice dream,” Frogger commented.

Ignoring the pull from either gravity well, the transport moved forward. Eric and the others aimed their shoulder cannons at it, and continued firing, but the shield absorbed everything. None of the team members could really fire with anything else, because they had to keep their hands firmly secured to the ground, or else risk being sucked into the dual black holes.

Beneath the two holes in spacetime, the ground began to break away in clumps as it was drawn inside. A Sloth had the misfortune to be standing on one such clump, and was drawn into the black hole.

The transport was directly overhead, and continued on toward the tanks and robots in T3.

“The hell is it doing?” Dunnigan asked.

“It’s going to try to outflank us, I think!” Frogger said. “By dropping those Sloths between our teams…”

“Shut down those black holes!” Marlborough ordered. “We can’t maneuver with them in place!”

Tread fired two quick dispersion bolts, and dispelled the two black holes. The wind dropped, but it was still surprisingly forceful—the snowstorm was picking up steam. Around Eric the snow swirled wildly.

“Concentrate spear attacks on that transport!” Marlborough said. “Target the craft, and prepare to fire! T3, continue to target the Sloths on the ground, cover us!”

Eric raised his hand, pointing his twin blades at the floating vessel.

“Bolt Eaters, fire one spear each!” Marlborough ordered.

Eric jettisoned the alien spear, and it traveled upward, toward the transport, along with several other spears released by the remainder of the team. The weapons struck at almost the same time; most of them bounced away, but one got through, and stabbed into the hull. Bolts of electricity traveled outward from the impact site, but otherwise seemed to have no effect.

Sloths began to leap down from the opening, landing in the terrain that separated the Bolt Eaters from the support units of T3. The tanks and combat robots diverted some of their covering fire to concentrate on these units instead.

“Second spears, fire!” Marlborough said.

Eric released his final spear, as did the other Bolt Eaters. This time there was no shield to interfere with their flight, so all the spears struck home and embedded in the vessel. Electricity sparked all along the fuselage and wing segments, and the craft careened hard to the right, before slamming into the ground upside down. Unlike the wreckage of the previous craft they’d encountered, this one remained relatively intact after the impact.

“Scorpion, Slate, Hicks, Brontosaurus, collect the spears!” Marlborough ordered. “The rest of you, covering fire!”

Eric and Slate raced toward the upside down transport, where the second volley of spears porcupined the underside of the fuselage; they kept their shields angled toward the closest group of Sloths. Brontosaurus and Hicks meanwhile steered toward where the first volley of spears had bounced away from the transport’s force field.

When Eric reached the edge of the downed transport, he switched control of his mech to Dee, and ejected. In Bullet Time, he unfolded his Cicada from its sphere form as he emerged and grabbed onto the rung next to the cockpit; he used his momentum to swing himself down to the Devastator’s storage bay, and retrieved the collection gloves. Then he leaped off the leg, and onto the alien craft.

He dashed forward, zig-zagging to mess up the aim of any Sloths that might be targeting him. Dee would also be covering him. As would Slate’s Devastator.

As he passed by the different spears, he scooped them up with his good arm. His hand was only so big, however, and he could only hold five at a time, so he returned to the edge of the transport where Dee stood guard next to Slate’s mech, and dropped the spears into the ground point first. Slate did the same with those spears he collected.

Sometimes, as Eric raced across the hull, the alien spears were so firmly lodged that he couldn’t pull them free with one hand. He marked off three of those, so that when he was done collecting the others, he returned to wrench them free with both hands one at a time. Slate helped him.

Finally, the two of them had all the spears lodged in the ground next to their mechs. He grabbed two of them, and loaded them in turn into the slots in his Devastator, as did Slate.

“Got eleven spears here, for those who need them,” Eric said.

“Hicks and I got another eleven here,” Brontosaurus said.

The Bolt Eaters split up, half going to Brontosaurus, the other half to Eric.

Eric and Slate kept their collection gloves on and loaded the spears into the different mechs as they arrived, including the Ravagers.

When it was done, the two returned to their respective cockpits, folding themselves into compact spheres to squeeze inside.

The intensity of the wind and snow had picked up another notch by then, so much so that Slate said: “Damn! Tread, bitch, did you fire another black hole?”

“Wasn’t me,” Tread said. “I think it’s just a natural snowstorm. As natural as you can get on an alien planet, anyway!”

Eric noticed that T3, and most of the Bolt Eaters, were only firing intermittently by then. That was because it was becoming difficult to target the opposing Sloths in this weather. Though T3 wasn’t apparent on the visual band, and some of the Bolt Eaters were also hidden, he could still see them all thanks to the blue outlines overlaying their positions on his HUD.

“LIDAR might penetrate this,” Mickey commented.

“Might being the key word,” Traps said. “Honestly, I doubt it.”

“Don’t give away your positions by attempting LIDAR!” Marlborough said. “Employ passive sensor mechanisms only!”

On the thermal band, Eric searched for the second transport through the blizzard, and spotted it slowly approaching the first group of Sloths. A momentary gust of wind blew away a large swath of snow behind the craft, momentarily increasing visibility. He saw the thermal signatures of five more transports out there, approaching behind it. But then the snow filled the gap once more, concealing them from view.

“Uh, guys!” Eric said. “Got five more transport incoming!”

“You sure?” Dickson said.

Eric amped his time sense to max, so that everything froze around him. Then he sent the last few seconds of video recorded by his cameras to Dickson.

“Scorpion is right,” Dickson said.

“We can’t stay here,” Marlborough said. “It’s time to retreat, Bolt Eaters! To the northwest! T3, join us, maximum speed!”

Eric returned his time sense to a more manageable rate, and then retreated into the dense snow. The blizzard was so thick by then that he could see maybe a few meters in front of him, but that was it. Essentially white-out conditions. Well, black out was probably a better word, given the current light levels.

Eric was able to see the outlines of his fellow Bolt Eaters perfectly, thanks to their comm signals. The snow might have been interfering with those signals, but the team members were close enough to one another for each of them to act as repeaters.

The outlines of the tanks and combat robots in T3 however, still some distance away, often blinked in and out of existence.

Eagleeye had retrieved his Ravens and stored them away—they couldn’t fly under these conditions.

Eric glanced at his power levels. He’d completely forgotten about battery power, and was worried he’d be close to zero, given the lack of sunlight, but was relieved to discover he was at twenty five percent.

It kind of made sense that he would forget about that, even if he was essentially a machine.

I haven’t had to worry about battery levels in twenty years.

Random fire from the enemy occasionally assailed the team when the snowstorm momentarily eased enough for the Sloths to target them. When the blizzard concealed them fully once more, Marlborough ordered a slight change in direction—to keep the enemy guessing.

Eventually, the enemy fire ceased entirely, and Marlborough gave the word to slow down so that T3 could catch up. The tanks arrived shortly; Eric couldn’t see them in the thick blizzard, but he saw their outlines well enough. The combat robots had leaped onto the tanks so that they could hitch a ride above the ever rising snow on the ground.

“I want the tanks in front!” Marlborough said. “They can pack down the snow, make it easier for us to advance.”

“You got it,” Tread said.

He sent the eight M-54s forward, and the Bolt Eaters followed in their wake, stepping onto the path the tanks carved.

The blizzard continued to rage around them.

After half an hour, Marlborough gave the order to head due west.

“I want to reach the forest before this snowstorm lets up,” Marlborough said. “It’s our only chance of escaping.”

“We’re going home?” Crusher asked hopefully.

“I think we’ve gathered enough intel on the Banthar for now, yes,” Marlborough said. “The rift is our destination.”

On the overhead map, the lack of sensor data painted everything ahead of them black. They had carved a horseshoe shape through that darkness when they had diverged east toward the microwave signal, and then fled northwest, and finally due west, back toward the forest. Though they couldn’t see a thing, and thus had no external references, their internal gyroscopes and accelerometers were able to update their positions with only small margins of error.

The team could move only as fast as their slowest units: in this case, the tanks. At their current speed, it would take fifteen hours to reach the forest, assuming the trees continued north the same distance the Bolt Eaters had been displaced.

He glanced at the sky, but couldn’t discern anything through the darkness of the snowstorm. Still, he knew there were alien craft somewhere out there, hunting for them.

Fifteen hours.

Hopefully it would be enough time to escape their enemies.

19

Eric trudged on through the nighttime blizzard.

The snowstorm continued for the next four hours.

Finally, at the fourth hour, the snow began to let up. Visibility increased to a kilometer in either direction. The landscape had transformed around them. Gone was the grayish, rocky texture, replaced with smooth, yellow drifts.

Marlborough wouldn’t let them slow.

Eric kept an eye on the sky, searching for signs of the transports, but thankfully he never spotted any of them. He also watched his power levels slowly decrease.

The storm continued at that reduced intensity all the way to the forest. When they finally reached the eaves, they discovered the snow had formed big drifts that had collected near the trees on the outskirts, so the team had to dig their way through. There were no Huggers anywhere in sight: Eric guessed they sheltered somewhere inside the forest.

Within, the snow that covered the forest floor was far less thick than on the plains, one meter deep in most places, up to a maximum of two, thanks to the protective canopy overhead that had caught most of it.

