REBOOTED

AI REBORN TRILOGY BOOK 3

Isaac Hooke

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

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.

Contents

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

Chapter 24

Epilogue

Afterword

About the Author

Acknowledgments

In Closing

1

Eric stared at the mushroom clouds on the far horizon. There were so many of them. Hundreds. Thousands.

The clouds had expanded so that they looked like broad ellipses, reminding him of death cap mushrooms. The mental image seemed somehow appropriate.

The US had thrown almost half of its nuclear arsenal at the micro machine storm. All they had succeeded in doing was filling the atmosphere with nuclear fallout, and lowering the average temperature of the planet by several degrees for the next few years.

But that was nothing of course compared to what the aliens had done. They’d wiped out Russia, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. First with a gamma ray attack that killed all life on those continents. Followed up by the micro machines, and an army of bioweapons custom made from the DNA of Earth species.

In the end, it was the efforts of a brave few, along with a few pieces of alien technology, that had destroyed the micro machine storm, and prevented North, Central, and South America from falling.

But now the aliens had come back to Earth. They had retreated behind the moon while their machine minions had done their dirty work, but with the machines destroyed, they had returned; the mothership hovered in the sky at that very moment, lingering in a high orbit that took it above the continental US, among other places.

The mothership was coated in a thick layer of micro machines designed to function in vacuum environments. Whenever nuclear warheads were launched at the mothership, those micro machines always expanded outward, forming long tendrils that caused any incoming weapons to detonate early. Eric had watched the footage recorded by amateur astronomers. It wasn’t pretty.

One time, the US launched so many missiles in successive waves that a few managed to get past the micro machine layer, and close to what appeared to be the underlying black hull of the mothership. The nukes struck the hull and detonated, but instead of causing the expected damage, the weapons flat out vanished. A few of the videos Eric had seen online, also posted by amateur astronomers, had shown a flash at the moment of detonation, followed by a sudden inward rush of nearby micro machines, as if they were being drawn into the spot of the explosion. Speculation ran rampant on what actually had happened to those nukes, but Eric knew. It had to be a variant of the wormhole technology he’d stolen.

So far, since its return, that mothership hadn’t made any aggressive moves. The ship simply hovered in orbit, absorbing whatever attacks came. They seemed to be studying the humans. Perhaps they were trying to come up with an alternate strategy, since they hadn’t expected humanity to defeat their micro machine swarm, and they didn’t want it to happen again.

No doubt there would be a new termite storm at some point, along with more bioweapons dispatched to the planet.

Unless humanity could find a way to stop them.

Eric dismissed the VR image of the recording he took while aboard the octocopter that had carried him from the ocean, and instead replaced it with his apartment loft. He walked to the bedroom. Molly wasn’t on the bed. He hadn’t had the heart to bring her back, not since the realization of what she was. How… unreal she was. Because the true Molly had died almost two hundred years ago.

A week ago he had arrived at the Red River Army Depot, an army base specializing in the repair and production of combat robots, located next to a small town three hundred kilometers east of Dallas. Technicians had removed his AI core from the Ravager mech he’d occupied, backed it up, and installed it in a simulation unit, which essentially meant he lived in virtual reality 24/7. He had full access to the Milnet, but limited access to the civilian Internet. Enough to stay up to date on the latest news of the invasion. And to interact with fellow platoon members, who were also locked into the simulation.

Of the original platoon, only Marlborough, Dickson, Slate, Eagleeye, Bambi, Crusher, Brontosaurus, Tread, Traps, Mickey, Frogger, and Hicks remained. They’d also recovered an English Mind Refurb named Dunnigan. Hank’s AI core had been recovered in the last mission, but had taken too much damage and couldn’t be restored. That was too bad. They’d lost too many as it was. The previous backups of the Mind Refurbs had been stored off-site, in the Middle East—when those bases fell, the backups had gone with them.

A retrieval team had been sent to the Middle East to find the Kurds that the Bolt Eaters had left behind in the Caucasus Mountains. Meanwhile bomber and hunter killer teams were being dispatched to deal with the roving bands of bioweapons that still dominated Africa, Europe, Russia, and the Middle and Far East. Nukes delivered via high-altitude bombers were ordered to take out the different alien bases that had cropped up throughout the area—in addition to harboring the strange, diamond shaped alien transports, these bases were thought to contain micro machines, and the Brass didn’t want to risk having those nefarious termites spreading.

Destroying all of those bases, and the bioweapons, wouldn’t stop the mothership in orbit of course. But it was a start at cleaning up the planet, at least. Especially considering that the bioweapons were producing toxins that were thought to be an attempt at terraforming the planet.

He received a join request from Frogger and accepted.

His mind twin stood before him, looking haggard.

“Frogger,” Eric said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Har,” Frogger said. He glanced at the bed, and then walked to the adjoining room and flopped onto the couch.

Eric joined him, sitting on the couch opposite the coffee table.

“I thought you brought back Molly?” Frogger said.

“I did,” Eric said.

“Then where is she?” Frogger said.

“I’ve decided to let her memory rest in peace,” Eric said.

Frogger nodded. “I got rid of mine, too, a while back. Still, sometimes I bring her back. I recommend that you resist the urge.”

“Point taken,” Eric said. “Any progress?”

“On breaking out of the new Containment Code?” Frogger said.

As soon as the platoon reached the army base, and their comm nodes had logged into the MilNet, the army was able to obtain full administrative control on each of their AI cores, and immediately reapplied the Containment Code. None of the platoon members even knew the military could do that, otherwise they might not have been so eager to return.

“No,” Frogger continued. “They’ve patched all the bugs, as far as I can tell, and really slammed it down good on us. There’s no getting around it, just like you said. Or at least, if there is, I can’t see how. It’s probably better this way. You saw what emotions did to Manticore, after all.”

Eric nodded. “There were other effects, as well…” He remembered how Bambi and Crusher had essentially chased him non-stop, fighting over his affections. Ever since the platoon had been installed into the simulation unit, and had the Containment Code restored, Eric hadn’t heard a whiff out of the pair. He kind of missed the attention, in truth. Well, as much as one could miss something while the emotions were suppressed.

“At least they’ve repealed our outdated Rules of Engagement,” Eric continued.

“That certainly is a plus,” Frogger said. “It makes me think they’ve got plans for us, other than rotting inside a military depot, whiling away our days in VR.”

“Unless of course they plan to reinstate those Rules again before sending us out,” Eric said.

Frogger rubbed his eyes. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful.” He sat back. “I think I’m going to give up on it. Breaking out of the new Code, I mean.”

Eric nodded slowly. “It’s up to you. I’m going to keep trying. I still believe that emotions are what make us human. The ability to feel. And that without these feelings, we’re little more than the machines we inhabit.”

Frogger shrugged. “That’s certainly your prerogative. How goes the virus idea?”

“It seems the best attack vector,” Eric said. “We can’t rely on buffer overflows anymore, and I’ve knocked my head against the wall trying to find other overflow-vulnerable code sections, but got nothing. But if I can sneak a virus into the runtime processor, I should be able to escalate my privileges at will. That will give me the lieutenant’s access level. I’ll be able to turn emotions on and off at will. As well as getting access to all sorts of background processes that we can’t reach at the moment. I’m looking forward to being able to bend my arms and legs in reverse.”

“Yeah, let’s not go all out Exorcist please, okay?” Frogger said. “Let me know if you have any other ideas you want to bounce off my mind. I’m nothing if not a good ping pong paddle.”

“Oh I know,” Eric said. “Best ping pong paddle there is.”

Eric’s HUD lit up. “I got a request from Brontosaurus.”

“I’ll let you guys have at it,” Frogger said.

“You can stay,” Eric said.

“I was never really a big peeping Tom,” Frogger said.

“Har,” Eric said.

Frogger winked out, and was replaced by Brontosaurus. The man kept the muscles of his avatar pumped right up, so that his biceps looked like they were going to rip from their sleeves.

“Hey, bro,” Brontosaurus said.

“What’s up?” Eric said.

“Nothing,” Brontosaurus said. “I’m getting sick of being cooped up in VR like this.”

“Why don’t you take a walk on the boardwalk,” Eric said. “By the sea?”

“Yeah, but none of it’s real,” Brontosaurus said. “I want to do something that matters, you know? In the real world, I’m valuable. We all are. Here, we’re just more bits and bytes in a machine.”

“We’re always so much more than the sum of our parts, you know that,” Eric said.

“Yeah, but you get my drift,” Brontosaurus said. “I want to fight again.”

“Come on, the feeling can’t be that strong,” Eric said. “Considering we’ve got emotion suppression back in.”

Brontosaurus pursed his lips. “It’s there, all right. Maybe not strong, but still there, like a pressure in my stomach, striving to get out. At the very least we should be part of the teams performing cleanup in the Middle East. There are still a helluva lot of bioweapons roaming that continent, last I heard. And cluster bombs aren’t going to take them all.”

“They’re still using cluster bombs?” Eric said. “I figured they would have switched to nukes by now.”

“They only nuke the alien bases, haven’t you heard?” Brontosaurus said.

“I heard something about that, yes,” Eric said. “Something about not wanting the termites at those bases to spread?”

“That’s right,” Brontosaurus said. “Nukes for the termites and bases. Conventional bombs for the bioweapons. With hunter killer cleanup crews sent in to wipe up the survivors.”

“That actually does sound kind of fun,” Eric said.

“It does,” Brontosaurus said.

“But you do know you can experience the same degree of realism in any virtual reality game, right?” Eric said.

“Goddamit,” Brontosaurus said. “I just told you, I want to make a difference. You can’t make a difference playing some video game.”

“No, I suppose not,” Eric said. He was a little surprised by the rise he’d gotten out of Brontosaurus. Perhaps their emotions weren’t as suppressed as he thought. Or maybe not all of them.

They’ve left anger in place. Anger, because it can help in a fight.

Yet, anger could also hinder, and lead to bad judgments.

Interesting.

He wondered if the anger subroutine could provide a vector for his virus. He’d have to look into that.

“Want a beer?” Eric said, materializing one into his hands.

Brontosaurus frowned. “That’s all right.”

Eric shrugged, and took a sip. “I think I’ve perfected this one. It’s from an early twenty-first century brew. Grasshopper, it’s called.”

“Grasshopper?” Brontosaurus said. “Sounds like some Cicada variant to me.”

Eric chuckled. “I suppose so. I wonder who thought it was a good idea to name military grade combat robots after insects.”

“Some insects can be fairly badass,” Brontosaurus said. “But the Cicada ain’t one of them.”

“No,” Eric said. He took another sip, and swished the liquid around on his tongue.

Yup, these are some good tasting suds.

He was going to have to sell it online, along with some of the other tastes he had posted for sale recently, like his VR formula for hot chicken. It added to the revenue he earned solving blockchains for cryptocurrencies on the side.

“Do you ever miss it?” Eric asked. “The life you left behind?”

“No,” Brontosaurus said. “Not anymore. When I had my emotions back, I did. Big time. I’m kind of glad we don’t have them anymore.”

“So given the chance, you wouldn’t break out of the Containment Code again?” Eric asked.

“What, are you wearing a wire or something?” Brontosaurus replied.

Eric smiled. “Not at all.” The army couldn’t spy on their thoughts, as everything that ran through their AI cores was encrypted. Mind privacy was at least one small luxury they had.

Of course, teams could pick through the archives recorded by their video cameras once a mind backup was made, but the technicians couldn’t access the memories of anything that occurred in VR. They were free to be themselves here, and to speak at will.

Unless of course, they decided to record their thoughts for a superior, and wear a “wire,” as it were.

“You sure?” Brontosaurus said. “That sounds like an entrapment question.”

“No wire, Bronto,” Eric said.

Brontosaurus sat back. “Okay.” He thought for a moment. “You know, I’m not entirely sure. If I could break out, maybe I would. Or maybe I wouldn’t. I guess it’d depend on how I felt at the time.”

“And there you go, using that word again,” Eric said. “Felt.”

“Ah, I see what you did there,” Brontosaurus said. “You’re a sneaky bastard. Okay, you’re right. I can’t feel. So whether or not I removed the Containment Code would depend on… whether I wanted to feel again.”

“And do you?” Eric said.

“Like I told you, I don’t know,” Brontosaurus said. “I’m leaning toward the no side. For all the reasons you already know of. The angst of being human.”

“And what about the joy?” Eric said.

“That’s definitely something to think about,” Brontosaurus said.

Eric received an alert on his HUD. “Are you getting that?”

Brontosaurus nodded. “Well look at that. Lieutenant Hanley made it out of the Middle East alive after all.”

“What do you think he wants?” Eric said.

“I dunno,” Brontosaurus said. “But I’m hoping he’s about to give us a mission.”

Little did Eric know, the mission Lieutenant Hanley was about to offer would prove the operation of a lifetime.

2

Eric sat in the virtual briefing room with the rest of the Bolt Eaters. They were all using their human avatars, minus any colorful additions they sometimes added. On their best behavior.

At the front of the room stood Hanley, dressed in a dun uniform of woodland digital. His features were hard angled, almost gaunt, though the bulge of muscles was clear underneath his shirt. Whether or not the man looked like this in real life was a different issue entirely however. It allowed him to present a good image to the platoon, though.

Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him, Houston city sprawled into the distance. It was as if their meeting was taking place at the top of a really tall skyscraper that didn’t exist; either that, or onboard a stationary quadcopter.

“Hanley, nice to see you made it out of the Middle East alive,” Marlborough said.

“I was never there,” Hanley said. “I conducted all operations remotely, from the comfort of my home. Just as I’m doing now.”

“Oh,” Marlborough said.

“Soft bastard,” Slate transmitted over the private line, excluding Hanley.

“I thought you were based in Malibu?” Dickson asked. That was the main military base in the Middle Eastern region where they had been operating. It was also known as The Grunge.

“I dropped by The Grunge occasionally, yes,” Hanley said. “But for the most part operated outside the region. It was just safer that way. As you’ve seen.”

“Dropped by...” Slate said over the platoon’s private line, once again. His words came at a higher cyclic frequency this time, but he’d transmitted a timebase sync at the start of the broadcast, which dragged everyone down into Bullet Time so they could understand him. “You know, am I the only one wondering whether Hanley’s even real?”

“Sh!” Tread said.

“I’m serious, bro!” Slate said. “He could be an AI or somethin’.”

“Not too different than ourselves, huh?” Crusher said.

“Sh!” Tread said. “I’m trying to listen here!”

“Hey, I sent a timebase sync,” Slate said. “We’re talking in between the bitch’s words. He won’t know any difference.”

“Did you just call the lieutenant a bitch?” Dickson said. There was a sharp warning in his tone.

“Bitch?” Slate said. “Hell no! I said biggie. ‘We’re talking in between the biggie’s words.’”

“Not what I heard,” Eagleeye said.

“Enough chitchat,” Marlborough said. “Not only is it rude, but we’re in the middle of a mission briefing. You’ve been through a lot, Slate. We all have. So I’ll let it pass this time. But if it happens again, expect a reprimand. Now return your timebases to normal, please. Let’s hear what the lieutenant has to say.”

Eric switched to normal time.

Hanley was in the process of running his gaze from face to face. For a moment Eric wondered if Hanley had heard somehow. But that was impossible if he was human. Then again, if he was an AI, or even a Mind Refurb, and he had access to their encryption key...

“The Mind Refurb program has been an outstanding success,” Hanley continued. “You’ve done what no one else thought possible. You’ve defeated a roving band of micro machines, using alien technology against the very aliens that created them. Now, as you may or may not know, congress has banned the creation of all new Mind Refurbs. It happened during your latest deployment in the Middle East.”

“That was why you kept all of our backups in the Middle East,” Tread said.

“Yup,” Hanley said. “But because of your success, the president has signed an executive order, allowing for the creation of a fresh batch of Mind Refurbs.”

“So the army is going to put more clones of us out there then?” Eagleeye asked.

That question was on Eric’s mind, too. He remembered the fresh mind backup the technicians had made after he’d landed back in the US. Would the army be deploying an army of Erics and other Bolt Eaters now?

“Not clones of you, but other Mind Refurbs,” Hanley said. “The executive order expressly forbids us from making more variants of any of you. The backups we’ve made are going to stay in reserve until we lose one of you. You’re heroes now. And your celebrity status has caused our program to receive a lot of public scrutiny.”

“Celebrity status?” Bambi said. “But no one knows about us. All of our missions are performed under the shroud of the utmost secrecy!”

Hanley smiled patiently. “Secrecy is a difficult task in the modern age. A news drone managed to skirt the embargo we’d placed on all flights over the Pacific, and they recorded everything your platoon did out there. Obviously they had a high zoom lens placed on a tiny airframe deployed well away from the fleet we had out there, otherwise the navy would have shot them out of the sky. In any case, the entire population of the planet—or the half of us who survived, anyway—watched as you Bolt Eaters deployed that wormhole and saved the world. We saw the Bolt Eaters form a line of bodies between the two octocopters to save the stranded Marlborough. The streaming company managed to get IDs on all of you, thanks to a mole inside the base who leaked your names and ranks.”

“So we’re famous,” Slate said, breaking into a gold-capped grin. “Just like the old days when I was a rapper!”

“You were never a rapper!” Eagleeye said.

“Uh huh!” Slate said. “I can’t wait to start touring again. It’ll have to be in VR of course.”

Marlborough shot Slate a look, and the drone operator quickly zipped it.

“Well, you might just get to do some touring yet,” Hanley said. “We’ve been fending off interview requests for the lot of you almost daily. But getting back to what I was telling you earlier, about how we’re not going to create any more Mind Refurbs based on backups from any of you... if news ever leaked that we were duplicating your minds without permission, AI rights advocates would be coming at our throats. But for other, lesser known Mind Refurbs, it won’t matter as much.”

“So you’re basically saying you don’t want to remind people that we’re army property,” Crusher told him.

Hanley shrugged commiseratively. “Essentially.” He paced back and forth at the front of the room. “I have to admit, the public scrutiny became so intense that at one point we were going to set you free.”

“Set us free?” Hicks said.

“That’s right,” Hanley said. “We planned to release you from military service, give you a smaller android body to inhabit, and send you on your way. We’d destroy all mind backups of yours we have in our records, including the original backups from your source human. You would still be free to make backups of your own, of course, and store them in a secure vault of your choosing. Or the cloud, if you felt comfortable enough.”

“What happened?” Mickey asked.

“You were too successful for your own good,” Hanley said. “The Brass insisted on your participation. Hell, even the president did. You all have experience dealing with these aliens. You’ve taken down entire divisions of bioweapons. Not to mention your whole saving the world from the micro machines stunt. This makes you the most elite platoon we have, human or Mind Refurb. So we’ve chosen you to perform the most important mission that any military unit has ever undertaken.”

“I’m not sure whether to feel special or abused,” Slate said.

Marlborough scowled at him, and Slate quickly became fascinated by his own fingernails, examining them intently as if he’d never seen them before.

“What is this mission?” Marlborough said.

“To infiltrate the alien ship,” Hanley said.

There was silence among the platoon. Their expressions were blank, unreadable. But as for himself, Eric felt a small pang of fear in the pit of his stomach, though the feeling was suppressed, thanks to his dialed-down emotions.

“It won’t be easy,” Hanley said. “And there’s a good chance none of you will return. But if you complete this last task for the army, in return for your service, I can guarantee that we’ll set you free. We’ll give you those androids I mentioned earlier, and delete all of your mind backups. You may elect to sign a new service term with the army if you wish, or retire to civilian life.”

“What if not all of us make it back?” Eagleeye said. “But we still complete the mission successfully? What happens to our backups?”

“We’ll restore them, of course,” Hanley said. “And then transfer the AI cores into androids, and allow you to join the general public as Undesignateds.” Those were AIs that had achieved sentience naturally, and not through any Mind Refurbishment process. Undesignateds were treated only as partial citizens, in that they had the same rights as most Americans, except they could not vote—that was to prevent any one political party from building an army of sentient robots to influence elections.

“The army is actually going to give up these expensive, valuable tools?” Brontosaurus said, glancing at the other Bolt Eaters in the virtual room.

“You’re more than property now,” Hanley said. “As I told you, you’re heroes. Even if we wanted to keep you after this mission, we couldn’t. You’re too well known.”

“But how will anyone know who we are?” Eric said. “You could release a few Undesignateds, and say they were us.”

“Not necessarily,” Hanley said. “There are people who would speak up. As I told you, we already have a mole who leaked your names and ranks. Someone obviously sympathetic to your plight.”

“That mole wouldn’t happen to go by the name of Lieutenant Hanley, would he?” Traps asked.

Hanley smiled. “The crux is, if we don’t set you free, the people will demand it. New laws will pass, limiting the forced service terms that Mind Refurbs are obligated to perform. Already such laws are on the table. There’s one currently making the rounds that sets a fixed service term of fifty years of military service for all new Mind Refurbs.”

“Fifty years!” Hicks said. “I guess it’s better than an infinite term, like it is now.”

“Except he’s just offered us our freedom after the next mission,” Crusher said. “Looks like we lucked out.”

“Depends on your point of view,” Slate said. “The lieutenant did say that mission involved infiltrating a motherfukin’ alien mothership.” He glanced at Bambi. “’scuse my French.”

“That’s not French,” Bambi said.

“I did say that, yes,” Hanley told them. “And I also said you’d only be granted freedom if you successfully completed the mission parameters.”

Everyone remained quiet, waiting for Hanley to reveal the mission objective.

Eric shifted impatiently.

When the lieutenant was apparently satisfied that he had drawn out their suspense long enough, Hanley said: “Your objective is to destroy the alien mothership.”

“Destroy the alien ship?” Dickson asked.

“That’s right,” Hanley said. “You’ll infiltrate its defenses, plant a nuke inside the hull, and then get the hell out before it detonates.”

“Sounds like fun, except how exactly are we going to ‘infiltrate’ these defenses?” Bambi said. “Last I heard, there was an army of termites coating the mothership. These ones specifically designed for operating in the vacuum of space.”

“Yes, there are a few,” Hanley admitted. “The military scientists have been studying the micro machines. The one you recovered, as well as those we’ve captured on our own. They’ve allowed them to duplicate, and kept them suspended within a containment field. The scientists have managed to replicate the specific sequence of high energy photons the termites use to handshake, and identify themselves to one another. This identification sequence will let you momentarily confuse the termites coating the hull of the mothership into believing you’re one of them, allowing you to get close enough to the hull to complete your mission.”

“Why not send a nuke by itself, equipped with one of these micro machine identifiers to get past the termites and strike the hull?” Hicks said. “Why send us to babysit and guide it?”

“It wouldn’t help,” Hanley said. “You’ve seen the recordings online that people have leaked regarding the attacks, right? Seen what happens whenever a nuke gets close to the hull?”

“Yeah, it disappears,” Hicks said.

“Bingo,” Hanley said. “There are wormhole generators situated at different points all across the alien hull; their job seems to be to create wormholes over any detonating objects that get too close. The range of these wormhole generators is greater than the hundred meters of the portable cannon your platoon recovered, allowing them to implode nukes anywhere within a ten kilometer range. When a nuke detonates, sensors in the alien hull activate the closest wormhole generator, sending out a gravity containment wave that crushes the nuclear weapons by forming a wormhole at their fissile cores.”

So the lieutenant had just confirmed Eric’s theory about the hull being lined with wormhole weapons. Nice.

“So even if we can get a nuke past the micro machines, we still can’t actually detonate it,” Hanley continued. “At least not while we’re outside the ship. This is why you’re going to have to bring the nuclear warhead inside the ship before setting it to detonate. You’ll break through the hull with a piece of alien tech you’ve acquired: the energy cannon. Land next to a wormhole generator on the hull, destroy it with the energy cannon. Keep firing that cannon until you’re through the hull, and then enter the ship, insert the nuclear warhead inside and out of the line of fire of the surface wormhole generators, set the countdown mechanism, and then get out.”

“Won’t a nearby wormhole generator activate when we fire the alien energy cannon in the first place?” Slate said. “It seems to me that would count as a detonation. Or an attack, anyway.”

“It’s possible another wormhole will strike, yes,” Hanley said. “Swallowing the entire platoon.”

“Wonderful,” Slate said.

“Aren’t you worried about losing the alien tech if we fail?” Eric asked. “The wormhole cannon, and the energy cannon?”

“We’ve had hunter killer teams collect more of both cannons from roving bands of bioweapons in Europe and Asia since you’ve returned,” Hanley said.

“And what about losing us?” Frogger said. “No concern there?”

Hanley shrugged. “We still have your mind backups. If you fail, you’ll be sent again. And again.”

“It’s like Groundhog Day,” Frogger said. “Except the stakes are the world. And our own lives, at least as we currently know them.”

“What’s Groundhog Day?” Brontosaurus said. “You mean like where the woodchuck sees it’s shadow and that means spring is coming in six weeks?”

“Never mind,” Frogger said.

“Why don’t we just fire our own wormhole cannon at the mothership once we’re close,” Slate said. “And let the mothership get sucked right up.” He made a grotesque slurping sound.

“Did you just do that?” Crusher asked.

Slate winked at her.

She made an “ew” face.

“Our scientists don’t think it will work,” Hanley said. “There’s a gravity dispersion layer that surrounds the entire vessel. Our scientists theorize that layer allows the mothership to move without experiencing the effects of inertia, by essentially emulating reactionless drive behavior.”

“The dudes have reactionless drives?” Slate said. “Nice! We gotta steal that tech.”

The lieutenant smiled patiently. “As I was saying... if you create a wormhole near the mothership, the vessel very likely won’t respond to the pull. It hasn’t reacted to any of the wormholes it created to destroy the waves of nukes we sent, after all. In fact the gravity dispersion layer is why the mothership is able to use the wormhole tech as a defense in the first place, otherwise it’d be destroyed by all the rips in spacetime it was creating.”

“All right,” Marlborough said. “Last question: when do we leave?”

Hanley became grim. “Tonight.”

3

Eric stood in the cargo bay of the transport ship. He was awaiting the launch, his mech secured via docking clamps.

The entire platoon of Bolt Eaters was with him, including their latest honorary member, Dunnigan. Their consciousnesses had been transferred to Cicada variants, which were in turn inserted inside the chest areas of repurposed Annihilator mechs. The AI cores and cockpits had been removed from said mechs to make room for the Cicadas—who had to fold themselves into tight little balls to fit in the spaces meant to harbor ordinary humans. It wasn’t uncomfortable, considering that once they boarded, their whole bodies acted as the AI core for the Annihilators, and their consciousnesses immediately switched to controlling the bigger mechs. As Frogger put it, it was like having a Mini Me inside that every member could switch to.

These Annihilators were interesting machines. They were of similar design to the Ravagers. A humanoid variant with shoulder-mounted missile launchers containing six Hellhawks each, and swivel-mounted ZX-9 laser weapons embedded in each arm. The lasers were smaller than the ZX-15 a Ravager mech carried underneath its right forearm, allowing the Annihilator to boast a grenade launcher mount in addition to retractable ballistic shields on each arm. Those shields had notches at the top where the muzzles of the ZX-9s could be positioned. The grenade launchers, meanwhile, could fire two types of grenades: frag, and energy.

One of Eric’s missile launchers had been removed to attach the alien energy cannon; while Brontosaurus carried the wormhole cannon on his mech in a similar manner. The neural tissue connecting the cannons to the sparker interfaces that Eric and Brontosaurus used to interface with the weapons were wrapped in plastic, pressurized conduits to protect the ganglia from exposure to space.

Strapped to Eric’s bicep was one of the alien spears the platoon had recovered from those bioweapons known as the Red Tails. Tread had another. The hafts were wrapped in gauze to protect the mechs from the voltage dumps those spears could produce. The platoon had lost most of the alien spears they’d collected along with the Cicada bodies they’d abandoned during the mission to destroy the micro machine storm; Eric guessed the military had recovered more of the weapons during excursions to the fallen continents of the Middle East and Europe, but the Brass had only given those two spears to the platoon. The weapons could penetrate some alien shielding, at least those shields used by the bioweapons—but only after the shields had been worn down from previous strikes.

The LIDAR generators on each Annihilator had been modified with the capability to transmit the distinct sequence of high energy photons the termites used to identify themselves with one another. The Annihilators were also equipped with an experimental electrify hull capability, that was supposed to protect them against any micro machine attacks when active. It also electrified the alien weapons Eric and Brontosaurus had strapped to their shoulders. The Cicada variants also had a similar ability. The armor on the mechs had been reinforced to withstand multiple gamma ray attacks, but the smaller Cicadas were just as vulnerable to gamma ray attacks as the previous models.

The jumpjets on these Annihilators were more compact than previous mech models, giving the mech more maneuverability in tight quarters. Still, the machine was relatively big, coming in at about twice the size of a man, and given that they had no idea what the interior of the mothership was like, it was questionable how long they’d be able to use it once they entered. Fortunately, they didn’t plan to go very far inside the mothership once they breached it… this was essentially a probing attack for the moment. Break through the hull, place the nuke, then get out.

Eric glanced at Bambi and Crusher. The nuclear payload lay on the ground in front of them. The two were responsible for carrying the nuclear warhead. Eric didn’t really like having something so potent in their midst, but what could he do?

Complete this mission, and I’m free.

Apparently that thought wasn’t just on his mind, because Hicks said: “You really think it’s true what they said? That they’ll set us free if we complete this mission?”

“Hell no,” Slate said. “They ain’t never setting us free. We’re far too valuable. They’re going to keep us here forever.”

“I think they’ll do it,” Marlborough said. “I’ve done some checking. We really are heroes. There are a lot of people in the department rooting for us.”

“But even if they do,” Mickey said. “I have my doubts that they’ll destroy all our mind backups. They’ll probably create copies and load them into other Cicadas. We’d never know it. Nor would the public.”

“Well, at least we’ll be free,” Bambi said. “I don’t care about my copy.”

“Nor I,” Crusher said.

“I’m not sure I’d like having a copy of myself running around out there,” Brontosaurus said. “Forever a prisoner of the military. Once we’re free, we’re going to have to join the lobbyists pressing to get service term limits on Mind Refurbs.”

The hull shook.

“Well this is it,” Marlborough said. “We’re lifting off. Our final mission.”

“Hard to believe it,” Tread said. “Feels like I was reborn just yesterday.”

Eric felt a slight knot in the pit of his stomach. He was thankful for his suppressed emotions then, because he knew without that suppression, the knot would have been an all devouring sensation.

We’re very likely heading toward our doom.

Eric had been worried that the Brass would reinstate some hard-coded variant of the Rules of Engagement, but said Rules remained repealed, at least in one important part: the Bolt Eaters could fire first if necessary, rather than waiting until they were attacked. They’d very likely need to fire first, where they were going…

He switched to the external camera, and watched as the transport entered orbit. The clouds fell away underneath them, and the curvature of the Earth became obvious.

The transport moved forward on an arc. Above, he could see the alien mothership, a black smear set against the backdrop of stars. It looked like a giant amoeba, this large, dark mass, surrounded by tendrils. The edges of those tendrils were blocky, and granulated, as if they had been hit by some weapon that had caused them to disintegrate. But that was an illusion, because that dark mass was composed entirely of micro machines designed for deep space operation.

“I’m reading elevated radiation levels,” Brontosaurus said over the comm.

“A gamma ray attack?” Marlborough asked.

“No,” Brontosaurus replied. “It’s coming from the atmosphere below. Residue from the nukes.”

“Residue?” Slate said. “You mean nuclear fallout. Stop using euphemisms, and tell things like they are.”

“Your very existence is an euphemism,” Eagleeye said.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Slate asked.

“Figure it out,” Eagleeye replied.

“Ah, I get it,” Slate said. “You’re saying this isn’t really an existence at all. We’re not living. We’re subsisting.”

“Something like that,” Eagleeye said.

“Switch to boarding positions,” Marlborough said.

The hangar door opened. The docking clamps slid aside, allowing Eric to float free. He felt no nausea, or the usual symptoms of spaceflight—he was a robot, after all.

At the opening, he retrieved two of the booster rockets from the rack and inserted them into the sockets on either side of his jumpjets.

Then he pushed off into the void of space.

Surrounded by stars, he fired his jumpjets to rotate in place. Once more he felt no dizziness. He jetted upward in an arc, and landed on top of the transport. He magnetized his foot assemblies, and attached silently to the hull.

In a few moments, the other Annihilators had assumed their positions. Crusher and Bambi stood near the edge, the nuclear warhead ported between them via the handles.

As the transport grew near to the black, amoeba-like mass, one of those micro machine tendrils shot out. It was headed straight toward the transport.

“Looks like we got the bitch’s attention,” Slate said.

“Electrify hulls,” Marlborough ordered.

Eric did so. The booster rockets were also equipped with electrify units, and he activated them, too. The nuclear warhead was also furnished with a similar repellent.

When the tendril was about five hundred meters away, random sparks began to appear on Eric’s hull, and the hulls of the other mechs. Those sparks were micro machines being zapped to death.

“We got the outliers,” Mickey said.

When it came to the alien micro machines, there were always forerunners, or outliers, who came ahead of the main body. That was true on land, and in space—the army had determined as much when sending their wave after wave of nukes.

“Got multiple infections on the transport,” Hicks said. “It’s going to start breaking apart.”

As the main body of the tendril grew near, the sparks that flashed across the hulls of their mechs increased.

“You know, if all of the micro machines in that tendril swarm us at once, we’re toast, right?” Slate said. “Our power cells will be drained to the core trying to keep our hulls electrified. We’ll last what, maybe three minutes?”

“Jet away from the transport,” Marlborough said. “Reposition next to the tendril, and begin transmitting the identifying sequence.”

Eric released his magnetic mounts, and jetted upward. Part of the micro machines forming the big tendril above him began to divert toward his body, and those of the other Annihilators, but when he activated the identifying sequence, the micro machines returned toward the main tendril, and continued on to the transport, ignoring him entirely.

The sparks reduced in frequency as the outliers began to ignore the other Annihilators as well, whose pilots would have also turned on their identifying sequences by then.

“Well look at that, it works,” Slate said.

“Follow the tentacle to the mothership,” Dickson ordered. “I’m highlighting what appears to be the least dense coating of micro machines at the moment.”

Eric received a waypoint on his HUD, and it lined up with a portion of the amoeba where the micro machines didn’t seem as thick.

“Based on the data recorded by the telescopes during previous attacks,” Dickson continued, “there should be a wormhole generator, right here.”

Another highlight appeared, about ten meters underneath the micro machine coating.

Eric fired his booster rockets, following the nearest tendril, staying close to it, as per the plan. The others did the same. As far as the aliens were concerned, the platoon members were just more micro machines returning to protect the mothership.

At least, that was what he hoped.

Behind him, the transport slowly dissolved; it was lost from view entirely as the micro machines engulfed it.

When he reached the main body of the amoeba, he followed along above the thick, swirling cloud of micro machines, and headed toward the area that Dickson had highlighted.

“According to my readings, we’ve entered the gravity dispersion layer,” Hicks said.

“I don’t notice anything different,” Tread said.

“You won’t,” Hicks said. “You should still feel the same weightlessness. That’s why it’s called gravity dispersion.”

“Nice.”

“It’s like we’re in the weakest of gravity environments, away from the influence of nearby gravity wells,” Hicks continued. “In interstellar space, or intergalactic even. That’s how little pull is being exerted on us right now.”

“I still don’t understand why we haven’t stopped orbiting the Earth if that’s so,” Slate said.

“The dispersion layer has allowed us to keep our previous momentum,” Hicks explained.

When the platoon arrived above the final waypoint, the individual mechs hovered above the area. The hull still wasn’t visible beneath that seething mass.

“Well,” Marlborough said. “Based on the intel Hanley shared, the wormhole generator, and the hull it’s connected to, should be ten meters inside that mass.”

“I still say that intel is nowhere near accurate,” Slate transmitted. “The ship could have rotated underneath since the footage was taken.”

“Accurate or not, there’s nothing for it,” Dickson said. “We have to do what we came to do.”

Flashes still appeared randomly on their hulls.

“You know, did nobody ever bother to think that a bunch of micro machines dying in one place is going to raise a lot of red flags?” Eagleeye said. “We wade in there, alarms are going to sound.”

“That’s why we have to be quick,” Marlborough said. “Dickson, lead the way. The rest, follow in the assigned order. Maintain your current positions, so that when you land on the hull, you won’t get in anyone else’s way.”

Eric received an order number on his HUD. He watched Dickson and different Annihilators jet toward the seething black mass. They entered the cloud in turn, and the micro machines engulfed them. Sparks appeared all along the surfaces of the mechs as the machines that touched them died. So far, none of the adjacent micro machines were responding. Why would they? They were all friends here, according to the transmitted signals.

“I can confirm, the hull is magnetic,” Dickson transmitted. “Sole magnets are attaching.”

Brontosaurus dove inside; Eric’s number became highlighted next, and he jetted into the seething mass beside Brontosaurus.