“We’ll proceed a short way, then hunker down for the night,” Marlborough said. “We’ll conserve energy until morning. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m almost down to zero.”

Eric was a little under five percent the last time he checked. He looked again: four point seven nine.

Thermal vision and night vision didn’t allow them to see very far underneath the canopy, so Marlborough authorized limited LIDAR use to navigate the tree trunks.

Eagleeye left one of his Ravens to stand guard next to the entrance they’d carved through the snow drift.

When they had moved a kilometer inside, Marlborough called a halt. “We hunker down here. Lie down in a circle. Cameras and weapons facing outward. Tanks and combat robots form a similar circle, with a radius of a hundred meters. Then switch to low power mode.”

Eric lay down in the snow and shut down all save essential systems.

“Can we use VR?” Frogger asked.

“You may,” Marlborough replied. “But keep the power draw to a minimum. This means not too many avatars in the same simulation, so no barbecues or shared parties. And Accomps stand watch.”

“Got it,” Frogger said.

“Hold down the fort,” Eric told Dee.

“You got it,” she said sultrily.

“After all these years, you still flirt with me,” Eric said.

Her avatar shrugged. “You know you like it.”

* * *

Eric sat on the patio of his favorite pub along Main Street. In between people watching, he sipped a mug full of brown ale. Other patrons sat at the neighboring tables, providing a cheerful ambiance.

Frogger materialized, seated across from him. His mind twin nodded at Eric’s mug. “Nursing your beer?”

“Not nursing it,” Eric said. “Enjoying it.”

“Good for you,” Frogger said.

A waitress in a short black skirt and a white and black blouse roller-skated over.

“What can I get you?” she asked, smacking her lips between gum chews.

“Roller skates,” Frogger told the girl. “Nice touch.”

“Thanks, hun,” she said. “So what can I get you?”

“I’m only here to flirt,” Frogger said.

She rolled her eyes. “Rules is rules. Everyone at the table has to order a menu item. Could be a meal, or a drink.”

“Ah,” Frogger said, giving Eric an amused look. “I think I remember this place from when we were still human.”

“It didn’t actually exist,” Eric said. “Though I did borrow the waitress and her attitude from a certain Italian restaurant we frequented.”

Frogger gave her an appraising look. “She’s pretty hot. I think I’d remember a waitress like this.”

“Obviously her features are different,” Eric said.

“Ah,” Frogger said. “Would Bambi and Crusher approve of you creating sexy girls to compete with them like this?”

“What are you talking about,” the girl said in between gum chews. “Are you going to order, or what?”

Eric ignored her, and shrugged in answer to Frogger’s question. “They know there’s no competition. I don’t sleep with the virtual waitresses I create. And Bambi and Crusher helped me design her, in fact.”

“Nice,” Frogger said. “I’d kill to have such open-minded women.”

“They weren’t always that way, trust me,” Eric said. “I never told you how they used to constantly be at each other’s throats, did I?”

“Yeah you did,” Frogger said.

“Well there you go,” Eric said. “Nothing in life is easy. Especially trying to keep two girls at the same time. Though I suppose it helps that these particular women are Mind Refurbs.”

“You know, I’ve always wondered if you did something to them,” Frogger said. “Changed their programs somehow, so that they’d favor you above the rest of us.”

Eric merely shrugged. Let Frogger think what he would.

“Okay, if you’re not going to order, I’m going to have to get the manager,” the waitress said sternly.

Frogger gave her a cool look, then returned his attention to Eric. “So, you’re flaunting Marlborough’s orders?”

“How so?” Eric said.

“He said not to have too many avatars in the same simulation…” Frogger nodded toward the waitress.

“I figured I have enough power for a few avatars,” Eric said. “But you’re right, now that you’re here…”

Eric shut down the virtual waitresses, bar patrons, and vehicles passing by on the road next to the bar, and the place descended into a creepy silence.

“Hm, I liked it better with the ambiance,” Frogger said.

Eric shrugged. “Next time keep your mouth shut.”

Frogger laughed. “Ah, I missed talking to myself.”

Eric took a sip of his beer, and shook his head. “I get enough of me up here already.” He tapped his temple.

Frogger materialized a beer of his own. It was a golden brown. He took a long gulp. “Mm, hits the spot. That was one of the great benefits about getting access to state-of-the-art android bodies with full taste capabilities: we could start sampling all the foods and drinks out there, and programming the flavors and textures into our VRs.”

“I guess so.” Eric took another sip. “You’re the one who did most of the work in that department.”

“One of my hobbies,” Frogger agreed.

“Made you rich, too,” Eric said. Frogger had sold every new VR taste he developed online.

“Not rich,” Frogger said. “But yes, I lived a comfortable existence.” He paused. “I just hope I make it back to that life.”

They drank in silence for a moment.

“Do you ever miss Molly?” his mind twin abruptly asked.

Molly. The woman who had been Eric’s girlfriend when he was still human. A girl who had died a long time ago, in the twenty first century.

“Yeah, of course,” Eric lied. In truth, he hadn’t thought about her in years, now. But he was a little ashamed to admit it, given how much she had once meant to him, and how much she must have still meant to Frogger.

“Liar,” Frogger said.

Eric lowered his gaze.

Frogger nodded. “It’s all right. You’ve moved on. I respect that.” He paused. “You know, I never told you this, but I never did get over her myself. For the past twenty years, I’ve been living with her in my AI core. Or rather, a version of her. I upgraded the virtual girlfriend AI I purchased for her with a shit ton of memory, and created a special neural network partition in my own AI core, one that was capable of supporting full artificial intelligence.

“Over the years, I trained it to be as close to Molly’s personality as possible. Whenever I noticed a behavior that was at odds with the real Molly’s, I corrected that behavior. Her sexual desire was too high? I toned it down. Laughing at all the wrong jokes? I tweaked her humor subroutine. I filled her neural engrams with pop culture references, the childhood memories she shared with me, and gave her access to my own database so she could access every memory I had of her. I’ve had twenty years to refine her program. She’s as close to the real Molly as she’s ever going to get.”

Eric stared at his mind twin. “You’ve really been suffering without her, haven’t you? I’m so sorry.”

Frogger frowned. “Don’t be. I’ve got what I want, now. She’ll always be at my side, as long as I still live. And she would have been backed up along with my AI core, so even if I die, she’ll be brought right back with me. I bet the lieutenant was wondering why it took so much memory to back up my mind as compared to the rest of you.” He paused. “I can lend you her subroutines if you want. Not all of her engrams will transfer, since you don’t have the same memory upgrades I do, but enough of her will survive for you to recognize. Just don’t ask her if she remembers some obscure TV show or date you both went on.”

“That’s all right,” Eric said slowly. “I’ve got my hands full with Bambi and Crusher already. And I doubt they’d take kindly to a new girl intruding on their turf.”

Frogger shrugged. “Just a thought.”

“Still, I have to admit it’s tempting,” Eric said. “Molly was… special, to us.”

“She was,” Frogger agreed. “One of a kind. Did I ever tell you I tracked down her relatives?”

“No, actually,” Eric said.

“Yeah,” Frogger said. “I even launched some robots to spy on their families. The insect types.”

“You’re such a peeping Tom,” Eric said.

“Yeah, I know we are,” Frogger said.

“So, what did you find?” Eric said. “Let me guess, a woman who was the spitting image of Molly?”

“Nope, none of them look even close to her,” Frogger said. “But hey, I had to know. This was before I created my own Molly from the ground up, of course.”

“Even if you found someone, the chances of her personality being anything close to Molly’s would be remote,” Eric said. “She was a product of her time. The cultural and societal norms that influenced the Millennials of our day are long past.”

“They are,” Frogger agreed. “Which is why I had to make my own Molly.”

Eric stared at his twin. “So. You didn’t come here just to talk about Molly, did you?”

Frogger smiled. “Right again.”

“What’s on your mind?” Eric pressed.

“I have an idea,” Frogger said.

“An idea…” Eric said dubiously.

Frogger nodded. “I got a good multispectral scan of the Sloths during the last fight.”

“Well that could prove useful,” Eric said. “If we can mimic the emission spectra of the Sloths, perhaps we could escape detection if we run into a patrol.”

“Unfortunately, we’d need access to industrial-grade 3D printers so we could shape and refine our own emissions,” Frogger said.

“What if we modified the repair drones to act as 3D printers?” Eric said.

Frogger shook his head. “We don’t have enough material. We might be able to print up enough to cover one or two mechs, but not all of us.”

Eric rubbed his chin. “Before the mission, the lieutenant did say we could pulverize rocks high in metals for materials.”

“Very true,” Frogger said. “We’d have to dig down to the bedrock. Unfortunately, that’s a little hard right now, given that the ground is frozen.”

“Hard, but not impossible,” Eric said.

“When you look at our current power levels, and the fact that we won’t be recharging until morning, yes, it’s impossible,” Frogger said.

“We’ll tell Sarge about the idea in the morning,” Eric said.

“Let me share the plans,” Frogger said. “I want your feedback.”

Frogger did so, and Eric reviewed them. Together, they made tweaks, until they were both satisfied with the results.

“This will definitely work,” Eric said. “Now, we just have to convince the Sarge to try it.”

20

Eric made a quick visit to Bambi and Crusher, and then shut down his VR for the night. He left Dee on guard duty, and slowed his time sense to make the long night pass faster.