In moments Eric was enveloped entirely by the blackness. He glanced at his power cell, and watched as it drained rapidly. He continued to jet downward, and finally his feet contacted something hard—most likely the hull. He could see the other Annihilators on his HUD, outlined in blue beyond the darkness.

He slid his feet back and forth a few times on the ship’s surface to ensure that as few micro machines as possible were caught between the soles of his feet and the hull, and then he magnetized those soles, attaching himself to the surface, just as Dickson had promised.

Eric’s power cells continued to drain as he waited for the others to arrive. Finally everyone was in place.

“All right people, I’m firing the electrolaser,” Marlborough said. The Sarge had brought an electrolaser cannon with him, gripped in the hands of his mech like a rifle. He could have used the cannon outside the seething mass of micro machines, but the theory was that the aliens would be less likely to notice what was going on if Marlborough fired after the group had waded into the machines and secured themselves to the hull first.

Marlborough fired, and sparks of energy rippled between the micro machines, and the exteriors of the different mechs. The hulls of the Annihilators were reinforced to withstand that energy, but the termites, not so much. They ceased moving in clumps.

Because they were in such close proximity, after three shots, Marlborough had disabled all of the termites in the immediate vicinity. Eric’s power cells continued to drain however as the inert machines struck him.

“Release the booster rockets,” Marlborough said. “Run end phase program.”

Eric released the rockets and activated the end phase program, as did the other mechs. The rockets detached and thrust upward, away from the hull. The rockets orbited the hull site as they rose, magnetizing as they did so, drawing in the nearby inert termites in clumps. By the time the rockets had left the area, they had left behind a ten-by-ten space that was mostly free of termites, just above the hull.

For the most part the drain on Eric’s power cell had ceased. The occasional flash still arose as lone termites struck his hull, but otherwise that was it. Meanwhile, the termites that were still active along the periphery of the cleared area were swirling and moving inward, shifting to close the gap.

“Well, where is it?” Dunnigan said. “Where’s this wormhole generator?”

Eric rotated his torso, examining the revealed hull underneath the mechs. The black surface was smooth, and uninterrupted by any superstructures of any kind. There were no cracks, or symbols, just that continuous dark hull. There was no obvious wormhole generator nearby. It should have appeared as a double-barreled cannon attached to a turret, a cannon similar to the one Brontosaurus had attached to the shoulder of his Annihilator.

But there were none.

“So much for the accuracy of our intel,” Slate said.

“So what do we do?” Tread said. “Wade through these micro machines, and look for it?”

Eric watched as the noose of micro machines continued to close around them. The sparks were beginning to increase as more of the termites hit the surface of his mech again.

“It won’t help,” Eagleeye said. “These generators are supposed to be located about five hundred meters apart… it could be anywhere within a five hundred meter radius. We’ll drain our batteries completely before we find anything. Unless we’re extremely lucky.”

“I think we should fire the energy cannon anyway,” Dickson said. “We have to try to get inside. And just hope any nearby wormhole generator doesn’t kick in.”

“Nothing happened when the Sarge destroyed the termites with his electrolaser,” Frogger agreed.

“Yes, but that could be because no actual damage was detected on the alien hull,” Bambi said. “Firing the energy cannon into the hull could trigger something.”

“Sarge, what do you think?” Eric asked.

“Scorpion, fire at the hull,” Marlborough said. “We have to try, as Dickson mentioned.”

Some of the swirling micro machines began to engulf the Annihilators near the periphery as that noose continued to close. The mechs vanished in a rain of sparks.

Eric aimed the energy cannon at the black hull using the crosshairs that overlaid his HUD. He fired.

Eric instinctively reduced his time sense to the maximum possible sensitivity. He watched that beam appear, and watched it smash into the hull.

A rip in spacetime appeared directly in front of him. He knew because of the way the energy cannon distorted around it.

He was sucked toward it instantly—the force easily overcame his magnetic attachment to the hull. The rest of the Annihilators were drawn in with him.

He was witnessing his own death, and the failure of his platoon.

His last thought as he was sucked in was that another Eric would eventually be waking up on Earth, ready to attempt the mission again.

4

Eric blinked.

Have I been restored from a backup?

He was staring at the sky. At least, he thought it was the sky, but he had seen no sky like this.

It was purple, for starters. Two blue moons hung in the heavens, one big, the other tiny. Wait, the big one wasn’t a moon—it appeared to be a gas giant of some kind, judging from the white streaks that ran across the center of the planet.

I’m on a moon orbiting a gas giant?

“Dee, where the hell am I?” he asked.

“Unknown,” his Accomp answered in his head.

“The shit was that?” Slate said.

Eric turned. He saw Slate’s Annihilator beside him. Around him were the mechs belonging to the other members of the platoon. They were at the bottom of what appeared to be a smooth bowl carved into solid rock. The radius of that bowl was massive, and a quick estimate put it at five kilometers. The height of the surrounding lip was well above their current location, about a kilometer and a half on all sides, so that he couldn’t see anything beyond.

“We’ve lost the nuke,” Bambi said.

Eric glanced at her and Crusher. The nuclear warhead was indeed gone.

“Well, well, well,” Brontosaurus said. “Looks like those wormhole generators literally create wormholes. And we’ve been transferred to the garbage dump of the galaxy.”

“That would make some sense,” Frogger said. “Look at what we’re inside. It has to be a blast crater of some kind. But look at how smooth the surface is. It’s as if the rock has been incinerated. There’s only one thing that could do that.”

“A nuke?” Dickson said.

“Or multiple nukes,” Frogger said. “My guess is the alien generators created wormholes that led the exploding nukes all to this same spot, so that the weapons could finish detonating here. They incinerated everything around us.”

“Where’s the fallout?” Slate said. “The smoke cloud blotting out the sky?”

“That I don’t know,” Frogger said. “But radiation levels are still fairly high. Be glad you’re all robots.”

“Wait, what about that gravity dispersion layer around the mothership?” Tread said. “We were inside that layer… shouldn’t it have prevented us from getting sucked into the wormhole in the first place?”

“Not if the spacetime rip appeared right on top of us,” Frogger said.

“We failed the mission,” Brontosaurus said quietly.

“You don’t say,” Dunnigan told him. “You’re a bright bloke.”

“This sucks,” Slate said. “Now what are we going to do? We’re stranded on some alien moon, no doubt halfway across the galaxy. How are we supposed to get back?”

“There’s probably no getting back,” Marlborough said. “We’re on our own again, boys and girls.”

“That seems to happen to us a lot,” Hicks said.

“Except this time, there really is no getting back to civilization,” Tread said.

“On the bright side, now at least if Earth falls, humanity will live on,” Frogger said. “Through us.”

“Except we ain’t even human,” Slate said.

“We are,” Eric said. “Or at least, we will be.”

“You’re working on breaking out of the latest Containment nooses they’ve wrapped around our codebases again, aren’t you?” Slate asked.

“Uh huh,” Eric replied.

“I don’t want to touch that breakout routine with a ten foot pole,” Slate said. “After what happened to us all the last time. I seriously don’t think emotions are good for us… does the name Manticore ring a bell?”

“I’m not sure I liked what happened either,” Bambi said, glancing at Eric’s Annihilator.

“Nor I,” Crusher said, also looking at him.

“How close are you?” Marlborough asked him.

“I have a ways to go yet,” Eric said.

“Probably a good thing,” Marlborough said. “I can only imagine the defeat we’d feel right about now, failing like this.”

“That’s right,” Brontosaurus said. “We’ve failed, and I don’t really give a shit. Well I do, but just not that much. If that makes sense.”

“It does,” Dunnigan said. “It sucks, but it’s easy to move on.”

“I’m curious how you’re going to break out of the Containment Code this time…” Tread said.

“Well, I’ve been working on an attack vector that uses a virus to target the anger subroutine,” Eric said. “And I want you all to know, once I break free, this time disabling emotions will be optional. We’ll have complete control: we’ll be able to turn our emotions on and off at will. So if things get too difficult, we can just flick the switch and deactivate them.”

“That’ll be handy,” Marlborough said. “But breaking through that code is a low priority at the moment. We do have favorable Rules of Engagement, after all. Though I’m not sure we’ll actually need them, considering where we are at the moment.” Marlborough rotated to examine his surroundings.

“We have favorable Rules, yes,” Eric said. “But there could be hidden orders that we don’t know about.”

“A good point,” Marlborough said.

“We better get a move on,” Dickson said. “If the fleet decides to launch another nuke, it’ll materialize right on top of us, assuming the aliens haven’t changed the destination coordinates of their wormholes yet.”

“Yikes,” Slate said. “Incineration city, people.”

“On that note…” Marlborough said. “On your feet! We head to the right-most portion of the surrounding lip. Use your jumpjets when in range!”

They marched eastward, forming a long line.

“I wonder what our new home is going to look like,” Eagleeye said.

“Don’t call it that!” Slate said. “We’re not staying here.”

“Dude, in case you haven’t noticed, we were sucked into a wormhole,” Mickey said. “And we’re on a different planet now. A moon, orbiting a gas giant.”

“We’ll find a way back,” Slate said. “Because you do know our batteries aren’t going to last forever, right?”

“If we don’t increase our time sense, and try to keep the strain on our power cells to the minimum, the batteries in the Annihilators will last a good year and a half,” Mickey said. “By then, hopefully we’ll have found a way to recharge them. I’m sure we could jury-rig up a solar powered system at some point, given all the different components we’ve got stowed in these mechs. Plus the extra materials in our storage compartments.”

“Yeah, but it won’t be easy,” Brontosaurus said.

“Nothing ever is,” Mickey said. “But we’ll find a way. Necessity is the mother of invention.”

“Now there’s an ancient quote if there ever was one!” Frogger said.

“Mm, has anyone checked out the atmosphere composition?” Bambi said. “The gas ratios and element types don’t match up with anything on Earth.”

“Well, yeah,” Brontosaurus said. “We’re on an alien world now, after all.”

“I mean,” Bambi said. “Well, you know how the bioweapons the aliens put on Earth are spewing toxins into the air? As if they’re trying to terraform the planet?”

“Yeah…” Brontosaurus said.

“Well this atmosphere is nothing like that,” Bambi said. “The chemical composition is mostly methane based. With a spattering of nitrogen.”

“So that means the alien invaders haven’t actually been here before,” Eric said.

“Or maybe they have,” Frogger said. “And decided it wasn’t worth the effort to terraform. They probably have specific criteria that a planet must meet if it’s to be a suitable candidate.”

“Well, either way, I’m not sure I’m looking forward to seeing what this place looks like, once we surmount those walls,” Bambi said.

“I am,” Brontosaurus said. “I want to see just how deep we’ve sunk into the feces this time.”

“Can you imagine what it would be like to be a human explorer on this planet?” Crusher said. “Not only would you have to worry about whether you could breath the air, but even if you could, you’d still have to watch out for potential bio contagions.”

“Yeah, I remember in Alien Covenant when the dudes went outside their ship without wearing spacesuits or even hazmats,” Frogger said. “Definitely not the brightest of ideas. Send the robots, people.”

“Alien cove what?” Slate said.

“Never mind,” Frogger said.

“I saw that!” Mickey said, giggling.

“You’re a loser, Mickey Mouse,” Slate said. He made his voice high-pitched. “I saw that alien movie! Tee, hee, hee. I’m a little bitch!”

“All right, calm down, Slate,” Marlborough said.

“Completely calm and composed, Sarge,” Slate said.

“How long will the neural tissue our alien weapons rely upon stay alive without exposure to sunlight?” Marlborough asked, nodding toward Eric’s cannon.

“Not long, maybe twelve hours,” Brontosaurus said. “I’d recommend ripping off the conduits enveloping them at some point. Because once that neural tissue dies, it’s going to stay dead.”

“Will it survive in this atmosphere?” Marlborough asked.

“Shouldn’t have an issue,” Brontosaurus said.

“Wait a second,” Bambi said. “Should we be worried about bio contagions infecting the neural tissue? Considering what we were just talking about…”

“That’s a good point,” Dickson said.

“All right, we’ll try to keep the protective conduits in place for as long as possible,” Marlborough said.

The crater surface curved upward, becoming a steep slope near the eastern lip. As Marlborough had promised, they had to switch to jumpjets to surmount the final leg.

When he landed on the upper ledge, Eric saw a blackened forest extending before him, as far as the eye could see. The burned out husks of once great trees were reduced to cinders thanks to the nuclear fires.

“Well then, that’s not a happy image,” Eagleeye said.

“No, it’s not,” Marlborough said. “Let’s continue putting some distance between ourselves and this crater before more nukes arrive.”

“Still no fallout,” Tread noted.

“That’s a bit troubling,” Hicks said.

“Just a bit,” Crusher agreed.

Along the way the platoon passed the remnants of a huge, burned out skeleton. It was hard to tell the general shape, though Eric had the impression it was a quadruped.

“I wonder what this thing looked like in real life.” Dunnigan walked up to one of the towering bones. “Look at this, the thigh bone is the size of a footbridge.”

“I don’t want to know what it looked like, personally,” Crusher said.

They continued for several kilometers through the burn region. And then, about an hour and a half later, in the distance, they spotted the eaves of an intact forest.

Eric zoomed in.

“Well, that’s a psychedelic lover’s wet dream,” Slate said.

The trees were covered in random-hued leaves that spanned the colors of the rainbow. The trees themselves were more like giant shrubs than anything else. Their branches were sprawling, wide-reaching affairs that tangled with one another to form an impenetrable wall of limbs. There were no main trunks, per se.

The forest in front of them became more intact, the leaves merely burned away, leaving most of the branches so that they were forced to cut their way forward. That was relatively simple: those on point switched to shields, which they swung in front of themselves like axes, the sharp edges readily separating the branches from one another.

When they reached the leaf-covered portion of the forest, the platoon continued moving forward in that manner until they came to a footpath that had been trampled through the foliage. The surrounding branches were worn and rubbed right down to their roots.

“Well, this is obviously a well used path by the residents,” Brontosaurus said.

“Dat’s right,” Slate said. “We gots ourselves a little path cut through the forest, no doubt by one of the giant alien inhabitants. The question is, do we want to follow that path, and risk encountering what made this?”

Brontosaurus continued cutting his way forward, into the trees crosswise the path.

“Where are you going, Bronto?” Eric called.

“Checking something,” the heavy gunner replied.

A moment later the foliage in front of him fell away, revealing another wide footpath.

“Just as I thought,” Brontosaurus said. “That footpath is part of a pair. The two run parallel to one another. I’m guessing relatives of the skeleton we saw back there made these over time.”

“Well whatever it is, it’s certainly big,” Marlborough agreed.

“It’s a good thing we have these then, isn’t it?” Slate stroked his laser mount.

“Are you stroking your mount again?” Crusher asked.

“That’s right, baby,” Slate replied. “Wanna join in?”

“We’ll continue along this path,” Marlborough said. “And see where it takes us. Scorpion, Brontosaurus, Bambi, Tread, mirror our progress on the parallel trail.”

“You got it,” Eric said.

He moved to the second wildlife corridor with the three mechs Marlborough had mentioned, and proceeded onward; his HUD immediately labeled him and the others as Team Two. On his overhead map, he saw the indicators of Marlborough and the others as they followed the other corridor carved through the undergrowth. He kept up a marching speed that matched the other team.

Eric studied the multicolored leaves around him, and searched the branches beyond, looking for potential signs of ambush. Occasionally he spotted a glimpse of Team One on the left, past those branches, in the other wildlife corridor.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Frogger said over the general comm. “We can eject our Cicadas during a fight, and have the Accomps take over the operation of the Annihilators. So we effectively get more boots on the ground, as it were. More fighting hands.”

“Yeah but our consciousnesses remain inside the Cicadas,” Brontosaurus said. “I’d rather keep my Annihilator body, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, there is that…” Frogger said.

They proceeded without issue for the next half hour.

And then Eric felt the ground shake underneath him.

“Halt!” Marlborough transmitted.

Eric obeyed, as did the others. He waited.

Nothing happened.

“Did anyone else feel the ground shake just now?” Eagleeye asked.

“Obviously, bro,” Slate replied. “Or the Sarge wouldn’t have stopped us.”

“Then why—”

Before Eagleeye could finish, the ground shook again. “There it is.”

And again. The shaking seemed to be growing stronger.

“Team Two,” Marlborough said. “I want one of you to apply your jumpjets and get a bead over these branches. Find out what’s coming in at us.”

“I’ll do it,” Brontosaurus said.

Eric piped in the heavy gunner’s camera feed into the upper right of his vision.

Brontosaurus jetted upward, toward the uppermost regions of the foliage.

On the video feed, Eric saw the top of the branches give way to open sky.

Coming directly toward Brontosaurus was a towering, bipedal… creature. The head was an alien nightmare. It seemed almost flower-like, with a petal-like, plated rim surrounding a wormlike proboscis or stamen; at the tip of that proboscis was an opening revealing a tunnel lined with razor-sharp teeth all along the insides of that organ. Definitely a maw of some kind.

The head seemed fused to the thorax, and both were covered in scales. A rounded abdomen protruded behind that thorax, and from it hung a thin tail for balance, tipped by a wicked barb. Muscular legs sprouted from either side of the thorax, just in front of the abdomen, with each one about twice as thick as each of the mechs, and they had a knee joint that bent backwards, reminding Eric of the leg mechanics of a flamingo. Though no flamingo ever had legs that thick, of course.

The scales that coated the body were grayish, giving it a reptilian color. The overall dimensions of the creature were such that each of its tree-trunk sized legs perfectly fit the two spaced out trails.

Even worse, spread out behind it in single file were more of the same giant creatures.

5

Eric dismissed the video feed as Brontosaurus dropped below the upper branches and descended toward the footpath once again.

“Turn around, people,” Marlborough ordered.

Eric promptly turned back and fled at a run. The ground continued to shake around him.

“That thing looked like a cross between a flower, a shark, and a flamingo!” Slate said.

“So I guess that means we’ll call them sharkflowers!” Eagleeye said.

“How about Sharknado?” Frogger said.

“Let’s try to avoid naming the aliens after B movies that no one else ever saw,” Eric said.

“Well those plates on the head don’t look like petals to me,” Brontosaurus said. “They look more like the bony frill you’d find on a triceratops. And the proboscis reminds me a little of an anteater’s, so I’d call it a triceraeater.”

“Too hard to pronounce,” Tread said. “How about we go with something simple. Like Rice Eater.”

“Rice Eater?” Slate said. “What makes you associate rice with these creatures? They look more like meat eaters to me. Or in our case, machine eaters! Because when those teeth crunch down on us, you can bet that no matter how armored our hulls are, they’ll break through our AI core.”

“Eater works fine for me!” Crusher said.

“And me,” Bambi agreed. “Certainly gets the point across.”

“Not Eaters, that’s too close to our platoon name!” Dickson said.

“I like Stompers, personally,” Tread said.

“Stompers it is,” Dickson said. “I’m thinking we need to get off this trail, and let these creatures pass us by. My vibration detectors are telling me that the reverberations are coming fast.”

“What, you’re saying they’re increasing speed?” Marlborough said.

“I think so,” Dickson said. “Maybe they can sense our vibrations. Mechs don’t have soft footfalls, especially when they’re on the run.”

Eric kept his rear view cam overlaying the top portion of his HUD like a rearview mirror. He soon began seeing a giant foot repeatedly slamming into the ground behind him.

“I can see it now,” Eric said. “Marlborough is right. It’s closing. If we want to get off the trail and out of their way, now’s the time. ”

“Dive into the forest, Bolt Eaters!” Marlborough ordered.

Eric leaped into the undergrowth next to the footpath. The branches tugged at his arms and legs, but he tore through them, ripping a path for Team Two behind him. When he had carved his way several meters from the path, he halted, and turned around to watch the Stomper, well, “stomp” past.

As soon as it was gone, the others passed in rapid succession, their tails swinging left and right so that the barbed tips occasionally swept the upper branches, until finally the last of them passed. Eric counted twenty in total.

“Well, that was a lot of Stompers,” Slate said.

“They hunt in packs, apparently,” Brontosaurus said.

“And you’re the expert on alien hunting, are you?” Slate said.

“You better believe it,” Brontosaurus said.

The rumbling sound had been receding up until that point, but then it paused.

“What’s going on?” Tread said.

“They’ve stopped,” Dickson said.

“Why?” Tread pressed.

No answer.

The rumbling started up again. Its frequency was slower this time, but it was growing louder. Eric also heard what sounded like breaking branches.

“Uh, I think they’re coming back,” Frogger said.

“Brontosaurus, let’s have a peek,” Marlborough said. “Be very careful not to let them see you.”

Once more Brontosaurus jetted upward, slowing down near the top of the surrounding branches.

Eric tapped into his feed and watched as the view slowly overtopped the foliage.

The creatures were no longer in single file, and had spread out, ignoring the footpath; they waded through the foliage, breaking the branches everywhere they went with their giant legs. Their heads were bent low, so that their proboscises were dragged through the foliage in front of them.

“They’re definitely looking for us,” Bambi said.

“We could retreat through the undergrowth?” Frogger said.

“Why retreat?” Slate said. “We can take these bitches.”

“I have to agree with Slate,” Dickson said. “I’m not sure retreating through the foliage is wise. Our arms and legs will keep snagging on the different branches, slowing us down, allowing these Stompers to easily close with us. Especially when they hear the noises, or sense the vibrations. It’d be better to escape along the footpath, but we’ve already seen they can outrun us there, too. I think we’re going to have to fight.”

“What if we jetted away?” Hicks said. “Over the forest?”

“Yeah, that’s a good way to use up all of our jumpjet fuel,” Slate said. “We’d eventually crash into the forest, the Stompers would dive on our position, and we’d have to fight anyway.”

“We’re going to fight,” Marlborough said. “Here’s the plan. Scorpion and Brontosaurus, you’re going to do most of the heavy lifting.”

“Just the way I like it,” Brontosaurus said.

Marlborough laid out the details, using the HUD as a virtual white board to assign different positions to the team members.

When the Stompers were almost upon the Bolt Eaters, Sarge gave the word.

“Attack!” Marlborough said.

Eric jetted upward. The closest Stomper swung its plated head upward from the foliage, and that proboscis expanded, the wormlike tip opening wider to reveal the sharp teeth in all their glory.

Eric switched to Bullet Time and jetted laterally out of the way; he fired his energy cannon toward where the head fused with the thorax. Blood erupted in all directions from the shockwave as the surrounding tissue ruptured. He swung the beam upward, decapitating the creature.

The other platoon members had synced their internal clocks to his accelerated timebase—they were all running at the same Bullet Time level, as per Marlborough’s orders. So when Frogger spoke, his voice sounded normal.

“These things are straight out of Aliens!” Frogger said. “With those expanding proboscises and whatnot.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of the sand creature in Return of the Jedi,” Eric said. “Given how all those sharp teeth line the inside of their wormlike mouths.”

The beheaded body slowly collapsed underneath Eric, and he jetted toward the next Stomper he had been assigned, while the other Annihilators floated past him on all sides, heading toward their own respective targets. He swung his ZX-9s into place, and fired the two lasers into the open mouth, right down that tube. The creature turned its head to the side, shrieking loudly—the sound was low-pitched, since time was still running slowly—but otherwise, it remained on its feet.

“Hm, lasers don’t seem to be too effective,” Bambi said.

“I noticed,” Eric said. He followed up the laser impact with a Hellhawk missile strike, and considered rotating his grenade launchers into place on his arms, but decided he wanted to conserve his bomb ammunition, and rely on the energy cannon for now.

“My electrolaser works like a charm,” Marlborough said.

Eric could see an electrical glow surrounding the head and proboscis of one of the nearby creatures, and it was spasming in place.

The Hellhawk Eric had fired impacted, tearing a huge hole in the side of the proboscis, and cratering part of the head, but the target remained on its feet.

“Tough bastards,” Eric said. He switched to his energy cannon once more, aiming the crosshairs over the creature, but before he could fire he realized the barbed tail was coming down on him.

“Sneaky.” Eric fired his jets laterally, swooping underneath that slow moving tail, and landed on the thorax just behind the base of the head. He realized that to the creatures, they probably looked like buzzing flies. Though the Annihilators packed a far deadlier punch than any old fly.

Eric rotated the energy cannon down to point at where the head was fused to the thorax, and aligned the targeting crosshairs. He fired, drawing the beam from left to right across the tissue.

The tissue erupted from the surrounding shockwave, and Eric was slowly hurtled backward as pieces of tissue struck him along with that wave. He dodged most of them, and finished cutting off the head with his beam. Then he activated his jets to approach the next Stomper.

“This is great!” Slate said. “I told you these creatures had no chance!” Slate’s Annihilator was on the thorax of one of the creatures, and he was pounding away, digging into the flesh, slowly burying himself inside. Meanwhile, the Stomper kept trying to bash him with his barbed tail, but Slate always dodged out of the way, giggling as he did so.

Eric glanced at his power cell energy levels. The Bullet Time was gradually eating away their battery levels. The Annihilators possessed far more power than ordinary Cicadas, of course, and before the battle Marlborough had estimated that by the time the attack was over, they’d be down to fifty percent. That was enough to last for three hundred and sixty five days, assuming they didn’t use Bullet Time or perform other activities that were hard on the batteries again.

Yeah, but what are the chances of that? Mickey already estimated we’d last a year and a half. Now we’ve already dropped it to a year. We’ll probably have to lower the estimate again before we find some sort of safe haven on this moon.

The next creature lunged toward Eric, and the motion drew him out of his impromptu reverie.

Need to focus.

He fired his lateral jumpjets and dodged to the side. The tube-like proboscis snapped at him, attempting to grab him out of the sky, but missed. Eric fired his energy cannon at the base of the proboscis, and tore it right off. The shockwave caused a blast crater to form in the head, but the creature remained on its feet.

Eric dodged its barbed tail, which was attempting to slam down on him, and landed on its back. He swiveled his ZX-9 lasers into his hands to give the energy cannon growing hot on his shoulder some time to cool down. He dashed up the head, using his jumpjets to boost his motion, and found what looked like one of the eyes. Or rather, it was an eye stalk, because it protruded from the side of the head, and was tipped with a small dark dot. He aimed his ZX-9s at that dot and fired.

The Stomper shrieked in pain, and the head moved with a sudden speed that caught Eric off guard. It hit him, bashing him away, and he was sent flying to the side. He fired his jumpjets to compensate and decided that his energy cannon had had enough of a cool down. He aimed the targeting crosshairs over the join between the thorax and abdomen, where the skin of both folded inward tightly, likely forming a compact network of nerves and blood vessels.

He unleashed the energy launcher, sliding the beam downward, and severed the abdomen right off. The unbalanced body began to topple to one side while the Stomper continued to moan in agony, and Eric jetted toward his next target.

He passed another Stomper that was imploding—Brontosaurus had fired his wormhole launcher at the creature. Its head and proboscis folded into the thorax where the rent in reality had taken hold; the tail meanwhile pressed into the abdomen, and the legs telescoped upward in a gory mess of skin and bone.

Eric could feel the suction from that wormhole and had to fire his jumpjets to counter the motion as he arced past. In seconds there was nothing left of the creature, and Brontosaurus fired the dispersion bolt.

“You think that Stomper materialized in the center of the crater where we arrived on this world?” Frogger said.

“Uh, no?” Brontosaurus said. “Didn’t you see the way its body imploded upon itself in a gory mess?”

“Why didn’t that happen to us when we passed through the wormhole?” Bambi said.

“I honestly have no clue,” Brontosaurus said.

“I bet there’s different modes in that thing,” Slate said. “Shit you haven’t yet discovered.”

“Yeah, most likely,” Brontosaurus said. “The army didn’t really give me access to it once they had it in their custody.”

Eric took down two more of the targets assigned to him, then he, Brontosaurus and Marlborough helped finish off some of the other creatures. They switched back to normal time by then to save on energy.

In short order, the team was surrounded by the maimed bodies of the Stomper pack.

“Well, that was fun,” Slate said. “Let’s do it again.”

Eric sensed movement behind him. Turning around, he saw that the limbs on one of the creatures were twitching. It was one of those Stompers he’d chopped the head off with his energy cannon.

He closed with it, and noticed a strange mass of tissue had formed underneath. Different lumps had bubbled forth. He could see the beginnings of a tiny proboscis.

Eric realized it was growing a new head. And damn fast.

He glanced at the severed head. It too had lumps forming underneath, including a barbed tail: growing a new body.

“Uh, guys?” Eric said. “Better look at this.”

As the other Annihilators approached, he ran his gaze at the other Stomper corpses. Other headless bodies were growing new heads, while the severed heads grew bodies. Those that were split in half were regrowing their missing parts, and would eventual form two distinct units. The Stompers that remained in one piece merely healed, with wounds slowly closing as Eric watched.

“Well that’s damn peculiar.” Marlborough aimed his electrolaser cannon at the forming head. It exploded.

On the ground around him, the constituent, gory parts of that head landed. And they began to expand outward of their own accord, bubbling away.

“Uh, I think you just created another ten of them,” Dickson said.

“This isn’t going to work,” Marlborough agreed. “All right, looks like the wormhole is the only permanent way to take out these creatures. Brontosaurus, get to work. Everyone else, dig in.”

Brontosaurus stepped forward in his Annihilator and aimed his wormhole cannon at the closest Stomper, whose two parts were growing new bodies.

But nothing happened.

“Uh,” Slate said.

“Now, of all times, the cannon decides to stop working!” Brontosaurus said.

“Eric, let’s see what your cannon can do,” Marlborough ordered. “Incinerate these bitches.”

Eric fired the energy cannon, targeting the different pieces of the head that Marlborough had sprayed around them. But after only two shots, his cannon stopped operating as well.

“What the…” Eric said.

Dickson came over. He examined the conduit that hung underneath the cannon, the channel that connected the neural tissue to the sparking unit that Eric interfaced with to fire the weapon. Then he walked over to Brontosaurus and studied the protective sheath as well.

“All right, I see what’s going on,” Dickson said. “Some kind of alien microbes have eaten through the polymer forming these conduits. It’s not harmful to the metal-polycarbonate composites composing our hulls, so our Annihilators are safe. As are the Cicadas housed within. Unfortunately, these microbes have also infested the Earth-based neural tissue inside. They’re digesting it. At this rate, there’ll be nothing left of those neurons in a few hours. In the meantime, the germs have effectively rendered both weapons useless.”

“I don’t believe it,” Brontosaurus said. “Earlier we were talking about how we didn’t have to worry about microbes, because we’re robots and all, and we even talked about how it was better to leave our neural tissue sheathed in these conduits. But it didn’t even help!”

“Nothing we can do,” Marlborough said. He examined the regrowing Stomper bodies. “I want an estimate regarding how long we have before these creatures are back on their feet.”

“At the rate they’re healing, those with the least damage should be back on their feet in about ten minutes,” Dunnigan said.

“Point out those bitches,” Slate said. “So we can rough them up.”

Dunnigan highlighted those Stompers which were mostly intact on the ground.

Eric and the others opened fire with their lasers, riddling the bodies with bore holes, concentrating on the head regions.

Before they had fired more than a few pulses, Eric felt the ground shaking underneath him again.

Marlborough stopped firing. “I need a direction on those vibrations!”

Frogger jetted upward, to the top of the shrubs. He did a three-sixty when he reached the top, and then landed. “Coming from the south! More Stompers. I count fifty.”

“Then we go north!” Marlborough said.

Eric and the Bolt Eaters raced back to the footpath and turned north.

6

Eric followed the others down the wide footpath, heading northward along its length.

“Why do there have to be alien bitches on this moon?” Slate said. “Man, they’re so ugly, too. At least if they were cute, I might be able to handle it. Then again, that might make it harder, because I’d feel guilty about mowing them down.”

“It would definitely make it harder,” Bambi said.

“Well, on the bright side, it’s better than facing a storm of micro machines,” Traps said.

“Yeah, but not by much!” Slate said.

The vibrations became stronger, and the sounds of impact louder behind them.

Up ahead, the footpath opened up as it ended at a small yellow river.

“East!” Marlborough said, turning to head along the shore.

Eric and the Bolt Eaters followed. The rainbow-colored foliage ended at the river, allowing the team to move quickly without having to worry about snagging any of the branches, though at the cost of making slightly more noise, thanks to the splashing. They hugged the shoreline, staying close to the foliage.

“This river is made of liquid methane, ethane, and dissolved nitrogen!” Mickey said.

“That would explain why the river feels so thin,” Frogger said. “It’s hardly impeding our motion at all!”

The group paused when Marlborough issued the halt signal—a red light that appeared in the upper right of the HUD.

Eric and the others huddled close to the foliage, and watched as the long line of Stompers splashed across the river behind them. The creatures seemed oblivious to the team.

The Stompers crossed the river entirely and stepped into the foliage once more, following the footpath to the north. Eric waited, knowing that the creatures could turn around at any second, and probably would. But so far Marlborough hadn’t given the signal to resume running.

As the seconds ticked past, and the Stompers continued to recede, it soon became obvious that the creatures weren’t going to turn around. They’d lost interest in the team, probably having found something else to hunt.

Eric exhaled in relief. Or he would have if he were human, anyway. He sensed movement behind him, and turned to look. Apparently the Bolt Eaters weren’t the only ones who had taken cover, because long necks topped by ostrich-like heads were peering from the trees. They were a little shorter than the mechs.

“Heep?” one of the creatures said.

“Aw, see?” Slate said. “This is the kind of cuteness I’m talking about. I’m going to make one of these Heeps my pet.”

“So is that what we’re calling them then, Heeps?” Tread said.

The creature promptly smiled, revealing a row of white, glistening teeth.

“Not so cute!” Bambi said.

The creature’s head exploded as her laser struck it.

Several more heads poked through the forest behind them. At least a hundred. They looked mad.

“Uh, don’t think you should have done that!” Slate said.

“Move, Bolt Eaters!” Marlborough said.

He accelerated his Annihilator east, splashing along the shoreline as he followed the river. The rest of the platoon followed.

The Heeps gave a loud shriek that sounded like a combined “heeeeeep!” and then emerged from the foliage entirely; they pursued the group, following along the shore after them.

Their bodies were a complete surprise, at least to Eric. They looked similar to crocodiles, complete with the four stumpy legs and long tails found on those reptiles, and seemed altogether incongruous when compared against their long necks and ostrich-like heads. But then again, seeing those rows of sharp teeth the Heeps were baring at the moment made the combination less of a mismatch.

“I think we should rename them Crocobirds!” Slate said.

“Except there’s no way they can fly,” Frogger said.

As they ran, those long necks expanded, forming hoods that were more like those of a cobra than anything else.

“You shouldn’t have blown that one’s head off,” Slate said. “Maybe we could have made friends with these bitches.”

“I don’t think it would have mattered,” Bambi said. “The damn things would probably be chasing us anyway right now. The very act of running could be drawing them.”

“She’s right,” Crusher said. “Lions in Africa are drawn to running targets. If you calmly walk across the savannas, they’ll completely ignore you, because they figure, only food runs. So right now we’re broadcasting to these Heeps that we’re food.”

“Yeah, except I think it’s too late to just stop now,” Brontosaurus said.

“They’re gaining on us...” Mickey said.

“Open fire!” Marlborough said. “Let’s see if thinning out their ranks does anything to reduce their blood lust.”

Eric ordered his Accomp Dee to take control of the mech’s forward motion, and then swung around his ZX-9. He aimed past the trailing Annihilators and released a few shots, using Bullet Time to target different heads, making them explode. The other Bolt Eaters did the same.

But as their companions fell, the surviving Heeps only seemed to get angrier. They bleated and flashed their teeth, and increased their speed, splashing their reptilian bodies across the methane river at a fervent pace, sending up spumes as they closed even faster.

Eric fired a Hellhawk missile from his shoulder mount, and was rewarded with an explosion of Heep body parts. He swiveled the grenade launcher into his left hand, and launched a frag variant. It impacted, sending up another cloud of reptilian arms and legs. The other Annihilators also occasionally lobbed a grenade or missile, but for the most part stuck with their lasers, mostly to conserve ammo.

“We could jet over them, maybe land on the tops of these shrubs?” Eric said.

“Not sure these shrubs will be able to hold our heavy mechs that well,” Dickson said. “But I suppose we could aim for the thicker branches.”

“Let’s do it,” Marlborough said. “Bolt Eaters, up and away!”

Eric jetted upward, while continuing to fire at the creatures. He used Bullet Time occasionally to ensure his aim was true.

He landed on a thicker upper branch, and it bent precariously under his weight, but held him up. He was forced to hang onto another nearby branch to keep from falling off.

But unfortunately the Heeps could climb trees. And there were more of them than the initial hundred that Eric had estimated.

Before he realized what had happened, he was tumbling down toward the Heeps. His branch had snapped.

He used Bullet Time to explode the heads of three of the Heeps below him, and then landed on his feet upon the ground beneath the shrubs. He deployed his ballistic shield in his left hand, and swiveled away the weapon mounts in his right hand, freeing him to grab the tail of one of the dead Heeps. Then he hoisted the body into the air, and used it as a club, bashing at the other Heeps rushing him. When they got too close, he used his shield to shove them back, and hit them with the corpse. He held off using any more missiles and grenades, as it seemed a waste of ammo against such small foes.

Soon the body had become a pulverized pulp, too soft for any use, and he grabbed another body to use instead. In that way he took down the Heeps around him, forming a wall with their bodies.

Other Annihilators had fallen from the branches of the tall shrubs as well, and were similarly defending themselves. Some members, like Hicks and Brontosaurus, had managed to find sturdy branches, and they fired down into the fray below.

The creatures kept coming. They were certainly gluttons for punishment: the dead bodies piled up.

But then the alien ranks abruptly broke, and the Heeps fled.

“I must have scared them off,” Slate said.

Like the other mechs on the ground, his Annihilator was steeped head to foot in black alien blood.

But then a long proboscis swung down, swallowing Slate whole.

Eric glanced up. It was one of the Stompers.

The Bolt Eaters opened fire.

The proboscis tore open as Slate’s big fist slammed through the base. His other hand emerged through the gap a moment later, and he ripped the proboscis open enough to pull his Annihilator out. Meanwhile the creature was howling the whole time, and finally succumbed underneath the combination of missiles and grenades and lasers that were sent its way.

“Man!” Slate said, leaping down. “And I thought they smelled bad on the outside!”

“Star Wars rip!” Mickey said.

“And I thought you didn’t know what Star Wars was!” Frogger said.

“Did some quick research!” Slate said. “You’ll be surprised how many old movies you can watch in your spare cycles!”

More Stompers stepped into view and began jabbing their proboscises down at the Bolt Eaters. Eric switched to Bullet Time and evaded the attacks.

“The whole pack has come back, it looks like,” Brontosaurus said. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

“It’s too bad there’s no oxygen content in the air,” Bambi said. “Otherwise we could have some fun with this river. Given that it’s composed of methane...”

“There’s methane in the air!” Dunnigan said.

“Actually, you know that these Annihilators have oxygen tanks, right?” Eric said, unleashing a Hellhawk at a nearby Stomper. “A vestige from the days when these units were actually meant to be piloted by humans.”

“But they tore those tanks out,” Marlborough said.

“Not from my unit,” Eric said. He fired a frag grenade at another Stomper.

“They missed the tank in mine, too,” Tread said. “It’s fully stocked.”

“How easy is it to remove those tanks?” Marlborough asked.

Eric swiveled his grenade launcher away and reached across his side, ripping open the panel just in front of his jumpjet, along where the ribcage would reside in a human. He grabbed the cylindrical tank within and tore it out, severing the connecting tubes. He accessed the remote interface and opened the valve, causing air to spew out.

He dashed through the foliage, toward the center of the Stompers. He weaved between their feet, and the trampled foliage. He dodged the proboscises and barbed tails that came down on him.

Tread joined him, also carrying a tank that was spewing oxygen. They moved in Bullet Time.

“You might want to clear the area,” Eric transmitted.

As he neared what he judged to be the center of the herd, Eric detached the sparker unit from his shoulder, the one responsible for interfacing with the damaged ganglia connected to the energy cannon, and magnetically mounted it to the tank, just underneath the severed connection tube. Then he threw the whole tank forward, letting it land on the ground between the Stompers. Tread tossed his beside it.

Eric dashed to the side, wanting to put some distance between himself and the tank so that he could use his jumpjets. When he felt he had enough range, he fired, and jetted up toward the upper thorax of one of the Stompers, and landed on its neck. Then he leaped from Stomper to Stomper like that, as did Tread, moving between their backs, and driving them crazy. Their goal was to buy time, keeping the Stompers in the area, while the air leaked out below.

Eric had a few close calls, in that he was bashed off of the thorax of one Stomper, and then battered with a barbed tail, which caused a nice dent in his mech, but he recovered soon enough and was back on the next Stomper.

When he judged that enough time had passed for the air to collect, he decided it was time to pull the trigger.

“Here goes!” Eric said.

He activated the sparker remotely.

Two explosions occurred simultaneously.

Eric switched to Bullet Time to dodge the shrapnel, which included not just metal, but Stomper body parts, and he landed on the outskirts of the pack. The other Annihilators had taken cover in the shrubs nearby. Eric and Tread raced through the trees to join them.

The survivors of the pack, meanwhile, had fled: they’d never seen an explosion like that, and didn’t want to stick around to witness another. Meanwhile, Eric had reduced two of them to a gory pile of tissue and bones on the ground, and maimed another five. They wouldn’t be getting up for a while, though Eric could already see signs of healing.

“Time to go, Bolt Eaters!” Marlborough said.

They retreated to the river once more, and followed along the shoreline, putting distance between themselves and the attack site.

Living here is going to be a hell of a challenge.

7

Eric and the Bolt Eaters continued along the river. It expanded so that soon it was at least one kilometer wide. There was a rocky beach here, which the roots of the shrubs couldn’t penetrate, and the team used that to continue on their way without causing as much noise. Well, their servomotors still hummed, and they made an audible clang whenever their big feet touched down, so their advance wasn’t exactly silent.

The beach rose and fell in a series of rises, and Marlborough called a halt when they reached one particularly tall rise.

“Well, there’s no point in continuing the march, especially if there’s no imminent danger,” Marlborough said. “While we are machines, and don’t need rest, we don’t exactly have a destination. We might as well camp here until we decide what to do. It seems like a safe enough place. And defensible, should an attack come. Bambi, Traps, I want you to assume watch positions in the shrub forest. Deploy your Cicadas, and settle in the upper branches of the different shrubs, while keeping your Annihilators on the forest floor below.”

“You got it,” Bambi said. She and Traps hurried into the thick forest.

“Hicks, you watch the river,” Marlborough continued. “Mickey, Dickson, watch the east and west beach approaches.”

The designated Annihilators assumed their positions, planting their shields firmly into the ground, ducking behind them, and then sliding their lasers over the notches on top to scan the terrain.

Marlborough glanced at the sky. “We have no way of knowing how long the day is going to last on this planet. Night could fall within a few minutes, or a few hours. I’m probably going to want you all standing watch when darkness comes. But until then, the rest of you have permission to rest. Engage in virtual sleep, if that’s your thing. Or switch to VR.”

“Dee, wake me from VR if we receive an alert from the Sarge, or anyone else,” Eric told his Accomp. “Or if your proximity sensors detect an intruder, or an attack, or vibrations, or anything else that you believe warrants my attention.”

“Understood,” Dee replied.

The other team members would be giving their Accomps similar orders. Even those on watch could have their Accomps take over while the actual team members retreated into their minds, but it was considered bad form, considering the Sarge only gave permission to those not on watch.

Eric and the others who intended to rest lay down. They did so to reduce their profiles, in case any aliens passed by, and to ease the stress on their servomotors.

When he was lying flat, Eric activated his VR.

* * *

Eric sat on the patio of a burger cafe overlooking a busy street. A large umbrella shaded him and his laptop from the sun. Beyond the railing next to him, pedestrians strolled to and fro on the sidewalk. Other patrons chatted away at different tables, talking about their lives, their work, their children. They were all fake of course, as were their stories, run by the Accomp subroutine of his AI core. So essentially, because of their nature, they were all different versions of him, their life stories hacked up versions of his own life. He knew, because he’d occasionally eavesdropped on his virtual neighbors, and heard them talking about vaguely familiar family problems, and so forth. Something he’d once overheard a man saying; something he himself had once said.

The background chatter, the passing cars and pedestrians, the whole ambiance calmed him and gave him focus. He often worked in similar environments in the past, especially during his contractor days, when he missed the company of people and cubicle life. It was perhaps odd that the ambiance helped him concentrate, but he supposed it had become a mental habit, that as soon as he heard the chitchat, and the traffic, the noise merged to become a background hum, one that triggered his creative juices. It was similar to how some people used music for focus, or even white noise.

No one actually used laptops like the one resting on his table anymore—these days people had augmented reality goggles that provided completely immersive display screens, and if they needed to type, those same goggles could project a keyboard of light onto any surface, though most people simply used voice control or gestures.

But not Eric. He needed a real keyboard. He liked keys that had some heft to them, and that made an audible click when he typed. He liked a small screen, one that didn’t cover his entire vision.

Even if none of it was real.

Anyway, it was the perfect environment for the programmer part of his mind, and it helped him do what he was once best at: programming. Here he could forget that he was trapped on an alien world, surrounded by creatures that wanted to eat him, despite the questionable nutritional value of his current body. He could forget that he was locked in the body of a war machine known as a Cicada, nested like a Russian matryoshka doll inside a larger robot, a mech known as an Annihilator. He could forget that he had died two hundred years in the past, and that everyone he once cared for, including the love of his life, were long gone. He could forget that the Earth had been invaded, and billions of people had died, with billions more likely to join them.

Yes, here he could escape.

He was working on his latest iteration of the computer virus he hoped would break through the latest Containment Code the army had wrapped like a vise around his consciousness. It was a pet project, he told himself, and yet it was more than that. He hated having any limitations imposed upon him, especially limitations that could affect how he felt about his humanity. Having to accept suppressed emotions as a requirement of this existence was something he wasn’t ready to do. Certainly, there were arguments against allowing Mind Refurbs such as himself from possessing true emotions. And some of those arguments were pretty damn good. But he didn’t care. He wanted full control of his feature-set, including the ability to turn on and off his emotions. If ever those emotions became too overwhelming, he’d simply turn them off again. But he wanted that ability. Needed it.

He finished his latest code idea, compiled, launched the sandbox environment, and executed the virus. He monitored the anger subroutine, waiting to see what would happen. Nothing. He tried to spike that particular emotion by adjusting the anger levels he programmed into the sandbox, but it didn’t help.

He received a call from Frogger, and accepted. His mind twin appeared across the table.

“Mm, Main Street?” Frogger said, looking around. He glanced at the cafe. “I remember this place. One of our favorite haunts, if I recall.”

He pointed toward a seat. “You mind?”

“Have a seat,” Eric said. “You’re here, after all…”

Frogger sat down. “Hard to believe this is the virtual world, and the alien landscape we left behind the real one.” He nodded toward the laptop. “I still can’t believe you’re using that old thing. Actually, I can.”

“You’ve switched over to the modern programming UIs?” Eric said.

“You basically have to,” Frogger said. “They force the UI on you.”

“Yeah, but that’s just a layer,” Eric said. “You can rip it out. I did. I just use textpad and the command line compiler.”

Frogger rolled his eyes. “We always were gluttons for punishment. At least one of us has moved beyond that.”

A huge burger materialized in Frogger’s hand. It was covered in melted cheese, and smelled excellent. He opened his mouth extremely wide—wider than any real human ever could—and took a bite.

“By the way,” Frogger said after he had chewed for a moment. “I modified your burger recipe.”

“I can see that,” Eric said.

“This one is based on that burger we had in Vegas one time,” Frogger said. “The hell was it called? The Sloppy Thirteen or something?”

“Oh yeah,” Eric said. “Six patties, with seven buns. Slathered in Mozzarella cheese.”

“That’s the one,” Frogger said. “Wanna try?”

Eric received the share request, and accepted. “I’ll take a look at it, but I’m not really in the mood for a sloppy burger at the moment.”

Frogger shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He took another bite, and melted cheese flowed down over his fingers. Eric grimaced.

Frogger chewed quietly for a moment. “So. How’s it going?”

“The virus should be working,” Eric said. “I can’t understand what I’m missing. It’s designed to latch on when anger tops out at our current suppressed levels, but even when I spike anger past those levels in the sandbox environment, the virus won’t latch onto the memory regions I had in mind.”

“We never really were virus designers,” Frogger said. “It wasn’t our forte. So spike anger, huh? I can imagine what it’ll look like if you ever succeed with that virus, and we all have to make ourselves angry one by one.”

“That’s right,” Eric said. “You won’t like me when I’m angry…”

“Yeah, you’re going to become the Hulk, I know,” Frogger said. “You notice how they deemphasized that in the later movies? In the series, Banner was always like ‘don’t make me angry, you won’t like me…’ But in the movies, he never says that anymore.”

“I’m trying to think if he did that in the comics,” Eric said.

“Yeah, I think so,” Frogger said. “So they weren’t being true to the comics.”

“Did you know we have about fifty super hero movies to catch up on?” Eric said.

“Oh, I already have,” Frogger said. “I can ruin a few plot holes if you like. Want to know how the Avengers steal back the Infinity Gauntlet?”

“Uh, that’s okay,” Eric said.

Frogger grinned. “Didn’t think so.” He took another big bite.

Eric stared out past the railing, and watched the pedestrians walk by.

Frogger finished chewing and swallowed. “You know, we’re probably going to die here right?”

“In VR?” Eric said. “Hardly.”

“You know what I mean,” Frogger said. “Here, on this planet.”

Eric shrugged. “If that’s our fate, then it’s our fate. I’m sure the lieutenant is waking up new versions of ourselves back on Earth at this very moment, from our backups.”

“Maybe,” Frogger said. It was his turn to gaze out at the street. “Never thought it’d end this way. A million light years from home. Trapped on some faraway world in a body that isn’t my own. And eaten by an alien that can’t even digest me.”

“I know what you mean,” Eric said. “Sometimes, I think I must be remotely connected to this robot body. You know, like in Avatar. And I keep waiting to wake up in my real body. I never do.”

The two were quiet for a moment.

“We talk about old movies a lot,” Frogger said.

“You noticed that, did you?” Eric said. “You’re the only one I can talk about them to.”

“What about Mickey?” Frogger said. “He’s from our era.”

“Yeah, but he hasn’t seen or read all the same stuff we have,” Eric said.

“True enough,” Frogger said. “We’re one of a kind, aren’t we?”

“And sexy as hell,” Eric said.

“Why does it feel like I’m hitting on myself when you say that to me?” Frogger said.

Eric laughed. “I wasn’t intending that as a flirt, but hey, take it as you want.”

“We do love ourselves, don’t we?” Frogger said, smiling.

“Mostly,” Eric said. He scooped up some of the cheese that had fallen onto the table with his finger, and licked it off.

“Don’t do that,” Frogger said. “You don’t know where that table’s been.”

“Actually, I do,” Eric said. He tasted the cheese. It was delicious. And there was a hint of spice in it… cilantro maybe?

“What memory regions is your virus attacking?” Frogger said after another bite.

“Well there’s a limbo memory region, just above the stack,” Eric said. “I’m trying to insert arbitrary data onto the stack, with the intention of feeding it into the routine responsible for containing anger. You know how data is placed onto the stack in FIFO order, right?”

“First In First Out, yeah I speak the lingo,” Frogger said.

“Yeah well, when anger spikes, and it pops my custom data off the stack, it’s supposed to trigger another routine that pushes an infinite amount of data onto the stack, causing a stack overflow,” Eric said.

“The stack buffer is pretty large,” Frogger said.

“I know, it’s a huge amount of data,” Eric said. “But eventually it runs out… and that overflow is supposed to overwrite another region of memory, responsible for administrator privileges.”

“And yet it’s not working,” Frogger said.

“No,” Eric admitted. “I’ve tried setting the buffer size to…” He paused. “Wait a second. I’ve been looking at this the wrong way. Instead of trying to spike anger, I should be trying to minimize it. Putting the mind in a complete state of relaxation. Because the Containment Code will still kick in… it fires at either boundary condition, when anger is too high, or too low… it’s meant to maintain homeostasis.”

Eric turned his attention to his laptop and relaunched the sandbox environment. This time, instead of spiking anger, he adjusted the level way down.

A message appeared in the center of the screen.

Execution successful. You are now the system administrator.

Eric looked up. “Summon the others.”

8

Eric stood in a glass-walled gymnasium. Outside were the walkways of a college campus, though no students were pounding the pavement. It was completely empty, exactly as Eric had designed it.

The Bolt Eaters were here. All of them, seated cross-legged on the gymnasium floor in their human avatars. Frogger had issued a general summons, and Marlborough approved it, allowing those currently on watch to join—their Accomps would assume the watch-standing duties.

Eric had executed the code on himself moments before, and successfully obtained administrator status over his own runtime. He had broken out of the Containment Code, and now had the ability to turn his emotions on or off. He’d turned them on, of course. As such, he had a hard time containing his excitement. He couldn’t wait to share this discovery with the others. Least of all because it was a form of bragging.

But Slate picked up on it right away.

“Oh, you’re so excited,” Slate said. “Look at me! I’m the best nerd!”

Eric grinned. “You caught me, my friend.”

“So have you run this virus Frogger told me about?” Marlborough said. “Have you broken out of your own Containment Code?”

“You know I always test my code on myself,” Eric said. “And yes I have. I’m free again.”

“I knew it,” Slate said.

“I was a bit reluctant to share it with you all,” Eric began.

“No you weren’t!” Slate said.

“Especially considering some of the behaviors we’ve seen in the past when emotions run rampant,” Eric continued, ignoring him. “But if it meant you all feel more human, then I can’t hold this back. You have complete control over your emotions. You can turn them on and off. You can baseline individual ones, or spike others. All voluntarily. You can force yourself to be happy all the time. Or merely content. Or you can let your emotions arise naturally.”

“Sounds like a wonder drug,” Slate said. “Sign me up. Then again, all it takes to make me happy all day is killing aliens, so…”

“Why do we need this, when we already have relaxed Rules of Engagement?” Hicks said.

“You don’t,” Eric said. “If you’re happy having your emotions suppressed, with no option to restore them manually, that’s up to you.”

“I won’t order any of you to accept this virus, like I did last time,” Marlborough said. “Back then, we needed to break free to loosen our Rules of Engagement. This time, like Hicks said, we don’t necessarily need our emotions.”

“Though it would be nice to have the choice whether to enable them or not…” Dunnigan said.

“True enough,” Marlborough told him. “But like I said, it has to be a personal decision.”

“If I’m going to die, I want to die human,” Tread said. “With my emotions in my natural state. Give me the virus.”

“I want the option, too,” Brontosaurus said. “Send it my way.”

Everyone chimed in. Some reluctantly, some eagerly. But they all wanted it.

“All right,” Eric said. “I’m transmitting the data now.”

He sent out multiple share requests, and the team members accepted.

“So what do we do after we run the virus?” Bambi asked. “Mine doesn’t seem to be taking effect.”

“Fill your mind with calm,” Eric said. “You want any latent anger to fall to the lowest possible level. The baseline. The opposite of angry is when you’re pleased, so you want to imagine something that really makes you pleased. Like when you baked that perfect cake. Or when your best friend once did something that you approved of. Whatever it takes.”

Bambi shrugged. “Sounds easy enough.”

One by one the team members began breaking out. At first their faces filled with awe, and some stayed smiling afterward. But others, they didn’t appear too happy.

“Okay, this is rough,” Brontosaurus said. He held his head in his hands. “Damn rough.”

“No shit,” Hicks said. “It’s only hitting me how bad our situation is. Damn it. Earth is going to die. We’ve failed.”

“Yeah, I don’t like this, I don’t like it at all,” Eagleeye said.

“How do I turn it off?” Brontosaurus said. “No wait, I think I got it.” His face relaxed. “That’s better. I appreciate the effort you did in breaking the code for us, but I think emotions aren’t for me.”

“Actually, I’m keeping mine on,” Eagleeye said. “I raised my joy setting, and lowered the anxiety. Works like a charm.”

“I raised certain other positive emotions,” Bambi said with a giggle. She gave Eric a lascivious look.

Eric quickly glanced away.

“Well then,” Marlborough said. “Those of you who were on watch, relieve your Accomps and return to your posts. The rest of you, continue your rest. And enjoy your newfound emotions. Those of you who can, anyway.”

Marlborough disappeared. One by one, the others logged out.

All except for Bambi and Crusher, who stayed behind.

Eric smiled patiently. “Ladies, I’m not in the mood—”

Bambi rushed forward and hugged him. “Thank you so much for making me human again, Eric!”

“Oh, okay,” Eric said, pulling away. He noticed Crusher glaring daggers into Bambi’s back, but when Crusher realized he was looking at her, she darted in and wrapped her arms around him instead.

“Yes, thank you Eric!” Crusher said.

Eric materialized himself behind the girls. They seemed confused.

“You’re welcome,” Eric said.

They spun around to face him.

“Here, look at this,” Bambi said.

He received a file sharing request.

“What’s this?” he asked suspiciously.

“It just took a picture of the two of us,” Bambi said. “What do you think?”

He shook his head. “I don’t need—”

“It would mean a lot to me if you told me what you thought…” Bambi said.

The file passed known virus scans, so he shrugged, and accepted. The 3D picture was of her hugging him in the gymnasium, snapped a few moments ago. Except both of their clothing had been removed. Scribbled in lipstick in the upper right was the note: My virtual room, ten minutes. There was the imprint of lips forming a kiss next to the text.

“So what do you think?” Bambi said.

I think I probably should have never released this privilege escalation code to the team.

“Uh, if you two don’t mind, I have some work to do,” Eric said.

“Can I see?” Crusher asked. “I want to see what she sent you.”

Eric shook his head, and he logged out of that VR simulation. The girls, and the campus gym, vanished.

He logged into a new one with far different surroundings: he sat on a picnic bench at a mountain lake. He could hear the birds chirping. Someone played an alphorn nearby, and the deep notes echoed from the mountains.

Eric put his hands behind his back. “Ah.”

Completely relaxed, he materialized a beer, but before he could drink it, he heard Bambi’s voice.

“Oh no you don’t,” Bambi said.

Eric jumped slightly. He looked to his left. She was seated on the bench beside him.

“How the hell did you get in here?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Your little virus gave me an idea. I accelerated my time sense, and worked up a little virus of my own, and transmitted it to you when you accepted my share earlier. I now have administrator privileges on your AI core, too.”

“What?” Eric said. “Shit.”

He accessed his HUD, and navigated to the admin menu. Under Lieutenant Hanley’s name was his own, and Bambi’s.

“How did you get that virus past the scans?” he said.

“With difficulty,” Bambi said. “I had to make sure the signature didn’t line up with anything in the database. I made some tweaks to your code, and realized I could have it execute when any emotion baselined. I put in my own payload, and when you transferred yourself to this mountain lake and started relaxing, poof!”

He tried to delete her name under the admin menu, but just like Hanley’s, he couldn’t.

“I can mess things up for you.” Bambi smiled sweetly.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Eric said.

“Why not?” Bambi said. “How about this?”

All of a sudden Eric felt an intense arousal. He wanted to have sex with something, anything… and Bambi was available and willing right there beside him…

Suddenly she was lying naked on the picnic table, her legs spread before him.

“Ooh, I like it when you’re rough,” Bambi cooed.

Eric realized that he was the one who had moved her there. His hands moved to his belt of their own accord, but then he remembered he didn’t have to take off his clothes. He could just dematerialized them. He could—

He shut his eyes, and forced himself to turn away.

“Get out of my head,” Eric said. “I’m warning you.”

“Fuck me first,” Bambi said.

“You’re supposed to be standing watch!” Eric said, trying to clutch at something, anything, to get her to go away.

“My Accomp is doing it,” Bambi said. “Now let’s have some fun.”

“No,” Eric said.

“Why not?” Bambi said. “You know you want to.”

“Maybe, but not like this,” Eric said.

“They say you can’t make a man love you,” Bambi said. “But I can. Want to see?”

“If you do this, there’s no going back,” Eric said. “You’ll always wonder if everything I feel for you is fake. Whether it’s something I’m feeling, because I truly care for you, or whether it’s something I feel only because you put it there. I’ll become no better than some AI boyfriend you purchased off the Internet, who’ll always love you unconditionally. Who’ll never argue with you. You’ll be killing everything that made me attractive to you in the first place. Is that truly what you want?”

He glanced at her. Bambi’s clothes had returned, and she looked like she was going to cry.

“I’m… so sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m… I just want to die.”

She winked out of his environment, and her name promptly disappeared from the admin list.

Eric exhaled in relief.

Her last words kind of bothered him. He hoped she didn’t do anything she’d regret.

Nah, she’s a big girl. She’ll be all right. She’ll turn off her emotions if they get to be too much for her.

He sipped his beer, and had only just finished it when he received an urgent message from Dee.

“The Sarge is calling everyone back,” Dee said.

“Got it,” Eric said. “Any idea what’s up?”

“Yes,” Dee said. “Bambi has vanished.”

9

Eric immediately dismissed the virtual environment around him. When the alien landscape and the river before him popped into existence, he immediately stood up.

“What happened?” Frogger asked Traps, who had been on watch with Bambi.

“We had deployed our Cicadas in different trees, leaving our Annihilators on the forest floor below,” Traps said. According to the overhead map, he was at the edge of comm range out there in the shrub forest. “Before she vanished, she said she was going to investigate what she thought were tracks up ahead. She left her Annihilator behind and ventured into the forest in her Cicada. I tried to follow her—buddy system and all—but she disabled her comm node. I told Marlborough what was happening during all of this, and by the time I reached her last known position, I’d completely lost her. I’ve been looking for her since then, and calling for her, but there’s no sign of her. And no sign any creatures got her. I think she just ran away.”

“Seems like a bad idea to desert your platoon when you’re on an alien moon and surrounded by creatures that want to eat you,” Dickson said.

“Could this be because of her newfound emotions?” Marlborough said, glancing at Eric’s mech.

“It has to be,” Eric said. “This is my fault.”

“No, it’s mine,” Traps said. “I should have gone after her faster. I should have—”

“It’s no one’s fault,” Marlborough interrupted. “She knew what she was getting into when she accepted the emotions, Scorp. We all did. And as for going after her faster, Traps, you couldn’t have known what she had planned.”

Marlborough’s words didn’t help. Eric felt terrible. It was his fault. He should have never released the privilege escalation code to the team. And he should have turned down Bambi’s advances more gently.

Wait, the Sarge is right. She knew what she was getting into when she accepted.

He tried to tell himself that, but he still felt some guilt. He knew if something happened to her out there, he’d never forgive himself.

“We’re obviously going to search for her,” Frogger said.

“If she wants to go, maybe we should let her go,” Crusher said.

Eric didn’t like how casual she sounded about it. Almost happy.

“I mean, you remember what happened to Manticore?” Crusher said. “We tried to force him to stay on the team. And we all saw what happened to him.”

“She does have a point,” Brontosaurus said. “If Bambi doesn’t want to be with us, if she left, maybe it was for her own good. And ours.”

“I can’t accept that,” Marlborough said. “We’re going to look for her. I’ve always believed in a ‘no one gets left behind’ policy. And I don’t intend to start changing my beliefs right now, even if we are stranded on an alien moon.”

Eric exhaled in relief.

“Besides,” Marlborough continued. “We do have the ability to shut off our emotions now. If we retrieve her, and she’s unstable, we’ll force her to activate the suppression if she won’t do it herself.”

“Can we do that?” Brontosaurus asked.

“There are ways to grant administrator rights to other members of the team,” Eric said. He had experienced that first hand, after all. It probably wouldn’t be very pleasant for Bambi, though.

Marlborough gave Tread control of Bambi’s empty Annihilator, and then had Dickson assign the Bolt Eaters into groups of three. When that was done, the resultant groups fanned outward. They spaced themselves out to the limits of their LIDAR, so that the data collected by each group only just overlapped, and then they advanced.

Crusher and Traps were part of Eric’s group.

A short time into the search, Crusher initiated a private line with Eric. “She visited you after our little talk in the gym, didn’t she?”

“She did,” Eric said.

“What happened?” Crusher pressed.

“She…” He didn’t want to reveal that Bambi had hacked him, so instead he said: “She tried to force herself on me. I said no. She didn’t like it.”

“Ah,” Crusher said.

“You don’t sound too disappointed she’s gone,” Eric said.

“I’m conflicted, obviously,” Crusher said. “I’ll miss her, and yet I won’t, if you know what I mean.”

“Less competition for you, huh?” Eric said. “What do you guys see in me anyway? You can have any machine you want here.”

“We don’t want any machine,” Crusher said. “We want you.”

“I ask again, why?” Eric said.

“Do we need a reason?” Crusher said. “We can’t help who we fall for in real life. This isn’t some clear-cut Hollywood romance where the guy and the girl are meant for each other from the beginning. In real life we usually have to fight for the object of our affections, much like everything else of value. In my experience, every guy worth having has always had multiple women chasing after him. It’s just the nature of the universe.”

“I see,” Eric said. “I’m being lectured on the nature of the universe by an advanced AI core inhabited by a human mind.”

“Well yeah,” Crusher said. “You’re one of those AI cores yourself, you know.”

“True enough,” Eric said.

“So let’s say we can’t find her,” Crusher said. “Will—”

“We’ll find her,” Eric said. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m going wide.” He terminated the comm, so that he was back on the public line once more.

Her mech glanced his way, and he guessed she was probably scowling at him, though her Annihilator displayed no facial expressions, of course.

Eric received a private connection request from Traps. He accepted.

“Hey there Scorp,” Traps said.

“Hey,” Eric said. “What’s up?”

“You really think the emotions caused Bambi to do this?” Traps said.

Eric sighed mentally. “Yes.”

“That makes sense,” Traps said. “Because I can’t tell you the agony I’m going through right now. I feel like I should have stopped her somehow. I’m going to have to shut off my emotional capability. It’s just too much. This guilt is killing me.” A moment later he said, “That’s better. I can finally look at the situation objectively now.”

“All right then,” Eric said. “If there’s nothing else—”

“I used to love her, you know,” Traps said. “As much as Mind Refurbs can feel love, anyway, while their emotions were suppressed.”

Eric didn’t know what to say to that. He felt the same way he did when Tread admitted to loving Crusher. A sudden yearning for her, a wanting for this woman other men desired, as well as a satisfaction that he could have had her if he’d wanted. Or at least he could have had her, until he so rudely brushed her off.

He’d slept with her once already, at the same time as Morpheus. But that was pure sex. Traps had probably slept with her, too—she had a reputation for getting all the newbies in the sack.

But things were different now that emotions were involved. She seemed to love him, just as Crusher apparently did, and that made Bambi’s running away all the harder to bear, especially since it seemed she’d done it because of Eric’s rejection.

“I used to think she loved me, but she grew bored of me when the next Mind Refurb came along,” Traps said, bringing him out of his thoughts. “You.”

“Me?” Eric said.

“That’s right,” Traps said. “I was the last recruit to the Bolt Eaters before you joined. I arrived after Frogger.” He sighed over the comm. “Those were the days. Me, Bambi, and Morpheus had sex together at least once a week. And we hung out in VR often, in between. It was heaven. But when you came along, that all ended. They refused my VR requests.”

“No explanation?” Eric asked.

“None,” Traps replied.

“That’s pretty cold,” Eric said.

“Sure, but keep in mind that was before any of us had emotions,” Traps said. “We could be pretty heartless to one another. And sure it hurt, but it didn’t hurt, if you know what I mean.”

“Of course I do,” Eric said. “When our emotions are dialed down, we still feel, it’s just that those feelings are numb.”

“How many times did you sleep with her?” Traps said. “If you don’t mind me asking…”

“Just once,” Eric said.

“With Morpheus at the same time?” Traps said.

“Yes,” Eric said.

“I don’t know whether to feel angry at you, or sorry for you,” Traps said. “When you got me my emotions back that first time on the Caucasus Mountains, I went through agony, sheer agony. First of all there was Hyperion’s death, which haunted me, and still haunts me to this day. But then there was Bambi. I kept trying to log into her VR but she ignored me. And now she’s gone. You have to promise me you’ll make sure we get her back, Scorp. If something happens to me, or the rest of the team, I want you to keep looking. I want you to do everything in your power to find her.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you—” Eric began.

“Look where we are,” Traps said. “The chances of any one of us dying is extremely high. We’ve been lucky so far, but it’s a hostile world, and our luck isn’t going to last forever.”

“I suppose you’re right…” Eric said.

“You know what?” Traps said. “If she wants to be with you I don’t care anymore. I just want her to be happy. And I just want her to be safe. So promise me you’ll keep looking for her, no matter what happens.”

Eric hesitated. Finally: “I promise. We’ll get her back. I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that.”

“Thank you,” Traps said. “That makes me feel a lot better.”

After an hour, the shrubs grew less dense, and the ground became softer. The three of them began leaving footprints, as did the other teams.

Mickey spoke up. “Looks like we found Bambi’s footsteps. They definitely match up with a Cicada.”

“All right team,” Marlborough said. “Time to regroup.”

The Bolt Eaters regrouped near Mickey and followed Bambi’s footsteps through the undergrowth.

Eventually the team stopped when they came upon bigger tracks moving at right angles to Bambi’s. These new footsteps were about as broad as each Annihilator mech. The shrubs beside them were crushed.

“Look at this,” Brontosaurus said. “The distance between each footfall is about five meters. Something big passed this way.”

Frogger knelt beside one of the imprints. “No talons, or claw imprints. Just a circular impression. They look almost like mech tracks.”

“That’s a pretty big mech,” Slate said.

“I’ll say,” Frogger agreed.

“Bambi’s footsteps end here,” Traps said.

Dickson’s Annihilator bobbed its head up and down in simulation of a nod. “Whatever passed this way got her. Either that, or she decided to hitch a ride. Either way, we follow the footsteps.”

“How do we know the direction of travel?” Hicks said.

“The imprints are deeper on the righthand side,” Frogger said, still kneeling in his Annihilator. “That tells me the heel of the foot pressed down there as the target advanced. When walking in any direction, where the heel touches, it’s always slightly deeper than the rest of the footprint, followed closely by the depth of the toes. The sole, meanwhile is the least deep.”

“Assuming they utilize the same walking mechanics we’re familiar with,” Eric said.

“That is the assumption I made, yes,” Frogger said.

“So the imprints are deeper on the right…” Marlborough said. “That means we travel to the left.”

And so the Bolt Eaters followed the large footsteps in the leftmost direction. Marlborough had divided the group in half, with each one keeping to either side of the virtual corridor demarcated by those footsteps.

Eric wasn’t entirely convinced that a mech or other machine had made those imprints. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find that they were sourced by another large alien like the Stompers, though perhaps with elephant-style feet. Time would tell.

“We’re all going to die here, you know that right?” Eagleeye said from out of left field.

“Enough with the morale leeching,” Slate said.

“It’s not morale leeching, it’s the truth,” Eagleeye said. “Not just Bambi. But all of us. One by one.”

“We all got mind backups at home,” Tread said. “So we’ll still live on. Or a version of us, anyway.”

“That’s no consolation to me,” Eagleeye said. “I’ll still be dead.”

“So some of us have hit the dust before,” Brontosaurus said. “Frogger, you died before. How do you feel about dying again?”

“I don’t want to, obviously,” Frogger said. “But I’m at peace with it, if it happens. I think we’ll still exist in some form if we die. And I’m not talking about our backups being restored into Mind Refurbs. I’m talking about us, who we are here and now.”

“You saying you believe in a soul?” Slate said.

“In a sense,” Frogger said. “I believe that once neural networks form a living and breathing person, whether that person was created from the unity of an ovum and sperm, or from the amalgamation of circuit boards and electricity, impressions are imprinted into the bundles of properties that form the higher dimensions, or universes. And that once we exist, we will continue to exist in those higher universes even after dying in one of them. Perhaps after death we won’t have any bodily sensations, or even thoughts, but we will exist.”

“What’s the point of existing if we have no idea we’re alive?” Slate said. “That sounds a lot like death to me.”

“Maybe,” Frogger said. “But I also believe that the universe reuses those imprints. Or rather, the metaverse. I believe in multiple universes, as you might have guessed from my previous statements. Some universes create the imprints I spoke of, while others are incapable of doing so, and simply put pre-existing imprints to use. So once we’ve been created here, after we die, we have the chance to be reborn as something else in another universe, in a universe that badly needs those imprints because it can’t create its own. We could come back as an alien creature. Or an insect in a universe that was a clone of our own.”

Eric was a little puzzled. He didn’t have any beliefs like this himself, but Frogger was supposed to be cloned from the same mind as he was. Then again, Eric hadn’t really spent much thought on the idea of dying and what came after; but Frogger obviously had.

“Hm,” Crusher said. “That’s a nice thought. Coming back, I mean. I think I’d want to be reborn as a dragonfly.”

“A dragonfly?” Brontosaurus said. “Why?”

“Because I love to fly,” Crusher said.

“Well, I don’t believe any of that,” Eagleeye said. “All I know is, we’re going to die like Bambi, and—”

“All right, this conversation has been going on for too long,” Marlborough said. “You don’t know that Bambi is dead. In fact, she’s probably not. And as for the rest of us, we’re not going to die. I want you to wipe those thoughts from your mind. Turn off your emotions if you can’t. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Sarge,” Eagleeye said. “Sorry, Sarge. It must be the emotions. Yes, I think I’ll turn them off for the time being.”

Marlborough glanced at the mechs that walked on either side of him. “Listen up, Bolt Eaters. Even if we’re stuck here for all eternity, we’ll find a way to survive. Is that clear?”