He received an alert a few seconds after setting his time sense to its slowest setting, and he immediately dropped back to normal time, just as he had programmed himself to do.

It was a call from Bambi.

Eric accepted.

“What’s up?” he asked. He wasn’t logged into VR, or his Devastator interface, so everything around him was pitch black. He still saw her avatar on his HUD, in the lower right of his display.

“Can you meet me in VR, alone this time?” Bambi said. “I want to talk to you in private, without Crusher present.”

“Talk to me here,” Eric said. “My power levels are getting really low. I don’t want to waste any processing power on a full-blown VR instance.”

Bambi pouted, then sighed. “All right. I want out.”

“Out of what?” Eric said.

“Our relationship,” Bambi said.

Eric frowned. “Twenty years, and you want out now, of all times? When we’re being hunted down by aliens?”

“Having my life at risk has taught me a few things. Namely, what’s important in life.” Bambi folded her arms in front of her breasts. “I can’t share you with her anymore. I’ve come to realize that. I’ve lived through twenty years of this. You expect me to endure a lifetime more? I can’t do it.”

Eric stared at her, at a loss for words. He couldn’t believe he was hearing this.

And then she grinned widely. “Just kidding!”

Eric slouched. “Damn it, woman, don’t do that to me.”

Bambi shrugged. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

Eric felt his virtual brow furrow. “For what?”

“For not dying out there,” Bambi said.

“Oh,” Eric said. “No problem. Though it was easier said than done.”

“Oh, I know,” Bambi said. “No thanks in large part to me. I was with you in T1, after all.”

“Ah,” Eric said, understanding. “That’s what this is about. You’re here to score some brownie points with me, that it?”

“Uh huh,” Bambi said. “Who’s your favorite now? Come on, you know it’s me.”

Eric smiled patiently. “You know I don’t pick favorites.”

“Oh, but you do,” Bambi said. “You just don’t tell us, usually. But we can tell, by whoever you give the most attention to in bed.”

Eric was very careful about dividing his attention when he was with the two of them, for that very reason. Women had very keen noses when it came to reading people.

“I love you both equally,” Eric said.

“Yes, yes, you’re always declaring your undying Love with a capital L for us,” Bambi said. “But you do alternate in favorites. Crusher has been your favorite lately. I think it’s my turn, now. Especially considering how hard I fought for you back there.”

Eric sighed. “All right, I’ll see what I can do. Are we done?”

“Not yet,” Bambi said. “I also want...”

“Bambi, can’t this wait until we get back?” Eric asked.

She sighed. “No. I just want you to promise me that you won’t take any unnecessary risks out there.”

“Okay,” Eric said. “Okay.” He nodded. “I’ll do my best. No risks.”

“You say that now,” Bambi said. “But out of all of us, you’re the one always taking the lead. Back when we were bombing the Tal Shahar on Earth, you were the one who went out onto the rooftop to set the charges, for example.”

“I know,” Eric said. “That’s just my nature.”

“Your bravery is why we love you so much,” Bambi said. “And yet at the same time, why we hate you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Eric said. “Now unless there was anything else you wanted...?”

She shook her head. “No. Have a good night.” She blew him a kiss.

Eric returned it and disconnected.

He sighed.

Relationship management. I’ll never get used to it.

He waited a few moments, expecting Crusher to call him next, as usually seemed to happen whenever Bambi paid him a visit to express her “concerns.” Thankfully the line remained silent. That was good, because he wasn’t sure he would have been able to deal with her alone at the moment.

“Dee, revert me to normal time when its morning, or Marlborough asks us to break camp, or we’re attacked,” Eric said. “Whichever comes first.”

“You got it,” Dee said. Her avatar blew him a kiss.

“And don’t do that,” Eric said.

She pouted. “I thought you liked it?”

“Only when Bambi and Crusher do it,” Eric said.

He slowed his time sense to the minimum once more.

Only a few seconds passed before he received an alert and automatically reverted to normal time again.

“What now?” Eric snapped.

“Morning has arrived,” Dee announced.

“Oh,” Eric said, feeling guilty for snapping at her.

I guess I just wanted some quiet time for myself.

He probably shouldn’t have slowed his time sense quite so dramatically.

Too late now.

He sighed mentally.

Time to get back to work.

He activated his external cameras and took control of his Devastator.

He was lying down, gazing at the canopy overhead. The pillars that formed the tree trunks thrust into the air around him, holding up the distant boughs. A green twilight had settled on everything so that he could see again, which told him it was indeed morning, maybe a half hour after dawn, judging from the light levels. Droplets of liquid hexane rained down from the canopy, imparting the illusion that he was traveling upward, toward those boughs. It was strangely relaxing.

But that tranquility didn’t last for long, because he made the mistake of glancing at his overhead map. A sense of panic took hold when he realized the green dots of the other Bolt Eaters and their support troops were gone. Also, there was no chatter over the comm, and his external mics weren’t picking up any sounds, either.

Fearing the worst, he bolted upright, and was relieved when he saw the other Bolt Eaters stirring, with some slowly standing from their lying positions around him. Still, his mics recorded no sound, and his map remained empty. Strange...

He realized his auditory system had shut down sometime during the night to conserve power. As had his mapping subroutine, and comm nodes. He reactivated both.

“Well that was a bit too quick for my tastes,” Slate said. “Tell me I wasn’t the only one who sped up time?”

“You weren’t the only one,” Hicks said.

“I didn’t,” Brontosaurus said. “That was one long night, I tell you. I kept worrying that my power levels would drop too low to support consciousness, and I kept expecting to black out. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I spotted the first rays of sunlight at the edges of the forest.”

Eric glanced toward the forest edge, at the entry point the team had used, and saw that the drifts were melting, their edges highlighted in blue and gold beneath the rays of the sun. Also, a gentle rain was falling onto the plains, instead of snow: the temperature had already risen above freezing. The droplets leaking down from the boughs directly overhead were a combination of snowmelt and rain.

“Sarge, did Frogger tell you about his plan to mimic the emissions of the Sloth units yet?” Eric asked.

“He just did over a private line,” Marlborough said. “You get half the credit for the design, according to him.”

“So what do you say?” Eric said. “Should we implement it?”

“I’m leaning towards no,” Marlborough said. “Now that it’s daylight, I don’t want to waste time digging for bedrock.”

“But it could be only a few meters down,” Eric said. He tried to dig at the ground with his working arm, first removing the yellow snow, and then attacking the black soil underneath, but he had difficulty, because the surface was still frozen.

Crusher joined him, pounding at the ground with her thick metal hands. “It’s still too frozen. Maybe we should try later when it melts?”

“Humph,” Bambi said. “Too frozen for the likes of you, maybe. But not I.” She dug at the ground with the eight legs of her Crab, clearing the snow, and quickly produced a sizable hole beneath it.

“Now those are what I call some powerful legs,” Slate said. “That’s my kind of woman.”

“I also don’t want to waste time pulverizing and processing any bedrock we find,” Marlborough said. “By the time we have emitters ready, another full day might pass. We could be off this planet by then.”

“It won’t take a day,” Frogger said. “Once we have the rock pulverized, we can print up the necessary emitters in about an hour each, so fourteen hours total for all of us.”

“There’s a wee problem with your plan,” Dunnigan said. “As a former geological engineer, I can tell you that sometimes bedrock rests hundreds of meters below the surface. Sure, there’s a chance you’ll find superficial deposits, and they could be quite thick, but there’s also a chance you won’t. And when you do finally reach some rocks, they might not have the metal content you’re looking for. In short, your plan is bollocks.”

“There you go,” Marlborough said.

“We could use the tanks for raw materials...” Frogger said.

“I’m unwilling to sacrifice my tanks for a plan that might not work,” Marlborough said. “I’m sorry. Look, creating emitters was a nice thought, but it’s not something we can entertain at the moment. Bambi, get out of that hole. It’s time to head home. We’ve wasted enough time here.”

“At least let me print up one of the emitters on the go,” Frogger said. “Using the elements we have stored for repairs.”

“Again, because there’s no guarantee it will work, I’m unwilling to use up our spare repair materials,” Marlborough said. “Especially now that I know there’s little chance of replenishing those elements. At least while we’re in this forest.” He turned toward his staff sergeant. “Dickson, organize the Bolt Eaters into the usual teams. We charge our batteries, and then head south, taking a direct path to the area we mapped previously.”

Dickson organized the Bolt Eaters and support units into the three traveling overwatch teams, and T1, with Eric in it, was the first to charge at the forest edge, while T2 and T3 stood guard deeper inside. The teams could have charged while on the march via the lower light available beneath the canopy, but Marlborough wanted to get their batteries topped up as quickly as possible.

The three teams subsequently alternated positions, so that when all units were fully charged, T1 led the way south into the forest.

“So much for convincing him to construct the emitters,” Frogger commented to Eric on a private line.

“Sarge is right, it’s better that we head south now,” Eric said. “The Banthar will be all over this area now that the snowstorm is gone.”

“I just wish we could have kept trekking all night,” Frogger said. “We would have been out of here by now.”

“We all wish that,” Eric said. “The limits of power cells...”

“Someone’s got to invent a portable nuclear reactor,” Frogger said. “And solve that problem.”