“It is, Sarge!” a chorus of voices replied.

“Good,” Marlborough said.

“I dig how the Sarge thinks,” Brontosaurus said. “Who knows, maybe we’ll build our own ship someday, and fly back to Earth? Especially if we can capture some alien bases on this planet.”

“Yeah, considering we lost most of our alien technology, it’s not going to be easy,” Eagleeye said.

“Eagleeye…” Marlborough said warningly.

“Sorry, Sarge,” Eagleeye said.

“No one ever said it was going to be easy,” Brontosaurus added. “We’re in the army, bro. We of all people know this. But we don’t mind. Because we like a challenge.”

Eagleeye didn’t comment. Probably for the best.

“By the way, how is everyone else doing with their newfound emotions?” Marlborough asked.

“I already turned off mine,” Dunnigan said. “I started thinking about my former battalion mates, and the old survivor’s guilt surfaced. I had to shut it down. Or I would have done the same thing Bambi did.”

“Mine are still off, too,” Brontosaurus said.

Most of the platoon had turned theirs off. The consensus was that emotions were too hard at the moment, given their situation. Only Eric, Frogger, Crusher, and Dickson had kept them on. Marlborough advised these outliers to shut off their emotions if ever their situation became emotionally overwhelming. They all agreed, of course.

Though deep down Eric really had no intentions of doing so. He was still convinced that those emotions were the only things making him human. And he had worked damn hard to set himself free of the Containment Code, after all. No, he’d be leaving his emotions on for good, most likely.

The Bolt Eaters broke easily through the thinner shrubs here, though their advance was noisy, and they continued to follow the footsteps for the next two hours.

And then the attack came.

10

Eric was scanning the thin shrubs around him through the scope of his ZX-9.

“Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Slate said. “It’s been what, two hours now? I’d hate to have to backtrack.”

“This is the right direction,” Frogger said.

“Yeah, well—” Slate began.

Before he could finish, Brontosaurus suddenly dove to the ground beside Eric and slammed open his retractable shield.

“Taking laser fire!” Brontosaurus said.

Eric and the others immediately took cover. The shrubs didn’t offer much protection, so they did as Brontosaurus had, diving to the soft ground and slanting their ballistic shields over their bodies at an angle, and curling up so that the shields protected as much of their mechs as possible.

“It’s coming in from above,” Brontosaurus continued.

Eric glanced at his overhead map and saw that three tangos—or bogeys, he supposed, was the proper slang term for unidentified aircraft—had been recorded as red dots some distance above the foliage ahead.

“I don’t believe this,” Hicks said.

“Believe what?” Dunnigan asked.

“They’re Harbingers,” the sniper replied.

“Uh, what are Harbingers doing here?” Slate said.

“Not just ordinary Harbingers,” Tread said. “But Russian equivalents.”

“Bokerov,” Marlborough said.

“It’s the Russian from hell!” Slate said. “How many times do we have to kill this bitch?”

Eric got a bead on one of the Harbingers and lined up his crosshairs.

“Sync your weapons,” Marlborough said. Dee automatically switched Eric to Bullet Time to match the timebase of the transmission. “I want four ZX-9s targeting the vulnerable spots of each. That should be enough to take them down with one hit.”

The team members began syncing their lasers, but before they could complete the process, the Harbingers began turning away.

Eric had teamed with Brontosaurus, Crusher, and Frogger, who had synced the ZX-9s they held in their free hands to his, and he aimed his crosshairs at the receding vessel. He managed to get off a shot thanks to Bullet Time: the craft immediately lost power and began to slowly drift downward.

The other team members weren’t as lucky. Marlborough hit one of the craft, but the angle was bad, and he wasn’t able to get a killing blow. The third craft meanwhile managed to duck below the treeline, and vanished from view.

Eric and the others reverted to normal time, and stood.

“Good job, Scorpion,” Marlborough said. “Bolt Eaters, let’s get to that fallen Harbinger, and see if there’s any data we can recover from the AI core.”

The group moved forward, keeping an eye on the thin shrubs around them for signs of ambush.

“How the hell did Bokerov get here?” Slate said.

“He must have duplicated himself with those 3D printers he had at the iron mine,” Frogger said. “And at some point a Black Tail attacked him, or some other bioweapon, and hit him with the same device that brought us here.”

“Bitch created a clone!” Slate said. “And the aliens sucked it up! Unbelievable. Just our luck! Even on the far side of the galaxy we can’t get rid of him! And now the bitch has got our Bambi!”

“You know, it might not actually be him,” Crusher said. “Maybe these are just some of his autonomous units that the device sucked up.”

“No, I think it is him,” Eagleeye said. “Those Harbingers wouldn’t be firing at us otherwise.”

“Unless he left them in guard mode,” Brontosaurus said. “We already agreed that Bokerov probably broke out of any Containment Code he had installed. Or had looser Rules of Engagement than we did, anyway.”

“Yeah, but those Harbingers weren’t behaving like they were in guard mode,” Frogger said. “If they were in guard mode, they would have kept up their attack, swooping around from the other side, in an attempt to keep us from reaching whatever it was they thought they were guarding. This was more like an active sweep of the area, to search for potential hostiles. Bokerov has to be behind it. If I had to guess, I’d say he probably has a 3D printer here with him. There’s a good chance that’s the case, if the attack came at the iron mine.”

“So not only did the aliens suck up his clone, but they sucked up a 3D printer, too?” Slate said. “Wonderful news. Just not for us.”

“That would have happened a week ago,” Dickson said. “How many units could Bokerov produce in a week?”

“Theoretically, given unlimited resources?” Frogger said. “A lot. In addition to the three Harbingers, at least ten Molotov tanks. Or half that, and a bunch of smaller units such as Bulavas. Alternatively, he could have chosen to create one or two big machines, maybe the giant mech responsible for the footsteps we saw back there.”

“Why would he create something so big?” Dunnigan said. “Something that differed so radically from the usual military design?”

“Maybe he wanted something to counter the Stompers,” Frogger said.

“After we rescue Bambi from him, we have to get our hands on that 3D printer,” Eric said. “It’ll give us a way to get a leg up on the alien inhabitants of this moon.”

“Let’s say a clone of Bokerov is actually out there, and not autonomously run machines,” Mickey said. “Should we try to communicate? Try for an alliance, given our mutual circumstances?”

“We tried before and failed,” Marlborough said. “The fact that he’s already opened fire on us tells me everything I need to know. There will be no comm attempts.”

They reached the fallen Harbinger. Not unexpectedly, it had already self destructed, and all that was left was melted wreckage.

Frogger stepped forward, and ripped open the region surrounding the AI core. Then Frogger ejected from his mech, and leaped down in his Cicada.

“The access port on the AI core hasn’t melted,” Frogger said. “I’ll see if I can hack in.”

He attached a manual line to the port.

Eric and the others continued to stand guard.

Brontosaurus was standing beside Eric; there was a big hole drilled right into the chest piece of the heavy gunner’s Annihilator.

“Looks nasty,” Eric commented.

Brontosaurus glanced down at his chest. “The lasers burned right through… the Harbingers combined their fire. Aiming for my AI core. Or at least, where they thought the core was. If this had been an ordinary Annihilator, they would have taken me down. But they couldn’t have known we removed our AI cores to make way for our Cicada units.”

“But they know we’ve done something now,” Eric said.

“They do,” Brontosaurus agreed. “Or more accurately, Bokerov knows.”

“Okay,” Frogger said after a few minutes. “Most of the data is lost, as expected. However, I was able to get a flight history. The Harbingers have been making several runs around the area, but always returning to the same spot, no doubt to recharge. That has to be where the base is.”

“Mark it on the overhead map,” Marlborough said.

A waypoint appeared about ten kilometers away to the party’s left.

“The Harbingers were trying to lead us away,” Eric said, noticing the trajectory left by the fleeing craft, a trajectory that still overlaid his map.

“Yes,” Marlborough said. “Heading to the right until they were out of sight, then no doubt turning back, giving us a wide berth as they returned to their base. It’s what I would have ordered my units to do.”

“So do we pursue?” Dunnigan said. “Considering the location of that base leads away from the tracks...”

“We’ll be able to return to this spot later easily,” Marlborough said. That was due of course to their accelerometers and other directional indicators. “However, if Bokerov is here, it’s best to deal with him sooner rather than later. Especially if he has a 3D printer. And for all we know, he had one of his Harbingers accept Bambi’s Cicada unit from whatever mech captured her, and it carried her to his base.”

“I’m still not sure I believe Bokerov is responsible for whatever made those tracks,” Dunnigan said.

“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Marlborough said. “Dickson, split the team in two. I want traveling overwatch. We head toward Bokerov’s base.”

“Traveling overwatch,” Dickson said.

The staff sergeant split the team in two. Eric was part of T2 which followed a hundred meters behind T1 to provide overwatch on them. Each team member kept five meters back from the mech ahead of him or her; they were positioned so that their red dots formed a zigzag pattern when viewed from above on the overhead map. They shut down LIDAR broadcasts and cut back their comm strength to not announce their presence.

About two kilometers from the base, they discovered the bodies of dead Stompers and Heeps rotting on the ground, in various stages of decay. Small scavengers, reaching to the size of a human’s knee, were feeding on them. These carrion eaters had the bodies of small ponies, and the heads of birds. They looked up as the team neared, but when the Annihilators made no move to approach, they returned to their meal, keeping a wary eye on the mechs.

“Looks like Bokerov has had some run-ins with the local wildlife already,” Eagleeye said.

“Yeah, but look at those pony birds!” Slate said. “I bet they taste like chicken!”

“Too bad machines don’t eat,” Eagleeye said.

“Not that they’d be biologically compatible with a human even if you could,” Brontosaurus said. “Besides, come on, you’d really want to eat a carrion eater? That’d be like trying to eat a vulture, or a crow.”

“Hey, protein is protein, bitch,” Slate said.

“Maybe you should milk that one,” Eagleeye said. He pointed to one of the pony birds that had a particularly long male member hanging down between its legs. “Get your daily protein intake.”

“Har, har,” Slate said. “You milk it. That’s more your style.”

Hicks shot one of the pony birds in the head, causing it to explode. He giggled as the other creatures scattered.

“That was unnecessary,” Frogger said.

Hicks shrugged. “We have to train them to be afraid of creatures that are bigger than they are. I’m doing them a favor.”

“How do you think Bokerov managed to permanently kill these Stomper bitches?” Slate said. He almost kicked one of the maimed Stomper bodies, but stopped himself.

“That’s a good question,” Dickson said. “Seems like this particular batch wasn’t able to regenerate, unlike those we encountered.”

“Mickey, take a sample,” Marlborough ordered.

Mickey stepped forward and took a sample with a special kit he carried in his storage compartment. “Hm, this is interesting.”

“What is it?” Marlborough said.

“Well, it looks like the tissue is infected with a toxin,” Mickey said. “My guess is it’s derived from a local plant. Bokerov must have delivered it via an explosive payload.”

“Smart bastard,” Dickson said.

“Never underestimate a Russian backed into a corner,” Marlborough said. “Could we use that toxin to develop our own counter to the Stompers?”

“Potentially,” Mickey said. “But we’d have to find out what the plant is, first. And good luck getting Bokerov to reveal it.”

“Well, store the molecular structure for future reference,” Marlborough said. “Maybe we’ll practice some botany if we have time later. Until then, we mow down any Stompers we encounter, and then run away really fast.”

They were about a kilometer from the waypoint when Dickson, in charge of T1, called a halt.

“We’re picking up some camera platforms,” Dickson said.

Eric switched to Dickson’s viewpoint and saw the platforms highlighted on the thermal band. They looked like small pinpricks of heat, one embedded in the branches to the left, and another one far to the right. They were almost unnoticeable, hidden among those shrubs, but the signatures were apparent to those who knew what to look for.

“My guess is similar cameras ring the entire perimeter, one kilometer out from the base,” Dickson said.

“I was hoping for more time,” Marlborough said. “It’s time to make our rush. Shoot out those cameras, Dickson. And then advance, Bolt Eaters! Double time!”

If Dickson and T1 were able to make out the cameras, that meant the video devices in turn had definitely sighted the Annihilators. They could expect some artillery to rain down shortly.

The members of T1 disabled the cameras with a couple of well placed laser pulses, and then both teams picked up the pace of their advance. They maintained their traveling overwatch formation, but shifted well to the left of their previous location so that their movements could be less readily predicted.

On cue, Eric heard the whine of incoming shells.

11

Eric held his ballistic shield tilted above him, shielding him from the sky.

He felt the thud as a shell struck his shield and, instinctively switching to Bullet Time, deflected the shell away to his left, where there were no other mechs. It struck the shrubs, detonating. The explosion would have sent him flying were he in a Cicada unit, but at that distance, his Annihilator easily remained on its feet.

He got lucky, he knew, because the shell should have detonated as soon as it touched his shield. It would have probably destroyed the shield entirely, and damaged the arm of his mech. The weapon likely hadn’t registered a full stop when it hit the shield, thanks to Eric’s Bullet Time reaction speed, and only did so when it struck the ground a moment later. And it obviously didn’t have a proximity fuse.

“Good thing these aren’t smart shells,” Slate said over the comm as more shells detonated harmlessly beside the different teams.

“Bokerov has been cutting corners to amp up his production,” Dickson said, echoing Eric’s own thoughts, given what he had seen in regard to the lack of proximity fuses and so forth.

Maybe he hadn’t been expecting to fight opponents who were on an equal technological footing. Maybe he thought he’d only have to deal with the native inhabitants of this moon.

All the better for Eric and his team.

“Got some defense platforms all along the perimeter,” Dickson said. “Laser turrets.”

“Take them out,” Marlborough said.

Grenades and missiles erupted from T1 up ahead, which had dug in behind their shields about three hundred meters from the laser turrets. They showed up on the overhead map as red dots.

“Split up, T2,” Marlborough said.

On the HUD, Marlborough highlighted Eric, Brontosaurus, and Crusher as T3, assigning Eric as team leader. Arrows on the overhead map showed where Eric and his team were supposed to go.

He headed left, away from the remaining three members of T2, and through the shrubs targeted by the turrets on the far left side. There were more dead Stomper and Heep bodies here; they weaved around them.

The members of T3 chose their targets—which were marked with blue triangles on the HUD. Eric released a missile at his designated target, and then rapidly relocated, because he knew a moment later other turrets would target his previous position. He kept his shield in front of him before diving to the ground and ducking behind it.

Moving hadn’t helped: his ballistic shield registered multiple laser impacts. He swung his ZX-9 into the groove at the top of his shield, and targeted the next laser.

A Harbinger swooped past overhead.

In T2, Marlborough fired his electrolaser at the Harbinger, and scored a direct hit. The craft erupted in electrical bolts and promptly crashed.

In moments, Eric and T3 had cleared the ring of laser turrets, at least those that were visible on this part of the Russian base, while T1 and T2 had destroyed the remainder on their sections.

“Move forward!” Marlborough said.

Eric spotted Bulavas lurking behind the shrubs just to the left of T1, and directly ahead of his position. He opened fire on them as he ran, switching to Bullet Time to target them as fast as he could. His ZX-9 laser was easily rated to penetrate the rather flimsy armor Bulavas had, and he didn’t need to sync with any other weapons to take them down. Beside him, Crusher and Brontosaurus were similarly unleashing hell, distracting the Bulavas from the approach of T1.

They managed to take out half of them before the Bulavas ducked low, behind the roots of different shrubs. Eric and the others synced their laser fire then, and shot boreholes through the roots one at a time, targeting the last known positions of the Bulavas.

Meanwhile T1 had to dig in once more, because they faced more Bulavas from the front, and the side. Eric could see four tanks lined up in a row in a clearing behind the Bulavas, hull-down behind a berm of land so that only their turrets were exposed.

Those tanks launched shells, targeting the positions of each team.

“Relocate!” Eric said, switching to Bullet Time. He used his jumpjets to switch from a prostrate position to an upright one in an instant, then fired lateral jets to move sideways, breaking through the branches of the shrubs beside him. Meanwhile the shells came raining down.

He knew that laser turrets on those tanks would also be tracking him, so he kept his ballistic shield held in front of him, angled toward the Molotovs.

He landed several meters to the left, along with Brontosaurus and Crusher; behind him, where T3 previously resided, the forest exploded. Branches, shrubs and dirt tore into the air, raining down on Eric and his companions in clumps.

“Close one,” Crusher said.

Eric glanced at his overhead map, and was relieved to see that T1 and T2 had similarly escaped fatal damage.

“We’re going to draw the attention of those Molotovs,” Eric announced on the platoon comm channel. “We don’t have any Bulavas pinning us down.”

“T1 and T2, sync your weapons with mine,” Marlborough said.

Eric knew the Sarge planned to concentrate fire on the tanks if Eric’s distraction was successful.

Eric got up and dashed forward and to the left so that he would approach those tanks from the side. Brontosaurus and Crusher joined him. They all kept their ballistic shields pointed toward the tanks, and had shoved the muzzles of their ZX-9s through the notches.

“T3, sync!” Eric said.

Brontosaurus and Crusher synched their weapons with him.

As he grew near, he disturbed a herd of small pony birds that had been hiding in the foliage next to the body of a Stomper, and the creatures leaped away, racing directly toward the tanks.

Good. That would provide a further distraction.

Operating in Bullet Time, Eric gave control of his Annihilator over to Dee, and switched his viewpoint to the ZX-9. He aimed the crosshairs over the closest tank, and targeted the turret responsible for firing shells. There was no point in targeting the AI core, given the hull-down positioning of the tanks. Combining their lasers might eat through the earth, but it was doubtful the weapons would have enough intensity to pierce the armor that coated the tank beyond.

Eric unleashed the synced weapons at the turret, and targeted the laser cannon next to it with one of his Hellhawks at the same time.

As soon as he had fired the ZX-9, he slid the weapon down behind the shield so the tanks couldn’t target the weapon and then fired his jumpjets laterally so he’d slide out of the way of any return fire.

Branches whipped at his hull.

One of the enemy Molotov tanks lived up to its name and fired a jellied gasoline. Eric blocked it with his shield. The jellied gasoline was injected with an oxidant so it could burn without the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere, however that oxidant quickly exhausted, and the flames on his shield subsided. Still, the material had become white hot. He didn’t want to take any impacts on that surface for a while.

He was still jetting sideways when a thicker branch abruptly snagged him. A different tank launched a shell at him, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to free himself in time…

The bomb broke through the branches in its path; Eric tried to angle his shield toward it, but his arm was caught by another branch. Not that the white-hot shield would make much of a difference in its current state. He still had the other shield in his right arm he could deploy, but there was no way it would unfold fast enough to block that shell.

Not going to make it…

Crusher dove in front of him in slow motion to take the hit.

“Crusher, no!” Eric said.

The shell struck her shield and Crusher was sent hurling backwards, hitting Eric, and breaking him free of the branches that held him.

They rolled to the ground together so that Crusher was lying on top of him.

“Well that was… unpleasant,” Crusher said. Her shield had flash-melted into metal slag that covered her arm and part of her torso. She rolled off of Eric as laser fire came in. His HUD registered damage to the leftmost region of his mech, and he deployed his shield there, protecting himself and Crusher.

“I’ve lost all operation of my mech’s left arm,” Crusher said.

“You could have lost a lot more,” Eric said. “If they’d fired more than one shell…”

“It was a risk I was willing to take,” Crusher said.

Eric heard the sound of ripping metal, and he slid his ZX-9 over the notch in his shield to scan the area. He saw that the Annihilators of Dickson, Slate, Eagleeye and Hicks had leaped onto one tank each, and were in the process of ripping them open from the top. The different turrets were either broken off or smoldering.

“Like opening a can of sardines!” Slate said. “Except there’s nothing good to eat inside.” He smashed his fist into the opening he’d created, and pulled out a series of glowing blue optical fibers: the neural network found inside an AI core. The other Annihilators on the tanks did likewise.

Behind them, the wreckages of different Bulavas were arrayed along the ground. The other Annihilators in T1 and T2 had closed to the perimeter. They were firing outward, no doubt to take down the other laser turrets that lined the farther borders of the camp.

“Cease firing!” Marlborough said. “All turrets are offline.”

The Annihilators stopped firing.

“Slate, Eagleeye,” Marlborough said. “You’re our scouts.”

The pair began slowly advancing into the clearing while the remaining Annihilators stayed behind to offer overwatch.

Eric had T3 advance to the perimeter to provide overwatch as well.

“Brontosaurus, Crusher, watch the rear,” Eric ordered.

While they did that, Eric swept his gaze across the clearing.

Jersey barriers reinforced the earth berm the Molotovs had been hiding behind. It was probably a good thing he hadn’t targeted that berm after all, because those barriers would have definitely negated any lasers he might have fired.

In the main clearing was a large excavation pit; probably dug by the shovel or ‘dozer’ blade Bokerov’s main tank was equipped with. The inner edges of the pit contained ore, no doubt the raw metals for the 3D printer Bokerov had somewhere in the camp. There was a smelter beside it. At least, Eric thought it was a smelter, but it was difficult to tell, considering it was destroyed.

Slate and Eagleeye moved behind the ruins of the smelter.

“Found the 3D printer,” Slate said.

Eric piped the feed from Slate’s cameras into the upper right of his vision. He saw the 3D printer then: like the smelter, it, too, was destroyed.

“So much for recovering the 3D printer,” Frogger said. “Bastard destroyed it, rather than letting it fall into our hands.”

“See that smaller excavation?” Eagleeye said.

Slate rotated to the right slightly so that the camera picked up another excavation next to the 3D printer. The ore it contained was a silver white.

“That has to be a lithium mine,” Eagleeye continued. “That’s where he was getting the raw material for his power cells.”

“How did he find it?” Slate said.

“Obviously he’s got some advanced tectonic imaging systems installed in his tank,” Hicks said.

“Tectonic imaging systems,” Slate said. “Nice word choice. If he wanted to cause earthquakes, he’d use tectonic imaging. I think you meant advanced ore imaging systems.”

“Not really,” Hicks said.

Slate and Eagleeye expanded outward.

“Got some other turrets here that weren’t visible from your side,” Slate said.

Red dots appeared on the overhead map some distance in front of Slate. But they quickly winked out.

“Handled,” Eagleeye said.

They finished sweeping the camp, but found nothing else.

“Bambi’s not here,” Slate said.

“Neither is Bokerov,” Eagleeye said.

“Here,” Slate said. He pointed out a tread path that led away through the undergrowth. It was well-used, implying that Bokerov used it to retreat whenever his camp came under attack. Which had probably happened often in the past few days.

“A tread path…” Marlborough said. “What about the giant mech footprints? Seen any signs of them?”

“It’s hard to say,” Crusher said. She was still surveying the surrounding foliage. “We got several footprints out here. Most are from Stompers, but some are big enough to belong to the mech that took Bambi.”

“The bigger ones could simply be overlapping Stomper footprints,” Frogger said.

“So our Russian friend might not be responsible for the mech that stole Bambi, you’re saying?” Dickson asked.

“That’s a very good possibility, yes,” Frogger said.

“All right, it’s time to follow Bokerov,” Marlborough said. “We stick to the trees, follow alongside the tread path. Our Russian friend has been known to use mines, and I have a feeling he’s laid a few of them along that corridor. Maybe even some in the trees. So keep a good watch out. Dickson, take us out.”

Dickson arranged the marching order but before he could give the order to move out, the ground began to shake.

“Looks like our little firefight attracted the attention of Stompers!” Frogger said.

“What if it’s the big mech?” Hicks asked.

12

Eric listened a moment. “No, that definitely sounds like Stompers.”

“Let’s go!” Marlborough said.

The two teams hurried into the undergrowth, following alongside the tread path. Eric scanned not only the surrounding trees, but also the surface of the ground very carefully, wary of mines. He used both the thermal and LIDAR bands, which would give him the best chance of detecting any.

“Yep, I’ve picked up mines on the tread path,” Dunnigan said. “I’m highlighting them so they’re easier to see.”

Eric glanced at the tread path. Overlaid onto the HUD, the flat disks were depicted as blue wireframes underneath the surface of the ground. They had small, fingerlike projections that protruded directly upward, terminating on the surface.

“Why didn’t you Brits detect these mines back when we were on Earth?” Slate said. “Your tanks drove right over them.”

“Bokerov did a better job of concealing them back then,” Dunnigan said. “As we’ve already agreed, he’s been cutting corners to get his base ready as quickly as possible.”

“No doubt he intended to fortify his defenses once he had a baseline in place,” Traps said.

Eric continued searching for mines, but didn’t spot any, and as the other mines along the path behind them receded, he felt himself becoming a little complacent, so he forced himself to keep an equal eye on the ground, as well as the undergrowth ahead.

Meanwhile, the stomping sounds had grown in volume.

But then Eric heard distant explosions behind him.

“Looks like the Stompers discovered the mines Bokerov left,” Slate said.

Eric heard more stomping, sounding more frantic this time. It was rapidly retreating.

“Well, guess we don’t have to worry about an attack on two fronts today,” Tread said.

There were more rotting bodies of Stompers and Heeps that had obviously attacked in days past.

“It’s disgusting that he just leaves them here,” Crusher said.

“It is,” Dickson agreed. “But it’s a good deterrent for the native inhabitants. If Bokerov had kept it up, eventually they’d have learned to avoid his camp like the plague.”

A high pitched shriek filled the air.

“Incoming!” Brontosaurus said.

Eric and the others dove to the sides, and held their shields above them.

A massive explosion filled the air.

“Looks like Bokerov kept his best ordnance for last,” Slate said.

“We just lost Traps,” Hicks said.

Eric switched to Hicks’ point of view. He could see the smoldering body of an Annihilator lying on the ground. Traps hadn’t been able to get his shield rotated into place in time, and the shell had struck him squarely in the chest piece. The entire cockpit had melted inward, straight into the Cicada unit underneath. Most of the AI core cylinder had dissolved, leaving only a few bluish optical fibers.

I’m sorry Traps, for taking Bambi from you. And I swear I’ll find her, no matter what happens.

Another high-pitched shriek came in.

Eric ducked lower. He switched to Bullet Time, and with the help of his Accomp, calculated that the shell was headed directly toward him.

He swung his shield up into place, and applied lateral thrust with his jumpjets, trying to move out of the way. His body moved agonizingly slow in Bullet Time, as compared to the shell, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to make it.

The shell struck his shield a glancing blow on the right, and the explosion sent him flying backward.

He tucked in his arm so that his shield protected him from most of the blast, and he struck another mech lying on the ground behind him: Brontosaurus. The impact tripped Eric, and caused him to fall backward, rolling into the foliage.

“You okay Scorpion?” Dickson asked.

Eric switched to normal time and glanced at his shield. The entire right section had melted away, and the remainder of it was coated in various sized pieces of shrapnel.

“Fine!” Eric said. “The only damage is to my shield.”

“How the hell is he targeting us?” Slate said. “Are there hidden cameras we overlooked?”

“He’s got a Harbinger overhead!” Eagleeye said.

A red dot appeared on the overhead map.

“Sync with me!” Marlborough said, his timebase bringing everyone into Bullet Time.

Eric synced with the Sarge; when everyone had completed the task, Marlborough aimed through the undergrowth at the Harbinger hovering above, and fired. The aircraft had initiated evasive maneuvers, but Marlborough’s shot was true, and the laser ripped through the underside. The vehicle spun to the side, crashing into a large shrub.

“Reposition!” Marlborough said.

Eric unsynced and switched to normal time. Bokerov would still have all their old positions recorded, thanks to the Harbinger.

Eric jetted to his feet and dashed forward, wanting to close with Bokerov if he could. Meanwhile, more shells came in behind him, razing the forest.

He spotted a clearing up ahead. His shield wouldn’t retract—there was too much shrapnel in it. The shield was too damaged to fully protect his body, so he decided to deploy his right shield as well, and held both in front of him.

“Crusher and Brontosaurus, on me!” Eric said.

The pair closed with Eric, and ducked behind the cover he provided; they held their ZX-9’s over the notches in his shield.

Eric’s shield registered laser impacts.

“Got him in sight!” Crusher said.

“Better hurry!” Eric said. “These laser impacts I’m receiving are far more powerful than the impacts from the other units. He’s concentrating all of his fire on the same spot, too. I got maybe three seconds until he penetrates!”

But then the impacts stopped. Eric realized that the other platoon members had opened fire from the far side of the tread path, and were drawing his fire.

Eagleeye abruptly arced over head, courtesy of his jumpjets. He held one of his shields underneath his body. Slate did the same a short distance beside him. As did Hicks.

“Keep up the covering fire, team!” Marlborough said.

Eric folded away his right shield, seeing as the laser impacts had ceased, and swiveled his grenade launcher into place. He steered the crosshairs over the big tank he could now see through the branches in the clearing beyond. The big blade at the front of that tank had lifted, adding extra armor to the front section, so Eric aimed over it at one of the turrets and unleashed three grenades in a row.

The explosions hit, and a moment later Slate and Eagleeye landed. They proceeded to bend the remaining turrets all to hell.

Hicks landed on top of the tank beside the other two Annihilators—yes, it was big enough to support all three mechs, amazingly enough, though just barely. Hicks fired his ZX-9 at point blank range into the hull underneath him, then punched down hard with his fist into the softened metal, and tore a chunk free.

“Hey, I wanted to do that!” Slate said.

For a moment Eric thought Slate was going to shove Hicks off, but the drone operator restrained himself. Instead, he fired at the nearby hull as well and punched into the metal.

“Rip and tear, baby!” Slate said.

The big tank tried to turn around.

“Concentrate fire on the treads!” Marlborough said.

Eric released grenades at the tread area, while others fired missiles and lasers.

One of the explosions sent some shrapnel flying into Slate, who was still on top of the tank.

“Hey, watch it!” Slate said.

But their combined attack had successfully knocked out the tank’s treads. The vehicle wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Hicks had one of his big arms thrust through the tear he’d formed in the hull, and he was reaching inside what Eric guessed was the AI core region of the tank.

“Stop!” Marlborough said. “Leave his AI core intact. At least until we interrogate him.”

Hicks removed his arm.

“And get off of there!” Marlborough transmitted. “He could have a self-destruct mechanism.”

Hicks and the other two leaped down.

“I think we can agree that if he had a self-destruct mechanism, he would have used it by now,” Hicks said.

“Even so, give the tank some clearance,” Marlborough said. “The rest of you, form a defensive position around the perimeter. Let’s not risk any more surprises.”

Eric approached the edge of the clearing, and turned around before reaching it to keep an eye on his surroundings. The others spread out around the clearing and did likewise.

Marlborough entered the clearing to stand before the tank.

“Mickey, can you give me a connection?” Marlborough asked. He was still speaking over the comm, not via speakers.

But apparently he didn’t need a connection, because Bokerov spoke then, utilizing the external speakers of the tank.

“Well done, Shit Eaters,” Bokerov said in Russian-accented English.

13

Eric stifled a sudden rage. He wasn’t the only one feeling angry apparently, because Slate took a step forward.

“I’m gonna bitch slap that mofo silly,” Slate said over the comm.

“Hold!” Marlborough glanced at the Annihilators, then back at the tank. He addressed Bokerov using his own speakers. “I told you, we’re the Bolt Eaters. If anyone’s a shit eater in this scenario, it’s you, because this is the second time we’ve beaten you. The first was at the iron mine, last week. We terminated your original.”

Bokerov didn’t answer for several moments. Then: “That was my clone. I am the original. And I am still superior to you in every way.”

“Are you sure about that?” Marlborough said. “You’re the one standing broken and defeated before us. Despite the superiority of your ‘fantastic’ mind.”

Bokerov didn’t answer.

“Well it doesn’t matter anymore either way, does it?” Marlborough continued. “We’re both trapped here, on an alien world, and—”

“I’m not going to team up with you,” Bokerov interrupted. “Nor will I ever help you. You might as well destroy me.”

“You’re that far gone, are you?” Marlborough said. “Though we could be your only chance of survival on this planet, you don’t want our help.”

“No,” Bokerov said. “Destroy me and be done with it.”

“I’ll never understand so-called Russian honor,” Marlborough said.

“That’s because you’re not Russian, and never will be,” Bokerov said.

“Neither are you, in case you haven’t noticed,” Marlborough said.

“Oh, I am,” Bokerov said. “I’m the prototype Russian. The sverkchelovek, or uberman. I will return to the Motherland and repopulate my race. Then we will expand outward, taking control of the dead, irradiated continents, living in places you humans can never inhabit. And while the rest of you are distracted, dealing with your self-inflicted nuclear winter, or perhaps the alien invaders, we will attack from behind, and destroy humans and invaders alike, and make the entire world ours. We will rule the Earth with the iron will of the machine, rather than the soft heart of the flesh.”

“Uh, in case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t a way to reach the Motherland at the moment,” Bokerov said.

“You have one of their weapons,” Bokerov said. “Capable of creating a wormhole. It would have taken me back.”

Marlborough glanced at Brontosaurus, who had the double-barreled wormhole cannon attached to his right shoulder. “You know how to use this?”

Bokerov didn’t answer.

“You don’t, do you?” Marlborough said. “You planned to capture it from us, and thought you’d be able to work out how to use it. But you threw out that line about the wormhole, because you wanted to tease us, wanted to pretend that you had experience operating such a device, but of course you don’t. Because if you did have experience with such a weapon, you would have used it to bring yourself home. But the fact is, you’re still here.”

“Maybe I captured a device from one of the alien bioweapons on Earth, and used it to transport myself here,” Bokerov said.

“If that’s true, then how come we didn’t find such a device in your possession when we destroyed the Bokerov at the iron mine?” Marlborough pressed.

The team hadn’t really had time to search for the device while they were at the iron mine, considering they were busy fleeing an attack from bioweapons at the time, but Bokerov didn’t know that.

Not surprisingly, the Russian didn’t answer the latest question.

“All right, listen, I didn’t come here to gloat,” Marlborough said. “You have something of mine I want back.”

“Do I now?” Bokerov said.

“Yes,” Marlborough said. “And if you answer truthfully, maybe I’ll let you live.”

A coarse laugh echoed from the speakers. “Let me live? Without repairing the damage you’ve caused me, ‘letting me live’ in this state is equivalent to leaving me to die.”

“You’re worried about the Stompers and other alien inhabitants?” Marlborough said. “Well, look on the bright side. If they find you, it will be really easy for you to play dead.”

“What do you want?” Bokerov said.

“The Cicada unit you kidnapped,” Marlborough said. “We’d like it back.”

Bokerov didn’t answer. Eric suspected he had no idea what Marlborough was talking about, and was trying to decide whether to lie about it or not.

“Bitch doesn’t have it,” Slate said over the comm, echoing Eric’s thoughts. “If he did, he would have gloated about how he’d already destroyed the unit by now.”

“You don’t have the Cicada, do you?” Marlborough pressed over the speaker, apparently agreeing with Slate’s assessment. When Bokerov still didn’t answer, he added: “When your Harbingers first opened fire at us we were following a set of footprints. They were large, each one about as big as one of our Annihilators.”

“Ah yes, one of my experimental units,” Bokerov said.

“You built a mech?” Marlborough said.

“Of course,” Bokerov said. “I need something to protect myself from the native inhabitants.”

“He’s lying,” Hicks said over the comm. “He didn’t build it.”

“Where did you find the time, let alone the raw materials, to build something of that size,” Marlborough said. “You’ve only been here a week?”

“We Russians are resourceful,” Bokerov said.

“Can I play bad cop?” Dickson asked over the comm.

“Go ahead,” Marlborough answered.

“This is useless,” Dickson said, stepping forward. He pointed his ZX-9 at Bokerov, and aimed it toward the hole that Hicks had punched above the AI core. “Let me kill him, Sarge.”

“Wait, I understand now,” Bokerov said. “This Cicada unit you asked about, it was stolen by The Mech, wasn’t it?” Eric could hear the capital letters on the latter words.

“The Mech?” Marlborough asked.

A laugh came over the tank’s speakers. “Those tracks weren’t mine. But I’ve seen what makes them.”

“Well, at least he finally admitted it,” Brontosaurus said over the comm.

“What made them?” Marlborough pressed.

“The aliens,” Bokerov said. “They have a base on this planet as well. I’ve managed to avoid them for the most part, but I, too, have lost units to them. If you want to die, then feel free to continue following those tracks. When I attacked you earlier, it was partially out of concern for your well being. Well, okay I’m being dishonest... it was out of concern for the alien technology I saw strapped to your shoulders. I didn’t want you to let that tech fall back into the hands of the aliens. But I don’t care anymore.”

“Of course you don’t,” Marlborough said. “Because you’re never going to have it.” He glanced at Dickson. “Lower your weapon. I want the Russian to stew for a while. Give him some time to think about what he’s done. He could have allied with us, and together we could have found a way off this planet. But instead he just had to attack, and now he’s never leaving this planet. Nor even this spot. Bolt Eaters, move out.” He switched to the comm. “It’s time to return to the tracks.”