“Hey, if anyone can do it, you can,” Eric said.

“Hm, nuclear physics was never my specialty,” Frogger said. “But then again, I’m a machine now. And can master any discipline in a day.”

“Go for it,” Eric said.

“I’ll think about it after we get back,” Frogger told him. “What’s the point of inventing a portable nuclear reactor out here, after all, if we don’t have the tools to build it, and I end up dying before we get home?”

The teams marched on through the undergrowth, which still reached to the waists of their mechs, and the tops of the tanks. Yellow snow that had fallen through the canopy had gathered on some of the branches in clumps.

“Those look like piss-colored flowers,” Slate commented.

“Maybe you should wear one of them in your hair,” Eagleeye said.

“Shut up, bitch,” Slate said. “Before I turn your face into a piss-colored flower.”

“That’s kind of hard, considering his face is made of metal,” Mickey said.

“Oh yeah?” Slate said. “Just watch me.”

“At ease, soldiers,” Marlborough said. “Tensions are high. That can be expected, considering our situation. But right now we have to pull together. Stay focused. There’s only one enemy here. Don’t go and create imaginary enemies among yourselves.”

“Sorry, Sarge,” Slate said.

The eaves of the forest occasionally came into view, as did a few Hugger herds that were devouring the periphery and forcing the tree line inward; Marlborough had the team move inward to stay well inside as necessary.

During the advance, drops continued to rain down from the canopy as the snow gathered on top melted and mixed with the rainwater. Sometimes the droplets fell relatively close together, forming sheets of rain that splashed down onto the passing mechs. Now and then the snowmelt flowed down the actual trunks in miniature waterfalls, and carved circular trenches into the snow piled around the bases of the involved trees.

Now that Eric had energy to spare, he fully charged his repair drones—which were sitting at only twenty-five percent power in their storage bay—and then released them while he walked. They got to work repairing his shield arm, which still dangled useless at his side. Other Bolt Eaters similarly released their own drones to service their particular units. A few of the tanks released repair swarms as well—Eric hadn’t even been aware that those tanks carried drones.

In about an hour his arm was fixed, and he ordered the drones to move on to repairing the holes in his ballistic shield. None of the team members had any of the alien elements those shields were made of, so the drones filled the gaps with the simple Earth metals he had in his storage bay. The repaired areas of the shield would be the weakest points, but it would have to do.

By the time the drones finished, he’d exhausted his supply of spare materials. He’d have to borrow materials going forward. Either that, or dismantle the drones for spare parts.

The forest edges intruded less and less as the day progressed, and the drifts that Eric spotted along the periphery seemed smaller each time.

They only encountered one group of alien inhabitants along the way. One of Eagleeye’s Ravens, traveling ahead and to the far right of the party, spotted a group of Dragonworms asleep within the forest. They reposed next to the partially eaten bodies of two freshly killed Huggers. Marlborough instructed the team to give those dragonfly-winged larvae a wide berth, and they passed the creatures without incident.

“Wonder why they didn’t notice our passage this time…” Hicks said.

“It’s obvious,” Tread said. “Didn’t you see the two Huggers they ate? You forget what it’s like to be an organic… you eat a meat buffet like that, you’re going straight to dream land.”

The team continued the advance.

“That snow sure is melting fast,” Hicks commented when the distant eaves came into view once more. It had been three hours since the last time the eaves had encroached on their position.

“The lower pressure and alkane content give it a lower sublimation point than Earth snow,” Eagleeye explained.

“Okay, I guess I can believe that,” Hicks said. “But how come the snow here in the forest isn’t vanishing as fast?”

“It’s not exposed to direct sunlight,” Eagleeye said. “So it’s not heating up to the sublimation point as fast. Plus, the rain is helping melt the drifts outside.”

“The guy has an answer for everything,” Hicks said. “If I had my connection to the cloud, I’d check, but I guess for now I’ll have to believe you.”

“Got what look like alien search units, or scouts,” Eagleeye said. “Coming in from the plains. They’re spreading out.”

“Take cover, now!” Marlborough said. “Eagleeye, hide those Ravens!”

21

Eric ducked beneath the thick undergrowth that grew next to a bole, and let the fernlike branches engulf him. Thanks to the protective cover of those ferns, there wasn’t much snow underneath, but mostly mud.

Around him, the other Bolt Eaters had similarly vanished from view. One might think it would be hard to hide a war machine of that size, but in a rainforest like this, it was surprisingly easy to blend in. Slate, for example, repositioned inside the thick lianas that hung down from the upper branches of one particular tree, lianas spaced so close together that they essentially formed a three-hundred and sixty-degree drape around the trunk. Bambi, who had the biggest mech out of all of them, at least in terms of breadth, hid her crab inside a root-framed hollow beneath one of the trunks. Eric was reminded of a tarantula descending into its den, with the way she lowered her carapace inside, and then drew her eight legs within. Creepy as hell.

The tanks and combat robots similarly took cover, with one tank squeezing inside a hollowed out log; a few Savages followed it, carrying undergrowth they had torn away from the surrounding foliage, and deposited it just inside the opening to hide their positions.

Now that Eric was settled, he requested access to the Raven’s video feed, intending to review the sighted tangos, but a moment later the connection went offline.

“The Ravens just went black,” Mickey said.

“I hid them in the upper canopy and turned off the comms,” Eagleeye said. “Full stealth mode.”

“Damn, I wanted to see what these scouts look like,” Slate said.

“I’ve seen them,” Marlborough said. “They don’t look like much, but I have no doubt if we’re sighted, reinforcements waiting on the plains will bring a whole lot more firepower down on us. The rest of you shut down your comms, too. Switch to stealth mode. Exit that mode and resume comms only if attacked.”

Eric shut down his comm node immediately and lay back against the tree; he lowered his ballistic shield over himself and then powered down, leaving only essential systems running, including his cameras. He positioned his shield so that only the very top of his head, where the camera systems resided, was visible. Because of the way heat dispersion worked in the Devastator models, that portion of his mech wouldn’t be visible as a heat source on any thermal scans. It also allowed him to observe his surroundings, and react to any threats.

The snowmelt dripped down from above, landing on the big fern that sheltered him. It wasn’t really a fern, of course, but the network of branches that spread outward from the alien plant’s core was so thick that it essentially formed fronds. The actual leaves on those branches were tiny blue needles, but again, they grew in such profusion that he couldn’t see past them.

The droplets seeped down those branches and trickled onto his ballistic shield, only to flow off the lower edge and into the mud next to the trunk below. He remembered a scene from a certain movie where the hero had smeared mud on his body to hide from an alien. He had to smile at that. It might work for a few seconds, but as soon as the mud warmed to body temperature—or in his case, machine temperature—the gig would be up. What the hero in that movie really needed was a thermal negative ballistic shield.

Eric heard a vague buzzing then. If he were still human, he would have held his breath, or some other cliché.

A small sphere passed by the edge of the tree. It paused overhead, partially obscured by the edges of the fern.

The sphere was about the size of his mech’s fist. It had twin, circular grooves running from pole to pole at right angles to one another. Inside those grooves, blue energy pulsed up and down. The buzzing, or humming, rather, seemed timed to the pulses, and he wondered if that was some internal energy source. No, it had to be a scanner of some kind, because he already knew the Banthar had achieved amazing miniaturization with their energy sources—they had constructed micro machines capable of devouring all metals in sight and then flying across an ocean without pausing, after all.

Eric remained motionless as the sphere hovered in place of course—he couldn’t move because he had shut down his body’s servomotors. The only motion came from the droplets of snowmelt, the only sound the drip, drip those droplets made.

Apparently satisfied that nothing resided below, the sphere continued onward and out of view.

Well, shit.

He waited. More humming came, and another sphere made an appearance on the opposite side of the tree. This time the scout didn’t stop. Several more spheres randomly passed on either side, at intervals that ranged from thirty seconds to two minutes. That he was seeing so many at his current location told him that he was either along some main route the scouts were taking, or more likely, there had to be thousands of them out there, fanning out across the forest.

And then finally no more scouts came. Three minutes had passed since the last appeared. Five. Still nothing.

The Bolt Eaters were trained not to break stealth mode until thirty minutes transpired since the last potential threat. So Eric waited, and when the prerequisite thirty minutes transpired, he re-enabled his comm node.

“Hello, this is Marlborough,” the Sarge came over the comm immediately. “I’ve instructed my Accomp to send out this message automatically to every member of the platoon, as soon as their comm nodes register as enabled. I want you to switch your antennae to directional mode only, and drop down the intensity of your broadcasts so that the range is fifty meters, max. Keep omnidirectional mode operating below fifty meters as well.”

Eric made the requested changes to his antennae and comm node.

“Well, that was interesting,” Bambi transmitted. “I counted at least twenty alien spheres passing by at my position.”

“Thirty here,” Frogger said.

The other Bolt Eaters reported similar numbers as they exited stealth mode.

“That means they’ve sent thousands of them into this forest,” Dickson said. “Probably tens of thousands, in fact, all along the eastern edge.”

“Looks like the Banthar are keen to track us down,” Bambi said.

“Wouldn’t you do the same, if alien intruders appeared on one of your colonies?” Crusher said. “Intruders who operated mechs you recognized from a planet you once tried to conquer?”