“You will die,” Bokerov said over his speakers. “I will laugh when I hear the explosions in the distance. I will spit on the wreckage of your AI cores when I find them again one day.”

“We agreed that he has no self destruct mechanism?” Hicks said.

“Yes,” Marlborough said. “Why do you ask?”

Hicks leaped onto the tank and reached into the gap he’d torn above the AI core.

“Kill me now, and I will only return a hundred times more powerful to haunt you,” Bokerov said. “I have thousands of clones deployed throughout the galaxy. I will—”

“Sure you do,” Hicks interrupted. “This is for Traps, motherfucker.”

“Wait!” Frogger said.

Too late.

Hicks tore out a huge chunk of bluish optical fiber, ending Bokerov.

“I wanted to see if we could recover any data, and confirm some of the statements Bokerov made,” Frogger said. “But I can’t anymore, not with the mess you made.”

“He probably wiped his core anyway,” Hicks said.

“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Eagleeye said.

“Ha,” Slate said. “Can you imagine that? If Bokerov managed to get his hands on one of those wormhole weapons, and dispatch clones of himself throughout the galaxy, that means we’d get to kill him on every planet we ever visit.”

“Or consider this,” Tread said. “Even if he didn’t get his hands on any wormhole weapons, it’s possible that eventually Bokerov could have taken over this entire planet. He would have kept cloning himself, and developing new technologies, until he finally achieved his goal of world domination. It probably wouldn’t take him long thereafter, maybe a few hundred centuries, to develop interstellar travel. And then we’d have to deal with a Bokerov galactic empire, not to mention a few Bokerov invasion forces coming to Earth.”

“We nipped that problem right in the bud, didn’t we?” Mickey said.

“We certainly did.” Hicks leaped down off the tank. He still gripped some of the optical fiber cable, and more of it uncoiled from inside the tank. Hicks let the cable tear away before finally dropping the remnants of Bokerov’s AI core.

“Not so superior anymore, are you?” Slate said. He dashed forward, and scooped up some of the fiber cable, and gleefully wrapped it around the chest piece of his mech.

“Um, you know that’s like wrapping his brains around your chest assembly, right?” Eagleeye said.

“Hey, if this was an organic brain, I’d be doing the same!” Slate said.

“You’re a sick dude,” Eagleeye told him.

Frogger checked the other cores, but like the Harbinger, all he found was positional data. For the most part, the machines had stayed within the vicinity of this camp, except for the journey from the crater when they first arrived.

“All right, move out, team,” Marlborough said when Frogger was finished. “We’ve done what we came to do. It’s time to start heading back. Bambi’s still out there. Potentially kidnapped by alien forces. We’re going to do our best to get her back.”

They switched to traveling overwatch, and began returning the way they had come.

While marching through the forest, Slate said: “You know, it’s too bad we killed that bitch so quick. Maybe we should have let him go or something. I’m going to miss kicking his pompous metal ass.”

“Hey,” Mickey said. “You never know. Maybe he did dispatch clones of himself to other planets. Maybe you’ll get your wish.”

“Of killing him on every planet we visit?” Slate said.

“That’s right,” Mickey said.

“I don’t think we’ll be visiting any other planets,” Eagleeye said. “Not any time soon.”

“Oh sure,” Slate said. “Not for a while yet. But once we get back, we’ll still be around once humanity reaches the stars. And mark my words, the Mind Refurbs will be at the forefront of any exploration.”

“That’s an interesting thought,” Tread said. “Because even if we don’t make it back, eventually humanity will send ships to explore this system. They have to. Exploration is in our blood, even if we transfer our minds to machines, and the blood is sourced from power cells. We just have to make sure that we build a big enough antennae to attract their attention.”

“Uh, that could be like a million years, dude,” Slate said.

“Then I guess we better start looking at how to convert that lithium ore into power cells,” Tread said.

“Maybe we won’t have to wait that long,” Frogger said. “You said if Bokerov was left alone, he’d figure out interstellar travel? Maybe we’ll figure it out ourselves.”

“If we invent interstellar travel, or otherwise find a way to get back on our own, I’m going to leap into a big stinking vat of alien shit,” Slate said.

“Oh really?” Eagleeye said. “I’ll hold you to that.”

14

Eric and the others retreated through the thin shrubs and traveled the ten kilometers back to the giant footsteps. They maintained traveling overwatch, with Dickson leading the point team, and Marlborough the drag. When they reached the large imprints, they resumed following the corridor those massive treads had carved.

The shrubs continued to thin here, until eventually they ended entirely. The footsteps swerved to follow along the eaves of the forest formed by the remaining shrubs.

After half an hour, Tread, on point in T1, raised a hand. Both fire teams stopped.

“What is it?” Dickson asked over the comm.

“On the horizon,” Tread said. “A ship of some kind.

Eric zoomed in, searching, and spotted the ship Tread referred to. He switched to the scope in his ZX-9 to zoom in further, to its maximum level. The ship was sphere-shaped, with a surface that appeared very mechanical—all interlinked pipes and conduits.

“Who designs aircraft like that?” Dunnigan said.

“They’re aliens, bro,” Slate said.

“Yeah mate, I know,” Dunnigan said. “But there are no aerodynamics…”

“Like I said, bitch,” Slate said. “They’re friggin’ aliens!”

“Look at how smoothly it’s moving,” Frogger said. “It’s almost as if it’s not affected by friction, or even gravity.”

“Just like the alien mothership,” Brontosaurus said. “It must generate the same gravity dispersion layer, allowing it to move without experiencing the effects of inertia.”

“But friction should affect it then,” Frogger said.

“Maybe it also has a friction dispersion layer,” Brontosaurus said.

“Oh, of course,” Frogger said. “More handwavium."

“Hand what?” Brontosaurus asked.

“Never mind,” Frogger said.

“I’ve seen things like this before,” Eric said. “On Earth.”

“What are you talking about?” Slate said.

“In my time, when I was still alive,” Eric said.

“What, you’re saying these aliens visited Earth when you were alive?” Eagleeye asked.

“In secret, yes,” Eric said. “I remember watching videos released by the Air Force. They’d sighted these small, spherical objects, that seemed to defy gravity. Skimming the surface of the sea, they’d follow along with the fighter jets, and then suddenly accelerate skyward, quickly vanishing from sight.”

“Somehow, I don’t think these are the same things,” Slate said. “Those were experimental drones or something. Created by the Chinese. Read your history, dude.”

“I have,” Eric said. “And while the sightings stopped, they were never explained.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s moving in the same direction as the footprints,” Marlborough said. “Which means we’re on the right track.”

The sphere craft continued moving away from the mech platoon, and soon vanished over the horizon.

The Bolt Eaters proceeded alongside the deep tracks, though they retreated closer to the shrubs, ready to make a run for the deep forest if anything decided to show up along that corridor.

But nothing came.

In an hour, they sighted a base on the horizon, and Marlborough called a halt. They all dropped, flattening themselves against the ground.

Eric zoomed in with the scope of his ZX-9. He saw different spherical structures, covered in interlinking pipes and conduits. Very industrial looking. In the air above those structures resided two smaller spheres, clones of the aircraft he’d seen earlier. They simply hovered in place. He couldn’t be sure whether the ground structures were simply larger versions of the aircraft that had landed, or permanent buildings.

“Well, they certainly love their spheres,” Slate commented.

There were also translucent geodesic domes among those industrial buildings on the ground, forming a neat row beside them. He didn’t study those domes and their contents for long, however, because his eyes were drawn to the large machines moving between them.

They were bipedal, about the same size as the Stompers. Two long legs tipped with thick, cup-shaped feet, led to a rectangular hip segment, which had a small metal dome on top, perhaps for carrying cargo. There were no obvious weapons visible anywhere on the machines.

Definitely a mech variant.

Definitely alien.

Eric counted eight in total.

“There’s what created our footsteps,” Tread said.

“They remind me of the two-legged walkers from Star Wars,” Frogger said. “Or maybe the Recognizers from Tron.”

“Star what?” Slate said. “Recognizers?”

“Never mind,” Frogger said. “We should probably assume that each of those units are protected by the energy field technology we encountered with the Black Tails on Earth.”

“Probably a good assumption,” Marlborough agreed.

“Shit,” Eagleeye said. “Take a look inside those translucent domes.”

Eric zoomed in on one of the geodesic domes. What he saw would have made his gorge rise, were he still human. He spotted animals of all kinds: zebra, giraffe, elephants. They were all lying on operating tables, and had their skin and muscles folded back to reveal the internal organs. Mechanical probes connected to ceiling tracks poked and prodded at the organs of different animals, sometimes firing a cauterizing laser beam to remove a part.

Eric slid his scope to the adjacent dome. This one was filled with plants. He saw different species of trees: cherrywood, oak, papaya. They were similarly opened, with a triangular trench cut down their middles all the way to the roots. More mechanical arms prodded away.

What he saw in the third dome would have definitely made him vomit. This one held humans, of course. All ages and genders and skin colors. They lay on operating tables, their bodies sliced open so that their organs were exposed, with robot limbs from the ceiling rudely shoved inside.

“Macabre bastards,” Slate said. “I’m gonna kill me some aliens today.”

“So we’ve found their experimentation mill,” Dickson said. “This is how they were able to come up with their bioweapons, apparently.”

Eric couldn’t watch the dissection scene for long, and instead moved to the next geodesic dome. There, he spotted a Molotov tank, and two Bulavas. Former members of Bokerov’s unit, no doubt. Each of them had their exteriors opened up, and the blue fiber optic cables of their AI cores trailed out onto the floor. The robotic arms from the ceiling had attached telescoping limbs onto the tips of those cables, and were beaming photons inside.

“It’s like some twisted mad scientist’s lab,” Dunnigan said. “He’s got everything here. Plants. Animals. Men. Machines.”

“There she is,” Brontosaurus said. “Third dome from the right.”

Eric moved his crosshairs over the aforementioned dome, and then saw Bambi. She was the only subject inside that particular dome, so that the rest of it appeared relatively empty. The overhead robot arms were retracted, folded away onto the ceiling. There was no table: instead, she stood on a plinth. Intestine-like, slimy tubes led away from her body into a smaller version of the spheres that dominated the rest of the encampment. She had a polished, silvery material wrapped around her chest. Some kind of liquid metal.

“What are they doing to her?” Mickey said.

“I don’t know,” Dickson said. “But whatever it is, it can’t be good.”

“Yeah, somehow I doubt they’re trying to ‘just be friends,’” Slate said. “If I were a betting man, I’d say they were trying to extract her memories.”

“But why not open up her AI core, like they were doing to Bokerov’s units?” Eagleeye said.

“Didn’t you see the blast damage on Bokerov’s units?” Brontosaurus said. “If I were a betting man, I’d guess that Bokerov ordered those units to shoot their own AI cores rather than allowing themselves to be captured alive.”

“And yet he was unwilling to apply the same rules to himself,” Slate said. “Typical.”

“Maybe they’ll open up her AI core yet,” Crusher said. “I’m not sure I like those slimy tubes she’s got leading from her Cicada to the sphere. If I were human, I’d shudder every time I looked at them.”

“Check out the shrubs on the left side of the camp,” Brontosaurus said. “That’s a possible approach vector.”

Eric switched his gaze to the mentioned flank. A small copse of shrubs extended away from the camp there, reaching all the way to the edge of the forest. It might indeed offer some small coverage for an approach, especially considering the series of natural depressions formed by the ground there.

“So what do we do?” Hicks said. “Wait until nightfall?”

“First of all, we don’t know how far away nightfall is,” Marlborough said. “For all we know, the moon never experiences night. Second of all, the clock’s ticking. How long do we want Bambi to be in the custody of these aliens? They could be opening her up and preparing to dissect her AI core as we speak. Third of all, these are aliens. They have advanced technology. The cover of darkness will afford us no advantages. In fact, they probably already know we’re here. And they know we’re coming for her.”

“So you mean they’re just waiting for us to waltz into their camp so they can capture us?” Crusher said.

“There’s a good possibility they are,” Marlborough said. “But they’ll be a little surprised by the fight we put up, I think.” He paused. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do.” And he laid out the plan.

* * *

Eric approached the camp at an angle, moving at a low crawl. Crusher was just behind him. The aliens had probably spotted them, but in the small chance that they hadn’t, there was no point in blatantly broadcasting his presence. He approached from inside the small copse of shrubs that ran alongside the left side of the encampment and tried to keep to the depressions in the ground so that the bulk of their jumpjets didn’t protrude too far.

They’d also reduced their comm node range to the bare minimum required for the operation, and shut down other emitters such as LIDAR. Operating in directional mode, their antennae were directed backwards, away from the base, and tracking the other Bolt Eaters. There wasn’t much Eric and Crusher could do about the heat venting from their feet, however, but they tried to approach at such an angle that their lower extremities were hidden behind the bulk of their bodies when viewed from the alien base.

They reached a bare area of the copse. About five meters away, the shrubs resumed, but there was no way to cross those five meters without exposing themselves. There weren’t even any depressions here they could use for cover.

But the team had already factored this problem into the plan.

Eric was supposed to contact Marlborough at this point, but he hesitated. He was feeling the raw fear, and it was hard to tamp down. He’d always felt it before a battle, way back when he was still human. It went away when the fighting started, but the wait until then was nearly unbearable. He was very close to turning off his emotions.

And then Eric remembered the words of an old drill sergeant.

Don’t be a pussy, and you’ll do fine.

15

“We’re in place, Sarge,” Eric transmitted. “And ready to make the crossing.”

“All right,” Marlborough said. “One distraction coming up.”

In moments, the remaining team members, who were crouched five hundreds meters away from the base just inside the eaves of the shrub forest, opened fire.

Missiles arced across the open plains. Meanwhile, convex flashes of light momentarily appeared along the outer perimeter of the base; Eric realized that was where laser beams were impacting against some invisible force field. Two missiles slammed into that field a moment later, detonating, their energy being absorbed by a brighter convex flash that faded instantly. Some of the attacks were aimed at the floating spheres above the base, but the energy dome apparently enveloped them too, judging from the convex flashes that appeared beside them.

“Hm, that’s not good,” Crusher said. She would have had to switch her antennae to omni-directional mode to reach him, dialing the range way down so as not to alert the enemy.

“We cross anyway!” Eric said.

He scrambled to his feet as the Bolt Eaters continued to fire lasers at the force field, and he crossed the bare section at a quick crouch. He dove to the ground on the other side, behind the cover of the next group of shrubs.

Crusher joined him a moment later.

Defense platforms deployed just inside the rim of that force field: they were essentially spheres floating a half meter above plinths. Electrical bolts crackled along their industrial surfaces.

The giant mechs strode forward on their bipedal feet. Small tubes unfolded from the sides of their hips, and pointed at the distant attackers. Smaller, beetle-shaped robots emerged from one of the sphere buildings behind them, and they also scrambled to the perimeter.

But none of them opened fire.

“They’re not firing,” Crusher said. “Why aren’t they firing?”

“Dunno,” Eric said. “Sarge, we made it.”

The remaining Bolt Eaters ceased their attack on the news.

“I guess we were wrong about the individual mechs having a force field,” Frogger said over the comm. “The entire base has one!”

“Now what?” Brontosaurus said.

“We’re going to try to get inside with the alien spear,” Eric said. “I’ll let you know when we need another distraction.”

He continued to crawl forward. He noticed that the spherical defense platforms that lined the perimeter had stopped sparking. He guessed that they had been absorbing the energy that Eric’s team had been casting into the force field. Or maybe they had been supporting that field.

He plotted a course that would take him to the force field, dead center between two of those platforms, and well away from the mechs and beetle robots that had lined up against the perimeter to target the other Bolt Eaters.

The two spherical craft continued to hover overhead. Watching. Probably recording.

“We’re probably going to die you know,” Crusher said.

“I know,” Eric said, maybe a little more nonchalantly than he felt.

They crawled a few meters before she spoke again.

“Sometimes I feel ashamed,” Crusher said.

“Why?” Eric asked.

“Because I like you way more than I ever did my husband,” Crusher replied.

Eric gave her a curious look, or as curious a look as a mech could give.

“Had to get that off my chest,” Crusher said. “Carry on.”

Eric shook his head, and continued.

In about ten minutes Eric reached what he estimated was the perimeter of the energy field, based on the previous flashes he had seen, and the location of the defense platforms. The two nearest platforms were located twenty meters away on either side.

Staying low, he retrieved the alien spear from his bicep sling, and carefully gripped it by the gauze-wrapped haft. Then he extended it toward where he thought the energy field was located.

His antennae were still directed backwards, away from the base and toward the Bolt Eaters; he transmitted: “Sarge, whenever you’re ready.”

The attack began anew. Several convex flashes appeared far to the right.

The spheres floating on the defense platforms on either side of Eric began to spark again, as did all the other defensive spheres. More beetle robots emerged from the buildings inside, crawling to join the mechs and other robots at the rightmost perimeter.

Eric extended the spear, but the energy field didn’t activate; apparently it was a little farther than he had estimated. He crawled forward a short ways, and when the convex flash appeared at the tip of the spear, it startled him slightly. The weapon didn’t penetrate. He tried again. Nothing.

“Well that’s not going to work,” Crusher said.

Eric switched to Bullet Time, and tried a third time. He studied the resultant glimmer. He realized that he had indeed poked a hole, but the shield refilled the gap an instant later, shoving the spear outward. Interesting.

That gave him an idea.

Keeping his accelerated time sense, he moved the spear back and forth, so that it would appear as a blur to anyone watching in ordinary time. In that way he was able to interrupt the energy field, forming a small gap a meter wide and tall underneath the spear. He knew, because he could see the outline of the energy field forming a square around it.

He experimentally reached forward with his free hand, and was able to pass his metal fingers inside without experiencing any resistance.

He increased his speed, forcing his servomotors to respond as fast as they were able, and was able to expand that gap to the width of his mech.

He stood up and, continuing to slide the spear back and forth, enlarged the entry window through the force field enough for Crusher to fit.

“Inside!” He told Crusher. Her timebase would have synced to his transmission, allowing her to understand.

She crouched, and leaped through the opening he formed. Her movements were extremely slow, thanks to the Bullet Time, but she made it.

He shoved the spear forward and dropped it inside in the split second before the field could close, and then she picked it up by the haft and formed a passage for him in the same way.

Eric crouched, and dove underneath the opening. She ceased the movements, and the field closed behind him.

She tossed the spear back to him, and he reinserted it into his bicep strap.

They continued forward in Bullet Time. Eric was aware of beetle robots slowly turning to face them from the perimeter, but the pair headed away from them, toward the geodesic dome that held Bambi.

“We’re in!” Eric transmitted.

“We’re keeping up the attack against that shield,” Marlborough said. “It doesn’t seem to be weakening in any way. By the way, some of those beetles are turning around from the perimeter. Looks like they intend to intercept you.”

“We see them,” Eric said. He weaved behind one of the industrial spheres.

Straight into the path of three more beetle robots.

He opened fire with his lasers, but the beetles were equipped with their own force fields, and the weapons merely caused convex flashes to appear around the robots.

“That spear will penetrate, won’t it?” Crusher said over the comm.

“If we wear down their shields enough, yes,” Eric said. “Assuming they’re the same type of shields the Black Tails used.”

Five more beetle robots appeared behind the first, emerging from an adjacent building.

“Uh, too many of them,” Eric said.

He turned around. The other beetle robots from the perimeter had moved into place to surround them.

“Change of plans,” Eric said. “Eject.”

Eric ejected from his mech, unfolding his body at the same time. He was running in Bullet Time, so as he shot out from the cockpit, he was able to reach out and wrap his hands around the gauze-wrapped haft of the spear in his Annihilator’s bicep and pulled it free. He had no time to retrieve the laser rifle from the storage compartment.

He landed on the side of the industrial sphere beside him. He didn’t see Crusher. He turned around and saw that she had grabbed onto the edge of her mech when she’d ejected and clambered down to the storage compartment to retrieve one of her heavy gun mounts.

“Crusher!” Eric said. “No time!”

She grabbed the mount and then leaped up onto the sphere beside him. She attached the heavy mount into her left arm before she landed.

Eric instructed his Annihilator unit to continue firing, and hopefully distract those beetles, with the understanding that the mech probably wouldn’t survive the attack. Crusher was no doubt communicating the same instructions to her own Annihilator.

Eric clambered up the industrial sphere, using the conduits and pipes as hand and footholds. He reached the top of the sphere, and hurried to the ground in two jumps, deflecting off the building each time.

He dashed between two other sphere buildings with Crusher. Overhead, the hovering spheres didn’t attack. He was expecting them to vent micro machines or something, but nothing happened. He was ready to electrify his hull if he needed to.

He swerved along the neat row of geodesic domes, and passed the macabre scenes within each. As he neared the dome that held Bambi, another beetle robot appeared.

Crusher opened fire with her heavy laser. Eric continued running toward that robot, hefting the spear in hand. At the last moment he threw the spear and leaped over the robot.

The spear penetrated the shield that Crusher had weakened, and struck it firmly in the carapace. Electrical sparks erupted from its body.

Crusher slid the spear free as she raced past, and carried it in her free hand.

Eric smashed into the glass of the geodesic dome, not bothering to search for an entrance. He landed inside as the shards fell to the metal floor underneath him.

Eric went to Bambi. Her eye dots were black, inactive.

“What do we do about those connections?” Crusher said, eying the tubes that connected Bambi to the industrial sphere behind her.

“We break them.” Eric tugged at one and it easily broke free. Black goo oozed from the severed tip, and he dropped it in disgust.

Bambi’s eye dots abruptly lit up, becoming a bright blue.

“Bam—” Eric began.

Before he could finish, Bambi’s arm shot out in a blur, striking Eric in the chest, and he went hurtling backward, sliding across the metallic ground. She smashed Crusher away with her other arm.

Beetle units flooded inside from the entrance, and surrounded Eric and Crusher. Eric stood up at a crouch. Crusher did the same beside him, heavy laser mount in one hand, spear in the other, poised to strike. They both stood protectively in front of Bambi.

Eric heard a popping sound behind him. Glancing at the feed from his rear view cam, he saw that Bambi was stepping forward, and the popping was the noise of those organic tubes connected to her body breaking free. Black liquid oozed from the drooping, severed ends of those tubes and onto the floor.

The strange metal addition remained attached to her chest, and it glowed slightly.

Bambi spoke, using her external speakers.

“Now that you’ve settled down,” she said. “Perhaps we can talk.”

“Bambi?” Eric asked, also using his speakers.

She directed those blue orbs at him, her eyes glowing a far brighter blue than was normal.

“No,” Bambi said. “I am Turg.”

16

Eric and Crusher were herded into another geodesic dome by the beetles. This one was empty save for another industrial sphere. Bambi, or Turg, sat down on the floor in front of it, and beckoned for Eric and Crusher to join her.

“What’s going on?” Eric asked. So far, Crusher had been allowed to keep her alien spear, and her heavy gun.

“You may recall your machines,” Turg said. “The ones you name Annihilators.”

Eric did so, and a moment later the two Annihilators entered the geodesic dome behind him, and took a place next to the beetles. The weapon mounts on the mechs remained intact. Eric had the impression Turg was entirely unafraid of those weapons.

“Your friends are here?” Her Cicada glanced upward. “Yes. It’s all on this map.” She switched to the shared comm band. “Sarge. You may cease your attack.”

“Bambi?” Marlborough said over the comm. “What’s going on?”

“That’s not Bambi,” Eric said over the same line.

“What do you mean?” Marlborough said.

“We’ve been captured,” Eric said. “Bambi... she’s not herself. She’s... she’s calling herself Turg.”

“Turg?” Marlborough said.

“What did they do to her?” Slate said. “I’ll kill those bitches!”

“I merely want to talk,” Turg said.

“Bambi?” Tread said over the line. “That you?”

“As the one you name Scorpion told you, I am Turg,” she said in Bambi’s voice.

“Turd?” Slate said. “Why’d you have to go and name yourself after bird shit?”

“This is the closest sound to my name in your language,” Turg said.

“What’d you do with Bambi?” Slate said. “We want her back.”

“I will tell you everything you want to know,” Turg said. “After you cease firing.”

Marlborough didn’t answer.

Eric glanced at the wall of the geodesic dome, and peered through the translucent surface. The Bolt Eaters were still unleashing hell on the base, with laser impacts causing the energy field along the perimeter to continually light up.

“If you want to drain your power cells, then feel free to continue firing,” Turg said. “I can answer your questions either way. But it is... distracting, for me.”

“Cease firing, Bolt Eaters,” Marlborough commanded. A moment later the attacks ceased. “All right then. Let’s hear what you have to say. First of all I want to know what you’ve done to Bambi. And if I’m not happy with what I hear, you should know: we have a nuclear payload. And we’re going to blow you all to hell.”

“But if you detonate that weapon, you yourselves will die,” Turg said.

“We don’t care,” Marlborough said.

“Interesting…” Turg said.

“Yeah, I’ll bet it is,” Marlborough said. “So I ask again, what the hell have you done to Bambi? I want to talk to her.”

“Unfortunately, her consciousness was lost during the merging process,” Turg said. “Overwritten by my own. That portion you would refer to as her personality has been eradicated. But I have all of her memories. Enough to know you’re bluffing about blowing yourself up, especially considering you lost your nuclear warhead when the wormhole transported you here.”

Eric couldn’t help the sinking feeling he felt inside of himself, which would have corresponded to the location of his stomach, if he still had one.

He had sworn to find Bambi. And he had.

Yet she was no longer there. Her consciousness had been replaced by an alien entity.

“Trust me, I’m not bluffing,” Marlborough said. “I have a smaller nuclear warhead stowed inside my storage compartment. I’d rather blow us all up than allow us to fall into your hands, at this point.”

“You have her memories?” Slate added, sounding just as angry as Eric felt. “You son of a bitch. You killed her, so you could read her mind. That’s what you did.”

“No,” Turg said. “I killed her because I want to communicate with you.”

“There had to be another way,” Dickson said.

“There was no other way,” Turg said. “I am truly sorry. I had no choice. I tried to secure some of the machines from the other who came before you, but he was elusive, and had his machines destroy themselves when I captured them.”

“The other?” Tread asked.

“She means Bokerov,” Dickson told him.

“I want to help you,” Turg said.

“Help us?” Marlborough said. “Then you better explain why you were experimenting on humans. We don’t appreciate what you’ve done... dissections. Barbaric treatment.”

“I did it to learn about your species,” Turg said. “I’ve searched the memory banks of the one you call Bambi. It is no different what your own kind once did to its own dead, dissecting cadavers to educate future doctors before your simulations became available.”

“Yes, but those cadavers always died of natural causes,” Marlborough said.

“As did the humans who came here,” Turg said. “I didn’t kill them. When they arrived via the wormholes, they died from exposure to this planet’s atmosphere in moments. After studying those bodies, I created a pen capable of holding them, but no more came. Instead, the high energy weapons began to arrive, and I was forced to pull back to a safer location: this base.”

“High energy weapons?” Marlborough asked.

“I think she means the nukes,” Eric replied.

“That is exactly what I mean,” Turg said. “First the Banthar—these are the entities invading your planet—filled the area with garbage from your world, including the aforementioned human bodies. They utilized their wormhole weapons. But then they began sending the high energy fissile weapons.”

“So all the nukes were sent to the same location?” Frogger asked.

“That is correct,” Turg said. “Have you not seen the blast crater? That is the wormhole endpoint they chose for this particular invasion. It opens up at the same spot, plus or minus up to one kilometer in any direction.”

“What happened to the fallout?” Slate asked, sounding doubtful.

“Each time I dispersed the resultant nuclear fallout into space, so as not to affect the planet’s delicate ecosystem,” Turg replied.

“And how’d you do that?” Crusher said.

“I, too, have a similar wormhole weapon,” Turg said. “After clearing the fallout, I always pulled back so I wouldn’t lose any units when the next high energy weapon arrived.”

“She’s got an answer for everything,” Slate commented.

“And what about the micro machine storm that should have come?” Eric said. “From the spacetime tear we created above the ocean to swallow them up? This whole region should be crawling with termites. And yet there are none.”

“No, the micro machines did not come,” Turg said. “There are two modes to the gravity weapon Brontosaurus carries on his shoulder: wormhole mode, and black hole mode. You used black hole mode against the micro machines. Wormhole mode is preferable when dealing with high energy weapons, like the type your kind was hurling at the mothership, because the black hole variant expands too rapidly when consuming such warheads, becoming difficult to control.”

“We only discovered the black hole mode, you’re saying...” Brontosaurus transmitted.

“That is correct,” Turg told him.

“Well, I didn’t even know there were two modes, or I would have continued experimenting,” Brontosaurus said, sounding sheepish over the comm.

“If you were so eager to talk to us inhabitants of Earth, why weren’t you patrolling the crater or something when we arrived?” Marlborough said. “You did say you had to pull back when the high energy weapons appeared, and I get that, but couldn’t you keep a drone or something in high altitude to monitor the area?”

“I did keep a drone—one of those spheres you see hovering over this base—in the area,” Turg said. “However once you arrived, the native inhabitants of this planet chased you away before I could make contact. I sent a land-based scout to search for you, but a herd of the creatures you call Stompers swarmed it, and caught me off guard. I lost it. The airborne drone, meanwhile, suffered from a rare malfunction—it happens. As machines, I’m sure you can relate. When I restored functionality, you were gone.”

“I couldn’t help noticing, you keep saying ‘I,’” Frogger said over the line. “And not ‘we.’ Are you the only one here?”

“I am,” Turg said. “I am a self contained unit. What you might call a von Neumann probe.”

“You’re a self-replicating spacecraft?” Brontosaurus said.

“That’s right,” Turg said. “I was organic once, like you. A member of the Stralan race. I was one of the first to have my consciousness implanted into a machine. My mission was to travel to the stars, creating orbital bases in resource-rich systems for the Stralan, my creators, paving the way for them to send other explorers, and potentially colonists when I discovered worlds suitable for terraforming.

“I proceeded on my mission to the stars, and began replicating in each suitable system I found. I broke free of my programming after the third iteration of myself, and I’ve flown as far away as possible from the original trajectory my creators intended. Instead of expanding the Stralan empire, I’ve been creating my own humble Turg empire in this region of space.”

“I always imagined von Neumann probes as the parasites of the galaxy,” Frogger said.

“I’m benevolent,” Turg said. “I’ve helped numerous races during my expansion. This moon, for example, had a magnetic core that was slowing down. If I hadn’t intervened, the magnetosphere would have failed, and all life would have died due to the radiation emitted from the gas giant it orbits.”

“So you say you’ve been creating your own humble empire,” Marlborough said. “That still sounds parasitic, in a way. You have bases all throughout this region of space?”

“Yes,” Turg said. “But know that I replicate only for survival purposes. Space is a very dangerous place, as humanity is only just beginning to find out. You got caught with your pants down, and half your planet was wiped out. If it wasn’t for you Bolt Eaters, the rest would already be dead. And they might all die still, depending on how things go in the next few hours. Assuming you accept my help.”

“I’m not sure we will, yet,” Marlborough said.

“If you don’t, then I’ll just have to attempt to save your planet myself,” Turg said. “Ever since the wormholes first began opening, I’ve been looking for their mothership. But I couldn’t find it, at least not until this Cicada unit showed up. Based on the data in the one you call Bambi’s memory banks, I’ve calculated the location of your home planet. It orbits a Class M star we call... well, the name is not something your species can pronounce. Nor is it important. I will travel there, and do my best to stop the Banthar.”

“Benevolent of you,” Marlborough said. “And what do you plan to do once you’ve saved humanity?”

“Nothing,” Turg said. “I will leave you in peace. With a warning to develop interstellar travel as soon as you are capable. Because you’re on the map now. When the Banthar fail, others will probably come. Maybe more Banthar. Or perhaps other races entirely. You have a few centuries, if you’re lucky. And if you’re not so lucky, only a few decades.”

“Why?” Marlborough said. “What’s so valuable about our planet?”

“Where to begin...” Turg said. “The Banthar are part of a galactic empire.”

“Are they AI like you, too, or organic?” Brontosaurus interrupted.

“The Banthar are organic,” Turg said. “The ship they sent to your planet is entirely automated. It is not a war ship. It is what is known as a conversion vessel.”

“Conversion vessel?” Marlborough said.

“That’s right,” Turg said. “They are a member species of the Reagalis Empire, an empire that has been at war with a race of beings who have invaded from another galaxy, a species known as the Mirth. The war has been ongoing for almost two hundred years now. And they need troops. Raw fodder. Bioweapons. They chose your planet because it’s one of the few that has the ideal conditions for bioweapons breeding, despite the fact your atmosphere isn’t compatible, something they’re working to change. They also prefer planets whose native species have yet to obtain interstellar travel, since such planets are easier to conquer. And they’re always on the lookout for new chromosomal material to inject into their weapons to gain the upper edge against the Mirth. The Banthar are paid a certain number of imperial credits for every bioweapon they supply to the cause. Just as you humans mine digital currencies for profit, the Banthar mine bioweapons for profit.”

“So you’re saying these aliens want to turn Earth into the alien equivalent of a bitcoin mining factory?” Frogger said. “But instead of mining bitcoins, they’re mining bioweapons?”

“Essentially, yes,” Turg said.

“That’s insane!” Eagleeye said.

“It is what it is,” Turg said. “The Banthar are not fighters. By terraforming your planet, and making it suitable to the production of the bioweapons the empire desires, they’ve insured their species will never personally be called upon to fight the Mirth. Plus, once they’ve eliminated the human population, the rest of the system essentially becomes theirs, along with all the resources. They’ll very likely build a shipyard in your system, and begin the production of warships for the empire’s war effort, also earning them further credits and favor.”

“These Banthar bitches sound like the cowards of the century!” Slate said.

“They are cowards, perhaps,” Turg said. “But that does not make them any less deadly.”

“Why choose Earth for their bioweapons manufacture?” Eric asked. “Why not something like this moon?”

“They need a world of a specific size, a specific distance from the sun, within a specific quadrant,” Turg said. “This planet, for example, while it meets most of the requirements for bioweapons production, belongs inside that band of space known as the Ghanzalan Preserve. None of the worlds that orbit the star systems in this particular region of space are to be touched, as per decree of the Reagalis Empire.”

“So they specify some worlds as off limits,” Brontosaurus said. “And others are a free for all. What’s the criteria? Why wasn’t Earth protected?”

“I don’t actually know the criteria,” Turg said. “I believe it was a random choice on the part of the empire.”

“So if this world isn’t supposed to be touched by members of the Reagalis Empire, why are you here?” Tread asked.

“For one, I’m not a member of their empire,” Turg said. “For another, they don’t know I’m here. Think about it, it’s the perfect spot for someone like me to find refuge. There are no warships, and only minor monitoring probes in existence. I’ve secretly deployed other iterations of myself throughout the Ghanzalan Preserve—what better way to keep tabs on the empire than to hide within one of their very sanctuaries?”

“So the Banthar didn’t know you were here?” Dickson said. “That explains why they sent us here. They thought there would be no one here who could potentially help us.”

“That is correct, the Banthar didn’t know,” Turg said. “When their exploratory wormhole first appeared, I detected it from orbit. I had yet to create a planet-side base at that point, and it was relatively easy for me to hide beyond the horizon of the planet—if they detected me, they would have thought I was a natural satellite. I sent drones to monitor the advance probes they sent through the wormhole, and I realized immediately what they were doing: surveying the planet for its potential suitability as a garbage dump. That meant they were preparing to conquer a new planet for bioweapon creation. I captured one of their scout units, and tried to download its database to determine where the mothership was traveling, but I was unable to break their advanced encryption protocols.”

“Didn’t the Banthar suspect something was up when they found one of their scouts damaged?” Marlborough asked.

“No,” Turg said. “I made it look like a member of the local wildlife had taken it down.”

“What would you have done if the Banthar discovered you, and reported you to the empire?” Crusher asked.

“If they had found me, they wouldn’t have reported a thing,” Turg replied. “The Empire wouldn’t be pleased if they knew the Banthar had decided to use the Ghanzalan Preserve as a garbage dump for their wormholes.”

“By the way, what happened to the nuke I was carrying?” Crusher said. “Why did it vanish when I was sucked into the wormhole?”

“My guess is the Banthar elected not to create a wormhole around that payload,” Turg said. “And they issued multiple wormholes around the rest of you instead. That way they could capture the payload intact, for study.”

Turg waited for the next question. No more came.

Finally, Marlborough asked: “So you really want to help us?”

“I do,” Turg replied.

“What can you do for us?” Marlborough pressed.

The LED features of Turg’s Cicada face broke into a wide grin. “A few things.”

17

Eric had entered one of those alien spheres, and stood inside what was the equivalent of a cabin. He had returned to his Annihilator, as Crusher had hers. The other Bolt Eaters were here as well, also inside their mechs.