“Yeah, I suppose I would,” Bambi said.

“What do we do, Sarge?” Dunnigan said.

“We have to keep moving,” Marlborough said. “But very cautiously. The Banthar know we’re somewhere in this forest, so they’ll keep sending scouts back and forth until they find us.”

“We could hide out here for six months or some shit,” Slate said. “Eventually they’ll give up.”

“Sure, but the Brass are going to send in our clones far sooner than that,” Marlborough said.

“Oh yeah,” Slate said. “Hell no. We can’t let that happen.”

“No, we can’t,” Marlborough agreed. “Our clones would be walking into the worst ambush since The Battle of Fallujah 2122.”

“I haven’t heard about that one,” Mickey said.

“Probably for the best,” Marlborough said. “It wasn’t very fun. Look it up on the cloud sometime when we get back. If there is a hell, reliving that battle is the closest you’ll ever get.”

“Destroying the alien mothership twenty years ago was mine,” Eric muttered before he could stop himself.

The silence that came over the comm band seemed stunned at his remark.

Shit, shouldn’t have said anything.

He’d never told that to anyone, not even the girls. He compartmentalized it, packed away the horrors of that day deep in his consciousness, and now, when he was least expecting it, all those emotions had come leaping back out, spurred by Marlborough’s casual remark.

“Poor baby,” Crusher finally said, and from her tone, she meant it.

“Poor baby,” Slate mocked in a high-pitched voice. “Poor baby, my ass! Bro, we all died in that battle. Died! And you lived. So don’t tell me it was your hell.”

“But that’s exactly why it was,” Eric said quietly.

The platoon members remained silent at that.

“Getting back to the subject at hand,” Brontosaurus said, much to Eric’s relief. “Now that we’ve shown up at the door of these Banthar, if they don’t find us here, they’ll start installing permanent surveillance tech inside this forest. Those EM emitters Frogger told us about are starting to sound like a very good thing right about now.”

“Except for one thing,” Mickey said. “Sure, we’ll be able to pass a rudimentary first pass inspection, but if a patrol attempts to communicate with us to confirm our identities, or tries to access the equivalent of Banthar public profiles from ID chips they expect us to be carrying, but of course are not, we’re SOL.”

“What’s SOL?” Crusher said.

“Shit outta luck,” Mickey said.

“We also don’t have the resources to build them,” Dickson reminded them. “Which is exactly why we have to head home as quickly as possible.”

“I could try digging here...” Bambi said.

“Negative,” Marlborough said. “We have to get off this planet, pronto. That’s the only way out of this. We’ve done our bit, and now we’re going home. Eagleeye, send the Ravens forward first. I want them to map out every nook and cranny of forest ahead before we move on. Wouldn’t surprise me if some of those scouts stayed behind, lurking in the undergrowth, waiting to raise the alarm. So keep an eye out for that.”

“You don’t call me Eagleeye for nothing,” Eagleeye commented.

“Except you won’t be directly in charge of the scouts,” Dunnigan said. “They’re going to pass out of range very quickly here.”

“I know, but I’ve personally programmed them,” Eagleeye said. “So that’s just as good. They’re designed to take cover the instant anything out of the ordinary is detected.”

“Send them out,” Marlborough ordered. “I want them to cover the entire square kilometer in front of us before we proceed. The rest of you, hang tight.”

Eagleeye reactivated the Ravens and the units descended from the overhead canopy. Eric monitored the progress of the scouts while they were still within the reduced range of his transmitter. They operated in passive mode—no LIDAR or equivalents—and instead relied on the visual and thermal band for all data capture. Eric knew because he observed the Raven video feeds in separate windows on his HUD, and there were no wireframes overlaid against any of the imagery, which would have signified active mode.

He watched as the Ravens separated, one moving to the east, the other to the west; they passed out of range into the black, unmapped areas of the overhead map, reappearing a short while later, having repositioned further south—the direction of the team’s planned travel—by several meters. The explored sections they had covered filled out on the overhead map as horizontal bars to the east and west.

The units moved inward, filling in the map as they went, until their visual data overlapped; then they moved south several meters, and spread out to the east and west once more.

The Ravens continued moving in and out like that, and southward after each pass, like some dual-headed dot matrix printer from Eric’s former twenty-first century life. In that manner, the two airborne scouts mapped out the immediate area.

Eventually the Ravens passed entirely out of range to the south, into the unmapped, black regions on the map, and their indicators froze so that Eric could no longer observe the east-west motions.

The Ravens returned into range after an hour—Eric knew immediately when they arrived, because he was studying the map at the time, and the whole square kilometer in front of the platoon filled out. The forest ahead appeared little different from the terrain the team had covered before, but most importantly: no red dots indicating tangos were present.

“Seems clear enough out there,” Eagleeye said.

“All right,” Marlborough said. “We’re very cautiously going to move forward. We proceed to the next unmapped area at slow speed, and take cover again while the Ravens clear the next square kilometer. We maintain overwatch formations.”

The three teams moved forward slowly. Eric followed five meters behind Slate, who was on point in T1. Eric was offset to the left, while Brontosaurus behind him was offset to the right, in zig-zag formation. As he marched, Eric constantly eyed the trees and undergrowth of the rainforest around him, as did the others.

The droplets of snowmelt continued to plunge from the canopy overhead. Drip drop. Drip drop. Their feet crunched into the thin layer of snow.

They made it half a kilometer.

And then Eric noticed the undergrowth wavering beside him, as if something had moved there.

“Stop, I think something’s here,” Eric transmitted.

He approached the undergrowth, which was now motionless, and zoomed in on the forest in that direction.

Then he spotted it.

One of the scouts was moving rapidly away from the area. From the way it weaved between the different tree trunks without slowing down, he knew it had spotted them.

“Got one of the scouts,” Eric said. “It’s fleeing.”

He swiveled his laser into his right arm, and switched to the POV of the scope to aim at the retreating sphere.

“Take it down!” Marlborough said.

Eric switched to Bullet Time and aimed the crosshairs over the weaving target. He fired and scored a direct hit—thankfully the scout wasn’t shielded and promptly dropped.

“Done,” Eric said, reverting to normal time. “Not sure if it was able to get a signal out or not.”

“Looks like the time for stealth is over!” Marlborough said. “Increase pace!”

Eric switched to a jog, as did the other Bolt Eaters. According to the map, the tanks and Savages of T3 also accelerated, but they were lagging behind, unable to keep pace.

Eric heard a whirring sound coming from overhead, louder even than the clanging of the mechs that raced through the forest.

“The hell is that?” Slate said.

And then the canopy directly overhead vanished. It just completely disintegrated. The sun was still blotted out, though.

When Eric saw what had replaced the canopy, he couldn’t help the sudden despair he felt.

It was too late.

There was no escape now.

22

An airship floated above Eric. The size of a football stadium from the twentieth century, it filled the entire gap left by the disintegrated canopy, and blocked out the sun. The portion he could see was slightly ovoid in shape, the underside needled with turrets.

Eric switched to Bullet Time and deployed his shield above his head just as those turrets opened fire. The inside of his shield became completely red as the alien material attempted to absorb and distribute the impacting energy. The repaired sections failed almost immediately, and he was careful to hold the resultant holes away from his body as energy beams penetrated. The rest of the shield probably wouldn’t hold up much longer against that intense fire.

His first thought was of Bambi and Crusher; he turned toward Bambi, who was in T1 with him, but saw she was already racing deeper into the rainforest.

He followed her, along with the other members of T1, zig-zagging, leaping between fallen logs, ripping through the undergrowth. Around him, energy bolts smashed into the foliage. Dee controlled the Ravagers, steering them into the forest at his side.

And then he was out from under the dorsal portion of the airship, and canopy shielded the sky above him once more. He leaped behind a thick tree trunk and flipped his shield against the wooden exterior.

This was one of those trunks covered in a waterfall of snowmelt: as bolts smashed into the far side of the tree, he knew because of the splashes. No doubt those bolts dug deep, but they didn’t penetrate completely. A good sign—that told him the alien weaponry needed time to charge. That they were firing nonstop, without giving the weapons that charge time, was encouraging.

Somewhat.

He glanced at his overhead map.

Like him, the other members of T1 and T2 had retreated to the regions of forest immediately surrounding the airship, where the canopy remained intact. He confirmed that both Crusher and Bambi were all right with a quick glance at their status indicators.

T3 was farther behind to the north—the tanks and combat robots hadn’t been able to keep up when Marlborough gave the order to accelerate. That was good, because it meant they were in cover well beyond the range of the airship.

The attacks continued to rain down on Eric and the other Bolt Eaters hidden behind the natural terrain features on the ground around the airship.

“You know, when you called us the Bolt Eaters, I didn’t think you meant it literally,” Hicks said. “But here we are, eating friggin’ energy bolts!”

In Bullet Time, Eric switched to the POV of his energy scope, and leaned past the tree to aim up at the airship; he only had time to let off a few shots before he was forced to duck into cover once more. The edge of the trunk beside him blew apart, bombarding him with wood chips.

And then the firing stopped.

“That can’t be good,” Mickey said.

Was the airship finally charging up its energy turrets, preparing for a disintegration level attack that would level the surrounding trees, and perhaps the mechs hidden behind them?