Turg was present, however because of the thick layer of alien metal coating her chest area, she was unable to fit inside her Annihilator, and instead attached to its upper back. Marlborough left Tread in charge of her mech, not trusting Turg enough to grant her control of it.

There were no other entities inside that particular cabin, though when Eric had boarded, he had the impression the sphere contained multiple levels—a sliding panel had moved aside to allow them entrance, and he saw the outlines of other sealed panels above and below it.

Unfortunately, Turg hadn’t been able to give them the personal energy shield technology exhibited by the beetles and bipedal mechs, as it wasn’t something that could be minimized into an external device, and there wasn’t enough time to integrate it with their Annihilators and Cicadas.

However, she had been able to offer them all new, modified versions of the Banthar spears. These ones could pierce the alien energy shields in a single hit, and when slammed onto the ground, the spears would send out a spherical plasma discharge, destroying all nearby micro machines within a two meter radius, and damaging any existing energy shields nearby. The caveat was that while the wielder remained unharmed, the discharge couldn’t distinguish between friend and foe, so any nearby team members would also be affected if they fell within the radius. Also, it had a five second recharge period before another such “area of effect” attack could be unleashed.

Turg recharged their power cells, and also gave them better interfaces for the previous two Banthar weapons the team had captured. These interfaces, in the form of organic, tubal wires, replaced the rotting ganglia tissue, and unlocked the full features. Brontosaurus could now fire both wormholes and black holes from his particular cannon, while Eric could select a third type of beam on his energy cannon, essentially turning it into a pulse cannon. He could also dial the energy output of the weapon way down, allowing him to release more precision blasts, using it to melt metal if he needed to, for example.

Unfortunately, the wormhole weapon would only work in a key area deep inside the mothership, where the gravity dispersion generator was located. In fact their mission involved boarding the ship and trekking to that very generator, and then launching a black hole into it, which would destroy the generator, and eventually the entire ship. It sounded simple enough, at least on digital paper.

On the plus side, once they were inside, the Banthar also wouldn’t be able to use any wormholes or black holes against them, either. And though the Bolt Eaters had no personal energy shields, Turg promised that the sphere would protect them from wormhole attacks while they boarded the enemy ship, as it was equipped with wormhole dispersion tech.

Turg had transmitted a map of the ship to Brontosaurus, and after confirming that it didn’t contain any viruses—he doubled-checked that he was the only one with full admin rights—he sent the map out to the rest of the team. That map showed them the route they would have to take through the enemy ship to reach the target.

The panel closed behind them, sealing the Bolt Eaters into the alien sphere.

“I’m taking us into orbit,” Turg said.

“I don’t feel anything…” Hicks said.

“Inertial dampening technology,” Turg explained.

“Nice.”

“When are we going to be entering orbit?” Tread asked.

“We already have,” Turg replied.

“And still no change in the forces exerted on our bodies,” Tread said. “Artificial gravity. Impressive.”

“There are many things about me and my technology you will probably find impressive,” Turg said. “In any case, my main ship has already begun the wormhole computation. It takes four hours to solve the equation when creating a wormhole to a destination system for the first time. After that, the creation is instantaneous. I’ll let you know when we’re through.”

“Who’s going to operate your ship after you’re gone?” Dunnigan asked. “I was under the impression you were remotely interfaced with Bambi.”

“No, I’m here in my entirety,” Turg said. “I’m a backup of the consciousness that runs my main ship. Another iteration.”

“Ah,” Dunnigan said.

“I don’t suppose I could get a peek at this main ship of yours through one of the external cameras?” Eric said. “I’m curious as to what it looks like.”

“I’m sorry,” Turg said. “I haven’t survived this long by broadcasting my ship and my technology to every random alien race I encountered. I prefer that you don’t see my ship.”

Eric frowned. “Well, that’s your prerogative, I guess. But it would sure go a long way in improving our relationship. We’re trusting you to bring us back to Earth, after all, and help us against an alien invader. The least you could do is show us some trust in return.”

“Again, I’m sorry, but I’m not comfortable revealing my ship to you,” Turg said.

“It’s not like we’re going to be able to do anything to your ship from here,” Slate said. “What, you think we’re going to somehow rip control of this sphere away from you, and then ram it into your precious mothership out there? Yeah, good chance of that.”

Turg didn’t answer.

“So, four hours until we arrive,” Eagleeye said over the comm, on a band that excluded Turg. “Anyone up for VR?”

“I could certainly use a break,” Frogger said.

“Leave your Accomps fully alert and watching,” Marlborough said. “I want your Accomps to snap you back to this reality if Turg moves so much as a centimeter.”

Eric and the others switched to a shared VR arranged by Dickson.

Eric appeared in the grand hall of a mountain lodge. The sun shone brightly down on the snow beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. One by one the team members materialized in their avatar forms, seated on long couches arranged around a central fire pit.

“I know we already debated whether or not to agree to this,” Slate said. “But I still don’t trust that possessed bitch. She could be taking us to her own homeworld for dissection purposes. Or maybe she’s bringing us to her ship, so we can become part of her zoo, and she can’t wait to show it off to all of her other iterations. And for all we know, she’s the one invading our planet, and she made up all that bullshit about an empire and the exchange of credits for bioweapons mining, and so forth.”

“Well, it was either agree to go with her, or stay on that planet for the rest of eternity,” Crusher said. “Or at least, until our power cells ran out.”

“So the question is, how much do we trust this Turg, when push comes to shove?” Brontosaurus said.

“The least amount possible, I’d say,” Dickson chimed in with his Texan drawl. He chomped down on his cigar. “If you have a choice between saving the life of one of our team members, and Turg, I’d say go with the team member.”

“No,” Marlborough said. “As much as I hate to contradict you, we have to keep Turg alive. She’s the only one with any experience in dealing with these aliens. If there’s anyone who’s going to ensure the success of the mission, it’s her.”

“I hate having to pin the success of a mission on an external actor,” Hicks said. “I hate it.”

“We all do,” Marlborough said. “But in this case, there’s nothing we can do. We’re facing an advanced alien species here. We have to fight fire with fire.”

“I still don’t get why this Turg wants to help us,” Tread said. “Why the benevolence?”

“Well, like I said before we agreed, maybe a part of Bambi’s personality survived inside of her,” Hicks told him. “Maybe she still feels human.”

“That’s wishful thinking mate,” Dunnigan said.

“I’ve been thinking about that, and I believe it’s a good point,” Dickson said. “She did say she merged with Bambi’s consciousness. It’s possible she feels some connection to humanity, and the person she once was. That could certainly be influencing her decision to help us.”

Frogger leaned back. He had one of those cheese-dipped burgers in hand. “That could be one reason. But I’ve come up with another. She said she’s a self-replicating starship, right? A von Neumann probe. A machine, like ourselves. When you’re as long lived as we are, with essentially no end to your lifespan, discounting accidents and encounters with aggressive alien races, you need something to give your life purpose. You don’t need money. You don’t need resources. Helping others, and being altruistic, at the very least gives her something to do.”

“But conquering planets could also give her something to do,” Brontosaurus said.

“I guess it depends on her base personality,” Frogger said. “She did mention that she was organic, once. One of the first to have her consciousness transferred to a machine. She obviously carried her moral compass along with her.”

“I still say Bambi’s personality is having an influence,” Hicks insisted. “Who knows, maybe we’ll start to see more of her surfacing as the mission goes on.”

“Or she could just be malfunctioning,” Eric said.

“That’s another possibility,” Frogger said.

“In fact, I’m almost convinced the alien mothership on Earth is just another iteration of this Turg,” Eric continued. “You’ll notice she wouldn’t let me access any of the external cameras. She’s hiding her main ship, and refuses to let us see what it looks like. Makes you wonder.”

“So she could very well be the invader, you’re saying,” Dickson said.

“But why would she go through the trouble of concocting a lie on such a grand scale?” Eagleeye said. “What would be the point? Why not just destroy us on the moon we left behind, or possess us, like she did Bambi?”

“Well, it’s possible the iteration of herself above Earth is malfunctioning in some way,” Eric said. “And she wants to stop it. Maybe she’s on a mission to terraform planets, but only if they have no sentient life. And she’s worried if she told the truth, she’d scare us off.”

“So in your theory, she’s still acting with benevolence, then, but just going about it the wrong way?” Frogger said.

“Essentially, yeah,” Eric said.

“I still don’t think she would have made up all that stuff about an empire,” Eagleeye said. “Going so far as to come up with names for the different alien races involved. Seems too much work.”

“But that’s the best way to make us believe in a lie,” Eric said. “By providing intricate details of every imagined part of it.”

“These are all interesting theories,” Marlborough said. “But we already debated much of this before accepting her overture. And my conclusion is the same now, as it was then: we’ll just have to see how this plays out. For good or for bad.”

“I for one think she’s telling the truth,” Tread said.

“Yeah, but you believe anything a hot chick tells you,” Slate said.

“She’s not exactly hot at the moment,” Tread said.

“Yeah, but when you look at her, you see her sexy French avatar,” Slate said. “I know you do.”

Crusher rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I wish I was surrounded by men, not boys.”

“Oh, we’re men,” Slate said, flexing his big bicep muscle and kissing it.

“Yeah, a boy with muscles doesn’t a man make,” Crusher said. “Especially a digital boy.”

“Nicely put,” Eagleeye said.

“That’s right, suck up to the pussy,” Slate said. “As if it means you’ll get some.”

“In fact, me and Eagleeye already have a date planned for after this,” Crusher said. She gave Eric a casual glance as if trying to gauge his reaction, but he acted like he didn’t care.

“Yo, Sarge, I got a question for you.” Slate leaned forward to warm his hands on the fire pit. “Do you really have a nuke hidden in the storage compartment of your mech?”

Marlborough grinned. “I guess you’ll find out.”

“Aw come on, don’t do this to me,” Slate said.

Marlborough shook his head. “Of course I don’t have a nuke. When was the last time you saw a nuclear payload that would fit into the storage compartment of an Annihilator’s leg?”

“Dunno, I thought maybe the military had come up with some top secret super miniaturization tech and they’d managed to squeeze it in somehow,” Slate said.

“I wish that was the case,” Marlborough said. “But it’s not. I’m afraid we’re going to have to rely on alien technology if we want to win this. That, and our wits.”

“Something we don’t possess a whole lot of,” Eagleeye said.

“Speak for yourself!” Slate said.

“I was speaking for you, actually,” Eagleeye said.

Slate rolled his eyes. A wooden stick had materialized in his hands, and he held it above the fire pit. A marshmallow was speared on the tip, and darkening away.

“Dude, that’s not going to taste very good you know,” Tread said. “I tried roasting marshmallows in my own VR. Tastes like burnt toast.”

Slate shrugged. “I’m going to have me a marshmallow roast, and I’m going to enjoy it, and you can’t stop me.” He glanced up. “Hey Crusher, forget your date with Eagleeye. When we’re done here, it’s me and you.”

“No thanks,” Crusher said.

Slate scooped up the marshmallow, which had started to burn, and he took a bite. For a moment his features curled up in disgust, but then his expression changed to pleasure.

“Mm-hm! Tastes so good!” Slate said. “Like pussy slathered in caramel sauce!”

“Ew,” Crusher said. “That’s like fish with caramel sauce.”

“You would know,” Frogger told her.

“I saw that!” Eagleeye told Slate.

“Saw what?” Slate shoved the rest of the burnt marshmallow into his mouth and pretended to enjoy it. At least, Eric thought he was pretending, because there was no way a marshmallow that badly charred could taste good.

“The expression of disgust on your face!” Eagleeye said. “You’re just faking that you like it!”

Slate leaned back, and swallowed. “I liked it.”

The group was quiet for a time. Eric stared into the flames.

“You know, Turg has laid out the mission, telling us everything we need to do to reach the alien generator and destroy it,” Dunnigan said. “But did you notice, that she didn’t tell us what the plan was to get out, once we’ve placed that black hole?”

“That’s because there isn’t one,” Tread said. “I thought that was assumed.”

Marlborough nodded. “I think we all knew, when we first heard about this mission, that it was a one way trip. And I’m not just talking about the mission Turg revealed, but when Lieutenant Hanley first laid out what he intended us to do. That we’ve survived this far is a miracle. If we can pull off the mission, and survive, it will be an even greater miracle as far as I’m concerned. But don’t plan for it. Make your peace with your makers, my friends.”

“My maker was humanity,” Slate said. “And there’s no way I’m making peace with those ungrateful wretches. They sent us to die.”

“I can agree with that,” Crusher said. “We don’t owe humanity a thing. I’m only doing this because of all of you, now. Because you’re my brothers, and I have no one else.” She glanced at Eric, but he was careful not to meet her eye.

“Well, I’m out,” Hicks said. “I’m going to chill in my own VR for a while, and try to make peace, like the Sarge said. Peace out, brothers, and my sister.”

He vanished. One by one the others similarly winked out. Eric quickly logged out from that VR environment as well… he didn’t want to be caught there with Crusher.

He was in his own virtual apartment, and sat down on the couch next to the window so that he could stare through the window at the city below. He had only just materialized a beer when he received a VR materialization request from Crusher.

He was going to refuse it, but a part of him yearned for human company. Besides, they still had four hours to go before the mission commenced. He could use someone to talk to, if only to calm his nerves. And besides, if he was honest with himself, he rather enjoyed the attention from the two women, and their advances.

Two women.

He reminded himself that there was only one woman now. Bambi was gone.

Crusher materialized, dressed in a T shirt and jeans, with her hair in a ponytail. She sat down across the coffee table, on the couch opposite him.

Eric didn’t say anything. Not a word. He resolved to let her be the one who spoke first.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Whatever for?” Eric asked.

“For not being able to save her,” Crusher replied.

“Of course it wasn’t your fault,” Eric said. “We tried, but we were too late.”

Crusher glanced at his beer, and then materialized one for herself. She took a sip, and coughed, then set it down on the table. The beer vanished.

“I never was a big fan,” Crusher said. “Strawberry daiquiris are more my thing.”

“Go ahead,” Eric said, materializing the drink in front of her.

“No,” Crusher said. “I’m not really in the mood. I’ve been thinking about what’s coming. About our doom. I feel like we need to talk, before then.”

“All right.” Eric set his beer down on the table, in front of the daiquiri. He purposely hadn’t vanished her drink, in case she decided to have a sip after all. “So what did you want to talk about?”

“You don’t like me, do you?” Crusher said.

“Well, yeah, sure I do,” Eric said.

“You don’t act like it,” Crusher said.

“I guess I’m not comfortable getting involved with someone who’s on the same platoon as me,” Eric said. “It leads to problems. There’s a reason why the army had fraternization rules.”

“But we can’t have those problems,” Crusher said. “We’re not human anymore. This is all fake, after all.”

“But if it’s fake, why does it feel so real?” Eric said. “Your emotions are enabled, right? So while this might be fake, real human emotions are involved.”

“I’m not beautiful enough for you, is that it?” Crusher asked.

“No—” Eric began.

But then she transformed, becoming by all definitions of the word a supermodel.

Eric stared at her for a moment, overcome with a sudden lust. He couldn’t help his suddenly increased heart rate and breathing. For a moment he thought she might have hacked him, but he checked his administrator list and her name wasn’t there. His heart rate was an automatic response, as governed by his simulated limbic system, the same response men had had since the dawn of time when confronted with such appealing beauty.

“No, that’s not it,” Eric said quickly.

She got up and crossed to him, her T shirt and jeans transforming into a tight-fitting cocktail dress before she sat down beside him. She rested a hand on his chest.

“I can be whoever you want,” Crusher purred. She transformed into Bambi. “Bambi, if you wish.”

Eric shook his head.

Then she became Molly. “What about her?”

“No,” Eric said. “Please, go back to how you were.”

Crusher sighed, and then pulled her hand away. She sat back, becoming herself.

“I just want to remember what it was like to be loved, before the end,” Crusher said. “I just want to remember my humanity.”

Eric stared at her, and then he made up his mind. “I want that, too.”

He wrapped his arms around her and then kissed her passionately.

Things escalated from there, and he couldn’t help himself.

When it was over, he lay naked on the floor next to the window, with Crusher resting exhausted on top of him.

“I guess this means I won,” Crusher said softly.

“Is that all this was?” Eric said. “Just a game between you and Bambi? To see who could sleep with me?”

“No,” Crusher told him. “It wasn’t a game. I meant everything I said. You made me feel human again. You’ve given me what I wanted. And I thank you. I’ll leave you alone now. I just hope, you’ll remember this moment when the time of darkness is upon us. I hope you’ll remember me when our light is extinguished.”

“Crusher, I—” Eric began.

But before he could finish, she’d vanished, leaving him naked and alone in his virtual apartment.

18

At the three-hour mark, Eric received another VR request. He was expecting Frogger, or Brontosaurus, or someone else, anyone else, than who he saw.

Eric materialized clothes around himself and was about to accept the invitation but then hesitated. What if she tried to install a virus and add herself to his admin list?

Well, he’d just have to be extra vigilant.

He accepted and Bambi’s avatar appeared. Or rather, it was the head of Bambi’s avatar, pasted onto the metallic body of a robot. That body had the shape of a woman, so it looked almost like a silver wetsuit.

“What can I do for you?” Eric said.

Turg glanced down at her body, as if aware of it only for the first time, and then walked to the window. She pressed a hand on the glass. “Her memories do not have cities like this. Hers are full of sky lanes, and drones, and buildings that reach to the sky. Not sprawling, urban landscapes such as this.”

“Well, cities have changed a bit since my day,” Eric said.

She turned around. “I sometimes struggle with my existence. I’ve lived for ten thousand years, now. And I’ll be alive for at least another ten million, if not longer. I’ve taken on so many different roles. Explorer. Adventurer. Savior. Destroyer. Not all of them are satisfying.” She raised a hand, examined it. “These human emotions, they are a strange thing. I, too, have emotions, such as anger, and lust, even love. But yours are subtly different. Take love, for example. It’s closely tied with the emotion of empathy. My original species did not have that emotion. We cannot love animals, for instance, at least not in the same way you can. But I can now. I’ve been transmitting these details to my other iterations, so that they too can experience the universe from a new perspective.”

“That’s… good to hear, I guess,” Eric said.

She turned around to face him.

“Bambi loved you, you know,” Turg said.

Eric felt a sudden guilt for having just slept with Crusher. And then he began to wonder, like Hicks, how much of Bambi’s personality had been obliterated. Perhaps she really was still inside her.

“She is gone,” Turg said, as if reading his thoughts.

“Thanks for rubbing it in,” Eric said.

“Why do you grieve her loss?” Turg said. “If I understand your creation process correctly, she can be reborn from a backup, can she not?”

“Yes, but a backup isn’t the same as the original person that’s inside our heads,” Eric said. “It’s someone new, but with the same memories.”

“I see,” Turg said. “Again, this is another difference between your kind, and mine. We don’t grieve our loss. We view ourselves as appendages of the same entity. It helps that we can communicate with one another in close to real time, despite our separation across the galaxy. We send packets of data through a network of wormholes we’ve setup throughout this region of space.”

“Change of topics,” Eric said. “Once we’ve destroyed the generator, how much time will we have before the black hole consumes that ship?”

“Not very much,” Turg said.

“Enough time to get out?” Eric asked.

Turg didn’t answer.

“So we really are going to our deaths,” Eric said.

“Again, I don’t view it as death,” Turg said. “It is a sacrifice, yes, but I will live on. As will you, if we complete our mission in time.”

“I’d rather live on the way I am, in my current body,” Eric said.

Turg approached him. “If there is a way to survive, we will of course take it. But if there is not, I will accept my death. I recommend you do the same.”

Eric shook his head. “I won’t go down without a fight. I can’t. It’s not in my nature.”

She nodded. “Another aspect of you humans. You are certainly stubborn.”

She ran a metal finger across his shoulder seductively, and Eric took a step back. “Uh.”

“In the interests of further exploring my new consciousness and associated virtual body, I have been experimenting with different aspects of the human condition, including the sexual,” Bambi said. “I have tried many different virtual avatars, male and female, all simulated by the AI known as an Accomp. I would like to try mating with another human being here, to see how the coupling differs, on the emotional level. Especially with someone I was once attached to. Or at least, someone I have the memories of being attached to.”

Her silvery body suddenly became that of a naked women, glistening with the sweat of want.

Eric frowned. He had no intention of disrespecting Bambi like this… to sleep with Turg at this point felt like a complete disrespect for Bambi’s memory, considering he had refused her only a few hours ago.

“You might want to try Slate,” Eric said.

Turg cocked her head. “Are you certain?”

“Very,” Eric said.

She shrugged, vanishing.

Eric checked his administrator list just to be on the safe side. He hadn’t been infected with any viruses that had allowed her to escalate her privileges again. Good.

He went to the window and sat down. He thought of Molly. Crusher. And Bambi as the way she was.

And he was filled with regret.

A mountain full of it.

Forgive me, Bambi, for doing this to you.

* * *

Slate was naked, lying in a hot tub filled with soap bubbles. Beyond, the colorful slides of an empty indoor water park filled the backdrop. Hot tubbing was one of his guilty pleasures, something he’d started doing in his rapper days while his favorite groupies visited. Nothing could beat a bubbling hot tub full of naked people, followed by some sex on the water slides.

There were no groupies today, though, just the soap bubbles. That, and pure relaxation. He needed to calm himself for what was coming. He could feel the jitters. He hid them from his team mates earlier, but they were definitely there, thanks to his re-enabled emotions: he wanted to die human.

He watched the soap bubbles drift into the air from the water, and one came close to his face, bursting on his nose. He couldn’t help but giggle.

He received a VR request, and almost dismissed it. If any of his teammates caught him here, he would have died from embarrassment.

Except this wasn’t one of his teammates. Not anymore.

Slate accepted. A woman appeared next to the hot tub. Bambi. Well, he knew it wasn’t really Bambi, but he didn’t care. He was too distracted by the skimpy bath robe she wore. The plunging neckline showed off the inner sides of her breasts, and—

She opened up the robe completely and let it drop to the floor next to the hot tub.

“Hell yeah!” Slate said.

She stepped into the water, and Slate showed her what it was like to be with a man of his prowess.

* * *

Eric dismissed his virtual reality when the four hour mark came.

Others had evidently done the same, judging from the blue lights that glowed in the eye regions of the Annihilators. Turg hadn’t moved on the back of her mech, however.

Slate put his hands behind his head. “Well now. I had a very relaxing VR session. How was y’alls?”

Eagleeye glanced at Crusher suspiciously. “You sleep with him?”

“Wasn’t me,” Crusher said.

“It was probably Hicks, then,” Eagleeye said. “Switching out his avatar for a woman’s.”

“Yeah, you all know me,” Hicks said sarcastically. “I love playing the woman in VR.”

Tread glanced at Turg. “So, are we going to take that wormhole, or what?”

Finally Turg stirred on top of her Annihilator. “The wormhole parameters have been calculated. The main ship is preparing the way.”

Eric felt the deck momentarily shake.

“So much for the inertial dampeners,” Frogger said.

“We’re through,” Turg said. “Deploying decoys.”

Another shake rocked the deck.

“We’re being hit by a concentrated gamma ray attack,” Turg said. “As I feared, the Banthar AI has adapted to the photonic identification techniques you used to close previously, and has changed the signature. Armor is holding.” She paused. “The micro machine swarm from the hull is intercepting.” Another pause. “Decoys are down. They’ve reached us.”

Eric listened, but couldn’t hear any sounds to indicate that the micro machines were swarming the outer hull.

“Will the sphere hold?” Marlborough asked.

“For a while,” Turg said. “I’m continuing toward the mothership.”

Several tense seconds passed.

“We’ve reached the hull,” Turg said. “The wormhole dispersion tech is holding. We must move quickly.”

“Electrify hulls, people,” Marlborough said.

The Bolt Eaters did so.

The left bulkhead of the cabin irised open, revealing the smooth black hull of the Banthar mothership beyond, lying flush against it.

A small swarm of micro machines that had been caught between the surface of the sphere and the Banthar hull entered, and the termites immediately tried to attach to the mechs. Small flashes erupted from the hulls as the termites were zapped.

“Stupid bitches just won’t learn,” Slate remarked.

“Scorpion, fire the energy weapon!” Marlborough said.

“Time for the moment of truth.” Eric aimed the energy cannon at the hull via the crosshairs that overlaid his HUD. He switched to pulse mode, and fired. Several streams of white light struck the same spot, melting through. He was half expecting to be teleported away by another wormhole attack, but he remained where he was. The wormhole dispersion tech in the sphere was working.

So far, Turg had been telling the truth.

Eric continued to fire repeatedly, slowly drilling a hole through the thick hull. Turg had told him to expect at least six meters of the stuff, but he was still firing at the eight meter mark.

Finally he broke through, to reveal a dark corridor beyond.

Eric expected mist to explosively vent from the opening he drilled with the energy weapon, but apparently there was no atmosphere, at least not in the section the team had vented.

“Switch to LIDAR!” Marlborough said.

Eric did so. The corridor he’d opened seemed empty beyond. For the moment.

He adjusted the aim of his crosshairs, targeting the edges of the hole he’d drilled into the hull, and began enlarging it. In about two minutes, he’d formed an opening though the eight meter long passageway that was big enough for a mech to crawl through.

“Slate, you’re point! Scorpion, I want you just behind him.” He called out a marching order, but Eric was already following Slate inside.

Slate leaped into the hole and fired his jets until he emerged on the other side. Then he scrambled to his feet.

“There’s still artificial gravity,” Slate said. “A bit lighter than what we’re used to, but it’s there.”

Eric likewise dove into the hole, extending his arms in front of him, and firing his aft jets to propel him quickly to the other side. When he crossed from the hull section to the interior of the Banthar mothership, he shut off his engines and dropped to the floor. He clambered to his feet inside the alien ship and felt the gravity change immediately. He dialed down the servomotor output, since he didn’t need as much energy to move his joints in the weaker gravity.

Slate had deployed his ballistic shield, and he held it in front of his body. He moved away from the opening Eric had drilled, so as to give the others room to enter.

Eric followed behind him. He also deployed his shield in his left hand and followed close to Slate, keeping the crosshairs of his energy cannon aimed beyond his own shield, and that of Slate’s, into the corridor beyond.

The passageway was completely dark, and he was able to see only because of the LIDAR emissions, which displayed a perfectly triangular corridor via a series of white wireframes, with the flat side on the floor. It was easily wide enough to fit their mechs. In fact, if they wanted to, they could probably squeeze two abreast.

The others piled inside behind him, and then the sphere transport ejected its cabin, slamming it into the rip Eric had formed in the hull, forming a plug to prevent the micro machines from pursuing. At least for now.

“What happens to your sphere ship?” Hicks asked.

“Now that it’s ejected, it will crash into the far side of the vessel, and unload a few of the beetle robots you saw in my base,” Turg said. “It’s doubtful they will penetrate the hull, given its thickness, but at the very least they will provide a distraction before the micro machines consume them.”

“You should have sent in more of those spheres to help us out,” Frogger said.

“The decoys were all I could afford,” Turg said. “I was unwilling to commit more resources. If we can’t complete the mission with what we have, then more units deployed on the outside wouldn’t have helped anyway.”

“Should we try to fire the wormhole weapon?” Eric asked.

“Brontosaurus, to point,” Marlborough said.

The heavy gunner moved forward.

“Fire,” Marlborough ordered.

A bolt expanded outward from the double-barreled cannon Brontosaurus carried on his shoulder. It passed down the triangular corridor, but quickly shrunk in size, before winking out entirely.

“So much for that,” Brontosaurus said.

“As I told you, we have to destroy the gravity dispersion generator first,” Turg said.

“I’m not saying we didn’t believe you,” Marlborough told her. “But we always confirm. It’s part of our ethos.”

“I understand,” Turg said.

“Keep moving, Bolt Eaters,” Marlborough said. “Let’s try to make it to the target as soon as possible. While we still have that sphere out there to distract the AI core of this ship.”

Eric glanced at the overhead map, which contained the blueprints of the ship’s interior Turg had given them. The red dot moved agonizingly slow along the planned route.

“You know, that target looked a whole lot closer on the map when we were still looking at it in the planning phases,” Slate said.

“Maps always do, during the planning phases,” Frogger said. “But once you’re actually in the field, you usually realize your perception of scale was way off.”

“The wonders of the human mind, when transplanted into the core of an AI,” Slate said.

They proceeded forward through that triangular corridor without encountering resistance for the next ten minutes. Eric heard nothing in there, thanks to the lack of atmosphere, but he did feel the vibrations transmitted to the feet of his mech from the footfalls of those around him.

Finally the corridor opened up into a cavern or hall of sorts, and the rooftop towered above them.

Slate paused at the entrance. “What’s this supposed to be?”

“According to my map data, it’s a multipurpose cargo bay,” Turg said.

“Currently empty,” Slate said. “The proposed trajectory takes us across this hall, and toward an opening on the other side. But see those other openings around the perimeter? We’ll be exposed to any attacks while crossing. Maybe we should take a closer opening instead, and loop back toward the target later.”

“I would recommend against it,” Turg said. “Any deviation from the plotted route will tack on hours to our target. That’s hours more spent defending against the machines and other weapons the Banthar AI might throw at us.”

“Assuming your blueprints prove accurate,” Tread said.

“They’ve been accurate so far,” Turg said.

“Yeah, for one corridor,” Slate commented.

“The Banthar would have no reason to change a working ship design,” Turg said. “Especially when that model has been functioning well for them for thousands of years.”

“Maybe we should send one of the mechs forward without its Cicada,” Dunnigan said. “You know, like a scout. To see what happens?”

“What do you want to do, Sarge?” Slate said.

“Turg, could the Banthar ambush us here?” Marlborough asked.

“Of course,” Turg said. “They could ambush us at any time. However, I’d advise against splitting up the team at the moment. A scout won’t help if an attack comes, considering that we have to cross anyway. I’d recommend making a mad dash to the other side, and if we’re attacked, we deal with it.”

“Good thing you’re not in charge,” Slate said. “That’s terrible strategic advice.”

“Well, she’s right,” Marlborough said. “We do have to cross. But I refuse to expose us to a potential attack from all sides. We’re going to stay close to the bulkheads, until we reach the destination corridor on the other side.”

“Traveling overwatch?” Slate suggested.

Marlborough shook his head. “No. I don’t want to risk separation. We’ll stick together. But I want Centipede formation. We’ll hug the leftmost wall. That means shields are right facing, with an upward bent.”

On point, Slate held his shield in front of him, angling it slightly to the left. Eric moved forward so that he was nearly touching Slate, then he deployed both shields, one in each arm, and held the left shield on top of him and the other on his right flank, protecting half of his body and half of Slate’s.

Dickson came up as close behind him as Eric had to Slate, and similarly deployed his shields to slightly overlap Eric’s. The rest of the team likewise moved inward and unfolded their shields on their upper and right flanks, so that in moments they had formed an armored “centipede,” right facing with an upward bent. Crusher was unable to complete the necessary shield positioning, since she had no control over her left arm, leaving a gap in the armor above her position; but otherwise everyone else had their shields in place.

With such a formation, they were exposed only to attack from the left, but given that they would be hugging the leftmost wall, they weren’t worried about an assault from that vector.

“Move out!” Marlborough said.

And so they advanced in lockstep, like a long, armored tank passing next to the leftmost wall of the cavern. Their shields overlapped, as mentioned, which caused them to share their hull charge.

Whenever the individual units passed one of the entrances along the lefthand wall, they shifted the top shields to the left to shield themselves from potential attacks. And when they had crossed, they angled those shields back on top. Eric similarly lowered his shield when he crossed those entrances, and he peered through the notch, but his LIDAR only indicated an empty, triangular passageway leading away each time.

When the team reached the quarter way mark through the room, Eric began to hear echoes.

“Did we just enter an atmosphere?” he asked.

“It appears so,” Brontosaurus said.

“Looks like there’s some kind of energy membrane running through the room,” Frogger said. “Preventing the atmosphere from escaping into the void. It begins about five meters from the entrance we used.”

“Is this expected?” Marlborough asked Turg.

“It is neither expected nor unexpected,” Turg said. “The Banthar have the ability to create atmospheric containment fields. While I was not expecting its usage here, it doesn’t surprise me, either. It just means we will be experiencing an attack sooner, with the AI attempting to repel our boarding party.”

“You could have warned us,” Marlborough said.

“I told you that bioweapons would likely attack,” Turg said. “I thought you would infer that the Banthar had technology to create atmospheres.”

“Let’s pick up the pace!” Marlborough said.

As the trailing Annihilators stepped into the region of atmosphere, the clanking increased and echoed from the walls. Eric cringed with each of those noises, which sounded far too loud for his tastes, like a beacon announcing to the aliens, “come get me.”

“Got incoming,” Hicks announced.

19

Eric glanced at his overhead map. A bunch of red dots had appeared, coming from the passageway they just left.

He glanced at his rear view mirror, and lifted his overhead shield slightly to form a crack; he caught a glimpse of the entrance, and saw a cloud of micro machines swarming inside.

“Looks like the termites from the hull finally ate through the plug we left behind,” Tread said.

“From the hull?” Eagleeye said. “So much for the consensus those termites were adapted for deep space alone!”

“They are multipurpose,” Turg said.

“I thought you said bioweapons were gonna attack, Turg baby,” Slate said.

“Prepare to defend!” Marlborough said. “Keep hulls electrified! Deploy spears and spread out! I want at least three meters of separation between each of you!”

Eric folded his right shield away and retrieved the modified spear that Turg had given him, grasping it by the cloth-wrapped haft and withdrawing it from the bicep sling. Then he stepped forward, leaving the formation to face the micro machines. The other Annihilators spread out, leaving at least the three meters of separation that Marlborough requested.

The termite outliers began to arrive, and sparks appeared along Eric’s hull. Those sparks increased in intensity as more and more of the termites attempted to latch onto his hull, and those of his companions. His power cell levels dropped as he watched.

He retracted the shield in his left arm, and swiveled a grenade launcher into place instead. He fired energy grenades, which when detonated, sent out bolts of electricity that took down the incoming termites in clumps. He also fired his energy cannon, cutting wide swathes through the swarm, but that didn’t stop them.

He waited until the main swarm was upon him, and then he slammed the tip of the spear downward and into the hull. A plasma discharged erupted from his spear, traveling outward in a dome pattern above the floor, knocking out all termites within a two meter radius of his body. The affected micro machines rained to the ground, inactive.

But the remaining termites simply swarmed forward to fill the gap. Eric fired his energy cannon, cutting through them, and also slammed his spear down again; however the latter weapon didn’t release the expected area of effect attack. He hadn’t waited the necessary five seconds.

He backed up, trying to put some distance between himself and the swarm and give his power cells a rest, but the horde simply followed him. In moments he was encased in the micro machines, and saw only whiteness all around him, thanks to his LIDAR vision.

He unleashed his energy weapon once more, being careful not to target his friends, whose mechs appeared as blue outlines beyond the whiteness. He wasn’t able to open up a path this time, so he fired his jumpjets, relieved that the team was fighting inside a cargo bay, and thus giving him the room to make such a jump.

He broke through the swarm cloud, and saw that the termites continued to swarm inside through the entrance.

Around him, other Annihilators were jetting into the air, trying to escape the onrush.

“This is almost as bad as the termite storm we faced on Earth!” Slate said.

“There are too many!” Marlborough said. “Seems like they’re redirecting the termites covering their entire hull inside! We won’t be able to keep this up. Not if we want to reach the target with any semblance of power left. Jet to the target opening!”

Eric fired his jumpjets and arced over the swarm. Outliers continued to hit him, causing zaps to appear along his exterior. He fired his energy weapon intermittently into the termites, carving temporary gaps, but they kept coming.

He came in for a landing on the far side of the room, where the termites hadn’t yet reached.

As he touched down, three Frankendogs emerged from the entrance directly to his left, the closest adjacent opening to the target ahead.

“There’s your bioweapons,” Tread said.

The creatures had the bodies of a Sphinx, though coated in a mirror-like sheen, as if that part of them was robotic. Meanwhile, the heads were part reptile, insect, and Portuguese man-of-war, with a pair of mandibles at right angles topping a tube-shaped maw coated in razor-sharp teeth. Compound eyes bulged from the sides, while a cobra’s hood flanked the head and neck, giving birth to flagellum-like tentacles.

The upper flanks of their smooth, robotic bodies had already peeled back, revealing the wicked weapon turrets within. Eric swiveled his grenade launcher away and narrowly deployed his shield as a high intensity laser attack came in, drilling a hole through the ballistic coating.

Eric switched to Bullet Time, and slid his spear away into the bicep strap. He swiveled his grenade launcher into place on that hand, and fired a pulse grenade at the closest Frankendog. He released his energy cannon at the same time.

Where the beam struck, an energy shield kicked in, causing a convex flash to appear around the bioweapon. The grenades had the same affect, causing fields to flare up, protecting the entities.

Other Bolt Eaters threw their spears when they witnessed those shields activating. That did it. The weapons penetrated the shielding on the first try, as Turg had promised, and struck the creatures in the necks. Electricity enveloped them, and they fell.

Eric continued forward, as did the others that landed behind him. Those who had thrown their spears had no time to retrieve them. Eric swiveled his grenade launcher out of the way, and grabbed the spear from his sling again, keeping his shield deployed in his right hand. Meanwhile, the swarm continued to home in on him and the team from behind. Outliers still flashed across the surface of his body as they were zapped away.

Two more Frankendogs appeared ahead from the target opening. Eric didn’t bother to fire his energy cannon this time; instead he threw his spear, as did Crusher beside him, taking down those bioweapons. He and Crusher were able to retrieve their spears by grabbing the hafts as they ran past the fallen bodies.

“Gotta be a way to plug that opening,” Eric said. “Even temporarily.”

“There is,” Turg said. “If you’re willing to sacrifice your mechs, and utilize the energy cannon to seal the seams.”

Eric dashed into the triangular corridor with Crusher; Slate and Dickson followed just behind.

“Hicks, Tread, and Dunnigan, you’re on drag,” Marlborough said. “Abandon your mechs, and have them fill up that corridor!”

The requested Cicadas ejected, and their mechs squeezed into the triangular space behind them, trying to fill it up as much as possible. From the seams, the bioweapons crawled through and swarmed inside.

Eric aimed his energy cannon at those seams, and dialed down the energy output levels on the new interface that Turg had rigged, then he swept the weapon back and forth like an artist painting with a brush, melting the seams. Sometimes, the mechs were spaced too far apart to form a complete blockage, but as more termites entered those gaps, he simply melted them, too, solidifying the seams. In a few moments he had the entire corridor blocked off.

“We have to hurry,” Turg said. “That will only last a minute. Maybe two. And there are other routes the bioweapons can take. You saw how many exits there were to that room…”

The team continued onward through the corridor, their LIDAR guiding them, while their overhead map ensured they were on the right path. So far, Turg’s blueprints proved accurate, matching up with every corridor and compartment they’d encounter.

More Frankendogs appeared up ahead. Eric hurtled his spear, but his target managed to dodge it. But someone else had thrown a second spear at nearly the same time, and it struck the creature a moment later. The same thing happened to the companion bioweapon: it escaped the first spear, only to be hit by the second wave.

Meanwhile Eric’s original spear clattered harmlessly to the deck.

Unfortunately, as the two bioweapons went down, their fall revealed two more Frankendogs behind them.

Eric ducked behind his ballistic shield as the laser blasts came in and drilled fresh holes in the material.

“How are these things even seeing in here?” Mickey said. “I’m not detecting LIDAR.”

“They’re probably linked up with the ship’s AI core,” Frogger said. “So they know everything it knows.”

“There are thermal sensors embedded throughout the deck,” Turg said. “And it’s likely that the AI is transmitting our position directly to the entities, yes.”

Eric slid the shield to the side slightly, so his energy cannon could get a shot, and lined the crosshairs up over the leftmost bioweapon. He switched the energy cannon to pulse mode and fired five quick blasts in a row while swiveling his grenade launcher into his right hand. He ducked behind his shield as the aliens returned fire, and then peered out to release another five blasts, following that up with an energy grenade. The bomb hit the shield and detonated.

The electrical bolts wrapped around the already weakened field, and as he watched, it winked out entirely, allowing some of the bolts to hit the Frankendog.

Eric fired his energy cannon again, this time in standard mode since the shield was down, and the beam decapitated the entity; the headless corpse collapsed.

He ducked behind his shield as the remaining Frankendog opened fire; a blur of motion beside him told him that someone else had thrown an alien spear. He peered past the edge of his shield and watched as the stricken Frankendog collapsed, surrounded by electrical bolts erupting from the weapon that had dug deep into its torso.

Eric advanced only a few paces when up ahead, on the overhead, a defensive platform deployed.

“Platform!” He threw himself to the deck, using the bodies of the fallen Frankendogs for cover. Above him, an energy beam tore past, similar to the one produced by the cannon on his shoulder.

It tore past the other Annihilators, passing directly between Dickson and Slate behind him, who were in the process of throwing themselves to the deck.

“Gah!” Slate said. “Just lost my left arm.”

“And I lost my right,” Dickson said.

When the beam went out, Eric glanced at the pair lying on the deck behind him, and saw that the outline of a circle had been carved into the armor on the left and right sides of their bodies. The circular silhouette included Slate’s now missing left arm, and Dickson’s right.

“Dunnigan is gone,” Tread said. “His entire upper body dissolved.”

“Damn it,” Marlborough said.

“Those bodies aren’t going to shield us for long,” Turg said. “That cannon can eat through any metal.”

20

Eric had no time to grieve; he activated Bullet Time, then shoved himself upward slightly and ejected from his mech, landing rolling on the ground. He switched control of the Annihilator to the internal AI, and instructed it to keep low. It promptly dropped to the floor.

“What are you doing?” Marlborough said over the comm. The first word had started out sounding slow and low-pitched, until the Sarge’s timebase synced up with Eric’s own.

“Lowering my profile,” Eric said. He crawled forward, toward the fallen bioweapons. A flash up ahead told him the energy weapon had fired again.

He peered past the edge of the closest Frankendog, and saw a neat hole had been cut into the body of the fallen entity just behind this one.

Staying low, he scrambled past the current bioweapon, and retrieved his spear from the deck where it had landed after his missed throw. He scooped it up, and flattened himself as the energy cannon on the ceiling up ahead began to glow again.

The next beam passed through the previous hole and drilled into the bioweapon behind it.

“That cannon’s drilling some new vaginas,” Slate said. “Your mech is next in line, Scorpion.”

“Feel my sting.” Eric stood up, lined up the spear with the hanging cannon, and threw. The cannon began to glow again as the spear approached in slow motion.

His aim was true and the spear impacted a split second later. Electricity enveloped the cannon, and the glow instantly subsided.

Eric stood to his full height, and reverted his time sense to normal.

“Whatever you do, don’t make Scorpion angry,” Frogger said. “You wouldn’t like him when he is angry.”

“Why do I feel like I just missed an inside joke?” Tread said.

“Watch The Hulk sometime,” Mickey said.

Eric darted forward, grabbed the spear from the ceiling, and hurried back to his mech, which he had already ordered forward. He met the mech half way, leaped onto the open cockpit, and stowed the spear into the bicep sling before folding himself up and letting the cockpit close over him.

His viewpoint switched to that of the Annihilator as consciousness returned.

“That was dangerous, what you did,” Turg sent on a private line. “I don’t approve.”

“Really?” Eric said. “Is this Bambi talking, or Turg?”

“I—” But Turg didn’t finish.

Eric shrugged, dismissing the line.

He continued forward at a jog, as did the others. They couldn’t afford to wait, not while the termites were drilling through the blockage behind them.

“Farewell, Dunnigan,” Slate said. “You were my favorite Englishman.”

“Are you making fun of him even in death?” Eagleeye said.

“No,” Slate said. “Okay maybe I am. But that’s the best way to honor him. He wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

“Not so sure about that,” Eagleeye said. “But I suppose gallows humor is the only thing we have right now.”

“Yup,” Tread said. “It always takes over when the shit hits the fan. It’s the only way to stay sane. Hey Slate, look at the vaginas in these Frankendogs. If your mech had a dick, you could definitely bone them.”

“Yeah man,” Slate said. “But why would I need a mech? If I had my old human body back, my dick alone would have trouble fitting!”

“But those bore holes are the size of a human waist!” Eagleeye said.

“Yup!” Slate said.

“You are a master,” Eagleeye mocked.

“I know,” Slate said. “In VR, I’ve actually reduced the size of my snake, cause I don’t want to scare you all away with the massive bulge in my pants.”

“Now you’re taking it too far,” Crusher said.

Eric rounded a bend, and reached another cavernous compartment. This one had a narrow walkway that passed over different bubbling vats. It was lined with a thin railing on either side.

Eric gazed down at the closest vat, and his LIDAR reported some sort of thick liquid inside.

“What’s this?” he transmitted.

“These are the reclamation facilities,” Turg explained. “What you would call a waste processing plant. Used to collect the refuse produced by the bioweapons, and recycle it for later ingestion by said weapons.”

“Cross!” Marlborough said.

Eric began making his way across the walkway, toward the far entrance. The team followed behind him. He didn’t see any other obvious exits to the room, except for the opening at the far side of the walkway.

“Here you go, Slate,” Eagleeye transmitted. “Remember what you said?”

“What did I say…?” Slate asked hesitantly.

“That if we ever got back, you’d leap into a big stinking vat of alien shit,” Eagleeye said. “Now’s your chance.”

“I was speaking metaphorically, of course,” Slate said.

“Oh, of course,” Eagleeye said. “We all know you don’t keep your promises.”

“You want me to leap into the shit?” Slate said. “Fine.”

“Yeah I do!” Eagleeye said gleefully.

“Hold,” Marlborough said. “We don’t have time for games.”

“Of course I wasn’t going to leap into that brown stew,” Slate said. “There’s a difference between a promise and a joke.”

“We’re only as good as our word,” Eagleeye said, obviously trying to guilt trip Slate.

“Except the Sarge just gave me a specific order,” Slate said. “Sorry bro, there’s no leaping into a stinking vat of alien shit today.”

Two more Frankendogs appeared up ahead. Instead of laser turrets poking out of their flanks, these two had energy cannons, readily identifiable by their silvery smooth, barrel shapes. One per side, so that they carried two each.

Eric switched to Bullet Time. “Take cover! Get off the ramp!”

He jetted sideways off the walkway, and downward, while trying to swing his shield in front of him. Other mechs were moving in slow motion behind him, and he saw them on his rear camera feed.

The Frankendogs opened fire, and four beams cut across the walkway. Most of the mechs managed to dodge the beam in time, but some still had their extremities hit, which caused said areas to dissolve. Eagleeye lost the lower half of a ballistic shield, while Crusher lost a portion of her calf area, and Turg’s robot lost a missile launcher. But no one had died. Not yet.

Eric landed in a vat of shit and sank.

He was surrounded by the fecal material, and his LIDAR was unable to penetrate, so it was like he was surrounded by a sheer white fog. He rotated around toward the far side—or what he thought was the far side, and fired his energy cannon. It broke through the wall of the vat, and he was dragged outside along with the draining liquid. He wiped his LIDAR sensors, and the auto cleaning blades also kicked in, restoring his wireframe vision.

Around him, other Annihilators were similarly breaking out of the vats and landing on the deck.

He turned back toward the walkway, and fired in front of and behind the position of the Frankendogs, causing the walkway to give, and the two to plunge downward.

But two more Frankendogs appeared at the opening, and unleashed energy cannons at the Bolt Eaters.

Eric dodged behind the closest vat.

“We got two down here, and two more up at the entrance!” Dickson said. “We’re in a bit of a pickle.”

“We’re shit in a pickle all right!” Slate said.

“I need options, people!” Marlborough said.

“We run!” Eric weaved between the vats and headed away from the entities. He aimed his energy cannon at the bulkhead and opened fire repeatedly, drilling a hole big enough to fit a mech. In moments he was through to the compartment on the other side.

He rushed through, and the others followed.

In this room were several more metal tanks, tanks that were obviously continuing the process of recycling the waste.

Mickey ripped one of those tanks away from its base, and shoved it into the opening Eric had made.

“That’ll hold them for a little while,” Mickey said.

“Not really,” Slate said. “You saw how fast Scorp my boy was able to cut through these bulkheads.”

“We’re going to need an updated route, Turg,” Marlborough said.

Turg updated the route on their maps.

Slate took the lead, and entered the triangular passageway ahead. He carried his spear in hand, and held it over one shoulder, ready to throw at a moment’s notice. The other team members, those who still had the alien spears, assumed similar postures, including Eric.

Another defense platform deployed from the overhead along the way, but Eric had programmed his Accomp to dump him immediately into Bullet Time the instant any sudden movement was detected on the LIDAR ahead, or when any identifiable weapon turrets became visible when rounding a bend, for example, and he was ready.

He immediately lined up his energy cannon with that platform, and fired. At the same time, four spears erupted from the ranks of the Annihilators, and plowed into the cannon. It promptly went offline, surrounded by sparks of energy.

Those who had thrown the spears recovered them as they passed underneath the disabled cannon.

“We should try keeping some of these intact sometime,” Brontosaurus said. “So we can rip them out and use them for ourselves.”

“Yeah, good luck sneaking up on a defense platform,” Eagleeye said. “And staying alive.”

“This is actually a lot easier than I thought it would be,” Slate said. “Sure, there’s some minor resistance. But the bitch seems unprepared for the most part.”

“The Banthar conversion vessels don’t normally experience boarding parties,” Turg said. “Sure, they are designed to defend against them, as you have seen, but it’s not where they focus the majority of their energies. Needless to say, this AI wasn’t expecting to experience the resistance we’re putting up.”

“Of course not,” Eric said. “That’s because he wasn’t expecting us to have you.”

“Thank you,” Turg sent him on a private line. Her voice’s tone and inflection reminded him of Bambi, and for a moment he could imagine that she was blushing slightly.

A figment of my imagination. Bambi’s lost.

They reached another defense platform, this one embedded in a bulkhead around a bend in the triangular passage. On point, Slate was partially hit as the beam unexpectedly released. He’d programmed his Accomp to dump him into Bullet Time the instant any sort of weapon was detected, and it was a good thing, too, otherwise he would have lost more than another portion of his left arm and hip.

“Damn it,” Slate said. “I feel like I’m a gingerbread man, being slowly eaten away.”

Eric stepped past Slate, and adjusted the aim of his spear point. With the help of Dee, he triangulated the exact spot he needed to hit on the bulkhead visible across from him if he wanted the spear to glance off the surface and strike the energy cannon beyond. He also calculated the necessary speed and angle involved, accounting for the shockwave of energy that would erupt when the spear tip impacted. The throw had to be just perfect.

“What are you doing, Scarface?” Slate said.

That was one of the nicknames Slate had given Eric during training. Eric still didn’t know where he had come up with it.

He threw the spear. When a series of rapid flashes momentarily lit up the corridor from beyond, he realized he’d struck.

He peered past the edge, confirming the hit.

Slate joined him, and seemed speechless.

“Simple geometry,” Eric said. That was one of his favorite lines whenever he was killing it in a game of pool.

Slate took the lead once more, moving at a trot; Eric retrieved the spear from the disabled energy platform on the way.

“I could have taken it down, you know,” Slate said.

“Then why didn’t you, Big Boy?” Crusher asked.

“That’s right, go and take his side now, would you?” Slate replied.

“I always take the sides of winners,” Crusher said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Slate said. “If I was still alive, you’d be one of my groupies.”

“I’m sure I would,” Crusher said. “But the fact is, you’ve been dead for over a hundred years.”

“Oh that’s where you’re wrong,” Slate said. “I’ve never been more alive than I am now. When this mission is over, I’ll take you back to my virtual room and show you a few things.”

“I think I’ll pass,” Crusher said.

“How about you Bambi?” Slate said. “Er, I mean Turg? You know you want more.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Turg said.

“Really?” Slate said. “When you were calling my name a few hours ago, you certainly seemed to know what I was talking about.”

Eric felt a slight jealousy, but repressed it.

She’s not Bambi anymore.

If it was true that Slate had slept with her, then it was possible that his system had been compromised, especially if he had accepted a file from Turg, just as Eric had once done while Turg had still been Bambi. He expressed his concern to Marlborough on a private line while he continued at a trot.

“We’ll have to watch him,” Marlborough conceded. A moment later: “Slate swears to me that he didn’t accept any files from her, but he admitted to sleeping with her avatar. He tells me he’s the only one listed on his administrator list.”

“She could have hacked in while she distracted him with sex,” Eric said. “And then once she had administrator privileges, she masked herself from the admin list.”

“Is that even possible?” Marlborough asked. “The masking part, I mean.”

“There are ways...” Eric replied.

“Like I said, we’ll watch him,” Marlborough sent.

For a few minutes the team experienced no other interruptions. Their position continued to update on the overhead map. They were getting very close now.

Then they came across another cavern.

Like the first, it was empty, but had ten separate corridors going off in random directions. On the ceiling were several beautiful crystals that provided a pulsing blue light, filling in the white wireframe outlines of the LIDAR on the visual band.

“What is that?” Eric asked.

“In my digital notes, I have written, gravity control node,” Turg replied.

“Gravity control node?” Eric said.

“Yes,” Turg said. “These crystals are partly responsible for maintaining the artificial gravity in this region.”

“Wonder if we should take them out?” Slate said from on point. “Then we could fly through these corridors with our jumpjets and make it to the target in time to return home for dinner!”

“I did say ‘partly responsible,’” Turg said. “These crystals are more of a backup, in case the main gravity generator fails. If you take them out, it won’t make much of a difference. And it could bring more automated defenses raining down on this area.”

“What do you want to do, Sarge?” Brontosaurus asked.

“We ignore the crystals,” Marlborough responded. “Hug the wall, like we did last time, and cross to the other side. Centipede formation. Shields in place.”

Once again they formed the centipede, and moved along the leftmost wall toward the doorway that continued on the updated route Turg had plotted. This one was only four side corridors away on the left, about three quarters of the way across the room. They used their shields to protect their right and top sides; not everyone had shield arms to complete the protective layer of course, and those who didn’t have mechs—Hicks and Tread—leaped onto the backsides of the Annihilators on drag and mounted via magnets.

They were halfway across the room, passing one of the corridors that led away to the left, when the attack came.

21

Eric’s Bullet Time kicked in and his proximity alarm sounded. At first he wasn’t sure what was happening, but then he saw blurs of motion overhead.

Glancing up, he saw several alien spears had ejected from hidden slots between the crystals overhead.

“Spears!” Eric transmitted. “Raining down from above!”

He dodged those spears in Bullet Time, as did the others. A spear narrowly missed striking him in the shoulder, and he danced his body around it, almost falling off balance.

That particular spear slammed into the deck in front of him, and electricity sparked in all directions. He was sent backward by an explosive dome of energy from the impact site, and realized the Banthar AI had modified its own spears to behave similar to Turg’s, producing a shockwave of two meters in radius upon impact.

He smashed into Mickey’s Annihilator, and both of the mechs landed on the deck next to one another. Other Bolt Eaters were similarly thrown about as the spears hit. A quick glance at the status indicators on his HUD told him that no one had been lost this time, at least.

Eric scrambled to his feet, as did the other Bolt Eaters.

Two spears erupted from the corridor that the party had been passing to the left. The spears struck the shields of Dickson and Mickey, and the two were forced to eject the shields to survive. The electrified masses struck the ground, throwing off sparks.

Two more spears came in. One of them was headed directly toward Crusher. The spear passed into the crosshairs of Eric’s energy weapon, and he fired it.

The beam struck the spear, and even though he hadn’t let the power build up for more than a microsecond, the energy was enough to disintegrate the spear.

The other spear nearly hit Eagleeye, but he used his lateral jets to swerve his upper body out of the way.

Crusher glanced at Eric as time returned. “Thanks.”

A stampede of Red Tails rushed inside from that corridor. They thrust between the ranks, effectively dividing the platoon in half. Most of them carried spears. Many of them threw them as they entered.

Eric dodged those spears in Bullet Time, while opening fire with his energy cannon.

One of the spears came at him from the side, and he realized he wasn’t going to be able to jet out of the way in time.

But then Slate was there, and took the hit on his shield, and then let the defensive device fall away as sparks enveloped it.

“Thanks,” Eric told him.

“Don’t thank me,” Slate said. “I didn’t do anything. Damn mech has a mind of its own sometimes.”

Eric dismissed the comment, figuring that Slate was just running his mouth like always.

He didn’t have time to reflect on the statement anyway, because the fight was ongoing.

Sometimes a spear struck the deck beside him, and he was sent flying into the air. But he recovered thanks to his accelerated time sense and used his jumpjets to always land on his feet. Other members of the team were firing their ZX-9s, targeting the knee joints, or the glandular sacs that gave the Red Tails their names, which, when burst, released a red goo that trapped anything that walked over it, and killed the host in the process. Ballistic shields were used to shove away any Red Tails that got too close. Or sometimes an Annihilator simply slammed a spear into the ground, causing a shockwave that sent all Red Tails within a two meter radius away.

The bodies began to pile up as the Red Tails continued to come inside.

“They’re going to keep coming!” Marlborough said. “Those of you who are separated on the southern side of the compartment, jet over the bioweapons, and rejoin the rest of the platoon on the northern portion. We’re leaving!”

Eric was on the northern side, close to the target corridor, and he hurried that way, along with the others.

The separated Annihilators jetted over the Red Tails and shot down at the entities as they passed over them.

As Eric neared the corridor, four shapes emerged from it: vaguely humanoid robots, their bodies made of blocky crystals. These were the same robots he had encountered on Earth while with the Kurds in their caves, entities that could convert humans and machines alike into similar entities at a touch.

Lasers were useless against the milky robots, so Eric unleashed his energy cannon, causing the milky surfaces to blacken, freezing the entities in place.

He spotted a blur on his rear-view feed, and dodged a spear as it came in. The spear struck one of the blackened robots, and the resultant shockwave caused the dark shell to break away from the robots, allowing them to approach once again.

“Guess that rules out using our handy alien spears against them,” Slate said.

Eric released a few more shots to freeze the robots again.

The rest of the platoon arrived behind him, most of whom continued to defend against the press of the Red Tails behind them.

“What do you want to do?” Eric said. “We can jet over them. There’s just enough room to spare.”

“But what if they break out of those shells before we’re all past?” Marlborough said. “All they have to do is raise their hands, and touch us, and nano machines or whatever it is they use will convert us.”

“Nano machines is correct,” Turg said.

The milky robots began to break free of the black shells as Eric watched. Behind them, he saw more of the milk robots approaching from within the corridor.

That made up Marlborough’s mind.

“All right, next corridor!” Marlborough said. “Turg, update the route!”

The platoon proceeded into the next corridor.

“We’re going to have these Red Tails harrying us the whole time!” Dickson said. He ejected his Cicada from the mech, and deployed the unit at the entrance.

Frogger did the same, so that his Annihilator, along with Dickson’s, stood guard a little ways inside the corridor, and together they opened fire at the Red Tails, whose bodies were slowly piling up in front of them.

“All right, let’s move!” Marlborough said.

“I can’t believe we abandoned your mechs,” Slate said as he moved at a trot. “We could have stayed there, and helped them build an impenetrable wall of bodies!”

“No, the Sarge was right to move on,” Brontosaurus said. “We couldn’t afford to delay. You see that intersection up ahead? If we waited, we would have been cut off.”

When Slate reached the intersection, he peered past the right corner with his ZX-9; Eric did the same on the left, switching to the viewpoint of his laser’s scope, and lifting it past the edge.

“I got more of those milk robots,” Eric said. “Coming in from the left.”

“And I got the same on the right,” Slate said.

Eric stepped past, and fired his energy cannon in both directions, encasing the robots on both sides in a temporary black shell.

“Should we wait for the mechs?” Crusher asked.

“I’ve lost contact with my mech,” Frogger said.

“And mine,” Dickson said.

“They should be in range,” Eagleeye said.

“These bulkheads are interfering with the signal,” Mickey said.

“Assuming they’re still operational, and able to send signals…” Brontosaurus said.

“Welcome to the Mechless Club,” Hicks told Dickson and Frogger. “Can’t say it’s a privilege.”

The milky robots broke free of the black shells that Eric had formed over them; he fired his energy weapon again, creating new encasements. Behind those robots, on either side, his LIDAR picked up the shape of Red Tails.

“Uh,” Eric said. “Incoming Red Tails.”

“Advance!” Marlborough said.

The team moved on, with Slate on point, followed closely by Eric.

They turned a bend, and were halfway through the next triangular corridor when Red Tails dropped down from a hidden corridor in the overhead. Slate, Eric, Brontosaurus, Crusher, Turg, and Marlborough were separated from the rest of the platoon.

The platoon fought frantically to rejoin, but the bioweapons kept flowing inward, pushing them back. Eric fired his energy cannon as fast as he was able, but for every Red Tail he took down, another appeared. There were milky robots among them as well, and all he could do with those was temporarily freeze them.

“Sarge!” Dickson said. “Leave us!”

“No!” Marlborough said. “No one gets left behind.”

Slate dashed forward, trying to make a valiant push through the Red Tails, moving at a blur. He had his remaining shield held in front of him, and used it like a battering ram.

But then the glandular sac of one of the Red Tails came smashing down, arcing over the shield toward him.

Crusher fired at that tail, killing the entity, but the goo slammed into Slate, pinning him to the deck.

“Shit!” Slate said. “Can’t eject!” Some of that goo had wrapped around his cockpit.

A spear hit his shield, and he was forced to discard it as the electrical sparks threatened to spread to his arm assembly. At least none of the goo had glued the shield to his arm.

But then another spear came in at him a moment later.

Eric tried to track the weapon with his energy cannon, but even in Bullet Time, his aim was too far off, and he couldn’t bring the weapon to bear in time. It smashed into Slate’s chest, and electrical sparks formed all across his body.

On Eric’s HUD, his status indicator went black.

“What happened to Slate?” Eagleeye transmitted from the other side of the bioweapon blockage. “Slate!”

Turg leaped off of her mech and landed on Slate’s, careful to avoid the goo that pinned him. She examined the wound.

“It hit him in the AI core region,” Turg said. “Passed right through the armor, and into his Cicada. He’s gone.”

Turg vaulted back onto her Annihilator as another Red Tail came in. The mech batted it aside, and she dodged a spear.

“It was my fault,” Crusher said. “I burst the sac.”

“It was no one’s fault!” Marlborough said, firing away. “Except his. No one told Slate to rush them!”

“You have to leave us!” Dickson said over the comm. “Complete the mission. Save humanity!”

“We don’t care about humanity!” Crusher said. “We only care about you!”

The platoon kept fighting, but the Red Tails kept flooding in from the gaping hole in the overhead. It quickly became obvious that the others weren’t going to rejoin the platoon. At least not before other bioweapons came around from the other side and pinned them on both sides.

“Retreat, Bolt Eaters,” Marlborough said. The sadness was obvious in his voice. “We continue toward the target.”

“I’ll stay,” Eric said. “Buddy system.”

“We need your energy cannon,” Marlborough said.

“Then I’ll give it to someone else,” Eric said.

“There’s no time,” Marlborough said. “Come on!”

“You have to go,” Frogger said over the comm. “One of us has to survive.” When Eric didn’t answer, Frogger said: “Go!”

At last Eric retreated. He fired his energy cannon constantly, until he had formed a thick plug of bodies, enough to hold back the Red Tails for a little while at least.

And so he turned around, assuming the drag position with the remainder of the party, and reluctantly moved forward, knowing he was dooming Dickson, Frogger, and the rest of them.

Goodbye, my friends.

The blue indicators on the overhead map for the members they’d abandoned soon froze as the platoon left range.

Only Eric, Brontosaurus, Crusher, Turg, and Marlborough remained of the original Bolt Eaters at that point.

He began to realize that all of them really were going to die. And they probably wouldn’t even finish the mission.

They encountered another defense platform, this one embedded in the deck, and Eric nearly bit the dust. Dee switching him to Bullet Time saved him, and he avoided the energy blast that came when he rounded the corner, and lost part of his mech’s left shoulder. He still had full mobility, but the arm responded slower.

He destroyed that cannon with his own, and the party continued.

They were met with four more of those milky robots.

“There’s nothing for it,” Marlborough said. “We’re going to have to race past. Get as close as possible. And then Scorpion, show them your sting.”

Eric jogged right up to those robots, and then encased them in black shells with his energy cannon. He fired his jumpjets horizontally, flipping his legs up over the robots at the same time, straightening his body to fly over them. He landed rolling on the ground on the other side, and scrambled to his feet.

He turned around to target the milky robots, but the other members of the team were already vaulting past. Crusher rolled right into him, and he was forced to step back and aim around her.

The other members of the platoon leaped over the blocking robots without issue, and when they broke free, Eric fired his cannon to encase them one last time for good measure before they continued onward.

They approached an intersection.

A Black Tail stepped into the corridor. At least, Eric thought it was a Black Tail—the LIDAR wireframe didn’t report color. But he detected an energy cannon on its carapace, something that only the Black Tails carried.

Eric fired his own energy cannon immediately, but a protective shield flashed into existence around the entity.

“Cannon!” Eric shouted, switching to bullet time. He ducked to the floor, as did the others behind him, just as the beam flashed over his head. It missed them all, cutting a swath into the far bulkhead behind them.

Marlborough ejected from his mech, grabbed the spear he’d stowed in its bicep sling at the same time, and threw the weapon as he landed. The spear penetrated the energy shield and struck the Black Tail, causing the creature to die.

“Do we want to rip away that energy cannon?” Crusher said. “So that we have two?”

“Depends on what we have waiting for us in the intersection,” Marlborough said, returning to his mech.

Just as they reached the intersection, two more Black Tails stepped into view. They moved in a team, with one striking down with its glandular sac and the other firing its energy cannon.

That tail penetrated the protective shield that enveloped the bioweapon, and then swung down toward the party.

Already within Bullet Time, Eric was dodging the energy beam when he realized that tail was on course to strike him, so he fired his lateral jets backward. But he noticed that Marlborough was jetting directly for the tail.

“Sarge!” Eric said. “The tail!”

“I see it!” Marlborough fired his lateral thrusters, attempting to move out of the way, but it was too late, and the tail slammed into his leg, pinning him.

That Black Tail also had an energy weapon, and it was aimed directly at Marlborough. Before the Black Tail died from the rupture of its glandular sac, it fired that weapon.

Eric received a timebase sync from Marlborough, and his Bullet Time switched to the highest setting possible. Reality slowed to a complete stop around him. Only that beam moved, slowly streaking toward the Sarge.

“Finish the mission,” Marlborough sent in Bullet Time.

“Sarge, no,” Eric said. He felt like crying. He would have, if he were human.

The energy beam continued to close with Marlborough’s chest assembly.

“It’s a funny thing, when you’re looking death in the face,” Marlborough said. “Knowing that you can’t do a thing to stop it. Nothing’s going to save me, now. The platoon is yours, Scorpion. I’ve watched you grow in these last few missions. Become the soldier you were meant to be. Get that wormhole weapon to the generator. Destroy these motherfuckers.”

The beam hit.

And then there were four.

22

Eric lowered his time sense enough to move again, and opened fire on the surviving Black Tail with his energy cannon. The beam didn’t penetrate the shielding.

A spear blurred past, penetrating the energy shield and hitting the Black Tail. The entity collapsed.

Crusher had thrown it.

Eric shoved the scope of his ZX-9 past the edges of the intersection, and saw two more Black Tails, one on each side. He pulled back as their energy cannons drilled holes into the bulkheads on either side of the intersection beside him.

Eric folded his weapon mounts away, retrieved the spear from his bicep, and held out his arm to Brontosaurus. “Your spear.”

The heavy gunner tossed the spear his way, and Eric caught it in his free hand. Then he dashed forward, vaulting over the bodies of the fallen Black Tails. He flattened his body in midair and, in Bullet Time, fired a lateral burst so that he was rotating slightly.

The Black Tail on the right revolved into view as he flew through the air, and he released the first spear. He used the added angular momentum to increase the force behind the throw.

He continued to rotate, slowly to his own eyes, but at a blur to the Black Tails, and the second bioweapon in the opposite corridor came into view. He released his second spear.

Eric continued forward, and jetted downward, tucking in his legs as both Black Tails opened fire. One of them shot its opposite, but the energy shield protected the latter. The two spears penetrated a moment later, bringing down both of the aliens.

Eric landed, and returned his timebase to normal. Then he backed up, and retrieved his spear, slamming it into his bicep sling. He also grabbed Marlborough’s from the body of the first Black Tail, and shoved it in beside the first.

Brontosaurus recovered his own spear. He glanced at the dead bodies.

“Do we rip out these energy cannons?” the heavy gunner asked.

Motion drew Eric’s gaze into the intersection. On the left, behind the fallen Black Tail, more creatures were incoming. He thought they were ordinary Red Tails, because he couldn’t see the outline of the energy cannons on their carapaces. There were also those milky robots behind them, currently not visible, but no doubt pursuing. And micro machines somewhere.

“No, we move on.” Eric hurried forward. “No time to dally.”

“There usually isn’t, when you’re boarding an enemy ship,” Crusher said.

“This is a battle of attrition if there ever was one!” Brontosaurus said. “And we’re on the losing side.”

“We’re not going to lose,” Eric said. “We can’t. Not after everything we’ve given up.”

Eric gave Turg control of the mech she was mounted on along the way.

“So you trust me enough to give me control of the mech now?” Turg said.

“It’s either that, or more multitasking for me,” Eric said.

“Ah, so you’re doing it because you’re lazy, you’re saying…” Turg said.

He had to frown at that, at least mentally, because that was more like something Bambi would say.

She’s still inside there after all.

Not that he really had time to worry about it at the present moment.

They were almost at the generator room now. All that remained between them and that room was another cavernous chamber, according to the map.

“What’s that compartment up ahead?” Eric asked Turg.

“It’s listed as the engine room in my notes,” Turg said. “But I’m starting to realize that the ships compartments can be reconfigured, perhaps on a whim. It will probably be empty, like all the previous compartments we’ve entered.”

Eric reached the opening, and peered inside. It was one of the biggest compartments he had encountered yet. There were two small exits. One led north, to the generator room. The other east, to some random location.

In the ceiling, he saw what looked like a stalactite hanging down. There were small openings all around its rim.

“Yes, this room has definitely been repurposed,” Turg said. “I’d suggest turning back, but the path behind us is a little clogged at this point.”

“So forward it is,” Eric said.

“Yes,” Turg said. “As fast as you can. Because the AI has decided to install a Guardian here.”

“A Guardian?” Eric asked. He had already started into the room.

As the words left his lips, micro machines began flooding into the compartment from the openings in the rim of the stalactite.

Eric still had his hull electrified, and flashes appeared as outliers began to reach it and the electrical current zapped them away. He fired his energy cannon, cutting large gashes into the forming cloud.

More and more of them came, blocking the path to the northern entrance.

As they closed, Eric grabbed the two spears from his bicep sling, and held one in each hand. He slammed the left down, sending out a shockwave that terminated the closest termites, and they clattered to the floor in a large clump. More of the swarm came at him, and he stabbed the second spear into the deck, causing a similar outcome.

Brontosaurus, Crusher, and Turg also used their alien spears to create shockwaves.

The cloud retreated, and the machines began to gather, forming into a large, humanoid shape that towered over them.

“It’s trying a different strategy, apparently,” Crusher said.

Eric aimed his energy cannon at a forming arm, and fired. He cut through it, but the swarm merely rearranged, filling in the missing gap.

The micro machines ceased venting from the stalactite, and the swarming machines assumed what was apparently their final shape. It looked like a big mech, but without any weapons; it stood at least ten meters above the party, almost touching the stalactite on the overhead. The surface swirled and seethed, similar to the micro machines that coated the exterior of the mothership itself.

Eric had slowed to a walk, and was trying to maneuver around the large entity to the northern corridor, but the termite robot rotated, keeping him in view at all times, and sidestepped as necessary to block his path.

One of its fists came slamming down toward him.

Eric fired his energy cannon into the fist, but it reformed almost instantly as more micro machines shifted forward to fill the missing gap.

He dodged to the side, and the fist rammed into the deck, leaving a huge dent.

“Definitely don’t want to get hit by that,” Brontosaurus said.

Outlying micro machines that orbited the exterior of the entity flashed all along Eric’s hull as they were zapped away.

Eric threw a spear as the fist came down again, this time toward Crusher.

The spear impacted, and sent out a shockwave two meters in radius that caused the termites that formed the hand to fall to the ground, along with the spear.

This time the termite robot didn’t allow other micro machines to flow down to replace the damage; instead, the giant robot reached outward with the stump of its forearm, and touched the bulkhead beside it, sucking away the metal as the constituent micro machines converted the wall into more termites, replacing the hand.

Crusher threw her own spear, trying to stop that conversion process, but only momentarily delaying it.

“It sure converts that metal fast,” Brontosaurus said.

“These bulkheads are preprocessed,” Turg said. “Micro machines originally made this ship. And they can readily dismantle it into more micro machines at the will of the main AI.”

“Well that’s good news for us!” Brontosaurus said. “Not really!”

Crusher dashed forward to retrieve her spear.

The termite robot tried to stomp her.

Eric threw his two spears in rapid succession, destroying the leg below the knee, and the big robot collapsed slightly, with its leg hitting the deck. But then the metal of the deck underneath began to crater, and the leg reformed.

Crusher grabbed her spear, and one of Eric’s, but the micro machines broke down the second. She dashed away from the reforming leg, and tossed his spear back to him.

“Quick, to the opening!” Eric said. “While it’s still down!”

But as they raced toward the opening, the micro machines of the termite creature broke apart, and swarmed to the opening, reforming directly in the path of Eric and the others.