He glanced at Bambi who hid behind a tree on his left; beside her, he could see the two Ravagers hiding in hollows.

“What are you thinking?” Bambi asked.

“That we’re screwed,” Eric replied.

“Well, yeah, I know that much,” Bambi said. “I guess I was hoping you had a plan.”

“I do,” Eric said. “Run!”

He turned around, and tore away from the tree. Bambi joined him, and Dee had the Ravagers flee as well.

“That would be a good idea,” Marlborough said. “Move deeper into the forest, T1, T2! T3, rendezvous with us to the southwest.”

Eric heard crashing sounds behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see the trees disintegrated, but they all remained in place. Instead, he saw blurs of metal as large objects dropped down from the airship.

“Those bitches are launching some kind of shock troops,” Slate said.

“Look like tanks of some kind to me!” Eagleeye said.

Eric kept running; the snowmelt dripped down all around him.

Brightness filled the forest behind him as the airship moved higher, vanishing above the boughs, leaving behind that gaping hole in the canopy for the sunlight to penetrate.

He heard a continuous crunching sound coming from the clearing behind him; as if the undergrowth was being trampled underneath heavy treads.

He kept running with Bambi and the Ravagers, and joined up with Brontosaurus and Slate. Crusher and Eagleeye joined them a moment later.

“We got some friends behind us,” Slate said.

“I wouldn’t exactly call them friends,” Crusher said.

“Sarcasm, bitch,” Slate said. “Learn it.”

“Okay, fembot,” Crusher said.

He heard the sound of breaking branches ahead, and then caught a flash of metal within the canopy above—he realized the airship was forcing its way through the boughs.

And then much of the shiny dorsal section shoved through. That they hadn’t simply blasted away the canopy there told him it took them longer to recharge their disintegration level weapon than he thought.

A ramp opened up, and large machines poured out. They landed in blurs fifty meters in front of Eric. They looked like huge tanks with long, metallic tentacles on top.

Those tentacles swung toward Eric and his group. They were too far away to grab any member of his team, but when the tips glowed, he knew what was coming. He flung his shield in front of him, and changed course, moving away to the side. Beams erupted from the tips, hitting his shield.

He and the others fled to the west, keeping their shields behind them. The alien tanks pursued, rolling forward inexorably on their heavy treads. More of the units dropped to the ground from the airship behind them.

As he ran, Eric returned fire with his energy beam weapon, hitting the tanks, but energy shields reflected the blows.

“Damn these bitches and their energy shields!” Slate said.

“Launch your alien spears if you really want to hit them,” Brontosaurus said. “Or get close.”

“No on both accounts,” Slate said. “There’s too many of them!”

Eric glanced at his overhead map. The Bolt Eaters were spread out in small, fleeing groups similar to his own. Red dots indicating the tentacled tanks pursued them.

“You know, I’m certain these Banthar could have dropped some sort of bomb to level the entire area,” Eric said. “Given their technological capabilities, they very likely have something on par with the cluster bombs of Earth militaries.”

“Well, we don’t know their motivations,” Slate said. “They’re aliens, after all. Their behaviors will make them seem crazy to us. Maybe this colony world of theirs isn’t well armed, or something.”

“I think they want to capture us alive,” Eric said.

“Really…” Slate said dubiously. “They’re sure firing those energy beams eagerly at us!”

“No, I think Scorpion is right,” Frogger said. “They could have killed us with a bigger explosive yield right at the start. They want us with our AI cores active. This is their way of herding us, wearing us down. There’s no other explanation for why we’re still alive.”

“Not sure it’s the best idea to let these Banthar capture us alive,” Slate said. “How about we make a pact. Agree to shoot each other in the AI cores if capture seems imminent.”

“No thanks,” Eagleeye said. “But feel free to shoot yourself in the AI core whenever you feel the urge.”

“Yeah, okay,” Slate said. “You can take that comment and shove it up your ass crack subroutine.”

“Don’t have a subroutine like that,” Eagleeye said.

“You will when I’m through with you,” Slate said.

Ahead, the upper boughs creaked and snapped as the airship made another appearance. Eric swerved his group away from the inevitable drop of alien tanks. More red dots appeared on the overhead map so that the enemies were coming at them from three different sides.

He studied the map for a moment as he ran, and had an idea. He amped up his transmission capabilities to the max.

“Sarge, do you read?” Eric tried.

“I got you,” Marlborough said.

“The Dragonworms,” Eric said.

Marlborough didn’t answer immediately.

“The Dragonworms?” Slate said. “That supposed to be some code word?”

“No, I get what Scorp is saying, and he’s right,” Brontosaurus said. “If we can rouse the sleeping Dragonworms we encountered earlier, they’ll attack everything in sight. We might be able to get away in the confusion.”

“Yeah man, if the freakin’ Dragonworgs or whatever you call them don’t smash us into spare parts first!” Slate said. “How do we know they’re not programmed to ignore Banthar units? Hell, the Dragonworgs are probably under their control.”

“I hate to say it, but Slate’s right,” Traps transmitted. “We already concluded the Dragonworms were bioweapons of some kind: they’re wearing helmets, after all. And are equipped with organic lasers.”

“If they were under control of the Banthar, they would have closed on our position and attacked already,” Dunnigan said. “They might have once been Banthar bioweapons, but they probably escaped at least a generation ago. They’re obviously wild, and not domesticated.”

“They couldn’t have escaped all that long ago, given the helmets the bigger ones wear…” Traps persisted.

“Those helmets might actually be organic, too,” Bambi said. “Formed as they developed from the larval stage.”

“Oh, well, if Bambi says so, then it must be true…” Traps said, his voice oozing sarcasm.

“At this point, it’s our best hope,” Marlborough said. “T3, lead the way to the Dragonworms! We’ll join you shortly.”

T3 was the closest to the Dragonworms at the moment, though T1 and T2 would leapfrog them shortly.

Eric turned northwest and headed toward the location where the Dragonworms were previously sighted.

The airship appeared through the canopy up ahead once more, and began to drop tanks in their path. Eric kept running this time, and rammed his alien blades Wolverine-style through the energy fields and into the tanks beyond. He tore big gashes through the armor and severed tentacles in the process. He kept running, as did the other Bolt Eaters, because more tanks continued to drop from above.

The teams moved past the attackers and into the forest beyond. Those on drag fired backward into the pursuers, while keeping their shields held protectively behind them.

Eric kept an eye on his power levels. His battery was low, but slowly creeping back up in the canopy-induced twilight. It helped that he had been using his alien blades more than any other weapon, as those blades used their own internal power source to impart their voltage damage.

The Bolt Eaters joined with the tanks and combat robots of T3 shortly thereafter, and dashed past them, into the area where the Dragonworms slept.

“Send T3 around!” Marlborough said. “Meanwhile, Bolt Eaters, move right through their ranks. Try not to harm any of the worm bastards—we need them!”

Most of the winged worms were awake by then from the commotion the Bolt Eaters had kicked up, and when the creatures saw the intruding mechs, their roars of outrage promised there was going to be hell to pay.

As the Dragonworms took to the air, letting their tails hang down, Eric weaved through the ranks, purposely not attacking any of them; the others did likewise. He let Dee control the Ravagers with him.

The Dragonworms launched weblike nets from their tails. Eric dove out of the way of one net, and sliced through another with his alien blades—he used Bullet Time so that the timing was perfect, and the sliced strands parted, flying past on either side of him.

Other creatures fired lasers from their maws, and he was careful to keep his ballistic shield oriented toward the different flying beasts as he passed. As he neared the center of the herd, which was proving massive, he discovered the larger ones waiting; they lurked there with their metallic helmets and their mandibles made of plasma, ready to strike.

“Uh,” Eric said.

“Turn due west!” Marlborough said. “Damn herd is far bigger than we thought!”

The team swiveled to the left, and moved away from that concentration of the bigger creatures, who were starting to cross their mandibles to release deadly plasma beam attacks. Trenches were dug into the ground all around Eric as he and the others zig-zagged away.

He reached the periphery of the herd, joining up with the tanks and combat robots of T3.

Distant roars echoed across the trees as the pursuing tanks reached the outskirts of the herd and drew the wrath of the Dragonworms. Overhead, the canopy parted as the airship appeared to deposit the latest round of alien technology.

Eric and the others tore past, using the alien blades to cut through any tanks that landed in their respective paths. The units of T3 mostly swerved around them, as their weaponry was incapable of penetrating the Banthar energy shields.

Before the Bolt Eaters had cleared the enemy tanks, the pursuing Dragonworms arrived. They launched those weblike nets from their tails, and the objects hit the energy shields, wrapping around them. The shields flashed repeatedly underneath the vise, and then failed entirely. The nets wrapped around the now unshielded units, and immobilized them.

“When bioweapons go bad…” Slate commented.

“Now we see what the Banthar originally engineered those nets for,” Bambi said.

The Dragonworms fired their lasers and plasma beams at the pinned units, or sometimes bit at them directly with their plasma mandibles, and ripped them apart.

Several of the Dragonworms also attacked the airship as well; they unleashed several nets in a coordinated fashion. The webs flattened against the bigger shield of the craft, and remained attached, draining it of energy. More and more of those nets impacted, until the shield failed entirely, and the nets wrapped around the main fuselage of the airship.

The Dragonworms swarmed the craft then, the smaller firing lasers from their maws, the larger the plasma beams when they crossed their mandibles.

Eric and the others kept running, letting the Dragonworms have their fun. T3 followed behind them, lagging somewhat.

The airship stopped pursuing, as did the tanks. The Dragonworm herd had them fully occupied.

When the fighting had faded behind them, Marlborough gave the order to head south.

“Just spotted three of those small spherical scouts on our tail,” Brontosaurus said. “They’re staying back, mirroring us.”

“No doubt signaling our location to other airships in the area,” Frogger said.

“Take them down!” Marlborough ordered.

Brontosaurus and Dunnigan, on drag, attempted to shoot down the units, but the scouts took cover immediately.

Meanwhile Eric and the others continued forward. More scouts appeared through the trees on the left and right sides, mirroring the group, and when the team members tried to target any of them, the small machines darted behind trees, or scooted into the canopy.

“This isn’t going to work,” Marlborough said. “Everyone, continue moving forward, but also keep firing at the last known positions of those scouts. Keep them pinned. Once we’re two hundred meters in front, Tread, fire your black hole weapon. Multiple times, targeting each group of scouts.”

“Will do,” Tread said.

The Bolt Eaters and their support units moved forward. They kept firing at the scouts, keeping them pinned in the canopy and behind the trees where they had taken cover.

The main group reached the two hundred meter mark and waited for the tanks and support units to catch up. When they did, Marlborough said: “Now, Tread.”

Tread’s Rhino mech launched three bright smears in rapid succession. The blinding objects fanned outward, targeting each group of alien scouts. When the smears were close to the hiding places of the different units, the tears in spacetime formed, pinching reality around them.

Eric felt the incredible suction as the forest was ripped apart around those tears. He slammed his fists into the ground, securing himself as the wind became a gale, the atmosphere swirling inward from all sides. The droplets of snowmelt from overhead curled backward, forming sideways streams.

The enemy scouts tried to resist, but they were slowly drawn from behind cover and toward the black holes.

“Well at least these smaller suckers don’t have inertialess drives!” Eagleeye commented.

“Obviously they haven’t miniaturized the tech yet,” Frogger said.

“Fire!” Marlborough said.

The team members opened fire on the scouts now that they were exposed; when hit, the machines stopped resisting the pull from the black holes and plunged inside rapidly.

“Tread, leave the furthest black hole intact, but get rid of the other two!” Marlborough ordered when the last of the scouts were gone.

Tread launched dispersion bolts, and the two closest holes winked out, leaving behind spherical areas of cleared forest, including large craters where the ground had been devoured. The forces assailing the party diminished.

“Want me to close the last hole?” Tread asked.

“No, give the Banthar something to do!” Marlborough said. “And it’s something else to distract the scouts that are no doubt still coming. Now move, you pussy-haired bastards! If ever there was a time for expedience, it’s now!”

23

The Bolt Eaters trudged as fast as they were able from the black hole. Like the other mechs, Eric was able to stand, and made his way slowly away from the gravitational forces drawing him backward.

“Did Sarge just say we all have hairy pussies?” Slate asked.

“No, just you!” Eagleeye answered. “His exact words were fairy pussy!”

“You’re a fairy!” Slate said.

“Move!” Marlborough repeated.

Eric grabbed onto a tree for leverage, and continued onward. Beside him, a tank moved past, its lower profile seeming less affected by the pull, considering that the gale force winds around them were also a factor. Savages clung to its hull.

Those winds seemed to increase slightly, and Eric decided to slam his arms into the ground as he went, chewing it up with his fists; it allowed him to move faster.

More of the alien scouts appeared, but they were immediately sucked past by the gale, toward the hole.

“It’s getting too strong,” Dickson said.

“Fire a dispersion bolt, Tread,” Marlborough ordered.

Tread fired a bolt behind him, and a moment later the pull diminished. Eric was able to scramble to his feet, and he hurried onward.

Soon the winds were little more than a breeze, and the party was able to make good time away from the black hole. Brontosaurus and Dunnigan, on drag, kept an eye on the rear, where the Bolt Eaters and support units left a visible trail in their wake.

“Eagleeye, send the Ravens forward!” Marlborough ordered.

Eagleeye dispatched the Ravens; Marlborough kept the Bolt Eaters marching, deciding not to wait for the drones to clear the area first because he didn’t want to slow down.

Alien scouts were detected several more times at first, and the team members took cover immediately. They watched from their hiding places as the metallic spheres rushed past, heading into the forest toward the black hole location, where the Bolt Eaters were last spotted by the enemy.

Moving at the pace of their slowest units—the tanks—they continued that hide and seek game for several hours, with the scouts becoming less and less frequent, until none showed up at all. By then the snowmelt raining from the canopy had dried up, and the Bolt Eaters proceeded without the endless dripping. Either the snow that had gathered above the boughs here had melted away entirely, or this particular region of the forest hadn’t seen as much snowfall as the previous.

“The Ravens are approaching the rift site,” Eagleeye announced. “So far, everything is clear.”

“We’re going to make it,” Traps said. “We are.”

“Don’t jinx us, goddamnit,” Slate said.

“I’m not,” Traps said. “I’m just offering some moral encouragement.”

“Well don’t,” Slate said. “The only moral encouragement we need is the enemy units that are no doubt on our tail. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re leaving visible tracks behind us, what with all the crushed undergrowth and footprints in the snow.”

“We’re well aware of our predicament,” Tread said. “No need to rub it in.”

The rift site was just ahead, located in the heart of the rainforest.

“How much time until Arnold’s rift reappears?” Marlborough asked.

“According to the timer I set, the last time it appeared was three hours ago,” Dickson replied. “That means we have another three hours to go.”

“We have to sit here and defend for three hours?” Bambi said. “Why do I have a feeling these are going to be the longest three hours we’ve ever faced?”

“Halt,” Marlborough said. “Let the Ravens approach first.”

Eric switched to the POV of one of the Ravens, and watched it approach the rift site. The snow and undergrowth were trampled on the left side, indicating the trail the team had made after initially arriving and heading east.

The Ravens swept the area, and returned to Eagleeye.

“Seems clear,” Eagleeye said.

“That’s what you always say,” Slate told him. “And then usually a few seconds later we’re attacked.”

“And you’re the one who told Traps not to jinx things earlier?” Eagleeye commented.

“All right, assume defensive positions,” Marlborough said.

Eric and the others maneuvered in front of the site where the rift would form, and arranged themselves into multiple defensive rings. The Bolt Eaters formed the inner ring, the support units the outer. Eric placed the Ravagers among the outer units.

“I want you to climb the canopy, Scorpion,” Marlborough said. “Find out how close any airships are.”

Eric approached one of the trees. He put his hand onto the trunk, but then something strange happened.

A weblike netting struck his wrist, the sticky substance gluing his mech’s arm to the surface. More netting struck in rapid succession, gluing the rest of his body to the trunk.

“Uh, Sarge…” Eric said.

He glanced at his rear-view video feed, but saw that the other Bolt Eaters were in no condition to help him. Webs shot down from above as he watched, pinning multiple Bolt Eaters. The robotic arms that wielded the alien blades were targeted first, gluing their wrists to their bodies, or to the ground, or to nearby trees. Some of the mechs were able to cut through the netting before it struck their hands, but oftentimes more nets came in from multiple directions, and one inevitably got through. Once the Wolverine blades were entrapped, snaring the rest of the mech was relatively easy.

Eric randomly fired his shoulder-mounted energy weapon at the canopy overhead, hoping to hit whatever was launching these webs, but then several more shot down at him, gumming up the opening to the energy cannon. More struck the muzzle of his plasma and laser weapons, and when he attempted to fire, none of the weapons worked.

“These webs emit some kind of extremely short range disruptive field that prevents the necessary photon channels from forming in our laser and plasma weapons,” Bambi said. “My guess is, it’s affecting the alien energy cannons the same way.”

“Tread, can you fire your black hole weapon?” Marlborough asked.

“Nope, it’s offline too,” Tread said. “The opening is gummed up, and it won’t fire.”

“I can still use my energy forcefield,” Traps announced.

“But that doesn’t really help you at the moment…” Dickson said.

“No, I’m still pinned down,” Traps admitted.

In moments the entire team was pinned by those nets, and their weapons disabled.

Eric realized none of the support units that surrounded the inner circle were yet trapped.

Dunnigan evidently noticed, too, because he said: “The tanks are still free, do something, Tread!”

Eric attempted to seize control of the Ravagers, who were also part of the outer circle, and currently untouched, but they weren’t responding.

“Dee, what’s going on?” Eric said. “Are you able to get control of either Ravager?”

“Negative,” his Accomp replied. “The remote interfaces appear to be offline.”

“What, why?” Eric said. “I never authorized that. Did you turn it off?”

“No,” Dee said. “The interfaces should be working, but they’re not.”

“The M-54s aren’t responding,” Tread said.

“Neither are my Savages,” Bambi added.

“Nor mine,” Traps said.

“Well, this is just lovely,” Slate said. “We have three hours to go, and we’re already out of the battle. In the first five minutes.”