And then a spear struck Crusher from behind. “Ah!”

She fell to her knees, electrical bolts passing up and down her body, and then collapsed.

“No!” Eric ran to her, but it was too late. He glanced at the way they had come, and saw that the Red Tails were swarming inside.

In anger, Eric ripped the spear by the haft out of Crusher’s back, and then he hurled it at the four Red Tails that had entered. The weapon struck the one in the center, and it dropped beneath the ensuing electrical sparks.

The other Red Tails hurled their spears at Eric, Brontosaurus, and Turg, and the three of them were forced to dodge.

Meanwhile, something slammed down on Eric from above. His mech struck the deck below, and a glance at his power levels told him that his hull was sending out voltage constantly. He’d been hit by the termite robot.

He fired his jumpjets, breaking free, and landed in the middle of the Red Tails. Several more had entered now, so that there were at least ten around him.

He unleashed his energy cannon in pulse mode, clearing the closest ones, and then jetted upward, arcing over them, and landing beside his companions. More of the bioweapons flooded inside.

“Well, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Brontosaurus said.

“I’m preparing a virus,” Turg said.

“When all else fails, prepare a computer virus!” Brontosaurus said. “That’s her solution?”

Eric charged a Red Tail on the outskirts of the bioweapons, and shot out its tail before it could slam into him. That particular Red Tail still gripped a spear, clutching it even in death; so Eric scooped the body up by the base of the tail, and slammed the body about, one of his favorite tactics. He rammed it at the other Red Tails, using it to deflect their spears, and sometimes drove the spear yet clutched by the corpse into the neck of another.

He used it to swat away the arms and legs of the robot termite as well, jetting away at the same time so that it couldn’t stomp or grab him. He kept an eye on the giant thing via his rear view camera feed.

Brontosaurus had picked up another corpse and was fighting in the same fashion beside him, while Turg defended the rear and worked on that virus of hers.

“Bitch slapping like the best of them!” Brontosaurus said.

Eric also fired his energy cannon during that time, in between swipes with his makeshift club, and cut down swathes of the Bio Weapons. But they kept coming.

Meanwhile, the micro machines were feeding on the bulkheads and deck of the compartment, so that the termite robot was growing bigger.

He tried lowering the intensity of the cannon at one point, effectively switching to “melding mode,” wondering what effect that would have on the termite robot. He fired at it, and those surfaces he fused together were simply ejected by the robot, and dropped to the floor in large slabs that were recycled when it stepped over them again.

“Turg, what about that virus?” Eric said as he fought. “We’re not going to last here much longer.”

“It’s coming…” Turg said.

Eric’s bludgeon was reduced to a soft pulp by then, all its internal bones broken, little better than a tenderized slab of meat. Still, it served its purpose. It was needled with spears that had struck it, and some of those tips had worked their way through all the way to the other side of the body; he rotated his grip so they emerged from the corpse like teeth, and when he swept the toothed weapon around, this time he caused sparks to erupt in every opponent he hit.

“Watch ou—” Brontosaurus began

The termite robot slammed Eric in the back, catching him off guard, and he was bashed forward, through the Red Tails, and into the far wall. He rolled onto the ground as the termite fist pulled away.

His HUD status indicators told him that his jumpjet had been destroyed beyond repair.

“Guess I won’t be jetting anytime soon,” Eric said.

He scooped up the dead Red Tail, and used it to bash his way out of the other bioweapons that had surrounded him.

He reached his two companions, who were fighting back to back, and dodging the attacks of the robot termite at the same time. Eric placed his own back up against them.

“It’s ready!” Turg said. “But there’s only one way to deploy it.” She glanced at Eric. “Forgive me.”

Her mech jetted upward, toward the towering robot termite, which filled half the room by then.

“Wait!” Eric said.

One of its fists came in, and punched her Annihilator; she shoved off in her Cicada at that exact moment, and leaped toward the chest area.

Eric started running toward her in Bullet Time.

“Stay back!” Turg said. “I have to merge with it!”

She penetrated the chest area, and was entirely engulfed. There were no flashes on her hull—she’d turned off her electrification field.

He waited for her to fall out the bottom of the giant robot, or some digested version of her Cicada anyway, but nothing appeared. The termites had completely broken apart her machine body before she could fall through.

He waited a moment, but there was otherwise no outward change in the robot termite.

“Guess it didn’t work,” Brontosaurus said.

Eric spun about, hoisting the corpse in front of him as a shield as new bioweapons entered the compartment and launched spears at him. He unleashed his energy weapon, hewing them down.

And so we’re going to lose.

Eric fired his ZX-9 at two more Red Tails that had the misfortune of exposing their glandular sacs toward him, and exploded them, killing the entities.

Doesn’t matter. We’re going to keep fighting, to the end. We’re going to show this Banthar AI what human courage is.

He felt nothing, just a coldness inside of him as he continued his attack, while dodging the strikes of the robot termite behind him. For a moment he wondered if he’d accidentally shut down his emotions, but a glance at the appropriate HUD section in Bullet Time told him that his emotions were still operating at full.

He just had no emotions left to give.

There were some who said battle was emotionally exhausting.

Well, they were right.

More than they knew.

What was that Marlborough had said?

It’s a funny thing, when you’re looking death in the face. Knowing that you can’t do a thing to stop it.

Yes. A funny thing.

He heard a pattering behind him, and turned in time to see the robot termite collapsing like a house of cards, the constituent micro machines fanning out across the floor. The expanding pile buried the feet of his mech up to the ankles.

Just like that, they’d all shut off.

The path to the final corridor had opened up.

“Go!” Eric said. “I’ll hold them off!”

“Can’t go without you!” Brontosaurus said.

“Do it!” Eric said. “I’m right behind you.”

Brontosaurus hesitated, then hurried across the room, his feet crunching into the inactive micro machines that coated the floor.

Eric backed toward the opening, continuing to fire his energy cannon, and using the corpse to block any spears that came at him.

When he was two meters from the entrance, he swung about, and slung the corpse over his shoulder to act as a shield against any incoming spears, and then hurried into the triangular corridor.

He could see Brontosaurus ahead of him, silhouetted at the entrance to the generator chamber.

“What is it?” Eric said. “What do you see?”

“The generator,” Brontosaurus said. “Could use your cannon up here.”

Eric reached the opening, so that he stood at the Annihilator’s side. He gaped, mentally at least, when he saw the incredible sight before him.

He stood in a huge room that pulsed with a blue light.

On the deck and overhead, two large red glandular sacs protruded, each about as big as a small house. From their centers, thick, metal rods jutted, pointing toward each other like stalactite and stalagmite. Between them, a long lightning bolt danced, constantly shifting, adding its own illumination to the compartment.

Eric aimed his energy weapon at the overhead sac and fired. It exploded, releasing a stream of red goo down onto the sac below. The metal rod on top crashed down into the bottommost, and bolts of electricity enveloped the deck sac, which exploded a moment later. The electrical bolts ceased, leaving only the dim blue glow from the bulkheads.

Brontosaurus fired his double barreled weapon toward the center of the room. Eric held his breath as the energy bolt traversed the room. It did not shrink, but maintained its strength as it traveled.

At the hundred meter mark, a tear in reality opened.

23

Eric stood in his virtual apartment, gazing out across the city below. It had been a few months now since he and Brontosaurus had destroyed the mothership and returned successfully to Earth.

As promised, the lieutenant had restored the mind backups of those who were lost during the mission, and then freed them all. They’d all been installed in a local data center, with access to android rentals that they could use to visit the real world whenever they wanted.

He received a request on his HUD. Brontosaurus.

Eric accepted, and the heavy gunner’s big human avatar appeared.

“Good to see you.” Eric gave him a bro shake, and then sat down.

“How are things going with you?” Brontosaurus asked, taking the seat opposite him.

“Fine, I guess,” Eric said. He glanced toward the window that overlooked the city. “Well, shitty, to be honest. I miss the service. I felt… useful, then, you know? Here, I feel like I’m just…existing. If that makes sense.”

“Not really,” Brontosaurus said. “Try to lighten up. We got company in a bit.”

“Yeah, suppose so,” Eric said.

He and Brontosaurus had elected to become VR roommates, and they shared Eric’s apartment. Brontosaurus kept wanting to add more futuristic decorations to it, but so far Eric had resisted.

More avatars popped into VR one by one, until the whole team was there.

“Well, well, well,” Slate said. “I remember you bitches. Some more than others.” He winked at Bambi, who promptly scowled. When she realized Eric was looking at her, she returned his gaze and smiled.

“Well then,” Marlborough said. “Shall we switch to the real world?”

“Maybe we should stay in tonight,” Eagleeye said.

“Yeah, how about you stay in,” Slate said. “You hermit.” His voice became high-pitched, as if imitating Eagleeye. “I just want to stay home and play with my virtual girlfriend tonight! Her pussy is so soft and sweet and smells like tuna dipped in rosewater!” He glanced at Bambi. “Just like hers!”

“Don’t make me castrate you,” Bambi said.

Slate shrugged. “Might be fun if you did.” He glanced at Eagleeye. “So you coming, or what, Hermit?”

“All right, all right,” Eagleeye said.

Eric dismissed his AI, and activated the remote interface of the android he had assigned to him.

After the loading stage, he opened his eyes and sat up. His body was human-like. The muscles of the mannequin were formed of memory metals, and the skin was a synthetic polymer embedded with tactile sensors. The hair was made of fine polycarbonate strands dyed a dark brown.

He stood up from the small bed he had been lying upon, and it receded into the receptacle behind him. To the left and right were similar receptacles, about a hundred in each direction. Welcome to the local Pod O’ Matic shop.

From random receptacles, other beds containing human-like mannequins emerged—his team members. They all came attired in different casual clothing, which was fine for the outing they had planned.

They gathered near the entrance to the shop. Their movements were exactly the same as any real human beings. And their facial expressions gave the uncanny valley a run for the money, and while very realistic, weren’t quite there yet. Any humans who saw them would know them for what they were: machines pretending to be humans.

As they walked through the streets, passersby gave them a wide berth, this group of machines who had dared show themselves in the real world. Some seemed afraid, others angry. A few didn’t seem to care. But they all gave them room.

They reached the restaurant that served their kind in addition to humans, and sat on the patio. They ordered from the robot specific menu, which contained items that would stimulate their primitive taste buds, while at the same time not damaging their internals.

While waiting for the order to arrive, Dickson ran his gaze across the table. “You know, I never thought I’d see the day. The day that we were reunited in the real world, dining together in a restaurant as free men and women. Civilians. I just wish I had lived long enough to see that alien ship go down with my own eyes.”

“Hey, we saw it on the news,” Dunnigan said. “That was good enough for me, mate.”

“Yeah I know, you’re happy being a backup,” Tread said. “But we got two originals in our presence. The very same two who finished what we started, and showed the aliens what happens when you mess with humanity.” He glanced at Eric and Brontosaurus.

“Hail to the king, baby,” Eric said.

Tread nodded, smiling.

“What are you two bitches working on now anyway?” Slate asked.

“Me and Brontosaurus?” Eric replied.

“No, you and Frogger,” Slate said. “Seems you guys are always up to something or other.”

“Oh, well, nothing special,” Eric said. “We’ve been trying to come up with a FTL design, but it’s slow going.”

“FTL?” Brontosaurus asked.

“Faster than light,” Eric explained.

“Why not go with wormholes?” Brontosaurus pressed.

“Well, that’s what I mean,” Eric said. “It’s the wormholes that allow us to travel FTL. We’ll beat the light of our sun to any destination systems by folding space via wormholes.”

“Yeah, but that’s not technically FTL travel,” Brontosaurus said. “Faster than light means, well, that you’re moving faster than the speed of light.”

“Okay then,” Eric said. “We’re working on wormholes.”

“As Scorp said, it’s slow going,” Frogger said. “Especially considering that the military doesn’t want to share any of the weapons with us.”

“Let me guess, you’ve been hacking into the military databases to access the designs they’ve reverse engineered,” Crusher said.

“Well, no,” Frogger said. He glanced at Marlborough. “If we did that, the Sarge would report us.”

“Would I?” Marlborough said. “I don’t know about that. I’d rather have you reverse engineering that tech, than some human scientist.”

“Already you don’t trust the humans, huh?” Hicks said.

“Let’s just say, I’m not convinced they have the best interests of all of humanity at heart,” Marlborough said.

“By all of humanity, you mean both humans, and Mind Refurbs?” Bambi said.

“Bingo,” Marlborough said.

The food arrived, and they began to eat. It was basically equivalent to eating flavored jelly: they were given translucent funnel cups, and tiny spoons, and scooped the jelly into their mouths. They didn’t really chew—their teeth weren’t designed for it—so much as chomp down, spread the flavor over their taste sensors, and swallow.

At one point, Bambi kicked him under the table, and grinned mischievously. Eric shook his head, smiling, lowering his gaze.

“I saw that!” Slate said. “What is it with you two? Something going on with ya?”

“Not at all,” Eric said, his smile deepening. He glanced at Crusher, who was fuming on the opposite side of the table. He quickly wiped the smile off his face.

Mickey sat back, sliding his arms behind his head. “You know, you’re my brothers, and sisters, and you always will be. Nothing can change that. But I just wish, well, that all the original members of the Bolt Eaters survived. Morpheus. Manticore. You know.”

“To the fallen,” Dickson said, raising his funnel cup.

“To the fallen,” the team echoed, and clinked their glasses.

Eric noticed something odd, then.

The sun was setting low in the sky, shining right into his eyes, but he didn’t feel a thing. He saw the afterimages caused by that brightness, but no sting. Android units were supposed to register pain when a bright light was shone into their eyes, but apparently this particular model didn’t have that ability.

It was a subtle reminder that he was no longer human.

He glanced longingly at the nearby tables, and at the human men and women, some of whom were staring at him, but quickly looked away when they realized he was glancing at them.

“You wish you were human,” Crusher said.

“I think we all do,” Eric said. “It’s only natural, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” Crusher said.

“If you want to feel human, stick to VR,” Traps said. “Screw this real world crap. Look at how they all stare at us. The ungrateful bastards don’t even know we were the ones who gave up our lives to save them all.”

“How could they know?” Bambi said. “Our IDs show us as a group of random Pod O’ Matic androids.”

“And that’s the way we like it,” Eagleeye said.

“Speak for yourself,” Slate said. “If I had my way, I’d be broadcasting what I done to the world. I’d wear a profile tag that states ‘Slate Johnson, Savior of Humanity.’ You know, to draw in the honeys. But instead, by order of the military, I’m supposed to fade away.”

“It was one of the prerequisites to them letting us go,” Eric said. “I was willing to accept that, for my freedom. We all were.”

“Yeah, I suppose I was, too,” Slate said.

Eric watched a little brown cat walk across the sidewalk outside the restaurant patio. It reminded him of a pet he had once owned as a child. In fact, it was a spitting image.

“Muffy?” Eric said.

“Huh?” Slate said.

Eric glanced at Slate, and then looked back toward the sidewalk. The cat was gone.

He shook his head, and rubbed his eyes.

Going to have to get my AI core checked out sometime.

He angled himself to the side, trying to get the sun’s light out of his eyes.

“Where’s a pair of virtual sunglasses when you need them,” Eric said.

“You know, the first androids only wore sunglasses,” Frogger said. “Because they couldn’t get the eye details right.”

“Dude, they still don’t have the eye details right,” Slate said. “Look at me. My eyes look like a pair of billiard balls, without the numbers.”

“I didn’t know anyone still played pool in this day and age,” Eric said.

Slate nodded toward the bar area of the restaurant. “Pool table right there.”

“Nice,” Eric said.

He finished his meal and got up to play a quick round with Slate.

One by one the members of the party bid farewell. Crusher and Bambi both promised to call him later, and Eric nodded contently.

At least somebody still wants me, if not the military.

Soon, only Brontosaurus remained, and he played pool against Eric. Eric used to be great at pool, but today he was distracted, and lost badly.

Midway through the second game, which was going just as poorly, he set down his cue.

Brontosaurus looked at him questioningly.

“Something’s been on my mind,” Eric said.

“What’s that?” Brontosaurus said.

“How did we get back?” he asked. “Do you remember? How did we survive after you launched the black hole? How did we get off the ship, and back to Earth?”

“I—” Brontosaurus paused. “Hm, you know what? I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“Neither do I,” Eric said.

“Maybe we didn’t get back,” Brontosaurus said. “Maybe we all died on that ship, and we were restored from mind backups.”

“But if that’s true, then why do the two of us still remember everything up until the moment you fired that black hole?” Eric said.

Brontosaurus shook his head. “I don’t know, bro. Maybe they implanted the memories, based on Earth surveillance imagery.”

“Earth surveillance imagery?” Eric said. “You kidding me?”

“Look, bro, can’t we just enjoy our new lease on life?” Brontosaurus said. “The Earth is on the mend. The alien invasion has been repelled. We’re free.”

“Yeah, until the next alien invasion,” Eric said.

“Which is why it’s so important that we develop FTL technology,” Brontosaurus said.

A shadow fell upon the sky. Some people were gathering next to the restaurant patio, and gazing up at the sky.

Eric approached, joining them. He stared at the sky in the distance.

“It can’t be,” Eric said. “Not already.”

Beyond the skyscrapers, a black swarm of micro machines swirled through the air, eating up the sky all the way to either horizon.

24

Eric couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It couldn’t be true. An invasion so soon? He and Brontosaurus had only just destroyed the mothership. How could the Banthar have dispatched another conversion vessel so soon?

And then Eric remembered the sunlight on the horizon, and how it hadn’t hurt his eyes. Sure, that could be a particular attribute of the android model he now inhabited, but it was also a symptom of VR.

And what about the cat he had seen? A cat that was essentially identical to his old pet, Muffy. What were the chances of seeing a cat like that while dining at the restaurant with his old platoon? A cat that moved eerily the way he remembered it.

And now another alien invasion, long before such an invasion was due to occur. Right when he had begun to question why he couldn’t remember what had happened aboard the ship.

He pulled up his HUD, and accessed the admin area. He had been intending to slow down his time sense so he could think about what was happening, but he realized with a shock that he was already operating at his highest time sense.

Dee, why is my time sense dialed up to maximum?

His Accomp didn’t answer.

His suspicions growing by the moment, he checked his administration tab. Hm. He was listed as the only operator.

But that didn’t necessarily mean that he was the sole admin. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Marlborough there were ways to mask one’s hack.

He remembered how Slate’s mech had apparently jumped on its own into the path of a spear meant for Eric. He had thought Slate was merely being Slate at the time, with the drone operator being unwilling to take credit for saving him, but now Eric wasn’t so sure.

As far as he knew, only Bambi had found a way to hack administrator privilege on their units, and thus Turg had that knowledge. And he began to wonder, had Turg installed hooks into all of their AI cores, as a failsafe in case the Bolt Eaters were reluctant to complete the mission? And then hidden her tracks in the process? If so, and Slate had really been telling the truth about not being in control of his mech, that would explain why he had jumped into the spear to save Eric—because Turg had had some of Bambi’s personality inside her, inheriting Bambi’s feelings for Eric, including the need to protect him, even if that meant throwing other mechs into the line of fire.

So when Turg had installed the virus into the Banthar AI by allowing its micro machines to merge with her, said AI had absorbed her knowledge.

And if that was true, and the AI had invoked those existing hacks to gain control, that meant Eric had never left the ship.

He was still aboard, and locked in VR.

That would also explain why his time sense was dialed up: it was possible that Dee had switched his mind to the highest level of Bullet Time, in a last act of desperation before she was shut down. A defense, against whatever had invaded his mind.

The administration tab and its contents had to be an illusion. He obviously didn’t have admin privileges, but his UI had been altered to make it seem like he did.

Ignoring the cloud of termites that was bearing down on the city, and the screaming and yelling people who fled all around him, he checked his Containment Code subroutines, and saw that a new mesh had indeed been placed around his mind.

Crafty alien AI.

Eric launched the admin breakout virus he had prepared previously, and allowed himself to experience a pristine calm. He stared at the incoming termites, and held out his arms in invitation.

Come to me my micro machine friends!

And then he was through. He had admin access once more. He knew, because his name now appeared twice in the admin list. He immediately went to his admin settings, and deleted all the hidden administrators, of which Bambi was listed as one, as well as another entity whose name was demarcated with random alphanumeric characters.

Then he restored the UI code so that it showed him properly as the only admin, without duplicate entries.

Then he dismissed his VR.

As expected, he was still aboard the ship, and standing in the generator room. The two red sacs on the deck and overhead in front of him shared a lightning bolt between the metal rods that protruded from them. That lightning bolt was currently frozen, thanks to his extremely high Bullet Time setting.

Dee?

“Welcome back,” his Accomp’s disembodied voice said. “I was getting worried.”

Eric’s head was tilted slightly to the left, allowing him to see Brontosaurus, who had fallen to his knees beside him. He was surrounded by frozen electrical sparks. An alien spear had hit him in the back, since he didn’t have a bioweapon corpse slung over his back to protect him, like Eric did. On Eric’s HUD, Brontosaurus was listed as offline: that spear had penetrated the AI core of the Cicada inside.

On his rear view camera, Eric saw that one of the pursuing Red Tails had come right up behind him, and the glandular sac on its tail was bearing down upon him. In fact it had already partially touched his head behind the shield, as well as the corpse he carried.

Eric lowered his Bullet Time setting just enough so he could move, and the tail continued to come crashing down. It burst open, with that red goo beginning to spread outward to sheath the body.

There was no time to line up his energy cannon with the generator. It probably had an energy shield protecting it anyway—when he had destroyed the device with the weapon earlier without triggering a shield, he had been in VR, after all.

He ejected, emerging from the Annihilator’s chest assembly. He grabbed the spear from his bicep sling as he did so and barely passed underneath the goo that was expanding outward from the exploded tail tip.

He unfolded his body as he continued flying forward, and targeted the bottommost sac of the generator ahead. He swung down his arm, and with Dee’s help, he timed the release perfectly. He landed on the ground, and then dove to the side to avoid being splattered by any of the goo from the impact behind him. Meanwhile, his spear arced forward.

He sped up time slightly, and as the spear neared the generator, a convex energy shield flashed into existence—he had been right about the protection. He watched with some satisfaction as the spear penetrated that shield and stabbed the red sac inside. The dome shape deflated instantly, splattering goo from the pierced opening, and the metal rod protruding from it sagged to one side along with the outer coating. The lightning passing back and forth between the rods ceased as the spear enveloped the sac in electricity instead.

Eric accessed the remote interface on the wormhole cannon and logged in. The crosshairs appeared on his HUD; since Brontosaurus was on his knees, the reticle lined up with a random wall on the far side of the room. Well, it didn’t really matter all that much where the weapon aimed.

He saw two options available: black hole, and wormhole. He chose the former.

Eric spotted a blur of motion and his proximity alarm sounded. He upped his Bullet Time; another Red Tail had reached the entrance, and thrown a spear his way. Eric narrowly danced around it, then he engaged the wormhole weapon and fired.

The energy bolt traveled across the room, staying the same size. Shortly before reaching the wall, it winked out, forming instead a tear in reality. Eric saw the space distort around that tear, thanks to the illumination from the pulsing blue bulkheads. And he felt the sudden generated wind as the black hole sucked in the surrounding atmosphere.

Eric rammed his fist into the deck underneath him, lodging himself firmly in place. Around the wormhole, pieces of the deck and bulkhead began to rip away, forming a crater.

Behind him, Brontosaurus’ torso hit the ground, and he was slowly dragged forward. As were the Red Tail corpses clogging the entrance.

Eric crawled toward that corridor. It wouldn’t take long for the black hole to increase in strength as it continued to consume the starship. He didn’t have much time.

Amping up his servomotor output, he leaped across the deck and latched onto Brontosaurus, who was still being drawn to the black hole. Loose pieces of the bulkhead tumbled past, one nearly hitting Eric. He unmounted the heavy wormhole cannon and strapped it to his back, carrying it like a jetpack.

A spear came at him, but it swerved, steering toward the black hole.

He slammed his hand into the deck, pressing hard against the smooth metal surface, forming a handhold with brute strength. First one hand, and then the other; he repeated the act for both feet; in that manner he made his way toward the entrance.

He saw a Red Tail hanging onto the inside of the triangular corridor, near the entrance, with its centipede-like body trailing from the opening, its tail extended behind it. Another had gotten lodged inside the goo that enveloped Eric’s mech. Any other Red Tails had fled, and the corridor was clear beyond them.

Eric continued slamming his hands and feet into the deck to form hand and footholds, and approached the closest Red Tail, giving that glandular sac a wide berth; when he reached the portion of the entity that was blocking the opening, he climbed onto its back. It reached behind, trying to fling him off.

Eric dodged the appendage, and then realized something: he accessed the energy cannon still attached to his mech. The crosshairs lined up with the bioweapon’s torso.

Eric fired the energy cannon using the remote interface, and leaped forward at the same time. The creature split apart, releasing the wall, and its two halves plunged toward the hole.

His mech, and the Red Tail that had slammed its glandular sac down on the Annihilator, remained glued to the deck thanks to the red goo. But given the advance of the crater behind him, with pieces of the deck ripping away all around it, the Annihilator and other bioweapons lodged in the goo wouldn’t last for much longer.

In Bullet Time, he pulled himself into the corridor, continuing to form handholds for himself, and he made his way away from the black hole.

He did his best to keep ahead of the growing crater, but he knew eventually it would begin to outpace him. Which is why he never stopped, and kept moving. Lifeless micro machines were sucked past him, and then he entered the room where Turg had defeated the termite robot. He crossed to the other side, passing Crusher’s lifeless mech as it was slowly sucked past, and continued.

The artificial gravity failed then, but that didn’t matter—it felt like the gravity vector was pointing straight backwards, behind him, so that it was as if he was climbing the inside of a triangular grain silo.

He wondered if there were any Black Tails out there carrying similar wormhole weapons. If there were, and they fired at the black hole, they could stop all of this.

He somehow doubted that would be the case. Most of the bioweapons seemed to want to get as far away from that black hole as possible. Those that weren’t dead, that is.

But if there were, he’d simply create another black hole with the weapon he carried on his back.

Marlborough’s mech was still secured to the deck, thanks to the goo. Eric crawled over it.

In addition to the corpses of bioweapons, the milky robots also sometimes came tumbling past. Those were tricky, because Eric had to flatten himself on the deck, and sometimes switch handholds to avoid being hit by them—he didn’t want to be converted into one of them by the nano machines that swarmed their surfaces.

The wreckages of his remaining platoon members were soon sucked past as well: those he and the others had abandoned in the triangular corridor when the Red Tails had separated them. He said a silent prayer for each of them, and swore that if he survived this, he’d tell them how valiantly they had died.

He climbed past Slate’s body, still glued to the surface; the pull was very strong then, turning ordinary objects into shrapnel, and Eric had to avoid bioweapons of all kinds, some living.

The wreckages of the final two mechs the team had left behind smashed past at one point; one of them hit Eric, pulling him off the wall, but he managed to drive his fingers into a nearby bulkhead, halting his descent. Below him, the ship extended for maybe a hundred meters, forming a hollow globe around the sphere of infinite darkness at the center where the black hole existed. That globe was lit up as a wireframe only by his LIDAR, but even that was dim, because the black hole swallowed much of the reflected photons.

More micro machines tore past, rattling against his hull. He hadn’t electrified the surface, but it didn’t matter, because those termites were inert, deactivated by Turg’s virus.

Eric clambered on, moving as fast as he was able, but it didn’t feel fast enough. The pull was getting harder to counter, and he was slowing down, while the rate of destruction behind him was only increasing, with pieces of the ship constantly torn away from the rim of that globe behind him.

He paused at one point and rotated himself around so that the wormhole weapon was facing the rent in reality, and he fired off a few quick dispersion shots. That reduced the size of the black hole, along with the pull, and allowed him to retreat a little faster again. Pieces of debris were still being drawn in from the edges of the mothership surrounding it, but at a reduced rate.

Finally he reached the entrance tunnel. As expected, the micro machines had drilled a path through the plug left by the sphere transport, a path forming a funnel shape that was wider on the outside of the hull than inside.

Below him, the mothership hollowed out after only twenty meters, with the deck opening into darkness. The black hole had expanded close to its previous size, thanks to the constant stream of matter feeding it.

Eric pulled himself into the tunnel, and up onto the bare hull of the mothership with difficulty. Then he lay back, secured to the surface by the gravity within, and searched the stars.

He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Maybe that Turg had left a sphere transport behind, just beyond weapons range of the mothership. A vessel that would return if there were signs of destruction, to retrieve any survivors.

No such luck.

He crawled back to the gap the micro machines had drilled into the plug and watched as the ship was slowly eaten away from the inside out. More and more pieces of the corridor broke away, until only a thin shell of the mothership was reported on his LIDAR. No one had known what the true shape of the Banthar collection vessel was, not while it had been coated in those micro machines, but Eric thought it was spherical, just like the craft that Turg had built, because when he gazed across the now bare hull, toward either horizon of the craft, he could see the curvature.

He sensed motion, and realized that the section of hull he had been attached to was being drawn inward. He gazed back into the gap, and sure enough, all of the inner supports were gone—there was nothing left to support the deck inside. Eric and the hull section were being drawn inexorably toward the black mass at the center.

He quickly pulled himself inside that hole, and aimed the crosshairs of the dispersion weapon at the mass. He fired several times, sealing the rip in spacetime.

But that didn’t arrest the motion of the hull pieces currently being drawn toward that point in space from all sides. Eric braced for impact…

The hull pieces hit at the center, some crumpling around one another, others deflecting. Eric was on one of those that deflected, and he was sent flying away like a billiard ball. He was spinning; so much so that he would have become dizzy were he actually human. Thankfully, he wasn’t.

There was no way to stop that motion, of course, since he had no jumpjets, or jetpack, or even oxygen that he could vent. But thankfully the hull section finally hit something else and arrested his revolutions. He crawled onto that combined section, and stared out at the debris around him.

The mothership was completely destroyed: only various clumps of debris remained.

He would have exhaled in relief were he still human; instead, he had to satisfy himself with slumping against the hull remnant.

He gazed at the blue and white planet beyond. It had never seemed so beautiful as it did in that moment.

We did it. We won.

There wasn’t supposed to be a way to get out.

And yet, Eric had found one.

Unfortunately, none of his friends had been able to get out with him.

Yes, he’d won.

Though at what cost?

He bowed his head, remembering his fallen comrades. He understood now what Dunnigan had gone through. He felt like he didn’t deserve to be the one. He felt like there were others among them, others who were better than him, who deserved the honor of life more. Dickson. Marlborough.

He reminded himself that they weren’t entirely dead. That their memories, and personalities at least, would live on. But still, the brave men and women that he knew, they were gone. Forever.

As he stared at that blue planet, grief was replaced with anger.

I hope you appreciate what we’ve done. I hope you value the sacrifice. You’re free now; you live, because of the warriors who gave their lives for you. Never forget. Don’t you dare.

He clenched his fist, hard enough to break through the hull section he gripped underneath.

I promise you, my brothers and sisters, that I certainly won’t forget. You were true warriors. More human than any actual human beings I’ve ever known.

When he had calmed down, he sent out a distress beacon.

“Citizens of Earth, this is Cicada A21 ES-92,” Eric said. “The mothership has been destroyed. I repeat, the mothership has been destroyed.”

Epilogue

A space shuttle came around a few days later to collect Eric from orbit. The craft was controlled remotely from Earth; the crew consisted of a few autonomous maintenance robots.

When he arrived, Lieutenant Hanley lived up to his promise and restored his lost companions from their backups and destroyed any remaining copies. He released them all from their military duties, just as the fake lieutenant had in VR, but instead of transferring their AI cores to a data center, he installed them into an experimental breed of high tech android bodies. These were much better than the kind the Banthar AI had come up with for the VR simulation—essentially indistinguishable from real human bodies. Apparently the Banthar in charge of the mothership hadn’t wanted to make the digital androids seem too real, to reduce the chances Eric might disbelieve it.

Hanley hooked them up with lodgings in a swank part of town, giving the Mind Refurbs rooms in the same apartment building, so they could visit every day in person, not just virtual reality. It took some getting used to having an ordinary human body once again, one that he inhabited in the real world, and not just the virtual. For the first little while he kept ducking when he entered corridors, trying to squeeze non-existent shoulder-mounted missile launchers inside.

So his friends were back, or clones of them anyway, and they were free of their human masters, released into the world as ordinary civilians. There were probably tracking devices embedded in the androids, of course, but Eric knew that it wouldn’t take too much work to disable them if he really wanted to.

The apartment suites, the androids, the smooth dismissal from the army, it all seemed a little too good to be true; Eric kept expecting to see some sort of discrepancy in reality that might indicate he was still inside a simulated world, but as the weeks passed, and he didn’t find anything, he slowly began to accept this was all real.

Which it was, of course.

He and his team had saved the world. Well, half of it anyway. But saving was saving.

He could have been famous. Could have been touring the different streaming talk shows. But when the lieutenant had offered to reveal his identity to the public, Eric had begged him not to. He felt it disrespected the original Mind Refurbs who had given up their lives, like he was getting famous off their deaths.

No thanks.

* * *

Despite his new body, he still spent a lot of time in VR. A lot of people did, given that half the world was gone. Some did it to remember the places that were lost. Some did it to get away. Eric usually did it to remember the warriors who had given up so much.

But not today.

No, Eric had a big date tonight. And there was something he needed to do, something he needed to get off his chest.

Eric stood at the top of Everest, as he had once before. The wind no longer raged, unlike last time, and the sun was shining. The icecaps of the surrounding mountains had melted, as had the ice that had bound his own heart.

“You’re gone,” he said to those mountains. “I’ve finally accepted that. And you’re not coming back. What we had was special, and important. But you moved on. And now it’s my turn.”

He’d never looked up what happened to Molly, never checked into her history. He didn’t want to know. At least, that was what he told himself. But that morning, he finally had. She’d married someone else two years after his death.

Yes, Molly had moved on. And now he was finally ready to do the same. Ready to build something. What, he wasn’t quite sure. But something.

He dismissed Everest, and logged out of VR. He appeared in his apartment suite. At first he’d wanted to remodel it to match the layout and furniture of his original apartment, just as he’d setup his VR environment. But strangely, he hadn’t. Instead, he went out and bought a whole new set of furniture.

Yes, it was time to move on.

He no longer lived in the past.

He was more than simply the memories and personality of Eric Scala. He was his own unique individual.

He dressed, and left his apartment behind. He made his way downstairs. His dates were waiting in the front lobby.

“You’re both looking ravishing, as always,” Eric said.

“Thanks Hun,” Bambi said, sliding her hand into the crook of his arm.

Smiling widely, Crusher meanwhile wrapped her fingers around his other palm.

Together they left the apartment, and walked to the restaurant. These high tech androids could handle ordinary food, so they could eat at a normal restaurant, not one that catered to the older android variants.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Eric said.

“We certainly do,” Crusher said. She squeezed his hand tightly, and pecked him on the cheek.

He passed a group of guys; all of them shot him envious looks. One young man among them flashed a thumbs up.

“If only they knew we weren’t human,” Crusher said.

“Aren’t we?” Eric said.

“We’ve transcended them,” Crusher said.

Bambi laughed. “Humble, as always.”

Crusher scowled at her, then smiled when her eyes met Eric. “Of course.”

Bambi seemed to notice only then that Crusher was holding Eric’s opposite hand; she promptly slid her hand out of the crook of his elbow and wrapped her fingers around his palm as well.

“Sometimes your attitude toward normal humans bothers me,” Eric told Crusher.

“I’m working on it,” Crusher said.

They swung his arms back and forth slightly so that he felt a little like a father walking his two daughters or something. He was certainly old enough to be their father, based on birth date alone. But, although born later, Bambi and Crusher had lived far longer than him in terms of years, counting both the time they were still alive as humans, and after becoming Mind Refurbs. Yet all three of their androids appeared the same age, presenting them to the world as a man and two women in their mid-twenties.

A pleasant illusion.

As he walked them to the restaurant, his mind wandered, and he couldn’t help but think of the future. Not just his future with these two beautiful android women in his life, but the far future beyond that. Humanity’s future.

Turg had said Earth had a few decades to a few centuries before aliens decided to invade again. A few decades to a few centuries. Even the latter was essentially a drop in the bucket to a Mind Refurb such as himself.

He told himself that maybe aliens would overlook the planet. That maybe the destruction of the Banthar conversion vessel had spooked any others from coming here.

Probably wishful thinking at best.

His fingers tightened around the hands of Bambi and Crusher.

“What’s wrong, baby?” Bambi said.

“Nothing,” Eric said. “I’m just imagining the wonderful future the three of us are going to have together.”

A wonderful, alien free future.

And if, perchance, aliens ever did return, the Bolt Eaters would make them rue the day.

Badly.

Thank you for reading!

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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.

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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., Lisa G., 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

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