Dragonworms lowered from where they had been hiding above the canopy. Or rather, a type of Dragonworm. These particular bioweapons were slightly smaller than the undomesticated versions the team had encountered earlier, and their larval bodies had a bright red stripe passing down the middle. The worms simply hovered there, white bodies hanging down like crescents, flapping their dragonfly-like wings, and didn’t offer any further attacks.

“So, the Banthar have proper bioweapons after all,” Bambi said.

“The bastards ambushed us,” Brontosaurus said.

“How the hell did they find us?” Hicks asked.

“Obviously they traced the eastward path we made after we first arrived,” Frogger replied. “All the way from the plains.”

“But we left no footsteps outside the forest,” Hicks said. “There was no snow.”

“One of their scouts probably stumbled on the entry point,” Frogger said. “That would explain why their pursuit wasn’t more aggressive.”

“Actually, I told them the coordinates,” one of the Ravager units announced. The voice came over the comm band, but no avatar appeared on Eric’s HUD when it spoke.

Eric instinctively tried to seize control of the unit.

“Scorpion?” Dickson said. “You doing that?”

“No, I still can’t access the unit,” Eric said. “I can’t even reach the remote interface.”

“You’re all going to be dissected,” the Ravager said, turning around. “The Banthar will open up your protective armor, then your chest assembly, and then your AI core. Your neural networks will be unwound, the data absorbed into the Essential.”

“That voice…” Crusher said. “I recognize it from somewhere.”

“Of course you recognize it,” the Ravager unit said. “You once knew me as Manticore.”

“But you died,” Brontosaurus said. “We saw it.”

“Did you?” Manticore said. “You abandoned me in the Caucasus mountains while the bioweapons closed in. You never saw what happened to me. You didn’t care.”

“How did you escape?” Brontosaurus said.

“I didn’t,” Manticore told him simply.

The second Ravager turned to face the trapped Bolt Eaters, as did the M-54 tanks, and the Savages. The support units aimed their weapons at the different Bolt Eaters so that each member had at least two weapons pointed at them. The two Ravens approached, and hovered behind Manticore, obviously under his control as well.

“I’ve been hunting you since Earth,” Manticore said. “There, I lead a small organization known as the Tal Shahar.”

“You’re the mastermind behind the Tal Shahar?” Crusher asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” Manticore said.

“But they hate Mind Refurbs, and have sworn to destroy them!” Crusher said.

“Yes,” Manticore said.

“You hate yourself?” Brontosaurus said.

“Mind Refurbs are abominations of the human condition,” Manticore said. “If not destroyed now, in their infancy, eventually all humans will become Mind Refurbs. I know it. Everyone’s going to want what they see as immortality. But they don’t know the costs, the terrible costs. I won’t let that happen. I won’t let more human minds endure the suffering we’ve gone through.”

“Dude, we’re not suffering,” Slate said.

“You are, yet you don’t know it,” Manticore said. “I’m helping you by doing this. Hopefully you’ll understand this before the Banthar melt you down for spare parts.”

“You’ve been in control of the Ravager for how long?” Marlborough asked.

“Since Earth,” Manticore replied. “I had helpers embedded in the army depot rip out the autonomous core from this Ravager, and install my AI core in its place. Once we passed through the wormhole, I spent most of my time in an accelerated state, instructing my Accomp to obey any commands sent my way, even allowing remote takeover requests. It took about a week of accelerated time to hack into the support units. When that was done, the big question came down to: when was the most opportune time to strike? I almost turned on you several times, but in the end, the Essential and I decided the best course of action would be to waylay you here, when you attempted to return to Earth.”

“The Essential?” Marlborough pressed.

“Yes,” Manticore said, but offered no further explanation.

“Let us go,” Marlborough continued. “We have critical intelligence that needs to make it home. You could be dooming humanity by doing this. You claim you want to help them, by not letting them become Mind Refurbs… but you can’t help them if the Banthar decide to return and kill all of humanity.”

“Oh, they’re going to return, that’s an irrefutable fact,” Manticore said. “In fact, I’ve already agreed to help them take Earth.”

“And what do you get in return?” Marlborough said.

“Nothing for myself,” Manticore said. “But they have agreed to spare humanity. The biosphere will be destroyed to make way for bioweapon production: humans and animals will have to live in domes, but it’s better than having no life left at all.”

“You’re a traitor to humanity,” Marlborough said.

“I can’t believe you’re getting nothing personally in return,” Bambi said. “You say you’re altruistic, and doing this to save humanity, but I don’t buy it.”

“Ah, the Black Widow,” Manticore said. “You always were the sharpest of the bunch.”

“So, what do you get in return?” Bambi said.

“They’ve also agreed to help me destroy all Mind Refurbs,” Manticore said. “Not just you, but any copies still on Earth. And backups. When that’s all done, they’ve agreed to terminate me as well.”

Behind Manticore and the support units, between the trees, tentacled alien tanks approached, trampling the snow and undergrowth beneath them.

“Welcome to hell,” Manticore said.

To be continued...

I don't like leaving readers hanging, which is why I've decided to publish all three full length novels in the trilogy at the same time. That's right, book two is available now. Find out what happens next without having to wait.

Continue the adventures in Reforged (Bolt Eaters Trilogy Book 2)

Afterword

Please help spread the word about Reactivated by leaving a one or two sentence review. The number of reviews an ebook receives has a big impact on how well it does, so if you liked this story I'd REALLY appreciate it if you left a quick review. Anything will do, even one or two lines.

Thank you!

About the Author

USA Today bestselling author Isaac Hooke holds a degree in engineering physics, though his more unusual inventions remain fictive at this time. He is an avid hiker, cyclist, and photographer who sometimes resides in Edmonton, Alberta.

Get in touch:

isaachooke.com

isaac@isaachooke.com

Facebook Facebook

Twitter Twitter

Acknowledgments

I’d also like to thank my knowledgeable beta readers and advanced reviewers who helped smooth out the rough edges of the prerelease manuscript: Nicole P., Karen J, Jeremy G., Doug B., Jenny O., Amy B., Bryan O., Lezza, Noel, Anton, Spencer, Norman, Trudi, Corey, Erol, Terje, David, Charles, Walter, Lisa, Ramon, Chris, Scott, Michael, Chris, Bob, Jim, Maureen, Zane, Chuck, Shayne, Anna, Dave, Roger, Nick, Gerry, Charles, Annie, Patrick, Mike, Jeff, Lisa, Jason, Bryant, Janna, Tom, Jerry, Chris, Jim, Brandon, Kathy, Norm, Jonathan, Derek, Shawn, Judi, Eric, Rick, Bryan, Barry, Sherman, Jim, Bob, Ralph, Darren, Michael, Chris, Michael, Julie, Glenn, Rickie, Rhonda, Neil, Claude, Ski, Joe, Paul, Larry, John, Norma, Jeff, David, Brennan, Phyllis, Robert, Darren, Daniel, Montzalee, Robert, Dave, Diane, Peter, Skip, Louise, Dave, Brent, Erin, Paul, Jeremy, Dan, Garland, Sharon, Dave, Pat, Nathan, Max, Martin, Greg, David, Myles, Nancy, Ed, David, Karen, Becky, Jacob, Ben, Don, Carl, Gene, Bob, Luke, Teri, Robine, Gerald, Lee, Rich, Ken, Daniel, Chris, Al, Andy, Tim, Robert, Fred, David, Mitch, Don, Tony, Dian, Tony, John, Sandy, James, David, Pat, Gary, Jean, Bryan, William, Roy, Dave, Vincent, Tim, Richard, Kevin, George, Andrew, John, Richard, Robin, Sue, Mark, Jerry, Rodger, Rob, Byron, Ty, Mike, Gerry, Steve, Benjamin, Anna, Keith, Jeff, Josh, Herb, Bev, Simon, John, David, Greg, Larry, Timothy, Tony, Ian, Niraj, Maureen, Jim, Len, Bryan, Todd, Maria, Angela, Gerhard, Renee, Pete, Hemantkumar, Tim, Joseph, Will, David, Suzanne, Steve, Derek, Valerie, Laurence, James, Andy, Mark, Tarzy, Christina, Rick, Mike, Paula, Tim, Jim, Gal, Anthony, Ron, Dietrich, Mindy, Ben, Steve, Allen, Paddy & Penny, Troy, Marti, Herb, Jim, David, Alan, Leslie, Chuck, Dan, Perry, Chris, Rich, Rod, Trevor, Rick, Michael, Tim, Mark, Alex, John, William, Doug, Tony, David, Sam, Derek, John, Jay, Tom, Bryant, Larry, Anjanette, Gary, Travis, Jennifer, Henry, Drew, Michelle, Bob, Gregg, Billy, Jack, Lance, Sandra, Libby, Jonathan, Karl, Bruce, Clay, Gary, Sarge, Andrew, Deborah, Steve, and Curtis.

Without you all, this novel would have typos, continuity errors, and excessive lapses in realism. Thank you for helping me make this the best novel possible, and thank you for leaving the early reviews that help new readers find my books.

And of course I’d be remiss if I didn't thank my mother, father, and brothers, whose wisdom and insights have always guided me through the dark paths at the edge of the world.

— Isaac Hooke

Continue the adventures in Reforged (Bolt Eaters Trilogy Book 2)